Well, it’s actually two bananas, but who’s counting?
Comments
Open thread 5/18/24 — 71 Comments
Looks like a fine day today here in Northern Colorado. In low 80’s yesterday, not use to the temps yet. Today is day of planting 4 trees. Two Cherries, one Peach and a flowering shade tree. I had to have a 40+yr old tree cut down several weeks ago so the new flowering tree, which will not be any where the size of the old one and will never be as big, will be planted. The fruit trees are replacements too. I keep trying. So this 77 yr old Man will be digging holes today.
My Wife just had her third of six Cancer treatments yesterday. The infusion port is just amazing.
Ah, bananas at play!
Whereas Balakirev’s Islamey is quite simply Bananas!
Horowitz, 1950
“There is nothing more conducive to the destruction of a nation, whether it be republic or monarchy, than the lack of men of wisdom and intellect. When a republic has many citizens, or a monarchy, many ministers, of high quality it quickly recovers from those losses that are brought about by misfortune. When such men are lacking, it falls into the very depths of disgrace. That is why I deplore the present state of the Empire which, having produced so many excellent men in the past, has now been reduced to such a level of sterility that today’s governors possess nothing to elevate them above those whom they govern.”
John Cantacuzenus – Byzantine Emperor 1341 to 1354 – Letter to the ambassadors of Anne of Savoy, quoted in Norwich, J.J. (1995). Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.
After nearly 700 years still rings true does it not?
A warning from the past.
By the way Shirehome, In Greece today I planted tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Wishes for your wife’s good recovery!
Xylourgos
God willing going to Mt. Athos in September.
Sometimes the irony is just too much.
THE BALTIMORE SUN
PUBLISHED: May 16, 2024 at 4:48 p.m. | UPDATED: May 17, 2024 at 3:18 p.m.
Former Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby has officially applied for a presidential pardon, according to a new letter sent by the Congressional Black Caucus to President Joe Biden obtained by The Baltimore Sun.
In the letter, the group of 60 lawmakers calls on the president to pardon Mosby, who was convicted at two separate trials of perjury and mortgage fraud.
Her sentencing hearing is scheduled for next week. Prosecutors are seeking 20 months in prison, while Mosby has asked for probation.
The Congressional Black Caucus’s letter argues that the prosecution against Mosby was politically motivated. Borrowing language from a similar letter submitted by civil rights groups including the NAACP, the caucus asked Biden to take “bold action” in Mosby’s case.
“As a nation that leads by example, our justice system must not be weaponized to prevent progress toward a more perfect union,” wrote Rep. Steven Horsford, a Nevada Democrat who chairs the CBC. “We share your desire for racial equity, Mr. President, and this Trump-era prosecution is in direct conflict with a justice system that serves us all.”
Media Library Digitizing Test – Total novice here, so there is probably an easier and quicker way than how I am doing it at this point. Still not sure if I will go to digital movies & series since it seems to require lots of time. Movies have been easy so far, but next test will involve digitizing a series like Game of Thrones or Justified or maybe Dark Winds since it is short. Series requires its name plus season plus multiple disks (1, 2, etc.) – so that test may be to much trouble…I just dunno. Total costs at this point are about $80 for Blu-ray drive and EaseFab software.
Using Wbacon external Blu-ray burner drive and EaseFab LosslessCopy software:
• Wolverine Blu-ray took 30 min 29 sec to digitize on a Data M.2 NVMe drive @ 15.6 GB size & MP4 format.
• Using HandBrake reducing software took 25 min 10 sec to reduce from 15.9 GB to 2.74 GB size.
Two other tests on different type of drives took 48 min 36 sec on one, and over that on the other—I ended that test when it went over 48 min. Went much faster using the M.2 NVMe drive on my ‘Rose’ test computer, which I use for all kinds of testings rather than main computer. ‘Rose’ has an Intel® i9-10900K CPU, descent GPU, and 32GB of ram, so is no slouch, and will be used to digitize if I decide to go that way.
Tests have helped me decide to go for a 2 TB or 4 TB HDD main storage drive over the much more expensive SSDs and M.2 NVMe in those sizes. Have been digitizing and reducing on the ‘Rose’ Data drive and/or the user Videos folder, and then moving the final MP4 file to a USB 3.0 SATA Bay External Hard Drive Docking Station with a test HDD.
Neo – keep trying to post a post which isn’t going thru, and was told twice it was a duplicate post. If they all show up at same time just delete the last ones…sorry.
DNW:
I would really like to see Derek Chauvin pardoned.
It’s not looking good.
SHIREHOME:
Best wishes to you and your wife.
I wish I knew as much about trees.
Keep on trying indeed.
huxley:
Didn’t Chauvin have a state conviction and then pled guilty in federal court? If so, then he’d have to be pardoned twice and one would have to be by the governor.
And a hundred years later byzantium fell
Best wishes shirehome for your wife
Admittedly i didnt recognize balakirev
After nearly 700 years still rings true does it not?
A warning from the past.
You must have seen the female flame war that took place in the House of Representative the other day.
In other news it is rumored on “X” that 30% of illegal aliens might be registered to or intend to vote.
As a tangent, I had been watching a few of the popular “Karen” videos on YouTube. And that led me to being deluged with “Drunken Princess” road stop tantrums and “Aggressive female” encounter cop videos. The smugness, the entitlement, the assumed privilege and immunity from law, consequence, or retaliation, and the shrieking incoherent behavioral perseveration are astonishing to behold. And when it comes crashing down on them, they begin brandishing their various [claimed] mental illness diagnoses as if these maladies represent points of pride, status, and get out of jail tokens.
Now I have no idea whether this explosion of viewing material reflects a real societal and behavioral change in women across the board [it isn’t seen in “my”” women] but, given the concurrent phenomena we see developing in school boards across the nation and the trans and drag queen mom approved story hours, I think that it very well might.
And as with so much in life, we see that when people have both a lack of impulse control (which they may celebrate) and a sense of entitlement and immunity, there can be no functioning society.
Maybe it is not the system that is the problem, but the prideful human mental and moral wreckage that has reached a critical mass within it … in “our democracy”.
I am skeptical that education, in the sense of true information is the cure for about half the population unfortunately.
What matters true information to them when they are faced with the choice of either satisfying a subjectively felt urge, or facing reality?
It’s pretty alarming to recognize that civilization may have been built only by incessantly repressing [ or killing] the madmen and unbalanced who like the poor, “Ye have always with you”…. more or less.
“Looks like a fine day today here in Northern Colorado. In low 80’s yesterday, not use to the temps yet. Today is day of planting 4 trees. Two Cherries, one Peach and a flowering shade tree. “
Northern Colorado?
I must have no idea of the actual USDA climate zones.
When I think of Northern Colorado, I think of Weston County Wyoming and figure the same climate. Though I suppose if there is a Plum Creek there, so too must have grown wild plums.
But a peach tree in Colorado?
I’ll not look it up before finishing this comment, and let Neo’s readers do their own exploring. I do know that peach trees can be grown in hot summer low moisture micro climes. Never been to Utah, but imagine there might be spots there from what I have seen in movies. Wind burn and hard freezes though …..
huxley on May 18, 2024 at 12:44 pm said:
DNW:
I would really like to see Derek Chauvin pardoned.
It’s not looking good.”
I have not been following it since Neo last brought it up. I’ll take a look.
Yes he was charged for 22 1/2 years by the state as long as ellison or any of his drones are in charge his conviction was a lesson do not interfere
The supreme court did not touch this obvious travesty of a mockery of a sham
Huxley,
You mention trees. Perhaps you merely meant botanically and in terms of forestry or arbor culture.
But you might have an interest in knowing about mixed gardening. Lots of those videos on YouTube.
Here is one for you I just remembered. Gardening in the high Colorado desert
Your 12:38 comment had gone into the spam folder. I found it and liberated it.
I read “The Times of Israel” website often. They do regular reporting on Israelis that have been killed.
As a former Texas National Guardsman, I cannot help but notice they seem to have a disproportionate number of “Sergeants” to other enlisted such as the American Army’s “Privates” and “Corporals” and “Specialist” ranks.
Attempting to play music with bananas suggests there’s a built-in time limit on any composition involving percussion, as the banana mallets/drumsticks/thingies would inevitably disintegrate at some point depending upon ripeness. It sounds like something Zappa would have thought up, perhaps: a percussion ensemble whose musical instruments are composed only of parts of live (or at least freshly-harvested) plants or vegetables, with perhaps the occasional carefully coaxed parrot for some harmonic coloration.
Re: illegal aliens
Just you wait and see; the majority of them will be counted in the next US Census in 2030 which will give to those states / regions more seats in the US House of Representatives.
This is one reason that the demokrats have opened the borders .
If this isn’t bad enough, they will be permitted to vote in the upcoming presidential election in November 2024. By then, the vast majority of them will ha drivers license and SS # .
The demokrat party is fundamentally a totalitarian political party and, as is their MO, will do anything and everything to eviscerate the US Constitution and rule of law.
Frankly, Biden and Mayorkas and their aides who assisted their open border policy should be indicted for violation US Immigration law as well as indicted as accessories to murder for those cases where illegals have killed US citizens.
One can only hope.
Biden and his acolytes have set the template for politicizing the law; what goes around comes around.
It never occurred to me to use bananas to play a piano
Ernie Kovacs would lead the Nairobi Trio with a banana
Thank you for the kind words.
Xylourgos, have visited Greece several times. First time was 1970 while in the US Navy. Athens was amazing (I have 2 Degrees in History). Actually walked through the Parthenon, which you could do at that time. Last visit was several years ago. And really amazed that from Piraeus to Athens was solid wall to wall houses and buildings. We were able to go to Delphi. I will say amazing again.
Comment on Peach trees in my area. Yes you can grow them. I am 50 mi N of Denver. On the Western Slope, Peaches in abundance, and Grapes. Very good wines.
I long thought that line was too harsh, although funny and in character; now it seems quite accurate in many cases.
Yeah, we probably are undergoing a serious reality check at present: where ideology and ideals butt up against human nature. Or, more precisely, the nature of some people; who, limited by addictive predispositions, personality disorders, mental imbalance, manifesting lack of intelligence, impulse control, or behavioral incontinence, make sharing a political space with them as peers, not only problematical, but self defeating if not outright suicidal.
And nowadays, the ready flow of uncurrated information is showing us undeniable social reality in the raw: unfiltered by religious pieties, wan hopes, or ideologies which prioritize inclusion and affirmation above life itself.
At the risk of triggering the terrier with a reference to a work of philosophy – albeit political philosophy – modern liberalism as laid out by John Rawls, envisioned as I see it, it’s first practical principle of organization, [as distinct from his organizing principles of so called distributive justice] a ” comittment to a shared fate “.
That, in a system of interpersonal associations which does not allow for exclusion, is sheer effen masochistic lunacy.
I have said many cruel things about the mentally ill in the past and I don’t intend to repeat them now. But for some reason, probably having to do not with science per se, but with the emotional impulse of some plurality of politically active females to include, and to sympathetically identify with, we now literally have the lunatics running what has become an unsustainable ssylum.
God help us, but I hope that there is a way out of this other than violence, because reason sure as f#ck isn’t working.
Then there’s my favorite classical music comedy duo:
Tonight I’m watching Polo, a youngish black guy, who does YouTube reactor videos. I got into him because he covered Larry Bird while a stone Celtics hater with honesty.
Polo is a sports guy but he’s branched out into music and here he is doing a react to Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” (Which is Joni’s side of her love affair with Leonard Cohen.)
Polo falls in love with Joni and her song. (Didn’t we all — or at least many of us).
One may discount Polo’s channel. One may assume he is going to the white audience for clicks, the almighty currency of the internet.
However, I sense an integrity. As well as an opportunity. Whites have been open to black music since the 60s. That blacks might return that favor today is another kind of healing.
For whatever reason, a great many YouTube reactors to “old school” music (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s) are black. The Bee Gees are a great favorite, so I watch a lot of those. Some do seem to be faking the reactions, but IMHO the vast majority are sincere. Often, they realize they already know some of the Bee Gees’ music because their mothers and grandmothers used to be fans long ago, and as children the reactors had always assumed the Bee Gees were a black group.
om:
Yes, Crockett/Crockrtt was a bit too eager to cash in.
@huxley, neo:Polo falls in love with Joni and her song. (Didn’t we all — or at least many of us)… One may assume he is going to the white audience for clicks, the almighty currency of the internet. However, I sense an integrity.
Some do seem to be faking the reactions, but IMHO the vast majority are sincere.
Worth remembering that everyone who makes a living at YouTube (and the team of professionals supporting them) A/B testseverything, or they don’t last long, and the algorithms are going to reinforce them in giving them what you want to watch and reinforce you in watching it….
It may be that you’re seeing a survivorship bias in those who appear to be sincere. They may be unusually able to appear sincere. As George Burns said, when you’re playing a role you’ve got to be honest. And if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. (He of course lifted it from someone else.) Alternatively, perhaps the survivorship bias is in those who interests align with what they’re doing and are sincere to that degree.
But they’re still A/B testing everything either way. That’s why all the thumbnails look the way they do…
.the reactors had always assumed the Bee Gees were a black group.
neo:
Until “Pulp Fiction” I assumed Dusty Springfield was black. Then I looked her up.
Aretha Franklin turned down “Son of a Preacher Man.” Dusty stepped up.
I think there is a love story between American blacks and whites but we’re in the middle act where everything has gone to merde.
It may be that you’re seeing a survivorship bias in those who appear to be sincere.
Niketas Choniates:
Perhaps.
However, I suspect that being sincere and appearing sincere are blurry Venn diagrams.
neo on May 18, 2024 at 10:43 pm said:
om; DNW:
Please stop behaving like Greene, Crockett, and AOC.
Hey, for honesty’s sake stop the pretense.
I don’t know what you have going on with that twisted parasite Om that compells you to bother with a pretense of evenhandedness. You obviously have a hell of a policing blind spot when it comes to the little freak … “noticing” only when a response leaves him sputtering.
You don’t need to go through any pantomimes. It is your blog and you can manage it however you want.
But it’s undeniable that this worthless character has made a career on your site out of doing substantially nothing but riding along on the hay wagon, and attacking other commenters.
God almighty, just look at your open thread of May 17. And that is just par for the course.
Neo, tolerance of his childish chickenshit trolling of others went out of style years ago.
Well, you have had an interesting site.
Ah, enough. Be well.
And the tome arrives.
Find a life.
Open Thread Sunday – International Defense – Submarines
The Future of the Submarine – Emerging Threats, Sensors & Transparent Oceans – Perun
Timestamps:
00:00:00 — Opening Words
00:01:05 — What Am I Talking About?
00:01:34 — What Am I Not Talking About
00:01:50 — History
00:11:49 — What Makes A Submarine?
00:24:08 — Emutopia & Kiwiland
00:28:12 — The Economics
00:34:42 — Vulnerabilities
00:50:03 — Countermeasures And Challenges
00:52:40 — The Submarine Fights Back
00:53:34 — If Not The Submarine
01:00:01 — What Next?
01:01:51 — Channel Update
And while we’re squabbling (for the greater good, no doubt)…
My favorite comment so far: “I hope Israel didn’t assassinate them. Otherwise they will face retribution.”
Yeah. Israeli-Iranian relations might suffer. That would be bad for dialogue and diplomacy.
well Raisi is just a puppet, a rather bloody one, there are many rooms in the house of the Vevak Sepah Pasdaran, the ones who really run the Iranian republic
Raisi puppet or not, Jackson Pollock painting is a good look for him.
Thirty days of mourning declared…in DC?
The WH flag at half mast? (More likely the State Department and Pentagon flags, though….)
And maybe a global Kristalnacht…since, well, ya gotta blame SOMEBODY…
OTOH, perhaps we’ll get lucky….
On the third hand, wonder how they’ll celebrate in the streets of The Islamic Republic(TM)—some brave souls, that is…
Of course, we could get really unlucky…and a truly distraught Honest A., head bowed in genuine grief, will decide that the ONLY thing to do would be to play 24 hours of straight blues on his geetarrr…with Mozart’s Requiem, perhaps, as an opening number…
I keep looking for news on the Iranian helicopter “crash.” Iran so far has not announced finding the aircraft or its occupants. It was flying in mountainous terrain in a thick mist. As someone said, ask Kobe Bryant if that was a good idea.
Raisi is/was a murderous monster. Alas that the Ayatollah was not also on board.
Kate:
I assume that, if he has died, he will be replaced by another similar functionary.
Yes, he will be, Neo. No shortage of fanatics.
Abdollahian who was also on board, was part of the planning for October 7th, so call it intekam, (farsi for revenge) kismet, karma,
That’s Shocking Blue’s “Venus” which was a blast from the Dutch moon of Planet Rock’n’Roll in 1970.
Wow! She’s got it. Yeah, baby, she’s got it.
I ponied up my $3.98 and bought the vinyl. Sadly, there was no other song remotely close to “Venus.” Shocking Blue got off to meteoric start but never delivered on much more. It’s not quite fair to say, but Shocking Blue was a one-hit wonder.
But what a hit. What a wonder.
Wings of Pegasus delivers his usual great breakdown to a live performance of “Venus.” I didn’t realize the singer, Mariska Veres, was so beautiful. Venus, indeed.
There’s been an odd surge of react videos to “Venus,” especially in black react videos. I’m not sure what that is about, but “Venus” still jumps out of the speaker and into my brain.
These days younger people assume the Banarama version is the original or that it’s the jingle music to a feminine shaving product.
Trivia: Mariska didn’t speak English and learned the lyrics phonetically. Thus her pronunciation of “your” as “chour” which somehow seems a great touch.
I think this is why “Venus” has so much currency with young YouTubers. It is a memorable commercial and if it hit you when you were just getting your hormones…
Here’s a young black man reacting to “Venus.” He’s grooving to the song, remembering the commercial, then he’s remembering his older relatives who lived the 70s. He comes close to weeping.
___________________________________
Oh man, today has just been feeling like such a nostalgic day. I’m not even from any of these eras, but man, I do wish I was. You guys had it good with this music and this free lifestyle.
Have you ever noticed, in this generation, that a lot of us do not feel free mentally? That we feel bound or like we just can’t have fun? I’m trying to figure out why this shift happened. What happened?
I hear stories from my grandparents and my mom. They tell me about the era they were born in—I’m not going to expose their years or ages—but they said they felt a little bit freer. With the hair, the clothes, the dances, dancing to seven-minute songs without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. They’re looking at me, looking at the way my hair is, the way I dress, like, “Take me back to y’all time, please.”
Looks like a fine day today here in Northern Colorado. In low 80’s yesterday, not use to the temps yet. Today is day of planting 4 trees. Two Cherries, one Peach and a flowering shade tree. I had to have a 40+yr old tree cut down several weeks ago so the new flowering tree, which will not be any where the size of the old one and will never be as big, will be planted. The fruit trees are replacements too. I keep trying. So this 77 yr old Man will be digging holes today.
My Wife just had her third of six Cancer treatments yesterday. The infusion port is just amazing.
Ah, bananas at play!
Whereas Balakirev’s Islamey is quite simply Bananas!
Horowitz, 1950
“There is nothing more conducive to the destruction of a nation, whether it be republic or monarchy, than the lack of men of wisdom and intellect. When a republic has many citizens, or a monarchy, many ministers, of high quality it quickly recovers from those losses that are brought about by misfortune. When such men are lacking, it falls into the very depths of disgrace. That is why I deplore the present state of the Empire which, having produced so many excellent men in the past, has now been reduced to such a level of sterility that today’s governors possess nothing to elevate them above those whom they govern.”
John Cantacuzenus – Byzantine Emperor 1341 to 1354 – Letter to the ambassadors of Anne of Savoy, quoted in Norwich, J.J. (1995). Byzantium: The Decline and Fall.
After nearly 700 years still rings true does it not?
A warning from the past.
By the way Shirehome, In Greece today I planted tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. Wishes for your wife’s good recovery!
Xylourgos
God willing going to Mt. Athos in September.
Sometimes the irony is just too much.
THE BALTIMORE SUN
(3rd try – keeps saying I’ve posted this already – ???)
Media Library Digitizing Test – Total novice here, so there is probably an easier and quicker way than how I am doing it at this point. Still not sure if I will go to digital movies & series since it seems to require lots of time. Movies have been easy so far, but next test will involve digitizing a series like Game of Thrones or Justified or maybe Dark Winds since it is short. Series requires its name plus season plus multiple disks (1, 2, etc.) – so that test may be to much trouble…I just dunno. Total costs at this point are about $80 for Blu-ray drive and EaseFab software.
Using Wbacon external Blu-ray burner drive and EaseFab LosslessCopy software:
• Wolverine Blu-ray took 30 min 29 sec to digitize on a Data M.2 NVMe drive @ 15.6 GB size & MP4 format.
• Using HandBrake reducing software took 25 min 10 sec to reduce from 15.9 GB to 2.74 GB size.
Two other tests on different type of drives took 48 min 36 sec on one, and over that on the other—I ended that test when it went over 48 min. Went much faster using the M.2 NVMe drive on my ‘Rose’ test computer, which I use for all kinds of testings rather than main computer. ‘Rose’ has an Intel® i9-10900K CPU, descent GPU, and 32GB of ram, so is no slouch, and will be used to digitize if I decide to go that way.
Tests have helped me decide to go for a 2 TB or 4 TB HDD main storage drive over the much more expensive SSDs and M.2 NVMe in those sizes. Have been digitizing and reducing on the ‘Rose’ Data drive and/or the user Videos folder, and then moving the final MP4 file to a USB 3.0 SATA Bay External Hard Drive Docking Station with a test HDD.
Neo – keep trying to post a post which isn’t going thru, and was told twice it was a duplicate post. If they all show up at same time just delete the last ones…sorry.
DNW:
I would really like to see Derek Chauvin pardoned.
It’s not looking good.
SHIREHOME:
Best wishes to you and your wife.
I wish I knew as much about trees.
Keep on trying indeed.
huxley:
Didn’t Chauvin have a state conviction and then pled guilty in federal court? If so, then he’d have to be pardoned twice and one would have to be by the governor.
And a hundred years later byzantium fell
Best wishes shirehome for your wife
Admittedly i didnt recognize balakirev
You must have seen the female flame war that took place in the House of Representative the other day.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=euoOO2lfBsc
In other news it is rumored on “X” that 30% of illegal aliens might be registered to or intend to vote.
As a tangent, I had been watching a few of the popular “Karen” videos on YouTube. And that led me to being deluged with “Drunken Princess” road stop tantrums and “Aggressive female” encounter cop videos. The smugness, the entitlement, the assumed privilege and immunity from law, consequence, or retaliation, and the shrieking incoherent behavioral perseveration are astonishing to behold. And when it comes crashing down on them, they begin brandishing their various [claimed] mental illness diagnoses as if these maladies represent points of pride, status, and get out of jail tokens.
Now I have no idea whether this explosion of viewing material reflects a real societal and behavioral change in women across the board [it isn’t seen in “my”” women] but, given the concurrent phenomena we see developing in school boards across the nation and the trans and drag queen mom approved story hours, I think that it very well might.
And as with so much in life, we see that when people have both a lack of impulse control (which they may celebrate) and a sense of entitlement and immunity, there can be no functioning society.
Maybe it is not the system that is the problem, but the prideful human mental and moral wreckage that has reached a critical mass within it … in “our democracy”.
I am skeptical that education, in the sense of true information is the cure for about half the population unfortunately.
What matters true information to them when they are faced with the choice of either satisfying a subjectively felt urge, or facing reality?
It’s pretty alarming to recognize that civilization may have been built only by incessantly repressing [ or killing] the madmen and unbalanced who like the poor, “Ye have always with you”…. more or less.
Northern Colorado?
I must have no idea of the actual USDA climate zones.
When I think of Northern Colorado, I think of Weston County Wyoming and figure the same climate. Though I suppose if there is a Plum Creek there, so too must have grown wild plums.
But a peach tree in Colorado?
I’ll not look it up before finishing this comment, and let Neo’s readers do their own exploring. I do know that peach trees can be grown in hot summer low moisture micro climes. Never been to Utah, but imagine there might be spots there from what I have seen in movies. Wind burn and hard freezes though …..
I have not been following it since Neo last brought it up. I’ll take a look.
Yes he was charged for 22 1/2 years by the state as long as ellison or any of his drones are in charge his conviction was a lesson do not interfere
The supreme court did not touch this obvious travesty of a mockery of a sham
Huxley,
You mention trees. Perhaps you merely meant botanically and in terms of forestry or arbor culture.
But you might have an interest in knowing about mixed gardening. Lots of those videos on YouTube.
Here is one for you I just remembered. Gardening in the high Colorado desert
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=i5yUPau-F1c&pp=ygUfQ3JlYXRpbmcgYSBnYXJkZW4gaW4gdGhlIGRlc2VydA%3D%3D
Karmi:
Your 12:38 comment had gone into the spam folder. I found it and liberated it.
I read “The Times of Israel” website often. They do regular reporting on Israelis that have been killed.
As a former Texas National Guardsman, I cannot help but notice they seem to have a disproportionate number of “Sergeants” to other enlisted such as the American Army’s “Privates” and “Corporals” and “Specialist” ranks.
Attempting to play music with bananas suggests there’s a built-in time limit on any composition involving percussion, as the banana mallets/drumsticks/thingies would inevitably disintegrate at some point depending upon ripeness. It sounds like something Zappa would have thought up, perhaps: a percussion ensemble whose musical instruments are composed only of parts of live (or at least freshly-harvested) plants or vegetables, with perhaps the occasional carefully coaxed parrot for some harmonic coloration.
Re: illegal aliens
Just you wait and see; the majority of them will be counted in the next US Census in 2030 which will give to those states / regions more seats in the US House of Representatives.
This is one reason that the demokrats have opened the borders .
If this isn’t bad enough, they will be permitted to vote in the upcoming presidential election in November 2024. By then, the vast majority of them will ha drivers license and SS # .
The demokrat party is fundamentally a totalitarian political party and, as is their MO, will do anything and everything to eviscerate the US Constitution and rule of law.
Frankly, Biden and Mayorkas and their aides who assisted their open border policy should be indicted for violation US Immigration law as well as indicted as accessories to murder for those cases where illegals have killed US citizens.
One can only hope.
Biden and his acolytes have set the template for politicizing the law; what goes around comes around.
It never occurred to me to use bananas to play a piano
A piano-hound-vocalist: https://twitter.com/Doranimated/status/1789258631399018893?t=pHTMfvbdhKl5N3SDjZhNjA&s=19
Neo:
No telling where the others went 🙂 No biggie. Yeah, maybe I had too many links since I see only two showed up in final ‘spam‘ post. 😉
Thanks!
Re DNW and “Karen videos:”
https://youtu.be/hbA-KAgj-ko?si=GFBqmmS455wtcX9-
I long thought that line was too harsh, although funny and in character; now it seems quite accurate in many cases.
@SHIREHOME I hope everything goes well.
sdferr, that’s hilarious!
Neo: thought this might be an amusing thread topic:
https://www.sfgate.com/hawaii/article/hawaii-home-built-on-wrong-lot-19371615.php
Ernie Kovacs would lead the Nairobi Trio with a banana
Thank you for the kind words.
Xylourgos, have visited Greece several times. First time was 1970 while in the US Navy. Athens was amazing (I have 2 Degrees in History). Actually walked through the Parthenon, which you could do at that time. Last visit was several years ago. And really amazed that from Piraeus to Athens was solid wall to wall houses and buildings. We were able to go to Delphi. I will say amazing again.
Comment on Peach trees in my area. Yes you can grow them. I am 50 mi N of Denver. On the Western Slope, Peaches in abundance, and Grapes. Very good wines.
https://twitchy.com/dougp/2024/05/18/the-grassroots-excitement-for-biden-is-palpable-as-potus-motorcade-moves-through-atlanta-n2396378
It sounds like something Zappa would have thought up,
Philip Sells:
I don’t know Zappa ever used fruit to make music, but he praised vegetables. A public service announcement.
_________________________________
This is a song about vegetables. They keep you regular and they’re really good for you….
Call any vegetable,
Call any vegetable,
And the chances are good,
That a vegetable will respond to you…
Why is a vegetable something to hide?
–Frank Zappa, “Call Any Vegetable”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XhDGiW-qZ2k
_________________________________
I don’t have an answer to the final question, but it’s one of Frank’s more approachable songs.
Yeah, we probably are undergoing a serious reality check at present: where ideology and ideals butt up against human nature. Or, more precisely, the nature of some people; who, limited by addictive predispositions, personality disorders, mental imbalance, manifesting lack of intelligence, impulse control, or behavioral incontinence, make sharing a political space with them as peers, not only problematical, but self defeating if not outright suicidal.
And nowadays, the ready flow of uncurrated information is showing us undeniable social reality in the raw: unfiltered by religious pieties, wan hopes, or ideologies which prioritize inclusion and affirmation above life itself.
At the risk of triggering the terrier with a reference to a work of philosophy – albeit political philosophy – modern liberalism as laid out by John Rawls, envisioned as I see it, it’s first practical principle of organization, [as distinct from his organizing principles of so called distributive justice] a ” comittment to a shared fate “.
That, in a system of interpersonal associations which does not allow for exclusion, is sheer effen masochistic lunacy.
I have said many cruel things about the mentally ill in the past and I don’t intend to repeat them now. But for some reason, probably having to do not with science per se, but with the emotional impulse of some plurality of politically active females to include, and to sympathetically identify with, we now literally have the lunatics running what has become an unsustainable ssylum.
God help us, but I hope that there is a way out of this other than violence, because reason sure as f#ck isn’t working.
Then there’s my favorite classical music comedy duo:
–Igudesman & Joo, “I Will Survive”
(for piano, violin and immersible blender)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xui7x_KF7bY
Talented and insane. An unbeatable combination.
DNW appears to be a bit twitchy and sensitive. Another tome on the way? What lives rent-free in a philosopher’s noggin?
Threw out a little birdseed as a test. And no sooner it lands on the ground than ….
Just wanted to make sure you were using alerts.
Get a life.
Look in the mirror DNW, what you see may surprise you.
Trolling for attention much?
Not enough excitement in your Karen shorts on YouTube?
What a tool.
That is quite the image, DNW in karen shorts. Eye bleach.
LOL
om; DNW:
Please stop behaving like Greene, Crockett, and AOC.
OT and all that…
Tonight I’m watching Polo, a youngish black guy, who does YouTube reactor videos. I got into him because he covered Larry Bird while a stone Celtics hater with honesty.
Polo is a sports guy but he’s branched out into music and here he is doing a react to Joni Mitchell’s “A Case of You.” (Which is Joni’s side of her love affair with Leonard Cohen.)
–“My First Listen to Joni Mitchell – Case of You | Reaction”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OXxft5jwhW4&list=RDOXxft5jwhW4&start_radio=1
Polo falls in love with Joni and her song. (Didn’t we all — or at least many of us).
One may discount Polo’s channel. One may assume he is going to the white audience for clicks, the almighty currency of the internet.
However, I sense an integrity. As well as an opportunity. Whites have been open to black music since the 60s. That blacks might return that favor today is another kind of healing.
DNW with fake eyelashes. Eye bleach!
Did you mean Rep. Crockrtt?
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2024/05/18/crockett-tries-to-make-money-off-fight-with-mtg-n2174375
🙂
huxley:
For whatever reason, a great many YouTube reactors to “old school” music (50s, 60s, 70s, 80s) are black. The Bee Gees are a great favorite, so I watch a lot of those. Some do seem to be faking the reactions, but IMHO the vast majority are sincere. Often, they realize they already know some of the Bee Gees’ music because their mothers and grandmothers used to be fans long ago, and as children the reactors had always assumed the Bee Gees were a black group.
om:
Yes, Crockett/Crockrtt was a bit too eager to cash in.
@huxley, neo:Polo falls in love with Joni and her song. (Didn’t we all — or at least many of us)… One may assume he is going to the white audience for clicks, the almighty currency of the internet. However, I sense an integrity.
Some do seem to be faking the reactions, but IMHO the vast majority are sincere.
Worth remembering that everyone who makes a living at YouTube (and the team of professionals supporting them) A/B tests everything, or they don’t last long, and the algorithms are going to reinforce them in giving them what you want to watch and reinforce you in watching it….
It may be that you’re seeing a survivorship bias in those who appear to be sincere. They may be unusually able to appear sincere. As George Burns said, when you’re playing a role you’ve got to be honest. And if you can fake that, you’ve got it made. (He of course lifted it from someone else.) Alternatively, perhaps the survivorship bias is in those who interests align with what they’re doing and are sincere to that degree.
But they’re still A/B testing everything either way. That’s why all the thumbnails look the way they do…
.the reactors had always assumed the Bee Gees were a black group.
neo:
Until “Pulp Fiction” I assumed Dusty Springfield was black. Then I looked her up.
Aretha Franklin turned down “Son of a Preacher Man.” Dusty stepped up.
–Dusty Springfield, “Son of a preacher man”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dp4339EbVn8
I think there is a love story between American blacks and whites but we’re in the middle act where everything has gone to merde.
It may be that you’re seeing a survivorship bias in those who appear to be sincere.
Niketas Choniates:
Perhaps.
However, I suspect that being sincere and appearing sincere are blurry Venn diagrams.
Hey, for honesty’s sake stop the pretense.
I don’t know what you have going on with that twisted parasite Om that compells you to bother with a pretense of evenhandedness. You obviously have a hell of a policing blind spot when it comes to the little freak … “noticing” only when a response leaves him sputtering.
You don’t need to go through any pantomimes. It is your blog and you can manage it however you want.
But it’s undeniable that this worthless character has made a career on your site out of doing substantially nothing but riding along on the hay wagon, and attacking other commenters.
God almighty, just look at your open thread of May 17. And that is just par for the course.
Neo, tolerance of his childish chickenshit trolling of others went out of style years ago.
Well, you have had an interesting site.
Ah, enough. Be well.
And the tome arrives.
Find a life.
Open Thread Sunday – International Defense – Submarines
The Future of the Submarine – Emerging Threats, Sensors & Transparent Oceans – Perun
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S96oRLoE0Zk
And while we’re squabbling (for the greater good, no doubt)…
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20654/iran-proxy-us-universities
https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/20655/western-universities-double-invasion
Hey y’all, it’s Sunday and here’s some possibly happy news:
https://instapundit.com/648680/
My favorite comment so far: “I hope Israel didn’t assassinate them. Otherwise they will face retribution.”
Yeah. Israeli-Iranian relations might suffer. That would be bad for dialogue and diplomacy.
well Raisi is just a puppet, a rather bloody one, there are many rooms in the house of the Vevak Sepah Pasdaran, the ones who really run the Iranian republic
Raisi puppet or not, Jackson Pollock painting is a good look for him.
tomato, tomatoe,
https://x.com/GLNoronha/status/1792209773041164523
Tomato, tomatoe, …. compost.
there are more than 50 ways for the main press to grovel, what will steve erlanger,
or farnaz farizi do now, same thing they do every day
no blanc mange,
https://twitter.com/Ne_pas_couvrir/status/1791807371515162660
it does seem like many members of the cabinet drew the short straw,
https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1792207099188908212
Thirty days of mourning declared…in DC?
The WH flag at half mast? (More likely the State Department and Pentagon flags, though….)
And maybe a global Kristalnacht…since, well, ya gotta blame SOMEBODY…
OTOH, perhaps we’ll get lucky….
On the third hand, wonder how they’ll celebrate in the streets of The Islamic Republic(TM)—some brave souls, that is…
Of course, we could get really unlucky…and a truly distraught Honest A., head bowed in genuine grief, will decide that the ONLY thing to do would be to play 24 hours of straight blues on his geetarrr…with Mozart’s Requiem, perhaps, as an opening number…
I keep looking for news on the Iranian helicopter “crash.” Iran so far has not announced finding the aircraft or its occupants. It was flying in mountainous terrain in a thick mist. As someone said, ask Kobe Bryant if that was a good idea.
Raisi is/was a murderous monster. Alas that the Ayatollah was not also on board.
Kate:
I assume that, if he has died, he will be replaced by another similar functionary.
Yes, he will be, Neo. No shortage of fanatics.
Abdollahian who was also on board, was part of the planning for October 7th, so call it intekam, (farsi for revenge) kismet, karma,
https://twitter.com/sfrantzman/status/1792293138767224939
back of the book section
https://twitter.com/unusual_whales/status/1792193742793019678
thats on top of the 62 million dollars he spent,
ok then
https://x.com/chiIIum/status/1792273188694409449
Jane stop this crazy thing
https://twitchy.com/justmindy/2024/05/19/biden-applauds-speaker-ceasefire-in-gaza-n2396404
oh thats unsurprising
https://twitter.com/zerohedge/status/1792318057408291239
OT for the fun of it…
I know neo and others are fond of Wings of Pegasus. Last night the algo gods pointed me to:
–Wings of Pegasus, “It’s a SHOCKING 60’s classic that’s simplistically… complicated!”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FPJ3fhyl19k
That’s Shocking Blue’s “Venus” which was a blast from the Dutch moon of Planet Rock’n’Roll in 1970.
Wow! She’s got it. Yeah, baby, she’s got it.
I ponied up my $3.98 and bought the vinyl. Sadly, there was no other song remotely close to “Venus.” Shocking Blue got off to meteoric start but never delivered on much more. It’s not quite fair to say, but Shocking Blue was a one-hit wonder.
But what a hit. What a wonder.
Wings of Pegasus delivers his usual great breakdown to a live performance of “Venus.” I didn’t realize the singer, Mariska Veres, was so beautiful. Venus, indeed.
There’s been an odd surge of react videos to “Venus,” especially in black react videos. I’m not sure what that is about, but “Venus” still jumps out of the speaker and into my brain.
These days younger people assume the Banarama version is the original or that it’s the jingle music to a feminine shaving product.
Trivia: Mariska didn’t speak English and learned the lyrics phonetically. Thus her pronunciation of “your” as “chour” which somehow seems a great touch.
Trigger Warning:
__________________________________
The only razor with built-in shave gel bars!
–“Venus Razor Commercial” (1970)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6ytaP28ylc
__________________________________
I think this is why “Venus” has so much currency with young YouTubers. It is a memorable commercial and if it hit you when you were just getting your hormones…
Here’s a young black man reacting to “Venus.” He’s grooving to the song, remembering the commercial, then he’s remembering his older relatives who lived the 70s. He comes close to weeping.
___________________________________
Oh man, today has just been feeling like such a nostalgic day. I’m not even from any of these eras, but man, I do wish I was. You guys had it good with this music and this free lifestyle.
Have you ever noticed, in this generation, that a lot of us do not feel free mentally? That we feel bound or like we just can’t have fun? I’m trying to figure out why this shift happened. What happened?
I hear stories from my grandparents and my mom. They tell me about the era they were born in—I’m not going to expose their years or ages—but they said they felt a little bit freer. With the hair, the clothes, the dances, dancing to seven-minute songs without feeling embarrassed or ashamed. They’re looking at me, looking at the way my hair is, the way I dress, like, “Take me back to y’all time, please.”
–JBLETHAL TV, “CAUGHT ME OFF GAURD! Shocking Blue – Venus REACTION”
https://youtu.be/c63KMVnqDrA?t=264
I dislike reading correction comments but sometimes:
–“Venus Razor Commercial” (2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i6ytaP28ylc