Preparedness for when

Broomstick

Bother, the page comes up with 'Sorry - we haven’t been able to serve the page you asked for'. Could it be that in the last 45 minutes someone somewhere got worried about the number of hits on that page? Nah...

B x

GreyQueen

Broomstick wrote: »

Bother, the page comes up with 'Sorry - we haven’t been able to serve the page you asked for'. Could it be that in the last 45 minutes someone somewhere got worried about the number of hits on that page? Nah...

B x

Most interesting. I have it open on one tab from earlier, but when I tried to open it afresh, I got a 404 message..........it's on the Home > Science page of the Guardian and dates from 4th December. So very 'outdated' link, hey?

Given how serious, and how pertinent it is to global news, I was quite surprised to find it hidden up in the bowels of the paper when I first saw it on Thursday.

ETA; it's a long article, but here's the first chunk:

High-security laboratories that handle the most dangerous viruses and bacteria have reported more than 100 accidents or near-misses to safety regulators in the past five years, official reports reveal.
One blunder led to live anthrax being sent from a government facility to unsuspecting labs across the UK, a mistake that exposed other scientists to the disease. Another caused the failure of an air handling system that helped contain foot and mouth disease at a large animal lab.
Wear and tear also caused problems and potentially put researchers in danger. At a top security Ministry of Defence lab, tears were found in isolation suits at a facility handling animals infected with the Ebola virus.
Reports obtained by the Guardian from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) reveal that more than 70 incidents at government, university and hospital labs were serious enough to investigate. Many led to enforcement letters, or crown prohibition notices (CPN), ordering labs to shut until improvements were made. Some were so serious they ended in legal action.

ETA, I have captured it via the wonders of cut-and-paste and now have it saved to my pooter as a Word doc. Good luck with disappearing that one, PTB.

Broomstick

Take it back... I went in on http://www.theguardian.com/science then clicked on the link to the article. It worked.
(Trying to post the direct link here again just to see if this works)
http://www.theguardian.com/science/2014/dec/04/-sp-100-safety-breaches-uk-labs-potentially-deadly-diseases

Off to make a cup of coffee then read it, hiding under the safety of my duvet for warmth and protection while wondering whether the worsening sore throat I woke up with this morning is as innocent as it seems...

B x

mardatha

Hi WCS, have missed you. I'm out of commission today with tooth abscess and murderous ME, but still reading off & on We've to get the snow from tomorrow onwards. Was minus 4 here last night.

moneyistooshorttomention

Broomstick wrote: »

Bother, the page comes up with 'Sorry - we haven’t been able to serve the page you asked for'. Could it be that in the last 45 minutes someone somewhere got worried about the number of hits on that page? Nah...

B x

Nope...no conspiracy theories here....I just googled for "The Guardian deadly disease" and up it came.

jk0

mardatha wrote: »

Hi WCS, have missed you. I'm out of commission today with tooth abscess and murderous ME, but still reading off & on We've to get the snow from tomorrow onwards. Was minus 4 here last night.

It was flaming cold here in Reading (Berkshire) also. I got up at 5am, and my exterior thermometer read -5C, can you believe?

Sorry to hear about your afflictions. They put mine into perspective.

westcoastscot

mardatha wrote: »

Hi WCS, have missed you. I'm out of commission today with tooth abscess and murderous ME, but still reading off & on We've to get the snow from tomorrow onwards. Was minus 4 here last night.

Hi Mar missed you too
Have been keeping off the internet as much as possible when not at work. Sorry to hear you're health is poor again, I've had a tough year arthritis-wise - anything that happens physically seems to have a long term negative effect on it - I feel like an old women - so frustrating!!!

How has your OS life been this year? I've only had limited success in the garden - weather has had a huge impact - so going to try and put as much as I can under cloches etc next year - going to try those monster tomatoes you grew a couple of years ago - an arctic one? Chickens are still laying on and off which is a welcome boost, and kids are finally settled in jobs etc, which is a comfort. I finally have my craft room back so my wee etsy business has picked up apace - I'm planning to retire (hopefully) at 60 and use it as an income from then - it's looking doeable!

Workwise my clients are really feeling the squeeze - sanctions are prevalent, and the powers that be don't seem to understand that our benefit return forms are reliant on the postal service, which is getting worse in rural areas. We're concerned about future cuts to services - the hospital only has a few beds compared to when I started 5 years ago and care in the community hasn't been effective in picking up those who would have been in and out previously.Our funding is being looked at again for April, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my job stays - we are a requirement under the mental health act but it does not specify capacity.

Oops, turned into a long post! Right, better get on,
WCS

Frugalsod

The problem is that the government will not admit it but will probably have an emergency budget as soon as the election is over to slash spending still further. Somehow do not I think that they appreciate that will only cause the economy to weaken much further and faster, and much of our recent growth has been because of so much hot money rushing into London to buy investment properties and so driving the exodus out of London.

I am only thankful that I should be debt free shortly after the election and so will be able to cope with a massive drop in income should that happen.

GreyQueen

Let's say you're unemployed and being affected by the bedroom tax. You're down about £10 per week for the extra bedroom. You may not be able to downsize to a one-room home due to lack of them. And you'd have to spend money to move, too, and it'd take a bit of time to make up for the costs of moving in terms of money saved.

So, if 10,000 unemployed people lose £10 per week, the State is ahead by £100,000 on the benefits bill. Assuming that each of those people was on the over-25 rate of £72.40 per week, each of them now have only £62.40 to go around everythng else.

So, what would have happened to that £10 if not needed for the BT? Possibly it might have been saved, but that's not likely on that level of income. It would have been spent, on food, fuel, necessities. And the vendors of those things are down £100,000. And the taxes paid by them to the grubbyment are down, too.

That's a simple-minded example, but if you take money off poor people, spending goes down. If you give money to the rich, such as preferential tax breaks, that money could be going anywhere, not even necessarily spent in this country.

I'm just thrilled that the new amount you can put into your ISA is considerably higher than a full-time minimum wage job pays, before tax. So that's really going to help the wealthy tax-shelter more of their income and do squat for the bulk of people.

Frugalsod

It does not help when the governments theory is that to get the rich to work you have to give them more money and with poor people you get them to work more by taking money away from them.