On this day in 1984, the Republic of Upper Volta, a name retained from its former status as a French colony, was renamed Burkina Faso, meaning "Land of Incorruptible People", with its people being called Burkinabé ("upright people").

The renaming was proposed by president Thomas Sankara and confirmed by the National Assembly. Sankara's government formed the National Council for the Revolution (CNR), with Sankara as its president, and established popular Committees for the Defense of the Revolution (CDRs). The Pioneers of the Revolution youth programme was also established. Throughout his presidency, Sankara focused on programmes for social, ecological and economic change.

His foreign policies were centred on anti-imperialism, while he rejected the International Monetary Fund's "aid". Sankara welcomed foreign aid from other sources but tried to reduce reliance on aid by boosting domestic revenues and diversifying the sources of assistance. His domestic policies were focused on preventing famine with agrarian self-sufficiency and land reform, prioritising education with a nationwide literacy campaign and promoting public health by vaccinating more than 2 million children against meningitis, yellow fever and measles. Between 18,000 and 50,000 children who died annually of measles and meningitis lived.

Burkinabe built for the first time scores of schools, health centers, water reservoirs, and nearly 100 km of rail, with little or no external assistance. Total cereal production rose by 75% between 1983 and 1986. Other components of his national agenda included planting over 10 million trees to combat the growing desertification of the Sahel, redistributing land from private landowners, suspending rural poll taxes and domestic rents and establishing a road and railway construction programme. On the local level, Sankara called on every village to build a medical dispensary and had pharmacies built in 5,384 out of 7,500 villages. From 1982-1984 the infant mortality rate dropped from 208 per 1,000 births to 145. School attendance under Sankara increased from 6% to 22%.

In support of women's rights, he outlawed female genital mutilation, forced marriages and polygamy. He appointed women to high governmental positions and encouraged them to work outside the home and stay in school, even if pregnant. Sankara encouraged the prosecution of officials accused of corruption and counter-revolutionaries in Popular Revolutionary Tribunals. As an admirer of the Cuban Revolution, Sankara set up Cuban-style Committees for the Defense of the Revolution. His revolutionary programmes for African self-reliance made him an icon to many of Africa's poor. :sankara-salute: :sankara-bass:

Please :vote: for a New Comm called c/Labour :worker: A union / labour organizing specific comm :iww:

Here is a list of Trans rights organizations you can support :cat-trans:

Buy coffee and learn more about the Zapatistas in Chiapas here :EZLN:

Resources for Palestine :palestine-heart:

Here are some resources on Prison Abolition :brick-police:

Foundations of Leninism :USSR:

:lenin-shining: :left-unity-3: :kropotkin-shining:

Anarchism and Other Essays :ancom:

Remember, sort by new you :LIB:

Yesterday’s megathread :sad-boi:

Follow the Hexbear twitter account :comrade-birdie:

THEORY; it’s good for what ails you (all kinds of tendencies inside!) [:RIchard-D-Wolff:]

COMMUNITY CALENDAR - AN EXPERIMENT IN PROMOTING USER ORGANIZING EFFORTS [:af:]

Come listen to music with your fellow Hexbears in Cy.tube :og-hex-bear:

Queer stuff? Come talk in the Queer version of the megathread ! :sicko-queer:

Join the fresh and beautiful batch of new comms:

!effort@hexbear.net :theory-gary:

!chat@hexbear.net :morshupls:

!emoji@hexbear.net :meow-anarchist: :meow-tankie:

!libre@hexbear.net :libretion:

So two winners, everyone please comrades @context and @femboi.

False analogy

Scientific discoveries are sometimes made by using analogy. If certain features of two objects are similar, perhaps other features are also similar. Analogy, however, is only a tool for good guesses. The guesses have to be tested.

Analogy has its place in mathematics also, but so, alas, does false analogy:

“By how much is 40 larger than 32?”

“By 8.”

“By how much is 32 smaller than 40?”

“By 8.”

“By what percentage is 40 larger than 32?”

“By 25 percent.”

“By what percentage is 32 smaller than 40?”

“By 25 percent.”

But it is only 20 percent smaller.

-(A) Suppose your monthly income increases 30 percent. By what percentage does your purchasing power increase?

-(B) Suppose your monthly income does not change, but prices go down 30 percent. By what percentage does your purchasing power increase?

This has 2 other parts but so as not to overwhelm y’all or me will do half today and half tomorrow. Hope everyone has fun :soviet-heart: and please dm @Wmill the answer.

This Friday we're gonna have a Spanish Movie Friday, there should be a Nominations post for movie candidates either today or tomorrow, so be on the look out for that.

:che-poggers: :fidel-bat: