How to Make Yourself Popular

[Bryn Mawr]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54239180

Eighteen months? It should not have taken that long.

[spot]

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-wales-54239180

Eighteen months? It should not have taken that long.

That was my first thought yesterday when I saw it too!

[magentaflame]

If a simple electrical device can take out an entire broadband distribution network we simply don't have to worry about hackers or spy agencies interfering with it. lol

[spot]

Perhaps I could borrow the thread title?

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.

Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.

Asked whether Brexit was to credit for the world-first, Williamson told LBC radio station on Thursday: “Well I just reckon we’ve got the very best people in this country and we’ve obviously got the best medical regulators.

“Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have. That doesn’t surprise me at all because we’re a much better country than every single one of them, aren’t we.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ll-of-them

What a cringe-making embarrassment Gavin Williamson is.

[Bryn Mawr]

Perhaps I could borrow the thread title?

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.

Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.

Asked whether Brexit was to credit for the world-first, Williamson told LBC radio station on Thursday: “Well I just reckon we’ve got the very best people in this country and we’ve obviously got the best medical regulators.

“Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have. That doesn’t surprise me at all because we’re a much better country than every single one of them, aren’t we.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ll-of-them

What a cringe-making embarrassment Gavin Williamson is.

I could approve a vaccine in ten seconds and I’m certainly not the best man for the job.

[spot]

Perhaps I could borrow the thread title?

The education secretary, Gavin Williamson, has claimed the UK was the first country in the world to clinically approve a coronavirus vaccine because the country has “much better” scientists than France, Belgium or the US.

Williamson said he was not surprised the UK was the first to roll out the immunisation because “we’re a much better country than every single one of them”.

Asked whether Brexit was to credit for the world-first, Williamson told LBC radio station on Thursday: “Well I just reckon we’ve got the very best people in this country and we’ve obviously got the best medical regulators.

“Much better than the French have, much better than the Belgians have, much better than the Americans have. That doesn’t surprise me at all because we’re a much better country than every single one of them, aren’t we.”

https://www.theguardian.com/society/202 ... ll-of-them

What a cringe-making embarrassment Gavin Williamson is.

I could approve a vaccine in ten seconds and I’m certainly not the best man for the job.

Gavin Williamson is sufficiently often foot-in-mouth that I occasionally suspect him of starting life in the SAS but no, that's one of the others. Looking down the ministerial Front Bench I can't find any I feel sympathy with or even sympathy for, they are an uninspiring bunch of self-centred clods with, in some instances, predilections toward bullying, back-stabbing and evangelical motherhood. As a class they could be described as insensitive, pitiless, callous, heartless, inhumane, unfeeling, unmerciful, compassionless, desensitized, unsparing and, in Gavin Williamson's case, inescapably attracted to inept utterance. Rather like Michael Gove in that regard, on reflection.

[spot]

America finds itself with a home-grown prat of the decade, one Joseph Epstein.

I do not yet know who Joseph Epstein is, all I've seen of his public persona is an Op-Ed in the Wall Street Journal which begins

Madame First Lady—Mrs. Biden—Jill—kiddo: a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter. Any chance you might drop the “Dr.” before your name? “Dr. Jill Biden” sounds and feels fraudulent, not to say a touch comic. Your degree is, I believe, an Ed.D., a doctor of education, earned at the University of Delaware through a dissertation with the unpromising title “Student Retention at the Community College Level: Meeting Students’ Needs.” A wise man once said that no one should call himself “Dr.” unless he has delivered a child. Think about it, Dr. Jill, and forthwith drop the doc.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/is-there-a ... 1607727380

This is among the most filthy and deliberate instances of misogyny in public print. It is a shocking and personal attack and I don't give a damn whether Joseph Epstein ends up apologizing for it or not. This is a spectacular own goal, and not one to brush under the carpet or forget. Why the Wall Street Journal (Rupert Murdoch, prop.) thinks it can just wash its hands of the piece I have no idea, but - "a bit of advice on what may seem like a small but I think is a not unimportant matter" - they can "forthwith drop" their contributor and deny him further use of their pages for his debility. The article is as bad as anything News Corp has previously foisted on the world, it confirms the Wall Street Journal occupies the same gutter as the National Enquirer and the News of the World. In a word, it stinks.

The author "currently serves as an emeritus lecturer of English at Northwestern University", according to the Internet. One can only hope Northwestern University terminates the embarrassing connection before next term starts. I suspect Joseph Epstein, whose sole previous claim to notoriety was a scandalously homophobic outburst in Harper's Magazine fifty years ago, has joined that select group of indiscreet show-offs who have bungled so badly that they're remembered only for their folly and for nothing else - Cornelius Rhoads springs to mind as an earlier example.