Political Banter and Debate Thread

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

Shitehouse, more like.

Kern · **Posted:** Mon Jan 20, 2025 19:56

.com was better.

Apparently.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

The shot of the eagle took it from cringey to hilarious, but then there was a clip of him signing his name with what appeared to be a felt tip pen, with the sort of pen grip and motion of a reception age kid who is having extra class support and doing tracing and colouring exercises because they can’t hold a pen properly yet.

Warhead · Noob as of 6/8/10

Mimi wrote:

The shot of the eagle took it from cringey to hilarious, but then there was a clip of him signing his name with what appeared to be a felt tip pen, with the sort of pen grip and motion of a reception age kid who is having extra class support and doing tracing and colouring exercises because they can’t hold a pen properly yet.

I noticed the non-functioning wrist as well.

And then there's the Comic Con Female Evil Mastermind, the power behind the presidency, with her flunky bodyguard.

Attachment:

MelHat.jpg

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Omg. Is that Melania Trump? Is she wearing a ZOOT SUIT?!

Dr Zoidberg · **Joined:** 15th Oct, 2010 **Posts:** 5630

The extra large brim stops Trump kissing her.

Also musk did a nazi salute. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 83095.html

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Oof. I always think that those pictures taken at opportune moments mid-gesture are quite unfair, but yeah, that was quite… something. And then twice. That makes for very uncomfortable watching.

Dr Zoidberg · **Joined:** 15th Oct, 2010 **Posts:** 5630

Mimi wrote:

Oof. I always think that those pictures taken at opportune moments mid-gesture are quite unfair, but yeah, that was quite… something. And then twice. That makes for very uncomfortable watching.

Oh yeah, it’s not a still chosen from an innocent video because it looks bad.

It’s exactly what it appears to be.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 0:40

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 0:40

("You" being the royal "you", of course).

Warhead · Noob as of 6/8/10

Jesus, she's like the ghost at the thingy or the bad smell you can't get rid of.

Attachment:

Mel in the back seat.jpg

DavPaz · **Joined:** 27th Jun, 2008 **Posts:** 38920

They all look like they really don't want to be there. Including Trump

Dr Zoidberg · **Joined:** 15th Oct, 2010 **Posts:** 5630

Grim... wrote:

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

What was it if not a nazi salute? He’s doing it because he knows the reaction that it'll get and that there’s no consequences.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

It's a gesture he accidentally made because he's socially awkward. I mean, maybe I don't know. I'd be more interested in giving the fucking piece of shit the benefit of the doubt if he didn't seem to believe all sorts of dodgy shit and promote far right political parties across the world.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Grim... wrote:

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

I usually think those things are awkward moments caught in a still shot, but I’ve been thinking about this and don’t know what else it might be. Like… what gesture looks like that? And to do it twice? I don’t know. If I could figure what he was trying to do then maybe it wouldn’t appear so awful.

People all over social media keep saying it’s because he is socially awkward or has Asperger’s and/or autism. We all know a lot of people that fall into one of those groups, including people on this forum, but I’ve never seen anyone else do something that might accidentally be a Nazi salute.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

markg wrote:

I'd be more interested in giving the fucking piece of shit the benefit of the doubt if he didn't seem to believe all sorts of dodgy shit and promote far right political parties across the world.

Yeah, that’s the crux of it. If it was Mary Berry that did it people would wonder what on earth that was meant to be, but coming from someone who has aligned themselves with the far right to the degree Musk has, it’s not so far out of character.

MaliA · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 10:21

Mimi wrote:

.

People all over social media keep saying it’s because he is socially awkward or has Asperger’s and/or autism.

They are just lickspittle apologists.

Kern · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:07

I think I only want to hear about that pathetic attention seeking ketamine fuelled twat if/when he boards one of his rockets to Mars.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

And it goes like that one the other day.

Zardoz · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 11:23

Needs more eagles.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 12:28

Mimi wrote:

Grim... wrote:

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

I usually think those things are awkward moments caught in a still shot, but I’ve been thinking about this and don’t know what else it might be. Like… what gesture looks like that? And to do it twice? I don’t know. If I could figure what he was trying to do then maybe it wouldn’t appear so awful.

Attachment:

ohnoes.jpeg

Malc · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 12:39

If you were feeling generous to him, you could say that he was showing his heart going out to them like he said a few seconds later.

I tend to think he would have planned it "I'll do something that looks like a nazi salute, but say it's me sending my heart out and they will be talking about it for days!"

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Grim... wrote:

Mimi wrote:

Grim... wrote:

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

I usually think those things are awkward moments caught in a still shot

Attachment:

ohnoes.jpeg

This is just proving the exact thing I said.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Malc wrote:

If you were feeling generous to him, you could say that he was showing his heart going out to them like he said a few seconds later.

This is fair.

Quote:

I tend to think he would have planned it "I'll do something that looks like a nazi salute, but say it's me sending my heart out and they will be talking about it for days!"

As is this.

The far right were the first to remark on it as a celebration of his alignment with their groups. They were all over it. I’m not personally beyond believing it to be a planned gesture with a degree of plausible deniability added in.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 16:56

Mimi wrote:

Grim... wrote:

Mimi wrote:

Grim... wrote:

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

I usually think those things are awkward moments caught in a still shot

Attachment:

ohnoes.jpeg

This is just proving the exact thing I said.

You think Obama is doing a Nazi salute?

[edit] Ugh, that quoting is horrible

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

I'm starting to wonder, have you even seen the video of Musk?

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 18:15

I saw it live, and since.
It thought it was fairly obvious it was a "my heart to yours" gesture (albeit a cringe thing to say and do, he was clearly very... In the moment). Nazi salutes don't involve punching yourself in the chest first, as far as I'm aware (although I've since learned that Roman salutes do).

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Grim... wrote:

Mimi wrote:

Grim... wrote:

Mimi wrote:

Grim... wrote:

No it's not. There's all sorts of things you can call Musk out for, you don't need to make stuff up.

I usually think those things are awkward moments caught in a still shot

Attachment:

ohnoes.jpeg

This is just proving the exact thing I said.

You think Obama is doing a Nazi salute?

[edit] Ugh, that quoting is horrible

I think that usually (as with the Obama picture) it’s an awkward moment caught in a still shot, but that seeing Musk do it on video, twice, makes it harder to explain as an awkward flash of a moment.

All of which I said in the beginning.

The thing is, I don’t necessarily think I’m ‘right’, and I’m not insisting that I am :shrug:

I think there are nuances in these things that we don’t necessarily know, so saying it was definitely purposeful or definitely not isn’t within what I said. I’m not trying to be the ‘most correct’ or win any argument, so claiming I said something I didn’t is a bit weird. I also think what Malc said is a possibility.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Grim... wrote:

I saw it live, and since.
It thought it was fairly obvious it was a "my heart to yours" gesture (albeit a cringe thing to say and do, he was clearly very... In the moment). Nazi salutes don't involve punching yourself in the chest first, as far as I'm aware (although I've since learned that Roman salutes do).

Maybe. Lots of far right leaning people claiming a ‘Roman salute’, but if it’s someone throwing their heart out at a crowd that’s a very weird hand position. Maybe he’s very bad at sport as well as socially awkward.

Blucey · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2360

I'd like to see a video of it to be sure Musk is doing a full on Paolo Di Canio nazi salute.

I'm more inclined to think it's just him doing some sort of super awkward wave because he's so weird. And that's not me making excuses for him. I'd be pretty happy if he died today.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 19:04

Mimi wrote:

Maybe he’s very bad at sport as well as socially awkward.

He's certainly bad at video games.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/ ... ng-in-dms/

Dr Zoidberg · **Joined:** 15th Oct, 2010 **Posts:** 5630

Blucey wrote:

I'd like to see a video of it to be sure Musk is doing a full on Paolo Di Canio nazi salute.

I'm more inclined to think it's just him doing some sort of super awkward wave because he's so weird. And that's not me making excuses for him. I'd be pretty happy if he died today.

The link I shared had the video. It’s not a gentle wave caught at the wrong time. It’s a very firm salute and grimace.

GazChap · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 19:14

Grim... wrote:

Nazi salutes don't involve punching yourself in the chest first, as far as I'm aware (although I've since learned that Roman salutes do).

I've seen clips of Hitler performing the salute after "punching" himself in the chest first, although can't find one now, typically. //edit: Here's one, although it's not a 'punch' in either Hitler or Musk's case, just placing the hand on the chest it seems.

"Roman" salutes are also known as Fascist salutes, and have no historical basis as being anything to do with the Romans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_salute wrote:

In some versions, the arm is raised upward at an angle; in others, it is held out parallel to the ground. In contemporary times, the former is commonly considered a symbol of fascism. According to an apocryphal legend, the fascist gesture was based on a customary greeting which was allegedly used in ancient Rome. However, no Roman text describes such a gesture, and the Roman works of art that display salutational gestures bear little resemblance to the modern so-called "Roman" salute.

Originating from Jacques-Louis David's painting The Oath of the Horatii (1784), the gesture quickly developed a historically inaccurate association with Roman republican and imperial culture.

...

Through d'Annunzio's influence, the gesture soon became part of the rising Italian Fascist movement's symbolic repertoire. In 1923, the salute was gradually adopted by the Italian Fascist regime. It was then adopted as the Nazi salute and made compulsory within the Nazi Party in 1926 and gained national prominence in the German state when the Nazis took power in 1933. It was also adopted by other fascist, far right, and ultranationalist movements.

Given that Musk was raised in a pro-apartheid family, has connections with the far-right and actual Nazis, and immediately went to great lengths to remove bans on known Nazi/neo-Nazi/other far-right accounts on Twitter when he bought it, I find it hard to look past this for what everyone else is claiming it is.

For an actual "my heart goes out to you" gesture, I would expect the palm to be facing upwards -- when you give things to people, you don't do it with your palms down.

I think he knew exactly what he was doing, and is deliberately courting controversy. The "why" is unclear, could be to bury other news relating to Trump and his inauguration, or just because he's a colossal dick and wanted yet more column inches dedicated to him.

Dr Zoidberg · **Joined:** 15th Oct, 2010 **Posts:** 5630

It’s pretty close to the Terran Empire salute from the Mirror Universe in Star Trek.

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Terran_salute

As the article notes, it was intended to be like a Nazi salute.

Satsuma · **Joined:** 20th Apr, 2008 **Posts:** 14493

Grim... wrote:

Mimi wrote:

Maybe he’s very bad at sport as well as socially awkward.

He's certainly bad at video games.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/ ... ng-in-dms/

Not as bad as his fat rolling character from Elden Ring.

Grim... · **Posted:** Tue Jan 21, 2025 23:56

Satsuma wrote:

Grim... wrote:

Mimi wrote:

Maybe he’s very bad at sport as well as socially awkward.

He's certainly bad at video games.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/paultassi/ ... ng-in-dms/

Not as bad as his fat rolling character from Elden Ring.

It is fun to watch the speed runners use it, though.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

GazChap wrote:

For an actual "my heart goes out to you" gesture, I would expect the palm to be facing upwards -- when you give things to people, you don't do it with your palms down.

I think it's the way he pauses for a moment after the second salute and adds "my heart goes out to you" to explain what he just did and I don't believe him. The first one is just so emphatic and his facial expression almost seems to say "fuck it". But nobody except Elon Musk can ever know either way for sure because he just lies all the time.

Blucey · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 2360

Yeah just watched the video. If that isn't a nazi salute then I don't know what it is because it's too weird to be anything else.

BikNorton · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 10276

I didn't watch it but YouTube put a video in my recommendations titled something like "nazi or autistic?"

I don't find myself putting significant effort into not heiling around the office, so I'm going to rule out the latter.

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

MaliA · **Posted:** Mon Jan 27, 2025 11:16

A mother whose son died in a crash while giving five friends a lift home from a pub is calling for a change in the law for inexperienced drivers.

Going to go out on a limb here and suggest it wasn't the number of passengers in the car that caused the fatal crash, but her son who was driving had had four or fivepints and cocaine in the pub....

TheVision · **Posted:** Mon Jan 27, 2025 11:37

Whilst that's tragic for the mother, I don't think I'd have the nerve to speak up on this.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

Quote:

"If they hadn't been allowed to get in the car then things would have been different."

Sadly, it wouldn’t. If they hadn’t been allowed to get in that car, they’d still have gotten in that car. Just like the driver wasn’t allowed to drive under the influence of a load of alcohol and drugs, but still did.

I don’t think the proposed change is necessarily bad, but I think it will be completely ineffective.

A terrible, terrible end to too many young lives

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

I don't know about this particular instance but I also don't think it would be completely ineffective. Young lads (let's face it it's almost invariably boys we're talking about here) with a car full of mates can be a recipe for driving like a total dickhead, trust me I was one.

GazChap · **Posted:** Mon Jan 27, 2025 12:38

The problem with a law like that is that, apart from being the kind of law that will most likely be ignored by people that will willingly drive while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, is that it will catch too many other law-abiding people.

The example that I often hear is of a newly qualified driver who happens to be a young mother (or father) and needs to be able to transport their children around with them, or the new young driver that cares for his elderly parents and needs to take them to hospital appointments and things like that.

If you limit the number of passengers that a new driver can carry, they will be caught up in that unless you add exceptions to the law and that's when it becomes difficult to manage and enforce (as if there's any police around that can enforce it anyway)

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

GazChap wrote:

The problem with a law like that is that, apart from being the kind of law that will most likely be ignored by people that will willingly drive while under the influence of drugs and alcohol, is that it will catch too many other law-abiding people.

That same logic could be applied to all sorts of laws that are in place, though. In reality it's always a balance with these sorts of things. From the article it seems like many countries have graduated licenses. I think to get the most benefit without inconveniencing too many people it could apply to newly qualified drivers under a certain age perhaps, because I don't think it is a lack of driving ability that is the biggest issue here. I believe that the problem mostly stems from the fact that young boys are, by and large, total fucking idiots. Young lad wipes out himself and a car full of his mates is not an uncommon story and probably most of them were law-abiding otherwise and wouldn't want to get pulled over and get points.

TheVision · **Posted:** Mon Jan 27, 2025 14:02

Of course, the mom could always devote her time to warning others of the dangers of drink/drug driving and working with the laws that currently exist.

Mimi · **Joined:** 27th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 26685

markg wrote:

I don't know about this particular instance but I also don't think it would be completely ineffective. Young lads (let's face it it's almost invariably boys we're talking about here) with a car full of mates can be a recipe for driving like a total dickhead, trust me I was one.

Yeah, but surely they are just going to ignore the law that says they can’t all get in the car together in the first place, and if so, what changes?

markg · **Joined:** 30th Mar, 2008 **Posts:** 16752

Mimi wrote:

markg wrote:

I don't know about this particular instance but I also don't think it would be completely ineffective. Young lads (let's face it it's almost invariably boys we're talking about here) with a car full of mates can be a recipe for driving like a total dickhead, trust me I was one.

Yeah, but surely they are just going to ignore the law that says they can’t all get in the car together in the first place, and if so, what changes?

No, I don't think that's true in a lot of cases. If they know they can get pulled and potentially lose their license for having all their friends in the car the minute they drive past a plod then loads of them wouldn't risk it.

GazChap · **Posted:** Mon Jan 27, 2025 14:54

markg wrote:

No, I don't think that's true in a lot of cases. If they know they can get pulled and potentially lose their license for having all their friends in the car the minute they drive past a plod then loads of them wouldn't risk it.

I'm sure this is the case for some, but IMO the kind of person that gets themselves wasted on drink and drugs is not the kind of person that would think like this.

If the driver even gave it any thought at all, I would be willing to bet that those thoughts were along the lines of "there's never any coppers on the roads these days, so they won't be around to pull me over".

And indeed, that's evidenced by this story -- clearly there wasn't anyone around able to pull him over before he got into the fatal accident. Obviously we don't know how the journey went up to that point, but I'd be amazed if he wasn't all over the shop for the whole journey, or at the very least driving erratically enough that it would have attracted police attention had there been any around.

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