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566 thoughts on “A Good Idea

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  • nevermind

    An O?T snippet on a new TV channel called Mustard, it could also have been called ‘dooooh’ as in the Simpsons, but Mustard TV in Norwich it is.

    It is an Archant press TV channel that has a homogenously white, vetted staff in the EDP vane. Here is my comment which will most likely not be printed, but I saw the picture of all staff today in their printed version double page spread and it makes me shudder how someon e can get this through the broadcastiong brief.

    “Directed, staffed and paid for by a homogenously caucasian crowd of vetted journalists who are not representing the make up of Norfolk. Far from providing an alternative to the excisting BBC channel, it is a copy cat with an EDP heart. How such monocleic focus on one ethnic identity was allowed a pass the broadcasting brief is baffling, or could it just be another manifestation of a fact, namely that Stephen Lawrence case of Met internal racismn is spread through many other organisations.”

  • fred

    ” Did anybody else see the above story on any of the main news channels at peak hours?”

    It was on the BBC website along with film of the assault.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Clark – while we’re on the subject of grace :

    “Whether it’s good news that it costs 130 pounds per patient, and that taxpayers are paying out that much for it, depends upon whether that is a fair price or not.”
    ___________________

    1/. Is GBP 130 the final price negotiated between the manufacturer and the NHS or was it the manufacturer’s previous (and private) price?

    2/. I wonder who would decide on what’s a fair price for any medicine (factoring in the cost and time for the development) and who should establish it.

    3/. Even if the cost of the three shots needed is GBP, compare and contrast with the price – for example – of a not very sophisticated I-phone. Or a passport. Or a weekly (large) coffee at Starbucks for a year.

    Hope that helped, and be happy that the vaccine will be available, for free, on the NHS.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    A little O/T, but connected with the media nevertheless.

    Given that the BBC gets a lot of stick on this blog, I was just wondering what commenters thought about the govts’s apparent willingness to consider de-criminalising non-payment of the licence fee?

  • Herbie

    More leaked tapes.

    This one showing that teenager Tymoshenko is a big potty mouth, who’d bring the world to nuclear armageddon for a soundbite:

    “Ukrainians must take up arms against Russians so that not even scorched earth will be left where Russia stands”

    “It’s going too far! Bugger! We must grab arms and go whack those damn katsaps [a Ukrainian word used to refer to the Russians in a negative tone] together with their leader,”

    “I’ll use all my connections, I’ll raise the whole world – as soon as I’m able to – in order to make sure.. Bugger!.. not even scorched earth won’t remain where Russia stands,” she promised.”

    http://rt.com/news/tymoshenko-calls-destroy-russia-917/

    Please God, make it be a fake.

    Where’s the adults?

  • guano

    ‘Egypt court sentences 529 Morsi supporters to death’

    Muhammad Mursi intended to get Egypt directly involved in Israel’s destruction of Syria. When the generals realised what a headless chicken the US had brought to power, squawking around with an Al Qaida handbook under his wing to cut off his thinking brain and follow instructions from the mad mullahs, CIA, and Tel Aviv, they took action to prevent him, and his equally head-less chicken followers from lemming-like jumping out of the hole in the back of the chicken lorry to their certain deaths.

    It might have excited the neandercons in Washington and Westminster to see the entire Middle-East go up in flames at once, but fortunately for us the Egyptian military put a stop to it. It was a coup for chickens escaping from the coop. Was it a good thing for Blair to unleash the iron grip of Saddam Hussain? Yes, for Al Qaida, but No, for everyone else.

    There is a battle of wills following the CIA-Arab Spring as to whether the freedom from dictatorship is utilised to form stable decent government, or let all hell break loose. Ask any Syrian which one is best.

  • Clark

    Habbabkuk, I don’t think everything is doom and gloom, and the Great Leader’s message about life becoming merrier uplifts me every time I read it!

    No, seriously; this new vaccine may be a very good thing, and I certainly hope it is. There is a possibility it could prove horribly wrong, like thalidomide did. Or it could turn out in due course that corruption between commercial and government concerns played a part in its introduction. I just don’t know these things. You, on the other hand, are obviously playing it up on behalf of your favourites, the Conservative party. But you do not know those things either, or at least I hope you don’t!

    Attempting to score party-political points on a blog like this seems pretty cheap, similar to the support for the Russian military response in Crimea.

  • John Goss

    Thanks Herbie for the leaked Timoshenko tapes. Just what the world needs in a time of crisis, a madwoman like that in power.

    Ben

    I don’t mind mods commenting as long as they are even-handed in the way they administer forfeits, and that has been my experience. After all it must be quite frustrating if you want to join in a topic and can’t. Believe me if you’ve been around this blog long enough you would know how difficult it is to keep good mods. My guess is that from time to time Craig has a hand in moderation. Surely you would not ask him to stop commenting. Would you?

  • guano

    Ben

    The media inform us that the public is indifferent to being spied on, which in effect what moderation is on this blog.

    Being watched and controlled by criteria which are undefined is gross psychological abuse, even if the majority choose to ignore it because they are not trying to take a moral stand against what FedUp used to call the ***-****-wits.

    As a Muslim I took evasive action from being spied on by fellow Muslims in the mosque post the war on terror, only to find that UKUSIS governments and Al Qaida were two socks on the same foot!

    The stated purpose of the moderation is to keep the blog on topic, the unstated purpose is to make us believe in an intangible tension. The reality is that our moral compass is being twiddled off magnetic north by artificial ambiences of attraction/repulsion .

    We can discuss anything and everything but the instincts of our hearts. The reality is that Craig is using moderation to troll his own blog in order to keep a facility for truth-seeking open under a government ***-****-wit regime that absolutely and manically and totally detests the concept of truth.

    CM’s opening gambit was to ask if we had noticed the new bars/chicken wire on the windows. They are not his bars/wires.

  • John Goss

    Guano, while a know what you’re saying I can’t agree with you on this topic. In the organ I write for without moderation we would be inundated with advertising bumf of every description, which people do not want. It’s the same on here. You must have noticed people trying to get people further into debt with hare-brained loan schemes. Also people go overboard sometimes, and the language can be as bad as that of Yulia Timoshenko’s. There is, in my eyes, a case for moderation.

  • guano

    John, Hi.

    If you know you are being looked at you will do something different to yourself. That means in many cases you will do something wrong instead of doing something truthful.

    Lots of drivers overtake slowing drivers and accelerate across the lights on red. So please don’t beep me when I wait 3 seconds after the lights change to green. I change my behaviour to adapt to the reality on the ground.

    The traffic slows down to accommodate the illegal hotheads. But in the metaphor, the USUKIS ***-****-wits and their Qaida partners are the illegal hotheads. And I am a legal commentator legally trying to tell the truth on a blog.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Clark

    Just to stay with you on this one for a little longer.

    “No, seriously; this new vaccine may be a very good thing, and I certainly hope it is. There is a possibility it could prove horribly wrong, like thalidomide did. Or it could turn out in due course that corruption between commercial and government concerns played a part in its introduction. I just don’t know these things. You, on the other hand, are obviously playing it up on behalf of your favourites, the Conservative party. But you do not know those things either, or at least I hope you don’t!”
    ______________________

    I can only repeat my “you might fall under a bus this week” – possibly but unlikely. Of course I don’t know these things either, but I remain optimistic, on the basis that Thalidomide-like tragedies are rare. Neither am I impressed by your suggestion that corruptiuon may have played a part in getting the vaccination onto the NHS – that sounds rather like an, expression of bad grace than a seriously-held belief.
    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    “Attempting to score party-political points on a blog like this seems pretty cheap,..”

    ________________

    With great respect, Clark, you are talking nonsense. For two reasons:

    1/. this blog is vaunted as the (?)third mostly widely- read political blog in the UK. Politics in the UK expresses itself mainly through political parties, who espouse various policies. So what is wrong with making a political or even party political point on this blog?

    2/. The present govt is frequently castigated for a variety of “offences” on this blog; indeed, one gets the impression that, for the Eminences at least, it can do nothing right. Hence it is not only my pleasure but also my absolute right to highlight cases where the govt has got something right – where, as the Leader would say, the Govt has done the right thing. What is wrong with that?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Mr Goss

    “Thanks Herbie for the leaked Timoshenko tapes. Just what the world needs in a time of crisis, a madwoman like that in power.”
    _________________

    I wouldn’t worry too much about it. A seasoned old hand like you shouldn’t panic.

    1/. Politicians say all kinds of things. But do they necessarily do them?

    2/. Madwoman or not, she is not presently in power.

    3/. We must await the outcome of the elections in Ukraine to know whether she WILL be in power at all.

    So I advise you to keep calm. If you must panic about something right now, perhaps you could do so about the apparent build-up of Russian troops and matériel on the Russia-Ukraine border?

  • Mary

    Poor little babes. No wonder many develop needle phobias.

    CURRENT CHILDHOOD VACCINATIONS
    2 months – ‘5 in 1’ – diptheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib); pneumococcal (PCV); rotavirus

    3 months – 5 in 1 (second dose); meningitis C; rotavirus (second dose)

    4 months – 5 in 1 (third dose); PCV (second dose)

    12-13 months – Hib/Men C booster; MMR (measles, mumps, rubella); PCV (third dose)

    2 and 3 years – annual flu jabS

    Around 3 years and 4 months – MMR (second dose); 4 in 1 – diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio

    Source; NHS Choices

    BIG PHARMA doing well.

    For clarification,

    The Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation (JCVI) said the vaccine was effective in preventing meningitis B and should be rolled out subject to it being made available by the manufacturer “at a cost effective price”.

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-26679486

    Membership
    •Professor Andrew Pollard, Chair (University of Oxford)
    •Professor Judith Breuer (University College Hospital)
    •Dr Peter Elton (Greater Manchester, Lancashire, South Cumbria Strategic Clinical Network)
    •Dr Maggie Wearmouth (East Sussex Healthcare NHS Trust)
    •Mr Chris Liffen (lay member)
    •Dr Gabrielle Laing (NHS City & Hackney PCT)
    •Mrs Pauline MacDonald (Dudley Primary Care Trust)
    •Ms Anne McGowan (National Public Health Service for Wales)
    •Dr Andrew Riordan (Alder Hey Children’s NHS Foundation)
    •Professor Claire-Anne Siegrist (Geneva University Hospital)
    •Professor Matt Keeling (University of Warwick)
    •Dr Peter Baxter (Sheffield Childrens NHS Foundation Trust)
    •Alison Lawrence (lay member)
    •Professor Robert Read (Southampton General Hospital)
    •Professor Anthony Scott (London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine)

    There seems to be no record of pecuniary interests, if any. If none, we should know.
    https://www.gov.uk/government/policy-advisory-groups/joint-committee-on-vaccination-and-immunisation

  • Clark

    Habbabkuk, tragedies like thalidomide shouldn’t be compared to personal accidents. It’s a matter of trust in the authorities, so it would make more sense to draw a parallel with the series of train crashes we had some years ago. I lost a friend in the Paddington crash.

    I’m sorry you don’t like the mention of corruption, but it does happen sometimes. I’m not in the least suggesting that it is any more likely in this case.

    This blog has never been much of a forum for inter-party debate. There are plenty of those, and I don’t think anything would be gained by this becoming just another such. I do hope you appreciate the diversity you find here; I think that could well be lost if political party megaphoning became the norm.

  • Peacewisher

    @Herbie. Yes, Syria warmongering last year was a particular low for the Beeb. I was too busy with other things in 1987 to notice what happened to the BBC at that time. Wasn’t that an election year? Could you elucidate?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Mary cooes:

    “Poor little babes. No wonder many develop needle phobias.

    CURRENT CHILDHOOD VACCINATIONS
    2 months – ’5 in 1′ – diptheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib); pneumococcal (PCV); rotavirus

    3 months – 5 in 1 (second dose); meningitis C; rotavirus (second dose)

    4 months – 5 in 1 (third dose); PCV (second dose)

    12-13 months – Hib/Men C booster; MMR (measles, mumps, rubella); PCV (third dose)

    2 and 3 years – annual flu jabS

    Around 3 years and 4 months – MMR (second dose); 4 in 1 – diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio

    Source; NHS Choices

    BIG PHARMA doing well.”
    _______________________________

    If the punch-line of the above is the little sneer at “Big Pharma”, then this post is cheaply foolish even by Mary’s usual standards.

    To avoid the “needle phobia” Mary’s mentioned, which of the above vaccinations would she recommend no longer be given?

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Clark

    “I think that could well be lost if political party megaphoning became the norm.”
    __________________

    In that case, address yourself to those on the blog who spend a lot of their time slagging off the present Coalition partners, the Conservative and Liberal Democrat parties.

    ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

    As for your reaction to the making available on the NHS of the hepatitis B vaccination, I note in conclusion that it is not one of unqualified approval.

  • Mary

    That UK Gov site is out of date. PCTs and SHAs went ages ago. We now have clinical commissioning groups – CCGs.

    How much did Lansley’s Health and Social Care Act 2012 cost to implement?

    Why > £3billion.

  • AlcAnon/Squonk

    The new data regarding the plane is said to be Doppler frequency shift analysis. I was actually wondering if they could do that on another forum a few days ago. The answer apparently is they could

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Mary

    “There is no ‘e’ in coos. It is usually ‘harrumphs’. Pathetic.”
    ____________________

    Never mind, Mary.

    Just answer the question raised by your post : which of those infant vaccinations would you suggest doing without in order to ensure that children don’t develop “needle phobia”?

  • Peacewisher

    @Ba’al Zevul:

    Don’t forget that Ukraine was a member of the laughably called “coalition of the willing”. I bet that went down well with their Eastern neighbour.

  • Habbabkuk (La vita è bella) a!

    Mary writes:

    “Poor little babes. No wonder many develop needle phobias.

    CURRENT CHILDHOOD VACCINATIONS
    2 months – ’5 in 1′ – diptheria, tetanus, pertussis (whooping cough), polio and Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib); pneumococcal (PCV); rotavirus

    3 months – 5 in 1 (second dose); meningitis C; rotavirus (second dose)

    4 months – 5 in 1 (third dose); PCV (second dose)

    12-13 months – Hib/Men C booster; MMR (measles, mumps, rubella); PCV (third dose)

    2 and 3 years – annual flu jabS

    Around 3 years and 4 months – MMR (second dose); 4 in 1 – diptheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio

    Source; NHS Choices

    BIG PHARMA doing well.”
    _______________________________

    Habbabkuk asks :

    To avoid the “needle phobia” Mary’s mentioned, and to ensure that Big Pharma does less well, which of the above infant vaccinations would she recommend no longer be given?

  • Ben

    AA; Do you have a background in aviation? I’m surprised you didn’t chime in more on the ‘Disappear..’ thread. 🙂

  • Daniel

    “Thanks Herbie for the leaked Timoshenko tapes. Just what the world needs in a time of crisis, a madwoman like that in power.”

    I have picture in my mind: Clinton, Nuland and Timoshenko sunning themselves on Abromovich’s luxury yacht. I don’t know where on earth this image comes from.

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