BSR

13 minutes ago, José Soplanucas said:

Uh? This is an example of Google Translate delivering nonsense. What did you feed it with? Walk the Talk?

Oops, sorry, I'm the typo king ... "el" not "al."  Thanks for pointing it out.

PS:  while I do use Google Translate for languages I don't know, occasionally because I don't really trust it, I never use it for Spanish.

26 minutes ago, NJF said:

The tenure document at most institutions states that 30-50 publications are required for promotion to full professor. However, most professors don’t publish 11 papers a year for sure 😂 

The workhorses do, especially in the year before up for tenure.  One of Gay's predecessors Larry Summers published more articles (12) in 1987 than Gay has her whole career.  Behavior geneticist Nick Martin has published more than 1,500.  Granted, he's an outlier, but it puts into context the scrawniness of Gay's CV.  

Note that Gay has never published a single academic book.  Previous Harvard president Drew Gilpin Faust had published 5 books before becoming president;  Lawrence Bacow had published 2.

Gay is seen as a diversity hire not because of racism, but because she was a diversity hire.

4 minutes ago, Andy768 said:

Yes, I am quoting myself. Carota delivers! What a comeback!

Congratulations Team Carota!!  Wow, coming back from a 2 sets to love deficit is a helluva feat.  So happy for Jannik, such a deserving first-time Slam champion.  At the same time, you gotta feel sorry for Daniil, who lost his 5th Slam final and his 2nd after leading 2 sets to love.

This is Sinner's first Slam victory, but it won't be his last.  He has the game to win many many more in his career.  We'll be seeing a lot more goofy carrot costumes in the stands.

11 hours ago, Andy768 said:

It just seems to me like Magill's failure was "allowed" to be "she made mistakes" without question on whether she was qualified to be president, whereas Gay has been less "she made mistakes" and more "she was a diversity hire."

Gay published only 11 peer-reviewed journal papers in her entire academic career (got her PhD in 1998).  Most professors publish 11 (or more) in a single year.  11 papers is about what you'd need before being hired as a 1st-year tenure-track assistant professor at a state school, yet Gay somehow became a full professor at Harvard publishing far less.  If a person is hired for a position despite being far less qualified, of course others will see that person as a diversity hire.

You're in Rod Laver?  I am green with envy.  Unfortunately, my favorite is trailing 2 sets to love right now.  Nothing against Medvedev, I'm just a bigger fan of Sinner.

1 hour ago, SouthOfTheBorder said:

is is true some people have no access to healthcare

Who in America has no access to healthcare?

15 hours ago, SouthOfTheBorder said:

they do, but they can’t help themselves. 

i have a brother like that - a benign conversation somehow gets linked to the latest political talking point/conspiracy theory of the day.  when everything is seen & interpreted through a political lens, it makes conversation impossible & impossibly boring.  It’s not partisan - it’s actually both sides of the US system.  

They all love to talk about things they can do nothing about.  Complete waste of time.  Vote at election time - other than that, maybe try reading a book ?

At least one of your posts was recently deleted by a moderator for being too political.  Aplícate el cuento.

Despite poor reviews on Imdb, for some reason (code for: I thought the lead was hot) I decided to watch Jaguar, a limited series about a group of Holocaust survivors in 1960s Spain who seek to capture a sadistic Nazi doctor to bring him to trial.

As I was watching, I was baffled by the poor reviews because I was really enjoying Jaguar:  well-developed characters, intriguing plot, edge-of-your-seat suspense.   I realized only at the end that the series was scripted for a 2nd season.  Unfortunately, Netflix in its infinite wisdom pulled the plug.  But even without its 2nd season, Jaguar is well worth watching.

4 hours ago, Walt said:

I remember a very high stakes prediction similar to this involving Henny Penny, Foxy Loxy, Goosey Loosey, and Turkey Lurkey. They KNEW.

People who were predicting a really bad recession pre-2008 were also dismissed as Chicken Littles.  The rose-colored glasses set insisted that no recession was coming or that worst case it would be a mild one.  I'm not predicting a recession as bad as 2008, but it won't be mild either.

1 hour ago, Andy768 said:

Team Carota.

For those who don't get the reference, Team Carota is a group of guys who support Jannik Sinner by wearing goofy carrot costumes in the stands.  I, like most I think, assumed the carrots were a nod to Sinner's red hair, but it's actually because Sinner has the odd habit of eating carrots during changeovers.

The Djoker-Shelton drama resurfaced in this Australian Open, with Novak saying that Shelton showed disrespectful behavior in their USO match.  Unfortunately, no rematch on court.  Although they were slotted to meet in the 4th round, unconventional veteran Mannarino upset Ben in the 3R.  Ben's dad & coach Bryan admitted that the drama was a distraction for Ben, who when asked about it said he just wanted to put it behind him.

Here's a video about Sinner's carrot-garbed supporters:

2 hours ago, Dr.Daddy said:

How was the party???

In particular, was the room any brighter?

Just now, Coolwave35 said:

He did say AI wrote it because he was new to the site and didn’t know what to say. 

He lost me at "in the dance of life."

36 minutes ago, Luv2play said:

No he’s not. He asserting Israel’s desire to drive out the Palestinians, which is genocide by any other name. The court in The Hague will decide on that issue. 

Drive out Palestinians??  Just googled it, 1.6 million Palestinians are living in Israel as Israeli citizens.  Palestinians (10 currently) even hold seats in Knesset, Israel's parliament.  If Netanyahu is trying to drive Palestinians out of Israel, he's failing spectacularly.

32 minutes ago, Luv2play said:

Now Netanyahu is saying Israel from Jordon to the sea. Seems like he is rather enamoured of that Palestinian slogan so he adopted it himself.

The difference, of course, is that when Netanyahu says "from the river to the sea," he is affirming Israel's right to exist whereas when Palestinians say it, they are calling for the mass-murder of Jews.

41 minutes ago, Km411 said:

Wrong; it’s use requires context (further validating Gay’s response):

“The phrase was popularised in the 1960s as part of a wider call for Palestinian liberation creating a democratic state freeing Palestinians from living under Israel.[6] In the 1960s, the PLO used it to call for a democratic secular state encompassing the entirety of mandatory Palestine, which was initially stated to only include the Palestinians and the descendants of Jewswho had lived in Palestine before 1947, although this was later revised to only include descendants of Jewswho had lived in Palestine before the first Aliyah[7] The 1964 charter of the Palestine National Council (PNC) demanded "the recovery of the usurped homeland in its entirety".[8] Thus, by 1969, "Free Palestine from the river to the sea" came to mean[to whom?] one democratic secular state that would supersede the ethno-religious state of Israel".[9]

Palestinian progressives use the phrase to call for a united democracy over the whole territory[10] while others say "it's a call for peace and equality after ... decades-long, open-ended Israeli military rule over millions of Palestinians."[11]

Islamist militant faction Hamas used the phrase in its 2017 charter. Its use by such Palestinian militant groups has led critics to argue that it implicitly advocates for the dismantling of Israel, and a call for the removal or extermination of the Jewish population of the region.[9][11]”

—Wikipedia

Whatever the chant meant back in the 1960s is irrelevant.  All that matters is what it means today.  As you point out, the phrase was coined by Hamas, who very clearly states both in word and deed that it calls for the extermination of the Jews.  This chant, this call for genocide, is what Gay allowed to be openly and freely expressed at Harvard.

Harvard did the right thing when it forced/pressured Gay to resign, although it is a disgrace that it took so long.  It's also a disgrace that this nonscholar will be collecting $900,000 as a "professor," but that's another debate.

11 hours ago, Luv2play said:

Calling for the end of the Israeli state could be interpreted as calling for a single state solution rather than two state solution. The government of Israel has rejected both solutions as it would require them to give up settlements in the West Bank and grant statehood to Gaza and the West Bank in the latter case and face having Jews in Israel becoming the minority in the former case. 
 

Israel rejecting outright the two state solution is a new development and we’ll see how the US deals with it. 

70% of Palestinians in Gaza support Hamas, the terrorist group that wants to kill all Jews.  How selfish of Israeli Jews to shut out people who want to mass-murder them.  Any way you cut it, the "From the river to the sea (in other words, the elimination of Israel), Palestine will be free" chant is a call for genocide of Jews. 

2 hours ago, Km411 said:

Also, pro-Palestinian students did not call for the genocide of Jews, they called for an end to the Israeli state. There’s a difference. One could debate whether such statements are protected free speech, which underscores the need to consider the context in applying rules against bullying and harassment.

That is disgustingly disingenuous.  The "end of the Israeli state" is a thinly disguised way of calling for the genocide of the Jews because the only way to eliminate the state of Israel would be to kill all the Jews who live there.

8 hours ago, Luv2play said:

Government policy is to make fossil fuels more expensive so people will be encouraged to switch to climate friendlier sources of energy.

When you say energy rich, I assume you are talking about fossil fuels. And they are destroying the planet. So it’s an enlightened policy.

What’s outrageous is continuing to burn fossil fuels heedlessly without regard to the future. Your kids and grandkids will curse our generation if we leave them an uninhabitable planet. 

"destroying the planet" ... then why do hundreds of climate-change activists always travel to all these environmental conferences on their private jets?  Maybe because climate activists care only about control over the world's economies.  Climate? meh, not so much.

Some people have to choose between heating their homes and buying groceries.  The Very Important People who fly private have no idea how painful that is, and they certainly don't care.

8 hours ago, Km411 said:

She lost her post the moment she was asked to testify; it was a shameful set-up and few if any could have navigated the bad faith successfully

Because there is so much to unpack with your post, I'll take on just one point for now.  As much as I'd like to respond to all of them, I doubt I'll have the energy or motivation. 

Elise Stefanik did have a tough question waiting for Gay, but Gay's response to the easy question ("Does calling for the genocide of Jews violate Harvard's rules on bullying and harassment?”) left Stefanik so flabbergasted that she never got to ask the "set-up" question:  "What are you going to do about it?"  That was the question Stefanik expected Gay to fumble because the first question is a no-brainer, as evidenced by Gay's retraction days later.

Forget the hearing, Gay's fate was sealed when for much too long she allowed calls for genocide of Jews to be expressed openly and freely at Harvard.  The hearing was simply the forum that made very public Gay's failure.  Pray tell, in what possible context (it all depends on the context, according to Gay) is the call for mass-murdering all gays/blacks/Muslims/or even redheads protected by free speech?  Any university president that allowed such calls for genocide of those other groups would be fired instantly, yet it took a House hearing to hold Gay accountable.  

I binged Berlín last week -- loved it!  Berlín was my (everyone's?) favorite character from Money Heist, so much so that they gave him his own series.  Who knew that a sadistic psychopath could be so lovable??

Berlín is quite different in tone from Money Heist, much more tongue-in-cheek humor, plenty of laugh-out-loud moments before & even during the edge-of-your-seat suspense.  Also, the prequel takes place before the protagonist is ¡spoiler alert! diagnosed with his terminal illness and shows a far more human and humane protagonist.

The supporting cast is fantastic.  Berlín assembles a motley crew to pull off a magnificent jewel heist, €44 million of jewelry from an auction house, and the chemistry of the ensemble cast is simply perfect.  A very pleasant surprise was newbie Joel Sanchez, a model turned actor.  When I heard this was his first acting gig, I thought, "uh oh, pretty but wooden," but he was terrific, totally held his own against decades-in-the-biz veterans Pedro Alonso, Tristan Ulloa, and Michelle Jenner.

Alicia and Raquel are the only other two characters brought in from the Money Heist cast.  Because Berlín was made years after MH yet supposedly takes place years before, you have to forgive the cognitive dissonance of the actors looking years older despite playing characters years younger.  The ending leaves the door wide open for many more seasons of Berlín.  I'm crossing my fingers hard for a Season 2.  Maybe they can negotiate a group rate from a good surgeon, LOL

"An ongoing arrangement is ideal, too."

Maybe he's quoting a high rate -- $600 sounds high, even for a big market like LA -- more to find a sugardaddy.

I love winter because I get to sleep in the cold, ~50°, huddled under the thickest down comforter I could find on the Internet.  I love breathing in the cold air while I'm toasty warm under the covers.  While awake, I set the thermostat at 55° and wear a long-sleeve T + sweatshirt.

Because winters are relatively mild in Las Vegas, I can get almost all my heat from my downstairs neighbor (I wonder what his heating bill is).  The big exception is when I take a shower.  I turn on a space heater to make the bathroom nice & toasty so that I don't turn into an icicle upon exiting the shower.

On 1/6/2024 at 10:45 AM, samhexum said:

This was long enough ago that they actually let me in with it, & off I went...

I still can't believe they let you into Yankee Stadium with a full pan of baked ziti.  Just how long ago was this?  Were the Dodgers still in Brooklyn??

Gotta click on the link because X doesn’t let this tweet be embedded.  Trust me, it's worth the bother ...

https://twitter.com/AtPhotness/status/1745162666673402220?t=YurGaahslVApvQuMBhovcA&s=19

10 hours ago, pubic_assistance said:

Today, many Universities teach WHAT to think, not HOW to think.

Unfortunately, this disgrace plagues every level of education, from preschool to university.  Narcissists who don't give a sh*t about their students because they care only about themselves ram narratives down kids' throats, and the difference between an A+ & a D- is simply how well the student parrots back what the so-called teacher wants to hear.  Sadder still is that society applauds these grotesquely selfish narcissists simply because they are called teachers.

We all know people who work in a field totally different from their college major.  I know an art history major who works as a transportation consultant, a PhD in anthropology who became a McKinsey partner, a Wharton finance major who ended up as a fine art buying agent, etc.  These people succeeded in fields very different from their major because they learned HOW to think.

Contrast that with the poor bastard who only learns WHAT to think.  Put them in an unfamiliar situation, and they're completely lost because they never learned critical thought.  The narratives & ideologies they learned in college might make them feel good (there is no chic like victim chic), but I wouldn't hire them to sharpen pencils.