So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
Competition update: the wait goes on, another day with vaccination data from NI only means that @Northern_Al remains firmly attached to the tenterhooks…
Oh FFS, the tension is completely unbearable. I may have to have a drink.
Quote from the Guardian article I posted earlier, from Professor Mark Woolhouse, an expert on infectious diseases at Edinburgh University
"“We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt,” he argues. “All this to protect the NHS from a disease that is a far, far greater threat to the elderly, frail and infirm than to the young and healthy.
“We were mesmerised by the once-in-a-century scale of the emergency and succeeded only in making a crisis even worse. In short, we panicked. This was an epidemic crying out for a precision public health approach and it got the opposite.”
Should we listen to an expert on infectious diseases writing about education and economics and social policy any more than we should listen to the experts on the latter writing about the former?
The numbers may have changed a little with index linked debt, but an argument based on that requires long term assumptions about inflation - which we do not know.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
You do talk utter nonsense sometimes. Do you think childminders are unionised, seriously? What planet are you on?
The ratios for childminders (and nurseries) are set by government. A childminder can have up to 6 children under the age of 8, as long as no more than 3 are under 5.
Perhaps his nanny was unionised and picketted his playroom...
Competition update: the wait goes on, another day with vaccination data from NI only means that @Northern_Al remains firmly attached to the tenterhooks…
Oh FFS, the tension is completely unbearable. I may have to have a drink.
No chance of dry January for me. Between patients and family, and a few purchases of my own I have enough for all the aliases of @SeanT.
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
You can imagine some people might have tried to tough it out to not go to hospital over Christmas, but eventually had to admit defeat - meaning the admissions get a bit lumpy just after Christmas.
Quote from the Guardian article I posted earlier, from Professor Mark Woolhouse, an expert on infectious diseases at Edinburgh University
"“We did serious harm to our children and young adults who were robbed of their education, jobs and normal existence, as well as suffering damage to their future prospects, while they were left to inherit a record-breaking mountain of public debt,” he argues. “All this to protect the NHS from a disease that is a far, far greater threat to the elderly, frail and infirm than to the young and healthy.
“We were mesmerised by the once-in-a-century scale of the emergency and succeeded only in making a crisis even worse. In short, we panicked. This was an epidemic crying out for a precision public health approach and it got the opposite.”
Mark Woolhouse has always said we should not lock down and that there was no transmission in schools.
From his second house on I believe the Isle of Islay...
He's the flip side of Susan Michie.
Sorry to have been absent, have spent the day dealing with family stuff and then a very long time talking to my friend who is a lawyer to consider my personal next steps over the drunken child hating lunatics DfE requiring masks again as a result of politicians' logic.
Did the paper discuss changing the UK tax system to make it more like France?
As in: families do their taxes together, and each member of the family brings their own tax free allowance and bands.
So. A single 25 year old earning €80,000 a year would have one €5,000 tax free, plus €20,000 at 20% and €45,000 at 40%. (These aren't the French tax bands, but I can't be bothered to look them up.) This means they'd pay €26,000 in tax and take home €54,000.
A married 25 year old with a child, on the other hand, would get 3 x €5,000 lots of tax free, and then 3x €20,000 at 20% before getting to the 40% tax band. As a result they would pay €14,400 in taxes, and take home €66,600.
This always seemed like a very sensible pronatal policy. France, btw, has a TFR of 1.85.
It is worth noting that many countries have tried pronatal policies. Singapore has very aggressive pronatal policies and its TFR is an appallingly low 1.15.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
Yes, but admissions usually drop over bank holiday weekends, with some catch up afterwards, as per the figures of 28 and 29 Dec.
It's too early to call, and too late for intervention. We are just going to have to see how it develops.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
There was an attempt to reform childcare to be less expensive a few years ago, involving more flexibility in staff/child ratios - either Cameron or May. It was faced down by the childcare industry lobby, and the Govt withdrew in confusion.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
Are childminders unionised?
I believe it was one of the teaching unions (but it may just have been a campaigning group)
It is worth noting that many countries have tried pronatal policies. Singapore has very aggressive pronatal policies and its TFR is an appallingly low 1.15.
It will be interesting to see whether China's TFR increases now everyone is able to have two children and not just those who paid the largest bribe to the local official responsible.
My instinct is it will go up in the countryside and stay flat in the cities.
What regulates TFR as far as I can see are access to contraception and economic opportunities for women - not wealth or housing - certainly not government policies (draconian ones to suppress it like China excepted).
Could be totally wrong though.
Important subject and thanks to @tlg86 for his articles.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
Are childminders unionised?
I believe it was one of the teaching unions (but it may just have been a campaigning group)
If it was it would have had to be the NUT as they would not be eligible to join any of the others.
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
You can imagine some people might have tried to tough it out to not go to hospital over Christmas, but eventually had to admit defeat - meaning the admissions get a bit lumpy just after Christmas.
There will also be few admissions for electives during the period, and few cancer surgeries planned, etc. You therefore will have significantly fewer incidental admissions.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
or twitter may be as relevant as myspace in a decade
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
You do talk utter nonsense sometimes. Do you think childminders are unionised, seriously? What planet are you on?
The ratios for childminders (and nurseries) are set by government. A childminder can have up to 6 children under the age of 8, as long as no more than 3 are under 5.
This was the story I was referring to. I had thought that the government had backed down on the changes (increase from 4 to 6) but it wasn’t particularly relevant to me so they may have changed it later
I hadn’t realised it was Liz Truss pushing the changes…
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
New year's eve. Not sure we can read anything into it.
"An overwhelming majority (72%) of Americans believe the people involved in the attack on the Capitol were "threatening democracy," while 1 in 4 Americans believes that the individuals involved were "protecting democracy." Broken down by party identification, Democrats are nearly unanimous (96%) in believing that those involved in the attacks were threatening democracy. Republicans are more split, with 45% saying it was a threat and 52% saying those involved in the riot were "protecting democracy.""
"Sixty-five percent of Americans believe Biden's victory in the 2020 election was legitimate, which is similar to the results of a January 2021 ABC News/Ipsos poll (68%). Nearly all Democrats -- 93% -- think the election results were legitimate while most Republicans do not. Among Republicans, 71% sided with Trump's false claims that he was the rightful winner."
America, and therefore, by extension, the world, is in deep shit
The fig leaf is that Republican support for the conspiracy claims is not universal. It suggests that a conspiracy endorsing Trumpian would struggle to win at the presidential level. State and congressional level perhaps.
The trouble is all the GOP voter who think that the GOP engaged in a coup to try and overturn the result of the election but are still going to straight ticket vote for them.
There was a vox pop before the election which interviewed a person and asked who they were voting for, they said "the republican candidate for president". The interviewer tried to get them to say they were voting for Trump. The interviewee refused, just saying they were voting fir the republican candidate.
Competition update: the wait goes on, another day with vaccination data from NI only means that @Northern_Al remains firmly attached to the tenterhooks…
Oh FFS, the tension is completely unbearable. I may have to have a drink.
No chance of dry January for me. Between patients and family, and a few purchases of my own I have enough for all the aliases of @SeanT.
Good for all of them. I'm with Ken Loach on this. After hearing that Charles Moore was Baron Moore of Etchingham I'm sure I'm not the only one who felt like retching
Isn't there a point where banging on about how they'd turned it down becomes Boris-style cakeism? I'm special enough to have been offered a gong but even more special to have turned it down; not like you little people who don't even register!
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
or twitter may be as relevant as myspace in a decade
Twitter plans to integrate with the bitcoin lightning network and be a sort of venmo for crypto in the next decade. The politics and bulls**t is just how they grow their user base.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
You do talk utter nonsense sometimes. Do you think childminders are unionised, seriously? What planet are you on?
The ratios for childminders (and nurseries) are set by government. A childminder can have up to 6 children under the age of 8, as long as no more than 3 are under 5.
This was the story I was referring to. I had thought that the government had backed down on the changes (increase from 4 to 6) but it wasn’t particularly relevant to me so they may have changed it later
I hadn’t realised it was Liz Truss pushing the changes…
So maybe withdraw your slur that it was 'producer interests' and unions?
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
You can imagine some people might have tried to tough it out to not go to hospital over Christmas, but eventually had to admit defeat - meaning the admissions get a bit lumpy just after Christmas.
Yes, but admissions usually drop over bank holiday weekends, with some catch up afterwards, as per the figures of 28 and 29 Dec.
It's too early to call, and too late for intervention. We are just going to have to see how it develops.
These are fair points, but TBH I'm quite enjoying a little relief from some of the doomcasting, albeit that I'm feeling an awful lot more relaxed about the whole situation than I used to be.
I've made a half-educated guess that daily UK admissions will peak at 7,000 at the end of the month, but would be delighted to be proven wrong on the low side. Indeed, the lower, the better.
As we're all getting a little too positive about omicron:
"The number of children hospitalized with COVID-19 in the US is skyrocketing amid the omicron wave, with new admissions up 66 percent in the last week and now past the all-time record high for the pandemic."
If it's of any cheer - I heard a doctor from SA saying they'd seen a similar thing with Omicron and Delta before it. When they looked into it it turned out to _largely_ be GP's/midwives/etc being over-cautious when a new variant hit the news and referring kids onto hospital 'just in case'.
Made sense to me. But whether it's entirely what's going on - not sure.
Competition update: the wait goes on, another day with vaccination data from NI only means that @Northern_Al remains firmly attached to the tenterhooks…
Oh FFS, the tension is completely unbearable. I may have to have a drink.
No chance of dry January for me. Between patients and family, and a few purchases of my own I have enough for all the aliases of @SeanT.
Always happy to follow the example of the medical profession. I have followed a middle way by foreswearing spirits for the month: Noginuary.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
You do talk utter nonsense sometimes. Do you think childminders are unionised, seriously? What planet are you on?
The ratios for childminders (and nurseries) are set by government. A childminder can have up to 6 children under the age of 8, as long as no more than 3 are under 5.
Perhaps his nanny was unionised and picketted his playroom...
I’ve checked and - based on the top google story - it was the National Day Nurseries Association a charity that doesn’t “just provide nursery membership, lobby government and offer training [but are] dedicated to making a difference” and the Early Years Alliance which is a similar campaigning group
So I was a bit cynical calling them “unions” but they are 100% representatives of the producer interest
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
well in china they will say they also only censor dangerous lies and hate speech....see the problem
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
And the excluding incidentals figure was only ever growing at c. 500 rather than a thousand a day anyway.
Mechanical ventilation still defiantly flat as a pancake for way longer than it should be if we were really in trouble here.
Did the paper discuss changing the UK tax system to make it more like France?
As in: families do their taxes together, and each member of the family brings their own tax free allowance and bands.
So. A single 25 year old earning €80,000 a year would have one €5,000 tax free, plus €20,000 at 20% and €45,000 at 40%. (These aren't the French tax bands, but I can't be bothered to look them up.) This means they'd pay €26,000 in tax and take home €54,000.
A married 25 year old with a child, on the other hand, would get 3 x €5,000 lots of tax free, and then 3x €20,000 at 20% before getting to the 40% tax band. As a result they would pay €14,400 in taxes, and take home €66,600.
This always seemed like a very sensible pronatal policy. France, btw, has a TFR of 1.85.
I get zero personal allowance… I’d quite like to be able to use my wife and daughter’s…
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
PCR back positive so that’s +1 in the figures for Newcastle upon Tyne.
Feeling better already though. Cleaned the bathroom and everything.
I had it over Christmas . I hope yours was as mild as mine: I have had many colds that were a lot worse. To me the cure (the quarantine) was significantly worse than the symptoms, but hey, maybe I should be grateful!
Sorry to hear you lost your Christmas to it. I think we need to look again at the isolation rules. The US has moved to five days, which is a step forward but we should perhaps look at the evidence for test and release after 3 days?
Things are going to move increasingly quickly from this point forwards. I'm expecting a very substantial number of hospitalisations and an astronomical number of cases as the month progresses, the latter leading in turn to mass absenteeism from workplaces and ever-increasing pressure on the limited number of available tests.
The point may come, and soon, when the Government is forced to admit defeat, prioritise testing for health and care workers and vulnerable people, and either restrict or abandon testing and isolation for the general population. Omicron may well simply be too infectious for the whole system to cope with.
key to this is deaths...if deaths spike to around 500 a day say the govt will be in a very difficult situation....killing granny just to keep the economy open
But the 500 a day will be largely unvaccinated. Yes, there will be the unfortunates who are double jabbed and boosted amongst, but the unvaccinated clogging the NHS will give the Govt. cover. Why do you think the PM has been doing the rounds of booster stations?
"We have done all we could to get the nation protected. But if people decide to stand outside the protection the NHS has offered them, that has, very sadly, been their poor choice."
you are making a big assumption there given nearly all the vulnerable are vaccinated...sure they may be less likely to die now but a triple vaxxed 80 yr old is still vulnerable
It is worth noting that many countries have tried pronatal policies. Singapore has very aggressive pronatal policies and its TFR is an appallingly low 1.15.
It will be interesting to see whether China's TFR increases now everyone is able to have two children and not just those who paid the largest bribe to the local official responsible.
My instinct is it will go up in the countryside and stay flat in the cities.
What regulates TFR as far as I can see are access to contraception and economic opportunities for women - not wealth or housing - certainly not government policies (draconian ones to suppress it like China excepted).
Could be totally wrong though.
Important subject and thanks to @tlg86 for his articles.
Chinas scraping of the 1 child policy and adoption of a 2 child policy in 2015 only made a small defiance and the number of babies board each year has reached new lows in 2018, in May 2021 they changed to a 3 child policy. I dowt it will have a big effect.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
It is worth noting that many countries have tried pronatal policies. Singapore has very aggressive pronatal policies and its TFR is an appallingly low 1.15.
It will be interesting to see whether China's TFR increases now everyone is able to have two children and not just those who paid the largest bribe to the local official responsible.
My instinct is it will go up in the countryside and stay flat in the cities.
What regulates TFR as far as I can see are access to contraception and economic opportunities for women - not wealth or housing - certainly not government policies (draconian ones to suppress it like China excepted).
Could be totally wrong though.
Important subject and thanks to @tlg86 for his articles.
The interesting point is that even if China's TFR rises, the population is likely to fall significantly. The TFR has been around 1.5 since the late 90s and as the generation born since then moves through the fertile years there won't be enough fertile women to maintain the population, even if they start having 2 children rather than 1.5. And in 2020 it fell to 1.3.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
I am more interested in the blank removal of the "... for all" brand. They certainly not mad Fake News antivaxxer accounts. Click baity sure, some silly gossip stuff, but 90%+ of their stuff is just aggregation of mainstream news articles.
Even so, at times, nursery fees per day were more than I earned in a day - I was going to work just in order that I'd still be employable when nursery fees dropped away.
I’ll admit that this is where my knowledge falls down. I did read this in the Guardian:
“It was more than my salary – quite a bit more,” she says. “I started panicking. We tried to find a solution but in the end we couldn’t justify the cost. There was no point in me teaching because I’d be spending more money than I earned for someone else to look after the children.”
What would be an optimal cost for childcare? I don’t know, but again, it’s interesting to hear that you worked irrespective of it being a net loss.
IIRC the Tory part of the coalition tried to address this by allowing nursery teachers to look after 6 kids not 4 but were shouted down by the “won’t you think of the children” producer interest
I think it's a bit cynical to call it producer interest. Should someone be looking after six small children?
I’ve no idea. But the unions thought it would require their members to do more work
You do talk utter nonsense sometimes. Do you think childminders are unionised, seriously? What planet are you on?
The ratios for childminders (and nurseries) are set by government. A childminder can have up to 6 children under the age of 8, as long as no more than 3 are under 5.
This was the story I was referring to. I had thought that the government had backed down on the changes (increase from 4 to 6) but it wasn’t particularly relevant to me so they may have changed it later
I hadn’t realised it was Liz Truss pushing the changes…
So maybe withdraw your slur that it was 'producer interests' and unions?
I’ve done a bit more research - it was producer interests (industry associations) but not unions. Happy to make that clear.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
I am more interested in the blank removal of the "... for all" brand.
I'm not that interested but did note that it was reported on pb as their "network" was banned so maybe it was some sort of rule-breaking cross-promotion or whatever they call it.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
I am more interested in the blank removal of the "... for all" brand.
I'm not that interested but did note that it was reported on pb as their "network" was banned so maybe it was some sort of rule-breaking cross-promotion or whatever they call it.
I am interested, but I find it on the surface rather concerning....the whole network of accounts gone, including personal account. Now if its due to a single dodgy post that concerns me. That isn't right.
Now, if as you say, there has been some dodgy stuff going on in the background, which is a possibility as their rise was very swift, with many people pointing out they seem to get much better engagement from even established accounts. However, we have also seen like pub bore anti-lockdown guy has risen massively during the pandemic, so it can happen.
Thanks to tlg for the articles. I think I'd broadly agree on this article, where I think the broad thrust is that there is evidence that, overall, people are having fewer children than they would like due at least in part to economic factors and, since the fertility rate is well below the replacement level, we could take steps to make it easier for people to have more children (at a younger age), without that leading to an unsustainable increase in the population, thus increasing the sum total happiness of the country.
I'm surprised, though, at his conclusion that politicians are unlikely to take up this cause at all. Although the Conservatives have taken anti-natalist steps in recent years - such as the tax credits two child limit - the rhetoric of helping "hard-working families" is still de rigeur for British politicians, and the Tories also took a limited step towards his suggested tax change with the married couples allowance.
Also, given the toxicity of immigration, politicians will find that they will need to find ways to boost the birth rate if they want to engineer a gentle demographic transition, rather than an abrupt one. Providing tax breaks to British families will win more votes than increasing the immigration rate.
I would much rather see politicians make some attempt to counter the toxicity surrounding immigration. If, as seems obvious to me (though I know others do not agree) there are too many people in the world, then moving some of those people from where they are surplus mouths to where they can be full, contributing citizens, seems a far better way to do things than simply trying to artificially boost birth rates. In the end the economics of the demographic timebomb in first world countries is a glorified ponzi scheme that must eventually fail. That is what we need to be addressing rather than perpetuating it by trying to get people to have more kids.
I do realise mine is not generally a popular view but I think it is one that should at least be explored.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
PCR back positive so that’s +1 in the figures for Newcastle upon Tyne.
Feeling better already though. Cleaned the bathroom and everything.
I had it over Christmas . I hope yours was as mild as mine: I have had many colds that were a lot worse. To me the cure (the quarantine) was significantly worse than the symptoms, but hey, maybe I should be grateful!
Sorry to hear you lost your Christmas to it. I think we need to look again at the isolation rules. The US has moved to five days, which is a step forward but we should perhaps look at the evidence for test and release after 3 days?
Things are going to move increasingly quickly from this point forwards. I'm expecting a very substantial number of hospitalisations and an astronomical number of cases as the month progresses, the latter leading in turn to mass absenteeism from workplaces and ever-increasing pressure on the limited number of available tests.
The point may come, and soon, when the Government is forced to admit defeat, prioritise testing for health and care workers and vulnerable people, and either restrict or abandon testing and isolation for the general population. Omicron may well simply be too infectious for the whole system to cope with.
key to this is deaths...if deaths spike to around 500 a day say the govt will be in a very difficult situation....killing granny just to keep the economy open
But the 500 a day will be largely unvaccinated. Yes, there will be the unfortunates who are double jabbed and boosted amongst, but the unvaccinated clogging the NHS will give the Govt. cover. Why do you think the PM has been doing the rounds of booster stations?
"We have done all we could to get the nation protected. But if people decide to stand outside the protection the NHS has offered them, that has, very sadly, been their poor choice."
you are making a big assumption there given nearly all the vulnerable are vaccinated...sure they may be less likely to die now but a triple vaxxed 80 yr old is still vulnerable
The descriptor used was "largely," which seems reasonable. We know from the pronouncements of ministers and numerous anecdata from the hospitals that, at least up until this point in the surge, the great majority of the most seriously ill Covid patients are unvaccinated (and nearly all of them are liable to be wilful refusers rather than from amongst the very limited pool of leukaemia patients and others unable to accept vaccination for medical reasons.)
We appear to be at the stage where the public is perfectly willing to tolerate a certain number of unlucky sick elderly dying every day of this virus, just as it does with various other illnesses. However, should total deaths increase markedly, but the Government is able to state truthfully that most of them are refusers, we may find that public sympathy is limited and it will be easier to hold the line against panicked calls for lockdown to save them.
IIRC some polling evidence was posted earlier today suggesting that most of those surveyed were in favour of compulsory Covid vaccination. Now, one always needs to approach polling results with caution, but nonetheless I don't believe that the refusers are a group that elicits much sympathy amongst the wider populace.
Happy New Year everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas. I’ve hosted 21 people, visited about 11 pubs and attended a great house party, so got my money’s worth. AFAIK I have never had Covid although maybe I have had it without any symptoms.
Hope all are well and hearty and looking forward to the year ahead.
Quiet New Year's for us - homemade beef curry - after a fabulous Christmas on the slopes in France. Feeling quite chipper at the moment.
Lovely. We are off to France this spring. How annoying were restrictions there?
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
It was a great decision imo and overdue. I do worry, though, about him building up a kind of 'glamour from absence'. When he relaunches will some people have forgotten what a 24 carat bell-end he was? I really hope not but, yes, I am worried about Donald Trump. I thought he was finished after the Capitol riots but I was wrong. My worst open political bet (by miles) is a lay of him for POTUS 24 at an average of over 7. I still don't think he'll make it but that's a position I wish I didn't have. He's 4.6 clear fav now and I can see why.
On the subject of POTUS betting I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan but I found myself thinking of it recently when looking at the market. Not the whole film, a particular iconic scene – the one where Princess Leia requests the assistance of Obi-Wan Kenobi in efforts to defeat the forces of the Dark Side. She does more than request, in fact, she beseeches. “You are our only hope,” she tells him.
And this is why he agrees. He doesn’t want to get involved, he’s in a happy settled groove in his life, he doesn’t need this, he needs it like a hole in the head, but he’s convinced by Leia of 3 things. 1: The forces of the Dark Side under the command of Darth Vader are on track to prevail in the war that's currently raging. 2: The consequence of this will be an end to everything that is good and decent in this world. 3: Only his direct intervention can prevent it.
All of these conditions need to be met for Obi to make the immense personal sacrifice of leaving his cosy lair to take up the sword and fight in a battle which is likely to be long and bloody and in which there are no guarantees. No combination of 2 out of 3 is sufficient. As in a fruit machine it must be 3 lemons for the jackpot.
Quite correct, therefore, for the odds on such a happening to be long. But 100/1 long (which is what I saw)? No, not for me. Given (1) looks likely and (2) follows from it – they are in bookie parlance ‘related events’ – and (3) is not such an outlandish proposition when one surveys the paucity of alternatives, a price of more like 33/1 would seem to me to be in order. So I’m on. £10 at 100/1.
Cast List:
Princess Leia: The Democrats The Dark Side: The MAGA owned GOP Darth Vader: Donald Trump Obi-Wan Kenobi: MICHELLE OBAMA
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
Neither are the restrictions the GOP use to prevent poor people voting but you never seem to be too concerned about those.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
Problem with Twitter/Facebook is that previously offensive content like "maybe it was a lab leak" can end up, well, credible.
Trump can use this to get back into the spotlight by claiming he was right, showing it was the MSM who got it wrong yet again, and that Twitter targets enemies of China (and True Americans).
Happy New Year everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas. I’ve hosted 21 people, visited about 11 pubs and attended a great house party, so got my money’s worth. AFAIK I have never had Covid although maybe I have had it without any symptoms.
Hope all are well and hearty and looking forward to the year ahead.
Quiet New Year's for us - homemade beef curry - after a fabulous Christmas on the slopes in France. Feeling quite chipper at the moment.
Lovely. We are off to France this spring. How annoying were restrictions there?
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
Cheers. Yes indeed. How were you able to go? I actually didn’t realise they’d banned tourists!
Happy New Year everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas. I’ve hosted 21 people, visited about 11 pubs and attended a great house party, so got my money’s worth. AFAIK I have never had Covid although maybe I have had it without any symptoms.
Hope all are well and hearty and looking forward to the year ahead.
Quiet New Year's for us - homemade beef curry - after a fabulous Christmas on the slopes in France. Feeling quite chipper at the moment.
Lovely. We are off to France this spring. How annoying were restrictions there?
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
Cheers. Yes indeed. How were you able to go? I actually didn’t realise they’d banned tourists!
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
It was a great decision imo and overdue. I do worry, though, about him building up a kind of 'glamour from absence'. When he relaunches will some people have forgotten what a 24 carat bell-end he was? I really hope not but, yes, I am worried about Donald Trump. I thought he was finished after the Capitol riots but I was wrong. My worst open political bet (by miles) is a lay of him for POTUS 24 at an average of over 7. I still don't think he'll make it but that's a position I wish I didn't have. He's 4.6 clear fav now and I can see why.
On the subject of POTUS betting I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan but I found myself thinking of it recently when looking at the market. Not the whole film, a particular iconic scene – the one where Princess Leia requests the assistance of Obi-Wan Kenobi in efforts to defeat the forces of the Dark Side. She does more than request, in fact, she beseeches. “You are our only hope,” she tells him.
And this is why he agrees. He doesn’t want to get involved, he’s in a happy settled groove in his life, he doesn’t need this, he needs it like a hole in the head, but he’s convinced by Leia of 3 things. 1: The forces of the Dark Side under the command of Darth Vader are on track to prevail in the war that's currently raging. 2: The consequence of this will be an end to everything that is good and decent in this world. 3: Only his direct intervention can prevent it.
All of these conditions need to be met for Obi to make the immense personal sacrifice of leaving his cosy lair to take up the sword and fight in a battle which is likely to be long and bloody and in which there are no guarantees. No combination of 2 out of 3 is sufficient. As in a fruit machine it must be 3 lemons for the jackpot.
Quite correct, therefore, for the odds on such a happening to be long. But 100/1 long (which is what I saw)? No, not for me. Given (1) looks likely and (2) follows from it – they are in bookie parlance ‘related events’ – and (3) is not such an outlandish proposition when one surveys the paucity of alternatives, a price of more like 33/1 would seem to me to be in order. So I’m on. £10 at 100/1.
Cast List:
Princess Leia: The Democrats The Dark Side: The MAGA owned GOP Darth Vader: Donald Trump Obi-Wan Kenobi: MICHELLE OBAMA
Putting up the spouse of a former president against Trump was not a 100% successful strategy for the Dems in 2016.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
well in china they will say they also only censor dangerous lies and hate speech....see the problem
No. I can distinguish a chocolate cake from a steaming pile of dogshit. Have had that talent for as long as I can remember.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
I am more interested in the blank removal of the "... for all" brand. They certainly not mad Fake News antivaxxer accounts. Click baity sure, some silly gossip stuff, but 90%+ of their stuff is just aggregation of mainstream news articles.
Politics for all repeatedly nicked other people's stories and presented them as unsourced exclusives.
Also the way it suddenly was everywhere made me suspicius that ir engaed in fake engagement tactics (bot farms etc) to get itself promoted by the algorithm.
Crazy as it seems the majority of people have twitter set to the algorithmic Home setting for their twitter feed rather than the pure chronological view, thus getting yourself promoted by the algorithm can be hugely lucrative.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
I am more interested in the blank removal of the "... for all" brand. They certainly not mad Fake News antivaxxer accounts. Click baity sure, some silly gossip stuff, but 90%+ of their stuff is just aggregation of mainstream news articles.
Politics for all repeatedly nicked other people's stories and presented them as unsourced exclusives.
Also the way it suddenly was everywhere made me suspicius that ir engaed in fake engagement tactics (bot farms etc) to get itself promoted by the algorithm.
Crazy as it seems the majority of people have twitter set to the algorithmic Home setting for their twitter feed rather than the pure chronological view, thus getting yourself promoted by the algorithm can be hugely lucrative.
There are loads of accounts that do that e.g. that "Nick" account that is Mr Anti-EU. I mean the Sun and the Mirror do it basically every day to each other.
Now the engagement thing, now that is something that I have wondered about for a while. Their growth was explosive from nothing and without any sort of official backing. Even if we think perhaps they knew more people and the story is a bit more than geek in his uni dorm, large companies struggle to get their social media off the ground like that.
Which has got me leaning towards perhaps they exploited some sort of weakness to drive inorganic growth that were definitely against TOS. I believe they recently set up an official business, perhaps moving to a revenue model is what now allows twitter to say, against TOS and you are trying to earn off it.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
I look forward to your campaign to give felons back the vote.
Happy New Year everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas. I’ve hosted 21 people, visited about 11 pubs and attended a great house party, so got my money’s worth. AFAIK I have never had Covid although maybe I have had it without any symptoms.
Hope all are well and hearty and looking forward to the year ahead.
Quiet New Year's for us - homemade beef curry - after a fabulous Christmas on the slopes in France. Feeling quite chipper at the moment.
Lovely. We are off to France this spring. How annoying were restrictions there?
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
Cheers. Yes indeed. How were you able to go? I actually didn’t realise they’d banned tourists!
Wow. Don't you follow the news?
Yes, closely. But somehow I missed that. Was it announced over Christmas? How did @Stocky go skiing if they had banned tourists. I don’t understand…
Happy New Year everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas. I’ve hosted 21 people, visited about 11 pubs and attended a great house party, so got my money’s worth. AFAIK I have never had Covid although maybe I have had it without any symptoms.
Hope all are well and hearty and looking forward to the year ahead.
Quiet New Year's for us - homemade beef curry - after a fabulous Christmas on the slopes in France. Feeling quite chipper at the moment.
Lovely. We are off to France this spring. How annoying were restrictions there?
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
Cheers. Yes indeed. How were you able to go? I actually didn’t realise they’d banned tourists!
Wow. Don't you follow the news?
Yes, closely. But somehow I missed that. Was it announced over Christmas? How did @Stocky go skiing if they had banned tourists. I don’t understand…
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
Neither are the restrictions the GOP use to prevent poor people voting but you never seem to be too concerned about those.
I don’t have an issue with photo ID being required to vote, although qualifying government issued ID should be made widely available.
I do have an issue with the reduction in the number of polling stations as that is clearly an attempt to restrict the ability to vote.
Voting should be easy, encouraged, efficient and secure
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
Stupid people have right to.
They don't have the rights to break the rules that apply to everyone else.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
Stupid people have right to.
Or it's no different from pb: private property where pretty much anyone can say pretty much anything but the owner has red lines.
The way to fix the underlying problem of Trump is prosecution or the armalite. Pending that I am fine with twitter bans.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
Neither are the restrictions the GOP use to prevent poor people voting but you never seem to be too concerned about those.
I don’t have an issue with photo ID being required to vote, although qualifying government issued ID should be made widely available.
I do have an issue with the reduction in the number of polling stations as that is clearly an attempt to restrict the ability to vote.
Voting should be easy, encouraged, efficient and secure
Of course there is a bill to do all those things, being pushed by Joe Manchin. Every Republican is voting against it because they are autocratic scum that hate democracy.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
Stupid people have right to.
They don't have the right to shout fire in a theatre though. One has to decide if this is comparable. People definitely die as a consequence of some posts.
Thanks to tlg for the articles. I think I'd broadly agree on this article, where I think the broad thrust is that there is evidence that, overall, people are having fewer children than they would like due at least in part to economic factors and, since the fertility rate is well below the replacement level, we could take steps to make it easier for people to have more children (at a younger age), without that leading to an unsustainable increase in the population, thus increasing the sum total happiness of the country.
I'm surprised, though, at his conclusion that politicians are unlikely to take up this cause at all. Although the Conservatives have taken anti-natalist steps in recent years - such as the tax credits two child limit - the rhetoric of helping "hard-working families" is still de rigeur for British politicians, and the Tories also took a limited step towards his suggested tax change with the married couples allowance.
Also, given the toxicity of immigration, politicians will find that they will need to find ways to boost the birth rate if they want to engineer a gentle demographic transition, rather than an abrupt one. Providing tax breaks to British families will win more votes than increasing the immigration rate.
I would much rather see politicians make some attempt to counter the toxicity surrounding immigration. If, as seems obvious to me (though I know others do not agree) there are too many people in the world, then moving some of those people from where they are surplus mouths to where they can be full, contributing citizens, seems a far better way to do things than simply trying to artificially boost birth rates. In the end the economics of the demographic timebomb in first world countries is a glorified ponzi scheme that must eventually fail. That is what we need to be addressing rather than perpetuating it by trying to get people to have more kids.
I do realise mine is not generally a popular view but I think it is one that should at least be explored.
Hang on, does this scan. I thought the "ponzi scheme" argument was we should STOP relying on immigration to support our economy. How can you be buying into this and at the same time arguing for more immigration from poor to rich countries?
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
I look forward to your campaign to give felons back the vote.
I don’t have strong views on that, although I would tend to the view that prison is a suspension of many of your rights as a citizen because you have broken the rules of society. If that period of imprisonment coincides with an election then you are shut out of luck.
But once you have served your time you should have the same rights as any other citizen (I vaguely recall Florida may have restricted their vote once they are out of prison which seems wrong to me). But I’m not going to campaign about it because I’ve only been to Florida twice in my life and not since the late 90s (although I am swinging through Orlando to catch up with some folks in a couple of weeks)
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
Stupid people have right to.
Or it's no different from pb: private property where pretty much anyone can say pretty much anything but the owner has red lines.
The way to fix the underlying problem of Trump is prosecution or the armalite. Pending that I am fine with twitter bans.
There is one difference in that some social media companies have near monopolies. Of course the solution to that lies in anti-trust law. But American right wingers never seem to support market competition in such situations.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
Sure, if they break the law prosecute them. But that’s not what we are talking about
Happy New Year everyone, hope everyone had a great Christmas. I’ve hosted 21 people, visited about 11 pubs and attended a great house party, so got my money’s worth. AFAIK I have never had Covid although maybe I have had it without any symptoms.
Hope all are well and hearty and looking forward to the year ahead.
Quiet New Year's for us - homemade beef curry - after a fabulous Christmas on the slopes in France. Feeling quite chipper at the moment.
Lovely. We are off to France this spring. How annoying were restrictions there?
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
Cheers. Yes indeed. How were you able to go? I actually didn’t realise they’d banned tourists!
Wow. Don't you follow the news?
Yes, closely. But somehow I missed that. Was it announced over Christmas? How did @Stocky go skiing if they had banned tourists. I don’t understand…
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
Sure, if they break the law prosecute them. But that’s not what we are talking about
The same principle applies to private sector rules as much as it does to the law.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
It was a great decision imo and overdue. I do worry, though, about him building up a kind of 'glamour from absence'. When he relaunches will some people have forgotten what a 24 carat bell-end he was? I really hope not but, yes, I am worried about Donald Trump. I thought he was finished after the Capitol riots but I was wrong. My worst open political bet (by miles) is a lay of him for POTUS 24 at an average of over 7. I still don't think he'll make it but that's a position I wish I didn't have. He's 4.6 clear fav now and I can see why.
On the subject of POTUS betting I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan but I found myself thinking of it recently when looking at the market. Not the whole film, a particular iconic scene – the one where Princess Leia requests the assistance of Obi-Wan Kenobi in efforts to defeat the forces of the Dark Side. She does more than request, in fact, she beseeches. “You are our only hope,” she tells him.
And this is why he agrees. He doesn’t want to get involved, he’s in a happy settled groove in his life, he doesn’t need this, he needs it like a hole in the head, but he’s convinced by Leia of 3 things. 1: The forces of the Dark Side under the command of Darth Vader are on track to prevail in the war that's currently raging. 2: The consequence of this will be an end to everything that is good and decent in this world. 3: Only his direct intervention can prevent it.
All of these conditions need to be met for Obi to make the immense personal sacrifice of leaving his cosy lair to take up the sword and fight in a battle which is likely to be long and bloody and in which there are no guarantees. No combination of 2 out of 3 is sufficient. As in a fruit machine it must be 3 lemons for the jackpot.
Quite correct, therefore, for the odds on such a happening to be long. But 100/1 long (which is what I saw)? No, not for me. Given (1) looks likely and (2) follows from it – they are in bookie parlance ‘related events’ – and (3) is not such an outlandish proposition when one surveys the paucity of alternatives, a price of more like 33/1 would seem to me to be in order. So I’m on. £10 at 100/1.
Cast List:
Princess Leia: The Democrats The Dark Side: The MAGA owned GOP Darth Vader: Donald Trump Obi-Wan Kenobi: MICHELLE OBAMA
Putting up the spouse of a former president against Trump was not a 100% successful strategy for the Dems in 2016.
Indeed it wasn't. But that was the divisive and uninspiring HRC.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
If they can't manage to navigate the terms of service of a website that allows literal Nazis to post on it then I'm not sure I can shed too mamy tears for them.
Stupid people have right to.
Or it's no different from pb: private property where pretty much anyone can say pretty much anything but the owner has red lines.
The way to fix the underlying problem of Trump is prosecution or the armalite. Pending that I am fine with twitter bans.
There is one difference in that some social media companies have near monopolies. Of course the solution to that lies in anti-trust law. But American right wingers never seem to support market competition in such situations.
You are spot on.
The problem is that something like Twitter or Facebook is arguably a natural monopoly. But I’d be all in favour of regulating them like a utility.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
Sure, if they break the law prosecute them. But that’s not what we are talking about
The same principle applies to private sector rules as much as it does to the law.
The media sector has always had different rules because of the intersection with the public sphere.
If the BBC, ITV and Sky plus Facebook and Twitter decided to ban any mention or broadcast of Kier Starmer would that be right? I say not.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
You think Trump being taken off Twitter was a bad decision?
I have a problem with the idea of a major means of political campaigning being denied to someone who has a very good chance of being a serious candidate for the presidency in 2024.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
The irony of Twitter banning the likes of Trump and this new congresswoman is that Twitter is basically an echo chamber for right wing moaners.
I am more interested in the blank removal of the "... for all" brand. They certainly not mad Fake News antivaxxer accounts. Click baity sure, some silly gossip stuff, but 90%+ of their stuff is just aggregation of mainstream news articles.
Politics for all repeatedly nicked other people's stories and presented them as unsourced exclusives.
Also the way it suddenly was everywhere made me suspicius that ir engaed in fake engagement tactics (bot farms etc) to get itself promoted by the algorithm.
Crazy as it seems the majority of people have twitter set to the algorithmic Home setting for their twitter feed rather than the pure chronological view, thus getting yourself promoted by the algorithm can be hugely lucrative.
Very disappointed, thought there would be a bit more mileage in the 'It was Sturgeon and the Yestapo who got them banned' comedy vehicle.
PCR back positive so that’s +1 in the figures for Newcastle upon Tyne.
Feeling better already though. Cleaned the bathroom and everything.
I had it over Christmas . I hope yours was as mild as mine: I have had many colds that were a lot worse. To me the cure (the quarantine) was significantly worse than the symptoms, but hey, maybe I should be grateful!
Sorry to hear you lost your Christmas to it. I think we need to look again at the isolation rules. The US has moved to five days, which is a step forward but we should perhaps look at the evidence for test and release after 3 days?
Things are going to move increasingly quickly from this point forwards. I'm expecting a very substantial number of hospitalisations and an astronomical number of cases as the month progresses, the latter leading in turn to mass absenteeism from workplaces and ever-increasing pressure on the limited number of available tests.
The point may come, and soon, when the Government is forced to admit defeat, prioritise testing for health and care workers and vulnerable people, and either restrict or abandon testing and isolation for the general population. Omicron may well simply be too infectious for the whole system to cope with.
key to this is deaths...if deaths spike to around 500 a day say the govt will be in a very difficult situation....killing granny just to keep the economy open
But the 500 a day will be largely unvaccinated. Yes, there will be the unfortunates who are double jabbed and boosted amongst, but the unvaccinated clogging the NHS will give the Govt. cover. Why do you think the PM has been doing the rounds of booster stations?
"We have done all we could to get the nation protected. But if people decide to stand outside the protection the NHS has offered them, that has, very sadly, been their poor choice."
you are making a big assumption there given nearly all the vulnerable are vaccinated...sure they may be less likely to die now but a triple vaxxed 80 yr old is still vulnerable
The descriptor used was "largely," which seems reasonable. We know from the pronouncements of ministers and numerous anecdata from the hospitals that, at least up until this point in the surge, the great majority of the most seriously ill Covid patients are unvaccinated (and nearly all of them are liable to be wilful refusers rather than from amongst the very limited pool of leukaemia patients and others unable to accept vaccination for medical reasons.)
We appear to be at the stage where the public is perfectly willing to tolerate a certain number of unlucky sick elderly dying every day of this virus, just as it does with various other illnesses. However, should total deaths increase markedly, but the Government is able to state truthfully that most of them are refusers, we may find that public sympathy is limited and it will be easier to hold the line against panicked calls for lockdown to save them.
IIRC some polling evidence was posted earlier today suggesting that most of those surveyed were in favour of compulsory Covid vaccination. Now, one always needs to approach polling results with caution, but nonetheless I don't believe that the refusers are a group that elicits much sympathy amongst the wider populace.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
Sure, if they break the law prosecute them. But that’s not what we are talking about
There's also a liability issue. Say I went to the doorstep of Two Temple Place and started shouting how (insert politician) is evil and should be punished by looking at TSE shoes whilst listening to Radiohead. You would probably - and reasonably - call the police to have me removed to a public place, off your property.
If you do not, and something unutterably nasty happens to that politician (*), then you might be seen as liable. In the same way someone preaching hate from a mosque/church/whatever might cause problems for the location.
These Internet entities are private companies. They can choose who appears on their platform, and who does not.
(*) Such as looking at TSE's shoes whilst listening to Radiohead, or listening to me whilst I witter on about just about anything...
Based on squinting at various London boroughs and thinking about possible test backlogs I'm a bit worried that the likes of Lambeth's heartening rapid fall in cases is about to dramatically level off at a level I would still describe as "really, really high"
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
Sure, if they break the law prosecute them. But that’s not what we are talking about
There's also a liability issue. Say I went to the doorstep of Two Temple Place and started shouting how (insert politician) is evil and should be punished by looking at TSE shoes whilst listening to Radiohead. You would probably - and reasonably - call the police to have me removed to a public place, off your property.
If you do not, and something unutterably nasty happens to that politician (*), then you might be seen as liable. In the same way someone preaching hate from a mosque/church/whatever might cause problems for the location.
These Internet entities are private companies. They can choose who appears on their platform, and who does not.
(*) Such as looking at TSE's shoes whilst listening to Radiohead, or listening to me whilst I witter on about just about anything...
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
And the other good news is that, at least for now, the platforms seem very uncomfortable with being put in the position of having to make these judgment calls, and would prefer (impossible) precision from the government on what they should do.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
PCR back positive so that’s +1 in the figures for Newcastle upon Tyne.
Feeling better already though. Cleaned the bathroom and everything.
I had it over Christmas . I hope yours was as mild as mine: I have had many colds that were a lot worse. To me the cure (the quarantine) was significantly worse than the symptoms, but hey, maybe I should be grateful!
Sorry to hear you lost your Christmas to it. I think we need to look again at the isolation rules. The US has moved to five days, which is a step forward but we should perhaps look at the evidence for test and release after 3 days?
Things are going to move increasingly quickly from this point forwards. I'm expecting a very substantial number of hospitalisations and an astronomical number of cases as the month progresses, the latter leading in turn to mass absenteeism from workplaces and ever-increasing pressure on the limited number of available tests.
The point may come, and soon, when the Government is forced to admit defeat, prioritise testing for health and care workers and vulnerable people, and either restrict or abandon testing and isolation for the general population. Omicron may well simply be too infectious for the whole system to cope with.
key to this is deaths...if deaths spike to around 500 a day say the govt will be in a very difficult situation....killing granny just to keep the economy open
But the 500 a day will be largely unvaccinated. Yes, there will be the unfortunates who are double jabbed and boosted amongst, but the unvaccinated clogging the NHS will give the Govt. cover. Why do you think the PM has been doing the rounds of booster stations?
"We have done all we could to get the nation protected. But if people decide to stand outside the protection the NHS has offered them, that has, very sadly, been their poor choice."
you are making a big assumption there given nearly all the vulnerable are vaccinated...sure they may be less likely to die now but a triple vaxxed 80 yr old is still vulnerable
The descriptor used was "largely," which seems reasonable. We know from the pronouncements of ministers and numerous anecdata from the hospitals that, at least up until this point in the surge, the great majority of the most seriously ill Covid patients are unvaccinated (and nearly all of them are liable to be wilful refusers rather than from amongst the very limited pool of leukaemia patients and others unable to accept vaccination for medical reasons.)
We appear to be at the stage where the public is perfectly willing to tolerate a certain number of unlucky sick elderly dying every day of this virus, just as it does with various other illnesses. However, should total deaths increase markedly, but the Government is able to state truthfully that most of them are refusers, we may find that public sympathy is limited and it will be easier to hold the line against panicked calls for lockdown to save them.
IIRC some polling evidence was posted earlier today suggesting that most of those surveyed were in favour of compulsory Covid vaccination. Now, one always needs to approach polling results with caution, but nonetheless I don't believe that the refusers are a group that elicits much sympathy amongst the wider populace.
It was the MoS poll - 57% / 31% in favour of compulsory vaccinations.
U.S. Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene's personal Twitter account (@mtgreenee) has been permanently suspended for misinformation about COVID-19
I’ve made this point before. Isn’t anyone else worried about a major means if communication being restricted to politicians who agree with the owner of that channel.
Either Twitter is a publisher who can chose what to publish, or it is a medium for others communication with which case it can’t
If dangerous lies & hate speech are prohibited on a platform and most dangerous lies & hate speech come from MAGA loonies then MAGA loonies will inevitably bear the brunt of restrictions. I just can't get to seeing this as some worrying slippery slope towards the sort of sinister politically motivated censorship of free speech you get in (eg) China.
The problem is when someone is a credible candidate for high office and you restrict their ability to present their case.
Not very… democratic… is it
There are some much worse undemocratic actions in the US in favour of Trump. This rebalances it a bit.
That way lies madness
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Politicians don't deserve special opt outs from the rest of us. If someone incites people to kill others then it shouldn't matter who they are for that to break the law.
Sure, if they break the law prosecute them. But that’s not what we are talking about
The same principle applies to private sector rules as much as it does to the law.
The media sector has always had different rules because of the intersection with the public sphere.
If the BBC, ITV and Sky plus Facebook and Twitter decided to ban any mention or broadcast of Kier Starmer would that be right? I say not.
If Starmer was consistently calling for kids to get kitchen knives and try balancing them on their heads, yes. But it would be up to those individual organisations to decide to no-platform the views. However, Starmer is such a public figure that they might be best just pointing and laughing. The anti-vaxxers who promote vax conspiracy theories are bordering on evil - as Wakefield was (and is) with MMR.
This is related to the Gerry Adams debacle in the 1970s/80s, which was by government mandate.
Comments
31-12-2021 1,781
30-12-2021 2,114
29-12-2021 2,370
28-12-2021 2,082
27-12-2021 1,751
26-12-2021 1,374
25-12-2021 1,281
Total in hospital in England now updated to today, details since Christmas Day for that dataset as follows:
02-01-2022 13,151
01-01-2022 12,615
31-12-2021 12,395
30-12-2021 11,452
29-12-2021 10,462
28-12-2021 9,546
27-12-2021 8,474
26-12-2021 7,536
25-12-2021 7,166
So, the number of Covid patients being admitted in England has all of a sudden started to drop again, and the daily increase in the total number in hospital has halved from about a thousand on Dec 30 to five hundred on Jan 2.
Wayyyyyyyyyyyy too early to get excited but - well, it's not bad news, is it?
For a start, the stuff about "a record-breaking mountain of public debt" is perhaps a little hysterical imo. Our ability to service our public debt is well within historic norms, at currently a little over 2% of GDP per annum - I think the stress level is more like 4%. Unless the numbers have changed very recently.
https://www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2021/oct-2021/chart-of-the-week-uk-public-debt-profile
The numbers may have changed a little with index linked debt, but an argument based on that requires long term assumptions about inflation - which we do not know.
From his second house on I believe the Isle of Islay...
He's the flip side of Susan Michie.
Sorry to have been absent, have spent the day dealing with family stuff and then a very long time talking to my friend who is a lawyer to consider my personal next steps over the
drunken child hating lunaticsDfE requiring masks again as a result of politicians' logic.As in: families do their taxes together, and each member of the family brings their own tax free allowance and bands.
So. A single 25 year old earning €80,000 a year would have one €5,000 tax free, plus €20,000 at 20% and €45,000 at 40%. (These aren't the French tax bands, but I can't be bothered to look them up.) This means they'd pay €26,000 in tax and take home €54,000.
A married 25 year old with a child, on the other hand, would get 3 x €5,000 lots of tax free, and then 3x €20,000 at 20% before getting to the 40% tax band. As a result they would pay €14,400 in taxes, and take home €66,600.
This always seemed like a very sensible pronatal policy. France, btw, has a TFR of 1.85.
I would hate to see him elected again, and I hope he flames out in the primary.
But thumbs on the scale is not the way to win long term
It's too early to call, and too late for intervention. We are just going to have to see how it develops.
My instinct is it will go up in the countryside and stay flat in the cities.
What regulates TFR as far as I can see are access to contraception and economic opportunities for women - not wealth or housing - certainly not government policies (draconian ones to suppress it like China excepted).
Could be totally wrong though.
Important subject and thanks to @tlg86 for his articles.
They were called 'NUTters' for a reason...
This was the story I was referring to. I had thought that the government had backed down on the changes (increase from 4 to 6) but it wasn’t particularly relevant to me so they may have changed it later
I hadn’t realised it was Liz Truss pushing the changes…
There was a vox pop before the election which interviewed a person and asked who they were voting for, they said "the republican candidate for president". The interviewer tried to get them to say they were voting for Trump. The interviewee refused, just saying they were voting fir the republican candidate.
1) Cases rising, but R falling. In London cases are falling
2) Admissions may (or may not) be stopping rising nationally. In London, the average is starting to turn
3) The numbers in ventilator beads is remarkably flat while all this is going on
4) Deaths are now flat, with the beginnings of a rise (possibly) beginning to show...
I've made a half-educated guess that daily UK admissions will peak at 7,000 at the end of the month, but would be delighted to be proven wrong on the low side. Indeed, the lower, the better.
So I was a bit cynical calling them “unions” but they are 100% representatives of the producer interest
Mechanical ventilation still defiantly flat as a pancake for way longer than it should be if we were really in trouble here.
Not very… democratic… is it
Now, if as you say, there has been some dodgy stuff going on in the background, which is a possibility as their rise was very swift, with many people pointing out they seem to get much better engagement from even established accounts. However, we have also seen like pub bore anti-lockdown guy has risen massively during the pandemic, so it can happen.
I do realise mine is not generally a popular view but I think it is one that should at least be explored.
We appear to be at the stage where the public is perfectly willing to tolerate a certain number of unlucky sick elderly dying every day of this virus, just as it does with various other illnesses. However, should total deaths increase markedly, but the Government is able to state truthfully that most of them are refusers, we may find that public sympathy is limited and it will be easier to hold the line against panicked calls for lockdown to save them.
IIRC some polling evidence was posted earlier today suggesting that most of those surveyed were in favour of compulsory Covid vaccination. Now, one always needs to approach polling results with caution, but nonetheless I don't believe that the refusers are a group that elicits much sympathy amongst the wider populace.
@Anabobazina
The restrictions were not very annoying.
The masks worn are supposed to be surgical or FFP2 but many wore just cloth ones and this was fine. People were reminded on ski lifts at bottom of resort only to put on masks. QR codes were periodically checked - that was easy. No problems really. I suppose a minor annoyance was that the cafe we went in for breakfast every morning had to scan our QR codes every day even though they knew us from previous days' visits; amusing really, I don't think you can suddenly become unvaccinated!
Obvs you need the French ban on tourism to be reversed before you go.
On the subject of POTUS betting I’m not the biggest Star Wars fan but I found myself thinking of it recently when looking at the market. Not the whole film, a particular iconic scene – the one where Princess Leia requests the assistance of Obi-Wan Kenobi in efforts to defeat the forces of the Dark Side. She does more than request, in fact, she beseeches. “You are our only hope,” she tells him.
And this is why he agrees. He doesn’t want to get involved, he’s in a happy settled groove in his life, he doesn’t need this, he needs it like a hole in the head, but he’s convinced by Leia of 3 things. 1: The forces of the Dark Side under the command of Darth Vader are on track to prevail in the war that's currently raging. 2: The consequence of this will be an end to everything that is good and decent in this world. 3: Only his direct intervention can prevent it.
All of these conditions need to be met for Obi to make the immense personal sacrifice of leaving his cosy lair to take up the sword and fight in a battle which is likely to be long and bloody and in which there are no guarantees. No combination of 2 out of 3 is sufficient. As in a fruit machine it must be 3 lemons for the jackpot.
Quite correct, therefore, for the odds on such a happening to be long. But 100/1 long (which is what I saw)? No, not for me. Given (1) looks likely and (2) follows from it – they are in bookie parlance ‘related events’ – and (3) is not such an outlandish proposition when one surveys the paucity of alternatives, a price of more like 33/1 would seem to me to be in order. So I’m on. £10 at 100/1.
Cast List:
Princess Leia: The Democrats
The Dark Side: The MAGA owned GOP
Darth Vader: Donald Trump
Obi-Wan Kenobi: MICHELLE OBAMA
Trump can use this to get back into the spotlight by claiming he was right, showing it was the MSM who got it wrong yet again, and that Twitter targets enemies of China (and True Americans).
In short, censorship backfires.
I think that meets the test of he still has his "free speech" in the town square, but somebody is pointing out very clearly he is spreading lies.
Fix the other problems instead. Don’t create new ones.
Also the way it suddenly was everywhere made me suspicius that ir engaed in fake engagement tactics (bot farms etc) to get itself promoted by the algorithm.
Crazy as it seems the majority of people have twitter set to the algorithmic Home setting for their twitter feed rather than the pure chronological view, thus getting yourself promoted by the algorithm can be hugely lucrative.
Now the engagement thing, now that is something that I have wondered about for a while. Their growth was explosive from nothing and without any sort of official backing. Even if we think perhaps they knew more people and the story is a bit more than geek in his uni dorm, large companies struggle to get their social media off the ground like that.
Which has got me leaning towards perhaps they exploited some sort of weakness to drive inorganic growth that were definitely against TOS. I believe they recently set up an official business, perhaps moving to a revenue model is what now allows twitter to say, against TOS and you are trying to earn off it.
I do have an issue with the reduction in the number of polling stations as that is clearly an attempt to restrict the ability to vote.
Voting should be easy, encouraged, efficient and secure
The way to fix the underlying problem of Trump is prosecution or the armalite. Pending that I am fine with twitter bans.
This is not the case. Can someone elucidate?
But once you have served your time you should have the same rights as any other citizen (I vaguely recall Florida may have restricted their vote once they are out of prison which seems wrong to me). But I’m not going to campaign about it because I’ve only been to Florida twice in my life and not since the late 90s (although I am swinging through Orlando to catch up with some folks in a couple of weeks)
The problem is that something like Twitter or Facebook is arguably a natural monopoly. But I’d be all in favour of regulating them like a utility.
If the BBC, ITV and Sky plus Facebook and Twitter decided to ban any mention or broadcast of Kier Starmer would that be right? I say not.
Surprised that the media haven't picked up on us breaching 200k.
If you do not, and something unutterably nasty happens to that politician (*), then you might be seen as liable. In the same way someone preaching hate from a mosque/church/whatever might cause problems for the location.
These Internet entities are private companies. They can choose who appears on their platform, and who does not.
(*) Such as looking at TSE's shoes whilst listening to Radiohead, or listening to me whilst I witter on about just about anything...
https://twitter.com/MoS_Politics/status/1477395359890649091/photo/1
This is related to the Gerry Adams debacle in the 1970s/80s, which was by government mandate.