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Last stop before the midterms: Virginia 2021 – politicalbetting.com
Last stop before the midterms: Virginia 2021 – politicalbetting.com
Next Thursday, America once again goes the polls. Or a few bits of it do, which hold so called ‘Off-year’ elections between four year Presidential cycles and the two year Congressional cycle.
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It would therefore be rather surprising if the Democrats were to win here.
From friends in DC, I hear there are three main reasons. First, education, mostly a state and local matter in America. The Republicans have been hammering home the message of local control over education, which is another way of saying keep political correctness out of schools in white suburban and rural areas. Also, Youngkin's plan to support charter schools has been popular. The Democrats, so in hock to the woke and teachers' unions, can't match him on this. Second, the economy. Youngkin is marginally more trusted here than McAuliffe. Third, law and order - a perennial Republican strength away from big cities.
I think if McAuliffe wins, it'll show that Trump is still enough of a drain on Republican support among swing voters to outwiegh local factors, despite Biden's current unpopularity.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10134521/Widow-murdered-fourth-husband-coerced-gassing-himself.html
A black widow may have coerced her third husband into gassing himself in the garage of their family home, his brother claims.
Stewart Warrender said Penny Jackson made his brother Alan's life a misery before he uncovered her affair with retired army officer husband David Jackson in 1993 and took his own life.
Linked to your point about education, he has highlighted this extremely disturbing case (on many levels) as the current hot button issue:
https://www1.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2021/october/va-judge-finds-transgender-teen-guilty-of-sexual-assault-in-loudoun-county-high-school-girls-bathroom-case
Whether he’s right or not I don’t know but certainly the Republicans seem to be running it front and centre.
Why is she described as a 'black widow'? Not heard that term before, apart from spiders.
And yes I know some at least species of spiders eat their mates after mating.
King Cole, mildly surprised. I've heard black widow a few times relating to women who off their husbands, usually for the money.
https://www.rollingstone.com/culture/culture-lists/killer-wives-8-most-infamous-black-widow-murderers-249561/stacey-castor-249676/
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-59095948
In other thoughts, there are reports of flooding in and around Llandudno. Hope Big G's unaffected.
Many years ago, on a mostly American forum, someone wrote a post about a guy I'd never heard of and dropping the N-bomb.
I was pretty confident, but did check the BBC just to make sure nuclear war hadn't started without my noticing.
Not quite ‘Semper aliquid novi Africam adferre' of course; it's fairly certain the Romans knew nothing of what we call the Americas.
What I was getting at is that the BBC failed to mention that she was on husband number four. That doesn’t suggest a woman who is likely to be a victim of coercive control.
The number of diabetics in Leicestershire is now 79 000 out of a population of 1 050 000, and goes up about 4 000 per year, so I look to be keeping busy for some time yet.
In 1976, the Democrats won the Presidency and the following year, the Republicans captured Virginia.
In 1980, the tables turned and the Republicans won the Presidency. The following year Virginia voted in a Democrat Governor.
In 1984, Reagan swept the country, including a big win in Virginia. The following year, a Democrat was elected.
1988: Republicans win (again) nationwide. 1989: the Democrats win the Virginia governors race.
1992: Bill Clinton! 1993: the Republicans take the governorship.
...
Etc
This pattern now goes back no fewer than eleven electoral cycles (and maybe more, I simply haven't checked) - the party with the Presidency loses the Virginia governors race, irrespective of what's going on in state.
As expected, PM getting a challenge from the right. Richard Tice to stand in Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election, taking on the PM’s green agenda.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2021/10/29/land-by-election-blow-boris-johnsons-nanny-state-says-reform/
Just as Canterbury is historically a safe Conservative seat and Bassetlaw a Labour one.
But politically speaking there is a highly disturbing dimension in that the assaults were effectively first ignored and then denied.
Now there may be several reasons for this - although the article hints it’s because the board didn’t want to give critics of self identification any ammunition, there could be other explanations.
But what it *does* tell me is that even if these people are not dishonest they are utterly incompetent and putting children at risk of serious harm as a result.
And that is absolutely not good enough. I can quite understand why anyone would seriously consider voting for a candidate that promised to deal with that.
Seems pretty clear that 100 years from now, today’s public figures standing in the way of action against climate change will be seen as history’s new slavers. Wallies like Tice would do well to think on that given their ego and desire for legacy.
Certainly the jury thought her defence was unproven in this case.
The myth that women are only ever victims, and men are only ever perpetrators, is embedded far to deeply in our politics / culture.
I disagree entirely with your perspective, though. The idea that disagreement over a scientific theory is as bad as the enslavement of human beings is of the same brand of lunacy that brought you "words are violence".
When an eminent priest in the religion prophesies the end of snow in the UK and then a few years later we have two of the worst winters ever recorded it doesn't inspire faith. Well, not in me. I must be a doubting Thomas.
The argument in favour of taking action on climate change has to be won before the shift you talk about takes place. It's not inevitable.
Now, that should have been a resigning matter for the entire board. AFaics they’re all still in place.
Not that we can talk as a country. I mean, Spielman’s just had her contract extended.
Virginia used to swing against the President's party very reliably, but now it is increasingly just a reliably (if modestly) blue state. The more significant trend isn't the one going through the 80s and 90s but the fact that Republicans have lost every statewide election in Virginia from after 2009.
He is as mad as a box of frogs. There’s an interview on YouTube where he and Andy Serkis ask each other questions from Google Autocorrect. Worth a look with your morning coffee.
Does anyone happen to have a link to the FT interview with Mr Macron this morning?
Thanks
Just checking in as i said I'd try to do.
For sure I put it in the same box as industrialised human slavery. It is arguably far worse, as slavery impacted those alive at the time very severely but impacted their descendants to a far lesser extent, through the echoes down the ages of racial prejudice. The worst outcomes from man made global warming will impact many generations directly and as severely as the one that came before, unless a great deal of energy and treasure is expended to undo the damage. Much of which is irreversible of course. As has been noted, CO2 molecules are depressingly stable over a timescale far beyond the lifespan of pretty much any complex species, yet alone human civilisation.
For a start, it depends on whether the scientific predictions of the future temperature evolution actually come true. We have see -- in the pandemic -- that not all scientific predictions of doom come true.
So, I am not sure it will be people like Richard Tice.
For example, it could be:
1. People like Bezos or Zukerberg whose commercial activities have been accompanied by massive tax avoidance. Of course, massive tax avoidance is legal (as slavery once was), but our descendants may come to see it as utterly abhorrent.
2. Ot alternatively, in 100 years time, it may be completely accepted that people have a right to migrate from poor parts of the world to rich parts. And those who erected borders between countries to prevent economic migration may be in the role of the slavers.
It is an interesting question -- who will be the Edward Colston for the twenty-second century?
I'm sure the Uighurs in concentration camps will rejoice if carbon dioxide emissions can be diminished. Though, speaking only for myself and not the doom of all the world, I'd sooner see every man in the world be free.
Fear as a sales tactic has proved very successful for global warming/climate change/we all die unless we do what zealots want, and likewise for the tyranny of vaccine passports/Ausweis.
That doesn't make it right. Worship God, or go to Hell forever. Better to take Pascal's Wager than risk it. Except fear doesn't make you right. The predictions of global warming enthusiasts have proven wrong repeatedly. How many times should Pacific islands have been plunged beneath the waves? Where is the Mediterranean climate the UK was promised?
The tell is this: lots of anti-global warming measures make sense independently of the theory. More efficient devices, and using renewables (not wind, which is foolish) to a larger extent are two notable examples. But the rhetoric of the religion is drifting into forced compliance (electric cars and heat pumps), punitive costs (see again heat pumps), and the tomfoolery of prioritising 'green' religion to the extent that low carbon dioxide emissions are considered more important than having sufficient electricity. The purpose of the grid is to provide energy not satisfy dogma. Furthermore, by making everything (heating, cooking, cars) electric, the lack of redundancy makes loss of electrical supply catastrophic.
Lose a power line and you're out of heating, which means burst pipes in the depths of winter and a ruined house. Even at a more pleasant time of year, it means no cooking. And if your car needs recharging then you're out of luck, which means no work (in the worst case scenario).
If you're really convinced about this then the most rational act isn't inflicting economic self-harm on a country already doing a lot (the UK), it's organising a boycott of Chinese goods and services until they cut back. But that won't happen. Because the aim is not to reduce carbon dioxide emissions, it's to outsource the production of it to others, such as the Chinese, so people at home can pat themselves on the back and contemplate their own virtue (utterly disregarding that we share the same sky). It's the same self-absorbed nonsense that led to the destruction of ancient Indonesian rainforests because some short-sighted fools got drunk on biofuel and wanted to feel good about themselves.
He can tell me when it's time for either feed, out, in, or fuss.
Admittedly, this is made easier by the fact it's always time for one of those things.
Anecdotally, all the signs don’t look great on the ground. Youngkin posters are apparently sprouting up in Blue suburbs while McAuliffe ones are hard to find. The McAuliffe campaign has also hired Marc Elias’ law firm, which is leading to suggestions he is already getting ready to contest the result. Also, early voting has been strongest in the Loudoun County district, which may point to the transgender student case there / general school issues being a motivator to drive people to Youngkin.
I got in at 7/2 on smarkets and kicking myself I didn’t bet more. If anyone is interested, I’ve put Youngkin on to win at over 2.5% at 9/2 when I looked. I might be totally wrong but I have the feeling the stars haven’t aligned at all for the Democrats on this one and that the Republican turnout will be high.
They seem to give more credence to the French govt position that we are breaking an agreement and we are not to be trusted etc.
Why is it beyond the wit of the BBC to get the French ambassador on and ask him outright:
1. Does the agreement signed with the EU demand that French boats prove they fished those areas in the required timeframe?
2. As the agreement does demand proof then why haven’t those boats provided proof?
3. If they cannot provide proof then as the French are so big on the EU being a “rules based organisation” do the French govt not agree that it would be wrong to break these rules?
4. If the French govt think that these rules should be broken then why are they attacking the UK and accusing us of not respecting the treaty when it is they who are not?
5. Why is Macron slagging off the UK saying we are not a reliable partner when it is clearly the French having epic meltdowns threatening electricity supplies, trade, removing. Ambassadors- clearly it is they who are unreliable temperamental partners.
6. If the French PM thinks the EU is so amazing then why would anyone want to leave - therefore why do they think they need to damage countries that leave if it’s so terrible anyway?
7. Why is France so angry about Brexit - surely it’s better for them as increases their weight and influence and removes the UK as an anchor on more EU?
Can’t imagine it’s too hard to ask these questions instead of accepting that because we are the UK it must be us who are wrong……
It’s the reason why I expect in my lifetime to see some of the biggest companies in the world being co2 harvesters, because it’s pretty plain that global society isn’t going to move quickly enough to abate in time. By the way a little pub quiz question for you, the biggest producer of renewable power in the world is…. That self same country is also outside the top 40 carbon polluters per capita in the world.
And, as I said, if you really believe this then what would make a difference is cutting emissions from major polluters not shaving off a tiny percentage from a much smaller country already doing far more than them. Organise, or support, an economic boycott until emissions are cut.
Or bleat about how the UK must do more while China takes the economic gain, emits carbon dioxide by the bucketload, and the shared atmosphere, in your view, gets irreversibly contaminated.
One of those things is effective (if it works).
On your number 1, some of us already think that the greed and massive tax avoidance of Bezos, Zuckerberg and many, many others is utterly abhorrent. So we don't need to wait until our descendants reach the same conclusion.
Just one other point, but I couldn’t find a betting market for it - there is an outside chance the Republicans get the NJ Governorship. Long odds but their candidate is a moderate (no endorsement from the NRA, supports abortion choice). I don’t think he does it (last poll was 9 lead for Murphy) but, given the news flow of the past few days on the Congress front, I wouldn’t rule out a shock.
I get that per capita gets you to rag on the West a lot more but if the totals are lower from Belgium than China, that's what matters.
Anyway, I must return to my carefree heresy. Might even eat some chicken.
You talked about the Uighers (not sure why?). I’ve been out that way a fair bit. And seen with my own eyes the shiny new coal power stations out on the fringes of the Taklamakan desert. The type so beloved of the right wing press on this topic. Still shiny even when not so new. Because Beijing inspectors flew in and ripped up the construction permits handed out by corrupt local party officials. I am fearful and generally disdainful of the communist party. But they are for sure more focused on this problem than most industrialised nations of the world.
The other analogy that doesn’t hold up is of climate scientists fear mongering over an unproven set of hypotheses. Unlike say Covid, the radiative forcing of CO2 is known, has been estimated to a high degree of accuracy for a century, and is replicated in a linear, monotonic increase in global air temperature, ocean heat content and sea level over several decades. The signal really is way greater than the noise.
I doubt someone like Tice plans to doubt the science. There’s little mileage or credibility in that anymore. The arguments are now more about policy. I suspect his gist will be why should Britain do anything when China and the US emit far more. It’s the same as that classic poujadiste take that rails against speed bumps or drink driving laws because “they should be focusing on solving proper crimes like rape and murder”. Poujadisme has strong support in sections of society including the white van demographic, which is quite significant in Bexley and Sidcup.
A nearby road was flooded but we do get regular flooding in the Conwy Valley
Before the sea defences were strenthened we used to get yearly flooding from the sea as well
While Virginia has been trending blue, particularly in the highly educated DC suburbs, much of the state is also rural and still very red. Remember it also used to be a solid GOP state, voting for the Republican candidate for President at every presidential election from 1952 until 2004 with the exception of 1964 when it went for LBJ
Much of this can be accepted as largely harmless but annoying fetishes on the part of the 'educated' classes being imposed on the rest of society. However once they start bringing in measures that really harm low income people (such as a war on cheap cars and a green levy on energy bills), as they are now actually doing, with all the political parties falling over themselves to support the measures and dismiss any criticism of it, the whole thing can easily be made to look like class war.
And at 9am yet another round of headlines without any mention of France being utterly isolated and humiliated by the Commission. Lashing out in an election year. Completely bizarre.
https://twitter.com/MrHarryCole/status/1454358114195681287
It is surprising given how craven the BBC have been up to this point.
Perhaps the Brexiteers were right to be worried about the appointment of Jess Brammer
Its coal deposits are largely in the wrong part of its huge landmass and cross border gas pipelines merely diversify rather than mitigate the risk. Strategic resilience is the primary goal of basically all the Party’s policies. The continued glory of the Party and “Greater China” will depend upon self generation from renewables combined with mass electrification of its economy. The Party’s leadership is better educated in science than in most countries and so it also realises the broader benefits of decarbonisation. So that is what they are aggressively setting out to achieve, no matter whether Xi goes to Boris’s little gathering or not.
Though a great deal of information has been added to the understanding of how atmospheres work and heat emission vs trapping in them from studying Mars and Venus. Which has greatly informed the science of climate on Earth.
Which, anytime someone bangs on about space being irrelevant in the face of climate change, should be waved in their face. As a start
How about this from the Jersey minister responsible for the fishing situation who was against Brexit and, wait for it, French!
https://jerseyeveningpost.com/news/2021/10/28/home-affairs-minister-ashamed-to-be-french-after-france-issues-landing-and-power-threat/
And then this guy, who I actually know and hated Brexit
https://www.bailiwickexpress.com/jsy/news/breton-and-norman-fishermen-are-happy-and-just-want-get-fishing/#.YX0EWyR4WEc
The choice is not either China reduces emissions or we do. If China is slow to act - which, as commented above, compared with India or Brazil for example it is not - then the West is not “picking up the slack”. For a start the West is a useless term when it comes to climate change because of how much worse the US and Australia are than Europe or Japan. They are not the same bloc when it comes to emissions.
Everyone needs to cut emissions, and fast. China needs to cut them a huge amount. So does the US. The poorer developing world need to develop in a greener way, but they will self evidently need help getting there. Australia and the Gulf states have absolutely no excuse. And we in Europe need to cut too, to do our bit. We have the technology and the business opportunity to do quite a lot.
To return to the traffic cop analogy. The police should be catching rapists and murderers, and they should also be policing speeding and drink driving.
What is an entirely legitimate topic for scientific discourse is the modelling of the future evolution of the signal.
The computer codes do an excellent job of explaining the past history of climate. They are calibrated to do so.
As in many areas of messy physics, they contain empirical parameters ("fudge factors") which just cannot be experimentally constrained -- such as for example formation of clouds and their radiative feedback.
They are tuned so the codes agree with present and past climate. This does not mean that the codes necessarily have any predictive value.
Complex multi-physics codes are fallible predictive tools, even when calibrated by experimental data.
Another example, from astrophysics, is the core collapse supernova. In the real world they explode, but not in the computer calculations, despite forty years of trying to capture all the physics.
--
Actually I think the analogy with COVID is a good one. The Covid scientists were in a bind. They either over-predicted deaths (in which case they were blamed for doom-mongering) or they under-predicted (in which case my recollection is that @Leon wanted to send them to prison).
Ditto climate change scientists.
It seems to me that our views on China are polarised to a greater degree than the facts justify. They are an intolerant autocracy who impose real oppression on anyone who doesn't conform to the approved model - whether that's Hong Kong residents wanting free choice or Uighurs wanting a distinctive culture. They are not, however, reckless, and actually pretty good at managing their economy and trying to avoid medium-term disasters. They are internationally prickly and insensitive, but not recently aggressive. We should deal with them as rational partners whom we don't especially like.
By the early 2000s the signal was clearly emerging and scientists also realised that ocean heat content was less variable than air temperature year on year and showed more of a straight monotonic rise. Then we entered a decade where the sceptics fought back. First, some satellite estimates of temperature rise showed much slower (but still there) warming trend than surface readings. Then a prolonged period of repeated La Niña conditions in the pacific and strengthens trade winds flattened the atmospheric warming trend from around 2005 to 2014 (the “hiatus”).
The satellite records turned out to have various measurement biases which once corrected for ended up giving a very similar trend to the surface (even the record maintained by climate sceptic Roy Spencer eventually got there), and the hiatus of course ended with temperatures rocketing in 2015 and 16. The line pretty closely fits the models and has done now for years. There is still a question mark over whether we are headed for equilibrium warming of day 2.5C or up to 6C because we still don’t know everything about the impact of feedbacks particularly water vapour and cloudiness, but the range of projections has been tightening into the 3-4C zone over time.
The problem of communication is not so much from the scientists as some activists, who by promising apocalypse Tomorrow create a bit of a cry wolf situation. The fact is the temperature trends just go up and up, in a neatly linear fashion, decade upon decade.
It is the progressives that are leading us in to a dark age; I am merely pointing out how.
What sort of 'character' does that?
So yes, I think we are agreed. And a border adjustment mechanism solves the problem.
The States of Jersey followed to the letter the terms of the treaty and when the French realised that a few of their fishermen hadn’t kept their records (I wonder why??) that they wanted to ignore the treaty as that’s what members of rules based organisations do…..
So the parts of the UK who naturally hate the UK think it must be the fault of our evil politicians and in no way the blame on the wildly socialist fishing minister whose constituency is dependent on the fishing vote, and of course in no way the fault of Macron trying to burnish his napoleonic credentials ahead of the election. Must be our fault of course.
And in perfect timing the radio 4 news headlines started with Macron saying the fishing vow was a test of the UK’s international credibility! Not perhaps anyone saying the Fishing row is a test of France’s credibility to follow the treaty they are signed up to via the wonderful EU……
Mercury surface temp - *max* 449c - the temperature varies enormously because of the way Mercury rotates. Which means that the night side gets really, really cold.
There's a ton of papers on the greenhouse effect on Venus, and effects of the various components of the atmosphere and the clouds.
EDIT: Mercury pretty much doesn't have an atmosphere. Venus has one, all right. The surface pressure is the same as 3,000 feet underwater on earth.
https://ourworldindata.org/consumption-based-co2
It is my understanding that "digital tachographs" are pretty standard in the trucking industry - and have been for a while.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59099346