Home » Open thread 6/2/22

Comments

Open thread 6/2/22 — 35 Comments

  1. Well that didn’t take long….
    “NYC Assemblymember Blames Tulsa Shooting on White Supremacy but Gunman was Black”—
    https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/06/nyc-assemblymember-blames-tulsa-shooting-on-white-supremacy-but-gunman-was-black/

    Nonetheless, SLOW down, whoa, hold yer horses: we can ONLY establish if the gunman REALLY was Black once we know whether he actually voted for Joe Biden. A pity that no one asked him before he decided to shoot up the hospital and then himself…

  2. That was interesting. I write very little with a Pen now because I communicate on the Computer. Which is good because my penmanship is Atrocious. A very long time ago my College Advisor said my handwriting reminded him of an Epileptic Rooster in a Sandy Barnyard.
    Note that I now capitalize anything I want.

  3. All these “mea culpas” are so…touching.

    “Biden acknowledges ‘didn’t’ realize immediate impact of closing of baby formula plant”—
    https://justthenews.com/government/white-house/biden-formula

    Seems to be just the latest fad…

    But WAIT:
    ‘…When Biden was asked about the manufacturers’ comments on knowing about the immediate impact, Biden responded: “They did, but I didn’t.”‘

    (“He” should have added, “But then, I don’t know nuthin’…”)

  4. Calling Dante a “Renaissance Humanist” is nothing short of bizarre. There is a misconception that the latter encouraged the vernacular. That’s the opposite of the truth; they thought Italian (like all other Romance languages) “barbarous”. Unfortunately, in their eagerness to spread the use of Latin, they also “purified” it of post Silver Age developments. Which is to say, mortally wounded it.

  5. Now if only we could persuade the News to stop capitalizing Black and not White. Capitalizing neither would be my choice.

  6. Barry Meislin, I knew, being a WSJ reader, about the baby formula problem in January (I think). As has been remarked somewhere, all the White House needs to stay up to date is a staff member assigned to read the WSJ daily.

  7. Capitalizing neither would be my choice.

    What I’d like to see disappear is the capitalization of letters in the middle of words, usually as the result of smushing two words together as an advertising gimmick. Google’s AdSense is only one example of this fad. Basic Books called itself BasicBooks for a time, but has blessedly now returned to typographic decency.

  8. I made a comment about capitalization that I think got caught in the spam filter for some obscure reason– it had no obvious trigger words. Has anyone else had comments disappear into the ether?

  9. Kate:

    That WH staffer would be subjected to daily microaggressions (being forced to read the WSJ, especially if it included the editorial page). Talk about a hostile work environment!

  10. I came in late to see posts as usual, so I’ll say this here.
    I worked in a mid-sized school district for two years, and was in every single school building in a city of about 40,000 people. Regarding Uvalde, I can attest to two things: firstly, school building design is inexcusably horrible. Secondly, the ability of teachers and staff to handle any stressful situation past a 7-year-old recess scuffle is pretty much zero.
    Fire and police would do training exercises and they were universally execrable failures.
    Much of it was building design, just bad architecture, with such things as windows specifically designed so that no child could even squeeze through them, classrooms with one door and no egress windows, like, no windows at all! buildings that had been modified and added onto so many times they resembled M. C. Escher drawings more than any useful structure, broken locks, malfunctioning doors, etc. It was ridiculous, and still is. Some classrooms were internally separated with those stupid curtains that were so popular during that unbelievable ‘open classroom’ hippie fad.

    The fact is many, if not most, school buildings are next to impossible to protect or evacuate in any orderly fashion, on the basis of asinine design alone.
    The other factor was/is the incapacity of teachers and staff to even conceive of a scenario where they might have to cope with a life-and-death situation, and make any realistic plan of any kind for themselves. In many of the schools, during drills, fire personnel would be unable to locate classrooms, due to obscured or out-of-date interior diagrams, and if police were called, they were unable to find classrooms based on number, as the teachers themselves would obscure, remove, or even change the numbering on their own rooms!

    I was told, explicitly, if someone pulled a mass shooter type thing, to huddle in the room and ‘protect’ the children with my own body, as if my body was going to stop a 5.56mm bullet at close range. Nobody knew anything at all about guns. The lack of realism ‘blew me away’. My plan, against ALL SCHOOL POLICY, was instant attack if presented with any opportunity at all, with anything heavy or sharp. The vast majority of bullet wounds are survivable. And, I find it hard to believe anybody on this blog or any other is talking about whether an AR 5.56mm/.223 bullet will penetrate a ‘steel door’, the kind found in schools, which are two thin steel panels with filler in between, usually foam, that answer is YES, and to even discuss shows incredible ignorance. It’s not hard information to find.

    Fact is, even if the police and support had been totally ‘on the up’, which they clearly were not, at all, they faced serious problems stemming from those factors of bad building design and staff unable to act in any decisive manner. Those two factors are in no way limited to Uvalde, it’s everywhere.
    My two cents.

  11. It saw the “capital” in “capitalization” and since the spam filter is most likely woke…
    – – – – – –
    Kate,
    We know they’re lying (poor fools can’t help it)
    They know they’re lying.
    They know we know they’re lying, etc…

  12. oh the scrawl that passes for handwriting in today’s schools, might as well be sanskrit or hierogliphics, I blame the shells,

    the keys are only available in the main office, and you have to lock them manually, maybe it’s different in the hinterlands of texas as opposed to blue broward county,

  13. I’m copying here a statement that stan made over on the thread about the Etute case: The news media almost never covers murders by black offenders.

    I checked back today to see what really happened in the Tulsa hospital shooting– which dropped off the journalists’ radar almost as quickly as it happened. It turned out that the shooter was targeting a specific doctor at the hospital because he was dissatisfied with the outcome of his back surgery. Both the shooter and the orthopedic surgeon were black, and another doctor who was killed was a white female. The two other victims were a patient and a hospital receptionist, races not mentioned in the media. Photos of the shooter and the surgeon at the link:

    https://nypost.com/2022/06/02/tulsa-gunman-michael-louis-targeted-doctor-who-operated-on-him-cops/

  14. PA Cat,
    I’ve lost comments to the spam filter (or something) perhaps three times. Once I tracked it down, the other two I couldn’t figure out and they had no obvious triggers.

  15. and its the hundred and first anniversary of tulsa, but you know they will cover this with a pillow, like denver shooting, like waukesha mauling,* until people forget,

    *only recalled because the buffalo shooter had a victims name, scrawled on his rifle, so we’re getting to be much like the canton system in lebanon, the maronites vs the palestinians, karantina which prompted the start of the civil war, which led to damour which about 5 years later led to sabra and shatila, a bloody hatfield and mccoy affair,

  16. Joel White:

    It sounds like your school district was a mess in that regard, but it’s not at all clear how typical this is of school districts in general. I have read many times, for example, that teachers are taught (and teach their students) to gather chairs as possible defenses and weapons, and to attack a perp with them if he manages to break the lock and enter.

    In addition, I don’t know why you consider a mere discussion of whether such a bullet will penetrate a steel door “incredible ignorance.” For example, in a previous post I linked to an article that said that bullets will penetrate steel. That was the extent of the discussion. It’s hardly ignorance – much less “incredible ignorance – to mention that for the sake of those who don’t shoot and/or aren’t aware of the finer points of that sort of thing.

    The window issue has been briefly addressed by TommyJay in this thread, and by me in this comment.

  17. “The scrawl that passes for handwriting in today’s schools.” A few years ago, a trainee nurse administered the Medicare mental acuity screening for me — what day is it, where are you, etc. Last, it asked me to write a sentence. I wrote, in cursive, “This is silly.” The 21-year-old nurse admired my handwriting; she had never been taught to write in cursive and could only print.

  18. I don’t know why you consider a mere discussion of whether such a bullet will penetrate a steel door “incredible ignorance.”

    Yes you do. His comment is not credible and is the work of a self-aggrandizing chronic complainer.

  19. Hey! Any body remember that war in Ukraine? You know, the one everybody was so excited about because it was all righteous and what not? Well…

    Brahma Chellaney
    @Chellaney
    ·
    7h
    Zelensky admits Russia now holds one-fifth of Ukraine, the largest country entirely within Europe. What he didn’t acknowledge is that Russia controls Ukraine’s industrial heartland, 90% of its energy resources (including all of offshore oil), and its critical ports and shipping.

    Mike

  20. it’s just a flesh wound, mbunge, surely, the odds of success were not propitious with a 3/1 troop differential, armor being something like 5/1, aircraft some 10/1

  21. now one question, that hasn’t been answered, or asked is whether they had infrared goggles and other equipment that might have made targeting the shooter easier, mind you if happened in the day time,

  22. miguel cervantes:

    I’m nearly certain they didn’t have access to anything like that, and I don’t see that it would have helped in midday. Nor would cutting the power have helped, unless the room had no windows. I’m pretty sure it had windows.

    They didn’t even have shields for quite a while.

    Heat sensors might have helped (to detect body warmth), but I’m virtually certain that they had no access to that either. And that would have also picked up the warmth of the children’s bodies and they might have been targeted in error instead.

  23. MBunge:

    I think most people are well aware of it and have been aware for a long time that the next step for Russia would be concentrating on those eastern parts. They’ve been doing that for a while. In addition, from the start it was recognized that if they did that, Ukraine would have a lot of trouble stopping them.

    Russia has also managed to destroy a great deal of that particular Ukrainian territory. One of the questions is how much use it will end up being to them even if they win it permanently, without massive rebuidling which they may be ill able to afford.

    Lastly, they have alienated much of Europe which was happy to buy fuel from them in the past. It will be interesting to see whether that will have long-term effects on Russia’s economy.

    This is a long-term situation that will play out over time, and I don’t just mean the hot war aspect of it. That also has been known from the start to anyone who thought about it. That’s why I have made few if any predictions involving the war and who will ultimately win, as well as what they will actually win.

  24. one assumes so, but so little of the actual facts have been ascertained, a now dubious source sen gutierrez says the chief wasn’t aware of what was going on, the description of how the school works or doesn’t isn’t in keeping with my experience then again I hadn’t gone through 48 lockdowns in one year, I was only a party to one, because of a jail break that locked down all the schools in the county, even though no harm came that time, that was an unsettling experience,
    one assumes the shooter would be some distance from the students,

  25. miguel cervantes:

    I think they aren’t giving out a lot more details and they are waiting to collect all the information and try not to have to keep correcting it and correcting it. They’ve gotten in trouble for that. This is a relatively small town and they’re not used to all this scrutiny and their communication skills are not very good. They are now the target of a lot of hatred – due to the intensely emotional situation of children being killed and then all the reports saying they did nothing when in fact they did something – and so I think they are keeping relatively mum at this point.

    I’m not sure what you mean when you say the shooter would be some distance from the students. Why? How big are these classrooms? In my classrooms, when they had all the students there, there was no way anyone else could have gotten far away from the students because the rooms simply weren’t big enough.

  26. Bunge:

    There continues to be a war in Ukraine and some choose to follow it but unfortunately it continues to be in a foggy state. Lots of small grinding action in the Donbass.

    Regarding Ukraine’s offshore oil resources, what have you been smoking? They aren’t an exporter of any size IIRC. Or were you thinking of sunflower oil?

  27. I liked the choice of video to lead off this open thread.

    I would need some convincing about the degree to which capitalization in English was ‘haphazard’ in the eighteenth century, because I figured it would be similar to the German rules in that regard: as the presenter pointed out himself in this same video, German capitalizes nouns generally. Indeed, taking a look at a random selection from the U. S. Constitution – Article III – the original text follows this pattern.

    The Carolingian script I find quite beautiful, probably the most inspiring thing I took from the video. I feel I should try and learn how to write it as one of my retirement hobbies. I don’t do very much handwriting myself outside work, which is something I miss sometimes. If I were to return to my diary-keeping, that would help.

  28. ‘I think most people are well aware of it and have been aware for a long time that the next step for Russia would be concentrating on those eastern parts.”

    Uh…I kind of think you’re gaslighting me here. There’s no “Ukraine” category on this blog but a search of “War and Peace” finds two posts on the subject in May after 15 in April. And if there’s one thing you CANNOT say about the majority of Ukraine talk here and in general it’s that there’s been much focus on long-term thinking or strategy.

    Let’s not pretend that Ukraine has been the subject of a lot of sober consideration or debate. It’s been mostly “rah-rah” virtue signaling.

    Mike

  29. Bunge:

    Once again thanks for sharing your vast knowledge of, whatever. Try Substack, lots will follow you, fer sure!

    Is this all about you, rah rah?

  30. I’m stating that anybody that hasn’t worked in a minority-majority school system is unaware of the potential levels of stress incompetence. Uvalde School System has their stats online, and it’s about the same as where I worked: 74% disadvantaged, etc. The doors are not security doors they are fire rated doors.
    What anybody read, is not the same as my real world experience.
    Anyway sorry for popping off, but I get the distinct impression hardly anyone commenting anywhere has real world experience in how these things really can play out, and anyone who does, is likely not talking.
    You have my email I assume, Neo, if you want specifics I’ll happily supply you with authentication. Really. Photos and everything.
    Licensure, everything.

  31. OK, MBunge. Just what do you want to discuss? Most of us here support Ukraine because they are an innocent party being subjected to a genocidal war of conquest. Do you think that support changes because the conqueror conquers 20% of his attempted conquest?

    We’ve entered phase 2 of the war after Ukraine won a decisive victory in phase 1. For one, they are still standing after an all-out assault by a superior power. In addition, they drove back that superior power through a decisive victory in the north in the Battle of Kiev. I’d bet that three months ago almost no one in the world thought either of those would happen.

    Phase 2 is going to be different. Russia hasn’t backed down. Instead, they’ve thrown even more forces into the battle. Previously they devoted 20 BTGs to battle in the east, 20 in the south, 40 in the north along three different axes toward Kiev, and kept 40 in reserve. Now they have withdrawn the forces in the north, dug into fortified defenses in the south, and devoted enough reserve forces to throw 106 BTGs into battle, all but 20 of them concentrated in the east.

    With such a concentration of forces they’ve gained some ground, but at tremendous cost. About a month ago Putin was briefed that they had lost 13,000 men KIA with about another 7,000 MIA. That’s just Russian forces, not counting DPR and LPR forces or the Wagner group mercenaries. To put that into perspective, that’s twice the number of KIA that America has lost in all military engagements combined since the fall of Saigon — and Russia only has half the population.

    In addition, they’ve lost at least 700 tanks and 1,000 additional armored vehicles and expended about 60% of their arsenal of cruise and short-range ballistic missiles. The questions for phase 2 are, 1) Are the Ukrainian forces about to collapse leading to a Russian breakthrough, and 2) How long can Russia sustain these losses?

    If the Ukrainian army doesn’t collapse, it’s a long way to Lviv if it continues to cost the Russian army a couple hundred men per mile. Perhaps Russia will continue to pay that price. Word is they’ve pulled 16,000 combat-hardened troops from Syria and called up 100,000 reservists to dedicate to the fight. In addition, they have another 135,000 conscripts completing their training in August. On top of that, they are supposedly calling up another 600,000 former conscripts to use as reserves.

    At the start of the war, Russia had about 2,700 tanks in active service, so they have maybe 2,000 left. They also have about 10,000 more in storage. If they can pull those out of storage and get them working again (not guaranteed), they would have a formidable force that probably can overwhelm Ukraine’s defenses.

    Then we move on to phase 3. Even if they take the Ukraine, can they hold it? Their current tactic is to pulverize everything a few miles ahead of them, advance a mile through the rubble, and repeat. Taking the country means taking a rubble pile the size of Texas. If there’s anyone left in the country, they’ll face an insurgency bleeding them of men and materiel for years to come. If they don’t take the entire country, whatever remains outside their control will have advanced NATO weaponry and the training and logistics to support it within five years.

    If that happens, then phase 4 — the reconquest — begins.

    So what is it that you want to discuss?

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>