Home » Open thread 7/19/24

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Open thread 7/19/24 — 41 Comments

  1. maybe the guidance systems of the Houthi drones aren’t that good,

    we’re whistling dixie if we think manufacturing shouldn’t be a key component of our industrial base,

  2. Hmmm.

    Aerodrome, hippodrome, velodrome . . . stuff just runs “together” (syn).

  3. Don Surber

    “There is no concern about the fate of the country or the world when left in the hands of a doddering old fool run by his wife and his cocaine-addicted son. No, all that matters to Democrats is getting re-elected so they can stay on the gravy train that runs from Beijing to Kyiv to DC — and back again.”

    Boom!

  4. I’ve been busy and missed the threads on conspiracies surrounding the PA assassination attempt.

    Let me open by saying, I have read very little about this and am fairly uninformed on the details. However, from perusing writing by those who have put a lot of time into it, they also seem uninformed. There just don’t seem to be a lot of details yet.

    I completely understand why many people, regardless of political leanings, are postulating theories involving complicity with government agencies, or even that it was somehow staged by Trump and his confidants. It is about as close to unbelievable as something of this magnitude can be. So many moving parts and so many coincidences. Or are they coincidences?

    I have no opinion. I simply do not have enough information, nor have I seen enough tangible evidence to feel confident about anything, except that a bullet grazed President Donald Trump’s ear while he was speaking at an event and others at the event were killed and injured.

    However, for those who are convinced it HAS to be some sort of conspiracy, or collusion, or there has to be intent and involvement beyond the lone gunman shot by Secret Service snipers…

    Look at that shot that grazed Trump’s ear!!

    Even in his speech last night President Trump talked about the incredible unlikelihood it could play out the way it did. Yet, we know that it did truly, actually happen. A man sighted President Trump’s head with his rifle and pulled the trigger and just at the exact, fraction of a second necessary the President turned and tilted his head in the precise movement required so that the bullet would hit his head but avoid any debilitating damage, yet instantaneously draw blood.

    That actually happened. We have all seen it. And no amount of coordination with any number of clandestine government operatives, or dark forces colluding with Donald Trump, could actually stage something that precise. Sometimes incredible things happen. That piece, the shooting and turning of the head, is irrefutable.

    Incredible, bizarre, unbelievable things do happen. A speaker who has given thousands of speeches and never used a visual ad, adds one to his speech and turns to look at it at the exact, nanosecond required to avoid a direct hit from an assassin. Parade routes get moved in front of buildings where a communist narcissist happens to work. An eyeglass case and 50 page speech stops a bullet. A car on an unplanned route stalls directly in front of an assassin.

    Again, I have no idea if there is more to the Trump assassination attempt, but for those basing their insistence that there has to be a conspiracy on the impossibility of it all. That one, fraction of a second, is impossible to stage. Yet it happened. Impossibilities are possible.

  5. its as much a spiritual battle as a physical one, franklin Graham and the Detroit preacher, can recognize it, the exact means are unclear, and the apparat wants to make it so, now they raise the Persian Lion as the catspaw unlikely, they would pick a better vehicle more likely to succeed, but they can see how hollow the praetorians are,

  6. Charlie Foxtrot warning — Zerohedge updates their new report on SS and the Trump assassination with this gem of a turd:

    Update (1015ET): Sen. Josh Hawley (R-MO) said on X that according to new whistleblowers, “MOST of Trump’s security detail working the event last Saturday were not even Secret Service,” and were instead “drawn from the department’s Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

  7. miguel, huxley,

    “syndrome syndrome.”

    I’ve heard several interviews with Abigail Shrier on her latest book, “Bad Therapy: Why the Kids Aren’t Growing Up.” (use neo’s Amazon link to buy a copy)

    I think she raises a key issue explaining much of the struggle so many of our youth and 20 somethings are experiencing.

    Shrier explores the ways the mental health industry has transformed the way we teach, treat, discipline, and even talk to our kids. She reveals that most of the therapeutic approaches have serious side effects and few proven benefits. Among her unsettling findings:

    Talk therapy can induce rumination, trapping children in cycles of anxiety and depression
    Social Emotional Learning handicaps our most vulnerable children, in both public schools and private
    “Gentle parenting” can encourage emotional turbulence – even violence – in children as they lash out, desperate for an adult in charge

    Mental health care can be lifesaving when properly applied to children with severe needs, but for the typical child, the cure can be worse than the disease.

    My wife is a genius and she taught me early on; they react to how you react. If they trip and scrape their knee and you scream and run to them and make a big deal out of it; they make it a big deal.

    If your school teachers are asking you how you feel everyday, and doting attention on the students who express the slightest unhappiness…

  8. are they really therapeutic, do they help, or are they just immobilizing,

    SEL is dangerous and stupid, we never had need for it before,

    I was bullied in school, it never occurred to me, to pick up a gun and start shooting people,

    and this has been the pattern since 1996 at least, the more the constructivist swill gets poored the more shooters you get, this one may have identity issues, of course they will cover that up with a pillow, the size of a capsule drogue shoot,

  9. There’s been massive IT outtage today causing millions of systems running Windows with Crowdstrike security software to crash to the dreaded Blue Screen of Death. It has evidently effected everything from air travel, financial, and health care and emergency services. Apparently all this was due to some sort of Crowdstrike patch, and currently the “solution” involves booting each machine into “Safe Mode” and manually deleting a file, which is realistically untenable for large organizations with tens of thousands of machines that need to have this done one at a time.

  10. because clownstrike (not a typo) is on the Cloud, which is a perfect way to make your data available to any perspective browser, there was also the hack of a major
    clearinghouse for health information, what is cisa good for, absolutely nothing,

  11. Eugene Kontorovich thread, the opening:

    There are no surprises at the ICJ Advisory Opinion today, including its timing right before Shabbat. Holding: Israel’s presence in West Bank & Jerusalem entirely illegal and ultraverybad.

    Read the whole thing for his analysis, the conclusion of which is:

    For Israel, the lesson should be clear: Jerusalem must urgently quit treaties, like the Genocide Convention and a dozen others, where it agrees to give the ICJ jurisdiction. Israel cannot carry on with The Hague as if it is business as usual. Too often Israel takes diplomatic blows without a meaningful response.

    https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1814302415014727849.html?utm_campaign=topunroll

  12. Oh, and just for starters I’d look to J. J. Rousseau’s Emile for intimations of the kickoff of our psychotherapeutics folderol. Allan Bloom’s translation is very good.

  13. um if it was jordanian, and egyptian territory, how is it illegal, back then it was part of the mandate, the most you could say is it’s contested territory,

  14. Despite all the rumors, the palace guard insist Biden’s staying in. It’s as if the Dem power brokers are attempting to incept a reality where Biden steps down simply by generating rumors of him doing so. The Dems excel at warping reality at times though.

  15. Nonapod,

    neo has written several posts stating that she doesn’t think anyone can do anything if Biden himself does not agree and there is nothing anyone can do if he doesn’t.

    So far she’s been proved correct.

  16. Jim Treacher: Joe Won’t Go

    A lot of Democrats are underestimating what a stubborn, selfish asshole Joe Biden is. Which you’d think they’d know, having handed him all this power in the first place.

    Somebody said that Joe is a “stubburn old cuss”? It’s humorous that the very people who gave him power forgot what a grasping, covetus creature he is. And that’s not even taking into account the pack of hyenas in his near orbit.

    But Joe is also quite venal. If they truly want to be rid of him, they’re going to have to promise him a big payday. Perhaps some deep pocketed progressive organizations will need to offer the Bidens some sort of “development deal”, similar to what Netflix gifted to the Obamas.

  17. Rufus, going off on what CapnRusty just said, I definitely lean towards the gross incompetence line. But what is so disconcerting is the overall level of negligence by multiple players (SS and the Butler LEOs). That fuels more sinister ideas of what happened. An obvious rooftop not secured?? Multiple attendees telling the police that the shooter was on the roof as he’s crawling across and they do nothing. SS and police recognizing the shooter as a threat 30-40 minutes before and then not aggressively pursuing him, and then “losing” him. It is staggering to think that not one SS agent or LEO would not have acted to easily prevent the shooting given all the parameters. Maybe we do live in an idiotacracy

  18. You’re probably reading about the crowdstrike screw up. The BBC says that nonbusiness personal computers are not at risk. But services from businesses like your paycheck may be affected

    If you're worried about your own, personal devices, we have some good news.
    The software at the centre of this outage is generally used by businesses, which means that most people's personal computers won't be impacted.
    That means if you're wondering whether you need to delete a certain file to avoid your computer restarting constantly, the simple answer is no, you don't.

    https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cp4wnrxqlewo

  19. Rufus: FWIW, my 50,000 ft view of the attempt on Trump’s life:

    1. As with JFK, people get down into weeds of details about ballistics, ladders, who was where when. But the biggest unanswered question is, why was that rooftop left unguarded? An aerial view of the venue shows it is the best spot for a sniper and within easy range of a very makable shot.

    2. Crooks seems an unlikely vehicle for a deliberate assassination conspiracy. But was Trump’s security “slow-rolled” because “Gee it’d be a shame if something happened to literally Hitler …”?

    3. It may be hard to distinguish #2 from the DEI-infused incompetence that appears to afflict the Secret Service. (HT CapnRusty)

  20. Can anyone steer me back to the interview/lecture with… here’s the problem, I can’t remember the man’s name. He was one of Trump’s legal team post-2020 election, and he was talking about how, despite Democrats’ insistence that “Trump lost all the election-fixing court cases because there was no election-fixing,” there are still a number of biggies out there, and that none of the “lost” cases was lost on the basis of evidence, but rather dismissed on standing or other legalisms.

    Eastman maybe?

    Someone posted it here back in ?June? May? – it may even have been neo herself. And I really want to reread or relisten (I’m so frustrated that I remember so little of the metadata, so to speak), and I can’t think how I would search for it in archives.

  21. Nonapod said: “Despite all the rumors, the palace guard insist Biden’s staying in.”

    Stephen Green posted this a little while ago on Instapundit:

    “FOR WHAT IT’S WORTH…: I couldn’t help but notice that between the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Post, there’s only one story on the Democrat effort to oust Biden from the ticket. That one story is in WaPo and it’s below the virtual fold.”

    It does seem chaotic that the Dems keep hopping from one bandwagon to the next every other day. There no telling where this will stop.

  22. Worth remembering that what we’re seeing here is not really “reporting rumors”. It’s a campaign of pressure applied through the media. This is not stuff that Brenda Starr, Reporter overheard at the water cooler that may or may not check out. Powerful people are calling her up and telling her to put this in the news in the hope it will make something happen.

    The mainstream press is acting as agents for factions in Washington, DC, in other words, trying to make this fake news come true.

    Which is why I urge caution before accepting any narrative you get from them.

  23. There are so many ridiculous things said which we some people take seriously and serious things are ignored

    Yes john eastman

    Like the argument about social media platforms

  24. So crowdstrike eg is a deeply unethical perhaps fraudulent enterprise from the dnc ‘hack’ yet it has become an extreme point of vulnerabilty

    And cue the program from marr’s head of state

  25. J.D. Vance:

    If Joe Biden doesn’t have the cognitive function to run for re-election, then he certainly doesn’t have the cognitive function to remain as Commander-In-Chief.

    How can any Dem pushing him to drop out of the presidential race, argue in good faith that he should stay on as POTUS?

    https://x.com/JDVance1/status/1814364945867268602?t=xaiH2NXBYL_cLAslrM0qLA&s=19

    And:

    Dems if you want to bypass Kamala without looking like misogynist racists here’s how you do it:

    You have to be honest.

    I know I know the mere thought of that is absurd but hear me out.

    You have to acknowledge that Biden should not be president, and that the White House and Harris have been hiding his ineptitude from the American people. That they have been lying to us about who is making decisions for years. And because Harris did not invoke the 25th and was a key part of this deception, she is also disqualified from running the country.

    Easy peasy.

    https://x.com/txsalth2o/status/1814109367198966161?t=K-cOGuaVTAv4lfBsLx_xPQ&s=19

  26. physicsguy, CapNRusty,

    I’m very open to incompetence and/or malevolence regarding the security at the event. As I wrote, I haven’t spent much time on it, and, from what I can tell from reading those who have, there still seems to be a great deal of relevant information that is still unknown.

    My point is; barring evidence to the contrary, we should all still be open to the possibility of a solo actor and speaker with incredible luck. There is no arguing the head tilt and ear graze occurred. The most gifted gymnast paired with the most gifted marksman could not intentionally reproduce that outcome. Albrecht Gessler’s assassin, William Tell, struck an apple center several inches from his son’s scalp. This was maybe a millimeter. At over 100 yards!

    There was certainly incompetence in Butler, PA. But there doesn’t have to have been conspiracy, no matter how unbelievable.

    Read about the incredible coincidences in this 23 year old assassin’s attempt: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Archduke_Franz_Ferdinand
    It’s almost impossible to believe Governor Potiorek and/or the driver were not accomplices, but there were no radios, or cell phones or video cameras. They could not have conspired with one another. It was random, dumb coincidence.

  27. Hello, Bob Wilson! Yes, that Crowdstrike thing is interesting. It’s been on my mind all day, not because I have any worries about my home computer, but on account of how it could influence my attempt to go on vacation in the next week or two – I was rather counting on air travel being an option, and then hotel reservations and so on are another side of it. Is there a chance that things don’t get fixed up in the next day or two?

  28. Iran Update, July 19, 2024 — snippets on Houthis drone strike:

    The Houthis launched a one-way attack drone into Tel Aviv for the first time on July 18…

    The Houthis appear to have flown the drone from Yemen to the Mediterranean Sea before turning it eastward into Tel Aviv.

    The Houthis have claimed responsibility for the attack and vowed to continue attacking deep into Israel.

    ..new “Yafa” drone, which appears to be a modified variant of the Iranian-designed Samad-3 drone. The Yafa drone carried around 10 kilograms of explosives…

    The Houthis have conducted reconnaissance in force against the Israeli air defense network in recent months .. The US Army defines reconnaissance in force as “a deliberate combat operation designed to discover or test the enemy’s strength, dispositions, and reactions or to obtain other information.”

    The Houthi reconnaissance-in-force effort against Israeli air defenses reflects more broadly how Iran and its Axis of Resistance are learning from the Israel-Hamas war and accordingly developing new ways of fighting Israel.

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