I don’t think she’s quite right about what the conflict in Ukraine is all about but this is a really interesting read.
Next year in Kyiv?
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Finnish left now apparently more interested in NATO membership
https://twitter.com/jmkorhonen/status/1496047631969234944?s=20&t=4uXTxGEl-Sb7_zVNVAp8GQ
Interesting thread.
Janne M. Korhonen 🇫🇮🇪🇺🐟🇺🇦 (@jmkorhonen) Tweeted: Greetings from a Finnish leftist! The international situation has apparently left many people in the English-speaking countries confused. I write this thread in the hopes of sharing a perspective I believe is widely if not unilaterally shared in Finland, most leftists included.
Also, makes me think the Baltic republics totally knew what they were doing when they immediately joined NATO.
‘It’s a chain reaction’ Political scientist Andrey Kortunov on why a full-fledged Russian invasion of Ukraine is unlikely — but not impossible — Meduza
https://meduza.io/en/feature/2022/02/14/it-s-a-chain-reaction
This is interesting.
«There’s also a third argument: I think that if such a task [starting a hot war] had been set, then it would have been met in completely different ways. Look at how the operation in Kazakhstan was carried out[1] — very quickly, within a few hours. Everything was done without too much pomp — and the 2014 Crimean operation was the same. A modern level of mobility — including [the mobility] of the Russian Armed Forces — doesn’t require the accumulation of troops over the course of several months in order to finally get ready and begin an attack. This is archaic — typical of 1914: a mobilization, troops traveling by rail, and that sort of thing.
Today, in order to minimize losses and demoralize the enemy, they act quickly — before anyone could blink an eye, they’d be marching on the central squares of Mariupol and Kharkiv. What’s happening [now] is too apparent, too obvious.»
[1] (If memory serves, I read a military-science-history-y paper claiming that Russia basically stumbled into Kazakhstan because they gave local military leaders too much control, and have since rectified that problem.)
In prison and on trial Here’s why Alexey Navalny is back in court and facing up to 15 more years behind bars — Meduza
Biden’s Fed nominees in limbo after Republican vote boycott | Reuters
Dems again not playing hardball like Republicans do. What the heck?
«Rules agreed at the start of this session of Congress ensure that Senate committees cannot advance legislation or nominees unless at least one Republican is present, a change from the previous Congress when Republicans had an outright majority on committees and could move ahead even when Democrats staged walkouts.»
Virginia Delegate Shares Story of Brother’s Death in Support of Red Flag Law – NBC4 Washington
This is why I don’t like Republicans, as a party. No matter many “good”Republicans there are, the party controls.
«”My brother was beautiful, brilliant, beloved, funny, troubled,” she said
A few years ago, she got a panicked call from her parents’ Clarke County home. Her brother was drunk and had a gun.
“The sheriff deputy arrived, asked for the firearm. My brother handed it to him,” she said.
The deputy worked to calm her brother.
“At the end of 45 minutes, [the deputy] had no choice because of our laws in Virginia a few years ago, but to hand the firearm back to my brother. I no longer have that brother,” she told the lawmakers. “A few weeks later he shot himself with that firearm. You think about that as you vote for this bill!”
The vote: 52 to 46 in favor of the repeal. [Republican-sponsored repeal of Virginia’s existing red flag law.]
“I bet it did change some minds, but they’re not allowed to vote the way they believe,” Gooditis told News4. “I had Republicans coming up to me afterwards and hugging me and telling me they were so sorry to hear it.”»
Tweet from John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff)
https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/1493611364283293698?s=20&t=sv3Uur1_uD7SJXjQBE5Vfg
Two smart people I follow run into each other and one loses because the other is a subject. Matter. Expert.
John Pfaff (@JohnFPfaff) Tweeted: First, the reason we tend to react with “mental health” to shocking murders THAT GETS WIDESPREAD ATTENTION is bc… those murders likely often involve mental illness. They’re a small subset of murders vs. gang violence, domestic violence, etc. But those don’t get the coverage.
She was headed to a locked psych ward. Then an ER doctor made a startling discovery. – The Washington Post
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/02/12/medical-mystery-mental-facility-ct-scan/
Turned out to be a case of water on the brain, detected by an ER physician who had a hunch and ordered a brain scan.
«“It’s a cautionary tale,” Chu observed. “People get pigeonholed” if they have a psychiatric diagnosis.»
Discrimination in residential loans
I just… (as they say on Twitter)
Quote from “Racism without Racists: Color-Blind Racism and the Persistence of Racial Inequality in America” by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva – “Wells Fargo settled a lawsuit with the NAACP for $175 million. The suit alleged that customers were steered toward higher-interest subprime loans—called “ghetto loans” for “mud people” within the organization. Although Wells Fargo has been a high-profile fall guy for this racist practice, the evidence suggests that banks routinely engage in discriminatory lending. Further, this lending is not based upon blacks having worse economic profiles, as higher-income blacks were more likely to be steered toward subprime loans.41” Start reading this book for free: https://a.co/3jTTA8S
2004–2009, not ancient history: https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/justice-department-reaches-settlement-wells-fargo-resulting-more-175-million-relief
Why is our data on residential segregation 20+ years old?
Why do we not have more recent data than 2000? Isn’t 20 years enough time for another report? That’s approaching a generation. Did W. dissolve a department at the census bureau?
This is, apparently, all we have: https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2002/dec/censr-3.html (Racial and Ethnics Residential Segregation in the United States: 1980-2000, AUGUST 2002, REPORT NUMBER CENSR-3).
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Residential_segregation_in_the_United_States#Racial
