FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
How different is the 2nd paragraph from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
While I generally agree, I think your second paragraph a bit pessimistic. Men, even Talib elders do not live for ever, and some at least of the next generation may be a little less illiberal. I think we're just beginning to see some 'fraying round the edges' in Iran, too. Maybe I just feel a little more positive this morning than I have been for some weeks, though!
The country now has a very strong youth demographic. Hundreds of thousands of young men who can't find a wife because some have more than 1. Grinding poverty and a collapsing economy. A country that is much more a loose combination of tribes than a single entity. A failed state and internal violence seems completely unavoidable. These are not great conditions for an outbreak of liberalism, even Kabul South looks a bit of a stretch for the yellow peril here.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
Apparently the Americans left a number of helicopters behind. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to take a wild guess that the Taliban don’t have a lot of trained helicopter pilots among their number - and are therefore more likely to kill themselves trying to operate the things, than use them to engage enemies.
Try this article; I know it's from the Guardian, so one or two might not regard it highly, but it suggests a different view. In Pakistan we cultivated the Taliban, then turned on them. Now we can only hope they forgive us by Mohammed Hanif
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
How different is the 2nd paragraph from Kingdom of Saudi Arabia?
Not as different as we like to pretend but wealth has softened attitudes there somewhat. Grinding poverty tends to do the opposite.
4,700 Covid cases linked to Newquay festival. But interesting view from Andy Virr - Cornwall cllr and emergency doc... cases expected but were not "translating into a serious life-threatening illness” - most festival goers were under 21.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
While I generally agree, I think your second paragraph a bit pessimistic. Men, even Talib elders do not live for ever, and some at least of the next generation may be a little less illiberal. I think we're just beginning to see some 'fraying round the edges' in Iran, too. Maybe I just feel a little more positive this morning than I have been for some weeks, though!
The country now has a very strong youth demographic. Hundreds of thousands of young men who can't find a wife because some have more than 1. Grinding poverty and a collapsing economy. A country that is much more a loose combination of tribes than a single entity. A failed state and internal violence seems completely unavoidable. These are not great conditions for an outbreak of liberalism, even Kabul South looks a bit of a stretch for the yellow peril here.
'Liberalism' like many other ism's is relative. I suggest that Stuart Mill and Gladstone might find what we call liberalism eccentric or even extreme.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Utter balls. Pics or it didn't happen.
Pics of me watching cricket? That's kind of boring. 😕
You're clearly not an avid cricket fan if you don't realise those style of catches are much more common than you'd expect.
Here's a post I wrote on this site in July about one of those style catches while watching a match. https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3496577#Comment_3496577 One of the coolest catch -> throw up in the air -> jump over the fence -> jump back over the fence -> recatch the ball wickets I've seen in cricket just then. He managed to throw the ball so high up that by the time the ball came back down he was just completely calmly stood underneath waiting for the ball to land back in his hands.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Utter balls. Pics or it didn't happen.
Pics of me watching cricket? That's kind of boring. 😕
You're clearly not an avid cricket fan if you don't realise those style of catches are much more common than you'd expect.
Here's a post I wrote on this site in July about one of those style catches while watching a match. https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3496577#Comment_3496577 One of the coolest catch -> throw up in the air -> jump over the fence -> jump back over the fence -> recatch the ball wickets I've seen in cricket just then. He managed to throw the ball so high up that by the time the ball came back down he was just completely calmly stood underneath waiting for the ball to land back in his hands.
It's much older than that. I remember seeing one on TV in about 1995, involving perhaps South Africa, I can't remember precisely.
I once watched England play the Saffers at Old Trafford, my abiding memory of the match was Jonty Rhodes making utterly outrageous catches at point.
The joke at the time was that 3/5 of the planet is covered by ocean and the rest by Jonty Rhodes. Probably the best fielder in the history of the game.
He was so good. I still reference him at cricket when someone pulls off an amazing feat. I do wonder if the kids just look at me and wonder who I’m talking about...
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
Apparently the Americans left a number of helicopters behind. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to take a wild guess that the Taliban don’t have a lot of trained helicopter pilots among their number - and are therefore more likely to kill themselves trying to operate the things, than use them to engage enemies.
Leaving helicopters behind seems a bit careless. I know the collapse was sudden but so fast they couldnt get them at least to Kabul airport?
Were they US badged or ones provided to the Afghan military? If the latter the Taliban might 'persuade ' the Afghan pilots to work for them.
The Taliban have set us a deadline of 31st August to complete all evacuations.
They have said any US and UK and western military presence in Afghanistan still after that date will provoke a response from them.
So we have a week to complete the process and get all refugees and troops out or face a bloodbath
They should be telling them to zip it, any response and they will know exactly what a response means. You cannot shilly shally with these clowns , just read them their horoscopes.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Utter balls. Pics or it didn't happen.
Pics of me watching cricket? That's kind of boring. 😕
You're clearly not an avid cricket fan if you don't realise those style of catches are much more common than you'd expect.
Here's a post I wrote on this site in July about one of those style catches while watching a match. https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3496577#Comment_3496577 One of the coolest catch -> throw up in the air -> jump over the fence -> jump back over the fence -> recatch the ball wickets I've seen in cricket just then. He managed to throw the ball so high up that by the time the ball came back down he was just completely calmly stood underneath waiting for the ball to land back in his hands.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Utter balls. Pics or it didn't happen.
Pics of me watching cricket? That's kind of boring. 😕
You're clearly not an avid cricket fan if you don't realise those style of catches are much more common than you'd expect.
Here's a post I wrote on this site in July about one of those style catches while watching a match. https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3496577#Comment_3496577 One of the coolest catch -> throw up in the air -> jump over the fence -> jump back over the fence -> recatch the ball wickets I've seen in cricket just then. He managed to throw the ball so high up that by the time the ball came back down he was just completely calmly stood underneath waiting for the ball to land back in his hands.
It's much older than that. I remember seeing one on TV in about 1995, involving perhaps South Africa, I can't remember precisely.
I once watched England play the Saffers at Old Trafford, my abiding memory of the match was Jonty Rhodes making utterly outrageous catches at point.
The joke at the time was that 3/5 of the planet is covered by ocean and the rest by Jonty Rhodes. Probably the best fielder in the history of the game.
He was so good. I still reference him at cricket when someone pulls off an amazing feat. I do wonder if the kids just look at me and wonder who I’m talking about...
Paul Collingwood was nearly as good and Stokes has pulled off some blinding catches. What I think that they all share is the ability to read and anticipate the game. They are already moving into position before the ball leaves the bat having worked out where it is going.
The Taliban have set us a deadline of 31st August to complete all evacuations.
They have said any US and UK and western military presence in Afghanistan still after that date will provoke a response from them.
So we have a week to complete the process and get all refugees and troops out or face a bloodbath
You tend to be ever so dramatic and we really do not know what would happen if the US and allies remained to secure the evacuation of those in need
There may be threats but I doubt the Taliban would want to be in a firefight at this stage
The Taliban would surely start taking hostages. That's the easiest thing to do, and the hardest thing for us to fight against, or resolve
Just a few hostages gives you enormous leverage, the Taliban could seize thousands.
I would suggest we wait and see how this develops as despite the rhetoric I doubt the Taliban want to undo everything for the sake of a few more days or even a week or two
They said that soldiers staying beyond Aug 31 would have consequences. This was a response to newspaper stories saying the Americans might stay beyond August 31 to complete the evacuation.
Reality is a long way from @HYUFD’s interpretation
You may trust the Taliban, I don't.
If US and UK troops are still in Kabul beyond 31st that will be taken by the Taliban as defiance of them and they will respond accordingly, with firepower if needed
The good thing in this is that you will not have any input in the negotiations or considerations, thankfully
The Taliban have set us a deadline of 31st August to complete all evacuations.
They have said any US and UK and western military presence in Afghanistan still after that date will provoke a response from them.
So we have a week to complete the process and get all refugees and troops out or face a bloodbath
They should be telling them to zip it, any response and they will know exactly what a response means. You cannot shilly shally with these clowns , just read them their horoscopes.
Sorry is that your advice to the West or the Taliban?
When do we reckon the British media is going to switch from demanding the government get refugees out to demanding they stop them coming in? Around November/December, I guess?
Week after next.
The comments section of the Hate Mail is already infested with comments along those lines. People don't want these Afghans to get killed or raped by the Taliban, but think they are Someone Else's Problem.
they didn't vote Brexit to get rid of the "Londonistan" effects of migration only to have their community swamped with terrorists. "They're all young men with beards!!" they shriek. And it will be the same for the 5.7m Hong Kong Chinese who are legally able to settle here.
Good morning
You seem to think that the country is represented by a number of bigots, when the vast majority of people want to help the refugees, and in particular those interpreters and those who have helped us
However, there is a need to share the refugees across the EU, US, Canada and the West as no one country can accommodate the demand
It was interesting this morning a commentator on 5 live said that it is unclear what the Taliban's consequences threat was but she very much doubted they would put at risk their credibility by entering hostage taking or worse a firefight
She was asked how she perceived labour in this crisis and she said they had made a big issue over Raab when Biden was the only one really being blamed by the public and otherwise they could only really support the government's efforts
I really do think those who have not accepted brexit are not gaining any traction in the court of public opinion at this time
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
If someone who believes in god says "He died and came back to life and is amongst us" for that person it is a truth.
Moral relativism is a challenging concept and not a get out of jail card but we in the West have not acknowledged that others might see the world differently to us.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
Anyone who has real flu , goes nowhere. It is a huge struggle to even get to the loo.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
I do wonder what the attitude would have been if a foreign former enemy combatant were trying to buy time to get more Nazi collaborators out after the fall of Paris.
They may be our "collaborators", and there is an argument for all that they are better off whisked away when trying to build a New Afghanistan. But you can see why the Taliban may want vengeance on those who have worked with infidels to help keep them out of power for twenty years. That their vengeance is medieval is all that gives us any moral standing here.
And any moral standing we had is negated when we were prepared to cut and run leaving them to that medieval fate, Mr. Biden.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Fair enough. I've never seen it before. Looks brilliant
I've watched it a few times and I'm sceptical about whether she got her foot off the ground outside the boundary in time before touching the ball again. Look at 20 secs.
I've watched it again, and I think she does, just about. Amazing athleticism
“This is the greatest thing anyone has ever done.“
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Good to hear. I saw a kingfisher the other day. One of those little things that gladdens the heart.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
Anyone who has real flu , goes nowhere. It is a huge struggle to even get to the loo.
Had flu only twice. Lost 36 hours to fever both times.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Fair enough. I've never seen it before. Looks brilliant
I've watched it a few times and I'm sceptical about whether she got her foot off the ground outside the boundary in time before touching the ball again. Look at 20 secs.
I've watched it again, and I think she does, just about. Amazing athleticism
“This is the greatest thing anyone has ever done.“
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Good to hear. I saw a kingfisher the other day. One of those little things that gladdens the heart.
I have only ever seen a kingfisher once and it is an amazing bird
Leaving helicopters behind seems a bit careless. I know the collapse was sudden but so fast they couldnt get them at least to Kabul airport?
Were they US badged or ones provided to the Afghan military? If the latter the Taliban might 'persuade ' the Afghan pilots to work for them.
They mainly got ex Afghan AF MD530Fs at Bagram. It's irrelevant whether anybody fly one as they won't stay airworthy without contractor support. I saw video of a big lad with a beard turning the tail rotor of one backwards to spin the main rotor. So that's at least one transmission fucked.
The Taliban Air Force's best hope and probable direction is the Mi-17 fleet. They can be operated and maintained by contractors outside the US sphere of influence.
The Taliban had pilots prior to 2001 and operated the MiG-21F and the Su-22. Some of the AAF will undoubtedly have switched sides but it's technical support where they will struggle with the western types.
The Taliban have set us a deadline of 31st August to complete all evacuations.
They have said any US and UK and western military presence in Afghanistan still after that date will provoke a response from them.
So we have a week to complete the process and get all refugees and troops out or face a bloodbath
They should be telling them to zip it, any response and they will know exactly what a response means. You cannot shilly shally with these clowns , just read them their horoscopes.
Sorry is that your advice to the West or the Taliban?
Mr. 64, aye. I like seeing wood pigeons, or the occasional rabbit. Squirrels have become so commonplace that it's not unusual to see two or three in quick succession.
The time limit will help keep Afghanistan top of the news.
"There’s time yet, but the media’s turn against Biden has started the countdown towards that eventuality that no one apart from the Second Husband, the Blob, and the Veep herself are looking forward to: Kamala Harris’s shot at the presidency. "
➞ 7,109 people have been evacuated under Operation PITTING, which commenced on Friday 13 August ➞ that includes more than 4,200 Afghans and their families ➞ more than 1,000 UK Armed Forces personnel have been deployed in Kabul
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Good to hear. I saw a kingfisher the other day. One of those little things that gladdens the heart.
Yes , nothing nicer than hearing the birds singing, only thing up here is in early summer it starts about 3am as it gets light. My favourite is waking up during the night and hearing the owls.
And any moral standing we had is negated when we were prepared to cut and run leaving them to that medieval fate, Mr. Biden.
And Mr Johnson. It was only two weeks ago that the sack of lard was telling us that we had the best armed forces in the world but now they are powerless without US hand holding.
On the plus side, it's a good job this didn't happen next year after the 25% tory cut to RAF airlift capacity kicks in.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That Ch4 documentary on the origins of Covid-19 didn't tell much that would be new to people on this site, but the narrative was well constructed and seeing the whole rather than as a sequence of snippets we observe over time has a persuasive effect. What was most telling for me was the fact the the furin cleavage site has never previously been observed in the natural evolution of corona viruses, and that that was exactly where one strand of the GoF lab work concentrated, so that the virus was ready-made for human-to-human transmission without any zoonotic intermediation.
Leaving helicopters behind seems a bit careless. I know the collapse was sudden but so fast they couldnt get them at least to Kabul airport?
Were they US badged or ones provided to the Afghan military? If the latter the Taliban might 'persuade ' the Afghan pilots to work for them.
They mainly got ex Afghan AF MD530Fs at Bagram. It's irrelevant whether anybody fly one as they won't stay airworthy without contractor support. I saw video of a big lad with a beard turning the tail rotor of one backwards to spin the main rotor. So that's at least one transmission fucked.
The Taliban Air Force's best hope and probable direction is the Mi-17 fleet. They can be operated and maintained by contractors outside the US sphere of influence.
The Taliban had pilots prior to 2001 and operated the MiG-21F and the Su-22. Some of the AAF will undoubtedly have switched sides but it's technical support where they will struggle with the western types.
Isn't it odd that extremist Taliban Islam demands that women be killed with stones, but if you are up against the infidels then it is ok to use a 21st century helicopter gunship?
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
Anyone who has real flu , goes nowhere. It is a huge struggle to even get to the loo.
Had flu only twice. Lost 36 hours to fever both times.
I have had it once and lay in bed almost two weeks , it was ghastly.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Morning Malc,
You seem in unusually blithe spirits this fine morning!
➞ 7,109 people have been evacuated under Operation PITTING, which commenced on Friday 13 August ➞ that includes more than 4,200 Afghans and their families ➞ more than 1,000 UK Armed Forces personnel have been deployed in Kabul
[Translated]We start with the current figures: Our soldiers were able to leave 944 people yesterday alone #Kabul bring to safety - with that she has #Bundeswehr so far a total of over 3,650 people to be protected #Afghanistan evacuated. And we'll keep flying as long as we can.https://twitter.com/BMVg_Bundeswehr/status/1430039775176798227?s=20
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Good to hear. I saw a kingfisher the other day. One of those little things that gladdens the heart.
Yes , nothing nicer than hearing the birds singing, only thing up here is in early summer it starts about 3am as it gets light. My favourite is waking up during the night and hearing the owls.
Indeed. I live in quite an urban area but there is enough open space so we hear owls. Only ever seen one once though, in a tree in Asda carpark. Wouldn't even have looked but a pair of magpies were going nuts at something and making a real racket.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
I suppose it depends on whether they have substantial access to artillery and anti-aircraft weapons as that could lead to a Dien Bien Phu situation if NATO decided to try and hold the airport against Taliban demands to leave.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
Apparently the Americans left a number of helicopters behind. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to take a wild guess that the Taliban don’t have a lot of trained helicopter pilots among their number - and are therefore more likely to kill themselves trying to operate the things, than use them to engage enemies.
And of course quite a few Afghan pilots trained to fly them. it probably wouldn't take the Taliban too long to get a couple of pilots coerced into flying for them. How long they can keep the aircraft operable is another matter.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Morning Malc,
You seem in unusually blithe spirits this fine morning!
Leaving helicopters behind seems a bit careless. I know the collapse was sudden but so fast they couldnt get them at least to Kabul airport?
Were they US badged or ones provided to the Afghan military? If the latter the Taliban might 'persuade ' the Afghan pilots to work for them.
They mainly got ex Afghan AF MD530Fs at Bagram. It's irrelevant whether anybody fly one as they won't stay airworthy without contractor support. I saw video of a big lad with a beard turning the tail rotor of one backwards to spin the main rotor. So that's at least one transmission fucked.
The Taliban Air Force's best hope and probable direction is the Mi-17 fleet. They can be operated and maintained by contractors outside the US sphere of influence.
The Taliban had pilots prior to 2001 and operated the MiG-21F and the Su-22. Some of the AAF will undoubtedly have switched sides but it's technical support where they will struggle with the western types.
Isn't it odd that extremist Taliban Islam demands that women be killed with stones, but if you are up against the infidels then it is ok to use a 21st century helicopter gunship?
Not really, there is no indication in either the quran or the hadith that using a helicopter violates hudud and thereby incurs punishment.
The best example of this is when left-wingers simultaneously describe western countries as racist and bigoted, and at the same time say we should take in large numbers of immigrants from poor countries. If western countries are so bad, why do they want migrants to come here? Doesn't make sense.
Yes it does. If you're unlucky enough to be born in, say, Nigeria, your life expectancy is 55. Move to the UK as a small child and it becomes 80. Yes, you will run into some unpleasant attitudes sometimes, but 25 years of life is pretty motivating. .
You are outlining the problem with multiculturalism. People from countries with wildly different takes on what is right and wrong from us come to the west because they will earn more money and their children will live longer, not because they buy into western values. So you create a society that is United economically but divided philosophically,
It is vain to suppose that these immigrants are desperate to be just like us, & that vanity blinds politicians, leading to enormous problems.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Good to hear. I saw a kingfisher the other day. One of those little things that gladdens the heart.
Yes , nothing nicer than hearing the birds singing, only thing up here is in early summer it starts about 3am as it gets light. My favourite is waking up during the night and hearing the owls.
Indeed. I live in quite an urban area but there is enough open space so we hear owls. Only ever seen one once though, in a tree in Asda carpark. Wouldn't even have looked but a pair of magpies were going nuts at something and making a real racket.
I am right on edge of the town and hear them regularly. Don't see them often but have a few times when out walking at dusk.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
Anyone who has real flu , goes nowhere. It is a huge struggle to even get to the loo.
I appreciate that Malc, even ManFlu can be bad. But do we know when we are infectious in the flu cycle?
Interesting thread on "waning vaccine effectiveness" (or not):
Imagine two possible models: 1) Roll a die (antibodies). If it’s a 6, you get symptoms and roll again (T cells & B cells). If that’s a 6, u get severe disease
Waning immunity means now either 5 *or* 6 on first roll = symptoms. Even tho second roll is still a 1/6 shot, overall risk has gone from 1/36 to 2/36.....
Or is it 2):
You want to prevent a flood. You have a 10 foot brick wall (antibodies), and a 30 foot concrete wall (T and B cells).
Even if your 10 foot wall crumbles, a flood has no more chance of breaching your big concrete wall than it did when the brick wall was intact.....
If it’s 2, we’re in a decent place. Waning immunity might see more vaccinated people develop symptoms than a couple of months back, but very few get properly sick.
If it’s 1, things look less rosy. As more vaxxed people develop symptoms, a steady share of them get properly sick.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Mr. 64, aye. I like seeing wood pigeons, or the occasional rabbit. Squirrels have become so commonplace that it's not unusual to see two or three in quick succession.
The time limit will help keep Afghanistan top of the news.
F1: back to racing this weekend.
Yep, Spa in Belgium, one of the best circuits of the season.
Quite an amount of discussion going on about the famous Eau Rouge sequence of corners, after yet another serious accident in GT cars earlier in the summer. They’re trying to work out what to do, as the cars come around the S-bend up a steep hill completely unsighted. That was also the scene of the fatal accident to Antoine Hubert, in the F2 race a couple of seasons ago.
Also there will be something of a sombre mood at the track, as the CEO of Spa circuit died earlier this month, in what’s best described as a domestic incident.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Good to hear. I saw a kingfisher the other day. One of those little things that gladdens the heart.
Yes , nothing nicer than hearing the birds singing, only thing up here is in early summer it starts about 3am as it gets light. My favourite is waking up during the night and hearing the owls.
A few weeks ago was having a small u3a Group meeting in our garden and there were swifts, a buzzard and a red kite overhead. Members were much more impressed with that than with my contributions!
Mr. 64, aye. I like seeing wood pigeons, or the occasional rabbit. Squirrels have become so commonplace that it's not unusual to see two or three in quick succession.
The time limit will help keep Afghanistan top of the news.
F1: back to racing this weekend.
Yep, Spa in Belgium, one of the best circuits of the season.
Quite an amount of discussion going on about the famous Eau Rouge sequence of corners, after yet another serious accident in GT cars earlier in the summer. They’re trying to work out what to do, as the cars come around the S-bend up a steep hill completely unsighted. That was also the scene of the fatal accident to Antoine Hubert, in the F2 race a couple of seasons ago.
Also there will be something of a sombre mood at the track, as the CEO of Spa circuit died earlier this month, in what’s best described as a domestic incident.
That crash, along with Hubert's, sadly indicates that something has to be done about that corner sequence. The drivers love it, but it now looks as though it might be too dangerous at these speeds. It won't be a simple problem to solve, as adding run-off is AIUI difficult.
Funny the Good Law Project don't mention the times their cases have been struck out for lack of proper process, which I think is currently three. Good use of taxpayers' money those ones.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Utter balls. Pics or it didn't happen.
Pics of me watching cricket? That's kind of boring. 😕
You're clearly not an avid cricket fan if you don't realise those style of catches are much more common than you'd expect.
Here's a post I wrote on this site in July about one of those style catches while watching a match. https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3496577#Comment_3496577 One of the coolest catch -> throw up in the air -> jump over the fence -> jump back over the fence -> recatch the ball wickets I've seen in cricket just then. He managed to throw the ball so high up that by the time the ball came back down he was just completely calmly stood underneath waiting for the ball to land back in his hands.
Its a stunning catch, that style is always stunning, but that style of catch is actually much more common than you'd expect. Seen a fair few of them this year alone.
Utter balls. Pics or it didn't happen.
Pics of me watching cricket? That's kind of boring. 😕
You're clearly not an avid cricket fan if you don't realise those style of catches are much more common than you'd expect.
Here's a post I wrote on this site in July about one of those style catches while watching a match. https://vf.politicalbetting.com/discussion/comment/3496577#Comment_3496577 One of the coolest catch -> throw up in the air -> jump over the fence -> jump back over the fence -> recatch the ball wickets I've seen in cricket just then. He managed to throw the ball so high up that by the time the ball came back down he was just completely calmly stood underneath waiting for the ball to land back in his hands.
It's much older than that. I remember seeing one on TV in about 1995, involving perhaps South Africa, I can't remember precisely.
I once watched England play the Saffers at Old Trafford, my abiding memory of the match was Jonty Rhodes making utterly outrageous catches at point.
The joke at the time was that 3/5 of the planet is covered by ocean and the rest by Jonty Rhodes. Probably the best fielder in the history of the game.
He was so good. I still reference him at cricket when someone pulls off an amazing feat. I do wonder if the kids just look at me and wonder who I’m talking about...
Derek Randall was pretty good in his time. Mad as a box of, too.
Antibodies in circulation in the blood wane over a few months/years. Though, our immune system keeps a 'memory' of a pathogen we've been exposed to for decades, thanks to memory B-cells which, upon re-exposure, churn out antibodies, and T-cells that do all sorts of fancy things.
➞ 7,109 people have been evacuated under Operation PITTING, which commenced on Friday 13 August ➞ that includes more than 4,200 Afghans and their families ➞ more than 1,000 UK Armed Forces personnel have been deployed in Kabul
[Translated]We start with the current figures: Our soldiers were able to leave 944 people yesterday alone #Kabul bring to safety - with that she has #Bundeswehr so far a total of over 3,650 people to be protected #Afghanistan evacuated. And we'll keep flying as long as we can.https://twitter.com/BMVg_Bundeswehr/status/1430039775176798227?s=20
The BBC reported this morning that the German defence minister was under pressure to resign
There'll be a bill soon to change the relevant law! Seriously though, I wouldn't be too surprised to see steps being taken to outlaw, or at least make life difficult for, groups like the Good Law Project.
Mr. 64, aye. I like seeing wood pigeons, or the occasional rabbit. Squirrels have become so commonplace that it's not unusual to see two or three in quick succession.
The time limit will help keep Afghanistan top of the news.
F1: back to racing this weekend.
Yep, Spa in Belgium, one of the best circuits of the season.
Quite an amount of discussion going on about the famous Eau Rouge sequence of corners, after yet another serious accident in GT cars earlier in the summer. They’re trying to work out what to do, as the cars come around the S-bend up a steep hill completely unsighted. That was also the scene of the fatal accident to Antoine Hubert, in the F2 race a couple of seasons ago.
Also there will be something of a sombre mood at the track, as the CEO of Spa circuit died earlier this month, in what’s best described as a domestic incident.
That crash, along with Hubert's, sadly indicates that something has to be done about that corner sequence. The drivers love it, but it now looks as though it might be too dangerous at these speeds. It won't be a simple problem to solve, as adding run-off is AIUI difficult.
They can’t add any more runoff on the right at the top of the hill, as there’s a big drop behind the existing barrier. After Hubert’s accident, they changed the design of the barriers to minimise the risk of cars hitting the barrier and being bounced back onto the track. Jack Aitkin’s accident was slightly different, in that the car spun on the left but finished in the middle of the track, and following drivers couldn’t see to avoid it.
It’s difficult to see exactly what to do, except possibly to shave a few feet off the hill to make the slope less severe - which improves the sight lines a little.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
You are correct that this was standard, even if it is not going to be generally admitted. It is not uncommon to find people who take great pride in never having had a day off sick in 10 years, and it is (was?) pretty tough to convince them that it would be better if they had stayed at home on occasion.
Armed hijackers took control of a Ukrainian plane and flew it to Iran after it arrived in Afghanistan to evacuate Ukrainians, Russian news agency TASS reports.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
"Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense."
It is only in general that flu is much worse than a cold. A cold can be worse than flu, and flu can be mild.
There'll be a bill soon to change the relevant law! Seriously though, I wouldn't be too surprised to see steps being taken to outlaw, or at least make life difficult for, groups like the Good Law Project.
At some point, a judge is going to label them vexatious litigators, and start making what would be otherwise unreasonable demands of them before their cases get to court.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
You are correct that this was standard, even if it is not going to be generally admitted. It is not uncommon to find people who take great pride in never having had a day off sick in 10 years, and it is (was?) pretty tough to convince them that it would be better if they had stayed at home on occasion.
Yep. It was the dirty looks in the office that would have made a difference but depending on the culture (and layout) of that office that might not have happened either.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
The answer to both the last three questions is no
Both the last three?
Well, I make it three. And yes, to the first, sometimes, but not always to the second, and possibly to the third.
And more generally a fine morning here today, but cooler...... perhaps due to the lack of cloud cover. A very full moon in the wee small hours this morning. Forecast looks quite good today, but back to cloud tomorrow.
Lovely morning here, lots of fog that will burn off quickly I believe, looks like it will be a really nice day. Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
Interesting thread on "waning vaccine effectiveness" (or not):
Imagine two possible models: 1) Roll a die (antibodies). If it’s a 6, you get symptoms and roll again (T cells & B cells). If that’s a 6, u get severe disease
Waning immunity means now either 5 *or* 6 on first roll = symptoms. Even tho second roll is still a 1/6 shot, overall risk has gone from 1/36 to 2/36.....
Or is it 2):
You want to prevent a flood. You have a 10 foot brick wall (antibodies), and a 30 foot concrete wall (T and B cells).
Even if your 10 foot wall crumbles, a flood has no more chance of breaching your big concrete wall than it did when the brick wall was intact.....
If it’s 2, we’re in a decent place. Waning immunity might see more vaccinated people develop symptoms than a couple of months back, but very few get properly sick.
If it’s 1, things look less rosy. As more vaxxed people develop symptoms, a steady share of them get properly sick.
The UK is in a position to avoid scenario 1 and needs to take it. Give everyone who wants one a booster shot in September to early December. Why take any risks?
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
"Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense."
It is only in general that flu is much worse than a cold. A cold can be worse than flu, and flu can be mild.
If you are saying that colds and ‘flu are indistinguishable (for mild ‘flu at least) then are you suggesting that anyone with a cold should stay at home? I’d be off for most of each winter in that case.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
"Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense."
It is only in general that flu is much worse than a cold. A cold can be worse than flu, and flu can be mild.
If you are saying that colds and ‘flu are indistinguishable (for mild ‘flu at least) then are you suggesting that anyone with a cold should stay at home? I’d be off for most of each winter in that case.
It depends very much on the nature of the business but I'd suggest people stay at home for the 2-3 days they have the worst symptoms, which is when they are most infectious, accepting that they can still spread it before or after that time, but there is nothing to be done about before, and the remaining risk has been heavily mitigated.
Businesses could probably get some efficiencies and healthier workforces by investing in some home testing kits for this kind of scenario, perhaps that will be an off shoot from covid.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
"Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense."
It is only in general that flu is much worse than a cold. A cold can be worse than flu, and flu can be mild.
If you are saying that colds and ‘flu are indistinguishable (for mild ‘flu at least) then are you suggesting that anyone with a cold should stay at home? I’d be off for most of each winter in that case.
We never previously asked you to take a test to determine whether it was cold or flu and told you that if it was flu you were to stay at home for 10 days.
We are in that scenario now (with all the acknowledgements that Covid is not the flu, etc). But both Covid and the flu can be deadly to certain people.
And you cavalierly going out whether or not you had a cold or the flu shows the challenges we face now when we have @NickPalmer saying that going out knowing you have Covid is akin to manslaughter.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
Yes, it was needless hyperbole. Though it does raise the question of how certain of transmission, and how lethal a disease must be before there are legal consequences.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
Lowest net approval rating for Starmer that we have recorded.
Changes +/- 16 Aug
Nicola Sturgeon Approval Rating (23 Aug):
Approve: 28% (-1)
Disapprove: 38% (+4)
Net: -10% (-5)
Lowest net approval rating for Sturgeon that we have recorded.
Changes +/- 16 Aug
No thread on this either... la Sturgeon sinking lower along with Starmer. Boris riding high....
Relatively.
You cant ignore the facts. Is Sturgeon at an all time low one wonders?. Is Starmer less popular than even Brown?? It must be close... has there ever been a more popular Tory PM at this stage of a parliament.?
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
Apparently the Americans left a number of helicopters behind. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’m going to take a wild guess that the Taliban don’t have a lot of trained helicopter pilots among their number - and are therefore more likely to kill themselves trying to operate the things, than use them to engage enemies.
And of course quite a few Afghan pilots trained to fly them. it probably wouldn't take the Taliban too long to get a couple of pilots coerced into flying for them. How long they can keep the aircraft operable is another matter.
As Mr Ace would tell us, the Western militaries usually struggle to keep much more than half their aircraft serviceable at any one time. Even if they don’t crash them learning to fly, they’ll quickly end up with various unservicabilities and maintainance issues that will see them cannibalised for parts and mostly stuck firmly on the ground.
The worry is that they can get their hands on old Soviet kit, which is going to be easier to keep flying.
The Afghan pilots are likely to point the planes straight at another country, and use them to defect.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
Yes, it was needless hyperbole. Though it does raise the question of how certain of transmission, and how lethal a disease must be before there are legal consequences.
Interesting. I enjoyed, if that's the right word, listening to that lawyer explaining the various degrees of murder, etc before Derek Chauvin was convicted.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
"Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense."
It is only in general that flu is much worse than a cold. A cold can be worse than flu, and flu can be mild.
If you are saying that colds and ‘flu are indistinguishable (for mild ‘flu at least) then are you suggesting that anyone with a cold should stay at home? I’d be off for most of each winter in that case.
It's quite hard to be definitive about which particular virus one has at any time I think ? We generally don't do an antigen test for influenza or the various rinoviruses/common cold.
I'm fairly certain I've had the flu i) Whilst moving house ii) Both me and my better half went down with it once so we HAD to do the horses with it. iii) On a friend's stag in Blackpool.
I thought it did actually hospitalise me once, but that turned out to be sepsis.
The best example of this is when left-wingers simultaneously describe western countries as racist and bigoted, and at the same time say we should take in large numbers of immigrants from poor countries. If western countries are so bad, why do they want migrants to come here? Doesn't make sense.
Yes it does. If you're unlucky enough to be born in, say, Nigeria, your life expectancy is 55. Move to the UK as a small child and it becomes 80. Yes, you will run into some unpleasant attitudes sometimes, but 25 years of life is pretty motivating. .
You are outlining the problem with multiculturalism. People from countries with wildly different takes on what is right and wrong from us come to the west because they will earn more money and their children will live longer, not because they buy into western values. So you create a society that is United economically but divided philosophically,
It is vain to suppose that these immigrants are desperate to be just like us, & that vanity blinds politicians, leading to enormous problems.
Well, you in turn are outlining the problem with ethnonationalism. Clearly there are cultural practices that we dislike on very rational grounds, but also others that are just unfamiliar. I don't care, in principle, if not every arrival has identical values to mine (or, with respect, yours). Parts of our culture aren't ideal and may benefit from mixing in other cultures (such as the tradition that multi-generational families stick together and support each other, rather than scatter and all buy separate houses far from each other). Looking in retrospect, would you really say that Britain was a better place in the 1950s when we were pretty uniform in culture but also famously insular?
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
"tends to" And irrespective of religion - which also tends to hold less sway with an increase in education.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
"tends to" And irrespective of religion - which also tends to hold less sway with an increase in education.
I can't see any possibility of the Taliban extending the deadline. Why should they? As it is they are showing the world that the US has surrendered to them, and they can claim, with quite a lot of justification, that they have magnanimously kept to the agreed terms of the American surrender. They have lots of headstrong young men who want to get on with enjoying the sweets of victory, and plenty of scores to settle once the journalists have left. The West has nothing to offer them, or at least nothing that the West will be prepared to offer.
I really hesitate to say it (because it could go horribly wrong very quickly), but barbaric and reactionary as they are, they haven't behaved too badly in the last couple of weeks - several nasty incidents, but nothing on the scale that one typically sees when an army conquers a capital city full of enemies. Against that, there are any number of atrocities reported in places they've captured previously.
Is it possible that the leadership feels "we're going to have to run this place now, we'd better rein the lunatics in a bit"? And if so, do they have the authority to make that work? And will it last?
Oh well done them. Youve been pedalling this bullshit for days with your fingers in your ears pretending reality isnt reality. It isnt optimism its a sign of a complete unwillingness to face hard reality because hard reality involves conflict sometimes with very unpleasant people.
The Taliban are theorcrats, their leadership are all strict Islamic scholars of the violent variety, they are not and never will be anything but because thats their movement.
Which part of this do you not get? If they were so good about it how come there are plenty of Al Qaeda linked types currently doing the grunt work for them? Haqqani, a man with a multi million dollar bounty on his noggin is head of security in Kabul.
Tell you what why dont we just put Heydrich in charge, he may have changed for the better since he was bumped off in 42.
Crude but funny Heydrich gag.
Nobody not on the ground has much of a clue how they have behaved in the last couple of weeks. Pure wishful thinking.
Really? Why are so many people in hding right now? Maybe they just dont think they will get a fair trial..or any trial.
Prisoners gunned down and others taken from their homes and shot in Helmand province. Similar incidents in Faryab. Hazaras killed. The killing of mine clearance staff. the killing of civilian government staff in Kandahar. Hundreds taking into arbitary detention with no idea exactly where they are being held.
Amnesty and Human Rights Watch may be lying about it though. Perfectly possible.
I was by and large agreeing with you. And the question is not whether they are being shits, it's whether as per NP's claim they are being less shit than usual. Which we don't yet know.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
Yes, it was needless hyperbole. Though it does raise the question of how certain of transmission, and how lethal a disease must be before there are legal consequences.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
"tends to" And irrespective of religion - which also tends to hold less sway with an increase in education.
There are plenty of disincentives to tell the truth. Let's take one hypothetical example.
You are due to fly on holiday on Monday. Your carrier needs to see proof of a negative LFT taken within 48 hrs before you can travel.
If you take it and it's positive you can't go away and will face the whole insurance/compensation battle.
Do you take it or not take it and just report a negative test using the serial number on the test. If you do take it and it's positive do you report it as such? Etc.
Yes...that does depend on people being willing to risk committing manslaughter in order to go on holiday. But I know not everyone will see it like that.
No I think it's a pretty safe bet that they won't. Unless you think that 85% of the thousands of people attending the ERP events were willing to commit manslaughter.
Pretty bizarre point of view.
85% tested positive? Edit: oh, you mean 85% hadn't been tested? My comment was only about people who test positive and go and infect people anyway.
And mine was that there is no incentive to take the test.
When people have the flu and go out and about no one has ever previously talked of them being guilty of manslaughter.
Well, you'd agree, I think, that Covid will kill a small proportion of vaccinated people and (unlike flu) a significant proportion of unvaccinated people. It will also cause very serious illness for a larger proportion, without killing them. If you decide to go on holiday while knowing that you're infectious, especially abroad where you probably have little data on the proportion who have been vaccinated, you're willingly taking the risk of killing some of the people you meet.
It doesn't seem at all like going out with flu, more like having AIDS and sleeping with strangers without warning them.
You are talking about numbers. I am talking about principle. The flu will kill someone vulnerable. So will Covid. Covid might kill more.
But the principle is the same. Going out with either is being willing to commit manslaughter or it is not.
It depends how infectious and potentially lethal the disease is. The more of both it is, the more like manslaughter it is for you to go out and mix, assuming you know this and you know you have it.
So what is it if you have the flu and just kill one person? Manslaughter-lite?
So lite as to be not.
If you have the flu you know that it might kill someone very vulnerable. Or you do now.
Have you, kini, ever, ever had the flu and not gone out because you thought you might kill someone. All those years in the city suffering man flu. You always stayed at home. Or did you tough it out and go to work?
That's not really relevant. Forget about flu. I was explaining why it isn't a clear and binary matter of principle - as you were maintaining - but rather a matter of degree and dependent on the facts of the case. Might be manslaughter, might not be, might be hard to say, etc.
Did you ever though think I have the flu I had better not go out because I might infect someone vulnerable and they might die.
I'll go first. No.
Your turn. I appreciate not everyone will want to answer.
I've thought I won't be a twat and go into work. Your turn.
As I said I have felt rough previously and gone into work. Plenty of people have. Did I have flu, a cold, neither or both? I've no idea. And if it meant I was sitting there sniffling at the desk while others around were looking at me askance I would have reconsidered.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
Yes, it was needless hyperbole. Though it does raise the question of how certain of transmission, and how lethal a disease must be before there are legal consequences.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
Re educate them!
Wrong.
Bomb them. Then re-educate them.
I'm all for a bit of exuberant violence, but people whom we have bombed are often afterwards not in any mood to listen to why our way is better. (Though maybe WW2 provides a counterexample.)
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
Not an expert on Afghanistan or military things or anything but they're in the middle of a city full of heavily-armed religious lunatics. Expecting anyone shooting at them to be annihilated sounds optimistic since the Americans would presumably be reluctant to annihilate Kabul in the process, and predicting what the Taliban are going to do requires a knowledge of internal lunatic politics that I don't think any of us have.
It's an airport. Its not in the centre of the city or even a particularly built up area. The Taliban are not heavily armed although they will have picked up a fair bit of kit in recent days. Their main weapon seems to be a technical, with a heavy machine gun fixed to a lorry. Their tactics have been largely passive using IEDs and ambush, classic guerrilla warfare, and they are very good at that. But that would not help them much here.
I suppose it depends on whether they have substantial access to artillery and anti-aircraft weapons as that could lead to a Dien Bien Phu situation if NATO decided to try and hold the airport against Taliban demands to leave.
Just taking pot shots at the planes with AA guns and SAMs would be enough surely? No need to take on the ground forces.
FWIW I think that people continue to both overestimate and underestimate the Taliban. They over estimate them because the reality is that they do not have enough military strength in the entire country to take on, let alone defeat 6000 marines, 600 paras and sundry other western forces. If they tried they would be annihilated in the same way that they have been in anything like a straight on clash since western forces went into Afghanistan. If the western forces stay longer than 31st August there will be some bluster and possibly some hostage taking (as if the entire country were not hostages already). Co operation in facilitating departures would no doubt end. But an outright attack is incredibly unlikely.
Underestimated because they do not see themselves as evil but as doing god's work with a deeply backward cultural spin. They find the idea that a woman can walk around visible to the eyes of other men away from their own men folk abhorrent and immoral. Their teachings are clear: apostates and homosexuals should not be allowed to live amongst them. They regard the west's teachings that women and gays are entitled to equality as corruption. Such mind sets do not change in a single generation, probably not in several. This will lead them to do many things that we find shocking. And they will not care.
And, why should they change? We as The West may be trying to save the world and we may be right. But it is only our point of view. Why is it "right"? I mean you and I can give a hundred reasons but those are only our reasons. I can give a similar number for why there is no god but that won't change the mind of someone who believes in god who in turn thinks I am fundamentally mistaken.
Just ordered this. Which might be quite interesting.
Do Muslim Women Need Saving? is an indictment of a mindset that has justified all manner of foreign interference, including military invasion, in the name of rescuing women from Islam
As others have pointed out the real shock of Afghanistan is that 20 years of proselytising and promoting western values seems to have achieved diddly squat when we assumed that people would rapidly see that this was a better way to live. It throws into question the cultural assumptions that underlie our theories of universal values.
We start from the basis that we know best, that the Muslims in the countries we invade are backwards and just need bringing up to speed. But maybe they have seen the things the west has traded religious adherence in for over the last century or so, and don’t think it’s that good a deal.
Evidence tends to show otherwise, particularly when people get access to education.
All they need is a bit of learning (western, judeo-christian, I'm guessing) and they will see the light.
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
Re educate them!
Wrong.
Bomb them. Then re-educate them.
I'm all for a bit of exuberant violence, but people whom we have bombed are often afterwards not in any mood to listen to why our way is better. (Though maybe WW2 provides a counterexample.)
You mean don't continue the beatings? Now you tell Western Foreign Policy of the past 60 years.
Lowest net approval rating for Starmer that we have recorded.
Changes +/- 16 Aug
Nicola Sturgeon Approval Rating (23 Aug):
Approve: 28% (-1)
Disapprove: 38% (+4)
Net: -10% (-5)
Lowest net approval rating for Sturgeon that we have recorded.
Changes +/- 16 Aug
No thread on this either... la Sturgeon sinking lower along with Starmer. Boris riding high....
What would be more interesting would be a header which looks at the irony of Johnson rising in the polls and Starmer falling just after an unprepared and hapless Johnson gets absolutely mullered in the HoC Afghanistan debate by a forensic and (unusually) impressive Starmer.
The best example of this is when left-wingers simultaneously describe western countries as racist and bigoted, and at the same time say we should take in large numbers of immigrants from poor countries. If western countries are so bad, why do they want migrants to come here? Doesn't make sense.
Yes it does. If you're unlucky enough to be born in, say, Nigeria, your life expectancy is 55. Move to the UK as a small child and it becomes 80. Yes, you will run into some unpleasant attitudes sometimes, but 25 years of life is pretty motivating. .
You are outlining the problem with multiculturalism. People from countries with wildly different takes on what is right and wrong from us come to the west because they will earn more money and their children will live longer, not because they buy into western values. So you create a society that is United economically but divided philosophically,
It is vain to suppose that these immigrants are desperate to be just like us, & that vanity blinds politicians, leading to enormous problems.
Well, you in turn are outlining the problem with ethnonationalism. Clearly there are cultural practices that we dislike on very rational grounds, but also others that are just unfamiliar. I don't care, in principle, if not every arrival has identical values to mine (or, with respect, yours). Parts of our culture aren't ideal and may benefit from mixing in other cultures (such as the tradition that multi-generational families stick together and support each other, rather than scatter and all buy separate houses far from each other). Looking in retrospect, would you really say that Britain was a better place in the 1950s when we were pretty uniform in culture but also famously insular?
We are better today than we were in the 1950s, but it's got fuck all to do with multiculturalism. Indeed, elements of multiculturalism have much more in common with the 1950s.
The best example of this is when left-wingers simultaneously describe western countries as racist and bigoted, and at the same time say we should take in large numbers of immigrants from poor countries. If western countries are so bad, why do they want migrants to come here? Doesn't make sense.
Yes it does. If you're unlucky enough to be born in, say, Nigeria, your life expectancy is 55. Move to the UK as a small child and it becomes 80. Yes, you will run into some unpleasant attitudes sometimes, but 25 years of life is pretty motivating. .
You are outlining the problem with multiculturalism. People from countries with wildly different takes on what is right and wrong from us come to the west because they will earn more money and their children will live longer, not because they buy into western values. So you create a society that is United economically but divided philosophically,
It is vain to suppose that these immigrants are desperate to be just like us, & that vanity blinds politicians, leading to enormous problems.
Well, you in turn are outlining the problem with ethnonationalism. Clearly there are cultural practices that we dislike on very rational grounds, but also others that are just unfamiliar. I don't care, in principle, if not every arrival has identical values to mine (or, with respect, yours). Parts of our culture aren't ideal and may benefit from mixing in other cultures (such as the tradition that multi-generational families stick together and support each other, rather than scatter and all buy separate houses far from each other). Looking in retrospect, would you really say that Britain was a better place in the 1950s when we were pretty uniform in culture but also famously insular?
Sounds better to me, but it was way before my time.
Comments
https://twitter.com/AnandWrites/status/1429802465055096842
In Pakistan we cultivated the Taliban, then turned on them. Now we can only hope they forgive us
by Mohammed Hanif
https://twitter.com/NickTriggle/status/1430057338883518471?s=20
Were they US badged or ones provided to the Afghan military? If the latter the Taliban might 'persuade ' the Afghan pilots to work for them.
You seem to think that the country is represented by a number of bigots, when the vast majority of people want to help the refugees, and in particular those interpreters and those who have helped us
However, there is a need to share the refugees across the EU, US, Canada and the West as no one country can accommodate the demand
It was interesting this morning a commentator on 5 live said that it is unclear what the Taliban's consequences threat was but she very much doubted they would put at risk their credibility by entering hostage taking or worse a firefight
She was asked how she perceived labour in this crisis and she said they had made a big issue over Raab when Biden was the only one really being blamed by the public and otherwise they could only really support the government's efforts
I really do think those who have not accepted brexit are not gaining any traction in the court of public opinion at this time
Moral relativism is a challenging concept and not a get out of jail card but we in the West have not acknowledged that others might see the world differently to us.
They may be our "collaborators", and there is an argument for all that they are better off whisked away when trying to build a New Afghanistan. But you can see why the Taliban may want vengeance on those who have worked with infidels to help keep them out of power for twenty years. That their vengeance is medieval is all that gives us any moral standing here.
And any moral standing we had is negated when we were prepared to cut and run leaving them to that medieval fate, Mr. Biden.
Nice listening to the birds singing their hearts out.
The Taliban Air Force's best hope and probable direction is the Mi-17 fleet. They can be operated and maintained by contractors outside the US sphere of influence.
The Taliban had pilots prior to 2001 and operated the MiG-21F and the Su-22. Some of the AAF will undoubtedly have switched sides but it's technical support where they will struggle with the western types.
Mr. 64, aye. I like seeing wood pigeons, or the occasional rabbit. Squirrels have become so commonplace that it's not unusual to see two or three in quick succession.
The time limit will help keep Afghanistan top of the news.
F1: back to racing this weekend.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2021/08/23/washington-elite-have-turned-biden-watch-harris-presidency/
➞ 7,109 people have been evacuated under Operation PITTING, which commenced on Friday 13 August
➞ that includes more than 4,200 Afghans and their families
➞ more than 1,000 UK Armed Forces personnel have been deployed in Kabul
https://twitter.com/10DowningStreet/status/1430065255451873299?s=20
On the plus side, it's a good job this didn't happen next year after the 25% tory cut to RAF airlift capacity kicks in.
Your turn.
You seem in unusually blithe spirits this fine morning!
[Translated]We start with the current figures: Our soldiers were able to leave 944 people yesterday alone #Kabul bring to safety - with that she has #Bundeswehr so far a total of over 3,650 people to be protected #Afghanistan evacuated. And we'll keep flying as long as we can. https://twitter.com/BMVg_Bundeswehr/status/1430039775176798227?s=20
https://www.defensenews.com/air/2021/08/17/the-taliban-has-access-to-us-military-aircraft-now-what-happens/
And of course quite a few Afghan pilots trained to fly them.
it probably wouldn't take the Taliban too long to get a couple of pilots coerced into flying for them. How long they can keep the aircraft operable is another matter.
It is vain to suppose that these immigrants are desperate to be just like us, & that vanity blinds politicians, leading to enormous problems.
Imagine two possible models:
1) Roll a die (antibodies). If it’s a 6, you get symptoms and roll again (T cells & B cells). If that’s a 6, u get severe disease
Waning immunity means now either 5 *or* 6 on first roll = symptoms. Even tho second roll is still a 1/6 shot, overall risk has gone from 1/36 to 2/36.....
Or is it 2):
You want to prevent a flood. You have a 10 foot brick wall (antibodies), and a 30 foot concrete wall (T and B cells).
Even if your 10 foot wall crumbles, a flood has no more chance of breaching your big concrete wall than it did when the brick wall was intact.....
If it’s 2, we’re in a decent place. Waning immunity might see more vaccinated people develop symptoms than a couple of months back, but very few get properly sick.
If it’s 1, things look less rosy. As more vaxxed people develop symptoms, a steady share of them get properly sick.
Start of thread:
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1429878189011111936?s=20
Quite an amount of discussion going on about the famous Eau Rouge sequence of corners, after yet another serious accident in GT cars earlier in the summer. They’re trying to work out what to do, as the cars come around the S-bend up a steep hill completely unsighted. That was also the scene of the fatal accident to Antoine Hubert, in the F2 race a couple of seasons ago.
Also there will be something of a sombre mood at the track, as the CEO of Spa circuit died earlier this month, in what’s best described as a domestic incident.
But the issue here is that @NPXMP said that going out knowing you had Covid was akin to manslaughter. My point is that people over the years have gone out with transmissable illnesses that posed a serious threat to those that were vulnerable without ever being accused of being a manslaughterer (?).
It is an issue that I think we are going to have to face in the coming months and years especially if there is a non-zero risk of double-jabbed, asymptomatic Covid carriers spreading the virus.
I don't think an opening gambit of "manslaughter" is going to be useful in that debate.
Members were much more impressed with that than with my contributions!
Jack Aitkens is so lucky to be alive after that GT crash:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZAH5CAyvps
That crash, along with Hubert's, sadly indicates that something has to be done about that corner sequence. The drivers love it, but it now looks as though it might be too dangerous at these speeds. It won't be a simple problem to solve, as adding run-off is AIUI difficult.
Boris Johnson Approval Rating (23 Aug):
Approve: 39% (+4)
Disapprove: 45% (+1)
Net: -6% (+3) Changes +/- 16 Aug
Keir Starmer Approval Rating (23 Aug):
Approve: 23% (-1)
Disapprove: 41% (+3)
Net: -18% (-4)
Lowest net approval rating for Starmer that we have recorded.
Changes +/- 16 Aug
Nicola Sturgeon Approval Rating (23 Aug):
Approve: 28% (-1)
Disapprove: 38% (+4)
Net: -10% (-5)
Lowest net approval rating for Sturgeon that we have recorded.
Changes +/- 16 Aug
Mad as a box of, too.
Antibodies in circulation in the blood wane over a few months/years. Though, our immune system keeps a 'memory' of a pathogen we've been exposed to for decades, thanks to memory B-cells which, upon re-exposure, churn out antibodies, and T-cells that do all sorts of fancy things.
https://twitter.com/BallouxFrancois/status/1430057085824380932?s=20
TLDR: when anti-body cells wane you can get infected, but the 'memory cells" trigger anti-body production which reduce chances of severe disease.
Seriously though, I wouldn't be too surprised to see steps being taken to outlaw, or at least make life difficult for, groups like the Good Law Project.
No thread on this either... la Sturgeon sinking lower along with Starmer. Boris riding high....
It’s difficult to see exactly what to do, except possibly to shave a few feet off the hill to make the slope less severe - which improves the sight lines a little.
Armed hijackers took control of a Ukrainian plane and flew it to Iran after it arrived in Afghanistan to evacuate Ukrainians, Russian news agency TASS reports.
https://twitter.com/AlArabiya_Eng/status/1430072677943889920?s=20
https://www.cdc.gov/flu/symptoms/coldflu.htm
"Because these two types of illnesses have similar symptoms, it can be difficult to tell the difference between them based on symptoms alone. In general, flu is worse than the common cold, and symptoms are more intense."
It is only in general that flu is much worse than a cold. A cold can be worse than flu, and flu can be mild.
And good morning, btw!
Not to say you're wrong but this is the attitude that we are discussing.
Businesses could probably get some efficiencies and healthier workforces by investing in some home testing kits for this kind of scenario, perhaps that will be an off shoot from covid.
We are in that scenario now (with all the acknowledgements that Covid is not the flu, etc). But both Covid and the flu can be deadly to certain people.
And you cavalierly going out whether or not you had a cold or the flu shows the challenges we face now when we have @NickPalmer saying that going out knowing you have Covid is akin to manslaughter.
Though it does raise the question of how certain of transmission, and how lethal a disease must be before there are legal consequences.
The US has to a limited extent codified the concept:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endangerment
Bomb them. Then re-educate them.
The worry is that they can get their hands on old Soviet kit, which is going to be easier to keep flying.
The Afghan pilots are likely to point the planes straight at another country, and use them to defect.
We generally don't do an antigen test for influenza or the various rinoviruses/common cold.
I'm fairly certain I've had the flu
i) Whilst moving house
ii) Both me and my better half went down with it once so we HAD to do the horses with it.
iii) On a friend's stag in Blackpool.
I thought it did actually hospitalise me once, but that turned out to be sepsis.
And irrespective of religion - which also tends to hold less sway with an increase in education.
In the US for example Unitarians, Hindus, Jews and Episcopalian Anglicans have a much higher percentage of college graduates than the US as a whole and more graduates as a percentage than the non religious too
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religiosity_and_education#/media/File:Educational_Ranking_by_Religious_Group_-_2001.png
A joy of PB is that one awaits the next post to see what challenges to one's thinking it will present which is a hugely stimulating process.
Apart from what to call High Street Ken which is a closed matter.
I can't explain it.