Mr. Kicorse, enthusiasm doesn't really matter, though.
A vote to stay in or leave the EU isn't weighted by enthusiasm. The decision alone is what counts.
I was simply responding factually to the question of Sinn Fein's attitude towards the EU.
But since you mention it, their enthusiasm or otherwise towards the EU will matter a great deal if they are in government. It is how they would vote in an In/Out referendum that doesn't really matter.
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland. It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s. It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group. The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Much of it is, but there's plenty there for Irish journalists to laugh at.
For one thing, Sinn Fein does not mean "ourselves alone"!
For another, most people in Ireland were expecting FG to lose, and the more surprising thing is that it was SF and not FF who surged at their expense.
And although the article is right to point out that Brexit was nearly a non-issue, I'm sure Irish journalists will (perhaps a little unfairly) say that it's typically British to expect that it would have been the main issue.
Oh yes, and there's talking about SF serving up "Corbynesque policies" as if they've suddenly taken a lurch to the left, and that they've been inspired to do that by a British party....
Sinn Fein doesn't mean 'Ourselves Alone' - doesn't it? What does it mean? If that's a misconception it's a fairly common one amongst British people who are passably well-informed about Irish politics.
'The phrase "Sinn Féin" is Irish for "Ourselves" or "We Ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone" (from "Sinn Féin Amháin", an early-20th-century slogan. See also Sinn Féin ). The meaning of the name itself is an assertion of Irish national sovereignty and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) under the Westminster Parliament.'
The Scottish Nationalist Party stands in solidarity.
Sinn Fein is FOR the EU, though, IIRC.
I have never found it easy to reconcile Nationalism and EU membership in a coherent way.
With the EU harmonising and moving in one direction it appears nigh on lunacy to attain independence to then relinquish significant and growing parts of your autonomy to a centralising federal power.
So stick with the centralising power that doesn't even have federalism to ameliorate its domineering instincts.
No, be independent.
Indeed. Properly independent.
I believe in proper independence. I wonder what proportion of Scots do?
Independence exists iff P( A & B ) = P(A) x P(B)
Therefore, P(UK) = P(Scotland) x P (rUK)
P(A) must be between zero and one inclusive, by axioms of probability.
P(UK) = 1 (as it exists already). Therefore, by definition, P(Scotland) = 1.
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland. It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s. It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group. The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Oh, well that's okay then. At what point would an entity be considered worthy of sovereignty over the right to have a vote on independence from Scotland?
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland. It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s. It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group. The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Oh, well that's okay then. At what point would an entity be considered worthy of sovereignty over the right to have a vote on independence from Scotland?
Having elected representatives would be a start, a start that none of these hypothetical secessionists from the repressive brutishness of Holyrood have managed thus far.
I think the internet could make the coronavirus situation much worse than it otherwise would have been, through the spread of false rumours, misinformation, etc. Anyone agree?
This is potentially the start of a major German crisis. The sequence of events is:
* The small East German state of Thueringen has been led by an ex-Communist who is quite widely-respected despite the indifferent performance of his party in reecent years * An FDP (Liberal) politician won a vote to replace him, taking the support of the far-right AfD plus the Christian Democrat CDU (Merkel's party) * After widespread [protests, the FDP man resigned after 2 days. Merkel and her chosen successor as CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer described the attempted maneouvre as unacceptable and called for fresh elections in Thueringen. * The Thueringen CDU refused (polls suggest they'd have lost seats), and Kramp-Karrenbauer has now resigned as national leader, unofficially citing objectionable attitudes to the AfD within the party.
What happens in Thueringen is almost a detail, but the direction of the CDU nationally is now up for grabs.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
I suspect that the number of mild infections is quite under recorded, but there is a big time lag effect.
It seems to be a week or two for a patient to show symptoms, then 10 days to need inpatient care, and a further 10 days or so to get through the critical period, followed by a recovery phase when still able to transmit. The resource implications are overwhelming if there is a significant outbreak, in terms of personnel and equipment. I am not too chipper about being in the front line of this!
It was Labour who bailed out the bankers in the UK while letting the factories and mines shut down.
12/12 was ultimately the consequence of that.
It was Labour who did the bailout because they were in government. A Tory government would have done the same. By that time there was no choice. The big error was made in previous years. The buying into the myth that the City knew what it was doing and could be left to its own devices. This was a Tory sensibility which should have been left to the Tories. It would have been difficult for Labour to have gone against it - "light touch" (i.e. hardly any) regulation of the Wholesale Banking sector was the prevailing consensus and culture on both sides of the Atlantic - but they should have done. "OK, you guys, I like your tax money, but we will be regulating the arse off you. We do not trust you, see." Gordon Brown would be assured of heroic status in the history books if he had done this. But as it is ...
Far too many countries electorates seem to prefer shallow showy extroverts with the attention span of sugared up toddlers. Politics is not entertainment!
Exactly right. Charisma - yes. Sense of humour - yes. Entertainer in competition with the likes of Noel Edmonds and Michael Barrymore - neither required nor appropriate.
Much of it is, but there's plenty there for Irish journalists to laugh at.
For one thing, Sinn Fein does not mean "ourselves alone"!
For another, most people in Ireland were expecting FG to lose, and the more surprising thing is that it was SF and not FF who surged at their expense.
And although the article is right to point out that Brexit was nearly a non-issue, I'm sure Irish journalists will (perhaps a little unfairly) say that it's typically British to expect that it would have been the main issue.
Oh yes, and there's talking about SF serving up "Corbynesque policies" as if they've suddenly taken a lurch to the left, and that they've been inspired to do that by a British party....
Sinn Fein doesn't mean 'Ourselves Alone' - doesn't it? What does it mean? If that's a misconception it's a fairly common one amongst British people who are passably well-informed about Irish politics.
'The phrase "Sinn Féin" is Irish for "Ourselves" or "We Ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone" (from "Sinn Féin Amháin", an early-20th-century slogan. See also Sinn Féin ). The meaning of the name itself is an assertion of Irish national sovereignty and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) under the Westminster Parliament.'
The Scottish Nationalist Party stands in solidarity.
Sinn Fein is FOR the EU, though, IIRC.
Yep, they finally worked out the difference between a union of consent and one enforced.
No: 55% Yes: 45%
You're welcome.
Skipping over the 'you're welcome' thing, one of the more dweeby constructions on the internet, can you remind me of when the UK had to ask permission to have a referendum on continuing EU membership, and whether that permission was at any time refused?
So, when (and I hope it is when), Scotland becomes an independent self-governing state, tell me how exactly you will legislate for every conceivable political entity within Scotland to hold an independence referendum without the consent of the Scottish government.
Oh look a squirrel , can you explain how England will legislate for it after Scotland leaves the union.
As my wife is now 80, and neither of us enjoy flying, we have made the decision not to consider any further cruises as there are literally few places in the world we are interested in visiting. We are due to fly to Vancouver to visit or eldest son in May but we count ourselves so fortunate that we have enjoyed so many experiences and completed so much on most peoples 'bucket lists'
One of the features of PB is the kindness of posters across the political divide and I would like to thank all the posters who made such kind comments and suggestions following my post
My mum did various river cruises (Rhine etc) and trips with one of her oldest friends in her last few years, including a coach tour round Ireland.
I still don't understand how it happened, but she went into a walking stick shop in Ireland and managed to get a BOGOF. Featured prominently in the eulogy.
I am considering arranging them like a pair of swords somewhere.
The friend, in her 80s, still goes to Sheffield United every Saturday and does all day Scrabble competitions.
All the best.
Keep traveling, though Mr G; part of a 'keeping the mind active' policy! And well done to MattW's late Mum and to her friend. When we retired, nearly 20 years ago, both being cricket nuts my wife and I resolved to watch England on overseas tours. We did Sri Lanka (unforgettable) and South Africa (TBH, less so) and then both sons, who up and then had been both single and (as far as we or they knew) childless, married and started giving us more grandchildren. As one of the sons lives in Thailand that rather cut down on the available resources for cricket, although we did join a tour of India on the way home from Thailand. However visiting Thailand more or less annually has meant seeing off-road as well as tourist sights there, and also meant that we've 'done' Ankor Wat, and also listed Laos, Cambodia and Sabah, as well as a trip on the Eastern Orient Express... Bangkok to Singapore. Quite a change from Greater Anglia! That's as well as closer to home trips, such as the Canaries and a trip to see relations in New Zealand!. Health issues rather restricted us last year.... just N. Wales ..... but since they are, or appear to be resolved we fancy doing some more travelling this and, all being well, next year.
Much of it is, but there's plenty there for Irish journalists to laugh at.
For one thing, Sinn Fein does not mean "ourselves alone"!
For another, most people in Ireland were expecting FG to lose, and the more surprising thing is that it was SF and not FF who surged at their expense.
And although the article is right to point out that Brexit was nearly a non-issue, I'm sure Irish journalists will (perhaps a little unfairly) say that it's typically British to expect that it would have been the main issue.
Oh yes, and there's talking about SF serving up "Corbynesque policies" as if they've suddenly taken a lurch to the left, and that they've been inspired to do that by a British party....
Sinn Fein doesn't mean 'Ourselves Alone' - doesn't it? What does it mean? If that's a misconception it's a fairly common one amongst British people who are passably well-informed about Irish politics.
'The phrase "Sinn Féin" is Irish for "Ourselves" or "We Ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone" (from "Sinn Féin Amháin", an early-20th-century slogan. See also Sinn Féin ). The meaning of the name itself is an assertion of Irish national sovereignty and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) under the Westminster Parliament.'
The Scottish Nationalist Party stands in solidarity.
Sinn Fein is FOR the EU, though, IIRC.
I have never found it easy to reconcile Nationalism and EU membership in a coherent way.
With the EU harmonising and moving in one direction it appears nigh on lunacy to attain independence to then relinquish significant and growing parts of your autonomy to a centralising federal power.
So stick with the centralising power that doesn't even have federalism to ameliorate its domineering instincts.
Except that you do have federalism and devolved government.
Are you honestly stating that the UK is a federal state? Jeezo, that puts' ourselves alone' in the shade.
There are some obtuse people on here, they are either really stupid , think we are stupid or they are deluded.
This is potentially the start of a major German crisis. The sequence of events is:
* The small East German state of Thueringen has been led by an ex-Communist who is quite widely-respected despite the indifferent performance of his party in reecent years * An FDP (Liberal) politician won a vote to replace him, taking the support of the far-right AfD plus the Christian Democrat CDU (Merkel's party) * After widespread [protests, the FDP man resigned after 2 days. Merkel and her chosen successor as CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer described the attempted maneouvre as unacceptable and called for fresh elections in Thueringen. * The Thueringen CDU refused (polls suggest they'd have lost seats), and Kramp-Karrenbauer has now resigned as national leader, unofficially citing objectionable attitudes to the AfD within the party.
What happens in Thueringen is almost a detail, but the direction of the CDU nationally is now up for grabs.
During Merkel's tenure the CDU and SPD have recorded new record lows in 3 out her 4 elections and threw out the FDP for the first time from the Bundesdag as Chancellor.
Real Political Cannibalism. She rules by eating the political support of her partners.
Much of it is, but there's plenty there for Irish journalists to laugh at.
For one thing, Sinn Fein does not mean "ourselves alone"!
For another, most people in Ireland were expecting FG to lose, and the more surprising thing is that it was SF and not FF who surged at their expense.
And although the article is right to point out that Brexit was nearly a non-issue, I'm sure Irish journalists will (perhaps a little unfairly) say that it's typically British to expect that it would have been the main issue.
Oh yes, and there's talking about SF serving up "Corbynesque policies" as if they've suddenly taken a lurch to the left, and that they've been inspired to do that by a British party....
Sinn Fein doesn't mean 'Ourselves Alone' - doesn't it? What does it mean? If that's a misconception it's a fairly common one amongst British people who are passably well-informed about Irish politics.
'The phrase "Sinn Féin" is Irish for "Ourselves" or "We Ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone" (from "Sinn Féin Amháin", an early-20th-century slogan. See also Sinn Féin ). The meaning of the name itself is an assertion of Irish national sovereignty and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) under the Westminster Parliament.'
The Scottish Nationalist Party stands in solidarity.
Sinn Fein is FOR the EU, though, IIRC.
Yep, they finally worked out the difference between a union of consent and one enforced.
No: 55% Yes: 45%
You're welcome.
Skipping over the 'you're welcome' thing, one of the more dweeby constructions on the internet, can you remind me of when the UK had to ask permission to have a referendum on continuing EU membership, and whether that permission was at any time refused?
So, when (and I hope it is when), Scotland becomes an independent self-governing state, tell me how exactly you will legislate for every conceivable political entity within Scotland to hold an independence referendum without the consent of the Scottish government.
Oh look a squirrel , can you explain how England will legislate for it after Scotland leaves the union.
We're not the ones complaining about not having sovereignty. Heck, we don't even have our own parliament.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
I suspect that the number of mild infections is quite under recorded, but there is a big time lag effect.
It seems to be a week or two for a patient to show symptoms, then 10 days to need inpatient care, and a further 10 days or so to get through the critical period, followed by a recovery phase when still able to transmit. The resource implications are overwhelming if there is a significant outbreak, in terms of personnel and equipment. I am not too chipper about being in the front line of this!
Wonder if this virus is susceptible to Tamiflu. There was loads of the stuff scattered around every pharmacy in UK when we thought swine flu might be a problem. Think it's all gone out of date now, though.
This is potentially the start of a major German crisis. The sequence of events is:
* The small East German state of Thueringen has been led by an ex-Communist who is quite widely-respected despite the indifferent performance of his party in reecent years * An FDP (Liberal) politician won a vote to replace him, taking the support of the far-right AfD plus the Christian Democrat CDU (Merkel's party) * After widespread [protests, the FDP man resigned after 2 days. Merkel and her chosen successor as CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer described the attempted maneouvre as unacceptable and called for fresh elections in Thueringen. * The Thueringen CDU refused (polls suggest they'd have lost seats), and Kramp-Karrenbauer has now resigned as national leader, unofficially citing objectionable attitudes to the AfD within the party.
What happens in Thueringen is almost a detail, but the direction of the CDU nationally is now up for grabs.
During Merkel's tenure the CDU and SPD have recorded new record lows in 3 out her 4 elections and threw out the FDP for the first time from the Bundesdag as Chancellor.
Real Political Cannibalism. She rules by eating the political support of her partners.
It is worth pointing out with regards to Thuringia that the AFD and Linke won the majority of seats between them so it is impossible for the mainstream parties to lock both of them out.
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland. It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s. It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group. The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Much of it is, but there's plenty there for Irish journalists to laugh at.
For one thing, Sinn Fein does not mean "ourselves alone"!
For another, most people in Ireland were expecting FG to lose, and the more surprising thing is that it was SF and not FF who surged at their expense.
And although the article is right to point out that Brexit was nearly a non-issue, I'm sure Irish journalists will (perhaps a little unfairly) say that it's typically British to expect that it would have been the main issue.
Oh yes, and there's talking about SF serving up "Corbynesque policies" as if they've suddenly taken a lurch to the left, and that they've been inspired to do that by a British party....
Sinn Fein doesn't mean 'Ourselves Alone' - doesn't it? What does it mean? If that's a misconception it's a fairly common one amongst British people who are passably well-informed about Irish politics.
'The phrase "Sinn Féin" is Irish for "Ourselves" or "We Ourselves", although it is frequently mistranslated as "ourselves alone" (from "Sinn Féin Amháin", an early-20th-century slogan. See also Sinn Féin ). The meaning of the name itself is an assertion of Irish national sovereignty and self-determination; i.e., the Irish people governing themselves, rather than being part of a political union with Great Britain (England, Scotland and Wales) under the Westminster Parliament.'
The Scottish Nationalist Party stands in solidarity.
Sinn Fein is FOR the EU, though, IIRC.
I have never found it easy to reconcile Nationalism and EU membership in a coherent way.
With the EU harmonising and moving in one direction it appears nigh on lunacy to attain independence to then relinquish significant and growing parts of your autonomy to a centralising federal power.
So stick with the centralising power that doesn't even have federalism to ameliorate its domineering instincts.
Except that you do have federalism and devolved government.
Are you honestly stating that the UK is a federal state? Jeezo, that puts' ourselves alone' in the shade.
Only with respect to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The lack of an English Parliament means the UK is not one.
I think the parallel is between the 70s music scene and 2010-2020 politics... the progressives got more and more pretentiously self indulgent, and lost touch with reality... the public preferred the short, sharp shock of uncouth punk
I think the internet could make the coronavirus situation much worse than it otherwise would have been, through the spread of false rumours, misinformation, etc. Anyone agree?
The spread of false rumours has always been a problem, but the web does make them spread much faster and further. This is not helped by the traditional media reporting rumours on Twitter as "news" in an attempt to remain relevant.
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland. It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s. It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group. The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Oh, well that's okay then. At what point would an entity be considered worthy of sovereignty over the right to have a vote on independence from Scotland?
As per my previous , please show how England would give any region a vote on independence from England.
People seem finally to have noticed that Andrew Yang is not going to win the Democratic nomination. He was a nice little earner for a long time.
Hillary Clinton is still only last matched at 50 on Betfair for the nomination. She's basically the same price as Amy Klobuchar. Which is nuts.
It's all about a who can win a contested convention, the first since 1988. Some are betting that Hillary will, some are betting on Bloomberg.
Dudakis won it in 1988 because he had a plurality and the second candidate was Jesse Jackson who was black, being 1988 every other candidate refused to support him because he was black and they treated him as a pariah in the convention.
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland. It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s. It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group. The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Oh, well that's okay then. At what point would an entity be considered worthy of sovereignty over the right to have a vote on independence from Scotland?
As per my previous , please show how England would give any region a vote on independence from England.
We wouldn't (at least, I don't think we would), but we're not the ones complaining about the lack of a right to decide when to hold a vote.
I could see it approaching the point where the Government suspend many foreign aviation routes and limit domestic transport to essential services only. Anything to delay its spread until a vaccine is developed, which needs to be much faster than early next year.
There will be a significant economic hit with this.
It's all about a who can win a contested convention, the first since 1988. Some are betting that Hillary will, some are betting on Bloomberg.
I don't understand why anyone would expect the Bernie, Biden, Buttigieg, Baemy and Bwarren delegates to converge on either of these candidates. There's a "convincingly left-wing" side and a "prioritize electability" side. Is the compromise supposed to be choosing somebody who has neither?
This is potentially the start of a major German crisis. The sequence of events is:
* The small East German state of Thueringen has been led by an ex-Communist who is quite widely-respected despite the indifferent performance of his party in reecent years * An FDP (Liberal) politician won a vote to replace him, taking the support of the far-right AfD plus the Christian Democrat CDU (Merkel's party) * After widespread [protests, the FDP man resigned after 2 days. Merkel and her chosen successor as CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer described the attempted maneouvre as unacceptable and called for fresh elections in Thueringen. * The Thueringen CDU refused (polls suggest they'd have lost seats), and Kramp-Karrenbauer has now resigned as national leader, unofficially citing objectionable attitudes to the AfD within the party.
What happens in Thueringen is almost a detail, but the direction of the CDU nationally is now up for grabs.
During Merkel's tenure the CDU and SPD have recorded new record lows in 3 out her 4 elections and threw out the FDP for the first time from the Bundesdag as Chancellor.
Real Political Cannibalism. She rules by eating the political support of her partners.
It is worth pointing out with regards to Thuringia that the AFD and Linke won the majority of seats between them so it is impossible for the mainstream parties to lock both of them out.
Eternal Technocratic Centrism does result in the Center being to small to govern.
You see that in election results all the time, even within parties.
The longer a faction stays in power the weaker it becomes until it loses it.
I think the internet could make the coronavirus situation much worse than it otherwise would have been, through the spread of false rumours, misinformation, etc. Anyone agree?
The spread of false rumours has always been a problem, but the web does make them spread much faster and further. This is not helped by the traditional media reporting rumours on Twitter as "news" in an attempt to remain relevant.
I suspect we know a lot of things about it which are true which we wouldn't know without Weibo and twitter.Dr Li Wenliang was a Weibo user.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
I suspect that the number of mild infections is quite under recorded, but there is a big time lag effect.
It seems to be a week or two for a patient to show symptoms, then 10 days to need inpatient care, and a further 10 days or so to get through the critical period, followed by a recovery phase when still able to transmit. The resource implications are overwhelming if there is a significant outbreak, in terms of personnel and equipment. I am not too chipper about being in the front line of this!
The politics of this is really delicate. The attempt to prevent a pandemic whilst the level of danger is still being determined requires a response that is very visible and significantly high handed. Yet that first phase response will render it much more difficult to go into a business as usual mode if nCOV becomes a flu type pandemic, where normal is thousands of annual deaths and hospitalisations:
"Under proportional representation, the party with the most votes won't get the most seats"
STV: Nonsense on stilts.
I'd love to learn about your alternative system that gives parties more seats than they stood for.
If you only stand for a quarter of the seats, the most you can win is [checks notes] a quarter of the seats...
d'Hondt with party primaries to determine the candidate order on the list.
Constituencies of around 10 seats to give proportional results.
d'Hondt is fine if you're willing to give up the connection between voters and individual candidates. That would be a big loss, but it's still better than the status quo in the UK. (But 10 seats per constituency, meaning that there were nearly 1 million people in each constituency, would be too many.)
However, I find it bizarre that someone who would advocate this system can despise STV with such a passion, especially on the grounds that it's confusing!
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
I suspect that the number of mild infections is quite under recorded, but there is a big time lag effect.
It seems to be a week or two for a patient to show symptoms, then 10 days to need inpatient care, and a further 10 days or so to get through the critical period, followed by a recovery phase when still able to transmit. The resource implications are overwhelming if there is a significant outbreak, in terms of personnel and equipment. I am not too chipper about being in the front line of this!
I don't think any of us are - though we'd be at the other side of the front line...
Four more cases of coronavirus in the UK (now up to 8). These latest 4 were contracted in France.
It really is fucking contagious.
Respiratory viruses tend to be, because of the ease of spread. What is also notable is that while people who are, for whatever reason, debilitated die, those who before succumbing were in reasonable health do not.
Presumably because they are starting to get seriously worried.
At the risk of sounding brutal, the cruise ship outbreak is going to give us a far better idea of the proportion of mild cases which might go unrecognised out in the wider world, along with a more accurate mortality rate for this thing.
There's also the case of the man in the ski chalet in France, who's infected people in France and the UK having caught the virus himself in Singapore. Suggestions are that this virus is much more contagious than reports out of China might suggest.
Ironically, the lockdown and forced quarantine of millions of people in China, while pretty much unacceptable anywhere else in the world, may have helped them in containing the outbreak. Alternatively, the numbers reported by the Communist Pary might be made-up rubbish.
I'm not sure they are rubbish - given the extent of the outbreak, it's quite possible that their local health system is simply overwhelmed. On the other hand, I am extremely sceptical of the figure which claim a steady drop in the number of new cases outside of Wuhan over the last few days. I am no epidemiologist, but they imply a successful quarantining effect on a mass scale which simply does not seem credible for something so infectious. Guess we'll know one way or another within a week or so.
Indeed, it's very difficult when there's so little information coming out of China. You are right that the next week is key to the medium term forecasting of the virus disruption.
Their New Year holiday was officially extended until today, we'll quickly find out how many people are actually back at work and how many are staying quarantined. My guess is that those working in international finance have been told to work from home and act normal to the outside world, and pretty much no-one else is going back to work. There will be a serious drop in China's GDP as a result.
Oil is way down in the past month, now hovering around $50 a barrel with OPEC struggling to get production cuts agreed quickly. Toyko, HK and Singapore stock markets are all down today, although only by half a percent.
As far as markets are concerned, a muted reaction is surprisingly sensible. Although there will be a big hit to China's GDP (and likely their trading partners, particularly S Korea, Vietnam and Japan), I would guess the rebound will be very rapid at the other end of the epidemic. Similar considerations likely apply over here should it become worldwide.
Angela Merkel’s designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.
The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right party’s “firewall” against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarter’s ban on cooperating with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
It's all about a who can win a contested convention, the first since 1988. Some are betting that Hillary will, some are betting on Bloomberg.
I don't understand why anyone would expect the Bernie, Biden, Buttigieg, Baemy and Bwarren delegates to converge on either of these candidates. There's a "convincingly left-wing" side and a "prioritize electability" side. Is the compromise supposed to be choosing somebody who has neither?
Bribery. Cold monetary Bribery.
It will be politically suicidal for anyone to do it, but a messy contested convention means it's curtains anyway for the Democrats for 2020.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Re firing/shooting/loosing a bow and arrow discussion on the last thread. AIUI none of these are documented as commands from medieval times. The only ones that are, are 'knock' (now nock) and 'streach' (now stretch). The reason you wouldn't command someone to 'loose' a bow and arrow is that that would imply that they were standing there with the bow fully stretched waiting for the command to let go. If anyone has tried stretching a powerful longbow towards its full extent then they'll know that holding that position is incredibly difficult and painful, and a huge waste of energy, so archers would stretch and release in the same movement. This wouldn't of course apply to crossbows, so they may well have had a 'shoot' or 'loose' order.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
3000 a day is probably the upper bound of their testing facilities in China.
Anyway it's a disease that is reminiscent of tuberculosis but kills in days rather than years.
You can see why conspiracy theories are abound especially with the arrests and deaths of leading scientists, it looks like you couldn't have possibly made a better biological weapon.
It's all about a who can win a contested convention, the first since 1988. Some are betting that Hillary will, some are betting on Bloomberg.
I don't understand why anyone would expect the Bernie, Biden, Buttigieg, Baemy and Bwarren delegates to converge on either of these candidates. There's a "convincingly left-wing" side and a "prioritize electability" side. Is the compromise supposed to be choosing somebody who has neither?
Bribery. Cold monetary Bribery.
It will be politically suicidal for anyone to do it, but a messy contested convention means it's curtains anyway for the Democrats for 2020.
I don't think you're right but if you are then that's another reason to favour Al Gore, he's not as rich as Bloomberg but he seems to be good at business. Almost definitely richer than the Clintons.
Mr. Mark, no. But if it grew to have powers to restrict the Commons (and the democratic mandate would be argued for that) it might piss off enough Englishmen to provoke an English independence movement.
Mr. Difficile, agree entirely on the holding a bow argument, although I'm not sure I agree with the implication you mention. It's bizarre how often in films and so on archers are commanded to draw back and just hold it for 30 seconds or so. Because if one thing guarantees victory, it's buggering up the shoulders of every archer in your army.
Angela Merkel’s designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.
The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right party’s “firewall” against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarter’s ban on cooperating with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
I think that they must be looking at how Boris managed to completely gut UKIP with considerable envy. Much harder without FPTP of course.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
3000 a day is probably the upper bound of their testing facilities in China.
Anyway it's a disease that is reminiscent of tuberculosis but kills in days rather than years.
You can see why conspiracy theories are abound especially with the arrests and deaths of leading scientists, it looks like you couldn't have possibly made a better biological weapon.
I made that point at the weekend. The apparent slow down in the rate of new infections may be a result of the draconian measures or it may be a factor of capacity. Once again we don't really know.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Yes you are. Your 26 % is deaths over survivors. It should at least be deaths over [deaths + survivors], and actually it should be deaths over [deaths + survivors+infected and neither better nor dead].
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Yes you are. Your 26 % is deaths over survivors. It should at least be deaths over [deaths + survivors], and actually it should be deaths over [deaths + survivors+infected and neither better nor dead].
I take the first point which brings the mortality rate down to 20%. I don't take the second. We don't know if these people who are still ill are going to live or die. Again the time gap between the infection of that doctor and his demise is quite alarming.
Find it interesting that the media aren't talk about the worry of the populism in regards to Sinn Féin result or Bernie Sanders doing well. Watching Bernie last night all he did was rail against the BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES, the elites, the shadowy corporations etc etc etc. And as far as I can tell Sinn Fein is similar, their whole pitch is that the system is broken, the established parties have failed the people etc.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Yes you are. Your 26 % is deaths over survivors. It should at least be deaths over [deaths + survivors], and actually it should be deaths over [deaths + survivors+infected and neither better nor dead].
I take the first point which brings the mortality rate down to 20%. I don't take the second. We don't know if these people who are still ill are going to live or die. Again the time gap between the infection of that doctor and his demise is quite alarming.
"Under proportional representation, the party with the most votes won't get the most seats"
STV: Nonsense on stilts.
I'd love to learn about your alternative system that gives parties more seats than they stood for.
If you only stand for a quarter of the seats, the most you can win is [checks notes] a quarter of the seats...
d'Hondt with party primaries to determine the candidate order on the list.
Constituencies of around 10 seats to give proportional results.
d'Hondt is fine if you're willing to give up the connection between voters and individual candidates. That would be a big loss, but it's still better than the status quo in the UK. (But 10 seats per constituency, meaning that there were nearly 1 million people in each constituency, would be too many.)
However, I find it bizarre that someone who would advocate this system can despise STV with such a passion, especially on the grounds that it's confusing!
PR is clearly less confusing than STV. The issue I have with D'Hondt that voters still have to try and work out, based on polling, which parties are actually most likely to be in contention for the last seat to be awarded, or their vote is "wasted".
Make the constituencies too small, and this effect becomes magnified - eg the 3 seats awarded to the North East at the last EU elections. Make them too big, and you set the bar too high for smaller and regional parties to gain any seats at all.
Angela Merkel’s designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.
The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right party’s “firewall” against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarter’s ban on cooperating with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
I think that they must be looking at how Boris managed to completely gut UKIP with considerable envy. Much harder without FPTP of course.
Even harder unless the CDU switch to favouring EU withdrawal.
On the Coronavirus mortality rate statistics: one factor which slightly worries me is that the patients outside China are currently almost all receiving particularly high-quality care in specialised units, and therefore you might expect their recovery rates to be as good as they possibly could be. However, if the number of cases increases substantially, there may not be the resources to provide such intensive treatment, and therefore one might expect the mortality rates to be higher as the disease becomes more widespread.
A law-change was announced after an evacuated patient staying at Arrowe Park hospital on The Wirral tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China, MailOnline understands.
The British government spend a bloody fortune getting this person back to the UK, give them really good lodgings, food, etc, and all they have to do is spend 14 days watching Netflix. Now the government are having to change the law to stop idiots doing this.
Good job he wasn't in China when they tried to do this, he would be in some re-education camp before they knew it.
In about 2006 a friend and I did the TS from Moscow to Vladivostok with the great idea of buying a JDM import Pajero and driving it back to Moscow.
Narrator: It wasn't a great idea.
As my Russian friend observed, it's a train journey like anywhere else but this is Russia so of course it's more terrible.
There are several different types of train operating on the route but the 2/1 Rossiya is generally considered the least worst. Even if you travel first class the trains are uncomfortable, hot and noisy with bad food. There is nothing to see at all once you're east of the Urals.
Unless you can speak Russian and have the casual competence at bribery that comes with long term residence in Russia don't even try making the arrangements yourself.
www.realrussia.co.uk are supposed to be very good at sorting everything out.
Or just go and do The Canadian train from Toronto to Vancouver which will be a millions time more pleasant.
Only with respect to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The lack of an English Parliament means the UK is not one.
Get off your harrises and do something about it then, there has never not been a majority of English MPs in the UK parliament.
If the UK was in any sense federal, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would not hold their devolved powers at the whim of central government.
The English majority is because England is a majority, nothing else.
Does the Scottish government hold its devolved powers at the whim of the central government? I don't think the central government can that easily suspend or abolish Holyrood.
Reserved matters are not devolved but then they're reserved. Even under what you would call a proper federal system states can't exercise central powers.
Find it interesting that the media aren't talk about the worry of the populism in regards to Sinn Féin result or Bernie Sanders doing well. Watching Bernie last night all he did was rail against the BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES, the elites, the shadowy corporations etc etc etc. And as far as I can tell Sinn Fein is similar, their whole pitch is that the system is broken, the established parties have failed the people etc.
We'll happily take America's fleeing BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES. Pay a reasonable amount of tax, guys, and we'll leave you be. Meanwhile, we get the world-class NHS everybody wants.....
Find it interesting that the media aren't talk about the worry of the populism in regards to Sinn Féin result or Bernie Sanders doing well. Watching Bernie last night all he did was rail against the BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES, the elites, the shadowy corporations etc etc etc. And as far as I can tell Sinn Fein is similar, their whole pitch is that the system is broken, the established parties have failed the people etc.
We'll happily take America's fleeing BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES. Pay a reasonable amount of tax, guys, and we'll leave you be. Meanwhile, we get the world-class NHS everybody wants.....
I think old Justin black-face will more than likely be the blower first. They have already nicked loads of tv / movie / computer games dev work, by offering very favourable terms to relocate to places like Vancouver and Toronto.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Yes you are. Your 26 % is deaths over survivors. It should at least be deaths over [deaths + survivors], and actually it should be deaths over [deaths + survivors+infected and neither better nor dead].
I take the first point which brings the mortality rate down to 20%. I don't take the second. We don't know if these people who are still ill are going to live or die. Again the time gap between the infection of that doctor and his demise is quite alarming.
Not how mortality rate is usually defined.
It isn't a useful definition if what you want to know is "what are my long-term survival chances if I get infected".
On the Coronavirus mortality rate statistics: one factor which slightly worries me is that the patients outside China are currently almost all receiving particularly high-quality care in specialised units, and therefore you might expect their recovery rates to be as good as they possibly could be. However, if the number of cases increases substantially, there may not be the resources to provide such intensive treatment, and therefore one might expect the mortality rates to be higher as the disease becomes more widespread.
We will have a far better idea of those numbers after monitoring the cruise ship passengers for another two or three weeks. Estimates based on the ‘in the wild’ numbers contain a large element of guesswork.
Find it interesting that the media aren't talk about the worry of the populism in regards to Sinn Féin result or Bernie Sanders doing well. Watching Bernie last night all he did was rail against the BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES, the elites, the shadowy corporations etc etc etc. And as far as I can tell Sinn Fein is similar, their whole pitch is that the system is broken, the established parties have failed the people etc.
We'll happily take America's fleeing BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES. Pay a reasonable amount of tax, guys, and we'll leave you be. Meanwhile, we get the world-class NHS everybody wants.....
Doesn't work unless they give up US citizenship. The US don't believe in double taxation relief, and retain the right to tax their non-domiciled citizens on foreign earnings. I imagine a Sanders presidency might want to make full usage of those rights.
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Yes you are. Your 26 % is deaths over survivors. It should at least be deaths over [deaths + survivors], and actually it should be deaths over [deaths + survivors+infected and neither better nor dead].
I take the first point which brings the mortality rate down to 20%. I don't take the second. We don't know if these people who are still ill are going to live or die. Again the time gap between the infection of that doctor and his demise is quite alarming.
Mortality rate is deaths/cases, currently 2.2% and has been roughly stable. Recovery rate is 8.6% and rising. The other 89.1% are "outcome not known yet".
You are talking about case fatality rate, but the whole point is case fatality rate is only provisional until all cases in a cohort are resolved. It's not a measure of how intrinsically deadly an infection is while a pandemic is still in progress, which is what most people are concerned about.
A law-change was announced after an evacuated patient staying at Arrowe Park hospital on The Wirral tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China, MailOnline understands.
The British government spend a bloody fortune getting this person back to the UK, give them really good lodgings, food, etc, and all they have to do is spend 14 days watching Netflix. Now the government are having to change the law to stop idiots doing this.
Good job he wasn't in China when they tried to do this, he would be in some re-education camp before they knew it.
What a total and utter muppet,. His actions are probably going to lead to deterioration in condition and an an increase in security cost for everyone else - whose voluntary quarantine just got turned into involuntarily quarantine.
"Under proportional representation, the party with the most votes won't get the most seats"
STV: Nonsense on stilts.
I'd love to learn about your alternative system that gives parties more seats than they stood for.
If you only stand for a quarter of the seats, the most you can win is [checks notes] a quarter of the seats...
d'Hondt with party primaries to determine the candidate order on the list.
Constituencies of around 10 seats to give proportional results.
d'Hondt is fine if you're willing to give up the connection between voters and individual candidates. That would be a big loss, but it's still better than the status quo in the UK. (But 10 seats per constituency, meaning that there were nearly 1 million people in each constituency, would be too many.)
However, I find it bizarre that someone who would advocate this system can despise STV with such a passion, especially on the grounds that it's confusing!
PR is clearly less confusing than STV. The issue I have with D'Hondt that voters still have to try and work out, based on polling, which parties are actually most likely to be in contention for the last seat to be awarded, or their vote is "wasted".
Make the constituencies too small, and this effect becomes magnified - eg the 3 seats awarded to the North East at the last EU elections. Make them too big, and you set the bar too high for smaller and regional parties to gain any seats at all.
STV isn't confusing. You just vote in order of preference 1,2 3 etc. What's confusing about that?
Find it interesting that the media aren't talk about the worry of the populism in regards to Sinn Féin result or Bernie Sanders doing well. Watching Bernie last night all he did was rail against the BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES, the elites, the shadowy corporations etc etc etc. And as far as I can tell Sinn Fein is similar, their whole pitch is that the system is broken, the established parties have failed the people etc.
We'll happily take America's fleeing BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES. Pay a reasonable amount of tax, guys, and we'll leave you be. Meanwhile, we get the world-class NHS everybody wants.....
I think old Justin black-face will more than likely be the blower first. They have already nicked loads of tv / movie / computer games dev work, by offering very favourable terms to relocate to places like Vancouver and Toronto.
Ooh, and they could buy up all the houses being vacated by the movie stars who all left for Canada when Trump got elected.
The cause of his poor reception was, of course, white intolerance. ‘This is what happens when an audience is descended from people who colonised my country.’
‘Geoff Norcott is the one right-wing comic who can be trusted to be funny and not use the N-word.’ In other words, every stand-up – apart from Norcott – who disagrees with Kumar is a white supremacist.
---------
Zaltzman told an intriguing story. A few years back he was standing in a queue in Sainsburys when he received a call from a source his phone didn’t recognise. The unknown caller, whom he had never met, turned out to be Krishnan Guru-Murthy who presents Channel 4 News. He invited Zaltzman to write jokes for David Miliband. So Guru-Murthy has been operating as a freelance talent-booker for Labour politicians: a strange revelation.
What a total and utter muppet,. His actions are probably going to lead to deterioration in condition and an an increase in security cost for everyone else - whose voluntary quarantine just got turned into involuntarily quarantine.
There was a similar case in Japan where they flew a bunch of Japanese nationals out of Wuhan and tried to test them for the virus, and two of them refused to be tested. After that they changed the rules so you had to sign the consent form before they'd let you on the plane...
I'm a bit confused about aspects of this virus. According to the Hopkins stats, which are largely based on China stats, 3497 have recovered and 910 have died. That suggests to me a mortality rate of 26% and yet we are being constantly assured that the mortality rate is about 2% (a virologist on R5 today said 2-4%). In fairness the figures outside China support that with very few deaths.
So is the number of infected approximately 10x the official figure or is something else going on? Has the quality of Chinese medical care had an effect? It is troubling that the number of recovered seems so low more than 2 months after this first started to hit serious numbers. A virus that leaves people needing intense medical care for multiple weeks has scary resource implications.
You are forgetting the people who are suffering from the disease but have neither got better nor died (yet).
No I am not. Which pot they fall into is yet to be determined. Of course it is possible that those who had mild symptoms were both not in the official figures and are not in the "recovered" figure either. Indeed that is likely.
Yes you are. Your 26 % is deaths over survivors. It should at least be deaths over [deaths + survivors], and actually it should be deaths over [deaths + survivors+infected and neither better nor dead].
I take the first point which brings the mortality rate down to 20%. I don't take the second. We don't know if these people who are still ill are going to live or die. Again the time gap between the infection of that doctor and his demise is quite alarming.
Not how mortality rate is usually defined.
It isn't a useful definition if what you want to know is "what are my long-term survival chances if I get infected".
It's a valid point. It seems there is no single satisfactory metric for mortality rate in the early stages of an epidemic. Deaths/Cases, arguably the lower limit, and Deaths/[Deaths+Survivors], arguably the upper limit, are both relevant numbers, but when they are so different from one another, that only adds to the confusion.
There is another confounding factor that applies no matter which metric you prefer: the number of cases that go unrecorded. Since almost all such cases are people who survive, it leads to an overestimate of the mortality rate. In light of that, I can understand choosing the metric that underestimates rather than overestimates mortality rate.
A law-change was announced after an evacuated patient staying at Arrowe Park hospital on The Wirral tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China, MailOnline understands.
The British government spend a bloody fortune getting this person back to the UK, give them really good lodgings, food, etc, and all they have to do is spend 14 days watching Netflix. Now the government are having to change the law to stop idiots doing this.
Good job he wasn't in China when they tried to do this, he would be in some re-education camp before they knew it.
What a total and utter muppet,. His actions are probably going to lead to deterioration in condition and an an increase in security cost for everyone else - whose voluntary quarantine just got turned into involuntarily quarantine.
From the Irish guy who does vlogs for CH4, it seems the authorities and public have really gone out of their way e.g. One person complained that they had had the same breakfast for a week and immediately they changed it. On top of what the authorities have provided, the public have apparently sent them clothes, treats, games etc.
Find it interesting that the media aren't talk about the worry of the populism in regards to Sinn Féin result or Bernie Sanders doing well. Watching Bernie last night all he did was rail against the BILLIOOOOONNNNNNAIRES, the elites, the shadowy corporations etc etc etc. And as far as I can tell Sinn Fein is similar, their whole pitch is that the system is broken, the established parties have failed the people etc.
Populism is mostly about the right wing bogeyman not the left wing one.
Only with respect to Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The lack of an English Parliament means the UK is not one.
Get off your harrises and do something about it then, there has never not been a majority of English MPs in the UK parliament.
If the UK was in any sense federal, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would not hold their devolved powers at the whim of central government.
Question: would a federal second chamber - equal seats for the four nations - satisfy enough Scots to take the pressure off full independence?
Dunno, it might if it was carried out in ABSOLUTE good faith. However I think it being enacted even in bad faith is less likely than the yellow brick bridge to NI. The main stumbling block is that there doesn't seem to be the slightest appetite for it in England.
What a total and utter muppet,. His actions are probably going to lead to deterioration in condition and an an increase in security cost for everyone else - whose voluntary quarantine just got turned into involuntarily quarantine.
There was a similar case in Japan where they flew a bunch of Japanese nationals out of Wuhan and tried to test them for the virus, and two of them refused to be tested. After that they changed the rules so you had to sign the consent form before they'd let you on the plane...
All those British evacuated had to sign a form as well, and it was very clearly explained to them what was going to happen and it was their choice.
I mean FFS, it is just selfish to then try and leave. It isn't 6 star luxury hotel, but they have pretty nice accommodation, they can get outside and wander around, they have the t'interweb, food etc. Its hardly Steve McQueen being put in solitary with just his baseball.
Bercow is an arrogant turd and the only reason for denying him a seat with the existing HoL turds is that it would disproportionately increase the turdishness quotient to an unacceptable level.
A law-change was announced after an evacuated patient staying at Arrowe Park hospital on The Wirral tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China, MailOnline understands.
The British government spend a bloody fortune getting this person back to the UK, give them really good lodgings, food, etc, and all they have to do is spend 14 days watching Netflix. Now the government are having to change the law to stop idiots doing this.
Good job he wasn't in China when they tried to do this, he would be in some re-education camp before they knew it.
What a total and utter muppet,. His actions are probably going to lead to deterioration in condition and an an increase in security cost for everyone else - whose voluntary quarantine just got turned into involuntarily quarantine.
Although, if you are Government, you will have been itching for an excuse to upgrade to involuntary. And "utter muppet" just gave it to them.
It does show the general level of selfishness in the population that people think they have the right to be protected from a life-threatening virus, as long as it doesn't actually stop them doing what they want to do or go where they want to go.
The cause of his poor reception was, of course, white intolerance. ‘This is what happens when an audience is descended from people who colonised my country.’
‘Geoff Norcott is the one right-wing comic who can be trusted to be funny and not use the N-word.’ In other words, every stand-up – apart from Norcott – who disagrees with Kumar is a white supremacist.
---------
Zaltzman told an intriguing story. A few years back he was standing in a queue in Sainsburys when he received a call from a source his phone didn’t recognise. The unknown caller, whom he had never met, turned out to be Krishnan Guru-Murthy who presents Channel 4 News. He invited Zaltzman to write jokes for David Miliband. So Guru-Murthy has been operating as a freelance talent-booker for Labour politicians: a strange revelation.
"Under proportional representation, the party with the most votes won't get the most seats"
STV: Nonsense on stilts.
I'd love to learn about your alternative system that gives parties more seats than they stood for.
If you only stand for a quarter of the seats, the most you can win is [checks notes] a quarter of the seats...
d'Hondt with party primaries to determine the candidate order on the list.
Constituencies of around 10 seats to give proportional results.
d'Hondt is fine if you're willing to give up the connection between voters and individual candidates. That would be a big loss, but it's still better than the status quo in the UK. (But 10 seats per constituency, meaning that there were nearly 1 million people in each constituency, would be too many.)
However, I find it bizarre that someone who would advocate this system can despise STV with such a passion, especially on the grounds that it's confusing!
PR is clearly less confusing than STV. The issue I have with D'Hondt that voters still have to try and work out, based on polling, which parties are actually most likely to be in contention for the last seat to be awarded, or their vote is "wasted".
Make the constituencies too small, and this effect becomes magnified - eg the 3 seats awarded to the North East at the last EU elections. Make them too big, and you set the bar too high for smaller and regional parties to gain any seats at all.
STV isn't confusing. You just vote in order of preference 1,2 3 etc. What's confusing about that?
Sinn Fein seem to have gotten very confused, hence the fact that they'll end up with fewer seats than FG and FF despite winning the popular vote.
Also, studies tend to show that people can cope with ranking their first two or three choices, max, and the resort to filling out the ballot from top to bottom.
Finally, any system where you get statements like "Leo Varadkar has been elected on the fifth count" is by necessity confusing. How the hell are voters supposed to draw a link between the votes they and their neighbours vast, and the people who end up in Parliament, when things like that are happening?
Granted, single member constituencies resolve the first and last points, but also don't tend to give very "proportional" outcomes.
With STV is there any guarantee that the proportion of seats won is in relation the first preferences cast? Sinn Fein appear to be heading for more than 24% of seats at the moment although it could be misleading at this stage.
Comments
But since you mention it, their enthusiasm or otherwise towards the EU will matter a great deal if they are in government. It is how they would vote in an In/Out referendum that doesn't really matter.
'The Orkney and Shetland Movement, a coalition of independence movements in Orkney and Shetland, contested the Orkney and Shetland constituency in the 1987 general election. It saw as its models the Isle of Man and the Faroe Islands, an autonomous dependency of Denmark.[24] The Scottish National Party chose not to contest the seat to give the movement a "free run". Their candidate, John Goodlad, came 4th with 3,095 votes, 14.5% of those cast, and it did not stand in any subsequent election.'
'Wir Shetland was a pressure group demanding greater autonomy for Shetland, an archipelago of Scotland.
It was launched in October 2015, and campaigned for British Crown Dependency status for Shetland, which would separate it from Scotland. It compared itself to the Shetland Movement active in the 1980s and 1990s.
It backed Tavish Scott, the Liberal Democrat MSP for Shetland, in the 2016 Scottish Parliament election, causing resignations from the group.
The group seems to have ceased to exist.'
Therefore, P(UK) = P(Scotland) x P (rUK)
P(A) must be between zero and one inclusive, by axioms of probability.
P(UK) = 1 (as it exists already). Therefore, by definition, P(Scotland) = 1.
Therefore, Scotland is already independent.
QED.
If you only stand for a quarter of the seats, the most you can win is [checks notes] a quarter of the seats...
And in Bercow's case does anyone have a nice word to say about him.
Bioweapons, secret labs, and the CIA: pro-Kremlin actors blame the U.S. for coronavirus outbreak
Multiple narratives begin to emerge on fringe Russian outlets and social media, following a familiar playbook
https://medium.com/dfrlab/bioweapons-secret-labs-and-the-cia-pro-kremlin-actors-blame-the-u-s-for-coronavirus-outbreak-ffc2139c28dd
On another matter entirely, when is Boris planning to release that report?
* The small East German state of Thueringen has been led by an ex-Communist who is quite widely-respected despite the indifferent performance of his party in reecent years
* An FDP (Liberal) politician won a vote to replace him, taking the support of the far-right AfD plus the Christian Democrat CDU (Merkel's party)
* After widespread [protests, the FDP man resigned after 2 days. Merkel and her chosen successor as CDU leader Kramp-Karrenbauer described the attempted maneouvre as unacceptable and called for fresh elections in Thueringen.
* The Thueringen CDU refused (polls suggest they'd have lost seats), and Kramp-Karrenbauer has now resigned as national leader, unofficially citing objectionable attitudes to the AfD within the party.
What happens in Thueringen is almost a detail, but the direction of the CDU nationally is now up for grabs.
It seems to be a week or two for a patient to show symptoms, then 10 days to need inpatient care, and a further 10 days or so to get through the critical period, followed by a recovery phase when still able to transmit. The resource implications are overwhelming if there is a significant outbreak, in terms of personnel and equipment. I am not too chipper about being in the front line of this!
Zhong Nanshan is the doctor who discovered SARS and is advising the authorities on this outbreak.
https://twitter.com/LADFLEG/status/1226816037691314181?s=20
When we retired, nearly 20 years ago, both being cricket nuts my wife and I resolved to watch England on overseas tours. We did Sri Lanka (unforgettable) and South Africa (TBH, less so) and then both sons, who up and then had been both single and (as far as we or they knew) childless, married and started giving us more grandchildren. As one of the sons lives in Thailand that rather cut down on the available resources for cricket, although we did join a tour of India on the way home from Thailand. However visiting Thailand more or less annually has meant seeing off-road as well as tourist sights there, and also meant that we've 'done' Ankor Wat, and also listed Laos, Cambodia and Sabah, as well as a trip on the Eastern Orient Express... Bangkok to Singapore. Quite a change from Greater Anglia!
That's as well as closer to home trips, such as the Canaries and a trip to see relations in New Zealand!.
Health issues rather restricted us last year.... just N. Wales ..... but since they are, or appear to be resolved we fancy doing some more travelling this and, all being well, next year.
Real Political Cannibalism.
She rules by eating the political support of her partners.
Think it's all gone out of date now, though.
Constituencies of around 10 seats to give proportional results.
I think the parallel is between the 70s music scene and 2010-2020 politics... the progressives got more and more pretentiously self indulgent, and lost touch with reality... the public preferred the short, sharp shock of uncouth punk
Some are betting that Hillary will, some are betting on Bloomberg.
Dudakis won it in 1988 because he had a plurality and the second candidate was Jesse Jackson who was black, being 1988 every other candidate refused to support him because he was black and they treated him as a pariah in the convention.
If the UK was in any sense federal, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland would not hold their devolved powers at the whim of central government.
There will be a significant economic hit with this.
You see that in election results all the time, even within parties.
The longer a faction stays in power the weaker it becomes until it loses it.
https://www.kcrg.com/content/news/Flu-season-so-far-12K-deaths-22M-sick-567662411.html?fbclid=IwAR3N1VpiLrUdkuzv_vOB3lE89okjGS2tteBP9bee2aIQChlw2RvJHMGPDbw
* Al Gore
* John Kerry
* Stacey Abrams
* Michelle Obama
* Adam Schiff
However, I find it bizarre that someone who would advocate this system can despise STV with such a passion, especially on the grounds that it's confusing!
https://twitter.com/politicshome/status/1226815572769263616?s=20
Although there will be a big hit to China's GDP (and likely their trading partners, particularly S Korea, Vietnam and Japan), I would guess the rebound will be very rapid at the other end of the epidemic.
Similar considerations likely apply over here should it become worldwide.
https://tinyurl.com/wpmr5p6
Angela Merkel’s designated successor has announced she is not planning to run for the German chancellorship at the next federal election and plans to step down as leader of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (CDU), German media reported on Monday morning.
The surprise announcement comes in the middle of a major row over the centre-right party’s “firewall” against the far-right, after CDU delegates in eastern Germany defied the party headquarter’s ban on cooperating with the Alternative für Deutschland (AfD).
Cold monetary Bribery.
It will be politically suicidal for anyone to do it, but a messy contested convention means it's curtains anyway for the Democrats for 2020.
Anyway it's a disease that is reminiscent of tuberculosis but kills in days rather than years.
You can see why conspiracy theories are abound especially with the arrests and deaths of leading scientists, it looks like you couldn't have possibly made a better biological weapon.
Mr. Difficile, agree entirely on the holding a bow argument, although I'm not sure I agree with the implication you mention. It's bizarre how often in films and so on archers are commanded to draw back and just hold it for 30 seconds or so. Because if one thing guarantees victory, it's buggering up the shoulders of every archer in your army.
Make the constituencies too small, and this effect becomes magnified - eg the 3 seats awarded to the North East at the last EU elections. Make them too big, and you set the bar too high for smaller and regional parties to gain any seats at all.
A law-change was announced after an evacuated patient staying at Arrowe Park hospital on The Wirral tried to leave before completing the 14-day stay after his return from China, MailOnline understands.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7986189/Health-Secretary-Matt-Hancock-warns-coronavirus-imminent-threat-British-public.html
The British government spend a bloody fortune getting this person back to the UK, give them really good lodgings, food, etc, and all they have to do is spend 14 days watching Netflix. Now the government are having to change the law to stop idiots doing this.
Good job he wasn't in China when they tried to do this, he would be in some re-education camp before they knew it.
In about 2006 a friend and I did the TS from Moscow to Vladivostok with the great idea of buying a JDM import Pajero and driving it back to Moscow.
Narrator: It wasn't a great idea.
As my Russian friend observed, it's a train journey like anywhere else but this is Russia so of course it's more terrible.
There are several different types of train operating on the route but the 2/1 Rossiya is generally considered the least worst. Even if you travel first class the trains are uncomfortable, hot and noisy with bad food. There is nothing to see at all once you're east of the Urals.
Unless you can speak Russian and have the casual competence at bribery that comes with long term residence in Russia don't even try making the arrangements yourself.
www.realrussia.co.uk are supposed to be very good at sorting everything out.
Or just go and do The Canadian train from Toronto to Vancouver which will be a millions time more pleasant.
Does the Scottish government hold its devolved powers at the whim of the central government? I don't think the central government can that easily suspend or abolish Holyrood.
Reserved matters are not devolved but then they're reserved. Even under what you would call a proper federal system states can't exercise central powers.
Estimates based on the ‘in the wild’ numbers contain a large element of guesswork.
https://www.irishtimes.com/election2020/results-hub
It does look as if FF/SF or FF/FG are the only viable options, perhaps with the Greens thrown in to get it comfortably over 80.
The cause of his poor reception was, of course, white intolerance. ‘This is what happens when an audience is descended from people who colonised my country.’
‘Geoff Norcott is the one right-wing comic who can be trusted to be funny and not use the N-word.’ In other words, every stand-up – apart from Norcott – who disagrees with Kumar is a white supremacist.
---------
Zaltzman told an intriguing story. A few years back he was standing in a queue in Sainsburys when he received a call from a source his phone didn’t recognise. The unknown caller, whom he had never met, turned out to be Krishnan Guru-Murthy who presents Channel 4 News. He invited Zaltzman to write jokes for David Miliband. So Guru-Murthy has been operating as a freelance talent-booker for Labour politicians: a strange revelation.
https://blogs.spectator.co.uk/2020/02/nish-kumar-turns-on-right-wing-commentators-who-cant-take-a-joke/
There is another confounding factor that applies no matter which metric you prefer: the number of cases that go unrecorded. Since almost all such cases are people who survive, it leads to an overestimate of the mortality rate. In light of that, I can understand choosing the metric that underestimates rather than overestimates mortality rate.
It could be an awesome set of announcements.
I mean FFS, it is just selfish to then try and leave. It isn't 6 star luxury hotel, but they have pretty nice accommodation, they can get outside and wander around, they have the t'interweb, food etc. Its hardly Steve McQueen being put in solitary with just his baseball.
It does show the general level of selfishness in the population that people think they have the right to be protected from a life-threatening virus, as long as it doesn't actually stop them doing what they want to do or go where they want to go.
“ This is what happens when an audience is descended from people who colonised my country.’
‘In the last five days I’ve basically been told to go back to where I came from … which is Wandsworth.’
So ‘my country’ is both Britain and somewhere else. The confusion may arise from his wish to be an insider and an outsider at once – a useful duality”
Also, studies tend to show that people can cope with ranking their first two or three choices, max, and the resort to filling out the ballot from top to bottom.
Finally, any system where you get statements like "Leo Varadkar has been elected on the fifth count" is by necessity confusing. How the hell are voters supposed to draw a link between the votes they and their neighbours vast, and the people who end up in Parliament, when things like that are happening?
Granted, single member constituencies resolve the first and last points, but also don't tend to give very "proportional" outcomes.
Suddenly I am all for it.
https://twitter.com/NatashaC/status/1226524383226843136?s=20
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2020/02/10/bernie-sanders-new-hampshire-2020-campaign-profile-112173
I asked her what she was going to do on Tuesday.
“I think,” Caron said, “I’m going to vote in the primary for Bernie.”
And in November?
No question. Trump.
“I don’t see him,” she said of Sanders, “swinging me away.”