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Home » Open thread 2/26/24

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Open thread 2/26/24 — 60 Comments

  1. Not a cat person either, but this guy did a great job of expressing the ‘sweet and sour fruits‘ involved in owning a cat or even a pet…

    “Like two golden birds perched on the selfsame tree,
    intimate friends, the ego and the Self dwell in the same body.
    The former eats the sweet and sour fruits of the tree of life,
    while the latter looks on in detachment”. The Mundaka Upanishad

  3. I am shocked and disappointed. I would expect that an intelligent, independent woman would identify with the most independent minded of pets.

    As for myself, I discovered cats in the early 1960s when I bonded with friends’ Siamese on a trip to Dallas. No sooner said than done. The two wives were in the classifieds and found a Siamese kitten, who then made the trip back to Florida with us. Only cat we ever bought, but she was worth it; a true Navy pet, moving countless times from one end of the country to the other without hesitation or complaint. She sold us on cats. There have been numerous others, and each have brought pleasure, The latest two, adopted, or maybe rescued would be more accurate, have brought joy into the home in their quiet, feline fashion.

  6. We got a cat shortly after my dog died. I miss my dog. They are different beasts. But I love my cat. She is a knucklehead who is just a sweetie. Not a cuddler and does avoid you when she walks around. But I can pet her when she’s laying down. No clawing, no biting (same can’t be said of my neurotic dog, though she was a sweetie until about 8 at night). We let her sleep with us. When we travel, she is happy to see us on our return. Pets add a wonderful dimension to life (though I could forego the cat hair and cleaning a litter box). This is probably my last pet as I am in my 60s and don’t want to leave an animal behind (ugh, my parents passed and left a problematic chihuahua that my brother is caring for).

    I understand the loss.

  11. sdferr:

    Thanks for the link!

    The other unanswewed question, how much anti-Semitism infects the intelligence community either from long held elite attitudes or from Marxism (cough, Brennan)?

    Her mother’s concerns wouldn’t save her child or grandchildren from the virulent anti-Semites (IMO).

  12. That Tablet link from sdferr answers a whole lotta question…the answers to which should already have been known, or at least suspected…but this fascinating article provides the unpleasant clarity of it all.
    And it just as clearly, if perhaps inadvertently, explains exactly why Trump had to be defenestrated, successfully in 2020 (and before that, unsuccessfully) and why he must be entirely erased from the history of the country.
    Akhenaten style.

    Thanks much for the eye opener, or rather clarifier, unpleasant, haunting, fascinating, disturbing as it is…
    It spells trouble…deep trouble…for everyone involved, perpetrators AND victims, of which there will be many…all resulting from the Democrats’ “good” intentions…to “save” the country.
    To “save” “Our Democracy”(TM)…

  13. Here’s Turley going after Biden and his family, such that Ben Hur might have to amend his defense of the “President” from “…an elderly man with a poor memory…” to “…an elderly man with an unfortunate genetic predisposition that mitigates any responsibility on his part for what he does or says…”

    Might be a fatal mistake for the good professor, assuming as he has that Democrats, more specifically Biden (and “Biden”) supporters, have any kind of sense of humor other than that of a rabid, aggravated, starving pit-bull….

  14. No matter how good your hair is, it will never be as good as kitty fur. This accounts for the antagonism some women feel toward cats.

  16. And what do we have here?
    Dear Lord, yes…: Hunter, refusing to be out-done by Dear Old Dad, bursts upon the scene (he hates being in the shadows) to provide real-time—prime-time—PROOF that Turley may well be onto something…
    (I’m not even sure WHAT category of humor this may fall under—well, maybe “Chronically Sick”—but it’s certainly EPIC!)
    “Hunter Biden says his sobriety is the key to ‘future of democracy’ “—
    https://nypost.com/2024/02/26/us-news/hunter-biden-says-his-sobriety-key-to-future-of-democracy/
    From the horse’s mouth….

  17. And, y’know, here it is again . . . there’s no escape because it’s the same cast of characters pushing the line!

    Caroline Glick, JNS, “Israel is both traumatized and sober-minded“: https://www.jns.org/israel-is-both-traumatized-and-sober-minded/

    U.S. Ambassador to Israel Jack Lew took the new line public. In his address on Feb. 18 before the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations meeting in Jerusalem, he asserted therapeutically that “discussing” Palestinian statehood “is a huge challenge for a nation still in a state of trauma.”

    On Thursday, former Defense Secretary Robert Gates made a similar argument in a conversation with The Washington Post’s David Ignatius. Gates acknowledged that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s opposition to the establishment of a Palestinian state is shared by the people of Israel. Like Lew, he attributed Israel’s wall-to-wall opposition to a Palestinian state to “the traumatic effect on Israel of Oct. 7,” which, he asserted, “had a huge impact psychologically inside of Israel.”

    The “new wisdom” that Israelis are acting out of trauma is deliberately manipulative. Obviously, Israelis were traumatized by Oct. 7. The atrocities meted out that day by thousands of Palestinians—in and out of Hamas—against thousands of Israeli civilians and soldiers left a gaping hole in the hearts of every Israeli. How could it be otherwise? Any population in any country whose fellow citizens suffered far lesser atrocities simply because of their national identity would be traumatized.

    But while it’s true that Israelis were traumatized by the slaughter that Black Shabbat, it doesn’t follow that their post-Oct. 7 positions are an emotional response to trauma, which Israelis can be expected to abandon once they get past their emotional angst.

    Spit.

  18. if bitten by a german shepherd, you don’t buy one, so jack lew has a history, I know quelle surprise, he was Treasury apparatchik in the Obama administration, but before that he was head of the subprime division of Chase,

    furthermore netanyahu has always been opposed to a palestinian state, its’ one of those taranto answers to a question no one asked,
    ‘how do i make the lives of israelis more vulnerable, when people speak of settlers,
    being inflamatory, does that mean the former residents of Kfar Azaa, Kibbutz Beeri, Netivot, or somewhere else,

    Now Ignatius has this history of hiding the pea under the shell, in Agents of Influence,
    where he largely copied every thing Robert Ames told him, as well as other officials of the Deuxieme Bureau, re the origins of the Lebanese Civil War, he tells the story of this Old man, that Ramlawi seeks counsel for
    Ramlawi is Salameh, the Black Prince that carried out Munich, I thought for the longest time it was Arafat, but he would have been in his late 40s, at the time, I figured out it was Haj Amin Husseini,

  20. An unusual request, but I am hoping someone here can help.
    DH has prepared an online program and is now working on his own to get the videos set up on the internet. He has put together a nice program of slides and lectures but is having difficulty with videos.

    He has signed up for and taught himself how to use Square Space, now he is trying to upload videos using Vimeo. This is a segment of the internet world that he could sure use some help with and I am wondering if someone here could help. Vimeo is not accepting some of his videos saying they are too long. Is there something he is doing wrong: should he pay Vimeo more money, or is there another way to put longer videos on the internet? These videos are not typically longer than half an hour. Is there another company that would do better in uploading the videos? Any suggestions or insights would be much appreciated.
    Thank you,

  21. Cats, they insinuate themselves into your heart. Independent, yet knowing where the food comes from, they will bond with the head of the pride and subsidiary members.

    We have had numerous dogs and cats over the years. When we lost our last dog, we wanted the freedom to travel, and resolved not to have another pet. Well, we’re no longer traveling, and now have two cats – sisters from a barn litter. They are quite a pair. Quite the source of amusement and affection.

    At our age, who could ask for anything better?

    I certainly understand the video maker’s feelings about his cat, Watson. It’s respectful of the cat’s feelings and of the woman who took Watson in. He’s a sensitive person who cares about those things. Good for him.

  22. Kate:

    I don’t know about the link when I tap it from my phone it goes to the Wikipedia entry for Mundane Upash…. Karmi’ cite.

  23. Karmi:

    I don’t care what your carnal interest are or aren’t. Don’t share. TMI

    So you posted about religious beliefs and spent, it appears, a lot of work crafting a comparitive religions essay on your site. Curious for an atheist (or not one). But that is the limit of my curiosity.

    Your posts/comments in the future will determined if I take you seriously, of course context matters.

  25. Kate:

    The cite was for Mundaka Upanisha – a Hindu thing.

    Autocorrect turned it into “Mundane ….”

  30. Not particularly, om, that I know of. Ancient Egyptians deified cats. Hindus seem more focused on cows. In India, cows no longer useful for dairy production are turned loose and allowed to wander all over to forage for food where they may, which seemed unkind to them, to me.

  31. The Tablet article seems almost too confirming of what we have long believed. Namely that the CIA, and other agencies, are full of lefty ideologues.

    It seems rather strange that these spooks are willing to openly share their political beliefs with the daughter of a dead analyst. They must be very sure of themselves. They seemingly aren’t worried about letting the cat out of the bag. Or are they trying to throw her off track? My tendency is to believe her until the CIA, and other alphabet agencies, prove differently.

  32. Sandy Hook Promise

    Would someone please show me how to stop those people who lost children in the Sandy Hook shooting from interrupting on my computer? Please. What I really want to know now is WITH has funded them? That takes huge amounts of money to be able to interrupt on the internet at any time to declare the dedication to gun control. I am sorry for your loss, but my next question is there some legal strategy to stop them?

  36. Biden & Family are corrupted and compromised up to their eyeballs.
    One wonders if it’s not only the CHICOMS, the Ukrainians, etc. who have the goods on him.
    Perhaps it’s also “Biden” who’s making Decent Joe dance….

  37. its the real life version of the continental system from john wick, the Russians the Triads all the gangs got a seat, including the N’Drangeta,

  38. Senator Ron Johnson’s hearing this morning on Covid and the experimental mRNA injections that were characterized as vaccines, and the suppression of the many facts that American’s deserved to have before participating in this massive experiment of a clearly, unquestionably ineffective and unsafe gene therapy.

    Dr. Robert Malone, Dr. Jessica Rose, Edward Dowd, Dr. Ryan Cole, Dr. Pierre Kory, Dr. Paul Marik, Dr.Harvey Risch, Kevin McKernan, Brett Weinstein, Del BigTree, Lara Logan and others testify and answer questions.

    https://rumble.com/v4fpw4c-federal-health-agencies-and-the-covid-cartel-what-are-they-hiding.html

  39. sdferr,

    Let me join the chorus of commenters thanking you for the link to the tablet article. It’s well written and very discouraging. Almost completely unrelated to its theme, or the authors point, I found this passage confusing:

    The fantasy that Jews stand in the way of Arab self-realization touches atavistic nerves: It’s the same death-as-salvation paradigm that led early Christians to martyr themselves, the same liberatory concept of class struggle that led 20th-century Russians to murder czarists.

    I wonder if I missed her point, or there is some deeper meaning in this paragraph that I am too dense to infer? What does early Christian martyrdom have to do with Arabs wanting a genocide of the Jews, or Russian class envy on a level that incites a lust for murder? And, can one actually “martyr” oneself? Isn’t martyrdom the very definition of someone else other than the victim doing the killing? I don’t understand why she lumped that example in with the other two when referencing primitive lusts for blame and blood?

  40. at the time of bob ames death, it wasn’t well known how close he was to the palestinians, re brennan, yes I read kai bird’s memoir, of ames, and his bio, his father was a state department mandarin akin to richard dalton of the foreign office, holding among other posts
    the consul general in Jerusalem,
    the late hume horan, nee entezam was a rarity among the Foreign Service alberto Fernandez is another in the foreign broadcast branch
    who has rare insight into the matter,

    of course they mix apples and oranges, quana was not a deliberate targeting of civilians, but the assasination at the Semiramis was, now you could argue shatila was, but that was a regretable fratricidal act between Maronites and Palestinians, a payback from Damour deep in the Civil War, it was ordered by Elie Hobeika, who subsequently defected to the Syrians, Friedman never addressed that point in his travel log, although the book left out the accusation against another maronite, who was not present at that event

  41. And, can one actually “martyr” oneself?

    It’s an open question, I’ll venture.

    Crito comes to the cell at early morning with a plan. “You can save yourself, Socrates — you must save yourself, if even only for my sake; for I and your other friends do not wish to lose you.” The Athenians will do the killing if only Socrates will not do the self-saving [escape].

    “Save yourself!”

    “But no, my salvation lies in submission to my faith, and hence, in a willingness unto death, which we must not fear as the worst of things. Worse would be to abandon ourselves, and thereby fail to be saved.”

    [Xenophon has another idea, one also worthy of our consideration: https://directory.libsyn.com/episode/index/show/thenewthinkery/id/29684158 ]

  42. one can commit suicide, but thats not whats on discussion what we have seen since nabatiya around 1982, the first time that suicide bombers were employed in the Lebanon war, this was before shatila btw, what we would see years in galilee in Afula, Hadera, in Tel Aviv proper later in Chechnya, in Afghanistan and Iraq,

    part of the reason we went to Iraq, was because Saddam’s Mukharabat was paying these families after the fact, in Daniel Silva’s Black Widow, the mastermind is in fact one of these characters, but you have to ‘dial down the ambient noise, to come to that part of the Text.

    one might say syed qutb, the successor to al banna, martyred himself, by ending up in the prison called the Citadel, and dying at the hands of Nasser’s men, this is what inspired Atta, the late Martin Amis, focused on that point, also his supposed conversion over his events in Greeley Colorado,

    re lebanon, one of those who facilitated this pattern was a Iranian born doctor, he went by al Bub, he was the one that tortured William Buckley at Baalbek

  43. now the curious part is al khazen is not a jewish name, it’s Lebanese predominantly maronite, although not exclusively,

    https://www.memri.org/reports/interview-palestinian-security-chief-dahlan-warns-hamas-and-raises-allegations-american

    it’s not sufficient to be fluent in the language, because for example Robert Fisk dismissed the translation of the hijackers tapes, because they were done by Maronites, (how would he known, good question) the most extreme version of this derangement was seen in Salome Anderson, she is Terry Anderson’s daughter who seems to have caught stockholm syndrome by proxy, she trusts her father’s kidnappers over say Mossad who tried to track them down,

  45. If you like both cats and dogs, get them young and raise them together. We have 2 cat siblings (sisters) that we got at 5 weeks when our two puppies (sibling sisters) were 7 weeks. We selected the kittens from a barn cat litter by choosing the two that didn’t freak out with the puppies, but instead were calm and curious.

    At 5 years, they are one pack. When I go for walks in the woods with the dogs, one cat always follows, sometimes 2. They’re very affectionate with each other, and the dogs are very protective of them. Cats will never be dogs, but these two have a definite pack affinity. Fun to watch.

  46. sdferr,

    There is the scene in one of the “Star Wars” where Obi Wan Kenobi stops fighting Darth Vader so Vader will strike him down, making him more powerful, or something like that. I’m sure some people have done that, but, still if their assailant fails to act the murder cannot occur. There have probably also been suicides that were attempts at martyrdom, but, again, that technically seems like suicide and not martyrdom. In your example Socrates accepts the State’s punishment but if the State does not act Socrates does not die.

    It’s sort-of hair splitting, but I’ll cede the argument to you. However, even with a Socrates-style use, I don’t think it applies to the early, Christian martyrs she references in her piece. Rome made Christianity illegal, punishable by death, and the early Christian martyrs refused to stop practicing their faith. That seems very different from something like a suicide bomber, or kamikaze pilot willing to sacrifice their life only if they are able to kill more of the opposition.

  47. We are Cat people. We now have no. 12 and 13. Of those 4 have come in from the cold. The two that are with us now are both rescued. One was living wild with a few other cats in an abandon barn. Is doing great, not a lap cap by any means, but at night she will sleep on my Wife, and sometimes in the night the cat will get active and want to be petted. The other is a rescue in that we got her at the Humane Society where the previous human companion had taken her when they could not long take care of her. She has been with us for 9 months, doing good. She is “my” cat, she is starting to get on my lap in the evening while we watch TV. At night she will get up on top of me, until I move then she goes to my Wife. Cats are wonderful, and yes loving – in their own ways. Miss having kittens growing up to adult Cats, but we are in our late 70’s now and we do not want to outlive them. We have made provisions in out wills just in case.

  48. that part of the film doesn’t make sense, maybe Ben wanted to motivate Luke to take the next step, the Jedi are much modeled along the samurai, in their devotion to duty, their ascetisms their extreme discipline, the prequels suggest he bore the guilt for having caused as least part of Anakin’s final turn to the Dark Side, the story he shades for Luke

    Also from John Wick, one of the antagonist dispatched in the third film, explains assassin might come from another word which transliterates ‘to those who strive’

  49. Perhaps we’re given a help, or two (toward her intention, I mean). On refusing martyrdom:

    If my mother worried about my safety as a Jew, it never came up on the trips we took to the Middle East. I tagged along while she worked and did tourist stuff. The pyramids. Masada. “If something happens,” she said once, “throw away your bag and don’t speak. And if they talk to you, make sounds like the Swedish chef. They won’t know the difference, and you could be Swedish.” Being American was a liability she prepared me for.

    Being Jewish was not.

    And, on the significance of “self-determination”:

    Because Jewish death is linked to the Arab concept of self-determination on a world stage. If Israel exists, the Arab states don’t, not in their fullest expression.

  51. Last October, I acquired a rescue cat, Peaches. She was abandoned by the family that had her for ten years.

    She has gone from hiding behind a couch in the living room, and refusing to come out, to being my bunk mate. I am very happy to have her laying on top of me, purring like an outboard. I am a third shifter, and if I am not awake by 8:00, Peaches comes looking for me. I love Peaches, she is a good cat.

  53. Ann at 3:40

    I get those annoying Sandy Hook ads as well as Joe Biden and Obama begging for money. If you look closely at the bottom of the ad there are three small circles lined up vertically. Tap on them to bring up a questionnaire you can fill out to complain to Google. I always say that Biden & Obama are crooks and liars. Seems to work after I’ve complained a couple of times.

    Sandy Hook is touching the first time. After that I find it annoying since they don’t understand cause and effect. As the rabbis of the Talmud say: it’s not the knife, it’s the fool who holds the handle.

  54. Rufus,
    A few years ago I was reading an essay by David Mamet and was shocked when he listed Communism, Islam, and Christianity as the 3 greatest ‘false beliefs’ (I believe that was his term) of the last two millennia. Communism and Islam, yes. But Christianity? One of these things is not like the other… Interesting that she also links the same three things together. It really makes me wonder about this.
    I’ve enjoyed his work and I loved his ‘Why I Am No Longer A Brain Dead Liberal’ but I haven’t been able to take Mamet seriously since.

  56. Another entry in the Google AI brouhaha.
    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/02/remember_when_60_minutes_goggled_at_how_astounding_googles_ai_was.html

    Well.
    Google’s Gemini program of artificial intelligence is out and it’s … ridiculous.

    It’s not just the blackface Nazis and Vikings, which has prompted Google to pull images of people from its program.
    Nor is it Gemini’s ideological idiocies in general:
    …
    It’s other incompetences that any programmed system might actually make.

    Sad news from Google Gemini everybody pic.twitter.com/8VP1ToGMFx

    — David Burge (@iowahawkblog) February 26, 2024

    Google’s Gemini AI invented fake negative reviews about my 2020 book about Google’s left-wing bias. None of these book reviews — which it attributed to @continetti , @semaforben and others —are real. None of these quotes are real. This is Google’s AI blatantly lying in defense of… pic.twitter.com/mrAeknNpfF

    — Peter J. Hasson (@peterjhasson) February 26, 2024

    Here is what I got when I asked Gemini a simple question:

    Asks for a picture of the Columbia journalism school, and gets continued replies with pictures of the wrong building at Columbia University, even after being corrected.

    Obviously, Google is losing its edge in addition to budlighting itself, and doing so all at once.

    This Twitter account, of a man named Paul Graham, who appears to be a very distinguished programmer and venture capitalist, has a lot of intelligent observations about the Gemini fiasco.

    If you try to “align” an AI in a way that’s at odds with the truth, you make it more dangerous, because lies are dangerous.

    It’s not enough to mean well. You actually have to get the right answers.

    — Paul Graham (@paulg) February 26, 2024

    It seems to me that I’ve seen that last line said about Democrats, liberals, and progressives for decades.
    I’ve even seen people claim that the socialists, communists, and leftists mean well.

    The first don’t seem to care if they get the answers correct or not, because they meant well; the second see the “right answer” as something totally different than we do.

    Check out Iowahawk’s tweet – it is a reminder of what Mark Twain said about his own obituary.

  57. Rufus @4:41 pm.

    I think she’s referring to the “martyr”‘s willingness to sacrifice oneself to destroy whom they OBSESSIVELY DEFINE as a fiercely hated enemy—IOW get killed in the attempt to kill and/or terrorize that enemy, in the case of Muslims and Russian revolutionaries/nihilists; or die, in the case of Christians, in order to prove one’s love of God (though this last may also be a motivation of Muslims).

    To make such a decision, the martyr must decide that the enemy is so reprehensible, so evil that it is worth dying to destroy that enemy. This would be more true, however, of the Muslim or Russian revolutionary than it would be for the Christian, whose martyrdom (I’m assuming) is not based on a fierce hatred but on a love of God, though in this last case, for Muslims, the love of God may well be combined with being convinced that your enemy is also God’s enemy; hence by attempting to destroy that enemy you are demonstrating your love of God….

    In the author’s case, if the desire to kill Jews is greater than even the desire for self-preservation, then she would prefer her grandchildren not be subject to that risk: and to save themselves they should not be—or not know that they are—Jewish.

    (Note, however, that there ARE other possible conclusions to deal with this conundrum…—i.e., the conundrum of people wanting you dead SO MUCH that they’re willing to die in order to kill you.)

  58. And the latest in confidence-building measures….

    “…Biden eats ice cream while discussing hostages in Gaza;
    US Pres. Biden is asked about hostage deal – while eating ice cream. ‘National Security Adviser tells me that we’re close.’ “—
    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/385878

    Who’d of ever thunk that President Fentanyl-Tranq is actually the “What-Me-Worry?” President?

  60. Re: Christian martyrs

    I wish to register a complaint!

    Christian martyrs were not fanatics in suicide vests willing to sacrifice their lives to kill their enemies. Those Christians were rounded up because of their faith and forced to choose between renouncing their faith or dying hideously. Some chose the latter.

    There was a Christian tendency to seek martyrdom to demonstrate their faith and for reward in the afterlife, but the early Church did rule that was out of bounds.

    Church leaders like Tertullian and Origen emphasized that while martyrdom was a noble act, it should not be pursued recklessly or sought after as a way to prove one’s faith. They taught that Christians should be willing to endure persecution and even martyrdom if it came to them, but they should not actively seek it out or provoke it unnecessarily.

    I see no continuity between Christian martyrs and Muslim jihadists eager to demonstrate to Allah their righteous hatred to kill enemies.

    neo often warns that Christians do not understand Jews. I say that is a two-way street.

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