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Tuesday, September 19. 2023

Tuesday morning links

What does it mean to be thin skinned? Surely, it means being hypersensitive to insults. And that means, being constantly on the lookout for offensive remarks or even offensive looks. 


 U. Pennsylvania’s ‘Climate Week’ to feature a Mexican dance to butterflies


 Watching Girls Die Online - Female starvation as spectacle has a very long history. But now ‘thinfluencers’ have millions of followers.


 'Meetups with Mandy': CDC launches publicity campaign to regain public trust


 Pundits disappointed that COVID now indistinguishable from colds and allergies


 Boiling Over - Recent litigation points to parents’ rising frustrations with gender and sexuality curricula in public schools.


 Two-thirds of borrowers would boycott paying student loans: survey


 US teenagers more likely than others to exaggerate their maths abilities


 Math professors: Incoming students can’t even add fractions, subtract


 It Begins: Australia’s Fifth-Largest Bank Announces Digital-Only Transactions – Will Phase Out Cash, Cheque, and Phone Payments in All 80 Branches Starting Next Year


 Is That a Spy in Your Car? America is already beholden to China for antibiotics, lithium batteries, and 5G equipment. Now they are cornering the market on an important technology used in self-driving vehicles.



The Censorship Bureaucracy - Behind faceless policies on everything from emotional health to diversity, equity, and inclusion lies an impulse to control language—and thereby, thought.


 Packed cargo train of migrants heads to U.S. border


 Biden Border Crisis: Video Shows Largest Illegal Crossing in Texas, Illegal Immigrants Scaling the Wall in Arizona. Border Patrol Union: “The border is wide open for all who want to crash it. Nothing has changed. That’s a fact.”


 The ‘Fastest Growing Development’ In The U.S. Is A Magnet For Illegal Immigrants


 Ukraine could have avoided conflict – Trump. The Republican frontrunner claimed that Kiev could have lost less territory if it had compromised with Russia before fighting began


Could be right


Posted by Bird Dog in Hot News & Misc. Short Subjects at 07:31 | Comments (27) | Trackbacks (0)

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Re: Ukraine could have avoided conflict – Trump. The Republican frontrunner claimed that Kiev could have lost less territory if it had compromised with Russia before fighting began.

Someone should ask the Czechs how giving up the Sudetenland in 1938 worked out for them. Oh right - they didn't have a free country again until the 1990s. The war in Ukraine is a miserable mess and none of us can foresee its end. What is clear from the beginning of the war is that Russia intended to subjugate all of Ukraine but didn't pull it off. So much for the idea of giving up a 3rd of your country to save the rest.
#1 John Fisher on 2023-09-19 09:20 (Reply)
Speaking of the Czechs, we can also ask them how they managed to peacefully separate from Slovakia. (But not the Basques, please everyone forget about the Basques and their right to self-determination.) Come to think of it, we can also ask the people of Libya and Syria how much fun it is to live under a NATO sponsored civil war.

And if I was prone to hyperbole I could also add "it is clear from the beginning" that if Ukraine had faithfully implemented the Minsk II accords then the entire war could have been avoided.
#1.1 Freddo on 2023-09-19 10:02 (Reply)
It is funny how most of the separatist movements in Europe suddenly dropped terrorism as a tactic once the Soviet Union went away. See the IRA, the Basques and many others. Handling separatist movements is complicated at the best of times. Can't say that any country in the world has done a stellar job of it (the Czechs and Slovaks being a unique exception. As to the Minsk agreements, they were stuffed down Ukraine's throat by the combination of the US, Russia, and the EU. That's a lot to gag on. Also, do you think there would be a war today if Ukraine had lost a half dozen or so of the Soviet Union's nukes in a 'tragic boating accident'. I don't.
#1.1.1 John Fisher on 2023-09-19 10:18 (Reply)
Would Russia have allowed the Maiden revolution if Ukraine was nuclear armed, or would they have offered assistance in maintaining peace and order?
#1.1.1.1 Freddo on 2023-09-19 10:51 (Reply)
IF. yada, yada, yada. The game's afoot and you are still trying to negotiate how you would play if you were in it. Deal with reality, the present, not what you wish it was.
#1.1.1.1.1 Anon on 2023-09-19 11:08 (Reply)
Sorry if dealing with hypotheticals is too strenuous for you. Here is a news source tuned to your needs: https://www.msnbc.com/
#1.1.1.1.1.1 Freddo on 2023-09-19 11:28 (Reply)
It's going to hell in a handbasket and you are positing what if we had done something different. It's about to all go tits up. It's too late to wish we had done something different. It's time, past time, to do something now other than send more money and ammo.
#1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Anon on 2023-09-19 15:26 (Reply)
If I had to list my issues - such as mass immigration, crime, cultural degradation, retarded social, industrial, energy and environmental policies, rent seeking & hyper financialization, undemocratic elites & bureaucracies - then I do not see Putin/Russia as an important factor in any of those. As such I am perfectly fine with ending the supply of weapons and money to Ukraine in order to stop the war, even if it means the Bidens dirty secrets get exposed.
#1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Freddo on 2023-09-19 16:15 (Reply)
Understood. Keep in mind that one of the likely consequences of stopping aid to Ukraine will be the fracturing of NATO and most likely the EU. Some of the countries in Eastern Europe regard the Russians as an existential threat (whether rightly or wrongly) and will undoubtedly take support of Ukraine into their own hands if support from the West stops. I suspect that is why the globalists push so hard for it. I don't know if it is good or bad for the US, but we need to consider all the consequences.
#1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 John Fisher on 2023-09-19 20:30 (Reply)
Does NATO succeed in its primary mission of keeping its member states secure? Look at the southern border of the USA or Europe and the answer is a resounding no. Although a Russian victory in the Ukraine would be a major loss of prestige for NATO and the USA/EU, the reality is that the vast majority of the population is disengaged from the war and would not rise up in anger to throw out the elites, and of course the elites would also not destroy their gravy train over a side show.

If there is going to be a major change it is either because the Democrats fail to find enough mail-in ballots or the economic malaise causes the French to elect LePen.
#1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1.1 Freddo on 2023-09-20 03:51 (Reply)
Two-thirds of borrowers would boycott paying student loans: survey

Another "benefit" of a Democrat administration. Even if your family is lucky enough not to have a wastrel son, cousin, or nephew, Uncle Sam will provide you with a lifetime supply, courtesy of the student loan racket.
#2 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2023-09-19 09:28 (Reply)
End student loans. It makes no sense that the government ever got involved in this.
#2.1 OneGuy on 2023-09-19 10:07 (Reply)
"Over two-thirds of those with student loans say they would boycott paying them this fall, according to a recent report."

Sure they would, if they could get away with it. This is exactly the kind of talk that you expect when people are allowed to let things slide without consequences. On this subject, every pretext imaginable has been evoked to extend the grace period, so why on earth wouldn't they bravely declare a boycott? What has it cost them so far? What is called for, of course, is the adult world of consequences.
#3 Aggie on 2023-09-19 09:29 (Reply)
QUOTE:
Pundits disappointed that COVID now indistinguishable from colds and allergies . . . But when a virus is indistinguishable from a cold it is, in fact, a cold.

While the current death rate from COVID is much lower than in previous years, 92,000 Americans have died over the past year from COVID. This is in addition to deaths due to seasonal influenza. Of course, this does not minimize the COVID deaths of more than a million Americans over the course of the entire pandemic.

QUOTE:
No vaccine will work to prevent infection or transmission, and the COVID-19 vax never did.

The COVID vaccine reduced the probability of infection, and therefore, the probability of transmission. It also reduced the length and severity of illness, which also reduced the probability of transmission. As with influenza, booster vaccination can reduce the probability of infection and the severity of infection, so vaccination is recommended, especially for those in more vulnerable populations.
#4 Zachriel on 2023-09-19 10:14 (Reply)
Thank you ChatGPT!
#4.1 Zachinoff on 2023-09-19 12:45 (Reply)
Zachriel: What doesn't it know?

Astrophysicist, property lawyer, affirmative action expert, search engine, newspeak dictionary, constitutional scholar, carrier of Trump Derangement Syndrome, master of the non sequitur, pretentious movie critic, high school civics teacher, financial analyst, the ackchyually guy, nitpicker, Historical art critic, armchair economist, poverty expert, theoretician of science, Covid apologist, speech therapist, climate scientist, civil engineer, sociologist, political analyst, Biden apologist, divorce lawyer, epidemiologist, Federal prosecutor, atmospheric scientist, military strategist, Level 2 Priest of Vaxx, Keeper of the Science! Gateway. Leveling up!
#5 eeyore on 2023-09-19 10:43 (Reply)
Back when I was in college, you had to pass MATH 201 - college level math, a mix of Algebra, Trigonometry, and Calculus - to meet your math requirement. Many, if not most students, took MATH 101 as a prerequisite to the 201 level course. They also offered a non-credit MATH 100 and even a MATH 099, basically 8th-grade level math, for students who couldn't even meet the low proficiency requirement for college-level math. When the college proposed adding a MATH 098 for students who couldn't even do 8th grade-level math, the faculty finally rebelled and said "Hell no!" on the grounds that anybody who couldn't do 8th grade-level math didn't belong in college. That was 35 years ago and I haven't checked since, but I'd bet they've got a MATH 097 now.
#6 Jerryskids on 2023-09-19 10:45 (Reply)
Even when I was in college in the ‘70s the largest classes were remedial math and English. If that hasn’t changed, that would be a disgrace but it’s gotten much worse.

Thank God for Jimmy Carter and his Department of Education!
#6.1 mudbug on 2023-09-19 11:06 (Reply)
It is a little odd that those five "Americans" bought back from Iran are not "Americans". I have no doubt that they have citizenship but they aren't "Americans. They are Iranians. No don't get me wrong, that isn't a problem unless they make it a problem and it seems that is exactly what happened. These five individuals bought/bribed American citizenship and then went to Iran to cause trouble and now it is our job to save them? At the least the news should report it correctly.
#7 Anon on 2023-09-19 11:12 (Reply)
Maybe they are CIA operatives. FJB and the swamp needed an excuse to send Iran more billions.
#7.1 B. Hammer on 2023-09-19 11:46 (Reply)
I heard that they just renamed the Senate Cloak Room to the Senate Hoody Room.

Imagine you build a stealth fighter jet that is soooo stealth that if you eject from it that you can't find where it crashed!! Those engineers at Lockheed Martin deserve a trophy.
#8 OneGuy on 2023-09-19 11:58 (Reply)
"Ukraine could have avoided conflict - Trump."

Could-haves always represent political hyperbole, of a piece with "if I had been president I would have done such-and-such..." - but you weren't president and you didn't do such-and-such, so the statement isn't provable.
#9 JJM on 2023-09-19 13:09 (Reply)
but you weren't president and you didn't do such-and-such, so the statement isn't provable so you should STFU. There, I finished it.
#9.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2023-09-19 14:37 (Reply)
Nicely put!
#9.1.1 JJM on 2023-09-19 18:47 (Reply)
Thin skinned? The Rollie Fingers mustache doctor in select vintage gear said I had a thick dermis during the forged in hellfire tour.
These things happen to distorted lens ideologues stuck on some 19th century German bum and his egalitarian workers utopia fairytales.
Hardcore Satanist comrade Karl was really out to burn down the world by any means necessary as his poetry dedicated to the devil reveals.
Reality dashes delusions to pieces as Sigmund Freud said about comforting lies and the Long March true believers are liars.
External enemies see the thin skinned disunity and they are licking their chops.
#10 Sun von Rommel on 2023-09-19 15:04 (Reply)
From the article: Presumably, denizens of this group [Generation Z] have high self-esteem; they think the world of themselves. They are confident that they can master any task and meet any challenge.

OK, you're so smart. Change a tire, bake a loaf of bread, tie a necktie, fell a tree, sew a button, maximize a continuous function, dress a wound, paint a fence, shoot a bullseye. I'll wait right here until you're done.
#10.1 Mike Anderson (Link) on 2023-09-19 22:13 (Reply)
Yeah...because Russians are so super careful to keep their agreements. The Russians have yet to keep any agreements they've ever made. But all Ukraine would have had to do was to make another agreement with Russian to give up territory and it all would have been swell.

Amazing...
#11 BobJustBob on 2023-09-20 08:09 (Reply)

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