Daniel Dvorkin @medigoth@qoto.org

Wonderful!

"So what do we have here, Sergeant?"

"Looks like a eucalyptus deal gone bad, Detective."

"All right. Round up the usual suspects."

Probably the last time I'll bother writing a sincere answer to this kind of question. None of this is deep secret knowledge. Some people may genuinely not understand it, but I think many more pretend ignorance to strike a pose of moral superiority. Maybe my answer will benefit someone. For the lurkers, right?

https://www.quora.com/With-food-prices-so-high-how-do-the-poor-get-so-fat/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

This kind of thing is why I'm still on Quora. I write a lot of satirical answers, but I can only aspire to write one half this good someday.

https://www.quora.com/I-heard-Davy-Jones-from-the-Pirates-of-the-Caribbean-was-a-real-person-but-in-the-movie-they-showed-him-to-have-a-squid-or-an-octopus-face-Does-that-have-any-historical-accuracy/answer/Alex-Cooper-81

Says it all, really. #evolution #creationism #transitional #fossil

Rules for telling other people what to #eat and/or how to eat it:

1. Has this person asked you for a recommendation? If so, go ahead. If not, go to step 2.

2. Is this person a small #child under your care? If so, go ahead. If not, go to step 3.

3. Are you a trained and licensed #dietician talking to your patient? If so, go ahead. If not, you should probably stop talking now.

One of these days, if I can ever afford it, I swear there are a bunch of people I'm going to invite to dinner at a fancy #steakhouse and order well-done for the entire table, just to watch their reactions.

Some magnificent sarcasm from #ISW: "#Russian President Vladimir #Putin awarded the 'guards' honorific to the 8th #Artillery Regiment on June 30, which will not help the regiment dislodge the #Ukrainian forces."

https://www.understandingwar.org/backgrounder/russian-offensive-campaign-assessment-june-30-2023

So say we all.

Hah!

Now I'm hearing the #Belarus deal only applies to #Prigozhin personally, and the #Wagner troops are expected to go back to fighting in #Ukraine. This does not make me any less confused.

Allegedly, #Prighozhin's march on #Moscow has ended in a deal brokered by #Lukashenko, in which #Wagner Group forces will head to #Belarus and ... become Lukashenko's #Varangian Guard, or something? Assuming of course #Putin doesn't wait for them to get strung out on the road and bomb them all to bits.

I can't help but be struck by how antiquated all this feels. The Varangian Guard reference above is deliberate—the whole thing is #Byzantine in both the original and modern senses of that word. Shades of #Belisarius and #Justinian. Yes, I know I'm mixing up periods, and the analogy is inexact in all kinds of ways: history doesn't repeat itself, but sometimes it rhymes.

#Kings and #emperors and shifting personal loyalties, not cold-blooded calculation of national interests. It's not the way #modern states make #war—even though #Ukraine may well be the first modern war of the twenty-first century, through future eyes. Something older, more visceral, rising from ancient slumber.

Hell of a time to be alive. I suppose that's always true.

Why #statistics is hard, and why you should learn it anyway.

https://www.quora.com/Why-are-some-people-who-are-really-good-at-algebra-terrible-at-statistics-Ive-always-been-surprised-by-this-because-I-would-have-thought-that-statistics-is-the-easier-of-the-two-to-understand-since-it-is-more-real/answer/Daniel-Dvorkin-3

All of this. Like the post says sarcastically:

"One bright, sunny morning around the spring of 1972, this continent that had given us the #slave trade, various flavors of #racial #caste systems in the #Americas, virulent #antisemitism, the ethnic cleansing of millions of people in Eastern Europe, #Nazism and sundry forms of #fascism, and a #racist #colonialist regime in virtually all parts of #Asia and #Africa, decided to bring out the magic wand its denizens had been carrying all along and proclaim, 'Let there be no more #racism on the holy soil of #Europe.' And this mighty spell having been cast, racism was apparently eradicated there."

Is the #US more racist than most European countries? Yes, I think, on the whole. Is there racism in Europe? Without question, a hell of a lot of it. And #white Europeans' reluctance to face up to that means it won't get any better. At least we're *trying* on this side of the #Atlantic.

https://www.quora.com/Do-you-think-Europe-is-more-racist-than-the-USA/answer/Habib-F-2

Here's the original discussion, in all its glory: https://www.facebook.com/groups/594532837265674/posts/6636781216374109/