DShomshak

And now for something completely different.
 
I recommend an article called "The Power of Agroecology" from the November, 2021 Scentific American. Agroecology is about as complete a departure from current commercial agriculture as one can imagine, being developed among the poorest of Third World farmers; the article deals particularly with some villages in northern Malawi. Instead of gigantic fields growing just one variety of just one crop, drenched in fertilizers and pesticides, it's an approach for small farms with crops chosen for local soil and weather conditions, often with multicropping so the crops assist each other -- particularly using legumes such as beans or peanuts to put nitrogen into the soil. Which sounds a lot like "How farming was done before industrial farming was invented," except the farmers have access to varietals from around the world, and have scientific agronomists to help them assess the results of their agricultural experiments. Most of the knowledge gained, though, comes from the experiments of the farmers themselves. The Malawi project has already shown that this approach can enrich soils instead of depleting them, improve locals' nutrition (especially among the young -- Malawi suffers terribly from childhood malnutrition), and create agricultural surplus that can be sold, enhancing the local economy as well as each family. It also uses less water and other resources.
 
So what does this have to do with politics? Everything. Author Raj Patel argues that extreme poverty in Malawi and other Third World countries is created and maintained politically -- particularly by international lenders such as the IMF and World Bank. The money loaned to develop economies must be paid back with interest... and countries are expected to get that money by growing cash crops for export, instead of food for their own people. Any profis are also immediately sucked out by paying for chemical fertilizer and other tools of agribusiness. And demands soon arise for "austerity" in domestic expenditure to make sure the loans get repaid.
 
To be fair, Patel does not specifically and openly call this out as a vicious scam to keep the Third World poor and dependent. He notes in passing a "colonial savior" mentality, that poor brown people cannot possibly be enriched except through integration into the financial and technological infrastructure of the developed world.
 
Now imagine what happens if countries such as Malawi go all in on agroecology, feeding their own people instead of selling cash crops to buy food from abroad. No buying foreign food and fertilizer means more money stays in country, whether for other services or for loan repayment. OTOH, if the people are developing their food supply and the rest of tdheir economy by themselves, they might not need more loans. Might even wonder why they should repay loans already made. And a government might have extra incentive to do this if the village co-ops producing the food surplus start asking what they are getting from the central government. Power relationships could shift from village scale to internationally.
 
The power shifts extend even down to the family level. Agroecology does require more time spent farming. In northern Malawi, women do most of the farming, as well as cooking, child-rearing and other home maintenance. To make more time for farming, first men must take a larger share (i.e., any) of household chores. Traditional patriarchy has been one of the trickiest problems, but Patel says the experimenters have found solutions.
 
One of the participants summarizes thus: Women can teach men, Black people can teach white people, the poopr can teach the rich." The potential goes far beyond just an agricultural revolution.
 
Dean Shomshak

I've been meaning to post this since I heard it, but I hate typing in long URLs. It might be of interest given the recent discussion, since it's about how American gun culture turned so weird -- told by Ryan Busse, a gun company insider who turned against the industry because of said cultural changes. (Though he stresses he still hunts and shoots for sport, and teaches his children likewise.) It was the Nov. 22, 2021 episode of the public radio program Fresh Air. Mr. Busse has written a book about it, called "Gunfight."
 
https://www.npr.org/programs/fresh-air/2021/11/22/1057244756/fresh-air-for-nov-22-2021-gunfight-author-ryan-busse?showDate=2021-11-22
 
In brief: The change was engineered by the NRA and some rather strange fanatics in the gun industry.
 
Dean Shomshak

I admit, I'd never heard of the stereotypes Terminax listed. Like, I'd never heard anyone suggest that someone was, "Oh, just another paranoid French person." But I'm not that up on popular attitudes in any form, so I guess I have to take his friends' word for it. They're in Europe, I'm not.
 
I assume 'Pantera' as sexual slang is loosely cognate to our 'cougar.'
 
Just going from my own knowledge base, most Eurostar characters seem like they could come from the US, or anywhere. Feuermacher? Mercenary. Apart from a Germanic name and German being his native langage, nothing in his origin story says he's from anywhere in particular. Mentalla? Upper-class old money family that secretly serves Dr. Destroyer (why?). Could just as easily be from South America, or British gentry, or Boston Brahmins, or just about anywhere with money and a class structure. Ultrasoniquye? Yet another character who became a crazed villain after being injured in an accident. (And the Brain Damage = Evil trope is a discussion we can have another time.) As for the late Bora, I admit I associate super-vain mean girls with California, not Italy. Pantera is a genetic construct raised to be a monster; it's the sort of thing one associates with Nazi biologists, but I can imagine other lunacies that could lead to such a result.
 
Durak 'works' as Soviet since he comes from a tinme and place where a group of soldiers could turn some random punk over to a military/spy agency for unspeakable experiments and no one would blink. But I wouldn't say the USSR was the onbly country where that could happen.
 
Scorpia's background options are also limited, since she grew up in a time and place with endemic terrorism.
 
Fiacho, of course, has to be European because it's Eurostar, but let's face it, "Embittered, he turned to a life of crime" is far from distinctive, either.
 
Well, now I know why I never paid much attention to Eurostar. There's just nothing here that interests me.
 
Dean Shomshak

Thank you. And to your point, "sucks to be you" isn't exactly eloquent, I just didn't want to go into describing outcomes. I have a few minutes, so I'll do so with a couple of personal (not GSW) examples:
 
Back in 2010-2011, I had an abscess drained that left a narrow 10" (~25 cm) tunnel through muscle tissue. This kind of wound is about the best outcome someone is going to see if they get shot. My case was treated poorly and took a long time to heal, plus it was in the largest muscle in the human body. So, my healing time was longer than, say, someone getting shot in an extremity. However, even though I'm all healed up and have been for a while, that wound still aches from time to time, sometimes extremely so. Having a tract of scar tissue running through a muscle you use constantly just sucks. I also have about a quarter to half inch or so tear in a muscle directly behind my shoulder blade that I got being stupid and blowing it out back in 1989 or 1990. That also still hurts, almost constantly. 
 
Earlier this year, back in March, I had thoracic surgery by the best surgeon for such surgery in the area. There was no other significant tissue damage other than what was required to open me up, spread my ribs, and cut out a benign tumor. So, I have a much better outcome than a thoracic shooting victim, who may have damaged organs, shattered bones and other serious tissue trauma. The entire sheet of muscle around my back and side that was cut into still hurts, frequently contracts around the scar tissue, and the bottom of my rib cage still gives me serious spikes of pain. If I exert myself in the slightest, I end up walking around like a movie mummy for a couple days. Getting out of bed sucks. I randomly double up in pain at least every other day. And I wasn't shot.
 
So, if someone gets shot it's going to suck, even if it doesn't kill them. The vast majority of GSW injuries in the US are from handguns, and they tend to be of the first type, so relatively minor if they don't drill a hole in something important like an artery or organ. 
 
But that's all to support a side comment on the issue that was at hand: Intent. You don't use lethal force with the intent of killing an aggressor, you use it with the intent of stopping their attack. If you take up arms to defend yourself, you should be well-versed in their capabilities, and the levels of harm they can inflict. You should know your own limitations. You should act with the safety of your neighbors and the general public in mind. You should be cognizant of the range of reactions people will have both to being threatened with a firearm (ranging from, "I'm going to shove that thing up your ..." to "Oh crap! Ruuun!") and to being shot with a firearm (ranging from basically ignoring the wound and continuing the assault to running for the hills from a near miss). You should know that fights are chaotic and unpredictable in their outcomes. You should be aware that whatever the outcome, your life will be changed forever from the event.
 
 
This isn't possible to do with anything, whether it's weapons, vehicles, or spreading lies on the Internet.  I agree that it would be the most desirable result. That doesn't mean you ignore the issues, though. When I think about it, I start by considering two factors (from a US perspective):
 
People have the right to self defense. This is so fundamental, that it's natural law territory. In the US Constitution, this is encapsulated in the 2nd Amendment right to bear arms. "Arms," are generally things that allow one to apply lethal or potentially lethal force. 
 
Your right to swing your fist ends at the other guy's nose. When a situation arises where the exercise of one's rights interferes or infringes on the rights or well-being of another person, then it's reasonable to enact laws that address the issue equitably.
 
Ideally, we balance the two concepts, and do so without denying large numbers of people their fundamental right. 
 
So, we could then start asking questions, like, "Do you need firearms to defend yourself?" or "What kind of firearms do you need to defend yourself?" or "If we allow people to have firearms to defend themselves, then should we limit what type of firearm is allowed to be taken to what location?" 
 
It's awkwardly phrased, but that last one is where my thoughts have been lately.
 
AR-15 style rifles are actually one of the best tools for defending yourself, if not the best. There are a number of reasons, and among them are ease of use and lethality. These also, not coincidentally, make the things great for offensive purposes. 
 
And when people read "lethality," their first thought will be, "Well, if the intent isn't to kill someone, why do you need one of those?" or "Well, clearly if you choose a high-lethality device for defense, your intent is to kill."  Prosecutors frequently ask the same questions.
 
The answer is that when you want to stop someone else from killing you, the time frame you want it done in is "as soon as possible." There's a large gap in power between the most powerful handgun rounds and the least powerful rifle rounds (which the 5.56 mostly falls under), barring a few uncommon examples. For commonly-used handgun rounds (which is to say, "service" calibers adopted originally for police/military use, not for hunting big game), the gap is even wider. So, the choice comes down to "might stop someone if you get lucky" or "likely to immediately stop hostilities." 
 
So, defense with a rifle round is reasonable. But how do we limit offense? What is the acceptable level of infringement into one's right to have the best tool available to defend themselves, that protects the general public from bad actors, unintended consequences, and irresponsible people?
 
I think it's reasonable to simply not allow weapons that chamber centerfire long gun calibers be carried in public, barring sporting use (hunting, mostly, which happens away from crowds) or transport in a locked container to and from other sporting activities.  
 
This makes it very simple to enforce: Police see a person walking around a riot with a long gun? Pick them up. They see someone walking around town with a long gun? Talk to them. Not just taking it to your vehicle to transport? Charge them. 
 
This leaves lots of issues on the table for both the "preserve rights" and "protect the public" sides of the equation:
 
On the one hand, you're not allowing people to carry the most effective tool possible for the job of self defense in public. I care less, honestly. Most people only arm up with long guns to go to demonstrations, or to try to "educate" the public on gun rights. They're a bunch of morons who don't need to be catered to. The mindset of a responsible gun owner is not to take on the role of the police in any situation, it's to protect your person and any family you may be with from an immediate threat. Handguns are the most commonly-faced such threat and very commonly used to stop such a threat. They're also a lot more discrete.
 
On the other hand, you can still harm neighbors if you miss indoors with a more powerful weapon that penetrates walls. In this case, the AR or the shotgun are actually better choices than a handgun for protecting neighbors from over penetration of building materials. While there is always some risk, it seems relatively low. 
 
This also doesn't address controlling handguns, but requiring training before allowing one to carry a handgun in public already has passed muster as constitutionally acceptable. I think even most gun rights advocates would accept a national concealed carry license, with a training requirement and extensive background check requirement, if it meant full transferability to all states. But it won't happen, because states want to reserve the right to regulate this for themselves. And that's not a horrible status quo from my perspective. 
 
This doesn't preclude someone from taking their lawfully-owned rifle, breaking it down, transporting it to a location, then committing an atrocity. Or doing the same with a lawfully-owned handgun they're not supposed to be carrying in the first place. 
 
So, that's the best I've come up with for a starting  point. There are probably countless minutiae to examine, even though I'm presenting this as a simple method of mitigation. I've already thought of several arguments for this being both insufficient and overly-restrictive. IMO, it'd be worth discussion and debate.
 
 
 
It happens. As you say, there's no great way to see data for events that nobody was charged in, outside of the news. I found an article about a local shooting in Seattle on September 3rd, where someone was shot and killed while attempting to rob someone at gun point, and that took a lot of digging through articles debating gun control to find. It never hit broadcast news here to my knowledge. Pointing out the number of criminals stopped by armed citizens isn't something a local government is going to go out of their way to do, either. It's simply bad publicity. 
 
At the end of the day, it will be difficult to address the matter of public safety vs the rights of the individual. These days, I'm leaning more toward public safety considerations having more weight. 
 
 
 
 

One of the things for which I am thankful is that my family ignores all the post-Thanksgiving sales (which now extend at least a week before Thanksgiving). Bloody Communists, we are. No proper American reverence for retail. Just family getting together for a nice dinner, and remembering how lucky we are to have that dinner, a roof over our heads, and each other.
 
Dean Shomshak

Pumpkin chiffon pie with ginger snap-pecan crust 2021

And as I posted before, how or why did the Dems fail to work their magic fraud down the ballot to produce a Blue Wave in Congress and state houses? The Conspiracy is always omnipotent where it needs to be, but childishly idiotic where it needs to be.
 
Dean Shomshak

And the media immediately started speculating over whether this was a terrorist attack, what was his motivation, was he aligned with Left or Right, and other ratings-grabbing garbage for which we don't yet have any answers. Outstandingly irresponsible journalism.

Hermit, Anne Applebaum's recent article in The Atlantic suggests your nightmare scenario is not unlikely at all. The despots have coalesced into a bloc. They aid each other, from evading sanctions to undermining democratic governments. Like, Balarus' Lukashenko gets aid from both communist Cuba and theocratic Iran.
 
Let's see if I can type in the link:
 
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2021/12/the-autocrats-are-winning/620526/
 
To add top the gloom, my local paper includes a squib that the Stockholm-based Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance added the US to its list of "democratically backsliding" countries in its Global State of Democracy 2021 report. More than a quarter of the world's population now lives in democratically backsliding countries.
 
Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

Alex Jones Guilty On All Counts

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

https://harpers.org/archive/2021/09/the-third-force-stupidity-and-transcendence/
EDIT: I'm sorry, I can't make the link work even though I'm sure I typed it correctly. Strangely, AOHell doesn't let me copy and paste links anymore. Try Googling the article title and Keizer's name.
 
As Parieah says, fear makes people stupid. But what's going on in the US right now goes far beyond run of the mill stupidity. As Garret Keizer says in his essay "The Third Force: On Stupidity and Transcendence," ordinary stupidity falls in a pit because it isn't paying attention. Aggressive stupidity goes looking for pits to jump in. It's a denial of reality and a concomitant lust for transcendence, a yearning to escape the murky, tangling, complicated world of fact and fly into a fantasy world that seems clean and simple by comparison.
 
Iwould call this "magical thinking" rather than "stupidity," but the result is the same. Denial of realities that seem too painful or humiliating to one's pride *will* catch up with you eventually.
 
(And I am not sure I agree with Keizer's diagnosis that the ultimate cause is alienation from labor, with cure of better wages, that he tacks on at the end. Better wages would be a Good Thong anyway, but I see American neofascism as growing far more from dissonance between myth and reality than from anything for which government might find a material policy solution. As Arlene Hochschilde found in her sociological examination of Louisiana Tea Party Trumpists, Strangers in their Own Land, these tend to be materially comfortable people who merely feel that other people -- especially minorities -- are getting greater rewards than they are, without having earned them; and behind that, a loss of their own sense of prestige.)
 
Dean Shomshak

Big mess of gravitational-wave merger event detections
 
Though this list almost certainly includes some things which are false alarms.  They put this comprehensive list as the two US LIGO stations went on an extended interruption in operations for upgrades and maintenance.  Some intriguing things in the list, though.

The Man Who Made January 6 Possible
 

What the GM said when I asked...
 
 

I recall D&D 4th Ed did that, too, by default, for all 'powers' (yes, they had a format for class abilities used for spells, prayers, and even martial arts, that was generically called 'Powers').  It was a block with the Name at the top, in a color indicating how often you could use it, followed by an italic description that had no mechanical impact that the player could change at whim, and then all the game stats....  It was one of many things D&Ders seemed to hate about that edition.  Funny to see it coming back - I guess as a suggestion to the DM might allow, it's OK.