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Tory elections expert Lord Hayward reckons that new boundaries give a 5-10 seat bonus to his party –

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  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    VIRGINIA PRIMARY 2021 - Tuesday, June 8 - Polls Close 7pm EDT = 1am BST

    Politico.com - Virginia’s Democratic primary is historically diverse. Its frontrunners aren’t.
    Former Gov. Terry McAuliffe entered Tuesday’s primary with a large lead over his three main challengers — all of whom are Black.

    https://www.politico.com/news/2021/06/08/virginia-democratic-primary-diverse-492069

    Money and name recognition have shaped the contours of Virginia’s off-year Democratic primary. They have also edged out the women and people of color vying for some of the state’s top offices.

    Heading into Tuesday's primary, Democrats are poised to nominate two well-known white men: former Gov. Terry McAuliffe and state Attorney General Mark Herring. Only the lieutenant governor spot is likely to see Democrats pick a nominee of color.

    A ticket led by two white men is the opposite scenario from what many in Virginia were expecting in 2021, which they believed would be the year voters sent a Black woman to the governor’s mansion, building on the prominence of leaders like Stacey Abrams and Vice President Kamala Harris. Even more, the state’s demographic shifts to a younger and more diverse electorate, particularly in vote-rich Northern Virginia, made some optimistic that the faces leading the party would change.

    While Tuesday's primary could still produce some surprises, the disappointment of some progressives and organizers supporting diversity in politics is mostly focused on the party's two Black female gubernatorial candidates, Jennifer Carroll Foy and Jennifer McClellan. Neither has gained traction in the polls nor has been able to match McAuliffe's fundraising. . . .

    Down the ticket, Herring has consistently led a Black primary challenger, state Del. Jay Jones. And while the top two candidates in the open race for lieutenant governor are people of color, state Dels. Hala Ayala and Sam Rasoul, activists aren't satisfied.

    Looming over Tuesday's primary is what could be a competitive general election campaign. Republicans — who nominated a white man for governor, businessman Glenn Youngkin, as well as diverse candidates down ballot — are eager to claw back ground they have ceded in Virginia since 2009, when the GOP swept the three statewide offices one year after Barack Obama became the first Democratic presidential candidate to carry the state in decades.

    While some activists may be dissatisfied if McAuliffe wins, he is well-liked by most Democrats. According to a Roanoke College poll of likely Democratic primary voters released last week, 73 percent have a favorable opinion of McAuliffe, while only 9 percent view him unfavorably. Meanwhile, roughly 6 in 10 primary voters say they have no opinion of Carroll Foy and McClellan, who were hovering around 10 percent apiece in the primary matchup. . . .
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921
    pm215 said:

    MaxPB said:

    This somewhat ignores the middle ground between "mild cough" and "hospitalisation", which includes 'long covid' (the ONS found over 13% of covid cases were still experiencing symptoms 12 weeks after infection) as well as nasty-but-short-of-hospitalisation experiences. Also, the vaccines aren't 100% effective -- the reduction in risk for me relies not only on my jab but also on case rates in the area where I am being low enough that I'm not that likely to be exposed to it in the first place.

    Then you can stay at home for the rest of your days. That's your choice. The rest of us will make our own decisions on what is an acceptable level of risk.
    Or maybe we could try to make a national level decision about whether there are useful measures that might keep cases lower overall while vaccination rolls out to lower age groups, rather than taking a prisoner's--dilemma "everybody individually plays 'defect'" approach...


    We have had more than a year of that.

    The trade offs have ceased to make sense for the last 3 months to my mind. The costs of restrictions, whether it be lockdowns, mask requirements, social distancing, are not zero.
  • CatManCatMan Posts: 2,722

    The sausage thing is a microcosm of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It has everything:

    1. UK complaining about rules it definitely signed up to
    2. EU being inflexible on something not remotely threatening anyone's actual safety
    3.Hyperbolic headlines
    4. Wild accusations


    https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1402182146798796800?s=20

    I suspect it will eventually end in a sensible deal but I wouldn't bet the house on it.

    The EU seem insistent on treating GB-NI trade like Dover-Calais.
    Isn't that the whole point of the NI protocol?
  • TheScreamingEaglesTheScreamingEagles Posts: 113,968
    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    According to that FT article the hotspots are Gtr Manchester, Lancashire, Harrow, and Leicester.

    So seems logical that Indian travel is to blame.

    Look on the bright side, the Indian cricket team will soon be over for the summer.
    But - my understanding - and I may be quite wrong- is that we don't actually have that many Indians in Bolton/Blackburn/Burnley/Bradford. The Asians there are Pakistani heritage.
    Blame partition.

    There's more Muslims living in India than there Muslims in Pakistan.

    Heritage in those areas can be mixed/self identified.
    Dawkins' Disease, indeed
    The idiocy of wanting to travel overseas during a pandemic isn't limited to the religious.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248

    Leon said:

    Cookie said:

    According to that FT article the hotspots are Gtr Manchester, Lancashire, Harrow, and Leicester.

    So seems logical that Indian travel is to blame.

    Look on the bright side, the Indian cricket team will soon be over for the summer.
    But - my understanding - and I may be quite wrong- is that we don't actually have that many Indians in Bolton/Blackburn/Burnley/Bradford. The Asians there are Pakistani heritage.
    Blame partition.

    There's more Muslims living in India than there Muslims in Pakistan.

    Heritage in those areas can be mixed/self identified.
    Dawkins' Disease, indeed
    The idiocy of wanting to travel overseas during a pandemic isn't limited to the religious.
    No, but the Muslims, Hindus, Jews, Christians, insist on travelling AND THEN CROWDING TOGETHER TO KISS SHRINES

    Twats
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,398
    Yay! Greta Thunberg on Newsnight. That should get a few PBers frothing. If only they had Prof Pagel on too that would be the perfect storm.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    pm215 said:

    MaxPB said:

    Then you can stay at home for the rest of your days. That's your choice. The rest of us will make our own decisions on what is an acceptable level of risk.

    Or maybe we could try to make a national level decision about whether there are useful measures that might keep cases lower overall while vaccination rolls out to lower age groups, rather than taking a prisoner's--dilemma "everybody individually plays 'defect'" approach...
    Nope, I'm happy for you to stay home for as long as you feel is necessary. The rest of us can get on with life if you don't feel comfortable being out. I'm not stopping you from staying home or wearing a mask. You're trying to impose your will on the rest of us who are now comfortable to go out and take that tiny risk. All of my friends are under 40 and have had none or one dose of the vaccine so far, we're all planning a huge unlockdown/house warming party at mine. If people don't want to come because they feel the risk is too high, they are more than welcome to decline and I'll think no less of them if they want to wait for both doses.

    Now that the vulnerable have been immunised the rest of us need to be allowed to make our own decisions. The risk is no longer collective, it's individual.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,398
    Andy_JS said:

    HYUFD said:

    Nightclubs now unlikely to reopen on June 21st

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1402366103209271301?s=20

    Do 18 to 25 year olds still want to go to nightclubs?
    They just go to public parks and leave all their shit behind.

    When you want them to be woke, they act like twats.
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,918
    Sean_F said:

    Sean_F said:

    Foxy said:

    Foxy said:

    A straw poll. How many PBers had a portrait of HM up in their Common Room, Students Union or Staff Canteen?

    My Medical School didn't.

    Send her victorious


    Ah the woman whose palace had an actual don't hire ethnic minorities policy and is exempt from equalities legislation.

    She should be cancelled.
    Meh. Your trolling on the monarchy is water off a duck's back now. You try too hard.

    Gentle hint: try being less predictable, and funnier?
    It is not trolling it is fact.

    Just imagine if she had a no Jews policy.
    Still poor. In fact, even worse.

    You're much better on other subjects.
    So you're ok with the racist hiring policies of the palace?

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2021/jun/02/buckingham-palace-banned-ethnic-minorities-from-office-roles-papers-reveal
    In the Sixties flagrant racism was quite common. We have all moved on quite a bit from then, the past is a foreign country. They do things differently there.
    Yet currently.

    Documents also shed light on Queen’s ongoing exemption from race and sex discrimination laws
    You've been dangerously off-form recently.

    I don't know if this is work or tiredness getting to you but maybe you need a break?
    You come over as a bit unhinged about the monarchy, although I appreciate that you're principally trying to annoy supporters of Brexit who contribute to this site.
    Me, or TSE?
    Sorry, TSE. He's never forgiven us for letting him down over Brexit.
    Tory-Supporting Europhile.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518

    The sausage thing is a microcosm of the Northern Ireland Protocol. It has everything:

    1. UK complaining about rules it definitely signed up to
    2. EU being inflexible on something not remotely threatening anyone's actual safety
    3.Hyperbolic headlines
    4. Wild accusations


    https://twitter.com/DmitryOpines/status/1402182146798796800?s=20

    I suspect it will eventually end in a sensible deal but I wouldn't bet the house on it.

    The EU seem insistent on treating GB-NI trade like Dover-Calais.
    The U.K. seem not to understand that displays of bad faith increase EU suspicion and in turn over reliance on prescriptive rules.
    Whilst that is probably true, on the other hand does the EU really think that UK efforts to bypass, or at least flex, the NI Protocol are motivated by

    1) a desire to ensure (as much as possible) the free flow of intra UK trade between NI and the rest of GB, or
    2) an attempt to exploit the conditions to break the single market and smuggle massive amounts of goods into the EU via the backdoor.

    The truth is obviously the former. That the protocol makes that difficult, but the UK signed up to it, does not change that. If the EU is insisting on far tougher rules in the Irish sea than are involved on actual EU/UK borders (because there is mutually beneficial advantage in minimising restrictions on flow of trade at the latter, but the EU face little negative consequences from restrictions at the former) then however much the UK are "responsible" for signing up to it, doesn't change the fact that the EU is being deliberate obstructive. And arguably acting against the spirit of the agreement, even if the UK is making no effort to abide by the latter. The NI protocol exists to ease flow of trade at the Ireland/NI border. It does not exist to impede intra UK trade.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    This is fucking incredible

    Sam Harris is a well-known, well-connected writer in the USA. He writes on faith and atheism, on human sociality and politics,. He's about as level-headed as they come. Not Woke, not a Trumpite (he has been attacked by both)

    Listen to what he has to say about, yes, Aliens


    https://twitter.com/UAP1949/status/1401850119247564800?s=20

    "Non-human intelligence"

    If he is right, something world-changing is about to happen which will dwarf even Covid

    It all feels a long way from the days when we got excited by Chris Huhne's speeding conviction
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    Quite a few more unfortunately - cases are rapidly accelerating in NW and beginning to do so in other areas eg London, government will seek to buy time for further vaccination progress.
    But specifically who? Young people? We know that's not an issue. Old people? Vaccines give at least a 99% cumulative reduction in hospitalisations after two doses and groups 1-9 will be complete in 4 days.

    We're left with vaccine refusers, and we know from previous announcements by the government that vaccine refusers are the largest cohort now presenting with severe symptoms. What exactly is 4-5 weeks of additional lockdown going to achieve? Will those people who refused magically be convinced to take it in that time? Will they be forcibly jabbed? What are you proposing to convince these people to take the vaccine and how would even get it done in that short period of time

    No, the answer is "unfortunately people are going to die of COVID and people who have refused the vaccine will die at a much higher rate than those who have taken it. The country can no longer put life on hold now that 90% of vulnerable people have received both doses of the vaccine and we must learn to live normally again".
    Yes, young people.
    Of course it’s bloody young people.
    It’s been literally staring out of the screen on every daily graph Malmesbury posts on the age categories of admissions.
    Ages 18-64, and 0-5 have both been steadily climbing.

    Younger people get hospitalised at a significantly lesser rate, but not a zero rate. Nor a negligible rate.
    Which is why hospital admissions are climbing significantly slower, but aren’t negligible.

    They also tend to leave hospital sooner, which is exactly why discharge rates are higher and hospital numbers are climbing slower than they would otherwise have been.

    They’re also unfortunately not immune to long-term consequences, and Long Covid incidence is not hugely lower for them.

    So what has to be weighed up by decision-makers is whether the slower increase inherent in younger-dominated hospitalisations will accelerate too quickly or not. It’s possible, but it’s also very possible that it won’t, especially as vax effects kick in further and further down the age cohorts week by week.

    I’m hopeful that the vax will outrun the virus and Delta left it just that much too late. I’m not certain of it, though, and anyone who is certain in either direction is likely talking either their hope or their fear more than anything else.
    Rather better for it to slowly seep through the country this summer than what it might do to lower vaccinated European countries this winter.
  • londonpubmanlondonpubman Posts: 3,152

    Yay! Greta Thunberg on Newsnight. That should get a few PBers frothing. If only they had Prof Pagel on too that would be the perfect storm.

    She's on holiday at the moment...

    https://twitter.com/chrischirp/status/1401898968225828873
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 20,398
    HYUFD said:

    The Lord Chancellor will now be presenting the nominations of Bishops to Her Majesty The Queen to avoid breaching of the Roman Catholic Relief Act after Boris reconverted to Rome from the Established Church.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/announcing-bishops-will-fall-to-someone-else-now-pms-a-catholic-9k29b272z

    A 'Roman Catholic Relief Act' sounds like a priest being brought off by a nun.

    Night all!
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
  • gealbhangealbhan Posts: 2,362
    HYUFD said:

    The Lord Chancellor will now be presenting the nominations of Bishops to Her Majesty The Queen to avoid breaching of the Roman Catholic Relief Act after Boris reconverted to Rome from the Established Church.

    https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/announcing-bishops-will-fall-to-someone-else-now-pms-a-catholic-9k29b272z

    all humans by our very nature commit sin. Is why Jesus Christ died for us. Sins test our love and devotion to God. They make us worthy of either Heaven, Hell or Purgatory. Know that The Lord knows you. He has watched you. He knows everything about you. And everything you’ve done. All your crimes. Every single one of them. He keeps this so he always know exactly how you should be rewarded and punished.

    Is he seeking confession?
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Everyone who was second-dosed yesterday, or earlier, will have as much vaccine protection as they're going to have by the 21st June. That is 53.6% of the adult population, 28,227,362 people, about 42% of the total population.

    I thought that I would be among that group, but I have to wait longer.

    I have a concern about young people, unvaccinated, being forced back to customer-facing work, and putting themselves at risk of long-term health problems in order to serve the whims of the vaccinated older generation.

    That caveat aside, I don't think that legal restrictions on a substantially fully-vaccinated population can be justified.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2021
    Details claiming to reveal how little US billionaires pay in income tax have been leaked to an investigative website.

    ProPublica says it has seen the tax returns of some of the world's richest people, including Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk and Warren Buffett.

    ProPublica said it was analysing what it called a "vast trove of Internal Revenue Service data" on the taxes of the billionaires, and would release further details over coming weeks.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/business-57383869

    Edit - Here is the actual article,

    https://www.propublica.org/article/the-secret-irs-files-trove-of-never-before-seen-records-reveal-how-the-wealthiest-avoid-income-tax
  • Sunil_PrasannanSunil_Prasannan Posts: 48,918

    Sean_F said:

    I can't understand people attacking the Queen. It doesn't matter if you support the monarchy or not, the woman has served the country for her entire life and despite her very advanced age continues to do so.

    Whatever other horrors and oddities there may be in the palace or the family, don't have a pop at her. She's bloody marvellous.


    Some people think she is Satan.
    All Nazis are the embodiment of Satan.

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33578174
    Did you know the Nazis tried to ban pineapple on pizza?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    Fricking aliens, man

    ALIENS

    Either America is pulling the greatest practical joke in history, or...

    ALIENS
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    edited June 2021

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2021
    It seems like ProPublica are complaining that the mega wealthy pay themselves very little, but hold stock in their companies worth billions, which obviously isn't taxable until those share are sold...and then live their life on credit which is secured because they hold big stakes in these valuable companies.

    A very weird criticism is that Buffet fund doesn't pay dividends, so he tax dodging, but that is how is fund has always worked as he argues it is part of why it works better than others. Its not like he got mega rich and then said hold on folks, no no, we can't be having those dividend things.
  • rural_voterrural_voter Posts: 2,038
    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sean_F said:

    Pulpstar said:

    France looking worryingly efficient… will be very hard to beat. Again.

    Macron has the vaccination program in order ?

    ECB to take 'appropriate action' over England players' historical tweets as more emerge
    Ffsake it's been treated like historical sex abuse.
    That's the problem. You throw meat to the shark, and the shark just wants more meat.
    This also applies to extending the lockdown measures. The scientists will keep coming back for just two more weeks.
    We'll know if the delay comes with some wooly statement about passing the necessary tests to progress.

    If they turn up and say "it's a pause but here are the specific criteria we're aiming to achieve" then it should be fine. But anything even slightly wooly and you can write off the summer.
    I'm already writing off 2021. The scientists will see that any fun we can have in the UK is ended because some old wanker vaccine refusers might die. Honestly, I'm seriously thinking about selling the house and leaving the country and moving to Italy. My wife would be happy to book the flights yesterday.
    Sod the vaccine, which comes with significant risks and should not have got its EUA; just legalise Ivermectin and other cheap proven drugs that are effective against COVID. See evidence ad nauseam by Kory and other doctors to US Senate. (Bizarrely, Youtube censored the US Senate for a time.) It's in use against COVID in many developing countries and poorer developed countries. Totally banned in some rich countries, incl it seems the UK.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    Just catching the boundary review.
    Will add a little over 1k to the already large Tory majority in my safe seat.
    Much better than I was expecting and fearing.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Lord Lloyd Webber says the government will have to arrest him if they are going to stop his shows reopening in full on June 25th

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1402370572894486535?s=20
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    edited June 2021
    Songs of the 2021 Election States - Virginia

    Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters - Wildwood Flower
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJKxRFFDJrE

    This is THE quintessential song, by the Founding Mothers of Country Music. Playing the autoharp is June Carter (Cash) future wife of Johnny Cash.

    She, her mother & sisters were all daughters of the Old Dominion.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
    An honourable compromise would be:

    • WFH until you have two jabs, if possible
    • Masks in public sector settings including public transport until the school holidays
    • Take personal responsibility - be aware that you need two jabs to gain full protection.
    • Socialise outdoors as much as possible
    • All other restrictions removed - we either ride the exit wave now or in the autumn. Now is better!
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sean_F said:

    Pulpstar said:

    France looking worryingly efficient… will be very hard to beat. Again.

    Macron has the vaccination program in order ?

    ECB to take 'appropriate action' over England players' historical tweets as more emerge
    Ffsake it's been treated like historical sex abuse.
    That's the problem. You throw meat to the shark, and the shark just wants more meat.
    This also applies to extending the lockdown measures. The scientists will keep coming back for just two more weeks.
    We'll know if the delay comes with some wooly statement about passing the necessary tests to progress.

    If they turn up and say "it's a pause but here are the specific criteria we're aiming to achieve" then it should be fine. But anything even slightly wooly and you can write off the summer.
    I'm already writing off 2021. The scientists will see that any fun we can have in the UK is ended because some old wanker vaccine refusers might die. Honestly, I'm seriously thinking about selling the house and leaving the country and moving to Italy. My wife would be happy to book the flights yesterday.
    Sod the vaccine, which comes with significant risks and should not have got its EUA; just legalise Ivermectin and other cheap proven drugs that are effective against COVID. See evidence ad nauseam by Kory and other doctors to US Senate. (Bizarrely, Youtube censored the US Senate for a time.) It's in use against COVID in many developing countries and poorer developed countries. Totally banned in some rich countries, incl it seems the UK.
    CRANK ALERT
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    VA 2021 Primary

    Virginia Department of Elections - Election Night Reporting
    https://www.elections.virginia.gov/resultsreports/election-night-reporting/
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    We should push through Covid with the current delta variant, the last thing we want to do is wait till we've got something out there that escapes hospitalisation for the current vaccines.
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 20,454
    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
    It is not just got "through 15 months", many if not most Tory voters are better off from those 15 months, economically and lifestyle wise. Why would they want to go back to the old ways?
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 19,072
    What is this “exit wave”?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 14,772
    Some of the new boundaries are quite horrendous. East Cambridgeshire and Bury St Edmunds & Newmarket are the worst I've seen so far. What a mess.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    edited June 2021

    What is this “exit wave”?

    When the virus very quickly infects group 1-9 vaccine refusers. It's something that will happen, there's no way to avoid it. Israel had one as well.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    edited June 2021

    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
    It is not just got "through 15 months", many if not most Tory voters are better off from those 15 months, economically and lifestyle wise. Why would they want to go back to the old ways?
    55% of Tory voters want to end the rule of 6 indoors compared to 51% of voters overall, 52% of Tory voters want to end the 30 guest limit for weddings compared to 46% of voters overall, 35% of Tory voters want to end social distancing in pubs compared to 30% of voters overall, 39% of Tory voters want to end WFH on June 21st compared to 34% of voters overall.

    https://docs.cdn.yougov.com/xoc1ldh9zg/TheTimes_Reopening_210603.pdf
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Yay! Greta Thunberg on Newsnight. That should get a few PBers frothing. If only they had Prof Pagel on too that would be the perfect storm.

    Has anyone voted for Greta Thunberg?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited June 2021

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sean_F said:

    Pulpstar said:

    France looking worryingly efficient… will be very hard to beat. Again.

    Macron has the vaccination program in order ?

    ECB to take 'appropriate action' over England players' historical tweets as more emerge
    Ffsake it's been treated like historical sex abuse.
    That's the problem. You throw meat to the shark, and the shark just wants more meat.
    This also applies to extending the lockdown measures. The scientists will keep coming back for just two more weeks.
    We'll know if the delay comes with some wooly statement about passing the necessary tests to progress.

    If they turn up and say "it's a pause but here are the specific criteria we're aiming to achieve" then it should be fine. But anything even slightly wooly and you can write off the summer.
    I'm already writing off 2021. The scientists will see that any fun we can have in the UK is ended because some old wanker vaccine refusers might die. Honestly, I'm seriously thinking about selling the house and leaving the country and moving to Italy. My wife would be happy to book the flights yesterday.
    Sod the vaccine, which comes with significant risks and should not have got its EUA; just legalise Ivermectin and other cheap proven drugs that are effective against COVID. See evidence ad nauseam by Kory and other doctors to US Senate. (Bizarrely, Youtube censored the US Senate for a time.) It's in use against COVID in many developing countries and poorer developed countries. Totally banned in some rich countries, incl it seems the UK.
    What an absolute nonsense. Ivermectin is anecdotally a good prophylactic but it is not a substitute for vaccination; it has not been through the same trials the vaccination has against Covid-19, and even if it works taking it would not confer the long lasting protection vaccination does.
    If I was a healthcare worker in a country and was treating Covid patients would I take it ? Sure if I couldn't get hold of a vaccine, but they are readily available in the UK.
    I've got vitamin D tablets too, but those or a bit of sunlight isn't giving me the same protection vaccination is.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603

    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
    An honourable compromise would be:

    • WFH until you have two jabs, if possible
    • Masks in public sector settings including public transport until the school holidays
    • Take personal responsibility - be aware that you need two jabs to gain full protection.
    • Socialise outdoors as much as possible
    • All other restrictions removed - we either ride the exit wave now or in the autumn. Now is better!
    I'd live with that except masks. No mandatory masks anywhere. People can wear them as a personal choice and the government can recommend their use until a person has had both doses.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    MaxPB said:

    What is this “exit wave”?

    When the virus very quickly infects group 1-9 vaccine refusers. It's something that will happen, there's no way to avoid it. Israel had one as well.
    Indeed. The Israelis simply rode it out. As you say, there’s not much one can do - campaigns to turn refuseniks on to the vaccine might have some effect at the margins I suppose.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Some of the new boundaries are quite horrendous. East Cambridgeshire and Bury St Edmunds & Newmarket are the worst I've seen so far. What a mess.

    You can propose changes. I've suggested Clayworth ward should be taken back into Worksop & Retford (Bassetlaw) instead of Newark on the grounds of geographical neatness.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    dixiedean said:

    Just catching the boundary review.
    Will add a little over 1k to the already large Tory majority in my safe seat.
    Much better than I was expecting and fearing.

    My guess is that for every MP who has a serious complaint about what the commission did to her/his seat, there are four who are either happy with changes OR relieved they got off easy.

    And folks who have grievances against the new configuration, will have a tough time convincing others to go along with alterations having direct or knock-off impacts on their own situations.

    Am still interested in what even quasi-experts think is the likely degree of final alterations to the proposed new boundaries? My own half-baked guess is 5% change or thereabouts.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 116,709
    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    The question remains, are we prepared to reduce our standard of living in order to teach China a lesson?

    Are we prepared to completely rebalance the global economy?

    Unlikely.

    Paying slightly more for shirts is hardly a massive reduction in standard of living that we can't bear to live with.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
    An honourable compromise would be:

    • WFH until you have two jabs, if possible
    • Masks in public sector settings including public transport until the school holidays
    • Take personal responsibility - be aware that you need two jabs to gain full protection.
    • Socialise outdoors as much as possible
    • All other restrictions removed - we either ride the exit wave now or in the autumn. Now is better!
    I'd live with that except masks. No mandatory masks anywhere. People can wear them as a personal choice and the government can recommend their use until a person has had both doses.
    Fair enough. That would be my preference too.
  • kle4kle4 Posts: 91,392
    alex_ said:

    There goes the IPL contracts for Morgan & Buttler.

    The England and Wales Cricket Board are investigating historic tweets posted by senior players Jos Buttler and Eoin Morgan after they appeared to mimic Indian people saying “Sir” in posts sent in 2017 and 2018.

    The messages have been widely circulated on Twitter in the wake of the ECB’s decision to suspend Ollie Robinson for posts that were made in 2012 and 2013 when he was still a teenager.

    Screenshots have also been shared of a message by Buttler in which he says “I always reply sir no1 else like me like you like me” and, separately, Morgan includes Buttler in a message which says, “Sir you're my favourite batsman”.

    Some messages have since been deleted but, in the wake of the ECB’s crackdown over social media use, the governing body will investigate the latest posts to have come to light and decide whether action needs to be taken.

    Although there are questions over the precise context of the tweets, they were written at a time when Buttler and Morgan were established England players and have caused offence on social media. Buttler is the current England vice-captain and he plays for the Rajasthan Royals in the Indian Premier League.

    Morgan, who plays for the Kolkata Knight Riders in the Indian Premier League, is the all-time leading run scorer and most capped player for England in limited overs matches, having been appointed one-day captain in 2015


    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/cricket/2021/06/08/ecb-face-questions-historic-jos-buttler-eoin-morgan-social-media/

    I doubt it will have any impact on their IPL contracts. I suspect the Indians couldn’t care less.

    Presumably the ECB will now feel they have to do something though.

    It’s just absurd.
    'Has caused offense' is such a silly description.

    How many are offended? How offensive? Even if offensive, what sanction, if any, is proportionate?
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    We will have to wait and see. I can honestly say personally that I wouldn't be that alarmed if it turned out that we have aliens living amongst us and flying around in unidentified objects; I can see that there are big limitations in our ideas about the 'truth' and many people seem to have a lot of certainty about the world without justification. The one thing I would say is that it is curious how despite all the technology we now have we don't seem to have very good images of the objects in question, perhaps they will release some more information soon.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    A good bit of really creamy mozzarella is an incredible addition.
  • alex_alex_ Posts: 7,518
    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    But we know America has gone mad. There’s Prima Facie evidence available from the cult of Trump and the 30-35% of the country who implicitly believe in him, and in everything he says or does. Belief in aliens visiting earth is eminently the sane option compared to that.

    And I don’t think we should completely dismiss the possibility that very high level people within the US establishment have concluded that the madness engulfing America could represent an existential crisis for the country, and indeed the World. And have decided that in such circumstances the best hope is to try to redirect the madness back into the world of the mundane and the harmless more traditional world of conventional conspiracy theories. Hence Aliens.
  • another_richardanother_richard Posts: 24,967
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    No mozzarella ?
  • darkagedarkage Posts: 4,746
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    You can go on holiday though, just not overseas. I've booked four holidays, right across the UK, over the next few weeks. Very reasonably priced. Standard plus rooms going at the Newcastle Millenium Bridge Premier Inn for £34 per night.
  • AnabobazinaAnabobazina Posts: 19,618
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    Sounds fantastic. I also got out, albeit for two pints of Brewdog in the dabbled evening sunlight.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sean_F said:

    Pulpstar said:

    France looking worryingly efficient… will be very hard to beat. Again.

    Macron has the vaccination program in order ?

    ECB to take 'appropriate action' over England players' historical tweets as more emerge
    Ffsake it's been treated like historical sex abuse.
    That's the problem. You throw meat to the shark, and the shark just wants more meat.
    This also applies to extending the lockdown measures. The scientists will keep coming back for just two more weeks.
    We'll know if the delay comes with some wooly statement about passing the necessary tests to progress.

    If they turn up and say "it's a pause but here are the specific criteria we're aiming to achieve" then it should be fine. But anything even slightly wooly and you can write off the summer.
    I'm already writing off 2021. The scientists will see that any fun we can have in the UK is ended because some old wanker vaccine refusers might die. Honestly, I'm seriously thinking about selling the house and leaving the country and moving to Italy. My wife would be happy to book the flights yesterday.
    Sod the vaccine, which comes with significant risks and should not have got its EUA; just legalise Ivermectin and other cheap proven drugs that are effective against COVID. See evidence ad nauseam by Kory and other doctors to US Senate. (Bizarrely, Youtube censored the US Senate for a time.) It's in use against COVID in many developing countries and poorer developed countries. Totally banned in some rich countries, incl it seems the UK.
    Ivermectin is legal, but the clinical trials have been far from clear that it is beneficial. See: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 (among others)
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited June 2021
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    Surely if aliens wanted to destroy us they would have done so by now? There are also just as likely to be alien races less technologically advanced than us as more advanced.

    Plus how do we know there are not alien PBers also closely analysing the forthcoming by elections in Chesham and Batley? For all we know Sunil, for example, could be an alien commander from the Planet Zog?
    If you were a bored alien assigned to watch Earthlings but banned from making any contact or intervening in any way, what would you do all day?

    A bit of gambling on what the humans might do next? A few random flights with the cloaking accidentally-on-purpose turned off, just for the lolz? Troll anonymously on internet physics forums?
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    edited June 2021
    MaxPB said:

    alex_ said:

    MaxPB said:

    This thread is worth a read - basically, the vaccines are working but the youth aren't yet vaccinated enough to inhibit a rise in admissions. I'd say that points to a 2-4 week delay to 21st June, but I'm guessing:

    https://twitter.com/jburnmurdoch/status/1402351599645757440?s=20

    4 weeks. Or maybe 5. The decision has 90% been made but still won't be announced until Monday.
    To what end? Who exactly is going to end up in hospital?
    There is a real danger that this mentality takes hold. Then half the summer is gone and we have to roll through the Exit Wave when the weather is colder.

    Get. It. Done.
    Quite. Somebody should ask the scientists what they would have recommended if the current conditions and data were what they were facing last March. When the initial approach was to flatten the curve and ensure that peaks in the virus spread occurred over the summer when there was far greater hospital capacity. They would have undoubtedly argued against lockdowns. Hospital capacity is stretched now. But that is not synonymous with them being overwhelmed. It just means that they are operating at high levels to reduce backlogs.

    I think a lot of the lockdown enthusiasts have become convinced that the economic arguments can be disregarded because we've got through 15 months. But every week that passes puts more and more businesses on the edge. And stretches the Government efforts to mitigate through basically printing money even more.

    Now is the time for the economists to come to the fore. The current conditions should not allow the scientists on SAGE to maintain permanent ascendency in the advice that the Government are expected to follow.
    An honourable compromise would be:

    • WFH until you have two jabs, if possible
    • Masks in public sector settings including public transport until the school holidays
    • Take personal responsibility - be aware that you need two jabs to gain full protection.
    • Socialise outdoors as much as possible
    • All other restrictions removed - we either ride the exit wave now or in the autumn. Now is better!
    I'd live with that except masks. No mandatory masks anywhere. People can wear them as a personal choice and the government can recommend their use until a person has had both doses.
    In the US, the one remaining restriction from the 15th is masks on public transport, and that's about it. The rates of serious Covid infections for bus drivers were absolutely appalling here.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 47,787
    Andy_JS said:

    Yay! Greta Thunberg on Newsnight. That should get a few PBers frothing. If only they had Prof Pagel on too that would be the perfect storm.

    Has anyone voted for Greta Thunberg?
    She's branched out into vaccination strategy:

    “We should prioritise people in risk groups and in older age groups before vaccinating healthy young people, no matter where in the world they come from.”

    Activist @GretaThunberg tells #Newsnight governments should share vaccines to help end the pandemic


    https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/1402398773209358339
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,066
    edited June 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sean_F said:

    Pulpstar said:

    France looking worryingly efficient… will be very hard to beat. Again.

    Macron has the vaccination program in order ?

    ECB to take 'appropriate action' over England players' historical tweets as more emerge
    Ffsake it's been treated like historical sex abuse.
    That's the problem. You throw meat to the shark, and the shark just wants more meat.
    This also applies to extending the lockdown measures. The scientists will keep coming back for just two more weeks.
    We'll know if the delay comes with some wooly statement about passing the necessary tests to progress.

    If they turn up and say "it's a pause but here are the specific criteria we're aiming to achieve" then it should be fine. But anything even slightly wooly and you can write off the summer.
    I'm already writing off 2021. The scientists will see that any fun we can have in the UK is ended because some old wanker vaccine refusers might die. Honestly, I'm seriously thinking about selling the house and leaving the country and moving to Italy. My wife would be happy to book the flights yesterday.
    Sod the vaccine, which comes with significant risks and should not have got its EUA; just legalise Ivermectin and other cheap proven drugs that are effective against COVID. See evidence ad nauseam by Kory and other doctors to US Senate. (Bizarrely, Youtube censored the US Senate for a time.) It's in use against COVID in many developing countries and poorer developed countries. Totally banned in some rich countries, incl it seems the UK.
    Ivermectin is legal, but the clinical trials have been far from clear that it is beneficial. See: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 (among others)
    Ivermectin is not noticeably making much impact in South America or India where it is widely used. Vaccines on the other hand...
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183
    There is little I enjoy more than a boundary review.
    It is remarkably difficult however, without a lot of local knowledge, to know nowadays what the impact will be. Take Northumberland, for example. 20 years ago, this would have been an awesome result for the Tories - roll all the Labour votes up into one seat and give the Tories a pretty good shot at the other three. Now though - which is better for the Tories - working class, ex-mining and Brexity Blyth and Ashington, or middle class/suburban Cramlington and Whitley Bay? Probably still the latter. Probably. But who knows?
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    Surely if aliens wanted to destroy us they would have done so by now? There are also just as likely to be alien races less technologically advanced than us as more advanced.

    Plus how do we know there are not alien PBers also closely analysing the forthcoming by elections in Chesham and Batley? For all we know Sunil, for example, could be an alien commander from the Planet Zog?
    Sunil being an ET would explain much. Likewise, you

    ;)
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    edited June 2021
    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    You can go on holiday though, just not overseas. I've booked four holidays, right across the UK, over the next few weeks. Very reasonably priced. Standard plus rooms going at the Newcastle Millenium Bridge Premier Inn for £34 per night.
    Enjoy! The toon is a lovely city break.
    The Pitcher and Piano on the quayside is a favourite close by.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Foxy said:

    rcs1000 said:

    MaxPB said:

    MaxPB said:

    Sean_F said:

    Pulpstar said:

    France looking worryingly efficient… will be very hard to beat. Again.

    Macron has the vaccination program in order ?

    ECB to take 'appropriate action' over England players' historical tweets as more emerge
    Ffsake it's been treated like historical sex abuse.
    That's the problem. You throw meat to the shark, and the shark just wants more meat.
    This also applies to extending the lockdown measures. The scientists will keep coming back for just two more weeks.
    We'll know if the delay comes with some wooly statement about passing the necessary tests to progress.

    If they turn up and say "it's a pause but here are the specific criteria we're aiming to achieve" then it should be fine. But anything even slightly wooly and you can write off the summer.
    I'm already writing off 2021. The scientists will see that any fun we can have in the UK is ended because some old wanker vaccine refusers might die. Honestly, I'm seriously thinking about selling the house and leaving the country and moving to Italy. My wife would be happy to book the flights yesterday.
    Sod the vaccine, which comes with significant risks and should not have got its EUA; just legalise Ivermectin and other cheap proven drugs that are effective against COVID. See evidence ad nauseam by Kory and other doctors to US Senate. (Bizarrely, Youtube censored the US Senate for a time.) It's in use against COVID in many developing countries and poorer developed countries. Totally banned in some rich countries, incl it seems the UK.
    Ivermectin is legal, but the clinical trials have been far from clear that it is beneficial. See: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2777389 (among others)
    Ivermectin is not noticeably making much impact in South America or India where it is widely used. Vaccines on the other hand...
    Have been killing off millions of Americans?

    Did you know that since the introduction of Covid vaccines, more than 1.5 million Americans have died.

    If that's not a scandal, I don't know what is.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    Sounds fantastic. I also got out, albeit for two pints of Brewdog in the dabbled evening sunlight.
    I am at Centerparcs in Woburn. An odd place. Like being imprisoned in middle class paradise. Still, hard to be uncheered on a day like today. And I have been on the best water slide I have ever been on with my wife and middle daughter.
  • MortimerMortimer Posts: 13,921
    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    I've purposefully avoided your attempts at provoking alien chat.

    But tonight I had a couple of pints, a damn good Musakhan, and thought for a bit.

    I'm surprised you don't think its time travelling humans...
  • CookieCookie Posts: 11,183
    On topic again - a (highly risky) 5-10 seat bonus is noise compared to the potential advantage of calling the election at a time of your choosing. If there is a good reason to go early 2023 (or earlier), using the new boundaries won't be allowed to get in its way.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    edited June 2021
    Cookie said:

    There is little I enjoy more than a boundary review.
    It is remarkably difficult however, without a lot of local knowledge, to know nowadays what the impact will be. Take Northumberland, for example. 20 years ago, this would have been an awesome result for the Tories - roll all the Labour votes up into one seat and give the Tories a pretty good shot at the other three. Now though - which is better for the Tories - working class, ex-mining and Brexity Blyth and Ashington, or middle class/suburban Cramlington and Whitley Bay? Probably still the latter. Probably. But who knows?

    Possibly neither. Whitley Bay is very ritzy these days.
    Also. It is only really 3.5 now for Northumberland.
    Blyth itself was 50/50 at the locals, but Ashington still Labour.
    Cramlington Tory, but the North Tyneside Whitley Bay bits Labour.
  • FloaterFloater Posts: 14,195
    Cookie said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    Sounds fantastic. I also got out, albeit for two pints of Brewdog in the dabbled evening sunlight.
    I am at Centerparcs in Woburn. An odd place. Like being imprisoned in middle class paradise. Still, hard to be uncheered on a day like today. And I have been on the best water slide I have ever been on with my wife and middle daughter.
    Its a great place - we stayed in one of the tree houses there
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,066
    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    There is little I enjoy more than a boundary review.
    It is remarkably difficult however, without a lot of local knowledge, to know nowadays what the impact will be. Take Northumberland, for example. 20 years ago, this would have been an awesome result for the Tories - roll all the Labour votes up into one seat and give the Tories a pretty good shot at the other three. Now though - which is better for the Tories - working class, ex-mining and Brexity Blyth and Ashington, or middle class/suburban Cramlington and Whitley Bay? Probably still the latter. Probably. But who knows?

    Possibly neither. Whitley Bay is very ritzy these days.
    Also. It is only really 3.5 now for Northumberland.
    Is it posher than when Whitley Baywatch was filmed?

    https://youtu.be/zJWYgxdxlzc
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    Mortimer said:

    Leon said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    I’m missing your detailed weather updates Leon.

    How was the air this evening in Camden Town?
    A delicious day. I sat outside the York & Albany and had a divine tomato-and-basil salad and sourdough lunch with two glasses of fine South African petit chenin. It felt like being on holiday.

    If we aren't allowed on holiday I am determined to go on holiday every day in the summer, in some form

    And a perfect tomato salad is a thing of true beauty. This one was done with heirloom tomatoes, basil leaves, oil, shreds of lightly pickled red onion, sea salt, cracked pepper. That's all. Yet genius.
    I've purposefully avoided your attempts at provoking alien chat.

    But tonight I had a couple of pints, a damn good Musakhan, and thought for a bit.

    I'm surprised you don't think its time travelling humans...
    If there isn’t a ‘prosaic’ explanation - a huge American hoax, a mass post-plague hallucination - time travel becomes a reasonable hypothesis. Or a “terrestrial” intelligence somehow living alongside us.

    That solves the faster than light problem. But raises other issues. Where do they live? In the sea? On Jupiter? In a close but different dimension?

    What if they are ghosts of a dead earthly civilisation?

    Oooooooooh. I just did a Fortean orgasm
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    Foxy said:

    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    There is little I enjoy more than a boundary review.
    It is remarkably difficult however, without a lot of local knowledge, to know nowadays what the impact will be. Take Northumberland, for example. 20 years ago, this would have been an awesome result for the Tories - roll all the Labour votes up into one seat and give the Tories a pretty good shot at the other three. Now though - which is better for the Tories - working class, ex-mining and Brexity Blyth and Ashington, or middle class/suburban Cramlington and Whitley Bay? Probably still the latter. Probably. But who knows?

    Possibly neither. Whitley Bay is very ritzy these days.
    Also. It is only really 3.5 now for Northumberland.
    Is it posher than when Whitley Baywatch was filmed?

    https://youtu.be/zJWYgxdxlzc
    LOL!
    Yes. It is becoming the home of the impoverished aromatherapist and crystal healer these days.
    And the "wild swimmers" have lost weight in the last decade.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    What if your entire flat is illumined by halogen bulbs?!
  • Richard_TyndallRichard_Tyndall Posts: 30,846

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    This is what the internet is for. Just buy them from overseas.
  • MaxPBMaxPB Posts: 37,603
    Leon said:

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    What if your entire flat is illumined by halogen bulbs?!
    Stock up! Also switch to LEDs. They're inexpensive and a lot cheaper to run.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771
    Leon said:

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    What if your entire flat is illumined by halogen bulbs?!
    Enjoy the darkness?

    (Or use plug-in LED replacements.)
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited June 2021

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    Fluorescent lights banned? Is that because of the mercury rather than any inefficiency? They aren't significantly worse than the Chinese tat supermarket LEDs that fail far too frequently. Particularly when used in strip lighting.
  • rcs1000rcs1000 Posts: 53,771

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    Fluorescent lights banned? Is that because of the mercury rather than any inefficiency? They aren't significantly worse than the Chinese tat supermarket LEDs that fail far too frequently. Particularly when used in strip lighting.
    (Cold) Fluorescent lights are extremely efficient, for much the same reason that LEDs are - they only really emitting in the visible wavelengths.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    HYUFD said:

    Leon said:

    darkage said:

    Leon said:

    "Sam Harris said he was contacted to be on a Zoom call - a huge conference call in which his opinion is asked about how best to release to the public the fact that we have UFOs that we don't understand"

    https://twitter.com/Gurrlly007LIVE/status/1401896934294630401?s=20

    If you could turn back the clock 25 years, before the internet really kicked off etc, all this stuff would have been kept quiet and we wouldn't know anything different.
    Sam Harris is a pretty fucking momentous development. He has 1.4m followers on Twitter and is a mensch in the skeptical/atheist but open minded community. If you wanted a guy to spread the news amongst thoughtful folk, he's an excellent choice

    It does now look like this is a planned, slow Disclosure, suggesting that the US intel/military believes that alien life (of whatever origin) is visiting earth - or has been here all along

    Or America has gone mad. OR they are all doing the greatest prank in history
    Unless we get to an Independence Day scenario does it really matter? If there are aliens who want to visit us they will and if they don't they won't and will just observe us then forget us
    So, let me get this right, so far on PB - just tonight - we've had

    "Well, it doesn't really matter where the global plague came from, who cares if the Chinese were engineering terrible viruses, possibly as a bioweapon. shit happens, millions died, move on, where's my weed"

    closely followed, and yet superseded by

    "Aliens, so there are aliens flying through our skies, and a non human intelligence with vast technological prowess has been observing us for decades and anally raping our cows, let's focus on the Lib Dem chances in Batley and Spen!"


    PB, never change. Please never change
    Surely if aliens wanted to destroy us they would have done so by now? There are also just as likely to be alien races less technologically advanced than us as more advanced.

    Plus how do we know there are not alien PBers also closely analysing the forthcoming by elections in Chesham and Batley? For all we know Sunil, for example, could be an alien commander from the Planet Zog?
    Sunil being an ET would explain much. Likewise, you

    ;)
    The connection between Sunil and ET is highly obscure:

    In ET, the eponymous alien constructs a communicator using (among others) a Speak & Spell toy.

    Speak & Spell was Depeche Mode's debut 1981 album.

    Depeche Mode are Sunil's favourite band of all time!
    The late, great Rod Serling could have turned THAT into a hit screen play!

    Personally thought there was a strong resemblance between ET and Dominic Cummings?
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    edited June 2021
    VA Democratic Primary - with 21% reporting statewide

    GOVERNOR
    21% REPORTED

    Terry McAuliffe (declared winner by AP)
    100,271 61.8%
    Jennifer Carroll Foy
    32,194 19.8
    Jennifer McClellan
    19,049 11.7
    Justin Fairfax
    6,015 3.7
    Lee Carter
    4,674 2.9
    Total reported
    162,203


    LIEUTENANT GOVERNOR
    Hala Ayala
    63,323 40.7%
    Sam Rasoul
    38,155 24.5
    Mark Levine
    17,694 11.4
    Total reported
    155,603

    ATTORNEY GENERAL
    Mark Herring (incumbent)
    88,554 56.2%
    Jay Jones
    69,139 43.8
    Total reported
    157,693

    EDIT - McClellan takes Richmond! (News that would have gladdened Honest Abe back in 1862!)

    However, 21st century McClellan only ahead of McAuliffe in Richmond City early returns by +14 votes.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 27,836
    gealbhan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Lord Lloyd Webber says the government will have to arrest him if they are going to stop his shows reopening in full on June 25th

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1402370572894486535?s=20

    Oh for Goodness sake, the government don’t need any further encouragement to delay.
    Frankly I am moving to a lockdown forever position.
  • FlatlanderFlatlander Posts: 3,853
    edited June 2021
    rcs1000 said:

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    Fluorescent lights banned? Is that because of the mercury rather than any inefficiency? They aren't significantly worse than the Chinese tat supermarket LEDs that fail far too frequently. Particularly when used in strip lighting.
    (Cold) Fluorescent lights are extremely efficient, for much the same reason that LEDs are - they only really emitting in the visible wavelengths.
    Exactly! So why ban them? There must be millions in utility buildings everywhere. I have 4 x 5ft tubes in the garage. You can get LED replacements but they are several times the price and don't last as long.

    Maybe it is only the compact domestic ones they are banning - these are pretty rubbish anyway.

    Mind you, I've still got a decent stock of 100W tungsten bulbs. Aren't we supposed to be heating our houses with electricity these days? :)

  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    edited June 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    Some of the new boundaries are quite horrendous. East Cambridgeshire and Bury St Edmunds & Newmarket are the worst I've seen so far. What a mess.

    You can propose changes. I've suggested Clayworth ward should be taken back into Worksop & Retford (Bassetlaw) instead of Newark on the grounds of geographical neatness.
    I think I've solved the monstrosity of the Newmarket exurb

    North Suffolk less Pakenham, Bardwell 72575
    Bury St Edmunds less Newmarket (All 3 wards) plus Pakenham, Bardwell, Feltwell 72749
    SW Norfolk less Feltwell 69845
    East Cambs less Downham village, sutton, wooditton, plus Newmarket 75177
    North East Cambs plus Downham village, Sutton less Stonald 75212
    Peterborough plus Stonald 74518
    Haverhill & Halstead plus Wooditton 75797
  • FoxyFoxy Posts: 44,066
    dixiedean said:

    Cookie said:

    There is little I enjoy more than a boundary review.
    It is remarkably difficult however, without a lot of local knowledge, to know nowadays what the impact will be. Take Northumberland, for example. 20 years ago, this would have been an awesome result for the Tories - roll all the Labour votes up into one seat and give the Tories a pretty good shot at the other three. Now though - which is better for the Tories - working class, ex-mining and Brexity Blyth and Ashington, or middle class/suburban Cramlington and Whitley Bay? Probably still the latter. Probably. But who knows?

    Possibly neither. Whitley Bay is very ritzy these days.
    Also. It is only really 3.5 now for Northumberland.
    dixiedean said:

    gealbhan said:

    HYUFD said:

    Lord Lloyd Webber says the government will have to arrest him if they are going to stop his shows reopening in full on June 25th

    https://twitter.com/PoliticsForAlI/status/1402370572894486535?s=20

    Oh for Goodness sake, the government don’t need any further encouragement to delay.
    Frankly I am moving to a lockdown forever position.
    I am burrowing into the earth as part of my alien dodging strategy. They shall call me the human mole.
  • LeonLeon Posts: 46,248
    edited June 2021
    Hahaha

    https://twitter.com/neontaster/status/1402341511556128774?s=21

    Worth clicking on and watching

    The American Diane Abbott and Piers Morgan
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    McClellan now losing Richmond City on updated returns. And McAuliffe is now leading in every county & independent city that has so far reported unofficial results.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 26,279

    Sales of halogen lightbulbs are to be banned in the UK from September, with fluorescent lights to follow, under government climate change plans.

    The move will cut 1.26 million tonnes of carbon emissions a year and deliver consumers savings, officials say.

    The UK began phasing out the sale of higher-energy halogen lightbulbs in 2018 under EU-wide rules.

    Now retailers will no longer be able to sell most remaining halogen bulbs, such as kitchen spotlights.

    I love halogen uplighters. Disappointing news.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2021
    Well that was disappointing, just tried to see if I could rebook my 2nd jab for earlier, managed to bring it forward all of 3 days. Still 10 weeks from my 1st jab.

    Disadvantage of having the Bill Gates Skynet one I suppose.
  • SeaShantyIrish2SeaShantyIrish2 Posts: 15,239
    Tis better to light a LED than curse the darkness.

    On the other hand, darkening the home environment MIGHT allow Leon to detect some UAF activity?
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842

    Well that was disappointing, just tried to see if I could rebook my 2nd jab for earlier, managed to bring it forward all of 3 days. Still 10 weeks from my 1st jab.

    Disadvantage of having the Bill Gates Skynet one I suppose.

    What's your health LA ?
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 76,274
    edited June 2021
    Pulpstar said:

    Well that was disappointing, just tried to see if I could rebook my 2nd jab for earlier, managed to bring it forward all of 3 days. Still 10 weeks from my 1st jab.

    Disadvantage of having the Bill Gates Skynet one I suppose.

    What's your health LA ?
    I tried a number of different postcodes in different areas of the country, no joy. Even with my own postcode, outside one local centre (its not that local), it was trying to send me 2hrs+ away.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 75,842
    Canada is going to overtake Israel shortly.
This discussion has been closed.