COVID-19 Heroes and Villains

[Stranger Mouse]

Leave your nominations here.

I'm starting with Anthony Fauci - he's becoming a hero to me and a villain to the Trumpers. Nice podcast interview with him by Sanjay Gupta here

https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/corona-virus

My choice of villain is Trump. Sorry to be predictable but I think the onslaught of the virus on the American public will be far worse because of his incompetence and venality.

[tenchboy]

Perfect Timing I was just thinking how I might introduce this one.

[raven]

I've got a hero to balance things out: Restaurant owner delivers 3,500 meals to two NHS hospitals

[Martin_B]

Leave your nominations here.

I'm starting with Anthony Fauci - he's becoming a hero to me and a villain to the Trumpers. Nice podcast interview with him by Sanjay Gupta here

https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/corona-virus

My choice of villain is Trump. Sorry to be predictable but I think the onslaught of the virus on the American public will be far worse because of his incompetence and venality.

I'd have thought Bolsonaro or Orban were worse villains; or at least can cause more harm through their greater control.

[EACLucifer]

Courage, and dedication to duty, are not always rewarded, it seems, given that the USN appear to be dismissing Captain Crozier for trying to save the lives of his crew

[FredM]

Leave your nominations here.

I'm starting with Anthony Fauci - he's becoming a hero to me and a villain to the Trumpers. Nice podcast interview with him by Sanjay Gupta here

https://www.cnn.com/audio/podcasts/corona-virus

My choice of villain is Trump. Sorry to be predictable but I think the onslaught of the virus on the American public will be far worse because of his incompetence and venality.

I'd have thought Bolsonaro or Orban were worse villains; or at least can cause more harm through their greater control.

I’d second Bolsanaro (a Brazilian ex-colleague refers to him as ‘Bolsonasno’ - asno is Portuguese for a donkey).

Reserve villain: serial grifter, “progressive eugenicist” and lapsed member of the human race Toby Young.

[Pucksoppet]

Courage, and dedication to duty, are not always rewarded, it seems, given that the USN appear to be dismissing Captain Crozier for trying to save the lives of his crew

Links for those who have no idea who Captain Crozier is:

San Francisco Chronicle: Exclusive: Captain of aircraft carrier with growing coronavirus outbreak pleads for help from Navy: Matthias Gafni and Joe Garofoli March 31, 2020
San Francisco Chronicle: Navy captain of coronavirus-infected aircraft carrier relieved of command: Joe Garofoli , Tal Kopan and Matthias Gafni April 2, 2020

[Pucksoppet]

Heroes: Asiyah and Jawad Javed
The Independent: Coronavirus: Cornershop giving away face-masks, antibacterial hand gel and cleaning wipes to elderly

I saw the report originally on the BBC website, but the search function never seems to work for me, only ever finding old irrelevant stuff if it finds anything at all, and putting the right keywords into a generic Internet search engine gives me The Independent's write up of the same story.

[Gfamily]

Villain

No surprise, but shocking all the same...

On Wednesday it was reported that $1,200 relief cheques for as many as 70 million people could be delayed for several days because Trump wanted his name printed on them.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/ ... ing-freeze

[Gfamily]

Heroes

Doncaster Council
https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/ ... 5065109504

[plebian]

Heroes

Doncaster Council
https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/ ... 5065109504

That is ace. Whoever works on their social media team deserves a knighthood. Weaving a story to hammer home the point, whilst being progressive. Brava.

[murmur]

Villain: f.cking Beardy-Tax-Dodging-Perma-Self-Publicising-Balloon-Wrecking-Wazzock Branson asking for a bail out while sitting out there on his own private British Virgin Island, where, purely coincidentally and quite by accident, he doesn't have to pay any income tax, while also sitting on over £4.5 billion, which he says he doesn't actually, really have...

Look down the back of the sofa, I'm sure you can find something to pay your staff with.

Cough up all the money you haven't paid in taxes and NI and the rest here in the UK, sell a company or 2, an island or 2, a speedboat or 2, re-open some branches of Virgin Money, which you picked up for a song, and then we might start to talk about some other things...

[discovolante]

Heroes

Doncaster Council
https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/ ... 5065109504

That is ace. Whoever works on their social media team deserves a knighthood. Weaving a story to hammer home the point, whilst being progressive. Brava.

I kind of hope it's someone prepping their CV to become a history teacher

[Cardinal Fang]

Villains - the far right USAdians protesting about the lockdowns in the US

Heroes - the US healthcare workers who've actually seen people die of COVID, who stood in traffic to block them and remind them why the lockdowns are necessary

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 74406.html

CF

[Brightonian]

Villains.

The DHSC apparently operating, perhaps at arm's length, a large number of fake Twitter accounts purporting to be those of NHS workers: Twitter thread.

[murmur]

Novak Djokovic: a fine example of why we shouldn't listen to sport-ists talk about anything other than their sport, and probably not even then. Shut up and hit some balls!

[Hunting Dog]

Fairly sure Trump should count as villain

Hilarious send up video of one of his press confereneces here

[jimbob]

Heroes

Doncaster Council
https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/ ... 5065109504

That is ace. Whoever works on their social media team deserves a knighthood. Weaving a story to hammer home the point, whilst being progressive. Brava.

I kind of hope it's someone prepping their CV to become a history teacher

Their latest effort.

https://twitter.com/MyDoncaster/status/ ... 8314754048

[FredM]

I’m not sure whether Simon MacDonald is a hero for disclosing that UKgov took a political decision not to participate in the EU procurement scheme or a villain for denying it in this letter.

The letter contains a Yes Minister level of weasel wording so perhaps it’s really saying “my evidence was correct but Raab instructed me to write this so I’ve deliberately worded it in a way that allows people to read between the lines”.

David Allen Green dissects the content.

[murmur]

Dunno whether this numpty counts as a villain, rather than just a flat out eejit.

However, Luc Montagnier is well into the Villain category (see yesterday's Orac piece).

[MartinDurkin]

Just seen these moneygrubbing gobshites advertisement on the back of a bus in Leeds.

What's your best defence against any virus?
Boost your immune system.
https://www.chucklinggoat.co.uk/

[Pucksoppet]

Just seen these moneygrubbing gobshites advertisement on the back of a bus in Leeds.

What's your best defence against any virus?
Boost your immune system.
https://www.chucklinggoat.co.uk/

Acksherly, isn't an overactive immune system (cytocine storm) one of the causes of death in SARS-CoV-2? 'Boosting' your immune system (whatever that means) might not be the best strategy,

[Millennie Al]

Villain: f.cking Beardy-Tax-Dodging-Perma-Self-Publicising-Balloon-Wrecking-Wazzock Branson asking for a bail out while sitting out there on his own private British Virgin Island, where, purely coincidentally and quite by accident, he doesn't have to pay any income tax, while also sitting on over £4.5 billion, which he says he doesn't actually, really have...

Look down the back of the sofa, I'm sure you can find something to pay your staff with.

Cough up all the money you haven't paid in taxes and NI and the rest here in the UK, sell a company or 2, an island or 2, a speedboat or 2, re-open some branches of Virgin Money, which you picked up for a song, and then we might start to talk about some other things...

How much has he not paid in taxes and how has he managed to stay out of jail since paying your taxes is a legal requirement?

[Bird on a Fire]

Pretending not to understand the difference between tax avoidance and tax evasion isn't clever.

Nor is conflating morality and legality.

[Lew Dolby]

. . . but recognising that large scale tax-avoidance is possible because laws are written for the benefit of the super-rich, whether personal or corporate, is immoral AND something can and should be done about it is .