Shamelessly filched from loyal commentor Schroedinger’s Cat, to encourage everyone to click over and find out how “The Die Is Caste“:
NYT is now outsourcing their vacuous analysis on the Opinion Pages to op-ed contributors from Bangalore, no less. Tom Friedman beware, your competition has arrived. Ms Sankar’s column in a nutshell, nobody I know of speaks of uncomfortable stuff like caste or caste discrimination, ergo its no longer a relevant factor. Also, it makes me sad that others, not as enlightened as I am, are using caste when deciding who to vote for….
A quick Google search with the word caste, came up with multiple stories from Indian newspapers with caste in the head lines. Even when it is not in the headlines, caste provides the subtext for almost everything in India. So much for her claim that newspaper headlines don’t obsess over caste anymore… Caste-based discrimination is the reality of life for far too many Indians. Although, truly reprehensible practices around who you can touch and share food with may be dying out in the urban areas out of sheer necessity. The opportunities that are available to you depend to a great extent on your caste. Since caste and class usually go together, abject poverty is the fate of many at the bottom of the caste ladder…
Nothing like a thorough fisking to clear out those blocked passages full of unthinking assumptions and mealy-mouthed platitudes!
I am moderately addicted to the NYTimes‘ “India Ink” blog, because it’s really interesting to see the One Percenters of a giant conglomerate nation that is not us/US grapple with global geopolitics. During the first Gilded Age, British imperialists and their American admirers were always talking about “the Raj” as a shining example of how True Civilization would naturallly “evolve” into a system where a oligarchy could use an ever-insecure class of “warriors, scholars & merchants” to keep the vast majority of the population controlled. (If only Jeebus had had the forethought to announce that those poor who were always with us should be permanently branded, and their children after them!) If Rich Lowry can bring himself to risk the spiritual contamination inherent in perusing EvenTheLiberal NYTimes, I’m sure Ms. Sankar’s column gave him Starbursts!
Redshirt
We shall all be outsourced in 6 months or so. What can’t Indians, Mexicans, or robots not do?
Spaghetti Lee
Perhaps the sign of the switch from Civilization to Decadence is when a culture develops its own local equivalent of Tom Friedman. I believe the Mayans had a pudgy, mustached high priest who would argue that we should keep sacrificing virgins for six more months and see how things played out.
Hunter Gathers
Keep fucking that cow?
Diana
Indians were always hypocrites. The Brits rapidly figured out that the Brahmin were the highest caste, and would only associate with them to the extent they would associate with Indians at all.
And even though it was official Brahmin teaching that foreigners, being completely outside of the caste system, were supposed to be untouchables, the Brahmin didn’t behave as if their British masters were untouchables, and instead sucked up to them shamelessly.
Yatsuno
Wow. I totally ignored the whole concept of caste when I watched Slumdog Millionaire. I can’t believe I never saw that before, but now I’m seeing the whole thing from a new perspective. And I really should know better given my academic background.
David Koch
RIP Slim Whitman.
Una paloma blancaaaaaaaa-ah!
Roger Moore
@Hunter Gathers:
I think that would be considered sacreligious rather than just in poor taste, like chicken fucking.
Violet
I can’t wait for CEOs and upper management to be outsourced.
Litlebritdifrnt
The caste system in India is truly obscene. Ask anyone who has lived under it and then escaped from it.
Redshirt
I worked with an Indian lady once who got a little too drunk at a company event and started venting about arranged marriages. It was sad/illuminating.
Redshirt
Also too, check out this cool gif I found recently – the true motion of the solar system.
Gin & Tonic
@Spaghetti Lee: As a mustache-American of long standing, I can tell you have no idea how irritating it is to have Friedman among us.
Narcissus
@Violet: We’re almost there. By and large, our Neoliberal Transnational Corporate overlords have more in common with each other than they do with their own countrymen.
Comrade Dread
@Spaghetti Lee: Romans too. Thomas Patrician was a well-known wonk who continued to advise Caesar to wait six more months for the Hun problem to resolve itself.
spudvol
Thanks to Obamacare Healthcare Costs Fell for First Time in Almost 40 Years
Lurking Canadian
I’m reading a book called Plutocrats, by Chrystia Freeland. It’s not what I was hoping for, but maybe it’ll get better. So far she appears to have really drunk the globalization/meritocracy/job creator kool-aid, but I’m not finished yet.
Anyway, one of the pieces of “evidence” she’s used to “prove” how meritocratic the emerging economies are was a story about one (1) low-caste Indian who managed to make it big in high-tech. I am not surprised to learn here that life is not actually all sunshine and roses for low-caste Indians.
I am always tempted to ask people using such anecdata if, by finding a case of a serf knighted for bravery on the battlefield, I can disprove the existence of European aristocracy.
Suffern ACE
She’d have asked her cab driver, but one only speaks to them out of necessity, and then in the harshest terms.
Anyway, my experience in India is that the bigger concern for the Hindus are the “special rules for the muslims”, the idea that democracy really doesn’t work when there are too many people voting, and that the folks from Nepal, Tibet, Bhutan and that region in the far East that borders Myanmar need to go back where they came from. Caste we don’t speak of. Probably because pretty much everyone I deal with comes from the same few castes.
David Koch
@spudvol: Whaaaaaaaaaaaaa?
but all our progressive betters™ told us it was a give away to the insurance industry!?!!!111
jeffreyw
I like pie.
Redshirt
Is anyone here an expert on Indian history? I know the Aryans really did invade India, and brought Hinduism with their conquest. And while India has been primarily Hindu for a long time, there are many other religions present. Some of the best, in fact – real Buddhism is amazing.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@jeffreyw: You are a cold, cruel man to post that delicious looking treat without serving some. How is Katie? Pix (Homer and Bitsy also, too) please???
ruemara
lovely. even as our own caste system is rigorously enforced. I don’t even hate these people anymore, I’m just wrung out.
jeffreyw
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Homer is doing well. Katie likes her ice cream.
jeffreyw
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): Bitsy is fond of boxes.
The Friendly Libertarian
Even the Germans get it now: Obama’s Soft Totalitarianism.
Must Europe now protect itself from America?
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@ruemara: For the past two years or so, I’ve been watching our state legislature try to burn up our pension system, so I totally understand the “I’m just tired of it” syndrome. We never get a break, and they won’t stop until they gut things and we end up getting fucked. Because we actually have jobs to do in addition to defending our pensions.
The Friendly Libertarian
Again, now even the Germans think we live under a Totalitarian State.
rda909
Expect this soon in a Friedman column: “Just the other day, my rickshaw driver was telling me…”
Roger Moore
@jeffreyw:
A cat who likes boxes? That’s unpossible.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Redshirt: I had thought that the plane of the planets was approximately in the same plane as the sun’s motion through the galaxy. Your gif shows the plane to be perpendicular.
TaMara (BHF)
Need to vent. I’ve worked in the alternative energy field in one way or another for the last 15 years. My mother who is a right wing-fox watching-Limbaugh loving zealot, just posted on a cute starbucks photo I put on facebook that global warming is a myth and anyone who believes in it is gullible. i.e. me of course
I bombarded her with fact sheets. Trying not to hate right now. Finding it difficult.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Friendly Libertarian: Actually, that’s another ex-Pat writing for the german magazine.
ETA: My view of ex-Pats is quickly becoming “People who are hunting for that mythical America that never existed, rather than trying to help make that America.”
Little Boots
don’t hate your mom, tamara. it ain’t worth it.
just hate cheney, with the rest of us. that’s never not fun.
The Friendly Libertarian
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Expats know best the kind of Police State that is now America.
Do you care to dispute the facts of the article?
Little Boots
@The Friendly Libertarian:
no angerman, it’s nazi germany all over again.
again.
Roger Moore
@TaMara (BHF):
There’s your problem. You’re obviously part of the vast left wing environmentalist conspiracy, trying to foist your made up greenhouse effect conspiracy on the world so you can get government handouts. Is it any wonder your mother trust oil company executives, who clearly have no stake in the matter, more than you?
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Friendly Libertarian: Ex-pats that write these kinds of article are blowing smoke. Proof: Glenn-“The US is the worst police state in the world”- Greenwald is planning on visiting later this year.
El Caganer
@Little Boots: Was it over when they bombed Pearl Harbor?
Little Boots
category error. there are no friendly libertarians. they are crazy loners, always.
always.
Redshirt
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): The orbit is perpendicular to the Sun, of course – all 8 planets orbit in more or less circles around Sol. However, Sol is streaming through the galaxy, and with it, the Planets. This is a real motion, and is charted in the gif. This is the same technique currently used to show the orbits of the Jovian and Saturnalian moons.
Little Boots
@El Caganer:
I for one hate when the syrians did that.
I admit.
Shortstop
Hocks!
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
Go Hawks!
The Friendly Libertarian
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Which country imprisons the most people in the ENTIRE WORLD?
Chris
@Lurking Canadian:
This.
That’s what goes unsaid in their wonderful tale of “meritocratic” capitalism (it’s called “the American dream” over here) – it’s always been possible to fight your way into the upper class. Under feudalism, rich people could buy titles, and poor people could earn them on the battlefield. Under communism, the Party and KGB made a point of culling spotting the best and brightest from schools and universities and recruiting them. Maybe rags-to-riches tales weren’t common over there, but who are we kidding – they’re not that common under capitalism either.
(And it also says “hey, life is wonderful – just join the upper class!” as if it were humanly possible for everyone to join the upper class regardless of their qualifications. The problem is what happens to those who don’t make it).
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Redshirt: True, but the streams coming off the planets to show their paths would look different if the planets were in the same plane as the motion of the sun. It would be harder to tell them apart, because they would be drawing on top of each other. It would be a spyrograph on a piece of paper rather than the comet-tailed look you have right now.
I’ll have to go look it up. I just assumed that the planet’s orbits around the sun were in the same plane as the sun’s motion around the galaxy, not perpendicular.
Xenos
The critical thing for westerners to appreciate about South Asian politics is how much of a threat Islam is to the caste system. Whatever the problems with Abrahamic religions, the focus on the individual’s worth in the eyes of God can be a powerful antidote to the abuses of class and caste.
A great many converts to Islam, historically and presently, are untouchables. Even if Muslims were not a security threat the PTB in Hindi society would still hate those bastards for daring to think all men are fundamentally equal.
jurassicpork
Gee, first Michael Hastings dies when his car explodes then Tony Soprano suddenly croaks the next day. Coincidence?
Chris
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Nah. You’ll always have a few idiots like this, but by and long there’s nothing wrong with them.
Mnemosyne
@Chris:
This was my argument about The Great Gatsby — the book isn’t about money, it’s about social class. Gatsby’s tragic flaw is that he doesn’t understand the difference.
Little Boots
@jurassicpork:
damn, no.
Chris
@The Friendly Libertarian:
Yes, who would know better than someone who’s not here.
Hey, aren’t you people the ones always telling us that EUROPE is the totalitarian socialist monster, and that the thing that’s so scary about Obama is that he’s trying to make us like EUROPE, and the thing that’s so awful about the ACA is that it makes us like EUROPE? You’d trust the word of someone who prefers the totalitarian socialist internationalist monstrosity over America? Tsk, tsk.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Friendly Libertarian: Considering what a large portion of them are arrested for, being minorities, we’re a racist state, not a police state. Which I would sorely love to fix without having to wait for my parents to die.
A police state would be when everyone is worried about what they would say about the government. And I can tell you we’re not a police state. We haven’t locked down the internet like China, Syria, or a number of other countries. We don’t house arrest political dissidents or disappear them.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Chris: True, my sample size is pretty small. I stand corrected.
The Friendly Libertarian
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
Exactly. American Exceptionalism is a big fat myth. Germany is far from being a racist state, among other western nations.
The Friendly Libertarian
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
“Haven’t locked down the internet”? What about internet sites shut down by DHS for “copyright infringement”? How is this any different from what China or Russia does?
Ruckus
@jeffreyw:
I’ll be over in about 30 minutes. Keep a piece warm for me.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@Xenos: That’s why Judaism and Christianity took off. God pays attention to you, you get to live forever (Christianity), and it’s between you and God how much you are worth.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@jurassicpork: Considering that the only time you show here is to pimp your need for funds, I won’t click on your link, so how ’bout you summarize for us, okay?
TaMara (BHF)
@Roger Moore: LOL. Now you made me remember a decade ago – After putting in tile in my own home, I offered to do my mom and dad’s entry way. I’m up to my eyeballs in mortar and they come in with lunch saying they stopped at the local home depot, talked to the minimum wage employee and I was doing it all wrong.
Same story. Different day.
Thanks for the perspective.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@The Friendly Libertarian: Germany: You mean a country that keeps people from becoming citizens because their parents weren’t citizens?
I will agree with you that American exceptionalism is a myth.
@The Friendly Libertarian: Actually, considering the fact that I believe in following copyright law (other than I think the times should be brought down to 20 years), I think places that violate it should be shut down. On the other hand, the government isn’t shutting down places like Balloon Juice, Red State, National Review, or Daily Kos when the people on them make anti-Government statements. But you knew that.
I love it when libertarians show that they don’t care about laws that inconvenience them.
Little Boots
still, blame libertarian.
cause, libertarian.
Suffern ACE
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): The problem with the article isn’t Germany’s immigration problem. It’s that Germany also has its version of the NSA and a security network looking for terrorists in its territory. It’s just not as large. What the article calls for is that in response to NSA monitoring, it wants Germany to build its own security system to protect its citizens from us. I’m fine with them feeling threatened, but I don’t know if they want to go that route. We already went that route and it is expensive and foolish.
I’m fine with the european public pushing us around. I don’t know if it will do any good. Their institutions seem not much more interested in being swayed by public opinion than our own. (How did they get austerity and the Euro?). Until someone somewhere starts to put real sanctions on our companies, we aren’t going to make much headway. Some of the security firms have offices and contracts in Germany – start asking them to leave and we might get some response.
Forum Transmitted Disease
@jurassicpork: Why don’t you just skip the foreplay, get right to telling us that Obama is history’s greatest monster, and then beg us for rent money? I mean, you’ll get there anyway, but it would be nice to just get all the bullshit out of the way and get to the only reason you’re posting here, as we’re normally the kind of Democratic-voting scum you’ve got no use for.
Only thing worse than being treated as an ATM machine is being treated as a stupid ATM machine.
KXB
For those who argue that Hindus are worried about Islam’s idea that all men are equal in the eyes of one God – nope. It is far more direct. They think Muslims are more prone to violence. Many look at how Islam spread out of the Arabian peninsula, and not all those conversions were pleasant. Then, as soon as Muhammad died, his descendants immediately began warring amongst themselves.
In more recent times, India underwent the horror of partition, on the grounds that it would ensure regional stability, and allow the Muslims of South Asia to flourish. Instead, Pakistan found itself riven with ethnic divisions, resulting in The eastern wing breaking off into Bangladesh. The Muslims of South Asia are almost even divided among Pakistan, Bangladesh, and India.
Hindus take it as a point of pride that it is the only region of the world that once Islam took root, the indigenous culture did not get wiped out or reduced to a negligible minority, as was the case in Iran and Indonesia- two large Muslim states, but that are not Arab.
Given that Muslims comprise somewhere between 12-15% of India’s population, and are a sizable voting block, it would be rash to say that Hindus’ concerns are just about religion. It is about old fashioned interest group politics. But just as there is no Hindu block of votes, increasingly Muslims vote according to what is important in their part of the country.
Mnemosyne
We were flipping through our new digital channels and stumbled on Blazing Saddles. Still one of the fucking funniest movies of all time.
Matt McIrvin
@Belafon (formerly anonevent): It’s actually neither in the plane of the planetary orbits, nor perpendicular; it’s at an angle. You get a different angle depending on whether you’re talking about motion relative to nearby stars, or motion relative to the galactic center.
That gif is wrong, to the extent that it purports to show the actual motion of the solar system through the galaxy. It’s part of a longer viral online video that seems to be the work of a skilled crackpot, who insists that the standard picture of planets orbiting the Sun is “wrong” because “vortex motion” is completely different from plain old rotational motion. That’s basically a denial of relativity; it’s always perfectly legitimate to choose a center-of-mass frame to describe the motion of a collective system of objects. You could also choose a frame in which the Solar System moves perpendicular to the ecliptic plane, but it wouldn’t be a frame of any particular significance, certainly not the one true frame.
Matt McIrvin
More, from Phil Plait:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2013/03/04/vortex_motion_viral_video_showing_sun_s_motion_through_galaxy_is_wrong.html
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: Cherry pie and vanilla ice cream… looks yummy.
PsiFighter37
IM DRUNK FOOLS . Wednesday was meant for a fighting, said Elton John not ever.
PF37 +7 kinda weak beers, but whatever
P.S. I hoe Bruin fans like the taste of defeta
PurpleGirl
@jeffreyw: Her eyes are amazing; they look like fine opals.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@PsiFighter37: LOLwut?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Matt McIrvin: I guess it’s been a while since I’ve read any of his stuff; when did he end up at Slate?
PsiFighter37
@Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS): Don’t be kealous necause you can’t undestand greatness when you hear it.
Bruins fans suck, plus hwen did so many of those fuickers show up in NYC to infiltrate the city. Kick those lobsterback asstards back into the ocean so we can ifsh them up and put themin our Manhattan clam Chowda.
Not that most peopple care anyways. Most of the people at the bar I was at rooting for the Bruins were fair-weather lady fans.
Brother Machine Gun of Desirable Mindfulness (fka AWS)
@PsiFighter37: um, ok.
go Hawks!
Suffern ACE
@PsiFighter37: Dude, you’re starting to spell like I do. I’m just careless. And kind of old. Let serve as a warning to ye.
Matt McIrvin
@The prophet Nostradumbass: He was at Discover magazine for a while, and moved to Slate last November.
Seanly
In my first professional job, I worked with 2 gentlemen named Bharat Patel. One had gone to the British School in India and spoke about the best English I’ve ever heard. The other was from a lower caste. The two of them NEVER talked to each other.
Redshirt
@PsiFighter37: We’z in ur base, reckin ur doodz.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Matt McIrvin: Discover is the last place I remember being his home. Seeing him on TV can be fun, he’s really, uh, enthusiastic, especially about doomsday scenarios.
YellowJournalism
@jurassicpork: Oh my God! Tony Soprano killed Hastings, and then faked his own death to get away with it?!
I bet he whacked Edith Bunker, too. People don’t just die out of the blue!
Redshirt
@Matt McIrvin: What’s wrong with that depiction? It seems to follow this style, in gif form.
srv
@TaMara: Have you considered outsourcing your hate?
Obots or Firebaggers run about $4/hr, or three for $10.
PsiFighter37
@Suffern ACE: Fucklthe warnings, because Windoze 10 will autocroreect everyiithng when i touch type on the screen.
@Redshirt: you did it wrong, there are no Japanese0stlye grammaticla error in there
Cocnut water tastes tasty
Redshirt
@PsiFighter37: Cocnut water 4eva.
Cacti
The conspiracy nuttery on the death of Michael Hastings has already sprung on (i hate the) Democratic (president) Underground.
Which of our front pagers will be the first to embrace it: Anne Laurie, John Cole, or Mistermix?
Yatsuno
@Cacti: Timmeh already went there, so my guess is none. Just becuz.
PsiFighter37
@Redshirt: Oh hey, youre good at blog-posting like a twwen. I think it’s past the weeners bedtime
Origuy
Interesting article about how the caste system affects housing. Apparently it’s legal in India to build a housing development for Brahmins only. That’s because there are Dalit-only developments, since Dalits (untouchables) are often not welcome in other areas.
PsiFighter37
And when I read the original content before scanning for the ‘Open Thread’ tag to spam my drank ass shit, yes – she appears to be the new MoU, although I suppose we have to replace the ‘M’ with something diffent. What shall we call her? The Brahmin of Enlightenment?
Amir Khalid
I seem to recall that not long ago, John Cole was mentioning some hair loss on his lower legs. Could this be the solution for him?
Amir Khalid
@PsiFighter37:
The Sari of Sweeping Statements?
Redshirt
@PsiFighter37: Twixt abd Tween, yo.
PsiFighter37
@Amir Khalid: I bet there are folks out there who would like them hairy legs (not me, though, that would just be a mental mindufck)
@Amir Khalid: You raelize alliteration aint going to win you any extra fucking grammar poiints? This is fckni America, we speak ‘muriknan her,e not that fnacy asss Englishe shiet
PsiFighter37
Okay, I have to wakeu p in 5 hous. You overnighting BJers enjoying BJingh all night long. hawr hawr hawr
PF37 +1 more glass of water and then off to bed, crossing his toes for a Spurs Gamr 7 win
Suffern ACE
I wonder if terrorists with poor spelling are less easily detected by the NSA than those who write in secret codes but spell precisely. Perhapes wie caine defeet them with speling. Friedome!
Or maybe there really are grammar police after all.
PsiFighter37
FYWP your dogmmant duplicate comment detector wiped puit my post. Im tpp drin to argue anymore.
PF37 +one more glass of H2O so he can wake up at 6:30 eastern for another day with L’Homrebe De La Mancha
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PsiFighter37: I sure hope you don’t have to drive anywhere in five hours.
PsiFighter37
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I live in NYC, why the hell would I own a car. Like pissing money down a toilet filled with gasoline and dripping a match when you’re odne
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PsiFighter37: That’s a relief.
Redshirt
@PsiFighter37: You’ve regained lucidity. Fascinating.
PsiFighter37
@Redshirt: Lucidty and care for hitting a fucking baacpskace button are 2 different hangs.
I always mainta lucidity until i pass out. and it’s only because i deciden it’s time for the nucleus to rest, like Kanye fukcing Ouest
The prophet Nostradumbass
@PsiFighter37: Perhaps you could practice some Silent Lucidity now.
Higgs Boson's Mate
@PsiFighter37:
Seriously, you might want to consider getting a liver screen to determine how long you have left. If your comments aren’t an act then your liver is probably looking like a sea sponge.
Suffern ACE
Jejemon-the future of the resistance is jejemon.
Yatsuno
@Higgs Boson’s Mate: He’s young. The liver is surprisingly resilient. He’ll be fine.
Roger Moore
@Forum Transmitted Disease:
Is somebody who calls the thing “an ATM machine”. The “M” in “ATM” is for “Machine”, so saying ATM Machine is redundant. Do you also talk about the Rio Grande River and the hoi polloi?
Redshirt
@PsiFighter37: Lucidity lost. Real time science!
The prophet Nostradumbass
For whoever is at Netroots Nations, I’ll be looking for you tomorrow! I know ABL is already in town. Perhaps people could meet up tomorrow afternoon or evening?
I’m taking the train down in the morning, back home at night, unless I get stuck.
mouse tolliver
@YellowJournalism: If we’re going to talk about Michael Hastings, shouldn’t we be talking about how The New York Times used his obituary to piss on his grave, and then got into a flame war with his widow?
Suffern ACE is a Basset Hound
@mouse tolliver: it’s ok. I fully expect when Dowd dies, for the Times to note the number of times her writings amounted to nothing more than a mask for a deeply disturbed sociopath.
David Koch
@The prophet Nostradumbass: really, ABL is going to bash-barack-fest?
Yatsuno
@David Koch: Gotta get ur lulz in somehow.
David Koch
@mouse tolliver: link or it didn’t happen.
eta: NYT is neo-con/Likud house organ. to them, anyone who doesn’t support stomping out Likud’s enemies is an enemy.
David Koch
History’s Greatest Monster
Germans are such push overs.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@David Koch: There is some Obama-is-the-anti-Christ stuff there, but It’s not an Obama-hate-fest, overall. If it was, I wouldn’t go myself.
gwangung
@The Friendly Libertarian: Asshole.
Some of us lived through the Cultural Revolutions. I have friends who lived through the killing fields.
Don’t you DARE sully their memories by your weak ass use of Police State.
David Koch
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I remember 2011 was a total freak show with Hamsher and Choi burning Obummer in effigy and then the way the audience threw rotten fruit at White House spokesman Daniel Pfeiffer.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@David Koch: I was at the 2011 one in Minneapolis, and, well, you are exaggerating the amount of anti-Obama sentiment. Those stupid things happened, but were about 5% of what happened there.
David Koch
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
David Koch
President Worst then Bush and Hitler strikes again
BillinGlendaleCA
@David Koch:
That. is the point that I left GOS.
I can understand having differences with others, but when you invite someone to speak at your gathering, treat them in a civil manner. Otherwise, just don’t invite them.
Baud
@BillinGlendaleCA:
Wow. I completely missed that story. That’s awful.
Matt McIrvin
@Redshirt: In the Jupiter diagram, the vertical axis represents time, not space. You could interpret the gif that way, but that’s not what the original video was claiming. Also, it shows the planets lagging the Sun, though it’s unclear whether that is fully intentional.
My objection is more to the original video than to the animated GIF extract.
Matt McIrvin
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I don’t necessarily agree with everything Phil Plait says when he gets into space advocacy (he’s quite fond of crewed spaceflight programs and fervently believes they’re necessary; I think they’re cool, but in a world of limited funding I’m skeptical of their scientific utility). But he’s a good debunker. He actually gets things wrong fairly frequently, but he corrects his mistakes.
gogol's wife
Thanks for posting an interesting story from the world outside! I’m sorry I was already switched off when this went up.
Ben Cisco
Ms Sankar seems to have the whole package – deny, distract, and dissemble.
She’ll fit in just fine with the FerengiMedia™.
Redleg
It reminds me of a Harvard Ph.D. candidate I met at an academic conference. She was from South Africa, was white, and was surprised that the United States was anything but egalitarian. She was stunned to find out that Harvard is a school for the elites, and that getting a Ph.D. from Harvard B-school placed one in a special class in our academic society.
Most of us bums from the state flagship universities had a different job market than those for the elite universities, who relied on the connections of their faculty mentors to find them work at other elite universities rather than having to go through the tiring process of sending out a bunch of c.v.’s and interviewing at the national conference, etc.
Joey Giraud
The question of the cause of Hastings’ death would only really matter to someone who was also a muckraking journalist intent on afflicting the powerful.
Everyone else is free to mock and deride.
schrodinger's cat
@Xenos: Sounds good in theory but does not translate that well into practice in India. Caste system is alive and well among the Muslims and Christians of the subcontinent. For example, the Syrian Christians in Kerala, look down upon the untouchables who became Christian later on, derisively calling them rice Christians and consider themselves to be descendants of Brahmins.
Caste in India is a many layered issue. The dominant castes vary according to the region. Although technically Brahmins are at the top of the hierarchy, politically they may or may not be the dominant caste in a particular state. There is a lot of regional variation and the hierarchies are not completely static.
schrodinger's cat
Thanks for the shout out Anne Laurie!
Mnemosyne
@Redleg:
Racial equality =/= class equality. It’s a little fraught in the US because our social classes are mixed up with race (meaning that certain races are automatically categorized into specific social classes), but that doesn’t mean that every white person is automatically admitted to the upper class. Again, Gatsby.
Redshirt
@Matt McIrvin: Gotchya. I assumed the gif was showing time as well, since we see several rotations of the planets around the sun, and in the case of the outer planets, that’s a fairly big time span shown in the gif.