At the end of April we made an appeal to PBers for support because advertising revenue had almost all dried up because of the pandemic. Response from users was really much more than we thought and it has given us the resources to keep going. It has also given me the confidence to try to make the site in the future not dependent on display advertising revenue.
Comments
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/fintan-o-toole-trump-has-unfinished-business-a-republic-he-wants-to-destroy-still-stands-1.4435655
https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1344555658704781314?s=19
Will donate as long as it’s not for fecking ‘improvements’.
The new system doesn’t discriminate by nationality, only by skill level and salary from people with any passport. In theory, it now becomes much easier to hire non-EU workers in medium level skilled roles than previously, at the expense of minimum-wage unskilled EU workers under the previous scheme - a scheme that led to huge bureaucracy when hiring an American or an Indian on a £100k salary, who will be clearly a net contributor to the Exchequer.
Please leave the donate button up for those of us getting paid next week.
One suggestion: there has to be a way to toggle on/off the Twitter embed, at times it’s made the site unusable this year on mobile devices. I now have it blocked completely.
https://twitter.com/pipterino/status/1344570052905992193?s=21
https://twitter.com/pipterino/status/1344570191687143424?s=21
On a tablet the site is, depending on the number of tweets spammed into the thread, often unusable, either taking ages to reload while jumping about as the pictures load, or repeatedly crashing and trying to reload. Sorting that out would make a big difference.
https://twitter.com/artforlifept2/status/1344557283985010689?s=21
I think - I had problems with the paypal confirmatory process.
People should worry about countries where democracy really is under threat.
Your visa is tied to your job now. If you're young and single, no big deal. If you have a family you've uprooted, that gives your employer a bit more power over you.
Speaking as an American, it still doesn't make it that much easier to hire from the states. Most anyone coming over here will want a relocation package, unless they're (a) young and single, as above or (b) have a skill on the shortage list, like nurses.
Isn't that how donations work?
Install the add-on, find your way into its dashboard, and set-up a filter to block platform.twitter.com as follows:
https://twitter.com/ayeshahazarika/status/1344297736875732997?s=21
So what will they do when the Tories throw at them that the economy is struggling so we need them to make sacrifices like working longer hours for less whilst further migration is called for from eastern Europe to deal with staffing crises in our care homes the NHS and agriculture?
Good morning, everyone. Stay safe and a Happy New Year.
Many thanks once again to Mike, Robert, TSE and all the team for providing such a brilliant blog and website.
PB. A home for the feckless. (And some who couldn't). All human life is there.
Happy New Year.
There were ties shortly after Nov 3rd when for the first time in my life I thought US Democracy really was in jeopardy. Had the result been a little closer I think Trump may indeed have tried to cling on illegitimately to office.
Sceptic seems too often to be used to mean "Absolutely vehemently against". "Rebel" would probably be more accurate for the supposed sceptics
But I do think that there is something a bit weird about this
Red being Covid deaths per week, Amber Weekly deaths above the 5 year average, Blue Weekly deaths above the 5 year average not inc Covid. The current year always has a higher death rate than the 5 year average at this time of year - without Covid we would be way below. So either the restrictions are meaning people arent dying of anything else, or lots of people dying of Covid would have died anyway, and we are double counting to an exten when "981!" people die in a day from it
@rkrkrk @Omnium - bet settled.
As an example, how do numbers of deaths due to domestic accidents this year compare to other years - more of us have been at home longer so you'd think more people would have died in domestic accidents but is that correct?
I've put up a handful of articles over the years - why not try it? I'm sure you are articulate enough to put forward an argument - prepare for it to be challenged of course - but if you want "balance", you can provide it.
long time no see. Sorry to disagree with you on my first response to you but we are seeing overall somewhere around 70,000 excess deaths in 2020 compared to the 5 year average which includes a pretty bad flu year in it. That is around 13% excess deaths for the year. And that is in spite of all the restrictions. I don't think it is at all the case of over reacting and disagree that those people would have died anyway.
*existing staff have grandfather rights.
I mean in the second wave, where non Covid deaths are way below the five year average
https://twitter.com/keiranpedley/status/1338449337232273411?s=20
Many will know that I'm a big fan of the Swiss political system and of their culture generally, but the current situation illustrates a problem in crisis times of a system based on private insurance. They don't have a central database of everyone, so they've asked people over 75 to apply for vaccination by the internet, saying vaguely that if people can't usee internet access (OK, a rarity in Switzerland, but not unknown among the very old) they should get friends or family to apply. They are now swamped in applications and need to sort out the priorities (Oldest? Sickest?) and check that everyone really is over 75. Nor can they use GPs yet, because they don't have an overview of which GPs have sufficient numbers of elderly patients to use up a Pfizer box of 975 before it expires.
By contrast, the centralised NHS is rolling the vaccinations out like a military operation - which may not be to everyone's taste, but really suits the crisis.
Seriously, is that what a 'full English' is reduced to post Brexit?
Bacon, mushrooms, tomato, and black pudding required... and chuck the chips!
EDIT: I see you've found it.
I tried one last year on aviation regulation and Brexit, at a time when most of the media had no clue what they were talking about, and couldn’t get out of an acronym soup when trying to work through the issues in layman’s terms.
In fact, from 11pm he is essentially one of the founders of the group of new extreme pro-European reverse UKIP style fringe who want us to go full fat in to the EU incl Euro, along with Adonis, Grayling and Maugham.
That isn't anywhere near a "Full English" - it's a "Third English" at best. From the cafe in the Barking Road yesterday, my takeaway order was:
2 fried eggs
1 slice fried bread ("fried slice" as we call it)
2 Sausages
Mushrooms
Bubble & Squeak
For those who enjoy bacon, black or white pudding I would welcome you at the table any time. Wanting your eggs scrambled rather than fried is decadent but acceptable. Baked beans or chips with breakfast are an abomination and the very work of the Devil himself.
Obviously, those who prefer a well smoked kipper or proper kedgeree have my respect - it's not standard fare in East Ham but I've sampled them elsewhere and they make a more than pleasant change and those who enjoy them are more than welcome to them especially if they have the advantage of being able to source the proper ingredients.
The strange thing is I don't miss the commute, the office, the colleagues or even the family that much - what I've missed is sitting in the cafe with the Racing Post with the band of socially distanced antisocial old gits.
If Labour just support government policy, what is the point? And he is fabulously dull and wooden. My money is on Rayner, but I have always had a soft spot for the flame haired firebrand!
I'll wager he didn't even think about it until Farage started getting a spot on BBC's QT every week.
Craster kipper, or kedgeree made with finnan haddock, definitely options.
Edit: and I forgot to add, in the Cymric realms, laver bread.
And donation made, with thanks for the hard work in keeping this site running.
Although if well made, proper kedgeree were available then I would be having that instead.
Makes my actual breakfast this morning (a bowl of Fruit and Fibre) seem fairly sad...
One other morbid factor is that many of the tens of thousands who died earlier this year can't die a second time this winter. Many of those who died earlier this year could have died ten years from now or later - but some of them would have died this winter, but can't die this winter since they're already dead.
Once Covid is behind us we should see below (pre-Covid) average deaths for a couple of years as people who died from Covid won't now die from whatever would have killed them later on.
I read the tweet and thought "that isn't right, she still has a year". Which was the advice before the deal was signed. Amazingly that isn't now the case. Some products will have to have new markings as of tomorrow! Another one of the fabulous benefits of this omnishambles.
On the breakfast; no black or white pudding or laverbread!
The politics varies of course. You and I have been posting long enough to have seen the composition change - someties very conservative, sometimes leftish, sometimes rather heavy with yellow peril, sometimes nationalist and so on. Regardless of political color it has remained one of the liveliest and fairest forums around, and just in terms of sheer quality and information sharing it is very hard to beat.
Happy New to yourself, and everyone - even those who cannot quite maintain the Olympian standards of Richard and myself.