Your point, although interesting, does not invalidate the quote.
Let A be « you would sleep past the alarm clock without it » and B « you are sleep-deprived »
They say A → B. You say false since I got B and not(A).
A → B does not imply B → A which would be proved false by your case.
What about the window between an infection by the HIV and the production of antibodies ?
Parent's argument doesn't seem to be irrelevant, otherwise, if the screenings were totally reliable why would we bother asking for risky behaviours ?
Lying is one of the arguments against paid blood donations in France, the other being that poor people may be incentivized to put their health at risk by donating to often (donations are anonymous).
The WHO seems to advocate for unpaid donations :
> An adequate and reliable supply of safe blood can be assured by a stable base of regular, voluntary, unpaid blood donors. These donors are also the safest group of donors as the prevalence of bloodborne infections is lowest among this group. World Health Assembly resolution WHA63.12 urges all Member States to develop national blood systems based on voluntary unpaid donations and to work towards the goal of self-sufficiency.[1]
First of all, we're talking about plasma and not whole blood - the difference is important.
> An adequate and reliable supply of safe blood can be assured by a stable base of regular, voluntary, unpaid blood donors.
An adequate and reliable supply of plasma cannot be assured by a stable base of unpaid plasma donors - countries that pay for donations run a surplus and end up supplying it to countries that don't, because the latter don't produce enough.
> if the screenings were totally reliable why would we bother asking for risky behaviours ?
Because it saves time (and money) to be able to rule out people who are ineligible for blood donation before they ever get their blood drawn. You might think, "how could a person who has had Hepatitis A not know that they are ineligible to give blood?", but the answer is that this happens all the time.
Screening questions are there as a cost-saving measure; they're not intended to catch anything that blood testing wouldn't, and they're already arguably overly conservative in the screening stage as it is.
> What about the window between an infection by the HIV and the production of antibodies ?
>
(A) For plasma, you don't test for antibodies - you test for viral load.
(B) The window is incredibly short. The chance of someone donating plasma within a few days of being infected with HIV and having a viral load high enough to transmit HIV but also not test positive is minuscule. At that point, there are far bigger risks to worry about, like the many things that you can't test for (and which the patient may not know they have). Risk management isn't about eliminating risk; it's about systematically and contextually evaluating the appropriate levels of risk.
> Also, Germany does not export its nuclear waste, dear France.
I guess this is incorrect :
Gorleben Nuclear Waste Repository. The waste comes from Germany's nuclear power plants, was reprocessed in France at La Hague, and the unusable remains then sent back to Germany in spent nuclear fuel shipping casks for final storage, according to the contract with the reprocessing company, Cogema [0].
But even if it comes from France what's the matter? If nuclear wastes go to Gorleben it is obviously because the city allows it, because they have a deal with french firms and they have facilities to store it. If you want to blame someone for it blame the city.
In contrast I am sure France does not 'export' its air pollution as much as our dear Germany :p. And France does not have much of a say in that.
The Louvre still relies mainly on public subvention (102 M€ in 2015) tickets bring ~65M€, private subventions ~12M€.
But yes it surely brings people and has a good impact on the local economy.
"The benefits to French GDP are not mainly from the tickets, but from the tourism-related revenue (hotel stays, restaurants, flights, &c)." yes, you can infer that from the last sentence in my previous comment, but still, they do not monetize it as much as they can because they could have decided not to make the entrance free for the youngsters and they would make more money even if the number of young visitors decreases.
The difference with the google search engine is if you are not willing to pay and so do not use the search engine then google won't make money at all from you whereas few people will decide no to go to Paris just because the Louvre entrance is not free.
Although I agree with you on the matter of burkini I think the "let people dress however they want" argument is a common fallacy amongst people who defend the burkini that disturbs me.
In France (and other countries) we have already been setting specific legal rules on how to dress : for instance it is illegal to wear nazi uniforms or svastika (unless for historical reason). Note that this is for the sake of the argument, to say that there is no such thing as an absolute freedom on how to dress and some reasons may explain that. If a clothing does not respect the conditions then I don't care wether or not it is a religious clothing and disappoint the believers.
What are these conditions ?
There is a safety condition : if a clothing put public safety in danger then it should be banned period. The burqa and niqab ban (late 2010 in France) falls into this one. And I am not talking about terrorism but everyday life : you are supposed to live in the public space with your face uncovered that's all. The burkini and hijab are obviously fine with this.
There is a secularism reason that is invoked by some people and officials for the burkini ban and indeed I find it to be hypocritical since it is more of a circumstance decision (and there are other things than that to do to fight terrorism but whatever) and it can't be justified by secularism which only restricts civil servants clothing. If people want secularism to apply to civilian in the public sphere why not but it must be clear (define precisely what is ostentatious proselytism) and consistent : if we are to ban hijab we must ban kippas and nun's "outfit" too.
Then there is the ideology propaganda and morality question. To say that there is nothing wrong with the burqa is hypocritical too, because it has been and is still a mean to oppress women (watch the numerous photos of women burning burqas recently in Syria or read "Bas les voiles !" by Chahdortt Djavann if you need to be convinced). Stating that "yes maybe in the Middle-East women are forced to wear it but I am in France and just want to decide what to wear" is like saying "yes I know the Nazis ideology is awful but for me the svastika is just a peace symbol from India and I want to wear it because I like it". Ok maybe you are a genuine and sane person but as a natural person evolving in the public space the clothes you wear don't affect only yourself. Ideologies don't stop at boarders.
Criticizing this way of forbidding clothings may make sense from an american point of view where people can wear ku klux klan dress freely. But it is not absurd and not automatically discriminatory in a more european or french spirit.
I would really like to invite you to speak to muslim women about this. Ask them their opinion about the veil - the ones that wear it. Ask them why they wear it. Ask them how they would feel about removing it in public.
I'm absolutely in favour of removing female oppression from middle-eastern culture. This is not the way to go about it. I have seen that oppression, second hand, and I despise it... this burqa bullshit is such a red herring, it honestly upsets me so much time is wasted on it. These are societies where there is very little personal freedom, especially for women, and people want to remove one of the freedoms they do have.
And yes, I can see the point re nazi/KKK outfits. My personal opinion on that aside, we're not talking about a handful of people wearing a certain cloth in order to make a political/xenophobic point. We're talking about millions of people, following their faith. Entire countries.
Here's the catch: I dislike burqas. I do think they are a symbol of control rather than faith. But this isn't about my opinion, it's about the right for these women to choose to remove it by themselves rather than have a bunch of ignorants make that choice for them (sounds familiar?). They can wear it, they can burn it, it is not my place to say.
