Saturday Open Thread - 9/21/24: Odds and Ends

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 7:00am

Good morning, friends!

P Diddy is in trouble. I know we are all sad. amirite?

Ditch your pagers and walkie talkies, but cell phones are fine. Israel loves us. Until we protest.

Last week, I managed to get 2 kids safely returned to their parents after being more or less abducted.

Well, the 2 cases I will file on Monday are taking away 2 kids from parents. The Bad Parents both have sons at or near puberty, and easy access to the internet. The Bad Parents both have little pre-school age daughters. Half-siblings, both cases. Both little girls have made viable outcries to the police and Child Protective Services the older boys are actually sexually assaulting the little girls.

Both Bad Parents are protecting their sons, favoring them over their little girls.

Now, I am not a parent. But I am a woman, I was a little girl. I was as sickly and vulnerable as it gets. I am glad there were no half-brothers, and I am glad my parents were never in this situation. I can't imagine what they would do. But I am confident it would have been really ugly for the perp.

39 years of law practice, only had this had this situation once, and now I have 2 all at once. WTF?

Maybe we should keep our kids from cell phones and so forth, under the pretense they might explode, instead of they might make porn readily available.

And then, for fun, a video that's been around for 13 years, more or less.

Thoughts?

Well, for that matter, thoughts about anything, since this is an open thread.

Let 'er rip!

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Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 1:10am

Happy Saturday, good people!

I hope everyone has a pleasant weekend planned, and that WWIII won't spoil your plans!
What's on your radar?
Please share!

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Lookout on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 8:18am

Good morning...

Our weather has been comfortable with 60F AMs, but we're still dry.
All I bought at Trade day was lemons. Kinda thin this morning, but I got the recycling done and went to the grocery. Gas is down to $2.70/gal
Headed to FT Payne today to listen to some friends perform with their family band this afternoon.
I hope everyone is having a nice weekend. Thanks for the OT!

—

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

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 11:23am

Good morning, Lo!

@Lookout We are still hot here. More rain this year than average, but it doesn't cool things down much. It still looks like summer.
At least my new a/c works like a charm.
Gas prices here in town are $2.70, but in a nearby town with an interstate running through it, gas is $2.40.
We can barely get into town today. The main street is closed for the annual fair and rodeo parade. Business will pick up a bit. For the 3 nights of the rodeo, lots of drug deals will be made, lots of arrests. I can't understand why families are so eager to take their kids to the event. There are many safer such events in nearby towns with more security officers present.
I have to wait until late this afternoon to get to my office to pick up my mail, or have yet another argument with a traffic cop.
The afternoon of music sounds wonderful! Have a great time, dear friend!

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 8:37am

I really dig Kamala Harris' slogan

"Unburdened by what has been..."

The problem, of course, is that Harris is herself a pure product of what has been, being herself a diversity hire who rose through the ranks of the unDemocratic Party through what were basically appointments. She will have to face up to what has been (which is to say, Biden's epically bad foreign policies) once she gets into the White House. Her "promises," such as they are, are all pretty much retractable and opaque. I love, for instance the "up to $25,000 tax credit for first time homebuyers," a promise that is met if all of the first time homebuyers get $1.

I have to agree with Patrick Lawrence:

Emmanuel Todd, the celebrated French historian (The Defeat of the West, 2024; After the Empire: The Breakdown of the American Order, 2006), argues that we now live amid “an anthropological rupture.” Humanity—humanity in the Western post-democracies, Todd means—has altogether lost its way. We are living through a civilizational collapse, in Toynbee’s terms. Those purporting to lead us are unserious people. A world-historical disorder defines us, for their capacity and ours for rational thought and action, to say nothing of moral principle and empathy, has comprehensively lapsed.

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"The only thing more dangerous than the 3 decade old right-wing agenda repackaged as (Project) 2025 is the illusion that the Democrats can protect you from it." - Richard Moser

Submitted by QMS on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 9:28am

Ha, that's funny

@Cassiodorus
.
wonder how she plans to
unburden what has been?
Erase history or ignore the
consequences of bad management?

IOW, please don't bring up our failures
as we prefer to be unburdened
because of some fuzzy future.

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truth is considered foreign influence, world peace is a threat to national security

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 12:23pm

She is perfect for speaking in double speak!

@QMS She is very hemmed in. She can't admit mistakes were made by her boss or her party, so her campaign slogans must necessarily be gibberish. For that, she is absolutely perfect, although her husband has come out and blamed Biden for fuck ups in some recent tv interview.
Interesting times, my friend!

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 11:43am

Lawrence has it right.

@Cassiodorus Civilization is deteriorating, fairly rapidly, imho. Education is the antithesis of actual education. Violence and intolerance is on the rise throughout western civilization. Democracy is defined one way, put into practice another way. Work produces wealth for everyone but the laborers. The historical and cultural identity of a nation may clash with the historical and cultural identity of a migrant, and clashes occur, and should have been expected.
Oh, well, elected officials with stocks in Boeing and Raytheon, whatever it's new name is, are making good bank. Nice gig, if you can get it.
This upcoming historic election will change things! I kid...
Enjoy your weekend, friend.

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by earthling1 on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 9:54am

I know it will sound diabolical

But what if they are pushing Kamala into power so she takes the blame for the coming collapse of America?
The ultimate patsy. Evil bastards are like that.
Thanks for hosting today.

—

Neither Russia nor China is our enemy.
Neither Iran nor Venezuela are threatening America.
Cuba is a dead horse, stop beating it.

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 11:48am

That has crossed my mind more than once.

@earthling1 Her fault for Ukraine losing. Her fault for the looming economic crash. Her fault for us getting us into an ass kicking war with Iran. I could go on and on. She is hated, is not respected anywhere in the world, regarded as an idiot, so vote her in so it will be all her fault!
No matter what happens in this upcoming election, we are so very fucked.
Just keep your family and friends close by.
Any you are one of those, friend.

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Cassiodorus on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 3:04pm

It's like I said earlier

@earthling1 The next President, whomever that happens to be, will have to deal with the results of Team Biden foreign policy. They can say anything they want now. Eventually the Reality Principle will assert itself within their minds.

I cannot read minds. But my guess is that the Reality Principle grows stronger for the elites every day. Said Principle is, unfortunately, too weak in the minds of the Harris/ Trump faithful, who contjnue to believe that it matters a whole lot who wins in November.

—

"The only thing more dangerous than the 3 decade old right-wing agenda repackaged as (Project) 2025 is the illusion that the Democrats can protect you from it." - Richard Moser

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 10:59am

Good morning otc. "Odds and ends", huh? I'll bite -

What are the odds that this is the end?"
The problem you speak of with the boys, the girls and the bad parents (where is Tuco in all that?) isn't and wasn't caused by cell phones and the internet, so banning them won't help. This is a problem that has been around pretty much forever. Just sayin'.

What can be pause unburdened by what has been is just a paraphrase of Obomber's "look(ing) forward, not back. Famously included absolving the CIA for all of its tortures and murders and establishing a new code of conduct under its then director of "as long as they can claim that they thought that they were following orders it is ok, whatever it is that they did or are doing or will do" (Leon Panetta, political whore and grifter, would and did work for just about anybody in any capacity he could, up to and includingthe War Deprtment, deceptively renamed defense department even though we have only ever fought, at absolute most, 2 or 3 defensive wars.

Farmers' market today, gotta run soon.

be well and have a good one

—

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 --

Submitted by enhydra lutris on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 11:04am

What can be, unburdened by what has been:

~~Hiroshima

—

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 --

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 12:16pm

Perfect picture, perfect meme!

@enhydra lutris I agree, brothers have gone off the grid since the beginning of time. What I am seeing is more of it, all of it pretty much preventable, except that the new baby sitter is a cell phone. I have an associate with two kids, 13 yr old son, 9 yr old daughter. No weirdo sex so far. They spend every other weekend in their father's home. After they eat dinner on their Friday night arrival, they are sent to their bedrooms and spend all night, and all day, surfing the net, until Sunday evening when they get back home to Mom. Their sleep patterns get so goofed up. The only contact they will have with their father is at meals, and everyone at the table has a phone in hand. The extent of their conversation is, "Please pass me the salt shaker." The Dad offers no parental advice, has never had "that talk" with either child, and the kids learn nothing about the role a father plays in the family structure.
More and more, father's show their sons porn instead of having "that talk".
I remember the 50s and 60s being pretty damn cool, so glad I was shaped by those times in my world view.
Glad you bit, dear friend. We could talk all day!

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by Anya on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 12:28pm

Nuclear war

@enhydra lutris I’m only 20% into “Nuclear War” by Annie Jacobsen and don’t see how our defenses against nuclear attack could look much bleaker. Not a book with a happy ending, I’m sure.

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Anya

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 1:09pm

Ooh!

@Anya Keep us posted on the book with a review once you finish it. It is getting good ratings.
Have a great weekend, chica! Don't be such a stranger in these parts!

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by on the cusp on Sat, 09/21/2024 - 1:07pm

Here's a great takedown of the EU.

This slam on the Draghi report on the EU economy has enough dark humor to make it a really good read:
https://www.rt.com/news/603975-eu-mario-draghi-report/

—

"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981