Thought for the Day

[Stavros]

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019...g/animals.html

Genesis 1:26 - 1:31. 1:26 And God said, 'Let us make man in our image, according to our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the birds of the air, and over all the wild animals of the earth, and over every creeping thing that creeps upon the earth. '

-Or maybe not.

[Laphroaig]

Having looked through the Covid and Coronavirus threads and seeing every informative post voted down, presumably by some very pathetic user who calls himself vivid, I can't help but think about what sad, servile ignoramuses most Trump supporters are.

They support him even when his actions are indefensible and proof of this is that they don't even feel capable of offering a defense, but just lash out or fall back on conspiracy theories. He is a man who would sacrifice their entire families for one percentage point in the polls and whose daughter openly laughs at them, but who they see as their champion simply because he's stupid and apparently unaware of that fact. Thank you for waving our flag in crass displays of false patriotism while you desecrate our Constitution by tolerating the most flagrant corruption because the man you worship is doing it. Fools.

Vivid and Paladin. As Trump himself would say, so sad.

[holzz]

https://news.sky.com/story/coronavir...dfire-11995283

impeach this mofo.

he's alowed the Amazon to burn down and then this?
when brazil won Copa America, did the government spike people's booze in celebration so they'd vote for this fucker?

[broncofan]

Vivid and Paladin. As Trump himself would say, so sad.

Sometimes responding is too much for me to stomach. His posts were very similar to African1's and seemed to contain the same primary fallacy which is that it matters more whether a virus gets into your country than the public health measures taken once it's there. He also seems to believe that the worse he casts China's actions as the better our response must be. That's clearly illogical.

There is also something weird about someone using a portmanteau like "chicom" that they think is clever rather than a signifier that they're a cretin.

I noticed he gave me a negative vote for a post that was entirely about what treatments were in the pipeline. I can see why a post only listing treatments with support from controlled studies might seem like an insult to Trump, but only if you accept that anything supported by evidence is an indirect insult to him.

[Stavros]

I watched some of the video of George Floyd being 'detained' by the police in Minneapolis, and as with shootings of black men by Law Enforcement in the US, I am genuinely puzzled by the police methods of detention. Why not cuff the guy and put him in the back of the car? To see a large cop with his knee on the neck of a man already in handcuffs looks more to me like something you might expect in Guantanamo, or an obscure rendition site in Bulgaria. The line of urine emerging from under the police car is surely the victim's? I just don't get it, as far as police tactics go -but as far as the now standard response by the police when apprehending a 'suspect', I guess it is their m.o.. After all, a man accused of fraud must be about to attack the police, right?

[Stavros]

I have not visited Minneapolis, the closest I have got is the airport, a stopover from London to LA. It was the best airport I have seen in the US as both JFK and LAX are grim unfriendly places, whereas in Minneapolis there were shops and cafes.

This article from today's Guardian offers a perspective on the 'Minnesota Paradox' -

"Rated in 2018 second in terms of overall best states in which to live in the US, in the same year Minnesota also ranked close to the bottoms for employment gap by race (47th) and in income gap by race (38th).
According to a report released last year, even before the mass unemployment triggered by the coronavirus took hold, some 10% of black Americans were unemployed in the Twin Cities compared with just under 4% of white Americans. Given the pandemic’s disproportionate impact on communities of color, that already bad situation has now worsened.
The reality of Minneapolis and St Paul is that behind the veneer of “Minnesota nice”, behind the reputation of a socially liberal and highly tolerant metropolitan area (in contrast with the state’s more conservative rural areas), there have long been glaring divisions along racial lines in a place where 20% of the population is African-American."
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...us-minneapolis

Race, always race.

[Stavros]

"Former New York mayor and current Trump attorney Rudy Giuliani waded into the action to criticize Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey the “criminal friendly policies” of all “so-called Progressive Democrat mayors and governors”.

Rudy W. Giuliani (@RudyGiuliani) When the Mayor of Minneapolis asked his police to flee from their police precinct, he proved he is incapable of protecting his own people, their property or their lives.

This is the result of the criminal friendly policies of so-called Progressive Democrat mayors and governors
May 30, 2020"

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...test-news-live @02.46am

Number of suspects killed by law enforcement officers in New York City when Conservative Giuliani was Mayor, 1994-2001: 160.
https://webcache.googleusercontent.c...&ct=clnk&gl=uk

[Laphroaig]

[holzz]

why is the USA still racist? OK, Europe isn't better.
But looking at the USA, it is a white country. Founded by white people. Whites hold the power economically, socially, culturally. Hollywood is run by whites. Major sports are run by whites. Fortune 500/Wall Street is run by whites.
Is that the issue? Becuase Jefferson and Washington and Franklin were white it's something that's stuck and may always stick?

[Stavros]

"In 1855, [Lincoln on the Know Nothings]...wrote that if the movement ever won power it would rewrite the Declaration of Independence: “When the Know-Nothings get control, it will read ‘all men are created equal, except negroes, and foreigners, and Catholics.’ When it comes to this I should prefer emigrating to some country where they make no pretense of loving liberty – to Russia, for instance, where despotism can be taken pure, and without the base alloy of hypocrisy.”
Two years later, running for the Senate, Lincoln declared that immigrants who believe in the Declaration of Independence’s precept that “all men are created equal” are “our equals in all things … as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh of the men who wrote that Declaration, and so they are. That is the electric cord in that Declaration that links the hearts of patriotic and liberty-loving men together.”
https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ney-blumenthal

Is it the case that in the 2020 election candidates claiming to be 'America First' will also be Republicans, or is there a dual membership, or America First in effect replacing the Republican Party?