Who knew that tortoise shells have nerve endings ; but they do !
They can actually feel pressure and touch thru their shells.
We don’t have a 175lb tortoise, but we do have a Florida protected gopher tortoise on our property. He/she (not being politically correct, but who knows what the gender is) is about 8″ in diameter. We first discovered it when it somehow got through our fence and was trapped in the backyard with the dogs going crazy. I had to pick it up and move it outside the fence. Hissed at me, and tried to get me with its digging claw feet. It has 2 burrows on opposite sides of our property. Its fun to watch it go between….that little guy can really move when it wants to.
In my latest post, I review the video series ‘A French Village’, which ran on French television for 7 seasons. Absolutely outstanding, one of the best video series I have ever seen.
Very consciously looking directly away from the real problem, and not acknowledging it, I see the wimpy Australian PM says that, in reaction to the Bondi massacre–carried out by a Muslim father and son–his government is not going to increase the surveillance of, immigration enforcement against, and deportation of hostile Muslims–but, instead, it is going to tighten up even further what are already some of the tightest gun restrictions around, further crippling law abiding citizen’s ability to defend themselves.
Re: The new Animal Farm film
The Critical Drinker has an excellent summary and critique:
_____________________________
…with [Andy Serkis’s] very unique take on Animal Farm, which reimagines George Orwell’s satirical critique of totalitarian communism and Stalin’s cult of personality as a wacky contemporary animated comedy starring Seth Rogan, where the real enemy is a tech billionaire who happens to drive a cybertruck.
According to Drinker the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, represent Trotsky and Stalin respectively.
I see the wimpy Australian PM
==
He may be wimpy. More salient is that he is solicitous of foreigners and hostile to the interests of Australians.
@huxley:According to Drinker the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, represent Trotsky and Stalin respectively.
There was a time in living memory when no one had to have this spelled out, and it was obvious enough that during the war the Ministry of Information thought Animal Farm was too anti-Stalin and said so to the publisher, who then turned it down.
Orwell’s lost preface to Animal Farm here. He spells a lot of things out.
It is important to realise that the current Russomania is only a symptom of the general weakening of the western liberal tradition. Had the MOI chipped in and definitely vetoed the publication of this book, the bulk of the English intelligentsia would have seen nothing disquieting in this. Uncritical loyalty to the USSR happens to be the current orthodoxy, and where the supposed interests of the USSR are involved they are willing to tolerate not only censorship but the deliberate falsification of history. To name one instance. At the death of John Reed, the author of Ten Days that Shook the World – first-hand account of the early days of the Russian Revolution – the copyright of the book passed into the hands of the British Communist Party, to whom I believe Reed had bequeathed it. Some years later the British Communists, having destroyed the original edition of the book as completely as they could, issued a garbled version from which they had eliminated mentions of Trotsky and also omitted the introduction written by Lenin. If a radical intelligentsia had still existed in Britain, this act of forgery would have been exposed and denounced in every literary paper in the country. As it was there was little or no protest. To many English intellectuals it seemed quite a natural thing to do. And this tolerance or [of?] plain dishonesty means much more than that admiration for Russia happens to be fashionable at this moment. Quite possibly that particular fashion will not last. For all I know, by the time this book is published my view of the Soviet régime may be the generally accepted one. But what use would that be in itself? To exchange one orthodoxy for another is not necessarily an advance. The enemy is the gramophone mind, whether or not one agrees with the record that is being played at the moment.
I am well acquainted with all the arguments against freedom of thought and speech – the arguments which claim that it cannot exist, and the arguments which claim that it ought not to. I answer simply that they don’t convince me and that our civilisation over a period of four hundred years has been founded on the opposite notice. For quite a decade past I have believed that the existing Russian régime is a mainly evil thing, and I claim the right to say so, in spite of the fact that we are allies with the USSR in a war which I want to see won. If I had to choose a text to justify myself, I should choose the line from Milton:
“By the known rules of ancient liberty.”
The word ancient emphasises the fact that intellectual freedom is a deep-rooted tradition without which our characteristic western culture could only doubtfully exist. From that tradition many of our intellectuals are visibly turning away. They have accepted the principle that a book should be published or suppressed, praised or damned, not on its merits but according to political expediency. And others who do not actually hold this view assent to it from sheer cowardice. An example of this is the failure of the numerous and vocal English pacifists to raise their voices against the prevalent worship of Russian militarism. According to those pacifists, all violence is evil, and they have urged us at every stage of the war to give in or at least to make a compromise peace. But how many of them have ever suggested that war is also evil when it is waged by the Red Army? Apparently the Russians have a right to defend themselves, whereas for us to do [so] is a deadly sin. One can only explain this contradiction in one way: that is, by a cowardly desire to keep in with the bulk of the intelligentsia, whose patriotism is directed towards the USSR rather than towards Britain. I know that the English intelligentsia have plenty of reason for their timidity and dishonesty, indeed I know by heart the arguments by which they justify themselves. But at least let us have no more nonsense about defending liberty against Fascism. If liberty means anything at all it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. The common people still vaguely subscribe to that doctrine and act on it. In our country – it is not the same in all countries: it was not so in republican France, and it is not so in the USA today – it is the liberals who fear liberty and the intellectuals who want to do dirt on the intellect: it is to draw attention to that fact that I have written this preface.
Looking around at the leaders of the nations of the West, afraid to confront the very real—and growing–threat from Islam and, instead, blaming the threats to their citizens and their countries on “white nationalism” or some such bogeyman, we here in the U.S. are extremely lucky to have President Trump—whatever his faults might be–directing our nation.
I think that President Trump has a very good idea of where the real threats are coming from, and that–when the time is right– he will act on that knowledge.
Who knew that tortoise shells have nerve endings ; but they do !
They can actually feel pressure and touch thru their shells.
We don’t have a 175lb tortoise, but we do have a Florida protected gopher tortoise on our property. He/she (not being politically correct, but who knows what the gender is) is about 8″ in diameter. We first discovered it when it somehow got through our fence and was trapped in the backyard with the dogs going crazy. I had to pick it up and move it outside the fence. Hissed at me, and tried to get me with its digging claw feet. It has 2 burrows on opposite sides of our property. Its fun to watch it go between….that little guy can really move when it wants to.
In my latest post, I review the video series ‘A French Village’, which ran on French television for 7 seasons. Absolutely outstanding, one of the best video series I have ever seen.
https://davidfoster273133.substack.com/p/video-review-a-french-village
Please excuse the double posting–
Very consciously looking directly away from the real problem, and not acknowledging it, I see the wimpy Australian PM says that, in reaction to the Bondi massacre–carried out by a Muslim father and son–his government is not going to increase the surveillance of, immigration enforcement against, and deportation of hostile Muslims–but, instead, it is going to tighten up even further what are already some of the tightest gun restrictions around, further crippling law abiding citizen’s ability to defend themselves.
Re: The new Animal Farm film
The Critical Drinker has an excellent summary and critique:
_____________________________
…with [Andy Serkis’s] very unique take on Animal Farm, which reimagines George Orwell’s satirical critique of totalitarian communism and Stalin’s cult of personality as a wacky contemporary animated comedy starring Seth Rogan, where the real enemy is a tech billionaire who happens to drive a cybertruck.
Right.
–The Critical Drinker, “Animal Farm – This Was Probably A Bad Idea”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hyX3d9z7vs
_____________________________
Drinker read a lot of Orwell as a teenager and takes this film personally.
Drinker uses many clips from the 1954 animation of “Animal Farm,” which you can watch here:
“–“Animal Farm 1954 | Animation Film | Cartoon Film
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qND5bS8_AIY
According to Drinker the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, represent Trotsky and Stalin respectively.
I see the wimpy Australian PM
==
He may be wimpy. More salient is that he is solicitous of foreigners and hostile to the interests of Australians.
@huxley:According to Drinker the pigs, Snowball and Napoleon, represent Trotsky and Stalin respectively.
There was a time in living memory when no one had to have this spelled out, and it was obvious enough that during the war the Ministry of Information thought Animal Farm was too anti-Stalin and said so to the publisher, who then turned it down.
Orwell’s lost preface to Animal Farm here. He spells a lot of things out.
Surprise! (Of the Brown variety)…
https://instapundit.com/762975/
Looking around at the leaders of the nations of the West, afraid to confront the very real—and growing–threat from Islam and, instead, blaming the threats to their citizens and their countries on “white nationalism” or some such bogeyman, we here in the U.S. are extremely lucky to have President Trump—whatever his faults might be–directing our nation.
I think that President Trump has a very good idea of where the real threats are coming from, and that–when the time is right– he will act on that knowledge.
Norman Podhoretz dead at 95 years. RIP, stout heart.
https://www.commentary.org/john-podhoretz/norman-podhoretz-1930-2025/