Home » Open thread 2/18/23

Comments

Open thread 2/18/23 — 35 Comments

  1. Q: You are said to be a recluse, you like to be on your own a lot.

    Cohen: Yeah, the only person I see is Howard Hughes.

    Jocund, indeed.

  2. His hallelujah chorus was quite impressive (which paradoxically i discovered from the west wing and later was ironically reprised in watchmen)

  3. For those interested in China’s balloon program, and it’s military uses, there’s quite a lot of interest in this article:
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/silent-killer-inside-chinas-military-balloon-program_5061289.html?src_src=Morningbrief&src_cmp=mb-2023-02-18&est=9JUaDr12Z7PoIwi%2FF0C%2F3O4X2k%2F2%2FwVIy4o8F9SAORCtlWEFDh%2FdMuFxo6KuIcUf

    A sample:
    “Wu, a veteran aerospace researcher, has played a key role in advancing the Chinese regime in what it describes as the “near space” race, referring to the layer of the atmosphere sitting between 12 and 62 miles above the earth. This region, which is too high for jets but too low for satellites, had been deemed ripe for exploitation in the regime’s bid to achieve military dominance.

    Despite having existed for decades, the regime’s military balloon program came into the spotlight recently when the United States shot down a high-altitude surveillance balloon that drifted across the country for a week and hovered above multiple sensitive U.S. military sites. That balloon, the size of three buses, was smaller than Cloud Chaser.”

  4. Caroline Glick delivers an excellent analysis of how the Leftists in America are colluding with the Leftists in Israel — with taxpayer funds .

    https://www.jns.org/opinion/how-biden-subverts-israeli-democracy

    The Movement for Quality Government (MQG) in Israel is the far-left organization at the epicenter of the Israeli left’s war against the Netanyahu government. MQG began its current campaign of delegitimization, subversion and demonization immediately after the Netanyahu government was sworn into office on Dec. 29.

    Lawfare, or the use of the language of law and the judicial process to achieve political, rather than legal, outcomes, isn’t the only aspect of the left’s current campaign to overturn the election results where MQG is leading the charge. The movement is also the primary organizer and sponsor of the mass protests against judicial reform. The speakers at the rallies stand under the MQG banner when they call for insurgency, civil war and violence.

    Since the media, as full partners in MQG’s efforts, are working now as full-time propagandists, no one is asking the organizers who finances their activities. Someone is paying tens of millions of shekels to rent buses to transport scores of thousands of people to rallies, buy them flags, print banners and signs, rent stages and sound systems, and finance ad campaigns in every newspaper and on billboards across the country.

    Whoever is footing the bill, the front group for all of it is MQG.

    A look at MQG’s funding reports on the Government Registrar of Non-Profits website doesn’t reveal much. MQG’s private and institutional donors are unnamed. But under the law, all registered nonprofits are required to report funding they receive from foreign governments. So MQG’s only named donor on its annual reports is the U.S. State Department.

    According to MQG’s annual reports, for the past three years the State Department has been funding its programs for “democracy education” in Israeli high schools. Since MQG’s primary activity is subverting democracy in Israel by waging lawfare and sowing chaos in a bid to block democratically elected right-wing governments from fulfilling their pledges to voters, it’s fairly clear that when MQG refers to “democracy education,” it doesn’t mean majority rule.

    Similar to Critical Race Theory curricula in the United States, which indoctrinates American schoolchildren to believe their country was born in the sin of racism and has no moral claim to justice, groups like MQG advance “democracy” as a means of gutting Israel’s Jewish character and indoctrinating Israeli children to believe that there is something inherently wrong with Jewish nationalism and national self-determination. The “democracy” programs in the schools indoctrinate children to believe that the only moral way for Israel to organize itself is as a post-Jewish “state for all its citizens.”

    And the State Department is funding its efforts.

    The State Department’s funding is small. In 2020-2022, it provided a total of around $40,000 to MQG. But the point of the funding is not the amount involved, but the message it sends.

    In his statement on Israeli democracy, Biden said, “The genius of American democracy and Israeli democracy is that they are both built on strong institutions, on checks and balances, on an independent judiciary. Building consensus for fundamental changes is really important to ensure that the people buy into them so they can be sustained.”

    Perhaps Biden is driven by jealousy. Two-thirds of Israelis support judicial and legal reform. Two-thirds of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of immigration and inflation. A large majority of Americans disapprove of Biden’s handling of the economy, foreign policy and crime issues. Biden could only dream of having as broad a consensus of support for his policies as Netanyahu has for his.

  5. Thomas Sowell is in his 90s. And since Sowell is a major influence upon our hostess, and many readers here, the announcement of a new book by him is of major interest here.

    Basic Books is scheduled to release “Social Justice Fallacies” by Thomas Sowell by September 5th, according to Amazon.com..

    https://www.amazon.com/Social-Justice-Fallacies-Thomas-Sowell/dp/1541603923/ref=sr_1_1?crid=35LVHBBCNVBAZ&keywords=social+justice+fallacies+thomas+sowell&qid=1676807324&s=books&sprefix=social+justice+fal%2Cstripbooks-intl-ship%2C167&sr=1-1

    The fine print suggests release even sooner: “ Thomas Sowell’s new book is scheduled for release in the Summer of 2023 by Basic Books.”

    Summer then?

  6. The problem with betting against Putin is that “Biden” has Putin’s “back” (so to speak), at least for as long as it takes Russia to finish helping the Mullahs build the bomb—for peaceful purposes of course—now that “Biden” seems to be hog-tied at the moment WRT to “JCPOA, the Sequel”….
    …the above whacked-out theory being just crazy enough to be accurate…(since in “Biden”‘s case, ANYTHING is possible…and the craziest possibility is usually the most likely):
    “Is Biden A ‘Manchurian President,’ Facilitating Nuclear Cooperation between Iran’s Mullahs and Russia?”—
    https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/19411/biden-russia-iran-nuclear
    – – – – – – – – – –
    In the meantime, birds are falling out the sky in Kentucky as a result of the Ohio train catastrophe….but they’re comin’ for yer stoves!! (And yer non-electric cars, too.)
    https://instapundit.com/570272/

  7. Regarding birds falling from the sky, maybe or maybe not, it is the Interwebs after all.

    Iran and Roosia in cahoots? Shocked! Shocked! Roosia is fighting against WEF/Davos/NATO!

    But then again Brandon has Xi’s back too.

  8. Yep, back to back to back…
    (Course it could all be just a little misunderstanding…but nothin’ 87,000 IRS agents couldn’t figure out a way to fix, I’m pretty sure….)

    “THE $5 TRILLION MISUNDERSTANDING”
    (AKA “The CBO Exposes Biden’s $5.45 Trillion Lie”)—
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/02/the-5-trillion-misunderstanding.php
    https://issuesinsights.com/2023/02/17/the-cbo-exposes-bidens-5-45-trillion-lie/
    Key grafs:
    ‘…”When it comes to the deficit, the only thing Biden has achieved is to dig the nation so deep into a hole that it will be difficult, if not impossible, to climb out.”
    ‘This is a harsh observation to make of anyone, yet it must be the case. The old man must be even more lacking in shame than his son.’
    Well, apples, trees, you know…”Biden” Builds Back Better!

  9. like Lenin said the worse the letter,

    Barbara Lee, aide to Red Dellums (ht Rush) who was revealed as a Cuban influence agent, in the Grenada papers published by Paul Seabury, who opposed the original AUF in Afghanistan, what could go wrong?

    ah yes, the CBO always ‘missing it by that much’

  10. Here’s a “new one”!
    “‘Woke’ California university slammed for ‘dehumanized’ initiative encouraging students to tell on professors;
    “California State University Monterey Bay encouraging students to tell on professors for ‘racism’ if they aren’t called”—
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/woke-california-university-slammed-dehumanized-initiative-encouraging-students-tell-professors
    Yep, it’s back to the USSR….
    Compare and contrast with:
    https://nypost.com/2023/02/18/over-500000-people-left-california-in-two-years-report/
    https://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2023/02/californias-path-to-destruction.php

    What starts in California ultimately ends up in the other 49?
    Ameria’s TRANSFORMATION!
    “Biden”‘s dream…

  11. And if things weren’t sad enough, we see that Lori Lightfoot has embraced “The Audacity of Hope” (Chicago edition)!
    “Lori Plays The Race Card: Chicago Mayor Lightfoot Urges Black Voters To Help Her ‘Keep The Seat’ From Falling To White Or Hispanic Challengers”—
    https://blazingcatfur.ca/2023/02/19/lori-plays-the-race-card-chicago-mayor-lightfoot-urges-black-voters-to-help-her-keep-the-seat-from-falling-to-white-or-hispanic-challengers/

    They ought to laugh her outta Dodge.
    (Not even sure she’ll even get the undertakers’ vote…)

  12. I’m sure he’s a decent guy, a serious guy, a competent guy…but he just doesn’t seem to get it…
    viz., that the White House has been hijacked and will remain hijacked until further notice.
    (You can say the same about the country.)
    No wonder the miracle worker is so angry with him. The current meticulously-directed performance of “Marat/Sade” must continue playing with no interruption!!
    “Former WH doctor for Trump, Obama blasts ‘alarming’ Biden health report: ‘The cover-up needs to end’ ;
    “Rep. Ronny Jackson says Americans can see that ‘Biden’s mental health is in total decline'”—
    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/former-wh-doctor-trump-obama-blasts-alarming-biden-health-report-cover-needs-end

  13. As a result of my French quest, I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of all the language-learning blogs and YouTube channels out there.

    It warms the cockles of my heart that there is an international subculture of humans earnestly trying to learn foreign languages for the joy of it.

    How weird is that?

  14. The UK’s Uniparty dance takes it back into the EU, by the back door. The Ruling Class and their New Class loyalists bided their time. Another complete reversal of Brexit is coming —- a referendum of rebuke — even as the effort went completely nowhere (or rather, only went as far as it did because of Boris).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BKH5CHiM4VU

  15. ah yes, andrew marr, described the globalist leviathan than an brexit minded administration would have to incur a cabal of industry media, intelligence
    who was so resolute in ‘head of state’ his dark roman a clef, think house of cards blended with weekend at bernies, johnson, is deemed a transitional figure, to the late william stevenson, only noted at the end of the story, much like the zysgy that bedeviled trump for four years, and serves as praetorians in this current cycle,

  16. From Twitter

    “David Sacks

    @DavidSacks
    ·
    6h
    This interview is a backtrack by Kotkin. Last year, he was one of Ukraine’s biggest cheerleaders. Now he admits Ukraine is losing, the country has gotten wrecked, the US has other priorities to attend to, and Ukraine will need to make a deal.”

  17. Just another conspiracy theory come to fruition…somehow…by sheer luck…?
    (You just knew this was gonna happen, didn’t you…?)…
    America’s transformation continues apace…in what is, alas, an unsurprising “development”…
    “Biden Admin Negotiates Deal to Give WHO Authority Over US Pandemic Policies
    New international health accord avoids necessary Senate approval”—
    https://www.theepochtimes.com/biden-admin-negotiates-deal-to-give-who-authority-over-us-pandemic-policies_5066631.html

    Rule by fiat…by a dementia-addled “President” and a delusional Democratic Party Politburo…who know PRECISELY what they are doing.
    (But Klaus Schwab is no doubt doing his little jig in glee—in Paris, perhaps?—and his WTF quislings, including “Biden” and Trudeau, are feeling in similar fine fettle.)

    No doubt, since “Biden” fairly and square stole several elections, now—with great AUDACITY (it must be said)—“he” MUST therefore have the DIVINE RIGHT to forge ahead with the support of his counterfeit and Confederate “mandate”….

    Forward to Perdition!

  18. Bunge finds a story that confirms his opinions about Ukraine (Vlad is really winning). Unique, that Bunge is.

    See Perun from yesterday Bunge.

  19. Hmm. I wonder why om trusts some dude on YouTube more than a guy who “has published two volumes of a projected three-part biography of Stalin, and his works on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and its aftermath are without peer in their precision and depth. After spending more than thirty years at Princeton, he is now at Stanford?”

    How long do you think om spent considering the relative quality of each argument? A second? Half a second? Does he ever ask himself “why do I have to turn to some dude on YouTube for good news on Ukraine? Why aren’t I hearing it from CNN, NYT, FOX, etc? And why do I have blind faith that JOE BIDEN will not screw this up like he has everything else?”

    Mike

  20. “… the US has other priorities to attend to…

    No doubt; but just what ARE those priorities…?
    (How ’bout concealment and coverup while fostering ever-mounting crises and chaos, mayhem and panic, despair and desperation…and we’ll throw in strengthening the Mullahs in an attempt to cement “JCPOA II”…but since “Biden” seems to be constrained, then “he” will have to do it through his pal in the Kremlin? Not to mention Xi in Beijing…)

    Methinks that for the moment, one of those priorities is to ENSURE that the war continues (for reasons I’ve spelled out elsewhere)…BUT the moment that Putin and “Biden” both get what they really want (or enough of it)—NOT NECESSARILY in the Ukraine theater but further afield—then “Biden” will, with Putin playing his own role to the hilt, TRANSFORM “himself” into “peace maker”. Even if Zelenskyy refuses to kow-tow to the “Biden” “Peace Agenda”…”Biden” has ways to make Z. agree…and if Z. still refuses, then “Biden” has other ways.)

  21. what’s the real agenda, putin misgauged what resources would take, because gerasimov’s magic beans, ‘hybrid warfare’ which is not a infinite multipliers, wars fought on the steppes, or the caucasus, going back to the first world war, (see dr Zhivago) are nasty brutish and short,

  22. My elder sister played Leonard Cohen records for me when I was quite young, and I was hooked for life. At that time others were covering many of his songs, especially Judy Collins. His voice is so gravelly and tuneless that his songs sound completely different–often quite pretty–when performed by others. I like both the covers and the originals. How charming it was to attend the then-just-released “McCabe and Mrs. Miller” in the 1970s and hear Mr. Cohen on the soundtrack. Decades later, I enjoyed the song “Hallelujah” on the soundtrack of “Shrek” without at all recognizing it as a Cohen composition.

    One terrible mistake is to replace the sharp lyrics with pablum, as has been done so unfortunately with “Hallelujah” for use in anodyne church services.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>