Home » Open thread 3/29/24

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Open thread 3/29/24 — 36 Comments

  1. And there are people that keep these sorts of critters as pets.

    Most pets (but not fish, I don’t think) are able to demonstrate some sort of affection of sorts to their owners.
    Are lizards capable of this??
    How would this manifest itself?
    Do they cuddle up with their owners at night?
    Can they be given the run of the house, or must they be caged?
    How could you trust a lizard – the one in the picture appears to be smiling; they have a forked tongue.

  2. Clue: Film whose plot hinges on a Komodo Dragon.

    What is “The Freshman”?

    Starring Matthew Broderick and Marlon Brando, who does a fun turn on his “Godfather” role, plus a great bunch of supporting actors. Maximilian Schell was my favorite. Bert Parks sings “Ain’t Gonna Work on Maggie’s Farm No More.”

    Pure entertainment.

  3. I think Trump won the optics battle yesterday. Both Trump and Biden were in NYC. While Trump attended the wake of a slain NYPD officer, Biden attended a $500,000 a ticket fundraiser of liberal elites with Obama, Clinton and a bunch of celebrities. Trump’s populism was a stark contrast to Biden’s decadent elitism.

  4. I guess thats’ something else, we have to look forward to with global warming, i’m surprised that hasn’t been a subCorman film on SyFY

  5. could be the gua, the antagonist of that cult series, First Wave, which had some remote ties to Nostradamus’s fifth quatrain or some such, interestingly it was set in the era of usenet, the early era of the internet,

    I think the lizards would not be this obvious, in their campaign of sabotage, would they,

  6. Fury as photo of Hamas victim Shani Louk’s naked and mutilated body being paraded by terrorists wins top award – Unbelievable (almost)!?

    ‘The Real Problem With Having The Americans As Your Allies Is You Never Know When They Will Turn Around And Stab Themselves In The Back’ – Turkish General Quoted By Bernard Lewis*

    Denying Russia’s Only Strategy for Success – Interesting article, but my favorite quote is:

    Resisting Russian Aggression = Escalation. No one should be confused about verbs when it comes to Ukraine’s actions. Russia imposed its war on Ukraine. Ukraine chose to defend itself. Ukraine’s action is resisting death, occupation, and atrocities at the hands of Russian forces. Yet, the Western debate periodically accuses Ukraine (or the West itself) of “escalating” or “prolonging the war.”[23] The Kremlin has greatly invested in framing Ukraine – and anyone who dares to resist the Kremlin – as an aggressor (and Russia as a victim). The West’s legitimization of Russia, a belligerent in Ukraine since 2014, as a mediator in the Minsk agreements also gave the Kremlin eight years to falsely frame any Ukrainian self-defense action or unwillingness to bend to the Kremlin’s will as Ukrainian aggression.

    Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott claims DEI label is being weaponized by racists ‘who don’t have the courage to say the n-word’ and warns ‘they should be afraid’ – just another black American racist whining about “racists”.

  7. Russians and Eastern Europeans don’t think in 10 or 50 year cycles, the Serbs were burdened with the loss of Kosovo Polje and that was more 600 years ago

  8. RE: The ship that hit the Key bridge–

    Well, it turns out that a lot of the data that should be there isn’t, cameras not installed, recording devices turned off for significant periods of time, etc.*

    Brings to mind the supposed “suicide” of arguably the highest profile prisoner in the U.S. at the time, Jeffrey Epstein, and how in the supposedly “most secure Federal prison in the U.S.”–cameras focused on his cell area were somehow defective and didn’t record anything during the crucial hours, guards who were supposed to check him every 15 minutes were mysteriously asleep for several critical hours (and were apparently never given any serious punishment for their dereliction), the body was moved and evidence disturbed, the death was declared a “suicide” in apparently record time, etc., etc.

    This “suicide” was and remains extremely fishy, and this ” accidental” collision is shaping up to be have that same kind of smell.

    P.S. A commenter pointed out that all major ships, which navigate into major U.S. and foreign harbors or other areas, have to have a locally based certified pilot–who comes aboard specifically to assist in navigating that ship through that particular harbor or area.

    Was such a pilot on board and, if so, what does he have to say?

    * See https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/ntsb-releases-data-dalis-black-box-reveals-no/

  9. RIP louis gossett jr, who had a long and outstanding career, with officer and the gentleman, among other fare, a very cisnormative performance which causes micro aggressions, among the snowflake, one of two 80s action films, iron eagle, he was also in wolfgang petersens’ attempt at space opera enemy mine, and a little known sadat biopic,

    one of his last was alas Watchmen, where he played a character somewhat like the lone ranger, in a plot soaking in the CRT soup, no one even Jeremy Irons escaped that dumpsterfire with their dignity intact no matter how much it paid, the series was about a reaction against a widespread reparations program, which you can imagine
    how it turned out, and it opened in the Tulsa Massacre,

  10. Snow – there were two local pilots on the ship, but they are probably still being questioned about what happened.

    https://apnews.com/article/ship-pilots-baltimore-bridge-collapse-0730504bbc045473cf0e15f5fdc38534

    Here is an article on the plan to reopen the channel to the harbor. The Corps of Engineers will first get a one-way channel open to traffic and then work on removing the ship and all of the cargo. The third step will be the design and building of the new bridge. That step will probably take years and cost mega-bucks.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/daily-on-defense/2942493/how-the-army-corps-of-engineers-plans-to-reopen-the-port-of-baltimore/

    A huge crane is already at the scene.

    https://apnews.com/article/baltimore-key-bridge-collapse-03-29-2024-7d27a5c561f9f3359935a56139623108

  11. Notice the extremely well protected power pylons built in 2021-2022 have about twice the space between them as the Key bridge supports. The new bridge will have at least twice the main span length as the old.

    Will not be an erector set bridge either but a concrete suspension of some type.

  12. Re: Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott claims DEI label is being weaponized (–Karmi)

    Normies have caught on to the new Orwellian labels — Woke, DEI, CRT, etc — and are using those labels, accurately, back at the Woke.

    Double-plus-ungood intolerable for the Woke. So now they are trying to police normies from the using the terms.

    Tough!

    –Frank Zappa, “Who are the Brain Police?”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_H-b6L4R5_s

  13. huxley:

    Double-plus-ungood intolerable for the Woke. So now they are trying to police normies from the using the terms.

    Yes, I missed the obvious there, and will add a Ditto to your Tough!

  14. Useful information about the immediate events on the Dali and consequences to the Port of Balitmore by a maritime expert on the Ward Carroll Youtube channel. Carroll usually talks about military aviation issues.

    Maritime Expert Analyzes the Francis Scott Key Bridge Collapse
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=grjK6sqQyDA

  15. Re: DEI / Orwell / Disney

    Karmi:

    Bob Iger, Disney CEO, continues to insist that Disney is playing no part in the culture wars and has no political agenda.

    But all their creative output will literally be based on Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) which, Iger claims, has nothing to with culture wars or political agenda.

    Doublethink!

    _________________________________

    Bob Iger went on to deliver the following as CEO of the Walt Disney Company:

    “I would like to address and pick up where Mr. Bruckheimer left off, that we agree offici[ally] focusing, of course, on the sixth installment of Pirates of the Caribbean to becoming a full-fledged reboot that will allow us to move on from Mr. Depp in his iconic role as Captain Jack Sparrow. This is also allowing us to start with a clean slate, where our sixth installment will now focus on the insertion of diversity, equity, and inclusion, and how important this will be for the upcoming story created by Mr. Mason.

    We find this to be a necessary move within the pirate series of the films, and we here at Disney find it to be very damaging by those that hold the belief or perception that our focus on diversity, equity, and inclusion has something to do with a form of agenda or anything like that. I cannot stress this enough, but that is not what Disney is about. We do not, and never will, engage in any kind of a culture war, and nor does our support and insertion of DEI into the new Pirates installment have anything to do with that.

    Our usage of DEI is nothing more than a strategy for us here at the Walt Disney Company to reach a wider global audience.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FoROubPDot8

  16. in other news the six compartments, that crisscross the hull of the titanic, have nothing to do with taking in water, originally I was intrigued by the score of the pirates series, as much as the slapstick adventures of Jack Sparrow, and co,
    at last count, it is said that they rejected that script that smelled of Elder berries I mean Cutthroat island, and deepsixed the genre for almost half a decade, as long as Batman and Robin did to the DC franchise,

  17. RE: Terrorist attacks here in the U.S.

    It appears to me that, because of all of the millions of basically un-vetted illegal aliens who have streamed across our borders (7 million, 11 million–who really knows?)–in the “Valdemort” Invasion which must not be acknowledged or named by the Biden Administration, by Democrat Congressmen, or by the MSM–the chances of a major or even several major terrorist attacks here in the American homeland has risen very dramatically.

    How many people who have it in for the U.S. for one reason or other have been among the invaders, how may violent criminals?

    What are the chances that China, and/or Russia, and/or Iran have sent whole teams across our borders to disappear into our population, awaiting the signal or opportunity to act?

    Common sense would seem to indicate that there is an increasing–and edging higher by the day–chance of this happening; a situation which is not one of if but, unfortunately, very likely of when.

  18. Heard on Chris Plante’s radio show: DEI = Didn’t Earn It
    ———————————————————————
    Dali is an interesting name for the ill-fated ship.
    ———————————————————————
    “What are the chances that China, and/or Russia, and/or Iran have sent whole teams across our borders to disappear into our population, awaiting the signal or opportunity to act?”

    You sound like a xenophobic and Islamophobic racist! /sarc

  19. it is curious how the British Navy in this early 18th century era is depicted as in shows like Black Sails, they are better than the pirates, but not much more,

  20. Brian E, thanks for that video recommendation – an unusually efficient exposition, in my experience with those types of talkies.

  21. Topic: Israel & Gaza.
    As usual, J. E. Dyer is turning over the rocks and looking behind the curtains.
    Remember, with the Left, the agenda is always power.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2024/03/21/one-ping-on-the-motive-behind-bidens-and-democrats-intervention-attempts-with-israel/

    The rhetoric coming from Washington – attempts to defame Israel’s careful combat tactics; poisoning the infosphere about Israeli intentions and impact; threats from Biden to Israel and to Israeli confidence in U.S. partnership; demands for a regime change in Israel – are all meant to undermine Israel’s campaign in Gaza. It’s all meant to have an impact on the war itself, not just on the U.S. election in November.

    The Biden administration is pushing for too many concrete measures to be merely trying to affect the U.S. vote. Planning to put in a pier in Gaza, with Qatar’s participation, isn’t just an expensive gesture to impress a few thousand voters in Michigan. It’s a real, concrete measure to open a physical pipeline into Gaza that effectively ends Israel’s 15-year maritime blockade of Gaza and establishes a political presence going forward there for the U.S. and Qatar.

    Likewise U.S. calls for a lengthy cease-fire, for Israel to give up on taking Rafah, and for no political objective to be acceptable other than a “two-state solution.” The Biden administration is trying to dictate the goals and conduct of Israel’s war against Hamas.

    That is the Biden administration’s purpose. I urge readers not to be deceived by the media coverage that keeps emphasizing the marginal vote in pockets of the United States. That coverage is increasingly paper-thin and perfunctory. The media have a nice echo chamber going, and they aren’t putting much into it now, even as the measures Biden and the Democrats argue for in Gaza — and Israel — become more and more alarming to much more important constituencies: American evangelical Christians and Jews.

    It’s time to see clearly and acknowledge that most of what “Biden” does and says is designed to keep Israel from pushing Hamas out of Gaza and thereby changing the calculus of Israeli security for the better. It’s readers’ choice how to interpret that. One key factor that must not be overlooked is Biden’s affinity for the radical regime in Iran. Of all the actors in the Middle East, the mullahs of Iran would be the most inconvenienced by an end to Hamas’s rule in Gaza.

    But the good news is that those anxious for Israel’s security can stop imagining that Biden’s hostile policy toward Israel is “about” the vote in Michigan. It’s not that silly and petty. Biden’s hostile policy, based on its persistent character and the lengths his administration is going to thwart Israel, is about thwarting Israel. Take that on board and all your reflections and conclusions on the matter will be much more useful.

    https://theoptimisticconservative.wordpress.com/2024/03/28/there-it-is-biden-administration-ponders-blocking-israel-with-peacekeeping-force-in-gaza/

    It has been evident from the earliest days of the current war that the Biden administration wants to come out of this with a hook in Gaza. The U.S. didn’t have one before, and the UN hook, UNRWA, has been unarmed and formally humanitarian. To truly impede Israel in Gaza, there has to be an armed force of some kind. It has to be one empowered to counterpose armed force, so that IDF moves against security threats in Gaza can at any time instantly be framed as “escalations.”

    The funny thing about this is that it is so indisputably manifest from everything else that happens daily throughout the region that the factors I describe here are the ones in play, and will produce the outcome I depict. Yet observers continue to speak in terms of mal-focused, conventional, old-consensus assumptions about patterns and motives.

    The upshot of all such strategies in the region has been to preserve a brittle stasis into which Iran keeps inserting itself more and more. The argument for why the U.S. would pursue this course is a separate one. The point is that nothing would give us confidence it would be any different this time.

    It might be possible, with innovative thinking, to back a Gaza plan involving the Abraham Accords partners, one that respected Israel’s security interests as paramount. Such a proposal should not be turned over on any standard model to the UN. Nor should Qatar have any outsized involvement in it. I would want to see the Emiratis and Saudis in the lead. Another obvious and necessary participant would be Egypt.

    But Israel has no basis for thinking a revamped Obama/Kerry proposal, tooled to spec for Gaza, would be anything other than a channel for hostile multilateral incursions on Israel’s security decisions. Linking such an entity for Gaza with the West Bank and the peremptory creation of a “Palestinian state” – an unceasing refrain of the Biden administration – makes it clear where this would be going. It would be particularly undesirable in Gaza because Gaza has open access to the sea.

    This was foreseeable from the beginning, and here it is, being floated for impact in the information battlespace. Yes, Team Biden wants to undermine an Israeli operation in Rafah, but that’s not an end in itself. The ultimate end is creating an entry point for decisive U.S. influence over how Israel handles its own security. The establishment Democrats have been angling for this for more than a decade.

    I think she may be referring to the substance of this story:
    https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hkglao4jc#autoplay
    “Gallant to Netanyahu: One step closer for a multinational force deployment in Gaza
    The Defense Minister achieved progress towards the deployment of armed forces from three Arab countries to the Gaza Strip, as their Initial goal will be to secure aid convoys and establish a port in Gaza”

  22. AF, thanks very much for these links…
    Very sinister, indeed, but no surprise, alas….

    (“What rough beast…”?)

  23. this has been a longstanding Samantha Powers project, boil boil toll and trouble, significant other to Cass Sunnstein, dark overlord, also Bill Ayers, the wannabe Che Guevara of hyde park was part of the buildup of the Gaza flotilla under Erdogan’s aegis, of course EarLeader Obama was part of that too,

    once upon a time, as Khashoggi dictated to Robert Lacey, the Saudis sought they could cultivate Obama, he found new patrons, interesting Erdogan and his former ally Gulen market themselves as Sufis, well thats the line they sell,

  24. …which makes one wonder how far and how deep the “conspiracy theory” might actually have spread…
    – “Biden”‘s demand to increase the number of Palesintian workers, especially from Gaza, into Israel.
    – “Biden”s increased funding (to the tunes of billions of dollars to Iran, to Lebanon—AKA Hezbullah—and the to the Palestinians)…not to mention “Biden”‘s continuing Obama’s policy of REALIGNMENT with the Mullahs and their proxies and allies at the expense of Israel’s interests.
    – The blackout of intelligence from Lebanon to Israeli intelligence services in the lengthy period before October 7.
    – Jake Sullivan’s crowing about “Biden”s contributions to a Middle East peace “not seen in over 20 years”. (A simple mistake?….Or an intentional misdirection?)
    – Israel military unpreparedness, which, according to reports filtering out since October 7 appear to be a REFUSAL on the part of the Israel military and intelligence to be prepared or to take reports of imminent attacks seriously. (Granted that “sometimes a cigar is just a cigar”, what considerations might have prompted this series of wretched decisions…and non-decisions?)

    Hold on, did I say “conspiracy theory”?
    https://victorhanson.com/how-to-create-conspiracy-theories/
    https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2019/nov/21/victor-davis-hanson-the-deep-state-at-w/

    + Bonus (Related):
    “THE CORBYNIZATION OF THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY CONTINUES APACE: The President’s War Against the Jews.”—
    https://instapundit.com/639103/

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