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Off Topic Thread 4.0

Zzippy

Thread continued from here

The usual rules apply. Non-rugby talk here. Consider this a social place, but like a pub, things like religion and politics can be divisive, so don't say things here you wouldn't say to someone's face in the pub. Sober

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stephen_n

bilston wrote: »

This is the key point. The Brexit Party didn't stand into these elections. The Euro elections may be very different, although I hope not.

As far as I'm concerned the biggest story of these elections (from NI/Irish perspective) was Alison Bennington. I'm not sure why she would represent the party she does, but she does represent them and the reaction of some within that party to her election is very interesting.

Indeed that’s very weird, you would think that was pretty much sleeping with the enemy. Then again sexuality is only one issue and probably shouldn’t be the defining issue for any politician.

The Brexit Party is pretty much UKIP rebranding, UKIP’s vote dropped in the local elections too. If the sentiment to back the Brexit party is there, you’d think it would be reflected in UKIP’s support.

bilston

stephen_n wrote: »

Indeed that’s very weird, you would think that was pretty much sleeping with the enemy. Then again sexuality is only one issue and probably shouldn’t be the defining issue for any politician.

The Brexit Party is pretty much UKIP rebranding, UKIP’s vote dropped in the local elections too. If the sentiment to back the Brexit party is there, you’d think it would be reflected in UKIP’s support.

Maybe, but UKIP are becoming something else, something much less pleasant. The Brexit Party aren't as extreme so a lot of Tories may vote for them as opposed to UKIP which seems to have lost the plot and gone the way of the likes of Pegida and what was used to be the BNP.

stephen_n

bilston wrote: »

Maybe, but UKIP are becoming something else, something much less pleasant. The Brexit Party aren't as extreme so a lot of Tories may vote for them as opposed to UKIP which seems to have lost the plot and gone the way of the likes of Pegida and what was used to be the BNP.

Will be an interesting barometer for Brexit sentiment now. Even if the Lib Dems repeat their performance in the local elections, I’m sure May will still try spin it as a push for Brexit though.

thomond2006

Today's UKIP are a bunch of far right bloggers. Their relevance died when Farage quit.

awec

NO POLITICS!!!

OldRio

Stheno wrote: »

On the diy front anyone here ever built a gravel or c cobblestone patio?

Hi Stheno. I've built a few.

DGRulz

So I broke the parents Outlook account. Trying to set it all back up with usernames and passwords going back to 1998. The one thing I've never needed when doing this in the past was a username/ password for smtp.upcmail.ie Anyone know if there's a way for me to get hold of this info without getting on to Virgin?

[Deleted User]

DGRulz wrote: »

So I broke the parents Outlook account. Trying to set it all back up with usernames and passwords going back to 1998. The one thing I've never needed when doing this in the past was a username/ password for smtp.upcmail.ie Anyone know if there's a way for me to get hold of this info without getting on to Virgin?

I had this issue with a neighbour I helped out and I couldn't resolve it, I'm fairly tech saavy but those old upcmail accounts have no support.

You will need to speak with Virgin media and see what they have access too.

DGRulz

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I had this issue with a neighbour I helped out and I couldn't resolve it, I'm fairly tech saavy but those old upcmail accounts have no support.

You will need to speak with Virgin media and see what they have access too.

Great stuff

Ringing Virgin is always a highlight of my day.

[Deleted User]

DGRulz wrote: »

Great stuff Ringing Virgin is always a highlight of my day.

Last few times I've called virgin I wasn't waiting long and they were quite helpful. I'm not inclined to give them unearned praise but they aren't the worst at all.

troyzer

Have we discussed Caster Semenya?

I find myself baffled at the idiocy of my fellow lefties on this one.

Yeah_Right

troyzer wrote: »

Have we discussed Caster Semenya?

I find myself baffled at the idiocy of my fellow lefties on this one.

She has to take drugs to reduce the amount of testosterone she produces. Is that right?

troyzer

Yeah_Right wrote: »

She has to take drugs to reduce the amount of testosterone she produces. Is that right?

Yeah but that doesn't really fully explain the issue.

She's intersex. She's a woman but she has a Y chromosome and she has internal testes. She doesn't have a womb or a uterus.

She produces a ridiculous amount of testosterone relative to other woman and you can see it. Her build and musculature isn't normal and she absolutely dominates because of it.

The IAAF want her to suppress her testosterone to 7.5 times the standard level for women which is still a huge advantage along with all of the benefits she'll keep from her current levels. She refused because she doesn't think it's fair.

The problem is that while I feel sorry for her, it's not about her. It's about women's sport.

A lot of the lefties are claiming it's unfair because we don't tell Michael Phelps to give up his genetic gifts. But this argument doesn't work. We've always had classes of atheletes. Paralympians, women and men compete in different classes. Boxers are separated by weight. Nobody is saying Anthony Joshua should be allowed to batter Amir Khan because anything else would be restricting his genetic gifts.

One of the expert witnesses that Semenya called up even said that testosterone is the single biggest performance differentiator across sport. It's more important than height in basketball, reach in boxing, wide shoulders in swimming etc.

To put this into perspective, intersex people make up something like 0.12% of the population but all three medal winners in the women's 800m in Rio were intersex.

It isn't fair on Semenya but it also isn't fair on the thousands of other female atheletes who literally have no chance against her.

I'm a bleeding heart leftie but people opposing the IAAF are just wrong. This isn't about her human rights. You don't have a human right to box against someone who's 50kg lighter than you and you don't have the human right to race against people who as a collective, have less testosterone than you.

irishbucsfan

There is no right or wrong answer. It’s an incredibly complex issue. The above characterization really isn’t accurate at all but to accurately describe all the factors at play it’d take hours. They’ve gone one way with the decision but it could very easily be overturned in future.

troyzer

irishbucsfan wrote: »

There is no right or wrong answer. It’s an incredibly complex issue. The above characterization really isn’t accurate at all but to accurately describe all the factors at play it’d take hours. They’ve gone one way with the decision but it could very easily be overturned in future.

It's entirely accurate. What part do you dispute?

I agree that it's complex and difficult for everyone. Someone is getting shafted either way.

[Deleted User]

irishbucsfan wrote: »

There is no right or wrong answer. It’s an incredibly complex issue. The above characterization really isn’t accurate at all but to accurately describe all the factors at play it’d take hours. They’ve gone one way with the decision but it could very easily be overturned in future.

How insightful. I can remember very recently you whinging at someone for not fleshing out their arguments on something, can find the post if you like. If he's wrong then make an effort to explain why.

irishbucsfan

Interested Observer wrote: »

How insightful. I can remember very recently you whinging at someone for not fleshing out their arguments on something, can find the post if you like. If he's wrong then make an effort to explain why.

Go on so?

[Deleted User]

Sure thing.

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Ah OK, so nothing here at all, just vague platitudes. Insightful stuff. Probably all the dark arts and unseen work they're doing in the thick of battle.

swiwi_

Best bet would be to create the Intersex Special Olympics. Problem solved.

troyzer

swiwi_ wrote: »

Best bet would be to create the Intersex Special Olympics. Problem solved.

I don't think there enough atheletes to really justify that.

It should be said that Semenya is being allowed to compete with the men but she's still mostly female and is way slower than men.

By refusing to take the testosterone depressor, she's basically retiring at the peak of her form.

Which is awful but I can't think of a fair alternative.

irishbucsfan

troyzer wrote: »

It's entirely accurate. What part do you dispute?

I agree that it's complex and difficult for everyone. Someone is getting shafted either way.

I’d say it’s about as accurate as you could be in so many words, I’m not criticizing you.

It’s just an incredibly complex issue. For example Malcolm Ferguson-Smith came out to protest the decision, he’s a leading British geneticist from Cambridge. And he points out that not only is there not enough evidence to support testosterone as being the source of success athletes with DSDs, the suggested solution would do nothing to negate the benefits of high testosterone production they’ve already experienced. Any reduction in performance would probably come from the other adverse side effects of taking hormone blockers, according to him and a few others in that field.

The IAAF internally have confidential evidence that their suggested solution doesn’t actually have an observable effect on performance. They have evidence from the Atlanta games that even intersex athletes who have had their testes removed entirely have not had their performance affected. He’s calling on them to release that evidence they have but I’m sure there’s a legal minefield preventing that.

So what we have currently is an extremely difficult problem to solve, but if Ferguson-Smith is right then it’s clear the current solution is not an effective one, just one that will potentially cause harm to a tiny minority of female athletes while not actually being able to regulate their levels of performance.

irishbucsfan

Interested Observer wrote: »

Sure thing.

Someone talking absolute ****e is not remotely similar to this.

Anyway I’m trying to discuss an issue. You clearly just want to discuss me. I’m not really interested in that, cheers

troyzer

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I’d say it’s about as accurate as you could be in so many words, I’m not criticizing you.

It’s just an incredibly complex issue. For example Malcolm Ferguson-Smith came out to protest the decision, he’s a leading British geneticist from Cambridge. And he points out that not only is there not enough evidence to support testosterone as being the source of success athletes with DSDs, the suggested solution would do nothing to negate the benefits of high testosterone production they’ve already experienced. Any reduction in performance would probably come from the other adverse side effects of taking hormone blockers, according to him and a few others in that field.

The IAAF internally have confidential evidence that their suggested solution doesn’t actually have an observable effect on performance. They have evidence from the Atlanta games that even intersex athletes who have had their testes removed entirely have not had their performance affected. He’s calling on them to release that evidence they have but I’m sure there’s a legal minefield preventing that.

So what we have currently is an extremely difficult problem to solve, but if Ferguson-Smith is right then it’s clear the current solution is not an effective one, just one that will potentially cause harm to a tiny minority of female athletes while not actually being able to regulate their levels of performance.

Yeah, it's clear that the IAAF solution isn't really the answer right now. There are also harmful side effects to that level of body jigging.

But that's hardly the issue, Semenya rejects the principle that she has to change anything so we're not even getting to arguments over the solution. That's the rub of it and where she has a lot of support. People see absolutely nothing wrong with intersex atheletes dominating women's sport.

And this is where I find myself aghast at other lefties.

Yeah_Right

Didn't realise that all the medalists in the 800m were intersex. It's tough but if someone is intersex, they shouldn't be competing against women. The same as if they are trans. They shouldn't be competing in women's competition.

troyzer

Yeah_Right wrote: »

Didn't realise that all the medalists in the 800m were intersex. It's tough but if someone is intersex, they shouldn't be competing against women. The same as if they are trans. They shouldn't be competing in women's competition.

Yeah. Which is awful on individual women who are intersex but rules are designed for the majority, not the exceptions.

irishbucsfan

troyzer wrote: »

Yeah, it's clear that the IAAF solution isn't really the answer right now. There are also harmful side effects to that level of body jigging.

But that's hardly the issue, Semenya rejects the principle that she has to change anything so we're not even getting to arguments over the solution. That's the rub of it and where she has a lot of support. People see absolutely nothing wrong with intersex atheletes dominating women's sport.

And this is where I find myself aghast at other lefties.

She doesn’t reject the principle that she has to change anything. She rejects the suggested change. And given what we’ve heard from geneticists she is completely right to do so.

She shouldn’t be arguing for solutions. She’s an athlete, she’s not a subject matter expert. Hopefully those discussions are happening between IAAF and the appropriate people.

troyzer

irishbucsfan wrote: »

She doesn’t reject the principle that she has to change anything. She rejects the suggested change. And given what we’ve heard from geneticists she is completely right to do so.

She shouldn’t be arguing for solutions. She’s an athlete, she’s not a subject matter expert. Hopefully those discussions are happening between IAAF and the appropriate people.

I'm not so sure about that. Everytime she's been asked about this she goes on a rant about God and how no human can stop her running etc.

You might be right, she might just be opposed to this specific rule but my understanding from everything she's said is that she outright rejects any suggestion that she has an unfair advantage.

If she has accepted that, then fair enough. But I haven't seen any evidence of that anywhere.

I agree that it's not unreasonable to oppose taking these drugs. But then what's the solution?

There is a problem. How do we fix it?

irishbucsfan

troyzer wrote: »

I'm not so sure about that. Everytime she's been asked about this she goes on a rant about God and how no human can stop her running etc.

You might be right, she might just be opposed to this specific rule but my understanding from everything she's said is that she outright rejects any suggestion that she has an unfair advantage.

If she has accepted that, then fair enough. But I haven't seen any evidence of that anywhere.

I agree that it's not unreasonable to oppose taking these drugs. But then what's the solution?

There is a problem. How do we fix it?

I have no idea how to fix it. It’s incredibly complex. But I’d definitely prefer to see them err on the side of finding an inclusive way to move forward until a suitable answer is found.

sydthebeat

irishbucsfan wrote: »

I have no idea how to fix it. It’s incredibly complex. But I’d definitely prefer to see them err on the side of finding an inclusive way to move forward until a suitable answer is found.

Is that not what they are attempting?

You can still compete as long as there's any element of "equalising the field".

I won't get into the pros and cons of hormone suppression as that's not at all my area.... But I certainly feel for the arbitrators here. It appears to me they are trying to do what you are suggesting.

What's the alternative?

Have a handicap start depending on the level of testosterone?

irishbucsfan

sydthebeat wrote: »

Is that not what they are attempting?

You can still compete as long as there's any element of "equalising the field".

I won't get into the pros and cons of hormone suppression as that's not at all my area.... But I certainly feel for the arbitrators here. It appears to me they are trying to do what you are suggesting.

What's the alternative?

Have a handicap start depending on the level of testosterone?

But the problem is that not only are geneticists telling us it doesn’t equalize the field in theory, but in fact the IAAF have evidence that it hasn’t led to any changes in performance in practice. If that’s the case then how can it be a remotely acceptable solution?