US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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Yinlock: Oct 22, 2008

Judging by the story the cuffs and kneeling came out after the cop hit his head on the table, so he was either overwhelmed by the powerful fury of a 12 year old or is a complete klutz and ate poo poo, then immediately took out this anger on the nearest available target.

So he wasn't trying to restrain her at all, he was just having a tantrum and needed to hurt someone, as cops do.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 01:04

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# ? May 10, 2024 21:58

Gumball Gumption: Jan 7, 2012

Yinlock posted:

Judging by the story the cuffs and kneeling came out after the cop hit his head on the table, so he was either overwhelmed by the powerful fury of a 12 year old or is a complete klutz and ate poo poo, then immediately took out this anger on the nearest available target.

So he wasn't trying to restrain her at all, he was just having a tantrum and needed to hurt someone, as cops do.

The whole video is in the article. He hit his head because he pulled her and himself to the ground. The girls were literally slap fighting.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 01:06

Yinlock: Oct 22, 2008

Gumball Gumption posted:

The whole video is in the article. He hit his head because he pulled her and himself to the ground. The girls were literally slap fighting.

Klutz it is.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 01:09

thehandtruck: Mar 5, 2006; the thing about the jews is,

PeterCat posted:

So? He kneeled on her for all of 30 seconds, can't tell if it was on her neck since the video resolution is so low. And handcuffing is the easiest was to control her.

Getting rid of resource control officers has done nothing but increase violence in schools.

https://who13.com/news/parents-continue-to-raise-concerns-about-violence-in-des-moines-public-schools/

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

What a rotted and disgusting creature you are.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 02:10

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

thehandtruck posted:

What a rotted and disgusting creature you are.

Okay this is probably a good post to remind people itt that D&D :decorum:

rules remain in effect and you're welcome to take a posting break if you feel the need to aggressively or passive-aggressively snipe at each other.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 02:15

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; Can't post for 42 hours!

"Oh well I guess he had to kneel on this this literal child and cuff her".

I would highly recommend folks who feel this way in this thread talk to social workers and similar, who regularly handle grown adults weighing hundreds of pounds with zero neck sitting or cuffs.

Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 02:54 on Mar 22, 2022

# ? Mar 22, 2022 02:42

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; Can't post for 42 hours!

Fritz the Horse posted:

Okay this is probably a good post to remind people itt that D&D rules remain in effect and you're welcome to take a posting break if you feel the need to aggressively or passive-aggressively snipe at each other.

Worth noting that poster is threadbanned but somehow half a dozen mods and idiot kings let them post 3 full pages in the previous thread including IKs replying to their posts.

They were in the top 25 posters in that thread. They were banned from it in September of last year, 4 months before that iteration even was created.

I did a double take when I read the probation reason, because I couldn't imagine how that poster was threadbanned.

And that's why I'm posting here instead of DMing this.

edit:
vvv Oh no keep them banned, just based on these two posts alone.

Jaxyon fucked around with this message at 02:58 on Mar 22, 2022

# ? Mar 22, 2022 02:49

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Jaxyon posted:

Worth noting that poster is threadbanned but somehow half a dozen mods and idiot kings let them post 3 full pages in the previous thread including IKs replying to their posts.

They were in the top 25 posters in that thread. They were banned from it in September of last year, 4 months before that iteration even was created.

I did a double take when I read the probation reason, because I couldn't imagine how that poster was threadbanned.

And that's why I'm posting here instead of DMing this.

Unfortunately there's no good centralized way to keep track of thread/forumbans so mods often don't notice until it's pointed out. Or well, we have a list now, but we have to manually check usernames against a list so things still slip by.

PeterCat has a standing threadban even if it was not previously enforced. They are welcome to appeal that by PMing Koos Group. If you or someone else would like to PM Koos to support having their threadban overturned, by all means.

edit: oops, threadban. Not forumban.

Fritz the Horse fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Mar 22, 2022

# ? Mar 22, 2022 02:56

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

Fritz the Horse posted:

Unfortunately there's no good centralized way to keep track of thread/forumbans so mods often don't notice until it's pointed out. Or well, we have a list now, but we have to manually check usernames against a list so things still slip by.

PeterCat has a standing forumban even if it was not previously enforced. They are welcome to appeal that by PMing Koos Group. If you or someone else would like to PM Koos to support having their threadban overturned, by all means.

Why a thread ban and not just a ban? If Someone is posting poorly then enforcing the rules seems like the right answer . Why carve out exceptions.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 03:10

Fritz the Horse: Dec 26, 2019; ... of course!

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Why a thread ban and not just a ban? If Someone is posting poorly then enforcing the rules seems like the right answer . Why carve out exceptions.

That was last September so I dunno the details. Also this is not really the thread for discussing moderation. What I will do is make a note in the mod forum and ask Koos to take a look, if you believe PeterCat's posting warrants <action> then contact Koos or a mod of your choice about it.

Generally thread and forumbans are used when posters are problematic in a specific thread/subforum but fine elsewhere.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 03:16

Kalit: Nov 6, 2006; The great thing about the thousands of slaughtered Palestinian children is that they can't pull away when you fondle them or sniff their hair.

That's a Biden success story.

PeterCat posted:

So? He kneeled on her for all of 30 seconds, can't tell if it was on her neck since the video resolution is so low. And handcuffing is the easiest was to control her.

Getting rid of resource control officers has done nothing but increase violence in schools.

https://who13.com/news/parents-continue-to-raise-concerns-about-violence-in-des-moines-public-schools/

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

You should probably rework your avatar text to "Believe women. But if they're 12 years old, who gives a gently caress about them"

(USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)

# ? Mar 22, 2022 03:27

LegendaryFrog: Oct 8, 2006; The Mastered Mind

Jaxyon posted:

So how bad is the Ketanji Brown Jackson hearing going.

Democrats spent a bit less time talking about her qualifications than they did making public statements about how this will help restore people's faith in the legitimacy of the Supreme Court.

Republicans spent no time talking about her qualifications and mostly focused on how mean Senate Dems were to Brett Kavanaugh, while winking toward the cameras that they are totally going to be the bigger adults and not seek to get payback for it during this confirmation.

A few standouts were...

Marsha Blackburn suggesting that Jackson has a hidden agenda to indoctrinate kids to hate white people, before going on a tangent about transgender athletes.

Josh Hawley accusing Jackson of having a personal soft spot in her heart for child rapists.

So yeah, about as awful as you would expect from everyone involved.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 04:08

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

Jesus Christ NYT you are not helping

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1506095895577870341

No, we should not normalize the use of nuclear weapons what the everlasting gently caress.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:14

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Jesus Christ NYT you are not helping

https://twitter.com/nytimes/status/1506095895577870341

No, we should not normalize the use of nuclear weapons what the everlasting gently caress.

I don't see how it's normalizing the use of nuclear weapons; it's talking descriptively about the problems of smaller "tactical" nukes normalizing the concept of nuclear war. If that's the descriptive reality, coverage is what produces pushback against it.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:21

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

Discendo Vox posted:

I don't see how it's normalizing the use of nuclear weapons; it's talking descriptively about the problems of smaller "tactical" nukes normalizing the concept of nuclear war. If that's the descriptive reality, coverage is what produces pushback against it.

There's no such thing as a tactical nuke. 'experts' advocating for them shouldn't be quoted in the headline.

This just reeks of natsec folks pushing for normalizing the use of nukes.

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1506132337318367239

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:25

Mulva: Sep 13, 2011; It's about time for my once per decade ban for being a consistently terrible poster.

Like is a tactical nuke really cheaper than a MOAB or something lighter? Because otherwise what's the point other than saying "We nuked you!" and maybe giving some survivors cancer down the road? We already have big bombs that cause more damage than small nukes.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:42

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

There's no such thing as a tactical nuke. 'experts' advocating for them shouldn't be quoted in the headline.

This just reeks of natsec folks pushing for normalizing the use of nukes.

https://twitter.com/adamjohnsonNYC/status/1506132337318367239

It's...doing the opposite? Everyone quoted in the story is saying it's a bad idea to make smaller nukes, with the exception of Franklin C Miller, who they explicitly paint as wrong.

Describing what is happening is not an endorsement or a "normalization" of it.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:49

PhazonLink: Jul 17, 2010

LegendaryFrog posted:

Josh Hawley accusing Jackson of having a personal soft spot in her heart for child rapists.

i hope the law of projection hits that dude like a loving moon impact.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 06:54

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

It's just a description of things that are happening. That's why you got powerful descriptive words like 'feel' in the headline.

Tag yourself. I'm the implied 'some' that aren't actually all that concerned about nuclear war

# ? Mar 22, 2022 12:34

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

Harold Fjord posted:

It's just a description of things that are happening. That's why you got powerful descriptive words like 'feel' in the headline.

Tag yourself. I'm the implied 'some' that aren't actually all that concerned about nuclear war

I can't wait until "green nukes" enter the lexicon.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 14:39

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

Speaking of war, it's wild how the Geneva Convention considers that targeting civilians is a war crime but you can engage in economic warfare and starve them to death, no harm no foul.

22.8 million Afghans are facing food insecurity because of Biden's sanctions. Unless those sanctions are soon reversed, it is estimated that more people will die from the economic impact of sanctions over the next year than the number who died in 20 years of war.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/03/10/biden-sanctions-afghanistan-humanitarian-crisis/6918023001/

# ? Mar 22, 2022 14:50

Srice: Sep 11, 2011

Bishyaler posted:

Speaking of war, it's wild how the Geneva Convention considers that targeting civilians is a war crime but you can engage in economic warfare and starve them to death, no harm no foul.

22.8 million Afghans are facing food insecurity because of Biden's sanctions. Unless those sanctions are soon reversed, it is estimated that more people will die from the economic impact of sanctions over the next year than the number who died in 20 years of war.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/columnist/2022/03/10/biden-sanctions-afghanistan-humanitarian-crisis/6918023001/

It's awful stuff and the way it gets covered by most of the media never truly conveys how grim it is. Outside of rare circumstances sanctions are a form of violence and it's rarely treated that way (for plenty of obvious reasons, unfortunately).

# ? Mar 22, 2022 15:04

CommieGIR: Aug 22, 2006; The blue glow is a feature, not a bug; Pillbug

Bishyaler posted:

I can't wait until "green nukes" enter the lexicon.

If you are talking about nuclear power.....

...but yeah, its hilarity that people are trying to rehabilitate nuclear weapons.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 15:05

Killer robot: Sep 6, 2010; I was having the most wonderful dream. I think you were in it!; Pillbug

Mulva posted:

Like is a tactical nuke really cheaper than a MOAB or something lighter? Because otherwise what's the point other than saying "We nuked you!" and maybe giving some survivors cancer down the road? We already have big bombs that cause more damage than small nukes.

The smallest setting of the smallest warhead described in that article is some 30 times as powerful as a MOAB, and most are considerably larger (that very same bomb can be "dialed up" to 1000xMOAB.) The reason why normalizing tactical nuclear strikes is horrifying is largely because they're massively more destructive than any battlefield-portable quantity of conventional explosives.

It's not surprising to see it getting more talk with current saber rattling about it and reminders that Russian nuclear doctrine going back to the Soviet era both involves a lot more tactical nukes and less hesitance to use them. Though if you ask me the bigger concern is that the Ukraine invasion is likely another nail in the coffin of non-proliferation. The continued Pentagon quest for "one bomb that can level a city or just take out a bunker" matters less when in the old days they just ordered a case of each.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 15:27

Discendo Vox: Mar 21, 2013; We don't need to have that dialogue because it's obvious, trivial, and has already been had a thousand times.

Harold Fjord posted:

It's just a description of things that are happening. That's why you got powerful descriptive words like 'feel' in the headline.

Tag yourself. I'm the implied 'some' that aren't actually all that concerned about nuclear war

The explicit "some" is described in the text of the article. It's Trump, Putin, and Miller. Every other voice, including the editorial voice of the article, is about how the idea is garbage.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 16:21

Yeowch!!! My Balls!!!: May 31, 2006

Discendo Vox posted:

The explicit "some" is described in the text of the article. It's Trump, Putin, and Miller. Every other voice, including the editorial voice of the article, is about how the idea is garbage.

when you say "the explicit some," do you mean the article establishes these are the only three people with that view, or are you two layers of implication deep, attempting to imply that -the article- attempts to imply that they are the only three.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 16:27

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

I really don't see how this NYT article could possibly be read as a "trial balloon" saying "tactical nukes, the new fun thing everybody's raving about - don't listen to those doomsayers!" The message seems to be "Russia thinks nukes can be used tactically, especially when in a desperate situation, and the US has plans to respond with similar weapons should they cross that threshold (which will have a very high chance of killing all of us)."

quote:

In destructive power, the behemoths of the Cold War dwarfed the American atomic bomb that destroyed Hiroshima. Washington�s biggest test blast was 1,000 times as large. Moscow�s was 3,000 times. On both sides, the idea was to deter strikes with threats of vast retaliation � with mutual assured destruction, or MAD. The psychological bar was so high that nuclear strikes came to be seen as unthinkable.

Today, both Russia and the United States have nuclear arms that are much less destructive � their power just fractions of the Hiroshima bomb�s force, their use perhaps less frightening and more thinkable.

Concern about these smaller arms has soared as Vladimir V. Putin, in the Ukraine war, has warned of his nuclear might, has put his atomic forces on alert and has had his military carry out risky attacks on nuclear power plants. The fear is that if Mr. Putin (ed: NOT Joe Biden or NATO) feels cornered in the conflict, he might choose to detonate one of his lesser nuclear arms � breaking the taboo set 76 years ago after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Analysts note that Russian troops have long practiced the transition from conventional to nuclear war, especially as a way to gain the upper hand after battlefield losses. And the military, they add, wielding the world�s largest nuclear arsenal, has explored a variety of escalatory options that Mr. Putin might choose from.

�The chances are low but rising,� said Ulrich K�hn, a nuclear expert at the University of Hamburg and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. �The war is not going well for the Russians,� he observed, �and the pressure from the West is increasing.�

Mr. Putin might fire a weapon at an uninhabited area instead of at troops, Dr. K�hn said. In a 2018 study, he laid out a crisis scenario in which Moscow (ed: not Washington or Brussels) detonated a bomb over a remote part of the North Sea as a way to signal deadlier strikes to come.

�It feels horrible to talk about these things,� Dr. K�hn said in an interview. �But we have to consider that this is becoming a possibility.�

Washington expects more atomic moves from Mr. Putin in the days ahead. Moscow is likely to �increasingly rely on its nuclear deterrent to signal the West and project strength� as the war and its consequences weaken Russia, Lt. Gen. Scott D. Berrier, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the House Armed Services Committee on Thursday.

President Biden is traveling to a NATO summit in Brussels this week to discuss the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The agenda is expected to include how the alliance will respond if Russia employs chemical, biological, cyber or nuclear weapons.

James R. Clapper Jr., a retired Air Force general who served as President Barack Obama�s director of national intelligence, said Moscow had lowered its bar for atomic use after the Cold War when the Russian army fell into disarray. Today, he added, Russia regards nuclear arms as utilitarian rather than unthinkable.

�They didn�t care,� Mr. Clapper said of Russian troops� risking a radiation release earlier this month when they attacked the Zaporizhzhia nuclear reactor site � the largest not only in Ukraine but in Europe. �They went ahead and fired on it. That�s indicative of the Russian laissez-faire attitude. They don�t make the distinctions that we do on nuclear weapons.�

Mr. Putin announced last month that he was putting Russian nuclear forces into �special combat readiness.� Pavel Podvig, a longtime researcher of Russia�s nuclear forces, said the alert had most likely primed the Russian command and control system for the possibility of receiving a nuclear order.

It�s unclear how Russia exerts control over its arsenal of less destructive arms. But some U.S. politicians and experts have denounced the smaller weapons on both sides as threatening to upend the global balance of nuclear terror.

For Russia, military analysts note, edgy displays of the less destructive arms have let Mr. Putin polish his reputation for deadly brinkmanship and expand the zone of intimidation he needs to fight a bloody conventional war.

�Putin is using nuclear deterrence to have his way in Ukraine,� said Nina Tannenwald, a political scientist at Brown University who recently profiled the less powerful armaments. �His nuclear weapons keep the West from intervening.�

A global race for the smaller arms is intensifying. Though such weapons are less destructive by Cold War standards, modern estimates show that the equivalent of half a Hiroshima bomb, if detonated in Midtown Manhattan, would kill or injure half a million people.

The case against these arms is that they undermine the nuclear taboo and make crisis situations even more dangerous. Their less destructive nature, critics say, can feed the illusion of atomic control when in fact their use can suddenly flare into a full-blown nuclear war. A simulation devised by experts at Princeton University starts with Moscow firing a nuclear warning shot; NATO responds with a small strike, and the ensuing war yields more than 90 million casualties in its first few hours.

No arms control treaties regulate the lesser warheads, known sometimes as tactical or nonstrategic nuclear weapons, so the nuclear superpowers make and deploy as many as they want. Russia has perhaps 2,000, according to Hans M. Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists, a private group in Washington. And the United States has roughly 100 in Europe, a number limited by domestic policy disputes and the political complexities of basing them among NATO allies, whose populations often resist and protest the weapons� presence.

Russia�s atomic war doctrine came to be known as �escalate to de-escalate� � meaning routed troops would fire a nuclear weapon to stun an aggressor into retreat or submission. Moscow repeatedly practiced the tactic in field exercises. In 1999, for instance, a large drill simulated a NATO attack on Kaliningrad, the Russian enclave on the Baltic Sea. The exercise had Russian forces in disarray until Moscow fired nuclear arms at Poland and the United States.

Dr. K�hn of the University of Hamburg said the defensive training drills of the 1990s had turned toward offense in the 2000s as the Russian army regained some of its former strength.

Concurrent with its new offensive strategy, Russia embarked on a modernization of its nuclear forces, including its less destructive arms. As in the West, some of the warheads were given variable explosive yields that could be dialed up or down depending on the military situation.

A centerpiece of the new arsenal was the Iskander-M, first deployed in 2005. The mobile launcher can fire two missiles that travel roughly 300 miles. The missiles can carry conventional as well as nuclear warheads. Russian figures put the smallest nuclear blast from those missiles at roughly a third that of the Hiroshima bomb.

Before the Russian army invaded Ukraine, satellite images showed that Moscow had deployed Iskander missile batteries in Belarus and to its east in Russian territory. There�s no public data on whether Russia has armed any of the Iskanders with nuclear warheads.

Nikolai Sokov, a former Russian diplomat who negotiated arms control treaties in Soviet times, said that nuclear warheads could also be placed on cruise missiles. The low-flying weapons, launched from planes, ships or the ground, hug the local terrain to avoid detection by enemy radar.

From inside Russian territory, he said, �they can reach all of Europe,� including Britain.

Over the years, the United States and its NATO allies have sought to rival Russia�s arsenal of lesser nuclear arms. It started decades ago as the United States began sending bombs for fighter jets to military bases in Belgium, Germany, Italy, Turkey and the Netherlands. Dr. K�hn noted that the alliance, in contrast to Russia, does not conduct field drills practicing a transition from conventional to nuclear war.

In 2010, Mr. Obama, who had long advocated for a �nuclear-free world,� decided to refurbish and improve the NATO weapons, turning them into smart bombs with maneuverable fins that made their targeting highly precise. That, in turn, gave war planners the freedom to lower the weapons� variable explosive force to as little as 2 percent of that of the Hiroshima bomb.

The reduced blast capability made breaking the nuclear taboo �more thinkable,� Gen. James E. Cartwright, a vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff under Mr. Obama, warned at the time. He nonetheless backed the program because the high degree of precision lowered the risk of collateral damage and civilian casualties. But after years of funding and manufacturing delays, the refurbished bomb, known as the B61 Model 12, is not expected to be deployed in Europe until next year, Mr. Kristensen said.

The steady Russian buildups and the slow American responses prompted the Trump administration to propose a new missile warhead in 2018. Its destructive force was seen as roughly half that of the Hiroshima bomb, according to Mr. Kristensen. It was to be deployed on the nation�s fleet of 14 ballistic missile submarines.

While some experts warned that the bomb, known as the W76 Model 2, could make it more tempting for a president to order a nuclear strike, the Trump administration argued that the weapon would lower the risk of war by ensuring that Russia would face the threat of proportional counterstrikes. It was deployed in late 2019.

�It�s all about psychology � deadly psychology,� said Franklin C. Miller, a nuclear expert who backed the new warhead and, before leaving public office in 2005, held Pentagon and White House posts for three decades. �If your opponent thinks he has a battlefield edge, you try to convince him that he�s wrong.�

When he was a candidate for the presidency, Joseph R. Biden Jr. called the less powerful warhead a �bad idea� that would make presidents �more inclined� to use it. But Mr. Kristensen said the Biden administration seemed unlikely to remove the new warhead from the nation�s submarines.

It�s unclear how Mr. Biden would respond to the use of a nuclear weapon by Mr. Putin. Nuclear war plans are one of Washington�s most deeply held secrets. Experts say that the war-fighting plans in general go from warning shots to single strikes to multiple retaliations and that the hardest question is whether there are reliable ways to prevent a conflict from escalating.

Even Mr. Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, said he was unsure how he would advise Mr. Biden if Mr. Putin unleashed his nuclear arms.

�When do you stop?� he asked of nuclear retaliation. �You can�t just keep turning the other cheek. At some point we�d have to do something.�

A U.S. response to a small Russian blast, experts say, might be to fire one of the new submarine-launched warheads into the wilds of Siberia or at a military base inside Russia. Mr. Miller, the former government nuclear official and a former chairman of NATO�s nuclear policy committee, said such a blast would be a way of signaling to Moscow that �this is serious, that things are getting out of hand.�

Military strategists say a tit-for-tat rejoinder would throw the responsibility for further escalation back at Russia, making Moscow feel its ominous weight and ideally keeping the situation from spinning out of control despite the dangers in war of miscalculation and accident.

In a darker scenario, Mr. Putin might resort to using atomic arms if the war in Ukraine spilled into neighboring NATO states. All NATO members, including the United States, are obliged to defend one another � potentially with salvos of nuclear warheads.

Dr. Tannenwald, the political scientist at Brown University, wondered if the old protections of nuclear deterrence, now rooted in opposing lines of less destructive arms, would succeed in keeping the peace.

�It sure doesn�t feel that way in a crisis,� she said.

Doesn't seem like an endorsement to me. There's not a single positively-coded statement about the use of tactical nukes anywhere in the piece. It seems to be reporting on a problem that nuclear experts agree exists. I think reading something like this would make bellicose Americans less likely to support an escalation of the war, not less.

e: They've also changed (?) the headline to The Smaller Bombs That Could Turn Ukraine Into a Nuclear War Zone

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 17:10 on Mar 22, 2022

# ? Mar 22, 2022 17:07

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

The article itself is honestly fine, but the tweet was bizarre because it has a completely different meaning out of context.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 18:42

VitalSigns: Sep 3, 2011; Can't post for 42 hours!

I have a hard time believing that the most august publication in the country is so incompetent at communication that they wrote a headline making nuclear war sound not-that-bad by accident, but I am open to changing my mind on this

E: I am also willing to believe that it was cynically written that way to get clicks

# ? Mar 22, 2022 18:49

Bishyaler: Dec 30, 2009; Megamarm

VitalSigns posted:

I have a hard time believing that the most august publication in the country is so incompetent at communication that they wrote a headline making nuclear war sound not-that-bad by accident, but I am open to changing my mind on this

E: I am also willing to believe that it was cynically written that way to get clicks

Good thing we don't need to think too hard about it since all interpretations of the headline are stunningly irresponsible.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 18:54

Timeless Appeal: May 28, 2006

VitalSigns posted:

I have a hard time believing that the most august publication in the country is so incompetent at communication that they wrote a headline making nuclear war sound not-that-bad by accident, but I am open to changing my mind on this

E: I am also willing to believe that it was cynically written that way to get clicks

The headline actually change? The text of the tweet is a quote from the article not the title.

But yeah agreed on most likely salacious cynicism.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:34

Harold Fjord: Jan 3, 2004

There's something to be said about an issue everyone agrees on suddenly coming up as being under debate again, regardless of where you think the article ends up pointing as correct

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:36

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Harold Fjord posted:

There's something to be said about an issue everyone agrees on suddenly coming up as being under debate again, regardless of where you think the article ends up pointing as correct

That's very true, actually, but I don't think it applies in this case because the fact that Russian nuclear doctrine appears to be much, much looser than NATO's makes it a problem worth considering, whether we like it or not.

"NYT shouldn't be giving this oxygen" is kinda like "Dems shouldn't have let CRT become a talking point" - you don't get to decide in a vacuum what matters are "worth" discussing when it's actually bad actors turning them into resonant issues, through sheer insistence.

Agree with VS and TA that the original headline definitely could have had clickbait motivation.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:39

Willa Rogers: Mar 11, 2005

quote:

Almost a million people in the United States have died of Covid-19 in the past two years, but the full impact of the pandemic�s collateral damage is still being tallied. Now a new study reports that the number of Americans who died of alcohol-related causes increased precipitously during the first year of the pandemic, as routines were disrupted, support networks frayed and treatment was delayed.

The startling report comes amid a growing realization that Covid�s toll extends beyond the number of lives claimed directly by the disease to the excess deaths caused by illnesses left untreated and a surge in drug overdoses, as well as to social costs like educational setbacks and the loss of parents and caregivers.

Numerous reports have suggested that Americans drank more to cope with the stress of the pandemic. Binge drinking increased, as did emergency room visits for alcohol withdrawal. But the new report found that the number of alcohol-related deaths, including from liver disease and accidents, soared, rising to 99,017 in 2020, up from 78,927 the previous year � an increase of 25 percent in the number of deaths in one year.

That compares with an average annual increase of 3.6 percent in alcohol-related deaths between 1999 and 2019. Deaths started inching up in recent years, but increased only 5 percent between 2018 and 2019.

***

Among adults younger than 65, alcohol-related deaths actually outnumbered deaths from Covid-19 in 2020; some 74,408 Americans ages 16 to 64 died of alcohol-related causes, while 74,075 individuals under 65 died of Covid. And the rate of increase for alcohol-related deaths in 2020 � 25 percent � outpaced the rate of increase of deaths from all causes, which was 16.6 percent.

The alcohol-related deaths went up for everybody � men, women, as well as every ethnic and racial group. Deaths among men and women increased at about the same rate, but the absolute number of deaths among men was much higher.

Drug overdose deaths also reached record levels during the first year of the pandemic, with more than 100,000 Americans dying of overdoses during the 12-month period that ended in April 2021, a nearly 30 percent increase over the previous year, according to reports issued in November. The number of deaths from opioids in which alcohol played a role also increased.

Young adults ages 25 to 44 experienced the greatest increases in alcohol-related deaths in 2020, rising nearly 40 percent over the previous year, according to the new report.

I wonder whether anyone's done the math on the extent to which "excess deaths" were caused by pandemic-adjacent numbers like these.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:44

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Willa Rogers posted:

Alcohol-related deaths in the U.S. soared by 25 percent during the first year of the pandemic:

I wonder whether anyone's done the math on the extent to which "excess deaths" were caused by pandemic-adjacent numbers like these.

The usual amount of deaths caused by alcohol in a given year is about 100,000, so probably about an extra ~~20-30k~~ 40-60k if they were they up 25%. (e: Right... two years. :smith:

)

I've been personally affected by this phenomenon, as I'm sure many have. Hell, the isolation and stress of the pandemic have made me about double up on my cannabis consumption; I'm just lucky that my drug of choice is less toxic than others.

I also continue to wonder if side effects of acute covid infection or long covid have led to once-sustainable drinking habits (where somebody might have previously lived another two decades plus) becoming a death sentence.

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 20:04 on Mar 22, 2022

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:50

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; Can't post for 42 hours!

I had to mostly go sober during this because I felt getting more into drinking was going to be a slippery slope.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 19:55

Heck Yes! Loam!: Nov 15, 2004; a rich, friable soil containing a relatively equal mixture of sand and silt and a somewhat smaller proportion of clay.

Interracial marriage is now a GOP issue

https://twitter.com/nwi/status/1506366122806943756

It got me wondering if Clarence Thomas would become the swing vote.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 22:04

Mellow Seas: Oct 9, 2012; Can't post for 10 years!

Heck Yes! Loam! posted:

Interracial marriage is now a GOP issue

https://twitter.com/nwi/status/1506366122806943756

It got me wondering if Clarence Thomas would become the swing vote.

I wonder if this is part of a deliberate midterms strategy to say outrageously racist stuff to "force" Democrats to respond, because Democrats usually suffer when race is in the national conversation...

...but I really have to question whether this isn't taking that concept a bit too far, especially when Republicans don't really have to do anything to win back the house anyway. I mean, I'm sure Braun is plenty racist on his own and would probably genuinely welcome a reversal of Loving, but it's so over the top to say it out loud.

e: He doesn't even throw in a "but of course I'm sure every state would choose to allow interracial marriage." (Isn't this something like Roe where the US Congress could pass a bill codifying it, except this one would presumably be able to pass? They should probably put a bill on the floor now.)

Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 22:22 on Mar 22, 2022

# ? Mar 22, 2022 22:18

Jaxyon: Mar 7, 2016; Can't post for 42 hours!

He's not saying he's against interracial marriage, you see, he's saying he's in favor of states rights.

Which has never been used to hide a racist position.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 22:23

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# ? May 10, 2024 21:58

Abner Assington: Mar 13, 2005; For I am a sinner in the hands of an angry god. Bloody Mary, full of vodka, blessed are you among cocktails. Pray for me now, at the hour of my death, which I hope is soon.

Amen.

You're giving conservatives way too much credit when it comes to clever strategy, rather than the obvious fact that they're incredibly despicable excuses for human beings in almost every single way one can be.

# ? Mar 22, 2022 22:25

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > US CE Spring 2022: I'm convinced it's useless which is why I argue about it all day every day

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