I really don't know any more. Top 2, yes, I think that's settled. But places 3 and 4, it will be any 2 from those 4 teams, and it's almost impossible to decide between them. Tottenham are out of it, and Everton's poor recent form means they're probably out of it as well.

This is the crucial thing. They are all in a bubble together, all in close proximity and it is very easy for the virus to pass between people in those conditions.
This is really not what they need at this point of the season, with CL as well as a La Liga title fight. If they end up having a few first teamers out for a couple of weeks, it could really derail their challenge.

There's actually a huge amount of scientific research in this area. Just google something like natural selection of eusocial behaviour or reciprocal altriusm in evolutionary biology. It's fascinating and informative, particularly regarding ants/bees.


As for the other stuff...
Has been studied extensively, but no evidence in favour of this has yet been found.

Has been studied extensively, but no evidence in favour of this has yet been found.

Has been largely debunked, and the field is full of charlatans.

Placebo effect has been heavily studied.

He's a racer, though, and next season could be hard to resist. In the seasons when Mercedes has been far ahead, Hamilton has always said he wished other teams were at their level so he could have genuine racing against opponents every time. And he seems really excited this season to have Red Bull as the #1 team and Mercedes the underdog. Next season, with the regulation reset, is where it gets really interesting... if the rule changes for 2022 work as planned the whole field will bunch up, overtaking will be easier, and we'll see much closer racing. I think for Hamilton that will be hard to resist. The money side surely is less relevant... it's not like he needs it to support himself. So long as he is top earner, I'm not sure he'll be arguing over a few million here or there.

I think that poker is almost entirely skill. Whilst luck is hugely important in any individual hand, it evens out over time. If you play poker solidly for a year, then your profit/loss situation at the end of that year will have very little to do with luck.
Also reading others online is perfectly possible. I agree that you don't see faces or body language, which means it's not to the same extent, but certain patterns of play from certain individuals can become very apparent and readable.

It feels to me that Atletico are out of it now. Dropping points yesterday was a terrible result, when Real and Barca are in such incredible form.
I'm unbiased I think as I don't really have a favourite team (although GOAT Messi is my favourite player).

Atletico's main hope I think is if they somehow beat Barca when they play them... and that Real also drop some points somehow. Both of these seem highly unlikely at present.

If you're worried about vaccines, then it's fairly straightforward to stay away from them (even if it's irresponsible, as you're increasing the chance that you'll pass the virus onto other people)...

... however, you're going to struggle to stay away from condensation. It's everywhere.

No, he can't back it up, and never does, no matter how many times I write ^{[CITATION NEEDED]}.

We all know that Trump alleged election fraud, mounted numerous legal challenges... and yet was unable to supply the slightest bit of evidence.
It's difficult to say this about a former POTUS, but, it's almost as if... Trump just makes stuff up.

Yes. The closer a team get to winning the title, the more pressure is on them to take that final step and get over the line... it was certainly a huge shock, but one, in retrospect, that we might have anticipated as being somewhat unlikely rather than hugely unlikely.
See also Atletico Madrid in La Liga... so far ahead for so much of the season, and as the finish line draws into sight they start to stumble.

The best system for ensuring that the politicians in power reflect voter intentions is proportional representation, where if a party wins e.g. 28% of the vote, then they get 28% of the seats.



As for the question of the optimum number of parties, I don't know. It's not two, though, as I outlined in a previous post. Arguably, if you switch from FPTP to a PR system, then the number of parties becomes less relevant... because under PR your vote for a minority party that wins say 5% of the vote will still be effective, and still give your party 5% of the seats.

The problem with the US system, beyond it being two party, is that the scale at which first-past-the-post works is so huge... it's by state. You could have 49% of people in a state voting Republican, and get the result that Democrats win so the representation for the whole state is entirely Democrat. This means that if your state for example always returns a Republican with say 70%+ of the vote, then you and potentially millions of others are effectively disenfranchised - unless there's a state-wide swing of huge proportions.

---
_{Edit: Typo. I don't think "Democracts" is a word.}

I don't think the number of parties is the issue, so much as the electoral system itself.
A first-past-the-post, or winner-takes-all system will always be unrepresentative and will always favour big parties, and cause people to not vote for smaller parties because they will be throwing their vote away.

Take an election where the result is:
40% red party
35% blue party
15% yellow party
10% purple party.

First-past-the-post means that red and blue will take almost all of the seats, and a vote for yellow or purple is pointless.
But proper proportional representation would give the seats in accordance with number of votes, 40% of seats to red, 10% to purple, etc... and would be so much fairer.

I don't know. I think it takes exactly one player.
There does seem to be a bit of a pattern:
- Grealish plays, Villa win.
- Grealish doesn't play, Villa draw or lose.

Seriously, they are still just about clinging on in the top half of the table, but they've been awful since Grealish has been out.
I'm convinced that if he hadn't got injured, they'd be right up there with West Ham vying for a Champions League spot.

Mike Yeadon is perhaps not the most reliable source of information. Not sure with this anti-vaxxer stuff if he's incompetent or just out for revenge against his former employers.


As an example of his "educated and informed" opinion, let's look at what he said on 04 Nov 2020, arguing against the need for a second lockdown in the UK:

Quote taken straight from one of the nut-job conspiracy sites: https://lockdownsceptics.org/2020/11/04/latest-news-183/

The problem with these sites that spew out all sorts of unsubstantiated nonsense is that their previous wild predictions are never checked. There's always some new outrageous and ridiculous claim which takes the headlines and conveniently buries all the previous nonsense that reality has proven to be incorrect.

But in this instance, let's take a moment to compare Yeadon's claim against actual case numbers, below:

Vast amounts of pressure for Atletico... they've been top for so long, and desperately trying to stay ahead and seeing their lead get reduced and reduced.
Of course they have a game in hand, and go back to the top even with a draw... but it must be a big psychological blow to see themselves currently in second. They really really need a win to prevent themselves collapsing.

It's early days, so not much data on vaccines vs variants yet... but even if a vaccine is ineffective against a variant, it is far quicker to modify the vaccine than it is to create an entirely new vaccine from a standing start. Variants will no doubt be a problem, but vaccines will be effective against some variants, and should be able to modified relatively quickly to cope with resistant strains. We're in a much better place than we were.

2/2 

The idea that HIV/AIDS selects its victims based on some sort of capacity for moral judgement, and the implication that heterosexuals who don't do drugs (who are free from sin?) will not be cast down... is quite abhorrent.

I'd address that quote point-by-point, but it would turn into another one of these.

Do pharmaceutic companies sometimes engage in unethical practices in pursuit of profit? Yes.
Do governments and government agencies sometimes engage in unethical practices out of self-interest as well? Yes.

But this doesn't mean that "The CDC is a criminal 'gangster' organization that has repeatedly turned to bio-terrorism".

No, I didn't wonder that. The answer seems fairly obvious. Not only his age, but he has been in poor health for a few years now. Highly unlikely that a safe, effective and life-saving vaccine is the reason.

Just waiting for the racist UK press to somehow pin this on Meghan Markle now...


True. And yet... what are the odds for a tabloid headline along the lines of: Callous Meghan shuns funeral in heartless snub!

New game:
1. Click on 'Politics and Society'
2. Put your hand over the 'started by' column.
3. Try to guess from the thread title who started it.

I'm 1/1 at the moment


I'm going to go out on a limb and say no, it doesn't.

But regardless of that, the word 'may' is key here.
'A' may cause 'B' doesn't suggest any degree of likelihood.
If you flip a coin, it may land on its edge rather than heads or tails.
'May' is often used to mislead.

Two party politics is only marginally better than one party politics.
Simplifying somewhat to a simple left/right policy spectrum, where each party has a position on the line... it benefits both parties to move as close to the other one as they can.

If you are the party of the 'left', and the other party is more right-wing than you... then you will always pick up all of the votes to the left of your own party, and (simplifying) all of the votes to the right of your party that are still closer to you than to the opposition. If you move to the right, you gain votes, if you move to the left you lose votes.

Basically two-party is guaranteed to establish a centrist position from both parties, so they become in many respects indistinguishable from one another.

I think it's definite that Haaland is going to leave Dortmund. But I think the transfer activities of the major clubs this summer could be dictated by what happens with Messi. If he stays at Barca, then everyone else's transfer activity continues as normal. But if he leaves Barca, then whoever buys Messi probably isn't going to pay out for another another top-class player... and may even sell someone to recoup some of the outlay, which then sets everything else in motion for the other teams.