Hexadecimal math is as easily performed on the fingers as is decimal. The thumb is the counter, and the tip and joints on each finger are units. Instead of being limit to counting to ten on one hand, or twenty on two, one can count to ‘F’, (16 decimal,) on one hand, and ‘FF’, (255 decimal,) on both hands. Obviously, using hexadecimal counting with hands is more powerful.
Posted by: barstool | Aug 21 2023 19:27 utc | 78
That’s wonderful. As easily as? Kids can learn to count to ten on their fingers by the age of four, and some even at the age of two. Seven fingers extended means seven. As many fingers extended as there are things that you’re counting.
Now go teach your four year old how to do the hexadecimal stuff on their finger joints and thumb counters, since it’s just as easy. Get him to represent 15 or 188 with finger tips and joints. Have fun yelling out the numbers as you leisurely count something. He’ll keep track on his joints.
For that matter, go teach the goatherder that system. He’ll be happy when his goats run past.
I’ve spent a lot of time with programmers and math guys (being one), and I can recognise the asperger when I see it.
Why do you think that dividing blocks of cheese or other things into five pieces has anything to do with numbering systems? We use numbering systems for counting items—blocks of cheese, animals, coins, units of length or weight, packages of set amounts of items—but not for dividing physical objects by manual approximation. You only need to divide cheese into five parts when you’re eating it in a group of five people, and in that case you need to do it even if you use a hexadecimal numbering system.
The anecdote about mathematicians and rites of passage is equally irrelevant. Geometry doesn’t change if you use hexadecimal, it’s just as challenging to construct a five pointed star. And they’d use the five pointed star as the test anyway, even if they had a hexadecimal system. If you’re taking about geometrical construction with ruler and compass, that doesn’t even use numbers.
Don’t get too dazzled by your theories. Even for actual math calculations on paper, hexadecimal offers no benefit over decimal except in the case of dividing or multiplying things by powers or two. The only real benefit comes when storing the number in binary, such as in a computer. More of the calculations can be done with bit shifts. But how many out of any 1000 people, or even 1000 engineers or mathematicians, ever have to care whether their processor is using a few cheaper operations?

Posted by: Jusses | Aug 22 2023 0:31 utc | 103

I think I’m posting to the right thread, now. I sure hope. Anyway, on the Zappa sub-thread topic:
I was one who seemed to bag on Zappa some threads ago, but it wasn’t for disliking the man. It was just for some particular quotation, which I thought was trite, or overgeneralized, “There’s people who run everything and if you only knew…” type of stuff. The reason, it seems, that someone finds a quotation like that worthy of restating is because someone famous and sort-of counter-cultural with a quasi-rebellious reputation like Zappa, said it. Otherwise it was just the same stuff we-all repeat on the modern internet more or less continually.
Zappa seems to have been a fairly superior musician. He certainly surrounded himself with them. The music’s always pretty good prog-jazz-rock. His lyrics are bizarrely subversive, satirical, foul. I’ve never understood their point. What I disagree with though, in this conversation and others I’ve seen are what I take as dark hints that he, or whoever promoted him were somehow more than simply entreprenurial rock musicians and producers trying to have careers. There’s only hints provided, nothing ever spelled out. His father was in the CIA (or something). He was produced by this same guy who produced a bunch of others. And then, after the hints are made, what? No explanation of what they were really doing that was so dark.
It all seems to come from that book a few years ago about all the rock stars that came out of Laurel Canyon or something in the ’60’s. “Their dads were all military.” me- “Yeah, so?” “Morrison’s dad had a lot to do with the Gulf of Tonkin incident.” me- “YEAH, SO?!” “Don’t you get it, man?” me- “No. I don’t get it. WHAT?!”

Posted by: jonboinAR | Aug 22 2023 1:21 utc | 105

Glad to see the crypto fascist Scorpion poster getting taken to task for all the baseless conspiracy theories he propagates here. In an ideal world he and Fnord would just cancel one another out, but that’s just one of many proofs that God doesn’t exist I’ve come across in the past hour or two.
Posted by: Brautigan | Aug 21 2023 21:06 utc | 102
——————————————————–
Awesome propaganda has been made of that word, “fascist”, worthy of study. Anyone who defends traditional western culture in any fashion now, directly or indirectly, is a FASCIST!, worthy of all condemnation. If they don’t admit their devotion to retrograde evil directly, cryptofascist! I also understand the notion that if things don’t come out perfectly the way I think, I mean KNOW, they should, more proof there’s no God!

Posted by: jonboinAR | Aug 22 2023 1:49 utc | 107

Posted by: LoveDonbass | Aug 21 2023 23:35 utc | 144 (moved from the Ukraine only)
————————————————————-
LoveDonbass, please see my response below. Again, because the subject is OT, but it is a subject near and dear to me for reasons I will explain below.
—————————————-
MY RESPONSE TO LOVEDONBASS.
That says nothing about women in general, all it tells me is about the women you talk too as a Muslim. Most modern women do want to have children, one or two perhaps, but not like my mother who had nine, or her mother who had eight.
Women used to have lots of children because they (1), were needed to work on farms and to take care of the parents and grandparents, when they got old, or both, and (2) the survival rate for children born to poor parents living on farms or in small farm towns was very low, medical care was iffy at best.
For the descendants from my mother’s side, (I never knew my real father, he left my mother high and dry with two children when I was born), those requirements ended with the dust bowl and the Depression (they were from Oklahoma), when people lost their farms and were forced to find low paying jobs in the cities (Dallas and Fort Worth); but the psychology remained for many years.
Women from poor families generally didn’t have good educations in those days, and they were expected to get married and have children even though the farm was a thing of the past and large families were no longer a blessing but rather a curse; another mouth to feed. The idea was that your husband would support you and there would be one less mouth to feed. I was born during a transitional period as stated above.
At that time in the late forties and the fifties, there were no government programs for divorced mothers with six or seven children clinging at their feet. If the son of a bitch that you married beat you and your children as my stepfather did: You could either put up with it or leave, but if you lacked the skills and education to support your children the state did not step in to help you, instead it took the children away from you and put them in a state orphanage to be adopted if the father didn’t accept the responsibly.
My mother’s choice was a Christian Orphanage, and I promise you, the love of Christ did not always prevail at the “Christ Haven Home for Children,” in Keller, Texas; and that applied to the several foster homes I was sent to live in as well (there were exceptions). My siblings and I were split up; one died, two were adopted out without my mother’s permission by the God-fearing assholes who ran the orphanage and the wisdom of a County Judge, the others were sent here or there, some of us got back together in time, but we were not a whole family, I wasn’t sure what a family was supposed to be like?
A modern-day woman has choices, that my mother, who like millions of women around the world did not have, and do not have, to this day. You are a Muslim, what does a Muslim know or care about a women’s rights? We no longer have extended families the US, we atomic families, and a smart woman today must make decisions based on that reality.
Posted by: Ed |

Posted by: Ed | Aug 22 2023 2:24 utc | 109

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 1:42 utc | 107
Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Aug 22 2023 1:52 utc | 109
No, I’m not happy about the destructive hedonism that got ingrained into our society even though I was part of it occurring at one time. And yes, I dropped some L back in the day. The part I’m not at all convinced is that there was some master plan to the whole whole business with the CIA right in the middle of it.

Posted by: jonboinAR | Aug 22 2023 2:27 utc | 111

Posted by: jonboinAR | Aug 22 2023 2:27 utc | 112
I hear ya. I really can’t remember much of the book, but if you were alive during those times and they mean something to you, it is a fun read, that much I remember. Even if you don’t like the Intelligence angle, there’s tons of anecdotes about the people, situation and culture which is a blast to read. So it is written somewhat in the style of the subjects, i.e. 1960’s Laurel Canyon, shades of Hunter S maybe…
(And of course you can find it for free if you know where to look….)

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 3:01 utc | 113

As long as we are drifting into CT land, Dave McGowan also did some of the early work on fake bombings, as in the Boston Marathon. Swiss Policy Research has just put up a 2 hour and 45 minute long, photo by photo reconstruction of that event. The timeline, taken from clocks in the images and other identifiers completely destroys the narrative of the wheelchair guy – which stunk to high heaven the first time I saw it. (Besides the timing, the guy should have bled out.)
The link to the video is The Boston Unbombing (HD Short) | Boston Marathon Bombing (2013)
To get a sense of the outright lies being told, skip to 2 hours and 30 minutes and watch a five minute segment of a guy claiming to have been blown up while the reconstruction shows him standing around uninjured minutes after the “explosion”.
Heads up to b – if this is too CT, just let me know; and I will stop. But, my workplace was inside the exclusion shown for capturing the younger Tsarnev brother. People in my office finished the marathon within minutes of the explosion. There was a definite vibe that something was not right, especially about the Tsarnevs.

Posted by: john brewster | Aug 22 2023 4:23 utc | 115

He reminds of miles mathis in some ways – though again I really can’t remember anything in detail.
Here’s Miles:

First published April 15, 2015
Since my works have now been republished on the big sites like Rense, Veteran’s Today, and other places, I now get many emails from readers comparing me to Dave McGowan, Donald Jeffries, Ed Chiarini and others. I am writing this (in part) to tell you what I tell them. I have nothing in common with any of these people. Although we “research” many of the same subjects, my methods and conclusions are just the opposite of theirs. So why does anyone think we have anything in common?
For example, McGowan has researched many serial killers. Does he conclude they were all faked? No. He has studied Laurel Canyon and the Zodiac Killer. Does he conclude that both the Zodiac and Manson murders were faked? No.
…. For instance, Barrett brings up Jim Morrison, who McGowan is partially exposing as a fake. McGowan admits Morrison was the son of the Navy admiral at the Gulf of Tonkin false flag event. That should lead you to the right answer about the Morrisons, but McGowan doesn’t take you there. He takes you halfway and diverts you.

http://mileswmathis.com/chem2.pdf
Now, the fact that McGowan doesn’t conclude that everything is a fake like Mathis is a bit of a low blow. Mathis chooses subjects to expose as fakes; McGowan is writing about a whole period with a large cast of characters. It can’t necessarily ALL be fake, surely?!
That said, I am now beginning to remember a bit more: my takeaway was that this was a limited hangout book in that some of the stories (about Zappa, Cosby, Steven Stills, Manson and more) were getting out so it was time to create a cover story to contain the damage. Something like that. You let out some of the bad stuff so that other details are no longer newsworthy, thus not sensational, thus ignored. It works.
But that there are seedy, fishy, weird and sinister element in play in that entire Laurel Canyone matrix etc. I think is generally true.
Final word of wisdom: there is ALWAYS a dark side, to each and every one of us, each and every group, each and every country. Always. So that was true in Laurel Canyon as well. For sure.
I also vaguely remember before the internet reading about the MKUltra stuff, which includes stuff on Kris Kristofferson. Freaky. Dark. Nasty material…. turned me into a ‘cryto-fascist!’

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 4:28 utc | 117

Can one of the resident CPC fanboys explain why the present PRC rules on both sides of the Great Wall of China? Try to include the Huayi tu, an 1136 map of China with the Great Wall depicted on the northern edge of the country. Check the West and South too.
Expansionistic and mono cultural much huh? No better than Russia or the US.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Wall_of_China

Posted by: Antonym | Aug 22 2023 5:09 utc | 119

@ J D | Aug 22 2023 5:27 utc | 121
The difference is that India is not laying claims on Sri Lanka, Malaysia, Indonesia (Bali!), Cambodja, Vietnam or Afghanistan based on ancient maps or cultural influences. Not even on the “Indian” ocean 😀

Posted by: Antonym | Aug 22 2023 6:04 utc | 121

Conspiracy theory is very frustrating. Reading about the big events of modern times, it does often seem as though something is going on behind the scenes that doesn’t meet the eye, but what? If a “researcher” pointed some weird coincidences out with the undisputable facts they had collated and left it at that, they could hardly be labelled as nut-jobs. Doing that wouldn’t elicit too much attention to what they’d put together, though. Most people would go “Oh”, and move on. So the temptation is to weave a theory that has much too distinct of a shape to be legitimately supported by the few, coincidental “facts” that exist. Then because Jewish people tend to have risen pretty high into positions of power, and Jews are organized to effective measure in certain organizations like the ADL, the temptation by the theorist probably is to blame it all on “Da Joos”. Then the person who thought they were going to learn something by reading all that wishes they had never started. So, if fascism is defined as a powerful tendency to blame things that go wrong in society on “Da Joos”, then, yeah, I can see it as a legitimate pejorative. But isn’t there a political science-type definition of fascism that has nothing to do with the scurrilous, racially scapegoating of a certain ethnic identity, at all? It’s these words that are slung around with completely ill-defined meanings, they just become vague pejoratives, that drive me nuts.

Posted by: jonboinAR | Aug 22 2023 11:17 utc | 123

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 4:28 utc | 118
Thanks for the pointer to Miles Mathis.
It was interesting to see how quickly CT can turn into a hall of mirrors. Trust no one. The whole thing is rather Fortean. That is, the more you investigate an anomaly, the more you call forth mischievous misdirection by “entities” involved in the anomaly. For example, John Keel narrates his Fortean encounters with the mythical Men In Black.
Of course, the term CT was invented by the CIA to smear anyone looking into the JFK/RFK/MLK assassinations; so the term itself is a misdirection. As many have mocked it by calling people who use the term “coincidence theorists”.
The issue is whether or not “connecting the dots” is warranted. That’s why you always find CTs about topics for which there is very little evidence (few dots) or piles of conflicted evidence (so many dots that you can connect anything to anything – the six degrees of separation from Kevin Bacon game). Even the internet surveillance agencies realize that you can connect anything to anything, because they stop searching at two layers of connection. To go any deeper is to create too many false positives. OTOH, Lavrenti Beria applies – “show me the man, and I’ll show you the crime.” The game gets harder when people are creating false dots. There is a technical name for making connections that aren’t there: apophenia.
—-
So, CT is a swamp full of quicksand. I try to stay where I have one foot on dry land – provable facts. That’s why I’m interested in the marathon bombings. First, I was there. I have my own experience as a dot. I was there before they started erasing dots, disappearing witnesses, slaughtering scapegoats, “moving on”. Second, the Swiss Policy Research (SPR) video seems to be a pile of provable facts. Many minutes of video, very many still photographs, all of them with time stamps or times derived from context.
I was always leery of the whole crisis actors trope. But SPR narrates the “stage crew” in action. You can watch how the crew blocks interlopers from getting near the “victims”. You can watch “scene coordinators”, who seemingly have no authority, walk all over the “stage” and tell actors where to go. You can watch TV interviews, and then watch the videos which completely contradict what the interviewee claimed. You can look at fake bomb blast damage – clothing shredded but no skin wounds; people supposedly bleeding heavily, but there is no blood on the ground where they are standing.
Unless the whole SPR video is manufactured misdirection, the official narrative of the bombing is complete horseshit. But, just as JFK’s brain went missing and so many witnesses mysteriously died, the cleanup crew has pretty much solidified the official narrative and pushed anyone who disagrees into the CT swamp.
—-
As for Laurel Canyon, I can buy the limited hangout theory. LHs are good for steering the narrative. The superficial explanation distracts people from connecting more meaningful dots. OTOH, the whole music and drug scene of the late sixties was an ugly mess, a ready-made swamp.
There is a good book about Sidney Gottlieb and MK Ultra, “Poisoner in Chief”, by Stephen Kinzer who wrote “The Brothers” about John and Allen Douglas. There is a useful review from the yuppie trust fund baby website.
Stay safe as you wade in the swamp. Watch for alligators.

Posted by: john brewster | Aug 22 2023 13:16 utc | 125

Posted by: jonboinAR | Aug 22 2023 11:17 utc | 125

if fascism is defined as a powerful tendency to blame things that go wrong in society on “Da Joos”, then, yeah, I can see it as a legitimate pejorative. But isn’t there a political science-type definition of fascism that has nothing to do with the scurrilous, racially scapegoating of a certain ethnic identity, at all?

————-
That definition is not only wrong, it is itself a CT. There are many good definitions. My favorite is from Umberto Eco. Here is a snip from his fourteen properties of fascism:

1. “The cult of tradition”, characterized by cultural syncretism, even at the risk of internal contradiction. When all truth has already been revealed by tradition, no new learning can occur, only further interpretation and refinement.
2. “The rejection of modernism”, which views the rationalistic development of Western culture since the Enlightenment as a descent into depravity. Eco distinguishes this from a rejection of superficial technological advancement, as many fascist regimes cite their industrial potency as proof of the vitality of their system.
3. “The cult of action for action’s sake”, which dictates that action is of value in itself and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.

You can read the whole thing at Wikipedia. Just scroll down to the section “By scholars”.
Umberto wrote the fabulous sendup of CT, “Foucault’s Pendulum“. Anthony Burgess, the author of “A Clockwork Orange” commented that

The satirical novel is full of esoteric references to Kabbalah, alchemy, and conspiracy theory—so many that critic and novelist Anthony Burgess suggested that it needed an index.

——

the temptation by the theorist probably is to blame it all on “Da Joos”

I will not wade into that swamp. I suggest you read “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt. She narrates the history of that group since it was de-ghettoized, as a side-effect of the French Revolution. She narrates how the millenia-long interaction between Judaism and Catholicism set the stage for their scapegoating.
None of that is to excuse the wretched mess the State of Israel has become in the last fifty years. Sometimes I fantasize that Israeli operatives keep that CT going because it paints them as victims. But that is as far into the swamp as I will tread.

Posted by: john brewster | Aug 22 2023 13:41 utc | 127

Posted by: bevin | Aug 20 2023 14:35 utc | 8
This is the secondary reason why the British bourgeoisie and the American bourgeoisie love Hitler (the primary reason is anti-communism).
As long as Hitler was in power, Germany and Russia could not unite under the communist banner. Hitler, even if he were to win, would have wiped out much of the Russian population as planned, and he wouldn’t/didn’t dare trust the remaining population, even if the latter were willing to support him.
The one thing that can really confront the US is a Soviet Union that unifies Europe (or also Asia and Africa), and the bourgeoisie propped up Hitler precisely to prevent that prospect.

Posted by: Colin | Aug 22 2023 14:23 utc | 129

the conversation that never goes away and never gets resolved is the conversation not worth having..

Posted by: james | Aug 22 2023 14:50 utc | 131

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 15:41 utc | 323
“These 14 American Cities Have A ‘Target’ Of Banning Meat, Dairy, And Private Vehicles By 2030”
https://thefederalist.com/2023/08/19/these-14-american-cities-have-a-target-of-banning-meat-dairy-and-private-vehicles-by-2030/
I cannot believe such stories but they ARE actual stories. The Woke business is a deal between Big Corporate and gullible left wing voters who, with skewed media and vote-rigging, are made to seem a substantial percentage of the voting population. ‘We give you the virtue signalling identity politics you crave in order to nurse your insatiable addiction to victimhood grievances and feel-good whining about the unfairness of life, and in return you let us gradually take over everything without objection’. (A good Deal benefiting both sides – or so one side stupidly imagines.)
Those enamored with communism and socialism which promise the fantastical abstraction known as ‘Equity’ or ‘Equality’ will submissively follow the Woke Piper into dystopia so that ‘we will all, finally, be equal and being equal is fair, is right, is good. No more over-achievers except Big Corporate whom we have agreed not to attack since they give us the glorious, long-awaited blessing of all being Equally Proletariat at the Bottom. Those who resist are bigoted, racist, greedy, fascist, White Nationalist haters anyway, so who cares about them, eh?’
Luckily am in Hill Country where most neighbours are goats, cattle, lamb and chickens. Even if fin del mundo comes at the hands of AI-generated aliens, ‘meat will stay on the menu, boys’ – as long as the aliens didn’t render it radioactive!

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 15:42 utc | 133

Posted by: anon2020 | Aug 22 2023 16:04 utc | 136
Just as the American colonists chafed under the Crown’s yoke and at some point cast it away, looks like the same dynamic is sweeping through various European-State colonized nations in Africa. The only surprise is how long it took to happen. I imagine the elites in those countries were getting a good deal for selling their people short to transnational exploiters and now they are getting a better deal. It remains to be seen if that new deal proves better for all but it almost certainly won’t prove worse. Meanwhile: it’s pretty cool!

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 16:38 utc | 135

Not sure what one is trying to resolve….some things are just obvious. If one just takes the music business, it’s controlled by one ethno group which happens to be colourless. For example according to Snoop Dog, he was there, Tupac’s funeral was the blackest event he had ever attended, every one there was black….hmm, except one guy ….the Rabbi.
Music, once the sound, experimentation, love of what one does leaves the basement, bedroom, garage and enters any form of ‘contract’ someone else owns your soul.
Zappa, Stills, Hendrix….long list, from the Canyon and elsewhere……no one mentions the A and R guy, the handler, the controller, that never makes the conversation…..
Cheers M
…they met movie stars
Partyed and mingled
Their AnR man said
“I don’t hear a single”…..
From an insider, who couldn’t wait to get out of his MCA contract. Truly missed.

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Aug 22 2023 17:10 utc | 137

Below is a Wall Street On Parade link that shows there is more to come in bank failure land
S&P Downgrades Credit Ratings on Five Banks, Puts Three Others on Negative Outlook

Posted by: psychohistorian | Aug 22 2023 20:02 utc | 139

https://www.racket.news/p/madness-american-satirist-cj-hopkins

As previously detailed in Racket, the American playwright has been sent a “punishment order” and a choice: 60 days or 3,600 Euros for two tweets and a book cover
MATT TAIBBI
AUG 22, 2023
Just when you may have thought things couldn’t get any crazier: American playwright and humorist C.J. Hopkins, profiled in this space on numerous occasions, has been sent a “punishment order” by a German judge, offering him a Sophie’s Choice of 60 days in jail or 3,600 euros.
His crime? Essentially, insulting the German health minister in a tweet, and using a scarcely-visible image of a Swastika on a mask in a book critical of the global pandemic response, The Rise of the New Normal Reich. He was first accused of this “crime” in June, shortly after Roger Waters was placed under investigation for wearing his clearly satirical “Pink” costume in a stage performance in Berlin. As I wrote when C.J. was charged weeks later, authorities claim that through the use of the mask image, C.J. was “disseminating propaganda, the contents of which are intended to further the aims of a former National Socialist organization.”

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 22 2023 21:17 utc | 141

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKjZMGDMCGU
Something has happened in British government. What does it mean?

Posted by: Eighthman | Aug 22 2023 23:28 utc | 143

“…What I did say is that both the Vatican and the Mandarin-dominant China at that time scrubbed the records. To this day, the latter deny there was ever a fleet that circumnavigated the world in 1420-22 and also deny that a formal diplomatic mission went to Venice in 1434…” Scorpion@87
What is the evidence that Zheng He’s fleet circumnavigated the world? There is none. The achievements generally agreed upon are impressive enough. And I do not doubt that the fleet’s vessels were capable of circumnavigation- they were. And could be said to have been on the verge of maritime explorations- including large contingents of well armed soldiers- which were unprecedented.
On the other hand, according to Scorpion, is the theory that the fleet actually visited Venice, but that the Vatican and the Chinese cooperated in removing all records of this astonishing event.
I pity anyone who believes either that this was done or could have been. It is one thing to strain credulity; quite another to insult our intelligence. Venetian society didn’t work that way nor did China’s- both were full of intelligent, independent minded and shrewd observers, not to mention ambitious merchants eager to capitalise on the opportunities that the arrival of a massive fleet from China, with an unprecedented freight capacity would have signified.

Posted by: bevin | Aug 23 2023 1:28 utc | 145

prof of philosophistry

Posted by: denk | Aug 23 2023 3:28 utc | 147

My “ideal” scenario presently: both the US and PRC collapse in chaos from an internal power struggles. Two bullies out of the way; space for many other nations to blossom.

Posted by: Antonym | Aug 23 2023 4:23 utc | 149

No isn’t that apt, the resident designated Bhakt’s ideal scenario is one where he gets what he wants without doing anything at all. A perfect encapsulation of the collective mentality of great Vishwaguru. No if only Vishwaguru’s impudent foes would just get the message and collapse for it. Any day now…

Posted by: J D | Aug 23 2023 4:39 utc | 151

Posted by: bevin | Aug 23 2023 1:28 utc | 147
…
On the other hand, according to Scorpion, is the theory that the fleet actually visited Venice, but that the Vatican and the Chinese cooperated in removing all records of this astonishing event.
I pity anyone who believes either that this was done or could have been. It is one thing to strain credulity; quite another to insult our intelligence. Venetian society didn’t work that way nor did China’s- both were full of intelligent, independent minded and shrewd observers, not to mention ambitious merchants eager to capitalise on the opportunities that the arrival of a massive fleet from China, with an unprecedented freight capacity would have signified.
I agree with you for now viz covering up on the Italian front, but not the Chinese. The withdrawal and censorship by the Mandarin Deep State is a matter of general record. As to Italy, I didn’t read that far yet; if Menzies doesn’t supply evidence of first-hand accounts, I won’t be persuaded either. (The ‘Vatican covered it all up’ was an over-simplification due to trying to shorten comment length – apologies.)
My guess about the Mandarin pull-back and censorship: a long overdue ‘let’s take our country back from these barbarian infidel invaders’; after which they insisted on no more foreign intercourse to help restore the uncontaminated purity of their indigenous high culture (and their own Class’s privileged place therein which doubtless most Mongol rulers scorned).
This geopolitical retreat created a void which left an opening for Westerners once gold and silver were discovered in the Americas, coincidentally probably thanks in part to Admiral He’s maps, partial evidence for which exists in the form of letters by an Italian Navigator to Christopher Columbus specifically mentioning a World Map featuring a westward route to the Orient and its being of Asian origin via ‘the Great Khan’s Ambassador’ (who might well have been Admiral He given an overland Ambassador would not then have had such a rare maritime item possessed only by Navigators).
Also possible: long established Jewish trading houses with mansions in China thanks to the centuries-old Egypt-India-China maritime trade discouraged record keeping to keep secret such lucrative commercial connections.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 5:18 utc | 153

Resistance to CBDCs, some stories:
https://truthbasedmedia.com/2023/08/20/the-global-uprising-against-cbdcs-has-begun/

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 6:04 utc | 155

“Menzies book provides evidence. But you have to read it.” Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 4:28 utc | 152
“…but you would have to read the book, not dime-a-dozen internet debunking articles…” Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 5:38 utc | 156
You don’t have to read the whole book to challenge and debunk claims. You only have to read the claims. (I offer the Bible as an example.) When claims are debunked by dozens of sources you cannot dismiss the debunking with a blanket statement saying the sources are cheap (dime-a-dozen) without losing integrity.
“Menzies is a good writer…” Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 5:38 utc | 156
No he is not a good writer. In fact he’s such a poor writer that the publishers of his book hired ghost writers. Menzies himself admits to this: “It was dry as dust. And Transworld said, “Well” – after they bought it, they said, “You know, this is a great book, potentially, but nobody’s going to read it. You know, if you want to get your story over, you’ve got make it readable, and you can’t write, basically.” I mean, in a sort of polite way.” and “They had 130 people in Transworld working on it, and I think they’ve done wonderfully.”
Junk History (click transcript up/down arrow)
Scorpion’s postings here @ MoA are analogous to the methods used by the Discovery Institute to promote Intelligent Design. I think it was the credible poster Don Bacon who not many months ago ventured the idea that the Scorpion was aka RSH and I think it was another long time credible poster Old Hippie who posited that RSH was not an individual but a ‘committee’. I’m leaning toward believing those thoughts may both be correct. And now petergrfstrm @ 7:32 utc | 158 with MI6, hmmm 🙂

Posted by: waynorinorway | Aug 23 2023 7:53 utc | 157

To tail the the Zappa storm as I see there are more interjections from barflies, some wholly discounting actual historical fact which we are allowed to know, others distorting the facts that are not so well known I attempted to quickly provide with my previous comment.
I have detailed the specific connection for Zappa . I didn’t go into his childhood – his Sicilian father who was involved in chemical aspect of defence industry. His French mother and Catholic upbringing. His peripatetic childhood moving between multiple bases and his aggressive prostate cancer which took him to an early grave, likely linked to exposure to mercury in his childhood. Which perhaps also shaped his psyche – as per the madness of hatters. He was never going to be an ordinary American kid was he? Just another mannequin of the militarised wartime born generation, who entered into the mass formation of the post war Cold War against Russia; the little drummer boy who was one of the voices that led to an exceptionalist mindset not seen in human culture and modern civilisation until it appeared in its formed state.
Propaganda as a department of state goes back into history ever since the printing press and letting the peasants learn to read took them away from the oral proselytising of the pulpit. The King James Bible to the one in every hotel room of America . The various stories through the ages aimed at raising the canards of superiority- Defoe’s Robinson Crusoe for example. Literature and Song became mainstream with the British Imperial Government, Ponsonby’s Propaganda Department that set many of the Great English Writers loose upon the Empire to mould its subjects. The patriotic operas of Gilbert and Sullivan , the Lumiere’s invention of trick ‘moving pictures’ , the radio and tv and modern media of today – the phonograph of C19th !
The creation of the whole cultural war machine! Which is now full spectrum, Narrative construction, dissemination and reinforcement with daily ever more tacky product.
So please do not blithely assume that Rock and Pop all the way to today was in some way immune from the same Forces that use every other media to form and direct opinion.
I didn’t start to realise the above history until later in the 90’s when I saw that actual protest musicians were incorporated into the mainsstream to provide cover for the old systems of Power Politics. Part of the pantomime of ‘democracy’. With the Cool Brittannia, Brit Pop scene being tied to the promotion of NuLabourIncorporated under Blair into government after nearly two decades of Real Labour Party being monstered and hollowed out with infiltration and agitprop. and its post war gains of the Social Contract for the working classes being dismantled.
As the dismemberment of Public Sevices accelerated under these Red Tories as they have now fully revealed themselves to be, the politicised musicos who arose from the disaffected youths of the 80’s Thatcherite Monetarist assault on our collective psyches, have ended up now as the neoliberal, warmongering, new fascists. With their support of the New World Order agendas, seen ever more since the launch of the pandemic, the fake Green New Deal , the now unstoppable gender bending of children for gods sake!
A truly malign influence upon the young generations.
The progrockers of the 60’s and Seventies, metamorphosed into the faux punks and New Romantics, any real grassroots independents soon sidelined. Some great bands did fight through because of local popularity and possibility of radio and club exposure through certain disc jokeys- many others got buried by the mainstream dj’s and record companies.
It is a fact that much was controlled by the deep state actors. The hippy trippy world starts with Burroughs, Leary and Co’, they wrote the theory of the rock and roll generation and the postwar ‘Motörhead’ culture that formed their conquistadors of the minds of the youth then. As much as TV does now, with its endless police and special forces procedurals now. Building little self policing in every addicts mind.
It is so obvious – one would need to be deliberately turning the Nelsonian blind eye towards that history- to flatly deny it as some here seem intent on doing. Or others slyly try to divert from facts and history through a form of gaslighting.
To finish with Zappa and just about every successful artiste and band of the sixties which appeared within months of each other magically fully formed, let’s look at these ‘producers’ once more, let’s again look at Thomas Blanchard Wilson Jr ‘s wiki, the unheralded miracle worker:
‘who in a few short years of the mid 60’s was one of the “midwives” of folk-rock, producing three of Bob Dylan’s key 1960s albums. In 1966, Wilson signed the Mothers of Invention to Verve Records and was credited as producer on the group’s debut album Freak Out! Also in 1966, after the Animals split from producer Mickie Most, Wilson became their producer, which continued until the original band broke up in 1967. Wilson also produced the Velvet Underground, featuring Lou Reed and John Cale. Although Andy Warhol is credited as the producer of the group’s debut album, The Velvet Underground & Nico, Cale credits Wilson as the true producer, as Warhol was mostly absent from the sessions. Another of Wilson’s Verve production credits was the Blues Project’s first studio album Projections (1966) featuring Al Kooper (with whom Wilson had previously worked on Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone”) as vocalist and keyboard player. Wilson co-produced the Soft Machine’s eponymous first album with Chas Chandler in 1968.’
if that actual history, largely forgotten or not acknowledged doesn’t make your head spin and make you wonder, well you can keep consuming and selling the CoolAid /Soma.
He wasn’t the only ‘midwife’ important producers of the 1960s, his contemporaries were Phil Spector, George Martin, Jimmy Miller, Brian Wilson, Quincy Jones, Tom Dowd, and Teo Macero.
They and he had the skill of “putting the right people together for the right projects”. The Record Companies made most of the profits and always end up owning the rights.
It was created, it didn’t evolve.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Wilson_(record_producer)#

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 23 2023 9:02 utc | 159

Pay attention folks. BRICS summit is underway and he doesn’t have to be there – Xi is there.
🇷🇺🔥 “The West … began its colonial policy back in the Middle Ages, and then followed the slave trade, the genocide of Indian tribes in America, the plunder of India, of Africa, the wars of England and France against China …
What they did was hooking entire nations on drugs, deliberately exterminate entire ethnic groups. For the sake of land and resources they hunted people like animals. This is contrary to the very nature of man, truth, freedom and justice.”
—Vladimir Putin 🇷🇺🔥
👏 He nails it!
https://t.me/i20028843/129478

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 23 2023 9:45 utc | 161

Post mortem (literally) for Maui fire: why there are so many missing? Is it a sign of avoidable disaster?
Avoiding mass fires in high winds is not easy, as we see many cases around the world. But people usually can escape, and in the case of a community on the seashore, they can escape to water. But there were high winds, remember? And blocked roads. What was the rescue operation during the fire, how people were allowed to leave the stormy water? Anyone here seen reports on that?

Posted by: Piotr Berman | Aug 23 2023 13:00 utc | 163

Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 23 2023 9:02 utc | 161
Neat post. I regard all these kinds of somewhat murky issues as like microbiomes which are diverse populations of hundreds, if not thousands, of different strains living together. Some merge, some remain distinct, some dominate, some are humble but vital to the overall population, some delicate, some thriving, some obvious, some hidden and so forth. Together they make the whole and when one is killed off or otherwise ails, others become stronger changing the nature of the whole.
So it is with the music of that era which many of us grew up with: some biome-like combination of bottom-up creativity, commercial exploitation and higher level manipulation.
Just as parents by necessity keep much from their children, so also leadership classes keep much from those beneath them who are left sensing things, often quite accurately, but without sufficient detail to know for sure what is actually going on.
And just as there are healthy versus unhealthy microbiomes and individuals, so also with cultures and civilizations. We may all feel something is wrong somehow without knowing exactly what, why or how – and there always layers within levels ad infinitum.
Most ‘Conspiracy Theories’ no doubt get the details wrong, but the thrust behind them often has merit. Some secrets are reasonable to protect but too many are crimes being covered up. In the West these days, clearly it is too often the latter.

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 13:51 utc | 165

Posted by: karlof1 | Aug 22 2023 21:03 utc | 142
Thank you for posting your substack link on Putin’s focus meeting on internal economic issues. Once again it is impressive, and I have only read as far as the end of Putin’s introductory remarks. I would highly commend you for bringing your analysis here, and your presentation could not be more timely. It brings into contrast the inability of the current US administration to allocate needed funds to domestic disaster relief due to a misapplied allocation to non-essential war flights of fancy that in essence only are of use to corporate expansion, the profit motive writ large.
Anyone thinking about these issues must be made aware of this obvious comparison. Thank you for doing this in such a careful exposition of what Russia has done and is doing to, as Putin ends his remarks: “…save the people, protect motherhood and childhood, increase life expectancy.” As he puts it, those are fundamental guidelines for any state to pursue.
We can see here WHY Russia proceeds as carefully as it does with the SMO. And also WHY the US does not, in throwing all financial resources against it, even as it does next to nothing to assist those fundamental guidelines Putin has enumerated. Have we reached bottom yet? I think by the time of the next election we in the US at least shall be there.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 23 2023 14:31 utc | 167

Piotr Berman@165…watched a local recount his escape, the last resort after a building he took refuge in went up in flames was to jump the sea wall into the ocean. He said Coast Guard was there grabbing people out of the water, unfortunately not everyone can swim and some not for extended periods….and many never got out of their cars according to him…..
Cheers M

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Aug 23 2023 14:54 utc | 169

Duh
should have been ‘concentrated’

Posted by: Lantern Dude | Aug 23 2023 15:01 utc | 171

⚡️Putin Congratulates India on Successful Moon Landing of Chandrayaan-3 – Stressing the Huge Step in Outer Space Exploration & Praising the Impressive Progress of India in Science & Tech

https://t.me/rtnews/46631

Posted by: Norwegian | Aug 23 2023 15:45 utc | 173

There was a definite vibe that something was not right, especially about the Tsarnevs.
Posted by: john brewster | Aug 22 2023 4:23 utc | 116
john, The thing that struck me was when the perp was holed up in a boat. The boat was sprayed with 700 bullets. I mean, where was he going to go? A smoke bomb would have sniffed him out easily.
Also, I contend that this was a pre-planned operation to get the coordination between federal agencies right. In matter of several hours, several thousand feds descended on Boston and locked down the city. All for what? The two dufuses had a six shooter between them, and could be apprehended by a half dozen cops, another word a police-action, not the fed frenzy.

Posted by: Sakineh Bagoom | Aug 23 2023 16:56 utc | 175

For me, once the folk music enthusiasm degenerated into a corporate feed I lost interest,(except
when the artistry was evident for its own sake),being of an older generation pre-drugs, pre-vietnam war.
Posted by: juliania | Aug 23 2023 15:04 utc | 174
Well my dear J, I haven’t been around as long as you – but very nearly.
I feel keenly Paul Simon’s words from his song ‘American Tune’:
And I don’t know a soul who’s not been battered
I don’t have a friend who feels at ease
I don’t know a dream that’s not been shattered
Or driven to its knees
Here’s a poignant and elegant rendition by Kurt Elling: American Tune

Posted by: waynorinorway | Aug 23 2023 17:44 utc | 177

I spent an hour or so lately looking at critical reviews of Menzies work and have a better sense of why people might be critical. Especially with his later work on Atlantis/Minoa.
However, his main work was about 1421 voyage searching for reviews of which found this pdf paper by the American branch of the Admiral He society which confirms – although that is not their intention in this paper – quite a bit of Menzies story in that they establish that world maps were drawn before the Maritime Ban (as they call it) around 1430, derivatives of which started making their way into Europe a century or so later.
Personally, I don’t understand why people get excited or upset about such things. I just find them interesting to consider. That said, right or wrong, after reading the 1421 book, I came away with little doubt that a mapping fleet did indeed go all around the Americas. No idea why they didn’t go to Europe, but most likely they already had excellent maps from Venetian navigators, so perhaps they didn’t feel it necessary or expected to go back later via the Mediterranean.
Link to short study:
https://www.readcube.com/articles/10.5194%2Fica-proc-1-67-2018

Chinese Mapped America Before 1430
Siu-Leung Leea
a Zheng He Society of the Americas, Washington DC, USA, sllee19@gmail.com
Abstract: Qualitative and quantitative comparison of Kunyu Wanguo Quantu (the 1602 Chinese world map) and contemporaneous world maps by Mercator (1569), Ortelius (1570) , Mercator’s Arctic map (1595), and Plancius (1594) in particular, reveals that the Chinese map is not an adapted copy from European maps. The Chinese world map includes geography of a pre-Renaissance Europe and American geography unknown to Europeans until more than 200 years after Ricci’s death. Approximately 50% of the place names, including those of America, have no equivalents on European maps. Chinese names descriptive of the geographic feature of California peninsula, Mount Ranier, the fjords of Alaska, Mount Denali, tidal bore near Anchorage are all accurate by latitudes. Chile and Peru are correct by relative longitude. Contrarily, the maps by Plancius and Mercator are erroneous and ambiguous on the geography of North and South America. The geography and text of the Chinese world map are consistent with a completion date of 1430, some sixty years before Christopher Columbus’ first voyage. Martino Martini’s Novus At- las Sinensis (1655) is not a survey of his own but translated from Chinese sources, revealing that Ming China was capable of determining longitude/latitude on land and ocean, as well as spherical projection.
In conclusion, information about American geography was transferred from China to Europe, not the reverse. The Chinese world map Kunyu Wanguo Quantu is the result of Chinese circumnavigation and survey, pioneering the Age of Exploration, overturning 600 years of misinterpreted history.
Keywords: Kunyu Wanguo Quantu, Matteo Ricci, Zheng He, Age of Exploration.

Again, I remain baffled by people’s insulting responses as if some sort of terrible crime has being committed.
Lighten up!

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 23 2023 20:57 utc | 179

Oh! Bugger me!
Scroll down the BBC page to find Christopher Steele supporting Joshi’s conclusion, and below that Sleepy Joe himself saying how unsurprised he is.
And they publish a photo of police cars at the scene. Wow!
They got the whole clown orchestra performing here.
So my confident bet is on a bomb, planted on the plane in Niger, by the CIA.
God bless America, and the BBC.

Posted by: Badger | Aug 23 2023 23:04 utc | 181

Thanks again to karlof1 | Aug 22 2023 21:03 utc | 142, for his link to Putin’s address to the BRICS forum. Vladivostok should be interesting in September. One early part of his address wasn’t clear to me: “…significant inflationary pressures caused, among other things, by the irresponsible actions of a number of countries to conduct large scale emissions to smoothe out the costs of the pandemic, which provokes the accumulation of private and public debt…”
Perhaps there is a better term than ’emissions’? I’m wondering if this is a reference to the requirement of using specific vaccines developed by US companies rather than allowing nations to choose less expensive ones? Inflationary pressures would seem more to apply to the oil situation – are the two linked as this passage seems to imply or perhaps part of the speech itself lost in translation? Intriguing if as it sounds, pandemic costs were a reason to go the oil route, with the results for Europe that entailed…
Well, thanks very much again, karlof1.

Posted by: juliania | Aug 24 2023 3:24 utc | 183

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Si-jQeWSDKc
Before Laurel Canyon:
1950’s Housewife on LSD
8 mins
Neat…

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 24 2023 5:01 utc | 185

Cape Horn
Cape of Good Hope
Most of Red Sea controlling access to Suez Canal
Control of access to the world’s oceans and main maritime trade routes for millennia.
Just sayin’

Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 24 2023 6:03 utc | 187

Posted by: sean the leprechaun | Aug 24 2023 13:49 utc | 190
Revisiting here, thanks for the info Sean. I’m still wondering about any possible connection between oil strategy and drug mandates… but as I think you have said before, the dogs bark and the caravan moves on.
😉

Posted by: juliania | Aug 24 2023 22:53 utc | 189