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Post by tzarine on Mar 9, 2022 21:12:52 GMT 2
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 10, 2022 17:36:15 GMT 2
Yes, Ode to Joe, a good choice.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 10, 2022 23:32:23 GMT 2
hmmm...
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 12, 2022 13:55:54 GMT 2
A thought from the Ukraine from yesterday:
"People don't know what day of the week it is, but most know that it is day 16".
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 12, 2022 15:03:21 GMT 2
heart breaking.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 12, 2022 17:46:52 GMT 2
In the UK the ZOE COVID Study most recently informed us that the disease prevalence was 1 in 30 of the UK population. The UKHSA (government dashboard) figure was 1 in 164 of the population, equivalent to just 18.3% of the number of cases reported by ZOE.
The UK government have taken decisive action to deal with this discrepancy. They have defunded the ZOE COVID Study. That's the way to fix it!
ZOE co-founder Professor Tim Spector is not amused. But they vow to continue despite the governments best efforts while they seek other funding.
Without ZOE there will be no reliable up to date case figures for the UK nor will there be up to date advice on the current (variant dependent) symptoms.
Oh by the way, case rates in the UK are going up rather sharply, hospitalisation rates are also rising. I wonder what the denizens of No 10 Kremlin Street are going to do about it. NOT!
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Post by tzarine on Mar 12, 2022 22:06:51 GMT 2
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 13, 2022 11:51:56 GMT 2
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 13, 2022 15:34:51 GMT 2
Here are maps produced by Institute for the Study of War. The advance had stalled by the end of the first week with the aggressor suffering heavy casualties (according to the UA ministry of Defence). Since then estimates of the area controlled to the NW of Kyiv is that they have been pushed back. MOAN: Why is the news coverage of the military campaign so pessimistic!
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 13, 2022 17:06:36 GMT 2
In the UK the ZOE COVID Study most recently informed us that the disease prevalence was 1 in 30 of the UK population. The UKHSA (government dashboard) figure was 1 in 164 of the population, equivalent to just 18.3% of the number of cases reported by ZOE. The UK government have taken decisive action to deal with this discrepancy. They have defunded the ZOE COVID Study. That's the way to fix it! ZOE co-founder Professor Tim Spector is not amused. But they vow to continue despite the governments best efforts while they seek other funding. Without ZOE there will be no reliable up to date case figures for the UK nor will there be up to date advice on the current (variant dependent) symptoms. Oh by the way, case rates in the UK are going up rather sharply, hospitalisation rates are also rising. I wonder what the denizens of No 10 Kremlin Street are going to do about it. NOT! Slow, in Switzerland, the situation is a bit different. Most of the measures were stopped at the same time (but not all). Although we see lots of new cases, we don't see more hospitalisations. I hear that many who managed to avoid as much as "the sniffles" for two years caught the dreaded 'Rona. and I guess the unvaxxed are now able to go everywhere in the country and they will pay the price in time.
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Post by kuskiwi on Mar 14, 2022 0:30:51 GMT 2
Daughter and granddaughter down with Covid but fortunately relatively mild cases. D Boostered, GD -One only as they didn't start that age group until just before school went back. After doing so well for so long the ball got dropped from a great height on this last lot and ours numbers are horrific. So many not reporting and a couple of instances I am aware of here where the unreliable rat tests say negative for someone really ill with the same symptons as the others in a house full of sufferers and they wouldn't do a PCR test because he had two negatives. Now doesn't qualify for additional sick leave for no positive results to show the pay clerk.
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Post by sophie on Mar 14, 2022 1:44:10 GMT 2
Eek, kuskiwi… sounds like it isn’t going smoothly.
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Post by shrjeff on Mar 14, 2022 8:28:43 GMT 2
here is an assessment by a professor at stanford in international relations:
Preparing for Defeat Francis Fukuyama
10 Mar 2022, 4:03 pm
I’m writing this from Skopje, North Macedonia, where I’ve been for the last week teaching one of our Leadership Academy for Development courses. Following the Ukraine war is no different here in terms of available information, except that I’m in an adjacent time zone, and the fact that there is more support for Putin in the Balkans than in other parts of Europe. A lot of the latter is due to Serbia, and Serbia's hosting of Sputnik.
I’ll stick my neck out and make several prognostications:
Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Russian planning was incompetent, based on a flawed assumption that Ukrainians were favorable to Russia and that their military would collapse immediately following an invasion. Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations. Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks. The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize. This is at least true in the north; the Russians are doing better in the south, but those positions would be hard to maintain if the north collapses. There is no diplomatic solution to the war possible prior to this happening. There is no conceivable compromise that would be acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine given the losses they have taken at this point. The United Nations Security Council has proven once again to be useless. The only helpful thing was the General Assembly vote, which helps to identify the world’s bad or prevaricating actors. The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they've kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked them, as well as avoiding all the obvious escalatory possibilities. The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing. I assume that Ukrainian forces are already being vectored by NATO intelligence operating from outside Ukraine. The cost that Ukraine is paying is enormous, of course. But the greatest damage is being done by rockets and artillery, which neither MiGs nor a no-fly zone can do much about. The only thing that will stop the slaughter is defeat of the Russian army on the ground. Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power? The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings. The war to this point has been a good lesson for China. Like Russia, China has built up seemingly high-tech military forces in the past decade, but they have no combat experience. The miserable performance of the Russian air force would likely be replicated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which similarly has no experience managing complex air operations. We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan. Hopefully Taiwan itself will wake up as to the need to prepare to fight as the Ukrainians have done, and restore conscription. Let’s not be prematurely defeatist. Turkish drones will become bestsellers. A Russian defeat will make possible a “new birth of freedom,” and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 14, 2022 9:47:05 GMT 2
Let’s hope the Stanford Academic is right.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 14, 2022 15:14:20 GMT 2
I am no great fan of Fukuyama and one could argue about any of his details but the sentiment is correct. The general pervasive air of defeatism risks self-fulfilment. And it is pervasive, only yesterday a BBC news presenter opined that despite Russian forces' initial setbacks their superior forces made a Ukrainian defeat just a matter of time. The presenter was interviewing an "expert" at that time and they were in agreement. Whose side are people on? There is no ambiguity, and no equivalence, the aggressors are the bad guys.
There is another war out there, one that Ukraine isn't losing. Nor is it losing its sense of humour. According to Ruslan Leviev of the Conflict Intelligence Team, (an online investigation group checking Russia’s military activity), and Andriy Zagorodnyuk, (former Ukraine’s defense minister and the chairman of the Kyiv-based Center for Defense Strategies). The closing remarks from a much longer situation assessment in today's Kyiv Independent in English:
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Post by tzarine on Mar 14, 2022 22:12:01 GMT 2
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Post by rikita on Mar 15, 2022 1:17:48 GMT 2
my brother and niece have covid now. my brother seems okay so far (though he was throwing up a lot before, but thinks that was probably due to something he ate and just happened to be at the same time he got covid, since it is not that common as a symptom), but my niece is not feeling very well due to fever. hope my mom stays well ...
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 15, 2022 9:28:14 GMT 2
sending feel good vibes to your family, rikita.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 15, 2022 10:22:13 GMT 2
Elderly in-law in SE England, suffering Alzheimer's and now COVID-19, had some sort of bad turn, sent to hospital, turned away, sent back to care home. Care home also has a large number of other cases to deal with, and local hospital trust unable/unwilling to assist the sickest.
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Post by shrjeff on Mar 15, 2022 11:07:11 GMT 2
as predicted, all are covid-weary and governments do not have the mandate - or the balls - to maintain restrictions... thus we are seeing an uptick in infections as expected... we are, again, self-isolating: this week we have cancelled participating in weddings and holiday celebrations but it is difficult to continue to refuse getting together with close friends!
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 15, 2022 11:31:01 GMT 2
sorry kiwilady, thought I had sent my good wishes.
slow, this breaks my heart. Somebody I know lost their father in France. father was in a care home and when he had "some sort of a bad turn", they kept him for longer than they should before sending him to hospital, where it was found he had bronchopneumonia and he died shortly after admission. (not COVID this time)
jeffy, sending lucky no virus vibes.
Can't say I wasn't expecting an uptick in cases. but it's easier to look at numbers and not think of the lives behind them.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 17, 2022 13:41:43 GMT 2
The UA Ministry of Defence refers to Russian Soldiers as Orcs (орків), I thought this was a bizarre mistranslation but it is a reference to the ogres of Middle Earth.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 17, 2022 13:47:05 GMT 2
hm...so they are dehumanising their opponents.
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Post by tzarine on Mar 17, 2022 20:38:12 GMT 2
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 18, 2022 17:23:07 GMT 2
I was at the printers today and in comes a family. the man was clearly stressed and trying to get documents printed /passports copied, as they needed to get some official documentation. The printer saw from the passport that at least the mom and child were from Ukraine. He said the copies were free of charge because of their nationality, as a little help for them. A generous man.
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 19, 2022 14:11:12 GMT 2
Reports of fighting around Kyiv have progressively been located further away from the city over the last few days. This has been confirmed by Ukraine military yesterday when they announced Kyiv itself is out of artillery range and can only be attacked by rockets and cruise missiles.
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Post by auntieannie on Mar 20, 2022 19:57:09 GMT 2
I have questions. Heard about oligarch's private jets leaving Russia "for the UAE" (if I am not mistaken). So, clearly, if this is true, sanctions imposed against them don't really work, right?
And the other day I heard someone on the radio, who lives in Sri Lanka, stating that the bulk of the tourists there come from Russia AND Ukraine and the SL government decided to offer free visas for Ukrainians, but apparently also to Russians?? Anybody heard anything like that?
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Post by kuskiwi on Mar 21, 2022 8:59:56 GMT 2
I have questions. Heard about oligarch's private jets leaving Russia "for the UAE" (if I am not mistaken). So, clearly, if this is true, sanctions imposed against them don't really work, right? And the other day I heard someone on the radio, who lives in Sri Lanka, stating that the bulk of the tourists there come from Russia AND Ukraine and the SL government decided to offer free visas for Ukrainians, but apparently also to Russians?? Anybody heard anything like that? Mystery private jets from upposedly unknown departure points are arriving here, unloading passengers and departing. I'd like to think they’re are not in favour of the current situation but to have that sort of money and the ability to get out I have doubts about integrity.
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Post by tzarine on Mar 21, 2022 19:14:42 GMT 2
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Post by slowcoach on Mar 22, 2022 19:59:28 GMT 2
There still are good guys!
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