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Open thread 11/25/23 — 23 Comments

  1. Double UGH! Several more inches of Snow this morning and weather service says heavy snows all morning. Maybe I will just go back to bed for a week.
    And it is 12 degrees

  2. It’s too bad that Israel has such a wishy-washy ally as the USA.

    The USA will certainly step up to the plate if it appears that there is an existential threat to Israel, but when Israel is forced to respond to terrorist attacks, here comes the USA “suggesting” to Israel that perhaps a cease fire is needed.
    The end result is that Hamas, et. al., are allowed to live.

    True, this time there are hostages that Israel (and almost all Americans , less demokrats, neo-Nazis, and Arab residents in the USA) what returned) has to consider, but even if no hostages were taken, the USA would still “suggest” a cease fire is needed.

    Trump would not be attempting to restrain Israel in any way, I don’t think.

    By the way, it’s interesting to see which “prominent” people – in the have not uttered one word re: the Israel – Hamas war.
    Their silence is deafening.

  3. Borgen, the Danish political series, was prophetic for Americans.

    The “far right” party that everyone hated and feared wasn’t “far right” in the American sense of the time. They weren’t budget-cutting or free marketeering. They were just concerned about immigration.

    The “center” party of the heroine was further left than the country’s Socialist party, which still had to worry about some working-class voters and their jobs. Heroine Birgitte was free to virtue signal and indulge in the latest politically correct novelties and nostrums out of the US, UN, and EU.

  4. Too stuffy for me and not as cool looking as earlier fashions. Kind of the start of the “let’s tailor stitch things to within a sixteenth inch of its life” trend.

    Never understood tux’s. I know where they came from, just don’t understand anyone wanting to be that rigidly bound.

    Only referring to the men’s, not the women’s.

  5. @ Abraxas > “For Prince Albert, getting out of the can was the hardest part.”

    Sadly, once we old geezers pass away, no one will get that joke, although it might continue in some of the historical cosplayers’ lore.

    Nor does anyone under the age of 70 recall that the House of Windsor adopted a pseudonym during WWI to gloss over their German roots.

    Wikipedia “has the receipts” as the current slang says:

    In 1701, succession to the throne was given to Sophia of Hanover, who was born into the House of Wittelsbach, married into the House of Hanover, and was a granddaughter of James VI and I of the House of Stuart. Succession was passed to her son who became George I in 1714, marking the start of a long ruling period by the Hanoverian royal house. Eventually in 1901, a line of the House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha succeeded the House of Hanover to the British monarchy with the accession of King Edward VII, son of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. In 1917, the name of the British royal house was changed from the German Saxe-Coburg and Gotha to the English Windsor, taking its name from the royal residence in Berkshire.

    Upon hearing that his cousin had changed the name of the British royal house to Windsor and in reference to Shakespeare’s The Merry Wives of Windsor, German Emperor Wilhelm II remarked jokingly that he planned to see “The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha”.

    Kaiser Bill was a grandson of Victoria through his mother.
    Emperor Nicholas II of Russia was also a relative of the English & German rulers.
    Most of the royals of the era were related to, if not directly descended from, Victoria and Albert.

    https://www.history.co.uk/articles/the-kaiser-the-tsar-and-king-george-v-cousins-at-war-in-ww1

  6. UFOs—Why so many sightings, and why so many UFOs involved in them?

    While there is apparently no central repository tallying up UFO sightings, and the general belief of serious researchers seems to be that around 95% of such sightings can be explained as being ordinary objects or misperceptions, it still seems that the number of actual UFO sightings –especially recently—has been growing.

    Perhaps it can be put down to better instrumentation, perhaps it can be put down to the now ubiquitous cell phone cameras, or perhaps it can be put down to the gradual reduction in the stigma surrounding UFO sightings, so that people are more likely to video and report what they see.

    Serious UFO researchers, like, for instance, Richard Dolan, estimate that for every report of a UFO sighting there are another 10 which are not reported, and Dolan estimates that over the years –and world–wide—UFOs sightings have been in the many millions.

    So, even eliminating 95% of such sightings, that still leaves perhaps hundreds of thousands of actual UFOs which have been sighted, and they have been sighted just about everywhere–over every continent and over every nation, over every ocean, over Antartica, over ordinary locations which you would think would be of no interest–cruising silently over many of our major cities and small towns, over areas of great and small population, of great and of little human activity, over virtually uninhabited or visited wildernesses—and, as well, over sensitive locations like nuclear weapons labs, ICBM launch facilities, and nuclear powered Navy Battle Groups.

    This phenomenon has been with us in a major way since at least the early 1940s, and the question is why would it take, for instance, 80 years and hundreds of thousands off flights to, say, do a comprehensive survey of every square inch of the Earth?

    Why fly over both major, bustling cities and over rarely inhabited or visited wilderness?

    I can understand the possible interest in nuclear sites, but what can be so interesting in the daily activities of ordinary people, and that for 80 years?

    Are we humans, every man or woman a player in a Galactic soap opera, and each day a new episode is recorded?

    Are these flights to pick up some–what to Aliens might be–rare Earth materials, biological specimens, or cultural artifacts?

    This is one of many mysteries surrounding UFOs, and the problem is that no one–at least no one who is talking—knows the answer.

  7. UFOs

    P.S.–Or perhaps all of these flights are an attempt by some Aliens to keep a close eye on us violent, very inventive and, therefore, very dangerous monkeys.

    Perhaps what we are seeing is the cumulative effect of a number of different species of Aliens, each of them pursuing their own interests and goals, and using their own particular approaches to get what they want.

    Perhaps as an essentially non-space faring primitive civilization–it is open season on us–and we are not just being visited by our “space brothers” but are, instead or also being robbed blind of our resources by a whole gang of different Aliens.

    In any case, if this were a human outfit doing all of this continuous surveillance, I would say that our OpTempo was extremely high, and I would imagine that we would have correspondingly high wear out, replacement costs, and the occasional crash.

  8. Actually, the Kaiser, the Tsar and George V were all second cousins (sharing the same grandmother)…

    All in the family…

  9. Borgen, the Danish political series, was prophetic for Americans.

    Abraxas:

    Do you recommend “Borgen”? I was curious and started it, but it seemed it was going down the rathole of standard prog hatred for conservatives.

    Stephen King recommended the show. That might have been a clue.

  10. While there is apparently no central repository tallying up UFO sightings, and the general belief of serious researchers seems to be that around 95% of such sightings can be explained as being ordinary objects or misperceptions, it still seems that the number of actual UFO sightings –especially recently—has been growing

    .

    UFO reasoning in one paragraph; you don’t know many there are as a baseline but you know that there is a trend of more being observed.

    Because, reasons.

    More amazing than Unicorns, those aliens and their UFOs.

  11. they do spend an inordinate time tracking objects they can’t identify or source properly, much like focusing on pronouns at the border,

  12. @huxley

    Abraxas:

    Do you recommend “Borgen”?

    I liked it. Of course, the heroine’s causes aren’t worth much. You can take it for granted that she does the wrong thing, but the show does give a realistic view of politics, and all the jockeying for position and efforts to maintain a coalition that go on. It’s more realistic than “The West Wing” or “House of Cards”. Of course, like everything else on television, it goes downhill after the early seasons.

    I thought “Boss” with Kelsey Grammar (about a mayor of Chicago) was also a good political drama. It only lasted two seasons, but was better than some shows that go on forever.

  13. Sunday Open Thread: Russo/Ukraine War Topical to current events

    Russia’s New Offensive & Ukraine’s River Crossing: Avdiivka to Kherson – Costs & Consequences -Perun

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

    00:00:00 — Opening Words
    00:01:25 — What Am I Talking About?
    00:04:08 — Pre-winter Objectives
    00:06:07 — Zaporizhzhia
    00:09:46 — Kherson
    00:19:13 — Avdiivka
    00:33:16 — Assessing Losses
    00:52:38 — Trends & Adaptations
    00:59:31 — Observations
    01:04:51 — Conclusion
    01:05:38 — Channel Update

  14. Mark Steyn has done several recent posts about Israel, two of them being repeats of very prescient essays from 2009.
    We can’t say we weren’t warned.

    https://www.steynonline.com/13845/israel-today-the-west-tomorrow
    October 16, 2023~from Commentary, May 2009

    https://www.steynonline.com/13921/onward-christian-soldier
    November 14, 2023~from National Review, December 21st 2009

    https://www.steynonline.com/13939/diversity-stabbing-of-the-day
    November 24, 2023

    His political archives are full of worth-while reading, in very entertaining prose.
    https://www.steynonline.com/section/102/politics-current-affairs

  15. RE: Civilizational Christianity

    The old social order, traditional civilization is obviously fast dwindling away—the mindset, the way people did things, their attitudes and expectations—workmanship, attention to detail, modesty, order, the work ethic, marriage and the family, public (and private) behavior, public discourse, politeness, even the standard of dress—it’s all changed, and not for the better, as we devolve into paganism, violence, disorder, and anarchy.

    And it seems to me that many—perhaps most–of these changes are the result of the ripping of Judeo-Christian teachings from our schools and from the public square, for when the strictly religious aspects went, so did all of the secondary and tertiary ideas, expectations, attitudes and behaviors which flow from Judeo-Christian teachings.

    And the phrase “Civilizational Christianity,” which I ran across yesterday, perfectly sums up the idea of that penumbra of expectations, attitudes, and behaviors which Judeo-Christian teachings encouraged.

  16. His political archives are full of worth-while reading, in very entertaining prose.
    ==
    It’s indicative of the general uselessness of Richard Lowry that Steyn was cut from the contributors list at National Review.

  17. Re; Civilizational Christianity

    See the video report of a woman, Christina Revels-Glick, who decided it would be a good idea to take her vibrator, go to the beach at Tybee Island, Georgia, reportedly lay down, she said, with a towel covering her lower body, inserted her little “toy,” and reportedly let out with a few moans as a nearby family with children looked on–“daddy what is she doing, and moaning about”?

    Well, some onlookers reported her to the cops, they arrived, heard her excuses, slapped the cuffs on her, and she was reportedly charged with public lewdness and disorderly conduct.

    The kicker here, though, is that many who commented on this incident felt sorry for the perp, and saw no reason why she shouldn’t have just been given a warning, or a ticket and let go, rather than being cuffed, hauled away to jail by the cops, and formally charged. *

    There is one report saying that several years later Glick committed suicide, attributing her suicide to this incident. **

    * See https://www.express.co.uk/news/us/1839177/georgia-swimmer-beach-masturbating-body-cam

    ** See https://beachgrit.com/2023/11/christina-revels-glick-arrested-and-shamed-for-jerking-off-on-tybee-island-beach-found-dead-at-36/

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