In a now-deleted tweet, Russian diplomat Mikhail Ulyanov kinda lets the cat out of the bag regarding the Kremlins intentions towards the civilian population of Ukraine. In later tweets he claims he’s being taken out of context…. but the dude’s a PROFESSIONAL DIPLOMAT.
When a political actor who wants to hurt you SAYS they want to hurt you…. believe them when they blurt stuff out before they have a chance to really think over their wording.
Do you want to see the *dumbest* approach to math you’ll see today? If so, behold this presentation from the University of Michigan:
http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~glarose/dept/teaching/resources/RehumanizingMathematicsSlides.pdf
If that link doesn’t work, the Wayback Machine can hook you up:
This presentation is on the topic of “Rehumanizing Mathematics” by one Rochelle Gutiérrez. Right from the get-go you can tell it’s stupid… if there’s one thing mathematics is *not* it’s “humanized.” Math doesn’t care about your feelings. Nor your politics, religion, ethnicity, family history, gender or any other kind of identity. 1+1=2 no matter your beliefs on the matter. 1+1=2 even if you are *dead,* or you are a parrot, or a small furry creature from Alpha Centauri, or a godlike entity from beyond the Antares maelstrom. And yet…
1. How we think/talk about our work matters
• Diversity (attention to difference, also used when no difference, often ignores history, no attention to positionality)
• Equity (often highlights universal approaches, closing achievement gaps, leaky STEM pipelines)
• Inclusion (tolerate, allow, participate on own terms, focus on individuals, understand exclusion)
• Centering historically oppressed (place at the core, dedicate resources and energy there, requires political clarity)
Ummm… no.
If you ever wonder why our infrastructure is falling apart and we can’t seem to do Great Things anymore… well, here ya go.
If you *really* want to burn off some excess brain cells and don’t have the funds for a few gallons of white lightning, watching this video will probably help. It’s about an hour of the person responsible for the above presentation. I can’t *really* say what all’s in it, as I only got a few seconds in before my Brain Worms alarm went off: “I just want to start by acknowledging that as a white settler nation we are standing on stolen grounds…” Blah, blah, virtue signal blah. What do you want to bet she happily collects those white settler dollars?
Also: anyone else get a distinct AOC vibe from her voice? Yeah, that’s not a compliment.
And here’s an idea. if you believe that this is a “white settler nation” *and* that that’s a bad thing…
You want food deserts? because this is how you get food deserts. Every store in a ten block radius that sells food or medical supplies should shut down until 90% of the people on camera here are arrested, charged, convicted and sentenced to a term of at least several years… or are “otherwise dealt with.” It’s up to the community to police themselves now that the police have been defunded and the prosecutors are “progressive.”
If you act like you’re in the third world… you’ll end up getting treated like you’re in the third world.
Possibly something new to worry the invaders:
For those who think the Russians should be rightly upset that they’re facing American weapons: How many times have US forces gone into battle against dirtbags armed with AK-47s, RPG-7s, T-64s, T-72s and MiGs?
Reportedly, this is a French shopkeeper fending off three robbers a day or two ago. From all appearances, the man’s a legend.
It seems the Russians are dropping air-burst incendiary weapons onto Ukraine, videos linked below. This is certainly visually impressive and doubtless monumentally intimidating… but damned if the engineer in me doesn’t wonder about how incredibly inefficient this seems to be. I mean… it looks like a *lot* of the WP magnesium is burning up while still in the sky. What’s you’d want is for it to burn in the *ground,* where it could do some damage. Clearly a lot of it is making it to the ground, but every bit that combusts Up There is that much less to do actual damage Down Here. Clearly these sort of weapons need to be set off somewhere above the ground for maximum area effect, but these seem to be getting set off way too high. I’m fuzzy on the legality of using incendiary weapons like this against civilian areas. I know it was a popular pastime during World War Two, but it was my understanding that the rules have changed a bit since then. But then, invading a sovereign nation in order to annex their territory is *also* supposed to be disallowed, and yet here we are.
We see it quite often in Kharkiv region. pic.twitter.com/CIZOIF68Dd
— Ognivo_v (@VOgnivo) August 17, 2022
I just saw this on TikTok pic.twitter.com/Rm5TOQh6bs
— 🌧 (@woerayne) August 17, 2022
UPDATE: more vids
Yeah, it’s visually damned impressive. It just seems like a *lot* of the incendiary potential is getting wasted. Which, under the circumstances, is a good thing, since these seem to be attempts to turn neighborhoods into firestorms.
How thrilling.
Regardless of how the kid contracted the disease… A) it’s not the kids fault and B) kids tend to crawl all over each other. The more morons who couldn’t control their baser actions get the disease, the more likely they are to pass them on to kids, and then the more likely those kids are to pass them on to *other* kids. And soon enough… BAM, the schools shut down again.
One more reason for the barbarians in charge of China to whack all their pets. If I lose pets due to this nonsense, I’m at the very least going to join a class action suit against any organization that put on “Pride Month” events that spread this. My cats busting out on pustules because a bunch of perverts and weirdos could keep it in their pants for a few weeks would be the sort of thing that I would not forgive.
Yay. I know Progressives think that FDR was actually a good President with a lot to emulate… but come on.
And it’s good to see how well Our Leaders follow the science:
A lot of people have, for a number of years, seen the future economy as probably splitting in two: those who dare have politically incorrect views being deplatformed and unbanked. When it’s only a tiny minority, those people are utterly screwed: unable to get a job or do business because of the woke mob, their future is bleak. But the wider the baying hounds of cultural decay cast their net, the larger the population of people they separate from the economy… the larger the population of people who can form their *own* economy. And if an alternate economy gets set up and survives the inevitable attacks, the less relevant cancel culturists become.
An example of this alternate economy is a new app called “PublicSq,” which matches up customers with local businesses. That’s not a new type of app, but for a business to get onto the app, they have to agree to a set of “core values:”
A long and verbose discussion of the app is here:
There are lots of people who specifically seek out “black owned” or “LGBTQ friendly” or “I Support Current Thing” businesses. It’s inevitable that other people will make other choices. It could well be that the end result of “progressive” policies and bullying is a return to segregation much more stark and complete than anything supported by Jim Crow Democrats.
Additionally: a fully functional alternative economy might well run on alternative finances… bitcoin or barter or who-knows-what. That would be a problem for the IRS. Makes ya wonder if that might be a part of the reason why they suddenly decided to hire themselves a private army.
There are a *lot* of lessons to be learned from Russias ongoing war. One being: don’t post your location on social media, especially if the enemy *really* wants you dead and has access to long range precision ordnance.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yFz7cuT7o
Hmm. This one doesn’t seem to auto-embed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h9yFz7cuT7o
UPDATE: Huh. The video is now private. This seems to be because the video has been updated:
Interestingly, one of the video clips that was removed showed a soldier just walking along… a soldier with a *US* flag patch on his shoulder. Whether that means that was actually irrelevant footage of a US solider somewhere else (Afghanistan?) or a mercenary with a US patch… dunno.
A word for today:
adjective
Example:
Imagine “fireside chats” and “state of the Union” addresses like this.