User talk:JzG/Archive 172

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ANI report

Here, Guy. Just FYI; I imagine it will be closed soonish. ——SerialNumber54129 12:49, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

Serial Number 54129, thanks. This is becoming distinctly tedious. Guy (help!) 15:38, 27 October 2019 (UTC)

A beer for you!

For the giggles you gave me via your "fantasies of a thug". Keep them coming. DBigXrayᗙ 09:13, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

Acknowledged

OK, that was quite expected outcome of it. --J. Sketter (talk) 15:37, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

J. Sketter, Yes, I guess so. I hope you find some other area where there will be less drama. Guy (help!) 15:49, 28 October 2019 (UTC)

BLP violations about Trump

• side note Since there's a topic I've been concerned about mentioned here, I thought I'd make a note. I'd imagine my political leanings are more toward those of MONGO's than most, but that's not really relevant to my concern. I'm seeing a LOT of posts which violate our WP:BLP policies sliding by simply because the name "Trump" is mentioned. Him, his son, wife, doesn't matter - it seems folks here tend to turn a blind eye to any BLP violation when it concerns that name. I'm not saying I'm a huge fan, but it does speak to the hypocrisy that's running rampant through wiki. IJS. — Ched (talk) 14:48, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

and I'm not implying anything untoward about anyone here. — Ched (talk) 14:49, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

• Ched, it is fair to challenge that. "Trump is a racist" would be a BLP violation. "Racists think Trump is one of them" is not. "Trump pursues racist policies" is also not a BLP violation. It's fair to require that people play the ball, not the man. Guy (help!) 14:52, 30 October 2019 (UTC)
• Ched, so fix it. Why gripe here? Are there some type of borderline BLP violations that have slid by and are just sitting there in articles? Fix them. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:58, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

JzG - Interesting stance to take. I didn't say a single word about race. — Ched (talk) 15:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

BullRangifer, less than 10 minutes - ok. Let me put it this way, I don't care to be the lone lance holder on windmill hill - do you remember user:Webhamster? — Ched (talk) 15:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC) ... and how AGF to attribute my "note" as gripping. sorry to have troubled you all. — Ched (talk) 15:05, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Ched, I didn't say you did (and that very definitely was not about you, I apologise if it seemed to be so). It was just an example.

It's worth everyone (especially me) remembering the basic rules of defamation: always be clear on the distinction between a statement of fact and a statement of opinion, and always ensure that any stated opinion is one which a reasonable person could reach from the available facts. Thus: I believe that Donald Trump is corrupt, based on the evidence of the Ukraine call, his diversion of Federal funds to his own businesses, the fact that he is barred from operating a charity in New York due to self-dealing, his history of stiffing suppliers and the fraudulent Trump University, the evidence of likely financial fraud, with different statements of valuation to investors and the IRS, and so on. I believe, based on his actions around Ukraine, his attempts to obscure the origins of Russian interference in the 2016 election, and his actions in Syria, that Russia has kompromat on him and is applying leverage to deliver Russian foreign policy goals before the end of 2020 or any potential earlier impeachment. Those are opinions based on documented fact. As a statement of fact, Trump is uniquely untruthful among Presidents, and in having no significant experience of any role with accountability. I do not blame Trump for being who he is, I blame the Republican Party for allowing a man with no evidence of morals or public service ethic to run the White House as a fiefdom. Every time the Senate GOP, in particular, push back, he caves. He clearly does listen to them at some level. They could have prevented most of the shit show that's currently playing out, just by communicating the limits of normal politics and law. Guy (help!) 15:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

(edit conflict)I've removed endless BLP vios about Trump, warned/blocked for them, blocked newly created usernames that attack Trump (those are not unusual). I certainly don't make a distinction between them and any other BLP vios. Is it a problem that I respond so quickly here, like BullRangifer did? I watch JzG's page, and I go look at it when something looks interesting on my watchlist, such as your edit summary "BLP violations about Trump: re". As I assume BR did. My god, what am I apologizing for? Should BR apologize for his "less than 10 minutes", in your opinion, Ched? Bishonen | talk 15:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC).

Point taken (no apology needed, but ty). I agree about his dishonesty, although I question the unique part. I agree with much of what you say here in fact. I'd also likely agree on issues of ego (something that troubles me on many fronts, and as it pertains to many people - no one here though). In fact I can see MANY faults with Trump, and have no issue with them being documented as long as there's also a reasonable ref to go with it. My problem is when someone posts a picture of ... let's say a Hippopotamus, with a caption calling it "Trump in his natural habitat" on their user or user talk page - and nothing is done about it. These are the type of BLP violations that trouble me. It's not a battle worth fighting IMO though. I do recall the tremendous drama with "no more Bush" on the Webhamster page, and I just don't have it in me to engage with that type of battle - especially alone. Trump is a very ... polarizing individual, and I understand much of the ... debate surrounding the topic. I was just noting the topic and how it related to our policies on Wikipedia. I meant no offense toward anyone here in the least - it's just that the topic was being discussed in a reasonable tone, and I wanted to mention my thoughts. I appreciate your time, TY. Cheers — Ched (talk) 15:32, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Ched, The unique part is interesting and is part of the reason that the media (and Congress) find it hard to deal with Trump. It's clear from a legion of fact-checks that as far as Trump is concerned, what feels true, is true, but also he appears to perceive any acknowledgement of error as weakness. "Sharpiegate" is the perfect example. Anyone else would have said "oh yeah, I mis-spoke" or "I was looking at the wrong chart" or "I was thinking about this and didn't re-check for current data", but Trump could not do that - as far as I can make out he was trying to spin the narrative of being in the situation room monitoring things minute by minute, but in reality he was not there, and nobody would seriously expect him to be.

It's really bizarre, and it goes right back to day 1. Guy (help!) 15:44, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Bishonen, - just noting how quickly there is a response to anything related to Trump - nothing more. — Ched (talk) 15:33, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Ched, Trump is indeed "unique" when it comes to dishonesty. We often say that "all politicians lie." There is some truth to that, in the same sense that "all people lie," but Trump's fundamental disconnect from the concept of truth is unique in relation to the whole human race. Normal human beings have "truth" built into their DNA in some way, shape, or form. Trump seems to be alien to the concept, and multiple RS describe and analyze how he is even warring against the very idea of "truth." It's been described as an authoritarian tactic.

Professor Robert Prentice summarized the views of many fact-checkers:

Here's the problem: As fact checker Glenn Kessler noted in August, whereas Clinton lies as much as the average politician, President Donald Trump's lying is "off the charts". No prominent politician in memory bests Trump for spouting spectacular, egregious, easily disproved lies. The birther claim. The vote fraud claim. The attendance at the inauguration claim. And on and on and on. Every fact checker — Kessler, Factcheck.org, Snopes.com, PolitiFact — finds a level of mendacity unequaled by any politician ever scrutinized. For instance, 70 percent of his campaign statements checked by PolitiFact were mostly false, totally false, or "pants on fire" false.

As of October 9, 2019, The Washington Post's fact-checking team has documented that Trump has "made 13,435 false or misleading claims over 993 days". On October 18, 2019, the Washington Post Fact Checker newsletter summed up the situation:

A thousand days of Trump.
We often hear from readers wondering how President Trump’s penchant for falsehoods stacks up in comparison to previous presidents. But there is no comparison: Trump exists in a league of his own. Deception, misdirection, gaslighting, revisionism, absurd boasts, and in some cases, provable lies, are core to his politics.

BullRangifer (talk) 15:44, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

BullRangifer, his entire political career is founded on lies. His first foray into politics was birtherism, and his campaign was based on the mythos of a successful business tycoon. Guy (help!) 15:47, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

His second day in office started with a campaign to establish "alternative facts" as his baseline and an attempt to get everyone to disbelieve what their own eyes told them. Thank god that Chuck Todd pushed back so clearly. -- BullRangifer (talk) 15:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Trump's presidency began with a series of falsehoods originated by Trump himself. The day after his inauguration, he falsely accused the media of lying about the size of the inauguration crowd. Then he exaggerated the size, and White House press secretary Sean Spicer backed up his claims. When Spicer was accused of intentionally misstating the figures, Kellyanne Conway, in an interview with NBC's Chuck Todd, defended Spicer by stating that he merely presented "alternative facts". Todd responded by saying, "Alternative facts are not facts; they're falsehoods."

BullRangifer (talk) 15:58, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

• "The president is possibly the single most unreliable source for any claim of fact ever to grace the pages of WP." -- MPants 04:57, 2 October 2018 (UTC)

• Anyone who uncritically believes Trump is a fool, or, maybe they should believe him because he knows more than all the experts, and "No one has suffered as many fools as Trump has. But this is to be expected when a 'very stable genius' leads a 'stupid country'." -- BullRangifer

• "Trump's latest Hannity interview shows how Fox News's Russia coverage is disconnected from reality. They want you to believe Clinton colluded with Russia to defeat herself." -- Aaron Rupar [1]

• "At Wikipedia, one cannot support RS and Trump at the same time." -- BullRangifer 22:18, 23 October 2019 (UTC)

BullRangifer (talk) 16:02, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Sources

Digtial Identity

You deleted a source that I provided for it being not an "academic source". I have two questions in this context: a) What is your definition of an academic source? In the case at hand the book was written by three academics who have more than 500 scholarly citations on Google scholar. That is to my mind more than enough to be called "academic" (NB: I did not write peer-reviewed!) b) Following your rule, shouldn't we delete 98% of the sources mentioned in Wikipedia as they are "non academic"? It may be a matter of opinion whether a source is academic. But deleting a source entirely without providing any better source and thus preventing other Wikipedia users from forming their own opinion is on the verge of vandalism. Even a weak source is better than none. — Preceding unsigned comment added by UberWoman (talk • contribs) 01:46, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

It's an in-universe cryptocurrency source from an unknown "independent" press. What's more puzzling is why five of your six edits add this book. Guy (help!) 09:02, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Ping David Gerard as SME. here's the book, David. Guy (help!) 09:04, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

aaaahaha i had someone else on my talk page upset I wasn't letting them spam this mediocre, glib and cobbled together book. If it's peer-reviewed, I'd love the reviewers' reports. I'm sure the users are totally unconnected tho - David Gerard (talk) 13:51, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Fife house

Wanted you to know that I didn’t see your edit before mine there! Roxy, the dog. wooF 17:21, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Roxy the dog, yeah, I guessed. No harm no foul. Guy (help!) 17:22, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Meeting famous people

• Long ago I met Trump. I was sitting alone at a table in the Oak Bar of his Plaza Hotel with no drink. He sneered at me (who is this guy hogging my table and not ordering a drink). I sneered back. Trump ducked out into the next room where he was conspicuously dining with ten models. Jehochman ^Talk 03:37, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

  Next time get a date! I met Reagan, Bush 1 and Clinton. Reagan was surprisingly slight.--MONGO (talk) 05:51, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

  Interesting. When I met Clinton he was surprisingly big, especially his hair. Jehochman ^Talk 12:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I've been to a Buckingham Palace garden party. Does that count? Guy (help!) 08:48, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I once saw a full Chinese Ambassador floor a journalist. At the British Ambassadors Garden Party. -Roxy, the dog. wooF 08:54, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Was the Queen was there? My bucket list includes tea with the Queen. Jehochman ^Talk 12:17, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Jehochman, She was indeed. A Buck Housegarden party is exactly that: tea with the Queen - albeit at scale Guy (help!) 13:23, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

I wanna have tea AND crumpets with Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge...lots of crumpets. Surely, she'd give up all that pomp and circumstance for a life with a hairy, cave dwelling ugly 'merican!--MONGO (talk) 18:28, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

How does one get invited to these parties? Jehochman ^Talk 03:53, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Jehochman, I was shopping in Summertown, Oxford today and met Roger Vignoles. Just get out and find the famous! Guy (help!) 19:17, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

I met Jane Fonda at a party in Ann Arbor in about 1971. I was 19 and shy, and she was gorgeous but seemed very tired, so I left her alone. I met Shirley Temple at a party at the Soviet consulate in San Francisco in the mid 1980s. I remember drinking shots of vodka, but not whether she did. I also attended a party in the 80s with Grace Slick, who dominates the room. More recently, I met Nancy Pelosi in the Napa Valley, and she is quite gracious about engaging in a few political pleasantries with a nobody like me. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 19:32, 3 November 2019 (UTC)

Conduct

It worries me tremendously when you excoriate so many with the press of a publish button. You paint a broad brush with your venom. We go way back JzG...you were tremendous in your defense of me when I was dealing with those 9/11 truthers. I concur that Trump is, well, atypical...and he is certainly not my idea of ideal president, but the truth is many voted against Hillary and no one I know was in love with either candidate last election. You're better than this man...you can get the same point across with a lot less venom! I mean, I didn't really like Obama or Hillary but I actually supported after my review of the Hillary article to FA.--MONGO (talk) 15:53, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, Thank you for coming here. I acknowledged that I had engaged in hasty generalisation, and that this was lazy. I don't think we have yet reached mutual understanding on why I find Trump to be so terrifying, from my chair over here on the other side of the Atlantic. I don't know if you're interested in discussing that here or privately. And yes it is very disturbing that people who have, until now, had nothing but respect for each other, are now suspicious of each other's motives. We live in a sad world.

I personally think that 2016 was quite possibly the worst year for the world since the end of World War II. A small group of extremely well-funded extremists discovered a way to use a newly pervasive form of communication to turn entire populations on themselves. The beneficiaries of this were people like Vladimir Putin, a man who is quite prepared to murder his critics. What we need is strong and principled leaders. What we got is pretty much the exact opposite.

But I would very much like to understand the 40%. I know there are lots of factors in play, and yes, I have more than once fallen prey to excessively simplistic views of this complex issue. Guy (help!) 16:26, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

LOL...43-44 percent...maybe lower now...it fluctuates depending on how many NRA members are called by the pollsters? Nevertheless, its higher for the time frame than Obama was at the similar point in his Presidency...[2]. The sky is NOT falling JzG, nor do I agree with your assessments. For every argument I can put up that is based on sound reasoning and well referenced, I am confident that you can find an equally sound argument to contradict that. Trump definitely might appear like an out of control loose cannon, his fingers an arms reach away from those pesky red buttons, but I consider him no more a threat to world stability than Obama, and much less so than the latest Bush...who invaded Iraq under the flimsiest of reasoning...something Trump has never done. Nor has Trump given billions back to a country as unpredictable as Iran, as Obama did. Honestly, my take is everyone thought Hillary Clinton was going to win...all the polls said so and I think this upset victory bewildered so many that they all look for some explanation, and no, I don't think some Russian Twitter or Facebook trolls managed to sway the electorate. I truly think the US was tired of business as usual and deliberately voted against Clinton not because they liked Trump, but because they disliked her more...or distrusted her more. I believe here from ground zero, the explanation is very simple...Trump happened to win by the narrowest of margins in those states he needed to secure the electoral college votes needed to win. What the Democrats need to present should they want to win again are moderate, sensible candidates that will sway the middle a bit left again. I do not see any Kennedy's or even Bill Clintons in the latest batch of democratic hopefuls. Finally...you do realize that Trump is an attention whore, right? I mean, he craves it...and he relishes pissing people off. That may be as un-Presidential as any of his predecessors, but its just his style. His braggadocio and sometimes preposterous claims and boasts (best economy ever, the ISIL leader was crying and whimpering, etc.) can be called lies if those that loathe him want to call it that, but I see it as what it is, figurative speech.--MONGO (talk) 18:04, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

(talk page stalker) No, you’re right, he didn’t attempt to bring Iran back into the community of nations. Instead, he impulsively blew up an international agreement, pointlessly shattered a global consensus about Iran’s nuclear program, and drove Iran into the arms of China, which is now buying billions of dollars worth of Iranian oil. I fail to see how creating a new Chinese sphere of influence in Iran is an “improvement.” NorthBySouthBaranof (talk) 18:40, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Obama trusting the Iranians to uphold their end of the agreement was just as stupid as Neville Chamberlain trusting Hitler. [3][4].--MONGO (talk) 19:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, except that, according to all the international observers, they actually did. Nor was it just Obama. But yes, theocrats are inherently untrustworthy. There are no atheist suicide bombers. Guy (help!) 22:36, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, 40.6% today. [5]. Two out of every five Americans, pretty much steadily from the point at which he arrived in the White House, approve of him. The needle doesn't move when he announces massive deregulation, trillion dollar tax cuts for the rich, tries to take away healthcare from millions of Americans, tries to shake down a major ally, trades insults with an insane dictator with nuclear warheads, even when he seriously proposes hosting the G7 at his bedbug-infested failing resort.

I find it really hard to conclude anything other than that the majority of those supporters either don't know what he's doing (plausible: Fox isn't big on the reality of the Trump presidency) or simply don't care, and will vote for anyone who wears a red tie. I'd be fascinated to see what proportion of those people would choose, if offered a choice, Trump over, say, Graham or Paul or Romney or even a non-politician like Tillerson.

In respect of Hillary being expected to win, I think we know why that happened. The American people like to change parties in power, which was a headwind from the outset; Hillary came with a lot of baggage; she lacks the obvious empathy of a Joe Biden or the fire of a Bernie Sanders. Trump was a political unknown, he plays a successful businessman on TV, and he's a belligerent white male with a platform stuffed with bigotry, which plays well with a certain demographic. Hillary was, in short, pretty much the only candidate Trump could beat, and Trump blew enough dog whistles that he stood at least a chance of beating her.

And then there was Comey's ridiculously clumsy handling of the email inquiry PR, a sprinkling of misogyny, and the Russian influence campaign (itself benefiting from private data provided by Manafort and Facebook data sets stolen by Cambridge Analytica). We know that particular combination works because they test-ran it on Brexit. Guy (help!) 23:09, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

Well...what can I say. Hillary was the other choice and she lost. She was heavily favored to win and she lost. She lost to a guy that had never served in the Military, had demonstrable evidence that he was at best a womanizer and at worst a rapist, had highly questionable business dealings and was seen by many as a racist...and she still lost. Guess that 60 million voters as you so sneeringly insult must be insane or bigots or have other shared questionable traits that they share with Trump...or else of course it's all the sinister doings of Fox News?--MONGO (talk) 23:53, 29 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, you keep writing that Hillary "lost". Yes, she lost the election because of a technicality called the Electoral College, but she won the actual human votes by a large margin. The pollsters predicted she'd win that vote, and she did. The people of America wanted Hillary, not Trump, and Trump has had to live in an environment where he is a minority president who is not wanted. -- BullRangifer (talk) 04:04, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

A Technicality? I guess you're also a bad statistician too? Electors are not humans? Since when? Folks...welcome to the twilight zone!--MONGO (talk) 05:51, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, Electors are supposed to be human. The system now demands they behave like robots. Guy (help!) 09:12, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, my point still stands. She won the actual voting by the populace. Americans wanted Hillary and didn't want Trump. That fact irks Trump so much that he pushes the false conspiracy theories that millions of people voted illegally for Hillary, and that the Russians didn't interfere in the election to help him win. Both are BS. -- BullRangifer (talk) 14:55, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, You know what the electoral college was designed to do, yes? I mean, yes, it was designed to protect slavery, but if you read the Federalist papers and the writings of the founders one of tis purposes was to stop a popular demagogue from being President. The idea of all the electors in a state voting for the candidate that won a majority in the state, winner take all, did not evolve until later.

Trump is pretty much what the EC was designed to prevent.

And the EC went to Trump because of social media campaigns targeted with surgical precision and run by both Russia and the Trump campaign using stolen data. Guy (help!) 09:03, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

Interesting! I honestly thought you'd only put the words surgical and Trump together in the same sentence if you would be discussing him getting a lobotomy! Frankly, me thinks if the shoe was on the other foot, and Obama as an example had lost the popular vote yet gained the electoral vote as Trump did...the conservatives would all be screeching about how awful the EC is...how biased...they are robots, etc. I did see a Russian ad somewhere that said "Free Stoli...vote Trump"...it was most persuasive.--MONGO (talk) 18:15, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, difficult though it may be to believe, I bear no malice towards Trump. He is a product of his environment, he should never have been allowed to be on the Republican ticket, he should have been kept out of the White House by the EC (because that'as their job), once installed the GOP should have exerted influence to hold back his worst instincts.

Anyone looking at Trump's history will know that he's vain, greedy, a bully, a crook, and lacks morals. If your party installs that kind of man in office, it bears full responsibility for what happens. Trump should not be in the White House. Given that he is in the White House, the Congressional GOP, especially the Senate, should be sending strong messages about holding him to account. Instead they are enabling him, and that seems to be motivated in no small part by a happiness to see the institutions of government burned to the ground. The old story: they knew he was a snake.

Back to relevance here, propaganda is an important part of why he's still got 40% support. At least I hope so. I hate to believe that America could support a man like that even when they know the reality of what he's doing. Guy (help!) 18:27, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

My party? I have a party!!!! Cool!!!--MONGO (talk) 22:19, 30 October 2019 (UTC)

MONGO, Should have put (TINY) after that. I have no idea what party you are. Guy (help!) 22:21, 30 October 2019 (UTC)