I don't get why people are against XR - especially now. They're just people campaigning for a better world (ok, many of them are 'dangerous' Quakers).

The cars, smog, particulates,  etc etc etc will be back. INactivity wont change that.

Because they are a bunch of middle class hypocrites saying "do as I say", not do as I do. Celebrities fly across oceans to take part in XR and they fail to see the irony.

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Canadian report: Ontario at 340 new cases https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-covid-19-may-17-2020-1.5573736

As I half expected, Ford announced some easing of measures just before the Victoria Day weekend. So there is a gradual re-opening of businesses starting Tuesday, but with restrictions in place. I'm afraid for some it's already too late - there are a number of bankruptcy notices on local stores here and one of the best known lakeside bars has just closed

Waiting to see what will be done on schools. I don't see a lot of benefit to re-opening before September as it will only be for a few weeks. Better to try and start the new year as normally as possible. There will be problems -  some of the teachers and particularly the administrative staff are older and may be reluctant to return.

For the younger kids what they miss most from schools is peer group contact. Perhaps small bubbles of kids + families should be allowed over the summer period.

Nice yesterday but lots of rain now forecast for the remainder of the holiday weekend - I am actually hoping for a sweltering backloaded summer now!

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Nope - only read that article this evening - the piece I posted this morning was from the Daily Wail.

Anyhow, what have we got here?

https://events.labour.org.uk/event/99382

"...

The doors will be open for stalls, coffee and registration from 10am, to ensure a prompt start. The broad themes and demands of the conference will be the same as those that galvanised hundreds of thousands at #ourNHS demo:

No Cuts or Closures
No Privatisation
Fair Pay for NHS staff

We have an exciting platform of speakers confirmed from leading trade unions and councillors to local campaigners and life-long activists, including:

Dr Chaand Nagpaul, Chair of BMA
Sara Gorton, head of Unison health
Ken Loach, BAFTA award winning film director
Julian Bell and Steven Cowan, Council Leaders who have rejected STPs in London

..."

I long suspected there was a political angle to the head of the BMA.

It’s not that surprising that people that work in professions involving care for others in society gravitate to Labour party as opposed the Tories is it?

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Because they are a bunch of middle class hypocrites saying "do as I say", not do as I do. Celebrities fly across oceans to take part in XR and they fail to see the irony.

My god, you really lap the propaganda fed you don't you. Sad.

Exceptions are simply that. If you think exceptions are the rule then bigger fool you.

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Nothing wrong with campaigning for a better world. The problem with XR is they are hypocrites. How many of them would be prepared to live in the poverty they want to keep billions of other people in? There's absolutely nothing stopping them giving away all their money and belongings and living in a hut with the rest of their family and dying from indoor air pollution because they have no other option but to burn wood or dung for fuel. If they want to stop people using the resources that lift them out of that poverty the least they can do is live in it themselves.

And yes I've loved the quiet, the clean air and the birdsong during lockdown but a big part of that has been a result of people not being able to work and earn money to survive. We can't just stop people working but hopefully many people will have found they can work in a different way through technology. Economic growth isn't the problem, the problem is the mismanagement of resources. Maybe we will learn some lessons from lockdown?

Your second line is bollox you've lapped up like MM does, (the third a lie), I didn't bother with the rest.

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My god, you really lap the propaganda fed you don't you. Sad.

Exceptions are simply that. If you think exceptions are the rule then bigger fool you.

To be fair, stories like this don't exactly help 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/let-airlines-fail-or-else-say-extinction-rebellion-activists-h3dvtc906

(behind a pay wall, but I think the headline and open paragraph are what captures the attention)

I believe, what is alleged,  is called terrorism 

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Totally off-topic and in the wrong season but your post made me think of the joke about the Eton-themed Advent calendar (where all the doors are opened by my dad’s contacts) . Apologies for the random interjection.

 

I chuckled at that.

And it reminds me of the Brexit advent calendar, where each day another door closes.

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Yes, that sounds like class envy to me     Or rather money envy.


Maybe never ever having much gives you a different perspective?  But thankfully I don't give a toss about such people and really don't envy them at all.  I just find it odd some other people do.   But, each to their own.   

That 'whoosh' sound you heard a bit ago... that was my point sailing over your head.

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Your second line is bollox you've lapped up like MM does, (the third a lie), I didn't bother with the rest.

So how do you propose to lift people out of poverty? How are you going to provide the energy they need? Why aren't XR (you) prepared to lower your living standards and consumption to the level of billions of people across the world. 

 

 

 

No, Kevin.
For some reason a lot of retired sportsmen, sitting at home & bored, are demanding that journalists stop doing our jobs like you’ve all stopped doing yours. But our jobs have never been more important, so I will keep challenging & keep asking questions. Go play golf. https://t.co/7JSm3wlXd1

— *****Morgan (@piersmorgan) May 17, 2020

Morgan tried that tactic in the US with gun ownership and he was the one that ended up being fired. He's right though but his trouble is he is a windbag, going on and on to make a point or put a question. Short sharp questions not windbaggery.

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I despair of people like you. All judgement and no answers. It really is so dispiriting.

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Why, when other European countries are firing up their economies, do we remain the most timorous of all the electorates polled?

 

Because Bozo and Cummings dithered whilst other nations were imposing restrictions. Because Bozo went to the 'rugger' and told everyone that mass gatherings were fine, so quarter of a million went to Cheltenham, tens of thousands went to gigs, and 3,000 people from one of the most 'infection hotspot' cities on the planet were welcomed into one of the UK's major cities. Because this government failed to prepare when the warning signs flashed in January that this could well be that global pandemic scientists have warned us about, so didn't procure adequate PPE for health workers, didn't order & fund a massive expansion of testing facilities. Because the government completely ignored the plight of care homes and continued to allow an overstretched NHS to discharge Covid-infected pensioners back into unsuspecting care homes without bothering to test them. Because Bozo and his nationalist nitwits saw an opportunity with the VE75 commemorations to ramp up the nationalism levels amongst the plebs, leading to social distancing being abandoned in a red, white & blue fog alcohol and bbq fumes.

 

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I despair of people like you. All judgement and no answers. It really is so dispiriting.

Says the most sanctimonious poster on TWO. Tell me what answers you think XR have?

 

I do hope that some people at least will learn from this; discover the difference between want and need, and that actually, what they really need isn't all about money and material possession.  And that they already have more than they need, if only they look.    We'll see.

I'd love to think the environmental benefits will persist too, but am less confidence about that.   More cars about today then I have seen in 2 months .....

 

We get one chance at life; four-score and twenty years give or take. After that, nothing. Our brains - and therefore minds and consciousness - cease to function and we become urn-ballast or worm food.

So whilst meandering through our lives, what is wrong with a bit of wanting a bit of fun, a bit of luxury, a bit of excess?

I think most people know very well the difference between 'need' and 'want'. They just don't want an existence that only fulfils needs and ignores wants.

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Says the most sanctimonious poster on TWO. Tell me what answers you think XR have?

NS, perhaps there are no answers, except to fulfill a self-affirming need to demonstrate, much as the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign did in the 60s. There will be something reassuringly worse to worry about by the time today's infants reach 20. Vietnam's doing rather well now - but is it thanks to the VSC?

R.

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So how do you propose to lift people out of poverty? How are you going to provide the energy they need? Why aren't XR (you) prepared to lower your living standards and consumption to the level of billions of people across the world. 

 

 

Well, I guess, given your previous comments, you think I want to lift them out of poverty by making them poorer... I mean, wtf is the point in talking with you what that is your attitude?..

Do you know what the phrase I used 'make the world a better place' means? Why twist is so.

No! No one in XR wants to keep the poor poor. Its shows the grubby level of the opposition to them that the 'best' lines of attack you have is to pick out the 'middle class' (I mean, are you also despoiled by knowing someone, just an odd exception to your debating purity will do it, who is 'middle class'?) or shriek 'hypocrisy!' when you scrabble about in a haystack and find the one, lone, needle; or try to make out they want to keep people poor.

It's pathetic

 

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So how do you propose to lift people out of poverty? How are you going to provide the energy they need? Why aren't XR (you) prepared to lower your living standards and consumption to the level of billions of people across the world. 

 

At present, the bulk of the proceeds of production (production that leads to increased GHG's) does not flow into the pockets of the workers who live in poverty.

The most vital step toward lifting people out of poverty is the exclusion of both multinational corporations and existing indigenous financial elite in the ownership of enterprises that use natural resources. Worker cooperatives and owner-managed small businesses are how to most efficiently lift masses out of poverty.

On the same theme, government/official corruption also drags $billions each year from the hands of those who live in poverty, as scumbags in office abuse their positions to siphon off money into their own coffers. Nepotism is also a massive problem.

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We get one chance at life; four-score and twenty years give or take. After that, nothing. Our brains - and therefore minds and consciousness - cease to function and we become urn-ballast or worm food.

So whilst meandering through our lives, what is wrong with a bit of wanting a bit of fun, a bit of luxury, a bit of excess?

I think most people know very well the difference between 'need' and 'want'. They just don't want an existence that only fulfils needs and ignores wants.

At about 3pm today I was sat watching: a pair of stone chats, a pair of linnets, a pair of whitethroats, a willow warbler and a single yellow hammer at a beautiful, magical even, bit of scrubby moorland a bike ride from my home. I could hear the chat chastise me for being near his nest, the whitethroats churred, the the sky was blue, bluebells were still evident, gorse flowers and scent evident, the wind warm and gentle. Bliss.

If that's not enough 'need' or 'want' 'excess' or 'luxury' enough then either there is something wrong me or with millions of others. Clue; its not me with the problem.

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NS, perhaps there are no answers, except to fulfill a self-affirming need to demonstrate, much as the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign did in the 60s. There will be something reassuringly worse to worry about by the time today's infants reach 20. Vietnam's doing rather well now - but is it thanks to the VSC?

R.

The thing is Roger I think there are answers. I've loved the silence and the birdsong of lockdown, I would love people to reconnect with nature and preserve instead of destroy. Where I differ from Dev (and it appears Justin) is that I think we have to use solutions that have a chance of working in the real world, rather than a fantasy that is almost always based on hypocrisy. 

There are solutions that are possible so if we want less cars on the roads we don't need to stop people working, we need to find ways of using technology so people are able to work from home. Maybe we can learn lessons from this, maybe we don't need to fly to Italy for a meeting when it can be done just as easily online. 

I don't think we can or should stop economic growth but we can and should change the way we manage the resources we use. 

We get one chance at life; four-score and twenty years give or take. After that, nothing. Our brains - and therefore minds and consciousness - cease to function and we become urn-ballast or worm food.

So whilst meandering through our lives, what is wrong with a bit of wanting a bit of fun, a bit of luxury, a bit of excess?

I think most people know very well the difference between 'need' and 'want'. They just don't want an existence that only fulfils needs and ignores wants.

And thus they spend their lives in misery (just look at all the very rich people who still want more and suffer depression .... )

Need isn't necessarily just about having the basics for survival   But want is rarely if ever achieved.   The more you have the more you want - and the more your see others have, the more you think you need (and the more you despise those who have what you do not have).  The key to happiness is knowing the difference.   And accepting that actually, you don't need all you want.

Poor man wanna be rich
Rich man wanna be king
King ain't satisfied till he owns everything

As The Boss once said

(all totally off topic, and all IMO, of course)

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