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Lab’s by-election record has been mediocre – politicalbetting.com

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Comments

  • Flanner said:

    dixiedean said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    FPT

    We have reached a whole new world of plonkerdom on PB when Professor Richard Dawkins is defined as a Christian.

    Yet that is exactly where we are.

    Only on PB.

    Not quite. It's on a minor, unimportant news site as well:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm
    The 'Christian country' 'cultural Christian' topic is just tedious because people talk past one another even more than usual politics. It depends what one means - I'd have little trouble as an atheist referring to the country that way, depending what someone was trying to assert.

    Pretending that common arguments are 'only on PB' as if unique doesn't help either.
    It’s rot though. How can this be a Christian country when the majority of its population disbelieve in the Christian God?

    Clue: it isn’t. Hence why even PRIESTS now say it isn’t!
    You are saying it is impossible to be agnostic about existence of a God, and a Cultural Christian at the same time? Really?

    I think what Dawkins explained in the link Dr Y gave us seemed very plausible. A religion like Christianity isn’t just a philosophical concept, it’s cultural/tribal too.

    I’m sure I have read on PB very good stuff about Cultural Folkways in Britain, their relation to the English Civil war, how these same cultural behaviours travelled to the United States and played role in their Civil War too.
    Christianity without Christ is sophistical crap.
    But being without that philosophical element only allows examples, like Anabob, a perfect example, to, yes, get away with saying they are not strictly a Christian, but by being so culturally Christian they cannot get away with saying they “are in no way Christian, not even a teeny weeny bit.”

    They do need concede this fact.
    If they introduced payment by tapping instead of the collection bowl he'd be there like a shot.
    Well, good news! Cannock Church has.

    They bought one in the pandemic and can't be bothered to get rid of it.
    I've always thought that the weekly collection was hopelessly tax-inefficient, at least where it is for purposes that are legitimate for charity purposes. But maybe they now get the congregation to do Gift Aid now that it is electronic?
    Most members of the congregation give by standing order.

    But if you give weekly, you can fill out an envelope with a gift aid declaration on it. So it isn't tax inefficient from that point of view.
    Does the RC Church do the same?
    But with standing, kneeling, sitting, kneeling, sitting, Standing Orders?
    70% of donations to GWD Donation Stations in the UK are Gift Aided. (https://gwd.team/) The only reason my Catholic church doesn't use the technology is that it's located inconveniently for online transaction approval.

    Bizarrely: at the Coronation celebration at our local Anglican cathedral, almost no-one could contribute to the door collection because we - most of us routinely church-going - didn't have cash with us, assuming we'd be able to contribute by card.
    My sister and I visited an old church on our holidays this year. We wanted to put a quid or two in the collection box, but all they had was a QR code for donations.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,560
    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,356

    HYUFD said:

    ydoethur said:

    PB Pop Quiz - Who(m) were the only two UK PMs never ever elected to the House of Commons?

    Lord Rosebery (1894-95) would be one.

    I would have guessed Lord Bute for the other.

    Edit - that said, he was never UK PM, of course (before 1801) so I might be wrong.

    Edit edit - the only other possible candidate would I think be Lord Aberdeen (1852-55).
    Robert Gascoyne-Cecil, Lord Salisbury was an MP for Stamford from 1853-1868 when his father died and he became Marquess of Salisbury.

    At that point he entered the Lords from where he became PM from 1885-1892 and then again from 1895-1902.

    He was the last PM to hold the office fully from the Lords rather than the Commons
    "...was an MP for Stamford from 1853-1868 when his father died..."

    A very slow and drawn-out departure.
    Old boy was selfishly clinging to his heir's furniture and other inheritance.
    Quite an inheritance it was


    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hatfield_House
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,448

    Flanner said:

    dixiedean said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    FPT

    We have reached a whole new world of plonkerdom on PB when Professor Richard Dawkins is defined as a Christian.

    Yet that is exactly where we are.

    Only on PB.

    Not quite. It's on a minor, unimportant news site as well:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm
    The 'Christian country' 'cultural Christian' topic is just tedious because people talk past one another even more than usual politics. It depends what one means - I'd have little trouble as an atheist referring to the country that way, depending what someone was trying to assert.

    Pretending that common arguments are 'only on PB' as if unique doesn't help either.
    It’s rot though. How can this be a Christian country when the majority of its population disbelieve in the Christian God?

    Clue: it isn’t. Hence why even PRIESTS now say it isn’t!
    You are saying it is impossible to be agnostic about existence of a God, and a Cultural Christian at the same time? Really?

    I think what Dawkins explained in the link Dr Y gave us seemed very plausible. A religion like Christianity isn’t just a philosophical concept, it’s cultural/tribal too.

    I’m sure I have read on PB very good stuff about Cultural Folkways in Britain, their relation to the English Civil war, how these same cultural behaviours travelled to the United States and played role in their Civil War too.
    Christianity without Christ is sophistical crap.
    But being without that philosophical element only allows examples, like Anabob, a perfect example, to, yes, get away with saying they are not strictly a Christian, but by being so culturally Christian they cannot get away with saying they “are in no way Christian, not even a teeny weeny bit.”

    They do need concede this fact.
    If they introduced payment by tapping instead of the collection bowl he'd be there like a shot.
    Well, good news! Cannock Church has.

    They bought one in the pandemic and can't be bothered to get rid of it.
    I've always thought that the weekly collection was hopelessly tax-inefficient, at least where it is for purposes that are legitimate for charity purposes. But maybe they now get the congregation to do Gift Aid now that it is electronic?
    Most members of the congregation give by standing order.

    But if you give weekly, you can fill out an envelope with a gift aid declaration on it. So it isn't tax inefficient from that point of view.
    Does the RC Church do the same?
    But with standing, kneeling, sitting, kneeling, sitting, Standing Orders?
    70% of donations to GWD Donation Stations in the UK are Gift Aided. (https://gwd.team/) The only reason my Catholic church doesn't use the technology is that it's located inconveniently for online transaction approval.

    Bizarrely: at the Coronation celebration at our local Anglican cathedral, almost no-one could contribute to the door collection because we - most of us routinely church-going - didn't have cash with us, assuming we'd be able to contribute by card.
    My sister and I visited an old church on our holidays this year. We wanted to put a quid or two in the collection box, but all they had was a QR code for donations.
    Will become the norm - consider RSPB pin donation box theft.

  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,676

    Mark Thompson appointed Chief Executive of CNN

    https://x.com/skynews/status/1696917823690248631

    Falling upwards

  • CookieCookie Posts: 13,621

    Carnyx said:

    dixiedean said:

    ydoethur said:

    Carnyx said:

    ydoethur said:

    kle4 said:

    ydoethur said:

    FPT

    We have reached a whole new world of plonkerdom on PB when Professor Richard Dawkins is defined as a Christian.

    Yet that is exactly where we are.

    Only on PB.

    Not quite. It's on a minor, unimportant news site as well:

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7136682.stm
    The 'Christian country' 'cultural Christian' topic is just tedious because people talk past one another even more than usual politics. It depends what one means - I'd have little trouble as an atheist referring to the country that way, depending what someone was trying to assert.

    Pretending that common arguments are 'only on PB' as if unique doesn't help either.
    It’s rot though. How can this be a Christian country when the majority of its population disbelieve in the Christian God?

    Clue: it isn’t. Hence why even PRIESTS now say it isn’t!
    You are saying it is impossible to be agnostic about existence of a God, and a Cultural Christian at the same time? Really?

    I think what Dawkins explained in the link Dr Y gave us seemed very plausible. A religion like Christianity isn’t just a philosophical concept, it’s cultural/tribal too.

    I’m sure I have read on PB very good stuff about Cultural Folkways in Britain, their relation to the English Civil war, how these same cultural behaviours travelled to the United States and played role in their Civil War too.
    Christianity without Christ is sophistical crap.
    But being without that philosophical element only allows examples, like Anabob, a perfect example, to, yes, get away with saying they are not strictly a Christian, but by being so culturally Christian they cannot get away with saying they “are in no way Christian, not even a teeny weeny bit.”

    They do need concede this fact.
    If they introduced payment by tapping instead of the collection bowl he'd be there like a shot.
    Well, good news! Cannock Church has.

    They bought one in the pandemic and can't be bothered to get rid of it.
    I've always thought that the weekly collection was hopelessly tax-inefficient, at least where it is for purposes that are legitimate for charity purposes. But maybe they now get the congregation to do Gift Aid now that it is electronic?
    Most members of the congregation give by standing order.

    But if you give weekly, you can fill out an envelope with a gift aid declaration on it. So it isn't tax inefficient from that point of view.
    Does the RC Church do the same?
    But with standing, kneeling, sitting, kneeling, sitting, Standing Orders?
    You missed out the genuflection. That's the best bit.
    What's the difference with kneeling?
    Kneeling is both knees.

    Genuflection is just the one, and very briefly. A bit of a "blink and you'll miss it" version of "taking the knee".
    As immortalisedby Tom Lehrer in 'The Vatican Rag'.
    Though it is only now I connect the word and the action. Thanks Sandy!
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    Ouch, 3 x 6 from Finn Allan in the first over. Slightly bizarre choice of length from Luke Wood.
  • Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
  • rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


  • On topic, a bit harsh.

    The swing in Selby & Ainsty was the second-largest swing to Labour in a by-election since 1945, behind only Dudley West in 1994.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,645

    dixiedean said:

    Rishi to ban machetes and "zombie knives".
    Another issue swiftly and efficiently dealt with then.

    How do you define a machete? I've got a kukri that I use for gardening (yes I did get it in Nepal during my gap yah). Will this be illegal? Cos no way am I handing it in.
    Just use the IDS defence and you'll be fine.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,611

    Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
    Maybe. Or maybe the other nationalists in the area worked out what Michael Collins did - 26/32 of a loaf is much better than someone else eating your entire lunch.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,375
    Trump says Biden has “gone mad” and is leading America to WW3.

    https://x.com/tpostmillennial/status/1696676662593941639
  • Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    Can you please be specific?
    > Bedford, Eastern Cape
    > Bedford, Indiana
    > Bedford, Iowa (will play its part in January 2024)
    > Bedford, Kentucky
    > Bedford, Massachusetts
    > Bedford, New Hampshire (ditto)
    > Bedford, New York
    > Bedford, Nova Scotia
    > Bedford, Ohio
    > Bedford, Pennsylvania
    > Bedford, Quebec
    > Bedford, Tennessee
    > Bedford, Texas
    > Bedford, Virginia
    > Bedford, Western Australia
    > Bedford, Wyoming

    Plus some obscure burg somewhere in England?
  • Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
    Maybe. Or maybe the other nationalists in the area worked out what Michael Collins did - 26/32 of a loaf is much better than someone else eating your entire lunch.
    Personally think that Viktor Orban is throwback to Admiral Horthy, but without the up side.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,220
    The Gabon coup . Does anyone care ! The media seem to think we’re interested in hearing about yet another African country descending into anarchy . Similarly why are we subjected to hours of coverage about a Florida hurricane effecting a lot of climate change deniers and nutjob Trump supporters .
  • rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    But (playing Devil's advocate, or Fucker's whatever) isn't that level of tweet/YouTube hits itself significant?

    How does it stack up with other crap out there in the Great Blogosphere?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    Carse has surely got himself a ticket for the world cup. Superb bowling.
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,347
    And they

    Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    My grandfather, born 1862 do just outside Bedford, might have argued the point. He was, apparently, into Bible-based Christianity.
  • geoffwgeoffw Posts: 8,676
    edited August 2023
    Well I tried to watch Carlson-Orban, but I got cheesed off by the idiocy. Carlson is worse than Justin Webb
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    nico679 said:

    The Gabon coup . Does anyone care ! The media seem to think we’re interested in hearing about yet another African country descending into anarchy . Similarly why are we subjected to hours of coverage about a Florida hurricane effecting a lot of climate change deniers and nutjob Trump supporters .

    Not really. A completely fixed election, no real democracy at all and the military take over. Hey ho,

    As for the Floridian hurricane, well, nice pictures.
  • viewcode said:

    @FF43, @Leon, @Sean_F, @SeaShantyIrish2

    Regarding Orban

    You may be interested in the following two books:

    The former details what Orban is doing, the latter details the logistics of election engineering
    Actually, Orban is copying previous playbooks of former Hungarian oligarch-prime ministers: Kálmán Tisza (pre-WWI) and István Bethlen (post-WWI).

    Both Tisza and Bethlan were authoritarian, but should be noted that the later was never a pro-Hitler stooge, in the way that Orban is a pro-Putin pimp.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,645
    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    And probably 6,439 of those were just different iterations of Leon......
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,246
    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Surely it's more that a 'view' measures a metric such as viewing for over 6 seconds (or even less), long enough to confirm you were 'viewing' the content rather than scrolling past it.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,611

    Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
    Maybe. Or maybe the other nationalists in the area worked out what Michael Collins did - 26/32 of a loaf is much better than someone else eating your entire lunch.
    Personally think that Viktor Orban is throwback to Admiral Horthy, but without the up side.
    What were the upsides to Horthy, apart from punching the crap out of some Nazis at the Opera?
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,645
    nico679 said:

    The Gabon coup . Does anyone care ! The media seem to think we’re interested in hearing about yet another African country descending into anarchy . Similarly why are we subjected to hours of coverage about a Florida hurricane effecting a lot of climate change deniers and nutjob Trump supporters .

    It is very weird how they have not moved on to the far more interesting and important discrepancies in the cycling stats and size of metro areas between the Netherlands and the UK. Another silent conspiracy by the woke liberal media elite I suspect.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,713

    Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    Can you please be specific?
    > Bedford, Eastern Cape
    > Bedford, Indiana
    > Bedford, Iowa (will play its part in January 2024)
    > Bedford, Kentucky
    > Bedford, Massachusetts
    > Bedford, New Hampshire (ditto)
    > Bedford, New York
    > Bedford, Nova Scotia
    > Bedford, Ohio
    > Bedford, Pennsylvania
    > Bedford, Quebec
    > Bedford, Tennessee
    > Bedford, Texas
    > Bedford, Virginia
    > Bedford, Western Australia
    > Bedford, Wyoming

    Plus some obscure burg somewhere in England?
    Surely it was Bedford Falls, or Potterville as it is known once the serpent had his way.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,375
    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 4,611
    edited August 2023
    Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    Whoever they were, I'm sure they thought Bedford was a Panacea for all ills.

    Isn't there an obscure Sikh sect that own a big estate near Bedford too? I'm sure I saw something like that when wandering around the area.

    I'm not sure the town centre is exactly paradise these days, though.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918

    Trump says Biden has “gone mad” and is leading America to WW3.

    https://x.com/tpostmillennial/status/1696676662593941639

    All his life he has had what he wished to be true become true, so why stop now?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,778

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,778
    I also suggest that Tucker Carlson interviewing VIktor Orban will get a tiny bit more “click through” than @rcs1000’s “car parking software videos”
  • Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
    Maybe. Or maybe the other nationalists in the area worked out what Michael Collins did - 26/32 of a loaf is much better than someone else eating your entire lunch.
    Personally think that Viktor Orban is throwback to Admiral Horthy, but without the up side.
    What were the upsides to Horthy, apart from punching the crap out of some Nazis at the Opera?
    Well, he WAS just about the only naval hero (Austria-) Hungary ever had.

    Also, he did try to detach Hungary from Nazis in 1944, though after years of eager collaboration for fun & profit.

    Horthy was one reason why there were still many Hungarian Jews in Hungary, especially Budapest, when he was booted out by the jackboots.
  • Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    You got tumescent over an anti Nato propagandist.

    We know what you are.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,778

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    You got tumescent over an anti Nato propagandist.

    We know what you are.
    A FUCKING APPEASER?
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,611

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    You got tumescent over an anti Nato propagandist.

    We know what you are.
    Is that semi, demi tumescent?
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 8,448
    edited August 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    You got tumescent over an anti Nato propagandist.

    We know what you are.
    A FUCKING APPEASER?
    The youtuber Tom Scott.
  • What a shitty little person Daniel Levy is and a shitty little club Spurs are.

    Harry Kane was barred from Tottenham Hotspur’s training ground in the hours before completing his £100 million move to Bayern Munich.

    The club wrote, in an email, to formally tell Kane it would not be appropriate for him to return to their training ground ahead of formalising his transfer, as he waited to fly to Germany.

    Tottenham’s stance also meant the club’s greatest-ever goalscorer did not get the chance to say any face-to-face goodbyes and did not pick up any of his personal possessions himself. Instead, he had to wait for them to be sent on to him and his family, who also could not access their suite at the stadium.

    While the club have insisted Kane is always welcome back and that he was not given any lasting ban, the treatment of a club legend in the final hours of his Spurs career will shock some supporters who idolise the 30-year-old, who scored 280 goals for his boyhood club and earlier this year had a mural painted in his honour opposite the stadium.


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/08/30/tottenham-harry-kane-training-ground-bayern-munich-transfer/
  • Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    You got tumescent over an anti Nato propagandist.

    We know what you are.
    A FUCKING APPEASER?
    That and too dense you're fellating Putin in the process.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918
    Anyone else looking forward to the Sam Bankman-Fried fraud trial later this year? It seems astonishing so many people bought into what was, at best, utterly incompetent blustering (that is his own defence after all, that he;'s an idiot not a crook), but the crypto world seems fertile ground for scammers.

    Prosecutors have just written to the judge rebutting some of his attempts to get evidence excluded, some of which are pretty creative if prosecutors are accurate.

    Notably, the defendant now complains about something he previously requested: on April 22, 2023, in a letter demand the defendant asked for a copy of all Slack messages, and his counsel reiterated that request on a telephone call four days later. It cannot be that the defendant can strategically make a record of discovery he claims he is entitled to but is not getting, and then when he gets it, move to preclude its use

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.237.0.pdf

    They're also trying to bar all of the expert witnesses he wants to call in a separate matter. Should be fun, and has been surprisingly fast moving.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,611
    edited August 2023
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    You got tumescent over an anti Nato propagandist.

    We know what you are.
    A FUCKING APPEASER?
    No, this is an appeaser



    He wouldn’t have licked Trumps boots
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,778

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Surely it's more that a 'view' measures a metric such as viewing for over 6 seconds (or even less), long enough to confirm you were 'viewing' the content rather than scrolling past it.
    He’s now up to ~80m “views”

    If just 10% of them click through to the video that’s 8m - which, I think, would be higher than any ratings he got at Fox? And maybe far higher than any other cable news show - because Carlson was the most popular

    Set aside the politics, this could be a massive moment in news media. Twitter becomes the provider - bypassing networks entirely

    Musk’s $44bn purchase might seem less insane if that happens

  • darkagedarkage Posts: 5,327
    The reality that a lot of people will find difficult to accept is that Viktor Orban represents commonly held views in Europe on a number of themes: culture, religion, race, gender, Russia etc. Given how deep rooted they are, eventually in any discourse these views rise to prominence when people tire of the current zeitgeist, as to some degree is happening now, with the election of "far-right" political parties. It gets worse when the incumbents try and outlaw the opposing ideas out of existence, as we saw in Germany recently, when it was suggested that the AfD, who are polling in excess of 20%, should be banned.

    It seems like we just have to replay versions of Brexit over and over again, albeit in more gruesome, extreme and dangerous ways.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 54,778
    edited August 2023
    Why are people so ANGRY?

    It’s a lovely evening and I’m strolling to the Groucho

    Chillax
  • Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    Whoever they were, I'm sure they thought Bedford was a Panacea for all ills.

    Isn't there an obscure Sikh sect that own a big estate near Bedford too? I'm sure I saw something like that when wandering around the area.

    I'm not sure the town centre is exactly paradise these days, though.
    Have you ever been to the Mormon Garden of Eden = Independence, Missouri?

    Also famous as home to Harry Truman. Actually, it was Bess Truman's family home, his family was from outside town in rural Jackson Co.

    Note that Independence is also home base for the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Founded after the lynching of Joseph Smith and exodus of most Mormons to Salt Lake, by Smith's widow and others; one significant change from orthodoxy being a ban against polygamy.
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 48,491

    Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
    Maybe. Or maybe the other nationalists in the area worked out what Michael Collins did - 26/32 of a loaf is much better than someone else eating your entire lunch.
    Personally think that Viktor Orban is throwback to Admiral Horthy, but without the up side.
    What were the upsides to Horthy, apart from punching the crap out of some Nazis at the Opera?
    Horthy largely protected Hungarian Jews for most of the war (Not because he wasn't anti-semetic so much as because they were Hungarian). It was only with the German occupation in Spring 1944 that the mass deportations to Auschwitz.

  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 49,611
    edited August 2023

    Sean_F said:

    FF43 said:

    Leon said:

    Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people

    For comparison, he used to get ~4m for his Fox show, and he was the most popular host by far


    This is potentially revolutionary for news media

    To be clear, Orbán is on the side of Putin's thugs and fascism, and is opposed to democracy that Zelenskyy does represent, with the usual imperfections.

    Which raises the question why Hungary is a member of, and benefits from, the EU and NATO when democracy is a fundamental requirement of both organisations.

    Liberals can be very naive towards those out to destroy what they represent. Accommodation will kill them in this case, as happened in Europe in the 1930s.
    It's a good thing that Poland is hostile towards Russia.
    It is interesting how in a swathe of countries in the area, people all the way to the ultra-nationalists has given up on irredentism and want to end the historic enmities. This comes directly from an analysis that together they can stand against Russia, divided they will be picked off. And that together, they will be taken more seriously by the rest of Europe.
    Orban's Hungary has NOT exactly "given up on irredentism" in Transcarpathia, which from Hungarian point of view is Ciscarpathia.

    To name just one region formerly under the crooked Crown of St. Stephen.
    Hungary is one of the exceptions - vs the Baltics, Poland etc.

    Which is why I said a swathe of countries - not all.
    Hungary IS something of an outlier in this regard.

    Perhaps because in other lands east of the Landstrasse figure that any potential gains from regaining lost lands in one direction, might well be cancelled/superceded/surpassed by losing some neighbors lost lands in another.

    Whereas today's Hungary has virtually zero turf that is mixed up with somebody else's irredentism. On the other hand, millions of ethnic Hungarians just over the current border to the north, south and east.

    Of course the last time Hungary tried reclaiming lost lands, it did NOT work out too well.

    But maybe Slick Vik will have better luck?
    Maybe. Or maybe the other nationalists in the area worked out what Michael Collins did - 26/32 of a loaf is much better than someone else eating your entire lunch.
    Personally think that Viktor Orban is throwback to Admiral Horthy, but without the up side.
    What were the upsides to Horthy, apart from punching the crap out of some Nazis at the Opera?
    Well, he WAS just about the only naval hero (Austria-) Hungary ever had.

    Also, he did try to detach Hungary from Nazis in 1944, though after years of eager collaboration for fun & profit.

    Horthy was one reason why there were still many Hungarian Jews in Hungary, especially Budapest, when he was booted out by the jackboots.
    Hmmm


    …reproached me for the many Jewish corpses found in the various parts of the country, especially in the Transdanubia. This, he emphasized, gave the foreign press extra ammunitions against us. He told me that we should stop harassing small Jews; instead, we should kill some big (Kun government) Jews such as Somogyi or Vázsonyi – these people deserve punishment much more... in vain, I tried to convince him that the liberal papers would be against us anyway, and it did not matter that we killed only one Jew or we killed them all


    Not really a candidate for Righteous Among The Nations
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
  • kle4 said:

    Anyone else looking forward to the Sam Bankman-Fried fraud trial later this year? It seems astonishing so many people bought into what was, at best, utterly incompetent blustering (that is his own defence after all, that he;'s an idiot not a crook), but the crypto world seems fertile ground for scammers.

    Prosecutors have just written to the judge rebutting some of his attempts to get evidence excluded, some of which are pretty creative if prosecutors are accurate.

    Notably, the defendant now complains about something he previously requested: on April 22, 2023, in a letter demand the defendant asked for a copy of all Slack messages, and his counsel reiterated that request on a telephone call four days later. It cannot be that the defendant can strategically make a record of discovery he claims he is entitled to but is not getting, and then when he gets it, move to preclude its use

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.237.0.pdf

    They're also trying to bar all of the expert witnesses he wants to call in a separate matter. Should be fun, and has been surprisingly fast moving.

    Fun fact - both parents of Bankman-Fraud (sp) are lawyers, and faculty members of Stanford Junior University Law School.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918
    Leon said:

    I also suggest that Tucker Carlson interviewing VIktor Orban will get a tiny bit more “click through” than @rcs1000’s “car parking software videos”

    Meaning...nothing. We're back to thinking no one can criticise or analyse something unless they are the most amazing person on earth.

    But really, how many of us are as fortunate as to be Liz Truss?
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918
    edited August 2023

    kle4 said:

    Anyone else looking forward to the Sam Bankman-Fried fraud trial later this year? It seems astonishing so many people bought into what was, at best, utterly incompetent blustering (that is his own defence after all, that he;'s an idiot not a crook), but the crypto world seems fertile ground for scammers.

    Prosecutors have just written to the judge rebutting some of his attempts to get evidence excluded, some of which are pretty creative if prosecutors are accurate.

    Notably, the defendant now complains about something he previously requested: on April 22, 2023, in a letter demand the defendant asked for a copy of all Slack messages, and his counsel reiterated that request on a telephone call four days later. It cannot be that the defendant can strategically make a record of discovery he claims he is entitled to but is not getting, and then when he gets it, move to preclude its use

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.237.0.pdf

    They're also trying to bar all of the expert witnesses he wants to call in a separate matter. Should be fun, and has been surprisingly fast moving.

    Fun fact - both parents of Bankman-Fraud (sp) are lawyers, and faculty members of Stanford Junior University Law School.
    Given the people running FTX apparently dipped into customer accounts to pay for homes for themselves and relatives, among other things, you'd think they could have at least advised their son that he was at best butting up against the law.

    They must be very proud of him - he claims to have been hopelessly bad at running FTX which is why it collapsed, and hasn't much to his name now as a result, but he could post a bail worth millions somehow, which shows real talent.
  • Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    It would be ironic if the hyperpartisan Republican McConnell's problems cast a shadow over Biden's age.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918
    nico679 said:

    The Gabon coup . Does anyone care ! The media seem to think we’re interested in hearing about yet another African country descending into anarchy . Similarly why are we subjected to hours of coverage about a Florida hurricane effecting a lot of climate change deniers and nutjob Trump supporters .

    American stories will always get an oversized prominence given their cultural dominance and our cultural cringe. Just be glad we get anything that isn't about the USA.

    The Gabon story is more intriguing in getting some attention (though it is now well down the page on mine), given the reports do note 'This is the eighth coup in former French colonies in Africa in the past three years'. I guess coups are always dramatic.

    I had actually not noticed it is now a Commonwealth country (along with Togo apparently), which presumably upset some people who love to talk about how pointless it is (kind of true) and yet people do keep asking to join anyway.
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,856
    edited August 2023
    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918
    Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    One from there, I have to assume.
  • Patients fare better with female surgeons, studies reveal
    People operated on by women are less likely to die or be readmitted to hospital

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/patients-fare-better-with-female-surgeons-studies-reveal-bxbtjd6st (£££)
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,356

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
  • kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    In Kentucky, while he's respected and re-elected, Mitch McConnell has never been hugely popular.

    In part because many Kentuckians have always believed, that MMcC is deficient in bringing home the bacon for the Bluegrass State.
  • .
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    So shite then.

    12 million people != 1 million people.

    F in maths. F in logic.
  • kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Anyone else looking forward to the Sam Bankman-Fried fraud trial later this year? It seems astonishing so many people bought into what was, at best, utterly incompetent blustering (that is his own defence after all, that he;'s an idiot not a crook), but the crypto world seems fertile ground for scammers.

    Prosecutors have just written to the judge rebutting some of his attempts to get evidence excluded, some of which are pretty creative if prosecutors are accurate.

    Notably, the defendant now complains about something he previously requested: on April 22, 2023, in a letter demand the defendant asked for a copy of all Slack messages, and his counsel reiterated that request on a telephone call four days later. It cannot be that the defendant can strategically make a record of discovery he claims he is entitled to but is not getting, and then when he gets it, move to preclude its use

    https://storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939/gov.uscourts.nysd.590939.237.0.pdf

    They're also trying to bar all of the expert witnesses he wants to call in a separate matter. Should be fun, and has been surprisingly fast moving.

    Fun fact - both parents of Bankman-Fraud (sp) are lawyers, and faculty members of Stanford Junior University Law School.
    Given the people running FTX apparently dipped into customer accounts to pay for homes for themselves and relatives, among other things, you'd think they could have at least advised their son that he was at best butting up against the law.

    They must be very proud of him - he claims to have been hopelessly bad at running FTX which is why it collapsed, and hasn't much to his name now as a result, but he could post a bail worth millions somehow, which shows real talent.
    He was living in his parents home in lieu of prison until recently . . . when judge revoked his home detention on grounds that he was, among other things, engaged in witness intimidation, against his old girl friend, who worked for FTX but apparently was NOT included in the prime dining car of the bit-coin mega-grifter super-train.
  • Luckyguy1983Luckyguy1983 Posts: 28,246
    ...
    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    Most atheists are cross with God.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,935
    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    20% is ludicrous.

    The proportion of people on YouTube or Twitter or Instagram or Facebook who click the "play" button for stories in their feed is never more than 10%, and is usually more in the 4-6% range. Even if we assume that Carlson's Orban interview is at the high end of this, it would be 6 million people started viewing/listening.

    But the number of people who will have got more than two minutes in will be - again - at most 25%. How do I know? Because that's what the best channels on YouTube manage. Most people flick off after 30 seconds onto the next thing. Maybe Carlson is beating Mark Rober's % to 2 minutes stats; but I doubt it.

    But let's assume that (a) he gets to the absolute top of the "click play" charts, and gets 10%; and let's (b) assume that he matches the very best YouTube channels and gets 25% of people staying two minutes.

    That's 1.25 million people.

    Not 20 million.

    And that 1.25 million is taking very generous assumptions.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    In Kentucky, while he's respected and re-elected, Mitch McConnell has never been hugely popular.

    In part because many Kentuckians have always believed, that MMcC is deficient in bringing home the bacon for the Bluegrass State.
    I was eager to see this Bluegrass you speak of, only to have wiki inform me it is also know as 'common meadow-grass'.

    I feel like they must have had better things to name a region or music after.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918

    ...

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    Most atheists are cross with God.
    Nah. I'd be pleasantly surprised to have an encounter, though I would have many questions.
  • HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    No, I'm not.

    Theists like you fail to understand the difference between agnostic and atheist. Atheist doesn't mean opposed to God, it means quite literally "not theist".

    An atheist is someone who does not believe in God.
    An agnostic is someone who does not know believe its possible to know whether there is a God.

    In a Venn Diagram those are not separate circles.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,935
    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    20% is ludicrous.

    The proportion of people on YouTube or Twitter or Instagram or Facebook who click the "play" button for stories in their feed is never more than 10%, and is usually more in the 4-6% range. Even if we assume that Carlson's Orban interview is at the high end of this, it would be 6 million people started viewing/listening.

    But the number of people who will have got more than two minutes in will be - again - at most 25%. How do I know? Because that's what the best channels on YouTube manage. Most people flick off after 30 seconds onto the next thing. Maybe Carlson is beating Mark Rober's % to 2 minutes stats; but I doubt it.

    But let's assume that (a) he gets to the absolute top of the "click play" charts, and gets 10%; and let's (b) assume that he matches the very best YouTube channels and gets 25% of people staying two minutes.

    That's 1.25 million people.

    Not 20 million.

    And that 1.25 million is taking very generous assumptions.
    (Worth noting, I'm talking 10% of people, not percentage of times a Tweet is viewed. Given that many people will have "seen" the Tweet more than one time, that's another layer you need to take off.)
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,175
    kle4 said:

    Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    One from there, I have to assume.
    That's the three Abrahamic religions.

    Oh, sorry, did you mean 'from Bedford?'
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918
    edited August 2023
    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    I'm glad to see you accept a precedent that people can tell others what they actually seem to believe in a religious sense based on what they are saying, regardless of what that person states they believe. Should open up a lot of avenues to critique others' most personal religious ideals, and no need to accept at face value what anyone claims to believe.
  • kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    In Kentucky, while he's respected and re-elected, Mitch McConnell has never been hugely popular.

    In part because many Kentuckians have always believed, that MMcC is deficient in bringing home the bacon for the Bluegrass State.
    I was eager to see this Bluegrass you speak of, only to have wiki inform me it is also know as 'common meadow-grass'.

    I feel like they must have had better things to name a region or music after.
    This bluegrass which you spurn, is the underpinning for one of the great horse-rearing regions of the world.

    Certainly her late Majesty QEII would NOT have been amused by your inherently anti-equine witticism.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 95,918

    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    In Kentucky, while he's respected and re-elected, Mitch McConnell has never been hugely popular.

    In part because many Kentuckians have always believed, that MMcC is deficient in bringing home the bacon for the Bluegrass State.
    I was eager to see this Bluegrass you speak of, only to have wiki inform me it is also know as 'common meadow-grass'.

    I feel like they must have had better things to name a region or music after.
    This bluegrass which you spurn, is the underpinning for one of the great horse-rearing regions of the world.

    Certainly her late Majesty QEII would NOT have been amused by your inherently anti-equine witticism.
    I am not anti-equine, I have happily eaten horse on several occasions!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,356

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    No, I'm not.

    Theists like you fail to understand the difference between agnostic and atheist. Atheist doesn't mean opposed to God, it means quite literally "not theist".

    An atheist is someone who does not believe in God.
    An agnostic is someone who does not know believe its possible to know whether there is a God.

    In a Venn Diagram those are not separate circles.
    Yes, you are.

    You have taken an ideological position to 100% oppose the possibility of the existence of God.

    An agnostic person is not actively religious nor do they believe in God but they don't rule out the possibility like you atheists ideologically do
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,175
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    In Kentucky, while he's respected and re-elected, Mitch McConnell has never been hugely popular.

    In part because many Kentuckians have always believed, that MMcC is deficient in bringing home the bacon for the Bluegrass State.
    I was eager to see this Bluegrass you speak of, only to have wiki inform me it is also know as 'common meadow-grass'.

    I feel like they must have had better things to name a region or music after.
    This bluegrass which you spurn, is the underpinning for one of the great horse-rearing regions of the world.

    Certainly her late Majesty QEII would NOT have been amused by your inherently anti-equine witticism.
    I am not anti-equine, I have happily eaten horse on several occasions!
    When you say you have eaten Horse, that really is too much information about the sex lives of two of our respected posters...

    (Sorry, I've been busy all afternoon and I'm demob happy at finishing that last session.)
  • OldKingColeOldKingCole Posts: 33,347
    Deleted
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    In Kentucky, while he's respected and re-elected, Mitch McConnell has never been hugely popular.

    In part because many Kentuckians have always believed, that MMcC is deficient in bringing home the bacon for the Bluegrass State.
    I was eager to see this Bluegrass you speak of, only to have wiki inform me it is also know as 'common meadow-grass'.

    I feel like they must have had better things to name a region or music after.
    This bluegrass which you spurn, is the underpinning for one of the great horse-rearing regions of the world.

    Certainly her late Majesty QEII would NOT have been amused by your inherently anti-equine witticism.
    I am not anti-equine, I have happily eaten horse on several occasions!
    Neigh, that is out of joint.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,849
    kle4 said:

    ...

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    Most atheists are cross with God.
    Nah. I'd be pleasantly surprised to have an encounter, though I would have many questions.
    If you do have an encounter hide the tequila she has a penchant for it
  • BartholomewRobertsBartholomewRoberts Posts: 21,856
    edited August 2023
    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    No, I'm not.

    Theists like you fail to understand the difference between agnostic and atheist. Atheist doesn't mean opposed to God, it means quite literally "not theist".

    An atheist is someone who does not believe in God.
    An agnostic is someone who does not know believe its possible to know whether there is a God.

    In a Venn Diagram those are not separate circles.
    Yes, you are.

    You have taken an ideological position to 100% oppose the possibility of the existence of God.

    An agnostic person is not actively religious nor do they believe in God but they don't rule out the possibility like you atheists ideologically do
    But I do not 100% oppose the possibility of the existence of God. 🤦‍♂️

    That is not what atheists do. I have literally said repeatedly I can not rule out the existence of a god, but as an atheist I do not believe in one.

    Nonbelief comes in many varieties. Technically, an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in a god, while an agnostic is someone who doesn’t believe it’s possible to know for sure that a god exists. It’s possible to be both—an agnostic atheist doesn’t believe but also doesn’t think we can ever know whether a god exists. A gnostic atheist, on the other hand, believes with certainty that a god does not exist.
    https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/07/believe#:~:text=Technically, an atheist is someone,know whether a god exists.

    On a Venn diagram I am in the intersection between atheist and agnostic, I am both.
  • rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    20% is ludicrous.

    The proportion of people on YouTube or Twitter or Instagram or Facebook who click the "play" button for stories in their feed is never more than 10%, and is usually more in the 4-6% range. Even if we assume that Carlson's Orban interview is at the high end of this, it would be 6 million people started viewing/listening.

    But the number of people who will have got more than two minutes in will be - again - at most 25%. How do I know? Because that's what the best channels on YouTube manage. Most people flick off after 30 seconds onto the next thing. Maybe Carlson is beating Mark Rober's % to 2 minutes stats; but I doubt it.

    But let's assume that (a) he gets to the absolute top of the "click play" charts, and gets 10%; and let's (b) assume that he matches the very best YouTube channels and gets 25% of people staying two minutes.

    That's 1.25 million people.

    Not 20 million.

    And that 1.25 million is taking very generous assumptions.
    (Worth noting, I'm talking 10% of people, not percentage of times a Tweet is viewed. Given that many people will have "seen" the Tweet more than one time, that's another layer you need to take off.)
    Isn't all this stuff about "views" just guff?

    In that system is especially designed to maximize "views" of more than a micro-second, to convince whomever needs convincing, that mind-boggingly (or in Brit-speak "eye-watering") numbers of viewers are being informed/hoodwinked?

    Hence the proliferation of click-bait.

    Btw (also fyi) dispute notion that YouTube has gotten better in recent years.

    Opposite is true: more ads, more crap, more deceptive click-bait bull-shit, esp. via right-wing wack-jobs.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,849

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:

    One would reasonably assume that one must believe in the Christian God to be a Christian. As most British people do not, it’s fair to say we are no longer a Christian country (nor a religious one).

    Given 53.5% of people in England and Wales said they are Christian, Muslim or Jewish in the 2021 census then it is also fair to say we are still a religious nation that believes in the God of Abraham, even if only a plurality still believe in Christianity and the Trinity and that Jesus was Messiah

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/religion/bulletins/religionenglandandwales/census2021
    LOL.

    Many who put that down do so because of cultural/legacy factors rather than serious belief.

    And of those who do believe, considering many of those would view other believers you have mentioned as either heretics or heathens, uniting them all together as "Abrahamic" is as preposterous as linking Corbynistas, and Blairites, and Orange Boomers and everyone else together as united "progressives".
    So, they still define themselves as Christian. While some of those defining themselves as non religious will be agnostic not atheist.

    Muslims and Christians and Jews also share a distinct belief in the God of Abraham, arguably more distinct than the agreement between Corbynites, Blairites and Orange Bookers on the power the state should have in the economy and outside
    LOL^2

    The hatred the Judean People's Front has for the People's Front of Judea applies even more to religion than it does to left wing British politics.

    The idea that people who call others heretics or heathens, or try to kill each other, should all be bundled together as one big happy family is just going against thousands of years of history - and ongoing reality to date.
    If you believe in the God of Abraham you ain't an atheist, tough.

    The question was solely about how many in the UK say they are religious v non religious, not about previous religious wars in centuries past
    I couldn't give a damn how many are atheists or not. Atheism isn't a belief system, it's an absence of one, that's what you don't understand. I don't believe what other atheists believe any more than Haredi Jews are the same as Jehovah's Witnesses are the same as Shi'ites who are fighting Sunnis.
    Not quite. Atheists are committed (unlike agnostics) to a specific opinion that there is no god under any description. It has to have specificity of belief to some extent - the clue is in the name. The universe has a non-divine nature. That's an important belief.

    I agree that within that limit atheists differ - people can be atheists and moral objectivists for example, though I suspect most are not, but excluding god as an option is a belief and a belief system. Quite unlike agnosticism which makes no exclusions.
    Sorry I couldn't reply sooner, I was out, but that is absolutely not the case. Your logic fails because it is coming from a theistic interpretation of the universe.

    I am not an agnostic, I am an atheist, because I believe there is no supernatural deity as defined by man, because there is no evidence for it. Same reason I don't believe in astrology, healing crystals, voodoo, invisible pink unicorns, flying spaghetti monsters or orbital teapots.

    However I am not committed to that belief. If evidence comes to challenge that, then I would be open to such evidence. I do not rule anything out or exclude anything as an option, if evidence becomes available to support that option.

    Furthermore that is not an "important" belief. To you as a theist the nature of religion may be of supreme importance, but to me as an atheist its not. Its no more important than star signs or any other equally superstitious nonsense.
    If it was of no importance to you you would be agnostic, you would not be interested in religion but nor would you take time to try and refute it.

    Instead you are an atheist as you are ideologically opposed to the notion of the existence of God
    No, I'm not.

    Theists like you fail to understand the difference between agnostic and atheist. Atheist doesn't mean opposed to God, it means quite literally "not theist".

    An atheist is someone who does not believe in God.
    An agnostic is someone who does not know believe its possible to know whether there is a God.

    In a Venn Diagram those are not separate circles.
    Yes, you are.

    You have taken an ideological position to 100% oppose the possibility of the existence of God.

    An agnostic person is not actively religious nor do they believe in God but they don't rule out the possibility like you atheists ideologically do
    But I do not 100% oppose the possibility of the existence of God. 🤦‍♂️

    That is not what atheists do. I have literally said repeatedly I can not rule out the existence of a god, but as an atheist I do not believe in one.

    Nonbelief comes in many varieties. Technically, an atheist is someone who doesn’t believe in a god, while an agnostic is someone who doesn’t believe it’s possible to know for sure that a god exists. It’s possible to be both—an agnostic atheist doesn’t believe but also doesn’t think we can ever know whether a god exists. A gnostic atheist, on the other hand, believes with certainty that a god does not exist.
    https://www.apa.org/monitor/2020/07/believe#:~:text=Technically, an atheist is someone,know whether a god exists.

    On a Venn diagram I am in the intersection between atheist and agnostic, I am both.
    As a theist I do wonder why hyufd is so interested in categorising people. Atheists and agnostics do not threaten my belief in the least and I have no wish or desire to convert or instruct them. What they believe is up to them
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    Surely 139 is not enough to put any pressure on this England batting line up. Its a slightly tricky wicket but jeez.
  • In more important news than the religion discussion, its great to see increasing signs that Ukraine are making a breakthrough on the front line. If they've recaptured Robotyne as reported then that seems quite significant, hopefully they can get to Tokmak before the winter and they'll be better positioned for next year.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,461
    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

  • Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    That video is shocking just to see the physical state of Mitch. He looks really skeletal and sick, in a way that neither comparably old Biden nor Trump do. He looks like he has lost a lot of weight in the past couple of years, and not in a good way.

    I feel sorry for him.
  • kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 62,461

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    LOL. Well, given that the GOP has lost its collective mind I expect I will find a box of mad frogs if I look.
  • kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    LOL. Well, given that the GOP has lost its collective mind I expect I will find a box of mad frogs if I look.
    They're mad, but they're not French.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,849

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    Rephrasing for you have you looked at the next generations of americans would you want any of them in charge of a whelk stall let alone a major country
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,560

    Nigelb said:

    Which religious sect believed Bedford to be the original site of the Garden of Eden ?

    Can you please be specific?
    > Bedford, Eastern Cape
    > Bedford, Indiana
    > Bedford, Iowa (will play its part in January 2024)
    > Bedford, Kentucky
    > Bedford, Massachusetts
    > Bedford, New Hampshire (ditto)
    > Bedford, New York
    > Bedford, Nova Scotia
    > Bedford, Ohio
    > Bedford, Pennsylvania
    > Bedford, Quebec
    > Bedford, Tennessee
    > Bedford, Texas
    > Bedford, Virginia
    > Bedford, Western Australia
    > Bedford, Wyoming

    Plus some obscure burg somewhere in England?
    How can you say obscure about such a paradise ?

    Flatlander got there.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,277
    DavidL said:

    Surely 139 is not enough to put any pressure on this England batting line up. Its a slightly tricky wicket but jeez.

    I had no idea this series was starting today.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 56,935

    rcs1000 said:

    rcs1000 said:

    Leon said:

    rcs1000 said:

    As a Twitter advertiser, I can assure everyone that the Orban interview has not been watched 60 million times.

    The Tweet containing the video has been seen 75 million times. The number of times the video has been viewed at all will be somewhere in the 2-10% range of that. And the number of people who watch more than the first two minutes will be dramatically smaller even than that.

    At most, a million people - and probably a lot fewer than that - will have watched the video all the way through.

    Leon was talking shite?


    Except I wasn’t talking shite, was I?

    I said exactly this in my original comments. Only a fraction of the bald number will actually watch the video

    “Tucker Carlson’s Orban interview is now up to 60 million views

    https://x.com/tuckercarlson/status/1696643892253466712?s=46&t=bulOICNH15U6kB0MwE6Lfw

    Probably only a fraction of these will watch large chunks or the whole thing. But even if it’s just 20% that’s 12 million people”

    There you go.
    20% is ludicrous.

    The proportion of people on YouTube or Twitter or Instagram or Facebook who click the "play" button for stories in their feed is never more than 10%, and is usually more in the 4-6% range. Even if we assume that Carlson's Orban interview is at the high end of this, it would be 6 million people started viewing/listening.

    But the number of people who will have got more than two minutes in will be - again - at most 25%. How do I know? Because that's what the best channels on YouTube manage. Most people flick off after 30 seconds onto the next thing. Maybe Carlson is beating Mark Rober's % to 2 minutes stats; but I doubt it.

    But let's assume that (a) he gets to the absolute top of the "click play" charts, and gets 10%; and let's (b) assume that he matches the very best YouTube channels and gets 25% of people staying two minutes.

    That's 1.25 million people.

    Not 20 million.

    And that 1.25 million is taking very generous assumptions.
    (Worth noting, I'm talking 10% of people, not percentage of times a Tweet is viewed. Given that many people will have "seen" the Tweet more than one time, that's another layer you need to take off.)
    Isn't all this stuff about "views" just guff?

    In that system is especially designed to maximize "views" of more than a micro-second, to convince whomever needs convincing, that mind-boggingly (or in Brit-speak "eye-watering") numbers of viewers are being informed/hoodwinked?

    Hence the proliferation of click-bait.

    Btw (also fyi) dispute notion that YouTube has gotten better in recent years.

    Opposite is true: more ads, more crap, more deceptive click-bait bull-shit, esp. via right-wing wack-jobs.
    Whether TikTok or Snapchat, Facebook, YouTube or Instagram, it's all algorithms: What maximizes your time on the platform? What maximizes engagement? What allows the platform owner to show more advertising.

    Twitter shows view counts because that is meant to encourage Tweeters in thinking that lots of people are viewing their content, and therefore they should write more of it.

    But that view count includes the very briefest of glimpses. Actual real engagements - and actual time spent on the platform - is far lower.
  • Pagan2 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    Rephrasing for you have you looked at the next generations of americans would you want any of them in charge of a whelk stall let alone a major country
    Yes, I would. But then I do happen to know a number of next-gen Americans up close and personal.
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,849
    Pagan2 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    Rephrasing for you have you looked at the next generations of americans would you want any of them in charge of a whelk stall let alone a major country
    For clarification dont think the brits are better...the dems thought hilary clinton was a good idea, the republicans thought trump was, the tories thought johnson was, labour thought corbyn was. I wouldn't trust yonger generations with anything given that lot
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,849

    Pagan2 said:

    kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    Rephrasing for you have you looked at the next generations of americans would you want any of them in charge of a whelk stall let alone a major country
    Yes, I would. But then I do happen to know a number of next-gen Americans up close and personal.
    But you are american and share the mindset so....
  • kle4 said:

    Mitch McConnell’s had another medical incident in the middle of a press conference.

    https://x.com/hannahpthomas/status/1696936240040321474

    And on a question about his thoughts on running for re-election in 2026 to boot.

    As we're repeatedly reminded Americans don't mind electing very old representatives, and staff are clearly on hand to work around it, but this sort of incident is hard to bounce back from easily, especially when it's a repeat.

    Maybe he'd helping out Trump by showing the pitfalls of being just a few years older, like Biden (I gather McConnell is hardly a super Trump fan, but it hardly matters).
    It is all getting ridiculous. These self-centred people are just not prepared to accept life and stand aside for the next generation.

    Have you had a gander, at "the next generation" of Republican US Senators?

    Be VERY careful what you wish for!
    LOL. Well, given that the GOP has lost its collective mind I expect I will find a box of mad frogs if I look.
    Tim Scott is one of the BETTER ones, if that helps!
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    Andy_JS said:

    DavidL said:

    Surely 139 is not enough to put any pressure on this England batting line up. Its a slightly tricky wicket but jeez.

    I had no idea this series was starting today.
    I had ambitions of being at this match but work, once again, intervened.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 70,560
    Donald Trump vows to lock up political enemies if he returns to White House
    https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/aug/30/trump-interview-jail-political-opponents-glenn-beck
  • Pagan2Pagan2 Posts: 9,849
    DavidL said:

    Andy_JS said:

    DavidL said:

    Surely 139 is not enough to put any pressure on this England batting line up. Its a slightly tricky wicket but jeez.

    I had no idea this series was starting today.
    I had ambitions of being at this match but work, once again, intervened.
    You being a lawyer can you not find a way of sueing your clients, the court etc for loss of entertainment?
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,716
    Pagan2 said:

    DavidL said:

    Andy_JS said:

    DavidL said:

    Surely 139 is not enough to put any pressure on this England batting line up. Its a slightly tricky wicket but jeez.

    I had no idea this series was starting today.
    I had ambitions of being at this match but work, once again, intervened.
    You being a lawyer can you not find a way of sueing your clients, the court etc for loss of entertainment?
    Work for the Crown these days who can probably claim immunity.
This discussion has been closed.