Politics

A collection of 681 posts

Alabama

Coronavirus: Judge Rules Alabama Can't Block Abortions; Poland Seeks to Tighten

Coronavirus is a potential smokescreen to getting all sorts of things done or not done. Abortion is of particular target in the context of American jurisprudence. Alabama has certainly been in the headlines: A federal judge has ruled that Alabama cannot ban abortions as part of the state’s response

Coronavirus

Maajid Nawaz on Coronavirus

This should promote some discussion. Apologies for my absence, I've been LEGO piecing together. This is from Maajid Nawaz's Facebook: The UK has now surpassed 10,000 #Covid19 deaths in total. Some say that we’re going to be the worst hit country in Europe. This

Coronavirus

Sympathy? Boris Johnson Is Either Stupid or Got Exactly What He Wanted

I am not having a go at Boris Johnson here due to ideological differences. Hear me out. The context Johnson is still presently in intensive care (recovering) after catching coronavirus (CV). He caught this most probably from shaking countless coronavirus patients' hands. He admitted doing this two weeks prior

Coronavirus

Covid-19: Debunked - "The Great Leveller", "Strength of Character"

Emily Maitlis on Newsnight is so often on the money. Here she is for a short introductory minute telling it how it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k_fi3AzfFdk There is an awful lot to be said about the language you hear in the media, those lovely soundbites

Coronavirus

Boris Johnson in Intensive Care

The very challenging news for the British public is that our PM has just now been admitted to intensive care with coronavirus. This was perhaps predictable when, during the press briefing earlier, his acting number 2 (Dominic Raab) said that he hadn't spoken to Johnson all day. That

Coronavirus

Shocking: The US Military Overtly Used to Sustain Price Gouging and Profiteering.

The military has long been a way in which a government can ensure the cogs of the economy and international trade remain well oiled. I have written about this in "The Armed Forces and Their Remit, Corporations, and Morality". This si definitely something that any government involved in

Coronavirus

Coronavirus Is a "Partisan Pandemic"

I have subjected myself to listening to each and every press briefing from the White House in their entirety over the last few weeks. It is definitely a source of pain. You don't need me to repeat myself again in exasperation that people could vote for the utter

Epistemology

"Numbers Are Continuing to Rise!" Leadership Matters. Truth Matters.

"Numbers are continuing to rise..." You might be forgiven for thinking this was an assessment of the death statistics (in the US); after all, this was a comment by the POTUS. But no, it was on Twitter and it was, yet again, a comment from Trump rather narcissistically

consequentialism

Consequentialism and Coronavirus, Visually Speaking

For those who are a bit TL;DR for my recent piece, I have now set it to face time. If you fancy my dulcet tones, check this out. And while you're at it, please subscribe to my channel. I plan on doing a number of these over

Coronavirus

Teenager Dies from Covid-19 Due to Being Medically Uninsured (& Updates)

My opinion is that the US healthcare system is a crime. And this story doesn't particularly change my opinion: A Los Angeles boy who is believed to be the first teenager in the United States to die from complications due to Covid-19 was denied treatment at an urgent

consequentialism

Morality: Consequentialism and Coronavirus

We are living in times of moral dilemma. As I have so often stated before, politics is a subset of morality. When we talk about morality, we talk about oughts - normatively what we should, as individuals, do. Politics is this write large over societies and from a governmental perspective.

Coronavirus

Bolsonaro, Brazil's Trump, Appears to Have Coronavirus

Twenty of a party travelling with Jair Bolsonaro, Brazil's Trump, have come down with Covid-19. Now, it appears, there is a cover-up of tests to show that Bolsonaro has the infection (as does the first lady). This is somewhat ironic since he has claimed the whole thing is

Coronavirus

Coronavirus Open Discussion

I have been asked to provide a space for my erudite and often superbly geeky (in a good and welcome way) readers to discuss stats and questions concerning coronavirus in order for other readers to answer the and learn by the interesting threads. In a day when the US has

Coronavirus

Society's Failsafes Are Paper Thin (On the EU, Zombies & Individualism)

I am trying to finish the sequel to my first fiction book, Survival of the Fittest: Metamorphosis (UK)*. The book is about a pandemic that rips through the world and so is particularly pertinent to today's news. The idea for my book was that the pandemic has such

Coronavirus

News, A Timeline of Lies & Virus Naming Provenance (Again)

This is Trump's timeline of lies that I would like to see his various supporters here...support: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch7_t2Ri2Zg Still on the old naming controversy of "Chinese virus" etc., these quotes from 3lemenope are super: Names are purely contingent. Whatever

Coronavirus

Thought for the Day: Bad Coronavirus Stats and Bad Thoughts

If you are anything like me, you are checking local and global coronavirus stats because...stats. And wanting to make sure that all of the many reactions, policies and activities of governments, institutions and organisations are warranted and in line with the data. Here is how my mind has worked.

science

There's Nobody Better at Bipartisanship than Donald Trump

That press conference was BAD. And there have been some really bad ones recently. I'm not sure I can take much more hypocrisy and lies. https://youtu.be/px3K9MAxVxQ

Coronavirus

"Socialism Is Evil"; Yeah, Not a Good Time to Be a Libertarian...

Socialism is evil! Venezuela! Communism! CORONAVIRUS... Government, please bail us out! Please help us! Let's work together to make sure of this and of that... Let's nationalise private healthcare provision in the short term... Let's...Let's... I've heard assaults democratic

Coronavirus

Republicans Tried to Camouflage Abortion Regulation within Coronavirus Bill

Crafty beggars. And pretty disingenuous. This leaves a nasty taste in the mouth. Meant to post this some days back. This is from Vice: As lawmakers neared a deal on a coronavirus rescue package that would include paid sick leave and free virus testing, a few roadblocks emerged. Among them:

Coronavirus

Working for World Solidarity, Trump Seeks Exclusive Rights to Vaccine

Yes, it's that time of day again. There's so much I could talk about today, but this one gets top billing. Sorry to be a stuck record, but this takes the biscuit. It's at times like these, with a global crisis in the form

Coronavirus

Explaining the Quarantine Approach with Water

The UK has lagged behind many other countries in terms of what we are doing with a lockdown and with quarantine. Many reasons have been given by many people for this - I have previously favoured economic reasons. But this video perhaps gives the best explanation of this delay: https:

Coronavirus

Well Done God: Counting the Hits and Ignoring the Misses

There is a definite tendency to count the hits and ignore the misses when considering the actions of God. God is love and God is great and isn't God wonderful? Look at the mountains and look at the forests, look at the beautiful animals, the lambs and the

science

Golf and Travel Bans

Coronavirus. Trump orders a travel ban from countries in Europe. The main countries he excluded were the UK and Ireland. Question: is there any coincidence that these happen to be the locations of three of his golf resorts? Asking for a friend...

Coronavirus

On "Chinese Coronavirus" and Unprofessional Press Conferences

We all know what coronavirus is, and most of us know what Covid-19 is. So I'm not really sure why certain people are now calling it "Chinese coronavirus". Apart from I do. Because these certain people are universally Republicans. "Chinese" is not an informative

Economics

On Campaign Finance Reform

This comment was from Cajun Exile, on this thread here in response to this video. I'll post it and then reply interlinearly. It received a torrent of upvotes from people, back at whatever forum this guy came from, who piled in with their groupthink upvoting - a very