“The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around.
I’m never sure. Are you?” – Ogden Nash
Something you don’t see every day: India has a camel-mounted regiment in its Border Security Force that marches every year in the annual Republic Day parade. The regiment is followed by the Camel Band, “a creative and innovative way of presenting martial music.” These Indian camels must have the strength and patience of Job to march along in elaborate trappings as well as carrying humans on their backs playing everything from drums and trumpets to clarinets and cymbals (no glockenspiels, though):
Bactrian camels have two humps and are from Mongolia.
Niether are to be confused with halfalumps, that’s another story.
First vote in the House fails to elect McCarthy. I hope that, having made this statement, a few of the dissenters will change their votes in his favor so Republicans can get this show on the road.
Kate,
More failure. I would like someone else but there is reality and that is the crux of it. It is like booing your own quarterback. How does that help?
It’s interesting that the ancestor of camels evolved in North America 40-50 million years ago, but none of its decendends are currently found here. They’re only found in Asia (Dromedarys and Bactrians) and South America (Llamas, Guanacos, Alpacas, and Vicunas).
It’s generally agreed that Camels got to Asia over the bering strait land bridge somewhere around 7.5 to 6 million years ago. But what’s odd is that that period was evidently a much warmer era, so it’s assumed that sea levels would’ve too high for the land bridge to exist. Unless there was some sort of brief cold period or something?
Nonapod:
They say there was a land bridge.
I rode on a Camel once, in Mongolia. Being a Navy guy I fully understood why they are called the Ship of the Desert.
When in Egypt we saw mounted Police around the Pyramids. They were very aggressive, riding with a great many tourist around. Saw them corner a peddler for some reason.
Yeah, I know. But the land bridge (Beringia) only exists when sea levels are pretty low, as in during periods of heavy glaciation. But 7.5 to 6 million years ago was not an Ice Age, and in fact was actually a bit warmer than even today I believe. But I guess there must’ve been a glaciation at some point during that time frame to account for the lower sea levels needed for the land bridge.
Regarding McCarthy, You reap what you sow. The last “moderate” Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan, relied on Democrat votes to pass a pork laden omnibus Spending bill. McCarthy is not Ryan but he was Ryan’s majority leader. That being said, there is no viable alternative. I believe McCarthy has conceded on the motion to vacate rule. It would be useful to learn what concessions have been offered. I know the rebels were trying to get regular order so individual bills are passed through the committee process instead of by edict from the speaker.
Just another off-topic, open-thread comment about something I read.
Arnold Kling recently wrote a post about Lorenzo Warby’s essay entitled “Social justice as social leverage.” Warby’s essay was the first in a series of twenty-six. Two have already been published. I’ve taken a look at the essays’ titles and their basic thesis, and I’d guess that many of them would be of interest to those who read Neo’s blog. I plan to keep an eye open for the publication of the remaining essays.
So … here’s a list of the essays and their thesis. As a group, the essays are called “Worshiping the future: the spiraling catastrophe of transformative politics.”
“The basic thesis is that we are dealing far less with a set of ideas—these keep evolving and shifting—than a set of status-and-social-leverage strategies. Seeing the proponents as holding to a set of ideals with which compromise is possible—so they can be mollified by various concessions—feeds the strategy.
It is only if the status and social leverage strategies are rendered dysfunctional that processes of ‘wokification’ can be halted or reversed. These essays will explore those strategies, and the mechanisms that make them effective, allowing readers to see how to respond usefully.”
And, finally, here are the essays’ titles:
Essay 1: Social justice as social leverage
Essay 2: Why does anyone believe in Marxism?
Essay 3: Class and the state
Essay 4: The Paradox of polities
Essay 5: The deep appeal of Marxism
Essay 6: Updating the template
Essay 7: Gaming consciousness
Essay 8: Feminisation has consequences
Essay 9: A better future versus the transformational future
Essay 10: Creating social dysfunction
Essay 11: The social-imperial state
Essay 12: Migration as social-imperial project
Essay 13: A crusading clerisy
Essay 14: The Transcult
Essay 15: Winning through social dysfunction
Essay 16: The triple attack on democracy
Essay 17: The Revolt of the Somewheres
Essay 18: Delusions of technocracy
Essay 19: A new convergence
Essay 20: Vanguard capital
Essay 21: Taking away achievement
Essay 22: Lack of character, avoiding reality, selecting for approval
Essay 23: An imperial ideology of aggression and cruelty
Essay 24: Pandemic responses and the colonising of fragility
Essay 25: Marxism as original sin
Essay 26: Action plan
I’m not even sure where here is, but it looks bad!
@ Brian > That’s the most frightening Venn Diagram I’ve ever seen.
As it’s coming from Elon Musk, I wonder what’s left in the Twitter Files that he’s aware of, and when / if he will release it.
What does the Middle East and Texas have in common? “Not much,” one might assume, but, in the middle of the 19th century, both areas were home to camels. In 1856, 34 camels arrived via boat at the port in Indianola, Texas. The camels came from such areas as Malta, Greece, Turkey, and Egypt, and were part of an experiment by the United States Army called The United States Camel Corps.
The idea was to use the camels as pack animals in the southwestern portions of the United States – an area that was largely undeveloped and desert terrain. The camels were settled at Camp Verde (in Kerr County), where military officials hoped to begin a breeding program. Alas, while the U.S. Army had some success using the camels in extended surveys in the Southwest, it was rough-going. The camels did not get along with the Army’s horses and mules, which would bolt out of fear when they smelled a camel. The soldiers found the camels difficult to handle and they couldn’t stand the smell of the animals either.
…
The camels excelled at certain aspects of life in Texas though. The camels were content eating the scrub and prickly plants found along the trails in west Texas. They could travel thirty to forty miles a day, go for eight to 10 days without water, and seemed not the slightest bit bothered by the oppressive climate. At one point, a mule-led expedition became lost and led into an impassable canyon. The ensuing lack of grass and water for over thirty-six hours made the mules frantic. A small scouting party mounted on camels was sent out to find a trail. They found a river some 20 miles away and led the expedition to it, literally saving the lives of both men and beasts. From then on, the camels were used to find all watering holes.
…
The Civil War largely put an end to the Army’s use of camels in Texas. While, early in the Civil War, an attempt was made to use the camels to carry mail between Fort Mohave, New Mexico Territory, on the Colorado River and New San Pedro, California, the attempt was unsuccessful after the commanders of both posts objected.
When Union troops reoccupied Camp Verde, there were estimated to be more than a hundred camels at the camp, but there may have been others roaming the countryside. In 1866, the U.S. Government was able to round up 66 camels, which it sold in various auctions to circuses throughout the United States and in Mexico.
…
Even though many of the camels from this military project were accounted for and sold at the end of the experiment, it’s widely thought that there are still some who might still roam the barren parts of West Texas and New Mexico. Similar to Chupacabra and Sasquatch, many claim to have seen them. Have you?
There are two things that distinguish this series from a TV soap opera:
(1) the substance is deadly serious, and effects real people with real consequences;
(2) no writer would pitch such a bizarre concatenation of events to any producers for fear of being laughed out of the room.
Great post, AF.
Now we don’t have to get all frantic if we come across a camel in Death Valley, etc….
(Quibble alert: Alas, you somehow neglected to mention one of the camel’s most important functions…” https://camelicious.ae/product-category/premium-camel-milk-ice-cream/ )
– – – – – – – – –
“Another episode of The Twitter Files has dropped.”
Can someone—anyone!—help out here on the timeline?
Clearly, the FBI and the State Department (or elements of them)—and other alphabet agencies?—were in on this before the 2020 elections, IOW, while Trump was still president.
We know “where” Wray was; but where was Pompeo? Where was Barr? Etc.
Was/is the Deep State so HUGE, so VAST—and, more importantly, so effectively COMPARTMENTALIZED—that it was/is able to run a parallel, underground government that no one not “in the know” is supposed to even know about?
(Reminds one of those gigantic ant-colonies that purportedly tunnel under most of Europe—and who knows where else….)
Would seem that if Trump has done nothing else—and he has, of course—then exposing these goons, if not the totality of their extensive reach, has been a tremendous service to the country.
Another question: Why didn’t the CIA or any other of the other alphabet agencies not create a dummy company to buy Twitter instead of allowing Musk to buy it, knowing (or suspecting) what might happen if the information somehow got out?
Unless, of course, they never thought it would get out…or believed that the deal would never go through…or assume that their confederates within the company, e.g., Baker, would be able to prevent any and all leaks.
To be sure, they’re all playing “Nothing to see here, etc.” but surely they must be sweating, even if just a bit…
One thing seems, unfortunately, to be certain: The Democrats are back in charge; which means, “in charge” of what seems to be a Deep State that is fundamentally THEIRS…
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Thanks, neo.
“The camel has a single hump;
The dromedary, two;
Or else the other way around.
I’m never sure. Are you?” – Ogden Nash
Something you don’t see every day: India has a camel-mounted regiment in its Border Security Force that marches every year in the annual Republic Day parade. The regiment is followed by the Camel Band, “a creative and innovative way of presenting martial music.” These Indian camels must have the strength and patience of Job to march along in elaborate trappings as well as carrying humans on their backs playing everything from drums and trumpets to clarinets and cymbals (no glockenspiels, though):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0m_TvuUkwhQ&ab_channel=WildFilmsIndia
Ogden was indeed confused.
Dromedary camel has one hump and is from Arabia.
Bactrian camels have two humps and are from Mongolia.
Niether are to be confused with halfalumps, that’s another story.
First vote in the House fails to elect McCarthy. I hope that, having made this statement, a few of the dissenters will change their votes in his favor so Republicans can get this show on the road.
Kate,
More failure. I would like someone else but there is reality and that is the crux of it. It is like booing your own quarterback. How does that help?
It’s interesting that the ancestor of camels evolved in North America 40-50 million years ago, but none of its decendends are currently found here. They’re only found in Asia (Dromedarys and Bactrians) and South America (Llamas, Guanacos, Alpacas, and Vicunas).
It’s generally agreed that Camels got to Asia over the bering strait land bridge somewhere around 7.5 to 6 million years ago. But what’s odd is that that period was evidently a much warmer era, so it’s assumed that sea levels would’ve too high for the land bridge to exist. Unless there was some sort of brief cold period or something?
Nonapod:
They say there was a land bridge.
I rode on a Camel once, in Mongolia. Being a Navy guy I fully understood why they are called the Ship of the Desert.
When in Egypt we saw mounted Police around the Pyramids. They were very aggressive, riding with a great many tourist around. Saw them corner a peddler for some reason.
Yeah, I know. But the land bridge (Beringia) only exists when sea levels are pretty low, as in during periods of heavy glaciation. But 7.5 to 6 million years ago was not an Ice Age, and in fact was actually a bit warmer than even today I believe. But I guess there must’ve been a glaciation at some point during that time frame to account for the lower sea levels needed for the land bridge.
Regarding McCarthy, You reap what you sow. The last “moderate” Republican House speaker, Paul Ryan, relied on Democrat votes to pass a pork laden omnibus Spending bill. McCarthy is not Ryan but he was Ryan’s majority leader. That being said, there is no viable alternative. I believe McCarthy has conceded on the motion to vacate rule. It would be useful to learn what concessions have been offered. I know the rebels were trying to get regular order so individual bills are passed through the committee process instead of by edict from the speaker.
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2015/12/18/paul-ryan-relied-democrats-pass-omnibus/
Just another off-topic, open-thread comment about something I read.
Arnold Kling recently wrote a post about Lorenzo Warby’s essay entitled “Social justice as social leverage.” Warby’s essay was the first in a series of twenty-six. Two have already been published. I’ve taken a look at the essays’ titles and their basic thesis, and I’d guess that many of them would be of interest to those who read Neo’s blog. I plan to keep an eye open for the publication of the remaining essays.
So … here’s a list of the essays and their thesis. As a group, the essays are called “Worshiping the future: the spiraling catastrophe of transformative politics.”
Here’s a link: https://helendale.substack.com/p/worshipping-the-future
And here’s the thesis:
“The basic thesis is that we are dealing far less with a set of ideas—these keep evolving and shifting—than a set of status-and-social-leverage strategies. Seeing the proponents as holding to a set of ideals with which compromise is possible—so they can be mollified by various concessions—feeds the strategy.
It is only if the status and social leverage strategies are rendered dysfunctional that processes of ‘wokification’ can be halted or reversed. These essays will explore those strategies, and the mechanisms that make them effective, allowing readers to see how to respond usefully.”
And, finally, here are the essays’ titles:
Essay 1: Social justice as social leverage
Essay 2: Why does anyone believe in Marxism?
Essay 3: Class and the state
Essay 4: The Paradox of polities
Essay 5: The deep appeal of Marxism
Essay 6: Updating the template
Essay 7: Gaming consciousness
Essay 8: Feminisation has consequences
Essay 9: A better future versus the transformational future
Essay 10: Creating social dysfunction
Essay 11: The social-imperial state
Essay 12: Migration as social-imperial project
Essay 13: A crusading clerisy
Essay 14: The Transcult
Essay 15: Winning through social dysfunction
Essay 16: The triple attack on democracy
Essay 17: The Revolt of the Somewheres
Essay 18: Delusions of technocracy
Essay 19: A new convergence
Essay 20: Vanguard capital
Essay 21: Taking away achievement
Essay 22: Lack of character, avoiding reality, selecting for approval
Essay 23: An imperial ideology of aggression and cruelty
Essay 24: Pandemic responses and the colonising of fragility
Essay 25: Marxism as original sin
Essay 26: Action plan
I’m not even sure where here is, but it looks bad!
https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1610416059940495363/photo/1
@ Brian > That’s the most frightening Venn Diagram I’ve ever seen.
As it’s coming from Elon Musk, I wonder what’s left in the Twitter Files that he’s aware of, and when / if he will release it.
Texians aren’t afraid to try anything.
https://texashillcountry.com/camel-corps-army-bring-camels-texas/
Another episode of The Twitter Files has dropped.
https://redstate.com/kiradavis/2023/01/03/twitter-files-the-fbi-belly-button-n682899
There are two things that distinguish this series from a TV soap opera:
(1) the substance is deadly serious, and effects real people with real consequences;
(2) no writer would pitch such a bizarre concatenation of events to any producers for fear of being laughed out of the room.
Great post, AF.
Now we don’t have to get all frantic if we come across a camel in Death Valley, etc….
(Quibble alert: Alas, you somehow neglected to mention one of the camel’s most important functions…”
https://camelicious.ae/product-category/premium-camel-milk-ice-cream/ )
– – – – – – – – –
“Another episode of The Twitter Files has dropped.”
Can someone—anyone!—help out here on the timeline?
Clearly, the FBI and the State Department (or elements of them)—and other alphabet agencies?—were in on this before the 2020 elections, IOW, while Trump was still president.
We know “where” Wray was; but where was Pompeo? Where was Barr? Etc.
Was/is the Deep State so HUGE, so VAST—and, more importantly, so effectively COMPARTMENTALIZED—that it was/is able to run a parallel, underground government that no one not “in the know” is supposed to even know about?
(Reminds one of those gigantic ant-colonies that purportedly tunnel under most of Europe—and who knows where else….)
Would seem that if Trump has done nothing else—and he has, of course—then exposing these goons, if not the totality of their extensive reach, has been a tremendous service to the country.
Another question: Why didn’t the CIA or any other of the other alphabet agencies not create a dummy company to buy Twitter instead of allowing Musk to buy it, knowing (or suspecting) what might happen if the information somehow got out?
Unless, of course, they never thought it would get out…or believed that the deal would never go through…or assume that their confederates within the company, e.g., Baker, would be able to prevent any and all leaks.
To be sure, they’re all playing “Nothing to see here, etc.” but surely they must be sweating, even if just a bit…
One thing seems, unfortunately, to be certain: The Democrats are back in charge; which means, “in charge” of what seems to be a Deep State that is fundamentally THEIRS…