James105

Eh? They are all wearing masks. Are we expecting lots of tourists with x-ray vision who will be able to see this alleged famous Thai smile? Or are they actually going to be brave little soldiers and remove the masks?

Do statistics produced by the ONS get peer reviewed? Thats a new one on me. It's just numbers. They don't have feelings and they only seem to show that masks do not have any impact on Covid in the real world. Happy to change my mind if you can provide any evidence to the contrary - peer reviewed or otherwise - that is as compelling as the England vs Scotland experiment. I presume you must have some actual data to be so certain of what you believe?

I get it. Once you have been tricked into a position it is virtually impossible to be reasoned out of it regardless of how much evidence you are faced with as nobody likes to admit being fooled. If there was conflicting evidence that proves that Scotland (with mask mandate) had a better outcome than England (without mask mandate) I am sure you would have provided it.

Yes, you complained about the first one which was advertising a book (a fair point) so I gave you a second one which was produced using data from the ONS and was written by an NHS consultant doctor. What is the problem with the ONS data? Are you suggesting the ONS is faking data as well as another poster on here? Did Scotland have better outcomes with a mask mandate than England did without despite the ONS data suggesting the opposite?

Sigh, the data comes from the ONS to produce the graph that is in the article as I am sure you are aware.

Data is data. It does not care about your feelings. It's just numbers. Do you have conflicting numbers that debunk the data I have provided? If not then you are the one providing conspiracy theories. Who do you think is faking the data? The ONS? The aliens?

I did read it, but it just confirms what other studies already say. Try this one from an NHS doctor from Scotland who was comparing the data between England and Scotland: https://thinkscotland.org/2021/12/did-scotlands-mask-mandate-achieve-any-benefit-compared-to-englands-mask-free-approach/ The data doesn't care about feelings. It's just numbers. I don't know how people can still believe what is provably untrue. Perhaps if the world was a sterile environment, and people could be programmed like robots to wear properly fitted masks that are actually effective and designed for the size of the corona virus then it could have made a small difference. The type of badly fitted, ineffective masks that people wear and how they wear them might as well have been capes or armbands for all the good they did. Good riddance to them and now the data has been recorded on how ineffective they have been I hope people can never be fooled into wearing them again.

There is data everywhere that shows masks do not make a difference. You can look at what happened in the UK as an example when England removed the mask mandates months before Scotland. If you were correct that mask mandates work then England would have had a worse outcome. They did not. https://thinkscotland.org/2021/12/did-scotlands-mask-mandate-achieve-any-benefit-compared-to-englands-mask-free-approach/

If you look closely at the graph I posted earlier you can see the effect that the mask mandates had in Germany (zero effect). They didn't make any difference so why would anyone else want to copy such a failure of a policy? I do agree though that if you are a surgeon and are operating on patients in an operating theatre I would certainly agree the polite thing to do is to continue to wear your properly fitted mask. I do not think the removal of this mask mandate prevents surgeons from wearing masks when operating on people. If you are scared/worried then you can do social distancing and take some personal responsibility for your own health. No-one is going to force you to go to nightclubs and give people hugs as far as I know.

The bigger mystery to me is why on earth anyone would want to pay £450 for what is clearly displayed on the ticket as a "training session".

Masks have not been banned. You can wear your mask wherever you want, whenever you want, including on public transport.

They can of course, and their customers can choose to spend money elsewhere. 7/11 are sticklers for the rules, but if the mask rule is no longer a rule I would expect them to drop the requirements as they are in the business of making money... If they drop the requirement then I would expect most other shops would too.

There is that word "could" again, which is without doubt the hardest working word in the English language.

I dabble in the odd joint on occasion, but not often. I've tried it over here since its been legalised, choosing the absolute weakest available on the menu, just as I would do in Amsterdam some years ago. The stuff in Amsterdam would get me a happy buzz, giggles etc but not even close to the point where I would lose control. The weakest stuff over here though has got me completely stoned after just smoking a 1/4 of the joint and I am grateful I didn't try it until I was at home. I'm not surprised people are passing out and I won't be trying it again here unless I find somewhere that offers the same as a typical Amsterdam cafe from someone who actually knows what they are selling.

So we need an emergency decree just in case there is an actual emergency. Clown world.

https://www.city-journal.org/the-failed-covid-policy-of-mask-mandates

Fine, whatever. Perhaps if the unions in the UK hadn't all been screaming for harder and longer lockdowns so their members could sit at home watching Netflix at the expense of taxpayers then maybe, just maybe, there would be more money to go around. Who would have thought that 2 years of doing nothing would have consequences.

Since you asked... have some links... https://nypost.com/2021/09/11/incredible-scenes-of-womens-liberation-in-1970s-afghanistan/ https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/05/1117762

Western woman have adjusted their clothes over the years according to the fashion of the day. These 2 pictures are from Afghanistan. One is from a time when the women there were actually allowed to choose, the other is from more recent times now that men are making the choice for them.

Of all the jobs out there this is the one that is the most easily automated as the trains (literally) run on tracks. Some lines in London already run without drivers. Strikes like this will hasten the demise of this job. If I was a train driver with zero transferrable skills and someone was willing to pay me £60,000+ per year I'd probably try and keep a low profile rather than striking and drawing attention to how easy the job is compared to how much the salary is. A bus driver has a significantly more challenging job, has transferrable skills and gets less than half the salary of a train driver.

The vet probably went shopping, to bars, had massages, went to the gym and did lots of other things too. But yeah, the cat sneezed so it definitely came from the cat. Clown world.

So why don't the men wear one too if it is a religious symbol? Could it be that it is nothing whatsoever to do with religion but to do with control and forced modesty perhaps?

No, it is not. This is allowing misogynists to hide behind religion in order to treat females as lesser beings to the men. Sometimes the law needs to get involved so that everyone can be treated equally and fairly, regardless of the sky wizard they believe in.

These sound ideal for ginger people. "They" in this case is their husbands or the outdated views of the males in a certain religious society so it is forced - the women themselves do not have a choice in this. The law in this case is (possibly misguidedly) trying to bring the males of a certain religion kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

I agree. For my part I am going to follow the example set by high profile climate activists such as ex-royalty Harry and Meghan who regularly preach to us all about this. It's not going to be easy making those 20 extra unnecessary flights per year but I will do my best.