Thursday, February 16, 2017
Trump's Russian spiral
The solid mass is beginning to form, something substantive that may lead to a Congressional investigation and possible impeachment of President Trump down the road. The story is that members of his campaign and even inner circle regularly had communications with members of Russian intelligence. Was it to discuss cronut recipes or perhaps a future vodka market for a newly refurbished Trump Vodka brand? I've long said most of the GOP would be perfectly willing to throw Mr. Trump under the bus if the Democrats start making enough trouble. Only the Michelle Malkins and the Daystar crowd would go to the mat for him. Of course the press hates him and will only keep digging. IMO President Trump's days in office may be politically numbered.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
British bookies gave him a 75% chance of finishing his term on inauguration day, but their oddsmaking has been proportional to his talk and action. As of today it looks
ReplyDeleteabout 50-50. I watched part of his press conference and must admit it was unique as those things go.
I hear KellyAnne Conway will probably be leaving soon. Tough job.
ReplyDeleteToo bad. At least she doesn't LOOK as sinister as the rest of the bunch. You think you have had tough bosses. There hasn't been this much to joke about in administration politics since old Ron Zeigler, Nixon's Press Secretary, would come out half an hour after the press conference and
ReplyDeleteannounce "the statements I made 43 minutes ago are inoperative". In other humorous news, I read a piece by some dude who compared Lincoln and Trump favorably. Now,
where can I find some fitted Ivanka western jeans for men?
Sen. Lindsey Graham and Bob Corker are both joining ranks with Schumer in calling for a Congressional investigation into the Russia affair. I think the game plan here is they ultimately want Pence as president. The Greyhound is coming, Trump is standing on the curb...
ReplyDeleteThe other conspiracy theory is that Obama is working behind the scenes to undermine Trump with the vacationing water sports being a ruse. The logical flaw here is no conspiracy is needed. Trump undermines himself.
ReplyDeleteWe think the Gostiny Dvor
ReplyDeleteDepartment store in St. Petersburg has a full Ivanka line.
After some borscht and vodka, you can toddle over for some
jewelry-tell the Bannon sent you for a 15 ruble discount.
My midweek adventure involved "Bring Grandpa to school for
ReplyDeleteValentine Day". Three hours west on highway 12. Last 40 miles through dense fog (could barely see the impeach Obama
signs). I was introduced to a dozen or so 3rd grade Monessori pupils and taught orgami folding. Overnight in motel, dorked up TV and had to have mgr. come fix it. Got up in morning to freezing rain. Went out and walked onto
some glare ice, did some 75 year old gymnastics before making a perfect landing on my butt. Motel concerned I was
badly hurt. My feelings yes, but I told them, while it
hurt, the only problem was that the landing caused the $20
bill in my billfold to turn into some small bills and change. Had to wait six hours until the glare ice on the highways was taken care of. Lunch in very small town on
Columbia plateau. Highpoint of trip. Burger/mustard and onions only, and some homemade fries. Cook sat down with
us and discussed my motel fall. Temp on car thermometer
went from "Warning roads may be icy" to 23 degrees, then
up and down for 150 miles until home at 41 degrees. Lesson:
people shouldn't travel in late winter.
WHY has a Russian intelligence spy ship complete with surface-to-air missiles been spotted 30 miles east of Groton CT? Great pals the Donald has!
ReplyDeleteAccording to alt-news/conspiracy theory, the vessel is
Deletedisguised as a spy ship, but is actually a cargo ship out of Sevastopol carrying 385,000 bottles of unmarked and untaxed vodka to be smuggled to the Trump Vodka bottling plant outside Bootlegger, VT.
And it came to pass in later days, a great prophet appeared.
ReplyDeleteFor behold, he spake and
doth expound to the flock of 700 Club sheep.
Judging by the lack of 200 comments so far I think we're all suffering from Trump exhaustion. Even Shaw has to buy food.
ReplyDeleteTrump Effect?
DeleteSo what's new on the CERN front? Any new subatomic particles?
ReplyDeleteD-Wave has open-sourced their quantum ware: since a qubit spins both ways simultaneously,
ReplyDeletewhile a "normal bit" must be either 1 or 0, any program
must be written by either a quantum physicist or mathematician. One consequence is there isn't much interest (consider it mysterious to people like Gates and Jobs) or even practical application. And it follows that
potential sales are limited. So, they seek input from users
of current technology that they can develop a translator
ware which allows 'normal' or practical programing of the
device. You may want to submit 'Mandela Enigma' and see
which way it spins.
There's a really excellent article by Aeon about cognitive neuroscience and how it explains the Mandela enigma. However it's not fully satisfactory and falls short imo. It's a kind of glossover debunking effort imo full of technical concepts instead of just saying we don't know. Yeah what's the average person gonna do with a D-Wave anyway run some complicated algorithms?
DeleteIt's hard to see everyday applications for D-wave, but novel
ReplyDeletetechnology often explodes; consider the old hundreds of tubes in the first computer built to crack the Nazi code
or the old dudes horsing around with a battery or even the
nameless guy that fiddled with wheels back while some other
guy was tinkering with written language. IMO (and I've probably mentioned it before) the Mandela Effect is a memory confusion thing; most examples are phrases from movies or books..its not like you get your Mom's name wrong, ya know? IMO, the interesting thing about it is the
people who consider it sort of a hobby. There are certainly worse hobbies. CERNwise, we ponder the long list of weird subatomic particles, the causes, effects
and place in the universe puzzle. I'm thinking the 'graviton' related to gravitational force may be the
next biggy. Since these things are all to tiny to be imagined, they give them 'properties' and they shift from
particle to wave to some ephemeral concept. (BTW, there may be a copyright on graviton...I think it may be a circus ride
or something)
Probably in the majority of cases it's a memory confusion thing. God knows I'm not up nights wondering if KitKat ever had a hyphen or not. However what's never explained is how a large group of people in this case James Bond fans remember Dolly's braces and these are people who never heard of the Mandela Effect and aren't hobbyists in the paranormal. Also can't explain why Ed McMahon never worked for Publishers Clearinghouse. But like the reddit discussions the debate never really goes anywhere.
DeleteThe Large Hadron Collider - I believe it's like something like a 17 mile long tunnel and it's well underneath the Swiss/French border. Many would question the importance of building such a thing. It's like we cured cancer and the other big diseases and we have free time to tinker around. What's a muon done for me lately? Probably an ok job though. You're not killing yourself from the moment you punch in 'til the time you clock out like alot of jobs these days and you might meet a nice graviton woman.
DeleteUsed to be women in science were nerdy and drab. But
Deletethere are is some glamour in theoretical physics and
the life sciences. Of course those gals prefer to
be admired for their brains. I mean, how would you like to be referred to as a boy toy ?
I heard a theoretical physicist got tanked at a CERN party
ReplyDeleteand referred to the Higgs Boson and Boss Higson.
Apparently the worldwide Hum is now thought to be caused by large waves hitting the ocean floor setting off microseisms or the droning noise. Has a certain romantic appeal despite the annoyance. Meanwhile the 98% of local populations who don't hear it don't know what the hell the other 2% are talking about.
ReplyDeleteI sort of favor the SOE Effect : obviously a problem
Deletefor the D-Wave (which BTW emits its own hum)
Bad Link: I accidently pressed the alt-fakenews button. So
ReplyDeleteSpontaneous Otoacoustic Emissions-
"Human ears generate their own noises, called spontaneous otoacoustic emissions (SOAE). Various studies have showed that 38–60% of adults with normal hearing have them, although the majority are unaware of these sounds. The people who do hear these sounds typically hear a faint buzzing or ringing, especially if they are otherwise in complete silence. Researchers who looked at the Taos Hum considered otoacoustic emissions as a possibility, and eventually concluded that this was likely the case."
__my own study in the area finds the same effect during and
after a Trump press conference.
SOAE doesn't quite do it for me. Kinda like if God built a stereo inside your head. As far as tinnitus goes any theory is as good as any other theory.
DeleteSo, Trump is off to Florida for a campaign rally. He must
ReplyDeletelove the chants of 'Lock her up'. What a peculiar president.
The Right really seems to dig him. I'm uncomfortable.
ReplyDeleteWhen I was watching his campaign rally in FL on the news (bearing in mind he's already president) I figured the brain has image files stored away and some neurons were misfiring for the moment. Give it time to clear, wake up and read about it in the paper the next day.
ReplyDeleteI think he got all excited about winning and isn't really into the actual governing part. He thrives on positive attention. McCain made some good points talking about how that's the way dictators get started...Trump is trying to set up the media as the enemy of the public. Either way I think things are approaching a critical mass and the Republicans are going to have to do something whether they like it or not. I agree they would probably be thrilled to have Pence. He seems tractable and useless enough to be a real tool for Paul Ryan. I think now's just a waiting game to see how long it takes for them to realize that he can't be defended and they have to take action.
ReplyDeleteYall get me out of my league with these muons and quantum physics.
If I were McCain I'd retire at this point.
DeleteIt seems that Breitbart writing vicious lies about Hillary
ReplyDeleteand the GOP congress investigating her constantly over the
last generation and a half worked. We The People are a bunch of suckers.
You can blame Breitbart all you want but if y'all had gotten behind an anti-electoral college movement years ago and if it were successful Hillary would be president right now. You're looking for who to blame, I'm looking at it from the pov of cool mathematics. Gore should have been a wakeup call.
DeleteIn reviewing Feb 20 historical trivia, we note the defeat of
ReplyDeleteDon Trump's great great great grand uncle at sea-
"1653 Defeat of Dutch fleet under Adm Van Tromp by Adm Blake off Portsmouth" ..and ponder, where is Adm Blake
when you need him?
Is there any hope at all?
ReplyDeleteCan we keep posting in the open thread post? I have zero interest in all things Trump and politricks.
ReplyDeleteWhat else ya got?
I bought a couple of new J. Henckels. Makes food prep a whole lot easier when you have a sharp knife.
How's the Chef Ming Aeroknife?
DeleteNever used one of those. I got a Hollow Edge Santoku and a carving knife.
DeleteWhat do you think of the ceramic knives? My favorite knife is ceramic with a 4" blade. I never seem to do as well with the regular sizes.
ReplyDeleteOn my old job most people used metal knives to chop up lettuce to make garden salads. Only problem was lettuce would go bad quicker by using a metal knife so I'm all for using plastic and ceramic knives for other purposes. Never used a ceramic knife though.
DeleteHow 'bout wireless charging ?
ReplyDeleteThat has to have some ill side effects.
DeleteIt's all an overreliance and overconfidence in the latest technology. Today I saw a fellow co-worker, a woman park her car. She has one of them newer cars that after you leave your car the headlights automatically shut off after about a minute so she walked away as is typical. Now 9 times out of 10 the car will turn the lights off but what if it doesn't? Here's where it pays to have a little ocd/anxiety syndrome. Personally I'd stand there a few yards away until the lights went off but that's just me.
DeleteNot to sound like Alex Jones but WHY was it so important for Congress a few years ago to mandate a change from analog to digital tv channels? On the plus side though I only recently learned that Jennifer Lawrence once starred as a rebellious teenage daughter on the sitcom The Bill Engvall Show well before Hunger Games.
DeleteOur "metro' area is about 50,000. We have three taxis and no Uber. Is that because most of us drive pickups?
ReplyDeleteI guess Idahoans aren't yet ready for the flying car.
DeleteYeah, lot of them still stuck on horses. But, it
Deletehas some desirable features, like immunity from
stoplight cams. Wonder if my driver's license requires a certified pilot endorsement?
If I have the list straight NBC is fake news. So is the NY Times and for Trump the BBC. Wash. Post...CNN:I have a flying car to sell you;)
ReplyDelete"Then the face of Big Brother faded away again and instead the three slogans of the Party stood out in bold capitals:
DeleteWAR IS PEACE
FREEDOM IS SLAVERY
IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH" '1984' -Orwell
"You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.” -Donald Trump
"Ecrasez l'infame" -Voltaire
"Whoever controls the media, the images, controls the culture." - Allen Ginsberg
DeleteThe concept of flying cars is not so far-fetched but most experts say 2020, probably 2025. The CNN Money article written in 2015 breathlessly said 2017 as when flying planes will probably hit the market. Um we're in 2017 and Google is still testing their self-driving cars. The only thing missing from the CNN link was a blurb for the Siberian Sounds from Hell Remix.
DeleteSo we should be thankful that Rupert Murdoch runs the media and not the government. But, even Murdoch
Deleterecognizes that electronic media precludes 'control':
"I wasn't weaned on the web nor coddled on a computer. Instead, I grew up in a highly centralized world where news and information were tightly controlled by a few editors, who deemed to tell us what we could and should know. My two young daughters, on the other hand, will be digital natives." If Facebook, Rap, movies, and current TV
are culture, I am uncultured, apparently immune.
I don't particularly care for the msm but calling them an enemy of the American people is taking it too far. For me they're just too boring and homogenized churning out the same news day after day.
DeleteI echo your sentiment Z. For me, what I like is Wiki, twitter, reddit...
DeleteI like getting information from as close to the source as possible. If someone posts some garbage there is another who will counter that with what they might have seen or heard. Boots on the ground...people in the know..that sorta thing.
Back to the original subject re: Vodka...in St. Paul on the Cathedral Hill there is this restaurant called Moscow on the Hill and they feature a lot of various types of vodka from all over the world. You can order flights to sample some of them. Very nice restaurant and very classy.
http://moscowonthehill.com/
Their vodka offerings > http://moscowonthehill.com/menu-drinks.php
DeleteI'll drink vodka from time to time but I prefer brandy. Here's what I mean about the msm. I don't need the media to tell me whether Breitbart is a bad site. That's for me to decide. If I want to browse Alex Jones that's also for me to decide if it's a bad site or not. I don't need the NY Times telling me what to think. They still don't think they're biased though. To them it's just objective reality that Breitbart is bad.
DeleteI can understand vodka as a mixer, but to drink it
Deletestraight like a Trotskyite you either have to be
a Russky or a vodka connoisseur. It all tastes the same to me, but then so do Coke and Pepsi.
Somebody told me vodka is Drano for the body. I prefer to mix it as well.
DeleteI think McCain said it best: by making the media out to be an enemy it is to take the first step towards a dictatorship. Okay, that was a paraphrase.
ReplyDeleteWe got this survey from the Census bureau today, the American Community Survey. It's a chosen randomly kind of thing. It took a good 20 minutes to do it (they said it would take 40) and they ask you questions about EVERYTHING. Even things like what do you do at your job and can you not see well even with glasses. I don't particularly mind this kind of thing, I'm not doing anything illegal and I am not horrified at the thought that someone in the government knows where I work. Hell, I work FOR the government. So that's done and I'm still legal (your response is mandated by law). Chris, I can hear you flipping out over this all the way in Roxboro, NC. It's not that big of a deal to me and it might prove useful to someone in the long run. This area needs all the help it can get. So far all we have are KKK victory parades and tobacco.
The thing about what McCain said is it's slightly off. Trump is NOT Hitler in the making. Get off that trip already! We have too many checks and balances.
DeleteAttacking the news media and calling it fake when you disagree with it is fascist. Of the journalists I know, they are to a person professional, dedicated to
Deletetheir craft and report from verifiable sources. I don't know any of the Breitbart people, but I don't
hang around KKK meetings and redneck bars.
"We have too many checks and balances." If only:
Deletewe have one party in charge of everything. Rep
Chaffitz, for example, who was shouted down at his
last Utah town hall, has been begged to investigate
Russian hacking to swing our election. His response
was to begin another investigation of Hillary. A one party state: the Third Reich. The Soviet Union.
Dunno, if Kellyanne says its OK, maybe.
The People voted for all this BB, that's how it works. They didn't ascend their offices through brute force. Fascistic analogies do not apply.
DeleteThe media is and should not be immune to criticism. I don't doubt they're hardworking and professional but they're biased. Why are they biased? Because they're human. They're in denial. Hire Watson.
DeleteBTW why should Russian hacking have swayed the election? If the DNC didn't work to undermine Bernie Sanders what's to hack?
DeleteAs we recall, the people voted for Hitler too. Those who don't recall history....
DeleteBut if you persist in denigrating journalism and
hawking alt-fake news, we recommend the head editor
job at Breitbart. Which just opened up. Again.
My conspiracy theory: Clinton led Trump by 10-12
points three weeks before the election: wikileaks
opened their Russian hacking files; her lead evaporated and she only won by 3 million; all those
released files contained nada, zilch. The Putin-Trump team won. So far, this has been suppressed by
the total GOP control. BTW, bias isn't taught in Journalism school, although as you note, it is a human trait. Bias gets you blown up in explosives
research, but is a great trait for marketing, selling and politicians. That Breitbart editor was
kind of an odd type, no?
Flying cars in 2017? (CNN Money Report) linked before. Alt-news? Take your pick.
DeleteJournalism is not a sacred cow nor should it be. That tech editor w/pedophile views, I saw one story today at one of the msm links saying how this reflects on conservatism as a whole. It doesn't. It could also happen to a liberal or moderate group and I wouldn't hold it against them. He got kicked out right?
DeleteNothing is a sacred cow..if it ever was. The Breitboy resigned. He was an Englishman, sort of
Deleteunusual for a US editor. Mostly, it seems, he was
an agitprop type, speaking at college campuses just
to provoke riots, etc. You are correct about conservatism: like any thing else it ranges from
the ridiculous to the sublime. The far right, like the far left, has little tolerance and so people like George Will, David Brooks, even Jeb Bush are
excoriated and people like Hannity elevated. IMO,
that is detrimental to the group as a whole, Next
consider "Somebody told me vodka is Drano for the body". Back in the day, its primary use as a mixer
was in the Molotov Cocktail.
Here's the thing about Breitbart. I've only been on the site twice and barely a minute at that. The more the msm talks about it the more people are gonna wanna go on.
DeleteAn interesting interview .
ReplyDeleteGreat link. I like the idea of companion robots. Take them out for dinner, they're cheap. When they stop
Deleteflattering you, pull their plug. Presumably, wireless
charging would be a necessity. While personally, I
would not require the anthropic features, the heavy
tracked, bullet-headed, deep-voiced, blinking eye type might well scare children and cats, ya know?
With AI though I'd be afraid of something going wrong. Sophia killing me in my sleep ya know?
DeleteNo worries; you would sleep and physiologically recharge while Sophia was placed in 'sleep mode' and plugged into the wall socket to electrically recharge. But, if you continue to worry, maybe try
Deleteone of those robot dogs first.
Do we really need quantum computers. ...and how many
ReplyDeletemega qubits should a smartphone have?
Some evangelicals take a dim view of the creation of antimatter. One site calls it particles charged from the depths of hell and that's why an antihydrogen atom has everything reversed from the normal hydrogen atom state. Evangies know so much.
DeleteKeeping abreast of the mandela effect subreddit. The bizarre thing is if you're honest a few of them ring true. Take South America - many redditors will point out that on the most recent maps SA is too far to the east. I loved geography as a kid and clearly remember maps showing SA directly in a line under North America. So did the CIA put acid in the Froot Loops?
DeleteI don't think the old checks and balances are what they used to be. You have the oversight committee refusing to oversee, you have rank and file Republicans making excuses and overlooking BLATANT lies and the entire Russia thing and the media is being made into an enemy. BB is right: Hitler was elected. It can happen here...in some ways it's already happening here. To deny is to be in denial.
ReplyDeleteAnd it trickles down: now when angry constituents show up at town halls they're dismissed as 'paid protestors'. Nobody's got to pay those people to protest. They're pissed and rightfully so. It just gives, again, a way for the rank and file to make excuses. And for someone with Jews in the family Trump hasn't got many friends in the Jewish community at large. He didn't even mention them on Holocaust Remembrance Day.
ReplyDeleteI doubt if Trump is even capable of writing a Mein Kampf.
ReplyDeleteFrom uber liberal 'Green Eagle'
ReplyDeletePJ Media: "'People in America Are Getting Tired of the 24/7 Pile-On' of Trump"
Are you kidding me? This is the greatest thing since Snakes on a Plane came out.
His overly aggressive and hostile press conferences are alone worth the price of admission. Liberal guy at work who can't stand him downloaded the last one.
Delete"It’s crazy what we are watching every day,” he continued. “It’s absolutely crazy. He keeps repeating ridiculous throwaway lines that are not true at all and sort of avoiding this issue of Russia as if we are some kind of fools for asking the questions. Really? Your opposition was hacked and the Russians were responsible for it and your people were on the phone with Russia on the same day it was happening and we are fools for asking these questions? No sir, we are not fools for asking this question and we demand to know the answer to this question. You owe this to the American people…. We have a right to know.”
Delete-Shepard Smith, FoxNews
"‘Look, we’re big boys. We criticize presidents,” Wallace told his colleagues on Fox & Friends. “They want to criticize us back, that’s fine. But when he said that the fake news media is not my enemy, it’s the enemy of the American people, I believe that crosses an important line.’’
Wallace knew he was going to rile viewers. But that didn’t hold him back. ‘‘And I know there are a lot of (Fox News) listeners out there who are going to reflexively take Donald Trump’s side on this,’’ said Wallace, who anchors Fox News Sunday and joined the network in 2003. ‘‘It’s a different thing when it’s a president — because if it’s a president you like trying to talk about the press being the enemy of the people, then it’s going to be a president you don’t like saying the same thing. And that’s very dangerous.’’
---FoxNews guys acting like professional journalists. Whatsup with that?
I long for the days of Gerald Ford the harmless president. With Trump there is no gravitas. You criticize the press you criticize all of the press. Rehashing the election I don't think it should have been him vs. her but I'm repeating myself.
DeleteOl Ford was the kind of guy you could sit at the bar with for a couple hours.
DeleteProbably wouldn't know what to do with a tweeter.
DeleteAs part of the Crackdown is Trump gonna round up all the illegal nannies?
ReplyDeleteCould be a problem. Not sure how many nannies, illegal or otherwise, there are, but that would live a lot of little kids on the loose all of a sudden.
DeleteClever entrepreneurs might quickly flood the robotic
nanny market, though. "Nanny B715, you have cold hands when you change my diapers".
Wonder how many Repubs have illegal nannies.
DeleteWhen I think of nannies, I think of the famous one
Deletepercent. Interestingly, the political leanings of that well heeled group are about the same as the
99%. We might suspect therefore that illegal nannies are evenly distributed. Are they cheaper than legal nannies? I have read articles that some
groups, Asian, east indian, east European sometimes
trick women from those countries to work practically free for years. (Like you and me)
In the Department of Apathy Leads to Chaos:
ReplyDeleteTrump was elected by 27% of eligible voters. Loser Clinton
got 28.2% and 44.8% did not vote. The US is the only modern
country such a large number do not vote. (We are just below
Estonia)
I don't think you'll see such apathy anytime soon. Democratic committees nationwide are being swamped with volunteers looking for a mission.
DeleteBB it's not always apathy. Many people were horrified by the two choices. Saty you can't just impeach the guy for being a dick.
DeleteI don't know if there truly is salvation outside of the Catholic Church but if there is, it sure as hell ain't in politricks. Find something worthwhile to invest your time and energy towards. Like I dunno...a good homemade chicken noodle soup. How bout you go with that.
DeleteIMO there's no salvation outside of being a nice person. IMO the simple mechanics of damnation is that many people die without ever feeling sorry for what they've done. My Mom's viewpoint: they're with their own kind now. Maybe that's what all the screeching and wailing is about. Did Dante have a special place for politicians?
DeleteRE: "it's not always apathy." If not, Hobson's Choice or Morton's Fork? IMO, if one is not content
Deletewith either choice, they can select the least objectionable or risk getting the most objectionable. Prescience and analysis should inform.
Restaurant menu offers only goat testicles or cow brains...Many people would walk out. By your political extrapolation I have to choose to be a good citizen.
DeleteThat restaurant; is that a Nigerian place in Yonkers?
DeleteLol. Another example. Let's say it's the Rev. Pat Robertson as the official Republican presidential nominee vs. the Rev. Al Sharpton as the Democrat candidate. Large swaths of Americans strongly dislike both but conventional political wisdom would have it that you have to vote for one of them otherwise you're an apathetic American watching Judge Judy with your hand down your pants. I'm just not understanding why you can't non-vote with a clear conscience.
DeleteYeah, probably. If Hillary had won, Steve Bannon and Kellyanne Conway would have been on your case:
DeleteI suspect they are more irritating than me. One of my pet voting peeves are the many local and county
offices which have one person running..with the instruction [vote for one]. Even if they receive no
votes, they win; why even be on the ballet?
Z: there is a link to the Marcel Lefebvre documentary on Youtube if you care to watch it. It periodically makes an appearance and after a short time gets taken down for copyright. I've had a handful of friends, both with and without any religious affilation, watch it
ReplyDeleteand they quite enjoyed it. As with any good documentary, it is a well done story of one man's life and overcoming adversity.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVFe82iK-f4&t=1s
Trouble with YT is I can't focus on one thing. You look up a video on cancer cures and at the end of the day you're watching Sasquatch footage.
DeleteAstronomers are excited about the seven planet system around
ReplyDeleteTrappist-1, three of which are suitable for life. Rumors among astrophyisicists have it that a close up of the third
planet had a sign saying 'Another new Trump hotel'. Not sure about the odds of a planet being 'suitable' actually
having life is...maybe amoebas are the top form there?
Colonies on Mars - I've long theorized the gov't has been working on this for quite some time so when we finally do blow up the planet Dick Cheney and other VIPs will have a place to live.
DeleteCheney and his heart transplant; did they give him
Deletea good bona fide neocon heart, or that of some homeless woman that starved to death? IMO, probably
a mechanical Darth Vader turbo pump. A major factor
in making Bush2 look bad, also IMO.
Sweden remains a worker's paradise .
ReplyDeleteSomewhere God is frowning. Logistically speaking would there be one room for this and I'm assuming your typical worker goes to the crapper at least once a day so you'd have to have showers. Janitor has to clean up any mess...looks good on paper;)
DeleteThe more news I see the more I want off this rock.
DeleteIn this country we're overworked. Over there they're doing anything but work.
DeleteI'll have to admit I was starting to go in this direction .
ReplyDeleteThings HAVE changed. Used to be I got in the mail every early January a NYS tax booklet to help with my state taxes. My Dad always helps and not being into tablets I prefer the booklet for him. None in the mail so far so I hit several public libraries and they don't have them either but they have the federal booklets. Few years back they didn't have the fed booklets but plenty of the state ones. It's like everyone's in some kind of fugue state. I mean look how they voted.
ReplyDeleteWhat think you of Francis latest that it's better to be an atheist than a hypocritical Christian?
ReplyDeleteIt's also better to be a Protestant than a Protestant Catholic. ;-)
DeleteFrancis may be right .
DeleteIn a word Catholic Charities. Curious BB what key words did you type into the search engine?
DeleteI've never been a big fan of studies one way or the other. A group of 1,000+ people can't be said to represent the views of say 5 million people. Perhaps atheists also watch less porn. It's suggestive but not empirical science.
DeleteIt's a confusing topic; some think atheism is a structured religion, some think it is a secular philosophy, others a rejection or dislike of organized religion and still others think it is people who watch TV Sunday mornings or go golfing.
DeleteIMO the secular crowd, or at least part of it, tend
to be humanists, more so than the strictly religious. They perhaps see their life and times as
possibly the only heaven they will know and their
giving subsequently is based on genuine care for
their fellows, rather than nagging fear of what happens after death. Like Mark Twain, who figured
he wasn't alive for millions of years before he was born, so why worry about after. Buffet, Gates etc.
are atheist-agnostics who are quite charitable.
Perhaps Francis has been peeking in the bible again:
"Isaiah 29:13 And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote." True, surveys are suggestive, but keep in mind that atheist-agnostics divorce less than most
religions. Humanism, IMO: Erasmus without the baggage of the dogma construct.
The godless rock!
DeleteProbably about the same as the Godfull. Except
Deletemaybe those snake handler types. To paraphrase a
current president, it isn't religion that makes us
happy...its lots of cash. We note that atheists
have a higher suicide rate that the religious people, with the exception of the uber high rate
among religious homosexuals. (and dentists, so they say)
Interesting. I wonder if that's because atheists are more likely to see the universe as absurd (the Albert Camus pov) or the usual personal problems.
DeleteAny take on the efficacy of the confessional versus
Deletethe rumored dark Catholic guilt phenomenon?
I'll get back to this in a bit but I tend to agree with my old college English professor who said modern psychology teaches you shouldn't feel guilty about anything. To me it's more logical that there would be a Hell than not. Embezzle money your whole life you go to Heaven?
Delete
DeleteAfterlife considerations aside, I would think most
psychologists would consider awareness of wrongdoing and guilt about it a normla condition . Certainly
the shrink community teaches that absence of guilt
or remorse is one of the main characteristics of the
sociopath. "who tricked Flick into putting his tongue on the frozen flagpole?" has the two guilty
boys feigning innocence in class. Probably a minor
sin; but one which they will (or should) not repeat
because of the guilt of 1. doing it and 2. covering it up. Why am I thinking of Nixon here?
This was in my college days when a school of thought in psychology might have been too much guilt is not healthy. Getting back to the linked article the biggest problem imo is it's vague. She offers no solid examples of what she feels is "Catholic guilt." So is it wrong for a parent to teach their kid you should feel guilty about lying, stealing, defaming etc.? If the shrinks as you point out say guilt is good and normal then why is Catholic guilt different and somehow bad? The writer doesn't say so if I may fill in the gap I'd say she feels it's always linked to fear of Hell. Now if you're like me and feel the existence of Hell is logical then why is Catholic guilt a bad thing? Also if you're sorry for Sins XY &Z then you don't go to Hell so there's not much of a quandary imo.
DeleteIMO, guilt over actual sins is natural: guilt over
Deletehaving been born in sin because of Adam's apple and
Augustine's overthinking is different. Who wants to
be born a useless sinner? A permanent assigned condition that could be worrisome in some youth and
some adult types? 'Miniver Cheevy, child of scorn..
rued the day that he'd been born'..according to some
old poet. Not sure where the term 'catholic guilt' came from, but I've heard of it. IMO, religious guilt (original sin) might be a more qualifying term. Yet most religions do not offer a personal confessional where some guy absolves you...so let's just say there are different kinds of guilt, some
serious, some not and different types of personalities that react to their guilt differently,
or in the case of the sociopath, not at all. Z-man you go ahead and worry about Hell all you want..it is as least as valid as worrying for months on end
about a colonoscopy. :)
Wouldn't tag it as worrying but show me how it's illogical and I'll reconsider. You're an old colonoscopy pro but for us neophytes going through the whole large intestine is alot for the mind to absorb. Some of us think about that, some of us ponder about death and others don't think much about anything. My problem is I'm a thinker. What faith system were you brought up in 'cause you seem to have scuttled alot of it.
DeleteEpiscopalian kid. The usual, youngest confirmand ever, only one to get 100% on the final, worked up altar boy ranks to Senior acolyte, got real interested in early Christian history and development, learned too much history, too much science, necessarily tightened up my credulity to
Deletefocus on hard data, actuality, and favored facts over opinion. It happens. Makes Jack a Dull Boy,
I suppose.
The N Korean diplomat killed in Kuala Lumpor by women smearing his face succumbed to the only instant toxin I know of
ReplyDeletethat works through skin contact, breathing or ingestion.
(seen it done on animals). Interesting, the women immediately rushed to a restroom to clean up, which in the case of O-ethyl S-[2-(diisopropylamino)ethyl] methylphosphonothioate would be no good. It can be neutralized in a bleach slurry, which if they survived, we
presume they did. Deadly symptoms are immediate and can only
be stopped and reversed by injections of atropine. We ponder that the women either wore clear poly gloves or first
slathered their hands with some impermeable concoction like
glycerin or axle grease. Shades of James Bond....
We need a version of CSI International.
DeleteI have to say you seem to be a little edgy since the Election.
ReplyDeleteA little? !!
DeleteGetting back to that "Catholic Guilt" link that was the vaguest article I ever read. Hard to form a pov when you're not sure what you've just read.
ReplyDeleteMy "Catholic Guilt" link was some blog as I recall.
DeletePresumably one could study it a bit further. There
is a possibility that some of the so-called guilt
phenomenon of the wider Judeo-Christian sex taboo
(not that most societies have that to one extent or another) and its effect on the problems of youngsters,
puberty, impressibilities, shame and the whole ball
of wax. IMO.
But I was waiting for her to mention sex and she never did. I don't think St. Paul much cared for it.
DeleteMy Army officer chemical MOS was R & D coordinator, so I retain an interest in the nerve agents. Since my time, it
ReplyDeletehas been revealed that about 2.5 million lbs of VX was made
in the US and stored at six sites. Much of the weaponry was
binary: two relatively harmless chemicals that united upon
function to produce the stuff. Thankfully, it has all been
destroyed over a year's long thermal decomposition project,
other than lab samples here and there. My experience was
pretty much worthless though, for when I contacted my congressman about the phony WMD workup based on what WMD
facilities actually look like, he ignored me and voted to
invade Iraq. Easy mistake, the simple test for nerve agents
also tests some common insecticides as positive: you think
those testers would have survived handling the bona fide stuff? So not edgy about the technology. BTW, shortly after I left, the "sheep incident" at Dugway took place.
Long life, interesting stuff, ya know?
What sheep incident at Dugway? Does it involve a parallel universe?
DeleteShould we be talking about alt-catholic guilt here?
ReplyDeleteIt's been a kind of pet study of mine to research Fatima. I've been kind of trying to square though if most people are going to hell how is that inspiring?
DeleteWork with a woman and she's politely nosy. Will ask you pointed questions when you're off-guard, personal/financial. Actually she's quite nosy so I asked her if she's writing a book. How I long for the old place. You could be a lesbian and nobody cared;)
ReplyDeleteAlt-conspiracy- she could be a management plant. I never much noted lesbians or gays until a few years ago. Lot of women on the production lines and one
Deletearea in particular had quite few lesbians. A couple were really good mechanical set up people. Still run into them around town once in awhile. Ya get used to
it. Just saying.
Management plant - I thought of that. The weird conversationalists make you uncomfortable and the thought that a company might go through so much effort.
DeleteOld seminary joke: The Jews invented guilt and the Catholics perfected it. From the general theological standpoint, the Jews do not believe in original sin, that
ReplyDeleteconcept was developed by St. Paul and refined by St. Augustine. So the relationship, even humorously separates
the conceptual understanding between Jewish and Catholic guilt.
In any event, a priest at Catholic Online addresses the concept and concludes that getting into Hell takes a lot of effort.
DeleteI like that analysis. I read another take at another Catholic site that one of the chief remorse of the damned is that their salvation was so easy to attain. Some people seem to go out of their way to go there.
DeleteThe multiverse has some weird theological implications. A man has led a fairly virtuous life but in an alternate reality he was a real bastard, crushed a business associate. A real prick in this life worked for Doctors Without Borders in the next reality. Quantum physics and Catholic theology haven't intertwined yet.
DeleteI'm here, I just got nothing to say.
ReplyDeleteHow about good, evil, Hell, Karma, reincarnation,
Deletelimbo and the peculiarities of NC politics?
People just can't seem to accept the legitimacy of the Trump presidency. Go to YouTube and type in "Donald Trump Time Traveler" and a whole boatload of stuff comes up. I can't remember any other president in modern times whose very election made people question the very nature of reality. Go to YT I'll wait:)
DeleteWhat can you say about rich white trash?
DeleteHere we are Trump is really a military soldier named John Titor from 2036 who came back, amassed a personal fortune under the Trump name just so he could run for president to save the world from a nuclear war with ISIS and all we can do is call the man names. Sounds like a graphic novel. Where does Constantine fit in?
DeleteBut you have to admit the Trump uncle is interesting. Some kind of scientific engineer who worked for the government and studied Tesla's notes for three days. Right up your alley.
DeleteWe love to wallow in alt-reality, no? Reminds me
Deleteof those geneology website where you pay them $100
and find out that your ancestors were Alexander The Great, Richard the Lionhearted and Thomas Jefferson:
your cousins are Steve Jobs and Madanna and your acne is inherited.
The Trump uncle IS interesting. A fellow researcher
Deletenoted-
"“He was remarkably even-tempered, with kindness and consideration to all, never threatening or arrogant in manner, even when under high stress. He was outwardly and in appearance the mildest of men, with a convincing persuasiveness, carefully marshalling all his facts.” Which proves the adage
"Once in awhile the nut falls far away from the tree"
We do love to wallow in alt-reality. Wonder why. Could it be Reality sucks for alot of folk? Actually if you have an open mind Fiona Broome is articulate for her pov. Don't ever ever EVER regulate the internet. It's too interesting. I want the conspiracy theorists, I want the moonbats and wingnuts, I want it ALL.
DeleteYou are in luck; it ALL is right here in this universe. For those so inclined, also a lot of actual stuff too. (if actual involves spinning
Deletequanta, it may be a conspiracy as well)
Just for fun during Trump's next press conference someone from the BBC should ask "are you a time traveler?"
DeleteEver get your tax forms? If you can get yourself rich enough, you won't have to pay taxes.
ReplyDeleteThe public libraries have a master copy from which you can make copies of the relevant pages. Hope you have alot of change.
DeleteI use a CPA. Not that it is difficult, but if I get
Deletesummoned, the guy takes the heat, ya know?
Thought of that until a guy at work told me it costs 200 or 300 dollars. For some reason the state form is harder to understand than the federal form.
DeleteIt's about $140 here, so NYC probably is about what
Deletethe guy said. My kids all do it on the Turbotax
program. The deal with the professionals is that they are up on all the latest changes and run their
problem to the minimum (and sign the form!) Still
a royal pain in the butt.
Is it true what they say that if you went to ten different accountants you'd get ten different returns?
DeleteAccountants thrive on tax season. But this year, the shrinks are flooded. PEA&D
ReplyDeleteSyndrome. Symptoms are said to be moping, listlessness, carrying signs and wearing goofy hats . Hat business
is also brisk.
Was looking up 'Kaptain Kangaroo', an old kid's TV show and ran into the familiar Mandela Effect:
ReplyDelete"So, my newsletter, RealityShifters, that I've been publishing since October 1999, did have a survey back in July 2005
where I found out that a lot of people remembered this actor, Bob Keeshan, as
being at that time the most commonly recognized "alive again" celebrity. He was
"Captain Kangaroo" on a popular children's TV show in America, and 26
percent of the people surveyed remembered that he had died before and
now he's alive again and then he died again. Some of the other celebrities also
recognized in this interesting "Alive Again" category include: Jane Goodall
at 15%, actor Larry Hagman 15%, performer and entertainer Bob Hope 10%, actor Jack
Palance 10%, actress Bea Arthur 5%, Ed Asner 5%, newscaster Walter Cronkite 5%, and Mariel Hemingway the actress 5%."
Which seems quite a range of forgetfulness for an Effect.
Ed Asner died? Gimmee a break!
I'm glad you brought this up. I told you a few weeks back I went to Mass and one of the readings was the famous Isaiah 11:6 passage only now the missalette read "then the wolf shall be a GUEST of the lamb." Go ahead and google what's in the quotes it comes up. The Effect is not about ordinary forgetfulness, it's collective and disturbing.
DeleteOn my way to work I pass by this new shopping complex off the Saw Mill Parkway, Ardsley/Dobbs Ferry border and one of the new stores next to Chipotle is a woman's place called Ulta Beauty. My first gut said that don't sound right but I don't lose sleep over it. Then someone on reddit said he always remembed it as Ultra Beauty and what's with the Ulta? Not to sound all fringey but it seems like a different reality. Betcha other right-wing blogs don't discuss this stuff.
DeleteYou can lose sleep if you want because there are a whole swarm of Utla Beautys all around you.
DeleteReddit has an army of trained and professional debunkers at hand. Someone posts they used to work at CVS for years stocking Depends on the shelf and they go you got it wrong it was never Depends but Depend. Ricky never said to Lucy "you got some 'splainin' to do" and Ed McMahon never worked for Publishers Clearinghouse and on down the line. EITHER we're wrong on an incredible amount of things or they're in denial. Is the change good or bad? Well we all have to go to work in the morning and pay our taxes.
DeleteAny idea of what the qualifications are for 'trained and professional debunkers' are?
DeleteReminds me of that old MS-DOS command for when your
primitive software hung up spooling. You could type in IDEBUG. We presume a similar problem on the D-WAVE would be to type in REVERSE QUANTUM SPIN?
I'm not too prone to the Dead/Alive/Dead Again celebrity syndrome. I'm busy. Before Mary Tyler Moore passed if you asked me whether she's alive or dead I would have had to google it. Blame the Kardashians.
DeleteNo BB these guys are good. You know it when you see them action. Most mandela effects that people post are trivial but once in a while one comes along that even you would pause and go that's weird. This team doesn't hesitate. They have instant explanations to the most complex cases. No pause for reflection and their explanations might work on some level. Everything you knew about Ed McMahon or Depends or Ricky Ricardo is wrong.
DeleteSome things have to be remembered correctly, or the whole
ReplyDeleteroutine goes south. For example-
"Now, on the St. Louis team we have Who's on first,
What's on second, I Don't Know is on third"
Yeah you wouldn't want mandela effects to happen during surgery. Bakery recipes need to stay put as well.
DeleteHas the Reddit bunch considered if Mandela's death was by Occam's Razor?
DeleteThey use Occam's Razor a bit in their arguments. The debunkers use it to point towards confabulation of course but in the case of hordes of James Bond fans who remember Dolly's braces Occam may point to some wonky shit. There is now a RetCon Effect subreddit that won't allow any skeptics in the club.
Delete"a RetCon Effect subreddit that won't allow any sceptics in the club." Gee, and here I thought angleworm watching, tipping cows and monkey ping pong were weird.
DeleteBasically what it means is they can talk about whether KitKat ever had a hyphen in it without someone rudely pointing out they may have tired brains.
DeleteTrump proposes a $54 billion increase in defense spending with major cuts to other agencies. He also wants more and better nukes. Is he preparing for the Apocalypse?
ReplyDeleteThe sort of well known Shrodinger's Cat problem is based on
ReplyDeletea quirk of quantum mechanics termed quantum tunneling . According the Shrodinger/Heisenberg concept a particle because of it's wave properties may exist in two different locations. It
may even change locations back and forth with infinite velocity, much more than the old maximum: the speed of light. Some have pondered that if this hypothesis is true
and could be improved, an object might be disassembled at
on location in space and reassembled at another far off (a few thousand light years, say) in a micro-instant. And that
might be used to 'beam' people hither and yon across the cosmos... Like Capt Kirk & Scotty. It sees an incredibly complex task, especially after watching the movie 'The Fly'.
But....we elected Trump.
This would mean the universe is quite weird and maybe does weird things from time to time hence reddit discussion boards. What I don't like about Schrodinger's cat is why would you wanna poison a cat in a box in the first place? Scientists are a little weird imho.
DeleteGood point. Schrodinger should have picked a king cobra or Tasmanian devil. But then, he was a bit
Deleteunconventional. We note:
"Schrödinger had an unconventional personal life. When he migrated to Ireland in 1938, he obtained visas for himself, his wife and also another woman, Mrs. Hilde March. March was the wife of an Austrian colleague and Schrödinger had fathered a daughter with her in 1934. Schrödinger wrote personally to the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera to obtain the visa for Mrs. March. In October 1939 the ménage à trois duly took up residence in Dublin. Schrödinger fathered two further daughters by two different women during his time in Ireland." A brilliant guy,
and a raving pervert, no?
The quantum stuff must've gotten him horny. Superposition, entanglement...
DeleteI so did not watch the Oscars last night. So which artsy-fartsy movies won?
ReplyDeleteRE: "He also wants more and better nukes. Is he preparing for the Apocalypse?" Hmmm. My guess is that being an over-achiever, he really wants to nail that
DeleteISIS dude.
Missed the Oscars too. Went to bed early and read a couple chapters .
DeleteDick Cheney imo bears a large part of the blame. Do you get a little vibe that Trump is just itching to use a nuke?
DeleteI would hope not, but one nuke these days pretty much guarantees MAD, glowing terrain and a few Neanderthals roaming Yonkers. Stuff is serious: Trump is not. ya know?
DeleteCarl Bernstein is drawing parallels between Trump, Watergate and Vietnam. I thought Carl Bernstein was dead:)
DeleteHe kind of looks like it. But don't we all?
DeleteWith all the recent celebrity deaths, Bill Paxton the latest why are the Rolling Stones still alive? Keith Richards could play himself in a Walking Dead movie but he and Mick keep trucking on and Mick keeps siring offspring like an old king in Beowulf. Guy at work said Keith Richards would probably survive a nuclear holocaust and the rest of us would be dead.
DeleteThose Stone Rollers are a bit younger that me, but
Deletebeing born in England during the Blitz and inhaling
God knows what for years, hardens the body and frees the spirit. Kind of interesting, that lifestyle also culls the young..Kurt Cobain, Mama Cass Elliot, Janis Joplin, Jimmi Hendrix, etc.
Not unlike a career in explosives chemistry, methinks.
What's up with that Oscars Debacle?
ReplyDeleteDid they have a winner and an alt-winner?
DeleteFirst time in Oscar history this has happened. Another example of the Trump Effect.
DeleteWhat is it about Trump? I've seen Jr. High class
Deletepresidents with more gravitas. Elon Musk, now there is a tycoon that would have made a good tycoon president. But then, I thought Elon Musk was
a women's fragrance for a long time. Saw a TV ad for
Keytruda a few days back. Side effects included
every lethal and terminal deaths I ever heard of, with the possible exclusion of spontaneous combustion. Tis another of the new monoclonal antibodies; one that targets cell receptors for
cell suicide, the thinking that maybe it will kill
some malignant cells along with the rest of a person's endocrine, nervous and digestive systems.
Am due in this month for my free Wellness check and
will try to remember to ask Dr. about the stuff,
perhaps as a paint remover.
For people who have worked through an overwhelming existential depression they know about being distracted at work, preoccupied by life issues, intrusive negative thoughts and brain fog so you make mistakes at work forget things etc. I believe the Hollywood community except maybe Jon Voight (still alive?) and Tom Selleck, these everyday celebs have been so traumatized by the Trump Election and Hillary Losing that they can't even pull off the Oscars without a hitch. Sure they try to make light of the cruelty of Fate through jokes and John Oliver putdowns but they're truly suffering and need professional help. I know the Oscar investigation is trying to tag the culprit label on a couple of little guys for getting the wrong envelopes in the mix and now Trump is gloating and who can blame him?
DeleteYeah, I forgot Trump was a showbiz guy as well as
Deleteartist of the deal; so you are right, the creative
types need professional help, and very likely most do. With the exception of The Apprentice-Your're
Fired Mara Lago WH pubescent president. As we recall, he has no health record tax record, business records or little dirty black book records.
What you see is what you get, as they say.
Wondering for the next four years is any subject not related to Trump considered Off-Topic? Seashells and hummingbirds still exist right?
ReplyDeleteOverall, I find the Trump topic pretty boring and too
Deletemuch of anything tends to dry up. On the other hand,
he seems to produce surprise after surprise (like today, he said the raid in which a US Seal was killed
was Obama's fault) IMO as much as we would like Trumpitis go away, the triumvirate of all three branches under one party will make them happy and
citizens unhappy. How? Oh, let's see we double the military budget and make up the difference by cutting
social security, education and foreign aid; de-regulate banks and force you into a Wells Fargo annuity rather than social security as they handle
the wonderful savings account you will be forece to
have instead of health insurance: and what the heck,
close down the EPA and throw the chemicals in the Hudson and Waldon Pond, saves Big Biz money. So, I
suspect the mean green GOP machine will give us an
exciting four years. If I wore a flagpin, I'd have
it upside down (and probably end up in Gitmo). Seashells and hummingbirds are neat; life forms that
offend no one.
IMO talking about Trump topics is like talking about jock itch. Necessary but only up to a certain point.
DeleteAs a liberal how much do you think about Trump during the course of the day? Barring impeachment how much practical value do anti-Trumpisms have? Does it change the current reality? Chronic tinnitus definitely has a way of getting your mind off things.
ReplyDeletePersonally I'm afraid to look at the Shaw Blog. I don't know if I should.
ReplyDelete