Spambot of the day; poem of the day

The New Neo Posted on by

This seemed like a most unusual spambot, with a rather elegant and “literary” sound to it:

The landlady sobbing and wailing at her forlorn condition like a peasant woman.

So I looked it up, and sure enough, it’s from this Dostoevsky story.

It also reminded me instantly of this poem by Coleridge; here’s the poem’s beginning:

In Xanadu did Kubla Khan
A stately pleasure-dome decree:
Where Alph, the sacred river, ran
Through caverns measureless to man
Down to a sunless sea.

And here’s the part the spambot conjured up for me:

A savage place! as holy and enchanted
As e’er beneath a waning moon was haunted
By woman wailing for her demon-lover!

Then there’s also Picasso’s Weeping Woman.

The poem “Kublai Khan” has long fascinated me. For one thing, Coleridge says it came to him in a dream – actually, an opium-induced dream. Here’s the fuller story:

According to Coleridge’s preface to “Kubla Khan”, the poem was composed one night after he experienced an opium-influenced dream after reading a work describing Xanadu, the summer capital of the Mongol-led Yuan dynasty of China founded by Kublai Khan (Emperor Shizu of Yuan). Upon waking, he set about writing lines of poetry that came to him from the dream until he was interrupted by “a person on business from Porlock”. The poem could not be completed according to its original 200–300 line plan as the interruption caused him to forget the lines. He left it unpublished and kept it for private readings for his friends until 1816 when, at the prompting of Lord Byron, it was published.

The poem is vastly different in style from other poems written by Coleridge.

Actually, I’d say it’s different from most other poems written by anyone, period. It does seem to come from another place. We don’t really know what it’s about in the conventional sense. It’s a mystical and lyrical poetic vision, that’s all. That’s the way I see it, anyway.

The last stanza gave me an involuntary chill the first time I read it, as a teenager. And it still does – every time I read it:

A damsel with a dulcimer
In a vision once I saw:
It was an Abyssinian maid
And on her dulcimer she played,
Singing of Mount Abora.
Could I revive within me
Her symphony and song,
To such a deep delight ’twould win me,
That with music loud and long,
I would build that dome in air,
That sunny dome! those caves of ice!
And all who heard should see them there,
And all should cry, Beware! Beware!
His flashing eyes, his floating hair!
Weave a circle round him thrice,
And close your eyes with holy dread
For he on honey-dew hath fed,
And drunk the milk of Paradise.

Mamdani’s lead has shrunk

The New Neo Posted on by

But not nearly enough, according to polls taken since Adams dropped out:

Mamdani leads the race with 46% of likely voters backing him, followed by independent candidate Cuomo with 33% support and Republican candidate Curtis Sliwa with 15%, the Quinnipiac University survey finds.

In a Quinnipiac survey that gauged a four-way race last month, Mamdani received 45% support to 23% for Cuomo, 15% for Sliwa and 12% support for Adams. Other polls showed Mamdani with a hefty lead in a four-person race.

You can see that, according to the poll, Mamdani’s lead is stable, and yet he doesn’t have 50%. Almost all of Adams’ votes went to Cuomo. If either Cuomo or Sliwa dropped out, what would happen? Mamdani might lose, especially if Sliwa dropped out because I can’t imagine any of Sliwa’s supporters going to Mamdani. But I don’t think Sliwa has any intention of dropping out.

Why do I care? Well, it’s my hometown.

People who are uninterested in politics

The New Neo Posted on by

From commenter “djf”:

The ignorance of the average voter — even the average educated, affluent voter — is difficult to fathom for those of us who are more engaged, even if we’re not obsessive about it.

A year or so ago, I heard a young mother, about 30 — a seemingly intelligent and affluent college graduate — “blame” Biden for the overruling of Roe v Wade (she was pro-abortion, obviously) because it happened while he was president. This level of ignorance and irrationality, while common, is so deep as to make meaningful discussion impossible.

The same is true of the people on the “Right” who seem to think “Zionists” are behind everything wrong with the United States.

Given the left’s dominance of the media, and the wishy washy nature of the supposedly “rightwing” Fox News, I expect the Democrats to avoid blame for the shutdown. Apparently, the media was able to convince many people that the border disaster under Biden was the fault of the Republicans.

To many of us who follow politics closely, it does seem very odd. Why do so many people seem not to care? Why do they read only information that comes from one side? Or little to no information at all?

But at the risk of repeating myself, I’ll give my answers, and those answers come from my own personal experience. I’m not just talking about my experience with acquaintances, friends, and family. I’m talking about my own behavior and thoughts.

For the first thirty years of my adult life I simply did not follow politics closely. I read the Boston Globe and The New Yorker, but in those days the latter wasn’t politics-heavy; that happened much later. I read the Globe mainly because I lived in New England, and I was especially interested in the arts and sciences section. Some Sundays I got The New York Times, again mostly for the arts, sciences, book reviews, and also the double-crostic (I’m not a crossword puzzle lover). I didn’t like TV news – still don’t – and rarely watched it unless something especially important was happening.

Did I think I was well-informed? Not really. But I thought I was well-informed enough. I wasn’t keen on most politicians. The majority of people I knew about seemed to vote for Democrats, but I actually didn’t even know the politics of many of my friends because the subject didn’t come up. My entire family voted for Democrats; I did know that. And it was perfectly fine with me to vote for them too.

What was I doing most of that time, instead? Mothering, reading, writing fiction and poetry, working when my son got older, going to the movies, listening to music, exercising, cooking, socializing, talking to my husband, traveling to see relatives and friends – all the activities of normal life. Later, I went back to grad school and got my MFT degree, but that didn’t involve politics, either.

And yet it did; I just didn’t realize it. I found myself at odds with a lot of what my professors were teaching us, and I often argued with them about the way to treat clients. My fellow classmates weren’t so enthralled with my orneriness, and I didn’t understand why they didn’t agree with me. But looking back, I think a lot of it had to do with my more conservative way of looking at human nature and human interaction – including, for example, issues of responsibility as well as truth-telling.

I’ve written my story in my “A mind is a difficult thing to change” posts; no need to go into all that again. The point I’m trying to make here is that I believe most of the people I know – nearly all of them are Democrats – fall into the same patterns of news and politics consumption that I had for those thirty years.

Sure, there are people I know on the left who follow politics much more closely. But they’re nowhere near as numerous among the people I know, and I think that’s true in general. Dedicated leftists and activists depend on the much greater number of people who are neither.

I imagine some of you are thinking: oh, so you were a useful idiot. I may have been useful, but I was no idiot. I was the very same person I am today, except that now I spend many hours reading and writing about politics. It’s a great surprise to me; I simply didn’t see that coming. But life can be surprising.

Meet the new boss at Dominion, not like the old boss

The New Neo Posted on by

Yes, that Dominion:

Dominion Voting systems has been acquired by founder and chairman of Liberty Vote Scott Leiendecker, in a deal which included dropping lawsuits against conservatives.

Leiendecker, former GOP election reform advocate, has officially become the sole owner of Dominion after making the deal contingent on dropping several remaining lawsuits against prominent conservatives and One America News Network (OANN).

The “prominent conservatives” are Mike Lindell, the My Pillow guy; Rudy Giuliani; and Sidney Powell.

Of all the accusations of fraud in the 2020 elections, the ones against Dominion seemed the weakest. But – as I’ve said from the start about all the 2020 fraud allegations – once you change the rules from the old paper ballot routine, especially with computers and mail-in voting, you need to increase safeguards to the point where voters trust in your accuracy and fairness. In 2020, the public was not feeling that ballot security was in place, and so whichever party had lost that election, that party would have claimed fraud. There is no question in my mind that had Biden lost, the Democrats would have screamed fraud because even prior to the election they were complaining about Dominion too (see this from 2019, for example, as well as this from the same year).

So why didn’t many Democrats claim fraud in 2024, when Trump won? The first reason was that it wasn’t especially close, and the second reason was that the voting patterns showed a shift to Trump in almost every county and in almost every demographic. That would be hard to fake. Another reason is that many states tightened up the mail-in ballot rules that had been put in place so hastily in 2020 with the excuse of COVID.

Now Dominion’s new owner Leiendecker is determined to create a product in which people have more trust. I say, “good luck”:

“Liberty Vote signals a new chapter for American elections — one where trust is rebuilt from the ground up,” Leiendecker stated in the press release. “Liberty Vote is committed to delivering election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency, security, and simplicity so that voters can be assured that every ballot is filled-in accurately and fairly counted.”

In addition, the company is prioritizing the use of hand-marked paper ballots to strengthen election security and compliance.

Sounds promising.

Did Abigail Spanberger have her Dukakis moment?

The New Neo Posted on by

In a 1988 presidential debate, Dukakis was asked if he’d support the death penalty if his wife Kitty were raped and murdered. His answer was considered cold, but then again the question was extremely strange coming from the moderator:

In the recent debate between the two candidates for the governorship of Virginia, Democrat Spanberger had a similarly cold reacion to a “what if?” question, this time asked by her opponent:

Spanberger is the frontrunner.

Hostage releases, prisoner exhcanges, and the Israeli death penalty

The New Neo Posted on by

It was inevitable that after the announcement of the Israel/Gaza peace plan agreement and the initial euphoria about the hostage return, two things would occur fairly quickly. The first is that the Palestinians would declare this to be a victory for them, and the second is that Israel would be releasing tons of very dangerous and fanatical prisoners who would then go on to attempt to wreak destruction on Israelis and on Israel.

And sure enough, this sort of vicious murderer is rumored to be about to be released, among others too numerous to mention. And yes, Gazans are celebrating in their own very special way:

One group of Gazans was captured on video chanting “Khaybar, Khaybar, ya Yahood, jaish Muhammad sa yaoud.” That is, “Khaybar, Khaybar, O Jews, the army of Muhammad will return.”

The fact that they’re chanting this is a clear indication that there will be no peace, as this chant is nothing less than a call for genocide.

I expect nothing less from them.

Still, Israel has shown an impressive ability to find and kill its enemies, wherever they may be, so I doubt the released prisoners will feel entirely safe. Then again, isn’t it ironic that Israel doesn’t execute such killers in the first place – keeping them alive and making itself vulnerable to hostage-taking in order to free them – and yet executes them extra-judicially with drones and the like?

It has to do with some peculiarities of Israeli law:

Capital punishment is a legal penalty in Israel. Capital punishment has only been imposed twice in the history of the state and is only to be handed out for treason, genocide, crimes against humanity, and crimes against the Jewish people during wartime.

An argument could be made that terrorist attacks fall under this definition, but it’s not the way the law has been used so far. This reluctance has a basis in Jewish tradition. It’s ironic that Jews are portrayed as “eye for an eye” justice-seekers when in reality that acted as a limiting principle, and Jews have long been reluctant to impose the death penalty:

Israel’s rare use of the death penalty may in part be due to Jewish religious law. Biblical law explicitly mandates the death penalty for 36 offenses, from murder and adultery to idolatry and desecration of the Sabbath. However, in ancient Israel, the death penalty was rarely carried out. Jewish scholars since the beginning of the common era have developed such restrictive rules to prevent execution of the innocent that the death penalty has become de facto abolished. Moses Maimonides argued that executing a defendant on anything less than absolute certainty would lead to a slippery slope of decreasing burdens of proof, until we would be convicting merely “according to the judge’s caprice”. His concern was maintaining popular respect for law, and he saw errors of commission as much more threatening than errors of omission. Conservative Jewish religious leaders and scholars believe that the death penalty should remain unused, even in extreme cases such as political assassination.

One of the reasons is that during the 1948 war, an Israeli officer was accused of espionage, court-martialed, and then exonerated because the charges turned out to be false.

In recent years, Israel has been edging closer to having the death penalty be available for terrorists, but it’s not yet the law. That means that such people remain in Israel’s prisons, which would seem to be an encouragement for hostage-taking rather than a deterrence, given Israel’s willingness to make such exchanges in order to get hostages back. If there were no Arab terrorist murderers in Israeli prisons, there almost certainly would be less motivation to take hostages because the terrorists would get smaller fish in exchange.

This article presents the argument against the death penalty for terrorists (both in the US and in Israel), which goes like this: execution wouldn’t be a deterrent because terrorists don’t care if they die, and don’t mind being martyred, either. The idea is that it creates an incentive through martyrdom rather than a disincentive for terrorism.

That makes a certain amount of sense regarding terrorism, although I don’t really buy it because even in prison such people become heroes and martyrs. And it doesn’t make any sense regarding hostage-taking with the goal of freeing prisoners, which it encourages.

Roundup

The New Neo Posted on by

(1) Pigs fly, and MSNBC gives Trump credit for his Middle East negotiations.

(2) Letitia James must have thought she was immune from having to answer for her own deceptive record-keeping. But instead she’s been indicted for fraud:

New York state Attorney General Letitia James was indicted Thursday by a federal grand jury in Virginia on charges of bank fraud and making false claims to a financial institution that netted her nearly $19,000 in savings on a loan for a second home, according to the Department of Justice.

James indicted Trump for far far less – essentially, a made-up crime. I would bet she never thought the GOP would go after her, despite this – and/or she thought she’d be successful in her prosecution of Trump and he would never have the power to go after her.

(3) One might think that the “Israel is committing genocide!!” folks and the “Ceasefire now!!” crowd would be singing Trump’s praises. Nope:

The people who’ve been noisily clamouring for an end to the war in Gaza are either mute or they’re moaning. Don’t trust that snake Benjamin Netanyahu, some say. If I thought a genocide was being executed in Gaza, a crime as cataclysmic as anything the Nazis did, I’d be on the streets celebrating this morning. Yet these people can barely be arsed to put a thumbs-up on Instagram.

We know why: it’s because Trump has called their bluff. In fact, this could prove to be one of the most consequential bluff-callings of modern times. Trump hasn’t only managed to get two mortal enemies to sign on the dotted line of a deal. He has also, as a side effect, torn off the veil of pacifism worn by Israel’s legion loathers in the West and compelled them to come clean. He has created a situation where the true aim of this army of Israel haters – the dismantling of the Jewish State – will have nowhere left to hide. …

They’re iffy about Trump’s plan for some one simple reason: it leaves the Jewish State intact and it demands the surrender of Hamas. It thwarts their dystopic dream of dragging the Middle East back to 1948, before the modern state of Israel existed. Everyone can now see that what falsely presented itself as a peace movement was in truth a ruthless campaign of delegitimation, demonisation and even destruction waged against the world’s only Jewish nation by our post-reason elites.

(4) The man arrested for starting the Palisades fire seems to be a Trump-hating guy who was obsessed with climate change worries, but also was just very very odd and angry, threatening relatives as well. This seems to be the pattern for so many recent killers and other public enemies: a combination of politics and mental disturbance fuels their violence.

(5) A documentary about Melania Trump will be released in January. The woman is incapable of looking bad. There’s only good and very very good and excellent.

(6) Trump didn’t get the Nobel Peace Prize, but then again the nominations were closed at the end of last January. Meanwhile, it was awarded to Venezuelan activist Maria Corina Machado, who dedicated it to “the suffering people of Venezuela and to President Trump for his decisive support for our cause!”

Amazing.

And then there’s Katie Porter

The New Neo Posted on by

Charming:

Things continue to deteriorate for California gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter. In what appears to be a coordinated opposition research drop, and a well-deserved one at that, the Democrat has faced multiple leaked videos showing her less-than-stellar temperament.

As RedState reported, she recently blew up on a local reporter, ending the interview and chastizing her for asking follow-up questions. Shortly after that clip went viral, another video emerged of Porter cussing out one of her staffers for being “in her shot.”

The moral of the story is that you’re overwhelmingly obnoxious as well as abusive to your staffers, they may extract revenge by leaking some stuff that reveals exactly how dreadful you are. That appears to be what’s happening to Porter. Never mind opposition research leaks; her opposition is her own ex-staff – or perhaps her present staff?

Here’s the interview with the local reporter, in case you haven’t watched it. Porter is imperious and seems to believe no follow-up questions should be asked of her:

I have to hand it to the reporter, though.

Another post about Jay Jones – but it’s not just about Jones

The New Neo Posted on by

It’s not just what Jones said (which I covered already, here as well as here). His venomous hatred of Republicans – even to the point of wishing death on one Republican’s small children – and his failure to take responsibility for an extreme case of reckless driving, as well as the delay in his apology for any of it – should utterly disqualify him for the post of Virginia’s AG and he should drop out of the race. But to do that would take a sense of morality, decency, responsibility, and shame, which he so far appears to lack.

But that’s just Jay Jones. He’s just one person. What’s far worse is the failure of his fellow Democrats to demand he drop out. They pay lip service to expressing disapproval, but it comes with a “yes, but” about the rest. In other words, they support his candidacy. And it’s highly possible that enough Virginia voters will agree and end up electing him. It is shocking that this is how he’s polling even after the revelation of his vile behavior:

In the wake of their publication on October 3, Jones’ polling has suffered. According to an internal poll for the Jones conducted by Hart Research Associates and reported by The New York Post, Jones is leading Miyares 46 percent to 45 percent. The poll of 600 Virginia voters was conducted between October 4 and 6. This shows his lead declining from previous polling.

A previous Washington Post-Schar School poll last Friday for instance, conducted before the texts were published, showed Jones ahead of Miyares by 51 percent to 45 percent.

So some Jones supporters have deserted him. But not all that many. Of course, more and more people may have heard about him since. But still, it’s an indication of our general loss of moral compass.

This isn’t an uncorroborated unproven accusation of sexual harassment. This isn’t some college indiscretion. This isn’t something minor, nor is it disputed that he said or wrote these incredibly hateful and violent things indicative of a warped, sick mind. But such thoughts are now mainstream among many Democrats. I’ve heard death wished on Trump so many times, stated so casually and glibly that it seems the speaker assumes that of course everyone within hearing agrees, that it no longer surprises me.

And this from the party that likes to call Charlie Kirk a “hater.” From the party that supports rage at “micro-aggressions” so minute they can barely be discerned.

Let’s assume the hostages come home

The New Neo Posted on by

Caveat: I’ll believe it when I see it.

But let’s assume it really does happen. I hope it really does happen.

The price paid will be the release of an enormous number of terrorists, which Hamas will call a victory. But everyone knows that – at least at this point – the entire last two years has been no victory for Hamas.

That doesn’t mean they’re destroyed and ready to surrender. It does mean, however, that Israel reacted much more aggressively than expected, destroyed their infrastructure and leadership as never before, and may even be starting a process that will dismantle Hamas’ grip on Gaza.

Ah, but doesn’t the release of prisoners by Israel encourage the taking of new hostages? My answer is: no more than what has already happened. There have been many such exchanges already in this war, and the terrorists well know the value of taking hostages. In fact, they well knew it even before October 7; that’s why they took so many. It tears Israel apart, and Israel is willing to pay a huge price to get them back.

This time, Hamas also paid a huge price.

Part of that price is that many of Hamas’ Arab and Iranian sponsors may not be quite as keen in the future about dumping tons of money into Hamas coffers. This time, they themselves paid a big price – and I’m not talking about just money.

The return of the hostages will help Israel heal. The Netanyahu-haters, much like the Trump-haters, will never give Netanyahu credit and will continue to try to destroy him. But much of Israel will heave a huge sigh of relief.

And then there’s the worldwide Jew-hatred that’s been unleashed. Note that I say “unleashed” rather than “created.” I think it was there all the time, and was exhibited even on October 8, before Israel retaliated for October 7. The left, Iran, China, the UN, many Middle Eastern countries, academics world round, the press, and NGOs have been pushing it for decades. It will remain a big problem, but without the war to give it constant fuel, I think its expression will die down somewhat.

I’ll close with this from Isaiah:

The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me; because the Lord hath anointed me to preach good tidings unto the meek; he hath sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to them that are bound;

2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord, and the day of vengeance of our God; to comfort all that mourn;

3 To appoint unto them that mourn in Zion, to give unto them beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness; that they might be called trees of righteousness, the planting of the Lord, that he might be glorified.

4 And they shall build the old wastes, they shall raise up the former desolations, and they shall repair the waste cities, the desolations of many generations.