It depends to a large extent on the schedule. Different nations do better in different sports, and the Olympics has a huge range of different sports. One example is that the US do much better than China in athletics, which comes later in the schedule. In order to predict with any degree of accuracy which nation will finish on top, the first consideration is which events have already finished, and which are still in progress and yet to award a medal.

I think it's just that they want the squad depth. Grealish adds a bit more to Man City, he doesn't completely change their potential, they are too good for that already... but he gives them a bit extra, and at the level they are at, £100m is what you have to pay to add something to what is already one of the best teams in the world.

Yes, it feels really harsh on Vettel. I suppose the rules are the rules and have to be followed, but Vettel deserved that second place, and to leave with nothing doesn't feel right. Even the driver who finished tenth gets a point, but Vettel gets nothing. Perhaps it would have been fairer if they'd given him a points penalty instead, maybe half points, so 9 instead of 18. Disqualification is very hard on him, especially as it's not his fault.

Yes, I've been quite successful in the Olympics categories on that site. If you see some markets where there is one person betting, there is a decent chance it's me
Some of the percentages that are offered are very favourable. The only problem is that with the markets being so thin, the more you bet, the less favourable the percentages become. But there is a decent number of markets there to choose from.

I'm not sure what the percentage protection against delta variant infection the vaccines provide, but you're right that it almost entirely prevents infection severe enough to require hospitalisation. The data are very clear on this. If people who have had the vaccine can catch it, they can pass it on... but if their symptoms are less severe, or they are entirely asymptomatic, then they're obviously less likely to be coughing it out, which will help to lower the R value somewhat.


Yes. The more of the virus there is circulating within the human population, the more variants will appear. This is why there is so much talk of annual booster shots to combat variants. The virus has to be managed; it can't be eradicated unless herd immunity is achieved on a global level.

Yeah, but if he does that then we don't get to learn more about the contaminated sexual food.


I assume this is an oblique reference to Donald Trump's alleged sexual improprieties. I admire the creativity of your language, but am not so happy about the image it evokes.

"Bitcoin seemed like a good deal at $2, therefore everything that seems good is" ... is not a particularly watertight argument.

We don't know for sure that the vaccines are 100% safe for everybody in every circumstance... but what we do know, not from anecdotal evidence, but from cold hard data, is that the vaccines are overwhelmingly safe provided you answer the screening questions truthfully, and a far better way to gain immunity to Covid-19 than 'natural immunity' obtained from contracting the virus.

Yep. I was alluding to the election.

I'm waiting for the aliens, too. There are plenty of mentions of Satan, though. And there was one thread a while back where Bill Gates was an "anti-human forked-tongued demon".



Okay, so now you're saying Trump's the sinister population-reducing mastermind behind it all? I'm not saying he might not be in favour of the idea; it's suitably unhinged. But the words Trump and mastermind should never appear in the same sentence. He can't even grasp how counting works.

A lower viral load is easier to fight off, yes, agreed.

If someone with Covid stands in front of you and coughs in your face, would you prefer that they are wearing a mask? Yes or no?

If you wait until the pandemic ends and it stops being a problem, then what's the point? This is a stupid argument.

I've said before, this is one of the screening questions. If you are infected (or have been recently), you don't get vaccinated.

Sure. Just not as much help as taking the vaccine.

This probably helps with establishing social distancing, I suppose.

When "they" is a blanket term to cover a huge number of governments, universities and other experts and official bodies from just about every country in the world, including mutually antagonistic countries, then this may be regarded as paranoia.

^{[CITATION NEEDED]} And not from one of BADecker's YouTube "experts".

"Fear mongering" is an emotive term, and speculative in this context as you aren't providing any evidence. Stick to facts; understand the data.

Intuition is no match for data.


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You'd hope everyone would have their own opinion, but sadly this is not the case. Many people just parrot social media conspiracy crap without even considering the evidence (by which I mean the data, not feelings and suspicions).


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Here's a link to the full set of Covid-19 data sources for the ourworldindata site: https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19
What do you think? Are all of these sources a part of some shadowy "they"? Whereas some random YouTuber or spammer in BADecker's in-box is a source of the purest truth?

Alonso was superb in holding back Hamilton - who obviously had a faster car - for so long. He was instrumental in his team winning the race. He's my driver of the day as well. I would love to see him in a top car at the front of the grid every race.

The Bottas lock up was awful, ruined the race for a few drivers and of course it's the second race in a row where Max has dropped points after an altercation with a Merc. It certainly ruined his race and cost him the championship lead. It also robbed us of the chance to see how he'd interact with Hamilton after last week. I really wanted to see how that would play out. But maybe even a three week break will not be enough to calm him down after this one... if he thought Mercedes were out to get him before, he'll be certain of it now.



Mercedes have had an upgrade recently, but it's difficult to say what it's given them on full race runs... as Max hasn't been able to compete properly in the last two races. Mercedes have certainly got closer to Red Bull, the question of whether they are faster can't really be settled until the next race at the earliest; we need to see Max vs Lewis in a full race to understand better. But it's certainly close, which should make for more entertainment!

The data are available at the link below.

About 99.999% of fully vaccinated Americans have not had a deadly Covid-19 breakthrough case, CDC data shows

I think Neil Oliver may have ended his career by switching from BBC history documentaries to, well, whatever he's trying to do on GBNews. That channel is hilarious.
The problem with all of these 'pro-freedom' people is that freedom is great just so long as it is the kind of freedom they like. If it's the wrong kind of freedom, they get very angry.

Most famously for the 'pro-freedom' GBNews channel was the incident when one of their presenters had an abrupt volte-face on BLM, and took the knee live on air... triggering such a massive backlash among their 'pro-freedom' fans that viewing figures dropped to zero, with 'no measurable audience'. He's since been suspended.

Also their star presenter (and chairman), the pro-Brexit Andrew Neil, took a break shortly after the channel launched (he's not yet returned) and decamped to his home (as you might anticipate, he lives in the south of France ) ... after what he euphemistically referred to as the channel's 'rocky start'.

If reason for death was wrong, then why were there so many more deaths than normal from the start of the pandemic, up until when the effects of the vaccination programme started to kick in? What caused such a pronounced rise in the death rate? Please don't say contrails.


https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?country=GBR~USA



The data are readily available. If you refuse to understand the science of how viruses and vaccines work, and refuse to accept the numbers, then I'd suggest that maybe you are the one who wasn't listening.
This probably deserves another airing:

Are these the email titles, or his thread titles?



Can't be bothered to post the US data and then watch your eyes slide right across inconvenient facts as if you can't see them, so I'll just link to a previous post discussing the pattern in the UK.

Well yes, they'll vote for the one they think is most likely to help them, as everyone votes for candidates they think will act in a certain way.
But certainly the one who is most likely to help them is unlikely ever to be a Republican.

Yes, we would be on opposite sides on this discussion, and have a lot to debate... but it's probably a matter for another thread. By which I mean a serious thread, not halfway down a BADecker one.

Excess deaths were far higher than normal in the period just after the pandemic started. And the figure has dropped hugely now that we have the vaccine.

When the pandemic started, the number of people dying was 100% more than normal.
As we went into the second wave just after Christmas, the number was 40% higher than normal.
When the vaccination started, the excess mortality figure dropped steadily to zero.

How do you explain this? It would take a degree of logical contortion that not even an anti-vaxxer could manage.



https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-p-scores?country=~GBR

I think the men's field was quite weak in general, certainly a good time for the winner, but there were no real big names in the race. I suppose everyone is in the shadow of Bolt.
For me the women's 100m was more exciting... and would have been even better if Richardson had been able to compete and Asher-Smith wasn't carrying an injury.

Part 1: Your conclusion is based on the assumption that all men want to marry men, all women want to marry women, and everyone who is pregnant wants an abortion. Utterly absurd.
Part 2: Cities with a poverty problem will vote for the candidate most likely to help them. This is unlikely ever to be a Republican.
Part 3: Advice from people born in the 19th century is perhaps not 100% relevant to people living in the 21st.

Red Bull were already seeming quite paranoid that Mercedes were out to get them... and then at the very next race, Max's car gets damaged due to the actions of a Mercedes again! Of course it was an accident from Bottas, a lock up, but it ended up damaging Max and leaving Lewis out in the clear up front. It will be interesting to see what happens when the season restarts after the break, it's just a shame that the teams have a few weeks to cool off... it would have been great to see them going at it again next week, and what Max's response would be.