Despite his being there to pitch softballs for his master, Tucker Carlson was treated by Putin the same way that Donald Trump treats his lackeys - with curt contempt. A real journalist might have asked:
"Will you present evidence to a broad, impartial, international commission that Jewish President Zelensky and the several million Ukrainian volunteers who have fought you tenaciously - are Nazis? Would you go along with that commission polling large numbers of random Ukrainians, to see if they deem themselves to be Russian?"
More:
"Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn said that Ukrainians will only accept Russians as brothers after a century of gentle friendship, to ease memory of past, horrific ill-treatment.
"So, now, amid half a million deaths, 6 million buried land mines and whole cities pounded into charred dust, should Ukrainians care about your 'historical grudges' from the 13th Century?"
...and:
"You claim the West threatens you with invasion. Then why have you stripped your western borders of every military unit you can send to the front? If you claim those borders are strong, even now, shall we let a commission verify?
"Anyone with a drone can tell there's no one there, so aren't you absolutely counting on western rule-of-law to prevent the very thing you claim to fear?"
...and:
"Shall we right now agree to form such a commission, made up of Russian, Ukrainian, western and nonaligned citizens, chosen at random from old, paper telephone directories? Let them go anywhere, interview whom they like, and report to the world about your "nazi" assertions and the determination of Ukrainians, and the morale of Russian troops, and so on?"
...and:
"At minimum, would you agree to letting an interview with Joe Biden get as much free access, for 2 hours, across Russia, as you have used this one to push your messages to Western citizens? Are you brave enough to risk Russians hearing Biden? Or Kamala?"
Finally:
"You and most of the powerful men in Russia today grew up reciting Leninist catechisms, waving hammer/sickle banners, and condemning the czar and his boyars as monsters. You have many times called the end of the USSR 'History's greatest tragedy.'
"Now, you and your fellow "ex"-commissar Russian oligarchs raise statues to the same czars. You appear to have taken over the US right, just by switching a few symbols and lapel pins (plus some kompromat held by the slightly relabeled KGB.)
"For decades, the 'historical imperatives' that you pushed were Marxist, internationalist slogans about workers rising above tribalism.
"Now it's Russian hyper nationalism.
"Hence a final question:
"What line will you push, tomorrow?"
== When will the blackmail be obvious enough? ==
For more than a decade I’ve shouted that this should be obvious: that many of our elites, especially in DC and not just in the Republican Party – behave in ways that cannot be explained by corruption, or fanaticism, or stupidity alone.
It's a point that seems obvious and yet so hard to get across. So please try to grasp this: by itself, graft is satiable!
A corrupt official who has avoided leaving an evidence trail can say “That’s enough this year. Any more favors I do for you will scream for attention that I don’t want. Come back with your envelopes of cash next year.” Again, bribery alone does not explain the craven self-humiliation of so many, with Lindsey Graham and Ted Cruz only the screaming-blatant tips of the tumor.
But their craven kowtowing IS explicable, because blackmail is insatiable! The more you do for a blackmailer, the deeper they sink in their claws. Especially since Kremlin operatives -- stretching back to Stalin’s NKVD & KGB and the Czarist Checka and Okrahna -- specialized in honey traps. Luring Western officials etc. into hanky panky hotel rooms, where recordings begin that digging-in of claws.
A year or two ago, Republican Congressman Madison Cawthorn declared that his peers invited him to incredible sex orgies. He was punished for this candor with ejection from the party!
Only now, an even braver GOP lawmaker has stepped up to blow the whistle harder!
“A Tennessee Congressman warns that fellow Republicans in the House of Representatives have been lured into honeytraps with sex workers and drugs changing the way they vote…. If it's women, drugs, booze, it will find you in D.C. and in most elected offices,” said Rep. Tim Burchett. “That’s what people, power and influence do.”
(Well, after 6000 years of feudal lords & kings doing whatever they want, it’s what a large fraction of males will always be tempted to do. Though some can keep it zipped! And shall we compare rates of turpitude between the parties, Rep. Tim?)
In this other article: “As Burchett tells it, Republicans aren’t backing important efforts, such as Rep. Marsha Blackburn’s crusade for Jeffrey Epstein’s flight logs, because they’re being bullied by big backers and Russians.” Again: he attributed the biggest actors doing these "honey pots" to Russian agencies.
(Full disclosure: Mr. Burchett has been pushing for the Pentagon to make all of its information relating to unidentified aerial phenomena (UAPs) available to the public. And I am fine with that! I just doubt there’s anything much to divulge.
== Can anything be done? ==
I’ve long believed that Joe Biden could do one thing – above all others – to rescue the republic, to restore honest government and to get us rolling toward all the good things that you want. That one thing?
Even with promised pardons, it would still take real courage to answer this call. A dangerous move in half a dozen ways. And hence, Biden’s promise to treat the first few as flawed but real heroes, at last doing what their consciences should have made them do, from the start.
(I even started writing a novel based on this concept, till I realized I need a collaborator from the world of FBI procedural fiction – an area I know little about! Anyone know one?)
Oh, and let’s spice up JoBee's offer, cash inducements and a new identity for any KGB/FSB officer who brings over those Kompromat Files. That oughta light a fire under folks like Linds--- but no, I’ll leave you all to fill in the blanks.
Envision it. Sure, some prominent dems and liberals would get caught up, as well. Maybe folks in Biden’s circle. And so? What better proof of sincerity? Anyway, let's suppose that devastates the male-heavy power structure. SO? If leaves nearly all remaining politicians female, aren’t Dems ready for that, anyway?
== Get educated ==
Here’s an incredible interview from a couple of years ago, with senior members of the Mueller probe, about The Russian Connection. And don’t let the Fox narrative (“Mueller was a nothing burger!”) fool you. Just the stench-rich convictions surrounding two-time Republican national campaign manager and Putin lackey Paul Manafort - and I mean Manafort alone - swamps any total compilation of Democratic sins.
But about 20 minutes in, these experts discuss ‘kompromat’ and how prolifically Russian secret services are known to use these methods. “It happens all day, every day.”
== The real way to defeat Russian blackmail ==
Re Blackmail, honeytraps have probably been used as long as there have been rulers to compromise. But on a lighter note:
Perhaps part of the solution is to become "French" about political sex scandals that don't involve minors or abuse of power. I love the story of the French diplomat who, lured into a honeypot in a tryst hotel, is shown pictures… and he explodes in outrage!
"You call THIS photography? And from my bad side?
“My wife would be shamed on my behalf. I demand a re-do!!"
210 comments:
1 – 200 of 210 Newer› Newest»It's not always Kompromat.
Imagine you are a second-rank researcher, and you "suddenly" get invited to an "international conference" and meet other "scientists". Your ideas are praised, and more and more, your international reputation (and likely your ego) grow. You more and more become the person that "understands" the other side, and is "respected" by them. All the while, those people more critical to these benefactors could face "difficulties" in the advancement of their career.
Explained more in detail here.
I believe the formula used by John le Carré for gaining HUMINT sources and agents was MICE - Money, Ideology, Compromising Material/Blackmail, Ego.
Also, another commentary on the Tuckyo Rose interview by Beau of the Fifth Column.
Interested in fact based espionage and ungentlemanly officers and spies? Try reading Beyond Enkription. It is an enthralling unadulterated fact based autobiographical spy thriller and a super read as long as you don’t expect John le Carré’s delicate diction, sophisticated syntax and placid plots.
What is interesting is that this book is apparently mandatory reading in some countries’ intelligence agencies' induction programs. Why? Maybe because the book has been heralded by those who should know as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. Maybe because Bill Fairclough (the author) deviously dissects unusual topics, for example, by using real situations relating to how much agents are kept in the dark by their spy-masters and (surprisingly) vice versa.
The action is set in 1974 about a real British accountant who worked in Coopers & Lybrand (now PwC) in London, Nassau, Miami and Port au Prince. Simultaneously he unwittingly worked for MI6. In later books (when employed by Citicorp and Barclays) he knowingly worked for not only British Intelligence but also the CIA.
It’s a must read for espionage cognoscenti but do read some of the latest news articles in TheBurlingtonFiles website before plunging into Beyond Enkription. You'll soon be immersed in a whole new world which you won't want to exit.
See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2023_06.07.php and https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.
Dr Brin in previous comments:
"Tucker Carlson replaces George Will as the worst American."
Not even close. TC is merely an evil traitor.
I guess it depends how one defines the term. "The worst person who is an American," vs "The worst person at being an American."
If Tucker Carlson had been a real journalist, he would have never been offered that interview in the first place...
Indeed not. Carlson was there to be a propagandist for the new fascist international as led by Putin, Trump and company. Not to be a journalist.
Dwight Williams: the new fascist international
It's not even that new. The same 1984-isms, the same demagoguery, the same anti-science memes, the same mob appeal (an ever-shrinking demographic). Humanity has made great strides in the last 70 years. The British Commonwealth, Pax Americana, and the Rational West will not be so easy to defeat through trickery and propaganda. And if/when any putsch does succeed, it will only serve to awaken a sleeping giant. Only nihilists care naught for their children.
Doug S in previous comments:
If a dead person is elected President, the Vice-President Elect becomes President instead.
Not technically, although it's a distinction without a difference.
What happens is that the vice president elect is always sworn in first. So if the president elect happens to be dead, then the office is vacant, and the veep immediately ascends to the office.
Seen on my wife's Facebook. Caveat emptor, I haven't verified it...
"'Year of the dragon' is an anagram for 'Orange head to fry'".
Der Oger there are many methods of suasion that are INCREMENTAL. Bribery and corruption, for example… or, as you say, flattery can have effects. Or ideology or stupidity. But each of those can have LIMITS where the target says… ‘okay, I will not travel further down that road right now. Especially if it makes me look like an idiot!’
NONE of those explains Lindsey Graham or Ted Cruz falling to their knees and groveling a man they clearly hate, knowing they are deeply shaming and soiling themselves. But blackmail *inherently* does exactly that.
===
If a presidential candidate dies, the state slates of Electors are still on the ballot. IIf the SLATE wins, then they vote ... I have long suggested the Electoral College actually MEET somewhere, e.g. at a donated and secured resort hotel. Lots of possible outcomes.
Dr. Brin,
I've called Sen. Graham a "remora of relentless suction" before. He doesn't actually seem to distinguish between the sharks he's attaching himself to. No blackmail necessary (I mean, even 'live boy' wouldn't really be surprising).
Ted Cruz, on the other hand...I'll concede your point.
Except that the 'blackmail' might be as simple as 'you will get your *ss handed to you in the primary, and then have to work for a living" or as menacing as "you represent a state filled with unhinged gun nuts who believe everything TFG says and I have your address right here."
I doubt either of the 2 expected to be in the situation they are now in, but that's the way the frog boils.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer:
No blackmail necessary (I mean, even 'live boy' wouldn't really be surprising).
The reason I suspect blackmail on Graham's part is that he says things that contradict the other things so often that he can't fail to see how embarrassing his ass-kissing is. The only explanation is that he's afraid of something more embarrassing should he refuse.
You are correct that, for the sake of his own soul, I hope the blackmail he's warding off is more incriminating than just his choice of lifestyle. Because otherwise, I'd introduce him to a line from the Saga comic: "Do I really have to explain what a secret is?"
@Alfred Differ
Saw this tag line today on LinkedIn:
"I differ therefore I am"
It is good to see that you finally admitting the true scale of the casualties suffered by Ukraine. Casualties that were entirely preventable if the psychopaths that dominate the ruling classes of the Anglosphere had simply allowed Ukraine to negotiate a peace treaty two years ago, or better yet stopped stirring the pot in Ukraine and ceased pushing military bases closer and closer to the Russian border.
But our elite classes are in fact incapable of negotiation. Our "diplomacy" consists of our own elites negotiating with each other, then presenting the dissenting force with a set of demands that usually come down to "submit or be punished"
Then when the dissenting force refuses to accept an agreement it had no part in negotiating, punishment follows for breaking said agreement. There is a seamless continuum of behaviour we can see in how this elite class will treat some podcaster they dont like, to how they treated the truckers, to entire nations.
"submit or be punished"
If punishment fails, then it is simply doubled and redoubled until it either works or the system fails.
The idea that the dissenting force can have real grievances is never entertained. Since they opposed the so-called Liberal Consensus they must either be stupid, evil or misinformed and thus cannot make rational decisions and should therefore be ignored and outright suppressed.
In this way we end up at the current state.
As to Kompromat, by far the largest and longest running blackmail operation is not run by the Russians, but by the CIA and Mossad. That is what Epstein was a part of, an operation he was assigned to run by Les Wexner in return for being allowed to pretend he was a billionaire. The real currency of power in the English speaking world is blackmail, and everyone is blackmailing everyone else.
Maybe a reporter should ask Joe Biden where Mexico and Egypt are on a map...
I daresay he will earn his own monicker over time, but Tucker 'Yo Rose' Carlson will do for now.
The dirty nappy chappie doth project too much. Russia's casualties will exceed 400,000 in the next week or so: more than the Winter War with Finland.
... and word is out.
Russia's not the only one in the market for useful idiots, and the links from Epstein to Netanyahu via Maxwell are clear enough. As to whom Netanyahu feels more closely aligned...
Pappenheimer: “ He doesn't actually seem to distinguish between the sharks he's attaching himself to. No blackmail necessary”
I truly am an alien. Seriously, I cannot get ANY (hardly)* of my fellow sapients on this planet to even glance at the fact that graft, political ambition, even ideology are all SATIABLE. A corrupt or ambitious or even insane politician CAN say: “That’s enough for now… I can go no farther. They CANNOT do that, with blackmail. Period. The blackmailer commands “become a pure lackey of that guy you hate!” And you do so.
I BEG folks to explain why that is not obvious. No one ever does.
“Except that the 'blackmail' might be as simple as 'you will get your *ss handed to you in the primary…”
except that a freshly re-elected Senator has SIX YEARS! That is a geologic age and that’s the time to be a hero and get out of the traps. Except when you can’t, because there’s something much harder to forgive.
*Larry Hart gets it.
Gawd, dirtnapper is back. How’s the weather in Moscow, guy? Is the basement in the KGB agitprop facility still unheated?
How about you guys let Biden and Blinken and Harris get a similar 2 hour ‘interview” with similar access to the Russian public? How about evidence for the ‘nazi’ (Jewish) Ukrainian president and his people who are fighting with all their hearts NOT to be Russian?
Hey FJ… Biden saved America just by appointing 7000 skilled professionals – not a single one indicted – to replace 7000 Kremlin and oligarch shills. After doing that, he can nap all he wants! BTW JoBee made similar slips when he was 35. His opponents howled then, too. But let em both take a test, side by side!
scidata,
Yah. I've seen a lot of stuff like that. 8)
After a breakup of one of my teams trying to do useful aerospace stuff, I set a Google Alert to notifiy me if my name was being used anywhere. My former partners were a little miffed at me and I just wanted to see who might be getting an earful*. The only stuff I ever saw in the alerts, though, were phrases like that… and "I beg to differ."
My family name isn't common in the US, so I know (I think) everyone who shares it. Back in the old world the story is a little different, but I've never met any of them.
As for that phrase, chances are most people don't differ. They like to think they do. 8)
*Turns out our anger with each other cooled to a low boil pretty quickly. If someone ELSE brought up the subject we might have said something… but I never saw any of it in print.
Arrgh!
Who performed the unholy summoning ritual calling the ninja and extreme maga dudes!
Fess up!
If you don't... I'm going to re-start the long-winded conversation with Paul again delving into structure, superstructure, biological realities, and virtue ethics!
There was a rodeo rider "David Brin" who has video cutting cattle (less cruel than it sounds)! Can't find another thing so I guess he was just using me as a cover name!
Dr. Brin,
The reason I doubt a pervasive blackmail theory is that it bleeds into conspiracy theory. Has one organization - say, Russian intelligence (checking internet for this decade's 3LA - ah, SVR RF - the FSB is internal) spun a web to entrap all the politicians you see as undermining America? A majority? A selected few? We obviously disagree on which way Occam's cutting.
I have no doubt, though, that rather a large number of GQP pols are acting as if they are being run by some Moscow-based handler, and that trump is in Putin's pocket - whether through financial means, hope for help with winning the next election, or some slimier kompromat - my bet's on all three.
Alfred,
I haven't Summoned Monster V for decades. No trolls for me.
Pappenheimer
Alfred Differ:
chances are most people don't differ. They like to think they do. 8)
"You are all individuals!"
"We are all individuals!"
"You are all different!"
"We are all different!"
"I'm not."
...where Mexico and Egypt are on a map...
Egypt is right next to Aleppo.
Mexico is where that Sharpie hurricane would have continued onto after it swiped Alabama.
I'll see your two and raise you hundreds.
Cpt Simon Illyan reminisced about the ways he'd found to coerce foreign officials..."Money sex and elephants," I believe.
Pappenheimer
Pappenheimer: “The reason I doubt a pervasive blackmail theory is that it bleeds into conspiracy theory. Has one organization - say, Russian intelligence (checking internet for this decade's 3LA - ah, SVR RF - the FSB is internal) spun a web to entrap all the politicians you see as undermining America? A majority? A selected few? We obviously disagree on which way Occam's cutting.”
Jeez Alfred. Whoever said it was “just” the KGB? Blackmail is a standard coercion method going back thousands of years. Seriously. Putin co-owns the GOP with western inheritance brats, petro sheiks… but above all… casino mafiosi! Carumba. You think that combo doesn’t have motive, means and tons of opportunity?
Dig it, the State Department warns staff regularly about honey pot traps, like the Russian girls who snagged a whole squad of US Embassy Marine guards, in Moscow. Alas, those manuals and videos aren’t shared among ALL western politicians and elites starting at age 15. They should be!
But you keep evading the question of what other kind of inducement is so compulsory, insatiable and relentless that it could explain so many kowtowing to blatant humiliating demands from someone they despise and great harm to their nation.
Heh. That wasn't me. That was Pappenheimer who put two posts together in one.
Pappenheimer,
I'm fairly sure there is a high amount of kompromat available on many of our elected officials. I'm too familiar with the lazy approach many American's take to their security to believe that even a reasonably funded effort by FIA's wound't entrap many juicy targets.
I do IT work for the US Navy on contract. Simple, boring stuff mostly. Still… they DRILL us on security things like this and mention over and over AND OVER that people get caught up often enough that they just want you to come in and say so to give them a chance to kill the blackmail risk. The problem they describe is ALWAYS focused on the insatiability of blackmailers. They will use you and use you and maybe even use you up because they've got others on the hook to use after you've escalated your way into a long term prison sentence.
It only sounds like conspiracy theory to Americans because we love to believe in our own invulnerability. It's a shock when we discover we aren't… and there are a lot of FIA's who know how to use this against us.
FIA = "Foreign Intelligence Agent" but it also works as "Foreign Intelligence Asset" which is what one becomes if the blackmail snake is allowed to live.
For more than a decade Dr. Brin has shouted that this should be obvious: that many of our elites, especially in DC and not just in the Republican Party – behave in ways that cannot be explained by corruption, or fanaticism, or stupidity alone, but is best explained by blackmail, except that he imagines the wrong blackmailer as this supposedly controlled & manipulated US Republican party is so remarkably anti-Russian. And who, exactly, receives the unflinching support of both the entrenched US bureaucracy & it's bifactional ruling uniparty?
It's not Russia, btw, but Israel with Jeffry Epstein & the daughter of Robert Maxwell as probable Mossad operatives, and that there is how good conspiracy theory is done & why the full Epstein Client list will never be released.
Best
_____
I've never competed & only rode warm-up, but 'Cutting' is a gentleman's sport wherein the highly trained horse heads, turns & herds the steer without inflicting either contact or injury upon said cattle and, once the horse engages its target, the rider never touches the reins but controls the animal with his knees & weight.
Alfred,
USAF security training emphasized much the same stuff - like mentioning those Marine Embassy Guards in Moscow a few decades past, who did something nearly harmless - just stupid - and who were reeled in deeper and deeper. If they'd reported the situation at once, they would have been fine.
What I'm trying to say is even more disheartening - these GQP types no longer need to be entrapped. They've downed the Flavor-Ade, and they'll do what trump tells them. The sex rings and extra money* you posit? Those are just perks - look at "Justice" Thomas. He doesn't need to disavow the costly gifts and benefits. They are out in plain sight.
Actually, I hope you are both right, because that might mean this is fixable. Unfortunately, I'm a glass half empty guy this weekend.
Pappenheimer
*I wonder if anyone HAS been bribed with elephants...
Tucker is a bigger traitor than Benedict Arnold.
Dr Brin
the fact that graft, political ambition, even ideology are all SATIABLE
And there is the rub! - our system always ends up with INSATIABLE people in charge - the others - the sane people - drop out before that point
Nah. Benedict Arnold proved he was a man on the field of battle and THEN turned on other proven men.
Tucker is a coward who wants to be recognized as a man.
My point is you have to be loyal to something bigger than yourself, demonstrate courage, and THEN abandon your loyalty before I'm inclined to grant the label 'Traitor'.
Trump doesn't qualify either, so I tend to think of him and a few of the other Fox pundits as betrayers.
------
Pappenheimer,
Perhaps... but I think they were at first and failed to understand the danger. Well trained handlers can do that with fools who think themselves invulnerable. They boil the frog slowly.
The guys who train us are careful not to rely too much on examples from any one country. They all do this to us including allies. Back when I was working with one of our aerospace start-ups I got to talk to one of our potential intelligence customers who explained the routine France uses involving Atlantic flights. Oops. We lost your reservation. Oh... our mistake! Let us bump you to first class to make it up to you! (Of course the seat is bugged for the purpose of industrial espionage.) I was told to keep my trap shut and leave ALL my electronics at home. 8)
------
ALfred,
Yeah, there were things in our weather office in PSAB that we weren't to show allied aircrew - particularly the French. We briefed certain...reconnaissance aircraft...occasionally*.
*If this is still classified from @ 2005, I'd be surprised, but whatever.
Pappenheimer
P.S. agree about Tucker vs Benedict. Tucker might aspire to be a Quisling, but he's more like a Clement Vallandigham. Not even worth imprisoning. Lincoln just shipped Clement off to his glorious Confederacy. If it came down to it, we could do the same to Tuck-Tuck.
Heh. The default declassification duration on records is 25 years nowadays. It's easy to make it longer, but that gets applied retroactively if anything is unclear on old docs.
So... you might still have some time to go if you want to explain exactly where the clouds were. Even then, there is that oh-so-enjoyable process for making something actually releasable.
-----
I accidentally got some folks at JPL's archive to declassify program documents regarding the Halley Rendezvous project. I asked for them and they thought I meant I wanted them bad enough to force a review of whether they still had to be classified. They dutifully went through the effort while I had moved on thinking my request landed in the trash. A few months later they arrived and I got a snootful of learning done about what happens when programs run out of money before the docs get written. 8)
It can be done legally, but it isn't as simple as Two Scoops wants everyone to believe it is.
Listening in on this discussion of entrapment, and the role of (in)satiability.
I wonder how much of a role the 'Stockholm Syndrome' plays.
Alfred Differ:
so I tend to think of him and a few of the other Fox pundits as betrayers.
Just recognize that that's what most other people mean by "traitor".
* * *
Pappenheimer:
look at "Justice" Thomas. He doesn't need to disavow the costly gifts and benefits. They are out in plain sight.
Thomas is a special case. If you've seen recent news, it looks more like he's the one doing the extortion. Knowing that he was put on the court to be a right-wing vote, he let it be known that he was dissatisfied with the salary and was considering leaving the court for a lucrative private sector gig. Lo and behold, the expensive gifts came rolling in.
His vote isn't being bought. It's being sold.
Pappenheimer:
agree about Tucker vs Benedict. Tucker might aspire to be a Quisling, but he's more like a Clement Vallandigham.
It's all well and good to insult Tucker, but in the meantime, he's influencing millions of voters. His effect is worse than Benedict Arnold's.
Not even worth imprisoning. Lincoln just shipped Clement off to his glorious Confederacy. If it came down to it, we could do the same to Tuck-Tuck.
Too bad President Biden isn't the dictator that right-wing media claims. He should have repudiated Tucker's passport while he was in Moscow and left him stranded there.
Worse than hack fiction...
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/trump-republicans-immigration.html
...
Under Trump, the G.O.P. is less a governing party and more an ongoing entertainment complex. It doesn’t have supporters; it has audience members. The Trump show has certain story lines: Washington is an unholy mess that will never get anything right. America is in chaos. Joe Biden is an inflexible left-wing radical who will never tack to the middle. Only Trump can save us. Passing this [ immigration/foreign aid ] package would have upended all these narratives. The package had to be destroyed in order to save the story.
They [ Republican voters ] have eyes, but do not see...
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/06/opinion/thepoint#immigration-bill-failure
...
“‘If you try to move a bill that solves the border crisis during this presidential year, I will do whatever I can to destroy you,’” [ Oklahoma Senator James ] Lankford said, quoting the commentator. “‘Because I do not want you to solve this during the presidential election.’ By the way, they have been faithful to their promise, and have done everything they can to destroy me in the past several weeks.”
...
The MAGA-style threat to destroy Lankford is an important reminder of something that is becoming more visible by the day: Trump isn’t running for another term in order to limit immigration. Neither are his Republican colleagues. They are simply using immigration as a political vehicle to hold power.
For a while it looked like Mitch McConnell, the Senate Republican leader, understood that and would fight for the policy. But he capitulated to the crowd, as he has often done. And as that crowd blindly followed Trump, only Lankford, Mitt Romney, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski stayed behind, naïvely asking: Hey, folks, isn’t this something we used to care about?
Re: [GOP] doesn’t have supporters; it has audience members
There could be an opportunity here. Dangle (via TV ads) the epic spectacle of dozens of rich, famous, powerful alpha males being frog walked off to prison (no dictates req'd). Closely followed by a sudden burst of prosperity, expansion, and enlightenment "like nobody's ever seen before".
And popcorn for everyone.
scidata:
Dangle (via TV ads) the epic spectacle ...
Funny, I just recently watched a Netflix movie called Mank, referring to the film writer Herman Mankiewicz who (if the film is accurate) wrote the screenplay for Citizen Kane, despite credit given to Orson Welles.
The main plot, taking place in 1941, involves the how and why of Mank writing that script. But there's a backstory in flashbacks to the 1930s that revolves in large part around MGM Studios, under Louis B Mayer and at the behest of William Randolph Hearst, putting their thumb on the scales of the 1934 California governor's race and turning public sentiment against candidate Upton Sinclair with radio spots and "newsreels" that today we would recognize as fake news.
If only the entertainment industry's power could be used for good instead of evil.
To be clear, I'm not suggesting fake news. Only a preview of the course history would take without any hokery-pokery or extrajudicial dictates.
https://news.yahoo.com/cnn-cuts-away-laughing-trump-151011415.html
The inversion here seems to be complete, as brave 'real journalists' like Jake Tapper mockingly act as censors & refuse to report on actual occurrences, while yucky bad 'fake journalist traitors' like Tucker Carlson attempt to interview & report on the very real personalities who actually drive world events.
This is anti-science, the Left's increasingly insane attempt to fit the facts into their preferred & preconceived narrative, rather than altering their theoretical narrative to fit a growing multiplicity of unpleasant facts.
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/01/27/is-the-journalism-death-spasm-finally-here-00138187
From the daily newspaper to TV network programming, the western news industry is dead & dying because actual journalism has tapped out, having been subsumed into a Noam Chomsky 'Manufacturing Consent' command & control structure designed to manipulate the western public into obedience, conformity with & compliance to an arbitrary & unelected managerial class, triggering narrative collapse as these official truths are increasingly revealed as lies.
What's coming cannot & will not be stopped by bigger and better narration, despite the fevered wishes & hopes of our fine host, so we best prepare ourselves before this fit hits the shan.
Best
Once a father and his young son were aboard a ship. Dad found the lad repeatedly throwing a paper airplane at an open porthole, missing, and trying again. The boy said to his father, "Try to throw this airplane through that porthole." The man aimed, threw, and the airplane flew straight through. The boy started to cry. Dad asked why, and the lad said, "I told you to try to do it, not to do it!"
I offer this anecdote as a metaphor for Trump and the GOP failing to pass immigration reform. Trump told the GOP to try to fix the border, not to fix it!
Just a question:
If the US and another nation, say, Russia, were entering a state of war with each other, would the actions of Tucker Carlson, TFG, bribed/blackmailed politicians etc prior to this event count as "giving aid and comfort to the enemy"? Or only if they continued?
And, IIRC, the president can declare war, and only needs approval of congress if it lasts 60 days or longer. If he declared a war lasting, say, 2 seconds, would that give DoJ the option to indict supporters of foreign states of treason?
But you keep evading the question of what other kind of inducement is so compulsory, insatiable and relentless that it could explain so many kowtowing to blatant humiliating demands from someone they despise and great harm to their nation.
Do they despise or secretly envy or praise them?
Do they care for their nation? Or do they just care for their personal political career, or, in the case of media companies, for clicks and revenue? Outrage farming is, after all, a more profitable and addictive enterprise than journalism with integrity.
And then there is, mentioned elsewhere by you, the point of exhaustion, the final line those people would not cross - what if this line is pushed outwards time and again ? (I have seen that with vocal supporters of "diplomacy" in the Ukraine War.)
Alfred sorry about the name mixup. In EARTH I talk about ‘secrets caching, where there is a nonlinear rise in how much you must PAY$ for each added year before the secret expire. Govts get a lot for free at first but it starts rising after 5 years and fast after 10.
I forgot about “Two Scoops”! I’ll try again to spread that!
Tony Fisk said...”Listening in on this discussion of entrapment, and the role of (in)satiability.
I wonder how much of a role the 'Stockholm Syndrome' plays.”
Absolutely! We need to think well of ourselves. Many of the blackmailed start rationalizing they are on the right side. Some of the Marine guards became commies!
LH: I’ve often said that by their EFFECTS (‘fruits’) people scale differently Elon is stilla a way-big hero. And BenedictA. SAVED the Revolution 3 times before fumbling badly, trying to betray it.
“If only the entertainment industry's power could be used for good instead of evil.” Hwood messages of SoA (Suspicion of authority), tolerance, diversity, personal eccentricity all helped make you who you are. Alas, bad-side messages: Never trust an institution… and my neighbors are all sheep.
Reacting to L’s first remark about blackmail…
I am seriously wondering if locumranch should bottle whatever water he’s now drinking. While it was fanatical and cultish, it was only jabbering-WRONG in the lack of one word. Shoulda been “It's not ONLY Russia,” since the fact of RF use of enticement traps and other blackmail is so thoroughly documented and attested that my wager offer is whether I could cite a THOUSAND cases already in the public record.
But if “ONLY” were inserted, then he’s offered an assertion that – at SOME level – is at least aimed in a direction that has SOME pertinence to stuff that’s actually going on.
Wow. Drink more.
Alas, his second was a bit of a reversion. I choked a bit over his use of ‘science’ while refusing – like all members of his cult – ever to wager over objectively testable/falsifiable facts. Still... much less-jibbery than the past.
Paradoc’s paper airplane metaphor… terrific. I’ll use it.
Paradoctor:
Trump told the GOP to try to fix the border, not to fix it!
Almost. He told them to only fix the border when he personally could take credit. Thanks to Trump, the Republican Party now feels that they should prevent any problem-solving on the watch of a Democratic president. They cause a failure, but Biden gets the blame for that failure.
The problem is that the strategy seems to work for them. People are willing to vote for Sideshow Bob rather than the mayor who is so weak on crime he let Sideshow Bob out of prison.
Der Oger,
We generally object to back-dating crimes for which a prosecutor seeks an indictment. Even if a grand jury will grant one, the following jury gets told by defense lawyers that it wasn't a crime when...
That doesn't mean a social judgement (court of public opinion) or some kind of civil judgement (easier conviction rules) won't come into play.
------
Our Presidents don't actually declare war. Congress does that. Even when they move troops and engage in hostilities, it isn't technically a war until Congress says so. Congress doesn't like doing that as it grants powers to the President and curtails theirs.
------
Treason is damn near impossible to prove here in the US. We set a very high bar regarding witnesses and intent. Makes sense if you recall how much we despised Kings and the attitude that opposition to your King's policy was an act of disloyalty... thus treason. It's the one crime defined in the Constitution... so defined by men who used to live under a King.
Yes, it's quite disconcerting to realize that the person in the US who can initiate nuclear hostilities (without limit) can't actually declare war. It's a piece of Cold War craziness that still exists, following from MAD doctrine.
Treason is tough to prove, but sedition less so. For one thing, sedition does not require a state of war to exist. There has been, however, a tug of war between the 1st amendment and the various Sedition and Espionage acts over the course of US history - generally the right to free speech gets tossed overboard in a crisis, then hauled back in during the thermidor.
Pappenheimer
@ Alfred, Pappenheimer:
Thank you!
In his latest Atlantic article, David Brooks, our host’s “favorite” American warns that “doomsaying can become a self-fulfilling prophecy.”
I learned that I shouldn’t be pessimistic about Trump because “The more you contribute to the culture of depressive negativity, the more likely Trump’s reelection becomes.”
This passage really spoke to me.
“In the substantial literature on how happiness intersects with ideology, one of the most robust findings is that conservatives are happier than progressives. That’s long been explained by the fact that conservatives are more likely to be married and to attend church, two activities that correlate with higher happiness levels. (Also, it could be that true conservatives, by definition, are more content with the status quo.)”
I discovered today that I am a true conservative! I feel so happy now! I’m married, attend church (once every three years or so, to make my mother happy when I visit) and I give the Biden administration passing marks for its handling of the economy, which means I'm content with the status quo. I also love elephants. You can make paper out of their poop. Donkeys remind me of Geometry class and ambiguous triangles.
Slim Moldie:
I learned that I shouldn’t be pessimistic about Trump because “The more you contribute to the culture of depressive negativity, the more likely Trump’s reelection becomes.”
I grant what you're saying, but I have a real problem with "I must believe X because bad things will happen if I don't." That way lies dogmatism.
“In the substantial literature on how happiness intersects with ideology, one of the most robust findings is that conservatives are happier than progressives. That’s long been explained by the fact that conservatives are more likely to be married and to attend church, two activities that correlate with higher happiness levels. (Also, it could be that true conservatives, by definition, are more content with the status quo.)”
IMHO, the parenthetical is much closer to reality than Brooks is willing to credit. People who like things as they are are more likely to be happy than people wanting change. That's almost a tautology.
I can see that people in a good marriage would trend happier than those who aren't. But I also would guess that people (trapped) in a bad marriage would be less happy than even their single counterparts. And I can't buy that church attendance correlates positively with happiness. Before COVID*, I got the idea that most men anyway went to church because their wives and mothers demanded it. The attitude of Homer Simpson returning home on Superbowl Sunday, "Ahh, the time of the week furthest from having to go back to church!" was a common one.
* During the COVID lockdowns was the first time I heard that children were lamenting not being able to go to school or church. Where are these children coming from?
Larry,
"I must believe X because bad things will happen if I don't." That way lies dogmatism.
It's more than that.
I've never agreed with out host on Brooks as the outright (worst) American. But I get where he's coming from. Brooks dilutes the drink he's serving you with lot of dull, head-nodding agreeable statements that he uses to deliver the poison.
Which is what I facetiously expressed in "I learned that I shouldn’t be pessimistic about Trump because “The more you contribute to the culture of depressive negativity, the more likely Trump’s reelection becomes.”
It's the insidious type of rationale used to keep someone in an abusive relationship.
Apologizes for confusion. When I read the David Brooks article it reminded me of George Will. And after that I mixed up David Brooks and George Will as "Worst American."
I don't believe our host ever called David Brooks by that :)
The attitude of Homer Simpson returning home on Superbowl Sunday, "Ahh, the time of the week furthest from having to go back to church!" was a common one.
During my childhood, it was custom for my rural relatives to "go to the small church after attending the big church" in the time between end of the mass and lunch. I suspect, as churches grew emptier each year even there, alcoholism rates and deaths by vehicle accidents dropped.
* During the COVID lockdowns was the first time I heard that children were lamenting not being able to go to school or church. Where are these children coming from?
I assume that it wasn't about school and church, but about the need to meet other human beings in person. I have no exact numbers, but I have read that during the lockdowns, domestic violence incidents and the number of children and adolescents suffering from disorders and substance abuse rose, contrary to the trend in the years before.
NONE of Geo F Will's politics comes from unsapient reflexes and I much doubt blackmail. His continued - brilliantly-expressed - excuse-making for the madness and treason consuming his movement, transforming it into a cult - has been like the character in Vonnegut's MOTHER NIGHT who soothingly on radio just arely kept some saner Germans from offing Hitler. It is deliberate and eyes-open choice. And hence the Worst American.
Here's the Brooks mea culpa: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/08/opinion/trump-republicans-immigration.html?action=click&module=RelatedLinks&pgtype=Article
Dr Brin:
like the character in Vonnegut's MOTHER NIGHT who soothingly on radio just arely kept some saner Germans from offing Hitler. It is deliberate and eyes-open choice.
Worse, because Howard W Campbell was secretly broadcasting coded messages out of Berlin to the Allies. His propaganda was in the service of getting him a German broadcast in the first place.
Of course, as his German father-in-law pointed out at war's end, even though Campbell was a double agent, his broadcasts had done as much damage as if he had been a true Nazi. Or as Vonnegut himself explained, "You are who you pretend to be, so be careful who you pretend to be."
Well, I don't know how many candid views I've already missed, but I intend to take a drink every time Taylor Swift appears on the screen.
Anyone can source this? Hint: the 1960s Weird Al.
"My Zelda...
My Zelda...
My Zelda she took the money and ran to see Taylor!"
Okay, very slightly changed to fit today... ;-)
Alan Sherman. "My Son, The Folk Singer."
So, if Stockholm Syndrome is part of a blackmail coping strategy, I wouldn't be surprised if astute 'anglers' make use of it to guide their catches.
The Gop and Trump remind me of a (Turkish?) saying I came across recently:
"Turn a clown into a king, and you turn the court into a circus."
Mind you, Zelensky has proven to be a counter-example. (In happier times, Zelensky voiced Paddington for the movie's Ukrainian release. As I've always thought Liz to have been an astute political observer, I've always wondered about the sub-text in her final jubilee skit)
Addendum to my "epic spectacle" thought.
The mainstream media is trying to keep it a close horse race (maximizing viewership) by both sides-ing everything. An obvious example: every time DT makes a devastating/psychotic/dangerous gaffe, they're compelled to say something derogatory about old Joe. Hopefully, they will soon learn that calling the circus for what it is can be equally or even more entertaining (profitable).
scidata:
The mainstream media is trying to keep it a close horse race (maximizing viewership) by both sides-ing everything.
I noticed that as early as the 2008 primaries between Obama and Hillary. Every time one or the other was ahead by 5% or so, the news coverage suddenly turned against that candidate, and he/she could do no wrong. Until the new candidate was too far ahead, and then "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
* * *
As of the start of the third quarter, whoever is rigging the Super Bowl for Taylor Swift's guy is doing a piss poor job of it.
Obviously, I meant "and he/she could do no right. Until...
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/02/completely-batshit-things-from-trump.html
...
I'm not saying that Biden isn't old. I'm not saying that age isn't a legitimate topic. But I am saying that it fucking stinks to go after Biden for it because he talks softly and moves stiffly while not bothering to give the same treatment to Trump because he screeches like a castrated goat and undulates around the stage in a weird dance that just looks like he's jacking off two men.
Of course, one reason for this is that some Democrats are going along with the age freakout over Biden. Meanwhile, no matter how shit-scrawling insane Trump gets, his MAGA cretins will lap it up like they're in a tub in Saltburn.
The bulk of the post is about all the weird s*** that Trump says at speeches that doesn't ge nearly the derisive coverage of one of President Biden's much lesser msstatememts. Here's one example:
5. The fetishism of objects or the concentration on looks is prominent throughout, but, mostly, why the fuck is he talking about the goddamn desk? "Very smart people surround the resolute desk. It's the most beautiful desk. When you are president, they allow you to take your desk--pick your desk. They have these unbelievable desks. It had a tremendous history of presidents behind it. He had the same desk. I think he took it because he likes me so much. He said, 'I want the same desk as President Trump had.'" I shit you not, this is not the only time in the speech he talks about desks. He has a whole thing about moving a desk outside to sign executive orders, in the middle of talking about where a desk is in the White House. You wanna talk about being old and out of it? This right here.
The Headline of the main post:
Tucker's Mother of all (softball) Interviews
I'm not sure if you intentionally put "Mother" and "Tucker" together there, but it is appropriate.
Hey, whatever happens in overtime, it's been an exciting game.
Kelce is gettin' some tonight!
“very real personalities who actually drive world events”
Too bad he couldn’t have interviewed bin Laden, who was an Extremely Real personality.
Too bad he couldn’t have interviewed bin Laden, who was an Extremely Real personality.[Alan_B]
John Miller actually interviewed Bin Laden in 1998, 3 years before 9/11; Barbara Walters interviewed Muammar al-Gaddafi, Fidel Castro, Yasser Arafat, Vladimir Putin & many others; and Nate Thayer interviewed mass murder Pol Pot.
But, here's the thing:
ALL of these reporters were once CELEBRATED for interviewing all of these evil dictators and NONE of these reporters was ever labelled 'traitor' for giving these villains a voice (and/or a platform to spread their propaganda) BECAUSE this is what real reporters once did until the news media became the West's propaganda arm as revealed by Carl Bernstein's landmark expose in Rolling Stone on Project Mockingbird, and such 'consent manufacturing' tactics continue, as evidenced by the Biden Administration's ongoing attempts to censor & control social media platforms.
We are ruled by liars, fabulists & other narrators.
Best
Nate who? Celebrated?
Ms Walters kind of made it her signature to interview controversial people. If Carlson is trying to follow her path, he has a VERY over-inflated sense of his previous successes.
Larry,
Obviously, I meant "and he/she could do no right.
I think your drinking game must have worked out well.
"Gawd, dirtnapper is back. How’s the weather in Moscow, guy? Is the basement in the KGB agitprop facility still unheated?"
I havent a clue Dr. Brin. I live in Canada. But I notice you confirm the idea that a rational person could not possibly disagree with the liberal consensus that you represent and must in some way be compromised.
...a rational person could not possibly disagree with their own lying eyes and must in some way be compromised.
Fixed it.
Well, duh that Trump would perceive NATO as a means of extracting tribute rather than a mutual protection treaty.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Feb12-1.html
NATO experts are saying that Trump has fundamentally misunderstood the value of NATO to the U.S. It is not about pay to play. It is about protecting the U.S. from World War III that could originate in Europe.
NONE of the journalists you mention is/was a blatant demagogue—as Tucker is.
He even asked the insipid question, “does Putin eat dogs?”
Hopefully, they will soon learn that calling the circus for what it is can be equally or even more entertaining (profitable).
Well ... we currently have a media feud that nearly ended with the suicide of a leading editor, and involves a new far-right outlet founded by a billionaire and headed by a former Springer chief editor sacked for being a sexual predator (and most likely a cocain abuser), a plagiate hunter for profit*, moles who infiltrate each other's redactions, and a megaton of hate posts on social media.
(And that is just last week).
It's a circus, but the original Roman one, were the crowd cheered when someone got eaten by a lion or stabbed by a fellow gladiator.
*Once, a doctor title in any field was a guaranteed career boost, being it in politics or business. During the early 2010s, internet cooperatives sprang up, checking dissertations for plagiarism, citation and other formal errors. Their research led to the loss of a couple of doctor titles, and a number of politicians resigned from their posts.
https://news.yahoo.com/fox-news-tucker-carlson-asks-003841982.html
(He doesn’t, because he’d be a cannibal if he did.)
WTF? And we're supposed to be worried about Biden's mental state?
https://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2024/02/completely-batshit-things-from-trump.html (redux)
Okay, this is just fucking weird. A total aside that has no context in the speech: "If you are a violent criminal today, if you kill people nothing happens. But if you are a religious person of a certain faith, you get persecuted. And I don't know what's going on with Catholics. But Catholics are getting treated very badly. What the hell is going on with Catholics? And yet we got 88% of the evangelical vote, but only 50% of the Catholic vote. We should get 110% of the Catholic vote. What are they doing to Catholics?" I mean, what the fucking fuck is this even?
Paul Krugman agrees with me...
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/02/06/opinion/thepoint#krugman-biden-age
...
As it happens, I had an hourlong off-the-record meeting with Biden in August. I can’t talk about the content, but I can assure you that he’s perfectly lucid, with a good grasp of events. And outside of that personal experience, on several occasions when I thought he was making a serious misjudgment — like his handling of the debt ceiling crisis — he was right, and I was wrong.
And my God, consider his opponent. When I listen to Donald Trump’s speeches, I find myself thinking about my father, who died in 2013 (something else I had to look up). During his last year my father suffered from sundowning: He was lucid during the day but would sometimes become incoherent and aggressive after dark. If we’re going to be doing amateur psychological diagnoses of elderly politicians, shouldn’t we be talking about a candidate who has confused Nikki Haley with Nancy Pelosi and whose ranting and raving sometimes reminds me of my father on a bad evening?
So to everyone who’s piling on Biden right now, stop and look in the mirror. And ask yourself what you are doing.
What a study in contrasts. Locumranch seems to get better by the day! His latest was not insane or a strawman, but an assertion backed by argument! True, it's a WRONG argument, ignoring Tucker C's spectacularly Kremlin-shill history, his vehement tsunami of falsehoods and his softballing his Puin master. Still it's almost... coherent.
In contrast, if dirtnap isn't a Kremlin servant then he's a lackey. Yeah righ. It's our fault there's a war, by helping a hugely outnumbered victim stand up... with stunning courage and tenacity ... to a ferociously evil and murderous bully who is daily devastating a country they claim to be 'liberating' from never proved 'nazis.'
Riiiight. Whatever, Ivan.
Sorry, I meant "his Puta master..."
Dr Brin:
Yeah righ. It's our fault there's a war,...
I'm not clear what the right-wing shills have to gain by trying to convince us that what we saw with our own eyes is not true, and that if we assert that it is true, then we're the delusional ones. I saw Jan 6 unfold for hours on tv. I've heard and seen (video) reports from actual people in Ukraine who know the region and can explain what's going on there. Some troll who would lambaste any liberal for complaining about America doesn't get to pretend that their cockamamie story is the real truth and anyone else is lying.
Even more pathetic are the ones who desperately trying to get us to buy into a belief about something that we'll all know the outcome to in a very short time. Like, "The war will be over in four days." Same with "The world will end on October whateverth of this year." Or "JFK Jr will parachute down to our Q-Anon rally and announce that he's Trump's pick for vice president." It's not even a question of plausibility. It's a question of: In the very near future we'll all know the right answer, so all this persuasion in advance isn't worth spit.
There is a good chance that SCOTUS will (corruptly) delay the Smith trial until after Nov. One of the few things that might change that is for DT to demand loyalty from 'his' justices, thus demeaning them. Guess what he'd doing.
Similarly, Taylor Swift has not and may not fully embrace and campaign for JB. One of the few things that might change that is for DT to lecture the little lady that she owes all her success to him! Yup, he said that. Has he ever listened to any TS lyrics??
LH. that is why I use wager demands to make the raving-cultist cowards flee. Despite their macho preening, not one has EVER had the balls or manly guts to escrow major $$ stakes to back up fact-falsifiable ravings.
Just getting all her Swifties to register to vote will do plenty Dhe should also ask some of them to volunteer as poll workers.
Scidata,
SCROTUS has bent already. I have no doubt they'll bend further. Frog done boiled.
TS? Saving the US is not in her job description. Though, it would be nice if she did.
2024, 2028, 2032...it's like the IRA told the Queen so long ago. "We only have to be lucky once." Sooner or later we will get a RWNJ president who has been shown the way to never have to worry about losing his job again.
Pappenheimer
P.S. Totally off topic, there is a naval warfare YT that describes in detail the problem the US Navy had identifying correcting its defective MK XIV torpedo problem. On one mission a US sub happened to jam the rudder and disable the screws of a Japanese supply ship with its first (dud) torpedo, and then spent the rest of the day launching its remaining complement of fish at the sitting duck at various ranges, getting nothing but "clunk" with each hit. It still took far too long to get Ordnance to actually even admit to the problem.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eQ5Ru7Zu_1I
The Senate passed a Ukraine/Israel/Taiwan aid bill over Trump objections. But many Republicans don't even know what they want.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/us/politics/senate-ukraine-aid.html
“A literal invasion is coming across our border,” Senator Rand Paul, Republican of Kentucky, said on the floor on Monday. “And all they had time to do in the Senate was get the money, get the cash pallets, load the planes, get the champagne ready and fly to Kyiv.”
Where to begin??? First of all, no one is sending pallets of cash to Kyiv the way you guys used to do in Iraq. The money is to be spent at US factories building weapons to send to Ukraine.
More to the point, though, you could have had the bill that included money for the border and you guys voted it down. I know American voters have short memories, but that hasn't even left our short-term memory yet.
Other Republicans argued that it was folly to send Ukraine more tens of billions of dollars, questioning whether Kyiv could ever get the upper hand against Russia.
Mr. Putin is “an evil war criminal, but he will not lose,” said Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, adding that “the continuation of this war is destroying Ukraine.”
The Russian asset who is Ron Johnson would doubtless have voted against aiding George Washington's army for the same reason. George III will not lose. I'm sure he was just as certain that the war would be over in days. The time to try discouraging us to ever get involved in this doomed cause was back then. At this point, he and his ilk have got to be embarrassed about being wrong all the time.
Notably absent from the Republican "yea" votes was Lindsey (Never Met A War I Didn't Like) Graham. Go figure.
I get that these guys now love Putin, but don't they still hate China and Iran? If Johnson is correct and Putin can't lose, then this bill should be a win-win for them. We back Taiwan and Israel, and it doesn't matter what we do for Ukraine? But they're not only autocrats, they're fucking idiots as well. And yes, that's me saying "fucking" even though I never say that. Because I can't believe how much I hate Republicans right now, and hate them even more for making me into a hater.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Feb13-1.html
House Democrats do have one potential option to force Johnson's hand. If they band together and can get three or four Republicans (depending on who wins the special election in NY-03 today) to sign a discharge petition, they can force a bill to the floor for a vote. Johnson and Trump will be extremely angry if they try this, but at this point, the Democrats probably don't care. And actually, thought he could not say it publicly, Johnson might be happy to be overruled like this. Them, this hot potato would be off his desk, and yet he could say to Trump "Hey, wasn't me!"
If Johnson caves to public pressure and brings the bill up for a vote, Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) has promised to introduce a motion to vacate the chair. On the other hand, if he doesn't, someone else, possibly a Democrat, could bring up a motion to vacate the chair. It won't be long before Johnson is thinking: "Why did I even try to get this lousy job?"
Well, duh.
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Feb13-2.html
Trump Appeals to Supreme Court
No, at this point, I really don't think he does. :)
Wait, are you...effing...kidding me?!
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/12/us/politics/senate-ukraine-aid.html
And in a memo to colleagues, Senator J.D. Vance, Republican of Ohio, suggested that the entire bill was designed to compromise Mr. Trump’s ability to cut off aid to Kyiv in the future should he win the election.
“The supplemental represents an attempt by the foreign policy blob/deep state to stop President Trump from pursuing his desired policy,” Mr. Vance wrote, adding that Democrats were trying to “provide grounds to impeach him and undermine his administration.”
So the argument here is that it's important to oppose the actual president's desired policy in order to insure that if Trump gets elected, it's not difficult for him to carry out what might be his foreign policy?
Why not just come out and say "I suggest a new strategy, R2. Let The Donald win." This is taking too long.
Larry Hart said...
"I'm not clear what the right-wing shills have to gain by trying to convince us that what we saw with our own eyes is not true, and that if we assert that it is true, then we're the delusional ones."
They aren't trying to convince us, they are programming their supporters.
if The Claw does win in November,
a general strike might be in order.
—
https://www.indy100.com/science-tech/bennu-asteroid-lost-ocean-world
"stretching back to Stalin’s NKVD & KGB and the Czarist Checka and Okrahna"
should be
"stretching back to Stalin’s NKVD & KGB, Lenin's Cheka and the Czarist Okhrana"
Trump has just cost American companies Billions of dollars
European countries buy hundreds of billions of dollars worth of equipment from US companies
But with a presidential contender saying that AND his party supporting him the people who buy that equipment will be looking for NON American suppliers
Saying that as in - America will not support a NATO country - and encouraging Putin to attack
The Poles are starting to look at US Military in Poland as a potential enemy not an ally
duncan cairncross:
Trump has just cost American companies Billions of dollars
He'll blame it on Biden. After all, everything bad that happens is the fault of the current president, right?
History doesn't repeat, but it rhymes. Greece expired, but the West eventually flourished. Rome flamed out and faded away, but Charlemagne and Europe rose from the ashes. Toppling the USA (which is much harder than brain-wormed fascists think it is) wouldn't erase Pax Americana. Too many allies, too many books and movies.
Sure enough. Mike Johnson metaphorically kills his parents and then complains of being an orphan.
“House Republicans were crystal clear from the very beginning of discussions that any so-called national security supplemental legislation must recognize that national security begins at our own border,” [Speaker Mike] Johnson said in a statement on Monday night, adding: “In the absence of having received any single border policy change from the Senate, the House will have to continue to work its own will on these important matters.”
You would have had a bill with border security from the Senate if your own false god hadn't demanded that your own party refuse to vote for it.
scidata:
Toppling the USA (which is much harder than brain-wormed fascists think it is) wouldn't erase Pax Americana.
It might have to be taken up by Germany and Japan. Yes, I get the irony.
Too many allies, too many books and movies.
That's why our enemies hate us.
And allies are not just nations and governments, they're hearts and minds.
Don’t even dignify the guy in Mar-a-Lago by using his name—call him Godzilla.
Rome flamed out and faded away, but Charlemagne and Europe rose from the ashes.
One of the questions I like when discussing history is "When did the Roman Empire truly end?"
Possible candidates are: The division of the Roman empire in two halves; the sacking of Rome by the Vandals; when Augustulus stepped down; when Belisarius and Justinian conquered Italy, when the crusaders burned Constantinople; when the Ottomans conquered it; in 1806, when the Habsburg Emperor dissolved the Holy Roman Empire; in 1918, when most of the successor state monarchies (especially the Ottomans and Habsburgs) got toppled and replaced by democracies; or 1945, when an undead revenant of the Empire rose. (On another note: I find the question, "When did the Roman Republic truly fall?" even more interesting.
The old form and idea of Empire got replaced by a new one, one of democracies willingly working together. Those who oppose it cannot defeat it militarily or economically; so they try it from within.
So, the next questions could be:
"When did the Transatlantic Empire Fall?"
"What could replace it, making it better than the last two versions of Empire?"
Der Oger: "When did the Roman Empire truly end?"
Having been raised in Protestant culture, I'd say it was Luther's vernacular Bible, and the end of Latin. Language is the truest measure of Empire.
The Roman Empire ended in WW1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EvgthWsJe2I
Kingdom of Rome
|----> Roman Republic
|--------->Roman Empire
|------------> East Roman/Byzantine Empire
|-----------------> Ottoman Empire "Caesars of Rum"
|-----------------> Orthodox Tsarist Russian Empire
|------------> West Roman/Holy Roman Empire
|-----------------> Hapsburg/Austro-Hungarian Empire
|-----------------> Imperial Kaiser Germany
All four successor states died in 1918.
“ It won't be long before Johnson is thinking: "Why did I even try to get this lousy job?"
Um, in order to spend some time two heartbeats from the presidency? In order to become a public figure for the rest of his life? In order to cash in on the evangelicals forever?
“"stretching back to Stalin’s NKVD & KGB, Lenin's Cheka and the Czarist Okhrana"
Wow, GC. I love this bunch. A smaller community than Doctorow’s or others… but so much smarter!
My youngest first cousin is six years my junior. From when my cousins, brother, and I were all kids together, we remember a particular amusing anecdote from a shared meal at IHOP (long before the chain was referred to that way). For whatever reason, my youngest cousin just didn't seem interested in eating the pancakes he had ordered, so while the rest of us ate, he dawdled around by churning them up with his fork. His dad--my uncle--finally asked what he was doing, and he replied as if this was a perfectly normal answer, "I'm musing them."
A little while later, my uncle asked him if he was going to ever eat the pancakes, and the (somewhat predictable but still funny) reply was, "No....they're mushed!"
It's taken about fifty years, but Congressional Republicans have finally outdone my cousin in that regard.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/13/opinion/gop-senate-ukraine-aid.html
...
On paper, the 70-to-29 [Senate vote on foreign aid] looks like a bipartisan embrace of embattled democratic allies. But it marks the moment when Republicans reverted to the isolationism of the original America First Committee of pre-World War II infamy. A majority of the G.O.P. Senate conference, including onetime Ukraine hawks like Lindsey Graham and Tom Cotton, voted against the aid, mostly, they said, because it wasn’t paired with border-security measures.
That’s the same bill they voted against last week — a bill patiently negotiated over months by one of the most conservative Republicans in the Senate, Oklahoma’s James Lankford. The cynicism would be breathtaking if it weren’t so predictable coming from the Trumpified right.
Let’s walk through some additional points of dissent among Republicans who opposed the bill.
From Arkansas’s Cotton, there’s the argument that support for Israel’s efforts to defeat Hamas is incompatible with any civilian assistance for Gazans. From Wisconsin’s Ron Johnson, we have the claim that although Vladimir Putin is “an evil war criminal,” Russia is certain to win the war, so funding Kyiv prolongs Ukrainian suffering and, by implication, wastes American money. From Ohio’s J.D. Vance, this: “The supplemental represents an attempt by the foreign policy blob/deep state to stop President Trump from pursuing his desired policy.”
What a mix of cruelty, defeatism, conspiracy-mongering and political servility.
...
Following their logic, the Monroe Doctrine is outmoded, and we shouldn’t become involved in foreign entanglements in Latin America.
Thus if Russia and China are emboldened to set up military bases there, isn’t that just too too bad?
The "global south" would rather be dictated to by Russia and China than the Western Enlightenment. Arabs in Michigan who oppose Israel's war in Gaza are willing to endure another Trump presidency in order to punish Biden. Republicans are so enamored of Putin's white Christian nationalism that they're also willing to let China and Iran go unopposed.
If they weren't about to take me down with them, I'd be willing to let the babies have their bottle and drink deeply of their tears when they get what they want (but still aren't very happy).
This talk of who picks up after us and historical analogies with Rome takes me back to a very impactful comic panel I read years ago.
VEIDT
Jon, wait, before you leave…
I did the right thing, didn't I?
It all worked out in the end.
MANHATTAN
In the end?
Nothing ends, Adrian.
Nothing ever ends.
VEIDT
Jon? Wait!
What do you mean by…
They’re white nationalist. But Christian?
No more than Manson was.
Alan Brooks:
But Christian?
Ok, Christianist. I thought I invented that term*, but then I've seen others use it in print. It has little to do with the teachings of Christ. They believe in special privileges for those who can attach the term "Christian" to themselves.
Vivek Ramaswamy notwithstanding**, a white Christian nationalist isn't just a patriot who happens to believe in Jesus and has pale skin. It denotes someone who believes that the nation--the United States in this case--is of, for, and by white Christians, with all others having lesser roles ranging from guests to hired help to squatters.
* I also thought I invented the term "underdog" for giving someone a push on a playground swing by running completely beneath the swing. Now, every kid uses that word and I get no credit. :)
** Vivek actually gave me insight into what people like him think the term means when he referred to himself as a "non-white nationalist". He thinks "nationalist" is the relevant term, the the "white" just means one of those who happens to be white. He's wrong. "White Nationalist" is to just "Nationalist" as "National Socialist" is to just "Socialist".
@Alfred Differ,
Watchmen did have its profound moments.
They are anti-Christian, and Donald Godzilla is their anti-Christ—not The Anti-Christ but, rather, one anti-Christ among many.
THEIR anti-Christ, not The Anti-Christ. I surmise it is self-fulfilling prophecy—but isn’t all prophecy self-fulfilling?
For anyone outside the US wondering at the term...
"White Christian Nationalist" is really one noun the way they use it. Same for "White Nationalist" and "Christian Nationalist".
It is a mistake to think of "white" as an adjective in the idiom.
------
This goes WAY back in US history.
Don't presume the present fools invented the attitude. Their ideological ancestors have been a political force for generations. They helped end slavery, save the Union during our Civil War, and threaten the Union later with demands of homogeneity.
Very much a mixed bag... which is typical of most of our factions.
Two years some of you will recall I've been saying Putin is likely to blow up Low Earth Orbit.
Well... that would likely start a war they can't win.
It would also fund growth of launch facilities here in the US.
------
An interesting little thing happened today. SpaceX actually had three F9's ready to fly. If the weather had been more cooperative here on the west coast, all three would have gone. Instead... we only got two launches in the same day. What a let down. 8)
... and yes. One of those launches is finally sending something back to the lunar surface for NASA. On an F9. Ha!
...as in a simulation...
How much is support for Russia in the global South a case of them bastardizing Karl Marx's famous call to arms into "Commodity exporters of the world, unite!" ?
Alfred Differ: we only got two launches in the same day
Also, they're building a second tower at Starbase. Pretty soon it might reach 'too big to fail' status. At which point the pressure for flight approvals could switch from SpaceX to the FAA. Not all signs of Republic -> Empire are strictly political.
Also, Tesla is moving to Texas. Maybe it will soon be called TeXas.
@George Carty,
I get the idea it's more "The enemy of my enemy is my friend." As in "Anyone who opposes the Western imperialists is good for me. The same way the Nazis would have been good for the Arabs after they had thrown off the British. I'm getting to the point that I'm willing to let them learn the hard way.
Alan Brooks:
but isn’t all prophecy self-fulfilling?
I don't see that at all. Not all prophecies are even fulfilled at all, let alone self-fulfilled.
Do you mean that all accurate prophecies are self-fulfilling? Even that, I would disagree with the word "all", but at least I'd know what you were trying to say.
scidata:
Also, Tesla is moving to Texas. Maybe it will soon be called TeXas.
Watch now, Donald Trump will campaign on "If Democrats win, we won't have Texas any more. They'll change the name."*
* He actually said this about Pennsylvania, apparently repeating a right-wing joke in a moment of "telephone" which demonstrated that he had no idea what the original quip was about. Apparently, someone had joked that Democrats want to change the name of Pennsylvania to TRANSylvania, y'know because of trans people.
On not voting on the Senate bill...
https://www.electoral-vote.com/evp2024/Items/Feb15-1.html
...
The nominal reason for not considering Senate bills, even Senate bills passed with dozens of Republican votes, is the "Hastert Rule," which states that a bill should not be considered unless a majority of the House Republican Conference supports it. In other words, bills that would pass primarily with Democratic votes are a no-go zone for Republicans. It doesn't matter what is good for the country. All that matters is what is good for the Republican Party. The Senate bill doesn't have majority support in the House Republican Conference because Donald Trump opposes it.
Yesterday, a little flap developed when Johnson said he has tried repeatedly to have a one-on-one meeting with Joe Biden. Biden has repeatedly said Johnson should take up the Senate bill and hold a vote on it. Biden is apparently worried about a meeting with Johnson in which the Speaker makes all kinds of new and impossible demands and then blames Biden for the talks failing. Biden probably believes—with good reason—that Johnson would not negotiate in good faith because he does not want to fund aid to Ukraine and no amount of Democratic concessions will change that. Biden is probably thinking that even if he concedes everything Johnson asks for, he'll then just come back with more requests and then more. Negotiating with someone who wants the negotiations to fail is never a good strategy and Biden has been around the track enough times to know this.
Usually, mob bosses are loyal to their minions and don't make fun of them.
But occasionally, someone is so confident in their bullying that they do what they want. Putin was laughing at Tucker, when he could have been more productive building him up.
Trump treats his minions even worse.
@scidata
Having been raised in Protestant culture, I'd say it was Luther's vernacular Bible, and the end of Latin. Language is the truest measure of Empire.
Good! I will add that to my list. (Which begs the question: Is the Vatican the last surviving successor state to the Roman Empire?)
Also, watch Africa for linguistic changes.
It seems reasonably plausible to me to consider the Vatican a surviving remnant of the Roman Empire.
Apparently, someone had joked that Democrats want to change the name of Pennsylvania to TRANSylvania, y'know because of trans people.
Vlad III "Dracul" smiles and approves with a small donation to the GOP. Maybe they make him Governor for unlife?
GC: “How much is support for Russia in the global South a case of them bastardizing Karl Marx's famous call to arms into "Commodity exporters of the world, unite!" ?”
Some of it is African etc elites fretting over the same thing as drives thse in the RF and Macao & Riyadh and brats all over… fear that a rising Rule of Law + Hollywood SoA might end their feudal power.
And part is that publicly tweaking The Establishment helps get you invited to the cool parties.
Heard on Stephanie Miller's radio show, the toxic masculine guys who nonetheless clutch their necklaces at the sight of Taylor Swift: broflakes.
Criminal trial #1 set for March 25. The 15th would have been more poetic.
Saul Alinsky meets the 'No True Scotsman fallacy' equals Larry_H's 'Chistianist' v 'Atheist' v 'Jewish' rhetorical gambit:
(1) Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules (Rule#4);
(2) Declare that said enemy is 'No True (insert name)' if they fail to concede; then
(3) Mock said enemy incessantly as 'Ridicule is man's most potent weapon' (Rule#5).
While new & fresh in the 1960s, this Lefty manipulative gambit is now tired, old & mostly ineffective due to chronic overuse, but still less hackneyed & more believable than the 'serious national security threat' canard akin to Gaddafi's yellowcake stockpile, Saddam's WMDs and the Putin's Nukes_in_Space remake of the Space_Cowboys film plot.
I've warned you that if you keep resorting to the same old gag over & over to get your way, then it's NOT going to end well for you & yours because even the most stupid mark -- especially the most stupid mark -- gets extremely nasty & vindictive when you keep peeing in their face and tell them it's raining.
The old saying goes as follows when complete:
Fool us once then shame on me; Fool us twice then shame on you; but Fool us over & over and we'll eventually murder all these pranksters & their entire families.
And, all the nasty mocking names, -ists and -isms that you then call us will prove an ineffective defensive tactic because all those slurs will then be true as a direct result of your manipulative self-fulfilling prophecies.
Best
Hi Locumranch,
You've posted on this very blog that progressives are "evil." So by the logic you just posted: if a progressive murders you and your entire family, it's your fault.
Noted.
Yes: accurate prophecies.
Vastly more cogent, yes, but still bitterly delusional. This "Saul Alinsky" thing is - like the George Soros obsession - a masturbatory "backstabbing Jew" meme, almost as tedious as it is dumb.
L claims we're the ones pissing in his face. Alas, like the MAGA pearl-clutching over Taylor Swift, it does come across as kinda a whine. Still... YES! In general and across decades, there have been many, many sneers by snooty urbanites looking down their noses at 'hicks' and such.
... though here's the deal. Let's WAGER major $$$ stakes over statistical comparison of what fraction of urbanites do that, and how often... versus the utterly relentless and ceaseless and almost ubiquitous denunciation of urbanites, professionals, educated people etc by salt-of-the-Earth MAGA types? It is utterly ceaseless!
Does California take out ads in Texas dissing Texas? No, but Abbot and his predecessors regularly attack California, in ads, raving speeches and encouraging massive soc media campaigns, from slander over perversions to over-taxation (California generates more creative enterprise than 100 Texases), to homelessness (red states give thousands one-way bus tickets to become our problems.)
Above all, compare rates of EVERY TURPITUDE. If we set aside Utah and Illinois as outliers (or even if we don’t) average rates of almost every turpitude are far higher across Red-run states than Blue-led ones: from gambling, addiction, STDs, domestic violence and murder to teen sex, divorce and net tax parasitism on the rest of the nation.
That is a huge, undeniable fact! It should discredit all ‘conservative’ claims of good governance, especially when you add in the fact that national Republican administrations are always spendthrift wastrels, sending deficits skyrocketing, while Democratic ones are always fiscally responsible. Always. And I welcome $$$ wagers on any of that.
Only here's the deal. I am the only one saying that. It simply does not occur to most liberals to go there, or to spew venom (or piss) at red folks. At Trump? Sure! The most opposite-to-Jesus human any of us ever saw, extolled as the Second Coming? Lunacy!
But it's YOUR cult that declared an end to politics as the art of negotiation among diverse interests. YOUR cult made a later convicted child abuser Dennis Hastert Speaker and beefed up his "rule' against ever negotiating. YOURS is the cult of Putin/MBS and casino moguls... 'falling in love' with Kim Jong Un and helping the Ayatollahs.
Do we sometimes commit the unforgivable sin of pointing shit like that out to you? Yep. Almost 5% as often as your cult screams at the very concept of facts and knowing stuff. Yeah, sorry about that.
====
PS funny thing how your enemies list overlaps perfectly with "ex" commissar and murderous tyrant Putin. Including Soros, who Putin duirectly blames for the fall of the Berlin Wall and Warsaw Pact and ultimately the USSR.
I’ve told MAGAs how Trump is amusing, and they replied that one should admire him for the same reasons they admire him.
Isn’t such a bit totalist? To be expected to admire him in order to promote some sort of social cohesion, by having voters unite behind a demagogue? A demagogue who possesses a cavalier attitude?
It is emblematic of the New Right’s searching for an elusive Unity that many of them—deep-down— don’t subscribe to themselves. They say “America is about the individual”, yet they also insist on a collectivism of spirit. To what purpose? Personal feel-good?
“Let’s unite behind Trump as the New Normal of conservatism and the GOP”, and somehow, magically, things will succeed to the individual’s & the Nation’s interest.
“Trump is a non-conservative working for conservatism” they say, which is very ambitious—as well as double-minded. But think of as an experiment: if uniting behind a demagogue writ large succeeds, they’ll take credit; if it fails, the fault is with liberals and far-leftists. Those of little faith are to be held culpable; “heads I win, tails you lose.”
Alfred,
Given your interest in space access and your past history, you came to mind while I was watching the following video.
Starship Hot Staging: More Complex Than You Think! - CSI Starbase
Not sure if you are familiar with CSI but they do some pretty cool analyses in more depth and detail than most other groups. To give you and idea of this video, here's the table of contents.
00:00 - Elon Starship Presentation
01:17 - Introduction
07:04 - HSR Design - Overpressure Prevention
10:05 - HSR Design - Max Q Durability
14:00 - HSR Structural Verification Testing
19:14 - HSR Design - Ignition Survivability
24:17 - S25 Aft Heat Shield Explained
29:40 - S27's Sudden Death
31:40 - S25 Aft Heat Shield Upgrade
33:47 - S27 Resurrection / Heat Shield Testing
37:00 - Falcon 9 v Starship Stage Separation
40:33 - Brilliant Sponsor Segment
42:00 - RVac Differential Thrust At Stage Sep
45:16 - Grid Fin Rotation During Hot Staging
49:30 - Raptor Relight Performance Issues?
51:50 - Booster Engine Plumbing - CH4
54:46 - CH4 Downcomer Collapse?
57:05 - Booster Engine Plumbing - LOX
58:04 - Fuel Slosh Intro
60:47 - RHS Fuel Slosh Simulation Explained
67:08 - Catastrophic Engine Cavitation Damage?
70:20 - B10 Upgraded Slosh Baffles
71:18 - Engine Plumbing Damage?
76:28 - Lessons Learned
77:08 - Outro
Alan Brooks:
Yes: accurate prophecies.
But no prophesies claim to be self-fulfilling, and only a subset of the accurate ones are fulfilled on account of the prophesy having been made.
If I assert that God told me the Democrats will win the 2024 elections in a landslide, that prophesy will either come true or it won't. But if it does, it won't come true because I said so. It will come true (or not) independently of what I said.
Well, God told me that he'd lost a bet, was going for double or nothing, and that Job guy has nothing on what we're in for.
I'm kidding. I very much hope.
Der Oger,
I'd agree that Vatican City might be, linguistically and by reasonable argument legally, the last remnant of the Imperium Romanum. Of course, there are some Romanians who like to dress up their history and proclaim themselves the last outpost of Empire, too. This has about as much bearing on reality as the idea that if Arthur came back from Avalon, the Welsh would turn over their country to him.
Pappenheimer
"The passthrough on this headset is better than anything I’ve seen before, and it’s more than enough to walk around while using it safely. No, it’s not anything close to the same as seeing the world with your own eyes, but you have all the fidelity and depth perception you need (and just barely enough field of view) to make it comfortable. Seeing what I was doing and navigating safely on foot was not a problem." IN OTHER WORDS... a spectacular techncal accomplishment! And still a long, long way to go, before augmented reality is as seamlessly assumed-normal for nearly everyone, as I depict for a decade+ from now, in EXISTENCE!
You all know the link depicting one of my street scenes. http://youtu.be/wzr-DSDMkJM
Our son just came home with one of these things. Anyone out there have any pointers?
https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/02/why-walking-around-in-public-with-vision-pro-makes-no-sense/
Based on JPinOR's spiffy rejoinder, maybe I should just give up & admit that there's one thing that even an infinite western education can't fix.
Passive Aggressiveness is the intolerable imposition against Anglo-Saxon society that I just described, up to & including the inevitable yet often long delayed social response that it triggers, and I know that most of you know from whence I speak, even though an exceptional few are obviously not just playing dumb.
So riddle me this:
Where exactly is your breaking point when it comes to constant passive-aggressive needling? At what point does you explode into an incoherent rage & start breaking things?
I humbly suggest that one's breaking point correlates directly to intelligence, as evidenced by Dr. Brin's obviously high breaking point & his superhuman degree of self-control, as opposed to the mentally challenged who allow themselves to be triggered by even the most benign academic discussion.
That said, let's play the following Moral Turpitude Game:
According to the 2019 FBI arrest stats on Murder & Non-negligent Manslaughter, black americans engage in this crime at almost 4X the rate of their population percentage, while white americans engage in this crime at rates on par with their percentage.
PEW research also notes that '87% of black voters identify with the Democratic Party or lean Democratic', and Gallup reports that Republican party members are '89% white', which means 'I win' after correcting for race as majority white Republicans commit this turpitude at a lower rate than racially-diverse Democrats.
At least Dr. Brin can chalk up a huge win for his accurate 'Specs' predictions.
Best
I was watching a guy review the Vision Pro. It IS pretty spiffy, but it is also a version 1.0. Pass-through works well because they optimized for speed, but it's difficult to challenge the human eye in terms of color range. No one can really do that yet.
https://www.youtube.com/@mkbhd/videos
This guy is the one I watched the most for the headset. He offers ups and downs and suggestions for what they should be adding. He's also offered to finish a video on why he finds all of this kinda spooky.
The biggest downside right now is the product doesn't support shared experiences. Your VR arrangement is seen by no one else even those other vendors can do that already.
With that price, I'll wait a bit for 2.0 or whatever. I also have big thick lenses on my face with no options for contact lenses without surgery, so I'm not optimistic.
L's point in trying to bring race into it, while loathesome, might be pertinent if Red Staters blamed their much higher rates of turpitude on their own racial minorities and could back it up.
They can't, don't, and hence it is not pertinent.
What's pertinent is that EVERY turpitude, sexual perversion, murder, domestic violence, gambling addiction, drug abuse... it's all worse in those states (except Utah) where they yowl about being more moral. Including the whitest of states, like Nebraska etc.
"look over there!" doesn't change the TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE greater rates of indictment and conviction by scores and scores of mostly white reitree juries of high repubs over dems. Desperately flinging forth a racists howl doesn't change the pure fact that locum's cult is a pack of commie-loving, KGB/Kremlin-sucking, fact-hating pervs.
Dr. Brin:
The Turpitude Gap proves that the term 'conservative' is a misnomer: 'conservatives' do not conserve. If you go by the non-Orwellian definition of 'conservative', then America's conservative faction is the liberal center-left.
American so-called conservatism is dominated by an authoritarian cult. There is nothing conservative about such true-belief radicalism.
Locumranch's loco rant at 9:04 AM proposes this algorithm:
1. Proclaim allegiance to an absolute morality.
2. Systematically violate that morality's tenets.
3. Ignore critique when called out.
4. Escalate to rage when mocked for hypocrisy.
5. Call all critics passive-aggressive needlers.
6. Exterminate all needlers!
7. Blame the slain.
I 'praise' the efficiency of this rationalization of active aggression. It is in harmony with another program: DARVO, the abuser's algorithm: Deny, Accuse, Reverse Victim and Offender.
I say 'algorithm' because that behavior is robotic. It gives power at the price of losing free will. It's a sell-out.
Locumranch is mistaken if he thinks we don't already know that being a gadfly is dangerous. Yet somehow people continue to volunteer for the role. How odd!
Darrel E,
That guy and the team that must be behind his production did an excellent job covering both how things might be working AND the kind of team work required to make that all happen quickly.
I was NEVER a fan of hot staging, but it sure does look like SpaceX made that decision before IFT-1. All those smaller tests take me back to living that kind of life. Engineering immersion. It is very easy for the designs to get ahead of the tests when you have bright, curious, dedicated people.
Love it.
Maybe I'll also learn to love hot staging.
Ugh. 8)
Will think about it, but you think on the Apocalypse Trajectory—deriving from Scriptures harking back to BCE.
Later, the Patmos Prophecies; five or so centuries after Patmos, came the Quran Apocalypse Prophecies. So many to this day believe in these prophecies, that one might add how the prophecies have a life of their own.
There’s more to it: envy of the future. If a Believer believes that the world as we know it will cease near the close of the believer’s lifetime, such a Believer will frequently find comfort in not missing out on the future. Plus, The End means closure to them, a resolution—The resolution.
So many 1850s Americans believed in a coming Civil War, that the trajectory towards war took on a life of its own, we could say it was inevitable; a self-fulfilling prophecy towards the American Apocalypse.
Is someone leaving nothing to chance come election day in Russia?
Navalny has just turned up dead.
@Alan Brooks,
I'm not denying that prophesies can be self-fulfilling. Just taking issue with the "all".
Paradoctor:
Locumranch is mistaken if he thinks we don't already know that being a gadfly is dangerous. Yet somehow people continue to volunteer for the role. How odd!
The announcement of Navalny's death accentuates this. Running against Putin is dangerous and futile. Why does someone do it?
There is something in human nature--or at least the nature of a large subset of humans--which needs to assert that two plus two equals four no matter what the Party says it is.
So in Locumranch’s mind, pointing out hypocrisy is passive aggressive. Guilty, I guess?
Locumranch says: Where exactly is your breaking point when it comes to constant passive-aggressive needling? At what point does you explode into an incoherent rage & start breaking things?
For me this is exactly never. What’s wrong with you that you fantasize about the breaking things part? Perhaps you should consider why you are constantly being needled. Could it be that your views are deplorable? (Also, seek help for your rage issues.)
Case in point: I think your bigotry is showing again when you start quoting crime stats. Are you suggesting that black people are inherently more violent? Please explain the causal relationship between melanin levels and violent crime.
JPinOR
So in Locumranch’s mind, pointing out hypocrisy is passive aggressive. Guilty, I guess?
In his "reasoning", pointing out that the sky is blue or that water is wet oppresses those who wish reality were otherwise. I'm surprised he doesn't fight for his right to have babies even though he can't have babies.
"Where's the fetus going to gestate? Are you going to keep it in a box?"
Larry Hart:
"There is something in human nature--or at least the nature of a large subset of humans--which needs to assert that two plus two equals four no matter what the Party says it is."
Robert Frost said, in 'Mending Wall':
"There is something about Nature
That doesn't love a wall
That wants it down."
AB: “I'm not denying that prophesies can be self-fulfilling. Just taking issue with the "all".”
Well, one of my trademarked aphorisms is that sci fi serves us well with Self-PREVENTING prophecies! See VIVID TOMORROWS: Science Fiction and Hollywood – http://www.davidbrin.com/vividtomorrows.html
"Since the 1970s the prevailing vision of the future in popular culture has tended towards the dystopian. Commentators of all stripes — from celebrated movie critics to novelists and today’s "effective accelerationists" — have addressed the lack of blue-sky thinking. Michael Harris argues that dystopias are not a failing of their creators’ imaginations — and that fears about the future are rooted in the mechanisms of power and control.
https://bigthink.com/the-future/are-fictional-dystopias-blocking-us-from-better-futures/
L's point in trying to bring race into it, while loathesome, might be pertinent if Red Staters blamed their much higher rates of turpitude on their own racial minorities and could back it up[DB]
Actually, these loathsome statistics come directly from the US federal government & the FBI, leaving our host in the untenable position of a reality denier:
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43
His contention that the 'TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE greater rates of indictment and conviction' by red staters somehow 'proves' higher rates of EVERY turpitude is backwards logic as it only serves to show less tolerance for aberrant behavior, but NOT a higher prevalence, while our EU & US progressives just PRETEND that minority crime doesn't exist, giving us the Rotherham sex trade, the Bataclan massacre & most US mass shootings.
American so-called conservatism is dominated by an authoritarian cult. There is nothing conservative about such true-belief radicalism.[PD]
A partial truth, as conservatives merely resist but cannot prevent the moral decay that we call 'progress', the ultimate irony being that PD's so-called conservative DARVO algorithm is a mere paraphrase of Alinsky's 'Rules for Radicals', proving only the social revolution goes both ways.
So in Locumranch’s mind, pointing out hypocrisy is passive aggressive. Guilty, I guess?[JP]
JPinOR fails to grasp that passive-aggression is still unacceptable aggression in much the same way that emotional & verbal abuse is still criminal abuse, leaving the passive-aggressive target the Sanction-of-the Victim which often entails violent self-defense, my suspicion being that one's 'breaking point' correlates directly to one's intelligence, as supported by the empiric rule that stupid people resort to violence (aka 'the last resort') soonest.
Even though racial IQ comparisons have been declared anathema, Sociology still acknowledges that poverty correlates directly to (1) intelligence, (2) criminality and (3) race. You do the math.
But, while you equality fetishists are busy rationalizing all these facts away, never forget that stupid people outnumber the smart by at least a ratio of 10 to 1, which means that they'll reach their breaking point & resort to violence much sooner than you will, so prepare. Or not.
Best
“His contention that the 'TWO ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE greater rates of indictment and conviction' by red staters somehow 'proves' higher rates of EVERY turpitude is backwards logic “…
YES! It would be backwards logic… IF that was what I did. But the VASTLY higher rates of top goppers PROVED by varied-many juries to be vastly worse than top dems… almost a HUNDRED times(!). IS A SEPARATE FACT from the vast number of statistics showing red states (but Utah) to be drenched in every turpitude.
“But, while you equality fetishists are busy rationalizing all these facts away, never forget that stupid people outnumber the smart by at least a ratio of 10 to 1,”
Funny how we draw the line BELOW us, isn’t it, son? Never above.
What does Loc expect from CB? He’s written that half of us think we’re not going to die, when we’d have to possess IQs in the lower single digits to think so. Someone would have to be completely retarded to think they’re not going to die.
Or be an utter, trusting, fool—such as Prigozhin.
—
Talking in-person and online to white nationalists has revealed to me that their dislike of who they term ‘mud people’ (non-whites) is based on aesthetics, not ethics.
They invariably begin with something along the lines of “no black person ever invented anything”, then, after being pressed, they’ll become candid and say “black women are ugly”; Asians are inscrutable & creepy; Hispanics are pear-shaped, etc...
Prigozhin's demise* reminded me of that Renaissance pope who offered a rival nobleman safe-conduct to Rome and then had him executed.
And then did it again with a different enemy.
I guess guys like these think "with me, it'll be different, because I'm special and he needs me..."
*assuming he's not hanging out with Elvis and RFK somewhere in Key West, having faked his own death with a cunning plan^.
^Or perhaps there was a mixup, and Baldrickovich is living it up instead.
Pappenheimer
What does Loc expect from CB?
Attention.
This is how they work: Infiltrate each and every online community and make outlandish statements to
a) shift the Overton window
b) Drain time and energy
c) create the illusion that they are more than they seem.
The usual strategies are
a) Let them proceed and be countered by other members of the community; this has the negative effect of turning people away who are either insisting on bans or feel deeply offended by the things said;
b) ban them, which might lead to the creation of less stimulating, docile but inherently boring communities. Also, a culture of fear and denunciation might develop.
Prigozhin could’ve been so drunk, he wasn’t thinking at all straight concerning his peril. Any adult in his position could deduce right away that their days were numbered. Perhaps that was it: Prigozhin gave up, being aware his days were numbered—where would he hide from the Tsar’s agents?
Loc is no agent, though, and I can’t prove he is mistaken. These are primarily matters of opinion, not of facts. But he isn’t convincing, it is almost as if he has as sketchy a grasp of such issues as we have of the medical profession.
Navalny is an example of Greek tragedy.
“The hero, knowing he is doomed, returns from exile to face his death—otherwise he wouldn’t be a hero.”
Alan Brooks:
otherwise he wouldn’t be a hero
Several sort-of recent Batman comics writers have paid homage to the idea that "The story of Batman ends with his death." He has to eventually die fighting. What else is he going to do? Retire and play golf?
In the musical Evita, Juan Peron briefly and wistfully considers the alternative before dismissing it:
Then again, it could be foolish
Not to quit while I'm ahead.
I can see me many miles away,
Inactive.
Sipping cocktails on a terrace,
Taking breakfast in bed,
Resting easy, doing crosswords.
It's attractive.
Putin shouldn’t be harmed physically, hurting him in a bestial manner is descending to his MO. But I don’t want Putin to be happy; what he has done in Ukraine makes what McVeigh did in Oklahoma seem as nothing.
If Putin should live another 30 yrs—to age 100– let them be miserable years for him. You could make a case that Putin is worse than Hitler, because he possesses WMDs.
Putin shouldn’t be harmed physically, hurting him in a bestial manner is descending to his MO. But I don’t want Putin to be happy; what he has done in Ukraine makes what McVeigh did in Oklahoma seem as nothing.
Why not?
If Putin and his inner circle commit mass murder and wage war upon our civilization, why should they be spared the fate they condemn hundreds of thousands, if not millions of others to? He has proven to be a threat to us - and tell me one thing: Why it is okay to assassinate resistance fighters / terrorists with drone strikes, but not billionaires and siloviki? Is it the color of their skin?
I believe the only kind of hero that could save Russia from within is one of the likes of Wilhelm Canaris, Georg Elser, and Stauffenberg (though Prighozin could count as the latter).
Or maybe a new Lenin, but for that to happen, support for Ukraine must drastically improve.
Navalny (and the other murder victims) will be important after the fall of the regime and the construction of a peaceful democratic society; a remedy for national guilt (like any other peaceful opposition politician), martyrs for the cause.
Any open protest will be futile and ineffective at this time in Russia. Resistance within his area of control must be covert and treacherous.
If you count chemical weapons as WMD, Hitler had them. He just didn't use them in the West (IIRC, the Nazis thought that the British had kept up with them on chemical weapons research and realized that German cities were as vulnerable as British ones.)
On the Eastern Front, the Nazis used poison gas a few times in combat (it's hard to deliver and has uncertain effects - you'd best have good weathermen who are absolutely correct in forecasting the wind direction.)
I believe the US also used gas against a Japanese-held island, btw.
Pappenheimer
*
This monster - who spent the 1st half of his life reciting Leninist incantations and who called the fall of the USSR 'history's worst tragedy' - changed his lapel pins, erected statues to czars, and has taken over the US right. His enemies list is identical to MAGA's, including Foxites pouring hate upon our FBI, CIA and US military officer corps - all the folks who won the Cold War and the War on Terror... along with the science that truly made America Great and the alliances keeping us safe.
The overlap is perfect. And now Tucker C goes along with this monstrous case of blaming the victim. Blaming Poland for the 1939 invasions by Germany and the Soviets. "It wasn't rape! It was HER fault for turning me down!"
https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7161702336455811073/
Pappenheimer-"I believe the US also used gas against a Japanese-held island, btw." The US PROPOSED to use gas several times (Iowa Jima, the Home Islands invasions) but never did*. The IJN used poison gas a number of times in large quantities against the Chinese army. Unit 731 did use gas in retail quantities as well as biological warfare in China.
*The US Army had a ship full of Mustard gas blow up in an Italian Harbor in December 1943.
JRiese
Q: Why, in the wake of his stalled invasion of Ukraine, has Putin not used a nuclear weapon?
A.1) He doesn't have any he is sure aren't duds
A.2) MAD. There have been assurances that using them will result in some sort of response - intervention by NATO air forces, for example - that will deny him victory
A.3) Putin's Republican willing tools offer him a reasonable hope that Ukraine can be starved of military assistance to the point it will no longer be able to resist.
Putin's goal in this 'excellent adventure' is the complete conquest of Ukraine. For all his offers of peace talks, this is still the case.
There were several attempts of Hitler's life that came close to success, but even Stauffenberg was not willing to ensure success by giving his own life in the process - This Is Not A Criticism: it is hard to find someone that willing to bell the cat. I would not make the cut. Fidel Castro, when explaining why he did not fear assassins, said something like "If they aren't willing to die to kill me, they won't succeed. If they are, no security can protect me."
Putin isn't worse than Hitler, but he isn't much better. I'm with Der Oger about quibbling on disposal methods. If you remove yourself from the reach of justice, Lady Justice will have to become less picky. Putin is obviously a danger to human civilization.
Or to as the Saga series put it:
"The knowledge that someone who grievously wronged us has been snuffed from this mortal coil doesn't exactly bring one peace..."
"...but it ain't nothing."
Pappenheimer
P.S. by 'us', here, I refer to humanity, not just Ukraine. Waging offensive war wrongs us as a species.
Gloom is so chic – as taught relentlessly by Hollywood – that we tend to be blind to positive trends, of the sort, pointed out by Steven Pinker and Peter Diamandis… and by Nation Gardels in the latest Noema: “Technological change can occur very quickly with policies that boost green technologies to “tipping point” thresholds, turbocharging the energy transition at a pace akin to the steam engine kickstarting the Industrial Revolution…. a threshold breakthrough globally could come through concerted cooperation on key “super-leverage points” — such as zero-emission vehicles, substituting green ammonia for fertilizer production and protein alternatives to meat — that would “trigger a cascade of tipping points for zero-carbon solutions in sectors covering 70% of global greenhouse gas emissions.”
Alas, the bad news is also terrifyingly rife: “Earlier this month, we saw dramatic evidence of what is in store from opposite ends of the famously mild Mediterranean climate: drought and intense forest fires plagued Chile while a days-long torrential deluge inundated otherwise sunny California. Scientists also warned last week that computer models show the Atlantic Ocean currents, which keep Europe temperate, are in danger of collapse. More alarming still, a just-released study of the carbonate skeletons of marine sponges indicates the planet has already warmed beyond the 1.5C limit set by the 2015 Paris Climate Accord — the point beyond which damage to the biosphere may not be reparable.”
https://r20.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001wYPfHjeeWIisblNk4eqawP6ahE00sh_4nuiIPi0y-Ri51nd10CLc-cuKZCGw_sSU3GLQEM_uKrIAhMcg89QnA1hxptkmY-26eXZVB7rn3BReBTq7xurw8czVhZ30B6LFBLz8LRKL__yE_42-D3j-g6lzCh7kbe8MMPbjMYFv4ZxUBcBiDAZxVQ==&c=whvpVp51xI1L6EOWCgvTVVx64AeBzVqZWqARciKHYSgw5XIijXrpmw==&ch=wUTYKDhR5-JNlEpy1E2-9tm_TtnY3wBoJqAODvoUOH2EX6NetfAqFQ==
In case you're wondering (or care), Loc's assertion that black people are responsible for "most mass shootings" in the US is incorrect. No, mea culpa, it is a lie. Upstanding white folks have committed about 54%, while black people have committed about 18%*. (The rest are split between various groups and the [thank all the Gods] the ever-growing group of other/mixed/unknown).
Plus, there are a LOT of black Americans with one or more ancestors who are NOT black. Would Loc argue, perhaps, that these citizens are less likely to engage in violent behavior? He does seem to imply a genetic tendency...
*matches the actual percentage of the population pretty well - 18.5%
Pappenheimer
First, Pappenheimer's assertion that I claimed that blacks commit "most mass shootings" is an OUTRIGHT LIE, as I referenced the 2019 FBI arrest stats on "Murder & Non-negligent Manslaughter", my exact words being that "black americans engage in this crime at almost 4X the rate of their population percentage, while white americans engage in this crime at rates on par with their percentage".
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2019/crime-in-the-u.s.-2019/topic-pages/tables/table-43
Second, Pappy's claim that 'whites commit 54%' (80 out of 149) of US mass shootings is technically correct, but statistically disingenuous, as the 2022 US Census asserts that the US is 75.5% white, 19.1% hispanic, 13.6% black & the rest other, which means that white 'mass shootings' occur at a 0.72 fraction of the white total population percentage and black 'mass shootings' (17% of mass shootings per Statista) occur at almost DOUBLE the white occurrence fraction.
https://www.statista.com/statistics/476456/mass-shootings-in-the-us-by-shooter-s-race/
Third, the term 'mass shooting' is currently defined by the FBI "as any incident in which at least four people are murdered with a gun", but frequently misapplied by the popular media in a manner deliberately designed exclude & disguise urban minority violence while grossly exaggerating the number of US mass shootings.
That the mass media deliberately misrepresents mass shootings, this is supported by a 2023 BBC report which claims "630 mass shootings across the US so far this year" (in which a 'mass shooting' has been redefined as any incident in which four or more people suffer firearm injuries), while Statista reports a mere 149 US mass shooting total over the last 40 years while using the FBI definition.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-41488081
And, most interestingly, studies suggest that up to Two-Thirds of Mass Shootings Linked to Domestic Violence, and that's one thing that the mass media never ever reports, howsoever one chooses to define 'mass shootings'.
https://injepijournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40621-021-00330-0
DR. Brin does this much better but, overall, Pappy Weisenheimer engages in some mighty fine deflection & misdirection in his effort to win this & other arguments by screaming 'apples' really loud in response to a discussion of 'oranges'.
Best
From the writ of Loc:
"...our EU & US progressives just PRETEND that minority crime doesn't exist, giving us the Rotherham sex trade, the Bataclan massacre & most US mass shootings."
Not sure I can read that as anything but "minority crime causes most US mass shootings".
With regards to trying to win an argument online...I think I would have to be a minor deity to do that. I have no illusions about windmill-tilting, or that Loc will continue to be a troll attempting to put his idea of what we think into our mouths.
Also, a Pappenheimer is a sword: A particularly beautiful style of rapier, in my opinion. It is well balanced and has a point, which are qualities I try to achieve and would recommend to all here.
Pappenheimer
P.S. I believe the original post was about Tucker Carlson, ring-kisser* extraordinaire?
*In the British sense
@Pappenheimer:
Also, a Pappenheimer is a sword: ...
Oh, I assumed it was related to the Wallenstein-saying ("I know my Pappenheimers").
And, most interestingly, studies suggest that up to Two-Thirds of Mass Shootings Linked to Domestic Violence, and that's one thing that the mass media never ever reports, howsoever one chooses to define 'mass shootings'.
This is true. Maybe it is because mass media companies are driven by profit, not the search for solutions, and solutions and unpopular facts are harmful to the number of clicks you gain. Also, depending on the study, 95-98% of mass shooters are male.
Q: Why, in the wake of his stalled invasion of Ukraine, has Putin not used a nuclear weapon?
John Sweeney offers 4: China says 'no'. As they told Vlad to hold off on his little bit of fun until after the winter olympics (a major factor in missing out on that 'four day victory'), they clearly have some clout.
Still, Johnson is clearly giving 3 some credence. By running out the clock on the funds package by having Congress *take a two week break*, he's effectively forced Ukraine to give up Adviika and, possibly, Robotyne and Kerpiansk.
In the early 1980s, computing in general, and AI specifically, took a disastrous fork away from science, engineering, and art. Instead of continuing the brilliant advance into widespread computational thinking, it all quickly devolved into a realm of zombified sifting of eye candy.
OpenAI's new Sora text-to-video tool is very well named, changing Aldous Huxley's third letter only. Also, these unhuman monsters are drawing more and more compute power and resources, very reminiscent of Daystrom's M5.
Alright, there is one valid argument for capital punishment: the high cost of incarceration—unless cruel & unusual punishment is allowed. I’d prefer Putin to work on reconstruction in Ukraine; yet he won’t be captured alive. Thus it is academic.
—
The German Resistance couldn’t have its de facto leader killed at the Wolfschanze, and fly to Berlin also.
Will Putin turn out to be worse than Hitler? Perhaps so.
Pappenheimer:
Upstanding white folks have committed about 54%, while black people have committed about 18%*
While it's not always the case that a mass shooter is a raving MAGAt who has been posting Trumpist/Nazi/white supremacist manifestos before he goes off, one would not go poor by taking that bet each and every time.
Pappenheimer:
I have no illusions about windmill-tilting, or that Loc will continue to be a troll attempting to put his idea of what we think into our mouths.
That's why I've sworn him off--hopefully forever, but at a minimum of 1000 days, just in case I can't resist after that.
Bad enough all of the "second hand smoke" in inhale off of you guys. :)
P.S. I believe the original post was about Tucker Carlson, ring-kisser* extraordinaire?
*In the British sense
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeewwwwwwwwwwww.
"Thanks for loading me up with that image."
Der Oger:
Maybe it is because mass media companies are driven by profit, not the search for solutions, and solutions and unpopular facts are harmful to the number of clicks you gain.
It was a sad day in the 1980s when the powers that be decided that providing news to an informed public was not an end in itself, but had to justify itself as a profit center.
Also, depending on the study, 95-98% of mass shooters are male.
This is perhaps gallows humor, but I would have thought it was higher than that.
A female mass-shooter would certainly be a "[Wo]man Bites Dog" story.
scidata:
In the early 1980s, computing in general, and AI specifically, took a disastrous fork away from science, engineering, and art. Instead of continuing the brilliant advance into widespread computational thinking, it all quickly devolved into a realm of zombified sifting of eye candy.
Not quite the same thing, but similar. I was a computer science student through most of the 80s, and began my working life in that field in late 1988. It didn't take long to be disillusioned about how a tool with so much potential was being used for glorified bookkeeping. It felt as if business had given computing a lobotomy.
Also, these unhuman monsters are drawing more and more compute power and resources, very reminiscent of Daystrom's M5.
I thought Daystrom's computer was too clever for the "compute to the last digit..." thing. It was the Enterprise's own computer, inhabited by Jack the Ripper, which fell for it.
Robert E. Lee WAS the worst American: his genial demeanor masked his destructiveness.
Did you mean to write surrender negotiations, rather than
“peace negotiations”?
Larry Hart: disillusioned about how a tool with so much potential was being used for glorified bookkeeping
Alas, glorified bookkeeping vs the "What If" machine was another path not taken. Bill Gates (MS-BASIC, Tandy 100, Multiplan), took a lot of guff when compared to the wunderkind Jobs. "The Spreadsheet vs the Candy Apple" (tm). I sometimes ponder what might have been if the young Gates had followed his early dreams instead of being seduced by money and power (the tragic Muskian story line). He and Paul Allen came so very close to moving the world 50 years ahead just as Turing had done.
Around 1980, I had a long chat with Peter Jennings (Canadian physicist) a co-inventor of VisiCalc, the first commercial spreadsheet. He was the sole inventor of MicroChess, the first commercial computer chess player. The conversation mainly revolved around computer chess, physics, and A.I. - he was and still is the archetypical computational thinker. Learning sometimes happens in bursts, those few hours shaped me more than years of schooling.
Again, for me, WJCC is the 2nd most important thing OGH has ever written, after FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH.
scidata:
Again, for me, WJCC is the 2nd most important thing OGH has ever written, after FOUNDATION'S TRIUMPH.
All politics is local. For me, the most important Brin book was The Postman, because that's the one that introduced me to his novels in the first place, and ultimately to all of you people here.
David Brin wrote: “ I even started writing a novel based on this concept, till I realized I need a collaborator from the world of FBI procedural fiction – an area I know little about! Anyone know one?
Would you settle for a collaborator from the world of CIA vs FSB/KGB fiction? (Actually satirical fiction, and is former CIA, and is female and is a published author of said satire?)
Larry Hart: all of you people here
Heh. I read WJCC shortly after it appeared in Salon in 2006. I never even heard of David Brin* until I stumbled on CB in my readings about FOUNDATION a decade later. It took me another few months to make the connection to WJCC.
His books don't appear on my local store bookshelves. I've complained about this.
Der Oger,
I haven't read my Schiller, just my Grimmelhausen*. Thank you for a new pithy saying!
*hat tip to the Cliffs of Insanity
Pappenheimer
Alan,
"Robert E. Lee WAS the worst American: his genial demeanor masked his destructiveness."
Huh - well, Nathan B. Forrest never pretended to be any better than he was - funny how even in a slavery-based society, slave traders have a social odor to them - so I take your point. Of the two, though, Forrest had the better claim to a swift court-martial and execution, no matter how many more Americans Lee sent to their deaths.
Nobody was going to build a cult around Forrest antebellum*, and Saint Lee fit the bill. Far more dangerous over time.
Pappenheimer
*Though he was elected to lead the KKK
We know the minimum goal for the fellow in Moscow is what he’s got in Ukraine at this time. His maximum might be the Baltics—if China doesn’t pull the leash.
Could be bluff; perhaps the maximum goal (planned for, written somewhere) is all of Ukraine. However a bluff can, naturally, have its own increasing momentum.
But please: no one term the negotiations ‘peace negotiations’, when the more proper designation would be surrender negotiations.
Alan Brooks:
His maximum might be the Baltics—if China doesn’t pull the leash.
No, the former Soviet Union is part of his minimum. Poland and Finland would likely be next.
His maximum would be no less than that of every cartoon supervillain from Danger Mouse's Baron Greenback* to Cesar Romero's Joker** To "ruuuuullllle the wooooorrrrrrld!"
* "Once I replace all of the signposts, I will rule the world!"
** "Today,the Gotham City surfing championship. Tomorrow, the world!"
"...our EU & US progressives just PRETEND that minority crime doesn't exist, giving us the Rotherham sex trade, the Bataclan massacre & most US mass shootings[Pap].
Pappy makes a good point when it comes to 'minority crime' in relation to 'most US mass shootings', even though he continues to engage in racist misrepresention by suggesting that ALL minority crime equals black crime, as Statista does state that majority whites make up about 54% (80 out of 149) of mass shooters while minorities make up 46% (69 out of 149) of the same.
Yet, even so, he again fails to correct for population percentage as whites are 75.5% of the total US population and all minorities make up less than 25% of the same, which means that minorities engage in mass shootings at almost TWICE the rate as whites do.
Likewise, Larry_H engages in Anti-LGBT+ Hate when he responds to the '95-98% of mass shooters are male' quote with a joke about how he "would have thought it was higher than that", as an increasing number of mass shooters self-identify as & target the alternatively gendered, as evidenced by the Nashville, Colorado Springs, Denver, Aberdeen & Orlando mass shooters, which only proves that the LBGT+ rainbow pride community is just as capable of mass murder as are heterosexuals, or even more so.
Best
____
PS: How do you marching morons know that Alexei Navalny is actually dead? Because lying national Russian Media told you so? If you believe that, then there's a Nigerian Prince who has an offer you can't refuse.
Tucker saw what a real psychopath looks like.
Might’ve been an accident. Navalny slipped on a banana peel, his head went into a noose, the noose tightened—and he went south.
But he wasn’t like half of us here: Navalny didn’t think he was immortal.
Locumranch's loco rant ends with a magnificently absurd conspiracy fantasy. (I say conspiracy 'fantasy' instead of conspiracy 'theory' because theories, unlike fantasies, need facts, evidence, and logic.) I wonder why the lying Russian mass media would lie that Navalny is dead? I don't think they'd want to unveil him later, it's a miracle! It would make more sense for them to say he's dead as a prelude to quietly killing him. But it would make even more sense to kill him first.
Deuxglass:
Before, in his Trump interviews, he saw a wannabee.
Deuxglass:
Tucker saw what a real psychopath looks like.
It would be nice if the next line was, "...and he sees how mistaken he was to support such pathology in our own government." But in fact, it's probably more accurate to conclude with, "...and he took detailed notes to study later as a 'how-to' manual, after understanding how amateurish he himself has been."
That is a leading statement that shows your bias. It is not enough to discover evil but to see it everywhere but not in your proper camp.
@Deuglass,
Sorry, but the mistake my fellow liberals and I have been making is of not believing it possible that influential Republicans can be as evil as they show us they are. I'll be the first to acknowledge when I'm wrong, but so far, reality has proven them to be worse than I predict.
to see it everywhere but not in your proper camp.
I've called out "From the river to the sea" ignominy, and you never saw me defend Harvey Weinstein or Jeffrey Epstein, have you? I'd say your own bias is showing, except that I thought you were more on my own political side. Maybe more accurately, your predetermined expectations are showing.
I don't understand why...(in my armchair general total ignorance) ... winter fog conditions did not allow Ukainians - with outside technical help - to leapfrog the minefields.
--
'mass' shootings that are gang bangers blasting at each other are not the same thing as jibbering loonies mowing down civilians at a concert or rally or at church. Yes, many of the former are black. Nearly all of the latter are white.
The body appears. https://news.google.com/articles/CBMic2h0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmluZGVwZW5kZW50LmNvLnVrL25ld3Mvd29ybGQvZXVyb3BlL2FsZXhlaS1uYXZhbG55LWJvZHktbWlzc2luZy1kZWF0aC1ydXNzaWEtcHV0aW4tcHJpc29uLWIyNDk4MTU2Lmh0bWzSAQA?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen
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