johnnybangkok

If it was up to the GOP, I think they would like it to be more than just 'kept behind closed doors'. I think they would prefer the door was to a cellar where it is buried in a shallow grave.

I'm not really sure I follow your logic here (or it's possibly because there isn't any). What exactly has the 'trans movement' done to erode womens rights? And as a follow up question, what excatly did Sturgeon do specifically to erode the rights of women by supporting trans rights?

What I wouldn't give for an eye-roll imoji.

Talk about conflating subjects. This is to do with womans rights NOT transgender. But whilst you are on the subject, lets clear up a few of your assertions and the obvious nonsense you are spouting. 'Women's rights are eroding at an incredible pace. The trans movement is seeing to that' - it's men (and has always been men) who are eroding womens rights, not transgender people. 'Sturgeon supports putting biologically male rapists into women's prisons' - no she doesn't. In the case of Isla Bryson (who you are talking about), the Prison Service was the ones who decide where he/she went and after initially remanding Isla in a womans prison, moved her to a mans. Sturgeon’s official spokesperson said the first minister had not ordered the Prison Service to move Bryson to a male prison but added: “I expect and I think the Prison Service might expect ministers’ views to be taken into account.” Her view was that rapists (which Bryson is) should NOT be in a womans prison. This had nothing to do with being transgender, but was all about the crime committed. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2023/jan/26/trans-woman-isla-bryson-found-guilty-rape-not-be-held-in-womens-prison-sturgeon 'Soon, we may even see biological men legally beating up biological women in boxing rings. They are already taking their medals in events like swimming' - wrong again. After initially being allowed to compete in female swimmimng competitions (and winning), Lia Thomas has now been banned after FINA voted to make modifications to the rules regarding transgender athletes, prohibiting all women, who were born male, and who transitioned after the age of 12 from competing in the women's division in all world swimming competitions organized by the governing body. https://www.marca.com/en/more-sports/2022/06/20/62afa313e2704ec93e8b459c.html So now that we've cleared up your little transphobic rant, can we now get back to the very real problem of the continued erosion of WOMENS rights?

You are normally very accurate with your posts so I'm quite surprised you are quite so uneducated on this matter. Firstly (as per your pevious post) you cannot change your sex through surgery until you are at least 18 years old (an adult in other words) in both the us and most western countries. What you might be referencing though is the likes of puberty blockers which can be administered to someone as young as 13 BUT (and it's a very big but), they have to be clinically diagnosed as having gender dysphoria by a medically qualified individual and must;- -Show a long-lasting and intense pattern of gender nonconformity or gender dysphoria. -Have gender dysphoria that began or worsened at the start of puberty. -Address any psychological, medical or social problems that could interfere with treatment. -Have entered the early stage of puberty. -Provide informed consent. https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/gender-dysphoria/in-depth/pubertal-blockers/art-20459075 In other words this is not just some easy treatment; it requires a great deal of PROFESSIONAL medical help, a great deal of consent and an awful lot boxes to be ticked. No child can decide this for themselves and none of it happens instantaneously. You need (as a minimum), consent from the patient themselves, their legal guardians (if under 18), and a QUALIFIED mental health professional. It's a medical issue (not a political one) and therefore should be left to medical professionals.

I think the main issue, as has been so aptly demonstrated here, is there are so many who agree. You hear “well he didn’t actually mean kill them” Then May I suggest you dont use the word “eradicate”. And this idea the left is as bad as the right just doesn’t hold true. I don’t see the left attempting to victimize so many minority groups, that’ll be exclusively the right.

Why would he be if he gets all his “news” from the “best” - Fox or Newsmax.

Fox has 2 sides to it with the likes of Hannity, Carlson and Ingraham offering 'opinions' (Fox openly admitting these lot to be 'entertainment') but it was also has regular 'news' which is supposed to be fact based and of a higher integrity. The point of what is happening now is even the mainstream Fox News part took a stance on voter fraud and spread lies after lies. I think most would have expected the usual nonsense from Carlson, Hannity and Ingraham, but there's a line that was crossed when it went into the mainstream 'news'.

Nice sweeping generalisation there. In the UK, the political parties have to announce their manifesto (something that again doesn't seem a thing in America as seen by Trump not even having a manifesto in 2020) and although not held legally to it, they in general have to at least try to keep their promises or be held accountable by both the opposition, journalists and ultimately the electorate. This idea that politicians ALWAYS lie is just not true and smacks of over the top cynicism. No one is naive enough to think they don't 'bend the truth' to suit their own purpose, but blatant lying, certainly in parliament, has consequences in the UK (the point of my post and why BJ is in so much trouble right now) and although Fox News seems to be getting hauled over the coals for it's lying, there doesn't seem to be any consequences for American politicians who do the same. Did Boris Johnson mislead Parliament over parties? https://www.bbc.com/news/60203864

You really do come across as a rabid Maga cultist. The whole article is about Fox news blatantly lying to it's viewers yet that doesn't seem to bother you with you even going as far as to say 'Fox news and Newsmax are the best'. What is 'best' about so cynically manipulating it's viewers with absolutely no journalistic integrity? Do you really care so little about standards? And please don't come back with 'well CNN and the rest are no better'. Straw man arguments won't wash. We are talking specifically about Fox and how even Murdoch is now admitting they lied constantly about something as important as election fraud (among many, many other things). Do you really not care?

I think you have missed the point. As Placeholder has so eloquently put it, free speach comes with it's limitations anyway (shouting 'fire' in a crowded cinema being the obvious example), but I am talking specifically about politicians. Currently in the UK there is an enquiry into Boris Johnson and his lies about parties at No.10 during the pandemic. There is a very real chance he will be suspended from the party, possibly triggering a by-election. In other words there are some very real consequences for lying by UK MP's, which doesn't seem to exist in The USA. It's not about free speach as the UK has free speach (America doesn't have a monopoly on free speach) but more to do with holding politicians accountable for misleading the electorate; something I don't see happening in America at all.

Now I know Trump isn’t currently a Congressman or Senator but there are plenty in the GOP who are (Marjorie TG for example) who continually push the “election was stolen” lie. My question is why are they still allowed to do this? In the UK, MP’s are held to a strict code that would see them at least lose their seat with a distinct possibility of criminal prosecution if it was particularly egregious. Is the 1st amendment so sacrosanct that it even allows US politicians to keep lying about such serious matters or is it something else that I don’t know about? https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misleading_of_parliament

I'm not smug but I'm definately condescending when it comes to people like yourself who go on about 'lefties', 'gay and covidiots', 'hapless Ukraine loser supporters and the 'woke.' I suspect you probably get a lot of condescention with those prehistoric views.

I rest my case m'Lord.

"It feels cooler to say 'I'm not woke' than the truth, which is, 'I'm terrified of what I don't understand and I only know how to process that as anger because I can't look inward''. Sarah Silverman.

Most of the 'expensive' ex-pats were relocated here in the 90's to help set up the business as the skill set wasn't here at that time and companies always want proven talent when it comes to something as important as setting up in a new country. 25-30 years later that is obviously different and the majority of these senior roles are now taken by Thai's (many of which would have been mentored by these ex-pats). There's still some ex-pats in situe in many different industries, but they are more likely to be on a local package (as oppossed to an ex-pat package) and there's certainly fewer of them than before.

I think his point is that many people don't have a Plan B when it comes to their work. And he has hit on a few saliant points; how transferable are your skills if you find yourself unemployed in LOS, can you afford to stay here especially if you are originally here on a large ex-pat relocation salary (with all it's perks) and if you really, really have to, will you be able to re-aclimatise back to your home country. I have a very good friend who has recently gone through exactly this when he took voluntary redundancy from his rather well paid Thai job. I warned him not to do it (as I could see the difficulty he would have getting an equally well paid job) but he didn't listen and thought he would have employers beating down his door. They didn't and after 8 months and a heavily depleted savings account, he headed back home to the cold and the gloom. He absolutely hates being back home and really wants to get back here but it's not going to happen any time soon. He had no PLan B in place and was wildly over-optimistic about his career prospects, which I think is what the video is about.

As has been stated many times, vaping is not without it's risk/harm BUT compared to smoking it's much, much better for you. They are best not to smoke at all but if they do, vaping is the way to go.

The NHS seems to think so. 'Vaping is not completely risk-free, but it poses a small fraction of the risk of smoking cigarettes. The long-term risks of vaping are not yet clear. E-cigarettes do not produce tar or carbon monoxide, two of the most harmful elements in tobacco smoke'. https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/quit-smoking/using-e-cigarettes-to-stop-smoking/#:~:text=Vaping is not completely risk,harmful elements in tobacco smoke.

If you genuinely didnt know about this then here you go. It was just as much Blair as it was Bush, with both Powell and Bush quoting MI6 as justification. https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/jul/06/spy-agencies-flawed-information-saddam-wmds-iraq-chilcot

That's simply not true. 'For one, sex education has already been banned in Florida (as in many states) until the fifth grade. So critics say the law tries to solve a problem that doesn’t exist for the state’s youngest students. Because it limits even discussions about LGBTQ issues, it could stifle conversations for children who need to work through their own gender or sexual-identity questions, they say' https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/04/01/what-is-florida-dont-say-gay-bill/ If 'school districts were implementing this kind of curriculum to young children' then I would agree with you but it simply wasn't happening. School curriculums are VERY tightly controlled and all DeSantis was doing was stirring up controversy when there was none there. That's the actually point about the 'Don't say Gay' backlash. He was trying to score political points over something that wasn't even happening with both this and critical race theory. But as you say, we digress.

Not sure what you are saying here as I'm not 'the right' and I thought it was common knowledge that Blair backed Bush with his WMD nonsense.

You are being very disingenuous now by bringing in a VERY obvious strawman fallacy. Obviously no one is condoning random strangers going up to children to discuss sexual orientation but the argument is about teachers discussing it with children in a school setting. Whether you agree with it or not (in the UK it's age 11 which I think is reasonable), it lends itself to the bigger argument about what's going on in Florida with DeSantis banning books and the likes and whether he is just playing with parents justifiable concerns for purely political reasons. However, I'm conscious this is going off topic (and hope the moderators allow this as a one of rebutle) as the subject is about Fox News.

Backed up by Tony Blair.

'Now and then'. Really? I think the whole point of this discussion and the Dominion lawsuit is it isn't 'now and again' but constantly and with purpose. Whether they were backing the ascertion that the election was rigged or that the Capitol attack was nothing to do with Trump but instead orchestrated by Antifa or whoever else was in the crosshairs that week, their once 'opinion pieces' now leak into everyday news (there used to be a split) and it's just pure and unadulterated lies spewed to keep a rabid base away from other right-wing news stations, especially Newsmax. This lawsuit will reveal a great deal about how Fox goes about it's 'business' and I for one hope they get a very large book dropped on them from a very great height.