Merseyside and Warrington now part of the NE restrictions. Hartlepool and Middlesborough too.
Hopefully the restrictions will work and not need to be there long.
Boro and Stockton are a long way apart. Here in Stockton we definitely won't be seeing Boro refugees from its lockdown coming across to enjoy our bars and steal our women.
Seriously - Boro and not Stockton makes no sense. Hence my sarcastic YES! reaction. We are clean, they are dirty. Or something.
There will always be a boundary somewhere. It doesn't have to "make sense" because whatever boundary is chosen wouldn't "make sense".
Why Liverpool and Warrington but not Wigan or Greater Manchester?
You can drive from Liverpool through Widnes, Warrington, into Leigh and on into Manchester without ever leaving residential roads.
This is true. But Greater Manchester is already in restrictions. As you say the border has to be somewhere. Doubtless Culcheth/Golborne Lowton and Billinge have seen similar issues that @RochdalePioneers alludes to.
The line has to be drawn somewhere. Obviously an invisible line that means sod all on the ground is the obvious line.
Where else would you draw it?
And have you ever heard of the Swiss Cheese model of risk assessment? The idea of precautions isn't for them to be perfect and flawless and allow nothing through, the idea is that is you have multiple precautions, even if they're flawed, then those precautions will help unless the flaws happen to line up perfectly to let something through.
Boundaries like Culcheth or Stockton are going to exist no matter where you draw the line, it is an inevitable flaw, but the precautions should still help even if they're not perfect.
Where would I have drawn it? Boro and Stockton. Otherwise its like trying to lockdown Newcastle but not Gateshead, Manchester and not Salford.
So since you would have locked down Stockton, would you then have to lockdown Darlington?
Again you can drive contiguously without a break from Liverpool to Manchester via Warrington or Saint Helens, then on from Manchester to Bolton, Horwich, Chorley, Bamber Bridge and they you're at Preston. Does that mean that if you're going to lockdown Liverpool you need to lockdown Preston and the whole rest of the North West too?
There wil always be edge cases.
Stockton and Boro merge into one another in a few places - there is a distinct gap between Darlington and Stockton (thankfully).
Presumably all of this is done on local authority boundaries in order to simplify things.
Indeed. Despite having a combined authority and a Tory Mayor the local Tory MPs have fought like ferrets to break up HouchenWorld having expended so much energy creating it.
I suspect said Tory MPs and mayors had no say in the matter.
When the GM restrictions were first announced, Tory MPs (notably Chris Green and Graham Brady) were straight out of the blocks to blame Burnham and lobby for their areas to be exempted. Strongly implying it was all Asians anyway. As a result we got different boroughs on different restrictions. And a massive spike in Bolton, thank you Mr Green. Shortly afterwards the NE councils, from County Durham to the border decided to act as one entity. A far more sensible strategy.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
The angry racist who ballooned the deficit isn't popular in the suburbs.
Absolutely and I can imagine a fair few will be saying what a disgraceful performance it was. The question is how many will then vote for him at the ballot box.
It also looks as though - at least based on that - one of the casualties could be turnout
Clinton would never have got this sort of reception in a small city! (It has less than 8.5k people) like Latrobe Pennsylvania. Biden is following the Obama playbook that won him the demographically improbable state of Iowa.
I'll be very shocked if the boy from Scranton doesn't win Pennsylvania - and it will be hard to see Trump retaining the Oval Office if he loses PA.
Yes, PA looks safe and the other swing States that Trump would need to win to get to 270 without PA are showing no sign of moving his way. I think the Presidency is almost a wrap now and attention will swing to the Senate and just how big a Biden victory we are going to see.
Mike's thread-piece point is a good one. The debate will have done a good job of firing up the opposition. Democrats have every reason to turn out, not just for a win but a big one.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
Bullying requires an audience. Biden will not be taking part in televised debates with Putin.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
Given how Trump has been so demonstrably servile towards Putin that's an argument that's offensive on the basis that you must think we're all idiots.
Ok, let's look at the evidence on that and get past the dislike of Trump.
When Obama was President, Russia annexed the Crimea and sent its troops into Eastern Ukraine. It also shot down an airliner.
Since Trump has become President, that conflict has cooled.
Now, I am sure everyone will leap on and say "that's because Trump is in Putin's back pocket etc" but that is what has happened.
So, now it's "offensive" to point this out? That I think you are all idiots? Biden was part of that Administration. Or are you now telling us he was magically divorced.
For a betting website, there are a fair few on here who let their emotions get the better of them.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Weird, I'm from the South and used my side door all the time. Front door was for post only!
From the South and for various houses: 1 side, 1 both, 4 front. Although in fairness 2 of those front to become a side would have involved the use of a sledgehammer and levitation.
...Of course from their point of view there is no hurry...
The consequences for Ireland of a no deal Brexit, where the UK fails to implement the Northern Ireland protocol, are very severe. So I don't think the EU are as relaxed about that prospect as you imply.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
Bullying requires an audience. Biden will not be taking part in televised debates with Putin.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
The global power of the Commander in Chief of the US military is vested in the office, not the man.
The office is not an being in its own right. It depends on who holds that office.
Would anyone on here like to argue that Obama did a great job in checking China's expansion during his Presidency and that China (and Russia) were fearful of him?
I didn't catch the start but R4 seem to be interviewing someone who works in live music and they seem to keep on at him that the business is unviable so why not retrain or do a degree.
Are we just giving up? No return to normal and life enhancing life. This will be life for years to come. No events, no concerts, no big parties, no decent sized weddings and so on and on.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
Bullying requires an audience. Biden will not be taking part in televised debates with Putin.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
Given how Trump has been so demonstrably servile towards Putin that's an argument that's offensive on the basis that you must think we're all idiots.
Ok, let's look at the evidence on that and get past the dislike of Trump.
When Obama was President, Russia annexed the Crimea and sent its troops into Eastern Ukraine. It also shot down an airliner.
Since Trump has become President, that conflict has cooled.
Now, I am sure everyone will leap on and say "that's because Trump is in Putin's back pocket etc" but that is what has happened.
So, now it's "offensive" to point this out? That I think you are all idiots? Biden was part of that Administration. Or are you now telling us he was magically divorced.
For a betting website, there are a fair few on here who let their emotions get the better of them.
Belarus says hi!
And Trump has done absolutely zip, to call Putin's support of Lukashenko to book. Boris Johnson to his credit has.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Weird, I'm from the South and used my side door all the time. Front door was for post only!
Finally some sanity Presumably the traditional exemptions applied for the newly-born, the just-married and (hopefully not needed) the coffin-borne. But did that make you a minority of normality and good sense along your street though?
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
Biden is following the Obama playbook that won him the demographically improbable state of Iowa.
Biden's Campaign staff is headed by Jennifer O'Malley Dillon.
She was the the Obama Battleground states director. She was also John Edwards Iowa state co-ordinator in 2008 and Edwards got 2nd place behind Obama.
She replaced Greg Schultz who, amazingly enough, was Obama's Ohio director in 2012.
Literally my only worry I have about Biden's staff is they may be a little too focused on the Mid-west.
I think that is a fair point and it also applies to the Black vote as well (i.e. Clinton lost because the Black vote didn't turn out in 2016). I think where they could be in for a shock is on the Hispanic vote, which might explain why Florida and Arizona polling has been less favourably (generally).
Do people making those comments about civil servants think it sounds tough? It just looks incredibly childish to me, and the sort of faux tough talk that idiots think makes them look cool.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
Interesting. I didn`t know this was a thing. I`m in East Midlands, and thinking about people I know, they mostly use front door. Why would you use only your back door? Am I missing something?
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
Bullying requires an audience. Biden will not be taking part in televised debates with Putin.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
Given how Trump has been so demonstrably servile towards Putin that's an argument that's offensive on the basis that you must think we're all idiots.
Ok, let's look at the evidence on that and get past the dislike of Trump.
When Obama was President, Russia annexed the Crimea and sent its troops into Eastern Ukraine. It also shot down an airliner.
Since Trump has become President, that conflict has cooled.
Now, I am sure everyone will leap on and say "that's because Trump is in Putin's back pocket etc" but that is what has happened.
So, now it's "offensive" to point this out? That I think you are all idiots? Biden was part of that Administration. Or are you now telling us he was magically divorced.
For a betting website, there are a fair few on here who let their emotions get the better of them.
Including you. You think the debate was bad for Biden because he failed to "stand up to Trump". What would "standing up to Trump" have looked like in your opinion?
Re Putin, it's strange that Russia made so much effort to get Trump elected if they are afraid of him
Do people making those comments about civil servants think it sounds tough? It just looks incredibly childish to me, and the sort of faux tough talk that idiots think makes them look cool.
If you imagine Dom as Brandon from Galaxy Quest it all makes sense...
So it could be dodgy raising this as I don't have the expertise to respond to questions, I just have to listen to my wife's rants who works in drug safety, but apparently the drug companies are sitting there having done all they can to prepare and are waiting for the required information from Government to move forward with planning. None is forthcoming. In particular NI is a mess. It comes under both the MHRA and the EU regulations simultaneously because of the WA which can be contradictory.
I didn't catch the start but R4 seem to be interviewing someone who works in live music and they seem to keep on at him that the business is unviable so why not retrain or do a degree.
Are we just giving up? No return to normal and life enhancing life. This will be life for years to come. No events, no concerts, no big parties, no decent sized weddings and so on and on.
Interestingly the past week i have been flooded with ticket announcements for gigs next year.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
Bullying requires an audience. Biden will not be taking part in televised debates with Putin.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
Given how Trump has been so demonstrably servile towards Putin that's an argument that's offensive on the basis that you must think we're all idiots.
Ok, let's look at the evidence on that and get past the dislike of Trump.
When Obama was President, Russia annexed the Crimea and sent its troops into Eastern Ukraine. It also shot down an airliner.
Since Trump has become President, that conflict has cooled.
Now, I am sure everyone will leap on and say "that's because Trump is in Putin's back pocket etc" but that is what has happened.
So, now it's "offensive" to point this out? That I think you are all idiots? Biden was part of that Administration. Or are you now telling us he was magically divorced.
For a betting website, there are a fair few on here who let their emotions get the better of them.
Belarus says hi!
And Trump has done absolutely zip, to call Putin's support of Lukashenko to book. Boris Johnson to his credit has.
Slight difference. Belarus has been in Russia's pocket pretty much since 1991 so it is already regarded as pretty much part of Russia. No one is saying Russia is looking to change the status quo.
Trump has not set himself up as a fighter for world democracies, he judges things from the view of US interests (see HK / China).
Ukraine was different - Russia was invading an independent country that would not follow its line. Under Obama, Russia did pretty much as it wanted. That has stopped.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
my northern brother has to use the back door as main entrance as the back faces on to the road while the front faces allotments.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Weird, I'm from the South and used my side door all the time. Front door was for post only!
only posh gits have side doors as well as front and back.
Do people making those comments about civil servants think it sounds tough? It just looks incredibly childish to me, and the sort of faux tough talk that idiots think makes them look cool.
Where America leads we tend to follow. There will certainly be elements of the British hard Right who want to install a kind of QAnon deep-state paranoia.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Weird, I'm from the South and used my side door all the time. Front door was for post only!
Finally some sanity Presumably the traditional exemptions applied for the newly-born, the just-married and (hopefully not needed) the coffin-borne. But did that make you a minority of normality and good sense along your street though?
Thinking back, it was about 50/50 in my area. Semi-detached houses though, so that might explain it.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
He could make the reasonable demand that the other man's mic is turned off when it isn't their turn to speak, and when Trump refuses - no more debates and frame it as Trump running away from a proper debate
I didn't catch the start but R4 seem to be interviewing someone who works in live music and they seem to keep on at him that the business is unviable so why not retrain or do a degree.
Are we just giving up? No return to normal and life enhancing life. This will be life for years to come. No events, no concerts, no big parties, no decent sized weddings and so on and on.
Interestingly the past week i have been flooded with ticket announcements for gigs next year.
Good.
I think we either have a vaccine that works by next Spring or we choose as a society to go back to normal life and live with the virus.
We absolutely cannot do another year of this after this winter.
We live with other viruses and we may have no choice with this fucker as well.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
Bullying requires an audience. Biden will not be taking part in televised debates with Putin.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
Given how Trump has been so demonstrably servile towards Putin that's an argument that's offensive on the basis that you must think we're all idiots.
Ok, let's look at the evidence on that and get past the dislike of Trump.
When Obama was President, Russia annexed the Crimea and sent its troops into Eastern Ukraine. It also shot down an airliner.
Since Trump has become President, that conflict has cooled.
Now, I am sure everyone will leap on and say "that's because Trump is in Putin's back pocket etc" but that is what has happened.
So, now it's "offensive" to point this out? That I think you are all idiots? Biden was part of that Administration. Or are you now telling us he was magically divorced.
For a betting website, there are a fair few on here who let their emotions get the better of them.
Including you. You think the debate was bad for Biden because he failed to "stand up to Trump". What would "standing up to Trump" have looked like in your opinion?
Re Putin, it's strange that Russia made so much effort to get Trump elected if they are afraid of him
I said I thought the debate was bad for Biden because, like what DavidL said, he was caught in between two stances namely he came across as being somewhat bulldozed yet made remarks that took off some of the "Uncle Joe" gloss. Look at the comments above from the suburban women voters - Trump got absolutely hammered but they obviously didn't think Biden had a great night.
Re Putin getting Trump elected, not sure if you have seen the latest declassified papers that have come out? Looks like the Russians deliberately fed misleading info into the Clinton campaign because they knew it was looking to link Trump with Russia. But, hey, that's obvious bullsh1t, Project Veritas or the Proud Boys have obviously managed to doctor the FBI and CIA papers and change them. Or something.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
Interesting. I didn`t know this was a thing. I`m in East Midlands, and thinking about people I know, they mostly use front door. Why would you use only your back door? Am I missing something?
Coal dust. Front door for officials, important guests. Into front best room only used for these occasions.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
I think culturally that's probably right. Don't think the East Midlands are as culturally cohesive as the West Midlands. The West Midlands seem to manage their own genuinely distinctive "thing" between South and North, the East Midlands are more of a no-man's land. While I was, as you correctly suspect, on the southern side of the East Mids, geographically that still put me as close to Yorkshire as to London, while culturally it felt a lot closer to "The South".
Think you're right it's got a lot to do with housing design, and that can be limited by plot size and other factors. Side or back doors that open into "practical" areas of the house like a utility or storage area, or even the kitchen, can be handy if you've got shopping on you, or muddy feet. People I know who largely avoid front doors - in several cases going as far as blocking the thing up with furniture, making a complete mockery of fire escape plans - usually had them opening into more "private" or personal living space parts of the house, often carpeted. That's mainly in Yorkshire but I know some exceptions as far south as Essex.
There are also related historical/cultural/social factors, like Dixiedean and OnlyLivingBoy point out. Also somewhat related must be the old social norms around having a "respectable" front entrance:
At many terraced houses, it was scrubbed clean each day and reddened, or whitened with pipe-clay or lime donkey stone – an arduous and time-consuming task (and particularly unpleasant on cold days), but often seen as an essential chore. However, conditions (which included over-crowing and poor sanitation facilities) sometimes meant such a task wasn’t practicable – and in some cases the door ‘step’ merely consisted of a stone threshold
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
The angry racist who ballooned the deficit isn't popular in the suburbs.
Absolutely and I can imagine a fair few will be saying what a disgraceful performance it was. The question is how many will then vote for him at the ballot box.
It also looks as though - at least based on that - one of the casualties could be turnout
Clinton would never have got this sort of reception in a small city! (It has less than 8.5k people) like Latrobe Pennsylvania. Biden is following the Obama playbook that won him the demographically improbable state of Iowa.
I'll be very shocked if the boy from Scranton doesn't win Pennsylvania - and it will be hard to see Trump retaining the Oval Office if he loses PA.
Yes, PA looks safe and the other swing States that Trump would need to win to get to 270 without PA are showing no sign of moving his way. I think the Presidency is almost a wrap now and attention will swing to the Senate and just how big a Biden victory we are going to see.
Mike's thread-piece point is a good one. The debate will have done a good job of firing up the opposition. Democrats have every reason to turn out, not just for a win but a big one.
Peter, I respect your opinion normally because you are one of the ones on here that tends to take a very rational view on the betting but I think that is a dangerous mindset to get into that this is almost wrapped up, including in PA.
On that topic, here is an article that might be of interest:
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
He could make the reasonable demand that the other man's mic is turned off when it isn't their turn to speak, and when Trump refuses - no more debates and frame it as Trump running away from a proper debate
Yes, that would be the way to play it if he wanted out but I think he's better staying away from the procedural stuff and leaving it to the moderator to argue with Trump.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
But, as we saw with Boris, running away from media obligations - i.e. the Andrew Neil interview - appeared to have no political downsides whatsoever.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
My initial view (posted to PB) was Biden should pull out stating 'this is not a debate, so is pointless'. But with the latest news that might not be a good idea.
If the organisers go thru' with the plan od switching off the mics this could well work well for Biden. Trump is already objecting. He may pull out himself and if not he is not going to be able to not interrupt and how is he going to react when his mic is turned off?
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
Interesting. I didn`t know this was a thing. I`m in East Midlands, and thinking about people I know, they mostly use front door. Why would you use only your back door? Am I missing something?
Coal dust. Front door for officials, important guests. Into front best room only used for these occasions.
I'm using the side door a lot at moment when answering the doorbell, because the front door opens into the hall and the hall is crammed full of Brexit food supplies. Looks like I am so kind of prepping nut job.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
Debates are much more entrenched in US political culture compared to the UK. Biden "running away" would dominate the headlines and take the heat off of Trump.
Would anyone on here like to argue that Obama did a great job in checking China's expansion during his Presidency and that China (and Russia) were fearful of him?
Of course, they'd be more worried by Obama than Trump. Obama could build a very broad international consensus and Trump can't even build a consensus with his second trophy wife.
I still want to Trump to win as there is no policy difference between him and Biden. They are both utter scum and slaves to capital but Trump is marginally more entertaining.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
But, as we saw with Boris, running away from media obligations - i.e. the Andrew Neil interview - appeared to have no political downsides whatsoever.
That's true, but I think the populists kind of make their own rules, in that shamelessly breaking expectations is part of their shtick, whereas if you're running the conventional way you risk paying a price for not following the conventional rules.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
He could make the reasonable demand that the other man's mic is turned off when it isn't their turn to speak, and when Trump refuses - no more debates and frame it as Trump running away from a proper debate
I think Biden should just pull out of the other two. There's nothing to gain now and a lot of lose. The whole thing is pointlessly unedifying and is actually, according to Luntz, actively putting people off voting (which Trump wants and Biden doesn't).
Tell him Joe. You 'aint turning up for another shitshow.
Would anyone on here like to argue that Obama did a great job in checking China's expansion during his Presidency and that China (and Russia) were fearful of him?
Of course, they'd be more worried by Obama than Trump. Obama could build a very broad international consensus and Trump can't even build a consensus with his second trophy wife.
I still want to Trump to win as there is no policy difference between him and Biden. They are both utter scum and slaves to capital but Trump is marginally more entertaining.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping?
He did stand up to him - he told him to shut up and called him the worst president ever - he just didn't do anything that requires more than a few seconds of uninterrupted speaking.
I`m wondering whether Biden should flatly refuse to do the remaining two debates with the rude, bullying, ignorant oaf.
There's something to be said for that but I think there's a substantial downside risk (looking like he's running away) that's hard to quantify as nothing like this has happened before, and no upside risk. Taking part in the debates has a similar-sized downside risk (if he screws up) but also has an upside risk if he does well.
My initial view (posted to PB) was Biden should pull out stating 'this is not a debate, so is pointless'. But with the latest news that might not be a good idea.
If the organisers go thru' with the plan od switching off the mics this could well work well for Biden. Trump is already objecting. He may pull out himself and if not he is not going to be able to not interrupt and how is he going to react when his mic is turned off?
He'll starting walk behind Biden like he did with Clinton and hoping Biden suddenly loses it and punches him.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
my northern brother has to use the back door as main entrance as the back faces on to the road while the front faces allotments.
Surely if the back door faces onto the road it is the front door?
Would anyone on here like to argue that Obama did a great job in checking China's expansion during his Presidency and that China (and Russia) were fearful of him?
Of course, they'd be more worried by Obama than Trump. Obama could build a very broad international consensus and Trump can't even build a consensus with his second trophy wife.
I still want to Trump to win as there is no policy difference between him and Biden. They are both utter scum and slaves to capital but Trump is marginally more entertaining.
What's your view on what he has done with the UAE / Bahrain deals Dura? Interesting to know whether you think it is meaningful or not
Would anyone on here like to argue that Obama did a great job in checking China's expansion during his Presidency and that China (and Russia) were fearful of him?
Of course, they'd be more worried by Obama than Trump. Obama could build a very broad international consensus and Trump can't even build a consensus with his second trophy wife.
I still want to Trump to win as there is no policy difference between him and Biden. They are both utter scum and slaves to capital but Trump is marginally more entertaining.
Do you have any bets on Dura-Ace?
I'm on Starmer as next PM as I think Johnson will go the distance to the next GE and then go down in flames. The Goldman Sachs Elf will be unable to reach the escape pods and perish as the Johnson Project implodes.
I'm Biden to win the EC and POTUS.
I do my most prolific betting on MotoGP and pro cycling which are niche fetishes on here. MotoGP betting can be very profitable if you know which manufacturer's bikes favour which tracks. The people who set the odds obviously usually don't and only consider the riders. F1 is pure televised autism and I avoid it.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
my northern brother has to use the back door as main entrance as the back faces on to the road while the front faces allotments.
Surely if the back door faces onto the road it is the front door?
Isn't the claim that Northeners use the back door? So if brother of kle4 mostly uses the door which leads to the road, then that is the back door. If he moves out and a southerner moves in then it suddenly becomes the front door!
Do people making those comments about civil servants think it sounds tough? It just looks incredibly childish to me, and the sort of faux tough talk that idiots think makes them look cool.
As soon as people start talking about "the enemy within" I get very depressed.
The people they are talking about are decent people with considerable knowledge of the area they are working in, and the best interests of the public at heart. You might disagree with them and want to talk to them about it. Ultimately, that disagreement may only be resolved by their moving on to fresh pastures. But it isn't a war - it's a professional environment and there's a real risk nobody with a genuine interest in a policy area will want to be a senior civil servant because it's seen as a bear pit.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
I think culturally that's probably right. Don't think the East Midlands are as culturally cohesive as the West Midlands. The West Midlands seem to manage their own genuinely distinctive "thing" between South and North, the East Midlands are more of a no-man's land. While I was, as you correctly suspect, on the southern side of the East Mids, geographically that still put me as close to Yorkshire as to London, while culturally it felt a lot closer to "The South".
Think you're right it's got a lot to do with housing design, and that can be limited by plot size and other factors. Side or back doors that open into "practical" areas of the house like a utility or storage area, or even the kitchen, can be handy if you've got shopping on you, or muddy feet. People I know who largely avoid front doors - in several cases going as far as blocking the thing up with furniture, making a complete mockery of fire escape plans - usually had them opening into more "private" or personal living space parts of the house, often carpeted. That's mainly in Yorkshire but I know some exceptions as far south as Essex.
There are also related historical/cultural/social factors, like Dixiedean and OnlyLivingBoy point out. Also somewhat related must be the old social norms around having a "respectable" front entrance:
At many terraced houses, it was scrubbed clean each day and reddened, or whitened with pipe-clay or lime donkey stone – an arduous and time-consuming task (and particularly unpleasant on cold days), but often seen as an essential chore. However, conditions (which included over-crowing and poor sanitation facilities) sometimes meant such a task wasn’t practicable – and in some cases the door ‘step’ merely consisted of a stone threshold
In Oldham our front door was right on the street. My mother [mi mam] used to "donkey-stone" the step every day even though we were taught to step over it. The back door was in the back yard - only used for going to the bog.
As I expected, the EU are keeping their cool on the UK's infringement of the Withdrawal Agreement, but making it clear that's not acceptable. Of course from their point of view there is no hurry; the clock is ticking down to Boris' brain-dead self-imposed hard deadline, and the legal process for dealing with the infringement naturally takes a long time. They don't even need to string it out artificially, just follow the normal procedures and timescales. Despite what Boris and Cummings seem to want, they won't walk out of the talks in a huff, just express regret at the way that the UK is damaging itself, and keeping the door open for a deal now or later, whenever the UK has come to its senses and rectified its breaches of the Withdrawal Agreement.
If, in the worst case, we fall over the end of the transition without a deal, they will simply let the economic sanctions Boris will have imposed on the UK take their course. Eventually, having gone through the longish procedure of taking the UK to the ECJ and possible arbitration, they'll still have the option of imposing penalties, most notably against the City and on the vital issue of data-sharing.
Why on earth the UK government is voluntarily getting itself and us into this mess is the most baffling puzzle in the entire post-war history of the UK. They look literally insane.
It's hard for the rest of us to attribute a rationale to the government's actions because no sensible or somewhat responsible person would ever do any of this stuff. Being unsensible is this government's selling proposition. No doubt they think the Internal Market Bill demonstrates their brilliance in ways that are unfathomable to the rest of us.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
my northern brother has to use the back door as main entrance as the back faces on to the road while the front faces allotments.
Surely if the back door faces onto the road it is the front door?
Not at all. There's a distinctive style to what constitutes the front of a house (its flat for a start, the living room faces onto it, the stairs do, whereas the back goes into a utility room off the kitchen) vs the back, the mail slot and house numbers are on the front and so on, even the terrace name is shown where the path in front of the allotments is rather than the road. Its definitely the back onto the road.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
People use their front doors? Weird.
When I lived around the East Midlands, it (or at least my area of it) seemed to be fully-signed up part of Frontdooristan. I'm not sure quite how far North you have to go before that kind of weirdness stops.
Mine's built up to the boundary on both sides, so to use the back door I need a crane or have to hop over the wall from the neighbour's garden.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
I think culturally that's probably right. Don't think the East Midlands are as culturally cohesive as the West Midlands. The West Midlands seem to manage their own genuinely distinctive "thing" between South and North, the East Midlands are more of a no-man's land. While I was, as you correctly suspect, on the southern side of the East Mids, geographically that still put me as close to Yorkshire as to London, while culturally it felt a lot closer to "The South".
Think you're right it's got a lot to do with housing design, and that can be limited by plot size and other factors. Side or back doors that open into "practical" areas of the house like a utility or storage area, or even the kitchen, can be handy if you've got shopping on you, or muddy feet. People I know who largely avoid front doors - in several cases going as far as blocking the thing up with furniture, making a complete mockery of fire escape plans - usually had them opening into more "private" or personal living space parts of the house, often carpeted. That's mainly in Yorkshire but I know some exceptions as far south as Essex.
There are also related historical/cultural/social factors, like Dixiedean and OnlyLivingBoy point out. Also somewhat related must be the old social norms around having a "respectable" front entrance:
At many terraced houses, it was scrubbed clean each day and reddened, or whitened with pipe-clay or lime donkey stone – an arduous and time-consuming task (and particularly unpleasant on cold days), but often seen as an essential chore. However, conditions (which included over-crowing and poor sanitation facilities) sometimes meant such a task wasn’t practicable – and in some cases the door ‘step’ merely consisted of a stone threshold
Growing up in Yorkshire in the 50s we had a 3 bedroomed house and with a back room and a front room downstairs. For most of the year we all lived in the back room (3 adults, 3 children). Every morning we had to light a coal fire in the back room but not in the front room. The only exception was Christmas. What changed things was gas fires and then central heating.
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
my northern brother has to use the back door as main entrance as the back faces on to the road while the front faces allotments.
Surely if the back door faces onto the road it is the front door?
Isn't the claim that Northeners use the back door? So if brother of kle4 mostly uses the door which leads to the road, then that is the back door. If he moves out and a southerner moves in then it suddenly becomes the front door!
ah, but he's a southerner living in the North for 20 years so is he adopted Northern (not full northern)?
Good news from the Imperial study, R down to 1.1 already which is what the daily data was already showing. With more time the rule of 6 will bed in further and bring that down.
I wouldn't be so sure about the rule of 6 bedding in further. It's just as likely that people get bored with it and stop bothering, especially if they hear that the virus is under control. There's something of a negative feedback effect at work: as infections stabilise, people become complacent; as infections rise, they become more worried and observant.
Has there been a study as to why large areas of the South of England are not having a second wave at all? Do people in the South behave different to people in the Midlands and the North? I cannot work it out.
The tendency to go round all the neighbours houses at the drop of a hat often daily is the only cultural difference I can think of. It may prove to be a significant one.
As someone who has split my time between North and South, here's a cultural difference I'd love to know the geographical boundary of: using the front door as your main entrance, versus using your side/back door.
Clearly not everyone in the South uses their front door as main entrance and not everyone in the North uses the side/back, but there's definitely a geographical gradient and I don't know where the main area of unfrontdooredness is bounded.
my northern brother has to use the back door as main entrance as the back faces on to the road while the front faces allotments.
In some 20th-century housing estates, I've seen terraced housing where the front door opens onto a residential side-street with no parking, but the back garden has a gate at the end that opens out to an alley-space with residential parking lots off it (think house-numbered parking bays and some flat-roof garages) with vehicle access to a main road. Residents unsurprisingly use back-doors in that kind of set-up, but it does give the impression the houses were built the "wrong way round".
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with.
But Trump rolls over for the international strongmen. He gets played by Erdogan every time. He is pathetic.
Which is of course why Putin overtly and covertly supports him, and Xi is quite happy.
You just want to support the race-baiter and are finding any justification for doing so.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
The angry racist who ballooned the deficit isn't popular in the suburbs.
Absolutely and I can imagine a fair few will be saying what a disgraceful performance it was. The question is how many will then vote for him at the ballot box.
It also looks as though - at least based on that - one of the casualties could be turnout
Clinton would never have got this sort of reception in a small city! (It has less than 8.5k people) like Latrobe Pennsylvania. Biden is following the Obama playbook that won him the demographically improbable state of Iowa.
I'll be very shocked if the boy from Scranton doesn't win Pennsylvania - and it will be hard to see Trump retaining the Oval Office if he loses PA.
Yes, PA looks safe and the other swing States that Trump would need to win to get to 270 without PA are showing no sign of moving his way. I think the Presidency is almost a wrap now and attention will swing to the Senate and just how big a Biden victory we are going to see.
Mike's thread-piece point is a good one. The debate will have done a good job of firing up the opposition. Democrats have every reason to turn out, not just for a win but a big one.
Peter, I respect your opinion normally because you are one of the ones on here that tends to take a very rational view on the betting but I think that is a dangerous mindset to get into that this is almost wrapped up, including in PA.
On that topic, here is an article that might be of interest:
An article explaining why Trump is so popular without a single mention of Romney and their comparative vote shares is one that is intellectually bankrupt.
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
But Biden will be playing to an audience. If you were Putin, and you were thinking of moving into the Ukraine or elsewhere post-a Biden win, was there anything in Biden's performance that would say "wow, I'm scared of Biden"? Doubtful.
Bernie Sanders was the candidate with the clearest and strongest pro-collective-defence, anti-Putin, anti-Dugin policies, but of course you right-wing types failed to notice that.
o/t, I see the Staggers has a special issue tomorrow on the 'Twilight of the Union'. An interesting piece out already:
"A worrying proportion of Conservative movers and shakers I have come across since the December election victory seem to me false friends of the Union. They have scant sympathy for devolution, or any properly unionist appreciation for our decentralised union-state. They fail to see that Scottish unionism is not the antithesis of nationalism, but rather its unacknowledged twin. Historically, a negotiated Anglo-Scottish Union was the most realistic means of checking the imperial arrogance of the larger power on this island and thus preserving intact many of the key attributes of Scottish nationhood. Scottish unionism is a very different beast from British nationalism. Or at least it was.
Something worryingly similar is afoot in Wales. ..."
But 2016 did happen. And the models were wrong. On November 8, 2016 (Election Day), the 538 model gave Trump a 28.4% chance of winning.
so It's just an astonishing feat of obtuseness. How can you not learn?
1) October, 2016: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible" 2) November, 2016: Say the models were wrong and declare data journalism dead 1) October, 2020: See the models showing a 25% probability, write articles as if this means "basically impossible"
Is it a related contingencies thing? Trump is behind in quite a number of swing states that he needs to win: surely he can't recover his position in all of them? Trump can still win this and it really wouldn't take much of a swing from the current position for the dominoes to fall his way. A model that doesn't recognise that is defective, plain and simple.
We can only hope that the swing is the other way and this turns into the hammering that he so richly deserves.
IDK, the dude is literally staring at a prediction saying there's a 25% chance. If he ever rolled a dice and got a 6 he must have been like "hmm, this dice seems to be broken, the laws of probability said that wouldn't happen".
It may simply be a classical liberal arts innumeracy, lets face it we have been drowning in this on the vast majority of MSM reports on the virus in this country.
To say that inane and innumerate journalists have been a huge problem this year, would be something of an understatement.
The point David makes is a good one. As someone with a maths background it is something that has bugged me for years. Particularly reporting stuff without providing the context.
I always get frustrated with the medias obsession with speed, rather than relative velocity between the relevant objects. It always crops up when reporting objects in orbit docking. The best example was the probe landing on a comet and the velocity given was (presumably) relative to the earth, an absolutely pointless figure and if relative to the comet was going to make one hell of a dent and a lot of debris.
My favorite however was how much wasps eat. Now as the figure given was not per colony/garden/kilometre squared one can only presume it was per wasp (clearly it wasn't, but context?). As the figure was I think 25 kg I never want to meet that wasp.
Almost any report on space is rubbish in terms of factual information conveyed correctly
I work in IT and have a keen interest in aviation, two reasonably technical subjects. Without fail, any MSM report on either subject will be riddled with basic errors, often the same errors repeated over and over again, as if there weren’t hundreds of subject matter experts shouting at them every time they get it wrong.
The pandemic has seen an explosion of the same phenomenon, it’s as if the journalists don’t want to learn anything about epidemiology or statistics, and the media companies certainly don’t seem to want scientifically qualified journalists anywhere near the story - they’re all dumb and happy continuing their talking points and 24h media fluff as people are dying.
Sometimes they go as far as to give the impression they’d like to see more people dying or made redundant, if it means they get more clicks on their story, or gives them ammunition to attack the government.
I forget who said it, but he pointed out that on technical subjects where the reader is knowledgeable, any news article is generally wrong.
The crazy bit is that you then read the next article, on a different subject, and believe what you read..
As to space - nasaspaceflight.com
If only people would take your second sentence to heart!
One field in which I am pretty knowledgeable is fusion power, given that my PhD was on tokamaks and plasma physics. I can assure you that most of what you read in the media about fusion is incorrect, or at least has the wrong end of the stick. And the vast majority of projects claiming to be revolutionary sources of fusion power are little more than scams.
Do you think we'll ever have economic and sustainable fusion power?
Also do you think we need it?
Given the increasingly cheap and almost infinite potential of wind power, combined with improving energy storage technologies, I don't see a reason why we'd even need fusion now if we can get our energy from wind and storage, topped up perhaps with alternatives like tidal.
I feel like you're overestimating our energy storage technology at present, at least on a macro level.
I don't think energy storage technology at present is that great but it is improving continuously and incrementally. Our storage potential in a decade will be much better than today - and a decade after that even better still. Since fusion is always a couple of decades away supposedly, storage needs to be taken seriously as an alternative I think.
Energy storage is near a tipping point. At the moment most of the wind energy can be accommodated onto energy grids by dialling down and up the thermal capacity, so the economics isn't there for large-scale storage.
But as we keep adding wind capacity the economic opportunity for storage increases and one of the competing technologies may well become better than batteries and win itself a lot of business.
If only I could predict which one!
The biggest problem in the batteries vs large scale storage is the planning aspect. Build a tidal pond - you'll spend 20 years in planning.
Parking shipping containers full of batteries on an industrial site - that might well not even require planning. Let alone the smaller units already being deployed next to car chargers. The lorry chargers that Tesla are bringing out for their trucks have serious storage capacity, IIRC.
I strongly suspect that battery storage will creep up on us, being built out on the basis of storage for car/lorry charging, with the operators doing deals with the power companies to buy their power at the cheapest rates.... before you know it, storage capacity of x% of the national grid.
If Tesla's recently described battery plans are on the realistic side of fantasy, then battery manufacturing capacity will take off very rapidly indeed over the next five years. The most significant bit of their battery day was the potential advances in manufacturing, rather than battery technology per se.
I go back to DavidL's point previously - Trump is a jerk and a bully but, if Biden can't stand up to him, what chance has he got if he becomes President and has to deal with Putin and Xi Jinping? If I was those two looking at the debate, I would be praying for a Biden win, the man would be easy to deal with. Here were some of the comments of the focus group:
PA Voter 1: "It seemed like Trump was steamrolling him and bullying him. I felt so bad for Biden that Trump was treating him that way. Joe didn’t get a fair shot, we didn’t get to hear what he thinks about things. I feel like Joe has more to say and we just didn’t hear it.”
PA Voter 3: “I felt last night was a drinking game. It was terrible, I’ll be honest I was gonna go to bed early last night. It was captivating in that it felt more like gladiator pit than political debate. I was praying that Biden was going to come in and slam dunk, and I was really disappointed.”
FL Voter: “It was difficult to watch and finish. I was relieved when it was over, I was very disappointed in both of them. I don’t know if I can support either of those candidates, I lost respect for both of them. "
WI Voter: “I agree with the rest, Trump was the bully. I think maybe Biden should’ve been more prepared on how to deal with that, because that was to be expected.”
AZ Voter: “Disappointing and sad is what I left with. I felt bad for Biden and I felt bad for the mediator, because of the complete disrespect. I agree that we weren’t able to get a full idea of Biden. I was hoping I was going to come away with more, I’m leaning more [toward Biden] because Trump is disrespectful and embarrassing, but I’m looking forward to the other two debates.”
I think you're confusing the capacity to endure a public ordeal of someone loudly spouting uninterrupted trash at you for 90 minutes, with the business of government. To think the one has anything to do with the other is fairly delusional.
And in any event, Biden did quite well on that metric.
They're wrestling with the fundamental problem - which is, of course, that the flow of boat people won't stop but that the bulk of the electorate in general, and the Tory-supporting electorate in particular, doesn't want them - and thrashing around desperately for a solution.
I can only assume either that the French are sufficiently determined to be rid of the problem themselves that they're invulnerable to bribery; or that the bribes that the UK Government have offered them have been deemed insufficient; or that the Government has been too daft to offer the French Government cash and/or other sweeteners in the first place.
Leaving aside the moral considerations, I'm not sure of the practicalities of effectively capturing the boat people and sticking them all back on larger boats - but prison hulks do at least have the benefit of not having to transport those aboard many thousands of miles to a remote volcanic rock in the South Atlantic.
The fundamental problem is that they have implied for years that Brexit will magicaĺly stop the flow. It is, and always was utter bollocks.
I don't recall Boris or anyone similar saying that.
Farage did but he is a twunt and should be ignored.
Did you even watch that video or Boris speaking? He's not saying that we should stop the flow of immigration, he's saying it is scandalous that politicians (like Cameron and then Home Secretary May) keep pledging to bring immigration down to tens of thousands without any controls to actually do so.
Boris has quite rightly ended that scandal. He has dropped Cameron and May's tens of thousands pledge. Good.
I promised myself that I would no longer reply to your goodself, as someone who claims as his favourite philosopher an individual that held that disabled people should not be allowed near children, nor educated, and I am already regretting breaking that vow.
Thats a great article. Once again, The Atlantic covers the virus very well and without sensation. The bit on the importance of backward tracing is particularly worth a read.
Not only is backward tracing effective in disease suppression, it can usefully inform policy at to what restrictions are likely to work.
Just an excelllent piece of journalism once again. I've decided to subscribe. The Atlantic is news for adults. It is such a rare phenomenon these days it really needs to be encouraged.
Comments
As a result we got different boroughs on different restrictions. And a massive spike in Bolton, thank you Mr Green.
Shortly afterwards the NE councils, from County Durham to the border decided to act as one entity. A far more sensible strategy.
Seeing him ousted will be almost as delicious as seeing Trump gone.
When Obama was President, Russia annexed the Crimea and sent its troops into Eastern Ukraine. It also shot down an airliner.
Since Trump has become President, that conflict has cooled.
Now, I am sure everyone will leap on and say "that's because Trump is in Putin's back pocket etc" but that is what has happened.
So, now it's "offensive" to point this out? That I think you are all idiots? Biden was part of that Administration. Or are you now telling us he was magically divorced.
For a betting website, there are a fair few on here who let their emotions get the better of them.
Would anyone on here like to argue that Obama did a great job in checking China's expansion during his Presidency and that China (and Russia) were fearful of him?
Are we just giving up? No return to normal and life enhancing life. This will be life for years to come. No events, no concerts, no big parties, no decent sized weddings and so on and on.
And Trump has done absolutely zip, to call Putin's support of Lukashenko to book. Boris Johnson to his credit has.
The weird thing is that side doors exist.
Suspect at least for overpriced areas, which are mainly in the urban / suburban south, it may be to do with narrower plots due to land prices.
Is it possible that the places you are calling East Midlands are actually South?
Cleggy finally doing something?
I use the front door, as I am not a heathen
Re Putin, it's strange that Russia made so much effort to get Trump elected if they are afraid of him
Trump has not set himself up as a fighter for world democracies, he judges things from the view of US interests (see HK / China).
Ukraine was different - Russia was invading an independent country that would not follow its line. Under Obama, Russia did pretty much as it wanted. That has stopped.
Obama says hi
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e7PvoI6gvQs
I think we either have a vaccine that works by next Spring or we choose as a society to go back to normal life and live with the virus.
We absolutely cannot do another year of this after this winter.
We live with other viruses and we may have no choice with this fucker as well.
Re Putin getting Trump elected, not sure if you have seen the latest declassified papers that have come out? Looks like the Russians deliberately fed misleading info into the Clinton campaign because they knew it was looking to link Trump with Russia. But, hey, that's obvious bullsh1t, Project Veritas or the Proud Boys have obviously managed to doctor the FBI and CIA papers and change them. Or something.
Front door for officials, important guests. Into front best room only used for these occasions.
Think you're right it's got a lot to do with housing design, and that can be limited by plot size and other factors. Side or back doors that open into "practical" areas of the house like a utility or storage area, or even the kitchen, can be handy if you've got shopping on you, or muddy feet. People I know who largely avoid front doors - in several cases going as far as blocking the thing up with furniture, making a complete mockery of fire escape plans - usually had them opening into more "private" or personal living space parts of the house, often carpeted. That's mainly in Yorkshire but I know some exceptions as far south as Essex.
There are also related historical/cultural/social factors, like Dixiedean and OnlyLivingBoy point out. Also somewhat related must be the old social norms around having a "respectable" front entrance:
At many terraced houses, it was scrubbed clean each day and reddened, or whitened with pipe-clay or lime donkey stone – an arduous and time-consuming task (and particularly unpleasant on cold days), but often seen as an essential chore. However, conditions (which included over-crowing and poor sanitation facilities) sometimes meant such a task wasn’t practicable – and in some cases the door ‘step’ merely consisted of a stone threshold
http://www.kjarrett.com/livinginthepast/tag/step-cleaning/
On that topic, here is an article that might be of interest:
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/trumps-appeal-in-flyover-country/
If the organisers go thru' with the plan od switching off the mics this could well work well for Biden. Trump is already objecting. He may pull out himself and if not he is not going to be able to not interrupt and how is he going to react when his mic is turned off?
Maybe I am?
I still want to Trump to win as there is no policy difference between him and Biden. They are both utter scum and slaves to capital but Trump is marginally more entertaining.
Tell him Joe. You 'aint turning up for another shitshow.
I'm Biden to win the EC and POTUS.
I do my most prolific betting on MotoGP and pro cycling which are niche fetishes on here. MotoGP betting can be very profitable if you know which manufacturer's bikes favour which tracks. The people who set the odds obviously usually don't and only consider the riders. F1 is pure televised autism and I avoid it.
The people they are talking about are decent people with considerable knowledge of the area they are working in, and the best interests of the public at heart. You might disagree with them and want to talk to them about it. Ultimately, that disagreement may only be resolved by their moving on to fresh pastures. But it isn't a war - it's a professional environment and there's a real risk nobody with a genuine interest in a policy area will want to be a senior civil servant because it's seen as a bear pit.
Which is of course why Putin overtly and covertly supports him, and Xi is quite happy.
You just want to support the race-baiter and are finding any justification for doing so.
https://youtu.be/aVIA1n5ng4Y
https://twitter.com/TEGNicholas/status/1311282961581473793
The most significant bit of their battery day was the potential advances in manufacturing, rather than battery technology per se.
And in any event, Biden did quite well on that metric.