Home » Open thread 6/21/23

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Open thread 6/21/23 — 36 Comments

  1. Tim Scott vs. Obama, revisited….
    “Why Barack Obama and other progessives loathe black conservatives”—
    https://jewishworldreview.com/0623/lowry062123.php
    H/T Powerline blog
    …with some “interesting” comparisons between Scott and a younger Obama…
    Key graf:
    ‘…Back in his famous DNC speech in 2004, addressing a pre-woke Democratic Party, Obama said, ”I stand here knowing that my story is part of the larger American story, that I owe a debt to all of those who came before me, and that, in no other country on Earth, is my story even possible.”…’

  2. OK, if someone is going to put out video’s that are talking about Historical events/people at least they could get things right. I mean, “Euros” in a 1800’s France!

  3. Barry Meislin, it seems to me that black Americans have a relationship with Democrats akin to that of a spouse and a philanderer. Regardless of the infidelities, betrayals, deception, and disrespect, they are are content in the relationship. Baffling.

  4. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. has some wacky ideas and I highly doubt he would be a particularly good president. But that said all the recent, heavy handed censoring of him on the various Regime complicit/controlled platforms is telling. He seems to be generating a lot of interest among the lumpenprole Democrat voters which clearly terrifies the Regime and it’s supporters.

  5. RE: UFOs and Aliens, Peaceful or Not?

    Assuming that actual Aliens are, indeed, flitting around our planet, there are many guesses/views about their nature.

    Dr. Steven Greer assures us that these Aliens–enlightened beings from the stars–are totally peaceful, are our space brothers, and “Experiencer” Whitley Strieber might also likely be in the “tough love” version of this camp.

    Others, like Lou Elizondo, are not so sure.

    So what is the evidence, for either position?

    Well, as eminent Stanford pathologist and inventor Dr. Garry Nolan has said, he has seen clear medical evidence that some people who have come very close to UFOs have suffered physical damage, including brain damage.

    But, it doesn’t seem like the damage is being intentionally caused to these victims, but rather may just be a byproduct of them getting in too close proximity to the technologies being used.

    As Lou Elizondo has said, by way of explanation, sitting in the jet, as opposed to standing outside it, right close up, directly behind the engines, as they are started up.

    Then, there is whatever major psychological disturbance and/or damage there might be, which, from the stories of many of these “Experiencers,” can be, and often is, very profound. Is this, whatwe might call a “reorientation” a good thing or, a bad thing?

    Next, to consider are, of course, all of those stories of Alien abductions, and the various invasions of unwilling victim’s bodies which have been reported.

    Gruesome and disturbing cattle mutilations, which are often associated with UFOs, have also to be considered, and I can’t see any “peaceful” interpretation of them.

    And here we are not even describing and enumerating all of the many other “high strangeness” phenomena associated with UFOs–which have been and are usually scaring the hell out of people–which I would think would fall into the “not so friendly” category.

    The reports of UFOs interfering with the alert status of our and of Russian ICBMs must come down on the side of “not so friendly,” and there are also the many times that UFOs have flown in restricted, military controlled airspace and, in addition, have caused close calls with many civilian and military aircraft.

    In particular, there is also the tendency of UFOs to concentrate their activities over anything to do with things military and nuclear–research facilities, weapons and weapon storage facilities, ICBM installations, nuclear powered ships and aircraft carriers–all of which strikes me as “not friendly.”

    Lou Elizondo, and others, also make the point that UFOs, or whatever entities there may be directing them, have made no efforts–that we know of–to stop all sorts of natural and man made catastrophes, wars, and epidemics here on Earth.

    On the plus side, I guess, is that, if these Aliens have been here on Earth for a very long time, or are somewhere in Earth orbit, the fact that they haven’t tried to wipe us out, started to drop rocks on us irritating monkeys has to be counted as evidence of some sort of potentially peaceful nature.

    At this point the jury is still very much out, but, I’m afraid that there is a lot of evidence which contradicts the totally peaceful “space brother” idea.

  6. P.S. Then, again, how can we humans even begin to fathom–to place into a human context and into human categories–the driving forces, world-views, values, and motives of entities which might be so radically different in every aspect–developmentally, physically and physiologically, sociologically and culturally, mentally, and historically, in terms of their ability to perceive and what they perceive and think–from us humans?

  7. The whole UFO thing really doesn’t interest me. The short, TL;DR version of why I’m not interested is simply because if it’s all true then there’s nothing we can do about it anyway.

    Here’s the longer explanation (if anyone cares): I’ve been a huge Sci-Fi fan may whole life. I saw The Empire Strikes Back in theaters when I was 5 years old and from then on I was hooked. Over the years I’ve read loads of Science Fiction novels and comic books, watched TV Shows and Movies, and played countless hours of SciFi themed video games and table top games. So I think it’s safe to say that I’ve basically been enchanted by the whole concept of intelligent alien life my whole life.

    All that said, the concept of actual extra terrestial visitors is more terrifying to me than reassuring, mostly because I know damn well that any alien intelligence capable of crossing the vast distances necessary for intersteller travel would have to be so far ahead of us technologically that we may as well be chimpanzees to them. That is to say they’d be as far beyond us as we are to chimps. Therefore we’d be at their mercy. So if they wanted to wipe us out or keep us a zoo animals, there would be absolutely nothing we could do to resist them. Conversely if they wanted to aid our development, they would likely want us to reach a point where it would be practical for them to do so in a way that we wouldn’t end up wiping ourselves out or causing problems for them. In the meantime they would likely want to minimize their interference in our development. But in either scenario there wouldn’t be anything we could change things.

  8. Nonapod–The problem I see with the totally peaceful, emanating the light of enlightenment and bliss, Bodhisattva-like, “space brothers” idea, is that–if our evolutionary paths here Earth are any indication–entities who manage to create some sort of space going civilization, probably were able to rise to accomplish this because they started out as the hard-driving “apex predators” on their home planets, and would likely still approach things based on some of those hard-wired, apex predator view-points and tendencies.

    P.S. As Lou Elizondo was hinting around at in his various interview answers (before he essentially disappeared from public view a few months ago), when the facts about UFOs and Aliens are finally revealed, we may well have to reevaluate our conception of our place as humans in the Universe, and to discover and to adjust to the fact that–in the larger Galactic scheme of things, and compared to other entities “out there”–we humans here on Earth may not be the smartest, the most accomplished, nor the ultimate, or anywhere near the ultimate, apex predators, and in the driver’s seat.

  9. yes independence day or the predators or some such, of course the distances involved are nearly infinite from our perspective,

  10. @windbag: Regardless of the infidelities, betrayals, deception, and disrespect, they are are content in the relationship. Baffling.

    It’s not baffling at all. The Dems run a race-based spoils system. They connect blacks with government jobs and government money. Black leaders know what the score is, and they bring their voters along no matter what the Dems may or may not say.

  11. I think it’s dangerous to assume that people who disagree with us are confused. This may, in some cases, be true, but it is much more likely that they either have (rightly or wrongly) a different set of facts from us, or that they have different values, and that’s why they disagree.

    One of the assumptions underlying American conservatism is that everyone knows their own business best. When “What’s the Matter With Kansas” came out, saying that the people who voted Republican were voting against their self-interest, conservatives had a lot to say about how Thomas Frank didn’t know what conservatives actually thought about their interest. Maybe we should keep that experience in mind when we find other people’s views “baffling”.

  12. well we’ve had about 20 years to see where these views end up, ruined cities twisted up children, scarcity, anarchy et al,

  13. Just cruised by CNN, not a word about Durham’s testimony. Of course full coverage on the non MSM sites. Those who only get their news from the MSM truly are in a bubble. No wonder they think like they do.

  14. Frederick,

    Blacks have been told, by people they trust, that the GOP hates them, is dominated by white supremacists, and wants to kill them. Preachers at black churches have been paid massive amounts of “walking around money” by Democrats. Those preachers are trusted by black voters. And they’ve been well-paid to spread the lies and slanders.

    Of course, the Democrats also work very closely with criminal gangs to control the neighborhoods. And the local political machines produce vote totals that having nothing to do with ballots actually cast. So maybe they aren’t actually fooled at all when they vote. Who knows?

  15. Snow on Pine,

    You strike me as a propenent of the Dark Forest Hypothesis as a solution to the Fermi Paradox. The basic concept is that generally any intelligent civilization will tend percieve other intelligent civilizations as potential existential threats. And therefore the Universe must be filled with civilizations that tend to remain silent rather than revealing themselves and risk annihilation by one or more of the immensely advanced elder civilizations. So the universe is like a “dark forest” filled with deadly hunters and silent prey.

    It’s a concept that is explored most noteably in the popular Three Body Problem series of novels written by a Chinese author Liu Cixin. They’re great books, if a little grim.

  16. “Yes; she’s one of the few. In my youth,” Miss Jackson rejoined, “it was considered vulgar to dress in the newest fashions; and Amy Sillerton has always told me that in Boston the rule was to put away one’s Paris dresses for two years. Old Mrs. Baxter Pennilow, who did everything handsomely, used to import twelve a year, two velvet, two satin, two silk, and the other six of poplin and the finest cashmere. It was a standing order, and as she was ill for two years before she died they found forty-eight Worth dresses that had never been taken out of tissue paper; and when the girls left off their mourning they were able to wear the first lot at the Symphony concerts without looking in advance of the fashion.”

    Edith Wharton, The Age of Innocence

  17. There are reports that an employee was fired from the submersible company for warning about flaws in the design and materials which might fail. And all the passengers signed releases acknowledging the danger. Even if they found it at this point, it would take too long to raise it slowly to avoid pressurization problems.

  18. It’s common that groups that feel alienated or marginalized vote for parties that express their alienation or marginalization. Protestants tend to vote for the Left in France, as do Catholics and Muslims in Britain and Australia, and African-Americans, Jews, and Asians in America (the possible exceptions, Hindus and Jews in Britain, feel more alienated and marginalized by the left than by the right). You don’t have to be deliberately pushed to the margins by the majority. You may just feel like you don’t quite belong. It’s not an alienation from the country (though we do see that in the US now). Just feeling like you don’t share all the majority’s values or heritage works as well.

    That feeling can outweigh economic interest. If you’re rich but feel estranged from the national mainstream, you may support parties of the left, even the far left. But with African-Americans, a large part of the prosperous middle class is either on the government payroll, or involved in non-profits and activist groups, or beneficiaries of affirmative action, so perhaps their strong preference for the Democrats isn’t so baffling after all. Poorer African-Americans who did benefit during the Trump years voted more or less like union members who always vote Democrat. Better-off African-Americans voted more or less like suburban, college educated Democrats of all races.

  19. Nonapod—Lets just say that, given what I have experienced and observed of life and of history, I am more of a pessimist than an optimist (current events, I’m afraid, confirming that inclination), believing that it is a bad idea to assume that everything is all sweetness and light, all unicorns and lollipops.

    There is a theory (more like a naive hope) out there, that any Aliens who have managed to create a space faring civilization must, of necessity, have grown out of any of their violent, aggressive, and predatory instincts, and have matured into peaceful beings, beings anxious to help shepherd any primitive worlds they might encounter into a community of like-minded and peaceful sentient beings.

    It just seems to me that the Universe is neither good nor bad, it just IS, and assuming that it is innately good, or that any Aliens which might inhabit it, are, of necessity, good—without a lot of evidence to prove—from our human perspective—that they are actually good–is bad policy, and could get a lot of us humans killed, or enslaved, us swindled, our planet strip mined for something some Aliens might want, or perhaps us just exterminated as an annoying nuisance, or a potential rival.

    Thus, I say, in dealing with any potential Aliens, a great deal of caution, observation, research and testing, should be the order of the day.

    If the Dark Forest Hypothesis is correct, we humans have lit our planet up like a Christmas tree with all of the electromagnetic radiation we have been pumping out into space for more than a hundred years, the edge of the spherical electromagnetic wave front we’ve created propagating further and further out into space, now 100 plus light years in all directions.*

    While SETI is scouring the electromagnetic spectrum for signals from any alien civilizations which exist “out there,” hoping for some magical “Contact,” some of those alien civilizations may well be scouring the spectrum for signs of any unwary primitive civilizations just like ours, for whoever controls the orbitals, and is willing to drop rocks on those below, can control whichever world lies below them.

    In effect, we’re jumping up and down and waving our arms, wearing a day glow orange suit, and yelling, “here we are,” naively (from my perspective) just assuming that whichever Alien or Aliens come calling are going to be benevolent.

    What’s done is done, and all that remains is to see who comes calling, and what they might want to do with, or to us.

    * See https://www.popularmechanics.com/space/news/a27934/galaxy-map-human-radio-broadcasts/

  20. Barry Meislin—That’s the fun of science fiction, all of the possibilities, it’s just that some of these possibilities are much better outcomes for us humans.

  21. True enough.
    (Maybe they’re just shy. More likely is that they’re totally principled and have vowed to uphold the Prime Directive on pain of death for their entire family/tribe/city/planet…. Or maybe their credo is “Curiosity killed the cat”….and/or “Let sleeping dogs lie”, etc…. Or maybe curiosity has been bred out of them through evolutionary development; IOW all the curious among them received Darwin Prizes… though it’s far more likely that they don’t even HAVE to be curious because they simply…KNOW, INTUIT, have senses that we cannot even imagine…Or maybe they’re very chauvinistic and find us, let’s call it “unsavory”, or maybe….oh who knows? Wonder what Occam might say…)

  22. Barry Meislin: Wonder what Occam might say…

    Perhaps … ‘They are all introverts and haven’t traveled all this way to hook up with idiots like us’ ?

  23. The video narrator quotes a disappointed client who saw her 300 franc dresses jump to 2200 (not Euros, as rightly noted; she probably meant to say Worth had “francs valued in Euros to emphasize his poverty at the beginning).
    A commenter adds:
    @brucetidwell7715
    1 day ago
    The amounts of money being spent are just mind boggling. Twenty to thirty gowns at $10-15K a piece in today’s money, while a first class trip on a trans Atlantic ocean liner could cost another $20K+ each way. With the voyage taking 5 or 6 days to get there, women didn’t just pop into town for the weekend, they would stay for a month or so, in top drawer luxury hotels, diners in the best restaurants, theater and opera tickets. Shopping for clothes could end up costing upwards of half a million dollars.

  24. Ever closer to Sodom & Gomorrah:

    South Boston drag party featured Kids, drugs, sex toys, dead man

    No bestiality? Or would that crowd the headline? Having kids present has become a must. Nice touch with the dead guy – like a sprig of parsley.

  25. Post from Ace on the Durham hearing.
    https://ace.mu.nu/archives/404994.php

    Durham: James Comey Hid the Fact That the RussiaGate Allegations Were a Political Op Concocted by Hillary Clinton From the Agents He Assigned to Investigate The Lies
    Via Hot Air.

    JORDAN: Can you tell the committee what happened when you took that referral memo, and shared it with one of those agents?
    DURHAM: We interviewed the first supervisor on the Crossfire investigation, the operational person. We showed him the intelligence information. He indicated he had never seen it before. He immediately became emotional, and got up and left the room with his lawyer, spent some time in the hallway, came back.

    JORDAN: He was ticked off, wasn’t he? He was ticked off because this was something he should have had as an agent on the case. This was important information that the director of the FBI kept from the people doing the investigation.

    DURHAM: The information was kept from them.

    Democrats are defending all of this, and smearing Durham’s reputation. It’s literally their one move.

    More of that at the link.

    https://hotair.com/ed-morrissey/2023/06/21/durham-you-better-believe-obama-biden-and-comey-knew-that-this-was-a-hillary-dirty-trick-n559527

  26. AesopFan—Avi Loeb, I expect, is a pretty shrewd and savvy guy, someone who knows that whoever donated the funds for this expedition would like to see some results justifying his donation.

    Thus, it looks to me as if there is a little hype going on here.

    So, they’ve found a small, couple of inches long, flat piece of metal, which may be anomalous, and are teasing that this might possibly be of extraterrestrial origin—stay tuned for more test results.

    I’m hoping that—if there is something to be found—they are going to find something a lot more substantial than this.

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