wo people with budgets to justify and compete for whose existence very much depends upon a threat in the region, suggesting they should be given more money because there’s imminent threat? They’re not exactly going to suggest (publicly) that it’s all just noise are they?

They would have jobs and funding regardless, US top brass don’t have a habit of publicly overegging a situation. Again, their build up in the Pacific isn’t business as usual.

he US navy has been arguing up the Pacific theatre threat since 1947 and they’re unlikely to change tune now.

Because it’s probably the most populous, diverse and economically important region in the world.

Do I know better than they do? Not a chance, do I trust public comment which justifies their own continued existence over (for instance) all those US forces stationed in Germany, no not a jot of it

Russia isn’t a near peer adversary on the rise economically.

Anyway, the Army are saying the same as well.

https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/03/11/china-declares-war-us-inevitable-army-general-highlights-need-fighting-vehicles.html

“The top uniformed soldier in China, chairman of China’s Central Military Commission, stated that war with the United States is inevitable,” Coffman said. “That is the first time China has made that statement publicly.”

I wouldn’t be so sure about China being too clever to attempt an invasion of Taiwan.

It will all kick off in the Pacific over Taiwan given time – maybe not a world war but a huge regional conflict involving the US is almost a dead certainty IMO.

Ukraine and Taiwan are great for some sabre rattling but no one on either side is dumb enough to start trading fire over them.

They absolutely are – the whole PLA and PLAN modernization effort basically revolves around taking Taiwan by force. The US’s Asia Pacific commander Philip Davidson thinks it could happen within six years, Indo-Pacific Commands Admiral John Aquilino thinks it WILL happen within one year and that it’s China’s top priority.

Russia might invade Ukraine, China Taiwan, but so long as they do it without shooting any nato forces in the process nato won’t do anything more than issue a strongly worded statement about it.

The Yanks would absolutely trade shots with China over Taiwan – first they are bound by convention to defend Taiwan, secondly they have built up a huge amount of firepower in the region, more than necessary for a bit of sabre rattling and deterrence and thirdly their pivot to a defense model better suited to the Pacific highlights that. They’ve been building up force with the intention of using it.

iphone 12 is still a lightning connector – do you mean the rumored fully wireless charging for the 13 or magsafe?

I just wish Apple would invent a more reliable charging connector than **** lightning or USB-C.

Poodle

Poodles actually make epic attack/police dogs – the problem is, is that most people laugh at the sight of them so they end up having to be used in bitey mode more.

I hear someone chucked a spear at him.

Some of us who look outside the mainstream media for our news have realised that all lockdowns are was a dramatic and panicked public response designed to convince the electorate that our governments were acting decisively to address the perceived threat of Covid-19.

Unfortunately, not knowing what those symptoms actually signified meant that my partner didn’t bother, but then decided she ought to call 111 the next morning. That was the morning I found her in the throes of a cerebral venus thrombosis, which meant she was dying in front of me. It’s far too late now, but the knowledge, and the statement from Thrombosis UK on the BBC this morning that anyone exhibiting symptoms should get help, as treatment can be given has taken my fragile recovery and smashed it into fragments.
I’m heartbroken, I just don’t know how to get past this.
My beautiful Joey, nothing can replace what you brought into my life.

Internet hugs from me, pal.

There will be a significant drop off in uptake in the over 30s age group now I assume. Folks that were swithering whether to get it will think it’s not worth it.

I’m assuming every one over 30 will be getting the az version now that they need to keep stocks of the others for the under 30s. Cant see how that doesn’t impact the timeline of end of July

I was hoping to get one of the others purely as I thought they were more effective against the other strains but that hope has gone out the window

Which will have knock on effects on the Covid Passport policy or the music/events/nightlife industry.

Apparently vaccine hesitancy is at 50 percent in France and was at 75 percent before the EMA approved the Pfizer vaccine.

Which is **** nuts. The only other sensible countries seem to be the Italians and the Spanish – maybe that’s because they’re socially less liberal than the Dutch/French/Germans?

Which again, was always a strong possibility.

The amount of people who shit themselves at the thought of a vaccine because they think they’ll turn autistic and then huff a cigarette whilst doing a 5th line of coke is mind boggling. One minor additional risk that was identified later on was always going to cause a shit storm. There are lots and lots of people out there who think the man/nerds/elites are out to get them.

The vaccine programme will fail based on that, unless governments make it mandatory world wide, especially here in Europe where vaccine stupidity seems to be more rampant than the UK.

There won’t be another lockdown. There will be another wave of hospitalisations and deaths. This government will take the same decisions in the face of thousands of deaths that it did early last year… that is to let them happen… or to at least leave it to companies and the public to act to prevent them without government restrictions. It was only when it was being told that half a million deaths were possible that it took the measures it did. If deaths and serious illness over the next 12 months can be kept lower than they were over the previous twelve, without any lockdowns, they will just be allowed to happen. I wish it was otherwise, but people need to be read for that. The lockdowns we have had were to keep levels of illness and deaths to the levels they have been. They’ll anything up to that level happen again for another year if they feel reasonable safe that we are protected from an even bigger cost.

Don’t agree, I think the government has become increasingly politically risk averse since then – they will do anything and everything in the name of optics. If the public panic, the government will lockdown.

We’re talking about a society that has CCTV on every street plus some of the most draconian terror laws and anti-protest laws in Europe. Risk tolerance on a personal day to day level is much lower than it is here in the Netherlands.

On the other hand, the B.1.351 variant seems to reduce the efficacy of the AstraZeneca vaccine against mild to moderate illness. We do not yet have clear evidence on whether it also reduces effectiveness against severe disease.

This has always been the case. We need to suppress the virus while we roll out the vaccines. Chile might be learning this the hard way.

No it hasn’t and it isn’t – that’s a failure to understand what that article says.

We’re easing lockdown, if you hadn’t noticed everyone is expecting a normal summer and Q3/4 2021.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/apr/06/global-rollout-of-vaccines-is-no-longer-a-guarantee-of-victory-over-covid-19

From members of the Lancets Covid-19 Commission Taskforce on Public Health

Put simply, the game has changed, and a successful global rollout of current vaccines by itself is no longer a guarantee of victory.

I’ve said it dozens of times, but the relationship between antibody titer and sterile protection from infection has not been quantified. That being said, there is concern that the reduction in titers (number of times you can dilute serum and maintain viral inhibition) for sera from Ox/AZ when tested against the South Africa variant B.351.1 is concerning. Keeping it at bay is prudent. Serious infections with COVID19 seem to be mitigated even for this strain, however. That is what matters and I have always said the same. Transmission reductions are an upside, because over sufficient time, we will all catch SARS-CoV2 at some point (can you guess I’m a “zero covid sceptic” 😉 )

Agreed, but the epidemiologists who were asked – were not worried about current strains but worried about the increased risk of selection for new strains at current vaccination rates in the developing world. What I took away from that article is that they, like me are worried about our ability to supply vaccines in a timely manner.

But the solution is now an operational rather than scientific one. Production of new vaccine strains and implementation will fall into line

The operational solution has always been the hardest one to solve. The point that some epidemiologists have been raising that whilst the developing world has very low vaccination rates, the risk of a vaccine resistant strain being selected for increases. In the short term we are far from being able to rapidly manufacture new vaccine variants for the West at the supply rates required to fully vaccine Europe and America in a timely fashion let alone for the developing world.

Keeping prevalence low this year (internationally as well as at home) will buy us much needed time. If we don’t, there is a greater number of opportunities for mutations resistant to (current) vaccines to develop and catch us unready, and for them to spread faster and wider than track and trace can cope with.

Which gets back to my point from a number of pages back, people are expecting this to be over once the vaccine is fully rolled out by the end of July. They are not expecting continual measures to keep prevalence low in the medium term until we build the requisite manufacturing capability.

How happy do we think the public are going to be with continuing attempts to keep prevalence low until 2023, when they expected it to be over by the summer?

production will ramp up,

In two to three years, by which time people will be livid if social distancing is continuing in some form or another.

Anyway, any thoughts on this clickbait from Oxfam TiRed?

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/two-thirds-epidemiologists-warn-mutations-could-render-current-covid-vaccines

has anyone tried to read his Maps of Meaning book? It’s 300 pages of total parklife crypto bollocks, but the illustrations / diagrams what really make it for me

Hahah that looks like something from Scientology.

It does seem like he went off the deep end properly, doesn’t it?

some of which make ominous cracking noises

That’s the FBI malware scanning your porno collection. :D

Ahh but they made it harder

It can still be done.

Get networking on Linkedin or use a dating app to find yourself a local if you’re single :P

Sadly, it isn’t. This is the problem. The joke is on all of us collectively.

Ha. Ha.

I escaped bro, you can to.

When you leave you realize you were living on an island inhabited by lunatics and it feels like you’ve just escaped the Shawshank Prison.

Nobody warned me benzos were addictive? Really? Cool story bro.

You’d be surprised by how some doctors in other countries give them out like sweets, I know someone here in the Netherlands who got addicted to them because the docs just threw drugs at a relatively minor psychological problem (in the grand scheme of things) instead of putting them through long term therapy.

If he got addicted to Benzos, it doesn’t surprise me that he’s been more unhinged of late and posting twitter replies like that. There are usually fairly severe reasons for that kind of addiction.

Interesting Atlantic article, cheers.

I don’t actually hate Peterson as much as others, I think his views are often siezed upon by deranged incel lunatics but unlike people like Katie Hopkins, he does seem to attempt to understand other peoples points of view. He’s an arrogant, haughty prick but he’s capable of engaging and being engaged by others in real debate – and his views have shown some fluidity. It’s just a shame that intelligence sometimes translates to **** batshit insane viewpoints.

Hah.

Actually surprised Jordan gave in there and saw the flaw in his logic – something tells me his real views are different to his contrarian stances.

Women through-out history have managed to, prevent and indeed hold back the tides of male violence including male violence to women, wars, murder and other crimes…by just getting married to them…Oh wait…

I mean I dislike Peterson and I don’t like his theories on enforced monogamy because if it wasn’t for having found the perfect other half, I’d prefer to just be playing Xbox, Mountain Biking, casually dating and enjoying singledom. I like people and socializing but there are very, very few people I can cope with on a day in, day out basis.

However….

https://www.economist.com/the-economist-explains/2018/03/19/why-polygamy-breeds-civil-war

https://medium.economist.com/big-love-and-big-war-exploring-the-link-between-polygamy-and-violence-67306fb3c41b

Having said that, Polygamy isn’t the automatic alternative to “enforced monogamy” and shouldn’t be seen as such. Not to mention the models that are studied are essentially just another form of male ownership of women. It’s just kind of an interesting topic, there’s quite a lot of sociological research on it actually.

This is just nonsense. Sexism thrown in for good measure? So anyone who isn’t the tough, hardman you claim to be, is somehow weak and ‘effeminate’? Something like that?

Agreed with all of your posts.

I also very much doubt he’s gobbed off to anyone who’s used to or perfectly happy and in fact entertained by meting out extreme violence. People try to de-escalate for a reason, there’s always an outside chance that the person you’re about to confront is actually one of those nutters that can put down four or five others. Fightings a last resort measure.

This threads so **** stupid.

or not .. it’s all down to jury selection.

I don’t know what kind of paranoid world you’re living in Steve, but unless you kill the other person, if you were attacked or threatened most of the time it doesn’t even go to court. The police generally do not seem to care if you go a bit too far with some shifty eyed scrote that’s known to them. The amount of police officers that get away with pushing the boundaries of reasonable force is testament to that as well.

It’s simple, if you kill them or do something stupid like use a weapon that you’ve mentioned on a forum or you’ve bottled them and then kerb stomped them for good measure on CCTV on a Friday night in town – you’ll have to answer for something.

You stream your teams meeting over discord to take the piss out of your boss with your mates – whilst drinking – at 11am.

You also forget to mute teams.

I’m a degenerate.

Move country.

There’s less pricks around here in Limburg, even Geert Wilders seems left of the Tories.

But TBH I’ve just started calling people who say things like mentally ill people should be shot, horrible little people to their faces.They usually seem taken aback by it.

If I’m wrong and your tale is genuine then I apologise. In either case, it’s no longer my concern. The team have means of cross-referencing and will work it out one way or the other.

Well yes Cougar, I agree – but all of that individualism is wrapped up in a wannabe “I’m hard” America light individualism. They all think they can get rich and live the ‘Murican dream in little England. People wouldn’t be say “Who do you think you are”, if they aren’t up for confrontation. In Japan, you’d get sheepish looks of embarrassment and profuse apologies.

spray-painted cock & balls out of my bedroom window

Must admit, I did once put a huge cock and balls on the parents driveway using a power hose.

Sorry, but you sound like the sort of person who looks for an excuse as to why you shouldn’t get involved.

The last time a mate of mine got involved – he ran over and king hit the guy in the back of the head – knocked him unconscious, the guy banged his head on the way down and was unconscious for a good hour. His wife was even more traumatised because of that by the end of the night.

Domestic violence doesn’t always and often doesn’t need more violence to solve, it’s such a retarded idea – what’s needed is better mental health provision, education and intervention teams.

Really? What a bizarre assertion on which to base your explanation of the societal problems of 21st century Britain. Presumably there’s evidence to support this? Excuse me if I seem sceptical, but in my experience this is true of only a very small proportion of the population.

Yes really.

You only notice the British love for it when you leave, be it Spitfires or glassing each other on a Friday night.

Ah, the art of insulting people who hold different beliefs than you do showing how to use aggressive behaviour whilst decrying violence.

The countries in the world with the highest levels of violence are also those with the highest levels of mob justice and lowest levels of institutional effectiveness and legitimacy. They aren’t the countries with the lowest levels of mob justice or “normalized violence”. Things are getting shitter in the United Kingdom not because of pacifist lefty wokism but because yall voted Tory who have spent the past 11 years underfunding your police, undermining your judiciary and encouraging further increases in inequality.

Renormalising violence simply means that. The majority have become denormalised whilst the minority exploit that.

On an individual level this is standing up to bullies but this is on a level of the national psyche. What is missing is the expectation that saying “what you doing to do about it” will be met with several people saying “whatever it takes” and we are all sticking about as witnesses.

This isn’t really complicated it is simply readdressing the denormalisation of violence in return for violence as a realistic outcome.

Dropping litter may not see very important, after all you can just pick up after them but what they are being taught is by issuing a threat of violence they can get away with anything.

Over the last few weeks I’ve had multiple people trying to steal from my drive right in front of me. I started off with “excuse me” … “went through please leave my property now” to which all I got was violent threats. I picked up a 4′ steel bar and asked them to leave again and they couldn’t leave quickly enough.
I didn’t “need” the steel bar, the steel bar was simply to convince them I was serious and to actually avoid violence by the threat of violence. Yes ironic…

You’re a fool.

The Dutch manage to not litter without “renormalizing” violence, Maastricht is the safest city that I’ve ever lived in by far. Whilst Japan is one of the safest countries in the world and yet has a society that tries to avoid conflict at all costs.

People resort to crime and corruption less when society is more equitable, education is better, the national culture values caring about others and housing encourages the development of real communities.

The reason the UK is shit, is because everyone there thinks they’re “hard”, they have the American style “independent” attitude, hate taxes and secretly want to be like the Americans and use violence/guns to solve everything.

The whole country is suffering from a collective personality disorder.

From the outside looking in, it’s increasingly looking like the States or one of those failed borderline democracies that have no cultural values holding it’s disparate people together.

For anyone interested – this is the series

https://www.thereviewgeek.com/becomingyou-s1review/

Not sure I would. Also kids much younger than that were getting about on trains in Berlin when I was there a few years ago.
Our society is making it far too hard for people to become independent.

In Japan, as a right of passage, they have much, much younger kids, around 6, go out by themselves to get some shopping – and this is in the middle of Tokyo.

There’s a show about child development around the world on Apple TV, that showed how ridiculously coddled Anglosphere kids were. There was a bit where some 7-8 year old Malay kids were running their own freediving fishing trips and then it cut to the American kid of the same age trying to decide what gender clothes to choose.

Must admit I had to laugh at the Labour MP commenting that you don’t earn the right to peaceful protest and liberty by rioting.

Conveniently forgetting the American War of Independence and hundreds of pro-democracy riots that have taken place around the world, including the Hong Kong ones that the government supported.

The whole country is full of dimwitted **** wits.