edprice1984

The latest from Kim Kardashian is somehow her long dead father turned up via hologram (a little like Superman and Marlon Brando) to have a chat and give a birthday message. While also praising his most genius Son-in-law (who evidently paid for it) Kanye West. Tone deaf, I don’t think quite covers it

Oh and for all of Biden's shortcomings - he is clearly not senile or suffering from dementia. I actually think that those kinds of attacks are pretty reprehensible from the Republicans. There is plenty to criticise about Biden, he is a little like Theresa May in that I don't really see any personal conviction or a strong political belief system. That isn't necessarily a bad thing by the way; but if you are aiming to be President, I do believe you should have some keystone political ambitions that you want to enact - Trump at least wanted to do stuff (I think all of it is either stupid, pointless or in some cases counter-productive, but you knew what he wanted). Hypo asked what, if anything, you can give credit to Trump or at least his administration for. Certainly the recent Middle East peace deals are very impressive (although ironically tied to arm sales) and I would also argue that re-jigging of NAFTA was also a win. There are probably a few other things, but they are very much drowned out by the constant horrific noise from Trump himself and the fact that it appears no-one is able to put any sort of competent media campaign together.

Biden will win with a comfortable Electoral College majority. I would predict he will win Pennsylvania, Florida, Michigan, Wisconsin and possibly Georgia (depending on turnout). As I said previously, keep an eye out for Florida on the night - if it goes to Biden then that's the whole shooting match (although it's important to recognise that the networks won't declare the final result of the whole election). Something else which I hadn't really thought of until this morning was if the Dems win the senate, then DC and Puerto Rico will probably be granted Statehood. Meaning four more VERY Democratic Senators. I actually think that is more likely and less controversial than 'Court packing'. Trump got very lucky in being able to appoint 3 Supreme Court justices, but it is very rare (even for a single term President) to not get an opportunity to appoint at least one. Despite some on the Democratic side being concerned with a 6-3 split, the chances are that Biden will get at least one chance to make it a 5-4 split. If the Dems can expand the Union and keep hold of the Senate in 2022 I would suspect that by 2026 it may even be reversed. The other alternative is to add term limits to SCOTUS appointments; which again becomes easier with a Senate majority.

Anyone else keeping an eye on the u18 Saints v Leicester game...😇

The problem for Trump is that economic prosperity is difficult to gauge this year as COVID and the administrations handling of it are the main concern for most voters. There are certainly some aspects of the last 4 years that have been positive, but because Trump and his team are so chaotic, even the good news ends up getting drowned out. He may point to a adversarial news media etc, but if had any sort of consistency of message it might cut through. Even last night, while Biden was avoiding the question on 'Court packing'; Trump lied about Masks and their effectiveness, failed to condemn QAnon and also interestingly didn't comment on the Hunter Biden thing - which is the clearest indication that it is total b*llocks! I simply don't understand the Trump campaign message - there is no discipline and I don't even think they are at panic stations yet, they know they are losing (badly in some places) and it will take a miracle or massive illegality for them to win from here

I am aware of the 'emails'. It appears that they may be heavily edited, of no consequence or actually just fake. If this was the big scandal that Trump was hoping for then Donald is toast. It has been pretty easy for the Dems and Biden's campaign to prove that Joe Biden didn't meet anyone connected to the Ukraine Burisma thing. Most surprising of all is that the Trump campaign seem to have forgotten which Biden is running for President. Keep an eye on the result from Florida on election night. Because they count the votes as they go (rather than wait), we will probably have an actual result on the night. If Trump loses Florida, then he will have lost the election.

The biggest plus for Trump in 2016 was his unpredictability - it seemed to throw Clinton and her team off; they were fire-fighting and trying to confront every issue. Biden and his team have learned to let him dig his own hole. My biggest fear is that Biden has an absolute shocker of a 2nd debate. Although it is rare for them to have any real effect on the outcome of an election, if Biden has or appears to have a 'Senior moment' it could be enough to tighten the polls in some of those swing states. Then it becomes an issue where Trump and his supporters will be likely leading on Election night, before all the postal votes have been counted - that is where it gets dangerous. It is vital for the major News Networks not to call anything early and for Biden and his team to keep pressure on to count the vote and to stop Trump stealing the election.

Once again the key is to not look at the big shouty stuff, but at the finer minutiae - in the most recent polls (even the ones he normally likes - Rasmussen) he is behind Biden Nationally by between 8-10 points. In the Battleground states he is losing in 12 of the 14, but most worrying for him is that he and Biden are basically tied with Non college educated White men. Trump is now in last chance territory - he basically needs a massive scandal to hit Biden/Harris (I can't see how we wouldn't know about it by now); a massive win - I am not sure what that would look like, other than a miracle breakthrough and cure for Covid that can be easily rushed out - or Biden dying. As I said before, I get the feeling that a lot of Americans are simply tired of the chaos, the scandal and the (easily disprovable) lies. Normality with all its own flaws, looks attractive. It should also be remembered that Trump fluked it in 2016 - Hilary won the popular vote by over 3 million votes*. An election where the winner of the popular vote loses the electoral college has only occurred 5 times in US History (although twice in the last 20 years) - Bush beat Gore because of the ridiculous focus on Florida and the votes for Ralph Nader; Clinton had more than 3 Million more votes; but in the main Dem Sinks of the West Coast and East Coast - she basically lost the election by about 20,000 votes spread over 3 states. Which is totally bonkers! It explains why Trump and his team have struggled to replicate their 'success' - they don't understand how he did it in 2016. *The margin in % in the 2016 popular vote was 2.1%; which was a bigger margin than Kennedy, Nixon (1968) or Carter achieved in their election victories. If Biden ended with a 10% margin in the popular vote (I don't think he will!) he could end up with a very big win.

8th. A lot of middling teams and I can see our home form being a little more stable this season.

SkySports News is worthless these days. The club has confirmed Boufal; Carrillo; Hoedt have all left. But the ‘South Coast’ correspondent is still saying “ we believe “ etc . Club social media now means that leaks etc are rare. 99/100 the big deals get done and they string out the tension. Theo will sign, we probably won’t get anyone else in unless it is an EFL player

In that event the Constitution is clear - VP Pence would become President. However Pence would not necessarily be the automatic choice to contest the election. (I mean he would, because in terms of the time available to the GoP to arrange an alternative Primary is impossibly small). Funnily enough I was trying to see what would happen if Biden snuffed it before the election. Again, Harris would almost certainly simply take his place, but again there is no Constitutional requirement or precedent in relation to the ballot

The electoral maths for Trump gets harder by the day. He is trailing in 11 of the 14 battleground/swing states; tied in one (Iowa - which Trump won by 9.5% in 2016) and only leading in Texas (!) by 3.2% - A State he won in 2016 by nearly 10%. If Biden wins Pennsylvania or Florida (he is currently leading in the polls in both) he only needs to pick up one or two of the likes of Arizona, Michigan, Wisconsin etc. in all cases Biden is a fair margin ahead at the stage of the contest. Trump needs Biden to absolutely crash and burn in the next two debates (and I mean have some sort of episode or forget where he is etc); Biden to die or a scandal (that would surely have come out by now) regarding either Biden or Harris. My impression is that a lot of Americans are simply tired of the chaos. I have a couple of friends who live over in the States and one who voted Trump (he simply couldn't stand Hilary). He said to me 3 months ago - "Now that we know Biden is the Dems nominee, a lot of people who would have struggled to vote for Sanders or someone like that will happily vote for Joe. We know what we are getting, he's a nice guy!" Biden certainly has flaws, but compared to Trump its like comparing chalk and cheese

Feels like another window wasted (at the moment). Clearly getting players off the books is still important, but at some point Ralph is going to get fed up and walk away without proper backing. Also, Charlie Wayman - not sure why it is so awful to suggest that Mario Licka's wife is a very attractive woman?

If you missed it Good Morning Britain reporter outside Fratton Park this morning, began their piece to camera by saying "Small clubs like Portsmouth..."

Buctootim, I agree - My point, I suppose, is that it does appear that the lethality of the virus is well below what was originally feared, but things do get complicated if you are overweight or have pre-existing conditions. Let's be honest here, I don't think 200k Americans is a good look for Trump and certainly the way that the USA is structured (Federal v State) hasn't helped but the fact that a sizeable percentage (pun very much intended) are fat barstewards seems to have had a direct correlation on the number of deaths.

I did caveat that in my post to be fair. The variants of each countries system for testing and counting those who have passed away from the virus differs quite dramatically. For example if you look at the UK - 439,000 cases confirmed with 42,000 deaths - 10% of cases involve death?!?! Of course in the UK we are counting anyone who dies 28 days after a positive test (whether or not it had any contributory factor) plus our testing system was an absolute shower at the beginning of March and April meaning that very few people actually got tested, let alone diagnosed. However if you average out cases to population; then deaths to cases it tends to suggest that around 1-2% of those who test positive go on to become seriously ill and die. Worse than the flu certainly, but also seemingly to certain age groups and those with underlying conditions. To be clear; I follow all the rules related to numbers, social distancing etc, I wear a mask, I limit contact with my parents and older relatives. It obviously badly effects a lot of people, but maybe isn't as bad as the scientific community once feared.

COVID-19 (currently) looks like it affects a vast majority of people who are infected very mildly, if at all. Of the people who do suffer complications, once again the vast majority are those with one or more pre-existing conditions and normally over the age of 70. An even smaller number will unfortunately pass away. As Egg posted above, it does appear that some otherwise healthy individuals who get badly effected by the Virus may have long lasting or chronic problems moving forward. I am sure that this will be an particular area of research that will be important to understand. Was it bad luck, was it genetic disposition? If the latter, is there a way of reducing the chances of someone who has this genetic weakness from getting complications? The data and statistics seem to suggest that populations with high instances of obesity (USA and UK) and associated illnesses connected to this are suffering far worse than countries and populations where this is less of an issue. India has a population of 1 billion (near enough) and as of yesterday 6 million* confirmed cases. (0.6% of the whole population - with 95,000 deaths attributed to COVID-19 (so roughly 1.6% of cases end in death). For comparison the USA, with a population of roughly 330 million has over 7 million confirmed cases (2.1% of the population) and slightly over 209,000 deaths - meaning death in nearly 3% of cases. *Obviously this may not be the accurate figure as I don't know the Testing regime in India vs USA India has a larger % of multi-generational households, far greater poverty and higher population density; yet the US is much much worse.

I was feeling nostalgic yesterday evening, as Saints prepare for another season in the Premier League while 'them lot' face more uncertainty and struggles in League One. So I decided to go through the timeline of chaos and hilarity that was their Takeover Saga. I cam across the following website - http://www.chainrai.com/photos/ It is, as you would expect, gloriously tinpot and encapsulates everything about Pompey. Enjoy!

August: 50% off to eat in restaurants; Get those kids back to school; You shouldn't be working from home! Get back to the offices! If you feel unwell or are in any doubt - take a test! September: You can send your kids to school, still meet in pubs and restaurants (as long as it is no more than 6) - oh and still able to work in offices and take public transport. But only from Monday 14th, as we have got a test event at Doncaster races this week where 3,000+ people are attending. But most of all if there are 7 of you in a big open space like a park, we will fine you £100 each! Oh and stop asking for tests - we haven't got enough and if you live in London, your nearest one is in Brecon.

The Government seem to have not realised that if you start 'unilaterally' breaking existing treaties - other countries are a little more hesitant in signing new ones.

Does mean Ings has a decent shout for more game time though - two less forward players to choose from and one would have expected Greenwood to get more minutes. Standard young footballer behaviour unfortunately! (Although I have heard the Icelandic girls can be a bit kinky!)

Group E - purely for selfish reasons (provided crowds might be allowed in for these games under a pilot scheme - you never know!)

If we can offload Carrillo (a big if) and the rumours about Obafemi are true then it makes sense. For the price being quoted it would be decent business too. However, with the exception of Suarez and Aguero (for whatever reason) South American strikers have routinely failed in the Premier League. Not sure if it is a cultural thing or that they don’t get the same levels of protection as they would on the continent.

Matty Longstaff rumoured again