A bit more detail has come out about one of the American spies in North Korea. And the story’s not fascinating and full of interesting trade-craft. There’s a bunch of clueless christian privilege.
A bit more detail has come out about one of the American spies in North Korea. And the story’s not fascinating and full of interesting trade-craft. There’s a bunch of clueless christian privilege.
Russia Times had a now-famous “meet and greet” conference like the Milken conference. [stderr] And there are some fun pictures of the attendees…
The idea that you can tell things about a person from their appearance underlies the entire point of dressing up, wearing make-up, and being concerned with our appearance. There are probably some things you might be able to assume from a person’s looks, but it’s still going to be pretty unreliable: you can’t tell someone’s a terrorist because they “look muslim” because “looking muslim” is a vague concept to begin with.
What about people who look like criminals?
It’s really sad to see that the US military is so desperate and stupid that they had to try showing how capable they are, by showing how capable they aren’t.
It seems that the current trend in conflict is not to merely defeat your foe, but to humiliate them afterward.
I lose track of the number of times someone has called me a “leftist” because of my views on social justice, privacy, demilitarization, and opposition to weapons of mass destruction. And I have no idea how many times I’ve been referred to as a “right winger” because I own firearms and am generally suspicious of authority. But actually my suspicion of authority is suspicion of everyone, and it’s only authority that I worry about – and it all gets complicated. When I was in college and someone asked me to label myself, I sometimes would say “I am a radical righto-leftist.” That’s the sort of thing that seems funny when you’re a sophomore (hence the label: sophomoric) but, like most other labels, it wears out.
Suddenly there is news and talk about ISIS and Egypt.
And Egypt’s dictator has come to Washington to bend knee at the little feet of power. Coincidence?
I understand that “Sovereignty” is an important concept to nationalists.
I’m not sure what the correct term for this is, perhaps “halo effect” or maybe it’s “transferrence” or just plain old “confirmation bias” but there’s a weird thing humans do, when they notice that someone is knowledgeable about X they sometimes get super impressed and assume that person is also knowledgeable about Y and maybe Z. I think it’s “confirmation bias” – but I’m skeptical of terminology in general.
Via Atlas Obscura: Bat Girl rescues Bat Man and Robin.