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Robusto
Robusto
12:00 AM
@Reg:
 
Robusto
Robusto
12:19 AM
 
 
2 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:03 AM
@Mitch LOL )))
I've begun getting bald
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:22 AM
 
tchrist
tchrist
@Robusto Hawaii is lower than Florida. :)
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
3:05 AM
 
 
3 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
5:51 AM
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:08 AM
@CowperKettle hah, nice
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
Word of the day: reduction (Reduction is a surgical procedure to repair a fracture or dislocation to the correct alignment. This sense of the term "reduction" does not imply any sort of removal or quantitative decrease but rather implies a restoration: re ("back [to initial position]") + ducere ("lead"/"bring"), i.e., "bringing back to normal".)
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle well it all depends on how many moderates they allow to pass. The crazy sort of moderate who still adheres to the ideology enough to be considered safe by this group of clerics (The Guardian Council) can pass through, and Rouhani was one such person. This election, essentially every other candidate was thought to grab only a few percent of the votes, and Raisi is expected to win with a pretty huge landslide.
So I'd say the Guardian Council's grip was really really tight this time, Russia tight.
So I guess you could say with more certainty that this election was truly faux.
I mean, it seems to me that they wanted him to win last time round, but moderates are much more tolerable for people.
(Ignoring the fact that this particular moderate still ruthlessly crushed protests and increased the military budget and what-not, that's kinda a given in this system)
Funny story. Today I was taking the exam for an obligatory propaganda course titled "The Islamic Revolution of Iran". You can imagine the sort of horseshit I had to sift through. Anyway, it was interesting to see the doublethink.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I am listening to an audiobook about the French Revolution. And it mentions a series of troubles in the Netherlands in the 1780s. Turns out, the Netherlands were like Iran today. There was a clique that decided who will run in local elections and who will not, and in this way the elections were rigged. So it was "managed democracy" like Russia or Iran.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
The parts that didn't have much to do with blindly defending the revolution were actually sorta decent.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@M.A.R. My maternal uncle was a propaganda worker in the Sverdlovsk Mayor Office (it was called Sverdlovsk Regional Committee of the People's Deputies)
And he taught a course about the Communist Revolution in a police academy (it was called People's Militia)
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:20 AM
And then of course the scholar that composes this sort of work brings up some theories, which is good and all, about why revolutions happen and stuff like that. But then he starts denying them rather . . . childishly, and this happens every time. It's where the propaganda is supposed to be.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
So he was teaching people a really heavily edited version of the Revolution, just like they teach you in Iran.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Our censor a lot, I'm not sure what they modify, I don't think there's much of that
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
@M.A.R. The Russian writer Alexander Solzhenitsyn who went through GULAG camps and was exiled from the USSR - he started out as a really hot adherent of the Communist Revolution. He wanted to write a big book about the Revolution. But... as he started investigating the source materials... hahahahahaha
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
Because of all the cognitive dissonance there what normally looks horrifying to a bystander is considered a good thing, which kinda makes it easy
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
He started investigating the source materials and it turned out that the Soviet Union he was living in was not actually built according to Vladimir Lenin's theories. And he started writing letters to his friend. And the KGB read one letter in 1944, and he was lucky to be not shot, but only sent to concentration camps.
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:23 AM
So anyway, skimming through them (because I couldn't be bothered to study this thing seriously), it made it pretty fun knowing where we stand and how things are theorized to go from here.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
So I think the same is goining on in Iran, with heavily edited version of history being drilled into people ))
I've got to translate some stuff about detection of the Norovirus using RT-PCR
See ya! ))
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
@CowperKettle well, as I said, there's of course a lot of censoring going on, but because things are always well-documented, and of course foreign media would pounce on every opportunity to point out any inaccuracies, the line usually goes something like "it is true that during the reign of [this dictator that we're bashing] lots of roads and railways were built and sicknesses decreased by 300 percent, but of course we hate him because he was a jerk"
So I'm saying the raw facts are there, but the interpretation is of course pretty dogged and one-sided, so I dunno, I think it's harder to combat.
You have to convince The Brainwashed why what they're so excited about is bad, which I think is harder than telling them about something that happened that they've been ignorant about.
TTYL
 
 
3 hours later…
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
9:33 AM
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
It's official. Raisi is elected
90 percent of the votes have been counted. Raisi is at 62.23 percent of the votes.
Half of the eligible population voted. (Roughly 31 out of 59 million)
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
No you can shoot a movie "Raisin' Iran"
Raising Arizona
Raising Arizona is a 1987 American crime comedy film directed by Joel Coen, produced by Ethan Coen, and written by Joel and Ethan. It stars Nicolas Cage as H.I. "Hi" McDunnough, an ex-convict, and Holly Hunter as Edwina "Ed" McDunnough, a former police officer and Hi's wife. Other members of the cast include Trey Wilson, William Forsythe, John Goodman, Frances McDormand, Sam McMurray, and Randall "Tex" Cobb. The Coen brothers set out to work on the film with the intention of making a film as different from their previous film as possible, with a lighter sense of humor and a faster pace. Raising...
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
One of my favorite movies
Though I hate raisins.
Especially the type that's going to happen in the next four years.
Though sorta a cool mix is raisins with walnuts.
Have you tried it?
Me being an East Azerbaijani, sorta a local mix here.
 
 
3 hours later…
Robusto
Robusto
1:03 PM
@M.A.R. Is that good or bad?
 
Robusto
Robusto
1:24 PM
@tchrist Parts of Hawaii are north of parts of Florida.
No part of Alaska is south of any part of the Lower 48.
@CowperKettle Not my favorite Coen Bros. film, though it did have its moments. I think they let Nick Cage overact too much, or maybe because it was an early film they were just finding their center. (They did the same thing in The Ladykillers, which is widely regarded as one of their worst.) They perfected their comedic style in The Big Lebowski, IMO.
 
Færd
Færd
2:01 PM
My mouth is more open when pronouncing the first syllable of Texas than taxes (which I pronounce with an /ɛ/ or /e/, I guess).
I've also noticed some people pronouncing text as if it's taxt.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:18 PM
@M.A.R. I love walnuts, although they are very expensive here.
Almonds are through the roof.
I read that almonds and walnuts improve one's HDC/LDC ratio (cholesterol)
I need that, because my total cholesterol is high at 7
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
2:35 PM
Audi will produce its final petrol-fueled car in 2026.
 
tchrist
tchrist
2:48 PM
@Robusto And parts of Wisconsin are east of parts of Florida. And Maine and Wisconsin are almost the same in their north and south boundaries, because flat projections of spheres all suck. 
TX  Lat  25° 50′ N –  36° 30′ N
TX  Lon  93° 31′ W – 106° 39′ W
HA  Lat  18° 55′ N –  28° 27′ N
HA  Lon 154° 48′ W – 178° 22′ W
FL  Lat  24° 27′ N –  31° 00′ N
FL  Lon  80° 02′ W –  87° 38′ W
WI  Lat  42° 30′ N –  47° 05′ N
WI  Lon  86° 46′ W –  92° 54′ W
ME  Lat  42° 58′ N –  47° 28′ N
ME  Lon  66° 57′ W –  71°  5′ W
WA  Lat  45° 33′ N –  49°  0′ N
WA  Lon 116° 55′ W – 124° 46′ W
AK  Lat  51° 20′ N –  71° 50′ N
AK  Lon 130°  0′ W – 172°  0′ E
 
Robusto
Robusto
3:12 PM
@tchrist Minnesota stole a lot of your territory back in the 1800s.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:01 PM
> Novavax said today it will file for FDA approvals in the third quarter for its COVID-19 vaccine NVX-CoV2373, after it showed 90.4% overall efficacy, and 93% efficacy against the five most prevalent SARS-CoV-2 variants “of concern” and eight more variants “of interest,” in a Phase III trial.
Nice. A new vaccine will appear in the fall, with 100 mn doses/month to be made by September.
 
Robusto
Robusto
4:13 PM
@CowperKettle Yeah, the only thing that remains is to convince the idiots to get vaccinated.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
I love their animation, it's very stylish.
Were I a billionaire, I would hire such a team to make scientific animations for Wikipedia, to illustrate neuroscientific articles, for instance.
2
 
Srijan M.T
Srijan M.T
@CowperKettle Nice idea.
I got a flu shot since I’m less than 18. Age limit is 18 in India.
 
Robusto
Robusto
4:30 PM
@CowperKettle A prime example of a black swan.
Black swan theory
The black swan theory or theory of black swan events is a metaphor that describes an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. The term is based on an ancient saying that presumed black swans did not exist – a saying that became reinterpreted to teach a different lesson after the first European encounter with them.The theory was developed by Nassim Nicholas Taleb to explain: The disproportionate role of high-profile, hard-to-predict, and rare events that are beyond the realm of normal expectations...
 
Srijan M.T
Srijan M.T
@Robusto Interesting.
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
4:54 PM
Storing green energy as compressed air underground.
Coupled with a retroencabulator, the system would work even better
 
Srijan M.T
Srijan M.T
Do you all also have Father’s Day Tom ?
Any plans if yes ?
 
SmokeDetector
SmokeDetector
5:19 PM
[ SmokeDetector | MS ] Email in answer (78): What does "running numbers " mean? by James on english.SE
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
5:55 PM
 
CowperKettle
CowperKettle
6:09 PM
 
M.A.R.
M.A.R.
6:26 PM
@Robusto almost certainly very bad. If he was actually competent at being a demagogue we would have had a mini-Trump as a president. But he's not even competent at that.
The only reason people voted for him was they're hoping, er, wishing for corruption to go away.
Just wishful thinking.
 
Mitch
Mitch
6:51 PM
@M.A.R. That sounds... not just plain in yur face incompetent, but really really incompetent.
 
Mitch
Mitch
7:22 PM
> When I'm around my Spanish-speaking friends I always use the word "mucho"... It means a lot to them.
 
 
1 hour later…
Cerberus
Cerberus
8:52 PM
@M.A.R. How reliable do you think those numbers are?
At any rate, my condolences.
 

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