CharonY

Actually, that was the official plan. Both groups were supposed to demonstrate in different parks (one for the Unite the right, two for the counter protests). However, there were spillovers and according to the police chief the Unite the right group was not adhering to the approved plan (and I assume that violent counter protesters were not either, but I really don't know). When a state of emergency was declared things went well out of hand.

I don't think that their right to demonstrate was protested. The issue was that the leader of the nation said that they were just fine folks that wanted to protest the removal of a statue. To use your analogy, the President just told everyone that the hemorrhoids were fine (because they said he was great). Normalizing hemorrhoids in your face is a problem. To paraphrase swansonT, if it quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, goosesteps like a duck, threatens Jews like a ducks, Hitler salutes like a duck, that duck is a bloody Nazi and should be called out as such (I may have taken a wrong turn there somewhere). And as you can see, even after murder obviously not everyone (including the highest office) does something quickly about them. In fact, only recently the President slashed funds for fighting right-wing terror groups. Yeah, so it seems that there is quack in office, too. The real issue is that if there is not a massive outcry (as it seems to start now) one risks to normalize and legitimize the extremes (take a look at some of the non-mainstream right-wing parties in Europe).

I think there were people ready to become violent in both groups (yes MigL, I know you don't -hopefully- want to defend Nazis, you just want to nitpick). However, one group was a mix of regular folks that were against Nazis, supremacists, etc., (which I would have presumed, should not be controversial) as well as people that were out for violence. On the other side we have folks that were said supremacists, Nazis etc. And they were clearly not shy to make sure that people knew who they were. In fact, they openly said that their presence was to make a show of power for their cause. I am pretty sure that you could twist it around and ask why I accept that one group was mixed and entirely condemn another group. Well, the reason is that one was organized by white supremacists calling specifically for like-minded people to attend (I mean, have you seen the posters?). The counter protests were organized (and despite what the president was saying, they had permits) by the Peoples Action for Racial Justice and co-sponsored by the Together Cville and The Charlottesville Center for Peace and Justice. In their press release they explicitly called for a peaceful gathering. I will re-iterate, it is not only about the specific violent actions but also about the ideologies. One group spreads hate (and do we really need a history lesson to remember what Nazis and like-minded people stand for?) the other were various people opposing them with a bunch of violent numpties thrown in. For the President to equivocate and declaring there were good folks with legitimate concerns out there is just ridiculous. There is a simple test that most reasonable people would follow. If people around you start Sieg Heiling through the streets you may have joined the wrong outlet to voice concerns. Whatever your position is, if you got Nazis on one side you should be really carefully consider where you actually stand. And no, I do not believe that not agreeing with Nazis has anything to do with political correctness, but everything with appreciation of history (and not to mention, decency. It should not be hard to be against genocide and ethnic cleansing, for starters).

So, do you think that people that take great pains to appear like Nazis are not trying to send a message that they have such a position? If not why would you try so hard to associate yourself with such a movement? Of course, some leaders of the movement try to distance themselves from the violent aspects and call for a peaceful ethnic cleansing (which, depending on situation is described as voluntary segregation, though at rallys it turns it implies forceful removal). Or take a look on the various websites in which they discuss their ideology. But really. What do you think people mean to say when they say "Sieg Heil?". What do you think of people flying the ISIS flag for that matter? And frankly, if we really have to discuss whether Nazi ideology is acceptable or whether racial segregation and associated ideologies should be an option, then I am quite worried about the current state of our society.

There are studies indicating that exposure to suicide (via media, social media, other social relationships etc.) is correlated with increased suicide rates. (E.g. Mueller et al Sociol Perspect. 2015). Social networks nowadays are more far-reaching than they used to be (and isolation is potentially perceived differently as well).

I think you have to qualify that. You have to tolerate their right to express themselves (non-violently) but you do not need to tolerate their essence of their speech. I.e. I think it deserves criticism. Likewise as religious hate preachers should be criticized, and if appropriate (such as when inciting violence or hatred) should be charged to the extent of the law. Also, as you can see from footage, it was not one interview. Rather the organization invited a series of speakers that proclaim themselves as white supremacists (several of which have openly done the whole Sieg Heil-Hitlergruss thing), a significant portion was walking on the streets and chanting "blood and soil" and other Nazi slogans.

Well, some also have swastika tattoos, but that evidence is only skin-deep. I mean they maybe just meant it ironically.

Let's be frank here, for a minute. The people that were invited speakers were not people with deep roots in the confederacy, nor where they historically interested (except in one particular aspect, it seems). At best the statue was seeing as a symbolism of the Jim Crow-era way of thinking and they see their removal as another attack in their race war ideology. If there were historically interested, they would have tried to keep people like the organizers and speakers at arms length, instead of wholeheartedly embracing them. But then whitewashing the civil war could be considered in line with fetishizing the Third Reich. Edit: Cross-posted with Swansont

The ideology itself is violent. After all, if you desire race purity, if you believe that your race is threatened by an obscure genocide (which implies that the others are mortal danger), when you think that the others are worth less than yourself... What do you think the endgame is? Respectful disagreement? I am not saying their mind cannot be changed to some degree (there was a great documentary about a Davis, black Musician who befriended KKK members, who subsequently left the movement. But if they follow their logic to the end, there is little reason to believe that there is not readiness for violence. After all, their view of their own plight is so dire, the end clearly justifies the means> And we quite a few historic examples to get a glimpse at the end...

A few things to consider. On of course being that Lee was on the the side opposing the Union and as such could be considered a traitor. A statue glorifying him uncritically (or at least not providing critical insights into his role) is problematic, and a removal of said statue is not the same as removing from history. Moreover the whole issue of "Confederacy Pride" is heavily soaked in resentments and, believe it or not, racism. Many of those monuments were created during the Jim Crow years and are strongly associated with efforts to subdue blacks. The not all protesters thing is a bit difficult when applied to this particular rally (unless you mean protests against statue removal in general). However if people are fine marching next to guys with Swastika flags and tattoos one should at least question one's company. Also note that the rally was organized by well-known supremacists. It is not to say that they have no right to protest, after all at least then they are all in the open. But I have a big problem with your characterization of that group and the comparison of e.g. Muslims. Where in the US have there been hundreds of Muslims on the street chanting Jihadists verses? MigL I generally like you posts and I understand that you sometimes like to get a rise out of folks, but really if you have people running around in Nazi paraphernalia chanting Nazi verses evoking all the images of Fackelzuege and then equivocate excusing them with the "not all Muslims trope?" These guys are just as far off as extremist Muslims and you cannot equivocate them with the average white guy nor the average Muslim. I would be terribly disappointed if you really want to make the point that an assembly of self-proclaimed supremacists requires should be compared to a mainstream religion rather than the fanatic fringes.

I am not sure that it goes that deep. After all, whenever Putin comes up, he meticulously avoids any level of criticism. If he can't do that, I doubt that there is much tactics in anything else. With regard to the Russia investigation, there are only bits and pieces and there is only so much one can report before there is an actual report by Mueller or any smoking gun that appears. But even then there were news today that emails were leaked in which a low-level staffer tried to coordinate a meeting with the Russians but was mostly rebuked. That basically has two sides to it. On the one hand, it is harder to deny that the higher echelons knew nothing about Russian interests, on the other hand it appears that people within the Campaign actually tried to keep their distance. I.e. it is seemingly nothing more revealing than the emails from Don Jr.

You mean where after the belated condemnation of Nazis he started to defend the supremacists, condemn the "many sides" or the "alt-left" and then somehow equivocate figures of the confederacy with Washington and Lincoln...? I mean, it even appeared to be a prepared statement. Also, since when has it become controversial to condemn Nazis (and I hope no one is arguing that the Swastikas were just a fashion statement...)? It gets more and more bizarre. Edit: Well it is not necessarily that bizarre if one assumes that his behaviour is geared to no offending his base. But that opens up a whole other can of worms.

Inflammation response on the individual cell level does not make a lot of sense. It is a tissue-level phenomenon. On the individual level some cells get apoptotic, other cell types get recruited to the inflamed area, some have cytoskeletal re-arrangements to allow that to happen, etc. It all depends on the affected tissue, the respective cell type and so on. In the roughest form you can see it as a response to tissue injury in which a lot of unspecific responses are activated to eventually restore tissue integrity.

Unless there is a psychological evaluation in order to understand motives in an abstract sense, I feel that ignoring such individuals is the better course of action. Also it may feed into glory fantasies of some people. I read in an interview with a researcher that many of the younger supremacists are not radicalized within their household, but via the internet, which draws interesting parallels to certain subgroups of jihadist extremists. I have not tracked down the original reports yet, though.

I know plenty of people in the field (mine is just across the border on the experimental side of things). Frankly, the field has grown to a massive extent so that a directionless question is probably not terribly helpful. As it is still developing (especially on the computational biology side) you will find people from very different areas ending up at that point (e.g. biologist who get interested in modeling their data and kinda get stuck there).

There are actually a number initiatives to smuggle information into North Korea. An example is the Flashdrives For Freedom.

It really depends on selective force. Assuming no selection, the number generations required to fix an allele is: E(T) = -4Ne [p ln p + (1-p) ln (1-p)] With Ne being the effective population size and probability of allele frequency. The latter is important as in a large population p approaches the expected statistical distribution (i.e. 50:50 in case of two alleles) but with declining population sampling error occurs and you may have a skewed distribution, which is effectively what the drift is. As you can see, the time is maximized for p=0.5 and drops off it we see it skewed. However, if we add selection to the mix, it gets more complicated depending on how it acts on the population. It could accelerate the effect if the the particular allele is positively selected (and by how much depends on the selective force each generation). However, selection could go into the opposite direction (i.e. favoring the allele with lower frequency). In that case the balance of the two competing events would determine fixation rate.

That is likely the case. My knowledge is based on an autism researcher who is based in the US. It was also mentioned that with the online test there is a surge of people getting diagnosed and he feels that there is some level of overdiagnosing going on. Pretty much echoes the notion that it is really only relevant when there are actual difficulties in everyday life.

I will add a few things here. Diagnosis of autism is difficult, especially on the high-functioning end of things (Asperger's has been merged into the general diagnosis of autism spectrum disorders is generally not diagnosed as a separate entity). As such online tests are highly suspicious to me. Many of the typical things for high functioning autism are also diagnostic for people that e.g. grew up more isolated (say, immigrants). Also, as studies have shown that people well-established diagnosis in childhood may lose the diagnosis later on when re-tested. Self-diagnosis is even more difficult, and it is generally recommended to visit a specialist for a proper analysis. Cross-posted, but I think what Juno said is very true. There is no magic automatic understanding with or without disorders. In all cases one has to figure out the various bits and pieces of your partner and be willing to accept them. And quite frankly, I can imagine that two partners with autism spectrum disorders can actually have a harder time to negotiate compromises.

TBF most male action heroes are also typically very 2D. Usually it is the villains that are somewhat interesting. Even then, I would probably agree that female action heroes are even more stereotyped, esp. with regard to their looks. But to look at genres that are typically male dominated, Thelma and Louise is a great road movie in the tradition of Easy Rider.

OP is being hyperbolic, of course. But Barbwire has the issue of oversexualizing a female lead (not to mention being a horrible, horrible movie). A far better example would be Ripley in Alien.

I am not entirely sure whether that characterization is entirely accurate. I confess that my knowledge is limited, but in the 90s Pakistan has declared that it would use its nuclear potential not only in retaliatory fashion, but also to counter Indian aggression. The US has then issued broad sanctions against Pakistan (and India). The stance changed when they considered Pakistan a potential ally in the Middle East conflict, I believe. I suppose deciding factors are mostly a) the threat to the US itself (or close allies) and b) potential strategic usefulness. NK is a threat without benefits, so to say.

Movies reflect and sometimes play with the assumptions and preconceptions of the audience. For now, it is still assumed that the main protagonists in most genres are still male, whereas female leads are more common in romantic comedies or other movies that are specifically geared to women. In fact putting women in atypical roles is sometimes perceived as pandering (though I fail to see how the opposite is not considered as such). While the perception may change, especially as women are now the majority of movie goers, the industry are still male dominated (less than 10% directors, ~13% writers, 24% producers, 17% editors, 5% cinematography). That may result in the perception that a female protagonist need to define herself somewhat via the interaction with a male lead. But again, this is slowly changing with an increasing number of female leads (close to 30%). I read an article somewhere a while back is that many authors (especially male, but also some females) struggle with writing well rounded three dimensional characters as literature is full of huge variety of male characters whereas female characters tend to be on the dull side. There are famous exceptions, of course (say, Anna Karenina by Tolstoy), but it may be a contributing factor.

Could you clarify what you mean specifically with regard to India and Pakistan?

There are videos and photos of the crash. I don't think that it would matter to them, though. The photo (I'd rather not post some of the more disturbing ones, but they are unfortunately all over the place) shows a clear run on the protestors, self-defense my arse.