gols
Novice Member
Posts: 163 
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Post by gols on Sept 24, 2020 14:25:44 GMT 1
I think this is a very misleading headline. They are just pointing out how the current govt is handing over millions to dodgy companies run by their cronies, for useless kit or to run useless test and trace programs. Not calling for the reinstatement of austerity or anything. But it's true they do run the risk of turning off huge amounts of their progressive voters if they use too much of this language. Unfortunately the UK media is till stuck in 2010 when it comes to economics. Keir Starmer is also playing the same game when he talks of being strong on defence and prosecuting terrorists etc. I hope it's mostly a show for the media. For me the jury is still out on whether this is just a new version of Labour, or a new version of New Labour. Hard to get excited about them at the moment though. |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 14:37:45 GMT 1
As you know, I secretly have a largely baseless crank-ish theory - or maybe I should simply call it "guess" - of accidental soft T-cell immunity in East Asia (particularly in Japan and Thailand).
If that pseudo-theory wasn't totally wide off the mark, that would only mean the Asians tend not to get seriously ill and die when infected. It doesn't say anything about the infection rates.
And the infection rates are also much, much lower around here than in most other regions.
So, yeah, masks. What else is there? Everything has been open in Japan. The population density is super high, yet (or therefore) people aren't really doing much "social distancing". They just raised the capacity of a baseball/football match to 10,000. I don't think that's a good idea, but that's what they are doing.
So, masks. 98% rates.
My secret crackpot theory - which I would ditch like a hot potato as soon as I learn something that contradicts it - doesn't change that story a bit.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 14:41:37 GMT 1
I think this is a very misleading headline. They are just pointing out how the current govt is handing over millions to dodgy companies run by their cronies, for useless kit or to run useless test and trace programs. Not calling for the reinstatement of austerity or anything. But it's true they do run the risk of turning off huge amounts of their progressive voters if they use too much of this language. Unfortunately the UK media is till stuck in 2010 when it comes to economics. Keir Starmer is also playing the same game when he talks of being strong on defence and prosecuting terrorists etc. I hope it's mostly a show for the media. For me the jury is still out on whether this is just a new version of Labour, or a new version of New Labour. Hard to get excited about them at the moment though. Thanks for the input and explanation. But like you said, it's dangerous to flirt with this kind of a language. "Economic responsibility" doesn't sound good, because it's not good. Also, those issues - of corruption and collusion - are peripheral. Not unimportant, but peripheral. If you are on the left, that cannot be at the center of your platform, because the right is much better at playing that game (e.g. Latin America). I guess I can't for the life of me trust these people. I have this deep-seated fear that "economic responsibility" is truly what they want and cherish deep down. Is there any reason to believe they are different from American liberals? |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 17:09:11 GMT 1
This man lives in France to mimic the life of James Baldwin, fancying himself as a man of poetry and literature and a defender of the Liberal Western Civilization (TM), and opines non-stop about everything with some strange sense of entitlement and authority - yet doesn't even know what the Greek tragedy means.
But you still keep denying the decline of our civilization. This man is our James Baldwin. Understand?
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 17:14:28 GMT 1
If anyone is interested - Long-hauler update:
All the men except for one are now saying that they have gotten substantially better, and all the women are saying that they are far from being out of it.
My own small samples also suggest that it's nastier for women.
But that one man who hasn't seen any improvement at all has been living in hell for months. He's only 36, an otherwise healthy, athletic white male.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 17:31:42 GMT 1
The City of London, the home of criminal bankers, must give those Conservative tossers a completely false sense of grandeur. Do they not know how long it's been since the last time the UK was in a position where they could afford to offend continental Europeans this way? Doing this in the middle of a once-in-a-few-generations-important negotiation with the very continental Europeans, with the once-in-a-century pandemic on top of it, can only come from someone who is utterly, utterly out of their depth. If you think these things don't matter, you don't understand anything. The UK's Covid deaths per capita is higher than Italy's, and in all likelihood it will stay that way according to the model analysis that I saw today. He can keep loving his freedom, and the rest of the country ought to figure out a way to survive this wave. Italian president rebuts Johnson's 'freedom' remarks over restrictionsPushback comes after PM’s suggestion UK’s Covid-19 infection rate was worse than Italy because Britons loved their freedom more www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/24/italian-president-rebuts-johnsons-freedom-remarks-over-covid-19-restrictions |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 17:46:41 GMT 1
19 people died in Czech Republic in the last 24 hours. The country's highest daily count ever, I believe.
As I said, the virus can still totally kill your parents. Didier Raoult was of course wrong.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 18:14:59 GMT 1
Wear a mask.
Stay away from elderly people. You don't want to kill them.
Wash your hands.
Yes, do wash your hands. You do because you do everything that you can. Just don't think it's "essential". You might get a "false sense of security", you know. In most cases it can't protect you, but you might as well just in case, and it's good for you for all the other reasons anyway.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 24, 2020 19:27:20 GMT 1
You really don't need to pay much attention to the # of new cases, for obvious reasons.
I mean, I don't even know what the official # of cases in the US is now. Probably millions, but couldn't care less.
Also, the labs tend to do MANY cycles in a PCR test, 30 or even 40, and thus even the tiniest, tiniest trace of the virus will be detected to flag the person as positive. It's doubtful that such cases could infect others.
So, those numbers are statistically not very meaningful for many reasons. But what worries me the most about Europe now is that in both Spain and France, the two frontrunners, the percentage of the ICU/ECMO/ventilator cases among the hospitalized people is disconcertingly high.
The number is already higher than 1,500 in Spain, and higher than 1,000 in France. Many of those people probably won't make it, and France in particular is still at an early stage of the "second wave".
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 4:33:39 GMT 1
This is what I've been saying for months now. Face masks could be giving people Covid-19 immunity, researchers suggestMask wearing might also be reducing the severity of the virus and ensuring that a greater proportion of new infections are asymptomatic www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/face-masks-could-giving-people-covid-19-immunity-researchers/And even if it turns out that things aren't quite as simple, the good thing about masks is that you're not risking anything by wearing one. Most of the things in this world that claim to work this well for whatever purpose come with risks. A facial mask isn't one of them. Oh, of course unless you're actually a computer simulation, created by a 14 year old alien in the basement, who somehow feels the "false sense of security" by wearing one. |
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 4:52:36 GMT 1
"POLLS DON'T MEAN SHIT!"
Trailing behind in fucking OHIO.
LOL @ that unpopular fuck.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 5:33:29 GMT 1
The US government, including the FDA, CDC, HHS etc., has lost all the credibility on Covid-19.
There's no need to believe them even when they are actually right. Trust other sources even if you are American.
They betrayed Americans.
I wouldn't say this in public, but enough is enough. The presidential system is truly a mistake. It poisons everything.
But America wanted its own royal family, so we got George Washington.
...Of course that was hyperbole, but every single government institution in the US is politicized now. Every single one.
And that's what you can NOT say about the UK.
Say what you will about the evil of the British bureaucracy. It's still superior to the childish presidential system.
Sorry I'm not a good democrat.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 5:46:40 GMT 1
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 5:56:42 GMT 1
I've been swinging between my secret crackpot accidental immunity theory and "Don't be obtuse, masks can perfectly explain the whole thing, and no need for that stupid conspiracy-theory-esque crap" for months now. Haven't settled yet largely due to countries like Thailand.
BTW, if you are a believer in facial masks, and encounter the fools who want to argue with you, just mention Japan, the country with the highest mask-wearing rates, second least strict lockdown and lowest testing rates among developed countries. In all likelihood they think this country has done some hard lockdown or has an impeccable testing/isolation regime ala South Korea (which it hasn't, and doesn't, respectively, of course). To those people, typically the US and Europe is the whole world. You can tell as they tend to go on and on and on about Sweden like it's as important as China or something. Haven't a clue about any other region.
You know you can toy with them with what you have learned about this country in this thread.
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Post by miscmisc on Sept 25, 2020 6:38:41 GMT 1
I still believe we won't lose as many lives as we did in spring. But the main reason isn't about the virus; It's about the treatment. We have gotten MUCH better at treating the Covid-19 patients, about twice as good. That's huge.
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