Open Thread – 16 January 2021

Posted on January 16, 2021 by Pat Lang

This entry was posted in Open Thread. Bookmark the permalink.

29 Responses to Open Thread – 16 January 2021

Patrick Armstrong says:

January 16, 2021 at 5:46 pm

What happens if, in 6-12 months time, a solid majority of the population comes to believe that Trump was the victim of a propaganda exercise on 6 Jan (and before) and that he really won the election by a good majority?
Deap says:

January 16, 2021 at 5:48 pm

Homeland Security Committee released report: Biden and family found selling US policy for personal gain. Print out the pdf if you want future reference, because this detailed report will probably be taken down and deep-sixed in the next few days.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2021/01/16/homeland-security-committee-releases-report-outlining-biden-family-selling-u-s-policy-for-personal-financial-gain/
Deap says:

January 16, 2021 at 6:18 pm

Why you need to worry about California, even if you don’t like it.
$9 Billion dollars in fraudulent “covid” claims run through the state’s incompetent covid payment system. Which is wasting your federal tax dollars, even when you don’t live in California:
https://redstate.com/jenniferoo/2021/01/16/ca-edd-fraud-has-now-reached-9-billion-with-international-crime-syndicates-in-the-mix-n311115
As I recall, Trump wanted only $5 billion dollars to build the Wall and Democrats refused to give it to him. But $9 billion easy hand-out dollars to ensure a Biden 2020 victory was small change.
EEngineer says:

January 16, 2021 at 6:20 pm

Pat, I looked up Rumpole of the Bailey after you mentioned it in a post a few days back. A classic from the golden age of British television that was before my time. I’d never heard of it. Any others you would recommend? I’ve seen Danger Man, The Prisoner, Space 1999, Civilisation (correct British spelling), Dr Who, Fawlty Towers, World At War, and Monty Python. I actually got my introduction to Red Dwarf when I was stationed at Site One.
turcopolier says:

January 16, 2021 at 6:24 pm

EEngineer
I did? Try “Silent Witness.” There are about 25 seasons. The first few had a different cast. Ignore them.
Fred says:

January 16, 2021 at 6:44 pm

Eengineer,
that was my post. They might be online. if so check the one about him going to Africa.
The Twisted Genius says:

January 16, 2021 at 8:03 pm

EEngineer,
Look for “All Creatures Great and Small.” It’s about some veterinarians in the Yorkshire countryside from the 30s to the 50s. The stories are great and the setting is magnificent. It ran for 12 years or so. There’s a new series just started by Masterpiece Theater. I’ve seen the first episode and it’s pretty good.
The Twisted Genius says:

January 16, 2021 at 8:07 pm

I was trying to imagine what would have happened if the BLM protests last Summer breached the White House. I’m pretty sure it would also be seen as an insurrection. Comparisons to the Haitian Revolution would be inevitable. The backlash would probably have led to a Trump victory in November.
Fred says:

January 16, 2021 at 8:42 pm

TTG,
“Comparisons to the Haitian Revolution would be inevitable.”
I can’t think of a more inflammatory and bigoted statement than that.
Deap says:

January 16, 2021 at 9:33 pm

“My Family and Other Animals, was the later work of the young boy featured on the recent BBC series “The Durrells of Corfu”, based upon his own experiences. He took his love for animals fostered on Corfu to later become a veterinarian.
Then an author, along with his older brother who wrote the more literary Bitter Lemons. The quirky mother on Corfu, was in fact an alcoholic and ended up quite dissipated after the family’s return to England.
So there is another series to explore – The Durells of Corfu – not quite the fix to replace Downton Abbey, but with some charm..
What was that BBC series about the slightly heavy social climbing middle age woman …Mrs Bucket -make that “Bou-quet” if you please. Great ensemble acting, kind of a British Seinfeld – stretching endearing comedy out of ordinary life with recognizable human foibles..
I also do love Monty Python, but as they sadly say they probably could not even begin to do their brand of comedy in today’s cancel climate. Nor do they have the shared cultural references today that everyone could still recognize. Even the Yanks across the pond at the time, had enough shared British heritage to get a lot of it.
blue peacock says:

January 16, 2021 at 9:53 pm

Patrick Armstrong,
How do you believe “a solid majority of the population comes to believe that Trump was the victim of a propaganda exercise on 6 Jan (and before) and that he really won the election by a good majority?”
The Propaganda Ministry has demonstrated its effective control of the “inner tubes”. All contrarian opinion has already been deemed “insurrectionist”.
Deap says:

January 17, 2021 at 12:24 am

Open – Thread – who in fact “owns” the internet?
A less than respectable spokesperson did offer an interesting perspective about “private industry” high techers using the internet platform – Bezo, Zuckerberg, Gates, Allen, et all.
They are just rail cars delivering cargo. But the tracks are a creation of the US military – the DARPA network. What government rights are retained to control anyone who uses the internet communication network – like Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever. other train cars are delivering goods to their customers.
Why should they get access and why should they prevent others from also jumping on the tracks – money, equipment……..???? They had to start from scratch at one time once they saw the benefit of getting on the DARPA track>
Are they in fact vulnerable to continue getting onto the internet stream itself – whatever the heck it is – what is the command and control structure for the internet itself. Does it have a location, a master on-off switch. Ability to put centralized filters on it?
I use the internet, but I have never really understood what the heck it is.
It the internet a “thing” or is it something that now transcends everything, but some people managed to manipulate it for themselves faster and better than others. But it does really belong only to them?
Deap says:

January 17, 2021 at 2:07 am

Who owns the internet. Good, simple discussion and it sure is not Zuckerberg or Bezos. They are just skillful users if the internet.
So who owns it? Everybody and nobody. But there are powers higher than the current cancel/censor crowd:
https://computer.howstuffworks.com/internet/basics/who-owns-internet2.htm
J says:

January 17, 2021 at 2:23 am

MSM calls for “new definition of free speech”
https://off-guardian.org/2021/01/16/a-new-definition-of-free-speech/
Facebook Censors Mexican Cardinal for Denouncing ‘New World Order’
https://www.breitbart.com/health/2021/01/16/facebook-censors-mexican-cardinal-denouncing-new-world-order/#
Bill Gates Buying Up Huge Amount of Farmland While ‘Great Reset’ Tells Americans Future is No Private Property
Feudalism makes a roaring comeback in the name of progress.
https://summit.news/2021/01/15/bill-gates-buying-up-huge-amount-of-farmland-while-great-reset-tells-americans-future-is-no-private-property/
Biden to deploy FEMA, National Guard to set up Covid vaccine clinics across the U.S.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/01/15/biden-to-deploy-fema-national-guard-to-set-up-covid-vaccine-clinics-across-the-us.html
Germany to Put COVID Rulebreakers in ‘Detention Camp’
Camps. For dissidents. In Germany.
https://summit.news/2021/01/15/germany-to-put-covid-rulebreakers-in-detention-camp/
jerseycityjoan says:

January 17, 2021 at 2:41 am

EEngineer:
I was mesmerized in high school by Anthony Hopkins in War and Peace. I have been waiting for him to do something else like it in terms of depth and breadth and he never has, unfortunately. I think many men would enjoy the WWI era flying in Flambards. The Napoleonic era battle scenes of the Richard Sharpe dramas were fascinating to me because they seemed happen in real time with no camera tricks. To think they showed things as they must have been as masses of men moved towards each other in order to fight was a revelation. I don’t know how they made themselves do it.
Seamus Padraig says:

January 17, 2021 at 6:03 am

@The Twisted Genius | 16 January 2021 at 08:07 PM
I was trying to imagine what would have happened if the BLM protests last Summer breached the White House. I’m pretty sure it would also be seen as an insurrection.
I have a pretty good idea what would have happened in that case: the media would be indignant that Trump failed to go on one knee for the Whitehouse-stormers and demanding impeachment!
J says:

January 17, 2021 at 8:01 am

It’s sad that Bill Gates has amassed such power, first in seeds, then in farmland, and now the global medical fields.
What is Gates goal in controlling the world’s food, as well as the world’s medical/vaccines?
https://www.organicconsumers.org/news/one-empire-over-seed-control-over-worlds-seed-banks
The other name that pops up is the Rockefeller Empire, the same Empire that bought both sides of the isle of the U.S. Congress in 1914.
Global Corporate Communism, what is Gates goal in all of this?
The only nation standing in the way of the Global Corporate Communism take over of the world, appears to be the Russian Federation.
J says:

January 17, 2021 at 9:37 am

Colonel,
Looks like we will be adding 11 Million more to our citizenship rolls.
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-01-15/biden-to-send-congress-bill-to-legalize-11-million-immigrants-who-lack-documentation
Artemesia says:

January 17, 2021 at 10:37 am

I thought Rumpole of the Bailey was the origin/inspiration for “SWMBO,” one of the doughty jurist’s frequent complaints.
That and his references to classical poetry and literature.
Thanks for mentioning, Fred; reminder of better times in TV entertainment-land.
Chastening thought: it won’t be too much longer until another generation — not our children but our grandchildren! — will be pointing backward to that “earlier generation” and its quaint forms of amusement. Perhaps tripping down memory lane is one reason why deap’s link (Jan 15) to filmmaker Justin Bellucci’s tribute to Trump almost made me cry —
https://politicrossing.com/donald-trumps-latest-commercial-is-epic/
(I think it was mostly the music, one of the best renditions of Sinatra’s I Did It My Way.)
Of all the negatives about Trump, it’s impressive that he somehow kept together the children from multiple marriages, not an easy task; and they’re apparently productive (if ‘entitled’). One wonders if Hunter will be cleaned up and sober to face the crowds at his father’s big day.
TV says:

January 17, 2021 at 11:05 am

TTG:
Zero doubt that storming the “Trump” White House by antifa/BLM would be cheered on by the media and their Democrat masters.
And I suspect that the military brass (Milley and company) – good swamp creatures that they are – would have taken their time to respond, if responding at all.
turcopolier says:

January 17, 2021 at 12:14 pm

Artemesia
Rumpole was quoting H. Rider Haggard in “She.”
Valissa says:

January 17, 2021 at 2:55 pm

TTG, a reminder…
FLASHBACK: Hundreds Of Violent Left-Wing Rioters Smashed Windows, Set Limousine On Fire In Washington DC During President Trump’s Inauguration In 2017; Government Later Dropped ALL CHARGES Against The Rioters
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2021/01/flashback-hundreds-violent-left-wing-rioters-smashed-windows-set-limousine-fire-washington-dc-president-trumps-inauguration-2017-government-later-dropped-charges-aga/
TonyL says:

January 17, 2021 at 5:39 pm

My appology for not proofreading my comment before hitting the Post button!
TTG,
“I was trying to imagine what would have happened if the BLM protests last Summer breached the White House. I’m pretty sure it would also be seen as an insurrection. Comparisons to the Haitian Revolution would be inevitable. The backlash would probably have led to a Trump victory in November.”
It would have been an insurrection. And I agreed the backlash woud have led to a Trump victory in November.
Seeing a few comments above, I think it is hopeless to bridge the divide in this country. The assumption seems to be the “Left” will automatically cheers the BLM protesters who became inssurectionists.
Deap says:

January 18, 2021 at 12:14 am

If you have an hour and half to spare, and quite frankly one should make the time, this documentary looks into the political games played during the HIV-AIDS crisis in the 1980’s.
Meet many of the eact same players we have come to know and loathe today (Fauci-Redfield) playing the exact same games back then, with HIV-AIDS then that they are playing with covid today.
Chilling and very well done – a Canadian journalist went looking for the facts back in 2009 – pre-covid. No political axe to grind.
Whenever Democrats say they are the “party of science and we need to listen to the experts”, this documentary should make your brain scream… no!
https://redstate.com/michael_thau/2021/01/17/2009-documentary-featuring-fauci-redfield-mullis-other-luminaries-sheds-a-very-interesting-light-on-this-pandemic-were-perpetually-in-the-middle-of-n311340
Read the comments and see how many others found this to be a very gripping video and once started, you will want to see it to the end. A must-see.
downtownhaiku says:

January 18, 2021 at 11:43 am

Have We Already Been Visited by Aliens?
Elizabeth Kolbert January 18, 2021
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2021/01/25/have-we-already-been-visited-by-aliens
same article, no paywall here:
https://outline.com/XTfKrW
Mark K Logan says:

January 18, 2021 at 2:56 pm

On the subject of space exploration, the advances in robot technology continue at a scary pace. Boston Dynamics:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fn3KWM1kuAw
Manned missions to Mars are a long way off, but for these guys? Maybe not so much.
mcohen says:

January 18, 2021 at 3:41 pm

road to jericho
you might find me one day
on the road to jericho
looking for the hope of ray
the sound of thunder a distant echo
passed barbed wire now abandoned
without reason and purpose
to the hills armies disbanded
in a time of peace one can suppose
where walls and towers once stood
in this city of palms
in a house of stone and wood
the singing of psalms
ancient songs of hope and prayer
carried by the wind
for all to share
a joyous gift to mankind.
different clue says:

January 19, 2021 at 4:07 am

In mid-April I had a medical situation ( not covid-related) which put me in hospital for a short while, and then home from work. Right around then, the lockdowns were beginning, so I spent April 12th-July 13th without any computer access ( except one time using one of the medical computers till a doctor made me stop).
So I began reading or re-reading some of my books. I found two separate little chunks of material that I hope may be considered interesting enough so as to be permitted to appear, even though it is generally against policy. But as I offer ” other peoples’ writing” only once every couple of years or so, and as I am at least retyping the paragraphs myself rather than merely copying and pasting the lazy way, I hope that might mitigate in favor of permitting them to appear if the material is considered publish-worthy in itself.
The first book ( Bio Dynamic Agriculture Introductory Lectures –volume 2) by Alex Podolinsky, is mainly about agriculture but contained a very interesting short history-of-Russia digression.
Podolinsky begins by talking about the difference between and the historical emergence of serfs, peasants, farmers, and then says this:
” One total exception early this century was the agrarian reform caused in Russia’s ex-serf environment by my father’s cousin Stolypin. In 1905 eighty-three percent of the Russian population were ex-serfs. There was no middle class and the country was ripe for communism. At the other end was the aristocracy and some rich merchants. Stolypin, who had visited U.S. farms, resettled former serfs onto large tracts of land, like migration from Britain to Australia. He chose good land behind the Urals, or took some from aristocratic estates, for such resettlement. These new farmers soon became landholders in the sense of modern Australian farmers, however with the difference that it was not as natural and free a development, but was implemented by a farsighted politician.
This development ended when Stolypin was assassinated in 1911, according to my father (who worked with his cousin), not by a ‘communist Jew’ but by an assailant organized by an aristocracy unwilling to yield land. My father said, ‘the aristocrats therewith cut off the limb they were sitting on’. ”
I am thinking that extract might be especially interesting to Patrick Armstrong, David Habakkuk, and Smoothie X-12.
The other extract comes from Foundations Of Natural Farming by Harold Willis. It mostly is about the practice of farming, but it did have a chapter on the wider economic and social force-fields surrounding the farmer and in which the farmer has to operate. That chapter is titled “Why Problems?” and is about the interactions between farming, broader natural surroundings, economics, politics. And Willis’s understanding of economics somewhat parallels the ” Raw Materials- Matter and Energy” based theories of economics which Charles Walters and the Acres USA community studied, applied and pursued.
I will type out the smallest feasible sample of the more-that-is-there in case it may lead people to want to find that book. He first discusses a study by Dr. John Forbes in 1966 called The National Economy Is Out Of Balance. And after describing in briefest what the imbalances that Dr. Forbes found were, he writes . . .
Dr. Forbes, a college history professor, was stimulated to make his study after hearing Carl H. Wilken speak out on the injustices to farmers. Wilken was an economic research analyst and auditor in the National Foundation For Economic Stability, Washington, D.C., as well as a farmer for twenty years. His story is told in the book Unforgiven, by Charles Walters, Jr. Wilken’s research into government economic statistics revealed what appears to be a constant relationship: that the nation’s annual earned income is always about in the same ratio as the raw materials income ( from agriculture ((70%)), petroleum and mining, fisheries, and lumbering). Thus, underpaying especially the farmer decreases the whole nation’s income.”
The current pressures of week-to-week and day-to-day events command our primary time and attention, but these longer range subjects and information are worth at least remembering the existence of, so that if the pressure comes off we can then begin rethinking and restoring and redoing over the longer term for the longer future.
Artemesia says:

January 19, 2021 at 10:50 am

America’s multi-billionaires are buying thousands of acres of land in USA
A recent report stated that:
“Gates . . .the biggest owner of farmland in America, according to a Forbes report. . . . now owns 242,000 acres of farmland across the U.S. . . .”
and that
“Gates is still far behind media mogul John C. Malone, who is in top spot with 2.2 million acres of ranches and forests and CNN founder Ted Turner, who owns 2 million acres of ranch land.”
“Bezos is also exploring investment in land.”
https://summit.news/2021/01/15/bill-gates-buying-up-huge-amount-of-farmland-while-great-reset-tells-americans-future-is-no-private-property/
Of these four named landholders, which display the greatest tendency toward feudalism and which might follow Stolypin’s (sadly) aborted experiment?
What impact will their example have on the stock market?
On the micro-scale, densely-built housing close-in to city life, a trend especially among younger adults for many years, is losing out to more suburban life on a bit of land capable of sustaining a garden, perhaps a chicken or two and maybe even a goat.

Comments are closed.

Open Thread – 16 January 2021

29 Responses to Open Thread – 16 January 2021

Donate

Browse by category

Recent Comments

Browse archives

RSS

Meta