polpott

Panic over. 61 new local infections today. No deaths.

3 hours ago, pacovl46 said:

What I was trying to say is that the right to bear arms has been taken away from the vast majority of people living in Europe for example, and it has been that way for decades in some cases over a century.

The UK has never had "the right to bear arms" in the American sense. We don't even have a written constitution.

4 hours ago, mogandave said:

 

Proven by who, your poly-sci professor? 

 

So how would you punish the people that violate gun control laws? 

 

5 years jail in the UK.

https://www.statista.com/statistics/249740/percentage-of-households-in-the-united-states-owning-a-firearm/

42% of households in the US own a gun in 2020. It isn't significantly falling. 43% of households in 1972, 43% of households in 2018.

3 minutes ago, Bkk Brian said:

If that were to be taken literally then the EU demanding that AZ supply its shortfall of vaccines from the UK plants is invalid.

And manufactured by a UK company and developed and patented by a UK university.

6 minutes ago, sandyf said:

An irrelevant argument and a bit arrogant to claim who is more deserving.

Not arrogant, I just stated facts. My post was totally relevant, your reply was totally irrelevant as it provided no argument against any of the facts I stated.

As an ardent ex remainer need I remind you that Brexit is over, we're out of the EU. Time for all Brits, ex remainers or ex brexiteers to get behind the UK as it now is.

4 minutes ago, billd766 said:

I think that in the end the UK embassy did me a favour by stopping it. I no longer go to BKK, spend 2 nights in a hotel and make 2 visits to the embassy, nor do I have the hassle of going to the Thai Post Office to get a money order.

 

I just get my pension providers to send or email me a letter, I keep a short version of my Wise/BBK transfers and the Immigration office in Kamphaeng Phet are happy with that part of the paperwork.

 

I do it all myself without an agent and at 76 I have the time to spare to do it that way.

Same here. It also saved me the £52 embassy fee. I don't understand why you had to go to Bangkok though. I did everything by post, in fact, if I remember correctly, the BE refused to issue the letters in person. I also paid by cc.

Just now, Meat Pie 47 said:

and the guy who was the shooter was not a citizen?

I think you know what I meant. No citizens were involved in taking down the perp. What I learned today was a lone police officer arriving at the scene is expected to go in without backup. In the Uk they wait for an Armed Response unit to deal with any event involving weapons.

The classic case was the London Bridge stabbings. ARU arrived within 10 minutes of receiving the call and promptly shot all 4 terrorists dead.

43 minutes ago, foreverlomsak said:

The 2 items were co-incidental, yes they were moving and wanted to downsize, but the truth is the embassy has no right to investigate your finances to validate your assertions, as was being required by Thai authorities.

 

If it was a blatant lie, by the British Embassy for their own purposes, why did the American and Australian Embassy's stop at the same time.

More to the question, why didn't most embassies stop at the same time? The original comment from the middle ranking IO was specifically aimed at the US who did no real verification, the Australians didn't do much more. It wouldn't have taken much for them to change their procedures to align with all other embassies, including the UK. They chose not to. I have already explained why the British embassy chose to go down the route that they did.

Just now, adammike said:

My two white Christian brothers travelled down to North Wales to seem my 97yo mum last weekend,she seems to be fading away.One from the Medway area one from Norwich,both on the orange list.

They had far more justification to travel than a couple of large families travelling from a Covid hotspot to enjoy an ice cream on the promenade, wouldn't you say?

5 minutes ago, KhaoYai said:

Absolutely. I've had legitimate reasons to travel to Harrogate, Leeds, Manchester and York. Motorways busy, lots of people out etc. etc. It would be interesting to hear from other members who live in the UK - here, this 'lockdown' doesn't ever resemble the first.

 

Yes there are marks on the floor in supermarkets etc. - marks that people ignore and walk wherever they want.  B&Q are open for example, as are many stores that were closed in the first lockdown.

 

In the first lockdown I struggled to find anywhere open to buy things for essential property repairs - now I have no problems. Plumbing, electrical and car parts shops are open.  The house next door but one to me is undergoing major renovation by a group of tradesmen. The local quarry where roadstone is mined is fully operational. Really, I don't see much difference to normal. The exception being in the evening, then everywhere is dead.

The figures make it relevant. As I said, when UK kids went back to school last September, cases rose immediately (look at the graphs on gov.uk). This time they've been back for 2 weeks and cases are still falling. What other explanation is there?

 

In general, yes some places are dead but they have been replaced by other places being busier than normal.  For example, when I was on the M62 and it was packed, where were all those people going if they weren't visiting friends, family or doing non essential shopping? 

A friend of mine lives in Morecambe, Lancashire. Noted to me that a large group of Asian muslims were seen strolling down the promenade on Sunday, clearly not locals, just there for a day out. probably no coincidence that Blackburn and Darwen, which has a large muslim community, is a hotspot for Covid in Lancashire.

8 minutes ago, mogandave said:

 

Couple years ago the homicide rate in London was higher than New York...  

UK vs US?

2 hours ago, spiekerjozef said:

Do you want the world to feel sorry if you know already what the problem is ? Why that media attention?

Just waiting for the next one...

So who will be the next one? After the quelling of the invasion of the Capitol many predicted (including myself) that the next phase of insurrection driven by Trump would be the lone gunman carrying out mass shootings on "the enemy". First they targeted "Chinea people" purveyors of  Covid (all Asians are Chinea people according to the racist bigots who support Trump), now we have a line of people queuing up for the vaccine being targeted (by an anti vaxxer). Who's next?

1 hour ago, foreverlomsak said:

Yes, the UK embassy stopped doing the letters, because they were being required by Thai Authorities to validate the contents of the documentation that was being provided (not just view and accept), and under the EU Data Protection Act, they are unable to do so.

 

And all other European embassies? It was a blatant lie by the UK embassy who stopped the letters because they were moving to a smaller embassy and wanted to downsize Thai staff numbers.

4 hours ago, Enzian said:

I thought the point was that Immigration asked the Embassies to do more than just create a sworn affidavit, to actually go back to the US  (in my case) and verify that I really had that much in my US bank accounts, and the embassy said they didn't have the manpower or authority for that, hence Immigration stopped accepting the unverified affidavits. So from that POV, Immigration forced my embassy to cease and desist, and I had to have funds wired to a bank here (rather than pay an "agent").

Immigration never stopped accepting the letters. The US embassy stopped issuing them. This was on the back of one routine meeting between the embassy consular officials and one middle ranking immigration official. The three embassies jumped at the chance of discontinuing the letters. The UK embassy in particular already performed the level of verification that was being asked for and it would have been a simple job for the other 2 embassies to change their verification methods to fall in line with all other embassies.

On 3/20/2021 at 8:51 AM, car720 said:

Whoa up.  If you have lived there then you will know that this is the way the Chinese see things.  Typical tit for tat.  You take mine hostage (regardless of international law, which, believe it or not they just cannot relate to) and I will take yours hostage. You give me mine and I will give you yours.  This is the way it has been for thousands of years and change doesn't come easily in China.  Good people, bad government.

Exactly. Trudeau should be asked about Meng Wanzhou, Huawei executive and daughter of its founder, who has been held under house arrest in Canada for over a year after receiving an extradition request from the US on totally Trumped up charges. A purely political act.

2 hours ago, starky said:

No one knows what the upper limits are could be a year or longer but what they are saying with utmost confidence is you almost certainly have 3 months of immunity. This is based around clinical trials and as the vaccine hasn't been around long even the first people to receive it have only been immune 4 months at the upper limits. 

Clinical trials of the AZ vaccine started almost a year ago (April 2020) in the UK. Initial results from the testing of those first groups suggest at least a year of immunity.

1 hour ago, Jeffr2 said:

What?  Do some research.  Perhaps no different than not taking the full regiment of penicillin.  Which has lead to resistant versions of a virus.  Same goes for many other drugs requiring a multi-dose regiment.

 

https://www.the-scientist.com/news-opinion/will-delaying-vaccine-doses-cause-a-coronavirus-escape-mutant--68424

 

Will Delaying Vaccine Doses Cause a Coronavirus Escape Mutant?

 

With many millions of people waiting several weeks to receive a second COVID-19 vaccine dose in some countries, experts consider the possibility that SARS-CoV-2 could evolve vaccine resistance.

From your link:

"In general, vaccine resistance among pathogens is rare. Famously, vaccines have succeeded in keeping the highly infectious measles virus at bay since the inoculations were first introduced in the 1960s. And Meyer notes that, while influenza viruses are known to mutate rapidly, their many variants are not generally thought to have evolved as a result of vaccination programs."