It’s been a bit chilly lately. Thank god I just got a great parka from Uniqlo, for the cost of roughly 0.12 of those Canada Goose jackets everybody around here seems to have. Now it’s pretty easy to keep warm; I sort of feel like this guy.
Siberian cat in the snow pic.twitter.com/GacCf74ft9
— 41 Strange (@41Strange) December 11, 2019
I had a rough afternoon. Accidentally checked some credentials into github. I see the UK had a rough afternoon (by my reckoning) too, though their mistake was a lot worse.
Here’s a thread to talk about whatever! A question to get us started: Does anybody have any good mysteries/procedurals/sci-fi serials they can recommend? Exemplars: Broadchurch, House, Fringe.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
TV? I’ve enjoyed Tana French’s Dublin Murder Squad books, and I saw something in the tubes the other day that they’ve been developed for TV, but I don’t know which platform has them. Probably those fuckers at Disney who are gonna break me one way or another
Mike J
re github ow
Major Major Major Major
@Mike J: we’re like 3/4 done with a tool that would’ve made rotating them out easy, but nooo, it had to happen today ?
MaxUtil
“Trapped” is a great mystery/police series based in Iceland. A bit of family drama, politics, murder, and current events all mixed together. Sadly, no Bjork though…
Patricia Kayden
Kent
The best thing I’ve watched recently is Wild District on Netflix which is about a Colombian former guerrilla fighter who comes in from the cold and gets co-opted by a dark off the books police squad and forced to do spying and political violence for the government. It gets even better and more political conspiracy oriented the second season.
Yes, Trapped is very good to, the Iceland show on Amazon Prime. And also the Finnish cop series called Bordertown which has a brainy Finnish detective partnered with a badass female Russian SVR agent and mom.
RJ
sci-fi: Red Dwarf
mystery: Dalziel and Pascoe, A Touch of Frost
general: Doc Watson
all older Brit series, all highly recommended. Red Dwarf is a personal favorite: extremely low budget, clever, and funny.
Major Major Major Major
I’ve been enjoying the Criminal series on Netflix. Police interrogation drama. A bunch of different European countries are making three episodes each.
Steeplejack
Just noticed that all three (short) seasons of Hinterland are on Netflix now. Think Shetland in Wales. A bit darker.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Patricia Kayden: I sometimes wonder, what if certain individuals had trained their followers to obsess over RBG instead of TPP….
JaySinWA
I’m not sure I understand, you published some source code with access codes in the clear? And the ability to easily change the access codes is not currently available? Or am I completely misunderstanding?
Major Major Major Major
LeMinx
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I loved the books and just watched the series, and I recommend it. It’s on Prime.
J R in WV
Anything by Tim Powers, anything by John Scalzi, anything by Terry Pratchitt, anything by Stephen Baxter, anything by Anne Bishop, who’s series about the The Others, which are mythical beings that pretty much rule her fictional world is amazing. Anything by Eric Flint.
I don’t much care to watch TV anymore. I read. For the past few years I must confess e-books from Amazon, because the house is overflowing with books, stacks on chairs… the shelves are full, boxes of books in the shop, my basement room has hundreds of feet of shelves, mostly full, and boxes of books not yet shelved. My tablet has hundreds of books on it…
Ya’ll hang in there. Things have been way worse, think of 1929, think of 1938, hell, think of 1859…
Major Major Major Major
@JaySinWA: It sounds like you understand perfectly.
It was a private repo, and I rebased the creds out of existence, so it’s not a flaming emergency, but we will have to rotate them out tomorrow.
evap
Have you seen Happy Valley? Very dark, but the acting is phenomenal.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@LeMinx: oh, cool, thanks– I have that one!
@Major Major Major Major: heh, I have my doubts and fears and grudges wrt to Biden, but that’s starting to look like a decent if not optimal outcome
Jay
@Major Major Major Major
satby
On Netflix another good series from Finland is Deadwind. Convoluted and keeps you guessing. Second Hinterland too. Broadchurch if you haven’t seen that one, the Fall, and I also liked Single Handed, set in Ireland.
I like mysteries.
Adam L Silverman
@RJ:
PsiFighter37
The UK elections are a bloodbath. The Tories managed to win what is a huge pro-Remain district (City of London / Westminster) due to zero tactical voting, but they are also winning districts they have not won in 100+ years. They won Tony Blair’s old district.
This is what awaits the Democratic Party if Wilmer wins – oblivion. Thankfully, he shouldn’t, but the fact that he has as much pull as he already does is very worrisome.
Kent
@Patricia Kayden: Thank Patrick Leahy. He did more damage to liberal politics than any other single person in America:
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2019/12/the-man-who-stopped-many-obama-from-filling-many-judicial-vacancies-in-exchange-for-nothing
Adam L Silverman
Wire In the Blood starring Robeson Green and the original British version of Cracker starring Robbie Coltrane.
Kent
Season 4 of the Expanse drops tomorrow. If you haven’t seen it you have seasons 1-3 to enjoy first. Best SciFi on TV at present.
Hob
I’m really enjoying season 2 of Mindhunter, but that’s only possible because I’m very morbid. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a police procedural where failure is so predetermined – that is, if you know any of the history of the real cases they’re dramatizing (i.e. if you are very morbid), then you know that their clever ideas about psychological profiling did not help very much, so the show becomes mostly about them immersing themselves in horrible stories just because they hope they’ll learn something. Anna Torv has a big role in season 2 and she’s excellent. But, again, it is super dark and super sad – the Atlanta child murders are a major subplot, so, yeah.
Patricia Kayden
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
I have no idea why people think the UK, a foreign country with it’s own political culture, is a predictor of what will happen in 2020. It’s almost as if people have forgotten 2018
Jay
Apparently, 40% of Brits don’t know it’s an ad.
?BillinGlendaleCA
The Articles of Impeachment should be voted out of Judiciary soon, looks like they’ve finished amendments(and some were, eh, creative).
Adam L Silverman
@J R in WV: 1917-1919 was the last time the president decided to function as a dictator.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I mean, it’s a joke.
I was going to look up a funny Yglesias tweet about that but he seems to have deleted all of his tweets.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@J R in WV:
His 1632 series, where (nearly) literal Alien Space Bats cause an entire town in WV in the then-present year 2000 to travel back to 1632 central Germany, has an interesting premise. But I couldn’t get past the way he writes romance. The main male lead and a woman from the past he meets almost instantly fall in love within a few chapters. It comes out of nowhere and it’s cringeworthy
delk
Fortitude, The Tunnel, Cuffs, New Blood, Silent Witness, Scott and Bailey, Vera , The Body Farm, No Offence
ola azul
@Kent:
Well, Leahy’s blue slip were showing, no doubt, it just ain’t got no stroke.
It’s hard to decide on the worstest, but when you perpetually get punked cuz you’re vapidly, anemically, desperately devoted to the bullshit-collegial one-way rules of a sclerotic institution that yer opposition will upend inna moment soon’s the shoe’s on the other foot, is it really surprising when you gets rolled?
The goddam shame of alla this is, political war’s done been declared. Only one side realizes this, n it ain’t the side a truth n light.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Oh yeah, I know. The Tim Pool tweet quoted wasn’t, I suspect, which is what I was talking about
Adam L Silverman
@PsiFighter37: The only three take aways from today’s election in Britain that are even remotely relevant to the 2020 US presidential and Federal elections for the House and Senate are:
That’s it. Here ends the lesson.
The beatings will continue until morale improves.
Adam L Silverman
@Hob: The only thing written by Malcolm Gladwell that I agree with:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/11/12/dangerous-minds
As a criminologist, I can honestly say that what the criminal profilers do is bunk.
Anne Laurie
If you haven’t seen The Unusuals, I cannot recommend it highly enough. And at only 10 episodes, it’s not much of a commitment, although by the end you may be bitter that it got cancelled so quickly.
Really liked the episodes of Vera I’ve watched so far, but it got too dark for the Spousal Unit fast. Still haven’t had a chance to watch the highly-praised No Offense, for the same reason.
Finally, go-to recommendation for those who like Brit procedurals: The first ten seasons of New Tricks. Nice mix of dark comedy and actual darkness. (After Amanda Pullman left, the final seasons devolved into cheap fanservice, IMO.)
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: 1919 was a big year in Los Angeles, The Huntington has whole gallery devoted to an exhibit about 1919.
RepubAnon
@RJ: One wonders whether Red Dwarf’s “Cat” is a distant descendant of Steve…
opiejeanne
The Closer. Surprisingly good. Produced by TNT, currently on Prime.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Speaking of the UK, has Tony Jay checked in? Does he still feel Corbyn was correct in his approach?
Adam L Silverman
Dumbass!
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): It’s about 6 AM over there right now, so I would hope Tony Jay is asleep.
Mathguy
Umbrella Academy on Netflix is entertaining. For the most interesting, bizarre sci-fi-related novel I’ve read in years, Gideon the Ninth by Tarmyn Muir.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: I know the kid had to take a stats class as part of her nursing program
ETA: I’m sure Tony Jay is
asleeppassed out.?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: He’s going to hang around until the next election? What an ass!
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
I doubt he had much of a choice after that horrible drubbing Labour got. As I’ve heard it, the BBC has a conservative bias to it and the media over there smeared Corbyn pretty badly
ETA: Wait, he’s not stepping down effective immediately? After that blow out of an election?
Mike J
Corbyn out. Says the unwashed masses just aren’t hip enough for what he’s laying down, but it’s not his fault.
opiejeanne
@opiejeanne: Also, Bosch.
And for something completely different and not a police procedural, I would like to recommend The Detectorists. I think it’s on Netflix. A little slow at first, a little too subtle, and then you begin to understand the characters and kind of relax into it and laugh a lot.
Kent
My 16 year old daughter is completely obsessed with Brooklyn 99 which is more or less the modern version of Barney Miller.
SectionH
M4 – Uniqlo, I love them!
?BillinGlendaleCA
The Judiciary committee has adjourned, they will vote on the articles tomorrow morning. The Republicans were taken off guard by that, GOHMERT! was screaming about Stalinist tactics. Wow, the Republicans are PISSED!
Mary G
Why is Scotland so sane? Not a single Conservative elected in the whole country. We need to see what the SNP did and copy it.
debbie
@Adam L Silverman:
Hallelujah, but why not now, after this election?
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Also, until or unless someone can demonstrate to me that the Democrats and Democratic supporting center left to left of center groups and organizations, the Democratic candidates and their campaign professionals, have actually learned how to do effective strategic communication, tactical messaging, and message discipline, then past performance is a very good indication of future performance.
The Republicans and conservative groups have gone all in on digital and social media advertising to fight impeachment, push that its a coup set to overthrow the 2016 election, push the Biden and Ukraine conspiracy theories, and play up the victimization of Republicans and conservatives all in support of reelecting Trump. They’ve also gone all in on the House districts that were flipped red to blue last year to target the freshmen Democratic incumbents with this crap. And they maintain message discipline. The Democrats have done nothing. Though, today, Bloomberg announced he’s giving 10 million to the House Democratic Congressional Committee for counter advertising. Too little, too late.
tomtofa
Expanse (already mentioned), Umbrella Academy.
Major Major Major Major
@opiejeanne: I think my mom really liked that…
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@?BillinGlendaleCA: Huh – how is adjourning after a 14 hour session Stalinist?
hilts
@Adam L Silverman:
Hey Corbyn,
Don’t let the door hit you where the Good Lord split you, you worthless fucking prick.
Also too, Biden is too clueless and mentally worn out to take on Trump. If Democratic voters are dumb enough to nominate stumbling, bumbling Uncle Joe, he’ll get destroyed on Election Day and we’ll be stuck with 4 more years of the Trumpenstein monster. I yield back the remainder of my time.
chris
Tropic of Kansas by Christopher Brown. Near future post-something USA. Still digesting but a very good read. ETA: Scary too, I hope he’s not prescient.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: He was useless yesterday, he was useless today, and he’ll be useless tomorrow.
He did what he wanted to do. He maintained his purity, facilitated getting the UK out of the EU, which he’s wanted to do for decades. He believes that what the Tories will do, and what will happen economically because of Brexit, will set the conditions for the political, social, and economic revolution he believes is inevitable. He is wrong. And he isn’t just wrong, he’s tragically wrong. And his being wrong is going to hurt a lot of people. He’s a failure who is too ideologically blinkered to understand that he’s a failure.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman:
Wait, if Trump gets impeached and removed by the Senate…Hillary becomes President. I don’t remember that from reading the Constitution.
Steeplejack
@Anne Laurie:
New Tricks is pretty good. I saw it on my local Brit-centric PBS station (WETA-UK), so not in a binge and somewhat out of order (not their fault). Agree that the quality goes down with the cast changes in the later seasons. But it is quite good for quite a long stretch.
Same station (and available on Acorn TV, I think), Pie in the Sky is consistently good. Forty episodes from 1994 to 1997, light but solid. Overlook the somewhat thin premise: police inspector retires on disability to run a restaurant, but his ex-boss uses fallout from a botched operation to coerce him into working on selected cases.
Adam L Silverman
@debbie: He’s a narcissist. He’s completely convinced he’s competent and capable when he’s incompetent and incapable.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
So you’re saying the GOP win forever and ever amen?
?BillinGlendaleCA
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: I guess they didn’t tell the minority about it.
You know Republicans have finally discovered minority rights. //
Adam L Silverman
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: Pulling out a Makarov or a Tokarev and throwing either a 9X18 or a 7.62X25mm retirement party for the opposition would be Stalinist.
Mike J
@Adam L Silverman: The left would rather score points against Democrats than against Republicans.
Republicans are the opposition, Democrats are the enemy.
Adam L Silverman
@hilts: I think he’s more with it than he is being framed by the news media. Remember, we’re not necessarily getting unedited material broadcast on the broadcast or cable news channels.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hilts: I can make equally convincing (to myself) cases for and against all the front-runners, and several of the also-rans, the ones I like and the ones I don’t.
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I’ve spent the past two days waiting for one of the Democrats, any of them, to actually ask one of the Republicans on the committee that kept making this point if they’d yield for a question and then asking this question: do you believe that if the President is impeached in the House and removed in the Senate that Hillary Clinton becomes president?
I’m still waiting.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman: Meh.
The Tories won a lot of Labour seats that voted 55+% for Brexit in the Referendum, according to a BBC TV segment I saw. It’s hard for me to see that that’s Corbyn’s fault. Brexit clearly was a huge factor in this election.
I have a feeling that an awful lot of critics are going to look back wistfully on the Corbyn days…
To be clear, it seems to me that Labour is split by two large factions – the Blair-ites and the Corbyn-ites – and they’re unable to work together. I don’t see that that split is going to go away with Corbyn leaving and someone else taking over. The country-wide pro/anti Brexit stuff exists in the Labour party as well and that just made things worse.
It’ll be interesting to hear Tony Jay’s take.
It will also be interesting to see what’s in that Russian-interference report that BoJo is sitting on…
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
hilts
Biden has demonstrated beyond a reasonable doubt that he’s simply too dumb and clueless to fight back against the false narrative that Republicans have been painted regarding Ukraine and Burisma.
Nominating Uncle Joe would be suicidal because he’d easily lose to Trump and drag down many other Democratic candidates with him.
I’d like to believe that losses in Iowa and NH would drive Biden out of this race, but he’s too much of a selfish prick to put the good of the country over his massive fucking ego.
I yield back the remainder of my time.
?BillinGlendaleCA
@Adam L Silverman: Then you didn’t watch the whole hearing today, that point was made by Democrats a couple of times.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
Why do you think they won’t do this? Do they not want to try to give the lie attention by directly confronting it? I’ve heard that studies have found correcting smears after the fact doesn’t actually work
ETA: I admit I didn’t watch the hearings today. I might be wrong
Kent
@Another Scott: So Brexit was actually a MASSIVE wedge issue that the Tories used effectively against Labor. That seems the best way to look at it. Kind of like Gay Marriage in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Major Major Major Major
@Kent: Labour used Brexit against itself.
PsiFighter37
@Another Scott: It’s his fault because he did not realize this was a once-in-a-generation moment not to screw his entire country. If he had a tiny ounce of humility, he would have said that Ken Clarke (a Tory who got expelled by BoJo and was the longest-serving member in Parliament) would be PM of a caretaker government, and then they could have voted down BoJo.
Instead? They gave that fucking clown a majority that even Tony Blair didn’t have, and now there’s a law in place that means there are no elections until December 2024 at the earliest. The UK is royally fucked. Thanks to Corbyn, who is an idiot. Special props to Jo Swinson, the Liberal Democrat leader who managed to lose her own seat tonight as well (to the Scottish nationalists).
PF37 +4 (enjoy parental leave while you can!)
Adam L Silverman
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I’m saying that the GOP still has effective gerrymanders in place in a lot of states for US House races, as well as for state legislative races. That even with a Senate election cycle more favorable to Democrats this year, the Democrats have to run perfect campaigns in all the seats they’re defending and then in at least four more states they need to flip seats. And that it is still very possible, though I’m not sure how probable, that the President could once again lose the popular vote, and lose it by an even greater amount than in 2016, and still eke out a narrow victory in the Electoral College. The Democrats have a very heavy lift next year. Two of the biggest potential Democratic donors, Steyer and Bloomberg, instead of pouring a ton of money into Stacy Abrams’ and Andrew Gillum’s and others’ get out the vote and election reform movements are, instead, spending hundreds of millions on vanity campaigns for the Democratic nomination that they will not win. Bloomberg could be burying McConnell 24/7 across all types of platforms in Kentucky every day from now till next November, thereby increasing Amy McGrath’s chances, but he’s not. He’s running ads for his candidacy in LA, NY, Miami, DC, and Boston. All Democratic strongholds. That’s neither strategic nor tactical.
Tehanu
Case Histories – British television series based on the Jackson Brodie novels by Kate Atkinson & starring Jason Isaacs. I don’t know if it’s still available on any of the streaming services, but it’s wonderful.
For fellow readers: check out any mysteries by Deborah Crombie, Julia Spencer-Fleming, Donna Leon, Jason Goodwin, Alan Gordon (“Fools’ Guild”)….
And for sf, anything by Daniel Abraham, including The Expanse books and the TV series which is coming back for its fourth season tomorrow night!
Adam L Silverman
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I had several work calls I had to turn the TV onto mute for.
Mike J
@Kent: And Labour refused to take a position. Didn’t want to scare off the leavers and lost them anyway.
You choice was Tories who wanted Brexit or euro skeptic led Labour that refused to take any kind of stand.
It’s pretty common here for people to say that when given a choice between a Republican and a Republican lite they’ll choose the real thing. Same with Brexit parties.
Major Major Major Major
hilts
@Jim, Foolish Literalist:
@Adam L Silverman:
Nominating Biden would be a massive gift to Republicans because they’ll have a field day pushing stories that he’s too old and sickly to be President.
Given the existential threat that Trump poses to the planet, how does it make any sense to nominate a tongue tied, gaffe prone 77 year old man who looks and sounds out of it?
Another Scott
@Kent: It’s what RW parties do.
Repost – Jill Lepore in the New Yorker in 2011 – Birthright:
I don’t know what we can do about it, but finding ways to fight against these attacks on our lizard-brains that enable the RWNJs to steal everything that isn’t bolted down has to be an emphasis going forward.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@Another Scott:
No, it was Corbyn. People don’t like Johnson but they fear Corbyn. This loss is on him.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Don’t let Tony Jay see you say that
Mike J
and Bernie is even older.
Kelly
We enjoyed Carnival Row on Amazon. No real plot surprises but the acting and world building kept my attention.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
What’s the pathology here? Is that he loves Mother Russia so much he has to defend it no matter what they did, no matter how many people are convicted and indicted.
PsiFighter37
@Mike J: Labour was in that position because Corbyn really wants Brexit in his heart of hearts. Now the fucker says he won’t run in the next general election as party leader, but he also will stay on as party leader during a ‘time of reflection’.
What a dumb motherfucker.
Adam L Silverman
@hilts: I’m not endorsing him.
Also, they have an influence by information campaign prepared and ready to go for each of the potential nominees. And that includes an equivalent of what they’ve been doing with the Biden-Ukraine conspiracy theory.
Yarrow
Also, this video is worth watching in full. Momentum is the Corbynite Labour group.
PsiFighter37
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: Sounds like he’s getting a share of Glenn Greenwald’s rubles. Jesus. All these guys were (semi)-reputable when I first hit the liberal blogs 15 years ago. Now they are…compromised? Drinking their own Kool-Aid? It’s kind of shocking.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Adam L Silverman:
I see what you’re saying. Bloomberg and Steyer especially piss me off. Just proves once again one doesn’t have to be smart to be rich
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@hilts: who’s your candidate who’s invulnerable to bad faith GOP attacks amplified by a clueless media?
(Brian Williams is trying to gin up some kind of own-goal story about the Dems adjourning till tomorrow. Am I missing something or is he drunk or something?)
PsiFighter37
@Yarrow: Labour changed their rules in 2015…completely on them for letting Corbyn roofie their party.
Honestly, the turning point was Ed Miliband shivving his older brother for that extra bump from the unions in the 2010 leadership contest. I have little doubt that David Miliband would be PM now if that had not happened.
Steeplejack
@Tehanu:
Case Histories is very good. Available on Amazon Prime.
patrick II
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
I think most of those amendments were to make the hearing unwatchable and delay the Vote until after prime time. TV rules.
Another Scott
@Yarrow:
Murr[a]y seems to have some bad blood with Corbyn. From his Wikipedia page:
There were lots and lots people screaming on the BBC about how horrible Corbyn was and it’s all his fault. I’m no expert, but I’m skeptical of stories like these, myself.
To be clear – I accept that Corbyn was and is a polarizing figure. But so is BoJo. The polling I’ve seen (though I haven’t looked recently) still showed that a majority favored Brexit by a few points. That seems to me to have been the deciding factor.
YMMV.
Cheers,
Scott.
Yarrow
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch: He lived and worked in Russia for several years and admittedly did things to young women without their consent. That there’s a nice long file on him with all sorts of kompromat that he prefers not be made public is not a difficult conclusion to make. So if that’s true, do his words and actions make more sense?
PsiFighter37
@Another Scott: Polling has shown a slim majority in favor of remain.
Also, Corbyn’s a dipshit. I have followed British politics for many years, and he is as incompetent as they come. I should not be surprised, since the British left, based on comments on social media and the Guardian’s website, were even more out of touch with reality than BernieBros.
Jersey Tomato
Police procedural: Vera
Police procedural adjacent: MI-5 (called Spooks in the U.K.)
Yarrow
@Another Scott: I just picked that tweet because things are moving so fast that I can’t find the one I wanted to find, which included a spreadsheet of reasons people didn’t want to vote Labour. Over and over the number one reason was they didn’t like Corbyn. The tweet is just one example of one person going door to door. It was repeated across the country and now is evident in election results.
PsiFighter37
@Adam L Silverman: I didn’t realize Ken Livingstone was even relevant anymore. But I suppose it is Red Ken’s fault that BoJo now rules the country – he managed to lose the London mayoral election to that clown after all.
The only solace I take tonight is that British voters (specifically English ones) seem to be dumber than I thought they might be. The accent really does cover up some of the stupidity.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Yarrow:
It’s sad that the British people will now have to suffer for Corbyn’s follies
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@?BillinGlendaleCA: I just watched Collins hissy-fit about the Dems just wanting TV time (really?) and Nadler being a puppet for Pelosi.
The only thing I can figure is: Hit dogs holler.
patrick II
@?BillinGlendaleCA:
So, the stall until after prime time didn’t work.
Adam L Silverman
@Another Scott: The last polling on Corbyn I saw had his negatives around -60. The same polls all had majority support for Labour’s platform. The problem wasn’t that Labour’s platform was way out of the line in terms of mainstream support in the UK. The problem was that Corbyn scared the living shit out of the majority of people in the UK. No one was going to give Labour the government if that government was going to be run by Corbyn.
Obvious Russian Troll
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: It’s apparently the BBC and Starz. Apparently the damn things have already aired! At least the first eight episodes.
I have no idea if they’ll translate to television but I really enjoyed the books.
God help me, I’m gonna try a link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dublin_Murders
Adam L Silverman
@PsiFighter37: I deleted the comment because it appears that quote may have been barbered by the person who tweeted it to change its meaning. And since I can’t run down a properly sourced initial publication of the quote, I’m not comfortable having it posted.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ken_Livingstone
And that’s how your media sausage gets made,
Yarrow
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): I don’t really get what you’re asking. Of course the voters have the final say but the parties have candidates who are responsible for messaging and management and so forth. When those people are terrible at their job or choose messages that don’t work then, like with Corbyn, people don’t like them and don’t vote for them.
From the numbers I’ve seen actual voting numbers are down. Tory voters are about the same as 2017. Labour voters are way down. If that’s true then Labour voters didn’t vote for someone else; they just didn’t turn out to vote at all.
piratedan
SF/Fantasy series fiction recs:
Black Company books by Glen Cook
Peter Clines: 14, The Fold, Paradox Bound
Scalzi – just about anything
Bujold’s Vorkosigan Saga series
guilty pleasures – Liaden series by Steven Miller and Sharon Lee, Garret Mysteries by Glen Cook (call it Fantasy Noir)
Jim, Foolish Literalist
I haven’t said much about the UK elections or Brexit cause I don’t know much about either, but… this seems significant
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Yarrow: I’ve seen him on tee vee repeatedly, he doesn’t come off as someone under duress, a subject of blackmail and compromise. Instead he displays a True Believer fervor and righteous anger in defense of the Motherland.
Mallard Filmore
Coming soon:
https://www.hbo.com/avenue-5
“Set 40 years in the future, Avenue 5 follows the captain and crew of a luxury space cruise ship as they navigate disgruntled passengers and unexpected events after experiencing technical difficulties onboard.”
Staring Hugh Laurie
Yarrow
@Adam L Silverman:
Yep. Polling showed this. Interviews showed this. Hell, I even know one voter like this personally. I cannot believe she voted Tory but she did. Said Corbyn terrified her. Usually a Labour voter. Last weekend at a gathering there were three committed Labour voters begging her to reconsider and she was just, “Nope. Can’t vote for Corbyn. He terrifies me.”
PsiFighter37
@Adam L Silverman: Fair or not, Corbyn came off as a single-drip (or whatever it is – I don’t drink coffee) liberal who was removed from the everyday needs of folks. Add that to talk about re-nationalizing almost everything…forget it.
I do hope Corbyn has some semblance of shame and resigns as party leader quickly. Otherwise, the weekly PMQs will become a weekly exercise in kicking a man while he’s down. (Corbyn was also absolutely atrocious at PMQs – even Theresa May would wipe the floor with him, from what I saw)
Anne Laurie
Oooh, yes — Spousal Unit & I both adored Pie in the Sky!
Particularly nice that the cast did such a fine job making the ‘retired’ police inspector’s marriage true to long-term relationship between equals, who loved each other regardless of their differences. Also, the old-school inspector’s relationship with much younger ‘not-our-kind’ female / working-class / non-white associates, teaching them how to beat the system without denying that they were facing barriers he hadn’t.
patrick II
I do not understand English or Parliamentary politics will enough to understand why Corbyn, who himself was for Brexit, was allowed to stay at the head of the Labour party. It gave the people who wanted to stay in the EU no choice. Labour get what it deserved, the voters didn’t.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@Yarrow:
yeah, but… remember that “Vampire squid” line?
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Again, as I wrote in comment 111:
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Yarrow:
I understand what you’re saying. Politicians have to be good at messaging. It’s just that Corbyn would’ve been far better than Johnson, warts and all.
Another Scott
@Adam L Silverman:
In case the numbers don’t come through:Voting intention:Tory: 41%Labour: 36%LD: 12%Other: 11%That doesn’t sound like voters were running screaming from Corbyn to me. It seems to me to be a couple of things:
1) Brexit (at least in Labour areas that voted Brexit)
2) Yet another example of the pathological aspects of the FPTP voting system (where a party that gets a plurality of the actual votes gets a large majority of the actual seats).
FWIW.
Cheers,
Scott.
Mandalay
@Another Scott:
The polling I have seen showed the opposite. For example this BBC article Have UK voters changed their minds on Brexit? showed support for “Leave with no deal” at only 23%. But more importantly, the issue is no longer simply remain vs. leave; the conditions under which leaving occurs are very significant. For example, in that same poll the most favored scenario is “Remain in EU/revoke Article 50″, with 34% support (although that probably means little to anyone here not following the issue closely).
I think the article Johnson or Corbyn? What mattered was who voters hated least explains Labour’s humiliation well: Johnson was an awful option, but Corbyn was even worse…
Hob
@Adam L Silverman: Gladwell didn’t have any great insight there, he was summarizing stuff that’s easy to see, but yeah. I think <em>Mindhunter</em> has a pretty good perspective on this. It makes it clear that the extreme claims made by the Douglas- and Ressler-like characters about profiling aren’t based on much— they’re somewhat desperate to get the FBI interested in their work, so they have to make it sound scientific. On the other hand, it suggests that the Behavioral Science people did have a valuable perspective just because they wanted to consider psychology <em>at all</em> and look at serial murder as something qualitatively different from other kinds of violence… and that in terms of their interview project, trying to understand is at least better than not trying to understand, even if you don’t know what to do with your observations. But it makes their basic failure pretty clear just by showing us vignettes of Dennis Rader every so often, who definitely won’t be caught during this series or for decades thereafter (and then only because he doesn’t understand computers).
And the one time that the Douglas character is slightly helpful, in the Atlanta case, it’s not through any subtle profiling ideas but just a common-sense suggestion and a general effort to get the Bureau more involved (the scene where he first stumbles into this, and realizes he has accidentally gotten the victims’ families’ hopes way up by describing himself as this great specialist from the FBI when he was actually in Atlanta for a completely different reason, is kind of heartbreaking).
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Jim, Foolish Literalist: I see what they’re upset about. They put a lot of effort into delaying the vote to midnight or beyond to hide the vote and Pelosi/Dems/Nadler scuttled their plan by adjourning and holding the vote tomorrow, in broad daylight, for maximum attention.
Adam L Silverman
@patrick II: It has to do with how Labour conducts its leadership contests. Among the people within Labour who vote on leadership, he had majority support.
Another Scott
@Mandalay: Thanks.
Cheers,
Scott.
Anne Laurie
@hilts:
And yet… Biden is *still* the preferred candidate for that portion of Democratic primary voters that compose our ‘base’.
I’m consoling myself with the hope that he’s pronounced himself very open to choosing a younger, sharper, possibly non-white VP candidate (Harris, Stacey Abrams, Corey Booker?) who’ll be able to step up if (when) Uncle Joe fumbles. And if that turns out to be *before* the general election, I have faith in our base voters to turn out for eventual nominee.
Major Major Major Major
Thanks for the recommendations everyone!
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
@Mandalay:
What was Labour running on that scared voters?
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
Does The Man in the High Castle on Amazon Fire TV count?
Major Major Major Major
Yarrow
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): Corbyn was never going to be PM. The votes were not there. The best realistic result was a hung parliament, which would have possibly led to a second referendum on Brexit and another election after that.
Adam L Silverman
@Hob: As I used to tell my Criminological Theory students when I was a criminology professor. Every serial killer we’ve ever caught blows the top of the test for psychopathy (MMPI). But here’s the problem, because we don’t test them before they start committing serial murders, are they serial killers because they’re psychopaths or are they psychopaths because they’re serial killers? Does their psychological pathology drive their behavior or does their behavior somehow effect their psychology? What’s the direction of correlation, let alone causality? And since we don’t give everyone the MMPI and we don’t know how many members of the population are actually psychopaths, though we do have some estimates, we really can’t use being a psychopath as an adequate predictor of serial murder.
Everything the profilers use as predictors or descriptors in their models are so generic as to be useless.
As for Gladwell, yes, you are correct nothing that others haven’t said in more scholarly or technical terms. I give him credit for putting it all together in an easily digestible 7 pages and doing so in a way that was accurate. He’s rarely that good.
Major Major Major Major
@Goku (aka Amerikan Baka): that one didn’t quite do it for me.
PsiFighter37
@Mandalay: People HATED Corbyn. It wasn’t even close. It was basically a -60 spread. They disliked BoJo, but the polling suggested Corbyn polled at syphilis-like levels.
Labour would have done way better if someone like Keir Starmer was their candidate. Instead, the Momentum clowns decided to ride their train into the ground. And even now, Corbyn won’t say when he’ll quit. He’s basically the Francois Hollande of the UK, except more delusional, less successful electorally, and equally capable of nuking the established center-left party. Yay!
Adam L Silverman
@Major Major Major Major: That’s Trotskyite.
Mandalay
@Another Scott:
Corbyn explicitly refused to take a position on Brexit! The issue has consumed the country for the past few years, and the Leader of the Labour Party refused to take a position!
Why would a voter of any Brexit position support that exhibition of spinelessness?
Corbyn would surely be a far better prime minister than Johnson, but he really is a fucking idiot when it comes to politics, and he richly deserves his humiliation. Now Labour can toss him aside and move on from the nightmare of his “leadership”.
Another Scott
@Mandalay: Asked and answered. Read Tony Jay’s previous posts.
HTH.
Cheers,
Scott.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@Major Major Major Major:
In the last season they have seemed to be going for more of a typical action sci-fi show than the original book. Tagomi did travel to our world in the PKD novel, but the trailers seem to be hinting at the Nazi’s mastering travel to other universes.
Reminds me a bit of the Kromaggs from Sliders
Anne Laurie
Taibbi’s aging out of the Kewl Kidz demographic, and IMO his increasing stridency about YEAHBUT ALL DEMS SUKK is his form of midlife crisis.
Given his sojourn in Moscow, the GRU could have kompromat on him, but Matt is just one of multiple NewRepublic / Jacobin / Commentary Matts currently having public breakdowns along the same lines on Twitter.
Jay
@Adam L Silverman:
it really doesn’t matter if the quote was barbered or not.
Going to an ex Labourite who was basically kicked out of the Party for antisemitism, for a quote,
and holding that up as an example of Labour problem with antisemitism, is ratfucking, even if he said what he said.
It’s out, open and clear cut ratfucking in real time.
Adam L Silverman
@Jay: Which is part of why I deleted it.
David ??Booooooo?? Koch
(see: @Major Major Major Major‘s post): There you have it, Corbyn lost cause he wasn’t…. checks notes…. “Socialist enough”.
Yarrow
Found this analysis interesting:
So, Labour becoming the party of educated, ethnically diverse people. Conservatives becoming the party of less educated white people. Sound familiar?
Steeplejack
@Major Major Major Major:
Late thought: you might like the Dave Brandstetter novels by Joseph Hansen. Twelve novels, starting with Fadeout in 1970 and going to 1991. Might be a bit dated now, but they had a good Los Angeles noir vibe, and Brandstetter was “an openly gay insurance investigator who still embodied the tough, no-nonsense personality of the classic hardboiled private investigator protagonist.” (Wikipedia) I remember them as being well written. Might interest you if only as a historical artifact.
Mandalay
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch:
You can read their manifesto here.
But as i have already posted, the election was really about Corbyn vs. Johnson rather than Labour’s policy positions.
Corbyn is way to the left of Bernie Sanders, and while I support a lot of his personal positions, he is an awful politician. He doesn’t inspire trust and confidence, nor offer clarity, as a leader.
Yarrow
@David ??Booooooo?? Koch:
They were running on Corbyn.
Mandalay
@PsiFighter37:
Agreed, and he may well get the job now. Obviously there’s no way of knowing, but I strongly suspect that if he had been leading Labour for the past couple of years he would have become Britain’s next Prime Minister tonight.
Jay
@Yarrow:
and the Labour Party isn’t the Labour Party any more, it’s the Labour Coelition. A partial alliance of socialists, Old Labour, New Labour and Labourites who think that New Labour wasn’t austerity enough, war enough, suck up to the billionaires enough.
Remember the CW “hot takes” that Hillary Clinton lost because she didn’t address economic anxiety properly?
mrmoshpotato
Procedural you say?
Watch you some Bones! And if you did before, watch it again! :)
Jay
@Mandalay:
every left of center Politician and Party in the Western World is way to the left of Bernie. Our most rabid, racist and ignorant Conservatives here, wouldn’t make the cut to join the ReThug Party, they would be Blue Dogs.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/uselection2020
Mandalay
@Jay: O/T, but I find it amusing that Klobuchar is absolutely in the dead center of that top right quadrant. She’s our damn Goldilocks candidate in everything for voters… not too much of this, but not too much of that either. Just right!
Mel
It was a little bit lighter / fluffier than Fringe, but Warehouse 13 was really fun, and great for little mini-marathons of 3 or 4 episodes at a time. Good cast with great chemistry.
NotMax
Shall keep it a short list and try not to duplicate things from above.
SF: Charlie Jade (Prime), The Returned (the French series, not the other – only season 1 on Netflix at present), In The Flesh (Prime)
Intrigue: Patriot (the Prime Original series, not the other stuff with same name), London Spy (Netflix)
Mystery/procedurals: Fallet (Netflix), Hamish Macbeth (Prime – series is on the gentler side), Roba (Prime), Spiral (Prime)
Mel
New Amsterdam (not the newish clunky medical drama) with Nikolaj Costet-Waldau was good. It aired in 2008, I think. It’s not a time travel or a detective show, but has elements of both.
The Dresden Files (based on the novels by Jim Butcher) was a fun series, featuring Harry Dresden, an errant wizard and private detective.
BBC America and BBC One’s series Jekyll, starring James Nesbitt is a nice blend of sci-fi and crime drama.
Mel
Altered Carbon (Netflix) was excellent. Great character driven sci-fi that relies on good writing and strong acting to carry it. The effects are great, too, but they enhance the show, instead of stealing it.
lurker3000
@Adam L Silverman:
Steyer and Bloomberg are running ads in KS! Every time one comes on I just fume abou the malpractice and waste of money. So infuriating.
Jak
Anatomy of Evil (Austrian, crime)
Dark (German, time travel)
Black Spot (French, strange)
Spiral (French, crime)
Tatort:Borowski (German, police detective, crime series)
Captain Marleau (French, police detective)
Bordertown (Finnish, crime series)
Beck (Swedish, gold standard for Scandinavian Noir crime series)
Shetland (Scotland, crime)
Hinterland (Wales, crime)
Vera (Britain, crime)
DCI Banks (Britain, crime)
J R in WV
@PsiFighter37:
Actually, I’ve begun to feel that a plummy British accent makes one sound as stupid as the cornpone accent put on by Senator Kennedy of Louisiana does. Because all the folks I’ve actually met and talked to with British accents are bone-headed stupid and can be convinced of anything by an advertisement.
Dr. Fiona Hill broke with that by being whip smart with a mild British accent, but she is by far the exception to the rule.
Nothing could be more stupid than Brexit for Great Britain. No one
seemsis more stupid that Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson; although perhaps it isn’t just stupidity with him but also having been bought and paid for, and totally owned by GRU…Ken
NOt sure if this will fit your requirements, but watch TABOO. Period series with Tom Hardy as the lead and really superb! Enjoy,