I'd disagree with the false sense of security line. Why would someone who cares enough to go to the effort of wearing a mask then go and not wash their hands? A positive correlation between the two seems more likely than negative to me.
Also this argument is trotted out regularly by "experts" in the car manufacturing industry whenever new safety technology is invented and as far as I can tell is always proven years later to be bullshit. For examples see seat belts, air bags, traction control, ABS, AWD.
The UK deputy chief medical officer stated the opposite, that wearing a mask is likely to cause you to touch your face more, in order to adjust the mask etc. That was the first whiff of mask-related bullshit I caught.
At least Fox wears it's bias on it's sleeve. The BBC is supposed to be --and claims to be-- impartial yet is very clearly not. It also has a huge audience across just about all platforms in the UK, and is totally unafraid of blatant lies in order to push its worldview. This is far more sinister than Fox's childish excesses.
In the UK unions have generally become thinly-veiled extortion rackets. Rail workers unions are the most infamous example, whose train drivers generally receive massively inflated salaries and working conditions compared to similarly-skilled peers thanks to decades of legalised blackmail. The strikes are always about working conditions or health & safety on the surface, but they always end with a whopping pay rise, quietly accepted.
I also have direct experience of a very historic and well known union which repeatedly issued false statements in the national news media a couple of years ago with the intention of removing a government minister. Of course they claimed it was about health & safety, but internal documents showed it was purely to force him from his job because he was messing with their overtime bonus rates.
This worries me to be honest. The mainstream media was clearly always spinning to us long before the internet came along, but at least when people broadly trusted the same sources they also broadly bought into the same spin, so at least there was agreement within the group and a degree of social cohesion as a result. The BBC and 20th Century Britain springs to mind.
This seems to be breaking down at a rapid rate though, when it's very hard to have any idea where people will stand on hugely important subjects such as climate change, geopolitics etc until you speak to them. People's opinions vary wildly seemingly based mainly on which sources they happen to trust.
The Churches clearly regretted selling after seeing what Prada did to their company (made it a parody of itself), so they now run Cheaney (a rival) and arguably make better shoes than Church's ever did. Still a sad story though.
I suppose you need some abstract loosly-related terms that are devoid of meaning baggage, so why not animals? What alternatives are better -- planets? Marvel superheros?
"Throughout the memoir, there are moments when Wiener acquiesces to male characters’ demands only to correct her course with a renewed sense of agency. In a memorable scene, she goes out to a Japanese bar with her mostly male co-workers to celebrate their boss’s birthday, conceiving of herself as the “babysitter, fifth wheel, chaperone, little sister, ball and chain, and concubine”. She explains: “I was always trying to be someone’s girlfriend, sister or mother.”"
Without inflation, how would governments shrink their debts? Paying it proves enormously unpopular. Educate people so they understand the importance of running a balanced budget and sound monetary policy. Most politicians have no interest in this though as they believe (probably rightly) that it's too complex or dry for most people, so they just bribe the populace again and again (see UK Labour Party for an current egregious example).
The Guardian journos are not even trying to hide their jealousy any more. They don't care one jot about the living standards (the ever rising living standards) of the global poor. They just care that they can only afford one cruise a year while Bezos can buy his own cruise ship.
Not trying to be argumentative just mentioning as an ex-GIS guy that it's impossible to meaningfully measure any coastline. Read about the coastline paradox it's quite interesting.
"And let's be frank; there's not that much anyone can do about it. People can claim they're uninstalling Blizzard games. And I'm sure some do. But the next time they release an objectively good game everyone's back in."
That is such a depressing thing to read. Is this attitude normal?
It seems to me that it's very simple to "do something about it" -- just don't give them any more money by buying their games. What price do you put on staying true to your own morals? A video game?!?
Learning to play an instrument requires dedication; thousands of hours of hard work, before you get the payoff. This demonstrates desirable personal qualities like self discipline and willingness to work hard. Skill at playing video games just shows that you play video games a lot.
I see quite clearly that these kinds of apps cause/contribute to many well-documented personal and social problems but it's much harder for me to see any positive value.
About the best thing I could say about them is that they make time pass more quickly, which can be useful if you're on a long flight or something. But that feels like damning with faint praise.
This obsession with The Bus does remainers no favours. It was a highly misleading statement true, but you will see similar levels of spin at all elections without the losing party still banging on about it years later.
Brexit was and is about sovereignty for most people I know who voted to leave. People felt that laws being made were too distant from them (EU directives; same thing). this is no different a sentiment from the one that drives the Scottish nationalists, though I don't remember the London hipster set laying into them with endless ad hominem attacks?
Seems like a certain type of person loves to demonise others; to root out people they can add to their bad guy list and gaining social acceptance points from the fellow good guys in return.
I have nothing to back this up but I can't help feeling the dumbing down of popular culture, like adults watching superhero films for example, has something to do with this.