I’ve been casually following Prince Andrew’s downfall, mainly to see at least one middle-aged white prominent male get some kind of consequences. In case you haven’t been paying attention, the short story is that he was a pal of Epstein and had been accused of sex with a 17 year-old girl (not associated with Epstein) by the girl herself. After a terrible interview with the BBC where he claimed that he liked to fly in Epstein’s private jet but he didn’t actually fuck any young girls, blah blah lie blah, his mom the Queen sacked him, and polite society is shunning him.
Of all the things I read about this affair, this shocked me the most:
On Friday, the Queen was spotted horse riding with Prince Andrew in the grounds of Windsor in what one royal expert said was an apparent show of support to her second son.
The Queen is 93 years old and she still rides a horse? That’s amazing.
Open thread.
Kent
Man I’m glad I’m not British because this sort of thing would just enrage me. I mean we have our own feckless aristocrats. But wow. Has anyone done a graphic Epstein flow chart or diagram connecting all the dots to everyone? Like a Kevin Costner thing? Would love to see that.
Baud
Of course, of course.
DocH
Harry is threatening to quit when he’s 90, but he’s still chasing bird dogs across the AZ desert horseback with a falcon on his fist at 88. #goals
Kent
Can we now cut off military aid to Israel now that we have a precedent of not sending military aid to corrupt governments? I mean that was Trump’s argument wasn’t it? I’m not anti-Israel. Just anti-corruption.
Or at least cut off aid to Israel until they put Bibi in jail where he belongs. Maybe we can send Pence over there to give the message like we did with Biden to the Ukraine.
Heh he.
NotMax
@Baud
She’s fond of being mounted.
Victor Matheson
My mom just bought a new horse this year at age 78, and she rides him pretty much any day she can. Plus, unlike the queen, she doesn’t have an army of stable hands, so he hauls her own hay and feed, saddles up the horse herself, and fixes up the barn and fences.
Of course, what she really needs is a better son to help her do all of this, but what can you do?
Roger Moore
She’s a tough old bird. Her mom lived to be over 100, and she was still going out in public and doing real work until very close to the end.
Betty Cracker
I read somewhere that QE2 agreed to quit driving on public roads this year after her husband had a crash (hardly seems fair to her — maybe she’s still a good driver!), but she still likes driving on private roads. The whole concept of monarchy is absurd to me, and I don’t have much interest in the younger members of the British royal family, but I’ve always been fascinated by QE2. What a bizarre life she’s led.
waratah
I saw her in person as a young princess she and her sister. She looked lovely in a lemon colored dress and pure white complexion. I am amazed and happy that she is still going strong.
Why is anyone surprised about Andrew. He was always a rogue.
VeniceRiley
Bring back shunning. It works! I am gobsmacked he even did the interview. That was a mistake. He should’ve slinked off before.
NeenerNeener
@waratah: Yep, they didn’t call him Randy Andy just because it rhymed.
Sloane Ranger
At her age riding is easier than walking :)
Also offered, as a matter of fact, the age of consent in the UK is 16 so, although skeevy given the age difference, if the allegation is true, there would be no criminal offence if this had happened in the UK. Andrew may also not have known the age of the girl or been aware that US law has a higher Age of Consent.
This does not, in any way, justify what is, by the most sympathetic reading of Randy Andy’s behaviour, his continued friendship with Epstein after his conviction for pedophilia. His interview was a train wreck which finally brought this to a head.
Barbara
I once read something to the effect that if the queen had spent as much time on her children as she did on her horses and dogs they might not have been quite so dysfunctional as adults. That’s clearly unfair, as the world has changed so much it was practically guaranteed that one or more would have unhappy marriages. I did get the idea, however, that the queen lives for her horses.
patroclus
Jeremy Corbin just announced that he would be “neutral” in any referendum on Brexit following the general election. So, on the biggest issue facing his country since WWII, he’s going to abstain. Presumably, he would have negotiated a Withdrawal Agreement prior to the referendum, so he wouldn’t even stand by an agreement that he himself had put together. What courage! Moreover, as Tony Jay’s posts reveal, the Labour electorate is targeting the Lib Dems vociferously rather than going after the Tories. It’s apparently “unforgivable” for all time that the Lib Dems, while in coalition, caved on their promise not to raise student fees, but, you know, the Labour decision to join Bush in the Iraq War which led to millions of refugees, massive Mid-East instability and hundreds of thousands of deaths is eminently forgivable. The polls are terrible – since Farage stood down all Brexit Party candidates in Tory-held seats, the Conservatives have a massive lead of 12-14 points or so. The hoped for unity of Brexit-opposed parties has not really taken place whereas the pro-Brexit forces have more or less succeeded.
Notwithstanding all that, it still will be difficult for the Tories to achieve an absolute majority, but they’re fairly close as things stand now. Corbyn’s inability to actually oppose Brexit is looking like a massive miscalculation at the moment.
Barbara
@VeniceRiley: People who aren’t used to bearing consequences frequently overestimate their appeal to others.
chris
OT: Some rando in Cleveland does not care for Gym Jordan and is delightfully snarky about it.
MomSense
When my gr.gr. Aunt was in her 90s she used to take us hiking in her long skirts and converse high tops. It’s more like hills than mountains, but a pretty steep climb.
p.a.
Imagine how much better shape she’d be in if they still had the empire to bleed white for their comfort.
NotMax
@Sloane Ranger
16 is common among the various states.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
It’s a testament to Princes Dianna that Will and Harry have turned out as well as they have.
hells littlest angel
Poor Prince Andrew is now left with nothing but the approximately half a million dollars a year he receives courtesy of British taxpayers.
Ohio Mom
Responding to Betty @8 (new system does not allow me to respond the normal way): I’ve often thought the same thing, What a bizarre life the Queen lives.
She was born into a very public role from which there is no escape, and she handles it with a marvelously understated panache. She’s good at her job, and what a weird job it is, essentially serving her nation as its mascot.
I can’t imagine any of the younger royals pulling off being in charge with anywhere near the same aplomb. Maybe that will be a good thing — maybe it will lead to the fading away of the role of the royal family.
Yarrow
@hells littlest angel: No they took away his money as well. The Queen can give him money out of the Privy Purse, but that’s at her discretion.
opiejeanne
@Kent: Kevin Bacon. Six Degrees of.
Yarrow
There is video…
Roger Moore
I think Prince Andrew is just more evidence that the Dukes of York are cursed. He is going to be the 10th consecutive Duke of York* who failed to pass on the title to his eldest son. Every Duke of York* since the Wars of the Roses has either died without a legitimate male heir or succeeded to the throne in place of his elder brother.
*Or Duke of York and Albany
narya
@Betty Cracker: it’s really the main/only reason I’ve watched “The Crown.” I’m not a royal-watcher, but the early episode where she reveals that she knows basically nothing about the world, and then goes on to learn and do quite a bit, is fascinating. If you watch it as a series about a woman who is in a position to, and really must, transform a very old and crusty institution, in part because she’s not a he, it’s pretty interesting.
Ceci n est pas mon nym
So I just learned that the phrase “OK boomer” is meant to be a dismissive insult, and I’m supposed to be all butthurt when I hear it or read it.
I dunno, I’m looking at the words, imagining hearing them, and still not feeling it. Maybe I need more practice.
I gather it’s a way of dismissing being lectured by the boomers, as in “thanks for your input, bye”. Which seems like a perfectly legitimate sentiment. Especially given how boomers have left the world and the state of our politics.
Now about that music / your haircut / those clothes…
mdblanche
@NotMax: I’m pretty sure you’re thinking of Catherine the Great.
mrmoshpotato
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
And your presence on my lawn.
Jay
@patroclus:
nope. Corbyn laid out that:
1) if Elected, Labour will negotiate a Brexit,
2) Labour will hold a referendom on the negotiated Brexit,
3) Labour, as a party, will not campaign either for or against their Brexit “deal” in the Referendum.
jeffreyw
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: just trying out a new device
NotMax
@mdblanche
Sometimes you ride the horse, sometimes the horse rides you.
;)
trollhattan
@Roger Moore:
Riders are generally a tough bunch. I know an endurance rider (Tevis Cup finisher) who works full time and maintains a foothills ranchette (or whatevs) with at last count, four horses. She’s as tough as anybody I know and also happens to be a prep school Brit.
Cacti
It’s very possible she forgot she was angry at him.
Baud
@Jay:
Can you explain further? Labour will negotiate a Brexit, but will not endorse the Brexit it negotiated? And if the referendum rejects the Brexit, does that mean no-deal Brexit or cancellation of Brexit?
trollhattan
We have begun the great winnowing process that is high school applying to college. I know this because dad just ponied up for the first of N# applications. I thought the list was ten but just learned it’s fourteen.
Pray for us all.
Jay
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
ok Boomer,…..
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
The Royals are going all out to promote the new season of “The Crown” on Netflix.
mrmoshpotato
@trollhattan: Your kiddo is applying to 14 schools?
Searcher
Just because the girl was above the legal age of consent doesn’t make it, you know, not rape.
Cacti
Real work? That’s cute.
mdblanche
@patroclus:
It’s kind of hard to unite with someone who can’t tell you for sure if he’s really on your side.
And every analysis I’ve seen agrees that unless something changes in the next 3 weeks the Tories are going to get a majority…
patroclus
@Baud: Labour say that they will negotiate a Withdrawal Agreement and then submit that Withdrawal Agreement to the voters in a referendum on which Corbyn will not take a position (maybe others can). the terms of the referendum have not been worked out, but it is assumed that it would be a choice between that Withdrawal Agreement and Remain, if Remain prevails, then there would be no Brexit at all. That is Corbyn’s version of threading the needle between the vast majority of Labour voters who oppose any Brexit and a substantial portion of them which support Brexit.
My summary was accurate. Corbyn is pledging to negotiate an agreement which he will not even pledge to support.
John Revolta
@patroclus: Corbyn doesn’t oppose Brexit; he wants it. He’s been against any kind of union with Europe since the ’70s.
trollhattan
@mrmoshpotato:
I hope not, but convincing her to pare the list is taking some effort. We’ll be lucky to get it back to ten. Two have waived the fee, so they’re my current favorites!
Avalune
@Ceci n est pas mon nym: Don’t forget the eyeroll. I’m pretty sure every OK Boomer is supposed to come with an eyeroll free.
I actually said this in the elevator…yesterday? Yes, yesterday after an old cranky advisor I don’t like to work with was making snarky comments about the college’s new E-Sports team. He was taking the stairs but I said OK boomer aloud in the elevator as soon as the door closed. (I mean I DO still have to work with the guy).
Baud
@patroclus: Thanks. This make sense.
This does not.
I can’t think of any situation where a leader could do something like that.
Bill Arnold
@Ceci n est pas mon nym:
Assuming you don’t lazily use any age stereotypes, just be amused, and a little suspicious that the person uttering it is shallow and lazy. And probably is underestimating you, which is usually good.
Avalune
This is actually probably about the third time I’ve OK Boomer’d this guy…he’s a poster boomer for this comment in it’s proper context. :D
John Revolta
-The Guardian
Jay
@Baud:
it’s basically a election “cake and eat it too” offer to the Labour Brexiteers.
so, Labour will honour Article 50,
will negotiate a Labour version of Brexit if elected,
will hold a referendum on the defined, actual Brexit deal, ( rather than a vague, undefined amorphism),
will not campaign for or against the Deal in the Referendum, ( no putting fingers on the scales or injecting bias),
and will honour the results of the Referendum.
so, if the electorate votes “yes” for the Labour negotiated Brexit, then that’s what will happen.
if the electorate votes no, then no Brexit, period.
Sloane Ranger
@NotMax: Wow! That seems like a recipe for confusion allowing statutory rape to be committed in good faith.
Avalune
@Bill Arnold: I guess that means I’m shallow…but this guy man… Ok Boomer is probably the nicest thing I could say.
Jager
@waratah:
Paul McCartney said, “when we were lads, we all thought she had a nice bum”
Baud
And here I was wondering why so many young people were talking about Boomer Esiason.
laura
@trollhattan: Warren Hellman (my hero) was a 5 timer with the Tevis Cup.
Also, The Crown, Season 3 is too good to describe and almost impossible to not binge.
Cacti
@Avalune: There’s never a bad time of day for an “Ok, Boomer”.
Another Scott
Speaking of shocking news, Nancy LeTourneau at WaMo:
There’s so much more there there that it would probably take another couple of years to get to the bottom of it. Donnie needs to be gone (or politically damaged) well before the 2020 election, so we can’t wait for that. Everyone remembers that Donnie weakened support for Ukraine in the 2016 GOP platform. He’s been out to get them (and do Putin’s bidding in the process) for much longer than the spring of 2019.
Cheers,
Scott.
Baud
@Jay:
Yeah, that’s the part that weird. Maybe it’ll work out of them since this is such an odd and difficult situation, but it’s not normal for a political party to say they won’t take a position on the deal they negotiated. They might say that individual Labour members are free to express their conscience, but I don’t think the PM could normally get away with being indifferent.
Sloane Ranger
@Searcher: My understanding of the allegation made by the 17 year old against Andrew was of statutory rape. If I am wrong and the girl made it clear at the time that she did not consent, that is,of course, a completely different matter.
Sloane Ranger
@John Revolta: That’s fine. He should tell what he knows. But I’m not seeing anything that says that Andrew was involved in the assault
ThresherK
@NotMax: Per TVTropes, it’s 16 in thirty states, 17 in eight states, and 18 in the other twelve states, including CA. As most of our TV and movies are made or written in California, that’s what gets put in our TV and movies.
Yes, it does squick me out a bit looking it up and typing this.
mdblanche
@Roger Moore: I’ve always joked the Queen is trying to outlive her children. Now I’m not so sure it’s a joke. Skipping a generation might be the best way to keep The Firm out of trouble.
chris
@Baud: My thought was kangaroos.
pat
@Jay:
I honestly don’t get it. By now can ANYONE argue that Brexit will be good for the UK?? What are they smoking over there?
Hey, let’s turn Great Britain into Little England. Jeesh.
Gin & Tonic
@Another Scott: John Solomon is as dishonest as the day is long. And Lutsenko was only slightly less corrupt than Shokin. Poroshenko’s continued support of Lutsenko is one of the reasons he got crushed in the Presidential election this year. Lots and lots of people were ready for Lutsenko to go.
Poroshenko’s problem was that he had pretty publicly favored HRC in 2016. For two reasons – A) like most of us, he expected her to win, and it’s always better to have supported the winner and B) he knew exactly who and what Manafort was and what his hiring as campaign manager meant – a friend of Russia’s is an enemy of mine. Like many of us, he was blindsided by the Trump election, and saw that he had to start kissing some ass in order to get the Javelins.
Barbara
@Roger Moore:
I suspect that even Prince Andrew is a better parent than his parents were. Elizabeth (before or after she was queen) went on a months’ long tour of Africa when Charles was less than six months old, and he did not go along. I am sure she was doing her “duty” but it tells you something that is what duty entailed, and she was willing to do it.
tam1MI
@Sloane Ranger: She was being sexually trafficked. Lack of consent was baked into the cake.
NotMax
@ThresherK
Have come some ways since the age of consent in Delaware late in the 19th century was 7. Source.
Jay
@Baud:
it’s not “weird” in a Parliamentary system at all. “Free” votes and “free campaigns” are held all the time on issues of consience. It’s one of the ways of telling how much a Party values democracy. The fewer “whipped” votes they hold, vs. “free” votes.
the part I find funny, is the venal holding the position that Corbyn should whip Labour into Remaining, or that Corbyn won’t whip Labour into Remaining because he’s a secret Brexiteer. What they are really torygraphing is that like Lib-Dem’s, they don’t give a rats ass one way or another about Brexit, all they care about is that Corbyn is destroyed and Labour is returned to the Blairites. Can’t have a left wing party that’s actually left wing.
Roger Moore
@mdblanche:
If that’s the goal, the Queen doesn’t have to outlive all her children, just the oldest one.
ThresherK
@NotMax: I’ll have you know I’m just worried enough to only have clicked on that link because it went to some scholarly EDU site.
And that was pasted into a browser where I don’t use search engines, online shopping, or YouTube.
Raven
@ThresherK:
Content on this site by Center for History and New Media and the University of Missouri-Kansas City with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Request permissions beyond the
Barbara
@pat: It’s unfathomable. All I can say is that it speaks to a very hard shell of denial that England’s prosperity for the last 400 years has involved commerce with the wider world, first through colonies, then through a mix of trade agreements and colonies, and now, solely through voluntary trade agreements.
Raven
Content on this site by Center for History and New Media and the University of Missouri-Kansas City with funding from the National Endowment for the Humanities is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0). Request permissions beyond the
Omnes Omnibus
@Searcher: If she was above the legal age of consent in whatever jurisdiction the act happened, it is not statutory rape. Whether it was rape or not depends on consent and the info in this post does not address that question.
Baud
@Jay:
You misread my comment. I agree that it’s not weird to not whip votes in Parliament (or Congress). But the proposal here is for a referendum, and as I read the comments above, Corbyn is promising that either he, or Labour as a whole, will not urge the voters one way or the other on whether to support the deal he negotiated. That’s the part that unusual.
Yutsano
@mdblanche: That’s entirely possible. It’s a well known secret that she does not want Charles to take the throne and would much rather pass it to William. But that would take either Charles giving up his right (will never happen, he’s been salivating over the throne) or Parliament passing a law saying he’s ineligible because he can’t be head of the Church of England* because he’s divorced. Unfortunately both scenarios are highly unlikely and Camilla REALLY wants to be married to a king. And Lizzie can’t just decree the order of succession so here we are.
Omnes Omnibus
@Sloane Ranger: In the US, there is no good faith exception.
Roger Moore
@Barbara:
IMO, this is a sign that she cared more about some parts of her duty than others. After all, one duty of any member of a hereditary group is to have children and raise them to continue their hereditary duty. A monarch failing to do right by their children is also failing to do right by their subjects.
Jay
@pat:
Corbyn isn’t arguing for, or against Brexit, because Labour is divided on Brexit and Corbyn leads “for” the Party, he’s not the Dictator of the Party.
Like the Democratic Party, Labour is a “big tent”.
It’s kinda like the quandry that the Nominee is going to be in after the Primaries, choosing the wing of the party that loves Billionaires, over the wing of the party that worships Billionaires, or the small faction of the party that venerates Billionaires.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: She was trafficked to England for the purpose of providing sex to men not of her choosing. Because the point of origin was the U.S., there might very well have been violations of federal anti-trafficking laws.
I agree that it likely would not have been statutory rape in England, but if she was not free to leave and under the control of U.S. citizens who brought her to England then the originating state might still have jurisdiction even over the rape charge.
jeffreyw
@laura: We watched one ep last night and then put on a movie – The Dead Don’t Die”. I then got caught up in the report your troubles thread and missed it, mostly. What I did see didn’t make me want to catch the parts I missed.
Roger Moore
@NotMax:
What I find interesting in that table is how many states have lowered their age of consent from 18 to 16 or 17 since 1920.
jeffreyw
@Roger Moore: Marry them off before they reach voting age and maybe want to read the news.
Served
@Roger Moore: I think the high school age conundrum has a lot to do with that…at least I hope that’s the reasoning behind it.
NotMax
@ThresherK
History is history. I’d never intentionally provide a link to someplace perversely oogy.
If having gone there bothers you for any reason there’s always the option to delete that page from your browser’s history.
Baud
@Jay:
No, it’s nothing like that at all. For big issues, the Nominee will be asked to come up with a position that represents something of a consensus among competing interests. That position may take the form of a broad outline rather than specific details, but it’ll be a position. The Nominee will not be expected to take no position on the single biggest policy question facing the country and would not be expected to remain silent on the Nominee’s own actions if she became president.
I grant that the Brexit situation may make Corbyn’s actions the best path forward, but it’s still rather remarkable and not ordinary by any means.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
long thread, apologies if I’m repeating someone but..
Are we sure it wasn’t Princess Anne giving her a piggyback ride?
Hey yo!
NotMax
@notMax
Amended:
If a record of having gone there bothers you for any reason there’s always the option to delete that page from your browser’s history.
John Revolta
@Sloane Ranger: OK, fair enough
Roger Moore
@jeffreyw:
The age of consent for sex and the minimum age to marry are separate. No state has a general age for marriage below 18. Almost all of them have some kind of exception that allows minors to marry. Of course most of them also have exceptions to the age of consent that allow people younger than the general age of consent to have sex with someone who is close in age. I would also assume that most of them would waive the age of consent law for a person who was married and younger than the age of consent.
Rand Careaga
I confess that when I hear “OK Boomer,” although it has not yet been directed toward me, I find myself thinking “one more reason for my cohort to keep its collective boot on the collective neck of your cohort for as long as possible.”
I recently had an eyeroll from the 35 year-old daughter of an old friend when in conversation I expressed reservations about the use of “they” in place of “she” or “he.” So I’m insufficiently woke*: we all become exiles in the culture to some extent if we last long enough, and I’m sort of cool with that. Also, I recognized that look from when I used to deploy it at old farts half a century ago, so, you know, what goes around et cetera.
*Unless the genderless pronoun individual can produce documentary medical evidence demonstrating the presence of a parasite—a tapeworm, say—I am not yet prepared to countenance “they.” I will, however, grant an “it” upon application, as in “It rubs the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again.”
Jay
@Baud:
again, in a Parliamentary system, that is not unusual.
the “leader” respects both the majority, and the minority, and as much as possible, tries for a compromise.
in a devisive issue in which there can be little or no compromise in the Party, the Leader often abstains from advocacy, no votes are whipped, and a free vote of consience is held.
one of the things that have killed off the Conservatives in Canada for decades, is whipped votes that should be free votes, that wind up driving members out of the Party.
Mnemosyne
@trollhattan:
IIRC, some schools have gone to a unified applications system that only requires a single fee, but I don’t remember what it’s called. Check and see if any of the schools on her list do that.
Baud
@Jay:
Can you explain how the concept of whipped vs. free votes applies in the context of a referendum voted on by the people?
Do you have an example of a parliamentary leader who declined to take a position on an important issue like this, since you say it’s not unusual in a parliamentary system?
Crashman06
@Rand Careaga: The use of the singular “they” is well supported in the historical record. There’s precedent for it. See M-W and the OED.
Searcher
@Rand Careaga: I roll my eyes at language prescriptivists regardless of their age. They always rely on “that’s the way it always was” arguments when it almost never was the case.
“They” has been used as a gender-agnostic third person singular pronoun for people (as opposed to objects and animals) for centuries, for a variety of reasons independent of modern wokenessitude.
gvg
@Jay:
I have the impression that Labor and Tories are actually about 45/55% & 55%/45% pro or anti Brexit. It’s a new sort of issue that wasn’t previously a part of either party and people haven’t switched parties over it yet. also Corbyn would actually lose votes if he stood too firmly for staying or going. The sorting is starting though I think when Boris kicked some of the “disloyal” members out.
My no doubt imperfect American analogy is the Republicans and Democrats before the Civil Rights laws were passed by the Democrats. It was decades before all the liberals were out of the republicans and most of the racists were out of the democrats.
Mnemosyne
@Yutsano:
Ironically, in the church’s eyes, Charles is a widower and he did not remarry while Diana was alive, so the divorce is kind of expunged from his spiritual record.
He is married to a divorced woman who has a living spouse, so that’s more likely to be the source of some trouble.
Chetan Murthy
100 comments in, so: off-topic nice time:“These people are Nazis? So, what do they have against us?” (via metafilter)
https://vimeo.com/374624311
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: As I read the OP, he is being accused of having sex with a 17 y/o not associated with Epstein. I am not following this closely, so I have no idea who she is, whether she was trafficked, or if she willingly consented. If she was trafficked, obviously consent is not there. With the info from the OP, I can’t make a judgment.
Served
@Rand Careaga: you are not insufficiently woke in this instance, but you are being more than sufficiently rude to a person wishing to be respected as they examine their identity. Ok Boomer?
Comrade Colette Collaboratrice
@Ohio Mom:
If I recall correctly, and am not just confusing real life with The Crown, she was born into relative obscurity – relative to being an heir to the throne, anyway. Her father was a younger son and not expected to be king, and she didn’t become heir presumptive until she was about 10. Before that she would have been a royal princess but not necessarily much in the public eye, since she wasn’t in the direct line to the throne.
She’s good at her job, and what a weird job it is, essentially serving her nation as its mascot.
She does a wonderful job at a job that doesn’t need to be done.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yutsano:
It’s a well known secret that she does not want Charles to take the throne and would much rather pass it to William. But that would take either Charles giving up his right (will never happen, he’s been salivating over the throne)
Ever see Craig Ferguson’s imitation of Prince Charles? “Drink your juice, Mother”
(Do we have to manually block quote now?
zhena gogolia
Wow, this is a crotchety thread.
All the threads I’m interested in happen after I go to bed.
Mnemosyne
@Rand Careaga:
“They” is a perfectly cromulent singular pronoun. It only fell out of favor when a very weird Victorian decided that English — despite being a Germanic language — should have to conform to Latin rules and our pronouns and nouns should all be gendered even though English doesn’t actually require it since it’s a non-gendered language to begin with. ?♀️
Roger Moore
@Crashman06:
Using “they” as a singular for a generic person who is thus necessarily of unknown gender is old, and even pedants will often do it unconsiously. Using “they” as a non-gendered pronoun for a specific person is new*, and it’s understandable why The Olds would have a hard time adapting.
*As is the trend toward explicitly stating one’s preferred personal pronouns.
Ruckus
@Victor Matheson:
OK that was good for a bit of a laugh…….
Omnes Omnibus
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: Many countries have a head of state that is separate from the head of government.
jeffreyw
@NotMax: I’m afraid that history will be written by Facebook.
Roger Moore
@Searcher:
I have mixed feelings about prescriptive language rules. As you say, they are often about applying arbitrary rules that are more or less made up after the horse is already out of the barn. OTOH, I do think there are some cases where we should try to preserve distinctions between words that are sometime confused, like not using infer to mean imply.
Aleta
@Baud:
Go right to the source and ask the horse
trollhattan
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
“Why the long face?”
mdblanche
@Yutsano: Wasn’t the founder of the Church of England divorced?
trollhattan
@Mnemosyne:
Thanks. So far we have some prospective schools that use a unified application but each one still has a hand out for that fee. e.g., the UC system.
A related funny, she received an invitation to apply yesterday that was in binary, other than her name. Clever, that. Some of the marketing kits are over-the-top. Think I know where all the graphic designers went.
chris
@Barbara: Elizabeth (before or after she was queen) went on a months’ long tour of Africa when Charles was less than six months old, and he did not go along. I am sure she was doing her “duty” but it tells you something that is what duty entailed, and she was willing to do it.
Unlikely. Upper class children were and some probably still are raised by nannies and schools. Only the poor(ish) raised their own offspring.
chris
@chris: No edit on previous post and visual/text tabs are gone too. Anyway blockquote fail.
Linux Mint 17.3, Chrome
Connor Cochran
@mdblanche:
That “Catherine the Great and horses” thing never actually happened.
“Several stories about the circumstances of her death at age 67 in 1796 originated in the years following her death. An urban legend claims that she died as a result of her attempting sexual intercourse with a stallion—the story holds that the harness holding the horse above her broke, and she was crushed.[8] The origin of this false account of her death is unknown. However, it most likely began due to unfounded bawdy tales. The fact that this particular urban legend did not even emerge until several decades after her death, and that the legend has no clear source, should make it clear that this is no more than an urban legend that managed to gain popularity.”
She actually died in bed during the aftermath of a stroke that occurred while she was in her bathroom.
Just sticking with the facts in an increasingly fact-free time…
Amir Khalid
@mdblanche:
I think he was also in the habit of making himself a widower via legal process.
mdblanche
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice: That was real. Elizabeth only became heir presumptive due to her uncle Edward VIII’s abdication. She still could have been cut in line by a younger brother being born, but by then her parents were done having children. This is why a) she’ll never abdicate, and b) she fought so many losing battles to keep her sister’s and children’s marital choices turning into new scandals.
Yutsano
@Mnemosyne: Ironic for a faith founded by Henry VIII eh?
mdblanche
@Connor Cochran: Spoilsport.
Yutsano
@mdblanche: “I’m Henry the Eighth I am! Henry the Eighth I am I am!”
Did we ever find out what Herman’s Hermits was on in regards to that song. And yes the Church of England was founded by a monarch who wanted to divorce. I think he found other means to eliminate his spouses however. Why isn’t he called Bloody Henry?
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: I didn’t understand the “not associated with Epstein” bit. Virginia Giuffre was clearly associated with Epstein and Maxwell. Maybe Epstein wasn’t along for that particular trip.
Cacti
@Rand Careaga: Ok Boomer.
Omnes Omnibus
@Barbara: I took it to mean that he admitted to sex with a 17 y/o but didn’t admit to anything in connection with Epstein.
Another Scott
@Roger Moore: Also too, given the date, “They shot JFK.”
Cheers,
Scott.
mdblanche
@Rand Careaga:
OK Boomer.
Barbara
@Omnes Omnibus: Oh, maybe. I missed that point. But if so, eww! I mean, unless he was much younger and before he was married. I never thought much about Prince Andrew but I am now learning that he has been an insufferable, entitled jack**s for a long time.
Librarian
@Yutsano: Because he executed just two of his wives, Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard.
Another Scott
@mdblanche: You did catch this bit, also too, I take it?
?
Cheers,
Scott.
Cacti
@Another Scott: Ok Boomer.
Martin
@trollhattan: Sorry about that, but the fee is beneficial. It’s what ensures your kids application gets read by humans – at least two in the case of UC applicants. It’s not cheap getting two reads on 120,000 applications in 2 months time. That’s each campus.
zhena gogolia
I really don’t like ads going across the screen and interrupting the comment thread.
John Revolta
@Yutsano: That’s an old music hall song that goes way back before the ’60s. As far as I know it’s just a bit of nonsense.
noncarborundum
You think that’s amazing? I know an old lady who swallowed a horse!
Another Scott
Reuters:
(Emphasis added.)
That it does.
Good, good.
Cheers,
Scott.
mdblanche
@Another Scott: Yeah, sort of cool with that. Just not cool enough to take the collective boot off our neck.
Tony Jay
@patroclus:
You didn’t know Corbyn was going to maintain neutrality in any New Referendum should he be Prime Minister? I thought that was well understood for months. He thinks (rightly) that Cameron’s arrogant decision to make himself the poster-boy for the 2016 Remain Campaign was a disastrous decision that steered hundreds of thousands of votes (at least) into the Leave camp. He’s not going to repeat Tory mistakes.
Glad it’s been made ‘official’. Now everyone knows where the line is. The country gets a choice between as weak a Brexit as it is possible to negotiate and Remain, with the Government staying neutral and individual Labour MPs being free to follow their consciences and campaign how they wish.
Excellent. If you want Remain or don’t want a No Deal Brexit, you know who to vote for.
However….
I’m sorry? What? You’re suggesting that having read my long-winded rants on the Brexit situation and this Election you’ve come by the impression that I’m a stand-in for “the Labour electorate” (you mean Labour voters? Supporters?) and I dislike Lib-Dems more than Tories?
After reading my comments? The ones I do here?
Wow. I…. don’t know what words to use about that claim.
Uh, when we elected Jeremy Corbyn we did the electoral equivalent of tattooing “FUCK YOUR WAR” on our foreheads. You don’t get a more open and forthright rejection of a disastrous policy than that. Suggesting that Corbyn’s Labour Party is the same Party that voted for Blair’s slavish trailing after Bush Junior is hugely disingenuous and would come as a heart-stopping surprise to the oh-so moderate centrist Labour moderates of the moderate centre who DID back Blair’s War, unlike Corbyn, who quite famously didn’t.
The Lib-Dems, OTOH, have chosen a leader who sat in the Coalition Cabinet that raised tuition fees, voted for the raising of tuition fees, has defended the raising of tuition fees, and has had any reference to tuition fees stripped out of Her Lib-Dem Party’s manifesto. She has quite literally owned it and gets judged on it. Just like she gets judged on her support for Austerity and her other spoutings of Tory-lite nonsense.
I hope that clarifies some of the misunderstandings.
Martin
@Rand Careaga: Just as a general rule – allow people to decide their own identity. That’s not a new concept. I remember my grandparents complaining about the newly emerged use of ‘Ms’ for women who didn’t want to be labeled as a child (Miss) or the property of their husband (Mrs.)
That was 40 years ago.
Another Scott
@Cacti: I believe we’ve had this (sub-)conversation before, so I won’t belabor it.
Yelling ‘Boomer’ in threads is boring and distracting, IMHO.
Cheers,
Scott.
Ruviana
@zhena gogolia: Well there’s no Devin Nunes this time tho.
Miss Bianca
@DocH: Wow, who is that? He seems like my kind of guy!
Tony Jay
@gvg:
Yes. That’s the analogy I use when I’m talking to people about the Brexit situation. I think I picked it up here, possibly from your good self, in which case I thank you mucho grande.
(Though I think the Labour numbers were more like 27/73% pro/anti Brexit. This is unlikely to be chance.)
Miss Bianca
@chris: That “rando” in Cleveland is a former editor of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, according to the byline on the article. And wow! Does he make it live up to his name!
Cacti
@Another Scott: Ok Boomer.
chris
@Miss Bianca: Glad you caught that ;-)
Nora Lenderbee
“Sure, Gramps.”
Miss Bianca
@Yutsano: It’s an old English music hall song, didn’t originate with the Hermits. But yeah, still a weird choice!
Jay
@Baud:
Joe Clark on a bunch of issues.
as Tony Jay has pointed out, many times, referendums are not part of the Parliamentary procedure in the UK. The Brexit Referendum, even if it had been worded specifically, is more than a bit of a Unicorn.
it’s akin to Dolt 45 deciding that Impeachment will be decided, not by the House and Senate, but instead, by a lottery associated with Powerball and the American public agrees 55:45% with him.
one has to keep in mind how “Britain” views Brexit. A small minority see Brexit as being the complete and utter end of Britain as a nation and as a democracy. A larger minority see Brexit as the reclamation of Empire over those EuroWogs who will get thrashed again just like at Waterloo. A majority see Brexit in the frame of party and partizan politics.
for Britons, it’s basically a mirror of Impeachment/2020. As in the US, a minority realize that what is at stake is democracy and capitalism because only a minority are engaged, aware and paying attention, the rest are watching The Voice UK.
Rand Careaga
Ah, me. Not hearing the adulation, but this was not wholly unexpected. I did mention that I was equally censorious toward my elders back when the world was young and green.
J R in WV
@Cacti:
How much wisdom you have accumulated over the past couple of months!
ThresherK
@NotMax: Hey, Max, I also trust you implictly. It doesn’t bother me to go there.
I just have an overdeveloped sense of self-reproach sometimes, even when I’m totally innocent. Maybe it’s some vague Catholic guilt which lingers on decades after I left the church.
Yutsano
@ThresherK: Do you know the difference between a Jew and a Catholic?
…
Jews are born with guilt. Catholics learn it in school.
Mandalay
@Roger Moore:
And a testament to both of the fathers as well, of course.
Robert Sneddon
@Tony Jay: One pollster says it was about 31% of Labour voters who supported Leave in the Referendum. Conservative voters went about 80% Leave, apparently.
As for Quisling Jo Swinson I’m thinking of going into town to the betting shop tomorrow and seeing what the odds are of the Lib Dems going into coalition with Boris if he doesn’t get a majority in the forthcoming election. Swinson’s got form after all and she really likes the idea of having a Tory in charge — see her Government of National Unity ideas of yore with Thatcher’s right-hand henchman Clarke as puppet-PM.
zhena gogolia
@Rand Careaga:
I’m an old curmudgeon too, but I’m around young people all the time, and I can see that the pronoun issue is not a matter of grammar but of people’s sense of selfhood. I don’t have trouble with doing something grammatical to avoid hurting someone else’s feelings.
PJ
@Yutsano: Catholics learn it from the cradle, and are reminded of it every day of their lives.
Yarrow
@Tony Jay: As far as I can tell you’re going to get a Tory majority unless people do tactical voting in a few key constituences. That means people have to hold their noses and vote Labour or LibDem in those places even though they may not want to. The idea is to stop a Tory majority so you can move forward to stop Brexit. If Tories win it’s likely No Deal by the end of 2020.
Rand Careaga
@zhena gogolia: It’s not something I go around griping about, and I recognize that the evolution of language and usage proceeds with a tension between those who would pull it forward—and who, unimpeded, would cause it to devolve into argot—and those who resist all change, whose brake upon the tongue would doom it the status of Latin or, worse, Etruscan. I align myself, obviously, with the latter faction, recognizing that I must yield incrementally to the former if English is to remain a dynamic and living language. I and the youngs each have a role to play in this process.
DocH
@Miss Bianca: Harry McElroy is a legend in the falconry community – he’s a genuinely nice guy, practices the art/craft/sport at a v high level and has done so for decades, has written a bunch of books (scroll down a bit here) – I was over the moon to get to meet him.
Tony Jay
@Robert Sneddon:
Didn’t her deputy leader give an interview yesterday where he left the definite impression that the Lib-Dems would jump at the opportunity to go into some kind of coalition with the Tories if that was the only way of getting Johnson to agree to a New Referendum on his Deal?
I mean, they could have had a New Referendum months ago if they’d backed Labour in a Vote of No Confidence and convinced the ex-Tory exiles to put Corbyn in Number 10 temporarily to get an extension (remember when THAT was a thing?) and call a new Election, but they didn’t.
Because….. oh yeah, keeping Labour out of Government is more important than stopping Brexit.
Corbyn keeps on getting pounded with leading questions about “Will you step down if you don’t become Prime Minister?” I think Swinson should be asked “Are you going to step down when you lose your seat in Scotland?”
Tony Jay
@Yarrow:
Yup. That’s true insofar as the polling goes.
But… I don’t trust the polling anymore than I did in 2017, and in 2017 it was horrendously off the mark. Plus, there’s still the question of where the Tories are going to pick up these seats.
Hand on heart, I think I’m going to be sitting (slumping) on the couch at about 3.45 am on 13th December looking at a map where Labour holds its heartlands and gains slightly, the Tories lose about 40, the Lib Dems get a tactical voting gift of 25 or so and Scotland goes bright orange (in a good way).
Then we get a Coalition of a sort and another Referendum, a 2nd Scottish Referendum gets scheduled for 2023, but after three years Labour ask for another Election to run on their record of fixing the Tory fuck-ups of the last decade(s).
OTOH, I’m going to be colossally drunk anyway, so it might just be an alcohallucination.
Yarrow
@Tony Jay: It’s so hard to say. A winter election doesn’t favor a large turnout but who knows. In general you need southern Labour voters to mostly vote LibDem and North/Midland LibDems to mostly vote Labour. If that happens Tories won’t be in power or will barely be and will have to compromise.
Whatever Corbyn is promising is meaningless unless he gets in power. He won’t get a majority. Votes aren’t there. Tactical voting is your only option. Somehow Remain voters have to wake up to that. People want to Remain they have to vote tactically. There’s no other option.
Miss Bianca
@DocH: You’ve met him? Sounds like a cool guy!
I made the acquaintance of a delightful and erudite older English gentleman (in his 80s) who has been a falconer for over 60 years! He and Harry probably know each other, or at least know *of* each other.
Alas, it turned out that my friend – let’s call him Dr. G – was a Little Englander Brexiteer as well, which, given the circumstances under which I found that out, made continuing correspondence Awkward. Which is sad, because I loved his stories!
Robert Sneddon
@Tony Jay: The only crumb of comfort (apart from the yellow-washing the SNP is going to deliver to the North-of-the-Border electoral map) I expect to take from the forthcoming stramash is the Independent Group MPs losing their seats by huge amounts.
If Jo Swinson loses her seat, and IIRC she only regained it by a couple of hundred votes last election after getting her arse handed to her in a tinnie in 2015, I can’t see her staying around as Party leader which might be a good thing — having anyone who supported Cameron and the Tories in any way running things is a definite minus. My local LibDem MP’s office has been delivering a lot of literature through our letterbox and it’s all Jo all the time, the local MP never gets a look-in which rather points to a cult of personality going on.
Tony Jay
@Yarrow:
Tactical voting is vital, but it’s worth remembering that tactical voting on a huge scale is what gave Blair his colossal victory in 1997. The fact that the Labour electorate is far, far larger than the Lib-Dem’s electorate marries up with the First Past The Post electoral system to ensure that a genuine tactical voting initiative benefits Labour more than the Lib Dems.
So it’s not impossible that events will follow the same course as 2017, only faster and steeper, and Johnson’s godawful performances in front of anything other than a coyly flirtatious BBC interviewer will do the same job as Theresa May’s robotic obliviousness and blow a huge hole in the teflon coating our proudly independent Media wrap around Tory Governments.
If voters get smart and coalesce around the simple “Beat the Tory” idea we may be waking up the day after the election with the pundits looking even more dazed than they did in 2017 and stutteringly saying “P…P….Prime Minister Corbyn? Really?”
Or not. I was here in November 2016. I’ve had lessons in how to cope when your fellow citizens prove to be stupider than the yellowish gloop you discover at the corner of your mouth after a heavy night on the sauce.
Origuy
Henry VIII didn’t actually divorce his wives Katherine of Aragon and Anne of Cleves. He gave himself annulments. The justification for the first was that Katherine had been married to his brother Arthur, which would prevent Henry from marrying her by the laws of the time. Arthur died soon after the wedding and Katharine insisted that the marriage had never been consummated. Normally, a Catholic king could get an annulment from the Pope, but Katherine’s uncle, Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, was currently holding the Pope hostage.
Anne of Cleves was simpler. Henry proposed marriage sight unseen, based only on a portrait by Hans Holbein the Younger (and because of political reasons.) When he saw her, he was reportedly repulsed by her, although by this time he wasn’t much to look at and probably smelled. The marriage was almost certainly never consummated, so an annulment was unquestioned.
Tony Jay
@Robert Sneddon:
Yeah, the Lib-Dems made a huge and woefully under-reported mistake when they selected Swinson. She’s just not a very good politician, and she’s proven that by screwing up her one job – stopping Brexit.
Oh, and the Jo Swinson’s Liberal Democrats design of the Party’s campaign imagery is just…. really? It’s just her and the artificially elevated ex-Tory or ex-Labour MPs getting the coverage, with the actual Lib-Dem MPs relegated to the shut-up and suck it seats. It’s like she got signed by a label (in this case, the Media) to play a role she just wasn’t capable of and now we’re seeing the crash after they’ve got what they wanted out of her.
I’d be sympathetic, but there’s nothing about her that deserves it. Individual Lib-Dem MPs and Party members I have a lot of time for, but the JSLDP is toxic and needs to die ASAP.
Though if it was a choice between the JSLDP and the Tories? Broken glass and whatever you say, Jo. Because I’m not a delusional careerist with solipsistic tendencies.
Honestly, I’m not.
Yarrow
@Tony Jay: Let’s hope the results are a pleasant surprise on the morning after the election. I’d be shocked to see Prime Minister Corbyn. Best realistic result seems to be no majority and then the negotiations begin.
Tony Jay
@Yarrow:
I’d take that.
ThresherK
@Yutsano: Okay, that’s the laugh I needed right now!
Herman_Newticks
@Baud: I assumed she was arranging a “hunting accident”
J R in WV
@Martin:
Well, when I was in grade school, in the mid 1950s (a very long time ago!) I called all my teachers Mizz Simth or Mizz Jones, because I could never remember if they were married or not, if I even realized that was the diff between Mrs and Miss. So Ms was in use at least 60+ years ago. At least!!
Steeplejack
Test:
Back to comment.
Annie
@Comrade Colette Collaboratrice:
The British can abolish the monarchy anytime they want to, all it would take is Parliament passing legislation to that effect.
Tehanu
It’s better than “hir” or “ze” — at least “they” is an actual English word, and as Searcher points out, has been used in this way for centuries. I may be wrong, but I always feel these attempts to invent the right pronoun to demonstrate wokeness will — and should — founder on the rock of how weird the neologism sounds.
Tehanu
@mdblanche:
OK you. Take it any way you want.