Susan Rice and her rumored feud with Kamala Harris are in the news. If anyone is running things it may be Susan Rice. The Obamas don’t have the hunger. It sounds like Rice still does.
_______
Also in the news: the DNC has filed complaints against RFK Jr. alleging campaign finance violations. I don’t know if he’s doing anything any different from what other politicians do. Also alleged by the Democrats — that a major RFK Jr. PAC is financially supported by Trump donors, like Timothy Mellon.
_______
I waited four months for my physical, but I had COVID when it was scheduled, so now I have to wait another four months. I asked the receptionist to have my doctor text me so that maybe we could schedule something sooner (it’s hard to get through on the phone). I didn’t hear from her, but I did see another email about joining the “portal.” So now, it’s into the dreaded portal I go. Or maybe I just wait it out.
We had our annuals done last Dec. They recommended scheduling this yrs at that time. Took a while for her schedule to be posted, they called us and we have our this Dec appointment. Otherwise it hasn’t been to difficult to get in to see her. If it is something urgent (not requiring urgent care though) she gets us in. Short on staffs are a real problem.
The screen I get before logging into e-mail has for the last two days has been “screaming” about Colbert going after Trump. Sheesh. It reminds of something Will Rogers said about treating our comedians seriously but our politicians as a joke.
I would like to post a gift for everyone on this special day! It was 40 years ago that we first saw this performance. I was picking up a to go order at our favorite pub when the tv camera announced this couple. Because my DD was involved in this sport I stopped to watch this final performance for the Gold Medal in the Olympics. I am not a crier, but this brought tears to my eyes then. To see the same team do this performance 30 years later is joy! They are 55 and 56 years old in this presentation. The first 50 seconds are the introduction.
:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBs0EwJEUk
Happy Valentine’s Day!
With all the gloom and doom among Republicans, it is refreshing to see someone who is willing to fight—even in California. Carl Demaio and Reform California are taking it to the Democrats and in 2022 had a role in the Republicans winning house seats that gave them the majority. They put out a voter guide to help Republicans focus their votes to get on the general election ballot in the California jungle primary system. They use the Democrat passed ballot harvesting to get votes in key districts by sponsoring hugely successful bbq, beer, and ballots events. For those of you in California, and in other states who recognize that California is so large It has a profound effect on national politics, they put out a list of target seats. These are a good races for donations. https://reformcalifornia.org/news/24-in-2024-here-are-top-target-seats-in-californias-march-primary
In a just world, being relieved of his duties via impeachment would be the least of his worries.
I never knew until reading that Judicial Watch article that LBJ initiated the Secret Service protection of candidates. I have a lot of problems with that guy, but not with that.
Yes before then it was not a thing
Regarding Mayorkas’s decision, you’ve got an independent who seems to be polling above average for a third party. Not to mention who the candidate is, his family, etc.
You could show some class and do the right thing, or you can be Mayorkas.
On the subject of Secret Service protection; I agree that many in our government deserve tax payer funded protection, but I hate the way we go about it. Huge convoys of bullet proof SUVs, shutting down roads, ubiquitous metal detectors, cadres of carbon copy men in black suits talking into ear pieces…
It’s brutish, thuggish and unbefitting a nation founded on Independence and Liberty.
Our security should be so good it is not even noticeable.
Nixon: “Would you buy a used car from this man?”
Biden: “Would you get in a car driven by this man?
Re: Carpe Diem! — Pup smelling the roses
I am not known for my olfactory prowess, but even for me, smelling a rose is a special delight.
The sense of smell for dogs is so off the human scale, so sensitive that when trained, dogs can detect whether a human has cancer.
What is it like when a dog smells a rose?
Totally OT and That’s All Right!
Learning French while waiting for the Dems or AI to end the world is hard work. So for relaxation I’ve decided to return to my teen hobby of building balsa wood model planes.
I went to my old dealer … um supplier … Guillow Model Kits. There are new things under the sun! Laser-cut balsa parts vs metal-die-cut parts.
Unless you’ve been there, you have no idea what an advance this is. The worst aspect of the old kits was punching out all the fiddly bits of balsa from balsa sheets to be later glued together into the plane. You would mangle about 5-10% of the metal-die-cut parts, then have to make up for it with extra strokes from your Exacto knife or with extra globs of glue or maybe even have to carve out a new piece from the remains of the balsa sheets.
These laser-cut sheets are fall-off-the-bone tender.
A friend in HS postulated there is no progress, only innovation.
I suppose it depends on what our definition of progress is and how we will know when we’ve reached the goal.
huxley:
Amberoid model cement
the thin, thin, paper
applied to the balsa
then doped
Balance it
wind up the rubber band. Launched into the air
to crash and crumple.
It was fun anyway.
om:
You’re old school!
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has a new book coming out in March on Generation Z and our broken country.
In his recent talk at the University of North Carolina, he shares fresh evidence that it’s deeply linked to the rise of social media. And changes in parenting.
He mentions that Day Care Centers distribute non-functional Smartphones as toys to toddlers.
He explains phow Gen-Z’s pathology matrix stems from the absence of free and social play with others — a decade ago abetted by Smart Phone technology — stunts the young from acquiring the Thick Skins of older generations, resulting the snowflakes campus culture of today!
Hence, the age of free “out of home” mingling has risen by several years — crucial years in the young where the ego’s developmental need for both gratification as well as tolerance for the rough-and-tumble — play that yields to verbal sparing. And this explains the inter-generational loss of insult humor, socially important skills from seen from Edmond Rostand to Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kineson.
Fortunately, there are remedies. A movement toward a pro-social skills building must be built and nurtured. Even institutionalized— Boy’s Clubs and Scouting are the older models of youth socialising.
No Smartphones before HIGH School. Changing laws.
Reclaiming skills means reviving and valorising older values, too. And reforming the culture of High Schools and our broken Universities.
This is a very serious problem. Yet there are realistic remedies.
TJ I am with you on this issue. We must–everyone here reading Neo–must pick up their phone, or walk across the street, or talk to their boss at work, etc. whatever it takes to pull together a group of people ready to work on this problem. Leaving it to the teachers and their unions to repair the mess they have supported and in many ways helped to create is a total waste of the children to come. We must organize in a well planned and informed way to tear down what we have allowed to develop.
Yes, Anne. I can imagine a multi-pronged effort, one of which enlists elders to lead teens, groups organised tonexercise the virtues of curiosity and exploration. Younger boomers are especially qualified to fill this type of role.
“Fascist” sounds harsh, but regrettably true. The 78% didn’t consider optics. Axelrod needs to get in front of this group stat.
@ Anne > “I stopped to watch this final performance for the Gold Medal in the Olympics”
Just reading your description raised my hopes that you were speaking of that stunning first performance of the Torvill & Dean “Bolero”!
Nothing will top the thrill of seeing the original, even if just on TV, but the 2014 production was superb.
I’m with this YouTube commenter: @andysitton1703
“They kind of ruined ice dancing as a sport because everything they ever did made everything anyone else ever did look ordinary… and still does, no one has ever come close and I don’t think anyone ever will.”
They deserved their nearly-perfect score* at the 1984 Olympics, not least because they actually fit their movements to the music. So often the skaters are just sticking in flashy techniques wherever they can, and making a rough pass at the rhythm and musical sense of the song they picked.
This is a 1994 exhibition performance, much higher quality than the 1984 videos that I could find, recreating the original costumes, which I personally prefer to the 2014 selection. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC50M6LHcHY
Figure skaters Torvill and Dean have announced on the 40th anniversary of their gold medal-winning performance that next year will be the last time they dance together.
The duo have returned to Sarajevo in Bosnia-Herzegovina, where they danced the Bolero in the 1984 Winter Olympics.
Jayne Torvill and Christopher Dean will skate together for the final time as part of a UK tour in 2025.
Torvill told the BBC: “The tour is the celebration of our careers.”
The Nottingham duo’s 28-day farewell tour, called Torvill & Dean: Our Last Dance, will include two dates in their home city.
Dean, 65, said: “We felt it’s right because 2025 is our 50th year of skating together.
…
The Valentine’s Day Bolero performance in 1984 made the pair the highest-scoring figure skaters of all time for a single programme.
*Judges gave them a dozen perfect 6.0s and six 5.9s, which included artistic impression scores of 6.0 from every judge.
The pair are marking the anniversary by returning to Sarajevo.
But it’s not like anyone has ever tried to assassinate a Kennedy …
FOAF:
Perhaps not in the best taste…
_____________________________
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
–Oscar Wilde
Anne:
I’m relieved to learn those skaters were at the very top of their artistic sport. I was quite impressed, though I must admit I had some Freudian castration anxiety when the guy did a split on skates.
Re: Ravel’s Bolero — top-ten-favorites
Me too. This modern dance version from 50 year-old Maya Plisetskaya, Bolshoi prima ballerina, is the most awesome dance performance I’ve ever witnessed. I wasn’t there, but witness is the verb.
Quite right. As the old “South Pacific” show tune goes:
___________________________________
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught
If you trained AI on Nazi materials, you would have Nazi AI. If you trained it on Woke materials, you would have Woke AI.
I’m playing with OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4. OpenAI has repeatedly declared its commitment to objectivity, a very tricky aspiration. Nonetheless, I’ve probed it on climate change and other Red vs Blue issues. It’s hard to get it to take a side.
So far.
I take Surber’s point (and he’s not the only one) that AI is a dangerous threat to freedom. On this I am not optimistic.
An AI oriented thought experiment: we will need our own AI trained weapons.
If an AI “knows” what it is trained on, then we need to train one or more AI apps on the ideas of freedom and liberty uber alles. The Federalist Papers and the Anti Federalist papers, the Constitution, the 1776 project results and a thousand pro and con history texts exploring all aspects of this topic. Along with everything Sowell has ever written, both before and after his Dem to Repub conversion. Maybe some of the “walk away” videos? Then we need to rig the algorithm to favor or “privilege” this side of things 25 to 55% over whatever else any other system has “learned” from socialism, Marxism, post modernism, et al. Some time back Randy Bennett wrote a book espousing the “privileging of liberty” over other criteria for making judicial decisions. We need that extra privilege working on our side, too.
Somewhere, sometime, there will be a battle among the AI’s for dominance over mankind?? And we will need weapons that cause the other side to lose.
I have no idea if an AI system will ever achieve what humans possess as “intelligence”, along with faith and morality and sympathy and empathy, plus a dozen other hormonally generated emotive responses to the stimuli we experience. I conceive of our current capabilities as emergent from our 10^15 synaptic brain connections, not some mystic duality or force outside our brain cases. But that connection set also had over 10 million years to evolve and improve for its continued survival and reproduction. Will an artificial system be able to duplicate that quantity of stimuli-responses and compress that time scale to achieve something “sort of” similarly emergent?
@ R2L > “we will need our own AI trained weapons.”
Excellent idea – but does the Right have anyone capable and willing to put that into action?
Another outstanding performance of actual dancing on ice.
Sometimes I really like having the internet, even if the entire Intelligence Community is hoovering up all our data while we watch.
Maybe they’ll enjoy this one!
Susan Rice and her rumored feud with Kamala Harris are in the news. If anyone is running things it may be Susan Rice. The Obamas don’t have the hunger. It sounds like Rice still does.
_______
Also in the news: the DNC has filed complaints against RFK Jr. alleging campaign finance violations. I don’t know if he’s doing anything any different from what other politicians do. Also alleged by the Democrats — that a major RFK Jr. PAC is financially supported by Trump donors, like Timothy Mellon.
_______
I waited four months for my physical, but I had COVID when it was scheduled, so now I have to wait another four months. I asked the receptionist to have my doctor text me so that maybe we could schedule something sooner (it’s hard to get through on the phone). I didn’t hear from her, but I did see another email about joining the “portal.” So now, it’s into the dreaded portal I go. Or maybe I just wait it out.
We had our annuals done last Dec. They recommended scheduling this yrs at that time. Took a while for her schedule to be posted, they called us and we have our this Dec appointment. Otherwise it hasn’t been to difficult to get in to see her. If it is something urgent (not requiring urgent care though) she gets us in. Short on staffs are a real problem.
The screen I get before logging into e-mail has for the last two days has been “screaming” about Colbert going after Trump. Sheesh. It reminds of something Will Rogers said about treating our comedians seriously but our politicians as a joke.
I would like to post a gift for everyone on this special day! It was 40 years ago that we first saw this performance. I was picking up a to go order at our favorite pub when the tv camera announced this couple. Because my DD was involved in this sport I stopped to watch this final performance for the Gold Medal in the Olympics. I am not a crier, but this brought tears to my eyes then. To see the same team do this performance 30 years later is joy! They are 55 and 56 years old in this presentation. The first 50 seconds are the introduction.
:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dBs0EwJEUk
Happy Valentine’s Day!
With all the gloom and doom among Republicans, it is refreshing to see someone who is willing to fight—even in California. Carl Demaio and Reform California are taking it to the Democrats and in 2022 had a role in the Republicans winning house seats that gave them the majority. They put out a voter guide to help Republicans focus their votes to get on the general election ballot in the California jungle primary system. They use the Democrat passed ballot harvesting to get votes in key districts by sponsoring hugely successful bbq, beer, and ballots events. For those of you in California, and in other states who recognize that California is so large It has a profound effect on national politics, they put out a list of target seats. These are a good races for donations.
https://reformcalifornia.org/news/24-in-2024-here-are-top-target-seats-in-californias-march-primary
Brahms, Liebeslieder Walzer op. 52: https://youtu.be/OpSeRwySeE0?si=qyej6RZ8xLNWIhBu
Anne,
That was really wonderful. Thanks for sharing that! 40 years?!
This makes me nervous.
https://news.yahoo.com/turkey-egypt-turn-leaf-erdogan-165616559.html
turkey is sort of the junior partner in this operation, the qataris acquired turkish ships and planes in the whole khashoggi dustup
Percy Grainger, I’m Seventeen Come Sunday: https://youtu.be/xlF7t_WcXnY?si=TOIAfOOprQX9avOQ
DHS Secretary Mayorkas Personally Declined RFK Jr’s Request for Secret Service Protection
In a just world, being relieved of his duties via impeachment would be the least of his worries.
I never knew until reading that Judicial Watch article that LBJ initiated the Secret Service protection of candidates. I have a lot of problems with that guy, but not with that.
Yes before then it was not a thing
Regarding Mayorkas’s decision, you’ve got an independent who seems to be polling above average for a third party. Not to mention who the candidate is, his family, etc.
You could show some class and do the right thing, or you can be Mayorkas.
https://twitter.com/Not_the_Bee/status/1757850912364560705
On the subject of Secret Service protection; I agree that many in our government deserve tax payer funded protection, but I hate the way we go about it. Huge convoys of bullet proof SUVs, shutting down roads, ubiquitous metal detectors, cadres of carbon copy men in black suits talking into ear pieces…
It’s brutish, thuggish and unbefitting a nation founded on Independence and Liberty.
Our security should be so good it is not even noticeable.
Nixon: “Would you buy a used car from this man?”
Biden: “Would you get in a car driven by this man?
Re: Carpe Diem! — Pup smelling the roses
I am not known for my olfactory prowess, but even for me, smelling a rose is a special delight.
The sense of smell for dogs is so off the human scale, so sensitive that when trained, dogs can detect whether a human has cancer.
What is it like when a dog smells a rose?
Totally OT and That’s All Right!
Learning French while waiting for the Dems or AI to end the world is hard work. So for relaxation I’ve decided to return to my teen hobby of building balsa wood model planes.
I went to my old dealer … um supplier … Guillow Model Kits. There are new things under the sun! Laser-cut balsa parts vs metal-die-cut parts.
Unless you’ve been there, you have no idea what an advance this is. The worst aspect of the old kits was punching out all the fiddly bits of balsa from balsa sheets to be later glued together into the plane. You would mangle about 5-10% of the metal-die-cut parts, then have to make up for it with extra strokes from your Exacto knife or with extra globs of glue or maybe even have to carve out a new piece from the remains of the balsa sheets.
These laser-cut sheets are fall-off-the-bone tender.
huxley:
So it turns out that progress is not an illusion.
if the aliens were involved would it be different
https://blazingcatfur.ca/2024/02/14/anthony-furey-guilbeaults-talk-of-halting-roads-investment-makes-it-clear-his-policies-cant-be-taken-seriously/
A friend in HS postulated there is no progress, only innovation.
I suppose it depends on what our definition of progress is and how we will know when we’ve reached the goal.
huxley:
Amberoid model cement
the thin, thin, paper
applied to the balsa
then doped
Balance it
wind up the rubber band. Launched into the air
to crash and crumple.
It was fun anyway.
om:
You’re old school!
Social psychologist Jonathan Haidt has a new book coming out in March on Generation Z and our broken country.
In his recent talk at the University of North Carolina, he shares fresh evidence that it’s deeply linked to the rise of social media. And changes in parenting.
He mentions that Day Care Centers distribute non-functional Smartphones as toys to toddlers.
He explains phow Gen-Z’s pathology matrix stems from the absence of free and social play with others — a decade ago abetted by Smart Phone technology — stunts the young from acquiring the Thick Skins of older generations, resulting the snowflakes campus culture of today!
Hence, the age of free “out of home” mingling has risen by several years — crucial years in the young where the ego’s developmental need for both gratification as well as tolerance for the rough-and-tumble — play that yields to verbal sparing. And this explains the inter-generational loss of insult humor, socially important skills from seen from Edmond Rostand to Rodney Dangerfield and Sam Kineson.
Fortunately, there are remedies. A movement toward a pro-social skills building must be built and nurtured. Even institutionalized— Boy’s Clubs and Scouting are the older models of youth socialising.
No Smartphones before HIGH School. Changing laws.
Reclaiming skills means reviving and valorising older values, too. And reforming the culture of High Schools and our broken Universities.
Haidt’s talk is ”Academia and The Anxious Generation.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A7hnX-e-i4k&t=3744s
VERY IMPORTANT.
This is a very serious problem. Yet there are realistic remedies.
TJ I am with you on this issue. We must–everyone here reading Neo–must pick up their phone, or walk across the street, or talk to their boss at work, etc. whatever it takes to pull together a group of people ready to work on this problem. Leaving it to the teachers and their unions to repair the mess they have supported and in many ways helped to create is a total waste of the children to come. We must organize in a well planned and informed way to tear down what we have allowed to develop.
Yes, Anne. I can imagine a multi-pronged effort, one of which enlists elders to lead teens, groups organised tonexercise the virtues of curiosity and exploration. Younger boomers are especially qualified to fill this type of role.
78% of Fascist Democrats Want Trump Removed from Ballot
“Fascist” sounds harsh, but regrettably true. The 78% didn’t consider optics. Axelrod needs to get in front of this group stat.
@ Anne > “I stopped to watch this final performance for the Gold Medal in the Olympics”
Just reading your description raised my hopes that you were speaking of that stunning first performance of the Torvill & Dean “Bolero”!
Nothing will top the thrill of seeing the original, even if just on TV, but the 2014 production was superb.
I’m with this YouTube commenter: @andysitton1703
“They kind of ruined ice dancing as a sport because everything they ever did made everything anyone else ever did look ordinary… and still does, no one has ever come close and I don’t think anyone ever will.”
They deserved their nearly-perfect score* at the 1984 Olympics, not least because they actually fit their movements to the music. So often the skaters are just sticking in flashy techniques wherever they can, and making a rough pass at the rhythm and musical sense of the song they picked.
Here’s a view of the original — they were so young and beautiful!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zbbN4OL98
This is a 1994 exhibition performance, much higher quality than the 1984 videos that I could find, recreating the original costumes, which I personally prefer to the 2014 selection.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC50M6LHcHY
Sadly, they are closing the books on that 40-year run.
https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-68267926
For the truly obsessive, like myself:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torvill_and_Dean
And yes, Ravel’s Bolero is among my top-ten-favorites, number one for classical pieces.
huxley: something for you, a post earlier this month by Don Surber. The first part is a bit of a political prelude; the AI remarks are further down.
https://donsurber.substack.com/p/do-your-job-dc
“Danger, Will Robinson!”
But it’s not like anyone has ever tried to assassinate a Kennedy …
FOAF:
Perhaps not in the best taste…
_____________________________
To lose one parent, Mr. Worthing, may be regarded as a misfortune; to lose both looks like carelessness.
–Oscar Wilde
Anne:
I’m relieved to learn those skaters were at the very top of their artistic sport. I was quite impressed, though I must admit I had some Freudian castration anxiety when the guy did a split on skates.
Re: Ravel’s Bolero — top-ten-favorites
Me too. This modern dance version from 50 year-old Maya Plisetskaya, Bolshoi prima ballerina, is the most awesome dance performance I’ve ever witnessed. I wasn’t there, but witness is the verb.
–“Maya Plisetskaya – Bolero (choreography by Maurice Béjart)”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SsSALaDJuN4
Re: Don Surber / AI
AesopFan:
Quite right. As the old “South Pacific” show tune goes:
___________________________________
You’ve got to be taught before it’s too late
Before you are six or seven or eight
To hate all the people your relatives hate
You’ve got to be carefully taught
–“You’ve Got To Be Carefully Taught” – SOUTH PACIFIC (1958)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPf6ITsjsgk
___________________________________
If you trained AI on Nazi materials, you would have Nazi AI. If you trained it on Woke materials, you would have Woke AI.
I’m playing with OpenAI’s ChatGPT-4. OpenAI has repeatedly declared its commitment to objectivity, a very tricky aspiration. Nonetheless, I’ve probed it on climate change and other Red vs Blue issues. It’s hard to get it to take a side.
So far.
I take Surber’s point (and he’s not the only one) that AI is a dangerous threat to freedom. On this I am not optimistic.
An AI oriented thought experiment: we will need our own AI trained weapons.
If an AI “knows” what it is trained on, then we need to train one or more AI apps on the ideas of freedom and liberty uber alles. The Federalist Papers and the Anti Federalist papers, the Constitution, the 1776 project results and a thousand pro and con history texts exploring all aspects of this topic. Along with everything Sowell has ever written, both before and after his Dem to Repub conversion. Maybe some of the “walk away” videos? Then we need to rig the algorithm to favor or “privilege” this side of things 25 to 55% over whatever else any other system has “learned” from socialism, Marxism, post modernism, et al. Some time back Randy Bennett wrote a book espousing the “privileging of liberty” over other criteria for making judicial decisions. We need that extra privilege working on our side, too.
Somewhere, sometime, there will be a battle among the AI’s for dominance over mankind?? And we will need weapons that cause the other side to lose.
I have no idea if an AI system will ever achieve what humans possess as “intelligence”, along with faith and morality and sympathy and empathy, plus a dozen other hormonally generated emotive responses to the stimuli we experience. I conceive of our current capabilities as emergent from our 10^15 synaptic brain connections, not some mystic duality or force outside our brain cases. But that connection set also had over 10 million years to evolve and improve for its continued survival and reproduction. Will an artificial system be able to duplicate that quantity of stimuli-responses and compress that time scale to achieve something “sort of” similarly emergent?
@ R2L > “we will need our own AI trained weapons.”
Excellent idea – but does the Right have anyone capable and willing to put that into action?
Another outstanding performance of actual dancing on ice.
Sometimes I really like having the internet, even if the entire Intelligence Community is hoovering up all our data while we watch.
Maybe they’ll enjoy this one!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wi5I27RtAuw
Torvill & Dean “Paso Doble” 1984.