vxbush 10/2/2024 5:57:21 AM

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I haven't been following much of the bombing in Israel due to stuff at home, but PJMedia updated a story this morning with the following: 

Update 2:25: President Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris reportedly met today in the White House situation room and directed the U.S. military to shoot down Iranian missiles.

That's great if the missiles continue for days on end, but how much damage has already been done? How well has the air defense system worked against all those missiles? And why did they make that decision last night and not when the bombing started? 

vxbush 10/2/2024 5:59:22 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

Or did I misunderstand the story? It doesn't really adequately convey the timeline of actions.....

vxbush 10/2/2024 6:05:49 AM

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Epic timing: 

SoS Antony Blinken published an OpeEd in Foreign Affairs claiming that the "Biden administration's strategy has put the United States in a much stronger geopolitical position today than it was four years ago." 

And then Iran started bombing Israel. 

Wishful thinking much, Antony? 

vxbush 10/2/2024 6:10:34 AM

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This story does not bode well for for the young in our society: The Kids Are NOT Alright: The Atlantic Reports Kids at 'Elite' Colleges Unprepared to Read

Apparently very few were expected to read books in high school for assignments. Sheesh.

vxbush 10/2/2024 6:15:51 AM

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Regarding the longshoremen strike: 

Do folks remember the movie The American President where Michael Douglas plays the president? There's a moment where he's told the airlines are ready to strike, and he notes that airlines striking at Christmas is a very bad thing. So he goes and flies out to the negotiations. 

A fake president in a fictional movie does a better job of being a president than Joseph Biden, who refuses to get involved in the current strike. Just let that sink in.

vxbush 10/2/2024 6:17:52 AM

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Parseltongue: 

On the same day that President Joe Biden said he’d reduced illegal border crossings by 60% at the southwest border, he announced Monday a sweeping extension of refugee admissions for foreign nationals and “habitual residents” of countries in multiple continents.

The authorization is two-fold.

The first expands a refugee admission process to 125,000 foreign nationals from countries around the world.

The second opens a refugee admission process to foreign nationals and those with “habitual residence in” Cuba, Iraq, El Salvador, Guatemala and Honduras, Eurasia, the Baltics, among others, with no numerical limitation.

vxbush 10/2/2024 6:19:52 AM

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Democratic vice presidential nominee Gov. Tim Walz, D-Minn., had an awkward gaffe during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday where he said that he has "become friends with school shooters."

I understand the pressure is enormous under the lights and cameras, but wow.

JCM 10/2/2024 6:51:26 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 1:

In the previous Iran missile attack the successful intercept rate was near perfect. It looks like this time there were some leakers through the defenses. The previous attack the US joined in immediately I don't know if that was different this round.

This attack apparently was around 180 incoming and a more sophisticated version capable of terminal maneuvering. That makes defending harder but also means there are likely fewer available to be launched.

As why the Biden admin does things the way it does, things the way it does.... did Dr. Jill get her Ovaltine?

JCM 10/2/2024 7:04:03 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 4:

Book reports were the bane of of my existence in school, that started in like third grade. It was a book every few weeks, write up a book report. We even had to do like 3 books and reports over summer! What misery, the reports not the books. I was an advance reader and by 3rd grade reading biographies, histories and novels. I just hated book reports.

I get in conversations around work, literally nobody has read anything that I would consider indispensable works. It's a serious problem how can we have a serious debate about politics without at least reading the pantheon of literature to support the side choosen. Let alone read both sides to have a cogent opinion on matters.

That is really frightening stuff. Uninformed people with no foundation listening what ever snake oil salesman has the best pitch.

vxbush 10/2/2024 7:58:12 AM

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In #9 JCM said: That is really frightening stuff. Uninformed people with no foundation listening what ever snake oil salesman has the best pitch.

Bingo. More thoughts after a few meetings......

Occasional Reader 10/2/2024 9:10:04 AM

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JCM 10/2/2024 9:57:04 AM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 11:

I can't watch the news or debates without losing my cool.

I read the box scores later.

Occasional Reader 10/2/2024 9:58:32 AM

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In #12 JCM said: without losing my cool.

Boy, boy, crazy boy... get cool, boy... 

Occasional Reader 10/2/2024 10:10:57 AM

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IDF identifies eight IDF soldiers fallen in battle in Lebanon

They died fighting for civilization against barbarism.  May their souls be elevated. 

vxbush 10/2/2024 10:37:39 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 10:

I have many thoughts on this: 

• Most of us were forced to read at least some of the founding documents of this country. I have reason to believe that doesn't happen in most K-12 schools anymore, based on the surveys of younger people and their knowledge of things like who formed this country, when was it formed, why did the Revolutionary War happen, etc. A school here or there might, but there are a lot of political reasons why a school wants to hide the history of this country.
• Instead, many students are being fed material via books like Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States, so what little they do learn is garbled by Zinn's worldview. 
• Schools are spending a lot of time on things like DIE rather than teaching topics, so there are fewer hours spent teaching, for lack of a better term, "real things." 
• Technology distraction and the desire to be "hip" means more projects are done on computers and mobile devices and fewer things involving older technologies like printed books. Students are finding reading printed books to be very taxing for them. 
• And are students even taught how to read a book and take notes as they go? How to make the process "active" by staying engaged with the text? 

Education today is a hot mess in many places for these reasons and many more. 

vxbush 10/2/2024 10:38:35 AM

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In #12 JCM said: I can't watch the news or debates without losing my cool.

I'm in JCM's camp. The games the moderators play just makes my blood boil, and I don't need my blood pressure to go that high. 

vxbush 10/2/2024 10:39:23 AM

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In #14 Occasional Reader said: They died fighting for civilization against barbarism.  May their souls be elevated.

Does Israel have a memorial for the men and women who die fighting for their country? I'm clueless about this. 

JCM 10/2/2024 10:56:33 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 15:

There was an article I read a while back. Reading a dead tree physical book improves the comprehension and retention of the material over digital media. Many people instinctive get this when they print out material to read the pages.

The book is tactile and physical, so it links the material with a singular object, or electronic media the physical object is the same. Kind of like move through a doorway cognitively and physically separates spaces. The ideas in a book have a place on the page, and within the book. It provides a physical location for a idea, beginning of a book, left page, halfway down.

I would even go back to penmanship and handwriting stuff in school. The physical act, the motor skills connect words and ideas that a keyboard does not to the same degree.

vxbush 10/2/2024 11:27:29 AM

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In #18 JCM said: I would even go back to penmanship and handwriting stuff in school. The physical act, the motor skills connect words and ideas that a keyboard does not to the same degree.

There is definitely research that supports that--writing your ideas down involves different portions of the brain as compared to typing them up. But I've had better success typing up my thoughts for decades because I can get my ideas down much faster typing than I can writing. 

But handwriting also seems to be a lost art, especially when it comes to cursive, which isn't being taught in some schools. It doesn't have to be--cursive was developed so writing with a pen nib was easier--but I don't have research at hand that compares writing with printed letters versus cursive and if it affects the thinking process any. 

JCM 10/2/2024 11:32:27 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 19:

There are different styles, finding what works is important. One my boys is dyslexic, the solution for him is getting getting and audio book for him to listen to while he reads.