Who Moved My Cheese -> The Warrior's Apprentice.
How To Win Friends and Influence People -> A Civil Campaign
If that's what you consider a poker face, I suggest you don't play poker for money. But it's good to see that the reason Simon Cowell is so harsh is because he's looking for the greatness, not because he's genuinely purely cynical.
There is something utterly adorable about the cynicism just vanishing after the first few notes.
Someone annotated the Long National Nightmare article back in about 2004 IIRC. The links don't all work any more. But that was true prescience (and has been said before understated).
Seriously? Why are they illegal?
Privacy concerns IIRC. When using publically available data your output must be aggregated to a point where you can't identify individual cases of just about anything without 'disproportionate effort' or direct consent. And in the case of causes of death direct consent is impossible...
Off the top of my head (I don't have the source material for this anywhere near so take at your own risk), there's some mythologising in the above post. John Snow was in fact the second person to draw a map like that and trace a cholera outbreak and trace it back to the water supply. (I forget who the first was - and he wasn't half as good a politician as John Snow).
I also seem to recall something about the official investigation being funded by the water companies, but I could be getting the wrong investigation.
And it's one of life's minor ironies that the Victorian temperence movement actually encouraged people to drink beer.
Finally it's a pet rant of many people in Public Health that not only are the maps no easier to draw, they are actually illegal to draw in Britain under current law.
I seem to remember reading somewhere that Powell, before his turn to racism, was progressive in his views.
Stupid two-party political axes. As I understand it, Powell was a
benevolent paternalistic nationalist - or a "One Nation Tory". He
believed in doing what was best for the people he represented - which
was his constituency and its voters, Britain, the wider organisations
to which Britain belonged (Empire/Commonwealth, Europe), and the world.
In that order.
As such, his views were often progressive (although he was a rampant
free-marketeer (albeit with decent labour laws and other such
progressive controls on the rapacity of unregulated markets) in the
days it was an unpopular belief) as progressive policies would be best
for those he represented and the wider community of Britain. But when
he saw something that he felt threatened Britain (i.e. immigration from
the former colonies in the wake of the dissolution of the Empire) it
was exactly the same logic that caused him to speak out here as caused
him to act when people were working in uncivilised conditions and
otehrwise oppose forms of injustice.
Everybody is fully convinced that the other side does not have redeeming qualities, so it's very easy to display yourself with none, and be believed.
Nonsense! I believe that >95% of the other side is misinformed, mislead, and badly (and I mean that morally) educated. (The proportion who post to the net in such arguments is significantly lower than that). But I don't write off the majority of them.
And with this guy (and Ann Coulter) there needs to be a version of Clarke's Law: Any significantly in-character trolling is indistinguishable from advocacy.
The depressing thing is that by the standards of most newspapers the Economist is generally pretty good.
Something from the Silmarillion probably. Possibly something like the Tale of Aragorn and Arwen. Yes, I know. I'm no fun.
To be honest, I'm hoping for an Obama/Edwards ticket followed by an Edwards/Obama ticket. But whoever wins, my main hope is that all the leading Democratic* candidates sink their differences and concentrate on kicking the Republican party as far back out of power as they have ever been. (Regardless of who wins, I think that Obama and both Clintons have a lot to offer any political campaign). And they also announce how things are going to be done by giving Howard Dean some important roles. (With the explicit acknowledgement that they will make as many moves towards bipartisanship as the Republicans have since Gingrich).
And I don't even have a dog in this fight.
But yes, Obama's gone up and Edwards has gone down in my estimation over this.
* I refuse to call them "Democrats" in the way pioneered IIRC by Strom Thurmond.
The old republic had decayed into corruption and decadance, and one man had siezed power by bringing his troops to enforce martial law in the capital. His heirs had set up a police state and disappeared any voices of dissent (including our hero's wife). Our hero is in line for the throne, and believes in the restoration of the republic - but first he needs to survive in the decadent and paranoid environment of the Imperial Palace.
Born in 1981, and add me to the Challenger pile.
Are push-polls an American thing?
And Dave:
Here in the UK, I've met a few low-grade politicians, ordinary MPs who aren't really in the running for the positions of authority. Mostly, they're decent people. They have to toe the party line, much more than in the USA, but they work hard for their constituencies, and the local issues.
I've also met government ministers. They're different. It's maybe understandable that that they are so much more certain about the rightness of the official policy--it could be seriously awkward to to agree with a criticism--but they come across as alien. Proto-Slitheen.
That's generally in line with my experience. What I find interesting is that Special Advisors are more like ministers than like anything else. I do wonder if there's something toxic in the water of the Westminster Village (and probably the same thing in the Beltway) and the politicians that spend more time representing their constituents than playing machine politics are immune.
The same thing is apparently true in much of Europe, and Australia: women tend to be more conservative, or at least vote more conservatively. The US is the outlier here, with women more liberal than men.
I do not see the US as an outlier. The Republican party in the US at present is not even slightly conservative. It is reactionary - and therefore any genuine conservatives (as opposed to "Conservatives") will currently be voting Democratic as the Democratic party is genuinely conservative (i.e. it doesn't want to change very much or very fast).
Men are more likely than women to take risks* and hence to vote for parties who want change (which is itself a risk). Therefore women are more likely to vote for genuinely conservative parties - and the current Republican party lives up to its Conservative billing about as well as a Peoples Democratic Republic ever lived up to its...
* I don't want a discussion about why - but there is a fair amount of research showing this to be the case.
I find it an odd response to dismiss a respected right-wing pundit's
Are you calling Ann Coulter a respected right wing pundit? Listened to, yes. Respected by whom?
Also, it's her assumption that compassion is a sign of weakness, stupidity, or gullibility. Maybe she's never known anyone who has been both compassionate and strong. That would be my guess... but then I'm indulging in armchair psychology now.
If she thinks that compassion is a sign of weakness my guess is she's never known anyone who has been compassionate or strong.
FrancisT @#83
No problem - I'm not used to many others of us around either. I'm switching to FrancisD for the same reason (and following Nancy's suggestion).
| Year | Number of comments posted |
|---|---|
| 2009 | 5 |
| 2008 | 8 |
| 2007 | 13 |
| 2006 | 28 |
| 2005 | 31 |
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