Lewis2
7d ago
Lewis2
19d ago
@2rafa is correct. You can read Cole’s own description of his changing beliefs on the Holocaust here.
Here’s an excerpt relating to his current beliefs, which he has held since the mid-90s:
Korherr, with unfettered access to all SS documents, definitively concluded that as of the beginning of 1943, slightly over 2.4 million Jews had been killed in the Reinhard camps, the Ostland ghettoes (which functioned as death camps), and by the Einsatzgruppen execution squads.
You’d think that Himmler’s official death census would be in every Holocaust book. But no. “Great” scholars like Yad Vashem’s Yehuda Bauer rarely if ever cite it (in his 1982 magnum opus A History of the Holocaust, Bauer doesn’t cite Korherr once).
Deniers never cite Korherr either.
Amazing, huh? With the Mao and Stalin death toll, we’re forced to roughly calculate the figure via demographic extrapolation. But with the Holocaust, we have the main perpetrator, Himmler, commissioning a specific census of the murdered. A number. Everyone agrees it’s a legit document, yet few use it.
Why?
Because if you accept 2.4 million for the beginning of 1943, you cannot get to six million by April 1945. From ‘43 to ‘45, there would simply not be enough Jews subjected to “aktions” to get to 6 mil. Every mainstream scholar agrees that by the close of 1942, two-thirds of all Holocaust deaths had already occurred. So Korherr’s figure presents a problem.
That’s why I put my approximate figure of total Holocaust dead at 3.5 to 3.6 million. But not six. You simply cannot get to six in the two remaining years of the war.
Meanwhile, deniers won’t accept a figure above 271,000. Accepting 2.4 million by 1943? That blasphemes the tenets of their cult. It can’t be more than 300,000, period! Their pseudo-religion dictates it.
Lewis2
23d ago
The total number of excess deaths is probably the best you can do, but even that isn’t perfect, since it also encompasses deaths from delayed medical treatment, deaths of despair, etc., due to the shutdowns.
Lewis2
25d ago
I’d start with a quick one, then alternate between quick and long. Ideally do a few quick ones in between each long one in order to help keep myself engaged. This method would give me a quick initial win, but also prevent me from bogging down at the end when I have multiple back-to-back long projects to do.
That’s in the perfect world, at least. In practice, I’d do a couple of quick ones, a couple of long ones, get distracted, then unexpectedly gain a burst of energy and tear through a number of longer projects at high speed, then procrastinate and possibly give up on the rest entirely.
Lewis2
25d ago
Years ago, a fire broke out in the next town over during their annual festival. Their own volunteer firefighters didn’t even leave the bar, even though it was directly across the street from the station. Instead, the fire departments from two neighboring towns showed up to douse the blaze.
Lewis2
25d ago
Interesting. Most of the volunteer fire departments I’m familiar with get some funding from the local city, town, or township, which is supplemented by one or two major fundraisers per year.
The place where safetyist paperwork requirements have driven out the volunteers is youth activities.
I don’t think the paperwork has much to do with it. I used to spend a lot of time volunteering to help lead youth activities when I was younger. I’d still love to do it now, but if I were to do so as a childless man, I know some parents would assume I had suspect motives. In today’s environment, no amount of paperwork is going to eliminate those concerns, so I abstain.
Lewis2
25d ago
I make less. But then, my annual expenses, including housing, come to around $20,000 per year. It helps living in a low cost of living area.
Lewis2
26d ago
They work well in rural, tight-knit, high-trust environments where plenty of young to middle-aged men work on farms or in small factories or shops close to the station (that is, they don’t commute to the nearest city for a desk job). Which is to say, the system worked extremely well for over a century but is starting to fail now in many locations. In some cases, this is because the close-knit and high-trust part is less true than it once was, while in others, the population density has fallen to the point that there aren’t enough people to keep things going. On that note, though, it usually doesn’t take a huge number of volunteer firefighters per station, as multiple neighboring stations will be called out to fight larger blazes.
It’s also possibly worth noting that volunteer firefighters in some areas receive health benefits to compensate them for their work. That makes the position much more attractive for self-employed individuals, including farmers. It’s the same reason a lot of rural self-employed people also work as part-time school bus drivers. The pay and hours kind of suck, but the health insurance makes it worthwhile.
Lewis2
26d ago
Russia was invaded by Ukraine and Ukraine fought back, therefore we ban Russia from competing; Israel was invaded by Palestine and Israel fought back, therefore we ought to ban - Israel?
As worded, this is almost perfectly symmetrical.
Lewis2
28d ago
I’ve been to a few touristy locations with quiet, unassuming, empty, but gorgeous Orthodox churches. I’ve wondered for a while whether the placement of those beautiful churches was deliberate.
Lewis2
1mo ago
I’m pretty sure “caring more” explains the entire difference. Men’s handwriting a century or more ago was far neater than most women’s today, and was in many cases neater than women’s handwriting from that same period. But back in the day, having a strong secretarial hand was a common job requirement, so more men were incentivized to write better.
Lewis2
1mo ago
For my money, the funniest Mel Brooks movie has to be Young Frankenstein, though it seems much less well known than Blazing Saddles.
Lewis2
2mo ago
Oh, give him a break. Most people are bad at math, especially when dealing with such large numbers.
Lewis2
2mo ago
Stock market going down? Woke (((Financiers))) are manipulating prices to try to force a panic and foment opposition to Trump.
Comments like this don’t help dispel that impression:
With uncertainty emanating from DC, some on Wall Street say it’s time to send an unambiguous message to the president and his team: Don’t buy the dip.
Stocks are cheaper than they were a week ago, so it’s only natural investors may take a break from the sell-off and load up on some bargain assets. But going into dip-buying mode risks rewarding Trump for playing chicken with the global economy. Like training a puppy, you sometimes need a negative correction if you want it to stop peeing on the rug.
”We need this market to crash — to keep the pressure on the administration,” Ed Yardeni, president of Yardeni Research, told my colleague Matt Egan on Monday. That is a frankly shocking comment from an analyst as prominent as Yardeni, who also happens to have a Ph.D in economics from Yale.
Lewis2
2mo ago
The metropolitan area has also been experiencing a minor renaissance, with a new and different class of people replacing the previous residents. You’d need to somehow control for gentrification to get a true sense of the stats.
Lewis2
2mo ago
These charts of food prices per hour worked in England may be of interest. Along similar lines, I happened to be reading some 100+ year old newspapers about a month ago, when egg prices reached their zenith, and I was interested to see that, correcting for inflation, eggs regularly cost more than $6.00 per dozen c. 1910–1920, which is higher than any of the highly elevated prices I saw recently.
I also recall reading in an old book of etiquette from the late 1800s that a gentleman should look to spend 2–3 months’ income when purchasing a suit. I cannot fathom spending a sixth of my annual salary on a suit today.
Lewis2
2mo ago
Thanks to you and @TowardsPanna for the advice. I’ve never invested in anything but stocks and mutual funds with my IRA, and I didn’t think to look into other options. I also make much less than most people here and so can’t usually max out both my IRA and my employer-matched 401k. But then, I live in a low cost of living area and likely spend vastly less than most of you.
Lewis2
2mo ago
Last year, and so far this year, I avoided putting anything into an IRA, expecting a stock market decline sooner or later. I still have a week to make contributions for 2024. Does anyone have any thoughts as to whether now would be a good time to buy, or whether I should just forgo any IRA contributions for 2024? (I did put money aside in my now decimated 401k.)
Lewis2
2mo ago
The “Save as Adobe PDF” is helpful because it embeds fonts and images, which the normal “Save As” .pdf option doesn’t do. You do need an active Adobe Acrobat Pro subscription to use it though.
Lewis2
2mo ago
Once upon a time, but not anymore. Almost a third of Americans are religiously unaffiliated, and the remaining two-thirds includes a high proportion of nominal believers and Christmas and Easter attendees.
Lewis2
2mo ago
I think you’re confusing the Classical Period of classical music with classical music as an overarching genre. The latter encompasses everything from Gregorian chant to John Williams.
Lewis2
2mo ago
Do you know if Trader Joe’s butter is anything like Kerrygold butter? I heard from many different people over a span of about 15 years that Kerrygold butter is the best butter. I finally bought some, and I have to say, I wasn’t impressed. I actually prefer regular old American-style salted butter.
I keep seeing the vapid mantra, “No one is illegal on stolen land!” in discussions about the LA riots. It’s retarded, but it’s suddenly everywhere.
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