The Winchester

[nerys @nerys]

I was just grateful for a distraction from the political mess in the United States. It now looks dreadfully imminent that the path to the White House is cleared … and not for the incumbent. It doesn’t bring me comfort to know I haven’t lived there since 1996. We share a border with the U.S., and I have family and friends living there. It’s all deeply troubling.

[winston @winston]

@nerys    I know what you mean, I am hoping for sanity but bracing for insanity. The fact that Trump is back ,after a few years of calm and with the Bidens ,scares the heck out of me. Why is he still out from under his rock and not hiding in a cave in shame? Why would anyone vote for him?I am baffled and troubled by what it means to the USA and the rest of the world. Why does anyone want a buffoon for a leader? Why vote for a person who never wants to leave? I wish I could wrap my head around it but I can’t.I heard him say that Biden made the US a laughing stock to the rest of the world but it was the marmalade monster who did that. I despair.

stay safe

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys @winston

Yes, the prospect of November is very concerning. It has rather tempered my delight at the result of the UK election. I’m afraid, whatever you think about Biden’s health and age, he’s carrying the can for cost of living, isn’t he?

In the UK, the other big issue was conduct in Public Office. Certain areas of the Conservative Party seem to act like spivs and have been punished. Trump denies and survives. Somebody must have advised him to fix the courts… probably Putin.

Putin (and Wagner) Netanyahu, Orban and the new European right will all be emboldened… that includes our wonderful Mr Farage. If Putin succeeds in exploiting the Russian minorities seeded in Eastern Europe, and that’s why they were inserted into Transinistra, Latvia and Kalinigrad, Serbian revanchism will be next.

US isolationism is just another form of Tellurocracy. But I’m not sure many below The Parallel get that, or consider the consequences.

[Craig @craig Emperor]

I thought this was fun from the satirical news reporter character Jonathan Pie.

It’s a summation for The New York Times. It’s kinda how I feel.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@craig

… lots of planets have a north. Lots of people are a bit beige. Mind you, did you see the pic of Kier as Stuart Adamson/Billy McKenzie c1982?

More importantly, NOT a buffoon! Though they may have adjusted the audio on his victory speech. And he had notes! You need notes, Nigel… if you’re going to say more than ‘hate!’ And ‘woke!’

[Craig @craig Emperor]

@ps1l0v3y0u

Ha, I did see those pics. I was 12 at that time, but I remember those days

On a side note. I went to school with Alan Rankin’s sister, my mate went out with her for a brief period. Used to go round to her house and met Alan a few times. He had a massive record collection.

For those who don’t know, Billy McKenzie and Alan Rankine were The Associates.

[nerys @nerys]

@winston @ps1l0v3y0u Trump appeals to a segment of the population who feel they have been ignored by the liberal elite and/or big government. There’s certainly a fair bit of truth to that, but what they don’t seem to realize is that Trump is not their guy. He’s only using them to get what he wants, which is power at anyone’s expense but his. He’s very good at telling people what they want to hear, so they genuinely believe he is connecting with them. Trump is hardly the first politician to achieve that, but he is certainly one of the most baffling at being able to achieve this con job on such a massive scale.

Trump is a grifter and a snake oil salesman. Sadly, those occupations have a long history of success in the United States. His fans don’t seem to care that he completely lacks any moral or ethical code, and that he’s willing to ignore or break laws to get what he wants. (“But he was framed!”) If anything, findings of ethical or legal wrongdoing seem to endear him to his fans even more because he’s defying conventional mores. If we were a society of substance over style, then none of this would matter. But we live in an age of “reality” TV … and this show is playing out in real time.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@craig

Alan Rankine feeding a chocolate guitar (from Harrods I believe) to the audience on TotP

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Pj-CJ9FEW28

This was about the time they recorded Sulk. Billy McKenzie thought it was a good idea to feed his Whippets on smoked salmon from room service at The Holiday Inn.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

(@craig Thanks for the Jonathan Pie piece. Brilliant. Mind you, looking at the final results, it would seem that the Primord Party, led by the Primord-in Chief, Farage (who apparently wants the young men of Britain to emulate Andrew Tate) got more than 4 million votes. And remember, one of the characteristics of the Primords was not to kill, but to capture and physically hold their prey until they had turned into a Primord themselves.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

 

 

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/tardis/images/b/bf/Primord_2.jpg/revision/latest?cb=20110919192854

[Mudlark @mudlark]

Beige is fine as far as I’m concerned; Attlee was hardly a charismatic figure, and look what his government achieved! For the moment I’m just relieved that the grown-ups are now in charge, and I certainly don’t expect miracles, given the disaster area that Starmer’s government have inherited. What worries me for the future is the extent to which Labour’s landslide depended on Reform splitting the right wing vote.

On election night I stayed up until 4 am and could have stayed up longer, but decided in the end that it was probably better if I got at least a few hours sleep. As a result I missed seeing the downfall of Liz Truss as it happened, but the schadenfreude was delicious even on seeing the news a few hours later.

In my home city of Norwich things went as expected; Norwich South re-elected Clive Lewis with a handsome majority and Norwich North returned to the Labour fold. I said that it would be interesting to see what happened in the rural hinterlands of East Anglia and it certainly was. Apart from Norwich there are seven more constituencies which for the most part have always voted Conservative. North Norfolk voted Tory in 2019, but in the previous decade or more had voted Lib Dem and has now reverted to them. Of the rest, three remained Tory but with vastly reduced majorities, two voted Labour, one (S W Norfolk) being the constituency of the aforementioned Liz Truss, and the coastal constituency of Great Yarmouth, sad to say, elected the Reform candidate.

In the neighbouring county of Suffolk, which is also predominantly rural, the results were equally interesting. In 2019 the entire county was a solid Tory blue. This time round the county town of Ipswich opted for Labour, as did three of the normally Tory rural constituencies. Waveney, the constituency bordering Norfolk, went Green. The remaining three constituencies remained Tory, but again with much reduced majorities.

What’s notable is that here the traditionally Tory voters went for Labour, in contrast to the similarly traditional Tory voters in Southern England and the Midlands who opted for the Lib Dems.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

A while back Craig mentioned PR (Proportional Representation).   Just my 2p – speaking as a voter, it’s bloody marvellous.   Our flavour in New Zealand is MMP – Mixed Member Proportional.   I get two votes – one for our local MP (this is kind of a sop to our previous FPP electorate origins) and one for a party of my choice.   Of course I can vote the same way on both if I want, or not.   I can even vote for a MP from one party (if I think s/he’s a really good guy) and party-vote another.

In each electorate, the candidate with the most votes wins (as under FPP).   However, the final party numbers are adjusted in direct proportion to the total party vote.   So if a party gets 10% of the party votes, but only 2 MP’s win their electorates, then they are ‘topped up’ with extra MP’s from the pre-election published party ‘list’.

The big plus, for me, is no more ‘strategic’ voting.   I don’t have to hold my nose and vote for B (when I really wanted to vote for C) just because B has a slightly better chance of defeating A, who I detest.    And A no longer ‘gets in’ with 40% of the vote because B and C ‘split’ the opposition vote between them.   Nor is it possible for a party to win with fewer overall votes than its opposition.    It does tend to encourage coalitions but that (in my mind) is not necessarily a bad thing.   They can also happen with FPP.

MMP was introduced in 1996 after a public referendum and after a couple of FPP elections had put parties in power with a minority of the votes.   It ain’t perfect but it’s a lot better than what we had before, IMO.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

I’ve also been following events in the USA fairly closely and am appalled by the fact that Trump has a realistic chance of being elected. The prospect of another Trump presidency is frankly terrifying, especially now that the Supreme Court has granted him, at least as he sees it, carte blanche to do whatever he wants without any legal repercussions. Moreover it’s not just his would-be fascistic dictatorship that is so worrying, it’s the people who want to use him to establish a white nationalist, fundamentalist theocracy, namely those behind Project 2025. It would be horrifying enough if  the repercussions were confined within the USA, but they are not.

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@dentarthurdent

Yes, the first-past-the-post system here is grossly unrepresentative and urgently needs to be reformed.  Happy though I am with the result this time round, it is absurd that a party with little more than a third of the vote should gain a landslide victory. In fact the only party whose share of the vote this time has been at all accurately reflected in the number of MPs elected (71) are the Lib Dems, and that may be due in part to the way in which they have focussed accurately on the seats they targeted  to win. In their lamentable coalition with the Tories in 2010 one of the Lib Dem’s conditions was that there should be a referendum on Proportional Representation, but the system chosen to put to the electorate (AV) was probably the least effective of all the options, and the campaign was half-hearted at best, so it was rejected.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@mudlark @dentarthurdent @blenkinsopthebrave @nerys @craig

What do we have?

Starmer’s government seem to acknowledge the limitations of their mandate, which is awfully humble of them. But they already sound a bit like a man trying to get out of a straight jacket. This hole is not going to be scaled by some Johnsonesque wheeze or flim flam.

I’m not anti PR… but it doesn’t solve the issue of people who don’t want to participate or rule within the framework of democracy. In other words is the problem people who don’t want to vote, maybe never have… or others who think it a waste of time when you could solve ‘your’ problems with baseball bats and bullets?

Because people like this are fixing the courts. Internationally. Like Orban, they only have to get in once and then it’s gone.

Which is my biggest problem with PR… sooner or later the likes of Farage will make themselves power brokers. To tell the truth Nige himself is probably just a windbag, but he could enable someone more dangerous.

Ironically, Meloni and Le Pen might assist Starmer in that they could demolish Shengen between them. Of course that’s just transferring the misery; the movement of people won’t stop until there is a solution to the religious, sectarian and climate issues in the ‘donor’ countries. Perhaps this is what Starmer has in mind. Seems like a tall order even before you take Wagner into account.

But I did enjoy listening to The Associates! Did you notice Alan Rankine wore a fencing suit and had chopsticks in his hair! Whattaguy!

Anyway, here is Keir c’82, listening to New Gold Dream, whilst waiting for Neil the Hippie to dish up the lentils.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@ps1l0v3y0u, @dentarthurdent, @mudlark, @nerys, craig,

Regarding PR, we all have different experiences, depending on the voting system we grew up with. In Australia, for instance, it operated in tandem with compulsory voting, and as such, worked quite well IMO. Would it work as well in the UK or Canada? perhaps not. Then there is the question of an Upper House. How it affects democracy is very different in Canada and Australia. As a well travelled colonial, I confess to finding the House of Lords simultaneously appalling and a great tourist attraction, perhaps best suited to the rigours of a Lord Peter Wimsey novel.

p.s. @craig, I seem to have screwed up a couple of attempts to post above. Sorry!

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@blenkinsopthebrave @dentarthurdent @mudlark @nerys @ craig

Well, in current circumstances, and particularly after the 1999 reform, discussion of tHoL is a bit like turning your lounger so you can better admire D-28.

But… is a bicameral system needed or are they all based on the model of tHoL?

What would I like? More effective checks and balances. Less theatre. Rename it the House of Peers (=equals). Genuine expertise. No more coronets. No timeservers. Real safeguards against manipulation. Smaller. More teeth in key areas… but no absolute veto and obviously no control of ‘money bills’.

Some of those things are already there. Some are blindingly obvious.

In the ‘beige’ discussion, did someone mention Attlee? Apparently Churchill denied saying Attlee ‘had much to be modest about’… and I wonder if that was because it obviously sounded like one of his more inebriated and illogical pronouncements.

I’m not a huge admirer of Churchill or Thatcher but they both regarded him as a patriot. That Trump uses the same word to describe Farage makes my teeth grind.

 

 

 

[nerys @nerys]

My Canadian husband is very much in favour of proportional representation, and was pleased when Trudeau promised that his government would replace “first past the post” with proportional representation … then disgusted when Trudeau dropped it like the hot potato it was. Reportedly there was and is no consensus among Canadians about electoral reform and which system to chose, so we remain stuck with one that few seem to like.

[nerys @nerys]

@mudlark Project 2025 is terrifying. It’s as if the Self-righteous Right read “The Handmaid’s Tale” and took notes. People think the president doesn’t have that much power because of the balance of power between the three branches. But if you can reclassify thousands of federal civil service workers as political appointees, then those employees will do what the president wants, thus creating an autocracy.

That doesn’t even address making appointments to the Supreme Court, whose justices can serve for a lifetime and make legal decisions that support a particular individual (as we just saw). And, as for Congress? Whatever balance they have provided in the past seems to be teetering toward veneration.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys

Donald denies having anything to do it. As Mandy Rice Davies would say, ‘well, he would, wouldn’t he.’

Otherwise the project and the tale… what came first?  The answer is the Lost Cause.

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u It’s not the chronology that worries me, so much as the reality we face. The thought of a far-right autocracy is scary. What’s worse is that even if Trump is not elected in 2025, Project 2025 will be waiting in the wings until a Republican is elected. So it’s not going away.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@ps1l0v3y0u    Did tRump describe Farage as a patriot?    Well first of all it’s none of his business.   Secondly tRump’s idea of patriotism – well he has no concept of it.   His idea of what is good for the country is anything that makes money for tRump.

Any time tRump mentions ‘patriotism’ Dr Johnson’s savage dictum comes to mind ‘an appeal to patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.’    As if Mel Gibson hadn’t done enough to discredit the word already.

By the way, although PR can be subverted by a small pressure group holding the ‘balance of power’, the exact same thing can happen with FPP – all you need are two main parties fairly evenly matched plus a third small party in the middle.   Admittedly this can occur more readily with PR, since small parties tend to get trampled out of existence with FPP.   But no system is proof against wholesale corruption like we’ve seen in the last couple of US elections.

@nerys   It seems to me the that Constipation was written with the assumption that most elected representatives would have a modicum of integrity, and at least some respect for the truth, and the proper institutions of government.   It wasn’t intended to counter organised subversion, thuggery and corruption from within.   So when you have a totally underhanded and corrupt conspiracy (such as the Republican Party has become), ready to bend or break any laws or customs of proper behaviour, while its opponents the Dems still try mostly to observe the formalities and legalities, the whole system gets undermined.

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@ dentarthurdent @nerys

2 confessions. I didn’t thoroughly fact check either of my statements. tRump’s actual words were, ‘Nigel is a man who truly loves his country.’ Perhaps there is a subtle difference there somewhere but ‘Gold Lift’ DJT ain’t known for his subtlety is he?

Project 2025… my comment was very off the cuff. Sorry. I have now read up on it. Yeah. It is terrifying. Still, it would seem to be a development (I hesitate to say evolution) of the ambitions of The Moral Majority and Christian Coalition in the 80’s, the very ideologues who Atwood satirised in THT.

In the ‘80’s even the right in Britain looked at the American right as very special lunatics. ‘They’ll start another civil war,’ was the normal muttered dismissal. I don’t think anyone here realised it wasn’t just nutty religion but the historical negationism of the Lost Cause coming home to roost. Revanchism and irredentism within your own borders and constitution. This ain’t going away. These people will just keep throwing mud at the wall.

Actually, I really don’t think tRump is that keen. Too high brow. Not mean and vindictive enough.

The mud at wall method was also utilised by ‘the nine entities’ of Tufton Street, heavily backed by Koch bros and Mercer, and responsible for the trajectory of the Truss premiership. In their mind they only have to get it right once, a bit like a suicide bomber.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

Meanwhile, on more important topics – what the hell happened to the weather?   Three days ago I went to Hastings.   It rained, and there was a howling gale next morning.   Then I went to Chichester.   The rain eased but the gale remained.   Then I went for a trip on the Mid-Hants Railway (in the rain) and a quick walk in the New Forest (it was raining) and ended up in Weymouth (rain had stopped but the gale remained).   Today I’m in Newquay, via Dartmoor (raining) and Bodmin Moor (raining)  and – it’s still raining.     I don’t ever remember (in any of my few earlier visits this time of year) the weather being so hostile.     It’s all down to Brexit, I tell you.   (Except – when I was in France – it was raining much more than usual there too…)

Bah!    (At least I haven’t crashed any cars in the last two weeks.)

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

Up until mid June I was happy to say ‘this is normal, you’ve just forgotten what a real British summer is like.’ But the last 5 days have been a tad wet.

To paraphrase tRump, ‘it’ll get warm again real soon. You see.’

Climatic links between Europe and El Nino are speculative (Nino is blamed for poor climate preceding the French Revolution though there were also two serious incidences of Icelandic volcanic activity in the 1780s) but La Nina has dominated from 2017. Those were the years we noticed the heat.
New La Nina predicted next year.

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

El Nino bad?  La Nina good?   Not that I know any Spanish, but if I were a feminist I’m sure I could see some significance in that.   🙂

 

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dentarthurdent

La Nina may be warm and settled for Europe; El Nino, relatively wet and cool. But the engine for the phenomena is on the other side of the world and the results often masked by solar activity and volcanoes going off.

I hate the heat. El Nino is for me, quite literally, cool.

[nerys @nerys]

@ps1l0v3y0u I think you’re right about this tracing back to the ’80s. Margaret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in reaction to that very thing. Scary to think how prescient she was (and still is). It doesn’t matter to me if Trump is the author of any of this. I highly doubt that he is. But he’s happy to ride on its coattails and enable whatever brings him the power and attention he craves.

As for the climate, we here on Canada’s East Coast seem to be enjoying a fairly nice run of summer weather. Today is a bit warm and soupy for my tastes, but as long as it doesn’t stay that way I can handle it. We haven’t had abundant rainfall, but we’re not in a drought either. And no wildfires in our neck of the woods this summer. That’s a relief. We did not want a repeat of last summer.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@nerys, @ps1lOv3yOu, @dentarthurdent,

Part of the problem with retirement, is one falls into the trap of reading far too much about current politics on one’s iPad. And what one currently reads is too depressing for words. As I read about Project 2025 it not only evokes The Handmaid’s Tale as you have noted, but, in a bizarre way, also conjures up a vision of a future that sounds like The House of the Dragon. Their vision of the future seems to have no place for old people’s care homes, specialist educational facilities for those with disabilities, the protection of children from gun violence, etc, etc. As for debate over what constitutes a good society; even to say that phrase in a Project 2025 future sounds like being placed next in line for the Gulag. And interestingly, as I read of Trump trying to distance himself (somewhat) from the insanity of Project 2025 because (presumably) he recognizes that it might bounce back at him in the coming elections, I also get the sense the those behind Project 2025 could easily turn on Trump if he tried to reign them in (even the slightest bit) were he to actually win the election. I have never read anything quite so scary about US politics as what I am reading about now.

 

[dwnerdfrommars @dwnerdfrommars]

1: Wow, this got political (that’s okay)

2: What is project 2025?

 

[dwnerdfrommars @dwnerdfrommars]

Hey, guys, set photos just released of Doctor Who Series 15/Season 2/Season 41

[WhoHar @whohar]

@dentarthurdent @ps1l0v3y0u @nerys

Last time I was in the UK, I was there for three weeks and it only rained twice: once for 10 days and once for 11 days. 🙂

[dwnerdfrommars @dwnerdfrommars]

@whohar @dentarthurdent @nerys @ps1l0v3y0u

Whovians I hope the weather gets better…..

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@dwnerdfrommars

Project 2025…
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c977njnvq2do

The Handmaid’d Tale…

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Handmaid%27s_Tale

see links in this article to The Moral Majority & Christian Coalition.

The Left (and I) would say the root of this is ‘The Lost Cause’

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lost_Cause_of_the_Confederacy

You WASP women aren’t having enough kids! Hey, we’ll sell it as religion.

Well, many planets have a north and most countries have myth. The UK’s is either The Mother of Parliaments or The Greatest Generation. Now, I am very grateful indeed not to be part of either Reich or Soviet, but there were more than a few non-politically minded dark angels present and correct Sah! Thank goodness for tea and bromide!

 

[Mudlark @mudlark]

@dwnerdfrommars

Wow, this got political (that’s okay)

Although The Winchester (pub) rather than The Sofa seems recently to have become a place for discussing general Who related topics, the description on the front page of the Forum, where it is listed under Topics, is

The latest pub on our pub crawl. A break from the sofa and Doctor Who. Somewhere for chat about news, politics, sport etc. Avoid if it’s not for you.

So political is indeed OK  🙂

Project 2025, set out in a 900 page document, is the dream of a group who want essentially to establish a white nationalist, evangelical theocracy in place of the Constitution. Think of it as a backward-looking evangelical Christian version of the Taliban or the more extreme of the Iranian Ayatollahs. It has nothing to do with Trump himself, who just wants to have the freedom of an absolute monarch to grift and otherwise do as he pleases without consequences, and to take revenge on anyone who isn’t sufficiently loyal and worshipful of his person. The Project 2025 gang, on the other hand, probably think that he, if he is elected, will be easily manipulated into carrying out their agenda.

 

 

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

@dwnerdfrommars   Thanks!   The weather keeps repeatedly getting better, which is to say it stops actually raining lightly for a little while.    I think I saw some sunshine once.

Anyway, I had a swim (Porth beach, Newquay), which is to say I immersed myself in the water for the required token one minute before deciding it was too freakin’ cold to stay in any longer.   I’m a wimp when it comes to cold water.   One item ticked off the list…

 

[nerys @nerys]

@mudlark Spot-on analysis of Project 2025 and Trump. You explained that far better than I would’ve. Thank you!

[Anonymous @]

Sorry to but into this thread!  I’ve just joined and want to start a new thread about getting K9 voice files but I cannot find the Star5 a new Post option…can anyone help?  Thanks

[WhoHar @whohar]

@adrian1

Welcome.

Message @craig and he’ll be able to advise.

[Anonymous @]

Thank you…hopefully he will respond to your tag…it’s a mystery to me.  Using IPad.

[nerys @nerys]

@adrian1 I could be wrong, but I don’t think we forum members can post new threads. Rather, we reply to existing ones created by @craig. So you might search the forum for the thread most suitable to your topic.

[Anonymous @]

WOW never been in a forum like that! No current topic no go??  Anyhow, if someone reads this and has access to K9 sound files pls contact me…

[janetteB @janetteb]

I hope that all our Canadian members are safe from the fires.

cheers

Janette

[nerys @nerys]

@janetteb Thanks for asking. We’re fine here. I’m in eastern Canada. We haven’t had a recurrence of last summer’s wildfire, thank goodness. The worst fires are out west, which is how it seems to be every summer … and getting worse.

[blenkinsopthebrave @blenkinsopthebrave]

@janetteb

As @nerys said, thanks for asking. And as @nerys noted, western Canada has suffered quite a lot. I am off the coast, on Vancouver Island (and while I say island, it is quite large, with almost a million people). Parts of the island have also borne the brunt, but where we live, on the southern tip of the island, we have had better luck, so far.

Apparently, as I was reading today, this was the hottest day for the earth since records have been kept. But, needless to say, to even mention the term “climate change” is dismissed as “woke”.

Well, classify me as “woke, and proud of it” damn it!

[winston @winston]

@janetteb   We have no fires yet here in Ontario although the heat has been stifling and expected to be worse next week. Where I am the we have had a lot of rain even causing flooding in some areas but it is helping prevent fires. All that water means so many bitey bugs they drive me inside.

In western Canada it is very hot and dry in some places and fires are burning causing mass evacuations around Jasper. Poor people and I have to say,poor animals. Who knows how many animals ,birds and other creatures are killed in all these fires ? Horrible.

@blenkinsopthebrave   If believing the scientists, the facts and my own eyes is being “woke” then count me in. Frankly after listening to the nonsense from the other side it is a club I don’t want to be a member of.

@nerys  I am happy that all is good down east, it has to be somewhere eh.

stay sane

[Dentarthurdent @dentarthurdent]

I was in Paris last week. On Friday the temperature hit 32 degrees. Couldn’t go down by the Seine** so all I could do was go to the Parc de Vincennes and lie on the grass under a tree by the lake. For several hours.

**Because the banks of the Seine have been closed for security reasons. Blame the Olympics. In my jaundiced view, Paris may do something for the Olympics but the Olympics have done *nothing* for Paris, its residents or tourists, other than create expensive hassles. But if it manages another 32 degrees it will have its revenge on the competitors. (Snarky thought while lying in the shade of a tree).

Hope like hell Kamala wins. The thought of what four years of tRump would do to the planet is scary. (Also, viewing the reaction of Donnie when he is beaten by a black woman should be entertaining, if predictable).

cr

[nerys @nerys]

@dentarthurdent A quote in a BBC News story captures the contrast between Harris and Trump about as clearly as it can be stated: “US Vice-President Kamala Harris has gone on the offensive against Donald Trump in the first rally of her White House campaign, portraying November’s election as a choice between a former prosecutor and a convicted felon.”

I’m feeling much more hopeful than I was on up through Saturday. John Oliver is going to have to change his tagline from “It’s been a busy week” to “It’s been a busy day”! His latest episode, filmed Saturday, was already outdated!

Sadly, even though we in Nova Scotia are not directly impacted by wildfires so far this year, my husband’s youngest brother and his wife, who live near Calgary, Alberta, are on evacuation standby. A wildfire 25 kilometres west of their home has been deemed out of control. So their precious possessions are packed up, their horse trailer attached and the dogs are going to their grandparents’ home.

As for climate change, consider me woke … a long time ago. I remember that years ago, there was some type of global action taken on climate change. Probably the Paris agreement. So I was feeling hopeful that maybe we could finally turn a corner on this thing. When I said as much to my mother, she gave a reply that I found very cynical. Now, I’m sorry to say, I fear she was right: “I think we’ve screwed up the planet too badly to ever be able to fix it.”

[ps1l0v3y0u @ps1l0v3y0u]

@nerys @dentarthurdent

Harris vs Trump… it does seem like a contest again. I don’t know enough about that particular political system to comment really… to quote John Cleese in Clockwise, ‘it’s not the despair, but the hope I can’t stand.’

Trump was quoted as saying Harris is ‘very, very nasty and disrespectful’, and some time ago as I remember but Donald always doubles down. We can expect more of that. Now I am struck by the irony, the paradox of the man. For all his poisonous moronisms, and obscene wealth display, it turns out all he really wants is respect?

Nasty and disrespect of course means woman and not white.

The planet? You need a supervolcano or maybe a bolide to make it uninhabitable, if only for of a few years. We’ll be gone long before the planet is uninhabitable, though I’m not sure anyone has effectively speculated how that end would look. Not all armageddons are equal and many are cliched. But the biosphere will be changed.

I wish the people in the firing line would effectively get on the case of those applying inertia against progressive climate policy. The money knows what’s up but it takes so much time to adjust the portfolio. So fiddly.Just stop oil is dumb. How? When? Now, just stop plastic? The public might buy that. And that might really be awkward for the petrochemical industry.

Apathy is entirely misplaced. It’s not everyone’s fault or particularly inevitable; the money will try to get out while making us pay, the tyrants will use the pressure to destroy the west. Who needs the will of the people? That will never deliver sustainability. Trust me comrad. There never was a Sea of Azov. And Shanghai was always smog city.

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