Here in the UK the temperature is going to be a little over 25c (and about time too)
The NHS and various government bodies are now giving health warnings and doctors are being interviewed on TV about how to stay ‘safe’.
It’s now election time here and The Labour Party leader has promised to stop pubs closing.
Where would we be without out Nanny State? Good job Nanny wasn’t about when the Pilgrim Fathers headed for North America. They would still be on the ships talking about health and safety!
For the record, the Pilgrims had strict rules and laws, far stricter than anything you could imagine today. The Mayflower, for instance, was about the size of six RVs, 3 RVs long by 2 RVs wide. On those six RVs were over 100 people, meaning about 15-20 people per RV , for a voyage which lasted over two months, and without a single square yard of ground to step out onto until the voyage was over.
You bet they had nanny rules, for everybody. And, if you have ever studied Pilgrims, they were all the nanny, capable and eager to inform the rest of the community on infractions by any individual so as to keep them in line. They had the death penalty for adultery, as well as the more obvious rape, murder, sodomy, and bestiality. Liars could have their tongues cut in half (lengthwise). Community shunning was common even for minor infractions. A few people were hanged for stealing food, and you could be publicly flogged for lying.
So while you’re complaining about “the nanny state”, try not to compare it to an era where even the East German Stazi would look tame by comparison.
Thus ends today’s history lesson. We will pick up next time with Chapter 4, “Lessons of the Comically Aggrieved, and what we should do about it.”
You left out the “witch burnings”.
intercst
That was after they disembarked from the Mayflower. They used “witch” accusations to seize land from the accused.
Classic example of a “whataboutism”. IIRC you rail against that often. Maybe I’m mistaken.
The Pilgrims were a religious cult. I was referring to a government which is now telling us here in the UK how to deal with a slight heatwave. We even had them describing what a bendy banana was:
How did we survive for thousands of years without such close attention from the government?
As Ronald Regan said:
The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government and I’m here to help
OK. You’re the one who brought them up.
So you brought up Pilgrims, but now that doesn’t count because you were talking about government? OK.
Weird.
Here in Shiny-land, it is the media that always overplays weather impacts. A distinction without difference?
A sound bite used to leverage an ideology of privatizing everything. See above comment about USian media hysteria about the weather. iirc, there was a push, in the early 80s, to privatize the weather service.
The gift that keeps on giving…in this case, the body that Denny refers to as the “Brussel sprouts”, saying you can’t call a sausage a sausage, just because it hardly has any meat in it. Surely, big gummit overreach, insisting that a product actually contain the material it claims to have.
/sarcasm
Well, before all that “close attention” we used to have a lot of fraud. In America we call it snake oil, which came from the wild Wild West days of people selling cures for ailments that did nothing. You might think the government over-reaches, but you don’t want to live in a society where it does nothing either.
So, big deal the UK government suggested ways to get by in a heat wave. Did they force you to do anything? Do you think it didn’t help anyone? Get a grip. Reagan wasn’t out to help the little guy, he was there purely to help the rich guys.
Yep
And Charters for incorporating from the King. Licensing was invented later.
Ah, you noticed that, too.
Seems like some people want to be provocative and then reverse course and pretend they never meant what they said - sounds like a certain very public person here in the US of A instead of England. Is “changin’ the ol’ goalposts” a term across the pond?
Pete
In the US, it is “moving the goalposts”.
I hate to throw in a little science here as it might distract from a good rant, but it seems relevant.
The British Office of National Statistics actually keeps data about heat related mortality. They found that mortality in England and Wales begins to increase at 22C.
Here is the mortality curve by temperature. The Brits are happiest between 8-22C. They begin to die when temperature rise above 22C. I drew a big red arrow at 25C.
Imagine if (heaven forbid!) you are a British health official and you were shown this information and that the temperature was soon going to rise above 25C. What would you do?
Well, that explains why Sebaceans always speak with a British accent, and expire at temperatures humans tolerate well…that is a “Farscape” reference, for the uninitiated.
Steve
If the statistics on deaths from the ONS are as reliable as their statistics on economics then I’m not too concerned.
Anyway, it looks like Labour are going to win at the next election and they have promised to keep the pubs open. Of course, the same government will be telling us (backed by statistics from the ONS) not to drink too much!
How did we manage without government watching everything that we do?
“The state is that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else.” Frederic Bastiat
You do understand that you can “keep pubs open” and also “not drink to excess” - these are not mutually exclusive things! Right?
JimA
Off course, but should a UK government be doing this - there are a few other problems that we need solving. Knowing how things work this will involve a small army of civil servants.
I’m just pointing out that the government’s actions are based on data, while you are just ranting.
The government is trying to reduce the number of unnecessary deaths. You think that is a bad idea, which is strange.
One would think that reducing the number of unnecessary deaths of its citizens would be a governmental function that even conservatives might support.
On a related note, Gasparrini et al. looked at the causes of death in England and Wales over a 20-year period (2000-2019). They found there were 791 deaths attributable to heat and 60,573 attributable to cold.
The authors write “Our analysis indicates that the excess in mortality attributable to cold was almost two orders of magnitude higher than the excess in mortality attributable to heat.”
www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2542519622001383
DB2
Ha, still trying to show the brighter side of global warming. Well I think most every scientist would agree that if we could hold climate warming to 2C it might have a net positive effect on civilization.
Problem is that we are on track to go well past that. I think even you have to admit that there is a point when mean global temperatures gets too hot and global warming will cause major problems
So what is the max temp increase for you for when we should make significant economic sacrifices to stop global warming?