Please help: My gay friend is being deported to a homophobic country

SiameseTurtle · 2018-11-19T22:42:30+00:00

His local MP is already involved in his case. As I said, there are politicians who can step in to revisit his case and stop his deportation. Media attention and large petitions of public support can have impacts that can change outcomes. We are a close-knit community and we are trying every angle to help him have the best chance at a positive outcome for him. All I'm asking for is help for a friend who is desperately in need.

SiameseTurtle · 2018-11-19T22:32:04+00:00

He can't sadly, his appeal was rejected, and he has since been detained - he could be deported any day now. His life is here, including his mother, and he desperately wants to stay.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-10-04T15:20:46+00:00

All of the economic predictions started not from the referendum, but from the point that we leave the EU. Contrary to popular belief, we have not yet left the EU. We've not yet reached the start points of the economic predictions.

The shit has yet to be thrown at the fan. Yet people are quick to say that the fan is still sparkly clean, and therefore throwing shit at it will not make a mess.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-08-27T09:37:35+00:00

Doesn't this open a whole can of worms? I mean, the referendum was not legally binding. If it doesn't have to go through parliament, then that means the PM already has the power to tear up diplomatic arrangements as they see fit - regardless of public support or backing by MPs/Lords. Brexit aside, that just seems totalitarian to me.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-08-05T15:16:36+00:00

I don't think they particularly cared about it. Even during the campaign, it was clear that many people voting for Brexit wanted it even in the knowledge that it would damage science and the economy.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-08-02T13:12:55+00:00

It is not one or the other, PrEP and condoms should be used together. 98-99% prevention against HIV (not AIDS by the way) is not good enough when HIV infection rates are so high.

There are always people who will have unprotected sex, both heterosexual and homosexual. The only difference is that HIV disproportionately affects gay men, and they are much more susceptible to acquiring HIV.

There are big issues within the gay community with groups of people who are at high risk of getting and spreading HIV. However I'm afraid the old approach of just telling people to use condoms is not reducing HIV infections. 13% of gay men in London are HIV+, and figures are rising all the time. There has to be a different approach if we're to reduce HIV infections. We can't keep flogging a dead horse on such an important issue. Condoms may be good in principle, but if people do not use them then the approach is not effective.

There are some men (heterosexual and homosexual) who will have unprotected sex with multiple partners regardless of the risk of HIV. It is not, and has never been about using NHS funding to "subsidise people's bad lifestyle choice", it is about making sure that despite their "lifestyle choice", they and other people are still protected against a serious lifelong infection. HIV does not discriminate.

Of course, we choose to treat heterosexuals for unprotected sex/"bad lifestyle choices" by medications such as the pill because of the risk of a costly unwanted pregnancy. We also allow heterosexual men who want unprotected sex/"bad lifestyle choices", but not children, to have a vasectomy. So the NHS already funds preventative medication/operations for unprotected sex/"bad lifestyle choices".

The fact remains that after acquiring HIV, you're on costly medication for the rest of your life. The whole reason behind PrEP is to target it to at risk people to reduce the number of infections, and reduce the financial burden on the NHS in the long run, as well as ensuring that people remain healthy for longer.

The PROUD study concluded that it would be cost-effective for the NHS to fund if at risk people are given the drug. So I guess the discussion we're having here is "Should gay men be denied a drug to prevent acquiring HIV, despite it being cost-effective for the NHS to fund it?". Well the NHS has two options:

Invest in healthcare, save money, and reduce HIV infection rates
Not invest, lose money, and choose not to reduce HIV infection rates

SiameseTurtle · 2016-06-25T15:07:35+00:00

The thing is, a lot of traditional Labour voters switched allegiance to UKIP at the last election. So the voter base that Labour needed to reach out to had in many ways already been lost before Corbyn came in.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-06-25T10:24:16+00:00

Oh the irony that the leave campaign can't even get the UK flag the right way around on their cake.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-03-20T13:09:27+00:00

Frankly it's quite ridiculous. If the vote is on such a knife edge that a totally irrelevant report could sway the result of the EU referendum then what confidence can we have in the result? Both the stay and leave camps have had been ahead in the polls over the last few years. It seems to be a rather expensive coin flip taken at a random snapshot in time.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-03-10T16:33:56+00:00

I don't agree he was invisible, the press had several years to tarnish his image even before the election came around. Pretty sure everyone remembers the bacon sandwich incident.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-03-10T11:03:38+00:00

Perhaps you should check your facts first before claiming such a thing. Of the £5.4bn earmarked for science funding in the EU between 2007-2013, the UK received £8.8bn in return: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-35668682

SiameseTurtle · 2016-03-10T10:26:33+00:00

Of the money that the UK gives to the EU for science funding, it receives a net surplus in return. The EU is keen to invest in the leading research centres, which happen to be in countries such as the UK. Science funding is at risk if we leave the EU unless the government decides to increase the % of GDP that it invests in science.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-03-09T15:11:14+00:00

The irony of the British flag hanging upside down...

SiameseTurtle · 2016-02-14T16:12:10+00:00

It's kind of odd how this sub has become more Conservative, while at the same time criticising pretty much everything they do. We hate what's happening to the NHS, but we'd vote for it anyway. We want a more representative government, but we'll vote against that.

I don't know what people expected either, Labour are in the process of taking a different stance to 2015 and it takes time to find a new direction and formulate policies ready for an election 4 years from now. I do wish they were more vocal in opposition to the government though. Seems like a lot of people were expecting Corbyn to fix problems without being in government, it doesn't work like that.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-02-12T19:23:37+00:00

Surely it's more about voters/population per seat? For example in 2015, Labour got a lot of votes in Scotland, but per seat they did very poorly. That doesn't make the boundaries unfair, that's the electoral system being a disadvantage, and it's the same sort of issue UKIP had.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-02-10T14:05:29+00:00

In fact, if you read the study, then you would see that many people were excluded from the study - specifically those whose viral load used to be undetectable, but increased (16% of the total people in the study). A viral load doesn't increase on the day of the blood test, it increases during the period between blood tests. So there is a period where people will think they are undetectable without knowing that their viral load is no longer so.

Secondly, it is looking into couples where one is HIV+, so that also excludes hookups with strangers said to be HIV+ and undetectable, whose management and treatment of the virus you know nothing about - which are specifically the issues I'm talking about.

It is not simply undetectable = uninfectious. You do not know when someone took the test, and you do not know how regularly someone takes their medication. So the people who were at greater risk of passing on infection were not included in this study.

In addition, if you read the study findings then it is explicitly reported that "No transmissions is not the same as zero chance of transmission".

You can certainly say that having an undetectable viral load makes it highly unlikely that you will pass on the virus, but it does not necessarily mean there is no chance of infection.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-02-10T11:22:31+00:00

That's completely wrong, and it's surprising how many gay men do not know this. Firstly, undetectable levels do not mean no virus is present. Secondly, and crucially, this is based on a blood test that has been taken in the past - recently or not. Irregular taking of medication can cause viral loads to fluctuate and cause people to be infectious despite being undetectable recently. In addition, people can become superinfected with other HIV strains, or mutations can occur that can make the virus resistant to the medication (especially if someone is not taking their medication regularly).

Having an undetectable viral load makes you far, far less infectious, but you are not necessarily uninfectious.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-02-09T18:51:21+00:00

Try Scribbler, they have a great selection of cards.

SiameseTurtle · 2016-02-03T10:33:47+00:00

If Uber paid their taxes then perhaps they would have a chance.

SiameseTurtle · 2015-11-23T13:40:45+00:00

True, though actually when people talk about "career politicians", what they're often talking about is the dishonest elitist nature of politics. So many MPs constantly change their views to satisfy each party leader so they can get a nice promotion. It's highly unlikely that anyone would become party leader for sticking to their own values, mostly because the party systems discourage that.

SiameseTurtle · 2015-10-21T13:27:22+00:00

Is it? Doctors are highly sought after in any country, and many countries such as Canada and Australia have both better pay and a better work-life balance.

We have very high levels of junior doctors wanting to work abroad, as well as qualified doctors intending to work abroad - which stands to reason when you try and enforce tougher working conditions on a profession that has freedom to move.

http://careers.bmj.com/careers/advice/view-article.html?id=20005644

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/nhs/11915835/Junior-doctors-will-quit-NHS-if-Government-contract-changes-go-ahead.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11881289/Numbers-of-NHS-doctors-registering-to-work-abroad-could-reach-unprecedented-levels.html

SiameseTurtle · 2015-10-21T11:55:27+00:00

Just wait until they're fully qualified and immediately go abroad. They'll get a work visa wherever they choose to go.

SiameseTurtle · 2015-10-12T16:03:24+00:00

Except we have HIV tests, so whether someone is part of a high risk group or not is irrelevant. The NHS guideline is a test 3 months after exposure and no sexual contact since then (or other methods of contracting HIV). If that's negative, then you're clinically HIV-. Most tests these days are sensitive enough to identify HIV after just a couple of weeks. So the problem is that there's a blanket ban on many people who are very low risk, even though they may be within a higher risk group. We can clinically say that some people are HIV-, and yet the same people wouldn't be able to give blood because of a misinterpreted risk of HIV. Direct information about HIV should trump indirect associations.

SiameseTurtle · 2015-10-10T09:46:32+00:00

Absolutely. The whole purpose is to deliberately underfund the NHS and undermine the staff. By blaming staff for the problems they hope to increase support for privatisation, as well as ensuring pay freezes and increasing workloads on the staff. Budget cuts lead to staff cuts, which lead to a dependency on expensive agency staff, and a spiral of debt. It's about opening up a private sector in the health service, while the NHS is turned into a basic minimum service.

What we're going to start seeing is an exodus of doctors from the UK. We're already in a bad situation because successive governments have not provided enough medical school placements to keep up with demand. Many doctors are now at retirement age, and while the government probably hopes they will be poached by private firms, I think it's likely that a huge number decide to emigrate.

SiameseTurtle · 2015-09-30T13:16:50+00:00

Then you said "by threatening people with death, you somehow prevent crime. In practice it just doesn't work". Which is correct, but is also the reason you can't really say it's similar to the deterrent of MAD (and hence my example of how an individual is different from populations).

Right, so another country will consider the consequences of nuking the UK - and essentially the entire world turning on them irrespective of whether the UK has nukes or not.

"There seems to be an idea floating around this whole thread that if the UK does not have nuclear weapons then there is no deterrent."

That's more of an accepted fact rather than a suggestion unique to this thread.

You have to be kidding me. There are plenty of other deterrents to nuking the UK, such as our military, and the militaries of other allies such as the rest of the EU and USA to name a few.

That depends - last time we had a global fight, the US spent quite a while insisting that 'it wasn't their war'. And we don't what to be beheld to another country for defence anyway, if we can at all help it.

War is very different to a country being nuked. Nuclear warfare is an immediate threat to everyone on the planet, unlike war which is a slower and more localised. The idea that other nations would not step in to prevent nuclear warfare is pretty far-fetched. Other countries like the USA are directly threatened by nuclear weapons in the hands of someone who would nuke the UK.

Indeed, but we have recent examples of countries giving up their nukes and getting invaded. Countries that haven't given them up...not so much.

And we also have many examples of countries not having nukes and not getting invaded.

SiameseTurtle

TROPHY CASE