Chaos and the Anti-Thread

[Fred Steeves]

There have always been shootings in the USA, Fred ─ and even in other countries.

Well, I didn't mean just shootings, I meant these mass shootings but I get your drift. How I should have put it is that the frequency seems to have begun rising more and more dramatically starting in the 1980's, toward it's current crescendo.




and having a Mussolini-/Batista-wannabe in the White House who also happens to be a closet white-supremacist isn't exactly helping matters.

I would even go so far as to say that the QAnon phenomenon is partly responsible, because QAnon has been drawing more people to far-right message boards like 4Chan and 8Chan than ever before, exposing these people to far-right ideologies such as white-supremacism, McCarthy-ist commie hatred, and so on. And then there is the nature of the (mis-)information itself that QAnon disseminates ─ far-right and pro-Zionist.

That surely is not helping matters, but what media seems loathe to spotlight is that these guys aren't always extreme right wingers. The guy who tried to kill our entire republican congress a couple years ago was a Bernie Sanders supporter, the recent Ohio shooter was a lefty, and if you read the recent El Paso shooter's manifesto it quickly becomes clear that the only white supremacist aspects about him are his hatred of immigrants; practically every other political point of view he held was lefty. It's like he married Antifa to skinhead.

[Emil El Zapato]

Trump gives me the {{{}}} heebee jeebees...there is something seriously wrong with that guy...and lol, he's running a world power....but so many seem to think he's ok. That is the poorest testimony to humanity that I could possibly imagine.

[Aragorn]

Trump gives me the {{{}}} heebee jeebees...there is something seriously wrong with that guy...and lol, he's running a world power....but so many seem to think he's ok. That is the poorest testimony to humanity that I could possibly imagine.

Donald Trump is not the problem. Donald Trump is a symptom of a problem that already existed, and in his role as resident of the White House, he is now also acting as an accelerator to the problem. But the problem was already there before Trump rose to power. George W. Bush wasn't exactly a progressive leader either.

[Aianawa]

And an increase in the use of recreational drugs ─ don't forget that. We're seeing that over here in Europe as well among young people ─ the latest hype being nitrous oxide (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nitrous_oxide) ─ and scientific research has shown that this has long-term psychiatric effects on the brains of young people, increasing their chances of psychosis and/or depression.



There have always been shootings in the USA, Fred ─ and even in other countries. But indeed, what has changed is that there currently is a xenophobic trend playing out ─ again: not just in the USA, but especially so there ─ and having a Mussolini-/Batista-wannabe in the White House who also happens to be a closet white-supremacist isn't exactly helping matters.

I would even go so far as to say that the QAnon phenomenon is partly responsible, because QAnon has been drawing more people to far-right message boards like 4Chan and 8Chan than ever before, exposing these people to far-right ideologies such as white-supremacism, McCarthy-ist commie hatred, and so on. And then there is the nature of the (mis-)information itself that QAnon disseminates ─ far-right and pro-Zionist.

Of course, El Donaldo the Banana Republican™ blames it on video games. Well, sure, there has been an increase in the production and sale of violent video games, and some of those games may subliminally have an adverse effect on a teenager's outlook on life, but I seriously doubt whether those games would be instilling racial hatred and fascist ideologies into kids' minds. :rolleyes:

But then again, all of what I've written here-above is just the mundane explanation. In keeping with the spiritual inclination of many of our members ─ myself included ─ and now that Sammy is back to remind us of the spiritual aspects of our mortal existence, I am going to go out on a limb and state that from the vantage of the universe, all of this was intended to happen, and that in whatever way, shape or form, it was intended to happen now. I don't buy into religions, but it is my firm belief that there's an apocalyptic scenario being played out right now.

And there's no sitting on the fence and watching the show for this one. We're all actors on the stage now. Call it woo-woo ─ and many people will, of course ─ but the writing's all over the wall in lettering the size of an adult ungulate. Crimes are not just escalating in frequency but also in intensity and cruelty ─ especially sexual abuse and hate crimes. People are politically polarized. Decadence rules ─ from substance abuse over rapists filming their own crimes on their smartphones and then putting them online, via the shameless and unrelenting invasion of people's privacy by the technology industry, all the way to the still very recent creation of human-simian chimeras. Scientifically established facts are constantly being ignored in favor of alternative and nonsensical explanations ─ Earth is flat, we never went to the moon, climate change isn't real, vaccines cause autism, and so on.

All of it serves the polarization, so that one way or another, sooner or later something's got to give. And ─ once again ─ having a US president who aligns himself with all those fake alternative vantages and who declares anything he doesn't like as "fake news", the polarization is taking on international proportions. Because like it or not, Trump plays a role in international politics, from military conflicts over the war on common sense down to the trade wars he has started.

There's too much friction, and the clouds are getting ionized. There are going to be a couple of lightning strikes pretty soon, and it's not going to be pretty when they hit. And what is happening today is only the prelude, in my opinion. :hmm:

You ever visited 8chan Aragorn, had a look around ?, looking at your post I would be surprised if you have.

[Aragorn]

You ever visited 8chan Aragorn, had a look around ?, looking at your post I would be surprised if you have.

As the matter of fact, yes, I have, only a few days ago, when I was looking for the "planted evidence" that Brian Brainwash™ left there in order to implicate Bill Ryan and then point the finger at The One Truth.

[Aianawa]

Was it as bad as you have been led to believe ?

[Aragorn]

Was it as bad as you have been led to believe ?

Yes, it was. :hmm:

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm posting this for anyone not intimately familiar with aspects of the American legacy. I'm not posting this from spite, anger, or hatred, I just want to make it plain why I have reservations of anything that self-proclaims 'greatness'. Any such notion needs to be examined from all angles. The examination doesn't decry or discount said greatness but it can provide a much needed perspective.

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The El Paso shooting is exactly what descendants of a 1915 massacre at the US-Mexico border had warned about
Rosa FloresMichelle Krupa
By Rosa Flores and Michelle Krupa, CNN

Racism led to their ancestors' murder. They warn it could happen again.

623976928114197

(CNN)Melba Coody didn't think the old plotline could unfold again: a mass killing along the US-Mexico border at the hands of a white gunman apparently driven by bigotry and willing to take justice into his own hands.

It's how her great-grandfather's and great-uncle's lives ended in 1915. The men, both American citizens of Mexican descent, were fatally shot along a Texas road during La Matanza, or The Massacre, a bloody period when members of the vaunted Texas Rangers slayed hundreds of Mexican-Americans amid a climate of racism and hate.
Their ancestors were slain a century ago along the US-Mexico border. They say now is the time to retell the horror

Coody had believed -- even in an era of racist presidential tweets, private border militias and a humanitarian crisis among migrant children -- that the kind of horror her ancestors experienced could be consigned to history.

"And look at what happened," the 76-year-old woman told CNN as she wept over the weekend massacre in El Paso, Texas, that left 22 people dead and 24 more injured. Their accused killer is a white supremacist who wanted to stop a "Hispanic invasion of Texas," according to a manifesto police believe he wrote.

"I can't believe people are doing things like they used to do many, many years ago: the racism," Coody said. "What the Texas Rangers did to my great-grandfather -- killed him just because they were riding around thinking that they were murderers of other people and robbers, most of all. And now this. I don't know what to think except it's very hurtful, and it's bad that things are happening again like they did many, many years ago."

Physical violence again "has reared its ugly head, and it's as real now as it was then," said Texas state Rep. Terry Canales, a Rio Grande Valley Democrat whose great-uncle spearheaded an inquiry in 1919 into extrajudicial killings by the Rangers. "What we are watching in El Paso is one of the most gut-wrenching, sad, horrible, cowardly acts, and it's not far from what was exactly happening 100 years ago."

Some descendants of those slain during the Matanza period had warned in the months before horror hit El Paso that mounting anti-immigrant sentiment could set the stage for the sort of targeted violence that played out in the crowded Walmart. They cited, in part, President Donald Trump's use of the term "invasion" to describe the arrival of Central American migrants to the southern US border and his chuckling response to a rally-goer who suggested simply shooting migrants. Those examples and more, they said, could tacitly give license to people inclined to mistreat those they deem unwelcome in the United States.

To be sure, last week's atrocity was not authorized by any government, as the official investigation found the century-old Ranger killings had been. Texas prosecutors already have charged the alleged El Paso gunman with capital murder, while US Justice Department officials are treating the case as domestic terrorism and "seriously considering" lodging hate crime charges that could carry the death penalty. Trump, meanwhile, called on the nation following the El Paso attack and another mass shooting hours later in Dayton, Ohio, to condemn racism and white supremacy. He has slammed video games and the internet for stoking an atmosphere of violence, pointed to mental illness for motivating killers and signaled support for so-called "red flag" laws that would keep firearms away from "those judged to pose a grave risk to public safety."

But the President has stayed away from discussing the impact of his own divisive words on the political climate. Indeed, the accused shooter's online writings reflect ideas that have been shared by Trump, Fox News and the Republican Party, including the warning of "a Hispanic invasion." The writer noted that he'd held these beliefs for years -- notably, before Trump became President.

The themes hark back to what experts call "the period of widespread, state sanctioned anti-Mexican violence on the Texas-Mexico border (1910-20)," said Monica Muñoz Martinez, a Brown University assistant professor who wrote about the era in her book, "The Injustice Never Leaves You."

"What's really troubling is that the rhetoric that is coming from this current administration is echoing the eugenic sentiment and language that was used by eugenicists and nativists from the early 20th century," she said. "Like the word, 'infestation,' and the word, 'invasion,' it was something that was used to mobilize and not only to police the border but also to police anyone who looked Mexican in the region."

"I am also very concerned about the ongoing policies on the border, like family separation, which I think gives license to people being dehumanized," Martinez said. "We need to study how that inspires racism and an extremist to also not value Mexican life and immigrant life and Latinos." While Trump didn't coin the "white nationalist rhetoric and racist ideologies against Latinos, ... it is very clear that he uses the same language as part of his politics," said South Texas College historian Trinidad Gonzales, who counts a relative among those murdered during La Matanza.

"You see it very clearly by the shooter having to clarify that the ideas did not come from Trump, because Trump has the same ideas," he said, "and that is disturbing."
'We've been tormented as a people' The violence in El Paso hit at a deep-rooted unity among residents of Hispanic descent who, for many decades, have lived in what's effectively a single community that spans the Texas border city and Ciudad Juarez, Mexico. An economic and cultural hub, the metro area is a far cry from the dangerous and "infested" place that white nationalists and others describe, Martinez said. That bigoted rhetoric echoes the false claims made a century ago by Rangers who'd accuse law-abiding people of Mexican descent of being "bandits" as justification for murdering them.

Abbott has called the El Paso shooting "a heinous and senseless act of violence." The Texas Department of Public Safety is assisting El Paso police in the shooting investigation, he said in a statement, adding that the Texas Rangers and other state resources were deployed in a support role. But damage -- even beyond lives stolen and families shattered -- has been done.

Their culture made them targets. Now, it's what is helping them heal
"You can grow up all your life on the border and not feel that someone is going to shoot you simply because you're brown," Gonzales said. "That security is gone."
"I think this shooter has taken more than just lives," Canales said. "He has taken a piece of who we are. He has taken a part of our sanity, a part of our hearts, a part of our souls and a part of our security." Perhaps a part, but not all.

Just two days after the Walmart carnage, Aztec dance groups performed prayers for the victims in a powerful and defiant display of the region's heritage.
"We've been tormented as a people," performer Gisela Sarellano said. "I like the idea of using our culture -- that they're so threatened by -- to combat that, to fight their hatred with beauty." 'I don't think it's going to stop'

Beyond apparently being targeted because of their ethnicity, Coody sees another link between her forebears who were killed by a Ranger -- one a county commissioner and teacher, the other a Spanish-to-English translator for his neighbors -- and the shoppers gunned down while perusing backpacks and notebooks and graphing calculators at Walmart.

"These people that were killed in El Paso, that horrible tragedy, were educated people and not just anybody," she said. "They were people that were shopping and getting ready for school, and look at what happened. My great-grandfather and my great-uncle were also just, you know, they were educated, and this happened to them," she said. "That's why I say that if it happens again, it could happen to anyone."

Abbott's office and the state Department of Public Safety's Ranger Division did not respond to CNN's requests for comment about the Ranger's century-old history of violence. Those acts have no connection to the modern-day force, a department spokesman told the San Antonio Express-News in 2004.

Coody's grown daughter, Christine Molis, did not think immediately of her family's Matanza link when she heard of the carnage in El Paso, she told CNN. But the questions that flooded her mind mirror those that have driven a recent push for official markers to acknowledge the early 20th-century slayings and -- the hope had been -- thwart similar injustices.

"It made me think about: Why would he target just them? What have we done? What did they do to him? They are just normal people going about their normal lives, like everybody else," Molis said. "How do you know they are not American citizens? Just because they're of Mexican descent?"
Reflecting on the bloodshed in El Paso, the answers seemed no nearer than they were a hundred years ago. "It's been going on for over a century," Molis said. "And I don't think it's going to stop, not in the world we are living in today."

[Emil El Zapato]

I don't know how you did it Aragorn but thanks and thanks to DT for her earlier fix for the 'Psychology of Galactic Empires' on the Collapse thread... :)

ah, I'm not a complete idiot (though close)...I saw the way to post facebook content...thanks again

[Aragorn]

I don't know how you did it Aragorn but thanks

:magic: :p

[Emil El Zapato]

true, true, but Trump demonstrates a non-contact with reality...I suppose I should feel sympathy but some people just naturally elicit in me a desire to slap the sh*t out of 'em.

[Wind]

Not sure if this is the right place to post this, but I'll give it a shot.

Exactly 50 years ago there was the Woodstock (https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/08/woodstock-those-there-weekend-like-no-other/) event, quite a legendary thing. Perhaps some people here have even memories (https://learningenglish.voanews.com/a/memories-from-the-woodstock-music-festival/5042289.html) about it, if so I'd be interested to hear your thoughts about it. I'm too young to have memories and I'm not American anyways, but my father knew about it when he was a young 'un and told me about it later too.

I'm sure the hippies meant well and wanted to have a revolution of peace and love and yet...

As Peter Fonda said it, (he died yesterday btw):


http://youtu.be/lqkYf3pOnow

Also it is said that the "Manson murders" (https://www.vice.com/en_us/partners/strange-angel/how-charles-manson-put-an-end-to-the-hippie-movement) finally put an end to the hippie era. So if the past generation(s) of hippies and all the loving, aware people failed to change the world in any truly meaningful way and I'm not saying that they didn't try. Hell, music back then and after it especially in the 70's was amazing and probably we will never get the hear anything like that again.

Will this generation and the next ones after it finally make a difference as we are going to the Age of Aquarius, meanwhile as we are in the middle of Kali Yuga, the darkest of spiritual times? What does it take? Can we make the necessary change as individuals towards harmony and peace even if society doesn't? I don't wanna blow it myself. :hmm:

[Emil El Zapato]

'finally put an end' to me is not a good euphemism. Whenever I see references to Woodstock in particular the theme song about Yasgar's farm it never fails to evoke in me the spirit of hope, love, and universal togetherness. It was the spirit. A metaphor about what humanity could be...it was the proper vision. And it was lost very quickly.

[Wind]

How do you evoke that vision again? Now that it would be needed more than ever before.

[Emil El Zapato]

I have never lost it...we have to find it within ourselves...it has always been there and always will be...just waiting to be recognized. We need to understand by giving we receive...it absolutely could not be more fundamental to even us sad humans.

[Dreamtimer]

How do you live in peace with your garden and your children when folks want to come and take it from you?

How do you stop folks from wanting to take it from you?

The are societies and communities around the world (small ones) which recognize that if one member is unhappy, the whole group is unhappy.

There is a group of folks in the Amazon who sleep in hammocks which are all anchored to a center post in a room. There must be more than one person sleeping for counterbalance. They dream share. They do this every night. They don't war with themselves.

Because they understand that every member of their community matters.

That's the vision.

Our tribalism is our biggest hurdle.

And the idea that everything has to be competition.

:group hug::fire:

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[Aragorn]

http://postsfromthepath.com/wordpress/media/peace.jpg

[Dreamtimer]

On a completely different note...

For me this could go in the humor thread. I have no regard for the Mooch, I think he's a self-serving so-and-so. He's joining the ranks of those Republicans who are becoming truly worried about their party.

He's talking to USAtoday about Trump:


He continued: “He’s actually worse than a racist. He is so narcissistic, he doesn’t see people as people. He sees them as objects in his field of vision.”



Scaramucci said he hopes a Republican will run against Trump, who he called "this jack*ss," in the primary and win. “And so listen, there’s gotta be somebody in the Republican Party that’s worried about 2024 and the identity of the Republican Party.”

Scaramucci said he bases his attacks on Trump's leadership abilities, not on personal qualities.


I’m attacking him by asserting presidential leadership; this is where the bar is, this is where you are,” Scaramucci said. “You’re bullying. You’re angry. You’re detached.”


“You know, this is like ‘Game of Thrones.’ We need an Arya Stark, okay? We gotta take this guy out because this is like the Night King,”

https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.distractify.com%2Fbrand-img%2FkTYz3xz0b%2F480x252%2Farya-night-king-1556555822051.jpg&f=1

It's not hard for me to imagine Trump just shattering. He's pretty fragile (which is why he bullies).

[Emil El Zapato]

I wonder how Scaramucci could not have recognized that until now? He did, he just thought there was something in it for him...which, as my Venezuelan neighbor explained to me from his practical experience there; that is what fuels the success of such pitiful human beings.

[Dreamtimer]

I'm sure he did as well. He's just saying it now because it gets attention. I do think he wants to keep his political party strong and so his concern in that regard is more real now than before.

Folks thought Trump would 'pivot'. They said he'd 'become Presidential'.

The same folks who chanted "Look at the Record!" for so long suddenly didn't/don't want to with Trump.

The whole 'personal responsibility' schtick sure was a crock, wasn't it?

[Aianawa]

I feel Trump would have been a far better Dem than Rep, it does not matter which party he leads of course, both similar same, unless one invests of course and from observation and my own experience generational voting is pathetic, am looking forward to the now future where MW's are embraced.

[Dreamtimer]

Trump was a Dem until he ran for President. He said so throughout his life.

Flip-flops matter...until they don't.

[Aianawa]

No flip flop as same frying pan, unless ones invested imo.

[Aragorn]

I think I'm going to be taking my leave from this thread again for a while. I'm getting a little fed up with seeing US politics being discussed wherever I look on this forum. :flag:

[Aianawa]

Tisa a very strong present narrative Aragorn, not created to annoy you imo.

[Aragorn]

Tisa a very strong present narrative Aragorn, not created to annoy you imo.

I know, Vern. But it's the dominating narrative around here, and I'm personally quite fed up with it. :unsure:

[Emil El Zapato]

Why I so enjoy Dean Koontz, the horror/scifi writer:

In the book Curtis the Alien is discussing one of his three superpowers...the ability to mind meld with animals with a brilliant but crippled child friend, Leilani.

"Shhhhh," he repeats, and as Leilani's eyes widen, he takes her with him into the dog's dreams.

For those who despair that their lives are without meaning and without purpose, for those who dwell in a loneliness so terrible that it has withered their hearts, for those who hate because they have no recognition of the destiny they share with all humanity, for those who would squander their lives in self-pity and in self-destruction because they have lost the saving wisdom with which they were born, for all these and many more, hope waits in the dreams of a dog, where the sacred nature of life may be clearly experienced without the all but blinding filter of human need, desire, greed, envy, and endless fear. And here, in dream woods and fields, along the shores of dream seas, with a profound awareness of the playful Presence abiding in all things, Curtis is able to prove to Leilani what she has thus far only dared to hope is true: that although her mother never loved her, there is One who always has.

[Dreamtimer]

Apologies, Aragorn. I couldn't resist the Arya reference. It was just too good to let pass.

The whole earth could be the frying pan and he'd still be a flip-flopper extraordinaire.

Step right up! Step right up! The Freak Show is underway!

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2_snSkpULQ

[Emil El Zapato]

Anyone that has an interest in 'truth' should listen to this presentation.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LqaotiGWjQ

[Dreamtimer]

People have been making war on sense with me since I was in my twenties. In fact, more often than not, when I bring up facts I get called names. It's one of the easiest go-to fallacies.

I look forward to listening. But it won't happen until after the weekend. I will have neither time nor energy then. It's a good busy. Should be fun.

[Emil El Zapato]

It is worth listening to...it has really substantive stuff in it...one of the important things he discusses early is how to 'filter' info...I don't think it is a natural process for many and it can serve as a guide to how to do it.

[Emil El Zapato]

The cop in Lancaster, Ca made up his story that he was fired upon from a window where mental health patients live.

Lesson #1: What can we learn from this or at least what are our 1st thoughts considering this headline? My 1st thought is that the cop was late getting home because he spent too much time with his girlfriend and was late for dinner with his wife and kids and needed a really good story. Ok, not really...that was my 2nd thought.


For Whatever It's Worth: Disclaimer: My older brother had businesses there but he moved because too many 'wetbacks' were moving into the area.

Media have eaten its own, like any piranha or cannibal would. The worst part of that reality is that we have feasted too. We are a big part of why media is so dysfunctional and the biggest offenders are the alternative media.

[Dreamtimer]

I found Daniel's definition of simulated reality very interesting. We live in a simulated reality because we're unable to look at facts and truth for what they are, and instead engage in collective delusions.

[Dreamtimer]

Here's a wonderful irony. Remember the stunt by Clint Eastwood talking to the empty chair which was a 'stand-in' for Obama?

Now we have a real empty chair with Trump. He can't even show up for G7 meetings. There is literally an empty chair instead of him. Our allies are now working on things without us.

Our leader claims that not showing up and waffling is "how he negotiates".

I'm so sorry for the farmers who held out thinking he'd get them a deal.

And the rest of us who will be screwed when China starts dumping our debt.

And like the environment, our leader doesn't care because he "won't be here."

[Emil El Zapato]

I was a very big fan of Eastwood, I can't get myself to watch any movie he is associated with at this point. Same with the heroic Charleton Heston.

I've lost many of my Hollywood heroes

O.J. Simpson, Robert Blake, Pee Wee Herman...Ok, Pee Wee was never a hero of mine...From day one I thought he was weird... :)

[Wind]

I loved Eastwood and still love him in his movies, I think he is a legend anyways. People make mistakes and so does he...

I find it amusing that there is a whole big Wikipedia page about his political views:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_life_of_Clint_Eastwood

The last part is especially interesting:


However, in a subsequent interview with the Los Angeles Times that appeared in September 2016, Eastwood suggested that he would not necessarily vote for Trump and instead appeared agnostic regarding the 2016 presidential election. The Times' Rebecca Keegan asked, "So when you say you’re not on either side of the aisle, does that mean you’re not voting for Trump?" Eastwood replied, "I’m totally an enigma. I’m just astounded. I hate to pick up the paper. I think both individuals and both parties backing the individuals have a certain degree of insanity."

Eastwood had declared in that interview, "I’m not on either side of the aisle. I think most Americans are going, 'What the ... ? Is this all we can do?' ... When there were 17 people on the stage [in the early GOP debates], I thought, well, there are three or four people up there I could see voting for. They seem pretty good. I had a few... and then I thought, what the hell happened?"

In a red carpet interview with Extra on September 8, 2016, when asked about supposedly supporting Trump, Eastwood replied, "You know, I haven't supported anybody, really," and jokingly suggested that Trump and Clinton constituted a modern-day Abbott and Costello, referring to the socially inept comedians of the 1940s and early 1950s

[Emil El Zapato]

The notion of a simulated reality is a reflection of energy and its behavior in the realm of quantum physics, but really only in the most theoretical of theoretics does 'simulated' mean control or manipulation. Unless, of course, we want to consider that, throwing caution to the wind, God is manifested as the great controller, but we know that we have free will. Free will has been intuited by mystics for time immemorial. God does not control, he lets us be, but I believe her intent is to protect at the same time. The contemplative terms it the ineffable, the mystery of complete, eesh love, that sustains us. If we remain aware of this truth we are covered at a higher level in this life. At the infinite, this life while not irrelevant shrinks in meaning commensurate to the vastness of creation but we have much to appreciate just the same.

Thanks for that Wind, I may consider watching his latest movie now... :)

[Dreamtimer]

Peewee? Oh yeah.

"Now remember, for the rest of the day, when anyone says the secret word, scream real loud!"

I liked Cowboy Curtis.

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[Emil El Zapato]

lol, yeah, like I said...weird

Not to mention the Wiggles...they appeared at my daughter's pre-school, thankfully she was out of town with her mother...secretly, I wished that she could have seen them.

[Wind]

but we know that we have free will

Or at least we have the illusion of free will...


Thanks for that Wind, I may consider watching his latest movie now... :)

The Mule is his latest movie where he is acting himself too after a decade. Haven't seen it yet, but I enjoyed Gran Torino a lot.

[Emil El Zapato]

Gran Torino was a good story...I've been feeling the urge to watch the Mule but have thus far resisted. I'll probably watch it now...

[Dreamtimer]

I got another badge! :) Implications of being amoral are certainly a first. No one that knows me has thought that for an iota of a second. My son would laugh (politely) in anyone's face who implied such a thing. And then he would calmly explain why they were wrong.

I really like this one. So much that even though I don't do machine embroidery, I may still attempt a hand-stitch. Perfect for the Day of Wrong. ;)

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For those who still don't understand, I wear the name-calling like a badge. It's an honor.

I have always thought for myself to the great frustration of my parents and husband. (still married, 27 yrs) I'm certainly not going to stop now. I have never jumped on a bandwagon. I don't join clubs. I'm not tribal.

Some people can't see beyond their own bubbles.

[Emil El Zapato]

Amoral...omigod. I'm now sad...Why are we so deluded? Save the World should be the beacon call...

I know why, because we are weak...that's it...a lack of 'intestinal fortitude' (I haven't seen or heard that one for such a long time). When we lack the power of conviction, we should be strong enough to either find a way to be where we want to be or meditate, see a psychiatrist...there are many things we can do, but admittedly it is a process...

A really basic truism is one that Schmactenberger pointed out and it is true for all of us. The power of the keyboard has outsized the impact that we are capable of making.

[Emil El Zapato]

Another active shooter situation going on in Midland-Odessa Texas. I was in love when I was a student in Lubbock Texas with the sexiest dang thing I ever had seen from Midland-Odessa. I hope she is ok...


Coincidentally that city was one of the places I made a business trip when working for that computer company as a student. It was Halloween and I remember relating a story to a co-worker when driving there. I asked him if he believed me and he said no, that I was just telling ghost stories because it was Hallow's Eve. I didn't realize that it was until he mentioned it. Listened to Peter Gabriel (his choice), mine was Enigma.

On the way back, we accidentally hit a rabbit and it scared the living you know what out of us. The sickening part was the next day I realized the rabbit had gotten stuck on the front of the car...ugh, disgusting.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4maoo4A3x4

[Emil El Zapato]

My next door neighbor was a PhD student from Romania...I asked him one time if he'd ever heard of Cretu...he said, of course...I didn't know Enigma was even connected...shoulda known

[Wind]

Sickening...


http://youtu.be/m2esswe53FQ

[Emil El Zapato]

A 2-year old...that truly is beyond tragic...truly...

A 17-month old actually.

[Emil El Zapato]

Sickening...

he transitioned from conservatism to liberalism...that requires a high degree of courage. What do I think of an individual that transitions from liberalism to conservatism? Does that ever happen? :)

In either case, I suspect that it isn't a 'political' transformation, but rather a 'spiritual' transformation.

[Wind]

You mean Cenk? Perhaps it just means that he "matured" instead of becoming greedy.

[Emil El Zapato]

not to be flippant but I would consider those two seemingly different ideas as representing the same process... :)

[Wind]

We live in a populist age – but who are ‘the people’? (http://theconversation.com/we-live-in-a-populist-age-but-who-are-the-people-91793)


It is therefore important not to blithely conflate different populist and grassroots movements. The left-wing movements championing greater inclusion are plainly very different from right-wing ones keen on reinforced or increased exclusion. But despite their profound differences, they have one thing in common: they claim to represent a supposedly victimised popular majority, “the people”.

Exactly who these “people” actually are is far from clear. All sides are embroiled in an ongoing struggle to determine how to define which populations count and which do not. Lost in the public outcry regarding populism is a deeper conflict over who matters socially, economically and politically.

But populism doesn’t just appeal with an “us-versus-them” attack on elites; it also offers its supporters a passionate sense of solidarity. It mobilises individuals and communities under a common identity, one that can be socially invigorating and politically empowering. Populism is therefore an opportunity to dramatically redefine the political landscape, and to fill the relatively vacuous term of the “people” with any of various new meanings.

The ideology driving these demands and identities is therefore of paramount importance. The resurgence of authoritarian and fascist rhetoric speaks to the dangers of demagogues playing on the dissatisfaction of the majority for the creation of a more repressive and less equitable social order. However, the infusing of progressive ideals with a populist spirit can catalyse movements and identities that broaden politics to reach previously invisible groups.

Ultimately, these sorts of political movements should always be thought of as beginnings, not ends in themselves. Radical, inclusive politics should be much more than a critique of those at the top; it needs to be an ongoing debate over who “we” are and how “we” can be empowered. In an age when the forces of xenophobia and nativism are on the rise, these concerns are perhaps more timely than ever before. Modern politics isn’t just a struggle between left-populists and right-populists: it’s a race to define and expand who the “people” are and what they can achieve together.

[Dreamtimer]

Our country is supposed to be about the people.

"We the People..."

Nowadays, if you want to promote a program which helps people you get called "socialist".

We're giving our Founding Fathers a big fat Finger.

[Emil El Zapato]

Another excellent presentation by Scientist Jablonski. She discusses the 'hard' selective pressures of skin depigmentation. Two waves of out of Africans depigmented due to Vitamin D process and reproduction. Failure to process Vitamin D means no children...now that is pressure. She remarks on the found genes in Neanderthals that evidenced lighter skin and red hair, I wonder if modern humans/homo sapiens would have considered the Neanderthals 'giants'. They certainly were more robust.

I have always thought that the proscriptions against 'racial' mixing in the Bible cited by Fundamentalists relates directly to primordial human types


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d4KcRMTKImQ

[Emil El Zapato]

In my DNA research one thing puzzled me. The more Neanderthal variants governing height that one has, the taller one is likely to be. According to researchers Neanderthals were not taller just more robust, I wonder if that is one of things that we are lied to about.

[Aragorn]

In my DNA research one thing puzzled me. The more Neanderthal variants governing height that one has, the taller one is likely to be. According to researchers Neanderthals were not taller just more robust, I wonder if that is one of things that we are lied to about.

Actually, Neanderthals were on average a little bit shorter than Homo Sapiens Recens. ;)

[Emil El Zapato]

Hi Aragorn,

that's what's weird...neanderthal gene variants make Sapiens taller...not shorter...weird anomaly...

[Emil El Zapato]

It's about a half inch taller per variant

[Dreamtimer]

We the People
in Order to Form a more Perfect Union,
Establish Justice, Ensure Domestic Tranquility,
Provide for the Common Defense,
Promote the General Welfare and
Secure the Blessings of Liberty to Ourselves and our Posterity
do Ordain and Establish the Constitution
of the United States of America.


That's how it goes.


I don't pick and choose from the Preamble anymore than I pick and choose from the Bill of Rights. They matter in a holistic way. Not piecemeal.

[Emil El Zapato]

My favorite is "Promote the General Welfare". It is so much cooler than "Provide for the Common Defense". Despite it being that little point that might have brought the Neanderthals down... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Here is an interesting presentation regarding Neanderthals and 'Cro Magnon'. It focuses on the different theories regarding said subjects. At this point much of the controversy has been resolved (by modern legitimate theorists) with the advent of advanced DNA research. The French Cro Magnon is a term that has fallen out of favor as they aren't considered a separate developmental species. What is even more interesting is the makeup on the actors. I'll let anyone interested draw their own conclusions as to the meta-messages contained in the material. I'll add that I have laughed many times over the years how the Neanderthal's image has morphed since it was discovered they interbred with Homo Sapiens.

Let's be reel my fellow homos... :)


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

[Dreamtimer]

Alex Jones doesn't have his own thread. He's come up in others. I'll just post this here. I'm sure it's not new to many, but I haven't seen it (or at least not in a while).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7jJMYJbAKc

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm not surprised...

[Fred Steeves]

Alex Jones doesn't have his own thread. He's come up in others. I'll just post this here. I'm sure it's not new to many, but I haven't seen it (or at least not in a while).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d7jJMYJbAKc


Interesting all the anti Semitic visuals that pop up in the above video. Besides that, I can't figure which one is Snow Miser or Heat Miser in that old food fight.


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

[Dreamtimer]

This is amazing. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1xxcKCGljY) This person has presented as male and as female and talks about the experience.

As a male, this person often felt either invisible, or feared.

As a female she was complimented and helped, but she was afraid to go certain places alone.

She likes the female experience better.

The theatrics and humor are really good, but I'm not posting the video here because of her attire.

[Emil El Zapato]

this was good and interesting. I killed another half hour I can't afford. I almost started watching her Jordan Peterson (I assume critique). Her 1st few minutes nailed it as far as I was concerned. :)

[Dreamtimer]

It was good, well thought out, imo. She looks at the myriad sides of issues and perspectives, something I greatly appreciate.

[Emil El Zapato]

Very much so and truly accurate...it was impressive.

[Emil El Zapato]

Out of the blue I ran into a couple of guys that have similar histories and one of them went to the University of Guadalahara in Mexico. I had no idea what all that meant but I started telling them about my genealogical journey and they started suggesting something surprising. All I can say is that names and places match up but as yet I can't categorically verify it. Anyway, they said it likely that I'm related to this guy:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ll_w1ZIJlA

[Emil El Zapato]

I just confirmed it...he has a very interesting history...

[Dreamtimer]

Cool. I still haven't tried to find my genetic relations...

I'll have to listen a couple times to try to understand.

[Emil El Zapato]

I couldn’t find an English version. I didn’t Understand it at all 😀

[Dreamtimer]

If I listen a few times, I'll get the gist probably. Between studying french and exposure to Spanish, I can get a modicum of understanding.

[Dreamtimer]

One thing that amazes me is the genuine surprise of so many republicans at the hypocrisy you mention (https://jandeane81.com/showthread.php/8857-Trump-Illusion-Mist-and-Bought?p=842014926&viewfull=1#post842014926). I hear so many of them in the media expressing surprise at their colleagues' hypocrisy. Surprise and dismay.

I'm like, where have you folks been? Have you been paying attention?

I guess they were spending so much time focusing on the Dems they couldn't see what was happening in their own house.

You gotta clean your own house before you start lecturing your neighbors about theirs.

[Dreamtimer]

Gnostics like anarchy. Miguel does, anyway. The chaos thread may be the best place for this one. This is about gnostics and their attitudes, Miguel doesn't discuss current political figures. (at least not so far, I'm halfway through).


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0euZ57ptQkw

[Dreamtimer]

At 43:40 he talks about 'weaponized gnosticism'. Apparently L Ron Hubbard told his followers he was offering a gnostic religion. :blink:

[Emil El Zapato]

At this point I think it is a legitimate question to ask "How low will the Republicans go to keep power". They don't seem to have a moral bottom. To think this is representative of a large segment of our society should be quite sobering. I've long believed that it is emblematic of disease.

[Emil El Zapato]

Gaslighting makes me numb and tingly

[Dreamtimer]

The injection of American fundamentalism into politics has drastically changed both the Republican party and also America’s Religious character.

The unintended consequence is many folks leaving religion. They don’t like what they see.

[Dreamtimer]

Lewandowski says he has no obligation to be truthful to the media.

Hmmm...

I wonder how much of the 'wrong' reports are the result of blatant lies by officials.

Using lies of the 'other team' as an excuse is weak. Very weak. But I guess that's all they got...

[Emil El Zapato]

that is pretty obvious 'it'

[Emil El Zapato]

the above photos I captured at the AlienCon yesterday. The drawing is an example of what FOIA requests will get you...The UFO photo according to Nick Pope is more representative of the actual photos that have not been released due to security classifications. The t-shirt is my proposed new avatar... :)

23752376237723782379

[Dreamtimer]

You really can't get more swampy than the proposed self-dealing with Doral and the G7. Where's all the outrage? I hear echoes of Mulvaney..."We do it all the time." As if that makes it OK.

And Lindsay Graham tried to get Republicans to sign a letter saying they'd support Trump No Matter What. Apparently not enough of them are base enough to sign that crap.

Holy Moly. I don't believe any of the folks anymore who said they wanted the swamp drained. What a bunch of hooey.

[Emil El Zapato]

Here is something I did when I was a kid to demonstrate to my friends that if one wants to it is possible to get away with anything:

Me and two friends decided to go to a drive-in movie but one of my friends had no money for the admission price. I did I offered to pay, so off we went. I drove in to the theater admission booth. Myself and another friend were in the front seat of the car, another friend was sitting in the back seat in plain view to the ticket taker. I asked for TWO tickets and handed over the money. The ticket taker didn't really hesitate, took the money and we drove in. As we went out of sight, we all just burst out laughing about how in the world we could have gotten away with that. I just sat smugly thinking to myself, "I knew that would work".

That is what Trump does, it is so blatant, so out of the norm, that people can't psychologically react because frankly it is so weird. It's like seeing a ghost...how one will react if at all can't be anticipated. Trump thrives on this but he keeps pushing it thinking it will become as the media calls it "normalized". He is about done, really. [I just saw a clip of him on the news, he's a phoney ass dickhead]

[Dreamtimer]

Apparently many others have decided to throw their brains in the trash bin, supporting him no matter what. Folks who have turned their values upside-down.

I've noticed the embrace of values which fall under muslim belief but not christian:

Eye for an eye

Vengeance

Ends justify the means


My parents raised us to understand that these are not high moral ground and are unAmerican.

Modern Americans embracing these unChristian and unAmerican values for the sake of a man like Trump. Gross, imo.

[Emil El Zapato]

Yes that’s true. The Old Testament is the old covenant. Jesus brought a vastly different message. U will notice that any Christian that wants to pretend a belief in true Christianity always defaults to the Old Testament. It is an philosophical anachronism to do so. It is shameful if not evil.

[Emil El Zapato]

After about 5 years I thought I would give Burger King another chance. I tried their Impossible Burger. It was nearly impossible to eat. Simply horrible.

[Dreamtimer]

I've had some good veggie burgers but I haven't tried the Impossible Burger.

[Emil El Zapato]

I wouldn't suggest it...but if you do...don't get cheese on it. Cheez Whiz doesn't add a thing to the taste... :)

[Dreamtimer]

Mystery 'meat' topped with Wiz.

Ugh.

[Emil El Zapato]

Coincidentally a book I'm reading right now called, "American Gods" has a tv series also going right now.

It's interesting because the term American Gods has a "duel" meaning. Some of the American Gods are actually gods that migrated from Europe with the European immigrants. An example would be leprechauns. Awhile back I saw a specialist in human myths pose the question of why Leprechauns are only seen in Ireland...Well, this book has the answer... :) When Leprechauns migrate out of Ireland they lose their 'indigenous' appearance. The Leprechaun in the book is HUGE and likes to fight for his own ends. The other types of American Gods are to give an example...technological indigenous AND the final war is on. I would recommend the series.

[Fred Steeves]

Can I request that Fred not be allowed to thank any post that he knows is going to piss me off because it pisses me off

After careful consideration, I've decided that the above needs highlighting. This is not an example of the true Left that I embrace, which is live and let live, freedom of speech, power to the people and all of that.

No, not only is this juvenile like go crying to the teacher in grade school, but it's also a perfect example of the new up and coming Authoritarian Left, the SJW types, who are indeed all live and let live/power to the people/free speech types, but ONLY for those whom they agree with; those who don't piss them off. They seek to shut down opinions and speech they don't like, or that they find offensive, and this is precisely why the SJW type should never have they're hands on levers of power.

This statement displays all the ingredients of what could potentially be one of Castaneda's "Petty Tyrants" if given the right set of circumstances. For instance, imagine the implications of being pulled over by a cop with this attitude, if he was offended by say, your smart ass political bumper sticker. Not a good situation, for the driver anyway...

Remember, the 1ST Amendment was not intended for speech that everyone would generally agree on, it was specifically intended for speech that some might find objectionable, possibly even so objectionable that some might seek to shut it down.

Our Constitutional reminder of the day.

I know the 1ST Amendment is not the law in forum land, but a decent forum still favors the sentiment that all should be heard. Within reason of course.

[Aragorn]

I don't normally monitor this thread anymore, but the following does warrant that I post this little message...



Can I request that Fred not be allowed to thank any post that he knows is going to piss me off because it pisses me off

After careful consideration, I've decided that the above needs highlighting. This is not an example of the true Left that I embrace, which is live and let live, freedom of speech, power to the people and all of that.

No, not only is this juvenile like go crying to the teacher in grade school, but it's also a perfect example of the new up and coming Authoritarian Left, the SJW types, who are indeed all live and let live/power to the people/free speech types, but ONLY for those whom they agree with; those who don't piss them off. They seek to shut down opinions and speech they don't like, or that they find offensive, and this is precisely why the SJW type should never have they're hands on levers of power.

As it just so happens to be, I've had a very painful run-in ─ about ten days ago ─ with the exact same kind of "social justice warriors" as you describe here-above, over at the Manjaro forum, because as a mildly dyslexic non-native English speaker, I had the audacity of saying that I'm only sexually attracted to ─ and I quote ─ "real women", by which I meant to imply "women who were born as women, with double-X chromosome pairs." Apparently I should have used the term "natal women" instead. And I probably would have, had I ever heard or read that term before. But I hadn't.

It was in a private message thread with multiple people, and one of them ─ a still fairly young US American woman, although I don't know her exact age ─ helps out at a center for transgender integration. She blew up on me, and she chewed me up and spat me out over my use of those words. I apologized and clarified what I meant, but apparently that wasn't good enough, because then another woman ─ an Australian ─ who had been partaking in that exchange threw up a genuine Hollywood drama routine, which stigmatized me even more and made me look like some kind of monster. The US American woman accepted my apology, though.

Both of these women were supposed to have been friends of mine. So after the first one blew up on me in full streetwise-potty-mouth-style, the atmosphere was already tainted, and I was now wearing a big fat bulls-eye on my forehead, especially given that this was a private thread with only a small number of participants ─ PMs are like regular threads over there, and you can invite people to join the conversation, just as you can also remove yourself from the conversation if there are more than two interlocutors. And for the record, there are actually transgenders registered over at the Manjaro forum ─ at least two that I know of with certainty, but there are probably more, and a third forum member was also mentioned as being a transgender, although that has not been confirmed yet ─ although no transgenders had been involved with this private exchange. Had that been the case, then I would have weighed my words a little more carefully.

So after that US American woman blew up on me, it felt awkward to me to still remain involved with that thread ─ which, by the way, in and of itself had nothing to do with the concept of transgenders, because it was just a random chat thread ─ because I had just been singled out. And then that Aussie woman just had to go and make it all ten times worse, simply because she has a histrionic personality and an addiction to tear-jerking drama ─ I kid you not, this is a woman who actually cries and slips into a depression because of climate change. :rolleyes:

I saw no other option but to remove myself from that thread. The Aussie woman had already done that herself as well, as part of her big back-of-the-hand-against-the-forehead drama performance. But I felt dirty, like I was standing in the middle of a large room full of people with excrement and urine on my clothes and on my face. There was no possible way that this incident could have been wiped under the rug anymore.


This statement displays all the ingredients of what could potentially be one of Castaneda's "Petty Tyrants" if given the right set of circumstances. For instance, imagine the implications of being pulled over by a cop with this attitude, if he was offended by say, your smart ass political bumper sticker. Not a good situation, for the driver anyway...

Indeed not, and I find it alarming that this sort of behavior is becoming more and more mainstream. And if we have to stick a political orientation to it, then in my humble opinion, this sort of behavior is as far removed from "the left" as it could possible ever get.

This is authoritarianism, and ─ I'm sorry to have to bring it up ─ this was the exact same kind of thing as I was exposed to when I confronted the QAnon followers upon my return to Project Avalon. They too were championing freedom of speech and they were decrying censorship where there wasn't any, while in the same breath they were requesting from the staff that I be censored.


Remember, the 1ST Amendment was not intended for speech that everyone would generally agree on, it was specifically intended for speech that some might find objectionable, possibly even so objectionable that some might seek to shut it down.

Our Constitutional reminder of the day.

I know the 1ST Amendment is not the law in forum land, but a decent forum still favors the sentiment that all should be heard. Within reason of course.

The One Truth will always respect our members' freedom of speech.

[RogueEllis]

Coincidentally a book I'm reading right now called, "American Gods" has a tv series also going right now.

It's interesting because the term American Gods has a "duel" meaning. Some of the American Gods are actually gods that migrated from Europe with the European immigrants. An example would be leprechauns. Awhile back I saw a specialist in human myths pose the question of why Leprechauns are only seen in Ireland...Well, this book has the answer... :) When Leprechauns migrate out of Ireland they lose their 'indigenous' appearance. The Leprechaun in the book is HUGE and likes to fight for his own ends. The other types of American Gods are to give an example...technological indigenous AND the final war is on. I would recommend the series.

Neil Gaiman is a genius. He also wrote "Coraline" and "Good Omens" and oh how could I forget, "The Sandman!"

I wonder how many people use their laptops on their laps, vs. tables and other hard surfaces.

[Emil El Zapato]

True about Gaiman...I just now have realized that he exists... I use my notebook on a soft surface...which can be frustrating some times

[RogueEllis]

So floppy. I use my lap. Sturdy enough but it makes my legs rather warm.

[Emil El Zapato]

So floppy. I use my lap. Sturdy enough but it makes my legs rather warm.

:) floppy is me...

[Fred Steeves]

As per the editing of post above:


Last edited by Aragorn, Today at 13:40. Reason: no ad hominems!

FWIW I was good with what he said Aragorn. He was speaking his mind the best he knows how, and I respect that.

[Emil El Zapato]

Yes Fred that is the best I can do. Brilliant observation and suspiciously close to an ad hominem. Yet there it f@cking stands. Just like the 3 or 4 others you have leveled at me the last couple of weeks. I even let one go because I understand we all get frustrated always losing but you crossed the line and I responded in kind. In truth your authoritarian street stalker attitude has always been extremely irritating to me but I still supported you because I figured at least you weren’t a racist and that’s an admirable quality. But now that you and Aragorn have become a thing I can’t help but believe that loyalties and judgment have been suffering for a good while.

Ive given you all the tools you need Fred to get me off this board. The ball is in your court.

[Aragorn]

Yes Fred that is the best I can do. Brilliant observation and suspiciously close to an ad hominem.

It is criticism, not ad hominem. And it's still a whole lot better than what you've been gratuitously hurling at Fred, and what I had to remove from your posts.


[...] But now that you and Aragorn have become a thing I can’t help but believe that loyalties and judgment have been suffering for a good while.

If you "can't help believing" that, then perhaps you need a good hard reality check. Know thyself, and all that jazz.


Ive given you all the tools you need Fred to get me off this board. The ball is in your court.

And I have informed you of the ability to add Fred to your ignore list if you feel offended by what he writes. But I guess you "can't help yourself" either, given that you seem to want to see what he writes.

[Emil El Zapato]

I don’t care what Fred writes Aragorn unless it is an insult geared toward me

[Aragorn]

I don’t care what Fred writes Aragorn unless it is an insult geared toward me

He wasn't insulting you. He was criticizing you. Had he been insulting you, then I would have edited that out of his post, or I would have deleted the post altogether.

On the other hand, by your innuendo that I would have lost my objectivity, you have insulted both myself and this entire forum. Now let that sink into your brain for a minute or two.

[Chris]

I don't normally monitor this thread anymore, but the following does warrant that I post this little message...



As it just so happens to be, I've had a very painful run-in ─ about ten days ago ─ with the exact same kind of "social justice warriors" as you describe here-above, over at the Manjaro forum, because as a mildly dyslexic non-native English speaker, I had the audacity of saying that I'm only sexually attracted to ─ and I quote ─ "real women", by which I meant to imply "women who were born as women, with double-X chromosome pairs." Apparently I should have used the term "natal women" instead. And I probably would have, had I ever heard or read that term before. But I hadn't.

It was in a private message thread with multiple people, and one of them ─ a still fairly young US American woman, although I don't know her exact age ─ helps out at a center for transgender integration. She blew up on me, and she chewed me up and spat me out over my use of those words. I apologized and clarified what I meant, but apparently that wasn't good enough, because then another woman ─ an Australian ─ who had been partaking in that exchange threw up a genuine Hollywood drama routine, which stigmatized me even more and made me look like some kind of monster. The US American woman accepted my apology, though.

Both of these women were supposed to have been friends of mine. So after the first one blew up on me in full streetwise-potty-mouth-style, the atmosphere was already tainted, and I was now wearing a big fat bulls-eye on my forehead, especially given that this was a private thread with only a small number of participants ─ PMs are like regular threads over there, and you can invite people to join the conversation, just as you can also remove yourself from the conversation if there are more than two interlocutors. And for the record, there are actually transgenders registered over at the Manjaro forum ─ at least two that I know of with certainty, but there are probably more, and a third forum member was also mentioned as being a transgender, although that has not been confirmed yet ─ although no transgenders had been involved with this private exchange. Had that been the case, then I would have weighed my words a little more carefully.

So after that US American woman blew up on me, it felt awkward to me to still remain involved with that thread ─ which, by the way, in and of itself had nothing to do with the concept of transgenders, because it was just a random chat thread ─ because I had just been singled out. And then that Aussie woman just had to go and make it all ten times worse, simply because she has a histrionic personality and an addiction to tear-jerking drama ─ I kid you not, this is a woman who actually cries and slips into a depression because of climate change. :rolleyes:

I saw no other option but to remove myself from that thread. The Aussie woman had already done that herself as well, as part of her big back-of-the-hand-against-the-forehead drama performance. But I felt dirty, like I was standing in the middle of a large room full of people with excrement and urine on my clothes and on my face. There was no possible way that this incident could have been wiped under the rug anymore.



Indeed not, and I find it alarming that this sort of behavior is becoming more and more mainstream. And if we have to stick a political orientation to it, then in my humble opinion, this sort of behavior is as far removed from "the left" as it could possible ever get.

This is authoritarianism, and ─ I'm sorry to have to bring it up ─ this was the exact same kind of thing as I was exposed to when I confronted the QAnon followers upon my return to Project Avalon. They too were championing freedom of speech and they were decrying censorship where there wasn't any, while in the same breath they were requesting from the staff that I be censored.


I love that story...

I guess the PC term would be genetic women, which basically means the same.

I haven't figured out yet how to respond to gold medallists in the offence olympics, but one things is for sure, apologising and (dishonestly and falsely) "admitting" that you were in the wrong just makes the situation worse for everyone involved. Bill Maher did a great piece on how sickening and fake that type of behaviour is. Everyone is apologising these days for using the wrong word or pronoun or refusing to use the "right" one (how about Xe and Zhe, eh?), but I subscribe to the Jordan Peterson school of not giving a flying fuck and fighting back. He actually risked jail for refusing to use the pronouns legally prescribed by the Canadian government. In the end, common sense won out and they repealed the forced speech law, but it took one man standing up and calling out the emperor on having no clothes.

If we don't stand up to this sort of insidious, creeping tyranny, our free speech rights will be gone much sooner than we'd think.

[Aragorn]

[...]

As it just so happens to be, I've had a very painful run-in ─ about ten days ago ─ with the exact same kind of "social justice warriors" as you describe here-above, over at the Manjaro forum, because as a mildly dyslexic non-native English speaker, I had the audacity of saying that I'm only sexually attracted to ─ and I quote ─ "real women", by which I meant to imply "women who were born as women, with double-X chromosome pairs." Apparently I should have used the term "natal women" instead. And I probably would have, had I ever heard or read that term before. But I hadn't.

It was in a private message thread with multiple people, and one of them ─ a still fairly young US American woman, although I don't know her exact age ─ helps out at a center for transgender integration. She blew up on me, and she chewed me up and spat me out over my use of those words. I apologized and clarified what I meant, but apparently that wasn't good enough, because then another woman ─ an Australian ─ who had been partaking in that exchange threw up a genuine Hollywood drama routine, which stigmatized me even more and made me look like some kind of monster. The US American woman accepted my apology, though.

Both of these women were supposed to have been friends of mine. So after the first one blew up on me in full streetwise-potty-mouth-style, the atmosphere was already tainted, and I was now wearing a big fat bulls-eye on my forehead, especially given that this was a private thread with only a small number of participants ─ PMs are like regular threads over there, and you can invite people to join the conversation, just as you can also remove yourself from the conversation if there are more than two interlocutors. And for the record, there are actually transgenders registered over at the Manjaro forum ─ at least two that I know of with certainty, but there are probably more, and a third forum member was also mentioned as being a transgender, although that has not been confirmed yet ─ although no transgenders had been involved with this private exchange. Had that been the case, then I would have weighed my words a little more carefully.

So after that US American woman blew up on me, it felt awkward to me to still remain involved with that thread ─ which, by the way, in and of itself had nothing to do with the concept of transgenders, because it was just a random chat thread ─ because I had just been singled out. And then that Aussie woman just had to go and make it all ten times worse, simply because she has a histrionic personality and an addiction to tear-jerking drama ─ I kid you not, this is a woman who actually cries and slips into a depression because of climate change. :rolleyes:

I saw no other option but to remove myself from that thread. The Aussie woman had already done that herself as well, as part of her big back-of-the-hand-against-the-forehead drama performance. But I felt dirty, like I was standing in the middle of a large room full of people with excrement and urine on my clothes and on my face. There was no possible way that this incident could have been wiped under the rug anymore.I love that story...

I guess the PC term would be genetic women, which basically means the same.

I haven't figured out yet how to respond to gold medallists in the offence olympics, but one things is for sure, apologising and (dishonestly and falsely) "admitting" that you were in the wrong just makes the situation worse for everyone involved. Bill Maher did a great piece on how sickening and fake that type of behaviour is. Everyone is apologising these days for using the wrong word or pronoun or refusing to use the "right" one (how about Xe and Zhe, eh?), but I subscribe to the Jordan Peterson school of not giving a flying fuck and fighting back. He actually risked jail for refusing to use the pronouns legally prescribed by the Canadian government. In the end, common sense won out and they repealed the forced speech law, but it took one man standing up and calling out the emperor on having no clothes.

If we don't stand up to this sort of insidious, creeping tyranny, our free speech rights will be gone much sooner than we'd think.

Well, here's a nice follow-up to that whole thing. One of the self-identified transgender members of the Manjaro forum posted a request for help today, and I have responded to that thread and given that person all the advice they needed ─ not that it was all that much, but I did have to look up on a few things in order to provide the correct information. I was also the first member to respond. So now I have provided visual evidence of what I said to the woman who scolded me, namely that even though I'm not a fan of the whole transgender thing, I will always treat transgender people with the same respect as what I treat other people with.

But of course, now it's crickets. No social justice warriors in sight, lining up to to apologize to me for having blown up in my face and having ruined whatever little was left of the jolly atmosphere we still had after the local mods ─ who seem to lack any sense of humor and who are most likely the biggest social justice warriors of them all ─ had decided that the TL3 ("Trust Level 3") members were having too much fun for their taste in a section of the forum that was specifically restricted to TL3s. That's why we moved that whole TL3 gathering to private messaging threads in the first place.

Now, this is a separate subject all of its own, but by denying the TL3s their own hangout and depriving us of our ability to engage in banter outside of the purview of the TL2s and below ─ read: those who only log on to the forum in order to ask for help, and quite often with a sense of entitlement too ─ the Manjaro forum mods have cut off their noses to spite their faces. Because just now there was a discussion of how most of us don't even feel an urge to help out the newbies anymore. Many of us just look at the list of new threads when we log on and then click the "Dismiss" button right away. Myself, I do at least still take the effort of going over the list and opening up tabs to the topics that I am either interested or intrigued by, or that I would be able to offer some advice of my own in.

But yes, like most of the TL3s, I now feel that I'm merely an unpaid help desk employee anymore. TL3s are members with limited moderator abilities ─ we can move threads, edit their titles and flag problematic posts ─ and in order to remain a TL3, one must log on a certain amount of days a week and read a minimum amount of threads. I don't know whether one must also submit a certain minimum amount of posts, but I am either way quite active there, so in that regard, I'm safe. TL2 is the status of a common member, and a TL1 is a newbie. Newbies cannot attach more than one image to their posts and they also have limitations on account of the links they may include in their posts. They also have a stricter limit to the amount of posts they can "like" in one day ─ TL3s also still have a limit for that, but it's higher.

The forum's slogan, which appears in your browser's title bar when you log on, reads "Come for the OS, stay for the community." Well, there isn't much of a community left anymore now. Maybe they should change it into "Come for the OS, stay for the excellent documentation." At least it would be accurate.

But I digress. :unsure:

[RogueEllis]

Nevermind. This is none of my business and I have no idea what's going on.

[Emil El Zapato]

The Conversation
Search analysis, research, academics…Academic rigor, journalistic flair


Many members of conservative political parties, like the Republican Party in the US, undoubtedly subscribe to the values captured by ‘conservative syndrome’. Reuters/Mike Segar
Do smart people tend to be more liberal? Yes, but it doesn’t mean all conservatives are stupid

Author
Lazar Stankov
Professor Emeritus, University of Sydney; Professor, Institute for Positive Psychology and Education, Australian Catholic University

Disclosure statement
Lazar Stankov does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

We believe in the free flow of information

https://i.pinimg.com/236x/f2/f5/fd/f2f5fd0cac9ed0f0edc61e0e5347f4c2.jpg

Over the past decade, several studies have shown that people who tend to hold more conservative views score low on measures of intelligence. However, it now appears that while conservatism and intelligence are negatively correlated, the link is not as strong as first thought.

Origins
Much of the previous work in this area was based on a psychological definition of conservatism, rather than a political one. The term “conservative syndrome” was coined to describe a person who attaches particular importance to respect for tradition, humility, devoutness and moderation.

Such a person tends to hold conformist values like obedience, self-discipline and politeness, and emphasises the need for social order coupled with concerns for family and national security.

A conservative person also subscribes to conventional religious beliefs and has a sense of belonging to and pride in a group with which they identify. The same person is likely to be less open to intellectual challenges and will be seen as a responsible “good citizen” at work and in society, while expressing rather harsh views toward those outside their group.

Up to 16% of “conservative syndrome” is reportedly due to low cognitive ability.

Overall, smart people tend to be socially liberal in their outlook. It was also found that countries whose citizens score low on international tests of mathematics achievement tend to be more conservative in their political outlooks and policies.

Politics versus psychology
Political scientists were quick to point out that conservative syndrome belongs to what they refer to as social conservatism.

Many members of conservative political parties, both in the US and in Australia, undoubtedly subscribe to the values captured by the syndrome. But there is also a distinct group of conservative voters who do not feel strongly about such views. These are the people who are sometimes labelled as economic liberals.

Economic liberals’ beliefs are based on the idea that individuals should be free to engage in voluntary transactions with others and to enjoy the fruits of their own labour. The typical leftist socialist position is opposed to such a view.

It was pointed out that economic liberals as a group tend to be better educated than the rest of, say, Republican Party voters and sympathisers in the US. Therefore, the correlation between intelligence and political behaviour may be essentially zero or even slightly positive.

In other words, intelligence is correlated with socially and economically liberal views.

Psychological world atlas
Several recently reported cross-cultural studies show the correlation between social conservatism and intelligence is lower than previously thought.

In that work, psychological scales for the assessment of conservatism syndrome were given to people from 33 countries from around the world.

It was reported there are essentially three “psychological continents” in the world today. Liberal countries are those from (mostly Western) Europe, and Australia and Canada. Conservative countries are those from Southeast and South Asia, Africa and South America.

All other countries – including the US, Russia and those from Confucian Asia – are somewhere in the middle.


Psychological atlas of the world for 33 countries. Blue (Liberal); Red (Middle); Yellow (Conservative). Supplied
Conservative countries have a low average IQ
The participants in these studies were also given a short non-verbal test of intelligence. As expected, conservative, below-the-equator countries had the lowest average score.

However, people from the middle range of countries had slightly higher IQ scores than those from the liberal countries. This implies that negative correlation between IQ and conservatism is not as strong as previously reported.

A reason for this finding is the standing of the middle group of countries on IQ tests. For example, East Asian countries that are not very liberal or conservative tend to have high IQ and academic achievement scores.

Another reason may be the use of a non-verbal test of intelligence. Most previous studies were based on verbal IQ tests, which are known to be influenced by the level of education.

This finding at the level of countries has been compared to the correlation at the individual level. Our new ‘in press’ data indicate social conservatism and intelligence do have a negative correlation with each other but only 5%, not 16%, of conservatism can be accounted for by the intelligence test scores.

So, are conservatives less smart?
Yes, slightly less if they are social conservatives.

On the available evidence, the presence of people subscribing to economic liberalism within the ostensibly conservative parties in the US, UK and Australia makes it very unlikely that a substantial correlation – either positive or negative – will be found between political conservatism and intelligence.

Members of the left-wing political parties in these countries are not immune from social conservatism either. So, our politicians have no right to call members of the other party “stupid”.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://static01.nyt.com/images/2019/12/08/magazine/08Mag-Jones-1/08Mag-Jones-1-superJumbo.jpg?quality=90&auto=webp

"I Worked for Alex Jones, and I regret it" by Josh Owens

By Josh Owens

On Election Day 2016, I sat in the passenger seat of Alex Jones’s Dodge Hellcat as we swerved through traffic, making our way to a nearby polling place. As Jones punched the gas pedal to the floor, the smell of vodka, like paint thinner, wafted up from the white Dixie cup anchored in the console. My stomach churned as the phone I held streamed live video to Facebook: Jones rambling about voter fraud and rigged elections while I stared at the screen, holding the camera at an angle to hide his double chin. It rarely worked, but I didn’t want to be blamed when he watched the video later.

Four years earlier, Jones — wanting to expand his website, Infowars, into a full-blown guerrilla news operation and hoping to scout new hires from his growing fan base — held an online contest. At 23, I was vulnerable, angry and searching for direction, so I decided to give it a shot. Out of what Infowars said were hundreds of submissions, my video — a half-witted, conspiratorial glance at the creation and function of the Federal Reserve — made it to the final round.

Unconvinced I could cut it as a reporter, Jones offered me a full-time position as a video editor. I quit film school and moved nearly a thousand miles to Austin, Tex., fully invested in propagating his worldview. By the time I found myself seated next to Jones speeding down the highway, I had seen enough of the inner workings of Infowars to know better.

Before we left the office, Jones instructed me to title the video “Alex Jones Denied Right to Vote” when uploading to YouTube. He knew before we left that they wouldn’t let us walk into a polling location with our cameras rolling. I don’t think Jones even intended to vote. Rather, he hoped to turn this into a spectacle, an insult to him personally, another opportunity to play the self-aggrandizing victim.

“Look at this great city shot,” he said pointing out the window at Austin’s skyline. As soon as I pulled the camera off him, he reached for the white Dixie cup. Is this really how I’m going to die? I thought to myself, imagining the scene: Jones veering too close to the guardrail, ranting about George Soros and Hillary Clinton. Sirens echoing in the distance, flashing lights reflecting off oil-soaked pavement as he grabs the camera and utters his final words, “Hillary ... rigged ... the car.” His listeners would have believed it. Years earlier, I would have believed it.

Fortunately, there were no sirens or flashing lights, and I was relieved when “Vote Here” signs began to appear. A line stretched out the door of the polling place, in a local strip mall, by the time we arrived. As I expected, Jones was told multiple times that he couldn’t film at a polling place, and he decided to leave. Walking back to the car, still taking sips from his white cup, he began noticeably slurring his words. A friend of Jones’s who tagged along — for “security purposes” — offered to give me a ride back to the office. Jones revved his engine, tires squealing as he sped out of the parking lot.

I began listening to Jones’s radio show — the flagship program of what is now a conspiracist media empire with an audience that until recently surpassed a million people — in the last days of George W. Bush’s presidency. The American public had been sold a war through outright fabrications; the economy was in free fall thanks to Wall Street greed and the failure of Washington regulators. Most of the mainstream media was caught flat-footed by these developments, but Jones seemed to have an explanation for everything. He railed against government corruption and secrecy, the militarization of police. He confronted those in power, traipsed through the California redwoods to expose the secretive all-male meeting of elites at Bohemian Grove and even appeared in two Richard Linklater films as himself, screaming into a megaphone.

But it wasn’t the politics that initially drew me in. Jones had a way of imbuing the world with mystery, adding a layer of cinematic verisimilitude that caught my attention. Suddenly, I was no longer a bored kid attending an overpriced art school. I was Fox Mulder combing through the X-Files, Rod Serling opening a door to the Twilight Zone, even Rosemary Woodhouse convinced that the neighbors were members of a ritualistic cult. I believed that the world was strategically run by a shadowy, organized cabal, and that Jones was a hero for exposing it.

I had my limits. I can’t say I ever believed his avowed theory that Sandy Hook was a staged event to push for gun control; to Jones, everything was a “false flag.” I didn’t believe that Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama smelled like sulfur because of their proximity to hell or that Planned Parenthood was run by “Nazi baby killers.” But it was easy to brush off these fever dreams as eccentricities and excesses — not the heart of the Alex Jones operation but mere diversions.

Once I started working there, however, it became obvious that one was impossible to separate one from the other. Soon after I was hired, Jones’s Infowars-branded store — which sells emergency-survival foods, water filters, body armor and much more — introduced an iodine supplement, initially marketed as a “shield” against nuclear fallout. Still learning the ropes, I was tasked with creating video advertisements for the supplement, which he ran on his online TV show. One of these ads started with a shot of the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant as it exploded. I doubled the sound of the explosion, adding a glitch filter and sirens in the background for dramatic effect. Jones stood over my shoulder as I edited. “This is great,” he said. “See if you can find flyover footage of Chernobyl as well.”

Shortly after Jones began selling the supplements, someone posted a video on YouTube holding a Geiger counter displaying high radiation readings on a beach in Half Moon Bay, Calif. The video went viral, stoking fears that radiation from Fukushima was drifting across the Pacific Ocean. Jones saw an opportunity and sent me, along with a reporter, a writer and another cameraman, to California. We had multiple Geiger counters shipped overnight, unaware of how to read or work them, and drove up the West Coast, frequently stopping to check radiation levels. Other than a small spike in Half Moon Bay — which the California Department of Public Health said was from naturally occurring radioactive materials, not Fukushima — we found nothing.

Jones was furious. We started getting calls from the radio-show producers in the office, warning us to stop posting videos to YouTube stating we weren’t finding elevated levels of radiation. We couldn’t just stop, though; Jones demanded constant real-time content. On some of these calls, I could hear Jones screaming in the background. One of the producers told me they had never seen him so angry.

We scrambled to find something, anything we could report on. We tested freshly caught crab from a dock in Crescent City, Calif., and traveled to the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant in Avila Beach, asking fishermen if we could test the small croakers they caught off a nearby pier. We even tried to locate a small nuclear-waste facility just so we could capture the Geiger counter displaying a high number. But we couldn’t find what Jones wanted, and after two weeks of traveling from San Diego to Portland, we flew back to Texas as failures, bracing for Jones’s rage. (Jones did not respond to detailed queries sent before publication by The Times Magazine.)

Over time, I came to learn that keeping Jones from getting angry was a big part of the job, though it was impossible to predict his outbursts. Stories abounded among my co-workers: The blinds stuck, so he ripped them off the wall. A water cooler had mold in it, so he grabbed a large knife, stabbed the plastic base wildly and smashed it on the ground. Headlines weren’t strong enough; the news wasn’t being covered the way he wanted; reporters didn’t know how to dress properly. Once a co-worker stopped by the office with a pet fish he was taking home to his niece. It swam in circles in a small, transparent bag. When Jones saw the bag balanced upright on a desk in the conference room, he emptied it into a garbage can. On one occasion, he threatened to send out a memo banning laughter in the office. “We’re in a war,” he said, and he wanted people to act accordingly.

I also saw Jones give an employee the Rolex off his own wrist, simply because he thought the employee was mad at him. “Now, would a bad guy do that?” Jones asked as he handed over the watch. Once, when I went to interview a frequent guest of Jones’s, I was sent with a check to cover a potentially lifesaving cancer treatment. A few times I came close to quitting, and like clockwork, just before I pulled the plug, I received a bonus or significant raise. I hadn’t discussed my discontent with Jones, but he seemed to sense it.

Jones often told his employees that working for him would leave a black mark on our records. To him, it was the price that must be paid for boldly confronting those in power — what he called the New World Order or, later, the deep state. Once my beliefs began to shift, I saw the virulent nature of his world, the emptiness and loathing in many of those impassioned claims. But I was certain that after four years working for Jones, I would never be able to get another job — banished into poverty as penance for my transgressions, and rightly so.

When Jones wanted to blow off steam, we would travel to a private ranch outside Austin to shoot guns. Among other firearms, we would bring the two Barrett .50-caliber rifles he kept stashed in the office. Because we never missed an opportunity to create more content, we also brought along cameras to turn whatever happened into a segment for his show.

I remember one trip in particular. It was the summer of 2014, and I rode to the ranch in the back of a co-worker’s truck, surrounded by semiautomatic rifles, boxes of ammunition and Tannerite, an explosive rifle target. A few of us left early in the morning, arriving before Jones to film B-roll and load magazines; he had no patience for preparation. When he came hours later, after eating a few handfuls of jalapeño chips, he picked up an AR-15 and accidentally fired it in my direction.

The bullet hit the ground about 10 feet away from me. One employee, who was already uncomfortable around firearms, lost it, accusing Jones of being careless and flippant. This was one of the few times I saw someone call Jones out and the only time he didn’t get angry in response. He claimed he had intentionally fired the gun as a joke — as if this were any better.

I stood by silently, considering what might have happened if the gun had been pointed a little to the right. After a while the upset employee let it go, and no one brought it up again. We cracked open a few more beers, filled an old television with Tannerite and blew it up.

One weekend, a few people from the office went hunting at a game reserve. On the following Monday, I was handed a hard drive full of video files and told to edit them for Jones to air on his show later in the week. “There are clips in here that are pretty bad, things we don’t want to get out, so let me take a look at this before we upload it,” one of my managers said.

The first video I clicked on came from a cellphone. The camera pans across a blood-covered floor in what looked like a garage. Dead animals were scattered about: eyes lifeless, tongues hanging from their mouths, crimson streaks splashed on their fur.

In another video, a bison grazed quietly in the shade of a large tree; it reminded me of a tableau at the American Museum of Natural History. Then the camera panned over to Jones, maybe 20 yards away, holding what looked like a handgun. Jones began firing at the bison, tufts of hair flying with every hit. The animal remained standing as Jones shot round after round. Finally, the hunting guide yelled at Jones to stop and handed him a high-caliber rifle. Jones took a moment to make sure the cameras were still recording and fired a few more rounds as the animal finally collapsed.

[Watching Alex Jones answer questions under oath is an antidote to a “post-truth” age.]

I shared a large room with three other employees, and Jones often walked into our office after he wrapped for the day. His first question was always “How was the show?” If anyone said it was great — someone, if not everyone, always said it was great — his response was the same. “Really?” he would say, moving over to their side of the room. “Did you really think it was great? What did you like about it?”

Working for Jones was a balancing act. You had to determine where he was emotionally and match his tone quickly. If he was angry, then you had better get angry. If he was joking around, then you could relax, sort of, always looking out of the corner of your eye for his mood to turn at any moment.

Late one night, after an extended live broadcast, Jones walked into my office shirtless. This was normal; he removed his shirt frequently around us. He pulled out a bottle of Grey Goose from a storage cabinet and filled his cup. He stumbled into his private restroom, changed into a clean black polo shirt and stepped back into our office. “Hit me,” he said to an employee in the room. When the employee refused, Jones got louder, his face redder. “Hit me!” He kept saying it, getting closer each time. Finally, knowing Jones would never relent, the employee gave him a weak tap on the shoulder.

“Oh, come on,” he said, “hit me harder!”

The employee punched him hard in the shoulder. Jones grunted on impact, seeming to enjoy the pain. Then, it was his turn. Smirking, he planted his feet, reared back and lunged his body weight forward as his fist connected with the man’s arm. I could hear the dull thud of impact, then a wincing sigh. They traded a few more punches, each time seeming less playful. Jones became wild-eyed, spit flying from his clenched teeth as he exhaled. On his last hit, the sound was different. Wet. I thought I could hear the meat split open in the employee’s arm. Jones roared as he punched a cabinet, denting the door in. A few weeks later, I heard that Jones had broken a video editor’s ribs after playing the same game in a downtown bar.

Having aligned himself with Donald Trump during the 2016 presidential race, Jones might now be considered a version of a conservative, but his perspective is much more complicated than that. Infowars was like a lot of digital-media outlets, in that we reported on the things our top editor thought would go viral. But because our boss was Alex Jones, this was a peculiar process. Assignments were often handed down live on the air during his show. We were to have it playing throughout the office, always listening for directives. Ideas for stories mostly came from what other news outlets reported. Jones wanted us to “hijack” the mainstream media’s coverage and use it to our advantage. If it fit into the Infowars narrative, it played.

When I wasn’t at the office, I spent much of my time traveling for Jones. I inhaled the tear gas in Ferguson, Mo., during the Black Lives Matter protests, retching as I hid with protesters, corralled by cops in riot gear. I stood next to armed cowboys and ranch hands as they faced off against the Bureau of Land Management to retrieve Cliven Bundy’s cattle in Nevada. I had dinner with the leader of the Nation of Islam, Louis Farrakhan, at his home in Phoenix and spent a weekend at the compound of Jim Bakker, the televangelist who spent time in prison for fraud. Jones’s instinctual desire to distance himself from the mainstream led us to unusual and sometimes dark places.

In December 2015, the day before Jones interviewed Donald Trump, still a candidate at the time, on his radio show, I made my way to upstate New York on assignment, along with a reporter and second cameraman. We were sent to visit Muslim-majority communities throughout the United States to investigate what Jones instructed us to call “the American Caliphate.” After the California Geiger-counter debacle, we had meetings with Jones before trips in order to ascertain exactly what he wanted. If we “hit some home runs,” he said, we would get significant bonuses.

We landed in Newark at 12:30 p.m. on Dec. 1, 2015. The first stop was Islamberg, a Muslim community three hours north of Manhattan. It was founded in the 1980s by mostly African-American followers of a Pakistani cleric named Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, who encouraged devotees of his conservative brand of Sufi Islam to establish small settlements across the rural United States. Gilani was suspected of association with the organization Jamaat ul-Fuqra, which was briefly designated as a terrorist group by the State Department in the 1990s; Gilani has denied any connection to the group. His followers in Islamberg had no record of violence, and some of them had denounced the Islamic State in an interview with Reuters earlier that year, saying they didn’t believe Islamic State members to be real Muslims. But unfounded rumors circulated around far-right corners of the internet that this community was a potential terrorist-training center. Jones, who thought the media consistently ingratiated themselves with Islamic extremists, believed them.

We pulled in, unannounced, to a dirt drive leading to the community, stopping at a flimsy cattle gate guarded by two men. The reporter, wearing a hidden camera, approached the entrance as we filmed the interaction from the vehicle. The men were calm and polite, if a little suspicious — reasonable given the circumstances. They denied our entry into Islamberg but took our number and told us we could return after they verified who we were.

It was only later, after listening to the audio from the reporter’s hidden camera, that I heard what he told the two men guarding the gate. “Basically, what we do is, we go around, and we do videos debunking claims of stuff,” the reporter said. “The word is, people say this is some kind of training camp, so we wanted to come in and get some footage and kind of put that whole rumor to rest.”

He gave them his real name — a name that, with a quick Google search, would lead back to Infowars, with its headlines like “Inside Sources: Bin Laden’s Corpse Has Been on Ice for Nearly a Decade,” “Special Report: Why Obama Brought Ebola to U.S. Exposed” and “VIDEO: ‘Demon’ Caught on Camera During Obama Visit?” Those headlines could be described by many words, but none of them would be “debunking.”

Because of the conspiracy theories about the place, Islamberg was a constant target of right-wing extremists. That April, a Tennessee man was arrested and later convicted of plotting to raise a militia to burn Islamberg’s mosque to the ground. Only days before we arrived, the F.B.I. issued an alert to law enforcement to be on the lookout for a man named Jon Ritzheimer, the leader of an anti-Muslim movement in Arizona who posted a video threatening violence against Muslims less than two weeks earlier. In the video, he brandished a handgun, saying: “I’m urging all Americans across the U.S. everywhere in public, start carrying a slung rifle with you, everywhere. Don’t be a victim in your own country.”

So the phone call we received later that night from a law-enforcement agent shouldn’t have come as a surprise. The officer who contacted us said he simply wanted to verify who we were after receiving a concerned call from someone in Islamberg. We told Jones about it, and he chose to believe the call was a veiled threat, an attempt to intimidate us into silence. To him, this verified that we were onto something. He even went so far as to include Michael Bloomberg, the former mayor of New York City, in the purported conspiracy, claiming he wanted to abolish the Second Amendment — and that somehow intimidating us would achieve that.

Jones told us to file a story that accused the police of harassment, lending credence to the theory that this community contained dangerous, potential terrorists. I knew this wasn’t the case according to the information we had. We all did. Days before, we spoke to the sheriff and the mayor of Deposit, N.Y., a nearby municipality. They both told us the people in Islamberg were kind, generous neighbors who welcomed the surrounding community into their homes, even celebrating holidays together.

The information did not meet our expectations, so we made it up, preying on the vulnerable and feeding the prejudices and fears of Jones’s audience. We ignored certain facts, fabricated others and took situations out of context to fit our narrative, posting headlines like:

Drone Investigates Islamic Training Center

Shariah Law Zones Confirmed in America

Infowars Reporters Stalked by Terrorism Task Force

Report: Obama’s Terror Cells in the U.S.

The Rumors Are True: Shariah Law Is Here!

Our next stop was Hamtramck, a Muslim-majority city embedded within Detroit that alarmists in neighboring communities called Shariahville. As we headed west, my phone vibrated, and a news alert appeared on the screen. There were reports that a mass shooting that week in San Bernardino, Calif., had been perpetrated by Islamic extremists, making it at the time the deadliest Islamic attack in the United States since Sept. 11.

I knew that when the details emerged, they would substantiate the lies we pushed to Jones’s audience. It didn’t matter if the attack took place on the other side of the country or if the people in Islamberg had no connection to the perpetrators in San Bernardino. Jones’s listeners would draw imaginary lines between the two, and we were helping them do it.

I quit working for Jones on April 7, 2017. When offered another job, an introductory position with a 75 percent pay cut, I jumped at the opportunity. Instead of giving two weeks’ notice, I left in three hours. Jones had gone home for the day, so I didn’t speak with him in person. I said goodbye to co-workers and managers, handed over my company credit card and hoped that would be the end of it. Two nights later, I received a call from Jones: “Let me tell you a little secret,” he said in his gravelly voice. “I don’t like it anymore, either.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I don’t want to do it anymore,” he said, “and I got all these people working for me, and you know, then I feel guilty. I don’t want to do it. You think I want to keep doing this? I haven’t wanted to do this for five years, man.” I sensed that he was pandering, but I couldn’t help thinking that for the first time since I started this job, Jones and I finally had something in common. Sure, there was a time when I shared his anger. In fact, I was still angry. But this is where we differed: I wasn’t angry with others; I was angry with myself. And once I realized that, it was easier to walk away. When I left, I tried to put myself in his shoes, to figure out why he said and did the things he did. At times I saw a different side to Jones, one that was vulnerable, desiring validation and acceptance. Then he would say something so vile and callous it became impossible to look past it.

Even though I was no longer beholden to Jones for financial security, I couldn’t be honest about how I felt. I was to blame for my actions, unequivocally, and yet I resented Jones for creating an environment of rage, fear and confusion that diminished discernment, increased self-doubt and left me feeling as if my brain had short-circuited. I wanted to say these things to Jones, but I didn’t.

He offered to double my pay, suggested I work remotely and even proposed funding a feature-length film of my own. I said it wasn’t about money and turned him down. To this day, I still don’t know why he wanted to keep me around. He said it was because he cared about me, but if I had to guess, I would say his main concern was losing control.

The next morning, he called numerous times, and then again that evening. I let the calls go to voice mail.

There wasn’t a single moment that persuaded me to leave, but there was a turning point: a moment that stuck with me long after it happened. I thought of it as I sat next to Jones speeding recklessly down the highway on Election Day, when I walked out of the office for the last time and when I decided to sit down and write this article.

It was early morning, and we were headed back to Austin after the trip that began in Islamberg. As we boarded our flight, I took my window seat close to the rear of the plane. An older woman wearing a hijab sat next to me. With her was a young girl, giddy with excitement, who bounced in the middle seat, holding a bag of pretzels. The woman leaned over and asked if I would let the girl sit by the window. “This is her first time on a plane,” she said. I agreed and moved my bag from under the seat.

I thought of the children who lived in Islamberg: how afraid their families must have felt when their communities were threatened and strangers appeared asking questions; how we chose to look past these people as individuals and impose on them more of the same unfair suspicions they already had to endure. And for what? Clickbait headlines, YouTube views?

As I sat on the aisle, the plane now lifting up into the pale blue sky, I glanced over at the little girl staring out the window in wonder, her face glowing from the light reflecting off the clouds. She was amazed, joyful, innocent, carefree and completely unaware of the world beneath her.

Josh Owens is a writer living in Texas. This is his first article for the magazine.

[Emil El Zapato]

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

[Emil El Zapato]

An independent and an historian from Boston College on a leans to the right format:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TO3-o_1Pwgo

[Dreamtimer]

I read that Vox piece. I was going to post parts of it, no need now. I pray for Alex re the day drinking. If it's while on the job, that's a bad sign. I day drink at festivals and games but never when working.


The golden handcuffs were interesting. It does take balls to leave a job and take a big pay cut.


I've been hearing many republicans say that their party has been changed for good, either that or ruined and on it's way out, like the Whigs. It certainly has lost it's integrity and honor. My mom and dad are rolling over in their graves.

I think the nation, rather than the party is at stake. Some don't care about nations, but this is the one I live in and I care.

Just like Trump with his tactic of ending policies without replacement, we don't have a replacement country.

Or earth.

[Aianawa]

There is a replacement narrative happening atm though, whatever brand does not matter soon.

[Emil El Zapato]

I save the real stuff for this thread:

My most hated word of the week: "Treasure". Those that speak of America's National Treasury as 'A' treasure are f*cked up beyond repair and there are many of them. To them, 'money' is all the treasure the world needs. Most of them are conservatives. I despise those that live their lives superficially with truth hidden from them behind a memic layer of abstraction generously donated for free by the true conspirators in this screwed up mess. ...Conservatives.

I'll bet this post will help sort things out... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

There is a very good post by Franny at PA. Regards the 'inner nature' of Gabbard. I recognized this 'offness' about her in her 1st 4 words without having ever seen or heard her before. I think that's called 'cognitive empathy'

[Dreamtimer]

I'll quote Game of Thrones:

"I'm on the side of the living." That's the brand I choose.

That means taking care of the earth and each other, not just the parts or folks we like.

[Emil El Zapato]

Just so we understand what areas of discourse are covered under political philosophy:

Explanation in Political Philosophy

Topics: Existence, Morality, State of nature, Phenomena, Economic theory, General equilibrium theory, Approximation, Reason, Phlogiston theory

I challenge the board to find the connection between today's discussion on "Grace Under Pressure", the earlier post and this post...it could be many things and it is just for fun to see how creative people can be:

The phlogiston theory is a superseded scientific theory that postulated that a fire-like element called phlogiston is contained within combustible bodies and released during combustion. The name comes from the Ancient Greek φλογιστόν phlogistón (burning up), from φλόξ phlóx (flame). It was first stated in 1667 by Johann Joachim Becher and then put together more formally by Georg Ernst Stahl. The theory attempted to explain processes such as combustion and rusting, which are now collectively known as oxidation.

[Emil El Zapato]

Ok, no takers. The answer was, there is no answer, it could be anything we want it to be. Politics is not a disease, it is a sympton that if ignored can and would be eventually fatal. It is a dominant aspect of reality that we all live in and about no matter how badly we want to escape facing it. We don't have to do that and that is what captures my attention, the denial and the refusal to accept that our minds are constantly fighting to maintain the facade that supports our distorted sense of reality. That's big folks and I apologize to all that are made uncomfortable by having to confront it. My mission is to break down the barrier. :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I concede, I am one sick and diseased human being:

Poll Finds 54% Of Americans Approve Executing Trump But Leaving Him In Office

http://www.mysweetlondon.com/poll-finds-54-of-americans-approve-executing-trump-but-leaving-him-in-office-the-onion

[Emil El Zapato]

Some really good headlines currently on the web: They can be easily googled.

Safety Experts Recommend Shouting ‘Free Donuts’ Instead Of ‘Rape’ To Receive Help More Quickly!
Yovanovitch Testifies That She Was Removed To Make Way For Corrupt Back Channel But Gets If No One Cares About Anything Anymore!
Nation Perplexed By 16-Year-Old Who Doesn’t Want World To End!
Poll Shows Support For Impeachment Weakest Among Uncontacted Amazonian Tribes Who Know Nothing Of Our Ways!
‘Again, Again, Again!’ Exclaims Clapping, Grinning Trump After Sixth Time Watching Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Death Video!
GOP Lawmakers Watch Silently As Trump Strangles Each Of Their Loved Ones In Turn!
Trump Confirms That It Was Iran Or Some Country Like That Behind Saudi Oil Attacks!
‘Please Guide Me In My Darkest Hour Lord,’ Prays Trump Kneeling Before Portrait Of Himself!
Trump Furiously Searching Raytheon Catalog For Gift After Realizing He Promised China And Ukraine Same Javelin Missile!
White House Unveils Lightly Edited Memorandum Of U.S. Constitution That Specifically Declares Trump’s Innocence!
Vindman Says Ukraine Transcript Left Out Lengthy Sections Of Trump Bragging About Time He Was In Pizza Hut Commercial!

[Aragorn]

Some really good headlines currently on the web: They can be easily googled.

Safety Experts Recommend Shouting ‘Free Donuts’ Instead Of ‘Rape’ To Receive Help More Quickly!
Yovanovitch Testifies That She Was Removed To Make Way For Corrupt Back Channel But Gets If No One Cares About Anything Anymore!
Nation Perplexed By 16-Year-Old Who Doesn’t Want World To End!
Poll Shows Support For Impeachment Weakest Among Uncontacted Amazonian Tribes Who Know Nothing Of Our Ways!
‘Again, Again, Again!’ Exclaims Clapping, Grinning Trump After Sixth Time Watching Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi Death Video!
GOP Lawmakers Watch Silently As Trump Strangles Each Of Their Loved Ones In Turn!
Trump Confirms That It Was Iran Or Some Country Like That Behind Saudi Oil Attacks!
‘Please Guide Me In My Darkest Hour Lord,’ Prays Trump Kneeling Before Portrait Of Himself!
Trump Furiously Searching Raytheon Catalog For Gift After Realizing He Promised China And Ukraine Same Javelin Missile!
White House Unveils Lightly Edited Memorandum Of U.S. Constitution That Specifically Declares Trump’s Innocence!
Vindman Says Ukraine Transcript Left Out Lengthy Sections Of Trump Bragging About Time He Was In Pizza Hut Commercial!

Congratulations, NotAPretender! Among those eleven headlines, you've managed to include as much as three that have nothing to do with Donald Trump or the Ukraine affair. :rolleyes:

Here's a more interesting mainstream news headline for you, befitting this alternative community... Watch, and learn.



↓

Missing Stars Could Point to Alien Civilizations, Scientists Say (https://www.cnet.com/news/missing-stars-could-point-to-alien-civilizations-scientists-say/)

[Emil El Zapato]

You will never believe this Aragorn, but I'm down with that...I've calmed down to a simmer at this point...I've learned the only way I can stay on this board and post productive content is to steer clear of the great and powerful Fred.

His life revolves around politics, yet he comes here and proclaims he's not into it. That is disingenuous if not downright dishonest. He wins only because you personally have a true aversion to politics and I can dig that. I've been perusing the web to find something cool to post and have found a few good ones. In fact, you have motivated me to do just that. I've got to say it just one more time, though. Political labels are not my thing. Honesty is my thing and when I see purposeful deceit...I get cranked up to a level that I have great difficulty controlling. I fear it might be my very own narcissistic tendencies...But I can always rely on the Hegelian Dialectic to talk myself down from the precipice. Peace friend and I really mean that...I'm about to embark on a different intellectual journey... :)

Incidentally, that is a fascinating headline...and i'm reading it right now...in between cat meows... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

"It's those damn alien things, again!" Airline pilot to military air traffic controller

Dyson Spheres:
https://www.cnet.com/news/tabbys-boyajians-star-alien-megastructures-dimming/

[Emil El Zapato]

Secretive X-37B space plane returns to Earth, two years on
The Air Force says that the almost one-of-a-kind spacecraft "conducted on-orbit experiments" in the the longest-ever mission for the X-37B.

One of my co-workers was actually the Ground Control Officer in charge of the initial test flights: What was weird about the whole thing is that many members of the NASA community were fully aware of the test flights. It was 'kind of' a 'keep it on the down low thing but certainly not secret...By that I mean there were no official NASA mandates to not speak about it.
https://cnet1.cbsistatic.com/img/xJt2ZYJp6MQ6yB9e0nb_kxpEM84=/980x551/2019/10/28/362a2364-cc15-4b48-8f92-f831e8cf800f/x37b-at-ksc-landing-facility.jpg
https://www.cnet.com/news/secretive-x-37b-space-plane-returns-to-earth-two-years-on/

[Dreamtimer]

You will never believe this Aragorn, but I'm down with that...I've calmed down to a simmer at this point...I've learned the only way I can stay on this board and post productive content is to steer clear of the great and powerful Fred.

His life revolves around politics, yet he comes here and proclaims he's not into it. That is disingenuous if not downright dishonest. He wins only because you personally have a true aversion to politics and I can dig that. I've been perusing the web to find something cool to post and have found a few good ones. In fact, you have motivated me to do just that. I've got to say it just one more time, though. Political labels are not my thing. Honesty is my thing and when I see purposeful deceit...I get cranked up to a level that I have great difficulty controlling. I fear it might be my very own narcissistic tendencies...But I can always rely on the Hegelian Dialectic to talk myself down from the precipice. Peace friend and I really mean that...I'm about to embark on a different intellectual journey... :)

Incidentally, that is a fascinating headline...and i'm reading it right now...in between cat meows... :)

I know all kinds of people who walk away from discussions when they're not winning. They label the other person, accuse them of not understanding their specific words rather than the issue at hand, argue such narrow points that the discussion becomes meaningless, and more. There are a lot of fallacies going around and they sound like good talking points so folks just throw them out.

When I was in my twenties our friend Bob would regularly insult people with the 'liberal' label and then walk away. In his wake, his friends would all apologize for him:

"Oh don't take it personally, He's just really patriotic." "Oh, it's not you, he's just really patriotic."

Since the '80's(in my experience), folks have been openly rude to perceived liberals and used patriotism as an excuse. It's nothing new.

Mark Twain very accurately observed that patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrels.

And he was right.

The hearings we just had on impeachment showed that in spades.

Grandstanding, comparing Trump to Lincoln and then Jesus.

It's certainly not a both-sider thing.

Just 'cause folks bang that drum endlessly doesn't make it true.

[Emil El Zapato]

So True...Rush Limbaugh, the narcissist tapped into the universal buttons of most everyone. The 16% who are both intellectually and emotionally challenged fell for the bs because it felt so good to them and the 2-4% of empaths were so outraged they couldn't help but be drawn in. Those in the middle weren't even listening but through a natural osmotic process began to acclimate to the social ambience.

And the rest is history, Limbaugh is rich and powerful and still leading the national dysfunction drum beat.

It is a last gasp, even society en toto is coming to its senses...Those that were sleep walking but possess a core of decency have reached their own place of righteous indignation...finally.

Our reality demands that we inch toward social democracy. It is the only way.

a socialist system of government achieved by democratic means.
"there was a growth of social democracy through an extension of the rights of citizens"

[Dreamtimer]

Our president is openly suggesting violence of Americans against Americans.

He's lamenting the lost days when protestors were shot and fire-hosed, arrested and beaten.

He's talking about vast swaths of Americans hating their own country.

These are very dangerous things for a US President to say.

Very dangerous.

There has never been another President who has used the bully pulpit for such destructive purposes.

And Putin just came out in support of Trump's rhetoric regarding the Dems and their supposed emotions.


I think my favorite late night comedian joke recently was the change to the Republican party logo:

It's not an elephant anymore. It's an ostrich with its head in the sand.

So apropos.

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.thewrap.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2019%2F12%2FTrump-Colbert-Impeach-GOP-Ostrich.jpg&f=1&nofb=1

I'm thinking about embroidering it for my brother.

I should make a patch. ;)

[Dreamtimer]

Congratulations, NotAPretender! Among those eleven headlines, you've managed to include as much as three that have nothing to do with Donald Trump or the Ukraine affair. :rolleyes:

Here's a more interesting mainstream news headline for you, befitting this alternative community... Watch, and learn.



↓

Missing Stars Could Point to Alien Civilizations, Scientists Say (https://www.cnet.com/news/missing-stars-could-point-to-alien-civilizations-scientists-say/)

This is interesting. I much prefer the idea of Dyson Spheres. I'll admit, the first thing I thought of was the Death Star. But if stars had been destroyed, the telescopes would see evidence, correct?

[Emil El Zapato]

certainly seems like there would be evidence, even a natural process like the formation of black holes or supernovas would leave a great trail of energy. One thing possible would be the same explanation that is used 'against' Tabby's star which are dust clouds occluding the energetic shine. That's a whole lot of dust though...maybe dark matter or energy. Dyson spheres go a long way in explaining both the star holes AND the Fermi Paradox.

[Emil El Zapato]

Fraud or Not?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gqxfxtKLzY

[Emil El Zapato]

Earliest known cave art by modern humans found in Indonesia
Pictures of human-like hunters and fleeing mammals dated to nearly 44,000 years old

The drawings are nearly twice as old as any previously known narrative scenes. Photograph: Ratno Sardi/Griffith University
Cave art depicting human-animal hybrid figures hunting warty pigs and dwarf buffaloes has been dated to nearly 44,000 years old, making it the earliest known cave art by our species.

The artwork in Indonesia is nearly twice as old as any previous hunting scene and provides unprecedented insights into the earliest storytelling and the emergence of modern human cognition.

Previously, images of this level of sophistication dated to about 20,000 years ago, with the oldest cave paintings believed to be more basic creations such as handprints.

“We were stunned by the implications of this image,” said Adam Brumm, an archaeologist at the Australian Research Centre for Human Evolution at Griffith University. “This was just mind-boggling because this showed us that this was possibly the oldest rock art anywhere on the face of this planet.”

The painting, discovered in 2017, is one of hundreds in South Sulawesi, including a red hand stencil, which was dated to at least 40,000 years ago. But the latest finding is exceptional as it is more than twice as old as any previously known narrative scenes and hints at ancient myths and an early capacity for imagination.

“It suggested to us that this extraordinary scene suggests a story or some kind of myth,” said Brumm.

The 4.5-metre-wide panel shows six fleeing mammals – two Sulawesi warty pigs and four dwarf buffaloes, known as anoas, small but fierce animals that still inhabit the island’s dwindling forests. The animals are being pursued by human-like figures with some animal features (academics call these therianthropes), who seem to be wielding long swords or ropes. Their bodies are human-shaped but one appears to have the head of a bird and another has a tail.

The art was found after an expedition member noticed what appeared to be an entrance to a high-level chamber above. Photograph: Ratno Sardi/Griffith University

Human-animal hybrids occur in the folklore of almost every modern society and are frequently cast as gods, spirits or ancestral beings in religions across the world.

“The most fascinating aspect is it has all the key elements of modern human cognition,” said Prof Maxime Aubert, an archaeologist at Australia’s Griffith University. “Hand stencils, a narrative scene, human-like figures that were conceived of something that doesn’t really exist in the real world. Everything is there by 44,000 years ago.”

The cave is in a well-explored system, which researchers had visited frequently over the past decade. The discovery was made after an expedition member noticed what appeared to be an entrance to a high level chamber above and climbed up a fig tree to investigate. “And then, bang, there’s this incredible new rock art site in there that’s essentially like nothing we’ve ever seen before in this entire region,” said Brumm.

The dwarf buffalo species pictured still inhabits forests on the island. Photograph: Maxime Aubert/PA
Rock art is difficult to date, and the scientists relied on analysing mineral growths known as cave popcorn, that had formed over the painting. Measuring the radioactive decay of uranium and other elements in the deposits gave dates ranging from 35,100 to 43,900 years as a minimum age for the Sulawesi discovery. The findings are described in the journal Nature.

“It’s just amazing and to me it just shows how much more rock art that is out there waiting to be discovered that completely changes our understanding of the human story,” said Brumm.

Before this latest discovery, the oldest undisputed examples of figurative cave art date to about 35,000 years old. The oldest cave art on record is abstract forms attributed to Neanderthals, which have been dated to 64,000 years old. The art features lines, dots and animal-like shapes.

[Emil El Zapato]

Mildly interesting movie:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9J8y3RDs8Hs

[Emil El Zapato]

Trump on Windmills: 'I Never Understood Wind' - Question for the day: Are we able to separate the human from the hateful acts they commit? I would give a decided yes but it becomes difficult when the hateful act is reveled upon with an eye cast for the next hateful act to perpetrate. That is the essence of the human gone wrong. A willful embrace of a destructive energy.

[Emil El Zapato]

Does anybody agree with this guy?


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TCLmWy8iLb8

[Emil El Zapato]

Oh noooo!!!! I guessed wrong AND I think those that were philosophically incorrect should just give it up...Sorta like many should just give their positions up:

:)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1TdFAHtqPbs

[Emil El Zapato]

Ask Me Anything...go ahead, I dare ya' ... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Nephew-in-law sitting in his Xmas present...It must be nice to not be poverty stricken:

2414

[Emil El Zapato]

There are some very interesting moral statements in this series:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06rueu_fh30

[Elen]

Ask Me Anything...go ahead, I dare ya' ... :)

What did you eat last night?

[Emil El Zapato]

let me do a few hand motions to feel the energy...ahh.

Chicken noodle soup.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=38&v=-rMo87P-nDc&feature=emb_logo


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

[Dreamtimer]

Ask Me Anything...go ahead, I dare ya' ... :)

Any good dreams lately?

[Emil El Zapato]

no, bad ones mostly...usually a sign of depression... :(

no job dreams, though...that is normally a good sign...when I start dreaming that I either don't know where I live or where I work...that's bad news...

you had to ask... :)

[Dreamtimer]

Dreams are paramount. They bring us great power.

And if our ego is out of control they'll put it in its place right quick!

[Aragorn]

Dreams are paramount. They bring us great power.

And if our ego is out of control they'll put it in its place right quick!

I seriously doubt that, or else a whole lot of people would be having horrible nightmares every night. Judging by how full of themselves I see those very same people going through life every day, that does not appear to be the case. ;)

[Dreamtimer]

A suspect a lot of folks have nightmares and block them out. Those would be the folks who say they don't dream.

Unfortunately, reality also gives us lessons whether we want them or not and folks still have their eyes closed.

I don't think folks need to wake up, I think they just need to open their eyes.

:shocked:

The koans that life sends our way can startle our minds out of their shackles.

[Emil El Zapato]

I try to block them out, but they always play out...usually no where near as sinister as in the nightmare...I'm thankful for that. We all need a break, I suspect...

[Emil El Zapato]

Just heard on the news there was a church shooting in White Settlement in Dallas-Ft. Worth. I use to drive through there every day on my way to work at Lockheed-Martin. It is a depressed area that was named for its intent...White Settlement.

[Wind]

A suspect a lot of folks have nightmares and block them out. Those would be the folks who say they don't dream.

Unfortunately, reality also gives us lessons whether we want them or not and folks still have their eyes closed.

Dreams are the world of the unconscious and subconscious. Most people are "sleepwalkers" in their everyday reality, meaning that they are very much if not totally ruled by their unconscious part. Hence all that is wrong in the world, it comes from ignorance and ignorance is when you're unaware or unconscious of yourself and your actions & what they imply and lead to.

One of the first parts in the road of becoming awake is to realize that you are not your ego, you just happen to have it as you happen to have many other things as a part of yourself or the complexity of your beingness. It's another thing to become identified with the ego as so many people totally believe that they are that, when in fact your ego is just a collection of experiences and a self-built image and an idea of what you believe yourself to be.

You think you need that image of yourself until suffering becomes too unbearable and you will come to realize that there is the Self which survives the death of the body and the death of the ego. Some people call it Atman, some call it the soul. It has many names and it is eternal. That's what you and me ultimaly are, disguised as these humans with all of our problems. We imagine all of this to be so real and we take it so seriousy.

"The Ego isn’t wrong; it’s just unconscious. When you observe the Ego in yourself, you are beginning to go beyond it. Don’t take the Ego too seriously. When you detect egoic behavior in yourself, smile. At times you may even laugh. How could humanity have been taken in by this for so long? Above all, know that the Ego isn’t personal. It isn’t who you are. If you consider the Ego to be your personal problem, that’s just more Ego."

You get closer to knowing YOU (https://jelenadjokovic.com/finding-who-you-truly-are-beneath-the-ego/) once you realize that you don’t know who you are because you cannot identify yourself anymore with previous concepts and forms. You understood who you are NOT – you are NOT your nationality, profession or gender. That’s when you enter the unknown. Ego is constantly looking for self-definition: to remember who you are, what your story is, what your past is, where you come from, what your opinions are, etc. But if you can become comfortable with not knowing and needing to define who you are to others or yourself… then Ego will lose its power.

~ Eckhart Tolle


http://youtu.be/56blGsmWd9k

[Emil El Zapato]

i dunno...

https://scontent.fhou1-2.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/81779626_2636982113052327_8381918747350269952_n.jp g?_nc_cat=105&_nc_ohc=PfCQKXKdlOEAQnDc8Ot5M0YXS4wpaNTE6HMIrGk6K2 dwz-AtMsplo7UtQ&_nc_ht=scontent.fhou1-2.fna&oh=0e3e55e6e57bc64299e97f51836de37b&oe=5EA3C572

https://scontent.fhou1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/56276002_2160097640740779_1139493950780866560_n.jp g?_nc_cat=104&_nc_ohc=f-EVCUMd3w4AQl0yrQt3O6rfb4oIhll-hmow9byg2vrYIxhDV8Gj61hiA&_nc_ht=scontent.fhou1-1.fna&oh=387d4ca24796380ecfcef92705d7ef0c&oe=5E708547

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ahC5SWe79Uw

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=48&v=7TmcXYp8xu4&feature=emb_logo

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDek6cYijxI

[Emil El Zapato]

Mildly interesting S.F. series by George R.R. Martin: A couple of the main actors in this are amazing physical specimens...the female looks like an Olympic athlete...Turns out their was a reason:


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

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QsgqEDqm8uI
https://www.instagram.com/p/B6yIBQAgNkd/?utm_source=ig_embed

[Emil El Zapato]

I know people aren't digging it...but TV streaming has become awesome...

[Aragorn]

I know people aren't digging it...but TV streaming has become awesome...

It is, unfortunately, also a racket. Companies like Netflix and Disney know that all too well.

[Emil El Zapato]

I'm a sucker for it...I grab what I think is the best entertainment, though...

[Emil El Zapato]

I don't want to be blowed up...

[Aragorn]

I don't want to be blowed up...

"Blown". :p

[Emil El Zapato]

:)

[Elen]

"Blown". :p

Ahh the grammar! My biggest problem is with the prepositions. :D

[Emil El Zapato]

In all seriosity, I gave up on it in 5th grade...it was all repeat after that...I never did figure out what that sentence deconstruction thing was all about. I guess i be brain damaged, my reading and vocabulary skills were literally off the charts by the time i was in high school, but I never did figure out grammar...didn't care either. But you see that has always been a big part of my life's failure. If it didn't mentally fall into place immediately, I just went in another direction. Mentally lazy I is.

[Dreamtimer]

Channeling your inner yoda?

I have no streaming. I know for a fact that I would become a couch potato and watch far too much. And then my husband wouldn't be into it and then there would be tension and emotions and....

It's probably not worth the $$$.

I watched Game of Thrones on DVD. And I can watch them anytime as long as I have electricity and a functional machine. Good enough, eh?

The street art and 'my skill' are wonderful and hilarious.

[Emil El Zapato]

I've been waiting to get the final season of Game of Thrones for quite a while. I was using a firestick to hack a lot of stuff, but the connection sucked... :)

[Dreamtimer]

I was able to watch the final season before the DVD because I was out west and watched it on my Dad's TV. After I made sure he was safe in bed and asleep, I would watch an episode. It was like movie night because they were long, but for the first.

[Emil El Zapato]

:) cool...

[Emil El Zapato]

Do you live in the city, Aragorn? You ever get tired of living in Belgium...I was looking at a map today and you live in a great place as far as being close to a lot of European culture and history.

[Dreamtimer]

The chaos of fires...

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-n1Md6hPhtQM%2FXhJ3n7PpFXI%2FAAAAAAAArx4%2F703SlZUC 0r03VGREyXwJw7q7beTgfrdzQCK8BGAsYHg%2Fs0%2F2020-01-05.png&f=1&nofb=1

[Chris]

I've been waiting to get the final season of Game of Thrones for quite a while. I was using a firestick to hack a lot of stuff, but the connection sucked... :)

It's shit.

Don't waste your time with it. They completely botched the final season, no doubt, because they wanted to end it quickly and move on to other projects,

Witcher, on the other hand, is quite good.

[Chris]

The chaos of fires...

https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Flh3.googleusercontent.com%2F-n1Md6hPhtQM%2FXhJ3n7PpFXI%2FAAAAAAAArx4%2F703SlZUC 0r03VGREyXwJw7q7beTgfrdzQCK8BGAsYHg%2Fs0%2F2020-01-05.png&f=1&nofb=1

That map is highly misleading.

55000 Square kilometres have burnt down so far, which is less than 1 percent of Australia's territory. There were no Bush fires to speak of in Queensland, Western Australia or the Northern Territory. Admittedly, this is still a huge blow because the areas that were worst hit are the greenest parts of Australia. However, much of the damage is ironically, due to the lack of controlled burnings, due to misguided land control policies.

[Aragorn]

Do you live in the city, Aragorn? You ever get tired of living in Belgium...I was looking at a map today and you live in a great place as far as being close to a lot of European culture and history.

No, it's not a city. It's a town with several annexed villages and a borough, and part of this town is an industrialized zone, while most of the town center is made up of shops, cafés and diners. It's an overcommercialized town, with very busy traffic. And the mayor is a narcissist who thinks that this town sits at the center of the universe.

There used to be a major shipyard here, which employed 1'300 people directly and some 2'000 more through contractors. They built ferry boats, cruise ships, oil tankers and container ships for the whole world. They had customers in the US, in Korea, in Japan, Russia, China, and so on. The shipyard went into what Americans call "chapter 11" somewhere in the early 1990s due to mismanagement, and then the regional government had to intervene in order to save those people's jobs, but it was to no avail. It went bankrupt either way a few years later, and the entire domain has in the meantime been sold and re-appropriated for housing, and more shops and industry.

A large part of the population of this town is now comprised of Muslim immigrants ─ primarily Moroccan and Turkish ─ because those are cultures where people have lots of children, compared to only two children on average for the typical Belgian couple, and meanwhile the town has been accepting many more immigrants and African refugees. So it's a culturally very diverse place, but it's still not a city.

I was born in this town ─ back when it still had a maternity ward, which has already no longer been the case since the early 1970s ─ but I was not raised here. I grew up in a small village about 10 km from here ─ ironically, that was a city in the middle ages, with an impressive castle (of which only one tower remains today) ─ which had its own shipyard, albeit only for building and repairing riverboats. That village too has changed a lot ever since then ─ apartment buildings everywhere, and a radical increase in the population ─ but it's still quite a different environment compared to this town here. I lived at that village until I was 17 years old, and then we moved to an adjacent village, which is one of the villages under the administration of the town where I live now.

I moved out of the house at the age of 22, and as my girlfriend ─ later fiancée and then ex-fiancée ─ was originally from this town here, we settled here. To be honest, I don't like it here. I would rather move to the coast ─ to the place where we used to spend our summer vacations with the family ─ but that takes lots of money, and I don't have those resources anymore.

At least here where I live now I'm still close enough to my brother ─ he lives about 8 km from here, in the same village as where we moved to when I was 17 ─ who is pretty much the only family member I've got left. Everyone else is either dead or has moved out of sight. We never were a tightly knitted family, or at least, not on account of those of us who are still alive. My mother's side of the family was very close and warm, and it was a large family too, because my grandmother had 10 siblings who virtually all had children ─ one of my maternal grandmother's brothers died in the trenches of World War I when he was still very young, and another one died in a fire ─ but my dad's side of the family was weird. Many intrigues there, and people not speaking to one another.

Anyway, I digress. ;)

[Chris]

No, it's not a city. It's a town with several annexed villages and a borough, and part of this town is an industrialized zone, while most of the town center is made up of shops, cafés and diners. It's an overcommercialized town, with very busy traffic. And the mayor is a narcissist who thinks that this town sits at the center of the universe.

There used to be a major shipyard here, which employed 1'300 people directly and some 2'000 more through contractors. They built ferry boats, cruise ships, oil tankers and container ships for the whole world. They had customers in the US, in Korea, in Japan, Russia, China, and so on. The shipyard went into what Americans call "chapter 11" somewhere in the early 1990s due to mismanagement, and then the regional government had to intervene in order to save those people's jobs, but it was to no avail. It went bankrupt either way a few years later, and the entire domain has in the meantime been sold and re-appropriated for housing, and more shops and industry.

A large part of the population of this town is now comprised of Muslim immigrants ─ primarily Moroccan and Turkish ─ because those are cultures where people have lots of children, compared to only two children on average for the typical Belgian couple, and meanwhile the town has been accepting many more immigrants and African refugees. So it's a culturally very diverse place, but it's still not a city.

I was born in this town ─ back when it still had a maternity ward, which has already no longer been the case since the early 1970s ─ but I was not raised here. I grew up in a small village about 10 km from here ─ ironically, that was a city in the middle ages, with an impressive castle (of which only one tower remains today) ─ which had its own shipyard, albeit only for building and repairing riverboats. That village too has changed a lot ever since then ─ apartment buildings everywhere, and a radical increase in the population ─ but it's still quite a different environment compared to this town here. I lived at that village until I was 17 years old, and then we moved to an adjacent village, which is one of the villages under the administration of the town where I live now.

I moved out of the house at the age of 22, and as my girlfriend ─ later fiancée and then ex-fiancée ─ was originally from this town here, we settled here. To be honest, I don't like it here. I would rather move to the coast ─ to the place where we used to spend our summer vacations with the family ─ but that takes lots of money, and I don't have those resources anymore.

At least here where I live now I'm still close enough to my brother ─ he lives about 8 km from here, in the same village as where we moved to when I was 17 ─ who is pretty much the only family member I've got left. Everyone else is either dead or has moved out of sight. We never were a tightly knitted family, or at least, not on account of those of us who are still alive. My mother's side of the family was very close and warm, and it was a large family too, because my grandmother had 10 siblings who virtually all had children ─ one of my maternal grandmother's brothers died in the trenches of World War I when he was still very young, and another one died in a fire ─ but my dad's side of the family was weird. Many intrigues there, and people not speaking to one another.

Anyway, I digress. ;)

Fun little fact:

In pre-war Hungary, upper-middle class families used to spend their summer vacations on the Belgian seaside. It sounds unlikely, but I've read it in several biographies, novels and accounts of the time. I cannot for the life of me figure out why though. Belgium has one of the shortest coastlines in Europe and is well-known for its cool, windy and rainy weather. The Yugoslavian and Italian coasts were a lot closer to Hungary and I daresay they had sunnier and warmer conditions. Maybe there were political reasons behind it. Nevertheless, I thought it was worth mentioning.

[Dreamtimer]

Thanks, Chris. I didn't really intend it to be accurate, rather just to touch on the subject with an image. We'd be freaking out if we had so many fires.

Max Igan spoke a great deal about water diversion in one video I watched. I don't know how much that is related to the fires.

[Emil El Zapato]

just families, Aragorn...my adopted dad lived within a single km of his parents and they never spoke for 15 years. Seems my bio family is the same...authoritarians shouldn't be allowed to have children...

[Chris]

Thanks, Chris. I didn't really intend it to be accurate, rather just to touch on the subject with an image. We'd be freaking out if we had so many fires.

Max Igan spoke a great deal about water diversion in one video I watched. I don't know how much that is related to the fires.

Oh, it absolutely is.

From what I understand, precipitation has been fairly normal lately, though admittedly, temperatures are significantly higher that the historical average.

The big issue in Australia seems to be water and land management.

Groundwater and deep underground reservoirs are being depleted, mostly by industry and mining. Coal mining in particular uses up a lot of water. They also grow cotton now, which is incredibly water intensive. The water management issues are broadly similar to what Texas has to deal with right now.

Depleting groundwater means that the ground and therefore the vegetation is dryer than usual, hence more bushfires.

The other issue, land management is a big one. Before the British arrived, Aboriginals managed the land through controlled burnings, done periodically. This was to avoid large, uncontrollable bushfires, like the ones we're seeing now. Unfortunately, this was banned by the British and lack of controlled burnings lead to the build-up of combustible fuel for bushfires, making them far worse, when they do eventually occur. Perhaps that will change now.

[Aragorn]

just families, Aragorn...my adopted dad lived within a single km of his parents and they never spoke for 15 years.

Well, that was also the case for my dad and his parents, but it was their choice to abandon him, after he had to bail them out because of the antics of his youngest brother. It's a convoluted story, and all those involved have in the meantime passed away. :noidea:

[Dreamtimer]

I enjoyed the final season of GOT. In particular, the end of Littlefinger's climb up the ladder. The setup at Winterfell where he falls victim to his own machinations is fantastic.

Sansa's finish is great as well. She ends up just where she should be and I think Sophie did a stellar job transforming from her innocent character at the start of the series to the leader she became at the end.

I also liked how the red priestess turned out to be just as used by her god of light as anyone, and we see behind the scenes what she really is/was.

John Snow did what he had to do and he was lucky he didn't get eaten or burned.

The resolution of leadership in King's Landing was contrived and not my favorite part.

I think Arya is my favorite character. She spars with Brienne of Tarth — great scene — and is there when the Night King reaches Winterfell.

I'm trying not to spoil...

[Emil El Zapato]

I still haven't seen it, DT...spoiler warning...I'm still pissed at Fred when he told me that the main bad guy in Walking Dead wasn't going to get snuffed...not even a little apology...

I'm just teasing you DT...you've been talking about it for awhile...

I try, emphasis try not to do that...If I think anyone will watch I don't give away anything important... :)

[Dreamtimer]

I hope I didn't spoil. But I did go for teasers.

[Dreamtimer]

This map shows how 'both sides' attempt to represent the country. I put it here because it's election year and Chaos is a Comin'! (I also think it's funny that one group of men is pink. Maybe real men do wear it;))

https://images.dailykos.com/images/754679/story_image/116thCongressMembersHexmap-GenderbyParty.png?1578525486

As the demographics of the country change, it's representation changes. It's important to keep up and not lag behind.

I'd rather have our faulty representation than nothing but corporate rule and non-disclosure agreements so that they can do whatever they want. (which they almost do anyway)

[Wind]

I went to see the new Joker movie, it sure was an interesting one.


http://youtu.be/wNyd7uuDjpM?t=457

[Emil El Zapato]

actually, I wondered if you did because I quit reading the post...so no harm no foul... :)


This map shows how 'both sides' attempt to represent the country. I put it here because it's election year and Chaos is a Comin'! (I also think it's funny that one group of men is pink. Maybe real men do wear it;))

https://images.dailykos.com/images/754679/story_image/116thCongressMembersHexmap-GenderbyParty.png?1578525486

As the demographics of the country change, it's representation changes. It's important to keep up and not lag behind.

I'd rather have our faulty representation than nothing but corporate rule and non-disclosure agreements so that they can do whatever they want. (which they almost do anyway)

that's an amazing graphic...wow...

[Dreamtimer]

I heard the producer(?) of Joker interviewed on Fresh Air. It sounds really interesting. Joaquim lost 50 pounds for the role. Word is, he could stand to lose 20, the rest was for the film.

[Emil El Zapato]

I saw this list of top 20 actors of all time...no mention of Joaquin...I was sold on his ability after seeing him in "The Gladiator". I thought he was so damn good in that movie...I felt that he was robbed that he didn't get a supporting actor Oscar.

[Wind]

I loved Gladiator, still do. Joaquin and Russell were perfect in their roles in that movie, it's a masterpiece. You just really despised Commodus, he seemed like such a douchebag and it was so satisfying to see Maximus get his revenge in the end. It's one of the few rare movies that always make me tear up in the end.


http://youtu.be/h8MtObh-wDo

http://youtu.be/WquIP0mDWLg

[Emil El Zapato]

yes, that was a great one...strange is it my seem the movie that got to me emotionally was the "Saving of Private Ryan"...wow...I was in shock after that movie

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OqSg7WO4tT4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IZgoufN99n8

When I realized that Brad Pitt was starring in "Troy" I was sorry that I had bought the ticket...I've been a solid fan of his since and despised that little bitch, Orlando Bloom... :)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_z5UKystdZg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tAtbzV8CTV0

[Wind]

Saving Private Ryan sure was a great one too... "Earn this". I'm not into patriotism though, but I can understand the sentiment. Troy is a movie that I still haven't seen, but I've been intending to watch it. I love epic movies like that, if only they're done well. In case you haven't seen the Kingdom of Heaven, that's a good one too. One of the last good historic epic movies that Hollywood has released, sadly. Just remember that the director's cut is the only real good version of the movie. It seems to be on Youtube (https://youtu.be/BG5G4rGh6oE) too.


http://youtu.be/qmjXim0lAto

[Aianawa]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IMgDuHfyfU&feature=youtu.be&fbclid=IwAR3HKJ39iKxfaqiKhIeLk2EahOS1ouabg5vLk5zuO JUzOJ-pSZVSV06yWFs

[Wind]

Noam Chomsky's interview about the recent events in Iran:
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-is-a-rogue-state-and-suleimanis-assassination-confirms-it/

[Emil El Zapato]

My dad was a WWII veteran and very patriotic...it reminded me of him...that's all... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Hi Wind,

yeah, I think I've seen it...Isn't that Clive Owen...if not I'll have to watch it...again...

[Wind]

Hi Wind,

yeah, I think I've seen it...Isn't that Clive Owen...if not I'll have to watch it...again...

Nope, actually it's Orlando Bloom in the main role.

[Emil El Zapato]

:) that explains why I haven't seen it...

[Emil El Zapato]

Noam Chomsky's interview about the recent events in Iran:
https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-us-is-a-rogue-state-and-suleimanis-assassination-confirms-it/

Agreed, but once again Trump's demonic allies are working for his favor. The 'accidental' shoot down of the Ukrainian airliner has turned the Iranian people against themselves. Trump once again falls out of the bucket of poopoo smelling like a rose. The only other figure in history that has survived that many near death experiences is Hitler.

[Emil El Zapato]

having read the article it is easy to see what side of the aisle (American term) is most complicit. This is the crux of my hegelian dialectic argument and by God, it is true and accurate.

[Wind]

You are being programmed. Do you realize it?


June 25, 2019 - Tristan Harris @ The Senate Commerce Committee. How technology companies use algorithms and machine learning to influence the public. Insight into companies, such as Google, Youtube, and Facebook.



http://youtu.be/WQMuxNiYoz4

[Wind]

NAP, I challenge you to watch this and after that you can tell if you still think that Russell is an idiot. ;)


http://youtu.be/F-OeKV1JZGI

[Emil El Zapato]

Hey DT, Let's talk Game of Thrones...I finally watched it and thought it was 'almost' breathtaking...really good acting it seemed to me. Having read the original 4 books my takeaway impression was, "Wow, this guy has no problem killing off his most significant characters"...Anyway, John ended up where he started, "The King's Guard in the North". His true love?

[Emil El Zapato]

Candace Owens can't speak against liberalism...This will probably sound biased but she lives in a white world and obviously wants to be white. She is representative of the greatest sin of the 'other'. She denies who and what she is. I despise people such as her.

[Emil El Zapato]

Well so far, I certainly agree with him...he should take a shower though... :)

omigod, 'victim mentality'. If I was there I would slap the bitch...I'll bet she has 0 friends...with the exception of Donald Trump, of course.

[Emil El Zapato]

she is still under control...she should be analyzed for personality disorders...if not, she is a stone cold bitch...everything she denies, her entire life is about 'her'. Her approach is, control my life and everything is good. And what is good for me is good for everyone. She would make an excellent dictator.

[Wind]

I can't really listen to people like her, the self-delusion is too strong combined with the lack of empathy. She seems to be the token black person for republicans and conservatives for that reason.

[Dreamtimer]

I will remain mute on Candace Owens.


I really enjoyed Game of Thrones, all the way to the end. It had its flaws, and it had its great parts.

The end was sort of compressed and left me wanting more, much like how the Wheel of Time series ended. There were a lot of characters and a lot of threads to tie up.


I really liked the scene where Littlefinger met his end.

I loved how Sansa was crowned in the end. She really played her character well.

I loved Arya's crazy adventures and her final encounter with the Night King. She really got to kick some ass in the movie.

Danaerys was one of those characters who is so good and yet ends up becoming bad. Jealousy is a killer.

The Red Woman did not see until the end how her god of light was using her. I loved how she disintegrated.

Cercei was an amazing character, played by an amazing actress. As hateful as she was, you loved to see her in a scene. So good. Her story really illustrated how what goes around comes around.


Many scenes in the show were like looking at art in motion. The colors and lighting. It was often just stunning.

And the costumes were wondrous and unique. It must be fun and crazy doing work like that.



I wonder if George will ever finish writing the series.

[Emil El Zapato]

George...good question... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

Anti-gravity: The key to ascension.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ugQArIkM8A

[Emil El Zapato]

This series centers around Operation Paperclip, biological weapons, and NASA. In the series they actually exterminate Werner Von Braun:

The Hunters:

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

[Dreamtimer]

I thought Daniel Jackson had the key to Ascension...;) (sorry, just watched some Stargate SG1)

Antigravity is very easy in dreams. Our perceptions as physical beings would make antigravity very difficult to navigate. I don't think it would be the same as floating. And there is so much in the way of micro-gravity and other forces. Anti gravity would have or maybe cause a lot of interference.

Not that I'm a physicist or anything...

[Aragorn]

I thought Daniel Jackson had the key to Ascension...;) (sorry, just watched some Stargate SG1)

Antigravity is very easy in dreams. Our perceptions as physical beings would make antigravity very difficult to navigate. I don't think it would be the same as floating. And there is so much in the way of micro-gravity and other forces. Anti gravity would have or maybe cause a lot of interference.

Not that I'm a physicist or anything...

From the vantage of actual physics, anti-gravity would literally consist of neutralizing the curvature of spacetime created by objects with mass. Or otherwise put, anti-gravity technology would be warping spacetime back into a shape similar and equivalent to what it would be like if the object with mass responsible for gravity were not present, because that's what gravity is: it's a warping of spacetime.

Furthermore, celestial bodies like asteroids, moons, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies and black holes are not just warping spacetime by way of gravity, but also by way of their rotation, which causes an effect called frame-dragging, which was predicted by Albert Einstein and proven to be factual by way of the data gathered by the two Gravity Probes that were sent up in the early 2000s, specifically so as to verify whether Einstein's predictions were correct. And they were. ;)

[Dreamtimer]

Do you think any kind of antigravity would work? I'm skeptical. I feel like it's as unlikely as trying to get my body to work without blood flow.

[Aragorn]

Do you think any kind of antigravity would work? I'm skeptical. I feel like it's as unlikely as trying to get my body to work without blood flow.

I do think that it's possible to bend spacetime, and therefore, to counter the effects of gravity. However I also think that humanity isn't quite there yet. There is yet a lot to be learned about the nature of spacetime, and the currently used calculations on account of what it would take to bend spacetime are all geared towards huge amounts of something of which we don't even know whether it exists or not, i.e. negative energy.

:noidea:

[Chris]

From the vantage of actual physics, anti-gravity would literally consist of neutralizing the curvature of spacetime created by objects with mass. Or otherwise put, anti-gravity technology would be warping spacetime back into a shape similar and equivalent to what it would be like if the object with mass responsible for gravity were not present, because that's what gravity is: it's a warping of spacetime.

Furthermore, celestial bodies like asteroids, moons, planets, stars, solar systems, galaxies and black holes are not just warping spacetime by way of gravity, but also by way of their rotation, which causes an effect called frame-dragging, which was predicted by Albert Einstein and proven to be factual by way of the data gathered by the two Gravity Probes that were sent up in the early 2000s, specifically so as to verify whether Einstein's predictions were correct. And they were. ;)

I think it's more complex than that. Haven't read any physics books lately, but if I recall, the gravitational effect is actually caused by graviton particles. Yes, the root cause of the emission of graviton particles is the bending of the fabric of spacetime, but the direct observable effects of gravity are the work of the graviton particles themselves. It is possible, at least theoretically, that there are anti-graviton particles, just as there is antimatter, hence if you could create anti-graviton emissions, the effect would be negative gravity.

[Dreamtimer]

...and some kind of anti-gravity explosion, or implosion. I doubt our ability to control such things.

[Aragorn]

Do you think any kind of antigravity would work? I'm skeptical. I feel like it's as unlikely as trying to get my body to work without blood flow.

I do think that it's possible to bend spacetime, and therefore, to counter the effects of gravity. However I also think that humanity isn't quite there yet. There is yet a lot to be learned about the nature of spacetime, and the currently used calculations on account of what it would take to bend spacetime are all geared towards huge amounts of something of which we don't even know whether it exists or not, i.e. negative energy.

:noidea:

I think it's more complex than that. Haven't read any physics books lately, but if I recall, the gravitational effect is actually caused by graviton particles. Yes, the root cause of the emission of graviton particles is the bending of the fabric of spacetime, but the direct observable effects of gravity are the work of the graviton particles themselves. It is possible, at least theoretically, that there are anti-graviton particles, just as there is antimatter, hence if you could create anti-graviton emissions, the effect would be negative gravity.

Actually, no, that's not really correct. The existence of the graviton is purely speculative, and was proposed by quantum physicists as a possible way of unifying Quantum Mechanics with Einstein's General Relativity. Both Quantum Mechanics and General Relativity do a perfect job of describing reality, but at the same time they are mutually incompatible, because Quantum Mechanics entails that space-time would be flat ─ as opposed to that it would be curved, as per Einstein's General Relativity.

But so far, no gravitons have ever been detected, whether directly or indirectly, and it isn't even certain what they would look like if they do exist. One possible train of thought was that the Higgs boson might have been one and the same thing as the graviton, and personally, I felt that the idea had some merit, but inasmuch I know, that idea seems to have been dropped again. :hmm:

Also, there are particles that are their own anti-particles, and therefore, that behave in the exact same manner either way. :) Like I said, there is yet a lot to be discovered in that field, and so I think we're still a long, long way from developing any kind of anti-gravity. But I do think it's possible.

[Chris]

I thought Daniel Jackson had the key to Ascension...;) (sorry, just watched some Stargate SG1)

Antigravity is very easy in dreams. Our perceptions as physical beings would make antigravity very difficult to navigate. I don't think it would be the same as floating. And there is so much in the way of micro-gravity and other forces. Anti gravity would have or maybe cause a lot of interference.

Not that I'm a physicist or anything...

I really love that show.

I'm convinced that some of it is based on fact and their depiction of ascended beings is crazily accurate.

[Wind]

I do think that it's possible to bend spacetime, and therefore, to counter the effects of gravity. However I also think that humanity isn't quite there yet. There is yet a lot to be learned about the nature of spacetime, and the currently used calculations on account of what it would take to bend spacetime are all geared towards huge amounts of something of which we don't even know whether it exists or not, i.e. negative energy.

I do wonder if humans actually have been able to reverse-engineer ET technology. Of course there is no way of confirming that.

I loved Stargate SG1 too, as cheesy as it may have been. Best opening theme ever! :)

[Chris]

I do wonder if humans actually have been able to reverse-engineer ET technology. Of course there is no way of confirming that.

I loved Stargate SG1 too, as cheesy as it may have been. Best opening theme ever! :)

Some of the Alex Jones crazy stuff may be less crazy than most people think. There is probably some sort of technology transfer going on between interdimensional entities and various human secret projects.

I forget the project's name, but apparently the Jodie Foster movie, Contact, is based on fact, particularly in terms of the actual shape of the device that is used in the movie.

[Emil El Zapato]

Well, cmon' people, we have to get it right, of course...if we intend to make the ascendance leap

[Dreamtimer]

Daniel had to believe in himself.

The ascended beings resembled the angelic Kosh from Babylon 5.

[Emil El Zapato]

For Whatever It's Worth:

Gravity waves have been detected:

"Gravitons are to gravitational waves the theoretical analogue of photons for electromagnetic waves. ... At the moment quantization of gravity can be accommodated in string theories, which are at the frontier of research for particle physics. The standard model involves only the three other forces , not the gravitational."

- somebody -

[Emil El Zapato]

I can't remember if I've posted this before but it is a movie filmed in my hometown...I actually played groupie with JoBeth Williams and Terry Kinney in a local bar during the filming: Me being me, I was giving 'the Preacher' a ration of poopoo regarding his status as an actor...he was very good natured about it.... :)

Murder Ordained:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C-db70Zf-5A

You should watch this, it is actually interesting...small town everybody knows everybody...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iKYunoL_q4w

During the filming I got a ticket by the state trooper that was Carradine's character...the movie was getting to this cop because he was a state trooper and he gave me a ticket on a side street in town.

[Wind]

Turkey's moronic dictator is trying to steer EU into crisis with migrants:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51707958?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cdl8n2edeplt/recep-tayyip-erdogan&link_location=live-reporting-story

Personally I have nothing against immigrants when immigration is done properly and sanely, but the EU can't just take millions of people suddenly. The 2015 wave already caused a lot of fighting amongst Europeans and it made racist right wing bigots gain more political power, even here in Finland. Humanitarian help is always a different case, but this kind of blackmailing is sickening. Meanwhile Turkey is bombing the shit out of the kurds and killing people in Syria. Worst nations on the planet at the moment are USA, China, Turkey and Russia. I'm just not sure of the order.

[Aragorn]

Turkey's moronic dictator is trying to steer EU into crisis with migrants:
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-51707958?intlink_from_url=https://www.bbc.com/news/topics/cdl8n2edeplt/recep-tayyip-erdogan&link_location=live-reporting-story

Personally I have nothing against immigrants when immigration is done properly and sanely, but the EU can't just take millions of people suddenly. The 2015 wave already caused a lot of fighting amongst Europeans and it made racist right wing bigots gain more political power, even here in Finland. Humanitarian help is always a different case, but this kind of blackmailing is sickening. Meanwhile Turkey is bombing the shit out of the kurds and killing people in Syria. Worst nations on the planet at the moment are USA, China, Turkey and Russia. I'm just not sure of the order.

I would include Saudi Arabia in that list, Brother. ;)

[Wind]

Oh, how did I forget that... The great ally of US. :fpalm:

[Aragorn]

Oh, how did I forget that... The great ally of US. :fpalm:

Well, I was specifically referring to their internal politics of Wahhabi Islam, despotism, Shariah and their almost non-existing women's rights. But if we're going to name allies of the US, then we might as well throw Israel into that mix as well. :hmm:

[Wind]

I know how bad the Saudi's are. Israeli's Zionist government is crap too.

[Wind]

"We tend to disempower ourselves. We tend to believe that we don’t matter. And in the act of taking that idea to ourselves we give everything away to somebody else, to something else.

Chaos is what we've lost touch with. This is why it is given a bad name. It is feared by the dominant archetype of our world, which is Ego, which clenches because its existence is defined in terms of control.

It's clearly a crisis of two things: of consciousness and conditioning. We have the technological power, the engineering skills to save our planet, to cure disease, to feed the hungry, to end war; But we lack the intellectual vision, the ability to change our minds. We must decondition ourselves from 10,000 years of bad behavior. And, it's not easy.

There’s light at the end of the tunnel. The problem is that tunnel is in the back of your mind. And if you don’t go to the back side of your mind you will never see the light at the end of the tunnel. And once you see it, then the task becomes to empower it in yourself and other people. Spread it as a reality. God did not retire to the seventh heaven, God is some kind of lost continent IN the human mind.

~ Terence McKenna

[Emil El Zapato]

nice...

[Dreamtimer]

The ring of truth. Nice to hear.

[Emil El Zapato]

Rick Scott is one of the top psychopaths in the United States...Columbia/HCA

Says Rick Scott "oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history."

truemostly-true

Rick Scott 'oversaw the largest Medicare fraud' in U.S. history, Florida Democratic Party says
First, Gov. Rick Scott scared the bejesus out of seniors with an online ad claiming that Medicare rate cuts would lead them to lose access to their doctors, hospitals and preventive care.

Then, the Florida Democratic Party fired back at Scott, issuing a press release that called Scott "the ultimate Medicare thief."

The Democrats were referring to Scott’s prior tenure as CEO of Columbia/HCA about a decade ago, when the hospital company was fined $1.7 billion for Medicare fraud.

"Rick Scott is saying Democrats are committing Medicare robbery, when in fact he's the ultimate Medicare thief. He lost the right to accuse Democrats of raiding Medicare when he oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation's history. Rick Scott's company stole money that should have gone to health care for seniors," said Florida Democratic Party spokesman Joshua Karp in the Feb. 25 press release.

Separately, we have fact-checked Scott’s claim "we are seeing dramatic rate cuts" to Medicare that will affect people's choice of doctor, hospital and preventive care. We concluded that Scott had failed to say that the rate cut only applies to Medicare Advantage, and thus only affects a fraction of all Medicare beneficiaries. Also, it could be several months before we know the actual impact of the cut which could vary county by county. We rated Scott's claim Mostly False.

Here, we’ll fact-check the Democratic counter-attack that Scott "oversaw the largest Medicare fraud in the nation’s history."

Scott’s tenure at Columbia/HCA

During Scott’s 2010 race for governor, PolitiFact fact-checked multiple claims related to his tenure at Columbia/HCA. Now, we’ll recap some of our earlier discussion of the investigation and fine.

Scott started what was first Columbia in 1987, purchasing two El Paso, Texas, hospitals. Over the next decade he would add hundreds of hospitals, surgery centers and home health locations. In 1994, Scott’s Columbia purchased Tennessee-headquartered HCA and its 100 hospitals, and merged the companies.

In 1997, federal agents went public with an investigation into the company, first seizing records from four El Paso-area hospitals and then expanding across the country. The investigation focused on whether Columbia/HCA had committed Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

Scott resigned as CEO in July 1997, less than four months after the inquiry became public. Company executives said had Scott remained CEO, the entire chain could have been in jeopardy.

During his 2010 race, the Miami Herald reported that Scott had said he would have immediately stopped his company from committing fraud -- if only "somebody told me something was wrong." But there were such warnings in the company’s annual public reports to stockholders -- which Scott had to sign as president and CEO.

Scott wanted to fight the accusations, but the corporate board of the publicly traded company wanted to settle.

In December 2000, the U.S. Justice Department announced that Columbia/HCA agreed to pay $840 million in criminal fines, civil damages and penalties.

Among the revelations from the 2000 settlement:

• Columbia billed Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal programs for tests that were not necessary or had not been ordered by physicians;

[Emil El Zapato]

I bought a Chinese fake pair of Armani sneakers a few years ago...30 bucks, 30 bucks for shipping. They were great for about a month at which time they disintegrated. It was fun while they lasted.

What actually surprised me was that they passed through the U.S. postal system without a sideward glance?! I dunno...

[Emil El Zapato]

Hey DT,

These are my San diego cousins (I don't know any of them)

Janae Krull, Carolyn Jensen, Jessica Y, RM, Christian Perez, Mayrethe Lim, K Thonnesen, Kemberly Wuerful...Any bells ringing? :)

[Dreamtimer]

No bells, NAP.

The folks I know tend to be people who came over from Tucson.

[Amanda]

The following video overlaps a few topics - I was crying. I so want this video to be based on fact. Should the video need to go elsewhere - as in another thread ....



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


Much Respect - Amanda

[Dreamtimer]

Has anyone ever read Isaac Asimov's Robots of Dawn series? It remains my favorite of the fantasy/sci fi series I've read, with perhaps Jordan's Wheel of Time being on par for me in terms of enjoyment.

There are many planets were people live and on some of them the humans live alone and solitary, with their humanoid robots as companions. They will not meet each other in person, they wear nose filters and are intensely wary of encountering germs from another human.

I think of that now.

[Emil El Zapato]

if I have I must have forgotten...it goes on my reading list... :)

[Dreamtimer]

I am an autodidact. Which means I have taught myself many things. Over the last year I have taught myself, with the help of youtube videos, a number of needlework techniques including blackwork, whitework, stumpwork, shadow work, needle weaving, and more.

I have also educated myself about many things over the years having only achieved an undergraduate degree.

One of the things I have learned is that the more you know, the more you realize you don't know.

I am very cautious of others who seem to think they know everything. Being an autodidact requires a great deal of humility and understanding that there are many things which need deep exploration as well as consultation with others who have studied even more.

There are a lot of know-it-alls out there who think they can just dismiss things out of hand when they truly don't know what they themselves are talking about. And their minds are closed.

A closed mind leads to dangerous forms of ignorance.

We need way more open minds in my country, imo.

[Emil El Zapato]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIjDB31KfsM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Feh8Eqh4nWU

[Wind]

What thoughts might arise from seeing this?

Selfishness with the human race isn't just a problem, it's a deep sickness of the ego.

If Jesus were to see modern America, he would probably ask where is the real Christianity.


http://youtu.be/bpAi70WWBlw

[Aragorn]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yIjDB31KfsM


I saw that movie, a long time ago ─ twice, I think. It's an awesome thriller. ;)

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, truly...I own the movie...one of the very few.

[Emil El Zapato]

Seattle, people just don't care...it started with Reagan...many people Sainted him for his efforts...just a stark example of how morally bereft many Americans are...humanity can't do better than this?

[Dreamtimer]

The promise was that alternatives would be found/created for those put out of institutions.

It was never followed through on by those who made the promises. Empty promises they were.

[Emil El Zapato]

I watched 3 episodes of Picard last night...strangely the theme music is exhilarating.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=30&v=VBF_7bMlqNk&feature=emb_logo

[Dreamtimer]

Were they good? I haven't seen any of it.

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, very good, not great yet, but the series' I have been watching lately just keep getting better as they go...steady as she goes...

[Dreamtimer]

Fortitude, huh? I'll look into it.

[Emil El Zapato]

Not really a spoiler alert:


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

[Dreamtimer]

"Everybody's happy here."

Famous last words.

The cast looks fantastic.

[Dreamtimer]

It's been warm recently in Ireland. We were supposed to have been there over the last week and a half. Sigh.

We will go later in the year if things don't fall apart.

[Dreamtimer]

I'm posting this thought here because it's kind of general and related to the general chaos which abounds.

In my opinion, if someone is clinging to an idea because others are denying it, that is a very weak position. It's child-like. "Nanny nanny boo boo, what bounces off me sticks to you." Like kids in a playground.

I have often 'rejected' things that were popular, simply because they were popular. And the end result was that I missed out on some cool things as a result of a position which had no substance.

I learned from my own mistakes.

[Emil El Zapato]

yeah, part of the maturing process...my daughter is still struggling with that, but she will move beyond it...I can tell... :)

[Emil El Zapato]

I saw an update of my DNA test results from 23andMe. I went from a low percentile of testers to a high percentile...nearly the top. One of the interesting things about the 'variants' they mapped is that they were nearly all traits which I don't possess with the exception of one. The tendency to hold on to things that I never use. I found this kind of funny and probably coincidental. I'm no packrat by any stretch but I can't bear to let go of things that still have potential value, maybe somehow, somewhere. This was reinforced by my daughter because she would not use things for months, if not years but invariably within a week of my getting rid of something she would start asking for it because she needed it. Off to the store I would run to get a replacement. I sort of decided to stop doing that for her stuff along with my stuff. It really tugged at my heartstrings to give away all the stuffed toys I bought her as she was growing up. Her mom would give me hell (even after we were divorced) for buying her those toys all the time. Talk about synchronicity, one day I was out for a jog and came across a stuffed horse, perfectly good, laying on the sidewalk. Of course, I kept it and later gave it to her. She asked me where I got it and I told her that God had given it to her...And her mother bitched... :)