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MUNGUIN'S NEW REPUBLIC 
Well you must admit Trump really is the most dangerous
Man on the planet 🌎
Sadly.
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Just to avoid any doubt, that was a genuine Trump press conference was it? Unedited??? If so how much lower is it possible to go?
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It’s what Michael does. He takes an interview or a speech and picks holes in it. I’m assuming that this was a genuine press conference.
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Not seen that one before but have seen a few with UK politicians done by the same comedian. Very funny.
There have been some transcripts of Trump speeches and they are truly awesome. He rambles on about nothing, word salads spew forth, bit more rambling followed by some choice non sequitirs, then ends with that weird thing he does with his hands and says, “Believe me, we have the best… he’s a great guy…. I’ve seen some wondeful things… believe me”.
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Yes, the guy is hilarious…
He has a Youtube channel you might want to check out sometime.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9gtLw0B8rZ7aPycaC88N-g
My favourite was that particularly vacant trade minister Liz Truss.
As for Trump. What can you say. A word salad is a good enough description.
He reminds me of a neighbour’s small child who makes everything about him, but is incapable yet of forming a coherent sentence.
At 72 I doubt Trump’s vocabulary is likely to improve much.
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Yes, that’s the way the daily pandemic “briefings” go. I don’t think that was altered in any way. And the briefings go on for 1 to 2 hours, for which he is there most of the time. In these clips, he’s telling people to take that malaria drug that he’s personally convinced will help fight the virus. Much was made of his disclaimers at the end, where he said go ahead and try it, what do you have to lose….but then I’m not a doctor.
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Well clearly neither is he! 😦
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marconatrix…….Nice video! You posted it the same time I posted mine. 🙂
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marconotrix…….of course those were “highlights” 😉
The briefings often go on for two hours or more, of which he is there for most of the time. He babbles on about various unrelated topics, gets in arguments with reporters, etc. Much of the briefing Monday involved screening what was effectively a campaign video. (Technically illegal in an official White House forum.) Presumably he’s using this forum as a substitute for the big political rallies that he can’t hold anymore.
Yesterday, he cut off US funding for the World Health Organization who he says botched the pandemic response. The Guardian put together a nice timeline video of HIS response.
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Geez, I thought he was. I thought he reckoned he should have been because he was so incredibly smart… his uncle at MIT, or Harvard or wherever it was.
Actually I wouldn’t trust the idiot to empty a bed pan, never mind let him near a drug.
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Tris…..And after all his touting the drug and telling people to try it, he tells people he’s not a doctor……and does it without a trace of irony. 😉
I posted the link to the gigantic six-reporter NY Times investigation that ran in the paper last weekend and was what set Trump off at the Monday briefing. Also a Washington Post video showing some of the video and the bizarre “unhinged” opening to the Monday briefing.
I may listen to the Times article (about 30 minutes) instead of trying to read it. The audio is embedded in the article on the website.
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What have you got to to lose? Maybe your life from a heart attack. See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/12/health/chloroquine-coronavirus-trump.html
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Exactly, Jim.
You really have to be careful with these things antiviral drugs, that they don’t react with something else you are talking or or a pre-existing condition.
But remember his uncle was a great scientist so clearly he knows all about that.
I wonder if Trump Industries has an interest…
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Hard to figure why Trump would so actively promote a medication with potentially dangerous side effects, contrary to so much scientific and medical advice to the contrary. But if you’re so surpassingly uninformed and so lacking in critical intelligence that you can’t differentiate medical facts from political opinions, and you’ve spent your life as a snake oil salesman, then you sell the snake oil available to you.
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I reckon he needs sectioning!
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I’m beginning to think 🤔
The Republican Party needs
Sectioning.
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I see that there is a delay on sending out the cheques to people becasue the idiot wants his name on them. Lik HE was going them money and not their taxes coming back to them.
Reminds me of Michael Gove and his ST James Bibles in England. Remember that?
How we laughed.
But this idiot is holding up welfare payments so his name can appear on the cheque.
Utter loonie.
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/bvgq85/your-coronavirus-check-might-be-late-because-trump-just-had-to-put-his-name-on-it
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Yes Tris……I saw this on the news this morning. He has ordered that his name must appear on the checks. Geeeeze!
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Presumably the folk that voted for him 4 years ago, are stupid enough to believe it is a personal gift and that will ensure that they vote for him in November.
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At least Trump THINKS that lots of people will consider it a personal gift. And yes, many of his voters probably will. 😦
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The Monday “unhinged” White House briefing, where Trump later ranted about his absolute power, but began with what was a video response to an article that ran in the New York Times over the weekend. The Times article was titled : “He Could Have Seen What Was Coming: Behind Trump’s Failure on the Virus.” Trump was furious at the Times and ran the video in the briefing room before any information about the pandemic. MSNBC cut away from running the White House briefing when they saw what was happening. They rejoined the White House feed later when some medical information was actually presented.
The huge Times article ran with a byline of six of their top reporters. Trump seemed especially angry that Maggie Haberman was one of the reporters on the article, even though she had written some favorable things about the subject previously. So his video featured her prominently in an attempt to embarrass her.
The now famous NYTimes article, and a pissed off Trump showing his video refuting it:
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Yep, Danny. He put together a campaign ad for a pandemic press conference because he sees the strong stock market and low unemployment on which he was counting for his re-election drifting downstream towards Niagra Falls.
Good article and good video.
I wonder what Seth made of it.
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Tris…..I should check out Seth. It wouldn’t surprise me if he didn’t have something to say. The Times article got tons of media attention, and Trump BEGAN the Monday briefing furious about it.
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I am quite angry that the WHO should be treated this way. It is a convenient thought that disagreeing with the bastard Trump is the way to go!
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Trump blew the pandemic response and has to have scapegoats. The WHO is ideal as a Trump scapegoat because it has the word “World” in its name. Trump seems to hate international organizations. The World Trade Organization gets much the same treatment.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-announces-cutoff-of-new-funding-for-the-world-health-organization-over-pandemic-response/2020/04/14/f1df101e-7e9f-11ea-a3ee-13e1ae0a3571_story.html
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Mr Trump raises interesting points, I think, about how America seems to subsidise so many world wide organisations… the UN, WTO and WHO are three obvious examples.
He is right that the cost of these things is unfairly placed on the shoulders of the USA taxpayer (or possibly rather those who are lending money to the USA).
There has been a reason that America has done this, I suspect.
It would, perhaps, be fair to say, that in general terms, ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune’.
By the same token, he who ceases to pay the piper, can expect to cease to call the tune and get himself ready to listen to what someone else wants to hear for a change.
The US president is generally accepted to be the world’s most powerful person, although in his own country he is probably less powerful than, for example, the French President is in his… and many other heads of government/state.
US presidents’ power largely comes from the influence they have on world affairs (and the massive nuclear armory).
If he stops paying for stuff, he needs to be aware that China, for example, might take his place. It can afford to stump up the money. Then Mr Xi will be the most powerful man in the world.
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Tris…..That’s spot on, on all points!
As Trump pursues a super-nationalist policy of more or less traditional American isolationism, he’s throwing away a 75 year tradition of post-WWII American foreign policy that made the country a leader in international affairs. A leadership position that we’re unlikely to ever get back. Does Trump understand that? Of course not! He has no sense of history, so he wouldn’t even know about it, much less care about it, as long as it plays well with his base. All that matters is what he perceives to be in his personal political self-interest in the moment.
I suspect that his middle class voter base may be smarter than he is though. What did America’s leadership in the world on the grand stage of international diplomacy ever buy them anyway? Those of a certain age may remember the grinding agony of Vietnam, and those that are younger remember Bush’s wars and his lies about WMD. People voted for Trump on his campaign promise to bring the troops home from Bush’s and Cheney’s wars for democracy at the point of a gun. But every move Trump has made in that direction has been met with howls of protest from the generals in the Pentagon, and from the liberals (such as Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden) who in another age FIRST supported Bush’s wars, UNTIL they didn’t; and from the mainstream liberal media who screamed for Bush to end his wars, and then screamed at Trump when he did as he promised and withdrew troops from Syria.
The press are always either at your feet or at your throat!
And back home, where middle class families have to go to work and pay the bills, what have America’s internationalist globalist policies of BOTH political parties given them? Namely, international free trade agreements that the mainstream Republicans assure their Wall Street business cronies will accommodate their movement of factories offshore where labor rates are low; and that the Democrats tell their voters…….who’ve lost their highly paid American factory jobs to foreign workers, and haven’t seen a decent salary increase in after-inflation dollars since sometime back in the 1970’s……that the workers in China who took their jobs will enjoy healthy working conditions. No sirree!……there’ll be no sweat shop labor in foreign countries if the liberal Democrats have anything to say about it! AND the Democrats go on to say, if you’re lucky enough to still HAVE a job, you can rest assured that the prices you pay for Chinese-made goods at your local Walmart won’t cost you very much, since the Chinese workers that now have your jobs aren’t paid much.
So the globalist-minded politicians of BOTH pre-Trump political parties……while having a high old time at the grandest tables of international organizations like NATO and the United Nations Security Council…….have been screwing working class Americans for 75 years. Is it any wonder that the voters in key rust belt states had finally had enough and voted for a tough-talking nationalist populist demagogue like Trump?
And now, what are the liberal Democrats all set to give us that’s supposed to be better than Trump? A 77 year old man who for the better part of a decade sat at the very pinnacle of the American foreign policy establishment as Chairman or ranking Democrat of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. From that exalted internationalist globalist perch, Joe Biden supported George Bush’s wars, and came to the White House to smile approvingly when Bush signed the Iraq War authorization.
Old Joe has been trying for a long time to explain away his support for Bush’s wars. There was an op-ed piece in the Times about it last January.
Joe Biden can talk out of both sides of his mouth on just about any issue that’s come up in Washington over the last half century. He boasted recently that he can compromise and make deals with politicians of both parties. As an example, he bragged about how he even made good deals with old time Southerner segregationists. That gaffe almost sunk his campaign early on, and he doesn’t mention his old friendships with the southern segregationist racists anymore. I wonder if a go-along get-along guy, who back in the day drank bourbon and branch water in the old boys club of the US Senate, will play well in the age of Trump.
Stay tuned…… and rant over! 😉
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Good rant, Danny
Of course the UK has nearly always played along with whatever president was in power and as far as I can see only ever got the compensation of being described by “the most powerful man in the world” as “our closest allies”, whilst forking out money for wars we couldn’t afford and weapons we didn’t need for these wars.
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I still can’t understand why Bush and Cheney haven’t had to pay a bigger price in public esteem for the lies they told to justify their wars.
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Me too. And that goes for Blair too.
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The non-existent “WMD” has almost become a political punch line.
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That ain’t no rant Danny. The American electorate has been left with no real choice. Either vote for Trump and continue the insanity or vote for Biden and do the same.
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Douglas…..I enjoy pointing out to my friends in the Democratic party that self-serving con artists are a dime a dozen, and that it was just a matter of time until one of them, in the figure of a populist demagogue, would be elected president. I point out to them that in 2016 they waged an incompetent political campaign that solely consisted of hair-on-fire tirades about how stupid and venal Trump is, and how it’s simply IMPOSSIBLE that such a vulgar despicable moron could ever be elected president.
Then he WAS elected, and my Democratic friends lost their minds. First they launched into tirades against the electoral college. Imagine that! It took Democrats over two centuries to actually discover how we elect presidents; that it’s not a fundamentally democratic process, and never was. But now that’s it not giving them the electoral outcomes they desire, they want it abolished. If they can’t win an election fair and square, then they want to change the way that elections are held…….RATHER THAN adopt policies that appeal to more voters for example. It seems not to have occurred to the Democrats that the unemployed blue collar workers in the rust belt states didn’t give c*** that the man was stupid and vulgar; they liked what he was saying about new manufacturing jobs. It’s in fact been a long time that the Democrats have given a rats ass about middle class workers. You can be SURE though that they will (rightly) be wringing their hands about the plight of poor racial minorities, and of course will be spouting unending gibberish about saving the planet from the people who live on it. (My less than far left political viewpoint tells me that the far lefties LOVE mankind, or say that they do, but hate actual PEOPLE…..who won’t do what the lefties tell them to do in service of the greater public good.) Anyway, it’s been at least 50 years since the Democrats gave a fig about the white middle class worker (a cornerstone of the FDR New Deal coalition,) and yet they can’t figure out why the majority of them always vote Republican these days.
I’m always amused when the Democrats make a big deal of the fact that Trump’s a self-confessed womanizer and sexual predator. How convenient it is to forget about the sexual escapades of Bill Clinton and John F. Kennedy. The difference is that Trump over the years has been more or less open about his sexual activities, while JFK and his fawning friends in the media kept his womanizing secret. On the other hand, everyone knew that Clinton had lots of women on the side, but people didn’t much care. Most voters don’t actually care about Trump’s sexual escapades either, but the Dems must pretend to be outraged about it since they hate him so much for so many other things.
In addition to being in line with the wants and needs of blue collar workers, Trump also understood that the voters were sick of Bush’s wars. Trump promised to end the wars and bring the troops home. So what happened when he did exactly what he promised to do in Syria? The Democrats threw a fit! Why? Simply because it was TRUMP that was doing it. So how do our Democratic friends spin that one? They tell us that Trump is withdrawing from international commitments and diminishing America’s leadership position in the world. Yes, the Dems do SO love American leadership in the world, even as they know that sending troops around the world is unpopular at home and abroad. The Dems loved it when Obama withdrew troops that Bush had sent, but they hated it when Trump did it.
The worst Republican president in the last 30 years? I vote for George W. Bush, purely on the basis of the body count. Bush killed more than 5,000 American soldiers in wars that he justified based on lies about weapons of mass destruction. Trump tried to bring soldiers home, and that enraged the Democrats. So who do the Democrats now put forward to defeat Trump in the next general election? Joe Biden! A man who went to the White House to gaze approvingly while George W. Bush signed the Iraq War authorization that he (Biden) voted for.
I hope that Trump is defeated in November. But I hate it that he’ll be replaced by Joe Biden. Which is the party of self-serving hypocrites? BOTH of them!
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Wow… One of your better rants, Danny.
Yeah, the choice in November will be between bad and bad.
I’m not even sure that Biden will be able to stop hi,self from saying really stupid stuff… almost as incoherent as Trumps idiot waffles.
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LOL…..yes, old Joe is a human gaffe machine. It should be an interesting campaign, if we ever get around to having one. 😉 Maybe he’ll accidentally name a VP we can vote for with some degree of satisfaction. All we know for sure is that he says it’ll be a woman. There’s some good women senators and governors.
Even I could see that the Democrats were blowing the 2016 campaign, but I wasn’t in the least prepared for the the way they went crazy when Trump won. At least they’ve quit demanding that the constitution be changed, and seem resigned to the fact that they’ll have to win the old fashioned way, by actually winning the majority of the electoral votes. 🙂
Staying tuned……..LOL.
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If Trump has his way everything will be back to normal within the next few weeks.
Well, sort of.
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🙂
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PS…..I meant to mention that the reaction of the Democrats to Trump’s victory in 2016, was almost literally identical to the childish foot-stomping tantrum that the Republicans went through in 2008-2016 after Obama was elected president….twice. I’d say that what was called “Obama derangement syndrome” among the Republicans then, is very much like Trump derangement syndrome among the Democrats today.
I got into an argument with a lady at work who is of European ancestry, and was simply beside herself about another HITLER having been elected president. (The poor dear was apparently in a tizzy about an article she had read on a left wing Democratic website about Trump’s authoritarian instincts.) For her it wasn’t just hyperbolic over-the-top rhetoric; she seemed convinced that it was quite literally Nazi Germany all over again. My suggestion that she grow up and come to her senses about losing an election to a two-bit snake oil salesman did not facilitate a totally friendly outcome to our discussion.
This all transpired before I had heard of Godwin’s law and the principle of “reductio ad Hitlerum.” 😉
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Godwin%27s_law
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Oh dear, Danny!
I hope your work doesn’t involve close liaison with aforementioned woman.
We have the same sort of stuff here. Corbyn was definitely a Communist, say the Tories.
De Pfeffel of course, thinks he Winston Churchill.
He’s not. If he tried to drink that much before breakfast he’d fall over.
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Such is the depth of our political discourse these days.
Say what we will about Churchill, there was a man who could hold his liquor. 🙂
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The lockdown has produced some deep intellectual ponderings, Danny, not to mention some absolute nonsense. 🙂
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Tris…..Indeed!
And your description of “some absolute nonsense” prompts me to post links to a couple of recent Bill Maher pieces from his comedy/commentary show on HBO. Maher is great at spotlighting media nonsense. They should fit in well with the pandemic topic on the “Just For a Laugh” edition of MNR. 🙂
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Feel free, Danny. I’ll be pleased to include them.
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Tris……Nice group of funny items this week!
I just posted the Maher pieces as a comment. The embedded videos opened for me here in the States.
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Worked here too, Danny.
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For me, the hysterical nature of the pandemic coverage in the mainstream media has been almost as infuriating as the coverage on FOX……and that’s saying a lot. But it’s a tricky thing to complain about without sounding dismissive or uncaring about a genuine tragedy. However, I know emotional pandering for TV ratings and newspaper circulation points when I see it, and the mainstream media in the States has been playing the pandemic hysteria for all it’s worth, IMHO.
Bill Maher makes a business of shooting his mouth off about such things and is usually right, IMHO. Maher’s comment about the traditional convention of calling a virus by its place of origin followed a social media comment from Democratic Congressman Ted Lieu (who is of Chinese descent)……which then unleashed a chorus of touchy feely liberal hand wringing about anti-Chinese prejudice involving a virus referred to by its identified place of origin, which happens to be China.
I must admit that my centrist (but progressive) politics gives me a very low tolerance for politically correct liberals who get their shorts in a knot about people’s feelings being hurt. And yes of course Congressman Lieu represents a Congressional district in CALIFORNIA……and yes his sensitive liberal soul was mightily offended by the virus naming convention. (The famously “First Amendment free speech” USA is not a place I would recommend to people whose feelings are easily hurt…..LOL.)
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Yes. I agree with you.
Whilst I tend to try to be tactful when saying what I think (I don’t like to think I have hurt another person), there’s not much point in saying anything, if you’re going to smother it in platitudes.
But accentuating the geographic location of the first outbreak isn’t just about people’s feelings.
At least here it isn’t.
People of oriental appearance, some of whom have lived in the Uk all their lives, are being beaten up for causing the virus.
I think the press (and moronic leaders) need to remember that everyone that hears or reads what they say, may not have the brainpower to take in the sense of it and throw away the nonsense.
It isn’t the fault of a young Chinese-looking doctor that Covid exists. Not every black person comes from an area of Africa where Ebola is endemic, and not every Brit was capable of spreading Mad Cow Disease or its human equivalent vCJD.
Probably Mr(s) Average gets that. Mr/Mrs Thick as **** doesn’t.
It’s hard to know which way to turn with “end the lockdown”, and I truly feel for those who are having to make decisions about it no matter who they are or where.
Conflicting medical advice abounds.
But keep people locked down for longer than is necessary will break economies even worse than they are already broken, and relaxing the lock down too quickly will cause death rates will soar, again.
I’d not like to be one of the governors, or Nicola Sturgeon or Boris Johnson or Angela Merkel or Howard Quale* …across the political divide in countries big and small. It must be the hardest decision to make.
*Chief Minister of the Isle of Man.
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Tris……I’m in total agreement about what a difficult situation the governors, presidents, prime ministers, first ministers, etc, are in regarding the decisions they must make.
I have no sympathy for Trumpy of course, who has not a shred of empathy for the people who experience hardship, but is only concerned with getting the American economy moving again by election day.
I also take your point that the virus naming convention and how it was exploited by Trump for example, is a valid point of concern. Simply being offended is one thing, but violence and overtly damaging prejudicial acts against racial minorities is quite another.
As for simple matters of what you can and cannot politely say, and whether or not racial or ethnic minorities are (or should be) offended by simple speech……this is the “political correctness” issue of the American culture wars, and is a political hot button in the war between between the political right and left.
This is what led to Maher’s comment: “can’t we even have a pandemic without offending someone?”
Tough problem in every respect!
Stay well mate!
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Absolutely, Danny.
And it infects every are of life.
Politeness is one thing, but poitical correctness takes it all far too far.
No one is sure what will be offensive.
I heard on a radio programme thee other day, a man referring to another panelist as “a lady”. Immediately she screeched at him that she was a woman (although I would have thought “banshee” might have been more accurate.
I had no idea that there were differences between ladies and women, any more than there were differences between gentlemen and ladies.
“Good evening ladies and gentlemen and welcome to the show” now will have to alter to… “Good evening women and men”, or in America, “dudes and dudesses”.
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OMG Tris…..the VERY same thing happened to me! I was having a conversation in a relaxed social gathering and made a casual reference to “ladies.” One of the “ladies” there bristled noticeably and informed me that “ladies” is offensive and that “women” is the proper term. I’m sorry now that I didn’t think to pursue the matter further with your comment about “ladies and gentlemen”…..LOL.
Proper feminist terminology seems eternally mysterious. I was sitting in a staff meeting at work in a discussion with our department head. Several of the guys there made comments and suggestions, at which point our department head good-naturedly said “we’ve heard from several of the guys, now how about some input from the gals.” One of the women immediately told him that if he would quit calling her a “gal”, maybe she would have something to say to him. The boss fell all over himself apologizing for his offensive form of address.
I can see how “gal” might be considered demeaning and less than respectful in some more more formal contexts, but when informally talking about guys and gals, this woman was apparently just fine with “guy,” but “gal” to her was offensive……even in front of the BOSS.
Politically correct speech is a minefield in racial matters too. In the USA, you can use the term “black,” but African-American is now clearly preferred. There was a time in the past when you could properly refer to a “colored” person, or even a “negro,” but not any more…….EXCEPT in the name of the NAACP, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, which retains the name for historical purposes. You CAN however respectfully refer to an African-American as a “person of color.” Like I said….a minefield!
I never like to offend anyone, but sometimes it’s hard NOT TO these days…..LOL.
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Absolutely, Danny. It’s altogether weird.
People at work are now afraid to lean over a colleague to look at their screen, lest it be misinterpreted as a sexual assault.
Work nights out people are trying not to sit to close to each other (even before the virus) lest they legs touch.
It’s all got daft.
A few years ago there was a certain set of people who demanded that women should all be addressed as Ms.
I can see that argument. What business is it of anyone whether someone is married or not? And if it matters, for some bizarre reason, why does the same not apply to men?
But some women, objected to Ms, because THEY thought it sounded a bit “gay”. (Apparently there were a lot of gay women who didn’t want to be Miss.
So seriously you never knew what to call anyone.
That said, although I never make a fuss about it, I really object to people who I have called or emailed on business immediately using my first name. I always (perhaps rather primly) continue to use their second name… I dunno, maybe the French in me.
I’m sure they never notice…
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Tris…..TOTALLY in agreement!……
It seems to me that Ms. makes a lot of sense. It provides gender identification without the personal issue of marital status, which should be irrelevant in formal address.
And I absolutely HATE instant first name familiarity! That’s totally presumptuous as far as I’m concerned, but more and more the norm these days it seems.
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I think, in fairness, we adopted that practise from you.
My mother says that it was never like that in Britain when she was young.
In France (or at least when I worked there) it was all Monsieur and Madame.
Only politically incorrect thing, I remember was that a girl was Mlle until she looked old enough to be Madame… Rude or what!
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Yes, first name familiarity seems typically American in its disregard for formality and tradition. Definitely not British. 😉
I guess that the French would have the same uncertainty with Mlle and Madame that English speaking countries have with Miss and Mrs. It occurs to me that in more or less formal verbal address in America, a young woman with an unknown surname would commonly be called “Miss”, and an older woman at some age would become “Madam”……….but less formally, any woman (probably including a young one) would simply be “ma’am.”
The American South is VERY big on young people addressing almost any older woman as ma’am. Proper young people….even a lot of older people……in the South do a LOT of “yes ma’am-ing” when addressing women. On the FAR other extreme is New York City and the big famously rude cities of the northeast, when a lady will receive an address more like “HEY YOU”.
I read that the Queen (on second address, and later in the conversation) is theoretically addressed as “Madam”, but it’s always used as the contraction “ma’am.”
I thought this Quora discussion was entertaining. It touches on the polite and traditional Southern usage of “ma’am, and a problem with “madam”, which is also the term used for a woman who runs a brothel. As for the madam/ma’am thing in both American and British usage, it says:
In the US, “ma’am” is the polite form of address in conversation — the exact equivalent of “sir.” By contrast, “madam” is hyper-polite and used only in formal situations (“Madam Secretary”) or in the salutations of business letters (“Dear Madam”).
In Britain, as I understand it, “ma’am” is reserved for the Queen, and “madam” is used for everyone else. They think it’s odd when they are addressed as “ma’am” by Americans.
https://www.quora.com/Is-it-correct-to-say-Madam-or-Maam
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Aye that’s about it, Danny.
My granny and great granny always talked about their friends as Mrs McKenzie and Miss Watt, etc. Only members of the family were addressed on first name terms.
In France my neighbour used Monsieur/Madame to everyone including her best friend… and she used the word “vous” for “you”. The informal “tu” was used only for her husband and two children.
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Ah yes! Bits and pieces of my high school French come back to me. I remember the “vous” and “tu” thing very well. 🙂
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Only in America,well almost only,would people elect a dodgy real estate dealer to use his prolific medical knowledge to advise people on how to survive a catastrophic pandemic.
I suppose it saves money on employing experts,now despised by administrations on both sides of the Atlantic.
A whole civil service replaced by a single Trump.
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I think the thing about experts is that they know stuff… and that tends to make the likes of Trump and Gove not to mention De Pfeffle look incredibly ignorant (unless in the case of the last named, you are impressed by Homer).
I’m always dubious of those who think experts know nothing.
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Well, we have ‘experts’ around here. And they sure as heck know stuff!
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LOL. True.
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It’s a strange irony that the numpties were convinced by Gove et al not to listen to expert advice during the EU Referendum but now find themselves outed on social media for not listening to expert advice during lockdown.
It’s getting to the stage where daft bastards everywhere just don’t know who to believe.
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Yep, all these people who dissed “experts” now leaning so heavily on “experts”.
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Trump may take away the WHO’s funding, but he’ll never take their music.
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I don’t like the monolith.
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You’re right. This one is much better…
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Just imagine, this clip is the best dialogue (and music) in that whole dreadful film. 😉
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2.75 minutes of your life that you won’t get back.
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Absolutely! And just imagine the poor people who sat through the whole thing and lost 2 hours, 22 minutes. 😦
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View at Medium.com
You know what side I come down on…
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I definitely vote for most boring!
Nice positive comments though about the various WAYS the film finds to be boring. My favorite:
“One reason why “2001: A Space Odyssey” is said to be one of the most boring films of all time is because of its extremely slow and long nature. There are scenes in the film where next to nothing happens and it has an extremely slow build up to the “climax” of the film.”
Sadly, there was no way to actually identify the “climax.” Perhaps an on-screen notification would have been helpful. 🙂
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How appropriate.
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Just watched First Minister’s Virtual Question Time, and, since I don’t normally listen to anything establishment politicians say, it was a revelation. Two tubes, Leonard and Rennie, having already been given answers, and specific figures by Nicola, then proceeded to ask the same questions again.
What is the matter with these people? Are they that thick? While the S.N.P Scottish Government isn’t perfect, just imagine either of these idiots being in charge.
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It seems to me that no government is ever perfect. Quite apart from the obvious “you can’t please all of the people all of the time”, you are going to have to make decisions that will please no one at any time.
I think that NS is the most effective party leader in the UK, but she’s not always going to get everything right, no more than Alex would had he still been FM.
But I shudder to think what life would be like if Carlaw or Leonard were leader. (I never really include Rennie as he’s beyond imagination. Pure fantasy.
Carlaw continually tweets (must have picked that idea up from Trump). He’s always critical of the government, fair enough. But I never see a constructive suggestion for an alternative.
Today he is griping about the idea that less serious crimes may be tried without a jury.
OK. I get that this goes against the whole principal of being tried by one’s peers. And I get that it might open up all kinds of problems.
So I can see why he would be against it.
But what is his solution?
If I were called for jury duty now, I’d not want to do it. I wouldn’t want to sit in a court with a load of other people possibly infected with teh virus. I’d not want to sit in a jury room either.
Indeed, I would have to be forced to do it under threat of imprisonment.
You have to wonder just how rigorous jurors would be if all they had on their minds was that they wanted to be the hell out of there.
Does Carlaw have a solution? No.
Useless.
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I think if Rennie and Leonard aren’t thick they do a very good job looking like they are.
Here’s one for thick people everywhere to get in their diaries.
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I’d really need to sing very loudly so I won’t bother.
Maybe Ben should have said we wee quiet prayer would be more useful, wire in, I won’t bother.
Isn’t it nice to know that a nuclear submarine is on station to NUKE anyone attacking us.
The aircraft carrier, sans aircraft, will be back out to sea next week, doing essential work.
In the meantime some 10% of the armed forces are working from home, that virtual war gaming software will be busy. They’re working on testing facilities making prototypes.
On a happier note the duke of westminster has donated £10million to the eNHS out of his £10Billion nest egg, then a wee old captain gets people to donate some £12million, money that handcock should be saying that he’s put billions into it, but here’s a gong.
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I wonder when Liz is going to put her hand in her extremely deep pockets. £40 billion would leave her £40 billion to treat herself for the rest of her life.
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Ah… at last someone has come up with the solution to all ills.
Mr Cameron’s mater had it right.
Get a decent suit, straighten your tie. sing god save the queen.
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Arse licking like that gets you a knighthood.
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I can imagine that once upon a time that might have been something to aim for. But, you are now aspiring to be the same as Jimmy Saville?
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Not I, but to a hooray Henry like Fogle? Odds on.
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Yes, I suppose. Just can’t imagine why anyone could take pride in a title that’s been handed out to so many reprobates.
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https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1249979116302012418.html
Long read, but it shows what a complete mess the Brits have made of it.
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