Harris V Trump - The US Election - The Results

[moby]

Nov 12, 2024 7:53:03 GMT alec said:

moby - "No ones rights were at risk if they voted for Harris though. However Trump is claiming he plans to deport millions of people and will quite happily separate families in doing so."

That's the point though. These people don't have rights to risk, if they are legally able to be deported. That's what the left doesn't appear to understand. By definition, they are there illegally, and that's why so many legal migrants in the US, who did things by the book, are seriously hacked off about uncontrolled immigration. It's why Trump won. No amount of bleating about the rights of people who have trampled on the rights of everyone else alters these fundamental facts, and the left's failure to grasp this, along with the tendency to claim everyone who disagrees with them is one step away from Hitler, is why they are getting kicked back at the polls.

I struggle to understand why the mass movement of low cost labour in the form of high levels of immigration from poor to rich countries is a left wing obsession. It hurts low paid workers in the host country, harms the poorer economies in the donor countries, and provides excellent benefits for middle class and wealthy types who have access to a ready pool of low cost, compliant labour.

They have human rights and I wonder whether Trump has diplomatic co-operation from the receiving country. It's not 'bleating' to counter a toxic narrative that will cause untold harm to families and actually just push the problem elsewhere, like for instance the Canadian border!
I'm sure our Democratic campaigning friend in Minnesota is pointing this out to his republican voting friends as we speak though.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/08/trump-mass-deportation-plan   

[steve]

House race now at 204:214 with democrats leading in 9 and 6 more too close to call!

[mark61]

Nov 12, 2024 0:37:00 GMT mercian said:

Nov 11, 2024 19:55:49 GMT mark61 said:

Here we go again, any chance of supporting your assertions withs some evidence?  Give me an example of Someone sent to Gaol for making comments on the internet which did not involve breaking the Law of the Land (or can we now choose which we obey?) whilst letting sex offenders go free.  Does anybody concerned about immigration get called a racist, or do they get called  a racist when they make racist comments when they  discuss Immigration.  
Does The enlightenment as you see it really want to re-write history because it offends people?  or is it just part of the process of re-examination that happens generation after generation, why are you so challenged by that process are you so wedded to the History of Britain's glorious imperial past you were taught at school in the the !950's or 60's that you have a paddy when historians point out that there were inglorious episodes within it, does it ruin your day when you visit a Stately Home and are reminded it was built from wealth gained in the slave trade?

Trump is a Climate crisis denier,  he was a quack science follower during the Covid pandemic, He believes in alternative facts, he can't count the number of supporters at his rallies, last time he comprehensively lost the Election in 2020 he refused to accept the result, and tried to overturn the result, he is about to pull the rug on Ukraine and cosy up to Putin, but apparently Political Correctness whatever that is according to you has done far more damage to the enlightenment than Trump is ever likely to do. 
Time to show us your workings out Turk, or people may conclude your just posting rubbish.

You obviously skipped over the bit of turk 's post that I have highlighted. For instance re slavery. When Sir John Hawkins went on a speculative trade mission to west Africa with a cargo of goods such as (I assume) of manufactured goods such as axes and cloth and asked them what they had to trade they said "Well we have these slaves...". Thus began the famous triangular trade of England to West Africa to trade goods for slaves, then West Africa to the West Indies and mainland America to trade slaves for stuff like tobacco and cotton, and then back to England. It's just as valid to say that fortunes were built on cotton and tobacco as slaves.

We were also the first major power to abolish slavery and attempted to police it for other nations as well as we could.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/West_Africa_Squadron

We should be celebrating our part in abolishing slavery in the Empire rather than wallowing in guilt. And of course slavery still exists and we are no longer in a position to enforce abolition even in our own country it seems.

www.birminghammail.co.uk/news/midlands-news/slave-bride-brought-birmingham-hit-29160596

   

Mercian, between 1640 and 1807 Britain played the dominant part in the trans Atlantic slave trade transporting 3.1 million people from Africa to North America and the Caribbean the triangular trade was immensely profitable.   You will accept the Slaves were often worked to death or died on route, so Bestial were the conditions in which they transported.  There is a famous Jmw Turner painting Slave Ship depicting the horror of drowning chained Slaves.  You are right in saying Britain was the first major power to abolish Slavery in 1807 whether the fact that the economic case for slavery by then was waning may be a coincidence.

Given the offence is so great, would it not be curiously asymmetric to celebrate our role in 1807 whilst drawing a vale over the misery of the preceding 150 years?  Black lives matter.

[Danny]

Nov 11, 2024 21:31:33 GMT pjw1961 said:

]Scientists don't "believe" in climate change. They look at the evidence. Which frankly is now utterly overwhelming. 

I remember when I was a lad 50 years ago watching horizon on global warming, and perhaps separately on sunspots. The existence of global warming due to humans burning stuff was obvious even then, maybe a question about the degree.

However, I mention sunspots because there was also a clear correlation between the sunspot cycle and climate. Relevant perhaps because this year we got the auroraborealis over all england, unprecedented too (at least in living memory). So while this year has been touted as record high temperatures, we should be bearing in mind there is a regular approximately 11 year cycle which imposes its own peaks and dips on temperatures. Checking at wikipedia I see the variation in solar radiation emitted by the sun is enough to account for 0.2 C increase in temperature, which occurs at sunspot peak for reasons other than the dark spots on the sun themselves (non visible energy output increases). So its not extraordinary we should get record temperatures this particular year, and we might expect the next few years to fall off a little until the next peak comes round in 11 years.

Exactly how sunspots affect climate isnt clear, it may well not be simply the total amount of radiation, but effects on the magnetosphere and clouds, because how much cloud there is also affects temperature. Seems to have been quite wet lately, which may also be part of the same effect. Wiki says correlations have been found between the 11 years cycle and thickness of tree growth rings, and the commodity price of wheat (ie the cycle affects how well wheat grows worldwide). As well as the 11 year cycle, the total magnitude of sunspot activity varies over longer time spans, so has been greater in the past and is on an upwards trend now.

The 11 year sunspot cycle is apparently associated with the sun's magnetic field flipping (ie N pole becomes S pole) every 11 years, so on a cycle of 22 years.

[Danny]

Nov 11, 2024 23:10:15 GMT alec said:

shevii - Certainly civilian casualties are high in Gaza, but that is in part down to Hamas deliberately integrating their military units within civilian centres.

Oh come on, Hamas is basically a citizen's army, so of course its hidden in civilian settings. Israel has claimed its aim is solely to destroy Hamas, but Hamas is merely the result of Arabs upset about 75 years of losing wars against Israel forming a movement to oppose Israel. If Israel nominally destory Hamas, the victims of this war will recreate it, as always happens in any such conflict.

Having said that, its not clear to what extent Hamas is really hiding in civilian infrastructure buildings. It seems much more likely this is an excuse by israel to destroy all the important civil infrastructure, to ensure the displaced people can never return to their former homes. Israel's stated goal is a final solution to the risk of attacks from neighbouring Arabs, and the only way to really do that is get rid of all the neighbouring Arabs, one way or another. Israel has always killed arabs x100 to x1000 faster in these wars than arabs have killed Israelis.

I struggle to see much difference, to be honest. Which is why I'm slightly aghast that those so willing to fight oppression in Palestine seem strangely quiet when faced with oppression in Ukraine.

For political reasons, prosemitism directed toward israel is a whole lot more common in western governments than antisemitism.

[domjg]

alec re. Latino immigrants to the US, I think perhaps you don't realise that the same communities, in fact the same families often contain documented and non documented immigrants, even citizens and non-documented migrants, It's really not clear cut between those who are 'legal' and 'illegal'.

Also, if sectors of the public are riled up against undocumented migrants do you think they're going to distinguish how they treat those who they think look and sound like 'illegal' migrants whether they are in the US legally or not? Or are even citizens?

Lots of 'centre right' rocs on here apparently quite gleeful over Trump's victory as far as I can see. Some of them seem to have written more in the last week than they had in the last six months! It all seems to me reminiscent of when Johnson became PM/won the 2019 election. It's a good lesson for us to learn. When it comes down to it they are far more interested in getting a chance to kick the 'left' (def: anyone from old style moderate tories onwards) than defend democracy or even common decency. If our democracy was really under threat they'd make their excuses and accommodate themselves to it, I have no doubt about that.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 12, 2024 5:51:52 GMT moby said:

Nov 11, 2024 17:58:06 GMT colin said:

I think you are confusing criticism of Republicans with balanced political reporting.

Balanced reporting requires critical examination of both parties.

Which rarely exists-and this perception of US media political bias looks fairly well......balanced to me :-

guides.library.harvard.edu/newsleans/thechart

Yep what we need is more balanced reporting towards people who are in denial about climate science and think that injecting bleach may combat COVID. Drill baby drill! Talking of people being in denial. .....

Yes that’s right Moby, balanced reporting. Where you don’t just point out denial on one side, but on the other too. Where you might point out denial over immigration, which has quite caught out the Democrats.

Of course, to some activists, the idea of balanced reporting is anathema, they can’t bear it. They imagine them and their cause to so noble that it shouldn’t possibly be subject to any scrutiny - only the other side gets that.

[neilj]

Lots of talk about some sections of the press not giving equal scrutiny to Democrats misbehaviour compared to Trump

There needs to be a sense of perspective, there is no equivalence between Trump, who has 34 felony conviction, numerous accusations of sexual assault (including some he was found liable for in Civil Court) and anything Biden or Harris did
That's without the numerous allegations of shady business practices and his conduct in office

The reason why some sections of the media are so critical of Trump is because there's a lot to be critical of.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

moby

But if the Democrats follow your lead and don’t look at their own potential flaws, the problem could happen again or even worsen. And the board was originally set up with the idea of being nonpartisan, with the idea of being balanced. Where you don’t just pursue the thing which happens most other places activists take over: where they try and control things, so that only their narrow message gets across.

That’s how AW used to try and mod, admittedly not always successfully, but the idea of being able to look at both sides was something of a given. Activists who joined the board subsequent to that era, have tried to revert to the normal activist way of doing things: turn it into a religious campaign, where any criticism of their side is considered injurious. (Obviously I will be very affected by your response and adapt actions accordingly…👍)

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 12, 2024 9:00:01 GMT neilj said:

Lots of talk about some sections of the press not giving equal scrutiny to Democrats misbehaviour compared to Trump

There needs to be a sense of perspective, there is no equivalence between Trump, who has 34 felony conviction, numerous accusations of sexual assault (including some he was found liable for in Civil Court) and anything Biden or Harris did
That's without the numerous allegations of shady business practices and his conduct in office

The reason why some sections of the media are so critical of Trump is because there's a lot to be critical of.

No one is saying you have to equate them. No one is saying you have to agree with climate denial either. This is a complete misrepresentation of the point.

It is possible to do a fair scrutiny and decide one is better than the other. It’s just saying you have to look at it fairly. But activists often hate that. They cannot bear ANY criticism of their side, and oversell their side. 

So they don’t just say that they prefer Starmer to the Tories. They will say stuff like Starmer is always honest, which is just taking the mick really 

[neilj]

Nov 12, 2024 9:03:28 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

Nov 12, 2024 9:00:01 GMT neilj said:

Lots of talk about some sections of the press not giving equal scrutiny to Democrats misbehaviour compared to Trump

There needs to be a sense of perspective, there is no equivalence between Trump, who has 34 felony conviction, numerous accusations of sexual assault (including some he was found liable for in Civil Court) and anything Biden or Harris did
That's without the numerous allegations of shady business practices and his conduct in office

The reason why some sections of the media are so critical of Trump is because there's a lot to be critical of.

No one is saying you have to equate them. No one is saying you have to agree with climate denial either. This is a complete misrepresentation of the point.

You can do a fair scrutiny and decide one is better than the other. It’s just saying you have to look at it fairly. But activists often hate that. They cannot bear ANY criticism of their side, and oversell their side. 

So they don’t just say that they prefer Starmer to the Tories. They will say stuff like Starmer is always honest, which is just taking the mick really 

Yes and in this case it's very clear Trump is substantially worse, so that's where the media should in a fair and balanced world direct their fire

As to activists not liking negative comments other side, not sure where you've been, but if anything Starmer gets more criticism from those on the left than those on the right

[Danny]

Nov 12, 2024 1:44:47 GMT eor said:

2000 Dems win California by 1.3m votes, lose the rest of the country by 800k votes
2016 Dems win California by 4.5m votes, lose the rest of the country by 1.5m votes

That's a massive shift compared to the rest of the country, way too big to be down to shifting demographics alone.

Why?

The US is one unified nation speaking the same language, cross compatible education and rules between states. Its easy to move around. California is itself the size of a major country and its liberal reputation is renowned world wide, never mind within the US. It seems entirely likely liberals from all over the US have moved from more restrictive states to live in california, while those in california wanting a more controlled society may well have moved to a state more to their liking. There may be statistics about migration to support or refute this, but it seems pretty reasonable the population would sort itself to go live amongst like minded others.

Another example is eg that Florida has become something of a retirement destination, and so the proportion of naturally more right inlcined people there is increasing.

As steve argued earlier, if you want a yardstick for national opinion, the votes and seats for the House of Representatives is probably the closest to being useful. And at the moment those look set to deliver a near-identical outcome to two years ago.

It was the intention of the founding fathers to make it as difficult as possible for some political party to seize total control of the federal government. Hence three different electoral mechanism for three different parts of the government, all of which must act together to make significant changes.

The Supreme court justices appointed by Trump are stated to be be simply pro right or pro republican. But the actual new judgement on Roe v Wade was that the previous one exceeded the authority of the federal government to make. Pretty much in keeping with the founding fathers, who would have been horrified by the original judgement. Similarly, confirming the immunity of the president from prosecution is an aspect of the original constitution mirroring the immunity of kings.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 12, 2024 9:09:25 GMT neilj said:

Nov 12, 2024 9:03:28 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

No one is saying you have to equate them. No one is saying you have to agree with climate denial either. This is a complete misrepresentation of the point.

You can do a fair scrutiny and decide one is better than the other. It’s just saying you have to look at it fairly. But activists often hate that. They cannot bear ANY criticism of their side, and oversell their side. 

So they don’t just say that they prefer Starmer to the Tories. They will say stuff like Starmer is always honest, which is just taking the mick really 

Yes and in this case it's very clear Trump is substantially worse, so that's where the media should in a fair and balanced world direct their fire

As to activists not liking negative comments other side, not sure where you've been, but if anything Starmer gets more criticism from those on the left than those on the right

Yes, like I said, no one is saying the media shouldn’t challenge on climate. No one has said that. It’s a complete strawman. The discussion arose over the issue of slagging off Republicans for having control of some media, while not being concerned about Democrats having control of other media. 

And there isn’t much you can say to deny that, unless you try and pretend that it’s still ok because the Democrat-controlled media never talk shite. Which doesn’t work, so now you just have to keep focusing on something else: the obvious fact that sometimes Republicans talk shite. 

Which is not in contention. It’s a distraction from the point that activists don’t tend to like to engage with: that sometimes their preferred media talk shite too.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

neilj

Same thing happened over the Telegraph. You only want the Telegraph to be utterly dismissed, while ignoring anything bad the Guardian might say. Very standard activist tactics. You only want favourable media to be “approved” in that religious sense. It’s the impossible goal of the self-appointed rebuttal merchant, and many retirements will be wasted on this.

[shevii]

Nov 11, 2024 23:10:15 GMT alec said:

shevii - Certainly civilian casualties are high in Gaza, but that is in part down to Hamas deliberately integrating their military units within civilian centres. The Hamas leadership do not appear to have the slightest interest in actually protecting their own people, and the authorities in Gaza and Ukraine have fundamentally different approaches to the value of lives on their own side, which is not to downplay the severity of the Israeli crimes. While the proportion of Gaza that has been destroyed is higher than Ukraine, I'd just point out that Gaza is very nearly identical in area to the Donetsk oblast alone, and the area across which Russia has attacked is far greater, so the destruction overall is greater. I'd also question the notion that Russian war crimes are on a more limited scale. They are vast, and have been ongoing for a long time. Kidnapping children, raping women - before during and after transporting them to Russia, beheading prisoners of war, on film, institusionalized male rape of prisoners, deliberate targeting of hospitals and other civilian centres with the express aim of terrorising non-combatants. I struggle to see much difference, to be honest. Which is why I'm slightly aghast that those so willing to fight oppression in Palestine seem strangely quiet when faced with oppression in Ukraine.

These are not mutually exclusive, but the imbalance in attention given to these two conflicts by some on the left is telling, in my view.

All those things are going on with Israeli troops as well. Kidnapping health workers, snipers killing children, denying relief workers access to provide food and medicines, troops being released following demonstration by far right Israelis after the institutional rape of male prisoners has been proved in enquiries. 

The big difference in what you call "the left"'s emphasis is that there's no dispute about Russia and our government is supporting Ukraine.  But we arming Israel with arms shipments and only very limited sanctions against illegal settlers and not only do we not support BDS our governments are actually trying to legislate against it, so it is our government that we have to convince.  We don't have to convince our governments about Russia.  Were out government to take a rule based attitude to Israel you would not be seeing the campaigning because there is nothing to campaign about.

[shevii]

Stats for Lefties 🍉🏳️‍⚧️
@leftiestats
❗️ NEW: Tories LEAD in first poll of Badenoch era

🟦 CON 29% (+3)
🟥 LAB 27% (-1)
🟪 REF 19% (+1)
🟧 LD 11% (-3)
🟩 GRN 8% (-)

Via
@moreincommon_
, 8-11 Nov (+/- vs 1 Nov)

[colin]

Nov 12, 2024 9:00:46 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

moby



That’s how AW used to try and mod, admittedly not always successfully, but the idea of being able to look at both sides was something of a given. Activists who joined the board subsequent to that era, have tried to revert to the normal activist way of doing things: turn it into a religious campaign, where any criticism of their side is considered injurious. 

Exactly.

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 12, 2024 9:09:25 GMT neilj said:

Nov 12, 2024 9:03:28 GMT c-a-r-f-r-e-w said:

No one is saying you have to equate them. No one is saying you have to agree with climate denial either. This is a complete misrepresentation of the point.

You can do a fair scrutiny and decide one is better than the other. It’s just saying you have to look at it fairly. But activists often hate that. They cannot bear ANY criticism of their side, and oversell their side. 

So they don’t just say that they prefer Starmer to the Tories. They will say stuff like Starmer is always honest, which is just taking the mick really 

As to activists not liking negative comments other side, not sure where you've been, but if anything Starmer gets more criticism from those on the left than those on the right

Starmer might get criticism, we can agree on that, but I don’t know where you’ve been, but Starmer activists aren’t exactly enthusiastic about it! They rather complain at the very idea of criticising their side and beg for it to stop! “you just want Tories to win” et cetera. The right in the party can’t even bear the mention of Corbyn either

[Danny]

Nov 12, 2024 6:15:35 GMT moby said:

You seem to have missed out just a little bit in the middle of your rigorous analysis of the slave trade, that is the massive, never before seen in the world industrial scale that the British Empire, (among others) turned it into?

Surely the preceding Roman empire used slavery on a far greater scale than the british one? (I mean in terms of percentages of the population and economic importance, not simple numbers at a time world population was probably smaller)

The Guardian has an article, www.theguardian.com/news/2019/feb/25/modern-slavery-trafficking-persons-one-in-200
which argues the historical total of people sold into slavery from 15th to 19th century was 13 million people, wheras today its 40 million living in some modern form of slavery. They say modern slavery is most common in Africa, which coincidentally (?) is where most of those earlier slaves came from.  To have a business model, you need a willing sellor, an agent, and a willing buyer.

Other pages suggest the proportion of slaves in the US in its institutional heyday was 18%. Whereas in the Roman empire 25%. The Guardian suggest currently 9% of people in Eritrea are living as effective slaves, around 2% in Afghanistan, pakistan, Iran (amongst others). Another page suggests Brazil was historically one of the largest recipients of slaves during the Atlantic slave trade, taking 1/3 of them.

In far earlier times, we know Neanderthals lived amongst homosapiens and inter bred. You have to ask just what was their social staus, were they in effect our slaves?

[Danny]

Nov 12, 2024 7:53:03 GMT alec said:

I struggle to understand why the mass movement of low cost labour in the form of high levels of immigration from poor to rich countries is a left wing obsession.

I'm not sure it is. Name a left wing party which supports it? (noting of course lab and dem arent left wing parties)

[colin]

Reports in more than one newspaper on the purpose of Starmer's visit to France say that he & Macron are going to try and persuade Biden to "allow" Ukraine to use Storm Shadow in attacks on Russian military establishments. This permission consists of access to guidance systems owned by USA. REliance on GPS is vulnerable to Russian countermeasures.

Ukraine continues to be hammered every night with missile and drone attacks on civilian housing, hospitals, shops etc etc.

It is utterly shameful that Biden continues to hamper counter measures against the Russian sources of those attacks.

It almost seems as if he wants Zelensky to be forced to a surrender .

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

Nov 12, 2024 6:05:56 GMT moby said:

Nov 11, 2024 21:42:30 GMT mark61 said:

   
I will be interested in how your view of Musk develops over the next few years.

FFS noooo please don't encourage him😱.

Oh no, it is Moby again with another sarcy dig and nothing else! At least when other people do sarcy digs they have useful things to add. You said you were fizzing with ideas at Oxford Moby - seems to be mostly fizzing with sarcy digs! And it isn’t me who keeps bringing up Musk the most anyway. It is people who cannot bear his influence. People used to the media being more on their side, pursuing middle-class interests. 

Nov 12, 2024 5:51:52 GMT moby said:

Nov 11, 2024 17:58:06 GMT colin said:

I think you are confusing criticism of Republicans with balanced political reporting.

Balanced reporting requires critical examination of both parties.

Which rarely exists-and this perception of US media political bias looks fairly well......balanced to me :-

guides.library.harvard.edu/newsleans/thechart

Yep what we need is more balanced reporting towards people who are in denial about climate science and think that injecting bleach may combat COVID. Drill baby drill! Talking of people being in denial.....

see this is another example. It is not so easy to just casually dismiss the matter of drilling. That fracking that the US has been indulging in, kept Europe going during the energy crisis, and is still keeping us going to some extent. Deny baby, deny!

[shevii]

Very funny from Michael Spicer and I love the way he ramps up the government minister tweets towards the end to counter everything the government minister is now saying. To be fair they have to deal with Trump but it's still funny.

x.com/MrMichaelSpicer/status/1856010659571614113

[Danny]

Nov 12, 2024 8:24:11 GMT mark61 said:

You will accept the Slaves were often worked to death or died on route,

I would also observe that many people not slaves were also worked to death at this time. This would be the era of chopping off hands as punishment for minor theft, execution for all sort of crimes. We value life far, far more than did society at that time for anyone.

[colin]

Nov 12, 2024 8:57:13 GMT domjg said:

 When it comes down to it they are far more interested in getting a chance to kick the 'left'   than defend democracy or even common decency.

Says a man who spent many months here kicking the "right" for having the temerity to vote for something he doesn't like.!!!

[c-a-r-f-r-e-w]

So there seem to be two strands emerging in analysing the Democrat defeat. One strand, is to say that it is down to things like “less educated” people falling for lies and distortions, and unable to tell the left apart, and young men being persuaded by masculine posturings etc.

And the other argument is more economic: that liberal economics at least as currently practised tends to pull the ladder up from more people, and they are reacting to that.

There is a particular fly in the ointment of the defeat this time, which is that even immigrants are moving away from the Democrats, which seems to be incurring some brain-melting psychic glitch in some who just cannot get their head around the idea that immigrants might vote against a party that is for lots of immigration.

However, it is a lot more rational when you factor in that new immigration may also drive down the wages and drive up the rents of existing immigrants. Just being pro-immigration, doesn’t automatically mean you care that much about immigrants.

[Danny]

Gary Lineker to leave the BBC. Unsurprising after they were unable to prevent him making public left wing statements. Foolish to imagine the BBC has ever been left wing, thats propaganda issued by the right trying to push the overton window rightwards.

[Danny]

Fascinating program on prostate cancer. A stat that if all 50 year old men were tested, 1 in 3 would be found to have a prostate cancer which however would never cause them any problems. Whereas treating that cancer most certainly would, leaving 1/3 incontinent just for starters. In general, if every 50 year old was tested it would cause more harm from unnecessary treatment than good.

The interviewee observed that treatments have definitely improved, but doctors are still carrying out the sort of treatment with the most side effects. He sounded pretty disgusted about that, you dont often find doctors criticising other doctors. Another stat that 600 people have to be counselled about a positive test result for every 1 life saved. The PSA test is totally useless at determining which cancers are dangerous and the majority which are not, or even if there actually is a cancer rather than some other cause for a high result. Although it seems no test can be certain whether a cancer is a dangerous variety or not.

Also, the more often you ejaculate then the higher your PSA score will be.


This is all of course relevant to the NHS, currently receiving some bad publicity because of Chris Hoy having been diagnosed under 50 with a terminal prostate cancer and calling for earlier testing. The evidence suggests this would do more harm than good, but of course pressure to spend money doing exactly that. (Hoy actually has a family history of serious prostate cancer, so again he is statistically not a good example)

[domjg]

Lots of, to my mind disingenuous, defence of false equivalence on here at the moment. Do you all work for the BBC?

In seriousness at some point of extremist rhetoric, which has more than been reached by Trump and his acolytes 'equivalence' simply becomes normalising the indefensible. The 'balance' that functions as  such a religion at the aforementioned BBC only works when the two points of view aired are at least based on the same commonly understood source of truth (ie reality) and not too far removed from each other. I don't remember the BBC granting exponents of communism editorial equivalence during the cold war.

[leftieliberal]

Nov 12, 2024 0:37:00 GMT mercian said:

Nov 11, 2024 19:55:49 GMT mark61 said:

For instance re slavery. When Sir John Hawkins went on a speculative trade mission to west Africa with a cargo of goods such as (I assume) of manufactured goods such as axes and cloth and asked them what they had to trade they said "Well we have these slaves...". Thus began the famous triangular trade of England to West Africa to trade goods for slaves, then West Africa to the West Indies and mainland America to trade slaves for stuff like tobacco and cotton, and then back to England. It's just as valid to say that fortunes were built on cotton and tobacco as slaves.

You have a better argument than that. The Benin bronzes were made from melted down manillas, the brass rings that the European slave traders exchanged with the rulers of the Edo people in modern-day Nigeria for their slaves. So the rulers were equally as guilty as the Europeans, and indeed had been enslaving their defeated enemies for centuries before the Europeans came to Africa. The difference then was that to sell them to the Arabs they had to take their slaves across the continent of Africa to either the east or north coast. The arrival of the Europeans gave them access to a new market where they only needed to transport slaves a short distance. I don't think it would be very popular if the Caribbean countries started calling for reparations from Nigeria, or even the transfer of the Benin bronzes.