The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take contro; of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
I think you should probably make the effort to read the indictment. The allegations relate to attempting to block the certification of the election result by arranging fake electors for seven states.
This concept of the Trump plan being to take on the US armed forces with his own militia is a fantasy of your own making - it isn't part of the indictment. The mob were seen as useful to Trump in creating pressure on Pence and Congress, but the alleged conspiracy was a plot to prevent the certification of an election Trump lost, and knew he lost.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Paris? Your kidding. It is a very brave cyclist that chances their arm around eg the Place de la Concorde. Even in an Uber I fear imminent death every time I head away from the GdN.
I haven’t been to Paris since the before-times, but I’m there in a week or so. I thought the whole city had gone quite cycle-mad. I’ll report back.
No doubt this report will be upbeat and positive in contrast to your steadfast determination to always see the worst in Britain.
That’s just your perception, because you are an incredibly fragile young fogey, seemingly triggered at random by things like “venison” and “heatpumps”.
You are in a permanent state of “red scare”, or whatever the Brexity version of that is.
Sometimes you come on here and make interesting and insightful comments, and sometimes you come on here just to have a good fart.
At the moment, and for the last 2 days, you've just been having a good fart.
So expect people to engage with that accordingly until the rational part of your brain takes over again.
You literally do come on here to announce your farts. Doctor heal thyself!
I merely call out obtuseness and some posters don’t like it. Moreover, my freely acknowledging that I was not born in Britain nor currently reside there adds insult to injury.
Oh, I'm no better - and for similar reasons to your own - but sometimes it takes one to know one.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
*Waves*
15 miles in the rain and cold* in N Yorks (we no longer have a second car idling, but that was an active decision after switching to cycling)
But I am (and should be) the outlier. Most peopleare not going to cycle 30 miles a day for commute unless perhaps with an e bike. But, as often pointed out, for many people the commute is more like 15-30 minutes with the right infrastructure. In my current location, cycling to work is niche. When I lived in the same city as work it was a no-brainer and defintely faster than going by car (on the occasions I took the car, it was noticeably longer). And even summer/fair weather only cycling would still make a big positive difference.
*This is actually pretty rare, here, in combination. But if you're cycling those kinds of distances then you do tend to have the gear that makes it not a problem anyway (the cycling takes care of the cold - you just need to add decent gloves/socks/shoe covers for extremities and they, plus a waterproof jacket, deal with the rain)
It was critical for America that Trump was charged for the attempted coup. When you read up on the details it most definitely was an attempted coup that built for some time - the charging of the Capitol was only the denouement.
What is at stake is very simple - America. I fear that it would take a black swan event to deny Trump the republican nomination, and he is going to be All In offering people the kind of America they want. War against minorities / women / liberals / deviants / Iran - you name it and he'll offer it.
I can see the 2024 election being a repeat of 2020 only on a bigger scale. Biden will will more votes than the pundits thought possible as people who never vote turn out to keep Trump out. But the electoral college is a perverse thing, and there remains a clear a present danger that Trump does well enough in the EC to keep him in the game. And with the idiocy of their system having TV networks call results we can expect a Roman Roy figure to call key states for Trump whether he has them on not. At least NewsMax and possibly Fox too.
If Trump wins, that is America done. The republic will fall and be replaced by a "Christian" version of Iran.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
It's a bit like the American legislature whcih defined pi as 3.000 exactly. Somehow the laws of physics, mathematics, biology and economics change on the crossing from Calais to Dover.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take contro; of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
I think you should probably make the effort to read the indictment. The allegations relate to attempting to block the certification of the election result by arranging fake electors for seven states.
This concept of the Trump plan being to take on the US armed forces with his own militia is a fantasy of your own making - it isn't part of the indictment. The mob were seen as useful to Trump in creating pressure on Pence and Congress, but the alleged conspiracy was a plot to prevent the certification of an election Trump lost, and knew he lost.
You clearly dont understand a coup. Maybe if you had cut back on the extreme language you might have a point to make.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
A poorly organised crime is still a crime.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
Trump is acting like a mad gang boss with a personal vendetta and Americans are crazy enough to re-elect him. The Vox pops from Trump rallies are so full of delusional conspiracy stuff that 4 more years of Trump are a nightmare that looks likely to happen.
I don't bet much on American politics because it is too bonkers to predict. It would be fun if it didn't matter, but it does.
Yep, to unite the two threads on here currently - Putin knows he just has to wait for a Trump presidential election victory and the entire picture changes. And Trump has a great chance to win. Biden is a decent to good president, he will be an utterly disastrous candidate.
All those saying they're as bad as each other will never admit how important Biden has been to helping Ukraine fend off Putin. And they’ll blame France and Germany when Trump scales US involvement back.
But the blame game won’t change the facts on the ground. Without substantial and continued US aid, Ukraine will be on the back foot very quickly. That will have massive implications for all of us, while emboldening China in East Asia generally and with regards to Taiwan specifically.
Morning SO
just noticed from yesterday, have you moved to Devon permanently or are you just on hols ?
Greetings AB. Semi-retired now and living the good life in Sidmouth, where my wife and I have lowered the average age considerably! Back in Leamington quite a bit, though, to see the kids. Hope all is well with you!
Nice area, the Triassic-and-Jurassic coast.
Great walking country.
I've done the whole South West Coast Path. All 630 miles of it.
My favourite long distance walking experience of my life.
I've done the entire coast (including parts of the SWCP three times), and the SWCP is a bit meh TBF.
Pembrokeshire is far better, or the Lleyn peninsula. But if you do the SWCP, do it in winter. It's a different experience.
You've done the whole coast of the UK?
Wow. That's thousands and thousands of miles.
I did it twenty years ago. The way I did it, it was >6,200 miles. I did not take ferries to reduce distance, so I had to walk up the estuaries to the nearest bridge or fording point. In Essex and the southwest, that added a lot of distance on. From memory, it added 200 miles onto the SWCP, to make about 800 miles.
Most people who do the coast take ferries, and it is ~4,500 miles. I did a load of extras as well, including the three highest mountains, Anglesey, Arran (ferry over, walked around island, then back to the mainland at the same point I left), and towards the end I extended it a fair bit by following rivers further inland.
An experience of a lifetime. Although I would love to do it again and see what has changed over the years.
Amazing. I'd love to know how you found the time to do all that.
It took me and my friends over a decade just to complete the SWCP!
I was going to chuck in my job, but redundancies came up at work and I grabbed one. The redundancy paid for a motorhome and the entire walk.
I was very lucky to have had everything fall into place at the right time: I had money, health, no dependencies, and a gf who was willing to drive a motorhome for a year.
TBF, walking it in sections over many years is a much better way. If you do it in one go, as I did, you soon develop scenery overload. It's another fantastic beach. It's another dramatic cliff-face. Yawn. Having a few weeks or months off and doing another stretch allows you to do them in better weather, and also appreciate the scenery more.
This cycling shaming sounds a bit when did you stop beating your wife?
I used to cycle to the station (pre kids) but stopped afterwards when I missed a few trains, and got drenched a couple of times en-route, and it was all too much hassle. Particularly to change into and out of a suit again.
It also didn't help when one of my lights failed on the ride home one Winter evening and someone called me a See You Next Tuesday because I rode the last 1/2 mile without it, and with much mirth.
I cycled to university in Marseille for a year and got hit by cars 4 times (as far as I can remember).
Cairo is probably the most dangerous place I have regularly cycled (around Midan al-Tahrir on a single speed Brompton, LOL) although Moscow in the winter is no Primavera.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Yes. The plan to bring in rival slates of electors wasn't expected to succeed in having them vote for Trump. They would sew enough confusion so that Pence could justify throwing all of the electors out and having the GOP in Congress elect the President.
Throwing out an election you lost by faking electors so that you could vote yourselves back in is a coup. It didn't happen because of Dan Quayle. But it was still a coup attempt.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
A poorly organised crime is still a crime.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
Being a poor loser isnt a crime. If that were the case wed have locked up Gordon Brown.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
It's a bit like the American legislature whcih defined pi as 3.000 exactly. Somehow the laws of physics, mathematics, biology and economics change on the crossing from Calais to Dover.
It’s incredibly frustrating that while some Brits are able to see the dim-witted parochialism of much of the US, that they fail to see it in their own country.
It’s very clear that Britain has huge amounts to learn - or steal, if you like! - from the Netherlands, given the similarities in climate, terrain, and even culture.
And vice versa, no doubt, since the Dutch themselves are currently in the grip of nativist and anti-green conniptions.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
The Bierkellar Putsch, the March on Rome, the Spartacist Revolt, the Kronstadt Mutiny, the Cato Street Conspiracy, the Istanbul Rising, the Monmouth Rebellion, the first coup of Louis Napoleon, the treason of the Duke of Clarence, Bela Kun, Imre Nagy, and the Boxer Rebellion are all waving hello here.
Maybe talk to them and you will understand things better.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
He'll never see a day in prison. Smith has actually moved quite fast, but overall the wheels of justice have gone too slow and he's recaptured the party to protect him.
People keep banging on about the MAGA faithful but it is Trump's continued support in Congress that matters.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
According to that chart upthread, 80% of the country live in urban conurbations, so the 10 miles thing seems a bit of a red herring.
London has a medieval road pattern, and the carriageways are not very wide. But even so, not enough space is given over to pedestrians or cyclists.
There are plenty of facilities in London for cyclists, all the CSs plus very often - and randomly - there are cycle lanes, especially after Covid, whereby whole parts of high streets (thinking Hammersmith King Street off the top of my head) have been given over to bikes.
Stand at the junction of Southwark Bridge and the Embankment and see the frequency of bikes (especially between 10am and 4pm) on the CS while looking at the static traffic both eastwards and westwards.
We have the facilities. We don't have the weather (oh but Amsterdam), nor the inclination or perhaps culture.
Now of course that can change. Just like Leon's decadal change for car ownership. But right now it ain't there and isn't likely to be in the foreseeable future.
There are more bikes than cars in the City in London. They are currently consulting on widening some of the cycle lanes because they are already at capacity.
Edinburgh is mad hilly but we have the highest rates of cycling anywhere in Scotland.
There is a British cultural cringe around keeping fit, eating well and general *progress* - a deep satisfaction in accepting our lives to be rubbish. I don't subscribe to that.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
I was wondering about the people driving from Hayes into the city. Both how (there's naff all parking in the city- certainly not enough for all the people who work there) and why (you have a frequent train). I do think part of the problem is that cars can do everything, and the idea of using different vehicles for different jobs is Just Too Complicated.
But the other problem we gave chosen to have in the UK is that transit in large towns/ small cities is generally terrible. Which is about a political choice we made that doesn't look that smart right now.
Trump is acting like a mad gang boss with a personal vendetta and Americans are crazy enough to re-elect him. The Vox pops from Trump rallies are so full of delusional conspiracy stuff that 4 more years of Trump are a nightmare that looks likely to happen.
I don't bet much on American politics because it is too bonkers to predict. It would be fun if it didn't matter, but it does.
Yep, to unite the two threads on here currently - Putin knows he just has to wait for a Trump presidential election victory and the entire picture changes. And Trump has a great chance to win. Biden is a decent to good president, he will be an utterly disastrous candidate.
All those saying they're as bad as each other will never admit how important Biden has been to helping Ukraine fend off Putin. And they’ll blame France and Germany when Trump scales US involvement back.
But the blame game won’t change the facts on the ground. Without substantial and continued US aid, Ukraine will be on the back foot very quickly. That will have massive implications for all of us, while emboldening China in East Asia generally and with regards to Taiwan specifically.
Morning SO
just noticed from yesterday, have you moved to Devon permanently or are you just on hols ?
Greetings AB. Semi-retired now and living the good life in Sidmouth, where my wife and I have lowered the average age considerably! Back in Leamington quite a bit, though, to see the kids. Hope all is well with you!
Nice area, the Triassic-and-Jurassic coast.
Great walking country.
I've done the whole South West Coast Path. All 630 miles of it.
My favourite long distance walking experience of my life.
I've done the entire coast (including parts of the SWCP three times), and the SWCP is a bit meh TBF.
Pembrokeshire is far better, or the Lleyn peninsula. But if you do the SWCP, do it in winter. It's a different experience.
You've done the whole coast of the UK?
Wow. That's thousands and thousands of miles.
I did it twenty years ago. The way I did it, it was >6,200 miles. I did not take ferries to reduce distance, so I had to walk up the estuaries to the nearest bridge or fording point. In Essex and the southwest, that added a lot of distance on. From memory, it added 200 miles onto the SWCP, to make about 800 miles.
Most people who do the coast take ferries, and it is ~4,500 miles. I did a load of extras as well, including the three highest mountains, Anglesey, Arran (ferry over, walked around island, then back to the mainland at the same point I left), and towards the end I extended it a fair bit by following rivers further inland.
An experience of a lifetime. Although I would love to do it again and see what has changed over the years.
The Wales Coast Path project has resulted in some really good upgrades. A few years back I went out to walk a chunk of it on the Llyn, from Llanengan to Aberdaron (partly because it was missing from OpenStreetMap and getting the WCP mapped in OSM has been a hobby-horse of mine). The route had been completely revised from the original WCP and now took a superb, brand new cliff-side path. It was magnificent. I hope the England Coast Path leads to similar improvements.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
Storming Congress was just pressure. The coup attempt was sending conflicting electors so that Pence could throw out the electoral college completely and have congress choose the president. The riot was to try and bump Pence into action, following his refusal the day before to comply with the plan. Or if he wouldn't be bumped create the conditions where martial law could be called and then proceed with the plan.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take contro; of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
I think you should probably make the effort to read the indictment. The allegations relate to attempting to block the certification of the election result by arranging fake electors for seven states.
This concept of the Trump plan being to take on the US armed forces with his own militia is a fantasy of your own making - it isn't part of the indictment. The mob were seen as useful to Trump in creating pressure on Pence and Congress, but the alleged conspiracy was a plot to prevent the certification of an election Trump lost, and knew he lost.
You clearly dont understand a coup. Maybe if you had cut back on the extreme language you might have a point to make.
Ah, so you don’t just have whataboutery. You also have ad hominem attacks and quibbling over terminology.
I cycled to university in Marseille for a year and got hit by cars 4 times (as far as I can remember).
Cairo is probably the most dangerous place I have regularly cycled (around Midan al-Tahrir on a single speed Brompton, LOL) although Moscow in the winter is no Primavera.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
So you accept the Clintons have done dodgy stuff well its progress.
I was going to add my ha'penny's worth but then realised that everything we will are endlessly discussing here will eventually all be dust, swept from the Earth by disaster, or by war, or simply the cruel passage of time itself, forgotten by history as another puny and futile effort of humanity. Later everyone!
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
A poorly organised crime is still a crime.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
Being a poor loser isnt a crime. If that were the case wed have locked up Gordon Brown.
The indictment doesn’t accuse Trump of being a poor loser. Don’t be silly.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
But as I've shown, the vast majority of drivers are commuting small distances.
And cycle and public transport provision is brilliant for drivers - means they are much less likely to get caught up in traffic. Great for commercial users, disabled folk, emergency services!
Even somewhere rural like Moray, only just over half of people commute by car. If all those non-drivers suddenly took to the road...eek!
More cycling provision is great, provided it’s extra provision that doesn’t reduce the existing car provision.
But then we come into the issue that built-up areas are already very largely built-up. So road space use is basically zero sum. The dream of a Romford Expressway will have to remain just that.
It's always nicer to find an everybody wins, straight away solution. But managing situations where there isn't one is where statesmen earn their pennies.
Talking about built up areas, the ONS have just released more analysis from the 2021 census based on their new Built Up Areas. There are significant differences from the 2011 built up areas, so direct comparisons are not valid.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Paris? Your kidding. It is a very brave cyclist that chances their arm around eg the Place de la Concorde. Even in an Uber I fear imminent death every time I head away from the GdN.
I haven’t been to Paris since the before-times, but I’m there in a week or so. I thought the whole city had gone quite cycle-mad. I’ll report back.
No doubt this report will be upbeat and positive in contrast to your steadfast determination to always see the worst in Britain.
I'm back to Paris in a couple of weeks. Haven't been since this time last year, but the cycle paths there are just as stupid as the ones in the UK. It's maintaining its status as the World's Capital of Being Awful for Pedestrians.
My team should be going during the Olympics (for work reasons) and it will be fascinating to compare with London 2012.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
It's a bit like the American legislature whcih defined pi as 3.000 exactly. Somehow the laws of physics, mathematics, biology and economics change on the crossing from Calais to Dover.
It’s incredibly frustrating that while some Brits are able to see the dim-witted parochialism of much of the US, that they fail to see it in their own country.
It’s very clear that Britain has huge amounts to learn - or steal, if you like! - from the Netherlands, given the similarities in climate, terrain, and even culture.
And vice versa, no doubt, since the Dutch themselves are currently in the grip of nativist and anti-green conniptions.
Are you saying the latter is the fault of the British? If so, how?
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
Trump is acting like a mad gang boss with a personal vendetta and Americans are crazy enough to re-elect him. The Vox pops from Trump rallies are so full of delusional conspiracy stuff that 4 more years of Trump are a nightmare that looks likely to happen.
I don't bet much on American politics because it is too bonkers to predict. It would be fun if it didn't matter, but it does.
Yep, to unite the two threads on here currently - Putin knows he just has to wait for a Trump presidential election victory and the entire picture changes. And Trump has a great chance to win. Biden is a decent to good president, he will be an utterly disastrous candidate.
All those saying they're as bad as each other will never admit how important Biden has been to helping Ukraine fend off Putin. And they’ll blame France and Germany when Trump scales US involvement back.
But the blame game won’t change the facts on the ground. Without substantial and continued US aid, Ukraine will be on the back foot very quickly. That will have massive implications for all of us, while emboldening China in East Asia generally and with regards to Taiwan specifically.
Morning SO
just noticed from yesterday, have you moved to Devon permanently or are you just on hols ?
Greetings AB. Semi-retired now and living the good life in Sidmouth, where my wife and I have lowered the average age considerably! Back in Leamington quite a bit, though, to see the kids. Hope all is well with you!
Nice area, the Triassic-and-Jurassic coast.
Great walking country.
I've done the whole South West Coast Path. All 630 miles of it.
My favourite long distance walking experience of my life.
I've done the entire coast (including parts of the SWCP three times), and the SWCP is a bit meh TBF.
Pembrokeshire is far better, or the Lleyn peninsula. But if you do the SWCP, do it in winter. It's a different experience.
You've done the whole coast of the UK?
Wow. That's thousands and thousands of miles.
I did it twenty years ago. The way I did it, it was >6,200 miles. I did not take ferries to reduce distance, so I had to walk up the estuaries to the nearest bridge or fording point. In Essex and the southwest, that added a lot of distance on. From memory, it added 200 miles onto the SWCP, to make about 800 miles.
Most people who do the coast take ferries, and it is ~4,500 miles. I did a load of extras as well, including the three highest mountains, Anglesey, Arran (ferry over, walked around island, then back to the mainland at the same point I left), and towards the end I extended it a fair bit by following rivers further inland.
An experience of a lifetime. Although I would love to do it again and see what has changed over the years.
The Wales Coast Path project has resulted in some really good upgrades. A few years back I went out to walk a chunk of it on the Llyn, from Llanengan to Aberdaron (partly because it was missing from OpenStreetMap and getting the WCP mapped in OSM has been a hobby-horse of mine). The route had been completely revised from the original WCP and now took a superb, brand new cliff-side path. It was magnificent. I hope the England Coast Path leads to similar improvements.
They were just talking about the WCP as I was doing it. The Anglesey Path was just being done as I was walking around the isle.
I'm not actually a massive fan of the ECP. AS far as I can tell it's only opening up a few new areas, and takes much of the adventure out of the walk.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
According to that chart upthread, 80% of the country live in urban conurbations, so the 10 miles thing seems a bit of a red herring.
London has a medieval road pattern, and the carriageways are not very wide. But even so, not enough space is given over to pedestrians or cyclists.
There are plenty of facilities in London for cyclists, all the CSs plus very often - and randomly - there are cycle lanes, especially after Covid, whereby whole parts of high streets (thinking Hammersmith King Street off the top of my head) have been given over to bikes.
Stand at the junction of Southwark Bridge and the Embankment and see the frequency of bikes (especially between 10am and 4pm) on the CS while looking at the static traffic both eastwards and westwards.
We have the facilities. We don't have the weather (oh but Amsterdam), nor the inclination or perhaps culture.
Now of course that can change. Just like Leon's decadal change for car ownership. But right now it ain't there and isn't likely to be in the foreseeable future.
To be fair central London is pretty much the only place where "we have the facilities". Perhaps Cambridge too, but even then a bunch of that is substandard. Everywhere else, our cycling infrastructure is dreck compared to even France or Germany, let alone the Netherlands or Denmark. I don't blame people for not cycling, I blame our chickenshit politicians for not providing the facilities to let them do so safely.
On the rain thing, I've always been a fairweather cyclist, but getting an ebike last year has made a surprising difference. I still don't enjoy riding the Proper Bike in the rain but the ebike is no problem. Don't know why that is.
It was critical for America that Trump was charged for the attempted coup. When you read up on the details it most definitely was an attempted coup that built for some time - the charging of the Capitol was only the denouement.
What is at stake is very simple - America. I fear that it would take a black swan event to deny Trump the republican nomination, and he is going to be All In offering people the kind of America they want. War against minorities / women / liberals / deviants / Iran - you name it and he'll offer it.
I can see the 2024 election being a repeat of 2020 only on a bigger scale. Biden will will more votes than the pundits thought possible as people who never vote turn out to keep Trump out. But the electoral college is a perverse thing, and there remains a clear a present danger that Trump does well enough in the EC to keep him in the game. And with the idiocy of their system having TV networks call results we can expect a Roman Roy figure to call key states for Trump whether he has them on not. At least NewsMax and possibly Fox too.
If Trump wins, that is America done. The republic will fall and be replaced by a "Christian" version of Iran.
That dastardly Trump and his heinous attempt to win an election by offering the people what they want.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
The Bierkellar Putsch, the March on Rome, the Spartacist Revolt, the Kronstadt Mutiny, the Cato Street Conspiracy, the Istanbul Rising, the Monmouth Rebellion, the first coup of Louis Napoleon, the treason of the Duke of Clarence, Bela Kun, Imre Nagy, and the Boxer Rebellion are all waving hello here.
Maybe talk to them and you will understand things better.
Ah get your point.
Those people turned up with guns and pikes whereas J6 guys turned up with sandwiches. Bad call.
Trump is acting like a mad gang boss with a personal vendetta and Americans are crazy enough to re-elect him. The Vox pops from Trump rallies are so full of delusional conspiracy stuff that 4 more years of Trump are a nightmare that looks likely to happen.
I don't bet much on American politics because it is too bonkers to predict. It would be fun if it didn't matter, but it does.
Yep, to unite the two threads on here currently - Putin knows he just has to wait for a Trump presidential election victory and the entire picture changes. And Trump has a great chance to win. Biden is a decent to good president, he will be an utterly disastrous candidate.
All those saying they're as bad as each other will never admit how important Biden has been to helping Ukraine fend off Putin. And they’ll blame France and Germany when Trump scales US involvement back.
But the blame game won’t change the facts on the ground. Without substantial and continued US aid, Ukraine will be on the back foot very quickly. That will have massive implications for all of us, while emboldening China in East Asia generally and with regards to Taiwan specifically.
Morning SO
just noticed from yesterday, have you moved to Devon permanently or are you just on hols ?
Greetings AB. Semi-retired now and living the good life in Sidmouth, where my wife and I have lowered the average age considerably! Back in Leamington quite a bit, though, to see the kids. Hope all is well with you!
Nice area, the Triassic-and-Jurassic coast.
Great walking country.
I've done the whole South West Coast Path. All 630 miles of it.
My favourite long distance walking experience of my life.
I've done the entire coast (including parts of the SWCP three times), and the SWCP is a bit meh TBF.
Pembrokeshire is far better, or the Lleyn peninsula. But if you do the SWCP, do it in winter. It's a different experience.
You've done the whole coast of the UK?
Wow. That's thousands and thousands of miles.
I did it twenty years ago. The way I did it, it was >6,200 miles. I did not take ferries to reduce distance, so I had to walk up the estuaries to the nearest bridge or fording point. In Essex and the southwest, that added a lot of distance on. From memory, it added 200 miles onto the SWCP, to make about 800 miles.
Most people who do the coast take ferries, and it is ~4,500 miles. I did a load of extras as well, including the three highest mountains, Anglesey, Arran (ferry over, walked around island, then back to the mainland at the same point I left), and towards the end I extended it a fair bit by following rivers further inland.
An experience of a lifetime. Although I would love to do it again and see what has changed over the years.
Amazing. I'd love to know how you found the time to do all that.
It took me and my friends over a decade just to complete the SWCP!
I was going to chuck in my job, but redundancies came up at work and I grabbed one. The redundancy paid for a motorhome and the entire walk.
I was very lucky to have had everything fall into place at the right time: I had money, health, no dependencies, and a gf who was willing to drive a motorhome for a year.
TBF, walking it in sections over many years is a much better way. If you do it in one go, as I did, you soon develop scenery overload. It's another fantastic beach. It's another dramatic cliff-face. Yawn. Having a few weeks or months off and doing another stretch allows you to do them in better weather, and also appreciate the scenery more.
Fantastic. We are currently doing C2C and enjoying it very much.
I had scenery overload doing the Rocky Mountaineer from Calgary to Vancouver - soon enough one jaw-dropping stunning mountain blends into another and you can't take it all in anymore.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
A poorly organised crime is still a crime.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
Being a poor loser isnt a crime. If that were the case wed have locked up Gordon Brown.
What if Gordon Brown had organised false ballot boxes to arrive at key counts in key seats? So that the seat itself couldn't be declared for the Tories? And then if Gordon Brown had planned to simply have the Labour majority in parliament re-elect him as PM?
Brown did precisely what the constitution required him to do - sit in Downing Street as the elected PM until a replacement PM could be agreed. I know the right describe that as him being a "sore loser" and a "squatter" but that says more about them than him.
If you don't want to call the Trump plan a "Coup" that is fine. Is "plan to illegally and unconstitutionally overturn the result of an election which he knew he had legally lost so that he could be declared President anyway" better for you?
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
So you accept the Clintons have done dodgy stuff well its progress.
Trump is not the only person in the world to have done dodgy stuff. If you want to talk about the Clintons, maybe you can find a history forum who are interested. For those of us interested in discussing current events and political betting, let’s stick to Trump.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
I think he says upthread he's trolling. I'll take him at his word and stop responding.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
A poorly organised crime is still a crime.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
Being a poor loser isnt a crime. If that were the case wed have locked up Gordon Brown.
The indictment doesn’t accuse Trump of being a poor loser. Don’t be silly.
Why not - the whole thing is farcical. Laughter is the best way of dealing with it.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take contro; of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
I think you should probably make the effort to read the indictment. The allegations relate to attempting to block the certification of the election result by arranging fake electors for seven states.
This concept of the Trump plan being to take on the US armed forces with his own militia is a fantasy of your own making - it isn't part of the indictment. The mob were seen as useful to Trump in creating pressure on Pence and Congress, but the alleged conspiracy was a plot to prevent the certification of an election Trump lost, and knew he lost.
You clearly dont understand a coup. Maybe if you had cut back on the extreme language you might have a point to make.
The people alleging a 'coup' shot themselves in the foot by choosing that name. 'Terrorist attack' on the Capitol would have been closer to the truth, and just as damaging in terms of its implications. Nobody can rein themselves in when it comes to Trump.
It was critical for America that Trump was charged for the attempted coup. When you read up on the details it most definitely was an attempted coup that built for some time - the charging of the Capitol was only the denouement.
What is at stake is very simple - America. I fear that it would take a black swan event to deny Trump the republican nomination, and he is going to be All In offering people the kind of America they want. War against minorities / women / liberals / deviants / Iran - you name it and he'll offer it.
I can see the 2024 election being a repeat of 2020 only on a bigger scale. Biden will will more votes than the pundits thought possible as people who never vote turn out to keep Trump out. But the electoral college is a perverse thing, and there remains a clear a present danger that Trump does well enough in the EC to keep him in the game. And with the idiocy of their system having TV networks call results we can expect a Roman Roy figure to call key states for Trump whether he has them on not. At least NewsMax and possibly Fox too.
If Trump wins, that is America done. The republic will fall and be replaced by a "Christian" version of Iran.
That dastardly Trump and his heinous attempt to win an election by offering the people what they want.
Some of the people. A minority of people. Where what they want will turn them into an international pariah.
I fled to Sidmouth - ok, Exmouth - upon the partial relaxation of lockdown in April 2021.
A massive amount of potential but the seafront felt kind of elderly and tatty.
Shame about the unsightly caravan park at Sandy Bay, which in an ideal world would be protected landscape.
I heard a lot of Brummie down there and it dawned on me that it was essentially the nearest coast to Birmingham (apart from South Wales maybe?)
That honour traditionally goes to Weston-super-Mud. Whether it's geographically quite the closest, or just because of the main road, I don't remember.
Now Weston's a proper dump.
The Exmouth to Starcross ferry is nice, as is Starcross itself.
I would have thought Rhyl and Prestatyn in North Wales would be next closest after Weston. Certainly for the northern parts of the West Midlands, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall.
North Wales is essentially a littoral colony of Liverpool.
Brummies own mid-Wales, but there’s no easily accessible beach. It’s all about getting on the M5 for the denizens of Motor City.
What an ignorant comment from someone who constantly talks down Britain
What a fatuous response from PB’s prime apologist for Tory incompetence.
I live in North Wales and your slur is baseless and ignorant of our population
What slur?
Your comment that North Walians are a literal colony of Liverpool is just wrong, ignorant, and an insult to the community who are very proud of their Welsh heritage and the integration of peoples across the North West of England not just Liverpool
You should take more pro-biotics. It’s not healthy to be so dyspeptic so early in the morning.
PS I said “littoral” not “literal”.
Even so, it's not really true. The amount of scouse-ancestry North Walians is really quite small. The Scouse accent is an urbanised North Walian accent, rather than the other way around.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
A poorly organised crime is still a crime.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
Being a poor loser isnt a crime. If that were the case wed have locked up Gordon Brown.
The indictment doesn’t accuse Trump of being a poor loser. Don’t be silly.
Why not - the whole thing is farcical. Laughter is the best way of dealing with it.
Well, you’ve succeeded in making yourself a laughing stock.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
But as I've shown, the vast majority of drivers are commuting small distances.
And cycle and public transport provision is brilliant for drivers - means they are much less likely to get caught up in traffic. Great for commercial users, disabled folk, emergency services!
Even somewhere rural like Moray, only just over half of people commute by car. If all those non-drivers suddenly took to the road...eek!
More cycling provision is great, provided it’s extra provision that doesn’t reduce the existing car provision.
One very small way you can achieve both (I mentioned it in passing below) is to introduce the French system of allowing cyclists to cycle the wrong way down one way systems where the speed limit is below 30 kph (you obviously want to keep them off fast roads). It works really well. Most one way streets were previously two way so there is room for a cycle facing the on coming traffic with plenty of room between the cars and bikes and everyone sees everyone. In Paris the roads are marked out accordingly, but it applies everywhere regardless of road markings. This also removes the bikes from many of the busier roads and reduces the situation where cars overtake bikes or bikes overtake cars which is where most accidents happen.
Everyone clearly sees everyone else and there is more room.
Clearly this is only a small tweak as most roads are not one way.
It was critical for America that Trump was charged for the attempted coup. When you read up on the details it most definitely was an attempted coup that built for some time - the charging of the Capitol was only the denouement.
What is at stake is very simple - America. I fear that it would take a black swan event to deny Trump the republican nomination, and he is going to be All In offering people the kind of America they want. War against minorities / women / liberals / deviants / Iran - you name it and he'll offer it.
I can see the 2024 election being a repeat of 2020 only on a bigger scale. Biden will will more votes than the pundits thought possible as people who never vote turn out to keep Trump out. But the electoral college is a perverse thing, and there remains a clear a present danger that Trump does well enough in the EC to keep him in the game. And with the idiocy of their system having TV networks call results we can expect a Roman Roy figure to call key states for Trump whether he has them on not. At least NewsMax and possibly Fox too.
If Trump wins, that is America done. The republic will fall and be replaced by a "Christian" version of Iran.
That dastardly Trump and his heinous attempt to win an election by offering the people what they want.
Sorry this proves you're an associate member of the cult and not prepared to engage with the facts. Also the results showed that it wasn't what the people wanted even when he won the electoral college in 2016. Other results in 2018 and 2020, 2022 showed that Trump continues to be a loser.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
This cycling shaming sounds a bit when did you stop beating your wife?
I used to cycle to the station (pre kids) but stopped afterwards when I missed a few trains, and got drenched a couple of times en-route, and it was all too much hassle. Particularly to change into and out of a suit again.
It also didn't help when one of my lights failed on the ride home one Winter evening and someone called me a See You Next Tuesday because I rode the last 1/2 mile without it, and with much mirth.
Far too much hassle and not much fun.
Do It Right. Spare light and spare spare light. Perhaps just the spare if your primary is dynamo driven.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
I think he says upthread he's trolling. I'll take him at his word and stop responding.
well its hardly as if either one of us is going to change our mind.
Trump is acting like a mad gang boss with a personal vendetta and Americans are crazy enough to re-elect him. The Vox pops from Trump rallies are so full of delusional conspiracy stuff that 4 more years of Trump are a nightmare that looks likely to happen.
I don't bet much on American politics because it is too bonkers to predict. It would be fun if it didn't matter, but it does.
Yep, to unite the two threads on here currently - Putin knows he just has to wait for a Trump presidential election victory and the entire picture changes. And Trump has a great chance to win. Biden is a decent to good president, he will be an utterly disastrous candidate.
All those saying they're as bad as each other will never admit how important Biden has been to helping Ukraine fend off Putin. And they’ll blame France and Germany when Trump scales US involvement back.
But the blame game won’t change the facts on the ground. Without substantial and continued US aid, Ukraine will be on the back foot very quickly. That will have massive implications for all of us, while emboldening China in East Asia generally and with regards to Taiwan specifically.
Morning SO
just noticed from yesterday, have you moved to Devon permanently or are you just on hols ?
Greetings AB. Semi-retired now and living the good life in Sidmouth, where my wife and I have lowered the average age considerably! Back in Leamington quite a bit, though, to see the kids. Hope all is well with you!
Nice area, the Triassic-and-Jurassic coast.
Great walking country.
I've done the whole South West Coast Path. All 630 miles of it.
My favourite long distance walking experience of my life.
I've done the entire coast (including parts of the SWCP three times), and the SWCP is a bit meh TBF.
Pembrokeshire is far better, or the Lleyn peninsula. But if you do the SWCP, do it in winter. It's a different experience.
You've done the whole coast of the UK?
Wow. That's thousands and thousands of miles.
I did it twenty years ago. The way I did it, it was >6,200 miles. I did not take ferries to reduce distance, so I had to walk up the estuaries to the nearest bridge or fording point. In Essex and the southwest, that added a lot of distance on. From memory, it added 200 miles onto the SWCP, to make about 800 miles.
Most people who do the coast take ferries, and it is ~4,500 miles. I did a load of extras as well, including the three highest mountains, Anglesey, Arran (ferry over, walked around island, then back to the mainland at the same point I left), and towards the end I extended it a fair bit by following rivers further inland.
An experience of a lifetime. Although I would love to do it again and see what has changed over the years.
Amazing. I'd love to know how you found the time to do all that.
It took me and my friends over a decade just to complete the SWCP!
I was going to chuck in my job, but redundancies came up at work and I grabbed one. The redundancy paid for a motorhome and the entire walk.
I was very lucky to have had everything fall into place at the right time: I had money, health, no dependencies, and a gf who was willing to drive a motorhome for a year.
TBF, walking it in sections over many years is a much better way. If you do it in one go, as I did, you soon develop scenery overload. It's another fantastic beach. It's another dramatic cliff-face. Yawn. Having a few weeks or months off and doing another stretch allows you to do them in better weather, and also appreciate the scenery more.
Fantastic. We are currently doing C2C and enjoying it very much.
I had scenery overload doing the Rocky Mountaineer from Calgary to Vancouver - soon enough one jaw-dropping stunning mountain blends into another and you can't take it all in anymore.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or something.
Love the edit. Proper David Brent stuff here.
"Oh, look: here comes Hull down the motorway in a car."
I fled to Sidmouth - ok, Exmouth - upon the partial relaxation of lockdown in April 2021.
A massive amount of potential but the seafront felt kind of elderly and tatty.
Shame about the unsightly caravan park at Sandy Bay, which in an ideal world would be protected landscape.
I heard a lot of Brummie down there and it dawned on me that it was essentially the nearest coast to Birmingham (apart from South Wales maybe?)
That honour traditionally goes to Weston-super-Mud. Whether it's geographically quite the closest, or just because of the main road, I don't remember.
Now Weston's a proper dump.
The Exmouth to Starcross ferry is nice, as is Starcross itself.
I would have thought Rhyl and Prestatyn in North Wales would be next closest after Weston. Certainly for the northern parts of the West Midlands, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall.
North Wales is essentially a littoral colony of Liverpool.
Brummies own mid-Wales, but there’s no easily accessible beach. It’s all about getting on the M5 for the denizens of Motor City.
What an ignorant comment from someone who constantly talks down Britain
What a fatuous response from PB’s prime apologist for Tory incompetence.
I live in North Wales and your slur is baseless and ignorant of our population
What slur?
Your comment that North Walians are a literal colony of Liverpool is just wrong, ignorant, and an insult to the community who are very proud of their Welsh heritage and the integration of peoples across the North West of England not just Liverpool
You should take more pro-biotics. It’s not healthy to be so dyspeptic so early in the morning.
PS I said “littoral” not “literal”.
Even so, it's not really true. The amount of scouse-ancestry North Walians is really quite small. The Scouse accent is an urbanised North Walian accent, rather than the other way around.
Where did I say that North Walians were scouse? I did not. I agree with your last sentence, but add Irish to North Walian.
I was going to add my ha'penny's worth but then realised that everything we will are endlessly discussing here will eventually all be dust, swept from the Earth by disaster, or by war, or simply the cruel passage of time itself, forgotten by history as another puny and futile effort of humanity. Later everyone!
Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and - all of this - all of this - was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.
I fled to Sidmouth - ok, Exmouth - upon the partial relaxation of lockdown in April 2021.
A massive amount of potential but the seafront felt kind of elderly and tatty.
Shame about the unsightly caravan park at Sandy Bay, which in an ideal world would be protected landscape.
I heard a lot of Brummie down there and it dawned on me that it was essentially the nearest coast to Birmingham (apart from South Wales maybe?)
That honour traditionally goes to Weston-super-Mud. Whether it's geographically quite the closest, or just because of the main road, I don't remember.
Now Weston's a proper dump.
The Exmouth to Starcross ferry is nice, as is Starcross itself.
I would have thought Rhyl and Prestatyn in North Wales would be next closest after Weston. Certainly for the northern parts of the West Midlands, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall.
North Wales is essentially a littoral colony of Liverpool.
Brummies own mid-Wales, but there’s no easily accessible beach. It’s all about getting on the M5 for the denizens of Motor City.
What an ignorant comment from someone who constantly talks down Britain
What a fatuous response from PB’s prime apologist for Tory incompetence.
I live in North Wales and your slur is baseless and ignorant of our population
What slur?
Your comment that North Walians are a literal colony of Liverpool is just wrong, ignorant, and an insult to the community who are very proud of their Welsh heritage and the integration of peoples across the North West of England not just Liverpool
You should take more pro-biotics. It’s not healthy to be so dyspeptic so early in the morning.
PS I said “littoral” not “literal”.
[@Big_G_NorthWales, the word "littoral" means the area close to the coast. It's regarded as having its own characteristics that make it different to the sea. @Gardenwalker didn't mean "literal"]
Shirley make it different from the inland land? Difference from the sea is too obvious to need pointing out
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
The weather thing is weird too. You can change out of your wet stuff at work. Or walk or take the bus.
Or drive, even. But most days the weather is fine for cycling.
I fled to Sidmouth - ok, Exmouth - upon the partial relaxation of lockdown in April 2021.
A massive amount of potential but the seafront felt kind of elderly and tatty.
Shame about the unsightly caravan park at Sandy Bay, which in an ideal world would be protected landscape.
I heard a lot of Brummie down there and it dawned on me that it was essentially the nearest coast to Birmingham (apart from South Wales maybe?)
That honour traditionally goes to Weston-super-Mud. Whether it's geographically quite the closest, or just because of the main road, I don't remember.
Now Weston's a proper dump.
The Exmouth to Starcross ferry is nice, as is Starcross itself.
I would have thought Rhyl and Prestatyn in North Wales would be next closest after Weston. Certainly for the northern parts of the West Midlands, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall.
North Wales is essentially a littoral colony of Liverpool.
Brummies own mid-Wales, but there’s no easily accessible beach. It’s all about getting on the M5 for the denizens of Motor City.
What an ignorant comment from someone who constantly talks down Britain
What a fatuous response from PB’s prime apologist for Tory incompetence.
I live in North Wales and your slur is baseless and ignorant of our population
What slur?
Your comment that North Walians are a literal colony of Liverpool is just wrong, ignorant, and an insult to the community who are very proud of their Welsh heritage and the integration of peoples across the North West of England not just Liverpool
You should take more pro-biotics. It’s not healthy to be so dyspeptic so early in the morning.
PS I said “littoral” not “literal”.
[@Big_G_NorthWales, the word "littoral" means the area close to the coast. It's regarded as having its own characteristics that make it different to the sea. @Gardenwalker didn't mean "literal"]
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
What a surprise. @Gardenwalker is back in thr UK and... lo and behold he's reached the objective conclusion that: it's a shithole!
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take contro; of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
I think you should probably make the effort to read the indictment. The allegations relate to attempting to block the certification of the election result by arranging fake electors for seven states.
This concept of the Trump plan being to take on the US armed forces with his own militia is a fantasy of your own making - it isn't part of the indictment. The mob were seen as useful to Trump in creating pressure on Pence and Congress, but the alleged conspiracy was a plot to prevent the certification of an election Trump lost, and knew he lost.
You clearly dont understand a coup. Maybe if you had cut back on the extreme language you might have a point to make.
The people alleging a 'coup' shot themselves in the foot by choosing that name. 'Terrorist attack' on the Capitol would have been closer to the truth, and just as damaging in terms of its implications. Nobody can rein themselves in when it comes to Trump.
The coup attempt is what happened *before* 6th January. The riot was the end of the plan, not the plan itself. Had Pence gone through with it there would have been no riot.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
What a surprise. @Gardenwalker is back in thr UK and... lo and behold he's reached the objective conclusion that: it's a shithole!
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
The Bierkellar Putsch, the March on Rome, the Spartacist Revolt, the Kronstadt Mutiny, the Cato Street Conspiracy, the Istanbul Rising, the Monmouth Rebellion, the first coup of Louis Napoleon, the treason of the Duke of Clarence, Bela Kun, Imre Nagy, and the Boxer Rebellion are all waving hello here.
Maybe talk to them and you will understand things better.
Ah get your point.
Those people turned up with guns and pikes whereas J6 guys turned up with sandwiches. Bad call.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
At the risk of inciting our anti-tree fanatic, one of the great things about flying into Heathrow over London is seeing how full of trees it is.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
Stealing 'Secret' documents asking officials to 'find' extra votes and trying to get fake electors to steal peoples votes and the election from the rightful winner. No that's Trump, Clinton was a blow job.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
How about comparing us to Denmark then? I spent a most enjoyable holiday based in Aarhus a few years ago, a city both full of cyclists & notably hilly. (I can thoroughly recommend both the Lego House & the Moesgaard Museum btw. Both are fantastic.)
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
At the risk of inciting our anti-tree fanatic, one of the great things about flying into Heathrow over London is seeing how full of trees it is.
The plane trees in London are stunning. My favourite thing about the city.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
At the risk of inciting our anti-tree fanatic, one of the great things about flying into Heathrow over London is seeing how full of trees it is.
The plane trees in London are stunning. My favourite thing about the city.
"It was a saying of Lord Chatham, that the parks were the lungs of London..."
I posted this late last year and it repays reposting:
Jan 6th was not a coup.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators, and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
I think he says upthread he's trolling. I'll take him at his word and stop responding.
well its hardly as if either one of us is going to change our mind.
I believe that NigelB is open to facts but I'll take your word that you're not. Remember cultists can recover, good luck.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
The weather thing is weird too. You can change out of your wet stuff at work. Or walk or take the bus.
Or drive, even. But most days the weather is fine for cycling.
Provision of showering/change facilities at work is a big driver for getting people to cycle. Something a the firms around Aberdeen provide
It was critical for America that Trump was charged for the attempted coup. When you read up on the details it most definitely was an attempted coup that built for some time - the charging of the Capitol was only the denouement.
What is at stake is very simple - America. I fear that it would take a black swan event to deny Trump the republican nomination, and he is going to be All In offering people the kind of America they want. War against minorities / women / liberals / deviants / Iran - you name it and he'll offer it.
I can see the 2024 election being a repeat of 2020 only on a bigger scale. Biden will will more votes than the pundits thought possible as people who never vote turn out to keep Trump out. But the electoral college is a perverse thing, and there remains a clear a present danger that Trump does well enough in the EC to keep him in the game. And with the idiocy of their system having TV networks call results we can expect a Roman Roy figure to call key states for Trump whether he has them on not. At least NewsMax and possibly Fox too.
If Trump wins, that is America done. The republic will fall and be replaced by a "Christian" version of Iran.
That dastardly Trump and his heinous attempt to win an election by offering the people what they want.
Some of the people. A minority of people. Where what they want will turn them into an international pariah.
The unfairness of the US electoral system is a totally different issue. They seem happy with it - I'm not aware of any serious moves to change it, and the Democrats are in power.
For the rest, that's democracy. Hoping for a 'black swan event' (I'm not going to probe what that might be) to stop this awful act of people voting for what they want is not your finest hour.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
The weather thing is weird too. You can change out of your wet stuff at work. Or walk or take the bus.
Or drive, even. But most days the weather is fine for cycling.
Provision of showering/change facilities at work is a big driver for getting people to cycle. Something a the firms around Aberdeen provide
Certainly for long distance commutes. But most will just a be a few miles, similar to car commutes.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
But as I've shown, the vast majority of drivers are commuting small distances.
And cycle and public transport provision is brilliant for drivers - means they are much less likely to get caught up in traffic. Great for commercial users, disabled folk, emergency services!
Even somewhere rural like Moray, only just over half of people commute by car. If all those non-drivers suddenly took to the road...eek!
More cycling provision is great, provided it’s extra provision that doesn’t reduce the existing car provision.
But then we come into the issue that built-up areas are already very largely built-up. So road space use is basically zero sum. The dream of a Romford Expressway will have to remain just that.
It's always nicer to find an everybody wins, straight away solution. But managing situations where there isn't one is where statesmen earn their pennies.
Talking about built up areas, the ONS have just released more analysis from the 2021 census based on their new Built Up Areas. There are significant differences from the 2011 built up areas, so direct comparisons are not valid.
I fled to Sidmouth - ok, Exmouth - upon the partial relaxation of lockdown in April 2021.
A massive amount of potential but the seafront felt kind of elderly and tatty.
Shame about the unsightly caravan park at Sandy Bay, which in an ideal world would be protected landscape.
I heard a lot of Brummie down there and it dawned on me that it was essentially the nearest coast to Birmingham (apart from South Wales maybe?)
That honour traditionally goes to Weston-super-Mud. Whether it's geographically quite the closest, or just because of the main road, I don't remember.
Now Weston's a proper dump.
The Exmouth to Starcross ferry is nice, as is Starcross itself.
I would have thought Rhyl and Prestatyn in North Wales would be next closest after Weston. Certainly for the northern parts of the West Midlands, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall.
North Wales is essentially a littoral colony of Liverpool.
Brummies own mid-Wales, but there’s no easily accessible beach. It’s all about getting on the M5 for the denizens of Motor City.
What an ignorant comment from someone who constantly talks down Britain
What a fatuous response from PB’s prime apologist for Tory incompetence.
I live in North Wales and your slur is baseless and ignorant of our population
What slur?
Your comment that North Walians are a literal colony of Liverpool is just wrong, ignorant, and an insult to the community who are very proud of their Welsh heritage and the integration of peoples across the North West of England not just Liverpool
You should take more pro-biotics. It’s not healthy to be so dyspeptic so early in the morning.
PS I said “littoral” not “literal”.
Even so, it's not really true. The amount of scouse-ancestry North Walians is really quite small. The Scouse accent is an urbanised North Walian accent, rather than the other way around.
Where did I say that North Walians were scouse? I did not. I agree with your last sentence, but add Irish to North Walian.
That's what I inferred from North Wales being a littoral colony of Liverpool. I inferred you meant that Liverpuddlians had moved to the North Wales coast, displacing the natives. Whereas I've often reflected on the remarkable degree to which this hasn't happened, compared to, say, urban Lancastrians to the Fylde coast or Londoners to the Sussex coast.
But anyway. Go to Connah's Quay or Buckley or St. Asaph and listen to the accent,and reflect on the way Liverpool grew in the 19th century. Flintshire or (inland) Denbighshire Welsh accents sound in many cases almost indistinguishable from Scouse.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
What a surprise. @Gardenwalker is back in thr UK and... lo and behold he's reached the objective conclusion that: it's a shithole!
This cycling shaming sounds a bit when did you stop beating your wife?
I used to cycle to the station (pre kids) but stopped afterwards when I missed a few trains, and got drenched a couple of times en-route, and it was all too much hassle. Particularly to change into and out of a suit again.
It also didn't help when one of my lights failed on the ride home one Winter evening and someone called me a See You Next Tuesday because I rode the last 1/2 mile without it, and with much mirth.
Far too much hassle and not much fun.
Do It Right. Spare light and spare spare light. Perhaps just the spare if your primary is dynamo driven.
Is yet another reason why the masses aren't going to take up cycling, er, en masse any time soon.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
At the risk of inciting our anti-tree fanatic, one of the great things about flying into Heathrow over London is seeing how full of trees it is.
The plane trees in London are stunning. My favourite thing about the city.
Isn't there some weird quirk of definition that statistically London has enough volume and coverage of trees to qualify as a forest?
This cycling shaming sounds a bit when did you stop beating your wife?
I used to cycle to the station (pre kids) but stopped afterwards when I missed a few trains, and got drenched a couple of times en-route, and it was all too much hassle. Particularly to change into and out of a suit again.
It also didn't help when one of my lights failed on the ride home one Winter evening and someone called me a See You Next Tuesday because I rode the last 1/2 mile without it, and with much mirth.
Far too much hassle and not much fun.
Do It Right. Spare light and spare spare light. Perhaps just the spare if your primary is dynamo driven.
Is yet another reason why the masses aren't going to take up cycling, er, en masse any time soon.
You will be SHOCKED when you find out how much motoring costs!
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
I have cycled (as a commuter or tourist) in the UK, Germany, Denmark, the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Switzerland, France, Spain and Italy. There is a simple reason why people don't cycle so much in the UK, and it's not especially due to the weather or the terrain. It's because the cycling infrastructure is shit. To be fair, the quality of cycling infrastructure is variable across Europe too. The Netherlands, Denmark and Germany are great, France and Spain less so, and, surprise, this is reflected in cycling levels in those countries.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
Stealing 'Secret' documents asking officials to 'find' extra votes and trying to get fake electors to steal peoples votes and the election from the rightful winner. No that's Trump, Clinton was a blow job.
But to be fair, at least Trump is a paragon of honour and rectitude when it comes to sexual relationships. One can't imagine him doing anything improper with a woman.
The indictment is a powerful read. Two things spring out for me.
The march on Congress was the culmination of a planned and energetically pursued coup d'etat (let's call it for what it was). The serious stuff happened before the mob was let loose.
That the coup failed depended entirely on Mike Pence doing the right thing. Cometh the hour , cometh the man. He should get more recognition than he does.
Right.
So a few thousand demonstrators decide to implement a coup detat by taking on the worlds largest military and turning up to a gun fight with some placards and exotic head gear. And they decide to take control of one of the worlds largest countries by only couping in one location.
That doesnt sound great organisation does it ?
The Bierkellar Putsch, the March on Rome, the Spartacist Revolt, the Kronstadt Mutiny, the Cato Street Conspiracy, the Istanbul Rising, the Monmouth Rebellion, the first coup of Louis Napoleon, the treason of the Duke of Clarence, Bela Kun, Imre Nagy, and the Boxer Rebellion are all waving hello here.
Maybe talk to them and you will understand things better.
Ah get your point.
Those people turned up with guns and pikes whereas J6 guys turned up with sandwiches. Bad call.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
At the risk of inciting our anti-tree fanatic, one of the great things about flying into Heathrow over London is seeing how full of trees it is.
Absolutely. London is THE green city. Coming from Auckland, that was not as obvious as it seems now.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
At the risk of inciting our anti-tree fanatic, one of the great things about flying into Heathrow over London is seeing how full of trees it is.
Absolutely. London is THE green city. Coming from Auckland, that was not as obvious as it seems now.
London should lean even more into this.
Edinburgh has loads of trees, but what makes London special is the number on the streets themselves. The council flatly refuse to include them in the public realm here.
I posted this late last year and it repays reposting:
Jan 6th was not a coup.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators, and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
Well the 'massed forces of the state' were delayed by Trump who gleefully watched the coverage. The rioters came very close to Mike Pence having previously erected a makeshift scaffold and chanted 'Hang Mike Pence'. Pence refused to get in a Secret Service car that would have taken him away from the Capitol so that he could do his duty and ratify the results. If Pence or other lawmakers had been killed would Trump have imposed martial law? Or would he simply have appointed a pliable VP who would have accepted the fake electors that Republicans had put in place across a number of swing states. https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-the-trump-fake-electors-scheme-became-a-corrupt-plan-according-to-the-indictment/ar-AA1eFv00 There are a number of ways some legal, most not, that Trump and allies sought to overturn the election and keep Trump in power. Luckily American democracy held this time but an unpunished coup attempt becomes a rehearsal.
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
What a surprise. @Gardenwalker is back in thr UK and... lo and behold he's reached the objective conclusion that: it's a shithole!
The Sun is big on anti-Ulez, as to a smaller extent is the Mail. This might be politically significant although no doubt the Sun will drop the subject if it does not gain traction.
I posted this late last year and it repays reposting:
Jan 6th was not a coup.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators, and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
As noted above, the riot was merely a pretext in pursuit of what was an attempted coup.
A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is an illegal and overt attempt by the military or other government elites to unseat the incumbent leader. Leaving aside the quibble that Trump was attempting to unseat the newly elected President before he was sworn in, the actions alleged in the indictment certainly meet the essentials of that definition.
I fled to Sidmouth - ok, Exmouth - upon the partial relaxation of lockdown in April 2021.
A massive amount of potential but the seafront felt kind of elderly and tatty.
Shame about the unsightly caravan park at Sandy Bay, which in an ideal world would be protected landscape.
I heard a lot of Brummie down there and it dawned on me that it was essentially the nearest coast to Birmingham (apart from South Wales maybe?)
That honour traditionally goes to Weston-super-Mud. Whether it's geographically quite the closest, or just because of the main road, I don't remember.
Now Weston's a proper dump.
The Exmouth to Starcross ferry is nice, as is Starcross itself.
I would have thought Rhyl and Prestatyn in North Wales would be next closest after Weston. Certainly for the northern parts of the West Midlands, Sutton Coldfield and Walsall.
North Wales is essentially a littoral colony of Liverpool.
Brummies own mid-Wales, but there’s no easily accessible beach. It’s all about getting on the M5 for the denizens of Motor City.
What an ignorant comment from someone who constantly talks down Britain
What a fatuous response from PB’s prime apologist for Tory incompetence.
I live in North Wales and your slur is baseless and ignorant of our population
What slur?
Your comment that North Walians are a literal colony of Liverpool is just wrong, ignorant, and an insult to the community who are very proud of their Welsh heritage and the integration of peoples across the North West of England not just Liverpool
You should take more pro-biotics. It’s not healthy to be so dyspeptic so early in the morning.
PS I said “littoral” not “literal”.
Even so, it's not really true. The amount of scouse-ancestry North Walians is really quite small. The Scouse accent is an urbanised North Walian accent, rather than the other way around.
Where did I say that North Walians were scouse? I did not. I agree with your last sentence, but add Irish to North Walian.
That's what I inferred from North Wales being a littoral colony of Liverpool. I inferred you meant that Liverpuddlians had moved to the North Wales coast, displacing the natives. Whereas I've often reflected on the remarkable degree to which this hasn't happened, compared to, say, urban Lancastrians to the Fylde coast or Londoners to the Sussex coast.
But anyway. Go to Connah's Quay or Buckley or St. Asaph and listen to the accent,and reflect on the way Liverpool grew in the 19th century. Flintshire or (inland) Denbighshire Welsh accents sound in many cases almost indistinguishable from Scouse.
I meant economic colony. Wrexham and Rhyl are surely economic satellites of Merseyside.
Less true of Llandudno but it’d be interesting to know the breakdown of domestic tourists. And BigG himself is an incomer from, I think, Manchester.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
I think he says upthread he's trolling. I'll take him at his word and stop responding.
well its hardly as if either one of us is going to change our mind.
I believe that NigelB is open to facts but I'll take your word that you're not. Remember cultists can recover, good luck.
ROFL.
So suddenly - despite saying I dont want Trump as president - Im a MAGA man .
Questioning spin is what this site is supposed to do.
But if you want to assume all those politicians and lawyers are telling you the Gods honest truth then do so. But I wont.
I posted this late last year and it repays reposting:
Jan 6th was not a coup.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators, and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
6th January was not a coup, it was a riot. But there was an attempted coup which has been well documented and sufficiently evidenced now. A layered series of options which were enacted wholly or in part: 1 Interfere with state processes to "find" the votes Trump needed to win. The pending legal action in Georgia is in response to Trump's direct attempt to overturn their result 2 Have GOP state legislatures send rival electors. When the GOP ran the state but the vote had gone Democrat, simply send the Trump electors that the election doesn't mandate. If you can stop the genuine electors then all the better 3 The electoral college meets. Chaos thanks to rival slates of electors. Pence then throws the EC out and the election goes to Congress where the GOP majority simply re-elect Trump.
Where this all fell apart is Mike Pence having an attack of conscience. His discussions with Dan Quayle are very well documented - Quayle told him repeatedly and increasingly firmly that he had zero options other than to certify the real electors votes.
Once Pence refused to co-operate with the plot, the frenzy was aimed at him. Either make him change his mind, or simply remove him, have Trump declare martial law, and then send the election to congress. So the riot was to pressure/remove Pence. You say that the mob didn't have a plan. The mob *was* the plan. The shadow administration didn't exist because the coup was being orchestrated by the existing administration to stay in power.
Perhaps the word "coup" has been used as a distraction. But there was an illegal and unconstitutional plot to overturn the election result.
I posted this late last year and it repays reposting:
Jan 6th was not a coup.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators, and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
I think this analysis misses the point that the riot / invasion of Congress was merely one step in Trump’s attempt to illegally overturn the election results. It was also his last throw of the dice before the clock ran out.
The purpose of the riot, as far as Trump was concerned, was force a postponement of Congress‘ vote. They were just a tool - the rioters themselves didn’t need to have a fully fledged plan to coup the government themselves because that wasn’t part of the plan in the first place. They didn’t need to be “an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force”, nor could they be. They just needed to be organised enough to delay Congress by 24-48 hours. The rest Trump would take care of himself, riding in like a knight of old to “restore order”.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
Hounding Trump will achieve precisely nothing except to make him more popular with his supporters and make diviisions in US society deeper.
As for the legal guff, Hilary is still walking free and has never been near a court nd I dont think anyome seriously expects the Biden\Hunter mess to be investigated before an election.
So you're saying laws actually should not apply to him?
That's his attitude, certainly, and that's what's got him into trouble.
Nobody is 'hounding' him, they're enforcing the multiple laws he's deliberately broken for his own gain.
Im saying the laws should apply to everyone and not just one individual. The US justice system is highly partisan and this is using the law to hamper an opponent who it appears cant be beaten by normal means.
That matter alone says what a poor position the Dems have, Worse now that the principle has been established if Trump were to win the election he can quite happily clear out the DoJ, pack it with his place men like Giuliani and lock up who he pleases as the Dems arent exactly choirboys.
And for the record I think that would be a total bag of shit too,
Trump tried to use the justice system to hound his opponents. It didn't work for him because ultimately the law-breaking of say, Hilary Clinton was quite low level. She should not have done what she did, but she was stupid rather than malign.
Her husband was, in case you've forgotten, impeached for his crimes although he wasn't in the end convicted.
Her husbands case I would actually say was the start of this whole sorry saga, The GOP tried to nobble Clinton by foul means and that set off the tit for tat escalation we have seen ever since.
As for Trump using the justice system, well as you say nobody got convicted. But I dont agree with that either , someone somewhere has to put the genie back in the bottle it just wont be either of the two presidential candidates.
Sigh.
The point is he *tried* to use the justice system to nobble his opponents and he failed because what happened wasn't ultimately significant enough to secure an indictment so the lawyers concerned told him 'no.' Had Clinton not handed over her email server, however belatedly and reluctantly, it might have been different. But that was not his call. Just as this is not Biden's. Or anyone in the government.
What's happening now is they *are* indicting him for multiple crimes he has not only committed but is repeatedly doubling down on.
And if you genuinely think January 6th was bad policing, you are profoundly ignorant of what happened. Again, read the indictment. How would 'bad policing,' for example, have led to a crowd gathering at Trump's urging that wanted to lynch the Vice President?
And if you don't think that, well...
No the point is he has been accused of it. He hasnt been convicted of anything,
And he has been accused of it not directly after the event when logically the state would lock up a real and present danger, but just before an election and by a partisan justice system. You draw one conclusion I draw another.
As for the policing issue London regulary gets trashed by people who shout down with the govt but these are riots not coups. And our police despite their critics handle them quite well. And just to wind you up even further J6 wasnt even a decent riot, I grew up in Ulster so I know what a riot looks like there were no petrol bombs, no stones no tear gas. Because all of those thinsg would have required organisation and hard work and Trump is too chaotic .
He has been INDICTED. That is the difference.
As for your last somewhat incoherent and illogical paragraph, put differently you are saying that should something not be exactly like your memories of a riot in Ulster it must not be a riot and therefore can't be a coup.
As a Watergate historian, it’s worth noting that nothing Nixon did—and he had plenty of crimes and conspiracies, involving more than 60 people criminally charged—approached the scale and severity of Trump’s assault on American democracy. https://twitter.com/vermontgmg/status/1686531761352609792?s=20
Good point. Viewed at this remove, Nixon's crimes appear almost quaint in comparison
The Democrats have opened Pandoras box and this could go anywhere . THe US is screwed
"Lock her up" was shouted by who, again?
And, it's the Democrats fault that Donald Trump allegedly committed crimes?
You can call a "pox on both your houses" with some degree of accuracy. But to point to the Dems and say the ball is entirely in your court - as you are doing - is willfully blind.
Now, I really, really hate the idea that governments use their political power to pursue political opponents. (Like Trump and the IRS vs Comey, for example.) But at the same time, should your political position shield you from all legal liability?
What of the upcoming tax/wirefraud case in NY? Trump valued properties at one price for the tax authorities and another for mortgages. And this wasn't a 10% difference, it was a multiple. People go to jail for that kind of thing all the time. Should he not be prosecuted, solely because he was President?
What is it about Trump that make otherwise sensible people lose their marbles ?
I think as one of the two people most affected on here by this phenomenon perhaps you could tell us?
Ive been indicted myself and had to go to court but never convicted because the charges were nonsense. In my case it was a french trade union trying it on for their own purposes. So so far Trump hasnt been convicted of anything, bar losing a civil case.
An indictment isnt a conviction unless youve decided hes guilty until proven innocent, which in its own way demonstrates the madness of a politicised justice system.
As for your second point Trump is like Brexit , people are so partisan about it they only eve believe one line of propaganda. There is very little room for standing back and looking at things in the round.
The democrats won the popular vote in the last 2 elections and on that basis should win the next one but as Ive said theyve opened Pandoras box so anything could happen.
Losing more than one civil case.
In addition, Trump Organization, his business, has been found guilty of 17 criminal charges and lost other civil cases. His charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, was found guilty of various charges.
So Clinton level stuff ?
a) Trump and his organisations have lost or settled far more law suits than the Clintons, so no.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
I think he says upthread he's trolling. I'll take him at his word and stop responding.
well its hardly as if either one of us is going to change our mind.
I believe that NigelB is open to facts but I'll take your word that you're not. Remember cultists can recover, good luck.
ROFL.
So suddenly - despite saying I dont want Trump as president - Im a MAGA man .
Questioning spin is what this site is supposed to do.
But if you want to assume all those politicians and lawyers are telling you the Gods honest truth then do so. But I wont.
I was going to add a 'by the way I don't like Trump' disclaimer to my post upthread, then found I couldn't be arsed. Apparently if you don't think his being re-elected is armageddon, that makes you a cult member. Despite the fact that he's been President before and nothing of any consequence happened.
This cycling shaming sounds a bit when did you stop beating your wife?
I used to cycle to the station (pre kids) but stopped afterwards when I missed a few trains, and got drenched a couple of times en-route, and it was all too much hassle. Particularly to change into and out of a suit again.
It also didn't help when one of my lights failed on the ride home one Winter evening and someone called me a See You Next Tuesday because I rode the last 1/2 mile without it, and with much mirth.
Far too much hassle and not much fun.
Do It Right. Spare light and spare spare light. Perhaps just the spare if your primary is dynamo driven.
Dynamo driven lights usually include a battery or capacitor these days to keep it on whilst stationary at a junction etc.
I think @Casino_Royale needs an Omafiets, which comes with everything including hub gears, dynamo lights, luggage rack, coaster (pedal backwards) brakes, chain cover, step through frame, built-in frame lock, very comfortable riding position, and will last about 25 years.
Newsflash: I am one of the many cyclists who make up the supposedly 10,000/day bikes along the Embankment. Absolutely tipping it down today and I had only half the right clothes. And even when I'm suited up days like these are miserable on a bike.
When people advocate for increased cycle usage in the UK they really do need to do it in conjunction with the British Meteorogical Office and a cold hard (and wet) dose of reality. They need to understand that a huge number of people are simply not going to get on a bike in these or, frankly, any other conditions.
Oh here we go!
I had a look at the cycle stats for Amsterdam and they hardly vary with weather. In Edinburgh, on a monthly basis, there isn't much seasonal variation either.
We shouldn't have started from there but that's all we have.
Trying to get the UK to be a cycling culture = trying to get the UK to be a cafe culture.
Ain't gonna happen.
Why? Is the weather and topography of the London estuary so very different from Amsterdam? Or Paris, for that matter?
Thanks to Stuart in Romford for finding thos fantastic graphs:
But look at how people actually get around at the moment:
If your cycling provision is made at the expense of existing road provision, that just pisses off the motorists.
Except perhaps in central London, no-one is going to be cycling 10 miles to work in the rain and cold when they have a car in the drive.
As with ULEZ, there need to be more carrots and fewer sticks. The people need to feel that they are being brought along, rather than these things being done to them against their will.
There seems to be some assertion of validity of a point of view on subjects like this based upon nothing more than wishful thinking.
Sure, some people don't mind cycling to work in the cold and rain, and changing at work when they get there, but most do not.
Saying that proportionately more people do so in The Netherlands, so the concerns are unwarranted, isn't going to meaningfully shift the dial back in the UK where topography, infrastructure, commuting patterns - and even climate, at times - are all very different.
The topography of the London basin isn’t so different, though. Nor the other big conurbations. Urban England isn’t very hilly.
And the ask is to change the infrastructure, not simply accept it as fact. Much infrastructure is still a legacy of 1950s and 60s thinking about the role of cars versus other forms of transport.
In turn, commuting patterns follow travel infrastructure.
Saying that it should be different isn't the same as recognising the reality of why it isn't, and will likely never be, and throwing in strawmen lines like 1950s and 1960s attitudes to explain away any difference. This is similar to your histrionics on taps and heat pumps.
You aren't going to get lots of people peddling into the City from Thurrock or Hayes and they'd be fairly mad to do so. Commuting patterns follow economic geography and that can't be changed by a few extra cycle lanes.
What the UK likes to do is competitive recreational road cycling and family cycling in parks and forests at weekends. Commuter cycling is largely localised to professional men in their 30s-50s running to the local station or urban transit within metropolitan areas of big cities.
I have no personal desire or expectation for people to cycle in from Thurrock or Hayes. That’s what a mass transit system is for.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
This is just embarrassing, and ignorant. Any child can tell you the difference between the flatness of The Netherlands and urban England. And you've clearly never been to Bristol, Sheffield or Bradford. Not everywhere is like Cambridge.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
This is what I’m talking about.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
The weather thing is weird too. You can change out of your wet stuff at work. Or walk or take the bus.
Or drive, even. But most days the weather is fine for cycling.
"You can change our of your wet stuff at work".
Again, another reason why people aren't going to go anywhere near cycling.
All these "well just put the bike on your back and walk that bit" or "always carry a spare wheel and tool kit because..." or "bring a spare set of clothes to work and change there" you throw out as though they are the easiest thing in the world to navigate and for you they are.
But @Casino is absolutely right. Cycling is for those up to around their 50s and not all of them to start with, and requires preparation and fitness and kit and facilities and attitude that simply are not available now and aren't on anyone's priority list for the foreseeable future. And that is aside from the cycle lanes springing up everywhere.
Comments
This concept of the Trump plan being to take on the US armed forces with his own militia is a fantasy of your own making - it isn't part of the indictment. The mob were seen as useful to Trump in creating pressure on Pence and Congress, but the alleged conspiracy was a plot to prevent the certification of an election Trump lost, and knew he lost.
I merely note that the essential topography, and indeed the climate of urban England is not so different from the Netherlands.
So I call bollocks on your claim - which you appear to rehearse in matters as wide ranging as plumbing to heat engineering - that Britain is so unique it has nothing to learn from the fuzzy-wuzzies who start at Calais.
15 miles in the rain and cold* in N Yorks (we no longer have a second car idling, but that was an active decision after switching to cycling)
But I am (and should be) the outlier. Most peopleare not going to cycle 30 miles a day for commute unless perhaps with an e bike. But, as often pointed out, for many people the commute is more like 15-30 minutes with the right infrastructure. In my current location, cycling to work is niche. When I lived in the same city as work it was a no-brainer and defintely faster than going by car (on the occasions I took the car, it was noticeably longer). And even summer/fair weather only cycling would still make a big positive difference.
*This is actually pretty rare, here, in combination. But if you're cycling those kinds of distances then you do tend to have the gear that makes it not a problem anyway (the cycling takes care of the cold - you just need to add decent gloves/socks/shoe covers for extremities and they, plus a waterproof jacket, deal with the rain)
Was he then a salted?
What is at stake is very simple - America. I fear that it would take a black swan event to deny Trump the republican nomination, and he is going to be All In offering people the kind of America they want. War against minorities / women / liberals / deviants / Iran - you name it and he'll offer it.
I can see the 2024 election being a repeat of 2020 only on a bigger scale. Biden will will more votes than the pundits thought possible as people who never vote turn out to keep Trump out. But the electoral college is a perverse thing, and there remains a clear a present danger that Trump does well enough in the EC to keep him in the game. And with the idiocy of their system having TV networks call results we can expect a Roman Roy figure to call key states for Trump whether he has them on not. At least NewsMax and possibly Fox too.
If Trump wins, that is America done. The republic will fall and be replaced by a "Christian" version of Iran.
Moreover, the coup d’etat was not just about the 6 Jan riot. It was about everything Trump was trying to do behind the scenes to get the election result thrown out.
I was very lucky to have had everything fall into place at the right time: I had money, health, no dependencies, and a gf who was willing to drive a motorhome for a year.
TBF, walking it in sections over many years is a much better way. If you do it in one go, as I did, you soon develop scenery overload. It's another fantastic beach. It's another dramatic cliff-face. Yawn. Having a few weeks or months off and doing another stretch allows you to do them in better weather, and also appreciate the scenery more.
I used to cycle to the station (pre kids) but stopped afterwards when I missed a few trains, and got drenched a couple of times en-route, and it was all too much hassle. Particularly to change into and out of a suit again.
It also didn't help when one of my lights failed on the ride home one Winter evening and someone called me a See You Next Tuesday because I rode the last 1/2 mile without it, and with much mirth.
Far too much hassle and not much fun.
Cairo is probably the most dangerous place I have regularly cycled (around Midan al-Tahrir on a single speed Brompton, LOL) although Moscow in the winter is no Primavera.
Throwing out an election you lost by faking electors so that you could vote yourselves back in is a coup. It didn't happen because of Dan Quayle. But it was still a coup attempt.
It’s very clear that Britain has huge amounts to learn - or steal, if you like! - from the Netherlands, given the similarities in climate, terrain, and even culture.
And vice versa, no doubt, since the Dutch themselves are currently in the grip of nativist and anti-green conniptions.
b) Is whataboutery all you have to offer?
Edinburgh is mad hilly but we have the highest rates of cycling anywhere in Scotland.
There is a British cultural cringe around keeping fit, eating well and general *progress* - a deep satisfaction in accepting our lives to be rubbish. I don't subscribe to that.
But the other problem we gave chosen to have in the UK is that transit in large towns/ small cities is generally terrible. Which is about a political choice we made that doesn't look that smart right now.
Maybe you should have used a bell.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/housing/articles/townsandcitiescharacteristicsofbuiltupareasenglandandwales/census2021
For example the median resident age for the Sidmouth built up area is 60 out of a population of 13,265
Shunning, as it does, the urban form of Paris intra muros or Manhattan, it feels like a melange of low-rise suburban villages, as organised by the NHS.
My team should be going during the Olympics (for work reasons) and it will be fascinating to compare with London 2012.
But keep farting away if it helps clear your bowels.
I'm not actually a massive fan of the ECP. AS far as I can tell it's only opening up a few new areas, and takes much of the adventure out of the walk.
On the rain thing, I've always been a fairweather cyclist, but getting an ebike last year has made a surprising difference. I still don't enjoy riding the Proper Bike in the rain but the ebike is no problem. Don't know why that is.
Those people turned up with guns and pikes whereas J6 guys turned up with sandwiches. Bad call.
I had scenery overload doing the Rocky Mountaineer from Calgary to Vancouver - soon enough one jaw-dropping stunning mountain blends into another and you can't take it all in anymore.
Brown did precisely what the constitution required him to do - sit in Downing Street as the elected PM until a replacement PM could be agreed. I know the right describe that as him being a "sore loser" and a "squatter" but that says more about them than him.
If you don't want to call the Trump plan a "Coup" that is fine. Is "plan to illegally and unconstitutionally overturn the result of an election which he knew he had legally lost so that he could be declared President anyway" better for you?
I'll take him at his word and stop responding.
Everyone clearly sees everyone else and there is more room.
Clearly this is only a small tweak as most roads are not one way.
Also the results showed that it wasn't what the people wanted even when he won the electoral college in 2016. Other results in 2018 and 2020, 2022 showed that Trump continues to be a loser.
London, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool are all pretty flat. All bigger than your aforementioned cities. So is the much vaunted “Oxford-Cambridge corridor”.
Some of us have actually travelled a bit and seen the world. You should try it some time.
And perhaps read up on William of Orange or Van Dyck or something.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4132531-pence-condemns-trump-on-jan-6-indictment-country-is-more-important/
"Oh, look: here comes Hull down the motorway in a car."
Brilliant.
I did not. I agree with your last sentence, but add Irish to North Walian.
Ask ten different scientists about the environment, population control, genetics, and you'll get ten different answers, but there's one thing every scientist on the planet agrees on. Whether it happens in a hundred years or a thousand years or a million years, eventually our Sun will grow cold and go out. When that happens, it won't just take us. It'll take Marilyn Monroe, and Lao-Tzu, and Einstein, and Morobuto, and Buddy Holly, and Aristophanes, and - all of this - all of this - was for nothing. Unless we go to the stars.
Or drive, even. But most days the weather is fine for cycling.
No that's Trump, Clinton was a blow job.
Cycling is about culture more than anything else.
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2023/aug/02/oldest-species-swimming-jellyfish-discovered-505m-year-old-fossils
Jan 6th was not a coup.
It showed a ragtag mob lead by Steven Shaman in his horns and other deluded no-hope types, no doubt provoked and egged on by Donald Trump, ending up, somehow, in Washington inside the Capitol building which I'm pretty sure no one really thought they would or could ever reach.
Once in, they didn't really know what to do and hung around sitting on chairs and smoking weed.
They were not an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force although they posed a very real and present danger to those inside the Capitol, both police and legislators, and I can perfectly understand that these people were and have been since traumatised by the experience.
But it was not a coup. The massed forces of the state were pretty quickly brought into play against them and they were relatively quickly subdued. There was neither a shadow administration ready to take over, nor the force at its disposal for it to do so. They had the run of the Capitol but didn't appoint a president or ruling council or a Get Your Arse Over Here DJT And Run The Country Committee. I think they might like to have had DJT back running the place but they didn't actually take any steps to enable it.
Some years ago Otis Ferry and a few mates barged into the House of Commons, shouting the odds about foxhunting. They were given conditional discharges and fined, I believe, as a result. That wasn't a coup either.
Remember cultists can recover, good luck.
For the rest, that's democracy. Hoping for a 'black swan event' (I'm not going to probe what that might be) to stop this awful act of people voting for what they want is not your finest hour.
But anyway. Go to Connah's Quay or Buckley or St. Asaph and listen to the accent,and reflect on the way Liverpool grew in the 19th century. Flintshire or (inland) Denbighshire Welsh accents sound in many cases almost indistinguishable from Scouse.
London is THE green city.
Coming from Auckland, that was not as obvious as it seems now.
London should lean even more into this.
The rioters came very close to Mike Pence having previously erected a makeshift scaffold and chanted 'Hang Mike Pence'. Pence refused to get in a Secret Service car that would have taken him away from the Capitol so that he could do his duty and ratify the results.
If Pence or other lawmakers had been killed would Trump have imposed martial law? Or would he simply have appointed a pliable VP who would have accepted the fake electors that Republicans had put in place across a number of swing states.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/how-the-trump-fake-electors-scheme-became-a-corrupt-plan-according-to-the-indictment/ar-AA1eFv00
There are a number of ways some legal, most not, that Trump and allies sought to overturn the election and keep Trump in power. Luckily American democracy held this time but an unpunished coup attempt becomes a rehearsal.
A coup d'état, or simply a coup, is an illegal and overt attempt by the military or other government elites to unseat the incumbent leader.
Leaving aside the quibble that Trump was attempting to unseat the newly elected President before he was sworn in, the actions alleged in the indictment certainly meet the essentials of that definition.
Wrexham and Rhyl are surely economic satellites of Merseyside.
Less true of Llandudno but it’d be interesting to know the breakdown of domestic tourists. And BigG himself is an incomer from, I think, Manchester.
So suddenly - despite saying I dont want Trump as president - Im a MAGA man .
Questioning spin is what this site is supposed to do.
But if you want to assume all those politicians and lawyers are telling you the Gods honest truth then do so. But I wont.
1 Interfere with state processes to "find" the votes Trump needed to win. The pending legal action in Georgia is in response to Trump's direct attempt to overturn their result
2 Have GOP state legislatures send rival electors. When the GOP ran the state but the vote had gone Democrat, simply send the Trump electors that the election doesn't mandate. If you can stop the genuine electors then all the better
3 The electoral college meets. Chaos thanks to rival slates of electors. Pence then throws the EC out and the election goes to Congress where the GOP majority simply re-elect Trump.
Where this all fell apart is Mike Pence having an attack of conscience. His discussions with Dan Quayle are very well documented - Quayle told him repeatedly and increasingly firmly that he had zero options other than to certify the real electors votes.
Once Pence refused to co-operate with the plot, the frenzy was aimed at him. Either make him change his mind, or simply remove him, have Trump declare martial law, and then send the election to congress. So the riot was to pressure/remove Pence. You say that the mob didn't have a plan. The mob *was* the plan. The shadow administration didn't exist because the coup was being orchestrated by the existing administration to stay in power.
Perhaps the word "coup" has been used as a distraction. But there was an illegal and unconstitutional plot to overturn the election result.
The purpose of the riot, as far as Trump was concerned, was force a postponement of Congress‘ vote. They were just a tool - the rioters themselves didn’t need to have a fully fledged plan to coup the government themselves because that wasn’t part of the plan in the first place. They didn’t need to be “an organised force seeking to overthrow the state by force”, nor could they be. They just needed to be organised enough to delay Congress by 24-48 hours. The rest Trump would take care of himself, riding in like a knight of old to “restore order”.
https://geoportal.statistics.gov.uk/documents/counties-december-1961-map-in-england-and-wales-1/explore
I think @Casino_Royale needs an Omafiets, which comes with everything including hub gears, dynamo lights, luggage rack, coaster (pedal backwards) brakes, chain cover, step through frame, built-in frame lock, very comfortable riding position, and will last about 25 years.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aESqrP3hfi8
Again, another reason why people aren't going to go anywhere near cycling.
All these "well just put the bike on your back and walk that bit" or "always carry a spare wheel and tool kit because..." or "bring a spare set of clothes to work and change there" you throw out as though they are the easiest thing in the world to navigate and for you they are.
But @Casino is absolutely right. Cycling is for those up to around their 50s and not all of them to start with, and requires preparation and fitness and kit and facilities and attitude that simply are not available now and aren't on anyone's priority list for the foreseeable future. And that is aside from the cycle lanes springing up everywhere.