absent minded academic

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physicist and occasional biped 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿

I am the man that makes the bhaji go away

Posts Replies Media

Reply to

bumpin that (x8)

fair enough that is a good step forward

Reply to

bumpin that (x8)

I must be out of the loop, how has biden tacked left recently?

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absent minded academic

of course the MAGA line is going to be that the shooting guarantees Trump’s election — creating a story of inevitability lays the groundwork of a story of stolen election in the event of defeat

At Heritage event, Tucker Carlson sees rightness of VP pick because of who opposed Vance: conservative war mongers and anti-Christians Also says Trump’s response to shooting guaranteed election victory #RNC2024

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absent minded academic

... You know I had to do it, I know I had to do it.

Partisan gender gap is largest for divorcees (relative to coupled and single men and women). substack.com/home/post/p-...

Reply to

seadevil

need another hoover before you can have another FDR sorry

Reply to

cait

the most load-bearing could there has ever been

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absent minded academic

In this age of big money and lobbyists, it is so rare for an ordinary person to get the ear of a politician.

agreed, in a healthy democracy our politicians should be getting an earful

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absent minded academic

Reply to

Malraux

going long on the James Webb telescope spotting an invasion fleet in September

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absent minded academic

I will repeat myself. In the absence of a ceasefire deal *this summer*, the displacement of close to two million Palestinians in Gaza (and beyond it) could very likely become permanent ethnic cleansing. Just like it happened in 1948.

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absent minded academic

Don’t make me tap the photo

Blair urges Starmer to embrace AI to stop UK facing ‘triple whammy of high taxes, heavy debt and poor outcomes’ – UK politics live

Blair urges Starmer to embrace AI to stop UK facing ‘triple whammy of high taxes, heavy debt and poor outcomes’ – UK politics livewww.theguardian.com Former PM to say new government should embrace technology in speech at conference later on Tuesday

Amusing quote from an interview of Imperial's winning Question Time team in their official magazine: "For me, it's easy to pick up a book, but it's not so easy for an English Lit student to write a computer program," says Justin Lee. I just know C.P. Snow is up there nodding approvingly.

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absent minded academic

Reply to

Taniel

We know 550 of 577 districts in France. Left bloc: 188 Macron bloc: 149 RN/far-right bloc: 139 LR/right: 44 Other left: 8 Other right: 16 Others: 6 REMAINS: 27 docs.google.com/spreadsheets...

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absent minded academic

Reply to

Taniel

OH, a big result: Marine Le Pen's *sister* has LOST her bid to join Parliament. She led 40% to 26% in Round 1. Her left opponent won by 0.5%. (Macronist, who came in 3rd, initially said she wouldn't drop out but then changed her mind. Ended up blocking Le Pen.)

Reply to

PatrickChatenay

they don't, see yougov's tracker as an example. yougov.co.uk/topics/polit... so long as the con+lab share of the vote is >50% it doesn't really matter what the nation thinks. all the incentives are for the 2 big parties to keep FPTP.

Should we change our current British voting system?yougov.co.uk Some people support a change in the British voting system to proportional representation, where the number of MPs a party wins more closely reflects the share of the vote they receive. Other people su...

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absent minded academic

Let's have an honest conversation about the election result: No party should secure 63.2% of MPs on 33.7% of the popular vote. And that's as true for Labour as it was for the Tories. shorturl.at/Yl3FK

Election 2024: This could be the birth of a powerful new electoral reform movementshorturl.at The election result might be wonderful, but it is not strictly tolerable.

Reply to

PatrickChatenay

you said it. our electoral system manufactures, almost out of whole cloth, a large majority in the parliament (and its implied large popular mandate) from thin but efficiently distributed votes.

if the voters don't wish to give a single party a large mandate why must we persist with an electoral system that will manufacture one for them?

this kind of stuff just rubs me the wrong way, maybe we should wait a few months and see what happens before eulogising our new government?

Reply to

Sean Carroll

construal is a perfectly cromulent word sean

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absent minded academic

It is not only perfectly normal for a minority community to vote in accordance with what they see as their interests but begrudging them this is, in fact, racism.

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absent minded academic

Obvs calls for PR are going to be loudening given the historic gap between vote share and seats. But from a democratic perspective the more I think about it the more the argument for at least a two-round vote is becoming compelling—voters deserve to know who has a chance before they decide a winner.

Reply to

ryan cooper

they got basically the same share of the vote and doubled their seats, can't spin that as anything other than outrageously undemocratic

Reposted by

absent minded academic

I'll say more. Labour takes power in a terrible moment (poor growth, public services in terminal crisis, Brexit effects). Voters may get angry and frustrated soon as things deteriorate. Labour comes to power with only 35% of the vote. The risk of a fascist takeover in the next election seems high.

Labour won decisively by playing to 2024 conditions. It shifted to the right, took advantage of Conservative implosion and division. It told its left leaning urban constituency - young voters and ethnic minorities - to get lost, and gambled correctly that losses in urban areas won't matter. 1/

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absent minded academic

Libdems would be at 160 seats if Layla was in charge

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absent minded academic

“Are you still a believer in America? Because at seven, it’s marginal, right?”

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absent minded academic

The Israeli Knesset is set to pass a resolution, with support from a significant part of the opposition voting alongside the ruling government coalition, that will oppose a Palestinian state "of any nature— at any time; under any circumstances" as an "existential threat" to the State of Israel.

עצומת הח"כים נגד מדינה פלסטינית - בכל מצבmobile.mako.co.il 61 חברי כנסת חתמו על ההצעה, שאותה יזמו ליברמן ואלקין מהאופוזיציה, וגם רוטמן ואדלשטיין מהקואליציה - מה שאומר שהיא תאושר עוד לפני הפגרה • "מדינה פלסטינית תהווה סכנה קיומית למדינה, תנציח את הסכסוך ותערער...

Reposted by

absent minded academic

UK (GB), national parliament election: Europe Elects polling average, 3 July 2024 LAB-S&D: 39% (-5) CON~ECR: 21% (-3) REFORM~NI: 16% (+5) LDEM-RE: 12% (+3) GREENS-G/EFA: 6% SNP-G/EFA: 3% +/- vs. 22 May 2024 (date election called) ➤ europeelects.eu/uk/ #GE2024

why does the UK not have a ballot curing process for postal votes?

Reply to

Alastair Meeks

at first i read 'voting reform' as meaning changing the voting system.