The Political Thread

[CrazyFoxMachine]

That Ebola thing is terrifying and the particular complications in this, the largest outbreak in recorded history, are mind-numbing.

Sheik Umar Khan who was the chief doctor trying to stem the outbreak died himself of Ebola yesterday which is harrowing in the extreme.

[Old Tankie]

Yes, Scary.

[SmallBlueThing]

Yeah, I read The Hot Zone back in the day as well, and as a result Ebola is probably my biggest fear even now. Distressing to read, in that link, that perception of "witchcraft" and suspicion of doctors is adding to the likelihood that this could explode into something uncontainable. Science, schooling and a worldwide blanket ban on religious education for anyone under 21 is the only way forward.

SBT

[Old Tankie]

Hi Jim - I tried to send you a Private Message but it was blocked.  So, I'll write it on here.  I'm sorry if I offended you in this instance.  I was genuinely trying to have a joke with you.  I wasn't referring to the facts and figures we've banded about, but about the time you called me a "colossal f***wit".  Anyway, I'll say again, if you're offended, I'm sorry. Cheers, Mike.

[Jim_Campbell]

Hi Jim - I tried to send you a Private Message but it was blocked.  So, I'll write it on here.  I'm sorry if I offended you in this instance.  I was genuinely trying to have a joke with you.  I wasn't referring to the facts and figures we've banded about, but about the time you called me a "colossal f***wit".  Anyway, I'll say again, if you're offended, I'm sorry. Cheers, Mike.

Fair play. Apology accepted. I missed your intent because I'm so bloody annoyed about the explicit suggestion that I've lied about something. Thank you for taking the time to straighten that out — it's appreciated.

Jim

[Jim_Campbell]

That Ebola thing is terrifying and the particular complications in this, the largest outbreak in recorded history, are mind-numbing.

Sheik Umar Khan who was the chief doctor trying to stem the outbreak died himself of Ebola yesterday which is harrowing in the extreme.

Chinese TV reporting a suspected case in Hong Kong.

Edit: Tested negative.

The really alarming thing about this is that Ebola is actually quite hard to catch and is very easy to kill — nothing more than soap and hot water required, so how the hell did we end up with this...?

Jim

[Dandontdare]

The really alarming thing about this is that Ebola is actually quite hard to catch and is very easy to kill — nothing more than soap and hot water required, so how the hell did we end up with this...?

one factor, along with the mistrust of doctors and aid agencies* mentioned above is simply cultural - it is the custom when someone dies for the family to spend a lot of time with the body, washing it, preparing it for burial and paying respects, which leaves them all open to infection.


* a common theme that wasn't helped by the Bin Laden operation - using a fake vaccination programme to track him down set back international aid efforts in Africa and the Middle East a huge amount

[Professor Bear]

Government agencies saying they would "contain" those testing positive for the virus and then letting them walk around unfettered to the point one of them got on an international flight, and another victim tested positive and is currently missing after being abducted from the hospital so her family could take her to a witchdoctor to be cured.
Like everyone else, I too am puzzled why this outbreak has spread like it has, but luckily the government have our back and are making plans as we speak to fortify their mansions protect us citizens in case the worst happens and I have every faith in them.


/prays like a motherfucker

[The Legendary Shark]

If you're scared you'll do as you're told. Ebola, bird flu, MRSA - used as excuses to increase control over you, your environment and your freedoms.
.
Trust us or die horribly.

[ZenArcade]

Good to see a bit of peace and reconcilliation between JC + OT (long may it last).
In relation to the Ebola situation, the transmission vector is people and the movement thereof. WHO probably need to start enforcing quarantines (this will of course be problematic for travellers, but...).
The fear isn't as was pointed out before the means of retarding or stopping the disease: soap and hot water, quarantenes etc. The fear is the 90% death rate of those infected.
As ever, we in the West have the organising capacity to deal with pandemics: foot and mouth being an instance (ok the measures taken were drastic), my worry is that West and Central African nations, who don't have the organising capacity, and in many cases are riven by internal strife,  in the worst scenario, this could be horrendous. Z

[CrazyFoxMachine]

The fear is the 90% death rate of those infected.

Got to pull you up for hyperbole there - it's more like 64% - of 1201 (!) suspected cases in this current outbreak there have been 672 deaths. Damned scary, damned horrible - but not 90. Although anything with a death rate of any number IS alarming admittedly. Ebola as a disease is terrifying.

Worthwhile donation links for those of a mind:

http://www.msf.org/donate

https://www.map.org/ebola

[ZenArcade]

Happy to stand corrected CFM, 64% is still intolerably high (it is almost an insult to such a serious topic but that's not too far off MC1's DOC 75% to give the potential impact some relevance). Z

[COMMANDO FORCES]

I'd also like an apology for calling me a liar, John.

I presume that's with reference to the following 'Yes I know you say that you've voted for everyone but from your prejudice on here I find that hard to believe!'  I think that's pretty obvious really, from your standpoint on everything political I find it hard to comprehend that you would ever vote for the Tories.

By the way, remember a few years back when you said you were leaving this very forum to never come back, yet here you are posting away! Now I think that implies something but then again I could be wrong!

[Jim_Campbell]

I know you find it hard to believe that people don't want to work, especially anti-social shift work!

No, I don't. I really don't — like most people, I know people whose unemployed status is easily as much "won't" as "can't"...

But you have neither demonstrated any evidence that there are enough unemployed drivers sitting around on the dole to fill the vacancies, nor even said whether those vacancies have been advertised locally at all. You just "presumed" and managed to indulge a range of your prejudices in one go. Well done, you must be very pleased with yourself.

I know you like to think that people are hungry for work but I can assure you that there seems to be a certain amount that seemingly couldn't care less.

Clearly reading comprehension isn't high on the list of job requirements for 'right wing troll' because, as you can see in the quoted text above, you make a claim about my opinion of unemployed people, directly below it, I refute your point and then you quote me refuting the point before ascribing that view to me again.

I was very clear in the text you quoted that my objection to your assertion was not that I have some fuzzy, cozy view of the unemployed, but that you made a claim which, absent any evidence that abundant local candidates existed or that the job had even been advertised locally, reflected nothing more than the nasty, right-wing bigotry I've come to expect from you, managing as it does to encompass a swipe at work-shy benefit scroungers and foreigners coming over stealing our jobs in just two short sentences. As I said, you must have been very proud of it. I'm sure some kind person helped you with the longer words.

Having worked in the transport office and seeing this with my own eyes, as I had to deal with it on a nightly basis, I think I know more about this problem than you.

Well, we've only got your word for that, haven't we, John? If you refuse to believe basic facts offered in good faith by other posters, then you have to expect people to treat what you claim with a certain amount of scepticism, don't you? So, no, take your dubious anecdote and shove it.

What we've actually had, in response to my pointing out that you have no basis for your claim beyond your own prejudice is bluster, straw men, and personal attack.

I presume that's with reference to the following 'Yes I know you say that you've voted for everyone but from your prejudice on here I find that hard to believe!'  I think that's pretty obvious really, from your standpoint on everything political I find it hard to comprehend that you would ever vote for the Tories.

That's an explicit accusation of lying, John, and I want you to withdraw it. You have no evidence to the contrary and, unless you're suggesting I have early-onset Alzheimer's and can't remember how I've voted at various national, local and European elections, then you're calling me a liar.

(For your information, I voted Conservative in the Newark by-election this June because I was damned if I was going to live in the first constituency in the UK to return a UKIP MP, particularly a homophobic, racist cretin like Roger Helmer.)

I'm sure you won't believe that either, as you prefer to live in a blinkered world where the problems are all down to Thatcher and the Tories!

Your selective reading of my posts says more about your tedious habit of lumping everyone to the left of you (ie: just about everyone) into one great homogeneous lump labelled 'lefties' assigning your blanket view of what that means to all of us. I have variously been critical of much of New Labour's time in office: academy schools, the wholesale embrace of PFI, the Iraq War, the wholesale assault on civil liberties... it's a long list which utterly refutes your mis-characterisation of my position, but I should be used to you erecting straw men and tilting at them rather than engaging with the arguments at hand, since intellectual dishonesty* is very much your modus operandi.

On the subject of which:

By the way, remember a few years back when you said you were leaving this very forum to never come back, yet here you are posting away! Now I think that implies something but then again I could be wrong!

I'd like you to find and quote a post from me saying that, John, because otherwise that's another lie from you. There was a period when I was getting routinely sniped at when I took a step back from the board (recently discussed here, to avoid going over it all again) but I don't ever recall announcing that I was leaving "never to come back" and I'd like you to back up your claim that I have.

So, in summary: you have cast doubt on the honesty of basic facts offered in good faith by another poster, which no basis for doing so, and have then, in the process of trying to bluster your way out of that been caught flat-footed in at least two more lies (charitably, gross misrepresentations) and yet want to appeal to your credibility as a poster in support of your otherwise unsubstantiated anecdote about benefit scroungers and job-stealing immigrants.

I can't speak for anyone else, but the opinion of a right-wing van driver whose hobbies include assaulting cyclists and dressing up as his favourite comic character is absolutely the first thing I give credence to when consider the rights and wrongs of a political issue.

No need for that apology, John — you've exposed your ignorance and bigotries, not to mention your penchant for flagrant trolling, for all to see.

Jim


*I use the word intellectual in the loosest possible sense, obviously.

[Hawkmumbler]

Appallingly hyperbolic new site noth withstanding, caught this clip of Laverne Cox (Orange is the New Black) laying down why we need to get over Transphobia. Love this lady.

http://www.thewrap.com/laverne-cox-corrects-gayle-kings-trans-terminology-on-cbs-this-morning-video/