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Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Word Association
« on: Today at 11:04:11 AM »
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2
Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: US Politics 2024
« on: Today at 10:39:04 AM »
FiveThirtyEight now has its polling averages up and running. Federal level, their average has Trump up by a point, and I think I'm right looking at the swing states with my suggestion earlier that Biden needs to be up 2-3 points to eke out a win.
From the polls we've had so far, Trump leads across the swing states:
Michigan + 1.4
Pennsylvania + 1.8
Wisconsin + 2.8
Arizona + 3.2
Nevada +5.1
Georgia + 5.9
If Biden wins WI, MI, and PA, loses Maine's second district and Nebraska's second (the two swing bits of states that award some separate electoral votes on a by-district basis), then he probably gets precisely 269 electoral votes (which is to say, the presidential election gets tied and gets decided by the US house). Probably Biden's minimum victory is all that plus winning one of those two singular votes, and that means moving about three points up (to leading by 2-3 points). That's not an unrealistic goal, but it's also tricky to see exactly where Biden gets that benefit from right now.
The slightly better news for Biden is that these don't seem to be states where Democrats are destined to lose, so he may hope to be dragged upwards by more popular lower-tier candidates (though equally he might drag them down, it works both ways). But recent surveys have showed Democrats leading in the Senate races in Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, and running a handy few points ahead of Biden. Holding the Senate as a whole is a hell of an ask for the Democrats because they also need to retain Montana and Ohio, very red seats where they have fairly popular long-standing incumbents, and they need to hold the White House to get the VP's tie-breaking vote. That said, there is evidence they can get the fifty seats - getting the White House as well looks like it might be the hard ask right now.
From the polls we've had so far, Trump leads across the swing states:
Michigan + 1.4
Pennsylvania + 1.8
Wisconsin + 2.8
Arizona + 3.2
Nevada +5.1
Georgia + 5.9
If Biden wins WI, MI, and PA, loses Maine's second district and Nebraska's second (the two swing bits of states that award some separate electoral votes on a by-district basis), then he probably gets precisely 269 electoral votes (which is to say, the presidential election gets tied and gets decided by the US house). Probably Biden's minimum victory is all that plus winning one of those two singular votes, and that means moving about three points up (to leading by 2-3 points). That's not an unrealistic goal, but it's also tricky to see exactly where Biden gets that benefit from right now.
The slightly better news for Biden is that these don't seem to be states where Democrats are destined to lose, so he may hope to be dragged upwards by more popular lower-tier candidates (though equally he might drag them down, it works both ways). But recent surveys have showed Democrats leading in the Senate races in Arizona, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Nevada, and running a handy few points ahead of Biden. Holding the Senate as a whole is a hell of an ask for the Democrats because they also need to retain Montana and Ohio, very red seats where they have fairly popular long-standing incumbents, and they need to hold the White House to get the VP's tie-breaking vote. That said, there is evidence they can get the fifty seats - getting the White House as well looks like it might be the hard ask right now.
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Discussion and Debate - The Philosopher's Plaza / Re: World Politics and Elections 2024
« on: Today at 10:17:39 AM »
Mm, that is interesting. It seems a common malaise for many government leaders that they end up keeping too tight a surrounding circle which insulates them from critique. I'm not sure how one solves that problem: maybe it's just a good reason for changing leaders more often before they develop to that point. I was talking to a French-Canadian at a conference recently who was opining that it was as much long-running malaise as anything with the Trudeau government. Of course, they may end up ruing bitterly their failure to pass any sort of electoral reform: preference voting or PR would give them a fighting chance of staying leading a coalition even with the Tories on forty percent of the vote, but Canada seems to have inherited Britain's allergy to formal coalitions.
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General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: Exilian Pub Out Of Context
« on: May 03, 2024, 10:59:01 PM »
"I very much like tyranny and I'm very sad we won't get more tyranny."
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General Chatter - The Boozer / Re: Exilian Pub Out Of Context
« on: May 03, 2024, 08:59:57 PM »
"There are no ethical capercailies under capitalism. There are also no ethical capercailies under any other system. Capercailies have no concept of ethics."
"I am remarkably stable. I contain many ponies."
"Warning, this film contains adult content. Someone will be doing DIY."
"Oh no."
"I need to make some money, but if I say whatever it takes in this company I'll only get in trouble."
"Have you considered trebuchet based food delivery?"
"I see London, I see France, I can see your underpants"
"Where would you need to be to see all those things at the same time?"
"They're having discipline problems on the International Space Station."
"I am remarkably stable. I contain many ponies."
"Warning, this film contains adult content. Someone will be doing DIY."
"Oh no."
"I need to make some money, but if I say whatever it takes in this company I'll only get in trouble."
"Have you considered trebuchet based food delivery?"
"I see London, I see France, I can see your underpants"
"Where would you need to be to see all those things at the same time?"
"They're having discipline problems on the International Space Station."
12
Exilian Articles / Re: Beyond the Wall – Part Two
« on: April 30, 2024, 01:23:23 PM »I'd like to add that in writing this, I realised I was overcoming a third "wall": the gulf between what my trip was actually like and how my friends at home perceived it. I think that's why I included bits like my FOMO at the hostel in San Cristóbal and the embarrassing incident in León.Mm, that's an interesting thought. I wonder if that's something that's especially great for countries like Mexico where there are fairly heavy stereotypes coming through US media, whereas if one went to, I dunno, Uruguay maybe there would be less of a sense of expectation among people in Europe about what it's like there?
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Forum Games - The Beer Cellar! / Re: Riddles in the Dark of Exilian
« on: April 30, 2024, 01:19:08 PM »14
History, Science, and Interesting Information - The Great Library / Re: The Great Plate Debate
« on: April 30, 2024, 01:08:54 PM »
Yes, a 340 boiling points sounds like it'd make rather a lot of difference! That makes sense, thanks both.
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Poetry and Artistic Writing / Re: Jubal's poems
« on: April 30, 2024, 01:01:09 PM »
If in your eyes there are sea-monsters
Upon the shirt, blue-lined like porcelain,
Were designs of a nautical form,
Ships of bygone age and docks for them to moor at,
And somewhere there
Framed between the waves of cardigan blue
The tentacles of some colossal beast emerge from the waters
And I wonder, as you look half-smiling out the window
Drinking the city in, inviting the storm and whirlpools,
Looking up from these tram-line depths to where the details of the buildings hang like figureheads above -
I wonder
If in your eyes there are sea-monsters
Where foam and spray dance
Like stray hairs and the lightness of a step,
The endless rocky moons and winds of life pull you from side to side
So there must be something, there, anchoring the glimmer of a smile
And seeking with curious intensity the ships that crest the sky
And under the wine-dark ocean, impermeable
I wonder if I have seen just the hint
Beneath calm and storm alike
Of leviathan
As the world silently slips unmoored into your path
And you alight with a foam-spray footstep
And the waves close around you once more.
Upon the shirt, blue-lined like porcelain,
Were designs of a nautical form,
Ships of bygone age and docks for them to moor at,
And somewhere there
Framed between the waves of cardigan blue
The tentacles of some colossal beast emerge from the waters
And I wonder, as you look half-smiling out the window
Drinking the city in, inviting the storm and whirlpools,
Looking up from these tram-line depths to where the details of the buildings hang like figureheads above -
I wonder
If in your eyes there are sea-monsters
Where foam and spray dance
Like stray hairs and the lightness of a step,
The endless rocky moons and winds of life pull you from side to side
So there must be something, there, anchoring the glimmer of a smile
And seeking with curious intensity the ships that crest the sky
And under the wine-dark ocean, impermeable
I wonder if I have seen just the hint
Beneath calm and storm alike
Of leviathan
As the world silently slips unmoored into your path
And you alight with a foam-spray footstep
And the waves close around you once more.