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Friday, April 29, 2022

Open Thread

So what's on your mind? Blab away!

70 comments:

  1. Give a listen on You Tube to the 2019 remastered version of Pink Floyd "On the Turning Away." Enjoy the whole thing. Gilmour is a master with the guitar. If didn't catch all the words clearly there's another version with the lyrics, which were for the most part written in one day by Anthony Moore of Slapp Happy. Circa 1987. They are insightful as well. Then comment if you care to: Is that song not just about Charity as many think; but it's also about good Governance? Not just good words; but Deeds. Follow through?

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  2. On 11 March 2021, Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba stated the Ukrainian government had approved "the Strategy for Deoccupation & Reintegration of Crimea, a historic document needed since 2014. The signal is crystal clear: we don’t just call on the world to help us return Crimea, Ukraine makes own dedicated & systemic efforts under Zelenskyy’s leadership..."

    How's that "strategy" workin' out for y'all?

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    1. Now we're sending toilet paper for Ukrainian government officials to wipe their asses with...

      -FJ

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    2. The only way for Russia to "win" is to nuke the planet. We didn't force them to punch the tar baby. They did that on their own.

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    3. Now that we're paying for Ukraine to govern itself, why don't we just sell Ukraine to Russia and let them pay their expenses?

      -FJ

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    4. Because Russia is running out of pocket lint.

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    5. Heck, I'd take an IOU.

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    6. Russia is sending Gerasimov to either
      1.) Die, or
      2.) Go back home to kill Putin

      Either outcome is acceptable.

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    7. May 4th is 5 days away. Russian IOUs are worth less than their pocket lint.

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    8. That's okay. I'm already done paying Ukrainians to do shots of Stoly. I'll take the lint.

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    9. Will they give you enough pocket lint to weave a decent ushanka hat?

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    10. The fatal flaw of Russian planning is that Russians planned it.

      They're sending their top military planner to take command of their Ukraine operations because they're winning?

      ROFLMAO

      What, the Russians failed to take Kyiv because the GRU didn'r troll Instagram enough?

      ROFLMAO

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    11. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/29/russia-attempts-last-ditch-dollar-bond-payments-to-try-to-avert-historic-default.html

      Russia just paid $650 million US to put the bill collectors off for another month. See ya in June, babushka.

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    12. lol!

      The EU’s Russian energy imports were worth $108 billion (€99bn) in 2021, down from $173 billion (€157bn) in 2012.

      -FJ

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    13. The Russians have to pay their defaulted loans in US dollars. Pocket lint-backed rubles just won't cut it.

      You know the part of a chess game where one player is trying to chase down advancing pawns while dodging bishops with just their king and should have resigned six moves ago? That's Russia.

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    14. Funny, four European counties now pay their gas/ energy bills in rubles... which the Europeans must buy with Euro's

      -FJ

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    15. Sucks to be Europe. But, in less than three years, they'll be buying oil and natural gas from Italy and Greece (Mediterranean offshore drilling), and Russia will threaten to draft 7 year olds to fight them.

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    16. You'd think... but oil & gas investment is down over 50% since 2015.... "green energy" being the "in" thing and all. Yes, I watched your video.

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    17. The point is Russian oil and gas deals aren't the only game in town. Europe took a risk making deals with Russia (i.e. *not* treating them like the irrational rabid dog enemy they are) and now have to extricate themselves from that interdependency. They will long before Russia finds new customers. It's not like Russia's papier mache military could stop Germany from just taking their oil AGAIN, and this time without the US and UK bombing Germany while they do it. Europe will just be nice and dignified and take their business elsewhere, and Russia can do its deathbed ranting by itself.

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    18. Prequel video... Doomsday 2030,

      The world 8 years from now is going to make today"s world look like paradise. Math doesn't lie or forgive. Most of the problems we've kicked down the road over the last 50 years will start kicking us back harder. We're not going to be ready for it. But we will be more ready than others. That's a small comfort.

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    19. TC: I didn't watch the whole video, but I agree with you.

      The national debt expanding faster than the economy is a big enough iceberg all on its own, but we face so many other unaddressed issues, including people entering illegally with impunity and making themselves de facto citizens, an irrational health care market that makes it unaffordable for many, an out of control taxpayer money-suck higher education system, and rampant corporate welfare.

      Add on to that the foreign and domestic trolls propagandizing us daily with divisive, provocative messaging that goads us to lash out and hate one another.

      We're in the late stages...

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    20. Loss of habitat globally and lack of water to support the increasingly populated semi-arid mountain west (used by leftwing greens to scream and propagandize about "climate change, " what the hell ever that is).

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    21. The proliferation of sophisticated military hardware and advanced surveillance and intelligence techniques to every Tom, Dick and Harry.

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    22. I've been watching a lot of Peter Zeihan videos, but not neglecting the concerns you bring up as well. Taiwan is far better armed than Ukraine. China has knockoffs of obsolete Russian crap. China was experiencing extended rolling blackouts in their factory cities before Russia decided to commit suicide-by-Ukraine. And their Covid vaccine apparently sucks compared to America's.

      We're both conscious of the fact that historically our species doesn't reach for rationality when we have nothing to lose. Wars and rumors of wars are in the forecast.

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    23. Yup. One more factor with China: They have a male-female imbalance (Too many males, not enough women), and that has never worked out well in the past.

      China may also be in a demographic death spiral (We are a little better, but immigrants keep us from declining), and may not be able to pull out of it. Who the hell wants to immigrate to China?

      On the plus side. China has one of the largest Christian populations of any nation on earth, so something good could emerge from the ashes.

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    24. We industrialized the world, found the cheapest source of oil and natural gas was under our feet, and now we have to decide if securing energy sources for foreign factories makes business sense anymore, or if robotic factories powered by our own energy reserves can still give people jobs and incomes to consume things made by robots. At least until the robots start making themselves. Both options suck. On the plus side, it will require an extremely specialized labor force that only we will have. On the minus side, it will require an extremely specialized labor force that will be incinerated by nuclear war. The divorce America seems to crave from the world will be ugly. We all know sticking it out for the sake of the kids is no longer the American way.

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  3. Joe Biden told a funny joke yesterday. He asked, "What is the difference between my new Disinformation Governance Board and George Orwell's Ministry of Truth?" The answer, "Nothing! ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!"

    -FJ

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    1. AT least the board will have competent management...

      @@

      -FJ

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    2. From your second link -- and this information is critical (emphasis mine)...

      The fact that the government is running the board raises questions.

      How do they define "disinformation"?

      How will they combat "disinformation" on social media?

      Will they merely order social media firms to label certain posts as disinformation?

      Will this "disinformation" be suppressed, the way Twitter did to the Hunter laptop story?

      Will users who spread "disinformation" be suspended?

      Will the might of the law be used against "disinformation"-spreaders?

      The mere presence of a government-run disinformation board may deter some, who just do not want trouble from speaking out..


      The term Orwellian Times is often overused. But it seems to me the term applies now. Orwell's Ministry of Truth has arrived, albeit with a different name -- that is, Homeland Security's Disinformation Governance Board.

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    3. Sounds like a pretty clear violation of the US Constitution. Are we to assume we've been placed under Martial Law, or is there going to be a declaration before the Governance Board become active?

      Amendment I
      Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.


      -FJ

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    4. Last I checked, the 1st Amendment had not been repealed.

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    5. What part of ...make NO law are they ignoring?

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    6. ...what part of abridging the freedom of speech aren't they abridging?

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    7. @AOW
      You are asking questions which answer themselves.
      Which, of course, you know very well.

      @Anonymous
      The 1st Amendment was repealed when the citizens of this nation failed to defend it. The government is not "they," the government is "we" unless we abrogate that right and allow it to be "they."

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    8. No, the government has become "they". They've become self-styled "mandarins", as the "policy" previously linked to so "informs" us.

      -FJ

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    9. Why would Tucker Carlson have anything to worry about a crackdown on disinformation? ;)

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    10. Because today's Misinformation isn't tomorrow's Truth???

      -FJ

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    11. "The government is not they, the government is we unless we abrogate that right and allow it to be they."

      I should have added, "which we have done, so yes, government is they."

      Delete
  4. Unknown said...

    "MTGreene doesn’t recall perjuring herself!

    But she thinks President Biden is unfit for office.

    She just can’t remember why!"



    THAT'S FUNNY BECAUSE EVERYONE ELSE KNOWS WHY

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    1. Perfectionist,
      Ahem. It's AOW not "AWO." So much for your being a perfectionist, huh?

      As for your NASTY comment to my good friend Silverfiddle, if you don't like it here, buzz off. There are plenty of other blogs to troll. And take your broom with you.

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    3. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    4. Given that this was an "Open Thread"... sorry sf, I thought you were a might bit harsh.

      ...as for The Perfectionist, try angaging with something a little "deeper" and more "personal" than a "rant". A little sugar would go along way towards neutralizing the pure vinegar of a rant. And I know, I "rant" a lot, too.

      -FJ

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    5. Farmer, you have no idea how many boilerplate drive by comments we get, people posting long screeds with little punctuation, cut-and-past, and just garbage.

      They all fit a certain pattern:

      * They engage in childish blogger tittle-tattle, attempting to get people mad at each other. Bloggers in Left Blogistan and Right Blogistan are well aware of one another. Some go back and forth and some don't. Meh

      * They state the obvious in a non-entertaining way

      * They are off topic

      * They don't address the comments of others in the thread or the subject of the post.

      I would love for new people to come in here and join the conversion, but such posters are not interested in discussion and debate. Really, I don't know what their point is.

      The reason I gratuitously insult such comments is to see if the commenter comes back or not.

      Internet commenting hit bottom of the barrel years ago. The Hill, where I loved engaging in verbal combat with lefties, finally did away with their comments. It was past time. I estimated that over half were team trolls.

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    6. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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    7. You said "Burr Bye" ... and then you continued blathering.

      How can we miss you if you won't go away?

      Take a tip from Farmer. You like this blog? Think you would enjoy interacting with the pleasant and intelligent people posting here? Then introduce yourself, say hi, and respond to some comments.

      This isn't a toilet stall, and your drive by cut-and-paste is boring, unoriginal and ignores the comments of others.

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    8. Silver... the tell tale signs of "drive by cut-and-paste...

      When you can go elsewhere and see the same post, sometimes under another "name" or with minimal alterations.

      And for the record, sure I've been critical of your views, both here and elsewhere. As I am sure you and others have with mine.

      Because we have differences in our opinions.

      But we've managed to do it respectfully, something increasingly in short supply in many blogging communities.

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    9. I understand your frustration, sf. I appreciate your efforts to minimize the spammed cut and paste.

      But I'm also a bit distracted at the moment from trying to separate the concept of mimesis within ideologies and religions from the "powers of enforcement" that eventually result in a defined group or tribe.. I'm concluding that religion was born from this "power of enforcement" of group mimesis (by priests), which were then stripped away by the Enlightenment project and turned over to the Enlightenment's members (natural scientists)... the mimetic rituals of genuflection being removed and replaced with a greater emphasis on Apollonian rationality and reason with Nature as cause and the demytsification of the Dionysian deity as cause from religion. But I'm finding that the "enforcement" of irrationality under a "grand narrative" of religion with 'god as cause' has been replaced by an "enforcement" of a biased political irrationality (SuperEgo) using a jumble of scientific competing 'meta-narratives of the moment' where the scientists lend their "scientific authority" to justify the political positions of the parties in power at the moment (Lacan's Discourse of the University) but also use affect to induce effect.

      And so we get the "Discourse of the Hysteric" from The Perfectionist and your "Discourse of the University" applying a disciplinary admonition, and your ability to maintain discipline and apply punishments on AoW's blogspace, and me trying to develop my "Discourse of the Analyst".

      ...and of course the Government is now seemingly getting ready to step in and apply their ability to "moderate" the internet space in similar fashion. My angst is definitely increasing... will and how can we resist?

      There's definitely a lessening distinction between the public and private spaces that gets blurred. The proprietor has rights, I get it. But isn't there a space for "negative liberty" also?

      I suppose I'm WAY over thinking this whole new situation. If you have any proposed solutions, I'd sure like to hear them.

      -FJ

      -FJ

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    10. The Enlightenment Project created a space for individuation of opinions, but now a "forced mimesis through censorship" threatens that individuation. How do we regain the balance?

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    11. Forgive me as I re-examine Opera-buffa for clues...

      Apart from the clear duality organized around the two different repertoires, there was in fact a great deal of consensus among critics in the quarrel. Contributors agreed that something very different was at work in the music of the comic Italian operas—whether they enjoyed it or reviled it—and that this musical difference required new theoretical tools or language for musical style itself. In this sense, both sides of the debate worked to stabilize the notion that music was an aesthetic force independent of language.24 Up until this point, writers on music and aesthetics had generally understood musical tones to convey and supplement the meaning of a text. Music without words was considered something of a form without a content, like random splashes of paint thrown against a canvas (as Charles Batteaux had it)25 or, in the words of Noël-Antoine Pluche, like “a fine suit separated from a body and hung from a peg.”26 Music without a text lacked a certain essence. It was the costume without the actor. It failed to communicate anything with specificity.

      Because critics felt compelled to account for the musical differences between the French and Italian styles, they stumbled onto a new set of questions about music’s capacity for mimesis. Since art was supposed to be mimetic, the question had to be asked: what, if anything, was the basis of music’s mimetic power—what was it that the sound of music itself displayed? If music could be said to work mimetically, was it successful in its task? Answers to these questions were far from uniform along party lines in the debate, with both sides drawing on different aspects of the history of aesthetics in order to account for the new and provocative situation before them. While some authors insisted on grounding their account of the new style in mimetic theory, others doubted that this was even possible.


      -Roger Mathew Grant, "Peculiar Attunements: Comic Opera and Enlightenment Mimesis"

      -FJ

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    12. By decree of the federal government, we are not permitted to discuss whatever it is we are not to discuss. Please do not disrupt the non-discussion of whatever with attempts to categorize whatever and inadvertently discuss it.

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    13. Yeah, the "University Discourse" that the 'experts' used to feed us has deteriorated since Russiagate and Covid into a "Middle Schooler Discourse"

      -FJ

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  6. Wondering what people did back in very early times when they heard something said that went against what was "known to be true" (such as "the Earth orbits the Sun," for instance) without some government agency to protect them from such a horrendous failure of orthodoxy.

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    1. The "authorities" put Galileo under house arrest for the rest of his life for doing so.

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    2. I may be wrong, but I believe it was the Catholic Church that did that, not the government. I did notice that you put "authorities" in quotes.

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  7. Replies
    1. Wow. I thought he was just the Santa Claus artist.

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    2. The Democrats need to censor us because we keep introducing non-diegetic elements into their "narratives" that prevent the synaptic total assimilation of their Grand/Epic narrative.. ;)

      -FJ

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  8. We need to be careful, Biden's Ministry of Disinformation will shut this place down.

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    1. So I have heard. Apparently the Dems are putting a committee together to question Elon Musk to get to the root of what he is doing! I heard it all today and that tops it! Doing nothing for the citizenry just harrassing them. I suppose that is something to them, work you know! SMH! My Lord!

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  9. I no longer do politics on the weekend. Sorry but if I did I would burn out. However I cannot help love Bunkerville's Saturday post. They are hoot and she does it so well! :)

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    1. Layla,
      Yes, burnout prevention.

      Bunkerville's Saturday Potpurri posts are such a bright spot in the week. I usually stop by there on Sunday.

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  10. The “defund the police” movement appears to be mostly the product of elite progressive activists....

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    Replies
    1. I think progressives are like mimes. There is a joke in there somewhere but I dont get it.

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