That was one of the things that boggled me the most. I understood why they e.g. wouldn’t call out Israel, dumb and evil as it was, but to keep hammering on how “great” the economy was, over and over, despite all evidence that indicated people were struggling? It blows my mind. I can’t imagine a better way to get people to vote against you.

Just a thoughtless prescriptivist, repeating what I’d understood from previous such discussions, without having done my own due diligence. 🤷 I stand corrected.

It’s not the use of the word “female” itself, but the use of the word as a noun to describe a woman, because it is taken to imply that the woman is a mere object. As the other person who replied to you said: context matters.

I use the word “female” (and “male”) every single day when documenting on my patients, e.g. my notes commonly begin with “Patient is xx years old, female, […].” This is normal and no one would take issue with it, because it is using “female” as an adjective and in a context where the information is important.

It’s worth noting that the words ‘male’ and ‘female’ are adjectives, not nouns, so if you want to be technical then it’s erroneous to use them thusly. That is, it is correct to say “I am male”, but to say “I am a male” is grammatically erroneous.

In common speech, people don’t tend to describe other human beings with these two adjectives, i.e. most people would say “she is a woman” rather than “she is female” (note, not “she is a female” because ‘female’ is not a noun). However, we do commonly describe animals using these adjectives, and colloquially the noun is commonly dropped. E.g., “it’s a female” is seen as a perfectly normal way to describe a horse when it’s understood that the other party knows that you mean “it’s a female horse”. This is why it is considered offensive to refer to a woman as “a female”: it implies that she is an object, less than human and more suitably treated as livestock.

He *allegedly" did those things. Part of the problem here, and with the death penalty generally, is the apparently general presumption of his guilt. He has not been to trial yet. Under US law, he is to have the presumption of innocence until proven guilty (as it is entirely possible, however unlikely it may be, that they have the wrong guy or that the charges do not reflect what actually happened), and so it is unreasonable by any measure for the federal AG to be stating that they’re pushing for the death penalty before he has even been federally charged.

Further, he didn’t plead “innocent”, as thats … not a thing? He pled “not guilty”, to the charges, which doesn’t intrinsically mean that he’s denying what actions were accused, but only that he believes the legal charges are not commensurate/congruent with whatever actions he did take (which, again, may or may not even include what he was accused of, cause it could be the wrong guy or an innacurate charge, hence why we have trials in the first place). E.g., someone who killed in self defense but was charged with murder would obviously plead not guilty even if they did in fact kill the person, because killing in self defense is not murder by any legal definition of either. Moreover, “openly denying any wrongdoing” would be entirely appropriate to do if he is in fact the wrong guy and he didn’t actually do anything.

The reporters can always seem to sane-wash Trump and his ilk, and always give them the benefit of the doubt, but not Mangione. Musk gave a salute that was “awkward” and “looked similar to” a Nazi salute, but Mangione is just presumed guilty. Trump is a “successful businessman” despite bankrupting numerous companies, but Mangione is assumed to be a guilty evil murderer before he’s even indicted!

Tbh, I’m not convinced either of them are compromised by Russia in that sense (though wouldn’t be surprised, to be clear. We pretty much know Trump has assaulted and raped underage girls; I wouldn’t be surprised if Musk has also). I think they’re both just scared little boys who are trying to impress who they see as a big, strong man, in order to get the kind of fatherly approval that they never received from their actual fathers. They’re both childishly impulsive and both try comedically hard to be seen as strong and capable, and then get emotional when they see that image being challenged.

Where’s DOGE on this waste and abuse?

He’s a billionaire.

Allegedly. His inability to pay some of the judgments against him calls that into question, e.g. the E. Jean Carrol suit. If nothing else, he definitely has a billionaire mindset.

Hopefully they survive this administration.

No moving on here. I still wear a OG Pebble daily, and I’m super excited about this. I just wish they hadn’t chosen ‘Core 2 Duo’ like it hadn’t been the name of another product…

Some such people are really good at pretending to have empathy. I used to be with a narcissist who was a nurse. She could put on a good face, but in actuality she just got off on the sense of power over people who needed her help. In areas where being an awful person didn’t threaten her job security, she had zero qualms about hurting or taking advantage of others, and she did so without hesitation when she felt it would benefit her.

They believe the propaganda that others hate them or are trying to destroy their way of life, and that dollar-store Hitler is their champion fighting for them.

A lot of protestants are into the trinity thing too.

Is this that government waste that DOGE was supposed to be cutting? Because funding new studies for thoroughly debunked nonsense is absolutely wasteful.

Hard to get the proper shots if the FDA doesn’t even know what the proper shots should be… Flu mutates rapidly, that’s why we get updated flu vaccines every year.

That happens from time to time; it’s incredibly hard to predict which strains will be prevalent months down the line, and flu mutates so rapidly that what’s circulating now might be a rather different strain from what will be circulating by the time the vaccine is rolling out. It’s frequently a shot in the dark, but shooting in the dark is always going to get more hits than not shooting at all.

It has everything to do with “mentally handicapped” people. The word “retarded”, used as an insult, derived from the term “mental retardation”, which was previously the actual clinical and legal term for a person with what we now refer to as “intellectual disability”. The use of “retarded” as a slur/insult is the whole reason why the clinical term was changed. It had come to be seen as derogatory and ableist even when used in a clinical context.

Source: the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. The term “mental retardation” was used through the fourth edition, which was last revised in the year 2000. It lasted until the 5th edition, which wasn’t published until 2013. Various organizations/agencies changed their terminology prior.

Fwiw, I’m a licensed clinician and I have diagnosed people with intellectual disabilities. I understand your perspective on the word, and I even shared a similar opinion until I learned how it has been used as a slur toward people who do have intellectual disabilities and developmental delays. Because of learning that, I now don’t use it as an insult. We do better when we know better.

It’s because we have chins. They think we’re weird.