I've got nothing really coherent to write about tonight... So for your entertainment, here is a clip that went viral this weekend from "Yes, Minister", a wonderful British TV series from the 1980's, because of how it well predicted UK's Brexit vote and why:
The floor is now open...
Btw, if you want to see a great TV series from Australia that perfectly depicts a government bureaucratic agency that exists to do nothing but keep bureaucrats employed, watch "Dreamland" on Netflix. It proves that it's not just us.
The floor is now open...
Btw, if you want to see a great TV series from Australia that perfectly depicts a government bureaucratic agency that exists to do nothing but keep bureaucrats employed, watch "Dreamland" on Netflix. It proves that it's not just us.
8 comments:
So, what I've heard about the best and brightest minds in Britain going into government and, from there, heading straight for the lunatic asylums is true? Bloody 'ell, Britain!
Seriously, though, if this was the UK's master plan all along, then I'm loving the Brexit vote more and more every day!
Trump is in the middle of walking back his Muslim ban. The first modification was it would only apply to Muslims from terrorist states, the second was it will only apply to Muslims from terrorist states that cannot be vetted.
http://www.mediaite.com/tv/trump-spox-gives-truly-confusing-interview-on-muslim-ban-its-not-about-all-muslims/
Remember, the first sentence of Trump’s announcement months ago featured the phrase “total and complete shutdown of Muslims coming into the United States.” But Pierson said the ban was never about all Muslims.
This past weekend, Trump indicated he’s changing the ban by saying he wants to only keep out Muslims from terror nations. Pierson insisted to Brianna Keilar, “There has been no change.”
But less than a minute later, she said what Trump said this past weekend was him “adding to this policy.”
Keilar asked her to clear up exactly who gets to come into the U.S. under the Muslim ban. Pierson said “an individual that cannot be vetted.” Keilar asked if that means Muslims who can be vetted can come into the country.
Pierson sort-of indicated that was the case, but it was still a little unclear on the actual specifics. Keilar asked what Trump’s proposed vetting process is. Pierson said, “That is a question for the FBI and the CIA, who have told us they do not have a vetting process.”
Clinton's lack of charisma, ethics and inability to put the email scandal to bed is truly impressive.
In a sane year Clinton and Trump would be also-rans.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2016/06/28/more-clinton-emails-released-including-some-deleted.html?intcmp=trending
An additional 165 pages of emails from Hillary Clinton's time at the State Department surfaced Monday, including nearly three dozen that the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee failed to hand over last year that were sent through her private server.
The latest emails were released under court order by the State Department to the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch. The batch includes 34 new emails Clinton exchanged through her private account with her deputy chief of staff, Huma Abedin. The aide, who also had a private emailaccount on Clinton's home server, later gave her copies to the government.
The emails were not among the 55,000 pages of work-related messages that Clinton turned over to the agency in response to public records lawsuits seeking copies of her official correspondence. They include a March 2009 message where the then-secretary of state discusses how her official records would be kept.
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With the new release Monday, more than 50 work-related emails sent or received by Clinton have since surfaced that were not among those she provided.
Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon on Monday repeated past statements that Clinton had provided "all potentially work-related emails" that were still in her possession when she received the 2014 request from the State Department.
Fallon has declined to say whether Clinton deleted any work-related emails before they were reviewed by her legal team.
If you like Yes, Minister, I must recommend The Thick of It as well as its big-screen spinoff In the Loop. The same team later created Veep which just had its season finale the other night.
As for Brexit... I'm a big fan of the British news quiz show Have I Got News For You. It's frequently hilarious even if you don't get all the references. What's weird is Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson have both appeared on the show, Johnson more than once. (He's a great foil for the panelists' shenanigans.) So for this Yank who doesn't pay attention to British politics, it's weird to hear these guys being talked about in legit news stories since I really only know them from punchlines! (I guess it's not unlike people in other countries hearing about Trump.)
Walking back works. That's why so many pols do it. You start with an outlandish proposal to draw attention. Then you tell everyone that the nay-sayers and the firebrands got you all wrong. All you really propose is something reasonable.
The media doesn't entertain modest proposals, so making crazy ones is basically saying "Hey, listen up!" But there is an art to it. You can't start too crazy and you have to walk back at just the right pace and manner so your flip-flop can go unnoticed.
Here's an amazing set of facts: If you Google "Trump flip flops" you get only 665,000 hits. If you Google "Trump doubles down" you get 3,960,000 hits.
If you compare Trump to Obama and Hillary, clearly "double down" is applied more to all of them. Yet somehow, Trump is reported to be nearly as stalwart as the evolutionary Obama, while Hillary is far less staunch, flipping almost as much as Trump but doubling down only a third as often.
Trump: flip flops 665,000 | doubles down 3,960,000
Obama: flip flops 549,000 | doubles down 3,870,000
Hillary: flip flops 616,000 | doubles down 1,170,000
I also wanted to compare some of out dearly departed:
Cruz: flip flops 541,000 | doubles down 332,000
Rubio: flip flops 372,000 | doubles down 120,000
Jeb: flip flops 163,000 | doubles down 86,900
Kasich: flip flops 99,000 | doubles down 190,000
Sanders: flip flops 564,000 | doubles down 424,000
With the exception of Kasich, they all have flip flops that exceed their doubles down. I just stumbled on this phenomenon this morning. I think we all have the same immediate impression, but I'll be happy to hash it further.
Rustbelt: It's mind boggling the way the "Stay" people are reacting! Pretty much it's "See the lower order of folks are just too stupid to understand the complexities of this issue." and "They really shouldn't have been allowed to vote on such an important issue because these Brexit people are so stupid."
But the really stupid people don't quite understand how democracy works 'cause they all signed a petition for a Do-Over vote. And they are really willing to make sure that the "smart" people are the only ones who get to vote from now on. Does any of this sound familar?
If these anti-democracy film/tv stars (Benedict Cumberbatch, James Cordon, Harry Potter kid, Patrick Stewart) really want an unelected government body telling them what to do , where to go, and what they can eat (which isn't surprising considering they already have agents, managers, writers, directors et al. telling them what to do, where to stand, and what to say), why not just give full ruling power back to the Monarchy!
tryanmax, That's really interesting. I wonder what it really means? Does it mean to stick to your guns or does it mean the media designates loser with "flip-flops" while describing winners with "doubles-down"? Curious!
I've been doing some thinking and i came up with Google being an echo measurement. Search engines are all about measuring what gets repeated. I don't think we can draw much from the low volume of the dropped out candidates, since old news on the internet expires nowadays. But we can see which stories reverberated more by what remains. There's also the primary to consider. It makes sense that the candidate who doubles down more and flip flops less would win with their own. But I don't think the general electorate would be much different.
Unfortunately, somebody wrote a book on Romney entitled Double Down so it's very hard to run a check on the last election. Going further back is difficult too because double down as an expression has really taken off in the last couple decades
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