It's almost as if having a bunch of slippery, self serving fucks as a government makes the rest of the country think, "fuck it, if the arseholes at the top behave like that, why should I bother?" Lead by example eh?
Funny Events of the "Woke" world
- Thread starter CriticalGaming
- Start date
I think it's less that children need training and more that parents need training (guidance would be a better word) in how to deal with the various difficulties of raising children. We used to have something here called SureStart that was like that -- aimed to help new parents from less well-off backgrounds with the early years of raising children. It aimed, I think, to break generational cycles of struggling (generally low-income) parents whose kids then became struggling (low-income) parents.
https://www.gov.uk/find-sure-start-childrens-centre; SureStart still exists but it's a shell of what it was apparently.
I mean that the parents get training on parenting, not training the children. It's not like there's a shortage of decent guidance out there.
I'm well aware many parents won't be interested, won't take it in, find it very hard to carry out in practice, and even think it's a bloody cheek anyone should have the temerity to advise them, but I'm also of the opinion that every parent who does learn something useful is a plus for themselves, their child, and wider society.
Yes.
Sure Start was one of those useful initiatives started by Labour during its last interregnum of grinding Tory dominance, that the Tories gleefully smashed almost as soon as they re-entered power, because the post-Thatcher Tories fundamentally resent anything that requires rich people's tax money irrespective of whether it's societally beneficial.
Despite the caveat that it was notably less successful than hoped, there is also good evidence that it provided significant improvements for individuals and families.
When one country does well in one area, no reason another country couldn't do the same.
The increase could've literally been from covid policy. And if the UK had a colder winter, I'm betting Sweden did too and that doesn't explain why the UK would've had a bigger increase than Sweden.
Also no particular reason the same approach would work just as well elsewhere, considering the vast differences in countries' situations.
Yet again: we know for an indisputable fact that excess winter deaths fluctuate hugely BEFORE COVID-19 EXISTED.
When covid was discovered in China, every other country was at the same starting point.
And... Sweden probably experiences about the same winters so they should fluctuate with the UK if it's weather related. The way countries count covid deaths also highly fluctuates. The WHO literally says excess deaths is the better method.
Except they very much weren't, were they? They differed enormously in distance, demography, geography, infrastructure, points of access, and a hundred other factors that helped or hindered their ability to respond.
"Probably"? It factually doesn't: regardless of covid, the UK experiences excess winter deaths ~20%+ higher than Sweden does, for the same years.
Interestingly, the very academic who provided the much-cited figures purporting to show how much better Sweden did... also provided an alternative set of figures that adjusts for the demographic differences between the Nordic countries. And they show the excess mortality rates are almost the same. He also notes that the 'success story' fails to factor in that Sweden had been experiencing a declining excess death rate for many years before covid. So, essentially just what I was saying: other factors can account for this, and you can't just look at these figures in isolation.
No, the WHO says it's the better method for assessing the impact of the pandemic, not the success of a public health policy.
All countries could've locked down travel but they didn't. Covid eventually would've made it everywhere, but that first year (before vaccines) could've been much better if you aggressively limited travel early on.
So you're saying the UK usually has 20% higher winter deaths and had 25% more than Sweden in 2020 or 2021 so it was only then 5% higher than normal? UK has more winter deaths because of their poor houses vs experiencing worse winters. And, again, that extra now, it seems 5%, could be because of covid policy, it has far-reaching impacts. It's like when the US buckled down on airplane/airport safety after 9/11, it ended up killing more people than saving because people became annoyed at flying and drove more for vacations and whatnot, and driving is more dangerous so more people died because of that.
Yes, because covid deaths aren't very comparable and excess deaths will reveal more of that covid iceberg that's under the water.
Agreed.
?! The UK usually has ~20-23% higher excess winter deaths per capita than Sweden, though it fluctuates hugely from year to year-- for instance there was a difference of over 15,000 between '17/18 and '18/19. So, now that we know it A) is a lot higher than Sweden regardless of covid; and B) fluctuates hugely regardless of covid... what can we conclude? We can conclude that the UK has plenty of reasons for a high or fluctuating excess death toll that are nothing to do with covid.
Yep. Which is why it works as a metric for the impact of the covid pandemic. Which isn't the same thing as using it as a metric for the impact of a public health policy.
My favorite Politico to dunk on.
Yes, Jeremy let's let pirates stop free trade including the delivery of medicine, food, and agriculture equipment to countries up, and down the Red Sea. And raise food prices for everyone else.
You do realize people will die if that happens right? It's not just Americans on the coasts not getting Swiss Cheese, it's a literal lifeline for some countries. There will be famines, and no Western & American Living standards or anyone's living standards won't rise they will ALL decrease.
Fuck free trade, sink Israel. Corbyn is right again.
Unless you care about climate change, guess what happens when there is no free trade, no more enforcement/possible future sanctions of climate deniers, and I guarantee you they don't all live in the US. Some live in Russia, Saudi Arabia, China, and even Brazil. Good luck punishing them for building coal plants when the international free flow of energy decreases.
Edit: As for Israel yes Biden could do more in the short term, That's not the problem. The problem is you can't touch them any more than China can touch North Korea. They have nukes like North Korea has rockets aimed at Seoul. If the Israelis were to be sanctioned by the world, we could see Conventional attacks on their neighbors like Cairos would either nuclear weapons or conventional weapons augmented by nuclear weapons. It would be a very bloody war. Biden and Blinken are likely mounting a pressure campaign on Netanyahu and his government as we speak, it's a very delicate situation right now.
Stop enabling genocide, it's not hard. Step 1 is literally just not giving Israel weapons to fight with. It takes nothing to do, but will.
If you do that they just will get them from France who will sell to anyone. Plus they are a nuclear state good luck isolating them from the world without them killing everyone in Beirut, or nuking Tehran or any other equally escalating step. Sanctions didn’t work in Cuba or NK and it’s likely without us restraining them they would have stopped all water to Gaza.
Clearly something worked because the Houthis stopping Israeli ships got other countries to fight on Israel's behalf when they absolutely don't deserve help. All the whining in your first response to me could be solved with "stop the genocide". And until that genocide is stopped, fuck free trade.
Why? Why would Israel do that?
Have you actually stopped to think about how completely insane and self-destructive it would be for Israel to nuke Cairo just because it got sanctioned?
Sanctions in NK didn't lead to them nuking SK. And Israel is attacking their neighbours with conventional weapons quite regulrly anyway.
Well, they threatened to do so when they were about to lose the Yom Kippur War.
Hamas started this war, and Hezbollah is backing them up.
I doubt the Houthis would stop, they would just point to the Iranian Sanctions or something else their whole ethos is war.
Cool, but in the meantime Israel could be dealt with, I care far more about them than the Houthis.