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In the next election betting it’s now odds-on that the Tories will get a majority – politicalbetting

SystemSystem Posts: 11,002
edited May 2021 in General
imageIn the next election betting it’s now odds-on that the Tories will get a majority – politicalbetting.com

Above is the betdata.io chart of Betfair’s next general election market and as can be seen for the first time the Tories are above a 50% chance to win a majority.

Read the full story here

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Comments

  • LennonLennon Posts: 1,721
    edited May 2021
    First (as fast as Leon's interplanetary visitors)
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    edited May 2021
    Lowest number of deaths reported today (3) for any Wednesday since the start of the pandemic. Well, since March 2020 anyway.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    Fifth element
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,227
    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Cherry pick to your heart's content. The notion that the US political establishment is as obsessed by this (now or at any time in the recent past) as you "appear" to be, is way funnier than your current slapstick routine.

    Which would be worthy of Batley & Spen in their prime!
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    JVT...JVT....JVT....don't let us down, we need a good sporting analogy.
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Cov-Boost study will begin clinical trials next month, testing seven different vaccines as potential 3rd doses for a booster campaign.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    edited May 2021
    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,392
    Surge testing in Kirklees. Sounds like a good reason not to visit either of my brothers-in-law.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206
    edited May 2021
    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
    In a few weeks we've gone from wild claims on Twitter to the Former US President saying "Yes, we don't know what these aircraft are doing, these are UFOs" - along with every major media outlet running a story: acknowledging that we *could* be seeing advanced alien life, on earth.

    That's potentially the biggest story in human history, I'm sorry it's not "moving fast enough" for you

    The alternative explanations, that China has secret hypersonic tech and has done for decades, that America has this tech but is somehow scaring itself with it, or that the USA has gone totally mad, would just be the biggest geopolitical story since World War 2
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Cherry pick to your heart's content. The notion that the US political establishment is as obsessed by this (now or at any time in the recent past) as you "appear" to be, is way funnier than your current slapstick routine.

    Which would be worthy of Batley & Spen in their prime!
    I like this game! How about my neighbouring Folkestone & Hythe? A Victorian crime fighting duo or a brand of gin perhaps?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Cherry pick to your heart's content. The notion that the US political establishment is as obsessed by this (now or at any time in the recent past) as you "appear" to be, is way funnier than your current slapstick routine.

    Which would be worthy of Batley & Spen in their prime!
    Cherry pick?!? YOU picked the New York Times, and yet you somehow failed to notice that they infamously BROKE the story four years ago

    Deary me
  • SelebianSelebian Posts: 7,243
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
    In a few weeks we've gone from wild claims on Twitter to the Former US President saying "Yes, we don't know what these aircraft are doing, these are UFOs" - along with every major media outlet running a story: acknowledging that we *could* be seeing advanced alien life, on earth.

    That's potentially the biggest story in human history, I'm sorry it's not "moving fast enough" for you

    The alternative explanations, that China has secret hypersonic tech and has done for decades, that America has this tech but is somehow scaring itself with it, or that the USA has gone totally mad, would just be the biggest geopolitical story since World War 2
    Apology accepted. I guess I'm just used to being able to binge on Netflix. Waiting for the next instalment seems so noughties.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,227
    On the off chance that any PBers beside MS are still interested in actual elections,

    NYT ($) Guest Essay - Progressives Won Chile’s Election. And They Won Big.

    Ariel Dorfman - Over the weekend, the people of Chile voted in a historic election to select the members of a body tasked with drafting a new Constitution to replace the one written in 1980 under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

    The final tally dealt a severe blow to the followers of General Pinochet, many of whom make up the center-right and right-wing coalition Chile Vamos, backed by the current president, Sebastián Piñera, which won just 37 of the 155 seats for the Constitutional Convention. . . .

    The victors were a group of parties of a new-left coalition, Apruebo Dignidad (I Approve Dignity), which elected 28 representatives, and numerous independent candidates who had been active in the ongoing protests calling for reforms in education, health and pensions, and an end to the neoliberal economic model that has dominated Chile for almost half a century. The independent, left and center-left candidates secured a combined 101 seats, more than two-thirds of the Constitutional Convention. . . .

    The October 2019 revolt terrified the ruling coalition of conservative politicians, and they reached an agreement with center-left parties holding a majority in Congress to call a referendum asking the nation whether it wanted a new Constitution. . . .

    To make certain that they would wield a veto over the proceedings, many of General Pinochet’s followers in the Senate and Congress wrote into the agreement that the final document produced by the Constitutional Convention would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority. . . .

    That calculation backfired spectacularly over the past weekend as Chile Vamos, despite an enormous financial advantage, lost badly to independent and opposition candidates, and was sidelined from decision-making when it comes to the new charter. The defeat is all the more striking because the coalition also lost most of the mayor’s and governor’s races . . .

    There are, however, some disquieting signals ahead. Only 43 percent of the population voted in this election, compared with the more than 50 percent who turned out last year and overwhelmingly approved the idea of creating a new Constitution.

    This absenteeism can be partly attributed to the pandemic (which also stopped me and my wife from traveling to Chile to cast our votes) and partly to the widespread apathy of vast sectors of the electorate, particularly among the poorest families. . . .

    The other problem is that though nearly 75 percent of the delegates embody a progressive agenda, they are fragmented and tend to squabble among themselves, making it difficult to reach a consensus on how far to carry out the reforms Chile requires.

    None of this detracts from the encouraging message and example that Chile sends out to the world at a time of rising authoritarianism . . .
  • Stark_DawningStark_Dawning Posts: 9,232
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
    In a few weeks we've gone from wild claims on Twitter to the Former US President saying "Yes, we don't know what these aircraft are doing, these are UFOs" - along with every major media outlet running a story: acknowledging that we *could* be seeing advanced alien life, on earth.

    That's potentially the biggest story in human history, I'm sorry it's not "moving fast enough" for you

    The alternative explanations, that China has secret hypersonic tech and has done for decades, that America has this tech but is somehow scaring itself with it, or that the USA has gone totally mad, would just be the biggest geopolitical story since World War 2
    Aren't you treating with a bit too much seriousness a whimsical remark Obama made on a comedy chat show hosted by that fat English bloke who's on everything?
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water

    Has the waste water been vaccinated?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Selebian said:

    JVT...JVT....JVT....don't let us down, we need a good sporting analogy.

    "The Indian strain is like an Arsenal signing. Everyone thinks it's going to be a game changer, but then nothing much happens except a free transfer to Bolton."
    Stealing that.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,227
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Cherry pick to your heart's content. The notion that the US political establishment is as obsessed by this (now or at any time in the recent past) as you "appear" to be, is way funnier than your current slapstick routine.

    Which would be worthy of Batley & Spen in their prime!
    Cherry pick?!? YOU picked the New York Times, and yet you somehow failed to notice that they infamously BROKE the story four years ago

    Deary me
    And you did NOT bother to read what I said (or conveniently chose to ignore it) which is that I took TODAY's NYT top webpage (one that comes up when I click the NYT icon on my computer) and did a "find" search for the word "alien". Zippo.

    Have all the fun you want with this, but do NOT expect folks to actually take you seriously when you are babbling for comic relief. You've driven this gambit into the ground, and them some. About as amusing as the last few seasons of "Frazier"!
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,623

    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water

    He's got good eyesight.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,206

    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
    In a few weeks we've gone from wild claims on Twitter to the Former US President saying "Yes, we don't know what these aircraft are doing, these are UFOs" - along with every major media outlet running a story: acknowledging that we *could* be seeing advanced alien life, on earth.

    That's potentially the biggest story in human history, I'm sorry it's not "moving fast enough" for you

    The alternative explanations, that China has secret hypersonic tech and has done for decades, that America has this tech but is somehow scaring itself with it, or that the USA has gone totally mad, would just be the biggest geopolitical story since World War 2
    Aren't you treating with a bit too much seriousness a whimsical remark Obama made on a comedy chat show hosted by that fat English bloke who's on everything?
    Possibly. It livens up the day, For balance, here's Forbes saying no it is not aliens, surely. Their implication at the end is Chinese tech observing American military. Which is still pretty chilling

    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startswithabang/2021/05/19/why-arent-astronomers-paying-more-attention-to-ufos/?sh=31753fc96d8e&utm_campaign=socialflowForbesMainTwitter&utm_medium=social&utm_source=ForbesMainTwitter

    And now I am actually gonna do some work
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    Yep, a Con majority should be odds on. When shrewd as anything @isam comes along and tries to get a Grand on with you at evens, you can rest assured it's something about to go odds on.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    Leon said:

    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
    In a few weeks we've gone from wild claims on Twitter to the Former US President saying "Yes, we don't know what these aircraft are doing, these are UFOs" - along with every major media outlet running a story: acknowledging that we *could* be seeing advanced alien life, on earth.

    That's potentially the biggest story in human history, I'm sorry it's not "moving fast enough" for you

    The alternative explanations, that China has secret hypersonic tech and has done for decades, that America has this tech but is somehow scaring itself with it, or that the USA has gone totally mad, would just be the biggest geopolitical story since World War 2
    Seeing things we don't understand != alien life on earth.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001
    40,000 in Jan/Feb in hospital now down to 939 and averaging 8 daily deaths
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    On the off chance that any PBers beside MS are still interested in actual elections,

    NYT ($) Guest Essay - Progressives Won Chile’s Election. And They Won Big.

    Ariel Dorfman - Over the weekend, the people of Chile voted in a historic election to select the members of a body tasked with drafting a new Constitution to replace the one written in 1980 under the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet.

    The final tally dealt a severe blow to the followers of General Pinochet, many of whom make up the center-right and right-wing coalition Chile Vamos, backed by the current president, Sebastián Piñera, which won just 37 of the 155 seats for the Constitutional Convention. . . .

    The victors were a group of parties of a new-left coalition, Apruebo Dignidad (I Approve Dignity), which elected 28 representatives, and numerous independent candidates who had been active in the ongoing protests calling for reforms in education, health and pensions, and an end to the neoliberal economic model that has dominated Chile for almost half a century. The independent, left and center-left candidates secured a combined 101 seats, more than two-thirds of the Constitutional Convention. . . .

    The October 2019 revolt terrified the ruling coalition of conservative politicians, and they reached an agreement with center-left parties holding a majority in Congress to call a referendum asking the nation whether it wanted a new Constitution. . . .

    To make certain that they would wield a veto over the proceedings, many of General Pinochet’s followers in the Senate and Congress wrote into the agreement that the final document produced by the Constitutional Convention would have to be approved by a two-thirds majority. . . .

    That calculation backfired spectacularly over the past weekend as Chile Vamos, despite an enormous financial advantage, lost badly to independent and opposition candidates, and was sidelined from decision-making when it comes to the new charter. The defeat is all the more striking because the coalition also lost most of the mayor’s and governor’s races . . .

    There are, however, some disquieting signals ahead. Only 43 percent of the population voted in this election, compared with the more than 50 percent who turned out last year and overwhelmingly approved the idea of creating a new Constitution.

    This absenteeism can be partly attributed to the pandemic (which also stopped me and my wife from traveling to Chile to cast our votes) and partly to the widespread apathy of vast sectors of the electorate, particularly among the poorest families. . . .

    The other problem is that though nearly 75 percent of the delegates embody a progressive agenda, they are fragmented and tend to squabble among themselves, making it difficult to reach a consensus on how far to carry out the reforms Chile requires.

    None of this detracts from the encouraging message and example that Chile sends out to the world at a time of rising authoritarianism . . .

    “ The other problem is that though nearly 75 percent of the delegates embody a progressive agenda, they are fragmented and tend to squabble among themselves...”. Say it ain’t so! Progressives the world over tend to be renowned for cohesion and not shooting themselves in the foot through petty infighting over minute ideological points.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840

    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water

    He can?
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 38,840
    @Big_G_NorthWales

    You set us all up for that, didn't you?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    Matt Hancock - “Britain will now carefully replace shield of restrictions with the sword of vaccinations". Is paraphrasing Jonathan Aitken really wise at the moment?
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,623
    DougSeal said:

    Matt Hancock - “Britain will now carefully replace shield of restrictions with the sword of vaccinations". Is paraphrasing Jonathan Aitken really wise at the moment?

    Ah. Sword makes more sense. I thought he said saw, which sounded a bit bizarre.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547
    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    I don’t know how ministers manage to avoid bringing up her rule breaking whenever she has a pop.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 14,874

    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water

    Yep - we've been doing this for a long time. Our surveillance really is world beating in this respect.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 49,614
    edited May 2021

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    I don’t know how ministers manage to avoid bringing up her rule breaking whenever she has a pop.
    I’m quite schocked that no ministers have given both barrels to some idiot Lobby hack asking the most inane of questions. I’d have bet on Gove or Johnson.
  • solarflaresolarflare Posts: 3,623
    What newspaper is that guy asking a question on behalf of? I can't tell.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 4,793
    FPT:
    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956

    What newspaper is that guy asking a question on behalf of? I can't tell.

    Carrie Antoinette's ex?
  • MikeSmithsonMikeSmithson Posts: 7,382
    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,755
    Selebian said:

    Leon said:

    FPT

    SeaShantyIrish2 said:

    "the entire US political establishment, left to right, lining up behind the aliens hypothesis"

    Really? That statement is itself nonsense.

    Just bring up the New York Times website on you computer. And search of a mention of the word "alien". Which yours truly just did. With ZERO results.

    Of course could be that the aliens are suppressing the "fact" that the "entire US political establishment" is as obsessed with UFOs or whatever the kids are calling them these days, as you are PRETENDING to be?

    Remember Leon critiquing CycleFree for being MUCH MUCH MUCH to long with her commentaries.

    Talk bout the Alien calling the Earthling green!


    +++++++++


    You didn't google very hard. The New York Times was actually the first major media corp to approach this in a serious way - famously so, in 2017:

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/pentagon-program-ufo-harry-reid.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/18/insider/secret-pentagon-ufo-program.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/29/science/ufos-aliens-space-travel.html

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/16/us/politics/unidentified-flying-object-navy.html

    Hmm, 2017. Looking at those reports and the recent ones... Well, unlike the UAPs, this story is not exactly fast-moving, is it?

    Wake me up in 2025 for another look.
    Way optimistic. I linked to this :https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMinnville_UFO_photographs on the previous thread. This has been going on for at least 71 years. We could have another Labour government before an alien invasion at this rate!
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038
    (((Dan Hodges)))
    @DPJHodges
    ·
    3m
    Hospitalisations from Indian variant currently flat. That’s the key statistic.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 58,038

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    Guardian has a good cartoon on this:

    https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/picture/2021/may/18/ben-jennings-on-the-lifting-of-lockdown-cartoon
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    edited May 2021

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
  • NickPalmerNickPalmer Posts: 21,263
    rcs1000 said:

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil Thompson's vision of the future really is quite chilling - England as a high-density housing estate where everyone has to live on imported frozen kangaroo burgers.

    England already is a high density housing estate.

    Just some people want nice spacious detached homes surrounded by countryside while the plebs are piled high in tower blocks in the city even if they can afford to buy land in elsewhere.
    It is not an unreasonable aspiration to own a nice home.
    Agreed.

    So why do NIMBYs wish to deny that aspiration to others?
    Its when green belt is taken that problems arise. There is any amount of brownfield sites to be developed. The requisite infrastructure promised by developers surgery etc schools etc rarely happens so the existing infrastructure is overwhelmed.
    There aren't any number of brownfield sites. That's the problem.

    Population has increased by a sixth in recent years but housing hasn't and there aren't brownfield sites to cover the gap. Because whatever was on a brownfield site has a tendency to be replaced.

    If more infrastructure is needed then construct that too. On greenfield too.

    And if you don't want fields being developed then what is stopping you from buying the fields then refusing permission to build on them? Since you own them, you decide.
    Why has population increased when the UK birthrate is only 1.68 ie below replacement level? Immigration.

    So if the government reduce immigration via the new points system then the demand for new housing should fall too anyway
    The biggest impact is smaller household units - divorces, delays in partnering up, children moving out sooner etc
    If a population lives in 40 million houses and the occupancy changed from 2.1 to 2.0 you need nearly a million more houses for a reason which is invisible to the naked eye.

    And as you need most of them where pressure is already high and the NIMBYs most active it is a political and practical problem.

    Yes, lots of us have, over the past 30 years, vastly increased the amount of square footage of house we occupy - largely through the process described above. A family of four who bought their house in the 90s and lived in it perfectly happily is now a retired couple of two, living in the same house, plus two children each living in a small two bed flat. This process has happened over and over and over again. The result has been that those least able to afford a house are now sleeping on their Mum's sofa in her one bed flat.

    This has been the result of nothing more malign than demographic change.

    I was manning a consultation relating to a large greenfield housing development a couple of years back. Lots and lots and lots of people angry that their bit of countryside was going to be built on and that their roads would be busier. In amongst which, a cleaner at the community centre came to have a look. "Please," she said to me under her breath, "just build them. I don't care what they look like. I don't care about newts. I've got two grown up sons living in my living room because they can't get a house. Just build them."
    But, I suspect she didn't fill in the response form, while the middle-class* hordes who lived adjacent to the green belt in question did.

    *I don't use this pejoratively. I'm middle classs. It's a good thing to be. But we need to recognise that our views aren't necessarily those of everyone.
    This is an incredibly insightful post, and also demonstrates one of the massive problems of stamp duty: it's a frickin' tax on trading down.

    The tax system should encourage the efficient allocation of resources. Stamp duty does the opposite.
    Cookie's post is great (and I agree about stamp duty too). When we formed the current non-Tory coalition in Waverley, we came up against the awkward fact that Labour had campaigned on "more social and affordable housing" while our Resident partners (anti-Tory independents) had essentially campaigned on "no new housing". We compromised on "as little new expensive housing as is compatible with the Local Plan that the Tories bequeathed", which doesn't make a snappy slogan but is working out reasonably. I did initially find that officers tended to assume from years of local Tory rule that the Executive were against new construction anywhere and regarded it as an intolerable burden imposed by governments (whether Tory or anything else).

    We've got past that. But the constraints imposed by Plan Inspectors and developers wriggling out of delivering social housing remain a real hurdle.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,182
    rcs1000 said:

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil Thompson's vision of the future really is quite chilling - England as a high-density housing estate where everyone has to live on imported frozen kangaroo burgers.

    England already is a high density housing estate.

    Just some people want nice spacious detached homes surrounded by countryside while the plebs are piled high in tower blocks in the city even if they can afford to buy land in elsewhere.
    It is not an unreasonable aspiration to own a nice home.
    Agreed.

    So why do NIMBYs wish to deny that aspiration to others?
    Its when green belt is taken that problems arise. There is any amount of brownfield sites to be developed. The requisite infrastructure promised by developers surgery etc schools etc rarely happens so the existing infrastructure is overwhelmed.
    There aren't any number of brownfield sites. That's the problem.

    Population has increased by a sixth in recent years but housing hasn't and there aren't brownfield sites to cover the gap. Because whatever was on a brownfield site has a tendency to be replaced.

    If more infrastructure is needed then construct that too. On greenfield too.

    And if you don't want fields being developed then what is stopping you from buying the fields then refusing permission to build on them? Since you own them, you decide.
    Why has population increased when the UK birthrate is only 1.68 ie below replacement level? Immigration.

    So if the government reduce immigration via the new points system then the demand for new housing should fall too anyway
    The biggest impact is smaller household units - divorces, delays in partnering up, children moving out sooner etc
    If a population lives in 40 million houses and the occupancy changed from 2.1 to 2.0 you need nearly a million more houses for a reason which is invisible to the naked eye.

    And as you need most of them where pressure is already high and the NIMBYs most active it is a political and practical problem.

    Yes, lots of us have, over the past 30 years, vastly increased the amount of square footage of house we occupy - largely through the process described above. A family of four who bought their house in the 90s and lived in it perfectly happily is now a retired couple of two, living in the same house, plus two children each living in a small two bed flat. This process has happened over and over and over again. The result has been that those least able to afford a house are now sleeping on their Mum's sofa in her one bed flat.

    This has been the result of nothing more malign than demographic change.

    I was manning a consultation relating to a large greenfield housing development a couple of years back. Lots and lots and lots of people angry that their bit of countryside was going to be built on and that their roads would be busier. In amongst which, a cleaner at the community centre came to have a look. "Please," she said to me under her breath, "just build them. I don't care what they look like. I don't care about newts. I've got two grown up sons living in my living room because they can't get a house. Just build them."
    But, I suspect she didn't fill in the response form, while the middle-class* hordes who lived adjacent to the green belt in question did.

    *I don't use this pejoratively. I'm middle classs. It's a good thing to be. But we need to recognise that our views aren't necessarily those of everyone.
    This is an incredibly insightful post, and also demonstrates one of the massive problems of stamp duty: it's a frickin' tax on trading down.

    The tax system should encourage the efficient allocation of resources. Stamp duty does the opposite.
    Well that's very kind of you to say, but for the first half at least I am merely recycling the insight of someone I work with. Though of all the people I have worked with his is the brain I respect most on the subject.
    Interestingly though your conclusion is also his; we need better mechanisms - including the ones you and, I think, @ping on the previous thread, suggest for enabling and encouraging trading down.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    And are so bored that minds become febrile.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    We'll call you selfish and self-centred (perhaps even immoral), but don't feel bad about it, please.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    No, she's a moron....or does an amazing impression of one.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021
    God the journalists really are thickos....they remind me of Jezza responding to a budget, he has his prepared questions to ask, but can't think of a new one or have a secondary set in case the situation changes or a number of things he is going to ask about get answered in one response.

    How many times do journalists literally ask a question that Hancock or JVT have just specifically talked about.

    The public ask better questions.
  • Time_to_LeaveTime_to_Leave Posts: 2,547

    God the journalists really are thickos....they remind me of Jezza responding to a budget, he has his prepared questions to ask, but can't think of a new one or have a secondary set in case the situation changes or a number of things he is going to ask about get answered in one response.

    How many times do journalists literally ask a question that Hancock or JVT have just specifically talked about.

    The public ask better questions.

    I think that’s the key point. They don’t listen to what has been said and react to it. See also most select committees.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    TimT said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    And are so bored that minds become febrile.
    It's almost like hundreds of millions of people have been hanging around at home watching YouTube videos specifically about how to add UFOs to movies...

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtpMxXSPEhU
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021

    God the journalists really are thickos....they remind me of Jezza responding to a budget, he has his prepared questions to ask, but can't think of a new one or have a secondary set in case the situation changes or a number of things he is going to ask about get answered in one response.

    How many times do journalists literally ask a question that Hancock or JVT have just specifically talked about.

    The public ask better questions.

    I think that’s the key point. They don’t listen to what has been said and react to it. See also most select committees.
    Absolutely...and this has been going on every week for well over a f##king year. Do some f##king homework and educate yourself so you can ask some sensible questions.

    Or the other one is they ask a question where there is clearly no answer e.g. can you tell us to the percentage point how much more deadly is the Indian variant and on what second of what hour of what day will we stop being able to wear a mask.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059
    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    There’s a great bit in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica when the ship does a Hail Mary rescue mission by freefalling from the upper atmosphere, a mile long chunk of metal falling like a rock towards a settlement below, before faster than light jumping away back into space only 400 metres off the ground. The producers did a great job of the atmospheric effects of air sucking back into the void where the Battlestar Galactica used to be, the disruption helping the humans on the ground as a distraction to escape their Cylon captors.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    Spurs fans killing Harry with kindness. If it was Arsenal, they'd be burning an effigy of him!
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    As the Senedd elections showed the Welsh will do whatever Drakeford tells them to do because he is magnificent, they know divine brilliance when they see it.

    Keep reading my posts on Wales as you might learn something about Wales and her people.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    No, she's a moron....or does an amazing impression of one.
    No Rigby has an agenda and a worldview and tries to shoehorn the news into them. This is true of many modern journalists. Her agenda shapes her questions and the way the news is reported.

    Sort of the opposite of the great John Cole.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 50,755

    DavidL said:

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    Actually, not for the first time recently, Drakeford has this spot on. There are 2 questions here. Is it a good idea that people go abroad on holiday this summer? To which the answer is of course not unless you can find a country with a better vaccination rate than the UK. That might be Gibraltar.

    The second question is, is it such a bad idea that the government should use criminal sanctions to stop it? I would say not given our current projection in terms of vaccinations, hospitalisations and deaths. The risk is not negligible but it does not justify criminal penalties.
    But, aren't these actually the mixed messages that poor Beth is struggling with ?

    Remember, this is a highly paid UK journalist we are talking about -- so someone with no discernible talent or understanding of numbers or judgment of risk or scientific ability.
    She is an idiot. But it wouldn't do any harm if Ministers occasionally explained that they do not think that everything they think is a bad idea should be illegal. That is not what happens in a free society. Not even in Scotland.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    tlg86 said:

    Spurs fans killing Harry with kindness. If it was Arsenal, they'd be burning an effigy of him!

    Of course Arsenal fans would be burning an effigy of Harry Kane because he's an Arsenal fan and betrayal hurts more when it is one of your own.

    https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/553477207243636738
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164
    I'm certain that the media's behaviour over the last year has helped the Tories a lot.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    No, she's a moron....or does an amazing impression of one.
    No Rigby has an agenda and a worldview and tries to shoehorn the news into them. This is true of many modern journalists. Her agenda shapes her questions and the way the news is reported.

    Sort of the opposite of the great John Cole.
    I think we need another word for this type of newspaper writer. Journalist is taken and means something else. Perhaps 'commentator', 'fact-bender', 'closed-minded bore' or something along those lines.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,227
    Politico.com - The Inside Story of the Biden-Harris Debate Blowup
    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have appeared so in lockstep that it’s hard to remember how tense their early campaign days were.

    " . . . Biden arrived in Miami in late June 2019 as a teetering frontrunner, under fire for having just gotten nostalgic talking about the old days in the Senate working with segregationists. Harris arrived seemingly on the cusp of being a superstar, though her strength as a candidate was shakier under the surface than anyone outside the campaign sensed. Everyone who was paying attention remembers what happened next: Harris scored the most viral moment of the race by slamming Biden for his 1970s position on busing, linking the attack to the story of a girl who had needed to be bused herself, and punctuating it: “That little girl was me.”

    But the never-before-told story of what happened behind the scenes as Harris prepared for that debate, and Biden and his team in turn responded, explains how close Harris came to not getting picked for the ticket—and why she and Biden both have worked so hard to build up their relationship in the months since. . . . .

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/19/edward-isaac-dovere-2020-campaign-book-excerpt-joe-biden-kamala-harris-489347
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    Spurs fans killing Harry with kindness. If it was Arsenal, they'd be burning an effigy of him!

    Of course Arsenal fans would be burning an effigy of Harry Kane because he's an Arsenal fan and betrayal hurts more when it is one of your own.

    https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/553477207243636738
    Love the 2000-02 shirt.
  • moonshinemoonshine Posts: 5,226
    edited May 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    Put the lack of sonic boom in the very big bucket labelled “physics we don’t understand” then. I’m not the one saying it. It’s the last Director of National Intelligence saying it. And the ex head of the programme appointed by Congress to investigate these military interactions.

    As Leon has tried to point out, you are all missing the story spectacularly. Don’t try and debunk a given video on YouTube. Explain what the f*** has happened to the public discourse on this in a matter of mere months, led by a string of senior and respectable figures who receive (or received) classified security briefings.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 10,341
    FWIW it seems to me that once you have allowed a tiny % for the chance of a Labour majority (which I would put generously at 5%) there is no way at this distance of mathematically or prophetically distinguishing between the chances of NOM or a Tory majority, and that each should be regarded as roughly a 48% chance.
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Politico.com - The Inside Story of the Biden-Harris Debate Blowup
    President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris have appeared so in lockstep that it’s hard to remember how tense their early campaign days were.

    " . . . Biden arrived in Miami in late June 2019 as a teetering frontrunner, under fire for having just gotten nostalgic talking about the old days in the Senate working with segregationists. Harris arrived seemingly on the cusp of being a superstar, though her strength as a candidate was shakier under the surface than anyone outside the campaign sensed. Everyone who was paying attention remembers what happened next: Harris scored the most viral moment of the race by slamming Biden for his 1970s position on busing, linking the attack to the story of a girl who had needed to be bused herself, and punctuating it: “That little girl was me.”

    But the never-before-told story of what happened behind the scenes as Harris prepared for that debate, and Biden and his team in turn responded, explains how close Harris came to not getting picked for the ticket—and why she and Biden both have worked so hard to build up their relationship in the months since. . . . .

    https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2021/05/19/edward-isaac-dovere-2020-campaign-book-excerpt-joe-biden-kamala-harris-489347

    The fact that they are both adult enough to patch that up and put it behind them bodes well.
  • BluestBlueBluestBlue Posts: 4,556
    DougSeal said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    There’s a great bit in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica when the ship does a Hail Mary rescue mission by freefalling from the upper atmosphere, a mile long chunk of metal falling like a rock towards a settlement below, before faster than light jumping away back into space only 400 metres off the ground. The producers did a great job of the atmospheric effects of air sucking back into the void where the Battlestar Galactica used to be, the disruption helping the humans on the ground as a distraction to escape their Cylon captors.
    Ah, who doesn't love the Adama Manoeuvre?

    Wait a minute, maybe the 'aliens' are actually long-lost humans who have finally made it back to Earth ... and are extremely confused...
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    Dodgy Dave?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    edited May 2021
    tlg86 said:

    I'm certain that the media's behaviour over the last year has helped the Tories a lot.

    It is their acalculia that winds me up no end.

    How do these people with no numeracy or statistical ability survive in life?

    Edit - It was around last May when they seemed shocked that as tests ramped up confirmed positive tests would also go up.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    As the Senedd elections showed the Welsh will do whatever Drakeford tells them to do because he is magnificent, they know divine brilliance when they see it.

    Keep reading my posts on Wales as you might learn something about Wales and her people.
    Curious. I remember you tipped Drakeford losing Cardiff West as a good bet and even wrote a header on it.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/18/is-mark-drakeford-the-new-sir-winston-churchill/

    You even fooled Casino Royale to follow you into an obvious loser.

    You even wrote:

    "On that basis I make the 25/1 on the Tories stupendous value, if you’re lucky like me, Ladbrokes may even boost the odds to 28/1."

    And you didn't even realise why Ladbrokes -- after they stopped guffawing -- let you have better odds. 😀😀😀
  • Philip_ThompsonPhilip_Thompson Posts: 65,826

    rcs1000 said:

    Cookie said:

    algarkirk said:

    Charles said:

    HYUFD said:

    Phil Thompson's vision of the future really is quite chilling - England as a high-density housing estate where everyone has to live on imported frozen kangaroo burgers.

    England already is a high density housing estate.

    Just some people want nice spacious detached homes surrounded by countryside while the plebs are piled high in tower blocks in the city even if they can afford to buy land in elsewhere.
    It is not an unreasonable aspiration to own a nice home.
    Agreed.

    So why do NIMBYs wish to deny that aspiration to others?
    Its when green belt is taken that problems arise. There is any amount of brownfield sites to be developed. The requisite infrastructure promised by developers surgery etc schools etc rarely happens so the existing infrastructure is overwhelmed.
    There aren't any number of brownfield sites. That's the problem.

    Population has increased by a sixth in recent years but housing hasn't and there aren't brownfield sites to cover the gap. Because whatever was on a brownfield site has a tendency to be replaced.

    If more infrastructure is needed then construct that too. On greenfield too.

    And if you don't want fields being developed then what is stopping you from buying the fields then refusing permission to build on them? Since you own them, you decide.
    Why has population increased when the UK birthrate is only 1.68 ie below replacement level? Immigration.

    So if the government reduce immigration via the new points system then the demand for new housing should fall too anyway
    The biggest impact is smaller household units - divorces, delays in partnering up, children moving out sooner etc
    If a population lives in 40 million houses and the occupancy changed from 2.1 to 2.0 you need nearly a million more houses for a reason which is invisible to the naked eye.

    And as you need most of them where pressure is already high and the NIMBYs most active it is a political and practical problem.

    Yes, lots of us have, over the past 30 years, vastly increased the amount of square footage of house we occupy - largely through the process described above. A family of four who bought their house in the 90s and lived in it perfectly happily is now a retired couple of two, living in the same house, plus two children each living in a small two bed flat. This process has happened over and over and over again. The result has been that those least able to afford a house are now sleeping on their Mum's sofa in her one bed flat.

    This has been the result of nothing more malign than demographic change.

    I was manning a consultation relating to a large greenfield housing development a couple of years back. Lots and lots and lots of people angry that their bit of countryside was going to be built on and that their roads would be busier. In amongst which, a cleaner at the community centre came to have a look. "Please," she said to me under her breath, "just build them. I don't care what they look like. I don't care about newts. I've got two grown up sons living in my living room because they can't get a house. Just build them."
    But, I suspect she didn't fill in the response form, while the middle-class* hordes who lived adjacent to the green belt in question did.

    *I don't use this pejoratively. I'm middle classs. It's a good thing to be. But we need to recognise that our views aren't necessarily those of everyone.
    This is an incredibly insightful post, and also demonstrates one of the massive problems of stamp duty: it's a frickin' tax on trading down.

    The tax system should encourage the efficient allocation of resources. Stamp duty does the opposite.
    Cookie's post is great (and I agree about stamp duty too). When we formed the current non-Tory coalition in Waverley, we came up against the awkward fact that Labour had campaigned on "more social and affordable housing" while our Resident partners (anti-Tory independents) had essentially campaigned on "no new housing". We compromised on "as little new expensive housing as is compatible with the Local Plan that the Tories bequeathed", which doesn't make a snappy slogan but is working out reasonably. I did initially find that officers tended to assume from years of local Tory rule that the Executive were against new construction anywhere and regarded it as an intolerable burden imposed by governments (whether Tory or anything else).

    We've got past that. But the constraints imposed by Plan Inspectors and developers wriggling out of delivering social housing remain a real hurdle.
    "social housing" is code for shit homes cramming as many plebs into as little land as possible, keeping the rest of the land unspoilt to protect and keep high the house prices of those NIMBYs who already have homes.

    Free up enough land for everyone to get a good home if they want one, not just "social housing".
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,328
    Not sure if this story has been flagged here yet. Apologies if it has.

    NYC Attorney General investigating the Trump Organization 'in a criminal capacity'

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-organization-criminal-investigation-new-york/

    I presume that this means the AG thinks the organization may have committed crimes, rather than that the AG is going about his own work in a criminal manner.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    DougSeal said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    There’s a great bit in the rebooted Battlestar Galactica when the ship does a Hail Mary rescue mission by freefalling from the upper atmosphere, a mile long chunk of metal falling like a rock towards a settlement below, before faster than light jumping away back into space only 400 metres off the ground. The producers did a great job of the atmospheric effects of air sucking back into the void where the Battlestar Galactica used to be, the disruption helping the humans on the ground as a distraction to escape their Cylon captors.
    Star Wars: The Force Awakens says "hello"!
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,909
    TimT said:

    Not sure if this story has been flagged here yet. Apologies if it has.

    NYC Attorney General investigating the Trump Organization 'in a criminal capacity'

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-organization-criminal-investigation-new-york/

    I presume that this means the AG thinks the organization may have committed crimes, rather than that the AG is going about his own work in a criminal manner.

    Now you know why Trump was so keen to remain in the White House :lol:
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    As the Senedd elections showed the Welsh will do whatever Drakeford tells them to do because he is magnificent, they know divine brilliance when they see it.

    Keep reading my posts on Wales as you might learn something about Wales and her people.
    Curious. I remember you tipped Drakeford losing Cardiff West as a good bet and even wrote a header on it.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/18/is-mark-drakeford-the-new-sir-winston-churchill/

    You even fooled Casino Royale to follow you into an obvious loser.

    You even wrote:

    "On that basis I make the 25/1 on the Tories stupendous value, if you’re lucky like me, Ladbrokes may even boost the odds to 28/1."

    And you didn't even realise why Ladbrokes -- after they stopped guffawing -- let you have better odds. 😀😀😀
    Just because something is value doesn't mean it was a prediction.

    Here's my most considered posts on the matter.

    YouGov and Opinium show different things on the VI but are consistent in showing the Welsh rate and prefer Mark Drakeford

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/20/the-welsh-look-like-cementing-their-role-as-the-mitch-mcconnell-of-british-politics/

    and

    Looking at those supplementaries past form suggests Drakeford’s leadership might be responsible for Labour doing better than the headline voting intention suggests, even if Boris Johnson premiership isn’t on the ballot paper in May’s Senedd election. Perhaps Welsh Labour should rebrand themselves as the Mark Drakeford Party to capitalise on his excellent leader and supplementary ratings.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/03/28/the-prince-of-wales-of-peoples-hearts-in-peoples-hearts-and-votes/

    You do realise that Ladbrokes for example boosted my bet of Sunak as next PM from 200/1 to 250/1, I mean who is laughing now? They've done it for a couple of other winners.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    God the journalists really are thickos....they remind me of Jezza responding to a budget, he has his prepared questions to ask, but can't think of a new one or have a secondary set in case the situation changes or a number of things he is going to ask about get answered in one response.

    How many times do journalists literally ask a question that Hancock or JVT have just specifically talked about.

    The public ask better questions.

    I think that’s the key point. They don’t listen to what has been said and react to it. See also most select committees.
    We’ve done this before. It’s because they’re not actually interested in working as a team to actually extract useful information. They all just want their question and answer to pad the evening report. And they want their face to be on tv asking their question. So if they’ve all decided what their line will be on the evening bulletin across the channels, then they all end up asking pretty much the same question.

    It’s actually the best argument against televised briefings/press conferences. Put it all off cameras and they might actually have a motivation to ask some decent (and different!) questions.
  • YBarddCwscYBarddCwsc Posts: 7,172

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    As the Senedd elections showed the Welsh will do whatever Drakeford tells them to do because he is magnificent, they know divine brilliance when they see it.

    Keep reading my posts on Wales as you might learn something about Wales and her people.
    Curious. I remember you tipped Drakeford losing Cardiff West as a good bet and even wrote a header on it.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/18/is-mark-drakeford-the-new-sir-winston-churchill/

    You even fooled Casino Royale to follow you into an obvious loser.

    You even wrote:

    "On that basis I make the 25/1 on the Tories stupendous value, if you’re lucky like me, Ladbrokes may even boost the odds to 28/1."

    And you didn't even realise why Ladbrokes -- after they stopped guffawing -- let you have better odds. 😀😀😀
    Just because something is value doesn't mean it was a prediction.

    Here's my most considered posts on the matter.

    YouGov and Opinium show different things on the VI but are consistent in showing the Welsh rate and prefer Mark Drakeford

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/04/20/the-welsh-look-like-cementing-their-role-as-the-mitch-mcconnell-of-british-politics/

    and

    Looking at those supplementaries past form suggests Drakeford’s leadership might be responsible for Labour doing better than the headline voting intention suggests, even if Boris Johnson premiership isn’t on the ballot paper in May’s Senedd election. Perhaps Welsh Labour should rebrand themselves as the Mark Drakeford Party to capitalise on his excellent leader and supplementary ratings.

    https://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2021/03/28/the-prince-of-wales-of-peoples-hearts-in-peoples-hearts-and-votes/

    You do realise that Ladbrokes for example boosted my bet of Sunak as next PM from 200/1 to 250/1, I mean who is laughing now? They've done it for a couple of other winners.
    It was not a good bet. It was never a good bet.

    That is why Ladbrokes gave you better odds.
  • Big_G_NorthWalesBig_G_NorthWales Posts: 60,001

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    As the Senedd elections showed the Welsh will do whatever Drakeford tells them to do because he is magnificent, they know divine brilliance when they see it.

    Keep reading my posts on Wales as you might learn something about Wales and her people.
    Maybe try living here
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Spurs fans killing Harry with kindness. If it was Arsenal, they'd be burning an effigy of him!

    Of course Arsenal fans would be burning an effigy of Harry Kane because he's an Arsenal fan and betrayal hurts more when it is one of your own.

    https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/553477207243636738
    Love the 2000-02 shirt.
    I always liked that special kit you wore during the last season at Highbury.

    I kinda liked it when the RFU released an England alternate shirt that looked exactly like that.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    I'm certain that the media's behaviour over the last year has helped the Tories a lot.

    It is their acalculia that winds me up no end.

    How do these people with no numeracy or statistical ability survive in life?

    Edit - It was around last May when they seemed shocked that as tests ramped up confirmed positive tests would also go up.
    It's only when you leave school and start working that you realise how many allegedly intelligent people are innumerate.
  • contrariancontrarian Posts: 5,818
    TimT said:

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    No, she's a moron....or does an amazing impression of one.
    No Rigby has an agenda and a worldview and tries to shoehorn the news into them. This is true of many modern journalists. Her agenda shapes her questions and the way the news is reported.

    Sort of the opposite of the great John Cole.
    I think we need another word for this type of newspaper writer. Journalist is taken and means something else. Perhaps 'commentator', 'fact-bender', 'closed-minded bore' or something along those lines.
    Modern reporters are not content with reporting the facts. They see themselves as moral crusaders or political activists. Having your emotions spill over because the government of the day is so howwibly right wing is honorable and right.

    Contrast with Cole. Year after year he reported on the Thatcher government and yet never once did he allow his own politics to get anywhere near his reports.

    Modern reporters reek of their opinions.

  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072

    Sandpit said:

    Death Rigby banging on about confusion and mixed messages....yawn.

    Just because *she* gets easily confused...
    No because Beth is right This is huge weakness that partisan PB Tories struggle to accept.
    I guess as always we can look at the one country Labour control.

    Wales.

    Drakeford has asked people in Wales not to go on holiday abroad in 2021, even though -- according to his Government -- they are allowed to.

    Drakeford added that he did not want to "make people feel guilty" about going abroad, but urged people to "think of their own safety and the safety of others".

    All crystal clear from Llafur in Wales -- no mixed messages there 😉

    Everything is allowed except it is also forbidden.
    As the Senedd elections showed the Welsh will do whatever Drakeford tells them to do because he is magnificent, they know divine brilliance when they see it.

    Keep reading my posts on Wales as you might learn something about Wales and her people.
    Maybe try living here
    Cant forsake the drake
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,766
    moonshine said:

    rcs1000 said:

    FPT:

    moonshine said:

    .

    Nigelb said:

    I observed something I couldn't account for yesterday, when my computer crashed. It could have been alien technology, but I think there are simpler explanations.

    Idiotic comparison. You may not know why it crashed. but a suitably skilled person could trace through the memory dump generated when your computer crashed and figure out why it happened.

    Nobody appears to know what the heck is going on with these UAPs, and their behaviour appears to suggest our understanding of physics is much more limited than we thought.
    That the UAPs aren't doing what people think they are, and it's faked video, an optical illusion or similar, is far more plausible than that the laws of physics aren't being obeyed.
    Not that there’s any point trying to persuade you but the ultra performance is explainable within the bounds of our physics even if requires magic from an engineering perspective.

    It would require a gravity well to be formed around the craft, bending spacetime. While moving at speeds closer to light requires ever more inordinate and unrealistic amounts of energy the closer you get to c, there’s actually nothing in our understanding of physics that says that spacetime cannot expand faster than light. In fact we think in many places it is doing so.

    This would explain several features, notably the transmedium performance, the lack of obvious propulsion means, the acceleration capabilities without causing sonic booms or combustion of atmospheric N2. And the strange visual blurring reported by military eye witnesses, that might also explain why the photos are never crystal clear. It would also presumably mean the time dilation effects from very fast speeds would not occur.

    This is without delving into our physics being utterly incomplete. The lack of compatibility between the Standard Model of QM and Relativity, even though both have excellent empirical support. Matter making up only 5% of the gravitational effects we can measure, with 27% dark matter and dark energy the rest. What is dark matter and where is it? We dunno. What is dark energy? We know less about that than dark matter.

    No doubt Philip Thompson can explain it all and hence tell us why the US defense and intelligence establishment is totally wrong with what now appears to be its leading hypothesis for these phenomena.
    Wait, what?
    Creating a gravity well and twisting space-time wouldn't avoid interactions with the medium.
    It would, though, have all sorts of repercussions. Colossal gravity waves, for a start, and we do have sensors for that. A gravity well like that would have big repercussions in all sorts of areas, from distorting orbits overhead through to ripping items off the ground and massive* issues caused in weather**
    It wouldn't avoid N2 combustion, or sonic booms (the air is still there and still has to go somewhere)

    * Pun intended
    ** Hey, @Leon - we've got a weather link for you!
    "the air is still there and still has to go somewhere"

    Is the absolute crucial part for me.

    Now, high altitude stuff on the edge of space is much more plausible because there's less air there.

    And here's the other thing: if you can avoid having your spaceship "interfering" with other matter (or to put it another way, using the same physical space without affecting it), then why can't these spaceships simply fly through the ground? Because that's matter too.

    Plus, if you're not interacting with matter around you, why is light bouncing off you?

    You don't need to be a genius to realise that videos like the Utah one are massively more likely to be done in After Effects than to be evidence of aliens on earth.

    (And it shouldn't surprise us that these videos are popping up at about the same time that it becomes easy for people at home to make videos like this.)
    Put the lack of sonic boom in the very big bucket labelled “physics we don’t understand” then. I’m not the one saying it. It’s the last Director of National Intelligence saying it. And the ex head of the programme appointed by Congress to investigate these military interactions.

    As Leon has tried to point out, you are all missing the story spectacularly. Don’t try and debunk a given video on YouTube. Explain what the f*** has happened to the public discourse on this in a matter of mere months, led by a string of senior and respectable figures who receive (or received) classified security briefings.
    "Don’t try and debunk a given video on YouTube. Explain what the f*** has happened to the public discourse on this in a matter of mere months"

    So. You're saying that because there are lots of news stories about something, that something must be happening more frequently?

    Do you really want to go there?
  • DougSealDougSeal Posts: 11,059

    Well that's it. All exams done. I think I'll open a few tinnys now!

    Congratulations! Whole new vistas of timesheets and attendance notes await you!
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    Absolute quality own goal by Spurs there.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 25,164

    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    Spurs fans killing Harry with kindness. If it was Arsenal, they'd be burning an effigy of him!

    Of course Arsenal fans would be burning an effigy of Harry Kane because he's an Arsenal fan and betrayal hurts more when it is one of your own.

    https://twitter.com/brfootball/status/553477207243636738
    Love the 2000-02 shirt.
    I always liked that special kit you wore during the last season at Highbury.

    I kinda liked it when the RFU released an England alternate shirt that looked exactly like that.
    I didn't. I was bought the 04-05 shirt (I have AT THE LANE 04 on the back of it) as a Christmas present. Only lasted another few months (I know shirts only last one season these days, which I think the PL should put a stop to).

    And it's now known that the shirt from the first season at Highbury was red not that maroon we wore.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 61,557

    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water

    Now that’s a niche superpower.
  • glwglw Posts: 9,535
    edited May 2021

    Aren't you treating with a bit too much seriousness a whimsical remark Obama made on a comedy chat show hosted by that fat English bloke who's on everything?

    You also have people like the former DNI, John Ratcliffe, saying things like:

    “There are instances where we don’t have good explanations for some of the things that we’ve seen,” he added. “And when that information becomes declassified, I’ll be able to talk a little bit more about that.”


    In the Fox News interview, Ratcliffe described the sightings this way: “We are talking about objects that have been seen by Navy or Air Force pilots, or have been picked up by satellite imagery, that frankly engage in actions that are difficult to explain, movements that are hard to replicate, that we don’t have the technology for or are traveling at speeds that exceed the sound barrier without a sonic boom.”


    https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/2021/03/23/ufo-report-covid-bill/

    It's worth noting I don't think any satellite imagery of UAPs has been seen yet.

    Even if you don't think aliens are invovled, for the man who was the head of the US Intelligence Community until early this year to say such things is pretty far out.
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,956
    tlg86 said:

    tlg86 said:

    I'm certain that the media's behaviour over the last year has helped the Tories a lot.

    It is their acalculia that winds me up no end.

    How do these people with no numeracy or statistical ability survive in life?

    Edit - It was around last May when they seemed shocked that as tests ramped up confirmed positive tests would also go up.
    It's only when you leave school and start working that you realise how many allegedly intelligent people are innumerate.
    Indeed.

    I don't expect people to do things like to do standard deviations in their heads but I would like them to have an understanding mean, median, and modal.

    Have a bit of thinking before you blast out a big number because you think it is interesting.

    It is not something limited to journalists in this country.

    https://www.politifact.com/factchecks/2020/mar/06/msnbc/bad-math-msnbc-bloombergs-ad-spending-wasnt-enough/
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited May 2021
    Nigelb said:

    Hancock

    Can spot the virus in waste water

    Now that’s a niche superpower.
    I am sure Disney or Warner Bro are on it for a character in a new series as part of the extended MCU or DC Extended Universe.
This discussion has been closed.