Saturday 16th & Sunday 17th September 2023

[refitman]

Morning all.

[frog222]

Morning refit

So the IHRA and the UK EHRC are deeply flawed orgs </surprise> !



Starmer is costing the LP a hell of a lot in legal fees!

SOME of them here --
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... rt-dropped

[frog222]

Licking up, kicking down is also very much the Starmer style --




-------------------------------------------------
So much for the forecast weekend heatwave, that for this afternoon just reduced to 25° and the onslaught of rain brought forward to tlate onight !

Opened shed and disturbed Cat comfortably installed on the mower seat

Will do some mowing strimming and preparation of stormwater drainage before the deluge .........

[AnatolyKasparov]

Stopping the high speed line six miles from Euston really does sum up Spreadsheet Sunak perfectly.

[refitman]

You love to see it. Counter protestors in Dublin, coming out again Kellie Jay Keen and her bigot friends

[frog222]

IndySAGE's Professor Griffin strikes again --



Note in the thread that Which vaxx it is is not clear either, are they using up stocks which were good late last year/in the Spring ?

US is going for XBB for all over SIX MONTHS ...

Unclear what they are doing here too .

[frog222]

.
Trump train loses another passenger --

Very outspoken she is too !

[refitman]

Looks like Brand is done

[refitman]

Just the best people leaping to his defence

[frog222]

Good news for me from frogtwitter, uniquely XBB boosters now from 2nd October but not yet extended to everyone, a definite BOO there !

Less good news --

" En alternative à l'ARNm, le vaccin de Sanofi peut être utilisé en attendant celui de Novavax ciblant XBB.1.5, en novembre (si autorisation de l'EMA)."

From much sharing from the pros I'm tending towards the Nova, but will keep watching ....

[frog222]

‘Lessons have been forgotten’: is the UK ready for a new Covid variant?
With worrying mutations, limited vaccine rollout, vastly reduced testing and a creaking health service, experts are predicting a tough few months ahead"

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/ ... la-variant

This G article is a classic of going around all the houses without telling the reader very bloody clearly , and succinctly FFS, what the govt is already doing wrong and what the scientists strongly suspect (without being 100% sure, OF COURSE) .

The author has not done enough homework to be able to explain to common mortals WHY covid is in another dimension completely compared to colds and flu ( which BTW I've never had in some 76 years on this earth !) .

As a uni essay I'd give her a C-- for effort in assembling a variety of sources which someone else could then check out . The very first one François Balloux of UCL is FAMOUS for predicting that covid would be over by Autumn2020 , he is one of my prime candidates for isolation on South Georgia along with Matt Hancock and a few hundred more .

From my reading and experimenting on humans, the most striking explanation of covid is to compare it to HIV/AIDS .

First of all it wakens up the audience, they WOULD NOT want to acquire HIV and subsequently HIV3 aka AIDS .

Would they ?

[frog222]

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I've always thought Russel Brand was a creep, but having just watched the Dispatches about him what's most disturbing is the number of Channel 4 and BBC executives who were fully informed about his predatory sexual behaviour and didn't give a shit. He could get them ratings which would make them money or advance their careers. What's that you say? Brand's not safe to be around our female staff? Fine we'll remove all women from the production crew.

I mean while I've never understood his appeal at least that was just a matter of taste. These people were ignoring complaints raised by their own staff, they knew he was a danger to women and kept hiring him anyway. He apparently got his dick out in front of a minor while on Radio 2 and they didn't fire him, they didn't even fire him after the Andrew Sachs thing, he resigned. Channel 4 kept having him on for nearly 20 years despite receiving multiple complaints which they now deny being aware of because technically those complaints would have gone to outside production companies.

The sooner our media (and population at large) learn to recognise the signs of malignant narcissism the better. Whether it be Trump in the U.S or the likes of Brand or Farage here. Because it's the mainstream media who make these people, at least in this country, despite them now decrying it. Without the platform it gave them Brand would have been a nobody, probably dead in some dingy back alley, and Farage a half forgotten joke.

I would say the apex of vileness (apart from the allegations of sexual assault) from tonight's programme was an interview Brand did with Jimmy Savile on Radio 2 in which he asks to meet Savile but Savile says he's not interested unless Brand has a sister he can send instead. As a compromise Brand offers to send his female researcher (who he names) naked which pleases Savile. That's some fucked up shit man.

[AnatolyKasparov]

I would treat Evolve Politics about as seriously as GB News as a reliable source, mind.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

Anyway I'm off to AK's neck of the woods next week to stay in a Cumbrian caravan park on one of those cheap deals you book months ahead because it seems like a good idea at the time.

According to the Met Office it's going to rain every single hour of every single day I'm there.

[AnatolyKasparov]

So typical Cumbrian weather then? One of the tarns holds the records for wettest locality in England (or at any rate it used to)

[Sky'sGoneOut]

I would treat Evolve Politics about as seriously as GB News as a reliable source, mind.

From the BBC article they use as a source.

There is a ban proposed only for "exploitative" zero-hours contracts - if workers welcome flexibility themselves, this would not prevented.

Which in one way makes sense because for some people just doing a few hours here and there is fine, however they tend to be people who are financially secure enough not to care, they're just topping up their income with a job on the side.

The problem comes when it's your actual job and who defines 'exploitative'? Surely any contract that doesn't guarantee work while expecting someone to make themselves available to do it at any time is exploitative?

It's much easier just to ban zero hour contracts altogether than it is to fanny about legislating opt outs and limits.

Besides, what was more disappointing was the total cave-in we had about not raising sick pay after we've just been through a pandemic which highlighted how shit sick pay is, which led to the Labour Party repeatedly calling for a rise in statutory sick pay. They went on about it, how it was a travesty that nobody could survive on, and yet now they've shamelessly switched stance and apparently it's fine.

Fucks sake.

[AnatolyKasparov]

That was always the thing with ZHCs though - some workers (even if a minority) have no problem with them or even welcome then.

It should be about choice and consent at the end of the day.

Don't disagree about sick pay, hopefully some decent proposal there still gets made in the end.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

So typical Cumbrian weather then? One of the tarns holds the records for wettest locality in England (or at any rate it used to)

Delightful. What a wonderful county. There's a bar in the caravan park. If it's raining and I've got nothing better to do than get drunk you're more than welcome to join me AK.

[Sky'sGoneOut]

[gilsey]

Which in one way makes sense because for some people just doing a few hours here and there is fine, however they tend to be people who are financially secure enough not to care, they're just topping up their income with a job on the side.

The problem comes when it's your actual job and who defines 'exploitative'? Surely any contract that doesn't guarantee work while expecting someone to make themselves available to do it at any time is exploitative?

It's much easier just to ban zero hour contracts altogether than it is to fanny about legislating opt outs and limits.

IMO the 'make themselves available at any time' part is the distinguishing feature.
Years ago I worked at an Arts centre and they had a bank of people who'd do evenings in the box office or on the bar when there was an event on, but it was entirely up to them to say yes or no when offered the work. Hard to see how the place could have operated without them.

[gilsey]

Surprised? You won't be.

[gilsey]

He should have been asked if they'd commit to taking it into London.

[refitman]

All the worst people you can think of, at the moment


I see that Allison Pearson, Claire Fox and Calvin Robinson have all jumped to Brand's defence.

[refitman]

Someone's cracked it!

[AnatolyKasparov]

I would rate an official policy document over what McFadden says in reply to predictable gotcha questions in interviews tbh.

[RogerOThornhill]

Good evening.

Apologies for being a little bit absent recently but things aren't good here. Went into see 'er indoors today and, given that I've never known her not to be doing something, to hear her say with a little bitterness "I can't do anything" is very sad. All I could say was "I'm so sorry" but what else can you say to that?

[refitman]

Oh Rog. I'd be offended if you chose to spend your time here, rather than taking care of yourself and others.

[AnatolyKasparov]

So typical Cumbrian weather then? One of the tarns holds the records for wettest locality in England (or at any rate it used to)

Delightful. What a wonderful county. There's a bar in the caravan park. If it's raining and I've got nothing better to do than get drunk you're more than welcome to join me AK.

Cumbria is a big place, you know. Where exactly are you?