johnnybangkok

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.

Like many "Fox defenders' on here, you are confusing popularity with integrity. No one is denying that Fox News is popular, but the post is that they knowingly and willingly lied to their viewers and continue to do so on a daily basis. The headline is 'Fox News has been exposed as a dishonest organization terrified of its own audience'. Can you (or any Fox defender) maybe try and counter-argue this ascertion without resorting to whataboutism and deflection?

But children aren't intelligent are they? If fact they're really quite stupid. This is why they go to school and get taught stuff. If left to their own devices children would at best mess up a classroom or at worst it's Lord of The Flies. If you teach and show a child ignorance, bigotry, racism and hate you will get an ignorant, racist, bigot of an adult and lets admit we've already got enough of those. Show a child kindness, understanding, tolerance and that 'different' isn't neccessarily bad, then you might just help a child that has been feeling 'different' and steer them in a very positive way. I see no issue in drag queens reading childrens books to children. And I also think drag queens 'twerking in kids faces' is absolute nonsense and completely made up and I certainly don't see a need to demonise drag queens in what is an obvious political stunt to rile up the homophobes and the bigots. Because that's exactly what this is and as the brother of (I assume) an openly gay person, I would have hoped you would have been able to spot the very same tactics being used here that have been used to demonise the gay community since year dot. It wasn't good then and it's certainly not good now.

Your two examples (back of your pick up, smoking in the car) are health and safety issues that can seriously affect a child. This isn't the case here. And your original statement of 'parents that take innocent children to watch garbage like that' does smack of bigotry and/or homophobia. Have you even seen a drag show? They really aren't that bad. More akin to a rather saucy comedian making crude/rude jokes and lip-syncing to a few old classics than anything sexual. And it helps children by showing them there is more than the two obvious genders and it's not to be feared. It teaches tolerance and understanding; something a lot of you guys could have done with by the sounds of it.

Oh I understand...I just choose to ignore your pettiness and condescention. Any chance you can actually answer any of my points now that we have established you haven't actually seen anything personally, haven't actually been to a drag show yourself and that all of your 'informed' opinion is taken from a video compilation that still doesn't show drag queens 'twerking in front of kids faces etc.'? I will stick with my ascertion that drag queens aren't 'twerking in front of kids faces etc.' and that any sexualisation of what is going on is purely in your (and other posters here) own head.

I'm not the one that said 'However, I've seen a lot of these drag shows where they all get a bit too excited with the flamboyance of it all and the bloke ends up dressed in a small thong, twerking in front of kids faces etc.' A more accurate statement would have been 'I've not actually seen them in person, so I'm basing all my views on this video from a Tucker Carlson founded right wing 'news' organisation that shows where they all get a bit too excited with the flamboyance of it all and the bloke ends up dressed in a small thong, twerking in front of kids faces etc. Even though it doesn't.

Cherry picking one or two scenarios doth not make a convincing argument. I personally see no issue with this but if YOU think it's highly offensive then may I recommend YOU don't book a drag queen for your kids. Isn't this the parental choice all you conservatives scream about?

So you've seen them but not in person? You sound like an expert to me.

'Some conservatives have decided that — forget about childhood poverty, or vaccine paranoia, or lax gun laws — the real threat to our children is when performers in glamorous hair and makeup come to libraries to teach lessons of tolerance and self-acceptance and read books out loud.' 'Nobody is forcing any parent to take their child to a Drag Queen Story Hour. The children who do attend are not being exposed to pornography. They are being exposed to children’s books for children.' This is a great article that pretty much sums up what this is all about and the whole idea that any idea of sexualisation is not coming from the drag queens themselves but from the likes of Christopher Rufo (conservative activist) who came up with the gem, “Conservatives should start using the phrase ‘trans stripper’ in lieu of ‘drag queen,’” No one is stripping. Especially in front of kids. https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/2022/06/23/drag-queen-story-hour/

Here "However, I've seen a lot of these drag shows where they all get a bit too excited with the flamboyance of it all and the bloke ends up dressed in a small thong, twerking in front of kids faces etc.'

I'm calling BS on this. I have been to many, many drag shows (a good friend was a drag queen) and never once have I ever seen a child present never mind drag queens 'twerking' in their faces. Most drag shows are late night events held in pubs and clubs (I'm talking the UK here) where patrons need to be at least 18 years old even to get in. Now of course I haven't been to one in the States so perhaps there's all these drag shows going on in front of 10 year olds, but I very much doubt it. I suspect (just call me Sherlock) that this is just another non-issue from an increasingly irrelevant GOP to yet again stir up 'the base' with made-up scenarios that don't even happen. What they do though is create headlines that are eagerly jumped on by individuals (like yourself) who will try and defend this lunacy because (yet again) it's against the 'extreme' left and/or 'woke brigade'. This is classic identity politics that doesn't add to the narrative but has the desired effect on an increasingly rabid GOP base that should be much more focused on actual politics rather than this frankly absurd distraction.

The use of “biggly” was on purpose.

Here's hoping so.

And there in lies the problem and why it's a waist of time debating those who think this is all a great idea and who think Desantis is 'their man'. Primarlily the LGBTQ and/or black community terrifies them and in their conspiritorially aligned brains already think there is too much change going on in the world and they just need to draw a line. And they truly believe their child can be taught to 'catch' the gayness so since they have more control over their children than most things in their life, this triggers them biggly. This idea that schools are being infiltrated with some sort of pro-LGBTQ and anti-white gang of schoolteachers/headmasters who are hell bent on turning their little mini-me into a 'deviant' is just absurd. It's so obviously a Desantis tactic to 'out-Trump" Trump and lure his powerful base, it's not even funny. When the top job is the goal, there's nothing off the table including it seems, manipulating parents. Perhaps he should be slightly more bothered that Florida 'has the fourth-lowest literacy rate of 81.0%, with 19.0% of adults lacking basic prose literacy skills.' https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/us-literacy-rates-by-state or that it consistently ranks as one of the most dangerous states in America (https://www.securitysales.com/news/2022-safest-most-dangerous-states-us/). These however would be proper problems that aren't interesting enough to get the base all riled up so he continues his culture war, constantly pitting Conservatives against the 'woke' Liberals in an increasingly divisive race to the bottom. And the worst thing is it will probably work. As we all know it has worked before.

You should have focused on the books that taught critical thinking.

And there we have it in a nutshell. When asked for examples of all this 'woke' teaching and 'inappropriate' lessons, the best you can come up with is 3 stories, 2 of which are from Canada and none of which are in Florida. It's yet another example of the GOP creating a problem that doesn't exist in order to stoke the flames of racism, homophobia and anti-LGBTQ thinking because Desantis (like most GOPers) understands how appealing this is to his base. Forget actually sound economic or political policies in favour of riling up people with the 'but, but will someone PLEASE think of the children'. It's so obvious as to be laughable but as many of the comments on this thread show, it is greedily devoured by the right in an attempt to yet again, get one back on the 'woke' left and drag the US and the rest of the world back to the 1950's.

You are soooooo American when you think money buys you wisdom and that no experience is a virtue rather than a concern. Politicians, much like my surgeons, my accountant and my women, should have experience. And no obvious ties to business. The UK has it's problems (too many to go into now), but there's no way any politician there is surviving the scandals Trump had before, during and after his thankfully short tenure. For gods sake, defrauding his own charity should have been the 'final'straw' but no, he's still knocking around. But a lot of Americans (thankfully not the majority) love that sort of thing; the underdog taking on the 'man', the lone gunman riding in to town to 'set things right'. The rebel without a clue It's a very American trate.

A Septic that can't take a bit of stick. Now there's a first.