Home » Open thread 10/27/23

Comments

Open thread 10/27/23 — 35 Comments

  1. Many years ago, as children in an historiography class, we talked about zeitgeist. Hegel coined the word, but was that enough to discredit the idea?

    Three stories ripped from today’s headlines:

    In Canada last year, legal medically-assisted suicide went up 31.2% and now accounts for 4.1% of the country’s deaths (https://tinyurl.com/3zz5z7zb). In March, those stricken with a mental illness, but no other malady, will become eligible for this suicide service, which is widely understood to be much cheaper than other forms of health care. Since Canada has socialized medicine, very long waits for treatment are common. Not so, for the death option.

    In China, the land of social credit, neurosurgeons are installing brain pacemakers in depressed patients. The device is installed in the chest and sends electrical pulses to electrodes implanted in the head. Patients can press a button to change their mood (https://tinyurl.com/trmdruk9).

    In the United States, approximately 3% of young women have signed up to create content for “Onlyfans,” a do-it-yourself interactive pornography platform. Some of these young women have become fantastically rich (https://tinyurl.com/mr7xaxpe).

  2. sdferr beat me to it with the link to Darleen Edwards(Jo Stafford) interpreting “Staying Alive.” Jo Stafford is not the only singer to sing off-key for comic effects.

    Hyacinth Bucket in the Brit Comedy “Keeping Up Appearances” exasperated her musician neighbor Emmet with her horribly off-key singing.
    It turned out that Patricia Routledge, who sang off-key in her role as Hyacinth Bucket, had a pretty good singing voice. Patricia Routledge singing.

  3. Hi folks, sharksauce here with your Maine Report.

    I’ve been up here visiting family for the last week, so obviously got to experience the media blitz of the Lewiston shooting from 70 miles away. Had the police scanner on all Wednesday night (hint: don’t do this), but almost certainly this guy is in the woods and won’t be seen for a while. Increased sirens and helicopter noise that night down here in southern Maine, but no one local seems concerned. Just sad.

    The only real topic is, why those targets? Was he going after an ex? This is a heavily armed state, but places serving alcohol don’t let people carry, so did this f*ck know the likelihood of getting return fire was low?

    What an _interesting_ time to be alive.

  4. sharksauce:

    I assume the perp was very knowledgeable about Maine firearm laws.

    If I had to guess, I’d say he killed himself in the woods.

  5. Re: “The Flotilla – We Con the World”

    Bill K:

    Well, that brightened my day! How did I miss that video? And, how many jokes did I miss?

    I spotted the Dylan, Lionel Richie, Springsteen and Michael Jackson’s parodies, but there was so much else. Revisiting the original, treacly “We are the World,” I can see the Flotilla video is a meticulous parody.

    –“U.S.A. For Africa – We Are the World
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9AjkUyX0rVw

    And to get really inside, watching the credits I noticed Caroline Glick was one of the cast. I believe that’s her in the front row wearing a black-white keffiyeh and waving a knife!

  6. If I had to guess, I’d say he killed himself in the woods.

    neo:

    I hadn’t guessed, but that’s a good one.

  7. In the more temperate zones of the US (Mid-Atlantic states and south) we can look to our avian friends the vultures ( https://www.birdadvisors.com/vultures-maine/ ) to help indicate the presence of large carcasses. In Maine that time is fast coming to a close for the season. Ravens, crows and other opportunists will take over.

  8. Sharksauce

    I would not say he killed himself. Involuntarily committed this year I would just say he listened to the voices. And they were telling him to kill others. Not himself.

  9. More on Johnson’s adopted son, Michael.

    When Speaker Johnson first ran for Congress in 2016, he and his wife, Kelly, spoke to their son Michael—who they took in as newlyweds when Michael was 14 years old,” said Corinne Day, communications director for Johnson.

    At the time of the Speaker’s election to Congress, Michael was an adult with a family of his own. He asked not to be involved in their new public life. The Speaker has respected that sentiment throughout his career and maintains a close relationship with Michael to this day.”

    “Johnson told Isaacson: “We took him in as our own and Michael is now doing great. This is now 20 years later. He’s in his mid-30s. He lives in California—four children of his own,” adding that Michael had “a great family life.”

    https://www.newsweek.com/exclusive-mike-johnson-speaks-out-about-adopted-black-son-1838599

  10. If the shooter killed himself in the woods, how long would the body stay noticeable or intact this time of the year in Maine? Have the leaves already fallen or can they still fall and cover the body? Does that part of Maine have large scavengers?

  11. Neo: from your lips to God’s ears.

    Just heard they’ve got divers in the water near the boat launch where they found his car. I’ll accept dead in the river too.

    Jon baker: still in the early part of season for falling leaves. There’s plenty of black bears and weasel-y types but I don’t really know their scavenging habits.

  12. And of course it’s hunting season here, so running into a guy with a rifle in the woods won’t be unusual at all.

  13. I’m not sure whether this has been shared here, but an IDF video of information showing Hamas facilities and underground tunnels at Gaza hospitals and other sites with heavy civilian populations.

    This is going to make Israeli ground operations incredibly costly. If the world would open its eyes, or the MSM would accurately report what Hamas has done to create the narrative unfolding, Israel could dismantle the terrorist infrastructure. Instead we are going to get a steady diet of all the innocent children killed.

    Hamas HQ Hidden Under Gaza’s Largest Hospital

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ggBF9rnBe0

  14. As for Card’s whereabouts, the Canadian Border Services Agency is sufficiently concerned about the possibility that he may be heading for Trudeaupia: “The CBSA said it was working with Canadian and U.S. law enforcement partners, including U.S. Customs and Border Protection and RCMP to ‘protect Canada’s borders against any threat or attempt at illegal entry.’ The Canadian border agency said its ‘Armed and Dangerous — Firearms lookout’ alert was sent to all its officers through an internal system, and the agency added that all entry points along the Canada-U.S. border remain open. . . . Maine shares 18 official entry points with New Brunswick, and another six with Quebec, according to CBSA’s website.”

    https://torontosun.com/news/national/canada-border-services-agency-issues-alert-about-man-wanted-for-maine-mass-shooting

    Some joking on Canadian blogs that the Mainiac may be coming for Trudeau– who is in major trouble even within his own party for tanking the Canadian economy, among other issues– and increasingly unpopular with the Canadian public.

  15. RE: UFOs and the question of Intent

    Whatever Non-Human Intelligence (NHI) and/or AI is directing the multitude of UFOs which increasingly swarm through our skies, we are well past the question of, are they real?

    Thus, the main question now, the most important question is, what is their intent?

    Wherever we might fit on some Galactic intelligence or development scale, we are obviously of interest to these NHIs so, given their all too obvious interest, what do they want with us humans?

    Are they benign, are they neutral, are they malevolent, or some combination of these attitudes and approaches?

    First of all, I think that the many differences in size, shape, flight characteristics, colors, and operations of these UFOs makes a good case for the idea that we are not just dealing with one species of NHI, but, instead, that we are dealing with a number of different species of NHIs and, thus, possibly with a number of different NHI agendas and approaches.

    As I understand it, most sightings of and encounters with UFOs and their occupants—although they do leave their indelible mark, and can be life altering–do not seem to demonstrate malignant intent.

    A different category are Abductions, and in these situations you can certainly infer some level of what—from our human perspective–looks like malignant intent.

    However, when you are looking for intent, and for examples of actual attacks on humans, you need to look at the little publicized or known series of attacks by UFOs starting in 1977 in the Colares area, in the state of Para in Brazil and, thereafter, spreading throughout the whole country, and running all the way up through 2003, in which cumulatively hundreds, perhaps thousands of villagers were pursued by UFOs, terrorized by them, and many of them injured by some type of ray directed at them, which caused many types of illnesses and symptoms, sometimes burns, scarring, comas, long lingering illnesses, and sometimes deaths.

    This long lasting reign of terror—which apparently hardly anyone has ever heard of–was thoroughly investigated and documented by the Brazilian military—hundreds of in person interviews, medical records, photographs,etc., and as well as by the researchers at the DIA’s formerly secret AAWSAP/BASS UFO research program.*

    See Chapter 19, “The UFO Assault on Brazil” in James Lacatski, Colm A. Kelleher, and George Knapp’s ‘s October 2023 book, “Inside the U.S. Covert UFO Program: Initial Revelations.”

    * See also Bob Pratt’s 1996 book,“UFO Danger Zone: Terror and Death in Brazil”

    Thus, I think that we may be dealing with a number of different species of NHIs; a lot of them apparently benign and/or neutral, and some—from their actions–definitely hostile.

  16. First – my favorite off key singer is and has always been Florence Foster Jenkins. Highly recommend Streep’s movie of that name.

    Since it’s a bird video – I have a funny bird story.

    ***

    The time a 500 lb whip-o-will took over my farm.

    Had just finished building the house the year before. Still some debris laying around and things left over from the previous owner; old hen coop, so forth.

    One of those things was a farm sized propane fuel tank – 8′ long, 4′ wide cylinder of cast iron. Empty, of course.

    We moved in and apparently a male whip-o-will had been waiting for the activity to die down.

    Each night during the mating season (thankfully only) he would perch atop the tank after dusk and call out “whip..o..will” for a couple hours.

    At about 60 or 70 decibels.

    There is no doubt in my mind that he got laid.

  17. PA+Cat — thanks for “Trudeaupia”!
    This is my first time hearing that arch sobriquet.
    Yum!

  18. sdferr–

    About Card (is it okay to say he wasn’t dealing with a full deck?)– At least Canada won’t have to worry about the War of 1812 v.2.

  19. The Maine mass murderer has killed himself at a recycling center (Wall Street Journal https://archive.ph/0xxtg and Associated Press https://tinyurl.com/yc2bjje5).

    Both the murders and the suicide leave too many unanswered questions, along with the inevitable sorrow and bitterness.

    I don’t know what purpose my comment can serve. Some kind of gesture, I guess.

  20. @ Oligonicella – there is a delightful stage play about Florence Foster Jenkins (and also a movie), in which a friend of mine played the starring role in a small community theater. The friend is a superb singer, and she said singing off-key and worse was the hardest thing she had ever done.

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Foster_Jenkins

    Her birth name was Narcissa Florence Foster, and although she dropped the first word, her life story shows how appropriate it was. And yet, she was much loved, despite being “the world’s worst opera singer … No one, before or since, has succeeded in liberating themselves quite so completely from the shackles of musical notation.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

HTML tags allowed in your comment: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <s> <strike> <strong>