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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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!

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.

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.

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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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?

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