I know it’s not May yet. đ Open thread.
I had a little trouble posting. I don’t know which thing helped: purging cache at cloudflare or turning of the move comment plugin. But at least now I know doing both overcomes the dreaded and incorrect “you must be offline” warning.
My family tree journey generated many conversations among my immediate family. I found some risque tidbits and some less-than-admirable history to share. We had some laughs and some âOh Nosâ. For example, The family matron âBostonâ Kenna who escaped the Irish potato famine and ran a frontier saloon was a hit. As was one of her daughters who stole $800 from her and ran off to Iowa with Joe McCaffery [it was all in her will]. I made my granddaughters each a Klier Family History binder for the tree and wrote short stories for them as I uncovered interesting items. They seemed interested, but maybe they were just humoring the old guy.
Genealogy sleuthing, original records, an exampleâŚ
Departure record from the Port of Hamburg for Johan Baptiste Klier and Rosina Hartwig, Image:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1785203458972213503
Arrival at the Port of New York, Image:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1785208130436989237
From the German record, I learned they departed for New York on the Steamship Hammonia on 30 June 1856. Johan was 28 years old and a farmhand. Rosa was 26 years old and a âLadyâ. They came from the village of Pleystein in Bavaria.
I learned from their entry record at the Port of New York that they arrived on the 19th of July and they were berthed âBetween Deckâ [steerage].
Note, To translate the German record, I first converted old German script [often letter by letter] to modern German script. Instructions for this can be found here:
https://germanologyunlocked.com/20-tips-deciphering-old-german-handwriting/
Kenneth,
did your English immigrants locate in Massachusetts?
My tree back to 1600’s puts my antecedents in Salem and Topsfield, then New York and on to Illinois and Wisconsin.
Also Connecticut although there starting early 18th century.
I was able to find a Wilbur Fritsch b1894 but the other DNA cousins or I have insufficient trees to show the connections.
Your great-grandma might have been a slut. And that is enough uncertainty for many of you who post here to reject the study of genealogy entirelyâŚ. Put it in the same bin as astrology. If you are anal-retentive about statistical analysis, donât bother researching your family tree. There is no way of proving that your great-grandma wasnât a slut. Genealogy will always be an inexact science.
But for normal people, those of us who can live with the âPreponderance of Evidenceâ level of proof, itâs an interesting pastime and a family bonding tool.
Russel,
And your great-grandpa could have been a cheatin’ bro-ho! Or great-grandpa could have been a rapist. Or a pedophile.
Geneology with the addition of DNA is likely to reveal secrets. I don’t think the more routine tests can easily uncover “secrets” much more than 6 generations back. Or maybe with enough research and getting in contact with enough of your 6th cousins you can? I don’t know. What I do know is I am not fascinated enough in my geneology to dig through geneological records.
(I also wouldn’t particularly care if my great grandmother or great grandfather turned out to have had a fling.)
SteveF
Lots of people are thought to have Genghis’s Y chromosome. He is thought to have had the largest number of offspring of anyone, ever.
Lucia,
Same. I just don’t care. It’s mildly interesting, but not interesting enough to me to invest time and energy in it.
Here’s paper on Khan’s Y chromosome.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41431-017-0012-3
“Whole-sequence analysis indicates that the Y chromosome C2*-Star Cluster traces back to ordinary Mongols, rather than Genghis Khan”
I guess it’s more nuanced than I thought…. (A whole group of people shared a particular Y gene that he probably had. But…well… those were related people.)
Lucia, your post:
âWhole-sequence analysis indicates that the Y chromosome C2*-Star Cluster traces back to ordinary Mongols, rather than Genghis Khanâ
I think youâre getting hooked . Caution, itâs addictive.
Does anyone else have experience with FamilySearch.org, the free service provided by the Moron church. I used it extensively, but found some information on one branch needed correcting. I traced the problem back to two batty old sisters who were adding things based on their recollection of family folklore. I communicated with them and they seemed delighted that I was untangling the mess they had made. That brought me in contact with a lady who does genealogy as a profession. She was developing a family tree for a corporate executive from Manhattan and was trying to unravel the same ratâs nest the sisters had created.
john ferguson
APRIL 30, 2024 AT 6:32 AM
John, my English ancestors migrated to Connecticut (mainly Hartford, Suffield and Windam) and Massachusetts (mainly North Hampton and Braintree). My great grandparents on my paternal grandmother’s side migrated to Princeton and Malden in northern Illinois. My great grandfather was from Braintree Massachusetts and my great grandmother was already living in that area of Illinois after her parents migrated from Northern Ireland.
”
If the Y chromosome DNA haplogroup goes back to a single common man for a given haplogroup and the same for mitochondrial DNA for a common single woman, I do not think we all can be related to famous people back in time.
Does it matter? Not to me. My interest is more from a historical perspective and understanding DNA processes and what that information can reveal.
On a related note, I do not have much confidence in the nation of origin assignments that are published in 23 and Me and Ancestry. It turns out that the default published percent assignments for 23 and Me are at a 50% confidence threshold. They have a tool that gives thresholds up to 90% . What you see is more specific national assignments at lower confidences and broad assignments at higher confidences like Broadly Northwestern Europe or Broadly Europe. For Ancestry they give ranges of percent national assignments that for me went from values like 0 to 29 % and had 0 for all assignments but one.
In my cases, 23 and Me gives mostly Germanic assignments while Ancestry gives a high percentage of Scandinavian. These results only agree if I take the comparison to the broadest assignment levels of Broadly Northwestern Europe and Broadly Europe.
I do find interesting for further study the methods that are used to assign percent national or broad area origins.
As for cousin marriages, I find that some of my ancestors back in Germany were clustered in a given location with several lines of husbands and wives in the same location. That would mean the opportunity for cousin marriage was there.
The inhibition for cousin marriage back in time would probably have come from religious sources like the Catholic Church. I know the Church changed its cousin marriage limits a few times. I believe exceptions were made by the Church by making a payment to the Church. Certainly close cousin marriages were prevalent back in time for Royalty and in some cases for extensively.
Currently, I believe, the thinking is that 2nd cousin marriages do not significantly increase the chance of interbreeding defects. Nineteen states currently allow 1st cousins to marry.
Worldwide about 10 percent of marriages are between 1st and 2nd cousins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cousin_marriage
Looks like the people at Columbia are engaging in the act of âotherwise obstructs, influences or impedes any official proceeding.â.
It’s private property so it’s different legally, but not so much. We shall see if Columbia presses charges and the NYC prosecutors go to the mat. I’m skeptical, but watching closely.
My family on both sides originated in Germany, France, Poland but I maintain I don’t have a single drop of French blood, how horrifying, ha ha. They all came over and settled in Ohio as farmers, and still mostly are. Nothing resets your cultural views like visiting all your cousin’s farms, a totally different world.
My main interest has just been in capturing all my Dad’s genealogical work digitally so it will survive. Like Russell he proudly delivered printed copies but I kept telling him I’ll put in a PDF so it will live forever. He just didn’t get it.
I did end up doing a long series of video interviews with my Mom and Dad to capture their lives. Although this has marginal benefits to direct offspring I believe a few select people in future generations will value it. I would have liked to have seen the same from my grandparents or further back.
My Dad also has an enormous number of personal letters my grandparents wrote each other which is a lost artform.
Ken,
23andMe sent me a curve ball.
Initially, they had me a 9% Irish from an area East of Dublin. I have extensive written documentation that two great-grandparents came from Country Kildare in the mid-1860s. Everything fit.
Then the curve ball. 23andMe informed me that they had changed their way of classifying things and I was now only 0.9% âBritish and Irishâ and no specific region. They upped the German and Eastern European components to make the numbers work. I informed them that their new analysis was in error, but they held fast.
By the way, the localities they specified within Germany are spot-on based on my research.
Maybe it is not the best business model.
I’m sure all our private DNA information is perfectly safe with a desperate bankrupt company and clever lawyers with MBA’s.
Tom,
They don’t have my DNA data. But…. yeah.
Tom, They claim you can delete your data.
â Deleting your 23andMe data
If you no longer wish to participate in our Services, or no longer wish to have your Personal Information processed by us, you may delete your 23andMe account and Personal Information within the â23andMe Dataâ section of your Account Settings.â
From, of all places, CNN:
If the Communist News Network runs such a commentary, then maybe we have passed peak saber rattling.
some (or most) of this may be nonsense:
The scandinavian tilt to Ancestry.Com’s DNA ethnicity assignments may have originated in the tilt of their database due to its being assembled in Utah from Mormons who as a group tend scandinavian. This has supposedly been recognized and repaired.
I should be 25% German or thereabouts because my mom’s dad was entirely German back 4 generations, all sides. But they show 14%. ???
Maybe Kenneth has a good grasp of how they assign ethnicity to DNA data. If they have dna data from tombs going way back, they might be able to assume that that dna lived where it was buried, but ???
I’m probably wrong here, but I think that if this entire subject of DNA ethnicity tracing was carefully investigated it would be found to have very shakey scientific basis.
Tom Scharf
APRIL 30, 2024 AT 2:02 PM
23 and Me not only has my DNA data and relative information but my answers to survey questions that I thought might aid genetic research.
Dearie me, I am now worried that someone getting all my information might read it and become bored to death.
While I find abhorrent the act of obtaining information considered private about individuals surreptitiously and illegal and further put some degree of responsibility on those organizations that fail to protect it, I freely give information about myself that I think might me helpful to others and me and with the notion that it might not remain private.
Medical information at one time not long ago was kept from interacting medical groups and one could not even give permission for coordinating this information. This was very frustrating in having to deliver this information personally amongst these groups until the time when one could give permission and avoid being an intermediary. I am willing to take the risk that these processes can probably be more readily corrupted with regards to privacy, but I can understand that others might not be of the same mind.
john ferguson
My understanding: Nope. A while back (no link) I read what they do is they find people location (e.g. Germany) who have four grandparents were born in that location. That gives them the “German” profile. Over time, with enough data, they could get smaller and smaller subdivisions (e.g. Prussia vs. Bavaria.) It might not be grandparents.
With more and more data they can do more and more sophisticated things. But they aren’t digging up graves and they aren’t using data from 1000 year old dug up gravesites. Anthropologists do care about that, but “UK” doesn’t mean “from the time of Cheddar Man. I think pre Iron Age (?) population of British Isles is thought to have been pretty much wiped ou or severely reduced by diseases, military might and better competition for food and resources– sort of similar to American Indians when Europeans arrived.
I’m not really a big privacy zealot either. There just have been some egregious abuses and I only get uptight about misrepresentations and a constant stream of updates of indecipherable “terms of service” from every company in existence.
If Google Maps is going to be free then I think it is a fair exchange that they can anonymize my data and sell it. It’s not always clear how this data is being used and it does kind of just bore me to think about it.
23andMe knows they have one valuable asset and that is it’s gigantic genetic database and they will want to monetize that and companies tend to do less reputable things in desperate financial situations, especially after a leadership change or sell off.
It looks we have put to bed the “mostly peaceful” protests euphemism and moved on to the “outside agitators” Jedi mind trick.
Tom Scharf,
Prediction: 23 and Me will send out an update about change in privacy conditions. You will need to opt out of the new provisions. Most people won’t. Stuff will be sold.
I honestly wouldn’t care about my data. I’m 65. My employer isn’t going to use it for anything, Either is medicare. But some people will care.
John, the link below gives some details of the methods used in assigning nationalities to individuals. I copied a summary of the process below. It leaves out the initial method that attempts to separate DNA information contributed by mother and father. The results gathered are not exact but rather distributions of possible outcomes. The algorithms are complex.
23 and Me apparently limits its reference panel history to 500 years , while Ancestry claims in some panels to go back a 1000 years. That difference might account for the differing ethnicity results coming out of 23 and Me and Ancestry, although I am inclined to think it is primarily due to the uncertainty in the results when it comes nation assignments.
I have a difficult time believing their percent Precision and Recall values, unless I am misinterpreting what they mean.
https://www.23andme.com/ancestry-composition-guide/
I see the mayor of New York referring to “children” ,i.e., students, being radicalized by outsiders at Columbia during a brag session news conference.
When you look at how far removed from reality are the Columbia administration, its professors and at least some of their students, you have to wonder how the Columbia brand holds up.
I think it does despite all of the above because intelligent and motivated students attend Columbia because its brand will tend to get them better jobs and the brand does just that on the hiring and promotion end. The Columbia environment does not help make the students better informed or educated and to the degree they are is attributed to the students – kind of like surviving boot camp.
Tom,
Not to worry, all my family tree and all my source notes are preserved in perpetuity by the Mormon church. It can be accessed and improved by anyone with a computer. It’s a crowdsourced database with self-correcting mechanisms.
If an ax murderer is sitting at my Thanksgiving dinner table, I am happy to supply my DNA to the authorities to help catch him.
Also, the medical DNA personal report that 23andMe supplies have been useful to me and my family.
Lucia,
I am once again unable to post anything that is pasted from a word processing program. I have tried both Google and Apple word programs and tried both a Windows PC and iPad.
Russell,
Sorry, but I don’t know why. Can you post it into a text document first. Maybe what you cut and paste contains hidden characters.
It is DNA day today.
23 and Me, before it got hacked, had a tool whereby if two individuals were related to me I could determine how related they were to each other -something which I found very useful. When I asked about when they might make it accessible again I got an I dunno reply.
I also at one time was able to scrape data from both 23 and Me and Ancestry. That was more useful for 23 and Me because they use pagination. Last time I tried I was not able to scrape either one.
Lucia,
OK will do. This has happened several times in the past and it usually foreshadowed the site having issues, like the canary in the coal mine.
The Moron church was inordinately helpful in assembling my family history, all free of charge. But it came at the price of me donating my research time and all my findings to their database. From harvard.com:
ââ the LDS church claims to have the records of over 12 billion deceased people, some going all the way back to the 1st century CE. Data-gatherers on 220 teams in 45 countries, along with hundreds of thousands of Mormon volunteers are digitizing millions of paper records, photos, microfilm, and more. By 2014, the church records were 32 times the size of the data recorded by the US Library of Congress. Each year, they add a quantity of data equal to another Library of Congress, all of which is stored in their International Genealogical Index (IGI).
Edit, Neither I nor any of my family are Mormons
Russell,
What would privacy advocates say about all that Data snooping by the Mormons. đ
I know. They got more stuff on people than the government has and as far as I can tell they arenât breaking any laws.
Russell Klier
âIf an ax murderer is sitting at my Thanksgiving dinner table, I am happy to supply my DNA to the authorities to help catch him.â
–
Channeling my internal Kristi Noem on this one.
Most ax murderers have a family.
Many families have a Thanksgiving dinner.
Most people love their family members dearly.
A daughter?
A son?
A nephew or niece ?
An uncle or father?
Sadly the most likely person you are going to catch by supplying your DNA is someone you love dearly.
–
We have some good DNA anecdotes here.
Sadly the fact is that DNA testing reveals the dark sad side of humanity and sexuality as well as providing the incidental and accidental snippets of gossip and linked greatness we so adore.
–
As an aside re 7 degrees of separation it is casually true that we are all genetically linked to all and every human ax murderer if we go back multiple generations.
–
The gene is in chromosome 13,*, segment bravo, subsection 137A.
Apparently it is recessive and incursive * (humour).
(Getting ready for my talk on probability for U3A)
Are they doing anymore with the data than simply collecting it? What data do they collect? Getting something on people takes one heck of a lot of analysis and probably more data than the Mormons have, but not sure on this one because I do not that much about their database except that is very extensive.
Or release them from suspicion.
Kenneth Fritsch
re “Sadly the most likely person you are going to catch by supplying your DNA is someone you love dearly.’
–
“Or release them from suspicion.”
–
You are right, it can cut both ways.
–
On a different note RCP [Real Clear Politics] has had a strange massive rise in Trump approval and drop in Biden approval, probably a mistake as generic Democrats ahead but interesting nonetheless.
Dead people have no privacy. One way the Mormon church skirts trouble with privacy laws is that they reveal nothing about living people. My sons tested this. They got accounts to access my tree and research data, but the only way they could link in was to connect themselves to my deceased father. They then had access to all the data about dead people. They got nothing back about me. I even gave them my unique personal ID, but searches turned up nothing.
As an aside, one of my ancestors is named John Miller. A search for data [like date of death] might yield 30,000 hits or so. Sometimes a big database is a hindrance. They provide multiple tools to whittle the numbers down, but you still may have to wade through several hundred items to find your answer.
Yes, Russell, I found that public information about dead people is much more assessible than that for the living. Publicly available family trees will list the deceased with birth and death dates and put Private and Living for the living parts of the tree. In almost all of my analysis I was able to determine who those living individuals were with the help of some outside information, like obituaries and the construction of the tree.
Interesting that some states give access to copies of birth certicates of the living for non-related individuals and some do not.
Thank you, FloridaâŚ. For not being California or New York or any other Progressive place.
âFPL gets green light to reduce rates for the second consecutive monthâ
https://newsroom.fpl.com/2024-04-02-FPL-gets-green-light-to-reduce-rates-for-the-second-consecutive-month
Hah, Like I was sayin:
“California residents could see an extra $24 added to their electric bills starting in May, based on a new monthly fee adopted by the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), and a finance expert spoke to Newsweek about how this could affect families.”
https://www.newsweek.com/california-electric-bills-going-get-more-expensive-1891917
Holy Cats! I had no idea it was this bad:
“9 of the top 10 most expensive states for electricity were blue states.
On average, blue states pay 37% more than red states for electricity.”
https://paylesspower.com/blog/red-vs-blue-which-states-pay-the-most-for-electricity/
Of course, the blue states are gonna save the planet though.
From “outside agitators” to “foreign adversaries” within 24 hours, ha ha. There seems to be an urgent need to deflect responsibility because they see it as politically damaging.
NYT:
“Campus Protests Give Russia, China and Iran Fuel to Exploit U.S. Divide
Americaâs adversaries have mounted online campaigns to amplify the social and political conflicts over Gaza flaring at universities, researchers say.”
Tom,
Adams cracks me up.
Just now realizing this huh. You’re 30 years behind the times buddy.
30 years? 60 years? It’s old news.
This is what I mean:
It’s only when the activism is inconveniently antisemitic in an election year that liberals care. But the ‘babe in the woods’ routine is pretty silly. This has been happening for a long time now.
The left leaning word of the MSM has been there for ages (and I am old enough to remember ages as opposed to some young whippersnappers), but it was in the past disguised as a consensus opinion by three TV networks with no internet, no podcasts or talk radio to question it.
Notice how blaming Russian, China, Iran or any immediately recognizable enemy is used to explain occurrences that liberals in the US do not like. I see there are some who continue to believe that Hunter’s laptop was Russian disinformation. While the media and I have no problem thinking those that believe the election count was stolen from Trump are idiots, they, as opposed to me, are blind to the idiocy on the left.
I always have a problem understanding what demonstrators on college campuses or in the streets have in mind about how their actions are going to affect a reasonable discussion of the world wrongs. Firstly, their efforts seem to have to glorify some group of people not all that deserving in order to make a point. If some are anti war and against the killing of innocent civilians, as would be my hope, why would that require siding with Hamas and their ambitions. Cannot arguments for reasonable causes be taken up without sanitizing groups (Hamas) and people (George Floyd).
Of course, when the demonstrations are emotional ones by masses of people, individual points of views and arguments are totally lost. Why would not organizations and particularly colleges encourage and provide a means for individuals to make their cases in written or spoken form and mightily clamp down on mass demonstrations that infringe on property rights.
Kenneth,
Good questions. Saul Alinsky might answer, “The issue is never the issue. The issue is always the revolution.” That’s why.
… and the masking of their identities. That’s always a good sign somebody has the courage of their convictions. They want to be anonymous and tell the colleges exactly how to run their affairs and have no accountability for their bad behavior. It’s almost like they are spoiled kids brought up on the Internet trolling Twitter all day long. “We demand control of foreign policy! And complete amnesty for our behavior!”.
The navel gazing on elite children by the US media as if they have serious foreign policy views is laughable. I don’t think I have seen a single story on the condition in Israel or Gaza for at least a week. Yes, they are going to solve the Palestinian / Israeli conflict with some really insightful memes. Good luck with that, it might be more complicated.
My generation brought up a bunch of 20-something emotional toddlers and it is our cross to bear.
$516,672 Fraternity Party⌠Iâm in.
Brothers at the University of North Carolina Pi Kappa Phi fraternity, with help from other fraternities, successfully defended Old Glory from a Pro Palestinian campus mob.
In case you missed the iconic picture, I posted it here:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1786340081550156279
Someone set up a gofundme page to throw them a party. It closed last night after raising $516,672. That’s gonna be some party!
Charles Hurt has a tongue-in-cheek news story in the Washington Times:
âBlutoâs âAnimal Houseâ philosophy beats Bidenâs pro-Hamas doctrineâ
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2024/may/2/blutos-animal-house-philosophy-beats-bidens-pro-ha/?utm_source=newsshowcase&utm_medium=gnews&utm_campaign=CDAQxpSN9K3ezs0lGPH5yN31_5TIlwEqKggAIhBcERswRnPnLkaJ3_gLN8OaKhQICiIQXBEbMEZz5y5Gid_4CzfDmg&utm_content=rundown
gofundme page:
âPi Kappa Phi Men Defended their Flag. Throw ’em a Ragerâ
https://www.gofundme.com/f/pi-kappa-phi-men-defended-their-flag-throw-em-a-rager
I saw the photo of them protecting the flag earlier. Nice they got a party out of it.
Toxic masculinity!
Tom,
I suspect they were also fending off people acting under the effects of masculinity. đ
The donations do add to the evidence that, evidently, few Americans are siding with the protestors.
https://today.yougov.com/politics/articles/49311-opinion-on-pro-palestinian-college-campus-protests
There still are a lot of “dunnos”.
I’m hoping for a video of a bag piping group to march up and play Havah Nagila loudly. Perhaps at 4am.
Boy what our fraternity social committee could have done with half a million dollars in 1969. Road trip! Private jet to Mallorca maybe.
The Greeks on campuses will run with this⌠âRally Round the Flagâ keggers at the flagpole, flag parties to replace toga parties, the possibilities are endless. I miss those days.
Russell,
Well 1/2 million in 1969 dollars is a lot mre than1/2 million in 2024 dollars. It’s still a lot.
Imitators probably won’t get as much. They may have to settle for the warm feeling of having defended the flat.
Speaking of toxic masculinity, yesterday:
“Macron: We Need To Send Troops to Ukraine if Frontline Collapses”
All is not lost but Russia still has the upper hand and is advancing. The Donetsk region seems to be their main objective. In the past, I have crudely tried to put the Russian gains in perspective. A few days ago one of the established OSINT sites did that (and did a better job of it):
âRussia loses up to 45 pieces (last 10 days) of hardware a day (destroyed and damaged) to gain 0.7 square kilometers a day.â (seven months average daily gain)
âThere are still around 10,700 square kilometers of the free Donetsk Region, which are under Ukrainian control. If we round this up to 1.0 square kilometers, which Russians take a day, then it will take them 10,700 days (29,3 Years) to only take this single Ukrainian regionâ
âRussia cannot sustain a prolonged war, especially when Ukraine is continuously supplied. Moscow cannot even properly exploit the current situation.â
One item not detailed in this analysis is the daily Russian casualty rate. Itâs probably 10 to 20 times the equipment loss rate.
https://x.com/tendar/status/1784992418871345378?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
Seven month Russian advance rate:
https://x.com/tendar/status/1763696635412926490?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
April 2024, 10 day equipment burn rate:
https://x.com/tendar/status/1784971485024575808?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
Lucia,
â Imitators probably wonât get as much. They may have to settle for the warm feeling of having defended the flatâ
They will probably settle for the sick feeling of a major hangover.
Russell
But what about the turtle tanks? I don’t see any turtle tanks shown there.
Hah, and no raccoon jeeps, either! Those jerry-rigged anti-drone cages are interesting. The killer drones were an improvisation and the cages a response. I guess they are helping because both sides are installing them. Curious how fast technology develops in war time⌠look at the Manhattan Project.
Lucia,
Your post just reminded me of the Rhino tank.
Image:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1786443434263216391?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
It was an improvisation for Sherman tanks to deal with the hedgerows in Northern France. Exactly the same scenario!
“Rhino tank” was the American nickname for Allied tanks fitted with “tusks”, or bocage cutting devices, during World War II. â
I expect a $500K frat party organized by random college kids will be respectful, cosmopolitan, tolerant, and run with a great deal of integrity. There is no chance this won’t go sideways.
âfratâ is considered disrespectful . The word is âfraternityâ.
Toga! Toga! Toga!
https://youtu.be/IfVlLr6AaNk?si=HMTI07Aqs9ZKH2Sd
Russell,
Yes. I had a boy friend in college who claimed frat was disrespectful. Nevertheless, that’s what they are called. I ignored said boy friend. Wisely, I dumped him. (For other reasons.)
Lucia,
âI had a boy friend in college who claimed frat was disrespectful. Nevertheless, thatâs what they are called.â
Yes, but that doesn’t stop me from feigning indignation.
Even when I was an enthusiastic active member I found fraternities to be enigmatic. On one hand, we did a lot of service projects. Things like homecoming, parents’ weekend, and freshman orientation could not have happened without a lot of work by the Greeks. Community service too. My guys hosted swim afternoons at the University pools for the local kids. I was a lifeguard [although I did more refereeing than lifeguarding].
Then there is the dark side, alcohol abuse, and hazing, destructive [illegal] pranks. My son was in a fraternity in Florida in the 1990s and it was no different than PITT in the 60s.
One fraternity anecdote⌠PITT played both Army and Navy every year. Saturday nights after the games the fraternities hosted the Cadets and Midshipmen at parties. Contrary to popular opinion, they couldnât hold their beer. We had to pour them onto their buses which left at 2300 hours, on the dot. It was always a frantic time collecting them and ferrying them to their departure. One big drawbackâŚtheir unis were chic magnets.
The University of Florida checks in with their opinion on matters:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-adults-are-still-in-charge-at-the-university-of-florida-israel-protests-tents-sasse-eca6389b?st=qx15hm40aqcblsl&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“Weâre a university, not a daycare. We donât coddle emotions, we wrestle with ideas.”
Acting the clairvoyant once again, yesterday I said this about the University of North Carolina fraternities that successfully defended Old Glory :
âThe Greeks on campuses will run with thisâ
âŚand today there is this:
âLSU Fraternity boys chant âUSA, USAâ while holding American flags as they drown out the noise from anti-Israel activists at Louisiana State University.â
Video:
https://x.com/TheSlickScript/status/1786568696938594586
And, the same chant from fraternities at an Ole Miss counter demonstration:
https://www.tiktok.com/@viraltvnetwork/video/7364879606056373546
And, A large group of fraternity guys at the University of Alabama waving American flags drowned out pro-Hamas protestors by chanting âTake a shower!â
https://x.com/thecjpearson/status/1786180242177962128
Gotta love the SEC!
Itâs gonna be funâŚ
Multiple fraternities have decided to merge into one fraternity this summer and they will operate under a new name:
Upsilon Sigma Alpha
Is it possible to be pro-Palestinian in connection with the present challenges and yet be neither pro-Hamas nor Anti-Semitic?
Also Anti-Zionist but not anti-Semitic?
John,
Good questions.
John,
Maybe. But I think it would be up to the pro-Palestinian person to articulate what pro-Palestinian means and how it is different from pro-Hamas or anti-Semitic. Maybe more than that, maybe in today’s world it would be up to the pro-Palestinian person to clearly and forcefully denounce and oppose pro-Hamas and anti-Semitic in a consistent and unambiguous way.
For the past 30+ years, the philosophical basis of many/most ‘intellectuals’ in the US has shifted into Focault derivative thinking that focuses on power in social interactions and precious little else. Palestine and Hamas are right because they are weak, Israel is the oppressor and wrong because they are strong; there is essentially (largely) no longer any further guiding principle than this, except for the dwindling perspective and influence of some old former hippies who are in the process of dying out from old age, who knew better once upon a time.
People deserve to reap the consequences of the philosophical convictions they chose to adhere to, good and hard.
Dare I add, this comes from the endless love affair much of the left has always seemed to have with Marxism. It continues to this day.
It’s certainly possible to have those qualities as an individual. The problem is you can’t prevent the radicals in your midst from saying radical things such as “Zionist don’t deserve to live”. Especially if you have a leaderless movement such as Occupy Wall Street then it can’t be easily corrected. The opposing side then exploits these radicals and paints the entire movement with statements of the clowns. Same thing happens with Trump support, this gets very repetitive and tedious.
There are true believers, but those who feel most “passionately” about this are also the most likely to have extreme feelings about Israel and Jews. A basic tenet of this historic opposition has been the occupation of religious lands by those of another faith so the antisemitism is baked in by the hardcore activists who are in this for the long run.
I’m not talking about the cosplay radicals at elite campuses, I see this as mostly performative. There are many people who validly don’t like the death and destruction in Gaza but it is notable that these same people had very little to say after Oct 7th and refuse to condemn * Hamas * for the most part and the hostages.
Using their own perverse logic, this imbalance of outrage can arguably be rooted in systemic antisemitism and all the proof that is necessary is the Jews say so.
FYI: This is an interview from NPR / WNYC recently, see the transcript:
https://www.wnyc.org/story/campus-protests-cuny-and-columbia/
“Brian Lehrer: You wouldn’t make a distinction between Hamas style, violent resistance, October 7th style, violent resistance, and other forms of resistance?
Hadeeqa Arzoo: I said that was all I’m going to answer in regards to this question, but thank you so much, Brian.”
The leaders of these type of protests have to maintain their radical chic cred so they can’t be caught saying this is a complicated situation where everyone has been behaving badly for decades due to irreconcilable differences. It damages the entire movement.
John,
I have a variation of your question. Is it possible to be pro-Palestinian without being anti-American? I think not. Whenever bad things happen to the US, Palestinians take to the streets en masse chanting âDeath to Americaâ They want to see us dead.
Karol Markowowicz says it better:
The colonialism blah blah land back bullshit these leftists are pushing is specifically an anti-American line too. It’s just the latest Communism push and it’s very obvious
https://x.com/karol/status/1786758634157776992
More from Karol:
“What the frat boys get, but writers at the NYT either don’t or pretend not to, is that these protests are also anti-America. That’s why the frat boys are waving American flags and singing the Star Spangled Banner. They get it. We get it.”
In my view the singular important questions about the current wars in Ukraine and the Middle East follows that for all wars are: How do we avoid the utterly destructive nature of wars by preventing or less destructively replying to the initial action that instigates a war?
I believe the first step toward dealing with these issues is to have a serious and reasonable discussion about the belief that wars somehow can make the human condition better and the connected one that wars are inevitable.
The war in the Middle East is an example of how a government body and political group can create a conditions that are obviously adverse for its people by keeping its people near totally dependent on government bodies for their survival while at the same time fomenting hatred among its people for an outside group of people and thus maintaing their favor. These are familiar conditions for, lesser and greater extent, the instigations of all wars. The defense that follows by a government directly or indirectly involved, in turn, tends to, a greater or lesser extent, to follow the pattern of the instigator where truth is suspended, government force and power increased and propaganda used in attempts to maintain the favor of the people.
The common thread in most of these developments is the easy submission of the populace to the power of their governments even when it should be obvious that governments to greater and lesser extent are motivated to maintain power.
An extreme example of this is what one sees in public displays of North Koreans unconditional adoration of its government leaders. A better understanding and discussion of these conditions could be a beginning in avoiding wars.
Had great fun reading the morning headlines:
âSinger John Rich offers free concert to the fraternity for protecting US flag from protestorsâ
âJohn Rich Says UNC Concert Will be Called “Flagstock”, Trump Could Attendâ
âLindsey Graham says âChick-fil-A is on the wayâ for UNC fraternityâ
âTrump posts campaign ad praising UNC students holding up US flag during campus protestâ
âBillionaire investor Bill Ackman gives $10K to UNC American flag âragerâ
âWhite House says UNC fraternity was âadmirableâ in protecting American flagâ
A good recap of the Ukraine war over the last couple of weeks
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vYaK4dB4zK8
.
The Ukraine problem of personnel shortages and lack of adequate ammunition supply is becoming pronounced. This has led to a major breakthrough of Ukraine lines by the Russians.
.
The strategic situation for Ukraine is worsening due to a lack of reserves to enable Ukraine to move units off the combat line to rest and recover. Russia has the reserves to rotate units off the combat lines and is attacking across the entire front.
.
This issue of Ukraine lack of trained reserves and exhausted frontline troops will eventually lead to Ukraine frontline collapse.
Very much what happened to the Germans in WWI and the South in the ACW that forced their surrender.
.
By October of this year, I expect the Ukraine army to be fully exhausted and only weakly able to resist Russian attacks. May not be the end of the war though as Ukraine may refuse Russian terms (what I expect) and Ukraine is a large country to move through and occupy.
.
At this point we will see what the Ukraine population and field armies think of surrendering to Russia. If they are tired of the war, Russia will see Ukraine surrenders in mass. If there is still a large portion of the country wanting to fight, then the war continues more as a guerrilla war than a regular war.
Ed
When I first read this, I thought: a prediction!
But then I reread and realized that your statement is consistent with both of the following
(a) Ukraine totally folds tomorrow.
(b) Ukraine is still fighting Russia in October.
October 2024 is a long way off. Given that most people expected Ukraine would fold by April 2022.
And then you continue
Well… yeah. You now appear to expect Ukraine may not
surrender. (These seems a reversal of the “unconditional surrender” you seemed to consider inevitable before.)
Given the previous paragraph, you “at this point” refers to Oct 2024….right? (Real question– I’m asking for a point of clarity.
This made me chuckle:
Predicting “If they want to surrender, they’ll surrender. If they don’t they won’t” is a pretty safe bet.
Russell and Ed, when I read and take account of your opposing renditions of the progress of the war in Ukraine, I think stale mate or a slowly evolving advantage to one side or the other that will kill, maim, destroy property of and dislocate many more innocent Ukrainians while at the same time reducing their freedoms and kill, main, reduce the freedoms and standards of living for many more innocent Russians. The fact that these innocents cannot or will not push for a settlement of the war does not make them less innocent.
Kenneth,
I feel the same about the Israeli’s and Palestinians, except in their case there seems to be no solution.
Kenneth,
Good comment.
Some things are worth dying for. Victoria Nuland’s vision of ideal politics in Eastern Europe is not one of them.
100’s of thousands of casualties? What a waste.
For most places in California now driving an electric car costs more per mile than an ICE, even if charging at home due to their high electricity costs. This has changed over the last couple years.
It’s a complete accounting exercise because of off peak charging rates, efficiency losses of home chargers, costs for public charging, the efficiency of your car’s drivetrain, and the ever changing cost of fuel.
A sample calculation can be found here:
https://g05.bimmerpost.com/forums/showpost.php?p=31123591&postcount=6
“Cost per mile for eDrive for me: $0.65/kWh / 2miles/kWh * 1/0.85 (L2 charging lost) = $0.38/mile
Cost per mile for ICE: $5.2/gallon this week at costco / 22MPG (if I don’t charge at all) = $0.24/mile”
We haven’t even gotten to the point where the state finally figures out that EV’s aren’t paying any gas taxes to fund road building. That will come eventually.
My local area is spending a bazillion dollars upgrading all the power lines recently, doubling capacity.
Tom,
It looks like Duke is getting $0.18/kWh. If you cannot charge at home at rates sort of like this, I can’t see how it makes any sense to drive an EV.
And then there’s cost of tires.
I don’t know if they still offer the credit for hooking up to their load-shedding system, but in 1988, having the pool pump, ac, and some other device which I’ve now forgotten on load-shedding, where they could cut us off for no more than ten minutes at a time saved a bundle. But that was FPL.
It’s also seemed to have been missed but EV’s burn coal in a number of Areas in Texas.
Kenneth, Your desire for an end of hostilities is admirable. But itâs not up to you, or me, or Ed to decide that the Ukrainians should stop their self-defense. The Ukrainians have 75 years of recent history living under the brutal rule of Russians. Stalin killed 4 million Ukrainians in the time that is known as the Holodomor. There is no doublet that the Russians will be even more brutal this time around.
Ukrainians resisting Russian aggression leads to the loss of lives. Ukrainians not resisting Russian aggression leads to the loss of lives.
âThe term Holodomor (death by hunger, in Ukrainian) refers to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932â33 as a result of Soviet policies. The Holodomor can be seen as the culmination of an assault by the Communist Party and Soviet state on the Ukrainian peasantry, who resisted Soviet policies.â
Kenneth, Your desire for an end of hostilities is admirable. But itâs not up to you, or me, or Ed to decide that the Ukrainians should stop their self-defense. The Ukrainians have 75 years of recent history living under the brutal rule of Russians. Stalin killed 4 million Ukrainians in the time that is known as the Holodomor. There is no doublet that the Russians will be even more brutal this time around.
Ukrainians resisting Russian aggression leads to the loss of lives. Ukrainians not resisting Russian aggression leads to the loss of lives.
https://www.britannica.com/event/Holodomor
The term Holodomor (death by hunger, in Ukrainian) refers to the starvation of millions of Ukrainians in 1932â33 as a result of Soviet policies. The Holodomor can be seen as the culmination of an assault by the Communist Party and Soviet state on the Ukrainian peasantry, who resisted Soviet policies.
Tom Scharf,
I don’t think there is much loss of efficiency in home vs rapid chargers (about 97% I think). At $0.13/kw hr (FPL) a full charge of 70 kw would be about $10, for a range of about 240 miles (real-world hyway conditions), so only a little over $0.04 per mile. Comparable gas cost (assuming 30 mpg) is $3.50/30 = $0.116 per mile. At California electric prices, the cost advantage is small. At road-side charging prices, there is no cost advantage for electric. Add in some road tax provision and the higher initial price, and electric is an economic loser.
Russell Klier
MAY 6, 2024 AT 12:48 AM
Russell, my desire and point have been ending the government actions that lead to war. Ukraine came under Soviet Union (Russian) control in the aftermath of WW1 and thus Stalin was able to take grain from the Ukraine and starve Ukranians to fed Russians. I see war as begetting war and/or government actions disastrous to its people.
Wars are perpetuated by governments and the controlling politicians who seek ways to retain power. It is the individuals in the private sector who must become intimately aware of these government tendencies and the consequences.
There is also the loss of charging the car batteries in the vehicles independent of the charging method. I think the total loss is around 15% but it varies by model.
“Using the 2021 Tesla Model Y as an example, Tesla’s own dataâburied deep in 49 pages of certification documents filed with the EPAâshows it took 87.868 kWh to add 77.702 kWh to the battery of the Long Range version. That’s a 13 percent overage. For the Model Y Performance version, adding 81.052 kWh to the battery required 92.213 kWh, or 14 percent more.
…
Our long-term 2019 Tesla Model 3 Long Range Dual Motor test car is currently averaging 95 percent efficiency from a Level 2 Tesla 240-volt wall connector. Staffers charging at home using a typical 120-volt wall outlet saw efficiency of, at best, 85 percent, and it dropped to as little as 60 percent in very cold weather, when charging the battery requires expending significant energy to keep it warm.”
Charging is less efficient over 80% charge level, the batteries have to be at the right temperature for efficient charging, EV mileage depends on how cold it is outside, etc.
The dominant factors are the price of electricity vs. the price of gas though. The other efficiencies can be optimized with better design and usually increased costs.
As soon as EV adoption rates are high enough then the state is going to want to start scraping back gas related tax revenue.
Another hidden cost is that electric cars are more costly to insure. This is apparently related to a problem where any damage to the battery pack at all will total the vehicle in most cases because they are extremely costly to repair. This is another area that can be improved.
Private citizens outsource the protection of their tribe to the government. They can choose to have no protection but that isn’t likely to end well unless you are very good friends with somebody with a big army.
The government, being made up of power seeking humans, then decides protection entails occasional “preemptive defensive” offensive action, or more commonly known as a special military operation.
The problem I think is related to a real requirement to have tribal protection that then tempts tribal leaders to expand their domain. They want to play with their toys.
The government has to be tasked with defense only and it is difficult to keep the dogs on the leash.
Tom Sharf
That becomes difficult if another government decides to send troops over your border. It’s true Ukraine is mostly sticking to operating in Ukraine. But “defense” is often more effective if you also have the option of some “offense” during the conflict.
You can’t always rely on a force field to repel all the Klingons or Romulans incoming blasts. You sometimes have to shoot back.
Kenneth,
You wrote: âUkraine came under Soviet Union (Russian) control in the aftermath of WW1 and thus Stalin was able to take grain from the Ukraine and starve Ukranians to feed Russians.â
And Russian atrocities are not confined to history. The Russians have been brutalizing Ukrainian civilians throughout the current war. Human Rights Watch details it here:
https://www.hrw.org/news/2022/04/03/ukraine-apparent-war-crimes-russia-controlled-areas
Currently, there are millions of Ukrainian civilians trapped in the parts of Ukraine controlled by Russia. President Zalenskyy has repeatedly said that they will not stop fighting until they free all of their brothers and sisters from behind enemy lines.
I understand this sentiment.
Kenneth,
It’s even harder when the demonstrators won’t talk to anyone. See Peggy Noonan’s column in the wsj:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/what-i-saw-at-columbia-demonstration-masks-lack-of-engagement-4c778d4c?st=1131cvemj6ebzce&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
“The protesters wear masks, avoid eye contact, and seem uninterested in engagement or progress.”
And, shades of Hamas, the front lines of the protesters when the police were clearing Hamilton were all women.
Lucia,
I strongly agree. I think in most cases, the way the military ‘defends’ is by ‘neutralizing a threat’, or ‘destroying the enemy’s ability to make war’ ; I.E., by attack.
Lucia, you wrote:
“You canât always rely on a force field to repel all the Klingons or Romulans incoming blasts. You sometimes have to shoot back.”
Dif-tor heh smusma ! [live long and prosper]
You also wrote:
“But âdefenseâ is often more effective if you also have the option of some âoffenseâ during the conflict.”
It appears both the US and UK governments are starting to agree with you. These are dramatic recent reversals in positions:
Axios, What to know about the long-range missiles the U.S. quietly gave Ukraine
https://www.axios.com/2024/04/24/us-long-range-missiles-atacms-ukraine-war
The UK sent them Storm Shadow missiles and Foreign Secretary Cameron appeared to OK use inside Russia:
BBC, Kyiv can use British weapons inside Russia – Cameron
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c163kp93l6po
I think Kenneth’s point is if everyone stopped “defending” themselves against the other guy then the world would be a better place. This is very likely true, but let’s make sure the other guy does it first, ha ha.
Russell Klier wrote: “The Ukrainians have 75 years of recent history living under the brutal rule of Russians. ”
The Ukrainians already had over a century and a half of living under brutal Russian rule prior to the communist takeover.
“Donald Trump is a hot wire that either fires up the imagination of voters or fries the brain.”
That remark is from Frank Miele commenting on the wildly divergent views of Trump.
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2024/05/06/trump_is_a_rorschach_test_for_the_body_politic_150894.html
Miele goes on to discuss the recent Eric Cortellessa interview of Trump and compare what Cortellessa wrote to the actual transcript, with a link provided. Quite a difference. I have not had a chance to read the full interview yet.
Mike,
you wrote: âThe Ukrainians already had over a century and a half of living under brutal Russian rule prior to the communist takeoverâ
OK under any historical time scale, a century and a half, 75 years, and the last two and a half years, the Russians have been murderous thugs to the peoples they have conquered. I donât see the Ukrainians surrendering to the Russians. If they are left with only shovels and pitchforks, they will fight on.
MIT ends mandatory diversity statements in hiring. MIT’s president said diversity statements are a form of compelled speech and they do not work.
Don’t want to comment on current American politics as I do not want to mozz my preferred outcomes.
As to Electric vehicles.
I use a wide range of small battery operated devices including this phone, a Lawn mower and whippersnipper and a batttery torch on standby.
I would love an electric vehicle for the speed of response and low noise.
But economics is a cruel taskmaster,
Without widespread cheap energy charged batteries independent of oil, a current practical impossibility, only rich entitled and smug people should use them.
It’s pucker time.
Russia is taking the position that supplying weapons to strike inside Russia is an act of war against Russia and will be responded to as such. And tactical nuclear weapons are not ruled out of bounds.
.
From the article:
“Moscow threatens to strike British military facilities following Cameronâs remarks”
https://www.politico.eu/article/russia-threaten-strike-british-military-facility-david-camerons-remark-war-ukraine/
.
U.K. foreign secretaryâs words confirm Londonâs growing involvement in military operations on the side of Kyiv, according to the Kremlin.
.
Russia said on Monday it could strike British military installations and equipment both “inside and beyond” Ukraine if British weapons are used by Kyiv to attack its territory.
âAny British military facilities and equipment on the territory of Ukraine and beyond could be a response to Ukrainian strikes with the use of British weapons on the territory of Russia,â the Russian ministry of foreign affairs said in a statement.
The Kremlin also summoned the British Ambassador to Moscow âto express a strong protestâ in connection with recent comments by U.K. Foreign Secretary David Cameron.
.
Tom, you missed my point. I judge self defense to be a very moral action.
My points have been (1) we need to get over the inevitability of war, (2) we have to recognize that wars increase the powers of governments, (3) we need to recognize that politicians are not above using war and threats of war to maintain power, (4) we need people not dependent on government and willing to follow the government line and (5) we, the US, needs to stop being the world’s policeman
A couple of other points:
I see in the WSJ that the military industrial complex is doing well and hoping for continuing conflicts. It was reported as if the complex were like regular businesses that could improve our standard of living.
The historical hatred that Russell sees of the Ukrainians for Russia is a bit confusing to me since the second elected President of Ukraine 1994-2005, Leonid Kuchma, was pro Russian and Victor Yanukovych President of Ukraine 2010-2014 was member of a Pro Russian party. He won the Presidential election in 2004 until the Supreme Court called for a rerun and he lost.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy grew up speaking Russian.
I think most of the hatred for another nationality and nation stems more immediately from the current war amongst them and I think governments depend on and use that hatred.
Kenneth,
“In November 2013, Yanukovych made a sudden decision, amidst economic pressure from Russia,[10] to withdraw from signing an association agreement with the EU and instead accept a Russian trade deal and loan bailout. This sparked mass protests against him that ultimately led to his ousting as President.[11][12][13] The civil unrest peaked in February 2014, when almost 100 protesters were killed by police.[14] Yanukovych then signed an agreement with the opposition, but secretly fled the capital later that day.”
Ukrainians wanted nothing to do with Russia in 2014 under Victor Yanukovych
Kenneth,
I have read and reread your posts and do not understand what you are saying either Ukraine or the US should do.
Do you want Ukraine to capitulate or fight on? That is the choice they face.
Do you want the US to supply Ukraine with arms or stop supplying Ukraine with arms?
That is the choice we face.
Kenneth
The other stuff means something. This means almost nothing. Vlad speaks Russian (and Ukrainian.) His grandmother almost got caught killed and eaten during the Holodomor.
They all speak Russian. It doesn’t mean they don’t hate Russians as a conquering state. This hatred is not new.
Ed Forbes writes, “Russia is taking the position that supplying weapons to strike inside Russia is an act of war against Russia and will be responded to as such.” And Ed writes it as if it were the first time Russia has published its ominous threats. It isn’t.
Kenneth, war is a scourge that afflicts mankind and is worse than famine, plague and pestilence. It is a pity that this truth has to be rediscovered in every new generation.
It is even a greater pity that it only takes one country to forget this truth to make great parts of the world miserable. Damn Russia to hell.
Thomas Fuller
Newsflash Russia: You are at war with Ukraine. You started it.
Are you people still interested in the bobcat videos?
Two vids from last night:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1787713553434034567
I’m pretty sure itâs a male based on his size, over three feet long and about two feet tall. Also, he never has any kittens with him. He used to come about every other night, but now itâs only once a week or so. Our other wildlife population has been decimated, the two wild house cats, rabbits, and possums are MIA. We should be seeing young mammals this time of year, but nothing is showing up. We still have two large adult raccoons who travel together but no young ones. We do have a few squirrels left.
Ominous threats can lead to even more catastrophic war.
I hope negotiations start before that happens. I fear they may not.
Russia is playing a game of chicken with nuclear war.
I think it is reasonable to assume that Russiaâs nuclear arsenal is in as bad of condition as its conventional arsenal is. It was poorly constructed and maintained because the cleptocracy that is Putinâs government would never stop at just robbing the traditional military. Billion-dollar private fortresses, half-billion-dollar yachts, and Mediterranian villas can be expensive.
Russell Klier
MAY 6, 2024 AT 7:18 PM
Russell , you ask some good questions.
My comments are directed toward long term thinking about the conditions that lead to wars and what needs to change. Realistically that thinking has to change before conflicts like we see in Urkraine are avoided. Therefore my answers to your questions are based on the fact that the thinking about wars has not changed and rather has gone in directions opposite to the changes I judge are needed. My answers are more what I consider practical matters given the immediate situation.
(1) Ukraine has the right to self-defense and as a soveriegn nation should not be forcefully intervened by an outside entity.
(2) As an outside entity the US in my view should only be involved in this matter with regards to attempts to stop the killing and destruction of property by pushing for a negotiated settlement. More generally the US needs to stay out of worldwide disagreements that can lead to military conflicts.
(3) The US needs rather to set an example of a peaceful nation by promoting free trade that does not involve bi- and multi-lateral agreements the put we and or trading partners against the world.
(4) The US needs to allow its citizens to travel to and communicate with those of other countries with the emphasis and acknowledgment that people to people relationships of people from different nations is much more important than that of government politicians.
(5) The U S must face the practical issue that by funding
Ukraine and in the end being limited by not becoming directly involved with an adversary to avoid the possibility of a nuclear conflict, the current stalemate could continue for a very long time before a negotiated settlement is reached. The questions then become who will fund the, by then, huge cost of rebuilding Ukraine and how much will the ongoing US funding of the war cost the US taxpayer.
(6) While the decision for accepting a negotiated settlement is and should be Ukraine’s, as a practical matter, without US aid Ukraine would be faced with a very different urgency of obtaining a negotiated settlement.
(7) The alternative of US funding Ukraine is for Europe to fund a European war. When US funding was delayed Europe made no major efforts to fill the gap.
(8) The US needs to acknowledge the unstainability of the accumulation of federal government deficits which includes defense spending.
At current rates of spending, Russia’s sovereign wealth fund will be exhausted by end 2025. Ukraine just needs to hold out until then.
That won’t be a magic bullet of course, but combined with battlefield losses, disappearance of the civilian labor force and other factors, Russia will lose this war shortly afterwards.
Kenneth,
Some good points. I would add just one more.
While it is true that Ukraine is a sovereign country and should be able to defend itself, and also true that Russia started the war by invading, it is I think a bit naive to consider only those facts. In addition to the long and sometimes troubled history between Russia and Ukraine, we should recognize that the USA has been deeply involved in Ukraine, and actively promoted, both overtly and covertly, a revolution which overthrew the (elected!) pro-Russian government in 2014, and “called the Russian’s bluff” just prior to the Russian invasion by signing a bi-lateral agreement with Ukraine, committing the USA to have Ukraine join NATO. “Calling their bluff” directly led to the invasion…. Russia had warned loudly and consistently that Ukraine joining NATO was unacceptable and would lead to conflict.
I hope the people at the State Department don’t think they should again “call Russia’s bluff”.
That all works great as long as you don’t mind ISIS running Syria and Iraq, Kuwait becoming a non-country, Iran at war with everyone, Cuba being a Russian state, Ukraine under Russian control and Russia lining up on that border to take the rest of Eastern Europe, China taking Taiwan, the Taliban running Afghanistan (oops, ha ha), etc.
Strategic deterrence is a real thing. Poorly executed military adventurism is also a real thing. The hard part is telling the difference beforehand.
Thomas,
â At current rates of spending, Russiaâs sovereign wealth fund will be exhausted by end 2025. Ukraine just needs to hold out until then.â
Interesting, Do you have a reference for this?
Hiya Russell
I held Gemini’s feet to the fire and forced it to make a prediction. It didn’t really want to… so perhaps a grain of salt is in order.
“Given the assumption of current spending rates and no other changes, estimates suggest Russia’s sovereign wealth fund could be exhausted around the end of 2025 or early 2026.
Here’s a breakdown of the reasoning:
High Spending: Recent reports indicate Russia has been making significant withdrawals from the fund to cover budget deficits and support spending related to the war in Ukraine.
Limited Revenue Growth: Sanctions imposed by the West are impacting Russia’s ability to generate revenue from oil and gas exports, a key source of income for the country.
Expert Opinions: Analyses from organizations like Stratfor project the fund’s depletion within this timeframe under the assumed conditions.
However, it’s important to remember that this is an estimate based on current information. Here’s why a definitive answer is difficult:
Unforeseen Events: Unexpected developments like a change in leadership, a resolution to the war, or a significant shift in global oil prices could drastically affect the timeline.
Transparency Issues: Obtaining completely reliable data on Russia’s exact spending and revenue streams can be challenging.”
Thomas,
Thank you. I am not a money guy, but my brain sees it this way…..
Russia is paying for its war effort with money it has stashed in Chinese banks.
Meanwhile, the US is paying for shipping arms to Ukraine by borrowing money from Chinese banks.
Do I have that right?
Tom, Kenneth,
I would love to be able to say I understand and agree with Kenneth and I believe what he envisions would work, but unfortunately I can’t say that because I don’t see how.
Strategic deterrence is indeed a real thing. More generally speaking, strong central government nations that extend them little freedom to their subjects can often exert military power that rivals or equals the military power a ‘free’ (or relatively free) nation like the US. History shows us this repeatedly.
One of the great reasons to have a reasonably strong government is in order to not have a worse government; to prevent the thugs foreign and domestic from taking over. Strategic deterrence, geopolitics, defense spending, strategic military actions; all of these things are (perhaps sadly) part and parcel of having a reasonably strong government.
I would honestly be delighted to be persuaded my thinking is wrong here.
Beg pardon, my comment above was meant for Tom Scharf; I should have made that unambiguous.
I don’t see why it is relevant that the Ukrainians overthrew an elected government in 2014. They promptly replaced it with an elected government.
The idiotic policy of expanding NATO eastward has certainly been a factor in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Because of that, we have some responsibility for the situation.
Rarely mentioned are the multiple occasions on which we have given Ukraine security guarantees; most notably in exchange for Ukraine giving up their nuclear weapons. That ought to count for something (a lot, IMO) even though there were no legally binding treaties ratified by the Senate.
SteveF
MAY 7, 2024 AT 10:48 AM
Steve, I found the linked article below has a reasonably measured views/critique of Zelensky the politician, his negotiations with Russia and the aftermath. It points briefly to the West’s influence in shutting down negotiations.
Tom and Mark, strategic deterrence, like being the world’s policeman, makes a nation a threat to others and in the process a target and an adversary and thus requiring more deterrence. It is a never ending vicious circle. We should take the Soviet Union experience as an example.
Sorry the link is here.
https://harpers.org/archive/2023/10/the-tragedy-of-volodymyr-zelensky
Kenneth,
There are risks in taking a proactive role in the affairs of the world. There are risks in NOT taking a proactive role as well. If you are suggesting that if only we would stay out of international affairs that the rest of the world would simply leave us in peace, well, I’m sorry. I wish that were so, but I don’t think that’s true. I think it’d be dangerously naĂŻve to assume that.
Thanks Kenneth.
I agree completely with mark bofill.
Since there is a very clear difference of opinion on Ukraine among commenters, I wonder:
Who here thinks the war ends with Russia giving back all of the occupied lands?
Who thinks there will be a clear military “winner”?
Who thinks there will be a negotiated settlement?
Who thinks it will become another “frozen conflict” a la Korea?
I think there is a chance for a negotiated settlement, especially if Trump wins in November, but if I had to bet, I’d bet on a frozen conflict, and no formal end of war in the next two decades.
Steve,
I started to reply and quickly realized I don’t really have my thoughts in order on the subject. I’m remarking now because I think your question is a good and interesting one, just one that requires a little bit of consideration.
The US has expended huge amounts of money and human lives in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. How has that made the world a better place than if we had forgone those wars? That is real question for neo cons posting here.
Am I confusing strategic deterrence with the precautionary principle that the climate activists use arguing for government actions that extract huge sums of money from tax payers?
FYI: The James Webb Telescope continues to churn out lots of interesting pictures.
https://webbtelescope.org/images
Here is a deep field survey image, it has 45,000 galaxies in it.
https://webbtelescope.org/images?page=10&filterUUID=91dfa083-c258-4f9f-bef1-8f40c26f4c97
You can download the PNG file and zoom in, pretty amazing. The universe appears to be quite large.
Kenneth,
I’m not a neo con, but. We haven’t made the world a better place. We have screwed up many times, I don’t think anyone would dispute that.
Once again, sure. As Tom pointed out, knowing the difference between ill advised adventurism and good foreign policy isn’t easy, and we’ve screwed it up plenty of times.
.
Tell me this. It’s WWI, and you’re in Wilson’s shoes. Germany is trying to convince Mexico to ally against us, and is sinking our merchant shipping. What do you do?
Kenneth,
I guess if you engage magical thinking and preclude the possibility that the expansion of communism and Islamic Jihad would have just gone away on their own then we should have never done those things. There is no way you know that, and no way the people who decided to take action knew that.
How about we leave Saddam in place, he develops nuclear weapons, ISIS takes over and nukes go off in DC. Is that a better world?
People have to make history altering decisions in great uncertainty. Hindsight isn’t always 20/20 here.
It’s arguable that the generation after WWII over-learned the lesson of trying to take out wannabe Hitlers early before the cost becomes catastrophic.
Steve
One possibility is a less clear ending
Russia is currently focused on the destruction of the Ukraine military.
.
Ukraine is experiencing severe manpower shortages to the point that major health problems are no longer an exemption from the draft. The numbers of volunteers has flatlined to almost zero as being sent to the front is considered a one way ticket.
.
The Ukraine situation has many similarities to the South in the ACW. The South had a strong and capable army until it didn’t. The change came quickly for Lee’s Army of Northern Virginia and Lee surrendered his army when faced with its total fdestruction as a viable military force. This effectively ended the war but with no official State surrender. The political leaders cut and ran for Mexico.
.
Russia most likely wants nothing to do with most of Ukraine west of the Dnipr River other than Odesa.
I could see Russia finish the destruction of the Eastern Ukraine army, take control of all of Ukraine east of the river, take control of a line west of the river at Zapotizhzhya, and south to Odesa.
.
This would pull the teeth of any strong and viable rump state of Ukraine and leave any rebuilding of Ukraine to the tender mercy of the West.
.
The war would then be “frozen” with a failed state on Europe’s border, and Europe’s problem to deal with.
SteveF,
Russia giving back all of the occupied lands? Crimea? Not a chance. The breakaway parts of the Donbas? Far from likely. The invaded territory? Maybe
Clear military âwinner? Probably not
Negotiated settlement? Maybe. I hope so.
Frozen conflict? Maybe. I hope not.
But I think that war tends to be unpredictable.
Could Russia just win?
Collapse of Ukrainian army followed by total invasion.
End of problem?
Angech, no–not end of problem. Victorious Russia is still broke, under sanctions, shunned by former trading partners, without a generation of workers who have died or fled, an economy in shreds and ruins to rebuild.
Pyrrhus would be proud.
Thomas
Win/win for everyone else though.
Two super European countries bought to their knees with all that rebuilding money to come.
Fighting a united Russia and Ukraine was a scary prospect for all.
–
What I wouldn’t give for even one honest angry juror these days.
None in NY obviously
I don’t like making predictions about something as uncertain as this situation.
I think Ukraine can win in two ways: the ouster of the Putin government or a breakup of the Russian empire. I have said from the earliest days of the war that I thought a military coup against Putin was a possibility. Prigozhin almost accomplished it. It is still possible. As the war drags on it is severely weakening Russia militarily and financially and seriously exacerbating its population loss problem. There are many peoples, both internal and external, that hate the Russians; this may be their chance.
I think Russia has rediscovered how to fight a war. The superior population numbers and resources make it unlikely that they will be defeated on the battlefield.
Ukraine will not surrender. Surrender means mass death and deportation at the hands of brutal Russian overlords.
In the short term, six months, I see a continued fighting retreat for the Ukrainians. I think the Ukrainians have discovered how to inflict maximum damage while surrendering minimal territory. The Russian military will pay dearly in blood and material for every square meter captured.
The Europeans are located a lot closer to this than we are, I expect escalating involvement by them.
Neither side will negotiate.
A long-term stalemate is a definite possibility, particularly if Trump wins.
And a long term stalemate helps the West–with the exception of Ukraine.
Mark, below is a link to a short article that gives some history of events leading up to WW 1 and why we should have avoided entering to avoid WW 2 happening.
https://www.iwp.edu/articles/2019/03/21/could-should-the-u-s-have-stayed-out-of-world-war-i/
Thanks Kenneth
Tom Scharf
MAY 7, 2024 AT 5:10 PM
Tom, I guess we might label entering wars and paying that deep price to fend off some unknown future developments that become counterfactuals after the fact as magical thinking. Counterfactuals to justify the costs of war are easy to come by. When there was not a predicted domino effect when we lost in Viet Nam, the counterfactual becomes something else.
Thomas,
â And a long term stalemate helps the Westâwith the exception of Ukraineâ
I think that is true.
Some of the European escalations that are or may be in the works:
1. F-16s, So far, Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Belgium have committed to sending about 45. The first squadron is due this month.
2. German / Swedish Taurus air launched cruise missiles, a very smart, very destructive weapon with a range of 500 km
3. Nordic blockade of the Baltic sea
4. French air defense soldiers manning missile batteries in Western Ukraine
5. Western combat engineers repairing infrastructure in Western Ukraine (may have already happened)
6. Britain has delivered long-range âStorm Shadowâ cruise missiles to Ukraine.
One cannot just ignore the entirety of human history which is full of endless tribal warfare and then * assume * the other guy will stop if you do. Everyone doesn’t have a libertarian inside of them just waiting to get out, some people have Genghis Khan inside of them and they disproportionately tend to end up as leaders instead of Rand Paul.
Russia wants eastern Europe, Islamic Jihad wants a Global Caliphate, Iran wants Israel out of the Middle East.
Appealing to their better angels is ineffective because they have fundamentally different ideologies.
At some point only the threat or use of force will stop these type of groups. What we see repeatedly is these groups continuously test the boundaries until they are forced to stop.
F-16’s are not going to make a meaningful change in Ukraine. They will not last long over the front lines with Russia’s air defense. You need a comprehensive air strategy that requires taking out these air defenses.
Russia’s fairly modern air force still can’t fly in Ukraine without a lot of risk.
If Ukraine somehow got air dominance then that would make a big difference, that isn’t going to happen without a full NATO effort. It may not even happen with a NATO effort.
The Ukrainians are elated to be getting F-16s and Putin is not amused. That is enough for me.
The Ukrainians will undoubtedly have some unconventional was of using them. Canât wait to see.
Also, they have wiped out the Russian air defenses over Crimea.
Kenneth Fritsch: “events leading up to WW 1 and why we should have avoided entering to avoid WW 2 happening.”
I’ll give the article a look, but on the surface that sounds like a spectacular example of ex post facto reasoning.
Actually, the first use for F-16s may well be to keep Russian bombers further away from the contact line to reduce the effectiveness of Russian FABs.
It depends on the range of their air to air missiles and how close they can come to the front lines. If that is further than the range of existing ground to air missiles then it will help. Russia can choose to escort bombers with their own fighters and their own S-400 air defense has up to a 250 mile range.
You need to methodically destroy the opponent’s air defense so replacing it is unsustainable, this takes a campaign. Alternately they want to make your replacement of aircraft unsustainable. I would assume Russia’s air defenses are competent until proven otherwise, they have been justifiably concerned about this technology deficit for a long time.
Neither side looks very willing to take much risk in the air campaign.
Thomas Fuller,
âActually, the first use for F-16s may well be to keep Russian bombers further away from the contact line to reduce the effectiveness of Russian FABs.â
I wondered about that. I couldnât come to a definite conclusion.
I guess that the maximum effective range of Ukraineâs ground-based S-200 air defense missiles is about 250 km.
It is rumored that the F-16s will carry AIM-120 AMRAAM advanced air-to-air missiles from the U.S with a range of about 170 km.
Perhaps they will feel comfortable deploying F-16s closer to the front than the S-200s since the AMRAAMs are âfire and forgetâ. That would close the gap.
The Ukrainians have been ingenious at jerry-rigging Western technology. Perhaps the advanced radar and targeting system on the F-16 can extend the range of the ground-based S-200s [or some other screwball idea].
Mark bofil may have input on this.
Beats the heck out of me, but thanks for the thought.
Tom Scharf,
Sorry, cross-posted.
I don’t know what’s been going on in avionics and software upgrades for F-16’s. It wouldn’t surprise me to hear they have similar improvements to F-15EX, but I haven’t read anything specifically about that that I can recall.
Although I’d be rather surprised to hear that many dollars were being spent upgrading F-16 capabilities to integrate with old Russian systems like S-200. I guess it’s not impossible, but I think it’s sort of doubtful. I guess it depends on what their (the Ukrainians) command and control system looks like over there.
There were rumors, never confirmed, that they had jerry-rigged the Patriot radars with the S-200s to bring down those Russian A-50 AWACS planes at long distance.
Remember âFrankenSAMsâ?
â Ukraineâs FrankenSAMs Are Soviet Launchers Firing American Missiles. They Just Scored Their First Kill.â
They also found a way to target and launch HARM missiles from old Soviet MIGs. Rumored to be using iPads in the cockpit.
Hmm. Never say never! Here is a link about the Ukrainians using the old S-200 to shoot down the A-50.
The trouble is, why bother with integrating with the Patriot radar at all? The S-200’s guidance system was presumably accurate enough to get the job done against an A-50.
But if there is some reason it’s impossible, I don’t know what that reason is.
We could probably nail this down with a little work. I read that the S-200’s missiles (at least some of them) depended on the ground system fire control radar to illuminate the target. Apparently this was a NATO radar (5N62 Square Pair).
As luck would have it, Patriot radar also illuminates the target. If the details were compatible or could be made compatible (wavelength and who knows what other parameters), it just might work. It might be possible for a Patriot radar to guide an old missile like that. You wouldn’t need to rework a software interface, you’d just need to make sure the illumination characteristics were sufficiently similar.
Maybe.
It wasn’t a NATO radar, but that was the NATO designation of the radar. My bad.
One version I heard was that they just used a brief burst to acquire the target and then went dark . That way the A-50 didnât know it was targeted until the missiles showed up and there was no time for counter- measures.
Just rumors though.
Tom, you may not recognize my view and most libertarians of self defense or you are making a straw man argument. As I have stated before self defense is a very moral action. Our conflicts in Viet Nam , Iraq, and Afghanistan go well beyond the normal definition of national self defense.
Biden manages to annoy everyone with regards to the Gaza war, the perception/reality is he is caving to college protesters. Political mastery. The question is whether he loses more votes than he gains with this latest meandering, feckless policy move. I doubt he is going to like the answer.
This is all starting to feel all very sixty-eightish… So far Biden’s big triumph is not hearing a remake of ‘Four Dead In Ohio.’ Not much praise in that, but it’s a thousand times better than The Former Guy would have done.
Marc,
Your radar fire control post got me wondering if the plan is to use the F-16 as a poor man’s AWACS. That would be cool.
Lucia,
Do you still get a chuckle out of Prince Harryâs trials and tribulations?
Yesterday King Charles whacked him three times.
The most amusing thing to me is that Harry invited the Royal Family to his Invictus Games remembrance ceremony and King Charles made everyone attend a reception he threw simultaneously. A-listers will shun him now to avoid getting in Dutch with the King.
Some of the headlines:
King Charles Delivers Harsh Message of Rejection to Prince Harry
https://www.thedailybeast.com/king-charles-delivers-harsh-message-of-rejection-to-prince-harry
King Charles Snubs Prince Harry Twice in One Day
https://nymag.com/intelligencer/article/king-charles-snubs-prince-harry-twice-in-one-day.html
King Charles gives Prince Harry ‘slap in the face’ with announcement after refusing to see his son
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/king-charles-gives-prince-harry-slap-face-announcement-refusing-see-son-expert
Russell
I definitely get a chuckle. I saw that none of the Royals were going to the invictus games. It’s sad that Harry is such an a** that he’s alienated everyone, but he’s done it!
Thomas
Maybe or maybe not better than what The Former Guy would have done. It’s a hypothetical. Anyway can imagine anything that might have happened in a parallel universe.
I like this….
At many schools, the school withholds pay checks until the TA or faculty submit grades. I’m not entirely sure of legality, of withholding since it almost invariably results in people submitting grades.
I’m certain the school can refuse to renew a TA’s assistantship for next term and/or forever. They can do that for nearly any reason they want so not turning in grades could be right up there on entirely legitimate reasons.
These protests will likely affect college applications next fall.
“The Former Guy would have done”
This argument is not very effective when we know what the Former Guy actually did. There wasn’t a land war in Europe and the Israel / Gaza situation was in the usual standoff during that time. The Current Guy is demonstrably worse by any real world measure. Whether this is just luck or by opponents making different political calculations depending on The Guy is speculation.
I would suggest that donation F-16’s are likely to be the lower end of the technology spectrum.
My school withheld diplomas until all parking tickets were paid, and everybody had parking tickets. They were probably 30% of the school’s revenue. This eventually ended up in front of the state’s Supreme Court and they were forced to stop that practice.
Students being entitled in not new, but the faculty actively supporting it in that way is not a good look. A bunch of right leaning justices also announced they would not hire Columbia graduates. It’s all pretty ugly. The Ivy League’s reputation is taking a beating lately.
I do believe we are heading toward a public defunding of certain parts of academia. They have lost their way. If you are a public funded institution you cannot allow yourself to be politically captured like this. They need to show signs of rebalancing and cost sanity has to be implemented.
Whodunits at their very bestâŚ
I posted here [I think] about the British TV show âAgatha Christieâs Poirotâ, It was produced by ITV and starred Sir David Suchet. The early seasons were well done. We are now watching the later seasons and they are spectacular. The format changed from TV shows to feature-length films in series 9. They only did two to three films a year. Filmed at exotic locations, cinematography, casts, and soundtracks are first-rate. There are only about a dozen total films. We get it on Britbox. Britbox is $8.99/month. [no commercials].
Gallup 2023: Americans’ Confidence in Higher Education Down Sharply
https://news.gallup.com/poll/508352/americans-confidence-higher-education-down-sharply.aspx
“Americansâ confidence in higher education has fallen to 36%, sharply lower than in two prior readings in 2015 (57%) and 2018 (48%). ”
I very much doubt it has got better this year.
Tom
Yeah…. but if it hasn’t gone to court yet, checks might get held up.
Also: With respect to TA’s schools can do lots of things: not renew an assistantship is a biggie. Departments also often give *teaching* assistantships to specific faculty members students. Those students theses might involve research on those faculty members unfunded projects. They can withold that. Also, if some of the assitantships are glorified graders or having office hours, the faculty member will now have to grade ALL their own stuff and hold office hours.
Some faculty members get summer support from the department for certain things. The university could put the kibosh on that.
Faculty with tons of external funding can get away with more. But I bet most those with external funding aren’t super interested in supporting any political activity by withholding grades. I guess this because it’s easier to get external funding in STEM and they tend to be somewhat less likely to be very interested in “demonstrations” compared to those in Liberal Arts. It’s not a 100% thing– but it is a thing.
For that matter, entire departments budgets can be tightened.
TA’s and adjunct/contract professors get non-renewed instead of fired most of the time AFAICT. It is legally much cleaner. I would suggest this soft power is more often used to keep them in line with progressive policies than it would be in this case. Much of this is self censorship.
Just like Congress, those on the budget committee have a lot of real power.
If you are on contract you want to keep your head down. I never enter the political fray at companies I contract with, that is bad business.
âDonât threaten us with cutting off your aid. It will not work. I am not a Jew with trembling knees. I am a proud Jew with 3,700 years of civilized history.
âNobody came to our aid when we were dying in the gas chambers and ovens. Nobody came to our aid when we were striving to create our country. We paid for it. We fought for it. We died for it.
âWe will stand by our principles. We will defend them. And, when necessary, we will die for them again, with or without your aid.â
â Menachem Begin to Sen. Joe Biden, 1982
Lucia,
I suppose people who are important to external funders may have a bit more grasp on this money than the ordinary “principal investigator” but I tend to doubt it. You bleed your heart out writing grant application after grant application and then when you get it, there’s a sit-down with your institution where they explain to you why it’s going to be eaten up in overhead, etc., etc, and you are going to wind up with 30% if you’re lucky.
Maybe it’s changed since the ’60s.
Must be a major US military air exercise happening right now, 11 PM Florida time. Probably two hundred aircraft are airborne, from Canada to Mexico, Atlantic to Pacific. Big birds, little birds, USAF, Navy, Army, Marines, even NOAA are up and at em.
Screenshot of military aircraft only:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1788765950881247447
john
If they fire the principal investigator, they no longer get their 30%. But also, the PI often pays his summer salary out of the project, so they can’t cut him off. And the PI pays his research assistants out of his money. Other people’s MS and Ph.D. students might have teaching assistanships which can be yanked.
Overnight, Ukrainian forces successfully struck the Pervyy Zavod refinery in Kaluga Oblast, Russia.
Per Russian media, multiple Ukrainian attack drones hit the complex, setting it alight.
Video of drone impact
https://x.com/osinttechnical/status/1768643558834073829?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Video of resulting inferno
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1788862487078875164?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Tom Scharf,
“They have lost their way. ”
An undestatement. I read some days ago about how to “solve” the crisis of a college degree in many fields not being worth the money (many grads with fluff degrees holding low paying jobs which don’t require a college degree):
Lower the price for fluff degrees, and at the same time raise the price for useful degrees (STEM, etc). IOW, have the people learning petroleum engineering pay for people to learn gender studies.
This wasn’t a joke, and is perfectly aligned with the communist creed of academia.
And remember: ‘You didn’t built that!’
SteveF
Honestly, I suggest the other way around. Have people studying gender studies subsidize STEM. ‘Cuz gender studies really didn’t build that.
SteveF, I agree with Lucia re: relative cost of engine school.
There seems to be a national dialog on whether “everyone” needs a degree; cannot recover the cost etc.
I think everyone who can (and will) pay attention through four years ought to have the opportunity.
I’m not so sure about the maybe 20% of the class that cheated their way thourgh physics and chemistry when I was at SIU.
John,
They still needed to get through the all 4 years.
But honestly, I think dollar amount of loans should be limited to degrees from colleges that have decent job placement rates after graduation by %. Ideally get earnings from job offers. (This isn’t necessarily easy since it’s students who get the job offer. But someone could figure out an incentive for new graduates to report of for schools to phone seniors to find out if they haev an offer. )
If they can track median employment/earnings 5 years out from graduation that would be ideal. (If you go on to enroll in grad school within a year of graduation, remove that entry from both the numerator and denominator. Keep a separate tally for “% who go to grad school.” Then track earnings after grad school attributing to the major they pursued in grad school.)
It’s a bit shocking to understand why we ended up with the college degree gatekeeping mechanism to a lot of jobs. This was from an old SC decision Duke Energy vs (somebody) in which the SC held companies could no longer give intelligence tests to potential employees if they resulted in racial disparities which basically wiped out all general intelligence tests for employment due to fear of lawsuits. Companies effectively use college degrees as a proxy for intelligence and enough personal drive to complete a 4 year degree.
The history is a bit muddled, it seems Duke Energy was definitely playing some games beyond a strict meritocracy (test questions not related to job function and some other less than ethical side stories, etc.).
You can give tests but they must be directly job related (e.g. Google asking interviewees programming questions, lifting 50 lb boxes, etc.). The problem is that it is easy for somebody to file a lawsuit and the burden of proof is on the employer, at least initially, to prove the test is not racially discriminatory. They must do this by job position, and by job site. This is on the list of “the process is the punishment” so companies avoid it.
The companies are plenty happy with people/government paying for all the training of employees so they aren’t about to buck the system. Academia is happy because they get to just keep raising fees in a quasi-consortium that borders on a conspiracy. The interest group that loses are the potential employees, and especially tax payers who are subsidizing colleges but not reaping any personal benefits (2/3 of people do not have college degrees).
At least in the interim companies should be able to more easily directly screen employees for intelligence or job ability, the requirements for college degrees should drop by probably 50%, and the cost of education needs to be reeled in by capping subsidized student loan costs to that of a median state school.
NOAA alert:
G4 WATCH IN EFFECT FOR MAY 11
published: Thursday, May 09, 2024 18:45 UTC
Multiple CMEs erupted associated with flare activity from Region 3664 on 07-09 May. These CMEs are expected to merge with potential arrival expected by early May 11 on the UTC day.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/news/g4-watch-effect-may-11
This may be useful up North tonight:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast
Tom,
Yeah… one of the problems is that “intelligence” and some basic level of education are the requirements for a fair number of job with no specific skills.
I took a sewing class at college of dupage. One of the students discretely asked me how to figure out which of them marks was the 3/8 mark. She knew the feed dog hole was 1/4 and each mark on the throat plate was 1/8 apart. Problem? She didn’t know 1/4 = 2/8.
I mean… even dance teachers– a job you don’t think of as requiring math, need to explain that because of body mechanics, to turn 3/8, you turn 1/8 on your foot and then 1/4 with your hips. So, they need to know 1/4 = 2/8.
A person hiring trainees for dance would need to document “why” they need to know 1/4 = 2/8. Well… do they really need to? Can’t they just know that by rote? Yes…. they can….. But there are lots of details like this that end up coming up. (Given ballroom dancers teachers nearly always end up self employed or running dance studios, basic dance is actually a big help in the long run.)
For the record: NPR’s CEO was asked to testify before Congress and she said she had “prior engagements” the night before testimony and didn’t show up.
https://www.thefp.com/p/npr-ceo-hides-from-congress
I’m sure it was just going to be a political circus but it is still not a good look for NPR. I’m just waiting for an answer to “Why do you think every identify metric is super important except for the 87-0 editor political viewpoint metric at your organization?”
I know math real good but can’t dance for squat, ha ha. Other parts matter more.
There are lots of inequities in real life. If you grow up on a farm then the chances of you becoming a concert violinist is very remote. Not because you don’t have the potential skills, but you were never trained and never had the opportunities to do that training.
Does this need fixed? In the abstract, yes, but not really. Professional violinists are such a tiny percentage of the job market that it is OK to just let that one go. I don’t think it is a bad thing that certain cultures produce excellence in different areas.
The sports that are the most popular are ones that don’t require substantial investment to become proficient at. Basketball, soccer, baseball, football. Although specialized training helps a lot there is a feeling that these sports are fair and that is part of the draw.
Tom,
I don’t think this is the best example. The chances of anyone becoming a concert violinist is very remote. I don’t think this is for any particular reason except: not all that many people want to become concert violinists.
This does not need to be fixed, not in the abstract, not at all.
Tom,
The think that needed to be fixed was the girl taking the sewing class. She wanted to go into fashion design. There isn’t much math in that. But… well…. lots of jobs require competency through at least 6th grade math. She had a high school diploma. There is something wrong with that.
I don’t know exactly how much math Vlad got. He graduated high school, went to college. (In many European countries, college is between high school and university.) Then his family beat feat from Ukraine and came here. So he didn’t go to university.
It’s actually fortunate for him he could find jobs dancing. One of the dance teachers at a local studio worked as an attorney before beating feet from Ukraine. But you know… law is jurisdiction specific. So a lawyer needs significant retraining to pass the bar in the US. And… heck… US system was sort of based on the British system and precedents. So it can be a lot of training. Iegor decided he actually preferred teaching dancing and that’s what he’s doing. (His wife also teaches dancing.)
As a rule, most of these Ukrainian ballroom teachers who came here since 2014 would have done something else were it not for political stuff.
“Switzerland reckons with historic neutrality as it prepares to host Ukraine peace summit”
https://www.foxnews.com/world/switzerland-reckons-historic-neutrality-prepares-host-ukraine-peace-summit
.
Now this is funny. They are holding a “peace conference ” and have forgotten to invite Russia . đ
Ed Forbes,
“They are holding a âpeace conference â and have forgotten to invite Russia.”
Not serious, of course; 100% propaganda. Any real peace conference will be far more serious. May not happen for a long time, if ever.
Big night for aurora watchers in the Northern U S states⌠50% chance as far south as Illinois for the next 30 minutes. It is currently 9:30 PM in Florida.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast
Russell,
It was slightly cloudy and there is tons of light pollution. We really couldn’t see anything. (Pout.)
Lucia,
Iâm seeing images from Northern Texas and Sebring Florida and I didnât bother to go out and look last night. Not happy with myself this AM. That was truly a rare event.
Yeah. We couldnt see them. But some people had photos from Naperville. Maybe we would have seen them if we’d walked out to Benet’s football field which is less blocked by houses, trees and lights? Dunno.
I remember being told on these pages how wrong I was about the future of the Russian energy economy. That was two years ago. I was told I didnât understand global energy markets. Those criticisms stopped a while back. Turns out, I was right. Putting oil on boats and shipping it halfway around the world to sell it at a discount isnât a smart business practice.
Who knew!
Today’s headline: Gazprom, the energy giant at the heart of Russia’s economy, has announced it is selling property in Moscow, one week after posting record losses linked to restricted supplies to Europe linked to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.â
And: Gazprom Has to Offload Property to Compensate for Historically High Lossesâ
Light pollution is a huge problem. Putting a telescope in your backyard near most urban areas isn’t that exciting, You have to setup for long exposures that account for the earth’s rotation.
North Korea is much better place.
https://www.lightpollutionmap.info/
I was super excited for an astronomy viewing during a recent cruise in South America where it would be nearly total dark but the captain wouldn’t turn the deck lights off. Fail.
The best place I had was in south New Zealand where it was so dark you couldn’t hardly see anything on the ground at all. A zillion visible stars. If you can see the Milky Way band with the naked eye then you are in a pretty dark place.
Ukrainian pilots use iPads in the cockpit to link their Soviet-era MiGs to US smart missiles under their wings. Then they use old Vietnam-era âWild Weaselâ tactics to take out Russian air defenses:
https://www.businessinsider.com/ukraines-pilots-use-wild-weasel-tactics-usaf-invented-vietnam-war-2024-5
Interesting article!
When the skies are really dark, clouds are dark patches in the sky rather than light patches.
—-
Addition: The above comment about clouds is Bortle Scale 2. An impressive Milky way is Bortle Scale 4.
NPR, the bastion of fairness and objectivity, tells us which celebrities need to be blocked because they “had not yet spoken out against Israel’s attacks on the region â or hadn’t spoken out sufficiently â and therefore should be blocked.”
…
But the fact the New York event, with its unchecked display of privilege and wealth, took place at around the same time as thousands of Palestinians were being forced to flee Rafah at less than 24 hours notice as Israeli troops took control of the Gaza territory’s border crossing with Egypt, fanned the glowing embers into full-on flames.”
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/11/1250506915/met-gala-block-israel
This is under the media guise of simply reporting what others are saying but they endorse it. Silence is violence!
So Biden publicly demands Israel not invade Rafah. Israel looks to be ignoring him, now what? This makes Biden look weak. Don’t give public commands that won’t be followed. I hope Biden had a plan past his short term virtue signaling to the far left.
This is not a place he wants to be politically. He should have never given the impression he was holding Israel’s leash and expecting them to heal on his command.
(This is strictly an opinion piece, I’m not supporting any of this with links or evidence)
Biden is toast. The economy by itself is enough to torpedo him. Israel is merely the icing on the cake. His only prayer lies in the fact that his opponent is the most abominable Donald Trump, but this may not be enough. Well, this and the abortion issue.
.
I think the senility thing has evolved in the eyes of voters. I don’t think it isn’t even a question of senility anymore. The man just appears to be decrepit. I have no actual evidence for this impression I have other than my own eyes and my own subjective evaluation.
.
Meanwhile the clown show in NY is giving independents the impression that Trump is being criminally prosecuted for political reasons, which of course he is. A free campaign contribution.
.
My estimate of Biden’s odds of another term is no more than one in three right now. Maybe one in four. Something like that.
NOAA Space Weather Prediction Center
The extreme geomagnetic storm continues and will persist through at least SundayâŚ
EXTENDED WARNING: Geomagnetic K-index of 7 or greater expected
Extension to Serial Number: 105
Valid From: 2024 May 10 1715 UTC
Now Valid Until: 2024 May 12 2359 UTC
Warning Condition: Persistence
Issue Time: 2024 May 11 1753 UTC
X link: https://x.com/NWSSWPC/status/1789353321385357687 web link:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
This may be useful up North tonight:
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-30-minute-forecast
I am not a fan of models from NWS, but this one predicts auroras. It shows tonight’s aurora to dip down further South by several hundred miles compared to the one I saw yesterday afternoon.
https://www.swpc.noaa.gov/
click on “The Aurora” and run the model
mark bofill,
“My estimate of Bidenâs odds of another term is no more than one in three right now. ”
Donno. I always believed Jimmy carter would be the worst president during my lifetime…. but he was topped easily by Obama, and Biden makes Obama look incredibly competent, even if Obama often refused to follow the law. The Biden administration never follows the law, although in fairness to Biden, he is very unlikely to be aware of that.
That said, the election will come down to 6 or 7 states, and Democrats are going to spent multiple times the money Republicans spend in those states. Add to that the likely declaration of ‘convicted felon’ in NYC, and the outcome, IMHO, continues to be less than 50% chance for Trump.
Of course, Biden is clearly demented and incapable of reasoned thought; glaring public instances could change the outcome. But if I were a betting man, I’d still give Trump well under a 50% chance in November. YMMV.
Steve,
Should be interesting to see.
You all may be interested…
My son sent me a video of a Florida Gopher Tortoise from his place in rural Florida. They are listed as threatened by the State. This one is fully grown and it takes 10-20 years to reach this size.
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1789414276882481320
Note:
They love to eat ripe tomatoes
A good report on whats happing on the ground in Ukraine in light of the new Russian offensive in the north for those interested in getting down into the weeds and details.
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HEsg0WOlyyk
SteveF,
I think insufficient intelligence may sometimes be confused with dementia, particularly in an adult.
How would you characterize Bill Clinton?
Bill Clinton was as smart as a whip. And as dishonest as a snake. Almost a perfect politician.
I defense of Clinton: he could (and did!) compromise on policy. In the end, I thought he was a half-decent president, and miles better than Obama or or Biden, although always mildly offensive with his endless lies.
We have lots of gopher tortoises around here. They are kind of hilarious. Mostly not worried about humans and just go about their grumpy looking business eating the local vegetation and digging big underground tunnels. Here are a couple doing some rather odd behavior recently.
https://photos.app.goo.gl/uTKBEQtS5USFTY5j8
Bill Clinton was a master politician, too bad his wife didn’t learn anything from him.
Tom Scharf,
We should be extremely grateful that Hillary didn’t learn anything about politics from Bill.
“Gopher tortoises are a keystone species, meaning they have an outsized impact on their environment. This impact is largely due to their burrows. Gopher tortoises have large, elephantine hind limbs and flattened, shovel-like forelimbs that are uniquely designed to dig burrows up to 40 feet long and 10 feet wide. At least 300 other species also use their burrows”
https://www.nature.org/en-us/get-involved/how-to-help/animals-we-protect/gopher-tortoise/
Error in the above quote, that’s 10 beet deep not wide.
The aurora was videoed at least as far South as Las Vegas last night. I expect to be reading about how the Northern Lights are made worse because of Global Warming and that’s why they are being seen so much further South.
Tom Scharf,
Had Hillary learned anything from Bill, she might have become a more competent politician, won one more election, and done great damage, not to mention getting us into some unnecessay war.
More levity from DarthPutin at X:
âVery concerned Georgians continue to interfere in their own internal affairs.â
https://x.com/darthputinkgb/status/1789598607856832802?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
(With video)
I guess I should have said “too bad for her she didn’t learn anything from Bill”. Bill was a good politician but not such a great husband.
Hi Tom Scharf,
I cannot find the source, but I read an article some years ago which identified a characteristic shared by W. Clinton, Hitler, Stalin and Castro.
The characteristic was an ability to focus completely on whoever they were talking with in a way that the people who they had conversed with came away believing that their thoughts were of great interest to them.
The research for the book? paper? article? was done by interviews with people who had actually talked to each of them. The author had come upon the idea by reading reports of conversations and detecting this common note. He then did his own interviews and came to the conclusion identified above.
Rumor:
Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu has been fired.
Shoigu, a close partner to Putin, led the Russian MOD for over 11 years.
NATO expansion promises to RussiaâŚ. itâs all Russian BS.
There was no written agreement with Russia to stop NATO expansion. Further, the US Congress agreed to no such thing.
There was a negotiation between the Soviet Union and the US about the breakup of Germany and some in Russia claim it was discussed ârecollections of who said what at that time vary. âMikhail Gorbachev said in an interview in 2014: “The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. I say this with full responsibility. Not a single Eastern European country raised the issue, not even after the Warsaw Pact ceased to exist in 1991. Western leaders didn’t bring it up either.”
Harvard Law Today:
Under Secretary of State Robert Zoellick â81 was in the room where it happened. âI was in those meetings, and Gorbachev has [also] said there was no promise not to enlarge NATO,â
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, no discussions were held with Russia on the issue.
https://hls.harvard.edu/today/there-was-no-promise-not-to-enlarge-nato/
https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/115204.htm
I don’t care if there was no formal agreement that NATO would not expand eastward. Expansion was stupid and destabilizing and should never have been done.
It would have made much more sense to dissolve NATO once its purpose ceased to exist.
NATO doesn’t threaten Russia. Russia would have snapped up former republics regardless. I get it if you don’t personally give a crap about the former soviet republics, seeing as how you don’t live there; fair enough. But Bulgaria, Romania, and Slovenia are not going to be retaken by Russia thanks to NATO. That’s not nothing, certainly not to the people who live there.
Mike M.
Do you think that NATO has no purpose now?
I don’t see much good purpose for NATO since the collapse of the USSR.
NATO most certainly does threaten Russia. It is a powerful military block that has gone on offense in the past. We claim that our intentions are pure, but it is reasonable that Russia has doubts.
What is happening to Ukraine was a predictable consequence of NATO expansion and was predicted a quarter century ago.
The situation in Europe would be more stable if the former communist states had formed their own defense pact. It would have been strong enough to dissuade Russia without threatening Russia. And it could have included Ukraine.
Thanks Mike M.
Mike M.
That makes sense.
Putin claimed that the justification for invading Ukraine was that NATO made a promise not to expand.
That is a lie. We must acknowledge the invasion is based on a lie.
The other two issues Mike raised are reasonable issues to debate. I intend to think about them and will respond.
But neither erases the big Putin lie and the Russian invasion of Ukraine is unjustified.
STOP
Russell,
This is a hard thing to prove or disprove one way or the other, the question of why Russia invaded Ukraine. Personally, I think it’s a load of hooey that Putin fears NATO. It’s not that I think NATO is noble or virtuous, it’s that Russia has nukes, and there’s no upside to attacking Russia that justifies risking nuclear retaliation. I think all serious analysis of the situation accepts this and I think the whole justification is silly; just a story for the masses. But apparently this reasoning isn’t persuasive to everyone.
It’s all good. Shrug.
mark
Me too. Worrying about NATO as a motive is his story. It’s similar to his version of “history”.
Putin longs for the days of the USSR.
I am pretty sure that we would be really upset if Canada were to end all agreements with the US and join a military alliance with China. I don’t think the fact that we have nukes would change that.
National security planners need to worry about what might happen, not just about what is likely to happen. And nobody wants to be backed into a corner where the only survival option is to start a nuclear war.
john ferguson,
I believe it’s called charisma and there is little question that Bill Clinton has it and Hillary doesn’t. Ronald Reagan was also considered charismatic. If you search on ‘Clinton charisma’ you get a lot of hits.
It depends on whether you believe Russia is an expansionist state and needs to be held in check. They certainly have been militarily active on their borders for decades and Putin has stated the dissolution of the USSR as having been a “tragedy”. They also maintain a large military, are not a democracy, and haven’t exactly been benevolent rulers of their territories in the past.
The circumstantial evidence is very high that they need contained. That doesn’t mean the US needs to do it and it never made sense that the US was carrying such a high burden relative to the EU.
I would also suggest this is more of a Putin push than a Russia push. If he is gone there is at least a 50/50 chance the threat dissipates.
Mike M. raised an issue yesterday that I have been thinking about
He posted: âI donât see much good purpose for NATO since the collapse of the USSR.â
I hate to admit it but Trump opened my eyes on this. I think the relationship between the US and NATO should change. NATO should assume full responsibility for countering Russiaâs conventional military in Europe. They are more than capable of this, particularly now, with the Russian military in a state of depletion. The US should remove all conventional forces from Europe and remain as necessary to only to augment our strategic nuclear forces.
The US stops preparing for a ground war in Europe and concentrates on a naval war in the Pacific.
We also concentrate on a nuclear war with Russia or China.
Sorry Tom, cross-posted again.
MikeM
Sure. That’s why NATO exists and expanded. That’s why Ukraine wanted to join NATO.
I still don’t think Russia invaded Ukraine because it fears NATO. Certainly, I don’t think that’s the main reason.
Tom
Agreed.
Russell
Eventually. Not tomorrow.
Party 1: “We think you are going to invade so we are going to defend ourselves”
Party 2: “I’m going to invade you then because you are defending yourselves and that makes you a threat”
There was zero chance Ukraine was going to invade Russia even as part of NATO. I believe this goes deeper as Putin sees western * culture * as an insidious threat to their Russian way of life and to the old guard’s rule. Even a stalemate leaves the siren song of western culture “invading” Russia every day. Anybody worried about Russian culture taking hold in the west? We just don’t see it the same way Putin does.
Basically a move to MRGA (Make Russia Great Again).
Mike M.,
The relationship between Canada and the US is nothing at all like Ukraine and Russia. Ukrainians have hated Russians with a fiery passion since at least the Holodomor in the 1930’s. Mexico would be a much better example, not to mention Cuba. But if you think that NATO expansion was the determining or even a significant reason that Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and attempted to take over the whole country in 2022, you’re what Stalin called a useful idiot. And without NATO, Russia would have attempted to expand to the old borders of the USSR long ago.
Lucia,
My reasoning for turning the defense of Europe over to Europeans now:
1. Russia is weak and could not take advantage of the US leaving for a decade.
2. European NATO nations are on an armament splurge. They are taking their defense seriously for the first time.
We should start removing our forces tomorrow.
DeWitt
And this is why Canada has no intention of allying with China to defend themselves against us.
It’s all well and good for MikeM to say we’d be “upset” if they did.
But the fact is: if we had historically been a constant threat to Canada, seemed to continue to be one, Canada would then have a reason to for a defensive alliance. If we invaded because we claimed we “feared” they “might” join a military alliance in the future– well, that would be a pretext.
We do keep taking all of Canada’s good hockey players.
They’re a bunch of hosers, eh?
Canadians are nausiatingly nice. I hate them.
People in New Mexico are much nicer than people in Toronto.
Canadians don’t get in your face. When they are rude, they are rude in a passive-aggressive manner.
The rumor was true⌠Putin sacked the defense minister.
Some new quotes:
With zero military experience, Andrei Belousov, a wiry white-haired economist and Orthodox churchgoer who enjoys rock climbing, seems an odd pick to be Russia’s new defence minister at a time when Moscow is waging war against Ukraine.
Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, an economist with little military experience.
Reshuffles in Russia don’t happen very often so this is a big moment at the top of Russian politics.
Russia’s surprise defence minister Belousov; economist out to boost war budget
Mike M,
I agree there is no good purpose for NATO since the collapse of the USSR.
While, of course, “everyone knows” NATO was never a threat to Russia, it seems that “everyone” does not include the people in charge in Russia. They were stating clearly, and for years, that Ukraine joining NATO would provoke war, and signing the USA/Ukraine joint declaration to bring Ukraine into NATO in November 2021 was the immediate cause of the Russian invasion in February 2022 . Nobody needs to get their panties in a wad about whether Ukraine has a right to joint NATO, because the fact is Russia thinks they must not… and it is Russian soldiers occupying 20-odd% of Ukraine. They will not leave any time soon.
I find it astounding that the clear Russian warnings were simply ignored.
Russell “Deputy Prime Minister Andrei Belousov, an economist with little military experience.”
.
Not a departure from past appointments for defense minister
.
“As for the concerns that heâs a civilian through and through, this has now become tradition under Putin and in fact the last four ministers of defense have all been non military. Shoigu, as most know, was an emergencies minister; before him, Serdyukov was a tax guy, brought in by Putin specifically to be an âoutsiderâ who can clear out the cobwebs of the military apparatus incapable of self-policing; and even before him was Sergei Ivanov, an FSB chief who specialized in law, with no military background. After all, Peskov mentioned that once again Belousov was brought in by virtueârather than in spiteâof his non-military background.”
Steve,
The only trouble was NATO dicked around, flirting with admitting Ukraine for far too long. If NATO had admitted Ukraine promptly, it would have been the end of the matter, and the Russian warnings could have been ignored without consequence.
FYI: GPS Jamming & Spoofing – How Does It Work, And Who’s Doing It?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAjWJbZOq6I
A general discussion. Jamming easy, spoofing hard.
mark bofill,
I think if you look at the dates it is clear that the Russians have been very open about this issue for a very long time. That the US policy changed (and it did) does not mean that the Russians agreed).
Just because Russia feels they are entitled to another country doesn’t mean they get their wishes.
Ukraine has a different viewpoint. They should have kept their nukes.
If Russia succeeds then at least they get to rebuild it.
Tom Scharf,
Just because Europeans think they (mostly) are entitled to North America, doesn’t mean they should get their wishes. The native Americans should have kept their nukes…. wait, no, there were no nukes.
People do not ‘own’ any portion of the Earth, except through occupation and, yes technological and cultural dominance. The real questions are: does the government in control represent a legitimate manifestation of the desires of the governed; does the government help enrich or impoverish the populace? I doubt there is a spit of difference between Russia and Ukraine. Which is what makes this war so very pointless.
SteveF,
Ukraine has been occupied off and on by Poland and Russia for hundreds of years. As far as I can see, except for the Germans’ visit in the ’40s, Russia hasn’t been occupied in modern times.
Last time might be the Mogols in the 13th century.
This might give their respective citizens different outlooks.
Russia certainly does have a well developed apprehension about invasions going all the way back to Mongols, the Teutonic knights, and most recently the Germans.
John ferguson “. As far as I can see, except for the Germansâ visit in the â40s, Russia hasnât been occupied in modern times.”
.
Lets not leave out the invasions by Poland and the US in the Russian Civil War of the 1920’s. Or the British and French in the Crimean War of the 1850’s.
.
American Expeditionary Force Siberia
“The American Expeditionary Force Siberia was a United States Army force that was involved in the Russian Civil War in Vladivostok, Russian Empire, during the end of World War I after the October Revolution, from 1918 to 1920. AEF Siberia was part of the larger Allied North Russia Intervention. As a result of this expedition early relations between the United States and the Soviet Union were poor. Wikipedia”
.
“North Russia intervention
1918 operation, part of the Allied Intervention in Russia after the October Revolution
The North Russia intervention, also known as the Northern Russian expedition, the Archangel campaign, and the Murman deployment, was part of the Allied intervention in the Russian Civil War after the October Revolution. The intervention brought about the involvement of foreign troops in the Russian Civil War on the side of the White movement. Wikipedia”
.
“Polish-Soviet War Event
The PolishâSoviet War was fought primarily between the Second Polish Republic and the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic before it became a union republic in the aftermath of World War I and the Russian Revolution, on territories which were previously held by the Russian Empire and the Habsburg Monarchy following the Partitions of Poland. Wikipedia”
.
“Crimean War, (October 1853âFebruary 1856), war fought mainly on the Crimean Peninsula between the Russians and the British, French, and Ottoman Turkish”
good point Ed Forbes,
somewhere I read that it isn’t paranoia if they really are out to get you. And it’s not at all surprising that the Russians are nervous about this sort of thing.
It makes you wonder why the folks that have been running our shop have never recognized that this nervousness is real.
How Russia gobbles up its neighbors; it plays the long game.
From AI:
The Treaty on the Creation of a Union State of Russia and Belarus was signed on December 8, 1999 in Moscow, Russia. The treaty’s goal was to create a federation similar to the Soviet Union, with a shared head of state, legislature, flag, coat of arms, anthem, constitution, army, citizenship, and currency. The Russian State Duma ratified the treaty on December 22, 1999, and the National Assembly of Belarus ratified it on January 26, 2000, making the treaty and the Union effective on that date.
From the office of the President of Belarus:
To further the work on creating the common economic space, the governments of Belarus and Russia have drafted a program of action to implement the Union State Treaty provisions and the road maps to it. The program and the road maps have been prepared in strict accordance with the treaty and without revision of its provisions. https://president.gov.by/en/belarus/economics/economic-integration/union-state
How Russia gobbles up its neighbors; it plays the long game.[Part 2]
The Russian plan in Ukraine is by incremental military conquest. The first invasion was in 2014 when it added Crimea and the Donbas region. The second was in 2022 when it invaded and annexed the four southern Oblats. Any talk of peace now is a ruse to gain time to incorporate these areas into Russia and prepare for the next incremental invasion.
Russell,
Russia does not see any situation that gives an armistice
with Ukraine until Ukraines army is “demilitarized ” and with regime change for Ukraines government to one that is focused on the east, not the west.
.
Russia is in no mood to allow the war to freeze and give the the west time to rebuild and rearm their armies just go through this war again at a later date. Russia is focused on eliminating the perceived threat coming from Ukraine, not kicking the can down the road to do this all again later. It’s the west who is desperately looking for an armistice before Russia grinds the Ukraine army into dust.
.
.
ED: “Itâs the west who is desperately looking for an armistice before Russia grinds the Ukraine army into dust.”
Yes, like in 2022 the Ukrainian army will fold under the Russian onslaughtâŚ.I believe Kyiv fell in less than a week.
Russell
Yes. I seem to recall that. Old news.
The defeated Ukrainian army continues to destroy Russian tanks at a furious pace. There is visual confirmation that Russia lost 99 tanks last week. The total lost is many more, but there is no documentation of those.
In the same week in 2023 Russia lost 60 tanks.
Correction: Russia lost 99 total armored pieces last week, not just tanks. Tanks and APCs were the bulk of it. Sorry for the error.
If you want to see the visual evidence look here:
https://ukr.warspotting.net/
I don’t know what changed exactly, but Michael Cohen is now assumed to be a reliable witness according to the legacy media, ha ha. #BelieveHim.
It should also be noted that the jurisdictions prosecuting Trump don’t believe attorney / client privilege is a thing. Just another on the list of exceptions in how Trump is being prosecuted. I doubt Trump breeds a lot of loyalty but prosecutors almost never go after a defendant’s lawyers, unless …
https://www.law.virginia.edu/news/202311/three-trump-lawyers-have-flipped-what-does-it-mean-attorney-client-privilege
That’s a lot of dead armor.
Shaggy Dog story but relevant to Ukraine
.
Germany, WWII, German Airborne paratrooper division. Some of the best, highly trained, and highly motivated troops the German army had.
.
The paratrooper division was supported by the German Air Force which supplied the air transport and flight crews. Included in the flight crew was the jump door leader. The jump door leader was a critical position as this leader was the person that controlled when the paratroopers were to exit the plane. A miscall on the jump timing could result in the paratroopers missing the jump target which could be fatal for the paratroopers if the miscall landed them in a body of water or directly on an enemy position.
.
The air force put out a call to their air units, requiring them to supply a small number of crew from each unit to fill the required numbers of door jump controller.
.
As each air force unit tasked with supplying crew didn’t want to reduce their unit efficacy by giving up their best, they gave up their worst. This solved several problems for the unit: Not only complying with the transfer order, but removing problem crew members.
.
As a result of poor performing jump door controllers due to the poor quality of troops supplied, many paratroopers were landed off target, with many of them being lost by being dropped into rivers or the ocean.
.
The German air force by not requesting volunteers, but giving each unit freedom to supply crew at their discretion, all but guaranteed a poor quality of crew supplied to support the paratroopers for their airborne missions.
.
Ukraine, May 2004, needs to send reinforcements to hold back a new Russian offensive in the north. Ukraine has little to no reserves available as almost all of their forces on the front lines.
.
Ukraine pulls out several brigades from the front lines in the south to send to the Russian northern offensive. Pulling additional brigades from the south increases the ability for Russia breaking through the southern positions. To somewhat alleviate the situation, Ukraine has put out a call for each battalion to give up a squad level number of troops for transfer to units in the northern front.
.
I highly doubt these battalions giving up personal will be giving their best. As a result of the probable low quality of troops being sent, battlefield effectiveness for the brigades in the north are likely to be very poor.
New York Times
“General Budanov said he believes the Russian attacks in the northeast are intended to stretch Ukraineâs already thin reserves of soldiers and divert them from fighting elsewhere.”
.
“That is exactly what is happening now, he acknowledged. He said the Ukrainian army was trying to redirect troops from other front line areas to shore up its defenses in the northeast, but that it had been difficult to find the personnel.
âAll of our forces are either here or in Chasiv Yar,â he said, referring to a Ukrainian stronghold about 120 miles farther south that Russian troops have assaulted in recent weeks. âIâve used everything we have. Unfortunately, we donât have anyone else in the reserves.â..”
https://archive.ph/jbS8E
Give every living soul in Karkiv a Kalasnikov and a hand grenade and let the Russians go on in. End of problem.
Edit, also give every kid in Karkiv a kamikaze drone and they will kill ever piece of armor in a 50 mile radius.
Bizarrely the UN has now, after 7 months, cut the death estimates of women and children by half in Gaza citing “incomplete information”.
This is very strange as the UN is known to be rather deferential to the Palestinian side of the story and there must be a lot more to this story behind the scenes. These death numbers never really added up unless you assume Israel’s targeting was completely arbitrary.
All of the casualty reports from Palestine came from Hamas, if I’m not mistaken.
Just as Russia has destroyed the Ukrainian air force three times over, Hamas has mourned the loss of far more civilians than is actually the case.
Why people believe the propaganda coming from combatants is beyond me.
Tom, You posted: “Thatâs a lot of dead armor”
Seeing the Russian armor junkyard photos makes me wonder about the viability of armor on the modern battlefield. The era of the drone is still in its infancy. I expect continued rapid development of the weapon.
Armor may have become just easy targets.
Russell,
I thoughtthis was an interesting perspective on it.
john ferguson,
” And itâs not at all surprising that the Russians are nervous about this sort of thing.”
Russia has an enormous land mass which is sparsely populated and rich in natural resources. I am sure they are nervous about that land mass being taken.
When your Russian boss tells you to cross that field and you have a choice to do it inside an armored vehicle or on foot then most choose a vehicle. Otherwise you are even more vulnerable to artillery and small arms.
Because the battle is not to point of unsustainable losses then both sides just sustain the losses. An even matchup is a worst case scenario for outcomes if you are a soldier.
A lot of these armor deaths are survivable for the occupants. The goal is usually to bring enough bang to disable the vehicle and get it out of the fight. Killing the occupants is a plus but not a high priority. Tank crews are expensive to train so perhaps tank crews are worth a bit more. Plenty of times the ammunition is detonated on impact and the outcomes for occupants is not favorable.
The videos that get cutoff after an impact are likely followed by the occupants exiting the vehicle (or it surviving the impact) but they choose to not show that.
Low tech adaption is common. IED’s were a big problem in Iraq. There were attaching armor plates under the Humvees and driving around with cell phone jammers attached to the vehicle. Then the insurgents would use hard wired detonators. On certain roads they would just drive very fast to make the timing of detonation harder. Sniper teams would camp out in areas where IED’s were common. US convoys would not stop for anything for fear of getting cornered in an ambush. Civilian vehicles would just get run over/pushed out of the way at intersections. Both sides innovate with what they have available.
The US then came out with heavier mine resistant vehicles and the response is just to use bigger IED’s.
Occupation is very hazardous.
Stock up on your popcorn now!
https://www.politico.com/news/2024/05/15/biden-proposes-2-debates-with-trump-ditching-bipartisan-commission-00158082
It must be that the Biden administration has gotten word from judge Merchan that Trump will be in jail on the 27’th.
I’m joking.
I think..
The main Russian units attacking in the north are motorized, not mechanized. Otherwise known as leg infantry. They are heavily supported by close artillery and air strikes. The infantry’s main job is to find and fix Ukraine positions which is then pounded by the air and artillery.
.
The Ukraine forces in the north are in weak or non existent fortifications, have little to no anti aircraft capability or artillery support, are not able to withstand the combined air and artillery bombardment, and so are forced to withdraw when attacked.
.
Ukraine in the north is facing a low speed blitzkrieg very similar to what the Germans used to take apart the British and French armies in the opening stages of the battle for France in the early part of WWII.
.
Reports are that Ukraines personnel replacement from mobilization is currently only 25% of losses. This leads to disaster and is shown by the statements that the Ukraine army has committed its last operational strategic reserves. Ukraines ability to plug the holes has become extremely difficult.
Mark bofill
It must be that the Biden administration has gotten word from judge Merchan that Trump will be in jail on the 27âth.
No joke, sadly
Part of a four punch combination and always, due to its salacious (though 19 years old) nature, the one Democrats knew had the most traction in causing hatred of a person, the best.
Again, oh for an honest juror in New York, or even an honest Yankee.
mark bofill,
“It must be that the Biden administration has gotten word from judge Merchan that Trump will be in jail on the 27âth.”
Could be, but what I think will happen is Biden will insist on details Trump will not accept, like that the questions are only asked by MSNBC talking heads. Biden will then claim he was willing to debate but Trump chickened out. There is essentially zero chance that there will actually be a debate.
angech,
The people on the jury all loath Trump. A conviction on at least some counts is nearly certain. It will be reversed based on a multitude of legal errors by the judge, but not until Biden has run thousands of ‘convicted felon’ ads in every swing state. It is a travesty, but it may actually keep Trump from winning the blue wall states, and we will soon after the election have president Kamala. In addition, the judge will quickly issue a sentence, with immediate prison time. The legal battles will continue until after the election….. which is the whole point.
Steve,
That sounds a lot more likely than my theory! I tend to agree that the Biden campaign probably isn’t serious about this? But I’m not 100% sure.
Dexter Taylor for President!
Bragg’s case against Trump has turned out to be weaker than expected and it was expected to be pitiful. I think there is a very good chance that the jury will be hung. They might even acquit. In any jurisdiction with a reasonable political balance with a fair judge, there would be zero chance of a convicgtion.
Mike,
What do you mean by a ‘very good chance’, numerically speaking? I agree with you that the case against Trump is garbage, but my personal feeling is that there is a very good (better than 50% anyway) chance that Trump will be found guilty.
It’s hard to say. It hinges on the jury and that can go any which way. I’m sure it’ll be overturned on appeal, but it wouldn’t surprise me at all for them to find Trump guilty.
My guess would be a 20-30% chance of a guilty verdict and a non-trivial chance, maybe 10%, of a not guilty verdict. But of course I really don’t know.
I say that because jurors tend to take their job seriously. So although there will likely be at least one who says “guilty because Orange Man Bad”, it won’t be all of them.
MikeM
So are you expecting a hung jury? (I mean 100- 40=60%?)
How Russia gobbles up its neighbors; it plays the long game.[Part 3] Georgia.
Just like the Russian advance into Ukraine in 2014, 2008 Russo-Georgian War was a war between Russia and the Russian-backed self-proclaimed republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia against Georgia. Just like in Ukraine, Russia states in part of Georgia. Now Russia is executing a long term destabilization of the remaining democratic part of Georgia.
Mike M. Posted âI donât see much good purpose for NATO since the collapse of the USSR.â
For most of the last century, Russia has waged a war against the west. It culminated in the Soviet Union and the Cold War. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Europe declared victory and moved on. Russia did not. As I showed with Belaruse, Georgia and Ukraine, Russia is trying to assimilate the old members into a greater Russian Empire. Many of the old Soviet states scurried under the NATO umbrella, as did some neutral states.
As long as Russia is gonna act like Russia, NATO is needed to poke a stick in the Bearâs eye.
mark bofill,
Dexter Taylor sounds a lot like Ronal Reagan, but braver; after all he was just sentenced to 10 years in prison. Quite an inspirational speech. The NY criminal justice system is itself clearly criminal.
Steve,
Hawaii’s SC also thumbs its nose freely at the Bill of Rights. I find the trend unsettling. I’m resolved not to leave Alabama if I can possibly help it for the remainder of my days, or at least to stick to States where courts actually adhere to the Constitution.
It’s easy to see a conviction in that jurisdiction on the accounting charges (misdemeanor), it’s the felony charges and stretching that to federal “election interference” charges that is ridiculous. That’s a “Trumped up” charge.
This is the same jurisdiction that handed Trump a $80M defeat on a civilian sexual harassment charge with no direct evidence and basically killed his real estate business on equally targeted charges. I don’t have a lot of faith in the system there with respect to equality before the law. Their overzealousness is a disgrace to the system.
“Weaponization of the justice system” is thrown around as a casual political attack but this is exactly what it looks like.
Never forget Russia was on our side in WWII and they donated most of the dead soldiers for the Allies. They definitely have not forgotten this.
The statute of limitations has expired on the accounting misdemeanors. And so far as I know, the prosecution has not demonstrated that Trump was involved in how the charges were entered on the books. Or that the entry was anything other than normal practice.
The civil case was different since it was balance of evidence. Jury bias will have a huge influence in such a case. But most jurors will take a very different attitude in a criminal case where the prosecution must make its case beyond a reasonable doubt.
The civil trial was one biased judge. 12 jurors so strongly biased is much less likely.
Never forget Hitler was marching on Moscow until we started supplying Russia with tanks, fighter planes, artillery and ammunition. Apparently Russia has forgotten this.
Russell,
I’m often sympathetic to your military posts, but I have to say. I have never anywhere read anything to indicate that Operation Barbarossa was foiled because the US or the Allies were resupplying Russia war materiel. I mean, for all I know this might be peripherally true (that the US or Allies were resupplying Russia with tanks, fighter planes, artillery, and ammunition) but I’m pretty sure this isn’t why the German assault on Russia failed.
During World War II, the United States sent $11 billion in military equipment and supplies to the Soviet Union through the Lend-Lease program, which is equivalent to $148 billion in 2023. These supplies included:
400,000 trucks and jeeps
14,000 aircraft
8,000 tractors
13,000 tanks
The United States also supplied the Soviet Union with more than one-third of its explosives, 55% of its aluminum, and more than 80% of its copper. The U.S. also provided aviation fuel that was 57% of what the Soviet Union produced, which was often mixed with lower-grade Soviet fuel to create the high-octane fuel needed by military aircraft.
from google ai
1.5 million blankets
15 million pairs of army boots
107,000 tons of cotton
2.7 million tons of petroleum products
4.5 million tons of food
35,000 radio sets
32,000 motorcycles
Russell,
I know the west is full of heroic literature and media on WWII and there is much validity to that. The London Blitz, etc.
However you cannot pretend some things didn’t happen.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Stalingrad
This is part and parcel of Russian Zeitgeist. They believe they know how to suffer until victory and they believe the West does not. Most people are completely oblivious to how lopsided the casualty numbers were on the two fronts in WWII. It is easily arguable that Germany would have flattened the UK if it wasn’t so busy elsewhere.
The counter argument is great civilian and military suffering is the opposite of the goal in war, winning without that is, blah blah blah. Can the West endure a war of attrition if/when it has to? Russia doesn’t believe it.
Russia was incapable of withstanding the Nazi advance without US war material. We were the deciding factor.
You will probably find the Russians will take exception to that point of view, ha ha.
Most of the lend/lease deliveries to the USSR occurred after the Battle of Stalingrad which was widely viewed as the turning point of the European theater and was the bloodiest battle in all of human history.
Battle of Stalingrad ended February 1943
US âArctic Convoysâ started August 1941
About 1,400 merchant ships delivered essential supplies to the Soviet Union under the Anglo-Soviet Agreement and US Lend-Lease program, escorted by ships of the Royal Navy, Royal Canadian Navy, and the U.S. Navy. Eighty-five merchant vessels and 16 Royal Navy warships (two cruisers, six destroyers, eight other escort ships) were lost.
Whatever.
Thanks Tom. I had forgotten much of that I realize now, reading about the Battle of Stalingrad.
Russell,
Plenty of sources agree with you, so I got this wrong:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lend-Lease
Thanks!
Mark, you are welcome, and I appreciate your integrity on it.
Meh. Wrong is wrong. No point being an ostrich about it.
Mark,
In my opinion, this place would benefit from more people owning up to being wrong. Some go to ridiculous ends to avoid admitting being wrong.
How Russia gobbles up its neighbors; it plays the long game.[Part 4]
Chechnya [a tiny Muslim republic in southern Russia with just 1.5 million people]
First Russo-Chechen War, 1994-1996
This conflict was preceded by the battle of Grozny in November 1994, during which Russia covertly sought to overthrow the Chechen government.
The Second Russian Invasion of Chechnya, 1999-2009
It ended with a Russian-instilled government in power.
As a wise man once wrote:
As long as Russia is gonna act like Russia, NATO is needed to poke a stick in the Bearâs eye.
From: RONALD REAGAN, âEVIL EMPIRE SPEECHâ (8 MARCH 1983)
But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of prideâthe temptation of blithely..uh..declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
From: RONALD REAGAN, âEVIL EMPIRE SPEECHâ (8 MARCH 1983)
But if history teaches anything, it teaches that simpleminded appeasement or wishful thinking about our adversaries is folly. It means the betrayal of our past, the squandering of our freedom.
So, in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of prideâthe temptation of blithely..uh..declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil.
I’m reading a book on Chernobyl now, it is everything Russia in one event. Gigantic nuclear reactors with a defective design, a gigantic f***up during a safety test, the usual attempted coverup of the initial disaster, initial fix by throwing large numbers of soldiers at it who can each shovel debris for about a minute each before receiving a lifetime radiation dose, then a longer term fix by burying the reactor in about two universes worth of cement (aka the Sarcophagus). Nobody really knows exactly where all the radioactive debris really is to this day but the chances of it going into a self sustaining reaction again appear very low.
How many people died? 30? 1M? Nobody will ever really know because … Russia … but likely on the lower end.
Safety test screwups are a “thing”.
.
My x business partner at one time worked for a major data processing center.
One of the sections decided that a safety check for the emergency power and system backup was called for. This was important as if the power was lost without immediate transfer of power to the emergency power system, the drive heads would skip across the disks. This should be considered a “bad” thing.
.
The line power was killed, the system immediately transferred power to the backup batteries, and the emergency generators kicked on, all exactly to spec. The backup batteries were designed to power up the system for a very short time, just enough to have the emergency generator kick in.
.
The backup was running and everyone was patting themselves for a job well done. The generator then sputtered a couple of times and died. The drop in power skidded the heads across the drive disks, ruining them. Damage and business loss in excess of $1M.
.
No one checked the fuel tanks and the generator ran out of fuel.
Nuclear reactors are hard enough. Making sure you can test their safety systems … errr … safely is even harder.
This one was a bit comical in some aspects, the designers blamed the operators because they “should have known” to not use the emergency shutdown switch in this type of emergency, or something like that. 300 GW power surge, oops. The complicated physics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q3d3rzFTrLg
I recently learned my backup software wasn’t actually backing up one of my disks even though it reported successful backups. The support forum states “yeah, it doesn’t work for that configuration”. Thanks for that. Fortunately I had another recent copy.
Russia’s Turtle Tanks Are Evolving
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gWlb0N2jNc
Safety measures…
I was working on the startup of a new detergent plant for P&G. Part of the process used liquid sulfur trioxide [SO3, really nasty stuff]. The storage tank had a high-level light. The design engineers told us there was room for one truckload in the tank above the high-level alarm light for safety. After operating for a few weeks a routine tanker truck of SO3 arrived and the operator saw the tank’s high-level light was lit. To him, that meant the tank had room for the truck. Wrong! The previous dayâs truck triggered the alarm, and a different operator had finished unloading that truck, which put the tank nearly full.
No one was injured, but the ensuing mess was a near disaster.
The âstopâ signal had turned into a âgoâ signal in the operator’s mind.
Russell –
That’s just plain silly on the part of the operator. [Others might use the word “stupid”.] Let’s say the tank’s capacity is 10 truckloads. One would set the high-level light to go on when the tank is currently holding 9 loads, so that even if the current tank level is 8.99, it can handle one more load when the light is off. If the light is on, the tank is [at or] above 9…so one shouldn’t dump more in.
Possibly the design engineer could have been more specific in explaining to the operators something like, “If the light goes on during a loading operation, it’s safe to complete; there’s a little extra room. But never *start* loading if the light is on.” I know that I would not have phrased it with that much detail.
HaroldW,
That incident did have a design SNAFU. The containment building had a sump with a chemical resistant pump to enable us to pump out the spill without entering. We started pumping it out to a waiting truck and the pump died. The pump motor was not sealed for hazardous environments and the corrosive fumes fried the motor. Me and the senior electrician entered the building wearing air tanks and hazmat suits to swap it out with a sealed motor.
Good news. Grades are up!
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/education/grade-inflation-education-test-scores-40196419?st=frnvd2xcyp6bkjj&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
âYou have to continue to give them a little bit of grace,â he said. âYou keep punishing people, theyâre not going to be successful.
…
Student behavior has deteriorated, many teachers said, and academic challenges expanded. Some teachers said holding students to an old standard isnât fair and would destroy studentsâ motivation.â
Test scores are down though, but who cares? I can see the logic now on Biden’s loan forgiveness. I wonder how this incentive structure is going to work out in the long run.
An interesting legal story here:
https://www.espn.com/golf/story/_/id/40162983/scottie-scheffler-detained-police-prior-start-pga-championship
World’s #1 golfer gets arrested entering golf tournament. There was an ongoing spectator fatality investigation going on near tournament entrance and he drove past the cop cars and all the stopped traffic, did not stop, ended up dragging a cop 10 yards with his car. Was arrested on multiple charges.
He apparently thought this was just security at the tournament entrance and was confused at what was happening.
Ordinary Joe would not get much sympathy here but we shall see if golf celebrity gets favorable treatment. He was processed on charges / no required bail and out in about 2 hours so he could meet his tee time.
Cancel culture has been canceledâŚ..
Currently, the most purchased jersey in the NFL belongs to a kicker!
The name on that jersey is Harrison Butker. He got attacked for a commencement speech he made at a small Catholic college and they attempted to have him kicked out of the NFL. The Conservatives responded by scarfing up his jersey.
Here is a quote from the speech:
“For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment,” Butker said. “I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. … Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
Well… yeah.
He spoke at a very conservative Catholic school. I don’t think this means cancel culture is cancelled. But it does mean that people are willing to push back and not just be silent in order to avoid arguments. That was bound to happen.
There are people buying the jersey. That’s still a very small fraction of the US population and most women are still going to disagree with him. But he’s certainly free to speak and the school has a right to invite him or others with similar views.
Itâs a movementâŚ. As of 45 minutes ago the NFL is sold out of women’s size Butker jerseys.
From Ben Shapiro, prominent Jew:
âIt is now more controversial for an NFL kicker to say Catholic things at a Catholic university than it is for the White House to mandate boys be allowed into girls bathrooms. @buttkicker7 did nothing wrong. In fact, he spoke truth to secular power.â
I read the whole speech. Itâs powerful.
Uhm, I wouldn’t characterize Ben Shapiro as a ‘prominent Jew’ per se. I’d say he’s a political commentator / news guy. The man happens to be Jewish. ‘Quite openly Jewish’, as one might say in London these days, but still.
Just saying.
Maybe âunabashedly Jewishâ ?
Proudly Jewish? Something like that.
Tom Scharf,
I suspect the charges will be dropped on the felony assault charge (if not all of them), and some fine paid for the misdemeanors. Not because he is a famous golfer, but because he has a choir boy history, and because eye witnesses will tell the prosecutor’s office that the police officer made a couple of bad choices and over-reacted.
Sheffler claims he was doing exactly what he had been told to do and that it was the over-aggressive cop who was in the wrong. It sounds like he might be right.
Seems to me that the cop grabbing onto a moving car is a bit of a tell.
I apologize if I’ve shared this story here.
The Trailmobile plant in Longview, TX made reefer (refrigerated)trailers. The method for insulating them involved inserting a mandrel inside the body of the trailer that expanded to fully support the floor, sides, one end, and the roof. There was another form which constrained the exterior.
This made it possible to inject the mixture which would expand to produce the polyurethane foam which if done carefully would fill the cavity in the exterior of the trailer and when cured provide the desired level of insulation.
This was done in a dedicated building.
One day in the late ’70s the crew arrived to find that the building had been foamed. The windows were blown out and snakes of foam the diameter of the windows had been extruded through what were now openings. The sheet metal walls were bulged out between the columns and the roof swelled. The door on one end was blown out by what looked like a very large (and long) loaf of bread.
The company did not want any photos made of this. Too bad.
This truly amazing feat had been accomplished by the trucker delivering the catalyzer. He’d been late, arrived after dark,and this being his first visit was directed to the loading point where he connected the truck’s pump to what he thought was the catalyzer tank hydrant and transferred the load to the tank.
But of the rwo, it was the wrong hydrant.
It was the resin tank where the pressure produced by the introduction of the catalyzer was sufficient to blow out the valve to the application apparatus and loose the now curing urethane into the building as described above.
In the ensuing investigation on how something like this could have happened, the driver revealed that of course the hose had not fit the loading hydrant. Being a clever fellow, he’d jury-rigged a connection with a nozzle he’d found on the truck.
The company I worked for got the contract to remove the foam from the building. Chainsaws turned out to be the way to go, although it probably would have been less expensive to just replace the building.
That’s not what Scheffler claims, that’s what his lawyer says. Scheffler isn’t speaking to the specifics, I watched his press conference.
The only known real witness I know about is an ESPN reporter / police report that claims Scheffler drove down the wrong side of the road in order to bypass stalled traffic. That’s going to be the problem for Scheffler. Other golfers in the same traffic said they turned around and went to an alternate entrance and/or at least one said they exited their vehicle and walked over a mile to the course.
It’s all fuzzy from there and I don’t think there is any bodycams. Likely the officer directing traffic got rightly pissed at the car going the wrong way, told it to stop, and it went downhill from there. I very much doubt he was “obeying officer commands”. The officer command was probably “pull the f*** over, right now”.
Scheffler was probably confused about the situation but I don’t think Ordinary Joe would get a pass there. The entirety of the media is taking Scheffler’s side here but the facts remain unknown. He will probably pay a heavy traffic fine and the felonies will be changed to misdemeanors which is consistent with first offenders in most cases as I understand it.
Interesting…
A lot of sub prime loans were left for dead in 2008. The recent housing price runup has now made the equity in a lot of these homes now worth the effort to collect.
If the owner who stayed in these home for the last 15 years without paying a second mortgage doesn’t pay up then the homes get auctioned off and the loan gets paid. The usual collection of upstanding benevolent debt collection agencies are using their normal tactics.
https://www.npr.org/2024/05/10/1197959049/zombie-second-mortgages-homeowners-foreclosure
I can’t say I have a lot of sympathy for the NPR narrative here though. People who don’t pay their loans shouldn’t declare themselves victims, a lot of that going around now.
LLM update: Things have progressed to the point where one can download and run a ‘quantized’ LLM on a normal desktop machine. Basically what happens is that all the floating point weights are converted to 4 bit values to reduce space and complexity at some cost to performance. The results aren’t nearly as impressive as say ChatGPT-4. Still, it kinda sorta works.
Drum roll
Putting Trump in jail .
Is it a George Floyd moment?
Will he suffer a Jeffrey Epstein wardrobe malfunction?
Perhaps the cell will be so stifling he might not be able to breathe.
Dancing in the streets?
Civil unrest and protest?.
A New Caledonia moment, topical at the moment.
–
All this over trying to protect an up til then good name from a shakedown.
Sad.
Tragic really.
And about to happen.
–
Once done cannot be easily reversed and will tarnish everything Trump tries to do if he were still to somehow get through and elected.
Trump has enough ammo for an appeal that he will likely be out of jail for a while no matter what happens. The NY court system gets a little bit less biased once it leave Manhattan.
My guess right now is there will be a hung jury, the prosecutor will declare he will retry the case, the election will happen before that can occur and then they will mysteriously lose interest in the retrial and it won’t happen.
Fingers crossed Tom
Dramatic footage of the destruction of a large hospital building that had been confiscated to house Russian soldiers in Vovchansk, Ukraine:
https://x.com/NOELreports/status/1791862201625580012
This is likely the result of the new US aid package. It may be the first video evidence of Ukraine using a new weapon, American-Swedish GLSDB (Ground Launched Small Diameter Bomb) rockets.
Russia will probably claim it is an escalation by the US side [and they would be right].
Harrison Butker has dominated the media the past week for merely saying women can find success in traditional roles. Woopie Goldberg and Bill Maher both defended him yesterday.
Maher:
“I don’t see what the big crime is. I really don’t, and I think this is part of the problem people have with the left. Is that lots of people in the country are like this. Like, he’s saying, ‘Some of you may go on to lead successful careers, but a lot of you are excited about this other way that everybody used to be.’ And, now, can’t that just be a choice too? And I feel like they feel very put upon. Like, there’s only one way to be a good person, and that’s to get an advanced degree from one of those a**hole factories like Harvard,” Maher told his audience Friday night on “Real Time with Bill Maher.”
Russell,
He didn’t merely say ” women can find success in traditional roles. ” He told the women they had been fed lies about finding success in “non-traditional” roles when they were at the happy moment of graduating from college and were almost certainly wanting to enter the job market and pursue promotions! And this was pretty much a (almost) captive audience.
https://www.ncregister.com/news/harrison-butker-speech-at-benedictine
I don’t have a problem with him having a right to say things he believes.
I would have resented being a captive audience with no polite option to express a counter opinion or to walk out of my graduation ceremony. (OTOH: I would never have gone to a conservative Roman Catholic University in the first place.)
I”m sure Harrison Butker’s wife is mostly ok with becoming a “traditional wife” to a very wealthy man. It’s not the choice most women have. I suspect she’d be wanting to enter the job market and pursue promotions if he had a job that made $60K a year. But women in the audience couldn’t tell him that at the graduation ceremony, could they?
To be precise, he said this :-
‘ You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives. I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, who have had the most diabolical lies told to you. How many of you are sitting here now about to cross this stage and are thinking about all the promotions and titles you are going to get in your career? Some of you may go on to lead successful careers in the world, but I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this world.”
Which is open to interpretation. I don’t think it’s at all unfair to say that children, and girls in particular, are given an unrealistic picture of the reality of working life. You can see them crying on tiktok about it.
A particularly pernicious misrepresentation is that fertility doesn’t start seriously dropping off in the 30s and that they have plenty of time to start a family. The male model of working life is far less adaptable to female biology. Most of my wife’s friends from uni are successful, unmarried, and childless. We succeeded by the skin of our teeth.
Butker did what commencement speakers do: He gave advice to the graduating class. It is just that his advice was different and less trivial than the norm.
He also said this: “To the gentlemen here today: Part of what plagues our society is this lie that has been told to you that men are not necessary in the home or in our communities. As men, we set the tone of the culture, and when that is absent, disorder, dysfunction, and chaos set in. This absence of men in the home is what plays a large role in the violence we see all around the nation. Other countries do not have nearly the same absentee father rates as we find here in the U.S., and a correlation could be made in their drastically lower violence rates, as well.”
DaveJR,
Yep. He said this
He is specifically addressed the group of women who worked hard to get their degrees and telling them that…well… perhaps that’s not so important to do. And he is telling them at their celebration of this achievement. And he is telling them what “majority” are excited about.
I would venture to guess that the “majority” of women know what they are “excited” about. And that on this particular day the majority of women in graduating are excited about having achieved a mileston that has nothing to do with marriage and children
I think it’s fair to observe that this message might not have been welcomed by some of the women stuck in those chairs who might have wanted to celebrate their accomplishment at that specific event.
There is a problem of time and place here. Being told a message that, perhaps, what you have just spent four years and money to accomplish is not really that important is not necessarily what you hoped to be told at your graduation. And giving this message specifically to women and specifically at their graduation? Well… it’s hardly surprising people are reacting to him saying it.
You can say: Well… maybe it’s true. But that’s still not much of an excuse to tell women “Your accomplishment is not important” when at an event that is designed to celebrate that accomplishment!.
Mike M
It’s just that his advice was to tell the women that the accomplishment they were celebrating was not really that important– because they were women.
He’s entitled to that opinion. But, come on. If you told a friend you got a big promotion you worked hard to get, and they said “Oh well… you know that’s not really all that important! What’s really important is your relationship with your wife and god” you might think, “huh?”
Or if you just achieved a personal best in a marathon you’d worked hard to win and said, “Oh! I’m so proud of myself!” ,and their immediate response, “well, you know, running hobbies aren’t as important as [fill in something else”, maybe you wouldn’t think that was precisely the time to tell you that?
Sure, your friend might be correct, but people get to say “What the F****!?” They are.
College girls trying to find a trophy husband is not uncommon in my book and girls donât play with dolls because they are fantasizing about becoming engineers.
MikeM,
I would observe the tone of the comments to men and women is NOT symmetric in Bukner’s speech
He’s telling men have a role in the community. (I’m amazed he things anyone tells them they are not important to the community. How many politicians are male? ) He’s telling men the are more important than they might think and are important is a larger variety of places.
Once again: men are very important.
Nothing in his words to men suggest their accomplishment of of earning a degree is unimportant relative than other things in their lives. That’s a big assymetry.
The specific message toward men is expanding, the specific message toward women is limiting and telling them what they just achieved is not really of great importance to them.
Russell,
It seems to me that the essence of Butker’s message to both men and women was that they are more likely to get fulfillment from family than careers. He is almost certainly right about that.
Yes, it is proper to give hearty congratulations to a person who has just achieved something notable. Butker did that. And it is reasonable to remind the achiever that he should not let success go to his head and should not forget what is really important. Butker did that as well.
MikeM,
That might be “the essence”.
But his statements included details that told women that the accomplishment they were their to celebrate was not as important for them. He did not tell the men this. Sorry, but just ignoring his message to the women included that detail without also saying that to the men and deeming it “not the essence” is a bit much.
Not to the women he didn’t. He specifically told them other things were more important than what they just achieved.
If he’s specifically also told the men that their promotions and achievements were unimportant, I would agree with you. But he didn’t do that to the men.
Look: I think he has a right to his opinions and he has a right to air them. But I’m not going to pretend his message to the men and women was symmetric. It was not. He told the women the achievement they were there to celebrate was not important. He did not tell them men that.
And telling someone their achievement is not important is not the same as saying “don’t let it go to your head”.
I will also add: Bukner doesn’t have a right to be upset that people tell him they disagree or that he said thing badly. And his supporters don’t have a right to be upset either. And neither has a right to pretend he didn’t say what he said (and simultaneously applaud him for saying it.)
Lucia wrote: “He is specifically addressed the group of women who worked hard to get their degrees and telling them thatâŚwell⌠perhaps thatâs not so important to do.”
And? Maybe it isn’t as important as they may believe. Getting married to your career is one of the worst relationships you may engage in. The job always comes first and cares not a jot about you. It will always dump you when you need it most. By the time many come to realize this, it’s too late to course correct and a bunch of bitter, middleaged, women is a blight on society, for hell hath no fury…
Lucia,
âOh? Whatâs a âtrophy husbandâ? Seriously, definition? I doubt most women in college are there to find a future NFL football player.â
Professional athletes are definitely on the list, as are doctors [especially specialists], legacy lawyers, and old-money party boys.
I would guess in LA a boy with movie mogel connections would be a catch and in DC a powerful polâs son might make the list.
Some sororities exist to expedite this process.
Choice is not oppression, lack of choice is. Some of the more detached response to this is “How dare you allow me to choose!”.
There is certainly some “sexist” attitudes at play there. This guy is from the NFL. It’s the center of the universe for sexism. I would only note that this works in both directions. For child rearing, work is optional for women and effectively mandatory for men. One group gets to choose without social repercussions in many situations, which group do you want to be in?
Let me know when a right thinking speaker is advocating that women man the lines (hmmm…interesting adjective) in combat representatively.
This is funâŚ
In Texas, a boy from an oil family
In Oklahoma, a boy from a 200,000 acer cattle ranch
In Arkansas, a boy with the last name of Walton
And so on
I would also agree that an NFL kicker didn’t eloquently get his nuanced message across. Big surprise, he likely wrote that speech himself. His wife probably told him to change some parts and he stubbornly refused, ha ha. There was some impression of talking down to women.
However telling young people that their biggest life satisfaction may come from family instead of career is hardly controversial. This has been endlessly repeated in literature and Hollywood for a century.
President of Iran’s helicopter has been down for 6 hours and they can’t find it in a foggy mountainous region. Likely not heading to a good outcome. The usual suspects already blaming Israel.
Several of you have mentioned the imprecise language used in the speech.
That may be by design. Some of you read this:
You have wasted your time in college; a woman’s place is in the home.
Some read this;
You may go on to a successful professional career but find that being a mother brings you a greater feeling of accomplishment.
Conspiracy theory: He anonymously plants the âwomenâs place is in the homeâ phrase where wokies will find it and away we go.
lucia: “If heâs specifically also told the men that their promotions and achievements were unimportant, I would agree with you. But he didnât do that to the men.”
He did not do that to the women either.
Tom wrote: “Let me know when a right thinking speaker is advocating that women man the lines”
The sewer lines would be a start…
My first real summer job was cleaning sewer lines for the city. Nope, no women on that crew, ha ha. Strangely I have fond memories of that job. They taught me how to use a jackhammer and drive a dump truck at 16. Now I drive down the road fearful someone else is giving a dump truck to somebody who can barely drive.
It was also a motivator for getting a college degree and the full timers on that crew were quick to point that out.
Tom,
Thatâs why the are called manholes.
DavidJr
And I’m saying he did do that. And people get to observe he did and write posts, have podcasts and etc. discussing their views about what he said and what he thinks.
And some here are trying to make it sound like he also told the guys their accomplishment was not so important– he didn’t.
It’s one thing to talk about whether you agree with him or not. It’s another to pretend he didn’t say precisely what he said. Or to edit out what he actually said by trying to identify some “essence” which somehow is vaguely related to his talk and avoids admitting he said what he said.
Russell
I don’t know any women who went to college with the goal if catching these types of guys. Do some exist? Perhaps.
I do know some guys who went to college with the major goal or partying or getting laid.
I would object to someone not congratulating these for actually managing to graduate or telling them that their accomplishment was not important.
I don’t think the fact that one of the major attractions for college was partying is a reason to not congratulate these men.
Tom
I think for some women the choice to be a stay at home mom and focus on child rearing is an option. Even for them, it’s generally a temporary option. Bukner’s wife is an exception because he makes a lot of money.
“Advising” women on how to live their life based on an exception– and for most women an unattainable one– isn’t doing them a big favor.
For the majority of women being a stay at home Mom is not an opption. Even if they marry, the standard is now a two income household and men expect this too. They might “theoreticall” be open to it, but in reality– nope. And if one income can’t support a family comfortably, it’s not much of an option to say, “Sure. Let’s endure grinding poverty while you stay home.)
And of course some women don’t marry for various reasons.
Also: evidently, studies show men still don’t pull their weight around household chores — working women do more.
I don’t have a link, but I’m pretty sure what I read is in houses with children:
* women with children work the largest number of hours (counting remunerative work,house work and child care.)
* men with children work the middle number of hours. (The work slightly more remunerative hours– but much less housework and child care.)
* stay at home moms work the least number of hours.
(Stay at home moms confronted with this will deny it. But it’s pretty funny to hear a stay at home really try to explain how a woman who works 8 hours a day can really some how have a totally relaxing evening while the stay at home is “still working”. Look either watching the kids at night is work or it is not. It doesn’t suddenly vanish because the kids were in day care during the day!)
MikeM
He absolutely did.
Tom Scharf
Baby sitting is a motivator for getting a college degree too.
“The Mr. & Mrs. Degree: Which Colleges Have the Highest Marriage Rates?”
Some colleges really are marriage factories with 80-90% success rate:
“Figure 1 and 2 present the schools with the highest and lowest married shares. Unsurprisingly, the top 25 schools are almost all religiously affiliated. The top two are Orthodox Jewish Yeshivas, and all but two of the remaining have an explicit religious affiliation. The other two, Bridgerland Applied Technical College and Utah State University, are both located in Utahâthe state with the fourth-highest marriage rate, thanks to a Mormon population that likely attends both schools disproportionately.
The bottom 25 exhibits a different pattern. Half of the schools are historically black colleges or universities, and only three are less than half black, compared to the dataset average of 11.8 percent. This makes sense: Just as more religious people are more likely to get married, black people are less likely to be married. About half as many black Americans were married as of the 2019 American Community Survey as were white Americans, for example.”
Elite schools have three own dynamics:
“The tops and bottoms are notable here, too. (See the end of this article for a full list.) The top five are: Notre Dame (67.5% married), Washington and Lee (66%), Bucknell (65.4%), Davidson (65%), and Vanderbilt (63.9%); the bottom five are: Wellesley (50%), USC (50%), Cooper Union (46.6%), NYU (46.5%), and Vassar (44.5%). By way of comparison, in 2014, 53.3% of Americans ages 32 to 34 were married, according to the American Community Survey; 44.7% of those with less than four years of college were married, compared to 62.1% with four or more years.”
https://ifstudies.org/blog/number-8-in-2022-the-mr-mrs-degree-which-colleges-have-the-highest-marriage-rates
Lucia,
“I donât know any women who went to college with the goal if catching these types of guys.”
We travel in different circles.
Russell
Evidently.
I didn’t go to an orthodox Yeshiva. Only a tiny minority of women do.
I also have no idea what you think thosemarriage statistics for some universities shows. Even more women went to Yeshivas, the fact that lots of undergrads do get married doesn’t mean women went there in order to get married. I mean… the guys got married also. I don’t conclude their major goal was to get married.
â I also have no idea what you think thosemarriage statistics for some universities showsâ
Not an argument point, just found them interesting
A tale of two sisters.
And their Christmas lists.
When she was a little girl, my oldest granddaughter wanted accessories for her âAmerican Dollâ collection. Her younger sister wanted Legos, Matchbox cars, and dinosaurs. The older one is a teenager now and this yearâs Christmas list was makeup and clothes. Her sister, in the sixth grade still wanted Legos but mostly wanted books. There is no doubt in my mind that one of these girls could find satisfaction with an engineering career. The other would hate it. That having been said, I would not be surprised if either or both of them found satisfaction in motherhood.
Well, here’s what the LLM I’m running on my local computer has to say about what commencement speeches should be like:
It’s not awful. It’s not brilliant, but it’s not awful either.
Russell,
My two ballroom dance pros would also probably hate engineering too. Lots of people would hate engineer. I don’t really understand what larger point you think you might be making.
I haven’t claimed anyone won’t find satisfaction in parenthood. Lots of men and women do. But if we are still discussing this in context of Bukner’s speech: the fact that many people find satisfaction of parenthood has nothing to do why he is getting criticized. He is being criticized because he went off and said this specifically to the women who are sitting in their graduation ceremony. That is a ceremony that exists to celebrate an acacemic achievement– not a ceremony to reflect on parenthood.
Bukner decided to say this:
Did he say it specifically to the women and not men? Yes. How do we know that? This bit “I want to speak directly to you briefly because I think it is you, the women, ”
Have men been told similar things about promotions and titles as women? I’m pretty sure they have! Money is good! It helps you have a more comfortable life! You can use it to buy things! All these diabolical lies! Lies! Lies!
But this sure makes it sound like things people say about jobs and careers are lies when told to women. Because he made a point of addressing that to the women.
Look: This is telling women who are sitting in their college graduation ceremony that their promotions and titles are unimportant.
Is he “guessing” he knows what specifically the women he is talking to women are excited about? I’d be very surprised if the women sitting in their graduation ceremony are sitting there all excited about their future marriages and children they will bring into the world.
And if he’s going to set himself up as a mind reader, why not “guess” what the men are thinking of? So what are the men thinking about? Are they thinking of hitting the nearest bar, getting drunk with their buddies and getting laid? Well… he doesn’t guess. Maybe he figures they know what they are thinking without his help.
I doubt Bukner is worried about any criticism he gets. B
mark,
If Bukner had stuck to that, he wouldn’t be being criticized.
Telling the graduating woman that it would be better for them to be a stay at home mom than aspire to a career was an interesting innovation.
Sadly, even though he advised them to consider the “stay at home wife and mom thing”, he didn’t even give the women any tips on how to find a super rich guy who wants to support their dream of staying at home! Maybe he should have asked his wife how she managed that.
Lucia,
I agree with your points. I think there are legitimate and actual differences between men and women, but I don’t see that Bukner hit the mark if he was trying to speak of those actual differences. I don’t know why it would surprise anyone that an NFL athlete might speak poorly though, on the contrary. I wonder why anyone ever imagines they will find anything profound or wise in celebrity utterances.
This said, commencement at a conservative Catholic school as you noted, so, my view is meh. Whatever. Doesn’t float my boat but YMMV.
Worse, now that I’ve thought about it a little. I think that in this day and age, we have lost sight of the fact that there are actual differences between men and women, with our culturally widespread preoccupation with the notion that gender varies independently from biological sex. There are probably important points to be made in the face of this. Sadly, Bukner did not make any of them as far as I can tell.
I’ve heard Jordan Peterson claim that the word ‘sin’ is rooted in an etymology where it once meant ‘to miss’ or maybe ‘to miss what one was aiming at’. I don’t know if this is true, but if so, perhaps Bukner sinned in his speech. I hope his sin doesn’t further muddy already muddied waters and make it more difficult, culturally speaking, for us to return to gender sanity.
Mark wrote: “I donât know why it would surprise anyone that an NFL athlete might speak poorly though, on the contrary.”
On the other hand, Pelosi recently debated an alternative rock guitarist at Oxford union and got trounced. Probably worth a look if you want to see Pelosi dancing on a griddle.
DaveJR,
No, I don’t have a lot of interest in that, but thanks anyway. I don’t think being a politician qualifies someone any better than being an athlete. In fact, being a politician may be more of a disqualifying factor.
Culture wars.
Harrison Buckner.
Religious College Graduation.
Invited speaker gives a religious focussed address.
With a bit of click bait.
–
Fish feeding frenzy.
–
Takeaway messages?
–
The appropriateness of his address to his audience was and is the concern of his audience alone.
The women and men at the presentation gave him 18 seconds of applause which was more than polite.
His address met the preconceived preconceptions of his religious audience and dutifully ticked all the right boxes for that audience at that time.
–
Here at Luciaâs we have the privilege of considering his closed comments in the prism of our open GenX minds.
–
Would any woman whose mothers fought for the rights and benefits of equality and education over marriage , housework and homework drudgery and child rearing, having just got a hard earned degree, want to hear this speech? No.
–
Was he right?
–
Should we celebrate equality or diversity?
Or should we be an individual, wanting to be just like everyone else?
–
Iâm afraid the simple answer is gender and religion and setting specific in all cases.
Single working parent is a hard life, especially in the early years.
Hard for me to get too worked up about a speech by a football player.
I would have the same reaction if the shoe were on the other foot, and the speech suggested women should reject the ‘stay-at-home’ model and pursue a career.
Much ado about nothing.
angech,
Assuming the NYC jury convicts Trump on one or more felony crimes (near certainty, IMO), it is a safe bet the judge will sentence Trump to prison, and attempt to have him placed in prison immediately. Likely Trump would be quickly released on appeal, but I would guess there is a 50:50 chance the NY judge will make sure Trump is taken away in handcuffs, with plenty of MSM coverage. It is the most blatantly political prosecution among the many politically motivated prosecutions Trump faces. But the judge will for sure try to put him in prison ASAP.
Joe Biden should pray Trump doesn’t get elected, because Biden really is a criminal (not a politically convenient criminal, a real one) and certainly faces legitimate prosecution under a Trump administration for blatant corruption.
Tom Scharf
In 2021, Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, D-Pa. proposed making women subject to the draft. (Chrissy soundls like a woman’s name because it is.) It got voted down in commitee. The vote was 35-24. Only three republican’s voted for it. So there are people who want women in the draft. They just happen to be on what we call the left.
https://www.military.com/daily-news/2021/09/03/congress-moves-closer-making-women-register-draft.html
SteveF,
I mostly don’t care. But people brought it up here. Interstingly, the first post definitely seemed to at least get he said what he said. But other people seem be wanting to say that he didn’t say it. And other people are getting their knicker in a twist that people are criticizing him for saying it.
If someone had gotten up and told women they should not chose to be housewives, but then his supporters said, “well, that’s not what he did”, I’d equally say “yeah, he did.”
The guy said what he said. Some can agree with it– and also agree with him saying where and when he said it and to whom. Some can disagree.
As I said initially: I would never have gone to that Roman Catholic school. I can also add: I don’t expect much insight into life from a football player. I don’t think we got much insight.
Lucia,
You wrote:
âLook: This is telling women who are sitting in their college graduation ceremony that their promotions and titles are unimportant.â
Rot! He told them no such thing.
He told them âYou may go on to lead successful careers in the worldâ
That is hardly belittling their college achievement.
He also praised their family opportunity:
âbut I would venture to guess that the majority of you are most excited about your marriage and the children you will bring into this worldâ
A graduating class from a religious school has an inordinate number of newlyweds and about-to-be newlyweds. These kids ARE thinking about their futures together and for most, that means parenthood.
He made no either career or children declarations. He said they are âmost excitedâ about the family option.
He was right.
angech,
Well… the Benedictine Sisters of St. Scholastica think they have a right to responde and wrote
and
You can try to tell a Roman Catholic Nun to shut up, but you aren’t likely to succeed in getting her to think you have a right to shut her up!
https://www.kmbc.com/article/benedictine-sisters-of-mount-st-scholastica-statement-harrison-butker-commencement-speech/60819290
LOL. There you have it. Don’t defy the nuns, lest they wrap your knuckles with a ruler!
Angech,
I should add that the Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica aren’t just some whacky order of left wing nuns. They are a “a founding institution and sponsor of Benedictine College”.
I think they certainly have a right to explain that Bukner also doesn’t speak for Benedictines in general. I mean… come on…Saint Scholastica was Saint Benedict’s sister. The order is conservative in the Roman Catholic sense– but their brand of conservative doesn’t say the highest calling for women is to be home makers.
I mean… Roman Catholic Nuns from the Benedictine order call him on contradicting 1500 years of Benedictine teachings!
https://www.facebook.com/mountosb/posts/843047964525749?ref=embed_post
When the Roman Catholic nun’s from a founding order for the school that invited you to speak object, you have said something that…. well… even Roman Catholic nun’s object to.
Lucia,
The nuns are being just as deceitful as you. They claim he said:
âOne of our concerns was the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman,â
He said no such thing.
Russell,
No such thing?
And this in a speech where he pretty much tells women it’s a lie to think their careers are important?
I suggest it’s a really, really big stretch to say Buckner said “no such thing”. Being a homemaker is the most important thing for a woman is his message to the women at that graduation ceremony.
Too bad he didn’t give advice on how to marry a rich man to achieve the dream of being a full time homemaker while also having enough money to feed, clothe and educate your children.
Lucia,
You keep distorting his words. Your words:
‘Being a homemaker is the most important thing for a woman is his message to the women at that graduation ceremony.’
His only use of the word homemaker:
’embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.’
ONE of the most important titles is his exact words. You distorted this to ‘the most important thing’. What you did is dishonest.
Homemaker, Merriam-Websterâ noun. one who manages a household especially as a spouse and parent.
I think of all the homemakers I have been close toâŚ..Two grandmothers, my mother, my wife, my mother-in-law, my daughter-in-law, and to each of them ‘homemaker’ was one of their most important titles. They all had other titles, most of them worked outside their homes, two had professional careers, one was very active in the church, one was a landlady, one did charity work, one took care of aging parents; all the while being homemakers.
But your distortions didnât stop there, you wrote:
‘Telling the graduating woman that it would be better for them to be a stay at home mom than aspire to a career was an interesting innovation.’
He never said that. Show me the quote if itâs not a lie.
Another distortion, you wrote:
‘Itâs just that his advice was to tell the women that the accomplishment they were celebrating was not really that importantâ because they were women.’
He said the opposite:
‘For the ladies present today, congratulations on an amazing accomplishment. You should be proud of all that you have achieved to this point in your young lives.’
Reference, National Catholic Register
Full Text: Harrison Butker of Kansas City Chiefs Graduation Speech
https://www.ncregister.com/news/harrison-butker-speech-at-benedictine
Russell,
I’m not distorting his words. The nuns and I are describing his message correct.
No: the dictionary definition of homemaker — and you thinking home making is important doesn’t change what he said into something else.
You can post the link to the full text– people are responding to the message in the full text. Linking only shows his message is precisely what his detractors say it was.
“Show me the quote if itâs not a lie.”
I didn’t say it was a full quote. It’s a paraphrase of the meaning of his words. Paraphrases of meaning are allowable. The message people heard is the message he meant.
Some of his supporters want to do Mote and Bailey on this. But that was his message.
Look: he’s not denying that people interpreted his meaning correctly. Butker’s not “clarifying” that he meant anything else.
Sheesh. You guys agree on 99.9% of everything and you’re fighting over a punter? From Kansas City?
He’s a clumsy talker and probably a bit of a clumsy thinker. You two are spending way too much time on this.
Lucia,
Reading what they actually say.
âOne of our concerns was [the assertion that being a homemaker is the highest calling for a woman,â] the statement continues. âWe sisters have dedicated our lives to God and Godâs people, including the many women whom we have taught and influenced during the past 160 years.
These women have made a tremendous difference in the world
[ in their roles as wives and mothers ]and through their God-given gifts in leadership, scholarship, and their careers.
] Our community has taught young women and men] not just [how to be âhomemakersâ ] in a limited sense, but rather [ how to make a Gospel-centered, compassionate home within themselves] where they can welcome others as Christ, empowering them to be the best versions of themselves.â
suggests to me that they agree and promote that assertion
[see brackets], but that could be just me.
Thomas W Fuller May 20, 2024 at 12:26 am
“Sheesh. You guys agree on 99.9% of everything and youâre fighting over a punter?”.
–
Lucia mostly comments on matters of interest or concern to her.
Russell comments on a lot of things.
But agreement?
I do not recall a formal mutual agreement pact ever existing.
–
mark bofill May 19, 2024 at 6:52 pm “LOL. There you have it. Donât defy the nuns, lest they wrap your knuckles with a ruler!”
Seems a common story with my Catholic friends in Australia.
So much for the 1500 years of “Gospel-centered, compassionate “teaching honoured in the Benedictine rule but not the actions of the adherents.
Channeling my inner Male chauvinist.
–
Lucia is right when she says his message is open to people interpreting it as being demeaning and condescending to women.
–
His message is one that Christian Popes and Muslim Ayatollahs have promoted and continue to promote for the last two millenniums and one that he and many followers of faith believe in.
–
Calling him out as “only a football player” [my words], thus not worthy of having an opinion, is very satisfying for the soul but since it is a mirror image of his message “only a housewife and mother”[my words] is not right.
Heavens, he might be [probably not] a rocket scientist with grades equally as good as the young damsels when he went to College.
Not that that carries any weight either.
–
A true Benedictine Sister of Mount St. Scholastica should never have lowered her Christian vows of kindness and charity to attacking the views of another Christian of the same or similar persuasion.
Vows of silence and compassion and humility guide the true Benedictine Nun.
This statement [with its fraught logic] seems typical of a gentle, slightly left wing ,ivy tower person who has never had to face the realities of the world and her faith.
angech,
The Benendictine sisters did not “attack” Butner.
Also: Benedictine sisters do not take vows of silence,
https://www.newarkabbey.org/spirituality/silence
It would have been rather difficult for “Saint Scholastica” to be a scholar if she took a vow of silence!!
Lucia,
You are telling me your interpretation of his meaning carries more weight than his actual clearly stated words. Your fantasy trumps fact. No, that is not how arguments work and that is not allowed.
As to nuns vs mothers…..
When they are initiated into their orders, nuns swear a solemn oath against motherhood. Itâs called their Vow of Chastity. They spend the rest of their life wondering if they made the right choice. Of course they are not going to extoll motherhood. It reminds them of the wrong choice they made as young women.
In my book, Motherhood is a higher calling than Sisterhood.
Wonderfully inspiring thread on âXâ:
âCan we start a trend with women with degrees and careers but agree with Harrison Butkerâs speech?
Iâll go first: my name is Noelle, I have three degrees, and I agree that the world needs more masculinity and that wives/mothers are vital for society.â
https://x.com/noellefitchett/status/1790966974367068240?s=46&t=ZvqHpxBnQGny72gLoGhKXw
Did you hear that Lucia? What you are doing is not allowed according to Russell.
You’d better shape up, woman.
lucia,
I agree with Russell: Your interpretation of Butker’s words is not what he said. He did not say that women’s education or careers are unimportant. he said that they would likely not be the most important thing in their lives. He did not say that being a homemaker was “the highest calling” for a woman. He said it was “one of the most important” things they could do. You might not agree with what he did say, but you should not misstate what he said.
Sarcasm tag. Should have been obvious, but Poes law. Sorry
Ezra Klein reads the same writing on the wall that I do:
https://dnyuz.com/2024/05/19/seven-theories-for-why-biden-is-losing-and-what-he-should-do-about-it/
Biden is losing.
Russell
That’s not what I’m telling you. You are demanding an adjacency of strings and refuse to accept material put together in paragraphs.
Look Russell, you don’t want to interpret what he clearly said as being what having meaning what he said. Fine.
You really do like to try to support your claim by going on irrelevant tangents.
mark
đ
Lucia,
The nun tangent is yours and yours alone. You brought it up, four times, and droned on and on about it. I write two sentences in response and you accuse me of “going on irrelevant tangents”.
MikeM, Russel,
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
He is speaking directly to the women.
This is strong. He doesn’t say what the lies are directly. We must infer them.
Note the use of rhetorical question? Like it or not, this has meaning. And the specific meaning is created by what surrounded.
One part of it is the diabolical lies are about the women’s careers.
This is in the blank the rehtorical question– and now it’s his “guess”. Look, it’s not his “guess”. It’s his claim. In a speech where we are clearly meant to infer things, the adjacencies is that the diabolical lies are that the women’s careers, promotions are anywere near as important as their marriage and children. He’s not “guessing” this. He is telling them they should be most excited about that.
Butker then launches into a parable. Roman Catholic are very familiar with argument by parable.
You can’t pull out quotes– but these parables mean something.
His parable a specific story to further show women “the right path”. He uses a very strong and evocative image. There is no sane function of the sudden launch into the discussion of his wife except as a parable to tell the audience the correct choices for a womans life.
So let’s look at it.
And he is now telling them — by way of an example– that the “right path” for them is to live their lives with a vocation of wife and mother. That’s when life begins.
Ad he’s saying it pretty darn strongly: A woman begins her life by living her vocation as a wife and mother.
He may only say the title is “one of” the most important titles. B he’s doing it after denigrating all other paths for women. With this parable, he is absolutely telling women the path for them to begin living is to be a homemaker (of the kind, like his wife, who has a “vocation as wife and mother”.
He then continues to argue or lecture by giving an further interpretation of the parable he just gave.
The inspirational example of a woman is one who gives up the possibility of her career, “outside noise” and moves “closer to Godâs will in their life”. What are outside noises? And what is “God’s will: for women to be wives mothers and homemaker.
He is absolutely telling women their highest calling is marriage, motherhood and homemaking and that other things are not important. After all: the marriage, motherhood and homemaking are God’s will. This is very strong.
https://vicksburgnews.com/full-transcript-of-harrison-butkers-commencement-speech/
I get you want to deny this is what he meant. But you know, you can’t fish out a “quote” from the Good Samaritan either. It still means something. And this guy is using that rhetorical device. He’s also using “guesses” and rhetorical question.
But his message to women is that nothing is more important than being a homemaker, which is the path God will’s them to take.
And I repeat to both Mike M and Russell
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.”
Yes. That sentence means something.
Lucia,
“You are demanding an adjacency of strings ”
Could you rewrite that in English, please?
Russell
The tangent is not talking about nuns. The tangent is talking us what you consider to be their opinion about motherhood. The issue we are discussing is what the words Butner said mean, no whether what me means correct or incorrect. You keep wanting to go onto tangents of whether he was right or wrong. And it often appears that you think if he is right when he meant X that supports your claim he didn’t make that very claim.
Lucia,
Well said in https://rankexploits.com/musings/2024/may-2024-post/#comment-232452
I don’t see how the matter can be expressed more clearly than that.
Russell
I’m saying this directly to you because the following applies to you specifically. Please pay attention:
“Fools despise wisdom and instruction.”
“There are none so blind as those who will not see.” and
“You can lead a horse to water but you can’t make him drink.”
Lucia,
” And it often appears that you think if he is right when he meant X that supports your claim he didnât make that very claim.”
Not sure what this means……specific examples please?
Lucia,
Did I understand all your intelligent points… that I am a blind-fool-thirsty horse.
lucia May 20, 2024 at 4:08 am angech,
“The Benedictine sisters did not âattackâ Butner.”
–
I think my actual words were a sister should “never have lowered her Christian vows of kindness and charity to attacking the views of another Christian”
The views, not physically the person.
short snippets from the internet
*Maria Shriver Slams Harrison Butker
*The sisters of Mount St. Scholastica are just the latest group to speak up condemning Butker’s remarks.
*Benedictine Sisters of Mount St. Scholastica blast Harrison Butker’s speech. Barry Werner.
* Catholic Nuns at Benedictine College Attack NFL Star Harrison Butker for Echoing Catholic Teachings via @gatewaypundit …
–
I think one possible reading, since commentators said the Sisters did blast his speech, condemn his speech and attack him is that he has been attacked for expressing his views by said sisters.
–
“Also: Benedictine sisters do not take vows of silence,”
–
You are quite correct, as always.
My apologies for not reading the 70 chapters of the Benedictine rule from 500 A.D to correct the misunderstandings I had accumulated over 70 years of reading novels and Robin Hood.
No sarcasm intended by the way,
I just hate being wrong [again]
It’s a man thing.
Russell,
And what if I were to deny that was the message and insist that I didn’t say that because you can’t find a quote? That I was merely paraphrasing?
Yes, I am using a rhetorical question, which of course is making a claim.
Russell
You introduced this tangent about the nuns
(1) This is a tangent to the topic at hand: Whether or not Butner claimed something.
(2) you introduced it. At the end you decree ” It reminds them of the wrong choice they made as young women.” This at least appears to be you claiming that making the choice to be a nun was wrong.
You shoved this into a discussion aboutwhether or not Butner making a claim about what is the best choice in life. This tends to suggest that you are at least suggesting that Butner’s claim that motherhood and home making is the highest choice in life for a young woman. And since you put it into a discussion of what Butner claimed with your claim being Butner did not say the highest choice for a young women is wife, motherhood and homemaking, it appears you think showing this claim about motherhood is correct would support your claim that he didn’t actually make it.
But, in fact, he did make it. Which is why you alternate between defending it as correct to make the claim all the while trying to claim that he didn’t really make it.
Angech,
I have no idea where you get this idea! The nuns are Roman Catholic. Roman Catholics do not believe it is remotely wrong to strongly criticize the views of Christians who promulgate incorrect positions under the guise of Christianity. It is, in fact a duty to do so. The Nun’s probably feel compelled to explain that his views are not RC teachings even if he thinks they are.
See Prescription against Heretics tells Christians they are are supposed to admonish heretics for their heresy. That’s what the nuns are doing.
There has been a long tradition of excommunicating people. Catholics have a long list of officials heresies — from Albigensian to Zoroastrian. Many are specifically criticizing the views of people who thought they were Christian– some include criticizing the views of highly ranked Christian theologians: for example Nestorius, the Archbishop of Constantinople. There are many other examples.
Posting a newspaper headline that says the nuns attacked him doesn’t mean they attacked him.
That explains why you hold some entirely fictional ideas of the RC position on stuff. Maybe your idea about RC’s not criticizing views of other Christian’s also came from Robin Hood. It’s fiction.
I judge that family is a last bastion of freedom from government interventions into individual lives.
However, it needs saying that the family entity can exist in many forms providing freedom of choice remains above government reach. “The Speech” is way too limiting in not acknowledging that in a free society there are and should be many ways of dealing with private association. While family is important in the overall scheme of things, it is the individuals and their freedoms that are of the utmost importance. Individuals should be able the reject family entirely if that is their free choice.
“The Speech Giver” is in my view attempting to impose his personal religious views into how he thinks women view the satisfaction of family versus a carreer. Certainly these satisfactions are not mutually exclusive.
Somewhere in this thread was a comment on a vote to draft women in evidently an attempt to even up things with the sexes. The right vote would be to eliminate the draft for both sexes. A vote for drafting both sexes is a vote for equality in government control over individuals lives.
angech,
Here’s more on the RC position toward those who make mistaken claims about God’s will and so on. It’s a bit simpler than the other one I linked:
https://www.catholic.com/qa/teaching-errors-in-gods-name
Butner sprinkled a lot of God into his speech. Catholic teaching would guide the nuns to believe it is their duity to seek to correct these errors.
More duty to correct: Galatians
This BFTH (Blind Fool Thirsty Horse) has decided to declare victory and withdraw.
Kenneth,
He also appears to be representing them as “the” Roman Catholic way to view things. Some of them aren’t. He uses the term “preach” and the rhetorical structure shares similarities with sermons.
It’s actually funny to read some of his other stuff. The following all precedes his advice to women!
It’s clear he knows there are Catholics who disagree with him. (e.g. “There is not enough time today for me to list all the stories of priests and bishops misleading their flocks, “ He definitely lays into priests and bishops. Presumably, he knows they don’t agree with him because they say and do things he thinks they should not say and do! )
I like this about himself…. this
Well… Harrison, you could have stayed home, played with your kids and fasted instead of accepting an invitation and go on for paragraph after paragraph complaining about your leaders. But… nah!…. LOL! I guess Harrison B wasn’t operating under angech’s misconception you don’t criticize other christians.
I like this too “Being locked in with your vocation and staying in your lane is going to be the surest way for you to find true happiness and peace in this life.” And yet, Butner described what he thinks is his lane (i.e. vocation– staying home and fasting. But he doesn’t stay in it. So… uhmm… I guess he isn’t looking to find true happiness and peach fast? LOL!
Next comes his address to the women specifically!
I missed this before he specifically addresses the woman– and it only strengthends that he is telling them what their vocation ought to be
He is clearly telling the audience he is about to teach them what their vocation is.
Yep… this proceeds his little sermon to the women– the one instructing them on God’s will for their life, and what their vocation is. (Note, since I’ve already explained what he’s telling them, he’s telling them their vocation– gods’ will for their life– is motherhood, marriage and homemaking. We could add supporting their man so he can focus on making their man’s success possible. “I have a wife who leans into her vocation. Iâm beyond blessed with the many talents God has given me, but it cannot be overstated that all of my success is made possible because a girl…. because would convert to the faith, become my wife, and embrace one of the most important titles of all: homemaker.” )
I would suggest you are using your voice to advance your own political views. I think that’s fine. But if your hope is to always use it as a voice for God, I think others– e.g. The Benedictine Sister– disagree.
Many would agree what you are saying is not from a place of wisdom. Sadly, experience does not always confer wisdom.
I’ve never been a big fan of Natural Family Planning. But interesting he’s vocally against this too. He gets to be. But good thing he makes a good income!
This concludes today’s reading, first letter of Lucia to the Butnerians.
So, evidently Latin mass is a necessity for our lives! Okie, dokie!
Pre-vatican counsel, here we come!
More interesting ideas!
So the God of the Old Testament, (mostly written in Aramaic or later Greek) wants people to celebrate mass in Latin. And that holds in the US where people generally don’t speak Latin or even any Romance Language.
He challenges people to up and move– so they can listen to Mass in Latin (a language they don’t speak.)
Interesting position for a Roman Catholic. The conventional RC position is mass is a gathering together of a community. Without community, mass isn’t mass!! LOL!
He soon finishes with his accolade about the Latin Mass.
He then gives some careers advice: Find a job someplace where you can go to the latin mass. (“Do they offer the TLM and have priests who embrace their priestly vocation? Cost of living must not be the only arbiter of your choices, for a life without God is not a life at all, and the cost of salvation is worth more than any career. ” (For those wondering: Yes, places that offer the Latin Mass would include churches in Chicago, LA, Napeville, NYC and so on and so on. So it shouldn’t be too difficult. )
Possibly true. If your vocation aligns with God. He’s just told us what does align!
I, for one, am not planning to rush of to St. Peter and Paul in Naperville to sit through Latin mass.
Very RC thing to say. I’m surprised he didn’t say “Mass is ended, go in peace to love and serve the lord.” Though I imagine he would feel the need to say it in Latin!
The end!
Well, that was good for a chuckle. He has a right to say whatever he likes. But others have a right to disagree with him! I would advice watching a Latin mass once can be fun. Going to the zoo is also fun! Lots of things are fun. But I think lots of RC Catholics would disagree with his idea that you gotta go to Latin Mass to really be doing things right!
lucia,
Your interpretation is not what Butker said. It is an interpretation. You clearly believe that your interpretation is what he meant. I think you are mistaken.
I don’t object to your interpreting his words. I object to your claim that your interpretation must be what he meant and treating it as if it is what he said.
mark
Two comments too soon!! Now “Ite, missa est, “
Russell,
I can see your white flag and your retreat. Look: the thirsty horse knows I what I said without providing anything single sentence the blind, thirsty horse could quote. You have to paraphrase– and it’s still what I meant.
MikeM
Mine is correct. I supported it.
Your interpretation appear to be that it is indecipherable and we can’t know.
Lucia,
â I can see your white flag and your retreat.â
Have you been forgetting to take your meds?
Russel,
The only med I take is Levothyroxine. And no I haven’t forgotten to take it.
Maybe you need a stronger dose.
On the other hand, we have the pope expressing leftist political views. Can infallibility be compatible with ignorance?
Russell,
Whenever someone (e.g. you) declares themselves the victor they have lost. See Danth’s law.
Kenneth,
I’m not saying the RC church is correct. But I am amused at Butner’s rhetoric.
Also: the concept of infallibility is less than you think. It’s only when he is “acting as supreme teacher and under certain conditions, cannot err when he teaches in matters of faith or morals.”
Read this on how many times the pope has spoken infallibly:
Always pray to the holy spirit…. always. Like Harrison Butner does– when he ain’t stepping out of his lane and opening his yap! đ
https://mycatholic.life/catholic-question-and-answer/the-popes-infallibility/
As unpleasant a conversation as I have seen here in a while.
Seems to me that those who want to issue guidelines for how to set lifetime priorities are always going to get pushback (and more than a little righteous indignation to boot!). I rarely tell people what to do (my standard response is ‘You have to do what you think is right.’) But those inclined to strong religious belief, be it Christian, Muslim, or other, honestly believe their way is for certain right, and not subject to argument or discussion.
Which, of course, makes any discussion unproductive.
Steve,
Oh, I dunno. I enjoy watching Lucia open up a can of whoop-ass from time to time.
Seriously, I thought her discussion of how we can reasonably conclude someone is saying X even though there is no single quotation by which we can nail that person down was worth hearing and considering. Small things in life maybe, but interesting and useful as far as I was concerned.
The call for a mandatory military draft is typically from the far left. They view this as a means to further their antiwar views by randomly imposing costs on the electorate. Itâs a strange tactic. They see a voluntary military as a problem.
The loudest complaints about the punters (aka the messiah) life views in the media are not from people who support liberty but from those who very much want to run your life in a different way.
11 of the first 16 aid trucks from the US pier in Gaza were immediately looted. Never saw that coming. Might want to see how that all panned out in an eerily similar situation in Somalia in the 90âs. Black hawk down.
My reading is that Butker was talking about balance between career and family. He was not saying that women should not have careers or that none should have highly successful careers. He was saying that the normal advice to young women (and young men) badly over-emphasizes career and under-emphasizes family and community. The “lie” is especially consequential for women since women typically value family more and men typically value career more.
Is does not take any elaborate analysis to see that in the talk. You need only read what he actually said with a bit of charity, allowing for the fact that he is neither a speech maker nor a lawyer nor an academic.
Dang. I promised myself that I was going to drop this. Promise made, promise broken. đ
MikeM
If that’s yoru reading, show us how you parse the text the way I showed you mine. Because it’s not possible. Diabolical lies? His wife example wasn’t a balance. Only began to live? His claim of what you dream wasn’t about balance. Way too much hyperbole to be about balance. Nothing was about balance.
Even a tiny amount of analysis shows your intepretation falls about.
Charity? Nonesense. He means what he meant. He doesn’t want “charity”. He also doesn’t mean maybe there is some way to view the Bishops an priests behavior as not pretty horrible.
His problem larger problem is he’s not a thinker.
Mike,
I agree with you here. When people speak in a manner that requires the audience to infer meaning, there is no assurance that everyone will infer the same meanings. It seems to me that what one brings along (so to speak); ones priors on the subject may color inferences.
I prefer when people clearly and unambiguously state what they mean. But I’m a stick in the mud that way.
Tom Scharf
I think this is a motive . Nevertheless, to your challenge to find those that do it: they exist.
Sure. The loudest complaints about someone insisting you run your life in way “X” often come from those who want to force you to run it way “Y”. People who want to force know there is an inclination to force. They recognize when someone is trying to force a way of life– especially if it’s not there.
I suspect Butner wants to come close to forcing a way of life. Some of his detractors do too. I doubt that the Benedictine nuns do though.
While the pope’s political views are not expressed ex cathedra, the carryover effect can give his views unwarranted authority and certainly more than one who punts.
I have heard catholics refer to the pope’s views with which they disagree as being expressed naively or unknowingly.
Mike,
The trouble I have is that the assumptions we bring with us can be considered noise in some sense in this context. If the true signal is ‘what the speaker was trying to convey’, I suspect our best hope of reconstructing that signal of meaning lies in mixing in as little noise as possible and focusing on what the speaker actually said as much as possible. I think Lucia did a good job of that. We were required to fill in the blanks in spots. She did this by identifying the minimal gaps that had to be filled in and by relying maximally on what the speaker DID say rather than introducing charitable imaginings to fill in those gaps. It is possible she also did not reconstruct the signal, but I suspect her approach gives the best probability of understanding what a speaker was trying to convey.
Football player life advice: meh!
Religion very much wants to assert moral authority. They are very explicit about this and make no attempt to hide it. They see their role as leading society, not following it. If you donât like it go find another moral authority or invent your own. Many people feel they need to spread the word to make the world âbetterâ. I wouldnât take it too seriously.
Women still cannot be priests in the Catholic Church. The trend toward secularism is because of these things and others.
No women as priests, and no women leading Iran. It is all bullshit. Better to let the voters choose. They won’t.
mark bofill: “I prefer when people clearly and unambiguously state what they mean. But Iâm a stick in the mud that way.”
Me too.
But I don’t think I had any trouble understanding Butker. And it seems that his audience had no trouble. But I can see where people with different priors would have trouble.
When I am tired of living I know that there are places to go to revive my flagging spirits.
The Blackboard, Lucia, and its coterie of denizens and open discussion is one of the best.
–
Darth’s rule never claim victory
–
Another is never explain, never apologise or something like that.
–
SteveF Vigorous and robust discussion, surely.
There have been discussions a little while ago which weee a bit more …..robust.
This is more Marchese of Queensbury than bare knuckle fighting
–
There are at least two seperate arguments going on here which are unresolvable.
Lucia is a formidable polemicist and debater, as are others here.
Also the only person that I know of here able to give a view from the female perspective.
–
What else have I (we) gained so far, four things.
Insight into religious views in American Universities, the American press and American society.
99.3% agreement is difficult to attain or maintaini.
I should stop but.
A very stubborn angech insisting that it is right to consider criticism of Mr Butker by women for his views as an attack on Mr Butker.
In the same way many women have considered Mr Butker’s criticism of “lies told to women” as an attack by Mr Butker on women.
I spent the last day thinking about my early days in internet chat; the days of local BBS, CompuServe, and Prodigy. The atmosphere was unfiltered and often toxic. I didnât like how it was and I didn’t like how I reacted to it. I developed some personal guidelines. Here are two of them.
One, never make personal attacks. It never leads to anything good and you always rue it when you cool down. The reverse is also true; avoid interacting with anyone who makes personal attacks, their arguments are weak and you won’t learn anything from them.
Two, admit when you are wrong. I think itâs useful to go further on this one. Admit upfront when you are posting things that are outside your wheelhouse, it makes admitting you were wrong easier. Also, point out when your posts contain items that may turn out to be false. The reverse is especially true here; avoid dealing with anyone who never admits they are wrong. Here is Arthur Fonzarelli discussing being wrong:
https://youtu.be/CvdY3HfepOo?si=eoIvSQl1W9BoNxxs
I intend to keep reminding myself of these two principles.
john ferguson,
Many years ago I worked at a large chemical production plant. Through a series of misunderstandings and glaring errors, the 11:00-7:00 shift somehow managed to evacuate an empty 50,000 gallon stainless steel tank…. one not designed for vacuum service. It was crushed like an empty beer can. After considerable discussion, it was decided to pressurize the tank to recover it. Sort of worked…. but permanent creases in the tank walls remained. It was judged these would ultimately fatigue and break. So it was a throw-away.
SteveF,
Ouch!!! Crushed tank must have seriously delayed production!!!
They see their role as leading society, not following it.
Tom, I am not religious, but I do observe the evolution of religions. I do see religions following popular trending views on important social matters. I think Harrison Butker in the first part of his address was expressing his opposition to this reaction by some of the bishophood and priesthood. Interestingly, I do not recall any comments about the pope from Butker.
I believe religious organizations become followers in attempts to bolster the numbers of their flocks. That motivation strikes me as not very principled, although I would disagree with some of their original interpretations of principles that are changing. Even though, I would disagree with some of the stronger orthodoxy as stated by Butker and others with much the same view, in some ways I have to credit their principled approach.
I believe the religious era of human existence will slowly come to a close as religious organizations become followers and individuals find that they are capable living a moral and principled life without the guiding light of a religion.
Lucia,
Actually, there were several similar tanks, so the interference with production was not terrible…. just an added complication of scheduling for some months until a replacement was installed (during an annual maintenance shut-down). It did cost a lot of money to replace.
Kenneth,
This is actually of great interest to me. The Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution was a (relatively) brief span of human history when it appeared people would indeed discover the capacity for living moral and principled lives without religion. For whatever reasons though, I think it is dubious that this will stand the test of time. I think our society (lagging behind academia) is moving away from these ideas, rather than trying to further develop them, I think already we are abandoning these ideas and the Enlightenment is proving a temporary aberration.
.
All this in my opinion: The philosophical trends since the 20’th century have been dismal. Existentialism, post-modernism / post-structuralism. They do not suffice to provide a foundation or framework for a moral and principled existence. They guide our society off into the weeds even now and will not stand the test of time; they will lead us back into darkness eventually. When and how we will find a way out of the morass again (as we did during the Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution) is anyone’s guess.
.
It would not surprise me however to see a resurgence in religious beliefs in the face of all this. Religion is an answer, however ultimately inadequate, to the failings of 20’th century philosophy. An arbitrary and oppressive one in many ways, but still.
People do have the capacity for living moral and principled lives without being personally religious. The problem is that the guidance for doing so comes mostly from religion. As a result, without religion morality is subject to drift and decay. To maintain a moral society in the long term requires some sort of anchor. Religion provides that although it might not be the only way to provide an anchor. I suppose Confucianism might be an example, but it is often considered a religion.
Kenneth,
That view came directly from the Pope in an interview at least 10 years ago. 60 minutes? Anyway I think the subject was views on homosexuality at that time. The church moves very slowly by design.
Many of their views are good for current society, some are not. They do recognize lost causes occasionally. Mass is not in Latin.
Many group ideologies are religions in everything but name. Environmentalism for example.
Thanks Mike. I will think about that.
Tom Scharf
Well… after all, it’s hard to find a strong religious justification for RC Mass being in Latin. It’s mostly “tradition”. Forcing people to learn another language to understand mass doesn’t have much foundation in the Bible or early religious figures teaching.
It can definitely be beautiful to watch. Also, there was a lot of “ceremony” in the Latin mass– they could have kept that and just ditched the Latin. That was a choice during 2nd Vatican Counsel. Ditching the language was definitely sensible though.
What seriously was the point in insisting on having people sit through a Mass they couldn’t understand unless they too Latin? I’m sure some advocates would give an answer. I guess I’d like to hear them. I can actually understanding enjoying some of the sort of pomp and circumstance aspects (some of which can be done w/o Latin. But I just don’t get the past insistence on Latin.
As far as I can tell, most Catholics can find Latin Mass in most areas of the country. Certainly they can find one in any major US city. My neighbors the Stouts liked Latin mass so they went to that. Fine by me. (I don’t go to mass at all.)
Lucia,
As an aside which may or may not relate, I’ve discovered I prefer listening to operas in languages I don’t understand. I haven’t nailed down why yet. If mass is on some level a theatrical performance, and if a decent fraction of people share my quirky preference about foreign language, maybe this relates.
I don’t know. I’m not making a point in this comment, just relating an odd anecdote I guess.
Mark,
I like opera in another languages too. I even enjoy some movies in other languages (and read subtitles.)
But “The Latin Mass” isn’t in English except for music. Scriptual readings are from the Roman Missal— so in Latin.
.
So Latin mass really means that some religious content is in a language the flock may not understand.
Reading the missiles and saying payers in English but having the choir sing songs in Latin is just a regular mass.
I do understand going to mass in Latin from time time for the “entertainment”. Heck, if I went every sunday, I’d to to the latin mass for Christmas midnight mass. đ
It’s just that mandated Latin for things like missiles meant no one ever heard the readings in their native language. If the readings are meant to inform and guide your life, that seems a bit off to me. Before 2nd vatican council, Latin Mass was the only option.
Lucia,
Subtitles are OK, unless you are fluent enough in the other .language to see how terrible the translation often is.
The implication of Christian religions that by believing you will find your way to the promised land can sometimes be a crutch for diversions away from the moral teachings, whereas without that crutch living a moral and principled life has to be better reasoned and a full time pursuit.
Some of the most ardent believers I have observed are also the worst hypocrites, while some of the most consistent attendees to religious services are obviously there for socializing.
Religious organizations have not been capable of preventing wars or stopping them. Neither have they prevented governmental trends to obtain coercive morality that would otherwise be an individual choice free of coercion and susceptible to religious teachings.
Kenneth,
It’s easy to critique and difficult to build and defend a good replacement for religion. Without religion, some basis for morality must be established; this in and of itself has proven to be too great a task for modern philosophy to deal with. For example, existentialists reject that there are moral standards so long as people live ‘authentically’. The post modern view of morality is relative; there is no overarching grand narrative, so what is moral turns into a matter of opinion with no objective answer.
So sure. Religion sucks, it’s false, it’s inadequate. What do we have to replace it with that is better? This is the critical question in my view.
I directed my question at Kenneth for no particularly good reason. I mean, I’d like to know what he thinks about it because I generally respect his opinion, but I’d also be pleased to read any responses anyone else cares to offer. Thanks.
My sentiments exactly, Mark. I have way more respect for religion now than I have ever had for precisely this reason.
SteveF,
Jim sometimes turns on subtitles for various British, Scots and Irish accents!!
What I do not understand about the need for organized religions is my observation that individuals do not take their ethics and morals from a single source and in fact without the bounds of an organized religion an individual’s views on these matters can evolve over time.
Guiding principles can be few in number and capable of being readily applied to real life situations. Some of these have been provided by individual religious thinkers, but that does not mean there is a necessity for an organized religion anymore than thoughts from a libertarian philosopher needs an organization of the religious kind in order to be heard.
A starting place can be as simple as that used by Hazlitt here:
“Henry Hazlitt favors an ethic that seeks the long run general happiness and flourishing of all. Action, institutions, rules, principles, customs, ideals, and all the rest stand or fall according to the test of whether they permit people to live together peaceably to their mutual advantage. Critical here is an understanding of the core classical liberal claim that the interests of the individual and that of society in general are not antagonistic but wholly compatible and co-determinous.”
https:mises.org/library/book/foundations-morality
Kenneth,
.
I’m not claiming it’s theoretically impossible to solve the problem without organized religion, merely that we seem to be moving in the wrong directions these days, away from widespread adoption of secular philosophies that provide the societal necessities that formerly came from religion. In other words, I think societies need certain things that religion used to supply, like a moral code, or perhaps moral arbitration or authority. Natural rights theory seemed to me to be initial steps in this direction, but we have abandoned such ideas, and the philosophies that are in widespread acceptance today don’t appear to me to supply these essentials. We are coasting on inertia or momentum, borrowing ideas about right and wrong from a past we have intellectually rejected, it seems to me.
.
Part of your answer, if I understand you correctly, is that organized religion isn’t really the source of morals I claim it is? I will think about this. I will also read up on the link and person who’s name you supplied.
Thanks.
Kenneth,
A general morality which protects the interests of productive people is pretty much required for a society which grows in wealth. Which is, of course, exactly the opposite of the goals of the conventional left, where the objective is confiscation of wealth generated by productive activity.
The things which facilitate productivity (stable family, compliance with law, respect for the rights and property of others, etc) automatically is encouraged in a practical public morality, quite independent of religion.
The destructive influence of the secular left is a philosophical refusal to respect, protect, and reward productive effort of the individual. (‘You didn’t build that!’) That is why the left always impoverishes, demeans, and degrades the quality of human life, and indeed, humanity itself.
I just popped back in to note that I think a distinction about ‘organized’ religion has been introduced that I wasn’t originally making or thinking about. My impression though is that the majority here are atheists; this excludes acceptance of religions be they organized or not, I’d think. So – it’s a distinction (organized vs not organized religion) but I’m not 100% sure what difference this distinction makes..
Philosophy alert
–
âHenry Hazlitt favors an ethic that seeks the long run general happiness and flourishing of all. Action, institutions, rules, principles, customs, ideals, and all the rest stand or fall according to the test of whether they permit people to live together peaceably to their mutual advantage.â
–
Everyone is equally happy in hell and equally unhappy in heaven.
Happiness being a measure balanced by unhappiness cannot exist in a set where everything is equally balanced.
Where an ideal is too good to be true it isnât true.
Hazlitt and Marx world, Utopia, Gattica, the Handmaidâs tale, the Giver, Benedictine Chastity, Poverty and Silence.
–
Physics has a rule that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. Without mentioning the ripples and tidal waves cause before things can return to a status quo.
–
One can have happiness in a hovel or complete misery in a Manhattan penthouse but few people can share the two apartments equally.
–
Religion is just a name for a set of rules to live by.
Chuck a god or leader in and you have a sect (or sector) that follows said rules.
–
No set of rules survives the first contact with the leader.
Constantly changing the leaders, democracy, gives people as a group some say in changing direction when needed, as opposed to the leader group having continual control helps.
Steve,
Yes, that’s the sort of thing I was reaching for without quite touching in talking about morality. There are customs and ideas and order that I think societies need in order to thrive. These things have to come from someplace. Modern philosophies aren’t helpful. Perhaps we make a mistake associating them with the left, but I don’t think so. Now, I know religion isn’t necessarily all that helpful either, but at least religion introduces the concept that there actually IS right and wrong and that choosing right matters.
Anyways. Thanks.
I understand why people don’t like drive-bys, and this may get deleted, but while I’m not interested in a discussion, I do wonder if those here who thought I got the Israel/Gaza conflict all wrong when I said months ago essentially what Zakaria says here, have altered their views any:
https://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2024/05/19/fareeds-take-israel-netanyahu-gps-digvid.cnn
Not that just because Zakaria agrees with me that means I was right, but the developments in Israel that he describes do, I think, align with my views (and if course many others who criticized Israel’s ill-planned and ill-formed military strategy) from back in the day as to where this was going to go.
Kenneth wrote: “A starting place can be as simple as that used by Hazlitt here”
But why would they (the relativists for example) start there when they don’t want to, nor have to? He’s just another philosopher out of many.
Communism solves these problems by compelling people to follow the narrative. Libertarianism just hangs a noose around its own neck and invites someone to kick away the chair.
Joshua,
You know I almost never delete!
Is it too simplistic to assert that for decades (when most readers here were young and forming opinions) Israel was the Good Guy attacked repeatedly by various Bad Guys including Hamas. Since Netanyahu Israel has acted like the Bad Guy and has treated the Palestinians abominably, with the covert support of Hamas.
Now the Bad Guys are fighting each other. Hamas is not turning into a Good Guy. Israel is actually turning into a Bad Guy. Palestinians are caught in the middle and Hamas is waiting for their next opportunity to repeat the atrocity of October 7th.
There are no Good Guys left in this game. Even the innocent Palestinians should have done more to resist Hamas. Even innocent Israelis should have resisted Netanyahu’s support (!) of Hamas.
I have greatly over-simplified here. But the above is (mostly) true. As for solutions, I’ll have to leave that to wiser heads than mine.
The best part of the High Mass for me is the incense.
The Altar Boy highest in the pecking order got to swing the incense. The low point of our Alter Boy’s work was The Stations of the Cross. You carried a heavy candle with your arm cocked at 90 degrees for the entire procession. Scripture reading in English during mass preceded the Second Vatican Council. Most churches in our Diocese had mass books with English translations of the Latin ceremony in all the pews. Itâs where I started my Latin studies.
Alea iacta est.
Thomas Fuller,
Too simplistic? Well, the details are always complicated, but there is one very simple good-guys, bad-guys difference which can’t be oversimplified: The overwhelming majority of Gazans (and indeed, most Muslims in the Middle East) say they want Israel completely eliminated….. which is why Hamas is in power. Note also that many Garzans loudly support the Hamas tactics of murder, rape, mutilation, and the taking of hostages. There is no similar public sentiment toward Palestian Muslims among Israelis. So long as Muslims in the region will not accept the existence of Israel, there will be endless conflict in the Middle East, just as the has been for much of the last 70 years.
My opinions regarding Israel have not changed. The Israelis aren’t the ‘bad guys’ in this picture.
Glad we’re not going to have a discussion about it, I’m not interested either.
The madness grows. Newsweek: “Momentum ‘Clearly’ Building for NATO Troops in Ukraine”
If this doesn’t stop, it will lead to nuclear war.
Steve,
NATO’s policy doesn’t seem very coherent over time. They could have admitted Ukraine anytime over the last couple of decades and Russia very probably would not have invaded, but now two years after Russia has invaded NATO seriously considers sending troops to defend a Ukraine which is still not part of the alliance.
Play stupid games, win stupid prizes.
Hi, Joshua.
–
long time no see.
–
going through my second Covid infection.
Fingers crossed all well so far on antivirals and tonic water.
–
Do you know anyone who actually died from it?
Well stated, Steve.
mark bofill: “There are customs and ideas and order that I think societies need in order to thrive. These things have to come from someplace. … at least religion introduces the concept that there actually IS right and wrong and that choosing right matters.”
Well said. That is the reason the Founders said things like: âOur Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.â – John Adams
For people to be collectively self governing, they must be individually capable of governing themselves. That requires a reasonably common set of rules and values. Of course, government could set all the rules, but that robs individuals of choice and control.
If government sets all the rules, then government has absolute power. That is tyranny. If individuals are left entirely to their own judgement, there will be anarchy. The ruthless will exploit that, leading to tyranny. A balance is needed. I think the optimal balance requires greater individual freedom than we have now. But that requires greater individual responsibility than we have now.
When all is said and done this is what wars create, i.e. no Good Guys. The initiator of force is a bad guy from the start and the defender most often retaliates by taking actions that in non war situations would be considered illegal and reprehensible.
Innocent people may have played a part in putting those in power who are directly involved in the military actions but they remain innocent people in the terms of war.
I suspect that the rationale for Israeli’s collateral destruction of property and taking of innocent lives is that alternative actions would cost Israeli lives and material and prolong military actions. The same could be said of the US fire bombing and dropping two atomic bombs on Japanese civilians during WWII.
Would a different regime in Israel have avoided taking any innocent lives? I very much doubt that. Now if a different regime could have prevented the initial attack and thus the retaliation that is a different story.
Until the discussions focus more generally on the horrors of wars and finding other ways to resolve disputes and differences, we will have these back and forth discussions with no relenting from continuing wars.
Mike,
Thanks for that quote from Adams! It led me here:
https://onlinecoursesblog.hillsdale.edu/our-constitution-was-made-only-for-a-moral-and-religious-people/
among other interesting places.
On belief in GodâŚ
Modern Catholic teaching is that âFaith is a Giftâ. This is based on the Epistle of Paul to the Ephesians [2:8â9] which states:
âBy grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.â Without the Gift of Faith, no one is a believer.
Some Christian scholars dispute the English translation and claim it distorts the original message from Saint Paul. I find their writings contorted. Here is an example:
https://faithalone.org/journal-articles/is-faith-a-gift/
My opinion is based on Saint Augustine who wrote on this issue in his book On Free Choice of the Will. He states:
âUnless you believe, you will not understandâ
In context:
Unless believing and understanding were two different things, and we were first to believe the great and and divine things that we desire to understand, there would have been no point in the prophetâs saying âUnless you believe, you will not understand.â At first our Lord himself by his words and deeds urged those whom he had called to salvation to believe in him. But later, when he spoke of the gift that he was going to give to those who believed, he did not say, âThis is eternal life, that they may believeâ, but âThis is eternal life, that they may know you, the true God, and him whom you nave sent, Jesus Christ.â And he said to those who already believe, âSeek, and you will find.â For something that is believed but not known has not yet been found, and no one becomes ready to find God unless he first believes what he will afterwards know.
I find an interesting dichotomy in how Catholics and Muslims treat non-believers:
Catholics say non-believers are just SOL:
âFaith is a Giftâ and âUnless you believe, you will not understandâ
Muslims just order non-believers to say they believe or we cut off your head. Perhaps that is why there are so many Muslims.
Russel,
The RC attittude toward non-believers is definitely the superior position.
Scotty Scheffler’s arraignment has been delayed until June 2. Off-the-record comments suggest Scheffler was instructed by PGA traffic control staff to by-pass the traffic snarl, but the Louisville police were not coordinating with PGA’s traffic control…… So apparently, Scheffler though he was following directions, while the Louisville cop thought he was some yahoo trying to get past a traffic jam. We’ll see how it plays out.
Russell Klier
âMuslims just order non-believers to say they believe or we cut off your head..â
–
Headless chickens?
Chicken in a basket?
Why didnât âŚ..?
Why Diddy do it?
Dad jokes. Very sad. Sorry.
–
Partly driven by that visceral fear that all non muslims and Salman Rushdie must fear eased by inappropriate attempted humor.
Yesterday:
âTHE MOST INCREDIBLE TORNADO VIDEO EVER CAPTUREDâ
From the most incredible tornado chaser ever, Reed Timmer.
Description:
âINCREDIBLE up-close drone and ground intercept of powerful #tornado southwest of Greenfield, Iowa with wind turbines collapsing during a major tornado outbreak across the Midwest.â
https://youtu.be/BFXN3X4e5sE?si=N4qTywqcKTeSShHE
NYT says Biden considering allowing Ukraine to use NATO weapons inside of Russia. This would be the dumbest decision ever. Guaranteed escalation from Russia. Letâs hope this is just a bluff.
Tom Scharf,
We might hope it is a bluff, but Biden is utterly demented, and the State Department is staffed by lunatics. (Victoria Newland while gone…. finally… is calling for NATO troops on the ground; she is an insane woman.) So I fear it is not a bluff, and will lead to rapid escalation.
It’s madness, and could rapidly become a nuclear holocaust.
The same “I know I’m absolutely right” attitude so evident on the left for domestic policies leads to equally confident (and extremely dangerous) international policies.
The best term for most of the people in Gaza is non-combatants IMO. Innocent means there is no implied consent from the population for Hanasâs actions. Thatâs a bridge too far based on decades of history here.
A recent poll had 80% of Gaza not believing any atrocities occurred on Oct 7th. Whether this means they donât think anything occurred or whether the murders and rape donât count as atrocities is unclear.
I havenât seen anyone screaming for the ouster of Hamas there. Dangerous activity.
At some point they have to let Russia win in Ukraine if that is in the cards. It has been a truly heroic defense so far.
Happiness.
Three children and a football player.
Or Angelina Jolie.
Chris Hemsworth is singing his wife’s praises.
The “Thor” actor was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame Thursday and gave wife Elsa Pataky a special shout-out during his acceptance speech.
“I want to say thank you to my beautiful wife, who has been here for my entire career basically by my side, endlessly encouraging and supportive,” he said. “And it doesn’t get lost on me that she put aside her own dreams in order to support mine and, again, [I am] forever in your debt.
angech,
Whatever putting aside Elsa Pataky’s dreams means, she is not a stay at home wife. The married in 2010. She’s been in 8 films and a Netflix series since then. She also wrote a book. She seems to be working at more or less the same rate as before marriage.
See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elsa_Pataky
Late spring and not a lot of fighting in Ukraine. “Upper level Putin associates” are telling Newsweek that Putin wants to freeze the current front with a cease-fire. Could it end in a whimper? It will be interesting to see what happens over the summer.
“Surprise!” Seems Israel’s military is moving into the final Hamas controlled region in Gaza; lots of hair on fire at the UN and the International Criminal Court. Meh.
“Truth be told, being a grandma is as close as we ever get to perfection.” â Bryna Nelson Paston
The motherhood discussion could benefit from hearing the views of a grandmother.
Watching the tender interaction between my wife and our grandchildren is just inspiring.
“If nothing is going well, call your grandmother.” â Italian Proverb.
Even our teenagers take the chip off their shoulders when they talk with their grandmother.
The lawyers have outlawed war again.
Colleges can now pay athletes directly in a $2.8B settlement with NCAA. College sports will never be the same. It will be a big mess for a while.
47 yo
Chris is only 40.
She looks lovely.
Thank you for the link.
My dream was to come to America.
Put aside when I met my future wife.
Tom Scharf,
The original sins of collegiate sports were the arrangements blocking college athletes from becoming professional….,often forcing them to lose the most productive (and lucrative) years as a pro, not to mention the risk of career ending injury without compensation.
For those who will never make a career in pro sports, the change is a mixed blessing. They likely will not be compensated beyond tuition, books, room, and board, but they are probably more likely to actually play than in the past.
Chronic gambler.
Probability novice.
Advice on maths only please.
General take of a bookie on line in Australia is 140- 160%.
Technically less with the one I use which retains 15% of all the bets*.
They use a sucker lure 50 dollars with 50 dollars of free bets [not for use on specials.
Also an up to 50 dollars special twice a week for money back [to bet no specials] if finishes second and third.
Technically getting a better than money back guarantee except has to be at fixed odds for a win i.e. closer to the 140-160 house advantage so maybe not..
I do not win so their mathematicians are better than me
This may be a coincidence, but I think not. Russia has been misbehaving in the Baltic region. Overnight there was a very sophisticated Italian spy plane [Gulfstream G550 AEW] over the Baltic States and an RAF refueling tanker nearby, [which means there were probably NATO fighter jets in the area but with their transponders off].
Screenshot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1794282285656936898
In my experience, having a grasp of probability doesn’t enable a player to win games of chance against the house. All it seems to do is grant the player comprehension of why the house is going to win over time.
They wouldn’t be in business if good mathematicians could take them to the cleaners.
Shrug.
Good for the college athletes, bad for the fans. Likely results is a few “super teams” will now dominate and further stratification of talent. This change should have been made a long time ago given the revenue these sports generated.
There have been some superstar college athletes that got injured or just didn’t fit in the professional game that ended up in poverty. They were selling their jerseys in book stores with their names on it and giving no revenue back.
Will players be paid according to individual talent or will there be rigid team revenue with unions? Will women be given equal pay by position? Will certain leagues/conferences/sports remain amateur? Will tuition or ticket prices skyrocket? It’s all up in the air as the only thing that really changed is colleges are no longer forbidden from paying athletes. When you think about it, this rule was crazy collusion. The NCAA knew they were going to lose.
As they say “the first hit of crack is free”. Many of these introductory bets are money losers for them to get you using a certain organization in the future. Definitely abuse promotions if you can, but they know that and limit availability. It’s the coupon clipping of gambling.
Unless the margins are razor thin (less than 2% like blackjack) then I’m thinking there is no hope in winning at these games. Sports betting house edge is around 5% in the USA AFAICT. Keep in mind the people setting sports odds are very good at what they do.
Do it for entertainment only.
mark bofill,
I agree on mathematics and gambling. At best, math can help you be a better poker player so you win from other players. In games where you play against the house, the rules just don’t favor you.
And now lawsuits
https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/5513255/2024/05/23/florida-billy-napier-lawsuit-sec-preview-until-saturday/
There have probably always been false fraudlent promises by the more experienced, better organized and more sophisticated booster associations dealing with high school kids who had to make decisions fast. Players couldn’t sue when getting paid violated rules. Now there can be suits if they don’t follow through.
It will be interesting how this works out. ( It may depend on how much concrete evidence he has about promises.)
Russell,
I’ve always thought Pelagius had the better side of the argument vs. Augustine. But Augustine won, hence the Pelagian Heresy.
Experienced business leaders will get the best of poorly educated teenagers 99% of the time. I read about this case but there didn’t seem to be anything but claimed verbal promises which isn’t likely to lead anywhere significant. These guys unfortunately need experienced agents.
College coaches are going to find that a lot of their job is now going to be arranging finances.
Tom,
I saw the article in the WSJ. I also didn’t see much concrete– nothing on paper . Another article noted the big problem for Florida is that the next round of students will be aware of the story. Many will believe the student because, honestly, the kid is probably telling the truth. The students being recruited will conclude FL booster club lies and sigh elsewhere.
Interesting videoâŚ
Us ATACMS cluster munitions destroy $300 million Russian S-400 air defence system. The Russians launched 5 missiles trying to intercept the ATACMS before they struck.
https://x.com/igorsushko/status/1793972870886158360?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Caution, turn down the sound before watching.
Russia continues to lose equipment and lives at a furious pace.
â Russia has lost at least 99 Tanks in May (visually confirmed by @WarSpotting ) will they get to 100 before the end of the weekend?â
https://x.com/verekerrichard1/status/1794417368552374366?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Lucia,
I didnât know about the controversy. I only knew the Augustine doctrine because Brother Benedict made us read Saint Agustineâs essays in the original Latin for homework assignments. That was brutal translating, but thatâs probably why I remember it.
Translating âCeasarâs Gallic wars (Commentarii de Bello Gallico ) was much more fun.
Too bad they didn’t have you read what Pelagius wrote too. Both sides of every controversy should be taught! đ
What do you think of that Agustine approach to non-believers âŚâŚ We say to them âSucks to be you!â and move on.
Russell,
Well, most the nonbelievers think it sucks to be you too. But we move on before bothering to let you know!
Lucia,
Thank you for that on Pelagius above. I never knew that. Day isn’t a total loss if I learned something. đ
mark,
I love heresies. I especially love the boderline incomprehensible. Or just utterly incomprehensible.
See Nestorian here:
https://taylormarshall.com/2015/01/6-heresies-virgin-mary.html
Also: the why do they care ones? Helvidianism . Clearly, someoe cares whether Mary remained a virgin. But I don’t understand why.
Lucia,
Yeah beats me. I was raised Catholic but the stuff about Mary never really stuck with me. Sort of a shame really; if I ever take the time and effort out to go get an AR-15, I really ought to buy some rosary beads to go along with it and learn how to pray decades and all that jazz.
Truth be told, it always seemed to me like it ought to be heretical to pray to Mary. I mean, not God, not part of the Trinity, none of that, so what’s it all about really? But it doesn’t much concern me, the state of my own personal faith suffers from much more serious problems that this. In some ways, I agree with Russell. Faith isn’t something you can just decide to have, it doesn’t seem to work that way.
Anyways.
I like to imagine there’s some intelligence agency with bots scouring the web, looking for references to AR-15’s and rosary beads and taking note of the offenders. If the powers that be ever kick in your door Lucia I apologize for that, although I’d think they’d come for you for being a climate denier before anything else.
mark bofill
MAY 25, 2024 AT 1:28 PM
“I like to imagine thereâs some intelligence agency with bots scouring the web and taking note of the offenders. ”
There is and should be.
Probably catches a lot more nutters than the public are aware of.
But the people who are committed but not nutters know they are being watched and play the system back.
Hence the recent failure of Mossad and the CIA.
A thousand people massacred in one day and their engines and agents failed to pick it up.
Means Hamas knew who all the Israeli agents in their ranks were or those agents were double agents.
Interesting to know who went AWOL after and who is still there either as a double agent (safe) or very, very worried.
–
Thanks all for the gambling feedback re the house and hook line sinker bids, I will try to cut back again and improve my IQ
LLaVA is pretty impressive, but it’s got odd areas where it craps out. For example, it fails miserably in my tests in determining if the same person appears in different photos. Tricky to predict what these models can or can’t do without actually trying them out to see.
BTW, I’m certain models can do a good job of recognizing faces. It’s just that LLaVA pretrained doesn’t appear to be good at it at all out of the box. Maybe it’s a matter of resolution before encoding, or maybe all us biologicals just look the same to machines.
Dramatic evidence from Nate S. that the protests were concentrated in the uber expensive- Hoity Toity schools. Graph showing protests vs Tuition and Pell grants.
https://x.com/natesilver538/status/1794120377657872667?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Noted primatologist and grandmother Dr. Jane Goodall speaking on motherhood:
https://youtu.be/PmcNWJpIXp8?si=qOCyqvILVOn1Rj1x
https://youtu.be/QYFj2feOjLA?si=n1weOh8UiGdR_PI0
The police officer who arrested pro golfer Scottie Scheffler was formally disciplined for failing to activate his body cam when he arrived at the scene (a violation of department policy). I am thinking the charges may be dropped.
Video taken by bystanders are said to support Sheffler and make the cop look bad.
Russell,
I didn’t watch the Goodal videos. But I heard them long ago. She had weird ideas about child rearing.
The “Political Compass” has a quiz that you can use to get a score on where you stand on two axes: Left/Right and Libertarian/Authoritarian.
https://www.politicalcompass.org/test#google_vignette
I found it somewhat interesting. I had a little trouble working out what the numbers mean. The scale is -10 to +10 left/libertarian being 0.
I came out +2.5 (right of center) and -0.6 (slightly libertarian). I’d have guessed somewhat more positive numbers on both.
Mike M,
Funny and entertaining. You could make yourself seem like the second coming of Gengis Khan, or Gandhi reincarnate. I was: Economic Left/Right: 1.63 (very slightly right)
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -2.36 (relatively libertarian). I do wonder about Ken Fritsch though. đ Thomas Fuller… fogetaboutit.
I believe that is written ‘fuhgeddaboutit.’
Another renowned scientist who was also a grandmother was Dr. Eugenie Clark, aka The Shark Lady. She pioneered studying sharks in their native habitatâŚwearing scuba gear. She was fearless. I had professional dealings with her. She was the founding director of the Mote Marine Laboratory here in Sarasota. I also knew one of her daughters socially. I ask her what it was like as a kid with a renowned scientist as a mother. She said as kids they thought their mom was just like all the other moms.
Dr. Clark tells the story of getting nitrogen narcosis on an archeological dive in Little Salt Spring In South Sarasota. She was hallucinating that she was confused because she was on the delivery table and they were feeding her gas to reduce the pain of childbirth. Here is a video about her Salt Spring dives. The nitrogen narcosis section starts at the 10:25 mark:
https://youtu.be/rugJXGQBDRg?si=AuQqwT4kqypt67jV
Yes her office really was that cluttered, always.
Something about the name ‘Eugenie…’ My favorite scientist is Eugenie Scott, anthropologist and ‘science educator.’ She was kind enough to speak to me while I was working on a script for a documentary about the ridiculous rumors of the ‘spread’ of Satanic cults way back in the 80’s. She’s a winner, too.
Surveys to determine where one stands by somebody’s definition of political groupings cannot be anything other than entertaining. The questions have very broad implications and at the same time appear derived simplistically.
Since most posters here are forthcoming, I could put most of the individual posters into my definition of political groups. There would be many groups.
Yes, Satanism back then was the very definition of a moral panic. We just roll from one to another these days.
What the surveys don’t catch very well is the ideological prioritization of those values.
I think the article named and linked below from its survey results makes an unintended case for a multi-party political system in the US.
A Multidimensional Study of Ideological Preferences and Priorities among the American Public
https://academic.oup.com/poq/article/78/S1/344/1836831
Kenneth Fritsch,
A multi-party system? Oh, joy! Because countries that have multiple parties have such effective and stable governments (/sarc in case you missed it). You almost always end up with fractious coalitions that can be disrupted at any time. I don’t see the advantage in the real world. And given that we don’t have a parliamentary government, how is that going to work out for Presidential elections? (real question)
Kenneth Fritsch
“Since most posters here are forthcoming, I could put most of the individual posters into my definition of political groups. There would be many groups.”
–
Did Lucia do a blog on putting people into political group[s or was that this site being put into a group a few years ago?
–
Interesting two days coming up for Democracy.
angech,
I don’t remember writing a blog about putting people into political groups.
Lucia, my bad.
Kenneth Fritsch wrote
âSince most posters here are forthcoming, I could put most of the individual posters into my definition of political groups. There would be many groups.â
–
That triggered my brain by random association to recall someone else putting people into groups and you writing about it.
–
Climate psych controversy
Unsurprisingly, the results did not please climate-skeptic bloggers, some of whom responded by accusing Lewandowsky of not attempting to contact them at all. In an email to Lucia Liljegren, who blogs at The Blackboard, Lewandowsky declined to name the bloggers he emailed, citing privacy concerns.
In response, Liljegren wrote, “I think who Lewandowsky contacted will reveal whether he really even tried to conduct a balanced survey,” urging other bloggers to publically give permission for Lewandowsky to reveal their names. The researcher told DeSmogBlog that he has contacted his university’s ethics committee to find out if he is allowed to do so.
–
Apologies for confounding the two subjects and double apologies to Ken for any unintended comparison who is a much nicer guy than SL could ever be .
DeWitt Payne
MAY 27, 2024 AT 9:05 PM
You are correct, DeWitt, about stable governments. One party governments are very stable. Think Communist, Fascist and many other authoritarian regimes. If you prioritize stability those forms of government are to be envied even by the one step up to a two party regime.
Like different voting systems there is no magic answer for political parties. They all have benefits and drawbacks. Perhaps if we had 7 parties and Trump/Biden had to be in only one of them then we might get a better selection on the 2024 menu.
The two party system is self calibrating to a certain extent where we get both parties changing their platforms in an effort to get 50.1% of the vote while not torpedoing their base ideologies.
They are all terrible in some ways, just mostly equally terrible overall. I’m sure if we did socialism right this time, everything would be awesome.
Kenneth L Fritsch wrote: “One party governments are very stable.”
Not so. I don’t think that any one party government has lasted much more than 1/3 as long as the US government. And most one party governments are much shorter lived.
I think that history shows that two party systems (or near two party systems) are the most stable.
Democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried
Winston S Churchill, 11 November 1947
https://winstonchurchill.org/resources/quotes/the-worst-form-of-government/
One party governments are very stable during their existence. No chaos- just follow the one party line.
The current US government is different than the US government of 100 years ago.
The two party system hath wrought our two current Presidential candidates.
That the two party system goes to great efforts to remain a two party system goes well beyond any threat of chaos.
Eighty F-16s are a formidable air force all by themselvesâŚ.
â In a new announcement, Belgium will donate a total of 30 F-16s to Ukraine, with the first jets (2 to 4) joining the Ukrainian Air Force by the end of this year, per Belgian MFA Lahbib.
This announcement increases the total number of F-16s officially pledged to roughly 80.â
The Gaza “humanitarian pier” has broken apart in rough seas and will take at least a week to repair. What an embarrassment this episode has been.
Well Sweden just solved Ukraineâs Airborne Surveillance and Control aircraft problem. Their latest weapons package includes one of SAABâs state-of-the-art aircraft, the ASC 890 AEW&C.
Itâs an odd looking duck, image:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1795739503996641429
I have seen them flying missions with NATO near Ukraine and solo over the Baltic Sea. Should work well with the F-16 fleet.
https://www.saab.com/products/air/airborne-surveillance
NATO has a major show of force in the skies over and near the Baltic Sea today.
So far I have spotted: USAF, RCAF, Royal Netherlands Air Force, Swedish Air Force, Polish Air Force, RAF, German Airforce, German Navy, and Finish Air Force aircraft in the area. I Filtered out everything but military aircraft and took a screenshot:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1795744721270427672
This is in response to recent mischievousness by Russia in the area.
I was looking at past Presidential elections and found a difference in the number of candidates that received voted electoral votes between early and later US elections.
Up through the 1872 election year there were 2 elections with 5 candidates with electoral votes, 5 with 4 candidates , 4 with 3 and 11 with 2. From the election year 1876 through 2020 there were 6 with 3 candidates and 31 with 2.
In the early times candidates from the same party received voted electoral votes in the same elections, but those candidates were running against one another and had different political agendas with party interests being secondary.
I missed this yesterday⌠NATO Air Forces spent the day harassing Kaliningrad. Aircraft of many nations were involved and completely encircled the Russian territory. The most ominous were USAF B-52 nuclear bombers.
The flight record for one of them, BARTH22:
https://x.com/rklier21/status/1795808931727438003?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
Kenneth Fritsch: “In the early times candidates from the same party … were running against one another and had different political agendas with party interests being secondary.”
.
Do you have any evidence for that claim? I am pretty sure it is not true.
Prior to 1828, there really were not parties as we know them. After that, there was an election in which the Whigs tried running regional candidates. And there were elections where parties split, most notably in 1860.
Tom,
â The pier took two months and $320m to build, lasted 12 days, and delivered less than 60 trucks’ worth of food (most of which was stolen after it reached Gaza) before it broke and had to be towed away for repairs.â
https://x.com/glcarlstrom/status/1795674643120152747?s=61&t=q3_InP1nXWdPIXqj8656mQ
I donât vouch for this guy, but several writers I trust are repeating that quote.
Allegedly this pier was a surprise to the Pentagon when Biden announced it in the State of the Union speech.
I hope he doesn’t break with the guilty verdict+.
Mainstream media will hammer him for all it is worth.
Will be a groundswell one way or another.
12 very happy historic Democrat Jurors but one hell of an upset nation when this goes down.
My (probably worthless) probabilities:
60% hung jury
30% not guilty
10% guilty
I have no idea what the jury will decide, but the betting markets think it’s unlikely Trump is going to be incarcerated. If Trump isn’t incarcerated, I don’t think this stops him.
I think if the Dems don’t dump Biden at their convention in Chicago in August, Trump will be elected President this November.
mark bofill,
If there is a guilty verdict (I’d bet 80% chance), then I think it is 50:50 that the judge will have him immediately handcuffed, marched out of the courtroom, and placed in a state penitentiary. If that happens, it will be at least several days until he is released. Biden will then lose for sure in November. What is happening in New York right now is profoundly corrupt and evil. A large majority of voters will recognize that, just as they recognized that Bill Clinton’s sex life with a willing (20 YO!) partner ought not be criminalized.
BTW, I think the chance of Biden being replaced at the convention is very close to zero. That could change if he has a “major health crisis”, but otherwise, unless he withdraws, I believe it will be Biden and Kamala in November. (Listening to Kamala’s utter stupidity, I suspect someone had to have sat for her California bar exam. She makes the proverbial ‘box of rocks’ seem brilliant.)
I did multivariate regressions with US states Covid-19 cases and deaths as the response variables and several potential and likely explanatory variables. The regressions were done over 5 time periods of the first year of the pandemic 2020, the following years 2021 and 2022, the combined years of 2020, 2021 and 2022 and the period Jan 2020 to April 2024. The explanatory variables were divided into two groups with the first being variables with influence on cases and deaths during the pandemic, i.e. changeable variables and variables that were set prior to the pandemic and described as baked-in variables. The changeable variables were (1) state vaccination rates, (2) an average of state scores on four indexes that measured state actions in attempts to mitigate cases and deaths and (3) the Biden percentage of the Presidential vote in the 2020 elections with the assumed party influence on states and individuals within a state attempts to mitigate cases and deaths. The important baked-in variables found statistically significant over the time periods investigated were (1) state life expectancies, (2) percent of state population 65 and over, (3) percent of state population considered urban, (4) the ratio of state populations of White and Asian to that of Afro-Americans, Hispanic and Native Americans, (5) percent of state Asian population, (6) percent of state Afro-American population, (7) mean of winter tempatures of state, (8) mean of all seaon temperatures of state, (9) percent of state populations in nursing homes, (10) percent of state GDP spent on outdoor activities, (11) state rating for outdoor rcreation, (12) air quality rating for state and (13) mean altitude of state.
Restrictions on multicollinearity limited some of the explanatatory variables (that were highly correlated 0.70 and above) being used in the same regressions. The Biden and vaccination variable had a correlation of 0.87. All season, winter and summer state temperatures were correlated over 0.80. Preliminarily the variables for obesity, extreme obesity and life expectancy were highly correlated and since life expectancy was expected to cover obesity only life expectancy was used in the regression trials and regressions.
The regression results showed that the baked-in variables were much more important in explaining the differences in state cases and deaths. The state index score variable was only statistically significant and with lesser importance in the cases regression in year 2020. The Biden variable was mostly a proxy for vaccinations and had a relatively small influence on explaining cases and deaths. The vaccination variable was only statistically significant for deaths in 2021 and 2020:2024 time periods. The Biden variable was never used as a statistically significant variable in any the death regression time periods.
The deaths regressions for all time periods produced strong models with R squared vaules in the 0.60 to 0.70 range, while cases regressions were strong only in 2020. I attribute this difference between cases and deaths to cases being grossly undercounted and thus allowing differences in state count efficiencies. There are arguments for deaths being over and under counted, but not near to the extent that cases were.
If you are interested my detailed report can be found at the link below.
https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/ecg047p5z9s9lm5s86edg/Multivariate-Regression-of-Covid-19-State-Deaths-and-Cases-Over-Five-Time-Periods.pdf?rlkey=jyiecl64ozu2ultvdl1uw9zve&st=2jeis359&dl=0
Steve,
Unless Trump ‘suicides’ in jail.
I think you people are underestimating the hatred ordinary Democrats have toward Trump. Guilty.
âGive us Barabbasâ the crowd shouted.
Here I read that 53% of Republicans believe a civil war in the U.S. is likely in their lifetimes.
Might be sooner than we imagine. If Trump dies in jail for any reason whatsoever, I might be regretting not having bought that AR-15 I was thinking of. Can’t be too careful in times like these.
Shockingly enough, “Criminal charges against Scottie Scheffler have been dismissed, ending a legal saga that began with images of the worldâs top male golfer being arrested and handcuffed in Louisville during the PGA Championship.”
.
Someone could have seen this happening….. no wait… I did see this happening. The guy is a life-long choir-boy… zero history of bad behavior, who organizes prayer meetings. Add that police officers, especially under pressure, are often head-cases, and the result can make the police look bad.
mark bofill,
” I might be regretting not having bought that AR-15 I was thinking of…”
You still have time before purchases are blocked and ammunition becomes unavailable. đ
Mark’s link on the civil war poll says “34% of voters said it was likely to happen and 13% said it was very likely”. So just how do people interpret “likely”? Especially if innumerate. That makes interpreting the poll problematic.
I am guessing that it is “likely” that pollsters know how to word such a question so as to get a shocking response.
Steve,
Tempting! But I don’t really believe Trump is going to jail. I don’t think Merchan has the testicular fortitude for that.
50% hung jury, 49.9% guilty, 0.1% acquittal.
If they make Trump do a perp walk in Manhattan in front of the media then I think that will hand him the election. That kind of partisan clownishness might even get me off the bench, ha ha.
The other narrative is “elitist millionaire golfer held to completely different standard by justice system”. We just don’t have the facts to know what really happened.
France and Germany want to allow their weapons to be used inside of Russia. The reasoning is because Russia fires weapons from inside its borders into Ukraine routinely.
There is no way this happens without Biden’s consent. Russia may respond with strikes into Poland and elsewhere to what it justifiably would see as direct attacks on Russia. This would be an awful military and political blunder.
This is a very red line.
Tom Scharf,
“This is a very red line.”
Well sure, especially if red is the color of a nuclear holocaust. IMHO, these are crazy people.
The real, legal convention is going to be virtual!! ROFL!
(Dems scheduled the in person in Chi-town one after the last day to get their candidate on the Ohio ballot.)
Tom Scharf,
“We just donât have the facts to know what really happened.”
We do know that:
1) Scheffler has a life-long clean record
2) He is a devout Christian who really does organize prayer meetings
3) The police officer failed to turn on his body-cam (as required by department policy), which could have corroborated claims of Scheffler refusing to follow orders
4) It was a crazy-confused situation, with Scheffler apparently receiving verbal instructions from PGA of America traffic staff contrary to what the police officer wanted/expected
Of course the charges were dropped. The guy isn’t Hunter Biden…. not even close. He actually earns his money.
lucia,
“Dems scheduled the in person in Chi-town one after the last day to get their candidate on the Ohio ballot.”
I am a bit confused by this comment. What is the connection to Biden possibly being tossed at the convention?
Ken Fritsch,
Obviously a lot of work. Please tell me if I am wrong:
Covid deaths were much higher for 1) very elderly 2) very unwell (including nursing home residents) 3) poor people 4) groups with recognized lower life expectancy.
The confounding of variables (eg vaccination rate v voting for Biden) seems to me to make any analysis fraught with doubt.
It looks like Biden will become the official Democrat nominee a couple weeks before the actual convention. If so, then he can’t be dumped “at the convention” since the convention won’t actually do anything significant. It is conceivable that Biden could get dumped in the delegate voting in early August. That might happen if he screws up the debate badly enough or if he has a medical event that can not be glossed over.
Steve F , and age. Biden vote and vaccination rate were never used in the same regression. I do not think it is difficult to see that states with higher Biden votes would have more individuals getting vaccinated either voluntarily or by organizations in those states making it a requirement. Black voters might go against that trend if the option were entirely voluntary.
I have read several papers on Covid 19 responses were the Presidential vote was used as a variable in multivariate regressions.
There was some political influence on vaccination status but that should have only really mattered for a fairly short period of time. After omicron vaccination status shouldn’t have been as big of a factor because it was less lethal and almost everyone got infected so natural immunity became an equally large factor. The delta phase was the most deadly phase and I don’t think politics was that big of a deal for the over 65 crowd at that time.
There was also the timing of the death waves. It was primarily in the Northeast early (liberal) and hit the red states later. At one point NY had death rates over 10X of Florida but those got much closer later. I think the unluckiest regions had their biggest initial waves during delta with both high transmission and relatively high lethality
What was being marketed in the media as “the red tribe deserves their deaths” was much closer to rural areas having lower vaccination rates, worse health care, and worse health status. There was also the blame phase of mask compliance rates which I think everyone has determined wasn’t very meaningful.
But the pandemic was politicized and I personally lay a lot of that at the feet of the public health sector (BLM protests are OK!) and the media (follow the not yet determined science!). Plenty of people died who should have got vaccinated and ultimately that is on them, although not all deaths were going to be prevented.
I don’t think they actually have real data on vote versus deaths. They just correlate this county by county. It’s probably good enough to be plausible but what it really shows better is rural vs urban in most cases.
The question is why was it so important to some groups to use this proxy to voting versus any of the other potential proxies or what it actually showed? Politics.
Here is a link with some details on the lack of cohesion in the early political parties in the US. I had a better link that I will have to search for.
Some of the reason for running two candidates from the same party for President in early times had to do with the second place finisher becoming Vice President. Those complicated strategies were difficult to implement even though Thomas Jefferson as Vice President and John Adams as President was the one time it failed. There were 48 electoral votes that election for candidates neither Federalists or Democrat-Republicans.
https://www.senate.gov/about/origins-foundations/parties-leadership/overview.htm
All I can tell you is that the first Russian weapon that landed in the US if we had a border war going on would completely change the game for us.
Putin’s “NATO threat” rhetoric will be validated and the Russian domestic audience will be completely behind escalating a perceived existential war. People will be lining up in Russia to defend the motherland. Guaranteed.
It’s also just horrible politics for Biden in the US. It would show incredibly bad judgment.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/us/politics/biden-ukraine-russia-weapons.html
Still hoping this is just disinformation, not dementia. It just boggles my mind that the media goes bonkers on every Trump utterance but shooting weapons into a nuclear state Russia? Let’s barely cover that story.
SteveF
Only that there will sort of be two Democratic conventions. He will certainly not be tossed at the 2nd window dressing convention in Chicago because they will be already be nominated.
“DNC plans to nominate Biden and Harris virtually before convention”
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/dnc-biden-nomination-virtually-august-convention-chicago/
SteveF,
In case you haven’t heard to reason for the two DNC conventions (real– over Zoom and window dressing in Chicago), and now, on reading it think: that’s about the most stupid disorganized thing I’ve ever heard: Yes. It. Is. Stupid. and. Disorganized.
The DNC should have known they need to officially nominate their candidate by August 7 and inform Ohio by then to get on the Ohio ballot. This was not a secret. They nevertheless scheduled their convention Aug 19-22 and planned to officially pick their candidate then.
I agree with you they will certainly nominate Biden at the Zoom convention which must happen sometime on or before August 7.
The problem with Ohio and the Dem convention has happened before with both parties and various states. Accommodation was always made. But it seems that the DNC took the attitude that they should not have to do anything to get Ohio to make accommodation. But the DNC did not bother to follow the legally required procedures. So the accommodation never happened.
Is it conceivable that the DNC could be that arrogant? I say “yes”.
The colonel is back With a fairly good look at the current war in Ukraine l,
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gk7D_TliAuE
“Colonel Markus Reisner analyzes and explains the strategic, operational and tactical approach of the Russian armed forces during their second winter offensive and at the beginning of the upcoming Russian summer offensive. What are the current Ukrainian defensive measures and what challenges are the Ukrainian armed forces currently facing”
MikeM
According to the WSJ, in the past the Ohio legislature voted for a special rule to let the late Dem candidate on the ballot. Specifically, a similar problem arose in 2020 when Covid screwed up lots of calendar. This time, when there is really no excuse for Dems to miss the deadline, the Ohio legislature didn’t vote to fix the problem. Some other states have voted to modify their deadlines.
But seriously: the Dems scheduling the convention too late for the legal ballot deadline is a screwup on their part. I know legislatures can change the deadline. Some have in the past; some are doing it this time. But this is just slovenly on the part of the DNC. The idea that all the legislatures will fix this for them is … well… odd.
This is a letter written by Ohio’s secretary of state.
So the GOP Senators were willing to “fix” this issue if the Dem’s traded something for it. The DNC is full of politicians. They ought to know they might need to give something if they leave the solution to their screw up in the hands of a GOP legislative body!
Evidently, the DNC has to meet to do a rule change to have the zoom convention. Biden will end up on the Ohio ballot. I think this is pretty hilarious.
Biden believes he will win.
Biden also needs to protect Hunter which I guess he can do as he leaves office if he loses.
Jail for Trump.
Biden refuses to debate Jail bird.
And one or two more little lawfare, FBI disclosure or smears still up his sleeve in case.
\
Can I ask if he dies does Kamala become the presumptive nominee or do they vote in a dead man and then change to the vice president?