People can answer the male or female question in Scotland’s 2022 census based on how they identify themselves rather than according to legal status, according to new guidance from the body responsible for the survey.....
Similar guidance for the England, Wales and Northern Ireland census had to be changed weeks before the official day to complete it on 21 March after a high court challenge brought by the campaign group Fair Play for Women successfully argued the advice “conflated and confused” sex with gender identity.......
Lisa Mackenzie of the policy analyst collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, which first raised data quality concerns in January 2019, said the guidance represented “a de facto conflation” of sex and gender identity.
Mackenzie said: “Following a successful challenge brought earlier this year by campaign group Fair Play for Women in the English high court on similar guidance proposed for use in the census in England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics was forced to concede that ‘sex’ in the Census Act 1920 means simply ‘sex as recorded on a birth certificate or gender recognition certificate’.
“Alignment between UK censuses has already been compromised by the delay to the census in Scotland. It is difficult to see how the Scottish government can claim that their reframing of the sex question in the 2022 Scottish census is compatible with the Census Act 1920.”
That poll and the IPSOS poll earlier continue to spell disaster for the Union. In a decade of arguably very bad political decisions, the election of Jeremy Corbyn by Labour or Jo Swinson by the LDs might be right up there but they pale into insignificance beside the selection of Laschet as CDU/CSU Spitzenkandidat over Soder.
Forsa has Soder ahead of Scholz as preferred Chancellor 39-22 but Soder isn't on the paper for the Union. We saw plenty of hypothetical polling in the spring showing a Union led by Soder polling in the mid-30s if not higher.
It's an open secret Soder and the CSU are livid at what has happened.
Another country voting this autumn is Iceland which also goes to the polls at the end of September (on the 25th). The latest Gallup poll:
Changes from 2017 election (*= party in the Governing coalition)
The current Government has 33 of the 63 seats in the Althing but you'd have to think the poor performance of the Left-Green Movement leaves that majority in jeopardy.
It's hard however to see any Government being formed which doesn't include Independence - a coalition with Progressive and Reform might be the outcome.
Has it not occurred to anyone around here that part of the reason that Söder (or Soeder if you really don't want to find an umlaut) hypothetically polls better than Laschet is because he is not a member of the CDU?
If he had been chosen as CDU/CSU chancellor candidate, then I guess they would probably be doing about 2-3% better in the polls (which is also what they were polling 2 years ago, long before Laschet became chancellor candidate). Would the CDU/CSU program be any different? Does anyone here know what the key differences between, say the CDU/CSU program and the SPD program are?
But I guess it's easier to discuss "personalities" than actual politics.
I went to a Korean restaurant when I was in America. No dog on the menu, but I ate the most disgusting food ever.
It was called Tofu. It looked like congealed snot and was tasteless. I hear there's people in the UK who eat it on a regular basis. Chacun son gout, as the French say, and for good reason.
There are people who live to eat and people who eat to live. There is a third category - people who dislike the idea of enjoying food so much that they eat tofu.
That poll and the IPSOS poll earlier continue to spell disaster for the Union. In a decade of arguably very bad political decisions, the election of Jeremy Corbyn by Labour or Jo Swinson by the LDs might be right up there but they pale into insignificance beside the selection of Laschet as CDU/CSU Spitzenkandidat over Soder.
Forsa has Soder ahead of Scholz as preferred Chancellor 39-22 but Soder isn't on the paper for the Union. We saw plenty of hypothetical polling in the spring showing a Union led by Soder polling in the mid-30s if not higher.
It's an open secret Soder and the CSU are livid at what has happened.
Another country voting this autumn is Iceland which also goes to the polls at the end of September (on the 25th). The latest Gallup poll:
Changes from 2017 election (*= party in the Governing coalition)
The current Government has 33 of the 63 seats in the Althing but you'd have to think the poor performance of the Left-Green Movement leaves that majority in jeopardy.
It's hard however to see any Government being formed which doesn't include Independence - a coalition with Progressive and Reform might be the outcome.
Iceland exhibits a remarkable range of political fragmentation, especially for such a small polity. There are only about a quarter of a million registered voters, yet the current parliament contains representatives from eight different parties. It's not inconceivable that there could be a nine-way split next time.
Would be interesting to know if the (admittedly rare) side effects from the jabs are still happening for 3rd jabs. If they were, I could understand the scientists' reluctance...
Out of interest, how many jabs are you prepared to take before you say feck this for a game of soldiers?
Because, possibly, your freedom will depend on it. Some of us are preparing ourselves to become second class citizens already.
If you don't get the booster, that could be you too.
On the contrary (sic) freedom is dependent on being vaccinated. Returning to normal life requires it.
Freedom based on vaccination will not be a 'return' to anything. It certainly won't be a return to normal life.
Only if you see 'death' as freedom for a substantial number of people ...
Vaccinated people can easily both get and pass on covid. Protection, as it is becoming increasingly clear, wanes after a few months.
Not easily. They possibly can but it's not easily.
Some unvaccinated people have had delta covid. The ONS shows that reinfection in these cases, and thus therefore the ability to pass covid on, is very low.
It would make far more sense, surely, to make antibody testing the yardstick, rather than vaccination? does it really matter how you acquire your protection?
Delta covid has only been around for eight months. It's only been common enough to be named as a subvariant for three or four months. Not really enough time for the smaller subset of unvaccinated people to get it twice.
I therefore treat your claim with suspicion. Do you have linkies to it, please?
And antibodies aren't the only way the body defeats Covid. The immune system is much more complex than that...
It might see a government backlash, but who would benefit? Cheeky of the Independent to accompany this with a photo of Sir Keir sitting on a fence
"Labour leader Keir Starmer backs decision to kill alpaca Geronimo
When asked if the Government’s stance was right, he added: “I think there’s no alternative, sadly."
“I do actually understand why emotions are so high as they would be with farmers as well who, on a not-irregular basis, have to lose animals that are very valuable to them.”"
Not sure if you saw it earlier @isam, what do you make of my Starmer = Arteta comparison? Both useless and out of their depth.
I saw it! Tough times for Arteta, that is for sure.
I don't know that Sir Keir is useless and out of his depth - if he were PM he probably would do a competent enough job as far as I can judge. I just think LotO's have to have a certain something to usurp PM's, and he hasn't got it. So he is probably useless and out of his depth as a LotO, but counter intuitively wouldnt be as a PM
You could say both men were handed very tricky tasks
It is so true that Arteta should have gone to Everton and Ancelotti to the Arse. Whether Ancelotti would nevertheless have returned to RM perhaps he would have that said.
I wouldn't have sacked Unai, I think it needed someone like him to stabilise the squad after Arsene, but given we did, I was pleased to see Arteta be given a go - I have had a happy time supporting Arsenal over the last 40 years, and would rather go for the romantic ex player wanting to impose his philosophy route and fail miserably than appoint an experienced gun for hire
I'm not sure Arsenal institutionally is ready for such a young manager of the type you describe. Arsene (who I wouldn't have sacked, despite some increasingly incomprehensible decisions) imprinted himself on the club to the extent that it doesn't seem right to be managed by someone without some degree of gravitas and authority.
Which Unai and Arteta don't possess for all their flair.
I think the time could be right for Arsene to be the DoF. He should have some role at the club
Agree. Or even the manager...
Towards the end of his reign I used to get more nervous about the mauling he'd get from the press and fans if we lost than I did annoyed at us losing! But it felt like we had something that no other club had, a long serving manager who loved us, and that was great. I would never have called for him to go, even if I thought he should
Another example of one of life's golden rules:
Sentiment opposite to Piers Morgan = Correct sentiment.
Would be interesting to know if the (admittedly rare) side effects from the jabs are still happening for 3rd jabs. If they were, I could understand the scientists' reluctance...
Out of interest, how many jabs are you prepared to take before you say feck this for a game of soldiers?
Because, possibly, your freedom will depend on it. Some of us are preparing ourselves to become second class citizens already.
If you don't get the booster, that could be you too.
On the contrary (sic) freedom is dependent on being vaccinated. Returning to normal life requires it.
Freedom based on vaccination will not be a 'return' to anything. It certainly won't be a return to normal life.
Though as a psychological matter at some point societies like UK are going to make a shift from 'crisis mode' to 'this how life is so how do we normalise it'. I think this will happen between about now and the middle of next year, as we have all had enough of permanent crisis mode.
What will life look like if permanence is that Covid is one more disease that people get, and many die from, just like many die from other causes? I think we shall have to get there soon.
I think it won't be just my ICU and respiratory ward colleagues that get fed up with so much health resource being consumed by anti-vaxxers.
It is a factor in why Mrs Foxy and her colleagues won't accept redeployment to ICU again. What they see there is so unnecessary and self inflicted.
Can i ask, are you also fed up with so much health resources being consumed by teenagers who are so obese they need joint operations? or get Type 2 diabetes when they otherwise wouldn't?
People are, well, fallible aren't they? And some people who are un vaccinated have had and recovered from covid. They are no threat to anybody.
You have a point about people who don't look after themselves. There's an immense amount of hypocrisy - including amongst many very fat healthcare professionals - abroad in the land amongst people who went out on their doorsteps and banged their pots and pans for the NHS, whilst simultaneously carting around a massive flab belt.
Millions and millions of people genuflect ritually before the altar of the NHS, yet won't take basic measures to prevent themselves from burdening it unnecessarily: if the whole population ate reasonably healthily and did a sufficient amount of exercise (and it's hardly as if one need be a vegan iron man triathlete to avoid becoming Monsieur or Madame Creosote: there is no need to tax sugar or outlaw chocolate,) then only a very modest number of disabled people and people with metabolic conditions would be overweight. The British healthcare system could then do a far more effective job for the same amount of money, to the general benefit of everyone.
The specific problem with some communicable diseases like Covid is, of course, that they spread, and if they spread enough to overwhelm the healthcare system then we either have to go without healthcare or do drastic things to control the disease, which was the entire rationale behind these God awful lockdowns that we had to suffer. If a morbidly obese person wobbles down the street than they don't transmit morbid obesity about the town until hundreds of morbidly obese people per day are having coronaries all at once and clogging up intensive care units. If people with Covid go about town infecting everyone else then it's a different kettle of fish.
Vaccines are the solution to dampening both the transmissibility and the severity of Covid, to the point at which the disease is incapable of crippling the healthcare system and we can then go back to normal life - but this process is entirely dependent on a sufficient fraction of the population accepting the vaccines. If there are enough refusers in the population that the vaccines cannot do their job then we are in real trouble. I fail to see what is difficult to comprehend about this concept.
Where do you stop , do you refuse athletes because they have wrecked their bodies, climbers that fell off mountains , people who crash cars , motorbikes , have accidents in water , all self harming in one way or another or are you just anti people that are overweight.
Would be interesting to know if the (admittedly rare) side effects from the jabs are still happening for 3rd jabs. If they were, I could understand the scientists' reluctance...
Out of interest, how many jabs are you prepared to take before you say feck this for a game of soldiers?
Because, possibly, your freedom will depend on it. Some of us are preparing ourselves to become second class citizens already.
If you don't get the booster, that could be you too.
On the contrary (sic) freedom is dependent on being vaccinated. Returning to normal life requires it.
Freedom based on vaccination will not be a 'return' to anything. It certainly won't be a return to normal life.
Only if you see 'death' as freedom for a substantial number of people ...
Vaccinated people can easily both get and pass on covid. Protection, as it is becoming increasingly clear, wanes after a few months.
Not easily. They possibly can but it's not easily.
Some unvaccinated people have had delta covid. The ONS shows that reinfection in these cases, and thus therefore the ability to pass covid on, is very low.
It would make far more sense, surely, to make antibody testing the yardstick, rather than vaccination? does it really matter how you acquire your protection?
Delta covid has only been around for eight months. It's only been common enough to be named as a subvariant for three or four months. Not really enough time for the smaller subset of unvaccinated people to get it twice.
I therefore treat your claim with suspicion. Do you have linkies to it, please?
And antibodies aren't the only way the body defeats Covid. The immune system is much more complex than that...
Would be interesting to know if the (admittedly rare) side effects from the jabs are still happening for 3rd jabs. If they were, I could understand the scientists' reluctance...
Out of interest, how many jabs are you prepared to take before you say feck this for a game of soldiers?
Because, possibly, your freedom will depend on it. Some of us are preparing ourselves to become second class citizens already.
If you don't get the booster, that could be you too.
On the contrary (sic) freedom is dependent on being vaccinated. Returning to normal life requires it.
Freedom based on vaccination will not be a 'return' to anything. It certainly won't be a return to normal life.
Though as a psychological matter at some point societies like UK are going to make a shift from 'crisis mode' to 'this how life is so how do we normalise it'. I think this will happen between about now and the middle of next year, as we have all had enough of permanent crisis mode.
What will life look like if permanence is that Covid is one more disease that people get, and many die from, just like many die from other causes? I think we shall have to get there soon.
I think it won't be just my ICU and respiratory ward colleagues that get fed up with so much health resource being consumed by anti-vaxxers.
It is a factor in why Mrs Foxy and her colleagues won't accept redeployment to ICU again. What they see there is so unnecessary and self inflicted.
Can i ask, are you also fed up with so much health resources being consumed by teenagers who are so obese they need joint operations? or get Type 2 diabetes when they otherwise wouldn't?
People are, well, fallible aren't they? And some people who are un vaccinated have had and recovered from covid. They are no threat to anybody.
You have a point about people who don't look after themselves. There's an immense amount of hypocrisy - including amongst many very fat healthcare professionals - abroad in the land amongst people who went out on their doorsteps and banged their pots and pans for the NHS, whilst simultaneously carting around a massive flab belt.
Millions and millions of people genuflect ritually before the altar of the NHS, yet won't take basic measures to prevent themselves from burdening it unnecessarily: if the whole population ate reasonably healthily and did a sufficient amount of exercise (and it's hardly as if one need be a vegan iron man triathlete to avoid becoming Monsieur or Madame Creosote: there is no need to tax sugar or outlaw chocolate,) then only a very modest number of disabled people and people with metabolic conditions would be overweight. The British healthcare system could then do a far more effective job for the same amount of money, to the general benefit of everyone.
The specific problem with some communicable diseases like Covid is, of course, that they spread, and if they spread enough to overwhelm the healthcare system then we either have to go without healthcare or do drastic things to control the disease, which was the entire rationale behind these God awful lockdowns that we had to suffer. If a morbidly obese person wobbles down the street than they don't transmit morbid obesity about the town until hundreds of morbidly obese people per day are having coronaries all at once and clogging up intensive care units. If people with Covid go about town infecting everyone else then it's a different kettle of fish.
Vaccines are the solution to dampening both the transmissibility and the severity of Covid, to the point at which the disease is incapable of crippling the healthcare system and we can then go back to normal life - but this process is entirely dependent on a sufficient fraction of the population accepting the vaccines. If there are enough refusers in the population that the vaccines cannot do their job then we are in real trouble. I fail to see what is difficult to comprehend about this concept.
Where do you stop , do you refuse athletes because they have wrecked their bodies, climbers that fell off mountains , people who crash cars , motorbikes , have accidents in water , all self harming in one way or another or are you just anti people that are overweight.
I thought athletes had private medicine? For speed, as much as anything.
I actually do think those who cause accidents through dangerous driving should cough up for their treatment and that of others, but in the real world that would just hike insurance premiums further.
I can't believe a diseased animal having to be put down is a "story". Absolutely ridiculous.
Nothing will ever beat the time David Cameron bought some fish in Morrisons.
That wasn't a month of headlines....one story on this animal perhaps, but it has been a daily major story. I presume somebody important is involved and thus behind this.
I remember listening to a podcast and stories that involved adorable animals generate lots of clicks which sees ad revenues increase for the media.
This is the perfect story for the media.
Geronimo's devastated owner has accused the Government of 'murdering' her alpaca and demanded an independent witness be present at his post-mortem
Would be interesting to know if the (admittedly rare) side effects from the jabs are still happening for 3rd jabs. If they were, I could understand the scientists' reluctance...
Out of interest, how many jabs are you prepared to take before you say feck this for a game of soldiers?
Because, possibly, your freedom will depend on it. Some of us are preparing ourselves to become second class citizens already.
If you don't get the booster, that could be you too.
On the contrary (sic) freedom is dependent on being vaccinated. Returning to normal life requires it.
Freedom based on vaccination will not be a 'return' to anything. It certainly won't be a return to normal life.
Though as a psychological matter at some point societies like UK are going to make a shift from 'crisis mode' to 'this how life is so how do we normalise it'. I think this will happen between about now and the middle of next year, as we have all had enough of permanent crisis mode.
What will life look like if permanence is that Covid is one more disease that people get, and many die from, just like many die from other causes? I think we shall have to get there soon.
I think it won't be just my ICU and respiratory ward colleagues that get fed up with so much health resource being consumed by anti-vaxxers.
It is a factor in why Mrs Foxy and her colleagues won't accept redeployment to ICU again. What they see there is so unnecessary and self inflicted.
Can i ask, are you also fed up with so much health resources being consumed by teenagers who are so obese they need joint operations? or get Type 2 diabetes when they otherwise wouldn't?
People are, well, fallible aren't they? And some people who are un vaccinated have had and recovered from covid. They are no threat to anybody.
You have a point about people who don't look after themselves. There's an immense amount of hypocrisy - including amongst many very fat healthcare professionals - abroad in the land amongst people who went out on their doorsteps and banged their pots and pans for the NHS, whilst simultaneously carting around a massive flab belt.
Millions and millions of people genuflect ritually before the altar of the NHS, yet won't take basic measures to prevent themselves from burdening it unnecessarily: if the whole population ate reasonably healthily and did a sufficient amount of exercise (and it's hardly as if one need be a vegan iron man triathlete to avoid becoming Monsieur or Madame Creosote: there is no need to tax sugar or outlaw chocolate,) then only a very modest number of disabled people and people with metabolic conditions would be overweight. The British healthcare system could then do a far more effective job for the same amount of money, to the general benefit of everyone.
The specific problem with some communicable diseases like Covid is, of course, that they spread, and if they spread enough to overwhelm the healthcare system then we either have to go without healthcare or do drastic things to control the disease, which was the entire rationale behind these God awful lockdowns that we had to suffer. If a morbidly obese person wobbles down the street than they don't transmit morbid obesity about the town until hundreds of morbidly obese people per day are having coronaries all at once and clogging up intensive care units. If people with Covid go about town infecting everyone else then it's a different kettle of fish.
Vaccines are the solution to dampening both the transmissibility and the severity of Covid, to the point at which the disease is incapable of crippling the healthcare system and we can then go back to normal life - but this process is entirely dependent on a sufficient fraction of the population accepting the vaccines. If there are enough refusers in the population that the vaccines cannot do their job then we are in real trouble. I fail to see what is difficult to comprehend about this concept.
True of course, but its worth remembering that the vast majority of people who get covid do not need hospitalisation.
As for the NHS, by the look of things, by December it will have effectively ceased to exist. Service will have completely ground to a halt. Vaccines or no vaccines. Lockdown or no lockdown. It will be over.
As in lots of emotive spheres, there's a danger of letting ourselves be defined by extremes. Most people are at least somewhat uneasy about factory farming and would be pleased if conditions improved. Few people are absolutely solid vegan, even fewer prefer ants to people. But the National Food Strategy recommends a 30% reduction on meat consumption on climate change grounds, and if that was nudged along by some subsidies for healthy alternatives, I don't think many people would really grumble.
You're a fanatic and are simply trying to nudge people along in baby steps to a world with no meat.
As in lots of emotive spheres, there's a danger of letting ourselves be defined by extremes. Most people are at least somewhat uneasy about factory farming and would be pleased if conditions improved. Few people are absolutely solid vegan, even fewer prefer ants to people. But the National Food Strategy recommends a 30% reduction on meat consumption on climate change grounds, and if that was nudged along by some subsidies for healthy alternatives, I don't think many people would really grumble.
You're a fanatic and are simply trying to nudge people along in baby steps to a world with no meat.
I can read you like a book.
CR was that serious or just having a bit of fun with NP?
Has it not occurred to anyone around here that part of the reason that Söder (or Soeder if you really don't want to find an umlaut) hypothetically polls better than Laschet is because he is not a member of the CDU?
If he had been chosen as CDU/CSU chancellor candidate, then I guess they would probably be doing about 2-3% better in the polls (which is also what they were polling 2 years ago, long before Laschet became chancellor candidate). Would the CDU/CSU program be any different? Does anyone here know what the key differences between, say the CDU/CSU program and the SPD program are?
But I guess it's easier to discuss "personalities" than actual politics.
There's no doubt Soeder would be polling better than Laschet. He is consistently ahead of Scholz in the preferred Chancellor polling. I don't know why the Union didn't choose him over Laschet - I can only presume Laschet, through Merkel, had made his position in the CDU impregnable.
The other problem for Soeder is whenever the CSU has supplied the Union's Spitzenkandidat they've lost.
The best analogy would be Johnson in the UK who effectively ran as an opposition leader to his own party's Government in the 2019 election and won. The fact he had served in the May Government was irrelevant. Soeder's best chance was to run in opposition to the CDU and put forward a more strongly conservative position.
As for your last comment, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, "personalities", as you call them, count and for a great deal.
Would be interesting to know if the (admittedly rare) side effects from the jabs are still happening for 3rd jabs. If they were, I could understand the scientists' reluctance...
Out of interest, how many jabs are you prepared to take before you say feck this for a game of soldiers?
Because, possibly, your freedom will depend on it. Some of us are preparing ourselves to become second class citizens already.
If you don't get the booster, that could be you too.
On the contrary (sic) freedom is dependent on being vaccinated. Returning to normal life requires it.
Freedom based on vaccination will not be a 'return' to anything. It certainly won't be a return to normal life.
Though as a psychological matter at some point societies like UK are going to make a shift from 'crisis mode' to 'this how life is so how do we normalise it'. I think this will happen between about now and the middle of next year, as we have all had enough of permanent crisis mode.
What will life look like if permanence is that Covid is one more disease that people get, and many die from, just like many die from other causes? I think we shall have to get there soon.
I think it won't be just my ICU and respiratory ward colleagues that get fed up with so much health resource being consumed by anti-vaxxers.
After the antics we've seen from a substantial minority of the human race over the last 18 months, I don't find the opinion poll findings about the value of human and animal life very surprising
Although its far from clear that schools are behind Scotland's surge in cases...
I am guessing your take is because Nippy and Drakeford (Wales are doing badly as well) are utterly useless, whilst Johnson is an awesome god?
The increase in cases started before the Scottish school returned.
The suggestions so far are
- pre-return-to-school testing - tourism
It is worth noting that the big increases have been seen in non-school age people.
Ah. Bugger.
That reminds me I was meant to do an LFT tonight.
And now I’ve eaten, and because they make me retch I can’t do one after eating.
Oh well, tomorrow morning will do.
"...because they make me retch"
In all seriousness: I had the same problem the first couple of times. I found the trick was not to open my mouth quite so wide. Wide enough to reach the back of the throat, without opening it fully. My instinct was to open it as wide as I could. There's a magic spot where I can do it well without gagging.
The Yougov question is too general. If needs to be more specific; If I was asked whether TB infected Geronimo is worth the same as Brexiteer Boris Johnson?
I would answer Most certainly 'Yes'. In fact I would say he is of more value and certainly less dangerous.
Although its far from clear that schools are behind Scotland's surge in cases...
I am guessing your take is because Nippy and Drakeford (Wales are doing badly as well) are utterly useless, whilst Johnson is an awesome god?
The increase in cases started before the Scottish school returned.
The suggestions so far are
- pre-return-to-school testing - tourism
It is worth noting that the big increases have been seen in non-school age people.
Ah. Bugger.
That reminds me I was meant to do an LFT tonight.
And now I’ve eaten, and because they make me retch I can’t do one after eating.
Oh well, tomorrow morning will do.
"...because they make me retch"
In all seriousness: I had the same problem the first couple of times. I found the trick was not to open my mouth quite so wide. Wide enough to reach the back of the throat, without opening it fully. My instinct was to open it as wide as I could. There's a magic spot where I can do it well without gagging.
(cue jokes from TSE et al...)
Thanks. That’s one strategy I haven’t tried (I’ve tried a few).
Not sure why I bother to be honest, given how useless they are, but there we are.
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
We converted half our dining room into a pen and hand reared 2 orphan lambs. A fulfilling experience and they were incredibly cute. They both grew strong enough to go out to pasture after a few weeks.
My favourite curry is still a lamb dopiaza.
I have no issues with it.
My view is that humans sit at the top of a food chain in which lots of animals eat a lot of other animals, and that consumption forms part of the natural ecosystem of the world. Indeed, without it many other species simply couldn't exist or would destroy others.
We have a duty to treat our privileged position responsibly, without unnecessary cruelty and due respect to welfare needs of the animals concerned, but to put them on the same pedestal as humans is lunacy.
Beaten is sadly not surprising - but raped? That seems a little unexpected.
Then you haven't read very much about Afghanistan. If one grants that the people who have been there are being truthful, it is hard to tell which is more popular - Homophobia or Homosexuality....
To be serious about vegetarianism for once (not veganism; I can never be serious about veganism): what many vegetarians get wrong is that the problem isn't that most of us eat meat. We're omnivores. It's the way we've evolved. It's the easiest way to a balanced diet.
The problem isn't eating meat. It's the *amount* of meat we eat.
Traditionally, meat was a scarcity for many cultures. Vegetables/fruit were much more common. A little bit of meat with a lot of vegetables gives us what we need.
Instead, many of us eat a lot of meat with a few, if any, vegetables or fruit. As an extreme, I had a colleague who called himself a 'meatarian': he would return food at the pub if it came with any vegetables.
Campaigns (and there are some) to east *less* meat, rather than berating us as evil for eating any meat, might gain better traction and allow better animal welfare.
Beaten is sadly not surprising - but raped? That seems a little unexpected.
If true presumably they had to rape and beat all the Taliban who raped him, ad infinitum. If they don't come to their senses as to how irrational that is the Taliban will be into self destruction mode pretty soon.
Beaten is sadly not surprising - but raped? That seems a little unexpected.
If true presumably they had to rape and beat all the Taliban who raped him, ad infinitum. If they don't come to their senses as to how irrational that is the Taliban will be into self destruction mode pretty soon.
That poll and the IPSOS poll earlier continue to spell disaster for the Union. In a decade of arguably very bad political decisions, the election of Jeremy Corbyn by Labour or Jo Swinson by the LDs might be right up there but they pale into insignificance beside the selection of Laschet as CDU/CSU Spitzenkandidat over Soder.
Forsa has Soder ahead of Scholz as preferred Chancellor 39-22 but Soder isn't on the paper for the Union. We saw plenty of hypothetical polling in the spring showing a Union led by Soder polling in the mid-30s if not higher.
It's an open secret Soder and the CSU are livid at what has happened.
Another country voting this autumn is Iceland which also goes to the polls at the end of September (on the 25th). The latest Gallup poll:
Changes from 2017 election (*= party in the Governing coalition)
The current Government has 33 of the 63 seats in the Althing but you'd have to think the poor performance of the Left-Green Movement leaves that majority in jeopardy.
It's hard however to see any Government being formed which doesn't include Independence - a coalition with Progressive and Reform might be the outcome.
Iceland exhibits a remarkable range of political fragmentation, especially for such a small polity. There are only about a quarter of a million registered voters, yet the current parliament contains representatives from eight different parties. It's not inconceivable that there could be a nine-way split next time.
If we had a Pirate Party, would they win all the seats in Devon and Cornwall?
Has it not occurred to anyone around here that part of the reason that Söder (or Soeder if you really don't want to find an umlaut) hypothetically polls better than Laschet is because he is not a member of the CDU?
If he had been chosen as CDU/CSU chancellor candidate, then I guess they would probably be doing about 2-3% better in the polls (which is also what they were polling 2 years ago, long before Laschet became chancellor candidate). Would the CDU/CSU program be any different? Does anyone here know what the key differences between, say the CDU/CSU program and the SPD program are?
But I guess it's easier to discuss "personalities" than actual politics.
There's no doubt Soeder would be polling better than Laschet. He is consistently ahead of Scholz in the preferred Chancellor polling. I don't know why the Union didn't choose him over Laschet - I can only presume Laschet, through Merkel, had made his position in the CDU impregnable.
The other problem for Soeder is whenever the CSU has supplied the Union's Spitzenkandidat they've lost.
The best analogy would be Johnson in the UK who effectively ran as an opposition leader to his own party's Government in the 2019 election and won. The fact he had served in the May Government was irrelevant. Soeder's best chance was to run in opposition to the CDU and put forward a more strongly conservative position.
As for your last comment, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, "personalities", as you call them, count and for a great deal.
The things is: lots of people are not finding compelling reasons to vote for the CDU this time. "Vote for the CDU - we can't even find anyone in our own party to be a chancellor candidate" doesn't really give them reasons.
Also, "there's no doubt" that a few weeks of Söder being the CDU's candidate would have seriously dented his popularity.
I seriously doubt that the CDU would be polling more than 2% better with Söder as chancellor candidate.
I think a lot of people are trying to transfer what they know about UK politics onto German politics (Söder would be like Johnson!), and it usually doesn't really apply, for all kinds of reasons.
Where do you stop , do you refuse athletes because they have wrecked their bodies, climbers that fell off mountains , people who crash cars , motorbikes , have accidents in water , all self harming in one way or another or are you just anti people that are overweight.
I brought up the example of weight in reply to @contrarian, who had used the example of obesity. The point was not to pick specifically on obesity, but rather to explain why trying to equate chronic, non-communicable conditions (obesity, long-term injuries, auto-immune diseases, take your pick) with acute, infectious diseases is like comparing apples with pears.
He's trying to find excuses for why hospital doctors (and the rest of us) should tolerate vaccine refusal because society doesn't come down like a tonne of bricks on people who overeat or self harm, for example, when one circumstance is qualitatively different from another. If there are a certain number of people hobbling about because they've knackered themselves falling off their motorbikes, then that doesn't impinge massively upon the rest of us. The crutch-wielding biker doesn't transmit his broken tibia to you if you get within sneezing distance of each other. OTOH, if Covid isn't sufficiently controlled then, sooner or later, we all risk receiving the collective punishment of being locked up, because the hospital directors start to scream that their staff can no longer cope.
Fundamentally, if vaccine take-up is high enough to crush the disease then I don't particularly care about the refusers. If they insist on taking their chances then let them. If it isn't, but the refusers get selectively locked up to keep them from getting ill and collapsing the hospitals, then I don't care about that either. The real concern is that, come the Autumn, there may be enough refusers getting sick to collapse the hospitals *and* that insufficient action of one kind or another isn't taken to stop this, because it's decided that it's easier or less ethically problematic to put everyone back into lockdown, rather than trying either to enforce selective curbs on the freedoms of the refusers, or to restrict their access to medical treatment to preserve capacity for the remainder of the population. Then it's not just their lookout what they do with their bodies, it becomes a major problem for everyone.
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
We converted half our dining room into a pen and hand reared 2 orphan lambs. A fulfilling experience and they were incredibly cute. They both grew strong enough to go out to pasture after a few weeks.
My favourite curry is still a lamb dopiaza.
I have no issues with it.
My view is that humans sit at the top of a food chain in which lots of animals eat a lot of other animals, and that consumption forms part of the natural ecosystem of the world. Indeed, without it many other species simply couldn't exist or would destroy others.
We have a duty to treat our privileged position responsibly, without unnecessary cruelty and due respect to welfare needs of the animals concerned, but to put them on the same pedestal as humans is lunacy.
Beaten is sadly not surprising - but raped? That seems a little unexpected.
If true presumably they had to rape and beat all the Taliban who raped him, ad infinitum. If they don't come to their senses as to how irrational that is the Taliban will be into self destruction mode pretty soon.
That’s why it was unexpected…
Maybe it's because I was born in Belfast. But when I see religious bigotry, extreme violence and ravening hypocrisy in a bag, I just think... "Yeah, that's normal".
As in lots of emotive spheres, there's a danger of letting ourselves be defined by extremes. Most people are at least somewhat uneasy about factory farming and would be pleased if conditions improved. Few people are absolutely solid vegan, even fewer prefer ants to people. But the National Food Strategy recommends a 30% reduction on meat consumption on climate change grounds, and if that was nudged along by some subsidies for healthy alternatives, I don't think many people would really grumble.
You're a fanatic and are simply trying to nudge people along in baby steps to a world with no meat.
I can read you like a book.
CR was that serious or just having a bit of fun with NP?
Hmm. Partly serious, I'm afraid. NP is a nice guy but there's a reason he's a master of playing Diplomacy.
He uses politeness and reasonability as weapons to cloak the advance of his agenda, and I find that slightly deceptive.
The trouble is, of course, it makes you look like the unreasonable one if you call it out - but it's definitely there.
That poll and the IPSOS poll earlier continue to spell disaster for the Union. In a decade of arguably very bad political decisions, the election of Jeremy Corbyn by Labour or Jo Swinson by the LDs might be right up there but they pale into insignificance beside the selection of Laschet as CDU/CSU Spitzenkandidat over Soder.
Forsa has Soder ahead of Scholz as preferred Chancellor 39-22 but Soder isn't on the paper for the Union. We saw plenty of hypothetical polling in the spring showing a Union led by Soder polling in the mid-30s if not higher.
It's an open secret Soder and the CSU are livid at what has happened.
Another country voting this autumn is Iceland which also goes to the polls at the end of September (on the 25th). The latest Gallup poll:
Changes from 2017 election (*= party in the Governing coalition)
The current Government has 33 of the 63 seats in the Althing but you'd have to think the poor performance of the Left-Green Movement leaves that majority in jeopardy.
It's hard however to see any Government being formed which doesn't include Independence - a coalition with Progressive and Reform might be the outcome.
Iceland exhibits a remarkable range of political fragmentation, especially for such a small polity. There are only about a quarter of a million registered voters, yet the current parliament contains representatives from eight different parties. It's not inconceivable that there could be a nine-way split next time.
If we had a Pirate Party, would they win all the seats in Devon and Cornwall?
Perhaps but in Devon they'd insist on putting on the eyepatch before the tricorn, while in Cornwall you'd need to put on the tricorn and then the eyepatch.
Anyone know anything about hernias? I've been diagnosed with one and have an initial NHS assessment/scan etc on 11 Oct. That's 6 weeks away! And if an op is needed I could be easily looking at a year from now.
Could the condition worsen with delays like this? Should I bite the bullet and go private?
Beaten is sadly not surprising - but raped? That seems a little unexpected.
"There's a boy across the river with a bottom like a peach, but alas I cannot swim" - trad Pathan love song, not intended to be sung by Pathan women.
"The Pathan boy thinks it peculiar should you pass/ him by without remarking on his arse."
I think the view in these places is that it's only gay if you're the bottom, as opposed to the top.
Rape is often more a power thing than a sex thing.
Although IMV to rape a man, you're probably a little bit gay (okay, more than a little bit..), even if you say you're just doing it to belittle and demean the victim.
The exception being when a man is forced to rape another man. And that does happen, sadly. Two victims, one act ...
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
We converted half our dining room into a pen and hand reared 2 orphan lambs. A fulfilling experience and they were incredibly cute. They both grew strong enough to go out to pasture after a few weeks.
My favourite curry is still a lamb dopiaza.
I have no issues with it.
My view is that humans sit at the top of a food chain in which lots of animals eat a lot of other animals, and that consumption forms part of the natural ecosystem of the world. Indeed, without it many other species simply couldn't exist or would destroy others.
We have a duty to treat our privileged position responsibly, without unnecessary cruelty and due respect to welfare needs of the animals concerned, but to put them on the same pedestal as humans is lunacy.
I've been a vegetarian for nearly 30 years, and I've had no regrets!
Just to let you know: some animals eat members of their own species, either youngsters or their (male!) partners!
Where do you stop , do you refuse athletes because they have wrecked their bodies, climbers that fell off mountains , people who crash cars , motorbikes , have accidents in water , all self harming in one way or another or are you just anti people that are overweight.
I brought up the example of weight in reply to @contrarian, who had used the example of obesity. The point was not to pick specifically on obesity, but rather to explain why trying to equate chronic, non-communicable conditions (obesity, long-term injuries, auto-immune diseases, take your pick) with acute, infectious diseases is like comparing apples with pears.
He's trying to find excuses for why hospital doctors (and the rest of us) should tolerate vaccine refusal because society doesn't come down like a tonne of bricks on people who overeat or self harm, for example, when one circumstance is qualitatively different from another. If there are a certain number of people hobbling about because they've knackered themselves falling off their motorbikes, then that doesn't impinge massively upon the rest of us. The crutch-wielding biker doesn't transmit his broken tibia to you if you get within sneezing distance of each other. OTOH, if Covid isn't sufficiently controlled then, sooner or later, we all risk receiving the collective punishment of being locked up, because the hospital directors start to scream that their staff can no longer cope.
Fundamentally, if vaccine take-up is high enough to crush the disease then I don't particularly care about the refusers. If they insist on taking their chances then let them. If it isn't, but the refusers get selectively locked up to keep them from getting ill and collapsing the hospitals, then I don't care about that either. The real concern is that, come the Autumn, there may be enough refusers getting sick to collapse the hospitals *and* that insufficient action of one kind or another isn't taken to stop this, because it's decided that it's easier or less ethically problematic to put everyone back into lockdown, rather than trying either to enforce selective curbs on the freedoms of the refusers, or to restrict their access to medical treatment to preserve capacity for the remainder of the population. Then it's not just their lookout what they do with their bodies, it becomes a major problem for everyone.
The compulsory vaxxers central argument is that, above absolutely everything, the NHS must not be overwhelmed. That, apparently, is now the first principle of all life. The primary goal of human existence today. Do not overwhelm your health service at all and every cost.
Fair enough.
If that is the principle we are working on, then all stupid ways in which unnecessary pressure is put on the NHS must surely be treated equally. Excess obesity. Unnecessarily getting covid badly by not taking a vaccine. Falling off a ladder and breaking your neck. Alcoholism. Sports injuries. Cutting yourself with garden implements.
All of the above are avoidable if only we were more sensible. All would help the NHS to stop being overwhelmed.
Beaten is sadly not surprising - but raped? That seems a little unexpected.
Then you haven't read very much about Afghanistan. If one grants that the people who have been there are being truthful, it is hard to tell which is more popular - Homophobia or Homosexuality....
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
We converted half our dining room into a pen and hand reared 2 orphan lambs. A fulfilling experience and they were incredibly cute. They both grew strong enough to go out to pasture after a few weeks.
My favourite curry is still a lamb dopiaza.
I have no issues with it.
My view is that humans sit at the top of a food chain in which lots of animals eat a lot of other animals, and that consumption forms part of the natural ecosystem of the world. Indeed, without it many other species simply couldn't exist or would destroy others.
We have a duty to treat our privileged position responsibly, without unnecessary cruelty and due respect to welfare needs of the animals concerned, but to put them on the same pedestal as humans is lunacy.
I've been a vegetarian for nearly 30 years, and I've had no regrets!
Just to let you know: some animals eat members of their own species, either youngsters or their (male!) partners!
Do you think we should aim to be like them?
You do know that extending the argument to an extreme does not render the argument that was actually made less valid?
And even pushing aside ritualistic or ceremonial instances, human history is replete with examples that we do eat members of our own species if left with no other options. Point is humans can choose to not do some things that might be natural (and eating other animals is certainly more common and natural than eating one's own species), but it isn't morally wrong if we do still do them.
Coincidentally I have a book above my eyeline right now entitled 'Is eating people wrong?', and have been reading a book today which has mentioned cannabilism multiple times (Collapse by Jared Diamond)
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
I have had a similar experience. We have a habit of projecting our emotions on to animals. I can understand why people choose not to eat meat.
But sheep only exist for the purposes of meat production, otherwise they would have been largely selected out of existence many thousands of years ago.
They exist - one way or another - for the pleasure of humans.
Where do you stop , do you refuse athletes because they have wrecked their bodies, climbers that fell off mountains , people who crash cars , motorbikes , have accidents in water , all self harming in one way or another or are you just anti people that are overweight.
I brought up the example of weight in reply to @contrarian, who had used the example of obesity. The point was not to pick specifically on obesity, but rather to explain why trying to equate chronic, non-communicable conditions (obesity, long-term injuries, auto-immune diseases, take your pick) with acute, infectious diseases is like comparing apples with pears.
He's trying to find excuses for why hospital doctors (and the rest of us) should tolerate vaccine refusal because society doesn't come down like a tonne of bricks on people who overeat or self harm, for example, when one circumstance is qualitatively different from another. If there are a certain number of people hobbling about because they've knackered themselves falling off their motorbikes, then that doesn't impinge massively upon the rest of us. The crutch-wielding biker doesn't transmit his broken tibia to you if you get within sneezing distance of each other. OTOH, if Covid isn't sufficiently controlled then, sooner or later, we all risk receiving the collective punishment of being locked up, because the hospital directors start to scream that their staff can no longer cope.
Fundamentally, if vaccine take-up is high enough to crush the disease then I don't particularly care about the refusers. If they insist on taking their chances then let them. If it isn't, but the refusers get selectively locked up to keep them from getting ill and collapsing the hospitals, then I don't care about that either. The real concern is that, come the Autumn, there may be enough refusers getting sick to collapse the hospitals *and* that insufficient action of one kind or another isn't taken to stop this, because it's decided that it's easier or less ethically problematic to put everyone back into lockdown, rather than trying either to enforce selective curbs on the freedoms of the refusers, or to restrict their access to medical treatment to preserve capacity for the remainder of the population. Then it's not just their lookout what they do with their bodies, it becomes a major problem for everyone.
The compulsory vaxxers central argument is that, above absolutely everything, the NHS must not be overwhelmed. That, apparently, is now the first principle of all life. The primary goal of human existence today. Do not overwhelm your health service at all and every cost.
Fair enough.
If that is the principle we are working on, then all stupid ways in which unnecessary pressure is put on the NHS must surely be treated equally. Excess obesity. Unnecessarily getting covid badly by not taking a vaccine. Falling off a ladder and breaking your neck. Alcoholism. Sports injuries. Cutting yourself with garden implements.
All of the above are avoidable if only we were more sensible. All would help the NHS to stop being overwhelmed.
Christ, you wouldn't recognise a fallacy if it sodomised you with a barbed wire bargepole, would you? Do you think the fire brigade routinely turns up to house fires and says Naah, this house may have dry rot and subsidence issues, best leave it?
Just finished my LibDems selection interview for next year's council election. I want to be selected in a ward we would need a miracle to win but would be amazing to campaign in...
Just finished my LibDems selection interview for next year's council election. I want to be selected in a ward we would need a miracle to win but would be amazing to campaign in...
Back in my day you didn't get interviewed to be a candidate in a no-hoper ward, you got begged!
Mind you, my paper candidacy resulted in me unexpectedly taking second place, so we ran a real candidate the following year and won it.
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
I have had a similar experience. We have a habit of projecting our emotions on to animals. I can understand why people choose not to eat meat.
But sheep only exist for the purposes of meat production, otherwise they would have been largely selected out of existence many thousands of years ago.
They exist - one way or another - for the pleasure of humans.
We have too many rats in our cities. Rats are seen as vermin. We 'dispatch' rats. We have too many foxes in our cities. Foxes are seen as cute and fluffy. We defend foxes. We have too many cats in our cities. Cats are loved. We'll fly cats out of a warzone and leave humans to die.
Just finished my LibDems selection interview for next year's council election. I want to be selected in a ward we would need a miracle to win but would be amazing to campaign in...
Good luck.
You want one of those "LDs up 50% from nothing!" results I see.
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
I have had a similar experience. We have a habit of projecting our emotions on to animals. I can understand why people choose not to eat meat.
But sheep only exist for the purposes of meat production, otherwise they would have been largely selected out of existence many thousands of years ago.
They exist - one way or another - for the pleasure of humans.
On a technicality, it was probably wool production which they were mainly selected for. You have no idea how central wool was to the ancient Greek economy (and that's in Greece, not a climate you'd wear wool in if you had the choice). Women in ancient Greek fiction are always by default spinning or weaving wool, and the basic rule for asset splitting on divorce was, the woman kept half of everything she had woven during the marriage.
Just finished my LibDems selection interview for next year's council election. I want to be selected in a ward we would need a miracle to win but would be amazing to campaign in...
Back in my day you didn't get interviewed to be a candidate in a no-hoper ward, you got begged!
Mind you, my paper candidacy resulted in me unexpectedly taking second place, so we ran a real candidate the following year and won it.
I know people, and I am sure others do, who were paper candidates, and only agreed on the basis they were told they had no hope, who ended up winning. A national tide can sweep many into office unexpectedlt, and in local councils on low turnout it must be pretty common.
Where do you stop , do you refuse athletes because they have wrecked their bodies, climbers that fell off mountains , people who crash cars , motorbikes , have accidents in water , all self harming in one way or another or are you just anti people that are overweight.
I brought up the example of weight in reply to @contrarian, who had used the example of obesity. The point was not to pick specifically on obesity, but rather to explain why trying to equate chronic, non-communicable conditions (obesity, long-term injuries, auto-immune diseases, take your pick) with acute, infectious diseases is like comparing apples with pears.
He's trying to find excuses for why hospital doctors (and the rest of us) should tolerate vaccine refusal because society doesn't come down like a tonne of bricks on people who overeat or self harm, for example, when one circumstance is qualitatively different from another. If there are a certain number of people hobbling about because they've knackered themselves falling off their motorbikes, then that doesn't impinge massively upon the rest of us. The crutch-wielding biker doesn't transmit his broken tibia to you if you get within sneezing distance of each other. OTOH, if Covid isn't sufficiently controlled then, sooner or later, we all risk receiving the collective punishment of being locked up, because the hospital directors start to scream that their staff can no longer cope.
Fundamentally, if vaccine take-up is high enough to crush the disease then I don't particularly care about the refusers. If they insist on taking their chances then let them. If it isn't, but the refusers get selectively locked up to keep them from getting ill and collapsing the hospitals, then I don't care about that either. The real concern is that, come the Autumn, there may be enough refusers getting sick to collapse the hospitals *and* that insufficient action of one kind or another isn't taken to stop this, because it's decided that it's easier or less ethically problematic to put everyone back into lockdown, rather than trying either to enforce selective curbs on the freedoms of the refusers, or to restrict their access to medical treatment to preserve capacity for the remainder of the population. Then it's not just their lookout what they do with their bodies, it becomes a major problem for everyone.
The compulsory vaxxers central argument is that, above absolutely everything, the NHS must not be overwhelmed. That, apparently, is now the first principle of all life. The primary goal of human existence today. Do not overwhelm your health service at all and every cost.
Fair enough.
If that is the principle we are working on, then all stupid ways in which unnecessary pressure is put on the NHS must surely be treated equally. Excess obesity. Unnecessarily getting covid badly by not taking a vaccine. Falling off a ladder and breaking your neck. Alcoholism. Sports injuries. Cutting yourself with garden implements.
All of the above are avoidable if only we were more sensible. All would help the NHS to stop being overwhelmed.
I don't think you're trying very hard. Couldn't you have made your straw man even a little more unreasonable?
Just finished my LibDems selection interview for next year's council election. I want to be selected in a ward we would need a miracle to win but would be amazing to campaign in...
I have a healthy respect for (virtually) anyone who puts themselves up for election, whichever party. It's throwing yourself to the wolves (worse for MPs compared to councillors, but even then...). Even if I felt I had the skills to be an elected politician, I wouldn't have the personal courage.
As in lots of emotive spheres, there's a danger of letting ourselves be defined by extremes. Most people are at least somewhat uneasy about factory farming and would be pleased if conditions improved. Few people are absolutely solid vegan, even fewer prefer ants to people. But the National Food Strategy recommends a 30% reduction on meat consumption on climate change grounds, and if that was nudged along by some subsidies for healthy alternatives, I don't think many people would really grumble.
You're a fanatic and are simply trying to nudge people along in baby steps to a world with no meat.
I can read you like a book.
CR was that serious or just having a bit of fun with NP?
He uses politeness and reasonability as weapons to cloak the advance of his agenda, and I find that slightly deceptive.
But isn't that part of the point of being polite and reasonable? Ok, it's its own reward to be courteous to a degree, but I'd have thought there is a general hope and expectation when we are taught how to interact with others that if you are polite and reasonable people will treat you better and and be more inclined to listen to you with respect. Is treating people as you would wish to be treated deceptive, even if you or your agenda happen to benefit by it as well?
Labour staff represented by GMB and Unite trade unions have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if the party decides to pursue any compulsory redundancies in its bid to save costs by cutting at least 90 staff.
78% of Labour staff Unite members on a 90% turnout and 76% of Labour staff GMB members on a 79% turnout have voted yes to strike action if there are compulsory redundancies.
BREAKING: GMB and Unite Labour staff vote overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if party decides to pursue compulsory redundancies in bid to save costs by cutting staff:
"The law would also have vast ramifications for our system of governance. If permitted to take effect, S.B. 8 would supply a ready blueprint for any state or locality looking to target federal rights they dislike. Today it is Texas banning abortion; tomorrow, New York could ban gun sales, permit anyone to sue gun buyers or sellers, and offer a five-figure bounty to entice endless private lawsuits. Post certain conservative sentiments on Facebook? A state could authorize lawsuits by anyone who saw your post. Same-sex couples could be sued by neighbors for obtaining a marriage license. Unpopular political groups could be barred from gathering under threat of vigilante lawsuits. The possibilities are endless."
England’s Covid unlocking is threat to world, say 1,200 10s of scientists and 100s of ideological driven academics without the relevant knowledge, students, admins, and bog cleaners
Have you never seen little lambs gamboling about a field without a care in the world, every now and again stopping to nibble at the grass, rubbing up against each other for companionship, happy in the knowledge they have their whole lives ahead of them? -------- Yes, I had exactly that experience and resolved never to eat lamb again. Awkwardly, in my current job we advise that it's often more humane to eat lamb and beef than chicken, because they on many farms they live reasonable lives outdoors and chickens generally have pretty hellish lives. Just eating less of meat generally is undoubtedly a good idea, from both humane and climate change perspectives.
We converted half our dining room into a pen and hand reared 2 orphan lambs. A fulfilling experience and they were incredibly cute. They both grew strong enough to go out to pasture after a few weeks.
My favourite curry is still a lamb dopiaza.
I have no issues with it.
My view is that humans sit at the top of a food chain in which lots of animals eat a lot of other animals, and that consumption forms part of the natural ecosystem of the world. Indeed, without it many other species simply couldn't exist or would destroy others.
We have a duty to treat our privileged position responsibly, without unnecessary cruelty and due respect to welfare needs of the animals concerned, but to put them on the same pedestal as humans is lunacy.
I've been a vegetarian for nearly 30 years, and I've had no regrets!
Just to let you know: some animals eat members of their own species, either youngsters or their (male!) partners!
Do you think we should aim to be like them?
You are an individual. Other individual's experiences might be different.
Mrs J was a vegetarian for decades. Then she developed a health issue that no amount of obsessive measuring what she ate would fix. She ate fish once a week, and it went away. After six months, she stopped eating fish, and it returned. She started again, and the complaint disappeared.
Just eating a small amount of fish a week helps her. Your experience might be different; that is hers.
Labour staff represented by GMB and Unite trade unions have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if the party decides to pursue any compulsory redundancies in its bid to save costs by cutting at least 90 staff.
78% of Labour staff Unite members on a 90% turnout and 76% of Labour staff GMB members on a 79% turnout have voted yes to strike action if there are compulsory redundancies.
Comments
People can answer the male or female question in Scotland’s 2022 census based on how they identify themselves rather than according to legal status, according to new guidance from the body responsible for the survey.....
Similar guidance for the England, Wales and Northern Ireland census had to be changed weeks before the official day to complete it on 21 March after a high court challenge brought by the campaign group Fair Play for Women successfully argued the advice “conflated and confused” sex with gender identity.......
Lisa Mackenzie of the policy analyst collective Murray Blackburn Mackenzie, which first raised data quality concerns in January 2019, said the guidance represented “a de facto conflation” of sex and gender identity.
Mackenzie said: “Following a successful challenge brought earlier this year by campaign group Fair Play for Women in the English high court on similar guidance proposed for use in the census in England and Wales, the Office for National Statistics was forced to concede that ‘sex’ in the Census Act 1920 means simply ‘sex as recorded on a birth certificate or gender recognition certificate’.
“Alignment between UK censuses has already been compromised by the delay to the census in Scotland. It is difficult to see how the Scottish government can claim that their reframing of the sex question in the 2022 Scottish census is compatible with the Census Act 1920.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/aug/31/people-can-self-identify-as-male-or-female-in-scottish-census-says-guidance
If he had been chosen as CDU/CSU chancellor candidate, then I guess they would probably be doing about 2-3% better in the polls (which is also what they were polling 2 years ago, long before Laschet became chancellor candidate). Would the CDU/CSU program be any different? Does anyone here know what the key differences between, say the CDU/CSU program and the SPD program are?
But I guess it's easier to discuss "personalities" than actual politics.
This from the Times on an Israel study.
Sentiment opposite to Piers Morgan = Correct sentiment.
If "God" exists, why did you fail to be elected to Epping Forest Council?
I have been elected to Epping Town Council, so clearly that was part of the divine plan
Verily!
He moves in mysterious ways.
2) Pfizer only.
3) A media report on one study.
So you wish me to continue?
I actually do think those who cause accidents through dangerous driving should cough up for their treatment and that of others, but in the real world that would just hike insurance premiums further.
The suggestions so far are
- pre-return-to-school testing
- tourism
It is worth noting that the big increases have been seen in non-school age people.
As for the NHS, by the look of things, by December it will have effectively ceased to exist. Service will have completely ground to a halt. Vaccines or no vaccines. Lockdown or no lockdown. It will be over.
I can read you like a book.
That reminds me I was meant to do an LFT tonight.
And now I’ve eaten, and because they make me retch I can’t do one after eating.
Oh well, tomorrow morning will do.
A gay man has been raped and beaten by the Taliban. Then they took his father's number so they could tell him that his son is gay
https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1432765314316521483?s=20
The other problem for Soeder is whenever the CSU has supplied the Union's Spitzenkandidat they've lost.
The best analogy would be Johnson in the UK who effectively ran as an opposition leader to his own party's Government in the 2019 election and won. The fact he had served in the May Government was irrelevant. Soeder's best chance was to run in opposition to the CDU and put forward a more strongly conservative position.
As for your last comment, unfortunately, whether we like it or not, "personalities", as you call them, count and for a great deal.
But, sense of perspective. This was a darkie, not a doggie. Galadriel doesn't do darkies.
It was always one to leave alone for the bureaucracy to crunch.
That poll is a depressing exhibition of the animal-sentimentalist nature of far too many Brits, though driven by silly season.
In all seriousness: I had the same problem the first couple of times. I found the trick was not to open my mouth quite so wide. Wide enough to reach the back of the throat, without opening it fully. My instinct was to open it as wide as I could. There's a magic spot where I can do it well without gagging.
(cue jokes from TSE et al...)
I would answer Most certainly 'Yes'. In fact I would say he is of more value and certainly less dangerous.
Not sure why I bother to be honest, given how useless they are, but there we are.
My view is that humans sit at the top of a food chain in which lots of animals eat a lot of other animals, and that consumption forms part of the natural ecosystem of the world. Indeed, without it many other species simply couldn't exist or would destroy others.
We have a duty to treat our privileged position responsibly, without unnecessary cruelty and due respect to welfare needs of the animals concerned, but to put them on the same pedestal as humans is lunacy.
Well said.
The things is: lots of people are not finding compelling reasons to vote for the CDU this time.
"Vote for the CDU - we can't even find anyone in our own party to be a chancellor candidate" doesn't really give them reasons.
Also, "there's no doubt" that a few weeks of Söder being the CDU's candidate would have seriously dented his popularity.
I seriously doubt that the CDU would be polling more than 2% better with Söder as chancellor candidate.
I think a lot of people are trying to transfer what they know about UK politics onto German politics (Söder would be like Johnson!), and it usually doesn't really apply, for all kinds of reasons.
He's trying to find excuses for why hospital doctors (and the rest of us) should tolerate vaccine refusal because society doesn't come down like a tonne of bricks on people who overeat or self harm, for example, when one circumstance is qualitatively different from another. If there are a certain number of people hobbling about because they've knackered themselves falling off their motorbikes, then that doesn't impinge massively upon the rest of us. The crutch-wielding biker doesn't transmit his broken tibia to you if you get within sneezing distance of each other. OTOH, if Covid isn't sufficiently controlled then, sooner or later, we all risk receiving the collective punishment of being locked up, because the hospital directors start to scream that their staff can no longer cope.
Fundamentally, if vaccine take-up is high enough to crush the disease then I don't particularly care about the refusers. If they insist on taking their chances then let them. If it isn't, but the refusers get selectively locked up to keep them from getting ill and collapsing the hospitals, then I don't care about that either. The real concern is that, come the Autumn, there may be enough refusers getting sick to collapse the hospitals *and* that insufficient action of one kind or another isn't taken to stop this, because it's decided that it's easier or less ethically problematic to put everyone back into lockdown, rather than trying either to enforce selective curbs on the freedoms of the refusers, or to restrict their access to medical treatment to preserve capacity for the remainder of the population. Then it's not just their lookout what they do with their bodies, it becomes a major problem for everyone.
He uses politeness and reasonability as weapons to cloak the advance of his agenda, and I find that slightly deceptive.
The trouble is, of course, it makes you look like the unreasonable one if you call it out - but it's definitely there.
him by without remarking on his arse."
I think the view in these places is that it's only gay if you're the bottom, as opposed to the top.
Could the condition worsen with delays like this? Should I bite the bullet and go private?
ETA Bugles and a tiger
Although IMV to rape a man, you're probably a little bit gay (okay, more than a little bit..), even if you say you're just doing it to belittle and demean the victim.
The exception being when a man is forced to rape another man. And that does happen, sadly. Two victims, one act ...
Just to let you know: some animals eat members of their own species, either youngsters or their (male!) partners!
Do you think we should aim to be like them?
Fair enough.
If that is the principle we are working on, then all stupid ways in which unnecessary pressure is put on the NHS must surely be treated equally. Excess obesity. Unnecessarily getting covid badly by not taking a vaccine. Falling off a ladder and breaking your neck. Alcoholism. Sports injuries. Cutting yourself with garden implements.
All of the above are avoidable if only we were more sensible. All would help the NHS to stop being overwhelmed.
And even pushing aside ritualistic or ceremonial instances, human history is replete with examples that we do eat members of our own species if left with no other options. Point is humans can choose to not do some things that might be natural (and eating other animals is certainly more common and natural than eating one's own species), but it isn't morally wrong if we do still do them.
Coincidentally I have a book above my eyeline right now entitled 'Is eating people wrong?', and have been reading a book today which has mentioned cannabilism multiple times (Collapse by Jared Diamond)
But sheep only exist for the purposes of meat production, otherwise they would have been largely selected out of existence many thousands of years ago.
They exist - one way or another - for the pleasure of humans.
https://www.ft.com/content/55e9fd81-1de7-46d1-9cd3-b47dadeeca2a
Mind you, my paper candidacy resulted in me unexpectedly taking second place, so we ran a real candidate the following year and won it.
We have too many foxes in our cities. Foxes are seen as cute and fluffy. We defend foxes.
We have too many cats in our cities. Cats are loved. We'll fly cats out of a warzone and leave humans to die.
You want one of those "LDs up 50% from nothing!" results I see.
The man, who describes himself as a professional NFT collector, entered a bid around 90% higher than others.
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-58399338
Sounds like he got more shafted than when I bet big on the USA smashing Team Europe in the Ryder Cup....
--AS
Good luck.
Labour staff represented by GMB and Unite trade unions have voted overwhelmingly in favour of strike action if the party decides to pursue any compulsory redundancies in its bid to save costs by cutting at least 90 staff.
78% of Labour staff Unite members on a 90% turnout and 76% of Labour staff GMB members on a 79% turnout have voted yes to strike action if there are compulsory redundancies.
https://labourlist.org/2021/08/unite-gmb-labour-staff-vote-for-strike-action-against-compulsory-redundancies/
England’s Covid unlocking is threat to world, say 1,200 scientists
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jul/16/englands-covid-unlocking-a-threat-to-the-world-experts-say
https://twitter.com/LabourList/status/1432782876555333633?s=20
https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2021/07/19/texas-sb8-abortion-lawsuits/
"The law would also have vast ramifications for our system of governance. If permitted to take effect, S.B. 8 would supply a ready blueprint for any state or locality looking to target federal rights they dislike. Today it is Texas banning abortion; tomorrow, New York could ban gun sales, permit anyone to sue gun buyers or sellers, and offer a five-figure bounty to entice endless private lawsuits. Post certain conservative sentiments on Facebook? A state could authorize lawsuits by anyone who saw your post. Same-sex couples could be sued by neighbors for obtaining a marriage license. Unpopular political groups could be barred from gathering under threat of vigilante lawsuits. The possibilities are endless."
Mrs J was a vegetarian for decades. Then she developed a health issue that no amount of obsessive measuring what she ate would fix. She ate fish once a week, and it went away. After six months, she stopped eating fish, and it returned. She started again, and the complaint disappeared.
Just eating a small amount of fish a week helps her. Your experience might be different; that is hers.
Or have I missed something?
An adviser to New Zealand’s government told the summit he and his colleagues were astounded at the approach being taken in England.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHA