Showing posts with label language. Show all posts
Showing posts with label language. Show all posts

BEST Biden Bloopers Ever (So Far)

Joe Biden is a walking gaffe machine. Or perhaps I say a stumbling gaffe machine. Sure, everybody misspeaks now and then, but Biden's propensity for saying the wrong thing at the wrong time is legendary. But we'll give him this: He's consistent in his ability to impressively f*ck up a simple statement, to mangle a common phrase, and slaughter the English language. 

And that leads us to this magnificent collection of Bidenisms, curated by Andrew of the "Don't Walk, Run!" channel on YouTube.

This video is one of his best ever. Posted on 12/02/2024, "The TOP 30 Biden Blooper Countdown! (New for 2024!)" is a knockout. Andrew's videos are usually run 10 to 15 minutes, but this one clocks in at 52:19 — and is worth every second. It's nearly an hour of Biden's best buffoonery. Precious.

Andrew
Andrew is our go-to for amusing videos about Biden's goofiness. He describes his mission this way: "I like using facts and data to point out hypocrisy coming from politicians and the media." Indeed, and he does it masterfully. His edits and clever commentary make subscribing to Don't Walk, Run! a must-do.

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How the Left Destroys Words

Political correctness destroys the accuracy of language

President Trump (left) and George "Moonface" Conway (right)
President Trump (Photo: Tasos Katopodis/Getty Images);
George Conway (Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

This is a subject that could fill a 700-page book, but here I want to examine just a few recent examples that inspired me to write this post.

In summary, the recent coronavirus crisis has a lot of Leftists prickly about the word "Chinese" and use "Asian" instead.

This is akin to the Leftists' aversion to the word "Oriental," in my opinion, which many still (incorrectly) assume is ethnically derogatory. President Trump recently called someone "moonface," which many Leftists (incorrectly) assumed to be an ethnic slur.

On May 4, Trump called George Conway "moonface." He's the husband of Trump's White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, and although he's "conservative," he's a big Never-Trumper.

Trump and Conway's bitter public feud goes back a long time. That culminated in the now-infamous "Moonface" tweet from the President, which immediately set off a firestorm of outraged screams of "racist!" from the Left.
Kurt Schlichter, Senior Columnist at Townhall.com, tweeted this gem the next day in response:
What Schlichter was saying, of course, was that Leftists would pounce on Trump's use of "Moonface" as "racist." And, predictably, they did.
Was Trump's "Moonface" tweet in poor taste? Yes. But racist? Absolutely not, and the tweet by Victoria Brownworth (@VABVOX) is based on a falsehood: "Moonface" (or "moon face") is not a "common ethnic slur" for any group, let alone "Asians." Search Google for "moon face -trump -conway -orangeface" (that filters out the recent noise about Trump's tweet).

That search does not bring up "ethnic slur," "Asian," or "Chinese." In fact, the overwhelming majority of the Google returns are about "moon face" as a medical condition. 

Merriam-Webster gives this definition of "moon face":
moon face    noun
variants: or moon facies
Medical Definition of moon face: the full rounded facies characteristic especially of Cushing's syndrome and typically associated with deposition of fat
The condition of "moon face" can also be a side effect of the drug Prednisone.

Merriam-Webster defines "moonfaced":
Definition of moonfaced: having a round face 
Examples of moonfaced in a Sentence Recent Examples on the Web// His moonfaced son, drunk and sweaty, smelling like grass.— Emma Cline, The New Yorker, "Son of Friedman," 24 June 2019
First Known Use of moonfaced 
1619, in the meaning defined above
Do either of those definitions sound like "a common ethnic slur for Asians?" Not to me.

When was the last time you heard anybody use "moon face" to besmirch Asians? If it's a "common ethnic slur," as Victory Brownworth claims, then surely you've heard it. Surely it would come up as such in a Google search. Right? Ironically, Brownworth's Twitter profile says she is an "Award-winning investigative journo." Yet she failed to investigate the term "moonface." Maybe she doth protest too much: Do her comrades in the Leftist echo chamber in which she dwells use the term "moonface" to describe Asians? Why else would she think that very rarely used "slur" is "common?"

Comparing George Conway to Average Filipino Faces
Some other leftists are mistakenly claiming that Kellyanne Conway is "half Filipino." She's not. Her mother Diane Fitzpatrick is of Italian descent and her father John Fitzpatrick is of Irish ancestry, according to her bio.

George Conway is half-Filipino on his mother's side. However, Trump was probably not remarking on his ethnicity but, rather, on his physical appearance. Conway is, after all, a pudgy, dumpy moonfaced little man. His appearance is not obviously Filipino. George Conway's fat doughy face actually resembles someone who might have Cushing's syndrome. He appears to have, well, a moon face.

World of Facial AveragesTo all of the pearl-clutching, Trump-hating Leftists out there who are horrified by the term "moon face," check yourselves and your comrades for your years-long, incessant, and deliberately cruel deriding the President for his physical appearance: weight, "orange" skin, hair, etc.

This brings us back to how Leftists are misusing (and abusing) the word "Asian."

The Philippines is considered to be part of Asia, and George Conway is half-Filipino – therefore, he's half-Asian.

However, Brownworth and others are saying that "Moonface is a common ethnic slur for Asians." We've already shown that this is not true, but the bigger point here is – which Asians do they mean?

There are many countries and ethnicities on that vast, multicultural continent, as seen in the small sampling of typical Asian faces (left).

Asia is much more than just China. It stretches from the Mediterranean Sea in the west to Japan in the east, from Russia's Siberia in the north to India, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea in the south.

The 2020 population of Asia is approximately 4.6 billion. The 2020 population of China alone is approximately 1.4 billion. So, about 70% of Asia is not "Chinese," and China has at least 56 ethnic groups within its borders.

My tweeted response (with a map of Asia) to Brownworth ask her just that:
To say that "moonface is a common slur against Asians" is absurd. Not only is that untrue, but it's also about as accurate as saying that everyone in North America is white. Not everyone in Asia looks the same. Not every Filipino looks like George Conway. There is, fact, a great variety of facial types in Asia. In their attempt to be politically correct, Leftists like Brownworth are, ironically, racist by means of stereotyping and homogenizing several billion humans.

There's this madness from The Washington Post: "Trump has no qualms about calling coronavirus the ‘Chinese Virus.’ That’s a dangerous attitude, experts say." This opinion piece, written by Allyson Chiu, essentially preaches that referring to something by its point of origin is evil, xenophobic, and promotes violence.

I searched and searched but could not find anything by Ms. Chiu in which she admonished us to stop saying "African swine flu" or "West Nile virus." I wonder why that is. After all, she must have been horrified by the waves of violent mobs attacking Africans because of those names. Weren't you?

"Jenn" is an "Asian American race &  feminist blogger." Given that, you might think she would know that "Asian" is not a race. She should know that while much of the world blames the government of China for COVID-19, NOBODY blames the Chinese people.... or India, Pakistan, Lebanon, Vietnam, or any other Asian country. But, sadly, she doesn't and this is typical dumb-think by Leftists:
And of course, the media love to encourage this dumb-think:
We've had the Left lecturing us that calling COVID-19 "Chinese Virus" is racist. It's gotten to the point where some on the Left don't even like to acknowledge that it originated in China. There's a logic of sorts to not naming future diseases after their place of origination, and give them bland names such as COVID-19 (Corona Virus Disease 2019). But it is also logical to wonder where that blandly named disease came from because knowing that can give important clues as to its epidemiology.

The deadly Asian giant hornet
The deadly HOVID-19
Diseases, of course, are not the only things that have been named for the place that they were first known.

The actual name of "murder hornets" is "Asian giant hornets." Why? Because they originated in Asia. Many liberals say that calling coronavirus (COVID-19) the "Chinese Virus" is racist. Some even think that saying it's from China is racist.

So why, then, isn't the term "Asian giant hornets" racist?

Give it time. Some leftie will propose calling them HOVID-19 (Hornets Vicious Dangerous 2019).

If missiles hit civilians in a war zone, would it be racist to say that "Russian missiles" or "American missiles" were responsible? Is it racist to say "Washington apples," "Danish pastry," or "Italian opera?"

This made me hungry. I'm going to my favorite Oriental restaurant tonight to get some Chinese food. I just love Asian cuisine.

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Revealed: What The Fake Sign Language Interpreter Really Said At Mandela's Memorial Service

fake sign language interpreter at Mandela memorial
"You came in like a wrecking ball."
Dec. 11, 2013 - The "sign language interpreter" at South Africa's memorial service for Nelson Mandela yesterday is being called a fraud.

But is he really a fake? A new video (below) offers a spoken interpretation of the man's signing.

The unidentified man stood next to world leaders paying homage to Mandela. On Tuesday the national director of the Deaf Federation of South Africa said he was a fake. Authorities don't know who he was - let alone how he was able to get on stage. People around the globe are scratching their heads, wondering if the man was for real or faking his signing.

"The scandal over the interpreter," reports Associated Press, "is another indication of bad organization of the historic memorial service at a huge soccer stadium. Other difficulties included public transportation breakdowns which hindered mourners from getting to the event and a faulty audio system that prevented many of the tens of thousands in the stadium from hearing the leaders' speeches." Full AP story...
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Urban Dictionary Defines 'Harry Reid' As Sexual Position

She stood there naked, wanting it, but he was clueless.
It was like trying to seduce Harry Reid.

Urban Dictionary is a source that many people consult when they hear a befuddling phrase or word. While "Harry Reid" is not a confusing phrase - it's the name of a jerk U.S. Senator from Nevada - it does have a meaning other than that jerk's name. Or, at least, that's what Urban Dictionary now says.

So, what's a "Harry Reid?" Urban Dictionary defines it as a "sexual position where you climb on top and then do absolutely nothing. Named for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV)."

Why would they name a sex act after Harry  Reid? As Urban Dictionary explains, it's for his lack of leadership and, essentially, being a do-nothing politician. One of the examples of how to use the phrase "Harry Reid" in a sentence:

"He talked a big game, but it turns out he was completely clueless. It was like sleeping with 'Harry Reid'."

And why not? It's only fitting that one of the top clowns in the Democrat Party should have a sexual position named after him. After all, Democrats are obsessed with sex. The only irony is that Reid is one of the least likely in his party to actually get any.
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Woman Yells "Nigger" Repeatedly On Street Corner, Does Not Apologize

Cracker radio host Dr. Laura Schlessinger came under fire this week for actually saying "nigger" during her on-air show on Tuesday, August 10. The far-left organizaion Media Matters posted the audio and a transcript of an exchange between Schlessinger and a caller who claimed to be a Black woman. Schlessinger issued an apology the next day for saying "nigger," but when you listen to the audio and read the transcript you have to wonder if that apology was really necessary. Take this excerpt, for example: CALLER: How about the N-word? So, the N-word's been thrown around -- SCHLESSINGER: Black guys use it all the time. Turn on HBO, listen to a black comic, and all you hear is nigger, nigger, nigger. CALLER: That isn't -- SCHLESSINGER: I don't get it. If anybody without enough melanin says it, it's a horrible thing; but when black people say it, it's affectionate. It's very confusing. I was walking down the street yesterday, and like any other day, I encountered Black people calling each other "nigger" or referring to somebody who is not present as "nigger." Here's an example of the exchange that I heard yesterday, which I will translate into Ivoronics for you: "Hey nigger!" the woman shouted to an acquaintance standing across the street. She was, I'd guess, in her mid-20's. She continued, "Nigger, shit! Get your ass over here, nigger!" Her friend, a Black man about the same age, crossed the street. "I was on my way to the motherf*cking clinic, bitch," he said affectionately. "Have you seen Jimmy?" she asked. "I have not seen that nigger in a fortnight," the man responded. "That motherf*cker is not right in his head. Nigger's crazy." Okay, we'll stop there. You get the idea. Neither of the man nor the woman involved in that conversation, nor any of the several people standing within earshot of them, have demanded an apology for saying "nigger" repeatedly. On her show on Tuesday, Schlessinger pointed out that there is hypocrisy when it comes to using the word "nigger." She's right, and she's certainly not the first person to point this out. Another excerpt after these videos (language advisory)...
Here's another excerpt from the show's transcript: CALLER: It's OK to say that word? SCHLESSINGER: It depends how it's said. CALLER: Is it OK to say that word? Is it ever OK to say that word? SCHLESSINGER: It's -- it depends how it's said. Black guys talking to each other seem to think it's OK. CALLER: But you're not black. They're not black. My husband is white. SCHLESSINGER: Oh, I see. So, a word is restricted to race. Got it. Can't do much about that. CALLER: I can't believe someone like you is on the radio spewing out the "nigger" word, and I hope everybody heard it. SCHLESSINGER: I didn't spew out the "nigger" word. CALLER: You said, "Nigger, nigger, nigger." SCHLESSINGER: Right, I said that's what you hear. CALLER: Everybody heard it. SCHLESSINGER: Yes, they did. CALLER: I hope everybody heard it. SCHLESSINGER: They did, and I'll say it again -- CALLER: So what makes it OK for you to say the word? SCHLESSINGER: -- nigger, nigger, nigger is what you hear on [HBO] -- Tell me that Schlessinger is wrong. You can't, really, and I suspect that the caller may have been deliberately trying to set Schlessinger up for a gotcha moment. If that's the case, the set up worked. However, the audio and the transcript of the event only show the caller to be hypersensitive, duplicitous and hypocritical about language. In her apology, Schlessinger said "I articulated the N-word all the way out – more than one time... And that was wrong. I’ll say it again – that was wrong.” No, Dr. Schlessinger's cowardly apology and bowing to political correctness is what's wrong. By the way, I apologize for calling Dr. Schlessinger a "cracker."
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End Times Here? Exclusive Chart Says Maybe!

(Warning: The word "shit" is used below) Chicago News Bench, with the assistance of Technorati, compared the words "Republican," "Democrat" and "shit" to each other (see the chart.) The results stunned even us. Don't believe us? Click the chart and see for yourself. It shows that "Democrats" and "Republicans" were as high as "shit" on March 10. We compared those three particular words because they are virtually the same thing these days. We wanted to know how often those words are used by bloggers, a good barometer of social trends and possible supernatural future events. To our surprise, the frequency of usage for all three words strongly parallel each other over the past 90 days. "Shit," however, has been more popular overall than "Democrats" or "Republicans," but on March 10, 2009 all three words converged on the chart. Amazingly, each word had the same frequency of usage as tracked by Technorati. Just coincidence? Or a sign of the End of Days? It remains open to interpretation, and an international team of linguists, physicists and Biblical scholars is working on those questions now. Perhaps it's a good sign that the word "shit" has suddenly dropped down to the same popularity as "Republican" and "Democrat" in the blogosphere. Perhaps. Chicago News Bench RSS Feed Cool Stuff...
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Blago: "Vengeful and profane"

Before he was arrested yesterday, Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (Democrat) was well liked by something around 13 percent of Illinois voters. That's less than half the ratings for Pres. Bush, but still much higher than the ratings of Congress as a whole. The sad, weird, tragic yet sadistically funny events of Blago Tuesday have probably since lowered his favorability ratings to somewhere in the single digits. There are always die-hard supporters; even serial get offers of marriage while they're behind bars, and people still buy Michael Jackson albums. Even Michael Jackson, however, was never caught on tape calling colleagues motherf#@%ers, as Blagojevich was. Hearing Blago use nasty language was apparently shocking to many, perhaps especially to those not old enough to remember the raw Nixon Tapes, which were aired on network television uncensored. Nixon could swear like a sailor, but he pales in comparison to Blago the Foul. Yes, Blago was once the Golden Boy of the Illinois Democrats. But, as Susan Saulny explains in the International Herald Tribune, "Tuesday changed all that." Indeed. It was not simply the extortion and venality with which he was charged that left mouths gaping, but the ruthlessness and grandiosity revealed in the federal wiretap transcripts, even as he knew he was being investigated...Whatever his current motivation, he came into office with a very different persona. As a young congressman representing the North Side of Chicago, Blagojevich was pegged as a rising star with a populist touch. Undistinguished as a lawmaker but with proven likability in and out of Chicago, he seemed hellbent on pushing reform and cleaning house in a state with an embarrassingly overt culture of political corruption. Full Article... Hmmm. He was a "rising star with a populist touch," eh? Isn't every Democrat billed as having a "populist touch" these days? Hmmm. "Undistinguished as a lawmaker," she says? Remember, she's talking about Blagojevich, not Barackobamavich, who was also a "rising star" with a "populist touch" who was/is, nevertheless, "undistinguished as a lawmaker." Let us not get off point, however. Saulny's article is poignant and important. It's about politicians who present a kind face while running for office, but take their masks off, sooner or later, after they get into office. It all brings to mind an old Who song. You remember the lyrics, perhaps: "I get on my knees and pray we don't get fooled again....Meet the new boss, same as the old boss."
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Bill Richardson Shuns Speakers of Urdu, German, French, Italian, Swedish, Hindi, Mandarin, Yiddish, Arabic, Other Languages...

The Bench front page... Text of Bill Richardson's remarks at this morning's Obama news conference. I should say partial remarks: A portion near the end was spoken en Espanol, which should be seen as an affront to speakers of every other language - and the US has many people whose first language is neither English or Spanish. Richardson did not honor them by saying a little something in their tongue. Rather, he chose to be exclusive. Richardson, 61, was United Nations ambassador and energy secretary during the Clinton administration, and he is in his second term as New Mexico's governor. He also served seven terms in the House of Representatives. One of the nation's most prominent Hispanic politicians, Richardson pledged — in English and Spanish — to work to renew the economy. Chron.com... Live-Blogging Obama’s News Conference - Wall Street Journal Blogs Languages spoken in the US (with estimated number of primary speakers): English (215,423,557) Spanish or Spanish Creole (28,101,052) Chinese (2,022,143) French (incl. Patois, Cajun) (1,643,838) German (1,383,442) Tagalog (1,224,241) Vietnamese (1,009,627) Italian (1,008,370) Korean (894,063) Russian (706,242) Polish (667,414) Arabic (614,582) Portuguese or Portuguese Creole (564,630) Japanese (477,997) French Creole (453,368) Other Indic languages (439,289) African languages (418,505) Other Asian languages (398,434) Greek (365,436) Other Indo-European languages (327,946) Hindi (317,057) Other Pacific Island languages (313,841) Persian (312,085) Other Slavic languages (301,079) Urdu (262,900) Other West Germanic languages (251,135) Gujarathi (235,988) Serbo-Croatian (233,865) Other Native North American languages (203,466) Armenian (202,708) Hebrew (195,374) [Source: http://www2.ignatius.edu/faculty/turner/langus.htm]
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N-----s and Q----s

No, Jackson didn't say "the N-word," he actually said "nigger" in off-air comments earlier this month. The story now comes out (click for more). This, of course, on the heels of Jackson's comment that he wanted to "cut out" Barack Obama's testicles, thereby mutilating and, possibly, causing Mr. Obama to bleed to death.

Why the hell do we call it "the N-word," anyway? As I walk down the mean streets of Chicago, I hear it all the time. Here in Rogers Park, for example, I hear young women address their boyfriends as "nigga" (a variant of the word "nigger"), and it's not unusual to witness folks call "hey nigger!" across the street or down the block - in an attempt to get the attention of an acquaintance. When quoting a public figure such as Jackson, who says "nigger," it is inaccurate to report that the person said "the N-word." It dilutes the meaning, it softens the punch. That, undoubtedly, is the intention of the writers or editors who do this. So a reader whose first language is not English, for example, may wonder what the heck is being referred to: "Neighbor?" "Nutjob?" "Necromancer?" What?

The homosexual community did a smart thing decades ago by defusing words that had been used (still are, sadly) against them. Words such as "queer," "fag," "dyke," and so on were actually embraced by the "Gay" community. The appropriation of the word "gay" was a similar move which worked. Overwhelmingly, the average American today refers to homosexuals as "gay," which sound much, well, happier.

Back to the word "nigger," an ugly word to be sure. It should be made extinct, and in an ideal world it would be. Unfortunately, we are stuck with it for now. The Black Community is divided on its merits. Some embrace it, but those who do so are more often than not are gangsters or gangsterphiles. The fact that most socially sensitive people today say "the N-word" rather than actually saying "nigger" shows that most of us recognize the hateful connotations that the word carries for most of us. The Reviled Jesse Jackson must surely know and understand this. He has repeatedly asked fellow Blacks to not use the word "nigger."

Then again, Jackson was telling people to be faithful to their spouses even as he was having an extramarital affair, which resulted in a daughter being born to the woman he was seeing on the side. The "H-word" comes to mind.
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A Jihadist By Any Other Name....

... is still a terrorist. Robert Spencer posts a fascinating piece that deals with the idiocy of politically "correct" speech, the idiocy of the U. S. Department of State, and the madness of the modern world in which one is often afraid to call a spade a spade. What really seems to have spurred the piece was a recent New York Slimes op-ed titled "What Do You Call a Terror(Jihad)ist?," by P. W. Singer and Elina Noor on June 2, 2008. Robert wrote, "This New York Times op-ed defends the government's new PC guidelines forbidding use of the term 'jihadists' to describe the people who are waging war against the U.S. It does so artfully, but ultimately in a way that exposes the faulty assumptions of this entire initiative." You might say that Spencer is whimsically irked by the Singer and Noor and their defense of Orwell Speak. He goes on and on with great style, at one point noting this: Osama bin Laden did not whisper into the ear of Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406), the pioneering historian and sociologist, the idea that “in the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and (the obligation to) convert everybody to Islam either by persuasion or by force.” In Islam, the person in charge of religious affairs is concerned with “power politics,” because Islam is “under obligation to gain power over other nations.” In other words, says Spencer, this crap didn't start with bin Laden. As I often ask my Liberal acquaintances who blame the U.S. for the events of 9/11, What did the United States do to piss off the Arab muslims so much that they felt compelled to invade and burn Constantinople in 673-678 A.D., hundreds of years before the first Crusade and centuries before George W. Bush was born? I love asking Liberals questions like that. It make their heads explode. Figuratively, of course. Robert Spencer will probably explode a few heads, too, with his article. Unlike the jihadists and terrorists, he will do it figuratively. FULL ARTICLE at Jihad Watch... RELATED: More Articles by Robert Spencer
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