Off Topic Thread 5.0

irishbucsfan

Decision Desk just called both races for the Democrats

https://twitter.com/decisiondeskhq/status/1346717051314966528?s=21

Looks like they’ll have no one to blame but themselves now!

irishbucsfan

Based on recent history, this means you can be pretty certain that the Republicans will have control of both the house and the senate by 2024

sydthebeat

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Decision Desk just called both races for the Democrats

https://twitter.com/decisiondeskhq/status/1346717051314966528?s=21

Looks like they’ll have no one to blame but themselves now!

They'll certainly have one particular person to blame

swiwi_

irishbucsfan wrote: »

Based on recent history, this means you can be pretty certain that the Republicans will have control of both the house and the senate by 2024

No in the interest of a fair and free democracy, congress will outlaw the Republican Party.

irishbucsfan

swiwi_ wrote: »

No in the interest of a fair and free democracy, congress will outlaw the Republican Party.

That would just turn them into lobbyists and they’d have more power than ever before

Bazzo

Sweeping election reforms coming for America?

No, probably not.

kuang1

Hope you and your OH are doing well Bazzo.

Happy birthday Venjur. Always imagined you to have 7/8 years on top of that tbh!
(it's a compliment... Wise beyond your years!)

Hard to see a 2 year recovery for the GOP imo. Their support base isn't passing through to younger generations like it used to. Trump has pretty much taken them on a botched kamikaze attempt in the last few months, with nothing left but outright wreckage and debris of what used to be the Republican party, and little or no damage done to the Democrats.

Thing is, the US needs the GOP to be somewhat seaworthy. It's definitely a long way from that right now.
Can't see how they'll turn around things in Senate elections in 2 years either, unless they completely amputate Trump.

Definitely think there is a before Trump 'BT' and post Trump perspective to US politics that renders predictions moving forward very hard to gauge. Biden is in a similar situation to Obama in the sense that the Dems hold all three houses for the next two years. Losing that majority cost Obama any ability to effectively govern for the latter half of his Presidency.

Democratic party leadership might fall into the same acquiescence but I wouldn't be surprised to see a more aggressive administration given the last few years. Trump really was a bizarre aberration of a presidency but given the numbers he turned out in November it's clear the rot runs very deep.

Going to be an interesting few weeks through to January 20.

Neil3030

I think one thing is becoming clear - the cult turn out for Trump, not for Trumpism. When DJT isn't on the ballot, GOP have underwhelmed (2018 interims, GA run off) and overperformed when he is (2016, 2020).

We'll know more in time, but the party have alienated themselves from so much political competence, I have no earthly idea how they rebuild from this.

irishbucsfan

He’s really going off the deep end now. Could be 25th amendment territory by Inauguration Day

molloyjh

irishbucsfan wrote: »

He’s really going off the deep end now. Could be 25th amendment territory by Inauguration Day

What has he done?

aloooof

Anyone else think this decision to have Leaving Cert students in for 3 days a week at the moment is madness?

swiwi_

aloooof wrote: »

Anyone else think this decision to have Leaving Cert students in for 3 days a week at the moment is madness?

Trump did that?

aloooof

swiwi_ wrote: »

Trump did that?

Fake News!

molloyjh

While I dont believe for a second that hardcore Republican-Trump supporters supporters are even remotely close to "seeing the light", i do think the Republican party is in serious danger of tearing itself apart in the next few years. Will supporters align with Trump jn large numbers? If so, and if the Trumps are really bothered to keep at this for the next year or two, the Republican in-fighting could ensure the Democrats have a decent run at it for a little while.

https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/06/politics/eric-trump-republicans-2022/index.html

Synode

aloooof wrote: »

Anyone else think this decision to have Leaving Cert students in for 3 days a week at the moment is madness?

There's far too many exemptions for this 'lock down' to have the desired effect imo.

Synode

Anyone else using Firefox on desktop? Are pages on Boards taking ages to load for you?

Synode

Synode wrote: »

Anyone else using Firefox on desktop? Are pages on Boards taking ages to load for you?

Been getting slight stalls all day on chrome. Browser shouldn't really matter though.

sydthebeat

aloooof wrote: »

Anyone else think this decision to have Leaving Cert students in for 3 days a week at the moment is madness?

as a parent of a 6th year student... no i dont.

im seeing the damage the anxiety of these lockdowns / muddled on line learning is doing to his mental status. Hes on anti anxiety tablets currently due to it all.

No matter what way its dressed up, on line learning is not equitable, it doesn't work for all... many students need the structure of a class day... the teacher is not there to ask questions of ...... and to be honest a lot of level of what hes learning is beyond / different my 1994 LC level.

if full class rooms with windows open etc was deemed minimal risk back in November, then fewer students in rooms, fewer students in the schools and less time in the schools is obviously a much lower risk than even that.

I 100% see teachers point of view in that for them, in a group setting, their risk increases. However like the girl at the grocery shop check out, the pharmacist dealing with the multitude of customer etc... they (teachers) are essentially front line workers.....

I would be certainly agreeable that these teachers are moved up the list to category of "key worker" in the vaccine strategy.

aloooof

aloooof wrote: »

Anyone else think this decision to have Leaving Cert students in for 3 days a week at the moment is madness?

The shorter week will mean a reduction in the % of close contacts for positive cases within schools. I suspect the maths on a macro scale indicate that 3 days is manageable given the current level of community spread.

I doubt it's a decision made in a political vacuum, I suspect there is a degree of thought behind it.

Podge_irl

I will refrain from commenting on the ****show in the States as it would be impossible to do so without getting about a thousand infractions for personal abuse of public figures.

Podge_irl

Podge_irl wrote: »

I will refrain from commenting on the ****show in the States as it would be impossible to do so without getting about a thousand infractions for personal abuse of public figures.

Ah no go on, do it - I'll kick things off in the Connacht thread so the mods will be busy for a bit.

Stheno

[Deleted User] wrote: »

Ah no go on, do it - I'll kick things off in the Connacht thread so the mods will be busy for a bit.

Heeheee

irishbucsfan

Podge_irl wrote: »

I will refrain from commenting on the ****show in the States as it would be impossible to do so without getting about a thousand infractions for personal abuse of public figures.

Absolutely melting down. There's a lot of dangerous insane people in Washington DC right now. Hope no one gets hurt.

aloooof

sydthebeat wrote: »

as a parent of a 6th year student... no i dont.

im seeing the damage the anxiety of these lockdowns / muddled on line learning is doing to his mental status. Hes on anti anxiety tablets currently due to it all.

Sorry to hear that, Syd, hope he's doing ok. (I'll declare an interest as well, my other half is a teacher and is in the high-risk category).

sydthebeat wrote: »

No matter what way its dressed up, on line learning is not equitable, it doesn't work for all... many students need the structure of a class day... the teacher is not there to ask questions of ...... and to be honest a lot of level of what hes learning is beyond / different my 1994 LC level.

if full class rooms with windows open etc was deemed minimal risk back in November, then fewer students in rooms, fewer students in the schools and less time in the schools is obviously a much lower risk than even that.

One major difference from November is that we currently only have capacity to test symptomatic people. We know that ~50% of cases are asymptomatic. So, even at a time when we are having record numbers of cases, we know that the number of actual cases is likely substantially higher.

So the same Test and Trace measures, that we were told were to protect the schools, are no longer in place.


It just all feels a bit off to me, considering it was announced on a day when:

- Paul Reid announced we have exceeded the the peak from the Wave 1 numbers of people in hospital

- Colm Henry said numbers could go much higher than surge capacity

- It was reported that we have among the highest rate of spread in the world at the moment

- The new, more transmissible strain now makes up 25% of our cases.

- The 19-24 year old bracket is by far the range with the highest level of transmission; a certain cohort of that group will be attending school

- The Dail itself will only sit one day a week

- The Moderna vaccine was approved; there is an end in sight to this. With vaccines now on the horizon, the justification for short-term lockdown is even higher, imo.

I do have sympathy; there's no silver bullet to this, and it's a balancing act between trying to decide between a bad outcome and a worse outcome, but it feels like this is one of the more contentious decisions they've made.

aloooof

Deleted User wrote: »

The shorter week will mean a reduction in the % of close contacts for positive cases within schools. I suspect the maths on a macro scale indicate that 3 days is manageable given the current level of community spread.

I mentioned it to syd above, but the difference now is that they are only testing symptomatic people, which we know make up ~50% of all cases. They won't be identifying a significantly larger % of positive cases.

Deleted User wrote: »

I doubt it's a decision made in a political vacuum, I suspect there is a degree of thought behind it.

You would hope so. However, Norma Foley was just on Drivetime and refused to answer 3 times on whether Tony Holohan or NPHET gave advice on allowing LC students to remain in school. That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence.

sydthebeat

fair points aloof..... and i think school closures for a short term lockdown would certainly make sense if they could guarantee that there would be no loss of school time due to it... ie if they pushed the LC out to the start of july.... i think that would be agreeable to a lot of people

theres a double whammy coming down the tracks for LC students of 2021 which i think parents and teachers needs to be mindful as well
theres the disruption to school time cause by the march 2020 lockdown.
theres the unknown re this lockdown and what the future holds... are they going to sit a written exam or get calculated grades

but especially, theres the extra number of students which will be looking for college places in sept 2021
theres the high number who deferred for a year last sept
theres the 2500 number that sat the paper test in november
and theres this years LC students... all vying for a limited number of college places


but at the end of the day of NPHET say that its safe for teachers to teach LC students 3 days a week in specific conditions, then so be it.

Just found out my grand mother is getting the vaccine on the 18th. Happy days. Full bars on her phone. Cheers Bill Gates.

Podge_irl

Ted Cruz is talking. Is calling someone a "Real Ted Cruz" viewed as a personal insult? Cause if not a)it should be and b)it would be a handy way to get around the rules.

swiwi_

An angry uneducated mob is dispensable. They also hold no real power. Republicans with power are ditching trump. He will be left a sore sad loser with an uneducated fan base who have no real influence. He has achieved nothing for that demographic.