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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 6, 2022 0:01:36 GMT -5
"Within fourteen (14) months" isn't an actual date, is it? All the reporting I see about this uses the May 1 date, probably because that would be exactly 14 months after the signing of the agreement, much as a legal notice to pay a bill within 30 days points to a specific date on the calendar. And when Biden pushed back the withdrawal date, Trump posted (in April 2021) that "Getting out of Afghanistan is a wonderful and positive thing to do. I planned to withdraw on May 1st, and we should keep as close to that schedule as possible." www.cnn.com/2021/08/22/politics/fact-check-pence-pompeo-haley-miller-afghanistan/index.html(BTW, CNN's August '21 story reports that that statement had at that point been removed from the Trump website.) On the other hand, at one point Trump had tweeted that he was going to finish the withdrawal early, by the end of 2020-- Trump’s announcements <. . .> started with a tweet Wednesday saying “we should have the small remaining number of our BRAVE Men and Women serving in Afghanistan home by Christmas.” He reinforced early withdrawal plans Thursday morning, in a Fox Business Channel interview that understated the number of troops currently in Afghanistan.
“We’re down to 4,000 troops in Afghanistan. I’ll have them home by the end of the year. They’re coming home, you know, as we speak. apnews.com/article/asia-pacific-islamic-state-group-taliban-politics-afghanistan-01ac38c793ca71a2ec099c226e50e7c8
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 5, 2022 20:53:45 GMT -5
Trump NEVER announced a date, mostly because that would be STUPID. From the Trump Administration-negotiated withdrawal agreement, dated 2/29/20: The United States is committed to withdraw from Afghanistan all military forces of the United States, its allies,and Coalition partners, including all non-diplomatic civilian personnel,private security contractors, trainers, advisors, and supporting services personnel within fourteen (14) monthsfollowing announcement of this agreement. . . . www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2020/02/Agreement-For-Bringing-Peace-to-Afghanistan-02.29.20.pdfBy January 2021, the Trump Administration had withdrawn all but 2500 US forces. Detailed timelines of events from the signing onward are here: www.factcheck.org/2021/08/timeline-of-u-s-withdrawal-from-afghanistan/en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Withdrawal_of_United_States_troops_from_Afghanistan_(2020%E2%80%932021)
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 4, 2022 0:53:09 GMT -5
I'm still (pause to count on fingers) two weeks and four days ahead. And I intend to stay in the lead for as long as my knees (and fingers) hold out.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 3, 2022 18:13:17 GMT -5
I just noticed that TK shares a birthday with one of C's favorite students ever--already retired from professing at 62. Happies all around.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 2, 2022 16:43:26 GMT -5
I fell in love just once, why did it have to be with you? Everything happens to me.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 2, 2022 16:42:22 GMT -5
Never heard old camp Cookie sing.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 2, 2022 16:18:53 GMT -5
Serial vaccinations are even less new than mRNA tech, whether or not they're called "boosters."
I remain puzzled by the "we were lied to" stuff. Because I'm old and fearful but still pretty reasonable, I listened closely to the explanations and advice right from the start, and what I saw was the inevitable as-far-as-we-can-tell nature of all of it--which meant that I expected some of it to change as the data came in and got collated. And I know just enough about viruses and vaccines to understand the difference between "immunity" and "resistance" and to understand why the flu shot I got ten years ago doesn't protect me against this year's flu, or why there still isn't a vaccine that stops the common cold.
So when the advice to get a booster came along, I didn't feel betrayed or lied to--I understood the kind of process we were in the middle of and got the shot. Just as I understood the changing advice about masks, about droplet vs. aerosol, about touch contagion, and so on. I just pay attention.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 2, 2022 13:22:35 GMT -5
BTW, before getting all giddy about the Hopkins paper, I'd consider the following: 1) It's a meta-study; 2)its authors are economists; 3) Hanke, one of the co-authors and a co-founder/director of the JHU Institute that produced the paper, is also a Cato Institute Fellow.
So I'll wait for the epidemiologists and immunologists and public-health specialists to weigh in before I decide to go mingle with the unmasked at a hockey game.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 2, 2022 12:51:22 GMT -5
And you guys that seem to think vaccines should be forced or think it's OK to use social sanctions to force them scare me. I do know I'm 100% against losing your livelihood or job, or any basic freedoms because you won't get vaccinated. In a free society like the one I'm thankful to live in "Covid gonna Covid" Smallpox gonna smallpox. Polio gonna polio. Viruses are tricky little bastards that co-evolved with us--in fact, they're probably older than any modern species, as are bacteria. Which means it's hard to prevent them from running through a population of potential hosts. So, yeah, viruses gonna virus. But humans gonna human, which means we will respond with counter-measures, and that some of us will refuse to cooperate with those social and medical counter-measures. And that non-cooperation is one of the mechanisms that enable viruses to virus. As for the "basic freedoms" position: how about the long list of public-health measures most of us have accepted for the last century and more? And how about hospitals and nursing homes requiring vaccinations and infection-mitigation measures (e.g., masking)? The logical extension of freedom-from-counter-measures is unvaccinated, unmasked doctors and nurses and LPNs and ER intake personnel who can spread the virus. How does freedom to preserve their livelihoods interoperate with not endangering their patients? Of course, if we posit an employ-at-will model, then their employers are free to fire them for failing to comply with company policies. Nothing personal, just business.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 2, 2022 11:42:21 GMT -5
And Governor Youngkin has ordered flags flown at half mast for the 2 officers killed at Bridgewater University yesterday. Who does that any more? Happens all the time in Minnesota. There's a trio of flags in the roundabout at the edge of campus (two blocks from our house), and they fly at half-staff with some frequency.
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Spotify
Feb 1, 2022 17:13:04 GMT -5
Post by Russell Letson on Feb 1, 2022 17:13:04 GMT -5
What union driven theoretical universe did that shit come from? Well, I started by looking at the Constitution of Virginia, Article VII, which is also the basis for the Fairfax County school boards' lawsuit challenging Youngkin's executive order on masking. The line of authority I see in the Commonwealth's Constitution looks like a standard construction. Then there's Youngkin's order banning the teaching of "inherently divisive concepts," whateverthefuck that means. (I challenge any supporter of that position to construct a definition of that phrase that will stand up in court.)
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 1, 2022 15:59:09 GMT -5
Forty-some years ago, an older colleague said to me, "Come the Revolution, there will be no more jokes." I knew exactly what he was talking about.
Which reminds me of a joke:
Q: How many lesbian feminists does it take to screw in a lightbulb A: That's not funny!
Humor- and irony-impairment is common on the "left."
Nevertheless, the world abounds with ironies on all fronts, including among cultural conservatives who complain about liberal cancel culture and then decide that Book X or Y should not be in school curricula or even libraries--or who want to forbid discussion of various gay/gender-identity topics in schools.
BTW, teachers don't "work for parents" in Virginia or any other public-school system. They work for the local school district, under the administration of district supervisors, who are in turn hired by elected school boards. And when enthusiasts and cranks get the electoral upper hand, you get to see the limitations of theoretical direct democracy. It doesn't scale well.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 31, 2022 11:51:56 GMT -5
Two things occur to me. First, wouldn't a house painted with this stuff be blindingly bright? Unless the light is not only reflected but somehow shifted out of the visible range. Second, this claim: "Let’s say it is a dry sunny day outside and the temperature is 85 degrees Fahrenheit," a surface covered with the paint from Purdue "will be around 75 degrees Fahrenheit," Peoples said. "The paint cools itself below ambient, creating free refrigeration, with no electricity input at all. I'm having trouble figuring out where the cooling (as distinct from decreased heat gain from lower absorption) comes from. I'm getting a perpetual-motion-machine vibe here.
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Spotify
Jan 29, 2022 14:10:37 GMT -5
Post by Russell Letson on Jan 29, 2022 14:10:37 GMT -5
A younger Rogan was quite good in NewsRadio--and in light of his current work, his conspiracy-theory schtick in that show is interesting. I wonder whether the writers were playing off the real Joe rather than inventing a quirk for the character Joe. (The whole show was excellent, with a terrific cast. Good times, good times.)
I don't do any streaming services, but I've been know to fall down YouTube rabbit holes while working at the computer. It's amazing how much obscure renaissance and baroque music has been illegally uploaded there--much of it from European labels whose products I've never seen in a store. (Not that I've been to a record store for a couple years.) For example, three hours of baroque violin sonatas that were new to me:
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 24, 2022 22:09:47 GMT -5
Ask the Estonians about the Russian-speakers inside their borders.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 24, 2022 13:18:49 GMT -5
Dealing with a bully is never easy, in part because the bully may well be willing to go into full psychopath mode to get his way. This problem scales up from one-on-one confrontations to international face-offs. My father's solution to bullying would be the old punch-in-the-snoot disincentive--but Dad never had to face down a guy who might be willing to come back with a ballbat or a knife or wait for him out in the parking lot with a gun.
One question with Putin is how rational he is, or to be precise, what he considers rational--how willing he is to inflict disproportionate damage to get what he wants. After all, he might well feel that going to war doesn't cost him anything--he's not on on the line, his military is, and if a bunch of Russian grunts get killed it's no biggie. Cost of doing business. That assumes that he and his cronies feel insulated from the consequences of their policies--that any costs will be, as they say in business, externalized.
This problem is not unique to Putin--look at Erdogan, whose authoritarian behavior seems to be rooted in a personality disorder. Or at Bolsonaro in Brazil or Lukashenko in Belarus. Yet they all must have the support of non-irrational factions and powers in their nations' power structures. When the big monkey is willing to do anything to get his way--and can call on a crew of enablers and enforcers--it's hard for non-crazies to mount a response that isn't as destructive as the problem.
(I keep thinking of the old National Lampoon cover--"If You Don't Buy This Magazine, We'll Kill This Dog.")
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 21, 2022 12:57:08 GMT -5
I believe the Pizzarellis and Howard Alden followed George Van Eps in tuning the seventh string to A, though Lenny Breau put an A above the high E. You can often hear that bottom note in Bucky's small-group comping--he didn't need a bass player.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 20, 2022 19:56:43 GMT -5
Ah--I haven't been keeping up with the cabin sessions, just Radio Deluxe.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 20, 2022 19:49:19 GMT -5
It's a Moll--same a his archtop(s).
On edit: LJ posted while I was confirming. The guitars he plays on the weekly webcasts from the cabin are Moll seven-strings.
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Post by Russell Letson on Jan 20, 2022 13:07:51 GMT -5
So Pho-Kin-Ay would be run by retired military? (Marines, I'd guess.)
Our little family-run strip-mall Vietnamese restaurant seems to have fallen victim to the pandemic, its spot now occupied by Yet Another Taco Joint. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but St. Cloud is almost as awash in Mexican food as it once was with pizzas. At least our two Indian eateries have survived.
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