[QUOTE=kladner;531435]You don't give credence to a person's gender identity. Presumptuous much?[/QUOTE]I keep reverting to Manning's identity as Bradley Manning at the time of the alleged offenses. It was Bradley Manning who was tried, convicted, and sentenced at court martial for stealing the files.

I agree, though, I should have used feminine pronouns for references to Chelsea Manning after the legal name change in 2014.

I hope my thoughtcrime does not merit a lengthy prison sentence, or a long stay in a re-education facility.

I'm as mad as hell, and -- What? I'm a US soldier?
 

[url=https://apnews.com/a0b90a628dc24070a69f584900503c4f]Iran supreme leader claims protests a US-backed `conspiracy'[/url]

[quote]In his comments reported by state media, Khamenei said the Iranian people extinguished "a very dangerous deep conspiracy that cost so much money and effort." He praised the police, the Guard and the Basij for "entering the field and carrying out their task in a very difficult confrontation."

Khamenei, who has final say on all matters of state, described the protests as being orchestrated by "global arrogance," which he uses to refer to the U.S. He described America as seeing the price hikes as an "opportunity" to bring their "troops" to the field but the "move was destroyed by people."[/quote]
If Khamenei were merely claiming that the US economic sanctions had necessitated the price hikes, I'd be OK with that. If he further claimed that the riots were a foreseeable consequence of the price hikes, I might wonder why security forces hadn't been deployed before the price hikes took effect, and the price hikes announced in advance.

But here, he's actually claiming that the rioters themselves were agents or "troops brought to the field" by the US. This is patently nonsensical. There were hundreds of thousands of people out in the streets. At least 7,000 have been arrested. Not a US-er among them, it seems.

Khamenei obviously is scapegoating the US for his government's inept handling of the price hikes. It bodes ill for the thousands of arrestees. Nothing like shooting a brigade or two of [strike]civilians[/strike] captured US troops to deter any further [strike]riots by mad-as-hell citizens[/strike] deployments of US troops.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531561]I keep reverting to Manning's identity as Bradley Manning at the time of the alleged offenses. It was Bradley Manning who was tried, convicted, and sentenced at court martial for stealing the files.

I agree, though, I should have used feminine pronouns for references to Chelsea Manning after the legal name change in 2014.

I hope my thoughtcrime does not merit a lengthy prison sentence, or a long stay in a re-education facility.[/QUOTE]
No. It merits no sentence. I function in a hotbed of political correctness at work, especially related to things like gender pronouns. Even with understanding and good intentions it is hard for me to deal with personal pronouns like 'xe,' 'ze,' "xem/xyr/xyrs/xemself and per/pers/perself." I have adapted to 'they, them, theirs' as non gender specific forms which can be singular or plural, though this was a struggle. I come from a family of grammar Nazis, in which such deviant usage would elicit a chorus of corrections. :sirrobin:

[QUOTE=kladner;531608]<snip>
I have adapted to 'they, them, theirs' as non gender specific forms which can be singular or plural, though this was a struggle. I come from a family of grammar Nazis, in which such deviant usage would elicit a chorus of corrections. :sirrobin:[/QUOTE]
The editorial in the June 1989 (I had to look up the date) [b]ANALOG[/b] by Stanley Schmidt was entitled [i]Tools of the Trade[/i], and addressed this issue. Dr. Schmidt pointed out that the male personal pronouns had been used as indefinite or "gender-neutral" pronouns for centuries. Your family's grammar nazis may have endorsed this position. I do. That probably makes me an uncivilized knuckle-dragger, huh?

I'm not sure what the PC crowd has to say about what personal pronoun to use as an indefinite or generic pronoun to describe, say, a future holder of a political office.

I note that "gender neutral" language has crept into legalese. Once upon a time, the person named to execute a deceased person's will was called executor (male) or executrix (female) of the estate. Now, it's "personal representative." What personal pronouns to use in referring to a "personal representative?" I don't know. With the old terms, you did know.

[QUOTE=kladner;531608]I have adapted to 'they, them, theirs' as non gender specific forms which can be singular or plural, though this was a struggle. I come from a family of grammar Nazis, in which such deviant usage would elicit a chorus of corrections. :sirrobin:[/QUOTE]They, etc. has been used for singular indeterminate for centuries. Have your family look into it. I have a family member who didn't like my use of it. I think they have come to understand that it is an appropriate use.

[QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531611]Once upon a time, the [B]person[/B] named to execute a[/QUOTE]

"Perchild", surely.

[QUOTE=xilman;531631][QUOTE=Dr Sardonicus;531611]Once upon a time, the person named to execute a[/QUOTE]"Perchild", surely.[/QUOTE]
Newspeak certainly has progressed. Doubleplus good duckspeak!

This sort of thing is taking "gender neutrality" to the point of insanity -- to wit, hunting down and killing [i]syllables[/i] that happen to coincide with gender-specific words, regardless of the etymology and meaning of the word under attack. Reminds me of [url=https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-19-me-20119-story.html]this story[/url] from almost 23 years ago.

Oh, the humanity! Oh, wait. That word is also abolished in Newspeak.

Perhaps we need to get the PC language police and the purveyors of [url=https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Conservative_correctness]Conservative correctness[/url] together and let them all kill each other.

[QUOTE]This sort of thing is taking "gender neutrality" to the point of insanity -- to wit, hunting down and killing [I]syllables[/I] that happen to coincide with gender-specific words, regardless of the etymology and meaning of the word under attack. Reminds me of [URL="https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1997-01-19-me-20119-story.html"]this story[/URL] from almost 23 years ago.[/QUOTE]
Jeez Loueez! My birthplace has some demented folks in it. My family was in Kingsville because my dad was doing oil exploration work on the Ranch for Humble Oil. By the time I was born he had been transferred to boats operating out of Galveston, and was commuting on a 14 day schedule.

In thinking about how to deal with an unsavory character accomplishing great things, prompted by some recent discussion on this Forum, I recalled a movie I had watched with my mom on TV while I was taking care of her. She had told me it was going to be on, and I would probably enjoy it. I did.

So, the other day, I went about looking it up on line. It proved difficult because, although I remembered the story line, I couldn't remember the movie's title or the names of any of the characters. But I finally succeeded. And learned it was an adaptation of a short story by James Thurber, who was one of my mom's favorite authors. I'm sure she recognized the movie title, which was of course the same as the story title. The story was [url=http://wamogoheromonster.pbworks.com/w/file/fetch/57891113/GreatestManText.pdf]The Greatest Man in the World[/url], and was first published in the February 21, 1931 issue of [b][i]The New Yorker[/i][/b].

Enjoy!

As The OPCW Is Accused Of False Reporting U.S. Propaganda Jumps To Its Help
 

-by Moon of Alabama
[URL]http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/52650.htm[/URL]
[QUOTE]An international organization published two false reports and got caught in the act. But as the false reports are in the U.S. interests a U.S. sponsored propaganda organization is send out to muddle the issue. As that effort comes under fire the New York Times jumps in to give the cover-up effort some extra help.

The Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) manufactured a pretext for war by suppressing its own scientists' research:

OPCW emails and documents were leaked and whistleblowers came forward to speak with journalists and international lawyers. Veteran journalist Jonathan Steele, who has spoken with the whistleblowers, wrote an excellent piece on the issues. In the Mail on Sunday columnist Peter Hitchens picked up the issue and moved it forward.

Under U.S. pressure the OPCW management modified or suppressed the findings of its own scientists to make it look as if the Syrian government had been responsible for the alleged chemical incident in April 2018 in Douma.

The public attention to the OPCW's fakery lead to the questioning of other assertions the OPCW had previously made. With the OPCW under fire someone had come to its help.

To save the propaganda value of the OPCW reports the U.S. financed Bellingcat propaganda organization jumped in to save the OPCW's bacon. Bellingcat founder "suck my balls" Elliot Higgins claimed that the OPCW reports satisfied the concerns the OPCW scientist had voiced.

That assertion is now further propagated by a New York Times piece which, under the pretense of reporting about open source analysis, boosts Bellingcat and its defense of the OPCW:[INDENT] The blogger Eliot Higgins made waves early in the decade by covering the war in Syria from a laptop in his apartment in Leicester, England, while caring for his infant daughter. In 2014, he founded Bellingcat, an open-source news outlet that has grown to include roughly a dozen staff members, with an office in The Hague. Mr. Higgins attributed his skill not to any special knowledge of international conflicts or digital data, but to the hours he had spent playing video games, which, he said, gave him the idea that any mystery can be cracked.
...
Bellingcat journalists have spread the word about their techniques in seminars attended by journalists and law-enforcement officials. Along with grants from groups like the Open Society Foundations, founded by George Soros, the seminars are a significant source of revenue for Bellingcat, a nonprofit organization.
[/INDENT][/QUOTE]

Hmm. I notice in the graphic, that the name "Bellngcat" is a mipsplepping.

I also note that the National Endowment for Democracy is among the organizations China recently said it would sanction, in response to the Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act being signed into law.