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Can anyone explain the mindset of anti-vaxxers like this? – politicalbetting.com

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  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,171
    Sandpit said:

    He was supposed to be on suicide watch, but the guards were asleep, the cameras not working, and the post-mortem suggested his injuries could be from strangulation rather than hanging.

    Now, it could all be co-incidence, he saw an opportunity and went for it in a clumsy way. But the conspiracy theorists are indeed having a field day with the story. There were definitely an awful lot of people happy to see him dead.
    Thanks. I assume Maxwell will be watched extremely carefully - a second suicide/'suicide' would set the twittersphere alight.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,558
    edited December 2021
    tlg86 said:

    I think taking Test matches off free to air TV was a huge mistake. There's no way I'd have been interested in cricket without being exposed to cricket on TV as a child.

    You couldn't put a test match on free to air TV, as there would be something more profitable to show.
  • And if the money is with one day or shorter cricket, isn't that because that's where the public interest is?

    First class cricket is a glorious thing, but that's not enough to ensure its survival. For a long time, county championship cricket has survived on cross-subsidy, and Test cricket might be going the same way.
    And that's what i said.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,963

    But the young players coming through have great technique.....just for a different game. They have all hit shots that no old school pro could ever imagine doing. It was jaw dropping when KP switch hit a shot, now its standard tool in the tool box.

    If you watched the Hundred every team had 20 year old English players who could just play incredible shots, score at 2 a ball with ease....this is where the money is.

    And the analysis of this is incredible. Its totally revolutionised the game.
    Even more than KP Morgan changed the face and priorities of English cricket. Much though I love test cricket I completely agree that his mantle, now picked up by the likes of Livingston, has broadened the range of shots players can try beyond anything even imaginable in my youth. It has also had an incredible effect on fielding. These insane relay catches on the boundary rope never existed before because who would bother practising for a shot that might come at you once a season? It has also changed bowling. It has got much, much more accurate and also more defensive. Its a different game and although I miss the traditions and building tensions of old style test matches I cannot deny it is entertaining.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,171

    They sorted themselves out, we chose Cameron over David Davis, and the other lot let Gordon Brown into Downing Street.
    Then you f*cked up royally by letting the current clown in, just sayin.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,504
    Non-COVID excess deaths up to 895 deaths in the week-ending 17 December:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending17december2021

    Week-ending: five-year average, COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths, excess non-COVID deaths

    24-Sep-21, 9,264, 888, 9,796, 532
    01-Oct-21, 9,377, 783, 9,727, 350
    08-Oct-21, 9,555, 666, 10,141, 586
    15-Oct-21, 9,811, 713, 10,464, 653
    22-Oct-21, 9,865, 792, 10,516, 651
    29-Oct-21, 9,759, 859, 10,128, 369
    05-Nov-21, 9,891, 995, 10,555, 664
    12-Nov-21, 10,331, 1,020, 11,030, 699
    19-Nov-21, 10,350, 952, 11,151, 801
    26-Nov-21, 10,380, 817, 10,650, 270
    03-Dec-21, 10,357, 792, 10,867, 510
    10-Dec-21, 10,695, 764, 11,166, 471
    17-Dec-21, 10,750, 755, 11,645, 895
  • StuartinromfordStuartinromford Posts: 18,199
    edited December 2021
    eek said:

    How do you make it cheaper than zero tariff?

    The EU is going to chip in the other 10% for us, because it's only fair. Just think of how much we contributed to an organisation that we're not even a member of any more.

    They owe us.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,600

    Is there really any credibility in the suggestion that Epstein did not commit suicide? Genuine question.

    I have not followed it that closely but I assumed the idea that he was bumped off to save embarassment was just a QAnon level conspiracy theory.
    If you believe the conspiracy theorists, the Queen, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Donald Trump would all be on a videocall this morning deciding Ghislaine's fate. Ludicrous of course
  • franklynfranklyn Posts: 326
    Well the Maxwell verdict has taken the heat off Bojo for 24 hours, but his Covid plans are in disarray (just like his hair, his finances, and his relations with Princess Nut Nut.

    With 200,000 omicron cases per day, and household members, and workers in key jobs, supposed to be doing daily lateral flow tests, we need several million lateral flow kits every day, and these are simply not going to be available any time soon. PCR tests are also not available in the numbers required, so the whole testing system is in a total state of collapse.

    Where we go from here is anyone's guess.
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,504
    edited December 2021
    eek said:

    You couldn't put a test match on free to air TV, as there would be something more profitable to show.
    On ITV4?

    Imagine if the ECB split the Test and one-day stuff in the TV contract. I reckon the Tests would sell for more.
  • CorrectHorseBatteryCorrectHorseBattery Posts: 21,436
    edited December 2021
    Charles said:

    You have this strange view that everyone is “shouting you down”.

    You made a point. @edmundintokyo responded on a gentle but somewhat acerbic style as is his wont. You can respond or not as you see fit.
    And you can sod off and stop wading into my comments at every turn, have a lovely day Charles
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    It is - in the same way that other border closures were breaches of other treaties like Schengen. But its a pandemic - temporary breaches are permitted.

    Again, we are being treated as we demanded - as a 3rd country. They had to arbitrate on which exceptions to their medically induced ban would exist and they have tret us like the rest of the world not Europe. At our request.

    You and others complaining demonstrates English exceptionalism at its finest. That "treat us like a 3rd country" actually meant "we don't want to be European but you will do what we bally well say because we are English and that means we get to make all the rules".
    I think Macron’s bring a bit silly but I don’t really care about it.

    My comment is really about the hypocrisy of people who launch into the UK for a reasonable administrative procedure and find excuses when an EU country does something that is equally in breach of the treaty.

    But they “have a good reason” which makes it all ok…
  • TomsToms Posts: 2,478
    Foxy said:

    Yes, it was rejected by the DoH.

    https://amp.theguardian.com/world/2021/dec/27/give-ffp3-masks-to-nhs-staff-omicron-doctors-say?s=09
    Perhaps we could hope that the intervention that caused a 'plane load of dogs to be flown out of Kabul (at public expense I have heard)---when we were desperately trying to evacuate endangered Afghans---could be called upon to switch their influence to favor hospital workers over animals.
  • HYUFD said:

    Peak Guardian.

    They do realise the England cricket team was regularly thrashed 5-0 in Australia before Brexit.

    As had been pointed out too England only won the world Cup after the Brexit vote
    I think the cricket/Brexit analogy is a stretch. But I do think that if the selectors were able/willing to tap into a broader talent pool then England might have a better chance of winning. Cricket has become very much a minority sport, with most of the team drawn from a narrow base of privately educated players. If you ignore 90% of your potential player pool you're bound to miss a lot of talent. And then there's the experience of ethnic minority players, too, eg the problems at Yorkshire. Cricket needs to become far more diverse and reach outside its posh white bloke comfort zone if England is going to reach its potential.
  • They sorted themselves out, we chose Cameron over David Davis, and the other lot let Gordon Brown into Downing Street.
    And they chose Johnson over Hunt. Perhaps it's time for some more opposition.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,171

    That is Good News for blighty. We don't want to be glad-handed with some namby-pamby European agreement. We want our OWN agreement with the US to make our steel 10% cheaper than the Europeans. That way by the time we add on the cost of customs to ship our part-made steel to the EU and back again (having shut UK finishing plants for various things we need) it will be the same price. Huzzah!

    Tbf, given the transport costs involved, it's a puzzle to me why steel is exported between the EU/US/UK at all.

    I mean, I appreciate not all of those entities has a long tradition of making steel themselves. Oh, wait...
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,972

    It is - in the same way that other border closures were breaches of other treaties like Schengen. But its a pandemic - temporary breaches are permitted.

    Again, we are being treated as we demanded - as a 3rd country. They had to arbitrate on which exceptions to their medically induced ban would exist and they have tret us like the rest of the world not Europe. At our request.

    You and others complaining demonstrates English exceptionalism at its finest. That "treat us like a 3rd country" actually meant "we don't want to be European but you will do what we bally well say because we are English and that means we get to make all the rules".
    Yes, there were plenty on here saying "ban all travel". Now the French are trying it (which personally I think is a waste of time) the same posters are trying to make a point of it.
  • Northern_AlNorthern_Al Posts: 8,749
    On test cricket. Aren't we at risk of just using the dominance of white-ball cricket as an excuse for England's poor performance, and not a very good one? After all, white-ball /short-form cricket is now dominant globally, and is the only really lucrative form.

    And yet other countries, notably Australia, India, Pakistan and New Zealand seem perfectly capable of producing players, including batsmen, with the requisite skills to play five-day cricket.
  • CharlesCharles Posts: 35,758

    As far as I understand it, I think she meant that there are only two sexes.
    I have no idea what she meant and I am not getting into a dull and sterile debate.
  • eek said:

    The problem is that it's highly contentious for the reasons @edmundintokyo talked about - mainly because both parties talk at cross purposes and never seem to understand that

    1) both sides do actually have valid points but
    2) what they are asking for is impossible because their desired fix creates the problem the other side is worried about (and is a problem that the other side just doesn't seem able to grasp or see)
    3) and no compromise is possible because it's very much a binary result that the other side cannot accept.

    We've covered the same issue here multiple times when talking about rapists ending up in Scottish Women's prisons because self identifying as a women is their "right". As it never ends well it's best to try and avoid the topic.

    I am LGBTQIwhatever and my 20 year-old non-binary offspring has had a couple of trans boyfriends. So I do care about trans issues. But you can't override every other issue with trans rights - be sensitive to their rights and also the rights of women.

    The problem with Ms Rowling is that she took a clear and previously uncontroversial stance in favour of protecting women's rights in their ongoing struggle against real misogyny. Fatal error. "YOU'RE TRANSPHOBIC" they howl even though she had made it clear she isn't.

    People like my whatever-the-gender-neutral-alternative-to-son's ex BFs and my old mate who is trans male to female and *genuine* should be absolutely supported. That is not the same as dodgy Dave the deviant suddenly self-identifying as female demanding access to a women's refuge.

    That people on both sides of the debate cannot understand the difference is baffling to me. So I largely stay out of it.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,972
    tlg86 said:

    I think taking Test matches off free to air TV was a huge mistake. There's no way I'd have been interested in cricket without being exposed to cricket on TV as a child.

    I keep reading your first sentence, then the second. Then back to the first. But somewhere between the two, the logic simply doesn't compute.
  • Charles said:

    You have this strange view that everyone is “shouting you down”.

    You made a point. @edmundintokyo responded on a gentle but somewhat acerbic style as is his wont. You can respond or not as you see fit.
    Horse is highly strung. Tickle him under the chin and behind the ear, and speak gently.

    The only horse that doesn't kick is a dead horse.
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022
    eek said:

    You couldn't put a test match on free to air TV, as there would be something more profitable to show.
    So that would make it public service broadcasting, perfect for the BBC to show value for their licence fee. Educate the kids that proper cricket is what it’s all about.
  • Charles said:

    I have no idea what she meant and I am not getting into a dull and sterile debate.
    Just some advice Charles, you don't have to reply :)

    All the best.
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,963
    eek said:

    The blood oxygen test is great for telling you you need to go to hospital now - it's not so great for saying whether what you've got is Covid, a cold, flu or something else.
    I think the fact you really need to go to hospital, now, is very useful information. Much more useful than the fact that you are positive for a virus that is not making you ill and is unlikely to make your vaccinated friends ill.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,135
    tlg86 said:

    I think taking Test matches off free to air TV was a huge mistake. There's no way I'd have been interested in cricket without being exposed to cricket on TV as a child.

    That's the same with me, and yet, as we can see, the key problem the longer format has is that it doesn't make as much money as T20 cricket, and selling the rights to Sky is at least a way of making some money from the game.

    I listen to TMS, look at the scorecards on cricinfo, and Test cricket receives not a penny from me.
  • Interesting point. For all my long party membership I could imagine voting for someone else in a parish council election, if it wasn't seen as politically significant. But I'd want to know more about what A. Smith actually thought. Virtually nobody is an entirely blank sheet of paper in politics, and issues with a political flavour are going to come up from time to time - curriculum issues, how to handle troublemakers, etc. If Smith said "Oh, I'm just a parent, I'll apply common sense" I'd see it as evasive or evidence that Smith has really never given serious issues a thought and is therefore unsuitable.
    The idea of electing school board officials is bonkers. That its now turning into a battleground because some uppity school boards have refused to accept the Don't Look Up mandate of "great leaders" like Governor DeSantis is bonkers on stilts.

    But its America. Best to let them get on with it - it's their country.
  • FrancisUrquhartFrancisUrquhart Posts: 83,156
    edited December 2021
    DavidL said:

    Even more than KP Morgan changed the face and priorities of English cricket. Much though I love test cricket I completely agree that his mantle, now picked up by the likes of Livingston, has broadened the range of shots players can try beyond anything even imaginable in my youth. It has also had an incredible effect on fielding. These insane relay catches on the boundary rope never existed before because who would bother practising for a shot that might come at you once a season? It has also changed bowling. It has got much, much more accurate and also more defensive. Its a different game and although I miss the traditions and building tensions of old style test matches I cannot deny it is entertaining.
    Not just defensive bowling, but bowling a different ball every time, and with all these variations like the knuckle ball, which are only effective because the batsmen are trying to hit you for 6s. And pace on, can be a huge negative, especially pitched up full pace. Mills and Archer for instance rarely send down the 95mph ball, its lots of fake outs at varying speeds below that.

    Again, this isn't much good for test cricket, where its the ability to bowl fast, accurate and let the ball swing and seam, with the idea you don't give bad balls away. Anderson isn't trying to bowl 6 different balls an over at 6 different paces.
  • Then you f*cked up royally by letting the current clown in, just sayin.
    They f*cked up royally by letting Theresa May in which led to even Jeremy Corbyn polling 10% poll leads.

    "The current clown" took the Tories from 10% behind Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party to win an eighty seat majority, got a revised Trade Deal that abolished the backstop and was so good it is now being iterated into an even better deal; then got the vaccines first in the world.

    If that's clowning about, then Send in the Clowns!
  • They f*cked up royally by letting Theresa May in which led to even Jeremy Corbyn polling 10% poll leads.

    "The current clown" took the Tories from 10% behind Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party to win an eighty seat majority, got a revised Trade Deal that abolished the backstop and was so good it is now being iterated into an even better deal; then got the vaccines first in the world.

    If that's clowning about, then Send in the Clowns!
    Boris isn't going to shag you mate
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,504

    On test cricket. Aren't we at risk of just using the dominance of white-ball cricket as an excuse for England's poor performance, and not a very good one? After all, white-ball /short-form cricket is now dominant globally, and is the only really lucrative form.

    And yet other countries, notably Australia, India, Pakistan and New Zealand seem perfectly capable of producing players, including batsmen, with the requisite skills to play five-day cricket.

    Yes, India won in Australia last winter. We've always struggled to produce batsmen than travel well, but sticking the four day games at the start and end of the summer has made things worse, in my opinion.
  • I'm pretty sure the "PB Virology experts" general opinion is that anyone unvaccinated who gets infected should be treated in a tent and leave the real beds to other people.

    So it seems like the NHS Managers are listening to us. Good job!
    I wasn't counting you as a PB Virology Expert.
  • Boris isn't going to shag you mate
    True.

    But he already f**ked you at the last election. 😲
  • eekeek Posts: 29,558

    The idea of electing school board officials is bonkers. That its now turning into a battleground because some uppity school boards have refused to accept the Don't Look Up mandate of "great leaders" like Governor DeSantis is bonkers on stilts.

    But its America. Best to let them get on with it - it's their country.
    Yet we have elections here for parent School Governors.

    The issues are:

    1) non parents being allowed to be involved
    2) the way everything in America is becoming politics first...
  • True.

    But he already f**ked you at the last election. 😲
    And the country multiple times since
  • DavidLDavidL Posts: 54,963
    Charles said:

    Did she actually say that? I have zero interest in TERF wars, but my impression was that she said that trans rights couldn’t be at the expense of women’s rights
    Yes she did but that is not an acceptable position in the new Scotland. As one of the last serious taxpayers left in the country this is unfortunate.
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,624
    I heard a great 'Tarquin and Jemima' story the other day.

    Friends of inlaws decided against spending Christmas at their place in France this year. They were concerned that if there were restrictions on coming back they would risk missing their flight for their holiday in America.

    How do these people cope?
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Occam's razor.

    How many people would need to be involved in a conspiracy to murder Epstein in prison and ensure it was covered up?
    Occam's razor is only a rule of thumb, and involving lots of people in a murder and cover up is easy when you have virtually infinite money and virtually infinite power, as Epstein's "friends" undoubtedly did, between them.
  • I've had Radio 5 on for over half an hour and the only thing they've talked about is the shortage of tests.
  • franklyn said:

    Well the Maxwell verdict has taken the heat off Bojo for 24 hours, but his Covid plans are in disarray (just like his hair, his finances, and his relations with Princess Nut Nut.

    With 200,000 omicron cases per day, and household members, and workers in key jobs, supposed to be doing daily lateral flow tests, we need several million lateral flow kits every day, and these are simply not going to be available any time soon. PCR tests are also not available in the numbers required, so the whole testing system is in a total state of collapse.

    Where we go from here is anyone's guess.

    We stop this middle class obsession of doing a LFT every day and start doing the level of testing other western countries do.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,135
    Sandpit said:

    The only way I could see a domestic FC competition paying out, would be to significantly reduce the number of sides. The problem with which is the existing county structure. You’d need maybe half a dozen sides, perhaps with invitational teams from SA and Aus added. There’s pretty much no gate revenue, so you’d need to sell it to TV, who much prefer the crash-bang-wallop product. You’d need to pay those 100 ish players £100k each too, as 18 year olds. So you’ve gone from needing £2-3m for a Test side, to needing £12-13m for a whole layer of cricket below.
    I remember back in 2009, so before most people had smartphones, being cajoled into visiting Castle Drogo on a sunny day, and being eagerly greeted by the NT employee in the car park with the question, "Do you know the latest score in the Test match?"

    One of the beauties of the multi-day matches is that you can follow a game without necessarily watching every single ball. You can dip in for half an hour, catch an update a bit later, etc. Somehow they need to sell that aspect of an unfolding story, and monetize it.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098
    tlg86 said:

    Non-COVID excess deaths up to 895 deaths in the week-ending 17 December:

    https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional/weekending17december2021

    Week-ending: five-year average, COVID deaths, non-COVID deaths, excess non-COVID deaths

    24-Sep-21, 9,264, 888, 9,796, 532
    01-Oct-21, 9,377, 783, 9,727, 350
    08-Oct-21, 9,555, 666, 10,141, 586
    15-Oct-21, 9,811, 713, 10,464, 653
    22-Oct-21, 9,865, 792, 10,516, 651
    29-Oct-21, 9,759, 859, 10,128, 369
    05-Nov-21, 9,891, 995, 10,555, 664
    12-Nov-21, 10,331, 1,020, 11,030, 699
    19-Nov-21, 10,350, 952, 11,151, 801
    26-Nov-21, 10,380, 817, 10,650, 270
    03-Dec-21, 10,357, 792, 10,867, 510
    10-Dec-21, 10,695, 764, 11,166, 471
    17-Dec-21, 10,750, 755, 11,645, 895

    Whats the likely cause of the discrepancy ?
    People keeling over a few months after a bout of covid due to weakened circulatory and pulmonary systems ?
  • eekeek Posts: 29,558
    edited December 2021

    I am LGBTQIwhatever and my 20 year-old non-binary offspring has had a couple of trans boyfriends. So I do care about trans issues. But you can't override every other issue with trans rights - be sensitive to their rights and also the rights of women.

    The problem with Ms Rowling is that she took a clear and previously uncontroversial stance in favour of protecting women's rights in their ongoing struggle against real misogyny. Fatal error. "YOU'RE TRANSPHOBIC" they howl even though she had made it clear she isn't.

    People like my whatever-the-gender-neutral-alternative-to-son's ex BFs and my old mate who is trans male to female and *genuine* should be absolutely supported. That is not the same as dodgy Dave the deviant suddenly self-identifying as female demanding access to a women's refuge.

    That people on both sides of the debate cannot understand the difference is baffling to me. So I largely stay out of it.
    The problem comes down to self identification.

    For pro trans people its a magic fix that solves all problems
    For womens rights it creates a whole new set of issues that the pro trans people just don't seem to understand.

    As I said the problem just isn't fixable so I try and keep as far away from it as possible.

    The other issue is that you simply can't put a complete argument in 280 characters so anything you post on this topic on twitter will result in 1 tweet being taken out of context and used against you for every more.

    At least on here you can post something long enough that it's impossible to use part of your argument completely out of context
  • Boris isn't going to shag you mate
    I don't know, he doesn't seem to be very picky.
  • eek said:

    How do you make it cheaper than zero tariff?

    You think the cost of filling in endless paperwork is only in the tariff? I'm lucky enough to have zero tariff zero VAT products. Declaring all of that is a bastard - and get any detail wrong and its not coming in zero tariff or not.

    Anyway, Brexit is really now highlighting the short-termism of our economic policies of the post industrial era. Yes globalisation, yes we can make a profit by selling something off, but we're now absolutely reliant on foreign owners and foreign production. "Save British Steel" some people are saying but we don't own it and we don't have the capability to make what we need.

    Other countries seem to have managed through this era without making the same mistakes. Look at Germany - still owns stuff, still produces stuff, still invests for the long term. This isn't party political as we've had Tory Labour and Coalition governments in the 1980 - 2016 era - all doing the same stupiud.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,171
    HYUFD said:

    If you believe the conspiracy theorists, the Queen, Bill Clinton, Bill Gates and Donald Trump would all be on a videocall this morning deciding Ghislaine's fate. Ludicrous of course
    Surely they should have had rigged the jury to ensure she was acquitted. They missed a trick there.
  • Charles said:

    I think Macron’s bring a bit silly but I don’t really care about it.

    My comment is really about the hypocrisy of people who launch into the UK for a reasonable administrative procedure and find excuses when an EU country does something that is equally in breach of the treaty.

    But they “have a good reason” which makes it all ok…
    Pretty much English exceptionalism in a neat summary post, thanks. "Reasonable Administrative Procedure" indeed.
  • Dura_AceDura_Ace Posts: 14,236

    I heard a great 'Tarquin and Jemima' story the other day.

    Friends of inlaws decided against spending Christmas at their place in France this year. They were concerned that if there were restrictions on coming back they would risk missing their flight for their holiday in America.

    How do these people cope?

    We sold our place in France for this reason. It was just getting too hard to get there reliably. It wasn't a problem for me because I upgraded to an EU passport and wasn't averse to a high speed midnight run through the porous Franco-Belgian border in the Ardennes but Mrs DA only has a British passport. We just couldn't count on being able to travel as planned on any day.
  • PulpstarPulpstar Posts: 79,098

    Not just defensive bowling, but bowling a different ball every time, and with all these variations like the knuckle ball, which are only effective because the batsmen are trying to hit you for 6s. And pace on, can be a huge negative, especially pitched up full pace. Mills and Archer for instance rarely send down the 95mph ball, its lots of fake outs at varying speeds below that.

    Again, this isn't much good for test cricket, where its the ability to bowl fast, accurate and let the ball swing and seam, with the idea you don't give bad balls away. Anderson isn't trying to bowl 6 different balls an over at 6 different paces.
    Another big problem is English conditions - combined with T20 its going to result in a whole heap of absolute trash medium pace going forward.
  • Pulpstar said:

    Whats the likely cause of the discrepancy ?
    People keeling over a few months after a bout of covid due to weakened circulatory and pulmonary systems ?
    Surely it's more likely to be people not getting timely treatment for other issues
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,464

    They f*cked up royally by letting Theresa May in which led to even Jeremy Corbyn polling 10% poll leads.

    "The current clown" took the Tories from 10% behind Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party to win an eighty seat majority, got a revised Trade Deal that abolished the backstop and was so good it is now being iterated into an even better deal; then got the vaccines first in the world.

    If that's clowning about, then Send in the Clowns!
    The trouble with Boris is that when he's good he's very, very good and when he's bad he's terrible, and there's precious little in between. For my money, he has done a great job in implementing the result of the 2016 referendum, which destroyed his last two predecessors and paralysed politics for three years, in the stunning triumph of our vaccine programme, in seeing off Jeremy Corbyn and in avoiding the worst barbarities of continental or Chinese lockdowns during this epidemic.

    But the extended crises of the last five years could be coming to a close. And, as is well known, the mundane, routine stuff of every day economic and social policy with its tradeoffs and need to consider dozens of factors and come to usually fudged decisions is too detailed and tedious for his toddler-length attention span. He is intellectually lazy, so will always go with the big government, high spending solution. And his only defence, entirely true, is that Starmer would be even worse.

    Also, is being PM really compatible with having a couple of babies in the house?
  • tlg86tlg86 Posts: 26,504
    Pulpstar said:

    Whats the likely cause of the discrepancy ?
    People keeling over a few months after a bout of covid due to weakened circulatory and pulmonary systems ?
    I think we're making up for last winter when a lot of low-hanging fruit avoided death due to flu not circulating.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830


    Tbf, given the transport costs involved, it's a puzzle to me why steel is exported between the EU/US/UK at all.

    I mean, I appreciate not all of those entities has a long tradition of making steel themselves. Oh, wait...
    The bloke who puts shoes on my horses, buys ready made shoes on Amazon, from China, despite there being UK horse shoe makers and indeed being perfectly capable of making shoes from scratch himself.

    What is really weird is his preferred brand of nail comes from Colombia. Perhaps they are particularly good at shipping relatively small parcels internationally.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,558

    You think the cost of filling in endless paperwork is only in the tariff? I'm lucky enough to have zero tariff zero VAT products. Declaring all of that is a bastard - and get any detail wrong and its not coming in zero tariff or not.

    Anyway, Brexit is really now highlighting the short-termism of our economic policies of the post industrial era. Yes globalisation, yes we can make a profit by selling something off, but we're now absolutely reliant on foreign owners and foreign production. "Save British Steel" some people are saying but we don't own it and we don't have the capability to make what we need.

    Other countries seem to have managed through this era without making the same mistakes. Look at Germany - still owns stuff, still produces stuff, still invests for the long term. This isn't party political as we've had Tory Labour and Coalition governments in the 1980 - 2016 era - all doing the same stupiud.
    Nope - I know that the paperwork is the real killer here.

    But our MPs are thick and my local MP thinks that all paperwork can be automated away. Which is not surprising as he's a lawyer and I'm just the person who earns £100k + year creating those automated systems.
  • DavidL said:

    Yes she did but that is not an acceptable position in the new Scotland. As one of the last serious taxpayers left in the country this is unfortunate.
    Gay people used to face this same kind of "moral panic" cr*p. Giving trans people rights does not take rights away from women any more than taking giving gay people rights took them away from straight people.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,986
    DavidL said:

    Yes she did but that is not an acceptable position in the new Scotland. As one of the last serious taxpayers left in the country this is unfortunate.
    Haha, I like the idea that taxpayers are an endangered species in Scotland (a slight exaggeration of the recent SPICe report).

    The RSPB should put them on posters.
  • IanB2 said:

    Yes, there were plenty on here saying "ban all travel". Now the French are trying it (which personally I think is a waste of time) the same posters are trying to make a point of it.
    Its totally a waste of time - they already have Omicron so they're as fucked as their neighbours.

    But - and its a very bit but - it is an established principle that countries have the absolute right in an emergency to change processes even if written into treaty. This was the point being made last March "THEY CAN'T CLOSE THEIR BORDERS COS SCHENGEN" and yet they did close their borders and we didn't.

    How a nation chooses to draw up its pandemic emergency powers is up to that nation. Some of our red list country bans have made no sense at all, yet here we are shouting at the French for doing the same. Instead of an arbitrary red list they have done an arbitrary EU list. We aren't EU, we demanded not to be EU and be tret like ROW and now we're Outraged that we're seen as not EU and as ROW.

    What the frack is wrong with some people? This is what you wanted!
  • They f*cked up royally by letting Theresa May in which led to even Jeremy Corbyn polling 10% poll leads.

    "The current clown" took the Tories from 10% behind Jeremy Corbyn's Labour Party to win an eighty seat majority, got a revised Trade Deal that abolished the backstop and was so good it is now being iterated into an even better deal; then got the vaccines first in the world.

    If that's clowning about, then Send in the Clowns!
    Have you and YakiDa ever been seen in the same room? He posts the same pro-Boris guff as you now do.
  • Andy_JSAndy_JS Posts: 34,162
    Andy_JS said:

    It'll be interesting to scrutinise this page of endorsements from the 2019 Tory leadership election to see how many of, say, Jeremy Hunt's supporters are still in the Commons following GE2019.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endorsements_in_the_2019_Conservative_Party_leadership_election

    I make it that about 11 of Hunt's 50 declared supporters from 2019 are no longer in the Commons.
  • We stop this middle class obsession of doing a LFT every day and start doing the level of testing other western countries do.
    It is government policy rather than a middle-class obsession that we take an LFT test before going out or having friends round, or twice a week if we have no friends, and daily if we are isolating after a close contact with a plague carrier.
  • malcolmgmalcolmg Posts: 44,009

    My friend in Newcastle tried to book a PCR at 3pm. Was offered only Kelso at 3:30 - nothing else available.
    I had to wait one day at Prestwick, they have 1200 slots a day , very busy but they put next day out in the pm. No desperation for anyone to get PCR immediately.
  • EabhalEabhal Posts: 9,986

    We stop this middle class obsession of doing a LFT every day and start doing the level of testing other western countries do.
    If it stops the NHS getting overwhelmed and keeps restrictions at bay then we should do as many as possible.

    We need to survive this surge and then we can think about reducing testing rates as Covid burns itself out
    .
  • SandpitSandpit Posts: 56,022
    IshmaelZ said:

    Occam's razor is only a rule of thumb, and involving lots of people in a murder and cover up is easy when you have virtually infinite money and virtually infinite power, as Epstein's "friends" undoubtedly did, between them.
    That’s exactly what fuels the conspiracies, it wouldn’t have taken a massive amount of money or resources to arrange for him to be killed, and there were an awful lot of people with money and connections, with motive to have him dead. Paying off half a dozen prison guards and a hit man isn’t particularly expensive, in the grand scheme of things.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,972
    edited December 2021
    eek said:

    post something long enough that it's impossible to use
    That is baffling to me as well ;)
  • Fishing said:

    The trouble with Boris is that when he's good he's very, very good and when he's bad he's terrible, and there's precious little in between. For my money, he has done a great job in implementing the result of the 2016 referendum, which destroyed his last two predecessors and paralysed politics for three years, in the stunning triumph of our vaccine programme, in seeing off Jeremy Corbyn and in avoiding the worst barbarities of continental or Chinese lockdowns during this epidemic.

    But the extended crises of the last five years could be coming to a close. And, as is well known, the mundane, routine stuff of every day economic and social policy with its tradeoffs and need to consider dozens of factors and come to usually fudged decisions is too detailed and tedious for his toddler-length attention span. He is intellectually lazy, so will always go with the big government, high spending solution. And his only defence, entirely true, is that Starmer would be even worse.

    Also, is being PM really compatible with having a couple of babies in the house?
    Excellent summary, except I'm not sure I agree with the last point (Blair and Cameron both both had a baby in the house too).
  • I know someone who is doing 5 tests a day just because someone they saw someone a week ago who now has Omicron. If that type of behaviour is being repeated then no wonder there are supply problems for tests.

    Yesterday in SA they did 34,753 tests some of which had to be paid for by the person taking the test.

    In the UK we did 1,476,216 tests all of which were free.

    And our testing system is a "shambles"
    The 1,476,216 were the tests reported.

    There were likely millions of negative tests taken and not reported.
  • eek said:

    The problem comes down to self identification.

    For pro trans people its a magic fix that solves all problems
    For womens rights it creates a whole new set of issues that the pro trans people just don't seem to understand.

    As I said the problem just isn't fixable so I try and keep as far away from it as possible.

    The other issue is that you simply can't put a complete argument in 280 characters so anything you post on this topic on twitter will result in 1 tweet being taken out of context and used against you for every more.

    At least on here you can post something long enough that it's impossible to use part of your argument completely out of context
    Don't bet on that last paragraph...
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,972
    edited December 2021
    Sandpit said:

    That’s exactly what fuels the conspiracies, it wouldn’t have taken a massive amount of money or resources to arrange for him to be killed, and there were an awful lot of people with money and connections, with motive to have him dead. Paying off half a dozen prison guards and a hit man isn’t particularly expensive, in the grand scheme of things.
    If that was done, one day we (or those that follow us) will know. People rarely keep quiet for ever.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,171

    Have you and YakiDa ever been seen in the same room? He posts the same pro-Boris guff as you now do.
    Who's YakiDa?
  • edmundintokyoedmundintokyo Posts: 17,716
    edited December 2021
    On topic, the question was "can anyone explain the mindset". I guess if people feel like they're being pushed around, that naturally creates a reaction where people rebel against doing what they're told. There's then an internet dynamic where because the medium promotes drama, once a community starts to form and develop its own worldview it will get pulled towards more extreme positions.

    I think what we're seeing right now is that countries that have tended to be more coercive in dealing with the virus are now getting a bigger counter-reaction. It's obviously hard to separate cause and effect here but for instance Japan's response to covid was almost entirely voluntary, and the resistance has largely fizzled, despite traditionally having quite a strong antivaxx undercurrent.
  • eekeek Posts: 29,558

    Its totally a waste of time - they already have Omicron so they're as fucked as their neighbours.

    But - and its a very bit but - it is an established principle that countries have the absolute right in an emergency to change processes even if written into treaty. This was the point being made last March "THEY CAN'T CLOSE THEIR BORDERS COS SCHENGEN" and yet they did close their borders and we didn't.

    How a nation chooses to draw up its pandemic emergency powers is up to that nation. Some of our red list country bans have made no sense at all, yet here we are shouting at the French for doing the same. Instead of an arbitrary red list they have done an arbitrary EU list. We aren't EU, we demanded not to be EU and be tret like ROW and now we're Outraged that we're seen as not EU and as ROW.

    What the frack is wrong with some people? This is what you wanted!
    As I posted yesterday

    Be careful what you wish for, it may become true.

    Surely every single story about being granted x wishes should tell you things never end up the way you want.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,972
    Fishing said:

    The trouble with Boris is that when he's good he's very, very good and when he's bad he's terrible, and there's precious little in between. For my money, he has done a great job in implementing the result of the 2016 referendum, which destroyed his last two predecessors and paralysed politics for three years, in the stunning triumph of our vaccine programme, in seeing off Jeremy Corbyn and in avoiding the worst barbarities of continental or Chinese lockdowns during this epidemic.

    But the extended crises of the last five years could be coming to a close. And, as is well known, the mundane, routine stuff of every day economic and social policy with its tradeoffs and need to consider dozens of factors and come to usually fudged decisions is too detailed and tedious for his toddler-length attention span. He is intellectually lazy, so will always go with the big government, high spending solution. And his only defence, entirely true, is that Starmer would be even worse.

    Also, is being PM really compatible with having a couple of babies in the house?
    I rather think it's the third baby in the house that is the problem.
  • eek said:

    Nope - I know that the paperwork is the real killer here.

    But our MPs are thick and my local MP thinks that all paperwork can be automated away. Which is not surprising as he's a lawyer and I'm just the person who earns £100k + year creating those automated systems.
    So if you know that is the case why post "how do you make it cheaper than zero tariff"? Even if we had agreed a zero tariff zero quota arrangement for literally every product category, if we are insisting that we have different standards requiring compliance checks then that means reams of paperwork and inspections and all that bullshit.

    I know that some people think sovrinty is worth more than red tape (having spent 30 years campaigning to cut red tape) but you and I know they are idiots. Don't give them succour by trying to make this only about tariffs.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 76,024
    eek said:

    The problem comes down to self identification.

    For pro trans people its a magic fix that solves all problems
    For womens rights it creates a whole new set of issues that the pro trans people just don't seem to understand.

    As I said the problem just isn't fixable so I try and keep as far away from it as possible.

    The other issue is that you simply can't put a complete argument in 280 characters so anything you post on this topic on twitter will result in 1 tweet being taken out of context and used against you for every more.

    At least on here you can post something long enough that it's impossible to use part of your argument completely out of context
    I'm not sure anyone claimed it was a "magic fix", which is perhaps your interpretation ?

    Alastair had a typically civilised stab at the issue on his blog:
    https://alastair-meeks.medium.com/a-fool-rushes-in-a-suggested-way-of-approaching-trans-rights-ccae2554fe31

  • eekeek Posts: 29,558
    Sandpit said:

    That’s exactly what fuels the conspiracies, it wouldn’t have taken a massive amount of money or resources to arrange for him to be killed, and there were an awful lot of people with money and connections, with motive to have him dead. Paying off half a dozen prison guards and a hit man isn’t particularly expensive, in the grand scheme of things.
    Sounds way too expensive.

    Pay someone to observe how the prison works and identify the weak points.

    Then send your single man in for a few weeks so they can pick the correct moment.

    Bit more effort but far cheaper and far less likely to go wrong.
  • It is government policy rather than a middle-class obsession that we take an LFT test before going out or having friends round, or twice a week if we have no friends, and daily if we are isolating after a close contact with a plague carrier.
    Its a government policy which has spawned a middle class obsession.

    But the government policy does seem something from the 'track and trace' era of controlling covid rather than accepting its here and living with it.

    And also a government policy which wanted to make use of the vast number of LFTs they had bought - that they're now desperately buying up ever more LFTs to feed the middle class obsession that has resulted is amusing in a collective madness sort of way.
  • BenpointerBenpointer Posts: 35,171
    IanB2 said:

    If that was done, one day we (or those that follow us) will know. People rarely keep quiet for ever.
    Maybe some do - how would we know?
  • SandyRentoolSandyRentool Posts: 22,624
    Good news - my LFTs have arrived. No Royal Mail emails, so a pleasant surprise.

    Not so good news - I realised that I forgot to put the bin out last night, and now I've missed the collection. Funny how what was the highlight of my week during shielding is now something that slips my mind.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    IanB2 said:

    If that was done, one day we (or those that follow us) will know. People rarely keep quiet for ever.
    If what you are keeping quiet about is the murder of someone capable of giving inconvenient evidence, that is going to colour your thinking about going public.

    Here's a bloke who murdered Jimmy Hoffa in 1975, but prudently kept it to himself till his deathbed, this year

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/nyregion/jimmy-hoffa-fbi-investigation.html
  • Beibheirli_CBeibheirli_C Posts: 8,192
    edited December 2021
    IshmaelZ said:

    It does if you let them compete in women's sport
    That is a matter for the doctors in the relevant sporting bodies to deal with.I suspect they have more expertise on the matter than PB posters or Ms Rowling
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    Good news - my LFTs have arrived. No Royal Mail emails, so a pleasant surprise.

    Not so good news - I realised that I forgot to put the bin out last night, and now I've missed the collection. Funny how what was the highlight of my week during shielding is now something that slips my mind.

    Have you double checked that you haven't been rescheduled to mid January anyway? No collections here this week
  • https://twitter.com/talkRADIO/status/1476131289870778374

    Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen and James Max clash over the issue of 'sex-based rights' and JK Rowling's 'trans-row'.

    James: "I am slightly staggered by your views."

    Campaigner Kellie-Jay Keen: "What? That biological sex exists."

    @thejamesmax

    "Women can't commit rape" - erh, what? As in legally they can't?

    If you've transitioned to being a woman, this person would like you to not use female toilets - but where are they supposed to go then? Outside?
  • tlg86 said:

    I think we're making up for last winter when a lot of low-hanging fruit avoided death due to flu not circulating.
    the antiva xers will say excess deaths are the results of vaccine damage...and it will only get worse
  • FishingFishing Posts: 5,464
    IanB2 said:

    I rather think it's the third baby in the house that is the problem.
    Carrie may not be everybody's idea of an ideal wife, but that's a bit harsh!
  • Sandpit said:

    That’s exactly what fuels the conspiracies, it wouldn’t have taken a massive amount of money or resources to arrange for him to be killed, and there were an awful lot of people with money and connections, with motive to have him dead. Paying off half a dozen prison guards and a hit man isn’t particularly expensive, in the grand scheme of things.
    Where would you get a hitman in a prison? Just asking...... ;)
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,005
    I haven’t taken a LFT in months
  • And then Kellie-Jay Keen calls a person who transitioned to being a woman, a man. I get sort of the idea of what she's saying but this just seems to encourage being nasty against somebody for no reason?
  • Mrs C, 'expertise' is not required, just a basic level of fundamental biology.

    Men have approximately twice the muscle and half the fat of women, on average. We know men outcompete women at elite level because practically every single record held by men is better than the female equivalent, and it's why sexually segregated sporting competitions are fully justified and entirely normal.

    Someone being trans does not rewrite their genetic code or undo decades of performance-enhancing testosterone flowing through their system.

    This is a straightforward conflict between ideology and reality.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830
    eek said:

    Sounds way too expensive.

    Pay someone to observe how the prison works and identify the weak points.

    Then send your single man in for a few weeks so they can pick the correct moment.

    Bit more effort but far cheaper and far less likely to go wrong.
    "Weak points" is a bit of an Ocean's 11 rather than real life point, isn't it? There is one way in, you need a security pass to get in via that way, you don't have a security pass. End of, in real life, whereas if you suborn someone with an existing pass, no problemo.
  • GallowgateGallowgate Posts: 20,005

    And then Kellie-Jay Keen calls a person who transitioned to being a woman, a man. I get sort of the idea of what she's saying but this just seems to encourage being nasty against somebody for no reason?

    Gammons gonna gammon
  • Biologically, I think there are two sexes. I think there's also intersex but this is extremely rare.
  • No.

    She explains it herself:

    https://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/1476194103528407046?s=21

    At the heart of the issue is whether, as some argue, “gender trumps biological sex” and what flows from that. Notably she is a lot more civil and polite than some of her critics, and has not yet doxed or threatened to murder any of them.
    Exactly. We stopped using the word "sex" because fnarr fnarr so substituted gender. Which us something completely different. My insert-neutral-substitute-here offspring is biologically male and gender neutral. Their last two ex-boyfriends were biologically female and male gendered.

    Its not difficult. Promote the rights of people to identify in whatever gender they want, protect the rights of people of one biological sex from being threatened and raped by the other.
  • But I think gender is something different isn't it? I think people say gender = sex and this is basically where the whole argument has come from.
  • IshmaelZIshmaelZ Posts: 21,830

    That is a matter for the doctors in the relevant sporting bodies to deal with.I suspect they have more expertise on the matter than PB posters or Ms Rowling
    Hahahahahahahahaha

    No it isn't, it is a matter of pure self identification for a huge number of sporting bodies. You haven't the first idea what you are on about.
  • IanB2IanB2 Posts: 50,972
    IshmaelZ said:

    If what you are keeping quiet about is the murder of someone capable of giving inconvenient evidence, that is going to colour your thinking about going public.

    Here's a bloke who murdered Jimmy Hoffa in 1975, but prudently kept it to himself till his deathbed, this year

    https://www.nytimes.com/2021/11/18/nyregion/jimmy-hoffa-fbi-investigation.html
    Which kind of proves my point.
This discussion has been closed.