Clown World

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by mountain_jim (here)
^ beat you but thanks for the post including source link, which I did not

So you did, how silly of me. Usually, I always click the First New Post button when entering a thread. I should have seen your post, yet somehow didn't. Apologies!

[Mari]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
Tesco afraid of 'causing offence' - except to its own customers.

https://x.com/TheBritishIntel/status...01754424238521
British Intel
@TheBritishIntel
🚨🇬🇧 TESCO SCRUBS ‘CHRISTMAS’ OFF THE BOXES

Shoppers are furious after spotting Tesco quietly rebranding Christmas Trees as “Evergreen Trees” – all to avoid “offending” someone.

But who exactly is offended by Christmas in Britain?

🔴 Christmas erased from packaging
🔴 Corporate cowardice dressed up as “inclusivity”
🔴 Another British tradition watered down to appease the perpetually outraged
🔴 Yet every other culture gets full respect, naming, and celebration

Britain is a Christian country with Christian traditions.

Christmas under Cromwell. At least he had the guts to ban it outright, no messing!
The ban remained in place for 13 years until 1600 when When King Charles II returned to power and one of his first acts was to repeal all the anti-Christmas legislation, helping foster his image as the “Merry Monarch”.

https://ials.sas.ac.uk/ials-blog/bro...-was-cancelled

[mountain_jim]

https://x.com/catturd2/status/1991247136248238484?s=20

Catturd ™
@catturd2
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47m
Two different shoes too 😂

Quote
I am Ken
@Ikennect
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20h
What are the chances he remembers his password?🤣

[rgray222]

Irish police come to arrest this mans son, a teacher for refusing to use a student's THEY/THEM pronouns.

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)

Posted by Mike (here)
Mark has copyrighted that one with his 'clown show' thread

Clown World, though I don't take credit for that at all. Who originally coined that phrase I've no idea, but it's perfectly apt!

Alex Christoforou.

https://www.youtube.com/@AlexChristoforou/videos

I realized I should have cited this:(!)

Clown World of the Year Awards - 2024

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2Wr1t4cod_I

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

I know from experience that personal initiative in the workplace gets you noticed, but not in the way you'd hope...

Ingenuity, gumption, creativity...no longer the recipe for success. Rules, regs and procedures rule the day. Using your own initiative, which might have earned a commendation in the past, can now in fact be frowned upon. Worst case, you'll be in for a trip to H.R. for an uncomfortable face-to-face.

Long story short:

Some years ago, when I was shift manager of the department at the airport where I work, we had an incident where one of my staff, a bus driver, got whacked in the head by a piece of equipment. It knocked him out cold on the ground. Instead of following "procedure" for a medical emergency -- requiring two separate phone calls to inform higher-ups (so they could make an informed decision) -- I dialled 999 immediately and called an ambulance. They were on the scene in less than 10mins. They treated his wound, brought him round, and whisked him off to hospital for a severe concussion. I was sternly reprimanded for my actions. I took matters into my own hands and ignored the 'chain-of-command'.

But I knew the chain-of-command procedure. After news of the incident bounced from dept to another, eventually it would trickle down to the on-site airport fire dept; they are first-aid trained, and are always called for a first response. With every second counting, I reckoned they weren't the quickest option. It might be five-plus minutes before they were even informed. So I made a decision and called in an ambulance from the outside. The suits at the top were not happy! They made that abundantly clear. And I definitely wasn't happy with the amount of paperwork I had to fill out afterwards to explain and justify my actions. I took it on the chin. I got the guy the help he needed in just ten minutes, and in the end, he came to my defence.

Anyway.

When I read the tweet below, it reminded me of this incident years ago. It's satire, mind, but it cleverly illustrates the dysfunctional culture of today's modern workplace.

Karen Resorcé
Yesterday I noticed the office printer was working perfectly, which raised my suspicion immediately.

I checked the logs and saw someone had cleared a paper jam at 3:12 p.m.

No ticket, no Slack, no communication.

Just silent action.

I asked the office if anyone had fixed it.

Everyone looked confused except one employee, who stared at his laptop a little too hard.

I pulled him aside afterward.

He admitted he unjammed it because “it was right there” and “took five seconds.”

I told him unilateral problem-solving disrupts our culture of collaboration and that he needed to go through the right channels if he wanted to take on a new project outside of his job description.

He said he didn’t realize fixing things was a chain-of-command issue.

I told him everything is a chain-of-command issue.

I wrote down “rogue operational autonomy” and locked the printer tray.

https://x.com/hr_unhinged/status/1993317503188029800

[Tintin]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)
...and ignored the 'chain-of-command'.

https://x.com/hr_unhinged/status/1993317503188029800

Well done, and you experienced, unfairly in my view, the results of not following orders and were duly reprimanded. This is the type of 'think' that infests more corporate type workplaces now.

They've become militarised; exactly the same mentality. We saw that on a more macro level during COVID; military PsyOps deployed, literally.

[Tintin]

This

There's a madness gripping Britain, and it speaks in euphemisms. It talks about "inclusion", "respect", "modern terminology". But strip away the soft words and you find something far darker: a regime of linguistic obedience where a man's livelihood now hinges on whether he polices other people's speech. That is what happened to Simon Bailey, a fireman of nearly thirty years, hounded out of his job because he didn't bark at his colleagues for using a word that every Briton has used since childhood. This wasn't a dispute over language. It was the public shaming of a man who wouldn't bend the knee to the new faith.

The truth is stark. Bailey wasn't punished for wrongdoing. He was punished for failing to perform the role of political enforcer. The fire service didn't care about his record, his commendations, or the decades he spent running into burning buildings. They cared that he didn't act as a language warden for a set of rules that weren't even written down. In any sane country, a senior firefighter who risked his life for others would be treated with honour. In modern Britain, he is hauled before a tribunal because he didn't scold his men fast enough when someone said "fireman".

What makes this episode so revealing is how one person's sense of offence became the law of the land. A firefighter complains that the word is "outdated" and "sexist", and overnight her subjective feelings become organisational doctrine. No debate. No directive. No settled policy. Just a demand that everyone fall in line. And when Bailey didn't, when he refused to badger grown adults over a harmless word, the system moved with ruthless speed. He was humiliated, given a final written warning, and left to crumble under the weight of a process designed to break him. He became, in his own words, "a shell of himself" – and that was the point. Show trials aren't about guilt. They're about obedience.

What we see here is institutional cowardice dressed up as progress. Management didn't stand by their man. They threw him to the wolves to protect themselves from another headline, another tribunal, another activist grievance dressed as justice. They let a veteran fireman – someone who spent a lifetime protecting the public – become collateral damage in a culture that rewards outrage and punishes backbone. When the people who run your fire service are more frightened of hurt feelings than burning buildings, you know you're living in a country that has lost all sense of proportion.

And this is the real rot. Authority has been outsourced to activists. Acheson's ideology – grievance inflation, speech policing, the cult of permanent offence – is now the default setting of public institutions. Ordinary workers are forced to tiptoe through a moral minefield, knowing that one misplaced word can ruin them. Experience counts for nothing. Loyalty counts for nothing. Service counts for nothing. The only thing that matters is whether you obey the latest rules of ideological fashion, even if those rules shift week to week.

Simon Bailey didn't fail the fire service. The fire service failed him. And in doing so, it exposed something rotten at the heart of modern Britain: a country where the guardians of public life would rather crush a man of character than risk upsetting the commissars of language. A country where the word "fireman" is treated as a threat, but witch-hunts against decent people are applauded as courage.

This wasn't discipline. It was a purge. A warning to everyone who still believes in plain speech and common sense. Obey, or suffer. Conform, or be cast out. And unless this mindset is fought – openly, fearlessly, relentlessly – there will be many more Simon Baileys before this culture burns itself out.

"Simon Bailey didn't fail the fire service. The fire service failed him. And in doing so, it exposed something rotten at the heart of modern Britain"

[Bill Ryan]

Posted by Tintin (here)
Well done, and you experienced, unfairly in my view, the results of not following orders and were duly reprimanded.

An infinitely more dramatic example of this was that of Russian Air Force Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov, back in September 1983.

Petrov was the late night duty officer at one of the key Soviet nuclear early-warning systems. Suddenly, the system told him that a missile had been launched from the US, followed by five more.

He had almost no time at all to make a decision. His clear orders were to report an event like this to his superiors without delay so that Soviet missiles could be launched in immediate retaliation.

But he figured it had to be a false alarm — which it was. With only seconds to analyze what was happening, he judged that in a nuclear first strike from the US, many more missiles would be fired than just half a dozen. So he disobeyed his orders. It later became clear that the system had malfunctioned.

Petrov was later reprimanded for his failure to adhere to the very rigid chain of command at the time.

Years later, however, when the story of the incident became widely known, he received multiple international honors for his presence of mind and independent decision-making. He is also greatly honored in today's Russia.

Do see this Avalon thread:

• Two men who saved the world

(Petrov was not the only one. There was another Russian, Vasily Arkhipov, a submarine commander who acted similarly in October 1962 — and was even more severely reprimanded.)

Here's the 2013 documentary that was made about Stanislav Petrov:

The Man Who Saved The World

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=2K1TO29RL0k

[Open Minded Dude]

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=5G-fn471fIk

[Open Minded Dude]

The strongest woman of the World ...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=OYMq5Pv2Byo

[Mark (Star Mariner)]

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
But he figured it had to be a false alarm — which it was. With only seconds to analyze what was happening, he judged that in a nuclear first strike from the US, many more missiles would be fired than just half a dozen. So he disobeyed his orders. It later became clear that the system had malfunctioned.

Did he have help? A question for another thread, and another time, but I've often wondered if Petrov -- though, all credit to him -- wasn't operating completely independently that day, that another force, from a higher realm, might have been whispering in his ear and guiding his hand toward the heroic action he took that day.

[Mari]

Posted by Mark (Star Mariner) (here)

Posted by Bill Ryan (here)
But he figured it had to be a false alarm — which it was. With only seconds to analyze what was happening, he judged that in a nuclear first strike from the US, many more missiles would be fired than just half a dozen. So he disobeyed his orders. It later became clear that the system had malfunctioned.

Did he have help? A question for another thread, and another time, but I've often wondered if Petrov -- though, all credit to him -- wasn't operating completely independently that day, that another force, from a higher realm, might have been whispering in his ear and guiding his hand toward the heroic action he took that day.

In my opinion, without a doubt.

[Mike]

This is remarkable. The highlights woven into this vid of college debates will floor you.

Debate is nearly dead in the universities, and in its place is this exceedingly bizarre performance art.

Just one more example how truth has been forsaken for performance, which is the essence of Clown World really.

Performance is the new authenticity in the eyes of the younger generations. It's what earns the most social credit. Authenticity has been neglected for so long now that it's not obvious to me that the actors even know they're acting anymore.

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=Zt472LaVUsE

[Tintin]

Another candidate for this thread........

🚨BREAKING: A man from North Yorkshire, Scarborough has been hit with a £2300 fine for raising British flags IN BRITAIN.

Meanwhile Palestine flags have been flying across the country for more than 12 months.

Britain has fallen.

[wondering]

Hard to even grasp...🤯

[mountain_jim]

https://x.com/ClownWorld/status/1995...629685625?s=20

https://x.com/catturd2/status/1995878733228769474?s=20

$75,000 to look like a dude wearing a wig and makeup. 🤦‍♂️
Quote
Jannine.. #MagaMemeQueen ™️ 👑🇺🇸
@janninereid1
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11h
This guy spent $75,000 to look like Madonna! 😳 He's had 18 surgeries.

Thoughts? 😳🧐🧐🧐

[Open Minded Dude]

old white-haired men, really? The reporter is almost literally telling people to believe 1+1 equals 3 ...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=O2ucdyvA-O0

[Mike]

Posted by Open Minded Dude (here)
old white-haired men, really? The reporter is almost literally telling people to believe 1+1 equals 3 ...

Source: https://youtube.com/watch?v=O2ucdyvA-O0

I grew up drinking the kool aid on Europe. I'd always assumed Europe was sort of hip and wise and intellectually advanced and all that. With all that history to look back on and learn from, they just had a larger palette to draw from, or so it seemed.

All those preconceived notions have been shattered to bits now, but there's still some small part of me that remains shocked by it all. And it's not just Europe; it's the world. I really thought we were far better than this!

I also grew up not believing in American exceptionalism. I thought patriotism was silly and affected. I was a fool. Clown world is alive and well here in the US, but it seems to me to be the only place left that might have the spine and spirit to fight it off properly.

Clown world demands you operate within a politically correct realm. Once you step outside of it, clown world is powerless. Trump figured that out early, which is how he got elected in his first term. He laid down the blueprint, and still almost singlehandedly has been the driving force behind rooting it out. Not only is he the perfect guy for the job, he was the only guy for the job. Our future generations will owe a huge debt to president Trump if we beat this thing.

[rgray222]

These are choices we make. Also, trying to change your host country's culture is wrong on so many levels.