1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
Everybody already knows that you can win the popular vote and lose the US presidential election. You can even bet on that outcome.
Everybody already knows that an opinion poll is a snapshot.
What Trump actually said at the time. And some pretending support for Ukraine on here claim that country would be safer hands with Trump as president.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
It's very hard, if not impossible, to reconcile what he said last night with what he previously claimed.
I haven't watched it, but I guess last night's love-in was just two liars lying to each other...
I gather it was delayed because of a cyberhack.
Who could want to stop Trump rambling on for two hours and digging himself an even bigger hole with suburban woman and swing voters?
I cry b/s on the cyberhack/DDOS claims.
More likely: they found a few little issues when they did their claimed 'eight million' test earlier in the day, and decided to solve them, mucking things up in the process.
God knows why they did a 'test' so near the time of the 'interview'.
More likely is it's a lie.
He sacked most of the people who kept the site running
They may have done a test, but 8 million is a random and probably bogus number
They went live. It fell over.
They lied about it
The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.
Not exactly news if Musk lies. I just assume everything he says is probably dishonest to save time.
Is Musk a net positive or negative to the human race? He's dead right about the need to electrify transport and energy production and storage and has made incredible advances to make that a reality. That's a big plus. Reusable rockets must also go on the plus side. If he helps Trump get elected when he otherwise wouldn't then that's a huge negative. Hopefully he will succeed in Tesla and SpaceX and fail miserably in boosting Trump.
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
It's one of those terms like 'moral victory ' that losers use to console themselves.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
There are a lot of similarities between Trump and Corbyn, as @Cyclefree wrote years ago.
Hopefully a second defeat of Trump will see America move on from Trump.
Though I'm not sure who plays the Starmer role in this analogy, who has been supporting Trump until election day but then moves the party on afterwards.
Corbyn is the diametric opposite of Trump.
Trump and Boris is a closer analogy, as even The Donald acknowledged. Charismatic bullshitters with devoted followers. So the question of who comes next is whether Republicans can sidestep their Truss and Rishi stages.
The one similarity (if I really strain) is that Trump is a personality cult and there was some of that around Jez esp after 2017.
But otherwise, no. One example amongst hundreds of huge differences - borders and immigration.
There are none so blind as those who wish not to see.
Corbyn has held the same views for decades, possibly with the exception of EU membership. They have often been passionate, unpopular causes and some frankly mad. Does Trump really believe in anything ? Despite the rhetoric Trumps main legacy will be stacking the supreme court.
Corbyn has been obssessed with support for underdog causes (Ireland, Palestine, Chagos Islands).
On taxation, immigration, equal rights, state spending and intervention, abortion, Israel, job protection, the environment, Education etc etc, Corbyn doesn't look like Trump.
Sure there was a bit of a personality cult around Corbyn but nothing like the demagoguery of Trump. Corbyn would also talk a glass eye to sleep.
If you look hard enough you can find similarities between anyone.
Corbyn and Marine le Pen or Geert Wilders.
Sure why not.
Neither Johnson nor Corbyn are particularly like Trump, and I can't imagine either attempting to stage a coup to overturn an election result. Johnson does share with Trump that he is total bullshitter, but otherwise the comparison is unfair to Johnson. Trump is far more malign.
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
It's one of those terms like 'moral victory ' that losers use to console themselves.
OK, but if that happens a lot it's a sign of a broken system such as FPTP in the UK and the Electoral College in the US. They should be changed but it's unlikely to happen when it benefits the ones who win.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
Trump 2028?
Unless he's either dead or in jail he'll definitely try the primaries again. And I'm not sure the latter would stop him.
Trump could be the gift that keeps on giving for the Dems.
What Trump actually said at the time. And some pretending support for Ukraine on here claim that country would be safer hands with Trump as president.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
It's very hard, if not impossible, to reconcile what he said last night with what he previously claimed.
I haven't watched it, but I guess last night's love-in was just two liars lying to each other...
I gather it was delayed because of a cyberhack.
Who could want to stop Trump rambling on for two hours and digging himself an even bigger hole with suburban woman and swing voters?
I cry b/s on the cyberhack/DDOS claims.
More likely: they found a few little issues when they did their claimed 'eight million' test earlier in the day, and decided to solve them, mucking things up in the process.
God knows why they did a 'test' so near the time of the 'interview'.
More likely is it's a lie.
He sacked most of the people who kept the site running
They may have done a test, but 8 million is a random and probably bogus number
They went live. It fell over.
They lied about it
The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.
Not exactly news if Musk lies. I just assume everything he says is probably dishonest to save time.
Is Musk a net positive or negative to the human race? He's dead right about the need to electrify transport and energy production and storage and has made incredible advances to make that a reality. That's a big plus. Reusable rockets must also go on the plus side. If he helps Trump get elected when he otherwise wouldn't then that's a huge negative. Hopefully he will succeed in Tesla and SpaceX and fail miserably in boosting Trump.
Oh and his X/Twitter changes are a minus.
The most curious thing in the actual achievements is that they were quite logical and almost obvious. Yet the structure of existing institutions and systems prevented them happening.
Tesla was about the productionisation of the cottage industry in LA of converting cars to electric. For $250k or so, you could have your ICE made an EV. For the ghastly remake of the Italian Job they did this to a number of Minis (safety for running in tunnels). Any car manufacturer could have gone this route.
Even things like Raptor 3 - using 3D printing to its logical conclusion and putting all the complexity *inside* the structure of the engine - is simply carrying out what a number of people proposed. But no one in the industry implemented.
With all the talk about investigating Farage/Robinson and Russian links can we also please take a look at who is funding Stop The War?
Trots who live in million pound plus house in North London. Call them the Vanessa Redgrave tendency.
PJ O’Rourke named them The MasterCard Marxists
People whom, if society was indeed perfectly equal in outcomes, would be very much the losers.
But of course they think that they would be the leaders, the Politbureau of the socialist Utopia, and therefore exempt from the equality of outcome that might apply to everyone else.
"People love to customize their lives. Everything from our vehicles to our credit cards have a touch of our personality. As far as credit cards go, some issuing companies allow members to add their own images to their credit cards. Some people choose to use a picture of their loved ones, others choose their pets, while others – specifically people living in Chemnitz, East Germany – choose the Father of Communism, Karl Marx."
What Trump actually said at the time. And some pretending support for Ukraine on here claim that country would be safer hands with Trump as president.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
It's very hard, if not impossible, to reconcile what he said last night with what he previously claimed.
I haven't watched it, but I guess last night's love-in was just two liars lying to each other...
I gather it was delayed because of a cyberhack.
Who could want to stop Trump rambling on for two hours and digging himself an even bigger hole with suburban woman and swing voters?
I cry b/s on the cyberhack/DDOS claims.
More likely: they found a few little issues when they did their claimed 'eight million' test earlier in the day, and decided to solve them, mucking things up in the process.
God knows why they did a 'test' so near the time of the 'interview'.
More likely is it's a lie.
He sacked most of the people who kept the site running
They may have done a test, but 8 million is a random and probably bogus number
They went live. It fell over.
They lied about it
The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.
Not exactly news if Musk lies. I just assume everything he says is probably dishonest to save time.
Is Musk a net positive or negative to the human race? He's dead right about the need to electrify transport and energy production and storage and has made incredible advances to make that a reality. That's a big plus. Reusable rockets must also go on the plus side. If he helps Trump get elected when he otherwise wouldn't then that's a huge negative. Hopefully he will succeed in Tesla and SpaceX and fail miserably in boosting Trump.
Oh and his X/Twitter changes are a minus.
I think most people’s view of Musk comes down to their view of Twitter.
I happen to think that on balance New Twitter is better than Old Twitter, so overall Musk is a net positive to the world.
The achievements of his companies in turning established industries upside-down are definitely positives, although his detractors will say that they are mostly the achievements of others.
A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: “Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble.” Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!).
"People love to customize their lives. Everything from our vehicles to our credit cards have a touch of our personality. As far as credit cards go, some issuing companies allow members to add their own images to their credit cards. Some people choose to use a picture of their loved ones, others choose their pets, while others – specifically people living in Chemnitz, East Germany – choose the Father of Communism, Karl Marx."
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Elon Musk was wrong to claim that a massive cyber attack derailed his interview with Donald Trump, insiders at the billionaire’s social media company have claimed.
Mr Musk said that a lengthy delay to his conversation with Mr Trump was caused by a “massive DDOS [distributed denial of service] attack on X”, hitting the app’s Spaces feature.
However, company insiders told The Verge there had been no such attack and there was a “99pc” likelihood Mr Musk’s claim was false.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
The MAGA cult will claim the election was stolen. There will be an attempt at Jan 6 Part Deux.
The thing to understand is how thoroughly the lower levels of the GOP have been taken over
Yes it's thoroughly polluted. But a big loss might shake the tree. Let's hope we get to find out.
What a horrible story. Young girl stabbed in the street by a man she didn’t know, in front of her mother.
A serious drugs or mental health problem?
“A man has been charged with attempted murder after an 11-year-old girl was stabbed in Leicester Square.
“The Metropolitan Police said its officers went to the scene of a stabbing in London on Monday where the girl was found with stab wounds.
“She was taken to hospital where her injuries, while serious, were assessed as non-life threatening, the force said.
“Ioan Pintaru, 32, of no fixed address, was charged with attempted murder and possession of a bladed article.
“It was initially believed that the girl’s mother, a 34-year-old woman, was also hurt however it was later confirmed that blood from her daughter’s injuries had been mistaken for injuries of her own.
“He was remanded in custody to appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Tuesday morning.”
I've suggested before that some Eastern European countries may have encouraged their 'problem people' to make a one way trip to the UK.
Donald Trump made the same charge to Elon Musk in his TwiX interview overnight, that Central American countries were exporting their criminals and even unproductive people to the United States.
Why wouldn't they - criminals, disabled, homeless, drug addicts, unemployables - the people who cause most societal problems and are a drain on government resources.
It is after all what this country did in transporting its problem people to the early American and Australian colonies.
Criminals, disabled, homeless, drug addicts, unemployables etc are normally too poor or too weak to be able to migrate without someone supporting them to do so.
Migration increases as people become wealthier and more self-sufficient and able to pay to move.
Hence the paradox that increased economic development increases emigration.
When freedom of movement opened up, Romanian local police and authorities conducted a campaign of putting “undesirables” on the long distance coaches. “Here’s your ticket and don’t come back”…..
Many were Roma. Which is why many Roma from Romania ended up in the U.K.
It was disgusting and quite brutal - I’ve never understood why the UK government didn’t raise this as a human rights issue.
There is a similar issue with the homeless in the US, where buses are chartered to send the homeless to big cities. (In some cases, it is Democratic towns - *cough* Key West *cough* - sending the homeless to Democratic cities, but in most cases it is shipping the homeless across state lines.)
With all the talk about investigating Farage/Robinson and Russian links can we also please take a look at who is funding Stop The War?
Trots who live in million pound plus house in North London. Call them the Vanessa Redgrave tendency.
PJ O’Rourke named them The MasterCard Marxists
People whom, if society was indeed perfectly equal in outcomes, would be very much the losers.
But of course they think that they would be the leaders, the Politbureau of the socialist Utopia, and therefore exempt from the equality of outcome that might apply to everyone else.
A chap I used to drink with did reenactment stuff (Sealed Knot).
He commented that there was a certain kind of person who assumed that they would have high rank in that context. That they felt entitled to such rank. And that they were always poisonous.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
Elon Musk was wrong to claim that a massive cyber attack derailed his interview with Donald Trump, insiders at the billionaire’s social media company have claimed.
Mr Musk said that a lengthy delay to his conversation with Mr Trump was caused by a “massive DDOS [distributed denial of service] attack on X”, hitting the app’s Spaces feature.
However, company insiders told The Verge there had been no such attack and there was a “99pc” likelihood Mr Musk’s claim was false.
What Trump actually said at the time. And some pretending support for Ukraine on here claim that country would be safer hands with Trump as president.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
It's very hard, if not impossible, to reconcile what he said last night with what he previously claimed.
I haven't watched it, but I guess last night's love-in was just two liars lying to each other...
I gather it was delayed because of a cyberhack.
Who could want to stop Trump rambling on for two hours and digging himself an even bigger hole with suburban woman and swing voters?
I cry b/s on the cyberhack/DDOS claims.
More likely: they found a few little issues when they did their claimed 'eight million' test earlier in the day, and decided to solve them, mucking things up in the process.
God knows why they did a 'test' so near the time of the 'interview'.
More likely is it's a lie.
He sacked most of the people who kept the site running
They may have done a test, but 8 million is a random and probably bogus number
They went live. It fell over.
They lied about it
The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.
Not exactly news if Musk lies. I just assume everything he says is probably dishonest to save time.
Is Musk a net positive or negative to the human race? He's dead right about the need to electrify transport and energy production and storage and has made incredible advances to make that a reality. That's a big plus. Reusable rockets must also go on the plus side. If he helps Trump get elected when he otherwise wouldn't then that's a huge negative. Hopefully he will succeed in Tesla and SpaceX and fail miserably in boosting Trump.
He's personally done a lot to reverse the US's falling birthrate. However, it's rarely been inside the bounds of wedlock.
A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: “Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble.” Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!).
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
There are a lot of similarities between Trump and Corbyn, as @Cyclefree wrote years ago.
Hopefully a second defeat of Trump will see America move on from Trump.
Though I'm not sure who plays the Starmer role in this analogy, who has been supporting Trump until election day but then moves the party on afterwards.
Corbyn is the diametric opposite of Trump.
Trump and Boris is a closer analogy, as even The Donald acknowledged. Charismatic bullshitters with devoted followers. So the question of who comes next is whether Republicans can sidestep their Truss and Rishi stages.
The one similarity (if I really strain) is that Trump is a personality cult and there was some of that around Jez esp after 2017.
But otherwise, no. One example amongst hundreds of huge differences - borders and immigration.
The comparison isn’t in the policies. It is in the populism and projection onto The Leader of The Cult’s beliefs.
I believe that's pretty much what I said. The 'cult' thing.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Sorry, that's rubbish.
You can argue how much democratic legitimacy it lends, but you're being ridiculous saying it means 'nothing', when it's a regular item of political discussion in the US. Not to mention having its own market on Betfair.
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
Everybody already knows that you can win the popular vote and lose the US presidential election. You can even bet on that outcome.
Everybody already knows that an opinion poll is a snapshot.
"Winning the nationwide popular vote may not be enough to win the presidency"
Presumably you look at those words and think 'I can't make head or tail out of that, it's utterly meaningless!'
The PV, whilst a secondary concern, is not meaningless. Eg if somebody was to win the EC with a 5 pt deficit in the PV that would create pressure to change the system.
With all the talk about investigating Farage/Robinson and Russian links can we also please take a look at who is funding Stop The War?
Trots who live in million pound plus house in North London. Call them the Vanessa Redgrave tendency.
PJ O’Rourke named them The MasterCard Marxists
People whom, if society was indeed perfectly equal in outcomes, would be very much the losers.
But of course they think that they would be the leaders, the Politbureau of the socialist Utopia, and therefore exempt from the equality of outcome that might apply to everyone else.
A chap I used to drink with did reenactment stuff (Sealed Knot).
He commented that there was a certain kind of person who assumed that they would have high rank in that context. That they felt entitled to such rank. And that they were always poisonous.
There is an annual WW2 event near me, and I am amazed by just how many more German actors there are than allies
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
It's one of those terms like 'moral victory ' that losers use to console themselves.
OK, but if that happens a lot it's a sign of a broken system such as FPTP in the UK and the Electoral College in the US. They should be changed but it's unlikely to happen when it benefits the ones who win.
Its not a broken system, as much as I'd rather Hillary had won in 2016, she lost and deserved to lose.
Trump didn't deserve to win, but that's because of him being Trump, not because he didn't get sufficient votes which, unfortunately, he did.
I'm sitting in the cafe at UCHL ENT hospital in London. I had a tooth perforated in February while my dentist carried out a root canal, at which point she bottled it and referred me. The good news is after some initial concerns and infections it has been a painless 6 months. This was an initial appointment and I will come back in a few months to get it sorted.
Why am I posting? Well this is all on the NHS and it has been superb. No waits. The most impressive hospital I have been to. My only complaint is the overstaffing. A man to direct me to reception who sends me to another reception, via a man who presses a button to call the lift (I took the stairs).
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
I'm dreadfully sorry that poor Thorpe felt that way, but I'd be equally sorry for the train driver. One of the worst things that can happen to a train, or indeed any, driver, is if someone leaps directly into their path.
A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: “Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble.” Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!).
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
It's one of those terms like 'moral victory ' that losers use to console themselves.
OK, but if that happens a lot it's a sign of a broken system such as FPTP in the UK and the Electoral College in the US. They should be changed but it's unlikely to happen when it benefits the ones who win.
Its not a broken system, as much as I'd rather Hillary had won in 2016, she lost and deserved to lose.
Trump didn't deserve to win, but that's because of him being Trump, not because he didn't get sufficient votes which, unfortunately, he did.
A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: “Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble.” Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!).
So Rasmussen are claiming all "mainstream" pollsters stopped polling national numbers on the 4th August?
Seem to have lost the plot.
The only element of truth there is I imagine the pollsters have changed their standards from weeks ago.
Weeks ago the pollsters would have been prompting Biden or Trump as options as standard. Now they'll be prompting Harris or Trump s options as standard.
Trump still seems to be campaigning as if he's running against Biden. Then again, when Biden was the candidate Trump often seemed to think he was running against Obama.
It must be tough to keep track of what's going on when you're as mentally incapacitated as Donald Trump is.
What Trump actually said at the time. And some pretending support for Ukraine on here claim that country would be safer hands with Trump as president.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
It's very hard, if not impossible, to reconcile what he said last night with what he previously claimed.
I haven't watched it, but I guess last night's love-in was just two liars lying to each other...
I gather it was delayed because of a cyberhack.
Who could want to stop Trump rambling on for two hours and digging himself an even bigger hole with suburban woman and swing voters?
I cry b/s on the cyberhack/DDOS claims.
More likely: they found a few little issues when they did their claimed 'eight million' test earlier in the day, and decided to solve them, mucking things up in the process.
God knows why they did a 'test' so near the time of the 'interview'.
More likely is it's a lie.
He sacked most of the people who kept the site running
They may have done a test, but 8 million is a random and probably bogus number
They went live. It fell over.
They lied about it
The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.
Not exactly news if Musk lies. I just assume everything he says is probably dishonest to save time.
Is Musk a net positive or negative to the human race? He's dead right about the need to electrify transport and energy production and storage and has made incredible advances to make that a reality. That's a big plus. Reusable rockets must also go on the plus side. If he helps Trump get elected when he otherwise wouldn't then that's a huge negative. Hopefully he will succeed in Tesla and SpaceX and fail miserably in boosting Trump.
A net plus but rapidly heading for crossover imo. To me it looks like another example of hubristic overreach. He's great at tech and business but has the political intelligence of a plank. So what does he do? He starts wading into politics. Ludicrous. It's as if Keir Starmer made a habit of offering suggestions for how Tesla could improve the battery life of its cars.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
1 - These are 11 States out of only I think 26 that provide for citizen-led ballot initiatives, so it's quite a proportion of the places that do it, more than 40%.
2 - That these initiatives are quite difficult to get on the ballot in some places, for example Nebraska required "Signatures from 5% of registered voters in 40% (38) of the state's 93 counties" just to put it on the ballot. For an approximate UK analogy, for the Commons that would be petitions of ~4000 people in at least 260 separate Constituencies.
In Montana it's even more: "Signatures from 10% of qualified voters in each of 2/5 (40) of the 100 legislative districts".
Imagine needing in the UK 7500 signatures in 260 distinct Constituencies - what would it take to organise that, and how many organisations could do it?
That puts a heavy requirement on resources, money and infrastructure to deliver just the signatures. I'd be interested if someone checks the detail, but I expect that a lot is being delivered by organisations who are "fellow travellers" with the Democrats, perhaps with a similar funding base.
It's a high bar, which speaks to how deep this issue is in the consciousness.
(One thing I am not clear on is whether and how Citizen Ballot initiatives vary between State and Presidential Elections.)
The ballot initiatives are all local in nature, held at state, county, or city level, depending on the jurisdiction of the issue concerned. There’s no nationwide referenda in the US, as far as I know.
There's no nationwide elections of any kind in the US.
Even House/Senate/Presidential elections are a collection of local elections not a single nationwide one, which is why talk of the popular vote winner is absurd.
It's only absurd if you're too stupid to understand what the expression 'popular vote winner' means
It means nothing.
I see you are one of those too stupid.
It means who got most of the votes across the nation. hth
Similarly, most people manage discuss what percentage of the 'popular vote' parties got in the UK election, without morons saying 'it means nothing'
Who gets the most votes across the nation means nothing.
You can discuss it all you like, but it means absolutely nothing politically. Same as percentage of the popular vote in the UK.
Morons might claim that Keir Starmer did worse than Jeremy Corbyn as far as the popular vote is concerned, but the popular vote means nothing in this country either and one won by a landslide and the other lost.
HTH.
Those 'morons' would be absolutely correct, and it is an interesting fact. If you can't find any meaning in it that just proves you are an idiot.
Its an interesting yet utterly meaningless fact.
Hillary Clinton and Jeremy Corbyn lost their elections.
That you keep bandying about terms like moron or idiot doesn't make you intellectual.
You yourself quote national opinion polls, despite pretending to believe that they have no meaning.
For some weird reason the phrase 'popular vote winner' threatens some fanatical belief you have, but most people know exactly what it means and can use it in a useful way.
Opinion polls have no lasting meaning either, yes, completely agreed. I've had this argument with HYUFD many times who acts as if opinion polls are some objective and immutable truth rather than a snapshot.
The only meaningful election result is the actual election result.
Are you saying you have never discussed an opinion poll result on here, except to say that it has no meaning, and talking about it is absurd?
No, I can discuss things without claiming they have any actual lasting meaning.
Opinion polls are interesting as a snapshot of what may happen at the next election, they don't trump what does happen at the actual election.
Getting 33.7% of the popular vote and 411 seats is a much, much better election result than getting 40.0% of the popular vote and 232 seats.
"Winning" the popular vote but getting less electoral college votes than your rival who gets a majority of them means you've lost the election and the popular vote "victory" is utterly meaningless.
It's one of those terms like 'moral victory ' that losers use to console themselves.
OK, but if that happens a lot it's a sign of a broken system such as FPTP in the UK and the Electoral College in the US. They should be changed but it's unlikely to happen when it benefits the ones who win.
Its not a broken system, as much as I'd rather Hillary had won in 2016, she lost and deserved to lose.
Trump didn't deserve to win, but that's because of him being Trump, not because he didn't get sufficient votes which, unfortunately, he did.
Yes. California is not Alabama is not Texas is not New York.
I hope Harris wins Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and Michigan etc this year and with it the Presidency. She quite rightly is trying to and not just trying to maximise votes in California.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
I've been to a fair few suicides, and I've not found any of them anything but grim . We had a spate of chemical suicides around the 2010s for some reason, and they did at least make provision for the aftermath, warnings signs on doors, taped off areas, detailed instructions about the chemicals they'd used. As I say, though, it was always grim.
With all the talk about investigating Farage/Robinson and Russian links can we also please take a look at who is funding Stop The War?
Trots who live in million pound plus house in North London. Call them the Vanessa Redgrave tendency.
PJ O’Rourke named them The MasterCard Marxists
People whom, if society was indeed perfectly equal in outcomes, would be very much the losers.
But of course they think that they would be the leaders, the Politbureau of the socialist Utopia, and therefore exempt from the equality of outcome that might apply to everyone else.
A chap I used to drink with did reenactment stuff (Sealed Knot).
He commented that there was a certain kind of person who assumed that they would have high rank in that context. That they felt entitled to such rank. And that they were always poisonous.
There is an annual WW2 event near me, and I am amazed by just how many more German actors there are than allies
I'm sitting in the cafe at UCHL ENT hospital in London. I had a tooth perforated in February while my dentist carried out a root canal, at which point she bottled it and referred me. The good news is after some initial concerns and infections it has been a painless 6 months. This was an initial appointment and I will come back in a few months to get it sorted.
Why am I posting? Well this is all on the NHS and it has been superb. No waits. The most impressive hospital I have been to. My only complaint is the overstaffing. A man to direct me to reception who sends me to another reception, via a man who presses a button to call the lift (I took the stairs).
Some of those may be volunteers, as they are in my local hospital.
What Trump actually said at the time. And some pretending support for Ukraine on here claim that country would be safer hands with Trump as president.
“I went in yesterday and there was a television screen, and I said, ‘This is genius.’ Putin declares a big portion of the Ukraine — of Ukraine — Putin declares it as independent. Oh, that’s wonderful. He used the word ‘independent’ and ‘we’re gonna go out and we’re gonna go in and we’re gonna help keep peace.’ You gotta say that’s pretty savvy.”
It's very hard, if not impossible, to reconcile what he said last night with what he previously claimed.
I haven't watched it, but I guess last night's love-in was just two liars lying to each other...
I gather it was delayed because of a cyberhack.
Who could want to stop Trump rambling on for two hours and digging himself an even bigger hole with suburban woman and swing voters?
I cry b/s on the cyberhack/DDOS claims.
More likely: they found a few little issues when they did their claimed 'eight million' test earlier in the day, and decided to solve them, mucking things up in the process.
God knows why they did a 'test' so near the time of the 'interview'.
More likely is it's a lie.
He sacked most of the people who kept the site running
They may have done a test, but 8 million is a random and probably bogus number
They went live. It fell over.
They lied about it
The rest of X appears to be working normally, however, and a source at the company confirmed to The Verge that there wasn’t actually a denial-of-service attack. Another X staffer said there was a “99 percent” chance Elon was lying about an attack.
Not exactly news if Musk lies. I just assume everything he says is probably dishonest to save time.
Is Musk a net positive or negative to the human race? He's dead right about the need to electrify transport and energy production and storage and has made incredible advances to make that a reality. That's a big plus. Reusable rockets must also go on the plus side. If he helps Trump get elected when he otherwise wouldn't then that's a huge negative. Hopefully he will succeed in Tesla and SpaceX and fail miserably in boosting Trump.
Oh and his X/Twitter changes are a minus.
I think most people’s view of Musk comes down to their view of Twitter.
I happen to think that on balance New Twitter is better than Old Twitter, so overall Musk is a net positive to the world.
The achievements of his companies in turning established industries upside-down are definitely positives, although his detractors will say that they are mostly the achievements of others.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: “Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble.” Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!).
So Rasmussen are claiming all "mainstream" pollsters stopped polling national numbers on the 4th August?
Seem to have lost the plot.
The only element of truth there is I imagine the pollsters have changed their standards from weeks ago.
Weeks ago the pollsters would have been prompting Biden or Trump as options as standard. Now they'll be prompting Harris or Trump s options as standard.
Trump still seems to be campaigning as if he's running against Biden. Then again, when Biden was the candidate Trump often seemed to think he was running against Obama.
It must be tough to keep track of what's going on when you're as mentally incapacitated as Donald Trump is.
It would also be surprising in a way if Harris wasn't doing a bit better in the polls than Biden was. A majority of voters thought Biden was too old, lots of voters told pollsters that they didn't like either candidate, and Harris could be getting a bit of a honeymoon boost.
Rasmussen are full of shit, no wonder Musk likes them.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
Hopefully in the future there won't be any train drivers which will minimise the way tragedy compounds upon tragedy like this.
Someone still has to deal with the aftermath.
Yeah, I realised so deleted that post.
Dealing with the aftermath presumably is less bad than seeing it live, but still horrendous.
My preferred solution would be safe and legal, voluntary, euthanasia. Let people control their own deaths and if they wish to do it, do so in a safe and humane clean and medicinal manner.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
A lot of the Dem activist base have moved from being “pro-choice”, to being “pro-abortion”.
One in three women, in the UK, have an abortion. You will know lots of people who have had an abortion. It is a sensible part of modern healthcare. It is a very normal thing.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
I've been to a fair few suicides, and I've not found any of them anything but grim . We had a spate of chemical suicides around the 2010s for some reason, and they did at least make provision for the aftermath, warnings signs on doors, taped off areas, detailed instructions about the chemicals they'd used. As I say, though, it was always grim.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
Hopefully in the future there won't be any train drivers which will minimise the way tragedy compounds upon tragedy like this.
Someone still has to deal with the aftermath.
Yeah, I realised so deleted that post.
Dealing with the aftermath presumably is less bad than seeing it live, but still horrendous.
My preferred solution would be safe and legal, voluntary, euthanasia. Let people control their own deaths and if they wish to do it, do so in a safe and humane clean and medicinal manner.
I think Taz posted he worked in a depot and said on some suicides they will still finding human remains on the train weeks later.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
There are a lot of similarities between Trump and Corbyn, as @Cyclefree wrote years ago.
Hopefully a second defeat of Trump will see America move on from Trump.
Though I'm not sure who plays the Starmer role in this analogy, who has been supporting Trump until election day but then moves the party on afterwards.
Corbyn is the diametric opposite of Trump.
Trump and Boris is a closer analogy, as even The Donald acknowledged. Charismatic bullshitters with devoted followers. So the question of who comes next is whether Republicans can sidestep their Truss and Rishi stages.
The one similarity (if I really strain) is that Trump is a personality cult and there was some of that around Jez esp after 2017.
But otherwise, no. One example amongst hundreds of huge differences - borders and immigration.
There are none so blind as those who wish not to see.
Corbyn has held the same views for decades, possibly with the exception of EU membership. They have often been passionate, unpopular causes and some frankly mad. Does Trump really believe in anything ? Despite the rhetoric Trumps main legacy will be stacking the supreme court.
Corbyn has been obssessed with support for underdog causes (Ireland, Palestine, Chagos Islands).
On taxation, immigration, equal rights, state spending and intervention, abortion, Israel, job protection, the environment, Education etc etc, Corbyn doesn't look like Trump.
Sure there was a bit of a personality cult around Corbyn but nothing like the demagoguery of Trump. Corbyn would also talk a glass eye to sleep.
If you look hard enough you can find similarities between anyone.
Corbyn and Marine le Pen or Geert Wilders.
Sure why not.
Neither Johnson nor Corbyn are particularly like Trump, and I can't imagine either attempting to stage a coup to overturn an election result. Johnson does share with Trump that he is total bullshitter, but otherwise the comparison is unfair to Johnson. Trump is far more malign.
Yes we don't have a Trump or anything like, thank god. Farage is but that's mainly in his dreams.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
I've been to a fair few suicides, and I've not found any of them anything but grim . .
A bloke in our village topped himself because his Mrs was banging some no-mark at her salsa class. He hung himself from the stairs with the cable from the phone (who needs a landline these days). She came caterwauling up our drive so me and Mrs DA cut him down and did CPR but he was a goner.
She put the chair and cable he used out for the bin men the next week, which I thought was a trifle cold.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
A lot of the Dem activist base have moved from being “pro-choice”, to being “pro-abortion”.
One in three women, in the UK, have an abortion. You will know lots of people who have had an abortion. It is a sensible part of modern healthcare. It is a very normal thing.
It’s something on which strong opinions are held on both sides, and we will agree to disagree. But I disagree vehemently that abortion is “a sensible part of modern healthcare”.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
I think the Republicans will but by then Harris will have been president for four years and probably not a godawfully bad one and so will be easily re-elected. Likewise Walz for 2032 possibly. It will be hard to be elected President as a Republican before 2036 or 2040 all because of Trump.
Walz will be too old in 2032?
So long as Trump is still the Republican candidate, he'll be ok.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
It’s something that people should think about when complaining about drivers’ salaries. I have a friend who is a train driver, to whom it has happened. I believe if it happens twice, you are retired from train driving.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
The Electoral College is one of those things (like many in the US constitution) that sort of works but when it breaks it really breaks.
It really isn’t great at dealing with close results (like any majoritarian system). And given the polarisation of US politics the parties have now fine-tuned how to play it to make the whole election hinge on tiny margins.
I get the idea that it requires votes to be geographically spread. There is some logic to it. But let’s be honest, if you were starting from scratch today there’s no way such a system would be proposed.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
So you're saying now that it was pre-existing?
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
I'm dreadfully sorry that poor Thorpe felt that way, but I'd be equally sorry for the train driver. One of the worst things that can happen to a train, or indeed any, driver, is if someone leaps directly into their path.
Suicide appears depressingly common in cricket.
On the face of it it appears a very agreeable lifestyle. Not least because at the top it is always summer.
But the long weeks away from family must take their toll. And it is a very high pressure sport. In most sports, if you fail, you have an opportunity to redeem yourself; in cricket, if you fail, that's the end of your participation (for now). I wonder if mental health problems are more prevalent among batsmen than bowlers?
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
Because the last thing a doctor wants while making a life / death decision in an emergency is whether a pro life lawyer is going to make the next 3 years of that doctors life a living hell.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
So you're saying now that it was pre-existing?
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
I said that he was the first governor to sign a bill into law following the Dobbs decision.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
Hopefully in the future there won't be any train drivers which will minimise the way tragedy compounds upon tragedy like this.
Someone still has to deal with the aftermath.
Yeah, I realised so deleted that post.
Dealing with the aftermath presumably is less bad than seeing it live, but still horrendous.
My preferred solution would be safe and legal, voluntary, euthanasia. Let people control their own deaths and if they wish to do it, do so in a safe and humane clean and medicinal manner.
I know you mean well, but euthanasia for people with mental health issues would have to exceptionally tightly regulated and only available after years or even decades of suffering, or when the mental health issue is related to a identifiable physical condition.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
It’s something that people should think about when complaining about drivers’ salaries. I have a friend who is a train driver, to whom it has happened. I believe if it happens twice, you are retired from train driving.
Couple of years ago I came across a lorry driver who had been travelling a main road at a steady 60mph when a chap dropped off a bridge in front of him. Lorry driver could do nothing to avoid the chap, of course, and the way he fell his face was plastered across the windscreen. Chap died, of course, but the lorry driver's life was ruined too.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
So you're saying now that it was pre-existing?
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
I said that he was the first governor to sign a bill into law following the Dobbs decision.
The Electoral College is one of those things (like many in the US constitution) that sort of works but when it breaks it really breaks.
It really isn’t great at dealing with close results (like any majoritarian system). And given the polarisation of US politics the parties have now fine-tuned how to play it to make the whole election hinge on tiny margins.
I get the idea that it requires votes to be geographically spread. There is some logic to it. But let’s be honest, if you were starting from scratch today there’s no way such a system would be proposed.
It’s entirely possible we could go the entire 21st century with the Republicans winning the popular vote once but winning the Presidency for most of the 21st century.
At some point we could see the Dems winning the popular vote by 10 million and still losing, I suspect that’s when it will really break.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
So you're saying now that it was pre-existing?
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
I said that he was the first governor to sign a bill into law following the Dobbs decision.
But he wasn't, its a lie by Republican opponents.
He simply enshrined the pre-existing law.
He signed an actual bill into an actual law, which replaced State Supreme Court case law. The new bill did not have a time limit. These are all facts reported in the AP article linked.
“ ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz enshrined the right to abortion and other reproductive health care into Minnesota statutes Tuesday, signing a bill meant to ensure that the state’s existing protections remain in place no matter who sits on future courts.
“Democratic leaders took advantage of their new control of both houses of the Legislature to rush the bill through in the first month of the 2023 legislative session. They credit the backlash against the U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer to reverse Roe v. Wade for their takeover of the state Senate and for keeping their House majority in a year when Republicans expected to make gains.
“ “After last year’s landmark election across this country, we’re the first state to take legislative action to put these protections in place,” Walz said at a signing ceremony flanked by over 100 lawmakers, providers and other advocates who worked to pass the bill.
“Abortion rights were already protected under a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision known as Doe v. Gomez, which held that the state Constitution protects abortion rights. And a district court judge last summer declared unconstitutional several restrictions that previous Legislatures had put in place, including a 24-hour waiting period and a parental notification requirement for minors.”
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
So you're saying now that it was pre-existing?
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
I said that he was the first governor to sign a bill into law following the Dobbs decision.
But he wasn't, its a lie by Republican opponents.
He simply enshrined the pre-existing law.
He signed an actual bill into an actual law, which replaced State Supreme Court case law. The new bill did not have a time limit. These are all facts reported in the AP article linked.
“ ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz enshrined the right to abortion and other reproductive health care into Minnesota statutes Tuesday, signing a bill meant to ensure that the state’s existing protections remain in place no matter who sits on future courts.
“Democratic leaders took advantage of their new control of both houses of the Legislature to rush the bill through in the first month of the 2023 legislative session. They credit the backlash against the U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer to reverse Roe v. Wade for their takeover of the state Senate and for keeping their House majority in a year when Republicans expected to make gains.
“ “After last year’s landmark election across this country, we’re the first state to take legislative action to put these protections in place,” Walz said at a signing ceremony flanked by over 100 lawmakers, providers and other advocates who worked to pass the bill.
“Abortion rights were already protected under a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision known as Doe v. Gomez, which held that the state Constitution protects abortion rights. And a district court judge last summer declared unconstitutional several restrictions that previous Legislatures had put in place, including a 24-hour waiting period and a parental notification requirement for minors.”
Yes, enshrining the state's existing protections in place.
Good for him! So he should.
But you're trying to spin this, falsely, as something radical. He's not some "obsessive" that changed the law by removing a limit, he just kept the law as it is.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
I think the Republicans will but by then Harris will have been president for four years and probably not a godawfully bad one and so will be easily re-elected. Likewise Walz for 2032 possibly. It will be hard to be elected President as a Republican before 2036 or 2040 all because of Trump.
Walz will be too old in 2032?
So long as Trump is still the Republican candidate, he'll be ok.
The danger is that Trump has taken over the GOP and regards it like a Mafia boss regards his organisation. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he pushes for one of his family to succeed him as candidate next time round. Remember, his daughter-in-law now has a senior position within the party.
Wiki: "Lara Lea Trump (née Yunaska; born October 12, 1982) is an American former television producer who has co-chaired the Republican National Committee since March 2024. She is married to Eric Trump, the third child of former U.S. President Donald Trump."
I'm sitting in the cafe at UCHL ENT hospital in London. I had a tooth perforated in February while my dentist carried out a root canal, at which point she bottled it and referred me. The good news is after some initial concerns and infections it has been a painless 6 months. This was an initial appointment and I will come back in a few months to get it sorted.
Why am I posting? Well this is all on the NHS and it has been superb. No waits. The most impressive hospital I have been to. My only complaint is the overstaffing. A man to direct me to reception who sends me to another reception, via a man who presses a button to call the lift (I took the stairs).
UCLH is surprisingly good. Also my local hospital. And Sir Kir's probably. I wonder if that is a factor
Not made a list of methods or anything, but along with jumping off a tall building, jumping in front of a train/bus would not be the way I'd go.
When I die I want it to be like Chrysippus of Soli who died laughing at his own joke.
Actually I want to die on my hundredth birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
I want to die some time in my early 90s; still physically and mentally relatively sound. I will have had a large family lunch with children and grandchildren and maybe the odd great grandchild, after which I will drift off to sleep in a comfortable chair in a room on my own while listening to TMS cover the final stages of a test match drifting towards an amiable draw in a dead rubber which England have already won, with the background noise of my family elsewhere in the house talking and laughing.
There is not, AFAICS, a good way to be discovered dead, but the best I have come up with is that I will be discovered by a stout-hearted and tactful son-in-law who has wandered in to see how the test is progressing, who will find a way to break it to the girls (who will be - what - in their 50s by then) and to the rest of the family. Any sadness they feel will be offset by the knowledge that I lived a full life and died happy and content and surrounded by those I loved.
There's not much I can do to control this, of course, except the 'lived a full life' bit.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
I've been to a fair few suicides, and I've not found any of them anything but grim . We had a spate of chemical suicides around the 2010s for some reason, and they did at least make provision for the aftermath, warnings signs on doors, taped off areas, detailed instructions about the chemicals they'd used. As I say, though, it was always grim.
That sounds utterly horrific.
Doing the postmortems is no joke, either, with some of those suicides. They may be neater than a train smash but can be really dangerous especially when the toxin is converted to something more volatile - the obvious example is solid cyanide converted by stomach acids to hydrogen cyanide gas.
"At Plymouth Crown Court, a man who grabbed a police officer's baton and ran off with it was jailed for three years. Guy Sullivan, 43, of New George Street, Plymouth, admitted a charge of violent disorder relating to the violence in the city on 5 August. The court heard a lone officer had been using his baton to push back protesters around him, when Sullivan came behind the officer and grabbed the baton out of his hands."
Not quite, Lord Copper. Another incomplete report without enough context on PB. I'm seeing this type of commentary again and again on PB, by people who are jumping to conclusions from wrong information. Please stop.
The officer was then pulled to the ground and beaten up by those he had been protecting himself against with his batten. The perp materially assisted in the mob violence by preventing the policeman defending himself. The riot situation makes it far worse as a crime, and is treated far more seriously.
He got 26 months for that, not 3 years, and I think it will be 50:50 prison:on license (my assumption).
Sullivan had also broken into a supermarket in the riot situation and stolen alcohol, for which he got 16 months for that last week, which has been reduced to 10 months consecutive.
Sullivan also had a record of 37 previous convictions for 108 offences. This is a local thug thinking he can take adavantage.
The judicial system is getting this about right. And it will stop it, which is what we all want.
But please can we stop the frothing based on leaning towers of BS. Obviously Leon won't but that's his version of breathing. But most of us are better than this.
I don't love the header title. Abortion is pretty harrowing for women who've been through it and the 'hilarious' reference to doing it to Trump seems the wrong side of crass.
Clearly Harris will win. I would vote for her as Trump is unhinged. But any result is suboptimal. The republicans need to pick a rational candidate in 2028 and onwards but I think it will be too late now for 2028, maybe even 2032.
Do you not think they'll wise up if Trump gets a pasting?
I think the Republicans will but by then Harris will have been president for four years and probably not a godawfully bad one and so will be easily re-elected. Likewise Walz for 2032 possibly. It will be hard to be elected President as a Republican before 2036 or 2040 all because of Trump.
Walz will be too old in 2032?
So long as Trump is still the Republican candidate, he'll be ok.
The danger is that Trump has taken over the GOP and regards it like a Mafia boss regards his organisation. I wouldn't be at all surprised if he pushes for one of his family to succeed him as candidate next time round. Remember, his daughter-in-law now has a senior position within the party.
Wiki: "Lara Lea Trump (née Yunaska; born October 12, 1982) is an American former television producer who has co-chaired the Republican National Committee since March 2024. She is married to Eric Trump, the third child of former U.S. President Donald Trump."
Danger? Trump has already taken over the party and regards it like a Mafia boss..
And your typical Republican voter seems to love it...
I'm sitting in the cafe at UCHL ENT hospital in London. I had a tooth perforated in February while my dentist carried out a root canal, at which point she bottled it and referred me. The good news is after some initial concerns and infections it has been a painless 6 months. This was an initial appointment and I will come back in a few months to get it sorted.
Why am I posting? Well this is all on the NHS and it has been superb. No waits. The most impressive hospital I have been to. My only complaint is the overstaffing. A man to direct me to reception who sends me to another reception, via a man who presses a button to call the lift (I took the stairs).
UCLH is surprisingly good. Also my local hospital. And Sir Kir's probably. I wonder if that is a factor
Yes. I was wandering down Gower Street on the morning of 5 July and saw loads of workmen on their way in and a lot of new doctors newly shipped in from elsewhere judging by the confused expressions on their faces. Makes sense.
Not made a list of methods or anything, but along with jumping off a tall building, jumping in front of a train/bus would not be the way I'd go.
When I die I want it to be like Chrysippus of Soli who died laughing at his own joke.
Actually I want to die on my hundredth birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
I want to die some time in my early 90s; still physically and mentally relatively sound. I will have had a large family lunch with children and grandchildren and maybe the odd great grandchild, after which I will drift off to sleep in a comfortable chair in a room on my own while listening to TMS cover the final stages of a test match drifting towards an amiable draw in a dead rubber which England have already won, with the background noise of my family elsewhere in the house talking and laughing.
There is not, AFAICS, a good way to be discovered dead, but the best I have come up with is that I will be discovered by a stout-hearted and tactful son-in-law who has wandered in to see how the test is progressing, who will find a way to break it to the girls (who will be - what - in their 50s by then) and to the rest of the family. Any sadness they feel will be offset by the knowledge that I lived a full life and died happy and content and surrounded by those I loved.
There's not much I can do to control this, of course, except the 'lived a full life' bit.
I can’t speak for everyone but my experience of depression is that the patient doesn’t want to die so much as doesn’t want to live. If it were possible to erase the pain of existence without the need for the inconvenience of dying then they’d take it. Choosing a “good” or “bad” death doesn’t factor. Commiserations to the family and deepest sympathy to the poor driver.
Not made a list of methods or anything, but along with jumping off a tall building, jumping in front of a train/bus would not be the way I'd go.
When I die I want it to be like Chrysippus of Soli who died laughing at his own joke.
Actually I want to die on my hundredth birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
I want to die some time in my early 90s; still physically and mentally relatively sound. I will have had a large family lunch with children and grandchildren and maybe the odd great grandchild, after which I will drift off to sleep in a comfortable chair in a room on my own while listening to TMS cover the final stages of a test match drifting towards an amiable draw in a dead rubber which England have already won, with the background noise of my family elsewhere in the house talking and laughing.
There is not, AFAICS, a good way to be discovered dead, but the best I have come up with is that I will be discovered by a stout-hearted and tactful son-in-law who has wandered in to see how the test is progressing, who will find a way to break it to the girls (who will be - what - in their 50s by then) and to the rest of the family. Any sadness they feel will be offset by the knowledge that I lived a full life and died happy and content and surrounded by those I loved.
There's not much I can do to control this, of course, except the 'lived a full life' bit.
I rather like that scenario; hope you can manage it. It's no fun being physically challenged, so that one can one can no longer manage basic tasks, tasks that one learned to do for oneself at three or so. At least I can walk about now, albeit with a 'walking aid', such as a Zimmer frame. And I can get both to, and into, the pub on my electric scooter. Otherwise I'm rather with Kenny Rogers 'The best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep'.
A 12 week abortion limit proposed for Nebraska is the same as in Germany so hardly a major outlier as far as I am concerned. The issue will also drive evengelical turnout for Republicans and Trump and some conservative Roman Catholic turnout for them, including pro life Hispanics
That's what you think will happen Hyufd. Catch is, that's not what the data says. Even in Montana they can't get tighter abortion laws past the citizens.
What appears to have happened is that anti-abortion activists thought because they were noisy and well-organised and their opponents didn't seem that bothered, they were a majority of the country. Turns out this was a serious miscalculation. They are a minority, and while they are a significant minority everywhere they have asked the question they've been knocked back by the majority. Who also, as an aside, seem to then vote Blue as a further FU to the party supporting abortion restrictions.
I suspect the anti-abortion activists are shouting too much and explaining too little.
A 12 week limit sounds like a halving of abortion rights but 88% of abortions happen before that point.
Perhaps the political sweet spot would be between 12 and 15 weeks which would still allow 95% of abortions.
The GOP really need to shift the focus from their abortion obsessives demanding a total ban on abortion and onto Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion.
It is worth remembering that "Dem abortion obsessives demanding totally unrestricted abortion" didn't exist until the overturning of Roe v Wade.
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Indeed, which is why it’s important to call out the abortion obsessives such as Tim Walz, who as Governor of Minnesota was the first to sign a bill with no time limit folllowing the Dobbs decision.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Which is why I linked, as you did, to a balanced source with both arguments given.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
No, the legislation enshrines the pre-existing rules.
Yes, the legislation enshrines the lack of a time limit into law.
So you're saying now that it was pre-existing?
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
I said that he was the first governor to sign a bill into law following the Dobbs decision.
That does not make him an 'obsessive', any more than you are yourself.
Not made a list of methods or anything, but along with jumping off a tall building, jumping in front of a train/bus would not be the way I'd go.
When I die I want it to be like Chrysippus of Soli who died laughing at his own joke.
Actually I want to die on my hundredth birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
I want to die some time in my early 90s; still physically and mentally relatively sound. I will have had a large family lunch with children and grandchildren and maybe the odd great grandchild, after which I will drift off to sleep in a comfortable chair in a room on my own while listening to TMS cover the final stages of a test match drifting towards an amiable draw in a dead rubber which England have already won, with the background noise of my family elsewhere in the house talking and laughing.
There is not, AFAICS, a good way to be discovered dead, but the best I have come up with is that I will be discovered by a stout-hearted and tactful son-in-law who has wandered in to see how the test is progressing, who will find a way to break it to the girls (who will be - what - in their 50s by then) and to the rest of the family. Any sadness they feel will be offset by the knowledge that I lived a full life and died happy and content and surrounded by those I loved.
There's not much I can do to control this, of course, except the 'lived a full life' bit.
I can’t speak for everyone but my experience of depression is that the patient doesn’t want to die so much as doesn’t want to live. If it were possible to erase the pain of existence without the need for the inconvenience of dying then they’d take it. Choosing a “good” or “bad” death doesn’t factor. Commiserations to the family and deepest sympathy to the poor driver.
Oh yes, absolutely, and having experienced that a couple of times I completely understand. I'd just branched out somewhat with the conversation following TSE's lead.
On which subject, if anyone does find themselves wanting to 'erase the pain of existence' - from personal experience, please speak to a doctor: this can be addressed with antidepressants. It is much, much preferable to either of the alternatives.
The Democrats have never won 4 in a row and the Republicans have only done it once - Grant x 2, Rutherford, Hayes.
If Kamala wins a second term then it's a repeat of the Biden 2016 dynamic for Walz in 2032.
The Dems won 1932, 1936, 1940, 1944, and 1948.
So that’s I suppose five in a row.
What if Kamala had to step up before January due to illness or God forbid death of Biden? Does that count as one of her terms?
No
Indeed - LBJ was going to run in 1968 until he withdrew. He could quite legally have run and won and served a full four year term meaning he'd have been POTUS from November 1963 to January 1973.
Not made a list of methods or anything, but along with jumping off a tall building, jumping in front of a train/bus would not be the way I'd go.
When I die I want it to be like Chrysippus of Soli who died laughing at his own joke.
Actually I want to die on my hundredth birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
I want to die some time in my early 90s; still physically and mentally relatively sound. I will have had a large family lunch with children and grandchildren and maybe the odd great grandchild, after which I will drift off to sleep in a comfortable chair in a room on my own while listening to TMS cover the final stages of a test match drifting towards an amiable draw in a dead rubber which England have already won, with the background noise of my family elsewhere in the house talking and laughing.
There is not, AFAICS, a good way to be discovered dead, but the best I have come up with is that I will be discovered by a stout-hearted and tactful son-in-law who has wandered in to see how the test is progressing, who will find a way to break it to the girls (who will be - what - in their 50s by then) and to the rest of the family. Any sadness they feel will be offset by the knowledge that I lived a full life and died happy and content and surrounded by those I loved.
There's not much I can do to control this, of course, except the 'lived a full life' bit.
I rather like that scenario; hope you can manage it. It's no fun being physically challenged, so that one can one can no longer manage basic tasks, tasks that one learned to do for oneself at three or so. At least I can walk about now, albeit with a 'walking aid', such as a Zimmer frame. And I can get both to, and into, the pub on my electric scooter. Otherwise I'm rather with Kenny Rogers 'The best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep'.
I want to die peacefully in my sleep like my grandfather, not screaming in terror like his passengers.
Comments
Everybody already knows that an opinion poll is a snapshot.
Here is a recent article in the Economist
https://www.economist.com/united-states/2024/08/05/kamala-harris-leads-donald-trump-in-our-nationwide-poll-tracker
which contains the words:
"Winning the nationwide popular vote may not be enough to win the presidency"
Presumably you look at those words and think 'I can't make head or tail out of that, it's utterly meaningless!'
They should be changed but it's unlikely to happen when it benefits the ones who win.
Tesla was about the productionisation of the cottage industry in LA of converting cars to electric. For $250k or so, you could have your ICE made an EV. For the ghastly remake of the Italian Job they did this to a number of Minis (safety for running in tunnels). Any car manufacturer could have gone this route.
Even things like Raptor 3 - using 3D printing to its logical conclusion and putting all the complexity *inside* the structure of the engine - is simply carrying out what a number of people proposed. But no one in the industry implemented.
But of course they think that they would be the leaders, the Politbureau of the socialist Utopia, and therefore exempt from the equality of outcome that might apply to everyone else.
"People love to customize their lives. Everything from our vehicles to our credit cards have a touch of our personality. As far as credit cards go, some issuing companies allow members to add their own images to their credit cards. Some people choose to use a picture of their loved ones, others choose their pets, while others – specifically people living in Chemnitz, East Germany – choose the Father of Communism, Karl Marx."
I happen to think that on balance New Twitter is better than Old Twitter, so overall Musk is a net positive to the world.
The achievements of his companies in turning established industries upside-down are definitely positives, although his detractors will say that they are mostly the achievements of others.
Donald J. Trump Posts From His Truth Social
@TrumpDailyPosts
A Major, and highly respected, Pollster: “Don’t let the embargo of other polling fool anyone - Democrats are in real trouble.” Fake Polls are changing their methods and standards from 3 weeks ago. Highly inaccurate (dishonest!).
https://x.com/TrumpDailyPosts/status/1823046020890255365
Until that point, there was a general tendency of most States (Democrat or Republican controlled) to generally tighten up abortion access. There were exceptions (Montana and Alaska had no cutoff), but in most states the maximum date was being slowly brought in as medicine to keep premature babies alive improved.
Elon Musk was wrong to claim that a massive cyber attack derailed his interview with Donald Trump, insiders at the billionaire’s social media company have claimed.
Mr Musk said that a lengthy delay to his conversation with Mr Trump was caused by a “massive DDOS [distributed denial of service] attack on X”, hitting the app’s Spaces feature.
However, company insiders told The Verge there had been no such attack and there was a “99pc” likelihood Mr Musk’s claim was false.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2024/08/13/musks-cyber-attack-claim-trump-interview-fake-insiders/
He commented that there was a certain kind of person who assumed that they would have high rank in that context. That they felt entitled to such rank. And that they were always poisonous.
Graham Thorpe, the former England cricketer, died from multiple injuries after being hit by a train and was identified by his fingerprints, an inquest into his death has heard.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2024/08/13/graham-thorpe-died-multiple-injuries-train/
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-minnesota-state-government-timothy-walz-11c3b1d5269c929e442b979ff1bac73b
A lot of the Dem activist base have moved from being “pro-choice”, to being “pro-abortion”.
You can argue how much democratic legitimacy it lends, but you're being ridiculous saying it means 'nothing', when it's a regular item of political discussion in the US.
Not to mention having its own market on Betfair.
Trump didn't deserve to win, but that's because of him being Trump, not because he didn't get sufficient votes which, unfortunately, he did.
Why am I posting? Well this is all on the NHS and it has been superb. No waits. The most impressive hospital I have been to. My only complaint is the overstaffing. A man to direct me to reception who sends me to another reception, via a man who presses a button to call the lift (I took the stairs).
One of the worst things that can happen to a train, or indeed any, driver, is if someone leaps directly into their path.
Seem to have lost the plot.
The bill entrenched existing rights in the state.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-us-supreme-court-politics-health-minnesota-b3dee1cae42741f80930b6fe17f00d61
...Anti-abortion groups say the bills, assuming they’re enacted, will put Minnesota on the “extreme side” of the abortion rights spectrum.
“Mothers and babies deserve a far more humane and compassionate approach,” Cathy Blaeser, co-executive director of Minnesota Citizens Concerned for Life, said in a statement.
But Dr. Sarah Traxler, chief medical officer for Planned Parenthood North Central States, told reporters that third-trimester abortions are “incredibly rare” and almost always happen under “very tragic” circumstances such as fetal abnormalities or threats to the mother’s health. She said those decisions should be made between a patient and their medical provider, not on the floors of the Legislature.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s latest annual report on abortions recorded only one abortion between 25 and 30 weeks in 2021, with none reported later...
Why, tradition?
https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/09/25/majority-of-americans-continue-to-favor-moving-away-from-electoral-college/
Weeks ago the pollsters would have been prompting Biden or Trump as options as standard. Now they'll be prompting Harris or Trump s options as standard.
Trump still seems to be campaigning as if he's running against Biden. Then again, when Biden was the candidate Trump often seemed to think he was running against Obama.
It must be tough to keep track of what's going on when you're as mentally incapacitated as Donald Trump is.
We discussed this on here yesterday, there’s more than four suicides a week on the railways in the UK (plus possibly more on local light rail such as the Underground), a friend who’s a copper says that it’s the worst type of accident scene they get called to.
Train drivers and railway workers suffer severe trauma as a result, and often need extensive counselling and months off work.
A fast train takes half a mile or more to make an emergency stop. The driver often sees what’s happening several seconds ahead, but can do nothing about it.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/305113/railway-suicide-fatalities-in-great-britain-uk/
I hope Harris wins Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin and Michigan etc this year and with it the Presidency. She quite rightly is trying to and not just trying to maximise votes in California.
As I say, though, it was always grim.
Rasmussen are full of shit, no wonder Musk likes them.
Dealing with the aftermath presumably is less bad than seeing it live, but still horrendous.
My preferred solution would be safe and legal, voluntary, euthanasia. Let people control their own deaths and if they wish to do it, do so in a safe and humane clean and medicinal manner.
No more, no less.
Your link even says so in the first line of the article. 🤦♂️
Not made a list of methods or anything, but along with jumping off a tall building, jumping in front of a train/bus would not be the way I'd go.
The legislation itself does not impose a term limit on abortions.
She put the chair and cable he used out for the bin men the next week, which I thought was a trifle cold.
It really isn’t great at dealing with close results (like any majoritarian system). And given the polarisation of US politics the parties have now fine-tuned how to play it to make the whole election hinge on tiny margins.
I get the idea that it requires votes to be geographically spread. There is some logic to it. But let’s be honest, if you were starting from scratch today there’s no way such a system would be proposed.
So why do you pretend that Walz "introduced" that then, if it already existed?
On the face of it it appears a very agreeable lifestyle. Not least because at the top it is always summer.
But the long weeks away from family must take their toll. And it is a very high pressure sport. In most sports, if you fail, you have an opportunity to redeem yourself; in cricket, if you fail, that's the end of your participation (for now).
I wonder if mental health problems are more prevalent among batsmen than bowlers?
You otherwise end up in a case like Texas where some doctors are being sued due to the consequences of them taking too long to operate see https://www.texastribune.org/2024/08/12/texas-abortion-law-ectopic-pregnancies/
Actually I want to die on my hundredth birthday and I want my wife to be so upset that she cancels her 21st birthday party as a mark of respect.
I don't think it would stop many suicides.
Chap died, of course, but the lorry driver's life was ruined too.
Edit; amended to speed. Nodded, sorry.
He simply enshrined the pre-existing law.
It’s entirely possible we could go the entire 21st century with the Republicans winning the popular vote once but winning the Presidency for most of the 21st century.
At some point we could see the Dems winning the popular vote by 10 million and still losing, I suspect that’s when it will really break.
The Democrats have never won 4 in a row and the Republicans have only done it once - Grant x 2, Rutherford, Hayes.
If Kamala wins a second term then it's a repeat of the Biden 2016 dynamic for Walz in 2032.
So that’s I suppose five in a row.
https://apnews.com/article/abortion-politics-minnesota-state-government-timothy-walz-11c3b1d5269c929e442b979ff1bac73b
“ ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Gov. Tim Walz enshrined the right to abortion and other reproductive health care into Minnesota statutes Tuesday, signing a bill meant to ensure that the state’s existing protections remain in place no matter who sits on future courts.
“Democratic leaders took advantage of their new control of both houses of the Legislature to rush the bill through in the first month of the 2023 legislative session. They credit the backlash against the U.S. Supreme Court decision last summer to reverse Roe v. Wade for their takeover of the state Senate and for keeping their House majority in a year when Republicans expected to make gains.
“ “After last year’s landmark election across this country, we’re the first state to take legislative action to put these protections in place,” Walz said at a signing ceremony flanked by over 100 lawmakers, providers and other advocates who worked to pass the bill.
“Abortion rights were already protected under a 1995 Minnesota Supreme Court decision known as Doe v. Gomez, which held that the state Constitution protects abortion rights. And a district court judge last summer declared unconstitutional several restrictions that previous Legislatures had put in place, including a 24-hour waiting period and a parental notification requirement for minors.”
Good for him! So he should.
But you're trying to spin this, falsely, as something radical. He's not some "obsessive" that changed the law by removing a limit, he just kept the law as it is.
Wiki: "Lara Lea Trump (née Yunaska; born October 12, 1982) is an American former television producer who has co-chaired the Republican National Committee since March 2024. She is married to Eric Trump, the third child of former U.S. President Donald Trump."
There is not, AFAICS, a good way to be discovered dead, but the best I have come up with is that I will be discovered by a stout-hearted and tactful son-in-law who has wandered in to see how the test is progressing, who will find a way to break it to the girls (who will be - what - in their 50s by then) and to the rest of the family. Any sadness they feel will be offset by the knowledge that I lived a full life and died happy and content and surrounded by those I loved.
There's not much I can do to control this, of course, except the 'lived a full life' bit.
And your typical Republican voter seems to love it...
At least I can walk about now, albeit with a 'walking aid', such as a Zimmer frame. And I can get both to, and into, the pub on my electric scooter.
Otherwise I'm rather with Kenny Rogers 'The best that you can hope for is to die in your sleep'.
On which subject, if anyone does find themselves wanting to 'erase the pain of existence' - from personal experience, please speak to a doctor: this can be addressed with antidepressants. It is much, much preferable to either of the alternatives.
Rather, there'll be an almighty battle for the nomination among the next generation.
It's possible that Walz gets seduced by the prospect of the Presidency, but on balance I'd guess not.
https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-22/