tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post4676569957898786741..comments2024-03-28T04:58:13.341-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: Chapter 6: Credibility? How Often the Right Has Been WrongDavid Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger95125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40979596529692295802020-09-16T20:11:14.519-07:002020-09-16T20:11:14.519-07:00onward
onwardonward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47157168207687429022020-09-16T19:42:49.084-07:002020-09-16T19:42:49.084-07:00I had a summer job helping run the solar telescope...I had a summer job helping run the solar telescope, while at Caltech. A sacred place! “Los Angeles' Mount Wilson Observatory, the site of major 20th century scientific discoveries, has so far survived a terrifyingly close brush with a wildfire in the hills northeast of the city. But the threat isn't over”<br /> <br />https://www.npr.org/2020/09/16/913649688/firefighters-battle-to-save-las-historic-mt-wilson-observatoryDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-77146591620027735642020-09-16T19:07:31.898-07:002020-09-16T19:07:31.898-07:00Extensive simulations of the Prisoner's Dilemm...Extensive simulations of the Prisoner's Dilemma have shown that being "nice" confers huge advantages to large groups of players, like a nation or community, allowing the emergence of positive sum games in which everyone benefits... so long as being nice is the default in most cases and so long as cheaters or defector-exploiters are made not to benefit much from their defections. One of the earliest traits shown by infants and chimpanzees is distaste toward non-cooperators. The irony being that once a society is cooperative to that extent, it can then create flat-fair playing fields like markets, democracy, science and sports, wherein the creative benefits of competition can flower.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16751086641539957852020-09-16T18:50:28.622-07:002020-09-16T18:50:28.622-07:00Then WHY did America move from being "The Lan...<i>Then WHY did America move from being "The Land of the Brave" - to "The Land of the Afraid" ??</i><br /><br />It was there on 9/11. Looking at the hysterical reaction and the way it seemed most Americans were quite happy to trade freedom for the illusion of safety was… interesting. It was obvious the America I remembered from the 1970s was no more (or possibly had never been).Robertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58080600891918613072020-09-16T18:28:12.005-07:002020-09-16T18:28:12.005-07:00Because Republicans under Bush found Fear to be a ...Because Republicans under Bush found Fear to be a warm and comforting blanket to wrap themselves around. After 9/11 had happened they embraced fear and it became their tool and their security blanket. Fear the Outsider. Fear the Immigrant. Fear the Democrat. Fear the Voter. Fear Change. Fear Life.<br /><br />Think of how Trump describes Mexicans. Rapists. Murderers. Thugs. This is a depiction meant to invoke <i>fear</i>. And Trump uses this same exact language to describe Biden and the Democrats. If he loses in November? I would not be at all surprised to see him try to use fear to convince his followers to rise up, hoping in turn that fear and a need to "do what's right for the country" will get Biden to concede the election and allow Trump to remain in office.<br /><br />Either that or he'll do a "farewell tour" around the world and "vanish" from his handlers to show up in Russia and state he's the rightful head of the United States and taking shelter in Russia because of a coup removing him from office. He most definitely won't stick around waiting to be arrested and put on trial.<br /><br />Acacia H. Acacia H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/07678539067303911329noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2306613688702277822020-09-16T18:16:55.056-07:002020-09-16T18:16:55.056-07:00duncan cairncross asks
Then WHY did America move ...duncan cairncross asks<br /><br /><i>Then WHY did America move from being "The Land of the Brave" - to "The Land of the Afraid" ??</i><br /><br />This is gonna sound crazee<br /><br />but<br /><br />It was a choice.<br /><br /><a href="https://www.wearethemighty.com/articles/6-badass-military-quotes-created-by-combat" rel="nofollow">"Come on you sons of bitches, do you want to live forever?!" – Sgt. Maj. Dan Daly, USMC</a><br /><br />Sjt. Maj. Daly was on to something. As far as we understand it, physics tells us that everything we know and love literally comes from nothing. Literally. A puff of quantum probability, a fluctuation, a thermodynamic moment, everyone we love and everything we own, every thought, every memory, every hope and dream. Less than fourteen billion years ago it was all a hot plasma, and not long before that it was merely some sort of unbalanced equation. God laughed and here we are, for a moment.<br /><br />Physics also tells us that, probably, everything will thin out and go dark, until cold atoms evaporate and there is nothing left but a silence so complete that it howls.<br /><br />We can choose what we will believe about all this. That our whole world is an infinitely precious, glittering moment, in which we have both a right and a duty to shine. Or we can choose to believe that we can somehow scare off oblivion, outgun death itself, and if we just kill enough terrorists and protesters we can somehow not have to face the end of all things.<br /><br />Well, the problem with that second belief is that it is an opiate lie, crafted by greedy narcissists to enforce total obedience. After all, if we fear the disobedient, we also fear to disobey.<br /><br />I guess what I am saying is that you can live to a ripe old age being a chickenshit in a nice stable empire... and that is what a lot of people are, these days.<br /><br />But in times of real trouble, the chickenshits get sorted in a hurry, one way or another.TCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-21282865625874215922020-09-16T17:46:39.939-07:002020-09-16T17:46:39.939-07:00Der Oger and Dr Brin
Damn - you are correct - Lead...Der Oger and Dr Brin<br />Damn - you are correct - Lead would affect the urban population more than the rural - so that hypothesis dies - or at minimum becomes much less important<br /><br />Then WHY did America move from being "The Land of the Brave" - to "The Land of the Afraid" ??duncan cairncrosshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14153725128216947145noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25857233710299224652020-09-16T17:02:39.511-07:002020-09-16T17:02:39.511-07:00There have so far been two times in my life when I...There have so far been two times in my life when I truly felt that "life as I know it" had an end date in the near future. Not that I expected to die, but that I expected the parameters of life to change so extensively that I could not reasonably plan ahead for what life would be like after the date of change. Like that scene in <i>Dune</i> where Paul describes his prescient vision as akin to being on a choppy sea, oft times able to see great distances ahead, but occasionally so far in the trough of a wave that one could hardly see anything ahead.<br /><br />The first was when I away to college. As the oldest child, I really had no way to understand what day to day life would be like after moving away from home. That summer of '78, I literally counted down the days until August 20 as "X days left of life as I know it." I was not in fear--more like a kind of awe, but with some trepidation as to how I would take care of myself in that Brave New World.<br /><br />The other such time was when my daughter was born.<br /><br />I'm trying to convey that a third such time seems upon us now. Nov 3 will end life as we currently know it, for good or for ill. Or I should say has a good <b>chance</b> of ending it, with enough probability to take it seriously. I feel myself saying things like, "I'd better enjoy thus-and-such while I'm still able." (The pessimistic part of me wants to add, "For tomorrow, we will surely die.")<br /><br />The other two times proved navigable after all. I hope this one does as well.<br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68612598076371097422020-09-16T16:21:44.532-07:002020-09-16T16:21:44.532-07:00matthew:
Right now, there are armed gangs of vigi...matthew:<br /><i><br />Right now, there are armed gangs of vigilantes patrolling about 20 miles from my house. In the evacuated areas of Oregon, being a reporter is a very dangerous job. S<br /></i><br /><br />Imagine what it's like down south of Roseburg. :)<br /><br />(Another Brin novel prediction coming true)Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-88703447465070131792020-09-16T16:19:44.233-07:002020-09-16T16:19:44.233-07:00jim:
you are now coming to the realization that y...jim:<br /><i><br />you are now coming to the realization that you do not have the power to change the world for her.<br /></i><br /><br />"Today, perhaps. But if there are others with the courage of Admiral Jarok, we may hope to see a day of peace when we can take his letter home."<br /><br /><i><br />You are powerless to change the world for your little girl, all you can do is change how you participate with and your expectations on a world you can’t control. Then do that---- change what you are doing and what you are expecting and take the steps that you can actually do to help protect and care for you and your loved ones. It may or may not be enough to protect yourself and your loved ones from the changes you can’t control but it beats the heck out of being blind sided.<br /></i><br /><br />Strictly speaking, you are correct. I can only hope to have prepared her to live in the world my generation leaves her. However, if I can emulate Sydney Carton and interpose my own life to save hers, it's the least I can do.<br /><br /><i><br />(another thing you might want to try: envision your death on a regular basis, get comfortable with your own mortality. If you do this on a regular basis you can greatly reduce your own fear of death and find that it is easier to enjoy the life you have and it is easier to live the values that you have. )<br /></i><br /><br />I wouldn't have understood that in my twenties, but I sure do now. I feel for my daughter because her adult life is just starting, and she has to live with this crap. Me, if I were to die today, I've had a better life than I would ever have guessed and than most humans could hope for. My motto really is, "I can't complain, but sometimes I still do."<br /><br />The good moments from now on are gravy.<br /><br />And, ince it's my day for answering quote with quote:<br /><i><br /><b>Hamilton:</b><br />I imagine death so much it feels more like a memory.<br />When's it gonna get me?<br />In my sleep? Seven feet ahead of me?<br />If I see it comin', do I run or do I let it be?<br />Is it like a beat without a melody?<br />See, I never thought I'd live past twenty.<br />Where I come from some get half as many.<br />Ask anybody why we livin' fast and we laugh, reach for a flask;<br />We have to make this moment last, that's plenty.<br /></i><br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-47914233514217270712020-09-16T13:30:46.670-07:002020-09-16T13:30:46.670-07:00Der Oger, I appreciate your concerns and your comp...<i>Der Oger, I appreciate your concerns and your comprehending. The larger of two Americas is easily as sane in its political range as citizens of Canada, for example. But you miss the CYCLICAL nature of these periodic outbreaks of manic civil war.</i><br /><br />Dr. Brin has just endorsed the Cyclical History argument. Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-73050435980416730932020-09-16T13:23:34.180-07:002020-09-16T13:23:34.180-07:00Larry,
He's the only one who isn't convin...Larry,<br /><br /><i>He's the only one who isn't convincing me to go on a...</i><br /><br />Heh. If I recommend anything right now it involves doing something your civilization will appreciate later even if it doesn't correctly give you credit for it.<br /><br />I'm not much of a believer in the capitalized-F version of 'faith', but I am a big fan of being 'loyal to' things bigger than we are individually. <br /><br />When your civilization needs you, pick something bite-sized and do it. You'll know when you get it right. 8)<br /><br /><br />As for the carnage, I strongly suspect some people are going to regret screwing with us in a couple years. If it were me, I'd be going to war over what has happened lately. Yes. Including risks involving nukes. I'm pissed off.<br /><br />Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46351759850162254122020-09-16T12:59:46.606-07:002020-09-16T12:59:46.606-07:00I thought I posted this earlier, before Dr Brin...I thought I posted this earlier, before Dr Brin's latest comment. I wouldn't bother to re-post, but I'm curious to see if anything of mine gets through the spamwall:<br /><br />https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-bears-lions-nfl-protests-national-anthem-black-lives-matter-huppke-20200914-omot6okpvrbcrf2yypiarwexcq-story.html<br /><i><br />Sunday, in stadiums coast to coast, we saw Kaepernick’s decision to express his righteous outrage validated. The players showed it. The coaches showed it.<br /><br />No team or player or coach was cowed by the chorus of opportunists howling “Just play football!” and threatening, out one side of their mouths, to boycott the NFL while wailing about “cancel culture” out the other.<br /></i><br /><br />Might as well throw this on the pile too:<br />https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-trump-rigged-election-ballots-mail-fraud-election-biden-huppke-20200916-c5la6itxnjcznekfznc3vwwl2q-story.html<br /><i><br />Then ask yourself this: What does it say about a person who thinks the only way he can lose is if someone else cheats? <br /></i><br />Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2850688150641214712020-09-16T12:57:38.201-07:002020-09-16T12:57:38.201-07:00Oh, and kick some money to Jamie Harrison, who is ...Oh, and kick some money to Jamie Harrison, who is tied with Lindsey Graham in South Carolina according to a bunch of recent polling. <br /><br />https://poll.qu.edu/images/polling/sc/sc09162020_bgjm67.pdfmatthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-74168320566742886142020-09-16T12:53:38.470-07:002020-09-16T12:53:38.470-07:00If anyone wants to dive into the rabbit-hole of co...If anyone wants to dive into the rabbit-hole of comparing the political positions of various parties across the western world, here is the reference I was using when I called the Democrats "center-right." It is lengthy and tries to use a few different metrics than simply picking a reference party and ranking everyone else based on that reference. <br /><br />http://comparativepolitics.uni-greifswald.de/gcp/GCP-11-2018.pdf<br /><br />It is from a non-American source, which I chose to dampen down the nationalistic effect of the research. <br /><br />***<br /><br />Setting the semantics aside, it is the second part of my OP that is the most important - noting that the Democratic Party's Big Tent is indeed very big and needs to be very big to defeat an existential threat. <br />David hits the same point on his reply. We agree on outcomes (GOP out of power) and at least some on methods, so I'm happy with the discussion regardless of terminology. Like AOC (and to a smaller degree Bernie), I'm happy to find allies where I can in this fight against literal American fascism.<br /><br />Right now, there are armed gangs of vigilantes patrolling about 20 miles from my house. In the evacuated areas of Oregon, being a reporter is a very dangerous job. See: https://newrepublic.com/article/159362/oregon-fires-militias-disaster-capitalism<br /><br />Once again, ask yourself what you will do if Trump steals this election. General strike? Move to a new nation? Hunker down and try to blend in?<br /><br />No matter what, the results of the election will be disputed. Even if Trump loses in a landslide, his die-hard supporters are about 20% of Americans, and they do not trust anything other than those who have drank from the same KoolAid. <br /><br /> <br /><br />matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-78302818531103135612020-09-16T12:05:20.771-07:002020-09-16T12:05:20.771-07:00Parliamentary systems encourage splitting. As US s...<i>Parliamentary systems encourage splitting. As US states incorporate Ranked Choice voting, small parties will get some more air to breathe and grow</i><br /><br />David, I think you're mixing up (or lumping together) parliamentary governments and first-past-the-post voting. We have both up here, which is why a government with only minority support can still have a massive majority in parliament. Something other than FPTP would shift Canadian governments to the left, as the public has consistently voted more left wing than election results (40% Conservative, 35% Liberal, 25% NDP, for example, means Conservatives get in although 60% of voters don't want them).Robertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-86615792991091666032020-09-16T11:42:11.603-07:002020-09-16T11:42:11.603-07:00Robert wrote:
Maybe when people think they can so...Robert wrote:<br /><br /><i>Maybe when people think they can solve any argument with firearms, they don't feel inclined or motivated to compromise?</i><br /><br /><i>I doubt it. Back before Canada had gun control, when even children could walk into Canadian Tire and purchase a firearm and ammunition, the Canadian murder rate was still 10% of the American one — and our politics weren't anywhere near as extreme. Political negotiation happened, just as it did in your country.</i><br /><br />Michael Moore addresses thins in Bowling For Columbine. He went to a "bad neighborhood" in (I think) Toronto and the place was totally mellow. He concluded that although Canadians had plenty of guns, they have much less gun violence, and a better explanation is that the US has raging inequality and a rotted, inadequate safety net. Canada isn't Utopia, it just looks that way compared to the US.TCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-82700210776834597242020-09-16T11:38:57.328-07:002020-09-16T11:38:57.328-07:00Larry,
I certainly do not want you do go on a be... Larry, <br /><br />I certainly do not want you do go on a bender then kill yourself on Nov 3 because you have come to the realization that we are on a downward trajectory no matter who wins the election in Nov. And that although you truly hoped that <br />"There comes a time in a man's life that you cannot know. When he looks down at the first smile of his baby girl and realizes, he must change the world for her - for all children." <br /> you are now coming to the realization that you do not have the power to change the world for her.<br /><br />These are very tough things to deal with and your grief will be real. But once you go through that long dark night of the soul and you realize that most of what happens in the world is far beyond your ability to control, you can get to a place where you can actually focus on things that you can actually do.<br /><br />You are powerless to change the world for your little girl, all you can do is change how you participate with and your expectations on a world you can’t control. Then do that---- change what you are doing and what you are expecting and take the steps that you can actually do to help protect and care for you and your loved ones. It may or may not be enough to protect yourself and your loved ones from the changes you can’t control but it beats the heck out of being blind sided.<br /><br />(another thing you might want to try: envision your death on a regular basis, get comfortable with your own mortality. If you do this on a regular basis you can greatly reduce your own fear of death and find that it is easier to enjoy the life you have and it is easier to live the values that you have. ) <br />jimhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07865068658069680309noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-59065776341482891332020-09-16T09:11:31.773-07:002020-09-16T09:11:31.773-07:00Der Oger, I appreciate your concerns and your comp...Der Oger, I appreciate your concerns and your comprehending. The larger of two Americas is easily as sane in its political range as citizens of Canada, for example. But you miss the CYCLICAL nature of these periodic outbreaks of manic civil war. If the current fever is overwhelmingly rejected at the polls… and if Biden etc throughly spank the foreign powers who have artificially stoked the outbreak… then many confederates will renounce the madness and many others will glower back to a simmer in those geographies that have always been infection zones.<br /><br />“The radicalized electoral base, the great social inequality, education, healthcare ... the list is seemingly endless.”<br /><br />Bah, it is a list of one line item… cultural resentment of smart people, including their own sons and daughters who went to college… or the college girls who wouldn’t put out. Sure I oversimplify. But the drivers are anything BUT self-interest.<br /><br />Alfred describes some of the ‘things we share in common’ which I discuss in Chapter 2 of Polemical Judo. In our case Suspicion of Elites has been a source of freedom… but has lately been applied against us, getting many Americans to enter full hysteria toward one elite while ignoring their own.<br /><br />“Because in Canada, or France, or Germany, or Norway, or… there are political parties to the left of the American Democratic Party.”<br /><br />*I* don’t deem that to be brag-worthy. But Parliamentary systems encourage splitting. As US states incorporate Ranked Choice voting, small parties will get some more air to breathe and grow, WHILE reducing some of the defects of parliamentary radicalism.<br /><br />Duncan, you know I helped eliminate lead from gas. (NOT in a huge way but at least a bit.) I pray that lead poisoning is not as huge a factor as you suggest. After all, it’s rural folks who seem most susceptible to Putinism.<br /><br />Joe D your CITOKATE is welcome that I do not cite cases of ‘trashed offices” largely because it never occurred to me that anyone over 40 doesn’t clearly remember many scenes of these events in mass media. I look back and recall at least a dozen. Were this a significant issue, I’d trawl harder for references. But seriously?<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-44029218546269938922020-09-16T08:50:51.043-07:002020-09-16T08:50:51.043-07:00Robert:
To an outside observer, the problem seems...Robert:<br /><i><br />To an outside observer, the problem seems to be that a significant chunk of your population has decided that rules don't apply to them — and they've been allowed to get away with it, so in a sense they're right. Not just the guns, though. If the folks in the Brooks Brothers Riot had been black, would they have gotten away with it? If it was BLM that showed up at the Michigan Capitol with guns (or even without them) would they have been treated so gently?<br /></i><br /><br />To an inside observer as well. :)<br /><br />That was exactly my point about the Brooks Brothers riot--the most egregious aspect was not the riot itself, but the fact that the riot was allowed to accomplish its goals by intimidation and everyone in authority seemed to treat that as acceptable. And you're darned straight that such a thing would never have been tolerated had the rioters been blacks or women or hippies.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-58739388896841662362020-09-16T08:43:14.902-07:002020-09-16T08:43:14.902-07:00Yeah, about that liberal "cancel culture"...Yeah, about that liberal "cancel culture"...<br /><br />https://www.chicagotribune.com/columns/rex-huppke/ct-bears-lions-nfl-protests-national-anthem-black-lives-matter-huppke-20200914-omot6okpvrbcrf2yypiarwexcq-story.html<br /><br /><i><br />Sunday, in stadiums coast to coast, we saw [Colin] Kaepernick’s decision to express his righteous outrage validated. The players showed it. The coaches showed it.<br /><br />No team or player or coach was cowed by the chorus of opportunists howling “Just play football!” and threatening, out one side of their mouths, to boycott the NFL while wailing about “cancel culture” out the other.<br /></i>Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10149260942001962032020-09-16T07:04:16.119-07:002020-09-16T07:04:16.119-07:00On the difference between the American political s...<i>On the difference between the American political spectrum and everywhere else, is the difference as simple as the Second Amendment?<br /><br />Maybe when people think they can solve any argument with firearms, they don't feel inclined or motivated to compromise?</i><br /><br />I doubt it. Back before Canada had gun control, when even children could walk into Canadian Tire and purchase a firearm and ammunition, the Canadian murder rate was still 10% of the American one — and our politics weren't anywhere near as extreme. Political negotiation happened, just as it did in your country.<br /><br />Firearms — and the way a significant chunk of your population fetishize them — aren't a product of the second amendment. The second amendment was in play when Western towns (like Dodge City) banned guns. It was in play when the NRA supported gun control. <br /><br />To an outside observer, the problem seems to be that a significant chunk of your population has decided that rules don't apply to them — and they've been allowed to get away with it, so in a sense they're right. Not just the guns, though. If the folks in the Brooks Brothers Riot had been black, would they have gotten away with it? If it was BLM that showed up at the Michigan Capitol with guns (or even without them) would they have been treated so gently? Robertnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-1079345884663441662020-09-16T05:58:06.154-07:002020-09-16T05:58:06.154-07:00 @TCB, Another factor in Bf-109 vs P-51, aerodyna... @TCB, Another factor in Bf-109 vs P-51, aerodynamics had moved on in the intervening years and North American had a Messerschmitt veteran, who likely had an idea of the deficiencies of the Bf-109, on the project. Consider the difference in top speed between the P-51A and the P-40E with identical engines.Tim H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12380916635831994159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46474140799576748412020-09-16T05:44:21.769-07:002020-09-16T05:44:21.769-07:00Something darkly amusing:
https://www.politico.... Something darkly amusing: <br /><br />https://www.politico.com/news/2020/09/14/trump-ad-asks-people-to-support-the-troops-but-it-uses-a-picture-of-russian-jets-414883<br /><br />One hopes this is nothing more than the work of someone who can't tell one jet from another, like the scene in "Starman", where an F-16, through the magic of Hollywood, becomes an F-106.Tim H.https://www.blogger.com/profile/12380916635831994159noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-10055791439464547632020-09-16T04:49:13.056-07:002020-09-16T04:49:13.056-07:00I in no way "deny the existence of such campu...I in no way "deny the existence of such campus lefty radical vehements." Nor, if you read my comment, did I say any such thing.<br /><br />I questioned whether they had "trashed" the offices as you claimed, and I deny that they force out conservatives in any significant number.<br /><br />You yourself have said, in other places, that the reduction in conservatives on campus has largely been academics changing their views in response to the Know-Nothing trend of the right.<br /><br />There are certainly extremes and bullies, but the "canceling" in recent years has been largely groups protesting and, yes, preventing campus lectures by visitors whose beliefs would deny full humanity to certain groups.Joe Dhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/09083738933624003227noreply@blogger.com