What stigma?

Pantone has unveiled a new shade of red inspired by the colour of women’s periods, as part of a new campaign to end the stigma associated with menstruation.

Yes, OK, certain Nepali things like menstruation huts and so on. But here and now in the west? What damn stigma? When the with wings stuff soaks up the blue liquid during every ad break can we really say we’re a society that stigmatises?

Men die, women hardest hit

Just like every emergency, every disaster, Covid-19 absolutely does discriminate. It’s ageist, it’s racist, it’s classist and it’s worst of all for those with pre-existing health conditions or disabilities.

It also affects men and women differently, with more men than women dying directly from the virus. However, this is only the first part of the story. Because of societal policies, the socio-economic impacts of the virus are hitting women hardest.

Do bugger off Love.

As we might put it, I get to die and Helen has to suffer going to the funeral.

Yes, obviously this is going to happen

And equally obviously it shouldn’t:

More than 50 women have accused aid workers from the World Health Organization and leading NGOs of sexual exploitation and abuse during efforts to fight Ebola in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In interviews, 51 women – many of whose accounts were backed up by aid agency drivers and local NGO workers – recounted multiple incidents of abuse, mainly by men who said they were international workers, during the 2018 to 2020 Ebola crisis.

The majority of the women said numerous men had either propositioned them, forced them to have sex in exchange for a job or terminated contracts when they refused.

Blokes with financial power will do this. As will women looking for resources – well, what description, give in, accept, be oppressed?

This though does seem just a tad over the top:

…either propositioned them….Some women said they were plied with drinks….

Err, yes?

A most impartial report

As expected, Trump raised unfounded accusations about Biden’s son, Hunter, related to his business dealings in Ukraine. Trump was impeached for pushing government officials in Kiev to investigate the Biden family. Despite no evidence of wrongdoing, Republican allies of the president have continued to fixate on the manufactured controversy.

Hunter was raking it in left right and centre because Daddy was VP.

Now, whether this is unusual or not is a fair question but there’s nothing manufactured about it.

More impartiality:

Trump ensures first presidential debate is national humiliation

What confuses is why they bother with this vituperation. Who among The Guardian’s readership is not going to vote for Biden anyway? Well, except the brave investigators like me here who read it so you don’t have to? Who is this rhetoric supposed to convince?

Peer effects and groupthink

We can explain lefty politics and much feminism using this example:

Five foul-mouthed parrots have been separated after learning to swear at a Lincolnshire zoo.

The parrots – named Billy, Eric, Tyson, Jade, and Elsie – joined Lincolnshire Wildlife Centre’s colony of 200 grey parrots in August, however soon started encouraging each other to swear.

“We saw it very quickly; we are quite used to parrots swearing but we’ve never had five at the same time,” Steve Nichols, CEO of the wildlife park, told the PA news agency.

“Most parrots clam up outside, but for some reason these five relish it.”

The parrots have since been distributed to different areas of the park so they do not “set each other off”.

Birds of little brain see one gain a reaction from the audience through certain behaviour. So, more do it. And to continue to gain the reaction the action must become ever more extreme. Add in the effects of groupthink on never bothering to refer, even occasionally, to the reality outside the window and there we are, all is explained.

A little more self awareness, please

We can replace the word “incel” here with some others an it all still makes entire sense:

There are three pillars of radicalisation: needs, narratives and networks. These are the critical drivers that can turn perfectly nice, normal people into something much more dangerous. And social media brings them together more effectively than ever before.

Needs are people’s motivations: what drives them. That could be a need to feel special, or a need to feel part of something, or it could be a negative such as having experienced trauma.

Narratives are the stories these people can become part of, and many of those narratives are conspiracy theories. They’re incredibly appealing because they tell you that you’re special, that you have knowledge that the wider population is too stupid, too brainwashed or too evil to see.

And finally there are networks, which are the people who will give you the approval and status you crave and who will constantly reinforce the narrative of your particular group. These networks have always existed to some extent but social media has supercharged them and brought them into every home.

So which word shall we place in there instead of incel to see if it all still makes sense then, Carrie?

There’s a corollary to this observation

That there has been significant overall support for increased tax and spending since 2015 is hardly surprising. I suspect that such support is increasing again at present. What is apparent is that during periods of Conservative government it almost invariably increases, and usually exceeds support for keeping tax and spending the same, whilst being massively more popular than reducing tax or spending.

The support for more tax and spending decreases during a Labour government as we see what the fuckers do with it.

Twat is twat

This is the only waited to deliver long-term prosperity. And, the problems implicit in a society which is overly dependent upon house ownership must also be addressed, including a restriction upon the right of banks to ever seek to recover more than the value of the property from the mortgage holder so that the concept of negative equity is eliminated from consideration.

So the entire country is to be treated to jingle mail then? Property speculation should be a one way bet?

Householders cannot be held responsible for macroeconomic failure. Governments have this responsibility, and if they need to compensate banks for that fact, then so be it. But the torment of being held enslaved by a mortgage cannot be an outcome of this crisis.

Yes, that is what he’s saying. Losses on buying property must be paid by the government. Profits can be kept by the buyer.

The real issues are systemic, and the CPS proposal goes nowhere near addressing them.

Privatising profits and socialising losses in the housing market is the way to do this, is it?

One would almost suspect that Snippa got on the wrong end of negative equity somewhere along the line.

Jeezus Poppy, get an editor!

But some had another question: what sort of social security net forces an 89-year-old man to have to run around delivering pizza in his old age just so he can make rent? Newey can’t be the only one: Americans who are his age and make the average US yearly income of $35,977, can expect to receive about $1,579 a month in social security payments; barely enough to make the average rent – or roughly the same amount as what Donald Trump pays in taxes across two years.

Someone making $35k with another $19 k in social security on top is regarded as doing pretty well in the US.

Yes, we know what you mean. That someone who paid social security taxes on $35k a year while working would receive $19k a year in retirement from social security. But don’t you people have editors over there at The Guardian any more?

BTW, a state pension of 50% of working income sounds pretty good actually. How much should it be?

Depends love, depends

‘Frail’ people like me should not be denied lifesaving Covid care
Patience Owen
A frailty index is rationing treatment for older and disabled people who catch coronavirus. We are not sacrificial lambs

No one’s suggesting exposure on a hillside. Well, given that we’ve not allowed the Fabians to institute eugenics we’re not.

So no one is saying you shouldn’t get treated. Except if we get into a triage situation where we have to ration the available treatment – machinery, ICU space, whatever. And then, yes, you are at the back of the queue. And why wouldn’t this be true?

Tee Hee

After Cool Runnings I not only got sent a lot of similar sports screenplays, but also every family movie being made. It got so bad that at one point I received a script called Amanda. Without reading a word, I picked up the phone and said to my agent: “What kind of animal is it, and what’s wrong with the kid?” There was a long pause before the reply came: “It’s a horse and a brain tumour.”

Leading language

Republican efforts to ram through Donald Trump’s third US supreme court pick in the wake of the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg are firing up a fierce progressive backlash that some believe could actually trigger the most dramatic round of democracy reforms in America in a generation.

It is the President’s constitutional duty to nominate people for the Supreme Court. And the Senate’s to consider them.

This is “ram through”?

Democratic party leaders are coming under intense pressure to use the first 100 days of a Biden administration – were Trump defeated in November – to tackle some of the most glaring deficiencies in the world’s oldest constitutional democracy.

A vast array of reforms – from ending voter suppression and removing corporate money from elections, to rebalancing the US Senate and tackling the conservative stranglehold over the courts – are all up for grabs, though they are predicated on Biden winning the White House.

All of those look more like embedding progressive power rather than correcting deficits really.

Entirely fascinating

At one end of the scale were voters who were considered to be sympathetic to the Trump campaign; at the other were those who were regarded as hostile.
However, a key audience was categorised as "Deterrence", voters whom the Trump campaign wanted to dissuade from participating in the election.
According to Channel 4, 3.5 million African Americans were classified in this group.
They were targeted for negative adverts designed to weaken support for Hillary Clinton, including a video in which the former First Lady and Secretary of State referred to black youths as super predators.

So, the way to dissuade people from voting is to tell them truths about your opponent? Or, actually, with Hillary remind them who your opponent is? With a piccie?

Dastardly, eh?

Mutually contradictory beliefs

The first, and most obvious possibility, is that Trump is not a successful business person, at all. Instead he is an arch manipulator of borrowed funds, using them to give the appearance of a successful business career when he is, in fact, simply accumulating debt that he might well be unable to repay. The possibility that this might arise during the course of a second term in office is particularly worrying: how can the President go bankrupt?

The second, and again quite obvious interpretation of this information is to suggest that Trump is a massive tax avoiders,

They can’t both be true, obviously.

Trump could, of course, simply deny the claims in one very simple, and effective way: he could publish his tax returns.

Well, no, not really, not when the NYT is trying to claim both at the same time.