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You've already admitted to exaggerating, so that statement must be another exaggeration. That's almost a mirror image of the "Everything I say is a lie" paradox.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
How often does your binge drinking correspond to posting here?
Does this thread risk becoming 'Thoughts About Me' rather than 'Thought for the Day'?
What corner?Quote:
Originally Posted by Laphroaig
You MIGHT be a lost cause, Flighty. Most people who find it impossible to trust other people are pretty untrustworthy themselves.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
At least people actually read my thoughts, Stavros.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
if you can't work it out, I'd suggest this one...Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
Attachment 1306286
Work out what, Laphro? Are you on an alternate timeline? If so, please give my best to Elvis.Quote:
Originally Posted by Laphroaig
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
You might be onto something there.Quote:
Originally Posted by Nick Danger
Is it surprising the man is a big Trump fan when they have so many character traits in common?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
You're right though. We should try to respond to Nick's posts in the Viper Room thread, especially when its about nothing but his delusional self-absorption.
I think you're more absorbed with me than I am, Flighty.Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
My father called me this morning and said, "Well, I'm off to deliver Joe Biden to the homeless."
"Wut?" I replied, knowing this was going to be good.
"Joe Biden" is what he named the wild turkey that was foolish enough to wander through his back yard this morning. He shoots them and brings them to a guy who cleans them and takes them to a shelter.
Londoners (not me), will vote in May in local Borough elections, and for The Mayor. With Mr Cuomo under siege in the city of New York, my thought for the day is -are Mayors the best way to organize the management of a large city?
London did not have a political Mayor until 1999, management previously being organized through a Council or the Greater London Authority, which Margaret Thatcher abolished. Most Boroughs, like most towns and cities, have Mayors which perform ceremonial duties only. The City of London, which is an autonomous authority governing the Financial District, has had a Mayor since 1189.
if London and New York did not have Mayors, should they have a Management Committe? A Council? Blackchubby may pipe in -'been there, tried that' - but as I don't know, I can't add much more. Other than to query the position of Mayor, if only because it puts so much pressure to deliver on one Man (has a woman ever run for Mayor in NYC?) even if they don't work alone.
Some years ago the Mayor of Nice, Jacques Médecin, once ruled this beautiful, but crime-addled city like an Autocrat (he effectively inherited the job from his dad, Jean [Vichy? Pas moi!]) -until he did a runner with a suitcase full of cash. So I have tended to think of Mayors with enormous powers as a mistake waiting to happen.
But are there practical alternatives?
Cuomo is the Governor of New York State. Bill De Blasio is the Mayor of New York City.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I think a mayor is still the best option to manage a large city. The issues you run into is when that mayor is a shitty leader like De Blasio or when you have one political party that not only controls the mayor's mansion, but the city council as well.
Each borough also has its own president. But from what I can tell, most of them just use it as a stepping stone to becoming mayor.
We should also mention that Mayors also have city Councils that represent districts in the city ( my local council member, at the moment, is Jimmy Van Bramer). They help to vote on the budget and to enact laws for the city, along with the Mayor, similar to the larger bodies of government in this country. We also have a City Comptroller along with a State Comptroller, etc....As blackchubby38 has stated, each borough has their own president, but the job does seem mostly perfunctory (ribbon cutting ceremonies and such). each borough also has it’s own elected District attorney along with their own Civil/Criminal Courts - both Supreme and lower Criminal (along with Family and Housing Courts..etc..). So Mayor’s don’t go it alone, but they are quite frequently the more recognizable face in the local government.
To BC’s point, out of around 51 Council seats..only three are Republican (two of those belonging to Staten Island ). So yeah, one party.
Blackchubby38, do you feel good about any of the possible contenders for the crown? I’m not feeling good about too many, including Presidential Democratic primary reject Andrew Yang. I thought the young man who got kicked out of Staten Island , Max Rose, might’ve been a good selection - a fairly moderate Democrat, who only lost because Staten Island, which he represented, is still pretty conservative, so they elected Nicole Malliotakis instead (she lost her try at Mayor, when DeBlasio won his second term).
Thanks to Blackchubby and Fred for your thoughts -and apologies for a schoolboy error though from this remote location Bill de Blasio doesn't register on my radar, and I suspect that is a relief. It seems you both satisfied with the set-up if not the men elected, so I wonder who has impressed you in the past, and why?
For example, though I left London in the mid-1980s, earlier in the decade Ken Livingstone when leader of the Greater London Council was popular for mounting a 'Fair's Fair' campaign which lowered the cost of travelling on the Underground, for which he was taken to Court and beaten -when he became the elected Mayor years later, he saw through both the rationalization of travel with the Oyster Card which can be used for both the Underground and the bus network, and Investment in buses and staff that meant that the days of old when you could wait an hour for a No 73 and then find four arrive at the same time came to an end. I recall working with someone who lived on the Isle of Dogs for whom its bus service west to Bethnal Green was a legend rather than a reality -not only are those days gone, but with the new Docklands Light Railway London acquired a transport sector that does appear to have met the challenges of population and commercial expansion, whereas I read that the Subway system in NYC is in real need of an overhaul.
Boris Johnson's innovation as Mayor was to persuade the UAE to create a cable car link across the Thames in a part of London most commonly populated by weasels and newts -irrelevance at great expense being one of his specialities, as the millions wasted on 'Boris buses' proved. Just imagine, having been born in Manhattan, had Mr Brexit not surrendered his American passport -for tax reasons, not loyalty as he doesn't know what that is -he would have been able to stand as a candidate to be Mayor of your amazing city. And he may well have been elected. Maybe de Niro should run, I assume he needs the money after this dismal year for his various business interests...not to mention the alimony...
Malliotakis is the only Republican that I have ever voted for. That's how much I despise DeBlasio.Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
I feel really good about Andrew Yang. Despite his early gaffs and certain media outlets taking shots at him, he is still leading in the polls. I think the other contenders are starting to worry about his chances because you're starting to hear the "he doesn't have any experience in government" arguments.
He definitely has peaked my interest after saying the following two things:
"Yang said he would support decriminalizing possessing small amounts of all drugs, and instead wants to steer people into substance-abuse treatment."
nypost.com/2021/03/18/nyc-mayoral-candidates-adams-yang-clash-over-drug-legalization/
“I will confess to being a parent that has been frustrated by how slow our schools have been to open, and I do believe that the UFT has been a significant reason why our schools have been slow to open,” Yang told Politico New York in an interview published Friday.
//nypost.com/2021/03/19/andrew-yang-blames-nyc-teachers-union-for-slow-school-restart/
But hey, if Yang doesn't get the nomination, we can always continue the trend of famous 1980s' personalities being elected to office and vote for Curtis Silwa.
This thought is for filghy2 as I read a horrendous report on the Rodent Explosion in Australia, and wonder if you have any experience f it. I had a traumatic experience with rodents in the first place I lived in when I left home, and have a loathing of such creatures such that I can't even watch them when they are screen in films. Have the just as extraordinary rains washed them away? And what has been the cause of the epidemic?
Contains distressing images-
https://www.theguardian.com/australi...tern-australia
LOL,however one must respect the pure tenacity of rodents . When asked which creatures will most likely survive a nuclear holocaust or the next great asteroid impact most biologists will tell you Bats Rats and Roaches .
It's not near me fortunately, and nor are the floods. Mice plagues seem to be problem mainly in grain-growing regions. The thought of them crawling over me while I'm sleeping would be disconcerting.Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I'm not sure what they are doing to the mice, but the floods are causing other problems. How do you feel about spiders?
https://www.theguardian.com/environm...ape-nsw-floods
I am pleased to here you have not been affected. To paraphrase Sukumvit Boy's post above, I don't have a problem with the tenacity of revolting creatures, but their proximity to me. In the case of spiders, I usually put them in a cup or a jar and send them out into the big wide world, which I believe is far more interesting for them than my bathroom or bedroom. That said, there are spiders, and then there are Australian spiders....so I don't envy your geography, fascinating as it is -from a distance....Quote:
Originally Posted by filghy2
https://www.facebook.com/Goggleboxfa...3840542088576/
Not to mention giant white sharks and saltwater crocodiles ,deadly box jellyfish and ring octopuses and cone snails, and a host of the most venomous snakes . Yet in my opinion this ,the largest island on earth, hosts the friendliest people on the planet!
hrumph! The Amazon Basin aso has a phenomenal bio-diversity which incudes lethal creatures on land and in rivers just waiting for you to arrive -are you up for it? Some places look better on tv, which is where they should remain for me, and most of us.
I think a key point about Australia is that much of it is still wilderness and hostile to human settlement, while the 'Outback' seems to contain humans hostile to other humans. I am sure plenty of indigenous people will know where to go and where not to go, barefoot, or in shoes, or camper vans.
My experience of Australians has been poor, from a woman I met on a train to Paris who tried to convince me 'Aboriginals' are stone deaf being from the Stone Age and not really humans; to the guy at work who insulted me when I was the Union rep (not that he was in our Union) blaming Britain for the 'Communists' who were sent to Australia that he loathed and detested (he assumed I was one of them) -and had mininal impact on Australian politics. I did meet a congenial Aussie in Dublin's justly, and famously musical pub, O'Donoghue's in the 1970s, but he didn't live in Australia. Once I almost collided with Germaine Greer in the South Front, which would have left me the worse for wear given her size and mine; and in the distant days when I worked in Broadcasting House Rolf Harris waived me across a zebra crossing on Portand Place.
There was the gruff, no-nonsense Aussie I shared a small table with in a packed Diwan-i-Am who grabbed the waiter by the arm ''Get me a mutton curry, yella rice and a beer", telling me "I'll be in Bomby tomorra nght and get the real thing" which was not fair, as the Diwan-i-Am was one of the best 'Indian' restaurants in London at the time. Someone I know who went to Australia, on being asked said 'It's really just England with very hot weather', and after a flush of truly interesting films in the late 1970s-early 1980s the best directors left for the US.
Yes, Xavier Herbert, Les Murray and Judith Wright are some of the finest writers in English, but that cannot be said of the crabbed, asthmatic, strangulated prose of Patrick Wright, designed as it is to inflict misery on its readers, or the irritating if now deceased Clive James whose only contribution to literature was a series of bad tempered letters in The Times Literary Supplement exchanged with America's most intelligent, if nauseating gossip, Gore Vidal, disputing Hiroshima and the end of the War in the Pacific.
As for Dame Edna Everege, no words can describe 'the horror! The horror!'. Someone once told me she thought Nicole Kidman was/is the most beautiful woman in the world, and was not blind when she said it. I did see Melbourne's drag review, Les Girls when they had a season at the Wimbledon Theatre in London in, I think, 1979 and two or three were amazing, including the 'legendary' Carlotta, but if you were not 6 foot six with the girth of a combine harvester there was no chance of getting a root with the cast on that occasion. And Bob Hawke's rehabilitation of the Labour Party after the Whitlam Paradox was the model for Tony Blair's cake and ale reforms in Cool Britannia. If one assumes that was a positive step foward for Labour, which three election victories tends to confirm.
I am sure I am mistaken about the place, but I don't have any plans to go, and in the current situation we find ourselves in, it is not going to happen this side of eternity.
Don't forget that the most dangerous animal is man. Animals normally attack people only for food or defence - they don't kill masses of people just because they are angry at something. Australia is a safer country than the US because guns are much less prevalent and there is less social disfunction.Quote:
Originally Posted by sukumvit boy
One of the curious tendencies of extremists is that they give full vent to their views wihen the reality of political power is a distant dream, then suddenly recant when it becomes a close-up reality. Americans have had to assume Marjorie Taylor-Greene is being honest when she disavows any sympathy with QAnon, now that she is in a member of the House. Sidney Powell, having spent months claiming voting machines in the US 2020 elections were rigged, now faced with lawsuit after lawsuit, claims ' No reasonable person would conclude that the statements were truly statements of fact.
Thus, in Israel, Belalzel Smotrich and colleagues in his party, Otzma Yehudit [Jewish Power] have suddenly decided the nauseating views they have been expressing about Israel's LGBQ+ citizens for yers are not in fact what they said they were. Thus,
"Smotrich helped organize an event in 2006 called the “beast parade” in which goats and donkeys were paraded in Jerusalem in a protest against the LGBTQ+ pride parade in the city, but has since expressed regret for taking part in the event, telling Haaretz “I did it when I was young, and I regret it.” In an interview with Arutz Sheva at the time of the parade, Smotrich had stated that the Pride Parade was “worse than the acts of animals.”
https://www.jpost.com/israel-electio...essives-663037
Even Netanyahu once said he could never govern with people like that in coalition, whereas his position now is so precarious he may have to, though he will presumably praise Otzma Yehudit for 'changing' their views.
As for the LGBTQ+ citizes of Israel, as the Jerusalem Post article states-
"Despite being a relatively progressive country in terms of LGBTQ+ issues, LGBTQ-phobia is still strong in Israel, and LGBTQ+ civil rights are still lacking.
Hate crimes against LGBTQ+ people have been on the rise for years, with LGBTQ-phobic cases reported once every three hours in 2020 in Israel, a 27% increase compared to 2019.
Conversion therapy is still legal in Israel, and Jewish conversion therapy organizations from the US have found refuge in Israel.
Same-sex couples still can’t marry, adopt or have children through surrogacy within Israel, and have to go through court rulings and expensive and complicated bureaucracy to achieve these basic parts of establishing a marriage and a family."
A more bleak view has this-
"Nahum Barnea, a commentator for the country’s top-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, wrote on Wednesday that the rise of Religious Zionism “isn’t just a blow to morale, it’s an ideological catastrophe.”
He said Netanyahu’s ruling Likud party was now “a hostage in the hands of an anti-democratic, racist, homophobic, terrorism-sponsoring group of people.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...els-parliament
But hey, once they are in the Knesset and the Government, who knows, maybe they will go all cuddly and warm, like Lauren and Marjorie...
I most certainly agree with all your points flighty2, I was just having a little fun about Australia since I just happen to be reading Bill Bryson's ,"In a Sunburnt Country" a most entertaining book about Australia .
Well done, New York!
3oz?
Lucky bastards!
Oh dear, it seems that the Mattinee idol of Congress might be facing the final curtain many years before he thought it was due to fall....
"The Florida Republican congressman Matt Gaetz appears increasingly politically isolated amid a spiralling scandal over a federal sex-trafficking investigation. Even for Donald Trump, one Republican political operative said, “a 10ft pole is not long enough”. "
I had a good laugh at this -"The Daily Beast, meanwhile, reported that advisers were pleading with the former president to keep quiet".
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...icking-scandal
But is he guilty?
Yeah Jericho...the law had to catch up to what everyone was already doing. My neighborhood already has a constant skunky smell from it.lol. ........Oh , and I think Gaetz is definitely guilty. He was always a weird wolf. Remember when he said he had a young Hispanic son...that he’s not related to? I saw that interview with Tucker Tuesday...it was odd, to say the least.
Here’s my thought for the day. we now have a saner President...but he lies almost as much as Trump did.
If I was Tucker Carlson, I would had asked Gaetz if he was wearing a wire. Gaetz sounded like he was trying get Tucker to admit to something he did.Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
I haven't closely followed what Biden has said and I don't doubt he occasionally lies but it's hard for me to believe anyone in public life could come close.Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
Promising a vaccine in three months, saying the virus will disappear (over and over again), saying ballots were destroyed, saying they were shipped in. It got to the point where it wasn't even spin, it was an alternate universe. Typically when politicians lie it's to make their policies seem more effective and it's subtler.
I've followed Gaetz for a while and he's a complete doofus. I remember when he started sharing the pictures of Nestor. I don't think the tweets hurt him but I can't believe he thought tweeting about his situation would help.
Wait, whut?Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
But not related...Someone started early on his 3oz!
The weed situation over here's a joke, I don't think it'll ever be legal, or at least not until they figure out a way of taxing the are out of it!
Two takeaways from the trial of Derek Chauvin -
1) how common are fake banknotes in the US, has anyone ever handled one?
2) I would argue that if a suspect has been taking drugs, by prescrption or from another source, the suspect is more vulnerable to a potentially morbid incident if handled in the manner in which Chauvin is alleged to have done, so I don't think the defence can claim 'it was the fentanyl that killed him' or whatever drug/drugs they cite. In fact they should have led Floyd go and told him to appear at the station the next day or they would come get him -I mean, all that aggro for a $20 bill?
Once I suspect he’s a possible EDP and/or on drugs (especially with the Fentanyl problem in the States)..I would’ve called for an EMT bus. George Floyd was clearly a big strong guy, but the hardest part is usually getting the handcuffs on...but they had already accomplished that. They could’ve rolled him on his side..with handcuffs on and both legs on the ground, he would’ve been easy enough to control, because he wouldn’t have any leverage. If I was already familiar with him, then I would’ve changed tactics slightly according to what I would then already know about him, but if you let him drive off, as a possible EDP or on drugs or both..then it would be irresponsible to just let him drive off (a caller had described him as “awfully drunk and not in control of himself).
I haven’t watched the trial, just the reports and the footage.
Quote:
Originally Posted by fred41
Good points Fred, especially on the car which I had not thought of. It seems to be that training is a major issue in this and other cases, not just the placing of a knee on the neck, but more broadly. I came across some footage of a five-year old being handcuffed and then taken back into the school he had walked out of owing to some incident with a computer, but the officer sceaming at the boy is clearly in need of anger management training or something to overhaul her attitude to children and 'suspects'. I mean, a five year old!
https://www.nbcnews.com/nightly-news...d-109200965560
I would like to say our policemen are wonderful, but they ain't. There was the gruesome case of two officers who took selfies next to the dead bodies of two women murdered in a London park, and there have been no successful prosecutions of police officers following a death in custody since 1971. There is one case outstanding (the death of Dalian Atikinson) that has not been tried owing to the delays caused by Covid. So bad policing is not unique to the US.
Wembly Park murders-
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-53198702
Overview of police prosecutions in the UK-
https://fullfact.org/crime/prosecuti...olice-custody/
"This morning, Buckingham Palace confirmed the news Prince Philip had died at the age of 99.
Broadcasters have halted their scheduled programming in order to air tributes, including a statement from the Prime Minister Boris Johnson."
-As a result, the final of Masterchef will not be shown in BBC1 tonight. This change to the scheduling is outrageous, because Prince Phillip was not an important person. I would understand it if the Queen, as Head of State, were the one who died and they had saturation coverage of the event, but to deprive me of one of the few TV programmes I watch is disgraceful and undemocratic and proves the lies you read in the Telegraph that the BBC is a 'woke' radical left organization.
It is also a good year with three very good cooks in the frame. I am rooting for Alexina Anatole who has made some delicious looking plates of food, which is of greater importance to me than a 99-year old who bedded a Princess who became Queen producing four children, two of whom are either bonkers or crooked, a third so irrelevant most people in the country cannot remember his name or list a single thing he has done. The daugher likes horses and supports Scotland when it plays Rugby Union. I prefer perectly made croissants, lobster mousse, and someone who knows how to cook a rack of lamb so it can actually be eaten and washed down with a robust Burgundy. Let's get some priorities in order here!
Hmm Tucker Carlson -I don't know a lot about him but read these stories, which presumably conform to the Murdoch view that rude, insulting, racist language and reporting is better at making the news, rather than reporting what is actually happening Anyway, this latest rant begs the question -rather than claim that he is being 'replaced' by "more obedient voters from the Third World", maybe he can explain why, if it is true, new immigrants to the USA don't vote Republican? And, more to the point, maybe he should ask if the problem is w ith a Democratic Party with magic powers of coercion, or the party he supports that is viewed by new immigrants as irrelevant to their needs and interests?
Thus-
"“Everyone wants to make a racial issue out of it,” he said. “No, no, no. This is a voting rights question. I have less political power because they’re importing a brand new electorate. Why should I sit back and take that?”"
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/antisemiti...214904963.html
-No, spud, spend your time persuading them to change their vote to match yours. Or does that take too much effort?
If it's not about the skin colour of immigrants then why is he objecting to something that's been happening since 1783? Is he unaware that the USA was built on immigration? Does he think the population should have been held constant to avoid diluting the political power of existing voters?Quote:
Originally Posted by Stavros
I think the US is heading for a crisis in regard to the changes to voting that may become law in many states, with the Supreme Court asked to make a judgment -but will it do so or refer these matters back to the State, or support the changes? It is when Carlson talks about 'obedient voters' that one wonders what his intentions are.
Most immigrants tend to be conservative, they want to make their own way in the US -or the UK or Australia- and don't want state handouts or look for a life on welfare. It has long been one of the standard allegations made by people like Farage that asylum seekers arrive and get put up in nice hotels, or are given apartments and benefits, which is rubbish, or that migrant workers from the EU were living on benefits when most were not.
It suits the narrative that 'our country is being taken away from us' and that it is 'the left' and 'the Liberals' who are responsible, when the fact in the US is that the Republican Party has made itself hostile to what ought to be one of its most loyal constituencies, as Florida and its Cuban-American voters suggest, though there is a historical twist to that. In the UK and parts of Europe, the left in the form of Socialist and Social Democrtic parties has been losing votes, in spite of the 'austere' policies that have created the feeling the working class and even the middle cass have been 'left behind', as they were also implemented in the US, so the comparison reveals the stark differences among Conservatives.
But as I have suggested before, I am not sure that the current 'leadership' in the GOP whether that is Trump or the various Governors and Congressional reps are in fact Conservatives. Much as in the UK the language and policies of the neo-Nazi National Front were considered unacceptable in the 1970s, they are now common currency in the Government of Boris Johnson as they were in Farage's UKIP. And 'race' plays a more significant role in shaping US politics than in the UK, not that we are immune to its evils. And to think I thought a decade or so ago that we had moved on from the brainless nationalism that agitated the 'right', only to see it's vengeance in action today.