The Wordsmith's Forge

I've seen a lot of vocabulary abuse recently.

Remigration is the voluntary return to country of origin. If it's not voluntary, it's not remigration. This term covers things like freed slaves moving from America to Africa, or Syrian refugees going back to Syria now that some of them deem it safe. We need this term for such purposes, which right now means defending it from people who use it wrongly.

Refoulement is the forcible movement of refugees from the place they fled to back to the dangerous place they fled from. This is what the American government has done many times, such as sending boats full of Jewish refugees back to Nazi-infested Europe during World War II or the current transfer of refugees back to their country of origin. Call it what it is and cite the historic comparisons, where we've got evidence of people dying because of it.

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This cartoon is true, as far as it goes.

But if you think Russia is likely to blink at those losses, think again.

Governor JB Pritzker (Dem IL) to Rep. Mary Miller: "I refuse to be lectured to by somebody who extols the virtue of Hitler."

I can't remember the last time I felt so represented by one of my actual representatives. \o/

Sometimes, you just gotta call a spade a spade.

CEO invites the world to invest in refugees: 'Humanity flourishes when people have the tools to succeed'

“One in 10 of us will be displaced in 25 years. One in 10. Each of us is more likely to be displaced than ever before,” Oyler said in her TED Talk, which will be published at a later date.

“The time for incremental change is over. We must do things differently.”
[---8<---]
“When Uganda allowed refugees to work, the country's GDP increased by nearly a billion dollars,” Oyler said. “Ethiopia reformed its policies, and now thousands of refugees contribute in key sectors like agriculture and manufacturing.”

“When Rwanda, the country where I live, included refugees in its national ID program, they gained access to health care, financial services, and are growing an economy.”


It's all about knitting people into society as fast as possible. Make sure they have access to survival needs such as food, shelter, clothing, and health care. Then compare what they can do with what needs doing. To accommodate untrained workers, list your top 10 or so fields with a desperate shortage of workers, then offer free training for anyone who wishes to enter those fields.

Elongated Muskrat has left the White House in disgrace.  While smart people could tell instantly that he is a giant asshole with delusions of competence, it took Republicans nearly 5 months to figure it out.

While pushing ‘America First,’ Trump set to accept Qatar’s luxury jet as Air Force One

The Qatari plane and its whiff of excess would also seem at odds with Trump’s message that Americans may have to make do with less as he remakes the global economic order.

Well, if anybody knows whoring, it Qatar.  This situation just begs for a bra-drop cartoon.  Or maybe a stripper pole.

Comparing the occupant of the Oval Office to a poorly trained chatbot.

Here's a post about  HR 867, “the igo boycott act.”

Of course, it's obviously not just anti-American for violating personal freedom of choice, it's also anti-capitalist for violating freedom of doing business.

It's also completely pointless other than intimidating people.  All you have to do is A) keep your mouth shut about why exactly you are doing something and/or B) have some other reason besides the forbidden one for doing what you want.  It's how the bigots get around most requirements for diversity -- the smart ones always have some other reason for not hiring the person.  You don't like Israel's raging genocide?  Come up with some other reason to avoid buying things from them.  An unassailable one is "We prefer to buy American."

There's no need to have an open boycott, or conspiracy, if everyone is using the same playbook, in this case "genocide is bad and we don't deal with genocidal maniacs."  A discontiguous conspiracy will do the job.  And you don't have to surrender your ethics to anyone else, although you might want to keep them quiet while the country has its head up its ass.

Just in case the American foodstream experiences disruptions, here are some recipes for field corn and soybeans, two huge cash crops. Field corn may be ground into cornmeal or nixtamalized into hominy. Soybeans are most often used to make tofu but there are other options.

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As forecast by people* who pay attention: the port of Seattle is empty. This will propagate to other US ports over the next few weeks due to transit time from China.

"[small business] paused a container shipment due this month after realizing the 145% tariff would add roughly $300,000 to the shipment’s original $200,000 cost"


Sometimes, it sucks to be able to see the future. >_< But I am pleased that, at least this time, other people have seen it too. Nobody in power is listening. They are stupid and will likely not realize there is a problem until A) they personally run out of things and/or B) riots occur over shortages. But it's nice not being alone in seeing the problem this time.