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The other big US election three weeks today – the fight to control the Senate – politicalbetting.com
The other big US election three weeks today – the fight to control the Senate – politicalbetting.com
The above Economist video gives a good analysis for those punters who plan to have a bet on on the race to control the US senate – which is being voted on at the same time as the President three weeks today.
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You can't just complain about pubs shutting too early last week and then this week say they all need to shut full stop. Guy is all over the place.
What we have been faced with here is the loadsamoney fallacy: "OK, in the past we have failed to find vaccines for things, but have you seen how much Bill Gates alone has put into this?" Nature doesn't care about ROI.
The numbers are beginning to get scary again, particularly in the purple wall, but I don't think the country can bear another total shutdown, either economically or socially.
Its going to be bloody horrible for the next six weeks and will shred our recovery plan.
The government is yet to drop fines on Trusts for not meeting waiting list targets, inflicting financial penalties on the most overstretched.
https://twitter.com/foxinsoxuk/status/1315765390799237120?s=09
The health v wealth question for this vile new disease is a nonsense. There is no such choice to be made. There is simply an imperative to suppress the serious cases within NHS capacity until our toolbox of treatments and vaccines is full enough (of such tools) for us to relax and live and let live.
How to suppress the virus? Rigorous distancing. This is the only way. For whatever reason (I have theories but it doesn't matter) an effective test, track & isolate system here is a Not Happening Event.
The question therefore is should the distancing regime be a government led, organized process, or should it be left to the population to implement. For me this is a no-brainer. It's better if the government cajole and compel us to do what is needed. If it's left to us we will soon see an anarchic, panic driven, highly irrational climate that would lead to a worse Covid outcome AND a worse social and economic outcome.
It would also beg the question why we even have a government and imo this is a question that it is inadvisable to beg.
Evening all
Just three weeks until Election Day in the US and four days before polling in New Zealand so I'll start there.
The latest 1 News/Colmar Brunton poll has Labour on 47%, National on 32%, ACT on 8% and the Greens on 6%.
In terms of seats, Labour would win 60, National 41, ACT 11 and Greens 8 so Labour can effectively govern alone but a continuation of the coalition with the Greens would have a comfortable majority.
Back to America and Trafalgar (everyone's favourite pollster) has Biden up just two in Pennsylvania. Other polls show Biden enjoying small but far from solid leads in Florida and North Carolina but we then have the WPA Intelligence poll for the Las Vegas Review Journal showing Biden leading Trump 44-42.
Adding some important detail, 3% are supporting Jorgensen, 1% are backing Don Blankenship, the IAPN candidate leaving 4% on "None of the Above" and 6% Undecided.
I've moved Nevada back to TCTC as with a large section of the Hispanic vote still to decide, it's very difficult to assume Biden has this in the bag. OTOH, I've moved North Carolina into the Blue camp - Trump hasn't led in a poll in the state for nearly a month and while the lead is well within Margin of Error, I think Biden will nick this state so at the moment I'm on 299-161 with 78 TCTC.
One state still very much in the Red camp is Missouri which Trump won by 18.5 points in 2016. The latest poll has Trump ahead 52-43 so a swing of 4.25% to Biden since 2016. Back in 2008, Obama got to within 4,000 votes of winning the state but that was then and this is now (as someone once said).
Is a pasty enough to keep a pub open?
https://www.bbc.com/news/newsbeat-54523232
Except as they admit right at the bottom of the article, this is already the law in terms of pubs being able to give 16/17 years a drink. But no toooooooooo confusing.
The solution. Don't just shut everything down as if every pub is the same. Clamp down on the effing pubs that are taking the p*ss. And give local authorities the resources and powers to do so. Local authorities can shut places down for environmental health breaches. Or for breaches of their licencing conditions. So do the same with Covid. In fact, if we had been doing this back in June/July then offenders could have even been given the chance to put their houses in order. Businesses deserve the right to operate normally if they operate within Government approved safety guidelines. Those that don't don't. There will be a few that can't - and govt support can be targeted at those. Overall it is a cheap option.
It's almost as if throughout this whole debacle the Government have taken the view that writing guidelines into law is the cheap way to produce widespread compliance. It now turns out that the cheap was actually enforce the guidelines. A law that is not enforced will be ignored. Especially when compliance means bankruptcy.
Using a term with restaurants that restaurants already use and understand in their licensing terms and conditions ... oh how confusing.
Government need to bypass the MSM completely, get Saatchi back to run a high-profile ad campaign that no-one can miss.
The virus doing what the War on Drugs could not...
Have to say I'm impressed by the 10 LDs voting against the 10pm pub closing rule which has been shown (it seems) to be both economically counter-productive (apart from for the off-licences and supermarkets) and to have some issues in terms of public health.
I find myself somewhat bemused by current events - economies can be rebuilt, mental health issues can be resolved (if found and appropriate help provided) but death is about as final as it gets. We should be trying to stop people dying (and from what I can gather it's not a pleasant way to leave this life) and if that means temporary economic dislocation, that can be mitigated.
I understand the mental health argument and welcome the fact it has attained some profile and some resonance in all this and while I suspect it's insufficient, there is help to be had. The notion of suffering in silence is still endemic, I fear, however, so all we can do is to support each other and point those who really need help in the right direction.
I missed the debate about drug policy the other day. I'm anti liberalisation. My middle class mates who like to partake in a middle class way (and not think about all the associated crime and destitution) are the most fervent liberalisers.
Never seen the attraction. Booze, OTOH....
There has been too much debating about the consequences of minor "breaches" and not enough focus on major ones. All are treated as equal (dare i say it, ducking, that a bit more common sense and they wouldn't have had the same trouble over Cummings. Because frankly, Cummings didn't put anyone at risk. On any material level. But because the Government didn't allow any leeway for common sense in the "simple" message they were communicating, and because there has never been much effort to distinguish between high risk and theoretical risk activities his defence didn't work (even without the eye test nonsense).
https://twitter.com/dcexaminer/status/1316076338504183809
The beginning of the Labour/LD C&S
How much should we spend to save a covid death?
£100,000 per death
£1,000,000 per death
£10,000,000 per death
£100,000,000
Where do you personally draw the line.
Given we had a forecast of 250,000 fatalities if we did nothing and we have had 50,000 or so anyway
On what we have spent so far around £210,000,000,000 that is already more than 1,000,000 per life saved
source of 210 billion figure
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/sep/08/uks-public-spending-watchdog-estimates-210bn-coronavirus-bill
Bill Burr hosting SNL last weekend, on the other hand...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hab3ljUj080
But prohibition has failed. Education is working on tobacco.
We should deal with illicit drugs like tobacco. Tax and education, but free will. If people want to take cocaine better they buy it from a supermarket tobacco counter, or Boots, than from a criminal gang.
If it's me we are talking about I am quite content to spend the £210,000,000,000 on me alone. It's only (borrowed) money after all.
https://twitter.com/SkyNews/status/1316089240166563840
Whichever party finally grasps it, will find a healthy boost to the Exchequer from doing so. But don't go down the route of decriminalisation, the entire supply chain from crop to consumer must be legal.
It is not even clear that a loose lockdown is at all cheaper than a strict lockdown. Governments making the decisions dont know the relationship between fatalities, spending and lockdown rules in advance so are flying blind.
🙂
I can't imagine if somebody has paid for Britbox just for this they will be sticking around for very long.
The only way it makes a second season is if the suits want to save face and don't want to admit its shit.
You would think it might encourage some pharmaceutical companies to see if they could develop a drug that gave a high, wasn't chemically addictive and had a high LD50:ED ratio.
Boris cant do it this week or it looks like surrender. And he cant call it a circuit breaker. So middle of next week he will announce something like a "mini lockdown" which is essentially the SAGE/Starmer circuit breaker with a new name.
Most of the LD MPs voted against the Government which is more than most of the Labour party did.
I'd support a "circuit breaker" if we knew it would do anything other than do what this country does so well and kick the can down the road. As soon as everything opens up after two weeks, back comes the virus.
I am quite prepared come mid November everywhere but Devon and Cornwall in Tier 3.
I once accidentally entered a 300 odd person Pot Limit Omaha High only tournament thinking it was High/Low
I had never played High Only in my life. I folded the first hand as a very clear "one person has a the nut low one person has the nut high" situation progressed and then the person who had high only took the whole pot.
I couldn't understand what the f just happened. Then I reread the title of the tournament and freaked out a bit. Had zero clue how to play high only.
I made the final table. Because simply having some knowledge of how PL works and pot management and position was enough.
I went out to nut flush vs 4 of a kind. Years later still raging about my stupidity as it was painfully obvious he had at least the full house. Haunts me.
Eg with alcohol you can range in strength from non or low alcohol beers, to light beers, strong export beers, weak wines, strong wines, liquors, spirits all the way to overproof spirits etc. But anyone who buys a bottle of any of them it's clearly labelled what strength it is etc.
With illegal drugs there's no such clear regulation or education.
Laura Pidcock
@LauraPidcock
·
32m
A ‘circuit break’ must include school closures (or back to lockdown provision). Anything less than that that will be inadequate to slow the spread of the virus. None of us want to be here. We are here because we have been relentlessly failed by government.
https://twitter.com/eckerusla/status/1316086018634903554
Back when the Cummings story first broke I thought it'd be forgotten in a week. I was wrong. Now I'm almost certain it will still be haunting the Tories on doorsteps in 2024.
It's certainly the moment they lost all legitimacy on another lockdown. What good will a "circuit breaker" do if nobody follows the rules anyway?