Saturday Open Thread - 12/14/24: Odds and Ends

Good morning, good people!

Have you heard anything like this before?

"I need an attorney to help me get my new born baby out of Texas Child Protection Services possession. They took my baby from me as soon as he was born. The baby did not have meth in his system, but I did.

"You see, the man I was living with tried meth once, and some of it dropped onto the floor. I was going to vacuum it up.

"Well, as soon as I turned the vacuum cleaner on, dust was kicked up into my nose. This was the night before I went to the hospital to give birth."

Meanwhile, we seem to have cut quite a good deal with the head choppers in Syria. We keep our troops in the area with the oil and wheat. A good bargain, wouldn't you agree?

I am so curious to see if Israel is going to expend from the river to the sea, and if they turn on the US once we aren't particularly needed to prop them up?

I will do my damndest to maintain a decent diet, vitamin, and exercise regimens, because I want to live long enough to see it, see politicians grieve over taking all that AIPAC $.

I saw a list of the top 10 countries with the highest murder rates. Seems I have traipsed around 4 of them. S. Africa, Trinidad-Tobago, Honduras, and Peru (twice visited). I was so impressed with S. Africa and Trinidad that I thought they would be perfect for a visit completely solo.

Well, this is an open thread, folks. Ya got info to share? Opinions? Good news? Bad news? Survival tips?

Please share, good friends!

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Just as I was headed to bed last night, Simplicious comes out with a very interesting article about his theory that Turkey and Israel may be vying against each other for a Syria land grab. I didn't have time to give it a thorough read, but will today.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/pieces-begin-slowly-falling-into
Well, friends, it's your turn, so let 'er rip!

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

Lookout's picture

Interesting hypothesis. Much like we did in Afghanistan to destroy the USSR.

Hope everyone is having a great weekend. We have another rain coming through tonight..or so they say.

Thanks for the OT!

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

Cassiodorus's picture

@Lookout though as Jeffrey Sachs points out, this was in planning for a long, long time.

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“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

@Lookout of the Krainer vid. Rather than thinking he is too optimist about the long haul, he adeptly compares this to multiple battle and conquering events. It isn't a theory out of nowhere, in other words.
I certainly hope he is correct.
Rains this afternoon, so that means house work. Yuck. It must be done, so I won't bitch about it. (too much).
Drones news has completely wiped out news about Mangione and the fall of Syria. Does anyone have some plausible theory that "something" is preventing the military from shooting down one of this drones from the ocean and determining what the hell it is and where is it from, and what harm can it cause? Aren't we told we have the most superior military force in the history of the world?
In the meantime, Big Insurance continues to kill us and Israel stealing a country is just not worth mentioning.
Oh, well, the same as it has always been, dear friend.
Thanks for sharing your time and efforts with us this morning.

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

QMS's picture

.
.
Funny story. If it wasn't meth inspired, it sure sounds like it.
Haven't heard that version before, but many like it. Pitiful
what hard drug use does to the brain over time.

Just waded thru the Ukie energy grid retaliation strikes
by RUS over at NC. EU and Black Rock will also suffer.

Will survey Simplicius next.

Thanks for the OT otc!

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@QMS @QMS today. I gotta say, Putin is going out of his way to make his point, further the advantage of his SMO, limit civilian casualties,and turn the Ukies against their idiotic "leader". No tears shed about Black Rock making a ridiculous investment. I have no compunction advocating for Corporations to die from $ deprivation.
Anyone stupid enough to think meth won't be addictive, that it will not destroy your body, that it will not destroy your brain, and that you will not be drug tested when giving birth, is not a client with whom I can cooperatively prepare a case. Move along, Crazy Sistah.
A brain damaged court-appointed client, with decades of meth use, hears voices from radios, tvs, and cell phones. His petty crimes, such as tresspassing, disturbing the peace, are always done because he was told to do them by the voices. He will gladly do his jail time for them.
Cap'n, the crazies are out there. Starting from the highest public offices, CEOs, all the way down to the homeless. My wish is that everyone was as perfect and sane as you and I, dear friend!

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

QMS's picture

@on the cusp
.
.
but would not wish my version of relative
sanity on anyone left with a functioning
mind. Unless it is a better cope. YMMV

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Have my car loaded and ready to make the trip down to central Texas. The weather should cooperate until I get home. There is rain in the forecast but glad for no snow and heavy winds.

Have gotten my world atlas out to look at the areas of Syria mentioned by Simplicus in his article yesterday. Reading some history of the area to try to gain some understanding of the various issues within this county. Sooo glad to see the esteemed diplomat, Blinken is already trying to make a bigger and mightier mess than Syria already is.

Going to the Farmers Market to get some dried beans from the Pueblos to give as Christmas gifts.

Hope you have a wonderful day.

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Life is what you make it, so make it something worthwhile.

This ain't no dress rehearsal!

QMS's picture

.
.
South Korea assembly voted overwhelmingly to
impeach Yoon, removing him from power.
He overplayed his hand. Another setback for
the empire?

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soryang's picture

Vote was 205 to 85, if I remember correctly.

The most popular radio host in South Korea, Kim Eo-jun, told an incredible story to the national assembly yesterday. I'm not sure what to think about it. The word was put out to arrest him, along, with the democratic party leadership, and Han Dong-hun, the PPP party leader. Ostensibly, there has been a rift between Yoon and Han since Han became head of the PPP. Han a former prosecutor, Yoon's justice minister, and all around hatchet man for years, was talking to his boss as a peer apparently, which changed their relationship. It was Han's minority faction in the PPP that put the impeachment vote over the 200 required to suspend Yoon from the presidency and refer his impeachment case to the Constitutional Court for a final decision. 60 days after that a presidential election.

So initially, the martial law order on Dec 3, was defeated in early hours of Dec 4 by the National Assembly vote. The opposition political leaders and also the PPP leader Han Dong-hun were to be arrested. So none of the aforementioned persons to be apprehended by the military were. Allegedly according to Kim Eo-jun's hearing testimony, there was going to be a false flag event, in which members of the counter intelligence command's anti-North Korean agent team, would seize the same group of people, allegedly kill Han Dong-hun, and "rescue" communist sympathizers, (jong buk) state enemies, like Lee Jae-myung, Cho Guk, Kim Eo-chun, etc. In the course of this unexecuted plan, US military personnel were to be killed; the special anti North Korean team, leaving behind their North Korean uniform disguise, providing a strong impetus for the US armed forces to go to war against North Korea. I heard Rep. Brad Sherman on Korean tv news yesterday in an interview, saying the US would not have gone to war, because, the US command there can tell the difference, between a genuine North Korean plot, and any alleged South Korean false flag attack in South Korea.

I'm not clear on the timing on when this attack was planned, if it was in fact, the alleged plan, for a 2nd martial law coup, after the first one apparently failed. In any case, when Kim Eo-jun was asked during his testimony where did he get this story, and who "protected him" from the plot to seize him and others, he said persons from "a friendly country embassy." Pending the plan for a second attempt at a coup d'etat, it is alleged that the US 8th Army Command in South Korea was placed on alert.

I really like Kim Eo-jun and listen to video outtakes from his program often. However I got the impression that Kim had either memorized a script while he was telling his story at the Assembly hearing or was in shock. Also, I have to note here that his easily recognizable colleague, whom I've seen often in his videos, an attractive woman, journalist and political activist, was video taped in a confrontation with an armed South Korean soldier outside the National Assembly building, on the night of the "first" coup attempt, in which she grabbed his rifle, and said something like, go ahead shoot me. The scene was broadcast in media around the world. fwiw.

I'm not buying the SK vibrant democracy meme. The republic of South Korea has profound structural problems, economically, socially, and politically. This drift into authoritarianism, the suppression of a free press, the institutional corruption of the press on behalf of the five major chaebol monopolies, the oppression of labor unions, etc., is a perennial problem, that lends itself to the emergence of dictatorship. This still isn't over. The now acting president, the prime minister Han Duck-soo, is a suspect in Yoon's plot to overthrow the republic. How can he function as the chief executive? Also, there is the recent final conviction of Cho Guk, an opposition leader, and reformer of the Justice system, which is one of the South's crippled politicized institutions; the rigged prosecutions of Lee Jae-myung aren't resolved yet. Then there is the forthcoming impeachment trial by the Constitutional Court, what will they do?

Martial law plans drawn up during the Park Geun-hye impeachment, were most likely, planned for execution, if the Constitutional Court, at that time, 2017, failed to impeach Park. There would have been massive demonstrations in Seoul and other cities, which would have potentially paralyzed the country. Luckily, this didn't happen. Will opposition leader Lee Jae-myung be convicted and disqualified from office? This is another destabilizing situation. Will the corruption of prosecutors and the chaebol run conservative press (unlawful prosecution-press collusion to facilitate politically motivated prosecutions 검언유착 ) be resolved somehow?

South Korea’s parliament votes to impeach president over martial law debacle

OTC, thanks for the odds and ends. I can't help but thinking of Clinton's "I smoked marijuana but did not inhale," along the lines of "I did not have sex with that woman."

I have to say that Ms. So and I find the new Christmas display at the corner park in our neighborhood, which the city obviously wasted large sums on, offensive, in circumstances where that that same neighborhood suffered tremendous losses from Milton. It's like a kind of political promotion for a corrupt and incompetent local government led by real estate developers. I admire the tenacity and survival instincts of my neighbors.

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語必忠信 行必正直

QMS's picture

@soryang
.
figured you would have fingers
on the pulse. At least there is some
push-back against totalitarian rule.

Do not appreciate the gaudy holiday
displays. Blow-up Santa dolls and flashing
colored lights do nothing to persuade this
soul into a spending frenzy. Broke anyway.

Christmas cheer on credit? Bah humbug.

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soryang's picture

@QMS

It's involuntary. I better not try that with my daughter. She'll say, "no it's not!"

Oops, 204 votes for impeachment. It's in the CNN article I linked to. I heard the Speaker say it in this video of the crowd reaction outside the assembly building at the time of the announcement. The women in the crowd bursting into song, singing along to Girl's Generation, Into the New World, after the news is moving...

Thanks QMS.

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語必忠信 行必正直

QMS's picture

@soryang
.
there is hope for us yet.

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snoopydawg's picture

I knew that about the watergate burglars, but not the other stuff. You might ask how could it be possible that a congressional committee could lie so boldly to the American people? They did it again with the J-6 investigation. They kept out the videos that would have told the truth and showed that it was a deep state operation.

There were 26 undercover FBI agents and 3 of them went into the capitol. Cops opened the doors and they just watched as people walked in. They could have told people that they weren’t allowed to go in. The 3 agents were not charged for entering the capitol, but most of everyone else was.

This is what Kash Patel is going to look into as well as everything about Russia gate…maybe. He has been involved with the government for years so hopefully he isn’t another deep state agent.

Stay tuned.

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

Dawn's Meta's picture

keep up. I listened to the Nima Dialog Works interview Lookout recommended. To my mind, this is an excellent and nuanced take on what is going on in the geographical designation formerly of Syria or what might be going on. Well worth the time while cutting up vegetables for soup.

About the drones: my money is on Amazon and Walmart. pffftt!

Here is another song from le Petite Chœur de Viry-Charolles. We learned it in French but the John Rutter interpretation is closest to how we sang it. The organ has horn pipes that sound like oboes but this is with orchestre.

We might get snow or a wintry mix by Christmas, but I'm not holding out too much hope. Every little town is decorated for les Fêtes de Noël, oysters from coastline farms have been deployed throughout France in little white camions; Fois gras and sweet Bordeaux or Sauternes are displayed in every grocery store. Since we spent quite a bit of time in the shadow of the Pyrenées we have become fond of Jurançon a very local wine found in areas around Oleron in very small family vineyards. It knocked us out.

Tomorrow we go to listen to Le Petit Chœur de Viry-Charolles give their Advent/Christmas concert. In a wonderful church with a marvelous Baroque organ.

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A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit. Allegedly Greek, but more possibly fairly modern quote.

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QMS's picture

@Dawn's Meta
calming to these ears.
And the craftsmanship of the Baroque
organ framing is exquisit. Thank you for sharing
a bit of cheer from France! Music is
architecture for the spirit. Sing on sister.

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snoopydawg's picture

.

Did a McDonald’s employee really turn Luigi in? Or did the kiosk camera capture his face which the NSA had AI looking at in order to find him?

Threadreader

The dark side of cameras everywhere that are watching us 24/7. I didn’t vote for this crap. Did you?

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The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated communist, but people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists.
~Hannah Arendt

Cassiodorus's picture

This video interested me:

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“The loyal Left cannot act decisively. Their devotion to the system is a built-in kill switch limiting dissent.” - Richard Moser

enhydra lutris's picture

number of vendors and of stuff for sale. Luckily I didn't need/want too much anyway. Trying to get things together, but stuff changes faster than I can find work arounds. I had a "home page" or "start page, gratis, on an old account that was a news and other info aggregator. Suddenly AT&T shows up as ruler of that account and eliminates that page and all my standing tabs. Blam! Stuff like that damn near every day really slows one down, especially if it is going on when one is trying to streamline, reorganize and get more efficient. Ah well.

Meanwhile, it looks like Erdogan is looking to claim all or almost all of the territory formerly known as Syria. Methinks there will be a lot to keep an eye on there.

Survival tips? Keep your head down is an old standard, but doing so withoug being complicit is a mother of a conundrum. Mebbe bo bettah da kine listen to good tunes and keep your head screwed on straight.

be well and have a good one

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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 --

The meth story is typical. It’s always the first time they tried it, or they only had two beers when they’re stopped for DUI. I'm sure you've heard all those stories. I though do live next door to someone who cooks meth. I’ve called the cops numerous times. He has been arrested 3 times. The last time he had 4 felony counts against him, and I just knew he was going to prison. Nope. He only got 3 years' probation. The same day he pled guilty, there was a big meth bust. Can you say snitch. I can tell when he’s cooking. It gets in my eyes, and I get floaters. Hopefully he’ll overdose before he goes completely nuts.

I also go to “Pain Management.” I told my worker there about living next to a meth house. She told me not to worry about it because I haven’t flunked a drug test yet and she’ll let me know if anything comes back funky. I can be banned if I fail so many tests.

Speaking about the Insurance Companies trying to screw people, I get my Medicare Part D from WellCare. They keep telling me that I should consider getting off my pain medication and instead try counseling or meditation for my pain. Meditation can calm you, but I really doubt it will cure my pain, and nobody wants to hear about how bad you hurt, even if they’re getting paid to hear it. Getting a new knee has helped tremendously though. Their rationale is that I am putting myself at risk for addiction. Not going to happen. If I was, it would have happened a long time ago.

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