7/10 Open Thread: So What's Your Poison?


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1961. Methyl bromide warning sign. Seattle European pine shoot moth fumigation project. Vuecrest Tract, Bellevue, Washington.

Date Stuff: 7/10/1913

The temperature in Death Valley, California, hit 134 °F, allegdly the highest temperature ever to be recorded on Earth.This is kind of true, within "normal parameters". The temperature of mud pots, fumaroles and even lava flows have been measured, and those temperatures were higher. The Death VAlley record, however, is the highest non-tectonic, non-volanic and non-geothermal temperature evah. We can be pretty damn crtain that it will be eclipsed n the relatively near future, however, but don't watch this space for updates.

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Camille Pissaro, Nikola Tesla, Marcel proust, Carl Orff, Blind Boy Fuller, David Brinkley, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, Mavis Staples, Arlo Guthrie, and Imelda May were all born on 7/10.
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The Emperor Hadiran died. He will be forever remembered as the stupid jackass who built a wall across the north of England, much as Trump is striving to go down in history as the stupid jackass who built a wall across the southwestern US.
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The original basis for this is a couple of e-mails I received from the Pesticide Action Network, more commonly known as PAN, but located on the interwebs at WWW.PANNA.org . The communications in question were somewhat repetitive. The gist of them is as follows:
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There was a time when the US appeared to lead the world in concern for environmental poisons and the elimination thereof. That day is long past. Instead over 25% of the agricultural pesticides used in the U.S. have already been banned elsewhere. Furthermore:

There are 72 chemicals still being used on U.S. farms that European officials have found too toxic to have on the market. Seventeen pesticides still used here have been banned in Brazil, and 11 have been banned in China.

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There is a lot more information available at the following web page: http://www.panna.org/blog/usa-lags-behind-other-countries-banning-harmfu...
It is a short easy read, and people should take the time to read it. One thing of note is that, according to the author,

The United States utilizes voluntary, industry-initiated cancellation as the primary method of prohibiting pesticides, which differs significantly from the non-voluntary, regulator-initiated cancellations that predominate in the EU, Brazil and China.

The author leaves it at that and stops short of diving into the subject of "regulatory capture". Other than mentioning it, I shall do likewise.
We really should add this to the pile of stuff that we should be taking action on, because, to quote one of today's birthday celebrants:

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Image is a methyl bromide warning sign.

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Its an open thread so have at it. The floor is yours
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mimi's picture

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enhydra lutris's picture

@mimi
indeed crazy making, especially for those of us who get a lot of our "news" via the electronic versions of newspapers and newsmags, blogs, and the like. It is like a poison, sickening one in ever repeated small doses, and the only known cure is abstention, but I think I'm a bit of an addict.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

mimi's picture

(updated and edited)
The folks over there have banned me in a way that I can't do proper searches. I also want to know what happened to Sara R, if she is in good health. I just found her wonderful quilt she made for me in one of my boxes that haven't been unpacked since five years. There are some people over there that I sometimes still think about and would like to know what happened to them.

I mean the feud over there with people over here is so ridiculously enfuriating childish serious. Yeah, help make America gross great again, I guess.

Sigh.

[video:https://youtu.be/7cqHtGb9WYM]

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@mimi good morning, Neeta Lind is on kos' payroll. right on
https://twitter.com/NeetaLind
You can try putting the username in his vanity URL, like this:
https://www.dailykos.com/user/Neeta Lind
https://www.dailykos.com/user/Sara R
My profile is at .../user/eyo with "1101 days since last comment" lol. right on

PEACE

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lotlizard's picture

@mimi  
https://www.dailykos.com/user/Sara%20R/comments

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enhydra lutris's picture

@mimi
selective and unidirectional. There are topics and ideas that are officially off limits there, end of story. It is officially and explicitly a propaganda site. One can have non-political or apolitical discussions and interactions, but one has to always be aware of all of the lines one cannot cross and things one cannot say, which is stultifying.

During the 2016 primary era, and for some time thereafter, Kos permitted enforcement of his poorly expressed rules to be taken over by roving mobs of censors looking for the slightest hint of incipient heresy, who would attack any poster of such with vindictive attacks on the posters intelligence, rationality, veracity, morals and ethics and wantonly throw slanders about racisim and sexism. Almost all of those folks are still there and, afaik, still act in that fashion, though a bit more circumspectly now.

The end result is that it is impossible to conduct an intelligent, rational discussion of a great many things there. It is like being in a small community exhibiting all of the worst excesses of all of the most repressive narrow-minded churches and ideologies in history. It is fine for swapping recipes or non-controversial information about scientific or similar information, but that is about it. I seriously doubt that it is capable of being converted to a venue for free and open discussion, such as c99p is, even if Kos were to suddenly have some sort of epiphany and try to bring that about. It has developed a culture of ideological repression that is a simple reflex on the part of far too many of its members.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

skod's picture

@enhydra lutris

we could consider the ancient wisdom:

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends upon his not understanding it" - Upton Sinclair

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mimi's picture

@enhydra lutris @enhydra lutris
I simply was sad, angry and out of my mind with my comment. I just had a nostalgic moment thinking about some people, who I remember well over there from the very early years.

I am simply sad, can't you understand? The early years were good at dailykos. It became awful and I remember who was responsible for it. The rest I have forgotten and don't regret it one bit.

The world changed a lot, I changed a lot, dailykos changed at lot, compared to 2004.

If I hadn't have to return to Germany, I would not be so disgusted about a lot of things. But I am here and it has a huge emotional burden on me. I miss the US, especially from pre 9/11 days. I just can't believe what I went through between 1982 to 2005.

My son would say I should not look back. So, on we go, towards ... a new president, who does not have a twitter account.

May be Markos runs for an office and fails. That would be the day. Wink

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how our childhood cancer rates compare to those of the countries that have banned these poisons.
Our childhood cancer diagnosis per year for ages 0-19 is 15,270.
Leukemia is 29% of those
Brain and Central Nervous System cancers - 26%
National Cancer Institute (2017)

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enhydra lutris's picture

@randtntx
look at all aspects of health, birth weights, the average age of puberty, average fertility of adults, etc. I personally think that we are too focused on cancer, that if we started seeing large numbers of persons born with missing limbs our medical and epidemiological professionals would simply note the lack of cancers and move on.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

@enhydra lutris these chemicals have a whole range of effects not just cancer. We know these chemicals are awash in our newborns. "A study of blood from the umbilical cords of newborns found their blood tainted with traces of nearly three hundred synthetic chemicals".

Many of these pollutants have been found to be toxic, to cause or contribute to what is increasingly understood as an epidemic of serious chronic childhood illnesses. Among environmentally linked health problems are birth defects, several forms of cancer, asthma, and a range of neurological illnesses that include lower IQs, learning disabilities, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, and autism. The rising incidence of reproductive problems, including infertility and miscarriages, are also understood by many scientists and physicians to have environmental roots.
from Poisoned Profits: the toxic assault on our children by Philip Shabecoff and Alice Shabecoff
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Posted: Jul 8, 2019 / 08:45 PM PDT / Updated: Jul 8, 2019 / 08:45 PM PDT

SAN FRANCISCO (KRON) – There’s a plan in the works to drop 1.5 tons of poison pellets on the Farallon Islands — A move aimed at eliminating a rodent invasion.

Critics are sounding off against the government proposal saying it puts many others species at risk, like seagulls, seals and even humans.

For hundreds of years, mice have called the Farallon Islands home and the invasion population of rodents there is now extreme.

Today is the day to speak up or forever stfu I guess. highway to hell

“The only proving method in 100s of these rodent eradications cases around the world the use of rodenticide done safely effectively with minimal impact on the species you are not targeting,” Doug Cordell, with U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said.

The Fish and Wildlife report said “it is unavoidable” that other species like seagulls, about 1,700 of them, would probably die after eating the poisoned rodents which is what critics of the poison plan are concerned about, the impact of other animals dying, the long-term impacts on water quality and the poison moving up the food chain.

This plan is not a done deal, there is still a hearing with the California Coastal Commission coming up this Wednesday.

https://www.coastal.ca.gov/meetings/mtgdates.html

JULY 10-12, 2019
Embassy Suites Hotel
333 Madonna Road
San Luis Obispo, CA 93405

"We're America's coming attraction"
exponentialshortcoming.jpg
"The future happens here first"
epidemicstupidity.jpg
PEACE

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enhydra lutris's picture

@eyo
Point Reyes Bird Observatory has long-running studies out there, as in over 50 years - it is the largest sea bird breeding colony in the continental US and plays a major role in the rest of the marine ecosystem and food web. Meanwhile, the USFWS loves to run around poisoning wildlife, mice, rats, coyotes, wolves, prairie dogs, you name it. Ecocide R Us, your tax dollars at work.

Thanks for dropping by.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

dystopian's picture

@eyo I agree the guv poison and killing programs for coyotes and such (wolves, grizzlies) is out of bounds and control. It is merely doing sagebrush rebellion ranchers bidding for them. Rodent removal on seabird nesting islands is not comparable.

This following sentence in the quote doesn't make sense:

For hundreds of years, mice have called the Farallon Islands home and the invasion population of rodents there is now extreme.

An invasion population is generally non-native, how can a population that has been there hundreds of years be an invasion population? I think might be a native sps., but the problem is from non-native invader?

Rodents, generally introduced rats, but others like mice have been one of seabird breeding colonies greatest problems. All over the world it remains one of seabird's biggest problems. Cats, rats, goats, pigs, etc., all are everywhere man went, of curse, pun intended, and have wiped out many birds, including seabird nesting colonies, all over the world. There are many success stories of birds being found on an offshore islet or stack that the rats didn't get to, and that being all that ended up saving the species (Bermuda Petrel). Removing (usually non-native) cats, rats, mice, some places it is mongoose, is critical to saving many species.

In socal at the Channel Isls., Anacapa Island has had great success with their seabird nesting since removing the rats. They were wiping everything out. To me the native species have priority. They are the part of the ecosystem that belongs there. The introduced non-natives are invariably invasive (see kudzu, fire ants, etc.) pests if not outright disasters. We screwed it up by bringing a pest into the ecosystem, we should remove it to restore the balance of nature.

Several groups fought the removal at Anacapa Isl. of non-native rats that are decimating native animal populations because rats I suppose are cuter than Cassin's Auklets or Xantus's (now Scrips's) Murrelets. The Anacapa project was aerial dropping of rodenticide. It worked. As it has on many islands. Save the rats means kill the birds where nesting colonies on islands.

Note at the Pribilofs in Alaska another great seabird colony site, it was all hands on deck when ONE rat was seen. Thankfully it was later found dead. That bullet appears dodged.

The Farallons are awesome, I have been to them twice. I was a guide around the socal channel islands for many years. Glad to see the rats go!

https://www.islandconservation.org/

soemthing here about the Anacapa rat removal...
https://www.nps.gov/chis/index.htm

https://www.nps.gov/chis/learn/news/anacapa-island-recovery.htm

https://www.latimes.com/local/la-xpm-2013-mar-07-la-me-0308-rats-anacapa...

https://www.islandconservation.org/anacapa/
===
http://www.issg.org/pdf/publications/Island_Invasives/pdfHQprint/1Witmer...

a snippet

Introduction
Introduced rodents pose a serious threat to the native flora and fauna of islands (Moors and Atkinson 1984; Veitch and Clout 2002; Engeman et al. 2006). Rodents can be prolific on islands where they have few or no predators. Their omnivorous foraging has led to the endangerment or extinction of numerous island species (Moors and Atkinson 1984; Witmer et al. 1998; Veitch and Clout 2002; Engeman et al. 2006,). Most seabirds that nest on islands have not evolved to deal with mammalian predators and are very vulnerable to introduced rodents and other species introductions. There has been a concerted worldwide effort to eradicate introduced rodents from islands with numerous successes (Howald et al. 2007). These efforts have relied heavily on the use of rodenticides (Howald et al. 2007; Witmer et al. 2007c). In this paper, we review the strategies and methods used and success with rodent eradications from islands in the USA.
We also provide the first comprehensive list of attempted eradications.

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We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein

@dystopian right on and thanks for those links, I will read more tomorrow. It is late for me but I wanted to post this in today's thread. Dumping a ton of rodenticide in the Pacific food chain doesn't seem so smart right now, if ever. I don't know.

Searching for Balance in an Underwater World Gone Upside Down

For many locals in our Northern California community, reading that we are in the midst of a devastating imbalance within our Pacific coastal intertidal zones will not come as a surprise. This is due to a chain of events spanning almost 200 years. This story is one of ripples, spreading ever outward: one imbalance leads to another, and another.

To learn the history of Fort Ross is to know the plight of the sea otter and to understand how the effects of our human practices can have long term, sometimes catastrophic results. The Sonoma Coast has had a regional extinction or extirpation of sea otters for the last 100+ years, since the Russian, American, and British over hunted the animals. These furs were so valuable that a hunter could earn a year’s salary with just one pelt.

The sea otter is an apex predator. It consumes 20 to 30 percent of its body weight daily, helping to keep other species under control. The sea otter has been gone from the Sonoma Coast for over 100 years, but it was a series of subsequent events that caused our ecosystem to crash.
...

“When we try to pick out anything by itself, we find it hitched to everything else in the Universe.” -- John Muir

good luck

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Shahryar's picture

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/452414-poll-biden-leads-2020-democ...

Economist/YouGov poll has him 4th now, behind Biden, Warren and Harris. I'm not happy about people moving from Bernie to Warren. I dislike her and doubt that she can win. Should she get the nomination it'll be 4 more years of Trump and 4 more years of some people reading the results wrong, i.e. crying sexism (instead of saying "hey, we nominated a Republican. Maybe that was a mistake").

It kinda makes me not have faith in the American electorate.

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Lookout's picture

..is used as a soil sterilizer. They used it in the tobacco beds before planting seed. They would put plastic over the bed and set off a can of CH3Br underneath to kill soil born pathogens (and everything else). Nasty stuff.

As you suggested the US was the leader in environmental regulations but now is one of the most permissive countries. Giant steps backwards in so many regards. They want to make the world 1950 again.

Have a good one y'all.

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“Until justice rolls down like water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Lily O Lady's picture

@Lookout

is breaking over what humankind has done.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

enhydra lutris's picture

@Lookout strawberries and elementary schools. Horrible safety practices continued unabated for years, even after it was being "phased out" with all of the usual exceptions.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Anja Geitz's picture

And yet, here we are with Big Ag mercenaries hellbent on poisoning our food supply and our government civil servants with their hands out collecting funds for their election war chests.

Ugh. What a world we live in. Sad

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There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier

enhydra lutris's picture

@Anja Geitz

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

et al

Right here in River City... Ouch, just ouch from May 2018

California leads the country in pesticide spray bans, now how about chlorpyrifos?

Last month, California implemented a ban on spraying pesticides within a quarter mile of schools and daycares between 6 a.m. and 6 p.m. on weekdays. While this ban is among the toughest such bans in the nation, county governments and school districts are pushing forward with their own tougher restrictions on when and what is sprayed. And it’s about time, as the top ten pesticides used near our schools in South Santa Cruz County and Monterey County harbor four carcinogens, six toxic air contaminants, and three reproductive and developmental toxins.

Chlorpyrifos is among these, a neurotoxin known to cause brain damage in children and complications for pregnant mothers. The EPA under Scott Pruitt has reversed its ban citing insufficient evidence of deleterious effects, and California is frustratingly slow to commit to a total ban even under the weight of documented damage to those in and around our fields. The world is watching our country, our country is watching California, and our state may soon heel to the public health and safety of those most vulnerable in agricultural counties.

As a Watsonville High School teacher, many of my students attend Pajaro Middle School, which in 2014 ranked second in Monterey County for pounds of pesticides applied within a quarter mile of school, at an incredible 23,706 pounds. The brain and nervous system of children and while in utero are especially vulnerable and they can develop brain abnormalities and learning disabilities, as well as asthma.

At Ohlone Elementary, another feeder school for WHS, from 2010 to 2016 their air monitor measured levels of a carcinogenic fumigant above CAL- EPA’s safety levels- six years of toxic exposure. ...

https://www.thecalifornian.com/story/opinion/2018/05/17/opinion-how-bann...
edit

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma
and thereabouts gets a real beating. The UFW is constantly communicating the latest excessses and grief from down there and, of curse, about Chlorpyrifos too.

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

magiamma's picture

@enhydra lutris
or worse...

strawberry fields forever. sigh.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

Hot Air Website, Twitter, Facebook

@magiamma thanks for posting that, I would not have known otherwise. I wonder if we foul our own nest on purpose. We must be poisoning our own kids on purpose, we know these are dangerous chemicals....so I don't get it. The rest of the world must think we are crazy.

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magiamma's picture

Thought I'd drop this here

https://wiseucsc.wixsite.com/wise/science-on-tap

"The Dead Do Tell Tales" - July 31st
Francesca Batac
CA Dept. of Fish and Wildlife - Office of Spill Prevention and Response

With Southern sea otters (Enhydra lutris nereis) being a federal and state-listed threatened species, it is vital to apply expanding knowledge, testing, and analytical techniques to help clarify the dynamic processes influencing their survival. Fifteen years of systematic necropsy, including 560 animals, extensive systematic diagnostic testing, and comprehensive epidemiological analyses were reviewed to investigate Southern sea otter mortality patterns. In this talk, I will discuss the leading causes of death and its relevance to the sea otter population. I will conclude with a discussion about sea otter gastric ulcers and its possible association with Helicobacter enhydrae, which is related to other bacterial species known to cause gastric ulcers in humans and other animals.

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Stop Climate Change Silence - Start the Conversation

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enhydra lutris's picture

@magiamma

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

thanatokephaloides's picture

The Emperor Hadrian died. He will be forever remembered as the stupid jackass who built a wall across the north of England, much as Trump is striving to go down in history as the stupid jackass who built a wall across the southwestern US.

spelling corrected

Hadrian was no "stupid jackass". The proto-Scots really were a threat to Roman civilization in Britain, unlike the situation which prevails today under Trump which is essentially pure racism. Today's immigrants are no existential threat to us. On the other hand, the proto-Scots really did want all invaders from mainland Europe out of all of Britain, Roman and Sasenach (Anglo-Saxon) alike.

I like to tweak certain medievalists' noses by reminding them that if King Arthur were really to return from the dead as the legends suggest, the first thing he'd do is send all the English back to Saxony! Biggrin

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

Shahryar's picture

@thanatokephaloides

The "Germans" came in from the East and drove a wedge through Britain, with some of the inhabitants being forced into Scotland, some into Wales. Arthur was NOT an English king.

[insert discussion of the historical Arthur or non-historical in this spot]

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thanatokephaloides's picture

@Shahryar

Arthur was NOT an English king.

Or even an English "kniggit"! Biggrin

[video:https://youtu.be/-OzIMHowtL8]

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"US govt/military = bad. Russian govt/military = bad. Any politician wanting power = bad. Anyone wielding power = bad." --Shahryar

"All power corrupts absolutely!" -- thanatokephaloides

@thanatokephaloides I never caught that before, that is now a new word for me. This is one of my favorite Monty Python scenes, well, one of my many favorites. A college roommate and I would always throw Monty Python phrases around, this scene had one of our most used phrase. Very juvenile of us...but fun.
We need another Monty Python troupe of jesters. The times we live in are rich with possibilities for those that can ridicule.

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Deja's picture

@thanatokephaloides
I always thought he'd have been perfectly happy to take over "those people" too, but "those people" were batshit crazy dangerous and he wanted to keep the crazy fuckers the hell away from him and his -- even if it wasn't his except that he stole it with force. I always laughed at the wall for that reason. Poor Hadrian couldn't conquer everyone. Mwahahahaa!

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enhydra lutris's picture

@thanatokephaloides

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

enhydra lutris's picture

@thanatokephaloides
England for 370 years, and then bailed and fled. The Scots (Stuarts) ruled all of it for about 110 years, and stayed, though sometimes unwillingly. The Roman legacy is some oft weird common law and assorted Latin place names. The Scottish legacy is a pretty fair imitation of the Irish uisce beatha, da kine mo bettah, IMO

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --

Shahryar's picture

@enhydra lutris

after 370 years of the Romans hiring foreign mercenaries to do their dirty work "Vortigern" says "great idea! what could go wrong with that?"

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enhydra lutris's picture

@Shahryar

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That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --