I sure would have liked to have seen the waterfall:
Comments
Open thread 2/24/2025 — 14 Comments
I sure wish there were trustworthy information about foreign affairs. Everything I see, even if it’s on a blog, ultimately came through legacy media, which we’ve known for years has been acting as stenographers for their fellow Democrats in government.
But we didn’t learn until recently how venal that government has been domestically, and its venality does not plausibly stop at the water’s edge. We know now that high-sounding government programs were really slush funds for the connected and for progressives, and that the legacy media did it all it could to cover that up. It seems pretty obvious that our government’s high-sounding defense and foreign policy have also been slush funds for the connected and progressives, and that the legacy media still does all it can to cover that up.
Having new leadership actually willing to try to do something about it, instead of pretending that nothing can be done, could slowly change these things, but the world we’re looking at now is the result of what has come before and not what has changed since January 20.
I had read about the Gilbralter Flood, but not the second one around Scilly. Happened to far back to be Noah’s Flood.
that really is fascinatinghttps://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-marine-021723-110155
i thought they associated the second one with santorini, and the collapse of the bronze age,
If the German CDU would ally with AfD, they’d have a clear majority. However, they refuse to work with AfD, which means the majority of German voters who voted for a right or center-right government won’t get what they voted for. They’ll get another coalition government which refuses to face Germany’s basic problems (unassimilated immigrants and stupid energy policies).
Kate:
I fear you are correct.
However, prayers delayed are not prayers denied. The AfD was up 10% this cycle. Maybe more next.
I urge everyone to read miguel’s link above to the Tablet article by Natan Sharansky. It is both fascinating and haunting. Also useful to disabuse anyone (though probably few among neo’s commenters) of the notion that antisemitism is strictly a “right-wing” phenomenon.
When you reward something you get more of it.
I think that it is pretty obvious by now that “helping” the homeless by not arresting them, but tolerating their encampments, by offering free needles to those addicted, and other such accommodative measures have been a total failure, and have only served to make the problem of homelessness spread and become more widespread–worse, not better.
Linked below is an article titled, “End Homelessness by Making it Illegal,” which advocates a very “tough love” approach to dealing with this problem.*
Continuing a thread from last night with Brian E:
__________________________________________
Chat called it, “What we have here is a failure to rebut.”
Huxley, that’s pretty funny– for a computer. I read somewhere computers didn’t do funny very well, but they obviously understand a play on words.
— Brian E
__________________________________________
The latest Grok AI from Elon Musk’s xAI is purported to be sassier — more human, less politically correct.
In my experience ChatGPT 4.o is much more freewheeling than ChatGPT 3.5.
My current speculation is that we are only a dev cycle or three away from chatbots with movie star personalities.
What if talking to your AI Buddy felt like talking with Brad Pitt … or whomever else your human heart might desire?
ChatGPT 4.o agreed.
Thanks miguel for that extraordinary piece by Sharansky….
According to his autobiography, his prodigious abilities as a chess player—and his memory—helped preserve his sanity (and save his life) while in Soviet solitary confinement.
Paleontologists, Lord love ’em. My faculty adviser in college was a Paleontologist who was married to a Paleontologist. I would often see them in the Paleo lab looking through microscopes and chatting away about the details of this foraminifera or that crinoid. They were having such fun. 🙂
It was not my cup of tea, but they are the ones who have been most responsible for reconstructing the geologic past. They’re like detectives gathering evidence and clues to events that took place in the mists of time. I applaud them and am appreciative of the work they do.
Natan Sharansky is a wonderful human being. I’ve seen him speak a few times and was at his celebrity roast a few months ago by Commentary magazine. The problem is no one did any “roasting” – they all just got up and said wonderful things about him. So he got up to the microphone and did it himself. Paraphrasing below, obviously.
“My whole life I was a failure. I dreamed of being the number one chess player in the world. I failed. I dreamed of being the number one physicist in the world. Again, I failed. It took me forever to figure out where I could finally be number one. Solitary confinement.”
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I sure wish there were trustworthy information about foreign affairs. Everything I see, even if it’s on a blog, ultimately came through legacy media, which we’ve known for years has been acting as stenographers for their fellow Democrats in government.
But we didn’t learn until recently how venal that government has been domestically, and its venality does not plausibly stop at the water’s edge. We know now that high-sounding government programs were really slush funds for the connected and for progressives, and that the legacy media did it all it could to cover that up. It seems pretty obvious that our government’s high-sounding defense and foreign policy have also been slush funds for the connected and progressives, and that the legacy media still does all it can to cover that up.
Having new leadership actually willing to try to do something about it, instead of pretending that nothing can be done, could slowly change these things, but the world we’re looking at now is the result of what has come before and not what has changed since January 20.
I had read about the Gilbralter Flood, but not the second one around Scilly. Happened to far back to be Noah’s Flood.
that really is fascinatinghttps://www.annualreviews.org/content/journals/10.1146/annurev-marine-021723-110155
i thought they associated the second one with santorini, and the collapse of the bronze age,
a fascinating perspective,
https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/arts-letters/articles/natan-sharansky-doublethink
as much as we wanted it to be true, it wasn’t
https://www.frontpagemag.com/searching-for-condemnations-in-the-muslim-world/
the tale of the scorpion,
https://spinstrangenesscharm.wordpress.com/2025/02/24/cliffhanger-in-german-elections/
If the German CDU would ally with AfD, they’d have a clear majority. However, they refuse to work with AfD, which means the majority of German voters who voted for a right or center-right government won’t get what they voted for. They’ll get another coalition government which refuses to face Germany’s basic problems (unassimilated immigrants and stupid energy policies).
Kate:
I fear you are correct.
However, prayers delayed are not prayers denied. The AfD was up 10% this cycle. Maybe more next.
I urge everyone to read miguel’s link above to the Tablet article by Natan Sharansky. It is both fascinating and haunting. Also useful to disabuse anyone (though probably few among neo’s commenters) of the notion that antisemitism is strictly a “right-wing” phenomenon.
When you reward something you get more of it.
I think that it is pretty obvious by now that “helping” the homeless by not arresting them, but tolerating their encampments, by offering free needles to those addicted, and other such accommodative measures have been a total failure, and have only served to make the problem of homelessness spread and become more widespread–worse, not better.
Linked below is an article titled, “End Homelessness by Making it Illegal,” which advocates a very “tough love” approach to dealing with this problem.*
* See https://townhall.com/columnists/scottmorefield/2025/02/24/end-homelessness-by-making-it-illegal-n2652671
Continuing a thread from last night with Brian E:
__________________________________________
Chat called it, “What we have here is a failure to rebut.”
Huxley, that’s pretty funny– for a computer. I read somewhere computers didn’t do funny very well, but they obviously understand a play on words.
— Brian E
__________________________________________
The latest Grok AI from Elon Musk’s xAI is purported to be sassier — more human, less politically correct.
In my experience ChatGPT 4.o is much more freewheeling than ChatGPT 3.5.
My current speculation is that we are only a dev cycle or three away from chatbots with movie star personalities.
What if talking to your AI Buddy felt like talking with Brad Pitt … or whomever else your human heart might desire?
ChatGPT 4.o agreed.
Thanks miguel for that extraordinary piece by Sharansky….
According to his autobiography, his prodigious abilities as a chess player—and his memory—helped preserve his sanity (and save his life) while in Soviet solitary confinement.
Paleontologists, Lord love ’em. My faculty adviser in college was a Paleontologist who was married to a Paleontologist. I would often see them in the Paleo lab looking through microscopes and chatting away about the details of this foraminifera or that crinoid. They were having such fun. 🙂
It was not my cup of tea, but they are the ones who have been most responsible for reconstructing the geologic past. They’re like detectives gathering evidence and clues to events that took place in the mists of time. I applaud them and am appreciative of the work they do.
Natan Sharansky is a wonderful human being. I’ve seen him speak a few times and was at his celebrity roast a few months ago by Commentary magazine. The problem is no one did any “roasting” – they all just got up and said wonderful things about him. So he got up to the microphone and did it himself. Paraphrasing below, obviously.
“My whole life I was a failure. I dreamed of being the number one chess player in the world. I failed. I dreamed of being the number one physicist in the world. Again, I failed. It took me forever to figure out where I could finally be number one. Solitary confinement.”