Cameroni

I'm commenting on the hotel chain Mandarin Oriental, because I've experienced it. I certainly agree it was very obviously among the absolute best of the best from my experience.

Absolutely, it's very subjective. Personally, my favourite hotel experience was at the Laguna Resort in Bali, which is 5 star but not from one of the top chains.

I doubt it very much. The UK opposing Germany had very minor military effects in that period. Had the UK accepted the 1940 peace offer from Germany, most likely exactly the same things would have happened, the USSR would have defeated Germany, the empire countries would have demanded independence eventually. I don't see the UK opposing Germany having had much of an effect, after all the British army vacated the continent defeated, and Churchill had little to fight Germany with, apart from bombing civilians. That is why he wanted the US or Russia to do the fighting for him of course, because he coudln't.

I second this, I've stayed at Kempinski, Ritz Carlton and Mandarin Oriental. Mandarin Oriental is very special and is very much near the very top. I stayed at the one in Miami so I can't opine on Bangkok, but from what I saw Mandarin Oriental is next level.

The only woman I ever married was Russia. I met her in a pub in England. What a woman. Loyal, beautiful, sexually extremely open minded, intelligent, hard working, great mother to our two children. In the end she was too hard working and intelligent, thinking that she should run the show. But Russia has superb women, and not all pray to the Orthodox church, most are very modern and atheist, and also well educated. All are highly intelligent. Of course you don't need to pay thousands to an agency to find a good Russian woman, just walk into any pub in England.

They're not all created equal. Here in Chiang Mai for instance there is a team training the BK people to utter perfection, their fries and burgers taste the same at every outlet. Always fresh and better than in Europe. MacDonalds, the opposite, hit and miss and usually miss, definitely worse than in Europe. KFC in the middle somewhere, okay, but not as good as the best in Europe, and also varies a lot from outlet to outlet. It's about the particular franchise operator, not the chain itself.

Pence faced tremendous pressure to refuse to certify the result of the election. His refusal to do so was wise and courageous, had he refused things could have got very ugly. He defunded Planned Parenthood, which was an excellent decision. Pence had cast 13 tie-breaking votes, seventh-most in history and more than his previous four predecessors (Joe Biden, Dick Cheney, Al Gore and Dan Quayle) cast combined (Cheney broke eight ties, Gore broke four ties, and Quayle and Biden did not cast a tie-breaking vote) Pence took a stance against the ludicrous kneeling in sports games. Very well done. But yes, I take the point, he was also relatively inactive.

The vice president of the United States is the second-highest office in the executive branch of the U.S. federal government. The modern vice presidency is a position of significant power. The vice president is also a statutory member of the United States Cabinet and United States National Security Council and thus plays a significant role in executive government and national security matters. Kamala Harris can't escape the charge that she has done little to put in place the economic, immigration and other policies she supposedly always had as "values", when she has for almost 4 years been in such a position of considerable executive power.

In Darryl Cooper's case there is no doubt that he genuinely views Churchill as the villain of WWII. He even fell out with his co podcast host over this point. Professor John Charmley has also been highly critical of Churchill, and nobody at the time imputed this to his position on the political spectrum. The fact is Churchill did a lot that can be criticised. It's just looking at history objectively that will lead you to that conclusion. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Charmley

The Vice Presidential Office can have massive power, as Dick Cheney showed when he led America into the Iraq war. Kamala Harris is just not very active.

No this: "So, she just started by saying she's going to do this, she's going to do that, she's going to do all these wonderful things. Why hasn't she done it? She's been there for 3 1/2 years. They've had 3 1/2 years to fix the border. They've had 3 1/2 years to create jobs and all the things we talked about. Why hasn't she done it? She should leave right now, go down to that beautiful white house, go to the capitol, get everyone together and do the things you want to do. But you haven't done it. And you won't do it. " https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/harris-trump-presidential-debate-transcript/story?id=113560542

Worms or cats?

Not only can I pronounce it, I can see it in black and white all over the US media, where they in all seriousness claim Kamala Harris won the debate. There appears to be a mass delusion under way among many in the US.

"On substance President Trump wins" Hardly news, we all saw that.

It's true Trump lied a lot. But Harris lied non-stop a s well. Why did the fact checkers not call out her lies? She claimed Trump was responsible for the pandemic!!! What??? She said Agenda 2025 was Trump's policy....Not so. She implied Trump opposed IVF...when he wants it paid for and supports it. Yet, ABC moderators did not call her on a single one of her lies.

The moderators indeed made the debate a farce and very one-sided. Trump is right not to agree to another debate. Not only would he debate against 3 people, but the complete lack of objectivity in the mainstream media only gives him bad publicity. He would be ill advised to do another debate.

Oh they had an impact, mostly to murder German women, children and the elderly by the hundreds of thousands. There was some minor military significance, but overall one has to conclude that it was Russia, not Britain, that defeated the Wehrmacht.

Churchill of course didn't need a program of extermination. The British had already done their extermination, piracy, theft when they made the Empire. Churchill had already benefitted from the British Generalplan Ost, the Empire was already established. Churchill's and Hitler's racism came from different places. I think it is clear that both Churchill and Hitler were deeply rooted racists. However, Churchill benefitted from his vast travels in other parts of the world and his exposure to other ethnic groups. Often that reinforced his racism, but it most likely also mellowed it a bit. Nobody can deny that Churchill refused to participate in the American ban on colour in military buildings and wrote to the Americans to tell them so. One could say Churchill's racism was not full of hatred as it was with Hitler at times. For the simple reason that Churchill came from the establishment, he was at the very top, in a very priveleged position in the hierarchy. He also saw himself as the head of the greatest Empire in the world. His empire was already set up. Hitler, on the other hand came from a nation that had been in constant struggle with people from the East. Germany did not have an empire to speak of. Churchill did not need Lebensraum, he had the Empire. Germany on the other hand did not. Britain had won WWI, Germany was humiliated, had large swathes of its territory annexed by Poland, Romania, Czechs, etc. Hitler experienced defeat in the field, not victory at the top of the hierarchy as Churchill did despite his humiliation at Gallipolli So Germany did not have an empire. Hitler was full ressentiments after WWI and the humiliations that were heaped on Germany. It was natural that Churchill's racism would be more mellow, so to speak, not as vicious and full of hatred as Hitler's. Of course Churchill did not need to exterminate people, his British ancestors had already taken care of that, the British Generalplan Ost had been implemented. Indeed many of the world's nations today owe their boundaries to British colonialism. Indeed some of our problems today, like Palestine, stem from British resettlement policy.

He did pit Britain against Germany, true, but whether that was really required, given the fact that it was 20 million Russians who gave their lives to defeat the Wehrmacht, not Brits, this is far from certain. Had Churchill accepted the 1940 peace offer, Germany may well have been defeated by Russia in any event, given the vast superiority in tanks and planes the Russians enjoyed.

Yes very much so, he had several Jewish friends, who as we've seen gave him substantial gifts of money. However, we have also seen Churchill himself expressing opinions which by today's standard would have seen him firmly dragged into the antisemitic corner, blaming the jews for persecution. The quote you provide is of course flatly contradicted by other quotes from Churchill where he goes on record to show precisely he was against others due to race and birth: In 1902, Churchill stated that "The Aryan stock is bound to triumph" and also: I do not admit ... for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place. Henry A. Wallace, Vice President of the USA, reports in his diary that during a White House lunch in May 1943 Churchill "said why be apologetic about Anglo-Saxon superiority, that we were superior, that we had the common heritage which had been worked out over the centuries in England and had been perfected by our constitution." Churchill's personal doctor, Lord Moran, commented at one point that, in regards to other races, "Winston thinks only of the colour of their skin." But not only was Churchill's stance against other men, based on their birth and race, ideological, no, he also took actions which killed people, that were born out of this strong racism Churchill harboured. For instance during WWII Churchill's role in the Bengal famine was appalling. Despite pleas by his own British colonial administration to ease the Indian famine, Churchill stockpiled food in front of the Indians' noses and prioritised it for the British people, knowing full well there was a famine in India, the food was there and could have helped ease the starvation, but he stockpiled the food there for further shipment to Britain. Three million Indians died as a result of starvation. Churchill described the Arabs as a "lower manifestation" than the Jews, whom he viewed as a "higher grade race" compared to the "great hordes of Islam" in his 1920 article which he titled "Zionism versus Bolshevism", he wrote that communism, which he considered a "worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and for the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development, of envious malevolence, and impossible equality",[40] had been established in Russia by Jews: There is no need to exaggerate the part played in the creation of Bolshevism and in the actual bringing about of the Russian Revolution, by these international and for the most part atheistical Jews; it is certainly a very great one; it probably outweighs all others. With the notable exception of Lenin, the majority of the leading figures are Jews. Moreover, the principal inspiration and driving power comes from the Jewish leaders.[61] Although an anti-Semitic belief in an international Jewish conspiracy was not unique among British politicians of the time, few of them had the stature of Churchill.[62] The article was criticised by the Jewish Chronicle at the time, calling it "the most reckless and scandalous campaign in which even the most discredited politicians have ever engaged".[63] The Chronicle said Churchill had adopted "the hoary tactics of hooligan anti-Semites" in his article. In May 1954 Violet Bonham-Carter asked Churchill's opinion about a Labour Party visit to China. Winston Churchill replied: I hate people with slit eyes and pigtails. I don't like the look of them or the smell of them – but I suppose it does no great harm to have a look at them. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racial_views_of_Winston_Churchill So whether or not Winston Churchill was the greatest Briton of all time or not, personally I would rate Cecil Rhodes higher, Churchill certainly was the greatest racist of the British establishment who came to power. Whether this anecdote you relate, about Churchill staying in the same hotel and making this comment to Putzi Hanfstaengl is true or not is debatable, Putzi Hanfstaengl was a known liar. But it may well be. We know that after being informed of Americans barring men of colour from military buildings Churchill made a racist joke, but he also wrote to the Americans that they should not expect support from the British in enforcing this colour ban. Despite Churchill's deep rooted racism it was indeed as if in many instances an innate decency, and ability to distinguish right from wrong, overrode his racism. But that was not always the case, as in the famine of Bengal, even though there too, at the end Churchill did the right thing. Equally the same instances of decent behaviour can be observed by Hitler on occasion, however, on others he behaved absolutely abominably. Both men show that there is good and bad in all men. But we should certainly be very modest in declaring Churchill a champion of equality. He wasn't always.

Total tripe. Anyone could see the supposed "moderators" ambushed only one candidate with their "fact checking". It was a clear effort to favour Harris and they took sides. Everybody could see it. Anyone who claims otherwise has not watched the debate or is taking the mick, or even worse.

Churchill is on record for praising the superiority of "Aryan stock". He was not opponent of Hitler's Aryan ideology but rather espoused it himself. On record. Germany would have been stronger, militarily and economically, if she had prevailed against Russia, clealry, however, it is a completely different question if Hitler would have invaded or made war against the British empire. Most likely he would not have if Britain had agreed to the unconditional peace he offered. There is no contradiction, controrary to your claim.

The USSSR would have won without materiel from the West, for the simple reason that they already outnumbered Germany in tanks and planes.

You are completely wrong. Not only did the British government take the peace offer very seriously, they sought out German diplomatic staff to explore the peace offer, as the archives show: "Secret files made public today reveal how an Etonian fascist sympathiser was used by the British government in an ill-fated attempt to explore the possibility of a peace deal with Germany during the Second World War. Memos written by the security service, MI5, and released by the National Archives, show James Lonsdale-Bryans, who was known to hold extreme right wing views, was given Foreign Office clearance to make secret trips to Italy." https://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/aug/31/secondworldwar.nationalarchives In addition, William L. Shirer's account has long been discredited as a source. The book contains ludicrous made up nonsense such as Hitler chewing a carpet. Nobody in academia refers to this book.

It seems very clear that Churchill prized the British empire above everything. He was willing to die for it, and willing to kill any number of civilians for it, even gas them if necessary. Churchill's early opposition to Nazi Germany no doubt stemmed from his awareness that Germany would be economically and militarily stronger than Britain and that this would endanger the existence of the British Empire as he knew it.