Open mike 30/12/2020

24 comments on “Open mike 30/12/2020 ”

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1. Adrian Thornton 1

   30 December 2020 at 11:01 am

   The great John S Hall…an oldie but a goodie…

   King Missile III – Another Political Poem

   [deleted text without quotes]
2. Adrian Thornton 2

   30 December 2020 at 11:13 am

   Holy Crap!!!….

   Trump unseats Obama as US’ ‘Most Admired Man' & Michelle Obama earns ‘Most Admired Woman’

   [deleted text without quotes]

   https://news.gallup.com/poll/328193/donald-trump-michelle-obama-admired-2020.aspx
   • Morrissey 2.1

     30 December 2020 at 1:03 pm

     Who would admire Trump or Obama? I think it's obvious that all the respondents—including the six per cent who profess to admire Sleepy Joe—were simply "having a laugh", as Father Dougal McGuire would say.
3. millsy 3

   30 December 2020 at 11:20 am

   Revolution still on hold?

   We have had bugger all posting over the past few days.
   • gsays 3.1

     30 December 2020 at 12:57 pm

     With political poetry and revolution as a theme, this cycled through my phone's music selection.

     Still as poignant as it was 45 years ago.

     https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QnJFhuOWgXg
   • Morrissey 3.2

     30 December 2020 at 1:08 pm

     Well, this writer (i.e., moi) is back from two months in Siberia, so there may be a slight increase on the old posting front.

     https://giphy.com/gifs/TAG24video-meme-tag24-totaletom-jtLURwPzj3yfnO40gt
   • weka 3.3

     30 December 2020 at 5:20 pm

     I keep thinking of posts to write and then realise they're too depressing for this time of year.
4. Stuart Munro 4

   30 December 2020 at 11:34 am

   A good write-up on Baker & elimination.

   "It was so easy to turn the tap off. They finally regulated the allowable levels of Campylobacter in chicken and our rates halved in three months. It reminded me that regulation and strong government is often what you need. I thought the industry was just doing what it was allowed to do but actually it was government that was asleep at the wheel."
   • xanthe 4.1

     30 December 2020 at 3:50 pm

     OH MY GAWD! Thats total crap!
     • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1.1

       30 December 2020 at 4:50 pm

       OH MY GAWD! Thats total crap!

       All of it xanthe, or just bits?

       “A good write-up” vs “total crap” – why poles apart, I wonder.
       • xanthe 4.1.1.1

         30 December 2020 at 5:49 pm

         ALL of it ! … hint = clickbait

         a more reasoned answer is

         If the headline is simply not true and the rest of the article is clickthru then it its Crap IMHO. You are welcome to yours
         • Drowsy M. Kram 4.1.1.1.1

           30 December 2020 at 6:43 pm

           Very kind xanthe – it seems that our opinions about articles on Baker are destined to be poles apart.

           Here are a few excerpts from the article that is, in xanthe's opinion "total crap!" IMHO these excerpts indicate the article is not total crap.

           On masks, lockdown, managed isolation and a centralised Public Health Agency, he has lobbied for new and more innovative measures to fight Covid-19 and ultimately succeeded in getting the Government on-side. Perhaps his greatest achievement, however, was convincing the Government to go for elimination.

           "It was so easy to turn the tap off. They finally regulated the allowable levels of Campylobacter in chicken and our rates halved in three months. It reminded me that regulation and strong government is often what you need. I thought the industry was just doing what it was allowed to do but actually it was government that was asleep at the wheel."

           "It [rheumatic fever] is the most inequitable disease in New Zealand and something we are almost alone in the high-income countries in having. It's Australian Aboriginals and then Māori and Pasifika in New Zealand."

           "Then the next moment was in mid-March when it was clear that transmission in New Zealand had gone from imported to local transmission and that we didn't have anything like the capacity, infrastructure or organisation to stop it, so we had to go for the full lockdown."

           "I was talking with the media very intensely, putting out blogs [on Otago's public health expert website]. You realise that the decision-makers are also wondering what to do and the one common thing is everyone is listening to the media, so that became the way of actually injecting these ideas into the discourse," he says.

           As early as March 18, a week before the country would go into lockdown and while the borders were still open, Baker was telling me he thought New Zealand should launch a "pulse" lockdown for two or four weeks. That we only had 20 confirmed cases as of that day didn't faze Baker — it only underscored the unique opportunity we had to lock down, eliminate the virus, and open up with a semblance of normality.

           When the Prime Minister announced the alert level system on March 21, she indicated we would be in Level 2 for several weeks. Baker doubled down, calling for a lockdown once again. He says sentiment within Government began to change by the end of that day, and on Sunday he took part in a conference call with Jacinda Ardern, Grant Robertson and a number of business leaders who pushed for the Government to move to Level 4.

           "I have to say, I did shed a few tears then, because it seemed to me like we were really choosing the right direction after a lot of advocacy," Baker says.

           "The next big lesson I have is that, actually, this thinking we have to apply to other threats on the horizon. If the scientists say that actually climate change is going to be appalling in its health and environmental consequences you need to listen to them and move away from the short-termism," he says.

           "The difference [between a pandemic and climate change] is that [the impact of the] pandemic is a few months away, versus something where the worst effects will be mounting progressively. A pandemic is a transient threat. It may be horrible but it will eventually disappear, probably not on its own in this case but with the help of vaccines, within a couple of years. But climate change is really different. All that CO2 going into the atmosphere doesn't go out again."
           • xanthe 4.1.1.1.1.1

             30 December 2020 at 8:06 pm

             own trumpet will blow … get clicks! all good.
             • Drowsy M. Kram …

               30 December 2020 at 8:42 pm

               “own trumpet will blow”

               What does that mean? Is your beef against the writers of the article, or against Baker himself?

               Tall poppy choppers will cut … spleen vented! All good. Click click

               Better prepared
               Professor Michael Baker has become one of the most public faces of New Zealand’s pandemic response and is now leading a new research project to help ensure the country is better prepared for the next major public health emergency.
               The programme of work, called Co-Search, involves more than 20 collaborating researchers, three universities, a Crown research institute, community organisations and an international advisory group, and is funded by the Health Research Council (HRC), the Ministry of Health and donations. It is based at the Department of Public Health, UOW, with Baker as director and principal investigator and Dr Amanda Kvalsvig as lead researcher.
               Co-Search’s main research goals are to describe the pandemic and its impact on population health in New Zealand and the Pacific; evaluate the elimination response to help improve its effectiveness; improve the country’s ability to manage major threats; and identify health, equity and sustainability benefits arising from a well-designed recovery.
               https://www.otago.ac.nz/otagomagazine/otago757069.pdf
5. Mad Plumber 5

   30 December 2020 at 2:39 pm

   Can someone suggest a link that I can send to counter the information a family member is getting who believes that dead people, and extra votes were cast in the American Elections. Please do not climb down my throat Families!

   [I don’t think you’d wanted to use your real name so I changed it back to your routine user name here – Incognito]
   • Incognito 5.1

     30 December 2020 at 2:46 pm

     See my Moderation note @ 2:39 PM.
   • Andre 5.2

     30 December 2020 at 3:20 pm

     Well, as it happens, dead people did try to cast votes. Three of them. In Pennsylvania. For Don of the Deadbrains. And now the Texas Lieutenant Governor that offered a million bucks for proof that shit was happening isn't coughing up.

     https://www.huffpost.com/entry/john-fetterman-dan-patrick-voter-fraud-bounty_n_5fea4cf9c5b6acb5345a427b

     Kinda more along the lines of what you might be looking for, I like Metabunk for diving way into the weeds on specific claims. They look at politics, as well as UFOs, WTC towers, chemtrails, anything else where anyone is making claims of weird shit going on. Here's just one of their political threads:

     https://www.metabunk.org/threads/explained-red-mirages-blue-shifts-and-data-dumps-in-the-2020-election.11471/

     On a more general nature, there's the usual sites that pop up on a general search for election misinformation debunking, such as:

     https://www.dw.com/en/dw-fact-check-debunking-election-misinformation-online/a-55507603

     https://edition.cnn.com/business/live-news/election-2020-misinformation/index.html

     https://www.politifact.com/article/2020/nov/20/fact-checking-false-claims-about-2020-election/

     Every now and then there's a long term Republican having a righteous rant about the bullshit flying around, like this one:

     https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2020/12/29/2004779/-PA-GOP-State-Senator-tells-his-constituents-why-he-s-had-enough-of-post-election-madness
     • Mad Plumber 5.2.1

       30 December 2020 at 4:21 pm

       Andre, Thanks for that. It isn't till you talk to other people that you realize how insidious some of this crap is and it is those who get their information from these sites that is of concern. It is amazing what you hear around the lunch room.
       • rod 5.2.1.1

         30 December 2020 at 4:35 pm

         Old Plumbers including mad ones never die, they just go down the drain. Old joke.
         • Mad Plumber 5.2.1.1.1

           30 December 2020 at 5:45 pm

           Parts of us do go down the drain when we go to the morgue, High born, Low born. I won't go any further as the moderator might step in.
       • Andre 5.2.1.2

         30 December 2020 at 4:36 pm

         I'm always puzzled by the dead voters thing. It's the easiest kind of electoral jiggery-pokery to detect and prove. I mean jeez, very good records are kept of who dies and when they died, and it's a very easy cross-match to electoral rolls. That's why there's always news stories about morons trying it on and getting caught. It's because it's so easy to catch them, not because there's a lot of it happening.

         AFAIK, all states have laws that specify what happens if a voter dies between casting their early or absentee vote, and the date of the election. Some states count the vote as long as the voter was alive when the vote was cast, other states check the death rolls as part of the process of processing the early and absentee ballots, and discard the votes of those that have died in the interim. In any case the numbers involved are so tiny it's extremely unlikely to affect the outcome.
       • Anne 5.2.1.3

         30 December 2020 at 5:23 pm

         Paul Buchanan (alias Pablo) over at Kiwipolitico gives and excellent rundown on what happened in the US since the 1950s which led to DJ Trump and his band of loonies and vagabonds – who are responsible for the loony theories and misinformation currently circulating around the globe.

         It may not teach you how to handle those who have fallen for the tripe, but will give you an understanding how they got to where they are.

         http://www.kiwipolitico.com/
         • Janice 5.2.1.3.1

           30 December 2020 at 7:18 pm

           Thanks for that Anne, a very interesting read.
6. Incognito 6

   30 December 2020 at 9:30 pm

   https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/world/433835/covid-19-oxford-astrazeneca-vaccine-approved-for-use-in-uk

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