Home » Open thread 10/14/23

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Open thread 10/14/23 — 39 Comments

  1. The peripheral faculty member at Stanford who told his Jewish students to stand in the corner was supposedly this guy:
    ==
    https://africam.berkeley.edu/people/ameer-hasan-loggins/
    ==
    The faculty and administration manufacture victimology programs for which there is very little student demand and then hire parody academicians to staff them. Any faculty member and any administrator who has assented to these programs owns a piece of these travesties.
    ==

  2. Well it looks like maybe New Zealand is waking up. Labour lost, big time. In Germany Greens are loosing too.

  3. Well it looks like maybe New Zealand is waking up. Liberal lost, big time. In Germany Greens are loosing too.

  4. I’m sure you’ve seen it, Neo, but there’s a spam poster “Catherine Williams” on several threads.

  5. I don’t know. It’s always some uncle or cousin who is blamed for fathering the children, and when it’s proved that one relative couldn’t have done it another is blamed. At this point, I wouldn’t argue that Jefferson absolutely couldn’t be the father.

    Jefferson isn’t exactly my favorite Founder — too much of a gap between his fine words and his actions, and not just in relation to slavery and race either. It is nice that we don’t have Charles III on our stamps and coins or have to go through customs when we cross the Mississippi, though.

  6. An annular solar eclipse is in progress here in the Southwest. I’m tracking it through a stack of old photographic negatives. The sun is about 30% covered.

    Annular means that the moon appears smaller than the sun and will not completely cover the sun. At the peak of the eclipse the sun will appear as a bright ring around the dark moon.

  7. Jefferson is aces in my book. He was a man in full and a man of his times. So he had flaws. Tough shit.

  8. The eclipse is moving at a steady pace — over 60% covered now.

    I can see crescent suns refracted(?) in the shadows of tree leaves against the wall.

  9. There it is — a bright orange ring viewed through negatives.

    The refracted shadows on the wall are now rings. The overall shadows are interesting abstract smudges.

  10. I have read reports about the allegation that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children. Only some of them have Jefferson DNA, I think the younger ones, and Jefferson scholars think that’s from his nephew Randolph, who lived nearby to Monticello.

    If course it’s true that throughout the plantation areas in the South, some white owners had children by black women. There was surely some degree of violence, but also quite a bit of cooperation by women who could increase their own status and that of their children this way. This was not unusual at all in human history where there was a ruling class and a servant class. William the Conqueror was born outside of wedlock by the daughter of a merchant.

  11. Kate:

    Thanks. I removed those comments. Spam keeps evolving, and sometimes the spam filter can’t quite catch up.

  12. As someone who studied at the University of Virginia, which Thos. Jefferson founded, I regard him as the epitome of humanity, an architect, a farmer whose vision was of small farms owned by their farmers, a philosopher and a writer, to whom we owe the Declaration of Independence . Yes, he was imperfect; he made mistakes. We ALL do the that.
    When I was in Charlottesville, the locals spoke of “Mr. Jefferson”, as if he’d just gone for a long weekend, and they hoped for his soon return. Not the University or city we have there today. The Left has seen to that, and DEI rules the land.

  13. I think the great Tom Wolfe gave us that phrase [A Man in Full]; like so many others.

    Cornhead:

    Indeed.

    I’m long on Wolfe as a late 20th C writer who will be remembered while many other literary lights of that era won’t.

    One character in “A Man in Full” embodies a journey into Stoicism, a wonderful ancient moral philosophy also providing guidance badly needed today.

    HuxleyBob says, “Read Tom Wolfe.”

  14. So glad you had a good eclipse experience, huxley. We were only expecting partial coverage here, perhaps 40%, but in any case it’s still raining, so a dim day was perhaps only slightly more dim.

  15. …in any case it’s still raining…

    Kate:

    That’s the story of most of my attempts [rainy/cloudy] to view an astronomical event!

    I was pleasantly surprised today.

  16. I first heard of that notion in head of the class where robyn (tysons future wife) character was supposedly a descendent of sally hemmings

  17. Why did gordon reed come up with that trope because you have to brand the herald of liberty as evil or at least deeply flawed.

  18. @ IrishOtter49

    “Jefferson is aces in my book. He was a man in full and a man of his times. So he had flaws. Tough shit.”

    • 100% agree.

    • President Jefferson did contribute to the elimination of slavery in the USA: During his term the USA enacted legislation ^^ prohibiting the importation of slaves – and in the same time frame as the British.

    • I’ll add that the ability to abolish the importation of slaves – international trade – but not domestic trade **, was a key compromise between the 13 independent colonies. That compromise and the rise of the anti-domestic slave trade sentiment played a role in the succession of some southern states (see 7 of 11 states that formed the Confederacy specifically mentioned Rights in their Declarations of Succession ***).

    #####

    ^^ = The Act Prohibiting Importation of Slaves of 1807 (2 Stat. 426, enacted March 2, 1807) is a United States federal law that provided that no new slaves were permitted to be imported into the United States. It took effect on January 1, 1808, the earliest date permitted by the United States Constitution.

    This legislation was promoted by President Thomas Jefferson, who called for its enactment in his 1806 State of the Union Address.

    In 1807, the British Parliament passed the Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. This ended the buying and selling of enslaved people within the British Empire, but it did not protect those already enslaved.

    #####

    ** = Article 1 Section 9 of the United States Constitution protected a state’s involvement in the Atlantic slave trade for twenty years from federal prohibition. Article 5 said that this clause could not be affected by constitutional amendment.

    #####

    *** = Some felt that the free states were not willing to honor the commitments they made to the slave states, when the United States was formed, even though the slave states honored their commitments (i.e., accept prohibition of international slave trade). And some felt that since they entered the union of states as free and sovereign entities, they could exit as free and sovereign entities. (see Declarations of Succession)

  19. Only a fool would believe that a culture that condones and justifies the wanton slaughter of innocent children, even their own children, should be protected from the consequences of their evil actions.

    These are modern-day Nazis, and they and their supporters deserve to be held accountable for the society they created.

    When you hear the Nazis speak about “the occupation,” they are not referring to Gaza or the West Bank but to all of Israel occupying “their” lands. Hence, the saying, “From the river to the sea,” refers to killing all the Jews in Israel.

    And, it is either the arrogance or the ignorance of the West that refuses to believe them or suggests they mean something else. However, peaceful coexistence with their neighbors is not it.

    There is a reason that no Arab nation with significant space is willing to accept a large number of Palestinians into their country. If there were no Jews, the Arabs would be at war with their neighbors

  20. I have read reports about the allegation that Thomas Jefferson fathered Sally Hemings’ children. Only some of them have Jefferson DNA, I think the younger ones, and Jefferson scholars think that’s from his nephew Randolph, who lived nearby to Monticello.

    There would have to be surviving descendants (or the remains of the children or their descendants) for DNA tests to be done. Two of the children died before coming of age, and two have descendants today (the other two and their possible descendants have been harder to trace). The descendants were tested and found to have a close match to surviving Jefferson family members. There was no opportunity to determine the paternity of the other four children.

    Randolph Jefferson didn’t live far from Monticello by today’s standards, but his known visits weren’t that frequent and the documented visits didn’t coincide with the likely dates for the conception of Sally Hemings’ children. I suppose it’s possible that Randolph or his son was the father of one or more of the children — Randolph Jefferson did apparently have children with enslaved women on his properties — but Randolph wasn’t mentioned as a possible father until the DNA tests excluded other candidates. He may just be a convenient fall guy. In any case, we most likely will never know who the father of Sally Hemings’ children was.

  21. I wouldn’t argue that Jefferson absolutely couldn’t be the father.

    The enlightenment wasn’t a puritan period. And Jefferson was a man. Mix a man, a woman, and opportunity, and often as not, there will be sex. I don’t think Jefferson was special in that regard, especially when suffering from unrequited desire in Paris.

  22. Once upon a time Democrats admired Thomas Jefferson. I still chuckle at JFK’s quip honoring Nobel Prize winners:
    _______________________________________________

    I want to tell you how welcome you are to the White House. I think this is the most extraordinary collection of talent, of human knowledge, that has ever been gathered together at the White House, with the possible exception of when Thomas Jefferson dined alone.

    Someone once said that Thomas Jefferson was a gentleman of 32 who could calculate an eclipse, survey an estate, tie an artery, plan an edifice, try a cause, break a horse, and dance the minuet.

    –John Fitzgerald Kennedy, “Remarks at a Dinner Honoring Nobel Prize Winners of the Western Hemisphere”
    https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-dinner-honoring-nobel-prize-winners-the-western-hemisphere

    _______________________________________________

    I wonder if the second paragraph influenced Robert Heinlein’s well-known quote:
    _______________________________________________

    A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

    –Robert A. Heinlein

  23. Jefferson was just another target of the all spectrum Gramscian Long March, in this particular instance, of the Left’s campaign to diminish, if not destroy, the reputations of the Founding Fathers, as part of the Left’s demolishing of the the Founder’s essential goodness and righteousness and, thus, also, of the underpinnings, the foundations of American History.

  24. I’m glad some of you have been able to see the eclipse. It was rather overcast here at the time, and anyway this area is right on the edge of the 20-percent zone, so I think it was not much noted locally.

    In poking around to see the news on it, though, I picked up that there’s a total solar eclipse scheduled for next April, which will be passing through upstate New York! That will be a great opportunity. Even as close as Syracuse will be in the totality band of that one. It’s going to be on a Monday, so I’ll have to make plans to take off work that day.

  25. huxley:
    “Time Enough for Love” was published in 1973 and your theory is a fine one.

    Snow on Pine:
    Exactly what I was thinking after watching the video.

  26. I haven’t read this anywhere else. For most people, this wouldn’t be an unexpected development, but we still need to wait for confirmation from other sources.

    https://twitter.com/sentdefender/status/1713424262139154685

    (please note: to view tweet, must login to X)

    OSINTdefender tweeted:

    “A Senior Israeli Official has announced that Intelligence has been received which indicates Iran is attempting to move ‘Strategic Weapons’ into Syria in order to Open another Front against Israel.”

    (1:19 AM · Oct 15, 2023)

  27. Whoops, I should have done a more careful search. Many mainstream news sources are now reporting that Israeli officials have accused Iran of attempting to move strategic weapons into Syria.

  28. Open Thread Saturday:

    A change up the Israel-Hamasite/Gazamite (Iran) war

    Israel’s Defence Strategy & the IDF – Doctrine, Mobilisation, and Recent Lessons – Perun

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8xbkakrwmFo

    Timestamps:
    00:00:00 — Israeli Defence Strategy & The IDF
    00:00:48 — What Am I Talking About?
    00:03:10 — What This Video Is Not
    00:04:06 — History
    00:13:51 — Strategic Position
    00:20:23 — The IDF Today
    00:26:27 — The War-peace Continuum
    00:30:58 — The IDF, Mobilised
    00:40:46 — Nuclear Ambiguity
    00:45:17 — International Relations
    00:51:19 — Budgets And Military Industrial Complex
    00:57:41 — Events As Context
    01:00:49 — Observations
    01:05:42 — What Next?
    01:09:59 — Conclusion
    01:10:47 — Channel Update

  29. Over the past week, the Left’s overstepping in support of Hamas is a strategic opportunity for the Right to roll-back the Democrat coalition of the fringes.

    This is the recent opinion of Chris Rufo as well as a Palestinian-American pundit who both agree.

    Here’s Rufo on X: “Conservatives need to create a strong association between Hamas, BLM, DSA, and academic ‘decolonization’ in the public mind. Connect the dots, then attack, delegitimize, and discredit. Make the center-left disavow them. Make them political untouchables. 2:10 PM · Oct 13, 2023”

    Here, we’ve all heard of Rufo and many of us admire his work against Woke radicalism. But I’ve never heard about this man, Richard Hanania, before — yet here’s his post on X making a related if not very similar post:

    “Everyone on the right agrees that the establishment is anti-white now, but that it’s tactically more acceptable to criticize them for being anti-Semitic.

    “Regular conservatives are being smart, understand that whenever you can hurt BLM and campus radicals, it’s generally a good thing. Anti-whiteness and anti-Semitism and socialism all come from the same source, philosophy of losers.

    “Anti-semites on the right though prioritize their dislike of Jews, so sit around sulking, even take the Palestinian side.

    “Sulking is bad and doesn’t get you anywhere. Calling out anti-white discrimination on the right has never been more acceptable, so things are moving in the right direction. But it’ll have to ride the coattails of philo-Semitism. This is just reality.”

    There is definitely something of substance to chew over, together with the fact that the Genocidal Pali-Left are now seen as so risible and disgusting.

    For once “virtue signalising” could exact real, politically influential costs upon the Left’s coalition of the too-willing to conform!

    If this story gets repeated airings and thought pieces, it could spread. SHAME THE BASTARDS. Reap the political rewards…?

    The investment columnist at Zerohedge.com walks us through this in greater detail, HERE https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-10-15/lefts-misstep-hamas-rights-opportunity

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