Zompist Bboard Again

In summary, I give it 70% that we crash out chaotically in March, 25% that we crash out chaotically at the end of the transition period with either no agreement or one inadequate to our economic needs, 4% that the exit is successfully managed to minimise economic disruption, and 1% that we decide t...

I consider a CSU/Free Voters coalition most likely. The CSU had stated before the election that they won't form a coalition with the far-right AfD, and if they broke that promise, the effect would be a nation-wide political earthquake with disastrous repercussions since such a coalition would break...

Polls are now closed in the Bavarian state legislative election, and here's one of the exit poll based predictions: CSU 35.5 percent; Greens 18.5 percent; Free Voters (independent, sort of anti-establishment) 11.5 percent; AfD 11 percent; SPD 10 percent; FDP 5 percent; The Left 3.5 percent (not in t...

Which leads to the larger question: what to do about countries where most voters want a dictator? Accept the will of the voters, and you have a dictatorship; thwart the will of the voters, and you have a dictatorship, too.

Serious question: are there any, I mean, any, remaining May supporters? Looks to me that it's all just people who either can't agree on whom to replace her with, or who want to leave her in place until after Brexit so that no one else has to preside over that.

From liberal-leaning news website Talking Points Memo: "Hundreds Of Teacher Candidates Shake Up Midterm Elections" https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/hundreds-teacher-candidates-shake-up-midterms For one moment, I thought that in addition to all the other weird offices that are directly el...

(not that I'm much of a WSJ reader. We always have a copy in the breakroom at work, so I skim the headlines when waiting for my friends to finish making their elaborate pourover coffee. The Mansion section is the best bit because rich people spend their money in incredibly stupid ways; I enjoy read...

It being October, the heating at my place has been turned on again.

- polls suggest the Tories are now comfortably ahead of Labour again. To be fair, polls that are published now were probably taken before or early during the Tory Conference, but after the Labour Conference, which had its own share of chaos about supporting or not supporting a second Brexit referen...

mèþru wrote: ↑Fri Sep 28, 2018 10:32 am Ed Miliband? He's remarkably average in my POV

The British apparently decided that he's a complete weirdo a while ago, for reasons unknown to me, which apparently somehow involve a ham sandwich.

just in case some readers are wondering who this "Jacob Rees-Mogg" person, is I wouldn't have thought that was necessary - I thought JRM was one of the few politicians other than Treeza people outside the UK know about if only cause he's such an oddball. Most of what I know about Jacob Re...

From the Guardian : Air pollution fears fuel fight against new London cruise ship terminal https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/sep/26/air-pollution-fears-fuel-fight-against-huge-new-london-cruise-ship-terminal-river-thames So the air pollution in London has gotten so bad that it has actuall...

A tweet by the AFP news agency:

"Kim seeks second Trump summit 'at an early date': Moon"

Of course, in this context, "Moon" refers to the current President of South Korea. But for one moment I read this as Kim Jong Un proposing a summit with Trump on the Moon.

mèþru wrote: ↑Thu Sep 13, 2018 1:35 pm John Delaney's the only major candidate openly running and he's only technically major.

Well, technically you're right.

NBC NEWS: "2020 Democratic hopefuls wage invisible primary for black voters" https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/2020-democratic-hopefuls-wage-invisible-primary-black-voters-n909086 Pretty straightforward on its own, but the thing is, there are so many Democrats seemingly prepar...

On a related note traditionally at the University of Cambridge you "read" your subject rather than "study" it (this usage is declining though as Cambridge assimilates to the majority of British universities linguistically). I always liked that usage; I'll be sorry to see it go. ...

Oh, I missed a Discworld discussion. Never mind, I'll just pretend it's still going on. So far, I've read Jingo , Night Watch , and the early books in order of publication from the start to Moving Pictures , after which I lost interest for some reason. I had fallen in love with the series when I gra...

Thank you. Still less extreme than Sal's 83/14 ratio though. Perhaps he got his numbers from a more current source, which already shows the effects of the recent crisis?

I'm not Israeli, but based on my observations of right-wing movements in various countries, I strongly suspect that it won't make a difference - or, if anything, that it will strengthen support for him and his party, by giving him even more opportunities to strike a pose as a right-wing martyr. Sigh.

The amusing thing in this case is that Labour doesn't actually care about Jews - Being bigoted against people doesn't require seeing oneself as caring about them either way. they're an absolutely tiny share of the voting population anyway, and they all vote Tory anyway. [they don't, obviously. But ...