Home » Open thread 4/6/22

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Open thread 4/6/22 — 40 Comments

  1. Geez, looks like the 150 year old “settled science” re: lichen was not so settled.

    Switching topics:

    Re: Jeffrey Epstein / Ghislaine Maxwell

    So he’s dead- death by “suicide” – and she has been found guilty; for crimes dealing with underage females.
    What about all those “frequent fliers” that participated in those crimes?
    Where are their indictments?
    The Stalinist show trial prosecutors are still chasing after Prince Andrew, who resides across the Atlantic Ocean, but just 30 miles north of lower Manhattan, lives another frequent flier, Bill Clinton.
    Why is he not a person of interest?
    And what about the several dozen (hundred?) others named in Maxwell’s little black book? My guess most of them are US citizens.

    Maybe the prosecutors are too busy hunting down Trump or the conspirators of the Jan 6 “insurrection.”

  2. So it’s a threesome is it?
    Have to coin a new word, I guess…synbiosis?

    Anyway, a very cool video (especially liked the photographer’s “lichens” hairstyle) thanks to which I will NEVER even think about eating yellow lichens (though the brown stuff does look tantalizing, even if I unfortunately didn’t catch that garbled word about the Indians using it as a—some kind of snack, was it?).
    – – – – – – – – –
    And in (even) more “Uncontested Election”(TM) news…
    “Bossie releases ‘Zuckerbucks’ film, as over 40k shown to have bypassed Wisc. voter ID rules in 2020;
    “A total of 40,856 voters registered as “indefinitely confined” for the 2020 election in Wisconsin and did not provide photo ID. Ahead of Tuesday’s local elections in the state, that number was 32,857.”
    https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/elections/wisconsin-election-over-30000-voters-not-required-show-id-absentee

    So by how much did Joe Biden win Wisconsin, again?
    (Hint:
    https://www.bbc.com/news/election/us2020/states/wi )

  3. A relationship of 3 different organisms living symbiotically may seem unusual, but we humans are actually a relationship of trillions of individual organisms. Our gut microbiom alone is made up of an estimated 39 trillion individual organisms. There’s also loads of microbiota living on our skin (so called skin flora), in our mouth, noses, ears, respitory passages, urethra, vaginal flora. And a majority of these critters are actually beneficial to us.

  4. Apropos of the lichens’ ménage à trois, 1) I couldn’t help noticing the appreciative cat walking around in Tim Wheeler’s studio; 2) I finally figured out why Mark Zuckerberg’s hair style looks like a fungus of some kind growing on his scalp; he must have had a lichen transplant.

    To change the topic: when Neo is feeling up to it, I’d be interested in her take on Biden’s humiliation when Obama paid a visit to the WH yesterday: “It was a disaster for Biden. It only proved to us that Biden is not all there and no one respects him. Obama called Biden, ‘Vice President Biden.’ He laughed it off as a joke and that it was planned. . . . But the most cringe part was at the end. No one wanted to talk to Biden. I almost feel sorry for him.”

    Videos of the event at the link: https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/04/third-wheel-awkward-for-biden-as-bmoc-obama-returns-to-white-house/

  5. Extensive quotes from a sermon preached to the Russian Armed Forces by the Moscow Patriarch this past Sunday at this link. There are no Ukrainians. They are Russians, and part of Russia. Soldiers in Ukraine are, like Jesus, giving up their lives for truth and righteousness, and in defense of Mother Russia. “Fascists” and “Nazis” are those who oppose Russia. This attitude might well explain some of the reported atrocities. Those resisting Russia are evil.

    https://archbishopcranmer.com/patriarch-kirill-there-are-no-ukrainians-only-peoples-of-holy-russia/

  6. Obama’s inimitable sense of humor…strikes again.

    (Usually, he’s quite a bit more subtle about it, though…)

  7. Extensive quotes from a sermon preached to the Russian Armed Forces by the Moscow Patriarch this past Sunday at this link. There are no Ukrainians. They are Russians, and part of Russia. Soldiers in Ukraine are, like Jesus, giving up their lives for truth and righteousness, and in defense of Mother Russia. “Fascists” and “Nazis” are those who oppose Russia. This attitude might well explain some of the reported atrocities. Those resisting Russia are evil.

    There is no contention that there are no Ukrainians. They’re not referred to by name. The Patriarch left a number of points ambiguous. He’s in a difficult position right now and it is not clear what his teaching is.

  8. Obama and Biden.

    Typical Obama; it’s all about him. The only thing he did not do at his visit was tell joke bidet, loudly, to F off.

    I would not be surprised if he decides to “run” for president for a third term. Pelosi / Schumer are probably looking into a scheme to manage a constitutional “get around.”

    Let’s see; get rid of Cackling Kamala as the VP candidate in 2024 elections and replace her? him? it? ( sorry, I am not a biologist, so I do not know Cackling Kamala’s gender) with barry HUSSEIN ocommie.

    If Bidet / Ocommie prevail, Bidet will resign as president after a short spell, and bingo, we have president Ocommie all over again.

    Or, more likely, ocommie remains as the official VP – which is totally legal and constitutional – except for all intents and purposes, he makes all the decisions for “president” bidet.

    If this were to occur, it would be interesting to see bidet’s behavior; even with his senility and incompetence he might take umbrage over his second fiddle status.

    Anyway, don’t think the demonkrats are just waiting peacefully to get their ass kicked in the next election. You can bet they are looking at every angle, legal or otherwise (mostly otherwise) to retain power.
    That’s their MO.

    As far as joke bidet left wandering the venue all by his lonesome during ocommie’s visit; tough shite. He can go ………

  9. Barry,

    I think it was “a clif bar.”

    When I wake up in the morning, frequently one can hear a gentle sporadic rain fall. Except it isn’t raining. The blowing fog is getting strained through the pine needles and leaves and it drips onto the ground. And many of the trees have clumps of hanging lichen that live off that moisture.

    I love it when settled science gets blown up, even if it is just a little bit. I wonder how the DNA gurus missed this.

  10. Moscow’s patriarch is a long-time Putin associate and KGB agent, many have believed, since long before the current war.

  11. TommyJay, thanks much.
    I guess I’ll have to try some a’ that next time I’m in the ‘hood. (Brown lichens that is…probably have to have bring a salt shaker handy….)
    – – – – – – – – –
    “…not a biologist…”
    Indeed, this stuff is soooo confusing.
    I would suggest that if Harris (or anyone else) has trouble with the issue, Willie Brown could always be consulted, respectfully of course (it is, after all, a fact-finding mission). He would probably be able to help out here.
    OTOH, if he plays coy, this gentleman gives the impression that he would be more than ready to help:
    https://twitter.com/i/status/1510712048392544266

  12. You want to know how it will be
    Me and her or you and me
    You both sit there with your long hair flowing
    Your eyes alive, your minds are still growing
    Saying to me what can we do now that we
    Both love you — I love you too
    But I don’t really see, why can’t we go on as three

    –Jefferson Airplane, “Triad”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L2NuyYn3nNg

  13. I think the Democrats can gain the co-operation of troublesome Republicans for their cr!ppy schemes, but installing someone who is constitutionally ineligible to run for president in the vice presidency may be a bridge too far. And their have to inveigle, manipulate, or intimidate Harris into resigning first. Tall, tall orders.

  14. Andrea Widburg at American Thinker posits that if Obama is appointed as VP and then Joe ‘retires’ Barry would ascend for his third term.

    What about Kamala?

    1. Have the Democrat establishment remove Kamala Harris from office, whether through threats or bribes.

    Wonder what those threats and/or bribes would look like?

  15. Art Deco,

    Easy peasy–they’ll buy Veep Throat off like they did with Bernie Sanders.

  16. I’m halfway through David Mamet’s new book on Free Speech. I bought it on AMZN. But I can’t post a review of the book on AMZN because I got banned for not agreeing with the CAGW scam.

  17. but installing someone who is constitutionally ineligible to run for president in the vice presidency may be a bridge too far.

    I mean, I can only imagine that the Constitutionality of a former president who ran out both his full terms, who is then appointed Vice President and then raised to the Presidency would be hugely debatable to say the least. I know the Dems are getting increasingly desperate, so it’s probably far from impossible that such a convoluted scheme may be floated, but I’m more than a little skeptical that it would actually sucede.

  18. Moscow’s patriarch is a long-time Putin associate and KGB agent, many have believed, since long before the current war.

    1. Define ‘Putin associate’.

    2. It’s a reasonable supposition he was considered ‘reliable’ as he was permitted to travel abroad as early as 1971 and elevated to the episcopacy about a half-dozen years after his ordination.

    3. Well, a great many American clergymen are ‘reliable’ in the sense that they’ll never challenge the régime in any way and conceive of their function as selling the régime to manipulable and perturbed parishioners (and driving away dissidents with leadership qualities). We live in a decadent era, and one indicator of that is that most clergymen are sh!ts and losers and most parishioners are content with sh!ts and losers. They’re not employed by the security state, just doing what comes naturally to them.

    4. I’d be willing to wager that Kiril’s sermons are less offensive to C.S. Lewis’ mere Christian than are those of whichever clown presides of the Episcopal Church in the United States.

  19. Easy peasy–they’ll buy Veep Throat off like they did with Bernie Sanders.

    How did they buy off Bernie Sanders?

    As far as I can tell, about 60% of the pledged delegates had been chosen before he left the race.

  20. Recently I’ve been trying to understand mushroom reproduction — just the fungus part of lichen story — and it’s a bit to wrap my head around.

    It seems the mushroom, when it’s fully mature, releases spores from its gill cap, and then the mushroom, its life mission accomplished, begins to die.

    Meanwhile the spores organize themselves into same gender spore groups — sometimes called male/female, other times just “+” and “-“. A group is called a hypha.

    When a Mommy hypha and a Daddy hypha are compatible and love each other very much, they grow mycelium together — essentially the root system of the mushroom.

    Later, when the mycelium has fully covered its nutrient source (called “colonizing”) the hyphae sprout “pinheads” which then rapidly bloom into new mushrooms, which finally release new rounds of spores. The circle of life continues.

    At least that’s my current understanding.

  21. “What about Kamala?”
    I could be way off base here, but she strikes me as a team player; as someone who’d be more than willing to lie back and take one for the team.
    As they say, “She who has the last cackle, cackles best.”
    – – – – – – – –
    “I’m more than a little skeptical that it would actually sucede.”

    Might THAT be the reason why the current (non-biologist) nominee for SCOTUS MUST BE CONFIRMED ASAP?

    (If so, Romney, Collins and Murkowsky would have a whole lot of explaining to do….)

  22. huxley–

    What happens if either the Mommy hypha or the Daddy hypha suffers from gender dysphoria and decides to transition? Will the mycelium have two Mommies or two Daddies? (Not gonna ask whether “colonizing” is still an acceptable term to Woke mushroom growers.)

  23. Might THAT be the reason why the current (non-biologist) nominee for SCOTUS MUST BE CONFIRMED ASAP?

    I know you’re being somewhat facetious, but the whether or not a certain non-biologist ascends to the highest court in the land isn’t really going to change the status quo since it’s just replacing a liberal with another liberal.

  24. I suppose you’re right; but I’m not sure she’d define herself as a liberal, exactly—What’s a liberal? I don’t know, I’m not a political scientist…?—but I’m almost positive that the tenor of the Court would change utterly and not for the better. IOW, the new Justice would use her position to batter, mock and ridicule her ideological opponents mercilessly… Hope I’m wrong.
    – – – – –
    I was also wondering whether woke types will have to stop eating mushrooms now that the news is out…

    But I found the whole mushroom explanation fascinating (thanks, Huxley!). It guess it explains mushroom rings, though I can’t figure out why those rings don’t seem to fill in with brother and sister mushrooms (though I suppose maybe they do).

    What I can’t for the life of me figure out is why any self-respecting alga would want to have anything to do with a relationship like that…

  25. Art Deco: “4. I’d be willing to wager that Kiril’s sermons are less offensive to C.S. Lewis’ mere Christian than are those of whichever clown presides of the Episcopal Church in the United States.” You’re setting the bar awfully low.

    From Kirill’s sermon: “Only Russians are capable of sacrificing themselves to save humanity, just like Jesus did.”

  26. Yawrate on April 6, 2022 at 2:40 pm and later, and others:
    I am confused on one point. If Harris resigns the VPship, and Biden selects Obama as her replacement, with a current 50-50 Senate, who breaks the (presumed) tie vote? There is no Harris as VP to do so.
    I think the same issue applies if Biden resigns, Harris becomes POTUS (ugh!), and she then selects Obama as the replacement VP.

    Am I forgetting something or misunderstanding something? This is intended to happen before any senate changes after the Nov. 2022 elections, right?

  27. You’re setting the bar awfully low.

    Well, your principal mainline denominations in this country are the United Methodist Church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, the Presbyterian Church (USA), the Episcopal Church, the American Baptist Churches, and the United Church of Christ. I’m going to wager a fair survey would reveal the United Methodist Church and the American Baptist Churches are not as far gone as the remainder.

  28. Is it that all lichens are trios? Strange. I like seeing lichens out on hikes.

  29. Interesting factoid about Lichens. Given the results of a simulation it appears some lichens could survive on the surface of mars.

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