Off Topic Thread 3.0

DGRulz

thomond2006 wrote: »

Henderson turns 26 in February. I'd be surprised if he left right now.
Though the offers from France might be more enticing given the strength of Euro vs GBP.

Is he running for US Senate or did you post in the wrong thread? :pac:

Buer

The GOP could have run literally anyone else who didn't have these allegations and won by a landslide. Moore has won with approximately 670k votes. That's fewer than the last defeated Democrat candidate in 2008 who gained over 750k votes.

What appears to have happened is simply a lot of Republican voters abstained rather than support any alternative candidate.

There's nothing I've seen to suggest the Democrats are ever going to get any sort of traction in congress. Trump is as safe as houses. The actions of the likes of Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz during this election have shown the senate will never, ever remove him from office if the HoR implement impeachment proceedings.

Buer

Buer wrote: »

The GOP could have run literally anyone else who didn't have these allegations and won by a landslide. Moore has won with approximately 670k votes. That's fewer than the last defeated Democrat candidate in 2008 who gained over 750k votes.

What appears to have happened is simply a lot of Republican voters abstained rather than support any alternative candidate.

There's nothing I've seen to suggest the Democrats are ever going to get any sort of traction in congress. Trump is as safe as houses. The actions of the likes of Mitch McConnell and Ted Cruz during this election have shown the senate will never, ever remove him from office if the HoR implement impeachment proceedings.

You are completely correct. Given the total departure from normal order, the attacks on the media, the attacks on senators, the attacks on Americans from this administration I think if Democrats can reverse the GOP wins from 2016 and take all three houses (possible but unlikely), they should immediately move to disband the electoral college and implement strict rules on districting.

They could go a step further and align the voting power of states along the lines of their relative population but that would be a bitter contest.

Podge_irl

The electoral college is a constitutional creation I believe, they can't do anything about it.

Buer

Deleted User wrote: »

They could go a step further and align the voting power of states along the lines of their relative population but that would be a bitter contest.

Which would mean altering the constitution which will never happen. The states over represented will never support it and there are plenty of people in the under represented states who view the constitution as sacrosanct and no changes will ever be permitted.

Podge_irl

Podge_irl wrote: »

The electoral college is a constitutional creation I believe, they can't do anything about it.

I didn't realise that. Constitutional changes are all but impossible.

prawnsambo

Deleted User wrote: »

I didn't realise that. Constitutional changes are all but impossible.

Well it was amended after the constitution was ratified. In 1803.

Zzippy

sydthebeat wrote: »

So we can't talk about doug Jones then?
Squeaky bum time for the GOP.

American politics isn't directly relevant to people here. Irish politics, and NI in particular is a no-go topic. We have posters on both sides, and all sides, of every debate here, and we don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable or unwelcome when they read the forum.

In other news, go Alabama!

molloyjh

Buer wrote: »

The GOP could have run literally anyone else who didn't have these allegations and won by a landslide.

Didn't they try to run someone instead of Moore? I thought they were backing Strange?

prawnsambo

molloyjh wrote: »

Didn't they try to run someone instead of Moore? I thought they were backing Strange?

Yeah, he got beaten in the primaries.

Bazzo

As long as I can call Trump a mouthbreathing ****wit I'm happy enough.

No mention of Chris Froome and his ultimate marginal gain?

Team Sky's reputation is in the gutter.

Buer

Even if he's generally clean (which I don't believe), his reputation is permanently damaged now.

I don't know how some people don't have massive question marks over an athlete who was nowhere in top level road racing at the age of 26 (his best ever finish in a major race was 36th in the 2009 Giro) and then suddenly becomes phenomenally successful. He hasn't finished outside the top 5 of the TdF or Vuelta since then unless he retired injured (which he has done on one occasion for each race).

irishbucsfan

I'd hate to work for Team Sky right now. I know someone (and some other posters here might also) who has worked for them on the medical side who was absolutely adamant that the guy he was working with (not Froome, I've no idea about him) was clean and he always got a fair bit of joking abuse about having worked in cycling. I absolutely believe this particular guy is completely honest, but I'd imagine it must be extremely difficult to keep seeing reminders that this might/probably would have been going on around the corner, and I'd imagine it does a fair amount of professional damage.

Bridge93

Even if it's found to be all legal I find the whole TUE situation farcical. They are performance enhancing if without them you could not compete as normal. Froome is no different. If an asthmatic person needs to extra puffs on the inhaler to compete, that is giving them an unfair advantage purely because they happen to be asthmatic.
These allowances throw more dispute onto an already wrecked sport. Im not strong enough to be a weightlifter and can't take drugs to become strong enough to compete. Im not fast enough to run at the olympics. If you don't have the lung capacity to be a top level cyclist then tough

Staggering amount of cyclists have 'asthma'

Zzippy

Bridge93 wrote: »

Even if it's found to be all legal I find the whole TUE situation farcical. They are performance enhancing if without them you could not compete as normal. Froome is no different. If an asthmatic person needs to extra puffs on the inhaler to compete, that is giving them an unfair advantage purely because they happen to be asthmatic.
These allowances throw more dispute onto an already wrecked sport. Im not strong enough to be a weightlifter and can't take drugs to become strong enough to compete. Im not fast enough to run at the olympics. If you don't have the lung capacity to be a top level cyclist then tough

Staggering amount of cyclists have 'asthma'

Let's not forget asthma appears to be quite common among elite rugby players too. TUEs are not just in cycling

Bridge93

Zzippy wrote: »

Let's not forget asthma appears to be quite common among elite rugby players too. TUEs are not just in cycling

Absolutely, they're everywhere

mfceiling

Mad that when we were at school the asthmatic lad always got picked last and then spent half the match sitting on the side frantically trying to get breath between puffs of his inhaler!!

Stheno

mfceiling wrote: »

Mad that when we were at school the asthmatic lad always got picked last and then spent half the match sitting on the side frantically trying to get breath between puffs of his inhaler!!

He wasn't taking enough :pac:

So is that Brexit over now then? Surely May can't negotiate with the entire parliament and the EU at the same time?

irishbucsfan

Deleted User wrote: »

So is that Brexit over now then? Surely May can't negotiate with the entire parliament and the EU at the same time?

No, very much not over, far from it. Even getting a 2nd referendum will be extremely difficult to achieve.

Dave_The_Sheep

I wouldn't put it past it being a case of "alright, you voted for Brexit, here's the terms of our Brexit that we've negotiated, what say you to that?" type non-binding referendum, as before. After getting **** terms.

Politically, they would jump at a chance of another referendum (or at least I can't imagine why they wouldn't, they don't need this ****fest) ... if it didn't cost them votes. That's the big one. Can they do it without losing a swathe of their voters.

Neil3030

Another referendum would lead to the exact same result, probably with a stronger vote for Brexit. I'd put the farm on that.

irishbucsfan

Went to the midnight showing of star wars, because I'm travelling for the next week

Some bits of it were as good as anything they've done. Some bits were as bad as anything they've done. The Finn/Rose storyline was absolutely abysmal from beginning to end. Meanwhile Adam Driver is probably the best actor to have been involved in the franchise and he's excellent across from Ridley. I hope Benicio Del Toro returns. Overall I liked it, almost justified a midnight showing!

Synode

Neil3030 wrote: »

Another referendum would lead to the exact same result, probably with a stronger vote for Brexit. I'd put the farm on that.

I don't agree. I think a lot of people have now realised that Nigel, Boris et all were talking through their hat. Given another chance I think stay would win comfortably

prawnsambo

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Went to the midnight showing of star wars, because I'm travelling for the next week

Some bits of it were as good as anything they've done. Some bits were as bad as anything they've done. The Finn/Rose storyline was absolutely abysmal from beginning to end. Meanwhile Adam Driver is probably the best actor to have been involved in the franchise and he's excellent across from Ridley. I hope Benicio Del Toro returns. Overall I liked it, almost justified a midnight showing!

Most reviewers seem to have had problems with that storyline too.

Neil3030

Neil3030 wrote: »

Another referendum would lead to the exact same result, probably with a stronger vote for Brexit. I'd put the farm on that.

Not sure. Brexiteers have certainly gotten more shrill (see todays UK edition of the Daily Mail) but there are a lot of people who regret their vote.

prawnsambo

Emilee Bitter Ginseng wrote: »

Not sure. Brexiteers have certainly gotten more shrill (see todays UK edition of the Daily Mail) but there are a lot of people who regret their vote.

But the delusion (or propaganda war) persists:

prawnsambo

prawnsambo wrote: »

But the delusion (or propaganda war) persists:

They just don't care. They want to push a conservative agenda but also maintain a level of chaos to sell print. I'm so glad our media is for the most part fairly centre leaning and chill.

The express had already seemed to backtrack on Brexit just this week:

Rigor Mortis

Neil3030 wrote: »

Another referendum would lead to the exact same result, probably with a stronger vote for Brexit. I'd put the farm on that.

The polls certainly suggest that there would be no significant change. Despite the same polls showing that people who still vote Brexit believe that their government will make a balls of it.