Home » Open thread 9/27/23

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Open thread 9/27/23 — 28 Comments

  1. Philly descending into Mob Rule. Will these rioters get off and then sue the police? Could happen, like with Antifa and BLM. Rome is burning.

  2. How long before food riots in Philadelphia? Think Amazon will deliver food to you when the grocery stores close?

  3. I hear Newsom is going to be debating DeSantis on Fox with Sean Hannity as the moderator. I’m trying to figure out the upside for Newsom in that. Obviously there’s going to be a lot of comparing Florida to California, and with no help from the moderator I just can’t understand how Newsom believes he can come out looking better just based on raw facts. Does Newsom believe he can somehow make DeSantis and Hannity look like angry, mean old bullies?

  4. CVS closing 900 stores, Target closing another 9… siting violence and theft. Free stuff going to be hard to come by.

  5. One day a couple of weeks ago I counted more than 40 Amazon Prime trucks going the other way in about a ten mile stretch of rural highway.

  6. In other news, Biden’s dog Commander bit another Secret Service agent– the 11th known incident. “Commander has been involved in at least 11 biting incidents at the White House and in Delaware, according to CNN reporting and US Secret Service email correspondence, including a November 2022 incident where an officer was hospitalized after the dog clamped down on their arms and thighs.”

    https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/26/politics/commander-biden-biting-incident/index.html

    Brandon should loan the dog to Border Patrol.

  7. RE: The slow, sad decline of Philadelphia under almost 80 years of uninterrupted Democrat rule.

    As I may have written here before, doing a lot of historical and genealogical research, I’ve discovered that many of my ancestors have lived in Philadelphia for hundreds of years, and some settled in the region before the Revolution, and fought in it.

    I have read how my hometown, Philadelphia, started out as a Dutch blockhouse, set down in the middle of what was then ”Indian territory,” and also how, over the centuries, and through a lot of sacrifice, hard work, and the cumulative efforts of hundreds of thousands of people–decade by decade–the city, once the temporary Capitol of the U.S.–was built up and grew in population, commerce, and importance.

    Philadelphia had the greatest population of any city at the time of the Revolution, and for most of the 19th century, had the second largest population in the U.S., only beaten by that of New York city. *

    But starting say, after WWII, Philadelphia started to decline (if you took the train into Center City you’d pass by all of the long since boarded up and empty factories), and that decline started to accelerate in the last few decades.

    Philadelphia has some beautiful sections—Chestnut Hill, Boathouse Row along the winding Schuylkill River, the iconic Art Museum of “Rocky” fame– —or at least it used to—I haven’t been back for a couple of decades.

    On my last visit, two decades or so ago–to the Philadelphia Flower Show–in the once bustling Center City of my youth there were cops on every corner, with some even spread along the street in between them, homeless people sitting in doorways, shaking their cans and asking passersby for money, and other homeless people muttering to themselves as they pushed their stolen shopping carts full of junk down the main streets that used to be full of major department stores, their locations all now boarded up and empty.

    Most of the other smaller, high end stores had fled, and had been replaced by stores selling things like cheap electronics, fake gold jewelry, and Wigs.

    In my youth people in that Center City—humming with activity–were prosperous and well dressed, but many of the scruffy and unkempt people I saw on my last visit looked like they had just stepped out of a displaced persons camp—styling courtesy of Senator Fetterman.

    All this within sight of once proud City Hall (many years ago I read that they had to fence off the subway entrance in the courtyard there every night then, because homeless people used it as a toilet, so every morning they had to remove the chain link barrier, and use hoses to wash the area clean.

    A few decades ago, driving into Philadelphia toward South Philly, in the space of a few blocks we saw one cop draw his gun on somebody and, a few blocks later, a cop kneeling on someone in the street and trying to put cuffs on him–displays of force we had never seen in other cities as we drove through them.

    On one of my last visits, decades ago, the local newspaper also kindly ran a story–map included—informing people about how Center City was carved up among a number of gangs, so that you didn’t accidentally set foot into hostile territory.

    In the past few years there have been an increasing number of stories about gangs of “youts” looting things like local Wawas.

    And, now, comes this story about a mob of 100 masked “youts” looting three downtown stores in good ol’ Philly.**

    * See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_most_populous_cities_in_the_United_States_by_decade#2020

    ** See https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12564663/Shocking-moment-brazen-masked-kids-LOOT-Footlocker-Lululemon-Apple-stores-Philadelphia-descends-anarchy-footage-showing-cops-brawling-thieves-punching-one-face.html

  8. Newsom is going to be debating DeSantis on Fox… with no help from the moderator

    Lol. Newsom’s got plenty of friends and allies at Fox.

  9. Just another open-thread comment about something I read.

    IEEE ( Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers) publishes a professional magazine, “IEEE Spectrum,” that’s written in nontechnical language. Its purpose is to keep IEEE Members informed about major trends and developments in technology, engineering, and science.

    Sadly, the politicization of science isn’t limited to obvious cases like climatology and public health. It often shows up in the pages of “IEEE Spectrum,” and the results can be comical.

    Here’s an example from two days ago (https://spectrum.ieee.org/ar-glasses).

    [title]:
    AR [augmented reality] Glasses Spawn a Whole New Social Dynamic: Is there a power imbalance between wearers and nonwearers in mixed company?

    [two paragraphs]:
    “This AR filter interaction is likely to happen in the future with the commercial emergence of AR glasses,” says Jenny Fu … one of the two lead authors of the study. “How will that look like, and what are the social and emotional consequences of interacting and communicating through AR glasses?”

    That was the main question Fu and her collaborators … aimed to answer. They randomly grouped 10 participants into pairs, with one person in each pair wearing Spectacles, AR glasses loaned by Snap Inc., the company behind Snapchat. This prototype version of Spectacles is equipped with a camera and five filters that can transform a non-wearer into a bear, cat, clown, deer, or pig-bunny.

  10. Does Newsom believe he can somehow make DeSantis and Hannity look like angry, mean old bullies?
    ______

    Well, he can be sure the media will tell us he won. But since that is unlikely, we just won’t hear much after the first stories. Remember when Cruz debated Sanders on health care? Within 48 hours, that was old news.

  11. Lol. Newsom’s got plenty of friends and allies at Fox.

    Oh, I’m certain he does. But I doubt Hannity is one of them. To be clear, I’ve never really been a fan of Hannity. I’ve always found him to a dull, boring, empty suit who just echoes whatever the official GOP talking points are. That said, I don’t believe he’s likely to throw Newsom any sort of life line or pull a Candy Crowley manuever or whatever. His entire brand is based on him being a mainstream “Conservative” (whether or not you or I believe he truly is one or just some kind of “Uniparty” catspaw) and I don’t believe he’d willingly torpedo said brand.

  12. 1) cb: would be interesting to see a graph of efficacy vs date.

    2) Newsom: debate is part of his campaign to get more exposure to the middle. He may lose, but if he appears smooth and unflappable then it’s a win in terms of publicity. Just like his veto last week. He is definitely the Biden replacement; the Ds are just grooming and creating the ground work.

  13. Cornflour wrote: “Spectacles is equipped with a camera and five filters that can transform a non-wearer into a bear, cat, clown, deer, or pig-bunny.”

    Hopefully they’ll transform Leftists into what they actually are… so I’ll know who to avoid.

  14. Right now, everyone on Wall Street who ever had to pay off a black mail artist, or feared mislabeling their finance documents are looking to move away from NYC/NY?

    Circular Firing squad ready on the left…

    everyone does their own due diligence..

    but imagine the implications for wall street, ny real estate, haggle business, etc.

    i say my house is worth 400k… the buyer says its worth 200k…
    next week i get taken in for fraud…

    The one thing they will not be able to do, that will win the case for the defense, is to note that there is no actual formula to compute VALUE..

    What was the value of the o ring that failed in the challenger disaster?
    Before or after the event?

    They are going to have to argue belief is arguable.

    i wonder if all the idjits that supported them in finance, banking, real estate, car sales, etc… realize the precidence monster they created…

    they proven trump right when he said
    They want to come get us,,, but he is standing in their way..

    do not ask for whom the bell tolls
    it tolls for thee…

  15. How long before food riots in Philadelphia? Think Amazon will deliver food to you when the grocery stores close?

    yes… but the trucks are “fresh direct”

  16. Correction

    I just can’t understand how an insane narcissist from the Pelosi family, believes he can come out looking better just based on raw facts.

  17. My father went through a “displaced persons camp” and took the vow to be a US citizen… a pox on your house for disparaging victims of Hilter/Stalin… and often children… in his case… he was under 10.

    take a look at this photo
    https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/images/large/e53281f5-3dbc-4c67-a54e-bff520ed0c02.jpg.pagespeed.ce.vlCI0UR8d6.jpg

    then apologize for what you said..
    they dressed better than you do!!!
    they dressed better than 90% of us

    some more information…
    https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org/content/en/article/feldafing-displaced-persons-camp

  18. “This prototype version of Spectacles is equipped with a camera and five filters that can transform a non-wearer into a bear, cat, clown, deer, or pig-bunny.”

    Mescaline can transform them into feathered serpent people.

  19. This one is up neo’s alley
    though given the source…

    The Little-Known Story of World War II’s ‘Last Million’ Displaced People
    A new book by historian David Nasaw tells the story of refugees who could not—or would not—return home after the conflict
    https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/what-happened-wwiis-last-million-displaced-people-180975799/

    [do note that the population collapse is now open – they even say so openly when talking about needing these immigrants as we didnt have children… china is in the crapper too]

    the text follows the “three to five years [refugees spent] in displaced persons camps, temporary homelands in exile, divided by nationality, with their own police forces, churches and synagogues, schools, newspapers, theaters, and infirmaries,”

    The Allied troops who occupied Germany at the end of the war were “astounded” and “horrified” by what they saw “They had expected to see a Germany that looked much like London had after the Blitz, where there was extensive damage,” he says. “But the damage was a thousand times worse, and the number of homeless, shelterless, starving humans was overwhelming.”

    ====

    In 1948, the United States passed the Displaced Persons Act. Though the legislation was designed to resettle thousands of European refugees, it only granted visas to those who had entered refugee camps before December 1945.

    ===

    Based on Nasaw’s research, only about 50,000 of the quarter million Jews seeking resettlement were admitted to the U.S. under the Displaced Persons Act. (“Significant numbers” also settled in Canada, he says.) Those from Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Yugoslavia were resettled elsewhere.

    My family is latvian on dads side…
    so i dont know what he is talking about!!

  20. One of my lefty Facebook friends shared this:

    https://www.latimes.com/politics/story/2023-09-24/mcmanus-column-trump-second-term-agenda?fbclid=IwAR2tlyPaGzQhm8vm53sDBjm3aJLAqLB3kjVLnyDcwZBbHMllDaN_VX3uRXQ

    Like the list is a list of bad things. (Remember, this is the LA times, and the writer thinks this all a mad fascist power grab. “Mwah-ha-ha!”):

    Use the military to participate in the largest deportation of undocumented immigrants in American history;
    Order the National Guard into cities with high crime rates, whether local officials want it or not;
    Prosecute Californians who protect minors coming to the state for gender-affirming care;
    Impose a 10% tariff on almost all foreign goods, increasing prices for consumers;
    Appoint a special prosecutor to “go after” his political opponents, beginning with Biden;
    Purge the federal civil service of anyone who questions his views.

    I find this laughable:
    “’I will appoint a real special ‘prosecutor’ to go after the most corrupt president in the history of the USA, Joe Biden, the entire Biden crime family, & all others involved with the destruction of our elections, borders, & country itself!’ [Trump] wrote in a social media post after he was arraigned on charges that he illegally retained classified documents at his Mar-a-Lago estate. […] If he carries out that threat, it would represent a politicization of the Justice Department unmatched since the Watergate scandal half a century ago.

    ROTFLMAO. Politicization “unmatched” since Watergate? Ha ha ha ha ha ha!

  21. Lovely and pleasant. Thank you.

    @2:50 is my favorite style to do portraits, albeit with contrast pushed a little more.

  22. Artfldgr: Modris Eksteins wrote a book about his family’s wartime and postwar journey from Latvia to Canada by way of the DP camps in Germany:

    https://www.amazon.com/Walking-Since-Daybreak-Eastern-Century/dp/061808231X

    A former colleague’s parents left Estonia by boat in September 1944 just ahead of the Red Army. They made it to Sweden and eventually settled in New Jersey. The father died in the States. The mother made it back home after the collapse of the Soviet Union and died there.

  23. “THIS SHOULD BE CONCERNING…” says John Campbell, the former nursing lecturer in the UK.

    Now, our host here has taken posters and likely me to task over this because of confounding data between those Covid-19 vaccinated and those still unvaccinated through the recent pandemic.

    But yesterday, using official UK data, and by combining two sets for the 19.1 million adult people in England, we have alarming results.

    [b]Overall, all-cause mortality is about one-third lower in the unvaccinated than the vaccinated groups. This result is the opposite of what we’ve been officially told[/b], here in the US and elsewhere by our governments.

    The data is broken down by age groups of a million or more. And some of the findings reported are alarmingly higher for certain age groups, such as those 40-49 years of age, who were thought to be significantly less vulnerable than those of senior age.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rO9DDganV4

    I DON’T KNOW what to think we see here. Except that, as in politics, I feel I’ve been LIED TO — and too many people simply don’t want to accept this discomforting reality. I don’t want to, myself.

    Science and politics in yet another failure? Yet this seems to be true.

  24. Thanks for the link to the Feldafing DP camp, Art. I lived several years very close to Feldafing without realizing it had been a major DP Camp. I was aware that after the evacuation of Dachau KZ in the Spring of 1945, prior to the US liberation of the camp, prisoners were forced on a death march thru Starnberg and beyond. Perhaps, when they could go on no more, they stopped at Feldafing which later became site of the exclusively Jewish DP Camp. The original route planned was to travel the east side of Lake Starnberg to Wolfratshausen and then on to Austria but perhaps a change of plans was made for the route as Feldafing is situated on the west shore of Lake Starnberg.

    It is of cold comfort to those who perished along the way that Feldafing is located in an area of outstanding natural beauty.

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