@clacke Giving the students with connections good enough to get around the new rules another advantage.

"I don’t know of any allophones and anglophones in today’s Quebec who stubbornly refuse to learn French. I have no doubt a few still exist, but they’re a dwindling minority. Outdated images of an “anglophone elite” that looks down at their French neighbours or of allophones who irrationally cling to their own linguistic ghettoes are, for the most part, outdated clichés used to push buttons and easily scare a majority that understandably worries about its language’s fragility."

#polqc

@freakazoid
2. The founders really believed that stuff about the tree of liberty needing to be refeshed from time to time... It was possible that another revolution would be required eventually, or at least healthy that government should fear that possibility.

@freakazoid Well, I'm not an expert on the US Constitution, but my understanding of the 2A is:
1. There was a tradition of national defense through armed citizens. In mediæval England peasants were required to practise archery. Standing armies, OTOH, were viewed as potential agents of tyranny.

@freakazoid So the 2A really was written to encourage an armed citizenry, and to prevent government obstruction of such.

Of course, the founders didn't foresee how weaponry and geopolitics would develop, making it necessary to have an army, basically impossible to outgun such an army, and OTOH much easier for an armed citizen to kill many innocents.

@freakazoid An effort to repeal or revise the 2A would have merit, since it was written for a different world. But Americans like their Constitution and they like their guns, so such an effort would almost certainly go nowhere.

There are gun control measures that the courts have decided are compatible with the 2A. Whether they would have much effect, particularly for mass shootings, is unclear to me. Maybe suicide rates could be reduced.

#uspol

@freakazoid I'm very sorry to hear about your great uncle and your friend. Tragic.

I'm sure that people would still attempt suicide with fewer guns around, but they would be less likely to succeed.

@emacsen @fuchsiashock @hypolite @clacke In order to persuade people to change their minds, or to identify common goals for which they might be allies, we must understand why they hold their beliefs. That's especially important when they're wrong.

@ajroach42 Hypercard was great. Someone should bring it back.

@gerald_leppert This is wonderful news. Do they tend to belong to particular parties, or share some other common characteristic?

@clacke There's a lot of truth to that compass. What we believe arises to a large degree from what we *desire*, and our desires all have dark sides.

A good Lenten reflection for those with political inclinations.

#politics #lent

@clacke It's not clear to me that any of these actions amount to war crimes. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_crime

@clacke Charming. I wonder who had the bright idea of introducing it to Tanzania — probably some crazy English gardener wanting something special.

I've seen the manchineel tree, growing near beaches in #Tobago . Touching it can give your skin burns. https://www.msn.com/en-au/news/techandscience/this-tree-of-death-is-so-toxic-you-can-t-even-stand-under-it-when-it-rains/ar-AAQwqA2

@feld @cjd There are many, many weaknesses in our societies for intelligent attackers. Electricity supply is one, water supply is another, railways, airplanes, pipelines. And of course software often fails to work properly even without someone trying to break it.

#fragility
#apocalypse

@cjd @feld Well putting aside those who "just want to watch the world burn", it seems like credibly threatening to cause terrible damage might be useful to achieve geopolitical ends.

"You know how Oslo lost power and froze a month ago? It would be a shame if something like that happened to Chicago, don't you think? Now, what was that you were saying about Taiwan?"

@feld @cjd I understand that you're worrying about a truck full of capacitors designed to be a weapon. How dangerous would such a weapon be?

@cjd @feld I understand the concept, but are we talking city-level destruction, generating station destruction, server farm destruction, etc. ?

@clacke It's no surprise when for ideological reasons the academy refuses to acknowledge dissenting claims.

It is also common for political movements to be blind to how much they have achieved and to try to maintain the same degree of intensity over a less significant problem.