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And so the Golden Golem of Greatness re-enters the hall of mirrors that Syria has become. The US intelligence “community” has informed the US Media that Syrian President Assad is planning a new gas attack on Idlib Province, where a ragtag army of US-backed “rebels” (ISIS, etc) remain holed up against Assad’s forces backed by Russian air support. Have we seen this movie before?

Is Mr. Assad truly that dumb? — since the last time a gas attack was alleged (and actually never proven), Mr. Trump averred that he would attack Syria. And what did he even mean by that? Send a barrel bomb down the Assad family chimney, or just blow up more stuff on the ground? And for what? To birth another failed state in the Middle East (just what the world needs), or perhaps start World War Three with Russia? (Ditto, with a cherry on top.)

Excuse me if I am skeptical about anything the US intel “community” dredges up these days in the way of breaking news. Branches of that sprawling vine are already infected with creeping rot. I speak, of course, of the upper echelons of the FBI especially and their counterparts in the CIA orbit (ex-Directors John Brennan, Michael Hayden, ex DNI James Clapper and their cronies still on-the-job). Just as there is loose talk about an Assad gas attack, there’s also a lot of loose talk around the Internet that a large number of US intel communitarians are about to be busted for their political misconduct around the 2016 election. I’ll believe that when I see it on Glenn Greenwald’s Twitter feed.

Anyway, the Assad gas attack story does raise the question whether the intel community is ginning up a gigantic and ugly distraction from its own inconvenient legal exposure. Mounting evidence shows an orchestrated campaign by them to meddle in the 2016 elections, and continue meddling afterward to thwart, discredit, delegitimize, and defame Mr. Trump, for the purpose of leaving him little room to act. To a considerable extent, the Golden Golem of Greatness has managed to act anyway. For instance, transforming the Supreme Court.

The likely confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh may be a last straw for the “Resistance.” It would certainly affect the adjudication of any new disputes that arise over relations between Mr. Trump and Special Counsel Robert Mueller in the weeks ahead. The Mueller investigation into 2016 election “collusion” between Russia and Trump looks more and more like a case of displacement-projection syndrome, since dumpster-loads of evidence now point to collusion between the Hillary campaign, the DNC, a cast of rogue spooks from the CIA, various FBI officers, and British Intelligence in a scheme that is now going to grand juries.

All that nasty business, starting with the news that a grand jury has been secretly grilling former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe for weeks, suggests that events are about to unspool dramatically. The story has been coiling for months as fresh documents emerge and officials, such as the DOJ Inspector General, confirm what they mean. It remains to be seen whether the Web chatter about dozens of “sealed indictments” coming down is horse-shit. The baffling part is the role of Attorney General Jeff Sessions. I’m inclined to doubt that Mr. Trump’s regular vilifications of Sessions are a ruse, meant to mislead the media about the AG’s activities in these matters. But the DC Swamp is unnerved by Sessions’ extraordinary absence of presence on the scene. Has he actually been involved in any of this, or is he playing animal lotto on his desk?

There is a certain balance between the new hostilities in Syria — possible existential threat — and the anxious disquiet about a so-called “soft coup” against the chief executive. What really might turn over the whole groaning table of national tribulations will be the discovery that the Trump economic boom is fake. The current “boom” story rests on more than a trillion dollars of money-pumping enabled by tax cuts and racking up evermore debt. Mr. Trump was foolish to take “ownership” of it, and when reality re-enters the scene, the Resistance will finally have something real to hang him with.

Most unsettling about these trending events is that they appear on a path to converge this fall, along with the midterm elections. The public is already confused and angry enough. I’m worried that we can’t handle what’s coming.


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498 Responses to “Three-Bagger”

  1. DrTomSchmidt September 10, 2018 at 9:41 am #

    JHK,a Democrat? How can I square that with his constant harping on Democratic misdeeds?

    I suppose it’s the unreality of the present moment. The realization that there is no there there in the Democratic Party, that instead of a Medicare for All they created the Obamacare monster to direct more money to the salaried classes and options-holders from hoi polloi. There’s no excitement for what they have on offer, not like FDR, JFK, even the promise of BHO.

    It has to be, for him, like going to a rock concert and seeing the band, well into middle age, fat, bald, and with shot voices. Jack Kennedy couldn’t get elected today as a Republican with his platform.

    • PeteAtomic September 10, 2018 at 9:59 am #

      “There’s no excitement for what they have on offer, not like FDR, JFK, even the promise of BHO.”

      yep. Good point, Dr.Schmidt.

      racial divisions? socialism? kind of an odd mix of the two. I don’t know. That’s what they seem to be blubbering towards.

    • ozone September 10, 2018 at 10:09 am #

      Dr. Tom,
      It would seem that JHK pines for the days when the Democrats actually tried to implement a platform that helped real people in the real world instead of the modern impetus of chasing corporate money. — I do too.

      An interesting example of having to read between lines (or listen between words) to understand agendas and directions was on display on the famous outlet of niceness, NPR. They were whining about the American public (specifically the poor and “underserved”) not getting off their poor dead asses and marching to the voting booths. The point they were pushing with their interviewing and polling concerned peoples feeling that their vote didn’t count. What was glaringly ignored and unmentioned were those of us (and I think it a Yuge consort) who feel that THERE’S NO ONE TO VOTE FOR that reflects a position of people helping people.

      This reinforces my contention that the “Democratic”* party is now so far to the corporate-sopping right, that it’s no longer relevant to the crucial issues that they appear frightened to address. …So what blasted wilderness of crackpottery and venal bloviation does that consign the “Republicans”* to? Paint your own picture and read between the lines for the real story.

      *I put them in quotation marks to indicate that neither of these collections of freely-elected asswipes in any way represent their party names. It’s become positively Orwellian.

      • Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 10:53 am #

        Or as Chris Hedges puts it, in America there is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs (though he says he stole the line from someone else).

        Bloom County also seems apropos here:

        http://jeffpicard.com/blog/wimp-or-shrimp/

        So, which is it, people? Wimp or shrimp? Your chances are the same either way.

        • outOfTheMoney September 10, 2018 at 12:39 pm #

          I think that _South Park_ had it right, back in 2004. In the [link](http://southpark.wikia.com/wiki/Douche_and_Turd “Douche and Turd”) episode, the students of South Park Elementary are asked to choose a new school mascot, but the available choices end up being a giant douche and a turd sandwich…

          • Tate September 10, 2018 at 3:51 pm #

            Was it a gilded turd?

      • DrTomSchmidt September 10, 2018 at 9:43 pm #

        Let’s not forget Gilens and Page. THe people not voting are probably the smart ones:
        https://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/princeton-experts-say-us-no-longer-democracy

        • Elrond Hubbard September 12, 2018 at 3:10 pm #

          Is that the study that found Congressional votes are highly correlated with issues of interest to big-money donors, and not at all correlated with the concerns of everyday individuals? Documenting the obvious, clearly, but still very useful to have the hard data.

      • benr September 14, 2018 at 9:34 am #

        I would hardly call the modern day Democrat party far right rather far progressive (communist) left with just a hint of fascist totalitarian leanings.
        The echo chamber of nuttiness is the biggest problem.

    • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 10:12 am #

      BHO ? Butane Hash Oil?

    • Zoltar September 10, 2018 at 10:16 am #

      Jim’s preoccupation with Democratic malfeasance makes perfect sense to me. The Republicans are in the groove in their natural role as enemies of the middle and working classes, tools of the Corporate State. But the Democrats have betrayed their rightful constituency, leaving most of us with no functional allies in The Swamp.

      There will always be wolves, and they must always be defended against. But when the sheepdogs join the wolves in slaughtering the flock, there is then need for fundamental change: in this case, the dissolution of the Democratic Party and its replacement with a new one.

      As FDR declared himself the enemy of the bankers, the new party should explicitly declare itself to be the enemy of the corporations.

      Triumphant midterm elections for the Democrats would be the worst possible outcome. If the Resistors deliver it to them, the Dems will consider themselves vindicated in their betrayal of the people upon whom post-collapse America will most depend for some sort of survival – useful people with practical skills, who produce goods and provide services.

      The current grievances of most people who call themselves liberals and/or Democrats are mostly mere distractions, designed by the Deep State to keep us from noticing that the world is being stolen from us.

      And the real eight hundred pound gorilla – Climate Change – has been ignored by all sides well past the event horizon. All that’s left on that front is lamentation.

      • Bill7 September 10, 2018 at 11:33 am #

        “Triumphant midterm elections for the Democrats would be the worst possible outcome. If the Resistors deliver it to them, the Dems will consider themselves vindicated in their betrayal of the people upon whom post-collapse America will most depend for some sort of survival – useful people with practical skills, who produce goods and provide services.”

        Well said. CIA Democrats, here we come!

        We’re *so hosed*.

      • “designed by the Deep State”… we need to retire this idiotic meme with a bullet to the head.

        Conspiracy theories attributing agency to some mythical organized conspiracy is an intellectual red herring for the uninformed.

        • Bill7 September 10, 2018 at 2:57 pm #

          “We”? For whom do you claim to be speaking?

          Of *course* there are conspiracies…

          • NRWer September 10, 2018 at 5:34 pm #

            Ask him about Russia Truth and grab the popcorn.

            I am surprised some of these people can even tie their own shoes.

        • Tate September 10, 2018 at 3:13 pm #

          If the Deep State exists, then it is by definition “designing.” But nope, no such thing as the Deep State, LOL.

          • The “Deep State”: Once referred to as a collection of apocryphally charged rumors and innuendo, written by this author: Kunstler, James Howard.

            Later, invoked generally for any explanation of anything! The all-purpose convincer of know-nothings……

            Although I admit, having looked at the video of Kavanaugh’s reaction to being grilled by Kamala Harris, I can believe why some people believe there are others pulling the strings….

          • Tate September 11, 2018 at 4:21 pm #

            The “Deep Something,” deep enough to smother the average joe in lies & irrelevancies through its control of the major media channels, which is all it takes.

            9-11 anniversary: no conspiracy afoot there… nope, whatever. BTW, to believe conspiracy exists doesn’t mean you necessarily possess a detailed account of the elements of that conspiracy. All you need to believe in conspiracies is to look for the holes in the narrative.

            There are lots of holes in the 9-11 narrative.

        • Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 3:18 pm #

          Lots of people can’t be bothered keeping track of the difference between cause and intention. If things happen a certain way, then naturally someone intended that outcome, and intention implies agency. So someone becomes they — whoever They are, They caused this. They are the problem, They control everything, They Are Fattening Us Up For Slaughter. Boom, a conspiracy theory is born.

          Science continues to shed light. “Teleology is the belief that things happen for a reason, that the final result is, in fact, the cause. Things happen because they were meant to. Things exist because of the purpose they serve… [D]espite the fact that teleological thinking is not valid, it is still psychologically compelling and infests our thinking. It is properly understood as a cognitive bias.”

          https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/teleology-and-conspiracy-thinking/

          The whole thing is worth a read.

          • Tate September 10, 2018 at 3:47 pm #

            If much of our material world is “self-organizing,” as you atheists like to assert, then that phenomenon could only apply at the atomic & molecular level, right? No possibility that much the same phenomenon exists at the macro level, among individuals with similar proclivities, taboos, concerns, interests & opinions?

            Oh yes, conspiracy is the natural state of the human world, not the exception.

          • Very relevant. Jim’s allergy to conspiracy theory appears to have gone into remission. Hopefully he didn’t pick up the virulent strain infesting his comment section.

          • Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 4:25 pm #

            @Tate: Wrong. Neither I nor anyone who knows what they’re talking about has ever claimed that self-organizing behavior ‘could only apply at the atomic and molecular level’. Understood correctly, the idea can apply at any level. Adam Smith’s invisible hand is one of the most famous descriptions there is of self-organizing behavior among human beings, not atoms. “It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest”, he wrote. And also: “Every individual… neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it… he intends only his own security; and by directing that industry in such a manner as its produce may be of the greatest value, he intends only his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention.” That’s self-organizing behaviour.

            Conspiracy theorists both misunderstand power, and vastly overestimate the amount and kind of control that centers of power actually have and how they go about their business. Take the idea that 9/11 was an inside job, for example. There is no evidence for this idea; none. Still, conspiracy theorists point at the fact that the Bush/Cheney administration used 9/11 as an excuse to invade Iraq. This is correct, but it doesn’t mean that 9/11 was planned in the White House. It simply means that Dick Cheney and others who had power understood how to use that power. So when an extraordinary event occurred on their watch, they seized the moment and put it to their own use.

            There are governments that do try to exercise that kind of minute control over people’s lives. The word for that is totalitarianism. Rhetoric (and Sheldon Wolin) aside, the U.S. is not a totalitarian government. If it were, you would surely know it.

          • Tate September 10, 2018 at 4:49 pm #

            Reread my comment for sarcasm, Elrond.

            Also, you don’t get to define exactly what conspiracy means in every single instance. Conspiracies abound, & are indeed self-organizing. One might even say that atoms & molecules “conspire” to organize themselves into more complex wholes. But then language is like a coral reef of metaphor.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 6:32 pm #

            So now you believe in a benign Invisible Hand, Elrond? National Socialists don’t. Neither do Orientals. As Burton says, the Oriental naturally considers other men to be fools or rogues. The goodwill that Smith is taking for granted is the result of centuries of Christian triump in ethnically homogenous White Countries. It used to be called Christendom or Western Civilization. Capitalism exploits this, piggy backs on this, and ultimately wears it out – all the while taking full credit for all the material success it has achieved, never mentioning the hidden partner, Christianity.

          • Elrond Hubbard September 11, 2018 at 1:33 pm #

            I didn’t say benign, did I? What Adam Smith didn’t mention is that his invisible hand is holding a Swiss-Army chainsaw — an all-purpose tool not just for getting things done, but for getting them undone as well.

            “The bourgeoisie cannot exist without constantly revolutionising the instruments of production, and thereby the relations of production, and with them the whole relations of society. … All that is solid melts into air, all that is holy is profaned, and man is at last compelled to face with sober senses his real conditions of life, and his relations with his kind. The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the entire surface of the globe.”

            https://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/ch01.htm

            Fancy that, you agreeing with Marx and Engels about the invisible hand. It’s a funny old world.

          • Tate September 11, 2018 at 2:58 pm #

            Wasn’t Mussolini a marxist before he came up with fascism?

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 7:54 pm #

            If one comes across an artifact, it is natural and rational to ask who built and for what purpose. Philosophy remains Queen of the Sciences and Aristotle is still a better philosopher than Scientists who unwisely leave their own discipline.

            A Liberal is one who believes that a tornado acting upon a junk yard could create a working Jet Liner.

        • Zoltar September 10, 2018 at 7:21 pm #

          If you are so comprehensively clueless that you still believe our elected officials are running the show, you needn’t bother reading this blog. Buy a coloring book.

      • DrTomSchmidt September 10, 2018 at 9:47 pm #

        Triumphant midterm elections for the Democrats would be the worst possible outcome. If the Resistors deliver it to them, the Dems will consider themselves vindicated in their betrayal of the people upon whom post-collapse America will most depend for some sort of survival – useful people with practical skills, who produce goods and provide services.

        Wow. Just wanted to see that in print again. Very well put.

      • benr September 14, 2018 at 9:44 am #

        Here we go again tell me something climate change has been happening since man kind killed off the Neanderthals then pulled themselves out of caves and stopped being hunter gatherers. so how exactly did the industrial age kick start the glacier melts?
        I ask because I for one don’t want to live on a glacier nor do I comprehend how carbon credits slow or reverse something that has been happening long before mankind could write. None of the vaunted science is settle types can answer this!
        The new religion of climate change or catastrophic climate disruption or what ever the new term DE JOUR is makes any sense. If one of the fools screaming about this would simply use common sense and demand we as a species start planting massive amounts of trees to replace what mankind has been chopping down and burning for 10,000 years I could get behind that. OOOPS THERE IT IS I tried to apply common sense to a manufactured problem reaction solution situation created simply for profit.

    • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 11:17 am #

      Well Doc, I see Jim’s disgust with a party that he is old enough to remember as having relevance but has turned to crap is quite respectable. Apparently he cares. I suppose the same argument can be made against the Republican party, though you have to go back to 1860 to find any real relevance. They are both sold out to the same masters at the same time that they pander to different social subspecies. Unfortunately I can offer no solution or alternative for our two “party” system. I am not much for parties, they do not accomplish anything and are rather expensive to throw. They also attract a seedy element, don’t they?

      I make it a point to do at least enough research and only vote for a candidate that I believe is decent for the job and lately, it is getting harder and harder to cast even one vote considering the poor choices.

      • ozone September 10, 2018 at 12:00 pm #

        “I make it a point to do at least enough research and only vote for a candidate that I believe is decent for the job and lately, it is getting harder and harder to cast even one vote considering the poor choices.”

        Walter,
        I suppose the best we can do is vote in some locals who (upon researching) actually display by deeds a goodly proportion of give-a-shit. The rest appears to be out of our hands, for now. That won’t change until some real hurt gets dealt out and give-a-shit is all there is and can’t be ignored.

    • Sean Coleman September 10, 2018 at 12:25 pm #

      “There’s no excitement for what they have on offer, not like FDR, JFK, even the promise of BHO.”

      That is the root of the problem, the excitement, the change. Maybe the hope too.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:08 pm #

      Yes, Sir Paul did an impromptu concert the other night: his voice is utterly gonzo, yet no one cares or knows. And those that did won’t tell him. As a French pundit once said, True artistry is knowing when to quit.

      Hillary is no artist, but rather a monster of lust and ego – a true model of today’s Democratic Party and the modern woman.

    • benr September 14, 2018 at 9:28 am #

      That’s easy to answer the Democrat party platform is leaving many people behind.
      The DNC today has become openly corrupt and in need of a reformation.
      My hope is that the DNC collapses under it’s own hubris and a better more sane party emerges with less polarizing platform and messaging.
      Followed by the exact same thing happening to the Republican party.
      A lurch to the center is needed by one of the major parties and some common sense medicine shoved down the body politic!

  2. thenuttyneutron September 10, 2018 at 9:42 am #

    Grab some pop corn and be humble.

    Will this fall see gun battles erupt between the Proud Boys and ANTIFA? They are all pissed and looking for an outlet to vent their pent up rage.

    A soft coup will not go over well. The “resistance” must be rooted out and convicted for the Republic to survive.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:10 pm #

      Yes, Trump must declare War on the Antifa as was once done with the Maffia, the Weathermen, and the Black Panthers. No tolerance for Terrorism.

      • NRWer September 10, 2018 at 5:42 pm #

        Antifa is not a real danger. It’s been in Europe for decades and is rather toothless. They riot now and then, break stuff, and then go back to their Autonomenzentren. They feel empowered at the moment because our corporate media pumps them up.

        The real threat is globalism. If the corrupt FBI leadership, DNI Clapper, Brennan, Cankles, and Obama are not punished for their incredible crimes, then its looking grim.

        There are a slew of Purple Revolution types embedded in our government who are getting rather desperate. The rot must be cleaned out, and I think Trump is perhaps the only modern politician we have who is suited to/capable of do(ing) this.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 6:35 pm #

          You’re making a distinction where none is. The hapless Antis are the skirmishers for the Globalists, though very few of them know it. And their behavior is getting wore. They already have serious injuries and deaths to their credit. But yeah, there’s far more serious troops in reserve.

          The Antifa feel their defeats very keenly. Most of them cannot brawl toe to toe with Fasicsts. Some are beginning to train with firearms.

  3. PeteAtomic September 10, 2018 at 9:42 am #

    I think your analysis is grounded in common sense, and pretty darn good here, Jim.

    “Most unsettling about these trending events is that they appear on a path to converge this fall, along with the midterm elections. The public is already confused and angry enough. I’m worried that we can’t handle what’s coming.”

    Me neither. Too many people in too many places in the US are on a knife’s edge. I think there are a lot of people out there who could be pushed to desperate action. All a guy needs to do is look around at what an affected population the US has become: pierced, tattooed savages (great term Jim), under the influence of one chemical or other, and with serious boundary issues.

    • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 10:19 am #

      Thinking the stinking classes and thinking classes have reached their limit and a last straw is imminent is wishful thinking. People are befuddled and they will have to go through a long period of unfocused anger before they can respond to anything. Even after that they won’t have any cohesion and a litany of mixed messages will keep them ineffective.

      Whine complain and do nothing.

      Age Quod Agis.

      • PeteAtomic September 10, 2018 at 1:17 pm #

        “Whine complain and do nothing.”

        ..and elect more people like Trump (?) or maybe it’ll be somebody like Cory Booker next time. Then we’d have Spartacus in the executive. 🙂

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:15 pm #

      I have no tattoos. And I’m a Patriot, not a Proud Boy. They’re a bunch of Cucks who believe that we can all get along. But they are willing to fight, I’ll give them that. The Police go easy on them because they are no Ideological Threat, having much the same world view as Jordan Peterson. Plus they put Non-Whites out in front to show their Virtue. They’re Proud Cucks.

      • malthuss September 10, 2018 at 2:50 pm #

        All a guy needs to do is look around at what an affected population the US has become: pierced, tattooed savages
        –Do you mean Blacks?

        under the influence of one chemical or other,
        –Blame Mr Sackler and Bunny Sherman [or was she Honey Sherman?].

        and with serious boundary issues.
        –Its the lack of boundary around the nation that is the problem.

      • PeteAtomic September 13, 2018 at 7:13 pm #

        meh

        The ‘white’ nationalists run over scared girls, while the Proud Boys beat Bolsheviks with their fists in the street.

        I’d take the Proud Boys in a fight, any day.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 7:40 pm #

          You’ve bought the lie: the fat girl sliding off the hood was some other fatty not Heyer. No one knows her condition and no one cares, least of all the “good people”. Have you not wondered at the media blackout over this case for a year now? They got little or nothing. One professor even posted about chasing James Fields with a gun.

          The subtext of your post is worse: Whites don’t deserve anything of their own, certainly not their own countries like other races. What the fuck?

  4. PeteAtomic September 10, 2018 at 9:54 am #

    “It remains to be seen whether the Web chatter about dozens of “sealed indictments” coming down is horse-shit.”

    Yeah. I think a lot of this is coming from Q Anon, possibly. I don’t know what to think about that source of information. I believe Q Anon has also alleged that there is a federal prosecuter assigned by Sessions to work quietly away in Utah, away from the DC spotlight, on “draining the swamp cases”. I can’t recall the fellas name, maybe another CFN poster would know.

    I’d be very cautious about Q Anon claims. The poster could be anybody– inside the gov’t, some private conspiracy theorist, foreign agent (s), or simply a paranoid schizophrenic.

    • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:15 am #

      First they ignore you, then they mock you, then they fight you, then you win.

      The laimstream media has shifted from ignoring to mocking Q. But they should not be your only source of info. That would be like learning about Jewish culture by reading Nazi propaganda.

      There is fact based, truth seeking analysis on this subject. On YouTube start with Dustin Nemos or Praying Medic or the Patriot Hour.

      • PeteAtomic September 10, 2018 at 10:22 am #

        I found it very interesting that there appear(s) to be a concerted, focused effort by dozens of MSM news sources. Many of the articles even read like they were wrote by the same people, with language like “dangerous cult.” If Q Anon was just some crank, then why such the effort? So, I find that pretty fascinating.

        I’ve watched a couple of Praying Medic’s vids there on youtube. I don’t know. I try to remain a healthy skeptic about the whole thing. We will see what happens!

        • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 11:14 am #

          What is being claimed regarding Q is hardly crazy, woo-woo stuff.

          Q is allegedly an information source within the White House who is leaking info with Trump’s full knowledge and approval.

          That has gone on in every administration, except the leaks were to “journalists” not to the internet. Maybe, that’s why the presstitutes hate Q so much. He has by-passed them.

          • Eoin September 10, 2018 at 3:09 pm #

            @hmuller:
            Why not read the direct posts ?

            https://qposts.online/

            Link with the highlighted post numbers; very interesting. All relevant info is linked, and inter-linked.

            PeteAtomic:
            As far as explicators go, I read Neon Revolt. The guy works hard, and seems to take it seriously. Medic, et al.?
            not so much; they lose me with their evangelical/ proselytizing slant.

          • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 4:30 pm #

            Eoin, Of course, reading the direct posts is good. But a lot of people need a commentator to make sense of what can be a very esoteric style of communicating. Thanks, I’ll check out Neon Revolt.

          • Majella September 10, 2018 at 6:49 pm #

            Wow. You take this crap seriously?

          • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:03 pm #

            How many hours have you studied “this crap” or do you get your news and opinions from Comedy Central? Some will never break out of the matrix and in a way they are blessed; it’s a Hieronymous Bosch nightmare out there.

        • lbs September 10, 2018 at 2:55 pm #

          I have felt for a long time the media should just pick one highly competent establishment hack to do all the commentary (including so called news). All the other journalists who parrot the same material could find new lines of work where they are actually contributing to the economy and/or society.

        • NRWer September 10, 2018 at 5:55 pm #

          Take a visit to Wikileaks and read emails exchanged between the DNC and Clinton campaign with top “journalists” from WaPo, NYT, CNN, MSNBC, etc.

          Stories getting sent to Clinton in advance for editing by the campaign, setting up friendly appearances with talk show hosts, lists of journalists attending fancy dinners with Cankles to coordinate coverage of her.

          Then read the leaked Media Matters strategy doc, which expands
          on the Pied Piper Strategy discussed in the leaked DNC mails. The strat was a coordinated approach for how the MSM would cover Trump, under the direction of the Clinton Campaign.

          They aren’t just in cahoots, its feckin’ hand-in-glove level collusion.

  5. marcus1 September 10, 2018 at 10:00 am #

    The real “horseshit” going on is the supposed SHF this next season ad infinitum. And the talk of a “coup” when there are “dumpster loads” of evidence that rude-boy Donny affected the results of the election with payoffs and then obstructed justice to try t weasel out of it. In rationality and Mueler I trust.

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    • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:21 am #

      Marcus,
      Actually, he spells his name with two “L”s. I share a last name with this slippery Washington insider, Hillary’s errand boy.

      But while he converted his umlaut into an “e”; my family was poor and had to sell ours.

      • SpeedyBB September 10, 2018 at 6:01 pm #

        (Selling a family heirloom like an umlaut is truly shameful. I do not see how one can come out in public and admit it. Particularly when we have our suspicion as to where that particular Teutonic diacritic ended up.

        I’m looking at you Motley Crue.)

    • Ol' Scratch September 10, 2018 at 10:33 am #

      Garden variety corruption is looking pretty good these days.

      • darrell dullnig September 10, 2018 at 12:00 pm #

        To the point, succinct one liner. Good one!

    • Majella September 10, 2018 at 6:54 pm #

      Hear, hear Marcus. Are you getting as tired as me of this constant harping on how Big Bad Ol’ Hillary was (and apparently still is) the problem? The DNC totally screwed the pooch in 2016 and the outcome was tragic for not just you Americans, but for the rest of the world too.

  6. hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:06 am #

    From November 2017 to the end of August 2018, 51,701 sealed federal indictments are entered and ready for arrests at the call of federal government leadership: The information source is “pacer.gov”.

    See: https://carlbherman.blogspot.com/2018/09/51701-sealed-federal-indictments-trust.html

    All this is beginning to look like the unimaginable – a mass purge of the globalist oligarchs, the true enemies of humanity.

    If I’m wrong, please let me know (using evidence, not knee-jerk emotions).

    • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 10:23 am #

      Investigation of intelligence is a stupid proposition. National Security will be invoked and a court order shall silence any investigation at the first hint of embarrassment.

      Eventus Stultorum Magister

      But a dedicated fool will refuse to learn under all circumstances.

      • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:33 am #

        I’m not sure what your saying, K-Dog. I suspect open warfare is about to erupt between the deep state and Trump.

        The Intelligence Community appears to be divided with many (especially at NSA) coming over to the side of good now that they finally have a chance to win and purge the foul stench of the Obama-Clinton appointees.

        • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 10:48 am #

          Johnny Ringo:

          Eventus Stultorum Magister.

          [Events are the teachers of fools. – Meaning – “Fools have to learn by experience.”]

          Fool is nasty, perhaps uninformed would be better. There was this thing called 9-11 and legislation was passed and secret action taken in the name of national security as a result. This means that Americans don’t have the rights they think they have. Any investigation of the machinery for the suppression of terrorism is going to result in personal grief to those investigating and then the investigation will be stopped by legal injunction by invoking national security. People have no idea what they are up against. Vicious trapped animals bite without warning.

          • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:54 am #

            I totally agree, K-Dog. The animals in question must be put down permanently if humanity is to have any hope of a free future.

          • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 11:21 am #

            If I recall correctly K-Dog, Americans gave up their rights willing because they were willing to pay nay price to be told they would be safe, did they not?

          • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 11:28 am #

            Walter, it reminds me of the claim, “give up your guns and there will be no more school shootings.”

            They don’t but should add the words, “Because we the deep state are behind nearly every such school shooting, and they’ll stop when we say so!”

      • pequiste September 10, 2018 at 10:42 am #

        Well and concisely articulated K-Dog.

        Great instructive scene about gamesmanship from “Tombstone” about the 2:00 minute mark being echoic of the sentiment. Unlike ham-fisted ‘Murican foreign policy.

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGNdnlCbfMs

    • Majella September 10, 2018 at 6:57 pm #

      So, why are these indictments sitting on a shelf gathering dust? What point of inflection is needed/anticipated before they are exercised?

      • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:26 pm #

        Good question, Majella. Prison space has to be made available. Hundreds of judges and lawyers have to be ready to process cases in a “legal manner”. Another vote on the Supreme Court will help to legitimize and keep the process moving.

        Odd how a couple days ago Lindsey Graham was questioning Kavanaugh about trying Americans as enemy combatants stripped of constitutional rights. They both agreed it could be done and no one on the committee said diddly squat. An overlooked hint of things to come?

        According to some sources Military Tribunals are even now being constituted to try the bulk of these prisoners. How ironic the laws implemented by these Orwellian monsters will be used against them – national security. In hindsight people are going to see a lot of executive orders were instituted to set the stage. Too much for me to go into here. Do your own diligent research.

  7. ozone September 10, 2018 at 10:21 am #

    “Most unsettling about these trending events is that they appear on a path to converge this fall, along with the midterm elections. The public is already confused and angry enough. I’m worried that we can’t handle what’s coming.” — JHK

    JHK,
    I think what might be even more dread-inducing is that we can’t *understand* what’s happening either! (Ain’t no mitigation/handling without that.)

    • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 10:33 am #

      I think what might be even more dread-inducing is that we can’t *understand* what’s happening either!

      America has been fed a diet so rich in bullshit we would all be foie gras to a cannibal. Jim worries about what will happen. Motion and commotion for sure but nothing else. That is the big fear, that nothing else happens.

      Once the ladies of Rome went down to the sea to greet a barbarian fleet. We imagine lead in their water but perhaps civilization only leads to madness in its sclerotic age and our turn has come.

      In Pace Requiescat.

      • PeteAtomic September 10, 2018 at 10:52 am #

        Have you taken a course in Latin recently, K-Dog?

        lol 🙂

      • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:25 pm #

        Now they cheer as boatloads of Blacks from Africa arrive at the beaches. Or offered hugs to the million plus Brown Muslims that streamed into Germany.

        Those whom the Gods wish to kill they first drive mad. Now consider how you have contributed to this climate of madness through thought, word, deed, prayer, or monetary contribution.

        What are the kind and number of your sins or tattoos?

        • malthuss September 10, 2018 at 2:51 pm #

          The Whites must be Cornucopians.

        • elysianfield September 10, 2018 at 4:39 pm #

          “Now they cheer as boatloads of Blacks from Africa arrive at the beaches.”

          Janos,
          Someone should write a book….oh, someone already has…Camp of the Saints….

  8. Ol' Scratch September 10, 2018 at 10:30 am #

    Last I heard, Russia had already warned the US about staging another comical false flag event in Syria to gin up the hostilities. Funny how the question of “if” the US employs false flag events to start shit in the world has so rapidly changed to “when.” As in, virtually no one in their right mind (That lets you off the hook Lil’ J-bot!) doubts what’s going on these days. What that says about the state of the world is still hard to say. Have we just accepted this as the permanent “new normal” now, or will there eventually be repercussions?

    • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 11:02 am #

      Are you really wondering about repercussions I wonder, and then aaaaahhhhhhh I get it. Scratch jokes!

      A rich harvest of souls awaits but now a moment of pause and perhaps a blunt with Joe Rogan is appropriate in preparation for your festivities. Charon can take a lunch break for soon he will be very busy with his boat.

      Unless you replaced him by a robot.

      • Ol' Scratch September 10, 2018 at 11:18 am #

        Even Ol’ Scratch enjoys a faux dramatic/comedic moment or two before the inevitable. Mankind is just so predictable these days!

        • elysianfield September 10, 2018 at 4:41 pm #

          ” Mankind is just so predictable these days!”

          Nick O Demus,
          And when has it ever been otherwise?

  9. pequiste September 10, 2018 at 10:31 am #

    Gas attack? What upcoming gas attack?

    President Assad has eaten as many falafels this time, as previous, to cause such a murderous malady? Maybe the harissa sauce doesn’t agree with him?

    These gas attacks are more than likely the gastro-intestinal responses of the Deep Stater “intelligence professionals” individuals (named above) who are concerned what DJT is going to do when the sealed indictments are finally published publicly. Quick! Grab some Pepto Bismol messers Brennan, Hayden, Comey, et. al.

    But no matter what happens “The Public” (Lumpen) are mostly concerned with the frolics and foibles of their favourite sports and porn stars ( so as long as the cable/satellite TeeVee programming keeps on streaming, the beer remains cold, and pizza delivery is on-time no-worries irrespective what happens).

    Who needs some Gas-X?

    (ELon Musk would like to buy that company as it sounds like his out-of-this-world transport concern.)As an aside; I heard there might be problems with Elon tokin’ on a doobie with Joe Rogan as his Space-X business has sensitive dealings with the Department of Defense and they frown upon marijuana use by persons with “high” security clearances.

    • K-Dog September 10, 2018 at 10:39 am #

      No problem here, say it was pretend. Then he will pass a piss test if that is all he did and if he has done more than that,

      http://www.passyourdrugtest.com/kits/urine-test.htm .

      Musk has always wanted to be an American. Now his chance to be a true American who has to kiss ‘the man’s’ ass has come. You can’t get more real than that.

      • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:56 am #

        Elon Musk has sunken so low, he’s finally earned the right to party with Charlie Sheen. LOL

  10. Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 10:31 am #

    >>> Mr. Trump was foolish to take “ownership” of it

    As we have seen, the unhingeders are unwilling to concede that Trump’s governance has or will lead to anything positive. They’ll attribute success to Obama, the “lodestar”, the Coriolis effect, whatever.

    Anything negative, on the other hand, is already pre-reserved for Trump and all who support him. The T-Shirts with the issue have already been printed (you just fill in the apocalyptic event). If a comet strikes the earth it will be entirely due to Trump and his deplorables.

    Given this mindest, it wouldn’t matter if Trump took ownership or not. But a good leader should take ownership.

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    • robert magill September 10, 2018 at 12:54 pm #

      >>> Mr. Trump was foolish to take “ownership” of it

      He was also foolish to take “ownership” of the wall. But then, when was the last time anyone in public view referred to “lengthening the wall or adding to the wall” since 500 miles of wall already exist. Much of it thanks to Obama. This is egoism on Trump’s part, wanting credit for a wall, and fake news from the MSM to thwart Trump.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:41 pm #

        Duh, that’s why he was elected. We, the silent no longer majority want a Wall, a Great Wall, a Beautiful Wall. We’re going to hold him to his Promise. Now he’s talking about Just Doing It via the Army Corps of Engineers. At last. Enough with the monkeyshines. He’s the President and can just order it as a matter of national defense.

        • Tate September 10, 2018 at 3:58 pm #

          An added benefit is that he’ll have the military where it really belongs, guarding the border against invasion.

    • Majella September 10, 2018 at 7:55 pm #

      Trump will take credit for ANYTHING, and give credit to NO ONE.

      As well, he can get no CREDIT from a US Lender,and blows up his own CREDIBILITY with every utterance.

      • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 4:02 pm #

        >>> Trump will take credit for ANYTHING, and give credit to NO ONE.

        That’s not entirely true; Trump only takes credit for his successes. Failures—not so much. But I think that’s true of most politicians.

      • benr September 14, 2018 at 10:09 am #

        As if the last buffoon (Oblamer) in the Whitehouse never engaged in that same exact rhetoric! Blame the previous guy for all failures and claim all victories how ever small or even faux.

        Hell the anointed leftist messiah and emperor Obama aka Barry Soetoro aka Barry Dunham himself has suddenly inserted his big mouth into the public STAGE and claimed his policies are finally bearing fruit in an increased GDP!
        At his latest speech venue it must have really hurt his huge ego to pull in only 750 people when it could have held almost 10k!
        The cult of Obama is falling apart and good riddance.

  11. Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 10:36 am #

    Scientists Warn the UN of Capitalism’s Imminent Demise
    A climate change-fueled switch away from fossil fuels means the worldwide economy will fundamentally need to change.

    Link.*

    “Capitalism as we know it is over. So suggests a new report commissioned by a group of scientists appointed by the UN Secretary-General. The main reason? We’re transitioning rapidly to a radically different global economy, due to our increasingly unsustainable exploitation of the planet’s environmental resources.

    “Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments. Contrary to the way policymakers usually think about these problems, the new report says that these are not really separate crises at all.

    “Rather, these crises are part of the same fundamental transition to a new era characterized by inefficient fossil fuel production and the escalating costs of climate change. Conventional capitalist economic thinking can no longer explain, predict, or solve the workings of the global economy in this new age, the paper says.

    “Those are the stark implications of a new scientific background paper prepared by a team of Finnish biophysicists. The team from the BIOS Research Unit in Finland were asked to provide research that would feed into the drafting of the UN Global Sustainable Development Report (GSDR), which will be released in 2019.

    “For the ‘first time in human history,’ the paper says, capitalist economies are ‘shifting to energy sources that are less energy efficient.’ This applies to all forms of energy. Producing usable energy (‘exergy’) to keep powering ‘both basic and non-basic human activities’ in industrial civilisation ‘will require more, not less, effort.’

    “The amount of energy we can extract, compared to the energy we are using to extract it, is decreasing ‘across the spectrum—unconventional oils, nuclear and renewables return less energy in generation than conventional oils, whose production has peaked—and societies need to abandon fossil fuels because of their impact on the climate,’ the paper states.”

    Emphasis added. It dawns on a few more people that oil production has already peaked, permanently.

    * I had to link to the Google cached version, because Vice’s site first shows the article, and then declares a 404 error. Censorship? Then what’s up with the animated horse?

    • Ol' Scratch September 10, 2018 at 11:10 am #

      Out Thelma and Louise moment is rapidly arriving. I wonder if it will be a “glorious death,” a la Legends of the Fall, or more of a slow, grinding, and ominous Road to Perdition kind of thing? I’ve always wondered what that first second or two of free fall feels like when you know there’s no parachute to save you. Exhilarating and terrifying all at once is how I imagine it.

    • “In cities, walking and biking should be emphasized and the remaining public or semi-public transport in and between cities should be largely electrified. This will require changes in city planning (for example, how homes and workplaces are connected to each other and how convenient biking is) (sic)…”

      Americans on bicycles. Imagine that. I can’t. The population is so fat and old and physically dependent on cars this alternative will never be seriously adopted (even allowing for the usual surfeit of excuses.)

      As long as America has disposable income they will drive

      • Loneranger September 10, 2018 at 2:22 pm #

        I’ in my 83rd year of life, and arthritic. But I can still ride a bike. I just first have to decide if the destination is worth the pain.

        • I see two rubs here:

          1. The physical barrier.

          Without reservation the concept of physical education, if judged by the general capability of the population, is a complete failure. We are producing young people who are physically in the worst shape in generations.

          Despite the emergence of a rigorous Exercise science, health and fitness have plummeted across the spectrum of age.

          2. The destination barrier.

          The landscape we have is hostile to bicycles, but not only that. They are repulsive places to be. Built sparsely and spread widely, civic amenities are always interrupted by vast expanses of concessions to cars. The brutality of the cityscape is not something someone experiences in a car. And the destinations all crowd with cars.

          Bicycling is unpleasant! I wouldn’t recommend it to anyone.

          • City_of_76 September 10, 2018 at 8:13 pm #

            I don’t doubt that great swaths of American lives are unpleasant for bicyclists, but also anyone else.

            But those of us who discover the bicycle and our own abilities to thrive in this car-bombed world are glad we found this way.

            Don’t delay — ride your bike today.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:47 pm #

      Well said. Capitalism was always something to enforce on the other guy. For themselves it was always, “Competition is a sin”. Unions? A desperate response to the Union of the Elite – they’ve always cooperated as a class.

      Now they are consolidating their hold on power as they turn the World into an “agricultural state” (the plan for Nazi Germany at the end of the war that would have killed tens of millions).

      Your beloved Marxism? Their creature from the beginning. Read Jack London’s “The Iron Heel” and learn about real Socialism, American National Socialism in this case.

      No? Then who funded Communism? Workers armed with hammers and peasants with pitchforks are just so much cannon fodder and target practice. They didn’t overthrow Russia or Old France.

    • benr September 14, 2018 at 10:15 am #

      THe problem with the “new” source of power are every bit as toxic as fossil fuel sources. The batteries are super super toxic with short life spans and the rare earth minerals are far smaller in volume then even the untapped fossil fuel sources. It is extremely dirty to produce solar panels and windmills. Better to grow switch grass for ethanol, hemp for diesel/ethanol and algae diesel and motor on all these will burn and create energy. C02 can be off set easily by planting billions of trees.

  12. Paulo September 10, 2018 at 10:36 am #

    There is an implied false equivalency when discussing Dems and Repubs. If Dems are corrupt and full of tricks, then Trumpers must be innocent. Or, if Trumpers are as bad as stated, then the Dems must have been right all along. Neither statement is true. Both parties are self-serving and wholly concerned with power. It is sad to see the Repubs slinking away into the shadows instead of confronting Trump. No, it’s blatant and disgusting. It is just as sad to hear Dems talk about how great Bill Clinton was. To me, they’re both pieces of shit for human beings. And no, R Raygun was not any better of a President.

    What went wrong with the Country that now solely exists to support corporations and their rich owners. There used to be a myth of promise. Now, there is not much left beyond a bad smell. If The Market burps between now and Nov 6th the last charade will be played out.

    I have my fingers crossed there might be a mass exit to sell.

  13. According to The New York Times, Thw Taliban now control 61% of the country. A whole lot of suck for 18 years, 2,200 American lives, and $820 billion dollars.

    Trump cancelled $2 billion (of $3 billion) in payments to third world countries facing the brunt of climate change. Too expensive.

    • malthuss September 10, 2018 at 10:45 am #

      climate change. –Uh, nature is ever in flux. Any child should have this pointed out to them.

      • It was part of a deal, mathuss. The Paris accords, as I recall.

        That agreement (for payments to offset climate change), by the USA and other nations, including some of the G-8, as concessions for the damage caused in their countries by carbon dioxide.

        As I pointed out contrasting the amount spent in Afghanistan and the amount of concessions, this was affordable- an insignificant budget line item.

        But when didn’t the white man rip up the treaties when it suited his descendants? ….Said the Red man.

        The Europeans aren’t dumping their obligations, which are equally pithy sums. It would look cheap if it didn’t look crazy. Climate change denialist are looking more and more like the new Flat Earth Society.

        • benr September 14, 2018 at 10:21 am #

          Who is denying that climate changes?
          Talk about a straw man argument.
          Thank GOD for climate change living on a glacier would SUCK!
          The causation is what is in dispute!
          How does one argue against a slow and steady warming planet the evidence is all around us in the fact glaciers covered most of North America at one point?
          Here here the cold sucks!
          At issue is anthropogenic climate change AKA MAN CAUSED!
          Blaming fossil fuels is foolish at best and self serving at the most.

    • Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 10:50 am #

      America lives – the only ones that truly count.

      • elysianfield September 10, 2018 at 11:30 am #

        “…I am not “Cherman”…I am “Sviss!!!”

      • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 2:49 pm #

        Yes, for true Americans, that is true. If one doesn’t love one’s own first and foremost, one doesn’t really love anyone else either. Of course Leftists do love each other. They just don’t consider other Americans to be human. And they seek foreign immigrants as allies in the coming War.

        • benr September 14, 2018 at 10:22 am #

          Leftists are delusional period and of story.

    • Ol' Scratch September 10, 2018 at 11:15 am #

      I wonder if that includes Deep State payments to the “terrorists” themselves to fund their assorted straw man activities? You do know that the US is funding both sides of these phony little “wars,” I assume? The shit and the stench is far deeper than even the most cynical of us on the outside can possibly know.

      • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 11:26 am #

        And they DO hand out countless gazillions in duffle bags, suitcases and by the pallet load Scratch. And this from the people that do the handing out. There are so many quadrillions floating around out there that I doubt that anyone has any true and accurate count of how great the real number is. If money is a tool, or better yet a weapon, the USA has handed out enough weapons to the enemies that it has created, that they are certainly capable of doing some real serious damage should they ever care to go there.

      • Enough with the deep state malarkey. You don’t need conspiracy theory to see how the billions we pay Pakistan somehow might end up as equipment for the Taliban, or training and finding for Afghan militias end up as bullets in the pockets of local warlords.

        • ozone September 10, 2018 at 1:10 pm #

          Lil Deb,
          Exactly. It’s a conspiracy *fact*; no theory about it. 😉

  14. Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 10:53 am #

    @Elrond,

    >>> Climate change and species extinctions are accelerating even as societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments

    What a strange amalgamation this statement is, combining, as it does, scientific assertions with Lefty political assessments.

    >>> Contrary to the way policymakers usually think about these problems, the new report says that these are not really separate crises at all.

    So if we were to randomly pick, oh, any year between the start of human history and now, we wouldn’t be able to say that societies are experiencing rising inequality, unemployment, slow economic growth, rising debt levels, and impotent governments? Is that correct? It wouldn’t apply when Obama was POTUS, for example? Or 10 years ago? Or 100 years ago? Or 1000 years ago?

    It is the Left’s penchant for apocalyptic exaggeration and the politicization of science (and everything else) that undermines their credibility.

    • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 11:01 am #

      I get a chuckle out of people who say they don’t want the kind of socialism found in Venezuela. They want the Bernie Sanders kind of socialism, where unicorns poop quality health care and everyone goes to 4 years of free college to study gender diversity issues. Oh happy day!

      • Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 11:08 am #

        Much better is the socialism practiced by those stalwart capitalist bankers – fuck up the world financial gizmo and then run hat-in-hand to the taxpayers. Oh, and don’t forget those bonuses…

        • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 11:20 am #

          I’ve long denounced the billionaire globalist elite (especially the bankers) and called for them to be brought to justice, preferably involving a rope.

          Georges, you’re the one living in Switzerland, busy financially pillaging the world I’ll bet!

          • Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 1:40 pm #

            Yes, we are strip-mining the world financially by day and enjoying hot cheese by night – life at its finest.

          • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 4:41 pm #

            “Hot cheese by night” is that some Podesta pedophile code talk? Careful, Georges, don’t let people know that you know all the lingo.

        • benr September 14, 2018 at 10:25 am #

          That is socializing failure (monetary loss) and privatizing success (profit).

    • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 11:13 am #

      The Left constantly tries to wheedle in their politics under the guise of “science”. They simultaneously try to legitimize their policies and lost causes while preventing all dissent with the imprimatur of the scientific community. As if anyone but their own unhinged base is falling for it.

      I didn’t even get past the first line of that article before rejecting it. Nice try, though.

    • Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 11:44 am #

      Ex, your animus against all things left is not helping your analysis. For one thing, looking from the start of human history up till now, you’re likely to find that most of that first sentence you quoted is meaningless. Those concepts only apply to capitalist economies — you know, the kind of economy we’re all familiar with. All of human history amounts to about ten thousand years, whereas capitalism has existed for 250 to maybe 300 years, tops, and the whole point of JHK’s blog is that it’s coming to an end. You and I have no disagreement about that; our only disagreements are likely to be about our preferences for what should replace it. And on that score, *pphthththththhbbbbffff*.

      Ex: “It wouldn’t apply when Obama was POTUS, for example? Or 10 years ago? Or 100 years ago? Or 1000 years ago?”

      Ten, or a hundred, or a thousand years ago — I dealt with that above. As for Obama, do me a favour and stop mistaking me for a fucking Democrat.

      • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 12:53 pm #

        @Elrond,

        Really? Your defense is that the first sentence clearly only applies to the last 300 years and not all of human history? As if that negates the main point of my critique, which is that the Left conflating science with politics?

        So the following concepts don’t apply to ancient Rome? Say, circa 476 A.D…

        1. rising inequality
        2. unemployment
        3. slow economic growth
        4. rising debt levels
        5. impotent governments

        Which ones don’t apply? Which ones are post-capitalist concepts that have no meaning outside a capitalist economy?

        >>> do me a favour and stop mistaking me for a fucking Democrat.

        Aren’t you vain. I know you’re Canadian. I doubt Canada even has a “Democratic Party”. I never said “Democrat”; my comment was a critique of that article and “the Left”. The world is not about you, Elrond.

        • Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 2:42 pm #

          Ex, when writing my initial response above I started off by addressing, one by one, those very points you tick off. Then I realized I could save my breath, because you would pick up on whatever you found useful to yourself and sneer at the rest, regardless. So I deleted what I had written and changed tack. I see no more profit in following your garden path now than I did then.

          Instead, I want to ridicule your claim that the left ‘conflates science with politics’. Umm, what? Since science is how we know the truth about what’s actually going on, where’s the ‘conflating’ exactly? If by that you mean that the left (a) pursues its agenda, and (b) has the temerity to base that agenda on what science tells us to be, actually, you know, true — well then, glory be, you’ve got us cold. How dastardly of us!

          There’s no ‘conflating’ of science and politics. Deciding whose agenda gets pursued and whose doesn’t is the very substance of politics. To the extent that your strange assertion is true (i.e. that the left’s agenda takes science into account), I’m happy to agree with it, and take comfort in how much adhering to science strengthens the left’s case. Beyond that, I have to wonder what the heck you think you’re proving.

          • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 10:37 pm #

            So the left’s views are based on hard science? I’ll have to remember that while sorting through the 24 new human genders they discovered in the last few years.

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 3:28 pm #

            So the Left doesn’t conflate science with politics? I’ll have to remember that the next time they demand that the CDC study the “disease” of gun violence.

          • Elrond Hubbard September 12, 2018 at 9:34 am #

            Ex: Ignorance is strength.

          • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 11:11 am #

            @Elrond, I’m all for amassing data on gun violence. But the appropriate entity to do this is not the CDC, and not under the guise that gun violence is an infectious “disease” like influenza.

            In point of fact, the CDC started to amass data on gun violence, didn’t like the results they were getting, and tried to bury it. The data indicated millions of cases of defensive gun use in the USA, undermining the Left’s anti-gun-rights position.

        • City_of_76 September 10, 2018 at 8:16 pm #

          unemployment — Has no meaning outside a capitalist economy.

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 3:33 pm #

            So when people of ancient Rome had no jobs, no occupation, no work for which they were paid, no way to earn a living, they were…? Tell us please the subtle technical differences between unemployment and the aforementioned.

          • Tate September 13, 2018 at 7:03 pm #

            This allows us to understand how communism & capitalism are two sides of the same coin. They are both systems of thought designed around the notion that human existence is based solely on the material plane.

            Thus a preoccupation with measurement, it being the most tractable property of the material world.

            The various ways “unemployment” is measured for example.

      • benr September 14, 2018 at 10:29 am #

        Socialist then.

    • here’s the actual report : “Global Sustainable Development Report 2019 drafted by the Group of independent scientists”

      The above was quoted directly from it.

      Exscrotum’s objections are purile eqivocation.

      Anyone informed on the dilemma of civilization and EROEI that has been around for over a decade on CFN will immediately recognize the factual content of this article.

      It’s this new crowd, only appearing lately, parting ignorant drivel of the kind expressed here, rather obviously resembling the uninformed opinions of people who aren’t familiar with this blog’s historical Baliwick.

      The recent focus of the blog on rhetorical and political subjects had attracted a permanent class of genuine morons and opportunists without any comprehension of the main themes underlying the cluster of fuck going on.

      As such they offer themselves up as examples of it. Well, break out the marshmallows boys, we’re gonna be roasting morons all week

      • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 1:06 pm #

        @Lil Dipshit,

        I have no issue with the factual content of any article. But I am keenly aware of the difference between science and politics. When you try to spin facts to support a political ideology, when you argue that “science says you should do this”, then you’ve left the realm of science to enter the heady waters of opinion. Attempts to hitch opinions to the wagon of science are an epic fail.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 3:04 pm #

          Well said. Now fess up: You don’t think Society exists, as the Iron Lady once gushingly admitted. It’s all just individuals with the State as the enforcer of contracts (as if any such “small government” could ever do that).

          • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 4:12 pm #

            Janos I’m not a big-L Libertarian. I’m not a big-C (laissez-faire) Capitalist. I’m dealing with people who are so far to the Left that even a moderate position sounds like something out of an Ayn Rand novel.

          • malthuss September 11, 2018 at 12:55 pm #

            does society exist?

        • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 12:06 pm #

          “when you argue that “science says you should do this”, then you’ve left the realm of science to enter the heady waters of opinion”

          Science says you shouldn’t step out the window of a thirty-storey building, but do feel free to go with the heady waters of your own opinion.

          Just don’t jump with the rest of us tied to you, which is the situation with climate change.

          And you’re ‘do nothing’ isn’t a lack of ideology, it’s just a ‘fuck you, I’m all right, Jack’ ideology.

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 12:07 pm #

            *your*

          • hmuller September 11, 2018 at 12:31 pm #

            I always thought science was strictly about ascertaining facts, that science didn’t tell you what to do with the facts – how to live your life, how to organize a society. That’s where philosophy et al. enters the picture. Am I wrong?

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 1:33 pm #

            Strictly speaking you’re not wrong, hm. Science just tells you that if you jump you’ll die.

            But scientists are humans too and if they were near the ledge they’d be morally obliged to plead with you not to jump.

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 3:23 pm #

            @GreenAlba,

            >>> Science says you shouldn’t step out the window of a thirty-storey building

            No it doesn’t. Science informs decision makers, but “should” and “shouldn’t” are not part of the language of science.

            And your reductio ad absurdum argument is just that: absurdum. Under some circimstances, jumping out a thirty-storey window may indeed be the best course of action. That was a choice many made during 9/11 when faced with burning to death. But since you speak for all of science, please feel free to argue that they were all wrong, that science says they should have burned to death instead.

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 6:30 pm #

            Ex, I think you’ll find I clarified that to hmuller. It was a turn of phrase – a shortcut for most circumstances and not refined to take into account wilful suicides, lesser choices of two evils and the like. I knew when I clicked ‘submit’ that there would be comeback from the likes of your good self.

            Science does indeed only tell us what will happen if we continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere and the oceans. Science does not make us deal with that as adults. In fact if we choose to stand by like teenagers, put our fingers in our ears and shout ‘la-la-la – you can’t make me’, science can do nothing about that at all. Scientists, on the other hand, may despair, like other rational adults.

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 6:56 pm #

            >>> Science does indeed only tell us what will happen if we continue to pump CO2 into the atmosphere and the oceans.

            Actually, science can’t even tell us that. How much is too much? When’s the tipping point of no return? Clearly, we’re playing with fire, but facts remain elusive.

            Another thing science doesn’t tell us is that climate action must include concern for “gender equality, empowerment of women, and intergenerational equity”. That’s politics, and that’s part of the Paris Agreement that the USA correctly rejected.

            Your mistake is confusing peope who reject the politics with people who reject the science. You don’t need to convince me that greenhouse gases are not in our best interests. It’s the politics we disagree on. I will reject any solution that disadvantages the USA while the rest of the world parties on.

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 8:06 pm #

            ” I will reject any solution that disadvantages the USA while the rest of the world parties on.”

            Which neatly, yet again, avoids the reason why China and India have been given longer to adjust their fossil-burning economies, which is that the US and Europe started partying a long, long time before China and India popped round to join in, and are responsible for about 80% of historical emissions.

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 9:05 pm #

            First of all, kudos to China for at least trying to mitigate their population growth, and to do so while the US and Europe railed against these “human rights” abuses.

            >>> the US and Europe … are responsible for about 80% of historical emissions.

            So your argument is that developing nations have a right to catch up to our pollution levels? Or have a right to contribute their “fair share” of pollution? And all the while we take an economic hit?

            This presupposes that these developing nations didn’t benefit from our pollution. Not only did they benefit, but in many instances, it took them from the stone age to the modern era. Our “historic emissions” resulted in products and technological advances that the entire world benefits from. And so we will not handicap ourselves while developing nations demonstrate no environmental or ecological responsibility whatsoever.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 12:36 am #

            Good points, Ex. The Left hates the West so much that they’d be thrilled if we became 3rd World and India and China took our place. All talk of pollution would be relegated to the same nowhere land where Ted Kennedy’s promise that opening America to the 3rd World wouldn’t change America, lives. His Lie and betrayal of America is eternal. And that no Liberal wants to talk about it changes nothing.

          • GreenAlba September 12, 2018 at 9:37 am #

            So your argument is that developing nations have a right to catch up to our pollution levels? — Exscotticus

            No, Exscotticus, my argument isn’t that simple. And it’s not actually my argument. It’s the rationale embraced by those who engaged in discussions on the matter and came to an agreement. Which your president decided to dishonour. Beware white man, he turn orange and speak with forked tongue.

            The way of life you are so reluctant to even remotely tweak is a result of your joining the party long, long before China. So you have already had the benefit for a very, very long time.

            And note that per capita emissions in the US are almost two and a half times those of China. And that’s with China making a load of the stuff you can’t stop stuffing yourselves with. Imagine what your emissions would be if those factories came back.

            If per capita emissions didn’t matter, the UK could just sit back and say what some of our dimmer bulbs say, which is ‘but the UK only accounts for 2% of the problem, so we should just do nothing because it makes no difference, and because…China’. And I somehow think you’d be saying ‘but that’s not fair’. Especially if we got into a trade deal with you, and even though your manufacturers pay a fraction of what ours do for liquid fuel.

            The problem with you, Exscotticus, is that you keep saying ’life isn’t fair – get over it’‘, except when you’re saying ‘wah, wah, wah, it’s not fair’.

            The point about an agreement is that if you don’t have an agreement, you don’t even get started on dealing with the problem. And China and India understandably said, ’yeah right – you partied for a century before we came round to join in and now you want us to go home at the same time as you, when chunks of our economies are tied to fossil fuels the way yours were back then, so we have far more work to do?’

            So the adults in the room took their point and a compromise was reached, otherwise they might have just said what you say, which is ‘life’s not fair – deal with it’, which is fine and dandy but doesn’t get adults anywhere very far.

            This presupposes that these developing nations didn’t benefit from our pollution.–Exscotticus

            Just like you benefit from their pollution every time you use something ‘Made in China’. Which nobody makes you buy in the first place.

            “And so we will not handicap ourselves while developing nations demonstrate no environmental or ecological responsibility whatsoever. [my bold] — Exscotticus.

            https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/22/coal-power-plants-green-energy-china-india

            “The dramatic decline in new coal-fired units was overwhelmingly due to policy shifts in China and India and subsequent declining investment prospects, according to a report by Greenpeace, the US-based Sierra Club and research network CoalSwarm.

            “The report said the amount of new capacity starting construction was down 62% in 2016 on the year before, and work was frozen at more than a hundred sites in China and India. In January, China’s energy regulator halted work on a further 100 new coal-fired projects, suggesting the trend was not going away.”

          • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 10:45 am #

            @GreenAlba,

            >>> Exscotticus, is that you keep saying ’life isn’t fair – get over it’‘, except when you’re saying ‘wah, wah, wah, it’s not fair’.

            I’m not the one making demands on others, blaming others, deflecting responsibility, etc. It is the rest of the world saying “wah, wah, wah, it’s not fair” because the USA won’t be a everyone’s favorite punching bag.

            >>> Just like you benefit from their pollution every time you use something ‘Made in China’. Which nobody makes you buy in the first place.

            Yes we do. And do you see us demanding that China handicap itself now that it has benefitted—and far more so than all its neighbors put together? China is now arguably more industrialized than the USA. They have so much excess that they build unpopulated “ghost cities” just to keep their economy humming. Talk about destroying the environment for nothing.

            But your argument is that China should continue to get a free pass on pollution based on some Parisian concept of “fairness”? Your “fairness” is nothing more than a pack of mangy wolves and a sheep deciding on what’s for dinner.

            The fundamental problem with the Paris Agreement is that—at its core—it’s the West paying reparations to the third world. It’s a reconciliation document for the alleged sins of the West. It’s a giant exercise in victimology. And the “benefit” that the USA is being offered is that the third world will agree to stop their own suicidal policies in a few decades if we agree to handicap ourselves in the present. Huh?! My answer to the third world: that’s OK; go commit suicide.

          • GreenAlba September 12, 2018 at 11:28 am #

            “My answer to the third world: that’s OK; go commit suicide.”

            All I’m seeing is some die-hard knucklehead who will see his own children and grandchildren suffer as long as they suffer a little bit less and a little bit later than someone else. What a great guiding principle. So you can take pleasure in watching coastal Bangladesh go under as long as you’re still only up to your knees in New York or Florida, saying ‘but, but, we can’t handicap ourselves… ‘

            https://www.theguardian.com/cities/ng-interactive/2017/nov/03/three-degree-world-cities-drowned-global-warming

            I mean, who cares? After a while no-one will even remember Miami was ever there. Or New York either, eventually.

          • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 11:51 am #

            @GreenAlba,

            Better to die free than live as a slave. If you want the third world to hold you, your family, your friends, your culture, and your country hostage then that’s your choice. But I’m not going to advocate for world-wide victimology and blackmail.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 9:02 pm #

            Yes, China is obviously playing the Lib Softies for suckers. And we have to pay the price for their cluelessness. It’s this kind of shit that explains why Obama wouldn’t let any refineries be built here while he was fine with Latin America building them.

            Feminine minds just can’t fathom this level of subtlety and ruthlessness – even though they are ruthless enough in their own way. And feminine minds aren’t just found in females, especially these days.

          • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 10:47 am #

            What a great guiding principle.

            The world is not looking for leadership; it’s looking for a sacrificial lamb. It’s looking for freebies and handouts and reparations for the perceived historic injustice of “inequality”. How dare the USA have so much while we have so little! How dare they be so blessed and fortunate! Eat the rich!

            Ultimately this is the socialist argument all over again. Arguing that advantaged nations have an obligation to sacrifice themselves for disadvantaged nations is like arguing that advantaged people have an obligation to sacrifice themselves for disadvantaged people. This is the class warfare promulgated by Socialists and most famously captured by Karl Marx’s “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” It’s a form of slavery where the slaves are those with natural gifts and talents, forever working for the benefit of the less fortunate. In practice, it’s a parasitic ideology where hardly anyone has any incentive to work at all.

        • “When you try to spin facts to support a political ideology, when you argue that “science says you should do this”, then you’ve left the realm of science”

          Oh, I’m perfectly aware how hostile the political realm is to science. Since the scientific method began, it was always greeted with outright hostility.

          Nevertheless, I’ll take science-supported politics and policy over the alternative any day of the week and forevermore. If science doesn’t support your political agenda… neither does reality.

          In respect to the publication cited here, there is nothing politically controversial. Your hysterical and truculent reactions are immature.

          • Elrond Hubbard September 11, 2018 at 1:46 pm #

            Quite so. If someone asked me what I would choose to have written into the supreme law of every land on earth, I would recommend that all public policy be required to pass the test of the scientific method. At the least, anyone advocating a public policy that couldn’t show an evidentiary basis and hold up under empirical scrutiny should bear the onus of defending it.

            The fact that it’s me proposing this is all too likely to provoke Ex into another round of denunciations, even though this would be just as helpful to the right-wing as to the left. The only people harmed would be those with senseless and irrational goals. Ssshhh, let’s see if he notices.

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 3:39 pm #

            @Elrond,

            What you’re describing is a scientocracy or technocracy. Go enjoy the movie 12 Monkeys and be careful what you wish for.

            I am all for “science-supported politics”. What I am not for is the politicization of science. The fact that you’re denying the latter even exists undermines your credibility.

          • Walter B September 11, 2018 at 4:43 pm #

            While admirable to require policy to pass the scientific muster EH, unfortunately the scientific community is just as subject to sellout, fraud, and error as any other area of expertise. And the scientific method requires correction from time to time as new facts become widely accepted. I recall being taught in high school that there were three states of matter, solid, liquid and gas. A few years ago I came across a new statement that there was a fourth state of matter, plasma. All systems of man will be flawed just as man is flawed.

            Nope, laws will always fall short in making things work in any society, even the “civilized” ones and the lawyers will always make sure that laws are simply playthings with which to manipulate the masses for profit. Good people do not need laws and bad people pay them no heed.

          • JustSaying September 12, 2018 at 8:59 am #

            Good people do not need laws and bad people pay them no heed. –Walter B

            This is a pearl of wisdom!

          • Elrond Hubbard September 12, 2018 at 9:59 am #

            Ex: “The fact that you’re denying [the politicization of science] even exists undermines your credibility.”

            You and this hobbyhorse, sheesh. I deny nothing. What I am is incredulous that you think it’s illegitimate to employ science with a political purpose.

            Note that that’s not the same thing as misrepresenting or falsifying science with a political purpose. That, for example, is what denialists do with respect to climate science, vaccines, GMOs, and other important issues. That’s despicable. For my part I do nothing of the kind, and I will bet you cash money you will never find an example of me doing so.

            I don’t know how you got it into your head that using science to show that people are wrong, when they are in fact wrong, is nefarious. I expect it’s a matter of too much Fox News or some equivalent information diet. In any case, you’re full of shit. In fact, what you don’t like about science seems to be that it’s effective. The gun lobby, for example, simply couldn’t have people actually finding out what’s real about gun violence in the USA, because the truth is not on their side. So they pressured Congress, and Congress threatened the CDC’s funding if it dared try to actually find out what the truth is and tell people about it. Meanwhile you filibuster and hide behind nonsense like politicization of science precisely because you fear that your denialism couldn’t survive having a light shone on it.

            Ignorance is strength‘ truly is what you stand for, Ex. Ignorance is curable, but to be ignorant and proud of it truly is the most contemptible thing I know of.

          • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 11:04 am #

            >>> you think it’s illegitimate to employ science with a political purpose

            Finally we agree on something. Yes—Elrond—that is exactly right. It’s called bias and it’s the enemy of science. A climate scientist who argues that he is certain the data will show that “climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with misogyny and social injustice” is openly biased and not fit for the role. It would be like a judge announcing his opinion of your guilt before your trial.

            Tp paraphrase Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, “Scientists must be independent, must keep an open mind in every case, and must pursue facts not based on personal or policy views.”

          • Elrond Hubbard September 12, 2018 at 3:56 pm #

            Ex: You want to denounce people for ‘politicizing’ what you think should not be politicized. Then, marvelously, of all people you quote the Trump administration’s current nominee for the Supreme Court to buttress your position. Comedy!

            The U.S. Supreme Court is a deeply politicized institution, and its nominating process has been a naked political charade since no later than 1987. The Senate rejected Robert Bork’s nomination owing to his openly-held views regarding civil rights and voting rights. These are political issues if there ever was such a thing. Ever since then, the process has been gamed ruthlessly. Nowadays, Senators pretend to ask questions of Supreme Court nominees, to which the pre-vetted and heavily coached nominees respond with carefully-framed non-answers; then the vote proceeds along party lines. All of this is well understood, widely discussed, and completely public. You certainly can’t be excused from understanding it.

            And yet here you go decrying ‘politicization of science’ out of one side of your mouth, while spouting sanctimonious hypocrisy lifted from this poisoned process out the other. If you say your hypothetical climate scientist is not fit for the role, then reason requires you to say the same of Bork, who in fact was a judge who ‘announced his opinion of cases before the trial”. Instead, you quote his successor candidate, when any child knows Brett Kavanaugh is not testifying in good faith — no Supreme Court nominee is, and has not been for a long time. He’s testifying strategically, maintaining a facade of po-faced innocence while he runs out the clock, and waits for Senate Republicans to sweep him into a lifetime perch from which he will do the party’s bidding for a generation.

            The very act of decrying the ‘politicization’ of this or that is itself a political conjuring trick. Don’t weary my ears with it, or your hypocrisy, any further. Your hypothetical scientist cannot be disqualified for saying “climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with misogyny and social injustice”, because that is not a scientific claim. Should an actual scientist actually say those words, they would be speaking as a human being and a citizen, not as a professional. And whether you agree with what they have to say or not, I bet you that unlike Mr. Kavanaugh, they would be speaking in good faith.

          • GreenAlba September 12, 2018 at 5:39 pm #

            You might like this one, Elrond.

            https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/sep/12/north-carolina-didnt-like-science-on-sea-levels-so-passed-a-law-against-it

            It seems those entrusted with the safety and security of the citizens of North Carolina didn’t like what the science told them about how they’d be affected by rising sea levels – so what did they do? Did they plan for improved sea defences or to stop building near the sea? Nooooo… they passed a law to say that scientific forecasts can’t be used to plan for sea level rises and that ‘historical’ rises must be used instead.

            I think NC might want to be the first state to win a Darwin Award. Although you have to give them kudos for finding a whole new way of politicising science – by making it illegal to act on it.

          • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 6:37 pm #

            @Elrond,

            You just had a mini freak-out because I paraphrased a man likely to join the US Supreme Court? Which historical heavyweights are quotationally permissible within your credentialism? Karl Popper? Richard Feynman? You’ll find precious few to support your theory that science concerns itself with what ought to be as opposed to what is.

            >>> Your hypothetical scientist cannot be disqualified for saying “climate change cannot fully be addressed without also grappling with misogyny and social injustice”, because that is not a scientific claim. Should an actual scientist actually say those words, they would be speaking as a human being and a citizen, not as a professional.

            My hypothetical scientist can be disqualified by presenting policy as science, by distorting or misrepresent data to support preconceived conclusions, by withholding relevant facts that undermine these conclusions, and myriad other ways.

            Scientists certainly have a right to their opinions and to interpret their data or anyone else’s. But a good scientist will focus on the IS and let others handle the OUGHT. Even the appearance of bias can undermine credibility and scientific integrity. And it doesn’t merely impugn the scientist; it creates public mistrust of science itself.

  15. John of the West September 10, 2018 at 11:06 am #

    Human civilization began in the Middle East and has the potential to end in the Middle East. Foreign policy dreams and wishes can’t reshape reality, nor can it wipe out the desire for at least some part of Syria to remain under the control of the current regime. The ideal of the United States was to stay out of these things, which may or may not be possible at this point, but looking for a solution which ends the killing and reduces tension in the region seems like a better way to go. Otherwise, the risk of it fermenting and turning into something more much dangerous at some point remains.

    (visit http://www.darkageprep.com for more discussions on these topics)

    Support this blog on PatreonSupport this blog on Substack
    Support this blog via Patreon or Substack
  16. volodya September 10, 2018 at 11:06 am #

    Zoltar, excellent. I spend a lot on time on this blog blathering about people not seeing what’s right under their nose, but this thing you write about, the betrayal by the Democrats of their natural constituency, the transformation of the party of the American worker into the party of Wall Street, is something that anybody with open eyes couldn’t miss, and congratulations, you didn’t let a generation of misdirection blind you.

    You say “The current grievances of most people who call themselves liberals and/or Democrats are mostly mere distractions, designed by the Deep State to keep us from noticing that the world is being stolen from us.”

    Environmental degradation, despite the noise and commotion, isn’t amounting to more than noise and commotion, because it’s one of those distractions. Say “climate change” and its to the barricades. But is anything of substance being done? Not a chance, because the ones doing most of the talking, the great bi-coastal intellectual class, being wealthy and comfortable, are the greatest environmental malefactors, and they won’t give up their comforts and privileges, least of all their air-conditioned SUVs and jet-powered air travel. YOU have to reduce YOUR carbon footprint, but not them. What they have they NEED, damn you, and besides they deserve what they have.

    What comes out of this betrayal by the Democrats, that’s a big question. The Republicans similarly betrayed the trust of their constituents and so, as K-dog said a while back, Kansas isn’t buying their bullshit anymore, and the nomination and election of Trump is the result.

    What comes of Democrat treachery? A new party? Will they be the candidates of bread and butter issues that affect the broad swathe of the population or will it be all about Hollywood nuts-n-sluts and sexual derangement? Can they resist Wall Street money?

    In my view modern day “progressivism” is about as “progressive” as the expired German Democratic Republic was “democratic”. I hope the new party, if it comes about, re-focuses their energies.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 3:08 pm #

      What comes? You really don’t know? Communism, obviously. It’s already happening. But a Racial Communism this time – with Whites taking the place of the bourgeoisie. Good times!

  17. Opie September 10, 2018 at 11:09 am #

    JHK-“Just as there is loose talk about an Assad gas attack, there’s also a lot of loose talk around the Internet that a large number of US intel communitarians are about to be busted for their political misconduct around the 2016 election.”

    I too am watching out for this.Apparently there is a grand jury that nothing has been leaked out of that are looking into that. Judging by the desperate acts coming out of the swamp, I believe there may be something to it. These people are desperate to get Donulus Trumpus out of office and are acting like the mobsters they are. The President would be wise to chose his SS detail very carefully.

  18. Walter B September 10, 2018 at 11:10 am #

    Well Jim, the US un-intelligence community certainly would know if Bashar Assad was planning an “illegal” attack of any kind since it is they who will be planning and carrying it out for him. If what these agencies actually do for a living is creep around in the shadows pretending to be something that they are not and lying and conniving to fool their adversaries, how can they have any credibility with ANYONE ever? Who ARE their adversaries besides EVERYONE anyway? There simply can be NO TRUTH from anything that they conjure up, they are professional deceivers and as such carry ZERO believability. Why they are kept around not only baffles me, but baffled one certain murdered president in 1963.

    As to whether or not large quantities of “sealed indictments” really exist or not, I cannot see how this question is not the same question only worded differently as to whether or not there IS a Santa Claus. Denying the existence of dear old Santa cannot make him go away can it? And the fact that the illusion persists, nobody ever gets any presents for free down their chimney do they?

    In the end, Americans will either follow the theater and fight each other on the blogs over the performances, or go get a sex change, some ear loops and calf tattoos, and fire up the legal weed in their new glass bongs. Me, I am enjoying our small, local fight for our place. We are actually gaining ground after an huge, hard fought victory in the June Primary. Some of us have found that by finding a fight for what is right, even in a small venue, the effort is very valuable for the end result of being to walk a little bit more upright and to sleep like a baby every night. It is not about winning or losing, it is about fighting. Quit ye like men.

    • Ol' Scratch September 10, 2018 at 11:24 am #

      All unfolding at the same time the sycophant Brits are raising hell about their faux spy murder case (Part Deux, the Spy(s) Who Were Never There), which even the British public is totally dismissive of. On the one hand, you’ve got to hand it to these idiots for persistence, but on the other you really have to question their creativity. All of this shit rings of something our Lil’ J-Bot might have schemed up while noodling away an hour in final period study hall.

      • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 3:32 pm #

        You make a good point about “our little school girl” (hello Alvin Lee) that she/he/it, or s-h-it for short, never replies during school hours when the blog first hits, but only after arrival at home and presumably the completion of homework. The extensive travel throughout South America aided by large quantities of penicillin stills throws me off though. So difficult to assemble the truth here in Cyberspace.

        • Tate September 10, 2018 at 5:28 pm #

          s-h-it, ha-ha!

  19. akmofo September 10, 2018 at 11:24 am #

    To drain a swamp, any swamp, you just need to direct lots of sunshine on it, and provide drainage channels to funnel the dead standing swamp water out to sea. Bankrupt leftist/commie toilet defeatism notwithstanding.

  20. Paul Ford O'Neil September 10, 2018 at 11:27 am #

    Hello James,

    Here at the confluence of the Anacostia & Potomac – the ducks & geese are looking south, nervously watching the approach of Hurricane Florence – CAT 3 rolling right up the Potomac?

    Excellent analysis of the present seemingly confused ‘deep-state’.

    BUT, there appears to be even deeper ‘deep-state’ skulduggery afoot if Dr. E. Michael Jones has correctly read the latest “Pedophile Moral Panic” in the US catholic country-club:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDz_uoJRUfU

    Most disconcerting, is Jones’ theory that the “Oligarchs” are mortally wounding the only moral force [Holy Roman Catholic Church] that can oppose their next Mid-East bomb-bomb-bomb adventure.

    Accuse – Caterwaul – Media Star Chamber – Settle – Steal/Sell – War – Repeat

    But, today it looks like someone in the ‘deep-state’ needs a bigger war-fund – so, what better ‘candy-store of hypothecate-able property’ to loot than the Catholic Church assets – held as a private piggy-bank for the past 50 years by the Demonic-Marxist-Feminist-Abominate Jesuit Lavender Mafia?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnZXo6TZyZw

    For those knee-jerk critics of Dr. Jones – note that in the week after he made his comments in the first video – His Grace, Arch-Bishop Carlo Maria Viganó released his “Testimony” confirming what Jones has been saying for 25 years [10:00].

    Gee, I wonder which of my former “Jesuit College” colleagues who became life-long stooges of the “Jesuit Lavender Mafia” are involved with these machinations? [27:30].

    I watched them literally sell their lives/souls to the Jesuit Lavender Mafia in our college for the promise of jobs/power/sex, etc. and they have served the “Jesuit Lavender Mafia” in business-government-industry-military-religion for the past 40 years!

    Dr. E. Michael Jones is not the only “Roman Catholic” American man who has been vindicated this month.

    Keep at it James, it is so much more interesting than even a first-class logic & critical thinking mind of your quality may really imagine.

    Carry-on until you are carrion,
    PFO

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    • Elrond Hubbard September 10, 2018 at 3:49 pm #

      PFO: “Most disconcerting, is Jones’ theory that the ‘Oligarchs’ are mortally wounding the only moral force [Holy Roman Catholic Church] that can oppose their next Mid-East bomb-bomb-bomb adventure.”

      For ‘disconcerting’, read ‘eye-rolling’.

      “Lieutenant! Set sail for Ruritania. We have a mission to carry out. National security is at stake.”

      “Aye-aye, sir. On course to Ruritania.”

      “Steady as she goes, Lieutenant. Eh? What’s that? An alarm?”

      From the crow’s nest comes a cry: “Ahoy! The Roman Catholics are a-coming!”

      “Drat, we are undone! Lieutenant, take up your telescope. What are they armed with?”

      “Moral authority, sir!”

      “Moral authority, you say? Is that the same moral authority they brought to bear against us when we helped the Saudis bomb Yemen? When we invaded and/or bombed Syria, Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia, Kosovo, Iraq again, Panama, Grenada? The authority they used to stop us when we armed the Contras, when we armed the guys who went on to destroy the World Trade Center, when we got into that negligible little scrape in Vietnam? When we invaded Cuba, Guatemala, Korea? When we nuked Japan and firebombed Germany, snuffing out hundreds of thousands of civilian lives in unprecedented firestorms of wanton destruction? That moral authority?”

      “The very same, sir!”

      “…”

      “Sir?”

      “… Well, then. I suppose we’ll take our chances after all.”

      If the one and only thing standing between U.S. bombs and hapless populations is a stern rebuke from the Most Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, history suggests that the bombs have nothing whatsoever to worry about.

      • Walter B September 11, 2018 at 8:47 am #

        Indeed Elrond, the Vatican lost any credibility it ever may have had long before Martin Luther called it out for fraud in the early 1500’s. How an institution that sold “express tickets to heaven” for huge profit maintained ANY credibility at all is a testament to the gullibility of the masses.

    • Sean Coleman September 11, 2018 at 7:18 am #

      Paul

      I don’t know much about this case but if all the others I have ever looked at mean anything this will turn out to be nothing.

      I don’t know what the Jesuit Lavender Mafia is. I assume it is a homosexual clique in the Church. Can you explain?

      Is this a move by conservatives in the Church to topple the Pope? I can see why some in the Church might dislike the Pope for being too liberal. If he really is that liberal then I would be one of them. My concern however is that the paedophile witch hunt fantasy has done enormous damage, not only to the Church, workers in children’s homes as a profession (see Richard Webster’s Sceptical Essays website) and assorted celebrities but also to the liars and fantasists themselves who make the false allegations and to the millions who damage themselves by engaging with the fantasy.

      I haven’t seen the videos yet (and am not sure I will be able to) so I may have misunderstood.

      https://www.irishcatholic.com/100-questions-on-the-vigano-allegations/

      Vigano’s claims have been dismissed as fake news.

      “Viganò’s central claim seems to be in tatters, with no evidence in favour of it, evidence on the rise against it, an admission on his part that he cannot even remember if it was an oral communication or a documented written one, and an admission by one of the journalists at the heart of this story that he had known since July that the ‘sanction’ was at most a discrete request.”

      https://www.irishcatholic.com/the-vigano-file-interrogating-the-evidence/

  21. Opie September 10, 2018 at 11:31 am #

    Sometimes when fighting fires that are out of control, back fires are set to keep the fire contained so that something worth keeping survives.I believe our so called democracy has reached that point,and the best one can hope for is for some back fires to be lit. Or as a founding daddy put it, ” the tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots & tyrants.”
    So ya, fight we must in our own way.
    One thing the leftys never thought through with their attacks on western christianity, was what happens when you create the “new man” and it turns out that it worked, and he hates your guts and now NOTHING stands between him and his perceived enemies. There is something to be said of turning the other cheek, but really, it’s all just a thin veneer.

    • BornToKillPeace September 12, 2018 at 10:11 pm #

      The new man observation is poignant. This new man has not yet arrived yet he has already found it in his heart to hate a great deal of us. His constitution spanks, “In Phone We Trust”.

  22. RB September 10, 2018 at 11:32 am #

    I find the chatter about a civil war fascinating. The moment the state feels remotely threatened then think Waco. A squad of trained infantry will eradicate a 100 bozos. Vast majority have no clue about controlled violence. There is also no appreciation among the addicted, obese, mentally ill, millennialist, prepped, doofus, for the gazillions in national debt. Be sure and save a final bullet for your own use. Civil War indeed.

    • volodya September 10, 2018 at 11:51 am #

      How many millions of Americans are ex-military? How many went into Iraq and Afghanistan and got chewed up and spat out? Not to belabor the point, but even if they’re EX military, these guys were trained, have experience in combat zones, a fair number have got leadership experience and skills in the most dire conditions.

      Look at the grief inflicted by irregulars in Vietnam and Iraq and Afghanistan and Syria and Libya.

      The Deplorables are armed and they’re the backbone of the US military. How long would it take before the Pfc Deplorable gets sick of leveling his gun on his homies?

      These things take a while. Marx wrote his stuff in the mid-1800s. The Czar didn’t get up-ended until 1917, it was the 1940s and 1950s before the Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese and Cubans threw out their own ruling aristocracies.

      Real life doesn’t play out like a Hollywood movie with Tom Cruise shooting up the place and resolution in 120 minutes. Real life can take decades and generations.

      • RB September 10, 2018 at 12:49 pm #

        Most vets have never been in the slightest danger from hostile action. The “irregulars” you mentioned have been in wars of various stripes for generations to decades. They are very experienced. They are not a soft lot. The American govt will throw out rules of engagement and the rule of law to eradicate any armed opponents. Resources are everything as in our first CW. Government has endless resources. Also, Americans will fire on their fellow citizens in a skinny minute. The US Army did not mind burning out the Waco compound with children inside.

        • Epicur September 10, 2018 at 5:15 pm #

          And you might add to your analysis control of the electric grid, oil and gas pipelines, water works and the food distribution network. A civil war will not last long.

      • elysianfield September 10, 2018 at 5:45 pm #

        “How long would it take before the Pfc Deplorable gets sick of leveling his gun on his homies? ”

        Volodya,
        “Homies” are one thing…”mindless scum” entirely another. It seems the rational human being has the infinite capacity to dehumanize others who, for one reason or another, are less-fortunate and “different”.

        Filthy, lice ridden dope using animals…”
        “Who can live like that?”
        “No morals…tattooed thieves and beggars, whores…”

        Prisons are filled with wardens who have lost their humanity, also many in law enforcement develop myopia towards those they “serve”. It seems a human trait, and there are very few Saints among us. I would expect the military being no different, considering the past care and treatment of indigenous populations, not to mention potentially the “untermenschen” in the US.

  23. Opie September 10, 2018 at 11:55 am #

    Not gonna be a civil war. Civility will have nothing to do with it. I fear that’s what many of us, including our host, stay awake at night worrying about.

  24. capt spaulding September 10, 2018 at 11:57 am #

    So is the NYT op-ed on Trump some kind of deep state plot?

    • Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 12:31 pm #

      Nothing so dramatic – just a conscientious member of that circus who sees no other way to voice his concerns as the environment is so toxic. I’m sure it is every bit as bad as he/she says and more than likely worse.

      And 63 million sentients voted for that hopeless slob.

      • Opie September 10, 2018 at 12:46 pm #

        Logic tells me that it’s totally fabricated. There is no way that 10 minutes after the story broke there weren’t lie detector tests ordered for the inner circle. The person, if they existed, would be outed in at most two days. Which is why it’s so fascinating to watch the lengths the so called deep state is willing to go . They must have much to fear other than a dumb ass sitting prez.

        • Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 1:16 pm #

          Well, I always assumed that the ‘Deep State’ would go the Executive Action route once this pathetic ignoramus was no longer useful to them. Threaten the corporate welfare gizmo and nobody is safe.

          If Trump ever made noises about dismantling the CIA like Kennedy or, God forbid, anything like JFK’s American University speech (can anyone imagine that jabbering idiot Trump giving a decent adult-level speech) he would be gone in 60 seconds.

        • City_of_76 September 10, 2018 at 9:17 pm #

          @Opie – that’s funny. As if most thinking people don’t know that there’s a shit storm in the White House? Seriously. Any one of dozens of WH people could have written the NYT op-ed. It’s not like we learned things we didn’t already presume. Trump is a whackadoodle, but that’s not news.

    • capt spaulding September 10, 2018 at 1:25 pm #

      “The best argument against Democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter”…..Winston Churchill

      • Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 1:29 pm #

        “No matter who you vote for the government always gets in”

        – Dutch Provo Steve Davis

        • pequiste September 10, 2018 at 1:42 pm #

          Why have I never heard this one before? A gem.

      • pequiste September 10, 2018 at 1:41 pm #

        Excellent apothegm.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 3:23 pm #

        Quite true. So what was he fighting for again? At least he tried to stop the waves of Pakis and Blacks that began to stream in after the War, but he was shouldered aside. Hint: Replacement level immigration of the most alien people imaginable is NOT the way Winners are treated.

  25. Luhrenloup September 10, 2018 at 12:33 pm #

    I’ve just finished the Rolling Stone/Jann Wenner biography and what I come away with in the near 50 year period that has followed the inception of the 60’s magazine with its celebration of rock and roll, psychedelics, and the youth movements with its search for mind expansion, its ideal of returning to the land, is the oppression we live under. We are in an internal state of war, shouted at from all sides. People are destroyed on a daily basis for what they think and espouse. They are urged to accost others who don’t hold the same beliefs they have. What’s especially ugly is the focus on individuals who are not toeing the line. We are surveilled on the street by CCTV cameras, tracked by our cell phones, our conversations are recorded, every stroke on the keyboard, every purchase, every book read, every photo taken, every doctor seen, every prescription med filled, it’s all recorded.

    Who do we blame for this mess? Why aren’t we still listening to good rock and roll, getting high and proposing an enlightened philosophy? For one thing, rock and roll has been swallowed up and is pretty much over. Everything comes to an end. I say no one’s to blame. Capitalism has run its course. We are now in end game and it isn’t pretty.
    We the people must find our way out of this, individually. We must find our way back to the garden. It starts by disavowing the media, taking control of the story of our lives, assessing what is important enough to pay attention to, what makes for a good life. Only within ourselves can we find that.

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 3:35 pm #

      Apparently much of the 60’s was engineered from above to corrupt the youth. I’m a cusper, and just missed it, but was completely taken in as well, mourning that I was born too late. The Philosophy and Way of Life in the 60’s simply cannot be lived on Earth – and it just cedes to the ground to the Dark Forces. Men must fight and things are usually bad because of our fallen nature. Don’t project all the evil onto others – even the Dark Ones. It and They live in you too. We can’t go back to the Garden (we were kicked out), but we can win Heaven and make the Earth a staging ground thereto. That’s the best Fallen Men can do. Anything else is poetry – and Plato advised crowning the Poets and kicking them out of the City.

      • Tate September 10, 2018 at 4:37 pm #

        I have a much more tolerant view of Lurenloup now that I know he’s a she. Before, I thought L. was simply a senile doddering old man. Now that I know L’s gender, much of the simpering, bland “feel-goodism” can be easily ignored.

        This is why women cannot rule. Aristophanes wrote a satire about women taking over. I’ve never seen it performed but someone should write a play about children taking over. Oh wait, it’s like one of those movie nightmares, where the protagonist wakes up & it’s all true…

        • Luhrenloup September 10, 2018 at 5:52 pm #

          After some consideration, I’ve concluded that we’re unable to communicate in any meaningful way, and so I’ll refrain from responding to your comments.

          • Tate September 10, 2018 at 7:32 pm #

            That was just a segue into why women cannot rule. Nothing personal. You’re all like that. Your “non-response” is even like that.

          • Luhrenloup September 10, 2018 at 7:40 pm #

            After some consideration, I’ve concluded that we’re unable to communicate in any meaningful way, and so I’ll refrain from responding to your comments.

          • Tate September 10, 2018 at 9:25 pm #

            We’re all on the same footing here. Joan Rivers held her own. Well, until she crossed Michael, that is.

        • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 11:43 am #

          ” someone should write a play about children taking over”

          Tate,
          William Golding wrote one…”Lord of the…something or another….”

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 6:21 pm #

            Pies?

      • Luhrenloup September 10, 2018 at 8:37 pm #

        Your assessment of the sixties, that it was apparently engineered from on high, and you were taken in . . as well, meaning me, I guess. Was I taken in? Was it Utopia? No, actually it produced a lot of violence and many people were killed.

        You are always hooking on to catchphrases and pontificating from that, unable to grasp what’s being said, the liberals, the conservatives, the good, the bad. My post is not a paean to the sixties. I am pointing out how the zeitgeist, the spirit of our time compared to former innocence has become vicious and corrupt.

        And the preaching!
        In my post, if you notice, I don’t separate myself from the mayhem. I am fully aware of my dark side and I can be quite unpleasant to get what I want. So spare me the pontifications.

        And you are wrong about the garden – it’s not out there, the promised land; it’s up to you to create it in yourself, if you can.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2018 at 2:41 pm #

          The Garden exists inside ourselves as our Christ or Buddha nature. Otherwise we could not only never create it, we could never even think of it much less desire it. The mistake is then people project it back into the remote past as Eden or Atlantis or the future – as if technology can get it for us. It exists now as the Eternal Now, higher up (in Heaven) and deep in (at the level of the Soul).

          • Luhrenloup September 11, 2018 at 8:11 pm #

            On the anniversary of this infamous day, let me recount an incident that I experienced during that period. At the time W Bush and his crew were propagandizing 24/7 for a war in Iraq. Seven Middle East countries, the Axis of Evil, were going to come down for this. There was no doubt whatsoever that we were going to war. I lived on the Upper East Side where many people who worked in the financial district died that day. There were makeshift altars at the bottom of trees everywhere, posters of the missing in the subway, posted on the sides of buildings — a somber time.

            A seminar was held on the upcoming wars at the Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem whose speakers from throughout the city were spiritual leaders, priests, ministers, etc. Everybody had their say, offered counsel, even Reverend Al spoke. Toward the end a Buddhist monk took his turn. He had us close our eyes, hit a silver triangle with a wand, PING! and we meditated for about 5 minutes. Not a sound could be heard in the cavernous church. His words afterward were about peace, which weighed heavily on our minds. If you seek peace, he said, you must become that which you want. You must become peaceful. And that Janos is where you will find the garden. Jesus can’t take you there. you’re on your own with that task.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 12:49 am #

            That’s what I just said. But in terms of the Garden as a Place on Earth, you’re gonna need to get out of Harlem!

          • Luhrenloup September 12, 2018 at 2:24 pm #

            Actually, the demographics have changed in Harlem, blacks are now in the minority, as was bound to happen what with the ever increasing rent prices in Manhattan. The poor and struggling have been driven off the island and onto the boroughs.

  26. Sean Coleman September 10, 2018 at 12:45 pm #

    Janos

    A brief response to your latest on the previous thread. I looked up the Vigano statement or letter and it is not backed up by any evidence and will surely turn out to be yet another load of nonsense. The fact that assorted Catholic commentators swallowed it does not make it true. There are many of them and their existence proves absolutely nothing. How can they let themselves go like that? Well, that is a psychological problem and I won’t go there.

    You still don’t get it: such allegations always turn out that way. When you hear the next one just reject it mentally and wait for your prudence to be rewarded by events. I repeat, they always turn out that way.

    You tell me I am ‘behind the curve’. You bet. It is the only place to be and I am still trying to get to grips with the 1970s. As an introvert I have spent my life watching extraverts chasing figments of their imagination around the next curve and noting how little good it did them (or anyone who daft enough to listen to them). You are not going to reach understanding by turning up more facts and yet more facts, looking for sensations.

    Was that James you quoted on extraverts, about them living on the surface? If so, he was right. And I believe they can (and will) change their minds en masse, do a U-turn and not even be aware of it.

    Your characterization of me as an extrovert (and then as an extravert) is just silly. Perhaps you were under pressure from your would-be friends here. My post here is just to set the record straight for anyone reading. If you have nothing sensible to say then leave me out.

    I’ll make an exception if it is funny.

    • Sean Coleman September 10, 2018 at 12:49 pm #

      I think Jung gives quite a bit of space to William James in his Psychological Types (I could be mistaken and must check), which is concerned almost to obsession with the extravert-introvert question. Jung calls it (in translation) the Type Question. It is one of life’s many mysteries how few people give the matter any thought now when it was seen to be of burning importance a century ago.

    • Tate September 10, 2018 at 2:36 pm #

      It’s not like Catholic priests are abusing altar boys on the altar in full view of the congregation. So the kind of evidence that would satisfy you is lacking. Are you unwilling to admit that at least some of it is real? The fish rots from the head. Jorge Bergoglio is the head. Do you deny that the head stinks?

      • Sean Coleman September 11, 2018 at 7:35 am #

        Tate, I haven’t heard allegations about priests abusing (whatever that means exactly) altar boys on the altar (yet) but many of the allegations are almost as bizarre, and in some cases possibly more so. This applies to all the paedophile witch hunts that are ongoing not just those directed against the Church. It also extends to cases such as Bill Cosby. You should really have a look into some of these cases as it is only then that you fully understand the extent of the madness. It is more than simply exaggeration, deceit and self-delusion but a kind of insanity that affects journalists and politicians in particular.

        For the Vigano case see my links to the Irish Catholic articles I posted in response to Paul O’Neill on this thread.

        Am I willing to admit that at least some of it is real? ‘It’ being paedophile priests? Yes, as in all walks of life, though considerably less in the case of clergy compared to the average.

        However when sensational claims are made during one of these moral panics (just to vary the terminology) I think there is a rule that they are always false.

        • Tate September 13, 2018 at 3:47 am #

          Whatever that means? It means sexually abusing altar boys (but you knew that, you’re just playing dumb, but in another comment here you brag about how precocious you were as a schoolboy.)

          Anyway, that was the standard of proof I was suggesting you were insisting upon.

          I notice you said nothing about Jorge Bergoglio, or Pope Francis as you call him. You have nothing to say about his approval of the homosexual lifestyle?

          • Sean Coleman September 13, 2018 at 12:10 pm #

            Tate

            When another (ahem) poster stated without any evidence that I knew nothing about science I thought it fair to set the record straight, that until I was sixteen I was the best at it in my year at grammar school (in England these were for children selected by academic ability). If you can’t detect the irony in my remarks that isn’t my fault. If I wanted to boast I would probably talk about my dancing, or how I am able to open the lids off jars. Or about how handsome I was and, to an extent, still am. Put it this way, I think you spoke about engineering here before. But you don’t know anything about engineering. You are only boasting. Get my point?

            So what does ‘abuse’ mean? Is it a fleeting touch of a woman’s bare back under her skimpy top, like that fellow who lost his job on the radio? Does it include wearing a Vote Trump badge or Harvey putting his arm around a smiling actress. Irish nun Nora Wall was the first woman convicted of rape in this country and she got life. The judge was very severe in his summing up. Now how does a woman commit rape? Well, in the end it turns out that she held the victim down while a man raped her. (It turns out that the man, Pablo McCabe, a homeless man who died in prison, was innocent after all. The court should have guessed that as he was actually in prison while at least one of the ‘rapes’ was committed. Wall was also innocent when the victim and chief witness (who had been barred from appearing as a witness after an earlier court fiasco) dropped their anonymity to give an unguarded newspaper interview and was recognized by a reader.)

            So which are the altar boys you are referring to. Do you mean the main witness in the recent Chilean case who was ‘abused’ from the age of 15 until his mid-twenties? The same man who in an earlier statement said it had started when he was 17? Is that abuse? More to the point, is it the ‘same’ kind of abuse as ‘abusing’ an altar boy?

            Does the latter kind of abuse happen? Well, put it this way: nobody I have read or ever heard of has argued that it has never happened. Does it happen more with Catholic priests? No, half as much some argue. My hunch it is less than that again. In Britain workers in ‘children’s’ care homes (I use inverted commas because they are teenagers) have been demonized as a profession (see Richard Webster’s Sceptical Essays website – he wrote an excellent book investigating the N. Wales scandal and discovered that there was a core of truth to it, but a tiny one and many innocent people had their lives ruined by that witch hunt).

            So what ‘standard of evidence’ do we need?

            Well, in a witch hunt the only rational place to start from is to be highly sceptical of all accusations. In other words you do not believe them unless convincing evidence is adduced.

            A large number of accusations is not convincing evidence because in a witch hunt people get carried away and make things up for a variety of reasons (as in Me Too).

            A reported large number of accusations does not necessarily mean there was a large number (cf the 97% claim in the AGW fantasy).

            Accusations based on recovered memories are not convincing.

            Accusations made decades later are not all that convincing. (The late Bishop Bell, an Anglican, was ‘convicted’ by the media on the strength of very weak allegations going back to the 50s. His anonymous accuser really did say, “He said it would be our little secret because God loved me.”)

            Accusations resulting from police trawling, where they turn the process on its head and instead of investigating crimes they instead appeal to the public to volunteer crimes are certainly not convincing.

            Accusations made by proven liars and fantasists or by people with shady lifestyles are not convincing, even if it is not pc to say this.

            Accusations with lurid, improbable imagery are not very convincing: crucifixes, holy water. Holy communion – did you look at my link a couple of weeks ago to Michael O’Brien, the Mayor of Clonmel? He said that within a few hours of arriving at the home he went to he was RAPED and ‘this woman’ (referring I assume to his wife, sitting next to him in the tv audience as he lectured the political panel) ‘can tell you all about it.’ And the same priest who ‘raped’ him gave him holy communion the next morning. Be suspicious of these accusations, where the accusers have picked up the sordid imagery of modern pornography (what it contains I can only guess at because I avoid that stuff like the plague).

            The Pope. Have you actually looked at the claims? Or are you just relying on reports? I have given dozens of examples on this blog in the past months showing how the media do not report objectively but far from it. In fact witch hunts are impossible without active media encouragement. Tell me exactly where he says he approves of a homosexual lifestyle. I would be very surprised if he did this. And if he did say this are you implying that he is encouraging homosexual abuse (or ‘abuse’_? And of what exactly: little boys, straight 15 year olds or 17 year old homosexuals?

            I am beginning to wonder if the important divide is not along political grounds but between those who indulge their fantasies and those who do not.

            Forget about the reports and the rumours. Find the hard information. Stop throwing accusations around. Get off your high horse. And please stop wasting my time.

          • Tate September 13, 2018 at 4:01 pm #

            ”If I wanted to boast I would probably talk about my…”

            Oh of course not, Sean, you’re not boasting. No true Scotsman (or Irishman, in your case) would boast in that way, LOL.

            You seem to rely on your logorrhea overcoming all objections. But you can’t BS me with your pointless shaggy-dog stories.

            I told you plainly that I meant sexual abuse, & yet you go off on a series of irrelevant digressions on the meaning of sexual abuse as if that has any bearing. In fact, you are well aware that I was using that example as a hypothetical for the level of evidence you seem to require, nothing more.

            Even a pinhead could figure out that certain environments attract pedophiles. Therefore, periodic reforms are necessary to purge the filth.

            Your Pope has made it clear that he supports the corruption so the reforms will only come when he is ousted. And you have made it clear that you are a stooge, a mouthpiece & unashamed apologist for your paymasters in the Vatican. I will try to ignore your long-winded snipe hunts in the future.

          • Sean Coleman September 14, 2018 at 7:29 am #

            Tate

            Logorrhea?

            I have better things to do which is why I asked you not to waste my time.

            If you had read ‘anything’ I have written about this with any attention or ‘any’ of the links I would not have to explain myself at length.

            So what level of evidence would satisfy me?

            In short: documented, recent, believable from people of good standing (not including alcoholics, drug addicts and the mentally unbalanced).

            The so-called evidence reported in the media (ALL the media, even the Catholic media) is not at all reliable in this issue. How reliable is the NYT for Trump? Well then, in this particular issue the media are much worse. Witch hunts cannot exist without active media participation.

            The stuff about the Vatican being my paymaster is about what I would expect from somebody who believes in Pizzagate.

            Now if you don’t want to post to me again, sticking your nose in where you weren’t even asked, then I think I can live with that.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 3:41 pm #

      Sean, Sean, Sean. what are you saying? How could a Christian go so far astray? As John (if memory serves) said, I know about Christ Jesus because I was there and saw the wonder with my own eyes – and the Wonder that was Him.

      Archbishop Vigano was a Papal Nuncio – he was there and saw the horror firsthand. And many Priests and Bishops have seen their share though not at Ground Zero so to speak.

      No evidence? No evidence? His testimony is the Evidence. How do you think Courts conduct themselves? Science devoid of Humans?

      • Sean Coleman September 11, 2018 at 7:41 am #

        Janos

        See my links in reply to Paul O’Neill on this thread.

        “Vigano… was there and saw the horror firsthand.”

        Hold it right there. Where exactly was he and what exactly did he see? As the story is clarified the answer slowly comes into focus: he didn’t see anything. Vigano has let himself get carried away and others have joined him.

        My point is that, based on past experience, we knew the answer from the start, in fact from before the start.

        And when the next Big Story breaks you will know the answer already. So you won’t have to come back trudging from your ‘curve’ all disappointed and empty-handed, just itching for the next Big One when all your suspicions will finally be vindicated.

        • Q. Shtik September 11, 2018 at 11:53 am #

          See my links in reply to Paul O’Neill on this thread. – Sean

          =============

          Are you talking about the Yankee baseball star from yesteryear?

      • Q. Shtik September 11, 2018 at 12:00 pm #

        As John (if memory serves) said, I know about Christ Jesus because… – Janos

        ===========

        Janos, have you misquoted John or did he actually have Christ’s name ass-backwards?

        Let’s get this straight, let’s ask someone like Messianicdruid who would probably be able to give us a chapter and verse explanation…
        Is it Jesus Christ or is it Christ Jesus?

        • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 6:20 pm #

          ‘Christ’ is his title; ‘Jesus’ is his name – so either is fine.

          • Q. Shtik September 12, 2018 at 12:12 am #

            And what does the title mean? Is it like Mr. or Sir?

            Mr. Jesus
            Sir Jesus

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 12:50 am #

            It means the anointed one or savior.

          • GreenAlba September 12, 2018 at 9:48 am #

            Exactly, thank you, Janos.

            Q – It’s more ‘Jesus, the Christ’, which is the appellation sometimes used in French. So ‘the Christ, Jesus’ makes just as much sense.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 3:46 pm #

      You’re making introvert a synonym for “good” as in never wrong. But introverts can be wrong and extroverts can be right, howsoever erudite the former are in their error and howsoever brief or crude the latter are in their truth. Think Jean Paul Sartre and his commitment to Communism. And Trump in his war against Evil

      Actually Sartre was a Man of Action as well, fighting in the French Resistance. A very balanced and impressive man in some respects (some say a great short story writer as well as being a philsopher) despite his monumental errors of Atheism and Communism.

      • Sean Coleman September 11, 2018 at 8:03 am #

        No, I never did this although you assumed it from the start.

        Jung argues that both points of view are valid. I can accept that but I will favour the introverted one because that is the one I understand.

        The whole of ‘Psychological Types’ is given to this ‘Type Problem’, of how to reconcile the two points of view because they are mutually exclusive. I can see that ‘feeling’ is characteristic of extraversion while ‘thinking’ is introvert. Jung argued that feeling is a rational function just like feeling (and unlike the other two functions sensation and intuition – I accept these distinctions but rather see only extravert and introvert). I was reading Dutch writer Trudy Dehue (not sure how to describe her – she studies how science works) who mentioned contemporary theories about feeling being rational. As an introvert I find such an idea difficult to understand.

        In September 2015 Merkel’s decision to admit all those ‘refugees’, according to a Belgian journalist (Clémentine Forissier, an experienced Berlin correspondent), was ‘rapide, émotionelle et pas intéllectuelle’.The Chancellor had always prepared every decision with care until she was swept on this acute wave of social media hysteria. That weekend two separate Irish columnists wrote lengthy pieces with uncannily similar headings (I have the cuttings), something like “Sometimes The Heart Must Rule The Head”.

        Yes Sartre was very likely extravert and Trump certainly is. But anyone who does anything nearly always is (if not always). Look at all the Presidents of America in the 20th C and the PMs in Britain – the only two introverts among the latter were the recent women PMs (Hillary Clinton is another introvert – this is probably the main reason she lost, a fact unrecognized by everyone except me, and now you). Same with the great writers and artists. And Jung himself was an extravert, an opinion shared by nobody else but which I know is true.

        • Q. Shtik September 11, 2018 at 12:17 pm #

          introvert, extravert, extrovert – Sean

          ============

          A couple of years ago you attempted defining the above terms, in particular why you choose to use the word extravert rather than extrovert……….but your entire explanation of these terms went right over my head. Please make another attempt at definition and do it in what I like to call Standard American English. Or, if you prefer, Standard Irish English.

          For starters, when you say ‘introvert’ are you talking about someone who is basically ‘a loner?’ Someone who is reclusive and is extremely uncomfortable in the company of other people?

          • Sean Coleman September 12, 2018 at 11:14 am #

            Q, the loner and anti-social thing is definitely true up to a point.

            Rowe (see next paragraph) describes extraverts whose outer reality is more comfortable than their inner one. It follows from that, perhaps, that an extravert never doubts anything he has seen with his own two eyes while an introvert can be made to. Would that be the case with yourself?

            As to the spelling of extravert, I got that from the Australian psychologist Dorothy Rowe, whose stunning insight was that every couple is made up of one of either. She insisted on the ‘a’ for reasons I only half-understood at the time and have partly forgotten since. (I am not sure it made any sense anyway.) The ‘o’ seems to have been introduced through ‘attraction’ (I think linguists might call it that, at least classicists would) of the ‘o’ in introvert.

            I think Latin might have a couple of words beginning with ‘extra’ but I couldn’t find ‘extro’ anywhere in my dictionary.

            Jung seems to have been the first to use the words systematically and the English translation of his Psychological Types (published in 1921) has the spelling extravert. I did look up the German original and I seem to recall that the German words are similar to the English versions, which was perhaps a little disappointing.

            I have a pedantic streak anyway and I hate all innovations in spelling and vocabulary. For example Peking remains Peking and not Beijing (as someone once said, I’ll stop saying Peking when the Chinese stop saying Rondon). I like to put the ‘z’ into words ending with ‘-zation’ and the like just because it is older (although I admit I stopped using ‘to-day’ when I left primary school). The liberal ‘paper of record’ in Ireland, the Irish Times, was the biggest proselyte of the ‘s’ spelling (eg ‘civilisation’). They are the Irish equivalent of the Guardian, so I am more unwilling than ever to change over to the ‘s’, even though it looks better on the page and it can be hard to work out where the ‘z’ can be used.

            I have been told before that my spelling is ‘Americanised’. And I ask in return why we should use British English rather than American.

            When I used to be a teacher, long ago, a colleague of mine told me that her father used to insist on pronouncing the word ‘trait’ in the French way (‘tray’) just to provoke pedants into correcting him. He would keep an copy of the OED handy to show that this pronunciation was allowed.

            As for Standard American English I woke up one morning earlier this year, it was a Saturday, and I was repeating this phrase over and over again in Ebonics. I can’t remember what it was, and it was just something random, and in the voice of a black American woman. Later on, when I went into You Tube, there amongst the suggested sites was a video about Ebonics.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 1:07 am #

          No chance of being both, finding balance in other words, no matter how one started out?

          It’s a complicated subject because our language doesn’t have a lot of words for these subject for starters. And perhaps no language can describe the mystery of man all that well. But for example, ancient Greek have at least four words for love, to our current one. Whether old English was better, I don’t know.

          Jung said much thinking is “unconscious” – which I agree with, but then the question becomes, Is it still “thinking” or should I another word be used? Or is there another word? Maybe one needs to be created to describe such a thing.

          Some say that all introversion is compensation or a kind of failure to be an extrovert fighting animal. In any case, successful peoples learned the value of such people over time. Some introverts might be such failures. I worked with a guy who considered himself an intellectual but he wasn’t that smart and it might have been kind of a default pose. In contrast, there are really smart extroverts who take out their intellects like another man might take out a phone or calculator. They accomplish their task and then get back to the football scores or funny pages.

          • Sean Coleman September 12, 2018 at 10:48 am #

            Janos, the challenge according to Jung is indeed to find that balance. I think he called it something like ‘integration’. Maybe he is right but my own hunch is that it doesn’t matter. In fact I haven’t really looked at his prescriptions here so I may be misunderstanding them. From my point of view what matters is that there is a definite, unmistakeable distinction between the two camps and this probably means something important. Then it is just a matter of watching people and seeing if I can make any meaningful generalizations. (All this stuff about social extraverts and introvert loners is all true – in way and up to a point or ‘whatever’ – but it soon bores you.)

            I agree with you about the language. I remember from the Prologue to the Canterbury Tales that the Prioress wears a broche (?) inscribed with ‘Amor Vincit Omnia’ when perhaps it should have read ‘Caritas’, given her calling.

            Your third para. His ideas about the unconscious are ingenious. I just read Richard Webster’s biography of Freud which confirmed that his ideas are worthless yet Jung started off from this platform. I can’t explain how he arrived at his insights. Perhaps just by lots of close observation and thinking, combined with education and intellect, meant he reached these insights despite the unpromising Freudian starting-point. There is definitely something to Jung’s unconscious. Sometimes extraverts quarrel violently and it leaves me cold as to what the fuss is about. Introverts do likewise and I assume extraverts are baffled. It is probably because they understand one anther so much better, including their weaknesses and so see their own vices in their opponent.

            Your final para. Extraverts tend to be brilliant scholars and intellectuals. Look at the most famous and they all seem to be extraverts. Say Bertrand Russell. They can cover so much ground and with their energy absorb inhuman amounts of detail and plunge to incredible depths (like Jung). But their thinking is quite different to introverts. I could be wrong but I think of a Dutch scientist, an atheist, I saw on YT talking about Hawking (another extravert). At one point he pulls out a highly intricate geometric model and explains that, while it looks 3D and solid, it is actually made of folded paper and is in that sense two- rather than three-dimensional. My own thinking is in comparison to extraverts indirect, not head-on. Ever since a child I have looked at things, any things, and asked myself what they ‘mean’. I don’t think anyone understands what I am talking about although some are interested in it as they sense that there is something to it. At my (selected) secondary school I was the cleverest by some distance and won all the prizes to prove it. Ever since I have managed to put everyone into their box rather than the other way round, to my own satisfaction if not theirs. I suppose this int-ext thing is the ultimate box-putting exercise. From this point of view extravert thinking, no matter how subtle or brilliant, seems, well, just a bit obvious.

            That is really just so that the extraverts don’t get carried away with themselves. They do like to boast and I am happy to let me. I really do prefer not to be in the limelight (an introvert trait) although you might think so from the above. I am just telling you what I see and what I think.

            An interesting perspective in Jung’s book is the historical philosophical tension between nominalism and realism. (Interestingly he remarks at one point that introverts, being inherently logical, are not generally drawn to philosophy, which is true in my own case at least.) The introverts says, I suppose, this is how something SHOULD BE. The extravert points to how things ARE. (‘There! See! Are you blind?!) Does that make any sense from your own standpoint?

          • Sean Coleman September 12, 2018 at 11:18 am #

            typo: happy to let them

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 10:41 pm #

            Your thesis anent the extravert intelligence makes sense, pun intended. Their intelligence is technical, or problem solving. They tend to stick close to the physical world – or at least to the current paradigm in something like Physics. Those who venture beyond that are the Introverts, the ones who create new paradigms. Thus I tend to naturally assume you are an extravert in your attachment to the status quo in the Church.

            Are you muscular? A Mesomorph? You’re probably more likely to be an extrovert according to Sheldon’s psychology of the somatotypes. The mentality tends to follow the body type, though with interesting exceptions. Playwrights know this instinctively, thus Prince Hal is mesomorph in both ways, but Hamlet is thinner, and his psychology far more introverted still. Some of the most dangerous men are like this, men who don’t accept the way thing are – like the Ecto-Meso Cassius.

            https://www.britannica.com/biography/William-Sheldon

            I abstained from Wikipedia because that’s a bee in you bonnet though their article is far superior.

            What we know for sure: Bergoglio reinstated the monster McCarrick knowing full well what he was. Nay more: made him his right hand man. Men are known by their associates and Berg has surrounded himself far leftists and Gay friendly cardinals and priests like Fr James Martin. He did the same back in Argentina.

          • Sean Coleman September 13, 2018 at 11:16 am #

            Janos

            Not muscular really. An inch off six feet, strong back and legs.

            The thing about this is that you either get it or you don’t. Is and Es are easy to spot (usually) when you know what you are looking for and get practice. I haven’t come across an extravert yet who does get it (except Jung, but he only seems to half-get it) which may be significant. But then again I haven’t come across an introvert who does either except for Dorothy Rowe. So there’s Dot and me so far. And maybe we are both wrong.

            I’ll leave the gossip about the Pope for now as it is starting to do my head in.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 1:03 pm #

            One more thing when you get a few minutes since you mentioned the Spotlight report. There are seldom just two sides to any story or issue. The Globe “believes” in the abuse and wants to use it for their own agenda of completely changing the church. Things like ending priestly celibacy, women priests, etc. As William Blake said, A truth told with bad intent, beat all the lies you can invent.

            https://remnantnewspaper.com/web/index.php/articles/item/4083-a-wilderness-of-mirrors-the-political-scandal-behind-the-clerical-scandal

            Another point of view is priests who were accused and are very angry about not getting a chance to clear their name in court. Obviously, this kind of thing does bring out the financial parasites. And equally obviously, that says nothing about the Truth of the issue per se or in general or in any individual case with any particular priest.

      • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 11:54 am #

        Janos,
        Fighting in the French Resistance….

        https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=usZG6ekFN4g

  27. My Point of View September 10, 2018 at 12:47 pm #

    “…What really might turn over the whole groaning table of national tribulations will be the discovery that the Trump economic boom is fake. The current “boom” story rests on more than a trillion dollars of money-pumping enabled by tax cuts and racking up evermore debt….”

    Of course the ‘boom’ is fake, it’s what happens when unneeded tax cuts dump ungodly sums of money into the hands of people who don’t need it. They buy stocks, houses and hide it off shore. We saw it when Bush cut taxes in 2001 and 2003 as tons of ‘new money’ goosed the stock markets to new highs and pushed the prices of homes into never never land for most wage slaves. Sound familiar?

    There’s a major report this year from the Brookings Institution to say that the mortgage biz is every bit as shaky and shady now as it was leading up to the Great Recession. Cheery thoughts …. Page 1 tells the tale. Read it here:
    https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/5_kimetal.pdf

  28. JohnAZ September 10, 2018 at 12:49 pm #

    Been scratching my head at Trump for awhile.

    He is elected by a Midwestern rebellion that finally gave up on Democratic BS. He came into office figuring he could negotiate his way past the Deep State and its international minions. He was so outnumbered and outgunned by the DS that other than executive ordered regulatory changes and the Tax changes and a couple of Supreme Court judges, not much has happened. These two changes though have produced a wave of optimism to create a larger house of cards in the economy. Resource limitations will eventually shut down the big boom going on now. Watch the price of oil. Anyway, once he found out what a group of cowardly “resisters” he had hired, the purge began and is still going on. The NYT informer is just the latest. And the RINO’s are the worst. Trump’s job in DC is not to be a GOP doo-bee, but to rip the heart out of the Deep State and return the primary political power to the people and wrest it from the governmental and financial elite. Any compromise from this position will be a repudiation of why he was sent there by the populace. I hope he is successful with his version of High Noon, faces down the bad guys, and shows the Remainder of them what a bunch of cowards they are.

    In early 1900’s, Roosevelt, Teddy that is, faced the same Deep State situation with the Industrial Revolution corporate domination. Rockefeller, Carnegie, JP Morgan et al. politacally ran this country. Teddy tore these corporate leaders of their Deep State apart with his brand of populism.

    Interesting thought, the Gilded Age was a product of the Industrial Revolution’s capitalistic reduction of corporate identities to a very few survivors. The monopolistic nature of that time removed competition from the marketplace with its price controlling capability. Currently we are seeing the same phenomenon with the Information Revolution and its surviving corporations trying to control their environment. Let us take a page from history and break up the high tech industries, especially cable TV, and the social media boys before they take over politically.

    • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 1:38 pm #

      >>> and return the primary political power to the people

      My expectations are far lower; I’ll settle for good old-fashioned traditional American values. You know, things like: rule of law, liberty, meritocracy, etc. Multiculturalism at its core rejects the primacy of any particular culture. All cultures are equal. And we all know that isn’t true.

      >>> Let us take a page from history and break up the high tech industries, especially cable TV, and the social media boys before they take over politically.

      Totally agree. It’s no mystery, for example, why healthcare is unaffordable; it’s a monopoly and a racket. In your own state of AZ, Banner Health is buying up everything. Similar healthcare conglomerates exist in many other states.

      • Tate September 10, 2018 at 2:03 pm #

        Yes, If antitrust law was enforced as was intended, healthcare would be affordable to the majority. Almost the entire health care scene is a snake pit of cartels.

      • JohnAZ September 10, 2018 at 3:12 pm #

        I worked for Banner Health through its ascent. The monopolistic arrogant attitude of the corporate management drove me prematurely into retirement. Monopolistic behavior from the power motivated management of corporations not only affects clients, but also employees. “Break ’em up”!

        Sidebar on healthcare
        You are right on healthcare. Power and water suppliers are examples of monopolistic utilities that do not have competitors. Both are put under governmental regulatory control. Healthcare resembles any other utility in its monopolistic nature. I personally believe that healthcare cannot be free market.

        • Tate September 10, 2018 at 3:25 pm #

          Of course healthcare cannot be a free market. There has never existed in reality a “free market” except in conjunction with freebooting & villainy.

          Read “Nathaniel’s Nutmeg” by Giles Milton for an understanding how real “free markets” work.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 4:14 pm #

          Yes, Capitalism needs Socialism and vice versa. And let’s not forget the Media, a dozen billionaires of the same ethnic group own the Traditional Media. Break it all up.

          Now the Old Media is doing its best to ruin the new – and succeeding so far. What a disaster. They should have been brought to heel decades ago.

        • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 4:27 pm #

          >>> I personally believe that healthcare cannot be free market.

          I could be convinced.

          I will point out that analogies to services like energy and water are specious. Realistically, we’re not going to have multiple power, water, and sewer lines going to every home. And even in the case of power where you can choose your supplier, the lines are owned by someone and the “delivery charge” will ensure that you’ll pay even more to deviate from the status quo monopoly.

          Media is different since I’ve actually seen homes with POTS (phone), cable, and fiber-optic. Now that’s the free market in action!

          I’m not convinced there’s something about healthcare that precludes free markets and competition in all scenarios. Certainly when you pass out and someone dials 911 and you end up in some hospital emergency room, you weren’r exactly shopping around at that time. But there are large swathes of healthcare that would be amenable to market forces if we required the industry to do something as basic as advertise prices!

          • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 5:47 pm #

            There is a structural problem with healthcare that makes “health” uninsurable. Life insurance works because most people do not die during 90% of the time they are insured. Auto insurance and home insurance work because 80% of the people who have such insurance do not make claims. “Health” which also includes “well care” and going to the doctor just for fun is used by 90% of the people that have it on a regular, almost weekly basis. In addition, the services are grossly overpriced as well to cover the huge profits by the lawyers, executives and providers. This translates into “healthcare” every day costs being far more than the insured can ever afford to pay, especially with a flat wage curve.

          • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 6:37 pm #

            I agree there are structural problem with healthcare as currently implemented. Obamacare, for example, includes mandatory sex reassignment coverage whether you want it or not (meaning that your premiums are paying for the trasgender to get their reassignments—a discriminatory tax on the cis-gendered for the benefit of one of the Left’s favored groups).

            I don’t agree that there’s something fundamentally unique about healthcare that precludes it from market forces at all times. Consider flu shots. Consider the wide range of competing advertised prices. Now what will a Tetanus shot cost you? Good luck trying to get that info ahead of time; you’ll know how much it costs after they jab you. The former can be done by a “technician”; the latter requires an MD. The former costs around $20; the latter around $200. The price of the Tetanus vaccine itself is miniscule. The doctor will account for most of the charge. What does the doctor do? The MD will ask: When was the last time you had a Tetanus shot? Do you have any allergies?, etc. Basically the same questions they ask on the flu shot questionnaire.

            It’s a racket. There’s no reason why Tetanus shots should be unadvertised and treated like a medical procedure. Best part of all: the MD won’t even give you the shot; after the questionnaire, a technician will give you the shot. And—yes—the cost of that technician is much higher than the one delivering the $20 flu shot.

            Take this one example, scale it up, and that’s USA healthcare in a nutshell.

          • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 6:43 pm #

            Good points. Society is full of things that need to be done but don’t yield a profit. What’s the name of that little rat who wanted to run War “as a business”?

            Or street lights at night. Whose gonna pay except the John Q Public? What needs be must be. The Roads? Have you watched the movie “The Road” – the Father is God the Father and the Son, God the Son.

          • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 10:34 pm #

            Perhaps Exscotticus my point should have been that because of the exorbitant cost of so many medical treatments and the eventual need of damned near everybody to require a few of these pricy fixes before they cash out, the cost of insuring such services has to be so high that it cannot be affordable to a majority of regular people. Of course once mandated, the prices go even higher don’t they?

            Putting this into actual dollars and cents, if I were to one day require procedures that ran up a total bill of, let’s say $2 million dollars (easy to do right) I would have had to had paid $2 million dollars in premiums during the span of my lifetime in order to cover the costs myself. If not, then other people would be paying for my treatment, would they not? The fact is that I will have earned just about $2 million dollars over my 50 year working career, so if I were to have paid for this myself, it would take every untaxed dollar I ever made. In the end, “healthcare” is pretty much many people paying for other people’s treatments because that is what insurance is all about. How can this possibly work?

          • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 11:14 pm #

            @Walter B,

            >>> Of course once mandated, the prices go even higher don’t they?

            I understand your point. But why is it that healthcare economies of scale don’t lower costs as it does with manufacturing? If everyone will eventually need an MRI, then there’s a demand for MRI machines. High demand attracts competition and innovation for those dollars. High demand results in more manufacturing which meets or exceeds demand which inevitably lowers costs.

            The fact that everything healthcare related costs about 10x more than it should, and stays that way regardless of demand, is a facet of the anticompetitive racket that it is.

            >>> In the end, “healthcare” is pretty much many people paying for other people’s treatments because that is what insurance is all about.

            I generally agree. But the inflexibility of our system leads to its high cost, as it short-circuits market forces that would result in the most desirable range of products and services.

            For example, if you could get 70% of your current healthcare benefits for 20% of what you’re paying now, but that last 30% (that includes, for example, gender reassignment surgery) will cost you the remaining 80%, you may just decide that A-Z coverage is just not worth it. Too bad you don’t have a choice, as it’s been made for you by a vast bestiary of special interests.

          • Walter B September 10, 2018 at 11:29 pm #

            I think I can answer that one Exoscotticus, and the key is that any provider for anything can always charge “what the market will bear”, right? If people will pay $5 for a ham sandwich then $5 it is, but if they will pay $100 for the same sandwich, screw ’em! That is how it works. In fact, successful businesses are the ones that find a way to charge $100 for the $5 sandwich and get people to pay it.

            I heard a commercial on 770 WABC radio a couple of years ago and my brother heard it too a year later. It was for some “specialty” hospital in NYC. They came right out and claimed that “you would pay any price for one more day of life. For one more hour, for one more minute”. They then went on to explain why when such a service is so dammed critical and important that you should choose them. They simply play on the great fear of death and so many have it, don’t they?

            “Healthcare” is no longer about providing a service or caring for those who need help. It is FOR PROFIT and the maximum profit at that. Corporations are people too remember and as such are just as susceptible to greed. Thank you Gordon Gecko!

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 12:06 am #

            >>> the key is that any provider for anything can always charge “what the market will bear”, right?

            Agreed. But in this case there is no “market”. Or rather the market is fixed and not a free market. We don’t have choices. The law dictates that every policy must offer A-Z. Period. It would be like a supermarket where the law says it can only sell filet mignon. And then we wonder why it’s so expensive. Heck we can’t even get accurate pricing! Imagine a supermarket with no pricing info. You put what you want in a shopping cart. You find out the price at the checkout counter, or after you’ve actually consumed the items. Not everything is a 911 emergency. It is possible for many to plan and shop around—if the law would allow it.

            This is why I’m skeptical when people argue that healthcare is just fundamentally different and immune to market forces. It sure is—by design!

          • Walter B September 11, 2018 at 8:39 am #

            Yes Ex, the Chinese menu approach to purchasing health insurance would not only lower the costs substantially for many but it would offer the option of catastrophic insurance only to those who only care to cover big ticket items. The downside would be for people such as diabetics who, according to an RN friend of mine require huge expenses to maintain the treatments and medications that they require to stay alive. If this is in fact a disease that can be regulated or even prevented by proper diet and exercise then perhaps our system is allowing many to literally eat their way into everybody else’s wallets.

            Your point on the lack of pricing is a great one and it certainly adds to the problem doesn’t it? I believe that another huge fundamental problem is that people not only feel that they are paying so much every month for the plastic card in their wallet that they may as well get as much as they can from it. That and the belief that somebody else is paying for it so what the heck. How many times have you heard, “I’m not paying for it, the insurance is paying for it”?

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 10:05 am #

            As a mental exercise, just imagine if all gas stations colluded and no longer advertised the price of gas. You find out how much you owe after you fill up. Just imagine how that would affect the price of gas. That’s USA healthcare.

            >>> The downside would be for people such as diabetics who, according to an RN friend of mine require huge expenses to maintain the treatments and medications that they require to stay alive.

            And here again the system is rigged. If you have a lifelong illness that requires medication, why do you need to keep going back to your doctor to get your prescription renewed? Why doesn’t the doctor just check a little box that says “lifelong illness; no expiration”? This would allow patients to order drugs in bulk—years worth if inclined—enjoying the savings that go along with bulk purchasing.

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 1:23 pm #

            “And here again the system is rigged. If you have a lifelong illness that requires medication, why do you need to keep going back to your doctor to get your prescription renewed? Why doesn’t the doctor just check a little box that says “lifelong illness; no expiration”? This would allow patients to order drugs in bulk—years worth if inclined—enjoying the savings that go along with bulk purchasing.”

            We have something half way between here. You pop a repeat prescription request into a box on the surgery reception desk and they get you a prescription the next day (no cost). Or you can go for the automated version whereby you can sign on with your local pharmacy and they will put through the request for a repeat prescription and the surgery sends it direct to the pharmacy, so you may only have to walk 50 yards to drop it off or pick it up if you’re a townie like me (we will get our much greater disadvantages later, don’t worry…).

            After a period of time, depending on the nature of the illness, the doctor will still need to see you, to check all is OK, but you can go for a while on repeat prescriptions, which cost only the price of redeeming the actual prescription at the pharmacy (free in ‘collectivist’ Scotland anyway – elsewhere there’s a ‘prescription charge’, but it’s the same for any medication).

            Diabetes isn’t a good example, though. Although diabetics can still go some time on repeat prescriptions, they need regular vision tests, foot tests and so on (the ‘diabetic foot’ is a nasty thing, involving gangrene). So you would still need to see the doctor periodically.

            But you are right that things can be done more rationally to save time and money if the will is there.

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 1:27 pm #

            We’re not actually THAT collectivist – I merely used the term as a nod to whoever did on the last thread – Janos perhaps.

            Adam Smith was from Kirkcaldy, after all, like Gordon Brown…

          • Elrond Hubbard September 11, 2018 at 1:57 pm #

            GreenAlba, that sounds like a sensible enough system. While American advocates of socialized medicine tend to refer to Canada as their go-to example, our system doesn’t cover everything. That includes drug prescriptions. Much like Americans, we need insurance coverage for that, which is typically provided by employers as a benefit.

            In my case, I’m subject to my employer’s cost-saving measures as well. When I receive a repeat prescription (they call it ‘maintenance medication’), if I want to make use of my drug benefit I can’t go to any old pharmacy; I have to submit it to my pharmacy, and the pills are dispatched to me by mail on a set schedule. Otherwise I would be paying out of pocket, with no guarantee of reimbursement. It’s a pain, but at least I have the coverage.

  29. pequiste September 10, 2018 at 1:02 pm #

    I’m considering if the American leadership – cough, cough – should be psychotic enough to prod the Russians far enough to start a shooting war over ISIS, Al NUsra and the rest of the geehaddees in The Levant, then buckle your seatbelts boys and girls; but nuclear holocaust it won’t be.

    Think more along the lines of The Eastern Front during WWII. The Wehrmacht had plans for a “Shock and Awe” campaign a.k.a. Blitzkrieg, back then also. A three-week war: like their experience against the poilu and parfumed Francais. Not. It shall be more like the battles of Stalingrad and Kursk in spirit. Or the invasion by the Teutonic Knights way back in 1242 AD. The Russians have not forgotten about sacrifice and would be willing to put it ALL on the line when faced with an existential threat.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vKZPgGbUuX0

    (Finca is going to love the above link.)

    Eisenstein’s cinema plus score by Prokofiev. Nuff said.

    And don’t think that the Chinese wouldn’t be delighted to supply their neighbors with whatever take-out orders of stuff they might need in any action protracted or not.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 4:49 pm #

      And if the Russians were losing this Stalingrad, you think they wouldn’t take in nuclear? Why not? You said ALL.

  30. pequiste September 10, 2018 at 1:10 pm #

    And for the record: the “three-bagger” was that individual one had sex with, way back in the days of pre-AIDS Spring Break of course, who required several layers of facial wrapping plus half a case of beer or bottle of alcohol, minimum, to get the dirty deed done.

    In the morning one was tempted to gnaw their arm off not to wake the person lying next to them as they were positioned over the arm and escape was well-nigh impossible without extraordinary efforts. Hence the gnawing.

    (Are we engaged in some covert double entendre here with some hideously ugly politician or bureaucrat in particular?)

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    • capt spaulding September 10, 2018 at 1:30 pm #

      “Gnaw off their arm”. Commonly referred to as “Coyote Arm.”

      • pequiste September 10, 2018 at 1:39 pm #

        A kewpie doll to the Captain!

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 4:51 pm #

      The legend of Bagger Vance?

  31. Georges1202 September 10, 2018 at 1:35 pm #

    I believe, yet am not prepared to defend, that Melania is the Times OP-ED author.

    If so, she wins every medal the US can bestow on her. Plus all the shoes she can wear.

    • Exscotticus September 10, 2018 at 1:43 pm #

      Perhaps it’s Trump, himself, throwing a curveball.

    • Tate September 10, 2018 at 2:42 pm #

      You mean the Melania who wore the “I really don’t care do you?” jacket to the border?

      • capt spaulding September 10, 2018 at 7:18 pm #

        I think the fact that it was originally written in Slovenian is a dead giveaway.

        • onehunglo September 10, 2018 at 9:36 pm #

          ah, cap’n steubing…onehunglo happy to report from kiev, ukraine all is well!
          when you going to find constructive hobby??
          trolling on loser blogs is not healthy hobby for you in you geriatric years!
          that ok.
          may God be with you.
          -onehunglo

          • capt spaulding September 11, 2018 at 1:57 pm #

            ah, loser blog, huh? I guess it can be disheartening to find the quality & depth of this website to be beneath one. I can only speak for myself, but I promise to attempt to come up to your standards, and I think the rest of these slackers might try as well. Kiev, huh? Probably pretty exciting there. I look forward to hearing some of your one-fisted tales of adventure. Kiev must have some pretty nice bridges, it would be nice if you can tell me if any of them are wheelchair accessible, because of my geriatric years and all. Glad to see that you still think about us over here, though. Keep in touch.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 4:54 pm #

      Sea Goof? Is that really you? Where did you go? Taken to Mars by the Aliens? Is it really too dark to see the Sun in outer space?

      Listening to Coast to Coast last night while driving: All the Planets are already taken by powerful Alien Races. Ditto the Moon. We’re allowed one base on Mars (already there apparently) by one of these races, an evil one we are unfortunately allied with.

      • malthuss September 11, 2018 at 12:48 pm #

        Some silly radio program. You laughed at it?

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 1:13 am #

          I suspended belief and enjoyed it like I do with any fantasy. The guest was a very serious wacko, serious in both senses of the word. He got very angry about people looking out the widow at UFOs. Who just looks out their window at random, he raged. “It’s Stupid!”.

      • 100th Avatar September 11, 2018 at 6:11 pm #

        Just not the same without Art. Who was that wacky colonel that would call in? And that guy flying a motorized hang glider over Area 51? Classic

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 1:16 am #

          You are a much more serious listened than I am. Have you tried Conspiracy Date? Bell was more colorful than the squishy, agreeable Nouri – an ENFP obviously. A nice guy to be sure. Some people think Bell killed his ex-wife.

  32. wm5135 September 10, 2018 at 2:31 pm #

    hmuller – Inclusive of Mr. Trump six of the last executive administrations have been Republican. There has not been two successive Democratic administrations during this period of time. The entire inteligence apparatus has been under Republican control the majority of the time since Mr. Nixon. C’mon man get the history right.

    The only change is that the nouveau riche have moved the treasonous corruption out of the alley and onto the main street.

    The intelligence community has been an entity unto itself since Mr. Truman was extorted by Dulles. The path of our foreign policy has not wavered since Mr. Carter was in office.

    The carnage that the world has endured since the collapse of the Soviet Union is an unbroken line that has led directly to Syria. A constitutional republic with democratically elected representatives engaged non stop in the pursuit of regime change and and coups against governments elected by the citizens of those nations.

    and i’m supposed to give more than a flying …. about where someone pees or what color their hair is?

    • lbs September 10, 2018 at 2:58 pm #

      All administrations in r ecent history have been of the same party- the deep state uniparty.

    • hmuller September 10, 2018 at 11:14 pm #

      wm and lbs, I agree entirely. There are many bad Republicans and in truth it’s all one party with two wings. The Bush’s are as evil as the Clintons.

      The intelligence community thinks its an independent branch of government and need to be shattered into a thousand pieces. Then rebuilt into something which doesn’t see surveillance and oppression of the American people as mission number one.

  33. FincaInTheMountains September 10, 2018 at 2:39 pm #

    A Completely Insane Idea

    Disclaimer: this post is written as my personal delirium.

    I still could not understand why Putin should speak in support of pension reform.

    From any point of view, it was a political absurdity, and to assume that Medvedev had taken Putin’s daughters hostage and thus forced him to bring down his authority in front of the people who love him, I’m not ready yet.

    The only thing that I could think of was that such a statement by the head of state in favor of a clearly wrecking law being implemented at the worst time for such exercises is a good way to bring down the ruble and raise the dollar.

    This is certainly very good money if you play ForEx, but to hide this money from the US authorities will be very difficult, almost impossible. Yes, and reputation is also not a cheap thing, and it will be very difficult to restore it now. Difficult and expensive.

    In general, again, the game is not worth the candle.

    And now analyzing the intrigue that is now unfolding in the United States, which consists in the fact that an anonymous article appeared in the New York Times that the allegedly high-ranking official of the Tramp administration has said that there is a whole organization of resistance in the White House to Trump’s whims, or, in other words, to sabotage his decisions, I suddenly came across the assumption that it was Trump himself who organized this article to arrange a sweep of the White House.

    And then it occurred to me that if, contrary to official statements, the turnout on Russian local elections was very low because of this completely idiotic statement by Putin (sorry, Vladimir Vladimirovich), but it’s necessary so that it becomes clear that this is not such an idiotic statement and Panfilova had to cover for everyone, screaming “All is fine my beautiful marquise!”, then this can serve as a pretext for Medvedev’s absolutely necessary resignation from all posts and demolition of absolutely superfluous from the point of view of the political architecture Kremlin towers.

    For the sake of this it is not a pity to lose some ratings and this can explain the removal of Lenin’s body from the Mausoleum under the leadership none other but Chubais himself.

  34. Kafkaesque September 10, 2018 at 3:32 pm #

    Well, hog tie me and have at ‘er…..

    My Sam Clemens neural net don’t quite fit no more—seems ta me that this here nayshun’s sorely in need a travel, down the dang toilet.

    Meantime, let’s have us a hum dinger of a partay at ole Ben Franklin’s Hellfire club.

  35. Tate September 10, 2018 at 4:25 pm #

    So my comment about Capitalism being the same as “libertardian Anglo-Zionism” above in response to Elrond’s post was deleted. Is that actually “anti-semitic?” Not sure where the lines are drawn here.

    Would JHK be happy if I described it as Oliver Cromwell’s Death Mask, Warts & All? Seems a bit obscure.

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 10, 2018 at 5:10 pm #

      A happy phrase indeed. I shudder to see if my post anent American National Socialism is still there.

    • Yukon Tom September 10, 2018 at 7:35 pm #

      You can’t quote Malcom X either, even if you change it to Negro, or on the third try non white person.

  36. Robert White September 10, 2018 at 6:07 pm #

    The United States of America is poised to completely implode financially due to the fact that debt & deficit overhangs are too cumbersome for sovereign nations to deal with. Hyman Minsky’s Late Stage Ponzi Capitalism explains what is in store for all of us throughout North America & Latin America, as well as throughout the European Union. No amount of Central Bank intervention will prevent what is just about to happen economically & financially.

    The Securitization & Financialization process alone is the determinant that has caused this implosion, and the online shopping at Amazon is NOT the telltale sign of significance with respect to dwindling store front Retail. When Paulson & Bernanke bailed out the banks in 08 they knew that main street USA would implode sooner or later if no investments were made to bolster the main street consumer spending that continually props up Commercial RE & the Retail sector.

    The best time to get-out-of Dodge NYC is right now , and before the USA decides to opt for another war in the middle East.

    The 10th anniversary of Lehman Bros. bankruptcy is on the 16th of this month. Assuming that things will get better before they get worse is naïve at best. We are about to enter the most devastating Bear Market that has ever occurred in the history of Capitalism and when it starts there will be no avenue to take that will extricate one from the contagion that will spread like wildfire once it gets going.

    Bottom line is that one cannot prop economies up on debt issuance alone and expect a healthy recovery.

    RW

  37. 100th Avatar September 10, 2018 at 7:54 pm #

    I’m going to start recommending some of these to the
    Bulwer Lytton

    • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 12:07 pm #

      Avatar,
      …A dark and stormy post….

      • 100th Avatar September 11, 2018 at 8:56 pm #

        They will be soon enough I fret as I look at the sky and see the white cumulus built like friendly piles of ice cream and high above ware the thin feathers of the cirrus against the high September sky.

        • elysianfield September 12, 2018 at 11:56 am #

          Avatar,
          A viable submission…honorable mention!

          • 100th Avatar September 12, 2018 at 9:26 pm #

            I rather poorly cut and paste a portion from Hemingway. Even the man of simple sentences would get carried away lol

  38. FincaInTheMountains September 10, 2018 at 9:52 pm #

    MOSCOW, September 10 (Itar-Tass) – RIA Novosti.

    The US authorities, through media publications, warn Russia of a readiness for a direct military clash in Syria, but today such a scenario is unlikely, the head of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems, Doctor of Military Sciences Konstantin Sivkov told RIA Novosti on Monday.

    Earlier, the Wall Street Journal quoted unnamed American officials as saying that US President Donald Trump is pondering whether US forces will strike at Russian and Iranian military forces in Syria in the event of an attack against Syrian government forces.

    The newspaper sources said that Syrian President Bashar Assad “approved the use of chlorine in the attack against the last major rebel stronghold in the country,” which is considered the province of Idlib. This could provoke a retaliatory strike by the US armed forces, the publication adds.

    “The probability is that the war in Syria is, as mathematicians say, a “zero-sum game “, that is, the victor in this conflict takes everything, and the loser remains with nothing.

    If the US allows Damascus to take Idlib and establish control over the whole territory of Syria, they will lose influence in the whole Middle East. But for now this is only a warning to us, Washington simply makes it clear that it is in principle ready for such a step”, Sivkov said.

    Possible Russian response

    At the same time, the expert did not rule out the possibility of a retaliatory strike by the Russian Federation. According to the expert, under such a scenario Russia can go on a missile attack on US aircraft carriers, but it would be difficult to organize such an operation.

    “If we already have enough new X-32 missiles, then this option is quite realistic – if again Iran and, most importantly, Iraq, will let the bombers over its skies.

    In addition, our bombers must have a cover of fighter jets, but in this case, the US can attack Khmeimim, so that our air wing simply wouldn’t not be able fly out to help the bombers” said Sivkov.

  39. Joe Thomas September 11, 2018 at 12:49 am #

    You are right Jim. The American public cannot handle reality very well. My only suggestion to those concerned is to buy more food. Do it now.

    • janet September 11, 2018 at 2:04 am #

      “… buy more food. Do it now.” –Joe Thomas

      This is a problem, aside from not having money to buy more food. I have an avocado, eggs, and a carrot in the refrigerator. If I buy more it will just go to waste. I cannot afford to waste money buying food just to have to throw it away. And, anyway, when TSHTF there won’t be any electricity to run a refrigerator.

      I could buy dried food that can be stored for a long time, but then it is not really “food” because it is usually highly processed, is insipidly tasteless, and would need water to prepare it for consumption.

      When TSHTF water will be in short supply, if available at all. Without water it makes no sense to have dried stored food available because it needs water for preparation. Buying would also be a waste of money because the so-called food would be inedible.

      I’ve tried seasonal gardening and found it is not a solution for survival, is expensive, and very labor intensive (not practical for me).

      Can you offer some practical solutions that are not expensive and don’t involve gardening?

      • janet September 11, 2018 at 2:27 am #

        Never mind, Joe. I just realized if I have hoarded food, then I will need to buy guns and ammunition to protect the food from roaming bands of anti-social white youth. I will not shoot anyone.

        I would rather die than kill someone. I am going to die anyway and have absolutely zero desire to take another fully-grown person’s life before I die. I say “fully-grown” because I had no problem with aborting a fetus in my own body… I do not believe a three-week old fetus is a human being, but it sure can wreak havoc due to feelings of queasiness, nausea, vomiting, and fatigue. Abortion put a stop to that nonsense!

        • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 12:10 pm #

          “I would rather die than kill someone”

          Janet,
          Spoken like a true ex-Marine.

        • Tate September 11, 2018 at 12:47 pm #

          Hoo boy… you’re too obvious sometimes. Well, most of the time.

          • Tate September 11, 2018 at 12:47 pm #

            That was addressed to janet.

  40. janet September 11, 2018 at 2:52 am #

    When Apple announces new iPhones tomorrow (Wed.) I hope Tim Cook specifically mentions the Trump tax increases as the reason for increased prices.

    Trump’s tariffs amount to a tax on goods and offset any small temporary payroll tax cut the ordinary people got.

    Of course, Trump’s billionaire friends got a bigger tax cut saving them millions of dollars and theirs are permanent, not temporary.

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    • janet September 11, 2018 at 4:22 am #

      TRUMP TAX

      “While the current us prez turns to Twitter to share a flawed analysis that it’s as easy as pie to replace an international consumer electronics supply chain with ‘Made In U.S.’ components, even though the infrastructure and engineering talent (let alone the educated labor force) is not in place, Apple has warned that it will be U.S. consumers who lose if fresh tariffs are applied.”

      INCREASE IMMIGRATION QUOTAS TO SUPPLEMENT WORKFORCE

      26 Apple products Trump’s tariffs will make more expensive

      http://www.applemust.com/26-apple-products-trumps-tariffs-will-make-more-expensive/

      • K-Dog September 11, 2018 at 9:15 am #

        At the end of the day U.S. consumers lose but sweat shop workers make out. Jesus Christ, I suppose you want it both ways.

        • Actually the engineering is done largely in the US and the assembly is done in Taiwan, which, by the way, China has been successfully lobbying internationally lately to strip it of its political autonomy.

          What the American consumer of Apple products has already given up in moral terms outweighs the miniscule amount of disposable income a tariff would impose

    • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 10:45 am #

      @janet,

      Trump has the authority to provide Apple with a waiver. So I doubt Apple will be dumb enough to make this political. If they’re smart, then they’re working out a deal with the Trump administration behind the scenes so that it’s win-win for everyone. Maybe Apple will announce a new manufacturing facility in the USA in return for a waiver. Who knows.

      Instead of accepting that Trump is the President and working with him, you want to fight him on every issue. And where has that gotten you? Trump got his travel ban. Trump got his tax cuts. Trump got his tariffs. Trump got his court nominees. Trump is winning, winning, winning, while you look like an unhinged screaming banshee.

  41. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 10:34 am #

    MOSCOW, September 11 (Itar-Tass) – RIA Novosti.

    A filming of a staged “chemical attack” by the Syrian Army is in progress in Idlib, as reported by the Russian Center for the reconciliation of the warring parties.

    This information Center received from the local residents.

    Specially for the “naturalness” of filming and the operational collection of soil samples by the White Helmets in Jisr-Esh Shugur were delivered two containers with a chlorine-based toxic agent from the settlement of Herbet-El-Dzhauz.

    It is noted that in the morning the crews of several Middle Eastern TV channels arrived in Jisr-Esh Shugur, as well as the regional branch of the “leading American news television channel”.

    https://ria.ru/syria/20180911/1528298001.html

  42. beantownbill. September 11, 2018 at 11:08 am #

    Sometimes age has its benefits. I’ve lived a reasonably long time already. Yes, I want at least another 20 years, but if not, i’m all right with that. I’ve already seen and experienced much, and primarily want to last longer to learn more about the universe.

    If TSHTF I think I won’t survive – maybe or maybe not. After all, I can’t run as fast as I used to, don’t see as well, my reflexes are slower, etc. Also, i’ve never been in terribly violent situations. I can defend myself, but not against hordes of starving people. I’ve prepped some so I wouldn’t die immediately if I’m lucky. But I also live in a near suburb of Boston where my home could be a target.

    What I’m really trying to say is I’ve already lived my allotted three score and ten, so I don’t worry about a collapse. Que sera, sera. I do feel badly about those younger than me who get cheated out of a longer life.

    • outsider September 11, 2018 at 11:48 am #

      Serious question, Beantownbill:

      If you’ve already lived the allotted three score and ten, why on earth would you want to live 20 more? It’s all down hill after 60 anyway and your health will slowly, or quickly, fade away. I’m less than 3 years from 70, the age when my father died, and I hope to not live that long.

      I’ve saved a good bit of money for my declining years, as the investment advisors say to do. And I was hoodwinked. Best to spend all your money as you make it when you’re young enough to enjoy it. Now I don’t know what to do with it as inflation bleeds my nest egg dry.

      • beantownbill. September 11, 2018 at 11:55 am #

        My father lived to 96 and drove until he died. His memory and health were pretty good. If you’ve got the genes, why not enjoy life as long as you can? Plus I got grandchildren that love me very much. It will be a shock to them if I die soon. I know Ieventually

        • beantownbill. September 11, 2018 at 12:07 pm #

          Correction: I know I’ll go eventually, but the alternative isn’t appetizing to me. We’re on the verge of understanding some amazing things about the physical universe and It’s underlying reality, and I’d like to learn about them.

          You are correct about spending your money while you can enjoy it, IMO. As far as I know, you can’t take it with you, and you don’t know if it would help your survivors, as money is not happiness. I wonder if you’re in bad health, because I myself would never had the desire to die so young (I’m now 73) otherwise.

          • stelmosfire September 11, 2018 at 1:01 pm #

            Just curious BTB. You speak of being on the verge of amazing understanding. I’ve been into astronomy and cosmology for a years now. I pretty much quit the astrophotography bit with my large scope. Too much got-damn light pollution! Where and what do you see coming down the pike? Perhaps when the James Webb is in orbit something astounding?

        • malthuss September 11, 2018 at 12:50 pm #

          He was the rare exception.

          Outsider says ‘die at 70’—70 biological age or chronological age?

          • Tate September 11, 2018 at 5:14 pm #

            I’ve been trying calorie restriction, so far without much success.

  43. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 11:42 am #

    The head of the Russian Guard (Rosgvardia) challenged the leading political oppositionist Navalny to a duel and promised to beat him to a pork-chop

    https://aurora.network/images/articles/1536668376_xl.jpg

    General Viktor Zolotov said that the founder of the Anti-Corruption Fund committed “insulting slanderous fabrications” against him, which “is not acceptable to forgive.”

    Alexei Navalny:

    https://resize.indiatvnews.com/en/centered/newbucket/715_431/2017/12/russian-opposition-leader-alexei-navalny-1514129183.jpg

  44. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 12:02 pm #

    Election day on September 9 in Russia turned out to be extremely colorful and noisy: they fought and prayed, breathed tear gas, worshiped relics and drank cool lemonade at the polling stations.

    At first glance, everything was confused over the past Sunday: schoolchildren and pensioners, riot police and election commissions, inconsistent media reports and optimistic Kremlin press-releases.

    But if you look more closely at the picture of the day, you can distinguish at least four forces acting on the public field more or less reasonably: “United Russia”, the Communist Party, the LDPR and the opposition movement of Alexei Navalny.

    All of them now declared their confident victory and all of them somehow are not really believable, because the achieved results look much more modest than the fanfares that announce them.

    https://delyagin.ru/images/articles/1536611191_xl.jpg

    https://static.business-online.ru/22327/fBEL_0557-1_resize.jpg

  45. volodya September 11, 2018 at 12:29 pm #

    Elysianfield,

    Great point about dehumanization. We’ve seen it before especially in the really big conflagrations, in the holocausts. I would argue that you’re seeing it already in the USA especially among the bi-coastal clerisies as they slur Fly-over Americans as racists, ignoramuses, sexists, Islamophobes, xenophobes, you name it. Or mindless scum as you put it.

    One aspect of dehumanization is to do damage to a group of people and then to minimize what was done. The WW2 holocaust? No matter the mountain of documentary evidence and eyewitness accounts, to a subset of people the eradication of European Jewry didn’t happen. Or, if it did, it’s a detail of history. Alternatively, they had it coming, all these Jewish bankers and propagandists and subverters sapping the will of the German people.

    You see denial all the time in coastal publications. They talk about wage stagnation of the American worker. Stagnation? Wages plummeted, and household income did likewise, immiserating a wide swathe of the populace. They talk about widening inequality of wealth and income. How Manhattan and Silicon Valley lives is of limited relevance so long as they don’t ruin everyone else. Of course, they managed to ruin the lives of tens of millions, which is why Trump is in the Oval Office and why we’re having this conversation. The real issue that the Greatly Wise and Enlightened refuse to acknowledge is the inability of a guy to support a family in a reasonable state of well-being without the prospect of homelessness and destitution snapping at their heels. Denial and minimization again.

    Societal evolution can take generations. It’s fair to say that except for the broad outlines, we’re blind to the future. NOBODY in the 1960s foresaw the ever deepening economic degradation for so many people in the last thirty years. It’s like Glen Greenwald just said, given the magnitude of what was inflicted, it’s no wonder that you have got this elite obsession with Russia and collusion. Not long ago it was tranny washrooms. Anything to change the subject IOW.

    If civil war doesn’t break out it’s not exactly a bad outcome, but there’s a wide array of possibilities, many of them lousy, as economic atrophy proceeds apace, possibilities that fall short of open warfare between geographic regions or societal classes. Given the propensity of our enlightened opinion leaders and decision makers to zero in on bad outcomes like heat seeking missiles, I’d give decent odds of the air singing with high velocity projectiles. But it’s not the only possible course of events. I’d give better odds of a de-facto crack-up of the USA with various states deciding to give a non-functioning Washington the one finger salute.

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    • malthuss September 11, 2018 at 12:54 pm #

      “Or, if it did, it’s a detail of history.”

      Certainly they [the alleged 6 million, or 4 million or 1 million] are a lpercent of the total number of victims killed in all wars.

      Just in WW1 and WW2 something like 100 million were killed.

      Yet the Holocaust [TM] has some huge presence in media..

      • volodya September 11, 2018 at 1:09 pm #

        Of course it has a huge presence. The scheme to rid Germany and its conquered territories of an entire ethnicity and religious group was audacious in its conception and execution. And it was successful. At the end of it, not much was left of European Jewry, especially in Germany.

        But this business with Jewish death camps aka the Final Solution – wasn’t the only one the Nazis were cooking up. Hans Frank, the German military governor of Poland said – and I’m paraphrasing – that it was his job to starve the Polish people out of existence.

        It wasn’t just the Poles either. The Nazis had a scheme to eradicate 30-50 million people in central Europe to make way for German settlers, ie lebensraum.

        These various plans might have got traction if Hitler hadn’t made the fatal blunder of trying to crush Russia.

        Lest we think the Germans were unique in this barbarity, there was a Soviet scheme to do a number on Ukrainian kulaks. Yeah, yeah, I know, it wasn’t only directed at Ukrainians, a multitude of others died too. But, from the accounts I’ve read, the Ukrainians bore the brunt. And then there was Mao and then Pol Pot. many millions more.

        The point of my post that you replied to is to support what Elysianfield said about dehumanization. It’s a time tested technique.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2018 at 3:16 pm #

          And the Allies starved the German people after both wars. Hundreds of thousands of German POW’s died in Eisenhower’s Death Camps. And atrocities were committed by Allied soldiers against the German population. And Polish atrocities against Germans in Polish territory (given to them at Versailles) began the whole mess.

          You’re overlooking Malthus’ point: the Jewish owned media focuses on Jewish suffering. It will always look at History thru the Jewish lens. Tragically, they tend to get control of the State Department as well – thus the endless Wars in the Middle East that benefit America not at all – except for the War Profiteers.

          Soviet? What ethnicity dominated the Russian Revolution?

          • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 12:09 pm #

            Yes, my point is that the Muse of ‘Tolerance’ [how much tolerance do Israelis have to non Jews?] has no images of Native Americans.

            Recently millions of Africans were killed.
            The press yawned.

            The media makes out like the Jews [TM] are some special, oppressed, always suffering race.

            On to, I was out and saw the NYTimes. Sept 9, Magazine. There is an article that lauds Alinsky.
            ‘Grand Scheme’ by Beverly Gage.

            On a separate note, was W Reich a genius, crazy, or both?
            Are there all these spaceships round earth?

        • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 12:11 pm #

          The scheme to rid Germany and its conquered territories of an entire ethnicity and religious group was audacious in its conception and execution.
          Really? Sounds like genocide 101.

          What of the Holomodor?
          More Christians were killed by Stalin and his minyans than
          Jews killed by Hitler. Yet almost no one knows the truth, due to the religion of the killers.

  46. elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 12:29 pm #

    Well, ladies and germs,

    Ol’ Remus has hit one out of the park. His “Frankly, my Dear” rant should bring tears of gratitude to your eyes….

    From his trembling lips to God’s ear….

    http://www.woodpilereport.com/

  47. malthuss September 11, 2018 at 12:57 pm #

    September 11.

    Any comments?

    • Georges1202 September 11, 2018 at 1:32 pm #

      I barely escaped that horror – my company was planning a move to the 88th floor of the South Tower on Sept. 1st. there were construction delays…

      I watched from the Jersey City side. Saw things the news cameras avoided.

      Bin Laden took advantage of the incredibly bad leadership then to kickstart the US into destroying itself.

      Now we have Trump.

      • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 12:18 pm #

        >>> Bin Laden took advantage of the incredibly bad leadership then to kickstart the US into destroying itself.

        Bin Laden took advantage of both neocon and liberal naiveté, that if we just become a multicultural society and treat all people and cultures as equally meritorious and valued—and never engage in profiling!—that the world would respond in kind with universal love, paving the way for a one-world government.

        And if a Muslim wants to stand up on a plane and shout Allahu Akbar!—then that’s his cultural right and who are we to question it?

        9/11 could have happened to any POTUS. It’s what happened after that would have differed from one POTUS to the next.

    • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 1:51 pm #

      Any comments?

      Well, my condolences on the anniversary, primarily.

      Then a recollection of an opinion piece (UK) I read a while after that suggested that if the US had taken the moral high ground and gone about its business of establishing who the culprits were but without invading Afghanistan, the international goodwill it would have thereby attracted to itself would have been incalculable. Just passing it on, not judging the opinion… Although I do remember that there was an absolute flood of goodwill towards the US at the time of the attacks themselves, which might well have been worth building on.

      As for the deliberate conflation of Afghanistan and Iraq, and the subsequent mission creep, words failed many of us at the time.

      • Walter B September 11, 2018 at 4:56 pm #

        ” if the US had taken the moral high ground and gone about its business of establishing who the culprits were but without invading Afghanistan”

        Would have been the decent thing to do no doubt, but it would not have achieved the effect that Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and Paul Wolfowitz were seeking for “A New Pearl Harbor” , as outlined in their PNAC document, “Rebuilding America’s Defenses” (top left page 51).. The plan to justify converting the American military machine into a smaller, swifter strike force with improved weaponry, released in September 2000.

          • GreenAlba September 11, 2018 at 6:10 pm #

            Thanks, Walter. Not arguing with that.

            Meanwhile, just when you think things can’t get any more insane, Jacob Rees-Mogg sees the new post-Brexit ‘Global Britain’ as needing some bl**dy new Star Wars project.

            Plus an expeditionary force to the Falklands.

            https://inews.co.uk/news/politics/hardline-brexiteers-star-wars-missile-defence/

            It’s difficult to keep up with the madness.

          • Walter B September 11, 2018 at 8:53 pm #

            So perhaps GA, your leadership is sold out and/or insane? If so, well we have that in common do we not? In fact, pretty much all of the world can share in that problem can’t we? It is a real damned shame that you and I and all of those out there that seriously enjoy the wonderful lives that we all have cannot be left alone to carry on in peace! It makes me long for the days when the tough guys at the top would meet on the field and duke it out between each other instead of involving US.

          • GreenAlba September 12, 2018 at 10:58 am #

            Indeed Walter, although they’ve mostly involved US as well, I think.

            You reminded me of Tom Paxton’s song, When Princes Meet:

            https://genius.com/Tom-paxton-when-princes-meet-lyrics

            (lyrics only…)

            Oh, go on then, here’s the song…

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8HSqVBVSY0

            And that picture of Bush and Blair shaking hands is still as grotesque as it was at the time.

      • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 8:01 pm #

        Alba,
        Comments? Take a minute and read what Bin Laden said after the 9/11 attack;

        https://www.aljazeera.com/archive/2004/11/200849163336457223.html

        It is an interesting and short read…and prescient.

        At minimal cost in money and lives, he changed the United States… its politics, economy and culture…and none for the better.

        If the guy was on our side, we would be naming high schools after him….

        • 100th Avatar September 12, 2018 at 9:29 pm #

          Obama High… close enough

          • 100th Avatar September 12, 2018 at 9:30 pm #

            That’s probably what Michelle says when he tells her to run.. “Obama high”

      • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 7:09 pm #

        if the US had taken the moral high ground and gone about its business of establishing who the culprits were but without invading Afghanistan, the international goodwill it would have thereby attracted to itself would have been incalculable.

        Incalculable, eh? Your “international goodwill” has a half-life of about one news cycle. Part of why Obama was despised by many was precisely because his priorities were on his own international imagine and popularity as opposed to acting in America’s best interests.

        That being said, there’s no doubt that America’s torture policy at that time destroyed any “moral high ground” we ever had. We’re in no position now to argue to any nation that they shouldn’t employ torture when it’s convenient or useful.

        • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 8:12 am #

          “Your “international goodwill” has a half-life of about one news cycle. “ — Exscotticus

          (1) It’s not my international goodwill, as I pointed out. I merely passed on the message.

          (2) Its duration (Malcolm Gladwell might say ‘stickiness’) would have depended on your subsequent pattern of behaviour. You will note that I said there was a flood of goodwill towards the US ‘which might well have been worth building on’.

          Reputations aren’t made by one act. The US didn’t get its current reputation through one act.

          Re your last paragraph, I don’t know anyone who would disagree with that. The UK is similarly tarnished by having colluded, denied collusion (looking at you, Jack Straw) and then been ignominiously found out.

          • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 10:24 am #

            The USA could save the civilized world 3x in a row and the international response would be: “That was yesterday; what did you do for us today?” No thanks. The international community can keep their goodwill. Let someone else be Pavlov’s dog trying to keep master happy for a pat on the head. That goodwill and $5 will get you a cup of coffee.

          • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 11:02 am #

            Well, you can keep your endless mauvaise foi, Exscotticus – it seems to be well embedded.

            We still get a huge Christmas tree every year that sits on the top of The Mound from our Norwegian friends for what we did for them during the war. London too. 🙂

            http://edxmas.northcolour.co.uk/userfiles/image/events/Christmas-tree.jpg

            And, come to think of it, I don’t know anyone who’s got a massive grudge against Norway, either. What you don’t do matters.

          • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 11:42 am #

            I see no evidence that international goodwill has accomplished much. The world is full of conflict as always. Seriously you sound like a snake oil salesman. Step right up! Get your international goodwill (IG)—the elixir of life! A vitalizer of mind, body, and spirit! A guaranteed cure and preventative for all disease! Also guaranteed to bring about love at first sight, to strengthen the vigor of all internal organs in question, and to be a potent inspiration for all womenfolk! IG is the genuine article! Accept no substitutes! Ends temptations of all kinds! Adds a feeling of freshness and vigor to the entire system! Relieves instantly!

            If you want to bet your future on universal kumbaya then go for it. Ride that magic pony! I’ll even through in some rainbows and unicorns for free.

          • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 1:20 pm #

            Exscotticus

            You really don’t do irony, do you – even when it’s got a smiley face there to help you out?

            People – and countries – need to be both hard-nosed and with a decent amount of goodwill in this life, in my experience. The balance depends on the situation.

            If the UK had shown a bit of goodwill at the start of the Brexit negotiations, instead of its attempt at hard-nosed, f**k-you entitlement, we might not be looking at a cliff edge a few months from now.

          • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 2:25 pm #

            @GreenAlba,

            >>> If the UK had shown a bit of goodwill at the start of the Brexit negotiations,

            And how do you define a “bit of goodwill” in this context? Should the UK send the EU a Christmas tree? Maybe you can regift the one you got from Norway…

            Brexit is an existential threat to the EU. It may encourage others to follow the UK’s example. So no amount of goodwill is going to encourage the EU to make this easy. They will make it as painful as possible, to ensure the other members toe the line.

            And if the EU had gone on as before for many decades, slowly but steadily amassing responsibility and power, I think “members” would find that leaving would not be possible at all. An EU military would make sure of that. Maybe arguing against the EU would be a “hate crime”.

            But you keep believing in the power of goodwill. This song’s for you.

          • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 3:02 pm #

            You continue to think and see in caricatures, Exscotticus. Feel free if that’s the best you can do.

            I didn’t suggest that the UK lie down and allow itself to be steamrollered. But some assurances on security for continental Europeans living in the UK at the very beginning, for example, could have set the tone for positive negotiations, as would an early agreement that the UK would honour financial commitments already made – instead of the idiot Davies making a fool of himself by having to climb down repeatedly from his initial bouts of ill-advised bluster.

            The fool didn’t even know that the UK couldn’t make trade deals until it had left the EU – and he was a leading campaigner, then THE lead negotiator. I knew that before I voted and nobody pays me. And he resigned when he realised the promises made to UK voters had been utter fantasy.

            “An EU military would make sure of that.”

            The creation of an EU military was and is impossible without the unanimous agreement of every member. As you should know. The UK had a veto, as did all the other members.

            “Brexit is an existential threat to the EU.”

            Currently it’s also an existential threat to the UK.

          • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 3:05 pm #

            “Currently it’s also an existential threat to the UK.” – GA

            Ask Nicola Sturgeon, who’s preparing for Indyref 2 as we speak.

            She may win this time, thanks almost entirely to the Brexit shambles.

          • Q. Shtik September 13, 2018 at 4:18 pm #

            GA,

            Granted, this is waaaay off topic but………..

            By what rationale does an inhabitant/resident of the UK pronounce ‘dual’ as jual? Or the name of the pop group ‘Duran Duran’ as Juran Juran?

            This question came to mind when I heard Wilfred Frost, son of the famous David Frost, mention on TV that a certain corporate leader would be taking on a second title (in addition to COO) and thus a ‘Jual’ role. And, about 20 years ago I heard a Brit on radio make reference to ‘Juran Juran.’

            Most people would say “hey, it’s your country and your language so you can pronounce it however you want” but for me…well, it makes my skin crawl.

          • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 4:33 pm #

            >>> Currently it’s also an existential threat to the UK.

            Nice retort! But if it’s true it’s sad. The UK no longer knows how to exist apart from the EU? Just imagine the members who gave up their mints and can no longer even create their own currency.

          • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 8:18 pm #

            I’m sorry about your skin, Q – I somehow saw you as being more resilient after all that motorcycling, but it just goes to show…

            I suppose you feel about ‘Juran Juran’ the way we feel about ‘herbs’ being pronounced ‘erbs’ as if it had no ‘h’ or you were trying to be French but not doing it properly. Although it doesn’t quite make my skin crawl – must be that stiff upper lip of something – it just sounds weird and a bit like someone burping.

            More seriously, ‘dew’, ‘dual’ and ‘Duran Duran’ are properly pronounced ‘dyoo’, ‘dyoo-al’ and ‘Dyoo-ran Dyoo-ran’, but if you said those yourself you’d find yourself slipping into ‘jual’ as well, I imagine. Just as ‘Houston’ in British English is pronounced ‘Hyoo-ston’ and not ‘Hoo-stan’ and ‘Hugh’ is pronounced ‘Hyoo’ and not ‘Hoo’ (you surely don’t say ‘Hoo’?_
            Language evolves – and I’m not going to oblige you to say ‘Hoo’ for ‘Hugh’ just because you say ‘doo-al’ for ‘dual’.

            Nor will I make you say ‘poor’ when you mean ‘pure’ or ‘soor’ when you mean ‘sure’. I would imagine ‘sure’ follows the same linguistic mechanism as ‘jual’. You could try saying ‘syoor’ if you want to be purist, sorry ‘poorist’.

          • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 8:19 pm #

            *or* something…

    • Tate September 11, 2018 at 5:04 pm #

      “The floodgates were thrown open with a vengeance in 1997 when the mendacious war criminal Tony Blair became prime minister after a landslide victory. Blair was later to be rewarded for his services to multiculturalism by being awarded the prestigious Charlemagne Prize by the EU in 1999, a distinction he was to share with Angela Merkel who was to bag the same prize in 2008 and was to eclipse even Tony Blair in her misguided enthusiasm for mass immigration. This is not the place for expatiating on the crackpot theories of Count Coudenhove-Kalergi, the ideological godfather of the EU. Suffice to say that this Austro-Japanese promoter of miscegenation and mongrelisation through mass immigration was to be the first recipient of the Charlemagne Prize (in 1950), which is why it is also sometimes known as the Coudenhove-Kalergi Prize. Other recipients of this coveted prize, all politically correct promoters of multiculturalism, have been Henry Kissinger (1987), Bill Clinton (2000), Pope John Paul II (2004), Pope Francis (2016), and Emmanuel Macron (2017).” — Lasha Darkmoon

      Who were the bigger terrorists, Tony Blair & Angela Merkel or the 9-11 hijackers?

  48. janet September 11, 2018 at 1:01 pm #

    “Janet, Spoken like a true ex-Marine.” –elysianfield

    Operative part being “ex”

    I’ve gotten to the point where I agree with beantown. Every day more, fully lived, is gravy but there will be no extraordinary measures taken to prolong this go round, neither through “self-defense” nor through medical interventions.

    People change. Smedley Butler was a United States Marine Corps major general, the highest rank authorized at that time, and at the time of his death the most decorated Marine in U.S. history.

    Later in his life he gave speeches to pacifist groups, he served from 1935 to 1937 as a spokesman for the American League Against War and Fascism.

    “I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.”

    • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 8:04 pm #

      Muscle memory, Janet…muscle memory.

  49. janet September 11, 2018 at 1:06 pm #

    Two new polls shows devastating numbers for Trump following revelations in Bob Woodward’s book and the anonymous Times op-ed, which is not really “anonymous” since the author was vetted and is known to three NYT employees.

    Trump’s approval is back under 40% and 55% of Americans say the president is not fit to serve as president.

  50. janet September 11, 2018 at 2:53 pm #

    “September 11. Any comments?” — malthuss

    We haven’t had a follow-up attack in 17 years. Some say that is due to the diligent work of the employees of CIA, NSA, etc. Some thanks may be in order to the much maligned “deep state” … I’ll start… Thank you, Peter Strzok, for your service to our country, preventing a new terrorist attack on USA soil.

    Also, we can thank the “deep state” for protecting us from Russian interference with the 2018 mid-term elections, people like National Security Adviser John Bolton, Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen, FBI Director Chris Wray, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats and Gen. Paul Nakasone, the director of the National Security Agency and the commander of U.S. Cyber Command.

    I doubt it is a coincidence that the top experts on organized crime in Russia, the top experts on the relationship between Russian organized crime and Trump money laundering… those are the experts Trump is busy attacking.

    So, I would like to give a special thanks to Bruce Ohr, Lisa Page, Andrew Weissmann, and Andrew McCabe.

    Lots to be thankful for, even before Thanksgiving Day.

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    • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2018 at 3:27 pm #

      We’ve had many attacks by Muslims since then, smaller in scale of course.

      • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 3:55 pm #

        janet is already on record as wanting open borders. Meanwhile, 622 Bangladeshis have been arrested trying to cross the border this year so far. Think about that. A human smuggling operation exists all the way to Southeast Asia, aided and abetted by people like janet. And if someone from Southeast Asia can challenge our border security, then anyone can from anywhere in the world. Progs like janet, meanwhile, will be the last to accept any responsibility if a terrorist comes in with a nuke.

        • janet September 11, 2018 at 4:49 pm #

          622 Bangladeshis have been arrested trying to cross the border this year so far. Think about that. Exscotty

          I am thinking about it. Why only 622? Such a small number given the enormity of the crimes of the west against Bangladesh.

          I salute the bravery of anyone willing to leave, to extract themselves from western economic exploitation, to move in search of a better life.

          Exscotticus, unfortunately the law of karma is at work. You are upset about Bangladeshis arriving here, but their arrival is just blowback from western oppression.

          Look at the social, political and economic history of Bangladesh. Major foreign influences have prevented Bangladesh’s economic development. Western colonialism is the main reason why the country has failed to make vital economic improvements (even after so many years of “political freedom”). Now you complain when Bangladeshis arrive on our doorstep?

          You reap what you sow, Exscotticus. I welcome Bangladeshis to come to the USA and I beg their forgiveness for creating the situation they are escaping from, a situation created by the west (EU, USA, Canada).

          https://www.hrw.org/news/2016/04/21/bangladesh-garment-workers-union-rights-bleak

          • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 6:22 pm #

            Actually, janet, the universe is not a giant karma factory. Sometimes evil wins. Sometimes innocent babies die. But it doesn’t surprise me to add mysticism to your long list of idiotic beliefs. Don’t step on a crack—it will break your mother’s back!

            And now for a history lesson. The USA didn’t colonize Bangladesh. And “Western colonialism” provided them with roads and rail lines and boats and telegraphs and telephones and all the accouterments of technology that are so vitally useful for nation building. Your welcome, Bangladesh.

            Also, the idea that Bangladesh was some liberal progressive kumbaya society prior to colonialism is just a rainbow-colored stain on your brain pan. Bangladesh traded one set of rulers for another, but the latter at least pushed them out of the stone age.

            Fast forward to modern times, and Bangladesh has been independent of colonial rule since the 1950s. All their problems are their own.

            >>> I welcome Bangladeshis to come to the USA

            Will you welcome them directly into your home then and provide for them? Yeah—didn’t think so.

          • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 1:36 pm #

            Bangladesh is a made up country.
            It didnt exist a 100 years ago.

          • Yeah, unfortunately the people who get out of the aforementioned hellholes of western imperialism are usually the upper-classes, the petty bourgeoisie classes, the black-market profiteers, the connected families…

            They know by keeping their head down, soaking up the sympathy, no one will ever know what pieces of shit they really are.

        • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 1:43 pm #

          A man goes to tennis courts on Long Island, around 2004.
          The ball boys were from central america.
          Illegals?
          They got into USA and got jobs. How much money and connections did they have?
          How about funded terrorists? are they here?

  51. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 3:01 pm #

    Rosh Hashanah + 911

    I congratulate all Jews and non-Jews on the Jewish New Year regardless of your religion and wish you to be recorded in the Good Book, and I expect the same from you.

    But this year Rosh Hashanah coincided with the 17th anniversary of 911, and this gives me an opportunity to remind all that this event is really epochal, since it has turned the US 180 degrees in a variety of ways, in particular by turning a significant number of Americans face to Russia, which actually became one of the most important causes of the Great Trump Revolution.

    Moreover, this event, like no other, corresponds to one of the predictions in the Apocalypse (Rev. 18: 2-20), and it was revealed to me the same day that I, inhaling the burnt plastic, looked at the smoking ruins of the World Trade Center from the other bank of Hudson.

    And it opened to me in the literal sense – the Bible in my hands itself was opened on the 18th chapter of the Revelation of St. John the Theologian and I read these lines:

    And the merchants of the earth weep and mourn for her, since no one buys their cargo anymore, cargo of gold, silver, jewels, pearls, fine linen, purple cloth, silk, scarlet cloth, all kinds of scented wood, all kinds of articles of ivory, all kinds of articles of costly wood, bronze, iron and marble, cinnamon, spice, incense, myrrh, frankincense, wine, oil, fine flour, wheat, cattle and sheep, horses and chariots, and slaves, that is, human souls.

    2 14 “The fruit for which your soul longed has gone from you, and all your delicacies and your splendors are lost to you, never to be found again!” The merchants of these wares, who gained wealth from her, will stand far off, in fear of her torment, weeping and mourning aloud, “Alas, alas, for the great city that was clothed in fine linen, in purple and scarlet, adorned with gold, with jewels, and with pearls! For in a single hour all this wealth has been laid waste.” And all shipmasters and seafaring men, sailors and all whose trade is on the sea, stood far off 18 and cried out as they saw the smoke of her burning, “What city was like the great city?”

    The fact is that I was one of those who should have perished in the second tower, and the connection with the Jewish New Year is that the stinker Michel Moore made an extremely vile movie about the fact that 911 was organized by the Bush administration, and this allowed Hillary Clinton to strengthen the Deep State and to undermine military operations in Iraq, creating the very basis for Brzezinski’s theory, the very chaos that became the very soil on which a forbidden flower of Islamic State grew.

    And this is the REAL TRUTH, startling and primitive and simplified to the point, and this truth still needs to be realized by mankind in order to get out of the track that was planned two years before, but was determined on September 11, 2001.

    And one of the side effects of Moore’s film was the outbreak of anti-Semitism in the US, since it was after the premiere of this film that rumors circulated in New York that no one from the Jews who worked at the World Trade Center came to work that day, and consequently the Jews were warned about preparing the attack, and consequently it was the Jews who organized it.

  52. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 4:08 pm #

    On Eleventh of September 2001 at 8:30 am I had an appointment in the South Tower with one of my friends, who worked in the San Microsystems on the 25th floor of the World Trade Center South tower. This meeting promised a lot of things and has become probably my last attempt to put on a business suit in accordance with the dress code of corporate America.

    I fussed with the preparation of the suit up until after midnight, but, despite this, in the middle of the night woke up from a nightmare in which some people with their faces covered by arafatkas chased me into the Kozikhinskiy thoroughfare in Moscow.

    Usually dreams disappear somewhere after 5 minutes, but this dream I can see even now with his eyes closed. Once I was able to get away from them, I jumped on Tverskoy Boulevard near the Pushkin theater district and, covered with cold sweat, I saw the looming white, swirling wall extending from Pushkin Square.

    Waking up, I was tormented by thirst to tell someone the dream, I rushed to call my friend in Moscow and spoke with him for 2 hours.

    I fell asleep in the morning, and certainly overslept, and therefore heard the explosion of the first plane and watched the flames and smoke of the first tower not on a 25-floor, but out of the lobby of the second tower at the elevators. In each of the towers worked around 20 thousand people and 10 thousand visitors every day. The first plane hit at quarter to 9, and at this time, half of the people were still at the bottom, waiting for elevators. But everyone thought that it was an accident and no one left the second building. Everyone gathered at the windows and watched as spellbound. And many got into the elevator and went to work.

    Realizing that my interview will not take place, I went out into the street and, without taking my eyes from this truly apocalyptic spectacle, managed to cross the square when I saw the shadow slid over the second building, and then there was an explosion, and some debris flew in all directions. Then I do not remember what happened, but I was on the Church Avenue at a good distance, perhaps three hundred meters from the tower, and my chic business suit turned out to be torn to pieces on broken knees covered in blood. I remember next to me turned out to be a huge firefighter and a Chinese seller of hotdogs which people with faces frozen in horror were buying up from him at a frantic pace.

    Events of this magnitude the human mind can not accommodate. I saw people jumping out of windows to escape the fire. Somehow, no one shouted. I bent down, to get a light from fireman cigarette and said, “This is a war”. Our eyes met and he seemed to wake up, calmly said: “Oh yeah, this is a war”. We obviously both thought about how our lives will change from this war, and what kind of war it will be. And at that moment there was a hysterical female squeal and screams a lot of people. I looked up and saw the antenna on the roof of the second building began to move slowly down.

    It is all lies that there is something exploded. It clearly shows that the site of the fire melted the supporting structures and the upper part of the building above the fire like a hammer smashed floor by floor. That is why the second tower fell very quickly – the plane flew into it pretty low and the structure could not stand the weight of the floors above the fire. But first, in which the plane crashed almost on the roof, was burning for a long time. And it seemed to me that I saw a man in the first tower, who stood by the window and watched as the other tower falls. And even when everything was shrouded in smoke, I still see his face and his hands on the glass. I stood at the bottom and heard a knock when this machine has hit on the next floor – boom, boom, boom. I stood there, listening and thinking – this is the crunch of human bones.

    And then I saw the white wall, which I saw in a dream at night. It felt that I in a horror was running somewhere, alongside a firefighter from whom I was lighting a cigarette, he grabbed my arm and pushed in some staircase. And there we have torn my shirt and moisten it with water and wound on face as a mask. And I realized that we were still alive. So we went out and began wandering in the darkness to catch people and take them to the entrance, where the air was cleaner and was some water.

    And now, after many years, this place always brings me back, whether on Tverskoy Boulevard, whether on Church Avenue, with this moving white wall absorbing everything in its path – houses, people, sun, ALL. It was there at the foot of the stupid monument where I on the next day gave blood, I finally realized what had happened then, since my call to Moscow, to the hotdog I ate a second before the south tower began to fall. What happened after that, I was unable to understand until now.

    I wonder what it would be if I had not seen this dream?

    • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 12:21 pm #

      Yours is quite a story.

      I disagree with your,
      “But everyone thought that it was an accident and no one left the second building.”

      I read people were told to stay in the 2nd tower.
      herded in like the sheep that they were.
      The Times had a front page story about a fool who called his mom, from the WTC. The experts told him he was safe. he died.

    • ozone September 12, 2018 at 2:21 pm #

      Fincandescence,
      You’ve outdone yourself with this one! lol
      You’ve shown yourself to be a bloated, bilious, bloviating bullshitter par excellence (many times each day), but this really takes the cake as the tallest of your tall tales. Whether your progressively higher mountain of lies are for fun or profit matters not any more; the simple fact that they are lies in the pursuit of manufacturing consent among the credulous is the salient point in contention here.

      My only advice to you would be to shit in your hat and wear it; it will cover up the smell.

      • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 2:50 pm #

        Finca inhabits an ethereal world somewhere between this one and the next. No doubt with some as yet undisclosed amount of help from pharmaceuticals, legal or otherwise.

        • GreenAlba September 13, 2018 at 8:34 am #

          I rather like the bit about people with ‘their faces frozen in horror’ frantically buying up hotdogs as a coping mechanism.

          And firemen offering a light to passers by, which, as we all know, is just what firefighters are trained to do.

          But I’m also impressed by someone being able to run with broken knees. That’s real pluck.

          • FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2018 at 8:36 am #

            What I meant, of course, that the costume was all teared up at the knees – or broken – NOT the knees.

            You need to start getting used to my RussoEnglish.

  53. janet September 11, 2018 at 4:20 pm #

    “We’ve had many attacks by Muslims since then, smaller in scale of course.” –janos

    More deaths have resulted from attacks by violent extremist white nationalists / supremacists / separatists than by violent extremists of the Muslim variety.

    • janet September 11, 2018 at 5:07 pm #

      White supremacists were “directly responsible” for 18 extremist-related deaths in 2017. Islamic extremists, by comparison, were only responsible for nine deaths in America.

      Last year’s share of white supremacist killings represents a jump from 2016, when such groups accounted for nine homicides. Thanks to Mr. Trump’s reckless pro-Nazi rhetoric, and irresponsible promotion of violence at his rallies, the number of deaths by white extremists doubled in 2017.

      • Exscotticus September 12, 2018 at 11:38 am #

        And your source? The Anti-Defamation League?! LOL! I think I’ll wait for the official FBI crime stat report.

        How do they define “white supremacist”? How do they define “extremist-related fatalities”. When you play with data and definitions, you can get any result you want.

        The 18 white supremacist murders included several killings linked to the alt right as that movement expanded its operations…

        Linked to the alt right movement? That expanded its operations? What are they talking about? The alt right isn’t some 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization like the ADL with an HQ in DC and a National Chair.

        Earth to ADL: the “alt right” is a term used to identify a bunch of unaffiliated people with certain political and ideological beliefs. It is not an organization. It does not expand its operations.

        If the ADL can’t even get that fact straight, I doubt the rest of their assessments are worth exploring. The report drips with bias before it even begins.

        • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 12:22 pm #

          false flags are more common, now adays.

          • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 2:46 pm #

            Do ya think?

  54. Tate September 11, 2018 at 4:57 pm #

    The number of people who will claim they had an appointment at the Towers that day, or were nearby & saw the whole thing unfold will expand exponentially over the coming years.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 5:27 pm #

      You could safely shortened my personal exponent by at least a couple of years, since that was a repost of September 11, 2016 :

      http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/a-pleasant-lull/#comment-278438

    • Walter B September 11, 2018 at 9:34 pm #

      Well the best I can do Tate is to tell you all that I did have dinner at the Windows on the World one night in 1979 as well as my wedding reception on 12 Sep 81, twenty years and a day prior to the destruction, so I was pretty safe. Besides the fact that the food was some of the best I have ever had, those tall, narrow slits of windows looking down on the clouds and the small aircraft passing below us was one of the strangest feelings I have ever had.

      • Tate September 12, 2018 at 1:04 pm #

        So you escaped within an inch of your life. I’m glad you made it out alive Walter.

  55. Q. Shtik September 11, 2018 at 5:08 pm #

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv4_425K8r4

    Janos,

    This is me racing in the rain last Saturday. I’m the one in the multi-colored helmet.

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    • Q. Shtik September 11, 2018 at 5:13 pm #

      You’ve got to have titanium balls to do this.

      • elysianfield September 11, 2018 at 8:12 pm #

        Q,
        Titanium Balls? No…the titanium is in the screws that are used to piece together broken bones….

      • Tate September 11, 2018 at 8:37 pm #

        Gee, maybe I should get me some of that testosterone cream.

      • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 12:08 pm #

        Not to mention a pea brain.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 11, 2018 at 5:32 pm #

      You are an inspiration to all of us. Most grapes just rot eventually. But certain grapes just get sweeter and sweeter, naturally turning into raisins on the vine. It’s said that wine made from such rare grapes is very expensive and even one sip hightens consciousness in a unique way.

      You are just such a grape, not content to rot away in front of the TV or Cruise deck chairs. You want to die not on your seat, but rather on your bike seat. I hate doctors and hospitals too. Hopefully I can die in battle and attain Valhalla.

      I noticed the youtube was date from 9/30/11. You almost got caught in 9/11!

      • FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 9:26 pm #

        How come you Janos believe in Viking’s God of Odin and Valhalla?

        Don’t you know that the Vikings were the fierce opponents of Germanic flavor National Socialism and their god Thor?

        Look what the Reich did to the Vikings! Look at modern Norway or Sweden!

        It’s a shame.

        • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 1:22 am #

          No, the “Allies” won the War and destroyed Scandanavia, Britain, France, Germany, etc. Blaming Hitler for that is like blaming him for Weimar – which he ended.

      • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 1:34 pm #

        you post riddles.

        • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 2:45 pm #

          I think he’s been on another classics binge.

          • malthuss September 12, 2018 at 9:45 pm #

            and the way he mixes his metaphors and images????

          • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 10:54 pm #

            What did you think of hmuller’s post about Scalia being killed by his intended victim at the “hunting lodge”?

            I don’t know what to think. I though he was a Conservative Catholic and Catholics aren’t supposed to do things like that….!

  56. janet September 11, 2018 at 5:37 pm #

    TRUMP INCREASES NATIONAL DEBT

    The U.S. deficit grew by $222 billion from this time last year — reaching a total of $895 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

    This increase was due mostly to the new TRUMP TAX LAW and decision to increase spending on the military. Spending grew by 7% compared to revenue growth of only 1%.

    The CBO now says TRUMP’S deficit will approach $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, but in April the agency didn’t expect the deficit to reach $1 trillion until 2020.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 5:51 pm #

      As I said before, some emission is unavoidable, but strictly done through the budget, not through the TBTF banks.

    • Exscotticus September 11, 2018 at 9:15 pm #

      Obama doubled the national debt. And in all those eight years, not a peep from janet or any other prog. If Trump is increasing the debt, then he’s only following Obama’s unassailable example.

      • janet September 12, 2018 at 12:04 am #

        “Deficits don’t matter” –Dick Cheney

        • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 12:10 pm #

          That’s my Dick! He’s my heir apparent when I finally decide to retire or get thrown into the Lake of Fire, whichever comes first.

    • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 11:27 am #

      Hey! What’s a few $T among friends? Not like any of it’s ever going to actually be “paid” to anyone anyway. In fact it’s already been paid out to those who benefited from all that borrowing (three guesses who). Just a number to be brandished for whatever political purposes someone wants to use it for. Of course the US economy is going to collapse soon, but the deficit/debt won’t be the cause. Just another somewhat misleading indicator.

  57. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 5:48 pm #

    The largest military drills are conducted to honor the memory of Genghis Khan, the man who stopped the anti-Christian, anti-Russian Western Roman-Catholic Crusaders from genocide of the Orthodox Christian Rus.

    https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/335018518/GK-150x107px_button_400x400.jpg

    Mongol troops along with Chinese are taking part in the drills.

    Saint Alexander Nevsky, facing the choice to bow before the Western Genocidal Crusaders and to loose Christian identity or to join the religiously-tolerant Mongol Empire, preferred the Mongols.

    https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-launch-biggest-war-games-history-023024016.html

  58. FincaInTheMountains September 11, 2018 at 10:47 pm #

    Now here’s Ambassador Huntsman in Russia, far from Washington.

    https://ic.pics.livejournal.com/planetarij/5522102/506506/506506_300.jpg

    Just in case: born in 1960, California, Palo Alto, they are all from there.

    From the Valley.

    Stinkin’ Zuckerbergers. All against the President. The whole royal army, like in the movies.

    Deep Throat.

    Now that’s Deep State.

  59. JohnAZ September 11, 2018 at 10:58 pm #

    Just a thought. Reading news about Elon Musk and his recent behavior. Remembered that he tried to get someone to help him take Tesla private about a month ago. Gee, do you think if he drives the price of Tesla stock down by smoking dope et al, that he might get his wish for a smaller price tag?

    Just wondering!

  60. janet September 12, 2018 at 1:12 am #

    KAVANAUGH GOT SOME ‘SPLAININ’ TO DO

    Senator Whitehouse has asked Kavanaug in writing about a series of irregularities in Kavanaugh’s personal financial disclosures. How did Kavanaugh’s Bank of America account increase in value from between $15,000 and $50,000 in 2009 to between $100,000 and $250,000 in 2010, if he reported no increase in non-investment income or gifts?

    And Whitehouse wants more information about how Kavanaugh and his wife afforded their $1.2 million home in 2006, and how he managed to pay for membership in the Chevy Chase Club, whose initiation fee is reportedly $92,000 with annual dues of more than $9,000.

    “All judicial nominees must address all questions posed to them to be voted out of committee,” Rich Davidson, Whitehouse’s spokesman, said.

    Questions about how a justice is reimbursed and by whom, or about the true source of their debt, are not immaterial to the job. Cases can come before the court that involve individuals, or individuals employed by companies, that the justice will have to rule on. If a justice has undisclosed debts or receives undisclosed payments, their impartiality could come into question.

    This is precisely what happened with Supreme Court Justice Abe Fortas. When President Lyndon Johnson chose Fortas to replace Earl Warren as chief justice in 1968, questions about payments Fortas received from $15,000 in speaking fees from American University’s law school scuttled his nomination. The payments did not come from the university, but from private sources, some of whom could have had cases come before the court.

    Conservative opponents of the Warren court and Fortas’ appointment used the payments as grounds to question the nomination. Fortas ultimately withdrew his nomination, and in 1969 he resigned from the court amid another cloud of payments from the family foundation of a wealthy financier whose indictment came before the court.

    With Kavanaugh’s history of perjury and his gambling addiction it is time for Kavanaugh to withdraw himself from consideration. It is the right thing to do.

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    • Ol' Scratch September 12, 2018 at 11:22 am #

      Exemplary! Kavanaugh will fit right in the DC swamp. At least we don’t have to wonder who’s buttering his bread. A lot’s changed since 1969… all for the worse.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 12, 2018 at 10:58 pm #

      Gambling is legal. He’s a bored and boring guy who works hard and stays faithful to his boring wife. He needs some excitement. I think we can forgive him this if he tries to put America back on the str8 and narrow – and reign in those exciting Satanists for whom abortion is a sacrament, a source of profit, or even a meal.

      • malthuss September 13, 2018 at 4:14 pm #

        What did you think of hmuller’s post about Scalia being killed by his intended victim at the “hunting lodge”?

        I don’t know what to think. I though he was a Conservative Catholic and Catholics aren’t supposed to do things like that….!

        J Podesta was texting or emailing about A S death before it was known by most people…so he knew.
        Arkancide.

  61. FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 8:45 am #

    Contra-Sanctions, Russian Style?

    The media named the priority version of the damage of the Soyuz Space Station by American astronauts

    https://russian.rt.com/science/news/553570-prioritetnaya-versiya-roskosmos

    In my opinion this is a prelude to the confiscation of the International Space Station in favor of the Russian Federation.

    If this is the case, then the next step is refusing to transport astronauts there, then block the device at the docking station, then placing on the station the missile defense system, then the kinetic weapons and combat lasers, and then, you know, the big Kuzma’s mother aimed at Washington and London.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuzma%27s_mother

    By the way, the flight time is less than two minutes.

    And all this without formal accusation – a solid highly likely (He, he).

  62. wm5135 September 12, 2018 at 8:49 am #

    Remember JiminFlorida and his trademark solution?

    I Got Mine – Ry Cooder
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XiTh8UpbeEI

  63. FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 8:55 am #

    Crypto’s 80% Plunge Is Now Worse Than the Dot-Com Crash

    https://www.bloombergquint.com/markets/2018/09/12/crypto-s-crash-just-surpassed-dot-com-levels-as-losses-reach-80#gs.RRZp1f8

    Valuation of the Deep State keeps plunging, just like with Dot Comin 2000.

    Good!

  64. JohnAZ September 12, 2018 at 3:34 pm #

    Just read a report on Bob Woodward’s interview with Dana Perino. He stated that it was very difficult to control Trump. No kidding! Why the hell do you think that Trump was elected, because we want him to tear down the Deep State and not be controlled by the SOB’s in Washington. Good Lord, if that is the gist of the NYT and Washington Post’s op-eds. It becomes very quickly a big nothing burger. Trump is there to change D.C., not be controlled by it. Bob Woodward is a banner holder for the Deep State, period.

  65. Response to Walter B:

    “While admirable to require policy to pass the scientific muster EH, unfortunately the scientific community is just as subject to sellout, fraud, and error as any other area of expertise. And the scientific method requires correction from time to time as new facts become widely accepted.

    I’m sorry, it just doesn’t make sense to say that the scientific method is “subject… to error as any other area of expertise”. The method, in fact, controls for fraud and error. Erroneous reports may be published, but for the practice of peer review and reproduction of results, never stand. The method self-corrects.

    “I recall being taught in high school that there were three states of matter, solid, liquid and gas. A few years ago I came across a new statement that there was a fourth state of matter, plasma. All systems of man will be flawed just as man is flawed.”

    And here is an instance where the method demonstrates self-correction.

    “Nope, laws will always fall short in making things work in any society, even the “civilized” ones and the lawyers will always make sure that laws are simply playthings with which to manipulate the masses for profit. Good people do not need laws and bad people pay them no heed.”

    Why not join the scientists and demand argument and discussion and standards of evidence? You’re throwing the baby out with the bathwater here. Democracy always depended on science and reason and irrationality must be kept vigilantly at bay.

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    • FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 6:43 pm #

      Snack Pack here is consciously mixing up the scientific method as a dialectical unity of theory and experiment with the process of Peer Review, or Citation Index which was essentially monopolized by a few Western institutions – Pleiades publishing for instance – you could find quite a few more very well known names here:

      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citation_index

      Just like Google (and few other internet giants) claim the ownership of the entire internet content based on their very own Citation Index, that could be easily algorithmically manipulated, so that has been practice in Western Science for a some time now.

      In the 21st century, the crisis of the scientific method will probably continue in the form of deepening the gap between science as a process of cognition of the laws of nature and science as a process of obtaining titles, grants and Nobel Prizes, that is, scientific business.

      • beantownbill. September 12, 2018 at 8:33 pm #

        Yes, peer review is an imperfect mechanism. But how else can we validate whether or not an experiment or theory is accurate and unbiased? If there was no peer review, then any wrong hypothesis or meaning would get out to the public, the vast majority of whom are lay persons who wouldn’t know the difference between probably correct or probably incorrect.

        The whole process could be improved with a few changes, but that’s a matter for another c moment.

        You are correct, however, in that obtaining grants and awards seem to be the reason for a lot of published articles. Alas, we can try to set up rules to try to eliminate the politics and egos, but we can’t seem to improve human nature.

        • FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 8:40 pm #

          Just try mentally projecting the scientific “peer review” mechanism onto the field of today political journalism and you’ll see what I am talking about.

          In fact, they are not too much different. See a short post below about Einstein General Relativity Theory.

      • “Science as a process of cognition” is served by “science as a process of obtaining titles”…

        “Greedy” scientists obtaining money to conduct research is the same public utility as Adam Smith’s capitalist citizen’s pursuit of their own self-interest- except arguably for a more noble cause- information. Many of the most important discoveries and developments were produced by selfish, greedy people, but it goes too far to say scientists are motivated by greed. Grants and funding are necessary to pay rent, buy equipment, pay personnel, etc., and such funding is easier to get for a track record of performance.

        The “New Flat Earth Society” (The NFE) seems to think that the scientific peer review system is flawed when in fact it controls for mendacity and error and harnesses greed. If a scientist doesn’t produce good work, then the system weeds them out- peer review is inherently agnostic to the amount of money a researcher manages to obtain.

        Certainly, the salary of a professor is generous but doesn’t it reflect to some degree the work put in to obtain it? And who gets the fruit of all this effort? Its put in your unworthy hands for the low, low price of a fast-food meal.

        Further the NFE society complains that the 51 weekly issues for $66 (The current deal listed by top of the line Nature magazine) is outrageous. These people, I am certain, have never held this magazine in their hands. Mere mortals can peruse the absolute latest peer-reviewed research. Article after article is available to examine….the fruit of tens, maybe hundreds of thousands of man-hours of painstaking research, conducted by some of the most highly qualified and intelligent people on the planet, over decades. In your hands. All there. References, tables, footnotes, contact information. All available for free in public libraries.

        So you raise the specter of the “politicization” of science, as if, for example, the fact of carbon acidifying the oceans shouldn’t inform a policy on carbon pollution. What it seems these detractors find so onerous about science is the reference to evidentiary circumstances, as premises for policy. Any reasonable person requires as much for their policy.

        I suggest a vacation in one of the autocratic states to get a taste of what policy is like when reality is shown the door and policy is instituted on the vagaries of some unstable dictator.

        • Exscotticus September 13, 2018 at 9:12 pm #

          >>> So you raise the specter of the “politicization” of science, as if, for example, the fact of carbon acidifying the oceans shouldn’t inform a policy on carbon pollution.

          All good science should “inform” public policy. But it is also true that politics subverts science toward its own ends. To be fair, we see this on all sides of the political spectrum. More recently, however, we see climate change science being used as a cudgel for Lefty politics. You are not “anti-science” if you don’t agree to a “carbon credit” economy. Or if you don’t agree that climate action must include concern for “gender equality, empowerment of women, and intergenerational equity”. It would be better for scientists to follow the example of the judiciary, and at least try to retain their independence and integrity by sticking to IS instead of OUGHT.

          As for your specific example, few disagree that coral bleaching is not alarming. The trick is what to do about it. Science actually doesn’t have the answers. They can point to a wide range of human activity that contributes to it. But there’s a wide range of anthropogenic activity that actually helps coral! Sink a huge oil tanker in the middle of nothing and the coral will thank you for it. My problem is with those who claim that the scientific fact of coral bleaching justifies any and all action. Actually—no—it doesn’t.

          Perhaps Mark Twain said it best: There is something fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact.

    • Walter B September 12, 2018 at 6:46 pm #

      Self correction, wow what a cool way to say you were wrong without not having to actually admit it. It reminds me of the Robert McNamara quote of:

      “Never answer the question that’s been asked of you, answer the question that you wish would have been asked of you”.

      Individual reality modification as required, what a concept!

      • FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 6:55 pm #

        It just occurred to me, Walter, that the Google founding idea was invented not by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, but by Hillary Clinton, unsurpassed muster of semantic manipulations.

  66. beantownbill. September 12, 2018 at 5:32 pm #

    @stelmosfire:

    Sorry about responding late to your 9/11 post to me, but I was pretty busy.

    Anyway, assuming the world doesn’t go to hell in the next few years (but which could happen), I see us finally learning if dark matter really exists, and if so, what it is exactly; supposedly it makes up over 80% of all the matter in the universe. The same goes for dark energy, which makes up around 70% of the matter and energy of the universe.

    We are going to explore the four big moons of Jupiter which probably have oceans of water under their surfaces, and then we’ll see if life has evolved there. The philosophic implications would be absolutely mind-blowing.

    With bigger and more powerful optical telescopes we may find strange anomalies that are now unknown, and we may find evidence for intelligence life elsewhere. Gravitational-wave astronomy will open a whole new layer of phenomena we don’t even know about (we currently have a gravitational wave observatory under the ice in Antarctica).

    I could go on, but these are the biggies that immediately come to mind.

  67. wm5135 September 12, 2018 at 7:38 pm #

    beantownbill. – Thank you for your response to stelmosfire I had been anxious for your response.

    best wishes
    wm

    • beantownbill. September 12, 2018 at 8:19 pm #

      Oops. I made a careless error. GRRR! The gravity wave detector is called LIGO, which stands for laser interferometer gravity-wave observatory. The observatory is in two parts, one located in Louisiana, one part in Washington state. Taken together, the two parts act as one long-base unit. Since the gravitational wave travels at the speed of light it impacts both parts at almost the same time. Gravity is the weakest fundamental force in the universe, so to observe a gravity wave requires an instrument with extraordinary accuracy. Because both parts of the LIGO are a few thousand miles apart and acts as one unit a few thousand miles long, accurate measurements can be made. That accuracy is equal to being able to observe from Earth an object 1000 times thinner than a human hair on Proxima Centauri, the nearest star. Fascinating stuff, what we can do, eh?

      • elysianfield September 13, 2018 at 12:11 pm #

        ” Gravity is the weakest fundamental force in the universe*

        So? They were aware of this in Wakanda thousands of years ago…all inner-city school children understand this.

        *…that we are currently aware of….

  68. FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 8:32 pm #

    The Last of the Mohicans

    https://anacesmarques.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/einstein_lingua.jpg

    Well, at last, the masks were dropped and it became clear why the CERN Hadron Collider was built!

    To refute Einstein, or rather Friedman.

    Not only that the great scientists have been muddied, today almost no one remembers what the Einstein theories really are, and what they study in universities under the guise of General Relativity Theory (GRT) has nothing to do with Einstein.

    I’m not talking about Friedman – he’s generally nobody and his name is nothing. At the same time, the venerable public is still convinced that Einstein is a great scientist, but the so-called “scientific community” has long at the mention of his name, falls to the floor and twitches in convulsions, and poisonous foam of green color begins to go from their mouth.

    When I came to the West, I was lucky enough to work with a man who was a direct student of Einstein, and through him I came across a whole scientific tradition that at the time was quietly dying in the US, receiving neither financial support for educating students, nor the opportunity to employ those few young graduate students, who still wanted to deal with the construction of a Unified Field Theory, as this task was understood by Einstein.

    Very few young people who came to the seminars were in a state of despondency and usually answered questions with a very expressive waving of their hands. At the same time, the life and the dividing of grants among those who believed that GTO is just one of the gauge theories, actively boiled in neighboring offices, and the mention of singularities in the Friedman cosmological model was responded with a bewildered look, and advice to study the Casimir effect and the Big Bang theory.

    And I was struck by the cruelty and cynicism with which the system of mainstream physics was dealing with the last remnants of a once glorious, if not the finest scientific school.

    Why did Einstein annoy the mighty of this world and their scientific lackeys?

  69. wm5135 September 12, 2018 at 8:39 pm #

    “The 60 biggest exploration and production firms are not generating enough cash from their operations to cover their operating and capital expenses. In aggregate, from mid-2012 to mid-2017, they had negative free cash flow of $9 billion per quarter.” 9/1/2018 NYT Opinion – Energy Independance for SURE!!!!!!

    Might I ask all here to hold a moment of hope and goodwill for our fellow citizens, and our nation, as an environmental catastrophe looms in out future.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 12, 2018 at 8:44 pm #

      I wouldn’t worry too much about the negative cash flow – it is a temporary phenomena necessary for a transition period to a new multi-polar world order, but you are right – the ecological consequences could be dire.

  70. Walter B September 12, 2018 at 11:14 pm #

    This applies not just in finance, but in all things human…….

    “We live in an era of fraud in America. Not just in banking, but in government, in education, religion, food, even baseball. What bothers me isn’t that fraud in not nice or that or that fraud is mean. It’s that for fifteen thousand years, fraud and short sighted thinking have never, ever worked. Not once. Eventually people get caught, things go South, when the hell did we forget all that? I thought we were better than this, I really did and the fact that we’re not doesn’t make me feel all right and superior. It makes me feel sad. And as fun as it is to watch pompous, dumb Wall Streeters be wildly wrong, and you are wrong sir, I just know that at the end of the day, average people are going to be the ones that are going to have to pay for all of this, because they always, always do. That’s my two cents, thank you.”

    Mark Baum, The Big Short

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  71. janet September 13, 2018 at 3:13 am #

    “A member of Russian feminist punk band and activist group Pussy Riot has been hospitalized in Moscow, according to band members, who suspect he has been poisoned.”

    Putin cannot protect his own citizens from poisoning. Or maybe the coward Putin is the one ordering the poisoning?

    • Walter B September 13, 2018 at 10:08 am #

      Obama could not protect his own brothers in Chicago from shooting each other every weekend, so what’s your point?

      • Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 2:12 pm #

        Black lives don’t matter, evidently. They only matter when a White kills one and makes him or her important. Before that they were nothing. This isn’t me talking, but rather what the Liberals seem to believe.

    • “Unredeemable gulag” = Russia

      • FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2018 at 8:45 am #

        “Unredeemable Cemetery of indigenous Indian population” = USA

    • Q. Shtik September 13, 2018 at 3:45 pm #

      Pussy Riot has a male member? I Did Not Know That.

      • Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 4:23 pm #

        I wonder if he gets any Riot. Or is he just a Pussy?

  72. I’ll bet you don’t know you can simply request a copy of a publication by an author of scientific literature by contacting them at their publicly available email addresses and in most cases they are more than happy to share with you their esoteric paper.

  73. wm5135 September 13, 2018 at 11:07 am #

    FincaInTheMountains – “I wouldn’t worry too much about the negative cash flow – it is a temporary phenomena necessary for a transition period to a new multi-polar world order”

    Not worried about the negative cash flow or the junk bonds or the rising interest rates that should, under the rules of finance as presented to the gullible, result in an implosion that leaves a black hole in the economy. To paraphrase Carlin, it’s a club and I ain’t in it.

    As far as pursuit of a Unified Field Theory and the path that the funding and study has taken, it might be compared to an individual expounding on the impossibility of quantum mechanics while navigation using GPS. Empiricists are definitely uncomfortable with anything that can’t be measured. And of course this wily universe has a way of presenting what one looks for, so we are not at odds concerning your view of the LHC.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2018 at 11:19 am #

      under the rules of finance

      Which “rules of finance” are you talking about? Bretton Woods is finished, being gradually replaced with bilateral trade agreements, which Trump is busy arranging.

      US still would be able to do emission through the budget for internal needs, but not as much for the external market.

      It is a much better deal for the American working class, the financiers be screwed – that’s exactly the reason to their revolt.

    • FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2018 at 11:30 am #

      Trump task is to use the remaining leverage of American power to strike as many lucrative deals for American economy as possible, providing all necessary imports for technological production chains and population supply, and do import substitution for what could be produced inside the US.

      What you want Trump to do – proclaim “Dear Americans, we can’t continue to print worthless dollars and exchange them for goods indefinitely, out time’s up!”

      Of course he can’t say that.

  74. Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 2:06 pm #

    https://paworldandtimes.wordpress.com/2018/09/13/the-three-ways-of-relating-to-diversity/

    Good article about the process of Awakening. All things are limited, including tolerance and compassion. Such limited resources are supposed to be used for our own unfortunate people, not whole races of aliens who don’t belong here to begin with.

  75. Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 2:10 pm #

    Now they plan to destroy to Kavanaugh with a girl he knew in High School. High School – have they no shame? None whatsoever. Trump must bring down the Iron Heel on these cockroaches. And anyone a bit taller? The Mailed Fist.

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  76. FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2018 at 2:25 pm #

    Three organizers of an unprecedented rescue operation in 2007-2010, when Wall Street mazerfakas were given $16.1 trillion of loans at almost zero percent, again went into the battle for the sacred interests of banks and pestered the NYT:

    “Congress took away the tools that saved America during the Panic 2008. It’s time to get them back. The Fed should be ready to save banks again! “.

    Arguments of scoundrels are wonderful – they’re worried for the people!

    Bankster rap. But the main phrase: “The financial crisis will still happen.”

    Threats, blackmail, gaslighting….

    Stinkin’ Zuckerbergers. All against the President. The whole royal army, like in the movies. Deep Throat.

    Now that’s Deep State.

    • Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 2:34 pm #

      Yes, your Capitalism is crap just like your Communism. Neither elevates humanity or expresses the Folk Soul of the People. And how good can Socialism be, as the mid-point between two terrible extremes? Not very, but better since the one extreme prevents the other. A constant state of war which some people find exciting and are addicted to.

  77. Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 2:55 pm #

    Twitter bans the phrase “illegal immigrant”. How demonic is that? These forums are the nervous system of Society now – and must not remain subject to private whims and special interest. So? So make them utilities.

  78. Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 3:20 pm #

    https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/pope-francis-long-record-of-coverups-and-obstruction-of-sex-abuse-case

    The mask comes off – and the ugliness is more than human. The God of Surprises is the God of this World.

  79. Janos Skorenzy September 13, 2018 at 4:15 pm #

    This is interesting. I knew that Kunstler was widely read and respected by the Far Right, but on this blog it goes beyond that: the comments are poured over and individual posters have become well known – especially Elrond. He has become an archetype, just as he is to me. He has attained the Fame that he may well have always desired. In comments section, they discuss our comment section. I get an honorable mention, but Elrond…..!

    https://paworldandtimes.wordpress.com/2018/08/31/to-save-south-africa/

  80. FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2018 at 5:17 pm #

    Houston, we have a problem!

    I have a good friend. In Star City he lives since the 80’s. Already retired, but was involved with the Great One. The story he told me about the latest American crew on the Mir Space Station.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zvyozdny_gorodok_(urban-type_settlement)

    The crew had some psychological problems and it was with hysterical space female, rumors were flying before.

    According to the comrade, the details of what is happening, is the secret of Polichinelle in the Zvyozdny gorodok (The Star City). For what the two know, the pig knows.

    In short. Prehistory. The crew with female in the set did not please the company for too long with the presence of the fair lady.

    For understanding it is necessary to say that the station is more similar to welded oil barrels with a total volume of a couple of your average kitchens, and finding in such a confined space a lot of people is fraught with the emergence of wild tension in the relationship.

    Rarely, having been with a partner for a couple of months in orbit, remains with him on friendly terms.

    More often quite the opposite.

    And here there are 6 dudes, four of which dudes are non-Russian dudes. And among them there is one hyper-active female, who, as it turned out, has some “emotionally psychological” (the guys say it’s worse than PMS) problem and, more simply, the nymphet needs regular ehm.. you know what.

    Yes, so that her mental health was questioned not only by our guys, but also by their own star-striped ones, but they doubted that the latter seriously took care of evacuation of the nymphet in connection with “medical indications”.

    It is necessary to explain that the delivery of foreign guys to the station is carried out by Russia and the unscheduled evacuation of the hysterical nymphet, would cost the Americans a shit lot of money.

    At the moaning of the crew – Houston, we have a problem!, “Houston” scratching its turnip, replied: “Go fuck yourself guys, get along with your woman anyway you want, but we do not have any money for your whims.”

    But this is not the beginning of the whole story. And the beginning is that the American cosmonauts (the hysterical nymphet?) ruined the pride of American astronautics – a technologically awesome space shithouse.

    And now for quite a long time four adults shoot shit exclusively into diapers, since after another kitchen fight they were excommunicated from the Russian, not so technologically awesome, but nevertheless functioning just fine shit house.

    For fuck sake!

    I must say that it is not the worst thing to piss in the diaper. And it’s scary that the stink of them all over the ISS. And crux of the matter is that diapers with guano, you need to put it somewhere, but there are no garbage containers for such a heap. And they’re loading up the contaminated diapers before the cargo module comes up, in everything you can, including their own space suits for going into outer space, using them instead of containers for shit…

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    • janet September 13, 2018 at 6:32 pm #

      Do you submit these in your creative fiction class?

  81. janet September 13, 2018 at 6:30 pm #

    Trump has control of the executive branch and the legislative branch, but he has not followed through on repealing Obamacare or passing a bill to rebuild infrastructure. Massachusetts could use some funding for infrastructure.

    Multiple suspected gas explosions have set several structures on fire and forced evacuations in Lawrence, Andover and North Andover, Massachusetts State Police said Thursday.

    A middle school in North Andover and residents of a senior center in Andover have been evacuated, according to the agency.
    State police confirmed responding to 17 addresses for fire, explosion or investigation.

  82. BackRowHeckler September 13, 2018 at 7:36 pm #

    “Such a day, rum all out: — Our company somewhat sober: — A damned confusion amongst us! — Rogues a-plotting: — Great talk of separation — so I look sharp for a prize: — Such a day took one, with a great deal of liquor on board, so kept the company hot, damned hot; then all things went well again”

    From ships log of ‘Queen Ann’ Revenge’
    written in the hand of Edward Teach (Blackbeard the Pirate)
    NCarolina, 1718

    • sprawlcapital September 14, 2018 at 6:27 am #

      I read this to my wife just now; her comments:

      I wonder how they captured it (the prize). I hope they didn’t kill
      anybody. Very narcissistic. (Blackbeard.)
      ================================
      That’s 300 years ago. Amazing. Even pirates were well educated. I love history.

  83. janet September 13, 2018 at 7:52 pm #

    Latest document releases show Kavanaugh criminal activity. Kavanaugh referred to law enforcement for investigation. Dude needs to withdraw name now… before he is criminally prosecuted.

    • Walter B September 13, 2018 at 10:11 pm #

      I hear he smokes crack, drinks Night Train Express out of a paper bag, and eats the heads off of newborn babies. I say we string him up and teach him a lesson!

      • FincaInTheMountains September 13, 2018 at 11:48 pm #

        Sen. Dianne Feinstein represents the White Rose of York, while Trump the Red Rose of Lancaster.

        Black Hillary’s Monkeys stirring the waters in the Swamp with their tales.

        No compromise in site!

        • BackRowHeckler September 14, 2018 at 12:10 am #

          Who won that War of the Roses? The Tudors? The Lancasters? The Plantagenets? At least we got some good Shakespeare plays out of the whole bloody affair (30 years of Civil War) Of course Shakespeare was writing of events that occured a century before he was born.

          A few years ago Richard lll got dug up from underneath a parking lot, killed in the Battle of (Bodsworth?)

          brh

  84. BackRowHeckler September 13, 2018 at 8:24 pm #

    Regarding events up in NE Mass … Our gracious host Jim predicted just this sort of thing in TLE.

    NatGas is very volatile, and must be handled tenderly.

    brh

  85. BackRowHeckler September 13, 2018 at 8:27 pm #

    Lots of strange goings on around this 911 anniversary … Benghazi, ISIS beheadings, Lawrence, Massachusets in flames …

    brh

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    • stelmosfire September 13, 2018 at 8:42 pm #

      BRH, sounds to me like Lawrence is a case of gas line over-pressure, probably a failed regulator, Can you say 3 foot pilot lights? Although I don’t know what system Columbia Gas is using. I also thought the OK City bombing was a gas explosion at first, so what do I know!

      • BackRowHeckler September 13, 2018 at 9:11 pm #

        Sounds like something you’ve dealt with from your fireman days, Rip.

        Hey I was up your way earlier in the week, had some business in Westfield. Busy little place.

        brh

  86. FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2018 at 6:01 am #

    Who won that War of the Roses? == brh

    The Tudor dynasty that stopped this slaughter in England arose as a union of Red Celts and White Anglo-Saxons against the Black Project, who insisted then and continues to insist now that the Fourth Crusade must be completed and Christianity destroyed forever.

    Red Rose of Lancaster:
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/30/Red_Rose_Badge_of_Lancaster.svg/220px-Red_Rose_Badge_of_Lancaster.svg.png

    White Rose of York:
    https://ipfs.io/ipfs/QmXoypizjW3WknFiJnKLwHCnL72vedxjQkDDP1mXWo6uco/I/m/White_Rose_Badge_of_York.svg.png

    Red + White Rose of Tudors:
    https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/3f/Tudor_Rose.svg/220px-Tudor_Rose.svg.png

    And who then is Black in this War of the Roses?

    It’s just those who started this war with the goal of exterminating the Plantagenets who betrayed the Fourth Crusade. Therefore, the second Tudor Henry VIII considered it necessary to destroy the Blacks in England, as the primary cause of this war.

    This naturally refers to the Catholic monasteries, primarily the monasteries of the Cistercians – the monastic order, in the creation of which the “holy” Bernard of Clairvaux – the initiator of the Anti-Slav northern crusades played the outstanding role, who wrote the Templar charter, invented racial anti-Semitism and, in the person of Pope Anacletus II, prevented the healing of the Great Schism before the terminal stage of the Fourth Crusade.

  87. FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2018 at 8:17 am #

    Nazi Juncker declares a war on American dollar

    President of the European Commission Jean-Claude Juncker addressed the European Parliament with a keynote speech that can be safely considered an announcement of economic war on US, and as the first and main goal it is indicated that the US dollar is denied the status of the world’s primary currency.

    Moreover, Junker immediately moved to concrete proposals for dismantling the so-called petrodollar standard and stated that the European currency must necessarily become “the face and tool of a new sovereign Europe.”

    it is absurd that Europe pays for 80 percent of its energy import bill – worth 300 billion euros a year – in U.S. dollars when only roughly 2 percent of our energy imports come from the United States. It is absurd, ridiculous, that European companies buy European planes in dollars instead of euro. All this must change.

    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/eu-chief-aims-boost-euros-role-world-markets-57770236

    With the allies like that, who needs enemies?

  88. FincaInTheMountains September 14, 2018 at 8:51 am #

    International Space Station LEAK: NASA and Russia remain tight-lipped over findings

    The six people on the ISS hurried to find the minute hole before they ran out of air.

    https://www.express.co.uk/news/science/1017147/nasa-international-space-station-ISS-leak-roscosmos-russia-news

    Oh boy!

    I should’ve kept my mouth shut regarding where that “hole” was really discovered!

    • opalstevens November 30, 2018 at 4:35 am #

      In a joint statement, they said that the leak may have been caused by a micro-meteorite impact and an engineer patched the hole with glue in the Soyuz.

  89. When is this fincal going to get kicked off this website?

    I read the news, so does everyone else.

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