sickamore
1yr ago
yes, not denying that. But those are less shocking than naked dead women being paraded around and spat on
sickamore
1yr ago
I agree, and Im not naive. But reading about something like this happening in a book, vs see this live, is very very different.
sickamore
1yr ago
Twitter is an insane place right now, but it will only get worse from here. Just now, I scrolled past two gruesome videos, then saw tweets from official Israel military accounts. and then a video supposedly of someone hang gliding from Gaza into Israel?? The Ukraine war was not like this, I feel like I will be scarred by this one.
Speaking of retribution, Netanyahu’s twitter says, emphasis mine:
Since this morning, the State of Israel has been at war. Our first objective is to clear out the hostile forces that infiltrated our territory and restore the security and quiet to the communities that have been attacked.
The second objective, at the same time, is to exact an immense price from the enemy, within the Gaza Strip as well. The third objective is to reinforce other fronts so that nobody should mistakenly join this war.
We are at war. In war, one needs to be level-headed. I call on all citizens of Israel to unite in order to achieve our highest goal – victory in the war.
maybe one of the second-in-commands for Wagner was promised the top job if he (or maybe more than 1 person?) did what needed to be done
Edit: seems many of his second hands were in prisoned or otherwise out of the picture
sickamore
1yr ago
Thats fair, and im not saying im was ever at that level either of course. Tho i assume to a normie “accomplished pianist” means playing difficult pieces, not necessarily “next Lang Lang”
sickamore
1yr ago
From my family, but layoffs of friends and so on in Shanghai, which is shocking and surprising to people. Especially shocking to those from Shanghai/big metropoles in China under the age of 50 or 40, who have only lived in continuous boom times
All but confirmed by the news that they will stop reporting young unemployment rate as well. So things can be assumed to not be improving…
sickamore
1yr ago
To be fair he may have been a lot better in his schooling days. I played for more than a decade growing up and havent touch a piano regularly for years. If i were to play something I would actually choose that exact song and id probably play at his level in the video at best
sickamore
1yr ago
He recently posted a video of him playing tennis (shirtless!) and he looks pretty “mid” as the kids would say. Granted maybe he hasnt played tennis seriously in since high school. But im happy to have a young and not overweight president again.
Ivy league is D1 but does not offer athletic scholarships. Yes need based and many merit ones exist at harvard and other ivies. All the top Ivies and Stanford and other elite schools boast about how high % of their students receive at least some aid
sickamore
1yr ago
Xi does not trust it, wsj article today or yesterday said rumors are he/his circle are suspicious of it, and think focusing in industrial capacity is better. Something about choices make ccp less important (i kind of doubt tho - the chinese consumer has so much choice!!)
Ironically the west / other countries’ consumption is what fuels chinas growth.
sickamore
1yr ago
Yeah I watched some big sporting event on a Canadian network and I had to google what percent of Canada is black. I follow the nba so I understand Canada has black immigrants but I didnt think they’d be in every car / insurance / beer ad during time outs
sickamore
1yr ago
The author is comparing private schools in US to private schools (actually public?!) in England surely! /s
sickamore
1yr ago
Boots on the ground view is that the chinese economy definitely needs help, and Chinese people (esp below a certain age) basically think it is gloomy.
sickamore
1yr ago
Reminds me of the research on Swedish (or some other Nordic country) families, and how number of younger siblings or siblings in general causes next generation to have more kids. It seemed like oldest sibling will always have more kids than younger sibs (though I assume oldest kids with siblings have more kids than only child kids).
My immediate thought was that it means people that grew up with younger kids and inevitably helping take care of their younger siblings have the exposure to raising kids. Changing diapers and feeding kids and all this stuff isn’t something they have to imagine, cuz they’ve done it! But the youngest sibling wouldn’t have that experience so would tend to have fewer kids cuz lack of experience etc. I would assume this means only children that have a lot of kid experience/exposure would also have more kids (from younger cousins / babysittinf / etc).
So fertility is self enforcing: the more kids you have, the more kids, on average, they would have.
sickamore
1yr ago
Re: Nigar / ECOWAS, AFP just tweeted that:
ECOWAS backs military intervention in Niger 'as soon as possible': I.Coast president
I can't tell if this is just Ivory Coast President's opinion...
But anyway CNN wrote:
West African leaders on Thursday ramped up the rhetoric against Niger’s coup leaders, ordering the “activation” and the “deployment” of a regional standby force to restore constitutional order in the coup-hit country.
Meeting in Abuja, Nigeria after the expiration of the one-week ultimatum they gave to the Niger’s military junta, leaders from the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS) called for a deployment “to restore constitutional order in the Republic of Niger,” according to a statement read by Omar Alieu Touray, President of the ECOWAS Commission.
It was not immediately clear what the “deployment” and “activation” of the force would entail. The statement also emphasized a “determination to keep all options on the table for the peaceful resolution of the crisis.”
...
Several analysts told CNN that a military intervention in Niger would probably not be imminent, as it takes time to assemble the ECOWAS troops.
The communique is “about mobilizing the required resources should an intervention be needed, but it’s also a signal to the junta in Niger that ECOWAS is prepared to take necessary actions including force should talks fail,” Abuja-based defense and security analyst Murtala Abdullahi told CNN.
So I'm confused, I guess this kinda means there is hesitation and they are just saying / doing stuff so that they live up to the deadline they set?
sickamore
1yr ago
Interesting. I wonder how Macron and the French establishment, or the French public, feels about this.
If anything, it speeds up uranium mining projects in europe, like Sweden and so on. And of course there are other sources of uranium.
I have heard Thomas Sankara's name before but did not know who he was. Thanks for the comments.
What is the wider effect of Sahel countries (Niger/Burkina Faso/Mali/etc) moving away from France? Has this kinda stuff happened before?
sickamore
1yr ago
Interesting idea...
Was going to mention French Guiana but it only has a few hundred thousand people.
If only, then we'd have a better comparison of the before/after colonization thing
sickamore
1yr ago
yes agreed. That's why you had to be formulaic. That's why to get the perfect 12 out of 12 score, you had to be obvious about what you did, so no essay grader could give you a lower score. Worst part was that you never got an explanation of why you got a 10 or 11 or 9 out of 12.
Yes analogies wouldve been nice, but it's too IQ-dependent and so obviously "racist"
sickamore
1yr ago
yeah I remember when I took it (out of 2400), it was supposed to be the "new" SAT (though it was around for a few years so we, the students, just thought of it as "the SAT")
sickamore
1yr ago
In the old SAT, when it had a Writing section and was based out of 2400, had an essay. However, it was very game-able with a simple structure. You just had to do a simple 5 paragraph thing where you introduce the topic, give 2-3 examples, and clearly state a conclusion. Using some fancy SAT words helps. My friend group joked that you could always use Nazis to support your topic ("book burning is bad, when the nazis burned...")
sickamore
1yr ago
Dont listen to these ppl. Live your own life. You seem happy so cherish what you have. Try to live your dreams mate, canada or aus arent too bad anyway.
that and crowd yelling as they parade the corpses and people spitting on the corpses; women and children dead after house to house killing; killing a thai worker and trying to chop his dead off using the bluntest farming hoe while shouting “allahu akbar”. I just didnt see this from Ukraine I guess.
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