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The mood in former Soviet states – politicalbetting.com
The mood in former Soviet states – politicalbetting.com
This comment was posted by Cicero on the previous thread and given a good account of the mood in the baltic states which I reproduce here in full.
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Sadly it seems the end of the Cold War lasted from 3/12/89 - 21/2/22. We have to recognise and accept that Putin's Russia is an aggressor and enemy of the 'Free World' every bit as much as the USSR.
That doesn't mean you go in if you are sick.
That's exactly the same as how people act with Norovirus. If you have it and are sick to the point of having diarrhoea or vomiting then you stay at home. You don't stay at home because you're healthy but have a red line on a test strip.
Stay at home based on symptoms, not test results. Is that something you really can't understand?
PS schools have had staffing problems due to people having to isolate, even if they're healthy, not because people are physically sick. That's the difference.
Who has said those who are seriously ill with the common cold should be going into work? Not me, not any 'other feller' connected to me either. I've never said that.
I've said people should be staying at home if they're ill, but having the virus does not mean you are ill. Being ill means you're ill. Treat the illness, not the virus, and you don't need testing to know your symptoms.
So, this report into Russian meddling that Big Dog has refused to publish. As Russia is now the big bad is there any reason not to expose them for the meddling bastards they are?
We know they won't. Because they're worried that extensive meddling influenced the referendum result. And perhaps it did. But (1) it wasn't that close and you can't show definitively that x number of people were directly swayed by Putin and (2) Brexit is in the past.
So the continued refusal says more about the paranoia of the particular groups in the Tory Party still trying to secure BREXIT. They aren't worried about the result. They're worried that public mood shifts away will stop them removing health and safety laws, food standards etc etc.
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That's my best result yet. I only started doing it a week ago.
I think in the real world that people throwing sickies is a bigger problem than people being forced in when they're genuinely sick.
She left PDQ. Appalling attitude from the manager.
I have had 2s before though.
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https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1496060922904956930
And I say that as somebody who has a very generous sick pay provision in his current post.
Viruses spread. You need to live with that, unless you've got some delusional idea that you can prevent viruses from spreading.
Preferably, Putin’s army can all feckov back to the Russian side of the border.
A lot easier to fix if you aren't worried about your costs as much.
https://twitter.com/DefenceHQ/status/1496032050633232387
Do we know what the asymptomatic rate currently is with covid ?
It looks like over 50% according to the ONS survey.
Add in those whose symptoms are 'a bit of a cold' and we've probably got a large majority of people who are infected with covid not knowing it.
Which makes the obsession with the people who do know they have covid but have no or minimal symptoms a practical irrelevance.
ETA though so does China which might be searching its museums for old maps.
https://twitter.com/paulmasonnews/status/1496061614092656641
It has been a common trope of Greater Russian Nationalism for many many years that Ukraine doesn't have a culture of it's own, it's language is just a dialect of Russian etc etc.
In fact the "Ukrainian isn't a language" thing, is a fairly good indicator of the position of any Russian you meet......
Asking for a friend.
The Health Protection (Coronavirus, Restrictions) (Self-Isolation) (England) Regulations 2020 apply, as name suggests, in England only. No analogue in Scotland, where self-isolation “rules” have only ever been guidance.
https://twitter.com/RoddyQC/status/1495866624972308484
"The war is coming to us, whatever we do, so far better that the Russian forces are defeated in Donetsk than Dresden or Dover."
This reminds me a little of the logic that got the US involved in Vietnam.
What is certainly clear is that we should be strengthening ourselves against Russian aggression. What that means, others will know better... but securing energy, investing in our soldiers and military equipment etc. etc.
Tell people who are hungover they can call in "sick" and get paid, and absence rates will go up, especially on Mondays.
Doubt you will vote for him though. You'll find something to dislike.
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And what in my posting history makes you think I would 'find something to dislike?'
UKRAINE PRESIDENT SAYS WE BELIEVE THAT THERE WILL BE NO WAR AGAINST UKRAINE AND THERE WILL BE NO WIDE ESCALATION
https://twitter.com/DeItaone/status/1496064800790618118
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The Muscovites are parvenus.
Would the England that William the Bastard conquered have stopped at the Humber? Or maybe the Tees?
And how different would the language of that country now be from RP?
And write to your MP demanding the release of any reports on foreign interference in elections that might be lurking in the Number 10 safe.
The attack would have targeted Orthodox churches of the Moscow Patriarchate, said Liliya Domashenko, spokeswoman for the Kharkiv region SBU.
“We confirm the interception of a telephone conversation about the organisation of terrorist attacks in Kharkiv,” Domashenko said. “The person who was supposed to carry out the attacks has been identified. Now the whole range of necessary actions is being carried out.”
Such an attack could provoke a response from Russia, which has massed its troops along its border with Ukraine, located around 30km from Kharkiv.
Washington has warned that terror attacks may be staged as “false flag” operations to provide a pretext for conflict.
https://www.ft.com/content/b787a27f-78f4-411e-9435-bb9e980c2a7f
If an EU and NATO nation like Poland or the Baltic states were invaded however it would be another matter and then NATO most likely would be at war with Putin's Russia. However I doubt Putin will go that far, he just wants to reclaim as much of the old USSR which is not yet in NATO as he can before NATO absorbs those areas
I once had a performance review with an employee who'd been with us nearly six months. He'd called in "sick" 10 times in that six month period - twice on a Friday, eight times on a Monday, never on a Tuesday to Thursday.
Should people companies be compelled by law to pay people who are throwing sickies?
However, I wonder if the problem is with the words we use. English and Gaelic are two very distinctly different languages. Spanish and Italian are much more closely related but are still two different languages. Bavarian Dialect and Plattdeutsch are very different from each other. English and Scots don't seem that different from each other to me, but it's a very sliding scale and there doesn't seem to be a hard line when a dialect becomes a language. Perhaps more helpful is the concept of a linguistic identity (I'm sure the field of linguistics has a concept like this already)? This sidesteps the thorny issue of language Vs dialect and acknowledges that, even if linguistic differences might not amount to a full-blown language, those differences can inform and be informed by Identity.
Therefore it doesn't mean shit if Ukrainian is a dialect of Russian because there is a cultural identity based around it.
Here he is after 9-11, describing it as a "turning-point", hoping for closer co-ordination with NATO, and giving the US access to Soviet-era bases :
https://edition.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/europe/09/10/ar911.russia.putin/index.html
..and here he is 18 months later, describing the invasion of Iraq as "the most serious crisis since the Cold War, and shaking the foundations of international law".
https://edition.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/europe/03/28/sprj.irq.putin/
He was always going to have had a bias to autocratic methods, with his start in life and circle in friends and associates, but Iraq was probably as key as Russia not being accepted into NATO in turning him away from a pro-Western view.
If a company is dealing with professionals, they can choose to go above and beyond SSP. Its a minimum not a maximum.
If a company isn't, they might find SSP suits.
But the law needs to apply to the lowest common denominator and sadly yes that includes the minority.
OTOH though if someone throws a sicky for months, easily done with things like "stress"*, then should an employer be forced to pay their wages when they're not working?
* I am not saying stress isn't a serious problem for those who have it, it is deadly serious, but its easily faked too which is a serious problem.
In the real world, people throwing sickies is a very real problem already, and with more generous SSP would be an even bigger problem.
Its easy to dismiss it if its not costing you money, or you're wishing that people aren't like that, but many are.
If you're not happy with your employer, you can always look for another.
https://isc.independent.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/CCS207_CCS0221966010-001_Russia-Report-v02-Web_Accessible.pdf
I am not aware of another one which remains unpublished. This was the one which was ready before the 2019 general election and which was delayed by Johnson, to much furious criticism from many, including the then Chair of the Select Committee, Dominic Grieve.
It is worth a read. I commented on some aspects of it here - https://www7.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2020/07/23/laundering-reputations-china-and-its-uighurs/#vanilla-comments.
"a shprakh iz a dyalekt mit an armey un flot"
applies
As human beings we tend to discount low likelihood high impact negative outcomes more than we “should” by the numbers.
Quite frankly it is inept HR management to even let it get to this state. Just pay them up and get rid.
We have a problem in this country with "presenteeism", people coming into work while ill or infectious. This spreads disease, is bad for individuals and bad for the economy.
If you're dealing with professionals who aren't going to throw sickies then its entirely sensible to go with a full or nearly-full pay policy so people aren't coming in sick.
If you're not and your staff throwing sickies is going to be a very serious problem, then SSP makes much more sense.
That's why SSP is cleverly designed, its a minimum not a maximum.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000x6v7
I'd be interested to know what our Scottish posters thought of it, if they've heard it.
People are in denial if they don't think sickies are a very real problem in the real world. Utter denial.
UK borrowed £5.4bn less than last year and - more importantly - there were revisions down of £5.4bn in the year to date.
This means that more than half the damage to the public finances - in deficit terms - will have been undone this year.
Given nominal GDP growth, the UK's borrowings as a % of GDP have fallen even further and debt looks basically static. Indeed it is not outside possibility that debt will fall as a % of GDP this year.