Reply to you both together for convenience. It's in the rural NE. And it is the golf club. So not the youngest clientele imaginable. They had all ticket sold out 60 booked for dinner. That was down to 20 from cancellations, but the chef's got Rona. So that was off. However, there is only one other place to drink in the village so they thought they'd open anyway. Many fewer than a normal Friday night apparently... Desperate times as Foxy observes.
Ta. And, yes, troubling
The British pub is such a fundamental part of our culture. I hate to see them empty
She has always called for longer and harder lockdowns on the basis of her mathematical models showing huge numbers of fatalities if we don’t.
The snag is the only one of her models that we can compare to real world data - the one on the effects of removing restrictions last July - was wrong by the small matter of 130%.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
The difficulty here is that for Epstein to have been murdered the camera footage has to have been faked. Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how access to actually kill him was achieved. Therefore, a conspiracy is needed to explain it.
The fact that the two overworked guards who cocked up and failed to follow procedure have now in effect been given a slap on the wrist will lend weight to the idea that there is something fishy going on.
Princes in the Tower is a bad counter example because a conspiracy theory is needed to explain how they were *not* murdered on Richard’s orders in July/August 1483 - either by their secret survival, or by somebody else gaining access to them.
OK you got me there. Any theory which requires camera footage to be faked in 2017 can be laughed out of court, the technology doesn't exist. Dunno how you'd even start.
You’re missing the point. The point is that faking the camera footage of an empty corridor requires a conspiracy. On the part of the camera operators, guards, technicians…
And such conspiracies are explained by ‘conspiracy theories.’
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible it happened. It’s just somewhat less likely than the obvious - that Epstein strangled himself and an awful lot of time was wasted and confusion caused by the guards trying to cover up that they were asleep on duty.
Jeez. You really believe that? The single most important prisoner in the USA, meant to be on a constant suicide watch? The man whose trial could have destroyed the sitting American president and the former American president, and some of the most prominent lawyers in the USA, and some of the most prominent businessmen, plus, fuck it, a British prince? Who all flew on the "Lolita Express"?
The guards just "fell asleep". The cameras were "accidentally turned off". My word. Such bad luck
Would have more weight if she hadn't called for lockdown and restrictions continually for the last 20 months. She has also wanted face masks in schools. She is not a teacher trying to teach kids. Her followers are for the most part sychophantic to a high degree. A psychologist would wonder if she gets off on the adulation.
Ok thanks noted, and I saw @ydoethur's answer too.
Just one minor point - even if she does get off on the adulation that does not necessarily invalidate her projections.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
The difficulty here is that for Epstein to have been murdered the camera footage has to have been faked. Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how access to actually kill him was achieved. Therefore, a conspiracy is needed to explain it.
The fact that the two overworked guards who cocked up and failed to follow procedure have now in effect been given a slap on the wrist will lend weight to the idea that there is something fishy going on.
Princes in the Tower is a bad counter example because a conspiracy theory is needed to explain how they were *not* murdered on Richard’s orders in July/August 1483 - either by their secret survival, or by somebody else gaining access to them.
OK you got me there. Any theory which requires camera footage to be faked in 2017 can be laughed out of court, the technology doesn't exist. Dunno how you'd even start.
You’re missing the point. The point is that faking the camera footage of an empty corridor requires a conspiracy. On the part of the camera operators, guards, technicians…
And such conspiracies are explained by ‘conspiracy theories.’
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible it happened. It’s just somewhat less likely than the obvious - that Epstein strangled himself and an awful lot of time was wasted and confusion caused by the guards trying to cover up that they were asleep on duty.
Jeez. You really believe that? The single most important prisoner in the USA, meant to be on a constant suicide watch? The man whose trial could have destroyed the sitting American president and the former American president, and some of the most prominent lawyers in the USA, and some of the most prominent businessmen, plus, fuck it, a British prince? Who all flew on the "Lolita Express"?
The guards just "fell asleep". The cameras were "accidentally turned off". My word. Such bad luck
The cameras were not turned off - and showed an empty corridor - and he was not on suicide watch. He had just been taken off it. Rather stupidly.
And a guard on a fifth consecutive overtime shift plus one who had been on duty for twelve hours obviously would never fall asleep.
BBC reporting from Carlisle's influx of Scots with an interview from a hotel manager saying half the central belt have arrived
I think that is a 'wee' bit of an exaggeration
Anyway, a happy new year to each and everyone, and on a personal note my wife has just received confirmation from a lifelong friend that he is safe in Colorado but all his neighbours properties have gone
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
The difficulty here is that for Epstein to have been murdered the camera footage has to have been faked. Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how access to actually kill him was achieved. Therefore, a conspiracy is needed to explain it.
The fact that the two overworked guards who cocked up and failed to follow procedure have now in effect been given a slap on the wrist will lend weight to the idea that there is something fishy going on.
Princes in the Tower is a bad counter example because a conspiracy theory is needed to explain how they were *not* murdered on Richard’s orders in July/August 1483 - either by their secret survival, or by somebody else gaining access to them.
OK you got me there. Any theory which requires camera footage to be faked in 2017 can be laughed out of court, the technology doesn't exist. Dunno how you'd even start.
You’re missing the point. The point is that faking the camera footage of an empty corridor requires a conspiracy. On the part of the camera operators, guards, technicians…
And such conspiracies are explained by ‘conspiracy theories.’
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible it happened. It’s just somewhat less likely than the obvious - that Epstein strangled himself and an awful lot of time was wasted and confusion caused by the guards trying to cover up that they were asleep on duty.
Jeez. You really believe that? The single most important prisoner in the USA, meant to be on a constant suicide watch? The man whose trial could have destroyed the sitting American president and the former American president, and some of the most prominent lawyers in the USA, and some of the most prominent businessmen, plus, fuck it, a British prince? Who all flew on the "Lolita Express"?
The guards just "fell asleep". The cameras were "accidentally turned off". My word. Such bad luck
Yes, but it’s generally true that cockups are much more common than conspiracies, which is why people who are attracted by every passing conspiracy theory, like a flea to a dog’s arse, are mostly demonstrating their lack of critical faculties.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
The difficulty here is that for Epstein to have been murdered the camera footage has to have been faked. Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how access to actually kill him was achieved. Therefore, a conspiracy is needed to explain it.
The fact that the two overworked guards who cocked up and failed to follow procedure have now in effect been given a slap on the wrist will lend weight to the idea that there is something fishy going on.
Princes in the Tower is a bad counter example because a conspiracy theory is needed to explain how they were *not* murdered on Richard’s orders in July/August 1483 - either by their secret survival, or by somebody else gaining access to them.
OK you got me there. Any theory which requires camera footage to be faked in 2017 can be laughed out of court, the technology doesn't exist. Dunno how you'd even start.
You’re missing the point. The point is that faking the camera footage of an empty corridor requires a conspiracy. On the part of the camera operators, guards, technicians…
And such conspiracies are explained by ‘conspiracy theories.’
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible it happened. It’s just somewhat less likely than the obvious - that Epstein strangled himself and an awful lot of time was wasted and confusion caused by the guards trying to cover up that they were asleep on duty.
Jeez. You really believe that? The single most important prisoner in the USA, meant to be on a constant suicide watch? The man whose trial could have destroyed the sitting American president and the former American president, and some of the most prominent lawyers in the USA, and some of the most prominent businessmen, plus, fuck it, a British prince? Who all flew on the "Lolita Express"?
The guards just "fell asleep". The cameras were "accidentally turned off". My word. Such bad luck
Yes, but it’s generally true that cockups are much more common than conspiracies, which is why people who are attracted by every passing conspiracy theory, like a flea to a dog’s arse, are mostly demonstrating their lack of critical faculties.
Don't worry, I have never confused you with a person blessed with "critical faculties".
I confess I *have* occasionally mistaken you for a bleeding dog's arse, but I do my Christian best to overcome and ignore the obvious similarity
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
The difficulty here is that for Epstein to have been murdered the camera footage has to have been faked. Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how access to actually kill him was achieved. Therefore, a conspiracy is needed to explain it.
The fact that the two overworked guards who cocked up and failed to follow procedure have now in effect been given a slap on the wrist will lend weight to the idea that there is something fishy going on.
Princes in the Tower is a bad counter example because a conspiracy theory is needed to explain how they were *not* murdered on Richard’s orders in July/August 1483 - either by their secret survival, or by somebody else gaining access to them.
OK you got me there. Any theory which requires camera footage to be faked in 2017 can be laughed out of court, the technology doesn't exist. Dunno how you'd even start.
You’re missing the point. The point is that faking the camera footage of an empty corridor requires a conspiracy. On the part of the camera operators, guards, technicians…
And such conspiracies are explained by ‘conspiracy theories.’
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible it happened. It’s just somewhat less likely than the obvious - that Epstein strangled himself and an awful lot of time was wasted and confusion caused by the guards trying to cover up that they were asleep on duty.
No they aren't. You need to think about what conspiracy theory means. Doesn't mean, a theory that there was a conspiracy. After all, conspiring to commit a crime, is a crime, in English law, and charges of conspiracy are not usually defended with the "this is just a conspiracy theory" argument. What "conspiracy theory" means, is a HUGE VIOLATION OF oCCAM'S RAZOR: can't be arsed to fix the capslock problem: either the Apollo missions went to the moon, or tens of thousands of NASA and other personnel got together to pretend they did.
How difficult is it to fake footage of an empty corridor? You just transpose another bit of the 99% of the footage on that camera that genuinely shows an empty corridor. Boring plot device in any number of boring heist films. The answer is to have in shot a screen permanently showing CNN or whatever, but nobody seems to think of that.
And my understanding is that you are wrong anyway, the cameras were - quite unaccountably and coincidentally - on the blink at the relevant time.
Omicron is so explosive that hard to believe they haven't got it. An anomaly of testing and reporting methinks.
Yes. France has just reported 230,000 cases (a European record). It shares a long open border with Germany. Ditto Holland, Belgium, Switzerland, Denmark: which are all reporting tens of thousands of cases, each
The idea that Germany has just "33,000" cases is fatuously absurd. Germany is under-reporting on a major scale. Tiny Ireland reported 20,000 cases today
Progress report: Christmas turkey finally finished before midnight deadline, Christmas pudding too. Cheese and Port still going.
Happy New Year if I pass out before midnight!
I've go to the stage where I can't wait for the (dry) January diet.
In (some) previous years I have managed a lasting weight loss in the first quarter by building on a January diet so it would be good to shed a further couple of stones in Q1 2022.
The best fireworks display I ever went to was one at Alton Towers in around 1992. I *think* it was a staff-and-families only affair, and I got a ticket via a friend who had worked there in the summer. It was a beautiful autumn evening, clear skies, with the castle in the background. We stood by the lake, and the fireworks were coming from the other side. The noise from the explosions were so loud that they felt almost like a physical force. magnificent. It was not just the fireworks; it was the setting and atmosphere.
Second best was a wedding I went to in Shropshire, where both sets of parents were millionaires. Both families tried to outdo the other, and one had to organise a fireworks display. It ended up being a half-hour professional job.
I love fireworks.
They used to do a firework competition over the lake near Brno, called Ignis Brunensis. I went one year, it was brilliant, if a bit poncy.
The best one I ever went to was in Newcastle. They were celebrating the anniversary of Newcastle NSW, it was the middle of summer, over Exhibition Park I think. It was summer so light until late, they just made it loud. Very loud. The rich folk of Gosforth complained and they never did it again.
The New Year's Eve fireworks by the Tyne Bridge can be good, both Newcastle and Gateshead slope significantly down to the River so it reverberates. London, in contrast, is relatively flat.
You get good, cheap rifles from Brno still. It's also where Mendel studied his bees or whatever it was he studied. Sweet peas?
It's quite a pleasant city (as are most Czech cities to be honest, although a Czech friend once warned me off Ostrava as a "shithole" ). It was a good base to explore the battlefield of Austerlitz.
It has a genuinely world class art gallery (Cranach, Van Dyck, Brueghel, etc etc) hidden in an aristo estate just out of town/. Poignantly, many of the best paintings come from the collection of Charles 1 of England, sold by Cromwell. They should be in London
I have been to Olomouc, didn't do the art gallery as we were more into breweries and pubs (and a beer festival, in the castle grounds). It is a handsome city largely rebuilt by Maria Theresa. Had a kilo bacon knuckle at brewpub Moritz and thought I would explode.
I don't know. It would surely be surprising if it were much different to France's or the UK's?
Their cases are dropping though.
Indicates one of a few things
i. They are earlier into their omicron wave than the UK or France. ii. Veeery lagged reporting iii. A very extreme lockdown
iv They are very late into their omicron wave and delta has been waning.
The Germans don't believe it either tbh. From what I've heard they are still primarily Delta. They are 2 to 3 weeks behind. But they don't have home LFT. You have to have a pharmacist or GP administer it. Plenty have been closed. Their new Health Minister, Lauterbach, has been sounding the alarm about lack of testing. He's an epidemiologist who has become quite a star. Here's an article from a few days back.
That could still mean they are very late into omi. A 45% jump from a low value could mean they are just starting.
Worth noting also hat German case numbers have been on a steady decline since the beginning of December, during which time they have halved. Something odd going on.
I don't know. It would surely be surprising if it were much different to France's or the UK's?
Their cases are dropping though.
Indicates one of a few things
i. They are earlier into their omicron wave than the UK or France. ii. Veeery lagged reporting iii. A very extreme lockdown
iv They are very late into their omicron wave and delta has been waning.
The Germans don't believe it either tbh. From what I've heard they are still primarily Delta. They are 2 to 3 weeks behind. But they don't have home LFT. You have to have a pharmacist or GP administer it. Plenty have been closed. Their new Health Minister, Lauterbach, has been sounding the alarm about lack of testing. He's an epidemiologist who has become quite a star. Here's an article from a few days back.
Progress report: Christmas turkey finally finished before midnight deadline, Christmas pudding too. Cheese and Port still going.
Happy New Year if I pass out before midnight!
I've go to the stage where I can't wait for the (dry) January diet.
In (some) previous years I have managed a lasting weight loss in the first quarter by building on a January diet so it would be good to shed a further couple of stones in Q1 2022.
I've been on salad and falafel for a couple of days , and teetotal for work, so ready to get stuck into the remaining leftovers tonight.
The best fireworks display I ever went to was one at Alton Towers in around 1992. I *think* it was a staff-and-families only affair, and I got a ticket via a friend who had worked there in the summer. It was a beautiful autumn evening, clear skies, with the castle in the background. We stood by the lake, and the fireworks were coming from the other side. The noise from the explosions were so loud that they felt almost like a physical force. magnificent. It was not just the fireworks; it was the setting and atmosphere.
Second best was a wedding I went to in Shropshire, where both sets of parents were millionaires. Both families tried to outdo the other, and one had to organise a fireworks display. It ended up being a half-hour professional job.
I love fireworks.
They used to do a firework competition over the lake near Brno, called Ignis Brunensis. I went one year, it was brilliant, if a bit poncy.
The best one I ever went to was in Newcastle. They were celebrating the anniversary of Newcastle NSW, it was the middle of summer, over Exhibition Park I think. It was summer so light until late, they just made it loud. Very loud. The rich folk of Gosforth complained and they never did it again.
The New Year's Eve fireworks by the Tyne Bridge can be good, both Newcastle and Gateshead slope significantly down to the River so it reverberates. London, in contrast, is relatively flat.
You get good, cheap rifles from Brno still. It's also where Mendel studied his bees or whatever it was he studied. Sweet peas?
It's quite a pleasant city (as are most Czech cities to be honest, although a Czech friend once warned me off Ostrava as a "shithole" ). It was a good base to explore the battlefield of Austerlitz.
It has a genuinely world class art gallery (Cranach, Van Dyck, Brueghel, etc etc) hidden in an aristo estate just out of town/. Poignantly, many of the best paintings come from the collection of Charles 1 of England, sold by Cromwell. They should be in London
I have been to Olomouc, didn't do the art gallery as we were more into breweries and pubs (and a beer festival, in the castle grounds). It is a handsome city largely rebuilt by Maria Theresa. Had a kilo bacon knuckle at brewpub Moritz and thought I would explode.
I went for a wedding, it was a few years after the Iron Curtain collapsed - the groom was a school friend, the bride Moravian. It was brilliant fun
Yes it is a cracking town. What really impressed me was the fact they have a special "breakfast beer" - a beer designed to be drunk first thing in the morning. I don't even like beer but proper Czech beer is something special
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
Woolley: In the [civil] service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God". Hacker: What does GCMG stand for? Woolley (deadpan): "God Calls Me God".
I scanned that thread when it was publicised on here yesterday. She's clearly very worried, and I've some sympathy with her remarks about ventilation in particular (although, as to the practicalities, I've no idea how long it would take to make meaningful adaptations to, for example, the entire school estate - years?)
Anyway, I believe that we may well be at the stage where restrictions aren't going to help much anyway. Again, we need to look at the evidence here: Italy has had substantially heavier restrictions than the UK for the whole of the Autumn - along with much lower case rates - but has rapidly caught us up since the advent of Omicron. Wales has also been more cautious than England for many months, in its case with no discernible effect even before Omicron, and now the Welsh case rate has just surpassed ours and is climbing much more rapidly.
We know that Omicron is hugely transmissible. The cases confirmed by test data tell us that it has saturated the whole of the UK; the most recent ONS survey returns suggested than about 4% of the entire population of England was infected, with the Celtic fringe not that far behind. It's all around us, and there are huge numbers of infectious individuals in circulation, most of whom probably don't know that they have it. The testing system is buckling under the weight of demand which, on top of the asymptomatic case load - IIRC most Omicron cases are thought to be asymptomatic in the boosted - will make self-isolation and contact tracing an increasingly ineffectual method for breaking chains of transmission.
I doubt that anything short of full lockdown stands any chance of putting a lid on the outbreak at all, but that would cause enormous collateral damage, large sections of the public probably won't obey it, it'll harm compliance with the vaccination program (once people conclude that they get lockdown whether they get jabbed or not,) it does nothing to stop transmission in physical workplaces or essential shops, and there will be enormous political and public resistance to going back to remote learning on top of that. At this stage, it might also be worth remembering that the Netherlands - which went into a severe lockdown on December 18th - still has a case rate higher than that seen in the UK at the peak of the Kent variant wave last January, and it may even be starting to creep back up. Unfortunately I don't have any more details about the Dutch situation, but I suspect that they locked down when Delta was still dominant, and total cases were already falling, and that very severe limits on household contact have simply slowed the rate at which Omicron has taken over slightly. If that transpires to be true then they will have paid a huge price just for squeezing the Omicron peak a few weeks into the future.
Even *IF* suppression does make a material difference then we may just be pushing a lot of the older booster recipients into the zone where vaccine effectiveness starts to decline and they need yet another jab: should the British outbreak conform to the South African model, i.e. a huge peak in cases followed by an equally rapid decline, then this may pose a greater risk to the hospitals yet paradoxically reduce the risk of serious harm to each vulnerable individual, simply by ensuring that their immune systems are better primed to confront the likelihood of infection.
Finally, Omicron is not going to be the final variant, and the selective pressure on the virus to become ever more transmissible is enormous. Should a crippling hard lockdown prove to any significant degree effective in suppressing Omicron then it probably won't work on whatever comes after that anyway.
You might say that of course I'm going to scrape together as many arguments as I can against lockdown because I'm anti-lockdown, and you would be right. But I'm anti-lockdown not because I've been against it on philosophical grounds from the outset, but because I believe that this method of managing the virus is both materially and socially unsustainable, and subject to the law of diminishing returns. Lockdowns, and restrictions more widely, are going to do progressively more damage to our socio-economic fabric every time they are used, in exchange for progressively less marginal benefit.
We can't keep on using restrictions to manage the pandemic indefinitely, and the advent of Omicron seems like an appropriate moment at which to call time on crude and destructive measures. We should rely first on the vaccines, and second on a risk segmentation approach for doing our best to limit the spread of Omicron to the most vulnerable - that means prioritising testing for health and social care workers, care home residents and hospital patients, and rationing or ending it for the general population; and trying to throw a cordon sanitaire around elderly care homes and hospital departments caring for the most vulnerable categories of patients, rather than forcing the entire hospital system to continue to operate infection control protocols that limit its efficiency and capacity.
The best fireworks display I ever went to was one at Alton Towers in around 1992. I *think* it was a staff-and-families only affair, and I got a ticket via a friend who had worked there in the summer. It was a beautiful autumn evening, clear skies, with the castle in the background. We stood by the lake, and the fireworks were coming from the other side. The noise from the explosions were so loud that they felt almost like a physical force. magnificent. It was not just the fireworks; it was the setting and atmosphere.
Second best was a wedding I went to in Shropshire, where both sets of parents were millionaires. Both families tried to outdo the other, and one had to organise a fireworks display. It ended up being a half-hour professional job.
I love fireworks.
They used to do a firework competition over the lake near Brno, called Ignis Brunensis. I went one year, it was brilliant, if a bit poncy.
The best one I ever went to was in Newcastle. They were celebrating the anniversary of Newcastle NSW, it was the middle of summer, over Exhibition Park I think. It was summer so light until late, they just made it loud. Very loud. The rich folk of Gosforth complained and they never did it again.
The New Year's Eve fireworks by the Tyne Bridge can be good, both Newcastle and Gateshead slope significantly down to the River so it reverberates. London, in contrast, is relatively flat.
You get good, cheap rifles from Brno still. It's also where Mendel studied his bees or whatever it was he studied. Sweet peas?
It's quite a pleasant city (as are most Czech cities to be honest, although a Czech friend once warned me off Ostrava as a "shithole" ). It was a good base to explore the battlefield of Austerlitz.
It has a genuinely world class art gallery (Cranach, Van Dyck, Brueghel, etc etc) hidden in an aristo estate just out of town/. Poignantly, many of the best paintings come from the collection of Charles 1 of England, sold by Cromwell. They should be in London
I have been to Olomouc, didn't do the art gallery as we were more into breweries and pubs (and a beer festival, in the castle grounds). It is a handsome city largely rebuilt by Maria Theresa. Had a kilo bacon knuckle at brewpub Moritz and thought I would explode.
I went for a wedding, it was a few years after the Iron Curtain collapsed - the groom was a school friend, the bride Moravian. It was brilliant fun
Yes it is a cracking town. What really impressed me was the fact they have a special "breakfast beer" - a beer designed to be drunk first thing in the morning. I don't even like beer but proper Czech beer is something special
The food, er, not so much
Czech food has probably improved a bit since then, but it is still a bit stodgy. I have eaten better in many other Eastern European countries. But the Czech beer culture is brilliant. Particularly as they now have some influences from the international craft beer scene. I have had some great desitkas (a lager ~5%) with a shitload of American hops. Or even a load of Žatec (Saaz) as they are supposed to be. You should try beer, it has as many challenging and eye-opening flavours as wine, if made properly.
Even *IF* suppression does make a material difference then we may just be pushing a lot of the older booster recipients into the zone where vaccine effectiveness starts to decline and they need yet another jab: should the British outbreak conform to the South African model, i.e. a huge peak in cases followed by an equally rapid decline, then this may pose a greater risk to the hospitals yet paradoxically reduce the risk of serious harm to each vulnerable individual, simply by ensuring that their immune systems are better primed to confront the likelihood of infection.
Finally, Omicron is not going to be the final variant, and the selective pressure on the virus to become ever more transmissible is enormous. Should a crippling hard lockdown prove to any significant degree effective in suppressing Omicron then it probably won't work on whatever comes after that anyway.
You might say that of course I'm going to scrape together as many arguments as I can against lockdown because I'm anti-lockdown, and you would be right. But I'm anti-lockdown not because I've been against it on philosophical grounds from the outset, but because I believe that this method of managing the virus is both materially and socially unsustainable, and subject to the law of diminishing returns. Lockdowns, and restrictions more widely, are going to do progressively more damage to our socio-economic fabric every time they are used, in exchange for progressively less marginal benefit.
We can't keep on using restrictions to manage the pandemic indefinitely, and the advent of Omicron seems like an appropriate moment at which to call time on crude and destructive measures. We should rely first on the vaccines, and second on a risk segmentation approach for doing our best to limit the spread of Omicron to the most vulnerable - that means prioritising testing for health and social care workers, care home residents and hospital patients, and rationing or ending it for the general population; and trying to throw a cordon sanitaire around elderly care homes and hospital departments caring for the most vulnerable categories of patients, rather than forcing the entire hospital system to continue to operate infection control protocols that limit its efficiency and capacity.
+1
TL:DR: we have to live with it, now. We have a new disease, and normal life brings greater risk: so be it
I heard that Blair was to be admitted to the Order of the Garter. In which case, my understanding is that this is an award made by the Queen personally and not on the advice of the Government.
The best fireworks display I ever went to was one at Alton Towers in around 1992. I *think* it was a staff-and-families only affair, and I got a ticket via a friend who had worked there in the summer. It was a beautiful autumn evening, clear skies, with the castle in the background. We stood by the lake, and the fireworks were coming from the other side. The noise from the explosions were so loud that they felt almost like a physical force. magnificent. It was not just the fireworks; it was the setting and atmosphere.
Second best was a wedding I went to in Shropshire, where both sets of parents were millionaires. Both families tried to outdo the other, and one had to organise a fireworks display. It ended up being a half-hour professional job.
I love fireworks.
They used to do a firework competition over the lake near Brno, called Ignis Brunensis. I went one year, it was brilliant, if a bit poncy.
The best one I ever went to was in Newcastle. They were celebrating the anniversary of Newcastle NSW, it was the middle of summer, over Exhibition Park I think. It was summer so light until late, they just made it loud. Very loud. The rich folk of Gosforth complained and they never did it again.
The New Year's Eve fireworks by the Tyne Bridge can be good, both Newcastle and Gateshead slope significantly down to the River so it reverberates. London, in contrast, is relatively flat.
You get good, cheap rifles from Brno still. It's also where Mendel studied his bees or whatever it was he studied. Sweet peas?
It's quite a pleasant city (as are most Czech cities to be honest, although a Czech friend once warned me off Ostrava as a "shithole" ). It was a good base to explore the battlefield of Austerlitz.
It has a genuinely world class art gallery (Cranach, Van Dyck, Brueghel, etc etc) hidden in an aristo estate just out of town/. Poignantly, many of the best paintings come from the collection of Charles 1 of England, sold by Cromwell. They should be in London
I have been to Olomouc, didn't do the art gallery as we were more into breweries and pubs (and a beer festival, in the castle grounds). It is a handsome city largely rebuilt by Maria Theresa. Had a kilo bacon knuckle at brewpub Moritz and thought I would explode.
I went for a wedding, it was a few years after the Iron Curtain collapsed - the groom was a school friend, the bride Moravian. It was brilliant fun
Yes it is a cracking town. What really impressed me was the fact they have a special "breakfast beer" - a beer designed to be drunk first thing in the morning. I don't even like beer but proper Czech beer is something special
The food, er, not so much
Czech food has probably improved a bit since then, but it is still a bit stodgy. I have eaten better in many other Eastern European countries. But the Czech beer culture is brilliant. Particularly as they now have some influences from the international craft beer scene. I have had some great desitkas (a lager ~5%) with a shitload of American hops. Or even a load of Žatec (Saaz) as they are supposed to be. You should try beer, it has as many challenging and eye-opening flavours as wine, if made properly.
I've been back many times since, the food has not notably improved. Perhaps a bit less sour/whipped cream?
But it's a lovely little country, which punches far above its weight culturally, scenically, beerily. Funny people too. Like a kind of middle European Ireland
Woolley: In the [civil] service, CMG stands for "Call Me God". And KCMG for "Kindly Call Me God". Hacker: What does GCMG stand for? Woolley (deadpan): "God Calls Me God".
Cool to give Daniel Craig a CMG. Someone has a sense of humour.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
The best fireworks display I ever went to was one at Alton Towers in around 1992. I *think* it was a staff-and-families only affair, and I got a ticket via a friend who had worked there in the summer. It was a beautiful autumn evening, clear skies, with the castle in the background. We stood by the lake, and the fireworks were coming from the other side. The noise from the explosions were so loud that they felt almost like a physical force. magnificent. It was not just the fireworks; it was the setting and atmosphere.
Second best was a wedding I went to in Shropshire, where both sets of parents were millionaires. Both families tried to outdo the other, and one had to organise a fireworks display. It ended up being a half-hour professional job.
I love fireworks.
They used to do a firework competition over the lake near Brno, called Ignis Brunensis. I went one year, it was brilliant, if a bit poncy.
The best one I ever went to was in Newcastle. They were celebrating the anniversary of Newcastle NSW, it was the middle of summer, over Exhibition Park I think. It was summer so light until late, they just made it loud. Very loud. The rich folk of Gosforth complained and they never did it again.
The New Year's Eve fireworks by the Tyne Bridge can be good, both Newcastle and Gateshead slope significantly down to the River so it reverberates. London, in contrast, is relatively flat.
You get good, cheap rifles from Brno still. It's also where Mendel studied his bees or whatever it was he studied. Sweet peas?
It's quite a pleasant city (as are most Czech cities to be honest, although a Czech friend once warned me off Ostrava as a "shithole" ). It was a good base to explore the battlefield of Austerlitz.
It has a genuinely world class art gallery (Cranach, Van Dyck, Brueghel, etc etc) hidden in an aristo estate just out of town/. Poignantly, many of the best paintings come from the collection of Charles 1 of England, sold by Cromwell. They should be in London
I have been to Olomouc, didn't do the art gallery as we were more into breweries and pubs (and a beer festival, in the castle grounds). It is a handsome city largely rebuilt by Maria Theresa. Had a kilo bacon knuckle at brewpub Moritz and thought I would explode.
I went for a wedding, it was a few years after the Iron Curtain collapsed - the groom was a school friend, the bride Moravian. It was brilliant fun
Yes it is a cracking town. What really impressed me was the fact they have a special "breakfast beer" - a beer designed to be drunk first thing in the morning. I don't even like beer but proper Czech beer is something special
The food, er, not so much
Czech food has probably improved a bit since then, but it is still a bit stodgy. I have eaten better in many other Eastern European countries. But the Czech beer culture is brilliant. Particularly as they now have some influences from the international craft beer scene. I have had some great desitkas (a lager ~5%) with a shitload of American hops. Or even a load of Žatec (Saaz) as they are supposed to be. You should try beer, it has as many challenging and eye-opening flavours as wine, if made properly.
I've been back many times since, the food has not notably improved. Perhaps a bit less sour/whipped cream?
But it's a lovely little country, which punches far above its weight culturally, scenically, beerily. Funny people too. Like a kind of middle European Ireland
Mitteleuropa is great. All the Austro-Hungarian cities are brilliant, with the possible exception of Wien itself, which is still too far up its own arse. Have a plan to get drunk in Lviv, when it looks like a sensible thing to attempt.
I had begun to wonder if any former PMs would get knighthoods or the like ever again, if the delay in giving one to Blair would mean none of his successors could without it looking political. I guess the wait was just to make him sweat a little.
Or Her Majesty is looking at his premiership more fondly now.
Edit: I see on wiki foreign royals get to be 'stranger knights' to the Order of the Garter. The monarchs of Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Spain get to be on there, plus former Emperor of Japan, but no love for the other monarchs out there? I can see that King Salman might be a controversial choice, but what has the King of Belgium done to be snubbed?
Just back from a Hogmanay meal in a very busy pub in coastal Galloway. Sorry, Nicola, but at least some Scots ignore you, you interfering, humourless numpty.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
But I am not Q anon folk. And anyway the same is true of serial necrophiles: they invariably (I assume) deny it when challenged, so we have to look for evidence elsewhere to see if they are or not. In the Epstein case, it is exceedingly rare for remand prisoners to be murdered, but it is also exceedingly rare for prisoners on suicide watch to nevertheless commit suicide. The only conspiracy alleged is that someone falsified some cctv footage to show an empty corridor, but how hard is it to do that? Look at virtually any murder case that ever happened. Ian Huntley frinstance burned his victims' clothes, drove the bodies 30 miles away and tried to set fire to them, got his girlfriend to lie to the police etc. Is it, and was it ever, a conspiracy theory to say that he did those things?
Even *IF* suppression does make a material difference then we may just be pushing a lot of the older booster recipients into the zone where vaccine effectiveness starts to decline and they need yet another jab: should the British outbreak conform to the South African model, i.e. a huge peak in cases followed by an equally rapid decline, then this may pose a greater risk to the hospitals yet paradoxically reduce the risk of serious harm to each vulnerable individual, simply by ensuring that their immune systems are better primed to confront the likelihood of infection.
Finally, Omicron is not going to be the final variant, and the selective pressure on the virus to become ever more transmissible is enormous. Should a crippling hard lockdown prove to any significant degree effective in suppressing Omicron then it probably won't work on whatever comes after that anyway.
You might say that of course I'm going to scrape together as many arguments as I can against lockdown because I'm anti-lockdown, and you would be right. But I'm anti-lockdown not because I've been against it on philosophical grounds from the outset, but because I believe that this method of managing the virus is both materially and socially unsustainable, and subject to the law of diminishing returns. Lockdowns, and restrictions more widely, are going to do progressively more damage to our socio-economic fabric every time they are used, in exchange for progressively less marginal benefit.
We can't keep on using restrictions to manage the pandemic indefinitely, and the advent of Omicron seems like an appropriate moment at which to call time on crude and destructive measures. We should rely first on the vaccines, and second on a risk segmentation approach for doing our best to limit the spread of Omicron to the most vulnerable - that means prioritising testing for health and social care workers, care home residents and hospital patients, and rationing or ending it for the general population; and trying to throw a cordon sanitaire around elderly care homes and hospital departments caring for the most vulnerable categories of patients, rather than forcing the entire hospital system to continue to operate infection control protocols that limit its efficiency and capacity.
I think this is the key bit. There were philosophical arguments from the outset, but that was not as compelling to most people in face of practicalities and weighing up the costs of inaction, so those concerns could be overlooked. It doesn't mean previous action was wrong necessarily, and the consistent anti lockdowners right all along. But the analysis has changed as the impact changed.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
But I am not Q anon folk. And anyway the same is true of serial necrophiles: they invariably (I assume) deny it when challenged, so we have to look for evidence elsewhere to see if they are or not. In the Epstein case, it is exceedingly rare for remand prisoners to be murdered, but it is also exceedingly rare for prisoners on suicide watch to nevertheless commit suicide. The only conspiracy alleged is that someone falsified some cctv footage to show an empty corridor, but how hard is it to do that? Look at virtually any murder case that ever happened. Ian Huntley frinstance burned his victims' clothes, drove the bodies 30 miles away and tried to set fire to them, got his girlfriend to lie to the police etc. Is it, and was it ever, a conspiracy theory to say that he did those things?
Yes, quite
Middle class people like Robert are intellectually allergic to the idea of being associated with a perceived lower class phenomenon such as "conspiracy theories". They fear them as a taint, the mark of social leprosy, just as a Hampstead liberal fears being painted as a Brexiteer. Despite these irrational reactions, based on class insecurity, there is an entirely coherent philosophical argument for Brexit (even if you believe it is wrong) just as there is an entirely coherent evidential basis for many other so-called "conspiracy theories"
"Lab Leak" and "Epstein was Murdered" are the two most prominent examples. Both completely plausible, yet both untouchable for a certain kind of vaguely insecure but educated westerner
Those who would suppress these ideas have, with partial success, associated them with "Fake Moon Landings" and "Underground Pedo Labyrinths"
It is a peculiar evolution and, I fear, a backwards step for the supposedly Enlightened West
I hope we wise up soon. And on that cheering but challenging note, HAPPY NEW YEAR PB
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
But I am not Q anon folk. And anyway the same is true of serial necrophiles: they invariably (I assume) deny it when challenged, so we have to look for evidence elsewhere to see if they are or not. In the Epstein case, it is exceedingly rare for remand prisoners to be murdered, but it is also exceedingly rare for prisoners on suicide watch to nevertheless commit suicide. The only conspiracy alleged is that someone falsified some cctv footage to show an empty corridor, but how hard is it to do that? Look at virtually any murder case that ever happened. Ian Huntley frinstance burned his victims' clothes, drove the bodies 30 miles away and tried to set fire to them, got his girlfriend to lie to the police etc. Is it, and was it ever, a conspiracy theory to say that he did those things?
Again.
You are addressing a point I'm not making.
I have no idea whether or not you are a conspiricy theorist. You may be. You may not be. It is of no interest to me.
My point is an incredibly narrow one.
Conspiracy theorists (like murderers and serial necrophiles) will deny being conspiracy theorists. So your statement that you are not a conspiracy theorist contains zero useful information.
What are the PB orders of knighthood and what are the price tags, I mean philanthropic donations, that might lead to someone being awarded such a title?
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
But I am not Q anon folk. And anyway the same is true of serial necrophiles: they invariably (I assume) deny it when challenged, so we have to look for evidence elsewhere to see if they are or not. In the Epstein case, it is exceedingly rare for remand prisoners to be murdered, but it is also exceedingly rare for prisoners on suicide watch to nevertheless commit suicide. The only conspiracy alleged is that someone falsified some cctv footage to show an empty corridor, but how hard is it to do that? Look at virtually any murder case that ever happened. Ian Huntley frinstance burned his victims' clothes, drove the bodies 30 miles away and tried to set fire to them, got his girlfriend to lie to the police etc. Is it, and was it ever, a conspiracy theory to say that he did those things?
Surely this is an occam's razor thing.
Does the probability that powerful people who wanted Epstein silenced had him bumped off outweigh the probability that he decided one night to go, "oh well, enough's enough".
The "conspiracy" side can be upweighted by the number of people who have mysteriously died in prison under similar circumstances, usually before testifying.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
But I am not Q anon folk. And anyway the same is true of serial necrophiles: they invariably (I assume) deny it when challenged, so we have to look for evidence elsewhere to see if they are or not. In the Epstein case, it is exceedingly rare for remand prisoners to be murdered, but it is also exceedingly rare for prisoners on suicide watch to nevertheless commit suicide. The only conspiracy alleged is that someone falsified some cctv footage to show an empty corridor, but how hard is it to do that? Look at virtually any murder case that ever happened. Ian Huntley frinstance burned his victims' clothes, drove the bodies 30 miles away and tried to set fire to them, got his girlfriend to lie to the police etc. Is it, and was it ever, a conspiracy theory to say that he did those things?
Surely this is an occam's razor thing.
Does the probability that powerful people who wanted Epstein silenced had him bumped off outweigh the probability that he decided one night to go, "oh well, enough's enough".
The "conspiracy" side can be upweighted by the number of people who have mysteriously died in prison under similar circumstances, usually before testifying.
I'm not sure Occam's Razor applies when two equally plausible options are available.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
Would you like to guess approximately how many conspiracy theorists identify themselves thus?
You tell me what a conspiracy theorist is, and I will have a stab at answering that. I don't see that thinking Epstein was murdered, whether or not it is true, makes it as a conspiracy theory at all. Pretty much all murderers try to falsify the evidence against them. Are all charges of murder therefore conspiracy theories?
I have no idea whether Epstein was murdered or not.
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
But I am not Q anon folk. And anyway the same is true of serial necrophiles: they invariably (I assume) deny it when challenged, so we have to look for evidence elsewhere to see if they are or not. In the Epstein case, it is exceedingly rare for remand prisoners to be murdered, but it is also exceedingly rare for prisoners on suicide watch to nevertheless commit suicide. The only conspiracy alleged is that someone falsified some cctv footage to show an empty corridor, but how hard is it to do that? Look at virtually any murder case that ever happened. Ian Huntley frinstance burned his victims' clothes, drove the bodies 30 miles away and tried to set fire to them, got his girlfriend to lie to the police etc. Is it, and was it ever, a conspiracy theory to say that he did those things?
Surely this is an occam's razor thing.
Does the probability that powerful people who wanted Epstein silenced had him bumped off outweigh the probability that he decided one night to go, "oh well, enough's enough".
The "conspiracy" side can be upweighted by the number of people who have mysteriously died in prison under similar circumstances, usually before testifying.
I'm not sure Occam's Razor applies when two equally plausible options are available.
Are believers in the Gunpowder Plot conspiracy theorists?
Which bit of it? The efforts of Fawkes, the inspiration of Percy or the involvement of Salisbury?
Well, there's three separate conspiracy theories right there. My point is 1. I am not a conspiracy theorist (except for not falling for the NASA moon landing hoaxes obv) 2. I think on balance Epstein was murdered 3. It gives a free pass to people who want to murder people like Epstein if those suggesting that that is what they have done have to get over a "conspiracy theory" hurdle. The princes in the Tower were either murdered, or not. Why should one case vs the other be hampered by a silly label?
The difficulty here is that for Epstein to have been murdered the camera footage has to have been faked. Otherwise, it’s difficult to explain how access to actually kill him was achieved. Therefore, a conspiracy is needed to explain it.
The fact that the two overworked guards who cocked up and failed to follow procedure have now in effect been given a slap on the wrist will lend weight to the idea that there is something fishy going on.
Princes in the Tower is a bad counter example because a conspiracy theory is needed to explain how they were *not* murdered on Richard’s orders in July/August 1483 - either by their secret survival, or by somebody else gaining access to them.
OK you got me there. Any theory which requires camera footage to be faked in 2017 can be laughed out of court, the technology doesn't exist. Dunno how you'd even start.
You’re missing the point. The point is that faking the camera footage of an empty corridor requires a conspiracy. On the part of the camera operators, guards, technicians…
And such conspiracies are explained by ‘conspiracy theories.’
Doesn’t mean it’s impossible it happened. It’s just somewhat less likely than the obvious - that Epstein strangled himself and an awful lot of time was wasted and confusion caused by the guards trying to cover up that they were asleep on duty.
No they aren't. You need to think about what conspiracy theory means. Doesn't mean, a theory that there was a conspiracy. After all, conspiring to commit a crime, is a crime, in English law, and charges of conspiracy are not usually defended with the "this is just a conspiracy theory" argument. What "conspiracy theory" means, is a HUGE VIOLATION OF oCCAM'S RAZOR: can't be arsed to fix the capslock problem: either the Apollo missions went to the moon, or tens of thousands of NASA and other personnel got together to pretend they did.
How difficult is it to fake footage of an empty corridor? You just transpose another bit of the 99% of the footage on that camera that genuinely shows an empty corridor. Boring plot device in any number of boring heist films. The answer is to have in shot a screen permanently showing CNN or whatever, but nobody seems to think of that.
And my understanding is that you are wrong anyway, the cameras were - quite unaccountably and coincidentally - on the blink at the relevant time.
Well, according to every reputable report, including the one I linked to, you are wrong about the cameras.
And similarly, according to the reports of every reputable outlet, including the one I linked to, you are wrong about him being on suicide watch - he had been taken off the previous week.
Quite a lot of people are claiming something different but we are then back to conspiracy theories.
To quote R. Angus Buchanan, ‘conspiracies do happen and conspiracy theories are needed to explain them.’ But in this case they seem to be based, wilfully or otherwise, on a set of either misapprehensions or deliberately false statements.
Comments
The British pub is such a fundamental part of our culture. I hate to see them empty
I wish all of PB a Happy New Year.
Happy New Year.
The guards just "fell asleep". The cameras were "accidentally turned off". My word. Such bad luck
Just one minor point - even if she does get off on the adulation that does not necessarily invalidate her projections.
And a guard on a fifth consecutive overtime shift plus one who had been on duty for twelve hours obviously would never fall asleep.
Apart from that…
Good night.
Happy New Year if I pass out before midnight!
I think that is a 'wee' bit of an exaggeration
Anyway, a happy new year to each and everyone, and on a personal note my wife has just received confirmation from a lifelong friend that he is safe in Colorado but all his neighbours properties have gone
Lib Dems set sights on Tory seats in south of England https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/dec/31/lib-dems-tory-seats-south-of-england
I confess I *have* occasionally mistaken you for a bleeding dog's arse, but I do my Christian best to overcome and ignore the obvious similarity
Indicates one of a few things
i. They are earlier into their omicron wave than the UK or France.
ii. Veeery lagged reporting
iii. A very extreme lockdown
How difficult is it to fake footage of an empty corridor? You just transpose another bit of the 99% of the footage on that camera that genuinely shows an empty corridor. Boring plot device in any number of boring heist films. The answer is to have in shot a screen permanently showing CNN or whatever, but nobody seems to think of that.
And my understanding is that you are wrong anyway, the cameras were - quite unaccountably and coincidentally - on the blink at the relevant time.
The idea that Germany has just "33,000" cases is fatuously absurd. Germany is under-reporting on a major scale. Tiny Ireland reported 20,000 cases today
Happy new year, y’all.
In (some) previous years I have managed a lasting weight loss in the first quarter by building on a January diet so it would be good to shed a further couple of stones in Q1 2022.
https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-germanys-omicron-cases-jump-45-in-one-day/a-60280693
Charlie will come again.
ETA Sorry wrong pretender
But they don't have home LFT. You have to have a pharmacist or GP administer it. Plenty have been closed.
Their new Health Minister, Lauterbach, has been sounding the alarm about lack of testing. He's an epidemiologist who has become quite a star.
Here's an article from a few days back.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/27/germany-toughens-covid-restrictions-omicron-variant-takes-hold
Worth noting also hat German case numbers have been on a steady decline since the beginning of December, during which time they have halved. Something odd going on.
Can I just say a big thank you to the 53 PBers who have so far responded to the New Year appeal.
Yes it is a cracking town. What really impressed me was the fact they have a special "breakfast beer" - a beer designed to be drunk first thing in the morning. I don't even like beer but proper Czech beer is something special
The food, er, not so much
Thanks for all your hard work.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/dec/31/billionaire-tory-donor-david-winton-harding-knighted-in-new-year-honours
"David Winton Harding, who has been funding the Tories since 2006, was given the award for services to philanthropy."
Now I may be being churlish here but if you are a billionaire just how much effort does it take to give away a few million quid here and there?
Hacker: What does GCMG stand for?
Woolley (deadpan): "God Calls Me God".
I scanned that thread when it was publicised on here yesterday. She's clearly very worried, and I've some sympathy with her remarks about ventilation in particular (although, as to the practicalities, I've no idea how long it would take to make meaningful adaptations to, for example, the entire school estate - years?)
Anyway, I believe that we may well be at the stage where restrictions aren't going to help much anyway. Again, we need to look at the evidence here: Italy has had substantially heavier restrictions than the UK for the whole of the Autumn - along with much lower case rates - but has rapidly caught us up since the advent of Omicron. Wales has also been more cautious than England for many months, in its case with no discernible effect even before Omicron, and now the Welsh case rate has just surpassed ours and is climbing much more rapidly.
We know that Omicron is hugely transmissible. The cases confirmed by test data tell us that it has saturated the whole of the UK; the most recent ONS survey returns suggested than about 4% of the entire population of England was infected, with the Celtic fringe not that far behind. It's all around us, and there are huge numbers of infectious individuals in circulation, most of whom probably don't know that they have it. The testing system is buckling under the weight of demand which, on top of the asymptomatic case load - IIRC most Omicron cases are thought to be asymptomatic in the boosted - will make self-isolation and contact tracing an increasingly ineffectual method for breaking chains of transmission.
I doubt that anything short of full lockdown stands any chance of putting a lid on the outbreak at all, but that would cause enormous collateral damage, large sections of the public probably won't obey it, it'll harm compliance with the vaccination program (once people conclude that they get lockdown whether they get jabbed or not,) it does nothing to stop transmission in physical workplaces or essential shops, and there will be enormous political and public resistance to going back to remote learning on top of that. At this stage, it might also be worth remembering that the Netherlands - which went into a severe lockdown on December 18th - still has a case rate higher than that seen in the UK at the peak of the Kent variant wave last January, and it may even be starting to creep back up. Unfortunately I don't have any more details about the Dutch situation, but I suspect that they locked down when Delta was still dominant, and total cases were already falling, and that very severe limits on household contact have simply slowed the rate at which Omicron has taken over slightly. If that transpires to be true then they will have paid a huge price just for squeezing the Omicron peak a few weeks into the future.
Even *IF* suppression does make a material difference then we may just be pushing a lot of the older booster recipients into the zone where vaccine effectiveness starts to decline and they need yet another jab: should the British outbreak conform to the South African model, i.e. a huge peak in cases followed by an equally rapid decline, then this may pose a greater risk to the hospitals yet paradoxically reduce the risk of serious harm to each vulnerable individual, simply by ensuring that their immune systems are better primed to confront the likelihood of infection.
Finally, Omicron is not going to be the final variant, and the selective pressure on the virus to become ever more transmissible is enormous. Should a crippling hard lockdown prove to any significant degree effective in suppressing Omicron then it probably won't work on whatever comes after that anyway.
You might say that of course I'm going to scrape together as many arguments as I can against lockdown because I'm anti-lockdown, and you would be right. But I'm anti-lockdown not because I've been against it on philosophical grounds from the outset, but because I believe that this method of managing the virus is both materially and socially unsustainable, and subject to the law of diminishing returns. Lockdowns, and restrictions more widely, are going to do progressively more damage to our socio-economic fabric every time they are used, in exchange for progressively less marginal benefit.
We can't keep on using restrictions to manage the pandemic indefinitely, and the advent of Omicron seems like an appropriate moment at which to call time on crude and destructive measures. We should rely first on the vaccines, and second on a risk segmentation approach for doing our best to limit the spread of Omicron to the most vulnerable - that means prioritising testing for health and social care workers, care home residents and hospital patients, and rationing or ending it for the general population; and trying to throw a cordon sanitaire around elderly care homes and hospital departments caring for the most vulnerable categories of patients, rather than forcing the entire hospital system to continue to operate infection control protocols that limit its efficiency and capacity.
TL:DR: we have to live with it, now. We have a new disease, and normal life brings greater risk: so be it
Surprised she didn't give Andrew another gong.
But it's a lovely little country, which punches far above its weight culturally, scenically, beerily. Funny people too. Like a kind of middle European Ireland
What I do know is that if I asked QAnon folks if they were conspiracy theorists, they'd say "no, we just look at all the evidence. Those people, the ones over there, they're crazy conspiracy theorists. You should listen to what they believe."
So, somebody saying "I am not a conspiracy theorist" does not mean I think "hmmm.. that person isn't a conspiracy theorist."
Or Her Majesty is looking at his premiership more fondly now.
Edit: I see on wiki foreign royals get to be 'stranger knights' to the Order of the Garter. The monarchs of Denmark, Sweden, Netherlands, Norway, Spain get to be on there, plus former Emperor of Japan, but no love for the other monarchs out there? I can see that King Salman might be a controversial choice, but what has the King of Belgium done to be snubbed?
Only kidding. Happy New Year everyone!
Middle class people like Robert are intellectually allergic to the idea of being associated with a perceived lower class phenomenon such as "conspiracy theories". They fear them as a taint, the mark of social leprosy, just as a Hampstead liberal fears being painted as a Brexiteer. Despite these irrational reactions, based on class insecurity, there is an entirely coherent philosophical argument for Brexit (even if you believe it is wrong) just as there is an entirely coherent evidential basis for many other so-called "conspiracy theories"
"Lab Leak" and "Epstein was Murdered" are the two most prominent examples. Both completely plausible, yet both untouchable for a certain kind of vaguely insecure but educated westerner
Those who would suppress these ideas have, with partial success, associated them with "Fake Moon Landings" and "Underground Pedo Labyrinths"
It is a peculiar evolution and, I fear, a backwards step for the supposedly Enlightened West
I hope we wise up soon. And on that cheering but challenging note, HAPPY NEW YEAR PB
See you in 2022
You are addressing a point I'm not making.
I have no idea whether or not you are a conspiricy theorist. You may be. You may not be. It is of no interest to me.
My point is an incredibly narrow one.
Conspiracy theorists (like murderers and serial necrophiles) will deny being conspiracy theorists. So your statement that you are not a conspiracy theorist contains zero useful information.
I feel Sir kle4 has a nice ring to it.
Does the probability that powerful people who wanted Epstein silenced had him bumped off outweigh the probability that he decided one night to go, "oh well, enough's enough".
The "conspiracy" side can be upweighted by the number of people who have mysteriously died in prison under similar circumstances, usually before testifying.
And similarly, according to the reports of every reputable outlet, including the one I linked to, you are wrong about him being on suicide watch - he had been taken off the previous week.
Quite a lot of people are claiming something different but we are then back to conspiracy theories.
To quote R. Angus Buchanan, ‘conspiracies do happen and conspiracy theories are needed to explain them.’ But in this case they seem to be based, wilfully or otherwise, on a set of either misapprehensions or deliberately false statements.