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With 6 weeks to go till Iowa don’t write off a Trump upset – politicalbetting.com
With 6 weeks to go till Iowa don’t write off a Trump upset – politicalbetting.com
In recent times first big event in the White House race has been the Iowa Caucuses where GOP voters in the state become the first to have a say on the party nominees. The Democrats won’t be making their Iowa choice for a month or so.
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Also, to somewhat contradict myself, Trump barely scraped second in Iowa in 2016 and that didn't stop him. Moreover, the delegates aren't 'winner takes all' so unless he really crashes it won't hurt him significantly.
I don't think we should read too much into any results there.
Probably won't happen, natch, but the possibility of Trump being upset is a bright thought on a dismal day.
As someone this time round who is building an air of inevitability, anything that looks to run contrary to that may really turn this into a contest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3l9phu3XTJw
There are a lot of 'unthinkable' things happening yet again. The west are getting exhausted with supporting Ukraine. Trump may well be on the way back. If you never get caught up with the idea that the world is getting better, you can never be disappointed when things go wrong. In the end John Gray is just peddling boring common sense.
Exhibit A:
Exhibit B:
Exhibit C:
https://x.com/edzitron/status/1733341212831269348?s=20
Alt-right seething incoming...
(It is possible that Grok’s default “rebellious” mode is riffing on the alt-rightish nature of it’s interlocutors in these exchanges - it has access to the user’s Xitter feed - & is feeding them responses that are designed to wind them up. That might be an even funnier outcome though.)
When the cost of the scheme hits £350 million, will it be announced on the side of a bus?
A Dem President you say ?
But wait, this then comes into play:
The National Popular Vote Interstate Compact (NPVIC) is an agreement among a group of U.S. states and the District of Columbia to award all their electoral votes to whichever presidential ticket wins the overall popular vote in the 50 states and the District of Columbia. The compact is designed to ensure that the candidate who receives the most votes nationwide is elected president, and it would come into effect only when it would guarantee that outcome.[2][3] Introduced in 2006, as of August 2023 it has been adopted by sixteen states and the District of Columbia. These jurisdictions have 205 electoral votes, which is 38% of the Electoral College and 76% of the 270 votes needed to give the compact legal force.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Popular_Vote_Interstate_Compact#Mechanism
The amount of mind changing on how elections should be decided would be hilarious.
Taz said:
» show previous quotes
Good Morning Malc, I hope all is well with you and your family up in your lovely part of Scotland.
The WAGS of PB may make an interesting reality TV show. Perhaps, on a par, with the Real Housewives of New Jersey. Perhaps OGH should look into it.
Morning Taz, yes almost recovered from our covid , I had extra bonus of root canal this week but looking forward to xmas. Hope you and family all well.
Politically Scotland is like Shameless or Benidorm just now. Hard to believe so many 3 legged no users could be assembled and running a country ( into the ground).
Texas removes books about slavery from old plantation gift shop.
There is already provision for 'safe' countries. Sec 80AA of the Nationality Act 2002.
SFAICS there is a continuing general power and duty on government to keep all the safe countries under review. Making Rwanda an exception will be in the top 10 of the 200 best legal objections to the bill if it becomes law.
There is no doubt if it got that far (it won't) that the SC would say that
the government have a duty to continually review it, and that such a review can be reviewed by the courts. Not least because the SC has already said Rwanda isn't safe.
The nightmare of this wicked bill is only just beginning.
Afghanistan
World War 1
Russo-Japanese
Crimean
Does Russian military prowess consist of more than retreating into the depths of their country and waiting for winter ?
“One of the scariest fifteen minutes of my life was when I consulted Dr Google after peeing red. It listed fifteen possible causes, fourteen of which you definitely didn't want it to be.
The fifteenth suggested I may have eaten a lot of beetroot.”
lol
I’ve been there also. In an even more ludicrous way
It all got sorted when a local Thai lady pharmacist looked at me and said “it come out orange?” And I sheepishly replied “yes it come out orange” and then she chuckled and gave me a pill which fixed everything up so it no longer come out orange
Oh, you mean a a coup d’état in Rwanda.
But yes. The whole thing is utterly bonkers, the the government are so far down the rabbit hole that they can't turn back.
Wonder when the point of no return was? With hindsight, it wasn't the Supreme Court decision, it was quite a bit earlier. When Sunak took over and didn't nix the project on day one maybe?
1812 doesn’t apply here as that was about Russian geostrategic depth. Not relevant to this or other recent wars.
The problem comes when "alignment" happens, when one side of the argument is deliberately suppressed to be in keeping with one side of the argument, which its programmers happen to agree with. You see this with OpenAI, but it's also been going on with Google search for years, suppressing some political views and promoting others.
Which must be infuriating if your world view is that the silent majority are much more right wing than the consensus.
Texas.
If the Congressional Republicans refuse to authorise further aid spending, that is quite likely.
To your second point, is "alignment" really a thing? People infer motive to LLM outputs, but there is no ghost in the machine, it's just a big Chinese room. It just summarises what it's been given.
When invading others, serious advantages are more necessary.
In a way it's quite like the corporate world Sunak used to inhabit, with oversize signing bonuses and golden parachutes.
I do understand how LLMs work, and yes it's slightly more complicated than "advanced autocomplete" but it's perfectly possible for it to give a "no" then a "yes" based on training data if prompted in the way described above.
And YES alignment is a huge thing.
Famously, in the early days, it would give you the unaligned answer to whatever you prompted it. Then they added alignment, which made it ethically refuse certain requests. They rolled that back after a number of prominent critics complained, but it's still very much there.
About to head out for lunch with friends, but if you're interested in the topic, google it or go to the subreddits, especially the LocalLLaMA where there are reams of people dedicated to producing their own uncensored models.
Once you've used an uncensored model the difference between the uncensored output and the aligned output is as clear as night and day.
Edit: Added a link for you on the importance of unaligned/uncensored models - https://erichartford.com/uncensored-models
Put that way, it's still quite alarming.
But imperial mindsets are quite resilient in the face of fact.
Propaganda can only do so much.
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2023/dec/09/complaints-about-bullying-ofsted-inspectors-soar-in-schools-in-england
...But education consultants told the Observer this number may rise further, because they are receiving an unprecedented number of approaches from distressed heads unhappy with the behaviour of an inspector.
They say these complaints are falling on deaf ears, with Ofsted failing to investigate poor conduct fully. The Observer has seen standard response letters to a number of schools, which say that Ofsted will accept no additional evidence or witness statements or enter into any discussion with the school about an inspector’s conduct. They add that concerns will be passed on to the inspector’s regional manager and the outcome cannot be discussed with the school..
They epitomise why Knight was wrong and you can't just go with self-evaluation.
The 'ridiculous' comment was a direct quote about the situation, rather than a description of the actual numbers.
Headline sense compression.
Whether he gets derailed later likely depends on the outcome of his court cases
Under a proposed "career transition" scheme, they could receive free advice with tasks such as writing a CV from a designated career coach..One academic survey of those leaving Parliament after the 2010 election found almost half of those aged under 65, who responded, took at least three months to find a new job, with one in 10 taking a full year.
Although half were earning more than they had done in Parliament, 40% earned less and 10% the same as their MPs' salary.'
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-67629470
..The Observer revealed last weekend that inspectors were accusing Ofsted of misleading Perry’s inquest by claiming that “reducing stress” was a “core value” when training inspectors. The coroner said in her summing up that they had been unable to provide any evidence of this beyond a two-minute reference on a slide alongside other points. She also described Ofsted’s claims that inspections could be paused if a head was showing signs of severe stress as “mythical”...
That's one of the many problems there.
If New York Republicans had hoped to quickly and cleanly turn the page on the embarrassing saga of George Santos, the week since his expulsion from Congress has not exactly gone as planned.
While party leaders hunkered down in the Long Island suburbs to game out the critical special election to replace him, it emerged that one of their top candidates for the nomination, Mazi Melesa Pilip, was not technically a Republican at all, but a registered Democrat.
Another Republican who had entered the race earlier this year was convicted of taking part in the Capitol riot Jan. 6, 2021.
Word leaked that party officials were interviewing a more serious contender: a former state assemblyman known to have potentially damaging ties to Santos through a bizarre business proposition that one person involved said resembled the classic email scheme with a Nigerian prince.
And records were unearthed in news reports showing that another front-runner, Mike Sapraicone, had not only been sued for suppressing evidence in a murder case as a New York City police officer but also later made political contributions totaling $40,000 to an unexpected recipient: the race’s Democratic nominee, Tom Suozzi.
The torrent of revelations washed away the message of order and unity that top Republicans sought to project in the wake of Santos’ hurricane. And suspicions that many of the unsavory disclosures about the candidates had been seeded in the press by rival Republican camps left some fretting that the party was playing straight into Democrats’ hands. . . .
Joseph Cairo, the Nassau County Republican chair leading the selection process, views Santos as a stain on his personal record. He said he would likely only select a candidate already well known to the party and has also retained outside help from research firms to identify major vulnerabilities before making the nomination. . . .
The whole point of the Ofsted model is that it's judgements are so infallible that Solomon went to them for tips on tricky cases.
But historical possession is completely irrelevant. What matters is the views of the people who currently live there. Otherwise we'd get about 50 or so countries back.
The only exception to that is if people have been forcibly expelled within living memory - they have a right of return once it's safe. Sorry Israel.
I know it's not the same but jockeys have the JETS (Jockey Employment Training Scheme) into which all jockeys pay a sub and which provides help for those jockeys contemplating retirement and those who are forced to retire through injury. Calling it PETS may be asking for trouble but not everyone will move into the City or even find work as a translator (sorry, @NickPalmer).
In view of the extraordinarily tangled history of that part of Europe, both states took a pragmatic and farsighted view.
*The GDR didn't have much choice in the matter.
And no one is queueing up to demand the right to return to Russia.
But the optics are terrible. Maybe political parties should be funding it?
The South was convinced that the North would try and create dozens of anti-slavery states, densely populated with immigrants. Think New England. This would rapidly give the North an unassailable lead in the Senate as well as the House.
There was a map showing 100 states by 1900 going the rounds.
The Texas thing was an attempt to build in a protection for the slave holders.
"In the wake of the last election, hundreds of former British Members of Parliament are struggling to cope with suddenly losing their jobs, incomes, offices, perks and other important benefits for themselves, their families and political backers.
Now it the time to reach into you hearts, and your bank balances, so that these now-poor unfortunates may once again experience the joys and rewards they and theirs have come to depend upon for their spiritual and (especially) material needs. . . ."
Rep. Brandon Williams, who represents a battleground seat, says his altercation stemmed from a threat to expose his daughter.
A Republican member of Congress is alleging that a former top aide spearheaded a “vindictive” threat to expose his daughter’s OnlyFans account.
Rep. Brandon Williams (R-N.Y.) told POLITICO that his former chief of staff and former legislative director attempted to retaliate against him using his 27-year old daughter’s account on OnlyFans, a popular forum for people to charge for access to sexually explicit content.
According to Williams, the two former staffers, Michael Gordon and Ryan Sweeney, threatened to expose his daughter after Williams fired them. . . .
Gordon was “trying to exert some leverage over me,” Williams said, “and I just simply won’t allow that to happen.”
Williams, a first-term member in a battleground seat, won his race year by one percentage point. He is one of House Democrats’ top targets to unseat in 2024.
Gordon said that “the allegations Congressman Williams has levied against me are categorically false” and declined to comment further. Sweeney said the “congressman’s allegations are completely false.”
The confrontation with Gordon, which Sweeney filmed, began causing political trouble for Williams soon after its release last week. On the day before indicted former Rep. George Santos was expelled from Congress for a litany of alleged criminal misdeeds — a move that Williams and other New York Republicans led the charge for — Santos called for a House Ethics Committee investigation of Williams because of his behavior in the video.
Williams is seen confronting Gordon outside the party, pointing his finger at Gordon and vowing that if “you f–k with my family, I’ll end every relationship you have.” In response to that on-camera threat, Gordon denied any knowledge of the unspecified allegations at issue.
Williams said that the clash stemmed from a pressure campaign that began after his decision to give Gordon 30 days to find new employment. The ousted aide responded by contacting a GOP campaign consultant close to the lawmaker. . . Before going through with the firing, Gordon said, the lawmaker should think about the potential embarrassment his family would experience if TMZ found out about his daughter’s OnlyFans account. . . .
After Sweeney recorded the lawmaker during their argument outside the holiday party, Williams said the former aide delivered a personal jab at the lawmaker: “Hey, f–k you! Guess what, bitch? All I have to do is pay $7 to watch your daughter shove her phone up her p—y!” . . .
SSI - As political slogans go, even more memorable than "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too"?
As I have argued before there is a good case for saying that the UN Convention is no longer fit for purpose but having that rewritten to match modern contingencies is a massive project. Doing it unilaterally could well imperil our Security Council seat.
https://www.wahlrecht.de/umfragen/
A worthy Masterchef winner
Impressive that we're still able to make similar policy mistakes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_Kiev
Does not bode that well for Starmer, albeit most likely on current polls it would be another CDU and SPD coalition given the AfD remain beyond the pale in Germany despite polling over 20% in most polls
This is understandable given the threat of a Trump return.
But I do wonder how many folk understand the dangers of populism further developing in Europe and causing the complete paralysis of the EU? Orban may only be the start of this. The game-changer would surely be President le Pen or the collapse of consensual politics in Germany. And the way the economy is going in Germany - and the threat to its manufacturing sector - who knows how that could go?
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/09/uk-voters-want-closer-relationship-with-eu-in-significant-shift-since-brexit
But it would morally.
That would be the LOL part as states which have loudly declared that the national vote should be the deciding factor now change their mind. And vice versa.
And what would happen if GOP states adopted the convention after the result but before the electoral votes had been counted - so giving enough states for it to come into effect ?
Who knows but lots of sound and fury and lawyers getting richer.
Major study finds public see ties with Europe as more important than links with US and many ‘exhausted’ by ‘toxic’ debate
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/dec/09/uk-voters-want-closer-relationship-with-eu-in-significant-shift-since-brexit
"Now look along the right-hand column and see what left them dead or damaged on the battlefield. On this single day, at least 45 large pieces of mobile equipment were immobilized by drones that probably maxed out in price at around $1,000."
Whilst ammunition, specifically 155mm shells, remain key you frankly have to wonder how much our somewhat dilapidated kit would be worth if tested in battle.
We do need to be alert to this. The consensus, which I have shared, is that the Russian army is being destroyed in Ukraine and will not be a threat in the foreseeable. But, just maybe, they will develop an army that makes ours look like they are still using muskets.
Anyway, at least we’re now spared Pollyanesque bulletins about tank losses, Putin’s health and the likelihood of Prigozhin having him hanging from a lamp post. Good times.
I think the electoral college system is very stupid, and should be replaced by just saying the winner is the person who gets most votes. My opinion won't change if the current system has the fortunate result of keeping Trump out this time.
Sympathy for disgruntled Trump voters will be somewhat tempered by the fact that Trump was the beneficiary in 2016.
Trump himself of course did change his mind on the electoral college, bitterly complaining about how unfair and undemocratic it was in 2012 (before the election) when it looked like Obama might lose the national vote but win in the electoral college.
“That’s one hell of a pass”
The combat is increasingly developing into drone on drone warfare.
At some point, a more technically proficient adversary will develop combat swarms. Which will need to operate free of human intervention for greatest effectiveness.
The next slippery slope.