What Do You Think Today?

[peter]

The Sky newscaster seemed confused.

He was reporting the news that for no discernable reason that anyone could come up with, for some reason the IDF had suddenly and out of the blue, stepped up its activities in the West Bank, simultaneously carrying out operations of sweep and secure in four different towns, with armoured bulldozers and machines gun toting soldiers, and killing 9 Palestinians in the process.

For some reason, hospitals seemed to focus their particular ire, and they surrounded them, carrying out body searches on anyone having the temerity to attempt to leave whilst they did so.

"What no-one can explain," he told us, "is why they are doing this right now, particularly at a time when tensions are already running high due to the escalating situation in the North of the country, with the Hezbollah attacks and everything."

Well funnily enough, I could have a shot at providing said explanation. Could be twofold really. Firstly, the Netenyahu administration hasn't the slightest intention of allowing any ceasefire to happen, let alone an actual end to hostilities. And secondly, an extension of the post October 7th activities into said West Bank is exactly what the doctor ordered, from the point of view of pursuing the long term goal of driving out the Palestinians from both Gaza and the West Bank (dead or by running away on foot - makes no difference to Netenyahu).

The Israelis wasted no time in saying that the Palestinians killed were Hamas members - but given that they consider every Palestinian a Hamas member - active or waiting to crawl out of the cot to join up - it isn't a particularly difficult claim to make.

Not of course, that the West Bank has been spared such punitive activities in the past 10 months anyway. The type of thing we were witnessing has been going on, on a smaller scale on a weekly basis since Israel began its right to defend itself, on October 8th. Netenyahu will be damned if the West Bank is going to escape his attention (after all, it's much more populated than miserable little Gaza, and prime real-estate for relocation and settlement), and so this latest activity just amplifies what has already been going on and simultaneously makes sure another hurdle is thrown between himself and the end of the conflict which would spell his downfall. He has been a devotee of the idea of a Greater Israel from day one of his political career and nothing he's doing now is at odds with that oft stated endpoint. As for two state solutions, that particular train has long left the station (if it was ever truly in there; it certainly never was in Netenyahu's eyes).

But why must the Western media persist in this show of cod nievity about the Israeli PM's activities, playing confused on the question of the reasons why he is doing what he is doing? Because to put it plainly, to admit the truth would be to bring into question the entire policy of support for Israel that our political leaders are following. You simply cannot maintain the narrative that this barbaric cruelty, the bulldozering of people's homes while they are inside them or not, the missile attacks on civilian areas, the singling out of hospitals for special attention, are anything to do with Israel defending itself, while acknowledging the reason why they are doing it. And so you must play dumb - the poor little confused partner who simply doesn't understand what is going on.

Our mainstream media has become virtually wall to wall propoganda now. It's only beyond its borders, out in the wilds of the alternative media scene, that you can find anything approximating to the truth - and the huge danger is that people will be duped into believing equally false narratives while out there as well. The loss of objective journalism and truthful reportage is one of the great failures that we have allowed to happen - a major step towards the Orwellian future that we all fear is coming upon us, but in truth is already here - we just haven't realised it yet. And it's been achieved by our leaders, in the mistaken belief that what they were doing was so important, so above our heads, that we could not be told the truth and be expected to form the right opinions for ourselves.

How does it go? War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength. Tell me about it!

[peter]

That's a longish piece above, so I'll just kick in a couple of points in a separate post, unrelated to the above.

Stamer has just made his big speech telling us how we're all in for terrible times while he sorts out the mess he's inherited. There's no money for lifting the two child benefits cap, no money for oap heating allowances. No money for refunding the savaged NHS.

Can I remind him that the top 350 people in the UK have the same collective wealth as Poland. As Poland. Sorry Kier, but there is sufficient money in the UK for the things you say you can't do. You just don't choose to go after it.

And this Russian geezer who has just been arrested in France - the one who runs this popular communication app Telegram (or whatever it's called. Don't know exactly why he's been arrested (being Russian can't have helped in the current climate) but it might be significant that he runs just about the only communication network where you can send a fully encrypted message to a third party, that no-one can read the content of except the recipient. And this level of personal privacy can never be allowed to persist or be tolerated, can it. Oh yes, our leaderships want us to be free......just not that free.

[Avatar]

...just about the only communication network where you can send a fully encrypted message to a third party, that no-one can read the content of except the recipient.

Ah, actually, I'm afraid the reverse is true...it is one of the only mainstream "chat" apps which is not end-to-end encrypted by default.

It ca be enabled, but unlike Whatsapp and most other chats, it is not automatic. In fact, this is cause for some confusion in the industry because it leaves them open to demands by law enforcement for records etc. which they cannot defend by telling them they are unreadable.

(Apparently arrested for "allowing criminal activity to take place on the platform" which seems pretty dubious to me, but anyway..

--A

[peter]

Fair comment Av.

I bow to your superior knowledge of the tech industry. It's one of the risks of using alternative media to try to get a clearer picture of what is actually going on in the world, that you will occasionally fall foul of inaccurate or false information. My source for this story was Neil Oliver who, in his weekly podcast (or whatever you call it) spoke of the arrest of this tech billionaire and lumped it alongside attacks currently being made on other giants of the industry, who he divided into two groups comprised of the 'capitulators' (ie those like Zuckerberg, who have folded to state pressure to compromise on privacy and content) and 'renegades' (ie those like Musk who have essentially dug their heels in, and are now suffering the consequences of having done so, via concerted political/legacy media campaigns against them. (Nb These descriptive terms are mine.)

Oliver was making the point that it's normally assumed that money gives one freedom to elude the clutches of the law on many issues - but he uses the example of this rich fellah from Telegram as an example that nowadays it mightn't be so true anymore. He'd used this encryption point as part of the above narrative, I guess as the possible reason behind the French police's snapping him up at the airport, so either he had his facts wrong on this or I've misremembered or misunderstood what he was was saying. Perhaps it was simply enough that the guy was Russian. It seems that these days to be both Russian and good simultaneously is not possible.

But the long and the short of it was that Oliver believes that truth has become an almost meaningless concept in today's world of media and politics. Everything is so skewed to fit a given narrative that the powers that be have decided is the one to be presented, that it (ie truth) has simply been reduced to whatever it is that the given holder of power says it is on any given day. So it might be something to do with encryption, or as you say, some other reason - but whatever it is, we cannot know because the truth has become so elastic. That which is true today could just as easily be disclaimed as false tomorrow; the media and our polities will volta face seamlessly and without shame on any issue they choose. And further, it isn't even that they will be acknowledge any change - they will do it without question being even raised by the client media.

Sufficient voices that you are pretty much forced to respect have observed that in the case of both Ukraine and Gaza, propoganda has all but usurped any truthful presentation of the facts. Knowledge of the historical contexts of these crises is all but suppressed in support of the exclusive presentation of the 'official' narrative. Attempt in any way to go up against this narrative (as perhaps some of these tech giants have, although perhaps on different issues), and all the money in the world will not protect you.

This was, I'm thinking, the basic point that Oliver was making. And perhaps as a sub point, that if these guys are not immune to the vengeful hand of the state falling upon them when they buck the trend, go against the grain, then what chance does the little guy have. (Nb. Oliver has himself suffered the consequences of 'going against the state run grain. His successful career as a BBC presenter of historical programmes lies in tatters; he's been thrown off the boards of the National Trust and other organisations he was involved in, for the sin of not going with the Covid narrative. For this crime of not running with the establishment pack on this issue, he's paid the price to his great cost. He understands, if anyone does, that the state will have its revenge against those who would gainsay it.

[peter]

I visited my dentist the other day, and on my way out in the manner of 'small talk' as I left, I commented half-jokingly on the doomsday speech that Kier Stamer had given from Downing Street the previous day.

"It was always the risk, of voting in Labour," she said, "that taxes would be increased."

I agreed, but observed that Andrew Marr had said, a month prior to the election, that irrespective of who won, taxes would be increased as a matter of unavoidable necessity.

We parted, but afterwards I had cause to think of our exchange.

The problem I see here is an almost universal one (certainly in the UK), that people simply forget that payment of taxes benefit us all. It isn't a case that taxes just dissapear without us getting any return for them - and this applies to the rich (and I'd class a dentist as rich by the standards of most UK income earners) just as much as the poor.

Put it like this.

How would this woman thrive as a dentist - how would she even be a dentist - if no-one paid any taxes? The dental school she attended only exists because of taxes. The roads people arrive at her practice on are there because people pay taxes. The money paid for her services comes (from near about fifty percent of her clients) from taxes.

And in the broader situation. We all of us benefit from the education of our young people to the highest possible level. No society of poverty stricken illiterates ever brought about the kind of situation that she now takes advantage of. The very streets and towns she walks in exist because of taxes. The health care that keeps people in a state where they even bother about their teeth (except beyond just having them ripped out in a market square when they hurt) wouldn't be there not but for taxes. So why is it that this (one would imagine) intelligent individual is incapable of understanding this most basic of facts - that no developed country where civilisation operates at its maximum potential, and to the benefit of all of its inhabitants, does so without the payment of taxes.

Now what my dentist was in fact thinking about was the two things that are likely to be increased in the October budget, capital gains tax and inheritance tax. These are the things that bother her, because they are the things that affect her. She likely has money invested in buy-to-let properties. She possibly has sufficiently wealthy parents from whom she will inherit. She thinks no further than her own personal wealth, when considering the desirability of additional taxation. But surely her very experience in her daily life must tell her that something drastic has to be done if we are to halt the decline that this country has slipped into? Does she not feel that very decline through the suspension of her car as she drives through potholes on the way to work, when (perhaps) her children are forced to leave the beaches they love playing on because of sewage in the water?

She, as much as the rest of us, will enjoy not having her income - her likely sizable income, unless she is a very poor dentist or business person - subject to additional tax. Why then the chagrin that perhaps her unearned income from say a second or third house sale, should be taxed at the same rate as her basic income? Or her unearned inheritance? Where exactly does she believe that the money will come from to provide all of the benefits she thoughtlessly enjoys by virtue of living in a developed society, will come from? If those benefits are to remain, if the decline that has visibly begun towards third world infrastructure and service levels is to be reversed, how exactly does she believe that reversal is going to be achieved?

Or perhaps she just doesn't think this far ahead? Perhaps it's the case that taxes are fine as long as it isn't something that affects me that's being taxed. Taxation should not be the dirty word that it is made out to be. This is a Conservative smokescreen that the public has bought into, to the point where I've heard people who haven't got a pot to piss in complaining about it. Now this is where the Labour administration should be concentrating its efforts: to overturn this failure to grasp the essential facts that if we want to halt our country's decline - the decline of the very streets and towns in which we live in - then taxes are our best friend in doing so. That when we pay, we build - and we build for all of us. So that we can all thrive. Dentist and doctor and shopkeeper and street-sweeper alike.

And ain't that a fact.

[Avatar]

...two groups comprised of the 'capitulators' (ie those like Zuckerberg, who have folded to state pressure to compromise on privacy and content) and 'renegades' (ie those like Musk who have essentially dug their heels in, and are now suffering the consequences of having done so, via concerted political/legacy media campaigns against them.

Ironically, Zuckerberg's message offering is end-to-end encrypted and cannot be read by anybody except the recipients. (And the less said about Musk the better. Renegade? Arsehole more like. )

Adding to the confusion is that Telegram's marketing implies that it is secure even though it isn't. Not by default anyway. (Which many users have found out to their dismay. )

Also, (and I think we have discussed this before), there seems to be wide misconceptions surrounding the whole "they're selling your data!!!" thing. For the most part, all they're selling is their knowledge of what your content consumption habits imply about you.

For example Facebook says, "x% of our users are males between 35 and 45 who join groups involving, or engage with content about, fishing. If you're a company that sells fishing equipment, pay us, and we will show your ad to those users."

All this drive toward "no tracking" and "privacy" is doing is ensuring that fishermen are shown ads for...nappies for example. Instead of for something that might be relevant to them, like lures.

--A

[peter]

But is this really what we're talking about here Av? I'm not so sure that state's interest in introducing regulation of the internet is as much concerned with prevention of advertisement in the fishing retail sector as (in part) ensuring they have a window into the private communications between individuals should they want to exercise it.

Again, I'm not in any sense in a position to really talk on this subject, because I simply don't know the facts - but secure (and potentially unbreakable) encryption of private messaging between individuals would (I'm guessing) not be something that the security services would be cockahoop about?

But, I do take your (implied) warning about believing everything that is put out on the alternative media outlets, just because a) it isn't coming from the bought-up legacy media, and b) presented by a priorly trusted individual with a smooth delivery.

As for Musk, he's an idiot and a dangerous one to boot. I'm well aware of this, trust me. But more dangerous than Zuckerberg? That'd be like arguing (to use Johnson's [?] example) over the precedency between a louse and a flea.



-----0-----

The Times, Telegraph and Express today, all see fit to use their front pages as advertising for the weight-loss drug Ozempic.

Novo Nordisk, the pharmaceutical giant that produces this drug must have sprung serious money behind the scenes to get this onto so many papers simultaneously, but when you have esteemed professors of cardiology from top university hospitals in the States hailing the product as "a fountain of youth", I'm guessing half your work is already done.

Ten studies presented at the European Society of Cardiology yesterday all cited the "benefits" of the drug, beyond that for which it was originally developed. That slowing down the effects of aging were principal amongst these quoted benefits makes it all the easier as a sell to the media, but you'd have to be pretty green behind the ears not to sniff out the sickly smell of something rotten behind such a sudden confluence of presentation, centered around this one particular product. And big pharma is not exactly shy when it comes to jostling for position in the public consciousness, well aware that a hundred thousand people all going to their doctors on Monday morning asking for prescriptions for Ozempic exerts an upwards pressure all of its own, to match the downward one from the media into the polity. It's cleverly thought out stuff. I'm betting that if you looked in the journals relating to pharmaceutical products this week you'd see it well represented in glossy ad's there as well. (The invitations to practice principals and procurement managers to attend expenses paid 'seminars' at luxury resorts in St.Lucia will no doubt follow shortly.)

Not that I'm cynical of course. No doubt Ozempic is exactly what 'She who Must be Obeyed' would have reached for, had said fountain not been conveniently situated at the end of her back garden, but I can't help thinking that a bit more attention to saving the lives of children in Gaza, rather than preserving those of aging celebrities in Malibu, might be a more important focus of attention for our most significant press output of the day.

[peter]

A report in this morning's Telegraph tells of a Ukrainian soldier who, following transportation from the battle front in Ukraine to a hospital in London, had his leg amputated by virtue of it's being infected by antimicrobial resistant bacteria, that had been resilient to treatment by nine different antibiotics.

Doctors are apparently in a spin because of the rising threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is resulting in significant global mortality every year, with figures that run into the millions.

The response of experts is to request international agreement on the further limiting of the dispensing of antibiotics, overuse of which they say, is driving the problem.

Well certainly bacteria will develop ways of circumventing the (to them) toxic effects of antibiotics - this is how evolution works, by overcoming threats and problems - but I'm not sure that the problem is as simple as is being presented, or indeed that the solution is simply to restrict the use of the available products in cases where they are needed.

Any clinician knows the efficacy of antibiotic therapy declines as the invading pathogen 'gets a hold' on the patient, and an individual that will respond well to antibiotic therapy early in his infection may do so less well if the infection is left to become more advanced in terms of its grip. Thus, the practice of witholding therapy until it is deemed to be unavoidably necessary will, by virtue of this fact, inevitably lead to higher mortality figures - deaths that could have been avoided had antibiotic therapy been instigated earlier - that in themselves will offset any benefits gained by the so called 'slowing down' of AMR by the adoption of this practice.

Secondly, AMR will, by virtue of the way it develops in response to the usage of a given antibiotic, decline if that particular antibiotic (or the class of antibiotics of which it is a member) is halted. There are between 8 and 10 classes of antibiotics available and this in conjuction with 'potentiated forms' that exist within certain classes, gives a broad array of antibiotic availability for clinicians to fall back on. Rather than a general proscription of the use of antibiotics then, would it not be possible to develop a rota based system where only given classes of antibiotics are used at given times (always with a couple of broad spectrum examples included), such that certain classes of antibiotic are always 'lying fallow' while their effectiveness builds back up (as it were) to its former level of efficacy.

Thirdly - and this is the big one - I'm given to understand that the problem with antibiotics is not so much that they are loosing their efficacy (true), but that the research simply isn't being done in order to develop either new classes,or indeed to improve the efficacy of those which we already have. As I understand it, there simply isn't the potential profitability in developing new antibiotics (classes or within classes) to attract big pharma into that field of research. Anti cancer drugs, weight-loss drugs, drugs that slow down alzheimers or reverse the aging process - yes. Vaccines, and drugs to combat hypertension - yes. But antibiotics no. They cost billions to research, billions to develop and huge amounts of time and testing to get onto the market. Once there, they are of limited profitability in that they are (as it were) single use, only used when a particular patient needs them on one occasion (which will be a very small percentage of any population at any given time). Often their main countries of usage are those whose populations are far too poor to make the investment worthwhile, and in which state health services are both limited in scale and in the money available for drug purchase.

Research thus tends to be far more directed towards catering for the needs of rich Western countries, and towards drugs developed for repeated and long-term prescription to any given patient. This is where the money lies. And given this, it seems that antibiotic research is not something that is well catered for by our current privately driven model of organisation. So wouldn't it make far more sense, rather than to simply deal with this problem by restrictions on access, for countries to join together in agreements to commonly fund research and development in this area? Joint research bodies of international composition and funding via the state, whose sole purpose is to redress this current deficit in development of new antibiotics?

I mean - how hard can it be?

[peter]

Struggled to get the above posted. This is just a test post to see if normal service is resumed.

But while I'm here, let me tell you the story of Coomber.

I met him in the street one day and asked him how he was.

"Fine, but I'm fed up waiting for the second part of my prostate operation," he said indignantly. "My scheduled date was cancelled and when I phoned the hospital to find out why, the receptionist told me that they'd had to change it because my consultant no longer worked there. "He's been downgraded," she said. "He isn't a surgeon anymore."

Ouch!

[peter]

Just to continue with the antibiotics subject as above, imagine the following.

Just saying that the administrators of the Louvre in Paris decided that having the Mona Lisa on display was causing the painting to degenerate over time.

Their response to this was to shut the painting away from the public so that people of the future would be able to have the pleasure of seeing it.

The effect would be that a balance would exist thereabouts, between those denied the painting today and those getting to see it in the future. In fairness it might be argued that in the case of antibiotics, the reversal of declining efficacy we'd likely see would tip the balance in favour of those saved in the future, but equally this can be argued against by the fact that a higher proportion of people will perforce die today of those that are actually given antibiotics, because of the late starting to their courses and the resulting higer degree of establishment of the bacterial conditions they are being prescribed to fight against. It's a hodge podge of if's and and's that it's hard to pick the bones out of.

But long and the short of it is that the policy of simply denying access to antibiotics to those whose conditions would currently (and indeed formerly, since the denial practice is already in part, well in operation - the current argument is for it's extension yet further) makes no sense. That the medical professionals involved see a need for calling for its extension tells you, if nothing else, that the policy is not working. As I say - it makes no sense.

Unless, unless, unless......

One could assume a situation where those who are making such decisions are confident of the fact, that as with taxes and fish facing nets before them, the little guys will be caught and the big guys will simply break through. For who among us believes that those at the top of our establishment trees would find themselves denied access to antibiotics to the same degree as the mass volume of the public? If you believe that then you really have no understanding of how money and power work. Rest assured, those with sufficient clout will get all the available antibiotic therapy just as early as ever they have done, at the point where the antibiotics are at their most effective. It'd be ridiculous to suppose that this is in the thinking of those that will be gathering in the United Nations 'conclave' to call for further international agreements on the restrictions of use of antibiotics - but against the asinine thinking that would come up with such a wrong headed answer to the AMR problem, what else are we to think?

I absolutely hate being in this position. I have some limited understanding of the AMR problem - we encountered it even back in the day when I was in the veterinary practice - but even I can see the holes in the restricting access approach as a means of tackling it. It's no more than common sense. If this is the best thinking that our medical/scientific community can come up with then we might as well pack up and go home.

[peter]

Just wanted to introduce my Peter's Patented Anti-Spontaneous Human Combustion Underpants while I am here.

Maas produced by child labour in China, and available through all third-rate internet trading outlets, the Underpants come with a 100% record of success.

I can categorically and personally guarantee that no-one who has purchased a pair has ever spontaneously combusted.

[peter]

No-one with a heart could be anything but dismayed to see the six young faces of the hostages who were yesterday found dead in the tunnels under Rafa in Gaza.

Maybe they were as claimed by the IDF, murdered by Hamas. Maybe some other agency or situation resulted in their deaths. But whatever the case, the tragedy of such a terrible end remains.

The people of Israel it seems, are certain that had their government been more concerned with reaching a deal by which the hostages could have been released, their lives could have been saved. Of the original 250 or so hostages taken on October 7th, only 8 have been rescued by IDF activity, where 150 or so have been released via negotiated exchange. This in itself validates the anger of the people, who feel that Netenyahu is more concerned with following a different agenda - not least protecting his own political skin - than actually securing the release of the hostages. There is a growing realisation that if any of the remaining hostages are to be returned alive to their families, it will be via negotiated settlement rather than by offensive activity.

Whether this will penetrate into the minds of the Netenyahu administration remains to be seen. They are trying to rule out the general strike that has been called by one of the country's largest unions today, via intervention in the courts. If the people persist in their determination to force Netenyahu's hand, it remains to be seen how far he will go to thwart them.

Given his track record to date, I am not sure I'd want to be facing troops and or police bound to follow his instructions, in the event of a direct confrontation. I suspect that his true colors would out at the expense of those who stood in opposition to him. How far will this man go in order to maintain his position and retain power? We might be about to find out.

[Avatar]

Yes, there have been server issues. If you joined the discord... I'm hopeful that they are resolved, but we are keeping an eye on things...

(Add the discord app on your phone, create an account, then go and click on the invite link in the relevant thread. )

But is this really what we're talking about here Av? I'm not so sure that state's interest in introducing regulation of the internet is as much concerned with prevention of advertisement in the fishing retail sector as (in part) ensuring they have a window into the private communications between individuals should they want to exercise it.

Again, I'm not in any sense in a position to really talk on this subject, because I simply don't know the facts - but secure (and potentially unbreakable) encryption of private messaging between individuals would (I'm guessing) not be something that the security services would be cockahoop about?

I mean...this is a massive topic.

The cat has long been out of the bag about encrypted messaging...tech moves faster than regulation ever will...state securities best best would be to arrange back doors, but actually, their biggest advantage is the sheer lack of awareness amongst users. (Like Telegram users for example not knowing that they had to manually enable encryption.)

Their next one is the effort involved in actually making yourself "invisible." In certain senses, it is not possible at all. As long as you are connected to the internet, somewhere, somehow, there is a record of it. And the effort to protect yourself as much as is possible is both significant and inconvenient. And we all know how highly humans prize convenience.

By far the most common mitigation involves obscuring yourself from people scrutinising the sites / whatever that you are accessing, but somewhere, there is a connection between you and your ISP through which everything you consume must pass. If any government really wants to know what you specifically are doing, they can find out. They don't need to regulate things for that.

No, the raft of proposed laws etc. that are cropping up around this stuff is not to prevent alleged anonymity...it is either political, ideological, or commercial in nature, depending on who is bringing what claim against whom.

---------------

As for the other stuff...we've been dealing here with what we call "XDR" (Extreme Drug Resistant) strains of some things, (TB was one of the earliest IIRC) for many years already.

One of the issues of course is the prevalence of prescription...doctors would just prescribe an anti-biotic for basically anything, and that, combined with people not completing their courses led to a proliferation of strains that were developing a resistance to AB's.

I have no doubt that your comment on the R&D into new varieties plays a big part.

I knew a soil biologist once who told me about an experiment they did with pesticides, where they isolated an area of soil with it's fauna etc. and dosed it heavily with all the modern pesticides. 99% of all the insects etc. died.

They then left it until the population recovered, and they dosed it again. This time, 90% of all the insects died.

By the time they ended the experiment, the same raft of pesticides etc. that had been 99% effective in the first iteration was only 35% effective...this is evolution in action.

--A

[peter]

I've opened a discord account Av, got onto the site yesterday, only to be faced with a very confusing 'page'.

Something approximating to the (what I assume are the) options available were down the left hand side,and on the right, where I assume the actual site content is supposed to be, read a message. "You are in a very strange place," it said. "You have no....(I forget the word - subscriptions or something......) and something else I forget". Aside from this it was completely blank.

No worries I thought - I'll just search with that little magnifying glass, and find a ''Kevin's Watch' group or link or something.

Nothing. Zilch. Zero. Never heard of us.

In the evening I decided to try something else. I came to the Watch (now functional again, as far as I could tell) and went to your original link to discord. You'd instructed that we would need a discord account - so good, I'd opened one in the morning. Now I clicked on your link and Wahey!, I was on a page of discord that instructed me that I'd recieved an invite to join the Kevin's Watch group. All's I had to do was to sign in and accept it.

It wouldn't let me sign in.

It refused to accept that I was a human (fair point, I guess - I get that sometimes) and kept kicking me back to these pictures of fish and animals. When I tried clicking on password master (or something) it just outlined my username and password in red, saying that one or both were wrong. They weren't.

I decided to start from scratch, with a new account. I re-filled in the registration details, using a different name and all was fine until I clicked the final "lastly, just prove you are a human" test. Then it refused to register me because the email address I'd used had already been used.

At this point I gave up. Truth is Av, I'm just not made up for all of this tech malarkey. It doesn't like me and the feeling is mutual. I don't even know if this post will get on site - whether the Watch server will have sorted its issues.....if its even going to bother to sort them. I'd imagine that Vain has got better things to do with his life than spent it tinkering around with this place, so I accept that the inevitable end will come, if not today, then tomorrow.....or tomorrow.....or tomorrow after that. Hey, my friend - nothing lasts forever. I'll try with discord again this morning -but I'm not holding my breath.

Chow for now. I'll go and give it a whirl.

[peter]

I think the idea Av, that doctors would prescribe antibiotics for "basically anything" is to do them a disservice. Certainly the problem of people not finishing courses is in there, but if resistance can be brought about so quickly by this means - by essentially leaving behind a population of the 'slightly more resistant bacteria as the breeding population (as it were) - then the implication would be that it could be fixed just as quickly by a period of non-use of the antibiotic in question.

But back on the doctor prescription point, the clinician is in a dilemma. If he doesn't prescribe the antibiotic before he's absolutely sure it would be necessary, then he risks loosing the window of opportunity where it would actually work. A few unnecessary deaths on his conscience (and doctors kill patients by mistake all the time, just by changing their meds, or missing a diagnosis - it goes with the territory and they have to be able to deal with it. I had this from a consultant renologist who I went to Tibet with) will soon ensure that they are guided towards caution when it comes to missing that window.

Alas (quick change of topic) discord still doesn't want to play ball this morning. I seem to be stuck in a 'doom loop' with it where I'm just going round in circles. I already have two accounts that I can't access, and am loathe to set up any more. Insha Allah. It is what it is.

Again, pirouetting to the third topic of the day, luckily I'm (it seems) already an invisible presence on the internet. Even the recognition bots question whether I'm a human! I should be insulted really, having my humanity questioned by a nonhuman AI, but rather I feel a sort of solidarity with the little blighter. We have to stick together, we who are not as others, and I'm learning first hand how it feels to be prejudiced against (as if I needed that as an old white man in our society).

[Avatar]

Haha, PM me your discord user name and I will try and invite you manually from inside discord.

And yes, our server problems appear to be fixed. Rest assured that I mercilessly harass Vain whenever we have a problem. I do not care what he thinks are better thing to do. Nekrimah Vain!

And as for the antibiotics,

According to a 2021 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report, an estimated 30 percent of the approximately 211 million outpatient antibiotic prescriptions given in the U.S. were not necessary, meaning that no antibiotic was needed at all.

This may be less in countries with a more civilised (and less commercialised) health care system of course, but only in the sense of doctors being involved apparently.

Only two thirds of people in 14 countries in the WHO European Region, who took part in a recent survey, were able to say their last course of antibiotics was obtained with a medical prescription.

1 in 3 either used leftover antibiotics from a previous prescription or obtained them without a prescription over the counter from a pharmacy or elsewhere.

https://www.who.int/europe/news/item/21 ... tudy-shows

--A

[peter]

I'd forgotten the Nekrimah command. Poor Vain, I almost feel sorry for him!

I absolutely take on board the problem of inappropriate prescribing of antibiotics Av - a doctor in general practice comes under heavy pressure to 'take the easy route', not least from within himself as much as from the patients he is facing. But I still make the observation that it's a very different thing on the front line of health care than it is studying the statistics on a spreadsheet in front of you.

One point I'd make as a start is how wrong the public perception is, that a doctor at any point actually knows what he is faced with - what he is actually doing. I worked in general veterinary practice for twenty plus years, with many vets, and can absolutely say that in the majority of consultations, they simply didn't know what was wrong. They had general ideas certainly, clues to work with, and a schemata of 'differential diagnosis' to work from. But actually knowing - no, that was rare indeed. Much of what a practitioner does is feeling his or her way through this darkness of unknowing.

There is a reason for the phrase 'the art and science of medicine'. It's because the practice (there's another word that gives a clue) of medicine goes beyond pure rational, recordable science. It's a difficult concept for the purely scientific minds to grapple with, but people are cured with placebos just the same. An antibiotic will not be indicated in the case of a viral infection (and I'd put a pound to a penny that most of the 30 percent of unnecessary prescriptions came from the treatment of respiratory situations, as in colds and flus) - but putting a shield in place to guard against the complications of the opportunistic secondary bacterial infections that have a habit of swarming in and dealing the definitive death blow, while falling into the category of 'unnecessary prescriptions' might still actually be the saving factor in a number of cases. Only experience on the actual front line will tell you this; it won't appear in the facts and figures of spread sheets, because it's part of the art of practice, not the science.

Not a definitive refutation of the science of these reports, but food for thought nevertheless.

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Today kids are very much in the headlines.

We've recently had the situation with the twelve year old boy who has appeared in court charged with two counts of involvement in the recent rioting in the UK. He was filmed throwing bricks at police in one instance and also present at another major disturbance some days later. He was described by one judge as one of the worst perpetrators of the violence seen at these events.

He appeared in court for sentencing the other day, but the judge felt unable to carry out this, because the boy's mother was not present. She'd gone on holiday to Ibiza.

In a second terrible incident, five children, three aged twelve, two of fourteen, have been arrested on the suspected murder of an 80 year old man walking his dog in a park in Braunstone, Leicestershire. He was apparently seriously assaulted by the group and left for dead.

It's very difficult to know what to say about stuff like this. "Lock them up and throw away the key," would seem to be a reasonable response. But where's the good in that? I've argued elsewhere that Shamima Begum must not be viewed as an adult - accorded the judgement faculties of an older individual when considering her case, and I'd be less than consistent if I argued anything different here.

These kids are not responsible in the adult sense of the word. But will they ever be any good? To themselves? To the society that must now decide what to do with them? Can they be rehabilitated? Turned into, if not useful members of society, then at least not individuals who are a danger to it?

In the case of the boy in the riots, the news of his mother's apparent disinterest elicits an immediate response. "There's the source of his problem!", we immediately think. "He's not ever been taught what he should or should not be doing."

Well, maybe so. But what do we know of his mother? Of him? Would we feel differently if the mother had say, gone to Florence rather than Ibiza? Does a little bit of snobbish thinking slip in here? Maybe he's a little bastard, and she's at her wits end with him. Or maybe that holiday to Ibiza is something she's saved for all year? Maybe she won't get another one for two years? Maybe she's just at the point of thinking, "He's brought this on himself. He must live with the consequences."

Okay. So there's that. But anybody who has half a brain can see that there has been a decline in the responsibility people feel towards the society they live in, in recent years. Antisocial behaviour is rife across all levels of society and across the country at large. People are ruder, less considerate, more aggressive. It's reflected in the newspapers, the stories we read, and in the figures for violent crime, antisocial behaviour orders, general declining levels of behaviour.

Should it then suprise us that our children are also exhibiting signs of the same decline? Their education levels are worse, the parenting they recieve is worse, the levels of poverty and ignorance they grow up in are greater. And crime and disorder thrives in such conditions, the rise of the one being proportional to the rise of the other. I don't know how, but we've created the conditions and are now reaping the rewards.

Or I say I don't know why, but it's not exactly true. We've had decades of government that have squeezed the life out of the education service, the returns that people get for their labour, and seen a proportionate rise in ignorance and poverty as a direct result. Indolence and ignorance thrive where industry and education should prosper.

And this is done on the back of what, of not maintaining a proper service based society underpinned by education and security of housing and work. Because they didn't want to tax people to pay for it. Because the greed of "keeping what's mine" overran the desire to maintain the quality of the society we maintained, and by extension the quality of the people that populated it.

So next time you are told that "Labour will increase your taxes" (would that they would), think about exactly what it is that those taxes are for, and the price that we pay for not paying them. The price that those five children will pay for the rest of their lives.

[Avatar]

Okay. So there's that. But anybody who has half a brain can see that there has been a decline in the responsibility people feel towards the society they live in, in recent years. Antisocial behaviour is rife across all levels of society and across the country at large. People are ruder, less considerate, more aggressive. It's reflected in the newspapers, the stories we read, and in the figures for violent crime, antisocial behaviour orders, general declining levels of behaviour.

The inevitable consequence of the cult of the individual. We are told how special we are, how unique we are, how we deserve all that we want, how nothing is our fault, etc. etc. Combined with the decentralisation of society, well, suddenly every man is indeed an island and any responsibility is effectively an invasion of our sovereign state of mind.

--A

[peter]

But it goes deeper.

Let's consider a parallel story that has been running for a couple of days, in which it's reported that Ofsted, the schools inspectorate charged with grading individual schools, will move away from the 'four word' grading system (outstanding, good, requires improvement, inadequate) to a more detailed description of each school.

It follows the death by suicide of a head teacher who fell from good to inadequate in one fell stroke, which was recognised by the investigation as partly responsible for her demise.

Here's the problem.

You can't deal with the declining standards of education in schools by inspecting them out of it. Not when the fall has been brought about by decades of underfunding. You have to deal with it by increasing the resources available to schools, by making sure they can employ good teachers in sufficient numbers that the teacher-pupil ratios are optimised. By making sure that the requisite class sizes, rooms available for different areas of study, class trips to outside venues of education etc, are all up to speed. By ensuring that kids who fall behind are identified and streamed into remedial programmes in order to redress their deficiencies. All of the testing in the world will not adress the problem of declining educational standards if these fundamental issues are not dealt with first. And that takes money.

And poverty. We read on an almost daily basis that more and more people in the UK are slipping into poverty, both relative and increasingly absolute, and it's just figures in our heads. Two million children will be driven into poverty as a result of the two child benefits cap that Stamer will not reverse. Just a figure. No! The five kids who are now arraigned on murder charges are a visual metaphor for the very failure of succesive governments to adress this problem within our education system (ignorance) and the maintaining of a proper wage/income level at the lower levels of our society (poverty).

These things all tie in together, and until our governments get it together to understand this - and more importantly to make sure that the people do as well - then these problems are insoluble and will only get worse.

We need politicians who actually careabout these things and a populace that understands that truly - really truly, with the exception of all but a really gilded few - we all sink or swim together. And that requires us to contribute to the maximum of our ability towards the cost of setting things to rights.

[peter]

A case of big orange man rat's out little green men.

In an increasingly desperate attempt to shore up his (temporarily) flagging electoral campaign Donald Trump has promised to reveal all that the US government has in its secret 'X Files' on aliens, if he is once again elected into the presidency.

Okay - it's low-hanging fruit for sure, but it guarantees him at least that portion of the American vote. (I was going to say the swivel-eyed portion, but realised that that encompassed virtually all of the Trump vote anyway.)

The Trumpster has not been forgetting his business interests either, while he's been campaigning. Did I mention that you can buy Donald Trump collectable cards for 99 dollars a pop. They're digital, excepting when you've bought fifteen or twenty at which point you get an actual physical one as a prize. Collect the full set and get the ultimate Trump Card reward - a card with a postage stamp sized piece of the suit he was wearing in the interview in which Joe Biden fell apart.

Trump. Mad as a box of frogs, but possibly the biggest chance the world has of avoiding nuclear armageddon.

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Speaking of which, rumours of (Yorkshire accent please) 'trouble at t'mill' in the Zelensky cabinet seem to have some foundation, if a report in this morning's Telegraph is anything to go by.

Ukraine are (contrary to what our ridiculous media are putting out on a daily basis) not doing well. The Kursk adventure aside, the Russians continue to advance in the east, slowly but incrementally annexing more and more Ukrainian territory by the week. They have recently suffered some awful missile attacks, possibly in retribution for Kursk, possibly just as part of the ongoing Russian plans,one of which hit a military training base and in which multiple deaths were sustained.

Zelensky has responded by shaking up his cabinet - a process that has resulted in the departure of his foreign minister either by his own choosing or by Zelensky's (it's not clear which). Some of Zelensky's top military commanders have also been rumoured to have been sacked in recent weeks, signs that the administration is beginning (perhaps) to become unstable in the face of continuing losses on the battle front. It might be that Zelensky has to go in order that the inevitable negotiations that will end this pointless conflict can be instigated. There is apparently no current back-channel negotiations in play, which seems ridiculous given the extremity of the Ukrainian position. They have been poorly served by the West since day one, so I suppose there should be no suprise that nothing has changed on this score. Nothing in Trump's suggestion that he will bring the war to a close has any real meaning, since he has already vetoed any idea of accepting the Putin imposed minimum requirements for talks even to begin. Harris seemingly has no plans that the war should be stopped at all.

Either way, it might be that it'll have to be the Ukrainians themselves that will have to grasp the nettle, but this might require Zelensky to be gone. There are certainly hard line elements in Ukraine that would rather keep fighting and die to a man before entering negotiations for a settlement, but possibly other viewpoints exist as well, but for them to come forward Zelensky has to be gone. I have my doubts that he can survive much longer and this news of his cabinet shakeup might be a signal that his end is near. This war must end before it precipitates into something much worse, though little now could be much worse for the destroyed country of Ukraine.

-----0-----

Quick update on the Tory Party's leadership contest.

Patel is out, having got the lowest number of votes in the first round of MPs voting. Kemi Badenoch comes in second, but the overall winner was shifty Robert Jenrick.

I'd earlier gone for Mel Stride, but in fairness I'd forgotten that he'd gathered some pretty unpalatable headlines himself in the past. Didn't he suggest disabled people should be forced out into work ot something? Either way, he looks like a busted flush, only getting 2 more votes than Priti Patel, but Jenrick looks like just the man for the job. He's white (a must with the membership, when that vote comes about), he's right - probably to the right of Farage, and he's proved himself as a) sufficiently anti-immigrant and b) elastic in his principles enough, to satisfy the membership. He, you will remember, told his functionaries to whitewash over a mickey mouse mural in a children's immigration reception center. Too welcoming he said. And he was happy to sit down with porn magnate, building entrepreneur and Tory donor Richard Desmond to help him avoid a 45 million pounds tax bill and arrange approval (he was housing minister at the time) for a housing development that the government's own planning inspector had said shouldn't go ahead. Just the sort of fellow the Tories need as leader then, when the alternative is a black skinned woman.

So yes, Jenrick will get it, not that anyone's that interested. It's four years until the next election: given past form the tories could have half a dozen leaders between now and then.