jb-hb
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I swear man, you have pissed me off the final time. I am done being casual or conversational. This is going to be a serious project in which I gather and save resources, continually hone arguments for clarity, effectiveness, conciseness, and it will get better and better EVERY TIME and I will stick with it FOREVER. Rationally, methodically.
I’m so sick of this non argument non discussion grima-wormtongue bullshit. EVERY time it pops up again, it will now be a platform for an ever-improving ACTUAL argument you wish wasn’t being made. You’re going to hurt your cause every time you try this bullshit. This shitty, murderous, luciferian, useless, mean-spirited superstition claiming to be “theory” and “economics” against all observable reality is going to look worse every time, and that degree of worseness will increase every time from now on.
Marx was never ever an economist. He was a failed hegalian theologian who claimed to be an economist as a way to promote a selfish, mean-spirited superstition that cribbed half its material from Christianity and the other half from Narcissistic Personality Disorder. He was himself an extremely malignant example of narcissistic personality disorder if not worse
Gee, the west is destroying – no, really, already destroyed, for example Germany – its economies based on MARXIST thinking. Climate Meltdown is mainstream and is marxist critical theory ported – very obviously, heavy handedly – over to environmentalism. You had a ringside seat watching me pull it out of AFKTT for a year. But now you have instant amnesia.
You know these policies affecting industry and agriculture come from marxism because THEY TOLD YOU. They told you the reasons, and those reasons go back through academic sources that are self avowedly marxist. They TELL you.
Then make your argument – “these people doing marxist things for marxist reasons are wrong. ackshully…”
I don’t really care what they call it, except when they call it ‘communism,’ which just makes them sounds extremely silly.
THIS is extremely tiresome. You just saw the communi–er, marx- er, DEMOCRAT candidate come out for government controlled pricing. And NOW you want to join the party, NOW and try the “It’s Not Happening”
This isn’t an ARGUMENT. Waiting a week, a month, for amnesia, as if it is a social requirement of all other people, as if you believe all other people have an obligation to nail their feet to the floor and blindfold themselves if you get into a boxing match. MAKE THE ARGUMENT for amnesia then.
You’ve watched the arguments made on the other side, but ALL YOU COME BACK WITH this week is a hope for amnesia? How very incompetent. Make your argument.
Communism desires a stage in which monopolies form.
Monopoly is the opposite and death of capitalism.
This is the stage at which Communists like to gloat “How ya like yr capitalism, har har har”
Luciferian exact-opposite lying.
Kursk 2.0
No new expansions to the salient.
I consider territorial gains an indicator with Kursk because it follows that IF they can expand northward, then they CAN get ammo, men, vehicles all the way up there. It follows from there that these aren’t getting obliterated by Russian air, artillery, or missiles on the way. From that, we can surmise the Ukrainians have air, EW, AA, and antimissile support in quality or quantity enough to make that happen.
The Russian clobber lists over the past week have included a fair number of antiair missile systems, EW, and radar. Also longer-ranged MLRS and artillery that may have been interdicting the battlefield.
So I think Ukraine-NATO DID cram the Kursk salient full of that stuff in a new or bigger way and Russia has been whittling that down 8/6-8/25.
The latest Southfront maps show 7 different attacks by Ukraine around the Kursk salient perimeter yesterday.
You don’t launch new attacks with no ammo. If they were stopped in their tracks and cut off 2 days into the assault – on 8/8? – they’d be out of bullets as of 8/27 let alone other stuff. What were they doing at 7 points of contact yesterday, throwing rocks?
You don’t typically launch attacks unless you have sufficient surplus of men and material. The typical comment by commanders without such a surplus when asked to attack “I’m in a position to defend with what I’ve got, but I do not have the reserves/stocks for an attack, sorry”
So something is STILL happening that runs counter to the optimism on the Russian side of the blogosphere
Interesting rumors of other parts of the front – Ukraine retreating, giving up prepared defensive lines without a fight, even? I hope Russia continues to be methodical rather than leaping forward.
I’ve seen some conjecture – doesn’t it seem like there’s more soldiers coming from somewhere? – Ukrainians sent back home from abroad? More NATO soldiers/mercs?
Headlines exclaiming that Challenger or Abrams tanks were knocked out are silly
EVERY weapon system going into combat is a CONSUMABLE. Attrition is inevitable. The only question is, at what ratio?
Gin Blossoms are my favorite rock tragedy.
They’re not even third-tier. Basically bar-band level. EXCEPT that they had Doug Hopkins.
If you examine his songs, you’ll see they are in a totally different league from the other songs on the album. They’re absolutely masterful pop with a strong distinctive identity to them. Not only a good turn of phrase, but a sense of progression in the lyrics from start to finish (as opposed to artfully re-stating the same thing for 3-5 minutes) Excellent melodies and hooks. Idunno who you might THINK is a super-duper 90’s songwriter – Eliot Smith? Noel Gallagher? But I’d argue Hopkins was superior.
Hopkins was caught in a couple band interviews being extremely generous with songwriting (and thus royalty) credits. For instance, he offered to give away credits on a song if his bandmates would just put Lost Horizons as the first track on the album. That IS what ended up as the first track on the album. At least they left him listed as the songwriter on some songs even if they took his royalties. I have strong suspicions he wrote even more than they gave him credit for. Anyway, he wasn’t a dick about songwriting control like Billy Corgan, quite the opposite, ready to give away credits and share the wealth.
Hopkins had a drinking problem. Consequently, he had a money problem. Both desperate-level.
In his moment of desperation, his band kicked him out AND got him to sell his songwriting royalties to them for a small fee. To stay alive. He spent the following summer listening to his own hits continually on the radio.
Naturally this was no good for his alcohol problem and he ended up committing suicide.
The band had a very successful album and tour on his songs, but couldn’t put anything together of passable quality for a followup. They visited Doug’s mother asking if she had any songs he had written. (It gives me the dry heaves to think of that encounter)
It’s kind of amazing. No sense of what was making the band, their success WORK. They almost literally killed the goose that laid the golden egg. Then came crawling to the dead goose’s mother for any overlooked scraps from its corpse.
By contrast, there’s an interesting story about Styx told by Dennis DeYoung. There was some friction with Tommy Shaw and a couple members were thinking about kicking him out. They came to Dennis about it, figuring it would be a go – Dennis and Tommy weren’t getting along personally or musically. If anything, DeYoung disliked Shaw MORE than the band members looking to get rid of him.
His reaction was interesting, basically “I don’t think you understand how this works or what we do. Have you lost all conception of what makes this WORK? Do you understand where music comes from, where money comes from? Are you totally deranged from reality? NO you idiots”
Ask me to pick if I want to go see Styx in concert, would I rather it be missing Tommy Shaw or Dennis DeYoung and I will tell you I want the Tommy Shaw lineup 100% of the time. But if I sing a Styx song at Karaoke, which Styx songs do you think I would even consider, written/sung by whom?
“Have you lost all conception of what makes this WORK?”
Some weirdo singer that writes quasi operas about robots gets it. The Masters Of The Universe no longer get it. What’s your power base supposed to be? Where does all the stuff and trustworthiness and competence that you implicitly, abjectly depend on supposedly come from, oh great ones?
Kursk 2.0 update
The 8/26/24 map is the FIRST map since 8/6 that the salient has shrunk on southfront – a pro Russian site
The northern leg of the upside down L encircling the Russians in Kremyanoe – on the extreme north side of the Kursk salient – is no more, according to the map.
The bulge in the northwest of the Kursk salient trying to be the other side of the pincer movement around Kremyanoe has been beaten back as well.
There seem to be some efforts to take larger towns on the perimeter of the salient, but they do not show as successful as of yet.
Kursk 2.0 attack does appear to be running out of gas, based on this latest map.
“Next stop Communism and CBDC’s”
no. no. no.
the day you find “communism”, let me know.
we are dealing with corporatism.
Why do you think current year marxists never complain about monopolies?
They LIKE monopolies. Monopolies are part of Great Leader’s Prophecy
Corporations, pure Constructs of Government – corporative, collective, not individual, acquire monopolies and merge with government – this is following Marx’s religious prophecy of Conditions, Historicity™
Marxists could not be happier with this progress, would like more monopoly. It’s just a matter of who ends up controlling it, which they are feeling more and more certain about. Not whether it exists or not. Or you’d see all that money going towards Marxist astroturf and DEI and DA’s go towards lawsuits for antitrust and stuff. Crickets from the Marxists and their funding.
Dems vs. GOP: ‘Which house party do you want to go to?’
Uhhh, go to the Democrat party and experience the social equivalent of a knife fight in a phone booth? There Shall Be No Discussion Or Humor? You may have been cool or secure for a minute there but then you made a misstep? Fool, relaxing for even a second!
Or joke around with the Babylon Bee guys smoking cigars and drinking?
Uhhhh…. what IS this bullshit?
Did they run a bunch of focus groups and the 2 biggest takeaways were
1. Democrats are creeping people out – their brand has become freaks and weirdos – therefore the new slogan: “Republicans are weird!”
2. Democrats have been insufferable killjoys for a decade or more – therefore “We Are The Joy. Republicans want to kill joy in the future!” (the joy we already killed in the past…)
I was checking on this “joy” shit I keep hearing about Democrats. Yeah, I guess it is true. All this shit about joy. WTF.
At the DNC, saying REPUBLICANS are “Trying to kill joy”
Uh, who has been the killjoys for the past 8-10 years now, silencing free speech, humor, going after jokes and memes, ruining every entertainment, every hobby, making every public space no matter how small or niche into a walk-ing-on-eggshells joyless quasi witchunt?
At this point, I am inclined to even blame painting everything grey on them as well, since it is consistent with all their other efforts.
Might we say they are fighting for Joy? What would such a unit of Democrats fighting for joy be like? A Joy Battalion? But what if you could put 3 Democrat Joy Battalions together, you’d have a Democrat Joy Regiment then – even better!
2 Joy Regiments would make an excellent Democrat Joy Brigade.
But surely the ultimate would be 3 Joy Regiments to form a Democrat Joy Division.
it should be obvious, but I’ll emphasize, if Ukraine can mount new encircling attacks at the northern edge of the Kursk salient, then it follows that Russian air and artillery is NOT cutting off Ukrainian logistics.
Therefore not dominant on that battlefield.
Unless the Ukrainians carried all the fuel, ammo, food, and reinforcements they’d need into the tip of the salient back on 8/6 such that they could keep eating and shooting and being shot without resupply 8/6-8/25.
Or unless Russia is letting them get there by choice? I don’t think getting encircled is a choice.
How many guys did they pack in there, that fresh attacks can be mounted like that 2 weeks later?
Kursk 2.0 Salient
Still expanding!
Most interestingly, that long thin penetration working northward in the center has grown westward while a bulge reaches north from the northwest corner of the salient to meet it – Russian forces in Kremyanoe ARE in a Kessel.
That Ukraine is kesseling Russian forces at the furthest extent of the Kursk salient (as opposed to some new attack closer to the base or to their original start line) says to me that Ukrainian logistics IS reaching all the way up to the northern tip of the salient.
Looks like Ukraine is trying to form a larger kessel at the western base of the Kursk 2.0 salient.
I’m getting this from maps at southfront – ostensibly a pro-Russian website. If THEY are showing this on maps, Ukraine is probably doing at least that good.
Around the eastern base of the Kursk 2.0 salient, looks like Ukraine made a move for Belista and tried to make a kessel out of the area to the west of that – This would have captured another road junction like with Suzdzha, embarassing Russian movement and logistics yet again.
Russian forces clearly did not like that prospect at all and have beaten back the southern pincer. Having pushed that one back, the northern pincer around Russkaya Konopelka is meeting resistance as well, but being deeper into Russia with no major road junctions to capture nor other pincer to meet it, we can wish them a pleasant trip to nowhere, I suppose.
IS the Kursk offensive a bloodbath, a mistake for Ukraine? Or is something different going on?
What happens with the Kremyanoe kessel will be the litmus test. If that weird L shaped northern Ukranian salient off the main bulge ends up surrounded, then yes, it’s a stupid kamikaze attack after all. If Ukraine closes the gap, surrounds Kremyanoe, and gobbles it up, then something very different is going on. My half assed guess is that we should see in 1-3 days.
The Oklahoma-panhandle-becomes-Israel is just a thought experiment litmus test.
Anyone unattached to a religious ethno-state based on Biblical stories and prophecy should either have no problem with it OR have specific reasons they can discuss in detail.
If they dislike the Oklahoma Panhandle Israel, they are attached to a particular piece of ground. They’re attached to a religious ethnostate and magical dirt.
Palestinians vacating a large chunk of land for Jews is good, Jews vacating same for Palestinians bad? If a people can be moved to found a new country where they were never born and have no attachments, why is INTO Israel good and out of Israel bad? BUT ONLY FOR ONE TYPE OF PERSON???? The OPPOSITE is good for other persons. What’s more secure for Jews, the panhandle or the levant? No no, the point was for Jews to be LESS secure??? What?!?
Sweep away other objections of course – both cowboys and indians will be paid handsomely, given federal or state lands elsewhere. US comes out finically ahead of the game – more secure as well.
But they have deep roots of history to do with this magic dirt, so it should be that particular ground? No. Gene-mapping – science! – shows it is the Palestinians who have been there all along. Try again.
You think we shouldn’t exist! – No, you haven’t come up with anything like an actual coherent concept of Israeli existence. You just flail around and project your total undefined disorganized emotional chaos regarding Israel on others. That’s WHY you never have a real plan or concept OF Israel’s existence. How can Israel exist as a concept for half a century as only a series of excuses and exclamations? Don’t you need to settle down someday?
I made clear my only practical point is – stop sending Isreal free shit. Free money, free munitions, discounted munitions, free intelligence, free military support, free logistics support, free diplomatic support etc.
“well, but we need Isreal as our ally in the Middle East”
But that’s just for the oil
“Exactly, we gotta have allies in the Middle East for the oil”
Yeah but for decades now our OIL policy has been hijacked completely by our ISRAEL policy. We do absolutely everything about oil in terms OF Israel.
If we hadn’t sent Israel trillions of dollars and bent our middle east policy around them, we could just BUY THE OIL from anyone, anyone at all in power who likes MONEY. And it would end up being a lower cost to us than all the resources we spend on support of Israel, consequences of supporting Israel, etc.
He said “woah, trillions?” in total incredulity and disbelief, like I was pulling it out of my ass and had no idea.
I explained nothing but love for Isreal just no free shit. They are currently doing what they can realistically do given current levels of support. IF we gave them no free shit, they would magically find a realistic thing to do in reality minus free shit. They would. They’d figure it out. BECAUSE they’d have to. And then Isreal would be just as safe as before – due to a change in policies – WHILE we don’t keep throwing money into a black hole.
Or let’s redesignate the Oklahoma panhandle as Israel, move all Israelis to it – not as pioneers, happy to build them new cities, roads, fibre optic internet cables, etc – but they have to give up their intelligence agencies and military – what need do they have for these things in the center of the US – then we can rename that region Palestine and everybody is happy, because Israelis just want to be safe and have a safe, decent place to live, ….right? This fulfils all requirements?
My atheist republican friend was not able to come out and SAY it was because the Oklahoma panhandle isn’t in the bible, but he also couldn’t agree all requirements had been met. Seemed carefully vague on his reasons.
Spoke with a life long republican yesterday about Isreal. He went on about “from the river to the sea, palestine will be free” as equaling full on genocide
I explained it would mean that everyone has the same citizenship rights
I explained there’s 3 basic options for Israel to achieve this goal:
1. Frog march everyone except Israelis out of whatever border they’ve decided they want and then STOP. But then you won’t have any Palestinians under your control to concern your security state with. Build a continuous wall, do everything you can to keep the status quo and STOP expansion and bombing everyone around you. If you sit tight, MAYBE everyone comes to accept this and you SHOULD stand pat at that point if you got what you wanted. But you’ll have no filthy underclass under your control inside your borders.
2. Withdraw to the 1967 borders. Do #1 from those borders. You’ll be doing the right thing as an added bonus – might keep you a little safer as a result
3. One man one vote. Everybody in Israel AND Palestine has the same citizenship rights, votes in elections covering this entire unified country. Countries don’t attack themselves.
“But Israel is fighting for their lives!”
Well, all the fighting is happening outside their borders. In territory they occupied or have tried to occupy, be it in Syria, Lebanon, or Palestine. They told the Palestinians to move, then bombed the ones trying to comply, then sectioned Gaza up into different surrounded bits so nobody CAN comply and have closed off the border so Palestinians cannot even leave if they wanted to try, which all looks like a very strange sort of fighting for their lives.
“But if we did one man one vote, soon there would be no particularly jewish ethincity nor religion in Israel. There would be no Israel”
If you are saying you support the maintaining the pure existence of religious ethno-states, then this should be openly stated. If maintaining the existence of a religious ethno state is a good thing, say it outright in so many words.
“…”
I see.
“But Isreal won those lands outside the 1967 borders fair and square through conquest and war”
Oh, well yes that IS fine, but then if somebody makes war on you fair and square outside the 1967 borders, don’t come crying to me.
The way THEY see it, they are attacking Israel on territory they are currently invading and occupying, therefore there can be no such thing as Israel defending itself. Point to a spot on the map where Israel is fighting for itself within its actual borders.
“…”
“But they HAVE to eliminate Hamas! They are merely a terrorist organization”
No, they’re the political ruling party of Palestine. They’re the negotiators on the other side of the table. Calling them names won’t lead to negotiation.
Funding and supporting Hamas to supplant the PLO just left them here. They should have just taken up with the actual people across the table at that time – the PLO – rather than just supplanting them AND ENDING UP IN THE SAME PLACE with Hamas and AGAIN pretending they never have to accommodate anything, discuss anything, etc.
Maybe Palestine/Gaza would have become the Belgium or Luxembourg of the Levant Or maybe the Las Vegas or Monte Carlo. Who knows. They won’t let them DO anything like have a port or airport.
“Well, gotta keep it safe”
And how’s that going for them? Quieted things right down, super stable for them due to their correct actions that predictably lead to safety? Eh?
“The election is not going to be stolen, it has been bought just like monitors in a parking lot.”
But you can trust monitors because they are neutral and free of the bias that leads to bad decisions!
“Harris Proposes Raising Corporate Tax Rate To 28 Percent”
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/harris-proposes-raising-corporate-tax-rate-28-percentWho gives a fuck? Corporations aren’t people. Lower it to 0%. Corporations are an artificial government construct.
“28% corporate tax” #$%@#%$#ing @#%#@%. That’s just a pass-through.
Basically, you’re designating Corporations as SUBCONTRACTOR TAX COLLECTORS. Like ancient Rome.
So you can PRETEND people are ONLY paying tax for 1/2 their yearly earnings instead of 3/4. Corporations collect it for the govt and then hand it off – like hiring a whole bunch of “contractors” (mercenaries) so that you can lower your casualty reports for the war you’re fighting. Like that.
Anyone got a centralized list of awfulness for Kamala Harris or a superclip video of her awfulness?
High school chum of hers – philosophy phd for that matter and college teacher, husband of a federal govt employee – came back very aggressively “Why do you oppose Kamala??!?!? She is a Champion Of Womens’ Rights (you traitor!) etc” when she mentioned via email she thinks Kamela is awful
(what right do women have other than abortion? Do they have free speech? Does leftist uber feminist Naomi Wolf have free speech? Any Democrats campaigning for her woman’s free speech rights? Outraged at her being silenced on Twitter-X? Or do women not have the right to not agree with blue square?)
But anyway, anyone have a concise yet thorough shitlist on Kamala? Enslaving black men and withholding exculpatory evidence are kinda bad to start with of course.
But here’s the thing – the Communists already admitted capitalism was bringing the goods for the working class better than them. That was back in the 1800’s. Already admitted defeat.
Engels had to invent a whole new philosophical concept making the working class dumb animals, non/sub humans possessing a “false consciousness” ie a fake soul, just to invent something to make communism “right anyway”
Considering the multiplying effect of the banking system with its very low to nonexistent reserve requirement for loans, which are fungible with money….
If they’re printing a trillion or two every 3-4 months, think of the multiplier. Multiplying OF multiplying. How many fungible trillions are also being created.
I remember back in 2005 when I was a brand new peak oiler and reading Mogambo Guru articles about inflation and gold. Better times. Back then, we were freaked out that there was a mere quadrillion in shadow derivatives out there. How much now?
The TRUTH About “Belgium”
The New World Order’s Belgian ConspiracyFor too long we have been told lies.
Postal Propaganda: Belgian “Super-man” squints hard to see his non-existent country. No such luck, Baudy.The existence of the supposed European country of Belgium has been taken as gospel for years by members of the Liberati. It has long been held up as a shining example of Liberal philosophies in action. However, now is the time the truth be known. Belgium doesn’t exist…
When I worked out the purchase of studio monitors (KRK Rockit 6’s) from my call center coworker in the call center parking lot, handed him cash, and he gave me the monitors, while each of us was forthcomingly honest and not holding any threat over each other, capitalism occurred.
ANTIFA is just an idea.
From my memory of years of Zerohedge reading …weren”t all the bonds bought by “Belgium”?
(…which of course is pretty much a non-country)
those darned kids – I know you’re one of the good guys. Sorry for being snippy
Under Capitalism, you can read the Communist Manifesto and Das Kapital at the library. Under Communism, you cannot read Mises or god forbid Ayn Rand (count your blessings!)
You can buy 40 acres in the US and create a communist utopia. All these commie trust fund corporate kids could buy 40,000 acres and do it. Proof of concept – the monkeys at Bikini Atol were able to adopt fruit-washing because they observed it was what worked. Primates do that.
But with all the communes and ashrams since the 60’s, people leave them more than they form or join them. I’m glad people are trying them anyway.
So long as there’s no coercion, capitalism can function – or if there is SOME ownership, if there is SOME decision making possible, then enough capitalism functions to keep things functioning. And you cannot know every little item in everyone’s possession. Ultimately, possession is ownership. Which is why they want to capture all the gateways to exchange – to negate ownership.
Look at the classroom experiment where the teacher changed the grading to communist. Everyone failed. There was no coercion, nobody was colonized or oppressed, everybody had access to the resources required to pass – in fact, they had access to everything they had beforehand when the entire class was not failing.
Idunno if the anti-anticommunists understand this – I am continually lamenting the failure of communism, it’s weird current-year marxism turn into a death cult. Like, I am not even communist and I am lamenting the ruination of communism, the stunting of its further development.
Meanwhile the people who get into arguments with me about communism never pipe up: “Stop! You’re ruining my communism!” Certainly I get pissed off and say “Stop! You’re ruining my Capitalism!” Or “Stop, you damn filthy continental revolution counter-revolutionaries, you’re ruining my far, far superior revolution, the American Revolution!!!” And I’M even piping up to say hey you are ruining communism and it isn’t even my thing!
so communism only happens when there is no coercion and no authority – that is fantastic
Though this will be news to quite a lot of people
From PRE Columbian 1400’s
When you look for “largest native american massacre” or “native american genocide” it is very, very difficult to get the search engines to show anything Pre-Columbian.
Wounded Knee and Sand Creek are cited as “The largest native american genocide” but of course, they leave out all the genocides and massacres from before Europeans arrived.
Crow Creek has not only piles of bodies 4-5 feet deep thrown into a long common grave, they were scalped, had limbs and other body parts chopped off, and generally died deaths of torture not endorsed by the Geneva Convention.
The site had a defensive wall with bastions providing enfilading fire, indicating the pre-columbian people were familiar with siege warfare. You don’t develop the science of fortification as a bizarre one-off, nor do you suddenly accidentally build a castle. There are other pre-columbian massacres. Archeologists theorize that this area was being colonized by a different group. More recently, they’ve been asserting it must have been Climate Change.
You get colonized by Europeans, you do get streets, hospitals, libraries, schools, sewers, wheels, chairs, metal tools, and a system of jurisprudence based on evidence and the presumption of innocence, so there’s that. If they do something different, you can point your finger at them and call them hypocrites like Ghandi did. And Ghandi’s tactics did NOT work on the Gulag system in the USSR but DID work on the British Empire, so that’s something to mull over, of course.
I tried posting a series of maps from southfront showing changes from 8/7-8/18. Website ate the post with image links. And the subsequent one linking to the web pages there/ So yeah, no southfront linking.
In that 8/7-8/18 time frame, the Kursk 2.0 bulge is continually growing. New salients are forming as of 8/18.
So “Russia stopped them within 2 days” is demonstrably a false statement unless they advanced all the way to the 8/18 map on 8/6 and all the map updates between then and now are recognition of those gains being made more and more accurate, just always looking like advances???
“It’s like The Battle Of The Bulge”?
Within 8 days of the offensive starting, the Allies recognize that the Panzer divisions have stopped attacking. So withdrawal was already planned at that time and the decision was made even earlier.
By comparison, we see new attacks being launched and new expansions of the Kursk 2.0 bulge well after the element of surprise is gone. Unless the Russians were further surprised at the amount and quality of NATO stuff being deployed?
So it does not appear to be like the Battle of the Bulge. Nor Falaise/Mortain.
Look at how badly they did in the last offensive. With what losses and with what gains? So… what, they’ve decided to go with absolutely MASSIVE losses for these improved gains? Or there’s a new paradigm. What’s the exchange rate and did it change? How much STUFF do they have to attrit to GET an improved exchange?
One of the last German offensives in WW1 – IIRC either the Ludendorff Offensive or the 2nd Marne – they pulled all their good guys out of their various units and put them in the ones involved in the offensive along with their best equipment.
They had some success, but they ground down those best guys significantly. And they were absent from all those other army units.
I think that had a LOT to do with the German army disintegrating at the end of the war – had those Best Guys still been spread throughout the army, it may have held together.
Or Kursk 2.0 could be similar to the battle of Amiens, where the British finally figured out combined arms warfare. In the last 3 months of the war.
I haven’t transformed into a concern troll, just trying to figure out what is really going on.
capitalism happens anytime someone is willingly paid for something they did or made while not under coercion or deception.
If capitalism doesn’t work, you died decades ago.
Jean-Pierre Jeunet is so awesome. I’ve seen all of his films. One can give Alien 4 a miss, but all the French language stuff is just great.
the difference between capitalism and communism?!
with communism, it’s ripped off with benefits!
The Communists themselves already declared that Capitalism delivers all the things to the working class better than Communism. THEY already cried uncle on that one.
Quite a lot of interesting ideas could have come out of that realization. Progression, growth, something brilliant and new, and USEFUL, helpful.
But they completed “Capitalism is delivering the goods….”
with
“…and that’s WRONG.”
You having the goods, such as medical care, was not actually their true desire. All along, they were not actually coming to help.
boy that Shostakovich was brutal and I mean that in a positive way – it’s a vocabulary thing. The brain just has to work harder.
I think smuggling in quality and depth back into music will involve multiple overlapping time frames – like 2-4 layers with a different musical idea per layer being expressed over short to long time frames – so the brain can grab onto the simplest idea it can hold onto, then with repeated listening graduate to the next layer down and so on. Sort of like Carl Sagan’s signal in Contact.
artfully tricking people into enjoying complexity – I could follow along with the music theory just barely, but I was gripping my head to prevent it from exploding the entire time
The Most COMPLEX Pop Song of All Time
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZnRxTW8GxT8@jb-hb re: ‘Your music shocks me not, young’n!’
Shostakovich – Symphony #8
Listening now with thanks
perhaps we must mock, but aren’t solutions found in the GOOD, in what we’re going to build instead?
My nephew makes drift phonk. And other weirder, more abrasive stuff than that.
At family gatherings, I’ve listened to the stuff he likes and the stuff he’s made with interest. The most aggressive uses the sounds of WW2 german vehicles (epic trolling the adults no doubt), demonic noises, heavy distortion, etc. Stylistically not identical, but nothing I didn’t hear in the 80’s and 90’s, so not a shred of discomfort listening to it as an Old Man Jenkins GenXer – which should be a red flag for him – that I’m not surprised, dismayed, etc by his music.
I’ve been thinking about how I could explain this to him
Something along the lines of, you’re an artist – no really, you are, think of it that way – and you’re in a culture, a civilization. A multi-dimensional thing measurable on various axes.
On one axis, you’ve got demonic, hard-core, abrasive stuff, perhaps with a degeneracy element to it with virtue and sophistication and subtlety in the other direction.
Society has crowded over to the demonic side of the spectrum. It’s like the meme with someone pinned against the wall by someone with a tuba. You don’t have room for much, smashed up against that end but what, 30’s german fascism, sex with animals? The entire spectrum of edgy-ness is taken over by your government bureaucrats, entertainment corporation CEO’s, your schoolteachers, the “Trust and safety councils” at the local church, and so on. They took it all.
The way to give them all heart attacks and give yourself ample, near-endless space and freedom is to hop over their blob of degeneracy. They have not expanded to fill the spectrum, they just followed you to the edge. They’ve left a gigantic cultural space open. Explore the other side of the spectrum. Make something new in that space – or an equally good option – be dissident by invading degenerate forms with beauty, intricacy, subtlety, and virtue.
You could have a top conscious layer of artistic experience that provides something to grab onto, not too challenging, but just a little bit better – a bit less repetitive, subtly superior somehow, less disposable, something in it of value but not too much… and then maybe, in different ways, 2 or 3 layers beneath that with more substance — if you’re dumb, you won’t even notice it, but with repeated listening or more attention, it’s there for the listener.
How do you communicate virtue through lyrics without becoming horribly lame and transforming into christian rock, even when not christian? Well, lyrics are the hardest thing and that’s what hard feels like. References to other art, imagery and symbolism, use of specifics or narrative in place of value statements. Or even just telling a story in which the virtue is implicit, unavoidably integral.
We’re all mashed up against the wall, pinned there by someone with a tuba. There has got to be a way to jump over them.
To parse out what Harvey Weinstein’s acolyte is saying about The Acolyte in that youtube video I posted, there are some basic translations that must be done:
(Fannie) May was framed = she actually did horrible things, unequivocally
Osha (Occupational Safety & Health Administration) was lied to = she actually SAW (Fannie) May do horrible things with her own eyes and saw the Jedi act rightly with her own eyes
The Jedi were corrupt and did a cover-up = the Jedi observably did nothing wrong and the “cover up” story is essentially what we actually saw happening
OSHA’s father figure was corrupt – he obviously did nothing wrong and had observably pure intentions at all times.
Harvey Weinstein’s acolyte explains why her girlboss Acolyte character’s hero-journey culminates in killing her Light side father figure after he tells her he loves her – a jedi master who we can SEE only ever does the right thing, has her best interests at heart, and gives good advice.
phoenixvoice – thank you most kindly for the info and advice!
It is important to disbelieve current year wokeism is the source of all ills even while having it in mind as a possibility. She’s very blue square and into that head space – the whole memeplex from open borders to notavax etc, so in her particular case it’s a possibility. I keep that stuff out of my head until I am back at home wondering if one type of insanity explains another.
She’s really awesome anyway, also a quick study at technology – in her 80’s but very fluently using an iphone ipad and computer – basically for storing/viewing pictures, browsing, and email. That’s it.
I do want to mention for anyone considering Linux – Mint is an absolute joy to use, in terms of just casual enduser navigation in the GUI. Indistinguishable from the best aspects of Windows 7 and Windows 10. You can use it for years without ever accessing the terminal.
And between the software manager and flatpacks (just became available on Mint22), it’s super easy (and comparatively safe from newbs/idiots like myself) to add stuff. Brave came on as flatpack for instance.
I tried tailoring Mint to appear like Windows (there’s Themes and Applets etc you can download to do it) but reversed the changes because they were so minimal that it didn’t matter.
Hilariously, there’s a distro out there (windowsfx) that mimics the Windows experience almost exactly
Not missed, but put a different way
Potential oil crisis caused by near-east war, closing both Red Sea and Straits of Hormuz
Stock market crash (lock limit down each day for a week after a carrier sinks?)
Banking crisis results
Argentina 2001 – you can’t have the money in your bank right now AND the dollar is collapsing but we blame the oil crisis for rising prices
Oh yeah also on tap, internet goes down, undocumented agents/terrrists go berserk throughout the west, power grid gets borked, maybe another assassination attempt on someone or successful assassination (what good IS Harris to the Dems at this point BUT…)
Maybe some pretext is found for direct NATO involvement in The Ukraine but why bother, NATO can throw as much stuff in there as it wants already.
That’s all I can think of for Doom Porn right now.
Just to clarify, I haven’t transformed into a Russia-is-doomed troll – 1:1 loss ratio SEEMS unlikely. I’m just saying, I think NATO was trying something new which is not guaranteed to be consequence free.
…2 lingering questions. Okay, Russia will reduce the Kursk salient, but at what cost? 1:1 loss ratio??? Worse?
And the other question – okay NATO, you proved the secret recipe. Nice job, whichever Colonel or Major did the white paper on it and convinced everyone to try it, I guess. Last remaining competent guy in the room?
Do you have more of the same STUFF so after Russia chews the Kursk stuff up, you can keep that going? Do you have the industrial base cranking this stuff out or what? WHERE is that industrial base??? Do you have black site factories, or what?
