Open Thread WE 20 JAN 21


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Welcome to Wednesday. Today we witness another political charade.

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Had something more to offer in this OT, but the dog ate my essay. Poof! into the ether.
Oh well.

Since this is written to include a wide audience,
and the innaug will probably take up most of the oxygen in the hallways,
have fun posting away...

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mimi's picture

I had a nightmare to not be connected to a network, some stupid server was not available, we gor annoying weirdo ringings of our phone system. Did I say that I hate stupido IT technology? Ok then, I repeat, I hate stupido IT technology.

So, all I had the whole night is CNN TV.

Ok, you dog lovers out there, what does a dog do, if he has been beaten up and pinches up his tail?

oh, and I have sound back again. So, things to be learned last day, if something goes wrong and you have no clue why, just wait and sit it out and it will correct itself. Ha.

I guess I will catch up on the last EBs I could not read.

Have a good inauguration day, folks. At least for one day, we can exhale and feel a kind of relief, or not?

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@mimi

glad your internet connection is working again. Sometimes dealing with all of this technology is
frustrating. Seems way more complex than it needs to be for this old dinosaur.

Viel Glück!

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lotlizard's picture

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2021/01/wikipedia-the-overlooked-monopol...

And:

The new domestic war on terrorism is coming (Glenn Greenwald)

Baghdad on the Potomac: welcome to the Blue Zone (Pepe Escobar)

Media cheers D.C. under military occupation (Michael Tracey)

Perhaps it will be possible to evade repression somewhat by switching where possible to so-called “alt-tech” (right-leaning for the moment, but hey, any old port in a storm) and away from monopolists and oligopolists, no matter how “progressive” and “woke” the latter are trying to brand themselves. I myself have now stopped using Mozilla Firefox and Safari and have switched to the browser Brave.

And: Like the similar slogan “The only democracy in the Middle East™” as an epithet for Israel, “The world’s largest democracy™” as an epithet for India continues to deflate and lose any remaining connection to reality.

Mahatma Gandhi’s killer venerated as Hindu nationalism resurges in India

Is anyone keeping an eye on the “Indian mafia” phenomenon in the C-level suites and human resources departments of American firms, particularly those in IT and Silicon Valley, and its possible links to Hindu nationalism and caste discrimination?

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9 users have voted.

@lotlizard

Thanks for the links. Would be curious to know how you like the Brave browser. Have gone thru google, safari, duck duck and firefox already. They all seem about the same anymore. Looks a bit tekkie for me, but always looking for something better.

danke

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lotlizard's picture

@QMS  
I very much like the built-in advertising and tracker suppression, though Apple / Safari is also making great advances in that direction, to the dismay of Google and Facebook.

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Lookout's picture

How abut laughing about the old and new?

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rjSoVLsIKPc]
(8 min)

nothing like a good rant from Jonathon Pie...
[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvcwMcGWf-w]
(12 min)

I wish I could feel hopeful about the transfer of power, but ...

I finally learned not to assign homework to 8th graders...there was a rash of dogs eating it. Well, really it is because the wealthier kids had help at home, but the poor kids had no resources...so I depended on classroom learning. I recommend all teachers get rid of text books (except as reference books) and learn from real sources...from the web to magazines to writing letters and making phone calls. Sure made for more authentic (lifetime) learning.

Have a good day. Some sun expected so I'm doing a load of wash to hang out. Just 2 more holes to dig for the chestnut trees and I'll be ready for next months planting. Hope to wrap that up today too.

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11 users have voted.

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

@Lookout

Takes a brit to dissect the trumpet properly.
He expresses my sentiments quite well.

Good luck with the digging!

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7 users have voted.

rainy, windy, and on the cold side here today.

I've set myself the task of going through massive amounts of paperwork and hopefully will be able to throw a massive amount of it away. That's the goal anyway. Not fun, but better than watching the "news".
It's one of those days where if I had had homework, the dog would have eaten it.

Ian Welch has a nice column that may apply to a day like this:
https://www.ianwelsh.net/staying-happy-in-self-isolation/

Take care QMS and all, have a good one.

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@randtntx

Dealing with the year-end paperwork filing thing
tax prep, 1099's, etc. It's OK being quiet. May still
try to go to work but then again...

Cheers!

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@QMS

That's about what this perverted sick joke of an "inauguration" deserves.

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12 users have voted.

There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven

raining bullets and bombs
"greatest democracy evah"

beyond barbed wire

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TheOtherMaven's picture

@QMS

I told the clouds to take it off to DC, but I don't think they listened. Smile

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There is no justice. There can be no peace.

@TheOtherMaven

Remember My Favorite Martian?

He would squint his eyes and wiggle his finger
and things would move!

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0 users have voted.

@QMS , for the nice piano music. Interesting title. Like calm before a storm.

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Granma's picture

And California is the site of a new Covid variant. They were doing virus sequencing to learn if the English or South African variants were present and found a new mutation they were able to determine originated in CA. They don't know much about it yet other than specific mutations in the virus's genome.

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11 users have voted.

@Granma
SARS-CoV2 variants in the US is far more limited than in other countries.

Much too dry in CA this season. On the plus side that means less scrub to burn later in the year. On the downside, it means tinder dry scrub.

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mimi's picture

American Democracy "hat die Kurve gekratzt" *(leave the translation up to those who are better at this than me)

At least for a couple of hours I would like to enjoy "The American Dream".

You will have enough days ahead of you to be cynical. Not today. well, I hear Bidens speech right now. hmmm ... ok .... sigh ... I wait for the day when Americans don't have to hide behind masks, literally and metaphorically.

Good luck to all. Stay confident.

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enhydra lutris's picture

is not brevity the soul of wit? One hopes that the inauguration doesn't suck too much oxygen out of the hallways because that would be a worse omen than it already is. I mean, look at the word:

inauguration (n.)
"ceremonial investiture with office; act of solemnly or formally introducing or setting in motion anything of importance or dignity," 1560s, from French inauguration "installation, consecration," and directly from Late Latin inaugurationem (nominative inauguratio) "consecration," presumably originally "installment under good omens;" noun of action from past-participle stem of inaugurare "take omens from the flight of birds; consecrate or install when omens are favorable," from in- "on, in" (from PIE root *en "in") + augurare "to act as an augur, predict" (see augur (n.)).

INAUGURATIO was in general the ceremony by which the augurs obtained, or endeavoured to obtain, the sanction of the gods to something which had been decreed by man; in particular, however, it was the ceremony by which things or persons were consecrated to the gods .... If the signs observed by the inaugurating priest were thought favourable, the decree of men had the sanction of the gods, and the inauguratio was completed. [William Smith (ed.), "Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities," 1842]

https://www.etymonline.com/word/inauguration

So, a magikal mystical ceremony in which the seers and shamans try to call down the blessings of the ineffable giant nothing in the sky on the feeble and confused doings of we mere mortals.

It seems that, sadly enough. that is exactly what it ws, with the incoming bozo's forst act is el Presidente was to launch into prayer and ask everybody to join him. Sorry dude, can't do that. Big waste of time, but, given that there is a desperate need for help of some kind from somewhere and that this country rejects, at every turning, logic, reason and science, fitting, I guess. So, let us pray - Ah Hummmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

Chanting and humming
gongs immerse
the green valley
in cool waves of air
~~ kyorai ~~

Cool air, ok, damnit, not hot air, but, sadly, the norms seem to prevail.

Ah well, be well and have a good one

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4 users have voted.

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

in this case the birds are drones Wink

thanks EL

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enhydra lutris's picture

@QMS @QMS

in this case the birds are drones

edited to put the quote from QMS into blockquotes

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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 --

lotlizard's picture

because they keep doing things like this.

https://taz.de/Gruene-und-transatlantische-Beziehungen/!5745530/

Given the possibility of a Christian-Democrat / Green government coalition after the federal election in September, one question is of particular interest: what military posture would it take in its foreign policy? The Greens haven’t been a pacifist party since the Social-Democrat / Green coalition era [1998–2005]. Even so, they still find it hard to come to a decision on the details — which missions abroad, which compromises re combat drones, what future for atomic bombs?

The Green-party affiliated Heinrich Böll Foundation, a think tank that provides intellectual models for Green policymaking, has put forward a position paper worth noting. To mark the inauguration of the new US President Joe Biden, foundation chair Ellen Ueberschär has penned an appeal “for a new agreement between Germany and America” — together with representatives of transatlantic think tanks and lobby organizations such as the Atlantic Bridge, the German Marshall Fund, and the Aspen Institute. The paper will be presented on Wednesday afternoon at an event organized by the Böll Foundation.

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The Liberal Moonbat's picture

2001-2008:
GWB=DRE.jpg

2009-2016:
BHO=mM.jpg

2017-2020:
DJT=FB.jpg

2021-????:
JB=GM.jpg

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In the Land of the Blind, the One-Eyed Man is declared mentally ill for describing colors.

Yes Virginia, there is a Global Banking Conspiracy!