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Whoops – I nearly made an elementary mistake betting on a Senate Democratic majority – politicalbett

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    SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,637
    HYUFD said:
    Three more superspreader events. Will be such a shame if some of those attending have to self isolate and don't make it to the polling station.
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    MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578

    MrEd said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    This is exactly Bitzer's point at Old North State Politics. This is why the 3rd and 7th Congressional Districts are rated as Safe Republican despite party registrations for Democrats and Republicans being similar. You cannot just take the party registration details and extrapolate them across to votes
    True, but they tend to be a decent rule of thumb. Not clear which (if any) party has a crossover advantage. If there is one, I'd expect it to be quite small.
    Depends on the state. In the South, there is still a lot of crossover (though diminishing).
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    BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
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    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Dura_Ace said:


    The biggest problem with online-only learning is that you have no "relationship" with any of the teaching staff.


    Malcolm Bradbury would have some fun with today's identity and crit theory lecturers no doubt.
    The Tory culture war bollox.....
    The ‘false binaries’ of culture wars do not resonate with the reality of the attitudes of most of the British public. For example, 73 per cent of Britons are worried about hate speech and at the same time 72 per cent believe that political political correctness is a problem.

    Spot the outliers (hint - they're unlikely to be Tory)


    This is meaningless. Views on "political correctness" are negative because it is a loaded term with negative connotations, obviously. Change the question to: "Courtesy towards, respect for, and tolerance of, others' views is a problem in our country" and you'd get a very different result. Political correctness isn't that different.
    Political correctness is the pole opposite of "Courtesy towards, respect for, and tolerance of, others' views".
    I'm genuinely surprised you think that, given I tend to agree with you on much. Being 'politically correct' in its original incarnation would include, for example, not making casual sexist remarks about women's appearance, or not indulging in lazy stereotypes based on race or sexuality. I don't see how that's the polar opposite of respect/tolerance etc.
    @Northern_Al
    I think the meaning has changed to one of intolerance and aggressively correcting people who use the "wrong terminology" whatever the latest fashion is.

    "Political correctness" was always a poor choice of words. "Political" suggests an agenda. "Correctness" suggests righteousness and correcting people.

    I think "Respect and Tolerance" is a much better phrase. As a liberal, I'm 100% in favour of that.

    The phrase "Political Correctness" has outlived its original usefulness and is now only useful for describing intolerant behaviour and public shaming. I'm against that.
    "Political" suggests an agenda

    Perish the thought.

    You might just have given the game away.

    Better call it something else.
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670

    Alistair said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    Could you give the name of the pollster so we can cross check.
    I'm not because I am relying on this guy to make me some money. Posters like yourself would not give him the time of day, of course, but I will happily reveal it when the vote is over.
    Of course, not being an idiot, I understand that NC has "Southern Dems" on its electoral rolls. However I've been tracking individual change of party registrations as has @Pulpstar and Southern Dems seem to be shaking out. Pulps has some interesting stats on how current voter registration is a powerful indication of how the vote went at a county level in 2016.

    Backing all your money on every NC Dem being a secret Republican voter is a short way to the poor house.
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    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,311
    isam said:

    witter.com/TheBeigeSirKeir/status/1321023103179333632?s=20

    I was once knocked off my bicycle by a driver who didn't wait for the police, and the police were quite annoyed by it because they had to track him down for the breath-test which was a right pain for them, so I do wonder what explanation an experienced lawyer would have for his failure in this situation.

    Will Johnson, the noted London cyclist, be able to resist mentioning it at some point?
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    isamisam Posts: 40,933

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
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    rpjsrpjs Posts: 3,787
    edited October 2020

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:
    Spelling again.
    That should be "whining".
    Nebraska?! Just how far is Biden penetrating?
    Nebraska splits its electoral vote. The winner of each of the three Congressional districts gets one EV, and whoever wins the state overall gets an extra two. Trump barely won the NE-2 EV in 2016, and I think it's polled as trending Biden this cycle. Does seem odd to have a rally for one EV though!
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    GaussianGaussian Posts: 793

    HYUFD said:
    Three more superspreader events. Will be such a shame if some of those attending have to self isolate and don't make it to the polling station.
    As if a bit of "flu" would stop them.
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    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,122
    Alistair said:

    I see the decision written by Beer loving Kavanaugh has had at least 3 black-and-white factual errors in it so far.

    It wouldn't surprise me if Kavanaugh gets persuaded to step down at some point. He seems like an accident waiting to happen. I also think we are likely to see pragmatic conservatives like Roberts move to the left a bit to maintain public confidence in SCOTUS. I doubt if the court will prove quite as crazy right wing as some people fear. I also doubt the Democrats will add additional justices but it may prove useful leverage to keep the threat in the back pocket.
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    Alistair said:

    Pulpstar said:

    Massive numbers for Warnock here. Wonder if he wins without a runoff ?
    https://twitter.com/PpollingNumbers/status/1321082492368130049

    Lieberman stinking the joint up.
    Au contraire. A good campaign, winning votes for the Dems and then promptly giving them to his fellow candidate.
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    rkrkrkrkrkrk Posts: 7,908
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    isamisam Posts: 40,933
    edited October 2020

    isam said:

    witter.com/TheBeigeSirKeir/status/1321023103179333632?s=20

    I was once knocked off my bicycle by a driver who didn't wait for the police, and the police were quite annoyed by it because they had to track him down for the breath-test which was a right pain for them, so I do wonder what explanation an experienced lawyer would have for his failure in this situation.

    Will Johnson, the noted London cyclist, be able to resist mentioning it at some point?
    Yes why wouldn't he wait for the police? Seems out of character for him to behave like that
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    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    Shows the clash between a now largely secular France and the still very religious Muslim world, and how the 2 can come into conflict when the 2 collide particularly in inner city France.

    Macron is right that free speech is vital but he also needs to be aware of how Muslims will see his remarks and ensure he also shows respect to the Islamic faith
    ...and the Islamic world needs to respect French culture as well.

    But You Can't Say That!
    You just did so you can. And I agree with the first part.
    There are quite a number of people who will start banging on about punching down, colonial history etc as a reason the French should shut up and apologise for the cartoons.

    It's a long running debate - all the way back to Salman Rushdie.
    They can say that as well, even though they are wrong. It is called freedom of speech!
    There are plenty of people who would try and deny your right today anything off the script. Which generally goes that because White Colonialism, the French should apologise and ban the cartoons.
    Freedom of speech means they can say what they want. Even when they are wrong. Or when they disagree with you or with me. You can still say what you want. That is the whole principle of freedom of speech. You seem to be wanting a world where people only agree with you?
    Freedom of speech is an abbreviation for a slightly complex issue, as some forms of speech are like shouting 'Fire' unnecessarily in a crowded place which is pretty plainly a form of indirect violence.

    But no group is asking for the freedom to shout 'Fire' in such a way. What some Islamic members seem to be asking for is to limit for others the sorts of freedoms they want for themselves. Many Muslims feel free to express extremely strong views and criticisms of others, other religious traditions and so on. The thing which is troubling as much as anything is the sense that some of them can 'dish it out but can't take it'. In the long run that is not a sustainable position.

    What you say is true, but its also true of many of the posters on the right on here. They want to be able to be free to give their views strongly but dont like it when others disagree with them or judge them for their words. Both groups are being snowflakes, and as you say love dishing it out but cant take it back the other direction. Fortunately the law, and wider society, gives everyone enough freedom of speech here to ignore them.

  • Options
    isam said:
    Did this actually happen or is it a joke?
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    BarnesianBarnesian Posts: 7,996

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Dura_Ace said:


    The biggest problem with online-only learning is that you have no "relationship" with any of the teaching staff.


    Malcolm Bradbury would have some fun with today's identity and crit theory lecturers no doubt.
    The Tory culture war bollox.....
    The ‘false binaries’ of culture wars do not resonate with the reality of the attitudes of most of the British public. For example, 73 per cent of Britons are worried about hate speech and at the same time 72 per cent believe that political political correctness is a problem.

    Spot the outliers (hint - they're unlikely to be Tory)


    This is meaningless. Views on "political correctness" are negative because it is a loaded term with negative connotations, obviously. Change the question to: "Courtesy towards, respect for, and tolerance of, others' views is a problem in our country" and you'd get a very different result. Political correctness isn't that different.
    Political correctness is the pole opposite of "Courtesy towards, respect for, and tolerance of, others' views".
    I'm genuinely surprised you think that, given I tend to agree with you on much. Being 'politically correct' in its original incarnation would include, for example, not making casual sexist remarks about women's appearance, or not indulging in lazy stereotypes based on race or sexuality. I don't see how that's the polar opposite of respect/tolerance etc.
    @Northern_Al
    I think the meaning has changed to one of intolerance and aggressively correcting people who use the "wrong terminology" whatever the latest fashion is.

    "Political correctness" was always a poor choice of words. "Political" suggests an agenda. "Correctness" suggests righteousness and correcting people.

    I think "Respect and Tolerance" is a much better phrase. As a liberal, I'm 100% in favour of that.

    The phrase "Political Correctness" has outlived its original usefulness and is now only useful for describing intolerant behaviour and public shaming. I'm against that.
    Whether its called respect and tolerance or political correctness doesnt matter much. It is how it is interpreted on the ground that really matters. Some will get it broadly right, some will be too far on the side of respect and/or tolerance, others will be too far on individual freedom of expression. "Broadly right" will also change as society and its views change.

    Whatever we call it, this tension will always exist. Perhaps renaming it does take some of the sting out of the debate but it wont stop it happening.
    Fair enough. I'm on both sides of the "tension" you describe.

    I'm a follower of J S Mill so intellectually I'm very much in favour of freedom of expression and quite admire the bravery of people who say the most outrageous things, including people on here.

    But in my personal behaviour I am very respectful and tolerant. A bit of a wuss really.
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    MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 44,451
    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
    Yes - that's so insanely stupid, there must be something else to the story.

    With cameras everywhere*, no chance of not being found. Which means you are putting yourself up for leaving-the-scene. Which puts you in the shit.

    *If you drive or cycle, get a go-pro style camera. Just do it.
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    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,701

    Barnesian said:

    Barnesian said:

    Dura_Ace said:


    The biggest problem with online-only learning is that you have no "relationship" with any of the teaching staff.


    Malcolm Bradbury would have some fun with today's identity and crit theory lecturers no doubt.
    The Tory culture war bollox.....
    The ‘false binaries’ of culture wars do not resonate with the reality of the attitudes of most of the British public. For example, 73 per cent of Britons are worried about hate speech and at the same time 72 per cent believe that political political correctness is a problem.

    Spot the outliers (hint - they're unlikely to be Tory)


    This is meaningless. Views on "political correctness" are negative because it is a loaded term with negative connotations, obviously. Change the question to: "Courtesy towards, respect for, and tolerance of, others' views is a problem in our country" and you'd get a very different result. Political correctness isn't that different.
    Political correctness is the pole opposite of "Courtesy towards, respect for, and tolerance of, others' views".
    I'm genuinely surprised you think that, given I tend to agree with you on much. Being 'politically correct' in its original incarnation would include, for example, not making casual sexist remarks about women's appearance, or not indulging in lazy stereotypes based on race or sexuality. I don't see how that's the polar opposite of respect/tolerance etc.
    @Northern_Al
    I think the meaning has changed to one of intolerance and aggressively correcting people who use the "wrong terminology" whatever the latest fashion is.

    "Political correctness" was always a poor choice of words. "Political" suggests an agenda. "Correctness" suggests righteousness and correcting people.

    I think "Respect and Tolerance" is a much better phrase. As a liberal, I'm 100% in favour of that.

    The phrase "Political Correctness" has outlived its original usefulness and is now only useful for describing intolerant behaviour and public shaming. I'm against that.
    "Political" suggests an agenda

    Perish the thought.

    You might just have given the game away.

    Better call it something else.
    Most things in life aren't political and it's important to try to keep it that way. Political correctness obsessives want to make absolutely everything political.
  • Options
    isamisam Posts: 40,933
    edited October 2020

    isam said:
    Did this actually happen or is it a joke?
    Actually happened, although that tweet is a joke

    I reckon if Boris was the driver it would be the first item on the news, although I guess Boris is more newsworthy as PM to Sir Keir's LotO
  • Options
    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,311
    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    Well Grayling did do that, or something pretty similar, while Transport Secretary and deservedly was castigated for it, though most people hardly noticed, of course.
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,298
    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    This is exactly Bitzer's point at Old North State Politics. This is why the 3rd and 7th Congressional Districts are rated as Safe Republican despite party registrations for Democrats and Republicans being similar. You cannot just take the party registration details and extrapolate them across to votes
    True, but they tend to be a decent rule of thumb. Not clear which (if any) party has a crossover advantage. If there is one, I'd expect it to be quite small.
    Depends on the state. In the South, there is still a lot of crossover (though diminishing).
    I can understand why, in a patch where your party rarely wins, you might register for the other, to get a say at primary stage. But why would a Rep voter in Kentucky cross over the other way?
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    GaussianGaussian Posts: 793
    rpjs said:

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:
    Spelling again.
    That should be "whining".
    Nebraska?! Just how far is Biden penetrating?
    Nebraska splits its electoral vote. The winner of each of the three Congressional districts gets one EV, and whoever wins the state overall gets an extra two. Trump barely won the NE-2 EV in 2016, and I think it's polled as trending Biden this cycle. Does seem odd to have a rally for one EV though!
    He gets to play his greatest hits to some of his most devoted fans? Could be the last chance to see him.
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    MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    New thread
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    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    IanB2 said:

    IanB2 said:

    HYUFD said:

    HYUFD said:
    New Zealand is the world's most overrated country. Great landscapes (although many other countries also have great landscapes) – but deathly boring and nothing to do, nothing good to eat and nowhere nice to drink in large portions of it – including many of the 'big' towns.
    Indeed, if I lived anywhere other than the UK it would be New England or New York or France, New Zealand is a beautiful country to visit with nice people on the whole who live there but not exactly full of culture and gastronomy, with no really big global city and thousands of miles from anywhere
    France is a lot harder to move to as a Brit these days, of course, because of you-know-what. New York is horrible, there are a lot of nicer places in North America - I have a real soft spot for Vancouver, and even Washington DC is better than NYC in my opinion. If I didn't live here I'd probably go for something completely different, like Sri Lanka or the Caribbean. I mean, if I wanted to live in a cosmopolitan Western city why would I leave London, which is the greatest such city in the world?
    Dc was the surprise of my trip last year. All round the States, especially away from the coasts, people told me how horrible it was and a fair few tried to persuade me not to go there. Yet I thought it was probably the nicest large city I visited. A lot of the streets are more similar to London's - tree lined and with parallel streetside parking, putting some distance between the sidewalk and the traffic - which helps a lot compared to New York and Chicago where it feels like you're walking along the side of a motorway.
    DC is very nice, I lived there for a while. There are some lovely neighbourhoods including Capitol Hill, my favourite, just as you describe, and there is an interesting mix of people. It has improved a lot and some of the disdain with which it is viewed elsewhere reflects an outdated view. The weather is a lot better than people say, too, I quite liked the hot summers. It is extremely divided on racial/social class lines, though.
    I stayed north of the DuPont Circle, which was certainly a pleasant area, and looked like quite a wealthy one. The streets just to the east were apparently, according to the signs about the place, the original black neighbourhood of D.C. when it was a much smaller place. Today the area seemed interesting and mixed, insofar as the US has mixed residential areas.
    DuPont Circle is pretty much the centre of the gay area - or at least used to be. Don't go down town much these days.

    DC is a beautiful city, surrounded by much beautiful countryside and some lovely Bay and Coast lines within easy hitting distance. For culture and food, it is world class, albeit not in the league of London or NYC.
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    It that going to be with a random assortment of cheap tat, pile up any-old-how, with zombie* staff.

    *The staff in the local Woolies were so miserable.. they shuffled around, dead-eyed.
    It is almost certainly either fake or going to get shut down:
    1. Woolworths is owned by Very. Who have not licensed this
    2. I don't care how sodding cheap high st units are at the moment the previous Woolies business couldn't sustain a GM retail presence so what makes these cowboys any better?
    3. They aren't "back". Woolies was wound up, and its successor shell companies remain in the ownership of Very.

    There is a "Woolworths Express.com Ltd" company registered last month that is "Other retail sale in non-specialised stores" according to Companies House. Being run by a single director. From a house in Abbey Wood...
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    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Andy_JS said:

    Well he is right, you can and they are lovely. His point just demonstrates how cheap food is now when you see what a high end food retailer is charging. Spend £20 wisely at Aldi and you will get bags of food.
    So Rashford has made it all up has he? Can't quite see why he would. His mother doesn't exactly look like a crack addict or a scrounger to me. As an ex-Conservative Party member and activist (emphasis on the ex), I cannot understand why the most spendthrift Conservative (in name only) government in history wants to die in a ditch over this issue. I can only assume it is because The Clown has been told he has done far too many U-turns and people are beginning to realise he is weak and ineffectual. Children will go hungry to spare Mr. Johnson's blushes about being a hopeless case.
    How can you say children are going hungry due to lack of money when childhood obesity in the most deprived areas in twice the national average? 27% of children in deprived areas are obese. That is the most shocking stat.
    Oh dear, you really don't think much beyond your own very narrow frame of reference. Though it may seem paradoxical to you, obesity is often a result of poverty because the wrong foods are chosen due to their cheapness. Many poor households are unable to make good choices on food either because high sugar and fat content foods are cheap, and they also cause further sugar and fat cravings. Obesity is no more a sign of profligacy than your prolific posts on this site are a sign of your depth of understanding or intellect.
    Healthy food is usually cheaper than unhealthy food.

    Not in the US.
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,298
    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
    Didn't he speak to a transport police officer?
  • Options

    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
    Yes - that's so insanely stupid, there must be something else to the story.

    With cameras everywhere*, no chance of not being found. Which means you are putting yourself up for leaving-the-scene. Which puts you in the shit.

    *If you drive or cycle, get a go-pro style camera. Just do it.
    If you have such a camera, presumably the police could demand to see the footage whether its in your favour or not? Not sure it would help Dura's defence?
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    MrEdMrEd Posts: 5,578
    rpjs said:

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:
    Spelling again.
    That should be "whining".
    Nebraska?! Just how far is Biden penetrating?
    Nebraska splits its electoral vote. The winner of each of the three Congressional districts gets one EV, and whoever wins the state overall gets an extra two. Trump barely won the NE-2 EV in 2016, and I think it's polled as trending Biden this cycle. Does seem odd to have a rally for one EV though!
    Omaha is on the border with Iowa so one explanation is that he is doing it to reach Iowa as well without appearing to be worried about Iowa (if that makes sense). I think someone mentioned Biden is doing an Iowa rally. If Trump went there as well, It would have been interpreted as a panicked move
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    Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,701
    The Tories gained 22 seats in the north of England at the last election. Without them they'd have a majority of 36 instead of 80.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Results_breakdown_of_the_2019_United_Kingdom_general_election
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    Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,818
    I thought I'd have a look at the false positives issue while using actual maths rather than Tobymaths.

    Assuming:
    Sensitivity set to 80% as reported (so 20% false negatives from actual cases)

    Specificity is under discussion, so using the logic that you can't have more false positives than measured positives and looking at the positivity rate at the lowest prevalence (4th July, by the cases measured, was 0.349%, and this wasn't uniquely low - 12 of the days between the start of July and mid-August had sub-0.4% positivity) to set an upper bound. Assuming that the UK wasn't totally covid free and some people (of those singled out as most at risk of having it from symptoms and exposure) would get true positives, I assigned 0.3% as the highest plausible false positive rate; so specificity set to 99.7%.

    Using the Bayes theorem and using the measured positivity as a reasonable prior for the prevalence in the sample, and then iterating by taking the calculated true positives, dividing them by the number of samples for a calculated prevalence to improve the prior, and iterating 30 times until the prevalence in was equal to the prevalence out to within less than a thousandth of a percentage point.

    We get this:


    It's quite hard to present enough information in this sort of range, but:

    - The dark gold/brown columns are the measured cases (the reported cases from testing)
    - The black columns are the expected false positives
    - The green columns are the expected false negatives
    - The red columns are the net error (the amount by which the measured and true cases differ - take away the false positives (people without covid who were incorrectly reported as having it) and add the false negatives (people with covid who were tested and incorrectly reported as being clear)
    - The see-through columns are the calculated true cases, when false positives and negatives are taken into account.

    Conclusions:
    - When the virus is at very low levels, we'll see up to a few hundred extra cases per day incorrectly reported (if the false positive rate is about as high as is reasonably plausible)
    - When it starts to increase, the false positives and false negatives balance out
    - When it gets to a reasonably high spread (ie the start of September), the false negatives start to outweight the false positives, and we end up underreporting cases
    - The false negatives will be currently outweighing false positives to the tune of a few thousand cases

    One further worrying conclusion: false positives and false negatives mean that the rate of true cases has been increasing faster than reported cases (I doubt that Toby and co meant for this to be the case):


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    isamisam Posts: 40,933
    IanB2 said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
    Didn't he speak to a transport police officer?
    His spokesman says he did, but the police said he left before they arrived
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    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Alistair said:

    Alistair said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    Could you give the name of the pollster so we can cross check.
    I'm not because I am relying on this guy to make me some money. Posters like yourself would not give him the time of day, of course, but I will happily reveal it when the vote is over.
    Of course, not being an idiot, I understand that NC has "Southern Dems" on its electoral rolls. However I've been tracking individual change of party registrations as has @Pulpstar and Southern Dems seem to be shaking out. Pulps has some interesting stats on how current voter registration is a powerful indication of how the vote went at a county level in 2016.

    Backing all your money on every NC Dem being a secret Republican voter is a short way to the poor house.
    The Dem counties I mentioned house, respectively, Duke University, North Carolina State University, and Wake Forest University. I am sure there are a lot of Dems there who will be voting for Trump. Not.
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    Scott_xPScott_xP Posts: 33,023
    You expect politicians to have been picked last for football and there’s no shame in that. Our trouble is that this crop of politicians were picked last for politics. This cabinet aren’t the reserves or even the thirds – they’re the ninths or 10ths or something, having been picked solely for their loyalty to Brexit, a project successive governments have spent the past four years proving is like deliberately relegating yourself to League One. That the pandemic music has stopped with a team of this calibre in charge really is the cruellest of timings, and, on current evidence, is only likely to get crueller.

    https://twitter.com/MarinaHyde/status/1321096379297603584
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    AlistairAlistair Posts: 23,670
    IanB2 said:

    MrEd said:

    MrEd said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    This is exactly Bitzer's point at Old North State Politics. This is why the 3rd and 7th Congressional Districts are rated as Safe Republican despite party registrations for Democrats and Republicans being similar. You cannot just take the party registration details and extrapolate them across to votes
    True, but they tend to be a decent rule of thumb. Not clear which (if any) party has a crossover advantage. If there is one, I'd expect it to be quite small.
    Depends on the state. In the South, there is still a lot of crossover (though diminishing).
    I can understand why, in a patch where your party rarely wins, you might register for the other, to get a say at primary stage. But why would a Rep voter in Kentucky cross over the other way?
    Kentucky is its own universe. "Kentucky Dems" are a state level party in effect. People will vote Dem for local council election but GOP for Federal posts.
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    Alistair said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    Could you give the name of the pollster so we can cross check.
    I'm not because I am relying on this guy to make me some money. Posters like yourself would not give him the time of day, of course, but I will happily reveal it when the vote is over.
    Is he also your 'singing like a canary' contact?
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    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,311
    isam said:

    IanB2 said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
    Didn't he speak to a transport police officer?
    His spokesman says he did, but the police said he left before they arrived
    I think he spoke to them on the phone when they called him on the number he left with the cyclist.
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    Wulfrun_PhilWulfrun_Phil Posts: 4,602

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    The assumption that older registered Democrats who voted for Trump in 2016 will vote for Trump again in 2020 is more than a bit presumptuous. In addition, there may be long standing registered Republicans who despair at what their party has become. See this, for example. It's about Florida but it applies more generally.

    https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/06/politics/trump-senior-vote/index.html

    "While Biden is doing better with pretty much all groups compared with 2016 Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, one group jumps out: seniors.
    Biden's well on his way to doing better with seniors than any Democratic nominee in at least 24 years.
    Take a look at our latest CNN/SSRS poll. Biden's up by 21 points among voters 65 and older. An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll out over the weekend put him up by 27 points with seniors.
    These are, to put it mildly, massive differences from 2016. In the final average of registered-voter polls, Trump led Clinton by 5 points among seniors. His advantage was 6 points among likely voters. These polls are suggesting something along the lines of 25- to 30-point shifts in Biden's direction.
    What's amazing is that these most recent polls are merely the manifestation of Trump's ebbing support with seniors. Since the conventions in August, the average of live-interview polls that meet CNN standards have Biden up by an average of 8 points with seniors. Even if these polls aren't as emphatic for him, that still means a movement of nearly 15 points from where Clinton stood in the final polls of 2016.
    Importantly, I already have noted how this movement among seniors is being seen on the state level as well. In Florida, for instance, where seniors make up around 30% of voters, Biden's winning with voters 65 and older. Last time around, Clinton lost those voters by nearly 10 points in the final preelection polls.
    But it's not just the comparisons with 2016 that make Biden's performance impressive. It's also comparisons with every Democratic candidate in the last generation."

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    OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 15,122

    Alistair said:

    TimT said:

    Some extraordinary numbers building up. In NC - Chatham County is already at 60.2% of registered voters having voted. This county went to Hillary by 10%. The neighboring counties of Orange, Durham and Wake went for her by 50%, 60% and 20% margins, and they are all at above 50% voted. OTOH, Brunswick, which went to Trump by 30%, is also at over 50%.

    4.63m voted in NC in 2016: so far this year NC is at 3.11m. So, who has the voters left? And does Trump have the differential within what's left and the non-partisan vote to overhaul the Dems voted advantage of 315k (down from 355k yesterday) by party affiliation?
    One pollster claimed NC is a 'high crossover' state, with registrations by party affiliation sometimes rather 'in name only' I would be careful of reading the runes here on that basis.

    Could you give the name of the pollster so we can cross check.
    I'm not because I am relying on this guy to make me some money. Posters like yourself would not give him the time of day, of course, but I will happily reveal it when the vote is over.
    According to YouGov, among voters in NC *who have already voted* Biden gets 100% of self-reported Democrats, 8% of Republicans and 57% of independents, while Trump gets 0% of Democrats, 89% of Republicans and 34% of independents. That is not very suggestive of a large residual of Dixiecrats voting for Trump, at least among those who have voted early.
    Of course self reported voter id is not the same as registration, although I believe that historically at least 80% of registered voters for each party self id "correctly" and nationally at least the incorrectly identifying voters roughly cancel out. The Republicans have been boasting about good registration efforts in a number of states, but this is at the expense of having fewer Trump Democrats left.
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    LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 15,311
    edited October 2020

    I thought I'd have a look at the false positives issue while using actual maths rather than Tobymaths.

    Assuming:
    Sensitivity set to 80% as reported (so 20% false negatives from actual cases)

    Specificity is under discussion, so using the logic that you can't have more false positives than measured positives and looking at the positivity rate at the lowest prevalence (4th July, by the cases measured, was 0.349%, and this wasn't uniquely low - 12 of the days between the start of July and mid-August had sub-0.4% positivity) to set an upper bound. Assuming that the UK wasn't totally covid free and some people (of those singled out as most at risk of having it from symptoms and exposure) would get true positives, I assigned 0.3% as the highest plausible false positive rate; so specificity set to 99.7%.
    ...

    That's all great, but you can get a better estimate of the false positive rate from the ONS infection survey, as that samples people randomly, rather than with the pillar 1 + 2 tests.

    I haven't checked the figures just now, but pretty sure that would give you a false positive rate below 0.1%
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    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    I thought I'd have a look at the false positives issue while using actual maths rather than Tobymaths.

    Assuming:
    Sensitivity set to 80% as reported (so 20% false negatives from actual cases)

    Specificity is under discussion, so using the logic that you can't have more false positives than measured positives and looking at the positivity rate at the lowest prevalence (4th July, by the cases measured, was 0.349%, and this wasn't uniquely low - 12 of the days between the start of July and mid-August had sub-0.4% positivity) to set an upper bound. Assuming that the UK wasn't totally covid free and some people (of those singled out as most at risk of having it from symptoms and exposure) would get true positives, I assigned 0.3% as the highest plausible false positive rate; so specificity set to 99.7%.

    Using the Bayes theorem and using the measured positivity as a reasonable prior for the prevalence in the sample, and then iterating by taking the calculated true positives, dividing them by the number of samples for a calculated prevalence to improve the prior, and iterating 30 times until the prevalence in was equal to the prevalence out to within less than a thousandth of a percentage point.

    We get this:


    It's quite hard to present enough information in this sort of range, but:

    - The dark gold/brown columns are the measured cases (the reported cases from testing)
    - The black columns are the expected false positives
    - The green columns are the expected false negatives
    - The red columns are the net error (the amount by which the measured and true cases differ - take away the false positives (people without covid who were incorrectly reported as having it) and add the false negatives (people with covid who were tested and incorrectly reported as being clear)
    - The see-through columns are the calculated true cases, when false positives and negatives are taken into account.

    Conclusions:
    - When the virus is at very low levels, we'll see up to a few hundred extra cases per day incorrectly reported (if the false positive rate is about as high as is reasonably plausible)
    - When it starts to increase, the false positives and false negatives balance out
    - When it gets to a reasonably high spread (ie the start of September), the false negatives start to outweight the false positives, and we end up underreporting cases
    - The false negatives will be currently outweighing false positives to the tune of a few thousand cases

    One further worrying conclusion: false positives and false negatives mean that the rate of true cases has been increasing faster than reported cases (I doubt that Toby and co meant for this to be the case):


    A simpler way to look at this is to use absolute numbers.

    Sample population size, 10,000

    Prevalence of the disease, 0.1%, 1%, 10%, 50%, 1000%
    Actual number with disease: 10, 100, 1000, 5000, 10k
    Number of true positives: 8, 80, 800, 4k, 8k
    Number of false positives: 30, 30, 30, 30, 30

    % of positives actually positive: 21%, 72.7%, 96.3%, 99.25%, 99.6%
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    MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 25,229
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    Alistair said:

    I see the decision written by Beer loving Kavanaugh has had at least 3 black-and-white factual errors in it so far.

    It wouldn't surprise me if Kavanaugh gets persuaded to step down at some point. He seems like an accident waiting to happen. I also think we are likely to see pragmatic conservatives like Roberts move to the left a bit to maintain public confidence in SCOTUS. I doubt if the court will prove quite as crazy right wing as some people fear. I also doubt the Democrats will add additional justices but it may prove useful leverage to keep the threat in the back pocket.
    The threat is only there for as long as the Democrats control both the Senate and the Oval Office.

    The moment they lose either the threat is gone. There is a very, very narrow window of opportunity here to act. Once the GOP contain a blocking majority in the Senate what would constrain the SCOTUS?
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    algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,553

    algarkirk said:

    HYUFD said:

    Shows the clash between a now largely secular France and the still very religious Muslim world, and how the 2 can come into conflict when the 2 collide particularly in inner city France.

    Macron is right that free speech is vital but he also needs to be aware of how Muslims will see his remarks and ensure he also shows respect to the Islamic faith
    ...and the Islamic world needs to respect French culture as well.

    But You Can't Say That!
    You just did so you can. And I agree with the first part.
    There are quite a number of people who will start banging on about punching down, colonial history etc as a reason the French should shut up and apologise for the cartoons.

    It's a long running debate - all the way back to Salman Rushdie.
    They can say that as well, even though they are wrong. It is called freedom of speech!
    There are plenty of people who would try and deny your right today anything off the script. Which generally goes that because White Colonialism, the French should apologise and ban the cartoons.
    Freedom of speech means they can say what they want. Even when they are wrong. Or when they disagree with you or with me. You can still say what you want. That is the whole principle of freedom of speech. You seem to be wanting a world where people only agree with you?
    Freedom of speech is an abbreviation for a slightly complex issue, as some forms of speech are like shouting 'Fire' unnecessarily in a crowded place which is pretty plainly a form of indirect violence.

    But no group is asking for the freedom to shout 'Fire' in such a way. What some Islamic members seem to be asking for is to limit for others the sorts of freedoms they want for themselves. Many Muslims feel free to express extremely strong views and criticisms of others, other religious traditions and so on. The thing which is troubling as much as anything is the sense that some of them can 'dish it out but can't take it'. In the long run that is not a sustainable position.

    What you say is true, but its also true of many of the posters on the right on here. They want to be able to be free to give their views strongly but dont like it when others disagree with them or judge them for their words. Both groups are being snowflakes, and as you say love dishing it out but cant take it back the other direction. Fortunately the law, and wider society, gives everyone enough freedom of speech here to ignore them.

    Pretty much agree. But I think the issue is less to do with Left and Right. It's to do with centrists on the one hand and extremists on the other. By and large centrists want free speech + respect and self restraint. Extremes want for themselves what they want deny to others. Left and Right are becoming unhelpful terms in the sense that centrists of left and right have much much more in common with each other than both extremes over fundamental liberal and democratic issues.

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    NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,344
    edited October 2020
    Roy_G_Biv said:



    I'm not looking for praise, the question was genuine. I know for sure I didn't want to hear it, and I was extremely uncomfortable. But the cabbie took a monetary hit for his troubles, which might be why he got nasty about it. We agreed to go to the airport, it ended up being a much shorter and cheaper ride than that. Perhaps next time he would say less, so maybe I did control his speech and thought. That's why I asked. I have no regrets and I would do it again, but I'm genuinely interested to hear whether someone sees it from the other point of view.

    I do admire your stance (though I know you weren't asking that) and feel I ought to share it, but to be honest I don't as a rule. I fairly often meet people with opinions that I think dodgy - taxi-drivers but also voters and other acquaintances (my poker circle has some seriously dodgy people). If someone's a bit bigoted I just look vague or change the subject. If they're viciously bigoted, I say something like "That's not my opinion, I'm afraid, we'll have to agree to disagree" and if they persist I say I need to concentrate on something, sorry. I don't call people out, feeling that it won't help and I can't convert the whole world. But I probably should.
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    IanB2IanB2 Posts: 47,298
    isam said:

    IanB2 said:

    isam said:

    isam said:

    kinabalu said:

    isam said:
    I sense you would start warming to him if this were true. Showing a bit of "personality".
    No not really.

    But imagine if it were Farage or Boris who had done this!
    24/7, wall-to-wall wailing from the usual suspects.

    For Starmer? Radio silence...
    It does seem weird for someone as straight as Starmer to knock someone down with their car, to the extent that they had to go to hospital in an ambulance, and shoot off before the police arrived
    Didn't he speak to a transport police officer?
    His spokesman says he did, but the police said he left before they arrived
    So the former is the BTP officer who happened to be around and the latter is the Met Officer whose jurisdiction it was
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    Morris_DancerMorris_Dancer Posts: 60,988
    Raining quite significantly here. Imagine there's going to be a fair bit of flooding.

    Also, Twitter's recalling when Vettel won his fourth title in a row. Seems a very long time ago (seven years, it seems).
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    OllyTOllyT Posts: 4,913

    Nigelb said:

    HYUFD said:
    Spelling again.
    That should be "whining".
    Nebraska?! Just how far is Biden penetrating?
    Nebraska splits its vote (like Maine) Nebraska 2 is definitely in play for Biden. Rest of the state not
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    MangoMango Posts: 1,013
    Pulpstar said:
    With a very small nail sticking out of it...
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    TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    Roy_G_Biv said:



    I'm not looking for praise, the question was genuine. I know for sure I didn't want to hear it, and I was extremely uncomfortable. But the cabbie took a monetary hit for his troubles, which might be why he got nasty about it. We agreed to go to the airport, it ended up being a much shorter and cheaper ride than that. Perhaps next time he would say less, so maybe I did control his speech and thought. That's why I asked. I have no regrets and I would do it again, but I'm genuinely interested to hear whether someone sees it from the other point of view.

    I do admire your stance (though I know you weren't asking that) and feel I ought to share it, but to be honest I don't as a rule. I fairly often meet people with opinions that I think dodgy - taxi-drivers but also voters and other acquaintances (my poker circle has some seriously dodgy people). If someone's a bit bigoted I just look vague or change the subject. If they're viciously bigoted, I say something like "That's not my opinion, I'm afraid, we'll have to agree to disagree" and if they persist I say I need to concentrate on something, sorry. I don't call people out, feeling that it won't help and I can't convert the whole world. But I probably should.
    Nick, sometimes life is too short. There are tons of things we 'probably should' do in life, but we can't do them all, and I think you're right to conserve your energy for your priorities where you think you can make a difference.

    You can change even extremists minds, but it can take a huge amount of effort, so it has to be worth it. Jonah Berger in his new book, Catalyst (about bringing about change), has a nice case study of a rabbi who converted his white supremacist anti-semite tormenter, essentially with love and through caring. But most of us would find it hard to muster the goodness within us to counter such hatred.
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    PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,930
This discussion has been closed.