Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.
It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?
Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".
I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.
Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
I’ve been thinking this for nearly a year. In a stand off between the libido of the nation’s teens and twenty somethings and Matt Hancock, it’s hard to see Matt Hancock winning. We don’t have enough police, surveillance, to ensure a lockdown. It’s going to fray and they know it is.
As a 20 year old friend said to me the other day (as she headed out for a student party) how often are you 20 years old? Not very often. Many of these kids have spent long lonely months without fun, drugs, sex, booze, friends, and flirting, through 2020. They've had enough now. They want to get laid.
Also, for a young woman, it is particularly hard. A woman is at peak physical attractiveness from about 18-25. That's just seven years when she is a head-turning stunner, when she has incredible power over men.
We have asked her to hide that beauty under a mask for many months, and we're also saying give up one year of your seven years of sexual power.
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
Yes, I've noticed the same thing about people moaning about long headers. Relatedly, I think, the people writing the headers don't seem to bother to read them over before posting. Smithson's posts almost always have some glaring error.
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
But there really has been a measurable and notable decline in IQ. It's not an opinion, it is a fact, accepted by psychometricians, just as it is accepted that IQ rose for many decades (the so-called Flynn Effect)
You can argue that IQ is a worthless measurement, but that's a different debate.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.
It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?
Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".
I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.
Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
I’ve been thinking this for nearly a year. In a stand off between the libido of the nation’s teens and twenty somethings and Matt Hancock, it’s hard to see Matt Hancock winning. We don’t have enough police, surveillance, to ensure a lockdown. It’s going to fray and they know it is.
As a 20 year old friend said to me the other day (as she headed out for a student party) how often are you 20 years old? Not very often. Many of these kids have spent long lonely months without fun, drugs, sex, booze, friends, and flirting, through 2020. They've had enough now. They want to get laid.
Also, for a young woman, it is particularly hard. A woman is at peak physical attractiveness from about 18-25. That's just seven years when she is a head-turning stunner, when she has incredible power over men.
We have asked her to hide that beauty under a mask for many months, and we're also saying give up one year of your seven years of sexual power.
They are rebelling.
An early entry for Creepiest Post (2021)
Thanks! I'm here all year
Too many Mills & Boon books I am afraid or maybe just an old pervie
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Because it is cheap, nutritious and sometimes delicious food? And because people get bored of constantly cooking for themselves?
It's not hard to grasp. And we have been told for a year that Outdoors is Safe. And you ARE allowed to go out to buy food - that is regarded as essential. The government has not said the food must be uncooked, as far as I know.
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
I will ask the next Albanian black cab driver I find if he has done any trips to Cornwall....
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
Yes, I remember him. Very articulate and witty. Didn't he go to somewhere in Wales? I do recall he did it about ten days before lockdown, when it was entirely legal, and he moved to an empty apartment gifted him for the duration by a rich, generous friend, thankful for his prescient advice on Covid.
Don't worry about the growing food shortages in Norniron. On that Twitter feed some smart person said "get the south to supply them". Yes, Tesco Ireland. Who receive all of their non Irish-exclusive products on trucks from the Tesco UK distribution centres...
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
It looks to me as though the Govt have given up with lockdowns.
It is now being implemented in a pretty half-hearted manner -- why, for example, change the definition of key workers so now the schools are very much fuller than in the previous lockdown ?
Or, why tell students to stay at home, but that they can return to University if their home working environment is not as good. Given a choice between stay at home with mum & dad, or go to University for druggy fun & sex, most students will decide their "working environment is better at University".
I think the Govt have concluded that too many people are not going to lockdown hard any more. In fact, I think among young people, that is probably a correct assessment.
Many of them are thinking: "Why should I sacrifice the magical youth of my life just for some boring geriatric?"
I’ve been thinking this for nearly a year. In a stand off between the libido of the nation’s teens and twenty somethings and Matt Hancock, it’s hard to see Matt Hancock winning. We don’t have enough police, surveillance, to ensure a lockdown. It’s going to fray and they know it is.
As a 20 year old friend said to me the other day (as she headed out for a student party) how often are you 20 years old? Not very often. Many of these kids have spent long lonely months without fun, drugs, sex, booze, friends, and flirting, through 2020. They've had enough now. They want to get laid.
Also, for a young woman, it is particularly hard. A woman is at peak physical attractiveness from about 18-25. That's just seven years when she is a head-turning stunner, when she has incredible power over men.
We have asked her to hide that beauty under a mask for many months, and we're also saying give up one year of your seven years of sexual power.
They are rebelling.
An early entry for Creepiest Post (2021)
Thanks! I'm here all year
Too many Mills & Boon books I am afraid or maybe just an old pervie
FECK!! DRRRRRRRINK! ARSE ARSE TURNIP
I am afraid DougSeal has nailed you forever. Father McJack. It will never escape you
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Because it is cheap, nutritious and sometimes delicious food? And because people get bored of constantly cooking for themselves?
It's not hard to grasp. And we have been told for a year that Outdoors is Safe. And you ARE allowed to go out to buy food - that is regarded as essential. The government has not said the food must be uncooked, as far as I know.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Because it is cheap, nutritious and sometimes delicious food? And because people get bored of constantly cooking for themselves?
It's not hard to grasp. And we have been told for a year that Outdoors is Safe. And you ARE allowed to go out to buy food - that is regarded as essential. The government has not said the food must be uncooked, as far as I know.
Obviously I'm questioning whether it should be legal.
I said I didn't see it as essential, and your answer seems to be that you would get bored if you couldn't do it.
As I keep saying, I wouldn't be asking the question if we weren't being told the NHS was on the brink of collapse, with a danger of many more lives being lost.
Anecdata: just been out to the local north London high street.
It was almost.... bustling. All takeaways open, queues inside and out, cafes busy, lots of families and groups of teens and kids, couples, shoppers, everyone. If it weren't for the shuttered non-essential shops, and the masks indoors, you would not have guessed there was a plague goin' on
Lockdown isn't just loosening, it seems to be collapsing. And this is in a city in a medical emergency where maybe 1 in 20 are infected.
WTAF
This sort of thing is why, whilst I understand there being anger at Boris' decision to allow Christmas, I can't help but wonder how many people would have obeyed him if he'd canceled it. We've all known from the beginning that there's a limit to how far you can push people.
Well, quite.
Right, right at the start there were two ideas that appear to have been forgotten.
And I'll quote, first, Chris Whitty:
"It is not just a matter of what you do but when you do it. Anything we do, we have got to be able to sustain. Once we have started these things we have to continue them through the peak, and there is a risk that, if we go too early, people will understandably get fatigued and it will be difficult to sustain this over time."
and, second, Patrick Vallance:
"If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time. ... The government is concerned that if not enough people catch the virus now, it will re-emerge in the winter, when the NHS is already overstretched."
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Perhaps because there is a small but significant proportion of the population who simply never cook for themselves and live almost entirely on eating out and take away.
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
Yes, I remember him. Very articulate and witty. Didn't he go to somewhere in Wales? I do recall he did it about ten days before lockdown, when it was entirely legal, and he moved to an empty apartment gifted him for the duration by a rich, generous friend, thankful for his prescient advice on Covid.
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
But there really has been a measurable and notable decline in IQ. It's not an opinion, it is a fact, accepted by psychometricians, just as it is accepted that IQ rose for many decades (the so-called Flynn Effect)
You can argue that IQ is a worthless measurement, but that's a different debate.
Thanks for patronising me, but my mind's fine. The fact that IQ is a worthless measurement is not 'a different debate' - it's fundamental. IQ is a worthless measurement, so reports of its decline or increase are ipso facto worthless. I don't particularly want to pursue this, and I know you'd get agitated if I tried to persuade you, in a sort of 'woke' way, that it is impossible to devise a culture-free IQ test. Don't forget, IQ tests were used originally by some psychologists to demonstrate 'proof' of racial differences in intelligence.
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
It would have been difficult to make more of a mess of the tiers, lockdown and timings of announcements than Johnson's administration did in late autumn/early winter to be honest.
The 3 day warning of an increase in lockdown kicking in was spectacularly stupid. Just the 3 days to organise those final piss-ups of freedom....no spreading happening in those gatherings, no sirreeeee....
At least they seem to have got round to the idea of lockdowns/tier changes kicking in almost immediately (although giving everyone 8 hours warning to get out of London by plane, train or automobiles should also be filed under Dumb Fuckers.....
"This is the change. It is happening now. Sorry if that is a problem. But the problem we are facing collectively is bigger than you."
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
I'll be contrary and blame proper literature instead. Ever since the 3rd century BC, when Callimachus came up with that lazy guff that μέγα βιβλίον, μέγα κακόν, attention spans have been shrinking alarmingly. And he was so committed to the concept that he made sure to write only in fragments, just in case his poor readers' senses were overloaded. Pure trahison des clercs, I tell you.
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
But there really has been a measurable and notable decline in IQ. It's not an opinion, it is a fact, accepted by psychometricians, just as it is accepted that IQ rose for many decades (the so-called Flynn Effect)
You can argue that IQ is a worthless measurement, but that's a different debate.
Thanks for patronising me, but my mind's fine. The fact that IQ is a worthless measurement is not 'a different debate' - it's fundamental. IQ is a worthless measurement, so reports of its decline or increase are ipso facto worthless. I don't particularly want to pursue this, and I know you'd get agitated if I tried to persuade you, in a sort of 'woke' way, that it is impossible to devise a culture-free IQ test. Don't forget, IQ tests were used originally by some psychologists to demonstrate 'proof' of racial differences in intelligence.
I'm right. IQ is falling. I accept you think that IQ is a worthless measurement, and I am happy to close the debate there.
Don't worry about the growing food shortages in Norniron. On that Twitter feed some smart person said "get the south to supply them". Yes, Tesco Ireland. Who receive all of their non Irish-exclusive products on trucks from the Tesco UK distribution centres...
Why do you think Boris Johnson and Jacob Rees Mogg closed down the Brexit select committee?
Clearly the committee, like the rest of us who have to deal with, cannot process the Brexit trade deal's awesomeness.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
A very considerable portion of the public can't or won't cook.
What I find interesting is that attempts to change that get curious pushbacks.
I have long believed that every child in Britain should be taught to cook ten iconic British dishes. Including a good Thai curry.
Seriously. It should be on the curriculum, and compulsory for all.
I went to a Boys State Grammar in Canterbury in the 80s. Our sister Girls School were taught how to cook but we were not. Even then the sexism stunned me.
Which caused cooking lessons to be dropped for a while.
In my youngest daughters school (*primary*) there were mandatory cooking lessons in the curriculum. Also a "home economics" type class which included things like sewing.
Being able to a sew a button on seems like a sensible thing to know - the prices you get charged at the average dry cleaners would pay for needle, thread, button & a coffee!
I'm not sure I've ever needed to sew a button on, and I'm no spring chicken.
She can have cell phones! I'm not giving her any of the others though, including the Wright Brothers and Benjamin Franklin, all of whose status remains up for debate.
I'm happy for her to have them all if it makes her feel optimistic and hopeful.
One of the things I consistently admire most Americans for is their optimism and belief that things will get better (which of course they will).
My personal take on the current situation in the US at the moment is that the events of the Capitol are being used to crush the political opposition. Rather than see the good and the rational in others and reach for that common ground, the aim appears to be to show these people to be so deplorable that all decent folk should turn their faces away in disgust.
The expected response to that might be to feel angry, betrayed, let down, singled out etc. However, I believe that most Americans in that situation will 'dig deep' into the optimism shown above and respond positively, with solutions that are positive and within the law. If Twitter bans you - start a new social network. If Google takes your social network offline - start a new mobile phone operating system. These things can only be positive, and create a proliferation of new media and new ideas. A lot of problems come from America, but they're also very good at finding the solutions too.
They attempted a violent overthrow of democracy. They should be crushed. No government can or should tolerate an armed rebellion against its authority. They went for the king, they missed, they have to suffer the consequences. If the Union had taken proper action against the rebellion after the Civil War they would not be in this position - instead we have people with Confederate flags seeking to murder legislators because the actual Confederate rebels got away with it in the name of “conciliation” and “common ground”. They were traitors and the conciliation and mercy shown should have involved commuting death sentences into prison sentences, not allowing them back into Congress within a decade.
The simple truth is that there is a limit to how much you can restrict the population from living normal human lives. Lockdown sends people mad. PBers seek to condemn those who go to the chippy, or populate a London street when the poster himself was also populating a London street.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
It would have been difficult to make more of a mess of the tiers, lockdown and timings of announcements than Johnson's administration did in late autumn/early winter to be honest.
The 3 day warning of an increase in lockdown kicking in was spectacularly stupid. Just the 3 days to organise those final piss-ups of freedom....no spreading happening in those gatherings, no sirreeeee....
At least they seem to have got round to the idea of lockdowns/tier changes kicking in almost immediately (although giving everyone 8 hours warning to get out of London by plane, train or automobiles should also be filed under Dumb Fuckers.....
"This is the change. It is happening now. Sorry if that is a problem. But the problem we are facing collectively is bigger than you."
Has any country successfully imposed an *instant* lockdown? Millions fled from Wuhan/Hubei before the shutters came down. Ditto Lombardy. And Paris. And Madrid. And London.
The simple truth is that there is a limit to how much you can restrict the population from living normal human lives. Lockdown sends people mad. PBers seek to condemn those who go to the chippy, or populate a London street when the poster himself was also populating a London street.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
I was out buying food for my family, with whom I have formed a childcare bubble. An essential task, I rather think.
The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk.
I am following the rules. Lots aren't. It worries me.
Tho I agree with you on the limits you can impose on human nature.
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
Yes, I remember him. Very articulate and witty. Didn't he go to somewhere in Wales? I do recall he did it about ten days before lockdown, when it was entirely legal, and he moved to an empty apartment gifted him for the duration by a rich, generous friend, thankful for his prescient advice on Covid.
I miss him.
I remember him as well. The hypocrite eager to lecture everyone else about how their behaviour needed to change, whilst not staying at home himself during the lockdown. Amazingly, he didn't clock that if it was illegal to rent accommodation away from home it was equally illegal to accept it for free.
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
I'll be contrary and blame proper literature instead. Ever since the 3rd century BC, when Callimachus came up with that lazy guff that μέγα βιβλίον, μέγα κακόν, attention spans have been shrinking alarmingly. And he was so committed to the concept that he made sure to write only in fragments, just in case his poor readers' senses were overloaded. Pure trahison des clercs, I tell you.
I think you're being contrary just for the sake of it, but my attention span is too short to work out what exactly you're trying to say. I'm off to learn Greek.
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
Yes, I remember him. Very articulate and witty. Didn't he go to somewhere in Wales? I do recall he did it about ten days before lockdown, when it was entirely legal, and he moved to an empty apartment gifted him for the duration by a rich, generous friend, thankful for his prescient advice on Covid.
I miss him.
I remember him as well. The hypocrite eager to lecture everyone else about how their behaviour needed to change, whilst not staying at home himself during the lockdown. Amazingly, he didn't clock that if it was illegal to rent accommodation away from home it was equally illegal to accept it for free.
If only he were here to defend himself. I remember him constantly humiliating you, and you getting angrier and angrier with impotent rage, which was very amusing.
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
It would have been difficult to make more of a mess of the tiers, lockdown and timings of announcements than Johnson's administration did in late autumn/early winter to be honest.
The 3 day warning of an increase in lockdown kicking in was spectacularly stupid. Just the 3 days to organise those final piss-ups of freedom....no spreading happening in those gatherings, no sirreeeee....
At least they seem to have got round to the idea of lockdowns/tier changes kicking in almost immediately (although giving everyone 8 hours warning to get out of London by plane, train or automobiles should also be filed under Dumb Fuckers.....
"This is the change. It is happening now. Sorry if that is a problem. But the problem we are facing collectively is bigger than you."
Has any country successfully imposed an *instant* lockdown? Millions fled from Wuhan/Hubei before the shutters came down. Ditto Lombardy. And Paris. And Madrid. And London.
The simple truth is that there is a limit to how much you can restrict the population from living normal human lives. Lockdown sends people mad. PBers seek to condemn those who go to the chippy, or populate a London street when the poster himself was also populating a London street.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
I was out buying food for my family, with whom I have formed a childcare bubble. An essential task, I rather think.
The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk.
I am following the rules. Lots aren't. It worries me.
Tho I agree with you on the limits you can impose on human nature.
Sure, but many other people would also believe that they were doing essential tasks. I went mountain biking today with my son. It was far too cold. I bought him hot chocolate and myself a coffee from a pop-up takeaway. Later I went to the newsagent to buy a paper to read while I thawed out.
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
That study doesn't say what you think it does. It's clear that most transmission occurs indoors, but we spend most of our time indoors anyway. The paper states:
"Fifth, in order to test the hypothesis that the risk of infection is lower outdoors, future research should collect data about time spent indoors versus outdoors. Given that 90% of time is spent indoors in high-and-middle income countries [32], then it would be expected that 90% of transmission to occur indoors, all else being equal."
It seems likely to me that outdoor settings will see lower transmission odds than indoor ones, but I think it's dangerous so state that the risk is "negligible".
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
A very considerable portion of the public can't or won't cook.
What I find interesting is that attempts to change that get curious pushbacks.
I have long believed that every child in Britain should be taught to cook ten iconic British dishes. Including a good Thai curry.
Seriously. It should be on the curriculum, and compulsory for all.
I went to a Boys State Grammar in Canterbury in the 80s. Our sister Girls School were taught how to cook but we were not. Even then the sexism stunned me.
Which caused cooking lessons to be dropped for a while.
In my youngest daughters school (*primary*) there were mandatory cooking lessons in the curriculum. Also a "home economics" type class which included things like sewing.
Being able to a sew a button on seems like a sensible thing to know - the prices you get charged at the average dry cleaners would pay for needle, thread, button & a coffee!
I'm not sure I've ever needed to sew a button on, and I'm no spring chicken.
Strange - I have sewn on tons over the years. Given I work in button shirts, I suppose that isn't surprising.
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
It doesn't say anything about "negligible". It says it seems a lower risk, but outdoor transmission is possible and warrants further investigation: "This systematic review found that while outdoor environments do seem at lower risk for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses than indoor environments, there are data showing that infection transmission is possible outdoors, thus warranting further rigorous investigation."
The ONS thinks that rates of depression doubled between summer '19 and summer '20 to about 20% of the population. After another six months of winter and lockdown it's not unreasonable to assume that they might be as high as a third of the population. Some of these people will be outside, trying to live a potemkin version of thier lives, because the alternative is breaking.
The simple truth is that there is a limit to how much you can restrict the population from living normal human lives. Lockdown sends people mad. PBers seek to condemn those who go to the chippy, or populate a London street when the poster himself was also populating a London street.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
I was out buying food for my family, with whom I have formed a childcare bubble. An essential task, I rather think.
The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk.
I am following the rules. Lots aren't. It worries me.
Tho I agree with you on the limits you can impose on human nature.
"The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk."
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
Yes, I've noticed the same thing about people moaning about long headers. Relatedly, I think, the people writing the headers don't seem to bother to read them over before posting. Smithson's posts almost always have some glaring error.
That's just to let you know it really is Mike writing them
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
Have you never heard of the long-standing American problem of lynching? I’m not sure your analysis that only shooting is a credible threat, esp given a gallows was erected by the terrorists not far away, stands up to much scrutiny.
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
A very considerable portion of the public can't or won't cook.
What I find interesting is that attempts to change that get curious pushbacks.
I have long believed that every child in Britain should be taught to cook ten iconic British dishes. Including a good Thai curry.
Seriously. It should be on the curriculum, and compulsory for all.
I went to a Boys State Grammar in Canterbury in the 80s. Our sister Girls School were taught how to cook but we were not. Even then the sexism stunned me.
Which caused cooking lessons to be dropped for a while.
In my youngest daughters school (*primary*) there were mandatory cooking lessons in the curriculum. Also a "home economics" type class which included things like sewing.
Being able to a sew a button on seems like a sensible thing to know - the prices you get charged at the average dry cleaners would pay for needle, thread, button & a coffee!
I'm not sure I've ever needed to sew a button on, and I'm no spring chicken.
Strange - I have sewn on tons over the years. Given I work in button shirts, I suppose that isn't surprising.
I wish I had been taught properly. I’m really bad at it..
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
A close friend of mine went down by train to his partner's enormous second home in Cornwall, from London, the day AFTER lockdown was imposed. He justified it with some guff about "my work being down there" - by which he meant a couple of documents he needed, which could have been posted to him.
And now Cornwall is seeing a steep rise in cases. I had to restrain myself from calling him a selfish arse.
There was a poster on here last Spring, Eadric, can’t remember you both being on the same thread, but I do remember him doing something very similar.
Yes, I remember him. Very articulate and witty. Didn't he go to somewhere in Wales? I do recall he did it about ten days before lockdown, when it was entirely legal, and he moved to an empty apartment gifted him for the duration by a rich, generous friend, thankful for his prescient advice on Covid.
I miss him.
I remember him as well. The hypocrite eager to lecture everyone else about how their behaviour needed to change, whilst not staying at home himself during the lockdown. Amazingly, he didn't clock that if it was illegal to rent accommodation away from home it was equally illegal to accept it for free.
If only he were here to defend himself. I remember him constantly humiliating you, and you getting angrier and angrier with impotent rage, which was very amusing.
Ah well. Absent friends!
He would have done better to have followed your example, stayed at home, and let the drink take him away to fantasy island.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Fish and chip shops are clearly essential to modern life, and queueing outside perfectly safe, from where we watch large groups converge on the mosque on Fridays and church on Sundays.
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
I'm not so sure about that. Hanging has a particular historical resonance with some of the Trumpites.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
I'm just trying to understand the thinking. I don't know of any data on the risk of infection at 2m outside, especially in relation to the new variant.
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
Fish and chip shops are clearly essential to modern life, and queueing outside perfectly safe, from where we watch large groups converge on the mosque on Fridays and church on Sundays.
Thanks. As I said, I was just trying to understand the thinking. Your reply is helpful in that.
The simple truth is that there is a limit to how much you can restrict the population from living normal human lives. Lockdown sends people mad. PBers seek to condemn those who go to the chippy, or populate a London street when the poster himself was also populating a London street.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
I was out buying food for my family, with whom I have formed a childcare bubble. An essential task, I rather think.
The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk.
I am following the rules. Lots aren't. It worries me.
Tho I agree with you on the limits you can impose on human nature.
"The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk."
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
Hard to square that spending Friday afternoon or Sunday morning worshiping one’s preferred version of the Tooth Fairy is essential. But who am I to judge?
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
It would have been difficult to make more of a mess of the tiers, lockdown and timings of announcements than Johnson's administration did in late autumn/early winter to be honest.
The 3 day warning of an increase in lockdown kicking in was spectacularly stupid. Just the 3 days to organise those final piss-ups of freedom....no spreading happening in those gatherings, no sirreeeee....
At least they seem to have got round to the idea of lockdowns/tier changes kicking in almost immediately (although giving everyone 8 hours warning to get out of London by plane, train or automobiles should also be filed under Dumb Fuckers.....
"This is the change. It is happening now. Sorry if that is a problem. But the problem we are facing collectively is bigger than you."
Notice of lockdown is not the problem, rather the number of changes that is the problem. My guess would be the sudden Christmas restrictions after Boris spent weeks telling the country things would be relaxed did far more harm, and were far more breached by people who'd not even realised there was a late change in rules.
Another problem is these changes often take a couple of days to reach gov.uk so even though people realise there is a change from tier 3 to 4 or vice versa, it is often hard to nail down precisely what that means. I really do not know why this should be; surely written guidelines can be prepared in advance; they can't be still tweaking the rules as Boris starts speaking.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
If you are moving, then (so long as you're not directly following your friend) then even if the gap is much less, you'll be fine.
There was fabulous article in the New Statesman about how it transmits, and the answer is indoors, indoors, indoors. Basically being in a crowded indoor space with poor ventilation is a no-no.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
A very considerable portion of the public can't or won't cook.
What I find interesting is that attempts to change that get curious pushbacks.
I have long believed that every child in Britain should be taught to cook ten iconic British dishes. Including a good Thai curry.
Seriously. It should be on the curriculum, and compulsory for all.
I went to a Boys State Grammar in Canterbury in the 80s. Our sister Girls School were taught how to cook but we were not. Even then the sexism stunned me.
Which caused cooking lessons to be dropped for a while.
In my youngest daughters school (*primary*) there were mandatory cooking lessons in the curriculum. Also a "home economics" type class which included things like sewing.
Being able to a sew a button on seems like a sensible thing to know - the prices you get charged at the average dry cleaners would pay for needle, thread, button & a coffee!
I'm not sure I've ever needed to sew a button on, and I'm no spring chicken.
Strange - I have sewn on tons over the years. Given I work in button shirts, I suppose that isn't surprising.
My grandfather invented a button that didn’t need sewing. It had a kind of screw-clamp mechanism instead. He held the patent for it.
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
One point to add, in favour of David's thesis, is that much of the American Right believes there has ALREADY been a coup: America has inexplicably and "illegally" been taken over by a bunch of Woke liberal anti-patriots, pushing an alien, unAmerican agenda.
That would, morally, justify a counter-coup
It might if it were true but unless you are of the Q-Anon persuasion it's bullshit.
That's my point, duh. A lot of the American Right buys into the QAnon stuff, it is remarkably widespread
"A new survey has revealed that Americans increasingly believe in conspiracy theories such as QAnon, which claims that a deep state run by satan-worshipping pedophiles has worked to undermine Donald Trump.
"According to the NPR/Ipsos poll released on Wednesday, some 39 per cent of respondents said they agreed that the president was being undermined in this way.
"When asked whether or not “satan-worshipping elites who run a child sex ring are trying to control our politics and media,” only 47 per cent said the statement was incorrect. "
We can see where the alt-right, the Q-Anon loonies etc have taken the American right.
So how would you suggest going about "engaging" with people with those beliefs?
I don't have a clue.
It should also be noted, for balance, that a chunk of the American Left is just as bad: it has been captured by mad identity politics, insane racist Marxism like "Official BLM", proper anarchists like Antifa. Tearing down statues of Abe Lincoln in month-long riots. Not sensible.
America is in a very dark place, as I said yesterday. The polarisation is now so intense it is hard to see a way out. Neither side wants compromise. And they all have guns.
Eek.
Passing over the rare flash of self awareness in the first sentence, I tuned in to the Mike Gallagher show this morning. He is the Republican shock jock who I spent time listening to during my drive around the Great Plains in 2019, largely because the only alternative on the car radio was an even more loopy religious channel. Although I have to concede he’s a radio professional and his show can easily become compelling listening.
From yesterday’s show, his line is to condemn the violence at the Capitol unambiguously, playing the Trump ‘hostage tape’ over and over to underline the nonsense of any suggestion that Trump incited the riot, and then to major on the comparison between a range of Democrats’ comments after the BLM protests to try and establish the position that the Dems are the people who are really the ones soft on violent protest.
This then allows him to go into full-on attack mode toward the Dems seeking impeachment on the grounds that they are seeking to make unjustifiable political capital from an event where Trump’s own hands are completely clean.
As when I listened in 2019, it’s the adverts that I found the most shocking; the advertisers on the programme clearly know they have an audience of mugs. Fish oil tablets bigged up as an all-embracing pain cure on sale for $20 for a small pot. A religious firm selling ‘boxes of blessings’, each one supposedly prayed over before being mailed out. All manner of quack medical treatments and seemingly dodgy financial investments, and humdrum items like pillows marketed as if they were guaranteed to cure all insomnia, being pitched at people the suppliers must believe have more money than sense, even though in reality I suspect they have little of either. Products mostly endorsed by Gallagher himself as the host of the show.
One possibility is that we are now seeing the effects of the decline in human IQ, which has been going on since the turn of the century (and possibly much longer). Stupider people (of right or left) will believe stupider things.
I hate to be mean but I do think kids today are a bit thicker than they used to be. Nicer, but thicker
I'd say that that, such as it is, is simply a function of them not being taught how to think and being exposed to all sorts of different views in a free speech environment.
It makes you a poorer thinker, because you've never had to do it, more receptive to and accepting of dogma and therefore "thicker".
I don't think there's been a decline in IQ (whatever that is), nor do I think people suffer from not being exposed to different views in a free speech environment. People are just as intelligent as ever, but just not as well read.
I put this down to a longer-term decline in what I would call proper reading. People I know, even pretty bright ones, under 30 just don't read enough proper literature - fact or fiction - or proper newspapers, for example. Attention spans are much lower, because of the pervasive effects of TV (much more choice now, so more watching) and soundbites on social media. Those who teach will, I suspect, agree that it's pretty challenging to get young people to read an extended piece of 'challenging' writing.
It even shines though on PB, with a poster who complains that the headers are too long for s/he to digest......
But there really has been a measurable and notable decline in IQ. It's not an opinion, it is a fact, accepted by psychometricians, just as it is accepted that IQ rose for many decades (the so-called Flynn Effect)
You can argue that IQ is a worthless measurement, but that's a different debate.
It is funny, though: those very same people who refused to believe that IQs were rising between 1950 and 1995 are the same people who are now really worried by the fact that IQs are falling.
I have a view: in womb nutrition is the key, and the decline of the basics of home cooking is the problem. Or it could be cable TV, YouTube, or the decline in smoking or vaccines or Bill Gates. Take your pick.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
A very considerable portion of the public can't or won't cook.
What I find interesting is that attempts to change that get curious pushbacks.
I have long believed that every child in Britain should be taught to cook ten iconic British dishes. Including a good Thai curry.
Seriously. It should be on the curriculum, and compulsory for all.
I went to a Boys State Grammar in Canterbury in the 80s. Our sister Girls School were taught how to cook but we were not. Even then the sexism stunned me.
Which caused cooking lessons to be dropped for a while.
In my youngest daughters school (*primary*) there were mandatory cooking lessons in the curriculum. Also a "home economics" type class which included things like sewing.
Being able to a sew a button on seems like a sensible thing to know - the prices you get charged at the average dry cleaners would pay for needle, thread, button & a coffee!
I'm not sure I've ever needed to sew a button on, and I'm no spring chicken.
Strange - I have sewn on tons over the years. Given I work in button shirts, I suppose that isn't surprising.
I've only ever sewn on one button, the button of the trousers of a morning suit.
She can have cell phones! I'm not giving her any of the others though, including the Wright Brothers and Benjamin Franklin, all of whose status remains up for debate.
I'm happy for her to have them all if it makes her feel optimistic and hopeful.
One of the things I consistently admire most Americans for is their optimism and belief that things will get better (which of course they will).
My personal take on the current situation in the US at the moment is that the events of the Capitol are being used to crush the political opposition. Rather than see the good and the rational in others and reach for that common ground, the aim appears to be to show these people to be so deplorable that all decent folk should turn their faces away in disgust.
The expected response to that might be to feel angry, betrayed, let down, singled out etc. However, I believe that most Americans in that situation will 'dig deep' into the optimism shown above and respond positively, with solutions that are positive and within the law. If Twitter bans you - start a new social network. If Google takes your social network offline - start a new mobile phone operating system. These things can only be positive, and create a proliferation of new media and new ideas. A lot of problems come from America, but they're also very good at finding the solutions too.
They attempted a violent overthrow of democracy. They should be crushed. No government can or should tolerate an armed rebellion against its authority. They went for the king, they missed, they have to suffer the consequences. If the Union had taken proper action against the rebellion after the Civil War they would not be in this position - instead we have people with Confederate flags seeking to murder legislators because the actual Confederate rebels got away with it in the name of “conciliation” and “common ground”. They were traitors and the conciliation and mercy shown should have involved commuting death sentences into prison sentences, not allowing them back into Congress within a decade.
The people who I'm talking about are not the rioters (who deserve every punishment within the law), I'm talking about the entirety of Trump's base.
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
That study doesn't say what you think it does. It's clear that most transmission occurs indoors, but we spend most of our time indoors anyway. The paper states:
"Fifth, in order to test the hypothesis that the risk of infection is lower outdoors, future research should collect data about time spent indoors versus outdoors. Given that 90% of time is spent indoors in high-and-middle income countries [32], then it would be expected that 90% of transmission to occur indoors, all else being equal."
It seems likely to me that outdoor settings will see lower transmission odds than indoor ones, but I think it's dangerous so state that the risk is "negligible".
A reasonable a priori hypothesis from what we know about airborne transmission is that standing downwind of someone, especially if that person is talking, for significant periods is hazardous. IIRC a PBer found that his father was infected with the only exposure sittring out in the garden. To my mind, sitting in a pub garden with anthing like a steady wind is not much better than being in a restaurant with an aircon draught, which is known to be a causal factor from case studies. And those are thought to have caused an uptick during Mr Sunak's twofer offer.
Multiply those risk factors considerably for a panting and maskless runner (and hope they are more than compensated by the briefer duration).
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
I'm not so sure about that. Hanging has a particular historical resonance with some of the Trumpites.
Indeed but it is hardly practicable whereas any idiot with a gun, and there are a lot of them, can shoot. In a British context, most recent terrorist incidents have involved readily accessible cars and kitchen knives rather than bombs which need logistics and expertise. That's the point. Hang Mike Pence is a chant; shoot Mike Pence is a credible threat and even incitement.
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
The 3 day warning of an increase in lockdown kicking in was spectacularly stupid. Just the 3 days to organise those final piss-ups of freedom....no spreading happening in those gatherings, no sirreeeee....
At least they seem to have got round to the idea of lockdowns/tier changes kicking in almost immediately (although giving everyone 8 hours warning to get out of London by plane, train or automobiles should also be filed under Dumb Fuckers.....
"This is the change. It is happening now. Sorry if that is a problem. But the problem we are facing collectively is bigger than you."
They do it on purpose. Nobody that senior in government can be that stupid, an elected Terry Fuckwit doing the same stupid over and over, genuinely puzzled every time at the result. Not even Boris "what do you mean you're pregnant" Johnson is that dumb.
Which makes it malicious. They announce lockdown early enough to allow people to flee and thus spread the pox as widely as possible. Yes more people will suffer and die. But the alternative is to face down angry Tory MPs - who really are that dumb - so another pile of corpses is the least worst option.
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
That study doesn't say what you think it does. It's clear that most transmission occurs indoors, but we spend most of our time indoors anyway. The paper states:
"Fifth, in order to test the hypothesis that the risk of infection is lower outdoors, future research should collect data about time spent indoors versus outdoors. Given that 90% of time is spent indoors in high-and-middle income countries [32], then it would be expected that 90% of transmission to occur indoors, all else being equal."
It seems likely to me that outdoor settings will see lower transmission odds than indoor ones, but I think it's dangerous so state that the risk is "negligible".
A reasonable a priori hypothesis from what we know about airborne transmission is that standing downwind of someone, especially if that person is talking, for significant periods is hazardous. IIRC a PBer found that his father was infected with the only exposure sittring out in the garden. To my mind, sitting in a pub garden with anthing like a steady wind is not much better than being in a restaurant with an aircon draught, which is known to be a causal factor from case studies. And those are thought to have caused an uptick during Mr Sunak's twofer offer.
Multiply those risk factors considerably for a panting and maskless runner (and hope they are more than compensated by the briefer duration).
In cold misty weather with low levels of UV, viable virus particles must literately hang around a lot longer than they would during the summer.
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
Have you never heard of the long-standing American problem of lynching? I’m not sure your analysis that only shooting is a credible threat, esp given a gallows was erected by the terrorists not far away, stands up to much scrutiny.
A lot of people have said 'F*** Donald Trump' too, but one would hope that if given the actual opportunity to do so, a calmer head would prevail.
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
That study doesn't say what you think it does. It's clear that most transmission occurs indoors, but we spend most of our time indoors anyway. The paper states:
"Fifth, in order to test the hypothesis that the risk of infection is lower outdoors, future research should collect data about time spent indoors versus outdoors. Given that 90% of time is spent indoors in high-and-middle income countries [32], then it would be expected that 90% of transmission to occur indoors, all else being equal."
It seems likely to me that outdoor settings will see lower transmission odds than indoor ones, but I think it's dangerous so state that the risk is "negligible".
A reasonable a priori hypothesis from what we know about airborne transmission is that standing downwind of someone, especially if that person is talking, for significant periods is hazardous. IIRC a PBer found that his father was infected with the only exposure sittring out in the garden. To my mind, sitting in a pub garden with anthing like a steady wind is not much better than being in a restaurant with an aircon draught, which is known to be a causal factor from case studies. And those are thought to have caused an uptick during Mr Sunak's twofer offer.
Multiply those risk factors considerably for a panting and maskless runner (and hope they are more than compensated by the briefer duration).
In cold misty weather with low levels of UV, viable virus particles must literately hang around a lot longer than they would during the summer.
That too. But people hang around less, unless queuing I suppose ...
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
In a wildly depressing week, that thread still stands out as OMFG HELP
If he's right, the UK is completely fecked. There is nothing we can do now, because B117 is too widespread.
It's a not entire foolish thing to consider.
This is why there is such a push on the vaccine in this country, I believe.
I see that the world, after denigrating British decisions to prioritize first jabs over second and to consider, if production does not keep up with requirements, mixing and matching 2nd jabs, is following Britain's lead.
Biden has said that he will release the half of the US vaccine stocks currently held back to ensure enough supply for timely second jabs, and rely on future production to supply the demand for second jabs.
That sounds like using the vaccine and relying on resupply for the second dose (3 weeks for Pfizer, 4 for Moderna) rather than planning a 12 week delay.
Provided further deliveries occur on schedule, it is perfectly compatible with recommended regime.
Did you get your second jab ok @Foxy or are you caught up with the switch to 12 weeks?
Had my second one last Sunday, 21 days after the first, before the rule changed.
Mrs Foxy won't get her second for 12 weeks though, but as she had Covid in November the vaccine will probably just boost her natural antibodies.
Great, glad to hear it.
Deep in rural Dorset we have had two cases in our small village (pop. 300) in the past two weeks - one has sadly died, the other is in hospital, which brings it home. It's also hard to understand because no one seems to be going out at all.
I wonder if @Mortimer is still thinking this doesn't affect Dorset much?
It's everywhere now. My own parish has a rate of 800 per 100 000 population, up there with the worst in the country.
London going into Tier 4, just before Christmas, created quite a spreading event as people fled the metropolis. Friends on the IoW and Norfolk reports lots of second homes arriving, I suspect the same of the West Country.
It would have been difficult to make more of a mess of the tiers, lockdown and timings of announcements than Johnson's administration did in late autumn/early winter to be honest.
Agreed. That said, the programme is stumbling forward. Round here (Godalming, smallish town) the streets are largely deserted again and the town car parks are empty, vaccinations are having supply hiccups but mostly being delivered, a big new centre is opening at Epsom racecourse next week, new infection rate remains high but has stopped rising for a few days after a post-Xmas jump of 100%. The main issue seems to be hospital overload with the post-Xmas bulge still coming through. If we can get through the next few weeks without disaster, I think it'll start to feel a bit better.
While we're on the subject of transmission, does anyone have any good data as to the difference eye protection makes to the risk of infection? We all know the virus can enter through the mucous membranes of the eye, but almost all the public debate has centred on masking the mouth and nose. Whadda we think?
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
Is that the MP with a kidney transplant or something like that?
Should that be relevant? It's still effectively insider trading.
My 93 year old mother in law in Herefordshire hasn't had hers and won't be jumping any queues.
My mother is 96 in a private care home where there have been positive cases, no sign of the vaccine for her or staff.
Boris Johnson's dad has even had his second vaccination a few days ago. Don't tell me it's not who you know
It's not who you know it's very much where you live.
E.g., in Wales.
As I understand it, the countries of the UK have received vaccines in proportion to their population.
If so -- and if the countries are using all the vaccines they receive promptly -- it should not be possible for significant discrepancies to arise.
Like Scotland 2.1 per cent, Wales 1.6 per cent of the population jabbed.
Unless the Scottish Government is way more competent than the Welsh one. 😉
Do you need to ask
Is the assumption correct that vaccine is distributed by population, rather than by age? I could easily believe Wales has fewer 80-year-olds than Surrey, owing to coal-mining.
Does anyone understand the rationale for take-aways still being open, with people queueing indoors? I saw this today in part of Greater London with a weekly infection rate of more than 1000 per 100,000 people
People are meant to be leaving home for only a very restricted set of reasons. Does anyone know which of these reasons take-aways are meant to be serving? Exercise? Work that can't be done at home? Health care? Worship? Medical emergencies? What???
Have to say my local cafe allowed people to wait inside until New Year but in the last ten days it's been outdoor waiting only which is fine. Not sure that's being universally applied at all food outlets.
And what the rationale is for them being open at all?
Just economic? Fine if we're being fed a lot of flim-flam just to make us behave, but if the NHS is in danger of collapsing in the next few weeks, at the cost of tens of thousands of lives ...
To serve those that cannot cook, those who are key workers, who do not have the time to cook, low paid key workers whose only real option is takeaway food. When you're barely above minimum wage a £3.49 Fillet O'Fish from the Golden Arches might be your only option.
At my fish and chip shop, we queue and wait outside for the most part. I for one will be glad when the temperature picks up next week.
So - you reckon the risk of infection is negligible so long as you're queueing outside? Or you reckon your risk of serious illness is negligible if you do get infected? Or you find fish and chips so delicious that you're willing to take the risk? Or you'd starve to death if you didn't? I'm just striving to understand, given that we're told every day that the NHS is on the brink of collapse as things are.
All the evidence suggests that standing 2 metres apart, outdoors, basically eliminates any chance of infection.;
If you have evidence otherwise, then please tell me, because this is what I have been doing daily! - seeing friends outdoors but walking 2 metres apart.....
If you are moving, then (so long as you're not directly following your friend) then even if the gap is much less, you'll be fine.
There was fabulous article in the New Statesman about how it transmits, and the answer is indoors, indoors, indoors. Basically being in a crowded indoor space with poor ventilation is a no-no.
Odd to answer a question about "standing" by saying "If you are moving ..."
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
That study doesn't say what you think it does. It's clear that most transmission occurs indoors, but we spend most of our time indoors anyway. The paper states:
"Fifth, in order to test the hypothesis that the risk of infection is lower outdoors, future research should collect data about time spent indoors versus outdoors. Given that 90% of time is spent indoors in high-and-middle income countries [32], then it would be expected that 90% of transmission to occur indoors, all else being equal."
It seems likely to me that outdoor settings will see lower transmission odds than indoor ones, but I think it's dangerous so state that the risk is "negligible".
A reasonable a priori hypothesis from what we know about airborne transmission is that standing downwind of someone, especially if that person is talking, for significant periods is hazardous. IIRC a PBer found that his father was infected with the only exposure sittring out in the garden. To my mind, sitting in a pub garden with anthing like a steady wind is not much better than being in a restaurant with an aircon draught, which is known to be a causal factor from case studies. And those are thought to have caused an uptick during Mr Sunak's twofer offer.
Multiply those risk factors considerably for a panting and maskless runner (and hope they are more than compensated by the briefer duration).
Rule of thumb for me: if I can smell another person's perfume or sweat, they're too close. That is absolutely the case in outdoor queues, so I don't go near them.
While we're on the subject of transmission, does anyone have any good data as to the difference eye protection makes to the risk of infection? We all know the virus can enter through the mucous membranes of the eye, but almost all the public debate has centred on masking the mouth and nose. Whadda we think?
In the early days, we were told not to fiddle with masks or rub our eyes, so there might be something in it. Has there been any research on infection rates between spectacles-wearers and others?
The simple truth is that there is a limit to how much you can restrict the population from living normal human lives. Lockdown sends people mad. PBers seek to condemn those who go to the chippy, or populate a London street when the poster himself was also populating a London street.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
I was out buying food for my family, with whom I have formed a childcare bubble. An essential task, I rather think.
The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk.
I am following the rules. Lots aren't. It worries me.
Tho I agree with you on the limits you can impose on human nature.
Sure, but many other people would also believe that they were doing essential tasks. I went mountain biking today with my son. It was far too cold. I bought him hot chocolate and myself a coffee from a pop-up takeaway. Later I went to the newsagent to buy a paper to read while I thawed out.
Essential? Possibly, probably not. Who knows?
It is also essential to have a little bit of "life " in peoples lives as well
That is fantastic, but in the queue well behind Covid health tourist Rupert Murdoch and citizen of the world Stanley Johnson.
Strangely you didn't mention the Labour mp who queue jumped
Who was that?
All I can find is a debunked conspiracy theory put out by Guido and Allin -Khan apologising for suggesting Conservative MPs were queue jumping. I have no doubt Floater is on the money but I can't find it.
Here is the story...
Any leftover vaccine should go to doctors or nurses' reaction as city MP gets jab by joining queue
Is that the MP with a kidney transplant or something like that?
Should that be relevant? It's still effectively insider trading.
My 93 year old mother in law in Herefordshire hasn't had hers and won't be jumping any queues.
My mother is 96 in a private care home where there have been positive cases, no sign of the vaccine for her or staff.
Boris Johnson's dad has even had his second vaccination a few days ago. Don't tell me it's not who you know
It's not who you know it's very much where you live.
E.g., in Wales.
As I understand it, the countries of the UK have received vaccines in proportion to their population.
If so -- and if the countries are using all the vaccines they receive promptly -- it should not be possible for significant discrepancies to arise.
Like Scotland 2.1 per cent, Wales 1.6 per cent of the population jabbed.
Unless the Scottish Government is way more competent than the Welsh one. 😉
Do you need to ask
Is the assumption correct that vaccine is distributed by population, rather than by age? I could easily believe Wales has fewer 80-year-olds than Surrey, owing to coal-mining.
I would have thought present-day poverty would be a bigger factor deciding early death than the rates of mining decades ago.
This is America. I'd be more worried if they chanted "shoot Mike Pence". Hanging the VP is just a few idiots chanting. They might have invoked the guillotine or enormo-haddock. Only shooting, in the American context of widespread gun ownership, is a credible threat, and one that such a chant might easily have encouraged gullible hot-heads to enact.
I'm not so sure about that. Hanging has a particular historical resonance with some of the Trumpites.
Indeed but it is hardly practicable whereas any idiot with a gun, and there are a lot of them, can shoot. In a British context, most recent terrorist incidents have involved readily accessible cars and kitchen knives rather than bombs which need logistics and expertise. That's the point. Hang Mike Pence is a chant; shoot Mike Pence is a credible threat and even incitement.
Rope, attachment point, knot. Not difficult, and there are even more ropes than there are guns. A police officer was killed by being hit by a fire extinguisher - would that have failed to be a credible threat if it had been threatened rather than actually done?
At least, once Trump has gone, this will mark the end of the Qanon cult. More advertising and clickbait-driven propaganda will emerge to replace it though, because of the combination of ethnic and cultural polarisation and lack of sufficient democratic representation and participation.
Comments
Relatedly, I think, the people writing the headers don't seem to bother to read them over before posting. Smithson's posts almost always have some glaring error.
You can argue that IQ is a worthless measurement, but that's a different debate.
Some reading to improve your mind.
https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674
https://edition.cnn.com/2018/06/13/health/falling-iq-scores-study-intl/index.html
https://slate.com/technology/2018/09/iq-scores-going-down-research-flynn-effect.html
I know that the law is now intended to prevent people leaving home except for certain essential purposes. To be honest, I don't see how going to the chip shop is essential.
It's not hard to grasp. And we have been told for a year that Outdoors is Safe. And you ARE allowed to go out to buy food - that is regarded as essential. The government has not said the food must be uncooked, as far as I know.
"hang Mike Pence"
https://twitter.com/i/status/1346963199778828290
I miss him.
I am afraid DougSeal has nailed you forever. Father McJack. It will never escape you
I said I didn't see it as essential, and your answer seems to be that you would get bored if you couldn't do it.
As I keep saying, I wouldn't be asking the question if we weren't being told the NHS was on the brink of collapse, with a danger of many more lives being lost.
Right, right at the start there were two ideas that appear to have been forgotten.
And I'll quote, first, Chris Whitty:
"It is not just a matter of what you do but when you do it. Anything we do, we have got to be able to sustain. Once we have started these things we have to continue them through the peak, and there is a risk that, if we go too early, people will understandably get fatigued and it will be difficult to sustain this over time."
and, second, Patrick Vallance:
"If you suppress something very, very hard, when you release those measures it bounces back and it bounces back at the wrong time. ... The government is concerned that if not enough people catch the virus now, it will re-emerge in the winter, when the NHS is already overstretched."
Boris Johnson's dad has even had his second vaccination a few days ago. Don't tell me it's not who you know
https://academic.oup.com/jid/advance-article/doi/10.1093/infdis/jiaa742/6009483
Five identified studies found that a low proportion of reported global SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred outdoors (<10%) and the odds of indoor transmission was very high compared to outdoors {18.7 times; 95% CI 6.0, 57.9}</i> which does seem to indicate you'd have to be somewhat unlucky to catch it outdoors, distanced, wearing a mask queueing for a takeout.
At least they seem to have got round to the idea of lockdowns/tier changes kicking in almost immediately (although giving everyone 8 hours warning to get out of London by plane, train or automobiles should also be filed under Dumb Fuckers.....
"This is the change. It is happening now. Sorry if that is a problem. But the problem we are facing collectively is bigger than you."
Clearly the committee, like the rest of us who have to deal with, cannot process the Brexit trade deal's awesomeness.
Enough already.
Focus ON THE VACCINE ROLLOUT. It is the only game in town.
The only other time I go out, is to meet one friend outdoors for a socially distanced walk.
I am following the rules. Lots aren't. It worries me.
Tho I agree with you on the limits you can impose on human nature.
https://twitter.com/newschambers/status/1347953816512180226?s=20
Ah well. Absent friends!
Essential? Possibly, probably not. Who knows?
It's clear that most transmission occurs indoors, but we spend most of our time indoors anyway. The paper states:
"Fifth, in order to test the hypothesis that the risk of infection is lower outdoors, future research should collect data about time spent indoors versus outdoors. Given that 90% of time is spent indoors in high-and-middle income countries [32], then it would be expected that 90% of transmission to occur indoors, all else being equal."
It seems likely to me that outdoor settings will see lower transmission odds than indoor ones, but I think it's dangerous so state that the risk is "negligible".
"This systematic review found that while outdoor environments do seem at lower risk for transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory viruses than indoor environments, there are data showing that infection transmission is possible outdoors, thus warranting further rigorous investigation."
You'd be arrested for that in Derbyshire.
I wonder what the odds would be?
10/1?, 5/1?
hmmm
Anyone want a charity bet?
As I understand it, the countries of the UK have received vaccines in proportion to their population.
If so -- and if the countries are using all the vaccines they receive promptly -- it should not be possible for significant discrepancies to arise.
Like Scotland 2.1 per cent, Wales 1.6 per cent of the population jabbed.
Unless the Scottish Government is way more competent than the Welsh one. 😉
Shouldn't have been too hard to track down this particular whacko.
Another problem is these changes often take a couple of days to reach gov.uk so even though people realise there is a change from tier 3 to 4 or vice versa, it is often hard to nail down precisely what that means. I really do not know why this should be; surely written guidelines can be prepared in advance; they can't be still tweaking the rules as Boris starts speaking.
There was fabulous article in the New Statesman about how it transmits, and the answer is indoors, indoors, indoors. Basically being in a crowded indoor space with poor ventilation is a no-no.
I have a view: in womb nutrition is the key, and the decline of the basics of home cooking is the problem. Or it could be cable TV, YouTube, or the decline in smoking or vaccines or Bill Gates. Take your pick.
The morning of a wedding in fact.
Multiply those risk factors considerably for a panting and maskless runner (and hope they are more than compensated by the briefer duration).
Which makes it malicious. They announce lockdown early enough to allow people to flee and thus spread the pox as widely as possible. Yes more people will suffer and die. But the alternative is to face down angry Tory MPs - who really are that dumb - so another pile of corpses is the least worst option.
That is absolutely the case in outdoor queues, so I don't go near them.