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2 hours ago, TRVMP said:

If you want to be 100% literal, then be 100% literal, but that involves reading everything he says and parsing it word-by-word, which isn't what anyone is doing (because they know it would be pointless, because nobody speaks literally all of the time.) They do it to get 105-IQ people upset, which, to be fair, works most of the time.

I agree on your points about the coverage of Trump in the UK media. They're giving viewers what they want (entertainment value and playing up prejudices - Americans are stupid, crazy etc.).

Criticism of his handling of virus statements isn't nitpicking though. He's held multiple, rambling press conferences where he has presented medical ideas/solutions that could only be very generously described as cherry-picked. Even if, through some stroke of luck, he happens to be right about (internal disinfectants??) any of it, this doesn't change the fact that he isn't capable of staying on-message. The idea that he was perfectly justified in ad-libbing this stuff in an emergency situation seems a bit ridiculous.

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41 minutes ago, TopCat said:

I agree on your points about the coverage of Trump in the UK media. They're giving viewers what they want (entertainment value and playing up prejudices - Americans are stupid, crazy etc.).

Criticism of his handling of virus statements isn't nitpicking though. He's held multiple, rambling press conferences where he has presented medical ideas/solutions that could only be very generously described as cherry-picked. Even if, through some stroke of luck, he happens to be right about (internal disinfectants??) any of it, this doesn't change the fact that he isn't capable of staying on-message. The idea that he was perfectly justified in ad-libbing this stuff in an emergency situation seems a bit ridiculous.

I don't disagree, but he's not doing it to produce medical solutions. He's doing it to wind people up. Case in point: after Reince Preibus left government, a bunch of newspapers breathlessly reported that Trump was fascinated with... badgers. (Preibus spent most of his upbringing and career in Wisconsin - the badger state.) He would periodically ask Preibus some badger trivia, and during meetings would say things like, "how do badgers work, exactly?"

Following the literally/seriously rubric, Trump was either interested in how badgers worked, exactly... or he was interested in fucking with Preibus and prompting a leak to the newspapers. You can guess which of these was the case.

But that doesn't really matter in the time of COVID. It comes across as crass and flippant to most people (I admit freely that I'm not exactly a regular observer), so I don't disagree and I've said already that this is going to cost him badly in the polls, especially with old people.

But then again, I'm even more unimpressed by the response of people like Gavin Newsom, who despite his classic good looks can't help but come across as a frowny-faced scold, and worst of all an ineffective one. For all of his messaging and bullet points and supposed reliance on the experts, the fact of the matter is that California is seeing spikes that would be front-page news if they were happening in red states.

The problem overall is that nobody - Trump, Newsom, Johnson, whoever - can state the obvious: minus herd immunity, we're not going to cut cases without either a vaccine or a total lockdown. So either we brace ourselves for a body count or we continue this current charade of everyone pretending to be guided by experts and everyone trying to out-message everyone else.

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Unless you're living in the US or Latin America, obviously yes.

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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For those who say the Scotland and England's infection and death rates are similar...  

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-scotland-england-cases-charts-latest-lockdown-strategy-a9622016.html

At their peak, both nations recorded a similar amount of new cases per day, with England recording around 73 new cases per million people compared to Scotland’s 63 infections per million people.

But while Scotland’s rate of new Covid-19 cases has fallen consistently below two per million since late June, England’s is yet to drop below seven per million.

The disparity between England and Scotland's infection rates was highlighted in a recent report by the Independent Sage group, which attributed it to the differing containment strategies of each nation.

 

"In Scotland we've seen such a clear strategy, clearly articulated, elimination is the aim and all objectives are geared towards driving things as low as possible," Professor Stephen Reicher told a briefing last week.

"In England, the UK government hasn't been clear about the strategy, we don't see any particular strategy, some people talk about herd immunity by default, but nothing has been articulated at all.

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Here in Dallas, it's also an ethnic community seeing much of the spread - the Hispanic community. It is almost entirely not their fault. They disproportionately work in customer-facing roles and essential jobs, and tend to live in more crowded environs than other groups (often having extended families within the home.) It's fine to point these things out, but there needs to be a measure of understanding. I doubt that, if they had the option, they'd choose to work in drive-thrus and grocery stores instead of being able to work from home. So here it's less a case of its not being taken seriously, and more a case of one community just being in the crossfire more than most others.

We're seeing massive amounts of cases here nonetheless and in the situation of people just not bothering their arse to distance, going out and partying etc. it's less along racial lines than it is along age lines. People move to my part of town because they want to party and be among other bright young things, simple as that. (Obviously there are sour-faced old hold-outs like myself but as a general rule, this is an area for young professionals.) And they are, by and large, just ready for this to be over. Then they go out, then the next morning they go for a drive-thru coffee and cough into the window, and Paco or Yasmina gets the 'na, then they take it home to their large family...

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42 minutes ago, TRVMP said:

Here in Dallas, it's also an ethnic community seeing much of the spread - the Hispanic community. It is almost entirely not their fault. They disproportionately work in customer-facing roles and essential jobs, and tend to live in more crowded environs than other groups (often having extended families within the home.) It's fine to point these things out, but there needs to be a measure of understanding. I doubt that, if they had the option, they'd choose to work in drive-thrus and grocery stores instead of being able to work from home. So here it's less a case of its not being taken seriously, and more a case of one community just being in the crossfire more than most others.

We're seeing massive amounts of cases here nonetheless and in the situation of people just not bothering their arse to distance, going out and partying etc. it's less along racial lines than it is along age lines. People move to my part of town because they want to party and be among other bright young things, simple as that. (Obviously there are sour-faced old hold-outs like myself but as a general rule, this is an area for young professionals.) And they are, by and large, just ready for this to be over. Then they go out, then the next morning they go for a drive-thru coffee and cough into the window, and Paco or Yasmina gets the 'na, then they take it home to their large family...

The bit in bold, I love the way that you get away with these stereotypes.  :thumbup2:

It is no surprise that the places experiencing the second spike in England are places with large ethnic populations - Leicester, Bradford, Blackburn, Manchester, Rochdale, Burnley etc.  My experience is that certain ethnic groups are worse than others at adhering to social distancing rules with those of the Indian Subcontinent being the worst culprits, along with the Chinese.

*insert signature here*

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But a major confounding factor is that the Indian subcontinent is doing very well at containing the virus - even, once again, given the large preponderance of multigenerational homes, population density in the cities etc.

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On 7/4/2020 at 3:31 PM, Cet Homme Charmant said:

It's true that the Scottish government were slow of the mark as well, but since then I think they've dealt with it pretty well. Maybe that only appears to be the case because I'm comparing it to the clusterfuck south of the border

I think that's because they didn't have the powers they needed to impose lockdown when they first wanted to.  They only got those powers when Johnson decided to have lockdown in England around 23rd March. I understand the FM asked for lockdown a couple of weeks earlier at a cobra meeting.  Also the stated UK policy of "lockstep", as espoused by that moron Alister Jack at every opportunity, was disastrous for Scotland - things only improved when Johnson diverged and went for an early lifting of lockdown, and Scotland, Wales & NI kept to a more cautious course - you can see the difference clearly now.

"Any nation given the opportunity to regain its national sovereignty and which then rejects it is so far beneath contempt that it is hard to put words to it."

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Well no, let's not forget that the SG were perfectly happy to let an Old Firm game go ahead on March 15 with event restrictions only kicking in the following day until the SFA stepped in and cancelled all that weekend's events. They also had the power to close down schools at any point they liked but instead hummed and hawed until fully March 20 to do so. A mistake that they're now doubling down on by insisting on having schools return at 100% capacity from next week again on the spurious grounds that weans don't need to follow their beloved social distancing guidelines because when has a respiratory virus ever successfully spread in a school setting. Except for all the other ones every single year of course.

The lack of full autonomy in decision-making explains failures in handling the pandemic only to a certain degree. The willingness of the SG even now to just pander to moron parents who want their state childcare system back regardless of the direct risk to employees and of further community outbreaks in society is 100% down to political calculations made in Bute House.

The site is supposed to be a place for the extended 'family' of Morton supporters - having an affinity with people that you don't know, because you share a love of your local football club. It's not supposed to be about point scoring and showing how 'clever' or 'funny' you are, or just being downright rude and offensive to people you don't know, because you can get away with it. Unfortunately, it seems the classic case of people who have little standing/presence in real life, use this forum as a way of making themselves feel as if they are something. It's sad, and I've said that before..

 

So, having been on Morton forums for about 15 years I guess, I've had enough... well done t*ssers, another Morton supporter driven away. You can all feel happy at how 'clever' you are

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1 hour ago, vikingTON said:

Well no, let's not forget that the SG were perfectly happy to let an Old Firm game go ahead on March 15 with event restrictions only kicking in the following day until the SFA stepped in and cancelled all that weekend's events. They also had the power to close down schools at any point they liked but instead hummed and hawed until fully March 20 to do so. A mistake that they're now doubling down on by insisting on having schools return at 100% capacity from next week again on the spurious grounds that weans don't need to follow their beloved social distancing guidelines because when has a respiratory virus ever successfully spread in a school setting. Except for all the other ones every single year of course.

The lack of full autonomy in decision-making explains failures in handling the pandemic only to a certain degree. The willingness of the SG even now to just pander to moron parents who want their state childcare system back regardless of the direct risk to employees and of further community outbreaks in society is 100% down to political calculations made in Bute House.

Yes, astonishing that the SFA were at the forefront of an unofficial lockdown, and schools saw massive absenteeism - I think the real reason for the lack of concern about large crowds was not unconnected to Matt Hancock's determination that racing at Cheltenham should go ahead, failing of course to mention pushing that line earned him £10k.  The story about schools was that if they closed, key workers would have to stay at home - that always sounded a bit weak.  The public took it into their own hands to impose a sort of unofficial lockdown - I had to go to Carlisle 2 days running that week and managed not to go within 2m of anyone despite using the train and a bus.

Regarding schools returning, I have strong reservations about the way social distancing is being abandoned for educational expediency. Mrs Alibi has been told that she will be provided with a mask and a visor, but actually keeping clear of pupils is going to be difficult in practice. I foresee problems, and as someone who may currently be classed as at risk due to Covid-related damage to heart and lungs, I am not exactly ecstatic about a transmission path for the virus being facilitated by the local authority (I am not assuming I have immunity from a second infection).  I can see an increase in infections from schools, pubs, & other places where social distancing is not robust or is non-existent - 1m social distancing in particular is a bad joke.  I would hope the teaching unions will take a robust approach to challenging any risky practices that prioritise money over lives.  Teachers should not be used as political cannon fodder.

"Any nation given the opportunity to regain its national sovereignty and which then rejects it is so far beneath contempt that it is hard to put words to it."

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On 7/4/2020 at 10:18 PM, TRVMP said:

1) I'd give him a B minus. If you don't live here and follow this it can be hard to truly appreciate it but everyone is against him, including around 80% of his own party. What has been accomplished despite the fact he has virtually no allies (other than voters, who don't matter) is pretty incredible. However, a litany of unforced errors, of complacency, and - this is absolutely above all and by far the biggest failing of his presidency - staffing his administration almost entirely with people who hate him and then wondering why they're undermining him has meant many opportunities missed.

I am still 100% behind Trump if for no other reason than you can't spare a fighter, but one wonders what he could have achieved had he actually cared about detail-oriented recruitment. If Hillary's hubris was underestimating the electorate, Trump's hubris was overestimating his own power once in office and just expecting everyone to fall into line. It was the height of naviete from a guy who seemed to have everything figured out in the campaign and if he loses in November (as I expect he will) this will be the reason why: squandering political capital on tax cuts instead of infrastructure and jobs, focusing on "police reform" (which is a complete sop at the federal level) when even polling Democrats are crying out for law and order, and endlessly crowing about a stock market which might as well be on the moon for all it counts to 60% of American adults (including a good percentage of his white base.) Hubris.

2) It's hard to answer this question for "America" because there isn't really an "America" anymore and arguably hasn't been for decades. It's also hard to answer because you need to have something to compare it to. I am obviously biased but if I compare this timeline to a hypothetical Hillary timeline, we have at least avoided a ground war in Syria, we have restored some manufacturing capacity, we have worked very well with the AMLO administration to stop the horrific meat grinder of Central American migration across lawless Mexico, and a restoration of some measure of sovereignty and accountability to what was fast devolving into a borderless anarcho-capitalism.

But living where I do and having the friends I have, I also know that there are people who are genuinely terrified of every day under this administration. I think this is almost entirely because they've been gaslit by the media and by social media, and not because of any rational calculation of fear. I don't think it's going to fully shake out for a while but I think the mental and in some cases physical toll of this administration on (it has to be said) mostly female internet addicts will be measurable in life years. Many such cases!

I'd also say that from 2016 to mid-2019 he did a pretty excellent job of maintaining frame and setting the terms of debate, even amidst a fraudulent attempt at a soft coup that we've collectively just decided to pretend never happened, which doubtless contributed to the anxiety I reference above, but also returned American discourse away from the banal, end-of-history photo op neoliberalism of that cipheric fraud Obama and back towards concrete matters, but that's been completely derailed since COVID and Floyd, and until today (which might be a turning point - I doubt it but it might) he had completely lost the bully pulpit and the ability to steer national conversation, and steering it away from Obamaism is a net good.

What did you think of his performance in the HBO interview yesterday? 

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