Great White Sharks Were Scared Out of Their Habitat by Just 2 Predators ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
The Return of the Weirdo Ted Gioia
Were classical statues painted horribly? Works in Progress (Anthony L)
This remarkable book about a ‘wild boy’ reveals what makes us human Washington Post (Anthony L)
What makes you human? Julian Macfarlane
Small explosion at Black Diamond Pool, Biscuit Basin, Yellowstone National Park this morning 💥
USGS called it a kablooey (sudden, dramatic, often messy explosion) Great word!pic.twitter.com/QkzpPAjZpS
— Volcaholic 🌋 (@volcaholic1) December 20, 2025
Editing is Only Good If the Editing is Good and a Lot of Editing is Not Good Freddie deBoer. The editor of my book had recently come out of marketing and sent e-mails like “It detracts the reader from the flow”. Dealing with her enabled me to get over my WASP inhibitions and have screaming rages to my agent, who had to intercede too often. The straw that broke the camel’s back was after repeatedly asking if they cared about format for footnotes, and after I had turned in half the chapters, they said they had to have Chicago Style. I said I was not fixing that on the completed chapters (I was also, uncharacteristic for a book, being held to a very tight and rigid publication deadline), that that was their task. It turns out that there is self-censorship among book authors. Many report, but it seems only to a fellow book writer, that they were subjected to lousy editors. By contrast, I have had very good editors when writing for magazines and big online venues like Bloomberg.
Ancient sewers expose a hidden health crisis in Roman Britain ScienceDaily (Kevin W)
Vaccinating Boys Against HPV Could Eliminate Cervical Cancer ScienceAlert (Chuck L)
The FDA’s Leucovorin Approval—A Departure From Evidentiary Standards JAMA. Important. More RFK, Jr. corruption. JJ: “Weird. In fact no science.”
#COVID-19/Pandemics
⚠️ BREAKING:
Super Flu Spreads Across UK as Hospitals Lose Nearly 13,000 Beds to ‘Bed-Blocking’ Patients
Schools battling flu outbreaks have closed; officials urge the sick to skip Christmas, MPs call for emergency vaccines. pic.twitter.com/6B5vS1X4Vm
— SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19) (@COVID19_disease) December 22, 2025
The Wall Street Journal seems to have figured out how to prevent archiving, so I must report on rather than link to a finding from a recent story, on what are passengers to do if they are worried about toxic fumes. N95 respirators will only stop particles, not gases, BUT P100s will. So if you are seriously germ-paranoid, you can now use toxic fumes as a justification to wear a Darth Vader looking half-face respirator.
Haven’t stepped in a supermarket for 2 years but went to get turkey. Arrived before opening (people queuing). Wore my respirator. Saw one other mask – surgical). No side glances/comments, no-one noticed. Get your respirator on – no-one gives a shit & you enjoy sickness free Xmas. pic.twitter.com/z3cMVFuvRL
— Lara – Covid is Airborne (@fillthewhole) December 22, 2025
China vows city-specific fixes to clear housing glut, stabilise property sector South China Morning Post
Climate/Environment
Organ-tuning books in English churches provide notes on a warming climate Guardian
China?
China turns on a vast experimental network it says is an heir to ARPANET The Register (Chuck L)
Stanford just dropped a quiet bombshell — and Western media barely noticed.
China’s open-source AI models haven’t just caught up to the US… in some areas, they’ve pulled ahead.According to Stanford’s DigiChina Project, Chinese open-weight models like DeepSeek, Alibaba Cloud,… pic.twitter.com/bf7Iek5MQW
— Barrett (@BarrettYouTube) December 21, 2025
China’s Sprint for Tech Dominance Can’t Hide an Economy Full of Holes Wall Street Journal. Lead story. No archived version yet. While it makes valid observations about overproduction, weak consumption, not great social safety nets, and Xi’s determination to continue to boost exports, the piece has a cursory feel, as if the writers thought it was so obvious that an American audience would buy what they were selling that the support for the arguments seem dialed in rather than well-substantiated.
India
Why the US-led Pax Silica tech alliance snubbed India Asia Times (Kevin W)
Africa
Tens of thousands flee DR Congo to Burundi amid rebel takeover of key city Aljazeera. resilc: “I thought Trump brought peace.”
"Sudan is experiencing the largest humanitarian crisis in the world. Yet it has received less than 35 percent of its global funding needs."
— #AJOpinion by Nabiha Islam ⤵️ https://t.co/5HVACiEdYD
— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) December 23, 2025
South of the Border
Experts at oil & weapons-funded think tank: ‘Go big’ in Venezuela Responsible Statecraft (resilc)
Russia Urges US Not to Commit ‘a Fatal Mistake’ by Invading Venezuela (+UN Security Council) Orinoco Tribune (Robin K)
Bari Weiss Praised El Salvador’s Dictator Before Spiking ’60 Minutes’ Story on His Torture Prison Zeteo
European Disunion
What the EU sanctions against Jacques Baud and their justification reveal about the state of the EU Anti-Spiegel via machine translation (Micael T)
Macron reaffirms France’s support for sovereignty of Denmark, Greenland Anadolu Agency
Israel v. The Resistance
Bondi after the bullets Independent Australia (John Helmer). A must read.
Yes, we need to talk about Jewish Supremacy.
Please take 10 minutes to read Chapter 6 of Israel Shahak's 1994 book Jewish History, Jewish Religion, titled "Political Consequences". It is simply mind-blowing to think it was written more than 30 years ago.
——
"The persistent… https://t.co/6QoYrsRHPC— B.M. (@ireallyhateyou) December 5, 2025
Tucker Carlson named ‘Antisemite of the Year’ for opposing Israel’s genocide in Gaza Middle East Eye (Kevin W)
* * * Israeli forces on Monday bulldozed agricultural land in the town of Silat al-Harithiya, west of Jenin in the occupied West Bank, Palestinian media reported, quoting local officials.
The mayor of Silat al-Harithiya, Samir Zayoud, told local media that Israeli bulldozers began… pic.twitter.com/tFj8U3wNp5
— Middle East Eye (@MiddleEastEye) December 22, 2025
The true meaning of intifada Asa Winstanley
Israel’s Ben Gvir proposes prison ‘encircled by crocodiles’ for Palestinians Middle East Eye (resilc)
New Not-So-Cold War
Another Failure: EUCO Summit Conditions New Ukrainian “Loan” Repayment on Total Victory Over Russia Simplicius
'We plan to support the Armed Forces of Ukraine for the next 5-10 years,' — NATO Lieutenant General Remigijus Baltrėnas dreams of victory over Russia at the hands of Ukrainians.
'I believe that European allies, together with American allies, are sending the best available… pic.twitter.com/xfTTe16MVn
— Zlatti71 (@Zlatti_71) December 23, 2025
Brief Frontline Report – December 22nd, 2025 Marat Khairullin, Mikhail Popov.
NY Times Weirdly Publishing a Bizarre Propaganda Piece About Putin Larry Johnson
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Flock Exposed Its AI-Powered Cameras to the Internet. We Tracked Ourselves. 404 Media
Flock and Cyble Inc. Weaponize “Cybercrime” Takedowns to Silence Critics Have I Been Flocked? (Paul R)
Imperial Collapse Watch
US Diplomacy Incapability & Russia Preparing for Attack by NATO Mark Sleboda
Leave Greenland Alone Daniel Larison
David Betz: The West on Irreversible Path to Civil War Glenn Diesen, YouTube
Trump 2.0
Democrats renew government shutdown threat as tensions flare with Trump The Hill
The Trump Administration Protects U.S. National Security by Pausing Offshore Wind Leases Department of the Interior
Fentanyl Free America DEA. resilc: “Not the Onion.”
Trump Administration Live Updates: President Announces Plans for New ‘Trump Class’ Battleships New York Times
Kash Patel’s New Armored BMW Sparks New Controversy Over Alleged Job Perks Forbes (resilc)
In Defense of “The Trump Center for the Performing Arts” Sam Husseini
US farmers say Trump’s $12bn package not enough to undo damage from tariffs Guardian (resilc)
🚨🚨 BREAKING: The Trump administration is in talks with former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden for a TOTAL AND COMPLETE PARDON as well as Snowden’s return to The United States. These talks are reportedly being led by Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, a long… pic.twitter.com/3mhK9TJdhV
— Joshua Hall (@JoshHall2024) December 22, 2025
Immigration
Number of people in ICE detention hits record high Guardian (resilc)
Long Haul Trucking Was a Refuge for Sikh Immigrants. Until Now. New York Times (resilc)
Judge extends order barring Abrego Garcia re-detainment The Hill
Supremes
Progressive Judicial Institutionalism Steve Vladeck
GOP Clown Car
Turning Point: How the GOP consensus on Israel cracked Harpers (guurst)
JD Vance: Nick Fuentes ‘can eat shit’ Unherd
Vance refuses to set red lines over bigotry as conservatives feud at Turning Point Associated Press
Top Heritage Officials Flee to Mike Pence’s Nonprofit as Think Tank Fractures Wall Street Journal (resilc). No archived version yet.
L’affaire Epstein
Epstein, Israel, and the CIA: How The Iran–Contra Planes Landed at Les Wexner’s Base American Conservative
Epstein seen kissing, cuddling little girls in stomach-turning new photos released by DOJ New York Post. This ought to be in the price….
Bill Clinton spokesperson says they don’t need ‘protection,’ asks for release of all Epstein files The Hill
Exclusive: One ‘Jane Doe’ tells CNN she is mortified that her name is unredacted multiple times in the Epstein files CNN (Kevin W)
The Epstein Files represent a once in a lifetime opportunity to clear out politics Council Estate Media (resilc)
Economy
Trump says small cars can bring down big prices. Here’s why that’s unlikely CNN
AI
Boys at her school shared AI-generated, nude images of her. After a fight, she was the one expelled Associated Press (resilc)
AI and crypto data centers straining power grids worldwide – satellite image RT (Kevin W)
The Bezzle
Uber Cleared Violent Felons to Drive. Passengers Accused Them of Rape. New York Times (Kevin W)
SPOTIFY MUSIC LIBRARY SCRAPED BY PIRATE ACTIVIST GROUP Billboard
Class Warfare
The GOP War on Nurses Washington Monthly
What happens when disaster recovery becomes a luxury good Grist
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
Antidote du jour (via):
There’s a kids’ book about an especially high viscosity eruption like that. “Hamster Huey and the Gooey Kablooey”.
That brings me back! It’s a running joke in my childhood favorite, Calvin and Hobbes.
I can’t find any direct references but I believe it was Mad’s Don Martin that coined the word “Kablooie”. There is a reference in the Futurama episode “The Day the Earth Stood Stupid” when Hermes observes that “Don Martin 111 just went Kablooie.”
>>>
Were classical statues painted horribly?
thing to remember….until the 1800’s German chemists showed up, pigments were *extremely* expensive in real terms….beyond brown (even urea/pee-derived woad colors).
Any color would have been mesmerizing in Ancient Greece.
Bonus nugget: roughly around the same period (100 BC), random Chinese hinterlanders discovered and mass produced synthetic dyes from rocks (versus pee or mollusk juice)—one of the pillars of industrial chemistery.
alas Confucian bureaucrats and scholars found such color decadent (true) and disruptive; and when they came to power, they went 100% Oliver Cromwell and banned color.
thus quashing artificial dyes for another 2000 years.
Frankly the garish colours that have been use to re-create how those statues originally looked always seemed kinda off and amateurish when you look at them. And as this article shows, the Romans knew about being subtle. So the question arises if this was some sort of vulgar prank by the experts to make those statues look more striking or not. If so, they have done a terrible disservice.
Kinda reminded of the Sistine Chapel roof paintings story. Many dozens of scholarly works have been written about the dull colours that Michelangelo used. And then not that many years ago they started to clean them one section at a time and the colours came blazing out meaning all those previous books were now only good for landfill. Would you believe that there was even an attempt to stop the cleaning so that all those older books could stay true?
This is not true, from what I’ve read. The restoration was botched. What restorers identified as grime was also a layer of carbon black added intentionally as a tint to subdue the colors. In their zealousness to remove the “pollution,” they defaced the chapel. The colors are simply brighter than they should be. Note also how the restorers removed so many of the figures’ eyes (which were also dark and considered to be pollution, apparently).
The restorers removed shadows and other details as well that would’ve served to balance the colors. The comparisons that I’ve seen in this regard are especially convincing.
Louis Fyne: I’m not sure what the author of the article is all aghast about.
As you mention, pigments were expensive, and it was time-consuming to grind them.
The author is agog about two statues that have very logical explanations: The statue of Augustus was meant for display and to reinforce his power. Intense red was difficult to come by. (For clothing, madder and other plants were used, which produced softer shades of red, not crimson.) So that crimson cost much money. Same with blue, which often would have been made of crushed semiprecious stones like aquamarine. The statue is meant to be resplendent.
The archer is a temple statue. Like any religious statue or painting, it is meant to engage the visual field and produce awe. I find the statue to be a wonderful use of pattern and color.
In general, the ancient palette is very familiar to moderns, although the ancients Romans favored malachite green rather than avocado.
The article never quite comes out and states what is going on here, another effort by the cultural marxists of the Frankfurt School and their useful idiot DEI followers to undermine and demean Western Civilization. Their point could not be more clear: the ancient’s art was just as crude, vulgar and tasteless as modern, pretend, emperor’s new clothes “art”, there was nothing special, unique or timeless about it, and the ignorant, no talent or training required trash allowed to masquerade as art now is just as worthwhile, valuable and important.
“I find the statue [of the archer] to be a wonderful use of pattern and color.”
I always felt that way, too, actually, about that particular statue. The colored patterns on the legs and arms are quite striking.
Maybe the statues were colored a bit less boldly than the modern recreations but I’m not so sure I would call them “awful.”
‘SARS‑CoV‑2 (COVID-19)
@COVID19_disease
⚠️ BREAKING:
Super Flu Spreads Across UK as Hospitals Lose Nearly 13,000 Beds to ‘Bed-Blocking’ Patients
Schools battling flu outbreaks have closed; officials urge the sick to skip Christmas, MPs call for emergency vaccines.’
So I take it that the government’s idea to just let it sweep through the population to get it over with and done for and just taking it on the chin is not working out so well. Geez, that approach worked the first time around, didn’t it?
I looked up the term “bed-blocking.” It refers to a patient who the hospital wants to discharge but can’t because necessary support isn’t available at home or a lower intensity facility.
My father is currently “bed-blocking” in a rehab facility in NE Ohio. Not because he has the flu, he just won’t eat and is getting weaker. But he can’t be discharged to his assisted living apartment to die peacefully because it doesn’t have the staffing and bureaucracy to torment him sufficiently.
The staff are mostly pleasant and well-meaning, but if you question anything they just give you a blank stare. The administrators make promises that somehow never get through to the staff. Our health care system is horrible machine designed to extract rents from the patients (especially the elderly) and the underpaid workers. All I can say is think about ways to avoid it before you lose your ability to fight.
I feel so sorry about what you are telling. Sorry and wordless.
Thanks.
For a good many cities in Central and Northern California, the Xmas floods of 1955 were the flood of record for a century, and history looks to be repeating itself, but this time the SoCalist Movement is involved in the proceedings as something liquid this way comes…
The entire west coast is getting hammered. The PNW where I live has had major flooding plus a couple of “wind events”. Not much of a snow pack – it’s been “abnormally “ (who knows what normal is anymore) warm.
Our flood of record was Feb 96, when an atmospheric river dumped a ton of wet on top of a melting snow pack. Willamette Falls turned into Willamette rapids. Lots of people living in the flood plain w/o flood insurance.
James Gleick (https://mas.to/@gleick/115765521840080925 ):
“It is fitting that the new gold-plated Epstein class warships are being announced at Mar-a-Lago. What a mighty Navy we shall have.”
‘Larger than WWII-era Iowa-class ships, the ‘Trump-class’ vessels will carry hypersonic missiles, rail guns, and lasers, according to the US president.’ Then Trump went on to say ‘They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built’
They will be building two initially and maybe another two dozen afterwards. But with the shipbuilding track record of LCSs, the Zumwalt, the Ford aircraft carrier and the recently cancelled Constellation class ships, I am dubious how they will turn out.
Well. I remember when the US Navy converted a late WW-2 battleship from an all gun to a gun and cruise missile carrier back in the 1980s. One was done at the N’Awleenz Avondale shipyard. It was the USS Iowa.
See: https://nationalinterest.org/blog/buzz/how-navys-iowa-class-battleships-made-ultimate-comeback-209674
This program was the “brainchild” of, who else?, Ronald Reagan, that other high profile cognitively “impaired” United States President. He wanted to renew American Greatness with a 600 ship navy. Sound familiar?
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/600-ship_Navy
We could start referring to the Oval Office sycophants, grifters, and other assorted hangers on, courtiers?, as “Flappers” and see who gets the reference.
We put 4 ship-sets of Tomahawk launchers on the Iowas. In the time before VLS this was a big deal. USN developed a “BB-SAG” doctrine around the ships that was designed to counter a blue-water USSR Navy. In those days war-at-sea was the primary threat. It wasn’t until the gulf war that TLAM began to figure prominently in planning. USS Missouri and USS Wisconsin were key players in that war.
VLS was pretty new. We were asked to ensure a VLS DD could salvo all 16 missiles in its VLS launcher. Had to go down to Dahlgren lab and run some tests as we had never tested for that scenario. Slapped together some procedures for ship force to follow to make sure we didn’t overload anything.
I am dubious
howthat they will turn out.Fixed it for ya.
I love how Trump includes weapon types the US has no successful track record with, or would be massively ineffective for purpose.
Rome got of lucky with Nero and Caligula.
Here’s hoping the lasers are provided by laser cats. They would go well with all the other weapons on the battleship that don’t actually exist.
Making Zumwalt destroyers great again l
Trump class battleship would be much less than the Missouri class in displacement.
In the limited set of Mk 41 vertical launches will be SM 2 or 3 interceptors. The ships will have Aegis C&C centers and 4 faces of dense SPY 6 radar.
The Trump boat will be a Ticonderoga class cruiser with tubes occupied by TBD offensive missiles.
Twenty years of cost plus profit overruns for a couple of boats that can’t sail into harm’s way.
Trump classy.
Reminds me more of the Long Beach or CAG-1 class, except not nuclear powered. We’ve been playing around with directed energy and rail gun weapons for a long time; never seems to get out of the lab. The CPS weapon seems more likely on track. I guess the Zumwalts will be the test platforms for it.
>Trump says small cars can bring down big prices.
If I was an autocrat, an “easy” solution would be to allow each automaker to sell 1 model of 2005-era midsize car/SUV that is exempt from current auto safety, MPG standards and sell them with a black box warning re. the exemptions (The GM Death Box!).
But the stamping have long been recycled and the supply chain/parts base and institutional knowledge gone.
Used EV cars are cheap. But (IMO) the long-tail of EV repairs means that those cars should only be bought by homes with the means to repair a (eg) $3000 out-of-warranty steering rack repair (Tesla) or motor failure.
$15,000 used EV v. $15,000 gasoline Toyota, the Toyota has much lower variance for >100,000-mile repair costs
Lately I’m seeing more use of e-bikes and even ICE-powered bicycles, in a community in which I previously very rarely saw people on conventional muscle-powered bicycles. It seems at least possible to me that some of this increase in use is switching from unaffordable automobiles to cheaper transport. Perhaps there will be a big market in future for “waterproof/breathable” foul weather wear for cycling.
waterproof/breathable unfortunately use pfas pfoas in the substrates, laminates, coatings and dwr (durable water repellant).
Waxed cotton like barbour or filson, or waxed hemp, might be coming our way.
Ski way and ski outterwear are a problem… whodathunk it?
Pfas pfoas appearing in virgin snowfall. :(
The Epstein Files represent a once in a lifetime opportunity to clear out politics Council Estate Media
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That would be my forlorn hope, but can you get there from here?
I don’t really get it though, find out some regular Joe is watching kiddie porn and hells bells-he’s an outcast from society instantly, and of all those who do time in the all-bar motel, the only criminals a city and it’s citizenry are made aware publicly of where they are living are pedophiles who have served their time and are released, in a community near you.
They don’t do that with murderers, you know.
I’m not sure this is an apples-to-apples comparison since in many jurisdictions the problem of whether to ostracize a murderer is solved by executing said murderer. I don’t know if there are any jurisdictions in the U.S. where possession of kiddie porn is a capital offense.
Having once known a reasonably prominent New Orleans person who was convicted on just such a charge, I can attest that, after said sentence, one becomes a “non-person” to the society at large. He had to move away to resume anything like a “normal” life. (His prosecution was partly politically driven.)
That is why someone else I read occasionally mentioned that if you suspect that the Organs of State Security are about to kick your door in, that you make copies of your electronic device files and store them in legally defensible manners. That way you can compare your files from before the raid and after the Organs of State Security have had some time to diddle about with the files out of public sight.
Remember, the Organs of State Security are not your friends.
Plan accordingly.
Stay safe, Go grey.
The question was whether murderers are treated better than possessors of child pornography. Louisiana uses the death penalty against murderers (back at it again as of 2025!). Do you think what your acquaintance suffered is comparable?
At the risk of sounding as if I am belittling his experience, I don’t think it helps the cause of civil liberties to hyperbolize in this manner. If anything what it does do is open the door for people to begin thinking that maybe people with CSAM on their hard-drives SHOULD be treated like murderers.
I don’t know how to break this to you, but convicted murderers serve their sentence and are released all the time, sure a few are sentenced to death with it being carried out, but lots of parolees.
There are studies indicating that a considerable number of those on death row have physically measurable damage to or malformation of the frontal lobes, that part of the brain responsible for constraining our more ill considered asocial impulses.
Neurological malfunction as a contributing factor in pedophiliac behavior is also a subject of study. There is an interesting case cited in the NIH article The Neurobiology and Psychology of Pedophilia: Recent Advances and Challenges, in which a patient with no previous history of pedophilia developed sexual interest in children as the result of a brain tumor in his frontal lobe. These impulses disappeared when the tumor was removed, and when the tumor returned, so did the pedophiliac impulses.
As to significance of what such findings might be in determining the rectitude and nature of our moral judgments and public policy, I will leave for greater minds to ponder.
‘Joshua Hall
@JoshHall2024
🚨🚨 BREAKING: The Trump administration is in talks with former intelligence analyst Edward Snowden for a TOTAL AND COMPLETE PARDON as well as Snowden’s return to The United States.’
For the love of god, Edward, don’t do it. Think of your wife and kids. Time and time again this year has proven that Trump is a liar and treacherous as well. It just came out that he was never serious about negotiations with Iran but was only helping set up an Israeli attack on that country. If Snowden lands in the US he will be arrested straight away and find himself charged with some obscure 18th or 19th century law that will mean many years in prison. You don’t see Tara Reade, who also just recently got Russian citizenship, trusting in the good graces of the US government and coming back to make a visit. As Admiral Akbar would say, “It’s a trap!”
Snowden is pretty bright. If he comes back I suspect it will be to make a point, perhaps the very point you are suggesting about how treacherous the U.S. is.
After well over a decade of living in a civilized city like Moscow, why would he want to come back here?
Doubtful. If he were to do so, it would only undermine most of his stance on government behavior towards its citizens as things have only gotten worse since he left. Also, I don’t think the US being treacherous is the main thrust of his position as it was well known before his disclosures.
He cetainly was granted Russian Citizenship, so is he legally still an American Citizen?
Depends…. many (most?) countries don’t require you to renounce your previous citizenship when you obtain the new one. The US does, so if you become a new US citizen, you’re no longer a citizen of your prior home. (at least in the eyes of the US. Your previous home may not agree). Canada, for example, does not ask you to renounce your prior citizenship, so dual citizens are common here. (in this town, it seems like dual citizens are more common than the natives…)
It’s a bit of conventional wisdom that it’s a royal PIA to legally *not* be a US citizen, on account of the IRA getting their claws into worldwide income….
“… you become a new US citizen, you’re no longer a citizen of your prior home. ”
This is not factually correct. The US only cares if you are a US citizen or not (used to be mostly for tax purposes because US citizens get taxed on world wide income)
But the US does not care what else you are – this is between you and any other country you might hold citizenship in.
When Jill Stein last ran for POTUS she said that if elected, she’d pardon Snowden and offer him a cabinet post. I guess Trump is less credible but I wonder what the tactic would be, if Trump issues the pardon while Snowden is still in Russia.
Trump is sure getting some easy points if first he reclassifies weed and then he pardons Snowden. Dems are morons for not having done both years ago.
> David Betz: The West on Irreversible Path to Civil War Glenn Diesen, YouTube
Articles by Betz:
Civil War Comes to the West [Military Strategy Magazine 2023]
Part Two.
good stuff.
been expecting it for most of my life.
i just didnt think it would take this long…nor be this absurd.
The path to civil war is being relentlessly propagandized by factions of the elite though. The US was just as multicultural in the 1920s and 1930s, with urban ghettoes of recent immigrants whose elders were often not proficient in English. But the elite in those days pushed more for homogenizing the population in the so-called melting pot. Sixty years ago that process was thrown into reverse gear and we started celebrating our grievances as a campaign strategy in politics. Civil war will not be a bottom-up outbreak but a project of competing groups of the wealthy that attempts to use the non-wealthy as its foot-soldiers. Even with the presumed anarchy of the internet, you need a lot of money to keep the media (including algorithmic social media) directing the population to outright combat on a large scale.
Not large scale combat, rather
> ultimately the realisation by anti-status quo groups of plausible strategies of attack based on systems disruption of vulnerable critical infrastructure.
> Its strategic logic will be to cause the destruction of metropolitan centres through infrastructural attacks with a view to causing cascading systemic failure leading to uncontrollable civil disorder generating further rapid decline
which he’s calling ‘violent civil conflict’. We’ve already seen
> negotiated areas of police control if not outright no-go zones
in Portland and Minneapolis. Note that this analysis does fit with Turchin’s work, with mortality well under 1%, and a shift from many-killing-one (like lynchings) to one-killing-many (mass shootings and auto rampages).
A couple more points resonate:
> Attacks on the totems of a given people usually provokes them into an equal or greater reaction, which is useful in the beginning phases of a civil conflict when heightening tensions is crucial to solidifying the in-group bonding capital of one’s own side.
Swastikas on synagogues vs Silent Sam getting pulled down. It’s a one-way ratchet. Also, with positive assortment,
> having sorted themselves in this manner, it is easier to extract rents and recruits from the resulting more homogenous and geographically concentrated factions.
This rings with John Robb saying that by two weeks in, local elements are making enough money that they work against the system re-stabilizing.
At least the first U.S. Civil War was about real issues — slavery, federal supremacy vs states’ rights. What will the next one be about? How many genders there are vs how big a clip I can snap into my AK-47? I’ll sit that one out.
“Organ-tuning books in English churches provide notes on a warming climate”
Climate change data can appear in the most unlikely of places. As an example there are ship’s logbooks. For many decades you had 19th century logbooks gathering dust in archives of interest to only the odd historian. Then somebody worked out that though there are a lot of records for the weather on land, this was not the case with the oceans which cover much of the planet. In the 19th century you had thousands of ships sailing those oceans each and every year and they recorded winds, temperatures and other meteorological data. I’ve seen examples printed in 19th century newspapers after a ship arrives in port. And for a decade or more you have had volunteers digging through those old logbooks to record all that data to add to our understanding of past weather-
https://www.arctictoday.com/how-the-secrets-of-19th-century-ships-logbooks-are-helping-scientists-understand-arctic-climate-change-today/
How cool is that.
Robert Fitzroy, captain of the “Beagle” in which Darwin made the voyage which in part led to the theory of evolution, is often dismissed as a religious fundamentalist because of his later opposition to Darwin’s theory. But Fitzroy was a pioneer in encouraging ships’ crews to record weather information at sea and in making forecasts which saved many lives:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_FitzRoy
re: American distaste for small cars. The U.S. has one of the highest levels of obesity when looking at the global picture, says Dr. Odegaard, adding, “My thoughts echo most others who treat or study this disease: The levels are problematic for the population on many fronts.”
According to the WHO’s most recent data on worldwide obesity rates, 16% of adults aged 18 years and over were living with obesity in 2022.[3]
Currently, adult obesity prevalence in the U.S. is 40.3%, with no significant difference between women (41.3%) and men (39.2%).
https://www.forbes.com/health/weight-loss/obesity-statistics/
that literally is one of the reasons why new sedan models are defacto extinct in the US….
peeps skew fatter and/or older, so getting into a sedan is no bueno
True for me. I began having difficulty getting into and out of my 2015 Accord, so I sold it and bought a 2012 Rav4. I’m in my seventies.
Same here
Best car I ever had, a 1993 Honda Civic Hatchback. Close to 40 mph highway driving, 30mph plus in town. Had it for 19 years and about 250,000 miles. One down check. The rear fenders rusted badly. Guess the profit margin was not high enough. SUVs, pickup trucks masquerading as passenger vehicles are much more lucrative.
Doesn’t explain the prevalence of large SUVs here in coastal Socal, so I’m skeptical that obesity is the driver. Seems more like the old joke from Stats 101: Scandinavia has the highest rate of bathtubs per capita and the highest rate of suicide, so obviously bathtubs cause suicide.
Did obesity drive the trend toward larger home sizes?
Wasn’t there a tax break for anything that could be considered a “truck” – as SUVs are – starting about 10 or 15 years ago?
Best…H
that’s an old tax break. Vehicles over xxxx lbs get favorable tax treatment as a “business” tool.
Which creates the lunacy of a cottage industry sub-culture of “small business” owners scrambling in December to buy $175,000 G-Class Mercedes (and other domestic models) trucks to front-load tax benefits
This might be relevent-
‘The U.S. corporate average fuel economy (CAFE) standard was introduced in 1975 to reduce fuel usage, but included relaxed regulations for “light trucks” to avoid businesses paying extra taxes for work vehicles. This created a loophole that manufacturers increasingly exploited since the 1980s oil glut (which started an era of cheap gasoline), whereby SUVs were designed to be classified as light trucks despite their primary use as passenger vehicles to receive tax concessions and less stringent fuel economy requirements. This enabled manufacturers to sell more profitable, larger, more polluting vehicles, instead of the smaller, less polluting, less profitable cars, that the CAFE regulations intended.’
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SUV#History
“obesity…trend toward larger home sizes”
Not sure of the exact chronology but the 1960 property I grew up in followed the old small house/big yard paradigm, while houses built 20 years or so later seemed to go right up to the legal setbacks. I wonder if it was fewer kids and less “leisure” time to take care of big yards?
It’s also harder to live in a smaller car.
It’s all about perceived safety. When vehicles get in a fight, it’s the bigger vehicle that usually wins. People will spend almost any amount of money to keep their family – and themselves – safe.
I cannot speak for all Americans but speaking for myself, I neither love cars nor find special fondness for big cars, or large trucks. I have visited countries with clean, efficient, and relatively inexpensive mass transit. I could very much love mass transit. Unfortunately, the u.s. cannot have clean, efficient, and relatively inexpensive mass transit. I do admit to having a strong affection for certain of the cars I have owned, those cars that were inexpensive to operate and maintain while getting me safely to and from where I had to go. This is a long way of suggesting, at least from my perspective, that the cars and trucks on the market in the u.s. are not entirely a matter of manufacturer efforts to give the buyers what they want — which is what I believe saying “Americans have a distaste for small cars” is really saying. The renegade car maker John Delorean argued in his book “On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors” that GM made the cars it wanted people to buy, cars that offered GM the fattest profit margins. The margins on the smaller Japanese imported cars of the time were too small to trouble the GM management who lead GM from a roughly 50-share of the car market to a 25-share.
I do believe certain Americans do have a love for cars, and among those are a group of people who enjoy purchasing large heavy vehicles, especially huge pickup trucks elevated above other cars, that they appear to drive because they enjoy intimidating other cars and vehicles on the u.s. roadways. Where I live I cannot drive my car anywhere without acquiring a large heavy vehicle close to my rear bumper pushing me to drive faster … and faster still, even or especially in conditions of icy roads, dark winding roads, wild life crossing the roads, and other vehicles entering the roadway haphazard. I drive a Honda CRV, not a small car but not that large or heavy, and in full agreement with “MRLost”, I often feel endangered by the aggressively driven large, heavy vehicles, elevated pushing on my tail. I have driven smaller cars where my feelings of danger were magnified corresponding with the size, weight, and height differences between my car and the cars pushing on my tail. I cannot imagine riding a bike, electric or human driven, a motor scooter, or motorcycle anywhere I would have to share the roadways with the aforementioned road predators … and I have not mentioned the 18-wheel trucks and their harried drivers racing to meet a delivery schedule or racing home on a load-less backhaul.
Indeed. I have never believed the manufacturers’ claims that they are just producing what the consumer wants. The consumer wants a relatively inexpensive reliable vehicle.
There is a reason that you can’t buy vehicles like this simple Toyota Hilux that retails for $10K in the US. As we learned during the financial meltdown, US manufacturers often make lots more money financing vehicle purchases than from the vehicles themselves.
Because a Hilux hasn’t been completely enshitified. They have hand cranked windows, no screens and even without a radio. I would buy one today if I could register it.
During the last half of the 20th century, the English built the most beautiful automobile ever (Austin Healey 3000 J8) as well as the sexiest automobile ever (Jaguar XKE V12). Photos available on request.
Which reminds me of an old nagging question — why do the English drink warm beer? (Lucas provided the wiring for the refrigeration system.)
https://forums.parallax.com/discussion/155680/lucas-prince-of-darkness
A girlfriend got two barn cats from a woman that owned a Norton mortorcycle and had yearly motorcycle meets on her rural property. One was a big black cat.
I suggested the name “Lucas”.
And yeah, he caused trouble.
Also: Lucas Replacement Wire Harness Smoke “Positive Ground Only”
My dad, a pilot, had a mid-1960s XKE that he got to drive every 10 – 15 days, so my mom had to help him push start it. (She was in the car) Not as reliable as her Pontiac GTO, and the Jaguar was sold for a Toyota Landcruiser.
https://x.com/mtracey/status/2002222795254870278
Is Michael Tracey a contrarian for contrarian’s sake or is he actually connected to the people listed in the Epstein files and who visited the island? The posts he’s (along with the BAP crowd) been making have been totally bizarre
The guy really gets roasted in replies after trying to put the blame on Thomas Massie and Ro Khanna-
https://xcancel.com/mtracey/status/2002222795254870278
I bet he is hemorrhaging followers lately. Why is it that so many people choose Jeffrey Epstein to be the hill they die on, even when they weren’t in his circle?
I’m still more concerned with the inflections of political affiliations/intrigue. Which has scant broad attention, it seems.
Thank you. The bigger picture, the “why”, is never discussed. I imagine this part of the story would expose some “America First!” proponents as hypocrites.
I’m starting to fathom a clearer distinction between America First rank and file and the MAGA elites. A number of the former have had a bit of a red pill moment vis a vis the latter’s true Israel First bearing. That’s cracking up a number of things.
The Heritage Foundation, for instance.
There’s the lowest of the low, and then there’s the lowest of the high. Never the twain shall meet, nor shall the latter be revealed (much).
Below the “lowest of the low” lie the Politicos and their funders.
I vaguely remember reading a line from an Ancient Greek comedy where one character, speaking about politics, declares that anyone who voluntarily runs for office should automatically be denied the post.
Ambition in general is considered to be a virtue.
Ambition in politics is a vice.
Stay safe.
Burma shave.
In societies without a ruling class, I consistently find that political ambition is not welcome in leadership candidates. Martin Prechtel spent a decade with the the Tzutujil Maya and noted that leadership candidates were expected to never campaign for office (in addition to giving away all their wealth). The Haudenosaunee describe how in traditional times, trusted elder women were responsible for picking male leadership candidates who would then go through many more layers of public review and approval before assuming a leadership role. And histories of both these nations describe a notable lack of corruption and greed in their leaders.
Ambition in politics is indeed a vice, a trouble that all societies with a ruling class all have. There are societies without corruption and greed though, and if more people learned what they’re like, I believe it would be possible for us to live that way too.
It’s hard to assess Tracey’s position in this particular exchange, since he is right that Congress did allow for protection of victims and for “national security” (which gives the Trump administration a hole you could drive a truck through), and technically there were no “victims” pictured, since there were no pictures at all in the redacted files to which he refers. But in general, Tracey’s assault on the whole Epstein issue is dishonest and disgusting – and at least “puzzling” as to his motives.
I have been following Tracey’s “debunking” crusade, which has now been joined by Matt Taibbi (who seems determined to destroy any remaining journalistic credibility he might have). Their basic line is that this is all just (1) a huge “me too” grift by greedy white-trash prostitutes and their lawyers to make millions from the Epstein estate; and (2) a Russiagate-type effort by the Democrats to embarrass Trump. Of course there have been efforts by grifty lawyers to get payoffs for their clients (as there always is in such cases), and the Dems have attempted to use this for partisan purposes. But the complete smearing of the numerous victims of Epstein is completely disgusting, and the complete focus on a few questionable individuals or claims while ignoring a mountain of other evidence is completely dishonest. Also ignored are the larger issues of Esptein’s role in elite networks linked to foreign governments, financial institutions, intelligence services, etc. Tracey’s transparent bias and dishonesty in this endeavor, and the tremendous effort he has invested on this supposedly “nothingburger” issue, does not suggest that he is just being “contrarian.” He and Taibbi are not only reinforcing the Trump claim that the whole Epstein saga is a “Democrat hoax,” but in his latest post Taibbi trotted out the “Protocols of Zion” example suggesting that the Epstein issue is an antisemitic plot! Hmm.
Not that this is a defense, but recall that both Taibbi and Mark Ames were attacked after they returned from Russia for being supposedly terrible woman abusers there…due to scurrilous articles they produced there, among them Ames’ piece on trying to bed nine whores in 9 hours for the 9th anniversary of The eXile. His piece was actually very sympathetic to the whores.
Among the charges were also being horrible/sexist to the female staffers. Someone (I forget who) managed to run them down in Russia. They were mystified and thought both had been perfectly decent bosses.
Yes. And I remember that as soon as Taibbi started voicing the mildest of doubts about Russiagate, the liberal mob resurrected this stuff to conduct a scurrilous “me too” attack on him. I think this was a crucial moment in his political shift. For a while he seemed to hold a healthy “plague on both their houses” view (nicely represented by his book Hate Inc.) But for me he has now become so biased and partisan that I can no longer buy his claims to be a champion of “free speech” or “journalistic integrity.”
I thought the Russia kerfuffle was a steaming load when I read that Donnie had been present for women peeing on one another. Given that he is something of a germophobe, or so I understand, I decided it was a hit piece and so it has proved to be. By the way, I did not and would not vote for the man and wish him out of office as soon as possible. Vance has his repellent side, he lacks dignity for openers, but he is compos mentis.
Tracey’s primary problem, in my view, is that he is maybe more than a bit clumsy. He tries to make what would be a valid point about the Khanna/Massie bill allowing too much leeway for DoJ redactions, but does it in such an awkward way that it is easily misunderstood. He then can’t get out of the hole he’s dug. I’ve seen him do that before.
You may be right in this particular case, but as my comment directly above indicates, Tracey is most definitely *not* just “clumsy” or “misunderstood” on this issue. His extensive work on the Epstein saga is so biased and in my view so transparently dishonest that I have a hard time believing that he doesn’t know what he is doing. What I can’t quite figure out are his motives for this “debunking” crusade.
I don’t get his take on this either. Even if you grant that he is correct that there is no “pedophile ring” going on here for all the reasons he discusses, that definitely does not mean that there’s nothing to see here at all, which is what Tracey is implying. Ryan Grim’s article from American Conservative in links today connects a few dots and raises even more questions about Epstein’s affiliation with intelligence and money laundering interests.
And while there may be no trafficking ring, something seems rotten and it’s more than just Epstein “liking them young” as his pal Donald once noted. One theory floated here several weeks ago was that Epstein didn’t blackmail anyone but rather used the young women as presents for certain preferred clients. So it’s worth noting the following bit from the Bondi After the Bullets link –
“I became involved with Chabad. I know the internal dynamics — the certainty, the pressure to conform, the distrust of secular education, the discouragement of independent judgment. Jews are told not to think for themselves, not to question too much, not to trust moral instincts that fall outside the approved system.
At the same time, behind this moral absolutism, there is deep hypocrisy.
Sexual abuse was present and widely known within that environment. It was not treated as a moral emergency. It was treated as something to be contained. Authority figures closed ranks. Silence was enforced. The institution protected itself.
I was exposed to this directly. I was not the right person to be exposed to it. No one is. Whatever the psychological dynamics in my own family, it was fundamentally decent, and that contrast only sharpened the damage of what I encountered.
That exposure scarred me permanently.
A movement that claims moral superiority, discourages education, demands obedience and fails to protect its children has forfeited any claim to ethical authority.”
From Sexual Blackmail Makes the World Go ‘Round featured in yesterday’s links, there was this again about Chabad –
“The powerful Chabad Lubavitch sect, which counts Epstein lawyer Alan “I kept my underwear on” Dershowitz and Jared Kushner as adherents, is particularly notorious for protecting child abusers, shuttling offenders between cities (a tactic also used to protect Catholic predators within the priesthood), colluding with secular authorities to bury the charges, and ostracizing parents of victims. One popular Chabad rabbi admitted in 2013 that most of the children in its programs had been sexually abused at some point and even defended the practice as harmless, arguing it was up to the victims how they felt about the experience.”
With everything Grim discusses in his piece, these young women were pretty clearly not the focus of Epstein’s activities. But in Epstein’s dealings as a ‘fixer’, which may be the best way to describe what he was paid to do, and which brought him into intelligence and money laundering circles, he was apparently in contact with people affiliated with the Chabad types who also seemed to like them young. Probably not just a coincidence.
I’m sure Tracey reads the same or similar sources, so there is plenty for an investigative journalist to dig into. Time to cut the Officer Barbrady routine if he wants to maintain credibility.
Tracey’s contortions on Epstein have baffled me for a long time. If I had to guess, I would say money has something to do with it.
On the other hand, Costin “Pervert” Alamariu’s antics are crytsal clear.
The BAP-o-sphere revealed itself to be a gatekeeping operation in the wake of October 7th. It’s like Shapiro’s (aka Benny Passports) only aimed at a younger, always online demographic. Whereas Shapiro is straining to keep the over-40 crowd on the ConInc/ZioCon plantation, BAP is simply trying to keep an already alienated youth from the truth at all costs. As with Chomsky, left and right are masks worn to hide the ethnic nature of what is actually going on here.
The evolutionary psychologist Kevin MacDonald laid out how these ops work in Culture of Critique. While I don’t think MacDonald ultimately proved his thesis, it has not been “debunked” either. The chapter on the means by which Boasian nonsense came to dominate the field of academic anthropology is worth the price of the whole book, although buying a copy will probably get you on one or more lists.
What does “BAP” mean?
From Wikipedia:
“Bronze Age Pervert, also known as BAP or B.A.P.,[1] is a pseudonymous far-right Internet personality, associated with the manosphere.[2] The media has identified Costin Vlad Alamariu[3] (born May 21, 1980), a Romanian-American, as the person behind the pseudonym…”
Though I rarely recommend Wikipedia as a primary source, in this case the article will probably tell you all you want, or need, to know about this poser who uses pseudo-intellectual bs to make pretend-macho racist and misogynistic bullies feel good about themselves.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bronze_Age_Pervert
Example:
https://nitter.poast.org/bronzeagemantis
“Bronze Age Pervert”, the twitter account in question.
The tweet re Israel Shahak’s understanding is well worth internalizing.
> Turning Point: How the GOP consensus on Israel cracked Harpers (guurst)
>> I joined a sea of young people lining up outside the auditorium on Indiana University’s sprawling Bloomington campus for an event sponsored by Kirk’s organization, Turning Point USA.
Jeremy Hogan is a local photojournalist who documented the event. Specifically note, the state police were not pointing sniper rifles at this crowd.
From Dialogue Works. A new Political Action Committee (PAC). utube, ~42+ minutes.
Dr. Michael Rectenwald: AIPAC Losing Control — A New PAC Is Targeting Congress
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIYvPMstdP0
Thanks for the link Flora. I saw Dr. Rectenwald on another broadcast, perhaps Due Dissidence, a few weeks ago. I contributed to Nader and Sander’s campaigns in the past and am very tired of trying to discern the honesty and integrity of politicians. Donating to his PAC may be a solution to my desire to make some kind of impression on our corrupt and morally suspect political system.
I am pleased to report that yesterday we received our seasonal greeting in the form of two seconds more daylight than the day before and that today we will receive a whopping six seconds more daylight than yesterday. https://www.timeanddate.com/sun/usa/san-francisco
A Pardon for Snowden would be good and right.
If I were him, however, I’d stay abroad until some agreement capability began to manifest across US Govt. agencies.
“Bondi after the bullets”
Lots of interesting material on how the Zionists have taken over much of Jewish life in Oz though that word never appears in this piece for some reason. And I would dispute his idea of Bondi being a Jewish suburb. Probably lots of Jewish people live there but Bondi is primarily a beach and surfing suburb and is extremely popular for all Sydneysiders. That is the thing about most people here. Somebody comes up to you and announces that they are a Roman Catholic or a Presbyterian or Jewish and the typical reaction is ‘Sowhat.’ Most people don’t care and people making it a point to announce their religion or politics or sexual orientation is crass if not kinda boring. I would expect this attitude to be true of many countries. But if Chabad keeps on trying to hijack the Bondi shootings to shut down free speech and the right to have demonstrations, this could get bad.
From Caitlin Johnstone’s newsletter.
The Australian Israel Lobby Is Flat-Out Saying They Want A Ban On Criticism Of Israel
https://www.caitlinjohnst.one/p/the-australian-israel-lobby-is-flat
I have been unable to shake the feeling that Democrates (the Charlie Brown ) are just deliberatly setting themselves up to take another run at the football Lucy has set in place.
They want to at least make it a close House lose or win – just as long as they can blame the constituents for this or that issue…the ones that never get debated or are equally avoided by both parties – IMHO that is the plan – no plan
The dems refuse to put any platform together except walking out on a plank supported at one point…..’look at how bad Trump is’ ‘Don’t look at us look over that way’ what gobbsmacking nut clutching theatrics…keep the smurfs entertained BS – What is your platform Democrates….we know that project 2025 is plan for Repubs … where is your plan Dems. IMHO the Dems plans/platform is the same 2025 project 2025 …only difference is in the theater presented to the American public.
Just the pure sit-back-and-do-nothing – let the other side take advantage of saying anything to appease any demographic and offend any demographic…. just don’t put-up anything on the table you democrates. Putting something up might actually require some effort or the fulfilment of those promises,so, don’t even think about it. What utter dumb PR bs.
It looks to me, that the Dems intend to fail or at least make it close…..just to keep the entertainment value high so they can keep the fearmongering high… which brings in the big campaign cash and pays for the cushy and financialy advantagous sought-after committees like Appropriations.
To the voter – you get to cast your vote between what we choose. Crap or crappier, corrupt or more corrupt . and on it goes.
I give an even bet…maybe tilted towards Repubs this upcoming 2026
The only shred of credibility the Dems have left is that they are not Trump. If they completely fail in the midterms then they can’t even claim to be viable as “not Trump” and I suspect they will be replaced by something else.
Unfortunately, I expect the Dems to win the mid-terms by less than expected and continue their deteriorating charade for a little while longer.
This is going to be like 2006. The Dem party will try to derail or wreck the campaigns of anyone who has anything negative about the MIC. Democrats will win the midterms, like they always say, the party in power after a presidential election tends to lose Congress in the midterms. How many times did you hear that when Obama was in the White House? I think the same applies if the party is Republican as well, unless they do what they normally do, break the law, claim they have a mandate.
In my mind, the Democrats have been running on the “I’m Not Him” strategy since at least 2008. They offer nothing else.
What a relief they have ready, willing and able candidates like Kamala, Greasy Gavin and Mayo Pete. /sss
More conventional people like Fetterman get dissed.
Maybe a good house and senate cleaning is in order!
Re: The Return of the Weirdo, the fun thing about doing Psych is that everyday really can be a wonderful new surprise. There might be less but ‘deviant’/’neurodivergent’/’weird’ people are still around, maybe just masking themselves better.
“JD Vance: Nick Fuentes ‘can eat shit’ ”
Vance is right. Nick Fuentes called his wife a “jeet” and labeled the Vice President a race-traitor for marrying her. Vance should have the sob charged with racial discrimination. Or smacked him in the gob. Either works.
It’s going to be fascinating to see whether or not Usha converts to Catholicism, so that li’l JD gets to be President.
Nick Fuentes has one of the most punchable faces on the Internets, which is an achievement in itself. I got that imperssion from the first video of his I have seen (link below), and it hasn’t changed a bit.
https://www.bitchute.com/video/RAXNTYNPIEL7
It’s not that he is using slurs, or that he’s trying hard to be edgy, but that he’s very bad at it, and still keeps on pushing. Insult comedy is a thing that is not easy to pull off, and monkey-see-monkey-do approach just does not cut it (unless the audience consists exclusively of monkes, I guess). Wrestlemania scriptwriters are better.
I can never distinguish between Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro though…
Gioia’s weirdos–
Fun article, and I can testify about everything turning into shades of gray. There are two subdivisions on the way down to our son’s family that have various shades of gray exteriors. Take a look at residential real estate listings–gray; gray; gray–in every room. Things weren’t quite that bad in the days of Malvina Reynolds:
Malvina Reynolds “Little Boxes” (1961)
No, Malvina, they weren’t quite all the same yet. It took another 60 years to get there.
As for being weird, Hendrix put it pretty well:
Jimi Hendrix, “If Six Was Nine” (1967)
The ladies at the infusion center desk try hard to be nice to the miserable, and one day, a young woman complimented me on my fuzzy, middle-of-the-back ponytail that has been growing since the day Lehman fell. I responded by explaining it was a “freak flag,” complete with the context and recitation of the Hendrix lyric above while waving my shaggy tail. “Why, Mr Henry,” as she cackled.
I think that might mean that I’m not “smooth.” ;)
HMP,
Freak. Right there with you. Between Frank Zappa’s “Hungry Freaks, Daddy”, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0JTNVkhyS8 from his first LP “Freak Out”, and Jimi’s “If Six Was Nine”, I never considered myself a Hippie.
Flower Power my a$$.
– ‘Epstein seen kissing, cuddling little girls in stomach-turning new photos released by DOJ’ – New York Post. This ought to be in the price….
There are a lot of games being played in this fake “Epstein files” release; the dueling spinmeisters are working overtime. Clearly most of the pictures so far seem pretty innocuous, if not all completely innocent. Some, like the pics of Michael Jackson’s kids with (barely) blurred faces as if they were victims, seem meant to confuse, or to be used to show that the whole Epstein kerfuffle is a “nothingburger.” I may be wrong, but for me these Post pictures strike me that way. They could well be innocent, allowing someone like Michael Tracey to come along later and “debunk” them.
I do not want to minimize the sexual abuse issue in any way. But the media should be paying more attention to the issues discussed in that American Conservative article (from Drop Site News) by Ryan Grim et al. I bet they won’t.
Editing is an art for which it is equally important to know what not to change as well as what to change. Back in the 1970s (when I had first come across it) through the 1980s, McGraw-Hill had an Editing Department that oversaw editing and maintained high standards. And then at some point in the late 1980s, the department was dropped. It’s all about profits.
Chet G: As someone with a long, long career as an editor, I find that deBoer protests too much. His description of how and why to do revisions does not satisfy. One simply has to revise. As someone who also writes for the stage, I can assure you that almost every playwright revises the script for any new production.
This is not what editing is about: “It should always be remembered that editing is a specific, rare skill that requires a unique blend of total empathy for the writer’s intent and a totally cold-blooded attitude regarding the writer’s feelings. When you find a good editor, you know it, and you want to work with them again.”
That paragraph is psychobabble. The problems editors face are (1) making sure that the language used is clear and serves the reader, (2) making sure that a piece fits the physical space in a publication (something deBoer’s over-long piece at SubStack doesn’t take into account because SubStack = infinity), and, again, dealing with physical restraints, keeping a book to a certain size.
English is supposed to be sleek. Instead, social media have induced a kind of logorrhea. Endless pieces on SubStack. Interviews on YouTube that go on for hours (really, Joe Rogan?). Sloppy words of the moment (“data”) and repetition of clichés of the tribe (“kabuki”).
And as an editor of books, I won’t even go into the kind of graphs, charts, maps, and “favorite” photos that authors will submit.
Empathy? No, I’m not a doctor. An eye for what works — yes, as an editor and writer.
I agree with you all the way. DeBoer (oh, the temptation to write “DeBore” is almost too strong) is too self-indulgent. The piece could be half the length, more to the point although probably just as unintelligible.
RT Made another nice Christmas video for Europeans with VPNs or other anti-democratic tools for accessing forbidden channels:
https://spotmedia.ro/en/news/news/the-russians-mock-europeans-in-a-propaganda-clip-released-for-christmas-its-all-because-of-putin-video
Aaw, not bad but does not compare to this one, Project Grandpa: https://www.rt.com/news/589720-rt-meddling-video-biden/
And to think videos from Russia used to look like this! (Possibly worth hoisting into links for the missed opportunity of it all).
https://nitter.poast.org/BigGulpAmerikan/status/2003269100949373203#m
Here’s direct link to video on X
https://x.com/MyLordBebo/status/2003417580753793197
From Democrats renew government shutdown threat as tensions flare with Trump
LOL, so Democrats are threatening to hurt people again and deliver nothing. F**k these people.
These people are trash; What leverage do you think you have? You caved, for nothing but a promise of a vote.
There’s even less leverage now than before.
What a worthless party, obsessed with grifting and internal power dynamics.
Liberal Democrats do not care about real action on Climate change, this is just a virtue signal. Having the data and believing in Magic Pony solutions isn’t the flex that liberal Democrats think it is.
By shutting down wind projects? For national security reason? … which are classified? That is beyond ludicrous. You shut them down because Donnie does not like wind projects and you bowed, left the TRUMP oval office and shut them down.
But that is not my real beef with you Doug. “… prime duty is to protect the American people.” I would say the preamble to the constitution lays out what the “prime duty” of the government is, but you guys pay so nlittle attention to the constitution that you may not be aware of what it charges you to do. I was going quote the Preamble, but I presume you are literate, never a certainty these days, so I leave it to you to have a minion scurry around, find a copy, and read the preamble to you as you attend to your important duties. Couple of extracts and yes, “provide for the common defense ” in there. {What does a fleet off the coast of Venezuela have to do with that?} That is followed by “promote the general Welfare.” Doesn’t look to me that you folks are doing much on that front. Maybe the word “welfare” throws you off or could it be “general” as that would imply treating everyone more or less equally and, from where I stand, that seems a cause for laughter in your circle. Corporate welfare? Absolutely. Tender loving care of donors? You bet. Pardons for … I don’t know how to characterize the wave of pardons … let’s go with this Pardons for the Politically Perfect. Not quite, but close enough. To swing back to the top, I should be fascinated to know the national security concerns raised by wind farms off shore. I should tell you that I, and I am certain a sizable cohort among our fellow citizens, have a somewhat jaded view of the use of the term “national security.” It too often had an odor of mendacity, embarrassment, ass covering or ignorance.
The above was meant to be headed by this quote. “The prime duty of the United States government is to protect the American people,” said Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum.
FYI – was this the WSJ article? I’m Worried About Toxic Fumes on My Upcoming Flight—What Can I Do?
Archive link works on both archive.is and archive.ph….. maybe it hadn’t gotten processed when the links were getting assembled?
When I’ve tried it gets stuck before even adding it to the queue. Glad someone can get it.
Billboard is of course an industry shill, and it shows in the copy: Spotify Music Library Scraped by Pirate Activist Group, “nefarious” account, etc.
Like anyone is really going to put 300TB worth of hard drives in their living room. (speaking of which, how did Spotify not notice an account downloading 300TB of data?!? They obviously weren’t paying attention…)
In the Anna’s Archive post, there’s an interesting tidbit buried among all the rest of the interesting info they’ve pulled out of the metadata:
If we group albums by release year, we see that more and more new music is added to Spotify, a lot of it likely automatically generated:
The graph is worth clicking on. 2+ Million albums added to the database in the last year! Cui bono? . Maybe the rumors of server farms ‘listening’ to tracks to siphon off artist payments might have some merit, no?
If you buy the biggest drives available, you could easily fit a very high powered server and storage rack of 500Tb in a space of less than a half a broom closet. If you’re going to monetize it, you’ll need redundancy, multiple locations and a good contract with a telecom. Hire some remote support people in the Philippines. Power consumption would be something of an issue, but not as much as running an electric oven 24/7. Not that I recommend doing it, but cloning one of the music services would not be hard at all.
No really they won’t, P100’s are particulate filters though like P95’s they aren’t neutralized by oil (that’s the difference between P and N). To stop gases you need a gas mask, and gas masks usually take a range of filter cartridges that filter specific types of gases. The next thing after that is SCBA which is the same as SCUBA but for on land (the U stands for underwater). Firefighters wear oxygen tanks (SCBA) when they have to deal with unknown gases.
On the respirator for fumes issue, P100 filters are higher filtration and fluid resistant. For what would seem to be VOC contamination, the 3M elastomeric and presumably others have an ‘organic vapor’ cartridge that does both filtration and handles volatiles. Works really well, I have used it in the past for oil based paint spraying and one can’t even detect any odor.
The ‘Masculinity Crisis’ Is Real. This Book Explains Why..
Probably makes getting class solitary harder .
Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico seems to be the king of cool. They just opened up the Visnove Tunnel which is the country’s longest motorway tunnel at 7.5 km-long. So to inaugurate it, he rollerbladed through the entire length of that tunnel-
https://www.rt.com/news/629887-fico-opens-new-tunnel/
Buncombe county NC register of deeds changes $10 per official death certificate.
We already paid with a life.
What more could you possibly want?
The enclosed receipt says have a nice day.
In other news, fcc bans drones because they work, creating a conflict with the pervasive national interest which is geared towards breaking everything. Experts are puzzled. Why do the chinese make things that work?
This would be a excellent time for Denmark and Greenland to become Russia’s new besties, although I suspect it’s too late for Denmark but not for Greenland particularly if it want new partners to help them develop the economy to make for a truly independent Greenland as a partner working with its natural friends in BRICS’ former European colonies: Macron reaffirms France’s support for sovereignty of Denmark, Greenland https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/macron-reaffirms-france-s-support-for-sovereignty-of-denmark-greenland/3778478