116 thoughts on “Saturday’s Papers

  1. Haroo

    As much as he was an absolute pill, I do miss Charger in some ways as we could all lay into the UK over Afghanistan and he would fight the good fight to try to defend the indefensible. I think everyone pretty much just agrees about it so it ends up being an echo chamber.

    So will we all kill each other over vaccines and covid?

    I could try to be Charger for a day. He did something stupid with commas if I remember. And he would call people “wet” which I never understood. And he created that fake woman to compliment himself.

    Actually no, covid is better.

      1. Man On Fire

        Lol @ Oro,

        If you bothered to look through the Google hits for Pfizer approval you’ll see their media machine trying to bully the fda into fully approving it every single month of this year so far.

        Still on emergency approval pending review.

          1. Clampers Outside

            The first couple of shots done were under the indemnity so it won’t matter, I believe.

  2. goldenbrown

    I’m sick to the pit of my stomach

    the media coverage of what’s going down in Afghanistan is massively sanitised….you don’t have to look far for evidence of the hell that’s unfolding…no doubt at all in my mind to save the like of Biden and Johnson’s blushes

    I’m trying to get my head around all of it – is this the US demonstrating to NATO that it ain’t worth the paper it’s written on without them…so pony up? because it seems deliberate as opposed to being pure rank incompetence satirised by Iannucci.

    or have I got that wrong…that simply the lives of those unlucky enough to be trapped in Afghanistan aren’t worth the paper they’re written on?

    whatever the scene it’s clear to me that the US aren’t really committed and there isn’t any rescue plan

    Maybe Bezos or that Musk pr–k can come up with some dazzling techno wheeze to save the day, wha?

    1. goldenbrown

      that piece in the FT….there’s one standout line…sez Jens Stoltenberg, NATO Sec Gen:

      “The paradox is we have more planes than passengers”

    2. Rosette of Sirius

      I’m completely with you on this. I can barely talk or type about this let alone watch the various news reports on television. I have friends who were able to leave. But I also have a few who are not able to leave – or won’t. They are safe. They are in a different city to Kabul what have been under Taliban control for a long time now so that was their norm.

      My first time in Afghanistan was nuts. The compound I was staying in was right beside the compound of a large American evangelical christian nonprofit. That day their compound was attacked by RPG was insane. I’ve experienced a fair bit of gunfire on my travels, and bullet proof vests and helmets are bloody heavy. But the bank and explosions RPGs make was a new one on me. Had to quickly bug out after that and my mission came quickly to an end that day.

      Anyways. I returned a few more times over the years and made some very good friends. As you can imagine, growing up in a country in constant conflict can make or break people. My friends are resilient and strong. They’re low key enough to stay under the Taliban radar and continue their work.

      But, the apoplectic rage I feel about all of this is genuinely hard to articulate for me.

      1. Man On Fire

        US pandering.

        Handing over cup de sac Afghanistan to the Chinese. Arming the taliban for yet another proxy war.

        All the while protecting their beloved heroin based pharmaceutical industry by fomenting a coup in Burma last March.

  3. GiggidyGoo

    Almost one fifth of the population on a hospital waiting list.
    That’s the result of Varadkar, Harris, Holohan and Co.’s ‘professionalism’.
    Another milestone for the blueshirts terms in office. It should be a millstone around their necks.

    (Narcissist incoming….)

    1. Otis Blue

      Not forgetting Paul Reid. Covid has been a real boon for this guy, masking systemic problems and his own inadequacies. He comes across as a lavishly paid PR man rather than a CEO. We need far fewer press conferences and tweets and much more in the way of strategy and reform.

      1. GiggidyGoo

        Correct. €420,000+ per annum plus an army car and driver. That would finance a lot of nurses who actually work.

        1. Cian

          The role of CEO to the largest company in Ireland (100K employees; €20bn budget) only pays €420K?

          The FAI paid John Delaney more than that to…um… what exactly did he do?

          1. Otis Blue

            John Delaney isn’t relevant to this point. A more apt comparison for the HSE would be the NHS which employs over 1.3m people and whose CEO earns around £200,000 pa.

            As it happens I’ve no problem with the salary for the HSE CEO. It’s a complex, perhaps even an impossible job. I just don’t see that Reid does much to justify his tenure in the role. Perhaps I’m missing the much needed structural reform and change management that he’s set in train.

          2. GiggidyGoo

            The usual deflect eh Cian? ‘Only pays’? John Delaney etc.
            Cable Guy does well for himself in industry he has no qualifications in, or previous working knowledge of before being appointed.

    1. SOQ

      Anybody who displays any semblance of critical thinking is a RWNJ according to you left-wing authoritarians, but just like everywhere else, you are losing.

      Huge crowds on the streets of Melbourne it appears- not that it will be reported in the lamestream of course.

    1. Cian

      It is my understanding that the HSE have told J&J and AZ that they don’t want any *new* supplies of those two vaccines, but will continue the rollout with with Pfizer and Moderna only.

      1. Cian

        Based on this from last Sunday:
        HSE Chief Executive Paul Reid has said that Ireland will cease further deliveries of AstraZeneca and Janssen vaccines.

        It comes as the EU focuses its efforts on acquiring mRNA vaccines.

        Mr Reid said there is currently a strong availability of mRNA vaccines in Ireland and therefore further deliveries of AstraZeneca and Janssen will be suspended for now.

        https://www.rte.ie/news/2021/0815/1240941-covid-ireland/

          1. Cian

            What do you mean?

            Each dose (or batch of doses) of a vaccine (or any medicine) has a different expiry date.

          2. Man On Fire

            You know exactly what I mean..

            It’s batch of doses.

            Do you know how many doses per batch?

          3. Cian

            I don’t know what you mean. You can tell by the way I said: “What do you mean?”

            You said “I heard the Pfizer doses are due to expire in August”.

            Do you mean that every unused dose of Pfizer in Ireland will expire in August? Or “some” unused doses are due to expire, and if the latter *how many* will expire. 1% or 99%?

            Unless you quantify how many doses are due to expire – your statement is essentially meaningless.

          4. Man On Fire

            Yeah yeah sure you don’t, perhaps I should have worded my statement with “its my understanding..”, like yourself..

            And yes, I think that it’s all doses currently in stock.

            I’m open to being wrong here so if you know something I don’t re dose expiry I’m all ears..

          1. GiggidyGoo

            Another Cian whooosh moment.
            World table? Punching above our weight? etc. etc.
            Yellow pack mRNAs, announced with great fanfare 7 weeks ago. No sign of them yet.

      1. Man On Fire

        It’s designed to provoke a reaction, 100m will definitely turn heads.

        See Denmark and Portugal for legal rulings which went against the respective governments.

        1. SOQ

          My guess is the front line doctors want to get a legal ruling on the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine and they are going after CNN to force them to prove that it does not work.

          If the court decides that there is sufficient evidence that it does work, and awards Stella damages – then that takes it all into a new legal situation.

          1. Nigel

            A legal ruling on the efficacy of HCQ? That’s almost as good as a ruling from Trump. No court is going to issue a legal ruling on whether a treatment is medicaly effective or not, they make legal rulings not medical ones. If that’s the basis for their case, no court will touch it.

          2. Cian

            Looking at the filing, she is going down the defamation route.

            CNN said: “She’s a doctor from Houston who also believes that women can be physically impregnated by witches in their dreams … That’s Dr. Stella Immanuel who also has a ministry who promises on her own YouTube page quote deliverance from spirit husbands and spirit wives parentheses incubus and succubus …
            This doctor Immanuel apparently believes that lusting after movie stars can conjure demons that can make women physically pregnant with demon babies by impregnating them in their dreams …”

            And the defence is that CNN showed youtube videos that “created a defamatory implication by omitting facts relating to Dr. Immanuel’s personal religious and spiritual beliefs, such as the biblical foundation for her ministry, the healing and spiritual nature of her prayer, and the fact that the statements, cherry-picked by CNN from Firepower’s vast library of spiritual ministry, had nothing to do with her medical practice, credentials and opinions.”

      1. Nigel

        Yes. hence the importance of watecourse and wetland preservation and restoration as a means of reducing floods and other climate change effects – and boosting carbon retention in the case of peat bogs.

      1. Cian

        That was my first though too.
        But on reading the article it says there were more people out:

        “The authors said the study was the first to look at the prevalence of cycling injuries that resulted in ED attendance during lockdown and said the fact there was no increase was in the context of greater use of bikes at a time when broader travel was ruled out due to public health restrictions.

        It said there was more recreational cycling and fewer collisions with motor vehicles.”

    1. Cian

      Hurrah for Florida. You want to be like Florida??
      Currently in their third wave of Covid deaths! And, even with vaccines, this wave is their highest yet!

      Last two waves peaked at ~180 deaths per day (7-day average) they are now over 300 deaths/day and still rising.

      https://datausa.io/coronavirus#cases

        1. GiggidyGoo

          It was with, em, vaccines. Cian finally realizing that vaccines ain’t working.
          (the term ‘vaccines’ used loosely. )

          1. GiggidyGoo

            While vaccinated people….are also dying.
            “And, even with vaccines, this wave is their highest yet!”

          2. GiggidyGoo

            @Nigel. The vast majority of people who were unvaccinated and caught covid …..didn’t die. They weren’t even hospitalized.

            You can turn facts and figures to suit any argument.

            A fact is that vaccinated people have died of covid.

          3. Nigel

            A fraction of the people who died from covdi were unvaccinated, therefore vaccines don’t work? 300 deaths a day seems like a lot.

          4. Nigel

            Vaccinated deaths only being a fraction of covid deaths doesn’t counter your post saying the vaccines don’t work?

          5. GiggidyGoo

            @Nigel.
            A yes or no answer will suffice to this question.
            Are Covid-vaccinated people dying from Covid?

          6. Oro

            Does this answer your question?

            “In July, people who were not fully vaccinated were nearly 3 times more likely to test positive for COVID-19. Additionally, they were hospitalized for COVID-19-related illnesses at a rate 3.7 times higher than people who are fully vaccinated. People who are fully vaccinated also saw a 10-fold reduction in risk of dying from COVID-19 compared to not fully vaccinated people.”

            https://www.dhs.wisconsin.gov/news/releases/081921.htm

          7. GiggidyGoo

            @Oro
            A yes or no answer will suffice to this question.
            Are Covid-vaccinated people dying from Covid?

            Is it that difficult to give a straight yes or no answer
            ?

          8. Oro

            You’ve a habit of arguing/misunderstanding your way through the most redundant and stupid points and framing it as a ‘gotcha’ moment. It’s like your fight with Cian last week when you just didn’t understand additive figures or the meaning of the ‘>’ in relation to numbers and congratulated yourself on your victory when you were so far off radar.

            These vaccines are saving enormous amounts of pain and suffering. They were never touted as having a 100% success rate so your focus on acting as if this is some sort of personal discovery on your part is just embarrassing. Maybe just stick to the nicknames, at least that stuff (dreadful as it is) is up to interpretation.

          9. Nigel

            Shouldn’t you answer my question first? I’ve asked it twice, and it actually contains the answer to you question.

          10. GiggidyGoo

            I take it then that neither of you are prepared to answer the, very simple, question.

            The question is ‘Are Covid-vaccinated people dying from Covid?“

            The answer is yes.

            Is the vaccination saving people? The answer is yes, we are told.

            Your question Nigel. “A fraction of the people who died from covdi were unvaccinated, therefore vaccines don’t work? 300 deaths a day seems like a lot. Ya – so what!

            Most unvaccinated people who caught Covid didn’t die. True or false?

            Your post, Oro again dodged the question. Are you such a coward that you couldn’t give a straight answer? Obviously yes. I do believe too that my point to Cians diversion etc. was well made.

          11. Oro

            You’re not understanding it – in that what you consider to be your ‘question’ is a false position.

            The central issue is the efficacy of these vaccines – which you are trying to somehow draw into disrepute via the extremely rare deaths of people that have been vaccinated. The vaccines were touted as having somewhere between a 90%-100% rate of stopping people from dying from Covid-19. This endpoint has been met, in that vaccinated people are dying at rates of up to 10x less than those that are vaccinated. Therefore the vaccines are 100% successful in meeting the endpoint that was set out initially. Comprendez?

            I don’t think you’re intellectually able to understand the parameters of what you’re trying to argue, and you confuse yourself into a position of being correct, when you couldn’t be less correct.

            I don’t think there’s much point in dragging it out much further with your inane comments about dodging questions, especially since you won’t answer Nigel’s.

          12. Nigel

            You’ve managed to argue yourself into the proposition that the relatively small number of people who die of covd is so significant that it means the vaccines don’t work, and that the much larger number of unvaccinated people who die of covid is of no signifigance at all. I can’t wait to see where you’re going with this.

          13. GiggidyGoo

            @Oro – another long post of….nothing.
            Of 70 covid deaths between May 14 and July 13 in Ireland, fully vaccinated accounted for 12 of the deaths.
            Do the maths.
            My question was precise. There was a definite yes or no answer. You chose to obfuscate rather than answer.
            Writing a long reply with nothing of note in it actually shows up your own intellectual inabilities – have a re-read.

            (Nigel’s question was asking me whether the vaccines work or not. You obviously didn’t read my last post fully – or else you couldn’t understand it).

          14. Oro

            That’s a very small sample size. Also Ireland’s vaccination group is top heavy in older people more at risk so that would affect the numbers. Look at any society that’s more vaccinated and look at sample sizes there.

            Your question was bogus, since your implication is false. I’ve also already addressed it two comments ago. The vaccines were never intended to stop all deaths, therefore extremely low numbers of vaccinated people dying was always going to occur, without compromising the efficacy of the vaccine. That’s all there is to it. You also didn’t engage with Nigel‘a full question.

            Btw NYTimes says approval coming early this week, will catch up with you then ;)

          15. GiggidyGoo

            @ Nigel. We see where you’re going with it. Anything but address the very simple question which required a yes or no answer.
            Your argument seems to be that no one who was vaccinated died of covid. Is that it? That’s another yes or no answer. If you need to get the last word in (as is your want) maybe just answer yes or no.

          16. Nigel

            So you think that when I say less vaccinated people died of covid than vaccinated people I’m somehow saying no vaccinated people died of covid? Incredible.

          17. GiggidyGoo

            Thing is Nigel – you didn’t answer the question. How about answering it with a yes or no answer,
            Yourself and Cians twin have a fierce aversion to answering clearly.

          18. GiggidyGoo

            @Nigel. Read back. I answered your question. You’ve no excuses therefore to answer my yes/no one.

          19. GiggidyGoo

            Nope. You didn’t. I’ll ask it again then. Maybe you’ll tell us yes or no this time?

            Are Covid-vaccinated people dying from Covid?

          20. Nigel

            Instead of asking a question that’s already been answered, could you actually go ahead and make whatever point it is you’re trying to make? Or do you actually have a point?

          21. GiggidyGoo

            I’ve made my points.

            i.e. Covid-vaccinated people die from Covid. That’s the subject question you seem loath to avoid answering. – ‘Are Covid-vaccinated people dying from Covid?’ Do you agree or not? You haven’t answered it.

            here’s another point’

            ‘The vast majority of people who were unvaccinated and caught covid …..didn’t die. They weren’t even hospitalized.’

            Do you agree with that statement? Yes or no again

            Instead of running from the questions, perhaps you’d be so good as to answer instead of displaying your penchant for having the last word based on frivolous avoidance?

          22. Nigel

            You have already said both those things, and I have responded to them without contradicting or disputing the basic facts. Do you keep repeating yourself because you have nothing else to say? If you wish to elaborate or build on those points or respond directly to the points I have made without repeating yourself yet again, feel free to do so. Or are you unable to engage without arbitrarily restricting mine or Oro’s answers to simple ‘yes or no’ responses?

      1. SOQ

        As you know well Cian- there is zero scientific evidence that vaccine passports have the slightest impact on transmission rates.

        Of course one thing always conveniently omitted is that Florida has the highest elderly therefore at risk population in the US.

        1. Nigel

          Which makes it the most homicidally insane state to pass actual laws against basic pandemic measures.

          1. SOQ

            Vaccine Passports never were and never will be “basic pandemic measures”, especially when they do not offer any actual evidence of inoculation.

            My point is that if all this authoritarian anti scientific BS was necessary, then Florida should be at least twice the national fatality rate- but it is not.

          2. Oro

            For the week ending 8/14/21 Florida had 4.6x the national fatality rate based on the numbers here – maybe you should glance at some information before posting?

            Just for some more context for the previous four weeks Florida’s death rate is still over 4 times that of the national rate.

            Oh and the CDC haven’t updated just yet but the week ending august 20th (that means this week) the amount of people that died in Florida doubled.

            You’re really partaking in 2+2=5 stuff today.

            https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/covid19/index.htm

            https://www.orlandosentinel.com/coronavirus/os-ne-print-florida-coronavirus-friday-aug-20-20210820-7zv67ko4vbcrzedjnpchgjxo3i-story.html

          3. SOQ

            Useless eaters are useless eaters in north County Louth- no trees- just a weird statue with no context and a catholic graveyard.

  4. Nigel

    You and the US far right certainly agree on that. But I wouldn’t put money on covid deaths under deSantis not being undercounted.

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