Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
That was not difficult to predict. I just hope that the Russians give it up without a fight, this would be a bad place for the the Ukrainians to have to recapture by force.
What was especially demented was that the Russians dug in. That is, dug trenches in some of the worst radiation spots.
According to one account, they used explosive charges to break up the ground.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
I've got the opposite problem - still testing positive with LFTs on day 7. Symptoms that I'd normally ignore come and go - minor sniffles and coughs, slightly disturbed sleep, an occasional shiver. Should I resume work (given it's all Teams/Zoom anyway)? I don't feel especially up to it, but we've all worked before many times when we were feeling a bit under par. I'm starting to feel guilty, though there's no very urgent work waiting (I'm keeping an eye on my work inbox). Is there any evidence that complete resting actually does any good in getting rid of it faster?
Yes Nick resume work. You have a sniffle and a cough it's ok you'll get through it. Did you have this internal angst when you have previously had colds or the flu?
People are still dying of Covid and still getting very ill. But look at Scotland - mask restrictions to continue and one (1) person in intensive care and that was "with" Covid so we don't know if that's the primary reason.
I suggest that people have very sadly, tragically, literally been driven mad by the past two years. Of course a lot of that was down to the illness. But much has been the terror instilled in people of....."Covid"....
Topping they do say the hospitals in Scotland are chocker with people with Covid. Had someone last week , their sister had heart attack and had to stay in ambulance more than 5 hours as no beds , place rammed.
I post these each day... ;-)
Confirms my scientific answer to Topping , thanks.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
I've got the opposite problem - still testing positive with LFTs on day 7. Symptoms that I'd normally ignore come and go - minor sniffles and coughs, slightly disturbed sleep, an occasional shiver. Should I resume work (given it's all Teams/Zoom anyway)? I don't feel especially up to it, but we've all worked before many times when we were feeling a bit under par. I'm starting to feel guilty, though there's no very urgent work waiting (I'm keeping an eye on my work inbox). Is there any evidence that complete resting actually does any good in getting rid of it faster?
Yes Nick resume work. You have a sniffle and a cough it's ok you'll get through it. Did you have this internal angst when you have previously had colds or the flu?
People are still dying of Covid and still getting very ill. But look at Scotland - mask restrictions to continue and one (1) person in intensive care and that was "with" Covid so we don't know if that's the primary reason.
I suggest that people have very sadly, tragically, literally been driven mad by the past two years. Of course a lot of that was down to the illness. But much has been the terror instilled in people of....."Covid"....
Topping they do say the hospitals in Scotland are chocker with people with Covid. Had someone last week , their sister had heart attack and had to stay in ambulance more than 5 hours as no beds , place rammed.
Interesting thanks for that Malc - R4 had a piece on it (yday I think) where the "one person" stat was used.
Topping stats from yesterday , seems lot have it and lots in hospital but ICU quiet
PS: They did say they thought it was at or over the peak recently
MV beds in Scotland has actually gone down, from where it was a couple of weeks ago...
Particularly important is the conclusion, that some kind of settlement in which Ukraine cedes Donbas to Russia ain't gonna work:
This is why taking Donbas is not a satisfactory consolation prize for Putin, let alone for those hardliners demanding that he stick to his maximalist objectives. It is simply a recipe for continued instability, turning Putin’s folly of 2014 into an even greater catastrophe, serving as a continuing drain on Russia’s dwindling economic and military resources.
Off topic weather update. It's now started snowing heavily down here on the south coast. Mrs Al is in the loft retrieving winter coats that were put away last week. I'd warned her this was premature.
Ne'er cast a clout Till May be out
[May = hawthorn blossom]
But beware the Blackthorn Winter!
[Blackthorn is definitely in full flower here, it comes out before the leaves]
On the Great PB Seasons Debate, I have decided that four seasons are too many, confusing and unhelpful. We are going down to two, Longday and Shortday, defined by the equinoxes
For those who favour a botanical slant, this roughly coincides with the time between the first apple blossom appearing and the last apple being picked, so we have Apple time and Shit time.
If you prefer to do it by reference to blackthorn, Apple Time pleasingly becomes Sloe Time.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
That was not difficult to predict. I just hope that the Russians give it up without a fight, this would be a bad place for the the Ukrainians to have to recapture by force.
If the Ukrainians go on the offensive just isolate it and offer the Russian troops medical assistance?
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
I've got the opposite problem - still testing positive with LFTs on day 7. Symptoms that I'd normally ignore come and go - minor sniffles and coughs, slightly disturbed sleep, an occasional shiver. Should I resume work (given it's all Teams/Zoom anyway)? I don't feel especially up to it, but we've all worked before many times when we were feeling a bit under par. I'm starting to feel guilty, though there's no very urgent work waiting (I'm keeping an eye on my work inbox). Is there any evidence that complete resting actually does any good in getting rid of it faster?
Yes Nick resume work. You have a sniffle and a cough it's ok you'll get through it. Did you have this internal angst when you have previously had colds or the flu?
People are still dying of Covid and still getting very ill. But look at Scotland - mask restrictions to continue and one (1) person in intensive care and that was "with" Covid so we don't know if that's the primary reason.
I suggest that people have very sadly, tragically, literally been driven mad by the past two years. Of course a lot of that was down to the illness. But much has been the terror instilled in people of....."Covid"....
Topping they do say the hospitals in Scotland are chocker with people with Covid. Had someone last week , their sister had heart attack and had to stay in ambulance more than 5 hours as no beds , place rammed.
Interesting thanks for that Malc - R4 had a piece on it (yday I think) where the "one person" stat was used.
Topping stats from yesterday , seems lot have it and lots in hospital but ICU quiet
PS: They did say they thought it was at or over the peak recently
Those stats indicate a lot of people are hospitalized with COVID rather than because of COVID, as one would expect when such a large percentage of the population is currently infected.
Off topic weather update. It's now started snowing heavily down here on the south coast. Mrs Al is in the loft retrieving winter coats that were put away last week. I'd warned her this was premature.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
I've got the opposite problem - still testing positive with LFTs on day 7. Symptoms that I'd normally ignore come and go - minor sniffles and coughs, slightly disturbed sleep, an occasional shiver. Should I resume work (given it's all Teams/Zoom anyway)? I don't feel especially up to it, but we've all worked before many times when we were feeling a bit under par. I'm starting to feel guilty, though there's no very urgent work waiting (I'm keeping an eye on my work inbox). Is there any evidence that complete resting actually does any good in getting rid of it faster?
Yes Nick resume work. You have a sniffle and a cough it's ok you'll get through it. Did you have this internal angst when you have previously had colds or the flu?
People are still dying of Covid and still getting very ill. But look at Scotland - mask restrictions to continue and one (1) person in intensive care and that was "with" Covid so we don't know if that's the primary reason.
I suggest that people have very sadly, tragically, literally been driven mad by the past two years. Of course a lot of that was down to the illness. But much has been the terror instilled in people of....."Covid"....
Topping they do say the hospitals in Scotland are chocker with people with Covid. Had someone last week , their sister had heart attack and had to stay in ambulance more than 5 hours as no beds , place rammed.
Interesting thanks for that Malc - R4 had a piece on it (yday I think) where the "one person" stat was used.
Topping stats from yesterday , seems lot have it and lots in hospital but ICU quiet
PS: They did say they thought it was at or over the peak recently
Those stats indicate a lot of people are hospitalized with COVID rather than because of COVID, as one would expect when such a large percentage of the population is currently infected.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Whoops. Did no-one tell the Russian soldiers about nuclear physics, nuclear waste and contaminated areas, before sending them into Chernobyl? Poor buggers.
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
Surely the fundamental conflict you raise is between the primacy of single sex spaces and having *any* legal route to gender change that doesn't involve mandatory surgery. It's not in essence about how hard or easy the process is (important though that is).
Unless a physical sex change is on the critical path to the legal gender change you are always going to have male-bodied trans women and thus be faced with picking one of the following approaches:
(a) Trans women *are* women - so they can access women's spaces. The default is inclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
(b) Trans women are *not* women - so they cannot access women's spaces. The default is exclusion. Exceptions possible but must be justified.
Forgetting about how we might disagree on what the answer should be, that's a correct framing, isn't it?
No. Not trying to be difficult here but the framing you have to look at is whether sex-based exemptions should exist at all. In order to make sense of your framing you first have to decide where the concept of "womens' spaces" comes from. Otherwise your framing is meaningless.
Pre-the Equality act there was no such concept in law. It was a matter of social convention. Then you have the Equality Act which says that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex ie equal treatment for everyone but then specifically excluded certain areas because of sex ie women only spaces for certain purposes where they can be justified.
Currently, the framing for such sex-based exemptions is like your (b) ie the default is no discrimination unless there is a legitimate reason to discriminate and the method used is proportionate to that aim.
Transwomen are excluded from those exemptions not because they are not treated as women (legally) (they are) but because their sex has not changed and those exemptions exist because sex is key to why they are needed. (Bluntly the GRA introduces a polite legal fiction but comes up against the material reality of sex when it comes to the exemptions in the Equality Act.)
The framing that is now being proposed is not about whether transwomen are or are not treated as women but about the removal of the sex-based exemptions. Your position - and those of Stonewall and other trans charities - is very explicitly that those sex-based exemptions (and indeed sex as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act) should be removed in their entirety. Therefore there would be no such thing as womens' spaces ie spaces for those of the female sex with a female body at all.
In short, the question of inclusion or exclusion ie whether a transwoman could go into a female loo would not arise because there would be no female only loos.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
You seek to be pretty ignorant if that's what you think.
I believe the free advice is "vaccines work so Covid is just another virus now, so why test any more?"
Covid or Common Cold or Flu it doesn't matter. Treat your symptoms. If you feel rotten, stay at home, as you would have before you'd even heard of Covid. If you're fine - don't.
And all that would be fine if BA1 Omicron was the virus and we're all now jabbed so screw it. Except it isn't - BA2 is the variant making people ill and we still need to keep track of variants which can keep mutating around the vaccines. We can't track if we don't bother to test any more.
We all need to treat it as any other virus - as we all agree (now, it wasn't the other fella's position) if you are ill you stay home. But largely we know that Norovirus is the arse-spraying mayhem friend of primary schools - it is what it is. If only Covid would stay as it is.
Covid is staying as it is. Viruses mutate, that's nothing new, but it is still Covid and the vaccine still works.
Common cold and influenza mutate too. We can monitor with scientific monitoring not every hypochondriac and their dog getting tested daily.
A student activist has been ordered to pay just £22 after being found guilty of causing of more than £1,000 of criminal damage.
Charlie Turner, 19, a sociology student at the University of Brighton, was caught by police spraying red paint on the doors of Sovereign House, Church Street, Brighton, in the early hours of December 17 last year.
They pleaded not guilty to the charge but were convicted on March 29 following a trial at Brighton Magistrates’ Court earlier in the month.
Particularly important is the conclusion, that some kind of settlement in which Ukraine cedes Donbas to Russia ain't gonna work:
This is why taking Donbas is not a satisfactory consolation prize for Putin, let alone for those hardliners demanding that he stick to his maximalist objectives. It is simply a recipe for continued instability, turning Putin’s folly of 2014 into an even greater catastrophe, serving as a continuing drain on Russia’s dwindling economic and military resources.
Thanks for posting this, Richard.
This bit of Girkin's assessment of the war stood out for me:
The war, he insists, must either be won completely or it will be lost completely. Losing he acknowledges as a distinct possibility. As things stand there are only a few weeks left before the forces in the Donbas will be unable to function.
Now Girkin may well have an interest in being overly apocalyptic, but it is interesting that he sees the possibility of total defeat, and even more so that he thinks the Russian position in the Donbas might soon become untenable.
Off topic weather update. It's now started snowing heavily down here on the south coast. Mrs Al is in the loft retrieving winter coats that were put away last week. I'd warned her this was premature.
You put winter coats away, ever? Where do you think you live - Southern Spain??
bloody softies , why would you need a coat in the UK apart from heavy rain
And now we have a few snowflakes in London, the media hysteria will be like an American presidential motorcade - all the howling and bells.
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
I hope you aren't suggesting they, er, need to grow some balls?
The funniest thing I learnt recently on this topic was that when the GRA was being introduced by Labour they insisted on a clause being put in to ensure that if the eldest daughter of a peer transitioned to being a man she still would not inherit a peerage.
Thus showing that at least for some things -
- sex trumps gender - it was important to deny transgender people rights that they might otherwise acquire - the rights of men born men trumped everything else if they were the sons of peers
All this pushed through by David Lammy. On behalf of the British aristocracy.
Labour: standing up for oppressed minorities.
Oh, the irony!
The British aristocracy probably promised that they would block the legislation in the Lords unless these changes were made. See “The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience” by Zoë Playdon for a deep dive into how the British aristocracy undid decades of work advancing trans rights back in the late 60s.
There was quite an interesting discussion about whether Zoe Playdon had understood what was happening in Scottish Law - conclusion by scottish lawyers tgat she hadn't.
Off topic weather update. It's now started snowing heavily down here on the south coast. Mrs Al is in the loft retrieving winter coats that were put away last week. I'd warned her this was premature.
Accurate:
Been the mildest winter I can remember for sure.
Only 15th warmest in central England (back to 1659).
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
I hope you aren't suggesting they, er, need to grow some balls?
The funniest thing I learnt recently on this topic was that when the GRA was being introduced by Labour they insisted on a clause being put in to ensure that if the eldest daughter of a peer transitioned to being a man she still would not inherit a peerage.
Thus showing that at least for some things -
- sex trumps gender - it was important to deny transgender people rights that they might otherwise acquire - the rights of men born men trumped everything else if they were the sons of peers
All this pushed through by David Lammy. On behalf of the British aristocracy.
Labour: standing up for oppressed minorities.
Oh, the irony!
That would only make a difference if there was some male (well ...) sibling who was already on the scene. And who had already the rights of being an heir (in terms of the entail and, in many cases, a courtesy title and so on). So presumably that would have violated the pre-existing rights of, say, the Master of Tannochbrae if [edit] his big sister Lord Glentumblers's eldest daughter suddenly felt like transitioning.
Edit also: the same would apply to the Royal Family. So Labour wouldn't want to rock that boat.
No, we've fixed it for the Royals. If George had been Georgina she'd have been in line for the top job, despite Louis
Oh, really? Thanks. I obviously don't cringe enough in terms of keeping up with the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.
You say that, but I bet you have dreams abouth the Rothesays coming to tea.
No, never have. Not at all. Just don't get that sort of dream.
Particularly important is the conclusion, that some kind of settlement in which Ukraine cedes Donbas to Russia ain't gonna work:
This is why taking Donbas is not a satisfactory consolation prize for Putin, let alone for those hardliners demanding that he stick to his maximalist objectives. It is simply a recipe for continued instability, turning Putin’s folly of 2014 into an even greater catastrophe, serving as a continuing drain on Russia’s dwindling economic and military resources.
Thanks for posting this, Richard.
This bit of Girkin's assessment of the war stood out for me:
The war, he insists, must either be won completely or it will be lost completely. Losing he acknowledges as a distinct possibility. As things stand there are only a few weeks left before the forces in the Donbas will be unable to function.
Now Girkin may well have an interest in being overly apocalyptic, but it is interesting that he sees the possibility of total defeat, and even more so that he thinks the Russian position in the Donbas might soon become untenable.
Girkin/Strelkov is one of the most interesting commentators on the whole war. He appeared on one Russian panel discussion that's since been taken down alongside a Kremlin propagandist. Strelkov was setting out how bad Russia's position was, and the propagandist was saying that to undermine the war effort was treachery. Strelkov then said that in his experience, those who shout loudest about patriotism are the first to run away or surrender when things get serious.
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
I hope you aren't suggesting they, er, need to grow some balls?
The funniest thing I learnt recently on this topic was that when the GRA was being introduced by Labour they insisted on a clause being put in to ensure that if the eldest daughter of a peer transitioned to being a man she still would not inherit a peerage.
Thus showing that at least for some things -
- sex trumps gender - it was important to deny transgender people rights that they might otherwise acquire - the rights of men born men trumped everything else if they were the sons of peers
All this pushed through by David Lammy. On behalf of the British aristocracy.
Labour: standing up for oppressed minorities.
Oh, the irony!
That would only make a difference if there was some male (well ...) sibling who was already on the scene. And who had already the rights of being an heir (in terms of the entail and, in many cases, a courtesy title and so on). So presumably that would have violated the pre-existing rights of, say, the Master of Tannochbrae if [edit] his big sister Lord Glentumblers's eldest daughter suddenly felt like transitioning.
Edit also: the same would apply to the Royal Family. So Labour wouldn't want to rock that boat.
No, we've fixed it for the Royals. If George had been Georgina she'd have been in line for the top job, despite Louis
Oh, really? Thanks. I obviously don't cringe enough in terms of keeping up with the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.
You say that, but I bet you have dreams abouth the Rothesays coming to tea.
No, never have. Not at all. Just don't get that sort of dream.
Particularly important is the conclusion, that some kind of settlement in which Ukraine cedes Donbas to Russia ain't gonna work:
This is why taking Donbas is not a satisfactory consolation prize for Putin, let alone for those hardliners demanding that he stick to his maximalist objectives. It is simply a recipe for continued instability, turning Putin’s folly of 2014 into an even greater catastrophe, serving as a continuing drain on Russia’s dwindling economic and military resources.
Thanks for posting this, Richard.
This bit of Girkin's assessment of the war stood out for me:
The war, he insists, must either be won completely or it will be lost completely. Losing he acknowledges as a distinct possibility. As things stand there are only a few weeks left before the forces in the Donbas will be unable to function.
Now Girkin may well have an interest in being overly apocalyptic, but it is interesting that he sees the possibility of total defeat, and even more so that he thinks the Russian position in the Donbas might soon become untenable.
We don't hear very much about what is happening in and around Donbas, so it's very hard to form a view as to whether that is exaggerated. Still, I think the assessment that Putin keeping Donbas as a consolation prize won't work looks compelling.
Wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia, which make up a vital part of the world's food supply are still being blocked by Russia from leaving the Black Sea, Germany's largest agricultural trader BayWa said this week.
"Zero [grain] is currently being exported from the ports of Ukraine — nothing is leaving the country at all," Jörg-Simon Immerz, head of the grain trading at BayWa, told dpa news agency.
I read somewhere (I forget where) that whilst Russia and Ukraine together make up 25% of world wheat exports, those exports make up very little of the total world supply, because the vast majority of wheat produced in most countries goes to local consumption. The conclusion, I suppose, is that it's not a big problem for most countries, unless they are wholly or mostly dependent on imports.
(Wheat not being planted is a separate (and worse) issue. But your quotation is about the blocking of exports.)
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
Because for so many people the LFT experience is a few days of negatives then goes positives. The cold can be bad but we all know what thats like. So when the symptoms are different and the health impact is worse and the test says -ive, the assumption is "probably Covid". As they're really ill its kind of academic at that point - they shouldn't be mixing with people whether it ends up being Covid or not.
In December 2021 I got a negative LFT and a negative PCR despite having every classic symptom of Covid, up to and including total loss of my sense of smell, something which has never happened before or since. I was very sick - deliriously feverish at one point - I’m 98% sure it was CV. Despite the neg results
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
You seek to be pretty ignorant if that's what you think.
I believe the free advice is "vaccines work so Covid is just another virus now, so why test any more?"
Covid or Common Cold or Flu it doesn't matter. Treat your symptoms. If you feel rotten, stay at home, as you would have before you'd even heard of Covid. If you're fine - don't.
And all that would be fine if BA1 Omicron was the virus and we're all now jabbed so screw it. Except it isn't - BA2 is the variant making people ill and we still need to keep track of variants which can keep mutating around the vaccines. We can't track if we don't bother to test any more.
We all need to treat it as any other virus - as we all agree (now, it wasn't the other fella's position) if you are ill you stay home. But largely we know that Norovirus is the arse-spraying mayhem friend of primary schools - it is what it is. If only Covid would stay as it is.
Covid is staying as it is. Viruses mutate, that's nothing new, but it is still Covid and the vaccine still works.
Common cold and influenza mutate too. We can monitor with scientific monitoring not every hypochondriac and their dog getting tested daily.
Well for instance I'd like to know now if a virus I get is covid or not because, given the falling off of booster efficacy over time, I'd like to know my likely immune status in the event a nastier variant emerges this summer.
Jo Coburn peddling the nonsense line of "well, some men are taller than others, etc. etc."
Could someone explain to her the concepts of (a) different classes and (b) differences within those classes.
Jaw dropping piece in the Independent a few days ago explaining the swimmer was no different from other women because she hadn't actually broken the female world record. So that's OK then
Wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia, which make up a vital part of the world's food supply are still being blocked by Russia from leaving the Black Sea, Germany's largest agricultural trader BayWa said this week.
"Zero [grain] is currently being exported from the ports of Ukraine — nothing is leaving the country at all," Jörg-Simon Immerz, head of the grain trading at BayWa, told dpa news agency.
I read somewhere (I forget where) that whilst Russia and Ukraine together make up 25% of world wheat exports, those exports make up very little of the total world supply, because the vast majority of wheat produced in most countries goes to local consumption. The conclusion, I suppose, is that it's not a big problem for most countries, unless they are wholly or mostly dependent on imports.
(Wheat not being planted is a separate (and worse) issue. But your quotation is about the blocking of exports.)
My understanding is that it is an urgent issue for a few countries, particularly in the Middle East, such as Egypt, who are heavily dependent on imported Ukrainian wheat as a staple in the country's diet.
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas, I am cynically assuming that young Wes is carefully and quietly positioning himself for the time when he has to do a Kinnock-style speech on basic biology to a Labour Party conference. ("I'll tell you and you'll listen .... ").
The speech will be hailed as a brave masterstroke & everyone else will be wondering: "What took you so f***ing long?".
Jo Coburn peddling the nonsense line of "well, some men are taller than others, etc. etc."
Could someone explain to her the concepts of (a) different classes and (b) differences within those classes.
I reckon what needs to happen is that female sports gets reclassified as disability sport, which it essentially is anyway. But it might make some people see sense.
Jo Coburn peddling the nonsense line of "well, some men are taller than others, etc. etc."
Could someone explain to her the concepts of (a) different classes and (b) differences within those classes.
I fear we’re going to have to see a few boycotts of mis-matches before common sense breaks out. I was happy to see, in the case of the swimmer, the “second”, “third” and “fourth” place finishers stand together on the podium.
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas".
Sigh.
Gender is not reducible to bits of the body and the world would be a much poorer place if it were. It would also be fantastically discriminatory on all sorts of levels. Why a vagina not a womb? Why a penis and not testicles? And what about breasts? Women have them but so do men and yet male breasts are non functioning, mostly. And gender is sooooo much more, including chromosome and hormones and body structure and brain function and identity and behaviour and a myriad others beside.
The problem with all of this stems from Britain's ludicrous tendency to be binary about just about everything. Brexit was an example and this has only increased of late. Gender is yet another. It's all this or that: simplistic thinking for simplistic angry people.
One of the many great things about a lot of Asia is their recognition of the complexity of gender, their acceptance of third and even fourth genders.
If we recognised transexuals as another form of gender expression it might relieve a lot of the pressure on those who identify as women to be in all the same spaces as natal born women.
But as ever this nuanced approach will be lost in the anger and antagonism which finds expression from the mouths of people like Piers Morgan, Vladimir Putin and some on here.
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
The irony of you complaining about other people being nasty in the very same comment that you - once again - proudly show off your racism, sexism and ageism.
Jo Coburn peddling the nonsense line of "well, some men are taller than others, etc. etc."
Could someone explain to her the concepts of (a) different classes and (b) differences within those classes.
I reckon what needs to happen is that female sports gets reclassified as disability sport, which it essentially is anyway. But it might make some people see sense.
In rowing, we have age categorisation
And how.
Masters category Average crew age born before A 27 31 Dec 1995 B 36 31 Dec 1986 C 43 31 Dec 1979 D 50 31 Dec 1972 E 55 31 Dec 1967 F 60 31 Dec 1962 G 65 31 Dec 1957 H 70 31 Dec 1952 I 75 31 Dec 1947 J 80 31 Dec 1942 K 83 31 Dec 1937 L 86 31 Dec 1936 M 89 31 Dec 1933
Actually L and M are proposed, I believe.
I really, really like the idea that there are rowing crews out there with an average age of 89....
Wheat exports from Ukraine and Russia, which make up a vital part of the world's food supply are still being blocked by Russia from leaving the Black Sea, Germany's largest agricultural trader BayWa said this week.
"Zero [grain] is currently being exported from the ports of Ukraine — nothing is leaving the country at all," Jörg-Simon Immerz, head of the grain trading at BayWa, told dpa news agency.
I read somewhere (I forget where) that whilst Russia and Ukraine together make up 25% of world wheat exports, those exports make up very little of the total world supply, because the vast majority of wheat produced in most countries goes to local consumption. The conclusion, I suppose, is that it's not a big problem for most countries, unless they are wholly or mostly dependent on imports.
(Wheat not being planted is a separate (and worse) issue. But your quotation is about the blocking of exports.)
Yes.
Gormless journalists across the media have been babbling about this for weeks, nearly months now, and confusing the two. It's just what they do, as we all know.
I've heard the confusion of export supply with global production in such should-be-reliable places as You and Yours on R4. They really don't do context much of the time.
They were doing one half an hour ago about someone who's rent had just increased from £425 to £550 a month. But did not explore how long it had been at £425 for. I've just agreed a slighty smaller (20%) increase with a T, but that is just a catch up with inflation to help after many (5+) years of a fixed cash rent level, which was 5% below market even back then, to help her get through the very early few years for kids.
I see someone is once again using the spam flag to target comments that they disagree with, which @PBModerator has specifically told people not to do...
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas".
Sigh.
Gender is not reducible to bits of the body and the world would be a much poorer place if it were. It would also be fantastically discriminatory on all sorts of levels. Why a vagina not a womb? Why a penis and not testicles? And what about breasts? Women have them but so do men and yet male breasts are non functioning, mostly. And gender is sooooo much more, including chromosome and hormones and body structure and brain function and identity and behaviour and a myriad others beside.
The problem with all of this stems from Britain's ludicrous tendency to be binary about just about everything. Brexit was an example and this has only increased of late. Gender is yet another. It's all this or that: simplistic thinking for simplistic angry people.
One of the many great things about a lot of Asia is their recognition of the complexity of gender, their acceptance of third and even fourth genders.
If we recognised transexuals as another form of gender expression it might relieve a lot of the pressure on those who identify as women to be in all the same spaces as natal born women.
But as ever this nuanced approach will be lost in the anger and antagonism which finds expression from the mouths of people like Piers Morgan, Vladimir Putin and some on here.
Sigh again.
I shall leave it there.
Do you believe gender is more important than biological sex in determining how society should be organised?
What is a “she-cock”?
Does it belong in women’s prisons or refuges?
Is a lesbian who declined to suck a she-cock a homophobe?
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
This is a politics website. Trans issues are dominating domestic politics
Your comment, treating trans as = non-binary, is very, very typical of those with little or no experience of meeting people in either category
I challenge you to quote a single post which is "in Vladimir Putin's camp." The posters who I am sure you classify as "anti trans," in line with your utterly simplistic reduction of any debate to two-tribes sloganeering, are in fact solely concerned with protecting women in a few edge case but very important contexts from abuse by people who are almost certainly not trans in the first place.
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas".
Sigh.
Gender is not reducible to bits of the body and the world would be a much poorer place if it were. It would also be fantastically discriminatory on all sorts of levels. Why a vagina not a womb? Why a penis and not testicles? And what about breasts? Women have them but so do men and yet male breasts are non functioning, mostly. And gender is sooooo much more, including chromosome and hormones and body structure and brain function and identity and behaviour and a myriad others beside.
The problem with all of this stems from Britain's ludicrous tendency to be binary about just about everything. Brexit was an example and this has only increased of late. Gender is yet another. It's all this or that: simplistic thinking for simplistic angry people.
One of the many great things about a lot of Asia is their recognition of the complexity of gender, their acceptance of third and even fourth genders.
If we recognised transexuals as another form of gender expression it might relieve a lot of the pressure on those who identify as women to be in all the same spaces as natal born women.
But as ever this nuanced approach will be lost in the anger and antagonism which finds expression from the mouths of people like Piers Morgan, Vladimir Putin and some on here.
Sigh again.
I shall leave it there.
Lol. Bravo
Britain is intrinsically ‘binary’ hence our uniquely horrible Transphobia AND the horror that is Brexit
Genius
Translation: a lot of Britons think people with penises are men, that’s why they voted to leave a quasi-Federal trading bloc
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
The irony of you complaining about other people being nasty in the very same comment that you - once again - proudly show off your racism, sexism and ageism.
When you are morally superior, you cannot be racist, sexist or ageist. It's a well-known fact.
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas".
Sigh.
Gender is not reducible to bits of the body and the world would be a much poorer place if it were. It would also be fantastically discriminatory on all sorts of levels. Why a vagina not a womb? Why a penis and not testicles? And what about breasts? Women have them but so do men and yet male breasts are non functioning, mostly. And gender is sooooo much more, including chromosome and hormones and body structure and brain function and identity and behaviour and a myriad others beside.
The problem with all of this stems from Britain's ludicrous tendency to be binary about just about everything. Brexit was an example and this has only increased of late. Gender is yet another. It's all this or that: simplistic thinking for simplistic angry people.
One of the many great things about a lot of Asia is their recognition of the complexity of gender, their acceptance of third and even fourth genders.
If we recognised transexuals as another form of gender expression it might relieve a lot of the pressure on those who identify as women to be in all the same spaces as natal born women.
But as ever this nuanced approach will be lost in the anger and antagonism which finds expression from the mouths of people like Piers Morgan, Vladimir Putin and some on here.
Sigh again.
I shall leave it there.
The impressive thing about Reeves this morning was that she framed the questions in terms of people, not dictionary definitions.
Start from there, and an answer (often messy, but broadly acceptable) tends to emerge.
Start from abstractions, and it's too easy to end up in eternal shouting, and reasonable concerns get lost.
A tiny dollop of good news, The government has rescinded on its order to pore concrete down the 2 working shale gas wells in Lancashire, that was meant to happen by the end of the month. ok they are not big produces, but the insanity of destroying our own productive capacity while also trying to cut dependence on Russian gas was silly.
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
Obsessed ?
It is something that is discussed from time to time along with a wide range of issues. It is topical at the moment due to it being raised as an issue with various politicians who tie themselves in knots over the issue.
Why don't you put a sock in it. You don't seem to like this place or the people in it. You seem to think you should just present your opinion and we all accept it.
I do not even know why you post here. I do not know what you get from it.
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
The irony of you complaining about other people being nasty in the very same comment that you - once again - proudly show off your racism, sexism and ageism.
When you are morally superior, you cannot be racist, sexist or ageist. It's a well-known fact.
If you want to be feel morally superior, then call your racism, sexism and ageism, anti-racism, anti-sexism and anti-ageism.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Those numbers are likely wrong, at least they don’t match sources I’ve found elsewhere, which suggest that the background radiation dose in the parts of Chernobyl immediately adjacent to the reactor (the “red forest“ can be /much/ higher than 10μSv/hr. According to the online sources I’ve seen, parts of the Red Forest still read levels of 10mSv/hr to this day. That’s a serious level of radiation - a level that you’d be fine with for an hour or two, but spend a few weeks there & you’re going to hit the LD50 radiation dose...
Worse, it sounds as if the Russian soldiers might have dug themselves in, which means a) they disturbed the topsoil and then b) slept on top of it. So they were potentially breathing in contaminated dust. This is much, much worse than just standing around near a radiation source.
I think the story is kind of plausible, but will wait for confirmation - I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
It could be that my sources for the rad levels are wrong, but the dust inhalation due to trench digging is a massive issue that the twitter poster ignores. It could well be that the soldiers have been taken for examination in case of contamination?
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
Obsessed ?
It is something that is discussed from time to time along with a wide range of issues. It is topical at the moment due to it being raised as an issue with various politicians who tie themselves in knots over the issue.
Why don't you put a sock in it. You don't seem to like this place or the people in it. You seem to think you should just present your opinion and we all accept it.
I do not even know why you post here. I do not know what you get from it.
Go back to your delusions.
The same thing any troll gets: attention and disruption.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
I know you are joking, but the advice I hope will be 'if you have symptoms/are ill, stay at home', which would be a decent start.
I'd question what millions of people testing every day is achieving right now. Certainly its not free in any sense - as a country we are paying for those tests. The ONS and waste water is probably what we need to continue with.
I don't think we need to test are people ill. Its more being able to keep track of the virus as it mutates - BA2 bringing all kinds of fun in ways that BA1 did. Do we know what is next?
We will still be doing the ONS survey plus monitoring the variants. BA2 isn't that much worse that BA1. Despite some people on twitter losing their heads, most people are getting a fairly mild illness and getting better. And they are not going through endless cycles of reinfection. Denmark shows what will happen here in the next few weeks - cases are going to fall and steeply. We will see a classic wave shape, not moderated by lockdowns.
Why is this place so obsessed with trans issues and usually from a really nasty (white old men - there's a surprise) perspective?
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
The irony of you complaining about other people being nasty in the very same comment that you - once again - proudly show off your racism, sexism and ageism.
When you are morally superior, you cannot be racist, sexist or ageist. It's a well-known fact.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Its not just the Daily Mail....but I think classic example of media circle jerk reacting to something they read on one site / social media post and repeating it unchecked (as I just did)...just a flavour of outlets repeating some version of this story.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
You seek to be pretty ignorant if that's what you think.
I believe the free advice is "vaccines work so Covid is just another virus now, so why test any more?"
Covid or Common Cold or Flu it doesn't matter. Treat your symptoms. If you feel rotten, stay at home, as you would have before you'd even heard of Covid. If you're fine - don't.
And all that would be fine if BA1 Omicron was the virus and we're all now jabbed so screw it. Except it isn't - BA2 is the variant making people ill and we still need to keep track of variants which can keep mutating around the vaccines. We can't track if we don't bother to test any more.
We all need to treat it as any other virus - as we all agree (now, it wasn't the other fella's position) if you are ill you stay home. But largely we know that Norovirus is the arse-spraying mayhem friend of primary schools - it is what it is. If only Covid would stay as it is.
Covid is staying as it is. Viruses mutate, that's nothing new, but it is still Covid and the vaccine still works.
Common cold and influenza mutate too. We can monitor with scientific monitoring not every hypochondriac and their dog getting tested daily.
Who said anything about testing people daily?
Many of the people who've been using free testing when they've no medical or scientific reason to do so.
Scientific monitoring doesn't require pandering to hypochondriacs. Covid doesn't need testing for post vaccines, except where clinically recommended.
Incredible testimony on BFMTV from this mayor of Melitopol who was kidnapped for several days by the Russians. He says they had no idea what’s going on. They told him we’re here to get the Nazis - he said I’ve been in this town 30 years and I’ve never met one…. then they said
well we’re here to help the Russian speakers snd he said 95% of us speak Russian and we’re fine. They said they heard that the World War II veterans of the town had been beaten in the patriot day and he said au contraire they’re venerated and there’s not very many of them left.
I have decided that @Heathener is an experiment by @rcs1000 using GPT3 to pose as a commenter and keep the debate going. No sane individual could spew out this weird mix of random left wing piety, earnest yet eerie dullness, pro war craziness, with provocative dashes of bigotry and rank stupidity.
The syntax also has the odd lapse into total incoherence. Very telling. She’s a computer program and I for one salute Mr SMITHSON’s ingenuity
On Le Pen, obviously she has the national front background, but how extreme is she and her party today?
As a comparison which UK politicians would be closest to her politics?
Continuity UKIP maybe.
From talking with fairly non-political French friends - she is still seen as The Fascist. Doesn't matter what she does or says, that is what they see her as. Forever.
Middle class, university educated people, so obviously not representative of the whole population.
I see that the Head of the French Military Intelligence has just been sacked, two weeks before the election.
Off topic weather update. It's now started snowing heavily down here on the south coast. Mrs Al is in the loft retrieving winter coats that were put away last week. I'd warned her this was premature.
Ne'er cast a clout Till May be out
[May = hawthorn blossom]
But beware the Blackthorn Winter!
[Blackthorn is definitely in full flower here, it comes out before the leaves]
On the Great PB Seasons Debate, I have decided that four seasons are too many, confusing and unhelpful. We are going down to two, Longday and Shortday, defined by the equinoxes
For those who favour a botanical slant, this roughly coincides with the time between the first apple blossom appearing and the last apple being picked, so we have Apple time and Shit time.
If you prefer to do it by reference to blackthorn, Apple Time pleasingly becomes Sloe Time.
Sloe Time, yes, very good, although September is possibly a bit early at the back end.
On an unrelated PoliticalBetting note, there is a by-election in the Flatlands today.
The crime commissioner (Labour) of Doncaster Council is under an extradition order to the US on drugs charges*, so has had to step down.
I suspect Labour will hold on with the anti vote split between the Tories and the Yorkshire Party if anyone bothers to turn out. LibDems nowhere. Ward contains a partial oasis of reasonable owner occupied housing but I wouldn't call it gentrified.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Those numbers are likely wrong, at least they don’t match sources I’ve found elsewhere, which suggest that the background radiation dose in the parts of Chernobyl immediately adjacent to the reactor (the “red forest“ can be /much/ higher than 10μSv/hr. According to the online sources I’ve seen, parts of the Red Forest still read levels of 10mSv/hr to this day. That’s a serious level of radiation - a level that you’d be fine with for an hour or two, but spend a few weeks there & you’re going to hit the LD50 radiation dose...
Worse, it sounds as if the Russian soldiers might have dug themselves in, which means a) they disturbed the topsoil and then b) slept on top of it. So they were potentially breathing in contaminated dust. This is much, much worse than just standing around near a radiation source.
I think the story is entirely plausible, but will wait for confirmation - I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
If they’ve been “digging in”, in the contamination zone close to the reactor, with no PPE against radiation, then their dose will have been very high over a period of weeks.
When they built the new containment structure, the biggest problem they had was getting enough trained people to work at the site, because of the strict limits on radiation exposure. In some places, each team could only work for a few minutes per day, even with extensive PPE.
I doubt the Russian army went in with Geiger counters and radiation monitor badges.
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
I hope you aren't suggesting they, er, need to grow some balls?
The funniest thing I learnt recently on this topic was that when the GRA was being introduced by Labour they insisted on a clause being put in to ensure that if the eldest daughter of a peer transitioned to being a man she still would not inherit a peerage.
Thus showing that at least for some things -
- sex trumps gender - it was important to deny transgender people rights that they might otherwise acquire - the rights of men born men trumped everything else if they were the sons of peers
All this pushed through by David Lammy. On behalf of the British aristocracy.
Labour: standing up for oppressed minorities.
Oh, the irony!
The British aristocracy probably promised that they would block the legislation in the Lords unless these changes were made. See “The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience” by Zoë Playdon for a deep dive into how the British aristocracy undid decades of work advancing trans rights back in the late 60s.
There was quite an interesting discussion about whether Zoe Playdon had understood what was happening in Scottish Law - conclusion by scottish lawyers tgat she hadn't.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
You seek to be pretty ignorant if that's what you think.
I believe the free advice is "vaccines work so Covid is just another virus now, so why test any more?"
Covid or Common Cold or Flu it doesn't matter. Treat your symptoms. If you feel rotten, stay at home, as you would have before you'd even heard of Covid. If you're fine - don't.
And all that would be fine if BA1 Omicron was the virus and we're all now jabbed so screw it. Except it isn't - BA2 is the variant making people ill and we still need to keep track of variants which can keep mutating around the vaccines. We can't track if we don't bother to test any more.
We all need to treat it as any other virus - as we all agree (now, it wasn't the other fella's position) if you are ill you stay home. But largely we know that Norovirus is the arse-spraying mayhem friend of primary schools - it is what it is. If only Covid would stay as it is.
Covid is staying as it is. Viruses mutate, that's nothing new, but it is still Covid and the vaccine still works.
Common cold and influenza mutate too. We can monitor with scientific monitoring not every hypochondriac and their dog getting tested daily.
Well for instance I'd like to know now if a virus I get is covid or not because, given the falling off of booster efficacy over time, I'd like to know my likely immune status in the event a nastier variant emerges this summer.
In which case if it's idle curiosity like that you can pay for a test, just like you can pay for all sorts of other unnecessary tests etc privately.
That's what free choice and private enterprise are for, not the NHS.
Rushing things is a bad idea of course, but moving fast is not always rushing (and things that usually take a long time can usually be expedited when there's will to get it done). I do wonder why might change between now and May which might alter the decision they need to make, as right now it looks pretty straightforward that there's little benefit and potentially much harm in not officially being within, even if they have cooperation and partnership.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Those numbers are likely wrong, at least they don’t match sources I’ve found elsewhere, which suggest that the background radiation dose in the parts of Chernobyl immediately adjacent to the reactor (the “red forest“ can be /much/ higher than 10μSv/hr. According to the online sources I’ve seen, parts of the Red Forest still read levels of 10mSv/hr to this day. That’s a serious level of radiation - a level that you’d be fine with for an hour or two, but spend a few weeks there & you’re going to hit the LD50 radiation dose...
Worse, it sounds as if the Russian soldiers might have dug themselves in, which means a) they disturbed the topsoil and then b) slept on top of it. So they were potentially breathing in contaminated dust. This is much, much worse than just standing around near a radiation source.
I think the story is kind of plausible, but will wait for confirmation - I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
It could be that my sources for the rad levels are wrong, but the dust inhalation due to trench digging is a massive issue that the twitter poster ignores. It could well be that the soldiers have been taken for examination in case of contamination?
Further investigation - I’m not sure I entirely believe the sources that suggest that the red forest still has places with backgrounds of 10mSv/hr.
But the dust inhalation would seem to be a real issue of concern - I can well believe they took a bunch of soldiers to hospital to get checked out.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Its not just the Daily Mail....but I think classic example of media circle jerk reacting to something they read on one site / social media post and repeating it unchecked (as I just did)...just a flavour of outlets repeating some version of this story.
My basic reaction on first seeing 'news' like this is to ask, how useful would this be if it is merely propaganda? If the answer is 'very', treat with great caution.
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
You seek to be pretty ignorant if that's what you think.
I believe the free advice is "vaccines work so Covid is just another virus now, so why test any more?"
Covid or Common Cold or Flu it doesn't matter. Treat your symptoms. If you feel rotten, stay at home, as you would have before you'd even heard of Covid. If you're fine - don't.
And all that would be fine if BA1 Omicron was the virus and we're all now jabbed so screw it. Except it isn't - BA2 is the variant making people ill and we still need to keep track of variants which can keep mutating around the vaccines. We can't track if we don't bother to test any more.
We all need to treat it as any other virus - as we all agree (now, it wasn't the other fella's position) if you are ill you stay home. But largely we know that Norovirus is the arse-spraying mayhem friend of primary schools - it is what it is. If only Covid would stay as it is.
Covid is staying as it is. Viruses mutate, that's nothing new, but it is still Covid and the vaccine still works.
Common cold and influenza mutate too. We can monitor with scientific monitoring not every hypochondriac and their dog getting tested daily.
Well for instance I'd like to know now if a virus I get is covid or not because, given the falling off of booster efficacy over time, I'd like to know my likely immune status in the event a nastier variant emerges this summer.
In which case if it's idle curiosity like that you can pay for a test, just like you can pay for all sorts of other unnecessary tests etc privately.
That's what free choice and private enterprise are for, not the NHS.
You are mad, you realise?
I have a stockpile of free tests so large I have had to move some of the loo paper into the garage, wouldn't like the tax free housing gains I've made over the years by relentlessly protesting at any form of homebuilding to be frittered away paying for that shit.
ON topic there is one known unknown which should give any bettor pause for thought
The Debates.
We know these can be crucial from our own elections, and indyref. The French prez debates were crucial last time when Le Pen blew it.
She’s not good at debates. Presumably she’s had training. Macron is annoying but he’s eloquent and smart and knows his onions. He will hope to outclass and expose her, again
But what if he doesn’t? That’s the moment when she *could* change the game, and win. I seriously doubt that she will. Yet it is something to consider
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas, I am cynically assuming that young Wes is carefully and quietly positioning himself for the time when he has to do a Kinnock-style speech on basic biology to a Labour Party conference. ("I'll tell you and you'll listen .... ").
The speech will be hailed as a brave masterstroke & everyone else will be wondering: "What took you so f***ing long?".
Congrats to the sour-pusses double flagging this post. Bra Vo.
Anyway, why can't we start deploying words like "usually". Men usually have a Penis. Women usually have a Vagina. Not always. Just as the rows over people in possession of a cervix had to be reigned in after the medical reasons to be a born female woman and not having said bits was pointed out.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Its not just the Daily Mail....but I think classic example of media circle jerk reacting to something they read on one site / social media post and repeating it unchecked (as I just did)...just a flavour of outlets repeating some version of this story.
My basic reaction on first seeing 'news' like this is to ask, how useful would this be if it is merely propaganda? If the answer is 'very', treat with great caution.
This one was a 'very'.
If it is, it definitely worked....loads of supposed reputable media sources (not Daily Mail) are repeating this story. Another example of the media reading a bit of news on social media and all copy / pasting it.
Its now "fact" in the google machine....regardless of the facts.
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
I hope you aren't suggesting they, er, need to grow some balls?
The funniest thing I learnt recently on this topic was that when the GRA was being introduced by Labour they insisted on a clause being put in to ensure that if the eldest daughter of a peer transitioned to being a man she still would not inherit a peerage.
Thus showing that at least for some things -
- sex trumps gender - it was important to deny transgender people rights that they might otherwise acquire - the rights of men born men trumped everything else if they were the sons of peers
All this pushed through by David Lammy. On behalf of the British aristocracy.
Labour: standing up for oppressed minorities.
Oh, the irony!
That would only make a difference if there was some male (well ...) sibling who was already on the scene. And who had already the rights of being an heir (in terms of the entail and, in many cases, a courtesy title and so on). So presumably that would have violated the pre-existing rights of, say, the Master of Tannochbrae if [edit] his big sister Lord Glentumblers's eldest daughter suddenly felt like transitioning.
Edit also: the same would apply to the Royal Family. So Labour wouldn't want to rock that boat.
No, we've fixed it for the Royals. If George had been Georgina she'd have been in line for the top job, despite Louis
Oh, really? Thanks. I obviously don't cringe enough in terms of keeping up with the Saxe-Coburg-Gothas.
You say that, but I bet you have dreams abouth the Rothesays coming to tea.
No, never have. Not at all. Just don't get that sort of dream.
I didn't really think so!
I was genuinely interested in the point you raised - It had never occurred to me that I might be mildly abnormal in this, till you reminded me how common the dream motif allegedly is.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Its not just the Daily Mail....but I think classic example of media circle jerk reacting to something they read on one site / social media post and repeating it unchecked (as I just did)...just a flavour of outlets repeating some version of this story.
My basic reaction on first seeing 'news' like this is to ask, how useful would this be if it is merely propaganda? If the answer is 'very', treat with great caution.
This one was a 'very'.
Well yes, apart from we saw the stupidity of Russians shelling part of the plant, live on Chernobyl CCTV. So complete stupidity can't be ruled out in this case.
ON topic there is one known unknown which should give any bettor pause for thought
The Debates.
We know these can be crucial from our own elections, and indyref. The French prez debates were crucial last time when Le Pen blew it.
She’s not good at debates. Presumably she’s had training. Macron is annoying but he’s eloquent and smart and knows his onions. He will hope to outclass and expose her, again
But what if he doesn’t? That’s the moment when she *could* change the game, and win. I seriously doubt that she will. Yet it is something to consider
That's sort of what I was thinking,
Remember when everybody expected Obama was going to beet Romney in the debates? but Romney practiced hard and it looks like Obama did not, then on the day it was much closer perhaps even Romney won.
Could the same happen, possibly but I don't think it would overturn Macrons lead even if it did, Le Pen at best can match him, and that's not going to be enough.
2019: Tory 2017: Tory 2015: Tory 2005: Tony 2001: Tony 1997: Tony 1992: Tory 1987: Tory 1983: Tory 1979: Tory 1974, at second time of asking, a Lab PM, just. 1970: Tory 1966: Lab majority.
It was delightful defeating Tories 97-10. Not so much defeating them, but making them utterly irrelevant.
And then forgetting how it happened. Governing parties MUST embrace the centre to win.
++Betting Post ++ Smarkets has a 63% chance of a Tory hold in the Melton council by-election tonight. This looks free money to this observer. They've held this ward every time this Century. Only possible fly in the ointment is there is a LD candidate this time. They've never stood before. But with a Labour one too, I can't see other than a hold. DYOR as ever, mind.
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Supposedly they will ignore the financial beating they are taking, the lack of levelling up monies being spent and the growing disparity between the north and dahn sarf because she-cocked deviants are coming for our wives and daughters.
Russian troops at Chernobyl are being treated for radiation sickness in Belarus, an employee at the Ukrainian state agency overseeing the exclusion zone has claimed.
Yaroslav Yemelianenko said yesterday that 'another batch of Russians' had been taken to the 'Belarusian Radiation Medicine Center in Gomel' for treatment.
It comes after the nuclear power plant's workers said Russian soldiers' arrival at Chernobyl without anti-radiation gear when Moscow's forces seized the site last month was 'suicidal'.
Yemelianenko said the Kremlin's men had fallen ill because they failed to follow 'rules for dealing' with the Chernobyl nuclear plant and the surrounding highly toxic zone known as the Red Forest.
'With minimal intelligence in command or soldiers, these consequences could have been avoided,' he said, adding that radiation protection is 'mandatory because radiation is physics – it works without regard to status or shoulder straps.'
Those numbers are likely wrong, at least they don’t match sources I’ve found elsewhere, which suggest that the background radiation dose in the parts of Chernobyl immediately adjacent to the reactor (the “red forest“ can be /much/ higher than 10μSv/hr. According to the online sources I’ve seen, parts of the Red Forest still read levels of 10mSv/hr to this day. That’s a serious level of radiation - a level that you’d be fine with for an hour or two, but spend a few weeks there & you’re going to hit the LD50 radiation dose...
Worse, it sounds as if the Russian soldiers might have dug themselves in, which means a) they disturbed the topsoil and then b) slept on top of it. So they were potentially breathing in contaminated dust. This is much, much worse than just standing around near a radiation source.
I think the story is kind of plausible, but will wait for confirmation - I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
It could be that my sources for the rad levels are wrong, but the dust inhalation due to trench digging is a massive issue that the twitter poster ignores. It could well be that the soldiers have been taken for examination in case of contamination?
Is this just another Daily Mail "massive doses of radiation from the topsoil gives you CANCER" scare story?
I see someone is once again using the spam flag to target comments that they disagree with, which @PBModerator has specifically told people not to do...
Points for irony to the person who flagged this as off topic.
I have decided that @Heathener is an experiment by @rcs1000 using GPT3 to pose as a commenter and keep the debate going. No sane individual could spew out this weird mix of random left wing piety, earnest yet eerie dullness, pro war craziness, with provocative dashes of bigotry and rank stupidity.
The syntax also has the odd lapse into total incoherence. Very telling. She’s a computer program and I for one salute Mr SMITHSON’s ingenuity
Is now the time to bring out into the open the fact that everyone on the site is a mere figment of @rcs1000's extraordinary imagination?
Has anyone else encountered the phenomenon whereby people are ill, ‘pass’ several LFTs (i.e. the tests are negative), yet still assume - and say - they have covid?
I’ve encountered this several times in the last few weeks. The common cold has not disappeared - and can be unpleasant.
Why do people say it’s covid when the tests say otherwise?
I've fallen guilty to this myself a bit. I had a sore throat then minor cold symptom, productive cough for about 10 days. I tested negative, but only one test cos I couldn't be arsed. I wonder if it was covid? No proof BUT with the prevalence so high, there is a good chance it was. The lateral flows are not 100% for detecting and are subject to operator error.
Also - does it matter now? I think we will be getting new advice from tomorrow when free testing ends.
I think the free advice is "there is no more Covid so why test any more".
You seek to be pretty ignorant if that's what you think.
I believe the free advice is "vaccines work so Covid is just another virus now, so why test any more?"
Covid or Common Cold or Flu it doesn't matter. Treat your symptoms. If you feel rotten, stay at home, as you would have before you'd even heard of Covid. If you're fine - don't.
And all that would be fine if BA1 Omicron was the virus and we're all now jabbed so screw it. Except it isn't - BA2 is the variant making people ill and we still need to keep track of variants which can keep mutating around the vaccines. We can't track if we don't bother to test any more.
We all need to treat it as any other virus - as we all agree (now, it wasn't the other fella's position) if you are ill you stay home. But largely we know that Norovirus is the arse-spraying mayhem friend of primary schools - it is what it is. If only Covid would stay as it is.
Covid is staying as it is. Viruses mutate, that's nothing new, but it is still Covid and the vaccine still works.
Common cold and influenza mutate too. We can monitor with scientific monitoring not every hypochondriac and their dog getting tested daily.
Well for instance I'd like to know now if a virus I get is covid or not because, given the falling off of booster efficacy over time, I'd like to know my likely immune status in the event a nastier variant emerges this summer.
In which case if it's idle curiosity like that you can pay for a test, just like you can pay for all sorts of other unnecessary tests etc privately.
That's what free choice and private enterprise are for, not the NHS.
The transition away from a pandemic is something that will keep social science PhDs busy for a few years to come.
While the correct way forward from a government point of view is to remove the restrictions, individuals and businesses will take longer to adapt. We will likely see permanent changes in behaviour, such as people WFH and avoiding elderly relatives when sick, and companies not trying to push sick people into indoor workplaces. Not just sick people either, there’s been a couple of decades of change in white-collar work patterns in the last couple of years.
Anyway, after Wes Streeting yesterday said that men have penises and women have vaginas, I am cynically assuming that young Wes is carefully and quietly positioning himself for the time when he has to do a Kinnock-style speech on basic biology to a Labour Party conference. ("I'll tell you and you'll listen .... ").
The speech will be hailed as a brave masterstroke & everyone else will be wondering: "What took you so f***ing long?".
Congrats to the sour-pusses double flagging this post. Bra Vo.
Anyway, why can't we start deploying words like "usually". Men usually have a Penis. Women usually have a Vagina. Not always. Just as the rows over people in possession of a cervix had to be reigned in after the medical reasons to be a born female woman and not having said bits was pointed out.
So, usually. Issue done. Move on.
REINED in
I think what with Streeting and the cycling decision we may be approaching peak twattery on this issue.
ON topic there is one known unknown which should give any bettor pause for thought
The Debates.
We know these can be crucial from our own elections, and indyref. The French prez debates were crucial last time when Le Pen blew it.
She’s not good at debates. Presumably she’s had training. Macron is annoying but he’s eloquent and smart and knows his onions. He will hope to outclass and expose her, again
But what if he doesn’t? That’s the moment when she *could* change the game, and win. I seriously doubt that she will. Yet it is something to consider
That's sort of what I was thinking,
Remember when everybody expected Obama was going to beet Romney in the debates? but Romney practiced hard and it looks like Obama did not, then on the day it was much closer perhaps even Romney won.
Could the same happen, possibly but I don't think it would overturn Macrons lead even if it did, Le Pen at best can match him, and that's not going to be enough.
Of course, people shouldn't have expected Obama to beat Romney in all the debates. Every time an incumbent has debated a challenger the challenger has won the first debate (going by snap polling). It's probably something to do with people assuming the incumbent will win, the stage robbing the incumbent of incumbency advantages (i.e. they are both on the same stage, no extra Presidential seal for the incumbent, etc), and the challenger having an easier time prepping (since they aren't running the country) - plus they have no record to defend.
Fun fact: The only time in history the same candidate has won all 3 debates (again, by snap polling and this time only counting cycles where all 3 debates took place) was Hillary Clinton. So while I don't disagree with the above, debate wins aren't everything.
In fact, Trump lost both debates to Biden in 2020 (and one was cancelled after Trump caught Covid) so he really does prove the limits of debates to swing things in the US at least.
I've been on Le Pen for a while because for a while I've been worried the French will screw up their voting system and elect a Le Pen.
Also given there's a war on and the French history for capitulation and surrender it won't come as a shock that someone who is willing to collaborate with Putin.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
Perhaps he is actually a very disturbed individual, as are lots of Hollywood elite.
I thought this was an interesting take on how things have changed over the years.
The End Of The Movie Star The 2022 Oscars debacle really got me to thinking, is this the age of the movie star, and the cult of celebrity ending? Yes, and I'll explain how and why it happened. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l04RZVeJViI&t=304s
ON topic there is one known unknown which should give any bettor pause for thought
The Debates.
We know these can be crucial from our own elections, and indyref. The French prez debates were crucial last time when Le Pen blew it.
She’s not good at debates. Presumably she’s had training. Macron is annoying but he’s eloquent and smart and knows his onions. He will hope to outclass and expose her, again
But what if he doesn’t? That’s the moment when she *could* change the game, and win. I seriously doubt that she will. Yet it is something to consider
Last time Le Pen was much further behind and even if she had a good debate it wouldn’t have changed the result . There’s more pressure on both her and Macron this time given the polling but it’s still hard to see anything but a Macron win.
The main reason for the closer polling this time is the higher abstention second round in voters who would normally favour Macron at that stage .
So turnout will be key , if it’s closer to the average that would help Macron , a low turnout would help Le Pen.
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Supposedly they will ignore the financial beating they are taking, the lack of levelling up monies being spent and the growing disparity between the north and dahn sarf because she-cocked deviants are coming for our wives and daughters.
Tories stirring up the culture war because it’s the only thing they have left?
Be interesting to see how they square that with having a trans MP in their ranks.
The Will Smith thing looks worse and worse in retrospect. His whole career tainted. It will probably be his epitaph. Madness
Why??
I may be totally off base here but I suspect people are over-analysing his decision and under-weighting the possible impact of alcohol in it. It's an award ceremony, there's lots of wine, he probably just did something stupid for the obvious reason.
Although I'm also going to put in writing that I don't think it will really hurt his career. It was a one-off and didn't leave any major damage. I think he'll apologise for it a couple more times in interviews and it will fade away.
Rachel Reeves has just given an excellent answer to Kay Burley on the gender debate
Upped her game since she was on R4 then:
Rachel Reeves tries and fails to square the Keir Starmer circle. Biology is a big part of sex but there are also people who strongly identify as the other sex and they have the "right" to self identify but also women are entitled to single sex spaces. WHICH IS IT? @BBCR4Today
LOL, day 3 of this. You’d have thought they’d have agreed on a coherent answer to the question by now.
Can’t wait for the day-long conference debate on the subject, selected in favour of debating energy prices or inflation.
They're failing because you can have self-ID or single sex spaces. You cannot have both. They are unwilling to make a choice. Or have made a choice which they know will be unpopular and are trying to hide it.
Labour are trying to be all things to all women (however defined) and are failing. They will continue to do so.
I hope you aren't suggesting they, er, need to grow some balls?
The funniest thing I learnt recently on this topic was that when the GRA was being introduced by Labour they insisted on a clause being put in to ensure that if the eldest daughter of a peer transitioned to being a man she still would not inherit a peerage.
Thus showing that at least for some things -
- sex trumps gender - it was important to deny transgender people rights that they might otherwise acquire - the rights of men born men trumped everything else if they were the sons of peers
All this pushed through by David Lammy. On behalf of the British aristocracy.
Labour: standing up for oppressed minorities.
Oh, the irony!
The British aristocracy probably promised that they would block the legislation in the Lords unless these changes were made. See “The Hidden Case of Ewan Forbes: And the Unwritten History of the Trans Experience” by Zoë Playdon for a deep dive into how the British aristocracy undid decades of work advancing trans rights back in the late 60s.
There was quite an interesting discussion about whether Zoe Playdon had understood what was happening in Scottish Law - conclusion by scottish lawyers tgat she hadn't.
Also confusion of trans people and those with DSD
Thanks for the link. Will take a look.
OH, it's fascinating - seemingly up there in the 'Scot gets done for incest because Daily Mail didn't bother to change the English law explainer in its Scottish edition' stakes.
I have decided that @Heathener is an experiment by @rcs1000 using GPT3 to pose as a commenter and keep the debate going. No sane individual could spew out this weird mix of random left wing piety, earnest yet eerie dullness, pro war craziness, with provocative dashes of bigotry and rank stupidity.
The syntax also has the odd lapse into total incoherence. Very telling. She’s a computer program and I for one salute Mr SMITHSON’s ingenuity
Is now the time to bring out into the open the fact that everyone on the site is a mere figment of @rcs1000's extraordinary imagination?
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Supposedly they will ignore the financial beating they are taking, the lack of levelling up monies being spent and the growing disparity between the north and dahn sarf because she-cocked deviants are coming for our wives and daughters.
Tories stirring up the culture war because it’s the only thing they have left?
Be interesting to see how they square that with having a trans MP in their ranks.
They can easily 'lose' a MP if it comes to that. Plenty of spares.
ON topic there is one known unknown which should give any bettor pause for thought
The Debates.
We know these can be crucial from our own elections, and indyref. The French prez debates were crucial last time when Le Pen blew it.
She’s not good at debates. Presumably she’s had training. Macron is annoying but he’s eloquent and smart and knows his onions. He will hope to outclass and expose her, again
But what if he doesn’t? That’s the moment when she *could* change the game, and win. I seriously doubt that she will. Yet it is something to consider
That's sort of what I was thinking,
Remember when everybody expected Obama was going to beet Romney in the debates? but Romney practiced hard and it looks like Obama did not, then on the day it was much closer perhaps even Romney won.
Could the same happen, possibly but I don't think it would overturn Macrons lead even if it did, Le Pen at best can match him, and that's not going to be enough.
Personally, I think that the French election could be like 2016 Redux, namely people saying Trump / Brexit couldn't happen when the signs are there staring us in the face.
Yes, I would agree there are a lot of French - usually professional, university-educated, middle age types who typically would have voted Socialist - who would never vote for Le Pen. However, at least from the conversations we have had with friends who would be typical establishment centre-right voters (older, definitely bourgeois and more socially conservative), there is a feeling that maybe there does need to be a shake up by voting for Le Pen. They may not but I suspect they are less determined to come out and oppose her as they did 5 years ago.
And that leads onto another point. Most of the commentary has focused on how much Le Pen is disliked and seen as a fascist. Which is true to a large degree. But what it doesn't take into account is that Macron is actively loathed in many quarters with a degree of hatred that was never seen with a Chirac, Mitterand or even Hollande (who was just seen as useless). He has managed to p1ss off many and I would argue that the anti-Macron sentiment is as powerful as the anti-Le Pen one.
So, at 10/1 or 11/1, Le Pen seems value. I would take anything up to 6/1 - ironically, where betting on both Brexit and Trump was on the days of the votes.
Comments
https://samf.substack.com/p/the-problem-with-the-donbas
Particularly important is the conclusion, that some kind of settlement in which Ukraine cedes Donbas to Russia ain't gonna work:
This is why taking Donbas is not a satisfactory consolation prize for Putin, let alone for those hardliners demanding that he stick to his maximalist objectives. It is simply a recipe for continued instability, turning Putin’s folly of 2014 into an even greater catastrophe, serving as a continuing drain on Russia’s dwindling economic and military resources.
For those who favour a botanical slant, this roughly coincides with the time between the first apple blossom appearing and the last apple being picked, so we have Apple time and Shit time.
If you prefer to do it by reference to blackthorn, Apple Time pleasingly becomes Sloe Time.
Pre-the Equality act there was no such concept in law. It was a matter of social convention. Then you have the Equality Act which says that people should not be discriminated against on the grounds of sex ie equal treatment for everyone but then specifically excluded certain areas because of sex ie women only spaces for certain purposes where they can be justified.
Currently, the framing for such sex-based exemptions is like your (b) ie the default is no discrimination unless there is a legitimate reason to discriminate and the method used is proportionate to that aim.
Transwomen are excluded from those exemptions not because they are not treated as women (legally) (they are) but because their sex has not changed and those exemptions exist because sex is key to why they are needed. (Bluntly the GRA introduces a polite legal fiction but comes up against the material reality of sex when it comes to the exemptions in the Equality Act.)
The framing that is now being proposed is not about whether transwomen are or are not treated as women but about the removal of the sex-based exemptions. Your position - and those of Stonewall and other trans charities - is very explicitly that those sex-based exemptions (and indeed sex as a protected characteristic under the Equality Act) should be removed in their entirety. Therefore there would be no such thing as womens' spaces ie spaces for those of the female sex with a female body at all.
In short, the question of inclusion or exclusion ie whether a transwoman could go into a female loo would not arise because there would be no female only loos.
A student activist has been ordered to pay just £22 after being found guilty of causing of more than £1,000 of criminal damage.
Charlie Turner, 19, a sociology student at the University of Brighton, was caught by police spraying red paint on the doors of Sovereign House, Church Street, Brighton, in the early hours of December 17 last year.
They pleaded not guilty to the charge but were convicted on March 29 following a trial at Brighton Magistrates’ Court earlier in the month.
https://www.theargus.co.uk/news/20029764.activist-pay-just-22-1-000-damage-brighton/
This bit of Girkin's assessment of the war stood out for me:
The war, he insists, must either be won completely or it will be lost completely. Losing he acknowledges as a distinct possibility. As things stand there are only a few weeks left before the forces in the Donbas will be unable to function.
Now Girkin may well have an interest in being overly apocalyptic, but it is interesting that he sees the possibility of total defeat, and even more so that he thinks the Russian position in the Donbas might soon become untenable.
https://twitter.com/Scott_Wortley/status/1467557385791324170?s=20&t=KiNyJTLfcEW26oQhZTWs5A
There was quite an interesting discussion about whether Zoe Playdon had understood what was happening in Scottish Law - conclusion by scottish lawyers tgat she hadn't.
Also confusion of trans people and those with DSD
See the Safecast tweets, the story is almost definitely bullshit.
https://twitter.com/safecast/status/1509362267829116932
(Wheat not being planted is a separate (and worse) issue. But your quotation is about the blocking of exports.)
People are probably scared of losing their jobs if they stray from the narrow, acceptable to the TRA's, line.
https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/world/transgender-cyclist-emily-bridges-blocked-from-competing-against-dame-laura-kenny/ar-AAVHzLs?ocid=entnewsntp&cvid=30aec1a4f09c4e138917b7bf2f3ca09b
The speech will be hailed as a brave masterstroke & everyone else will be wondering: "What took you so f***ing long?".
How about putting a sock in it and go and spend some time amongst young people and around non-binary folk?
This place is the poorer for the vitriol.
And, oh the irony, you are also squaring yourselves up firmly in Vladimir Putin's camp.
I ward people away with my stick: I don't attack them with it. And I always wear a mask in public.
I intend to live in Thailand again soon where I will be with like-minded people.
Gender is not reducible to bits of the body and the world would be a much poorer place if it were. It would also be fantastically discriminatory on all sorts of levels. Why a vagina not a womb? Why a penis and not testicles? And what about breasts? Women have them but so do men and yet male breasts are non functioning, mostly. And gender is sooooo much more, including chromosome and hormones and body structure and brain function and identity and behaviour and a myriad others beside.
The problem with all of this stems from Britain's ludicrous tendency to be binary about just about everything. Brexit was an example and this has only increased of late. Gender is yet another. It's all this or that: simplistic thinking for simplistic angry people.
One of the many great things about a lot of Asia is their recognition of the complexity of gender, their acceptance of third and even fourth genders.
If we recognised transexuals as another form of gender expression it might relieve a lot of the pressure on those who identify as women to be in all the same spaces as natal born women.
But as ever this nuanced approach will be lost in the anger and antagonism which finds expression from the mouths of people like Piers Morgan, Vladimir Putin and some on here.
Sigh again.
I shall leave it there.
And how.
Masters category Average crew age born before
A 27 31 Dec 1995
B 36 31 Dec 1986
C 43 31 Dec 1979
D 50 31 Dec 1972
E 55 31 Dec 1967
F 60 31 Dec 1962
G 65 31 Dec 1957
H 70 31 Dec 1952
I 75 31 Dec 1947
J 80 31 Dec 1942
K 83 31 Dec 1937
L 86 31 Dec 1936
M 89 31 Dec 1933
Actually L and M are proposed, I believe.
I really, really like the idea that there are rowing crews out there with an average age of 89....
Gormless journalists across the media have been babbling about this for weeks, nearly months now, and confusing the two. It's just what they do, as we all know.
I've heard the confusion of export supply with global production in such should-be-reliable places as You and Yours on R4. They really don't do context much of the time.
They were doing one half an hour ago about someone who's rent had just increased from £425 to £550 a month. But did not explore how long it had been at £425 for. I've just agreed a slighty smaller (20%) increase with a T, but that is just a catch up with inflation to help after many (5+) years of a fixed cash rent level, which was 5% below market even back then, to help her get through the very early few years for kids.
What is a “she-cock”?
Does it belong in women’s prisons or refuges?
Is a lesbian who declined to suck a she-cock a homophobe?
Your comment, treating trans as = non-binary, is very, very typical of those with little or no experience of meeting people in either category
I challenge you to quote a single post which is "in Vladimir Putin's camp." The posters who I am sure you classify as "anti trans," in line with your utterly simplistic reduction of any debate to two-tribes sloganeering, are in fact solely concerned with protecting women in a few edge case but very important contexts from abuse by people who are almost certainly not trans in the first place.
Britain is intrinsically ‘binary’ hence our uniquely horrible Transphobia AND the horror that is Brexit
Genius
Translation: a lot of Britons think people with penises are men, that’s why they voted to leave a quasi-Federal trading bloc
Start from there, and an answer (often messy, but broadly acceptable) tends to emerge.
Start from abstractions, and it's too easy to end up in eternal shouting, and reasonable concerns get lost.
https://order-order.com/2022/03/31/uk-regulator-withdraws-lancashire-fracking-wells-concreting-order/
The sensible thing would be to allow the company to expand its investment and try to get more gas, but that's probably sensible to hope for.
It is something that is discussed from time to time along with a wide range of issues. It is topical at the moment due to it being raised as an issue with various politicians who tie themselves in knots over the issue.
Why don't you put a sock in it. You don't seem to like this place or the people in it. You seem to think you should just present your opinion and we all accept it.
I do not even know why you post here. I do not know what you get from it.
Go back to your delusions.
Worse, it sounds as if the Russian soldiers might have dug themselves in, which means a) they disturbed the topsoil and then b) slept on top of it. So they were potentially breathing in contaminated dust. This is much, much worse than just standing around near a radiation source.
I think the story is kind of plausible, but will wait for confirmation - I certainly wouldn’t dismiss it out of hand.
It could be that my sources for the rad levels are wrong, but the dust inhalation due to trench digging is a massive issue that the twitter poster ignores. It could well be that the soldiers have been taken for examination in case of contamination?
https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/unprotected-russian-soldiers-disturbed-radioactive-dust-chernobyls-red-forest-2022-03-28/
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2022/03/29/world/chernobyl-russian-soldiers/
https://thehill.com/policy/international/russia/600056-chernobyl-workers-say-unprotected-russians-kicked-up-radioactive/
https://fortune.com/2022/03/29/chernobyl-ukraine-russian-soldiers-dangerous-radiation/
Scientific monitoring doesn't require pandering to hypochondriacs. Covid doesn't need testing for post vaccines, except where clinically recommended.
well we’re here to help the Russian speakers snd he said 95% of us speak Russian and we’re fine. They said they heard that the World War II veterans of the town had been beaten in the patriot day and he said au contraire they’re venerated and there’s not very many of them left.
https://twitter.com/ElBeardsley/status/1509469128188440577
The syntax also has the odd lapse into total incoherence. Very telling. She’s a computer program and I for one salute Mr SMITHSON’s ingenuity
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-60938538
On an unrelated PoliticalBetting note, there is a by-election in the Flatlands today.
The crime commissioner (Labour) of Doncaster Council is under an extradition order to the US on drugs charges*, so has had to step down.
I suspect Labour will hold on with the anti vote split between the Tories and the Yorkshire Party if anyone bothers to turn out. LibDems nowhere. Ward contains a partial oasis of reasonable owner occupied housing but I wouldn't call it gentrified.
*Allegedly supplying pre-cursor chemicals
When they built the new containment structure, the biggest problem they had was getting enough trained people to work at the site, because of the strict limits on radiation exposure. In some places, each team could only work for a few minutes per day, even with extensive PPE.
I doubt the Russian army went in with Geiger counters and radiation monitor badges.
That's what free choice and private enterprise are for, not the NHS.
But the dust inhalation would seem to be a real issue of concern - I can well believe they took a bunch of soldiers to hospital to get checked out.
This one was a 'very'.
https://twitter.com/glothy/status/1509311110503141377
Sit on that and swivel.
I have a stockpile of free tests so large I have had to move some of the loo paper into the garage, wouldn't like the tax free housing gains I've made over the years by relentlessly protesting at any form of homebuilding to be frittered away paying for that shit.
The Debates.
We know these can be crucial from our own elections, and indyref. The French prez debates were crucial last time when Le Pen blew it.
She’s not good at debates. Presumably she’s had training. Macron is annoying but he’s eloquent and smart and knows his onions. He will hope to outclass and expose her, again
But what if he doesn’t? That’s the moment when she *could* change the game, and win. I seriously doubt that she will. Yet it is something to consider
Anyway, why can't we start deploying words like "usually". Men usually have a Penis. Women usually have a Vagina. Not always. Just as the rows over people in possession of a cervix had to be reigned in after the medical reasons to be a born female woman and not having said bits was pointed out.
So, usually. Issue done. Move on.
Its now "fact" in the google machine....regardless of the facts.
‘Tory MPs vote through care cap ‘catastrophe’ for poor Brits despite revolt’
…Those with assets including their home of £75,000 to £150,000 face the biggest hit, the study found.
Someone with around £110,000 in assets could lose 78% of their total wealth even after the cap is in place, while someone with £500,000 could use up only 17%.
People in Red Wall seats in North East, Yorkshire and the Midlands, where wealth tends to be lower, would “see the biggest erosion of their protection against large care costs, as a result of the proposed amendment”, the report warned.
Link, but it’s via apple news so might not work for non-subscribers: https://apple.news/Ai_9ub_HLQmijq6P-1bWm6Q
Convenient this is flying under the radar. It’s almost as if the levelling up rhetoric is all bullshit. A lot of these people will have gone Tory, cos Brexit. I hope they realise the error of their ways.
Remember when everybody expected Obama was going to beet Romney in the debates? but Romney practiced hard and it looks like Obama did not, then on the day it was much closer perhaps even Romney won.
Could the same happen, possibly but I don't think it would overturn Macrons lead even if it did, Le Pen at best can match him, and that's not going to be enough.
Smarkets has a 63% chance of a Tory hold in the Melton council by-election tonight. This looks free money to this observer.
They've held this ward every time this Century.
Only possible fly in the ointment is there is a LD candidate this time. They've never stood before. But with a Labour one too, I can't see other than a hold.
DYOR as ever, mind.
While the correct way forward from a government point of view is to remove the restrictions, individuals and businesses will take longer to adapt. We will likely see permanent changes in behaviour, such as people WFH and avoiding elderly relatives when sick, and companies not trying to push sick people into indoor workplaces. Not just sick people either, there’s been a couple of decades of change in white-collar work patterns in the last couple of years.
I think what with Streeting and the cycling decision we may be approaching peak twattery on this issue.
Why??
https://twitter.com/cjr1968/status/1509453584148094980
Fun fact: The only time in history the same candidate has won all 3 debates (again, by snap polling and this time only counting cycles where all 3 debates took place) was Hillary Clinton. So while I don't disagree with the above, debate wins aren't everything.
In fact, Trump lost both debates to Biden in 2020 (and one was cancelled after Trump caught Covid) so he really does prove the limits of debates to swing things in the US at least.
Also given there's a war on and the French history for capitulation and surrender it won't come as a shock that someone who is willing to collaborate with Putin.
I thought this was an interesting take on how things have changed over the years.
The End Of The Movie Star
The 2022 Oscars debacle really got me to thinking, is this the age of the movie star, and the cult of celebrity ending? Yes, and I'll explain how and why it happened.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l04RZVeJViI&t=304s
The main reason for the closer polling this time is the higher abstention second round in voters who would normally favour Macron at that stage .
So turnout will be key , if it’s closer to the average that would help Macron , a low turnout would help Le Pen.
Be interesting to see how they square that with having a trans MP in their ranks.
Although I'm also going to put in writing that I don't think it will really hurt his career. It was a one-off and didn't leave any major damage. I think he'll apologise for it a couple more times in interviews and it will fade away.
Am I?
Yes, I would agree there are a lot of French - usually professional, university-educated, middle age types who typically would have voted Socialist - who would never vote for Le Pen. However, at least from the conversations we have had with friends who would be typical establishment centre-right voters (older, definitely bourgeois and more socially conservative), there is a feeling that maybe there does need to be a shake up by voting for Le Pen. They may not but I suspect they are less determined to come out and oppose her as they did 5 years ago.
And that leads onto another point. Most of the commentary has focused on how much Le Pen is disliked and seen as a fascist. Which is true to a large degree. But what it doesn't take into account is that Macron is actively loathed in many quarters with a degree of hatred that was never seen with a Chirac, Mitterand or even Hollande (who was just seen as useless). He has managed to p1ss off many and I would argue that the anti-Macron sentiment is as powerful as the anti-Le Pen one.
So, at 10/1 or 11/1, Le Pen seems value. I would take anything up to 6/1 - ironically, where betting on both Brexit and Trump was on the days of the votes.