Home » Open thread 11/6/23

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Open thread 11/6/23 — 34 Comments

  1. Reminder to Jewish Neo-phytes:
    Don’t forget to set your clock back to 1938.

    (Shamelessly stolen from some guy on the internet yesterday).

  2. I’m sorry, neo, but curse you. I’ve had that song stuck in my mind for over a week now. I helped do it to myself but you started it.

  3. Gee, thanks Biden Administration and to all of the oh, so compassionate liberals, progressives, and the “Woke”.

    This is the kind of craziness and danger we now have to deal with, whenever we leave our houses, and sometimes even before that, since these nut jobs are also apparently wandering around, trying to see if any doors to homes or cars are unlocked.*

    See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2023/11/shocking-surveillance-footage-st-louis-teenager-brazenly-tries/

  4. “You can tell by the way I slink that I’m a woman’s man: no time to think.”

    (…or something like that….)

  5. Why isn’t Gaza be more like Monaco?

    Both have beaches and a snug harbor. Bet Gaza has warmer water too.

    Why oh why?

  6. Prediction:
    Joe Biden will continue to run, and be the presumptive Democrat presidential candidate… until after the Republican convention.

    At the Republican convention, Donald Trump, leading JB in all the polls, will win the Republican nomination.

    Sometime after that, but before the end of the Democratic convention, Joe Biden remove himself, and the Democrats will nominate someone else, other than Kamela.

  7. buddhaha-
    I totally agree with your scenario.
    Now the fun part. Who will they put up to succeed Biden.
    I don’t think Newsome will be the candidate. Too white, too male, and he ruined SF prior to ruining CA.
    My money is on Whitmer, currently Gov of MI.
    She has to be sweating bullets now that she will be able to thread the needle between being a decent human being and PO’ing the very large group of Hamas/Nazi supporters in her state. Her twitter feeds make no mention of the current unpleasantness in the Middle East- standard lefty gun control, pro-abortion, climate change, Yay Biden-Harris entries.
    She’ll have to say something sometime if she wants to be considered.

  8. West Tx.
    Whitmer is one of the four governors who put known Covid-infected cases into nursing homes at appalling cost.
    Somebody’s goint to have to finesse that as a good thing.

  9. For years, we’ve heard those who are Smarter Than The Rest of Us say with weary certainty that Gaza was occupied and Israel was an apartheid regime. I always thought they knew better but took the opposite view so as to be in the intellectual minority who always seek to insist on the opposite of what the normies believe, facts notwithstanding.
    To be honest, I am flabbergasted to find out they actually believe it. Or at least bestir themselves as if they do.
    And they are really calling for the genocide of the Jews, something I had not expected to hear except in the smallest corners of our country.
    While there is voluminous evidence of the efforts of higher ed and related fields to sell this…how in hell did they find such huge, fertile fields of those desperate to buy it?

  10. Interesting summary of the land transfers– mostly by purchase, but also by mandate of the governing powers in the land now known as Israel from 1880 to 1948.

    “Our purpose in this pamphlet is to set the record straight by marshalling the facts and figures pertaining to this very complex subject, on the basis of the most reliable and authoritative information available, and to trace the history of modern Jewish resettlement purely from the point of view of the sale and purchase of land.”

    LAND OWNERSHIP IN PALESTINE, 1880–1948

    https://lessons.myjli.com/survival/index.php/2017/03/26/land-ownership-in-palestine-1880-1948/

  11. Brian E-
    I have always supported Israel as an outpost of Western Civilization in an otherwise savage region. There was a time when I too took comfort in how the majority of land was bought and paid for by the Jews who were returning to their ancestral homeland. I took vicarious pride in their policy of restraint, how they “thumped” buildings they were planning to destroy to give people a chance to escape. How they took sick and injured Arabs into their hospitals. How they returned conquered land to their enemies.
    No more; it’s not necessary, and it’s counterproductive.
    Israel has every right to treat Gaza the way the US treated Tokyo and Dresden in WWII. Inflict pain until their desire and ability to make war no longer exists. Every inch of land that they conquer is theirs to do what they feel is in their best interests. Tens of millions of people were dislocated by WWII; the lucky ones were dislocated westward and were and are grateful for it.
    War is hell. Best avoided, definitely best not started against a stronger and smarter foe. The destruction of the Hamas/Gaza society is due to their own choices, in the past and today. Every dead Gazan child is on Hamas’ ticket.
    Don’t start nothin’, won’t be nothin”.

  12. Thanks for the link, Brian E.

    The author tries to be as even-handed as possible. Too bad better records aren’t available.

    My reading about Israel from 1922 to 1948 reflects much the same story. The land was not very productive, but many Jews longed to return to their ancestral homelands. The Zionist movement began. Land was bought and the New Jewish owners practiced better agricultural methods, as well as draining swampy lowlands to make them productive as well as reducing the malaria problems.

    There was a mix of Arabs and Jews living there all under British control. The Balfour Declaration (1917) set in progress the movement to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.

    Balfour said, “His Majesty’s government view with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people and will use their best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of this object, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

    The state of Israel was established by the Unite Nations in Resolution 181(II). The date for establishment was in May of 1948. The surrounding Arab nations objected.
    “In a cablegram on 15 May 1948 to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, the Secretary-General of the League of Arab States claimed that “the Arab states find themselves compelled to intervene in order to restore law and order and to check further bloodshed”.

    Over the next few days after the declaration, armies of Egypt, Trans-Jordan, Iraq, and Syria engaged Israeli troops inside the area of what had just ceased to be Mandatory Palestine, thereby starting the 1948 Arab–Israeli War. A truce began on 11 June, but fighting resumed on 8 July and stopped again on 18 July, before restarting in mid-October and finally ending on 24 July 1949 with the signing of the armistice agreement with Syria. By then Israel had retained its independence and increased its land area by almost 50% compared to the 1947 UN Partition Plan.”

    Prior to the war the Palestinians were advised to leave to avoid being caught in the crossfire. Those that left, found themselves as refugees. And they are still refugees today because the refuse to accept Israel’s right to exist.

    They don’t, unfortunately, see it that way.

  13. That’s an excellent summary, JJ, thanks. Add to it the fact that the numbers of Jews expelled from all over the Middle East following 1948 was about equal to the numbers of Arabs who fled and became refugees. Many of those Jews ended up in Israel (but not all).

  14. “Stayin Alive” is indeed one of my favorite songs from that time period, but right now I am listening to something truly beautiful:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3JWTaaS7LdU
    The guy who got her hooked on drugs should be charged with murder, or at least manslaughter. He stole something lovely from all of us.

  15. It’s funny how some videos fit well with certain songs. The casual, careless manner of the slinky’s walk even fits, somewhat, to that of Travolta at the beginning of the movie.

    There are tales that say that you can match up Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz.

    And this matchup, between a scene from the kid’s movie, Matilda, and Rob Zombie’s Dragula is pretty interestingly well-matched.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQP8MN-1Q30

  16. Israel has every right to treat Gaza the way the US treated Tokyo and Dresden in WWII. Inflict pain until their desire and ability to make war no longer exists.

    Exactly. Well Said.

  17. As a contrast, with regards to music and videos, there are people who take cut scenes from video games and create music videos for songs using them. It’s an interesting idea. And the level of detail in the cut scenes is itself interesting.

    Here’s an excellent example (language warning, just in case that kind of thing bothers you):

    EMM – Psycho
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5UXxqnF-WkM

  18. Huxley. I’m thinking I was mistaken on some levels. That is not from the original Matilda, which was a 90s movie, it’s from a more recent movie, presumably made to fit the song — its title is Matilda: The Musical. It’s still an awesome piece.

  19. OBloodyHell:
    There are tales that say that you can match up Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon with The Wizard of Oz.

    When those rumors first circulated I tried it. Unless you’re willing to stretch things a lot, it doesn’t fit. Dark Side of the Moon is :55. The Wizard of Oz is 1:42. If you cut WoO down to just the music you’re left with ~20 minutes, leaving non-musical content at ~1:20. Track-wise, DSoM has 10 tracks and WoO has a bunch, many short ones collapsing into a single, but three are virtual repeats (Off to See the Wizard) and another three the same song w/ different words (If I only had a…).

    And, let’s face it, spaced out hippies can pretty much match any music to whatever they think.

  20. And, let’s face it, spaced out hippies can pretty much match any music to whatever they think.

    Oligonicella:

    Hey man, that’s, like, basic psychology:
    _______________________________

    Pareidolia is the tendency for perception to impose a meaningful interpretation on a nebulous stimulus, usually visual, so that one sees an object, pattern, or meaning where there is none.

    –https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pareidolia
    _______________________________

    Anyway. I’ve conducted the “Dark Side of Oz” experiment under clinical conditions. It’s not persuasive, but it’s fun trying.

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