Bijou Drains
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The Saudi position, geographically is very precarious. They have the outlet for oil shipments through the Suez canal, always pretty dodgy but there is instability in Egypt at the moment. They have the outlet through the Persian Gulf and the straits of Hormuz, currently being pressurised by the Iranians, and then the outlet throught the Gulf of Aden, which is conrolled through Yemen, and Djibouti at the Bab-el-Mandeb straits. to the South of Saudi Arabia is Oman, and they seem to have been slightly more favourable to the Qataris in their dispute with the Saudis, than some of the surrounding states. The Saudis may hace painted themselves into a bit of a corner.
Dave B –
by the way
I don’t agree with all that article
Sorry Dave, did you mean the Scotish one or the earlier one?
From Dave B’s post
One Scotland-based expert, who has a background in flu pandemic planning for the NHS, said mass testing and contact tracing should have been introduced at a much earlier stage but that the apparent lethality of the virus globally owes much to the record numbers of elderly and sick people around the world who were “living on borrowed time as a result of modern medicines that extend their lives and reduce symptoms, but make them vulnerable to a novel zoonotic infection like this one”.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, they added: “I believe we will have to pay a high price for this lockdown in terms of the backlog of clinical problems put on hold by GPs and hospitals; a rise in gender based violence; a return to abuse of children on the at-risk register who should be in school; a rise in mental health problems induced by isolation that will be most prevalent in those without access to space and outdoor greenery; a loss of jobs, particularly for the low paid; and the demise of businesses and even industries.
“There is no doubt in my mind that this attempt to control a pandemic, for which planning was woefully inadequate from the beginning, will increase social inequalities in health.”
I agree with practically all of this, I am no cheerleader for the Government’s strategy, in my view they placed profit over people from the start and thousands have died and suffered because of the inaction at the early stages of the Government.
They didn’t introduce measures of control until it was far too late. Whilst Ireland for example had shut down schools, pubs and stopped St Patrick’s day parades, the British government let the Chelnham Festival, with over 120,000 spectators, go ahead, they allowed the Liverpool v Atletico Madrid match go ahead, despite Madrid being in lock down, football matches were not cancelled by the government but by football leagues themselves and then they announced that the pubs would be closed from Midnight on a Friday at 6pm, cue for everyone to go to the pub for the one last time!
They also missed opportunities to prepare any form of contingency in the two weeks they had to make arrangments, this was compounded by public service cuts over the decades. Local Authorities used to all have a disaster and emergency planning group, a colleague of mine was a member of the one in Northumberland for years and they met regularly and planned for all kinds of contingencies. Most LAs have abandonded their Contingency plans with the cuts but the Northumberland plan was one which was kept on, and from what I have heard has been fairly effective.
All of the time they put profit before human lives. I’m sure that when it came to the initial “herd immunity” response the likes of Dominic Cummings and his free marketeer head bangers were the “brains” behind that particular decision. It seems that the “new Churchill” ran the white flag up the flag pole at the first opportunity (as Charlie said first as a tragedy second as a farce)
I must say though that whoever the writer is they did get some bits wrong. The At Risk Register hasn’t exisited for about 15 years and all vulnerable children have been given places in school and CP Social Workers have been working flat out to keep kids safe as far as is possible.
I also feel the approach of “they were old so it doesn’t matter” is not one that I can agree with.
As to the idea that, they were “going to die anyway”, it might be news to some comrades out there, and I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad tidings, but we are all “going to die anyway”
It is on the GlobalResearch site.
Just please spare me the stuff about it being a site for paedophiles, flat earthers and Christian creationists.
Why should the source of your information not be placed under scrutiny, surely as a sceptical worker, that’s what we should all be doing?
Are you saying that whatever you post is beyond scrutiny?
The website you quote from has some interesting videos
- “The truth about 5G”,
- “The Who is funded by Bog Pharma and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation” (I don’t think they mean the band by the way, although by all accounts John Entwistle and Keith Moon were very aquainted with various forms of pharmaceuticals)
- The seven step path from pandemic to totalitarianism
That’s in a 2 minute search, I’m sure there are more weird and wacky articles in there as well.
As to the article you point out:
First of all the claim “I am a doctor” is used to give the writer credibility, I’ve worked with lots of doctors over the years, some good some bad, some complete fruit cakes and many who I wouldn’t trust to get to the bar and back withthe drinks without fucking it up. Incidentially the same “I am a Doctor” claim could have been made by Dr Harold Shipman, Dr Mengele, Dr Bodkin Adams, to name but a few.
Looking at what he is saying, the jist is that the major health organisations are influenced by Big Pharma, they all have place men who have been in bed with big pharma for years and therefore are not the paragons of virtue that they claim to be, well there’s a surprise.
Doctors at all levels have been targets for the profit seekers, every GP is visited by Medical Reps flogging their latest version of a particular medication and hopeing the GP will prescribe this instead of a rival brand. You only need to go into a GP surgery to see the table littered with note pads, coffee cups, etc. plastered with the names of the various brands of medicines. On the basis that this shows the GPs are corrupt and in bed with big pharma, would you automatically dismiss the advice of your GP. Would you claim that any advice given by him or her is automatically tainted and incorrect.
AS stated the article’s main thrust is that as the national and supranational decision making bodies are up to their collective necks with pharmaceutical companies they are making decisions which suit Big Pharma. There is one pretty huge whole in this argument, Big Pharma haven’t got any treatments, or vaccines to sell.
What does it profit them to have everyone locked up, it sould suit them more to have everyone out and about getting ill and increasing their profits?
So the big question is why would big pharma try to use their influence to enforce a lockdown?
So let’s look at what the article says about the lockdown (by the way it’s not mine or anybody else’s on here and I thought you were trying not to make this personal?)
The article states:
For example: The Belgian and French governments’ recent decision to enter a strict lockdown, as directed by CARE and SCIENSANO, was presented as a totally rational decision shared by scientists worldwide.
But such was not the case. It was neither rational nor defended by the global scientific community.
A large number of physicians, professors, consultants and specialists were and still are opposed to the idea of locking up a healthy majority of the world’s population [27-28], and their opposition is based on scientific evidence.
So who are these large number, in fact what does large number actually mean, so far as I can see he quotes the same 10 from the Off Guardian site you referred to earlier. So we have the same information being recycled as if it is new information.
A quick look (I don’t have time for a thorough examination at the moment due to work commitments) at just one of these large numbers (10) of physicians gives us Dr Wolfgang Wodarg, a former Ship’s Doctor and SPD member of the German Parliament 1994 and 2009. A sort of left of centre, German, Liam Fox. A man who has not actively practiced medicine for almost 30 years and in whose former role in the 1980s as head of the Public Health Department in Flensburg, was responsible for employing as a doctor the medical impostor Gert Postel, later revealed to be a postman by training.
Our noble doctor also happens to be a member of Transparancy International Germany (TIG).
TIG, on whose board of directors Wodarg serves, distanced itself from his statements on 17 March 2020: “Transparency International Germany rejects the sweeping criticism of board member Dr Wolfgang Wodarg of the government measures to protect the population from the corona virus. (…) Wolfgang Wodarg is speaking on this matter as a private individual and not in his capacity as a member of the Management Board. On March 25, 2020, the board decided to suspend his membership in the association “until further notice“, which means that Wodarg can no longer exercise any functions on the board or as head of the health working group for the time being. The Board of Directors will commission an independent committee to look into Wodarg’s statements about the Conora virus and to determine whether his behaviour has harmed the interests of Transparency International Germany.”
Transparency Chairman Hartmut Bäumer said that the reason for this was that “Wodarg had expressed his views on “radical media” such as Rubikon, Geolitico, and in an interview with Eva Herman (Some background information, in August 2015, Herman published a conspiracy theory that claimed the European migrant Crisis was orchestrated by “powerful people in the finance sector” to eradicate the white, christian population of Europe and claimed that the September 11 attacks were a hoax, think sort of right wing David Icke without the tin foil hat), all of “which regularly work with conspiracy theories, with anti-democratic and sometimes anti-Semitic prejudices” and “oppose the basic democratic principles of Transparency”; while “some of them are personally close to the AfD.”
Sounds like a lovely bloke.
From the BBC:
“Sweden has seen its confirmed cases of Covid-19 jump from 16,004 to 16,755. The rise was much larger than in recent days, during which Sweden’s Public Health Agency had been cautiously celebrating a flattening of cases.
The agency’s deputy state epidemiologist Anders Wallensten said the majority of the new cases were in Stockholm. Increased testing of healthcare workers could be a factor, he said, but scientists were looking into other potential reasons.“The agency also adjusted an earlier estimation that one-third of Stockholm residents will have been infected by the virus by 1 May, which was featured in a report released by the agency earlier this week and withdrawn after officials admitted errors in calculations.
“I don’t think this should be looked upon as something that is representative of Swedish statistics in general,” Wallensten told the BBC from the news conference via video link. “It was a mistake, I think many people understand that we are working hard these days… unfortunately this was not spotted before it went out.”
On a slightly different note. Isn’t it a bit ironic that all of these right wing American survivalists, who have been preparing for the armaggedon and stock piling their underground shelters for the final conflict with the deep state, are out on the streets freaking out because they had to stop in the house for a fortnight. Soft Shites.
Looks like they’ll be easy pickings when the lizard people arrive
Ozymandis –
You are forgiven.
Go in peace to love and serve the Party,
Blessed be the Party,
Blessed be the Party’s holy name
Further to the discussion about numbers the updates have been made about deaths in “care” homes , this is from the BBC website:
Almost half of all people who have died with coronavirus in Europe were residents in care facilities, the World Health Organisation’s regional director for Europe has said.
Dr Hans Kluge told a press conference on Thursday there was a “deeply concerning picture” emerging regarding those in long-term care.
He said: “According to estimates from countries in the European region, up to half of those who have died from Covid-19 were resident in long-term care facilities. This is an unimaginable human tragedy.”
If that is the case in the UK (and the UK has a high number of “care” home residents per capita, so I know no reason why it shouldn’t) this would put the deaths in hospital and care homes up to around 27,000 since early March. To give some context the estimated annual total military and civilian deaths in the UK as a result of World War 2 was about 75,000. So in the seven weeks since the first death we have had about a third of the annual war deaths in World War Two. Comparable with the Flu, I think not.
Hi John
Thanks for your comment, it seems all of the usual suspects are here, although L Bird has not been on in a little while (If you’re out there L Bird, let us know all is well)
“they should have locked all the vulnerable away and had measles parties for the under 60’s with no underlying medical conditions.”
Interesting that you should say that. A recent criticism of the flu vaccine is that it has been given to the old, children and the vulnerable. As you grow older your immune system is less effective in accepting vaccines, a recent development is that there is a view that the best way to protect the old is by vaccinating the young.
Another factor in all of this is that the inhuman way that capitalism has developed “care” of the elderly. By placing them all together in one institution, to ensure their offspring can get out into the workplace and make profit, all of those with poor immune systems are placed together in one place. When infection strikes it runs riot with the unfortunate inhabitants.
It is a similar way to how capitalism deasl with dementia, i.e. take the people with memory loss away from the one place they know and feel comfortable in, and place them with a whole group of similarly confused people, in unfamiliar circumstances and then wonder why their confusion gets worse.
I am out and about as I am a critical worker.
As am I, and shitting bricks every day. The toll in care homes in SE Northumberland is frightening.
To reiterate, this isn’t anything like seasonal flu.
Week 1-15 2020 = 184,960
Week 1-15 2018 = 187, 780
What you’re not taking account of is that the 1st Covid 19 death, was not until week 10 and since then there has been over 18,000 Covid linked deaths in hospital. As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, This does not include deaths in nursing and residential homes. The figures in the Republic of Ireland include nursing and residential homes the figures there are 769 deaths, but 348 of those deaths occurred in nursing and residential homes. Even if the rates in the UK are half of those in Ireland, that suggests another 25% on top of the UK figure of 18,000 which takes it up to 22,500 deaths, which puts it in the same league as the higher estimates of the ANNUAL number of flu deaths, in just 8 weeks.
At week 15 the claimed Covid death toll was approximately 4,000. Even if we add another 2,000 to that it still means there were another roughly 16,000 further deaths between week 15 and today. that is with a full scale lockdown in place. As I said earlier, and the data backs me up, a comparison between Covid 19 and Flu is completely puerile.
But hey, if you think the risk is minimal, get your self out there comrade.
Dave B
reports?????
or data
What I am saying is that the reports bring the data into question. Data is only useful if it’s correct.
There is a real problem with statistics. The UK government are working on an estimate of an additional 10% deaths in the community and care homes on top of the hospital deaths. However the figures for Ireland, which is counting deaths in care homes and in the community, show a split of 2/3rds in hospital, 1/3rd in the community. If the Irish figures are correct this would raise the UK deaths by another 50%. There are also reports however that in Sweden, Doctors are being discouraged from putting Covid-19 down as a cause of death, if there are underlying conditions. The conclusion is that we will not be able to do a full analysis until much later on.
What seems to be a clear pattern is, that those countries that locked down hard and early seem to be doing best, Denmark, Germany, South Korea, Ireland, New Zealand. Whether that is a long term benefit remains to be seen.
However to compare the Covid-19 deaths to a full season of flu deaths is puerile. The first Covid-19 death was only a little over 6 weeks ago, yet the figures for total hospital deaths are already at the same level as a full Flu season, if you put a rough estimation of community deaths in there, they are probably higher than a normal flu season, in only 6 weeks. Those figures are only going to get higher and higher in the coming weeks and months.
You only have to look at the number of medical workers dying from it to know that this is not comparable to seasonal flu.
One positive thing to come out of this, though. Little Mix and Westlife have cancelled their proposed national tours.
I suppose, luckily those of us living in the UK don’t have to make that choice. However I would add this to the debate::
would you rather have
a) A right wing populist who has many loathsome and anti working class policies and ideas, but who is unable to enact the vast majority of them due to a combination of the opposition he creates and the fact that he is clearly a moron.
b) A centre right bigot, nationalist and sexual preditor, who is up to his neck in promises to big business and who will probably be able to implement many of his slightly less loathsome policies and definitely more hawkish foreign policy decisions, because he doesn’t create as much opposition to his policies and he is not as much of a moron as Trump.
Personally it’s like being asked “which bollock would you like to be cut off”, my answer would be neither.
