It's looking very good for Biden now. Won WI, ahead in MI and NV... and projected to win PA by a decent margin. And Trump is throwing lawsuits in all directions... which is as strong an indicator as any of the way this is going. Apparently the protests from Trump supporters have started in Detroit. Let's hope this doesn't get violent.


https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/04/upshot/pennsylvania-election-results-ballots.html

Postal vote counts in PA so far match very closely to NYT projections (image on same page), so there's reason to believe the PA call by the NYT will be fairly accurate.

If this were true, then why would the Eurosceptic Tories have a such visceral hatred for the EU? Appreciate we have different perspectives on this, but it seems quite clear to me that EU laws and standards work against the exploitative tendencies of our Tory overlords. The Conservatives already tried to revoke the Human Rights Act, and will certainly drop the Working Time Directive and any 'lefty' rules that protect workers' rights. Food and environmental standards are simply other manifestations of the same thing. Chlorinated chicken may be a step too far because of all the publicity about it, but you can be certain that profit-inhibiting regulations across every sector will be thrown out once we leave.

I think AZ already declared for Biden. If WI and MI - Biden is ahead in both - finish counting today, then NV would seal it* - not sure if NV have said when they expect to finish counting though.

*_{Seal it apart from the demands for recounts, official legal challenges, and gun-toting mobs roaming the streets.}

It's still looking fairly close, but edging I think towards a Biden win. At least, Trump has a more difficult route to victory.

Trump is ahead in N Carolina and Georgia, and will surely also pick up the few points from Alaska.
Latest news from Wisconsin has Biden 15k ahead with ~175k votes to be counted, and from Michigan has Trump ahead by 10k with ~500k still to be counted (but the expectation is that most of these will be Dem, and easily outweigh that current 10k deficit).
Pennsylvania is obviously a big one and will take some time to be counted, but even if Biden loses there, if he takes Wisconsin and Michigan I think that puts him close to the winning line.

Edit: within 10 minutes of writing that, Biden has now taken the lead in Michigan!

I don't think they will. They'll keep counting until Biden wins, then continue counting until all votes cast by the deadline are counted... by which point Biden will likely have won by even more.

Trump knows that mail-in ballots will favour Biden, which is why for example the Rep legislature of Pennsylvania banned the early counting of postal votes. If you ban early counting, and then try to ban late counting too, it sounds a lot like an attempt to just not count those pesky postal votes at all...

Liverpool on a DNB looks like a good one, yes. I think the Villa game was a weird blip; other than that they've looked good. If we take a draw out of the equation then Liverpool to win seems a better call than Man City. Agree that home advantage is less of a thing now we have no spectators.

Not sure about Leicester / Wolves.

Space junk is a genuine and growing problem. There have been a range of ideas about how to fix it, but these involve various ways to remove the debris, with lasers, nets etc. I can't see that this fixes the problem, because a clearer orbital environment would just increase people's desire to launch more satellites. I know one possibility that's been raised before is to have a progressive orbital tax, so the longer you have something up there, the more it costs to keep it going. This might work to incentivise people to remove their old satellites before they become dangerous junk. Again though this isn't a perfect solution. I suppose ideally we'd have some tiny automated robots up there keeping everything tidy, but that might be some years away yet.

There's no need to orchestrate anything in order to lower UK standards - this was already achieved with the Brexit vote. The removal of burdensome regulations that inhibit the profits of the Eton/Oxbridge/Tory elite was the key motivation of the pro-leave lobby.

It makes me apply an amplification factor to my consideration of winning and losing margins. An extreme example to illustrate the point, but say over a period of time BTC increases in dollar price by 50%. If you start with 1 BTC at $10k, you win 50% so you now have 1.5 BTC... but the dollar value of 1 BTC has increased to $15k... then you now have 1.5*15k= $22.5k worth of BTC. Similarly if you lose 50% so you now have 0.5 BTC, that's now 0.5*15k=$7.5k... so if you are constantly making fiat conversions, then the rising price of BTC might make you believe that your wins are better than they really are, and your losses less severe.

With fiat, $10k becomes either $15k or $5k.
With rising BTC, $10k becomes either $22.5k or $7.5k.

This weird season continues. It's difficult to predict anything at the moment. Leicester beat Leeds easily. Leeds beat Villa easily. But then Villa beat Leicester.
I know these things happen over the course of a season as teams fluctuate in form, but the season is still only a few weeks old, and it seems each new set of fixtures destroys all of the preconceptions we had from the last set!

If a thing is appreciating as a store of value, then hold it if you think it will appreciate some more. Doesn't make sense to spend something that's increasing in value, unless you need to.
It's a personal judgement call, really. Bitcoin is seen by some as a store of value (with a case that is strengthening as governments print more money to keep their economies afloat), and by others as a highly speculative asset and the first thing to sell when the economy starts to drop.

I'm fortunate to be from a developed country (the UK). However we have the same issue, as do other developed countries. It does depend to an extent which party we have in power, but there is a huge tendency towards short-term thinking. It's all about what will make them look good today, and forget about tomorrow because that will be someone else's problem. There is a huge amount of wealth appropriation and corruption, too. Perhaps less than in less developed countries, but it's certainly still there. I could go into depth with examples of privatisation and systematic asset-stripping, cronyism, corruption, lobbying etc... but I won't, because I think we have a great example of how governments act, and one where we can compare all countries simultaneously, because they all face the same problem: the Covid 19 pandemic.
Look at countries that have acted quickly and decisively, caring more about the health of the population, and smart enough to understand that a short-term initial economic hit is far more beneficial for long-term economic health than waiting until it's too late. You won't find many developed countries giving a good example here, certainly not the UK, not the US, not most of Europe.

You do make a valid point here. This is indeed a crucial difference, and a reason that developed countries are somewhat less corrupt (it reduces the problem a bit, but certainly doesn't eliminate it). The point is that the people in charge want to be just as corrupt - because people are the same everywhere - it's just that our democracies are somewhat older, and have these safeguards against the elite. One reason that poorer countries are more vulnerable is because they are younger and less stable, which is often a consequence of historic colonialism and exploitation by the richer nations.

I don't think this is the case. Bottas was in the lead, but Verstappen and Hamilton were close behind. Bottas wasn't able to pull away from them. This meant that when Verstappen pitted and went for the undercut, Mercedes had to respond by pitting Bottas to close him off - otherwise Verstappen would have taken the lead. This left Hamilton out there with a clear track, so he could accelerate away and build a gap to Bottas. The safety car certainly helped, but even without it Ham had built a gap and would have come out ahead after a pit stop.

If the situation had been the other way around, with Hamilton in first and Verstappen and Bottas close behind, what has happened so many times this season is that Hamilton accelerates away and builds a big gap to the other two. This means he can still pit and lead, and the undercut isn't so much of an issue because he's already so far ahead.

The safety car helped, but Hamilton made his own luck. Bottas just wasn't fast enough when he had the lead. Mercs are faster than Red Bulls, he should have been able to build a gap to Verstappen.

If we think about some of the other luck, like Bottas' tyre blowout a few races back... Hamilton is always able to manage tyres better than other drivers. This means when a tyre failure occurs, it's more likely to happen to Bottas first, because his tyres are more degraded.

Not advantageous to the US, no. Alaska has vast untapped wealth due to its natural resources. The US would never relinquish that. Even if Alaska had no riches, it's difficult to imagine the US selling land to anyone - this sends out a message of weakness.

Difficult to imagine Russia or China taking it by force, either, partly due to the inhospitable environment, partly due to the sheer scale of the place, and partly because it's a part of the North American land mass.

I'd say the only way Alaska might cease to be part of the US is by secession and independence. Not sure how likely this is.

Spurs can be a real force. They were good before, but Bale is world-class and can potentially take them to a new level.
Not convinced by Everton or Villa. Everton have fallen apart recently, and Villa have done so even more spectacularly, being absolutely dismantled in their last two home games.
Spurs look a good bet for top 4. Everton outside top 4 but surely top half. Villa I still think quite likely top half, but certainly good enough to stay out of the relegation battle.

It's difficult to say. You can imagine that once he's hit all the records, he might suddenly lose motivation. But then he's only going to equal Schumacher's 7 titles... why would he not want to continue in what will still be the best car next year, and make it 8? And then why would he not want to test himself in the new regulations in 2022, when racing will supposedly be more dependent on driver than car, and more evenly matched - which is something Hamilton has always said he's wanted.

Bottas wouldn't have won, Hamilton was so much quicker and he was always going to be ahead after the first pit stops - whether it was overcut or undercut. Even if Bottas had somehow managed to come out in the lead, Hamilton would have been right on his tail the whole race until Bottas made an inevitable mistake and Hamilton cruised past. It's happened time and again this season. And that's even without taking into account Bottas' car was damaged.

I agree that there are certainly other phenomena, one of which is similar to the position you outline.
A consequence of the parties moving towards the centre, and becoming more similar to one another is that many voters start to feel that they have no real choice other than voting to perpetuate the status quo, and that neither of the mainstream candidates represent them. This causes people to move away from politics altogether, and creates an army of available potential voters... a huge power just waiting to be harnessed. This I think is why in recent years, after we've had the move to the centre, we are now seeing the rise of more extreme candidates from both left and right, anti-establishment outsiders (and people posing as such) who rail against the system and promise to create something different and better.

We have seen the election of right-wing populists in quite a few countries around the globe, but the left-wing populists for the most part remain out of power. A couple of reasons for this I think are:
a) The mainstream media are controlled by millionaire/billionaire individuals who for personal reasons will always favour a right-wing leader, and so go out of their way to demonise any left-wing alternative, and the more left-wing the contender, the more extreme and vitriolic the media aggression.
b) Left-wing populism is more abstract and tends to appeal more to theorists, restructuring tax brackets, renationalising previously privatised utilities, etc... whereas right-wing populism is more in-your-face everyday stuff: keep the immigrants out, don't pay poor people to sit around and do nothing, etc. Right-wing populism is aggressively oppositional, and stokes the fires of resentment, which is a powerful motivator.

I think if you're looking for something that will give you an edge over the bookmakers for when you are betting on sports, the problem is that if there was such a website, and the information was published on it, then it would already be public knowledge and so the match odds would already have been adjusted accordingly. The way to gain an advantage is to get hold of knowledge that others don't have. You can do this for individual teams if you focus solely on that one team and develop a lot of personal knowledge and some good under-the-radar local information sources, word-of-mouth stuff... but I don't think you can expect to do it in general for every team.

The tendency towards centrism is what robs our democracies of true choice.
Imagine a country with two main political parties. The one on the left gets the votes of everyone who is more left-wing than the party - because this is the choice that best represents their interests. Similar for the one on the right. But the one on the right is more centrist, and so has a greater proportion of the population for whom they are the most representative choice. The party on the left responds by becoming more centrist - they still pick up all the votes of those to the left of them, as although they are a worse choice than before, they're still better than voting for the other party. At the same time, they pull in a lot of new votes from people who are closer to the centre. We started from the top picture below, and have moved to the bottom picture. The 'left' is now in power. The right will respond by becoming more centrist.



I've picked yellow and purple because red and blue would be too obvious. This trend continues until the two main parties are almost indistinguishable from one another, and voters are robbed of choice. I could continue with what happens next, but will leave it there.

Terrorists and jihadists and people who kill in the name of Allah are not true followers of Islam. We shouldn't demonise the religion just because it attracts some extremists. There have been plenty of warmongers and terrorists fighting in the name of Jesus over the centuries, too, and likewise they are not true followers of Christianity.

These people want you to hate Muslims and harass them and attack them in the street... because that then gives them a kind of perverse retrospective justification for their actions. It's fine to hate horrible people; it's not fine to demonise all followers of a religion just because of the actions of an unrepresentative few.