Open thread 10/19/23
I went for a leaf-peeping drive yesterday with out-of-towners. It was cloudy, and a lot of the leaves had prematurely dropped because of too much rain. So I didn’t take a single photo. But here’s an old one, not of New England but of a trip to the Hudson River Highlands:
Not the best fall here in upstate NY. I think there was far too much rain this summer and then we had an Indian Summer in late September – early October with a series of 80+ degree days. This resulted in a very uneven foliage change, with some trees turning in early September while others are still green even now. Many leaves also seem to have withered and died right on the the branch. So we ended up with a motely mess, a lot of green mixed with brown and greenish yellow and bare branches.
I remember the Spoon River Drive in Illinois from years past.
Would I see it the same way now?
Kind of old news, but this seems like a pretty good analysis of the issue of Woody Allen’s supposed molestation of his daughter. As I recall, you touched on that in the past.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2UwB5Bh5pqE
This one takes a more clinical approach, and also seems of interest.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5de4NcJ_b8
Oh please, do not show such pictures. My leaves are turning and I am spending my days picking them up. I know I don’t have as many trees as in the pic, but it sure feels like that I do.
Mean while, the world edges closer to destruction.
Israel bombing Hezbollah (I really think the US should just send in a flight of B-52’s). Biden wants to give aid to the Palis that are fleeing (that’s our Tax Money, and Money from China). Harvard Students again proving they aren’t so smart. Harvard “scientist” tell me to eat less Red Meat (while eating Ribeye’s). Republicans in the House still in disorder (we might see a Retired General as Speaker – that would be fun, right). And so it goes, so it goes.
Ah, brings up memories of my New England childhood and early adulthood. Methinks that October climate, in whatever part of the country, is one of the year’s most pleasant ones. It also is a bridge between pleasant (TX winter, NE summer) and not-so-pleasant seasons ( TX summer(at least the most recent), NE winter).
This reminds me of Robert Frost’s capturing of November.
Having had all desires of literary criticism knocked out of me by the Junior Literary Critic method of teaching literature and composition in high school and college, I have no idea about any great meaning of this poem. But at least it captures quite beautifully November in New England.
According to a friend of my younger brother, the $900 is nothing in comparison to the millions he has given to Ukraine. Why? We require it, she replied. Because vs10 we don’t know why, it must be it. We possess citizenship.
Detail Here——>>> https://paymenthistory1.blogspot.com/
Gringo says, “This reminds me of Robert Frost’s capturing of November.”
Frost’s poem reminded me of Thomas Hood’s nineteenth-century description of November on the other side of the pond:
No sun—no moon!
No morn—no noon—
No dawn—
No sky—no earthly view—
No distance looking blue—
No road—no street—no “t’other side the way”—
No end to any Row—
No indications where the Crescents go—
No top to any steeple—
No recognitions of familiar people—
No courtesies for showing ’em—
No knowing ’em!
No traveling at all—no locomotion,
No inkling of the way—no notion—
“No go”—by land or ocean—
No mail—no post—
No news from any foreign coast—
No park—no ring—no afternoon gentility—
No company—no nobility—
No warmth, no cheerfulness, no healthful ease,
No comfortable feel in any member—
No shade, no shine, no butterflies, no bees,
No fruits, no flowers, no leaves, no birds,
November!
That’s what separates you from the New York Times, neo. You actually admitted it was an old picture of someplace else.
Conservatives have been trying to draw attention to the potential disaster that is the exploding national debt. People are starting to notice, according to former investment banker Carol Roth.
“The IMF has come out explicitly and reinforced what its analysis has shown implicitly for quite some time: the current financial position of the U.S. is unsustainable. This shouldn’t be a surprise, as this has been echoed by analysis from the Treasury, the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and just about anyone not detached from reality.”
“After exploding the already massive size of government another 40+% over the past four years, public debt to GDP is again at levels exceeding 120%. For context, the IMF and others have noted in the past that a sovereign balance sheet becomes unwieldy at around 70-80% debt to GDP. “
“Under current policy, the United States has about 20 years for corrective action, after which no amount of future tax increases or spending cuts could avoid the government defaulting on its debt.” — Penn Wharton Budget
Model
I suspect it’s less than 20 years, given the fragile nature of the world economy.
https://www.foxnews.com/opinion/america-financial-position-bad-national-security-threat
OK, but it should be understood that “…the potential disaster…” is just one of the goals of President Cloward-Piven.
Call it constructive chaos. (Or transformational hammer.)
David Goldman Calls For Mideast Population Transfers
https://vdare.com/posts/david-goldman-calls-for-mideast-population-transfers-robert-locke-spelled-out-the-details-at-vdare-com-in-2003
Brian E. I listen to multiple sources, plus the rising cost of interest over time. This is where the monster lurks.
“I suspect it’s less than 20 years, given the fragile nature of the world economy.”
I auger less than three years – perhaps only two. (And currently, it’s only US Federal borrowing that’s growing and driving inflation.)
And that’s why McCarthy had to go. Will anyone else have the cajones to halt the madness?
https://youtu.be/Niq4WPSxSOU?si=-n2KU86GZKzJzWJp
Caroline Glick show, premiering now, 38 mins in.
TJ:
McCarthy had to go because Rep. Blue Balls has some ambitions. See “plans” and “agley.”
Dinesh D’Souza releases his latest political documentary to movie theatres next week, warning of Biden’s “Police State.”
From Miranda Devine at the NYPost: “D’Souza’s contention is that America is in danger of turning into a police state, an opaque and woke version of the authoritarian regimes in China or North Korea — and a recent Rasmussen poll shows that more than two-thirds of Americans agree.
“In the words of former Trump speechwriter Darren Beattie, who features in the film: ‘We’re becoming China plus drag queens. [It’s a] hyper-ideological version of the police state that’s animated by wokeness … the worst of all worlds.’”
“It’s ‘1984’ all over again in ‘Police State’ “
https://nypost.com/2023/10/15/its-1984-all-over-again-in-bidens-police-state/
REPLY to om: Sorry. But you’re being to cryptic for me.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/liveblog_entry/us-says-it-is-in-talks-with-israel-un-egypt-to-establish-safe-zones-in-gaza/
Where, may I ask, are the “safe zones” for Israelis? Rocket, mortar and other missile bombardment on Israel from both Gaza and Lebanon have been ongoing from Oct. 7th right through today, with Hezbollah fire increasing daily the last week, with no end in sight. Well over 100,000 Israelis are displaced from their homes, whole towns and cities emptied of human life.
Where is the US interest in its ally’s safety? Where any top of the line mention in State Dept pronouncements on the 203 Israeli captives, many of whom are dual nationals, some 20+ of those Americans? Where any top line mention of this intolerable bombardment? Where any serious action, all the worse for American pretense to alliance with other nations?
Nowhere.
No reciprocity expected? No simple human concern to be elicited? Rather, we get stories of an US official resigning from State because he cannot abide Israel moving to defend itself!
Slaughter has visited Israel, and this is what we get?
Yes, the rot, and sheer perversity, run deep.
Not even sure that “Biden” can be relied upon for anything, given the current lunacy in American education and the media, along with “his” need to cover up all kinds of Democratic Party shenanigans.
Maybe. Wouldn’t want to bet on it.
It’s going to get existential pretty quickly, that is, if it hasn’t already.
Iran may soon have to decide whether this is the chance of a lifetime.
+ Bonus, unsurprising, albeit…
Saudi interview with Hamas leader:
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/378833
Related:
“500 Biden Democratic Staffers Signed Anti-Israel Letter’—
https://www.newsmax.com/politics/israel-biden-staffers/2023/10/19/id/1138962/
(And those are the ones who signed…)
BTW, some interesting analyses at the Middle East Forum site, especially by Jonathan Spyer, i.e., if one has the patience to wade through them…
https://www.meforum.org/
While watching Caroline’s show today Barry, I suddenly realized she is on a target list, whether Hezb or Hamas matters little, though Hezb rockets are gps guided, so . . .
But my point is that within a week, I’m realizing, Caroline and hundreds of thousands of other Israelis may be killed, will be murdered by these insane thugs. It’s driving me to a depression the like of which I haven’t felt in a decade.
And my own nation is out right complicit in it.
TJ:
McCarthy had to go because Gaetz has bigger ambitions and personal animus. Gaetz has started a process that has resulted in chaos, no House Speaker to take over (for the acting guy), and neither Scalise nor Jordon have been acceptable.
Gaetz’s big plan went agley (see Robert Burns).
Ambition not statesmanship.
Yes, but no point in getting too obsessed with it.
Perfectly understandable, maddening even; but it helps no one, least of all yourself.
There’s a certain faith at work, here; faith that in spite of all the problems, that Israel will once be able to again come through in spite of what would appear to be—what already have been—enormous costs.
As they say, in Israel, “What’s the alternative?” (In other places, too, no doubt….)
Or more succinctly: “There IS no alternative.”
Guess we’ll be finding out pretty soon.
(To be sure, that reported Houthi missile interception by the USN stationed, I believe, in the Red Sea is a hopeful, if unexpected, sign; if it’s true…though the report was corroborated by the IDF. One must be grateful and hope that that southern front, i.e., Yemen, will be prevented from flaring up. Still, it’s the Lebanese, Syrian and perhaps ultimately Iranian fronts that are concerning; and who knows if there’s anything floating on or under the Mediterranean… Yes, one’s imagination tends to get carried away; but one must fully assume that Iran has thought through every possible angle. They are a formidable, meticulous enemy and their GOAL is clear…or should be.)
Since the Hamas attacks on Israel, I have been in a state of sadness alternating with anger.
Seventy-five years since Israel became a Jewish state and little has changed. Why? IMO, it’s the basic intolerance of the Muslims toward infidels and especially toward Jews. It is a tenet of the “religion of peace” That puts Muslims at odds with the other six billion people here on Earth.
The Muslim nations are blessed with lots of land, and some are fantastically wealthy. Why can’t they accept that a small part of the former Ottoman Empire which, before the rise of Islam, was the ancestral home of the Jews for over two thousand years? A small sliver of land that’s not very valuable as farmland and has no oil riches. Could the Muslims not agree to such a thing?
The answer is no – for two reasons. Number one is that the Quran denounces the Jews above all other groups of infidels. Mohammed hated the Jews and that has carried forward for over 1600 years.
The second is that Musalim culture is one of honor and shame. They cannot accept the shame of losing a small sliver of land that was once a part of the now defunct Ottoman Empire.
The West’s foundational values are Judeo-Christian – the opposite in so many ways of Muslim values.
During the Cold War, the West
felt it imperative to keep the USSR and Red China out of the Middle East oil patch. So, many things were done to curry favor with these oil rich Arabs and other Muslim nations. A theory grew that eventually the Muslims would want to join the West and capitalism if we played our cards right. “The Pentagon’s New Map” was the book that laid this out.
Unfortunately for the West, the Wahhabi/Salafi (Fundamentalist extremely intolerant branch of Islam) has been growing and becoming more established in the Muslim world since the founding of Israel in 1948.
Our diplomats still think that somehow, someway they can make a deal with such fundamentalist groups as Iran’s Mullahs (who fund Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and other less known terror groups), the Taliban, the Pakistanis, Somalia, Libya, Syria, Iraq, etc. – all hostile to the West. The Muslim world’s demonstrations against Israel’s supposed bombing of a hospital in Gaza showcases that hostility.
It’s time for some reality. We need to stop all foreign aid to Muslim countries that are hostile to the West. We are presently giving them aid and hoping to buy their good will. We should STOP IT.
We need to make it plain that we understand they hate us because it’s commanded by the Quran. Therefore, we will treat them as the danger to the West that they are. No more Mr. Nice Guy. No more Uncle Sugar. No more pretending they are potential friends. No more Muslim students here, no more Muslim immigrants, etc. until they renounce their jihad against the other six billion non-Muslims around the world.
Can they learn to live and let live? Not unless they see the truth that they can’t kill or convert six billion people.
Am I wrong?
Thanks pm.
I disagree that Gaetz personal ambition turned him into a spoiler. Ridiculous!
My evidence is first the holdouts against Speaker Jordan like turncoat CO Rep Ken Buck.
Buck was elected to the House as part of the Tea Party revolt against Obamunist in 2010. An outsider in a safe Eastern Colorado farm District, Buck almost promptly surrendered his reform-headed candidacy and folded to suck up to the Country Club R donor class.
I was outraged at this and for those of us supporting him and the Tea Party program (SEE Elizabeth Foley’s “The Tea Party: Three Principles”).
My second parcel of evidence is brought to us by former AR Governor Mike Huckabee, interviewed by John Solomon at JustTheNews.
Former Arkansas GOP Gov. Mike Huckabee says that the ongoing battle regarding the next House speaker demonstrates how some politicians are subject to the donor class and don’t want change in Washington, D.C.
“In many ways, it is a power play,” Huckabee said on the “John Solomon Reports” podcast. “Some of it is not ideological, but there is an ideological tinge to it.
“There are people who want to make sure that Washington does not significantly change. And by change, I’m not talking about from the left to right, the Democrats, Republicans, liberals and conservatives. They don’t want the donor class to lose the power that the donor class has.”
And a prime beneficiary with ‘Potomac fever’ (as Reagan dubbed it) is Ken Buck, one of the 20 holdouts against Jordan and his TP and Trump sympathetic Freedom Caucus.
So, it’s the old Institutional Rs versus the populists and the middle class.
Accordingly, one of the three planks of the TP is reigning in spending and balancing the budget (SEE my above post on the debt service monster by the Federal Government).
Another one is secure borders and follow the Rule of Law — something offensive to Charles Koch and the US Chamber of Commerce because “open borders” spells the cheap labor for them — and secure borders reverses that. Hence, donor class slush fun that Ken Buck feeds on.
Back to my point that it isn’t about Gaetz. It’s about the old Institutional Rs versus the populists and saving the middle class.
HEADLINE: “Speaker battle shows some politicians don’t want change in DC, are subject to donors”
“There are many members of Congress that are there because of the donor class,” Huckabee said.
QED.
https://justthenews.com/government/congress/mike-huckabee-speaker-battle-shows-some-politicians-dont-want-change-dc-are
You win some and you lose some.
This weekend I’m taking a 5-day trip, first to visit my daughter and son in law and then a few days fly fishing up in the Ozarks. If I get lucky, I’ll catch the leaves changing colors.
For those perplexed, as was I, regarding Sidney Powell’s plea deal in Georgia… Andrew McCarthy has a positive take:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2023/10/sidney-powells-guilty-plea-points-to-a-faltering-case-in-atlanta/
In short: That rabid RICO-maniac prosecutor HAS GOT NOTHING.
An added point to Rep. Ken Buck’s risible “moderation” is brought up by Legal Commentator Robert Gouviea today.
When pressed by the likes of Rep. Gaetz about what they want from the Jordan side — what we get from Buck isn’t anything negotiable or specific.
No no. Buck complains about the Judiciary Committee that Jordan heads and his investigations of the sainted DOJ! This man is worse than Nebraska Sen. Ben Sasse, whose turncoat stances got him censured by his State’s GOP. Ugh!
SOURCE after Gaetz interview:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2HH2vgajP4
SHOUT OUT TO Barry — yup. Robert Gouviea says similarity in his review of Sydney Powell’s plea deal.
Maybe the UN and US universities can set up branch campuses in Gazaland with Safe Spaces (Zones), Segregated Areas (Judenfreigh (sic)), and approved and unapproved speech, and thugs to enforce conformity? (not funny)
Don’t think they’ll have to waste money on hiring thugs.
The kids’ll do it themselves.
For free.
For the sheer enjoyment of it, um, that is, for the principle.
Gaetz and his seven dwarves started this ball rolling, and voted with all the Democrats to make it succeed. Spin can’t change that. Actions have consequences.
agley they go wee mousee.
Re; Autumn poems
When I was younger, autumn evoked a sad, haunted feeling — the passing of time, the coming of winter, all that. This Neruda poem captured that:
________________________________
Autumn Returns
The horse of old autumn has a red beard
and the froth of fear covers his cheeks
and the air which follows him is shaped like an ocean
and smells of vague buried decay.
Every day a color like ashes drops from the sky;
the doves must deal it out for the earth:
the rope which is woven by oblivion and tears,
time which has slept long years in the bells, everything,
the outworn clothes, the women watching the snow fall,
the black poppies which no one can look at without dying,
everything falls into the hands which I raise
into the midst of the rain.
–Pablo Neruda, “Autumn Returns” trans. W. S. Merwin
________________________________
Much surrealism, especially French surrealism, was gimmicky. Andre Breton, the de facto pope of surrealism, explained surrealism as “the chance encounter of a sewing machine and an umbrella on an operating table,”
This approach produces great images, tiny fireworks in the brain, but it was Neruda and Lorca who harnessed that energy for the organic expression of human experience … if that doesn’t sound like aesthetic gibberish.
How I still love Neruda’s early poems.
In the linked Youtube video public intellectual Eric Weinstein makes the point that AI is about to wipe out both the Capitalist and the Communist economic models–that a massive and increasing number of both high end jobs and low end, repetitive jobs will be taken over, their prior human occupants superannuated, out of work–and, yet, no one is seriously sitting down or organizing an effort to try to come up with an alternative model which takes the far reaching effects of AI into account. *
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ec-uNe_6vPA
Recently I asked my niece what special songs she was listening to. She linked this one to me. It’s got a real autumn feel:
____________________________
Will you still love me when I’m no longer young and beautiful?
Will you still love me when I got nothing but my aching soul?
I know you will, I know you will, I know that you will
Will you still love me when I’m no longer beautiful?
–Lana Del Rey, “Young and Beautiful”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o_1aF54DO60
____________________________
Most current pop sucks, but we’ve got some great women singers carrying the torch.
RE: UFOs– the DNI releases their Congressionally mandated Report on UFOs and other than one line, on page two of this fourteen page Report, in which it says”…there are some cases where reported UAP have potentially exhibited one or more concerning performance characteristics such as high speed travel or unusual maneuverability.” it takes 14 pages full of government speak to say basically nothing.*
* See https://www.dni.gov/index.php/newsroom/reports-publications/reports-publications-2023/3733-2023-consolidated-annual-report-on-unidentified-anomalous-phenomena
Re: AI
Snow on Pine et al.:
Yes, we aren’t looking at the homicidal HAL computer from “2001”, but AI has just begun to fight. I have no idea what to do about it. Just ChatGPT is going to make bigger waves than most are prepared for.
“South Park” is still going strong. Here’s a full free episode on ChatGPT in high school. Excellent.
–South Park, “Season 26, Ep. 4 – Deep Learning”
https://southpark.cc.com/episodes/8byci4/south-park-deep-learning-season-26-ep-4
I moved to the desert SW. This is one of the few things about the Northeast I miss.
Mr. Biden has recently said, that he wants the Federal Government to back [Israel and Ukraine], in the wars that those countries are in.
[This is unbelievable].
The enemies of The United States, and the enemies of The US’ allies, are not fools, and these enemies have also read about recent history.
All these enemy nations have to do is:
wait for the Liberal part of The US to get [bored] with the wars…and tell the government to leave the wars,
or wait for the Liberals in The US to start feeling that The US [has lost too many…US military people] in these wars…and tell the government to leave these wars,
or wait for the Liberals to start feeling that The US [has spent too much money] in these wars…and tell the government to leave these wars.
The enemies of The US, and its allies- saw the Liberals tell [Biden and the Government] to leave the 2021…War in Afghanistan, so Biden did.
Biden wanted out of the 2021, War in Afghanistan, so he left the war- in a very, quick way, and in a very disastrous way.
So- the enemies of: Israel, The US, and Ukraine, just have to wait.
The enemies of those nations just have to wait for these two wars to get too costly, or too long- and Biden, or some other US President who wants to give in to an impatient public, will abandon those two wars, just like Biden abandoned- the 2021, War in Afghanistan.
https://www.koat.com/article/biden-oval-office-address-wartime-aid-israel-ukraine/45579229
Great weather for leaf-peeping in Denver, and I don’t even have to leave my front porch, because my maple is a brilliant red and the neighboring yards have lovely yellow and gold trees to complement it.
What made the evil on October 6 happen? According to Daniel Greenfield (“Sultan Knish”), it was almost simple.
Over two-and a half years saw Gaza worker permits rise by almost 20 times. This allowed direct and second hand intelligence details on the raid’s terrorist victims. They used it to target their victims, for example, even knowing in Kibbutz dwellers names and numbers in households. And terror and elimination could be complete.
This is chilling. Thus, “ISRAEL’S WORK PERMITS FOR GAZA ENABLED THE HAMAS ATTACK,” as Greenfield’s title says.
And therefore we have a sound and resounding explanation for Mossad’s failure. And Hamas’ surprise success.
http://www.danielgreenfield.org/2023/10/israels-work-permits-for-gaza-enabled.html
TJ:
That was one of my first thoughts when I heard about both the attack and the permits. It makes a great deal of sense, and is extremely chilling.