excellent virus rant

[Bill Sloman]

On Monday, May 4, 2020 at 7:09:10 PM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:

On 02/05/2020 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:
On Sunday, May 3, 2020 at 2:54:38 AM UTC+10, Martin Brown wrote:
On 02/05/2020 16:06, Bill Sloman wrote:

<snip>

The other interesting statistic is that like with TB of old it is
killing a higher proportion of those it infects in poorer regions.

It's not that interesting - being poor is known to be damaging to
your health.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Spirit_Level_(book)

It is showing up as a factor of two difference between postcodes that
are really quite close together but with very different income levels.

deals with lots of consequences of social inequality, and poorer
health at the low end of the socio-economic spectrum is one of them.
The UK isn't as bad as the US, but it's pretty unequal. High levels
of inequality don't do anything positive for people at the top end of
the spectrum either. They do much better than the poor, but they
don't do as well as even poor people in more equal countries.

I'm not sure that is entirely true for the likes of the oligarchs that
actually control how the country is run for their benefit. A very small
number of people have become insanely rich by vulture capitalism.

Typically they own superyachts, private jets and small tropical islands.

And have servants and staff to look after them on the superyachts, in the private jets and on the tropical islands, who do seem to infect them with all the infectious diseases that the poorer classes have managed to acquire.

There are reasons for adopting universal health care, and coping with epidemics of various sorts is clearly one of them.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

Martin Brown <'''newspam'''@nezumi.demon.co.uk> wrote in
news:r8om3f$1vmv$1@gioia.aioe.org:

I'm not sure that is entirely true for the likes of the oligarchs
that actually control how the country is run for their benefit. A
very small number of people have become insanely rich by vulture
capitalism.

Typically they own superyachts, private jets and small tropical
islands.

Did you see that video of a bunch of rich boaters down in Florida
having a water party? One of them had a boat with a Trump wrap on the
whole boat.

Some jackass gym owner in California being stupid.

 

[John Larkin]

On Sat, 2 May 2020 12:36:33 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 1:52:37 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:


Why bother to think, when emoting takes less energy?

That comment applies to the Boris Johnson types with their "magical thinking." He's a joke, another one who's wrong about everything.

Thank you for reinforcing my point.

--

John Larkin Highland Technology, Inc
picosecond timing precision measurement

jlarkin att highlandtechnology dott com
http://www.highlandtechnology.com

 

[Bill Sloman]

On Tuesday, May 5, 2020 at 4:07:13 AM UTC+10, John Larkin wrote:

On Sat, 2 May 2020 12:36:33 -0700 (PDT),
bloggs.fredbloggs.fred@gmail.com wrote:

On Saturday, May 2, 2020 at 1:52:37 PM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:


Why bother to think, when emoting takes less energy?

That comment applies to the Boris Johnson types with their "magical thinking." He's a joke, another one who's wrong about everything.

Thank you for reinforcing my point.

John Larkin doesn't seem to have thought about anything except electronics for a very long time, and he doesn't think very hard about electronics either.

Custom-designed transformers are in the "too-hard" basket. That's an emotional response, though he does try to rationalise it.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney

 

[Tom Gardner]

On 03/05/20 14:55, Tom Gardner wrote:

On 03/05/20 14:16, Cursitor Doom wrote:
On Sat, 02 May 2020 16:42:32 +0100, Tom Gardner wrote:

Spiegelhalter is great at putting risks in context, and he points out
that it is rational to take greater risks (i.e. micromorts) when you are
older.

He gets wheeled out by the BBC for his 2p worth because they know he can
be trusted to tow the party line. He is as biased as they come.

Bullshit.

And there's now an example of why CD's random claim
is bullshit. It is so simple and obvious that even he
might be able to understand it...

The prime minister said Starmer “is right to draw
attention to the appalling statistics not just in
this country and but of course around the world.
I would echo what we’ve heard from Prof David
Spiegelhalter and others that at this stage,
I don’t think that international comparisons and
the data is yet there to draw all the conclusions
that we want.
“There will be a time to look at what decisions we
took and whether we could have taken different
decisions.”

However, a few hours later Spiegelhalter, tweeted:
“Polite request to PM and others: please stop using
my Guardian article to claim we cannot make any
international comparisons yet. I refer only to
detailed league tables-of course we should now
use other countries to try and learn why our numbers
are high”.

I don't know about the US, but in the UK requests
marked as "polite" are fighting words.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/may/06/author-of-guardian-article-on-death-tolls-asks-government-to-stop-using-it