Raducanu didn't dump her coach, it's stupid media sensationalism. The agreement was he helped her out on a temporary basis for the summer. It was never going to be a permanent arrangement.



Yes, there was zero expectation on her throughout the US Open run. Even in the final she was ranked way below Fernandez, and it was Fernandez who had taken most of the headlines with her string of wins against top seeds. I do think both players will do well, they're too good not to - but yes it will certainly be different now with the weight of expectation on both, and Raducanu especially. Nevertheless, I think they will both handle it well.

I've said it a few times, but I'm not sure Ronaldo was a great signing. He will certainly add goals, but he's not the sort of player who is fully involved for 90 minutes. If you are wanting to be a top team, then you cannot afford any weaknesses. Man United had weaknesses, and signing Ronaldo won't reduce them. He adds to the team, but not in the right area.

That might be true if Covid proved fatal only for people with pre-existing health conditions... but that's not the case. Plenty of healthy people have died from it, too. Certainly having an existing condition, particularly something affecting the lungs, can increase your risk, but that doesn't mean if you have no underlying conditions you are somehow immune.

Covid-19 is a coronavirus. There are plenty of other coronaviruses about. Many generally cause only mild symptoms, some (e.g. SARS and MERS) are far more deadly. Covid-19 is less deadly than SARS or MERS, but is more transmissible... so it kills more people in total. A big part of this is that is it a novel coronavirus, i.e., it is new, which means there is no pre-existing immunity within the population. This means there is nothing to prevent its spread. Compare with the devastating effects of virus introduction to Latin America by the Spanish colonialists.
Covid-19 is a pandemic; it is everywhere. The route out of this is herd immunity, which means a sufficient proportion of the population is immune, which prevents the virus spreading, which reduces the amount of virus in circulation, which reduces the chance of new variants arising. Individual immunity can be obtained in one of two ways, a) catch the virus, or b) take the vaccine. Obviously taking the vaccine is the safer method.

If people aren't dying of Covid, then what are they dying from? I'm talking primarily about the huge spike in excess deaths (irrespective of official reason) prior to the vaccination programme.
I know the answer, just wondering what you think.

I think the whole thing has been blown up and sensationalised by the media, who know that anything involving Raducanu is huge news at the moment, and are desperate to print a big story... even when, as in this case, there's no actual story at all.

She hasn't dumped her coach at all. Richardson was taken on as a temporary appointment for the US part of the season. He was never going to stay long term, and had already stated months ago that he didn't want to travel around the world on the circuit all season anyway.

The non-story of "Shock As Ungrateful Raducanu Dumps Coach Who Guided Her To US Open Triumph!!!" could more accurately be reported as: "Temporary contract ends as agreed." ... but the truth doesn't generate sales or clicks.

If you want a list of other horse drugs that you shouldn't be taking, this list is a decent place to start:
https://www.humanesociety.org/sites/default/files/archive/assets/pdfs/horse/drugs_given_horses.pdf




 

I'm going to merit that because others are disagreeing with you, but I think you are quite correct. Red Bull (both Horner and Marko) have stated that they think Hamilton will need to take another engine. Mercedes (Wolff) have refused to rule out Hamilton taking a penalty from new components, and have stated several times that every team will struggle to get through the whole season on the normal engine allocation.

Presumably if Hamilton takes a penalty, they'll try to time it as Red Bull did, so that it's either at a track where Red Bull are supremely dominant, or after a poor qualifying performance... and either way, certainly at a track where overtaking is possible.

From previous conversations, it seems that much of your antipathy towards vaccines stems from a fundamental mistrust of the government. I don't trust my government, either. They are corrupt and self-serving, and have no interest in my wellbeing... or the wellbeing of anyone beyond their own small circle. But I have spent my adult life, academically and in the workplace, around science and data. The data on Covid vaccines give a clear message; the evidence is overwhelming. Politicians deal in compromise and manipulation; scientists deal in facts, they present facts, they explain in thorough detail how they arrived at their conclusions, and make this information available for anyone to see. Of course some scientists can also be corrupt and self-serving, but it is not the norm. I think it's sensible and prudent to not trust politicians, but science, where the facts are available, is different.

You need to show the data, otherwise it's just conjecture.


Mutations arise naturally due to copying errors. The more of a virus there is in circulation, the more mutations arise, some of which may be more transmissible or deadly than the original. Vaccination reduces the amount of virus in circulation, and therefore reduces the number of new variants.


This approach does appear to show some promise... but why not just take the vaccine, which is proven to be both safe and effective? It seems highly unlikely that anyone who is ideologically opposed to taking a lab-produced vaccine would be happy to take lab-produced monoclonal antibodies.

Openvaers is not 'what the CDC says'. It's another of those websites that some lone lunatic is running from their basement. Besides which, anyone can report anything to VAERS, and this is acknowledged in a clear disclaimer...

https://vaers.hhs.gov/data.html

If you want to look at Covid data, then look at Covid data. It's not hard to find.

But if you look at a self-reporting system that is then filtered and manipulated by a lone anti-vaxxer masquerading as someone unbiased and competent... don't expect to get sensible results.

I'm not sure if you've ever written a scientific paper (okay, I am sure), but the method that was used is generally explained in the section titled "method".


The whole process is documented, yes. But obviously it isn't going to take everything right back to basics. If an experiment uses a test tube in the process of identifying a chemical, there is no need for it to explain how a test tube is made, which company supplied the glass, etc.


The virus has not just been isolated once or twice. If it is isolated repeatedly by many different teams in different countries, and they get the same results, it's the same virus, yes?
In the case of the first paper, the sample came from "Upper and lower respiratory tract secretion samples from putative patients with COVID-19", and in the second paper, the specimen collection process is detailed in the section titled "Specimen Collection".


This is insane. Particularly coming from someone whose standard response is 'God did it; no evidence required'.


Their names are at the top of the paper. Why don't you write to them?

 
That wouldn't give you what you want. Read through the methods and ask yourself if you'd be satisfied with a video.


For me it's all there, yes. For you evidently not. But facts are all I've got; I don't have a faith-based argument.

The virus has of course been isolated and studied many many times. Here are a couple of examples:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7045880/
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/26/6/20-0516_article

Can't wait for: "These scientific papers prove nothing! YouTube clip or it didn't happen!"

I had the AZ vaccine.

First dose, a bit of a headache and a bit feverish overnight, fine by the next day.
Second dose, no side-effects at all.

But I'm not sure the sample size you'll get in this thread will be sufficient to give you any meaningful result.


---



If you have something that is administered to most of the population, such as the Covid vaccine, then it is easy to find anecdotal evidence covering every conceivable eventuality. It makes little sense to base our decisions on hearsay, when there are vast quantities of data freely available to anyone who wants to look.

The grains in your breakfast cereal in the 1960s were genetically modified, too. I covered it briefly here. Genetic modification of grains by humans has been a continuous process going back for thousands of years, and is probably older than even the concept of breakfast.

It's crazy that this sort of thing is needed. Will it target the right people, who knows? It's difficult to understand how an anti-vaxxer thinks... but from spending time in vaccine threads on the P&S board, all of their arguments appear to be based on faith rather than logic... and this is the same sort of mindset as believing you'll win a lottery despite it being statistically very unlikely, so maybe this will work.

No-one has ever suggested that vaccines are 100% effective and confer immortality. No-one has ever suggested that everyone is a suitable candidate for receiving a vaccine, which is why there is screening of candidates.
Vaccination is not an all-or-nothing question, though. Does taking a tested, approved Covid vaccine on average, in general, confer better protection than doing nothing? Indisputably, yes. Look at the data.


Please quantify.


Being fit and healthy obviously confers an advantage, just not as much as the vaccine. But, the two aren't mutually exclusive. Why not do both? It's not an either/or situation.


Not sure where you've plucked this one from. Citation needed. Proper citation, not youtube wacko.

Just wondering, what are you using to write this? Presumably a computer or a phone, something that exists because of human ingenuity and many years of scientific endeavour. Everything in the modern world is based on science that actually does something, and is not "mostly only theory". Do you live in a house? How was that built? Do you use a car? Electricity?

Science is not "mostly only theory"; it's the bedrock of the modern world. Whereas religion is simply an anachronism, an outdated simplistic mechanism of social control.

No, I don't think that's true. A poor performance reflects badly on the player, he would be damaging his own reputation by doing that... especially if people thought he did it on purpose.



That's quite impressive. Surely that will have played on Fernandez's mind... knowing that the most famous penalty-taker in the world, who never misses, is standing there watching you, and you are taking the kick instead of him. Add this to the pressure of knowing this is likely United's last chance to salvage something from the game... it could well have had an effect.

Here's the photo from your link, Martinez indicating that Ronaldo should take the kick:

Everything that you eat has been genetically-modified by humans. We've been doing this stuff for thousands of years. It's not new, and it's not scary.
The food that you eat today is largely the product of millennia of human ingenuity.

Here's one example:

Very weak performance from Hamilton in qualifying. This race was a huge opportunity for him, and he's not doing himself any favours at the moment. Normally he is very strong and doesn't drop points or positions easily... but today he has put himself in a weaker position than he should have been.