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Vulnerable and quadruple jabbed yet I still got COVID – politicalbetting.com

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  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,530
    TOPPING said:

    It's not a ghost. It's probably someone opened a door or window elsewhere in the building.
    I am the only person here. My house is a big u-shaped granite building with the house in the south wing and the first floor, with the old bank in the middle and north wing on the ground floor.

    The doors in the bank make a distinctive noise. Nobody here to slam them yet now and then they slam. Have seen Jim with my own eyes crossing from one room into another about 15 feet ahead of me upstairs in the house.

    I was the sceptic until I moved here. But I can't ignore my own senses. Have seen and heard Jim, heard the little Scottish girl, and seen the cat - 3 ghosts that we know of. All of whom have their own personalities. Can't ignore the objects placed and dropped and moved and the doors opening and closing by themselves.

    Its not scary. But it is real.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    Dunno, missed it if they did. This the event and aftermath..

    https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-highlands-islands-61215644
    Yep that was it - bank manager opened the door, shot dead, no one knew why. Was a v boring series (as it at that time was inconclusive so no denouement).
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,935
    Nigelb said:

    A democratic process subject to the veto of 40 senators.
    And the 20 smallest states represent 10% of the population (so their senators represent 5-6% of national votes) but between them they have a veto.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,530
    TOPPING said:

    I have seen pictures of SKS with a beer with apparently some party workers (no idea when, or what the rules were at that time).

    But if the rules were the same as they were for cakegate then a reasonable person would think that if Boris was in the wrong so was SKS.
    That is what the Tories are hoping. That its different rules at different times for completely different things doesn't matter - they hope.

    We'll find out on Thursday. Appears they believe it will be brutal as they're now saying they will lose 400,000,000 councillors so that if its only 350 they will proclaim victory. Which works for a day or so until the Met drop the big stack of FPNs that have been waiting for the election then the Gray report.
  • NerysHughesNerysHughes Posts: 3,375
    TOPPING said:

    I have seen pictures of SKS with a beer with apparently some party workers (no idea when, or what the rules were at that time).

    But if the rules were the same as they were for cakegate then a reasonable person would think that if Boris was in the wrong so was SKS.
    In some ways seems to me that SKS should be more prone to a FPN than BJ as BJ was in the Cabinet Room during the working day, a room that he has meetings in numerous times in a week. Im not sure how often SKS works in the Dirham Constituency Office.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    That is what the Tories are hoping. That its different rules at different times for completely different things doesn't matter - they hope.

    We'll find out on Thursday. Appears they believe it will be brutal as they're now saying they will lose 400,000,000 councillors so that if its only 350 they will proclaim victory. Which works for a day or so until the Met drop the big stack of FPNs that have been waiting for the election then the Gray report.
    Oh. Was it different rules? What were they when SKS was doing his thing?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293

    And the 20 smallest states represent 10% of the population (so their senators represent 5-6% of national votes) but between them they have a veto.
    As reflects the US is a Federal nation built on states' rights
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    I am the only person here. My house is a big u-shaped granite building with the house in the south wing and the first floor, with the old bank in the middle and north wing on the ground floor.

    The doors in the bank make a distinctive noise. Nobody here to slam them yet now and then they slam. Have seen Jim with my own eyes crossing from one room into another about 15 feet ahead of me upstairs in the house.

    I was the sceptic until I moved here. But I can't ignore my own senses. Have seen and heard Jim, heard the little Scottish girl, and seen the cat - 3 ghosts that we know of. All of whom have their own personalities. Can't ignore the objects placed and dropped and moved and the doors opening and closing by themselves.

    Its not scary. But it is real.
    It is absolutely real in that your mind created those things. But a ghost it is not.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,317
    MrEd said:

    TBH, I don’t really care who did what. A lot of people broke lockdown rules. And SKS having a beer is not a capital offence.

    What he should do though is, if he criticising someone’s else’s behaviour, is be whiter than white. His attempts to explain it all don’t seem that great either. Same for his supporters as well. If you are going to demand BJ resigns and in the same breath say “it’s all overblown with Starmer” you’re backing your side not playing the facts.

    In any event, what we think doesn’t matter, it’s what the wider public thanks and there seems a fair bit of anecdotal evidence that people are not really buying the excuses of SKS.
    He escapes the Hall of Mirrors only to find himself back on False Equivalence Alley.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293

    The constitutional ban on slavery only happened because the Northern States overthrew the governments of the Southern States, though. The South was challenged because the North could see that Southern slave states were intent on projecting their system extra-terratorially, through eg the Dredd Scott case and efforts to make slavery legal in the Louisiana purchase territories. Southern states will attempt to do the same on abortion by putting legal impediments on women travelling to pro abortion states for treatment or shipping in morning after pills from out of state. This will lead to an increasingly angry confrontation between the two sets of states, although obviously I would hope that it won't end in civil war. A constitutional amendment legalising abortion in all of the US would be the first best solution but is impossible to imagine given the way the population is distributed (ie sparsely populated states with an anti abortion majority would block it).
    Respecting the rights of the unborn child is not the same as trying to maintain slavery and does not need a civil war to push abortion on demand on the minority of states that do not want it
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293
    kinabalu said:

    Looks like we'll soon have a number of US states where women will have the right to carry an assault rifle but not to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

    Can't quite get my head around it tbh. Women forced to carry a baby they don't want for 9 months and then give birth to it. This is a fundamental downgrading of the status of women. A massive step backwards on gender equality. Terrible both conceptually and in its likely practical impact.
    A few nations in Europe like Poland already still ban abortion
  • noneoftheabovenoneoftheabove Posts: 23,935
    HYUFD said:

    As reflects the US is a Federal nation built on states' rights
    So shall we give Wales, Scotland and NI a veto over England? It is an untenable situation in a very divided country.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,821
    kjh said:

    Also @tlg86 there were 2 indie groups one more nimby than the other. The less nimby one was more popular although they did cooperate.

    I think it is also worth noting this was an example of what myself and @NickPalmer and others were talking about the other day. The Indie group was not made up of wet Tories but a cross section, some from the right of the party and also LDs joined as well as non aligned people. They weren't anti Tory, they were anti what the Tory group had done. As Nick mentioned most stuff isn't political and they get on and do it regardless of their political views 90% of the time.

    The Tory losses were not because they were Tory, but because what they did, which had nothing to do with politics.
    A similar thing happened in my old ward. The Tories used to get c 60%. Respected councillor was expelled from the Party after making bullying accusations against the Leader. She stood as an Indy, and has got over 70% of the vote on all three occasions since. With the Tories barely clinging on to second.
    She took great delight in propping up a Labour minority for a while.
    It has completely changed the political mentality of a village which used to vote Tory by rote.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    edited May 2022
    kinabalu said:


    Looks like we'll soon have a number of US states where women will have the right to carry an assault rifle but not to terminate an unwanted pregnancy.

    Can't quite get my head around it tbh. Women forced to carry a baby they don't want for 9 months and then give birth to it. This is a fundamental downgrading of the status of women. A massive step backwards on gender equality. Terrible both conceptually and in its likely practical impact.

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,079
    Nigelb said:

    That also makes it more likely, in US states which ban abortion, that any miscarriages will be investigated by law enforcement.

    (Had to remove your link as it was doing horrid things to the HTML)
    Yes, and the "criminalisation" of miscarriage will be another horrendous outcome. But the ease of pharmaceutical measures will hopefully make for safer and easier to hide illegal abortions.

    It is awful that we're getting to a situation where we must have such a discussion!
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,585
    edited May 2022

    Boris must go but he is recognised by Ukraine and their President for the support they have received in their fight against the war criminal that is Putin

    Boris broke the covid rules and there is no dispute about that

    Starmer may or may not have broken covid rules but they lied about Rayners's attendance and he looks uncomfortable when being asked questions by journalists. The media will no doubt only be satisfied when he agrees to a review and interview by Durham Police but as one voter said this morning, 'they are all the same' and that is a fairly widespread view
    Beergate has to a large extent been largely dismissed by most as an irrelevance, by most media outlets and pretty well all political groups other than specifically Johnsonian Conservatives. Nonetheless those who want to believe it, like you, believe it, and they believe it dilutes the Partygate issue for Johnson.

    Labour and Starmer in particular seem rather naive and incredulous as to what Lynton Crosby's stormtroopers have planned for them and are clueless as to how to defend themselves. Johnson and Crosby fight dirty!
  • MalmesburyMalmesbury Posts: 53,476
    theakes said:

    The government has quietly lost COVID and many of the public has got the impression it is not a problem anymore, discarding masks, ignoring social distancing and being discouraged, through pricing, of testing themselves..
    The net result is that over the past two weeks this country has seemingly had the highest death rate in the world!
    I have had four jabs, weae a mask, even in the Gym, usually the only one, oh yes two regulars went down with it last week.
    IT is everwhere but we are unaware.

    Deaths are falling rapidly. I presume that you are looking at reporting day data rather than the actual day of death data.

    The penalty for using reporting day data is to be locked in a small room with Piers Corbyn, Piers Moron and the lawyer with his baseball bat in his wife’s kimono. The only entertainment is reading Conservative Home.

    You have been warned.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,920

    I am the only person here. My house is a big u-shaped granite building with the house in the south wing and the first floor, with the old bank in the middle and north wing on the ground floor.

    The doors in the bank make a distinctive noise. Nobody here to slam them yet now and then they slam. Have seen Jim with my own eyes crossing from one room into another about 15 feet ahead of me upstairs in the house.

    I was the sceptic until I moved here. But I can't ignore my own senses. Have seen and heard Jim, heard the little Scottish girl, and seen the cat - 3 ghosts that we know of. All of whom have their own personalities. Can't ignore the objects placed and dropped and moved and the doors opening and closing by themselves.

    Its not scary. But it is real.
    This saga of the old empty barn makes me think of this old two Ronnie skit

    Barker: There now follows a sketch featuring ghosties and ghoulies.
    Corbett: In which I get caught by the ghosties...
    Barker: And I get caught by surprise
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,530

    Cool. I'd ask him nicely not to slam doors! What did you see by the way? Fascinated by things like this.
    Full figure of a small man. 5'5" maybe. Dark hair, white shirt, dark trousers. Has appeared in various mirrors and even at one point on a Zoom quiz behind Mrs RP.

    Upstairs in the house a corridor runs the length of the building. 3 bedroom doors on the right, two small storerooms on the left. At the end is a cross corridor. Very short stub to the right into a bedroom, big store room door facing down the corridor, longer stub to the left into the bathroom.

    I was at the top of the stairs heading down the corridor towards the open store room door when I saw my son come out of his room into the store room. Only saw the back of him, shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there (we'd had a power trip downstairs and I was heading to the fuse box which is in there. Can see the door the entire time. Nobody in there. And my son is still in his room playing Xbox. Already no longer in his school uniform so not in the white shirt and charcoal trousers I saw which I had assumed to be him.

    We associate most of the poltergeist activity (like my big door slam) to Jim. The girl sounds to be maybe 5 (my daughter is 10). A giggle, and has also said "mummy" to Mrs RP and "daddy" to me. Like right behind us. When our daughter is out. And the cat is a dark cat shape that even house guests have seen. We do have a black cat. Who yowls at this other shape. Smaller tabby cat scratches and yowls at a closed wardrobe door like she does if the other one is trapped.
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,079
    Nigelb said:

    A democratic process subject to the veto of 40 senators.
    This is the key issue. The political system in the US has broken down, largely because of the Republicans, so that the Senate filibuster effectively means the minority -- 40 senators -- get a veto, and given the Senate massively over-represents small states, that means <<40% of the population get a veto. If the US had a democracy like the UK's, they would have legalised abortion through that route decades ago, but they don't.

    Meanwhile, the Republicans broke any sense of fair play over SC appointments to produce an overly partisan SC.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,821

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    Yeah it's straightforward logical and consistent.
    It's the pro-life support for assault rifles and executions I find perplexing.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,530
    TOPPING said:

    Oh. Was it different rules? What were they when SKS was doing his thing?
    I'm not going sifting through Twitter but they have been posted by others. At the time of this April 21 beer/curry scandal campaigning was allowed and explicitly mentioned. Much of the law had been rescinded and dropped to guidance only ("you should not") as opposed to the previous legal "you must not" as was operational for the various Downing Street parties.

    "The regulations at the time" is what Durham Plod cited when they reviewed the video and decided no evidence of criminal activity.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,249
    .

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere...
    That is also hard to understand.
    If a month old foetus is an independent life, why does it require the mother ?
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,261
    HYUFD said:

    Respecting the rights of the unborn child is not the same as trying to maintain slavery and does not need a civil war to push abortion on demand on the minority of states that do not want it
    The states that have already proposed abortion bans (eg Texas) ban it in almost all circumstances, not just "on demand". These bans will result in women dying. And states have already started to discuss measures to prevent women travelling to other states for an abortion.
    Of course the debate is different from slavery and the abortion issue has two sides to it (FWIW I am not so much pro abortion as anti backstreet abortion, ie I am against banning it because it can't be banned, but you can ban safe and affordable abortion). But overturning Roe vs Wade clearly puts two sets of states on a collision course with each other on a fundamental and emotive issue. It will end in one side imposing its position everywhere, by force if necessary. I think the parallels with the years running up to the civil war are only too clear for anyone who has studied that period.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,530
    TOPPING said:

    It is absolutely real in that your mind created those things. But a ghost it is not.
    I used to think as you did, so I get it.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,336
    HYUFD said:

    As reflects the US is a Federal nation built on states' rights
    It's like 50 separate countries.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,976
    TOPPING said:

    Yep that was it - bank manager opened the door, shot dead, no one knew why. Was a v boring series (as it at that time was inconclusive so no denouement).
    Sounds like it might have got more boring, though I guess the events could make a drama based on the poisonousness of small town life.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293
    dixiedean said:

    Yeah it's straightforward logical and consistent.
    It's the pro-life support for assault rifles and executions I find perplexing.
    Not always, the Roman Catholic Church for example is anti death penalty as well as anti abortion
  • bondegezoubondegezou Posts: 13,079
    HYUFD said:

    As reflects the US is a Federal nation built on states' rights
    It's a dangerous argument to make that the US was designed to work this way so that's OK. The original intention was not for the SC to have the power it has. The original intention was not for the Senate filibuster to mean a minority get a veto over everything. Vast amounts of the US system have evolved over time. You can't cherry pick and say this bit must be fine because that's how it was designed when every other part of the system has radically changed since 1776.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,336

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    You are Jacob Smug and I claim my £5......
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    dixiedean said:

    Yeah it's straightforward logical and consistent.
    It's the pro-life support for assault rifles and executions I find perplexing.
    Yes, well that is certainly true!
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,293
    HYUFD said:

    A few nations in Europe like Poland already still ban abortion
    Abortion in Poland is legal only in cases when the pregnancy is a result of a criminal act or when the woman's life or health is at risk. Which is interpreted relatively flexibly and demonstrably not the same as the most extreme position in some states of the USA.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,821
    HYUFD said:

    Not always, the Roman Catholic Church for example is anti death penalty as well as anti abortion
    Indeed it is.
    Which is entirely logical and consistent.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556
    edited May 2022

    I'm not going sifting through Twitter but they have been posted by others. At the time of this April 21 beer/curry scandal campaigning was allowed and explicitly mentioned. Much of the law had been rescinded and dropped to guidance only ("you should not") as opposed to the previous legal "you must not" as was operational for the various Downing Street parties.

    "The regulations at the time" is what Durham Plod cited when they reviewed the video and decided no evidence of criminal activity.
    Yeah I'm not going to go over it either but:

    "campaigning" and "being in the Cabinet Room" = allowed
    "beer/curry" and "cake" = not allowed.

    If they were the same rules at the time of each event then that is pretty straightforward.
  • algarkirkalgarkirk Posts: 13,673
    EPG said:

    But not all rights are determined by a democratic process. In most developed countries including the USA, many rights are part of an overriding Constitution which protects people from transient changes in majority rule. The UK is the major exception. So it is not so simple as saying that everything should be democracy, when nobody at all in the USA thinks their Constitution should be abolished.
    Pretty much agree. Balancing competing rights and duties is not a matter that constitutions are especially good at dealing with. None of this undermines my point.

  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,330

    I used to think as you did, so I get it.
    I've been waiting my whole life for a paranormal experience but no dice yet. As long as things are not ill intentioned and you are happy I'd say enjoy the company. Your guests seem happy enough with you there. Or maybe you are the guests?

    Have you thought of renting out to one of the ghastly TV programmes?
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293
    edited May 2022

    So shall we give Wales, Scotland and NI a veto over England? It is an untenable situation in a very divided country.
    They already do on some domestic legislation as was seen clearly in the different Covid lockdown rules and restrictions imposed by the governments and legislatures of the 4 home nations. The UK is also a union not a Federation of states like the USA.

    However the UK Parliament is supreme if it wishes to pass legislation to entrench its view on an issue. Much as in the US states can do as they wish only as long as it accords with what the US constitution and Supreme Court and US Federal law allows
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,336

    I am the only person here. My house is a big u-shaped granite building with the house in the south wing and the first floor, with the old bank in the middle and north wing on the ground floor.

    The doors in the bank make a distinctive noise. Nobody here to slam them yet now and then they slam. Have seen Jim with my own eyes crossing from one room into another about 15 feet ahead of me upstairs in the house.

    I was the sceptic until I moved here. But I can't ignore my own senses. Have seen and heard Jim, heard the little Scottish girl, and seen the cat - 3 ghosts that we know of. All of whom have their own personalities. Can't ignore the objects placed and dropped and moved and the doors opening and closing by themselves.

    Its not scary. But it is real.
    I have to admit that I would be frightened to death!!
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293

    The states that have already proposed abortion bans (eg Texas) ban it in almost all circumstances, not just "on demand". These bans will result in women dying. And states have already started to discuss measures to prevent women travelling to other states for an abortion.
    Of course the debate is different from slavery and the abortion issue has two sides to it (FWIW I am not so much pro abortion as anti backstreet abortion, ie I am against banning it because it can't be banned, but you can ban safe and affordable abortion). But overturning Roe vs Wade clearly puts two sets of states on a collision course with each other on a fundamental and emotive issue. It will end in one side imposing its position everywhere, by force if necessary. I think the parallels with the years running up to the civil war are only too clear for anyone who has studied that period.
    As the polling shows several southern and border states do indeed want to go even further and ban abortion outright. I agree they are mostly also states of the old Confederacy and there are real tensions between those Trump heartland states and the rest of the USA as there were in 1860
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    I used to think as you did, so I get it.
    Yep. Until you started seeing Jim. Not yet happened to me yet so very much looking forward to that moment.

    Him and Thor and The Almighty. Oh and the Tooth Fairy he's always been on the list.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,317
    HYUFD said:

    A few nations in Europe like Poland already still ban abortion
    And Ireland until recently. Countries move at their own pace towards gender equality. But here we have the so called 'leader of the free world' doing something altogether different - like Afghanistan they're going in the opposite direction. It's incredible. So incredible that I doubt it'll hold. There'll be a backlash which one way or another will prevail. Least I hope so.
  • williamglennwilliamglenn Posts: 54,173
    Sadiq Khan lays down the law:

    @SadiqKhan
    London stands with women across the United States today.

    Roe v Wade enshrined women’s fundamental rights over their own bodies and access to healthcare.

    That cannot and must not be undone.


    https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/1521400268310695938
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    HYUFD said:

    As the polling shows several southern and border states do indeed want to go even further and ban abortion outright. I agree they are mostly also states of the old Confederacy and there are real tensions between those Trump heartland states and the rest of the USA as there were in 1860
    Not sure you can be described as the "heartland" of a country when you are in active rebellion to leave it.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    I have to admit that I would be frightened to death!!
    I believe that one's mind has to be susceptible to these things and that can happen for many reasons and many states of mind can contribute to this.

    Some great podcasts on this, about poltergeists in particular. Very often a remote Scottish farmhouse/bothy for some unfathomable reason.
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    Sadiq Khan lays down the law:

    @SadiqKhan
    London stands with women across the United States today.

    Roe v Wade enshrined women’s fundamental rights over their own bodies and access to healthcare.

    That cannot and must not be undone.


    https://twitter.com/SadiqKhan/status/1521400268310695938

    Maybe if he asks all Londoners to write a letter...
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,249
    edited May 2022

    It's like 50 separate countries.
    Except it is not.
    You are a citizen of the US, not of Texas or California.
  • rottenboroughrottenborough Posts: 64,695
    Cicero said:

    Abortion in Poland is legal only in cases when the pregnancy is a result of a criminal act or when the woman's life or health is at risk. Which is interpreted relatively flexibly and demonstrably not the same as the most extreme position in some states of the USA.
    Let us hope that this abortion debate doesn't start up here. We have enough division in this country already.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 5,395

    Since it’s your manor, any skinny on the mysterious murder of the bank manager in Nairn in 2004? At the time various theories were punted from drug dealers to international financial skulduggery, but it appears now to be down to a planning dispute over decking at a local hotel. There’s something terrifically NE of Scotland about that..
    Not just decking, a retrospective planning application for this excrescence on a pretty victorian hotel:



    Being forced to pull down your new hotel extension could disturb the mind. Murder, though? Getting him out of the way would not have affected the outcome. A bizarre case.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,330
    TOPPING said:

    I believe that one's mind has to be susceptible to these things and that can happen for many reasons and many states of mind can contribute to this.

    Some great podcasts on this, about poltergeists in particular. Very often a remote Scottish farmhouse/bothy for some unfathomable reason.
    I recall a classic incident involving my family. Two cars, travelling along the A36 at night, at Dead Maid's (a hill near Warminster). The lead car contained my Aussie aunt, who, on arrival home, reported seeing the ghost of a little old lady crossing the road.
    My car had three people who saw a barn owl (aka 'ghost' owl) flit across the road.

    This is not to dismiss peoples reports, but I found it fascinating how she was so sure she had seen a ghost and we were so sure she had seen an owl.
  • AslanAslan Posts: 1,673
    Nigelb said:

    Except it is not.
    You are a citizen of the US, not of Texas or California.
    Anyone that thinks the differences between the US states are equivalent to the differences between countries either hasn't lived in the US or hasn't lived outside the US.
  • TheuniondivvieTheuniondivvie Posts: 42,976

    Let us hope that this abortion debate doesn't start up here. We have enough division in this country already.
    I think even BJ would realise he'd be on very shaky ground there.
  • carnforthcarnforth Posts: 5,395
    carnforth said:

    Not just decking, a retrospective planning application for this excrescence on a pretty victorian hotel:



    Being forced to pull down your new hotel extension could disturb the mind. Murder, though? Getting him out of the way would not have affected the outcome. A bizarre case.
    Just plain weird:

    At around 7 pm on 28 November 2004, the doorbell of the Wilsons' house was rung and Veronica answered the door. An unidentified man wearing a baseball cap, dark blue jacket and dark jeans stood on the doorstep.[6] He asked for Alistair Wilson by name and Wilson went to speak to him. A few minutes later he returned to his wife carrying an empty blue envelope with the name Paul on the front.[4] Confused, he went back to the door, at which point Veronica Wilson heard three gunshots and, on going to the door, discovered her husband had been shot.[7] He died in hospital later that evening.[4]
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,729
    algarkirk said:

    Pretty much agree. Balancing competing rights and duties is not a matter that constitutions are especially good at dealing with. None of this undermines my point.

    Mm, I think it does challenge your point. You say the extremes want rights to be decided by non-majority rule processes, but actually almost everyone wants that. They do disagree on what the remit should include, like abortion and private gun ownership, but the overall legitimacy of the Constitution to specify the boundaries of law is very widely accepted, including quite intrusive and general amendments such as the Bill of Rights and due process, which is exactly the debate here: not should rights be decided solely by transient majorities, but whether the right is part of an overall right to privacy, etc.
  • And the 20 smallest states represent 10% of the population (so their senators represent 5-6% of national votes) but between them they have a veto.
    Which is entirely reasonable in a federation.

    And the odds of all 20 states being on the same side is infinitesimal.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,249
    This is also a fair point.

    https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2022/05/roe-decision-constitution-wasnt-written-for-women.html
    ...This is what Samuel Alito leaves out when he says “the Constitution makes no mention of abortion.” With regards to abortion, the most notable thing that’s missing from the Constitution is the perspective of anyone who might get one. When the right to an abortion was enshrined in America, it was in large part because of women like Ann Hill, who dared to imagine that the Constitution’s sweeping language about equality could apply to them too...
  • CiceroCicero Posts: 3,293

    Let us hope that this abortion debate doesn't start up here. We have enough division in this country already.
    Indeed.
  • Daveyboy1961Daveyboy1961 Posts: 4,336
    Nigelb said:

    Except it is not.
    You are a citizen of the US, not of Texas or California.
    I said it is like, not is.
  • dixiedeandixiedean Posts: 29,821
    Aslan said:

    Anyone that thinks the differences between the US states are equivalent to the differences between countries either hasn't lived in the US or hasn't lived outside the US.
    Nor indeed Canada.
    Where there are far more noticeable differences between Provinces.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,317

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    You can't see that stripping women of their right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy under any circumstances has anything to do with gender equality?

    C'mon. Typo surely.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293
    edited May 2022

    I think even BJ would realise he'd be on very shaky ground there.
    Johnson is relatively pro choice. Hunt is actually more pro life and has said he wants to reduce the time limit to 12 weeks as in France and Italy for example.

    If Rees Mogg becomes Tory leader then he opposes abortion outright in all circumstances so the Conservative Party would switch to a clear pro life position under his leadership
  • ApplicantApplicant Posts: 3,379
    .
    dixiedean said:

    Yeah it's straightforward logical and consistent.
    It's the pro-life support for assault rifles and executions I find perplexing.
    Opposition to abortion and support for the death penalty aren't automatically inconsistent - the latter, in theory, applies to people who have committed a grievous crime so, if they're never going to be released anyway, then (again, in theory) why not?

    In reality, of course, the imperfectness of the justice system leads to a risk of executing someone who turns out to be innocent and this should outweigh pretty much all considerations.
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,585
    edited May 2022

    Full figure of a small man. 5'5" maybe. Dark hair, white shirt, dark trousers. Has appeared in various mirrors and even at one point on a Zoom quiz behind Mrs RP.

    Upstairs in the house a corridor runs the length of the building. 3 bedroom doors on the right, two small storerooms on the left. At the end is a cross corridor. Very short stub to the right into a bedroom, big store room door facing down the corridor, longer stub to the left into the bathroom.

    I was at the top of the stairs heading down the corridor towards the open store room door when I saw my son come out of his room into the store room. Only saw the back of him, shouted "oi" wondering why he had gone in there (we'd had a power trip downstairs and I was heading to the fuse box which is in there. Can see the door the entire time. Nobody in there. And my son is still in his room playing Xbox. Already no longer in his school uniform so not in the white shirt and charcoal trousers I saw which I had assumed to be him.

    We associate most of the poltergeist activity (like my big door slam) to Jim. The girl sounds to be maybe 5 (my daughter is 10). A giggle, and has also said "mummy" to Mrs RP and "daddy" to me. Like right behind us. When our daughter is out. And the cat is a dark cat shape that even house guests have seen. We do have a black cat. Who yowls at this other shape. Smaller tabby cat scratches and yowls at a closed wardrobe door like she does if the other one is trapped.
    I do believe you have seen what you believe you saw. Quite what you have seen and why is up for debate. There is a ghost in Ludlow, a girl in 1960s clothing seen regularly at both in the Feathers Hotel and crossing the road. It was discovered who the girl was, she was traced and found to be still alive, someone who in the 1960s stayed in the Feathers and crossed the road on numerous occasions to visit her aunt who lived in the town. A living ghost!
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    edited May 2022

    It’s a combination of groups:

    - religious/faith based belief in the sanctity of life from conception (in theory this is mainstream catholic doctrine)
    - strict and limiting interpretation of the constitution and opposition to judicial activism (I have some sympathy with this - moral decisions by a society should be made by voters and their representatives not the courts)
    - Believes in states rights vs federal imposition
    - political mischief makers
    - Canny politicians who see a personal advantage in supporting this cause

    Together they add up; individually they are all too small
    Of these, I'd say the first is the only one upon which the strength of the anti-abortion movement stands. Without it, there would be no mischief-makers or cynical political bandwagonners. While there are certainly some who believe in 2 and 3 (and RBG was in the 2nd camp, so this is not just a Right/Left, fundamental Christian thing), these are very small beer compared to the faith-based opponents.

    Much of conservatism is based around concepts of purity, and hence absolutionism. Abortion is an ideal issue on both counts for social and religious conservatives.

    And here is a point I think you are missing - this is not really about the women or being anti-women from their perspective (I know, I'd have a hard time convincing my wife of that too), but about purity. Which is why such people can hold the seemingly contradictory position of being pro-life and pro-death sentence. It is not about life, but purity.
  • turbotubbsturbotubbs Posts: 18,330

    I do believe you have seen what you believe you saw. Quite what you have seen and why is up for debate. There is a ghost in Ludlow, a girl in 1960s clothing both in the Feathers Hotel and crossing the road. It was discovered who the girl was, she was traced and found to be still alive, someone who in the 1960s stayed in the Feathers and crossed the road on numerous occasions to visit her aunt who lived in the town. A living ghost!
    Seeing something and linking it to a historic person is the weak link in the chain. Frankly almost every historic country house has a grey lady, often named as X or Y etc. And some ghosts have multiple claimed locations. They must have a busy afterlife.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293
    Nigelb said:

    Except it is not.
    You are a citizen of the US, not of Texas or California.
    There are bigger cultural differences now between California and Alabama than California and the UK or Canada or New Zealand for example
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,261

    Let us hope that this abortion debate doesn't start up here. We have enough division in this country already.
    It's unlikely. But I could easily imagine a Tory government running a death penalty referendum to solidify the Brexit coalition. In fact I'd say it's likely.
  • JosiasJessopJosiasJessop Posts: 44,888

    I recall a classic incident involving my family. Two cars, travelling along the A36 at night, at Dead Maid's (a hill near Warminster). The lead car contained my Aussie aunt, who, on arrival home, reported seeing the ghost of a little old lady crossing the road.
    My car had three people who saw a barn owl (aka 'ghost' owl) flit across the road.

    This is not to dismiss peoples reports, but I found it fascinating how she was so sure she had seen a ghost and we were so sure she had seen an owl.
    I would like to think of myself as being rational, but there is a time I thought I saw a ghost.

    I was staying at a B&B near Church Stretton. I awoke in the middle of the night to see something at the door. The thing moved around to my bed, passing in front of the wall-mounted TV. The red standby light on the TV blinked out as it passed, as if something had moved in front of it. It then leant down over me as I scrabbled for the bedside light, and I got an *impression* that it was not looking for me.

    When I eventually turned the light on, nothing was there - but I was convinced that something had been in the room with me. There was also a dressing gown hanging off the door. The rational side of me says that I had been dreaming, and my imagination turned the gown on the door into the figure.

    That seems reasonable and comforting. But I cannot imagine that I would have dreamt the standby light flickering off as it passed in front. That detail was just weird.
  • HYUFDHYUFD Posts: 126,293

    It's unlikely. But I could easily imagine a Tory government running a death penalty referendum to solidify the Brexit coalition. In fact I'd say it's likely.
    If Priti Patel became PM certainly
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    I recall a classic incident involving my family. Two cars, travelling along the A36 at night, at Dead Maid's (a hill near Warminster). The lead car contained my Aussie aunt, who, on arrival home, reported seeing the ghost of a little old lady crossing the road.
    My car had three people who saw a barn owl (aka 'ghost' owl) flit across the road.

    This is not to dismiss peoples reports, but I found it fascinating how she was so sure she had seen a ghost and we were so sure she had seen an owl.
    It is also very common for (especially tired) people to hallucinate. On one night/sleep deprivation exercise (funnily enough at Warminster...) I was trudging along a country track with a post and rails along the side of it and atop every post was as I saw it a small animal, looked a bit like a griffin or squirrel.
  • It's unlikely. But I could easily imagine a Tory government running a death penalty referendum to solidify the Brexit coalition. In fact I'd say it's likely.
    I think its about as likely as us discovering that Covid was manufactured in a lab . . . aboard Leon's alien spaceship.
  • Andy_CookeAndy_Cooke Posts: 5,045
    moonshine said:

    Omicron is inherently less severe to a given unvaccinated / naive immune system patient. But it’s higher infectiousness means it can quickly cause a massive clusterduck in a naive population. See China. The vaccine programme / prior infection in the West mean that covid isn’t something here people think about much. But in China it’s causing as big an impact on life as it ever did.
    Exactly.

    The main strains that have affected the UK appear to be, virulence-wise, and setting original covid to 100:

    Original Covid:100
    Alpha: 150
    Delta: 200
    Omicron: 67

    (To be compared with seasonal influenza: ~5-10)

    Vaccination reduces the level of those by about a factor of 10-20

    Of course, the effect of widespread Omicron is worse than seasonal influenza because it's so infectious and so many people have caught it. If one in a thousand out of a million people die, that's worse than two in a thousand out of a hundred thousand people.

    But the way that both the hospitalisation rates and the death rates against infection have marched downwards in lockstep with vaccination rollouts (first, second, third, and fourth doses each pushing it lower still) with slight shifts as the variants change does make it undeniable. It's the vaccines.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,317

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    I agree. It is the advantage those who are religious have over the likes of me. If life starts at conception it is clear cut. Otherwise it is a random date. Unfortunately I am not religious so I have that dilemma.

    I've not heard a response from those who believe life starts at conception of birth control that prevents splitting cells embed in the womb which strikes me as abortion.
  • EPGEPG Posts: 6,729
    In general, "states' rights" ended after the Civil War when states were obliged to recognise rights existing under the U.S. Constitution. "States' rights" survived as a segregationist slogan for mid-century Democrats and later for Reagan who tempted Southern whites to roll back the clock 15 years.
  • TOPPING said:

    It is also very common for (especially tired) people to hallucinate. On one night/sleep deprivation exercise (funnily enough at Warminster...) I was trudging along a country track with a post and rails along the side of it and atop every post was as I saw it a small animal, looked a bit like a griffin or squirrel.
    Also once an idea is put in your head, its easier for your mind to make the connection and join the dots so that any creepy sound or event becomes "Jim" rather than "owl".

    That's how successful magicians pull off a lot of their tricks, they put in your head what they want they want you to see or hear so that you're primed and ready, so if everyone in town is talking about a ghost then that ghost is going to be seen by a lot of people in town, in a self-fulfilling virtuous circle.
  • StockyStocky Posts: 10,267

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    It is a false premise, of course.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,261
    kjh said:

    I agree. It is the advantage those who are religious have over the likes of me. If life starts at conception it is clear cut. Otherwise it is a random date. Unfortunately I am not religious so I have that dilemma.

    I've not heard a response from those who believe life starts at conception of birth control that prevents splitting cells embed in the womb which strikes me as abortion.
    They're mostly anti birth control too.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    EPG said:

    But not all rights are determined by a democratic process. In most developed countries including the USA, many rights are part of an overriding Constitution which protects people from transient changes in majority rule. The UK is the major exception. So it is not so simple as saying that everything should be democracy, when nobody at all in the USA thinks their Constitution should be abolished.
    I take issue with the idea that written constitutions take rights issues out of the realm of democracy. They do not. Constitutions are created and ratified by democratic processes, are open to amendment through a democratic process. A deliberately difficult democratic process, admittedly, in order to protect those rights deemed fundamental from societal fads or the short-term political interests of certain groups.
  • kinabalukinabalu Posts: 44,317
    HYUFD said:

    Respecting the rights of the unborn child is not the same as trying to maintain slavery and does not need a civil war to push abortion on demand on the minority of states that do not want it
    There's an echo, though, in that "States Rights" was the banner under which parts of the South tried to hang onto Segregation.
  • Alphabet_SoupAlphabet_Soup Posts: 3,537
    kinabalu said:

    You can't see that stripping women of their right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy under any circumstances has anything to do with gender equality?

    C'mon. Typo surely.
    I do sometimes wonder what the outcome of this 'debate' would be if men remained silent and let women decide among themselves. Not all opponents of abortion are red-necked males. Some are women who identify as feminists and who regard abortion as a sexist assault on a woman's biological identity. Another form of oppression, in other words.
  • It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    Because you can only start from the premise that a foetus is an "independent life" by stripping women and only women of their own bodies.

    If a woman's body is her own, no foetus can ever be an "independent life". So with that premise you're denying women their own body as their own, which of course is a tremendous problem if you supposedly believe in gender equality.
  • OnlyLivingBoyOnlyLivingBoy Posts: 16,261

    I think its about as likely as us discovering that Covid was manufactured in a lab . . . aboard Leon's alien spaceship.
    So nailed on then?
  • MexicanpeteMexicanpete Posts: 30,585

    It's unlikely. But I could easily imagine a Tory government running a death penalty referendum to solidify the Brexit coalition. In fact I'd say it's likely.
    It would confirm the Brexit Sovereignty issues as a success. We hang and flog people we don't like because we can, and the ECJ can't stop us!
  • TOPPINGTOPPING Posts: 43,556

    Also once an idea is put in your head, its easier for your mind to make the connection and join the dots so that any creepy sound or event becomes "Jim" rather than "owl".

    That's how successful magicians pull off a lot of their tricks, they put in your head what they want they want you to see or hear so that you're primed and ready, so if everyone in town is talking about a ghost then that ghost is going to be seen by a lot of people in town, in a self-fulfilling virtuous circle.
    Absolutey. "The house is haunted" is already half the battle.
  • NigelbNigelb Posts: 75,249
    HYUFD said:

    Johnson is relatively pro choice. Hunt is actually more pro life and has said he wants to reduce the time limit to 12 weeks as in France and Italy for example.

    If Rees Mogg becomes Tory leader then he opposes abortion outright in all circumstances so the Conservative Party would switch to a clear pro life position under his leadership
    With over 80% of the electorate supporting the right to abortion that seems even more unlikely than the etiolated Etonian becoming leader.
  • RochdalePioneersRochdalePioneers Posts: 29,530

    I do believe you have seen what you believe you saw. Quite what you have seen and why is up for debate. There is a ghost in Ludlow, a girl in 1960s clothing seen regularly at both in the Feathers Hotel and crossing the road. It was discovered who the girl was, she was traced and found to be still alive, someone who in the 1960s stayed in the Feathers and crossed the road on numerous occasions to visit her aunt who lived in the town. A living ghost!
    Would be delighted to be drunk enough to see / hear things and yet not be unconscious :)
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,317

    They're mostly anti birth control too.
    Many will be I guess. I witnessed Melanie Phillips (anti abortion, pro contraception), turned into a gibbering wreck over the contradiction. I noticed some time later she had conveniently forgotten the contradiction.
  • Richard_NabaviRichard_Nabavi Posts: 30,822
    edited May 2022
    kinabalu said:

    You can't see that stripping women of their right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy under any circumstances has anything to do with gender equality?

    C'mon. Typo surely.
    Of course it's got nothing to do with 'gender equality'. Whatever could that possibly mean in the context of pregnancy? It's about the right to life of the foetus, which, given the premise, clearly overrides any inconvenience or distress to the woman, exactly as it would in the case of murder of an infant or a disabled person.

    To be clear, I'm not stating my view, just pointing out that the conclusion which inevitably follows from the premise. And it's not an unreasonable premise in itself - after all, everyone agrees that the foetus has a inviolable right to life at some date, the argument is simply about when.
  • TimTTimT Posts: 6,468
    EPG said:

    In general, "states' rights" ended after the Civil War when states were obliged to recognise rights existing under the U.S. Constitution. "States' rights" survived as a segregationist slogan for mid-century Democrats and later for Reagan who tempted Southern whites to roll back the clock 15 years.

    LOL. Try telling that to the Governors and state congressional members. Sure, civil rights have been taken out of the states' jurisdiction, but that still leaves a lot of states' rights.
  • HYUFD said:

    Johnson is relatively pro choice. Hunt is actually more pro life and has said he wants to reduce the time limit to 12 weeks as in France and Italy for example.

    If Rees Mogg becomes Tory leader then he opposes abortion outright in all circumstances so the Conservative Party would switch to a clear pro life position under his leadership
    No it would not.

    You may change your views whenever the current leader changes in order to keep in lockstep with the leader, but the rest of the Party does not.

    The Conservative Party is a big tent party that has for an extremely long time reasonably viewed abortion as a conscience matter, not a whipped one. Not even JRM would change that and if he did he'd lose millions of voters and even he's not that foolish.
  • RogerRoger Posts: 20,119
    edited May 2022

    Another interesting vox pop getting the views of Russians on an important subject. What do they think of Zelensky? As ever with such videos there seems a clear generational divide.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUHP3KDi-OQ

    A very interesting vox pop. Not exciting but it fills in a piece of the jigsaw. Do they see it as a Palestinian thing? Someone has stolen Russia's land and they want it back? Do they see it like Brexit? Europe had come together and one part decided to separate? Thousands of loose ends need to be sorted out and both sides need to co-operate? Is it like Northern Ireland? If the separatists didn't accept the border they would never accept an independence vote of just the six counties......There's lots on what Russia on here did but little on why they did it
  • Of course it's got nothing to do with 'gender equality'. Whatever could that possibly mean in the context of pregnancy? It's about the right to life of the foetus, which, given the premise, clearly overrides any inconvenience or distress to the woman, exactly as it would in the case of murder of an infant or a disabled person.

    To be clear, I'm not stating my view, just pointing out that the conclusion which inevitably follows from the premise. And it's not an unreasonable premise in itself - after all, everyone agrees that the foetus has a inviolable right to life at some date, the argument is simply about when.
    Whatever could it mean in the context of a pregnancy? It means that women are their own independent person, just as men are, so any "foetus" by definition is not. It is not an independent person until it is born, it may be viable, but until it is born and can breath on its own it is not an independent person, but the woman is.

    It is an utterly unreasonable premise in itself. A foetus never has an inviolable right to life, only a person does and the person becomes a person at the moment of birth.
  • kjhkjh Posts: 12,317

    I think its about as likely as us discovering that Covid was manufactured in a lab . . . aboard Leon's alien spaceship.
    Only if the aliens are woke.
  • LostPasswordLostPassword Posts: 19,119

    It's a complete mystery to me that anyone finds it hard to understand. If you start from the premise that the foetus is an independent life in its own right, as many people do in the US and elsewhere, then it follows as night follows day that abortion is morally indistinguishable from infanticide. You might not agree with the premise, but I really can't see what's difficult to understand about it, or indeed what it has to do with 'gender equality'.
    Yes. This is actually one of the situations where I find the opposing view easy to understand, as the premise is clear.

    I support a woman's right to choose and to have control of their body, but I regard abortion as a necessary failsafe, rather than a good in itself.

    The morality on the anti-abortion side has the appeal of simplicity, but on the pro-choice side it's more complicated. Not many people celebrate abortions.
  • CookieCookie Posts: 14,642
    Roger said:

    A very interesting vox pop. Not exciting but it fills in a piece of the jigsaw. Do they see it as a Palestinian thing? Someone has stolen Russia's land and they want it back? Do they see it like Brexit? Europe had come together and one part decided to separate? Thousands of loose ends need to be sorted out and both sides need to co-operate? Is it like Northern Ireland? If the separatists didn't accept the border they would never accept an independence vote of just the six counties......There's lots on what Russia on here did but little on why they did it
    I think it's probably a little risky to try to draw analogies with situations in parts of the world we may be more familiar with. Sometimes analogies help, but I don't really think there is a direct one here.
  • TazTaz Posts: 16,920

    I do believe you have seen what you believe you saw. Quite what you have seen and why is up for debate. There is a ghost in Ludlow, a girl in 1960s clothing seen regularly at both in the Feathers Hotel and crossing the road. It was discovered who the girl was, she was traced and found to be still alive, someone who in the 1960s stayed in the Feathers and crossed the road on numerous occasions to visit her aunt who lived in the town. A living ghost!
    Interesting. In the early seventies there was an excellent BBC drama, written by Nigel Kneale, called The Stone Tape. Central to that was the premise that ghosts were somehow recordings of people from the past who somehow become recoded into their surroundings.
This discussion has been closed.