What Do You Think Today?

[Avatar]

Eh, I'm ambivalent about the statue thing. I think acknowledging the past is important. Maybe they could have just changed the plaque to reflect the relevant lesson... (We had a very similar thing here a year or two back with statues of Rhodes etc.)

--A

[peter]

Yeah, they tried that Av in respect of the toppled Bristol statue. On two occasions (no, three I believe) the council debated the placing of an additional plaque outlining the less philanthropic elements of his history, but they rejected the proposal on the grounds that it was not the image of Bristol that they wanted promoted to the tourists who are the main people who read such plaques. Clearly their town's history of slaving was not something they were anxious to send visitors away with.

[Avatar]

I see Banksy has made a good suggestion:

He said they should retrieve the statue, replace it, and then put a bronze right next to it depicting protestors tearing down the original one.

--A

[Kizza]

Mondays.... Oh the weekends go by so quickly.
Nice to watch a bit of Rugby League on the tv again. It almost feels like the triffids have left the country!

[peter]

The NHS can be likened to a bathtub into which money flows as water, but in which no plug has been placed in the plughole. The effect of the current lockdown (even in it's partially lifted state) cannot but have the effect of turning off the taps in respect of that money - and the consequence to the NHS will be no different to that of the bath. And as the problems associated with that falling water level become manifest it cannot but present the best opportunity yet for the hungry eyes of the private sector to turn once again (if they were ever turned away) toward the greatest prize of all - the UK National Health Service. Most assuredly private health providers will be ready to 'step up to the plate' to fill the vacuum caused by the dearth of tax receipts by the Exchequer over the coming months and years, when servicing the debts we have incurred by virtue of the furlough scheme andthe business support grants will take precedence in the Tory minds, over something so prosaic as supporting the NHS. And let's face it - this will provide a perfect opportunity to do nothing other than that which many of them have wanted to do for decades anyway. Covid-19 has provided the perfect conditions, the perfect alter upon which the sacred cow of the NHS can be slaughtered and at last an opportunity exists for the private sector to access the huge pot of wealth, thus far denied them, that can be obtained by getting in-between people and their money when they are sick. Someone on this site once said that in the US, you are only ever one serious illness away from bankruptcy - and that's the best case scenario for the bulk of people even with the best health insurance available. Without it you are truly screwed. We in the UK are going to discover this in the near future and the tears cried over it will be the tears of blood shed by the victims of our loss.

[Kizza]

Peter. There is no way to polish that turd.
I reckon there is a new doomsday game coming out on playstation and what we are seeing on tv right now is an official trailer. Wonder who the cult behind this worldwide madness will emerge as being?
Seems they aren't interested in an "Island in the sun" like most other civilized extremist cults. Wrack and ruin, physical and financial seems the goal.
I think we will be moving further into the bush.

[peter]

I am aghast! My jaw is hanging open in disbelief! On the front page of every newspaper in the UK is the story of the "wonder drug" that has been found to be the saving of two thirds of the unfortunate people who find themselves on ventilators in the ICU units of our hospitals.

The drug in question, dexamethasone, is probably the oldest, cheapest, most widely used steroid on the shelves of any clinician, veterinary or medical, alive today. It has been for the last fifty years. It is the therapeutic equivalent of aspirin, the go-to drug of every lazy medical professional involved in frontline treatment, and with good reason - because it works!

Back in the day in the veterinary practice, our vets used sometimes to joke of a colleague "he's an antibiotics and steroids man". That was because when you went through the vets entries in the day books - what animals he had seen and what treatment he had given them - the entries would read one after the other "pen and dex, pen and dex, pen and dex". This was penicillin and dexadreson (the injectable form of dexamethasone). This combination was so easy for a vet to slip into because fuck it - it simply worked! Over and over again! Antibiotic to cover infection (or secondary if the problem was viral), steroid to cover the damage that an uncontrolled immune response causes.

It simply beggars belief that this ever so simple 'cure all' line of treatment has so been pushed to the background in the eyes of our tech-blinded age, that it has taken five months and countless thousands of unnecessary deaths before some at the end of his tether emergency room doctor has thought to reach for a dusty old bottle from the back of the shelf and thought "Well, nothing else works - I might as well give this a go." I kid you not, a dozen times since this thing has begun I've thought to myself "they must have tried pen and dex to control the cytokine storm that is the real killer here". Fuck! I simply cannot believe it! Heard my fucking ears aright!

[Cagliostro]

That's crazy, and what an interesting perspective you have on this Peter. Again, it just seems to drive home to me that doctors and IT troubleshooters jobs are pretty similar, although one is dealing with life and death, and the other is dealing with machines. I've been stunned so often while taking tickets where they didn't even try the most basic of tests - rebooting the damn thing. And it seems so like so much of what I see while troubleshooting computer problems of being like, "well, this is a new problem, so we need a brand new solution to this problem" instead of going through what has worked in the past for similar.

Wish it was a cure though.

[peter]

I kid you not Cag, this was such a basic plank of treatment in sixties and seventies veterinary practice that hardly ever a case was seen that didn't get a shot. Cortisone, dexamethasone, call it what you will was such a big standard go-to drug that it became almost a sign of a vets laziness and professional stagnation if he was seen to use it. This refusal to be thought of as anything other than a go-ahead cutting edge clinician among his peers can cause great damage - great damage - as we see here.

As a drug it takes a sledgehammer to the immune system - and has some beastly side-effects - but if you are dying in the grip of an uncontrolled immune response then it's an absolute life-saver and the side-effects are immaterial. It's just staggering that it has taken this long for it to be realised.

[I'm Murrin]

I'd assume the apparent delay would be down to the need to conduct clinical trials before announcing the results.

[peter]

Well no doubt- but that is ridiculous in itself; the pluses and minuses of steroid therapy are so well known, so well documented, that to delay such an obvious corse of treatment on the alter of clinical trials is bordering on the surreal. And to a present the 'finding' as if it were a new discovery .......

Enough; what is done is done.

[Avatar]

The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.

--A

[peter]

In a jolly old nutshell Av!

[Avatar]

Still, pretty sure old Solomon never envisaged AI and drones and nano-tech...

--A

[peter]

No doubt Harry Potter author JK Rowling will be over the moon at having b-rate actor Lawrence Fox ((he of Question Time notoriety - the Katie Hopkins of the acting world) jump to her defence over her apparent implication that trans-women were not actually....well, women. About as useful as having Herman Goering endorse your opinions on the merits or otherwise of surrealism in the arts. Still, somebody had to step up to the plate to protect the shrinking violet, and who better than a good old fashioned right wing Tory throwback who no doubt believes the world was a much better place when women were barefoot, pregnant and in the kitchen ("You take a look at these pictures of kittens my dear - don't be upsetting yourself with all this thinking about complicated things like gender identity and homo's and stuff {aside; Nothing that a good horsewhipping wouldn't sort out}") No doubt her PR gurus and accountants are wetting their pants as I speak; this kind of press can convert into a north-face of the Eiger like drop of the line on the graph if not carefully managed, and the imepecably manicured Rowling brand will need some pretty vigorous massaging to get it back on side. And as for the snotty nosed nonentities Radcliffe and Grint; the pair owe Rowling everything that they have, but threw her under the bus without so much as a second thought........

Perfidious bastards!

[sgt.null]

The left eating their own is awesome and
Terrifying at the same time.

[peter]

The left tend to be thin and rangy in my country Sarge; the rich fare in terms of autoprandial activity is these days mainly to be found on the Right! And let's face it; in the UK, if not exactly face down in the gutter the left is certainly beginning a long and protracted recuperating period and could only manage the thinnest of soups as presented in the form of these celebrity spats: the serious gourmandising in this respect is right up there in Tory central office where a feast is in progress as we speak.

[Kizza]

Today I cleaned the gutters which are the hard to reach bastards that no amount of gutter guard can protect. I do it once a year. I was late this year and paid for it. Did not fall off a ladder but got the death wobbles up enough at least twice that I am still exhaling about it. Have to come up with a better idea.
People who disregard COVID restrictions. Selfish buggers.
All amps are switched off until further notice. Give me good and clean acoustic sounds from which only fair dinkum heart comes.
Bless you all, and go the Rabbitohs!

[Avatar]

Cover them over with mesh to keep the leaves etc out? When they dry off, they'll blow away. (Maybe. )

(I've cleaned some terrifying gutters in my time... )

--A

[Kizza]

Yes the mesh works most of the time for most of the roof. The gutters in between - where roof meets extension roof - are the death-wobbling, ladder challenge. I think I need a scaffold.....

Our dog got spooked through the night. Headbutted me as I was sleeping. I gave him a pat, he went back out into the hallway, and i went back to sleep.
Got up showered and shaved, dressed, drove to the office. Said hello to half a dozen people, albeit from a fair distance. Then I had a cup of coffee. Went to the bathroom, and looked in the mirror to see I have an absolute beauty of a black eye/ shiner/ call it what you will!
This morning has taught me that my vanity must have left the building.

I shoulda stayed in bed!