Will it definitely be bottom right on the final print or could it move to front and centre? If that is indicative of the final position, is it indicative of the story's likely size.
We all know there is a definite *story* floating around Scotch politics
What is it?
I have absolutely no desire to be banned, I want to keep you all up to date on my diet
So I won’t say any more on here. But if you peruse some well-known Scottish political blogs you’ll soon learn
I mean - that could be anything from 'SNP killed my granny' to 'Nicola has 100 properties in the South of France that she lets out to gay asylum seekers who hate the Englanders' to 'Scottish Labour secret deal with Keir to (save}kill) the Union' to....
You need to be a little less coy if you're going to tease us from afar.
Go read Wings over Scotland, then, and similar blogs
I’m absolutely not gonna say more on here. There are embargoes and injunctions and I am mindful of protecting PB (and not being banned)
It’s always heartwarming to see that some folk who have never worked in the public sector are so skilled they can instantly diagnose all the issues (which, mysteriously, always manage to conform to their personal prejudices) and propose a solution which usually involves a change to “the culture”.
Sigh…
The public sector is roughly as good (and as bad) at doing things as the private sector (with some minor variances, generally based on being able to offer market pay). The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors.
"The big difference is that mistakes in the public sector have to be declared in full, whilst in the public sector they can usually be brushed under the carpet with the connivance of accountants and auditors."
Didn't you mean the second "public sector" in that sentence to read "private sector"?
I would cite the Post Office as a riposte to that sentiment but you know that already. Plus listed companies have to make market announcement - I pile cite a few examples there too.
But the Post Office during the key period (and since) was run by people brought in for their private sector expertise, who didn’t really understand what they were managing.
What we are looking at is a tragic confluence of private sector people focused on their key objective whilst not interested, or understanding, the environment they are in, supported by a load of career long public sector people trained to follow instructions and otherwise keep their heads down.
That is part of the explanation and an important factor. But I was responding to the claim that because it was in the public sector it had to declare its mistakes in full.
That has certainly not happened in the PO's case. If anything, partly to avoid embarrassing Ministers or at least Ministerial decisions and partly to permit the privatisation of Royal Mail, the unfolding problems were kept as quiet as possible for as long as possible, even to the extent of misleading courts and Parliament.
My read is that when Vennells arrives she was genuinely willing to try and sort the situation out. But she surely unappreciated the scale of the disaster, assuming they were dealing with a small number of anomalies that could be resolved without diverting her from her course. Which is what she will have been told, up the line. But at some point - pretty obviously shortly before Second Sight were sacked - she realised the scale of the catastrophe she was sitting on.
We can all see what the right thing to have done would have been. And I’m sure that 95% of us would swear that that’s what we would have done, in her position.
She will have found herself in a room full of senior people - long serving PO managers who understood things a lot better than her, maybe someone senior from Fuitisu still sowing misinformation, and - critically - some top lawyers who must have thought that they had a better than 50:50 chance of making the catastrophe go away with some disgraceful legal shenanigans, bankrupting the other party before the case got to a conclusion. As we can see, from both Wallis’s detailed account and the summary version dramatised by ITV, they very nearly succeeded. As it is, most of the money won by Bates and others went on legal costs.
Both the financial position of her business and her own personal reputation would have been trashed, had she come clean at that point - already being on record at the BIS SC and in the media as defending the PO position. So she had the choice between being honest and facing certain ordure, or gambling that she might make the whole thing go away.
We all know what the morally right thing to do was. But I’d bet that significantly less than 95% of us would have opted for the right path, put in her position.
I suspect there was also a great deal of Ministerial pressure not to do anything to impact the Post Office's route to profits.
But I have been in the position, both in the public sector and in the private sector, of having to tell very senior people (Ministers and Chief Executives) that what they would like to do is unlawful. That takes guts. And any CEO who ignores such advice is a bloody fool. It's not just about doing the morally right thing to do: it's about the difference between legality and illegality.
Susan Crichton, the GC, left suddenly in 2013 - not long after the external legal advice pointing out the unsafeness of the convictions and the first Second Sight report. I would really like to know the truth of what led to her departure and what advice she was giving. And what her successors and predecessors were doing and saying.
The role of the GC can be immensely powerful in such circumstances - if they use that power wisely and have the independence of character to use it. Not all do. Some are frankly useless. My guess is that her successor was more intent on facilitating a "let's sweep it under the carpet" job.
That is one reason why I think the role of the lawyers here has been so shameful. They should have been gatekeepers preventing morally dubious and unlawful behaviour. Instead they appear to have facilitated and carried it out.
I can agree with you there. Yet while the inquiry, and subsequent events, is likely to pour a cauldron of excrement over a few senior Post Office folk, and a few of the more junior ones whose evidence has been myopic, and maybe even some of the hapless oppos from Fujitsu, I’d wager that the legal profession - including the courts that convicted people merely because they couldn’t prove their innocence - will get off relatively lightly.
You may well be right, Ian. There is however a lot more to come yet, so who knows who will get off lightly and who will not. The Law Society has a dreadful reputation for failing to deal strenously with its errant members, but maybe it will surprise us this time around.
Meanwhile I ask how many of us could have defended a dodgy computer system knowing full well that by doing so we were sending innocent people to jail and destroying lives? I don't think it is many as 5%. You have to be right hard-nosed bastard to do that kind of thing.
But everyone’s knowledge was incomplete, from top to bottom, for varying reasons.
The situation described above (room full of people in opposition to the truth) is how it happens -
1) you may be wrong 2) you will be an enemy of everyone here 3) if you rock the boat, we will make sure you drown first 4) this stack of paper muddies the whole thing etc
Possible rejoinders along road NOT taken:
1) same back at ya 2) hardly news, as you already are my enemy 3) not if I nick YOUR life jacket AND punch a hole in YOUR lifeboat 4) take your stack of paper and shove it up your fat . . . etc.
You’re right - but to stand up to such pressure you have to be both principled, and fairly stubborn. One the one occasion I was in an even vaguely comparable position, I’m glad to say I was. You don’t really know until you’re put on the spot.
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
I was wondering how long the average MP serves thesedays, in order to see how that stacked up with the general trend of the current parliament, and came across the random fact that apparently the 2017-19 session, which lasted 349 days, was the longest since the English Civil War. I bet they passed more legislation then though.
In any case, the answer to how many more MPs will be standind down is quite a few, since we're only about 10 above the number standing down in 2019, and we've a) had a much longer parliament, and b) it's still below the average, and c) it'll be more like the number in 1997.
Will it definitely be bottom right on the final print or could it move to front and centre? If that is indicative of the final position, is it indicative of the story's likely size.
We all know there is a definite *story* floating around Scotch politics
What is it?
I have absolutely no desire to be banned, I want to keep you all up to date on my diet
So I won’t say any more on here. But if you peruse some well-known Scottish political blogs you’ll soon learn
I mean - that could be anything from 'SNP killed my granny' to 'Nicola has 100 properties in the South of France that she lets out to gay asylum seekers who hate the Englanders' to 'Scottish Labour secret deal with Keir to (save}kill) the Union' to....
You need to be a little less coy if you're going to tease us from afar.
Go read Wings over Scotland, then
I’m absolutely not gonna say more on here. There are embargoes and injunctions and I am mindful of protecting PB (and not being banned)
Oh. If you'd just said 'Wings over Scotland' I'd have known to skip the comments and saved myself some time. You might as well say 'DiscloseTV' or 'The Ferret'.
I have high hopes for Masters of the air. Austin Butler and NCuti Gatwa and Barry Keoghan and Rafferty Law AND directed by Fukunaga (which I will have to look up how to say correctly). It’s bound to look the part.
I hope I am wrong, but I think it looks unpromising. The special effects are sludgy (a common complaint in the 2020s) and the dialogue is just a stack of cliches - "What's the move?" "We won't go without a fight". I believed every word of Band of Brothers not because it was true but because it sounded like things real people say. This just sounds like something a screenwriter wrote.
Plus - if you will forgive me - we badly need a British drama on this. We only got "Dunkirk" because Christopher Nolan can film the phone book. David Puttnam spent years trying to get Len Deighton's "Bomber" off the ground (pun!) but had to retool to "Memphis Belle" for US audiences. I want our own triumphs and disasters, not somebody else's.
It’s over three decades since ITV did the series Piece of Cake from Derek Robinson’s novel. Someone should do the his (WWI) Goshawk Squadron, which is a great book. You could lift most of the dialogue straight into the screenplay.
Not many SE5s knocking around, though.
Quite a few reproductions over the years - flyable even.
A smart producer could get the aircraft built and pre-sold to collectors as part of the financing structure.
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Note that George Washington received ZERO popular votes. And that Abraham Lincoln got just 40% of the popular vote in 1860. Old Abe did get 55% in 1864, but only because of (apparent) vote rigging on MASSIVE scale that led to many states (such as DJT's own Florida) casting no votes at all that year.
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Nope. It's not about thinking, it's about feeling, and it doesn't appear the particular words he uses matters.
But you can certainly see how his narcissism is escalating to ever more grandiose claims. It's like he cannot get by on the adulation he already gets, and needs more and more. He claims he could (or did) win every single state in 2020, on top of being better than Reagan, Lincoln, and Washington.
That should get even someone who despises Biden and could never vote for him to think something is still not right in Trump's head, but it won't, not openly.
I have high hopes for Masters of the air. Austin Butler and NCuti Gatwa and Barry Keoghan and Rafferty Law AND directed by Fukunaga (which I will have to look up how to say correctly). It’s bound to look the part.
I hope I am wrong, but I think it looks unpromising. The special effects are sludgy (a common complaint in the 2020s) and the dialogue is just a stack of cliches - "What's the move?" "We won't go without a fight". I believed every word of Band of Brothers not because it was true but because it sounded like things real people say. This just sounds like something a screenwriter wrote.
Plus - if you will forgive me - we badly need a British drama on this. We only got "Dunkirk" because Christopher Nolan can film the phone book. David Puttnam spent years trying to get Len Deighton's "Bomber" off the ground (pun!) but had to retool to "Memphis Belle" for US audiences. I want our own triumphs and disasters, not somebody else's.
It’s over three decades since ITV did the series Piece of Cake from Derek Robinson’s novel. Someone should do the his (WWI) Goshawk Squadron, which is a great book. You could lift most of the dialogue straight into the screenplay.
Not many SE5s knocking around, though.
Quite a few reproductions over the years* - flyable even.
A smart producer could get the aircraft built and pre-sold to collectors as part of the financing structure.
I’d love to see it well made as a series. Has anyone really done WWI aerial shenanigans since The Blue Max ? (Apart from the recentish, and fairly crap Red Baron.)
*Probably an order of magnitude cheaper than a repro Spitfire.
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Note that George Washington received ZERO popular votes. And that Abraham Lincoln got just 40% of the popular vote in 1860. Old Abe did get 55% in 1864, but only because of (apparent) vote rigging on MASSIVE scale that led to many states (such as DJT's own Florida) casting no votes at all that year.
Thus median between GW and AL = 20%.
So what's your point, libtard???
And getting Nevada admitted as a state days before the election despite not having the population to deserve it aided his win.
Re: Trump and slavery, one might assume that he simply has not been paying attention to the flap over Nikki Haley's own fractured history lesson.
On the other hand, could be that DJT thinks - probably with some reason - that NH's approach is actually tailor-made for the Republican caucus/primary electorate. Regardless of how bunch of Woke-jobs writing in NYT, etc. moan & groan about it.
My sense is that it's Door Number Two.
Addendum - NOT to say it ain't a problem for Haley, it is. NOT because she said it, but because a week later she's yet to draw any sort of line under it.
“NOT because she said it, but because a week later she's yet to draw any sort of line under it.”
But now there’s two of them at it, imo. Is this going to blow it up into a wider debate and problem for the GOP in election year?
I think US politics today should be open about what they really think about the Civil War. If they make instinctive off the cuff responses, is that closer to what they really think, than the lines you suggest they use to shut it down?
Trump honestly feels Lincoln would be far less memorable President without the war. The conclusion from my look at it last week is Lincoln caused the war, as he was a driven progressive nationalist with no intent at all to compromise.
Why can’t candidates standing under MAGA say into a microphone, Lincoln winning “Lincoln’s Civil War” made America Great? How many people/voters just don’t believe that in 2024?
Will it definitely be bottom right on the final print or could it move to front and centre? If that is indicative of the final position, is it indicative of the story's likely size.
We all know there is a definite *story* floating around Scotch politics
What is it?
I'll say what it isn't.
1) It isn't just a tartan version of Ferguson. A woman's husband allegedly called the police when two men paid him a visit to put the frighteners on him.
2) It isn't this either, but connoisseurs of disgusting images will appreciate the headline:
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Nope. It's not about thinking, it's about feeling, and it doesn't appear the particular words he uses matters.
But you can certainly see how his narcissism is escalating to ever more grandiose claims. It's like he cannot get by on the adulation he already gets, and needs more and more. He claims he could (or did) win every single state in 2020, on top of being better than Reagan, Lincoln, and Washington.
That should get even someone who despises Biden and could never vote for him to think something is still not right in Trump's head, but it won't, not openly.
It's not just about the voters. It's also about donors.
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Note that George Washington received ZERO popular votes. And that Abraham Lincoln got just 40% of the popular vote in 1860. Old Abe did get 55% in 1864, but only because of (apparent) vote rigging on MASSIVE scale that led to many states (such as DJT's own Florida) casting no votes at all that year.
Thus median between GW and AL = 20%.
So what's your point, libtard???
Also either standing today would be excluded on grounds of being dead. Probably.
To answer my own question only 280-290 or so MPs have been in Parliament more than 10 years (some with a gap), less than 1 in 6 for more than 20 years.
It can be pretty strange to see your relatively anonymous MP is now one of the more experienced in the House.
Barely 30 have been there 30 years, whatever happened to staying power?
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Note that George Washington received ZERO popular votes. And that Abraham Lincoln got just 40% of the popular vote in 1860. Old Abe did get 55% in 1864, but only because of (apparent) vote rigging on MASSIVE scale that led to many states (such as DJT's own Florida) casting no votes at all that year.
Thus median between GW and AL = 20%.
So what's your point, libtard???
Also either standing today would be excluded on grounds of being dead. Probably.
Though with the right Supreme Court…
I think Don Jr or some other pathetic creature may have 'joked' about his dad being eternal President.
Will it definitely be bottom right on the final print or could it move to front and centre? If that is indicative of the final position, is it indicative of the story's likely size.
We all know there is a definite *story* floating around Scotch politics
What is it?
I'll say what it isn't.
1) It isn't just a tartan version of Ferguson. A woman's husband allegedly called the police when two men paid him a visit to put the frighteners on him.
2) It isn't this either, but connoisseurs of disgusting images will appreciate the headline:
Interesting to note that after Susan Crichton, the GC, left in 2013, her replacement - Chris Aujard - was an interim GC only and left in 2015.
During this period, the Post Office's Chairman was Alice Perkins. She is also the wife of Jack Straw. Jack Straw's former SPAD, Mark Davies, was the Post Office's Director of Communications.
This period was when everything was being done to cover up what was being uncovered. It was when Second Sight, the experts brought in at the behest of MPs, were denied documents to do their job and then finally sacked. The decision to deny them documents was made by a Board meeting attended by Ms Perkins and the GC. She needs to be asked questions rather more than Ed Davey, frankly
The Director of Communications will have put pressure on editors not to run with the stories or reassured them that it was all nonsense etc.,.
There were lots of people who saw it as their job to cover this up. Paula Vennells is by no means the only person at fault here and there is something unbecoming and distasteful in the way that all these others are avoiding their share of responsibility
I am sure that you understand the realpolitik, whilst reacting against it as strongly as I do.
The sad reality is that if Vennells gets to take most of the flak, and a few junior people in Fujitsu get done for good measure, they’ll hope to get, and will probably achieve, closure.
It isn’t fair, and there will be lots of the culpable - from judges through lawyers through senior Post Office executives and Fujitsu managers - who ought to be punished as well.
But, sadly perhaps, the world we have to live in is real, and will want to move on.
I do. I do. I will be pleasantly surprised if anyone gets punished. But I will say this: if this is the result it will simply add to the widespread loss of trust people are developing in the institutions that hold our society together and make it work.
This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.
Mistakes happen - that is inevitable. But it is how we deal with those mistakes that shows what sort of society (and individuals) we are.
We are dealing with these mistakes in the worst possible way and all this will do is continue to degrade trust and do nothing to repair broken institutions. A society where that happens over and over again is going to be increasingly unpleasant and dysfunctional.
No offence, but PB-ers often complain about our hysterical, doom-laden media, and then I read paragraphs like this, by you:
“This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.”
You make us sound like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or a more tepid, Chocolate-Hobnob-eating version of North Korea. Perhaps a tad hyperbolic?
Let's see:-
- Parliament: look at the recent header about how many MPs have been recalled for misbehaviour / the misbehaviour of the last Speaker, Johnson and various Cabinet Ministers - Government procurement: PPE during Covid / Lady Mone etc.,. - The police: need I say more? - The NHS: endless maternity scandals / ill treatment of whistleblowers / sexual harassment of staff and patients / the blood contamination scandal - The press: hacking etc., - Children's homes: read the IICSA reports on how we treat the most vulnerable children - Care of the disabled: any number of scandals in how vulnerable patients are treated - The Fire service: racism / sexism / homophobia and those found guilt of such behaviour allowed to resign on full pensions - Ditto in the army and navy - The legal system: look at the behaviour of lawyers in the Post Office affair and the Law Commission - The SFO: misbehaviour so bad that a 10 year investigation into ENRC had to be abandoned and the SFO will now need to pay compensation - The British Museum: has some its treasures looted and sold by one of its curators over years - OFSTED: @ydoethur wrote a lengthy header on its failings - The Home Office: Windrush / its treatment of migrants, for starters - The Prison Service: have you read the reports of the Prisons Inspector - Building regulations: see Grenfell
How about these for starters?
This is a public realm, a society which has for too long lived off the credit built by previous generations, has run those institutions down and failed to rebuild and reinvest and which deludes itself by pretending that it is better than it really is.
That self-delusion needs to stop. To put matters right will need hard work. But first of all it needs the realisation that our institutions are nowhere near as good as we like to pretend.
Until we change to a society where honesty and competence are valued more highly than social background and aggression, nothing will change in Government, business or public institutions.
That pretty much sums up what lies behind most of my headers over the last 7 years (gulp!).
Sometime over lockdown times I re-watched "The Quatermass Conclusion" (or Quatermass 4). One of the things that interested me amongst the general dreck was the idea of the increase in brutishness as the situation got worse.
I've mused on it since though and it's made me wonder. As 'various things get worse' (whether your bag is global warming, small boats, or whatever) is whether that elbowing, shouty, grim mannerless gets increased.
Nigel Kneale was prescient of a few things in his time. Just gave me something to chew on.
I read that as "the increase in Britishness as the situation got worse." Then I reflected that somewhere there may be some truth in that
Three quarters of a million died to end slavery. We had a petition. OK, there was a lot more to it but maybe Trump has half a point. Whether the American Civil War could have been negotiated away is best left to historians but one thing Trump got right as President was to say no to warmongering neocons. As Churchill put it, jaw jaw is better than war war.
Entire period 1820 thru 1861 was exteeeeeeeeeeeeened negotiation re: slavery in America.
No shortage of jawboning, that's for sure.
Trump's "point" is same as always: his own pride and joy. (And I don't mean DJTJr.)
Trump is increasingly obviously bonkers. Yesterday he claimed to have been told by a fan that he would beat a joint ticket of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln by 35%
Quite apart from the fact that he lost the popular vote to HRC and Joe Biden so this is delusional, it is almost blasphemous about the Founding Fathers. It would be like Boris Johnson saying he would thrash Churchill and William Pitt in an election.
Surely at some point before November these delusions of granduer are going to get even MAGA Republicans to stop and think.
Nope. It's not about thinking, it's about feeling, and it doesn't appear the particular words he uses matters.
But you can certainly see how his narcissism is escalating to ever more grandiose claims. It's like he cannot get by on the adulation he already gets, and needs more and more. He claims he could (or did) win every single state in 2020, on top of being better than Reagan, Lincoln, and Washington.
That should get even someone who despises Biden and could never vote for him to think something is still not right in Trump's head, but it won't, not openly.
It's not just about the voters. It's also about donors.
Well, that's only partly a problem of course, given we have demonstrable proof Trump does not care about whether he actually wins or loses as a result of losing support (voting or donor). He just needs people more willing than last time to ignore the results if they go against him (they may not).
I think he has more willing to do that this time, but probably not enough, especially without being able to attempt to use Federal authority to influence things.
Will it definitely be bottom right on the final print or could it move to front and centre? If that is indicative of the final position, is it indicative of the story's likely size.
We all know there is a definite *story* floating around Scotch politics
What is it?
I'll say what it isn't.
1) It isn't just a tartan version of Ferguson. A woman's husband allegedly called the police when two men paid him a visit to put the frighteners on him.
2) It isn't this either, but connoisseurs of disgusting images will appreciate the headline:
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
I'm assuming he will not say a thing in the criminal trials (assuming any of them actually happen before the election). His ranting and raving in Court during the civil fraud case was just an extension of his online rambling, but when on trial? Surely even he would contain himself, he managed it at least in part during depositions.
Thanks. Struggled to get it on Prime, but will try again.
I found Oppenheimer a touch disappointing. But that might be coz it was SO hyped. It’s definitely a fine, well-made movie. But not, to my mind, a masterpiece
Maestro is similar. Bradley Cooper’s biopic about Leonard Bernstein. Some noble performances but somehow lacking - where is/was all the brilliant, exhilarating music from West Side Story?
I suspect they had copyright issues and couldn’t use it. And the absence hurts
I agree. Oppenheimer is a really boring film. It’s not about a bomb at all but all the politics after they made it. Still not as clueless and pointless as Barbie.
I haven’t seen Rebel Moon yet, is it worth bothering? I guess I’ll have to based on how good the trailer looks.
I didn’t find Oppenheimer boring as such, but it is overlong and they should definitely have focused more on the explosion - and also Hiroshima/Nagasaki (which are kinda glossed over)
Haven’t seen Rebel Moon yet. It’s on the list with mixed feelings after mixed reports
The new Reacher is simplistic fun
I’m waiting for a good period drama. Haven’t had one in ages. I was hoping The Winter King would replace Vikings or The Last Kingdom but it’s utterly dire - the most unrizz Merlin in screen history, for example. Pfffff!
I gave up quickly on Winter King. All that money utterly wasted.
Without any war or science just legal musings and office level politics, Oppenheimer is very boring.
All the Reachers are good.
I have high hopes for Masters of the air. Austin Butler and NCuti Gatwa and Barry Keoghan and Rafferty Law AND directed by Fukunaga (which I will have to look up how to say correctly). It’s bound to look the part.
There’s a new Inside Out next year.
Next up on my list is Berlin. I will start right now as this thread is boring without the 8 digit lead Opinium to get excited over.
Yes. How could they fuck up the Winter King so badly?! It’s about King Arthur FFS
Yet it’s less compelling than a 23 year old episode of Emmerdale
Oi! Behave! Season 29 was tops in many opinions.
“ Emmerdale was consistently very strong from early 1997 until 2000. The characters were likable and there was a lot of actual drama going on.”
Every time we have this discussion @Carnyx you come up with this bullshit lie that public services are an externality, and that people are being moved in but when questioned "where from" you always go deathly silent.
Where is this magical, mystical land in this country with an overabundance of school places and other public services that people are supposedly moving from?
You ask why you should pay for education? Because its a public service. That's why. If you have grandchildren, and those grandchildren need to go to school, then why does the fact that you have a house of your own, while children live in overcrowded accommodation make you absolved for paying for education while only those who buy a house should pay for it?
If people are moving away from a town or city with bountiful public services and an overabundance of good quality services and school places, then I'd love to know where this mythical make-believe town or city is.
Public services *are* an externality when it comes to initial capital investment, as if there is no investment, thjere are no new houses - an elementary feature of the planning system. Indzeed, in my area the lack of sewerage capacity held up expansion for quite a long time. It's the running that is legitimately charged to the people inhabiting the new houses.
There is a normal dynamic tunrover of schools - new buildings, new sites- over a timescale of decades. The numbers and density depend on population changes. Fewer children as families move or are moved out, fewer schools there, more needed elsewhere. It's not the simple one off you claim.
Look at the figures for Glasgow population 1950 to present to see an excellent example. The centre of the city was depopulated in favour of outer areas - some local uthority schemes, some commercial operations. Those schools have to be paid for. I live near a similar urban area where the population is moving in much the same way.
🤦♂️
From 1950 to 2000 the population was stable, so people were moving around. Areas were depopulated as other areas rose in population.
From 2000 onwards our population has grown by over 9 million people nationwide. Population has been surging nationally.
There is nowhere significant that has seen very population decline, which is why you're turning to the 1950s to make a strawman, iits just growth across the board.
We effectively all live somewhere with population growth. And yet you want to outsource paying for that to new builds only when the state has been taking taxes off everyone to pay for education which is the state's responsibility?
If new schools are required then the Department for Education should fund that, or the Scottish equivalent, it should not be the responsibility of only those who live in new houses to pay for education, that should be the DfE's (or equivalent) responsibility from the taxes everyone pays to fund education.
And no you clearly don't understand what the word externality means. An externality is something that happens due to something else, houses do not create children, people do. There is no turnover here, we have close to ten million extra people living in this country so we have extra children and the fact there's a shortage of houses does absolutely nothing to prevent children needing to go to school. 🤦♂️
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
Trump at 2.6 for the WH is a ridiculous value lay imo.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
“The story of Antonio Salieri as depicted in the play and film "Amadeus" is largely fictionalized. While Salieri and Mozart were contemporaries in Vienna and may have been rivals to some extent, the intense, bitter rivalry depicted in "Amadeus" is a dramatic invention.
“In reality, there is little evidence to suggest that Salieri was envious of Mozart to the point of plotting his downfall or his death. The idea that Salieri was involved in Mozart's death is a myth with no factual basis. The portrayal in "Amadeus" is a dramatic and artistic interpretation, not a historical account.”
That’s like a very quick and light interrogating of the net by the bot - nothing about Mozart complaining of being poisoned by the Italians or Salieri’s deathbed confession.
I WANT it to be true: that makes for a much better narrative; but nearly everything I’ve read gives me doubts….
I got more. Mozarts letters had tge Italians plotting against him.
“ The only real evidence we have of any “rivalry” between them comes from letters between Mozart and his father when Mozart was still new in Vienna and was convinced the influential Italians there, including Salieri, were conspiring to keep him from getting teaching positions. The movie and play portray this as fact, but there’s no evidence outside of Mozart’s personal feelings that it was actually happening.”
Top TV sleuths of today would say “the cold case victims trying to tell us something”
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
Trump at 2.6 for the WH is a ridiculous value lay imo.
It should be.
Its sadly not.
Especially given how much you'll need to drown your sorrows if America makes such an horrific decision.
So how does "Oppenheimer" compare with "Napoleon"?
Another mega-hyped flick where historical accuracy is consigned to the peanut gallery, to make room for the artistic pretensions of the director?
Personally think I'd rather watch "The Ghost and Mister Chicken" one more time.
I generally don’t mind at all if historical accuracy is bent - or even abandoned - to make a fantastic movie/drama (unless the subject material is incredibly recent)
Two examples: Amadeus invents the Salieri murder story out of broad cloth, it is total bollocks - yet it is probably the greatest biopic of a composer ever made, and a brilliant analysis of genius and envy
The Great is likewise 80% fabulation yet somehow it does capture the violent lunacy of 18th century Russia - and it is hysterically funny
Fuck the facts: entertain us
Amadeus is great. The bit on his deathbed giving Salieri insight into how truly gifted genius composes. But I always thought the historical Salieri did claim to have murdered Mozart?
AIUI that was made up? But I shall go and check
What about the opera by Rimsky Korsakov composed in 1897 Mozart and Salieri about that very topic?
The BBC produced this screenplay in the mid eighties on the issue. A team of real lawyers cross examined actors playing the characters including a hursuite Patrick Stewart as Salieri.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Interesting to note that after Susan Crichton, the GC, left in 2013, her replacement - Chris Aujard - was an interim GC only and left in 2015.
During this period, the Post Office's Chairman was Alice Perkins. She is also the wife of Jack Straw. Jack Straw's former SPAD, Mark Davies, was the Post Office's Director of Communications.
This period was when everything was being done to cover up what was being uncovered. It was when Second Sight, the experts brought in at the behest of MPs, were denied documents to do their job and then finally sacked. The decision to deny them documents was made by a Board meeting attended by Ms Perkins and the GC. She needs to be asked questions rather more than Ed Davey, frankly
The Director of Communications will have put pressure on editors not to run with the stories or reassured them that it was all nonsense etc.,.
There were lots of people who saw it as their job to cover this up. Paula Vennells is by no means the only person at fault here and there is something unbecoming and distasteful in the way that all these others are avoiding their share of responsibility
I am sure that you understand the realpolitik, whilst reacting against it as strongly as I do.
The sad reality is that if Vennells gets to take most of the flak, and a few junior people in Fujitsu get done for good measure, they’ll hope to get, and will probably achieve, closure.
It isn’t fair, and there will be lots of the culpable - from judges through lawyers through senior Post Office executives and Fujitsu managers - who ought to be punished as well.
But, sadly perhaps, the world we have to live in is real, and will want to move on.
I do. I do. I will be pleasantly surprised if anyone gets punished. But I will say this: if this is the result it will simply add to the widespread loss of trust people are developing in the institutions that hold our society together and make it work.
This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.
Mistakes happen - that is inevitable. But it is how we deal with those mistakes that shows what sort of society (and individuals) we are.
We are dealing with these mistakes in the worst possible way and all this will do is continue to degrade trust and do nothing to repair broken institutions. A society where that happens over and over again is going to be increasingly unpleasant and dysfunctional.
No offence, but PB-ers often complain about our hysterical, doom-laden media, and then I read paragraphs like this, by you:
“This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.”
You make us sound like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or a more tepid, Chocolate-Hobnob-eating version of North Korea. Perhaps a tad hyperbolic?
Let's see:-
- Parliament: look at the recent header about how many MPs have been recalled for misbehaviour / the misbehaviour of the last Speaker, Johnson and various Cabinet Ministers - Government procurement: PPE during Covid / Lady Mone etc.,. - The police: need I say more? - The NHS: endless maternity scandals / ill treatment of whistleblowers / sexual harassment of staff and patients / the blood contamination scandal - The press: hacking etc., - Children's homes: read the IICSA reports on how we treat the most vulnerable children - Care of the disabled: any number of scandals in how vulnerable patients are treated - The Fire service: racism / sexism / homophobia and those found guilt of such behaviour allowed to resign on full pensions - Ditto in the army and navy - The legal system: look at the behaviour of lawyers in the Post Office affair and the Law Commission - The SFO: misbehaviour so bad that a 10 year investigation into ENRC had to be abandoned and the SFO will now need to pay compensation - The British Museum: has some its treasures looted and sold by one of its curators over years - OFSTED: @ydoethur wrote a lengthy header on its failings - The Home Office: Windrush / its treatment of migrants, for starters - The Prison Service: have you read the reports of the Prisons Inspector - Building regulations: see Grenfell
How about these for starters?
This is a public realm, a society which has for too long lived off the credit built by previous generations, has run those institutions down and failed to rebuild and reinvest and which deludes itself by pretending that it is better than it really is.
That self-delusion needs to stop. To put matters right will need hard work. But first of all it needs the realisation that our institutions are nowhere near as good as we like to pretend.
Until we change to a society where honesty and competence are valued more highly than social background and aggression, nothing will change in Government, business or public institutions.
That pretty much sums up what lies behind most of my headers over the last 7 years (gulp!).
Sometime over lockdown times I re-watched "The Quatermass Conclusion" (or Quatermass 4). One of the things that interested me amongst the general dreck was the idea of the increase in brutishness as the situation got worse.
I've mused on it since though and it's made me wonder. As 'various things get worse' (whether your bag is global warming, small boats, or whatever) is whether that elbowing, shouty, grim mannerless gets increased.
Nigel Kneale was prescient of a few things in his time. Just gave me something to chew on.
"...Huffity, puffity, Ringstone Round If you lose your hat it will never be found So pull up your britches right up to your chin And fasten your cloak with a safety pin And when you are ready, then we can begin Ring, stone, round..."
Interesting to note that after Susan Crichton, the GC, left in 2013, her replacement - Chris Aujard - was an interim GC only and left in 2015.
During this period, the Post Office's Chairman was Alice Perkins. She is also the wife of Jack Straw. Jack Straw's former SPAD, Mark Davies, was the Post Office's Director of Communications.
This period was when everything was being done to cover up what was being uncovered. It was when Second Sight, the experts brought in at the behest of MPs, were denied documents to do their job and then finally sacked. The decision to deny them documents was made by a Board meeting attended by Ms Perkins and the GC. She needs to be asked questions rather more than Ed Davey, frankly
The Director of Communications will have put pressure on editors not to run with the stories or reassured them that it was all nonsense etc.,.
There were lots of people who saw it as their job to cover this up. Paula Vennells is by no means the only person at fault here and there is something unbecoming and distasteful in the way that all these others are avoiding their share of responsibility
I am sure that you understand the realpolitik, whilst reacting against it as strongly as I do.
The sad reality is that if Vennells gets to take most of the flak, and a few junior people in Fujitsu get done for good measure, they’ll hope to get, and will probably achieve, closure.
It isn’t fair, and there will be lots of the culpable - from judges through lawyers through senior Post Office executives and Fujitsu managers - who ought to be punished as well.
But, sadly perhaps, the world we have to live in is real, and will want to move on.
I do. I do. I will be pleasantly surprised if anyone gets punished. But I will say this: if this is the result it will simply add to the widespread loss of trust people are developing in the institutions that hold our society together and make it work.
This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.
Mistakes happen - that is inevitable. But it is how we deal with those mistakes that shows what sort of society (and individuals) we are.
We are dealing with these mistakes in the worst possible way and all this will do is continue to degrade trust and do nothing to repair broken institutions. A society where that happens over and over again is going to be increasingly unpleasant and dysfunctional.
No offence, but PB-ers often complain about our hysterical, doom-laden media, and then I read paragraphs like this, by you:
“This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.”
You make us sound like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or a more tepid, Chocolate-Hobnob-eating version of North Korea. Perhaps a tad hyperbolic?
Let's see:-
- Parliament: look at the recent header about how many MPs have been recalled for misbehaviour / the misbehaviour of the last Speaker, Johnson and various Cabinet Ministers - Government procurement: PPE during Covid / Lady Mone etc.,. - The police: need I say more? - The NHS: endless maternity scandals / ill treatment of whistleblowers / sexual harassment of staff and patients / the blood contamination scandal - The press: hacking etc., - Children's homes: read the IICSA reports on how we treat the most vulnerable children - Care of the disabled: any number of scandals in how vulnerable patients are treated - The Fire service: racism / sexism / homophobia and those found guilt of such behaviour allowed to resign on full pensions - Ditto in the army and navy - The legal system: look at the behaviour of lawyers in the Post Office affair and the Law Commission - The SFO: misbehaviour so bad that a 10 year investigation into ENRC had to be abandoned and the SFO will now need to pay compensation - The British Museum: has some its treasures looted and sold by one of its curators over years - OFSTED: @ydoethur wrote a lengthy header on its failings - The Home Office: Windrush / its treatment of migrants, for starters - The Prison Service: have you read the reports of the Prisons Inspector - Building regulations: see Grenfell
How about these for starters?
This is a public realm, a society which has for too long lived off the credit built by previous generations, has run those institutions down and failed to rebuild and reinvest and which deludes itself by pretending that it is better than it really is.
That self-delusion needs to stop. To put matters right will need hard work. But first of all it needs the realisation that our institutions are nowhere near as good as we like to pretend.
It’s just a dull, monotonous, one-sided whine. Sorry
It’s like reading the Daily Express rewritten by a diligent and articulate lawyer who is paid by the word, so goes on at length
You can do better. At your best you are truly acute
I have been truly acute on this topic. As has @IanB2.
There it is. Sorry.
Cope.
😀
There's a strong Eichmann in Jerusalem aspect to it all, with the bureaucrats in charge completely oblivious to the human cost and unable to question what they were doing.
“The worst sin towards our fellows is not to hate them. It is to be indifferent to them. For that is the essence of inhumanity.”
GB Shaw
Why did it take an ITV drama to raise public awareness of the Post Office scandal? For too long, the media showed hardly any interest in an injustice that ruined hundreds of lives. Journalists need to get their priorities straight, says Jordan Tyldesly
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
The amicus briefs are going to be a thing to behold. Eseentially, "don't you fucking dare debase the standing of this court for that little shit...."
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
So how does "Oppenheimer" compare with "Napoleon"?
Another mega-hyped flick where historical accuracy is consigned to the peanut gallery, to make room for the artistic pretensions of the director?
Personally think I'd rather watch "The Ghost and Mister Chicken" one more time.
I generally don’t mind at all if historical accuracy is bent - or even abandoned - to make a fantastic movie/drama (unless the subject material is incredibly recent)
Two examples: Amadeus invents the Salieri murder story out of broad cloth, it is total bollocks - yet it is probably the greatest biopic of a composer ever made, and a brilliant analysis of genius and envy
The Great is likewise 80% fabulation yet somehow it does capture the violent lunacy of 18th century Russia - and it is hysterically funny
Fuck the facts: entertain us
Amadeus is great. The bit on his deathbed giving Salieri insight into how truly gifted genius composes. But I always thought the historical Salieri did claim to have murdered Mozart?
AIUI that was made up? But I shall go and check
What about the opera by Rimsky Korsakov composed in 1897 Mozart and Salieri about that very topic?
The BBC produced this screenplay in the mid eighties on the issue. A team of real lawyers cross examined actors playing the characters including a hursuite Patrick Stewart as Salieri.
What was the conclusion?
IIRC Salieri did it. It was a jury made up of audience members who decided.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
Ways to avoid disqualifying him that previous judges have come up with in lower courts or dissents include: - Trump isn't an "officer" so it doesn't apply. The CO lower court went for this while simultaneously saying he did the insurrection part, so it doesn't necessarily seem like you have to be a dishonest hack to buy it (although arguably they were playing 4D chess). - The other parts (age restriction etc) are self-executing, but the insurrection part needs Congress to fill in the specifics before it'll do anything.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
It is not originalism, though.
It is in large measure claiming originalism, whilst reading in whatever is convenient for them in the immediate circumstances.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
The Supreme Court should, and should determine that Trump did it and is disqualified, because that's true.
However this Supreme Court will by 6-3 or 5-4 will look for a way to evade making that call, and determining a jury of his peers seems like the easiest straw to grasp.
Despite it breaking all rules of originalism and textualism etc.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
Ways to avoid disqualifying him that previous judges have come up with in lower courts or dissents include: - Trump isn't an "officer" so it doesn't apply. The CO lower court went for this while simultaneously saying he did the insurrection part, so it doesn't necessarily seem like you have to be a dishonest hack to buy it (although arguably they were playing 4D chess). - The other parts (age restriction etc) are self-executing, but the insurrection part needs Congress to fill in the specifics before it'll do anything.
I want to know what that lower CO court was smoking, the President is quite literally an officer, the constitution explicitly says so.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
That's what Roger Taney thought, when he told Dred Scott to get his Black ass back to the plantation.
Blimey, judicial language was certainly punchier in those days. Still, might as well be direct when you're denying people's humanity.
Was paraphrasing what the learned Chief Justice said, which (among other things) was that Black people "had no rights which the white man was bound to respect".
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
It probably should be the case that you need to be convicted of insurrection before being excluded, whether it does, well, I can see the Court saying for this it is necessary even if not for others. Though given Trump's supporters also claim even if he did commit crimes he should not be charged because he is a candidate (this was before they claimed total immunity) then that's a bit of a non starter in any case.
For me I find most judicial decisions quite convincing even when I dislike the outcome, because judges are usually good at crafting such decisions and arguments, so even if a dissent is more to one's taste the layperson can understand the logic used to make the majority decision.
If they cannot make the decision logically coherent (or indeed if it completely reverses their normal interpretative approach) on the other hand, that will be a sign a court is really struggling to get to the decision they wanted to make, regardless of what precedent and statute say.
Interesting to note that after Susan Crichton, the GC, left in 2013, her replacement - Chris Aujard - was an interim GC only and left in 2015.
During this period, the Post Office's Chairman was Alice Perkins. She is also the wife of Jack Straw. Jack Straw's former SPAD, Mark Davies, was the Post Office's Director of Communications.
This period was when everything was being done to cover up what was being uncovered. It was when Second Sight, the experts brought in at the behest of MPs, were denied documents to do their job and then finally sacked. The decision to deny them documents was made by a Board meeting attended by Ms Perkins and the GC. She needs to be asked questions rather more than Ed Davey, frankly
The Director of Communications will have put pressure on editors not to run with the stories or reassured them that it was all nonsense etc.,.
There were lots of people who saw it as their job to cover this up. Paula Vennells is by no means the only person at fault here and there is something unbecoming and distasteful in the way that all these others are avoiding their share of responsibility
I am sure that you understand the realpolitik, whilst reacting against it as strongly as I do.
The sad reality is that if Vennells gets to take most of the flak, and a few junior people in Fujitsu get done for good measure, they’ll hope to get, and will probably achieve, closure.
It isn’t fair, and there will be lots of the culpable - from judges through lawyers through senior Post Office executives and Fujitsu managers - who ought to be punished as well.
But, sadly perhaps, the world we have to live in is real, and will want to move on.
I do. I do. I will be pleasantly surprised if anyone gets punished. But I will say this: if this is the result it will simply add to the widespread loss of trust people are developing in the institutions that hold our society together and make it work.
This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.
Mistakes happen - that is inevitable. But it is how we deal with those mistakes that shows what sort of society (and individuals) we are.
We are dealing with these mistakes in the worst possible way and all this will do is continue to degrade trust and do nothing to repair broken institutions. A society where that happens over and over again is going to be increasingly unpleasant and dysfunctional.
No offence, but PB-ers often complain about our hysterical, doom-laden media, and then I read paragraphs like this, by you:
“This is not a one-off: everywhere you turn, our institutions are rotten, failing, untrustworthy and sometimes corrupt and downright malicious.”
You make us sound like Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or a more tepid, Chocolate-Hobnob-eating version of North Korea. Perhaps a tad hyperbolic?
Let's see:-
- Parliament: look at the recent header about how many MPs have been recalled for misbehaviour / the misbehaviour of the last Speaker, Johnson and various Cabinet Ministers - Government procurement: PPE during Covid / Lady Mone etc.,. - The police: need I say more? - The NHS: endless maternity scandals / ill treatment of whistleblowers / sexual harassment of staff and patients / the blood contamination scandal - The press: hacking etc., - Children's homes: read the IICSA reports on how we treat the most vulnerable children - Care of the disabled: any number of scandals in how vulnerable patients are treated - The Fire service: racism / sexism / homophobia and those found guilt of such behaviour allowed to resign on full pensions - Ditto in the army and navy - The legal system: look at the behaviour of lawyers in the Post Office affair and the Law Commission - The SFO: misbehaviour so bad that a 10 year investigation into ENRC had to be abandoned and the SFO will now need to pay compensation - The British Museum: has some its treasures looted and sold by one of its curators over years - OFSTED: @ydoethur wrote a lengthy header on its failings - The Home Office: Windrush / its treatment of migrants, for starters - The Prison Service: have you read the reports of the Prisons Inspector - Building regulations: see Grenfell
How about these for starters?
This is a public realm, a society which has for too long lived off the credit built by previous generations, has run those institutions down and failed to rebuild and reinvest and which deludes itself by pretending that it is better than it really is.
That self-delusion needs to stop. To put matters right will need hard work. But first of all it needs the realisation that our institutions are nowhere near as good as we like to pretend.
It’s just a dull, monotonous, one-sided whine. Sorry
It’s like reading the Daily Express rewritten by a diligent and articulate lawyer who is paid by the word, so goes on at length
You can do better. At your best you are truly acute
I have been truly acute on this topic. As has @IanB2.
There it is. Sorry.
Cope.
😀
There's a strong Eichmann in Jerusalem aspect to it all, with the bureaucrats in charge completely oblivious to the human cost and unable to question what they were doing.
“The worst sin towards our fellows is not to hate them. It is to be indifferent to them. For that is the essence of inhumanity.”
GB Shaw
Why did it take an ITV drama to raise public awareness of the Post Office scandal? For too long, the media showed hardly any interest in an injustice that ruined hundreds of lives. Journalists need to get their priorities straight, says Jordan Tyldesly
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
Ways to avoid disqualifying him that previous judges have come up with in lower courts or dissents include: - Trump isn't an "officer" so it doesn't apply. The CO lower court went for this while simultaneously saying he did the insurrection part, so it doesn't necessarily seem like you have to be a dishonest hack to buy it (although arguably they were playing 4D chess). - The other parts (age restriction etc) are self-executing, but the insurrection part needs Congress to fill in the specifics before it'll do anything.
Oh, I think they can craft a decision which may even mean it is not a wholly partisan one. Plenty of Dems and Never Trumpers who didn't like the cases either from a practical stand point (it will help him politically) or legally speaking, I am sure. The CO decision seems to have surprised plenty of commentators, even if other legal pundits are more confident of the reasoning.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
It is not originalism, though.
It is in large measure claiming originalism, whilst reading in whatever is convenient for them in the immediate circumstances.
Sounds like most originalist decisions in that case.
In slight fairness there are probably some people converting to originalism for this specific issue.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
They have delivered the overthrow of Rowe v Wade. They owe him nothing more.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
I am sure that's true, but I doubt the Donald sees it that way. Like many people lacking in any sense of loyalty to others he demands utter abasement and loyalty to himself.
That he doesn't rail daily against the Supreme Court for the times even the most favourable Justices did not come to his aid demonstrates he still has a slither of sense and cunning, since he knows they still have power beyond him (unlike pretty much every other GOP official), and so he cannot be so alienating.
In private he might bemoan those turbulent justices, a la Henry II, but not quite as much in public. They have their own agendas which might intersect with his (and happily the law might even do so sometimes too).
Treating the old bones to winter ☀ in Tenerife. Great hotel in Playa de las Americas. Massive place, arabian nights, full of moneyed blue collar. At the main bar tonight there was a live music duo, a singer who looked like Jane Birkin backed by a grizzled old Gainsbourg type geezer on guitar. Both of them were talented and enjoying themselves rather than just knocking it out. They did lots of stuff I liked but what stood out was a loose and lilting version of CCR's Have You Ever Seen The Rain. Probably the best 4 minutes I've had for quite some time.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
The one from history that raised my eyebrows was that an author of that amicus brief was Philip Allen Lacovara, Esq, Special Counsel to the Watergate Prosecutor 1973-1974.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
I marvel (no pun intended) at special effects these days. You are not saying bad all the way through a movie are you, naming movies, you are saying movies can contain amazing ones alongside so bodged up ones in post production?
As I watched the big crash scene in White Noise I said to myself how did they do that, it looked so real.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
The Supreme Court should, and should determine that Trump did it and is disqualified, because that's true.
However this Supreme Court will by 6-3 or 5-4 will look for a way to evade making that call, and determining a jury of his peers seems like the easiest straw to grasp.
Despite it breaking all rules of originalism and textualism etc.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
The Supreme Court should, and should determine that Trump did it and is disqualified, because that's true.
However this Supreme Court will by 6-3 or 5-4 will look for a way to evade making that call, and determining a jury of his peers seems like the easiest straw to grasp.
Despite it breaking all rules of originalism and textualism etc.
And precedent, such as there is.
What precedent?
As far as I know, SCOTUS has never had to rule on this issue ever before, so they're bound by no precedence.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
I am sure that's true, but I doubt the Donald sees it that way. Like many people lacking in any sense of loyalty to others he demands utter abasement and loyalty to himself.
That he doesn't rail daily against the Supreme Court for the times even the most favourable Justices did not come to his aid demonstrates he still has a slither of sense and cunning, since he knows they still have power beyond him (unlike pretty much every other GOP official), and so he cannot be so alienating.
In private he might bemoan those turbulent justices, a la Henry II, but not quite as much in public. They have their own agendas which might intersect with his (and happily the law might even do so sometimes too).
Treating the old bones to winter ☀ in Tenerife. Great hotel in Playa de las Americas. Massive place, arabian nights, full of moneyed blue collar. At the main bar tonight there was a live music duo, a singer who looked like Jane Birkin backed by a grizzled old Gainsbourg type geezer on guitar. Both of them were talented and enjoying themselves rather than just knocking it out. They did lots of stuff I liked but what stood out was a loose and lilting version of CCR's Have You Ever Seen The Rain. Probably the best 4 minutes I've had for quite some time.
Have you seen any rain? What’s the weather like?
You do know four fifths of England is under water right now, whilst you are enjoying yourself.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
Ways to avoid disqualifying him that previous judges have come up with in lower courts or dissents include: - Trump isn't an "officer" so it doesn't apply. The CO lower court went for this while simultaneously saying he did the insurrection part, so it doesn't necessarily seem like you have to be a dishonest hack to buy it (although arguably they were playing 4D chess). - The other parts (age restriction etc) are self-executing, but the insurrection part needs Congress to fill in the specifics before it'll do anything.
Oh, I think they can craft a decision which may even mean it is not a wholly partisan one. Plenty of Dems and Never Trumpers who didn't like the cases either from a practical stand point (it will help him politically) or legally speaking, I am sure. The CO decision seems to have surprised plenty of commentators, even if other legal pundits are more confident of the reasoning.
I think an ugly kludge more likely. I can’t see it being unanimous - or Alito and Thomas not wanting to weigh in with their own (what are likely to be) concurring opinions.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
The Supreme Court should, and should determine that Trump did it and is disqualified, because that's true.
However this Supreme Court will by 6-3 or 5-4 will look for a way to evade making that call, and determining a jury of his peers seems like the easiest straw to grasp.
Despite it breaking all rules of originalism and textualism etc.
And precedent, such as there is.
What precedent?
As far as I know, SCOTUS has never had to rule on this issue ever before, so they're bound by no precedence.
SCOTUS isn't bound by lower court precedence.
OR even by SCOTUS precedence, as notable demonstrated by Brown v Board of Education, AND by Dobbs v Jackson.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
I am sure that's true, but I doubt the Donald sees it that way. Like many people lacking in any sense of loyalty to others he demands utter abasement and loyalty to himself.
That he doesn't rail daily against the Supreme Court for the times even the most favourable Justices did not come to his aid demonstrates he still has a slither of sense and cunning, since he knows they still have power beyond him (unlike pretty much every other GOP official), and so he cannot be so alienating.
In private he might bemoan those turbulent justices, a la Henry II, but not quite as much in public. They have their own agendas which might intersect with his (and happily the law might even do so sometimes too).
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
Trump at 2.6 for the WH is a ridiculous value lay imo.
It should be.
Its sadly not.
Especially given how much you'll need to drown your sorrows if America makes such an horrific decision.
They won't, trust me. Donald Trump will not be president again. I've only once in my life been wrong on something in America I've been so sure of. And that was a long time ago in Oct 1995.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
There wouldn't be a civil war. People talked about this kind of stuff when Trump got arrested, nothing happened except a tiny little protest.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
There wouldn't be a civil war. People talked about this kind of stuff when Trump got arrested, nothing happened except a tiny little protest.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
Plus what limited 'power' he has will vanish the second the Supreme Court issues its ruling, if it surprises everyone by choosing to actually enforce the constitution and they actually abide by their oaths.
The moment the decision is made, it will be over. The GOP primaries would nationwide suddenly be occurring without him and all power over the party would be taken by new candidates.
The media will move on, Fox etc will move on. He'll be free to spend the last of his days ranting and raving but as a has-been not the next President anymore even to the most loyal GOP fanatics.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
There wouldn't be a civil war. People talked about this kind of stuff when Trump got arrested, nothing happened except a tiny little protest.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
Say what you will about how crap the US justice system is - but Thank God Almighty that federal prosecutors, juries and judges have been handing out multi-year sentences in the federal pen like beads from a Mardi Gras float.
AND they are still doing it, particularly for the stormtroopers who've turned fugitive and (until recently or so far) managed to allude apprehension, trial and conviction.
ADDENDUM - Remember some on here, saying that Jan 6 was NOT insurrection?
Best tell that to the marines . . . NOT the judge . . .
Treating the old bones to winter ☀ in Tenerife. Great hotel in Playa de las Americas. Massive place, arabian nights, full of moneyed blue collar. At the main bar tonight there was a live music duo, a singer who looked like Jane Birkin backed by a grizzled old Gainsbourg type geezer on guitar. Both of them were talented and enjoying themselves rather than just knocking it out. They did lots of stuff I liked but what stood out was a loose and lilting version of CCR's Have You Ever Seen The Rain. Probably the best 4 minutes I've had for quite some time.
Have you seen any rain? What’s the weather like?
You do know four fifths of England is under water right now, whilst you are enjoying yourself.
Only day 2 but warm and dry so far. Yes I gather it's wet at home and about to get cold. I'll be back soon to take my share. It's only right and proper that I do.
Treating the old bones to winter ☀ in Tenerife. Great hotel in Playa de las Americas. Massive place, arabian nights, full of moneyed blue collar. At the main bar tonight there was a live music duo, a singer who looked like Jane Birkin backed by a grizzled old Gainsbourg type geezer on guitar. Both of them were talented and enjoying themselves rather than just knocking it out. They did lots of stuff I liked but what stood out was a loose and lilting version of CCR's Have You Ever Seen The Rain. Probably the best 4 minutes I've had for quite some time.
Have you seen any rain? What’s the weather like?
You do know four fifths of England is under water right now, whilst you are enjoying yourself.
Perhaps that's WHY he's enjoying himself? (Being away from it all, that is!)
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
By enforcing the constitution as it is written?
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
This is true, but I'm sure even those Justices who claim to interpret based on the letter of the law/constitution will suddenly be converted away from originalism and textualism.
Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
"That consequence" was in fact ignored for decades, as witnessed by the scores of former Confederates who served in Congress; doubt Trump's legal mongrels will miss mentioning this.
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
The Supreme Court should, and should determine that Trump did it and is disqualified, because that's true.
However this Supreme Court will by 6-3 or 5-4 will look for a way to evade making that call, and determining a jury of his peers seems like the easiest straw to grasp.
Despite it breaking all rules of originalism and textualism etc.
And precedent, such as there is.
What precedent?
As far as I know, SCOTUS has never had to rule on this issue ever before, so they're bound by no precedence.
SCOTUS isn't bound by lower court precedence.
I’m well aware. Nonetheless, in the cases where individuals were disqualified under s3, none has been convicted beforehand. That is precedent, albeit not binding precedent.
It’s also fairly clear evidence of how the amendment was understood to work at the time - which is awkward for originalists.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
There wouldn't be a civil war. People talked about this kind of stuff when Trump got arrested, nothing happened except a tiny little protest.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
Plus what limited 'power' he has will vanish the second the Supreme Court issues its ruling, if it surprises everyone by choosing to actually enforce the constitution and they actually abide by their oaths.
The moment the decision is made, it will be over. The GOP primaries would nationwide suddenly be occurring without him and all power over the party would be taken by new candidates.
The media will move on, Fox etc will move on. He'll be free to spend the last of his days ranting and raving but as a has-been not the next President anymore even to the most loyal GOP fanatics.
Something somewhat similar happened when President Truman fired General MacArthur in 1951.
At the time (immediately before, during, after) American public opinion was STRONGLY on side of the General; whereas sizable section of Congress and constituents were not just giving Harry hell, but demanding his impeachment.
And when Mac finally made it back to USA (first time back in his native land for over a decade IIRC) he was greeted by parades (including one of the greatest ticker-tape parades ever in NYC) and addressed a Joint Session of Congress - the rarest of honors, esp. for an non-POTUS American.
Some (including DMcA) thought and hoped the General would in fact emerge as the next President. However, the yelling and cheering died down with remarkable speed. And NOT because Harry Truman regained his popularity - that didn't happen until way after he left the White House as the deadest of dead ducks. As getting beat like a gong in 1952 NH Hampshire Democratic primary (by Tenn. Sen. Estes Kefauver) demonstrated to even his (non)satisfaction.
Instead, when MacArthur got around to telling his side of the story to Congress, and the public, he was far less persuasive, though he retained a high level of celebrity AND esteem. Why? Because when most folks got around to mulling over the Principle of the Thing, they were inclined to agree with the President's right to fire a General - even Douglas Freaking MacArthur.
And they still are. EDIT - Though Trump of course has been working overtime to erode that classic American democratic principle.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
I am sure that's true, but I doubt the Donald sees it that way. Like many people lacking in any sense of loyalty to others he demands utter abasement and loyalty to himself.
That he doesn't rail daily against the Supreme Court for the times even the most favourable Justices did not come to his aid demonstrates he still has a slither of sense and cunning, since he knows they still have power beyond him (unlike pretty much every other GOP official), and so he cannot be so alienating.
In private he might bemoan those turbulent justices, a la Henry II, but not quite as much in public. They have their own agendas which might intersect with his (and happily the law might even do so sometimes too).
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
There wouldn't be a civil war. People talked about this kind of stuff when Trump got arrested, nothing happened except a tiny little protest.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
Plus what limited 'power' he has will vanish the second the Supreme Court issues its ruling, if it surprises everyone by choosing to actually enforce the constitution and they actually abide by their oaths.
The moment the decision is made, it will be over. The GOP primaries would nationwide suddenly be occurring without him and all power over the party would be taken by new candidates.
The media will move on, Fox etc will move on. He'll be free to spend the last of his days ranting and raving but as a has-been not the next President anymore even to the most loyal GOP fanatics.
IDK, another way this could go is that Trump nominates Ivanka or Donald Trump Junior and carries on? The primary ballots will mostly already have been certified so I think they can keep voting "Trump", then his delegates can cast their votes for his pick at the convention.
I feel like Ivanka Trump as proxy for Donald Trump would be a stronger candidate against Biden than Donald Trump on his own?
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
I'm assuming he will not say a thing in the criminal trials (assuming any of them actually happen before the election). His ranting and raving in Court during the civil fraud case was just an extension of his online rambling, but when on trial? Surely even he would contain himself, he managed it at least in part during depositions.
Do you mean he will take the stand and control himself, or not take the stand at all, which depending on the evidence against him might be risky even though his lawyers would surely pee themselves at the notion of letting him undergo cross-examination. He has ultra-thin skin and he's flying by the seat of his pants. I reckon he knows he's got it coming to him - hence the increasing narcisso-religiosity. It's like a literal tragedy. Mary (or her late father Fred Jr depending on how one looks at it) could be his nemesis.
Former Federal judge who worked in Reagan White House, was clerk to Antonin Scalia, coached Clarence Thomas for his SCOTUS confirmation, AND was appointed a federal judge by George Bush the Elder.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
I'd say Trump supporters only trust the Justices he appointed, but actually those ones are not necessarily his biggest fans on the Court, and he was probably very upset the majority never 'repaid' him by somehow siding with any of his nonsense legal challenges (did any even get to the SC?).
Presidents of the United State are frequently disappointed, that Justices they nominate do NOT rule the way they "should".
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
I am sure that's true, but I doubt the Donald sees it that way. Like many people lacking in any sense of loyalty to others he demands utter abasement and loyalty to himself.
That he doesn't rail daily against the Supreme Court for the times even the most favourable Justices did not come to his aid demonstrates he still has a slither of sense and cunning, since he knows they still have power beyond him (unlike pretty much every other GOP official), and so he cannot be so alienating.
In private he might bemoan those turbulent justices, a la Henry II, but not quite as much in public. They have their own agendas which might intersect with his (and happily the law might even do so sometimes too).
Him against the courts, or even just him against one judge in one court, is him against the state, and we could see another insurrection attempt.
He could totally kook it. The USA is screwed if he gets elected, and if he does get elected there could already be civil war by that time. From a humanitarian fatalities-avoidance POV a call for violent assistance to the messiah couched in terms that are so obviously mental that practically everyone realises he's a headcase except a few nutters who are happy to rant on the internet rather than do anything may be the best outcome. He's gotta be locked up or go into exile. Albeit hopefully not in Scotland! One of the Gulf countries maybe?
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
I marvel (no pun intended) at special effects these days. You are not saying bad all the way through a movie are you, naming movies, you are saying movies can contain amazing ones alongside so bodged up ones in post production?
As I watched the big crash scene in White Noise I said to myself how did they do that, it looked so real.
As for your specific question, I think the answer is yes. Any movie can have great special effects. But the production methods in Marvel are so kludged, they are spending hundreds of millions to create effects that could be better done for tens of millions. And that's the problem.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Just imagine what these geniuses (maybe including you) can do with Mickey Mouse, now that he's been freed from Disney servitude?
That's very kind of you but I don't deserve it. The best thing I ever did was realise that i am very stupid but I am very good at summarising other people's work, and since stats involves a lot of looking things up it seems to suit me, at least to the point of people paying me to do it
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
I'm assuming he will not say a thing in the criminal trials (assuming any of them actually happen before the election). His ranting and raving in Court during the civil fraud case was just an extension of his online rambling, but when on trial? Surely even he would contain himself, he managed it at least in part during depositions.
Do you mean he will take the stand and control himself, or not take the stand at all, which depending on the evidence against him might be risky even though his lawyers would surely pee themselves at the notion of letting him undergo cross-examination. He has ultra-thin skin and he's flying by the seat of his pants. I reckon he knows he's got it coming to him - hence the increasing narcisso-religiosity. It's like a literal tragedy.
What would REALLY be great, would be for Donald Trump to really discredit himself with his own base, if not the basest.
Which is sorta what happened with Douglas MacArthur.
Though the Old Soldier did, as he predicted, "fade away" which is difficult to imagine #45 ever doing.
Love him or hate him, one of the great American speeches:
short clip of newsreel coverage of McA firing (they loved him in Toyko)& speech finale (the glum looking guys behind him are Democrats, VP Alben Barkley and Speaker Sam Rayburn) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZ4keQsoIo
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Just imagine what these geniuses (maybe including you) can do with Mickey Mouse, now that he's been freed from Disney servitude?
That's very kind of you but I don't deserve it. The best thing I ever did was realise that i am very stupid but I am very good at summarising other people's work, and since stats involves a lot of looking things up it seems to suit me, at least to the point of people paying me to do it
Never ever explain the magic - Harry Houdini (at least he should have said it)
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
I'm assuming he will not say a thing in the criminal trials (assuming any of them actually happen before the election). His ranting and raving in Court during the civil fraud case was just an extension of his online rambling, but when on trial? Surely even he would contain himself, he managed it at least in part during depositions.
Do you mean he will take the stand and control himself, or not take the stand at all, which depending on the evidence against him might be risky even though his lawyers would surely pee themselves at the notion of letting him undergo cross-examination. He has ultra-thin skin and he's flying by the seat of his pants. I reckon he knows he's got it coming to him - hence the increasing narcisso-religiosity. It's like a literal tragedy.
What would REALLY be great, would be for Donald Trump to really discredit himself with his own base, if not the basest.
Which is sorta what happened with Douglas MacArthur.
Though the Old Soldier did, as he predicted, "fade away" which is difficult to imagine #45 ever doing.
Love him or hate him, one of the great American speeches:
short clip of newsreel coverage of McA firing (they loved him in Toyko)& speech finale (the glum looking guys behind him are Democrats, VP Alben Barkley and Speaker Sam Rayburn) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZ4keQsoIo
Yes - if Trump could be sold on a deal by which he retires from public life and keeps his liberty and most of his assets, that would be a result. Few or, best of all, no more fatalities at all. The problem is that he's a loony and I reckon he believes the stuff about being chosen by God to a much greater extent than his hero C G Jung.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Just imagine what these geniuses (maybe including you) can do with Mickey Mouse, now that he's been freed from Disney servitude?
That's very kind of you but I don't deserve it. The best thing I ever did was realise that i am very stupid but I am very good at summarising other people's work, and since stats involves a lot of looking things up it seems to suit me, at least to the point of people paying me to do it
Someone smart enough to realise they are stupid, cannot - by definition - be stupid.
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Just imagine what these geniuses (maybe including you) can do with Mickey Mouse, now that he's been freed from Disney servitude?
That's very kind of you but I don't deserve it. The best thing I ever did was realise that i am very stupid but I am very good at summarising other people's work, and since stats involves a lot of looking things up it seems to suit me, at least to the point of people paying me to do it
Someone smart enough to realise they are stupid, cannot - by definition - be stupid.
"Selfish, awful people, they don’t know they’re selfish and awful."
Some time between now and November, Trump's world will change when he's questioned in court and he finds he's not on a political podium, in the wrestling ring, or firing somebody in a show. That may occur on live TV.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
I'm assuming he will not say a thing in the criminal trials (assuming any of them actually happen before the election). His ranting and raving in Court during the civil fraud case was just an extension of his online rambling, but when on trial? Surely even he would contain himself, he managed it at least in part during depositions.
Do you mean he will take the stand and control himself, or not take the stand at all, which depending on the evidence against him might be risky even though his lawyers would surely pee themselves at the notion of letting him undergo cross-examination. He has ultra-thin skin and he's flying by the seat of his pants. I reckon he knows he's got it coming to him - hence the increasing narcisso-religiosity. It's like a literal tragedy.
What would REALLY be great, would be for Donald Trump to really discredit himself with his own base, if not the basest.
Which is sorta what happened with Douglas MacArthur.
Though the Old Soldier did, as he predicted, "fade away" which is difficult to imagine #45 ever doing.
Love him or hate him, one of the great American speeches:
short clip of newsreel coverage of McA firing (they loved him in Toyko)& speech finale (the glum looking guys behind him are Democrats, VP Alben Barkley and Speaker Sam Rayburn) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZ4keQsoIo
Yes - if Trump could be sold on a deal by which he retires from public life and keeps his liberty and most of his assets, that would be a result. Few or, best of all, no more fatalities at all. The problem is that he's a loony and I reckon he believes the stuff about being chosen by God to a much greater extent than his hero C G Jung.
Mar-a-Lardo = Elba? With next stop being Guantanamo = St Helena . . . IF he tries to re-coup?
Yes, and this is a big thing these days. CGI has split into two parts: cases where it's visually indistinguishable from real life (eg Top Gun Maverick, where the F14/SU57 fights are CGI), and cases that are done very badly. The terms "sludgy" or "sludge" or similar are used to describe the latter. The causes of this are known and are:
The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
Too much detail
Poor compositing
Poor depth of field
None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.
Whereas The Creator looked surprisingly good for its (relative to Marvel) modest budget. Apparently not making constant demands for changes along the way (by having a clear vision to start with) makes a huge difference.
Agreed. Joseph Kosinski is the director of Tron:Legacy and Top Gun:Maverick. he has an architectural/3d/graphics background. Gareth Edwards is the director of Rogue One and The Creator: he has a computer graphics background. They know the rules: storyboard it ruthlessly, lock down the edit, and then and only then do the effects. And those four films are beautiful. I don't care about the narrative or drama, just look at them.
Just imagine what these geniuses (maybe including you) can do with Mickey Mouse, now that he's been freed from Disney servitude?
That's very kind of you but I don't deserve it. The best thing I ever did was realise that i am very stupid but I am very good at summarising other people's work, and since stats involves a lot of looking things up it seems to suit me, at least to the point of people paying me to do it
Someone smart enough to realise they are stupid, cannot - by definition - be stupid.
Personally have been leaning on that crutch for MANY years.
Another reason for doubting Reform has the money to stand in every constituency at the general election.
This bit of the article is interesting. Clearly there are fortunes to be made in net zero.
According to Mr Skidmore’s parliamentary register of interests, he has been an adviser to the Emissions Capture Company since January 3, 2023, receiving £80,000 a year.
He has also worked for Global Insight Exchange since March 1 2023, again receiving £80,000 a year.
As a non-executive director of the Oxford International Education Group since May 16 2022, he has received £40,000 a year.
He is also the sole director of Bosworth Ltd, providing “research and advisory services”.
I'm sure the Supremes will find a way out of triggering civil war.
There wouldn't be a civil war. People talked about this kind of stuff when Trump got arrested, nothing happened except a tiny little protest.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
Plus what limited 'power' he has will vanish the second the Supreme Court issues its ruling, if it surprises everyone by choosing to actually enforce the constitution and they actually abide by their oaths.
The moment the decision is made, it will be over. The GOP primaries would nationwide suddenly be occurring without him and all power over the party would be taken by new candidates.
The media will move on, Fox etc will move on. He'll be free to spend the last of his days ranting and raving but as a has-been not the next President anymore even to the most loyal GOP fanatics.
IDK, another way this could go is that Trump nominates Ivanka or Donald Trump Junior and carries on? The primary ballots will mostly already have been certified so I think they can keep voting "Trump", then his delegates can cast their votes for his pick at the convention.
I feel like Ivanka Trump as proxy for Donald Trump would be a stronger candidate against Biden than Donald Trump on his own?
Comments
I’m absolutely not gonna say more on here. There are embargoes and injunctions and I am mindful of protecting PB (and not being banned)
One the one occasion I was in an even vaguely comparable position, I’m glad to say I was. You don’t really know until you’re put on the spot.
In any case, the answer to how many more MPs will be standind down is quite a few, since we're only about 10 above the number standing down in 2019, and we've a) had a much longer parliament, and b) it's still below the average, and c) it'll be more like the number in 1997.
A smart producer could get the aircraft built and pre-sold to collectors as part of the financing structure.
Thus median between GW and AL = 20%.
So what's your point, libtard???
But you can certainly see how his narcissism is escalating to ever more grandiose claims. It's like he cannot get by on the adulation he already gets, and needs more and more. He claims he could (or did) win every single state in 2020, on top of being better than Reagan, Lincoln, and Washington.
That should get even someone who despises Biden and could never vote for him to think something is still not right in Trump's head, but it won't, not openly.
Has anyone really done WWI aerial shenanigans since The Blue Max ?
(Apart from the recentish, and fairly crap Red Baron.)
*Probably an order of magnitude cheaper than a repro Spitfire.
Disgraceful! Battleborn my arse.
But now there’s two of them at it, imo. Is this going to blow it up into a wider debate and problem for the GOP in election year?
I think US politics today should be open about what they really think about the Civil War. If they make instinctive off the cuff responses, is that closer to what they really think, than the lines you suggest they use to shut it down?
Trump honestly feels Lincoln would be far less memorable President without the war. The conclusion from my look at it last week is Lincoln caused the war, as he was a driven progressive nationalist with no intent at all to compromise.
Why can’t candidates standing under MAGA say into a microphone, Lincoln winning “Lincoln’s Civil War” made America Great? How many people/voters just don’t believe that in 2024?
1) It isn't just a tartan version of Ferguson. A woman's husband allegedly called the police when two men paid him a visit to put the frighteners on him.
2) It isn't this either, but connoisseurs of disgusting images will appreciate the headline:
https://www.scottishdailyexpress.co.uk/news/politics/humza-yousaf-gushes-over-brian-31817066
Probably.
Though with the right Supreme Court…
It can be pretty strange to see your relatively anonymous MP is now one of the more experienced in the House.
Barely 30 have been there 30 years, whatever happened to staying power?
Gotta respect that family loyalty though.
https://thehill.com/regulation/court-battles/4393472-former-federal-judge-trump-14th-amendment-supreme-court-colorado/
Then I reflected that somewhere there may be some truth in that
I think he has more willing to do that this time, but probably not enough, especially without being able to attempt to use Federal authority to influence things.
It's possible he might cause another insurrection at that time, or try to. Let's hope nobody else gets killed for this nutcase.
“ Emmerdale was consistently very strong from early 1997 until 2000. The characters were likable and there was a lot of actual drama going on.”
https://forums.digitalspy.com/discussion/1646905/was-2000-emmerdales-best-ever-year
Nothing in 2000 tops the Hotten Bypass Crash (2016) for TV drama we will never forget. 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑 out of 🐑🐑🐑🐑🐑
From 1950 to 2000 the population was stable, so people were moving around. Areas were depopulated as other areas rose in population.
From 2000 onwards our population has grown by over 9 million people nationwide. Population has been surging nationally.
There is nowhere significant that has seen very population decline, which is why you're turning to the 1950s to make a strawman, iits just growth across the board.
We effectively all live somewhere with population growth. And yet you want to outsource paying for that to new builds only when the state has been taking taxes off everyone to pay for education which is the state's responsibility?
If new schools are required then the Department for Education should fund that, or the Scottish equivalent, it should not be the responsibility of only those who live in new houses to pay for education, that should be the DfE's (or equivalent) responsibility from the taxes everyone pays to fund education.
And no you clearly don't understand what the word externality means. An externality is something that happens due to something else, houses do not create children, people do. There is no turnover here, we have close to ten million extra people living in this country so we have extra children and the fact there's a shortage of houses does absolutely nothing to prevent children needing to go to school. 🤦♂️
Trump in Iowa: “If it weren’t for John McCain, we’d have something better than Obamacare. John McCain, for some reason, couldn’t get his arm up that day.”
https://nitter.net/bensiegel/status/1743736523101557238#m
That is what they've pledged to do is it not?
If he didn't want to be disqualified, he shouldn't have instigated an insurrection.
Clearly the worst kind of Woke Rhino Libtard.
- The rise of "fix in in post": making changes that have to be fixed in post-production
- Unnecessarily massive polygon counts (or whatever phrase is used these days)
- Too much detail
- Poor compositing
- Poor depth of field
- None of the old tricks (eg putting lines in the image to tell the eye where to look: Tron:Legacy does this shamelessly and it works)
This is a result of overweening directors leading to badly overworked CGI studios, which are sweatshops at this point. Marvel Studios films are infamous for this.Can they convincingly explain how that does not make that section of the 14th amendment meaningless is the question, or will they just ignore that consequence.
“ The only real evidence we have of any “rivalry” between them comes from letters between Mozart and his father when Mozart was still new in Vienna and was convinced the influential Italians there, including Salieri, were conspiring to keep him from getting teaching positions. The movie and play portray this as fact, but there’s no evidence outside of Mozart’s personal feelings that it was actually happening.”
Top TV sleuths of today would say “the cold case victims trying to tell us something”
Its sadly not.
Especially given how much you'll need to drown your sorrows if America makes such an horrific decision.
If you lose your hat it will never be found
So pull up your britches right up to your chin
And fasten your cloak with a safety pin
And when you are ready, then we can begin
Ring, stone, round..."
Why are they only using pictures of Lib Dem politicians?
https://x.com/spikedonline/status/1743588271857226185?s=46&t=CW4pL-mMpTqsJXCdjW0Z6Q
My own thought is, who decides who is guilty of insurrection against, and under, the Constitution?
One obvious answer is, the Supreme Court of the United States can.
Another is, a jury of his peers, after the accused has been charged, then tried in federal court.
Yet another is ________ (fill in the blank but only IF you are a constitutional scholar and/or inveterate gambler).
- Trump isn't an "officer" so it doesn't apply. The CO lower court went for this while simultaneously saying he did the insurrection part, so it doesn't necessarily seem like you have to be a dishonest hack to buy it (although arguably they were playing 4D chess).
- The other parts (age restriction etc) are self-executing, but the insurrection part needs Congress to fill in the specifics before it'll do anything.
It is in large measure claiming originalism, whilst reading in whatever is convenient for them in the immediate circumstances.
However this Supreme Court will by 6-3 or 5-4 will look for a way to evade making that call, and determining a jury of his peers seems like the easiest straw to grasp.
Despite it breaking all rules of originalism and textualism etc.
For me I find most judicial decisions quite convincing even when I dislike the outcome, because judges are usually good at crafting such decisions and arguments, so even if a dissent is more to one's taste the layperson can understand the logic used to make the majority decision.
If they cannot make the decision logically coherent (or indeed if it completely reverses their normal interpretative approach) on the other hand, that will be a sign a court is really struggling to get to the decision they wanted to make, regardless of what precedent and statute say.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/m000jf7j?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile
Dwight Eisenhower's nomination of Earl Warren being notable, but hardly unique, example.
In slight fairness there are probably some people converting to originalism for this specific issue.
That he doesn't rail daily against the Supreme Court for the times even the most favourable Justices did not come to his aid demonstrates he still has a slither of sense and cunning, since he knows they still have power beyond him (unlike pretty much every other GOP official), and so he cannot be so alienating.
In private he might bemoan those turbulent justices, a la Henry II, but not quite as much in public. They have their own agendas which might intersect with his (and happily the law might even do so sometimes too).
As I watched the big crash scene in White Noise I said to myself how did they do that, it looked so real.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oXFSIYy8D7M
As far as I know, SCOTUS has never had to rule on this issue ever before, so they're bound by no precedence.
SCOTUS isn't bound by lower court precedence.
https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/4392902-trump-warns-big-trouble-as-scotus-agrees-hear-colorado-case/
…“I just hope we get fair treatment,” Trump said at an Iowa rally Friday. “Because if we don’t, our country’s in big, big trouble. Does everybody understand what I’m saying?”..
You do know four fifths of England is under water right now, whilst you are enjoying yourself.
I can’t see it being unanimous - or Alito and Thomas not wanting to weigh in with their own (what are likely to be) concurring opinions.
Trump got a bunch of very-online people from the suburbs to storm Congress on January 6th but he could do that because he was still president and they thought there was a plan to keep him that way. Once the coup attempt failed and it was clear that they risked getting arrested by normal police they went home.
The moment the decision is made, it will be over. The GOP primaries would nationwide suddenly be occurring without him and all power over the party would be taken by new candidates.
The media will move on, Fox etc will move on. He'll be free to spend the last of his days ranting and raving but as a has-been not the next President anymore even to the most loyal GOP fanatics.
AND they are still doing it, particularly for the stormtroopers who've turned fugitive and (until recently or so far) managed to allude apprehension, trial and conviction.
ADDENDUM - Remember some on here, saying that Jan 6 was NOT insurrection?
Best tell that to the marines . . . NOT the judge . . .
Nonetheless, in the cases where individuals were disqualified under s3, none has been convicted beforehand. That is precedent, albeit not binding precedent.
It’s also fairly clear evidence of how the amendment was understood to work at the time - which is awkward for originalists.
At the time (immediately before, during, after) American public opinion was STRONGLY on side of the General; whereas sizable section of Congress and constituents were not just giving Harry hell, but demanding his impeachment.
And when Mac finally made it back to USA (first time back in his native land for over a decade IIRC) he was greeted by parades (including one of the greatest ticker-tape parades ever in NYC) and addressed a Joint Session of Congress - the rarest of honors, esp. for an non-POTUS American.
Some (including DMcA) thought and hoped the General would in fact emerge as the next President. However, the yelling and cheering died down with remarkable speed. And NOT because Harry Truman regained his popularity - that didn't happen until way after he left the White House as the deadest of dead ducks. As getting beat like a gong in 1952 NH Hampshire Democratic primary (by Tenn. Sen. Estes Kefauver) demonstrated to even his (non)satisfaction.
Instead, when MacArthur got around to telling his side of the story to Congress, and the public, he was far less persuasive, though he retained a high level of celebrity AND esteem. Why? Because when most folks got around to mulling over the Principle of the Thing, they were inclined to agree with the President's right to fire a General - even Douglas Freaking MacArthur.
And they still are. EDIT - Though Trump of course has been working overtime to erode that classic American democratic principle.
* "NO CGI" is really just INVISIBLE CGI (Top Gun: Maverick): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ttG90raCNo
* Why Tron Legacy is the Antidote to Modern CGI: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VvLk9G9XuPw
* The INSANE IMAX Production of THE CREATOR: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4uArBWoROQ
* The Creator Final Battle Best Scenes And Ending Scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ci7PJqz5Pw
* The Creator 2023 USS Nomad and its destruction scene: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lZ9TT1POe8
I feel like Ivanka Trump as proxy for Donald Trump would be a stronger candidate against Biden than Donald Trump on his own?
Just imagine what these geniuses (maybe including you) can do with Mickey Mouse, now that he's been freed from Disney servitude?
Miss You Like Crazy by Natalie Cole (from 1989) is such a good song imo. Haven't thought about it for ages until just now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2nR8QbmjM7s
He could totally kook it. The USA is screwed if he gets elected, and if he does get elected there could already be civil war by that time. From a humanitarian fatalities-avoidance POV a call for violent assistance to the messiah couched in terms that are so obviously mental that practically everyone realises he's a headcase except a few nutters who are happy to rant on the internet rather than do anything may be the best outcome. He's gotta be locked up or go into exile. Albeit hopefully not in Scotland! One of the Gulf countries maybe?
As for your specific question, I think the answer is yes. Any movie can have great special effects. But the production methods in Marvel are so kludged, they are spending hundreds of millions to create effects that could be better done for tens of millions. And that's the problem.
Which is sorta what happened with Douglas MacArthur.
Though the Old Soldier did, as he predicted, "fade away" which is difficult to imagine #45 ever doing.
Love him or hate him, one of the great American speeches:
short clip of newsreel coverage of McA firing (they loved him in Toyko)& speech finale (the glum looking guys behind him are Democrats, VP Alben Barkley and Speaker Sam Rayburn)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIZ4keQsoIo
full audio of speech (start of dramatic ending 54.58)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4GTVP-07d4
And what about MM? (RDS wants to know!)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29ghXy6O2dc
Actual flight path with pilot to ground communications
According to Mr Skidmore’s parliamentary register of interests, he has been an adviser to the Emissions Capture Company since January 3, 2023, receiving £80,000 a year.
He has also worked for Global Insight Exchange since March 1 2023, again receiving £80,000 a year.
As a non-executive director of the Oxford International Education Group since May 16 2022, he has received £40,000 a year.
He is also the sole director of Bosworth Ltd, providing “research and advisory services”.
Why would she let her Dad boss her around?