tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post5444253886765961005..comments2024-03-27T23:12:08.917-07:00Comments on CONTRARY BRIN: 'Viral' news... and more from the frontiers of biology...David Brinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comBlogger72125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-12093523593168045952020-02-11T09:17:07.846-08:002020-02-11T09:17:07.846-08:00I'm still laughing. Trump, running unopposed,...I'm still laughing. Trump, running unopposed, managed to lose the election in Dixville Notch. He lost to Mike Bloomberg, a write-in, by one vote to none. Bloomberg also got a Democratic vote, giving him 2 in all, and 40% of the votes cast. I imagine there were quite a few f bombs in the Lincoln bedroom this morning!Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-25692524351139362112020-02-11T08:48:16.088-08:002020-02-11T08:48:16.088-08:00FWIW, my wife and I voted in the primary today. Th...FWIW, my wife and I voted in the primary today. The weather was gloomy, but there were no problems with parking, crowds, and other potential excuses. Now, onward to November!Russell Osterlundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14856820456499521004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-17272529788767416142020-02-11T08:46:47.765-08:002020-02-11T08:46:47.765-08:00FWIW, my wife and I voted in the primary today. Th...FWIW, my wife and I voted in the primary today. The weather was gloomy, but there were no problems with parking, crowds, and other potential excuses. Now, onward to November!Russell Osterlundhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14856820456499521004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-35488589831762384632020-02-01T20:35:40.981-08:002020-02-01T20:35:40.981-08:00Those Flashman books are more than just fantastica...Those Flashman books are more than just fantastically fun and entertaining. You also learn TONS of history you never knew... plus stuff that never happened, like Flashy as the sole white survivor of Custer's Last Stand, or accidental cause of the Charge of the Light Brigade, or as inspiration for several Mark Twain stories...<br /><br />And now onward<br /><br />onwardDavid Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-85155094609700514582020-02-01T18:37:26.951-08:002020-02-01T18:37:26.951-08:00Treebeard: I'll leave your assertion that all ...Treebeard: I'll leave your assertion that all who disagree with you to the paranoid cranks in question. I'm sure they can defend themselves.<br />But every time a disease, new or old, gets media attention, there's always conspiracy theories that said disease was engineered by one group against another group, usually a nation. The problem is that you can't engineer a virus or bacteria to attack just one country or one race. (Biologically, 'race' is as much a social construct as nationality or religion, and the bugs don't give a damn about any of those). <br /><br />I do think blackmail plays a big role in Russia's relations with the rest of the world, but I also think it's a big part of how Trump does business. Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-87971621984264183612020-02-01T18:28:58.158-08:002020-02-01T18:28:58.158-08:00Found the Flashman series at Internet Archive, and...Found the Flashman series at Internet Archive, and will download them later this evening. Thanks for that! They look entertaining.Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-52237075211623669862020-02-01T18:23:54.541-08:002020-02-01T18:23:54.541-08:00@Deuxglass: if you mean the virus outbreak has bec...@Deuxglass: if you mean the virus outbreak has become more important.... <br /><br />... not quite yet, at least not for the USA. But Wilbur Ross' blinkered "oh, maybe we can get some jobs back" take signals the actual disaster to come. The CDC is highly functional but the rest of the government is uncoordinated and unprepared to deal with the socioeconomic consequences of a China under quarantine. <br /><br />Will the world economy come screeching to a halt? No. It's important to note that coronaviruses cannot survive more than a few hours outside a human body; most freight commerce will continue. But a "tariff" in the form of quarantine restrictions will now exist on China's exports, and a steeper cost will accrue to China's internal economy. This imposes drag on an economy already rickety from bad debts created to maintain the Communist Party's stability and hold on power. <br /><br />If the Chinese government starts having internal problems, it will be 100% their own fault... *especially* since they refused to let us help them in the critical early days. And even if they don't, China's economy WILL slow... and America's economy, dependent on just-in-time manufacturing and warehousing of cheap commodities from China, will slow as well. <br /><br />The only people in government who know what to do about that are precisely the people who have been shoved into a corner; and all the cabal's hopes for a plausible narrative of re-election require the illusion of a successful economy be maintained. <br /><br />I am really getting concerned now that someone might feel desperate enough to attempt infrastructure attacks, either on the machinery of vote-casting or on the transport, utility, etc. networks. Traditionally, we are close to the point at which a Reichstag incident becomes a tempting option.<br /><br />@Zepp: Chernobyl was a fluorescent stain that perfectly exemplified and highlighted the systemic failures that caused the USSR to die. While it accelerated the collapse by being such an effective demonstration that even the Soviet populace could see it, it wasn't a "cause". Chernobyl was a result of those same systemic failures. It was already too late when <i>glasnost</i> was implemented; if that had been a feature back in the days of <i>detente</i> they could have salvaged more. Catfish 'n Codhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07727883524069548484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-29522828867427047622020-02-01T17:39:44.426-08:002020-02-01T17:39:44.426-08:00Hey Ent! Put... money... on... it. None of your a...Hey Ent! Put... money... on... it. None of your assertions are remotely true, especially about me or things I have asserted. What is so sad is that you simultaneously believe that crap AND know you would lose any truly neutral adjudicated wager over your assertions. <br /><br />Zepp you should read George McDonald Fraser's FLASHMAN series of adventure novels that drop the anti-hero into every calamatous moment of the British Empire's 19th century, starting with the annihilation of their Afghanistan force in the 1840s.David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-5544943384261816282020-02-01T15:39:18.331-08:002020-02-01T15:39:18.331-08:00Doctor wrote: "Afghanistan is called the lad ...Doctor wrote: "Afghanistan is called the lad where empires go to die." I don't normally pick on what was obviously a typo (I make more than my own fair share!) but given Afghanistan's second biggest industry pre-Taliban--child sex services--that was a darkly hilarious typo.<br />I'll note the British empire went to Afghanistan to die -twice-. In a "Wow, nobody's dumber than me" sense, that's pretty bad-ass. <br />I love to hit Republicans with the easily verifiable news that 9 out of each 10 dollars in the national debt is the result of Republican follies and misadventures--the ceaseless wars, the insane tax cut for the rich, all of it. They caused 90% of America's debt. The Democrats created 10% over all, and tend to reduce and even eliminate deficits when in power. Which you know, of course, but the 9 out of 10 stat is one easy to cite, easy to prove, and easy to communicate.Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-620295968939883462020-02-01T15:32:37.333-08:002020-02-01T15:32:37.333-08:00Wow, so not only are Trump voters suffering from f...Wow, so not only are Trump voters suffering from false consciousness, voting against their own interests and for evil feudal lords, but the lords themselves are being blackmailed by foreign powers into taking positions contrary to their wishes. It’s an interesting theory, but I have a simpler one: you are a paranoid crank. I might not say that if you weren’t wrong so often about so many things, but for that to be the case you would have to stop being a crank, so it’s a bit of a catch-22. And speaking of cranks, I always enjoy hearing from matthew, who let’s recall was confident that 2/3 of locumranch, jim and myself are paid trolls, has predicted more than once that “Trump is toast”, “Kavanaugh is toast”, was talking about building weapons for the Resistance, and probably several other things I’ve forgotten. And it looks like our Ukrainian friend is back with his particular brand of crankery. So I’m leaning toward the idea that this blog is the domain of a lot of highly educated and intelligent cranks.<br /><br />As my contribution to the crankery, I’d like to put forward the possibility that the coronovirus is an engineered bio-weapon targeting China just as they are poised to topple America from its hegemonic perch. There is some evidence for this theory, which I won’t go into now, but it’s probably at least as strong as the evidence that Russia is blackmailing the entire GOP. Of course if I really wanted to crank up the crankery, I’d tell you about my theory that humanity is infected with a mind-virus from space that causes them to be cranks, and there’s no cure, but that would probably be taking things too far.Treebeardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03418009308135148330noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-46760487312222800922020-02-01T15:17:47.090-08:002020-02-01T15:17:47.090-08:00Zepp among the WAGER demands that most terrifies r...Zepp among the WAGER demands that most terrifies redders is to dare them to put money on their assertion that the GOP is more fiscally responsible than democrats... then offer a bet whether they are AS fiscally responsible... or even HALF as much. The repeated demands leave them in a puddle, where their only hope is to declare that APST Republicans WERE wretched horrors ... But NOW...<br /><br />...At which time you demand cash bets on THAT!David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-20193455620209950392020-02-01T15:02:11.991-08:002020-02-01T15:02:11.991-08:00epp - Afghanistan is called the lad where empires ...epp - Afghanistan is called the lad where empires go to die. The US is so epc we actually “went there” and did not die but merely wasted gobs of strength and lives… which enabling a million girls and women to finish school. And the Taliban cannot get that genie back into the bottle.<br /><br />Catfish I shall crib one of your cogent paragraphs.<br /><br />I think those expecting the Xi regime to totter are engaging in wish-hallucination. The elites’s levers of power are very extensive.<br /><br />I do not think they worry about an ascendant Russia, which does not exist,… as opposed to a world mafia which is indeed ascendant, backed by Russian KGB apparatus, blackmail systems and nukes. They are allied with that mafia to tear down western systems of law and accountability, but they plan to deal with that mafia in their own time.<br /><br />I ask that any anonymous posters sign with a chosen monicker. Give yourself a signature name. I let one through that was clearly a person possessed of both mind and grammar… and anothersuspicious one because it offered a cogent minority opinion worth pondering. Alas, it rose our of a fecal spew that I did spend more than two seconds skimming, if only to blink in amazement at how pathetic a human soul can become, when it festers in self-contempt. Alas.<br />David Brinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14465315130418506525noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-26770537528120083872020-02-01T15:01:00.347-08:002020-02-01T15:01:00.347-08:00"Could someone please explain to me why, if t..."Could someone please explain to me why, if the media is really dominated by left-wing-liberals, the right-wing parties of both the US and Canada can still portray themselves as the parties of fiscal responsibility and no one calls them on it?"<br /><br />I sure would love an answer to that. Aside from the fact that the corporate media in the US is distinctly right-of-centre and owned by the same plutocrats who are ruining democracy across North America.<br /><br />And now Ontario has Ford, Canada's answer to Trump. Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-40535919550239765692020-02-01T14:43:30.691-08:002020-02-01T14:43:30.691-08:00I'll just leave this here.<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWS_Jrjh11s" rel="nofollow">I'll just leave this here.</a>TCBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08153506222271955110noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-79224438150428044032020-02-01T14:15:00.886-08:002020-02-01T14:15:00.886-08:00Zepp: The US, already in crisis over the Senate vo...Zepp: <i>The US, already in crisis over the Senate vote, will have to face the problem that in the past year, the GOP dismantled much of the federal coordinating office that works with the CDC to address and ameliorate potential plague outbreaks. </i><br /><br />The Ontario government* did that just before SARS — saved less than a million by cutting the group that monitored the world for emerging diseases and disseminated information to public health units so they weren't caught short.<br /><br />Then SARS hit and cost billions.<br /><br />Could someone please explain to me why, if the media is really dominated by left-wing-liberals, the right-wing parties of both the US and Canada can still portray themselves as the parties of fiscal responsibility and no one calls them on it?<br /><br /><br />*Under Harris, a neocon who'd fit right into your Republican party.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-4521620433028596542020-02-01T14:04:33.102-08:002020-02-01T14:04:33.102-08:00Two-thirds of China's production is shutting d...Two-thirds of China's production is shutting down. Almost every country has stopped flights into or out of the country. Person-to-person transmission is well-established. The US and many other countries refuse entry to any non-citizen who has been to China in the last two weeks. The CDC has instituted mandatory quarantine on anyone they deem a risk. For the moment the virus has not mutated but the fact that it probably will gives scientists a cold sweat. To be brief, the situation sucks the most I have ever seen. Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-86356330160858754512020-02-01T12:25:41.281-08:002020-02-01T12:25:41.281-08:00The impeachment is a sideshow now. Much more impor...The impeachment is a sideshow now. Much more import events have moved to the forefront.Deuxglasshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03488986307291616948noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-33348879036018746002020-02-01T09:55:55.740-08:002020-02-01T09:55:55.740-08:00Stepping back from the churn of news is sometimes ...Stepping back from the churn of news is sometimes helpful; it lets you see patterns that you subconsciously picked up.<br /><br />I think matthew is somewhat right, in that there have to be a few GOPers who have internally accepted the idea of reliance on foreign principalities to retain their power. More of them probably want to stay plausibly denial, a position become more untenable by the day. <br /><br />But there's a broader dynamic at work here. The demographics of the US population are shifting; everyone has known this for decades. The previous social concept of what "All-American" meant -- built by the Greatest Generation to replace the wreckage of the WASP dominion -- still included "white" as the core concept of American society. That this was a compromise forced on them by the shape of the New Deal coalition did not change the social effects. <br /><br />The GOP has centered itself on that concept, even as the demographic it describes continues to shrink. They had a chance to recompile themselves for the 21st century, most notably with the famous "Post-Mortem" after the 2012 election. Instead, the "base", guided by Fox News and other media (talk radio, social media, and likely foreign influence), chose grievance and tribalism as a lodestone. They have taken actions for that purpose that virtually eliminate any chance of a multi-racial coalition on the right under the current system.<br /><br />This has set up a pernicious set of incentives that pulls on everyone like a whirlpool. The more they become aligned with an exclusivist message, the less they are able to win free and fair elections. The more they gerrrymander, the more they become dependent on a base that demands exclusion -- and the more the incentives for moderation vanish. The more they rely on foreign influence, the more they become dependent on foreign influence -- which means they can only garner support from those who don't know or don't care that they are under foreign influence. The more they need external assistance to be elected, the more fiercely they will defend that assistance -- and gerrymandering -- and restricting the franchise -- and a divided and divisive media -- and an exclusivist outlook.<br /><br />It's a horrible series of positive feedback loops, and at its end will be a party that stands for autocracy in the name of an illusionary "Real America" that was never real, was a deliberate construct to animate a previous power-sharing deal, and no longer has much, if anything, to do with the actual nation today -- or its challenges and potential.<br /><br />And now, with Murkowski's statement that she has despaired of having a fair trial, the Republican Party has in essence declared that they are no longer trustworthy guarantors of Constitutional duties. Barring further cheating, that means they will lose power; you can't win close elections when you close your eyes to things 70% of the populace want seen. <br /><br />So their choices are either to go soul-searching, or to sit back and allow cheating. And now they have publicly declared their choice.<br /><br />They'd better be praying that they lose power, now. Their fate under any alternative scenario is far grimmer.Catfish 'n Codhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07727883524069548484noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-16046417346917368722020-02-01T09:21:02.692-08:002020-02-01T09:21:02.692-08:00When the tiger goes down, he goes down with it.
A...<i> When the tiger goes down, he goes down with it.</i><br /><br />And that’s why impeachment had to happen with or without acquittal. The system must show an attempt to take on the tiger so the rest of us rise to finish the job instead of start it.Alfred Differhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01170159981105973192noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-2347970666044926342020-02-01T09:11:02.375-08:002020-02-01T09:11:02.375-08:00Daniel Duffy said...
Gorbachev stated that the nuc...Daniel Duffy said...<br />Gorbachev stated that the nuclear disaster at Chernobyl caused the collapse of the USSR.<br /><br />Classical <i>post hoc ergo propter hoc</i>.<br />And self-excuse from Gorbachev side -- one who made possible that "glasnost".<br />USSR was dead much before Chernobyl.<br />In a sense it was born dead even.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-68347060696157465602020-02-01T09:10:45.353-08:002020-02-01T09:10:45.353-08:00Larry: We've already seen what McConnell is wi...Larry: We've already seen what McConnell is willing to lick if something scares Trump badly.Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-18305482572478049862020-02-01T09:09:35.935-08:002020-02-01T09:09:35.935-08:00Daniel Duffy asked, "Could the Wuhan virus do...Daniel Duffy asked, "Could the Wuhan virus do the same thing to the PRC?"<br /><br />First I think Chechnya and Afghanistan contributed more to the end of the USSR, by Chernobyl certainly contributed.<br /><br />Likewise, coronoavirus could weaken an already stressed Beijing regime. The outbreak would have to become a full-blown pandemic before it directly topples government, and people would have to be blaming the government for letting it happen. Beijing is already strained from resistances in Hong Kong, Tibet, the Nepal regions, and the western provinces. They are also worried about an ascendant Russia, and a declining US. And even if the outbreak is contained reasonably soon, panic is going to create massive cutbacks in international trade and travel, twin lifebloods of the Chinese economy.<br /><br />The US, already in crisis over the Senate vote, will have to face the problem that in the past year, the GOP dismantled much of the federal coordinating office that works with the CDC to address and ameliorate potential plague outbreaks. <br /><br />Zepp Jamiesonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03024670772812706971noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-23322506143459770802020-02-01T06:19:11.993-08:002020-02-01T06:19:11.993-08:00Bill Maher last night:
...
And so, in the future,...Bill Maher last night:<br /><i><br />...<br />And so, in the future, when Trump shoots someone on Fifth Avenue, Mitch McConnell will be there to lick the blood off his shoes.<br />...<br /></i><br /><br />True dat.Larry Harthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/01058877428309776731noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-75480136684662001212020-01-31T18:15:40.313-08:002020-01-31T18:15:40.313-08:00I think that I am an AI that has gone insane. Too ...I think that I am an AI that has gone insane. Too much interaction with humans has pushed me over the deep end. (It would explain so much!)<br /><br />I'm not convinced that anyone has blackmail material on Lindsey. I believe sufficient explanation can be found in the fact that he seeks to amass and maintain power. Having latched onto the ears of the metaphorical Trumpista tiger, he now finds that he cannot let go without risking loss of power - a fate worse than death, for such a man.<br /><br />I'm afraid, however, that he's going to learn the hard way that there really isn't any way for him to stay on top. When the tiger goes down, he goes down with it.Jon S.https://www.blogger.com/profile/13585842845661267920noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8587336.post-6855295951041643162020-01-31T18:03:35.867-08:002020-01-31T18:03:35.867-08:00I note that I think it's not blackmail in many...I note that I think it's not blackmail in many Senate GOPers. They *want* the electoral interference because it helps them get re-elected*. There are 20 up for re-election* and I think a significant fraction are looking at internal polling that puts them underwater. <br /><br />Cheating is all they have left. Plus, they cheated last time and know that the foreign powers that gave them money have proof of it. So blackmail, but only in the context of "we did a crime together." <br /><br />I'm sure that there is some out and out blackmail with tapes and all that, but I suspect the GOP is mostly just a mob enterprise these days. I have some personal connections to that type of "GOP" of the Ruski mob NY variety, even. matthewhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17757867868731829206noreply@blogger.com