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A Deeply Fractured US

FJAG said:
I think they measured safety in large measure on the basis of the murder rate in the US being six times that of most western countries.
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A claim about an entire population which is heavily skewed by the characteristics of a small subset of it isn't meaningful.
 
Navy_Pete said:
It's a really big country, but there are definitely no-go areas as well as a gun culture. I have to say I definitely felt less safe in general in big cities in the US compared to other western countries, although I was not normally really worries about myself overall for the most part (except when I wandered into South Boston I guess, and the part from Baltimore that was in The Wire).
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There are neighbourhoods in many cities of the world I would not enter. Outside those areas, I've never felt differently about my safety in any particular country compared to the others. I suppose I might be an outlier.
 
FJAG said:
Not quite on topic but related.

The Institute for Economics and peace has released its latest list of safest and most dangerous countries.

The US stood at 131st out of 163. Canada stood 11th.



🍻
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That list is really beyond stupid.

The fact that the ‘researchers’ chose to accept data from some of those countries means they can’t tell fact from fiction.

I mean Hungary being #18 should be a bit of an alarm bell to anyone.
 
I guess if they have to support everybody then they're not going to support anybody.

www.telegraph.co.uk

FA to stop lighting Wembley arch for political issues

Exclusive: New policy implemented after board review following criticism for not illuminating arch after the Hamas attacks on Israel
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

Actually I prefer the new policy to the old policy - but the timing and the rationale sucks.
 
Related to the above

thehill.com

Universities must quit with the BS

The demand for blather, we see today, can become intense.
thehill.com thehill.com

The war between Israel and Hamas has led some university administrations to realize the virtues of institutional neutrality, as advocated by the famous Kalven Report. Accustomed to pontificating on current events, they have suddenly discovered that they couldn’t say anything without making somebody angry.

Worse, having established that practice, they found that even silence sent a nasty message, apparently signifying invidious comparative judgments about which deaths mattered. (More likely it signified comparative judgments about which groups to pander to.)

It turns out — who knew? — that it is politic for officials to avoid taking sides on contentious issues. But there is another reason why administrators ought to remain silent on such matters: anything they say is almost certainly bullshit, and the mission of the university is antithetical to the production of bullshit.

I here use “bullshit” as a technical term. The philosopher Harry Frankfurt explains in his classic analysis that a bullshitter is uninterested in the truth or falsity of his speech: “the motive guiding and controlling it is unconcerned with how the things about which he speaks truly are.” Rather, he merely wants to elicit a certain reaction: “What he cares about is what people think of him.”

In February 1967, the president of the University of Chicago convened a committee of seven faculty to consider “the University’s role in political and social action.” It was chaired by Harry Kalven Jr., a First Amendment scholar. The committee concluded that the university has a distinctive political role: “By design and by effect, it is the institution which creates discontent with the existing social arrangements and proposes new ones.” The source of dissent and criticism, however, “is the individual faculty member or the individual student. The university is the home and sponsor of critics; it is not itself the critic.”

So a university “must embrace, be hospitable to, and encourage the widest diversity of views within its own community.” If it takes a collective position on anything, “it does so at the price of censuring any minority who do not agree with the view adopted.”

Among the overlooked virtues of the Kalven Report’s recommendations is that it gets the university out of the bullshit business.
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Report on the University's Role in Political and Social Action | Office of the Provost

provost.uchicago.edu provost.uchicago.edu
www.thefire.org

The wisdom of the University of Chicago’s ‘Kalven Report’

Since 1999, FIRE has defended the expressive rights of students and faculty — and like the First Amendment itself, we defend speech without regard to the speaker’s ideology, politics, or viewpoint.
www.thefire.org www.thefire.org
 
In the 1980s I was posted to HQ AFCENT in the Netherlands - great job, great place ...

We, a visiting team (I was a bit iff hanger-on in case one specific issue arose) were going to a very large US base in Germany. After we had disembarked at the HQ building we were welcomed by the Commanding General (DCINC was leading our team) and then while the top brass went off to do whatever the top grass do we (a couple of one stars and a gaggle of colonels) were given a "welcome to there base" brief by a US Army colonel. He pointed out paces of interest - O Clubs, PXs, etc - and then advised us about "No Go" zones! His phrasing, as I recall, was elegant, but he basically said that white people ought not to walk alone in the areas outlined on maps he handed us!
 
Edward Campbell said:
In the 1980s I was posted to HQ AFCENT in the Netherlands - great job, great place ...

We, a visiting team (I was a bit iff hanger-on in case one specific issue arose) were going to a very large US base in Germany. After we had disembarked at the HQ building we were welcomed by the Commanding General (DCINC was leading our team) and then while the top brass went off to do whatever the top grass do we (a couple of one stars and a gaggle of colonels) were given a "welcome to there base" brief by a US Army colonel. He pointed out paces of interest - O Clubs, PXs, etc - and then advised us about "No Go" zones! His phrasing, as I recall, was elegant, but he basically said that white people ought not to walk alone in the areas outlined on maps he handed us!
Click to expand...

Weren't the Dutch having problems with these guys?

Menia Muria: The South Moluccans Fight in Holland | Office of Justice Programs

www.ojp.gov www.ojp.gov

The Dutch Response to Moluccan Terrorism, 1970–1978: Ingenta Connect

www.ingentaconnect.com www.ingentaconnect.com

Concurrent with the IRA, RAF (Red Army Faction) in Germany and Rosso Brigada in Italy among others.

Add in Greenham Common, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, Peace Marches, Cruise Missile Demonstrations, Civil Rights marches, Communists in Western European parliaments, German Ostpolitik and the Litton Bombing and it all looks like a return to the Cold War status quo.

And Vlad's section of the KGB was at the heart of all of the above.
 
Biden's fault Hamas attacked Israel?

🙄
“One of the reasons ... why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser. The U.S. president indicated that he thinks Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on Oct. 7 because, “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel” and were near being able to formally do so.🙄
abcnews.go.com

Biden says Hamas attacked Israel in part to stop a historic agreement with Saudi Arabia

President Joe Biden says he thinks Hamas was motivated to attack Israel in part by a desire to stop that country from normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
🤡
 
Fishbone Jones said:
Biden's fault Hamas attacked Israel?

🙄
“One of the reasons ... why Hamas moved on Israel, is because they knew I was about to sit down with the Saudis,” Biden said at a campaign fundraiser. The U.S. president indicated that he thinks Hamas militants launched a deadly assault on Oct. 7 because, “Guess what? The Saudis wanted to recognize Israel” and were near being able to formally do so.🙄
abcnews.go.com

Biden says Hamas attacked Israel in part to stop a historic agreement with Saudi Arabia

President Joe Biden says he thinks Hamas was motivated to attack Israel in part by a desire to stop that country from normalizing relations with Saudi Arabia
abcnews.go.com abcnews.go.com
🤡
Click to expand...

Well sure, there’s been no shortage of knowledgeable commentary to the effect that Saudi Arabia’s imminent entrance into the Abraham Accords is probably one of Iran’s major strategic concerns in kicking this whole thing off. It’s not like Biden’s saying anything wild there. Disrupting Saudi recognition of Israel’s existence and rapprochement towards diplomatic normalization would be a big deal to some interests in the region.
 
brihard said:
Well sure, there’s been no shortage of knowledgeable commentary to the effect that Saudi Arabia’s imminent entrance into the Abraham Accords is probably one of Iran’s major strategic concerns in kicking this whole thing off. It’s not like Biden’s saying anything wild there. Disrupting Saudi recognition of Israel’s existence and rapprochement towards diplomatic normalization would be a big deal to some interests in the region.
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And a good step in solving the Palestinian issue.
 
Good thing Trump left him a good framework with the Abraham Accords.

Will there be a solution to the Palestine problem? Not until you settle the Iranian problem, IMO. Then there's all the terrorist organizations who have no intent on moving to a two state solution. Their mandate is to wipe Israel and its people from the face of the earth. They have never and likey will never acquiesce to a two state solution. And they've had tons of offers, every one rejected.

Biden can't stop his dogs from biting people, never mind stopping the terrorists from biting Israel.
 
Fishbone Jones said:
Good thing Trump left him a good framework with the Abraham Accords.
Click to expand...

Yup, I have no problem criticising and blaming him for many things, so it’s only fair I let him have credit for something that did move forward successfully under his watch. That doesn’t trouble me.
 
PMedMoe said:
Semantics.

"I do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."
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Like I said above.

Or maybe he did, and this he never was the President legally…

So we can charge him with a bucket of extra stuff now too.
 
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