Rune @skalden@qoto.org

We are living through the war which will define the rest of our lives. It is right now, we choose between freedom or darkness.

And while our Ukrainian heroes are fighting in the trenches, this is what the aid to Ukraine looks like: The US is not even contributing half as much as the European allies.

Is the statue of liberty still standing proud, raising her torch as a symbol of freedom? Or has America become so MAGA, that the torch has been replaced with a white flag?

Wake up America!

While Putin has not been successful in conquering Ukraine, he’s clearly had more luck capturing the Republican Party. The alignment between Trump’s GOP and Putin’s Russia becomes clearer with every passing day.
It's an existential threat to the USA. https://www.theframelab.org/p/putin-failed-to-conquer-navalny-or

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Google Scholar search: "certainly, here is" -chatgpt -llm (via) Searching Google Scholar for “certainly, here is” turns up a huge number of academic papers that include parts that were evidently written by ChatGPT—sections that start with “Certainly, here is a concise summary of the provided sections:” are a dead giveaway.

>>

https://simonwillison.net/2024/Mar/15/certainly-here-is-google-scholar/

#academicchatter #chatgpt #PeerReview #histodons #veilleESR

Must the instructor *always* control what students learn abd how they learn it?

As are red cabbage.

I don’t know if Putin would stop at Ukraine if victorious, but I accept that he might not, as Biden warns. However, that Russia is producing 3x more artillery munitions than the West suggests to me that NATO policymakers don’t actually believe the threat. https://edition.cnn.com/2024/03/10/politics/russia-artillery-shell-production-us-europe-ukraine/index.html

“After nourishment, shelter and companionship, stories are the thing we need most in the world.”

Philip Pullman

It’s World Book Day and I am reminded of the need for a good read. This photograph was thrown up by my ‘phone this morning. I can remember the day and the time. It could be the start of a good story…

#memory #stories #worldbookday

Sometimes I think Mastodon is a tiny little social network. My posts get 2-3 clicks of interactions.

But every once in a while I'll come across a post with 300-400 boosts and think wow... there's a lot of people out here.

Anyway, shout out to the 2-3 ppl clicking my posts LOL

#mastodon #SocialMedia

Alexey Navalny was one thing Vladimir Putin can never be: heroic.

Navalny’s murder, carried out by Putin’s agents in an Arctic Circle prison on February 16, is a testament to this fact. The dictator could only beat him by killing him — or so he believed.

Even now, Putin continues to fear his murdered opponent. He refused for weeks to hand Navalny’s body over to his family for burial. The punishment for Navalny’s crime continued even after his death.

Let’s always remember the “crime” for which Navalny gave his life: the act of believing in democracy and freedom. His audacious and insistent hope that Russia could one day be free from the chains of corruption and dictatorship terrified Putin.

The mere act of using his voice to inspire others apparently constituted an existential danger to the dictator. https://www.theframelab.org/p/putin-failed-to-conquer-navalny-or

"The Cloud now has a greater carbon footprint than the airline industry. A single data center can consume the equivalent electricity of 50,000 homes."

- Anthropologist Steven Gonzalez

Cars just keep coming. Evenly spaced.

I see a gap. Yes! Move quickly to walk through. The car about to pass sees; slows. Doesn’t stop. LOL Nooooo not that! just slows enough to destroy the gap.

I bet they feel so considerate!😡

Another gap. Huge gap! This time I *don’t* move. Don’t wanna spook ‘em. Soon as this car passes I can go! But they see me *looking* & slow! Desperately I wave for them to go. Confuses them more: they *crawl* rubbernecking at my misery. But don’t stop. Gap is gone.😖

The best argument for free education I have seen in my lifetime is this:

In the US where education is not free, and fewer get well educated, the country is now facing the very serious problem, that a large segment of voters do not understand why democracy is important. Instead, they follow a presidential candidate, who pitches dictatorship as an interesting new idea, and they do not possess the knowledge to instantly identify this as the worst possible idea ever suggested in American politics.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.”

~William Shakespeare

Got tired of having this conversation over and over again so I just spent way too long making this:

How many books and libraries has Israel destroyed? How much history and knowledge?

“Your periodic reminder that less ice at the Arctic is consistent with a weaker jet stream that allows cold air to drift down into the Great Plains.

The frigid temps you're experiencing happen BECAUSE of a warming planet, not in spite of it.” Via Dr Steve Campbell from the other place

https://twitter.com/historian_steve/status/1745920780624711886?s=46&t=4TnCHrl_NkgPDLmdROH8hA