Another obvious yet nonetheless perfect pop song. Babylon by David Gray. Has the same poignant quality as Baker Street
The Youtube vid of this song has this comment right underneath, posted a few months ago. I feel every word in my heart
"I remember in my late teens sitting in a stolen car with two of my childhood friends, in a car park taking heroin… this slolong came on the radio and we all paused in a moment of life evaluation… for those 2 minutes we shared this song and a magical moment. my two friends are no longer here… yet my life has ended up really good, great job, home, and a family that love me… I’m 40 years old on Sunday, I consider myself very lucky!"
Those satirical top displayed youtube comments on classic pop songs are little works of art.
Tut
But they are. I love reading them when I do a deepdive. They might seem easy to do but they're not. Have to suck you in but with just enough 'jar' to flag to the cognoscenti.
Anyway, on pure pop that imo ought to be better known -
"When this came out in the summer of 1975 people listened to their radios without headphones and I remember being at the beach and there were a hundred little radios all over the beach tuned to the same radio station, playing this song, so as you walked along you could hear it just slightly, all the while you walked, like one long continuous play on all those tiny radios. It was magical."
I salute these miniature fiction writers (if that they are). Some of them are genius
Underneath the video of Peter Paul and Mary's version of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane (another perfect pop song) there are dozens of comments by Vietnam vets saying how this song affects them very powerfully, as it was popular when they flew out for deployment, and therefore on radios everywhere, in the airport etc
I have my own story of this song. It was popular in the early 70s when my parents were miserable and divorcing and my family was bitterly unhappy, and so I associate it with great pain and emotional damage
Twenty years later I was doing heroin in a friend's flat in London about to get on a jet plane to Moscow in a last desperate attempt to quit the smack by going on the Trans Siberian to Japan and then staying there, I knew it was probably my last chance of saving my life.. and then my friend played this bloody song and all my memories of my mother quietly crying at night, and how that fucked me up as a human, leading to my addiction perhaps, came flooding back as I sucked the heroin smoke and I essentially dissolved into nostalgic despair.
And then I left on the jetplane, not sure if I'd be back again
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
You talking to yourself again
With just 70 posts under his belt he's hardly pushing the envelope. You on the other hand, with 37 thousand and barely a civil word.
You got your panties in a bunch Luv. Sound like a real saddo given I have had very little interaction with you so if you cannot be civil go have aeronautical sexual intercourse wiht a rolling doughnut, ie F off
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Having been first to propose energy windfall taxes, a winter energy price cap, and now the only party seriously proposing a complete overhaul of Ofwat and tougher regulations on water companies I think they’re doing plenty of substance in 2022.
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Some posters here may disagree with some of what the Lib Dems are saying. But at least they are talking about issues that matter to people.
I recognise that the PB Tories are all so wealthy that they do not have any financial problems, but what is the Conservative Party proposing to do to help people who are worried about the increased cost of their mortgages? Conservatives do not even realise that there is a problem.
If people have borrowed too much they need to recapitalise. That is a simple fact of life.
It may be that the government could set up a fund to, for example, buy a stake in qualifying properties (effectively the reverse of help to buy if I am thinking of the right programme) with all of the capital raised by the sellers going to debt reduction and them just paying an agreed amount on the state owned piece going forward.
The Lib Dem property wheeze is, unsurprisingly, about state bungs that will disproportionately benefit mortgage payers in the wealthiest parts of the country. People already safely on the property ladder, and most particularly those in Home Counties target seats inhabiting large detached piles.
They know exactly which voters they're trying to target, and it's all part of what will doubtless emerge as an election manifesto devoted primarily to shifting wealth upwards. It's all of a piece with their Nimbyism, and no doubt a very staunch defence of the pension triple lock (if and when Hunt finally concludes that it is unaffordable.) In essence, they'll propose electoral reform as always, and some kind of red-green veneer (big on renewable energy, so long as it's nowhere near anyone's house, and some token bungs for poor people,) but the direction of travel is clear. Social security for the monied middle classes in Southern England, and the preservation and price inflation of their property wealth.
They're going to try to out-Tory the Tories, in the hope of capturing swathes of Surrey and other such places at the next election. Watch.
I think you are a bit cynical, Mr Pigeon. Too much consorting with Tories, I think.
Seems to be an imminent shortage of diesel in the US
The U.S. Diesel Shortage Is Worsening 🚨
Reports of an impending diesel shortage could potentially lead to truckers running out of fuel, ultimately stranding shipments and hiking consumer prices.
It is also worth noting *why* this has happened. Historically, US refiners were setup to produce mostly gasoline, while European refiners were setup to produce mostly diesel. (And this was a consequence of regulation in Europe, but that's another story.)
This created a healthy cross-Atlantic trade in refined products. Gasoline would be sent from the US to Europe, and diesel would go the other way.
best home counties are buckinghamshire and surrey without a doubt
You’re doing well on the UK knowledge. Not as well as @DJ41 though. He/she is the best we’ve had so far despite the lapse earlier this afternoon.
Either @DJ41 really went to Winchester, given the PhD level thesis on the place he posted here a couple of weeks ago, or the Kremlin employs a world beating team of crack Wykehamologists.
Lefty Wyks are of course not unknown. Crossman, Milne.
So you’re saying he’s actually Seamus Milne? Kind of makes sense but the neutrality andlack of backstory still makes me wonder.
I am obviously not going to watch it as I have paint to dry, but I struggle to see how an interview with Starmer could generate enough momentum in any direction to 'crash'.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
"“Building more coal-fired power capacity will not provide energy security for China. This is a deep-seated falsehood. It’s part of a traditional mindset about the energy sector that clawed its way back into prominence rather quickly. An overcapacity of this one energy source is a major hurdle for energy security, as well as China’s energy transition. China’s power inadequacies do not originate from low generation capacity. China has an overcapacity of coal-fired power plants. Power inadequacies originate from poor integration of generation, grid, load, and storage,” said Wu Jinghan, the climate & energy campaigner in Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office."
S/he would say that, wouldn't they? It must be a very unusual sort of coal if having lots of it and lots of coal fired power stations contributes nothing to your energy security. And "Power inadequacies originate from poor integration of generation, grid, load, and storage" can be true while it is also true that the quckest temporary fix for the problem, is coal. And if you are a 1.4bn person nation trying to modernise itself you need to smelt a whole heap of steel to modernise your infrastructure, including power infrastructure.
And that's before we get on to the point that they are burning that coal to make YOUR phone and car and computer and white goods and clothes and for that matter, solar panels and wind turbines.
I've just found what I think might be my favourite live recording of all time
Bonnie Raitt and band playing a live broadcast radio concert (in 1971 or 72 - depending on whether you believe this youtube channel or the itunes date)
So she was a 21ish ginger girl singing blues
I don't think I've heard better. Blues fans let me know what you think
Another obvious yet nonetheless perfect pop song. Babylon by David Gray. Has the same poignant quality as Baker Street
The Youtube vid of this song has this comment right underneath, posted a few months ago. I feel every word in my heart
"I remember in my late teens sitting in a stolen car with two of my childhood friends, in a car park taking heroin… this slolong came on the radio and we all paused in a moment of life evaluation… for those 2 minutes we shared this song and a magical moment. my two friends are no longer here… yet my life has ended up really good, great job, home, and a family that love me… I’m 40 years old on Sunday, I consider myself very lucky!"
Those satirical top displayed youtube comments on classic pop songs are little works of art.
Tut
But they are. I love reading them when I do a deepdive. They might seem easy to do but they're not. Have to suck you in but with just enough 'jar' to flag to the cognoscenti.
Anyway, on pure pop that imo ought to be better known -
"When this came out in the summer of 1975 people listened to their radios without headphones and I remember being at the beach and there were a hundred little radios all over the beach tuned to the same radio station, playing this song, so as you walked along you could hear it just slightly, all the while you walked, like one long continuous play on all those tiny radios. It was magical."
I salute these miniature fiction writers (if that they are). Some of them are genius
Underneath the video of Peter Paul and Mary's version of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane (another perfect pop song) there are dozens of comments by Vietnam vets saying how this song affects them very powerfully, as it was popular when they flew out for deployment, and therefore on radios everywhere, in the airport etc
I have my own story of this song. It was popular in the early 70s when my parents were miserable and divorcing and my family was bitterly unhappy, and so I associate it with great pain and emotional damage
Twenty years later I was doing heroin in a friend's flat in London about to get on a jet plane to Moscow in a last desperate attempt to quit the smack by going on the Trans Siberian to Japan and then staying there, I knew it was probably my last chance of saving my life.. and then my friend played this bloody song and all my memories of my mother quietly crying at night, and how that fucked me up as a human, leading to my addiction perhaps, came flooding back as I sucked the heroin smoke and I essentially dissolved into nostalgic despair.
And then I left on the jetplane, not sure if I'd be back again
Glad you made it. FWIW.
Thanks. When I got to Japan (after sailing to Yokohama from Vladivostok) I went to stay with a friend in Kyoto, and I lived there for a few months. It was one of the best summers of my life. I used to walk down the Philosopher's Footpath in the hot drowsy afternoons and sit with the monks in the temples, as they arranged the stones of the Zen gardens, Often I was the only person there, with a monk. We would smile at each other and say nothing and we were contented
And at night I got drunk with expats and Japanese kids in Gion, where the geishas walk by in their wooden clogs
Another obvious yet nonetheless perfect pop song. Babylon by David Gray. Has the same poignant quality as Baker Street
The Youtube vid of this song has this comment right underneath, posted a few months ago. I feel every word in my heart
"I remember in my late teens sitting in a stolen car with two of my childhood friends, in a car park taking heroin… this slolong came on the radio and we all paused in a moment of life evaluation… for those 2 minutes we shared this song and a magical moment. my two friends are no longer here… yet my life has ended up really good, great job, home, and a family that love me… I’m 40 years old on Sunday, I consider myself very lucky!"
Those satirical top displayed youtube comments on classic pop songs are little works of art.
Tut
But they are. I love reading them when I do a deepdive. They might seem easy to do but they're not. Have to suck you in but with just enough 'jar' to flag to the cognoscenti.
Anyway, on pure pop that imo ought to be better known -
"When this came out in the summer of 1975 people listened to their radios without headphones and I remember being at the beach and there were a hundred little radios all over the beach tuned to the same radio station, playing this song, so as you walked along you could hear it just slightly, all the while you walked, like one long continuous play on all those tiny radios. It was magical."
I salute these miniature fiction writers (if that they are). Some of them are genius
Underneath the video of Peter Paul and Mary's version of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane (another perfect pop song) there are dozens of comments by Vietnam vets saying how this song affects them very powerfully, as it was popular when they flew out for deployment, and therefore on radios everywhere, in the airport etc
I have my own story of this song. It was popular in the early 70s when my parents were miserable and divorcing and my family was bitterly unhappy, and so I associate it with great pain and emotional damage
Twenty years later I was doing heroin in a friend's flat in London about to get on a jet plane to Moscow in a last desperate attempt to quit the smack by going on the Trans Siberian to Japan and then staying there, I knew it was probably my last chance of saving my life.. and then my friend played this bloody song and all my memories of my mother quietly crying at night, and how that fucked me up as a human, leading to my addiction perhaps, came flooding back as I sucked the heroin smoke and I essentially dissolved into nostalgic despair.
And then I left on the jetplane, not sure if I'd be back again
The power of songs. Always incredible.
As a Herefordian and erstwhile user of class A drugs have you read Charles Nicholl? His written style reminds me of you a bit.
I was friends with his son. They lived in a very nice house surrounded by orchards just outside Hereford.
best home counties are buckinghamshire and surrey without a doubt
You’re doing well on the UK knowledge. Not as well as @DJ41 though. He/she is the best we’ve had so far despite the lapse earlier this afternoon.
Either @DJ41 really went to Winchester, given the PhD level thesis on the place he posted here a couple of weeks ago, or the Kremlin employs a world beating team of crack Wykehamologists.
Lefty Wyks are of course not unknown. Crossman, Milne.
So you’re saying he’s actually Seamus Milne? Kind of makes sense but the neutrality andlack of backstory still makes me wonder.
Not a thing I'd want to accuse anyone of being. I imagine Milne has more effective ways of tilting public opinion than by PBing.
best home counties are buckinghamshire and surrey without a doubt
You’re doing well on the UK knowledge. Not as well as @DJ41 though. He/she is the best we’ve had so far despite the lapse earlier this afternoon.
Either @DJ41 really went to Winchester, given the PhD level thesis on the place he posted here a couple of weeks ago, or the Kremlin employs a world beating team of crack Wykehamologists.
Lefty Wyks are of course not unknown. Crossman, Milne.
So you’re saying he’s actually Seamus Milne? Kind of makes sense but the neutrality andlack of backstory still makes me wonder.
Not a thing I'd want to accuse anyone of being. I imagine Milne has more effective ways of tilting public opinion than by PBing.
The Lib Dem property wheeze is, unsurprisingly, about state bungs that will disproportionately benefit mortgage payers in the wealthiest parts of the country. People already safely on the property ladder, and most particularly those in Home Counties target seats inhabiting large detached piles.
They know exactly which voters they're trying to target, and it's all part of what will doubtless emerge as an election manifesto devoted primarily to shifting wealth upwards. It's all of a piece with their Nimbyism, and no doubt a very staunch defence of the pension triple lock (if and when Hunt finally concludes that it is unaffordable.) In essence, they'll propose electoral reform as always, and some kind of red-green veneer (big on renewable energy, so long as it's nowhere near anyone's house, and some token bungs for poor people,) but the direction of travel is clear. Social security for the monied middle classes in Southern England, and the preservation and price inflation of their property wealth.
They're going to try to out-Tory the Tories, in the hope of capturing swathes of Surrey and other such places at the next election. Watch.
I think you are a bit cynical, Mr Pigeon. Too much consorting with Tories, I think.
Indeed - we have been here before. The truth is the building societies and banks know large numbers of repossessions are not helping to help the property market one iota so it makes sense to help people re-negotiate their payments. I slightly wonder if the Government needs to be involved though presumably could be a guarantor of last resort.
If individuals and families are in need of help they tell their lender at once and seek a new affordable payment schedule - the rental market is a little different but if BTL landlords are struggling to cover mortgages because their tenants can't afford the rent it makes sense for there to be some sense all round.
Seeing families evicted and having properties repossessed isn't necessary or desirable and Davey has a good idea on this.
I realise some on here see the economic ideas of Truss and Kwarteng as being "the answer" in some form even though they're more discredited than AV.
I thought the most telling part of Davey's speech was the Conservative failure to keep the promise of recruiting GPs - we urgently need thousands more GPs across the country to help clear the enormous backlog of people needing a consultation. I accept making a pledge is much easier than fulfilling it but for there to be fewer GPs now than there were at the last election rather than the thousands promised then by Boris Johnson is a clear failure.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
All of this started when YOU voted for Brexit...
There was nothing pre-2016 that contributed to this, really?
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
"“Building more coal-fired power capacity will not provide energy security for China. This is a deep-seated falsehood. It’s part of a traditional mindset about the energy sector that clawed its way back into prominence rather quickly. An overcapacity of this one energy source is a major hurdle for energy security, as well as China’s energy transition. China’s power inadequacies do not originate from low generation capacity. China has an overcapacity of coal-fired power plants. Power inadequacies originate from poor integration of generation, grid, load, and storage,” said Wu Jinghan, the climate & energy campaigner in Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office."
S/he would say that, wouldn't they? It must be a very unusual sort of coal if having lots of it and lots of coal fired power stations contributes nothing to your energy security. And "Power inadequacies originate from poor integration of generation, grid, load, and storage" can be true while it is also true that the quckest temporary fix for the problem, is coal. And if you are a 1.4bn person nation trying to modernise itself you need to smelt a whole heap of steel to modernise your infrastructure, including power infrastructure.
And that's before we get on to the point that they are burning that coal to make YOUR phone and car and computer and white goods and clothes and for that matter, solar panels and wind turbines.
To be fair, if they're burning the coal to make solar panels and wind turbines, that's a pretty good trade.
Interestingly, China has gone back to being a meaningful coal exporter again. People don't appreciate the insane number of massive open pit mine in China, particularly up towards Mongolia.
I've just found what I think might be my favourite live recording of all time
Bonnie Raitt and band playing a live broadcast radio concert (in 1971 or 72 - depending on whether you believe this youtube channel or the itunes date)
So she was a 21ish ginger girl singing blues
I don't think I've heard better. Blues fans let me know what you think
I've just found what I think might be my favourite live recording of all time
Bonnie Raitt and band playing a live broadcast radio concert (in 1971 or 72 - depending on whether you believe this youtube channel or the itunes date)
So she was a 21ish ginger girl singing blues
I don't think I've heard better. Blues fans let me know what you think
I do not think there has been a single Trafalgar swing state poll ever published with crosstabs that didn't have the 18-24 year olds voting for the GOP candidate.
I do not think there has been a single Trafalgar swing state poll ever published with crosstabs that didn't have the 18-24 year olds voting for the GOP candidate.
It’s ludicrous especially with the Dobbs decision .
I don’t get the “car crash” thing. Perhaps from the perspective of the hardcore indyrefers, but they’re a minority in Scotland. I think Starmer comes across alright. Not great and a little uninspiring, but alright. Not frightening the English horses - and having a reasonable stab at undermining the SNP’s claim to be the most effective anti-Tory option for Scottish centre/left voters.
I think this is the most dangerous period for the Scottish independence movement in years, hence the absurd “car crash” reaction to Starmer.
Arizona poll. 18-24 year olds going for the GOP 51/44 in the Senate election.
Just... amazing stuff.
What I always find most amazing about Trafalgar is that they somehow manage to survey *more* people than other pollsters. While others struggle to get 5-600 respondents, Trafalgar with no website or employees, somehow always manages 1,000+.
Mortgage market needs 30 year gilt issuance and a futures contract so longer fixed terms can be offered like the US. A government sponsored company could buy these long loans like Fannie and Freddie in the US.
How do I post to this site from apple ios? I am having to leave the day bed and use a desktop.
Mortgage market needs 30 year gilt issuance and a futures contract so longer fixed terms can be offered like the US. A government sponsored company could buy these long loans like Fannie and Freddie in the US.
How do I post to this site from apple ios? I am having to leave the day bed and use a desktop.
As long as you are happy for (a) house prices to be more cyclical in good and bad times and (b) the occasional £50-100 billion bailout.
Arizona poll. 18-24 year olds going for the GOP 51/44 in the Senate election.
Just... amazing stuff.
What I always find most amazing about Trafalgar is that they somehow manage to survey *more* people than other pollsters. While others struggle to get 5-600 respondents, Trafalgar with no website or employees, somehow always manages 1,000+.
In 2 days with a 1.4% response rate. About eighty thousand contact attempts.
Mortgage market needs 30 year gilt issuance and a futures contract so longer fixed terms can be offered like the US. A government sponsored company could buy these long loans like Fannie and Freddie in the US.
How do I post to this site from apple ios? I am having to leave the day bed and use a desktop.
I did a bit of digging into this issue, on here, a few weeks ago.
Fundamentally, a Fannie/Freddie model, which would allow mortgage lenders to offer 25/30 yr fixed loans would require the government to underwrite the risk.
That’s not the government’s job, imo.
What you’re asking for is taxpayer subsidy of homeownership.
I do not think there has been a single Trafalgar swing state poll ever published with crosstabs that didn't have the 18-24 year olds voting for the GOP candidate.
It’s ludicrous especially with the Dobbs decision .
This 18-24 year old record is an unbroken streak going back to the 2016 Presidential election.
I've just found what I think might be my favourite live recording of all time
Bonnie Raitt and band playing a live broadcast radio concert (in 1971 or 72 - depending on whether you believe this youtube channel or the itunes date)
So she was a 21ish ginger girl singing blues
I don't think I've heard better. Blues fans let me know what you think
Just listened to the first 5 tracks - thanks so much for drawing attention to it, it's a real gem. Her vocals and guitar are perfectly complemented by the other guitarist and, especially, the bass player.
It's a wet grey Sunday in November. The rain is coming again. The cost of living is forcing people to eat rocks. Nuclear war seems highly possible. Millions of people are crippled by Long Covid. The Russian army is raping eastern Europe. Ebola returns. Climate change means the seas will soon boil. AI threatens the jobs of anyone who isn't already on fentanyl. No one is having sex. Young people prefer dictators to democracy. The rain is coming again. A barrel of oil costs 33 trillion dollars. Illegal migrants are raiding Aldis across Kent. Trump is heading for re-election. America faces civil war. Woke people are ruining society. Pop music is finished. IQs are dropping. Sperm counts are falling. England lost the rugby. And the Queen is dead
Did I miss anything?
All of this started when YOU voted for Brexit...
There was nothing pre-2016 that contributed to this, really?
Quite. And he wasn't alone in voting for it either.
Selling 1973-2016 as some sort of golden age will kill the rejoiner movement.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
It was one of very few tracks that is absolutely perfect in every respect.
For me, a song which I wouldn't change a note of is Waterloo Sunset - whenever I hear it it seems to perfectly capture a time and a mood.
I wonder if it is always songs from one's teenage years that do this?
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
There's also a bit of an arb on Trump on Betfair.
You can back him for Republican Nominee at 1.8 but also back 'No' for him filing to run for President in 2024 (cutoff by 1st Sept 2024) at 6.4, or lay 'Yes' at 1.18.
Admittedly, this much lower price covers the possibility of him running as an independent too but I think that's largely moot. If he runs he'll go for Republican Nominee and he'll get it.
Arizona poll. 18-24 year olds going for the GOP 51/44 in the Senate election.
Just... amazing stuff.
What I always find most amazing about Trafalgar is that they somehow manage to survey *more* people than other pollsters. While others struggle to get 5-600 respondents, Trafalgar with no website or employees, somehow always manages 1,000+.
In 2 days with a 1.4% response rate. About eighty thousand contact attempts.
They really shouldn’t be included in five thirty eight as I don’t believe they actually conduct polls . The CEO is an odious creep who I think just looks at the other polling , adds on his shy GOP supporters and releases that . I don’t see how they can conduct so many polls given those response rates. The GOP biased pollsters have flooded these mid-terms trying to show momentum . It’s notable that the non partisan pollsters have shown much less bullish GOP results .
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
There's also a bit of an arb on Trump on Betfair.
You can back him for Republican Nominee at 1.8 but also back 'No' for him filing to run for President in 2024 (cutoff by 1st Sept 2024) at 6.4, or lay 'Yes' at 1.18.
Admittedly, this much lower price covers the possibility of him running as an independent too but I think that's largely moot. If he runs he'll go for Republican Nominee and he'll get it.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
It was one of very few tracks that is absolutely perfect in every respect.
For me, a song which I wouldn't change a note of is Waterloo Sunset - whenever I hear it it seems to perfectly capture a time and a mood.
I wonder if it is always songs from one's teenage years that do this?
Just noticed a tweet from @david_herdson talking about the Lib Dem MIRAS plans.
If you want to raise taxes and discourage buy to rent - remove the ability to deduct any interest from loans on residential property.
Davey is just flailing about trying to get some attention.
I’ve no doubt they’d be a beneficial check on either a Tory or Labour minority government. But they’re not doing much to justify voting for them in their own right.
Having been first to propose energy windfall taxes, a winter energy price cap, and now the only party seriously proposing a complete overhaul of Ofwat and tougher regulations on water companies I think they’re doing plenty of substance in 2022.
I don’t think the mortgage subsidy is a good idea though.
Still, we could list half a dozen policy ideas from Labour in the last couple of years that don’t stand up to scrutiny, and the same number or more from the conservatives that are utterly idiotic.
Some posters here may disagree with some of what the Lib Dems are saying. But at least they are talking about issues that matter to people.
I recognise that the PB Tories are all so wealthy that they do not have any financial problems, but what is the Conservative Party proposing to do to help people who are worried about the increased cost of their mortgages? Conservatives do not even realise that there is a problem.
If people have borrowed too much they need to recapitalise. That is a simple fact of life.
It may be that the government could set up a fund to, for example, buy a stake in qualifying properties (effectively the reverse of help to buy if I am thinking of the right programme) with all of the capital raised by the sellers going to debt reduction and them just paying an agreed amount on the state owned piece going forward.
The Lib Dem property wheeze is, unsurprisingly, about state bungs that will disproportionately benefit mortgage payers in the wealthiest parts of the country. People already safely on the property ladder, and most particularly those in Home Counties target seats inhabiting large detached piles.
They know exactly which voters they're trying to target, and it's all part of what will doubtless emerge as an election manifesto devoted primarily to shifting wealth upwards. It's all of a piece with their Nimbyism, and no doubt a very staunch defence of the pension triple lock (if and when Hunt finally concludes that it is unaffordable.) In essence, they'll propose electoral reform as always, and some kind of red-green veneer (big on renewable energy, so long as it's nowhere near anyone's house, and some token bungs for poor people,) but the direction of travel is clear. Social security for the monied middle classes in Southern England, and the preservation and price inflation of their property wealth.
They're going to try to out-Tory the Tories, in the hope of capturing swathes of Surrey and other such places at the next election. Watch.
I think you are a bit cynical, Mr Pigeon. Too much consorting with Tories, I think.
'Consorting with Tories,' moi? And I'm talking about the likely motivations of politicians, so one would've thought that the most extreme cynicism would be the order of the day.
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
There's also a bit of an arb on Trump on Betfair.
You can back him for Republican Nominee at 1.8 but also back 'No' for him filing to run for President in 2024 (cutoff by 1st Sept 2024) at 6.4, or lay 'Yes' at 1.18.
Admittedly, this much lower price covers the possibility of him running as an independent too but I think that's largely moot. If he runs he'll go for Republican Nominee and he'll get it.
Do you think desantis could beat trump
He's the one to beat but I think the power of Trump is still extraordinary in the Republican Party.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
The Lib Dem property wheeze is, unsurprisingly, about state bungs that will disproportionately benefit mortgage payers in the wealthiest parts of the country. People already safely on the property ladder, and most particularly those in Home Counties target seats inhabiting large detached piles.
They know exactly which voters they're trying to target, and it's all part of what will doubtless emerge as an election manifesto devoted primarily to shifting wealth upwards. It's all of a piece with their Nimbyism, and no doubt a very staunch defence of the pension triple lock (if and when Hunt finally concludes that it is unaffordable.) In essence, they'll propose electoral reform as always, and some kind of red-green veneer (big on renewable energy, so long as it's nowhere near anyone's house, and some token bungs for poor people,) but the direction of travel is clear. Social security for the monied middle classes in Southern England, and the preservation and price inflation of their property wealth.
They're going to try to out-Tory the Tories, in the hope of capturing swathes of Surrey and other such places at the next election. Watch.
I think you are a bit cynical, Mr Pigeon. Too much consorting with Tories, I think.
Indeed - we have been here before. The truth is the building societies and banks know large numbers of repossessions are not helping to help the property market one iota so it makes sense to help people re-negotiate their payments. I slightly wonder if the Government needs to be involved though presumably could be a guarantor of last resort.
If individuals and families are in need of help they tell their lender at once and seek a new affordable payment schedule - the rental market is a little different but if BTL landlords are struggling to cover mortgages because their tenants can't afford the rent it makes sense for there to be some sense all round.
Seeing families evicted and having properties repossessed isn't necessary or desirable and Davey has a good idea on this.
I realise some on here see the economic ideas of Truss and Kwarteng as being "the answer" in some form even though they're more discredited than AV.
I thought the most telling part of Davey's speech was the Conservative failure to keep the promise of recruiting GPs - we urgently need thousands more GPs across the country to help clear the enormous backlog of people needing a consultation. I accept making a pledge is much easier than fulfilling it but for there to be fewer GPs now than there were at the last election rather than the thousands promised then by Boris Johnson is a clear failure.
If renters are struggling to afford the rent they get evicted because currently there will always someone willing to pay the rent even if its 10 albanians sharing a room. Anyone that doubts that hasn't rented recently.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
If their technology was even remotely comparable to America's, they wouldn't need to die.
They're dying in vast numbers not because they want to but because their army is literally fighting with stuff forty years out of date.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
That used to be for hilary clinton...Trump is a master at pushing their buttons....apparently he was going to announce his candidacy last nite but changed his mind at the last minute
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
There's also a bit of an arb on Trump on Betfair.
You can back him for Republican Nominee at 1.8 but also back 'No' for him filing to run for President in 2024 (cutoff by 1st Sept 2024) at 6.4, or lay 'Yes' at 1.18.
Admittedly, this much lower price covers the possibility of him running as an independent too but I think that's largely moot. If he runs he'll go for Republican Nominee and he'll get it.
Do you think desantis could beat trump
He's the one to beat but I think the power of Trump is still extraordinary in the Republican Party.
Desantis doesnt have trumps charisma but if hes facing biden it may not matter
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
It would be nice if they were a bit more excited about being alive. Life is wonderful.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
It would be nice if they were a bit more excited about being alive. Life is wonderful.
If you lived in yakutsk maybe you would want to die too
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
Willingness to die is an overrated attribute. It means the whole military apparatus isn’t set up to preserve life and health, and ultimately that means hanging people out to dry.
You continue your country’s death wish but the future of warfare is zero-casualty conflict.
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
Willingness to die is an overrated attribute. It means the whole military apparatus isn’t set up to preserve life and health, and ultimately that means hanging people out to dry.
You continue your country’s death wish but the future of warfare is zero-casualty conflict.
Tacticus: 'You should always be pleased to fight an enemy who wants to die for his country. That means you and he have the same goal in mind.'
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
Maybe america should split in 2 One part white christian with immigration only from northern europe The other part multicultural with immigration from all over the world Let the 2 parts compete
"An entire battalion of Russian mobilised men was wiped out within days of being sent to the frontline in Ukraine, survivors have told Russian opposition media.
The soldiers had been ordered to the frontline in Luhansk, Donbas, and then told to dig trenches, the Verstka news agency said in an unverified report.
“We had three shovels per battalion and there were no provisions at all. We dug in as best we could and in the morning the shelling started from artillery and helicopters. We were simply shot,” Agafonov, the alleged unit survivor, said.
“When it all started the officers simply ran away.”"
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
There's also a bit of an arb on Trump on Betfair.
You can back him for Republican Nominee at 1.8 but also back 'No' for him filing to run for President in 2024 (cutoff by 1st Sept 2024) at 6.4, or lay 'Yes' at 1.18.
Admittedly, this much lower price covers the possibility of him running as an independent too but I think that's largely moot. If he runs he'll go for Republican Nominee and he'll get it.
If DeSantis (Florida's top Micheal McIntyre tribute act) primaries Trump and beats him to the nomination the Deplorables will be very butthurt and it could supress turnout.
I think DeSantis has to go for it because, if not now, then when? Four years is a lifetime in politics and Trump's VP will probably be the GOP candidate in 2028. Assuming they are still having elections by then which is by no means a sure thing.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
Wrong...many trumpites are young especially in the south and are more likely to be manual labourers hence strong and fit....by contrast many democrats spend all day at desk jobs and do nothing more strenuous then move a mouse
Caught the 1013 from Ilford to Whitechapel (surprised to see the full 8-minute Sunday frequency), and then Whitechapel to Maidenhead, arriving there at 1141. But missed the 1129 to Marlow, so had to wait till 1229, managed to visit Cookham and Furze Platt, the last two stations I needed to complete the TfL Contactless PAYG area. Got a little soaked at Furze Platt around 1330. Back to Maidenhead by 1422, waited until 1449 to catch a train from platform 5 so I could do the rare connection to the track from platform 5.
None of the trains I caught were particularly busy. Waited westbound at the Westbourne Park sidings for only a minute, and around 5 minutes going eastbound. Changed at Paddington for a Shenfield service, and reached Ilford around 1600.
A middle-aged couple wanting Whitechapel were confused by the out-of-date line diagram when we departed Paddington, thinking they had to change at LST, I reassured them the train would indeed call at Whitechapel, but they still alighted at LST anyway, before hearing the onboard destination announcement, quickly jumping back aboard and apologizing to me
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
Willingness to die is an overrated attribute. It means the whole military apparatus isn’t set up to preserve life and health, and ultimately that means hanging people out to dry.
No doubt there have been criticisms of some generals in history for being too keen to preserve the lives of their troop, as if it is somehow cheating.
I mean, sure, you have to take risks in war I would guess, but fanatical stubborness only gets you so far I assume.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
Reminds me of a line from an Orwell piece about WW1 that the first thing it did was kill off all the young, fit, healthy men from every country involved.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
If DeSantis (Florida's top Micheal McIntyre tribute act) primaries Trump and beats him to the nomination the Deplorables will be very butthurt and it could supress turnout.
I think DeSantis has to go for it because, if not now, then when? Four years is a lifetime in politics and Trump's VP will probably be the GOP candidate in 2028. Assuming they are still having elections by then which is by no means a sure thing.
If Trump wins again he plans to sack 100000 govt workers straight away. I also think he will try and cancel any further elections
What would de Santis's pitch to be the candidate rather than Trump even be? With all the effort expended on saying none of the legal issues, or any other issue facing Trump, is legitimate, surely his only recourse would be to call Trump a loser, and that would blow up the base and surely cost him.
If DeSantis (Florida's top Micheal McIntyre tribute act) primaries Trump and beats him to the nomination the Deplorables will be very butthurt and it could supress turnout.
I think DeSantis has to go for it because, if not now, then when? Four years is a lifetime in politics and Trump's VP will probably be the GOP candidate in 2028. Assuming they are still having elections by then which is by no means a sure thing.
If Trump wins again he plans to sack 100000 govt workers straight away. I also think he will try and cancel any further elections
The USA held elections during a civil war, not sure anyone would just not hold them. But there's plenty of voter suppression methods or procedural/legal methods to ignore or overturn the ones he doesn't like. Ok, the Supreme Court, even this one, might toss out something too blatant, but there's lots of things that are already deemed legal which could be enhanced no doubt.
What would de Santis's pitch to be the candidate rather than Trump even be? With all the effort expended on saying none of the legal issues, or any other issue facing Trump, is legitimate, surely his only recourse would be to call Trump a loser, and that would blow up the base and surely cost him.
His pitch is he has the big money backers behind him and he has an impeccable track record on disenfranchising Black voters.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Another obvious yet nonetheless perfect pop song. Babylon by David Gray. Has the same poignant quality as Baker Street
The Youtube vid of this song has this comment right underneath, posted a few months ago. I feel every word in my heart
"I remember in my late teens sitting in a stolen car with two of my childhood friends, in a car park taking heroin… this slolong came on the radio and we all paused in a moment of life evaluation… for those 2 minutes we shared this song and a magical moment. my two friends are no longer here… yet my life has ended up really good, great job, home, and a family that love me… I’m 40 years old on Sunday, I consider myself very lucky!"
Those satirical top displayed youtube comments on classic pop songs are little works of art.
Tut
But they are. I love reading them when I do a deepdive. They might seem easy to do but they're not. Have to suck you in but with just enough 'jar' to flag to the cognoscenti.
Anyway, on pure pop that imo ought to be better known -
"When this came out in the summer of 1975 people listened to their radios without headphones and I remember being at the beach and there were a hundred little radios all over the beach tuned to the same radio station, playing this song, so as you walked along you could hear it just slightly, all the while you walked, like one long continuous play on all those tiny radios. It was magical."
I salute these miniature fiction writers (if that they are). Some of them are genius
Underneath the video of Peter Paul and Mary's version of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane (another perfect pop song) there are dozens of comments by Vietnam vets saying how this song affects them very powerfully, as it was popular when they flew out for deployment, and therefore on radios everywhere, in the airport etc
I have my own story of this song. It was popular in the early 70s when my parents were miserable and divorcing and my family was bitterly unhappy, and so I associate it with great pain and emotional damage
Twenty years later I was doing heroin in a friend's flat in London about to get on a jet plane to Moscow in a last desperate attempt to quit the smack by going on the Trans Siberian to Japan and then staying there, I knew it was probably my last chance of saving my life.. and then my friend played this bloody song and all my memories of my mother quietly crying at night, and how that fucked me up as a human, leading to my addiction perhaps, came flooding back as I sucked the heroin smoke and I essentially dissolved into nostalgic despair.
And then I left on the jetplane, not sure if I'd be back again
Not sure 9/11 really makes the cut. Like saving private Ryan and pearl harbor the cinematic centrepiece is so mind-blowing it obscures a pretty ordinary narrative.
I think there's an analogy with Pearl Harbor - Americans liked to think they were somehow invulnerable but 9/11 dispelled that with a vengeance. For London, 7/7 was awful but we'd lived with terror for nearly 40 years though not suicide bombers which was the new dimension.
It impacted American policy directly not only through the eventual Iraq invasion in 2003 and the cover the Bin Laden attacks but also the money successive Republican legislatures poured into defence (and the profits made by defence contractors) came home to roost when the Democrats won the House in 2006 and the extent of the economic exposure became clear.
I genuinely think there was a brief period of euphoria (remember Fukayama) in the early 90s where it was believed we now lived in a unipolar world where the triumph of western liberal democracy was inevitable. The reality of the conflicts which had in some ways been masked by Soviet imperialism was then uncovered as Moscow withdrew from Europe and Africa.
Fukayama lol, that End of History stuff was always hubristic nonsense
Worrying that when I start typing his name phone now autocorrects to fuck.
Read the book. There's nothing hubristic about it. 30 years later has anyone come up with a compelling alternative to liberal democracy? No.
Liberal democracy is Monty Python's black knight. You can be as compelled by it as you like, but it has given way to plutocratic demagoguery here, it is history in the US when Trump gets back in, India is under a racist tyrant and it doesn't seem to have been very good at displacing communism anywhere since 1989. Where has it triumphed?
Ditto "liberal capitalism" but more so. It has been shown since Fukuyama to be humanity's worst mistake. Either it destroys the planet via climate change or climate change destroys it. Because Truss was sort of right, enemies Of Growth are a thing and getting progressively thingier, because they have the only position it is rationally possible to have.
I’d say liberal capitalism is doing a pretty decent job of (finally) mitigating climate change through the twin forces of the market and democratic pressure.
We haven't mitigated it yet, have we? Bookmark this conv for 10 years time.
China is way ahead of most of the democratic world both on decarbonising itself and in design mfr and export of renewables kit, so not a huge win for liberalism there.
Whether through eugenic mating or cosmetic surgery, China is also producing more HOT TEEN GIRLS
The West is totally finished
and a big factor in male motivation to work is hot young women....if you are a young man surrounded by obese women i think you are much less likely to work hard than if you are surrounded by hot young women....it is human nature in action.....
So let’s compare the performance of the Russian army vs, say, the US one?
Yes but that is because russia is technologically inferior to the usa...if technology was equal i think the russians would win as russians are more willing to die
Willingness to die is an overrated attribute. It means the whole military apparatus isn’t set up to preserve life and health, and ultimately that means hanging people out to dry.
You continue your country’s death wish but the future of warfare is zero-casualty conflict.
Warfare is essentially the use of force to achieve political objectives.
Bravery and calculated risk-tasking is necessary to achieve that but it's pretty mad to glorify needless sacrifice on your own side for its own sake, and casualties should be both minimised and regretted by any sane commander.
if you put edinburgh on the south coast it would be perfect
Edinburgh *is* perfect. Except during the festival.
We just spent a few days there, and the little 'un was spellbound by the place. Not by the >6 hour drive, though ...
Did you take him to the museum or the castle? Both go down well with weans.
We did: Edinburgh Castle; an open-top tour bus; the Camera Obscura; Dynamic Earth; and a few other places. All excellent.
Dynamic Earth was surprisingly good. On the way up we stopped at Jedburgh to see the abbey (*), and there was a sign about Hutton's Unconformity there, which he loved.
(*) Why are so may of the ruined abbeys in the borders currently closed? Jedburgh, Melrose, Dryburgh etc? Apparently it is for 'safety' reasons, but having them all closed at the same time does make me wonder what has triggered it.
I'd forgotten about the Camera! Of course he would *love* it.
AIUI the Borders abbeys have been closed because of a wider safety survey to check for unstable stonework - nothing specific to the Borders or abbatial heritage, just luck.
Sorry, but that strikes me as b/s (their reasoning, not your excuse). They've been closed for fifteen months, and it's a wide range of sites in that list. How long does it take to survey them?
Suspect some confusion between detailed survey and repair. But, anyway, not great.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
Wrong...many trumpites are young especially in the south and are more likely to be manual labourers hence strong and fit....by contrast many democrats spend all day at desk jobs and do nothing more strenuous then move a mouse
I’ve been informed that in the north west of England vast numbers of people have refused to pay council tax. If true, and if this becomes common knowledge it could be the beginning of the end of governance as we know it. Apparently the courts are swamped with no payment cases.
I know there are related contingencies going on so it is not as clear as I am making it out but the Senate Control and Senate State markets are out of whack on Betfair.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia Nevada Pennsylvania Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
this might be because of Utah where a Conservative leaning independent is putting up a reasonably good challenge to the republican incumbent, and the democrats are not running a candidate.
I don't think he is odds on to win but it might crate a difference between Number of seats and control of seniti?
Arizona poll. 18-24 year olds going for the GOP 51/44 in the Senate election.
Just... amazing stuff.
It's starting to look like a Republican blow-out to me, although I am sceptical of Trafalgar as a pollster.
I've greened out my lay of the Republicans taking the Senate. I think they'll do it.
Wonder if this will be stock market positive...the markets love gridlock
I don't know.
Probably the best thing for America is that Trumps runs in 2024 again, and loses to Biden by an even bigger margin, but just having him on the scene will probably cause disturbances.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
Before Trump there was never this much hate . The MAGA crowd are just angry all the time and spew nothing but hate. The ones starting this are the Trump supporters and own the whole shitshow !
I’ve been informed that in the north west of England vast numbers of people have refused to pay council tax. If true, and if this becomes common knowledge it could be the beginning of the end of governance as we know it. Apparently the courts are swamped with no payment cases.
Another obvious yet nonetheless perfect pop song. Babylon by David Gray. Has the same poignant quality as Baker Street
The Youtube vid of this song has this comment right underneath, posted a few months ago. I feel every word in my heart
"I remember in my late teens sitting in a stolen car with two of my childhood friends, in a car park taking heroin… this slolong came on the radio and we all paused in a moment of life evaluation… for those 2 minutes we shared this song and a magical moment. my two friends are no longer here… yet my life has ended up really good, great job, home, and a family that love me… I’m 40 years old on Sunday, I consider myself very lucky!"
Those satirical top displayed youtube comments on classic pop songs are little works of art.
Tut
But they are. I love reading them when I do a deepdive. They might seem easy to do but they're not. Have to suck you in but with just enough 'jar' to flag to the cognoscenti.
Anyway, on pure pop that imo ought to be better known -
"When this came out in the summer of 1975 people listened to their radios without headphones and I remember being at the beach and there were a hundred little radios all over the beach tuned to the same radio station, playing this song, so as you walked along you could hear it just slightly, all the while you walked, like one long continuous play on all those tiny radios. It was magical."
I salute these miniature fiction writers (if that they are). Some of them are genius
Underneath the video of Peter Paul and Mary's version of John Denver's Leaving on a Jet Plane (another perfect pop song) there are dozens of comments by Vietnam vets saying how this song affects them very powerfully, as it was popular when they flew out for deployment, and therefore on radios everywhere, in the airport etc
I have my own story of this song. It was popular in the early 70s when my parents were miserable and divorcing and my family was bitterly unhappy, and so I associate it with great pain and emotional damage
Twenty years later I was doing heroin in a friend's flat in London about to get on a jet plane to Moscow in a last desperate attempt to quit the smack by going on the Trans Siberian to Japan and then staying there, I knew it was probably my last chance of saving my life.. and then my friend played this bloody song and all my memories of my mother quietly crying at night, and how that fucked me up as a human, leading to my addiction perhaps, came flooding back as I sucked the heroin smoke and I essentially dissolved into nostalgic despair.
And then I left on the jetplane, not sure if I'd be back again
No, not all are pisstake. Most are gen.
Why do it? Why come along and mock real memories?
Juvenile wankers. And I say that as a bona fide juvenile wanker (at least in sprit, if no longer in age)
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
In both cases you cite the USA decided to withdraw because the political benefit of hanging on in there wasn’t worth the human cost. In neither case were they militarily defeated.
That’s democracy at work. Countries pull back from pointless, expensive overseas adventures when public opinion demands it. Instead of continuing to double down for small dick mini-wins despite the damage caused.
Flip side is when a democracy feels its existence is threatened, it fights on to the bitter end. As would a democratic US army faced with some Gilead-style insurgency.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
It was one of very few tracks that is absolutely perfect in every respect.
Pretty much the only other one being Sultans of Swing from I think the same year?
JR was an unhappy character.
GR!
Bit of a see u next Tuesday when on the bevvy I believe.
Gonna see the Fratellis next week talking of edgy central belt music.
Get your skinny jeans and winklepickers laid out. Haven’t kept up with them lately but liked them when I did.
Got tickets for Peat and Diesel for the new year for a bit of Lewis and Harris edginess, chuffed as they always seem to sell out in a flash.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
I just don't think MAGA phatbois are going to melt into the jungle quite like Charlie did. Cut off their social security, foreclose on their trucks and their houses, track their mobiles.
I’ve been informed that in the north west of England vast numbers of people have refused to pay council tax. If true, and if this becomes common knowledge it could be the beginning of the end of governance as we know it. Apparently the courts are swamped with no payment cases.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Quickest way to lose an argument: describe the opposition as scum.
You can’t reason with them and they live in a fact free world . What exactly are their arguments that are based on reality ?
Well, if they are white working class Americans, they probably think there's a rich leftie establishment conspiracy against them, and you know what? I think they have a point. And then they look at Donald and what he said in 2018 about Euro dependence on Russian gas and think, that was the most statesmanlike call of the century so far. You know what? It was. But calling them scum deffo helps.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
I just don't think MAGA phatbois are going to melt into the jungle quite like Charlie did. Cut off their social security, foreclose on their trucks and their houses, track their mobiles.
If there is an American Civil War, it would be close. Closer than the last one
And I significantly doubt the loyalty of the US Military to Woke Democrats
In the last Civil War, the losing side was emotionally crippled by knowing - deep down - that they were morally in the wrong. And their opponents felt the opposite
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
I just don't think MAGA phatbois are going to melt into the jungle quite like Charlie did. Cut off their social security, foreclose on their trucks and their houses, track their mobiles.
If there is an American Civil War, it would be close. Closer than the last one
And I significantly doubt the loyalty of the US Military to Woke Democrats
In the last Civil War, the losing side was emotionally crippled by knowing - deep down - that they were morally in the wrong. And their opponents felt the opposite
Not the case here
Nah, they'd get whooped. Red states have nothing.
Still, wouldn't be pretty. And there wouldn't be much left after.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
I just don't think MAGA phatbois are going to melt into the jungle quite like Charlie did. Cut off their social security, foreclose on their trucks and their houses, track their mobiles.
If there is an American Civil War, it would be close. Closer than the last one
And I significantly doubt the loyalty of the US Military to Woke Democrats
In the last Civil War, the losing side was emotionally crippled by knowing - deep down - that they were morally in the wrong. And their opponents felt the opposite
Not the case here
I honestly think an american civil war would lead to a british civil war along similar lines...woke leftists vs the white working class...
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
I just don't think MAGA phatbois are going to melt into the jungle quite like Charlie did. Cut off their social security, foreclose on their trucks and their houses, track their mobiles.
If there is an American Civil War, it would be close. Closer than the last one
And I significantly doubt the loyalty of the US Military to Woke Democrats
In the last Civil War, the losing side was emotionally crippled by knowing - deep down - that they were morally in the wrong. And their opponents felt the opposite
Not the case here
Nah, they'd get whooped. Red states have nothing.
Still, wouldn't be pretty. And there wouldn't be much left after.
I spent a brief moment at a pub this afternoon with a nice pint of Harvey’s best, and they were playing Jerry Rafferty - Baker Street. It struck me as being the ultimate autumn Sunday afternoon pub track. I had an almost Proustian response to it.
It was one of very few tracks that is absolutely perfect in every respect.
Pretty much the only other one being Sultans of Swing from I think the same year?
JR was an unhappy character.
GR!
Bit of a see u next Tuesday when on the bevvy I believe.
Gonna see the Fratellis next week talking of edgy central belt music.
Get your skinny jeans and winklepickers laid out. Haven’t kept up with them lately but liked them when I did.
Got tickets for Peat and Diesel for the new year for a bit of Lewis and Harris edginess, chuffed as they always seem to sell out in a flash.
Wilco, polishing up the snip toe Tony Lamas.
As with Del Amitri they deserved to make it bigger than they did. In theory they are supporting Kaiser Chiefs, to me it's other way round.
Crowd shouting lock her up about Nancy Pelosi at a Trump rally . The Maga Trump Cult are despicable hate filled scum.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
Trouble is the Trumpites know you hate them, and they think you started all this, so there's yer civil war, right there
In a civil war of the young and fit against the old and obese, only one side will win.
The side carrying bigger guns.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
Total bollocks sorry, I hear this a lot what does the right to bear arms matter when the us military has all these toys.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Vietcong were happy to live in tunnels on half a bowl of rice a week. MAGGOTS less so. Helicopter gunships when they go on a Walmart run, and BOOM.
The vietcong were already used to that style of living largely it is irrelevant.
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
I just don't think MAGA phatbois are going to melt into the jungle quite like Charlie did. Cut off their social security, foreclose on their trucks and their houses, track their mobiles.
If there is an American Civil War, it would be close. Closer than the last one
And I significantly doubt the loyalty of the US Military to Woke Democrats
In the last Civil War, the losing side was emotionally crippled by knowing - deep down - that they were morally in the wrong. And their opponents felt the opposite
Not the case here
I’m not an expert on the psyches of Confederates but all I’ve read suggests that they had an almost mystical faith in the rightness of their cause. I’m fairly sure knowing deep down that the North could and would crush them economically was more crippling to them.
Comments
It is also worth noting *why* this has happened. Historically, US refiners were setup to produce mostly gasoline, while European refiners were setup to produce mostly diesel. (And this was a consequence of regulation in Europe, but that's another story.)
This created a healthy cross-Atlantic trade in refined products. Gasoline would be sent from the US to Europe, and diesel would go the other way.
Kind of makes sense but the neutrality andlack of backstory still makes me wonder.
"“Building more coal-fired power capacity will not provide energy security for China. This is a deep-seated falsehood. It’s part of a traditional mindset about the energy sector that clawed its way back into prominence rather quickly. An overcapacity of this one energy source is a major hurdle for energy security, as well as China’s energy transition. China’s power inadequacies do not originate from low generation capacity. China has an overcapacity of coal-fired power plants. Power inadequacies originate from poor integration of generation, grid, load, and storage,” said Wu Jinghan, the climate & energy campaigner in Greenpeace East Asia’s Beijing office."
S/he would say that, wouldn't they? It must be a very unusual sort of coal if having lots of it and lots of coal fired power stations contributes nothing to your energy security. And "Power inadequacies originate from poor integration of generation, grid, load, and storage" can be true while it is also true that the quckest temporary fix for the problem, is coal. And if you are a 1.4bn person nation trying to modernise itself you need to smelt a whole heap of steel to modernise your infrastructure, including power infrastructure.
And that's before we get on to the point that they are burning that coal to make YOUR phone and car and computer and white goods and clothes and for that matter, solar panels and wind turbines.
And at night I got drunk with expats and Japanese kids in Gion, where the geishas walk by in their wooden clogs
As a Herefordian and erstwhile user of class A drugs have you read Charles Nicholl? His written style reminds me of you a bit.
I was friends with his son. They lived in a very nice house surrounded by orchards just outside Hereford.
If individuals and families are in need of help they tell their lender at once and seek a new affordable payment schedule - the rental market is a little different but if BTL landlords are struggling to cover mortgages because their tenants can't afford the rent it makes sense for there to be some sense all round.
Seeing families evicted and having properties repossessed isn't necessary or desirable and Davey has a good idea on this.
I realise some on here see the economic ideas of Truss and Kwarteng as being "the answer" in some form even though they're more discredited than AV.
I thought the most telling part of Davey's speech was the Conservative failure to keep the promise of recruiting GPs - we urgently need thousands more GPs across the country to help clear the enormous backlog of people needing a consultation. I accept making a pledge is much easier than fulfilling it but for there to be fewer GPs now than there were at the last election rather than the thousands promised then by Boris Johnson is a clear failure.
Currently punters are giving the GOP a 66% chance of winning control of the Senate.
But if you look at the odds for
Georgia
Nevada
Pennsylvania
Arizona
(Which are realistically the only states that matter for the purpose of the bet given how far out Dems are on any other state - and even ignores that absolute wild card of New Hampshire which is in the mix).
Based on these states Betfair is giving the GOP a >80% chance of controlling the senate (i.e. Retain Pennsylvania and take at least 1 of the remaining 3 or lose Pennsylvania and take at least 2 of the remaining 3).
It does very much seem like the value bet is currently betting on GOP Senate control.
Interestingly, China has gone back to being a meaningful coal exporter again. People don't appreciate the insane number of massive open pit mine in China, particularly up towards Mongolia.
She's playing the guitar too
Arizona poll. 18-24 year olds going for the GOP 51/44 in the Senate election.
Just... amazing stuff.
Simon Sebag Montefiore discusses historical rock songs and why rock stars are historians.
I think this is the most dangerous period for the Scottish independence movement in years, hence the absurd “car crash” reaction to Starmer.
There’s fear in @StuartDickson ’s eyes.
How do I post to this site from apple ios? I am having to leave the day bed and use a desktop.
Fundamentally, a Fannie/Freddie model, which would allow mortgage lenders to offer 25/30 yr fixed loans would require the government to underwrite the risk.
That’s not the government’s job, imo.
What you’re asking for is taxpayer subsidy of homeownership.
No thanks.
Selling 1973-2016 as some sort of golden age will kill the rejoiner movement.
I've greened out my lay of the Republicans taking the Senate. I think they'll do it.
I wonder if it is always songs from one's teenage years that do this?
You can back him for Republican Nominee at 1.8 but also back 'No' for him filing to run for President in 2024 (cutoff by 1st Sept 2024) at 6.4, or lay 'Yes' at 1.18.
Admittedly, this much lower price covers the possibility of him running as an independent too but I think that's largely moot. If he runs he'll go for Republican Nominee and he'll get it.
I couldn’t stomach being in the same room as them .
They're dying in vast numbers not because they want to but because their army is literally fighting with stuff forty years out of date.
You continue your country’s death wish but the future of warfare is zero-casualty conflict.
One part white christian with immigration only from northern europe
The other part multicultural with immigration from all over the world
Let the 2 parts compete
The soldiers had been ordered to the frontline in Luhansk, Donbas, and then told to dig trenches, the Verstka news agency said in an unverified report.
“We had three shovels per battalion and there were no provisions at all. We dug in as best we could and in the morning the shelling started from artillery and helicopters. We were simply shot,” Agafonov, the alleged unit survivor, said.
“When it all started the officers simply ran away.”"
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2022/11/06/battalion-russian-mobilised-men-wiped-days-survivors-claim/
I think DeSantis has to go for it because, if not now, then when? Four years is a lifetime in politics and Trump's VP will probably be the GOP candidate in 2028. Assuming they are still having elections by then which is by no means a sure thing.
Elizabeth line update:
Caught the 1013 from Ilford to Whitechapel (surprised to see the full 8-minute Sunday frequency), and then Whitechapel to Maidenhead, arriving there at 1141. But missed the 1129 to Marlow, so had to wait till 1229, managed to visit Cookham and Furze Platt, the last two stations I needed to complete the TfL Contactless PAYG area. Got a little soaked at Furze Platt around 1330. Back to Maidenhead by 1422, waited until 1449 to catch a train from platform 5 so I could do the rare connection to the track from platform 5.
None of the trains I caught were particularly busy. Waited westbound at the Westbourne Park sidings for only a minute, and around 5 minutes going eastbound. Changed at Paddington for a Shenfield service, and reached Ilford around 1600.
A middle-aged couple wanting Whitechapel were confused by the out-of-date line diagram when we departed Paddington, thinking they had to change at LST, I reassured them the train would indeed call at Whitechapel, but they still alighted at LST anyway, before hearing the onboard destination announcement, quickly jumping back aboard and apologizing to me
I mean, sure, you have to take risks in war I would guess, but fanatical stubborness only gets you so far I assume.
There won't be a civil war because the army and security services are not deserting and joining 'the other side'. There could be civil unrest. If there is a right wing secessionist movement it would need significant parts of the army and airforce to come over to its side. I find that unlikely.
But Trump has the actual GOP primary voters.
Well the us military had all the best toys in vietnam whereas the vietnamese had what comes under the heading right to bear arms....the us lost
ditto afghanistan.
Which is even before the fact that in a civil war half the us military is likely to defect taking their toys with them
Bravery and calculated risk-tasking is necessary to achieve that but it's pretty mad to glorify needless sacrifice on your own side for its own sake, and casualties should be both minimised and regretted by any sane commander.
I’ve been informed that in the north west of England vast numbers of people have refused to pay council tax. If true, and if this becomes common knowledge it could be the beginning of the end of governance as we know it. Apparently the courts are swamped with no payment cases.
9:50 PM · Nov 5, 2022·
https://twitter.com/mrcoonie/status/1589012190862135296?s=20&t=6XXGHi9XwUtUrgpTAqcepQ
I don't think he is odds on to win but it might crate a difference between Number of seats and control of seniti?
Probably the best thing for America is that Trumps runs in 2024 again, and loses to Biden by an even bigger margin, but just having him on the scene will probably cause disturbances.
https://phillipspobrien.substack.com/p/long-form-thoughts-on-the-weekend?utm_source=twitter&sd=pf
Therefore NATO should force Ukraine to negotiate territorial concessions.
Am I on the right track, comrade?
Juvenile wankers. And I say that as a bona fide juvenile wanker (at least in sprit, if no longer in age)
Conventional armies pitted against conventional armies the best equipped have an advantage.
Conventional army against a guerilla force that blends into the population and has the clandestine support of many....they dont do so good
"You're destroying America so im going to destroy you"
https://twitter.com/mrcoonie/status/1589012190862135296?s=20&t=6XXGHi9XwUtUrgpTAqcepQ
If i were Soros i would be getting concerned
cost. In neither case were they militarily defeated.
That’s democracy at work. Countries pull back from pointless, expensive overseas adventures when public opinion demands it. Instead of continuing to double down for small dick mini-wins despite the damage caused.
Flip side is when a democracy feels its existence is threatened, it fights on to the bitter end. As would a democratic US army faced with some Gilead-style insurgency.
Got tickets for Peat and Diesel for the new year for a bit of Lewis and Harris edginess, chuffed as they always seem to sell out in a flash.
And I significantly doubt the loyalty of the US Military to Woke Democrats
In the last Civil War, the losing side was emotionally crippled by knowing - deep down - that they were morally in the wrong. And their opponents felt the opposite
Not the case here
Congratulations. Jack Benny never made it past 39.
Still, wouldn't be pretty. And there wouldn't be much left after.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/1095796017744550?journalCode=nlfa
As with Del Amitri they deserved to make it bigger than they did. In theory they are supporting Kaiser Chiefs, to me it's other way round.