Why do countries engage in wars? An Answermug friend long ago told me she believed the final battle would be for POTABLE WATER. Think so?

We were talking on the mug about something. I forget what exactly. And she came up with that which shocked me because I never thought about it but what greater necessity to life is there than water? Well the air we breathe of course but how do you wage war for that? She didn't say how long in the future but she was  certain that would be the final battle. Of course for years in movies you see the ranchers and the farmers at war for grazing rights and water. Hundreds of years from now or later? I just wonder where it would start and what water rights would be the battleground? Thank you for your reply Durdle and Happy Monday to you! Howya doin'? Last I heard a new virus strain is affecting the U.K. Not deadlier but more easily spread? :)

Yes ,I have seen that fear raised at various times, but among others such as whole regions becoming uninhabitable so forcing large scale migrations with consequent fears of unrest.


Sometimes I think our generation has had the best of it in many ways. I am a great-uncle several times, and I don't know what life's going to be like for them in a few decades times.

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Yes - we have identified a new virus strain and it's forced more severe restrictions in London and the South-East od England. One result was that the French Government closed its border to Britain until all those wanting to cross the English Channel could be tested and found safe. It has held up some thousands of lorries and vans, and the RAF provided parking on the runways at an air base about 20 miles from the port of Dover and the Channel Runnel terminal. The poor drivers were all trying to get home for Christmas, not just deliver the goods, and they've had to endure sleeping in  their vehicles for some nights with hardly any toilet and shower facilities. Things are moving now, with the ferry ports operating round the clock even today (Christmas) when normally closed. The Army is also providing a huge amount of help including Covid testing.  

What many seem not to realise is that many species of virus mutate into new strains. There is nothing surprising about it. The new one has appeared in several countries, not just the UK, and what appears another, in South Africa. What's rather unfair though is that any country first identifying a new virus strain - and publishing its identity to the health services and biologists everywhere else - seems to be almost blamed for its existence. That happened in 1919, with the influenza pandemic that became unofficially called "The Spanish Flu". It was nothing of the sort, and the WHO will not use country names for diseases because it is often inaccurate and risks more blame than support.  

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Anyway I am writing this on Christmas Day evening so ought be transmitting a ray of hope not shadow of despair, so wish you and Jim A Happy Christmas and hopes for a happy and healthy New Year.    

Oh thank you so much Durdle. We hope your day was a good one. I think of you as being away from the center of the worst of the outbreaks. How far away are you from London?. I'm usually here on Answermug from very early to late morning and don't return till the next very early morning so I did not see this on Christmas Day. I fixed us a simple non-traditional meal. We celebrated the day by watching "It's a Wonderful Life". I recorded it so we could watch it. It ran Christmas Eve from 8pm to 11pm and we never stay up that late. We can't stay awake. Then we topped it off by watching another movie I had recorded based on a true story. "COME TO THE STABLE". About two French nuns who went to Bethlehem Connecticut to build a children's hospital! The movie was heartwarming and we do so love TRUE stories. Gentle movies. I took a sabbatical from politics yesterday pretty much. One has to do that from time to time just to stay sane. Of course the Christmas travelers and New Year's Eve celebrators will exacerbate the rate of virus spread. We know that. California is suffering a great deal right now from Thanksgiving travelers and so we KNOW it will get worse. How much worse one can only imagine. So STAY SAFE and count your blessings. I know you do that. I can tell! :) Oh and Jim thanks you and hopes you had a good day m'dear! He says it was very kind of you to include him! I think so too! :) This post was edited by RosieG at December 27, 2020 4:03 PM MST

I live about 130 miles from London, but the latest variant is appearing in other parts of the country. 

It's quite feasible it, and the original, were around a lot more widely, and a lot earlier, than anyone thought until numbers of people started displaying unusual symptoms beyond just a bad cough. As a friend told me in a telephone call only this evening from her home 300 miles away in the North of England, and having to work at home, "I could have had it without knowing that's what it was!". She is a Senior Lecturer in medicine.

Jim's best friend is Alan and Alan's daughter passed away yesterday from Covid. She was in her 30's and morbidly obese and that is a terrible underlying condition. From diagnosis to hospitalization to her death took about a week! It just shocked everyone. Where did she contact it? Alan hadn't seen her since Thanksgiving or his grandkids. Now everyone is devastated. It isn't right that parents survive a child's death no matter the age of the child. But it is going to get much worse. California is now the biggest threat and our darkest hours lie ahead in January or so we are told. The lack of cooperation of millions of people is what is causing it. They refuse to mask social distance and they cling to being autonomous and not inconvenienced. They take it as a matter of pride. Yes. There are that many that stupid that selfish Durdle. The rest of us are helpless. There may be more of them in America than anywhere else but they exist...their kind..their ilk...everywhere. So we sit and watch and wait to see what our fate will be. It doesn't look good m'dear. It just doesn't. Thank you for your reply Durdle. I'm hoping your town will be spared worst case. Fingers crossed. This post was edited by RosieG at December 28, 2020 2:37 AM MST

I am sorry to read that sad loss. Only thirty - my friend had been in his late-60s and terminally ill, and in a way his passing, which was so quick and with little suffering, that it was perhaps a mercy. But thirty though, is no age to die.

I have a friend who is a Senior Lecturer in anaesthetic nursing, and chatting to her on the phone yesterday she said the UK's government should have done as New Zealand had done. If it imposed a lock-down and travel restrictions much more promptly back when Covid was first identified and starting to spread, we would have been spared the worst of it. The big difficulty with the British Isles is the huge amount of private and commercial traffic between us and the Continent, by ferries and the Channel Tunnel; as we have seen in the last few days when the French Government immediately closed its borders on news of the new Covid-19 variant having been identified here. 

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An odd bit of news about the Channel Tunnel today - the arrest of a British man who had walked through it! I am not sure which way, but presumably to avoid the border controls. It is a twin-bore railway-tunnel some 22 miles long, taking trains that carry vehicles as well as passengers, but I think it has a service-tunnel between the pair of rail tunnels, and he might have used that for safety.

"IF" is such a huge word. IF America elected a president based on popular vote Hillary Clinton would have become our president. I sincerely doubt she would have reacted to COVID 19 as the "HEAD" did putting us in this gawdawful situation worldwide. But for him we might well have nipped it in the bud or certainly lessened the terrible tolls it has taken and will continue to take. Our darkest days are ahead of us and the peak is said to occur sometime mid-January. Perhaps even a DOUBLING UP of cases and casualties. Already all ICU beds in California are at full occupancy. We are told that calling 911 may not bring any help at all and they are either on the verge or already there of deciding who shall receive care and who will not. It is very grim in California especially. Very grim. Thank you for your kind words. That is just the tip I fear and I see constantly erupting volcanoes and lava flowing spreading destroying. That's just how I visualize this virus. IF ONLY the "head" had never run for office. I'd adore a do-over a mulligan. I think I will ask it. Thank you for your reply Durdle. This post was edited by RosieG at December 29, 2020 1:42 AM MST

We are now seeing a big rise in Covid infections in the UK, partly due to some people ignoring the restrictions, but in the eyes of the scientists and doctors more to the Government not going far enough early enough (as New Zealand did). It has brought a new set of restrictions around the country in severity-categories called "Tiers". The hardest , including London and surrounding counties, are virtually back in lock-downs but some of the senior medics are saying it's still not enough.

A friend in the medical profession reckoned we could have stopped the disease spreading as it did around the country. She may be right, but the Government was trapped between public health, the economy and social pressures. Britons do not like being told what to do, let alone told not to do what they 've always taken for granted. We also don't like being out of work or seeing our favourite hospitality and entertainments venues being driven into bankruptcy - but neither do we like being dead before our time. It's a terrible situation and I don't envy any government trying to steer the best course through it. 

Also, it would have been far easier for a country like New Zealand to control access to the country, than it is for the  British Isles with many sea- and air-ports serving Continental Europe only 20 miles way at nearest, plus the physical link of a busy railway tunnel.

I can only hope your new Government can put the brakes on the pandemic there, but it will be a desperate fight in a population the size of America's, in a huge country divided into about 50 semi-autonomous states; and it will also have to win over all those who denied the situation and ignored the advice and restrictions in such large numbers throughout.

Thank you for your excellent thoughtful reply Durdle. I shall start with the part that will NEVER HAPPEN....."it will also have to win over all those who denied the situation and ignored the advice and restrictions in such large numbers throughout." Over their dead bodies and all of ours. They don't value life so it's no skin off their noses if they die or they effectively "murder" anyone. So there is no hook with which to appeal to them. If they won't do the right thing to save their own lives there is no way they will do anything to save the lives of others. So we will just have to play this out. Meanwhile the mad "head" is blowing up everything he can to make things harder if not impossible for the new president. Withholding information and cooperation and I bet sabotaging everything they leave behind. They/he will not leave ONE whole anything or one piece of usable useful anything. After he goes nothing will be left and Joe will have to start from scratch only with the added vile evil of the adoring worshippers who will forever refuse to cooperate with anyone except the "head". It is a terrible situation for anyone. I wish all he** fall on those who support the "head". He is mad as any insane crazy person can be. Are they? Perhaps. So we just ride it out until we drown. What else can we do? A miracle would sure work for me but I think we may be all out of them! Take care and STAY SAFE m'dear! :) This post was edited by RosieG at December 31, 2020 8:43 AM MST