alanschu

Damn they crushed the second half!

Maybe I'm an old softie now but stuff like this is what I love about pro sports. Judge hit a solo HR and the guy caught it, and as he caught it was in mid celebration and then saw this kiddo wearing a Judge T-Shirt and immediately gave the ball to the kid. Kid started crying and hugged him. I'm glad that news got back to the players and Judge was able to make both of their days. Highlight of the play as it happened here:

To my school's credit, you needed permission top opt out so by default the kiddo was enrolled. But then again we have reasonably unified school system across our province which I've heard makes us Communist. (Our current government is working on helping break down our school system though, so cool cool cool) I do remember one of our teachers (a new teacher) got in trouble because he gave a factual description of what a blow job was when a student asked during a sex ed course. That said this one was in Grade 6 where most of the sex ed stuff at that point was very anatomical, but still... IMO it's silly panic and some parent getting upset with answering the question of a curious student is silly. It's because of something like that, though, that I see stuff that is going on in Florida and 100% assume it's going to be as close to worst case situation where a kid asking a teach what it means to be gay is 100% going to get any teacher that answers that in trouble.

Nah. IMO sports fandoms get a little *too* intense. I think part of that is by overly investing in ways that maybe aren't that good? I was like this with the Bulls in the late 90s (though they were winning) but as an NHL Oilers fans, man is the fandom super toxic. Just so so so aggressive and hostile. After a decade of losing I actually found myself nicely situation in "I'm fine if the team loses, but happy for them when they win." I will get upset at bad calls or cheap shots during game etc (always against my team of course!) but at the final whistle I move on. I follow sports to relax and have fun, and some of the high intensity some people have is just not worth it. After Jordan retired my interest in NBA fluctuated, but I did gravitate towards players I liked. Nash was the one that got me back into it. But I don't really have a team any more (mostly Bucks, then Dallas, as I love to watch Giannis and Luka play) but I find it quite nice to not have any real investment in any particular team winning and it lets me really appreciate fantastic plays at all parts of the game. I'm getting old and whatnot but I definitely prefer it this way.

Never mind that a lot of consequences of nukes don't care about things like borders!

What ships were you stationed on? I enjoyed watching the Carrier documentary by PBS (10 part series detailing a tour by USS Nimitz into the Gulf) and fascinating to learn about how those are basically floating cities.

It's rare but I think we still have stories of people who don't even realize they're pregnant. I think part of the issue with regards to Sex ed is people not understanding the overall risks, even if they do know where babies come from. And especially types of birth control from condoms to IUDs and everything in between. Wife from Texas says it was definitely a thing where sex ed was basically abstinence only, and if you have sex as a teenager you'll get some STI. (she was in a small town school) This is super unfamiliar for me because I remember going over all of this stuff in Grade 8/9 in my very rural school. I do remember that parents were allowed to have their kids opt out of sex ed which also felt weird at the time and moreso now. TL;DR it's all weird....

Whaaaat, I agree with you? But yes, there's valid critique towards Democratic politicians from what I understand who have had opportunities to do something about this in other ways. IIRC it was a "day one" promise by Obama to do this. EDIT: Yeah, even seeing Biden talk about codifying it in 2020.

One of the biggest things that pisses me off about Trudeau is his wishy washy, released in the wee hours of the morning with little attention, survey regarding election reform that quickly concluded "doesn't seem to be much interest in election reform. Welp, I guess we just have to keep the current system that greatly rewards my part in place." I intensely abhor first past the post voting and how it benefits established, incumbent parties even in a multi-party parliamentary system. It seems trivial on the surface to recognize that a system that often encourages "voting for a lesser evil" to defeat some other, greater evil, innately downplays what large swaths of the electorate would actually like their government to do. I do think there's, unfortunately, a very real sentiment of "yeah she pisses off the libs." But that said, the manifestation of QAnon type stuff is equal parts surreal and scary to me and here we are. I do enjoy how the leak itself is seemingly a contender for all time worst things to happen in US history according to some. (The leak, not what the leak contains. Just that something was leaked). I do love that apparently something that isn't "deeply rooted in history" is something not worthy of consideration too.

Chris Rufo openly admitted that the strategy was to bundle up CRT into an all encompassing term to encapsulate a whole bunch of boogeyman things that they are against. If you'll notice the date this was over a year ago now and it's only really gotten more intense. And I feel it has directly led to the current movement that anything LGBTQ is grooming. Just completely bombarding places so that it just dominates the narrative.

That is the most generous interpretation, but most of the "republic not a democracy" choose to interpret "Democracy" exclusively as Direct Democracy and when you refer to their Republic as a Representative Democracy (and include quote from the 18th Century federalist papers that also refer to it as a representative democracy) they either just go away or they just cannot grok. It's funny because they struggle to classify my country since we definitely are not a republic!

Indeed it's what those living in the colonies were familiar with. The only real distinction was making their democracy a Republic and electing their head of state, which was something they also got from the Roman Republic in addition to the representative democracy. (You can see praise of the Roman Republic in the Federalist Papers) As a minor aside, one of my pet peeves (and favourite things to correct because I'm a pedant) are people that like to insist that the US is a Republic, not a Democracy. I can't be 100% sure, but I have a feeling that a lot of people that lean heavily into that supposed distinction do so because of the familiarity the terms have with the two primary US political parties.

Something is only a deterrence if it is seen by those imposing it as a deterrence as a bad option. You don't "deter" people by threatening them with a better time. It's Johnson and his administration that is saying it's a bad option. They would have 100% framed it as anything other than "deterrence" if they were genuinely interested in helping refugees/asylum seekers. But it's not, they see it as a threat to stop people from coming to the UK. Did you even read the article? It includes refugees and asylum seekers.... It includes a link to this exact same UK government saying that they "remain concerned, however, by continued restrictions to civil and political rights and media freedom." It's a comment of a belief that white "illegal" refugees and asylum seekers will likely not be the ones sent to Rwanda.

I don't think Malc is suggesting that they're being exiled to some "****hole" country. But it's being done ostensibly to "deter" human trafficking and Johnson made sure to clarify that any of lone male refugees that get to the UK will not be housed in "lavish hotels" but in "detention centers." Given they are framing it as a solution to deter illegal immigration, it's explicit that they themselves consider the prospects of going to Rwanda to be a deterrence to try to enter the UK.

I suspect this could encourage the desire to purchase

Is that actually what happens? As I can just as easily see it being "Doh ho ho ho ho, you better vote for us or it's like you're voting for the other guy. Better accept it!"

We called hint lines and paid someone to tell us what to do.... (I was too young so I suppose I shouldn't say we. Get stuck and permanently frustrated is more likely what I did)

I know a few of my friends comment taht the open world nature makes it a whole lot easier to not get blocked by a tough area as you can just go elsewhere. It's still on my list to play but mostly just in a gaming holding pattern. Busy with apartment shopping and stuff like that and a bit of choice paralysis for what game to play right now. Probably just need some sleep haha (he says at 1am)

Friend of mine lives in Australia and shares a lot of her general frustration towards the Liberal Party as well. (also, hi @Gorth!)

Yeah, he didn't support the institution (which is why the South really amplified the idea that they were going to lose it if he was elected). The politics around the Emancipation Proclamation are also fascinating. I really enjoyed James McPherson's Battle Cry of Freedom as it goes into a lot of the lead up of the ACW including the chronology of the war itself. It's been a few years but IIRC it was originally being considered mid war to help with the Union but people recognizing that it needed to come after a significant enough win so as to appear to come from a place of confidence rather than desperation.

There is a complicated history and (IMO) unpleasantly motivated reasonings to obfuscate some of the darker parts and motivations. For example there's a very genuine belief among a lot of people that the US Civil War was not fought over the institution of slavery but that that was just one part of it. Except there's a lot of primary sources (i.e. newspapers, letters, and other correspondence written at the time) that challenges these claims. Many of the declarations of secession that states issues explicitly talk about the threat that Lincoln's election to President was seen to have over the South's right to own slaves. There was articles put out in newspapers warning of the Northern states wanting to get rid of slavery to help ensure that poorer white people in the South would then become wage slaves. There was even on General, General Cleburne (a white immigrant to the US), who suggested that the South consider emancipating slaves to help with army recruitment. This suggestion was suppressed/covered up to prevent public outcry and some considered it an Abolitionist Conspiracy. Even when someone like General Lee was open to it in the later part of the war, as most definitely a Man of the South he was still interested in preserving the racial hierarchy and even posited that it'd be in the black man's best interest to preserve slavery. But also that even in the South the votes to secede were not unanimous and there were indeed people in the South that did not feel like seceding was a good idea. This is pretty common in other aspects of history, like the idea that someone like Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was universally loved for his messages, or the selective quotation of his "I have a Dream" speech while overlooking writings he had like the Letter from a Birmingham Jail. And there's no shortage of modern day centrist/moderate Democrats that gloss over facts that the North did not fight to free the slaves but to preserve the Union. The Emancipation Proclamation came during the war. Or that Lincoln, not supporting slavery, was not a radical abolitionist and didn't believe in equality between whites and black. But this NPR (ostensibly classified as "left wing" media) article shows, I feel, how we really need to step back and reevaluate what racism in our society means because they suggest that if we consider that Lincoln may have been racist in some ways himself, "then that is the end of the story because he was no different from the proslavery Douglas, for example, and there is no point in investigating the matter any further." I find this a ridiculous perspective because I feel it's easy to recognize that someone (even myself!) can still have racist perspectives that need unpacking that are milder than "I hate black people and we should enslave them." US Politics is itself a weird revisionist where you'll see Republicans point out that they can't be the racist party, because in the 1860s Lincoln was a Republican and Democrats dominated the South... yet those same Republicans get very defensive towards a bunch of "Democrats" when criticism gets tossed their way. It's surreal at times. There are members of Congress suggesting if you support trans, or even other LGBTQ people, then you're a groomer... all the while supporting lowering age that children can get married. Feels like one of those "the accusation is a confession" type of moments. I don't have any examples unfortunately. The best I have is my wife and inlaw family experience, who all agree that their rural high school didn't just teach that Manifest Destiny was a thing in the 19th Century, but that it was a good thing. But a "Critical Race Theory" perspective would explore looking at this through the lens of indigenous peoples, Spanish/Mexicans, and whatnot. It's hard to not just be overly cynical but unfortunately I do not see this as an end to confusion and parents overreacting because, I feel, there are enough people with enough power that greatly benefit by sowing seeds that benefit from the confusion and overreactions. I frankly wish I had more concrete solutions to addressing this but I do not. EDIT: I should add that this is definitely not US alone. My provincial Premier effectively saying "we are getting rid of critical race theory, wokeness, activist teachers, and inappropriate sexual content."

This is giving me nightmares of my 19" CRT monitor I moved 3 times in 3 years........ Been happy with 24" monitors every since BioWare gave me one. I have heard from other friends that Epic will likely be sending me some 27" monitors which means... I will no longer be content with 24" monitors and will definitely need a bigger desk lol.

There's the official CRT which is a framework in law school to look at legal events particularly through the lens of minority races to try to gain some insights for how the justice system impacts other races. There's the more colloquial use of the term which is about doing similar stuff with more than just a high level college course... basically trying to empathize with other viewpoints when looking at events to understand why differences may be present. A bit more generally, looking back at history and things like Manifest Destiny and suggesting maybe that wasn't a great motivator for colonizing the western part of the continent. People like Chris Rufo use it as a catch all term for almost anything that could be seen as "critical" of the United States/white people (he has literally admitted this on his twitter) and twist it into this idea that schools are teaching white children to be ashamed and that it is making said white children depressed and ashamed of being an American etc. As an interesting anecdote to this though, a friend of mine is a history PhD at Kansas University, made an interesting observation with his students he teaches as a TA. Part of the conservative fear is white children being all depressed and feeling shame etc and we need to protect children from that. He notes that to some degree they are telling on themselves, because there is the assumption that if we teach some of the horrors of slavery in US history, that the white kids will identify with the slave owners and not the non-trivial amount of white abolitionists that existed at the time and recognized that slavery was wrong. His experience is that the students tend to not side with the slave owners. Dr. Ibram X Kendi gave a brief talk for us at EA one day where he mentioned the same thing. By refusing to discuss realities of slavery in the US history, it means that the abolition movement is not taught and that white people were very involved in that as well. I speculate that there's a hefty degree of projection going with some of the people in power advocating against "CRT" and whom they likely identify with in some way.

I read up on him and uh yeah some seriously bonkers stances he had.

I have heard that the reconstruction stuff def ended up waffling a lot and most (seriousish) history types I know point at that being pretty impactful!