Dr. Gonzo

Lol do you know anything about Pakistan or Indian diplomatic relations? I think it's pretty safe to guess the answer to that one is "no"

@Mel81x plz confirm

What do you mean? Do you mean the sheer difference in the number of cases and number of dead people? Because India's got a population of 1.4 billion (roughly) and Pakistan has a population of 216.6 million (also roughly). Do you mean because they're so physically close together geographically? Because that means fuck all tbh . If you look at the ratios, I think India might be underreporting the number of dead from COVID cases - but they also might not be (or the stats haven't been updated fully to account for the horror the virus has caused there)... but I don't think there's anything overly unusual about those numbers.

But how's that not possible. Even if they're underreporting the number of cases and deaths... the ratio actually does fit many countries.

Why's that not possible? I do doubt the full accuracy of the extent of the virus in India and Pakistan... but those death-to-confirmed cases ratios are pretty much right in line with most countries.

I can understand why so many governments have tried to deflate their COVID numbers. But it logically doesn't make any sense that they'd pump up the numbers to make the situation look worse. Even if they had some sort of reason, like keeping everyone at home in order to: prevent tourists from coming in and shut down businesses... why on earth would they do that? They can't just tank the economy because they have some "nefarious reason" and expect everyone to just sit there and take it. It also doesn't add up that they'd release something like 0 new cases in the UK yesterday if they were trying to pump up the numbers. Because that is directly contradicting the idea they're trying to inflate those numbers. So my guess is: they aren't. The video you posted is from Israel, it's one of the most COVID vaccinated countries where they've got less care about COVID because of how well they've managed the virus. Why the fuck would they try to boost the covid numbers? Their ministry of tourism is trying really hard to get people to visit again. You can't do that if you're also running a campaign of trying to convince the world that COVID is still running rampant.

I think more governments have cooked the books the other way actually, underreporting the figures.

It’s disturbing

That high school bombing in Kabul is pretty fucking horrific. Religious fundamentalists are absolute scum, and the Taliban are up there with the worst of them. They target kids, especially young girls, to control the population with fear... truly disgusting people.

CIA should release a series of educational videos of all of the times they've undermined democracy around the world and ended up making the planet a bit less stable and a bit more unsafe next.

Tbf I can understand people being skeptical of an entirely new type of vaccine being used on humans for the first time (which is what mRNA vaccines are) - and I'm pretty certain the ones that aren't mRNA. I do think that people being afraid of the vaccine being rushed aren't really considering that work was done previously with SARS and MERS (two other types of coronaviruses) - so it's not like these vaccines have been rolled out in less than a year from when we're seeing this global rollout of the vaccines. But mRNA vaccines have been around for a while, just because they haven't been used in humans (or at least regularly) doesn't mean they can't be successful viruses. I think mRNA vaccines are probably the future of vaccines for the foreseeable future tbh. I'm vaccinated and I made up my mind pretty early on I would get the vaccine. But that doesn't mean I didn't have worries that I think were legitimate - and yeah, we really don't know the long term effects. But chances are we wouldn't know many long term effects (if any) in just a few years either. And I don't think I'm anti-vax at all, I just think sometimes it's good to be skepitcal. At the end of the day, I do believe the pros of getting vaccinated outweigh the potential cons (which may be completely unfounded).

They'll always go forward because they've got the tacit support of the US and EU.

It’s finally starting to get more coverage in the Western media, which is good - although irritating, but not surprising, that they’d be slow to react to this news. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/sep/21/leaks-show-chelsea-owner-abramovich-funded-israeli-settler-group - this always blows my mind. I’ve known Abramovich is a shitty person for as long as I’ve known about him, but I do think this makes all of his “anti-racism” campaigns with Chelsea fans look like a bit of a hollow joke

The trial’s ongoing and he hasn’t been able to form a government since their latest election. I feel him increasing tensions over Palestine is his way of keeping his trial out of the news - which is shamelessly horrific… but that’s what you get from an apartheid state tbh

It's probably better if shit like this happens during testing, better to have something worked on that considers all potential possible potentially fatal flaws then thinking you've got something perfect and overlooking it and killing someone (or more than someone).

It doesn't look so bad tbh: https://markets.businessinsider.com/indices

I always thought Gattuso and Pirlo were a perfect midfield pair. I wonder if it's the same with them as managers. Gattuso, the general, should be manager. Pirlo should be the assistant. Get Carlo Ancelotti in as Director of Football, and I think that's a guaranteed recipe for success. *edit* Get Clarence Seedorf in as a coach or a scout or something too

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2021/5/4/if-i-dont-steal-your-home-someone-else-will-jewish-settler-says I don't think shit like this is really condemned enough by the international community. Also friendly reminder that Roman Abramovich funds a lot of these illegal settlements.

Tbh that’s probably the kind of attitude that keeps Tories in power, even when they’re not all that popular. Labour are just completely inept - I do think the media plays a part in tearing down all Labour leaders after Tony Blair… but you couple the ineptitude in messaging & an unfriendly media and it’s no coincidence that they always struggle. The party’s tendency to always fall into infighting and NEVER having a strong opinion on any of the UK’s most pressing issues until they have an idea of how most people feel, also just leave them looking weak. Tories have infighting and then come election time they close ranks - Labour just keep having internal power struggles, while seeming like pandering to swing voters. It really is a bit shit because I’d never vote Tory and if I’ve learned anything about my voting preferences is I’ll never vote for Lib Dems again after that Clegg-Cameron coalition. Never felt more betrayed by a political party and in recent years I think they’re just dishonest Tories. But not voting basically guarantees Tories continuing their free run at seeing how badly they can fuck things up before more people notice.

Lol whoops, you posted right before I posted and called you fairly left-wing It's definitely not just us. You can see it happening in shitloads of countries all over the world, and I'm not sure it's a particularly new thing.

Imo, we should always give people the benefit of the doubt and I'm not sure saying things like that is particularly helpful. On this part of the politics forum, he should be free to let us know his political views. And as long as it doesn't devolve into anything that could be considered outright bigoted - I think it's fine, even if lots of people disagree with him. Being able to debate our political viewpoints is a good thing, even if we don't agree. He's come from a different forum where the political views there are a lot more uniform and a lot more right-wing than our forum. Here we've got more left-wing people, like me, @Inverted, @RandoEFC, we've got a lot of people who would probably identify as "moderates" - and without @Fairy In Boots active anymore, we've not got many conservatives to debate on here. Closest thing is probably @Cicero - and I think he'd say "fuck off, I'm pretty fucking moderate" As long as he's not crossing the pretty clear red lines I think we have on this forum, he's free to debate without fear of getting banned. We don't all need to agree about everything all the time. Especially when you consider we're talking about the UK - for the last 10 odd years we've been run into the ground by Tories that have been pretty successful in continually getting elected, while the UK's other big party has sort of stagnated and become less relevant. Even though I fundamentally disagree with Tories on a shitload of issues, I still think it's important to hear their side and try to understand how they think. At the end of the day we're all really on the same side and just want the UK to be a bit better than it is right now.

Found it! Looks about right, I suppose

Can't say something like that without giving us the link so we can all post our results too

Yeah exactly. They're both two humanitarian issues that probably should be better addressed by the government - but they're not really competing issues. Refugees should have a safe place to stay while they're processed. Homeless people need to have access to programs that help them get back on their feet (because, unfortunately, providing them with temporary housing often isn't enough - they're usually people who've got mental issues, crippling drug addiction, or both). Honestly, I think it's a bit fucked up to say "no more refugees!" while we're very fucking culpable for the formation of ISIS and the aftermath of the Iraq invasion & what that meant for Iraq and Syria in the long run. Our tax money was spent in a way that directly contributed (and in many cases, like with our strong ties with Saudis who give arms and aid to Wahabi groups.... we still are contributing) to ruining the lives of people very far from us. The least we could do is provide some assistance to some of those who've fled due to the chaos we helped build up.