I love the way she gives herself over utterly to the backward falls:
Comments
Open thread 3/22/2025 — 22 Comments
One thing that has been heartening since the inauguration is that money trumps ideology. Lots of people believe whatever, but to actually go and act on that requires someone to be paying their bills, and when that money is taken away, the ideologically-motivated behavior of individuals goes way down. And when that money is threatened, institutions back off or reverse course.
Like so much else in modern society, the passion for Leftism and social justice is largely fake. People are getting paid to do that for a living and role-playing their passionate engagement. Without that money, it’s just people ranting from their barstools and armchairs….
“Every shot fired by the Houthis will be looked upon, from this point forward, as being a shot fired from the weapons and leadership of IRAN,” Mr. Trump pledged. “IRAN will be held responsible, and suffer the consequences, and those consequences will be dire!”
I suppose that doesn’t have to be read as a threat of military action, but it sounds like one.
“Heartwarming” is a reasonable description of my feelings here.
WOW!! Townhall just posted an expose that CJ Roberts is involved with a highly secretive cabal of lawyers and judges including Brown Jackson and Boasberg. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it doesn’t look good for Roberts.
@physicsguy:highly secretive cabal of lawyers and judges
The American Inns of Court have been around for about 50 years, their English counterparts for hundreds. They’re hardly a “secretive cabal”, there’s over 350 of them. They have a search tool to find the nearest one to you.
I’m not sure what to make of this
Way oversold, trying to make it sound sinister. I hear Roberts is in another secretive cabal, limited to 9 only, and only a US President can make you one. And that group gets the final word in all law cases–for life!–and three of them are notorious Trump-haters!
Perhaps the “journalist Bad Kitty Unleashed” who blew the lid off the Inns of Court can get to work on that group next…
April Fools come early it seems
with news of Putin having gone to church to pray for DJT after an assassination attempt.
How exactly would one know what Putin prayed for?
There is a bridge on the Don that you can bid on Boned Looser.
Yessiree.
Further proof that the Donald is making Putin more than a bit nervous.
Excellent post at Zero Hedge, Barry. The charts make very clear that Democrat fiscal policy has driven the accumulated debt to astronomical levels and has made the wealthy richer, widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Democrat policies sound compassionate towards the less wealthy but in actual effect they hurt the poor and the middle class.
I find it hard to take reports of Putin’s personal piety seriously, given how he treats opponents and neighboring nations. It’s for show.
That’s good, but “Currently, former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama receive daily intelligence briefings.”
Bill Clinton and Obama should not receive these, IMO. I would be fine with Bush’s being cancelled too, if necessary.
WRT the dancer. It must take enormous willpower to overcome the reflexive responses to such a fall.
I was distracted by the mens’ costumes, which looked like blue pajamas with white spats.
I also have trouble warming up to Balanchine’s “pure dance” pieces. Not much passion, and in this case an awkward sense of moving from pose to pose.
I honestly wanted to hear more of her personal story – the interview clips were tantalizing.
allegedly, this was what Witkoff was told, he’s a bit of an easy mark, see the Qataris
RE: NHIs and us Humans
The image/situation you want to keep in mind is that of the indigenous Indians when European settlers came to America, and disrupted everything–what happened to these native American’s health and population numbers, to their culture and civilization, to their material culture (a few examples now sitting in dusty museum exhibits), to their tribes, to their religious beliefs, to their alliances and governing structures, to the rivers, villages, lands, and hunting grounds they traditionally migrated to and lived on, occupied and used, to their economies, and to the animals and plants, to the Buffalo, and the ecosystem their relied on for the way of life and survival; to their AGENCY, and—in the end–the resultant number of Indians who are left, today, at the end of this process, and their condition.
I’ve often thought that, despite their great disadvantages in knowledge, material culture, and military power, if some of the Indian leaders had managed to enlarge their view of the world, to grasp a “big picture” view that encompassed what was happening to them, and recognize that—if they wanted themselves and their way of life to survive, at least somewhat intact–they had to, early on, comprehend the overwhelming nature of their impending peril, and to craft an effective response outside of just physical warfare, things might have turned out somewhat–maybe a lot better.
Then, in order to much more effectively fight this “invasion”–and to also contend with these arriving “aliens” on their own terms and on their own home ground—that some of their best had to–recognize this invasion for what it was, go to England, become highly literate, and educated in European’s knowledge, mindset, and legal system, to find some friends and allies, and to use the political and legal systems, both in England and in America, to mitigate some, maybe a lot, of the ultimate damage.
Assuming that NHIs are real and, are interacting with us humans, how should we think about, analyze, and deal with the situation, what questions should we ask, about a unique situation which will fundamentally change literally everything.
Here is such a “big picture” view.
I am half way though a lengthly Youtube video by Reed Summers (who has a new Youtube site called EMERGENCE) in which he takes an impressive, and a very broad and sober, considered, and analytical look at these questions, and lists and explores what are literally hundreds of very well thought out questions we humans should be asking and trying to get the answers to, if we don’t want to end up being the American Indians in this NHI scenario.*
Our Special Envoy to the Middle East has a lot on his plate, starting with what to do in Gaza.
@Snow on Pine:I’ve often thought that, despite their great disadvantages in knowledge, material culture, and military power, if some of the Indian leaders had managed to enlarge their view of the world, to grasp a “big picture” view that encompassed what was happening to them…
It might help to read some older history books that haven’t been whitewashed. The Indians were allying with Europeans against each other.
Snow on Pine wrote: “… the resultant number of Indians who are left …”
Here’s a data point: At first contact, in the early 1600s, there were roughly 10,000 to 20,000 people in the parent population from which my tribe, and at least four other tribes, descends. In the early 1900s, the base roll of my tribe had about 1100 names. Today, my (recent) enrollment number is in the 60000s. We are still here.
Poor Snow on Pine, the NHIs came and were wiped out by viruses and pathogens on the Earth, never to return (or by some auditory ear worm (Mars Attacks)). That’s as seriously as I can take his hobby horse.
Niketas
The European diseases had killed, according to some, up to 90% of the indiges in North and South America. Among other things, this upset polities and relationships. The Wampanoag, down by half due to small pox caught from shipwrecked French fishermen the year before welcomed the Pilgrims. Possibly it was because, in their weakened state, the untouched Narragansett were leaning on them and throwing in with these new guys looked like a good idea.
See the line up in the the Great Pequot War and King Phillip’s War. The English were one of a number of factions.
In the last big fight between the Commanche and the Texas Rangers, the latter were helped by a bunch of guys from tribes you never heard of because the Commanche had wiped them out.
So it went all across North America.
Besides, the English had better ways of doing things…new crops, tools, firearms, plows, and assimilating, if gradually, was inevitable.
RE: Are there Government/DOD Contingency plans for dealing with the situation if NHIs are unmistakably revealed, or announce themselves?
It’s a common thought/saying that the DOD “has contingency plans for every possible scenario,” but with regard to NHIs, do they have plans for this possibility?
I’ve referred, on an earlier thread, to the existence of Dr. Travis. S.Taylor’s 2006 book, ”An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare As Applied to Extraterrestrial Invasion,” and since Taylor has worked for DOD, it has occurred to me to wonder if this book was actually a “sanitized” civilian market version of a much more thorough and detailed classified concept paper Taylor did for DOD.
In the occasional science fiction story there is a whole, very well concealed government department dedicated to keeping tabs on NHIs, with teams on alert, ready to spring into action, if and when these NHIs reveal themselves (perhaps something like a small version of a less activist, pared down MIB).
(Of course, the Department of Energy actually does have it’s own small team, acronym NEST, on call to go to sites with their expertise and special detection equipment, and, from the air, to look for nuclear weapons or dangerous radioactive material.)
More often, though, the science fiction story has the DOD “UFO operation” consist of perhaps one lower level officer, stuck in a small, gloomy, filing cabinet filled basement office, the rest of the space almost all taken by a beat up, old GI metal desk (think something like Agent Muldur’s basement FBI office in the X-Files).
Of course, if there actually is a fully developed 80 year old Legacy UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering program in existence, I’d assume that they’d also have fully developed contingency plans and some knowledgeable forces to implement them.
I don’t know, though, after some of the levels of incompetence, and what are in essence do-nothing, sham, ripoff oversight-free government organizations DOGE has discovered, perhaps there actually are no contingency plans anywhere within government, and the relevant officials just hope that the “NHI problem” will just magically disappear. *
One thing that has been heartening since the inauguration is that money trumps ideology. Lots of people believe whatever, but to actually go and act on that requires someone to be paying their bills, and when that money is taken away, the ideologically-motivated behavior of individuals goes way down. And when that money is threatened, institutions back off or reverse course.
Like so much else in modern society, the passion for Leftism and social justice is largely fake. People are getting paid to do that for a living and role-playing their passionate engagement. Without that money, it’s just people ranting from their barstools and armchairs….
I have no idea what to make of this.
https://archive.md/Lrztz
I suppose that doesn’t have to be read as a threat of military action, but it sounds like one.
“Heartwarming” is a reasonable description of my feelings here.
https://x.com/charlesornstein/status/1903178204191527061
Mike Plaiss:
I find both of your items heartwarming, along with news of Putin having gone to church to pray for DJT after an assassination attempt.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/putin-prayed-trump-assassination-attempt-022833118.html
WOW!! Townhall just posted an expose that CJ Roberts is involved with a highly secretive cabal of lawyers and judges including Brown Jackson and Boasberg. I’m not sure what to make of this, but it doesn’t look good for Roberts.
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/saraharnold/2025/03/22/chief-justice-john-roberts-caught-in-elitist-club-of-judges-and-lawyers-n2654245
@physicsguy:highly secretive cabal of lawyers and judges
The American Inns of Court have been around for about 50 years, their English counterparts for hundreds. They’re hardly a “secretive cabal”, there’s over 350 of them. They have a search tool to find the nearest one to you.
I’m not sure what to make of this
Way oversold, trying to make it sound sinister. I hear Roberts is in another secretive cabal, limited to 9 only, and only a US President can make you one. And that group gets the final word in all law cases–for life!–and three of them are notorious Trump-haters!
Perhaps the “journalist Bad Kitty Unleashed” who blew the lid off the Inns of Court can get to work on that group next…
April Fools come early it seems
How exactly would one know what Putin prayed for?
There is a bridge on the Don that you can bid on Boned Looser.
Yessiree.
Further proof that the Donald is making Putin more than a bit nervous.
+ Bonus
The economics of it all (in a nutshell).
AKA the ultimate ANTI-KRUGMAN.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/darkest-secret-behind-democrats-economic-policy
Excellent post at Zero Hedge, Barry. The charts make very clear that Democrat fiscal policy has driven the accumulated debt to astronomical levels and has made the wealthy richer, widening the gap between the rich and the poor. Democrat policies sound compassionate towards the less wealthy but in actual effect they hurt the poor and the middle class.
I find it hard to take reports of Putin’s personal piety seriously, given how he treats opponents and neighboring nations. It’s for show.
Trump revokes security clearances for Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and others
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2025/mar/22/trump-revokes-security-clearances-kamala-harris-hillary-clinton-joe/
That’s good, but “Currently, former Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama receive daily intelligence briefings.”
Bill Clinton and Obama should not receive these, IMO. I would be fine with Bush’s being cancelled too, if necessary.
WRT the dancer. It must take enormous willpower to overcome the reflexive responses to such a fall.
I was distracted by the mens’ costumes, which looked like blue pajamas with white spats.
I also have trouble warming up to Balanchine’s “pure dance” pieces. Not much passion, and in this case an awkward sense of moving from pose to pose.
I honestly wanted to hear more of her personal story – the interview clips were tantalizing.
allegedly, this was what Witkoff was told, he’s a bit of an easy mark, see the Qataris
RE: NHIs and us Humans
The image/situation you want to keep in mind is that of the indigenous Indians when European settlers came to America, and disrupted everything–what happened to these native American’s health and population numbers, to their culture and civilization, to their material culture (a few examples now sitting in dusty museum exhibits), to their tribes, to their religious beliefs, to their alliances and governing structures, to the rivers, villages, lands, and hunting grounds they traditionally migrated to and lived on, occupied and used, to their economies, and to the animals and plants, to the Buffalo, and the ecosystem their relied on for the way of life and survival; to their AGENCY, and—in the end–the resultant number of Indians who are left, today, at the end of this process, and their condition.
I’ve often thought that, despite their great disadvantages in knowledge, material culture, and military power, if some of the Indian leaders had managed to enlarge their view of the world, to grasp a “big picture” view that encompassed what was happening to them, and recognize that—if they wanted themselves and their way of life to survive, at least somewhat intact–they had to, early on, comprehend the overwhelming nature of their impending peril, and to craft an effective response outside of just physical warfare, things might have turned out somewhat–maybe a lot better.
Then, in order to much more effectively fight this “invasion”–and to also contend with these arriving “aliens” on their own terms and on their own home ground—that some of their best had to–recognize this invasion for what it was, go to England, become highly literate, and educated in European’s knowledge, mindset, and legal system, to find some friends and allies, and to use the political and legal systems, both in England and in America, to mitigate some, maybe a lot, of the ultimate damage.
Assuming that NHIs are real and, are interacting with us humans, how should we think about, analyze, and deal with the situation, what questions should we ask, about a unique situation which will fundamentally change literally everything.
Here is such a “big picture” view.
I am half way though a lengthly Youtube video by Reed Summers (who has a new Youtube site called EMERGENCE) in which he takes an impressive, and a very broad and sober, considered, and analytical look at these questions, and lists and explores what are literally hundreds of very well thought out questions we humans should be asking and trying to get the answers to, if we don’t want to end up being the American Indians in this NHI scenario.*
* See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWFG1VsRA-E&t=2062s
Our Special Envoy to the Middle East has a lot on his plate, starting with what to do in Gaza.
@Snow on Pine:I’ve often thought that, despite their great disadvantages in knowledge, material culture, and military power, if some of the Indian leaders had managed to enlarge their view of the world, to grasp a “big picture” view that encompassed what was happening to them…
It might help to read some older history books that haven’t been whitewashed. The Indians were allying with Europeans against each other.
Snow on Pine wrote: “… the resultant number of Indians who are left …”
Here’s a data point: At first contact, in the early 1600s, there were roughly 10,000 to 20,000 people in the parent population from which my tribe, and at least four other tribes, descends. In the early 1900s, the base roll of my tribe had about 1100 names. Today, my (recent) enrollment number is in the 60000s. We are still here.
seriously
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14523663/convicted-synagogue-bomber-hassan-diab-living-canada-extradition-france.html
Poor Snow on Pine, the NHIs came and were wiped out by viruses and pathogens on the Earth, never to return (or by some auditory ear worm (Mars Attacks)). That’s as seriously as I can take his hobby horse.
Niketas
The European diseases had killed, according to some, up to 90% of the indiges in North and South America. Among other things, this upset polities and relationships. The Wampanoag, down by half due to small pox caught from shipwrecked French fishermen the year before welcomed the Pilgrims. Possibly it was because, in their weakened state, the untouched Narragansett were leaning on them and throwing in with these new guys looked like a good idea.
See the line up in the the Great Pequot War and King Phillip’s War. The English were one of a number of factions.
In the last big fight between the Commanche and the Texas Rangers, the latter were helped by a bunch of guys from tribes you never heard of because the Commanche had wiped them out.
So it went all across North America.
Besides, the English had better ways of doing things…new crops, tools, firearms, plows, and assimilating, if gradually, was inevitable.
RE: Are there Government/DOD Contingency plans for dealing with the situation if NHIs are unmistakably revealed, or announce themselves?
It’s a common thought/saying that the DOD “has contingency plans for every possible scenario,” but with regard to NHIs, do they have plans for this possibility?
I’ve referred, on an earlier thread, to the existence of Dr. Travis. S.Taylor’s 2006 book, ”An Introduction to Planetary Defense: A Study of Modern Warfare As Applied to Extraterrestrial Invasion,” and since Taylor has worked for DOD, it has occurred to me to wonder if this book was actually a “sanitized” civilian market version of a much more thorough and detailed classified concept paper Taylor did for DOD.
In the occasional science fiction story there is a whole, very well concealed government department dedicated to keeping tabs on NHIs, with teams on alert, ready to spring into action, if and when these NHIs reveal themselves (perhaps something like a small version of a less activist, pared down MIB).
(Of course, the Department of Energy actually does have it’s own small team, acronym NEST, on call to go to sites with their expertise and special detection equipment, and, from the air, to look for nuclear weapons or dangerous radioactive material.)
More often, though, the science fiction story has the DOD “UFO operation” consist of perhaps one lower level officer, stuck in a small, gloomy, filing cabinet filled basement office, the rest of the space almost all taken by a beat up, old GI metal desk (think something like Agent Muldur’s basement FBI office in the X-Files).
Of course, if there actually is a fully developed 80 year old Legacy UFO crash retrieval and reverse engineering program in existence, I’d assume that they’d also have fully developed contingency plans and some knowledgeable forces to implement them.
I don’t know, though, after some of the levels of incompetence, and what are in essence do-nothing, sham, ripoff oversight-free government organizations DOGE has discovered, perhaps there actually are no contingency plans anywhere within government, and the relevant officials just hope that the “NHI problem” will just magically disappear. *
* See https://www.dailywire.com/news/fmcs-slush-fund-abolished-by-trump?topStoryPosition=undefined