I think I'll live-blog Brahms's symphony #2, which started just as I came here.
Nah. I'll just listen under the 'phones while I mention some funny things from TCT.
Story about Moorish Sovereign Citizens in the NW walking onto people's properties and claiming ownership. There was cell-vid of two goofs babbling and that might be all it is, but a few years ago here a lady began squatting with her youngsters in a very nice house that was unoccupied. She made the same ridiculous claims and I think used the same Moorish crap.
Closed captioning has been on the TV recently since my wife (with some assists from you people) turned me on to amazon prime video. My German isn't nearly fluent enough to catch all the dialogue or narration in the things I've watched so far, and intend to watch in the future, so I leave it on.
Tonight on TCT the CC contained the word "fapping" (which I did not hear and would have noticed) and the word "blahistic" (for ballistic) in a story on school reopenings.
1. Hammer and Scorecard is real, not a hoax (as Democrats allege), and both are used to manipulate election outcomes.
2. Dominion, ES&S, Scytl, and Smartmatic are all vulnerable to fraud and vote manipulation — and the mainstream media reported on these vulnerabilities in the past.
3. Dominion has been used in other countries to "forge election results."
4. Dominion's corporate structure is deliberately confusing to hide relationships with Venezuela, China, and Cuba.
5. Dominion machines are easily hackable.
6. Dominion memory cards with cryptographic key access to the systems were stolen in 2019.
Although he had no access to the machines, Dr. Kershavarz has looked at available data about the election and the vote results. Based on that information, he concluded
1. The counts in the disputed states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia) show electronic manipulation.
2. The simultaneous decision in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia to pretend to halt counting votes was unprecedented and demonstrated a coordinated effort to collude toward desired results.
3. One to two percent of votes were forged in Biden's favor.
4. Optical scanners were set to accept unverified, un-validated ballots.
5. The scanners failed to keep records for audits, an outcome that must have been deliberately programmed.
6. The stolen cryptographic key, which applied to all voting systems, was used to alter vote counts.
7. The favorable votes pouring in after hours for Biden could not be accounted for by a Democrat preference for mailed in ballots. They demonstrated manipulation. For example, in Pennsylvania, it was physically impossible to feed 400,000 ballots into the machines within 2–3 hours.
8. Dominion used Chinese parts, and there's reason to believe that China, Venezuela, Cuba interfered in the election.
9. There was a Hammer and Scorecard cyber-attack that altered votes in the battleground states, and then forwarded the results to Scytl servers in Frankfurt, Germany, to avoid detection.
10. The systems failed to produce any auditable results.
I see on instagram that the Utah monolith (which is steel not stone) that has gone missing is now replaced in the public sphere by a new one (or is it the same) in Romania. 2020 is a bit of a shit showm n'est-ce pas.
Biden, with the suspicious ankle injury, appears to be on his way out before he actually got in. Will he break Harrison's record of 31 days?
I'm surprised that the press seem to delight in spewing puff pieces about Biden (no word on Kamala) and his actions as "President Elect". If it were me I'd be way more satisfied in my job riling up and pissing around Trump and his administration. But that's just me I guess.
Our time in the water's side rental in southern Maine is coming to an end. The new house build is coming along nicely, though it will likely be the week after Christmas or the first week in January that we move in. This has been a fabulous experience.
I did NOT know that anagrams were part of the schizophrenic diagnosis. I'm sure "Silence of the Lambs" would look different today.
I apologize for obsessing over the schizophrenic behaviors, but this has been a REAL wake up call. Trust me, I have access to numerous health care professionals (family members), and lawyers, but very few can explain the entry process into the psych unit.
My very close relative has finally found a psych bed after numerous encounters with the police.
I was truly convinced my relative was going to found by berry pickers next August.
Sorry to hear of yet more misery, but please explain your reference to anagrams and schizophrenia diagnosis. (I never saw SOTL so if that is explanatory I apologize.)
The weird thing is that the Wisconsin DHS still reports no teenage deaths. So it seems that someone can die of a "COVID-related" illness without actually having COVID. The more you know.
My very close relative has finally found a psych bed after numerous encounters with the police.
I was truly convinced my relative was going to found by berry pickers next August.
I've done a fair amount of involuntary commitments in my career and have seen first hand why the debate between institutionalization and community mental health rages on. Short-term civil commitments were devised as a halfway measure to provide short-term emergency care while still maintaining people in the community. In practice, for a lot of people deinstitutionalization has meant homelessness and/or corrections.
One of the most important variables for prognosing schizophrenia is the length of time from when symptoms first emerge (what they call the "prodromal stage") to when treatment for psychosis is initiated. It is not unusual for several years to pass between the onset of symptoms and the emergence of unambiguous psychosis.
If I may ask, what do you mean by "anagrams were part of the schizophrenic diagnosis"?
I noticed something about "liberals" and other State-fellators of my acquaintance, and maybe others have noticed it, too. The way I was raised, the answer to the query, "Who did you vote for?" or "Who are you going to vote for?" is "None of your business;" yet the "liberals" I know seem to think it perfectly okay to grill me on the subject. Do conservatives and libertarians do that? I suspect not; or at least not as much. I suspect that if you're a statist, with (as the bumper sticker has it), "ideas so good they have to be mandatory," you have fewer qualms about conducting inquisitions about where people's loyalties are.
Almost as annoying, if not more annoying, is when people don't know I'm in the pro-freedom camp, and assume I must be a statist like them. I guess it's because I'm an artsy type, and people in the arts (bizarrely, I think) tend to be statists. Maybe it's the Pauline Kael Cocoon Syndrome. ("How did Nixon win?" she is reported have said, perhaps tongue-in-cheek: "No one I know voted for him.")
In practice, for a lot of people deinstitutionalization has meant homelessness and/or corrections.
So true, Farmer. When I lived in Seattle, a high proportion of the homeless were seriously mentally ill. They were vulnerable to the aggression other 'street people'. Very sad. And jails are no place for the mentally ill, either. Disappointing that politicians seldom see care for the mentally ill as a fundamental health need in this country and that care should include high quality institutionalization when medically indicated.
Some friends need a home for their beautiful lab. We have been talking about adopting a dog for some time. We visited with him and his owners for a while today and I think he'd be a good fit.
Pants daughter #1 strongly dislikes dogs, but is away at college most of the time.
Pants daughter #2 adores dogs and has wanted one her whole life and we have not had one.
Other four children are neutral to warm on the dog idea.
Mr. and Mrs. Pants want to adopt the dog.
How to resolve this? I don't want our oldest to be uncomfortable in her home, but I also think maybe some exposure therapy would help her? She's mildly autistic and very rigid about some things, and I'm not sure that coddling her forever is helping her. But I also don't want attitude and hassle.
Bernard B. Kerik @BernardKerik · 1h Today @dougducey ignored overwhelmingly evidence of voter fraud, corruption and criminality by certifying Arizona’s election. It is malfeasance and reeks of questionable conduct that must be investigated. Thank you @MarkFinchem and members of your committee for their courage. -- Ignored? He was running from it/attempting to block it.
I don't know about engrams being diagnostics for schizophrenia, but whatever is going on with Achilles doesn't seem healthy. Fortunately, he was microchipped for deployment and the Deep State is camped outside his compound for his own good.
Not only will we have to lock down to avoid the tenth of one percent of people who will die with Winnie Xi Flu, we will also have to lock down for Glowball Warmening.
Where are Ken B and tim in vermont to tell me how good that will be for us?
Oh, I know you didn't explicitly want those things. But you cheered giving an inch to the people I warned you would take a fucking mile. And you don't get to claim you didn't see it coming.
This is the exact same problem I have with Freeman Hunt. When you cheer starting us down the slippery slope, I will curse you when we pick up speed and lose control. And when we get to the bottom, well, you all are just enemies in a low trust society.
Ironically, Kael's actual quote was more self-awareness than naiveite. She said, "“I live in a rather special world,” Miss Kael said, con tinuing: “I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them." It was a discussion panel at the MLA about films and made the remark in response to another panelist's point about pop culture versus official culture.
Almost as annoying, if not more annoying, is when people don't know I'm in the pro-freedom camp, and assume I must be a statist like them
While I have a lot of respect for the anarchist tradition and believe it makes a powerful critique on the legitimacy of state power, I don't see any realistic path to a stateless society. In a world full of powerful states, how does a state dismantle itself?
1. I wish we could get some non mathematicians to explain the patterns which prove that something fraudulent was done to the count. I've listened to the mathematicians and they are just strange in their inability to communicate. They mean well but they just can not communicate with ordinary people. 2. I wish that someone could get their hands on hard evidence of the programs and systems which altered the ballot count. Offer a reward for someone to turn it over. $10 million or whatever it takes. 3. It looks like every possible way to cheat was employed. Computer programs, computer systems which could be hacked, observers kept from identifying fake ballots and false signatures, massive dumps of fake ballots. 4. I'm also disturbed by the sad realization that for many people election fraud is insignificant because their lives are not affected or they are glad to see Trump go, regardless of how that was accomplished. 5. I'm saddened by the ultimate conclusion that when massive election fraud is the inevitable reality going forward there's no point in bothering about elections. We've already created a generation which wants to eliminate freedom of speech because for them freedom of expression is dangerous and should be curtailed. Other freedoms and rights should be eliminated as well ASAP. 6. We'll very soon return to the status quo where there is no difference between the two major parties. The permanent political class pays lip service to representing their constituents but primarily represents themselves, their families and powerful connections to special interests.
I Have Misplaced My Pants said... Some friends need a home for their beautiful lab. We have been talking about adopting a dog for some time. We visited with him and his owners for a while today and I think he'd be a good fit.
Pants daughter #1 strongly dislikes dogs, but is away at college most of the time.
Pants daughter #2 adores dogs and has wanted one her whole life and we have not had one.
Other four children are neutral to warm on the dog idea.
I'm not big on giving advice to someone I don't know but IMO since you asked, get the dog. If your daughter sees how happy the dog makes you all that might persuade her to give the dog a chance. Worst case, if she can not adjust, then put the dog in a kennel or at a neighbor's house when your daughter visits.
There are no win/lose family scenarios, only those who perceive them.
Find a way to win/win, probably by just voicing your concern about the one rarely home not feeling welcome or as welcome given a new arrival. That should create a big win for her though if communicated properly, giving the younger one and your whole family a bigger win via dog.
Assign poop duty as part of the bargain though, you don't want to be running around picking up that kinda stuff when you could instead create a form of stewardship of the yard, through a youngin' that could one day teach others that same stewardship.
I take your point, but I don't really like those kinds of responses to anarchism. Somalia used to be another common response.
I think this plays to a very common myth about human beings. It's the Lord of the Flies plot or more recently the zombie apocalypse plot.
The basic premise of the myth is that in response to a disruption of civil authority, people will revert to primitive, animalistic, amoral war of all against all. However, in times of crises, people are much more likely to increase cooperative, prosocial behavior than abandon it. Humans were able to live in pretty large agricultural settlements that were fairly egalitarian and did not make much use of a state structure. There wasn't much of a need for one. Surplus production, the division of labor, the arrangement of people into hereditary social classes, and the emergence an organized religious system that perpetuates an origin myth all seem to precede the emergence of states.
Re the Lab: if someone commits to a good morning walk, you can vastly reduce the poop in the yard. My dog used to spend a couple hours a day in the yard, pooped in it about twice when his stomach was bad, otherwise did his major business on walks (I picked up after him, of course).
I like dogs and dogs generally like me, but I am not a dog person at all and would never own one which didn't have a specific household purpose outside of just providing me companionship and emotional support. I am more of a cat person, but the truth is I would not own one of those either. I suppose I just don't get the pet owning thing at all at some fundamental level and never have- I wasn't one of those kids that wanted a dog or a cat, or any other pet for that matter.
For the record, I take care of the cat that my mother owns. I suppose that as long as my mother is alive we will own a cat- she likes pets and would probably have another dog if there were someone who would be willing to walk it 4 times a day- I am not.
I am unconvinced of the stories about the electronic election fraud- too easy to uncover, and the Democrats aren't that stupid. The fraud is just really, really simple ballot stuffing, and it is on an unprecedented scale due to the flood of absentee ballots mailed hither and yon. The only way to prove it to examine the signatures that were accepted as valid. You do this, you will find that at least 10% of the absentee ballots in PA, for example, should have been rejected on signatures alone. The same probably applies to 5% of the ballots in Wisconsin and Michigan.
I would love to examine the absentee ballots in PA and MI that were rejected. It would be interesting to know exactly what did it take to get a ballot rejected in those states this election- my guess is that is one without a signature and marked for Trump.
Republicans may have to just meet tit for tat from now on- just ballot stuff the box, too. We can have battles that escalate to 250% turnout for both sides until the stench of it all brings the parties to the table for real election reform. As it stands now, good luck getting the Democrats to agree to anything securing the voting methods against fraud- you can't even get elected Republicans to criticize a fraud as obvious as this one, so why should the Democrats agree to stop cheating?
We got our first real taste of Winter this afternoon here in Oak Ridge- actual snow on the grass right now. First hard freeze is coming on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.
Humans were able to live in pretty large agricultural settlements that were fairly egalitarian and did not make much use of a state structure.
I tend to agree, and pretty soon they have a leader, then a king, they build hill forts, fortify their towns, and then go to war with each other. The traditional fix for that is conquest leading to empire, and then civilization returns.
Conan the Agrarian was the first president. When some of his constituents pointed out that he received more votes than there were voters, he shadow banned them to the land known as Parler.
"Gina Haspel didnt kill herself", but rumor has it she's dead.”
I did wonder that, esp after the alleged shootout between CIA contractors and Army units. If the dispute between civilians and military intelligence has gone kinetic now, that means that she would likely have committed treason, since military intelligence in this case at least, would have been working with, and thus for, CINC (POTUS). Working against him, esp to the level of gun fights, for CIA people, and esp their Director, would indeed probably constitute treason, which can warrant the death penalty.
Yes, this is crazy talk. But the idea that Army units would be shooting at CIA contractors over a server is crazy. As well as that the voting machines for much of the country were well known to have been well compromised, and used anyway, and that Biden has been credited with millions of illegal votes. Yet, there seems to be a lot more evidence right now that Biden’s “victory” was the result of Venezuela level election fraud, than the opposite. Even some of his supporters here have admitted that there was a lot of fraud, just won’t admit that it was enough to swing the election. Who would have thought that TDS and OrangeManBad would have been sufficient to justify, in the minds of so many millions, that regaining the power of the Presidency was worth shredding an almost two and a half century old social contract?
So, yes, I am interested in finding out where and how Gina Haspel is. I think that it may be significant that the woman who had to have had some of the oversight over the CIA side of SpyGate, the running of Harper, Downer, Misfyp, etc in the spring and summer of 2016, who was then promoted to Director to protect the agency from accountability for its crimes, has not been fired, Flynn has been pardoned, and loosed, and there have been top level DoD shakeups and reorganization’s, as well as other strategic terminations. Yet, the one person I would have been at the very top of Trump’s list to fire, hasn’t been. One theory of why she hasn’t been, is that she has been either apprehended, or killed.
Let me also throw into the conspiracy mix that it has been claimed that people who track aircraft tail numbers have noticed a sharp increase of flights into and out of GitMo, a completely DoD controlled prison site, intentionally set up outside the jurisdiction of the American legal system. And it apparently isn’t mostly larger planes, but rather small air ambulances, capable of ferrying comatose patients. True? Again, sounds far fetched. But so was the Dems’ attempted election coup.
THE reason governments form in the nice peaceful egalitarian agrarian communities of old?
Nomad raiders.
Peaceful Amish communities exist in the United States because they're surrounded by people willing to use force to protect them, as well as themselves. In less civilized days, the state would be confiscating the fruits of their labors. Come to think of it- that's why the Amish are here and not where the Anabaptist movement started.
There are always people who want to subsist on the labor of others. Today in the United States we label them Democrats.
Readering said... When will the loony talk subside?
Good question. Another good question- What if the loony talk turns out to be true?
One fact- that virtually everyone who has heard about now agrees is a fact, though a few days ago it was a wild loony toon cartoon plot: There was raid by military units on a CIA server in Germany. That one thing all by itself should send shudders into everybody in the United States. It's a "WTF?" moment. Now there are all kinds of rumors about how it went down, and who was there, and people killed, and...and... most of them appear to be be rank speculation. What we don't know and should know is- who exactly pulled off the raid, and what exactly were they looking for and what did they find?
Rank speculation- Gina Haspel is dead. Neither Bing nor Google show any news of her for the last 24 hours. Duckduckgo leads you down the rabbithole of conspiracy theories if you choose to go look at the results.
Sidney Powell is saying openly that there's evidence of voting machines being manipulated- and that it was watched in realtime as it happened. And others have said the same thing. Who's the source? Is that what the raid was for?
Nobody knows what's going on. And that's bad. Because the longer we're kept in the dark- the worse the speculation gets. IF- the Donald has something, he should come right out and say so. IMHO. Others think he should work behind the scenes- and that he's doing so. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows there was fraud. Likely more than enough to tip the election. But- there's a serious number of people who DO NOT WANT to take a good look at it.
In the 22nd CD in NY 2 days ago the Dem was leading by 13 votes- last I looked the Rep was leading by 13. (Odd theyw ere both 13, isn't it?) All a complete recount will do is give another number- that even then can't be certain. INHO- do it over. Paper ballots, purple fingers, in person voting. Recounting and recounting with a margin that slim doesn't guarantee more accuracy. It just guarantees another set of numbers. That and losing the post it notes on the disputed ballots....I mean, seriously- post it notes? To mark ballots that were rejected or in question? It's like they're trying to generate chaos.
“I like dogs and dogs generally like me, but I am not a dog person at all and would never own one which didn't have a specific household purpose outside of just providing me companionship and emotional support. I am more of a cat person, but the truth is I would not own one of those either. I suppose I just don't get the pet owning thing at all at some fundamental level and never have- I wasn't one of those kids that wanted a dog or a cat, or any other pet for that matter.”
I would love to have a big dog or two, for the half the year we spend in MT. But then we spend half the year in PHX, with a relatively small back yard, and strict leash laws, and that wouldn’t be fair to the dog(s). Given the choice of a small dog or a cat, I would pick a cat. Up until two years ago, it was all theoretical. We traveled a lot, and either a dog or a cat wouldn’t have worked well. But my partner is becoming ever more the shut in. I saw a sign for free kittens on the other side of the entrance to the grocery store in town in MT, and pointed it out to her. Everything else was foreordained. We just wished that maybe we had picked up a pair of them at the time. They were barn cats that were a mixture of Siamese and some striped variant, with the Siamese predominating in personality in the one she picked, or picked her. It was fortuitous timing. All of a sudden, it seems, hotels and motels are allowing cats. He has become quite the traveler, seemingly enjoying the 2-3 hour trips each way that we take every other weekend, and not causing that much trauma in our expeditions back and forth between MT and AZ. He is quiet and fairly well mannered when on the road. Everyone adores him. Little do they know.
Her life seems now to revolve around him. I was just surprised to learn, after I had spent almost 20 years with her, that she was such a cat person. Calls herself the Cat Whisperer. And in the past, her cats had always been at least half Siamese. She loves their intelligence, and their independence. During the day, he is her constant companion, except when he hides somewhere to take a nap. That means that I have to make sure that the doors to all of the bedrooms are closed. Unfortunately, with her, when he decides it is time to play, he expects her to be willing to play. That means nibbling on her toes, or licking her face, to wake her up in the middle of the night. She has rarely been able to go back to sleep, after waking up in the middle of the night, which means that he is with me at night. He learned very early not to nibble on me in the middle of the night. Normally, he has the run of the house at night, while she holes up in the master bedroom. But when her sleep schedule gets out of whack, she likes sleeping on the sofa in the family room. (Getting her back into the master suite at night was one of the reasons we sold our old house, and bought one twice as expensive, across town). Up until a week or so ago, I could rig the pet gates to keep him upstairs. He can jump well enough now though that he can get over and through them. It’s very much like a challenge to him. I double stacked the gates, and he still, in about 10 minutes figured out how to bypass them. So, the two of us are holed up in my bedroom, until I can obtain an oversized gate that can keep him upstairs, when she takes over the downstairs overnight.
My big problem is when I get up in the morning, and try to catch up to the commenting here, and what is happening around the Internet, and he decides he needs some affection. It is impossible to type comments, or even to scroll through them, when he has climbed into my lap and is walking back and forth over my iPad, as I try to type or scroll, trying to cage some ear scratches or petting from me. Ultimately, I put it down, concentrate on him, and in 5-10 minutes, he is satisfied.
For some reason there's a hard return in narciso's link that causes the link not to work. here it is without the return.
Identity politics is a zero sum game. Guilt driven white liberals plus blacks do not a majority make. Affirmative action is a losing game for most "identities".
“Good question. Another good question- What if the loony talk turns out to be true?”
You really have to go back to the June of 2016, after the illegal use of her private email server by Crooked Hillary while she was Secretary of State was exposed. (Arguably, you should go back several more years to when the Obama Administration gave access to the NSA databases to contractors to perform opposition research on its enemies). Trump made a joke about asking the Russians about the contents of the emails that her people had deleted (despite being under Congressional subpoena), since they, along with esp the Chinese, and probably several other countries, had hacked her email server. Her campaign, desperate to change the focus, and get the spotlight off of her illegal private server usage, had the bright idea of blaming everything on collusion between the a Russian government and the Trump campaign. There never was any evidence of it, of course, because it didn’t exist. No problem. They hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to invent the conspiracy, and then to push it on the government (still run by the obliging Obama Administration) and sympathetic MSM. For whatever reasons, the top brass at the FBI signed onto the conspiracy. Some, like Comey, I think, were gullible, and really didn’t like Trump. Others like McCabe appear to have been partisans (as were Mueller’s prosecutors). Clinesmith probably fit in there too. They crossed a big bright line - using FISA warrants to electronically surveil the Trump campaign. They broke the law to do it, and they used their power, as the premier law enforcement agency in this country for partisan advantage. It all would have been swept under the carpet, if Clinton had won. She didn’t, and the miscreants spent the next four years digging themselves ever deeper with the coverup.
The DOJ and FBI have been essentially neutralized, sidelined in this fight. But there was always a second front to this war, and that involved the CIA, in particular, let by former communist, John Brennan, also picking sides in that election. They used their spy craft to try to compromise several people working for Trump and his campaign. (And, yes, Gina Haspel, if she didn’t run the op directly, at least was in the command chain, as London station chief at the time). But it looks like they were detected doing this, and probably a lot more, by military intelligence. And they too picked sides - Trump. But have always been constrained by their perceived need to stay within the law, which the CIA and FBI didn’t. They likely picked Trump because he was on the side of the Constitution, and their opposition was not. The result has been that they operated up until this election almost entirely through selective release of critical information. I think that with the election behind him, Trump has finally unleashed those parts of the military most loyal to him, to start the cleansing.
I think that pretty much everything above is fairly well proven by now. Trump fired several key people, and pulled special operations, presumably more loyal to him, out of the control of the service heads. They now report directly to his new hand picked acting SecDef. Why? Because a lot of the Admirals and Generals in the Pentagon were put there by Obama, and while most weren’t actively insubordinate, they also weren’t helpful either.
I don’t like that the military appears to have stepped in to maintain, or even restore our democracy. That sounds like banana republic territory. But I don’t see an alternative. The FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Dept, etc essentially declared themselves independent of Presidential control and support, acting, in their official capacity, to try to destroy Trump’s Presidency. If, as seems alleged, the CIA actively participated in election fraud, in order to remove him from office, then we really are at war with ourselves.
Is it crazy talk? Maybe some. But denying much of this is trying to pretend away the reality of the last four years.
THE reason governments form in the nice peaceful egalitarian agrarian communities of old?
Nomad raiders.
I think it's pretty unlikely that there was a "THE reason" to explain primary state formation. Protection against nomadic raiders also seems like a very unlikely explanation for the development of early city-states in the Uruk period. Farming villages had been dispersed throughout the fertile crescent for more than five millennia by that point, and Uruk was likely already exercising hegemony over surrounding settlements prior to the formation of its state. What differentiated Uruk from other Sumerian settlements was its size. It was undergoing what would later be called urbanization. Its size required the development of new cultivation techniques and more complicated irrigation systems. It's quite possible that a state emerged in Uruk as a means of expanding its administrative control over more geographically distant territories.
Something else to take into account is the money. The last two Dem candidates for President have been extraordinarily corrupt. Very likely in the top half dozen most corrupt politicians in this country. Both have been bought and paid for by foreign governments inimical to our national interests. Both the Chinese and the Russians had money in both of them, but nothing like the money that the CCP has in the Biden family. For them, buying a potential US President was a lot cheaper than an aircraft carrier, and more effective, since they are competing in the latter really against our 80+ years and probably that many carriers’ experience.
What Obama did, what Clinton would have done, and Biden, if inaugurated, would try to do, is to put the interests of other countries ahead of ours. The Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, etc are not our geopolitical friends. They are our enemies, both militarily, and economically. Why would they do that? At least for the latter two, it was always about the money. They were in politics for the power and the money. And, at their level, power means money. Nothing more.
But it isn’t just these hostile nation states. A number of huge, esp tech, companies, while still tokenly American, are essentially international. The bulk of their money is earned outside this country. And excess nationalism, on our part, hurts their bottom lines. And that has always been one of Trump’s biggest threats - his, esp economic, nationalism. That is why billions were spent, along with a lot of moral capital, to make sure that he wasn’t re-elected. They believed that they couldn’t afford it.
The plan was to control the airwaves (and Internet) so that he couldn’t get his message out, stuff a couple ballot boxes, and make tweak a couple counts electronically. They underestimated him, and by midnight election night appear to have gone into full panic mode, realizing that they would have no make up many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of votes, to pull off the election. Their desperation caused them to cross the line of plausible deniability. They got the Republican poll watchers out, and counted, and even recounted, undress of thousands, if not millions of ballots. Then said “sue me”, knowing that the legal system is stacked heavily against the sort of challenges that Trump really needs to make. For them, cheating so blatantly that everyone knows that they cheated, is more important than letting Trump have another term. Even if that shreds our almost two and a half century social compact.
> Headline: "Sarah Fuller Named SEC Player Of Week: ‘Perfectly Executed Kick Sailed 30 Yards"
New meaning to the term "moving the goalposts".
> Spouse and I acquired a German Shepherd pup three years for security for our remote ranch. We have several adult children who are not dog lovers, so we trained, trained, and trained this pooch. The dog does not jump on people, is not aggressive and generally a great companion. We built an outside run for Ziggy when the children visit. The adolescent grandchildren adore the dog. But, dogs are a lot of work.
> The muted outrage over this election surprises me. I have witnessed the response of my senator, Pat Toomey (R-Milquetoast) and just shake my head. The pre-2016 status quo for these for pols must have made them quite wealthy.
I commented above about the huge tech multinationals and their power and money. But to some extent, they deserve it. Earlier this morning, a bit after midnight, I was looking for some cables (trying to get all 4 of my borderless monitors to actually be borderless). They promised delivery by 9 tonight. Why should I get in my vehicle and drive around town looking for those cables, if Amazon can deliver them the same day, kinda for free (I.e. the costs of delivery are hidden in my Prime membership and the cost of the goods). Amazon is taking over a lot of its deliveries, as quickly as they can - the woman dropping off packages Sunday was in a Budget rental van, and she indicated that most of her group drove rentals, as they seem to be growing faster than they can buy and paint their own vans. It really is revolutionary. Sure, companies like Home Depot can compete, within their niches. But for how much longer? The only thing that I can really see that could seriously dent Amazon’s market is 3D printing (I.e. Star Trek’s replicators).
Pants: It sounds to me that you and your spouse want to take in the dog, the only hesitancy I hear is your concern over how your daughter will respond. That's not an issue, she can manage for the short time she is in your house. Are you sure you aren't deflecting your concerns to your daughter?
The bigger issue to consider is this: do you understand all the responsibility that comes from owning a dog? As others have said, regular walks are mandatory, for exercise and bodily functions. If walking on a public way, are you ok with picking up after the dog? Occasional illness and vet visits are required. You are responsible for the dog's safety and well being - it is like having a highly ambulatory young child in the house, always. Getting a dog because you like the specific animal and think it will be fun is not enough. That will get old and tired if you aren't up for bearing the weight of the responsibilities.
Can anyone help me interpret this paragraph, from a Science article by Jon Cohen (!) here :
"Continuing the spate of stunning news about COVID-19 vaccines, the biotech company Moderna announced the final results of the 30,000-person efficacy trial for its candidate in a press release today: Only 11 people who received two doses of the vaccine developed COVID-19 symptoms after being infected with the pandemic coronavirus, versus 185 symptomatic cases in a placebo group."
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
Berkeley: But the Climate Crisis! Is a Public Health Emergency. So are the Epidemic of Gun Violence and Systemic Racism. Therefore rule by decree is necessary and justified.
"THE reason governments form in the nice peaceful egalitarian agrarian communities of old?
Nomad raiders." A steady reliable food supply. You need organization above the nomad level to get the grain planted and harvested and to get the beer made. Raiders came later.
Hoping to get family to accept a dog, is seeking out disappointment. Doing the effort to train the pooch is all you can do. Our previous dog was a rescue mutt. Took him to the vet for a quick checkup, and the vet guessed 35-35lbs, turned into 130lbs of cuddle fluff. Visually, very intimidating, reality, scared of his own shadow. He was always under voice control never aggressive. Small kids used him as a stuffed animal, and he never cared. The first time we met our future DIL, our son brought her in the back door, and our big pooch walked over to say hi, and shoved his nose under her skirt. She never did quite recover from that little bit of abuse. Our current pooch, another rescue, is the smartest animal I've ever been around. $900 of obedience training has her well under control by voice, but always on lead when in public, so as not to alarm the non dog lovers. The obvious answer is dogs bring joy to your life, if you put in the needed work. So sorry that some family are not as accepting as you want, but why forego to love, just to pacify a few?
Pinned Tweet Scott Adams @ScottAdamsSays · 2h If we can't audit our nation's vote-counting software because the company claims it is proprietary information, I'm totally cool with that. But obviously the election has to be thrown out in whole for that very reason. I see no room for compromise on this point. -- THIS IS ICKY!
We'll very soon return to the status quo where there is no difference between the two major parties. The permanent political class pays lip service to representing their constituents but primarily represents themselves, their families and powerful connections to special interests.
Totally agree. Trump might be a once in a century phenomenon.
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
Sounds like it to me. The cruise ship experiment of nature is still the baseline. Before there was any readily available test, and with a moderate risk population (retired but healthy plus crew), only 20% got infected.
Diamond Princess is a cruise ship registered in Britain, and owned and operated by Princess Cruises. During a cruise that began on 20 January 2020, positive cases of COVID-19 linked to the COVID-19 pandemic were confirmed on the ship in February 2020. Over 700 people out of 3,711 became infected (567 out of 2,666 passengers and 145 out of 1,045 crew), and 14 people, all of them passengers, died. At the time, the ship accounted for over half the reported cases of SARS-CoV-2 outside of mainland China.
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
I think it means 15,000 were given the vaccine and 15,000 were given a placebo and then everyone walked around to see who got sick. I do not think anyone was intentionally exposed.
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
I think it means 15,000 were given the vaccine and 15,000 were given a placebo and then everyone walked around to see who got sick. I do not think anyone was intentionally exposed.
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104 comments:
That Vanderbilt female kicker set back women’s rights a decade. She shanked that kickoff.
I think I'll live-blog Brahms's symphony #2, which started just as I came here.
Nah. I'll just listen under the 'phones while I mention some funny things from TCT.
Story about Moorish Sovereign Citizens in the NW walking onto people's properties and claiming ownership. There was cell-vid of two goofs babbling and that might be all it is, but a few years ago here a lady began squatting with her youngsters in a very nice house that was unoccupied. She made the same ridiculous claims and I think used the same Moorish crap.
Closed captioning has been on the TV recently since my wife (with some assists from you people) turned me on to amazon prime video. My German isn't nearly fluent enough to catch all the dialogue or narration in the things I've watched so far, and intend to watch in the future, so I leave it on.
Tonight on TCT the CC contained the word "fapping" (which I did not hear and would have noticed) and the word "blahistic" (for ballistic) in a story on school reopenings.
Narr
Second movement, moving on
So what does the brilliant Dr. Kershavarz-Nia have to say? This:
1. Hammer and Scorecard is real, not a hoax (as Democrats allege), and both are used to manipulate election outcomes.
2. Dominion, ES&S, Scytl, and Smartmatic are all vulnerable to fraud and vote manipulation — and the mainstream media reported on these vulnerabilities in the past.
3. Dominion has been used in other countries to "forge election results."
4. Dominion's corporate structure is deliberately confusing to hide relationships with Venezuela, China, and Cuba.
5. Dominion machines are easily hackable.
6. Dominion memory cards with cryptographic key access to the systems were stolen in 2019.
Although he had no access to the machines, Dr. Kershavarz has looked at available data about the election and the vote results. Based on that information, he concluded
1. The counts in the disputed states (Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia) show electronic manipulation.
2. The simultaneous decision in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Arizona, Nevada, and Georgia to pretend to halt counting votes was unprecedented and demonstrated a coordinated effort to collude toward desired results.
3. One to two percent of votes were forged in Biden's favor.
4. Optical scanners were set to accept unverified, un-validated ballots.
5. The scanners failed to keep records for audits, an outcome that must have been deliberately programmed.
6. The stolen cryptographic key, which applied to all voting systems, was used to alter vote counts.
7. The favorable votes pouring in after hours for Biden could not be accounted for by a Democrat preference for mailed in ballots. They demonstrated manipulation. For example, in Pennsylvania, it was physically impossible to feed 400,000 ballots into the machines within 2–3 hours.
8. Dominion used Chinese parts, and there's reason to believe that China, Venezuela, Cuba interfered in the election.
9. There was a Hammer and Scorecard cyber-attack that altered votes in the battleground states, and then forwarded the results to Scytl servers in Frankfurt, Germany, to avoid detection.
10. The systems failed to produce any auditable results.
Gee, all the women in law, medicine, biosciences, medical research now and kicking a ball is a big deal?
What TF is wrong with people?
Mccullough, did she break her foot?
I see on instagram that the Utah monolith (which is steel not stone) that has gone missing is now replaced in the public sphere by a new one (or is it the same) in Romania. 2020 is a bit of a shit showm n'est-ce pas.
Biden, with the suspicious ankle injury, appears to be on his way out before he actually got in. Will he break Harrison's record of 31 days?
I'm surprised that the press seem to delight in spewing puff pieces about Biden (no word on Kamala) and his actions as "President Elect". If it were me I'd be way more satisfied in my job riling up and pissing around Trump and his administration. But that's just me I guess.
Our time in the water's side rental in southern Maine is coming to an end. The new house build is coming along nicely, though it will likely be the week after Christmas or the first week in January that we move in. This has been a fabulous experience.
I did NOT know that anagrams were part of the schizophrenic diagnosis. I'm sure "Silence of the Lambs" would look different today.
I apologize for obsessing over the schizophrenic behaviors, but this has been a REAL wake up call. Trust me, I have access to numerous health care professionals (family members), and lawyers, but very few can explain the entry process into the psych unit.
My very close relative has finally found a psych bed after numerous encounters with the police.
I was truly convinced my relative was going to found by berry pickers next August.
The Shot Administered 'Round the World
...by whom? Moderna? Pfizer??
Will psalms need to be greased? WHO decides the winner?
madAsHell@847--
Sorry to hear of yet more misery, but please explain your reference to anagrams and schizophrenia diagnosis. (I never saw SOTL so if that is explanatory I apologize.)
Narr
Maganar
He must no something.
https://mobile.twitter.com/MEMRIReports/status/1333327936380936192
Wow, Trump has raised $150 million from his post election campaign. Good going AA commenters.
Oh
https://nationalfile.com/arizona-governor-sits-on-board-of-group-doing-testing-affiliate-of-prospective-coronavirus-vaccine-maker/
Is Joe Rogan under attack?
Wow, Trump has raised $150 million from his post election campaign. Good going AA commenters.
Talk about "fraud." LOL.
Well thats standard operating procedure
https://amp.dailycaller.com/2020/11/30/carter-page-stephen-somma-fbi
Here's one to watch. Our local rags are breathlessly reporting the death of a Wisconsin teenager from a "COVID-related" illness.
The weird thing is that the Wisconsin DHS still reports no teenage deaths. So it seems that someone can die of a "COVID-related" illness without actually having COVID. The more you know.
a little mood music for you evidence-destroying Dominion fans
from The Surfaris
...AND, looks like Kemp pulled the same shit 3 years ago:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EoHcFmPW4AAw_ED?format=jpg&name=900x900
If someone has already linked this video, I apologize for posting it again: Canadian Pathologist Dr. Richard Hodgkinson Blasts Government & Media Hysteria over COVID-19
This video isn't long and is very worth a listen.
aren't we 'sposed to be concerned about 'spoliation', hmmm?
Per narciso: Link
Uh-huh.
@madAsHell:
My very close relative has finally found a psych bed after numerous encounters with the police.
I was truly convinced my relative was going to found by berry pickers next August.
I've done a fair amount of involuntary commitments in my career and have seen first hand why the debate between institutionalization and community mental health rages on. Short-term civil commitments were devised as a halfway measure to provide short-term emergency care while still maintaining people in the community. In practice, for a lot of people deinstitutionalization has meant homelessness and/or corrections.
One of the most important variables for prognosing schizophrenia is the length of time from when symptoms first emerge (what they call the "prodromal stage") to when treatment for psychosis is initiated. It is not unusual for several years to pass between the onset of symptoms and the emergence of unambiguous psychosis.
If I may ask, what do you mean by "anagrams were part of the schizophrenic diagnosis"?
what up, my N996GA** ?
was Barr in Fulton County today?
(** DoJ tail number)
I noticed something about "liberals" and other State-fellators of my acquaintance, and maybe others have noticed it, too. The way I was raised, the answer to the query, "Who did you vote for?" or "Who are you going to vote for?" is "None of your business;" yet the "liberals" I know seem to think it perfectly okay to grill me on the subject. Do conservatives and libertarians do that? I suspect not; or at least not as much. I suspect that if you're a statist, with (as the bumper sticker has it), "ideas so good they have to be mandatory," you have fewer qualms about conducting inquisitions about where people's loyalties are.
Almost as annoying, if not more annoying, is when people don't know I'm in the pro-freedom camp, and assume I must be a statist like them. I guess it's because I'm an artsy type, and people in the arts (bizarrely, I think) tend to be statists. Maybe it's the Pauline Kael Cocoon Syndrome. ("How did Nixon win?" she is reported have said, perhaps tongue-in-cheek: "No one I know voted for him.")
In practice, for a lot of people deinstitutionalization has meant homelessness and/or corrections.
So true, Farmer. When I lived in Seattle, a high proportion of the homeless were seriously mentally ill. They were vulnerable to the aggression other 'street people'. Very sad. And jails are no place for the mentally ill, either. Disappointing that politicians seldom see care for the mentally ill as a fundamental health need in this country and that care should include high quality institutionalization when medically indicated.
The CFR's taken over the White House.
Will Joe's new cat get along with Major?
Hmmmmm.....
madAsHell: I'm sorry to hear, but glad that it sounds like there's a happy ending.
n.n.,
You working on a nifty phrase for the swing states pipe burst?
Where's Gina Haspel?
Some friends need a home for their beautiful lab. We have been talking about adopting a dog for some time. We visited with him and his owners for a while today and I think he'd be a good fit.
Pants daughter #1 strongly dislikes dogs, but is away at college most of the time.
Pants daughter #2 adores dogs and has wanted one her whole life and we have not had one.
Other four children are neutral to warm on the dog idea.
Mr. and Mrs. Pants want to adopt the dog.
How to resolve this? I don't want our oldest to be uncomfortable in her home, but I also think maybe some exposure therapy would help her? She's mildly autistic and very rigid about some things, and I'm not sure that coddling her forever is helping her. But I also don't want attitude and hassle.
Advice?
D. said...
Where's Gina Haspel?
"Gina Haspel didnt kill herself", but rumor has it she's dead.
but that might be wishful thinking on behalf of some
"yet the "liberals" I know seem to think it perfectly okay to grill me on the subject."
"Liberals" relate to people based on their group identity and not as individuals. They need to know which pigeonhole to put you in.
Advice?
Don't do it. If it was meant to be, you would not be asking.
Bernard B. Kerik
@BernardKerik
·
1h
Today @dougducey ignored overwhelmingly evidence of voter fraud, corruption and criminality by certifying Arizona’s election. It is malfeasance and reeks of questionable conduct that must be investigated. Thank you @MarkFinchem
and members of your committee for their courage.
--
Ignored? He was running from it/attempting to block it.
Get them a dog you wont be dissapointec
I don't know about engrams being diagnostics for schizophrenia, but whatever is going on with Achilles doesn't seem healthy. Fortunately, he was microchipped for deployment and the Deep State is camped outside his compound for his own good.
Indeed
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/israel-middle-east/articles/iran-getting-the-bomb
mccullough said...
That Vanderbilt female kicker set back women’s rights a decade. She shanked that kickoff
Named SEC special teams player of the week.....
If your hubby wants a dog, it's because he has a new high maintenance GF and wants you distracted. He's in sales, right?
Redefining 'freedom'? Left-wing figures give it a try
David Hogg tweeted: "Freedom to me looks like universal healthcare, free college, and mindless obedience to the state"
WK here on AA comments that's called trolling.
Pants, Get the dog. There is no kinder, gentler, more perceptive animal than a good Lab.
Blogger I'm Not Sure said...
"yet the "liberals" I know seem to think it perfectly okay to grill me on the subject."
"Liberals" relate to people based on their group identity and not as individuals. They need to know which pigeonhole to put you in.
Based on your own logic, you must be a Libtard
Yes to the dog, Pants. A dog is a treasure and a comfort any time but now more than ever.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/we-need-to-act-boldly-now-if-we-are-to-avoid-economy-wide-lockdowns-to-halt-climate-change-11600879250?redirect=amp#click=https://t.co/zTxjfJJWpZ
Not only will we have to lock down to avoid the tenth of one percent of people who will die with Winnie Xi Flu, we will also have to lock down for Glowball Warmening.
Where are Ken B and tim in vermont to tell me how good that will be for us?
Oh, I know you didn't explicitly want those things.
But you cheered giving an inch to the people I warned you would take a fucking mile.
And you don't get to claim you didn't see it coming.
This is the exact same problem I have with Freeman Hunt.
When you cheer starting us down the slippery slope, I will curse you when we pick up speed and lose control.
And when we get to the bottom, well, you all are just enemies in a low trust society.
@Bilwick:
Maybe it's the Pauline Kael Cocoon Syndrome
Ironically, Kael's actual quote was more self-awareness than naiveite. She said, "“I live in a rather special world,” Miss Kael said, con tinuing: “I only know one person who voted for Nixon. Where they are I don't know. They're outside my ken. But sometimes when I'm in a theater I can feel them." It was a discussion panel at the MLA about films and made the remark in response to another panelist's point about pop culture versus official culture.
Almost as annoying, if not more annoying, is when people don't know I'm in the pro-freedom camp, and assume I must be a statist like them
While I have a lot of respect for the anarchist tradition and believe it makes a powerful critique on the legitimacy of state power, I don't see any realistic path to a stateless society. In a world full of powerful states, how does a state dismantle itself?
J Farmer: Afghanistan is a good example.
Thoughts about the 2020 election fraud:
1. I wish we could get some non mathematicians to explain the patterns which prove that something fraudulent was done to the count. I've listened to the mathematicians and they are just strange in their inability to communicate. They mean well but they just can not communicate with ordinary people.
2. I wish that someone could get their hands on hard evidence of the programs and systems which altered the ballot count. Offer a reward for someone to turn it over. $10 million or whatever it takes.
3. It looks like every possible way to cheat was employed. Computer programs, computer systems which could be hacked, observers kept from identifying fake ballots and false signatures, massive dumps of fake ballots.
4. I'm also disturbed by the sad realization that for many people election fraud is insignificant because their lives are not affected or they are glad to see Trump go, regardless of how that was accomplished.
5. I'm saddened by the ultimate conclusion that when massive election fraud is the inevitable reality going forward there's no point in bothering about elections. We've already created a generation which wants to eliminate freedom of speech because for them freedom of expression is dangerous and should be curtailed. Other freedoms and rights should be eliminated as well ASAP.
6. We'll very soon return to the status quo where there is no difference between the two major parties. The permanent political class pays lip service to representing their constituents but primarily represents themselves, their families and powerful connections to special interests.
...and dont forget Q Snatch !
http://www.shadolsonshow.com/2020/11/25/q-snatch-malware-sent-vote-machine-admin-credentials-to-china-dark-web/
I Have Misplaced My Pants said...
Some friends need a home for their beautiful lab. We have been talking about adopting a dog for some time. We visited with him and his owners for a while today and I think he'd be a good fit.
Pants daughter #1 strongly dislikes dogs, but is away at college most of the time.
Pants daughter #2 adores dogs and has wanted one her whole life and we have not had one.
Other four children are neutral to warm on the dog idea.
Mr. and Mrs. Pants want to adopt the dog.
. . .
Advice?
Get the dog.
I'm not big on giving advice to someone I don't know but IMO since you asked, get the dog. If your daughter sees how happy the dog makes you all that might persuade her to give the dog a chance. Worst case, if she can not adjust, then put the dog in a kennel or at a neighbor's house when your daughter visits.
Thanks for the advice, all! I think we're going to go for it. Daughter isn't happy but she doesn't pay the mortgage, does she?
There are no win/lose family scenarios, only those who perceive them.
Find a way to win/win, probably by just voicing your concern about the one rarely home not feeling welcome or as welcome given a new arrival. That should create a big win for her though if communicated properly, giving the younger one and your whole family a bigger win via dog.
Assign poop duty as part of the bargain though, you don't want to be running around picking up that kinda stuff when you could instead create a form of stewardship of the yard, through a youngin' that could one day teach others that same stewardship.
@Misplaced Pants, I agree -- go for it. Everyone I know who has a Lab loves the animal. But!
Sometimes an dog senses that someone in the family -- Daughter #1 -- is not a fan and it tries to make nice and that just can escalate.
Someone will have to clean up the poop. Is Daughter #2 responsible enough?
Pants:
Right move. Parents make the rules in their house. Oldest daughter will have to compromise. She can ignore the dog when home.
Blogger narciso said...
11/30/20, 10:42 PM
--
...
Now you guess what it was,
@Howard:
J Farmer: Afghanistan is a good example.
I take your point, but I don't really like those kinds of responses to anarchism. Somalia used to be another common response.
I think this plays to a very common myth about human beings. It's the Lord of the Flies plot or more recently the zombie apocalypse plot.
The basic premise of the myth is that in response to a disruption of civil authority, people will revert to primitive, animalistic, amoral war of all against all. However, in times of crises, people are much more likely to increase cooperative, prosocial behavior than abandon it. Humans were able to live in pretty large agricultural settlements that were fairly egalitarian and did not make much use of a state structure. There wasn't much of a need for one. Surplus production, the division of labor, the arrangement of people into hereditary social classes, and the emergence an organized religious system that perpetuates an origin myth all seem to precede the emergence of states.
Because its what he dies
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.trtworld.com/magazine/why-is-khalifa-haftar-mobilising-troops-in-eastern-libya-41756/amp
Hm.
https://www.takimag.com/article/california
-secedes-from-black-america/
Re the Lab: if someone commits to a good morning walk, you can vastly reduce the poop in the yard. My dog used to spend a couple hours a day in the yard, pooped in it about twice when his stomach was bad, otherwise did his major business on walks (I picked up after him, of course).
per Ron watkins
Voter fraud videos 1, 2
watch Dominion rep download, manipulate data, palm the USB
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=F7skjAH9d9k
https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=WjUz-kfS_qo
I like dogs and dogs generally like me, but I am not a dog person at all and would never own one which didn't have a specific household purpose outside of just providing me companionship and emotional support. I am more of a cat person, but the truth is I would not own one of those either. I suppose I just don't get the pet owning thing at all at some fundamental level and never have- I wasn't one of those kids that wanted a dog or a cat, or any other pet for that matter.
For the record, I take care of the cat that my mother owns. I suppose that as long as my mother is alive we will own a cat- she likes pets and would probably have another dog if there were someone who would be willing to walk it 4 times a day- I am not.
Pants,
Get the dog. I have a lab and a lab mix. I agree with Flat Tire - labs are the best dogs. Very smart and loving. Stress relief.
I am unconvinced of the stories about the electronic election fraud- too easy to uncover, and the Democrats aren't that stupid. The fraud is just really, really simple ballot stuffing, and it is on an unprecedented scale due to the flood of absentee ballots mailed hither and yon. The only way to prove it to examine the signatures that were accepted as valid. You do this, you will find that at least 10% of the absentee ballots in PA, for example, should have been rejected on signatures alone. The same probably applies to 5% of the ballots in Wisconsin and Michigan.
I would love to examine the absentee ballots in PA and MI that were rejected. It would be interesting to know exactly what did it take to get a ballot rejected in those states this election- my guess is that is one without a signature and marked for Trump.
Republicans may have to just meet tit for tat from now on- just ballot stuff the box, too. We can have battles that escalate to 250% turnout for both sides until the stench of it all brings the parties to the table for real election reform. As it stands now, good luck getting the Democrats to agree to anything securing the voting methods against fraud- you can't even get elected Republicans to criticize a fraud as obvious as this one, so why should the Democrats agree to stop cheating?
We got our first real taste of Winter this afternoon here in Oak Ridge- actual snow on the grass right now. First hard freeze is coming on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.
Humans were able to live in pretty large agricultural settlements that were fairly egalitarian and did not make much use of a state structure.
I tend to agree, and pretty soon they have a leader, then a king, they build hill forts, fortify their towns, and then go to war with each other. The traditional fix for that is conquest leading to empire, and then civilization returns.
We went with a doglike cat.
I think I would rather go with a doglike rock.
Conan the Agrarian was the first president. When some of his constituents pointed out that he received more votes than there were voters, he shadow banned them to the land known as Parler.
The Critical Drinker reviews "The Lighthouse".
I will have to give it a watch.
Anagram for schizophrenia. Crazies hip hon.
“Where's Gina Haspel?”
"Gina Haspel didnt kill herself", but rumor has it she's dead.”
I did wonder that, esp after the alleged shootout between CIA contractors and Army units. If the dispute between civilians and military intelligence has gone kinetic now, that means that she would likely have committed treason, since military intelligence in this case at least, would have been working with, and thus for, CINC (POTUS). Working against him, esp to the level of gun fights, for CIA people, and esp their Director, would indeed probably constitute treason, which can warrant the death penalty.
Yes, this is crazy talk. But the idea that Army units would be shooting at CIA contractors over a server is crazy. As well as that the voting machines for much of the country were well known to have been well compromised, and used anyway, and that Biden has been credited with millions of illegal votes. Yet, there seems to be a lot more evidence right now that Biden’s “victory” was the result of Venezuela level election fraud, than the opposite. Even some of his supporters here have admitted that there was a lot of fraud, just won’t admit that it was enough to swing the election. Who would have thought that TDS and OrangeManBad would have been sufficient to justify, in the minds of so many millions, that regaining the power of the Presidency was worth shredding an almost two and a half century old social contract?
So, yes, I am interested in finding out where and how Gina Haspel is. I think that it may be significant that the woman who had to have had some of the oversight over the CIA side of SpyGate, the running of Harper, Downer, Misfyp, etc in the spring and summer of 2016, who was then promoted to Director to protect the agency from accountability for its crimes, has not been fired, Flynn has been pardoned, and loosed, and there have been top level DoD shakeups and reorganization’s, as well as other strategic terminations. Yet, the one person I would have been at the very top of Trump’s list to fire, hasn’t been. One theory of why she hasn’t been, is that she has been either apprehended, or killed.
Let me also throw into the conspiracy mix that it has been claimed that people who track aircraft tail numbers have noticed a sharp increase of flights into and out of GitMo, a completely DoD controlled prison site, intentionally set up outside the jurisdiction of the American legal system. And it apparently isn’t mostly larger planes, but rather small air ambulances, capable of ferrying comatose patients. True? Again, sounds far fetched. But so was the Dems’ attempted election coup.
THE reason governments form in the nice peaceful egalitarian agrarian communities of old?
Nomad raiders.
Peaceful Amish communities exist in the United States because they're surrounded by people willing to use force to protect them, as well as themselves. In less civilized days, the state would be confiscating the fruits of their labors. Come to think of it- that's why the Amish are here and not where the Anabaptist movement started.
There are always people who want to subsist on the labor of others. Today in the United States we label them Democrats.
When will the loony talk subside?
Readering said...
When will the loony talk subside?
Good question. Another good question- What if the loony talk turns out to be true?
One fact- that virtually everyone who has heard about now agrees is a fact, though a few days ago it was a wild loony toon cartoon plot: There was raid by military units on a CIA server in Germany. That one thing all by itself should send shudders into everybody in the United States. It's a "WTF?" moment. Now there are all kinds of rumors about how it went down, and who was there, and people killed, and...and... most of them appear to be be rank speculation. What we don't know and should know is- who exactly pulled off the raid, and what exactly were they looking for and what did they find?
Rank speculation- Gina Haspel is dead. Neither Bing nor Google show any news of her for the last 24 hours. Duckduckgo leads you down the rabbithole of conspiracy theories if you choose to go look at the results.
Sidney Powell is saying openly that there's evidence of voting machines being manipulated- and that it was watched in realtime as it happened. And others have said the same thing. Who's the source? Is that what the raid was for?
Nobody knows what's going on. And that's bad. Because the longer we're kept in the dark- the worse the speculation gets. IF- the Donald has something, he should come right out and say so. IMHO. Others think he should work behind the scenes- and that he's doing so. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together knows there was fraud. Likely more than enough to tip the election. But- there's a serious number of people who DO NOT WANT to take a good look at it.
In the 22nd CD in NY 2 days ago the Dem was leading by 13 votes- last I looked the Rep was leading by 13. (Odd theyw ere both 13, isn't it?) All a complete recount will do is give another number- that even then can't be certain. INHO- do it over. Paper ballots, purple fingers, in person voting. Recounting and recounting with a margin that slim doesn't guarantee more accuracy. It just guarantees another set of numbers. That and losing the post it notes on the disputed ballots....I mean, seriously- post it notes? To mark ballots that were rejected or in question? It's like they're trying to generate chaos.
“I like dogs and dogs generally like me, but I am not a dog person at all and would never own one which didn't have a specific household purpose outside of just providing me companionship and emotional support. I am more of a cat person, but the truth is I would not own one of those either. I suppose I just don't get the pet owning thing at all at some fundamental level and never have- I wasn't one of those kids that wanted a dog or a cat, or any other pet for that matter.”
I would love to have a big dog or two, for the half the year we spend in MT. But then we spend half the year in PHX, with a relatively small back yard, and strict leash laws, and that wouldn’t be fair to the dog(s). Given the choice of a small dog or a cat, I would pick a cat. Up until two years ago, it was all theoretical. We traveled a lot, and either a dog or a cat wouldn’t have worked well. But my partner is becoming ever more the shut in. I saw a sign for free kittens on the other side of the entrance to the grocery store in town in MT, and pointed it out to her. Everything else was foreordained. We just wished that maybe we had picked up a pair of them at the time. They were barn cats that were a mixture of Siamese and some striped variant, with the Siamese predominating in personality in the one she picked, or picked her. It was fortuitous timing. All of a sudden, it seems, hotels and motels are allowing cats. He has become quite the traveler, seemingly enjoying the 2-3 hour trips each way that we take every other weekend, and not causing that much trauma in our expeditions back and forth between MT and AZ. He is quiet and fairly well mannered when on the road. Everyone adores him. Little do they know.
Her life seems now to revolve around him. I was just surprised to learn, after I had spent almost 20 years with her, that she was such a cat person. Calls herself the Cat Whisperer. And in the past, her cats had always been at least half Siamese. She loves their intelligence, and their independence. During the day, he is her constant companion, except when he hides somewhere to take a nap. That means that I have to make sure that the doors to all of the bedrooms are closed. Unfortunately, with her, when he decides it is time to play, he expects her to be willing to play. That means nibbling on her toes, or licking her face, to wake her up in the middle of the night. She has rarely been able to go back to sleep, after waking up in the middle of the night, which means that he is with me at night. He learned very early not to nibble on me in the middle of the night. Normally, he has the run of the house at night, while she holes up in the master bedroom. But when her sleep schedule gets out of whack, she likes sleeping on the sofa in the family room. (Getting her back into the master suite at night was one of the reasons we sold our old house, and bought one twice as expensive, across town). Up until a week or so ago, I could rig the pet gates to keep him upstairs. He can jump well enough now though that he can get over and through them. It’s very much like a challenge to him. I double stacked the gates, and he still, in about 10 minutes figured out how to bypass them. So, the two of us are holed up in my bedroom, until I can obtain an oversized gate that can keep him upstairs, when she takes over the downstairs overnight.
My big problem is when I get up in the morning, and try to catch up to the commenting here, and what is happening around the Internet, and he decides he needs some affection. It is impossible to type comments, or even to scroll through them, when he has climbed into my lap and is walking back and forth over my iPad, as I try to type or scroll, trying to cage some ear scratches or petting from me. Ultimately, I put it down, concentrate on him, and in 5-10 minutes, he is satisfied.
https://www.takimag.com/article/california-secedes-from-black-america/
For some reason there's a hard return in narciso's link that causes the link not to work. here it is without the return.
Identity politics is a zero sum game. Guilt driven white liberals plus blacks do not a majority make. Affirmative action is a losing game for most "identities".
There are always people who want to subsist on the labor of others. Today in the United States we label them Democrats.
I think you used be right. But, now the Republicans have become the party of FREE MONEY!!!
“When will the loony talk subside?”
When your side quits cheating.
“Good question. Another good question- What if the loony talk turns out to be true?”
You really have to go back to the June of 2016, after the illegal use of her private email server by Crooked Hillary while she was Secretary of State was exposed. (Arguably, you should go back several more years to when the Obama Administration gave access to the NSA databases to contractors to perform opposition research on its enemies). Trump made a joke about asking the Russians about the contents of the emails that her people had deleted (despite being under Congressional subpoena), since they, along with esp the Chinese, and probably several other countries, had hacked her email server. Her campaign, desperate to change the focus, and get the spotlight off of her illegal private server usage, had the bright idea of blaming everything on collusion between the a Russian government and the Trump campaign. There never was any evidence of it, of course, because it didn’t exist. No problem. They hired Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele to invent the conspiracy, and then to push it on the government (still run by the obliging Obama Administration) and sympathetic MSM. For whatever reasons, the top brass at the FBI signed onto the conspiracy. Some, like Comey, I think, were gullible, and really didn’t like Trump. Others like McCabe appear to have been partisans (as were Mueller’s prosecutors). Clinesmith probably fit in there too. They crossed a big bright line - using FISA warrants to electronically surveil the Trump campaign. They broke the law to do it, and they used their power, as the premier law enforcement agency in this country for partisan advantage. It all would have been swept under the carpet, if Clinton had won. She didn’t, and the miscreants spent the next four years digging themselves ever deeper with the coverup.
The DOJ and FBI have been essentially neutralized, sidelined in this fight. But there was always a second front to this war, and that involved the CIA, in particular, let by former communist, John Brennan, also picking sides in that election. They used their spy craft to try to compromise several people working for Trump and his campaign. (And, yes, Gina Haspel, if she didn’t run the op directly, at least was in the command chain, as London station chief at the time). But it looks like they were detected doing this, and probably a lot more, by military intelligence. And they too picked sides - Trump. But have always been constrained by their perceived need to stay within the law, which the CIA and FBI didn’t. They likely picked Trump because he was on the side of the Constitution, and their opposition was not. The result has been that they operated up until this election almost entirely through selective release of critical information. I think that with the election behind him, Trump has finally unleashed those parts of the military most loyal to him, to start the cleansing.
I think that pretty much everything above is fairly well proven by now. Trump fired several key people, and pulled special operations, presumably more loyal to him, out of the control of the service heads. They now report directly to his new hand picked acting SecDef. Why? Because a lot of the Admirals and Generals in the Pentagon were put there by Obama, and while most weren’t actively insubordinate, they also weren’t helpful either.
I don’t like that the military appears to have stepped in to maintain, or even restore our democracy. That sounds like banana republic territory. But I don’t see an alternative. The FBI, DOJ, CIA, State Dept, etc essentially declared themselves independent of Presidential control and support, acting, in their official capacity, to try to destroy Trump’s Presidency. If, as seems alleged, the CIA actively participated in election fraud, in order to remove him from office, then we really are at war with ourselves.
Is it crazy talk? Maybe some. But denying much of this is trying to pretend away the reality of the last four years.
Gospace said...
THE reason governments form in the nice peaceful egalitarian agrarian communities of old?
Nomad raiders.
I think it's pretty unlikely that there was a "THE reason" to explain primary state formation. Protection against nomadic raiders also seems like a very unlikely explanation for the development of early city-states in the Uruk period. Farming villages had been dispersed throughout the fertile crescent for more than five millennia by that point, and Uruk was likely already exercising hegemony over surrounding settlements prior to the formation of its state. What differentiated Uruk from other Sumerian settlements was its size. It was undergoing what would later be called urbanization. Its size required the development of new cultivation techniques and more complicated irrigation systems. It's quite possible that a state emerged in Uruk as a means of expanding its administrative control over more geographically distant territories.
Something else to take into account is the money. The last two Dem candidates for President have been extraordinarily corrupt. Very likely in the top half dozen most corrupt politicians in this country. Both have been bought and paid for by foreign governments inimical to our national interests. Both the Chinese and the Russians had money in both of them, but nothing like the money that the CCP has in the Biden family. For them, buying a potential US President was a lot cheaper than an aircraft carrier, and more effective, since they are competing in the latter really against our 80+ years and probably that many carriers’ experience.
What Obama did, what Clinton would have done, and Biden, if inaugurated, would try to do, is to put the interests of other countries ahead of ours. The Chinese, the Russians, the Iranians, etc are not our geopolitical friends. They are our enemies, both militarily, and economically. Why would they do that? At least for the latter two, it was always about the money. They were in politics for the power and the money. And, at their level, power means money. Nothing more.
But it isn’t just these hostile nation states. A number of huge, esp tech, companies, while still tokenly American, are essentially international. The bulk of their money is earned outside this country. And excess nationalism, on our part, hurts their bottom lines. And that has always been one of Trump’s biggest threats - his, esp economic, nationalism. That is why billions were spent, along with a lot of moral capital, to make sure that he wasn’t re-elected. They believed that they couldn’t afford it.
The plan was to control the airwaves (and Internet) so that he couldn’t get his message out, stuff a couple ballot boxes, and make tweak a couple counts electronically. They underestimated him, and by midnight election night appear to have gone into full panic mode, realizing that they would have no make up many hundreds of thousands, if not millions of votes, to pull off the election. Their desperation caused them to cross the line of plausible deniability. They got the Republican poll watchers out, and counted, and even recounted, undress of thousands, if not millions of ballots. Then said “sue me”, knowing that the legal system is stacked heavily against the sort of challenges that Trump really needs to make. For them, cheating so blatantly that everyone knows that they cheated, is more important than letting Trump have another term. Even if that shreds our almost two and a half century social compact.
> Headline: "Sarah Fuller Named SEC Player Of Week: ‘Perfectly Executed Kick Sailed 30 Yards"
New meaning to the term "moving the goalposts".
> Spouse and I acquired a German Shepherd pup three years for security for our remote ranch. We have several adult children who are not dog lovers, so we trained, trained, and trained this pooch. The dog does not jump on people, is not aggressive and generally a great companion. We built an outside run for Ziggy when the children visit. The adolescent grandchildren adore the dog. But, dogs are a lot of work.
> The muted outrage over this election surprises me. I have witnessed the response of my senator, Pat Toomey (R-Milquetoast) and just shake my head. The pre-2016 status quo for these for pols must have made them quite wealthy.
I commented above about the huge tech multinationals and their power and money. But to some extent, they deserve it. Earlier this morning, a bit after midnight, I was looking for some cables (trying to get all 4 of my borderless monitors to actually be borderless). They promised delivery by 9 tonight. Why should I get in my vehicle and drive around town looking for those cables, if Amazon can deliver them the same day, kinda for free (I.e. the costs of delivery are hidden in my Prime membership and the cost of the goods). Amazon is taking over a lot of its deliveries, as quickly as they can - the woman dropping off packages Sunday was in a Budget rental van, and she indicated that most of her group drove rentals, as they seem to be growing faster than they can buy and paint their own vans. It really is revolutionary. Sure, companies like Home Depot can compete, within their niches. But for how much longer? The only thing that I can really see that could seriously dent Amazon’s market is 3D printing (I.e. Star Trek’s replicators).
Pants: It sounds to me that you and your spouse want to take in the dog, the only hesitancy I hear is your concern over how your daughter will respond. That's not an issue, she can manage for the short time she is in your house. Are you sure you aren't deflecting your concerns to your daughter?
The bigger issue to consider is this: do you understand all the responsibility that comes from owning a dog? As others have said, regular walks are mandatory, for exercise and bodily functions. If walking on a public way, are you ok with picking up after the dog? Occasional illness and vet visits are required. You are responsible for the dog's safety and well being - it is like having a highly ambulatory young child in the house, always. Getting a dog because you like the specific animal and think it will be fun is not enough. That will get old and tired if you aren't up for bearing the weight of the responsibilities.
You sound like dog people to me. Good luck!
Can anyone help me interpret this paragraph, from a Science article by Jon Cohen (!) here :
"Continuing the spate of stunning news about COVID-19 vaccines, the biotech company Moderna announced the final results of the 30,000-person efficacy trial for its candidate in a press release today: Only 11 people who received two doses of the vaccine developed COVID-19 symptoms after being infected with the pandemic coronavirus, versus 185 symptomatic cases in a placebo group."
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
Berkeley:
But the Climate Crisis! Is a Public Health Emergency. So are the Epidemic of Gun Violence and Systemic Racism. Therefore rule by decree is necessary and justified.
"THE reason governments form in the nice peaceful egalitarian agrarian communities of old?
Nomad raiders."
A steady reliable food supply. You need organization above the nomad level to get the grain planted and harvested and to get the beer made. Raiders came later.
Hoping to get family to accept a dog, is seeking out disappointment. Doing the effort to train the pooch is all you can do.
Our previous dog was a rescue mutt. Took him to the vet for a quick checkup, and the vet guessed 35-35lbs, turned into 130lbs of cuddle fluff. Visually, very intimidating, reality, scared of his own shadow. He was always under voice control never aggressive. Small kids used him as a stuffed animal, and he never cared. The first time we met our future DIL, our son brought her in the back door, and our big pooch walked over to say hi, and shoved his nose under her skirt. She never did quite recover from that little bit of abuse. Our current pooch, another rescue, is the smartest animal I've ever been around. $900 of obedience training has her well under control by voice, but always on lead when in public, so as not to alarm the non dog lovers.
The obvious answer is dogs bring joy to your life, if you put in the needed work. So sorry that some family are not as accepting as you want, but why forego to love, just to pacify a few?
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Scott Adams
@ScottAdamsSays
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2h
If we can't audit our nation's vote-counting software because the company claims it is proprietary information, I'm totally cool with that. But obviously the election has to be thrown out in whole for that very reason. I see no room for compromise on this point.
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THIS IS ICKY!
We'll very soon return to the status quo where there is no difference between the two major parties. The permanent political class pays lip service to representing their constituents but primarily represents themselves, their families and powerful connections to special interests.
Totally agree. Trump might be a once in a century phenomenon.
My thoughts from 2017.
Is it crazy talk? Maybe some. But denying much of this is trying to pretend away the reality of the last four years.
Bruce, that is a big part of the plot in Kurt Schlicter's new novel, "Crisis."
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
Sounds like it to me. The cruise ship experiment of nature is still the baseline. Before there was any readily available test, and with a moderate risk population (retired but healthy plus crew), only 20% got infected.
Diamond Princess is a cruise ship registered in Britain, and owned and operated by Princess Cruises. During a cruise that began on 20 January 2020, positive cases of COVID-19 linked to the COVID-19 pandemic were confirmed on the ship in February 2020. Over 700 people out of 3,711 became infected (567 out of 2,666 passengers and 145 out of 1,045 crew), and 14 people, all of them passengers, died. At the time, the ship accounted for over half the reported cases of SARS-CoV-2 outside of mainland China.
those opening chapters of crisis, are crazy, like 'come nineveh come tyre' on benzedrine,
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
I think it means 15,000 were given the vaccine and 15,000 were given a placebo and then everyone walked around to see who got sick. I do not think anyone was intentionally exposed.
Does this mean/imply that 30,000 people in the placebo group were infected with the pandemic virus, and given a placebo, and only 185 (0.6%) of these developed symptomatic cases?
I think it means 15,000 were given the vaccine and 15,000 were given a placebo and then everyone walked around to see who got sick. I do not think anyone was intentionally exposed.
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