December 9, 2022

At the Friday Night Café...

 ... you can talk about whatever you want.

No photo today. The cloud cover was 100% at sunrise, and I didn't want to add my car to what were very snowy roads here in Madison.

40 comments:

Joe Smith said...

Now it’s come out that the Biden administration prioritized who to take in the prisoner swap; they chose Griner over a U.S. Marine (who was actually railroaded).

Of course they let identity politics and wokeness guide their decision.

Scott Adams had a field day with this on his broadcast this morning.

NorthOfTheOneOhOne said...

Sam Brinton accused of a second incidence of luggage theft, this time in Vegas. Guess he didn't go public with all of his kinks.

Josephbleau said...

"First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win”

The ballad of Elon Musk.

Original Mike said...

New snowblower threw snow like nobody's business!

tim in vermont said...

https://mobile.twitter.com/GMC2014Americas/status/1601221782849327106

They are pushing closer and closer to the edge of a nuclear confrontation on the bet that Putin will back down and accept a humiliating defeat. “Donald Trump is gonna cause WW3” was confession by projection.

Gospace said...

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-63914682
Nothing to see here. Just a huge shopping center fire completely burning down to the ground in Moscow.

Russia sure is having some bad luck.

Gospace said...

And these miltary OFFICERS make Sam Brinton look normal.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1601302770761760768.html

They should be drummed out the old fashioned way- stripped of their rank, and marched out between a gauntlet of soldiers with the drums beating a slow fueneral cadence. The court martial leading up to that should take no longer then 30 seconds to conduct. An actual CinC would strip them of their commission - which is within brain addled Biden's power.

Dr Weevil said...

'tim in vermont' (7:10pm) links to the Twitter feed of a guy claiming to be "Rick Kusiolek" of the "1st USAF Air Commando Squadron". Five minutes with DuckDuckGo shows that the unit only existed before 1948 and again in 1963-67. Is Rick ~80 years old? Perhaps suffering from Alzheimer's and delusions of grandeur?

Or is this a case of 'stolen valor'? togetherweserved.com is a huge site designed to help veterans reconnect with comrades. Their page for the 1st Air Commando Squadron lists dozens of veterans of the unit alphabetically, but somehow has no name between Konen and Lanning. Curious! You'd think a guy still actively commenting on current events and bragging about his service in the unit would want to be listed on TWS. The fact that he isn't strongly suggests that he doesn't exist or is lying about his service.

Of course, the idea that the SAS is operating inside Russia is idiotic. The Ukrainians have drones with the range needed to strike the airfields that were struck, and commandos of their own that could pass for Russians far more easily, if they wanted to do it that way. Is 'tim' that gullible, or is he trying to deceive? We'll all have to decide for ourselves which is more likely. He has, after all, quoted Kim DotCom as an authority.

Narr said...

Dunnigan and Bay at Strategypage point out the Uke development of Special Forces in direct line from, and designed to be better than, the Russian Spetznaz that many Ukrainians knew or had served with.

People continue to comment as if the Ukrainians couldn't pour urine out of a boot without "Western" help . . . Bigot much?

Narr said...

The Oak Court Mall, which is two miles from here, and which every Mid-Southerner probably visited at one time or another, is up for auction.

When it opened it was as high-end as Memphis had to offer, with stores that had never tried the place before, such as Lord and Taylor. Nice small retailers, some good restaurants, plenty of covered parking, it was actually pretty nice.

It would take multi-millions to rehab it, and the oldest part of Macy's (one of the two anchors) that I worked in in 1972 (Goldsmith's then) was decrepit long ago; the newer parts are obsolescing fast.

Given that two of the later big malls here have already been demolished, it has had a long life, but the consumer culture that gave rise to it has evolved away.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

New snowblower threw snow like nobody's business!

I also got a new 2-stage snowblower on Monday, November 28, just in time for the big snow storm that hit on Tuesday, November 29. I used it to clear the 6" that fell Tuesday night from our driveway and front walk. The movers delivered our furniture on Wednesday, so it was nice that their truck could back down our 100-ft long driveway.

Their truck got stuck on a patch of ice as they were trying to back into our driveway. Our neighbors towed them off that patch with their pickup truck.

gilbar said...

"Dr" Weevil said..
"1st USAF Air Commando Squadron". Five minutes with DuckDuckGo shows that the unit only existed before 1948 and again in 1963-67. Is Rick ~80 years old? Perhaps suffering from Alzheimer's and delusions of grandeur?

The Rick guy SAYS...
Rick Kusiolek
@GMC2014Americas
I was in Saigon when Henry Cabot Lodge -US Ambassador to SVIETNAM, ordered the murder of the Roman Catholic President of South Vietnam

Another search of his name shows an 81 year old in NC..

All of which, makes ME ask "Dr" Weevil? Did you have a point? Did You Forget it?

Michael McNeil said...

Putin recently declared that Russia won't be the first to employ nuclear weapons (ISW, Dec. 7). As we see here, though, that doesn't and won't stop the resident Russophiles from continually, hysterically asserting that every Ukrainian defensive strike on Russian forces is shortly about to trigger an all-out strategic thermonuclear-weapons exchange holocaust, between the entire Western world and Russia. They – Putin's fans – even they apparently don't believe Vladimir when he blurts out that “We're not crazy!”

Dr Weevil said...

I want to thank 'gilbar' for demonstrating once again that commenters who alter other commenters' chosen names in insulting ways are invariably assholes who are losing the argument - in this case before he began to argue it.

My point was, I'm sure, obvious to other readers: that the source 'tim in vermont' quoted was utterly implausible. There is no evidence (Nixon looked hard for it) that Kennedy ordered Diem's murder, and Henry Cabot Lodge certainly would not have ordered it on his own. He did pass on Kennedy's statement that the U.S. wouldn't try to interfere with any coup attempt, which didn't help. It looks like our 81-year-old veteran has forgotten exactly what he witnessed 59 years ago - as often happens in old age. (Assuming of course he is in fact whom he claims to be.) His phrasing also suggests that he thinks ordering the murder of a Roman Catholic is somehow worse than ordering the murder of a Buddhist - a nasty little squirt of religious bigotry.

Most important, why should we believe that a top-secret operation of British SAS commandos operating inside Russia would ever be confided to an elderly American veteran of flaky left-wing tendencies? An operation that 'tim in vermont' assures us would increase the risk of nuclear war. Indeed it would, which is why the SAS never did any such thing. As I already pointed out above, the Ukrainians have never asked for any NATO troops, only weapons, and (as Narr agrees) have competent commandos of their own, with a lot more recent combat experience than anyone in the SAS. And 'tim in vermont' is a gullible anti-Ukrainian flake who will believe anything anyone tells him, however implausible, if it helps justify Putin's thuggish, genocidal, and failing attempt to crush a democracy.

Lem the artificially intelligent said...

r/FacePalm: Job posting for a marketing assistant... Candidate just turned 18 and is looking for a $160k salary. That’s not even the crazy part!... It almost seems like satire or trolling.

Link to something you have to read to believe.

Original Mike said...

"I also got a new 2-stage snowblower on Monday, "

Single-stage for me. We have a steep driveway. I need the propeller blades to pull me up the slippery slope. And I need something "light weight" that I can manhandle.

effinayright said...

Dr Weevil said...
I want to thank 'gilbar' for demonstrating once again that commenters who alter other commenters' chosen names in insulting ways are invariably assholes who are losing the argument - in this case before he began to argue it.
***********
OK. We'll pretend that your lame pun altering Dr. Evil's name BOLSTERS your arguments.

Big Mike said...

Can a septuagenarian weigh in on the anti-Ngo Dinh Diem coup? What the 81 year old veteran is asserting was a widely-held belief at the time. Ngo Dinh Diem and his brother ran the Republic of Vietnam as a corrupt dictatorship. They weren’t merely Roman Catholic; they were rabidly anti-Buddhist and openly persecuted that religious minority in their country, much to the displeasure of the Kennedy administration. From the perspective of the American leadership the two were not doing enough to prosecute the war against the Viet Cong insurgents, and they weren’t very pliable puppets. What is known is that the plotters of the military coup did ask permission to stage the coup, and permission was received. So the role of Henry Cabot Lodge was merely — maybe I should put that in scare quotes — was “merely” to green light the coup. Did he do that on his own? Probably not without Kennedy’s wink-wink, nudge-nudge. Did Kennedy, Lodge, and Kennedy’s top military and diplomatic advisors know this would mean assassination of the Ngo brothers? Some probably not, others had to have been more realistic.

It was also widely believed at the time that the CIA provided assistance, but whether that was true or a combination of the belief that the CIA is behind nearly every coup that favors the US and a racist belief that the little brown Vietnamese could do nothing without the aid and direction of their tall, white American advisors I cannot say.

Big Mike said...

Meanwhile I am having fun with the story of Cathy Areu, who styled herself thd “liberal Sherpa.” She tried to claim that Tucker Carlson sexually assaulted her, except that at the time of the alleged assault Tucker was at s Christmas party with his wife. The judge tossed the case.

Anyway, this sweetheart of a liberal was arrested for defrauding her own mother, stealing the woman’s house, raiding her mother’s bank accounts, and involuntarily committing her mother to a nursing home. But that’s affluent white liberal feminists for you.

I bet her poor, abused mother wishes thst she’d had an abortion 51 years ago.

Big Mike said...

Did you know Elon Musk laid off 20 janitors just before Christmas? A true cause celebre if ever one was!

Of course Amazon is laying off 10,000 employees, way more than 20 of them also just before Christmas, and we will not hear one word about it.

Big Mike said...

I’ve been reading articles dissecting Republican losses in senatorial elections, and the writers of these articles are suggesting that the GOP’s consultants aren’t very good, that they are living in a past where one used TV ads and mail fliers to get out the vote on Election Day, but not at all savvy about early voting and digital outreach. Probably a lot to that.

A related thought. Could there have been an easier candidate to beat than Charlie Crist? Flipping four Congressional seats is impressive, but beating Crist like a bass drum in a marching band, was that so hard?

Big Mike said...

I’m trying to figure out this latest story about Sam Brinton, the trans Department of Energy official, stealing luggage in the Las Vegas airport. Did this take place before he was arrested for stealing a woman’s suitcase in Minneapolis and they just now figured it was him? Or is he the very embodiment of the word “incorrigible”? Why is he still employed by the federal government? Have they at least revoked his Q clearance?

(For the benefit of those who have the good fortune to live in saner places than the Washington metro area, Q clearances are at least as hard to get as a DoD Too Secret.)

Humperdink said...

My pickleball partner and I won the silver medal in the 70+ age group, 3.5 level at the USA Pickleball Diamond Amateur Championship in Holly Hill, Florida earlier this week.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Big Mike - Yeah - flipping Miami Dade is no big deal either. Trump forever!
Gov. Polis(D) ran non-stop TV ads - and he won.

Humperdink said...

Sometimes you just have to laugh. My friend and lovely bride were forced to get the Covid jab and boosted before they were permitted to go on a cruise. They came off the boat with Covid.

Meade said...

Dude, I hope you didn’t consent to your lovely bride going on a a love boat cruise with your best friend.

wendybar said...

Meanwhile, whilst we fight among ourselves over how much we all hate each other....https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/officials-confirm-deliberate-physical-attacks-on-oregon-and-washington-substations/ar-AA151XMx?utm_source=pocket_reader

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

The dem's ads in CO painted all GOP as "they will take away your social security!" and other lies...
The GOP consultants need to figure out a way to cut thru the left's lies.
Out of step GOP consultants and a dick stepping word-salad loser-pals-for-dinner Trump = lose lose lose. and more lose.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

If I had an all-concrete driveway, I would've gone with a single-stage snowblower. Most of our driveway is gravel, and that would have done in a single-stage snowblower. The one I got is self-propelled with 6 forward speeds and two reverse. So, the only time I need to manhandle it is during 180-deg turns.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

It's climate hysterics attacking electrical substations. They're getting frustrated that we still have reliable power and want to make us go back to using candles for light and wood for cooking.

Rusty said...

Mike of Snoqualmie said...
"It's climate hysterics attacking electrical substations. They're getting frustrated that we still have reliable power and want to make us go back to using candles for light and wood for cooking."
There is a class of people here in America that have no idea of how their stuff is made or where their stuff comes from. They are very dangerous in their stupidity. You might know them as Biden voters.

Big Mike said...

@Hunter’s Hooker, pay attention, nitwit. He was running against Charlie Crist, who had gone out of his way to offend Cuban voters.

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

If the Deep State want a Trump-Biden re-match for 2024 - we will get one.

Relax Trump-lovers. He will be the 2024 nominee. But please - keep your hate-on for DeSantis. The left love you for it.

Big Mike said...

@Humperfink, just 10 days ago CNN had the following headline:

“Fact Check: Majority of US COVID Deaths Among Vaccinated Is NOT Sign Vaccines Are Ineffective”

ngtrains said...

Mike of Sanqualmine:

I'm on my second 2-stage snowblower in 30 years.
Our 600 ft drive was gravel for the first 10 years,
I kept the "shoes" set high so i would not throw any gravel.
and that left a light covering of show that melted and froze
again as ice. That sealed the gravel in place, so further
clearing was a lot easier since the feet were on ice.

(One day a snowplow guy came to our address by mistake.
He had plowed most of it before i realized what was going on.
He assumed it was asphalt like most of our neighbors.
I got to respread a lot of gravel the next spring.)

Now, with the concrete drive, i get to replace the shoes every 3
years or so due to the abrasion of the conce=rete on steel.
But I enjoy the workout.


the

WWIII Joe Biden, Husk-Puppet + America's Putin said...

Right on Q - the Trump-or-Bust butthurt -Ever-Trumper Army of Trump Humper Fan boys are out to destroy and demean DeSantis.
If not DeSantis - anyone else who might run in 2024. Cotton, Rand Paul, Pompeo, Cruz - they are all in need of destruction because Trump and his dick-stepping ego demand it, and Trump's loyal army of fan-boys are happy to oblige.

That Trump gets anyone to show up at a rally? Embarrassing. Do people like to watch that stale show of Ego and BS? Sad.

Mike of Snoqualmie said...

Like Lincoln said of Grant: "I need this man. He fights." So, we needed Trump. Now Trump has shown the way, his negatives are overwhelming his positives. DeSantis also fights and won't backdown when the neobarbarians accuse him of some Big Lie. DeSantis throws the Big Lie back in their faces, then stomps all over them. That's what we need.

Dr Weevil said...

'effingayright' (11:03pm):
You have a lot of nerve criticizing my pseudonym: at least my pun isn't obscene.
And what does the quality of a pseudonym have to do with the quality of the arguments under it? Nothing! This very subject was hashed over thoroughly 18 years ago, when Pajamas Media was founded, and every sensible person soon realized that there were plenty of excellent sites and commenters with silly names, and plenty of stupid and dishonest sites and commenters with serious, intellectual names. Where were you when this question was settled once and for all?
Of course, there are also plenty of excellent sites with serious names, like this one, and plenty of stupid sites with stupid names - remember 'Retardo Montalban'? But every sensible person ignores the pseudonym except in so far as it tells you whether you're arguing with the same person, and considers the arguments on their own merits. Try that with mine.