Zompist Bboard Again

(Speaking of which, saw a news report today with the headline that Cook County is "temporarily" unable to give out paper copies of vital records, like birth, death, and marriage certificates. I didn't even read it; I was just like, "Of course, why expect local government to fulfill i...

I used to hear the suggestion that, while Judaism was montheistic by the time of Rome reaching beyond Anatolia into the Middle East, the faith was tolerable to the Romans because it was an ancient faith. Once the Christians started saying they were their own thing, Romans (and others, i suspect) dr...

A sort-of-one-state federal solution: https://eretz-ard.org.il/

I don't know how realistic this is (I'm guessing not very much) but that's certainly well-thought out.

Sounds horrible.

We have bureaucratic headaches with healthcare, though they're not typically life-threatening.

(My latest healthcare related headaches: convincing health insurance that dead people are actually dead takes an awful lot of paperwork.)

Nortaneous wrote: ↑Thu Apr 11, 2024 7:04 pm all neither uncommon opinions in conservative circles nor incompatible with [some definitions of] socialism!

Yes, exactly that. All opinions that aren't uncommon here either.

zompist: Re: your report that polls say that 14 percent of Republicans have a positive view of socialism - keep in mind that a certain share of people give joke answers to pollsters, as in, "Yes, dear Person from Gallup, I completely approve of foot fungus!" A small number telling pollste...

I've been through two total solar eclipses (but naturally only remember one): Hawai'i in 1991 and Southern Germany in 1999. That said, with this one, a professor who came to visit from where I did my Master's mentioned that it was quite chaotic in Kent in terms of people coming in from out of town,...

I can't find a similar poll for France, but adding up votes in the first round of the 2022 elections, it doesn't look terribly different. (I recognize that this isn't really the same thing, e.g. due to strategic voting.) Finding an opinion on socialism is going to be next to impossible -- "soc...

Does anyone else struggle with coming up with a word for something which sounds right? I know we can simply come up with roots and derivations and apply them arbitrarily and build a lexicon fairly quickly; but for me, I too often think "but that doesn't sound like 'grass' to me"; or "...

The key thing is that the vast majority of Americans don't know what socialism is and confuse "socialism" with either social democracy or Soviet big-C Communism (not surprising consider that's what they have been told as being "socialism" their whole lives); actual socialism is ...

Man in Space wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 2:32 pm Enjoy.

Thanks for the pictures!

I hope I can arrange a trip for the 2026 eclipse in Spain...

I get the annoyances of American bipartisanship; especially since the Democrats are best described at centrists. Especially since socialist-friendly candidates like Sanders have to work through the Democratic party machine. As a comparison with a multi-party system... right now voters just aren't in...

How is Paris? (It's been over 20 years since I was there.) (Also, re Ares Land: ‘there’? I got the impression that you live in Paris yourself…) As Raphael said, I moved to Southern France last July, though I lived in Paris for close to twenty years (so if you ever need any advice, feel free to ask.)

bradrn wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2024 1:17 am

Ares Land wrote: ↑Sun Apr 07, 2024 11:31 am Macron is currently about as inspiring as Louis XVI on July, 13th.

Why, what happened on July 13th? I can’t find anything…

I meant, as inspiring as Louis XVI the day before the Revolution
(not that any revolution is happening any time soon!)

Elections for the European Parliament will take place at the beginning of June. It's expected that the EPP (center-of-right, think CDU) will win again, so not much excitement will happen at the European scale. Here in France (and I suppose in most other European countries as well), they're used as k...

It's also an illusion that some new name would be a) more popular than Biden, and b) stay that way. There doesn't seem to be someone who can be plucked from the sidelines, like Obama. Technocratically, the obvious choice is Kamala Harris, the VP. She would undoubtedly do fine as president. But her ...

About this, what’s quite interesting (from a dispassionate point of view) is that, even in those corners of the Internet which are normally violently pro-Israel, absolutely no-one is even trying to defend Israel’s actions. Everyone is disgusted. Will this be the event which finally gets Israelis to...

bradrn wrote: ↑Sat Apr 06, 2024 11:13 pm

bradrn wrote: ↑Fri Mar 15, 2024 9:22 am Big news on my side: I’m going to Paris!

And now I’m here!

Great news. Hope you like it there!

sooo... fellers.... is orange man gonna win ? The impression I get is that word leaders, at least, are expecting a Trump victory. Everybody seems to be working with that hypothesis in mind, at least. One question I have -- but that probably betrays my ignorance of American politics -- is why nobody...

This is an interesting question, what is Hamas trying to do , but we won't answer well it if we decide beforehand that they're mindless murder drones. Assume they're a rational semi-state actor that aims at what they say they aim, and that they are what I think they are: what's the logic behind res...