Off Topic Politics Thread

Catch up on iPlayer

 

Any of our North American correspondents (@Schad , @I Sorry I Ruined The Party ) give me a brief explanation of Joe Biden's popularity among working class black voters?

I would have expected Bernie to have more to offer the economically disadvantaged of all ethnicities than Biden does, but what do I know?

Is it time for The Bern to concede defeat?

 

They know him, he has long-established relationships with key figures in those communities, and they (more or less) trust him. He was also the VP of the first black president and had an excellent working relationship with him.

Bernie made zero attempt to reach out to key figures in the black community, openly stating in one case that they wouldn't endorse him so it wasn't worth the effort. His campaign explicitly planned around a scenario where 30% of the vote would win them the nomination in a very divided race, so they didn't really bother to do the necessary outreach to the other 70%. He's getting his 30%; the other 70% coalesced around Biden.

Yes. He has absolutely zero chance of winning. And that's not an exaggeration:

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2020-primary-forecast

All he's accomplishing now is forcing people to turn up to polling sites which end up being vectors for the coronavirus.

 

It amazes and astonishes me how people STILL DON'T REALISE that they have hardly ever actually missed anything broadcast these days. You have an absolute minimum of a month to "catch-up". Almost as often you get upto a year to watch a particular programme. [not picking on you SR123 specifically, just making a general observation]. On the flip side, I'm sure there are loads of people out there fully cognescent of the facilty too.

Sorry, just one of subjects. You caught me at a weak moment.

 

And in the case of many programmes, including Question Time, you don’t even have to wait until it’s finished to find it on the player. Last night I was looking for something else on iPlayer and found QT had been on for half an hour, so just used the “Watch from start” option.

 

Absolutely. You never have to miss anything of a programme that has already started on BBC iPlayer. And because you get a two hour "live" window, you can watch programmes that have already recently finished. A great example is MOTD. You can start watching it from the beginning at anything approaching two hours after it started. Often I do this quick mental exercise of thinking how good/bad the Saints match was, and how late I can "tune in". Plus you can watch a match as many times as you like until the two hour window catches up. I've watched the Saints highlights 3-4 times in quick succession before.

 

Plane with 5 passengers on board, Donald Trump, Boris Johnson, the Pope, Nicola Sturgeon and a ten year old school boy.
The plane is about to crash and there's only 4 parachutes.
Trump said I need one. I’ve to sort out the USA!’ Takes one and jumps
The pope said ‘I need one, I've to sort out the Catholic Church.’ He takes one and jumps.
Boris said ‘I’m the smartest man in England.’ He takes one and jumps.
Nicola said to the ten year old "you can have the last parachute. I've lived my life, yours is only starting".
The 10 year old said "Don’t worry, there are 2 parachutes left. The smartest man in England took my school bag" .

 

That’s superb!

 

Strong political article from the BBC News website. And for my money, entirely accurate: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-52012049

 

For those who felt the recent government statement were ambiguous and misleading.

EMPLOYEE NOTICE

Due to the current financial situation caused by the Corona Virus and slowdown in the economy, the Government has decided to implement a scheme to put workers of 50 years of age and above on early, mandatory retirement, thus creating jobs and reducing unemployment.

This scheme will be known as RAPE (Retire Aged People Early).

Persons selected to be RAPED can apply to the Government to be considered for the SHAFT program (Special Help After Forced Termination).

Persons who have been RAPED and SHAFTED will be reviewed under the SCREW program (System Covering Retired-Early Workers).

A person may be RAPED once, SHAFTED twice and SCREWED as many times as the Government deems appropriate.

Persons who have been RAPED could get AIDS (Additional Income for Dependents & Spouse) or HERPES (Half Earnings for Retired Personnel Early Severance).

Obviously persons who have AIDS or HERPES will not be SHAFTED or SCREWED any further by the Government.

Persons who are not RAPED and are staying on will receive as much **** (Special High Intensity Training) as possible. The Government has always prided themselves on the amount of **** they give our citizens.

Should you feel that you do not receive enough ****, please bring this to the attention of your TD, who has been trained to give you all the **** you can handle.

Sincerely,
The Committee for Economic Value of Individual Lives (E.V.I.L.)

PS - Due to Corona Virus, recent budget cuts and the rising cost of electricity, gas and oil, as well as current market conditions, The Light at the End of the Tunnel has been turned off.

 

All joking aside, I put forward a suggestion a week or so back, suggesting that those whose retirement age had been put back to 66, should now be allowed to retire at 65, freeing up a few jobs for those who will inevitably lose their’s, when things start to get back to normal and companies “downsize” to stay afloat/make quicker profits.

 

Just thought I'd liven up this POLITICS thread and remind all those of you jamming up the covid 19 thread with political bollocks and childlike points scoring this is the thread for it.
Over 48hrs and no posts on here but obvious political crap from the usual few on the c19 thread.
Here's a thing you wait til all these promised payments (funny you aren't banging on about them by the way) dont go quite to plan my bet is you'll be swarming all over this thread.
To be fair most of it is funny or just plain silly but at least I can choose when to read it.

 

Much of the Covid-19 pandemic is enmeshed in politics and can't be separated. The national scandal of the NHS being savaged by cuts and progressively sold off in recent years, making this crisis even worse is political. Donald Trump being an imbecile and endangering hundreds of thousands of lives in the USA is political. Medical staff here and in the USA being denied WHO class protective equipment and the shortage of ventilators is political.

It's probably not going to be possible to keep things on separate threads without some overlap because of the monumental political **** up in not only failing to heed the warnings from China, but also the mixed messages being sent out. The government have only reacted in response to pressure from the general public for calls to shut down schools and non-essential companies. It's all a mixture of Politics and the Covid-19 crisis.

A lot of people are feeling stressed and a bit ragged at the moment and this is only week one. We should all cut each other plenty of slack because tempers are likely to get frayed, but it's only temporary. We all have a common goal, survive this and get back to watching Saints being as frustrating as they usually are.

Chin up, and all the best.

 

God, how I miss arguing about Saints...

 

I'm pretty sure you know which posts should be here.
Anyway I dont disagree with all your points and I'm certainly not looking for a barney.
Up the ****ing Saints, just hope I see em again even though they'll piss me off.

 

As you would expect I have responded to this in the Covid19 thread. I could do no more.

 

Just for a change, politicians (OK, Conservative politicians) saying "We're all in this together" may actually be telling the truth.
We may actually be facing the biggest crisis ever to confront humanity since deciding how the Stonehenge sarsens get moved from Wales (geologically speaking) to a flat area near the river Avon, to build a ceremonial sacrifice centre. It will never last...

 

I am probably unhinged (caused by an excess of red wine, amongst others), but it occurs to me that The Earth allowed the dinosaurs to have a go at ruling, then decided that enough was enough, so a metorite wiped them out, in one go.
Now mammals have tried, with humanity at the apex of the pyramid, but as that hasn't worked out too well, a virus has appeared, that can remove all traces of civilisation. In the words of Douglas Adams, 'So long, and thanks for all the fish'.

I'll feel better in the morning, but The Earth may still consider that humans were not such a good idea after all.

 

I must admit I am struggling at the moment to watch TV or films as it is all how life used to be like. It isn't like that now or for a while. Will it ever be the same?

 

A friend of mine put a similar idea quite succinctly; we need Mother Nature. She doesn’t need us.

We need to learn this lesson