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Open thread 8/20/24 — 16 Comments

  1. Wearing a white powdered wig. A practice begun and ended by the French. That’s interesting, but not a huge surprise. The lice angle was also a bit obvious. It’s definitely fun historical trivia.

  2. The argument that it was because of lice doesn’t seem plausible. Lice did not evolve in the 17th C; they existed in the days of the Pharaohs, and would continue for at least a century after the Founding before indoor plumbing became common.

    Style, however, works. During about the same period, tricorn hats were in vogue. So far as I know that was also the only time for them. (Actually, I have seen women’s hats both earlier and later that were three-cornered. But women’s styles are different. They change constantly. Watch movies from the 30s and 40s.)

  3. With regard to misogyny becoming a terrorist act. What shall we do about the hundreds of thousands of women who are not college educated, but who work in the trenches and have pulled themselves up in terms of employment? You know the ones who attend “women’s leadership seminars” and become maleable flunkies (flunkettes?) Those needy females who will do whatever it is suggested they do to another person, in “order to prove they are capable of future leadership roles, prove themselves by doing hard things” Do things the female leadership want done to punish those who do not go along with NOW. Can we protest against female thugs (thugettes?). I know we can’t get help through the court system, but now it seems we cannot even discuss their actions!

  4. The gymwheel competition?? That’s a new one for me.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNEwRsm6ebg

    It’s fascinating that not only the diameter of wheel must be correct for the gymnast, but also the mass and inertia of the wheel needs to be within a modest range for these performances to work. It’s sort of “physics in motion” in addition to other attractive and athletic aspects.
    _______

    This article has an interesting historical take on Obama’s socialist conquest of America via economic means. Some hyperbole perhaps, but it strikes chords with me.

    Obama’s Strategy of Socialist Conquest

    In my understanding, the big federal economic changes were that prior to WWI and the subsequent 16th amendment, the economic size of the federal gov. was in the ballpark of about 1% of GPD. For some decades in the 20th century, it was about 18 to 20%. I’m not sure where it is now, but probably higher.

    The article discusses the three economic sectors being controlled (of about to be controlled) by the feds. Finance, Healthcare, and Energy.

    With various economic boom and bust cycles came the Federal Reserve, but perhaps even worse are these regulatory agencies. The Federal Reserve is one, but also the FDIC, I thought the OTS (it’s been dissolved), the OCC, the CFPB, FINRA, and possibly the SEC.

    The related thing that troubles me, is that it used to be largely true that the corporate titans wanted the feds to stay away and not meddle in their businesses. However today, many of these woke CEO’s and presidents want to get into bed with the feds. Of course, some businesses start with their intent and success in getting their snouts into the federal trough of money.

    Key U.S. banking regulatory agencies include:
    Federal Reserve Board (FRB)
    Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. (FDIC)
    Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC)
    Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC)
    Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB)
    Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA)

    Who Regulates Savings and Loan Associations?
    Savings and loan associations, also known as S&Ls or thrifts, at one time had their own federal regulator: the Office of Thrift Supervision (OTS). After the passage of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act in 2010, however, the OTS was dissolved and its regulatory responsibilities were divided up among the OCC (federal savings associations), the Fed (savings and loan holding companies), and the FDIC (state-chartered savings associations).

  5. Re: Politics is downstream from culture. –Andrew Breitbart

    Season 2 of “The Acolyte” is officially cancelled! Huzzah!

    Briefly, Kathleen “The Force is Female” Kennedy, CEO of Lucasfilm, who has been replacing George Lucas Old “Star Wars” with new Girlboss DEI “Star Wars” hired Lesley Headland, ex-aide to Harvey Weinstein, to helm a new Star Wars show with Amandla Stenberg, mixed raced nonbinary, which would rectify past Star Wars racist, misogynist, anti-LGBT+ past sins.

    “The Acolyte” was a disaster in terms of views and audience ratings.,

    Aside from those how don’t wish being force-fed the whole woke agenda, everyone could see “The Acolyte” was creatively crap from start to finish — something which its critics wisely focused upon.

    Hollywood is a Titanic-sized ocean vessel which is hard to turn around, but this is yet another sign that if Hollywood is long enough starved of cash and attention, it will eventually turn around.

    For those who hear Breitbart, this has larger implications.

  6. By a vote of 3-2, the Georgia elections board will now require reconciling the total number of votes with the total number of voters, and this must be done before elections are certified. The only shocking thing about this is that this is a NEW requirement. In North Carolina we do this in every single early voting polling place and every single election day polling place. We can’t go home until the numbers are reconciled. We check the numbers every half-hour so we can catch errors early.

    https://x.com/TrueTheVote/status/1825586641362112548

  7. The evolution of human body lice is an indicator of when human beings started to wear clothes. (Because human body lice need the protection of clothes.)

    Old, in other words.

  8. Regarding tricorn hats. There are some cowboy hats that come with a partial resemblance to a tricorn in the front. While I like tricorn hats, I typically bend a cowboy hat out more flat when I buy a new one. I wear them six days a week for shade – have had skin cancer – unless the temperature is cool enough for a toboggan.

    Palm Braid Two Hump Crown Cowboy Hat https://a.co/d/3ZoV4Rm

  9. @ Kate > “By a vote of 3-2, the Georgia elections board will now require reconciling the total number of votes with the total number of voters, and this must be done before elections are certified.”

    What were the arguments of the 2 opposed board members?
    I can’t imagine they were anything logical.

  10. Open thread ruminations — or Aesop’s Aphorisms:

    Democrats are not completely the party of evil people (we all know Democrats who are personally ethical and morally upright) and Republicans are not completely the party of stupid people (witness present company of very knowledgeable and wise commenters!); however, the Democrat Party is currently being controlled by evil people, and the Republican Party is currently full of evil-accepting people.

    So maybe that does make the Democrats the Party of Evil and the Republicans the Party of Stupid.
    *********
    The Republican voters think they are members of a party whose leadership is comprised of representatives concerned with their constituents’ values and desires; they are mostly mistaken in that belief, but it is at least consistent with democracy.

    Democrat voters think that any opposition to their leadership’s values and wishes is undemocratic.
    **********
    Republican voters think they should tell their leaders what to do;
    Democrat leaders tell their voters what to think.

  11. Tommy (NEAR TOP) Jay caught the same piece today that I did at American Thinker, “Obama’s Strategy of Socialist Conquest“.

    “This article has an interesting historical take on Obama’s socialist conquest of America via economic means. Some hyperbole perhaps, but it strikes chords with me.”

    YES. It has plausibility. We’re reading tea leaves in a quest to see the Imperial Wizard’s work.

    But how far is assumed or presumed agency on his part simply met the willing executioners?

    Diana West’s books themed by the institutionalised “Red Thread” of federal players going back to the Soviet Union grows in believability, too.

    Since the author of the AmThinker piece also has a new book out, I’m very curious on knowing his sources. West among them, I’m sure.

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