News Thread 2

I don't mind seeing people in moderation. But too much causes sensory overload, and from there it's a one-way trip to snapping (which I believe the few people that don't yet have me blocked are now aware of what I'm like during!)

I'm loving the peace and quiet of social distancing. And because I knew what would happen months ago I don't even need to hunt for essentials like bogroll, I stocked up on that as soon as Covid-19 hit Iran (not stupidly mind you, just bought my usual 32 roll pack and three weeks of tinned food over four trips).

I also get sensory overload, so I get that. Probably less so than you though.  

Walks are really nice and peaceful at the mo.  Silver linings.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAARGH


Even the right-wingers seem finally to be getting fed up with the blonde-haired twat's mismanagement of the coronacrisis, and not before time. What in Jesus' rectum does 'STAY ALERT' mean? Apart from, 'GET BACK TO WORK SERFS'.

It's an infuriating strategy, particularly because when it all goes wrong the government can turn around and say - well it's the public's fault for not following our guidelines.

I strongly dislike the fact that the two metres distance rule is being valorised as safe. You know, if we stay two metres apart then you won't catch it. Except it doesn't mean that, it just makes it less likely that you catch it. But that's a far cry from safe.

We've tested just over 1% of Britons, have capacity to test under 100k per day (still) and the tracing app isn't out yet, but of course now is a good time to ease all the restrictions with some nonsensical language!

I guess herd immunity is still on.

The silver lining is that it might kill so many of you over there that I wake up one morning to the news that I'm the king of England.

Muss wrote:

It's an infuriating strategy, particularly because when it all goes wrong the government can turn around and say - well it's the public's fault for not following our guidelines.

This is exactly why the turd's doing it, isn't it. Looking forward to an infection spike!

https://twitter.com/RealMattLucas/status/1259566662791106569

I'm glad lockdown rules seem to be a devolved power because Nicola Sturgeon has been doing a bang up job with handling this situation. Still, a lot of that confusion from "STAY ALERT" is still bound to bleed over up here too.

Interestingly I've got an English friend who moved to Scotland and is now very mopey about the whole Sturgeon 'thing'.  Everyone I know who's still down in England and has a grain of sense thinks she's doing a bang-up job.

Muss wrote:

https://twitter.com/RealMattLucas/status/1259566662791106569

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen him do.

I don't especially agree with the sense that Nicola Sturgeon has done a bang-up job with handing the situation, but I think the balance is a lot better than it seems to be in England. 

Yesterday was the first time that she's explicitly ruled out any chance of the schools returning to normal before the end of June, when the summer break starts in Scotland. I mainly work in an academy, so I'm quite interested to see how my job moves forward.

Balladeer wrote:

Muss wrote:

https://twitter.com/RealMattLucas/status/1259566662791106569

This is the funniest thing I've ever seen him do.

Can't argue with that. I don't really like the guy's work in general, but this was genuinely good.

Re: Sturgeon. Compare her to the mess that has been Boris or the crooked fart man and she's done well, but that's damning with faint praise. I think she's been alright overall. I'm not sure how much agency she has over the production/importation and distribution of testing kits, but Scotland hasn't fared any better than England in testing capacity as far as I know so if she does have powers over it, she really needs to step up there.

Over here it's become quite apparant that there are those who are still distancing, and then there are those who see what the tories have said as a license to do what they want. The supermarket we shop at, the staff seem to have given up on enforcing it inside.

Perhaps 'bang-up job' is overstating it, but given my regional leader can you blame me?

I can't even get that annoyed at this any more. Another article about idiots gathering for a baby shower had them saying, 'But the schools are going back on June 1st,' and I can almost see their logic. The danger must be basically over, surely?

You really can't blame general members of the public for this. They've been deliberately kept misinformed, and now the bought-and-paid-for media are doing their best to make us turn on each other rather than take umbrage with the people responsible.

Without any irony I will say: Boris Johnson and the Conservative Party, along with most of the establishment Labour Party, to be honest, are murderers. They should be stripped of all power and wealth. A guillotine would be too good for them.

Sorry if I wasn't clear: that's exactly what I meant. I don't want to shoot the messenger - except actually in this case it's the messenger who deserves shooting.

Muss wrote:

The supermarket we shop at, the staff seem to have given up on enforcing it inside.

This has been a thing at least since I've been back which is now 7 or 8 weeks so long before it became Stay Alert and people going to the camping etc

I know I have and others have spoken to customers to follow the arrows, over the pa etc, but they do what they want and two customers even had an argument over the 2m with one saying to do it and the other going I can do what I want it's a free county you can't tell me want to do whilst I was putting out some stock but know it's happened to others as well or along the lines in the store.

I think all Boris has done with stay alert have given that person who thinks they can still do what they want the free rein to do what they want, sure shouldn't be the case, but they were doing it any way, and we've all seen the pictures on the net people at Brighton Beach along ago.

I think this is a good way of addressing a bad thing.

I saw that, good satire.

I wonder how damaging this will be for the tories going forward.

I think the Cumsack will play the "I need to protect my child so I'm resigning" card at some point. It won't be a resignation because of the things he's done, but because of the things some members of the public are doing. That's the only way the Tories can try and save face and claim moral authority. Although this does of course assume he'd be willing to reign to help the Tories out.

Either way, anyone's fault but his own.

It won't do anything because nothing matters

Muss wrote:

I wonder how damaging this will be for the tories going forward.

Not enough, like every other terrible thing they've done. See also: Trump, D.

Yall probably right but one can hope.

I can't remember the last time that I logged onto the beeb's website and wasn't angry.

It has been 10 days since the government last announced how many people had been tested in a single day, instead masquerading whatever the real number is behind claims that our capacity for testing has increased to 200k per day.

The reason why they stopped broadcasting the number is because it leaked that people being tested are often tested twice, so while strictly speaking the number of tests done was true it wasn't actually representative of how many people we were testing.

Yet there's old Nick Triggle, BBC's health correspondent coming onto the live feed today to announce good news, more people than ever are being tested.

And maybe that's true, it probably is. I hope it is. But there should be a clear and obvious distinction between capacity to test and number of tests/numbers of people tested on a given day. I just cannot help but feel that the Beeb have a responsibility to report with precision, not parrot whatever the tories would like them to.

All the news just makes me feel a depressing mixture of furious and helpless, so I'm mostly taking a break from social media and discourse and everything at the moment.

Me too, except I can't drag myself away from it a lot of the time. The GRcade news threads are real social bubbles but I can't deal with anybody right of centre at the moment.

Muss wrote:

I just cannot help but feel that the Beeb have a responsibility to report with precision, not parrot whatever the tories would like them to.

Yep that would be great.

Bioshock is coming, ladies (no ladies) and gents!

...what?

I've managed to stuff up music links before, but not to put one in the wrong thread! I must be tired.

Shall we try again?