holystove

This thread took a strange turn

That made me think of a great Bill Hicks bit "But my Dad's just, “I believe it's the literal word of God”.And I go, “It's not. I can prove it to you. Give me your Bible”.He goes and gets his Bible .“Ok”. I go, “what's that on the front?”“Holy Bible”.“What else does it say?”“King James's Version”.“There you go”. (greatest comedian/social critic of our time)

You can, under certain circumstances, ask for an exemption of state aid. The EU commission will assess this and make a binding ruling. In corona-times, each member state that has asked to save a certain part of their economy has gotten the exemption beause we are in unprecedented times. Asking for a exemption on state-aid because you chose to leave the Single Market would not have gotten the green light from the Commission .

I'm sorry John but that's not how any of this works. If there is no deal between the EU and the UK that put tarriffs at 0% on cars , there won't be a 0% tarriff on cars. They only way to "avoid" these tarriffs is if the UK government promises to pay the 10% tarriff instead of Nissan. Reportedly they got this promise from Theresa May in 2016 and I assume Nissan is still counting on that. (https://www.irishtimes.com/business/manufacturing/uk-letter-vowed-to-protect-nissan-from-brexit-fallout-1.3781568) Coincidentally such 'State Aid' would be illegal as an EU member state. So of course EU to UK, Nissan would still have to pay those tarriffs. I don't know if this influenced the decision.

Why it would piss off the EU (Commission? Member States?) if two Renault models are made in the UK?

Why?

70% of Nissan cars made in Sunderland are exported to the EU. The UK market is way too small to sustain the plant. My guess, Nissan is crossing their fingers for no tarriffs on cars between EU and UK on cars; doesnt look likely though.

That's why excess deaths gives the clearest picture because in that case it doesn't matter if covid is on the death certificate. Yesterday the FT published an article (free to read) based on official numbers of excess deaths. https://www.ft.com/content/6b4c784e-c259-4ca4-9a82-648ffde71bf0 Hardest hit per capita in Europe : 1. Spain 2. UK 3. Italy 4. Belgium 5. The Netherlands

Perhaps because they weren't able to verify it. On the internet you can go down a lot of rabbit holes and come out on the other side outraged that the mainstream media is not reporting it. 'Thanks to the internet I found out ..'

All the best to your brother in law. Not morbid to want to know how he experienced Corona but I get the impression the disease can hit you in many different forms, not all of which are experienced by everyone. Some people are stuck with it for up to 7 (!!) weeks. Some experience loss of taste and smell. Not all get fevers. etc etc Like you I wanted to find out all I can from people I know who got COVID19, hoping that it would lessen my stress levels knowing what to expect, but it had the contrary effect. All you can do is hope you go through it asymptomatically. (given the number of colleagues who fell seriously ill, I'm kind of hoping I already had it).

https://www.france24.com/en/20200505-uk-is-europe-s-worst-hit-country-by-covid-19-as-death-toll-surpasses-32-000 UK overtakes Italy. Thank God the NHS is not overrun like the Italian healthcare system was. Stay safe.

This is great. The US is turning into the EU. https://twitter.com/PoliticusSarah/status/1253365449603104770?s=20

Doesn't he make the point that even though the American audience polarized first, news media such as Fox News, but also the NYT on the left, tried to keep up by feeding into that and creating a 'feedback loop' for polarisation? So if he doesn't think Fox News started the didvide, they are certainly reinforcing it? Why is America more polarized than say Scandinavia, or the Netherlands, Belgium etc? If every society is, or could be, equally polarized, an important factor in keeping that under control is not having 'extreme' news organisations reinforcing the divide, by for example not having a strong (neutral) public broadcaster (as most EU countries do) but having Fox News as your main source of information. Interesting podcast. WIll listen to more episodes.

<== about the TV show <== what I think Fox News has done; no longer about the TV show. And what (I assume) Matt tried to make clear in his response. <== what a Fox-like channel could do in any western democracy

If you love Catch-22, I would also recommend 'A confederacy of dunces' by John Kennedy Toole. It's the only time I ever felt reading anything that came close to the brilliance of Catch-22.

The show makes clear that the intention of Fox News was never to bring you the news. It was to push a narrative, made to look like news. Ailes didn't care whether or not something was true, it got aired as long as it hurt the democrats (liberals) or anyone he deemed un-American. Fox News was, and is, not exploiting a divide that is already there in the American public, I think Fox is (partly) responsible for creating it. Fox News triggers people who are scared and worried, and gives them an easy explanation and enemy. Trump couldn't have happened without 25 years of Fox News preceding him. Compare it to Germany. Right now the AfD is a small party which tops out at 10-15%. Now imagine they had their own propaganda channel, called it news, and made it the only source of information for a great number of Germans...

Another show that illustrates what is currently wrong with the US is 'The Loudest Voice' about Roger Ailes, and Fox News. Just finished watching it yesterday. Highly recommended. Regarding corona there's a couple of interesting papers out already that show that Trump voters are less likely to believe there is a pandemic and don't adhere to social distancing.. http://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/social_distancing.pdf and https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3562796 (Coincidentally, early UK data shows the same is true for the brexit-voters https://github.com/benwansell/COVID-activity/ )

Congratulations Mike! My father in law turned 60 two weeks ago, he's a widower and we're not allowed to visit so we were afraid it was going to be a lonely event for him. However at 8pm people from all the houses near him came out and started applauding and cheering for him. He couldn't stop talking about how great that was during our next 'Zoom' call. Hope you have a great day.

Last week they found an infected cat in Belgium; got it from its owner. https://www.brusselstimes.com/all-news/belgium-all-news/103003/coronavirus-belgian-woman-infected-her-cat/

I was thinking the same, my kids are in bed by then. As the lockdown continues and starts working on peoples nerves more and more, stuff like that, which seems well intended, could really explode into a neighbourhood conflict.

Did not know that about the national review. There's other publications reporting the same though. Point is, China's numbers are very unlikely. Very poor hygiene, a cover up to start the epidemic, millions cooped together and still only 3000 deaths... Add to that China has lied about everything and anything negative happening within its borders in the past. If you go by the numbers there's another country that is even more impressive than China, North Korea with 0 deaths. To answer Palfy's point, just because their numbers might not be correct, doesn't mean you can't learn something from what you do know for certain about their approach.

here's one source https://www.nationalreview.com/news/wuhan-residents-dismiss-official-coronavirus-death-toll-the-incinerators-have-been-working-around-the-clock/ here's how they covered up at the start https://www.ft.com/content/fa83463a-4737-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441 China is anything but transparant. With new technology it's becoming even worse, as their control over the population (including leakers) increases. Look up the 'social credit system' they're implementing, scary stuff.

I'm surprised by your comment. Creating the illusion that your response is the best one to a crisis is page one in the authoritarian playbook. 1) They want to keep Chinese people convinced there is no reason to question the leadership, that everything is under control. That the communist regime is the only regime that had a good handle on the crisis. Just look at all those capitalist countries with their thousands of deaths... 2) They want to project to the rest of the world how superior their model of government is. They want countries to look at China as the leader of the world, and the first 'superpower' countries should look to for help and guidance. It is easy to say in hindsight, but it's becoming clear China mishandled this crisis from the beginning. This could be their Chernobyl, but as it is China we'll never know for sure how much they knew, when they knew it, and what they could (should) have done.

I agree, those Chinese numbers are very suspect. Whistleblower reports speakof 40.000+ deaths. We'll never know.