Post 2022 Election

[ZiprHead]

Go back to Texas, Herschel. Go beat up some more women and pay for their abortions.

Whoops! Can't do that in Texas.

 

[lpetrich]

I'm officially calling Georgia for Warnock, 5 to 7 point margin.

He got a 2.6% margin, not quite that. Only 0.5% of the vote remains uncounted, and extrapolation of voting patterns gives 0.025% of the total vote.

 

[Derec]

Go back to Texas, Herschel. Go beat up some more women and pay for their abortions.

Whoops! Can't do that in Texas.

He can just cross the Rio Grande.

 

[Derec]

She has been less visible lately.

Busy with her new kaffir husband, no doubt. You know, the one whose "consulting" company she paid almost a million dollars to.

 

[Toni]

She has been less visible lately.

Busy with her new kaffir husband, no doubt. You know, the one whose "consulting" company she paid almost a million dollars to.

I don't know if you are aware but kaffir is a racially derogatory term.

 

[Derec]

FFS sometimes profs are horrid as people, not just as instructors. Sometimes profs are verbally abusive students, are obviously vehemently racist or sexist, unfair, have not put one second's thought or effort into a class for decades, and more.

There is no hint of evidence of any of the litany of misconduct you mention here with the professor fired in the NYU "Orgo too hard for coddled GenZ" debacle. None whatsoever. This is just an attempt to muddy the waters.
And you have not answered about my own experience with a Gen Chem course at a local college in Georgia. What are your thoughts on that?

 

[Derec]

I don't know if you are aware but kaffir is a racially derogatory term.

How so? "Kaffir" just means "unbeliever" in Arabic. It usually implies unbeliever in Islam, which is the sense I used it in. And since Islam is not a race, the converse cannot be a race either. Duh!

 

[Derec]

So all those charts and graphs and number he presented were what? Lies, misinterpreted, mistaken?

The latter two. Just like in the Katie Porter thread (before it became about the gold standard) it's assuming causation from correlation.

 

[Derec]

I never said anything that could remotely interpreted as claiming the current inflation is mainly due to corporate greed. I did say lack of competition exacerbated our inflation.

So you disagree with the likes of Katie Porter and her non-economist guest from the Roosevelt Institute?
I am actually glad to read that.

I think it is either deep economic ignorance or ideological rigidity to think the major factor in this large spike in worldwide inflation is expansionary policy. At best, expansionary policy may sustain the spike.

Whether of not that is true in general (I doubt it is), it is pretty clear that the Pandemic, being a major economic shock to the system, was the triggering event here. And nobody is denying that.
Sustaining the "spike" so that it becomes a sustained inflation rather than merely "transitory" is definitely the fault of expansionary policy - monetary and fiscal. There was too much fiscal stimulus for too long, and the Fed waited too long to increase interest rates.

 

[Toni]

I don't know if you are aware but kaffir is a racially derogatory term.

How so? "Kaffir" just means "unbeliever" in Arabic. It usually implies unbeliever in Islam, which is the sense I used it in. And since Islam is not a race, the converse cannot be a race either. Duh!

It isn't just any unbeliever: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kaffi...ir (/ˈkæf,nonbeliever", particularly of Islam.

Kaffir (/ˈkæfər/,[1] Afrikaans: "kaffer") is an ethnic slur which is used in reference to black Africans in South Africa. Derived from the Arabic word Kafir meaning "nonbeliever", particularly of Islam. In the form of cafri, it evolved from its religious origins during the pre-colonial period in Eastern and Southern Africa, where the term was adopted by colonists in reference to the monotheistic, non-Islamic Bantu peoples, and it was eventually used in reference to any black person during the Apartheid era. This designation came to be considered a pejorative by the mid-20th century, and today it is considered extremely offensive.

In 2000, the South African parliament enacted the Promotion of Prevention of Unfair Discrimination Act, which has among its primary objectives the prevention of hate speech terms such as kaffir.[2] When describing the term, the euphemism the K-word is now often used instead of kaffir.[3]

 

[Derec]

I agree that in all likelihood, the prof should not have been fired.

Agreed.

My personal observation is that perhaps students’ complaints about organic being ‘too hard’ was a pretext or a last straw.

Let's say it was an excuse and they wanted him gone for other reasons. No evidence of that, but let's assume it for the sake of argument.
That would be a horrible excuse! It puts the reputation of the university and its academic rigor in question.

On a larger scale (and I have also given the example of the Gen Chem course at a college in Georgia) dumbing down coursework so more students (and more importantly to the admins, more so-called "diverse" students) do well in those classes is going to be detrimental to the reputation of US universities at large. We are still a magnet for foreign students. But if admins are increasingly concerned with DEI over academia, how long will that go on? And how long will US continue to produce as many science Nobel Prizes as we do now?

We need a good kick in the butt. In 1957 it was Sputnik, and the ailment was creationism from the right. Now it's DEI/identity politics from the left, and what will be the wake-up call? Do Chinese have to put a man on Mars or a base on the dark side of the Moon for us to wake up and stop being "woke"?

 

[Derec]

It isn't just any unbeliever:

I can't be held responsible for how a word is used in a whole different country on a different continent.
No, I did not imply that Ilhan Omar's white husband was a south African black. Neither did I imply that he was a type of lime, to forestall other irrelevant hunting for other meanings that are not germane.

 

[Toni]

It isn't just any unbeliever:

I can't be held responsible for how a word is used in a whole different country on a different continent.
No, I did not imply that Ilhan Omar's white husband was a south African black. Neither did I imply that he was a type of lime, to forestall other irrelevant hunting for other meanings that are not germane.

I wasn't making an accusation: I was providing you with information. The word is not derogatory only in S. Africa but throughout the world.

 

[Derec]

I wasn't making an accusation: I was providing you with information. The word is not derogatory only in S. Africa but throughout the world.

Not more so than "infidel". I wear both terms with pride.

 

[Toni]

I wasn't making an accusation: I was providing you with information. The word is not derogatory only in S. Africa but throughout the world.

Not more so than "infidel". I wear both terms with pride.

Derec, it is extremely offensive! It is intended to be extremely offensive! It's equivalent to the n word in the US.

 

[Derec]

Derec, it is extremely offensive! It is intended to be extremely offensive! It's equivalent to the n word in the US.

Sigh. I disagree. Even if it is perceived as such in South Africa, we are not in South Africa.

I mean, do you want to cancel a whole-ass fruit too?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

Derec, it is extremely offensive! It is intended to be extremely offensive! It's equivalent to the n word in the US.

Sigh. I disagree. Even if it is perceived as such in South Africa, we are not in South Africa.

I mean, do you want to cancel a whole-ass fruit too?

So you are using slurs from other countries to protect one’s face? How cultural.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

I'm officially calling Georgia for Warnock, 5 to 7 point margin.

He got a 2.6% margin, not quite that. Only 0.5% of the vote remains uncounted, and extrapolation of voting patterns gives 0.025% of the total vote.

Margin was a bit shyer than I predicted, off by about 3 pts. It was closer than I thought it'd be, but Warnock's election seemed quite obvious. What is incredible is that this is really a case study for what percentage of right wing voters will actually refuse to vote for a terrible candidate. And that number is small. Trump helped give the Democrats a straight Senate majority which means control of all of the committees. Just keep in mind that the GOP has been gifting the Dems Senate seats for a while. Back to Senate control, it seems odd how 2.6 pts in one state, tens of thousands of votes is the difference between partial control and a great deal of control of the Senate. But there you have it.

Watch for the Dems to stuff as many justices onto the courts knowing they likely won't be doing that again for 4 to 6 years.

I believe this is also the first time every incumbent in the Senate won reelection since the 1910s. Which again goes to show that America is upset and they aren't going to take it anymore... and voted generally the same Congress to DC.

 

[Elixir]

It isn't just any unbeliever:

I can't be held responsible for how a word is used in a whole different country on a different continent.

Is there somewhere that “kaffir” isn’t a slur?
Do tell …

 

[Toni]

Derec, it is extremely offensive! It is intended to be extremely offensive! It's equivalent to the n word in the US.

Sigh. I disagree. Even if it is perceived as such in South Africa, we are not in South Africa.

I mean, do you want to cancel a whole-ass fruit too?

Derec, when I was a kid, a variety of slurs were used everyday by people around me--and some I used as well, not understanding them as slurs. But once I knew that they were slurs: I stopped right away.