In off-topic news that will leave NickPalmer having kittens, I hope those South of the Pennines are prepared for a bit of a shock tomorrow:
With Yorkshire joining in on Thursday:
Though that’s possibly just hors d’œuvres. Later in the month…?
So it might stop raining then? Nice.
2023 - the Year With No UK Summer?
Have you forgotten June already?
Well it's August now!
Yes doesnt time fly.Lots of things have happened since June.
Indeed so, 100,000 Russian soldiers have died, and 500 of their tanks have been destroyed.
This is not good news for ukraine.
Oh no, 100,000 dead Russian soldiers isi bloody brilliant for Ukraine.
Ukraine has an unlimited number of soldiers and new recruits, backed with the best arms that NATO has to offer, willing to fight for the existence of their country.
Russia, on the other hand, is relying on a bunch of mercenaries and unwilling young conscripts, as well as a screwed economy from which everyone with the means to do so has already escaped.
There has been a bit of a swingback in recent weeks, presumably due to the disappointment at a lack of simple, large breakthroughs for the Ukrainians, to a common view pre and just prior to the February 2022 increased invasion, to point at the sheer numbers and cash available to the two sides, and declare Ukraine has no chance.
Now, it turned out the Ukrainians were able to fight back a lot more than most of those taking that view initially believed, which encouraged further Western support and optimism which is now waning a bit, but similar people are back with a variation on the theme being that stalemate is inevitable for the same reasons.
Certainly it is a possibility, nobody here is an expert and even experts don't really seem to know all that much, but raw numbers are not everything, for reasons such as you note and more, and whilst there are reasons the regime in Russia would do an awful lot to keep going with this disaster, but their theoretical ability to overwhelm Ukraine with their sheer size is a factor less seen in reality, and the tentative mobilisations which have taken place (as well as initiating things with a more limited force), would suggest bringing their size to bear is not as straightforward for the regime as it would like.
Demographically both nations may be more screwed than they already were as a result of the war unfortunately.
Interesting comments from Bill Maher on the barbie movie.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
I watched it in a packed theatre on a midweek evening, over a week after release.
At the end of the movie people applauded.
It was silly. It was absurd.
But it absolutely wasn't man hating. In fact, the very last speech by Barbie was about how a world where women were on top, and the Kens were underneath wouldn't work.
It was well made and probably as good a film as you could make of Barbie, it made me chuckle several times, but I confess I don't know how it has become a major phenomenom and success, as it's not that clever or amazing once the set up has been established, but well done to the whole lot of them for smashing it with audiences and critics and being the movie of the moment.
However, that doesn't take away that many of the criticisms are just plain dumb - like objecting to how the Mattel board is portrayed in a movie Mattel signed off on!
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this week.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
Interesting comments from Bill Maher on the barbie movie.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
I watched it in a packed theatre on a midweek evening, over a week after release.
At the end of the movie people applauded.
It was silly. It was absurd.
But it absolutely wasn't man hating. In fact, the very last speech by Barbie was about how a world where women were on top, and the Kens were underneath wouldn't work.
It was well made and probably as good a film as you could make of Barbie, it made me chuckle several times, but I confess I don't know how it has become a major phenomenom and success, as it's not that clever or amazing once the set up has been established, but well done to the whole lot of them for smashing it with audiences and critics and being the movie of the moment.
However, that doesn't take away that many of the criticisms are just plain dumb - like objecting to how the Mattel board is portrayed in a movie Mattel signed off on!
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this week.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
The more time that passes since I saw it the more I question if it was really that good.
Still, I imagine it will hold up with critics better than the two I saw this weekend, Meg 2: The Trench, and Joy Ride, though the latter was actually pretty funny (if with a name that doesn't relate to the movie at all).
This was the botched response to an FOI request, and seems to involve the entire PSNI force.
Of all the forces to happen to, the one for whom it would be the most damaging.
Given how the police work I assume those responsible for the cock up will be promoted.
Don't be silly. Lessons Will Be Learned*
*No actual lessons included. No actual learning included. May contain nuts. May contain nutters. The competence of your Police Force may go down or down. All wrongs Reserved.
Interesting comments from Bill Maher on the barbie movie.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
I watched it in a packed theatre on a midweek evening, over a week after release.
At the end of the movie people applauded.
It was silly. It was absurd.
But it absolutely wasn't man hating. In fact, the very last speech by Barbie was about how a world where women were on top, and the Kens were underneath wouldn't work.
It was well made and probably as good a film as you could make of Barbie, it made me chuckle several times, but I confess I don't know how it has become a major phenomenom and success, as it's not that clever or amazing once the set up has been established, but well done to the whole lot of them for smashing it with audiences and critics and being the movie of the moment.
However, that doesn't take away that many of the criticisms are just plain dumb - like objecting to how the Mattel board is portrayed in a movie Mattel signed off on!
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this week.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
The more time that passes since I saw it the more I question if it was really that good.
Still, I imagine it will hold up with critics better than the two I saw this weekend, Meg 2: The Trench, and Joy Ride, though the latter was actually pretty funny (if with a name that doesn't relate to the movie at all).
Patch Tuesday (which is effectively now given time differences) was a bit hit and miss for me and needed a spot of manual intervention. Hope yours goes smoothly.
Interesting comments from Bill Maher on the barbie movie.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
I watched it in a packed theatre on a midweek evening, over a week after release.
At the end of the movie people applauded.
It was silly. It was absurd.
But it absolutely wasn't man hating. In fact, the very last speech by Barbie was about how a world where women were on top, and the Kens were underneath wouldn't work.
It was well made and probably as good a film as you could make of Barbie, it made me chuckle several times, but I confess I don't know how it has become a major phenomenom and success, as it's not that clever or amazing once the set up has been established, but well done to the whole lot of them for smashing it with audiences and critics and being the movie of the moment.
However, that doesn't take away that many of the criticisms are just plain dumb - like objecting to how the Mattel board is portrayed in a movie Mattel signed off on!
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this week.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
The more time that passes since I saw it the more I question if it was really that good.
Still, I imagine it will hold up with critics better than the two I saw this weekend, Meg 2: The Trench, and Joy Ride, though the latter was actually pretty funny (if with a name that doesn't relate to the movie at all).
I have absolute no idea how the first movie, basically a big budget version of those SyFy channel creature movies, ever got made, let alone how a sequel was.
I have a feeling the Chinese lead from the first was unpersoned and went off the grid for several years until the CCP released her back into the wild, and so is not in the sequel.
Interesting comments from Bill Maher on the barbie movie.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
I watched it in a packed theatre on a midweek evening, over a week after release.
At the end of the movie people applauded.
It was silly. It was absurd.
But it absolutely wasn't man hating. In fact, the very last speech by Barbie was about how a world where women were on top, and the Kens were underneath wouldn't work.
It was well made and probably as good a film as you could make of Barbie, it made me chuckle several times, but I confess I don't know how it has become a major phenomenom and success, as it's not that clever or amazing once the set up has been established, but well done to the whole lot of them for smashing it with audiences and critics and being the movie of the moment.
However, that doesn't take away that many of the criticisms are just plain dumb - like objecting to how the Mattel board is portrayed in a movie Mattel signed off on!
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this week.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
The more time that passes since I saw it the more I question if it was really that good.
Still, I imagine it will hold up with critics better than the two I saw this weekend, Meg 2: The Trench, and Joy Ride, though the latter was actually pretty funny (if with a name that doesn't relate to the movie at all).
I have absolute no idea how the first movie, basically a big budget version of those SyFy channel creature movies, ever got made, let alone how a sequel was.
I have a feeling the Chinese lead from the first was unpersoned and went off the grid for several years until the CCP released her back into the wild, and so is not in the sequel.
I think it was a weird interaction between Chinese money trying to buy into Hollywood and Hollywood selling crap to naive investors.
Remember, drilling dry oil wells is very profitable. For the chaps paid to drill the holes.
New polling - given exclusively to Channel 4 News - shows a Labour landslide victory with around 460 seats and the Conservatives reduced to 90 seats - if there were an imminent general election.
Useful information for those tempted to bet on the next Tory leader.
I think everyone knows my views on that score. Get in now while you still can.
Err… nope. FWIW I can’t see past Mordaunt.
Mordaunt would be sensible. Media-friendly, some 21st century instincts. Not sure what she's be like as a potential PM, but that's likely to be quite a way down the realistic checklist in 2025. First term LotO is about making noise, and she can do that. Two catches, though:
1 WIll she be available? Portsmouth North ought to be safe, but at 100ish seats, who knows?
2 Will the Conservative Party be in a mood to be sensible? Some of the vibes are that Rishi is too sensible and centrist, in which case one wonders how red the meat will have to be. Stand by for the revolution to devour... someone like Lee Anderson.
You highlight the points I was considering. She is nowhere near to being up to being PM but so what? She never will be. She is good on her feet, good at the cutting remark and can hold things together. Capable of leading the Tories to a less severe defeat in 2029. That’s about as good as it is going to get.
I don’t sense any appetite in the party for anything “moderate” after the election. Too many seem to see Sunak, who’s bloody right wing, as not right wing enough.
JRM would be a pretty good bet for leader if he keeps his seat (and goes for it).
Suicidal. And not in a Dignatas kind of way either. Gory and bloody.
There was a poll I remember in 2019 which had a Mogg led Tories on 35%, not as high as Boris but higher than the Tories are on now.
Remember Corbyn was supposed to be suicide for Labour but still ended up with higher voteshares in 2017 and 2019 than Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband ever got and a hung parliament in the former despite landslide defeat in the latter.
That was then. After his more recent behaviour, I think there'd still be a three and a five in the figure but a fairly important decimal point in the middle.
No, he will rally the rightwing core vote as Corbyn rallied the leftwing core vote even if he has less appeal to centrists.
That is actually better than a leader who fails to rally their core vote while also losing centrists too like Ed Miliband in 2015, Brown in 2010 or Major in 1997
You mean, like Hague in 2001? Or Foot in 1983?
They both had an advantage over Mogg though. They were both very intelligent.
You could add Hague too, actually Howard was better at rallying the right behind him in 2005 than Hague was in 2001 even if the centre again stayed with Blair.
Foot did manage to keep Labour second ahead of the SDP in 1983 which was not always certain
You mean the Alliance, I think, young HY
Yes 1983 was the closest the Liberals have ever come to being one of the main 2 parties again, they and their alliance partner, the SDP of Roy Jenkins, were just 2% behind Foot's Labour
The good old days, eh young HY? It was a shame that the decent moderate Conservatives were talked out of joining the SDP.There was just one who did. If the Alliance and the SDP had prevailed, they might well have been in government until the present day - and just think of all the problems that we would have avoided....
It is interesting to note that the SDP, being a newly formed party, had no policy of its own, and so the Alliance fought with considerable success on Liberal Party policies.
It is also interesting to note that Starmer today is pushing the selfsame policies, again with a high level of acceptance among the public in general. He is even using the same slogans.
Only one Tory MP defected to the SDP in the shape of Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler, but a number of members of the House of Lords also did, including IIRC the Duke of Devonshire (whose country house is of course Chatsworth).
The Conservatives will NEVER win a majority again while GB News is an entity.
Discuss.
Are you suggesting a causal link, or just a coincidence?
Probably a casual link... but peddling right wing conspiracies all day, every day on national TV probably isn't a good look for CON.
And GB News "prime time" presenters: Odd ball Farage > Eccentric JRM > Weirdo Dan Wootton... are probably toxic to at least 75% of the electorate ultimately...
Cameron (and Osborne) were right with their analysis in 2006... The only way Con win (and the same is true for Lab) is to campaign from the center (right or left depending on weather you're talking about Con or Lab respectively)
All GB News does is encourage Con to spiral off to the far right and just as Lab could never win an election from the far left, so Con will never win an election from the far right.
New polling - given exclusively to Channel 4 News - shows a Labour landslide victory with around 460 seats and the Conservatives reduced to 90 seats - if there were an imminent general election.
Useful information for those tempted to bet on the next Tory leader.
I think everyone knows my views on that score. Get in now while you still can.
Err… nope. FWIW I can’t see past Mordaunt.
Mordaunt would be sensible. Media-friendly, some 21st century instincts. Not sure what she's be like as a potential PM, but that's likely to be quite a way down the realistic checklist in 2025. First term LotO is about making noise, and she can do that. Two catches, though:
1 WIll she be available? Portsmouth North ought to be safe, but at 100ish seats, who knows?
2 Will the Conservative Party be in a mood to be sensible? Some of the vibes are that Rishi is too sensible and centrist, in which case one wonders how red the meat will have to be. Stand by for the revolution to devour... someone like Lee Anderson.
You highlight the points I was considering. She is nowhere near to being up to being PM but so what? She never will be. She is good on her feet, good at the cutting remark and can hold things together. Capable of leading the Tories to a less severe defeat in 2029. That’s about as good as it is going to get.
I don’t sense any appetite in the party for anything “moderate” after the election. Too many seem to see Sunak, who’s bloody right wing, as not right wing enough.
JRM would be a pretty good bet for leader if he keeps his seat (and goes for it).
Suicidal. And not in a Dignatas kind of way either. Gory and bloody.
There was a poll I remember in 2019 which had a Mogg led Tories on 35%, not as high as Boris but higher than the Tories are on now.
Remember Corbyn was supposed to be suicide for Labour but still ended up with higher voteshares in 2017 and 2019 than Gordon Brown or Ed Miliband ever got and a hung parliament in the former despite landslide defeat in the latter.
That was then. After his more recent behaviour, I think there'd still be a three and a five in the figure but a fairly important decimal point in the middle.
No, he will rally the rightwing core vote as Corbyn rallied the leftwing core vote even if he has less appeal to centrists.
That is actually better than a leader who fails to rally their core vote while also losing centrists too like Ed Miliband in 2015, Brown in 2010 or Major in 1997
You mean, like Hague in 2001? Or Foot in 1983?
They both had an advantage over Mogg though. They were both very intelligent.
You could add Hague too, actually Howard was better at rallying the right behind him in 2005 than Hague was in 2001 even if the centre again stayed with Blair.
Foot did manage to keep Labour second ahead of the SDP in 1983 which was not always certain
You mean the Alliance, I think, young HY
Yes 1983 was the closest the Liberals have ever come to being one of the main 2 parties again, they and their alliance partner, the SDP of Roy Jenkins, were just 2% behind Foot's Labour
The good old days, eh young HY? It was a shame that the decent moderate Conservatives were talked out of joining the SDP.There was just one who did. If the Alliance and the SDP had prevailed, they might well have been in government until the present day - and just think of all the problems that we would have avoided....
It is interesting to note that the SDP, being a newly formed party, had no policy of its own, and so the Alliance fought with considerable success on Liberal Party policies.
It is also interesting to note that Starmer today is pushing the selfsame policies, again with a high level of acceptance among the public in general. He is even using the same slogans.
Only one Tory MP defected to the SDP in the shape of Christopher Brocklebank-Fowler, but a number of members of the House of Lords also did, including IIRC the Duke of Devonshire (whose country house is of course Chatsworth).
On topic, sort of: Our Gracious Host reminds me of a question I have been wondering about, off and on, for decades:
Are some (many?) environmentalists members of what it is fair to consider more a religious movement than a political movement? (This is neither a new idea, nor original. I encountered it at least 40 years ago when I read McPhee's "Encounters with the Archdruid".)
And, as a result, have environmentalists sometimes come to be obstacles in improving our environment, with rational policies? Which we have been doing here in the US, for decades. Both our air and water are far cleaner than they were, Even Greenhouse gas emissions are down, from their 2007 peak. https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/
(Full disclosure: I have no idea whether the Conservative attack mentioned in the header is in part justified, or a even a good political ploy. I can say that, traditionally, in the US, even completely peaceful demonstrators are seldom looked on with much favor by most voters.)
On the Barbie movie: I see that it has been banned in Vietnam, because of a map showing China's disputed territorial claims.
(Which reminds me: I'll have to write another letter offering a colorful "Free Tibet" bumper sticker, this one to the movie's producer. I doubt they will accept my offer, since I will ask that they promise to display it prominently.)
The Conservatives will NEVER win a majority again while GB News is an entity.
Discuss.
Are you suggesting a causal link, or just a coincidence?
Probably a casual link... but peddling right wing conspiracies all day, every day on national TV probably isn't a good look for CON.
And GB News "prime time" presenters: Odd ball Farage > Eccentric JRM > Weirdo Dan Wootton... are probably toxic to at least 75% of the electorate ultimately...
Cameron (and Osborne) were right with their analysis in 2006... The only way Con win (and the same is true for Lab) is to campaign from the center (right or left depending on weather you're talking about Con or Lab respectively)
All GB News does is encourage Con to spiral off to the far right and just as Lab could never win an election from the far left, so Con will never win an election from the far right.
"We're losing popularity after 13 years and internal chaos"
Interesting comments from Bill Maher on the barbie movie.
OK, "Barbie": I was hoping it wouldn't be preachy, man-hating, and a #ZombieLie - alas, it was all three. What is a Zombie Lie? Something that never was true, but certain people refuse to stop saying it (tax cuts for the rich increase revenues, e.g.); OR something that USED to be true but no longer is, but certain people pretend it's still true. "Barbie" is this kind of #ZombieLie. Spoiler alert, Barbie fights the Patriarchy. Right up to the Mattel board who created her, consisting of 12 white men! The Patriarchy! Except there's a Mattel board in real life, and it's 7 men and 5 women. OK, not perfect even-steven, but not the way the board IN THE MOVIE - which takes place in 2023 - is portrayed. And not really any longer deserving of the word "patriarchy." Yes, there was one, and remnants of it remain - but this movie is so 2000-LATE. At one point the Barbies have to win over the Kens, and they are told to do it by pretending to act helpless and not know how to do stuff. Helen Gurley Brown called, she wants her premise back. Yes, that WAS a thing. I saw "Barbie" with a woman in her 30s who said, "I don't know a single woman of any age who would act like that today." I know, I know, 'How could I know about the patriarchy, I AM a man!' That argument is so old and so silly. Of course, none of us can know exactly what others go through life, but I can see the world around me, and I can read data. The real Mattel board is a pretty close mirror of the country, where 45% of the 449 board seats filled last year in Fortune 500 companies were women. Truth is, I'm not the one who's out of step - I'm living in the year we're living in. Barbie is fun, I enjoyed it - but it IS a #ZombieLie. And people who don't go along with zombie lies did not take some red pill - just staying true to CURRENT reality. Let's live in the year we're living in! Hi Ken!!! #BarbieMovie
I watched it in a packed theatre on a midweek evening, over a week after release.
At the end of the movie people applauded.
It was silly. It was absurd.
But it absolutely wasn't man hating. In fact, the very last speech by Barbie was about how a world where women were on top, and the Kens were underneath wouldn't work.
It was well made and probably as good a film as you could make of Barbie, it made me chuckle several times, but I confess I don't know how it has become a major phenomenom and success, as it's not that clever or amazing once the set up has been established, but well done to the whole lot of them for smashing it with audiences and critics and being the movie of the moment.
However, that doesn't take away that many of the criticisms are just plain dumb - like objecting to how the Mattel board is portrayed in a movie Mattel signed off on!
I haven't seen it yet. Maybe this week.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
The more time that passes since I saw it the more I question if it was really that good.
Still, I imagine it will hold up with critics better than the two I saw this weekend, Meg 2: The Trench, and Joy Ride, though the latter was actually pretty funny (if with a name that doesn't relate to the movie at all).
The only "shark movie" that has ever been any good was JAWS (1975) and what most people forget about that movie, is that it wasn't good because of the shark (in fact you hardly ever saw the Shark) but it was good because:
1. For acts 1 and 2 you didn't really see anything when the shark attacked. Spielberg left it all up to the viewers imagination.
2. As the "Shark" ever hardly worked, the relationship between Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfus became the central point of acts 2 and 3.
3. When is comes to movie scores John Williams = GOD
4. The young Spielberg from JAWS to Schindlers List was exceptionally good.
Ohio Special Election on Issue 1 to amend state constitution requiring 60% to amend it
Very early returns, from approaching half the counties, est. 13% of votes counted statewide
No 281,694 71.6% Yes 111,710 28.4% Total reported 393,404
Fearless forecast - Buckeye State GOP bites the Big Weenie of bitter defeat tonight.
With 21.1% in, it's 70:30 against changing the constitution.
I think it looks like a fairly convincing win for "no change", and which will - I suspect - be followed in November by a similarly convincing win for adding abortion protections to the State constitution.
Which will, of course, mean that the Legislature will have succeeded in increasing abortion rights in Ohio.
Ohio Special Election on Issue 1 to amend state constitution requiring 60% to amend it
Very early returns, from approaching half the counties, est. 13% of votes counted statewide
No 281,694 71.6% Yes 111,710 28.4% Total reported 393,404
Fearless forecast - Buckeye State GOP bites the Big Weenie of bitter defeat tonight.
With 21.1% in, it's 70:30 against changing the constitution.
I think it looks like a fairly convincing win for "no change", and which will - I suspect - be followed in November by a similarly convincing win for adding abortion protections to the State constitution.
Which will, of course, mean that the Legislature will have succeeded in increasing abortion rights in Ohio.
Dobbs is the gift that keeps on giving for the Dems. Great to see the GOPs latest shameless attempt to overturn democracy blow up in their faces
Ohio Special Election on Issue 1 to amend state constitution requiring 60% to amend it
Very early returns, from approaching half the counties, est. 13% of votes counted statewide
No 281,694 71.6% Yes 111,710 28.4% Total reported 393,404
Fearless forecast - Buckeye State GOP bites the Big Weenie of bitter defeat tonight.
With 21.1% in, it's 70:30 against changing the constitution.
I think it looks like a fairly convincing win for "no change", and which will - I suspect - be followed in November by a similarly convincing win for adding abortion protections to the State constitution.
Which will, of course, mean that the Legislature will have succeeded in increasing abortion rights in Ohio.
AND making itself, and the Republican Party, look like dipshits.
Warning UK set for five years of lost economic growth ... The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said a triple blow of Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war had badly affected the UK economy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66436792
Warning UK set for five years of lost economic growth ... The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said a triple blow of Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war had badly affected the UK economy. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66436792
Sadly I don’t see the SKS govt, should it come in, being able to sort it out either.
In off-topic news that will leave NickPalmer having kittens, I hope those South of the Pennines are prepared for a bit of a shock tomorrow:
With Yorkshire joining in on Thursday:
Though that’s possibly just hors d’œuvres. Later in the month…?
So it might stop raining then? Nice.
2023 - the Year With No UK Summer?
Have you forgotten June already?
I was just looking at reservoir levels. Well up across England. Not ridiculously out of line with the overall average for the time of year but what *is* impressive is that that's a recovery from near-record lows last autumn.
It has actually been a good summer. The summer we needed.
But we're British, and if we can't grumble about the weather we'd be miserable.
July was actually marginally warmer than long term average in England and Wales too. Though cooler than the recent 1981-2010 average.
Shit sandwich summer I think, because the latter 2/3rds of August look pretty good at the moment.
Totally shit from June in Scotland, our summer was May.
Genuine question: you often complain about Scottish weather, why don't you move somewhere sunny, or at least buy a second home somewhere sunny? It seems like you can afford it?
I'm not trying to tease or catch you out. I am genuinely intrigued by the way people react to weather (as it impacts me psychologically quite hard: I get SAD)
@leon Much as I complain , when it is nice it is hard to beat and you can travel easily , no pollution , on coast with open country all round. My wife would not live elsewhere as our grandchildren live locally. I have to say I should have stayed in USAbut chose to come home in 2000 as daughter was here, though seems lots of USA is pretty dire nowadays. I already have a second house locally , helping a less fortunate family member so not keen on another one. My biggest grip is we don't get snow like we used to here. However this has not been best summer we have had.
On topic, sort of: Our Gracious Host reminds me of a question I have been wondering about, off and on, for decades:
Are some (many?) environmentalists members of what it is fair to consider more a religious movement than a political movement? (This is neither a new idea, nor original. I encountered it at least 40 years ago when I read McPhee's "Encounters with the Archdruid".)
And, as a result, have environmentalists sometimes come to be obstacles in improving our environment, with rational policies? Which we have been doing here in the US, for decades. Both our air and water are far cleaner than they were, Even Greenhouse gas emissions are down, from their 2007 peak. https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/
(Full disclosure: I have no idea whether the Conservative attack mentioned in the header is in part justified, or a even a good political ploy. I can say that, traditionally, in the US, even completely peaceful demonstrators are seldom looked on with much favor by most voters.)
Certainly political, and often religious these days when expounded by those who are humanists - implicit in which is the belief that humans are special.
You can always twig the fake environmentalists when they quickly express their concerns in human terms; regarding nature in terms of instrumental value (value to humans) rather than intrinsic value (value in itself).
The language is usually that of concern for human civilisation itself rather than concern for everything that is not human. For example, environmentalists who purely bang on about climate change (because they are concerned about the effect on humans alongside making a left-wing political point) rather than, say, gross human over-population and tragic loss of biodiversity and natural beauty and deforestation crimes are not environmentalists.
Comments
Now, it turned out the Ukrainians were able to fight back a lot more than most of those taking that view initially believed, which encouraged further Western support and optimism which is now waning a bit, but similar people are back with a variation on the theme being that stalemate is inevitable for the same reasons.
Certainly it is a possibility, nobody here is an expert and even experts don't really seem to know all that much, but raw numbers are not everything, for reasons such as you note and more, and whilst there are reasons the regime in Russia would do an awful lot to keep going with this disaster, but their theoretical ability to overwhelm Ukraine with their sheer size is a factor less seen in reality, and the tentative mobilisations which have taken place (as well as initiating things with a more limited force), would suggest bringing their size to bear is not as straightforward for the regime as it would like.
Demographically both nations may be more screwed than they already were as a result of the war unfortunately.
Given how the police work I assume those responsible for the cock up will be promoted.
The thing I found most disconcerting in Oppenheimer was the lack of scale. For someone who hasn't read the background, it looked like the atom bomb was made by a badly dressed bunch of scientists in an Old West Frontier town. Rather than a project that took x% of America's GDP.
I was expecting at least a shot or two of Oppie contemplating the separation canyons (vast buildings where they pretty much invented remote operation, because of radioactivity) , or Y12 (where they used all the silver in the US treasury for winding magnets).
The separation canyons were vast and eerie - speaking to the vast sums spent on the project and its strange new hazards.
Still, I imagine it will hold up with critics better than the two I saw this weekend, Meg 2: The Trench, and Joy Ride, though the latter was actually pretty funny (if with a name that doesn't relate to the movie at all).
*No actual lessons included. No actual learning included. May contain nuts. May contain nutters. The competence of your Police Force may go down or down. All wrongs Reserved.
Unlike this magnificent addition to shark movies - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U87zVkIXNI0
I have a feeling the Chinese lead from the first was unpersoned and went off the grid for several years until the CCP released her back into the wild, and so is not in the sequel.
Remember, drilling dry oil wells is very profitable. For the chaps paid to drill the holes.
EXCLUSIVE: Experts claim bot fortune tellers are better than real ones because they can draw on wisdom from a vast database and are 'unaffected by human emotions or preconceptions'
https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/weird-news/ai-replacing-psychics-fortune-telling-30659524
They didn't see that coming, quips the Daily Star.
Oracle founder gives ex-PM’s project $33m, with another $49m on the way
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/tony-blair-institute-bankrolled-by-us-tech-tycoon-larry-ellison-vdsttrjtt (£££)
Still think American tech billionaire GOP donors are uninterested in British politics? Have you asked Circleline?
Ron DeSantis has replaced the manager of his struggling presidential campaign a mere two weeks before the first debate between Republican party candidates.
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ron-desantis-replaces-presidential-campaign-chief-us-election-2024-6kjtr6m80 (£££)
"Mary Rose Museum under fire for ‘queering’ its collection"
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/mary-rose-museum-under-fire-for-queering-its-collection-ql8g883wf
Hence my new business venture, kle4's artisanal manure generation.
The Conservatives will NEVER win a majority again while GB News is an entity.
Discuss.
Very early returns, from approaching half the counties, est. 13% of votes counted statewide
No
281,694 71.6%
Yes
111,710 28.4%
Total reported
393,404
Fearless forecast - Buckeye State GOP bites the Big Weenie of bitter defeat tonight.
And GB News "prime time" presenters: Odd ball Farage > Eccentric JRM > Weirdo Dan Wootton... are probably toxic to at least 75% of the electorate ultimately...
Cameron (and Osborne) were right with their analysis in 2006... The only way Con win (and the same is true for Lab) is to campaign from the center (right or left depending on weather you're talking about Con or Lab respectively)
All GB News does is encourage Con to spiral off to the far right and just as Lab could never win an election from the far left, so Con will never win an election from the far right.
https://www.dispatch.com/story/news/politics/elections/2023/08/07/ohio-election-results-for-issue-1-aug-8-special-election/70542152007/
Are some (many?) environmentalists members of what it is fair to consider more a religious movement than a political movement? (This is neither a new idea, nor original. I encountered it at least 40 years ago when I read McPhee's "Encounters with the Archdruid".)
And, as a result, have environmentalists sometimes come to be obstacles in improving our environment, with rational policies? Which we have been doing here in the US, for decades. Both our air and water are far cleaner than they were, Even Greenhouse gas emissions are down, from their 2007 peak. https://www.c2es.org/content/u-s-emissions/
(Full disclosure: I have no idea whether the Conservative attack mentioned in the header is in part justified, or a even a good political ploy. I can say that, traditionally, in the US, even completely peaceful demonstrators are seldom looked on with much favor by most voters.)
(Which reminds me: I'll have to write another letter offering a colorful "Free Tibet" bumper sticker, this one to the movie's producer. I doubt they will accept my offer, since I will ask that they promise to display it prominently.)
"I know, let's listen to that new echo chamber!"
I'd forgotten what a fantastic song Valerie by Steve Winwood is IMO.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbKNICg-REA
1. For acts 1 and 2 you didn't really see anything when the shark attacked. Spielberg left it all up to the viewers imagination.
2. As the "Shark" ever hardly worked, the relationship between Scheider, Shaw and Dreyfus became the central point of acts 2 and 3.
3. When is comes to movie scores John Williams = GOD
4. The young Spielberg from JAWS to Schindlers List was exceptionally good.
I think it looks like a fairly convincing win for "no change", and which will - I suspect - be followed in November by a similarly convincing win for adding abortion protections to the State constitution.
Which will, of course, mean that the Legislature will have succeeded in increasing abortion rights in Ohio.
Just like in Kansas last year.
Issue 1
No 533,831 67.62%
Yes 255,639 32.38%
...
The National Institute for Economic and Social Research (Niesr) said a triple blow of Brexit, Covid and the Ukraine war had badly affected the UK economy.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-66436792
No 849,889 59.30%
Yes 583,259 40.70%
You can always twig the fake environmentalists when they quickly express their concerns in human terms; regarding nature in terms of instrumental value (value to humans) rather than intrinsic value (value in itself).
The language is usually that of concern for human civilisation itself rather than concern for everything that is not human. For example, environmentalists who purely bang on about climate change (because they are concerned about the effect on humans alongside making a left-wing political point) rather than, say, gross human over-population and tragic loss of biodiversity and natural beauty and deforestation crimes are not environmentalists.