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Horn of Gabriel

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Everything posted by Horn of Gabriel

  1. Thank you for the honest response. It's disparaging, it's a slur, and I don't care because I don't like him. With that freedom in mind, if we support people in this thought process, are we cool with applying this standard to Senator Tammy Duckworth D-IL? I assume that she takes political positions that the right disagrees with around protection of unborn life, etc etc etc. I'm also sure that as passionate as you are about Gov. Greg Abbott's politics, there are probably also people who feel equally passionate about Sen. Duckworth's positions. We cool if people on the the other side are calling her "ole' stumpy" or "hot wheels?" I hope the answer is "no" and that no is driven from a place of respect for disabled humans' dignity instead of "Yes because I agree with her policies and not his." FTR I'm against name calling or slurring either of them...
  2. So...America isn't equitable in outcomes and some people end up better than others? Agreed! Disagree however that calling him a "silly name," in reference to his disability is OK...
  3. Again, making fun of someone's physical disability or shortcomings is perfectly acceptable if they are a "bad person." It's not enough to simply call out the actions they take which we don't like, or their stances on issues - we can poke fun at their disability because they're a bully. Do you know how piss poor this is and just not care? Or do you justify it because "the other side does it too," and "I really don't like the Mean Governor?"
  4. Go into your local VA to someone in a wheelchair and say "How's it going 'Hot Wheels'" and see what type of reaction you get. A slur is a slur is a slur. Whether you're denigrating and stereotyping a whole group of people or an individual you particularly don't like the outcome is the same: you're using language to cut someone down. The only difference in your distinction is your value judgement on the person's worth and if you agree with their politics. When something is "ok for me but not for thee" that's called hypocrisy.
  5. When we're talking words that demean, offend, talk down to, etc., it seems like you're attaching a judgement not only to the word itself and its acceptability but also the person upon which that word is being directed. A word considered "offensive" against one is perfectly acceptable against another if they don't stack up to your judgement of if they're an asshole? Playing this string out, I'm assuming from your post above that you lean left, is the N-word acceptable to use RE: Clarence Thomas? Certainly you see him as an "asshole?"
  6. Are you saying "hot wheels" is acceptable or no?
  7. OTOH beating them 49-0 in person and watching their demoralization was orgasmic.
  8. This. I don't remember all the details but there are internal email threads from the lead test engineer at Boeing with other Boeing employees talking about how to deceive the FAA. It's easy to draw a straight line connection between that and hundreds of dead people. We seem to have an aversion to putting white collar criminals in jail for some reason, but this is a case where it may be warranted, at a minimum a trial on that stuff. I think corporate america might put a bit more balance on profit seeking if there was an actual personal consequence in the balance for the executive choosing to lie/cut corners.
  9. I respect your avatar. You probably have a lot of experience in this area. My belief is that our recent (good) safety record is in spite of the regulators and the government, not because of it. I don't have much opinion on ATC other than how we all know they're understaffed and it has got to be an incredibly stressful job. The FAA though...yikes. It's disgusting how much those regulators were allowing Boeing's team to steer their work. And several hundred people did die because of that, it's more luck that the MCAS crashes happened elsewhere considering those pilots followed documented procedure and the post-analysis showed that they had only a few seconds to diagnose and correct the issue.
  10. We asked for lower prices on tickets and got them via deregulation and debundling. Now we have “Greyhound in the air.” Careful what you wish for, you buy a basic ass ticket you’re going to get basic ass service. Guarantee if that kid was on a first class ticket they’d have figured it out. While 70% of this is on is the consumer, the other 30% is on the airlines. They are publicly traded and questing for quarterly results, so of course they are going to cut any corners they can to get there, including safety. That’s why all the major US carriers run their planes down to Guatemala for their regular maintenance. It’s kinda a miracle we haven’t had more major crashes in the US, but it’s a testament to our pilots’ skill and the product created by Boeing and Airbus. Unfortunately that’s rapidly declining as well. It will take a few hundred people dying in a crash, including kids, before Americans 1) get the politicians to legislate higher safety standards and 2) are willing to pay for it.
  11. Another war game simulation about a cross strait invasion of Taiwan by China, this one put "most-favorable" conditions in place for China. The goal here wasn't to see if the PRC could succeed, but rather what time window would the PRC need to capture Taipei before U.S. intervention arrived? Prior war games have shown that once the US shows up, the best case for the PRC is a horrible stalemate where they destroy Taiwan's economy while lose tens to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and the bulk of their navy, air, and missile forces. But that picture for the US is not much better, in an all-out, we'd lose a shit-ton of AF assets (mostly on the ground due to missiles). As someone (can't remember who) has pointed out multiple times up-thread, amphibious operations are really hard, prone to failure, the PRC has never done it, and their troop transports are "the size of cruise ships" with a radar cross section to match which makes them vulnerable to anti-ship missiles. Those are all bad for the PLAN especially vs. the US, even though we are critically under resourced on anti-ship missiles with standoff range (see prior war game upthread). But what happens if the PLA/N is able to get Taipai before our politicians decide to engage our military in response? The window is shorter than you might think... First, ROC navy is gone on day 1. Out of the picture, destroyed by missiles. Second, 90% of their air force is gone too, same story. ROC does have anti-ship missiles on land-based mobile launchers: However as soon as they fire they can be located and attrited. And we have no idea about how experienced these teams are, same questions for the PLA/N also apply here. But with the limited # of ASMs, the limited experience of the crews, and them being under constant fire, what if the "troop transports the size of cruise ships" are able to get through...? I could easily see politicians debating intervention for 30+ days, easily. And that assumes we are pre-positioned with everything we need to intervene, which is probably not true, there will be travel time, logistics, etc. Oh on top of all that, Taiwanese aren't super motivated to defend themselves: Again this isn't an assessment of how likely the PRC is to attempt invasion, which is a political decision. This war game was about could they get it done before we move in, and it looks like the answer could be yes based on Taiwan's assets and willingness to fight. A discussion of should the US intervene is also a political decision, but we need to get our shit straight on that ASAP one way or the other so we don't vacillate in the moment. I'm on the intervene side, which is a whole other discussion but you can make a case for either.
  12. Great article from The Times (UK version) on COVID's origins. Paywalled link to original ... non-paywalled link There's some good summary in here of stuff we already know. And some new details I hadn't heard, and I follow this story closely. But TL;DR: Wuhan Institute of Virology was doing gain-of-function research on coronaviruses as far back as 2008 WIV was indirectly funded by the US Gov't NIH via EcoHealth Alliance, to the tune of millions of $'s over many years The US got progressively more cautious about funding GoF over the past 10 years, but, surprise! Peter Daszak at EcoHealth found loopholes by either lying, feigning ignorance, or convincing allies in NIH that what he was funding wasn't actually dangerous or was just so worth it that they should bypass restrictions on funding WIV was doing their research on coronaviruses at BSL2, which is basically the standard for a dentist's office. US Biosafety Lab guidelines state this research should be BSL3 at a minimum, which is full PPE (spacesuits) and partitioned air supplies for researchers, with independent medical supervision for researchers if they show symptoms. WIV had a parallel weaponization program running with the People's Liberation Army (PLA), who had staff onsite. Essentially the US Gov't was funding PLA bioweapons research /epic facepalm The virologist community is small and closely collaborative, and apparently doesn't think at all about the consequences of their actions. A US researcher at the Univ. of North Carolina provided specific advanced knowledge to WIV scientists on how to insert the furin cleavage to viruses, which makes the many times more infectious to humans. WIV run a "serialization" program on humanized mice (mice with human DNA) to both test infectiousness (standard) but also to rapidly induce mutations in viruses to make them deadlier. They'd expose humanized mice to a coronavirus (the closest natural relative to COVID taken from the bats in mines in China), see which mice died or got the sickest. Then harvest THOSE viruses from those mice and repeat the experiment over and over, accelerating and compounding natural evolution process that would take years/decades into weeks/months. WIV researchers and their families came down with COVID-like symptoms in Oct/Nov 2019. The original hot spot of infections was not the wet market, but in a radius directly around WIV, per research done by US intelligence A PLA vaccine specialist working at WIV applied for a patent for a COVID vaccine in February 2020. US researchers say such rapid progress would only be possible if they were already working the vaccine in Nov 2019. Oh and that vaccine specialist died a few months later after "falling off the roof of the WIV building." Anyway if you still believe a natural crossover, I'm not sure what could convince you at this point. I'm clearly on the side of lab release, probably accidental but still a massive problem. The article also talks about how the strain that escaped from WIV was one of the more mild versions. They had another version that killed 75% of the humanized mice it touched. That would have been fun. Imagine every nuke in every silo in the world going off simultaneously. Now imagine a big red button that could do that, but that button exists in every lab performing GoF research in the world. That's what we have now.
  13. What is Saban's stance on Russian aggression? And would he defend it with a cover 2?
  14. I think I read somewhere last year that Homefield (and others) were limited by the retro logos that UT agreed to release/license to them. Which I agree are shitty last year and this year. We're the problem, it's us. 47 Brand had the best retro t-shirts a few years ago, I still have one that I miss a bunch. CDC said that they were coming back to UT, we'll see about that.
  15. At which point dickhead prof says: "Yes, of course I do, don't you?"
  16. Why are you replacing that hat so soon? That still has a few years of life left in it. Wasteful!
  17. No one says no when Texas and OU come calling. You say yes and figure it out. We'll get to 9, it's a matter of when and how much. ...Imagine Sankey saying "Sorry Texas and OU we'll just need to open a who-knows-how-long media negotiation with ESPN on your value before we say yes." Everyone knows what would have happened: word of Texas/OU leaving would have leaked earlier, A&M would have a lot more time to rev up opposition at the state level and in the SEC, and we would be stuck in the boat anchor big 12 for god knows how long.
  18. I believe I read that the SEC's contract w/ Disney included a pro rata increase for any added teams above 14, so they are already getting "more money." This kerfuffle is that the SEC wants even more than the pro rata increase because they added Texas and OU, which are additive above/beyond the average SEC team, plus going to the 9-game schedule would have added a ton of "extra" high-value games. No sense to give those extra games in the 9-game away for "free," as part of the pro rata's baked in increase; they have more value than that and Disney should pay for it. Sounds like right now Disney's business situation didn't allow for that, or they weren't open to paying enough for it. So, away we go with 8. I really believe if you gave the coaches and AD's of every SEC program truth serum, they'd all say that 9-games is a better fan experience and better for the SEC. But with just the pro rata increase, losing the home cupcake game revenues (and potentially the bowl game, although I think that aspect is overblown) are bigger than the additional TV cut they're going to get.
  19. I read that (wrong?) as jk was saying that Saban was pissed that people are buying players, which I found ironic b/c that's exactly what Saban has been doing for years. Missed the "out and out" part which I guess means in the open. Gave jk some pos rep
  20. Pretty common knowledge that Texas didn't do the bag game at the level of SEC-SEC-SEC programs. Not saying that in a high falutin' we're-better-than-you way; many fans wanted Texas to go there, and we historically didn't. Now we are with NIL.
  21. Nope. "Buying players" isn't new. He's pissed because Bama used to be able to buy players under the table with bags and programs like Texas didn't get into that game as much. Now it's all above board with NIL and Texas and others are in the game now, legally. So he's lost a big asymmetric advantage he used to have in our presumptive surrender to not play the bag game.
  22. Interesting bit from the CBS sports article above: Lulz
  23. We will fucking riot if it's an 8 game trash schedule. JFC this is the easiest decision ever.
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