Oh, come on. Mamdani “probably shouldn’t” have said his race was African American?
Puleeze. It was a bald-faced, intentional lie.
Every one of us knows what the word “race” signifies (even if we think it’s a social construct). And there’s no definition of African-American **as a race** that includes Mamdani.
He is definitely African-American, and so is Elon Musk.
You're right that it's not a race, but I think using that term incorrectly as a race instead of just saying 'black' is obnoxious, and if a university is going to be dumb and racist enough to put it on the form, I don't have a problem using their idiocy against them.
If they mean black, they should just say black, and maybe include color swatches in the application packet..
I'm very anti-Mamdani politically but this whole thing is a nothingburger.
These bureaucratic race/ethnicity check-boxes were already a total farce by 2009 or so and checking something that's technically accurate on any level is fair game under a bad system. (African-American was never a 'race' to begin with so if the form asked the question in that way, it's the form's fault)
African-American used to be the PC way to say black (or is the B capitalized now?) to the point where people would travel abroad and refer to random black people as AA. Idk, seems like a weird thing to get hung up on.
My IMO-white daughter has kinky-curly hair (Type 4, IYKYK) and facial features that lead people often to assume she’s “mixed.” (Amusingly, she has black friends who befriended her because of this assumption.)
23 & Me says she has 2% African ancestry.
If the Supreme Court had not forbidden the use of affirmative action in admissions decision-making, could my daughter in good faith check off a box that says “African” or “African-American” in addition to other boxes on a college application?
Follow-up question: would this be more or less ethical than what Mamdani did?
I don’t know what his stance on affirmative action is, but it seems like anyone that favors racial affirmative action should be bothered by someone abusing the system.
And it’s fair play for anyone against affirmative action to make hay out of this as an absurd result of the system.
Yeah like I remember myself at 17 as having stupid opinions. I have fewer stupid opinions as I am 47, then again I am not running for mayor of NYC (maybe I should!)
This is kind of disingenuous. I'm pretty sure you would care if he tortured cats at 17 or ran a KKK club. Essentially, what you're saying is that you don't think this paraticular issue is worth caring about, which is what Katie is saying too.
I too would not think this was a big deal to do at 17 if he had grown up since then, but it's really hard to reconcile this action with his uprbringing and the positions he purports to hold as an adult. It points at something deeper.
Agree. I don't think it's newsworthy and I don't even like Mamdani. It clearly didn't help him get into the school, seeing as he was rejected anyway. "Politician told lie at 17" isn't news, and I don't understand Katie's logic that shoplifting is a lesser transgression than lying on an application.
I think I am with John McWorter on this. One of the biggest problems is that to describe someone as Asian describes way too many different types of people from Uganda to Honolulu as if there’s some kind of common ancestry there. Like it’s easy to make fun of him for identifying as African-American whereas its not weird that he supposed to identify himself the same as someone who is from Japan. I think that there is something far too general about Asian as a category if we are trying to talk about race being something that describes something.
That conversation has been happening in the UK recently, though for a far darker reason. Since Asian grooming gangs are back in the news, many people classed as Asian under that term here, particularly Chinese people, object strongly.
What was interesting about that IMO is that when it was determined that these grooming gangs were after all majority Asian, people were able to go on to define their ethnicity further. It turned out that many of the gang members came from a very small, disadvantaged part of Pakistan - I think Mirpur. And knowing that has helped - I think? It's added a lot of context, and has 'humanised' the terrible men to some extent. It's not excused them at all, but it's explained a lot.
It is a little absurd to call people from the subcontinent generically "Asian" when the population of that small cluster of countries is like 25% of the earth's population and about 2.5x the population of the whole continent of Europe.
Yeah that's so strange. Here in Canada, we have Arab or West Asian as options for the Middle East. Since I'm Turkish, I always say West Asian. Oh, and we're not afraid to just use the term "black" on the census either.
This is why most of these continental descriptions are nuts. When we in the USA say African Americans that is shorthand for descendants of African people enslaved in the Americas.
What does a Sicilian peon have in common with a Norwegian fisherman? What does a Vietnamese fisherman have in common with a Korean salary man? Maybe some religious affiliation of so kind but not language, culture or history.
I say we should give Mamdani grace because those categories are confusing for those of us born outside the US. I’ll use myself as an example. I’m a mestiza (mixed European and indigenous) woman born in a Latin American country who immigrated to the US. In those surveys, I know to mark Hispanic/Latino for ethnicity, but when it comes to race I don’t know what to mark. There are the options of White and Native American, but in the past I’ve been scolded for marking Native American and was informed that such a designation is only for official members of Native American tribes. In my country of birth, they don’t have tribal rolls like they do in the US. Nonetheless, just leaving it as White feels like I’m rejecting (or feel ashamed of) my indigenous ancestry.
It just seems that people will criticize you either way, but the problem is that the categories they give us are too limited and based on the assumption that the individual completing the form was born in the US.
I can understand Mamdani’s desire to want to capture his unique heritage of being an Indian man who was born and raised in an African country, and how he might have struggled to convey it in an overly simplistic form.
Mamdani moved to the US as a 7 year old. He attended a $60,000/year elementary school, then an elite and highly selective magnet school that sends graduates onto highly selective colleges. His father is a professor at Columbia and he had access to the best college counselors NYC could offer. His parents are multimillionaires. He knew how the system worked.
It was a member from a North American Native American tribe. She explained that this category was meant for those who are official members of Native American tribes.
It still seems stupid to me that someone who is 50% indigenous who is born 10 miles north of the US border is given this particular status under American law/convention but that person's cousin who is also 50% indigenous who is born 10 miles south of the border is just "Mexican."
Especially since there are Native communities in Mexico where people still speak their indigenous languages.
Basically in order for the US government to officially recognize a tribe, the tribe had to establish it's own enrollment requirements. (Woke interjection - The goal of the US gov when establishing this system was to eventually breed Native Americans out of legal existence. Enrollment requirements had to be strict enough to limit membership in order to receive federal recognition and benefits.) My grandpa was a member of a tribe that only enrolls by maternal link, so I am not enrolled. However, if my grandpa had been Navajo, I would be enrolled as I'd meet their blood quantum requirements.
RE: your Casino money comment below - only a few tribes actually financially benefit from casinos and similar operations - usually they are east coast or urban tribes with very little land or membership compared to the great plains and southwestern tribes. I currently live in South Florida where the local Seminole people are rich from the Hard Rock casino + franchise. It's very different from Pine Ridge reservation, where I lived/worked at a non-profit for a short stint, which I can only describe as extremely bleak and impoverished.
Each tribe has its own rules about who qualifies for membership. For some of them it’s based on blood quantum or lineal descent, some do have have residence requirements, and some have requirements about cultural/language knowledge.
It’s actually kinda funny I had a friend for many years that’s native and I wasn’t exactly sure what tribe he belonged to so when I asked how much money he got from the casinos he was like my tribe doesn’t own casinos and I was like ooooh really put my foot in my mouth.
He was the guy that gave me a Native name. It was “white man make ass of himself.”
If I were a NYC voter, I wouldn't care one bit about how Mamdani self-identified his race on a college application form as a teen, even though he totally knew what he was doing and that "African-American" doesn't mean Indians born in Uganda in this context. Having this question on the form is kinda stupid and I actually appreciate that his answer demonstrates that these categories are made up. What I take issue with is online lefties getting butthurt that some unflattering information about their preferred candidate was published and making this out to be a hit job from the neoliberal NYT or whatever. Mamdani went from a nobody in a state legislature to the biggest political star in the country practically overnight. People are gonna dig into his past and not all the coverage of him is going to be glowing. Voters can decide whether any of this matters to them. Welcome to big boy politics.
That and the general hypocrisy. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for anyone on the left when Elizabeth Warren claimed to be Native American or Mamdani tried to pass himself off as African American. But if a Republican/conservative/neoliberal shill did that, they would find it disqualifying.
I think that the stances of these conservative politicians would be disqualifying. Nobody cares that much about stuff like this, which is why people aren’t drummed out of polite society.
It kind of bothers me that they aren’t bothered? If they’re going to openly advocate for racial admissions, they should be bothered when their boy cheats.
I guess just fuck those white and Asian kids that fill out the form honestly despite the racism.
maybe. when people are looking at voting someone who they feel might improve their life, they’re going to overlook certain things. And I think it’s important to remember that just because somebody advocate a certain position doesn’t mean that they think it’s the most important thing in the world.
also, I think it’s not very descriptive for Mamdami to identify with any other race either. The racial categorization of people in the Middle East is kind of piss poor in terms of talking about anything. I think this is why people are talking so much about people being brown because that is supposed to capture everybody who isn’t neatly in any current racial categorization? I just can’t be this mad about this because he is part of an ethnic minority from Uganda that had to flee and and I just don’t think that he’s like some white guy in Nebraska saying the same thing.
I’m not saying it should make them vote Republican, but I am saying it they shouldn’t say it isn’t bad. It *should* diminish an affirmative action supporter’s opinion of him, at least a little. Dismissing it as totally unimportant seems a little self serving.
A self reflective person might even give it some thought the next time they say “how could anyone ever vote for politician X when he does Y, instead of the politician from my party that disagrees with them on every other issue”.
Politics being a team sport these days, I’m not holding my breath.
you could be right. Totally dismissing it could be self-serving, but I also think it could speak to my own biases because, at best, my support for affirmative action has always been very lukewarm. edited: not lukewarm but I just think the discussions around affirmative action haven’t been very honest on the left. I think I’ve always seen cases like this as evidence that we’re not really capturing peoples experiences that might lead to underrepresentation.
I agree with you about hitting the big time. If I was in Mamdani's camp, I'd think this went well. It came out so far before the general election it will be forgotten. It coming out from the NYT makes it look better for me than coming out from a right wing outlet.
I think I would care a minimal amount, e.g. I strictly prefer a Zohran that didn't lie on his application to one who did (not that I'd vote for either)
The amount of bot accounts that were flooding the r/NYC subreddit railing on the NYT last week was unbelievable. There was very clearly some kind of coordinated marketing blitz to change the narrative and paint the NYT as having some kind of agenda against Mamdani.
It is so disconcerting. It's like there is literally nothing they won't do when they perceive themselves to be on the losing side of an issue.
If Mamdani isn’t lying, then we have a bigger problem - he is a moron. If he said “yeah! I was born in Uganda and wanted to get into Columbia” I would have some respect for it.
Better question - his father worked at Columbia, he checked boxes other than “Asian,” clearly has well known issues with the Jooz…I mean “Zionists,”and didn’t get in?! How did he get not get in? That sounds like he should get a full ride!
Because that's only how this has worked in the imagination of right wingers? That this feels like a genuine mystery in these circles might, in other circumstances, require an updating of beliefs about how race conscious admissions worked. Plus, lots of kids of employees don't get into highly selective institutions, regardless of their race. Only so many slots...
Ehhhh it mostly is, yah. It doesn't hurt necessarily (it can depending on how much of a jackoff the faculty or staff member is), but it also depends on a lot of factors - level of staff acceptances that year, major and area, overall student strength, etc - which make it more of a nice to have and less of a magic button that always works. This is why tuition exchange programs exist, mind you.
Overall, it is the kind of thing that fits the right wing ressentiment vibe but doesn't really play out that way (see also: last sixty years of campus literature - the milquetoast who can't even get his kid into the school is an old saw, or "trope" as the kids say these days)
Of course, exhibit a in this case is that he didn't get into Columbia despite hitting all the magic buttons, but that's because the magic buttons are largely imaginary. The amount of actual factual versus rw butthurt thrashing ratio is way off for the most part. It's like what's that term for the thing where you believe a newspaper until it covers something you know well and then you see the holes of generalist v specialist thinking? This is like that, with a layered mixture of intentional and accidental fabrication on top because those views and likes are not going to view and like themselves.
Legacies are very overweighted at Harvard even compared to their peer institutions. (they're always an odd duck, both in terms of their activities as well as the intense focus on them, self generated and otherwise)
Harvard has a lot of faculty members, and one point to remember is that most of them are likely to be at least somewhat clear headed about their children's strengths and weaknesses...I'm not surprised that they have a fairly high acceptance rate but I'd be curious about actual numbers.
But most importantly, the weight of said thumb varies heavily from place to place, and per Mamdani it's not a magic bullet and never has been.
I think Mamdani is a clown and he absolutely knew that he was doing when he checked that box, but I also agree with the comment above that admissions doesn't weight parental employment as highly as some people think. I attended an "elite" school and knew a couple professors whose children did not get accepted. I also met people after college who had similar situations.
I think the real advantage of having a parent who is a professor is that you likely grew up in an academic household that valued reading and education; so it's not uncommon for kids of faculty members to do well in college admissions.
Terfs aren't annoyed with Ben Ryan because he uses preferred pronouns, they're annoyed with him because he's performativity rude and dismissive, blocks people when they try to discuss it with him, ignores the copious evidence of Brianna Wu's misogyny and then beclowned himself sucking up to JKR when she said the same things the less famous Terfs had been saying. By contrast, Katie and Jessie use preferred pronouns, but manage to do so without being dicks to those who disagree.
Here's a bare-bones minimum list of extremely basic emergency supplies that every city / apartment dweller should have (but a surprising amount of people don't):
(This is just off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'll forget something important..)
- Lots of bottled water (several gallons at least- in my case most of that is in the form of one liter seltzer bottles)
- Non-perishable food, including ready-to-eat food (cans, pasta, energy bars, etc). There's no reason not to have at least a few weeks worth of food even in a tiny apartment.
- Battery-powered lighting: At minimum a headlamp, also lanterns and maybe flashlights are helpful, preferably at least some of these should be rechargeable (I highly recommend Fenix headlamps).
A headlamp is the most important by far, there's no reason not to have at least one good one and one decent backup. And you can always put an extra headlamp in a translucent bag or aim it at the ceiling to use as a lantern.
- Battery packs for charging your phone (and other devices): At least one big one (20,000mAh or larger), and a smaller ~10,000 is handy for everyday use.
(I buy Anker pretty much exclusively.. One of mine has a built-in wireless charging pad so that I can still charge my phone if it ever gets wet or the USB port is damaged.)
- Extra batteries for any lights that use them
- You can get larger battery packs if charging your laptop is critical to you, or for longer term power.
You can even get a compact portable / folding solar panels, that's a more complicated topic (I can elaborate if you want, and explain some simple math for calculating necessary size), but in short get a much larger panel than you think you need- I'd say 30 watts is the absolute minimum for such use, and maybe double that if you want to charge your laptop.
- A fire extinguisher (mount it to your wall, so that it's guaranteed to always be there and easy to access, not buried under other crap. And if it's mounted inside a closet or pantry, put a sticker on the door so that anyone can find it)
- A backpacking cannister stove and several cannisters of isobutane fuel: these cost less than $20 if you buy a basic generic one on Amazon, they're tiny, and are very easy and safe to use, even indoors. The fuel you can buy at REI.
You'll be able to cook and boil water, even indoors. You don't need a special camping pot, but these stoves can't support a really heavy pot.
(you can also buy a propane stove and the green 1lb propane tanks instead. These are cheaper and actually better in some ways, but much heavier so you're less likely use this for non emergency situations- though it's fine for car camping.)
- A good first aid kit: most off-the-shelf ones suck, building or modifying your own is best, but the second best option is one of the larger ones from Adventure Medical Kits
- 0°F sleeping bag in case you lose your heat
- Keep your freezer and refrigerator stocked at all times with lots of extra ice and water containers (a few frozen water bottles and a gallon zip-lock or three of ice cubes in the freezer, cans of beer etc in the fridge):
In addition to saving power and helping maintain thermal stability, in the event of a blackout, your fridge & freezer will stay cold for much longer due to the thermal mass. All you have to do is keep the doors closed as much as possible.
Frozen stuff will still thaw relatively quickly, starting within a few hours, but it will stay cold and safe for a while longer, and you can also move some of the ice to your fridge (if you're unable to buy bags of ice, which is what you should do if possible)
- I'm not going to get into bug-out bags because that's a bigger topic, and in NYC, for in any severe emergency we're pretty much all fucked, no way we're getting out of here even on foot / bike, unless maybe you have a boat and are very close to the water..
- I'm also not going to get into weapons, since in NYC your options are basically limited to a baseball bat and some bear spray, and regular pepper spray / gel if you know where to buy it.. But yeah those things at least are worth having..
(edit: I elaborated on a few items and made a few additional suggestions in the comments below, and also made a few minor edits above, but there's two other items that I think are so useful that I want to add them here:
- Lunatec spray bottle. I made a long comment below, so read that, but in short it's an extremely useful item for various cleaning / hygiene and cooling off purposes, in situations where you don't have access to running water, that does a lot with very little water.
I think it's great for emergencies, but if you do anything outdoors, even just going to the beach or on a picnic, you'll love this: https://lunatecgear.com/
- Chlorine dioxide tablets: These are the easiest and most effective way to sanitize clean but not potable water, short of boiling. There are various brands that are each a bit different, but it's inexpensive, and they take up hardly any space at all.
You can use ordinary unscented bleach in an emergency, but it's far less effective, and slower, and tastes & smells a lot worse.
I mostly take tablets hiking, because they weigh nothing, and if you ever run short on water, you can take any water from a running stream or even a lake etc, and make it safe to drink. For camping, I typically use a filter instead, but I still bring tablets as a backup, and sometimes using both tablets and a filter is a good idea because they implement each other very well (a filter easily removes things that chlorine takes a long time to kill, and chlorine easily kills any viruses or bacteria that could make it through a filter).
But obviously this is a very useful thing to have in the event that you have running tap water, or some other source of clean water, but there's a chance the water has microbial contamination (i.e. boil water advisories). Even if you're able to boil wster, this coil save fuel or be a backup option.
Katadyn and Potable Aqua are probably the best known and most reputable currently available brands, and have excellent durable packaging, and if you're just buying a, small number for emergencies, that's what I would recommend, but 'Aquatabs' is less expensive if you use it a lot or want to stock up on a larger amount.
(Aquatabs also have a somewhat different formulation and more complicated dosing instructions.. The others are just one tablet per liter, though you could always use more if you suspect that the water is pretty bad..)
I'd add to this list, regarding severe weather, which can, has and will happen in NYC, a weather radio that has (in addition to plug in solar and crank charging. There's a fine selection on Amazon
Room for what? Do you not keep any food in your pantry? You can't find room for a few one gallon containers of water (and/or equivalent number of smaller bottles) in a closet or on a shelf? A cannister stove and headlamps are tiny, and the fuel cannisters are also small.
Aside from the food, everything I described including the water could fit on a single closet shelf..
That's a pretty good list I think, and it's inspired me to review my batteries and lighting situation. Re bug out bag: driving would certainly be tough, but if you wanted to get out of the city there are a lot of little bridges in upper Manhattan that can take you on to the US mainland so you don't necessarily have to walk the GW or the tunnels. But depending on the disaster I don't see how leaving the city puts you in any better position unless you have somewhere specific to go that you can get to in a reasonable amount of time on foot.
I can imagine lots of scenarios where the entire NYC metropolitan area is at grave risk, but getting 50 miles or so inland and uphill and ideally more rural or at least suburban, is dramatically safer if not totally safe.
I just don't see how getting there is a viable option unless you know to evacuate before everyone else..
I imagine in any true catastrophe that requires immediate evacuation within less than 24 hours to avoid certain death or high likelihood of terrible things happening to you - asteroid impact, huge tsunami, nuclear meltdown / explosion, terrorist attack, military invasion, zombies.. Or basically anything that makes a majority of the population panic to the point that they feel a need to leave the city..
At that point I think every single bridge and tunnel would be so crowded that even getting through on foot would be difficult at best, very slow and dangerous.. I'm picturing mobs of people trying to climb over and through all the stuck cars, and a high risk of getting trampled or trapped, or facing deliberate violence from people desperate and frustrated..
I mean I suppose if you're one of the first ones to decide to leave and start moving early, you'd have a chance.
Which is where the bug-out bag comes in.
And there are endless forum discussions, videos, books and probably podcasts on the subject, but once you know the concept, it's not hard to imagine what you would want in one.
I'd say the one key for NYC is, if you're preparing a bugout bag, it needs to be a backpack that's fairly small and light (but mostly small).
Because if things are that bad, you need to be able to travel on foot for significant distances / lengths of time and be very agile, and even need to be able to climb over stuck cars, barricades, and other obstacles.
But most of all, you need to be able to force your way through densely packed crowds of people.
It's not a crazy thing to have, but I personally haven't bothered (I'm sure I have all the supplies to prepare multiple bugout bags, but I don't have any that are prepped and ready to go at all times, which is the whole point), because again I think in the event of a disaster that bad, I'm most likely screwed and I don't think evacuation will be a promising option..
If I want to be harshly realistic, and burst your bubble: If things were that bad, without a serious stockpile of weapons and ammunition to defend that rooftop garden, it's not going to exist for long..
Also I think the idea of a garden that you can actual survive off of is mostly a fantasy..
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, but short of having a full-scale farm, with all the equipment, materials, skill and experience that entails, I think it's mostly a pipe dream.
I think even for an actual farmer with experience, establishing a low-tech rooftop subsistence garden under any post-disaster circumstance would be extremely difficult.
(I get that you were proud joking, but I like to explore ideas..)
Thanks for setting me straight. It's a fun thought exercise, but you're probably right and as per The Road I should probably just keep a gun with one bullet in it. But, alas, guns are mostly illegal in NYS. The man is always keeping me down.
I found that having the camp stove was incredibly important. You never realize how normal a hot meal can make you feel (even in the middle of summer) when you're out of power for more than a week.
MRE's will feed you, but you won't be happy afterwards (unless you have the chili mac)
There is something else you forgot: a case or quick way to store and move your important documents. I have a friend that did not do that and had a hard time replacing his social security card
Also, baby wipes. If you don't have a ton of water, having baby wipes to kind of wipe off sweat and generally get your self feeling human again.
Yup, but I will say, MREs are totally unnecessary, and one of the bulkiest and most expensive options for food, and in my opinion a terrible choice for apartment dwellers.
In addition to a vast variety of inexpensive prepared, ready-to-eat foods in cans, there are tons of prepared foods in lightweight plastic pouches as well. And these are regular sorts of food that you would normally eat, so you will naturally rotate them (unless you prefer to set them aside somewhere), and it won't be any additional expense.
But yes I agree boiling water is extremely valuable, not just for cooking and comfort, but for various hygiene related uses, and of course sanitizing questionable water. Which reminds me, I probably should have mentioned chlorine dioxide tablets..
Also in cold weather (or if your heat fails), a hot water bottle in your sleeping bag is a great trick.
Speaking of baby wipes, one of my favorite pieces of gear lately is this pump spray bottle by Lunatec. It sounds gimmicky, but it's one of those things that you realize is 10x more useful once you actually use it.
It's a pump-up sprayer lid that screws onto any water bottle with standard Nalgene threads. They also make a version that screws onto Hydroflask vacuum bottles (or some other brands with the same threading), and you can buy either version with or without a bottle, and can also get a tube extension.
Anyway you pump it up with just a few pumps, and then you can spray a continuous fine mist, a solid stream, or a shower type pattern.
I use it mostly for cooling off in the summer, but it's also extremely handy for rinsing off my hands, washin dishes while camping or at the beach, spraying the salt water off of my face or getting sand off stuff, etc..
It's so useful that I bring it almost anywhere I'm going outside in warm weather, even just to the park.
And a one liter bottle almost never runs out even when I'm using it a lot, in fact I often bring a smaller bottle and that rarely runs out either.
Which brings me to my point, in an emergency where you have no running water, or if that water isn't potable, this would be extremely helpful for washing dishes, washing your hands, even bathing, plus if you lose power in the summer and have no air conditioning, the misting function is a great way to cool off (at least as long as the humidity is below 100%..).
It really stretches limited water supplies, even a liter a day or less might be enough for all of your hygiene needs including dish washing if you're frugal.
Anyway I think its an extremely useful device to have for any camping or other outdoor activities, that could also be a game-changer in an emergency. So I recommend pretty much everyone getting one of these.
Oh and also they sell spare parts for everything at reasonable prices, so you can easily repair it and replace any broken or worn parts, which I love.
I have no affiliation with this company, I'm just a big fan:
A radio, sure, but I don't know if agree with the part about how it's powered..
The solar panels integrated into such gadgets are almost always too small / underpowered to be practical, it's just a gimmick that people never actually use.
I think hand-cranks are somewhat more practical (since they can be used at any time and in any location regardless of weather condition, and can provide a sufficient amount of power with frequent cranking, as tedious as it is..).
However the crank has moving parts that can easily break or wear out, and both usually rely on a rechargeable battery that will definitely wear out within a number of years.
Which unless those batteries are removable, makes that radio LESS reliable than one which simply runs on AA batteries. You can keep a few lithium (primary) AA cells, which have a shelf life measure in decades, and will never leak or corrode (since the electrolyte doesn't contain water).
And if you want to use solar panels, it makes much more sense to keep a separate one, that way you can use it to charge all of your devices and batteries, and it can be much more powerful, and it won't become useless trash when other parts of the radio (such as the rechargeable batteries) stop working.
You should check out Midland’s line of emergency weather radios. They hold charge, the solar works, the hand crank works. Does it last forever? No, but it's compact and there to throw in your bag if you need to go and you don't have to worry “is it charged??”. Plus you get emergency alerts if you turn it on, which is faster than the cell phone push notifications
All rechargeable batteries will 'hold a charge' fine when they're new, but the lifespan is extremely limited. As long as it's a battery not a capacitor, it will degrade with both time and usage (and I think even capacitors can wear out, but not as quickly).
Sure one of those would be nice to have, I just think the solar panel and to an extent the hand crank is a bit gimmicky and provides a false sense of reliability, unless there is also the option to use standard AA batteries.
Fortunately, some of them do have all these features - hand crank & solar panel, plus the ability to use AA batteries in addition to the internal rechargeable battery pack.
While looking up the Midland radios I came across this one by C. Crane, which is the brand that would be my first choice for such a radio anyway:
It would be even better if the rechargeable battery was also replaceable, and for the money, this one has a fraction of the capabilities of their compact shortwave radios - though that's not necessarily a bad thing, those are pretty complicated to use.
By the way regarding the sleeping bag, in the unlikely event that you ever lose both your heating and electricity in the winter, your apartment will never get anywhere near 0°, even if it's that cold outside.
So that's not strictly required to survive. A 20°F bag is more than adequate for that, especially since you'll have blankets and lots of extra jackets etc at home. But a warmer bag is always preferable and more comfortable, especially if you're not accustomed to sleeping in the cold.
This actually a much more important item to keep in your car (if you have one) during the winter, along with a bunch of other items, including a small collapsible aluminum shovel.
Look I live in Mamdani’s Assembly district and have never voted for him, don’t like him or my other DSA-affiliated representatives—we also have the famous AOC as our US rep., Tiffany Cabán as our city councilwoman, and Kristen Gonzalez as our state senator, ALL of them DSA people, so people have started calling us the People’s Republic of Astoria, lol—but while I can’t stand his preposterous policy ideas and do not want him to be mayor… the problem is he’s running against Eric Adams, so he’s gonna win. I just think that’s all but a fait accompli at this point. The NY Dem establishment brought this on themselves running a gargoyle like Cuomo in that primary so now we’re stuck with this guy.
THAT SAID, I really really think that non-New Yorkers are making way more of a thing out of this than it realistically is. It does NOT tell us much about the Democratic Party; hell, I personally don’t think it even tells us much about New York. The turnout is low (by design) in our off-off-year primaries, so a bunch of motivated leftists and some unions managed to wrangle a bunch of votes.
The thing that gives me hope is he’s very young (33, ffs!) and inexperienced—and he knows it, so he has been signaling loud and clear that he intends to hire good people as commissioners and let them do their jobs. That is a very good sign if he means it (and it was one of the few good things about his favorite mayor of his lifetime, who was—no joke—Bill DeBlasio. An early thing to look out for is whether or not he keeps Jessica Tisch as the police commissioner; she’s done a fantastic job there (and at the Sanitation Dept. before that) but also pissed off a lot of lefty types, but he (I believe) has suggested he’s open to keeping her on. That will be an early test.
As for his race, meh who gives a shit. That’s my honest response. Race doesn’t make much sense as a concept outside the Deep South (where I’m originally from) anyway, and it REALLY doesn’t make sense in New York, where standard-issue American honkies like myself are few and far between and it’s perfectly common to have a Korean mother and a Puerto Rican father (or whatever combination you can think of). It’s all so stupid. They’re just New Yorkers as far as I’m concerned. And I just think admission to places like Columbia is wildly overvalued in the first place, but maybe I’m being dumb and naive, I dunno. I worry more when they start getting into silly Marxist cosplaying and then actually get elected to stuff.
Sorry, very long comment, but yeah, let’s see what happens. Mamdani is a nice dude who I think genuinely means well and loves New York and wants to do a good job, and that makes me inclined to at least give him a chance—especially now that there’s almost certainly nothing I can do about it, lol.
It's funny that I unquestionably get to call myself African American but these folks don't. The last person in my family born in Africa was probably 300-400 years ago.
Of all the post-2016 Newspeak, the one I have the least objection to is ADOS (American Descendants of Slaves). It’s not exactly pretty but it describes the group most accurately, imo.
Of course, the messy part is that there are millions of people alive today, with one or more Confederate slaves in their ancestry, who neither present as nor identify as black.
People have been making the “African American” joke about Charlize for her entire career. I seem to recall it being a recurring joke during an appearance she did on SNL around the time of her Oscar push in the early 2000s.
The best was when African American was the PC term they HAD to use in the media and Black people born and living in, say, Great Britain were called African American Brits
My favorite example of this was there was a kid from London who was a year younger than me, and all the professors would call him "African American" and he'd be like "no I'm black and British"
I don't think that Elon Musk is Afrikaner, but nearly all Afrikaners have some black African ancestry. It's usually below 10%, but they have more African ancestry than Elizabeth Warren has Native American ancestry. And of course more than Mamdani.
Genetics has really made upset a lot of people's ideas about race and ethnicity.
He has Afrikaner and British ancestry. After the British took over South Africa, there was a fair number of British immigrants. Actually most White South Africans I have met in the US have been from descended from that wave of settlers.
Mandani misleading people about his race for a college application by checking the wrong box is by far the most mundane inconsequential political controversy in current political climate. Even if there was no other political turmoil, I could care less which box someone picks on their college application. I am surprised this is even in the news
Katie mentioned the CodeRED system. Important to note: The number looks like a spam call in your phone unless you've programmed it into your contacts.
If you sign up for CodeRED, add their two phone numbers, (866) 419-5000 (emergency notifications) and (855) 969-4636 (general notifications), to your cell phone and/or landline contacts as "CodeRED Emergency Alerts." This way, when you receive a phone call from either of CodeRED's phone numbers during an emergency event, you will be able to recognize the call.
So the assumption is that USAID was keeping African children alive through medicine or food or whatever right?
First, why is that the US governments problem? Why are my tax dollars going to Africa? Speaking of blues, we’ve got a massive drug problem in THIS country id MUUUCH rather fund a solution for, on top of a million other things I care more about.
But my main issue is why cutting USAID is ACTIVELY killing children? Jesse said Musk is KILLING children. Putting the metaphorical knife in his hand. Is that considered turning up the temperature? Is blaming Musk for MURDER not a problem? If someone was to assassinate him tomorrow, could I point a finger at Jesse and people like him and say they played a role in, what is it, stochastic terrorism?
Now I assume he was simply being hyperbolic. However, speaking of priors, that might be giving too much credit, as he has regularly gone out of his way, like in this episode, to talk madly insane shit.
Generously sending aid to shithole countries is a nice thing. Improving lives in this way is worthy of appreciation and praise. But taking away that funding or not funding it at all does not mean whoever is in charge of that decision is killing people.
If you sent money to country A and people live, but do not send money to country B and people die, did you kill those people in country B? Absolutely not.
Righto, you could have spared me the weird & unnecessarily long reactionary rant.
If you’re unable to understand why oversea aid might be in the US interests, or why ending programs people were relying basically overnight might lead to deaths, then might I suggest reading a bit wider.
You might want to address your concerns to well known Libtard George W Bush as he seemed to believe they were worthwhile.
Oh Miller, I LOVE a good dick measuring contest, especially when yours is so cute.
You completely missed my main point. You can say taking away things people have become dependent on may lead to negative outcomes. That’s very obvious. My biggest issue, little buddy, is calling that MURDER. If you take issue with that because that specific word was not used, then just the fact he said Musk killed children. Please explain to me why that is appropriate. Literally, metaphorically, morally… How is that right?
You’ve already shifted your ‘main point’ as basic facts aren’t on your side. I’m not interested a ‘dick measuring contest’ any more than I am your crude reactionary rants that you started with.
If you want to try and turn what was a patently obvious point Jesse was making into an argument of semantics, making that’s on you. The fact that shutting down these programs in the manner they have is not only appallingly inhumane, they were until 5minutes part of a consensus of both parties they were not merely morally the right thing to do but in the US’s interests.
Maybe you’ll find someone else willing to engage in some ‘omg Jesse accused Elon musk of murder’ pearl clutching 🤷🏼♂️.
What are the facts? What point have I swiveled from? I am not talking about should the US assist other countries in whatever way. That is a debatable point with reasonable perspectives on both sides of the argument.
My issue, which has NOT changed, is the language. People called Trump hitler so much he got shot. People are calling ICE officers jackbooted brown shirts and they are being assaulted. My point is the basic FACT that if you call Musk a genocidal murderer enough, people will try to kill him. This is not a new concept. If 1 person is mentally unstable enough out of the 10 million that hear such a message, violence is possible.
When the only thing he actually did was suggest we cut funding to an aid program. Whether that leads to death or not is not his fault or the fault of the US government. If other countries cannot support themselves, while unfortunate, that is not our responsibility.
If you hate him so much that you’d rather he be dead for this then admit it. Otherwise, while we may disagree about funding cuts, violent rhetoric is unequivocally bad.
It's well documented that USAID saved 91 million lives over 2001-2021. It's conservatively estimated that 14 million people will die who would not have done if USAID was continued by 2030. Tens of thousands will have died because of these dumb psychos and hundreds of thousands are now at risk.
I’m not disagreeing with the fact that lives have been improved through USAID.
I am saying that funding cuts should not be blamed if deaths occur after.
Say you give the same homeless guy 5 bucks a week for a year. Then you stop giving him money because you don’t want to anymore and a month later he starved to death, are you personally at fault?
Now let’s say you got fired and therefore could not afford to do this anymore and he died. Is the company that fired you at fault?
My point is people should not be relying on handouts their whole lives. If whole populations of people cannot survive without the American taxpayers money, then, to put it lightly, changes to their societies need to be made.
And to put it bluntly, maybe those populations should cease to exist, if they can’t figure it out themselves.
That’s not to say I want millions of people to die. I just don’t want to feed them. Fuck I’m paycheck to paycheck myself I’m not in the position to give a shit about people half a world away.
I realized about half way through this that I’m actually an unpaid subscriber to Cremieux, and it definitely never occurred to me that he’s a Nazi. He doesn’t even write about race and IQ that much? He does write a fair bit about college admissions and SAT scores, which I guess are a kind of proxy for IQ, but the way the Times describes him you’d think he was Steve Sailor. And at least 3/4 of his posts have nothing to do with IQ or race or college admissions, he’s just pretty good at picking interesting stuff out of data, which is how I found him (an example of the sort of post I find interesting: his “most trend breaks are not real” post from a week ago).
I agree - I have been reading through his old Twitter posts and I cannot find what the fuss is all about. He's an amateur science blogger who posts alot about economic data, GLP-1 drugs, vaccines, housing issues, etc. He even retweets posts from Tracing Woodgrains.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like everyone is missing the mark on this guy. For Jamelle Bouie to call him a "Nazi" is absurd and libelous. Even to call him someone who "frequently posts about race and IQ" is grossly inaccurate.
I think even Jesse was a little unfair to describe him as 'someone who reposts bar graphs' and makes sweeping generalizations.
The total rout at today's women's final of Wimbledon much reminded me of the Jesse vs. Lance debate. Except I actually felt bad for Amanda Anisimova. Anyway, I actually did enjoy that episode in the way one enjoys trainwrecks but I don't need it to be a recurring feature. It might be interesting to hear J+K engage with actually smart people with different opinions more often though.
Jesse's gotta butch up. He's a journalist, and we expect the full facts of things, distasteful as they might be. If you're reading something or quoting it, you CAN say it. I hate news articles that beat around the bush about some controversial thing someone MIGHT have said.
Tell me what it was, and I'll judge. (The Covington Catholic thing was a classic in this respect. Had I not see the "offending" nature of the interaction I might have judged them totally wrong--but I searched for--and Had To Search, dammit--the details behind the articles. Just serve them up for me.)
The Covington thing was so bizarre and eye-opening. It was like being in the twilight zone and realizing that you're the only person in the room who's not a brainwashed zombie..
I watched the video almost immediately, and even without knowing the full details and context of what lead up to that moment, I could see no indication that the kid was doing anything wrong, and it was bizarre how everyone mindlessly and immediately accepted all the headlines and tweets saying the opposite.
And of course learning more about the story only exonerated the kid further, who showed admirable restraint and a positive attitude as he was being harassed and arguably assaulted within provocation by that crazy old man..
(in my opinion, if someone walks up to you and bangs a drum in your face, you'd be justified in punching them in the face..)
Oh, come on. Mamdani “probably shouldn’t” have said his race was African American?
Puleeze. It was a bald-faced, intentional lie.
Every one of us knows what the word “race” signifies (even if we think it’s a social construct). And there’s no definition of African-American **as a race** that includes Mamdani.
It was deception, pure and simple.
He is definitely African-American, and so is Elon Musk.
You're right that it's not a race, but I think using that term incorrectly as a race instead of just saying 'black' is obnoxious, and if a university is going to be dumb and racist enough to put it on the form, I don't have a problem using their idiocy against them.
If they mean black, they should just say black, and maybe include color swatches in the application packet..
I believe I saw someone on Reddit found the original documentation, and it said, "Black or African-American," which is a little more nuanced.
Then, as my paleo ancestors were “out of Africa”, I will proudly call myself African American.
Your ancestors were African (though it's kind of a strange description for people at that time), but if you were born here, then you're just American.
So if my ancestors were enslaved in the Americas, after 175 years, I would not describe myself as African American?
If you were born in America, your parents were born in America, and your grandparents were born in America, then you're American. No hyphen applies.
If you want to say that your ancestors were slaves, or Africans, that's fine. If you feel a need to describe your hue of skin color, fine.
But saying that you're something you're not is an odd way of saying you're black.
I'm very anti-Mamdani politically but this whole thing is a nothingburger.
These bureaucratic race/ethnicity check-boxes were already a total farce by 2009 or so and checking something that's technically accurate on any level is fair game under a bad system. (African-American was never a 'race' to begin with so if the form asked the question in that way, it's the form's fault)
But it’s not technically accurate that AA is his race. J&K specifically said the section was labeled “race,” did they not?
African-American isn't a race to begin with so if the form asked the question in that way with a multiple-option response, it's the form's fault.
Otherwise you'd have to say everyone else who answered African-American was also at fault in precisely the same way (i.e., because it isn't a race).
Totally agree. This would be on page 37 of my reasons not to vote for the guy, though.
African-American used to be the PC way to say black (or is the B capitalized now?) to the point where people would travel abroad and refer to random black people as AA. Idk, seems like a weird thing to get hung up on.
I suspect your comment is driven by your political opposition to Mamdani as opposed to a principled devotion to the truth.
No, that’s incorrect.
I suspect this denial is driven by your personal opposition to annoying ad hominem comments as opposed to a principled devotion to the truth.
OK, question for everyone:
My IMO-white daughter has kinky-curly hair (Type 4, IYKYK) and facial features that lead people often to assume she’s “mixed.” (Amusingly, she has black friends who befriended her because of this assumption.)
23 & Me says she has 2% African ancestry.
If the Supreme Court had not forbidden the use of affirmative action in admissions decision-making, could my daughter in good faith check off a box that says “African” or “African-American” in addition to other boxes on a college application?
Follow-up question: would this be more or less ethical than what Mamdani did?
I honestly don’t care what Mamdani did when he was 17. I care about his awful policies and positions now that he’s 33.
I don’t know what his stance on affirmative action is, but it seems like anyone that favors racial affirmative action should be bothered by someone abusing the system.
And it’s fair play for anyone against affirmative action to make hay out of this as an absurd result of the system.
Yeah like I remember myself at 17 as having stupid opinions. I have fewer stupid opinions as I am 47, then again I am not running for mayor of NYC (maybe I should!)
I too had stupid opinions at 17. Unlike Mandani, I no longer hold those opinions and admit they were stupid.
Unlike Mamdani, I am guessing you and I are too poor to be socialists.
This is kind of disingenuous. I'm pretty sure you would care if he tortured cats at 17 or ran a KKK club. Essentially, what you're saying is that you don't think this paraticular issue is worth caring about, which is what Katie is saying too.
I too would not think this was a big deal to do at 17 if he had grown up since then, but it's really hard to reconcile this action with his uprbringing and the positions he purports to hold as an adult. It points at something deeper.
Agree. I don't think it's newsworthy and I don't even like Mamdani. It clearly didn't help him get into the school, seeing as he was rejected anyway. "Politician told lie at 17" isn't news, and I don't understand Katie's logic that shoplifting is a lesser transgression than lying on an application.
I think I am with John McWorter on this. One of the biggest problems is that to describe someone as Asian describes way too many different types of people from Uganda to Honolulu as if there’s some kind of common ancestry there. Like it’s easy to make fun of him for identifying as African-American whereas its not weird that he supposed to identify himself the same as someone who is from Japan. I think that there is something far too general about Asian as a category if we are trying to talk about race being something that describes something.
That conversation has been happening in the UK recently, though for a far darker reason. Since Asian grooming gangs are back in the news, many people classed as Asian under that term here, particularly Chinese people, object strongly.
What was interesting about that IMO is that when it was determined that these grooming gangs were after all majority Asian, people were able to go on to define their ethnicity further. It turned out that many of the gang members came from a very small, disadvantaged part of Pakistan - I think Mirpur. And knowing that has helped - I think? It's added a lot of context, and has 'humanised' the terrible men to some extent. It's not excused them at all, but it's explained a lot.
And we should probably not allow any more immigrants from Mirpur.
What? The gang rapists came from a disadvantaged part of Pakistan so they are “more humanized” given that “context”?
More 'specified', is perhaps the better word? They're obvious horrible people and did terrible things.
However, something like 60-70% of all Brits of Pakistani origin come from there & nearby regions, not just the grooming gangs, everyone.
It is a little absurd to call people from the subcontinent generically "Asian" when the population of that small cluster of countries is like 25% of the earth's population and about 2.5x the population of the whole continent of Europe.
UK’s fault for calling South Asians aka Indian/Pakistani aka Desi “Asians”. Confuses the hell out of everyone else.
I’ve always felt weird that I fall into the same category as, say, an Indian or Chinese American
It is because it is weird. We’re acting like all these different ethnic groups have anything in common.
And Russian, maybe sometimes.
Correct, Russia is in Asia, that makes me asian
Or maybe a European/Asian enby.
Hahahahaha, I'm stealing this designation for Russkies
Though not people from Afghanistan importantly, who are white, for the purposes of the census. Very logical system.
A good example of how race is a social construct
Yeah that's so strange. Here in Canada, we have Arab or West Asian as options for the Middle East. Since I'm Turkish, I always say West Asian. Oh, and we're not afraid to just use the term "black" on the census either.
I like to joke in class that I am "Asian" (pause for effect) then say "CAUC-ASIAN!"
This is why most of these continental descriptions are nuts. When we in the USA say African Americans that is shorthand for descendants of African people enslaved in the Americas.
What does a Sicilian peon have in common with a Norwegian fisherman? What does a Vietnamese fisherman have in common with a Korean salary man? Maybe some religious affiliation of so kind but not language, culture or history.
Sicily was conquered by the vikings via the Normans, so quite a lot. Bad example :P
I know. I'll DO BETTER
For a good laugh, check out the list of “Asian” Oscar winners on Wikipedia:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Academy_Award_winners_and_nominees_of_Asian_descent
LOL Natalie Portman
I say we should give Mamdani grace because those categories are confusing for those of us born outside the US. I’ll use myself as an example. I’m a mestiza (mixed European and indigenous) woman born in a Latin American country who immigrated to the US. In those surveys, I know to mark Hispanic/Latino for ethnicity, but when it comes to race I don’t know what to mark. There are the options of White and Native American, but in the past I’ve been scolded for marking Native American and was informed that such a designation is only for official members of Native American tribes. In my country of birth, they don’t have tribal rolls like they do in the US. Nonetheless, just leaving it as White feels like I’m rejecting (or feel ashamed of) my indigenous ancestry.
It just seems that people will criticize you either way, but the problem is that the categories they give us are too limited and based on the assumption that the individual completing the form was born in the US.
I can understand Mamdani’s desire to want to capture his unique heritage of being an Indian man who was born and raised in an African country, and how he might have struggled to convey it in an overly simplistic form.
Mamdani moved to the US as a 7 year old. He attended a $60,000/year elementary school, then an elite and highly selective magnet school that sends graduates onto highly selective colleges. His father is a professor at Columbia and he had access to the best college counselors NYC could offer. His parents are multimillionaires. He knew how the system worked.
Yeah, what you said Pepper!
He didn't get in.
That doesn’t mean he doesn’t know how the system works.
No, he got into Bowdoin, another elite and highly selective school.
He’s lived here since he was 7. He knows what African American means in our cultural context.
You may disagree but I wish our ancestry didn’t matter as to official forms and would only matter as to things like food ways, holidays, etc.
America is not about blood and soil—we should be freed from our ancestry while also being free to practice any religion, eat any cuisine, etc.
Thank you for that. These Blut-und-Boden flavored discussions drive me nuts. And you're basically espousing a standard Western European view on this.
I’m more interested in who told you you can’t identify as native?
Unless you’re like 1/8 native then yeah seems fair.
But if you’re like half and half I’d go with native for DIVERSITY
It was a member from a North American Native American tribe. She explained that this category was meant for those who are official members of Native American tribes.
It still seems stupid to me that someone who is 50% indigenous who is born 10 miles north of the US border is given this particular status under American law/convention but that person's cousin who is also 50% indigenous who is born 10 miles south of the border is just "Mexican."
Especially since there are Native communities in Mexico where people still speak their indigenous languages.
Sure, but what about someone from a couple thousand miles south? Southern South America is farther away than England.
Anyway, the point of that census category is reparations, so restricting it to places you ruled makes a certain amount of sense
Oh I guess that makes sense. But what criteria do you need to meet to be considered an official member?
Like if you’re Navajo but live in New Hampshire instead of the usual SW states and are not registered or whatever are you not Navajo?
I guess this all may be a way to prevent pretendians.
Basically in order for the US government to officially recognize a tribe, the tribe had to establish it's own enrollment requirements. (Woke interjection - The goal of the US gov when establishing this system was to eventually breed Native Americans out of legal existence. Enrollment requirements had to be strict enough to limit membership in order to receive federal recognition and benefits.) My grandpa was a member of a tribe that only enrolls by maternal link, so I am not enrolled. However, if my grandpa had been Navajo, I would be enrolled as I'd meet their blood quantum requirements.
RE: your Casino money comment below - only a few tribes actually financially benefit from casinos and similar operations - usually they are east coast or urban tribes with very little land or membership compared to the great plains and southwestern tribes. I currently live in South Florida where the local Seminole people are rich from the Hard Rock casino + franchise. It's very different from Pine Ridge reservation, where I lived/worked at a non-profit for a short stint, which I can only describe as extremely bleak and impoverished.
Each tribe has its own rules about who qualifies for membership. For some of them it’s based on blood quantum or lineal descent, some do have have residence requirements, and some have requirements about cultural/language knowledge.
But how I get that casino money tho?
It’s actually kinda funny I had a friend for many years that’s native and I wasn’t exactly sure what tribe he belonged to so when I asked how much money he got from the casinos he was like my tribe doesn’t own casinos and I was like ooooh really put my foot in my mouth.
He was the guy that gave me a Native name. It was “white man make ass of himself.”
Good times.
I've also heard this from Mexican-Americans who were very frustrated with the way the US census questions were worded.
Realistically on most forms you can answer whatever the fuck you like.
If I were a NYC voter, I wouldn't care one bit about how Mamdani self-identified his race on a college application form as a teen, even though he totally knew what he was doing and that "African-American" doesn't mean Indians born in Uganda in this context. Having this question on the form is kinda stupid and I actually appreciate that his answer demonstrates that these categories are made up. What I take issue with is online lefties getting butthurt that some unflattering information about their preferred candidate was published and making this out to be a hit job from the neoliberal NYT or whatever. Mamdani went from a nobody in a state legislature to the biggest political star in the country practically overnight. People are gonna dig into his past and not all the coverage of him is going to be glowing. Voters can decide whether any of this matters to them. Welcome to big boy politics.
That and the general hypocrisy. It wasn’t a dealbreaker for anyone on the left when Elizabeth Warren claimed to be Native American or Mamdani tried to pass himself off as African American. But if a Republican/conservative/neoliberal shill did that, they would find it disqualifying.
I think that the stances of these conservative politicians would be disqualifying. Nobody cares that much about stuff like this, which is why people aren’t drummed out of polite society.
It kind of bothers me that they aren’t bothered? If they’re going to openly advocate for racial admissions, they should be bothered when their boy cheats.
I guess just fuck those white and Asian kids that fill out the form honestly despite the racism.
maybe. when people are looking at voting someone who they feel might improve their life, they’re going to overlook certain things. And I think it’s important to remember that just because somebody advocate a certain position doesn’t mean that they think it’s the most important thing in the world.
also, I think it’s not very descriptive for Mamdami to identify with any other race either. The racial categorization of people in the Middle East is kind of piss poor in terms of talking about anything. I think this is why people are talking so much about people being brown because that is supposed to capture everybody who isn’t neatly in any current racial categorization? I just can’t be this mad about this because he is part of an ethnic minority from Uganda that had to flee and and I just don’t think that he’s like some white guy in Nebraska saying the same thing.
I’m not saying it should make them vote Republican, but I am saying it they shouldn’t say it isn’t bad. It *should* diminish an affirmative action supporter’s opinion of him, at least a little. Dismissing it as totally unimportant seems a little self serving.
A self reflective person might even give it some thought the next time they say “how could anyone ever vote for politician X when he does Y, instead of the politician from my party that disagrees with them on every other issue”.
Politics being a team sport these days, I’m not holding my breath.
you could be right. Totally dismissing it could be self-serving, but I also think it could speak to my own biases because, at best, my support for affirmative action has always been very lukewarm. edited: not lukewarm but I just think the discussions around affirmative action haven’t been very honest on the left. I think I’ve always seen cases like this as evidence that we’re not really capturing peoples experiences that might lead to underrepresentation.
I agree with you about hitting the big time. If I was in Mamdani's camp, I'd think this went well. It came out so far before the general election it will be forgotten. It coming out from the NYT makes it look better for me than coming out from a right wing outlet.
I think I would care a minimal amount, e.g. I strictly prefer a Zohran that didn't lie on his application to one who did (not that I'd vote for either)
I totally agree re: leftists getting butthurt.
The amount of bot accounts that were flooding the r/NYC subreddit railing on the NYT last week was unbelievable. There was very clearly some kind of coordinated marketing blitz to change the narrative and paint the NYT as having some kind of agenda against Mamdani.
It is so disconcerting. It's like there is literally nothing they won't do when they perceive themselves to be on the losing side of an issue.
If Mamdani isn’t lying, then we have a bigger problem - he is a moron. If he said “yeah! I was born in Uganda and wanted to get into Columbia” I would have some respect for it.
Better question - his father worked at Columbia, he checked boxes other than “Asian,” clearly has well known issues with the Jooz…I mean “Zionists,”and didn’t get in?! How did he get not get in? That sounds like he should get a full ride!
Because that's only how this has worked in the imagination of right wingers? That this feels like a genuine mystery in these circles might, in other circumstances, require an updating of beliefs about how race conscious admissions worked. Plus, lots of kids of employees don't get into highly selective institutions, regardless of their race. Only so many slots...
Preference for children of faculty at elite schools is absolutely not a right-wing fantasy.
Ehhhh it mostly is, yah. It doesn't hurt necessarily (it can depending on how much of a jackoff the faculty or staff member is), but it also depends on a lot of factors - level of staff acceptances that year, major and area, overall student strength, etc - which make it more of a nice to have and less of a magic button that always works. This is why tuition exchange programs exist, mind you.
Overall, it is the kind of thing that fits the right wing ressentiment vibe but doesn't really play out that way (see also: last sixty years of campus literature - the milquetoast who can't even get his kid into the school is an old saw, or "trope" as the kids say these days)
Of course, exhibit a in this case is that he didn't get into Columbia despite hitting all the magic buttons, but that's because the magic buttons are largely imaginary. The amount of actual factual versus rw butthurt thrashing ratio is way off for the most part. It's like what's that term for the thing where you believe a newspaper until it covers something you know well and then you see the holes of generalist v specialist thinking? This is like that, with a layered mixture of intentional and accidental fabrication on top because those views and likes are not going to view and like themselves.
As requested: "Gell-Mann amnesia effect" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gell-Mann_amnesia_effect
Athletes, legacies, and children of staff are all major categories that get thumbs on the scale.
I'm more familiar with Harvard
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/study-harvard-finds-43-percent-white-students-are-legacy-athletes-n1060361
Children of faculty had at 80% admissions rate according to documents in the admissions lawsuit.
Legacies are very overweighted at Harvard even compared to their peer institutions. (they're always an odd duck, both in terms of their activities as well as the intense focus on them, self generated and otherwise)
Harvard has a lot of faculty members, and one point to remember is that most of them are likely to be at least somewhat clear headed about their children's strengths and weaknesses...I'm not surprised that they have a fairly high acceptance rate but I'd be curious about actual numbers.
But most importantly, the weight of said thumb varies heavily from place to place, and per Mamdani it's not a magic bullet and never has been.
I think Mamdani is a clown and he absolutely knew that he was doing when he checked that box, but I also agree with the comment above that admissions doesn't weight parental employment as highly as some people think. I attended an "elite" school and knew a couple professors whose children did not get accepted. I also met people after college who had similar situations.
I think the real advantage of having a parent who is a professor is that you likely grew up in an academic household that valued reading and education; so it's not uncommon for kids of faculty members to do well in college admissions.
Terfs aren't annoyed with Ben Ryan because he uses preferred pronouns, they're annoyed with him because he's performativity rude and dismissive, blocks people when they try to discuss it with him, ignores the copious evidence of Brianna Wu's misogyny and then beclowned himself sucking up to JKR when she said the same things the less famous Terfs had been saying. By contrast, Katie and Jessie use preferred pronouns, but manage to do so without being dicks to those who disagree.
"Beclowned" is an amazing word, I'm gonna have to steal it.
💯 Katie was totally wrong about this.
Attention Jesse:
Here's a bare-bones minimum list of extremely basic emergency supplies that every city / apartment dweller should have (but a surprising amount of people don't):
(This is just off the top of my head, so I'm sure I'll forget something important..)
- Lots of bottled water (several gallons at least- in my case most of that is in the form of one liter seltzer bottles)
- Non-perishable food, including ready-to-eat food (cans, pasta, energy bars, etc). There's no reason not to have at least a few weeks worth of food even in a tiny apartment.
- Battery-powered lighting: At minimum a headlamp, also lanterns and maybe flashlights are helpful, preferably at least some of these should be rechargeable (I highly recommend Fenix headlamps).
A headlamp is the most important by far, there's no reason not to have at least one good one and one decent backup. And you can always put an extra headlamp in a translucent bag or aim it at the ceiling to use as a lantern.
- Battery packs for charging your phone (and other devices): At least one big one (20,000mAh or larger), and a smaller ~10,000 is handy for everyday use.
(I buy Anker pretty much exclusively.. One of mine has a built-in wireless charging pad so that I can still charge my phone if it ever gets wet or the USB port is damaged.)
- Extra batteries for any lights that use them
- You can get larger battery packs if charging your laptop is critical to you, or for longer term power.
You can even get a compact portable / folding solar panels, that's a more complicated topic (I can elaborate if you want, and explain some simple math for calculating necessary size), but in short get a much larger panel than you think you need- I'd say 30 watts is the absolute minimum for such use, and maybe double that if you want to charge your laptop.
- A fire extinguisher (mount it to your wall, so that it's guaranteed to always be there and easy to access, not buried under other crap. And if it's mounted inside a closet or pantry, put a sticker on the door so that anyone can find it)
- A backpacking cannister stove and several cannisters of isobutane fuel: these cost less than $20 if you buy a basic generic one on Amazon, they're tiny, and are very easy and safe to use, even indoors. The fuel you can buy at REI.
You'll be able to cook and boil water, even indoors. You don't need a special camping pot, but these stoves can't support a really heavy pot.
(you can also buy a propane stove and the green 1lb propane tanks instead. These are cheaper and actually better in some ways, but much heavier so you're less likely use this for non emergency situations- though it's fine for car camping.)
- A good first aid kit: most off-the-shelf ones suck, building or modifying your own is best, but the second best option is one of the larger ones from Adventure Medical Kits
- 0°F sleeping bag in case you lose your heat
- Keep your freezer and refrigerator stocked at all times with lots of extra ice and water containers (a few frozen water bottles and a gallon zip-lock or three of ice cubes in the freezer, cans of beer etc in the fridge):
In addition to saving power and helping maintain thermal stability, in the event of a blackout, your fridge & freezer will stay cold for much longer due to the thermal mass. All you have to do is keep the doors closed as much as possible.
Frozen stuff will still thaw relatively quickly, starting within a few hours, but it will stay cold and safe for a while longer, and you can also move some of the ice to your fridge (if you're unable to buy bags of ice, which is what you should do if possible)
- I'm not going to get into bug-out bags because that's a bigger topic, and in NYC, for in any severe emergency we're pretty much all fucked, no way we're getting out of here even on foot / bike, unless maybe you have a boat and are very close to the water..
- I'm also not going to get into weapons, since in NYC your options are basically limited to a baseball bat and some bear spray, and regular pepper spray / gel if you know where to buy it.. But yeah those things at least are worth having..
(edit: I elaborated on a few items and made a few additional suggestions in the comments below, and also made a few minor edits above, but there's two other items that I think are so useful that I want to add them here:
- Lunatec spray bottle. I made a long comment below, so read that, but in short it's an extremely useful item for various cleaning / hygiene and cooling off purposes, in situations where you don't have access to running water, that does a lot with very little water.
I think it's great for emergencies, but if you do anything outdoors, even just going to the beach or on a picnic, you'll love this: https://lunatecgear.com/
- Chlorine dioxide tablets: These are the easiest and most effective way to sanitize clean but not potable water, short of boiling. There are various brands that are each a bit different, but it's inexpensive, and they take up hardly any space at all.
You can use ordinary unscented bleach in an emergency, but it's far less effective, and slower, and tastes & smells a lot worse.
I mostly take tablets hiking, because they weigh nothing, and if you ever run short on water, you can take any water from a running stream or even a lake etc, and make it safe to drink. For camping, I typically use a filter instead, but I still bring tablets as a backup, and sometimes using both tablets and a filter is a good idea because they implement each other very well (a filter easily removes things that chlorine takes a long time to kill, and chlorine easily kills any viruses or bacteria that could make it through a filter).
But obviously this is a very useful thing to have in the event that you have running tap water, or some other source of clean water, but there's a chance the water has microbial contamination (i.e. boil water advisories). Even if you're able to boil wster, this coil save fuel or be a backup option.
Katadyn and Potable Aqua are probably the best known and most reputable currently available brands, and have excellent durable packaging, and if you're just buying a, small number for emergencies, that's what I would recommend, but 'Aquatabs' is less expensive if you use it a lot or want to stock up on a larger amount.
(Aquatabs also have a somewhat different formulation and more complicated dosing instructions.. The others are just one tablet per liter, though you could always use more if you suspect that the water is pretty bad..)
Thank you -- that's genuinely useful.
I'd add to this list, regarding severe weather, which can, has and will happen in NYC, a weather radio that has (in addition to plug in solar and crank charging. There's a fine selection on Amazon
Who on earth has room for this stuff?
Can't I just join a roving cannibal rape gang?
I for one would have to get rid of my entire display case of anti-capitalism themed Funko Pops.
Room for what? Do you not keep any food in your pantry? You can't find room for a few one gallon containers of water (and/or equivalent number of smaller bottles) in a closet or on a shelf? A cannister stove and headlamps are tiny, and the fuel cannisters are also small.
Aside from the food, everything I described including the water could fit on a single closet shelf..
Stop getting in between me and my gang!
You have me scared to press play. What the hell is the podcast about? 😂
It's okay. You're in a safe space
Haha this is just in reference to a brief converse about disaster preparedness in general, inspired by the tragic flooding in Texas.
That's a pretty good list I think, and it's inspired me to review my batteries and lighting situation. Re bug out bag: driving would certainly be tough, but if you wanted to get out of the city there are a lot of little bridges in upper Manhattan that can take you on to the US mainland so you don't necessarily have to walk the GW or the tunnels. But depending on the disaster I don't see how leaving the city puts you in any better position unless you have somewhere specific to go that you can get to in a reasonable amount of time on foot.
I can imagine lots of scenarios where the entire NYC metropolitan area is at grave risk, but getting 50 miles or so inland and uphill and ideally more rural or at least suburban, is dramatically safer if not totally safe.
I just don't see how getting there is a viable option unless you know to evacuate before everyone else..
I imagine in any true catastrophe that requires immediate evacuation within less than 24 hours to avoid certain death or high likelihood of terrible things happening to you - asteroid impact, huge tsunami, nuclear meltdown / explosion, terrorist attack, military invasion, zombies.. Or basically anything that makes a majority of the population panic to the point that they feel a need to leave the city..
At that point I think every single bridge and tunnel would be so crowded that even getting through on foot would be difficult at best, very slow and dangerous.. I'm picturing mobs of people trying to climb over and through all the stuck cars, and a high risk of getting trampled or trapped, or facing deliberate violence from people desperate and frustrated..
I mean I suppose if you're one of the first ones to decide to leave and start moving early, you'd have a chance.
Which is where the bug-out bag comes in.
And there are endless forum discussions, videos, books and probably podcasts on the subject, but once you know the concept, it's not hard to imagine what you would want in one.
I'd say the one key for NYC is, if you're preparing a bugout bag, it needs to be a backpack that's fairly small and light (but mostly small).
Because if things are that bad, you need to be able to travel on foot for significant distances / lengths of time and be very agile, and even need to be able to climb over stuck cars, barricades, and other obstacles.
But most of all, you need to be able to force your way through densely packed crowds of people.
It's not a crazy thing to have, but I personally haven't bothered (I'm sure I have all the supplies to prepare multiple bugout bags, but I don't have any that are prepped and ready to go at all times, which is the whole point), because again I think in the event of a disaster that bad, I'm most likely screwed and I don't think evacuation will be a promising option..
So I guess I'm tending to my subsistence garden on my building's roof deck. Ugh. Can't we all just get along?
If I want to be harshly realistic, and burst your bubble: If things were that bad, without a serious stockpile of weapons and ammunition to defend that rooftop garden, it's not going to exist for long..
Also I think the idea of a garden that you can actual survive off of is mostly a fantasy..
Don't get me wrong, I love the idea, but short of having a full-scale farm, with all the equipment, materials, skill and experience that entails, I think it's mostly a pipe dream.
I think even for an actual farmer with experience, establishing a low-tech rooftop subsistence garden under any post-disaster circumstance would be extremely difficult.
(I get that you were proud joking, but I like to explore ideas..)
Thanks for setting me straight. It's a fun thought exercise, but you're probably right and as per The Road I should probably just keep a gun with one bullet in it. But, alas, guns are mostly illegal in NYS. The man is always keeping me down.
I found that having the camp stove was incredibly important. You never realize how normal a hot meal can make you feel (even in the middle of summer) when you're out of power for more than a week.
MRE's will feed you, but you won't be happy afterwards (unless you have the chili mac)
There is something else you forgot: a case or quick way to store and move your important documents. I have a friend that did not do that and had a hard time replacing his social security card
Also, baby wipes. If you don't have a ton of water, having baby wipes to kind of wipe off sweat and generally get your self feeling human again.
Yup, but I will say, MREs are totally unnecessary, and one of the bulkiest and most expensive options for food, and in my opinion a terrible choice for apartment dwellers.
In addition to a vast variety of inexpensive prepared, ready-to-eat foods in cans, there are tons of prepared foods in lightweight plastic pouches as well. And these are regular sorts of food that you would normally eat, so you will naturally rotate them (unless you prefer to set them aside somewhere), and it won't be any additional expense.
But yes I agree boiling water is extremely valuable, not just for cooking and comfort, but for various hygiene related uses, and of course sanitizing questionable water. Which reminds me, I probably should have mentioned chlorine dioxide tablets..
Also in cold weather (or if your heat fails), a hot water bottle in your sleeping bag is a great trick.
Speaking of baby wipes, one of my favorite pieces of gear lately is this pump spray bottle by Lunatec. It sounds gimmicky, but it's one of those things that you realize is 10x more useful once you actually use it.
It's a pump-up sprayer lid that screws onto any water bottle with standard Nalgene threads. They also make a version that screws onto Hydroflask vacuum bottles (or some other brands with the same threading), and you can buy either version with or without a bottle, and can also get a tube extension.
Anyway you pump it up with just a few pumps, and then you can spray a continuous fine mist, a solid stream, or a shower type pattern.
I use it mostly for cooling off in the summer, but it's also extremely handy for rinsing off my hands, washin dishes while camping or at the beach, spraying the salt water off of my face or getting sand off stuff, etc..
It's so useful that I bring it almost anywhere I'm going outside in warm weather, even just to the park.
And a one liter bottle almost never runs out even when I'm using it a lot, in fact I often bring a smaller bottle and that rarely runs out either.
Which brings me to my point, in an emergency where you have no running water, or if that water isn't potable, this would be extremely helpful for washing dishes, washing your hands, even bathing, plus if you lose power in the summer and have no air conditioning, the misting function is a great way to cool off (at least as long as the humidity is below 100%..).
It really stretches limited water supplies, even a liter a day or less might be enough for all of your hygiene needs including dish washing if you're frugal.
Anyway I think its an extremely useful device to have for any camping or other outdoor activities, that could also be a game-changer in an emergency. So I recommend pretty much everyone getting one of these.
Oh and also they sell spare parts for everything at reasonable prices, so you can easily repair it and replace any broken or worn parts, which I love.
I have no affiliation with this company, I'm just a big fan:
https://lunatecgear.com/
I'll add to this a weather radio that can charge off solar, USB, or hand crank
A radio, sure, but I don't know if agree with the part about how it's powered..
The solar panels integrated into such gadgets are almost always too small / underpowered to be practical, it's just a gimmick that people never actually use.
I think hand-cranks are somewhat more practical (since they can be used at any time and in any location regardless of weather condition, and can provide a sufficient amount of power with frequent cranking, as tedious as it is..).
However the crank has moving parts that can easily break or wear out, and both usually rely on a rechargeable battery that will definitely wear out within a number of years.
Which unless those batteries are removable, makes that radio LESS reliable than one which simply runs on AA batteries. You can keep a few lithium (primary) AA cells, which have a shelf life measure in decades, and will never leak or corrode (since the electrolyte doesn't contain water).
And if you want to use solar panels, it makes much more sense to keep a separate one, that way you can use it to charge all of your devices and batteries, and it can be much more powerful, and it won't become useless trash when other parts of the radio (such as the rechargeable batteries) stop working.
You should check out Midland’s line of emergency weather radios. They hold charge, the solar works, the hand crank works. Does it last forever? No, but it's compact and there to throw in your bag if you need to go and you don't have to worry “is it charged??”. Plus you get emergency alerts if you turn it on, which is faster than the cell phone push notifications
For $40, it's a pretty good last line
All rechargeable batteries will 'hold a charge' fine when they're new, but the lifespan is extremely limited. As long as it's a battery not a capacitor, it will degrade with both time and usage (and I think even capacitors can wear out, but not as quickly).
Sure one of those would be nice to have, I just think the solar panel and to an extent the hand crank is a bit gimmicky and provides a false sense of reliability, unless there is also the option to use standard AA batteries.
Fortunately, some of them do have all these features - hand crank & solar panel, plus the ability to use AA batteries in addition to the internal rechargeable battery pack.
While looking up the Midland radios I came across this one by C. Crane, which is the brand that would be my first choice for such a radio anyway:
https://www.rei.com/product/241850/c-crane-digital-emergency-radio-with-bluetooth-amfm-and-noaa-weather-weather-alert
It would be even better if the rechargeable battery was also replaceable, and for the money, this one has a fraction of the capabilities of their compact shortwave radios - though that's not necessarily a bad thing, those are pretty complicated to use.
By the way regarding the sleeping bag, in the unlikely event that you ever lose both your heating and electricity in the winter, your apartment will never get anywhere near 0°, even if it's that cold outside.
So that's not strictly required to survive. A 20°F bag is more than adequate for that, especially since you'll have blankets and lots of extra jackets etc at home. But a warmer bag is always preferable and more comfortable, especially if you're not accustomed to sleeping in the cold.
This actually a much more important item to keep in your car (if you have one) during the winter, along with a bunch of other items, including a small collapsible aluminum shovel.
Look I live in Mamdani’s Assembly district and have never voted for him, don’t like him or my other DSA-affiliated representatives—we also have the famous AOC as our US rep., Tiffany Cabán as our city councilwoman, and Kristen Gonzalez as our state senator, ALL of them DSA people, so people have started calling us the People’s Republic of Astoria, lol—but while I can’t stand his preposterous policy ideas and do not want him to be mayor… the problem is he’s running against Eric Adams, so he’s gonna win. I just think that’s all but a fait accompli at this point. The NY Dem establishment brought this on themselves running a gargoyle like Cuomo in that primary so now we’re stuck with this guy.
THAT SAID, I really really think that non-New Yorkers are making way more of a thing out of this than it realistically is. It does NOT tell us much about the Democratic Party; hell, I personally don’t think it even tells us much about New York. The turnout is low (by design) in our off-off-year primaries, so a bunch of motivated leftists and some unions managed to wrangle a bunch of votes.
The thing that gives me hope is he’s very young (33, ffs!) and inexperienced—and he knows it, so he has been signaling loud and clear that he intends to hire good people as commissioners and let them do their jobs. That is a very good sign if he means it (and it was one of the few good things about his favorite mayor of his lifetime, who was—no joke—Bill DeBlasio. An early thing to look out for is whether or not he keeps Jessica Tisch as the police commissioner; she’s done a fantastic job there (and at the Sanitation Dept. before that) but also pissed off a lot of lefty types, but he (I believe) has suggested he’s open to keeping her on. That will be an early test.
As for his race, meh who gives a shit. That’s my honest response. Race doesn’t make much sense as a concept outside the Deep South (where I’m originally from) anyway, and it REALLY doesn’t make sense in New York, where standard-issue American honkies like myself are few and far between and it’s perfectly common to have a Korean mother and a Puerto Rican father (or whatever combination you can think of). It’s all so stupid. They’re just New Yorkers as far as I’m concerned. And I just think admission to places like Columbia is wildly overvalued in the first place, but maybe I’m being dumb and naive, I dunno. I worry more when they start getting into silly Marxist cosplaying and then actually get elected to stuff.
Sorry, very long comment, but yeah, let’s see what happens. Mamdani is a nice dude who I think genuinely means well and loves New York and wants to do a good job, and that makes me inclined to at least give him a chance—especially now that there’s almost certainly nothing I can do about it, lol.
This should be the top comment on this thread. Interesting and informative.
If he’s African American, so is Elon Musk.
As are Teresa Heinz Kerry
Oscar Pistorius
Charlize Theron
All born on the continent of Africa.
It's funny that I unquestionably get to call myself African American but these folks don't. The last person in my family born in Africa was probably 300-400 years ago.
Thank you for your service 🤪
I refuse to call black people 'African-American' unless they are actually African American.
You are not African American, it sounds like you're just black.
Of all the post-2016 Newspeak, the one I have the least objection to is ADOS (American Descendants of Slaves). It’s not exactly pretty but it describes the group most accurately, imo.
It's certainly way better than calling black people who have no connection whatsoever to Africa for multiple generations as 'African-American'..
And I do appreciate the precision and straightforward terminology.
Though I still don't like it, because we need to move on from this crap and put an end to the obsession and the resentment.
Of course, the messy part is that there are millions of people alive today, with one or more Confederate slaves in their ancestry, who neither present as nor identify as black.
That’s the right way to do it.
Until some thin skinned idiot with a race issue shoots you.
That’s why I stick with “That African American gentleman,” instead of “That black guy.”
Though I have no problem calling every Hispanic or Latino person I see a Mexican… 🤔
People have been making the “African American” joke about Charlize for her entire career. I seem to recall it being a recurring joke during an appearance she did on SNL around the time of her Oscar push in the early 2000s.
The best was when African American was the PC term they HAD to use in the media and Black people born and living in, say, Great Britain were called African American Brits
I fondly remember the time an American radio presenter introduced Nelson Mandela as a great African American.
My favorite example of this was there was a kid from London who was a year younger than me, and all the professors would call him "African American" and he'd be like "no I'm black and British"
I don't think that Elon Musk is Afrikaner, but nearly all Afrikaners have some black African ancestry. It's usually below 10%, but they have more African ancestry than Elizabeth Warren has Native American ancestry. And of course more than Mamdani.
Genetics has really made upset a lot of people's ideas about race and ethnicity.
He has Afrikaner and British ancestry. After the British took over South Africa, there was a fair number of British immigrants. Actually most White South Africans I have met in the US have been from descended from that wave of settlers.
Elon Musk IS African-American.
He was born in Africa, then immigrated to America and became an American citizen.
It could not be any clearer or more straightforward.
Africa is a place, and it's where he's from.
Mandani misleading people about his race for a college application by checking the wrong box is by far the most mundane inconsequential political controversy in current political climate. Even if there was no other political turmoil, I could care less which box someone picks on their college application. I am surprised this is even in the news
*Couldn't* care less! Gah!
Thank you
Katie mentioned the CodeRED system. Important to note: The number looks like a spam call in your phone unless you've programmed it into your contacts.
If you sign up for CodeRED, add their two phone numbers, (866) 419-5000 (emergency notifications) and (855) 969-4636 (general notifications), to your cell phone and/or landline contacts as "CodeRED Emergency Alerts." This way, when you receive a phone call from either of CodeRED's phone numbers during an emergency event, you will be able to recognize the call.
https://codered.crisis24.com
It's a national number but somehow you only get alerts for your area.
“I think Elon Musk killed a bunch of African children…”
Jesse has to smoking crack. That’s absolutely retarded.
You think that arbitrarily closing many of USAID programs won’t cost lives?
I think it’s you that’s been smoking crack or more accurately just looking at it via your political priors.
That many of these programs saved lives and ending them will cost live is a very mainstream position.
I prefer blues.
So the assumption is that USAID was keeping African children alive through medicine or food or whatever right?
First, why is that the US governments problem? Why are my tax dollars going to Africa? Speaking of blues, we’ve got a massive drug problem in THIS country id MUUUCH rather fund a solution for, on top of a million other things I care more about.
But my main issue is why cutting USAID is ACTIVELY killing children? Jesse said Musk is KILLING children. Putting the metaphorical knife in his hand. Is that considered turning up the temperature? Is blaming Musk for MURDER not a problem? If someone was to assassinate him tomorrow, could I point a finger at Jesse and people like him and say they played a role in, what is it, stochastic terrorism?
Now I assume he was simply being hyperbolic. However, speaking of priors, that might be giving too much credit, as he has regularly gone out of his way, like in this episode, to talk madly insane shit.
Generously sending aid to shithole countries is a nice thing. Improving lives in this way is worthy of appreciation and praise. But taking away that funding or not funding it at all does not mean whoever is in charge of that decision is killing people.
If you sent money to country A and people live, but do not send money to country B and people die, did you kill those people in country B? Absolutely not.
Now excuse me while I find my meth pipe.
Righto, you could have spared me the weird & unnecessarily long reactionary rant.
If you’re unable to understand why oversea aid might be in the US interests, or why ending programs people were relying basically overnight might lead to deaths, then might I suggest reading a bit wider.
You might want to address your concerns to well known Libtard George W Bush as he seemed to believe they were worthwhile.
Oh Miller, I LOVE a good dick measuring contest, especially when yours is so cute.
You completely missed my main point. You can say taking away things people have become dependent on may lead to negative outcomes. That’s very obvious. My biggest issue, little buddy, is calling that MURDER. If you take issue with that because that specific word was not used, then just the fact he said Musk killed children. Please explain to me why that is appropriate. Literally, metaphorically, morally… How is that right?
Ugh this is such a tiresome mid-aughts ironic swaggering male style of internet arguing. The sassy quips are too cringe. "Little buddy," etc.
This place gets more Reddit every week
Come on it’s not that bad. Having a little fun every once in a while is important.
You’ve already shifted your ‘main point’ as basic facts aren’t on your side. I’m not interested a ‘dick measuring contest’ any more than I am your crude reactionary rants that you started with.
If you want to try and turn what was a patently obvious point Jesse was making into an argument of semantics, making that’s on you. The fact that shutting down these programs in the manner they have is not only appallingly inhumane, they were until 5minutes part of a consensus of both parties they were not merely morally the right thing to do but in the US’s interests.
Maybe you’ll find someone else willing to engage in some ‘omg Jesse accused Elon musk of murder’ pearl clutching 🤷🏼♂️.
What are the facts? What point have I swiveled from? I am not talking about should the US assist other countries in whatever way. That is a debatable point with reasonable perspectives on both sides of the argument.
My issue, which has NOT changed, is the language. People called Trump hitler so much he got shot. People are calling ICE officers jackbooted brown shirts and they are being assaulted. My point is the basic FACT that if you call Musk a genocidal murderer enough, people will try to kill him. This is not a new concept. If 1 person is mentally unstable enough out of the 10 million that hear such a message, violence is possible.
When the only thing he actually did was suggest we cut funding to an aid program. Whether that leads to death or not is not his fault or the fault of the US government. If other countries cannot support themselves, while unfortunate, that is not our responsibility.
If you hate him so much that you’d rather he be dead for this then admit it. Otherwise, while we may disagree about funding cuts, violent rhetoric is unequivocally bad.
The word “kill” does not imply murder. Even just talking legally, there is a broader category of homicide that doesn’t rise to the level of murder
Genocidal murderer apparently….bad Jesse! This calls for something far worse the HIPPA prison.
I think you were trying to pull a Jesse vs Lance, there. I wouldn't have had the patience.
I would have done if each reply wasn’t a minute or two of my time spread over a long period.
It's well documented that USAID saved 91 million lives over 2001-2021. It's conservatively estimated that 14 million people will die who would not have done if USAID was continued by 2030. Tens of thousands will have died because of these dumb psychos and hundreds of thousands are now at risk.
https://newsroom.ucla.edu/stories/USAID-cuts-global-impact-14-million-deaths?utm_source=chatgpt.com
I’m not disagreeing with the fact that lives have been improved through USAID.
I am saying that funding cuts should not be blamed if deaths occur after.
Say you give the same homeless guy 5 bucks a week for a year. Then you stop giving him money because you don’t want to anymore and a month later he starved to death, are you personally at fault?
Now let’s say you got fired and therefore could not afford to do this anymore and he died. Is the company that fired you at fault?
My point is people should not be relying on handouts their whole lives. If whole populations of people cannot survive without the American taxpayers money, then, to put it lightly, changes to their societies need to be made.
And to put it bluntly, maybe those populations should cease to exist, if they can’t figure it out themselves.
That’s not to say I want millions of people to die. I just don’t want to feed them. Fuck I’m paycheck to paycheck myself I’m not in the position to give a shit about people half a world away.
It hasn't saved any lives, every single one of those people will still die. QALY...
I realized about half way through this that I’m actually an unpaid subscriber to Cremieux, and it definitely never occurred to me that he’s a Nazi. He doesn’t even write about race and IQ that much? He does write a fair bit about college admissions and SAT scores, which I guess are a kind of proxy for IQ, but the way the Times describes him you’d think he was Steve Sailor. And at least 3/4 of his posts have nothing to do with IQ or race or college admissions, he’s just pretty good at picking interesting stuff out of data, which is how I found him (an example of the sort of post I find interesting: his “most trend breaks are not real” post from a week ago).
He was a lot more prolific with it in the past. Nowadays he's more of a general science reposter. He's also plagerized some content.
He's not a Nazi, but he certainly fits in the 'noticer of things' camp. Him and Gusev don't get along, let's say.
I agree - I have been reading through his old Twitter posts and I cannot find what the fuss is all about. He's an amateur science blogger who posts alot about economic data, GLP-1 drugs, vaccines, housing issues, etc. He even retweets posts from Tracing Woodgrains.
Maybe I'm missing something, but it seems like everyone is missing the mark on this guy. For Jamelle Bouie to call him a "Nazi" is absurd and libelous. Even to call him someone who "frequently posts about race and IQ" is grossly inaccurate.
I think even Jesse was a little unfair to describe him as 'someone who reposts bar graphs' and makes sweeping generalizations.
The total rout at today's women's final of Wimbledon much reminded me of the Jesse vs. Lance debate. Except I actually felt bad for Amanda Anisimova. Anyway, I actually did enjoy that episode in the way one enjoys trainwrecks but I don't need it to be a recurring feature. It might be interesting to hear J+K engage with actually smart people with different opinions more often though.
Smart people with DIFFERENT opinions won’t talk to Jesse or Katie.
Ugh, I never want to hear Will Stancil rape fanfic again. Could we go back to the breeding facility stuff instead?
That was particularly horrific to listen to, but I agree with Katie that the context was important to share
Jesse's gotta butch up. He's a journalist, and we expect the full facts of things, distasteful as they might be. If you're reading something or quoting it, you CAN say it. I hate news articles that beat around the bush about some controversial thing someone MIGHT have said.
Tell me what it was, and I'll judge. (The Covington Catholic thing was a classic in this respect. Had I not see the "offending" nature of the interaction I might have judged them totally wrong--but I searched for--and Had To Search, dammit--the details behind the articles. Just serve them up for me.)
We're big boys and girls here--and so are you.
The Covington thing was so bizarre and eye-opening. It was like being in the twilight zone and realizing that you're the only person in the room who's not a brainwashed zombie..
I watched the video almost immediately, and even without knowing the full details and context of what lead up to that moment, I could see no indication that the kid was doing anything wrong, and it was bizarre how everyone mindlessly and immediately accepted all the headlines and tweets saying the opposite.
And of course learning more about the story only exonerated the kid further, who showed admirable restraint and a positive attitude as he was being harassed and arguably assaulted within provocation by that crazy old man..
(in my opinion, if someone walks up to you and bangs a drum in your face, you'd be justified in punching them in the face..)