leicsmac

That's entirely possible, yeah. We'll know pretty quickly. Edit: It's pretty clear how high the stakes are for the future on this one. I'm sure you know that too.

Kamala Harris is 5/2 to win in November. Lump on - if you win you won't get a better price going forward, if you don't, well...civilisation won't be around long enough for you to miss the money.

1. I agree. The conspiracy theorists do not. 2. Again I agree, but it really doesn't add any solid evidence to the idea being floated that Covid wasn't actually all that, does it? Allow me to be clear - I think that the NHS and its staff did the best they could with the information they had, and I also believe in their integrity enough that if something had been afoot regarding the seriousness of the issue, there would have been enough smoke from enough people to alter course and I see no reason to suspect they got much wrong at all - especially when dealing with a hitherto unknown gift from the natural world. It may be fair to be sceptical of the political talking heads, but, like other scientific issues, the scientific professionals do have a voice of their own, it does almost always come through in terms of consensus regarding what policy should be done (even if it isn't then done) and if someone thinks that isn't the case, they'd better be prepared to prove it. Conspiracy theories on this matter and other matters of science deserve Hitchens Razor: present evidence (in which case they become legit conspiracies) or be dismissed without evidence.

Windies collapsing in a heap here.

Well done Brook! Was due a big score.

Reusable SSTO is the manmade nuclear fusion, the Holy Grail, of spaceflight. And like those things, it's bloody difficult to achieve/find. The differences between aerodynamic and astrodynamic flight affecting practically everything from engine design to hull structure design (among other difficulties) is an engineering challenge that's beyond us right now - or at least beyond a truly massive injection of resources and time (it is theoretically possible with currently existing technology). Hopefully though one day we might get there.

Speaking personally, I think that accusing an entity of allowing more deaths on their watch than could have been allowed by a different action is a pretty serious accusation and is indicating incompetence from them at best and malice at worst, but that's me. Certainly that's true. However, pretty much the entirety of the NHS staff, including some very eminent professionals who would know their stuff, then made the decision themselves to agree with that decision and so either believed it was the best way forward or were browbeaten, incompetent or nefarious enough to make the wrong decision themselves. Pardon me for remaking the same point, but I guess I just get tired of conspiracy theorists libelling decent doctors and scientists by directly implying they were part of a conspiracy or clueless because somehow Covid wasn't as bad as reported, and I get even more tired when they try to dress it up in "that's not what I said" deniablity when it's made clear just how ridiculous and malicious the claim is. They should be called out.

I emphatically agree with the bolded and the general gist of the post. But what those who imply that Covid wasn't as great a threat as required the measures that were taken are also implying exactly that; that the people making the decisions and other NHS staff were either incompetent enough not to realise that the virus wasn't that much of a threat and hitch themselves en masse to that idea through thought and action throughout the whole crisis, or sadistic enough to join "Them" (whoever "They" are) en masse in a decision to mess up the UK and the world for nefarious purposes by deliberately misrepresenting the level of threat the Covid virus presented.

And I think they made the right decisions. But fair enough.

And I'm going to trust that the NHS took that decision for the clear and obvious reason that not doing so would result in a much higher rate of death and suffering. . Unless, again, the assumption is made that practically all of the NHS decision makers and medical staff base were either incompetent or sadistic.

To be honest, Covid killed indirectly through diverting more resources away from other fatal conditions than any novel condition for a rather long time, so there's a rather clear element of culpability there. And personally I can't quite understand the conspracist argument about Covid not actually being that bad for (among others) that reason; what exactly would the reason be to let a great many people die of heart conditions, cancers etc if Covid wasn't that problematic, unless the entire NHS corps suddenly decided to be either ignorant, doormats or straight sadistic? (Which quite frankly is horrible libel against decent people.)

These are all good parts of a solution, but unless places like India ditch their reliance on coal and oil for power generation ASAP it's simply not going to be enough.

One would assume the latter, which is a positive step.

Lead of 250-300 should be enough, I think. If we're still batting by lunch tomorrow, that makes us heavy favourites.

Well, that's about 60 more than the Windies should have scored, let's hope it doesn't end up being critical.

That, and/or various other circumstances of your lived environment and economic circumstances, too.

I don't think I agree and I've explained my reasons why in the post above, but I can certainly see the extremely valid point and I may well be wrong.

I think that very much depends on the power of the individual (a person successfully lobbying for an alternative power source for an area would likely be more effective in terms of carbon emission reduction over a lifetime than a vegan diet), but fair to say. I think for such measures to be be effective they would have to be applied across a population, which would require either a magnificent PR campaign or strict police state enforcement because it would be very unpopular at the start. I'm not against it, I think it may well be a necessary measure in the future, but I do think it would be impractical and there are easier bigger solutions that also would be easier to apply and they might be prioritised.

Yep, and power generation dwarfs even that. I might submit that addressing that as the biggest problem might be both more effective and a better hit with the public than either transportation or animal agriculture, but of course all three do have to be addressed in their own way in time.

Scope for adjusting public transport in a way that is cleaner and cheaper is certainly the way to go. Along with addressing energy generation Focusing on voting for, endorsing and applying the necessary solutions is what's needed, the Daily Fail and various talking heads trying to generate attention on peripheral matters about it at the expense of the future be damned.

Yeah, that is a problem, but it is peripheral to the bigger issue IMO. Forgive me, but too often I see arguments floated in this way as a means of sidestepping the very real, very difficult problem, which is modifying the way we generate energy and (to a lesser extent) travel while still maintaining present quality of life, before the actions of our species cause consequences that will reduce quality of life for a great many people in very drastic fashion. The Earth won't allow us to quibble about it forever.

Agreed, however also given that as far as I know no one on here (and let's be honest, no one in the wider world who actually has a handle on the whole problem) has advocated for abandonment of such transportation, rather a switch that maintains quality of life while saving hundreds of millions of lives in the future (at minimum)...with respect, I'm still not seeing the point.

And I wonder, seeing as energy generation dwarfs global transportation in terms of worldwide overall carbon emissions, exactly what point is being made here. Some more clarification would be appreciated.

And closer to home: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn051ee77pno London must better prepare for severe floods and heatwaves, a report has warned. The London Climate Resilience Review, published on Wednesday, called for a "reset moment" for the capital following the general election. Emma Howard Boyd CBE, chairwoman of the review, said preparing London for more frequent and extreme climate risks was "non-negotiable". The report highlighted opportunities for investment in London but warned that time was running out to act on climate resilience. A government spokesperson said it welcomed the review and understood the "urgent need" to prepare for and adapt to changes posed by the climate emergency. The review said that in July 2022, when London hit 40°C, there was a 50% increase in water consumption, while reservoirs were at their lowest for 30 years and wildfires pushed the London Fire Brigade to its limits. It recommended that an official heat plan be created for London to enable the city to better deal with severe floods and heatwaves. And yet, despite this and much more noteworthy events elsewhere, people feel the need to be distracted by the dog and pony show on the M25. I know the discussion about it has been done to death, but as time progresses and the effects really kick into gear, people in a few places might become less sympathetic to the accidentally or deliberately apathetic.

East Asia getting hit with monsoon conditions at least as bad as last year, which was among the nastiest in history.