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The Rape case decision will make Trump’s WH2024 campaign that much harder – politicalbetting.com

SystemSystem Posts: 12,160
edited February 4 in General
imageThe Rape case decision will make Trump’s WH2024 campaign that much harder – politicalbetting.com

The odds on Trump regaining the White House in November’s election have eased a bit following the decision by the jury in the Carroll court defamation case. The decision by the jury that Trump has to pay Carroll $84m could undermine his position with voters across the country and punters have reacted accordingly.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • CatManCatMan Posts: 3,058
    First!
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,868
    CatMan said:

    First!

    Last on the previous thread!
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,868
    Maybe, maybe not. Trump will probably appeal or at least claim he plans to appeal. It is not new news.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,799
    Sad to say but this is probably a buying opportunity for those wanting to trade on this. So far, none of his judicial setbacks have done him any damage.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's civil cases is more significant.

    Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 22,813
    edited January 27
    HYUFD said:

    It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's civil cases is more significant.

    Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority

    Ending legal and safe abortion.....unless they believe in miracles.....
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    "THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" :lol:
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 42,098
    HYUFD said:

    It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's civil cases is more significant.

    Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority

    So for them he is an instrument of the lord. It's hard for Joe to compete with that. He'll have to focus on other demographics. There's plenty.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 53,799

    "THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" :lol:

    And thank goodness for that!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    HYUFD said:

    It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's civil cases is more significant.

    Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority

    Sorry, the first line should read: 'It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's criminal cases is more significant.'
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 122,889
    kinabalu said:

    HYUFD said:

    It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's civil cases is more significant.

    Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority

    So for them he is an instrument of the lord. It's hard for Joe to compete with that. He'll have to focus on other demographics. There's plenty.
    Indeed, Trump won 76% of Protestant evangelicals in 2020 but Biden won 52% of Roman Catholics, 76% of Jews, 68% of other religions and 65% of non religious voters
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_United_States_presidential_election#Voter_demographics
  • GhedebravGhedebrav Posts: 3,860
    The evangelical refrain is 'hate the sin, love the sinner'. They see The Donald as a sinner, but Biden is so much worse than that - he's a Catholic!
  • ajbajb Posts: 147
    HYUFD said:

    It might make a little impact but I expect the verdict in Trump's civil cases is more significant.

    Trump has evangelicals eternal gratitude for appointing SC justices who would reverse Roe v Wade. Cutting back on and ideally ending abortion in the US is conservative evangelicals number 1 priority

    This is indeed the case. I knew slightly a guy who was very working class, was in a union (AT&T whole career) knew his entire economic interests were with the Dems, and that the republican party didn't give a shit about guys like him. But because of abortion, he voted Trump.

  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656

    "THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" :lol:

    It's AMERICA'S BITCH though with Sunak and SKS
  • bigjohnowlsbigjohnowls Posts: 22,656
    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice
  • numbertwelvenumbertwelve Posts: 6,813
    Not convinced that this case in particular will make any difference on its own. What is more plausible to me is the steady drip-drip of legal troubles over the next few months start to knock the enthusiasm of some* Trump supporters, enough to put a serious dent in his chances come November (if he gets that far).

    *by no means all. We know there are a significant subset of Trump voters who will vote for the man whatever happens. But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,399
    2 superb goals from about 2 shots by Maidstone.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,220
    edited January 27

    Not convinced that this case in particular will make any difference on its own. What is more plausible to me is the steady drip-drip of legal troubles over the next few months start to knock the enthusiasm of some* Trump supporters, enough to put a serious dent in his chances come November (if he gets that far).

    *by no means all. We know there are a significant subset of Trump voters who will vote for the man whatever happens. But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.

    “But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.”

    Prediction - Trump, if he gets to the actual election as the live Republican candidate, will get more than 43% of the vote, no matter what.

    That includes criminal convictions.
  • DecrepiterJohnLDecrepiterJohnL Posts: 27,868
    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,220

    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice

    You are aware that Trump will be telling Netanyahu to go further? - he did last time.

    Probably will lambast the Israeli government for not nuking Gaza.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,950

    DavidL said:

    Sad to say but this is probably a buying opportunity for those wanting to trade on this. So far, none of his judicial setbacks have done him any damage.

    In a sensible world, this ought to be a setback for Trump.

    Then again, in a sensible world, he would have been cast into the outer darkness in 2020, rather than being all but inevitable for the Republican nomination.
    In a sensible world he would have been cast out at this point, however..



    Much as I'm largely negative about UK politics, if any aspiring politician had done this in 2015 their career would have been over. Nowadays, I'm not so sure.

  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,354
    This is all part of the establishment stitch-up trying to stop Trump from saving America from their greed. The establishment will stitch you up for rape too, if you step out of line, and that's why you have to do everything to help Trump win.

    Things that happen cannot hurt Trump because the story that he and his supporters tell about reality is more important to them than actual reality.

    We've had nine years of one outrageous thing after another, any one of which would have destroyed any other politician. Why are people still expecting that the latest of these things will damage Trump when the previous several hundred have not done so?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,311

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    Anything to do with UN is corrupt, it is full of grifters and ne’er do wells

  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,174
    The I’s chief political commentator Paul Waugh has failed in his bid to be the Labour candidate in Rochdale. Is that the end of his career as a journalist? I’m reminded of that but at the end of The Project when the former radio four producer tries to return having realised her mistake going to the Labour Party: “Many people move from journalism to politics. It’s far harder to make the reverse journey.”
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 18,354

    Not convinced that this case in particular will make any difference on its own. What is more plausible to me is the steady drip-drip of legal troubles over the next few months start to knock the enthusiasm of some* Trump supporters, enough to put a serious dent in his chances come November (if he gets that far).

    *by no means all. We know there are a significant subset of Trump voters who will vote for the man whatever happens. But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.

    “But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.”

    Prediction - Trump, if he gets to the actual election as the live Republican candidate, will get more than 43% of the vote, no matter what.

    That includes criminal convictions.
    He received 46.1% of the vote in 2016, and 46.8% in 2020. After four more years of being Trump and doing Trump things he received more votes.

    43% is a very safe floor for his vote.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358
    Ghedebrav said:

    The evangelical refrain is 'hate the sin, love the sinner'. They see The Donald as a sinner, but Biden is so much worse than that - he's a Catholic!

    I was thinking more of the parallels with all those mad homophobic televangelists who turn out to be groping underage boys on the sly.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358

    DavidL said:

    Sad to say but this is probably a buying opportunity for those wanting to trade on this. So far, none of his judicial setbacks have done him any damage.

    In a sensible world, this ought to be a setback for Trump.

    Then again, in a sensible world, he would have been cast into the outer darkness in 2020, rather than being all but inevitable for the Republican nomination.
    In a sensible world he would have been cast out at this point, however..



    Much as I'm largely negative about UK politics, if any aspiring politician had done this in 2015 their career would have been over. Nowadays, I'm not so sure.

    When you consider how quickly the prospective Tory candidate for London mayor was dropped over those allegations - even though that left a certifiable lunatic as their actual candidate - I cannot but agree.

    One way our otherwise pathetic system has worked in the last few years is it has been catching up with those who abuse their position for sexual gratification.

    Now we need to find a way to get the bastards who screw us for their pecuniary advantage.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358
    malcolmg said:

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    Anything to do with UN is corrupt, it is full of grifters and ne’er do wells

    Afternoon Malc, glad to see the ballistic turnips are loaded and on target as ever.
  • MoonRabbitMoonRabbit Posts: 13,494
    🐎 🍾
  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,588
    edited January 27
    tlg86 said:

    The I’s chief political commentator Paul Waugh has failed in his bid to be the Labour candidate in Rochdale. Is that the end of his career as a journalist? I’m reminded of that but at the end of The Project when the former radio four producer tries to return having realised her mistake going to the Labour Party: “Many people move from journalism to politics. It’s far harder to make the reverse journey.”

    I can think of Brian Walden, Matthew Parris, Bill Deedes. Any others?

    [ETA: I am thinking of politicians who became 'real' journalists, not just "columnists on the basis that they are/were politicians"]
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,344

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    Trump appeals to a lot of people, on the basis that he'll do nasty things to the people they hate. They don't care that he's a piece of shit.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,243
    dixiedean said:

    2 superb goals from about 2 shots by Maidstone.

    The match stats are incredible.


  • mwadamsmwadams Posts: 3,588
    edited January 27

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
  • Sean_FSean_F Posts: 37,344

    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice

    As ever, politics is about choosing between bad courses. Voting Trump, or abstaining, is choosing a worse course than voting Biden.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603
    Sean_F said:

    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice

    As ever, politics is about choosing between bad courses. Voting Trump, or abstaining, is choosing a worse course than voting Biden.
    There's no real way of knowing that. What if China takes Biden's reelection as a sign of weakness and it triggers events leading to WW3?
  • BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 8,580
    edited January 27

    Sean_F said:

    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice

    As ever, politics is about choosing between bad courses. Voting Trump, or abstaining, is choosing a worse course than voting Biden.
    There's no real way of knowing that. What if China takes Biden's reelection as a sign of weakness and it triggers events leading to WW3?
    WW3 is not in China's interests.

    EDIT WW3 is only in the interest of megalomaniacs who see it as a way of avoiding jail or assassination. Putin? Netanyahu? Trump? People like that. And even then ... Hopefully there are sane people around them
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    It has been consistent for months that no-one at all actually talking from Gaza itself would ever say anything critical of the Gaza regime. This goes for UN agencies, even the BBC, medics, charities, religious types, vox pops etc. This is in stark contrast with internal Israel critics. I draw the obvious conclusions about fear, support, bias etc.

    (Which does not mean I support Israel's current regime.)
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 28,368
    ...

    Sean_F said:

    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice

    As ever, politics is about choosing between bad courses. Voting Trump, or abstaining, is choosing a worse course than voting Biden.
    There's no real way of knowing that. What IF China takes Biden's reelection as a sign of weakness and it triggers events leading to WW3?
    IF doing all the heavy lifting.

    What IF Putin sees Trump's election as an opportunity to move West threatening the use of nukes, and Trump warns Europe about retaliating against his mate? Bollocks? Yes, but so was your suggestion.

    I would have conquered Everest IF I hadn't missed the boat train from Victoria.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,555
    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,009
    These Evangelicals are a funny bunch. Call themselves Christians and yet if they ever bumped into Jesus would despise him as the Evil Woke.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,555
    edited January 27
    This week we get the New York court showing how much should properly be clawed back from the Trump Empire for their regime of fraud.

    It will be hundreds of millions.

    Frankly, if the Democrats can't make hay against a fraudster rapist, they really don't deserve to be in power, so shit will they be at politics. Trump's woes are nothing - NOTHING - to do with Biden. They are everything to do with the sack of personality defects that is Donald Trump.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,555

    Not convinced that this case in particular will make any difference on its own. What is more plausible to me is the steady drip-drip of legal troubles over the next few months start to knock the enthusiasm of some* Trump supporters, enough to put a serious dent in his chances come November (if he gets that far).

    *by no means all. We know there are a significant subset of Trump voters who will vote for the man whatever happens. But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.

    “But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.”

    Prediction - Trump, if he gets to the actual election as the live Republican candidate, will get more than 43% of the vote, no matter what.

    That includes criminal convictions.
    The polling says not.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited January 27
    A Bunch of Numbers !!!

    More coming for Mr Trump in the report of the Financial Monitor put into his New York businesses by the Court.

    eg a $48m loan included in various regulatory paperwork that they now say "does not exist", and will be 'left out in the future'.



    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRbIJC3IUqY
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826
    Is the US going to relocate nuclear weapons to the UK? I have to admit I am in two minds about this. I'm unsure what the purpose of this would be and do we as a nuclear power really want or need US weapons here? Perhaps it would be a signal to Putin in some way but it ought to be a political issue. When the matter of US bases on British soil became salient in the 1980s after the attack on Libya they were not popular.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 51,603

    ...

    Sean_F said:

    On topic. Genocide Joe or Stinky Don.

    What a terrible choice

    As ever, politics is about choosing between bad courses. Voting Trump, or abstaining, is choosing a worse course than voting Biden.
    There's no real way of knowing that. What IF China takes Biden's reelection as a sign of weakness and it triggers events leading to WW3?
    IF doing all the heavy lifting.

    What IF Putin sees Trump's election as an opportunity to move West threatening the use of nukes, and Trump warns Europe about retaliating against his mate? Bollocks? Yes, but so was your suggestion.

    I would have conquered Everest IF I hadn't missed the boat train from Victoria.
    Well Putin seems to have taken Biden's election as a signal that he could get away with a full scale invasion of Ukraine.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826
    edited January 27
    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
  • nico679nico679 Posts: 6,275
    We have Trident why do we need more nuclear weapons ?
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,214

    These Evangelicals are a funny bunch. Call themselves Christians and yet if they ever bumped into Jesus would despise him as the Evil Woke.

    Increasingly not going to church, either.

    Already, 30 percent of Southern Baptists “seldom” or “never” attend church, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Survey. The southern Bible Belt is quickly becoming a region of unchurched or lapsed Protestants who may still hang onto their evangelical identity to some extent but who don’t think going to church is necessary.

    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/august-web-only/church-attendance-sbc-southern-evangelicals-now-lapsed.html

    And unlike cultural Anglicans retaining a belief in tea and being a bit nicer to people, cultural Southern Baptists can drift into something pretty grim away from the anchoring of a real church with actual people in it.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Emily Dickinson is with Kinabalu on this one. She trumps Leon.

    Ah, Teneriffe!

    Ah, Teneriffe!
    Retreating Mountain!
    Purples of Ages — pause for you —
    Sunset — reviews her Sapphire Regiment —
    Day — drops you her Red Adieu!

    Still — Clad in your Mail of ices —
    Thigh of Granite — and thew — of Steel —
    Heedless — alike — of pomp — or parting

    Ah, Teneriffe!
    I'm kneeling — still —
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited January 27

    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
    On this, there was a report on BBC R4 From Our Own Correspondent this morning suggesting that a reverse process is happening - Trump supporters are starting to brand themselves as Evangelicals. Evangelical as a political, not a theological, label:

    14:12 and onwards here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vt29

    It reports suggestions that this is a resurgence of "Christian Nationalism", which sounds to me like the Christian Reconstructionism that was visible on the fringes several decades ago:

    Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for idolatry, open homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft and blasphemy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism

    Looking through the word-salad, this is a sort-of Christian Fundamentalist parallel to "back-to-the-Caliphate" Islam, where the attempt is to recreate a perceived form of "Christian Society". Read by some Trump supporters across into politics.

    It is both theologically illiterate and anti-democratic.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,555

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    Let's face it, he would never ever have admitted

    "On our recent Tun bridge Wells holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496

    These Evangelicals are a funny bunch. Call themselves Christians and yet if they ever bumped into Jesus would despise him as the Evil Woke.

    Increasingly not going to church, either.

    Already, 30 percent of Southern Baptists “seldom” or “never” attend church, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Survey. The southern Bible Belt is quickly becoming a region of unchurched or lapsed Protestants who may still hang onto their evangelical identity to some extent but who don’t think going to church is necessary.

    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/august-web-only/church-attendance-sbc-southern-evangelicals-now-lapsed.html

    And unlike cultural Anglicans retaining a belief in tea and being a bit nicer to people, cultural Southern Baptists can drift into something pretty grim away from the anchoring of a real church with actual people in it.
    Worth noting that mostly British evangelicals (I am not one) are kind, decent and helpful and while often having strong views about what is right and wrong in church tend not to want to legislate their views for everyone. So for example, many don't want gay blessings/marriage in church but very few campaign to recriminalize gay relationships generally.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    I am, indeed, being an appalling snob

    But if I was asked to devise an absolutely cringe, naff, non-U, scrotum-shrivellingly Poujadiste holiday recommendation it would be that

    Every single word is perfect, right down to the immortal triplet "outdoor terrace bars"
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,064

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    I've certainly read cringier (possibly also something by Leon, but I can't be bothered to spend half an afternoon dredging that up).

    Good live music is great even in mundane settings.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549
    "Visit Leicester - The Place Where Tourism Began"

    https://www.visitleicester.info
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814

    Is the US going to relocate nuclear weapons to the UK? I have to admit I am in two minds about this. I'm unsure what the purpose of this would be and do we as a nuclear power really want or need US weapons here? Perhaps it would be a signal to Putin in some way but it ought to be a political issue. When the matter of US bases on British soil became salient in the 1980s after the attack on Libya they were not popular.

    Er - didn't match my memory so I checked. US bases and nukes on UK soil were salient long before Operation Eldorado Canyon. Indeed CND was partly about that. Even if one is thinking of the Thatcher years, if one takes the Greenham Common women's peace camp as an indicator of salience then that was in 1981.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    MattW said:

    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
    On this, there was a report on BBC R4 From Our Own Correspondent this morning suggesting that a reverse process is happening - Trump supporters are starting to brand themselves as Evangelicals. Evangelical as a political, not a theological, label:

    14:12 and onwards here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vt29

    It reports suggestions that this is a resurgence of "Christian Nationalism", which sounds to me like the Christian Reconstructionism that was visible on the fringes several decades ago:

    Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for idolatry, open homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft and blasphemy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism

    Looking through the word-salad, this is a sort-of Christian Fundamentalist parallel to "back-to-the-Caliphate" Islam, where the attempt is to recreate a perceived form of "Christian Society". Read by some Trump supporters across into politics.

    It is both theologically illiterate and anti-democratic.
    PS I wonder how far they would go?

    In the Islamic parallel, no one (even Iran) except the Taliban and ISIS have so far re-imposed the Jizya - which is a tax imposed on non-Muslims in a Muslim society, traditionally 'justified' as a tax-for-protection for those not subject to military service.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jizya
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    I am, indeed, being an appalling snob

    But if I was asked to devise an absolutely cringe, naff, non-U, scrotum-shrivellingly Poujadiste holiday recommendation it would be that

    Every single word is perfect, right down to the immortal triplet "outdoor terrace bars"
    The Spectator should sign him up quickly. It needs people who can write perfectly; Matthew Parris needs friends, and I want the Speccie to hire someone who can reliably review a stay at the Travelodge in Grimsby.
  • MarqueeMarkMarqueeMark Posts: 52,555
    Andy_JS said:

    "Visit Leicester - The Place Where Tourism Began"

    https://www.visitleicester.info

    Does that mean "Leicester - where everybody left to see if anywhere else was better"?
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,311
    ydoethur said:

    malcolmg said:

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    Anything to do with UN is corrupt, it is full of grifters and ne’er do wells

    Afternoon Malc, glad to see the ballistic turnips are loaded and on target as ever.
    Afternoon Ydoethur, hope all well with you.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    edited January 27
    ON topic I have just spent two evenings in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans

    1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50

    2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA

    For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win

    For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on

    Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win

    I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear
  • CarnyxCarnyx Posts: 42,814
    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    I was at uni with a real Dave Spart type (this was the 1970s). He astounded me very considerably once by confessing to being very fond of P. G. Wodehouse.

    But what's wrong with liking performed music? It's AI-proof as you remarked only the other day. Or do you prefer Muzak?
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 49,859

    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    That’s what stuck me on my road trips. Having the time and freedom to drive around the States, spending hours on the road and being able to visit somewhere new every few days, is a pleasure, and adventure. But contemplating the reality of being stuck in any one of the places I visit, hours away from somewhere that is not actually that different, and none of those places appeal as anywhere worth living.
  • ChrisChris Posts: 11,748

    Andy_JS said:

    "Visit Leicester - The Place Where Tourism Began"

    https://www.visitleicester.info

    Does that mean "Leicester - where everybody left to see if anywhere else was better"?
    Yes - it began with a trip from Leicester to .... Loughborough.
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,220

    Not convinced that this case in particular will make any difference on its own. What is more plausible to me is the steady drip-drip of legal troubles over the next few months start to knock the enthusiasm of some* Trump supporters, enough to put a serious dent in his chances come November (if he gets that far).

    *by no means all. We know there are a significant subset of Trump voters who will vote for the man whatever happens. But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.

    “But i do not believe that is anything near 50% of the population.”

    Prediction - Trump, if he gets to the actual election as the live Republican candidate, will get more than 43% of the vote, no matter what.

    That includes criminal convictions.
    The polling says not.
    How much do you want to bet and at what odds?
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    MattW said:

    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
    On this, there was a report on BBC R4 From Our Own Correspondent this morning suggesting that a reverse process is happening - Trump supporters are starting to brand themselves as Evangelicals. Evangelical as a political, not a theological, label:

    14:12 and onwards here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vt29

    It reports suggestions that this is a resurgence of "Christian Nationalism", which sounds to me like the Christian Reconstructionism that was visible on the fringes several decades ago:

    Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for idolatry, open homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft and blasphemy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism

    Looking through the word-salad, this is a sort-of Christian Fundamentalist parallel to "back-to-the-Caliphate" Islam, where the attempt is to recreate a perceived form of "Christian Society". Read by some Trump supporters across into politics.

    It is both theologically illiterate and anti-democratic.
    After a lot of effort I can think of a blaspheming, idolatrous adulterer prominent in USA political life who needs to be a prime target of these back to basics enthusiasts.
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 17,214
    algarkirk said:

    These Evangelicals are a funny bunch. Call themselves Christians and yet if they ever bumped into Jesus would despise him as the Evil Woke.

    Increasingly not going to church, either.

    Already, 30 percent of Southern Baptists “seldom” or “never” attend church, according to the Pew Research Center’s Religious Landscape Survey. The southern Bible Belt is quickly becoming a region of unchurched or lapsed Protestants who may still hang onto their evangelical identity to some extent but who don’t think going to church is necessary.

    https://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2022/august-web-only/church-attendance-sbc-southern-evangelicals-now-lapsed.html

    And unlike cultural Anglicans retaining a belief in tea and being a bit nicer to people, cultural Southern Baptists can drift into something pretty grim away from the anchoring of a real church with actual people in it.
    Worth noting that mostly British evangelicals (I am not one) are kind, decent and helpful and while often having strong views about what is right and wrong in church tend not to want to legislate their views for everyone. So for example, many don't want gay blessings/marriage in church but very few campaign to recriminalize gay relationships generally.
    Absolutely. And one of the things that places of worship do, even if you don't believe a word of the stories, is throw actual people together. That's generally a good thing, even speaking as an off-the-chart introvert.

    From the same article,

    When asked, “Do you think most people would try to take advantage of you if they got a chance or would they try to be fair?” 54 percent of white Protestant southerners who attended church no more than once a year said that most people would try to take advantage of them.

    In response to the question “Would you say that most of the time people try to be helpful or that they are mostly just looking out for themselves?” 58 percent said the latter.

    The responses from white Southern Protestants who attended church every week were almost the direct opposite. Sixty-two percent said that most people would “try to be fair” rather than take advantage of them, and 57 percent said that most of the time people “try to be helpful.”


    And there's Trumpism.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    Leon said:

    ON topic I have just spent two evening in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans

    1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50

    2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA

    For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win

    For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and he's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Lousiville Kentucy in detail to see what's going on

    Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win

    I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear

    "Dumbass Colonists!" :lol:
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 50,220

    Is the US going to relocate nuclear weapons to the UK? I have to admit I am in two minds about this. I'm unsure what the purpose of this would be and do we as a nuclear power really want or need US weapons here? Perhaps it would be a signal to Putin in some way but it ought to be a political issue. When the matter of US bases on British soil became salient in the 1980s after the attack on Libya they were not popular.

    US/UK nuclear weapon design is so intertwined that the US weapons in question are really about 10-20% U.K. designs.

    Non-cylindrical secondaries say hello.
  • TresTres Posts: 2,694
    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    I don't believe it.
  • MattWMattW Posts: 23,128
    edited January 27
    algarkirk said:

    MattW said:

    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
    On this, there was a report on BBC R4 From Our Own Correspondent this morning suggesting that a reverse process is happening - Trump supporters are starting to brand themselves as Evangelicals. Evangelical as a political, not a theological, label:

    14:12 and onwards here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vt29

    It reports suggestions that this is a resurgence of "Christian Nationalism", which sounds to me like the Christian Reconstructionism that was visible on the fringes several decades ago:

    Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for idolatry, open homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft and blasphemy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism

    Looking through the word-salad, this is a sort-of Christian Fundamentalist parallel to "back-to-the-Caliphate" Islam, where the attempt is to recreate a perceived form of "Christian Society". Read by some Trump supporters across into politics.

    It is both theologically illiterate and anti-democratic.
    After a lot of effort I can think of a blaspheming, idolatrous adulterer prominent in USA political life who needs to be a prime target of these back to basics enthusiasts.
    It would be quite interesting if Mr Trump had a Charles Colson style conversion experience, wouldn't it?

    There are a few possible UK parallels, but I don't know their manner-of-life well enough to comment usefully.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    MattW said:

    mwadams said:

    Evangelical support for Trump is in no way surprising. These are the people who switched to the Republicans as a result of Nixon's Southern strategy. Their grandparents voted for George Wallace. Their Great Grandparents were the kind of people you see milling around looking happy in photographs of lynchings from the 1920s. There is a vast swathe of American society, especially in the South, for whom Trump's brand of nativism [sic], isolationism and attacks on the coastal elites is exactly what they want to hear. The religion stuff is secondary, it's mostly performative anyway or just used as another way of bullying people they don't like.

    By and large, people in England (and possibly Britain) don't understand that "The Church" and "Being a Christian" in America still serves the primarily social function it used to in England before the war. Whether people are *actually* Christian or not, the church is the centre of the local community. Once you see it in those terms, there's no real inconsistency in the support of a particular group of people for someone they perceive as "one of them", however at odds that is with the values we attribute to "being a Christian".
    Localism is massive in the US. Many don't travel outside the State; a surprising number not outside their county - unless it is to a ball game or the State Fair. They will only support their local teams and as you say, the centre of socialising will be their Church.

    The best trick the Devil ever played was to get folks to think Trump was one of their own.
    On this, there was a report on BBC R4 From Our Own Correspondent this morning suggesting that a reverse process is happening - Trump supporters are starting to brand themselves as Evangelicals. Evangelical as a political, not a theological, label:

    14:12 and onwards here:
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001vt29

    It reports suggestions that this is a resurgence of "Christian Nationalism", which sounds to me like the Christian Reconstructionism that was visible on the fringes several decades ago:

    Christian reconstructionism is a fundamentalist Calvinist theonomic movement. It developed primarily under the direction of R. J. Rushdoony, Greg Bahnsen and Gary North and has had an important influence on the Christian right in the United States. Its central theme is that society should be reconstructed under the lordship of Jesus in all aspects of life. In keeping with the biblical cultural mandate, reconstructionists advocate for theonomy and the restoration of certain biblical laws said to have continued applicability. These include the death penalty not only for murder, but also for idolatry, open homosexuality, adultery, witchcraft and blasphemy.
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_reconstructionism
    Narendra Modi's not gonna like that!
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 41,950
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    I am, indeed, being an appalling snob

    But if I was asked to devise an absolutely cringe, naff, non-U, scrotum-shrivellingly Poujadiste holiday recommendation it would be that

    Every single word is perfect, right down to the immortal triplet "outdoor terrace bars"
    It would only need a book by that magnificent wordsmith (copyright someone or other) Dan Brown to complete the picture.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814

    "THIS IS NOT AMERICA!" :lol:

    It's AMERICA'S BITCH though with Sunak and SKS
    That was an actual quote from Trump in one of his Tweets, re. the Carroll verdict.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549
    Leon said:

    ON topic I have just spent two evenings in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans

    1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50

    2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA

    For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win

    For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on

    Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win

    I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear

    Do you still stay at the Banyan Tree or is that a bit naff these days.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    malcolmg said:

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    Anything to do with UN is corrupt, it is full of grifters and ne’er do wells

    I thought that was Bibi.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Back to AI music, on the prior thread a PB-er claimed that surely no machine could make a Mozart sonata or a Bach fugue or a Richard Strauss Last Song

    WTAF makes anyone believe that? Music by definition is a series of notes, one after the other. Certain sequences are more pleasing and evocative than others. Certain timbres, timings, instrumentations are also more pleasing than others - for reasons of newness, weirdness, sadness, and so on

    An AI can run through every possible series of notes producing a trillion variations every minute. Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear, even the most sophisticated human ear. Voila: brilliant AI music, indistinguishable from that composed by humans, indeed probably better, and, then, inevitably better

    This can then be "played" by AI bands, orchestras, singers, because music is just a particular modulation of sound waves reaching your ears. It is just maths. It can absolutely be replicated, and will be, if we continue down the AI road

    Art as a human product is largely done, music might be the next art FORM to go, after photography
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    I am, indeed, being an appalling snob

    But if I was asked to devise an absolutely cringe, naff, non-U, scrotum-shrivellingly Poujadiste holiday recommendation it would be that

    Every single word is perfect, right down to the immortal triplet "outdoor terrace bars"
    It would only need a book by that magnificent wordsmith (copyright someone or other) Dan Brown to complete the picture.
    I'm being a bit cruel to @kinabalu and I apologise for that

    On the other hand he is quite keen to get me banned, whenever he sees an opportunity, and he is also a contentedly retired, millionaire accountant living in a large house in Hampstead, so I reckon he can cope
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 43,311

    malcolmg said:

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    Anything to do with UN is corrupt, it is full of grifters and ne’er do wells

    I thought that was Bibi.
    UN is full of bent grasping grifters. More wrong un's per sq foot in there than anywhere on the planet with exception of the Kremlin.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    edited January 27
    Leon said:

    ON topic I have just spent two evenings in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans

    1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50

    2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA

    For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win

    For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on

    Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win

    I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear

    They are right. Trump will win. He is the favourite, and has been for ages, for a reason. The swing states are going his way, and he has form for being unstoppable. It isn't possible to point to a single future smoking gun that will stop him. If there was he would not be favourite. Even prison simply turns him into a grotesque Mandela.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    Andy_JS said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic I have just spent two evenings in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans

    1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50

    2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA

    For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win

    For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on

    Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win

    I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear

    Do you still stay at the Banyan Tree or is that a bit naff these days.
    I tend to stay in Phnom Penh! As it is cheaper and more interesting

    But in Bangkok I stay (if I am paying) in a nice four star off Sukhumvit Road in the lower sois

    My ideal hotel, for working (as I am doing) is a good four star. You want enough luxury and comfort to make everything easy (24 hour room service, good bar, good location, all day cleaning) but you don't want the extra fuss and bother and lily-gilding that comes with 5 star hotels (plus they charge thrice as much)

    I've stayed in hundreds of five star hotels, some of the best in the world, but actually many of them aren't that relaxing, because they are always status conscious and constantly trying to prove to you why they are 5 star. Always trying to clean your shoes or offer you a different butler or demanding you choose from the pillow menu, etc

    Enough! Give me a good chilled out 4 star. A good place that does the job and doesn't make a meal of it
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358
    Tres said:

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    I don't believe it.
    That would certainly be a Victor in the cringe stakes.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358

    malcolmg said:

    UNRWA Hamas attack claims: UK becomes latest country to pause funding for agency
    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-68104203

    Just when you thought things could not get any worse.

    Anything to do with UN is corrupt, it is full of grifters and ne’er do wells

    I thought that was Bibi.
    He doesn't have a world monopoly in corruption, good though he is at it.
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,034
    nico679 said:

    We have Trident why do we need more nuclear weapons ?

    Because we're dealing with a pscychopath in the Kremlin and the only way to stop him dropping a bomb on you if he thinks it's in his interest is if you can drop two bombs on him. So sadly the more we have close at hand the better.
  • Jim_MillerJim_Miller Posts: 2,998
    Two facts relevant to the topic: Bill Clinton was accused of rape by a credible woman. The accusation seems to have done him little harm among most Democrats.

    The Loser's first wife accused him of marital rape, under oath. (She later retracted the accusation, when she was not under oath.)
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    edited January 27
    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    ON topic I have just spent two evenings in Bangkok which were elevated immensely, in outdoor terrace bars, by conversations with two north Americans

    1. A naturalised Brit writer who now lives in New Orleans (an old friend) - age 50

    2. A Canadian rye whiskey distiller, age 43 (a new friend), who spends half his life in the USA

    For very different reasons both of them (and both are centre-left) are convinced Trump will win

    For the first guy it's partly because he thinks Biden has lost too many left wingers due to his Israel stance (and Biden's too old), for the second it's because he thinks "America has gone mad", and he has also looked at voting in places like Louisville Kentucky in detail, to see what's going on

    Make of that what you will, but they are very different people, both highly intelligent, reaching the same conclusion: Trump will win

    I tend to disagree, but it is sobering to hear

    They are right. Trump will win. He is the favourite, and has been for ages, for a reason. The swing states are going his way, and he has form for being unstoppable. It isn't possible to point to a single future smoking gun that will stop him. If there was he would not be favourite. Even prison simply turns him into a grotesque Mandela.
    Hmm

    I tend to agree with @DavidL and, yes, @kinabalu that eventually the good economic news will see Biden over the line (along with Trump being SO mad and offensive)

    But these guys I chatted with the last two days were both quite persuasive. eg I hadn't considered how much Biden has alienated his own leftwing with his Israel position. My New Orleans friend thinks young leftwingers and minority ethnic voters will simply abstain as a protest, and that could switch a few states to Trump - moreover these voters do not especially care (coz they simply don't like Biden)
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 71,064
    Stefanik really wants that worthless VP slot.

    https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1751258837703664025
    I’m told that, in response to my prior tweet,
    @EliseStefanik deleted her 1/6/21 statement — that those who stormed the Capitol “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Here is Elise’s statement again. Feel free to share.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 4,574
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    Surely the most cringe sentence ever written on PB

    "On our recent Tenerife holiday the whole hotel experience was elevated immensely by high quality live music acts every evening in one of the outdoor terrace bars"

    Sorry @kinabalu but that was irresistible

    This is up there with renowned anarcho-nihilist @Dura_Ace confessing that, actually, he really enoys watching "One Foot in the Grave"

    Kinabalu has never denied living a bourgeois lifestyle though has he? Are you not just being a snob. We can't all spend half our lives at the best international destinations.
    I am, indeed, being an appalling snob

    But if I was asked to devise an absolutely cringe, naff, non-U, scrotum-shrivellingly Poujadiste holiday recommendation it would be that

    Every single word is perfect, right down to the immortal triplet "outdoor terrace bars"
    Shades of "indoor outdoor luxury barbecue with finger buffet" there. Though, like Dura Ace, I may be outing myself with that reference.
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358

    Two facts relevant to the topic: Bill Clinton was accused of rape by a credible woman. The accusation seems to have done him little harm among most Democrats.

    The Loser's first wife accused him of marital rape, under oath. (She later retracted the accusation, when she was not under oath.)

    Bill Clinton lived in a different era. I think he would have found life much more difficult now, although I still doubt if he would have been convicted by the Senate.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 12,496
    Leon said:

    Back to AI music, on the prior thread a PB-er claimed that surely no machine could make a Mozart sonata or a Bach fugue or a Richard Strauss Last Song

    WTAF makes anyone believe that? Music by definition is a series of notes, one after the other. Certain sequences are more pleasing and evocative than others. Certain timbres, timings, instrumentations are also more pleasing than others - for reasons of newness, weirdness, sadness, and so on

    An AI can run through every possible series of notes producing a trillion variations every minute. Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear, even the most sophisticated human ear. Voila: brilliant AI music, indistinguishable from that composed by humans, indeed probably better, and, then, inevitably better

    This can then be "played" by AI bands, orchestras, singers, because music is just a particular modulation of sound waves reaching your ears. It is just maths. It can absolutely be replicated, and will be, if we continue down the AI road

    Art as a human product is largely done, music might be the next art FORM to go, after photography

    Thanks for this. I have asked this question and suggested this claim a few times. Your argument may, of course, be right though I don't think it is. It probably is right for purely formulaic work. But not all work in any art medium is purely that.

    I think your argument actually asks the right question, or at least a right question.

    When I read Dickens, watch Macbeth, listen to late Beethoven, look at The Girl with the Pearl Earring, am I only participating in a programmed order you describe, or am I in fact in communication with a person or persons, including the creator of the work. You seem to think the former, I think the latter but await reasonably clear demonstration.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 32,549
    "When Adi Misra went to school on his 10th birthday, his pregnant mother told him they would celebrate later.

    But his mum was sent to prison that day having been wrongfully accused of stealing £75,000 from the Post Office - and spent nearly five months in jail.

    Adi thought she was in hospital and only discovered the truth eight years later. Now aged 23, he says he "hated" his mum for leaving him so abruptly.

    Speaking to the BBC, Adi says all the Horizon victims deserve compensation."

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-68084538
  • ydoethurydoethur Posts: 71,358
    Nigelb said:

    Stefanik really wants that worthless VP slot.

    https://twitter.com/Liz_Cheney/status/1751258837703664025
    I’m told that, in response to my prior tweet,
    @EliseStefanik deleted her 1/6/21 statement — that those who stormed the Capitol “must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.” Here is Elise’s statement again. Feel free to share.

    If he wins, it would be anything but worthless.

    Trump is pushing 80, clearly suffering from mental decline and looks as unfit as a leaking balloon. A VP under him could reasonably expect to be president under one or other provision of the 25th within his term.

    After he had dismantled all constitutional protections...
  • LeonLeon Posts: 55,239
    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Back to AI music, on the prior thread a PB-er claimed that surely no machine could make a Mozart sonata or a Bach fugue or a Richard Strauss Last Song

    WTAF makes anyone believe that? Music by definition is a series of notes, one after the other. Certain sequences are more pleasing and evocative than others. Certain timbres, timings, instrumentations are also more pleasing than others - for reasons of newness, weirdness, sadness, and so on

    An AI can run through every possible series of notes producing a trillion variations every minute. Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear, even the most sophisticated human ear. Voila: brilliant AI music, indistinguishable from that composed by humans, indeed probably better, and, then, inevitably better

    This can then be "played" by AI bands, orchestras, singers, because music is just a particular modulation of sound waves reaching your ears. It is just maths. It can absolutely be replicated, and will be, if we continue down the AI road

    Art as a human product is largely done, music might be the next art FORM to go, after photography

    Thanks for this. I have asked this question and suggested this claim a few times. Your argument may, of course, be right though I don't think it is. It probably is right for purely formulaic work. But not all work in any art medium is purely that.

    I think your argument actually asks the right question, or at least a right question.

    When I read Dickens, watch Macbeth, listen to late Beethoven, look at The Girl with the Pearl Earring, am I only participating in a programmed order you describe, or am I in fact in communication with a person or persons, including the creator of the work. You seem to think the former, I think the latter but await reasonably clear demonstration.
    You are participating in a programmed order. A sequence of words, a series of notes, a pattern of images. That is all. Unless you are deeply religious (are you?) and believe humans, and ONLY humans, have some unique divine spark of creativity denied to any other form of cognition, then you must accept that all this can be replicated by a clever machine, and in the end will be replicated better, faster, and cleverer by machines the same way a car can go faster than a man can run, or a calculator can do sums quicker than the best Rainman

    So if you're profoundly religious and believe Homo sapiens was divinely and deliberately made by God in His image, and we therefore have some unique skill which cannot be copied, then there is a logic to your position, otherwise it is nonsense
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 51,814
    Leon said:

    algarkirk said:

    Leon said:

    Back to AI music, on the prior thread a PB-er claimed that surely no machine could make a Mozart sonata or a Bach fugue or a Richard Strauss Last Song

    WTAF makes anyone believe that? Music by definition is a series of notes, one after the other. Certain sequences are more pleasing and evocative than others. Certain timbres, timings, instrumentations are also more pleasing than others - for reasons of newness, weirdness, sadness, and so on

    An AI can run through every possible series of notes producing a trillion variations every minute. Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear, even the most sophisticated human ear. Voila: brilliant AI music, indistinguishable from that composed by humans, indeed probably better, and, then, inevitably better

    This can then be "played" by AI bands, orchestras, singers, because music is just a particular modulation of sound waves reaching your ears. It is just maths. It can absolutely be replicated, and will be, if we continue down the AI road

    Art as a human product is largely done, music might be the next art FORM to go, after photography

    Thanks for this. I have asked this question and suggested this claim a few times. Your argument may, of course, be right though I don't think it is. It probably is right for purely formulaic work. But not all work in any art medium is purely that.

    I think your argument actually asks the right question, or at least a right question.

    When I read Dickens, watch Macbeth, listen to late Beethoven, look at The Girl with the Pearl Earring, am I only participating in a programmed order you describe, or am I in fact in communication with a person or persons, including the creator of the work. You seem to think the former, I think the latter but await reasonably clear demonstration.
    You are participating in a programmed order. A sequence of words, a series of notes, a pattern of images. That is all. Unless you are deeply religious (are you?) and believe humans, and ONLY humans, have some unique divine spark of creativity denied to any other form of cognition, then you must accept that all this can be replicated by a clever machine, and in the end will be replicated better, faster, and cleverer by machines the same way a car can go faster than a man can run, or a calculator can do sums quicker than the best Rainman

    So if you're profoundly religious and believe Homo sapiens was divinely and deliberately made by God in His image, and we therefore have some unique skill which cannot be copied, then there is a logic to your position, otherwise it is nonsense
    Leon = AI ChatBot!
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,678
    Leon said:

    Back to AI music, on the prior thread a PB-er claimed that surely no machine could make a Mozart sonata or a Bach fugue or a Richard Strauss Last Song

    WTAF makes anyone believe that? Music by definition is a series of notes, one after the other. Certain sequences are more pleasing and evocative than others. Certain timbres, timings, instrumentations are also more pleasing than others - for reasons of newness, weirdness, sadness, and so on

    An AI can run through every possible series of notes producing a trillion variations every minute. Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear, even the most sophisticated human ear. Voila: brilliant AI music, indistinguishable from that composed by humans, indeed probably better, and, then, inevitably better

    This can then be "played" by AI bands, orchestras, singers, because music is just a particular modulation of sound waves reaching your ears. It is just maths. It can absolutely be replicated, and will be, if we continue down the AI road

    Art as a human product is largely done, music might be the next art FORM to go, after photography

    'Another AI can be programmed to choose the "best" - ie most likely to please the human ear,'

    That's the thought pump. What constitutes that is, of course, wholly mysterious. You can't just 'program' it. Derrrrrr.
  • FrankBoothFrankBooth Posts: 9,826
    Here's a fun parlour game. Have a look at various organisations' statements for Holocaust Memorial Day and see how many avoid using the word Jew. Here's Brighton and Hove council

    'Today is Holocaust Memorial Day, the international day dedicated to victims of genocide.

    Marking the anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, today we remember all people murdered because of something that made them who they were.'

    https://twitter.com/BrightonHoveCC/status/1751168226694701316
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 17,559
    Ghedebrav said:

    The evangelical refrain is 'hate the sin, love the sinner'. They see The Donald as a sinner, but Biden is so much worse than that - he's a Catholic!

    VERY few US evangelicals still have a deep aversion to voting for a Roman Catholic. PROVIDED the Catholic in question is anti-abortion in particular (which Biden is not) and generally conservative (ditto).

    Certainly evangelical leadership and opinion leaders recognize that most of Catholic hierarchy and bulk of conservative/Republican Catholic politicos are on THEIR side - NOT Biden's. (Nor the Pope's for that matter.)
This discussion has been closed.