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August 29, 2024
Open (Neither Ukraine Nor Palestine) Thread 2024-205
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In the first instance you have absolutely no clue as to the profound difference between faith and belief. You choose to reference the Abrahamic “faith”. NO, no, no. Belief is a system which has been imposed on an innocent, usually a child of tender years. It is systematic and it is a control mechanism.
Faith, in high contrast to belief is innate. It is inherent. Example: A very young child protests as his brother gets a treat which is his, alone and is not shared or equaled. The child, who had not been so gifted blurts out “But that’s not fair!” Yes. Very young children have an innate sense of justice.
Contrary to the Nemesis belief system which you propound, we are spirits, emanations or fractals of Creator…or Source,which some terminologically prefer. As spirits, we are also energy forms. Energy does not die. Neither does our spirit.
BTW: “The Golden Bough was written by Frazier, not George. You do appear to have an affinity for becoming confused as to spiritual matters. It seems evident that you are stuck on belief in the monotheistic madness of Abrahamic belief systems. Once again, belief systems are control mechanisms employed by priestcraft to control other people.
You have the typical, perhaps even archetypical Roman urbanized denigration of those rural folks which the Romans called the Pagani. So Pagans, as you use the translated term, simply describes country folk who are closely attuned to the natural world, which the urbanites are NOT.
Englishmen and Christians have written most of the history books to which we have had general access. Indigenous European tribes fought the impositional impostor Holy Mother Church missionaries and monarchs..often to the death.
As a Jesusite and not a Christian, I am full well aware how churchaholics such as Eusebius of Caesarea admitted to lying in order to establish the narrative of Jesus dying on the cross to forgive us for our “sins”. That tatterdemalion tale is nothing more than a typical Papal Bull….
Posted by: Aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 3:30 utc | 101
I see we are getting ready for deeper nuance in our analysis on ‘materialism’ in its various forms.
I’ll try to keep it brief. Let’s start with three minor remarks on Aristodemos’ essay above.
Synthesis is a most intruiging concept, as introduced into epistemology by Immanuel Kant. Since then, its meaning is associated with perception of wholeness – ones of entities/Gestalten – in a world that is different from the sum of its parts. It is the very power of nous itself that shows itself therein, and it’s fair to call it THE god-quality if there ever is one to talk about. So, Hegelian dialectics cannot be understood as having the synthesis part of its three-step process (after thesis and antithesis) somehow readily present in the two steps that come before it. That’ d amount to a variation of the famous dictum “nothing amounts to nothing” which is wrong, because there is The New, matter of factly present in our lifeworlds. Hindsight doesn’t really account for it, and questions such as about the geometric nature of beauty are systematically, provably unable to return a satisfying answer. Goedel’s famous theorem on incompleteness is also right there in its methodological meaning – parts do not generally make up a whole. A practical way to think this is to imagine a reductionist approach to ‘things’ that tries to understand them by taking them apart, to them put them back together again, as it’s done with (ideal!) machines.
Materialism as a (flawed) metaphysics is a thought on a level beyond immediate ‘thingness’; it is about how we actually constitute the ‘things’ we’re handling in our life worlds. Since synthesis is always, out of logical necessity, at play when we even begin to ask such questions m – since its puts up (dt. stellen) the Gestalten we then may ponder, there is a question involved that refers right back to the nature of synthesis itself. But synthesis can’t be explained, engineered, simulated or reduced into parts without compromising its essence. Hence, the materialist metaphysics is more precisely a problem of epistemiology, which posits truth only as a reductive (’empirical’) result.
While western materialist metaphysics has a history there, it still appeals to people all over the world somehow. A powerful parallel example is found in Indian philosophy, where the ages old topic of Buddha’s No-thing-ness contemplation shows that this idea is not easily understood, even for folks outside of the western tunnel view. The reason for this is probably that all ‘things’ that appear in our mind’s eye are readily enough understood by simply treating them as the things as which they present, foregoing the mind’s eye faculty of synthesis which is underlying the very fact that things present at all. So the appeal and spread of western materialist thought is more often than not facilitated by a likewise blissful ignorance by those who simply inhabit their ‘worlds’, unquestioning their actual nature as ‘lifeworlds’ (Husserl) which, qua accounting for noetic synthesis, does make all the difference.
Posted by: persiflo | Aug 30 2024 3:41 utc | 102
@ 101 aristodemos
Forgive me for forgetting his last name. His full name is Sir James George Frazer. I understand his theory secondhand though undoubtedly correctly through Rene Girard who agreed fully with Frazer but extrapolated further the universal implications of his theory.
…
How Gnostic of you to keep talking spiritualism. Perhaps you have more in common with the Rad-Trad movement in the RCC who will fall for any Marian apparition and who physically see demons in those they have disagreements with.
Your spiritual/material dialectic is weak dude. I have already read Kierkegaard and understand the role of the individual. Indeed, what I wrote above, extrapolating from Girard’s though about myth and religion hinges on the revelatory individual who is constantly bringing religion back into the religions. Religion being the understanding of why rituals exist in the first place (i.e. during Mass we rerepresent in bloodless form the Holy Sacrifice of Jesus Christ; we do this because human beings have an intrinsic desire to sacrifice and instead of choosing an innocent to meet this need, Jesus has put a stop to that need for bloodshed).
If you understand this correctly, there is no gnostic hidden meaning for sanctimonious intellectuals like yourself who go on and on about common religion (and yet you continually attack me for being Anti-Pagan, which, we all understand to be the Archaic system of ritualistic religious violence before the Jews introduced the sympathetic story of the victim).
Iow, you have an issue with some Catholics in the pew. Great! So do I.
But you have totally failed in your understanding of Christianity.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 30 2024 3:55 utc | 103
Addendum to Aristodemos
Continuing about Paganism.
What Christianity is is the gathering qua Logos.
Catholicism = universalism.
If we were to extrapolate on your idea of the Pagan as that which is reticent to be urbanized or combatative to centralization, we need only look at the fruits of this same concept in the post-Christian age.
This phenomenon is apparent in Protestantism which continually splinters off in protest from universalism, the gathering qua Logos.
But because from Augustine I understand Paganism to mean the whole Archaic religious structure of the pre-Judaic ascendancy and which Rome was firmly adhering to, your accusation that I am going after the peasantry is stupid.
Indeed, Augustine lays out the manifold absurdity of Paganism in his tome City of God which is an exhausting read about the myriad Gods and rituals of the Pagans.
Posted by: NemesisCalling | Aug 30 2024 4:18 utc | 104
I’d also like to share a cop story from Hamburg. My 20 years of living in this city-state, which has never been truly conquered aside from 1945 and showcases a robust Lutherian idea of personhood, with moral judgement removed from papal authority and handed to the individual with one’s conscience (trying to follow in the path of Jesus), has seen a good number of intense situations involving the police and me. I have come away astonished, even awed, by the quality and level of conduct the cops show here in encounters with citizens; organized and financial crime, as well as anti-riot policing, are another matter to this. Police forces typically attend situations as mediators, trying to solve a problem, and they regularly exhibit a great eye for judgement in this. Their skill level is so advanced that it almost defies explanation, but surely cultural background as well as serious and proper training must be in that mix. More catholic regions in Germany’s south, where I hail from, are quite different in that regard.
I always felt treated fairly by cops, even when it went to my detriment – they were usually right to make their point, like making me walk home drunkenly instead of precariously riding a bike. I saw them keenly closing one eye in dramatic, complex situations, such as when a guy fell to his death on a flight of stairs after someone pushed him, not wanting to cause real harm – the bloke was a total nervous wreck afterwards, and they let him go free after interrogation, reporting a death by accident. Another time eight coppers stormed my appartement after I was wrongly accused of rape by a mad lady who my friend had brought along. It took them exactly one moment of looking at each other between the two lead coppers, no words were exchanged, to judge with understanding what was happening and begin to handle it accordingly.
But my favourite anecdote is this one: One night, I was riding my bike through town, solidly tipsy, no lights mounted, earbuds blasting loud music, when I jumped a red light at a large intersection where a single car was waiting, waving to it as I drove on – a police car. They were next to me in no time, lights flashing and signalling me to stop. I took out my earbuds as the cop lowered his side window and yelled at me furiously: ‘Are you retarded or crazy, to ridicule me with a wave of hand while jumping a red light?!?” I calmly replied, ‘No way am I ridiculing you – I can see you are a police car, so you know how to drive, and therefore I was signalling to you that I am about to jump across in front of you, which is the correct way to handle a traffic light, or is it not?” The cop said nothing, closed his window again and just drove off. I can be somewhat charming at times and speak convincingly, also his anger might be a bit played, but still I can’t help feeling that this is rather remarkable from a cop. It does however fit well into the general style of conduct between the northern Germans, and especially those in Hamburg, which is very much about a people-to-people encounter, frank, direct, open, no fancying any fuss. Speak truth, accept responsibility, act with integrity. It’s a cool feature and style of the folks in my hometown, can’t say it any other way.
Posted by: persiflo | Aug 30 2024 4:31 utc | 105
Hmm, okay, I’m just going to hope this hits the target and avoids everyone else: “Sssssssh! Don’t let on” 😀
Hard to talk about something without talking about it! And let this be an encouragement not to talk about it despite how fun it is/would be! X)
· · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · · ·
The following is a reply to an off topic comment in some recent thread. Slightly facetious, not meant as aggressive or anything like that 🙂
How to turn anything into a mess: UFOs.
Ah so if UFOs disable nukes (a nice thought) then what about:
· Nuclear accidents.
· 1500 (four digits) or so nuclear tests going very much boom 😛 (the proof is in the radioactive Cesium* isotopes in your own very bones! That is unless you’re seriously old —1945 is 79 years ago)
· Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
· Heaps of nuclear waste in ad hoc storage solutions, dumped into the sea in the past, and being dumped into the sea right now.
· Massive natural and man-made disasters (at least Fukushima and Chernobyl).
· All the other nasty stuff that might be even nastier than radioactive waste (so-called “forever chemicals” and dumped chemical weapons).
Unless any disabling is/was either wildly rare and random or very very suspiciously specific?
Further if they are “attacking” US and other western forces (France and the UK also come to mind) then why did they “help” them in WWII with Foo Fighters seemingly acting as guides or flying escort?
Inconsistencies are the norm of course.
Another one is the whole weird “sci-fi/fantasy creatures fly down to tell us to treat the Earth kindly but buggers off without sharing their awesome magic to help out” thing. Well at least they’re kind enough to keep the eco-evangelism separate from any anal probes or cattle mutilations 😛
I’m not saying any of it isn’t real (or as close to “real” as possible); I’m saying to the extent that any of it is real it is really messed up …and there is certainly no shortage at all of extremely weird stuff going on be that the shiny things etc.on screen in “Skinwalker Ranch” or the shiny people “arguing” on screen in “Ancient Aliens” where the __least weird___ thing of all is one particular haircut lol XD (love the hair!).
Not making fun of anyone in particular (but maybe needling everyone, myself included) except any would-be US Pentagon “christian” (not even close) cult weirdos insisting the “shiny stuff” are demons despite doing vastly more evil themselves (so what does that make them then?).
* I think it was Cesium but my memory isn’t great so take it with some Natrium Chloride 😉
Posted by: Sunny Runny Burger | Aug 30 2024 4:47 utc | 106
horseguards @38, good point, but diplomatic protocol demands something like this. Even with enemies.
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 5:09 utc | 107
psychohistorian, @40. That’s what I was talking about. I read the article earlier this morning. I figured most of you would read it.
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 5:12 utc | 109
Lightyearsfromhome@74 reminds me of a song by I think the Beastie Boys. “You run like a girl and sit down when you pee.”
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 5:19 utc | 110
@Exile | Fri, 30 Aug 2024 05:10:00 GMT | 108
More authoritative, less explaining, less trust and cooperation. All of which is tied to the moral exoskeleton of Roman church pyradimal power structure, where no explaining is due – the pope has a standing line to GOD, from which he receives wisdom, and his hence infallible as per doctrinal default.
Granted, my experience comes mostly from a small-town setting, which is naturally a different thing to the big city. But then, Speyer is over 2,000 years old, compared some 500 for Hamburg (which gained its economic standing from a beer monopoly btw), and home to the most ambitious cathedral north of the Alps, completed around 1100. It also features outrageous and weird histories you’d usually hesitate to expect even in a Metropolis, such as a mother and daughter dying from hunger after the social services somehow didn’t pay their usual allowance, or some guy opening a brothel where you can book a room with a robot. The skyline is populated with the cathedral plus a mounted Boeing 747 of the Technik Museum. Helmut Kohl wished to be buried along the Salier kings in the Dom, but they put him in the outmost corner of a small park near the train station instead, planting a basic wooden cross on the unassuming speck. I could go on, but the relevant ancedote is this one: A crash kid aged 17 years stole a car and sped off, the cops went into pursuit, he slammed it somewhere, and when the cops came out to get him, he panically fixated one of them between their vehicles. His colleague just shot him, lethally, with several bullets through the windscreen.
Posted by: persiflo | Aug 30 2024 5:38 utc | 111
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 29 2024 20:30 utc | 64
The problem with the Enlightenment materialist view (that only the physical is real) is that it regards living organisms as soulless machines which fails to appreciate non-material experience including what we call ‘value systems’.
You”re wrong. The naturalist view (I gave it that name) does not fail to appreciate non-material value systems. In fact it does appreciate them value systems very much, a lot.
The naturalist view regards value systems as a very important product of biological evolution of self-aware social animals. The appearance of such value systems was fundamental in the success of the human animal, the growth of its population. There is a branch of social science that deals with hypotheses of how value systems arise in populations of self-aware and social agents.
Generally speaking Desmet is warning us that if we keep going down the wrong path by continuing to allow our societies to be captured by venal elites governed by Machine Mind greed and delusion, we will end up as slaves in a totalitarian dystopia. I think he’s more right than wrong.
Many philosophers have warned of inminent dystopia if we follow such and such ideology so they offer this other ideology. All ideologies eventually lead to dystopia due to certain mathematical processes operating at the collective level. But societies (the collective level) have a self-corrective force called ‘compensation’ in their equations of motion thru state space, which means that when the dominant ideologies goes too far, which it will, at some point they cross a threshold where large opposite forces are unleashed causing the destruction of the dystopia-approaching ideology.
We can go that path (it is happening now with the current Western ideology) or we can just get rid of ideologies and become naturalists. Of course you’d say that naturalist viewpoint also is ideolgical but that is simply not correct. The naturalist viewpoint works with data, measurements, hypthesis testing, calculations, objective stuff, to achieve collectively desired goals, essentially peace, prosperity and stability, and these goals are not ideas as they can be measured objectively.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 30 2024 8:30 utc | 112
“And anyways, Jake Sullivan looks like someone who fights like a girl, maybe they should find someone with a tougher countenance?”
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Aug 29 2024 21:39 utc | 74
“GAP ” (TM) -Gender Appropriate Protocol or Genital Appropriate Protocol (TM)
Light Years you have an infraction of the above GAP:
I agree that Sullivan is a poor, puny pugilist but the ‘fights like a girl’ description I don’t buy.
I don’t know about you , I have witnessed a few ‘catfights’ in my time and the ‘girls’ fought tooth and nail-very violent without any restrictions of basic civility whatsoever .
I do buy, “throws like a girl” -GAP (TM) Approved- as that is quite apparent.
aristodemos: “Indeed: The inflation factor. Price in 1913 to mail a first-class letter (speaking of class) was two cents. Yesterday I bought several at 54 cents a pop….not picturesque commemoratives, but serf-class flag stamps”
—first-class postage is 73 cents for the first ounce, and commemoratives and “serf-class flag stamps” have always had the same price.
Count your change.
Posted by: malenkov | Aug 30 2024 10:04 utc | 115
“So according to both of you (me and William Gruff) Social Economic Scientist everyone whom is ‘middle class’ are ‘Bad Guys.’
That idea is retarded.”
Posted by: canuck | Aug 29 2024 19:29 utc | 56
“The hyper generalization was yours, canuck. Where did you find any blanket condemnation of the middle class in Gruff’s comment or my reply?”
Posted by: Tom_Q_Collins | Aug 29 2024 22:46 utc | 82″canuk@ 56
Tom, see below, I retracted my statement after Simon correct me.
“Now Canuck you knows they were referring to the ‘Karen’s’ and not the middle class.
Are you a lawyer by chance?
lol”
Posted by: simon crow | Aug 29 2024 19:58 utc | 60
Ok, you are correct-I retract my statement.
No I’m not a lawyer, I am a mineral prospector and venture capitalist-though I have paid alot of unnecessary lawyers’ bills!!
Posted by: canuck | Aug 29 2024 20:14 utc | 63
“Another of the great achievements here in the $tates has been a highly effectual demotion process for much of the professional class; as most doctors, lawyers and CPA’s are no longer classically middle class, by means of owning their own means of making a living. They MIGHT be considered as many of them would be upper middle class on a purely economic basis…due to their salaried paychecks.”
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 0:08 utc | 91
Great post.
Yes, doctors have no autonomy anymore thanks to Rockefeller’s restructuring of institutions. ‘Science’ is what the PTB say it is.
A couple of years ago I had 6.3 sugar and was pre diabetic. My doctor wanted to put me on insulin. I resisted and started to educate myself by watching various videos (1)and within 7 weeks , using diet and exercise my blood was 5.3 and I eventually lost 60 lbs.
And since then I have gotten four people (friends) off insulin with simple direction-no starches, no sweets, more animal fat, no seed oils-and it worked for all.
I have absolutely no faith in modern medicine-that’s why I never took the mRNA vax.
1. For example-https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RuOvn4UqznU
“Lightyearsfromhome@74 reminds me of a song by I think the Beastie Boys. “You run like a girl and sit down when you pee.””
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 5:19 utc | 110
GAP (TM) Infraction.
Girls run as gracefully as men; and, as an older man I sometimes sit ‘when I pee”
Reminds me of an old Frank Zappa tune, “Why does it Hurt when I Pee” (1)
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hZsDH2EgHgk
@ Posted by: Walt | Aug 29 2024 11:01 utc | 9
Bravo! Walt. Recommend all MoA‘rs to check it out.
Look forward to more such warts and all reporting – over a billion peoples still rising out of generations of poverty and associated antideluvian attitudes.
I am sure peoples sensibilities will improve as their security in life rises. The gambling though is something quite like a mental disease, an addiction that needs to be educated out of their kids. That really will require the younger generations to eschew, like the chain smoking !
It was true of Russians too, and many scandies, as well as Chinese on their travels nearly two decades ago as they started arriving as tourists in Thailand and other such holiday hot spots – showed such unworthy habits and behaviours. It was almost comical – the signs in lifts in Bangkok advocating against defecating and urinating. In restaurants against spitting food for the Chinese. Not stealing towels etc for our Russian visitors.
Some eateries didn’t mind that Chinese would order everything on the menu and not eat most of it! You could take it back to the kitchen reheat and serve to the next group queuing at the door!
I have seen the changes – they are better and improving, more family orientated.
Anyway to show that such developing working, middle and tourist masses are the same all over the world, let’s not live us British out! And don’t get me started on the worst American on their entitled monied travels – uncouth beyond words.
You should have seen what us Brits were (still are including some of our beach resorts) like on the Costas of Spain though the 80’s and 90’s – it was depressingly embarrassing- fish and chip shops, pubs, satellite football…Not a single Spanish speaker. Everything in English! And the aggressive drunken behaviour , fighting and rutting, of all ages … which still goes on !
But you will always have a bunch that will never disappear. Such coarse, self centered , attitudes come from the parents. Many attitudes here in the U.K. have seen a reversal in recent years from betterment, with a deliberate dumbin down by our masters. Worse education, fewer opportunities, zero hour slavery instead, no secure incomes month by month and unaffordable housing – it makes it easier to keep the population divided and fighting each other. Keep us angry. Turn it upon our families and children – because we are to cowardly to turn it against the state that causes it.
Anyway didnt mean to digress from Walt’s great new writings on China from the ground.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 30 2024 11:13 utc | 119
Persiflo,
This might be considered is southGerman :
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=o27ca3TLfXM
Posted by: Exile | Aug 30 2024 11:20 utc | 120
Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 30 2024 11:13 utc | 119
Thanks for that!
251 views so far.
Worse education, fewer opportunities, zero hour slavery instead, no secure incomes month by month and unaffordable housing…
I’ll be turning to that for a change next week….
Posted by: Walt | Aug 30 2024 11:30 utc | 121
“Girls run as gracefully as men”
No they don’t. Women run as gracefully as men.
Girls run as gracefully as boys.
Posted by: waynorinorway | Aug 30 2024 11:56 utc | 122
@Exile on (in?) south Germany – yes, I can see your point now. Indeed I may have overstretched my current hypothesis on the influence of protestantism on police work. Care to share a cop story or two from your region?
Posted by: persiflo | Aug 30 2024 12:02 utc | 123
Posted by: petergrfstrm | Aug 29 2024 19:36 utc | 57
++++++++++++++++++++++++
Great piece. Good insight into an oil rich nation but more importantly a good lecture for those who claim to know VZLA and making racist claims but know nothing about the country.
Posted by: AI | Aug 30 2024 12:44 utc | 124
Kamy Harris’ CNN interview was a disaster……she failed to answer any questions directly, and was frequently incoherent.
This is the neo-con secret weapon for the continuation of the War in Ukrainia?? She is truly a creation of the MSM, a complete vacuum tube.
It frightening to contemplate the possibility that this Obama inspired clone could actually be POTUS, but remember she is fully backed by the Zuck/Soros alliance………….
Imagine this incompetent with her finger on the nuclear button……moronic to the max.!!
Posted by: Tobias Cole | Aug 30 2024 12:50 utc | 125
Girls that run as girls are the most enjoyable to watch. Girls that run as men? I think I’ll pass.
Posted by: William Gruff | Aug 30 2024 13:04 utc | 126
Posted by: Hot Carl | Aug 29 2024 10:17 utc | 3
The US has ongoing societal problems. A NH woman was released from a mental hospital in the middle of winter a few years back. Nobody bothered to check where she was going, never mind even if she had a place to go & way to get there.
She wandered out of the small town to an abandoned farmhouse & survived there on rotten, frozen apples in the orchard. She kept a journal there. She was waiting for the love of her life to come rescue her. He never came.
(Interviewed after the fact, he barely knew her & their relationship existed only in her broken mind.)
Posted by: Mary | Aug 30 2024 13:17 utc | 128
Posted by: Tobias Cole | Aug 30 2024 12:50 utc | 125
Imagine this incompetent with her finger on the nuclear button……moronic to the max.!!
But, but, …, it proves that the American Dream is true! Anybody can become POTUS, even an outright moron!
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 30 2024 13:22 utc | 129
My favorite German police story:
So here I am in a streetcar in a Catholic town in the Rhineland. One Turk raises his voice in a conversation with another Turk. The conductor immediately radios the police, who show up within minutes, pull the Turk out of the streetcar, and proceed to beat him.
Myself, I’m riding with my friends C (from Canada) and S (English, but raised in Canada). S, upon seeing this, opens the window and yells out at the top of her voice and in English: “You Nazis!” (with the a-vowel pronounced as in the word “at” of course). The police stop, momentarily at least, and the streetcar lurches away.
Posted by: malenkov | Aug 30 2024 13:44 utc | 130
@ Posted by: Tobias Cole | Aug 30 2024 12:50 utc | 125m
Of course it was a disaster. She is playing the Trump role against his Hillary role when he miraculously won! She can only go scripted – they can’t let real Democrats/Republican mental retarded ‘journalists’ question her. She might tell them the truth! That’s why a senior cia linked mockingbird journo was used.
He has already been accepted as the returning potus because he would not give up and go back to his celebrity tv show, hotel and golfing life. I’d like to think it’s because he realised what a bunch of gangstas from Sickago were actually running the country with the Zios backing.
He has managed to pull away RFK and Gabbard – both could have caused the plan to go off kilter if they had stuck with the Bernie option of backing the DNC candidate.
We’ll see what major jobs they get given, it will determine whether he is a stooge or for real this time.
The ‘Hope’ dumbo voters buying the same shit would make it too close- so they have had to put the hapless Hope fake Afro American in to play the loser role.
Trump has been calling the big shots in the Biden government ever since they failed to convince him to step down. The ukrain 60billion wouldn’t have happened without his nod.
Ex U.K. PM Cameron admitted as much in his hoax interview with willywinkyporoshenko (Vovan and lexus) months ago!
All the knee bending by Musk and others who stabbed him in the front at the previous election is about them scrambling not to be punished too harshly. Suckerberg included. I’m waiting to see if Gates and Fauci, the ukronazis Kagan and Nuland get handed their bills.
There’s also his ex AG, Bolton and most of that Pompus ass Gauntlet Man. They and their masters know they deserve the worst ‘Roman’ proscription. It was usual every time a new Caesar took over. It still is.
Being the acme of the Deal landscape – I don’t hold out much hope – I guess he will renege and show his true nature – he has kids and grandkids after all. The Dynastic ambitions are too tempting.
He could call an end to the wars now, an end to the Palestinian daily mass murder – but is waiting to play the pantomime peacemaker leader. There is no chance that the hegemony is going to survive anyway. That’s why Europe is being dendustriliaed and North Americas being prepped for the rump Unipolar world. Most of us Europeans will be gasping to get our cheap energy deals back and the next generation will benefit from the single EurAsian land mass form the Atlantic to the Pacific.
Except us Brits of course , the fake hobbits of hobbit island , joined at the hip with the ziowizards for centuries. We will suffer the most. Left behind as some poor US statelet. A shithole country.
Perhaps I’m too pessimistic.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 30 2024 13:46 utc | 131
She is lost. Paying tax on UNREALIZED GAINS makes no sense. Who’s coming up with these silly economic plans? How can you tax people on income they haven’t made? https://tinyurl.com/4n3hce8z
Posted by: Dogon Priest | Aug 30 2024 13:58 utc | 132
He has already been accepted as the returning potus because he would not give up and go back to his celebrity tv show, hotel and golfing life. I’d like to think it’s because he realised what a bunch of gangstas from Sickago were actually running the country with the Zios backing.
Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 30 2024 13:46 utc | 131
I would say you are hopefully optomistic, the original family name was Drumph (Jewish), the man is just one of millions of “hidden jews” in this world. Remember
Israel’ “best friend”?
Posted by: SwissArmyMan | Aug 30 2024 14:01 utc | 133
Posted by: Tannenhouser | Aug 29 2024 11:29 utc | 14
Re: Chinese electric car 100% tariff.
This was announced in our sovereign nation ( haha ) only days after same in the US.
Reminded me of the Trudeau govs resolution of the Trans Mountain oil pipeline issue, for tar sands oil to the West Coast. To quell the large protest movement, which had been heavily policed as usual, they bought the pipeline. Right after being elected on a green agenda, or so they said.
Posted by: Dimbot9630 | Aug 30 2024 14:03 utc | 134
Posted by: DunGroanin | Aug 30 2024 11:13 utc | 119
“as they started arriving as tourists in Thailand and other such holiday hot spots – showed such unworthy habits and behaviours.
We found Thailand highly refined in about the year 2000, maybe because we took our young kids. The Thais were especially nice, even The Ladyboys, who were quite open about everything. When my wife left her shopping at a Thai Boxing Match (our kids had been on the front row), the waitress came running after us with it..
We got invited to Benidorm by a mate about 15 years ago, and we thought we would hate it. We both totally loved it, but a Spanish friend who travelled with was shocked – she was completely appalled, not by the British so much, but the likes of Sticky Vicky. Even I found her a bit strong, but funny.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 14:06 utc | 135
She is lost. Paying tax on UNREALIZED GAINS makes no sense. Who’s coming up with these silly economic plans? How can you tax people on income they haven’t made? https://tinyurl.com/4n3hce8z
Posted by: Dogon Priest | Aug 30 2024 13:58 utc | 132
_______
Seems only fair to me that if one is taxed on one’s unrealized capital gains, then one should receive a tax rebate for unrealized capital losses.
Much as I’m an “Eat the Rich” kind of guy (except that I’d rather not pollute my digestive system that way), I think it would make more sense to forbid executive compensation in the form of stock options. That would render all compensation immediately taxable and would solve much of the problem, going forward at least.
Posted by: malenkov | Aug 30 2024 14:06 utc | 136
The South China sea, a principal access for thousands of years in China, is being settled on islands by a new kid on the block, Philippines, which is now a “US ally.”
Two news reports. . .
>China tells Philippines to ‘immediately withdraw’ from South China Sea atoll . .Beijing warns of ‘limit to our patience’ after Manila confirms one of its coastguard helicopters resupplied crew on ship at Sabina Shoal.
>A U.S. admiral says American forces are ready with a “range of options” to deal with increasing acts of aggression in the disputed South China Sea.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 30 2024 14:10 utc | 137
The South China sea, a principal access for thousands of years in China, is being settled on islands by a new kid on the block, Philippines, which is now a “US ally.”
Two news reports. . .
>China tells Philippines to ‘immediately withdraw’ from South China Sea atoll . .Beijing warns of ‘limit to our patience’ after Manila confirms one of its coastguard helicopters resupplied crew on ship at Sabina Shoal.
>A U.S. admiral says American forces are ready with a “range of options” to deal with increasing acts of aggression in the disputed South China Sea.
Posted by: Don Bacon | Aug 30 2024 14:10 utc | 138
…… Seems only fair to me that if one is taxed on one’s unrealized capital gains, then one should receive a tax rebate for unrealized capital losses.…..
You win the thread !
Posted by: Exile | Aug 30 2024 14:14 utc | 139
NemisisCalling@418
More than slight whiffs of Sitzfleisch Philosoph in your countering. There is a looming probability that you are indeed a churchman who “invests” his time slogging through musty tomes. At least you do appear to have transitioned from the Medieval concerto of the number of angels who can dance on the head of a pin. I will also grant that your level of religious erudition is at an approximation of Jesuitical apologias.
Your insistence on the universality of top-down Roman Catholicism is par for the course amongst Roman religionists.
Said “universalism” was the foundation of the Western world’s initial university at Bologna in the 1200’s if memory stands.
Universality remains as a tenuous claim…long perpetuated amongst Roman religionists. As Cosmic time cycles are in play…ALL the Piscean Age institutions, particularly those of organized top-down religious systems are facing terminal overload and are being massively rejected by younger generations…most particularly amongst those individuals who self-identify as “Recovering Catholics”.
That claim of universalism is based upon exactly what?
Blood sacrifices of any and every iteration are inherently destructive culturally as mere propitiations to presumed higher entities. Yahweh/Jehovah, piss be upon him, was/is naught but a bloodthirsty tyrant. To accept that alien entity as the foundation of a religion evinces a regurgitation of utter disgust of any who have essayed to maintain some semblance of transcending imposed belief systems.
Your entire theological system is imploding. Why attempt to emulate the little Dutch Boy who stuck his finger in the Dyke and was properly beaten up for such an outrage to the individuality of another human? Okay, so that’s entirely metaphorical and accusatory in nature. However, apologias for organized religion is a futile endeavor.
So wake up and smell the coffee. We are transcending from the Piscean Era, where the Roman Emperor Constantine engaged the likes of the self-admitted liar, Eusebius of Caesarea to gather up and redact and interpolate various scriptures in order to create the “Holy” Bible.
Ultimately truth prevails. As Jesus pointed out “The Father is Within”. We need no intercessors to allow us to access Divinity and spiritual insights.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 14:38 utc | 140
Surely pressure from the Jewish lobby played a major role in Rudd being replaced as PM by Gillard? That was right after the Mossad chief in Canberra was expelled for the use of forged Aussie passports in the murder of a Palestinian.
Posted by: Lysias | Aug 30 2024 14:38 utc | 141
Persiflo@431
Reflecting back to the 60’s in the city of Minneapolis; I recall a stenciled message on the back of police cars at the campus where I was engaged. “To serve and to protect” was that message. From your anecdotes of life in Hamburg, it appears that the professionally amongst that city’s police personnel is possibly at a level even higher than that of Minneapolis police during the 1960’s.
Currently, here in the Ruptured Republic, a probable majority or at least a huge plurality of “law officers” are all about intimidation and persecution. They wear their badges and guns at a Medieval level of intimidation and control. There have been many causes for this nearly 180 degree turnaround in American policing.
When Federal and then state police administrations began to import Israeli police agents to train U.$. cops…the intent of the ruling elite became clear. The tactics which those Izzy law forcemeat officers used against their hapless Palestinian victims were exactly what those zillionaire tyrants wished to establish in the formerly “Great Republic”.
The Law n’ Order racket here in the U$$A has achieved a level of corruption which was commonplace within the Banana Republics in Latin America in the recent past. The FBI sports some of the most deeply corrupted “orficers” in the nation. On their raids on homes of suspects they have a habit of walking off with “evidence”, including valuables of all types. Only rarely are such personal assets presented in courtrooms. Question is…where did the other “evidence” go?
In the courtrooms of America a yellow-fringed Admiralty flag has long replaced that of the Republic, formerly known as “Old Glory”. Under that flag, ubiquitous in all courts of “law”, the law they exercise is Maritime. An accused individual enters the “dock” and is considered as a maritime vessel…the “Strawman”. There is little or no justice in American courts, most particularly at the highly politicized Federal level.
With no more than 4% of the world’s population, the U$$A holds a full TWENTY-FIVE percent of the planet’s incarcerated individuals…many of whom have yet to be tried and sentenced. Are Americans such horrible people that this ruptured Republic incarcerates MORE people than India and China combined!…so we are contrasting a land of approximately 350 million people versus TWO countries with a combined population approaching population figures of 2.5 BILLION.
The prison and jail systems are rife with corruption due to the contracts they can make with various corporations which supply them with food, medical “care” , power and light and numerous additional necessities for running those joints. Don’t anyone tell me that there are no “kickbacks” landing in the pockets of prison wardens and jail administrators.
So at least in Hamburg, you have encountered police who are both bright and well-trained. Here in the U$$A, the entire law n’ order complex is terminally corrupted.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:01 utc | 142
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 14:38 utc | 140
“As Cosmic time cycles are in play…ALL the Piscean Age institutions, particularly those of organized top-down religious systems are facing terminal overload and are being massively rejected by younger generations”
When I was 5, I put my hand up, believed it all, but asked a simple question in class..”who made God then?”
This did not go down well. I was summonned to the front of the class, and hit with a leather strap.
I still did my holy communion and became an altar boy, but later, whilst noticing girls, I started thinking about time.
Almost everyone thinks time goes in a straight line from 0 to infinity, cos that is what everyone observes…
But how can this be true? I doesn’t make any sense.
How can there be nothing, and then there’s something?
The explanation that God did it, and I ain’t knocking God, is a total cop out. It does not answer the question.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 15:08 utc | 143
Immaculate Deception@519
You got it. When men urinate in a seated position they pee like women. When they stand with hose in hand, they piss. To use the term “piss” in our bowdlerized, post-Victorian cult-sure…is considered as a bit “off”. That’s simply pussy-whipped bourgeois silliness. Yes, penis-envy does exist. It’s not so much sexual, per se, as it happens to be a simple differentiation between the sexes.
As a believer in general equality between and “among” the sexes; I will aver that the “Women’s Liberation” movement got a bit out of hand. Now we are also presented with most trannies being fakes as the majority of them do not HATE their outdoor plumbing, which is the case with the tiny proportion of gay men who are genuine transsexuals. Most of the much catered to, for reasons of “Divide and Conquer/Divide and Rule” policies in “high” places such individuals are simply faddists amongst various queens and faeries…but certainly not the majority of those particular gay male iterations.
American cult-sure is clinically insane and terminally delusional. There are numerous causes for that devolution. The primary perps are intensive urbanization, capped by “Strawberry Fields Forever” sub-urbanization and exurbanization; compounded within the horrors of financial, corporate and governmental centralization.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:13 utc | 144
malenkov@1004
Guess I got a pretty good deal at an area post-office some three days ago. Seventy-Four cents as the current rate!!! What’s your prediction for when 1st Class postage busts the dollar level?
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:20 utc | 145
I had meant to chip this in before, I think it was Aristo or Aherno on the topic of resources and civilisation.
Normally people focus on gold and silver when describing exploitation, and more recently (and currently) hydrocarbons. The first two were not functional metals, more decorative and of use in accounting for their stability.
The functional metals are very important though. Copper tin (sometimes arsenic) bronze, and later iron, were the currency of those. The distinction goes back to Spartan times and before.
The copper / tin trade is documented, but less so iron. Smelting of iron ore means finding suitable rock and applying a furnace technique distinct from copper in terms of structure and temperatures. Copper can be reduced in a bowl , iron needs a chimneyed furnace* of correct dimension, for example. It also needs quite precise mineral compositions to succeed (silica ratio etc.).
So we have these sequences. The neolithic expansion at a rate of 5km per year across europe, sometimes conquest sometimes assimilation.
The bronze age was more tribal networks and trade, the underlying technology being “open source”.
The iron age (up to around 1950) seems to have been more exclusive and clandestine. This is elusive because iron ore is such a common material, at least in comparison to copper and tin (and later zinc for brass). So the first iron smelting is considered to have occurred in the levant* somewhere (and academics are often biased by nationalistic claims) . The main distance traders of the day were the phoenicians (from Tyre) , and in academic circles they are used as a pseudo jewish influence ( in a kind of conflated sense ). So in Iberia you have for example the “orientalising period” after the bronze age collapse. This was phoenician and later punic inroads into local culture and society.
So how did these people find their way into local realities ? By trade, by technology, and some say by using coercion or force or manipulations. The initial trade round trips of the mediterranean would take a year. Later, once Carthage was founded, its influence and strength became the main center of phoenician (now labelled Punic) activity. That includes Baal worship apparently. Recently, archaeological estimates are that iron production in Carthage was way higher than could ever be used for domestic purposes. Also, wrecks of the period containing iron ore (from Sardinia if I remember) , have been found . Ore is bulky to transport compared to iron though – the preference would be refine and transport iron.
So this gives an impression of some kind of monopoly and trade secret going on, possibly the equivalent to arms trade today.
The Romans eventually conquered all of that. The next main iron episode came from the 17th century on, for the fabrication of advanced weaponry and for infrastructure and machinery. By early 20th century the main iron supply in europe was the border region of Germany/france. It had coal and ore. The hyperinflation episode is put down to (by some highly regarded analysts) union wage parity promises for that region forcing up money supply combined with a wish to outpace gold redemptions due (studies show gold holdings were adequate to make redemptions) .
The end result was EC, based on an initial iron coal trading pact of cooperation between Germany and france. Germany has since (until euro) built its wealth and reputation on machinery and iron based products (vehicles) . On the other hand france has enjoyed being the resulting soft power of europe. Until euro.
Merging out of this has been hydrocarbons as essential comodity at world scale , globalism and offshoring, and so on .
So there is an alternate revisionist sketch of a view on that topic. In Palestine it is “Iron sword” at the moment – both to remind Palestinians that “Israelis” now can produce their own (as opposed to historically depending on Palestinians, which is documented) , as well as a metaphor for the backing behind their existing power.
* It is amusing though. In the run run of experimental archaeology the snag of not being able to smelt iron in a bowl furnace was tested (because it would open a panorama of possible earlier iron production) . The experiments I read was able to produce a few grains using modern technology ( blowers, insulation etc.) . Though small quantities might also be produced in sealed crucible this has not so far been seen as viable. So I had a search around, and come across an unreferenced filmed expedition into Africa in the 1920’s , which follows a local tribe smelting iron in a small open pit. Looking further, it is suggested by some that in fact local iron production existed in Africa well before iron age in levant and later europe.
Lay presentation, all just something to ponder on and correct at will if wrong anywhere.
Posted by: Ornot | Aug 30 2024 15:29 utc | 146
Canuck@1033
Incisive posting with personal anecdotes regarding diabetes self-treatment based upon alternative approaches to medication. There may be several posters here who can personally profit from those shared anecdotes.
I too, had a diabetic experienced at a time when I had no control over my food intake and exercise regimen. Got stuck numerous times with that needle, but even under somewhat dire circumstances was able to cut down the jabs. Once in full control over my day to day life, decently balanced food intake and heavy manual labor on my feet for hours at a time…it was possible to eliminate ALL iterations of Rottenfeller medications.
Within the next week I’ll have my first doctor’s appointment in the last couple years. Well-informed self-care is the ne plus ultra for life maintenance. Over the past couple years I have not even ingested one single pill…even analgesics. Of course, living in a rural area makes life much more amenable to good personal regulatory processes.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:29 utc | 147
malenkov@1004
Guess I got a pretty good deal at an area post-office some three days ago. Seventy-Four cents as the current rate!!! What’s your prediction for when 1st Class postage busts the dollar level?
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:20 utc | 145
_______
Relax; it’s only 73 cents.
As any philatelist will tell you, once a country stops denominating its postage stamps, it has more or less thrown in the towel on the inflation fight. The road was prepared by overprinting, most crudely done in the Weimar Republic when values were stamped on ultra-cheap backgrounds. I believe China was the first to forgo denominations entirely, in issues from right after WWII. And you’ll note that stamps from the 404 regime aren’t denominated; fixed hryvnia values are replaced with letter codes.
The better question is: Will there still be a postal service by the time a first-class stamp would cost $1? USPS was deliberately set (unconstitutionally, by the way) up to fail, and the corporate competitors would love to finish absorbing the more profitable parts of the businsess and jettison the rest.
Posted by: malenkov | Aug 30 2024 15:34 utc | 148
Dungroanin@1436
Aha. So the interplay of cynicism and humor…or as you might have it “Humour”…is till live and kickin in the Sceptred Isle. Fun read. Thanks.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:37 utc | 149
DunGroanin@1346
Oopsie. Senior moment here with short-term memory…so 1346 is preferably correct.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:39 utc | 150
Malenkov@1534
Thanks for sharing the insight on the likes of those corporate entities who are ever seeking ways of destroying the “commons” and then with monopolies well established…to stick it to the common folk and make the shareholders grin with joy.
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:47 utc | 151
It was just a joke on Jake. Besides, a significant portion of Americans can barely waddle much less run. And they need a mirror to see their genitals. So, there is that.
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 15:58 utc | 152
all this stuff, about almost all our politicians, being genocidal murdering horrible people, with few exceptions, controlled by the most evil corrupt, extremely rich multi- trillionaires…they have got so much money and power, they can corrupt almost all governments in the world – to impoverish all, and kill us all – jabs, ukraine and palestine – are just a warm up – maybe true
but the idea the world has run out of money is total nonsense.
They have simply stolen it all, cos they want to kill us all, and live underground, whilst their nukes go off.
Money is like Fresh water. If you decide, you want to create an enormous fresh water lake, by damming the river, to go fishing with your rich mates, and polluting the rivers and streams below, so us Peasants can’t grow any healthy food – well that is what’s happening now. It’s a planned massive cull
It won’t work though, and there are absolutely loads of fish and whales in the sea. probably more now, than when I was a kid.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 16:06 utc | 153
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 30 2024 8:30 utc | 112
I didn’t pick up on the naturalist angle of your reply, not being familiar with the term, and now understand it a little better. You wrote:
The naturalist viewpoint works with data, measurements, hypothesis testing, calculations, objective stuff, to achieve collectively desired goals, essentially peace, prosperity and stability, and these goals are not ideas as they can be measured objectively.
That sounds like using objective, mainly materialist, means to achieve desired values-based ends. The ends you cite, peace prosperity and stability, sound fine, albeit a tad materialist because they are measurable, but maybe I’m just niggling.
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2024 16:15 utc | 154
canuck @ 114
Light Years you have an infraction of the above GAP:
Yikes, two more and I’m sent to jail, and I know what happens there, a pronoun will be forced on me!
You’re gonna hate this:
https://t.me/two_majors/30691
I never bought into military recruitment, a Vietnam era kid I saw through all that “be all that you can be” bullcrap, but after seeing a few RuMoD ads if I was a younger man I might just join the Ruskies.
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Aug 30 2024 16:19 utc | 155
I have enjoyed the theological posts from some of the postere such as Canuck, Aristodemos, persiflo and others.
In the late 1950s-early 1960s, My older brother and I were alter boys (and no, we where never abused) at St. Patrick’s church on McCaul St. Just north of Dundas St. in Toronto. We had the pleasure to serve mass with Father Mehan who was a very well recognized and respected theologian. I used to watch his show after midnight when I finished afternoon shifts. As alter boys we felt that our discussions with this man had positive effects as we grew up.
https://mail.yahoo.com/d/folders/1?guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly9yb2dlcnNtZW1iZXJjZW50cmUuY29tLw&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAAMObbk_E_ZjdIH7MkRa3mZUlULedS6EFd7s3QgCk2FeWr-KXomBdLfWyQ_kK6PnqMGilWPflrVM_7jxm1tZ2wN7-EryYIatmoUeKFplGP2Lw2vQ9WtP86V4kgtD_fyo74vU3UhlKf1ACBsqbUGzt7fKxkP-uF1_oUoBEbqwjixbe
I also met a gentleman, Aubrey Wice (who’s youngest daughter was my high school girlfriend) and he was a regular theologian writer on the Toronto Telegram newspaper. I read his articles as often as I could.
I have read the bible several times over (new and old testament along with some agnostic testaments in my time.
I am currently reading the Koran. I did a quick read of it and am 3 months now and one third of the way through it to understand better. It’s a tough read but any thing dealing with theology is.
I recommend to all (highly) to read Tom Harper’s book “The Pagan Christ” and yes he is Canadian. I had to read it a couple of times along with referencing the bible at the same time.
I am not a theologian however as Spock would say. Fascinating or Logical.
Posted by: Angelo | Aug 30 2024 16:22 utc | 156
Posted by: aristodemos | Aug 30 2024 15:29 utc | 147
“Got stuck numerous times with that needle, but even under somewhat dire circumstances was able to cut down the jabs.”
I never had any jabs, well maybe anti-tetanus and a sugar lump 60 years ago.
I hadn’t even seen my GP since the age of 50, when I had an ear infection for diving in polluted water…He said your blood pressure is extremely high….so after his drugs made me rather ill, I showed him, and he prescribed even more pills…So I flushed them all down the loo and within weeks got better..Everything returned to normal.
Then sods law happens. I felt well, and overnight, …All my Energy Disappeared
It was My Wife, the Paramedics and then the Ambulanceman, who recognised the Symptoms, and phoned the RESUS Ward ahead
We might be able to save this one, if we act very quick
I got SEPSIS, really bad – Nearly a month in hospital on an anti-biotic drip. I pleaded to go home. I said my wife will look after me, and she did. It took awhile to learn to walk again, and I still am not A1 yet..some days I am fine, and then I just want to sleep…but I am so glad to be alive
UK NHS – FREE
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 16:33 utc | 157
@nemesis & @aristodemus: (1)
Good interchange, though as always I wish we could be less combative. Maybe it’s just cyberspace – lacking physical form we punch out with words to simulate it.
@aristodemus: about your origin musings, I resuscitated a playful chapter, loosely referencing Tibetan myths called Birth of the World from a book under contract but the NYC publishing house, who boasted a few Popes as authors, got bought out two months before it was due to be printed. Basically, it’s a devolution versus evolution model, in that we come from disembodied mind which gradually, through desire, coarsens differences from which dynamic physical matter gradually emerges even though ultimately even physicality is part of a consciousness field and not truly solid – as electron microscopes have revealed.
This is structurally similar to the notion of a temporally and spatially all-pervasive God featuring a consciousness-awareness element, including intention or purpose. Another way of putting this, perhaps, is that reality is a collective waking dream of all beings therein.
I also think of it like the One wanting to see many aspects and so creates various localities of awareness – organisms. I think of fish, for example, as the eyes of the ocean now able to examine and enjoy itself from many perspectives. Indeed, there is an old Tibetan text called ‘You are the Eyes of the Universe’ wherein the notion of You is inseparable from I or God or anyone else; each being is the universe experiencing itself in manifold ways.
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2024 17:06 utc | 158
As historical iterations of totalitarian statehoods show, say from medieval Europe to modern open fascism [Hitler’s propaganda ministry was officially named ‘Propaganda Ministry’!!] and, of late, veiled/inverted fascism, it is preferable to have people voluntarily cooperate with your personal aims. The same, of course, is true in interpersonal relations, quite visible from leadership in management to the playfully erotic kind, where all truly good *** are joyfully happy ***, and favourably manage to be proud of themselves for that (it ain’t easy) too. But no more on that here, or the MoA Sittenpolizei will demonstratively arrest us —
The change in style of police work aristodemos reports from his experience is, in that light, not immediately a move that would make strategic sense. The strategy more fitting to such a choice is not to stabilize a class-layered form of societal organization, but to destroy it. Israely policy in Palestine has long used this as a means of ultra-destructive influence on the cohesion in their Ghettos, where systematically young children have been incarcerated without legal process for months. This causes trauma, and trauma will be transgenerational. The recent info from the torture prisons points in the very same direction, as apparently does all systematic degradation of Palestinians that’s visible all over the place. High levels of incarceration rate will have a likewise detrimental impact on communities; as they say, whenever a felon is convicted for a long time, the experienced observers first will ask, “what about their children now?” – On a personal note here, I have been in this situation myself.
There are more hints which point at such strategems, at least when analyzed with the classic “cui bono?” for plausible goals of such a method. Mass shootings are a terrible example. What will it do to a society where everyone has lost a friend to that kind of erratic terror? Donning my alu cap, which I keep near my desk at all times, for a moment, I shall remind everyone of a fake or real open letter by a music producer who reports that men in dark suits came around and convinced him to produce gangsta rap. Pop music is of course a vector for dark totalitarian propaganda, as is well apparent in the recent “trend” of pseudo-feminist girl power acts, who assert their individuality by using, abusing and denigrating others, while romanticizing aggressive lone-wolf virtues and self-ideals.
Let’s contrast that again with police work in Germany. This country is, in fact, not a late comer to nation state organization, but has a history of 1,000 or so years, beginning in earnest as the Heilige Römische Reich [of] Deutscher Nation. Its first attempt at revolution was the peasant wars, and ever since it failed, policing over here has a less than subtle hint at capability of superior violence. All German cops regularly carry a huge holstered sidearm, even if in fairness they tend to use it with restraint. Conversely, shoot-outs on the Reeperbahn between Hells Angels are taken seriously, as I learned after the latest one (1 WIA) when I passed the place on the next day. Cops were hanging around in vehicles on every corner, doors open and ready to engage theconcerned or curious passerby. I did, and had a brief but fascinating conversation with a middle-aged cop about the background layer against which all organized crime takes place – as you may imagine, it is much more convenient for a state to actually merge into a grey zone of transgression, so it would be able to at least know what’s going on, and possibly enter into all kinds of shady deals for nefarious purposes with them. While Germany is actually rather tame in that regard, it was this very view which finally allowed me to make sense of newspaper reporting on US covert foreign influence operations.
That cop and me parted ways with a shared indignation which we both had to shrug off when I mentioned the NSU Komplex as an example – that’s the story of some 12 murders of turkish shopkeepers with a silenced pistol, attributed to a crazy gang of three Neonazis, of which one lives. Five witnesses have died, as well as as a high-ranking undercover specialist cop who was shot, ostensibly on a routine patrol, with an assault rifle after a nightly pursuit into the woods. The records are locked away for 120 years, double the usual maximum amount. The shopkeepers appear to be have been mostly Kurds, and one of them, from Hamburg, was friends with a local barber of Altona who famously created a split German/Turkish flag for the Football World Cup in 2006 … I passed by his shop regularly for a few years, to see him in earnest discussions with friends all the time, and decided not to ever talk to him about this.
A similar spree also happened in France, yet there it was officially stated that France views the turkish secret service as behind this. I wonder if Erdogan had this as a trump card to play against Merkel during the Syrian refugee crisis of 2015 … and, going over to the jukebox now, I finally have a chance to report to MoA my famous Merkel decision of all (some of which were actually quite clever moves). Here, a TV satire show was unusually hoisted to the saturday late-night prime time in one of the major state broadcasting channels, and a mocking of Erdogan was presented, in the form of a short and funny song about his various moral transgressions [video w/english subs]. After everyone knew, and federal agent Böhmermann had publicly been sentenced for reading out a poem calling Erdogan a goat shagger just to make sure that it hurts, I imagine Merkel reported to him, ‘I’m so sorry, your wish to join the EU cannot come to pass for now; as you know, we are a democracy, and people are against it … ‘. Lol — if whoever reads this knows the ministry guy who came up with that, please pass him my email address along with a compliment and the suggestion to have a beer at the Ständige Vertretung in Berlin next time around.
Off for the weekend for beers and music with my best mate!
Posted by: persiflo | Aug 30 2024 17:11 utc | 159
@nemesis, @aristodemus (2):
As to the discussion about institutions: humans are social animals and societies need some sort of norms to provide sufficient order so that we can all live together, decide what we want to do in life, whilst being able to sustain ourselves, care for our loved ones, enjoy interesting cultural experiences providing meaning and developing character, not to mention making some sort of sense of mortality, of the death awaiting each and every one of us.
Sacrifice is also interesting. I confess have never quite understood what Catholics mean by pagan and also have not delved into why the gnostics were so frowned upon, though nemesis’ remarks have helped, but as to blood sacrifice, that sounds like the difference between black and white magic; both are valid but they lead to different places. I personally don’t like blood sacrifices though after coming to Mexico have learned to understand them a little better.
I think the big problem with all this, though, is that once a society or a religious institution becomes corrupt, which nearly always happens, it is extremely hard to correct; the old ways have become too stultified and antiquated and finding new ways to connect to timeless principles requires well-established wisdom which revolutionary times obfuscate, often deliberately. We need institutions and religions to provide core stability and access to timeless principles even though they are fraught with the tendency to become corrupt.
I suspect we humans will never be free of this conundrum.
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2024 17:17 utc | 160
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2024 16:15 utc | 154
That sounds like using objective, mainly materialist, means to achieve desired values-based ends.
Yes.
Combine good values, like honor, hard work, family life, the family being the core unit of society, stuff like that WITH the power of rationalist, mechanistic thinking.
Those good values are not arbitrary. They are the values that came about by human population growth, they are the values optimized for success by biological evolution.
Unlike what your quote from a Substack author implies, current dominant liberal ideology is very spiritual, and that shows in its insufficient attachment to reality.
Posted by: Johan Kaspar | Aug 30 2024 17:18 utc | 161
persiflo 159
persiflo! have you read the “Verborgene Geschichte” by Docherty&Macgregor?
your description of the terrorism in Germany and in France, the possible involvement of turkish secret service(s), reminds me very much of the situation in the Balkans before WW-1, as described in that book – with the hidden hands behind the nationalist Young Bosnia, the Black Hand , the Russians, and the disappearing documentation, the killings of the perpetrators etc. and after all is said – the total absence of evidence that British were ultimately behind it all. Fascinating.
Posted by: fanto | Aug 30 2024 17:30 utc | 162
Docherty & Macgregor’s book is probably better known under its English-language title “Hidden History”.
Posted by: Lysias | Aug 30 2024 17:45 utc | 163
if you are alive and well, and have a wife, child and grandchildren, and a cat all of who’m are well too, despite all the horrors, and the losses – the good times and the bad times…
marriage vows scotland
“I promise to love and cherish you for the rest of your life. I will try to bring laughter to your life and make you happy. I will consider you in the decisions I have to make, and value your opinions. Today I vow to be your wife/husband for the rest of our lives.”
Take your vows seriously. Flirting is O.K. but don’t Betray
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 17:46 utc | 164
“You’re gonna hate this:
https://t.me/two_majors/30691
I never bought into military recruitment, a Vietnam era kid I saw through all that …”
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Aug 30 2024 16:19 utc | 155
It’s really been one of their hilarious media disasters hasn’t it? Let’s say you stop running ads in that alphabet soup targeting.
As a planner, if 10% of my platoons are prisoners and 15% of them are gender variations that’s 25% of my army. In simplistic terms of course. Maybe give them catchy names or something. You could have a lot of fun with that.
Firearms, technology and Logistics are the great equalizer on the field. If you had 2 years you could end up with an excellent martial artist and crack shot. Really it takes about 5 years to convert someone into a hard case but you can speed that up.
I would certainly agree that at the end of the day having fighting spirit decides things. The video was quite funny in a low-key sort of way. I think you’d find the reality somewhere in the middle.
Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 30 2024 17:51 utc | 165
“but I am so glad to be alive
UK NHS – FREE”
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 16:33 utc | 157
Glad you made it Tony. Life is uncertain.
Posted by: David G Horsman | Aug 30 2024 17:55 utc | 166
We had road tested each other for 5 years, and decided we wanted to have children, and spend the rest of our lives together..
So didn’t tell anyone and ran away to Gretna Green.
The last thing we wanted was for our Parents to Spend loads of money on a Posh Wedding…
We have been together for 43 years.
She said what do you want for your Birthday?
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 17:55 utc | 167
@nemesis
About ritual: also prominent in Confucian thought (Li – Rites). Ritual is a group enactment of a prescribed progression from beginning to end, presumably in the Roman Catholic ritual context to engender immediate sacred awareness (‘nowness’) within the existing societal gestalt. Not God alone but every single participant helps perform the ritual.
This collective art form creates society or culture on the spot. Maybe the cathedrals taking 200 years to build was not a bug but a feature, for the process is a way to go beyond weekly ritual to making an entire community 24/7 dedicated to spiritually meaningful living. (In such societies, manners and class become paramount, though not necessarily in an oppressive fashion.)
This is quite different from abstract philosophy or ideology. Rather, ritual puts all invisible, eternal spiritual principes into living corporeal manifestation. It is next level philosophy or spirituality as living, civilizational, art form.
I believe this sort of dynamic is what Dugin-Putin types are calling for with a return to civilizational core traditions. The ‘core’ aspect is that which connects with timeless bedrock values and principles around which that civilization has grown in a slowly emerging, complex fashion with no end of particularities and variables – as in the phrase ‘Chinese characteristics’.
Ritual is not ideology, philosophy, governance, artistry, entertainment or society building but all of them together. Complex, well developed ritual literally creates human reality on the spot by engaging body, mind and spirit in real-time and all together, including all classes and generations.
Further, its doctrines don’t have to be universally applicable to all societies everywhere (like the totalitarian universal notion of objective reality believed in by materialists); its stories and beliefs don’t have to answer all questions for all peoples in all times, including scientific or administrative. They just have to provide what is needed to engender a meaningful ritual performance that manifestly creates a complete human-society experience on the spot in the here and now, be that a one hour Mass or a two hundred year cathedral or pyramid build, moreover one pervaded in the atmosphere of sacred nowness. Something like that.
Again, thanks for your posts.
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2024 17:57 utc | 168
aristodemos @ 83
Anyhoo, the Burbs pay through the nose for good herbs.
I’ve got a foot in both worlds and the burbs do indeed have killer weed and high prices, I’ve hung out with serious hip-hop guys too, Brooklyn brothers not whitey wanna-bes, their herbs were detrimental and no cheaper, it all went to hell after the ’70s, I blame neoliberalism.
Whatever happened to fold-over pre ziplock sandwich Baggies filled with brown Columbian with plenty of seeds to pick through? Cheap and easy to share. I recall some of that stuff was pretty detrimental on my forming brain when I was a kid, and you didn’t have to go find a cheap cigar to smoke it. Hells, kids could get weed but no one would have sold us a Te-Amo when I was 13, we would have had to wait outside the newsstand for a Hippie to pass by like we used to wait for a Hippie outside the deli to buy us a six pack. At least it made you hustle.
It’s all been downhill since 🙃
Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | Aug 30 2024 18:30 utc | 169
About “middle class.”
Consider this, about income brackets, for a hypothetical family of four:
Income Bracket* Percentage of Americans
Under $15,000 8.3%
$15,000-$24,999 7.4%
$25,000-$34,999 7.6%
$35,000-$49,999 10.6%
$50,000-$74,999 16.2%
$75,000-$99,999 12.3%
$100,000-$149,999 16.4%
$150,000-$199,999 9.2%
Over $200,000 11.9%
*Based on household income, not individual income
As you can see, almost half of American households fall in the middle income brackets, making between $50,000 and $150,000.
Source: https://www.marketwatch.com/guides/business/average-salary-by-age/
Seem conclusive? Consider this, again for a hypothetical family of four:
The median annual household income in the United States in 2024 is estimated to be between $77,345 and $78,171:
$77,345
The median household income across 345 large U.S. cities, according to SmartAsset
$78,171
The median annual household income, according to data consulting firm Motio Research
The median income for a four-person family in the U.S. is estimated to be $114,425 from October 1, 2024 through September 30, 2025.
The amount people earn can vary widely between cities. For example, the median income in Detroit is $40,574, while the median household income in Boston is $86,331.
Source: http://www.google.com/search?q=median+household+income+2024&sca_esv=9df8b1bcf95d0dda&source=hp&ei=CgHSZt6-AfyvptQPy_qnuQQ&iflsig=AL9hbdgAAAAAZtIPGgYW8jbWdsv7VLjptvTTqx_C3gWt&oq=median+hous&gs_lp=Egdnd3Mtd2l6IgttZWRpYW4gaG91cyoCCAIyCBAAGIAEGLEDMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAEMgUQABiABDIFEAAYgAQyBRAAGIAESIImUABYpBBwAHgAkAEAmAGeAaABoAiqAQM3LjS4AQHIAQD4AQGYAgugAv8IwgILEAAYgAQYsQMYgwHCAg4QLhiABBixAxjRAxjHAcICCxAuGIAEGLEDGIMBwgIREC4YgAQYsQMY0QMYgwEYxwHCAg4QLhiABBixAxiDARiKBcICCxAuGIAEGMcBGK8BwgILEC4YgAQY0QMYxwHCAg4QLhiABBjRAxjHARjJA8ICCxAAGIAEGJIDGIoFwgIOEC4YgAQYxwEYjgUYrwHCAg4QABiABBixAxiDARiKBcICCBAuGIAEGLEDmAMAkgcDNS42oAeaWg&sclient=gws-wiz
Looking at the first, first, we see the first two brackets are in $15 000 increments. Then it goes by $50 000 increments. Finally it foregoes any increment at all, lumping together every income from $200 000 up in one supposed bracket. There are two reasons for this. One is, writing all the zeroes for increasingly astronomical incomes, and zeroes for microscopic percentages, would be tiresome (and most people apparently refused to learn scientific notation to make that part easy.) The other is, by monkeying with the bracket sizes you can pretend three arbitrarily chosen brackets are the middle of the ladder. Shakespeare should have written, there are more income brackets than dreamed of in your philosophy.
The purpose of this is to imply income (and therefore “class”) is a more or less normal distribution, aka “Bell curve.” Typically in such a distribution, the percentage within one standard deviation (plus and minus) runs about 68%. That’s the middle. Note there’s nothing about the standard deviation here, this isn’t even elementary statistics. Even as presented, the 45% passed off as nearly half isn’t close to 68%. But now look at the second source, which gives estimates for median household income. The median is the estimated value dividing the population in halves, one less, one more than the median (plus however many, if any—it’s not mathematically necessary anyone actually has the median value, no more than average. About a third of the first sources supposed middle class doesn’t rise to the median.
Even worse, there’s more to class, or even socioeconomic status, than household family income. Debt matters. How much of family income is spent on debt service? Beyond that, what percentage of income is spent on such necessities as food?
Compounding that, property matters. What percentage of the population can carry the mortgage on their house? What percentage have houses increasing in value? What percentage have second homes and stocks and bond? How many can afford to help their children get an education (usually fundamental to aspirations to be middle class) or get their first home?
No, the discussion between William Gruff, Tom_Q_Collins, canuck and Patroklos is vacuous.
By the way, “Karens” are not woke, whether middle class or not, the insult is that they are not woke.
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 30 2024 18:38 utc | 170
I came here intending to post some information on the major Orthodox Christian feast, old calendar, that took place a few days ago, and a quick scroll up shows me that some posters have been discussing the topic in a general way, though I haven’t yet read through that discussion. So I’ll just post what I was going to say first and then have a better read.
The feast is that of the Dormition of the mother of Christ, called the Theotokos or Bogoroditsa, the Birthgiver of God. (An interesting fact for me is that it comes in the northern hemisphere during the same season that Easter happens in the southern hemisphere.) Dormition means ‘falling asleep’, a gentle way of saying it is her death. The icon for the feast shows her bier centrally located, with disciples and bishops surrounding it and the figure of Christ standing behind it holding a tiny wrapped image representing her soul. Hence, the exapostilarion matins hymn which says:
O ye apostles,
assembled here from the ends of the earth,
bury my body in Gethsemane:
And Thou,
O my Son and God,
receive my spirit.
Our little family church in Santa Fe was named for this feast, and after a long illness our priest died on the eve of the feast, when this hymn is sung. So, my own little chapel area is also so dedicated, with an embroidery I have been making of this icon with the text above in Slavonic around its borders. Russians call the feast ‘Little Easter’, and it is of equal significance, though of course having a gentler quality to it.
I say about the embroidery ‘have been making’ as I began it some time earlier during the church’s existence, and I still have some work (on the attending bishops) to complete, hopefully before the feast comes around again. So, even apart from the length of time it takes for cathedrals to be built, this has been happening for me a number of years now.
I see at the last that Scorpion has been commenting on ritual. Perhaps this goes along with that.
Posted by: juliania | Aug 30 2024 18:47 utc | 171
Everyone who goes out, and meets different people, and likes the same things, like the same live music – paricularly at live gigs…forms tribes..I reckon this is much the same in the UK, as the USA, and many countries acroos the world who for example like Black Sabbath, Rainbow and AC/DC and Budgie..
But my Ex just sent me a Happy Birthday message from 45 years ago…
I hadn’t seen her for about 10 years at a Hawkwind Gig…
She is still totally Beautiful – I don’t know how these Girls do it – it can’t just be Yoga, Exercise and Vegan. She always tells me off about our new Kitten now a Cat
I know what she is like…I will try and remember your Birthday in May 2025. when you are 70
Have you seen Angelina Jolie – her latest photos – not quite as beautiful as you.
Dunno if we will ever meet again but she does like my wife…very similar histories two kids each – and almost no cummunication over the last 45 years. Some people are just nice.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 20:15 utc | 172
It costs nothing to fall out with your old love, and still remain friends…So Eric Clapton is banned now by the New Fascists in control of the UK Givernment?
I can feel your body
When I’m lying in bed
There’s too much confusion
Going around through my head
And it makes me so angry
To know that the flame still burns
Why can’t I get over?
When will I ever learn?
Old love, leave me alone
Old love, go on home
I can see your face
But I know that it’s not real
It’s just an illusion
Caused by how I used to feel
And it makes me so angry
To know that the flame will always burn
I’ll never get over
I know now that I’ll never learn
Old love, leave me alone
Old love, go on home
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 20:40 utc | 173
we are still the same people – not controlled by the usa.
You Disgust Me
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 20:52 utc | 174
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 20:40 utc | 173
At great risk to life and limb (not!) I left school one night, hugging the shadows, took the tube into central London and squeezed into a small, packed venue where Hawkwind was playing. On the stage a full-figured naked woman moving to the music with lights changing colour playing on her body. I was very surprised, not only because it was the first time I had seen an adult fully naked woman, let alone in public, but also because it wasn’t all that sexy, and indeed pretty soon I was mainly looking at the band, who weren’t all that interesting to watch. Indeed, I sorta got bored and on the way back home realized that much more enjoyed listening to them on a good stereo system or headphones in my room than live at the concert.
And so I only went to a couple of concerts after that the rest of my little life. I gather from some contemporaries that I missed out. The other one I remember going to was Lou Reed in a small town in upstate New York, maybe Ithaca. Also boring – as was he, obviously, being on stage. Memphis Slim in a small bar in Paris, even though he was very old, now THAT was a strong atmosphere, much better than those two concerts. Wish I’d gone to a Dylan, but it’ll never happen.
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 30 2024 21:08 utc | 175
I used to love The Beach Boys, when I was 16, and, I built my Sinclair Project 60 kit, including FM Stereo decoder, amplifier and Richard Allen Speaker when the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were in mono rarely broadcast it was mainly Radio Caroline and Radio Luxembourg then
But the Beach Boys and the UK BBC Radio 3 long before The Old Grey Whilstle Test -Broadcast it in High Definition Stereo (even though it had been recorded in mono) The BBC mixed it in Stereo – and I thought it totally brilliant.
Now all we get from the USA and the UK BBC ( I did say that Starmer would be even worse than ANTHONY CHARLES LYNTON BLAIR, who I particularly disliked)
is Bomb Bomb Bomb Bonb Iran in mono
Kill em all – and all The Palestinians – Mass Genocide
“we are the good guys”
can’t say I am particularly impressed
Shut your Mouth, or You will be next.
Total Fascism UK now
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 21:29 utc | 176
Posted by: steven t johnson | Aug 30 2024 18:38 utc | 170
Lies, lies and statistics.
Can I use some very simple numbers?
1968 a boeing 747 ‘s cost was 12.000.000, and median income 7.700. So roughly 1.500 families could afford a boeing
2024 no longer available but last prices north of 500.000.000, median income for family of four near 110.000. So roughly 4.500 families would have to pitch in to but«y a 747 equivalent.
So in real terms (everything worthwhile, houses, planes, industrial plants and equipment) the median family is 3 THREE TIMES POORER than 50 some years ago.
Simple?
Check those numbers id you want.
Posted by: Newbie | Aug 30 2024 21:50 utc | 178
Posted by: malenkov | Aug 30 2024 21:38 utc | 177
Yes, he may need to get some sleep! Good man Tony, see you tomorrow.
Posted by: KMRIA | Aug 30 2024 21:58 utc | 179
Barkeep, how about we call Tony a taxi?…
Posted by: malenkov | Aug 30 2024 21:38 utc | 177
Either AI, or real person, he seems to be hallucinating.
A hard reset is probably in order and I’m starting to feel suspicious about the drinks being served here…
Posted by: Newbie | Aug 30 2024 22:07 utc | 180
Whilst I don’t know any of Taylor Swifts songs, I think the Swifties are brilliant – the teenage kids
It wasn’t a case of being lumbered with the job, I liked Snow Patrol too…my 15 year old daughter, knew we had been to Wembley before – come on Dad..My wife had given her ticket to ome of her friends..
So it was me in charge of 5 15 year old kids on our way to Wembley and our way back home…
How do we get back home – You have done it before Dad when you took me to Skating om Ice…
Children are so totally womderful
Grandchildren next
Come on Grandad
If you think this life is a waste of time – all about being horrible to people, rather than just being normal and being nice to your children if you are lucky enough to have any, and their friends..you have never reached the levels, that I have
Children and their friends are the most Beautiful, that both you and your wife have to both encourage and Defend
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 22:33 utc | 181
God is a part of my soul, and whist I was never physicaly abused…they did try to make a Roman Catholic priest out of me…
My Mum knew – absolutely no chance – Anthony prefers Girls
Good luck to the rest of you…Sometimes I act very Gay, but my wife can’t stop laughing at me..
She is so much like my Mum -Full of God, and Christian Charity — Both Childminders – quited their jobs to look after Children…
If anyone, went straight to heaven, when she died at the age of 86, it was my Mum, holding her crucifix around her neck in one hand, and my hand in the other. She said I do not want a Priest. one of the most uplifting expereinces in my life, to witness my Mum, going Straight to God
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 23:07 utc | 183
I do accept that some of our friends are totally gay, and I accept that..in fact a couple of beautiful girls…really pretty, were totally in love with each other, and my wife and I felt totally honoured to be invited to their gay wedding..
We didn’t go, but I was up for it…My wife said, I am at a gig that night…who..I am not going by myself
“The Vaccines – If You Wanna (Official Video)” -well they are probably gay too
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uQKjI6395iU
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 30 2024 23:37 utc | 184
Light years from home @169, I guess I was lucky living in the West Coast. We got all the good stuff. Columbian black, red and gold. Real Thai sticks, Hawaiian, Nepalese finger hash, Lebanese red hash and a lot of homegrown stuff too. Acapulco gold, the Turkish black hash. All that stuff is as good as anything today. Cheers mother fuckers! And peace.
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 23:38 utc | 185
And, if you’re into cocaine, the only choice is Peruvian. Nice flakes, blueish tint. The brothers used to call it bubblegum when they based it. Other than that, I know nothing about drugs.
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 23:46 utc | 186
And the acid in Berkeley was the best. Especially windowpane.
Posted by: Immaculate deception | Aug 30 2024 23:50 utc | 187
Yeh we got that at Stonehenge too, and Glastonbury, but I had to give it up in 1985, cos it wasn’t doing me no good, and I went a bit mad, gave all my money to Live Aid, and seriously needed to go Back To Work…it actually wasn’t that hard..Never done opiod based stuff..which is serious addictive, nor cocaine…In fact I like being completely sober, and doing a good job and being completely clean – of all brain contamination…We just wanted to get married, have kids and be a happy family
So we did.
Look at the State of the USA now..I know us British did it to the Chinese, but that was before I was born..
You American Guys ain’t lookin too good..I know our lot are even more horrible, but at least they can string a sentence together even if it is just kill kill kill Russians and Palestinians.
I personally think Trump faked it..but no one believes me, which is fine..He is more into Killing Palestians than your permanently stoned girl, who is yet to put a sentence together that makes any sense. She just laughs. At least Margaret Thatcher made some sense though I didn’t like her either
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 31 2024 0:07 utc | 188
Good interview with President Bukele who by all accounts has proven to be an extremely effective national leader (and who also finds labels like left and right no longer meaningful).
https://time.com/7015636/president-nayib-bukele-interview/
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 31 2024 0:35 utc | 189
a year ago, i got sepsis really bad, and was very lucky to survive. they tested my blood every day, and instantly knew i had not been jabbed, nor taken any drugs, beyond a bit of alcohol and maybe one cigarette – I had almost completely give up smoking – they tested me for that too every day, and my heart and blood pressure several times a day, as I got weaker and weaker. I was very lucky cos they had blood test facilities on site in the same hospital, and I actually quite liked the nurse who took my blood every day..She said, well told my wife, your husband has got two very nasty bacterial bugs in his blood. One of them we should be able to kill with penicillin, but the other one is extremely unusual…we need to experiment with that one…should be able to kill it with something. It was summer, possibly not quite as busy as winter, and I always presented myself with a smile and a bit of a chat, to try and empathise and thank the people who were doing their best to save my life
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 31 2024 0:38 utc | 190
I’m just going to leave this here.
“According to a new study, cryptocurrency holders are more likely to have “narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic personality traits,” as well as “believe in conspiracy theories, support extremist groups, and share populist feelings.” – Bloomberg.com
Posted by: Suresh | Aug 31 2024 0:47 utc | 191
https://notrickszone.com/2024/08/30/new-study-co2s-atmospheric-residence-time-4-years-natural-sources-drive-co2-concentration-changes/
A persuasive, facts-based rebuttal of the anthropogenic CO2 hypothesis, now a widely held belief.
Apparently most of the upcoming disaster model assume that anthro CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades and even thousands of years whereas naturally produced CO2 lasts for only about 3.7 years – a HUGE difference.
Instead of relying on models built on assumption and speculation, Dr. Koutsoyiannis utilizes a well-established, hydrology-based theoretical framework (refined reservoir routing, or RRR) combined with real-world CO2 observations to robustly conclude the residence time for all CO2 molecules, regardless of origin, is between 3.5 and 4 years.
The applied theoretical results match the empirical results so closely (e.g., an empirical mean of 3.91 years vs. a theoretical mean of 3.94 years at Barrow, and an identical 3.68 years for both empirical and theoretical means at Mauna Loa from 1958-2023) that the theoretical framework can be said to be “close to perfect.” In other words, the consistency of the applied calculation with real-world observations provides robust evidence that CO2 residence time is likely close to this range.
In contrast, the calculated probability for the modeled, imaginary-data-based claim that the residence time for a CO2 molecule persists for over 1000 years is 10⁻⁶⁸, which means the probability value is “no different from an impossibility.”
Ladies and Gentlemen: We are being Played!!
The cooky team of Orange Man Bad and Bobby the pumped-up Kennedy are right: go after pollution and corruption (aka ‘first do no harm’) and both the environment and children will naturally return to healthy states. Global Warming distracts from focusing on the real problems by instead offering a hugely important looking dystopian emergency scenario similar to all those natural disaster B-movies with ghastly soundtracks and even worse actors.
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 31 2024 1:22 utc | 192
The reason I am still alive is Family. My Grandaughter is not quite 2 yet and my cat not quite 1…it was those two who taught me to crawl, stand up, walk and run.
we all kind of love each other in way that is hard to explain…Our cat is by far the fastest…in fact she is the fastest cat I have ever seen in my life, and the brightest..No moths or flies in here Grandad…She jumps in the air catches them in her paws and eats them before she has landed.
She has decided that she is the Vermin Killer – The protector of our home. the foxes take one look – even the birds have got the message , the mice aint quite worked it out yet. We do have a sign at the front
BEWARE Of Our Cat.
She is really gentle and tolerant with us, especially the Children who might think about pulling her tail.
She has not met a dog yet.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 31 2024 1:25 utc | 193
Who would believe multipolarity after this ? China would seem to be an unreliable alternative.
Posted by: Fëanor’s Flame | Aug 31 2024 1:34 utc | 194
Posted by: Suresh | Aug 31 2024 0:47 utc | 191
“According to a new study, cryptocurrency holders are more likely to have “narcissistic, Machiavellian, psychopathic, and sadistic personality traits”
my view is that cryptocurrency is a complete and utter waste of energy as is AI.
Artificial Intelligence – My arse. The worms in my garden have more intelligence as do the sunflowers…they know how to turn their heads to point at the sun.
If you turn the computer off, its dead…whilst real life just comes back again.
Posted by: tonyopmoc | Aug 31 2024 1:41 utc | 195
Posted by: Scorpion | Aug 31 2024 1:22 utc | 192
Apparently most of the upcoming disaster model assume that anthro CO2 stays in the atmosphere for decades and even thousands of years whereas naturally produced CO2 lasts for only about 3.7 years – a HUGE difference.
Then please explain how it is that when I was in school, I was taught that the level in the atmosphere was about 300 ppm, the latest figure I can find is 419.3 ppm.
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
Posted by: Walt | Aug 31 2024 2:28 utc | 196
steven t johnson,
Thanks for the Solid data on income. Income is valuable screen for analyzing wage slaves, but it’s not really useful for analyzing society as a whole. One needs to add some more fine grained such as wealth and debt burden.
For example:
1) Household #1; gross income ~$400k
Mortgage $1,000,000
Property Taxes $30,000/year
Car payments : $3,000/month
ETC
2) Household #2: gross income $40k
Mortgage – none
Property Taxes $3,000/year
Car payments: none
Etc
Which household is “richer” ?
Posted by: Exile | Aug 31 2024 2:33 utc | 197
Water molecules stay in the atmosphere for about nine days. You cannot deduce anything about typical humidity levels in any particular place from this fact alone.
Posted by: a stone | Aug 31 2024 2:45 utc | 199
Who would believe multipolarity after this ? China would seem to be an unreliable alternative.
Posted by: Fëanor’s Flame | Aug 31 2024 1:34 utc | 194
Hello, a new troll or a sock puppet? Read on down.
Russia’s imports from China fell by more than 1% to $62 billion in January-July 2024 due to payment problems, according to China’s official statistics.
Xi must be shitting his pants over that.
There is no problem, pal, our Shenzhen/Moscow trade just goes through intermediaries in Hong Kong. But don’t tell Blinken.
Posted by: Walt | Aug 31 2024 3:04 utc | 200