Air Force goes to war- hilarity ensues : MilitaryStories

Air Force goes to war- hilarity ensues : MilitaryStories: "A few feet after I reached the tarmac I noticed that all the activity in the general area had ceased and every Army infantryman’s eyes were locked on us. Then I realized why. These guys were witnessing something unbelievable. A group of AF had just landed in a war zone with roller suitcases in all colors of the rainbow and their POS rifles slung with string. I could feel the squinty eyes of disdain. I would have given anything to witness the interaction when my unit made the ammo request from the Army because we forgot ours. I’m sure there are Jody calls at Army basic training about us to this day. We handed the Army much shaming material that day."

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10 Things I Never Travel Without - Nora the Explorer

10 Things I Never Travel Without - Nora the Explorer: "Although I’ve gotten relatively efficient at packing, and rarely travel with more than a carry-on or over sized backpack, there are 10 things I can’t travel without regardless of my destination:

"

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If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama - The New York Times

If Donald Trump Targets Journalists, Thank Obama - The New York Times: "Criticism of Mr. Obama’s stance on press freedom, government transparency and secrecy is hotly disputed by the White House, but many journalism groups say the record is clear. Over the past eight years, the administration has prosecuted nine cases involving whistle-blowers and leakers, compared with only three by all previous administrations combined. It has repeatedly used the Espionage Act, a relic of World War I-era red-baiting, not to prosecute spies but to go after government officials who talked to journalists.

"

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How scientists use Slack : Nature News & Comment

How scientists use Slack : Nature News & Comment: "MacArthur's lab isn't the only scientific group that swears by Slack, which was launched just 3 years ago, but now boasts more than 3 million active daily users worldwide, and which has rapidly become popular with media organizations and technology firms. Billed as 'team communication for the twenty-first century', Slack is a platform on which groups can share files, data, news and jokes, and generally track their work. It provides base-level free accounts but charges users to store more than the latest 10,000 messages. As MacArthur's lab has done, users can set up their own invitation-only pages — say, at 'mylab.slack.com' — and organize conversations into searchable public or private channels. The platform lends itself to much more informal, and thus easier, communication than e-mail, notes Konrad Karczewski, a geneticist and postdoc in MacArthur's lab. “I'm just typing whatever comes into my head, as if we were having a face-to-face conversation, but online.”

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Seth's Blog

Seth's Blog:

Your smartphone has two jobs.

On one hand, it was hired by you to accomplish certain tasks. In the scheme of things, it's a screaming bargain and a miracle.

But most of the time, your phone works for corporations, assorted acquaintances and large social networks. They've hired it to put you to work for them. You're not the customer, you're the product. Your attention and your anxiety is getting sold, cheap.

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The Quiet Poison In American Politics | The Huffington Post

The Quiet Poison In American Politics | The Huffington Post: "There’s an important difference between moral grandstanding and the simple statement of moral ideas and beliefs, and it isn’t always easy to tell the difference between the two (although, yeah, sometimes it is). But Tosi and Warmke see the social status afforded to the most efficient moral grandstanders as blocking out more thoughtful discussion.



 “We need to be able to talk to each other about morality,” Tosi says. “Or we need to be able to talk about what justice requires ― what the right thing to do is.”"



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Obama's Faith in White America Was Not Misplaced - The Atlantic

Obama's Faith in White America Was Not Misplaced - The Atlantic: "But it also seems plausible that most of the white people who voted for both Obama and his successor, and whom Coates counts among the “badge holders” of white privilege, don’t imagine themselves privileged. That they don’t know what “white innocence” is or could possibly mean. That Hillary Clinton’s loss is not a sign that America is irredeemably bigoted.

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Revealed: The safest and deadliest years in aviation history, and how 2016 rates - Independent.ie

Revealed: The safest and deadliest years in aviation history, and how 2016 rates - Independent.ie:

But, though it will come as no consolation to the friends and families of those who perished, 2016 has been one of the safest years in aviation history.

There has been a relatively small number of air accidents this year - a testament to the stringent safety standards now in place around the world.

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Actors seek posthumous protections after big-screen resurrections | Reuters

Actors seek posthumous protections after big-screen resurrections | Reuters:



"Celebrities are increasingly involved in making plans to protect their intellectual property rights," said Mark Roesler, an attorney and chairman of CMG Worldwide, an agency representing celebrity estates. "They understand that their legacy will continue beyond their lifetime."




Roesler said at least 25 of his clients are engaged in actively negotiating the use of their or their loved ones' computer-generated images in movies, television or commercials. Employment contracts govern how they can be used in a particular film or commercial, while a performer's will can address broader issues.




Some actors or heirs worry that overexposure will tarnish a celebrity's image, Roesler said. Some explicitly rule out posthumous depictions involving sex or violence, while others focus on drugs or alcohol.




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Everything Is (Still) Awesome! - POLITICO Magazine

Everything Is (Still) Awesome! - POLITICO Magazine: "The economy grew at a solid 3.5 percent clip in the third quarter, and is now significantly larger than it was before the Great Recession. The jobless rate is down to 4.6 percent, which almost qualifies as full employment. The stock market and high school graduation rate are at all-time highs, while the uninsured rate, abortion rate and teen pregnancy rate are at all-time lows. Oil imports, crime and health care inflation are also near historic lows, with carbon emissions, foreclosures and illegal immigration falling, too. Meanwhile, retirement assets, auto sales and renewable power have skyrocketed, and the once-teetering Medicare Trust Fund has stabilized. We live in the world’s richest and most powerful nation; we can access most of humanity’s accumulated knowledge on machines we carry in our pockets; and we can now binge-watch better TV shows than ever before."

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minustwofish comments on Teaching a 4 year old the ways of Stocism?

minustwofish comments on Teaching a 4 year old the ways of Stocism?:

When a child throws a tantrum, and the parents are frustrated and don't know how to manage it, the kid feels insecure, as he counts on the parents on being strong unmovable pillars of stability. The best response is for the parent to be Stoic. Have clear boundaries, including boundaries of how he is allowed to express his frustrations (and what is not ok). Let him express his frustrations in this acceptable context.

For example, when my son throws a tantrum, I validate the reason for his frustration, sometimes I can get him to talk about why he is frustrated. He knows that if he doesn't communicate in a way I understand, nothing will get done as he wants. I just ask him repeatedly to calm down and tell me in a way I understand. If he doesn't do it, I count 1,2,3, and enforce the consequence. He knows the count, so he calms down usually by 2, and we sit down and talk for a bit. This takes a lot of time and flexibility on my part.

An important thing is to be clear to myself about the difference between "I need him to do X" and "I want him to learn X." Confusing them is MY own fault, and leads to bad parenting. I find that more often than not, if I'm flexible and budget time, i can focus on teaching moments for him. If you try to do both (Get him to do X in the same instance you are trying to teach him the importance of X) you get frustrated, and give a confusing message, which makes the tantrum worse.

This is hard work, there is no magical aphorism you can tell them so they pursue virtue. However, you acting Stoic models how to process frustrations. They do see what you do. In fact, tantrums often are their way of testing this, by seeing how you deal with their frustration, they learn how they themselves deal with them.

One time my son was frustrated he couldn't build a cool lego airplane he wanted... the parts kept coming apart. he yelled in frustration. He knew by then that if he did that, i wouldn't help him. if he asked nicely, i would. so i gave him the look "hey buddy, is there a problem? what's up with this tone?" and he told me he needed space, he said he needed to be alone. He sat on the floor of his room, breathed deeply for a bit, and I let him doing other things around the house (while keeping my ear attentive). Then he came out of his room saying he felt better now and was behaving well, and now he wanted to play with me. This was a big victory for him.

In the end, in a tantrum the kid has a lot of control about his chaos. If you fight for that control, you empower the tantrum even more. Don't try to change the kid. Change your actions, and the kid will follow.

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Universal Basic Income should die after 2016 - Business Insider

Universal Basic Income should die after 2016 - Business Insider: "The universal basic income — a universal payment to every adult, designed to support a basic living standard regardless of whether the recipient works — has never been a broadly popular idea.




But it has become subject of fascination for policy wonks across the ideological spectrum because of the goals it intends to serve: decoupling subsistence from wage labor (a goal of the left), replacing complex safety-net programs that often create disincentives to work (a goal of the right), and preparing for a future in which automation reduces the demand for labor.




But after watching voters act out their rage at the establishment this year, I have become convinced that a UBI is a very bad idea that would further destabilize the global order — and that the assumptions that had policy wonks interested in the UBI in the first place are bad, too."



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Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation - The New York Times

Russians No Longer Dispute Olympic Doping Operation - The New York Times: "Russian officials are for the first time conceding the existence of one of the biggest conspiracies in sports history: a far-reaching doping operation that implicated scores of Russian athletes, tainting not just the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi but also the entire Olympic movement.



 Over several days of interviews here with The New York Times, the Russian officials said they no longer disputed a damning set of facts that detailed a doping program with few, if any, historical precedents.

“It was an institutional conspiracy,” Anna Antseliovich, the acting director general of Russia’s national antidoping agency, said of years’ worth of cheating schemes."



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Really interesting data on TV habits and preferences

‘Duck Dynasty’ vs. ‘Modern Family’: 50 Maps of the U.S. Cultural Divide - The New York Times: "When we looked at how many active Facebook users in a given ZIP code “liked” certain TV shows, we found that the 50 most-liked shows clustered into three groups with distinct geographic distributions. Together they reveal a national culture split among three regions: cities and their suburbs; rural areas; and what we’re calling the extended Black Belt — a swath that extends from the Mississippi River along the Eastern Seaboard up to Washington, but also including city centers and other places with large nonwhite populations.

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Bardfinn comments on New Google algorithm removes Holocaust denial sites from search results

Bardfinn comments on New Google algorithm removes Holocaust denial sites from search results:

Google's business is in cataloguing the knowledge of the world.

Holocaust denial is anti-knowledge. It is noise. It is a collection of bullshit, smears, emotional appeals, convolute fallacies and artless dodges.

The methods of rhetoric that were pioneered and explored in Holocaust Denial were directly imported into the denial that tobacco smoke causes cancer and birth defects, denial that asbestos causes cancer, denial that coal mining causes black lung, denial that black mold causes chronic illnesses, denial of chronic illnesses caused by poorly-studied medications, claims that vaccines cause autism, and denial of anthropogenic global warming.

Typically, when this is pointed out, there will promptly be someone along, commenting [Citation Needed]. That is always the first step of denial — shifting the burden of proof. The Kehoe paradigm. Well, the jury is no longer out, and the piles of evidence are mountainous.

This isn't to say that there is nothing to learn in studying Holocaust denial. There is a lot to learn in studying Holocaust denial — it's a vast and stunning array of the multifarious ways humans lie to themselves and to others.

Holocaust denial isn't skepticism. It isn't history. It isn't a science. It isn't a discipline. It provides no predictive or explanatory value.

It is a smokescreen of lies.

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Three minutes with Hans Rosling will change your mind about the world : Nature News & Comment

Three minutes with Hans Rosling will change your mind about the world : Nature News & Comment: "As Rosling travelled, he trained African graduate students who specialized in konzo, and together they found that proper cassava processing was the most realistic method of short-term prevention. However, the message often fell on deaf ears because of hunger and conflict. Rosling became convinced that the real root of konzo resided not in cassava, but in economic devastation. “Extreme poverty produces diseases. Evil forces hide there,” he says. “It is where Ebola starts. It’s where Boko Haram hides girls. It’s where konzo occurs.”

"

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A history of global living conditions in 5 charts - Our World In Data

A history of global living conditions in 5 charts - Our World In Data: "Unfortunately the media is overly obsessed with reporting single events and with things that go wrong and does not nearly pay enough attention to the slow developments that reshape our world. With this empirical data on the reduction of poverty we can make it more concrete what a media that would report global development would look like. The headline could be “The number of people in extreme poverty fell by 130,000 since yesterday” and they wouldn’t have this headline once, but since – on average – there were 130,000 people fewer in extreme poverty every single day they should have had this headline every single day since 1990.

"



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defcon1959 comments on Coal jobs were lost to automation, not trade

defcon1959 comments on Coal jobs were lost to automation, not trade: "Coal wasn't killed by Obama's EPA. It was killed by cheap fracking gas (which Trump loves). You can build a town and a community around a coal mine that hires hundreds of workers. A fracking gas well head, on the other hand, is just two guys coming out every three months to perform monitoring and maintenance. Existing coal power plants are old and at the end of their operational lives, so everyone is planning to decommission them within the next decade. But gas is cheap and plentiful, so nobody is building new coal burning plants anymore, only combined cycle gas turbines. Entire nations such as Canada and France are banning coal use after 2020. And don't look for China and India to make up for demand. Coal use in both these nations has peaked.
"

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What’s work for? – Medium

What’s work for? – Medium: "Where can I do the most good, using the skills I have? How can I help the most people? Sometimes the size of it all feels overwhelming. Increasingly I have a vision of what doing good work looks like. Part of what I’ll spend this next year doing is talking and writing about that vision so I can connect with even more people like me. People who feel that the purpose of work and life is people, helping other people, as much as we can.
"

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The American Leader in the Islamic State - The Atlantic

The American Leader in the Islamic State - The Atlantic:

He stared at the magnolia tree in the front yard and said nothing. I told him what I knew—that his son, John, was Yahya. Tim sat, lips pursed, and with a shake of his head began to speak. “Every step of his life he’s made the wrong decisions, from high school onward,” Tim told me. “It is beyond me to understand why he threw what he had away.” Yahya’s two sisters have both earned advanced degrees, he added, as if to demonstrate that it wasn’t failed parenting that led his only son to drop out of school, wage holy war, and plot mass murder.

“He was always the youngest kid in the class, and always a follower,” Tim said.

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Explanation of Vote at the Adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on the Situation in the Middle East | usun.state.gov

Explanation of Vote at the Adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 on the Situation in the Middle East | usun.state.gov: "But in reality this vote for us was not straightforward, because of where it is taking place – at the United Nations. For the simple truth is that for as long as Israel has been a member of this institution, Israel has been treated differently from other nations at the United Nations. And not only in decades past – such as in the infamous resolution that the General Assembly adopted in 1975, with the support of the majority of Member States, officially determining that, “Zionism is a form of racism” – but also in 2016, this year. One need only look at the 18 resolutions against Israel adopted during the UN General Assembly in September; or the 12 Israel-specific resolutions adopted this year in the Human Rights Council – more than those focused on Syria, North Korea, Iran, and South Sudan put together – to see that in 2016 Israel continues to be treated differently from other Member States.

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Democracy Is Dying as Technocrats Watch | Foreign Policy

Democracy Is Dying as Technocrats Watch | Foreign Policy: "Experts often cannot agree on “what works” or even what already happened. Some experts could still credibly argue that in the long run democracies worldwide outperform dictatorships on average, but there is disagreement, and few have the patience to wait for long-run world averages to reassert themselves. Which is why the principal defense of democratic values must be that they are desirable in themselves as values — something technocrats are not trained to do.

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Letters of Note: The most extraordinary scenes

Letters of Note: The most extraordinary scenes:

 was in my dug-out reading a paper and the mail was being dished out. It was reported that the Germans had lighted their trenches up all along our front. We had been calling to one another for some time Xmas wishes and other things. I went out and they shouted "no shooting" and then somehow the scene became a peaceful one. All our men got out of their trenches and sat on the parapet, the Germans did the same, and they talked to one another in English and broken English. I got on top of the trench and talked German and asked them to sing a German Volkslied, which they did, then our men sang quite well and each side clapped and cheered the other.

I asked a German who sang a solo to sing one of Schumann's songs, so he sang The Two Grenadiers splendidly. Our men were a good audience and really enjoyed his singing.

Then Pope and I walked across and held a conversation with the German officer in command.

One of his men introduced us properly, he asked my name and then presented me to his officer. I gave the latter permission to bury some German dead who are lying in between us, and we agreed to have no shooting until 12 midnight to-morrow. We talked together, 10 or more Germans gathered round. I was almost in their lines within a yard or so. We saluted each other, he thanked me for permission to bury his dead, and we fixed up how many men were to do it, and that otherwise both sides must remain in their trenches.

Then we wished one another goodnight and a good night's rest, and a happy Xmas and parted with a salute.



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How Social Isolation Is Killing Us - The New York Times

How Social Isolation Is Killing Us - The New York Times: "My patient and I both knew he was dying.

Not the long kind of dying that stretches on for months or years. He would die today. Maybe tomorrow. And if not tomorrow, the next day. Was there someone I should call? Someone he wanted to see?

Not a one, he told me. No immediate family. No close friends. He had a niece down South, maybe, but they hadn’t spoken in years.



 For me, the sadness of his death was surpassed only by the sadness of his solitude."



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Stop the Hand-Wringing About Aleppo | Foreign Policy

Stop the Hand-Wringing About Aleppo | Foreign Policy:

However, I don’t see how a negotiated settlement (and it’s clear that many hard-line rebel groups would not have taken part in a deal anyway) would have led to anything other than a Libya-like outcome in rebel areas, with Islamist militants rapidly taking over governance. Unless, again, the West had put its own troops on the ground.

This seems to me to be the crucial point, to which all roads lead. Despite the complexity and anguish of the situation in Syria, the bottom line is whether or not the West is prepared to put its own troops on the ground to win the war and secure the peace.

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Feds indict two men in alleged $6 million ‘porno-trolling’ extortion scheme - The Washington Post

Feds indict two men in alleged $6 million ‘porno-trolling’ extortion scheme - The Washington Post: "“Plaintiffs do have a right to assert their intellectual-property rights, so long as they do it right,” Wright said in his 2013 order. “But Plaintiffs’ filing of cases using the same boilerplate complaint against dozens of defendants raised the Court’s alert. It was when the Court realized Plaintiffs engaged their cloak of shell companies and fraud that the Court went to battle stations.”

"

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The Management Secret That Makes SNL’s Chaotic Writers Room Succeed | Fast Company | Business + Innovation

The Management Secret That Makes SNL’s Chaotic Writers Room Succeed | Fast Company | Business + Innovation:

You’ve been invited to join one of two teams of comedy writers working on a TV show.

The first group, Team A, is composed of exceptionally smart comedians. They’re polite and courteous to each other, and they take turns speaking. No one interrupts. When another person veers off topic and starts telling a funny story, a colleague gently reminds him to focus on the script, then steers the conversation back on track. The team is efficient. The meeting ends exactly when scheduled.

The second group, Team B, is evenly divided between successful writers and young comedians who’ve never worked on a television show before. Teammates jump in and out of the discussion haphazardly. Some ramble, others bring up half-formed ideas. They all talk so much that it’s sometimes hard to follow the conversation. When a team member abruptly changes the topic and starts telling a funny story, the rest of the group follows her off the agenda. The meeting doesn’t actually end: Everyone sits around and gossips.

Which group will be more successful in putting together the show?

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The Children of the Opioid Crisis - WSJ

The Children of the Opioid Crisis - WSJ:

Social workers say the scale of the trouble exceeds anything they saw during the crack-cocaine or methamphetamine crises of previous decades. Heroin and other opioids are so addictive they can overwhelm even the strongest parental instinct to care for a child, doctors and social workers say.

The recent black-market arrival of synthetic opioids many times more potent than heroin, such as fentanyl and carfentanil, has only made the crisis worse.

Images of parents overdosing in front of their children have gone viral. Authorities in one Ohio town posted a photo of a child in the back seat of an SUV with two adults unconscious in the front, saying they wanted to raise awareness about the desperate circumstances many children face.

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The ethic of responsibility in decline

http://web.cs.ucdavis.edu/~rogaway/papers/moral-en.pdf



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Emmie Mears - Here, America. Have some context. This is what you...

Emmie Mears - Here, America. Have some context. This is what you...:

Here, America. Have some context. This is what you look like. Not that sea of red with little blue islands I've seen making the rounds. Not a checkered map of red and blue states. 

There is not a state in this country that isn't purple. 



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Deggit comments on What do you find most annoying in Reddit culture?

Deggit comments on What do you find most annoying in Reddit culture?: "The faster people can read something, the more likely they'll upvote it which means other people see it and upvote it. I do recognize the value of getting to your point fast, but most of the ideas that get upvoted are easily digestible. They get upvoted because you don't have to consider them, only recognize them."



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Nine New Findings About Inequality in the United States - The New York Times

Nine New Findings About Inequality in the United States - The New York Times:


In a paper published last week, Thomas Piketty, Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman expand their earlier work, examining how taxes and government spending affect income inequality.



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Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded - NYTimes.com

Dalai Lama: Behind Our Anxiety, the Fear of Being Unneeded - NYTimes.com:

In the United States, Britain and across the European Continent, people are convulsed with political frustration and anxiety about the future. Refugees and migrants clamor for the chance to live in these safe, prosperous countries, but those who already live in those promised lands report great uneasiness about their own futures that seems to border on hopelessness.

Why?

A small hint comes from interesting research about how people thrive. In one shocking experiment, researchers found that senior citizens who didn’t feel useful to others were nearly three times as likely to die prematurely as those who did feel useful. This speaks to a broader human truth: We all need to be needed.

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Forget AT&T. The Real Monopolies Are Google and Facebook. - The New York Times

Forget AT&T. The Real Monopolies Are Google and Facebook. - The New York Times: "The proposed merger of AT&T and Time Warner has drawn censure from both sides of the political aisle, as well as a Senate hearing that looked into the potential for the combined company to become a monopoly.

But if we are going to examine media monopolies, we should look first at Silicon Valley, not the fading phone business."

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John Glenn’s War Nickname Was “Old Magnet Ass” For All The Right Reasons - The Drive

John Glenn’s War Nickname Was “Old Magnet Ass” For All The Right Reasons - The Drive: "In the end maybe John Glenn’s passing will be a stark reminder of what the greatest among us are capable of, when the right medium for fostering massive success is put into place. In the meantime, we can also all admire a special man that became a hero so many times over, and that accomplishing amazing things became the norm not the exception.



 I mean you don’t get the name “Old Magnet Ass” for playing it safe right?"



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Ohio Takes Page from 18F to Launch Inclusive Procurement, Attract New Bidders

Ohio Takes Page from 18F to Launch Inclusive Procurement, Attract New Bidders:

Rather than struggling through a typically lengthy RFP process, Davis said he and his team began looking at how to streamline the process. The CIO looked to the disruptive, but effective, team within the federal General Services Administration (GSA) known as 18F for guidance. 18F made waves in the federal procurement space with tools like micro procurements and new vendor on-ramping techniques.

The outcome was two pages of notes and suggested changes that could curtail the lofty requirements and attract a greater diversity of bidders. Though conversations did not ultimately evolve into a cooperative agreement between the state and the federal innovation agency, Davis said their suggestions were an invaluable piece of the process.

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Trevor Noah: Let’s Not Be Divided. Divided People Are Easier to Rule. - The New York Times

Trevor Noah: Let’s Not Be Divided. Divided People Are Easier to Rule. - The New York Times: "When I took over “The Daily Show” from Jon Stewart in 2015, I was surprised to learn that my job as a late-night comedy host was not merely to entertain but to eviscerate — to attack, crush, demolish and destroy the opponents of liberal, progressive America. Very quickly, people from some quarters — mostly those same liberal progressives — criticized me for not maintaining the minimum acceptable levels of daily evisceration that were established by my predecessor.

"



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MiltownKBs comments on [Video] As a child, growing up with this man was one of the best things to ever happen to me and millions of other children.

MiltownKBs comments on [Video] As a child, growing up with this man was one of the best things to ever happen to me and millions of other children.: "I moved to Pittsburgh 5 months ago. I was unaware that was where he was based from, and that the city had a reverence for him. I was walking along the north shore during summer, and I heard this music wafting through the air...and I wondered who the hell was playing the Mister Rogers theme along the shore, nestled among major sports stadiums. I walked closer and closer to the music, and found that there was a Mister Rogers memorial loudly playing not only his theme, but also various songs he sang over the years, including a statue of him tying his shoe while smiling at you. I had to stop and collect myself as I shed a few tears, looking out over a city that paid homage to a man that was a huge part of my childhood, that we should all strive to be a little more like.
"



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Metro Inspectors Feared Retaliation For Reporting Faulty Tracks, Interrogations Reveal | WAMU

Metro Inspectors Feared Retaliation For Reporting Faulty Tracks, Interrogations Reveal | WAMU: "Metro track inspectors said fear of retaliation by immediate supervisors and middle management led them to produce years of inspection reports that failed to depict accurately the severity of deteriorating tracks. These track conditions contributed to the slow-speed derailment of a Silver Line train in Northern Virginia on July 29, according to transcripts of interrogations published by the National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday.

"

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Going Positive - The New Yorker

Going Positive - The New Yorker: "“Long before I was struck with cancer, I felt something stirring in American society,” [Lee Atwater] wrote. “It was a sense among the people of the country—Republicans and Democrats alike—that something was missing from their lives, something crucial. I was trying to position the Republican Party to take advantage of it. But I wasn’t exactly sure what ‘it’ was. My illness helped me to see that what was missing in society is what was missing in me: a little heart, a lot of brotherhood.” With forgivable grandiosity, he called for the leaders of the nineties to “speak to this spiritual vacuum at the heart of American society, this tumor of the soul.”"



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I was a Turkish child bride. We need to be protected from rapists, not married to them | Anonymous | Opinion | The Guardian

I was a Turkish child bride. We need to be protected from rapists, not married to them | Anonymous | Opinion | The Guardian:

The change in the law being proposed is cultural, not moral, and the government knows this. It argues it’s for the good of the raped child and her offspring – that it will make her more respectable, save her honour and keep the family together. But actually it’s all about getting the man off the hook. If they change the law, men will be able to rape girls and then say, “I’ll just marry her.” And what’s the good of that? Once you’re married, you’re given the licence to be raped, again and again and again. At least if it wasn’t legal then you wouldn’t have to be married. At least you wouldn’t be sentenced to be your attacker’s sex slave.

Condemning a girl to a lifetime of rape is taking everything from her – her youth, her future, her happiness. When I heard the news, I knew I had to share my story. I want people to know what it’s like to go through this.

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mCL3Ksi.jpg (1600×1067)

mCL3Ksi.jpg (1600×1067):

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MyPenisIsaWMD comments on CBC: The real cost of the world's most expensive drug (2015) - Alexion makes a lifesaving drug that costs patients $500K a year. Patients hire PR firm to make a plea to the media not realizing that the PR firm is actually owned by Alexion.

MyPenisIsaWMD comments on CBC: The real cost of the world's most expensive drug (2015) - Alexion makes a lifesaving drug that costs patients $500K a year. Patients hire PR firm to make a plea to the media not realizing that the PR firm is actually owned by Alexion.: "please recall that for the actual people who founded this company and for the scientists doing the research, they are most often driven by a desire to cure horrific diseases and change the world. The money aspect is a necessary evil that good people need to navigate. Consider that a typical PhD scientist makes about 1/4 as much as a physician and spends a similar amount of time in education (13 years for me from BS to end of postdoc). The people actually researching new drugs are doing it because they are passionate about human health. Not because they are 'shills'."

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The Last Diplomat - WSJ

The Last Diplomat - WSJ: "“If somebody tells you something in one conversation, you might write that up and it becomes classified,” he said. “But that doesn’t mean the next time you see them that you can’t talk about what you’d already talked about.”

"

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In Aleppo, I Saw Why Assad Is Winning - POLITICO Magazine

In Aleppo, I Saw Why Assad Is Winning - POLITICO Magazine: "When I met with Assad days earlier, he posited, “Let’s suppose that these allegations are correct, and this president was killing his own people and committed crimes…after five years and a half, who supported me?” From my brief visit to Aleppo, it was clear that it was not Syria’s silent majority. On the journey to the city, I saw a Hezbollah funeral procession outside Homs. In Aleppo, Kurdish fighters from the People’s Protection Units held positions in Bani Zayd, a neighborhood which houses no Kurds. Iranian backed Shi’i militias actively post their exploits on social media. And though the skies were quiet during my visit, Russian fighter jets have been pummeling rebel held areas of east Aleppo for months. Assad is winning this war because his backers have zealously embraced the use of overwhelming force while his adversaries, and their supporters, have not.

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Virginia schools ban 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Huckleberry...

Virginia schools ban 'To Kill a Mockingbird,' 'Huckleberry...: "The decision to remove "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" by Mark Twain and "To Kill A Mockingbird" by Harper Lee came after a parent filed a complaint, WAVY reported. The parent cited excessive racial slurs as the reason for wanting the books banned, Superintendent Warren Holland told the news station.

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Viral James Mattis Email About Reading - Business Insider

Viral James Mattis Email About Reading - Business Insider: "The problem with being too busy to read is that you learn by experience (or by your men’s experience), i.e. the hard way. By reading, you learn through others’ experiences, generally a better way to do business, especially in our line of work where the consequences of incompetence are so final for young men.

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Another Mass Grave Dug by ISIS in Iraq, and a Ghastly Ritual Renewed - The New York Times

Another Mass Grave Dug by ISIS in Iraq, and a Ghastly Ritual Renewed - The New York Times: "For Iraqis, the pain of not knowing can be the worst of all. The International Commission on Missing Persons, a Netherlands-based organization, has estimated that up to a million Iraqis have gone missing in recent history. That encompasses the war between Iran and Iraq, the mass killings ordered by Mr. Hussein after a Shiite uprising in 1991, the Iraqi government’s Anfal chemical-weapon strikes against the Kurds in the late 1980s, and the more recent sectarian civil war of the last decade.

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Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military | Environment | The Guardian

Climate change will stir 'unimaginable' refugee crisis, says military | Environment | The Guardian: "Brig Gen Stephen Cheney, a member of the US Department of State’s foreign affairs policy board and CEO of the American Security Project, said: “Climate change could lead to a humanitarian crisis of epic proportions. We’re already seeing migration of large numbers of people around the world because of food scarcity, water insecurity and extreme weather, and this is set to become the new normal.

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What are you proud of, but can't tell anyone who knows you? : AskReddit

What are you proud of, but can't tell anyone who knows you? : AskReddit: "So I double down on her request now: Don't let an internet stranger explain to your family why you're gone."



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You_Are_All_Absurd comments on The 'alt-right' splinters as supporters and critics agree it was white supremacy all along

You_Are_All_Absurd comments on The 'alt-right' splinters as supporters and critics agree it was white supremacy all along:

What White Nationalists Don't Get

A common and seemingly reasonable argument for white pride or white nationalism is "why can't I be proud of my culture?"

Well, you can. Always have been able to. We have Irish pride celebrations, we have German drinking festivals, we have Serbian food festivals. Any European culture you can think of has multiple organizations in North America dedicated to taking pride in their heritage and NO ONE gives them shit for it.

But, you see, when you start talking "white pride", that's not a culture. That's a skin colour. There is no white culture, never was. There is no pan-European culture, never was. Europe is a continent, not a culture or ethnicity.

Now, some of you are probably about to go "But wait! Black pride! How is that okay?" Well, easy. Go find a black person and ask them if their ancestors were slaves. When you find one who says "yes", proceed to ask them "what country in Africa were your ancestors from?" Do you know what their answer will probably be? "I don't know." This is because their culture was taken from them. It was beaten out of them. They were enslaved, Christianized, and then white washed. The one unifying feature they have as a people is that history of slavery and that history of being black. They can't have Liberian pride, or Congolese pride, or "insert African country" pride because they have no fucking idea where their ancestors came from other than the broad region of West Africa.

Meanwhile us white people can often trace our ancestors to specific cities and regions. I can trace my mother's maiden name to a single fucking village in Ireland. I know where I came from. I don't have white culture, I have Irish culture.

So that's why white pride makes you an asshole but black pride actually makes sense.

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Why Did Trump Supporters Deny Our Stories For Anger & Fear? – Muslim Girl

Why Did Trump Supporters Deny Our Stories For Anger & Fear? – Muslim Girl:

When I was four years old, I used to have a recurring nightmare: I would be walking with one of my great-aunts near my mother’s childhood home in Northwest Bangladesh. As we passed an open field, she snatched me up in her arms and started running back to the house. I looked back only to see rows of soldiers marching, guns pointed straight at us.

The dream never went beyond that. I always woke up with the need to keep running, to escape.

And even though I didn’t live through it, I knew that the nightmare was inspired by one of my mother’s stories from the 1971 Bangladeshi War of Liberation: her first memory—from when she herself was four years old—of being carried away from burning buildings and gun-toting Pakistani soldiers by her aunt, the same woman from my dream.

How do you explain waking up terrified by memories that aren’t your own? How do you relive experiences that you’ve never had?

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Netflix’s 3% Review: Season 1 of Brazil’s Hunger Games Proves Unique | IndieWire

Netflix’s 3% Review: Season 1 of Brazil’s Hunger Games Proves Unique | IndieWire: "What would a Season 2 of “3%” look like? It’s hard to say based on the finale, but the ride that was Season 1 felt me surprised and impressed. Yes, if you don’t already speak Portuguese, the subtitles are a commitment, but for any fan of this particular genre it’s an easy recommend — as well as a nice reminder for Netflix that they don’t need to break the bank, budget-wise, to create a compelling series.

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Why I Left White Nationalism - NYTimes.com

Why I Left White Nationalism - NYTimes.com: "Mr. Trump’s victory must make all Americans acknowledge that the choice of embracing or rejecting multiculturalism is not abstract. I know this better than most, because I’ve followed both paths. It is the choice of embracing or rejecting our own people.

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NurRauch comments on I've just been hired as a public defender. Any advice for this job?

NurRauch comments on I've just been hired as a public defender. Any advice for this job?: "Prepare yourself for failure. A LOT of failure. You will have never failed at anything as much as you're going to fail at this job. Again, we're trauma surgeons. We break bones to save the heart or the brain. A lot of the times our patients are gonna die on us mid-operation. You're going to be doing very dangerous surgeries that have less than a 10% success rating. Feel absolutely free to cry and bitch and moan about all the losing you're about to do, but remember that it's not your fault. It's just the way the system is for so many of our clients. Many of the clients will personally hold you accountable -- just let them. It's not your job to convince them you're a good lawyer or a caring lawyer. It's just your job to try to help them. And often you'll find that trying and failing is actually seen in their eyes as winning their case. Hopefully you too will also come to understand what "winning" really means in this job. If you've given it a few years and nothing feels like winning unless you get a full acquittal on all charges, then you might need to re-evaluate how worthwhile you're finding the job. My inclination, though, is that you find you love it.
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Constitutional Duties Precede Party Loyalties and Policy Goals – Medium

Constitutional Duties Precede Party Loyalties and Policy Goals – Medium: "Senators aren’t given the binary choice of jumping on the Trump Train or reflexively filibustering everything, every day, for the next four years. Our first job is to defend the Constitution (independent of party label) and to work for limited government and the nearly unlimited potential of every American."

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Navy SEALs explain consequences of ego - Business Insider

Navy SEALs explain consequences of ego - Business Insider: "Former Navy SEALs and "Extreme Ownership" authors Jocko Willink and Leif Babin talk about ego and how it can ruin your chance at effective leadership. 

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The Education of a Libertarian | Cato Unbound

The Education of a Libertarian | Cato Unbound: "A better metaphor is that we are in a deadly race between politics and technology. The future will be much better or much worse, but the question of the future remains very open indeed. We do not know exactly how close this race is, but I suspect that it may be very close, even down to the wire. Unlike the world of politics, in the world of technology the choices of individuals may still be paramount. The fate of our world may depend on the effort of a single person who builds or propagates the machinery of freedom that makes the world safe for capitalism.

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The End of Identity Liberalism - The New York Times

The End of Identity Liberalism - The New York Times: "Finally, the whitelash thesis is convenient because it absolves liberals of not recognizing how their own obsession with diversity has encouraged white, rural, religious Americans to think of themselves as a disadvantaged group whose identity is being threatened or ignored. Such people are not actually reacting against the reality of our diverse America (they tend, after all, to live in homogeneous areas of the country). But they are reacting against the omnipresent rhetoric of identity, which is what they mean by “political correctness.” Liberals should bear in mind that the first identity movement in American politics was the Ku Klux Klan, which still exists. Those who play the identity game should be prepared to lose it.

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Fugitive kills U.S. marshal serving warrant in rural Georgia - NY Daily News

Fugitive kills U.S. marshal serving warrant in rural Georgia - NY Daily News: "A fugitive accused of the attempted murder of police officers gunned down a U.S. Marshals deputy commander trying to arrest him at a Georgia mobile home park Friday, officials said.

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The Old and the Bold: Spotting a Sniper - YouTube

The Old and the Bold: Spotting a Sniper - YouTube: "Ex-Army Commando Roy Cadman describes how to spot a sniper by listening to the sound of the bullet fire, and how such a skill comes only from experience.
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I’m still fresh out of ideas – Fredrik deBoer

I’m still fresh out of ideas – Fredrik deBoer: "I have seen, with my own two eyes, a 33 year old Hispanic man, an Iraq war veteran who had served three tours and had become an outspoken critic of our presence there, be lectured about patriarchy by an affluent 22 year old white liberal arts college student, because he had said that other vets have to “man up” and speak out about the war. Because apparently we have to pretend that we don’t know how metaphorical language works or else we’re bad people. I watched his eyes glaze over as this woman with $300 shoes berated him. I saw that. Myself.

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Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them. - Vox

Research says there are ways to reduce racial bias. Calling people racist isn’t one of them. - Vox: "“Telling people they’re racist, sexist, and xenophobic is going to get you exactly nowhere,” said Alana Conner, executive director of Stanford University’s Social Psychological Answers to Real-World Questions Center. “It’s such a threatening message. One of the things we know from social psychology is when people feel threatened, they can’t change, they can’t listen.”

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How We Broke Democracy (But Not in the Way You Think) – Medium

How We Broke Democracy (But Not in the Way You Think) – Medium:

Over the last several weeks I have watched dozens of my friends on Facebook de-friend one another. I have seen plenty of self-righteous posts flow across my news feed, along with deeply felt messages of fear, anger and more recently — existential despair.

On the other side I see reflections of joy, levity, gratitude and optimism for the future. It could not be more stark.

The thing that both groups have in common is very apparent: A sense of profound confusion about how the other side cannot understand their perspective.

This seemed to be building on a trend in social media that hit full tilt in the lead up to the election: Political divisions between us are greater than they ever have been, and are still getting worse by the day.

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Wrong_on_Internet comments on Obama: Congress stopped me from helping Trump supporters

Wrong_on_Internet comments on Obama: Congress stopped me from helping Trump supporters:

Trade Adjustment Assistance to retrain workers displaced by free trade: blocked by Republicans.

http://www.aflcio.org/Blog/Political-Action-Legislation/House-Leaders-Block-Trade-Adjustment-Assistance

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2015/06/16/can-a-trade-bargain-be-put-back-together-again/

Community College: Proposed free community college program; blocked by Republicans.

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/237108-senators-block-free-community-college

http://www.cnn.com/2015/01/09/politics/obama-community-college-fate/

Infrastructure Bill: Proposed $60b on highway, rail, transit and airport improvements + $10 billion in seed money for infrastructure bank; blocked by Republicans

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-blocks-60-billion-infrastructure-plan/2011/11/03/gIQACXjajM_story.html

http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/news/washington/story/2011-11-03/obama-infrastructure-bill/51063852/1

Jobs Bill: to "give tax breaks for companies that "insource' jobs to the U.S. from overseas while eliminating tax deductions for companies that move jobs abroad"; blocked by Republicans

http://www.cnn.com/2012/07/19/politics/senate-bring-jobs-home-bill-blocked/

http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/senate/213780-republicans-block-bill-to-end-tax-breaks-for-outsourcing

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Bumped into this gentleman outside of an... - Mariam Mokhtarzada

Bumped into this gentleman outside of an... - Mariam Mokhtarzada: "As we parted ways, he said that he would fight to define my rights and protect my children. Several people stopped us to say how beautiful it was to see us talking to each other. They said it gave them hope.



Let's not demonize each other. Let's build bridges to understand someone even if we don't agree with their perspective. We have to slow down to connect to the biker, the Muslim, the man on the street. The more we connect with each other the less we each other as the "other"."



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Red, Blue and Divided: Six Views of America - The New York Times

Red, Blue and Divided: Six Views of America - The New York Times: "In some ways, the echo chamber was the winner of this election. Here we are, deeply connected. And yet red America is typing away to red America, and blue America is typing away to blue America. The day after the election, some people said the echo chamber had begun to feel like a prison.

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Best way to open a bottle

003 - YouTube:

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they’re going to keep losing – Fredrik deBoer

they’re going to keep losing – Fredrik deBoer:

People don’t seem to understand this: you need to adapt and change and look outside of your tiny enclaves not out of some moral obligation, but because you are losing on every imaginable front. You don’t have to get in touch with the rest of the country because that’s the right thing to do. You have to get in touch with the rest of the country because they’re kicking your ass. The Republicans will control the House, the Senate, and the presidency, have the chance to appoint at least one and probably several Supreme Court justices, run 68 out of 99 state legislative houses, and hold 31 gubernatorial seats. That is domination on an unimaginable level. Every minute you spend signal-boosting people who say that it’s Republicans who have to get on board with liberal values is a minute you’re not doing anything to change that condition.

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President-elect Trump speaks to a divided country on 60 Minutes - CBS News

President-elect Trump speaks to a divided country on 60 Minutes - CBS News: "Nor he said had he heard about reports of racial slurs and personal threats against African Americans, Latinos and gays by some of his supporters.




Donald Trump: I am very surprised to hear that-- I hate to hear that, I mean I hate to hear that--



Lesley Stahl: But you do hear it?




Donald Trump: I don’t hear it—I saw, I saw one or two instances…




Lesley Stahl: On social media?




Donald Trump: But I think it’s a very small amount. Again, I think it’s--




Lesley Stahl: Do you want to say anything to those people?




Donald Trump: I would say don’t do it, that’s terrible, ‘cause I’m gonna bring this country together.




 Lesley Stahl: They’re harassing Latinos, Muslims--




Donald Trump: I am so saddened to hear that. And I say, “Stop it.” If it-- if it helps. I will say this, and I will say right to the cameras: Stop it."



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The Democrats Screwed Up - The New York Times

The Democrats Screwed Up - The New York Times:

Liberals miss this by being illiberal. They shame not just the racists and sexists who deserve it but all who disagree. A 64-year-old Southern woman not onboard with marriage equality finds herself characterized as a hateful boob. Never mind that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton weren’t themselves onboard just five short years ago.

Political correctness has morphed into a moral purity that may feel exhilarating but isn’t remotely tactical. It’s a handmaiden to smugness and sanctimony, undermining its own goals.

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Stop Calling the United States a "Banana Republic"

Stop Calling the United States a "Banana Republic": "The cavalier use of the term, by everyone from Robby Mook to Vladimir Putin, is morally obtuse

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Trump is a populist in a suit and tie, not a jackbooted fascist

Trump is a populist in a suit and tie, not a jackbooted fascist:

In the 1880s, as today, the result of stagnation was not fascism but populism.

Fascism was all about violence: marching men in uniforms, battered opponents, rearmament, war. The violence of populism is mostly verbal. Populist leaders are demagogues in suits, not jackboots.

They insult their opponents, they don’t break their legs. They tend to be against overseas wars. This is not to say that Donald Trump is identical to William Jennings Bryan, the bombastic populist orator of the late 19th century, only that he is much closer to Bryan than to Hitler.

As in Bryan’s day, the populist backlash is directed against: a) financial elites and their political cronies, b) free trade, c) immigration and d) racial integration (though this last is not explicit today).

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Five ingredients for a populist backlash - Niall Ferguson - Zeitgeist 2016 - YouTube

Five ingredients for a populist backlash - Niall Ferguson - Zeitgeist 2016 - YouTube: "Five ingredients for a populist backlash"

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What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class

What So Many People Don’t Get About the U.S. Working Class:

Michèle Lamont, in The Dignity of Working Men, also found resentment of professionals — but not of the rich. “[I] can’t knock anyone for succeeding,” a laborer told her. “There’s a lot of people out there who are wealthy and I’m sure they worked darned hard for every cent they have,” chimed in a receiving clerk. Why the difference? For one thing, most blue-collar workers have little direct contact with the rich outside of Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous. But professionals order them around every day. The dream is not to become upper-middle-class, with its different food, family, and friendship patterns; the dream is to live in your own class milieu, where you feel comfortable — just with more money. “The main thing is to be independent and give your own orders and not have to take them from anybody else,” a machine operator told Lamont. Owning one’s own business — that’s the goal. That’s another part of Trump’s appeal.

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Donald did not deserve to win. Democrats did deserve to “lose”. – Medium

Donald did not deserve to win. Democrats did deserve to “lose”. – Medium: "My good friend Will and I were selected as the members of the student body to ask the first question. We spent hours trying to find a question that would be non-partisan, pointed, and important. Despite the temptation to go for what was particularly salient at that moment, we resolved to remember to emphasize that which was truly important and press the Members to push for the repeal of the Electoral College.
"



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTdl8b5Fm1E&t=1h7m20s



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Fishtown vs. Belmont, 2016 - The Boston Globe

Fishtown vs. Belmont, 2016 - The Boston Globe:

Murray’s key point in “Coming Apart’’ was that four great social trends of the post-1960 period had hit Fishtown much harder than Belmont. Family breakdown, loss of employment, crime, declining “social capital”: all are much more prevalent in Fishtown. And that, Murray concluded, is why the inhabitants of Fishtown are so unhappy.

Fast forward five years. Murray’s disgruntled white lower class has now found its “voice” and his name, as you have probably guessed, is Donald Trump. The declining, dangerous country that Trump described in his supposedly “dark” acceptance speech at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland was Fishtown writ large. Indeed, you could simply change the names. For Fishtown read Cleveland; for Belmont read Philadelphia, where the Democrats held their convention last week.

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Populism as a Backlash against Globalization - Historical Perspectives - CIRSD

Populism as a Backlash against Globalization - Historical Perspectives - CIRSD: "So why do so many commentators feel that we are living through “unprecedented instability?” The answer, aside from plain ignorance of history, is that political populism has become a global phenomenon, and established politicians and political parties are struggling even to understand it, much less resist it. Yet populism is not such a mysterious thing, if one only has some historical knowledge. The important point is not to make the mistake of confusing it with fascism, which it resembles in only a few respects.



 Rather like a television chef, I shall describe a recipe for populism, based on historical experience. It is a simple recipe, with just five ingredients."



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Female Kurdish Snipers Cut ISIS Down to Size | SOFREP

Female Kurdish Snipers Cut ISIS Down to Size | SOFREP:

In an abandoned luxury apartment building in Til Kocher, Syria, a group of young women laugh, sing songs, and prepare chai tea for their guests. In the adjacent room is an arsenal of weapons ranging from American M4 rifles to Hungarian-made Dragunovs and locally manufactured Zagrov .50-caliber sniper rifles. The cheerful young women enjoying their morning compose a seven-woman sniper unit that falls under the YPJ militia currently fighting ISIS in northern Syria. If you had failed to note all the hardware lying around their arms room, you would never know that these women were snipers, and you would never guess that some of them have racked up dozens of kills.

The oldest of the group is 27, a European Kurd who returned from the diaspora when she heard reports about ISIS murdering children. The youngest of the group said she was 16, but quickly corrected herself and reported that she was actually 18. Later that day, the teenage Kurd slung the .50 caliber Zagrov over her shoulder and walked out to do some target practice.

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Surviving the Fall of ISIS

Surviving the Fall of ISIS: "The mother appeared. Very young, she wore a black abaya and black hijab. She sank to her knees. In a reverie or delirium, she chronicled their ordeal to no one in particular.



 “We were so hungry in Mosul. There was no money, no food,” she said. “It’s all right if we die here hungry. We’re safe. This is the best moment of my life.”"



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