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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 20, 2022 19:03:39 GMT -5
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 20, 2022 13:30:15 GMT -5
Just about any period predating one's actual life is vulnerable to being viewed through some kind of filter, most often an improving one. Though there may be a bit less of that for those of us raised by the children and young adults of the Great Depression and WW2--and even there some of the worst might get nudged in the direction of "we learned to make do with less" and "we all pulled together."
Nevertheless, I wonder about the 20-something's connecting of social/historical nostalgia with aesthetic preference. We filled our house with old stuff (not expensive or old enough to qualify as "antiques") because we liked the way it looks--golden oak furniture (Stickley-like but not Stickley-priced), 1930s-40s lamps, non-Tiffany glass shades, Fiesta tableware (from broken sets, and not the expensive colors), and so on. The grandson of a paper-mill worker and the daughter of refugees have no illusions about the downside of living through the 1920-1950 period.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 20, 2022 13:13:45 GMT -5
Interesting quantification. One wonders how it was arrived at.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 20, 2022 0:19:19 GMT -5
Getting in under the wire here with bday wishes. (Not to be confused with bidet wishes.)
I see that thanks to Tandberg you are now going to have to buy new kitchen appliances that match the retro car colors.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 19, 2022 17:19:16 GMT -5
The novel it's based on, by Robert Harris, is very good--as is everything of his I've read. He does a very good job with historical settings (pre-imperial Rome, Dreyfus era France) and Fatherland is an excellent alternate-history take on the-Germans-won-WW2 idea. (Len Deighton's SS-GB is another.)
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 19, 2022 14:36:46 GMT -5
Up to their armpits in extinct flightless birds?
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 16, 2022 0:37:18 GMT -5
I think I first heard it in Keely Smith's version, with a lush, ballad-y Billy May arrangement.
This one from the same LP swings more:
It's the version I learned the song from. Wish I had a quarter of her pipes. Hell, ten percent.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 15, 2022 11:37:26 GMT -5
Do keep having birthdays, and make them happy. (Actually, just having them is pretty happy-making.) And get well.
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Post by Russell Letson on Feb 15, 2022 1:12:22 GMT -5
Oops, ten minutes late. Can I put this on account for next February 14? (Though you're allowed to back-date this and be retroactively happy.)
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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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