Kevin's Watch

Today's Observer has a quote from some pundit or political aide in sib-heading to the main line. Unpleasant people shouldn't run the country!" it says in bold messaging.

I disagree. Unelected people shouldn't run the country is what it should say, whether they be nasty little oiks who have risen to positions of influence by mendacity and a simple grasp of the nasty underbelly of racism in our society (in combination with the inherent gullibility of the people in the face of simplistic messaging and tag-lines) or ambitious young women prepared to use means other than intellectual ones in order to inveigle their way into the corridors of power. Sure, I'd rather that the people we elect to serve us are 'nice' rather than being shits - but niceness is a pretty rare commodity amongst those with the desire to throw themselves into the bear-pit of top level politics (Rory Stewart was the last one I can think of who appeared nice, and look how far he got) and not a prerequisite for the job. Integrity yes, honesty yes, clarity of thought and a recognition of the responsibility of service inherent in the job, yes - but pleasantness? Not really.

In the same article we were told that the new 10 Downing Street Press Secretary Allegra Stratton "spent the morning in tears" after being subject to 'unpleasant' briefs by the outgoing Leave clique (along the lines that she had not been the first choice for the job and was not really up to it). C'mon - toughen up fer Christmas sake girl! If you are reduced to jelly by a few nasty lines from the victims you have shafted in order to cement your position at the top table you ain't gonna last long in that place. These were not nice people you ousted - don't expect them to be nice in their defeat.

For the record I like Allegra Stratton (if her time as Preston's sidekick is anything to judge by) and (to me) the idea that she once considered working for David Milliband is no black mark at all. If she can help to steer the Johnson ship back to a place where it can once more engage with it's parliamentary party on an equitable basis then we will all be the beneficiaries thereof.

I think anybody who wants to be a politician should be immediately disqualified by virtue of such desire.

--A

In the Legion of Super-Heroes comic the world president is picked by a lottery. I dont remember the term length.

I think anyone who hands out hats with slogans is a strong chance of winning elections and creating incredible personal wealth, and hopefully they get to meet Borat.

Hello all, hope you are well. Been busy, and was having a rough time getting on the server here. My tolerance at waiting is poor, and the mbps speed i get at home hasnt helped.

Have a great day.

Hey Kizza, nice to see you around mate. Hope all good.

Sarge, Asimov wrote a short story called Franchise where the supercomputer Multivac selected a single citizen, spent a whole day asking him questions, and based on the answers, decided who should be president.

--A

So many better solutions than our current process it seems.

True story, I was listening to the radio one Saturday morning a number of years ago and the presenter was talking to a lass who was getting married later that day (I think it was that day anyway) and who had called in to make a request on his phone-in show. She introduced herself and it transpired that she had the rather unfortunate surname of Shakeshaft. "Dear me - Shakeshaft", chuckled the presenter, "Bet you're not unhappy to be loosing that name! What's your partner called?" Without so much as a moment's pause the girl replied "Catchpole."

Who the frick is this 'scource' who sagely informs us on the front page of today's Sunday Mail that "It will not be a normal festive period." Someone take him outside and kick his arse please - and the fool who decided we needed to be told what is blindingly obvious to anyone not currently in a vegetative state.

Meanwhile, good to know that Dominic Cummings will have at least one position to go to post his kicking out of Number 10; he's been offered the job of turning on the Christmas lights.........at Barnard Castle!

The Sunday Express urges Prince Charles to "speak out about Diana TV scandal!". This refers to the largely fictitious series The Crown in which the royal family are depicted as ......well, a bunch of right royal ***t's to put it frankly. He of course will do no such thing and he is right not to. The paper would do no more than push him to speak out so that they could shoot him down for everything he says - and push up their own sales in the process. People love nothing more than to see a bit of royal bashing in their shit-sheets and the Mail and Express have been the most guilty of stoking this fire. Could I decided which to consign to the dustbin of "Room 101", the Royal Family or the two aforementioned papers, it would be the latter (....errrr......or is that the former? )

peter wrote:Who the frick is this 'scource' who sagely informs us on the front page of today's Sunday Mail that "It will not be a normal festive period." Someone take him outside and kick his arse please - and the fool who decided we needed to be told what is blindingly obvious to anyone not currently in a vegetative state.

People here have not gotten that memo. Or to be more accurate, they got the memo, but decided it did not apply to them.

Local headlines for the state: We're back to Purple Tier, which is the most restrictive. Curfews between 10pm and 5am for all non-essential things. No more inside dining in restaurants. Other shutdowns.

Also in local headlines: Quote, Thousands wait in a nearly mile-long line for opening of ride-less part of Disneyland.

My coworkers all have Thanksgiving plans that exceed the recommendations. 'But it's just 17 members of my immediate family!' ...and all their guests.

Sometimes I wonder if we should be wishing the virus was slightly more virulent...

--A

Month to month ohio is up something like 1600% so I'm good on how virulent it is haha
Is it clear that people go without masks and hug strangers and have big holidays literally out of pride and patriotism? Like they think they are being GOOD CITIZENS by doing these things.

Today I'm thinking about how to better communicate with my Ukrainian team to help get some new cool features into our product before we do a global launch o,o woo

Family and tradition seem to be the keywords here. And part of that family tradition (among people I work with) appears to include a trip to Vegas to hit all the casinos.

I just don't get it. Part of the (overall) problem here is that it hasn't really been that bad (in terms of case numbers) until recently. But we've all been hearing since March that the sky is falling, and people have just stopped taking it seriously.

I haven't had direct contact with anyone I care about since March because I care about them. Yeah, I've probably been overly cautious, but that's better than the alternative.

We must all treat this thing with the respectful caution it deserves - but not to the exclusion of living our lives. On the balance of probability the risk of serious complications in the majority of us is minimal. Point one. The Covid 19 causing virus is part of a family of viruses which shares protein determinants (the bits we recognise on the surfaces of 'foreign' cells) with others in the family with which we are familiar (in the form of the six or so common cold viruses we regularly encounter). This gives us a degree of preexisting protection from the virus. Point two. The immune system is geared for challenges of this nature by the very system it operates by; it's like a locksmith that carries around millions of keys so that when it encounters a new lock it already has the key it needs to unlock it. It then simply mass-produces keys of this type.

These things render the bulk of us safe. In respect of the elderly, few of them want to be segregated from their families and friends for the time they have left to be with them, and the older they get the more important that contact is to them. One ex soldier in his nineties, denied the chance to meet his wartime chums in London this year said "I was landed on D-day amid hails of bullets, blown six feet into the air out of a vehicle I was riding in, yet it's too dangerous for me to go to pay my respects to my fallen comrades. My message must be this. Do what you personally feel works for you in this thing and yes, exercise a reasonable degree of caution - but do not let fear of it spoil or limit your life, and understand that other people may not have the same take as you and respect their right to choose how they respond as well.

I like not having to go out and do stuff, and not having to go into the office etc. It's not a hardship, it's a perk.

(That said, as per the other thread, I'm lucky in that my work and pay have not been affected. Many are not in as fortunate a position.)

--A

There are bits of me that agree with this Av, but I don't like the coercive elements that are creeping in in the UK; Boris Johnson was openly discussing the option of mandatory vaccination's the other day - talk of 'freedom passes' for those who agree to regular testing (freedoms presumably being denied to those who elect not to). I mean what the hell is this all about. If it carries on down this path I'm more likely to die with policeman's knee on my neck than with Covid.

And actually, the coercion is not creeping in - a tidal wave of it has swept over us already simply because we didn't recognize it for what it was (not being familiar with it, as it were). Last night, watching the PM give one of his statement's flanked by his Chief Scientific and Medical Officers, amid all the graphs and statistics, I became angry; what is all this bullshit I asked? You're standing there hammering all of there infection rates and daily death tolls down our throats and it doesn't mean anything. When in tier two the rate does this but the lag in time shows here on this graph and here we go into tier three.......!!!! And on and on. It's all crap. You've ripped our lives to pieces, torn our economies to shreds, imposed restrictions that would have been unthinkable in Soviet Russia in it's worst years and now you're so far down the path you can't turn back, cannot admit that you fucked up and that what you have done is infinitely - infinitely - worse than the disease could have been even if we'd never worn a mask or even known that the bloody virus existed..... and this bullshit is all you have left. The death toll when we have no health services left because we have no money, the social depravation that we will carry for decades as a result of this, the blasting back of the bulk of the population into nineteen thirties style poverty, slums and overcrowding - this is the legacy of Covid and what you have done. People are simply too blind to see it yet.

Peter, you have demonstrated your outrage, here and in the Tank over and over

Perhaps they're thinking of saving people's lives - I'd be interested in what you would do if you were in power? Even with all the outrageous measures that you are outraged about, there have been over 57,000 deaths in the UK since around February 2020. If the restrictions were not in place, who knows how many deaths there would have been. Spare a thought for the 57,000 families. Considering the estimated deaths of just over 100 for the last flu season, it seems something worth taking seriously.

I would imagine you are in the medium risk category? Spare a thought for others on the Watch that are high risk: Menolly, Savor Dam, anyone over a certain age, anyone with any health issues. Ananda is young, and she's had long-term covid - months of respiratory issues. I'm sure she would disagree with your outrage, because in the end our health is more important that many many other things. Others here have had personal experience with family members.

I feel for the economy also. A balance needs to be struck and this balance falls into the hands of the government. The government in Australia has been criticised for being overly cautious, but with just over 900 deaths since it started, perhaps they did something right? Japan has a population over double the UK and crammed into a tiny geographic region, and have had a total of 2000 deaths (notwithstanding a current spike).

Fair post StevieG, and I will give it the thought which it deserves (I have no monopoly in being right here and am painfully aware of this).

But for your consideration I leave the following;

Where exactly do you think that the landing zone for all this rests? Not for the cushioned few at the top end of our societies, but for the proles of the lower levels - those who will pay the price in the long term?

Yes health is more important than many things - but what price the loved ones denied the chance to be held by their sons and daughters in their final hours? What price the dementia sufferers in our care homes, confused and abandoned, spiraling down in the absence of the anchor of those they recognised and still knew that they loved? What price the one hundred people per day - per day - who have died in their homes in the UK since this all began, for failure to contact or to be admitted to our hospitals? What price the huge increase in deaths already seen as a result of heart attacks, the as yet unaccounted early deaths that will result from cancer treatments not received, diagnoses not made, attendances not available? These deaths, they also carry the same individual human cost, no less because we cannot put names to them.

And this all before we get into the issue of the curtailments of our freedoms (and how we balance this against the 'importance' of our health). Sufficient to say that freedom has been a cause considered worthy of dying for since time immemorial and curtailment of freedom in supposedly noble pursuit remains curtailment of freedom still, and the lesson of history tells us that this is a slippery slope the edging onto of which can lead to places never intended by those who took the first step.

In respect of myself, I'm in my mid sixties and have health conditions that place me in probably not the highest of risk categories, but up there at least. But rest assured, were the worst to happen, with the last dying gasp you would not find my position on this changed. We have entered territory in this that is alien to all we understand, all we have lived for, all that has made life worth living in the first place. A life lived in fear is a life not worthy of the name.

The important thing from my point of view is that you're considering others when you post 'outrage'. The Tank is full of one point of view, so I'm a little sensitive to that. You seem like a reasonable person, so I'm hoping that you're considering others when posting one point of view. I can see your point of view, and I hope you can see others.

Of course StevieG. I have no desire to be insensitive to the situations that other watchers find themselves in and you have my unreserved apologies if it has seemed so. Part of the deal when I post is that in asking people to accept that I might be right I have to accept an equal possibility myself that I might be wrong.

If I seem outraged then it is because I have heard things that I never would have believed I would hear, seen things that I never would have believed I would see. It is an outrage born of incomprehension, like a man with dementia who rages at a world that is slipping away from him.

It's enough; I've said my all on the subject.

....... Except to quote the words of TV historian and archeologist Neil Oliver in a recent interview I heard,

"When fear, used as an instrument of Government policy, fails, the inevitable next step is tyranny."

He then used a hackneyed but nevertheless true expression "All that is required for evil to prevail is that good men do nothing."