unicorn

Even if we were to give them the benefit of the doubt, if it were true that the 90-second blackout resulted in 45 days of trauma (and how do these people know they won't be better in a shorter period of time?), then they're simply in the wrong job. What's almost certainly going on, however, is that the union got the 45-day clause into their contract of Memorandum of Understanding, and these people took unfair advantage of that loophole. I wouldn't believe for a fraction of a second that these five people all suddenly woke up the next morning thinking "I'm really shaken up, and will need exactly 45 days to recover!". But, then again, if it really were the case that this equipment failure caused such prolonged mental trauma, then these people really should not be doing this job. Would we want to have fire fighters who took 45 days off because a fire hydrant wasn't working?

Apparently his plan was to keep the plane after he left office.

I can't imagine that this gift is legal.

No one is suggesting it's not stressful. However, the event didn't merit abandoning one's co-workers and the public for over 6 weeks. Hopefully, they're at least keeping tabs on these 5 shady people, to make sure they're not living it up on a nice paid vacation. During 2020, most of my colleagues and I felt we were in grave (even mortal) danger at our jobs (and I would have felt even more frightened had I known at that time that the N95 masks I wore for protection were essentially useless). I didn't hear of a single person where I worked who took off due to "stress." It was our job to help save the lives of others, and we knew the risks involved before we started our training. What would our society be like if people whose job it is to ensure public safety took off at the slightest hint of danger? How about fire fighters or police officers? I think most people can see these 5 employees' actions as an opportunity for some paid time off--with serious consequences. I just hope there are consequences. I wouldn't want to work with someone who high-tails it when the going gets rough. Like fire fighters or other first-responders, this is probably not the appropriate job for someone who can't handle pressure.

I heard on the news that 5 air traffic control employees took 45 days off of "trauma leave," blaming stress over equipment failures at that airport. That airport already suffers from understaffing, and this action will obviously necessitate more overtime and pressure from those who remain, as well as more danger to the public. I find this behavior reprehensible and irresponsible. Although I felt stress as a primary care physician (as well as real personal danger) during the COVID-19 pandemic, it never occurred to me to ditch my fellow health care professionals and take 45 days off due to stress. At the very least, I feel those employees should be required to get daily mental health evaluations to assess their levels of stress and determine their ability to return to work. It seems all highly unprofessional in my view. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/newark-air-traffic-control-lost-contact-pilots-least-twice-source-says-rcna205126 "...While the FAA has not said how many controllers are out on medical disability for stress, the controller who spoke with NBC News said the control tower is struggling to keep up with the flights because four experienced controllers and a trainee are now on leave. Replacing them will take time, an FAA spokesperson said, because any certified controller that applied or volunteered to move to the to the Philadelphia TRACON that guides planes into the Newark airspace would have to do additional training at the FAA's air traffic control training center in Oklahoma City. After which they would be required to do on-the-job training in Philadelphia. On average, it takes about a year and a half to be certified as an air traffic controller in any facility, the spokesperson said. The FAA moved the controllers who are responsible for aircraft arriving and departing from Newark from a facility on Long Island to Philadelphia last year. The move was meant to reduce the workload of the controllers in that facility who were also handling traffic for New York City’s major airports. United CEO Scott Kirby said Monday the Philadelphia TRACON “has been chronically understaffed for years.”...". https://nypost.com/2025/05/08/opinion/faa-workers-dont-need-phony-trauma-leave-after-newark-airport-disaster/ "The Newark Liberty International Airport mess just keeps getting more alarming: Now it turns out that an insane leave policy for air traffic controllers is adding to the chaos. Yes, controllers can take 45 days off to handle alleged “trauma” caused by … equipment failures. Yes, preventing plane crashes is a high-stress job, and it’s surely freaky when your radar cuts out — but that’s not trauma, and treating it as such is deeply irresponsible. One, it’s yet another major intrusion of therapy culture into everyday life, in which the slightest adverse event gets magnified into a life-altering disaster that requires endless healing time. Two, it’s literally putting other people’s lives in danger...".

At least some cities are easy to guess, such as Moeskroen for Mouscron (a town in French-speaking Belgium), and Parijs for Paris (France).

The Flemish/Dutch name for the French city of Lille is Rijsel. The Belgian city of Mons is called Bergen, and the city of Tournai is called Doornik. In Flanders, they'll at least put the French names in parentheses, but not the names of the Belgian cities in French-speaking areas. The only place one will find city names in both languages in Belgium is in Brussels proper:

Well, at least pronouncing aunt like the insect is acceptable in any dictionary, although certainly not preferred in some places. When I'm abroad (in non-English speaking countries), especially with friends/family, I specifically ask to be corrected if I mispronounce. Without learning, one will never get it right. I read that in Japan, it's considered very rude to correct someone. In the end, I suppose this leads to no one learning how to pronounce words properly.

I guess that one has to define "support for Israel." I support it as a state (as I support the state of Palestine). That doesn't mean I approve of Netanyahu's actions, or even him as a person. I believe that he, as well as Trump, are sociopaths who should spend the rest of their lives in prison. I'd also love to see Hamas obliterated. I've even seen Palestinians demonstrate against Hamas, and Israelis demonstrate against Bibi. But I'm fine with the Israeli people and Palestinian people. I've even been sending a generous amount to an organization which helps the Palestinian people, while also being audited to make sure that help doesn't make its way to Hamas: https://www.anera.org/ Anera’s policy is to supply assistance to only legitimate and capable institutions and to comply with U.S. laws. We filter individuals and agencies against computerized lists maintained the U.S. Treasury Department on its Office of Foreign Assets Control list. Because Hamas, for instance, is designated as a “terrorist group” by the U.S. State Department, Anera does not work or even coordinate with them. Anera’s local staff evaluates our partners and assesses accountability, management, technical capacity, and community outreach. Through this process we determine if the institution is capable and eligible to work with Anera. When a project is completed, we generate detailed financial and program evaluation reports. We use robust monitoring and evaluation systems. In this manner, Anera continually evaluates projects from a fiscal and impact standpoint. Anera is audited annually by independent auditors and we follow Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, which are standard financial guidelines for most non-governmental organizations. This measures many of the benefits and the success of each program. Read our accountability statement.

Yes, they're a Hollywood Hills gay institution!

I doubt someone plunked down that kind of money (which was a tidy sum in 1968) without knowing what he was buying and for what reason. According to Wikipedia, the bridge is Arizona's 2nd biggest tourist attraction after the Grand Canyon. I'd have to assume, a distant second.

When learning foreign languages, I often find that not enough emphasis is given to pronunciation, which is critical to understanding. During my last trip to Japan, I was on a guided tour of the Kochi area. I tried to ask our guide three times (using different words) in English for how long there'd been a bridge to Honshu. Although I'm sure her knowledge of English grammar and vocabulary was at least 100 times better than my knowledge of Japanese grammar and vocabulary, I finally just ended up asking her in Japanese and got the answer right away. I suspect that if I'd written down the question in English, she could have given me the answer. I enjoy learning foreign languages with the Pimsleur method, which puts 80% attention to pronunciation, 15% to grammar, and 5% to vocabulary (maybe I exaggerate a bit here). So even if I can't say much, when I do say something, people understand what I'm saying. Another time, I was visiting Ghent, Belgium, and learned some Dutch before the trip. I was trying to find the right tram to take me to the train station, so I asked a woman who was waiting for the tram "Pardon mevrouw, is dit wel de juiste tram voor het treinstation?". She said it was, then asked "Kommt U uit Nederland?" (Are you Dutch?), which I took as a sincere compliment! 😄

He's always been a career con-artist, but his dementia has him completely whacko at this point. Way off the deep end. But he just spouts off what people want to hear, and it's amazing that so many people actually believe him. People are learning the hard way. I don't know if anyone can get him out of the White House before his term is up (or he dies), but this man has clearly lost whatever sense he had.

There are quite a few languages which I know poorly, but I still like to think my pronunciation is good. It takes time to learn vocabulary and grammar, but for me proper pronunciation is simply a matter of making the effort. I often get compliments specifically about my pronunciation even in countries whose language I can only say a few survival sentences.

Well, according to Wikipedia, I'm not that far off, since 4/5 of the state's population lives there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Australia#Demographics "Western Australia's capital and largest city, Perth. Its metropolitan area is home to more than 80% of the state's population." "...Perth's metropolitan area (including Mandurah) had an estimated population of 2,043,138[7] in June 2017 (79% of the state). Other significant population centres include Bunbury (73,989),[45] Geraldton (37,961),[45] Kalgoorlie-Boulder (30,420),[45] Albany (33,998),[45] Karratha (16,446),[45] Broome (14,501)[45] and Port Hedland (14,285)...". Would I be guessing correctly that the frequently-mispronounced city is Mandurah? If I hadn't looked it up, I wouldn't have guessed that the "d" is pronounced like the letter "j" in this instance: MAN-jər-ə. Just looking at it, I might have tried Man-DUR-uh. Irish and Welsh names are often super-tough. I don't think anyone would guess that Dún Laoghaire is pronounced dun LEER-ee. Even without looking it up, though, I would hope that knowing Los Angeles used to be under Spanish and then Mexican rule would be a hint as to how to pronounce the city. Similarly, knowing that New Orleans was named when it was administered by the Kingdom of France (as La Nouvelle-Orléans) should also be a hint. No need to guess, though. Just as any talk show host should learn how to pronounce his guests' names, performers should learn how to pronounce the name of the city they're performing for.

I learned something new. I didn't know there were any cities other than Perth in Western Australia. 😄But, seriously, it's one thing to mispronounce a small town name from 2000 km away. It's quite another to be performing in person for a crowd of 20,000 in a city of over 3 million, and getting the name wrong. A performer should know her crowd.

My hubbie, along with some friends and myself, attended a Kylie Minogue concert in downtown Los Angeles last night. Opening for her prior to Kylie's performance was British singer Rita Ora. Rita began with greeting "Good evening, Los Angeles," which she pronounced "Los AngeLEEZE." I must admit that it pissed me off a bit. How would she like it if someone came to perform in Gloucester, England and said "Good evening, Glau-sister"? And it's not as if Los Angeles is a smaller town, either. I wouldn't go to Australia and ask to buy a plane ticket to "Brize-BANE." Nor would I go to Thailand and try to buy a ticket to "Fuck-it". Even when I take code-share British Airways flights into LA, the British crew manage to pronounce the name of the city correctly when we land, as they welcome us to the city. It also pisses me off when I hear people who should know better pronounce New Orleans as "New or-LEANS" instead of "New OR-lins." Personally, when I travel, I always try to learn how to correctly pronounce the cities I'm visiting, and I'm not speaking to the 20,000 people she was addressing at the Crypto Arena. I find such behavior disrespectful. Do you? For the record, Kylie pronounced the city correctly. And it's not as if LA or NO were formerly British cities, either, so there would be no reason to suspect they were supposed to be pronounced in a British manner.

It can, it won't, and yes we are--at least for the next 3 and a half years. Yes, the Constitution should be amended to eliminate the 2/3 requirement, but it has no chance of doing so. It would be nice to have a Constitutional Convention to get rid of both that requirement as well as to get rid of the electoral college. I can't see that happening, though. The only chance is if people are so incensed about the trashing of the US that they put in Democratic super-majorities. But that can't happen in 2026 in the Senate, since only 1/3 gets elected every 2 years. The earliest that might happen in 2028. And that's a long-shot.

I'm not mincing words. You mischaracterized what I said regarding the law in her case. We certainly agree that Trump is making an ass of himself. Unlike you, I could see Trump's election coming and, for the first time in my life, I really did try to time the market and moved about half of my money out of the stock market, because I could tell he'd wield be a wrecking ball to the economy. I suspect that at least the House and maybe the Senate will turn Democratic next year, which could put the brakes on things, although it's almost impossible to convict a US President, since it requires 2/3 of the Senate. If he survives to the end of his term, I believe Trump will finally end up in the slammer as he deserves.

As you understand quite well, I didn't say the law is irrelevant period. What I said, and what you understand quite well, is that it's "irrelevant as to whether or not what she did was stupid, and playing into Trump's hands." And I didn't say she IS stupid. I said what she did was stupid. Perhaps foolish would have been a better word. We won't know whether she'll spend time in a federal penitentiary. However, it's rather nuts to say her actions that day were wise.