Just started watching Die Hard TWO, and it has snow, "C'mon, it's Christmas," a Santa joke and three Christmas trees in the first five minutes, confirming its own and its predecessor's status as Christmas movies.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
My wife had a very severe stroke three years ago aged 45.
I dread to think what would have happened if she'd have had that stroke during a time when C-19 had been let rip given the obvious consequences that would have had on her life saving treatment.
People seem to forget that allowing the NHS to have been totally overwhelmed would have been disastrous for those with other life threatening conditions.
The death toll would have been far far far greater as a proportion of the population.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
More than 75 years is ‘not that long ago?’
Even as a medievalist I’m thinking your timeframes are off.
(Incidentally, to be pedantic the Nazis themselves put the death toll at 25,000.)
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
While it’s good to know that people have a life beyond PB and don’t follow every post excessively, it’s exasperating when we have to go over the same thoroughly debunked fake news stories in a usually vain attempt to get them to understand that reality doesn’t match their theories.
errrm I think people can groupthink a bit on here to think they have "the answers" maybe by doing a few graphs of course
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
While it’s good to know that people have a life beyond PB and don’t follow every post excessively, it’s exasperating when we have to go over the same thoroughly debunked fake news stories in a usually vain attempt to get them to understand that reality doesn’t match their theories.
errrm I think people can groupthink a bit on here to think they have "the answers" maybe by doing a few graphs of course
Or maybe, just maybe, we have the answers to your points because you’re talking complete rubbish that doesn’t match the facts?
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well, if he’s, say, 45, then as long as his death is “balanced” by a few 90-year-olds, it wouldn’t count.
Well, I need to get the cost benefit ratio right before I send John Wick round...
I think you are good at graphs but not very good at humour .
It's not a fine toothcomb, you don't comb your teeth, its a fine-toothed comb. Why does that arse stay in a job?
No, he is correct. The prongs of a comb are called ‘teeth’. So what people call a ‘comb’ is traditionally a ‘toothcomb’ and if the teeth are close together it is a ‘fine toothcomb.’
Its not what the online dictionary and grammar sites say....
Either usage is acceptable, but ‘toothcomb’ is the original form.
From Oxford English dictionary....
Sometimes misunderstood as fine toothcomb, especially in the figurative sense. This form of the expression, and the associated concept of a toothcomb, is often considered erroneous, but fine toothcomb is said to be now “accepted in standard English” by at least the Oxford English Dictionary
I can’t help what Oxford considers right and wrong. ‘Toothcomb’ is a formulation I’ve seen from fifteenth century documents so I’m happy to stand by my statement.
A fine toothcomb would be an exceptionally good or valuable toothcomb, though, which is not the meaning required here.
If you can find your source again you should submit it to OED.
Quite. It is the fineness of the teeth that is pertinent, not the fineness of the comb, hence 'toothed' is the correct version to use for the metaphor. If people really want to call it a toothcomb, a la the 15th century, they should say 'I will be going through this with a fine-toothed toothcomb.'.
Just started watching Die Hard TWO, and it has snow, "C'mon, it's Christmas," a Santa joke and three Christmas trees in the first five minutes, confirming its own and its predecessor's status as Christmas movies.
Yippee-ki-yay!
I was disappointed you didn’t join our conversation about Deltics the other day. Was the keyboard too sticky? :
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Just had a look. About 10,000 deaths under 65. So, letting it rip, would be between 75,000 deaths under 65 and maybe three or four times that number if hospitals were overloaded.
And in April, and since the start of November, no other cause of death has outweighed covid deaths.
Of course, no other form of death is ever likely to suddenly leap up from nothing to the largest cause of death in almost every age group (in April, it was the largest single cause of death in every age group over age 20), or drive out all treatment for all other causes of death.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
While it’s good to know that people have a life beyond PB and don’t follow every post excessively, it’s exasperating when we have to go over the same thoroughly debunked fake news stories in a usually vain attempt to get them to understand that reality doesn’t match their theories.
errrm I think people can groupthink a bit on here to think they have "the answers" maybe by doing a few graphs of course
In every single country where the progress of the virus overwhelmed the health system - massive deaths and economic damage.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
If only there was a place in the world that was divided into discrete entities, where we could compare the economic performance of places with - and without - CV19...
Oh my! There's the US.
And fortunately I did some analysis before, and can regurgitate it now.
If you then go to the BEA, you can download state-by-state data on GDP.
For simplicities sake, I'm going to divide the US into three broad categories:
Mostly open (openness score of 75+), Mixed (50-75) and Mostly shut (sub 50). I'm also going to exclude Hawaii, because (a) that's very tourist driven, and (b) they've done a basically excellent job of remaining CV19 free.
For economic growth, I have (1) converted from annualised to "in quarter", and (2) rebased to 100 for Q4 of 2019.
Mostly open saw GDP drop by 3.8%. Mostly shut did slightly worse, falling by 4.1%.
But the best performers were... "mixed" who did best of all at -2.3%.
The places that were "mostly open" are the ones that saw wild swings and de facto lockdowns.
Criticisms of this analysis - (1) it treats North Dakota like New York, and the two are very different, in terms of population density. (2) It's a simple average, and some of the number are pretty big.
Worth noting part three: Vegas is mostly open. You can drink at the bars. You can eat at the restaurants. You can gamble and frolic and have fun.
You can get rooms on the Strip, at tier two hotels for $7 a night right now. That compares to average room rates of $200+ for this time of year. And it's still not enough to get them filled. Encore at the Wynn is closed Monday to Wednesday, because there simply isn't the demand.
It's very naive to claim that the problems are all the result of government action (or inaction.)
It's fascinating how many Tories on here think that the way forward for Starmer and Labour is to be....... more like the Tories.
It is to be more like the Tories. On both policy and flexibility. The Tories have just won over swathes of voters and seats that they haven't won previously. How? By appealing more to these voters than Labour did. To win these seats back and then seats that are now solidly Blue Labour have to do the same in reverse.
I thought that people used to understand this basic principle of politics, at least until the absurd footballification we now suffer where its all about supporting your team no matter how stupid they are.
The Tories have succeeded by spending money like a drunken sailor, saying f**k business and f**k the young. That wins votes in parts of the population and country, but ain't a grand strategy for the long term.
True. Though the problem for Labour is simple but massive - their former vote has largely written off their efforts as not helping them. They voted Brexit & Tory for a decisive change and that hasn't fixed things. Instead of turning back to Labour they either won't vote or will look for increasingly radical solutions like those offered by Nigel "sink the migrants" Farage
I am a former Labour voter that has gone Conservative in the last few elections, and so are a lot of my friends and family. One of the things that makes it pretty unappealing to go back to Labour is the fact that Labour members constantly call us things like thick racists that want to sink the migrants. In reality, we just want a party that is willing to have moderate levels of migration and is in tune with the bulk of voters outside of the London/university bubbles.
I don't think you the voter wants to sink the migrants - that would be the Nigel on his dinghy making angry videos. As for migration I get it though I disagree - it must be frustrating that neither party can deliver what you ask for. Labour were and are pro-migration and clearly say so. The Tories were and are pro-migration but lie about not being whilst slashing the budget for the Border Force to make the job even harder.
I find it very, very revealing that the question
- What size of population should the country have?
Is controversial, un-answerable, immoral etc.
Anyone who can't present a reasoned answer on that - fail.
It is not racist to want a discussion about migration or population numbers. Mature countries look strategically at such things and make policies accordingly. The problem is that England is not mature, thinks itself uniquely superior and able to both welcome in cheap labour from elsewhere for a fast profit and then complain about said cheap labour.
Parts of England are hugely over-populated, parts are hugely under-populated. The problem is that we concentrate the economy into pockets which drives in people who then say "England is full" when they just mean their bit of England. Our other basic problem is that people will not and cannot afford to do large numbers of jobs that are hard work and low paid. Hence the need for migrants.
What parts of England are "underpopulated"? I am from the East Midlands, one of the few regions with no big cities and everyone around the place is very happy with that, thank you very much. We don't want Nottingham and Leicester to become like Birmingham or London.
As for jobs, have you ever considered the fact that what are now "migrant jobs" are ones where employers have preferred to have Romanians and Lithuanians they can pay crap wages and give crap conditions to without much complaint? If the open door closes and the Tories don't sell us out with guest worker schemes, those jobs might just be able to pay an honest day's pay under decent conditions because employers would be forced into that to get the workers.
Why? What is wrong with this?
Oh now you have saddened me because we never got a second film.
What's the film?
Dredd?
Ok - thanks.
I liked SF when I was young. I liked comics too (I had what seems like a very valuable Marvel collection now, which I happily just gave away.) No Dredd though. Too young for me. (After having looked it up)
Judge Dredd is a bit too niche for the mainstream, so I am not surprised the Dredd film flopped despite being very true to concept.
One of many great 2000AD strips. Nemesis the Warlock was another of my favourites.
It's fascinating how many Tories on here think that the way forward for Starmer and Labour is to be....... more like the Tories.
It is to be more like the Tories. On both policy and flexibility. The Tories have just won over swathes of voters and seats that they haven't won previously. How? By appealing more to these voters than Labour did. To win these seats back and then seats that are now solidly Blue Labour have to do the same in reverse.
I thought that people used to understand this basic principle of politics, at least until the absurd footballification we now suffer where its all about supporting your team no matter how stupid they are.
The Tories have succeeded by spending money like a drunken sailor, saying f**k business and f**k the young. That wins votes in parts of the population and country, but ain't a grand strategy for the long term.
True. Though the problem for Labour is simple but massive - their former vote has largely written off their efforts as not helping them. They voted Brexit & Tory for a decisive change and that hasn't fixed things. Instead of turning back to Labour they either won't vote or will look for increasingly radical solutions like those offered by Nigel "sink the migrants" Farage
I am a former Labour voter that has gone Conservative in the last few elections, and so are a lot of my friends and family. One of the things that makes it pretty unappealing to go back to Labour is the fact that Labour members constantly call us things like thick racists that want to sink the migrants. In reality, we just want a party that is willing to have moderate levels of migration and is in tune with the bulk of voters outside of the London/university bubbles.
I don't think you the voter wants to sink the migrants - that would be the Nigel on his dinghy making angry videos. As for migration I get it though I disagree - it must be frustrating that neither party can deliver what you ask for. Labour were and are pro-migration and clearly say so. The Tories were and are pro-migration but lie about not being whilst slashing the budget for the Border Force to make the job even harder.
I find it very, very revealing that the question
- What size of population should the country have?
Is controversial, un-answerable, immoral etc.
Anyone who can't present a reasoned answer on that - fail.
It is not racist to want a discussion about migration or population numbers. Mature countries look strategically at such things and make policies accordingly. The problem is that England is not mature, thinks itself uniquely superior and able to both welcome in cheap labour from elsewhere for a fast profit and then complain about said cheap labour.
Parts of England are hugely over-populated, parts are hugely under-populated. The problem is that we concentrate the economy into pockets which drives in people who then say "England is full" when they just mean their bit of England. Our other basic problem is that people will not and cannot afford to do large numbers of jobs that are hard work and low paid. Hence the need for migrants.
What parts of England are "underpopulated"? I am from the East Midlands, one of the few regions with no big cities and everyone around the place is very happy with that, thank you very much. We don't want Nottingham and Leicester to become like Birmingham or London.
As for jobs, have you ever considered the fact that what are now "migrant jobs" are ones where employers have preferred to have Romanians and Lithuanians they can pay crap wages and give crap conditions to without much complaint? If the open door closes and the Tories don't sell us out with guest worker schemes, those jobs might just be able to pay an honest day's pay under decent conditions because employers would be forced into that to get the workers.
Why? What is wrong with this?
Oh now you have saddened me because we never got a second film.
What's the film?
Dredd?
Ok - thanks.
I liked SF when I was young. I liked comics too (I had what seems like a very valuable Marvel collection now, which I happily just gave away.) No Dredd though. Too young for me. (After having looked it up)
I started buying 2000AD from issue 1 onwards. Stopped getting it after 6 months or so. I guess those early issues would be worth a few bob if I still had them.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
Please don't confuse the PB CRG Brains Trust with facts.
If these new variants are due to treatment of immunocompromised people with the antibody serum (as has been speculated), should we ban serum treatment?
It seems the most likely way that we are going to breed strains for which the vaccine won't work.
Bad for the individuals involved, but...
Vaccine resistant strains are only a matter of time, anyway. Whether they exist or not.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Um Dresden? Really? Just 75 years ago, at the time we were fighting an evil regime that murdered millions simply for the crime of being Jewish, or Russian, or gay or anything else that didn’t fit the volk. In additional the government did not choose to bomb Dresden, that was made by Harris, and carried out by thousands of incredibly young men, many of whom would die, and from a service with an appalling survival record over the war. How this has any relevance to the current situation I have no idea.
It's not a fine toothcomb, you don't comb your teeth, its a fine-toothed comb. Why does that arse stay in a job?
No, he is correct. The prongs of a comb are called ‘teeth’. So what people call a ‘comb’ is traditionally a ‘toothcomb’ and if the teeth are close together it is a ‘fine toothcomb.’
Its not what the online dictionary and grammar sites say....
Either usage is acceptable, but ‘toothcomb’ is the original form.
From Oxford English dictionary....
Sometimes misunderstood as fine toothcomb, especially in the figurative sense. This form of the expression, and the associated concept of a toothcomb, is often considered erroneous, but fine toothcomb is said to be now “accepted in standard English” by at least the Oxford English Dictionary
I can’t help what Oxford considers right and wrong. ‘Toothcomb’ is a formulation I’ve seen from fifteenth century documents so I’m happy to stand by my statement.
A fine toothcomb would be an exceptionally good or valuable toothcomb, though, which is not the meaning required here.
If you can find your source again you should submit it to OED.
Quite. It is the fineness of the teeth that is pertinent, not the fineness of the comb, hence 'toothed' is the correct version to use for the metaphor. If people really want to call it a toothcomb, a la the 15th century, they should say 'I will be going through this with a fine-toothed toothcomb.'.
Teeth have few gaps when new. Perhaps a toothcomb had few gaps. Thus a toothcomb might be all teeth with few and narrow gaps.
Fine toothcomb - the gaps are regular and predictable.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
If only there was a place in the world that was divided into discrete entities, where we could compare the economic performance of places with - and without - CV19...
Oh my! There's the US.
And fortunately I did some analysis before, and can regurgitate it now.
If you then go to the BEA, you can download state-by-state data on GDP.
For simplicities sake, I'm going to divide the US into three broad categories:
Mostly open (openness score of 75+), Mixed (50-75) and Mostly shut (sub 50). I'm also going to exclude Hawaii, because (a) that's very tourist driven, and (b) they've done a basically excellent job of remaining CV19 free.
For economic growth, I have (1) converted from annualised to "in quarter", and (2) rebased to 100 for Q4 of 2019.
Mostly open saw GDP drop by 3.8%. Mostly shut did slightly worse, falling by 4.1%.
But the best performers were... "mixed" who did best of all at -2.3%.
The places that were "mostly open" are the ones that saw wild swings and de facto lockdowns.
Criticisms of this analysis - (1) it treats North Dakota like New York, and the two are very different, in terms of population density. (2) It's a simple average, and some of the number are pretty big.
Worth noting part three: Vegas is mostly open. You can drink at the bars. You can eat at the restaurants. You can gamble and frolic and have fun.
You can get rooms on the Strip, at tier two hotels for $7 a night right now. That compares to average room rates of $200+ for this time of year. And it's still not enough to get them filled. Encore at the Wynn is closed Monday to Wednesday, because there simply isn't the demand.
It's very naive to claim that the problems are all the result of government action (or inaction.)
Thats a good point and I get it - Some economic damage would have happened anyway (I think the US stock market has done better though this year than the FTSE) .However life is not all about economy and it certainly isnt about just avoiding death (when you are near it anyway in most cases) but about you know enjoying it , meeting people . I don't think we have many young people on here (up to 25) so this forum gets skewed and even more so when a self selecting bunch of politicos are the population- Not sure freedom loving people naturally abound on here anyway but dont assume you are "right" as many do on here
- I don’t like lockdowns, they stop me doing stuff and life is very different - They must therefore be wrong - Handwave mightily to “prove they are wrong” - Then they will go away and all will be better.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well, if he’s, say, 45, then as long as his death is “balanced” by a few 90-year-olds, it wouldn’t count.
Well, I need to get the cost benefit ratio right before I send John Wick round...
I think you are good at graphs but not very good at humour .
If these new variants are due to treatment of immunocompromised people with the antibody serum (as has been speculated), should we ban serum treatment?
It seems the most likely way that we are going to breed strains for which the vaccine won't work.
Bad for the individuals involved, but...
Vaccine resistant strains are only a matter of time, anyway. Whether they exist or not.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Um Dresden? Really? Just 75 years ago, at the time we were fighting an evil regime that murdered millions simply for the crime of being Jewish, or Russian, or gay or anything else that didn’t fit the volk. In additional the government did not choose to bomb Dresden, that was made by Harris, and carried out by thousands of incredibly young men, many of whom would die, and from a service with an appalling survival record over the war. How this has any relevance to the current situation I have no idea.
Did a lot of Allied servicemen die in the bombing of Dresden? I must admit I thought it was more or less without reply from the Germans due to shortages of aviation fuel and a lack of defensive weapons in Dresden. But I could well be wrong - I’ve never really studied the Allied attack pattern.
It's not a fine toothcomb, you don't comb your teeth, its a fine-toothed comb. Why does that arse stay in a job?
No, he is correct. The prongs of a comb are called ‘teeth’. So what people call a ‘comb’ is traditionally a ‘toothcomb’ and if the teeth are close together it is a ‘fine toothcomb.’
Its not what the online dictionary and grammar sites say....
Either usage is acceptable, but ‘toothcomb’ is the original form.
From Oxford English dictionary....
Sometimes misunderstood as fine toothcomb, especially in the figurative sense. This form of the expression, and the associated concept of a toothcomb, is often considered erroneous, but fine toothcomb is said to be now “accepted in standard English” by at least the Oxford English Dictionary
I can’t help what Oxford considers right and wrong. ‘Toothcomb’ is a formulation I’ve seen from fifteenth century documents so I’m happy to stand by my statement.
A fine toothcomb would be an exceptionally good or valuable toothcomb, though, which is not the meaning required here.
If you can find your source again you should submit it to OED.
Quite. It is the fineness of the teeth that is pertinent, not the fineness of the comb, hence 'toothed' is the correct version to use for the metaphor. If people really want to call it a toothcomb, a la the 15th century, they should say 'I will be going through this with a fine-toothed toothcomb.'.
Teeth have few gaps when new. Perhaps a toothcomb had few gaps. Thus a toothcomb might be all teeth with few and narrow gaps.
Fine toothcomb - the gaps are regular and predictable.
Wouldn't that be a periodic toothcomb? Fineness does not imply regularity.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was right at the butt end of WWII, that’s one of the reasons it was controversial.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
While it’s good to know that people have a life beyond PB and don’t follow every post excessively, it’s exasperating when we have to go over the same thoroughly debunked fake news stories in a usually vain attempt to get them to understand that reality doesn’t match their theories.
errrm I think people can groupthink a bit on here to think they have "the answers" maybe by doing a few graphs of course
In every single country where the progress of the virus overwhelmed the health system - massive deaths and economic damage.
I can only really talk for Britain but the NHS as hardly been overwhelmed - It would be far better to increase capacity and shield care homes than try and be superman and women and trying to think you (government) can control this in any way that does not massively impinge the lives and opportunities of people for years to come
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
While it’s good to know that people have a life beyond PB and don’t follow every post excessively, it’s exasperating when we have to go over the same thoroughly debunked fake news stories in a usually vain attempt to get them to understand that reality doesn’t match their theories.
errrm I think people can groupthink a bit on here to think they have "the answers" maybe by doing a few graphs of course
In every single country where the progress of the virus overwhelmed the health system - massive deaths and economic damage.
I can only really talk for Britain but the NHS as hardly been overwhelmed - It would be far better to increase capacity and shield care homes than try and be superman and women and trying to think you (government) can control this in any way that does not massively impinge the lives and opportunities of people for years to come
The NHS has been overwhelmed, it still is.
There may be spare beds but the staff have not had a break for months and months.
There simply are not enough qualified doctors, anaesthetists etc. to increase the capacity further.
If these new variants are due to treatment of immunocompromised people with the antibody serum (as has been speculated), should we ban serum treatment?
It seems the most likely way that we are going to breed strains for which the vaccine won't work.
Bad for the individuals involved, but...
Vaccine resistant strains are only a matter of time, anyway. Whether they exist or not.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Um Dresden? Really? Just 75 years ago, at the time we were fighting an evil regime that murdered millions simply for the crime of being Jewish, or Russian, or gay or anything else that didn’t fit the volk. In additional the government did not choose to bomb Dresden, that was made by Harris, and carried out by thousands of incredibly young men, many of whom would die, and from a service with an appalling survival record over the war. How this has any relevance to the current situation I have no idea.
Did a lot of Allied servicemen die in the bombing of Dresden? I must admit I thought it was more or less without reply from the Germans due to shortages of aviation fuel and a lack of defensive weapons in Dresden. But I could well be wrong - I’ve never really studied the Allied attack pattern.
Not specifically in the Dresden raid, but there was a loss rate even at that late stage of the war. Perhaps ‘some’ rather than ‘many’ would have been a better construction.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
While it’s good to know that people have a life beyond PB and don’t follow every post excessively, it’s exasperating when we have to go over the same thoroughly debunked fake news stories in a usually vain attempt to get them to understand that reality doesn’t match their theories.
errrm I think people can groupthink a bit on here to think they have "the answers" maybe by doing a few graphs of course
In every single country where the progress of the virus overwhelmed the health system - massive deaths and economic damage.
I can only really talk for Britain but the NHS as hardly been overwhelmed - It would be far better to increase capacity and shield care homes than try and be superman and women and trying to think you (government) can control this in any way that does not massively impinge the lives and opportunities of people for years to come
It’s very good of you to take the time out of negotiations to come and speak to us, Mr Johnson, but if this is a sample of your thinking no wonder it’s all an epic shambles right now.
- I don’t like lockdowns, they stop me doing stuff and life is very different - They must therefore be wrong - Handwave mightily to “prove they are wrong” - Then they will go away and all will be better.
- We only have lockdowns as scientists / politicians like to control us
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
If only there was a place in the world that was divided into discrete entities, where we could compare the economic performance of places with - and without - CV19...
Oh my! There's the US.
And fortunately I did some analysis before, and can regurgitate it now.
If you then go to the BEA, you can download state-by-state data on GDP.
For simplicities sake, I'm going to divide the US into three broad categories:
Mostly open (openness score of 75+), Mixed (50-75) and Mostly shut (sub 50). I'm also going to exclude Hawaii, because (a) that's very tourist driven, and (b) they've done a basically excellent job of remaining CV19 free.
For economic growth, I have (1) converted from annualised to "in quarter", and (2) rebased to 100 for Q4 of 2019.
Mostly open saw GDP drop by 3.8%. Mostly shut did slightly worse, falling by 4.1%.
But the best performers were... "mixed" who did best of all at -2.3%.
The places that were "mostly open" are the ones that saw wild swings and de facto lockdowns.
Criticisms of this analysis - (1) it treats North Dakota like New York, and the two are very different, in terms of population density. (2) It's a simple average, and some of the number are pretty big.
Worth noting part three: Vegas is mostly open. You can drink at the bars. You can eat at the restaurants. You can gamble and frolic and have fun.
You can get rooms on the Strip, at tier two hotels for $7 a night right now. That compares to average room rates of $200+ for this time of year. And it's still not enough to get them filled. Encore at the Wynn is closed Monday to Wednesday, because there simply isn't the demand.
It's very naive to claim that the problems are all the result of government action (or inaction.)
Thats a good point and I get it - Some economic damage would have happened anyway (I think the US stock market has done better though this year than the FTSE) .However life is not all about economy and it certainly isnt about just avoiding death (when you are near it anyway in most cases) but about you know enjoying it , meeting people . I don't think we have many young people on here (up to 25) so this forum gets skewed and even more so when a self selecting bunch of politicos are the population- Not sure freedom loving people naturally abound on here anyway but dont assume you are "right" as many do on here
This is about externalities, and the correct way to charge for them.
If you drive a motorcycle without a helmet in the UK, you're breaking the law. (The same is not true of California.)
The economic rationale of this is that if you have an accident, your healthcare costs are born by everyone. And the helmet law minimises those externalities.
If you behave in a reckless manner, and pass CV19 onto other people, you have created a cost for the state in healthcare, and you have potentially endangered them.
There are externalities inherent in individuals responses to CV19.
Restrictions are a very blunt tool for minimising those externalities.
But without them, a 20 year old going partying gets to have the fun of partying without paying any of the price of his actions.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
It's fascinating how many Tories on here think that the way forward for Starmer and Labour is to be....... more like the Tories.
It is to be more like the Tories. On both policy and flexibility. The Tories have just won over swathes of voters and seats that they haven't won previously. How? By appealing more to these voters than Labour did. To win these seats back and then seats that are now solidly Blue Labour have to do the same in reverse.
I thought that people used to understand this basic principle of politics, at least until the absurd footballification we now suffer where its all about supporting your team no matter how stupid they are.
The Tories have succeeded by spending money like a drunken sailor, saying f**k business and f**k the young. That wins votes in parts of the population and country, but ain't a grand strategy for the long term.
True. Though the problem for Labour is simple but massive - their former vote has largely written off their efforts as not helping them. They voted Brexit & Tory for a decisive change and that hasn't fixed things. Instead of turning back to Labour they either won't vote or will look for increasingly radical solutions like those offered by Nigel "sink the migrants" Farage
I am a former Labour voter that has gone Conservative in the last few elections, and so are a lot of my friends and family. One of the things that makes it pretty unappealing to go back to Labour is the fact that Labour members constantly call us things like thick racists that want to sink the migrants. In reality, we just want a party that is willing to have moderate levels of migration and is in tune with the bulk of voters outside of the London/university bubbles.
I don't think you the voter wants to sink the migrants - that would be the Nigel on his dinghy making angry videos. As for migration I get it though I disagree - it must be frustrating that neither party can deliver what you ask for. Labour were and are pro-migration and clearly say so. The Tories were and are pro-migration but lie about not being whilst slashing the budget for the Border Force to make the job even harder.
I find it very, very revealing that the question
- What size of population should the country have?
Is controversial, un-answerable, immoral etc.
Anyone who can't present a reasoned answer on that - fail.
It is not racist to want a discussion about migration or population numbers. Mature countries look strategically at such things and make policies accordingly. The problem is that England is not mature, thinks itself uniquely superior and able to both welcome in cheap labour from elsewhere for a fast profit and then complain about said cheap labour.
Parts of England are hugely over-populated, parts are hugely under-populated. The problem is that we concentrate the economy into pockets which drives in people who then say "England is full" when they just mean their bit of England. Our other basic problem is that people will not and cannot afford to do large numbers of jobs that are hard work and low paid. Hence the need for migrants.
What parts of England are "underpopulated"? I am from the East Midlands, one of the few regions with no big cities and everyone around the place is very happy with that, thank you very much. We don't want Nottingham and Leicester to become like Birmingham or London.
As for jobs, have you ever considered the fact that what are now "migrant jobs" are ones where employers have preferred to have Romanians and Lithuanians they can pay crap wages and give crap conditions to without much complaint? If the open door closes and the Tories don't sell us out with guest worker schemes, those jobs might just be able to pay an honest day's pay under decent conditions because employers would be forced into that to get the workers.
Why? What is wrong with this?
Oh now you have saddened me because we never got a second film.
What's the film?
Dredd?
Ok - thanks.
I liked SF when I was young. I liked comics too (I had what seems like a very valuable Marvel collection now, which I happily just gave away.) No Dredd though. Too young for me. (After having looked it up)
Judge Dredd is a bit too niche for the mainstream, so I am not surprised the Dredd film flopped despite being very true to concept.
One of many great 2000AD strips. Nemesis the Warlock was another of my favourites.
As I have to work for a living (or to keep Mrs Stodge in a manner to which she has had to become accustomed), I'm rarely able to join the morning conversation.
The rule of PB as we all know is as follows:
Posting between Midnight and 8am is SAD Posting between 8am and 4pm is BAD Posting between 4pm and Midnight is MAD
Outside those times is fine.
Anyway, @Charles this morning quoted the famous Benjamin Franklin quote on liberty and safety:
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It's a quote I've seen used by those opposing restrictions and such individuals would no doubt have chafed at Hancock's rather despondent performance this afternoon.
I'm intrigued - it's a quote I've used when, usually following some form of terrorist outrage, there are calls for the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister to "crack down" on terrorism.
Crackdown or Lockdown - much the same ultimately, I suppose? We allow the Government to restrict our freedoms in the name of our own security or protection. There's a difference of course but from a philosophical view, I don't see the consistency. Some of those arguing most strongly against Hancock's restrictions are the most staunch of supporters of Patel's restrictions.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
But there is another option in this case. We don't have to let it run amok. In WW2 it was a fight to the death/destruction of either state.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
Crackdown or Lockdown - much the same ultimately, I suppose? We allow the Government to restrict our freedoms in the name of our own security or protection. There's a difference of course but from a philosophical view, I don't see the consistency. Some of those arguing most strongly against Hancock's restrictions are the most staunch of supporters of Patel's restrictions.
I do. They both think it is Somebody Else’s Problem so it should not be allowed to affect their lives
If these new variants are due to treatment of immunocompromised people with the antibody serum (as has been speculated), should we ban serum treatment?
It seems the most likely way that we are going to breed strains for which the vaccine won't work.
Bad for the individuals involved, but...
Vaccine resistant strains are only a matter of time, anyway. Whether they exist or not.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Um Dresden? Really? Just 75 years ago, at the time we were fighting an evil regime that murdered millions simply for the crime of being Jewish, or Russian, or gay or anything else that didn’t fit the volk. In additional the government did not choose to bomb Dresden, that was made by Harris, and carried out by thousands of incredibly young men, many of whom would die, and from a service with an appalling survival record over the war. How this has any relevance to the current situation I have no idea.
Did a lot of Allied servicemen die in the bombing of Dresden? I must admit I thought it was more or less without reply from the Germans due to shortages of aviation fuel and a lack of defensive weapons in Dresden. But I could well be wrong - I’ve never really studied the Allied attack pattern.
Checking Wiki says six Lancasters, three of them hit by falling bombs, plus a B17 the following day during the daylight attack.
Being hit by your own side’s bombs must have been relatively common during these mass raids; shit way to go.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
My wife had a very severe stroke three years ago aged 45.
I dread to think what would have happened if she'd have had that stroke during a time when C-19 had been let rip given the obvious consequences that would have had on her life saving treatment.
People seem to forget that allowing the NHS to have been totally overwhelmed would have been disastrous for those with other life threatening conditions.
The death toll would have been far far far greater as a proportion of the population.
I am not sure what overwhelmed looks like, but there are 14 acute Trusts forecast to have more than a third of beds filled with Covid-19 patients by the end of next week. This includes 3 of 4 Kent hospitals. The worst looks to be 45% in Maidstone and Tunbridge Wells.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
Although it has to be said, they were very bad at it. Indeed, a case was made in the 1960s that all Allied bombing did was focus minds on the fact the Germans were at war and therefore spur the workforce on to greater efforts with a resultant improvement in the German economy.
It is true that Germany’s war industry reached peak output in mid-1944 just as Allied bombing reached a crescendo, although it is now accepted many other factors were at play.
But for the loss of, without checking, 50% of the aircrews involved it wasn’t a great return for the war effort.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
If these new variants are due to treatment of immunocompromised people with the antibody serum (as has been speculated), should we ban serum treatment?
It seems the most likely way that we are going to breed strains for which the vaccine won't work.
Bad for the individuals involved, but...
Vaccine resistant strains are only a matter of time, anyway. Whether they exist or not.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Um Dresden? Really? Just 75 years ago, at the time we were fighting an evil regime that murdered millions simply for the crime of being Jewish, or Russian, or gay or anything else that didn’t fit the volk. In additional the government did not choose to bomb Dresden, that was made by Harris, and carried out by thousands of incredibly young men, many of whom would die, and from a service with an appalling survival record over the war. How this has any relevance to the current situation I have no idea.
Did a lot of Allied servicemen die in the bombing of Dresden? I must admit I thought it was more or less without reply from the Germans due to shortages of aviation fuel and a lack of defensive weapons in Dresden. But I could well be wrong - I’ve never really studied the Allied attack pattern.
Checking Wiki says six Lancasters, three of them hit by falling bombs, plus a B17 the following day during the daylight attack.
Being hit by your own side’s bombs must have been relatively common during these mass raids; shit way to go.
Wasn’t it suggested that was the fate of Glenn Miller’s aircraft?
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
I didn’t think anyone had suggested that governments care significantly about saving the lives of the enemy during war. They tend to care about saving lives of their own people, though, and that’s explicitly the point of discussion.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
Does that matter what I think? What was thought at the time is important when trying to work out what their intentions were. I am arguing they thought it would help shorten the war, thus saving lives.
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
More than 75 years is ‘not that long ago?’
Even as a medievalist I’m thinking your timeframes are off.
(Incidentally, to be pedantic the Nazis themselves put the death toll at 25,000.)
At least he didn't go for a David Irving inspired figure.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
During WWII I do. It was a total war against a totalitarian regime.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
That was the intention, sadly, as ydoethur say, unsuccessful.
Just started watching Die Hard TWO, and it has snow, "C'mon, it's Christmas," a Santa joke and three Christmas trees in the first five minutes, confirming its own and its predecessor's status as Christmas movies.
Yippee-ki-yay!
Have just finished Die Hard and now starting Die Hard 2
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
Does that matter what I think? What was thought at the time is important when trying to work out what their intentions were. I am arguing they thought it would help shorten the war, thus saving lives.
Well I think you must have gathered by now I am cynical of government and dont always believe what they say in terms of motive
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
Does that matter what I think? What was thought at the time is important when trying to work out what their intentions were. I am arguing they thought it would help shorten the war, thus saving lives.
Well I think you must have gathered by now I am cynical of government and dont always believe what they say in terms of motive
Your handle gave that away But I do think their primary interest is helping prevent a rather unpleasant number of casualties. Not just from Covid, but from other things as the hospitals can no longer treat people.
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Well there you go , a crap county , souless and gone
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
There have been West Midlands Police force, Fire Brigade etc. continuing throughout, all that stopped was the Metropolitan Assembley.
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Well there you go , a crap county , souless and gone
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
During WWII I do. It was a total war against a totalitarian regime.
Lucky we had a totalitarian regime to do our dirty work, eh?
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
During WWII I do. It was a total war against a totalitarian regime.
Given it was a city packed full of civilian refugees with little or no military there , I am being generous I think in saying the bombing took place because of its rather nice buildings as well as just a load of civilians rather than just cold blooded executions of thousands
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Well there you go , a crap county , souless and gone
Not gone, never went.
Gone for all intents and purposes. Same as Tyne and Wear.
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non- covid deaths daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
More than 75 years is ‘not that long ago?’
Even as a medievalist I’m thinking your timeframes are off.
(Incidentally, to be pedantic the Nazis themselves put the death toll at 25,000.)
At least he didn't go for a David Irving inspired figure.
Which one? The 250,000 one based on a Goebbels forgery, the 135,000 based on postwar anti-Communist propaganda, or the 9,000 when he was trying to claim allied air attacks were failures?
Scotland already sells more than twice as many seed potatoes to Egypt as the entire EU. The EU isn't their main market. Most are sold around the UK of course, and I'm not sure leaving the UK and joining the EU would help that.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
During WWII I do. It was a total war against a totalitarian regime.
....and total war in SUPPORT of another totalitarian regime.
In other words, the UK Government have not taken into account an important Scottish industry. I used to work in it, albeit as a student, and I know people who have whole farms based on it. That is actually a pretty serious issue.
Edit: for those PBers who are unfamiliar with it, the Scottish farming industry produces a lot of seed potatoes for the rest of the UK, because of the specific climatic conditions and also its specialist knowledge. No seed potatoes, no crop. I'm not sure what the Irish farmers will do now.
It's fascinating how many Tories on here think that the way forward for Starmer and Labour is to be....... more like the Tories.
It is to be more like the Tories. On both policy and flexibility. The Tories have just won over swathes of voters and seats that they haven't won previously. How? By appealing more to these voters than Labour did. To win these seats back and then seats that are now solidly Blue Labour have to do the same in reverse.
I thought that people used to understand this basic principle of politics, at least until the absurd footballification we now suffer where its all about supporting your team no matter how stupid they are.
The Tories have succeeded by spending money like a drunken sailor, saying f**k business and f**k the young. That wins votes in parts of the population and country, but ain't a grand strategy for the long term.
True. Though the problem for Labour is simple but massive - their former vote has largely written off their efforts as not helping them. They voted Brexit & Tory for a decisive change and that hasn't fixed things. Instead of turning back to Labour they either won't vote or will look for increasingly radical solutions like those offered by Nigel "sink the migrants" Farage
I am a former Labour voter that has gone Conservative in the last few elections, and so are a lot of my friends and family. One of the things that makes it pretty unappealing to go back to Labour is the fact that Labour members constantly call us things like thick racists that want to sink the migrants. In reality, we just want a party that is willing to have moderate levels of migration and is in tune with the bulk of voters outside of the London/university bubbles.
I don't think you the voter wants to sink the migrants - that would be the Nigel on his dinghy making angry videos. As for migration I get it though I disagree - it must be frustrating that neither party can deliver what you ask for. Labour were and are pro-migration and clearly say so. The Tories were and are pro-migration but lie about not being whilst slashing the budget for the Border Force to make the job even harder.
I find it very, very revealing that the question
- What size of population should the country have?
Is controversial, un-answerable, immoral etc.
Anyone who can't present a reasoned answer on that - fail.
It is not racist to want a discussion about migration or population numbers. Mature countries look strategically at such things and make policies accordingly. The problem is that England is not mature, thinks itself uniquely superior and able to both welcome in cheap labour from elsewhere for a fast profit and then complain about said cheap labour.
Parts of England are hugely over-populated, parts are hugely under-populated. The problem is that we concentrate the economy into pockets which drives in people who then say "England is full" when they just mean their bit of England. Our other basic problem is that people will not and cannot afford to do large numbers of jobs that are hard work and low paid. Hence the need for migrants.
What parts of England are "underpopulated"? I am from the East Midlands, one of the few regions with no big cities and everyone around the place is very happy with that, thank you very much. We don't want Nottingham and Leicester to become like Birmingham or London.
As for jobs, have you ever considered the fact that what are now "migrant jobs" are ones where employers have preferred to have Romanians and Lithuanians they can pay crap wages and give crap conditions to without much complaint? If the open door closes and the Tories don't sell us out with guest worker schemes, those jobs might just be able to pay an honest day's pay under decent conditions because employers would be forced into that to get the workers.
Why? What is wrong with this?
Oh now you have saddened me because we never got a second film.
What's the film?
Dredd?
Ok - thanks.
I liked SF when I was young. I liked comics too (I had what seems like a very valuable Marvel collection now, which I happily just gave away.) No Dredd though. Too young for me. (After having looked it up)
Judge Dredd is a bit too niche for the mainstream, so I am not surprised the Dredd film flopped despite being very true to concept.
One of many great 2000AD strips. Nemesis the Warlock was another of my favourites.
Common to Nemesis, Judge Dredd, and a number of other 2000AD strips was a rather enthusiastic embracing of a dystopia world where order was only maintained by facistic supermen. It was often written as rather tongue in cheek, like Verhoevan's Starship Troopers or or Robocop, but then becomes rather high on its own supply. In the end it too often becomes Triumph of the Will in comic book form.
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
Did I miss a step or two, or is that it?
I used it as a stark example of when governments effectively murder people (even UK ones) but current examples still include the NICE formula that equates a cost against saving a life in terms of drug treatment
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Well there you go , a crap county , souless and gone
Not gone, never went.
Gone for all intents and purposes. Same as Tyne and Wear.
They have a mayor now with serious devolved powers over the county, I'd suggest becoming more important not less.
Similar Greater Manchester, West & South Yorkshire.
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
Not as a unitary authority. Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Coventry are Metropolitan Boroughs/Cities.
In other words, the UK Government have not taken into account an important Scottish industry. I used to work in it, albeit as a student, and I know people who have whole farms based on it. That is actually a pretty serious issue.
Edit: for those PBers who are unfamiliar with it, the Scottish farming industry produces a lot of seed potatoes for the rest of the UK, because of the specific climatic conditions and also its specialist knowledge. No seed potatoes, no crop. I'm not sure what the Irish farmers will do now.
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
Not as a unitary authority. Birmingham, Wolverhampton, Dudley, Sandwell, Solihull and Coventry and are Metropolitan Boroughs/Cities.
Whilst Andy Street is mayor of the West Midlands county.
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
During WWII I do. It was a total war against a totalitarian regime.
Given it was a city packed full of civilian refugees with little or no military there , I am being generous I think in saying the bombing took place because of its rather nice buildings as well as just a load of civilians rather than just cold blooded executions of thousands
It was a major centre of industrial production, a communications hub for the Eastern Front and a key administrative point.
Nobody has ever, it my knowledge, disputed it was a legitimate target. Whether what happened matched that legitimacy is a different question.
There is a quote from Churchill regarding the bombing of German cities. Along the lines of:
Earlier in the war Britain faced an existential threat so we had to do whatever it took to survive. Now that threat has receded, will we stop bombing the cities? Will we fuck!
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
Although it has to be said, they were very bad at it. Indeed, a case was made in the 1960s that all Allied bombing did was focus minds on the fact the Germans were at war and therefore spur the workforce on to greater efforts with a resultant improvement in the German economy.
It is true that Germany’s war industry reached peak output in mid-1944 just as Allied bombing reached a crescendo, although it is now accepted many other factors were at play.
But for the loss of, without checking, 50% of the aircrews involved it wasn’t a great return for the war effort.
This is nonsense. We bombed the Germans into submission and chaos. Bomber Harris was right. He could have won the war by himself (and with his exceptionally brave crews). The question is: was this morally correct, given the inevitable and grotesque loss of German civilian life?
In the end the Allies decided No (possibly for political reasons), and drove on to Berlin (thus killing many Allied soldiers who would have lived if we'd relied on air power alone).
After Okinawa, the Americans made exactly the opposite moral choice: they decided that hundreds of thousands of Japanese should die in a few seconds, via bombing, thereby ending the war in a week and saving more American lives (and probably Japanese lives too)
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Well there you go , a crap county , souless and gone
The West Midland Serious Crime Squad were awesome value, for the money.
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
Did I miss a step or two, or is that it?
Wait until you hear what Sweden did during WWII.
That's the example we should have followed.
It would have saved so many British lives.
You mean, stayed out of the war and sold iron to Germany to keep them sweet?
Any evidence lockdowns working yet? Presumably about to go into another one because governments need to be seen to be able to control things - even when they patently cannot
You mean, apart from the fact when we locked down the virus declined and when we opened up it skyrocketed?
so err a lot of misery and poverty occurred to kick it down the road a bit?
You asked if they worked, not about the side effects.
The issue is that you don’t avoid economic damage by not locking down, you just have thousands more deaths on top.
Deaths that were on average aged 82(?) - and generally people in poor health for 82. Its never been worth it for the damage it has caused.
I'm curious - how much is your life worth?
Well its a good and hard question. For instance in war , governments talk about sacrificing lives to maintain freedom , in pandemics governments talk about sacrificng freedom to maintain lives. The one consistent thing governments are about is not saving life but maintaining control. The UK government not that long ago deliberately killed 30K people in a targeting of Dresden in a fire bombing exercise so they do not care about life just about showing they can control stuff. You know bomb this , impose lockdown here , invade Iraq there. I wish a lot of people on here coudl see past death stats (why dont they publish deaths from non covid daily (they are actually higher and you can make nice graphs of those as well)
Dresden was 80 years ago, in the middle of WWII - times and morals have changed.
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
Dresden was also during a period of total war. A bit different from now.
Governments never change - if they needed to exert control and the way to do that was by war and killing people (to save freedom) they would and will. Dresden was at the end of a already won war - still thought 30K lives should be killed though to make a point? Government dont have life saving at the top of any agenda , they have maintaining the veneer of control
Pretty sure allied troops were still dying. I don’t get what you point about Dresden is. Is it worse than Hamburg? If they could have, bomber command would have inflicted that kind of punishment on every German city. That was the point - to win the war, and stop having us and our allies killed.
The point about Dresden is to show that governments (even western democracies) dont care about saving life - The atomic bomb on Japan may have had more of a life versus life calculation but the fire bombing of Dresden (the fire was deliberately started to cause maximum civilian loss of life) was never about saving other lifes . It was becasue the government coudl do it ,so they did
Wasn't one of the arguments put forth for such bombings is that they would help shorten the war, saving Allied lives?
I am sure that argument was put forward - do you think it was valid ? I don't -
During WWII I do. It was a total war against a totalitarian regime.
Given it was a city packed full of civilian refugees with little or no military there , I am being generous I think in saying the bombing took place because of its rather nice buildings as well as just a load of civilians rather than just cold blooded executions of thousands
Not sure your opinion would have been popular among anyone living in the U.K. at the time. You know, the ones who had been bombed themselves, or lost husbands, fathers, sons. It easy with 75 years of hindsight to think we shouldn’t have bombed Dresden. It’s an easy opinion to hold. But it must be set into the context of the time.
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
Did I miss a step or two, or is that it?
Wait until you hear what Sweden did during WWII.
That's the example we should have followed.
It would have saved so many British lives.
And Sweden’s economy was in so much better shape than Britain’s in ‘45..
In other words, the UK Government have not taken into account an important Scottish industry. I used to work in it, albeit as a student, and I know people who have whole farms based on it. That is actually a pretty serious issue.
Edit: for those PBers who are unfamiliar with it, the Scottish farming industry produces a lot of seed potatoes for the rest of the UK, because of the specific climatic conditions and also its specialist knowledge. No seed potatoes, no crop. I'm not sure what the Irish farmers will do now.
The EU is < 10% of their market.
Does that stat include the recent change to Northern Ireland's status?
So, if I’m keeping up, the fact that the Allies didn’t seem to care much about protecting Axis lives in World War II, 75 years ago, demonstrates that lockdowns aren’t actually about public health but something else completely?
Did I miss a step or two, or is that it?
Wait until you hear what Sweden did during WWII.
That's the example we should have followed.
It would have saved so many British lives.
You mean, stayed out of the war and sold iron to Germany to keep them sweet?
Traitor Halifax would have done that if he had become PM, encouraged by King Edward VIII if he hadn't abdicated.
Really disappointed. I thought we had the makings of a debate over what constitutes a proper county but it just fizzled out.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
I always think a county is not a real county if people from the said area are sort of ashamed of it - Nobody takes pride in coming from the fair and just county of the West Midlands or Humberside imho
Not surprising, considering neither of them have existed for 24 years.
I thought West Midlands was still around but if both gone all the better for my argument that they are not proper counties!
The county was abolished in 1986, repeat 1986, but the new ‘metro mayor’ combined authority is called ‘the West Midlands.’
Well there you go , a crap county , souless and gone
Not gone, never went.
Gone for all intents and purposes. Same as Tyne and Wear.
Except for the Passenger Transport Executive in each case.
A West Midlands Day Tripper is a very good value ticket, btw.
Comments
I dread to think what would have happened if she'd have had that stroke during a time when C-19 had been let rip given the obvious consequences that would have had on her life saving treatment.
People seem to forget that allowing the NHS to have been totally overwhelmed would have been disastrous for those with other life threatening conditions.
The death toll would have been far far far greater as a proportion of the population.
Even as a medievalist I’m thinking your timeframes are off.
(Incidentally, to be pedantic the Nazis themselves put the death toll at 25,000.)
Invading Iraq is not generally considered to have been a good idea - largely because of the number of dead people...
If we let COVID rip, then the hospitals would fill up. Very very rapidly. This has been demonstrated, multiple times in multiple countries. Then you don't have a health care system.
I find people dying in the street dreadfully untidy. It upsets the more excitable servants, for one thing.
And in April, and since the start of November, no other cause of death has outweighed covid deaths.
Of course, no other form of death is ever likely to suddenly leap up from nothing to the largest cause of death in almost every age group (in April, it was the largest single cause of death in every age group over age 20), or drive out all treatment for all other causes of death.
Oh my! There's the US.
And fortunately I did some analysis before, and can regurgitate it now.
If you look here: https://www.multistate.us/research/covid/public you can see an "openness score".
If you then go to the BEA, you can download state-by-state data on GDP.
For simplicities sake, I'm going to divide the US into three broad categories:
Mostly open (openness score of 75+), Mixed (50-75) and Mostly shut (sub 50). I'm also going to exclude Hawaii, because (a) that's very tourist driven, and (b) they've done a basically excellent job of remaining CV19 free.
For economic growth, I have (1) converted from annualised to "in quarter", and (2) rebased to 100 for Q4 of 2019.
Mostly open saw GDP drop by 3.8%.
Mostly shut did slightly worse, falling by 4.1%.
But the best performers were... "mixed" who did best of all at -2.3%.
The places that were "mostly open" are the ones that saw wild swings and de facto lockdowns.
Criticisms of this analysis - (1) it treats North Dakota like New York, and the two are very different, in terms of population density. (2) It's a simple average, and some of the number are pretty big.
Worth noting part three: Vegas is mostly open. You can drink at the bars. You can eat at the restaurants. You can gamble and frolic and have fun.
You can get rooms on the Strip, at tier two hotels for $7 a night right now. That compares to average room rates of $200+ for this time of year. And it's still not enough to get them filled. Encore at the Wynn is closed Monday to Wednesday, because there simply isn't the demand.
It's very naive to claim that the problems are all the result of government action (or inaction.)
One of many great 2000AD strips. Nemesis the Warlock was another of my favourites.
Fine toothcomb - the gaps are regular and predictable.
- I don’t like lockdowns, they stop me doing stuff and life is very different
- They must therefore be wrong
- Handwave mightily to “prove they are wrong”
- Then they will go away and all will be better.
Lufthansa or Air France will be code shares.
There may be spare beds but the staff have not had a break for months and months.
There simply are not enough qualified doctors, anaesthetists etc. to increase the capacity further.
If you drive a motorcycle without a helmet in the UK, you're breaking the law. (The same is not true of California.)
The economic rationale of this is that if you have an accident, your healthcare costs are born by everyone. And the helmet law minimises those externalities.
If you behave in a reckless manner, and pass CV19 onto other people, you have created a cost for the state in healthcare, and you have potentially endangered them.
There are externalities inherent in individuals responses to CV19.
Restrictions are a very blunt tool for minimising those externalities.
But without them, a 20 year old going partying gets to have the fun of partying without paying any of the price of his actions.
https://twitter.com/Darth_Lebowski/status/1035974726986948608
As I have to work for a living (or to keep Mrs Stodge in a manner to which she has had to become accustomed), I'm rarely able to join the morning conversation.
The rule of PB as we all know is as follows:
Posting between Midnight and 8am is SAD
Posting between 8am and 4pm is BAD
Posting between 4pm and Midnight is MAD
Outside those times is fine.
Anyway, @Charles this morning quoted the famous Benjamin Franklin quote on liberty and safety:
"Those who would give up essential liberty, to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."
It's a quote I've seen used by those opposing restrictions and such individuals would no doubt have chafed at Hancock's rather despondent performance this afternoon.
I'm intrigued - it's a quote I've used when, usually following some form of terrorist outrage, there are calls for the Home Secretary or the Prime Minister to "crack down" on terrorism.
Crackdown or Lockdown - much the same ultimately, I suppose? We allow the Government to restrict our freedoms in the name of our own security or protection. There's a difference of course but from a philosophical view, I don't see the consistency. Some of those arguing most strongly against Hancock's restrictions are the most staunch of supporters of Patel's restrictions.
Being hit by your own side’s bombs must have been relatively common during these mass raids; shit way to go.
https://www.hsj.co.uk/coronavirus/named-the-trusts-set-to-have-at-least-a-third-of-beds-filled-by-covid-patients-on-31-dec/7029222.article
In my own Trust we now have more than 50% of the respiratory nurses off sick, and have had to close a ward as a result.
Is this what meltdown looks like? Not quite yet, I think as things are still functioning, but not looking too rosy.
It is true that Germany’s war industry reached peak output in mid-1944 just as Allied bombing reached a crescendo, although it is now accepted many other factors were at play.
But for the loss of, without checking, 50% of the aircrews involved it wasn’t a great return for the war effort.
(This post brought to you from the West Riding of Yorkshire)
https://twitter.com/Ianblackford_MP/status/1341844045493112834?s=20
They tend to care about saving lives of their own people, though, and that’s explicitly the point of discussion.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom#England
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_counties_of_the_United_Kingdom#England
You love to see it.
Apparently, it's a case of Tiers 4 Fears.
Did I miss a step or two, or is that it?
Edit: for those PBers who are unfamiliar with it, the Scottish farming industry produces a lot of seed potatoes for the rest of the UK, because of the specific climatic conditions and also its specialist knowledge. No seed potatoes, no crop. I'm not sure what the Irish farmers will do now.
That's the example we should have followed.
It would have saved so many British lives.
Similar Greater Manchester, West & South Yorkshire.
Nobody has ever, it my knowledge, disputed it was a legitimate target. Whether what happened matched that legitimacy is a different question.
Earlier in the war Britain faced an existential threat so we had to do whatever it took to survive. Now that threat has receded, will we stop bombing the cities? Will we fuck!
Part of my OU module on Just War Theory.
In the end the Allies decided No (possibly for political reasons), and drove on to Berlin (thus killing many Allied soldiers who would have lived if we'd relied on air power alone).
After Okinawa, the Americans made exactly the opposite moral choice: they decided that hundreds of thousands of Japanese should die in a few seconds, via bombing, thereby ending the war in a week and saving more American lives (and probably Japanese lives too)
Call me stupid, but I don't think that mass restrictions on peoples' liberty is particularly popular.
A West Midlands Day Tripper is a very good value ticket, btw.