Be Excellent To Each Other

As always

Where do the Nazis stand on bin collections?

Tory MP to face trial over election spending.

Next May, apparently. This could be fun.

What election spending laws did May break?

Hehe. Ooops.... The month of May. Not the porn star.

Noice.

uhh.

This was indeed out of order, and I apologise.

Happier Grim... next week, promise!

I learnt today that most of the Confederate monuments were erected some 90 years after the Civil War, around about the time of the CRM - coincidence? A steel company managed to make them very cheaply and there was a small pressure group who convinced local authorities to put them in parks etc. The poor quality of construction is why they're very easy to tear down.

I guess it would be like erecting a monument to Hitler today. Just really weird.

James May is, thankfully, not a porn star.

Thank you mate, as I always say it takes the bigger man etc. Much appreciated.

Cavey

I was going to make a joke in reply to this, but then realised it was horrifically inappropriate and have held my typing tongue accordingly.

It was Mussolini who made the bin collections on time

Someone on beex not making a joke because it was too inappropriate? I did Nazi that coming.

I think you're all taking it too far, right?

Just being Franc - o, that one doesn't quite work, does it?

You nerds put the SWOS in SWOS stickers.

You need to be made of the Reich stuff to contribute to this thread.

I'm going to toast the success of this thread with some champagne! ( Cristal, natch )

Oh, well done sir.
*applause*

No tough questions about American comedians from the 1970s, so I think a touch easier I was actually disappointed that they picked the easiest ones from the 100, mainly!

Amusingly, I have been in NY for the past few days, managing to time a work trip with the President also being about eight blocks away (my timing is wonderful). So I wasn't in Durham to see the statue come down. But! Not only is Charlie Reese my councilor, I used to work for the company he works for, so it was quite something to see him get blasted to Twitter celebrity status.

On the subject of the statue, it's complicated. Firstly, due to the insanity of the NC GOP, it is illegal for Durham, a historically majority black city, to remove that statue. They literally passed a state law to prevent cities doing so. Secondly, these statues were mainly put up in the Jim Crow era as literal symbols of oppression, far removed from the time of the actual Civil War itself (about 50 years on). Finally, these statues shouldn't exist: these people were traitors. Robert E. Lee commanded an army against the United States of America to continue the practice of slavery. The fuck he should have statues all around the country. So while I'm a bit uneasy about the property damage…it's about the 10th worst thing that happened on…wait, it was only Monday?

And our President, seemingly on a daily basis, given a clear and easy chance to say 'Nazis are bad' (perhaps the lowest bar any President could face and even one that W. could dance over), sided with the white supremacists. His White House disbanded anti-right-wing terror operations, Gorka is as close to a literal Nazi as you can possibly get these days, and Bannon ran a website stoking up fears of 'black crime'. The President has advocated violence against protestors, the press, and his political opponents. Sessions is a man that was deemed too racist to be a federal judge back in the 80s. Things are not good. Note also, that thanks to Obama, the economy is in great shape: who knows what'll happen if/when it turns.

On the bright side, I'm having a holiday in the UK next week! Everything is fine there, right, guys?

It was going to be something about how bins always used to (?) have "no hot ashes" written on them.

Can't decide if that's more or less inappropriate than some of the others there

This is a great post, written by someone actually there. Thank you!

This! Thanks PeterSJ!



Not much has changed but we live underwater.

I'll be honest, my knowledge of history is very poor, so maybe someone could enlighten me on this - my Trump-supporting US friend lives in Baltimore and their city government removed all four confederate statues there overnight. In response to the article on Facebook, she replied "1930's Germany all over again!"

She see it as a kind of iconoclasm?

Shit, perhaps you're right..... the Night of The Long Corndogs is nigh upon us?
Hot damn, we're doooooomed.

But seriously, if you start chatting with her, use this opportunity to explore what the Confederate statues mean to her, and how others might perceive them.

I don't really know her that well and the only reason I've not unfriended her on there yet is I'm curious to see if there's a point when she changes her mind on Trump. He can't seem to do any wrong in her eyes.

Yes, anti fascism is the new fascism, apparently. It's like words have no meaning anymore.

Only punches

<did not know who that was at the.time>

Former Presidents George HW Bush and George W Bush have called on the US to "reject racial bigotry, anti-Semitism and hatred in all forms".

When the Bushes unite*, you know the show's over.

*The presidents, not the twins...

Title of my porn folder

Anarchists are stupid. The black bloc is somewhat troubling because they smash stuff up because of neoliberalism or whatever and don't have a clear goal. It's dumb but at least they don't want ethnic cleansing so I still don't see how they are as bad as actual nazis? Trying to paint them as such is disingenuous.

Fight neo-nazis *and* receive a Boneless Banquet Box at the same time!
Some of these freedom fighters aren't as daft as they look.

That's some first class Torying right there.

Don't know the first thing about this; skim-read for 20 seconds in between emails, but it looks like this person was a prison officer at a young offenders' unit, in a position of absolute trust - smuggling in drugs to sell to the kids (by definition damaged, vulnerable young people whose lives are already shattered, probably due to drugs/drug crimes in many cases). So basically a total betrayal of her position of trust, for personal profit.

For me, the notion that such a heinous, despicable crime does not even warrant an actual jail sentence is, on the face of it, completely unacceptable? How is this different from teachers smuggling in, and selling drugs to their charges? (In many ways it's actually worse; young offenders are already massively damaged, and more in need of compassionate, fair and competent care than even mainstream young people)

But yeah, I'm just an evil Tory etc. etc. yada yada

It's his insistence that man and women should be treated completely equally at all times with no other considerations even though if it was the man going to the prison then the children would likely still be with one of their parents. As it is they'll probably end up in care and therefore with an excellent chance of being completely fucked.

So they had a trial , at the trial evidence was presented , and they were found guilty and a sentence was passed , taking into account everything that happened during the trial.

For someone to look at it afterwards without being there and to decide 'thats not enough' is fine , however I would expect that to be part of the normal legal system review - not some random minister getting involved ?

It is, you can complain about any sentence and ask for a review.

I guess I'm looking at the bigger picture, not this particular individual's dubious record on gender equality issues or that he's unquestionably a dick - and using this as yet another stick to beat him with, the point is well and truly made (IMO). It's not impossible that on this particular occasion, notwithstanding he's a knob, he may have a point.

It's the ramifications of a patriarchal society that sees women as primary caregivers that means women get more lenient sentences if they have children. He'd be better campaigning for more equal paternity leave and convincing men that it's good and ok to take on more of the caregiving to avoid this kind of issue.

But of course he won't, because he's a disingenuous weaselly shitstain

And that appears to be what happened, so I can't see the fuss. The CoA judges wouldn't give two shits what a Tory minister says and he wouldn't be involved after the AG sent it to appeal.

I don't get why Mr Trump is obsessing about Confederate statues. I thought he only liked winners.

He's fucked now isn't he? Surely must be gone before the end of the year. Even all the joint chiefs have seemingly distanced themselves from him.

It's Coup time! Which is great everywhere except Venezuela.

Quite openly too. The military is, of course, one of the most diverse organisations in the USA, which probably irks Mr Trump and his supporters despite their proclamations of patriotism.

I can't see him going quietly, however.