[phoenixvoice]

@ Germ
@ EoinW

I am seeing it mostly 2nd hand, but some is first-hand:

We suspect that some of my Aunt’s troubles that preceded her death were Covid vaxx related. She was institutionalized; had been for years. My young step-cousin (about 40 years old) nearly died of heart issues 10 days after his first mRNA jab. An adopted young cousin (in his 30s) developed cancer a while after Covid vaccination; he made a full recovery. My ex’s fiancée has been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. I do not know the time of diagnosis and whether it precedes or followed the Covid vaxx, (my kids don’t know specifics,) but my kids only mentioned it to me after she and their father had their Covid vaccinations, and she has noticeably deteriorate since then. A music student is vaxxed and has since had a prior chronic immune-related condition flare up repeatedly, and has been diagnosed with “long Covid.” One long-term client developed myocarditis and reduced kidney function after her first jab series— she has avoided the jabs ever since. Another long-term client had a “mini-stroke” about six months after her first jab series, and has been complaining of neuropathy during the past year. She does not attribute these issues to vaccination, blaming her advanced age instead (she is 90,) so she continues to get every booster on schedule. Another client developed blood clots in his legs a few months after vaccination; around the same time his wife developed some sort of swelling in her head (I don’t know the details on that one, but apparently it resolved.)

Beyond that, the rest is second-hand. Another student who over the course of six months both her niece and mother died suddenly. At one open mic that I frequent, in the past 8 months four individuals have died suddenly. (All were advanced in age — so it could have been natural causes — but in a group where 80% are over age 60, there would usually be one or two deaths per year, and not suddenly, but after slow decline.). At another local open mic, last Wednesday was a tribute to a woman who had been a participant for 30 years, who had died recently — I don’t know the particulars of her death. Most of the deaths that I am aware of that may be vaccine related are not people I know personally.

I have a medical office client. The primary doctor’s wife has been not-well since January 2020, or so. She had told me that she has believes it is “long Covid.” I don’t have enough data to really guess a what is going on, but I know that the entire office’s staff was vaccinated against Covid. Recently, I was told that her son (30s, I think?) has been doing poorly, a was diagnosed with Guillaine-Barre syndrome, and can no longer work in the office. I was told that he will likely have to apply for disability.

I can’t stop people from taking this injected poison. I warned some close family and friends—but the only ones who listened were my parents—and I kept my kids free of it. So I just keep watching the slow-rolling tsunami.

[phoenixvoice]

What happens when jewbankstergansters control your government, media, educational, financial and legal systems?

And, what do you know? The key guy who ratted out Biden & Co. for influence peddling in March 2019 was also Jewish. Would it be appropriate to append the religion or ethnicity of other bankstergangsters? There is an Italian mafia — but do we then suppose that all Italians are mafiosos? Are the Rockefellers “christbankstergangsters”? Does that mean that all Christians are suspect?

Let’s see…there is a really wise guy who stated “By their fruits ye shall know them”—so, just maybe, we should judge individuals by their own fruits and not by the actions of those who happen to share religion and/or ethnicity?

[phoenixvoice]

Ayn Rand teaches that little boy should pull himself up by the bootstraps.
Right. Would that we all would find an amazing, technologically advanced house in the woods, that only requires a little tinkering to get functioning, in order to provide one man — and his grateful friends — a life of liberty and freedom.

I may be a little fuzzy on the details of Anthem. I read it around 3 decades ago — found it with my parents’ books one day when I was looking for something to read. (I read Animal Farm for the same reason a few years before that.) However, it left me with a sour taste in my mouth. I read it, and a part of myself, deep inside declared: There is something wrong with the message of this book. Something doesn’t make sense! I kept thinking about it. And then I realized…the amazing house pre-existed the character. It’s existence had nothing to do with his efforts. It was the product of prior people, and prior people’s efforts.

Of course, the quasi-religious, collectivist society was terrible and oppressive. However, the idea that selfishness was the antidote was puerile.

[phoenixvoice]

“soldier saluting with his left hand.”
The soldier is in silhouette.
To know which hand is saluting, we have to know which direction the soldier is facing — which we cannot know from the silhouette.
People see what they want to see.
Pattern recognition, our minds giving meaning.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr D
“triggered by the killing of a teenager. career criminal.” Am I wrong here?

Yes.
A teen usually gets involved with such elements because of aspects of upbringing over which the teen had no control. A “career criminal” implies that one has chosen and practiced crime as a means of making a living for an extended period of time (~ 10 years +?) during adulthood.

Case in point: Malcolm X. As a teen, he was heavily involved in crime; in prison he reformed, and he afterwards he no longer committed crimes. (One may or may not agree with the positions he advocated after his reform — although, quite frankly, his positions continued to refine and change for the rest of his life through his assassination — however, he no longer committed crime after his incarceration.)

[phoenixvoice]

I didn’t vote for Biden either…but I still bear a shred of culpability for what the government does, even if it is a tiny, infinitesimal shred. I am horrified at the carnage, and at the pain of having sons and lovers pressed into a stupid war, having to flee one’s home. I am relieved that it is far from me…but that does not make it okay. I don’t like what Russia has done, but given the situation, it was a logical course of action. Ukraine fighting to the last Ukrainian — that is not logical. Bombing the Donbas never made any sense either.

[phoenixvoice]

Retrying…

~~~~~~~~~

I do not believe that failing to teach today’s children about how to use an analog phone or phone book is a failure of education. To teach them how to use such items would be anachronistic and a waste of time. Cursive is a different issue — failing to teach children cursive is about controlling and curating the current generation’s access to source documents of the past.

Where I see a huge failure of today’s education is failing to teach kids how to use TODAY’s technology. In the past couple of years I am consistently running across 20-somethings who profess to know almost nothing about how to use a personal computer. Just a couple of days ago, I called a new retirement home telling the receptionist that I teach technology and music classes to seniors, and the receptionist told me that *she* could use technology classes. For another retirement community, the (young-sounding) activities director explained that while she had tried helping seniors with their smartphones, they had also asked for help with their laptops, and she didn’t feel like she knew enough to help them. I have run across a newly minted nurse practitioner with a MacBook, who didn’t feel like she knew how to use her own laptop.

The powers that be seem to prefer “end users” who are technologically stupid and anxious about “messing things up” on their technological devices.

On a side note, I sat with one of my sons yesterday as he opened his first bank account. The legal user agreement for the bank’s smartphone app was tremendously long. I walked him through scrolling through the entire document on his phone, suggesting that it was wise to at least look it over and be familiar with its provisions, noting sections that were not currently relevant, but that should be looked at before using those relevant capabilities of the app. (i.e. review the rules around bill pay in detail before utilizing that feature, etc.). The banker helping us with the new account process was very patient, noting that “no one does this.” Damn straight! I will teach my son not to be cajoled and bullied into blithely signing any document put in front of him.

[phoenixvoice]

Michigan Democrats Pass Bill to Make It a Felony to Cause Someone to ‘Feel Threatened’ by Words
Hunh? What happened to “Sticks and stones….”??

[phoenixvoice]

Yes, energy density matters. But are humans sufficiently capable of crafting and maintaining nuclear reactors and safely storing the waste over the long haul?

Let’s see…it is too dangerous to insure, so governments (taxpayers) shoulder the risks. Yet corporations take the profits. That sounds like a recipe for disaster— look what has occurred over the last 37 years since vaccine manufacturers handed their liability over to the government while keeping their profits private…..

Look, those who reap the benefits (energy, profit, a job, etc.,) should also shoulder the risks from the uranium mining, reactor operation, and spent fuel storage. This is the ONLY WAY that humanity has a prayer of being vigilant about managing the risks of nuclear energy.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr d
That’s because the Federal level is not supposed to BE the taxing center of anything. All those programs are supposed to happen at the State, City, and Local level.
Yup. The feds aren’t supposed to control social programs. The correct Fed role would be an entity to which an appeal may be addressed should a state be administering a program in a manner that violates Constitutional protections.

[phoenixvoice]

Isn’t saying “All you need is sacrifice”, just another way of saying that we should submit our wills to “the greater good” with the specifics of “the greater good” being defined by a different rubric than the covidiots?

I watched Plandemic 3. It contained a lot of valuable, cogent material. I disagreed with the way it framed the problem as “individualism” vs. “collectivism.” Every human society has elements of both individualism and collectivism in varying degrees. Neither concept is wholly evil nor purely beneficent. For me, the problem explored by Plandemic 3 was a small cabal manipulating the rest of humanity in order to serve the narrow interests of that cabal. Humanity can be manipulated by various means, including by appeals to collectivism and appeals to individualism.

I cherish my independence as an adult. I also recognize that for the past 11 years, ever since my ex abandoned his moral duty to provide for the material well-being of our children and I had to shoulder that role disproportionately, that I could not do it alone. I have had to accept assistance from family, friends, church, and state. It is a human reality that we are social creatures and need each other. That need means that it is logical to consider the needs and desires of others, not just ourselves. This leads to sacrifice. This impulse can also be subverted to induce foolish things…like permitting oneself to be injected with experimental substances. Yet, just because the impulse to follow a course of action for the benefit of others exists, and because that impulse can be be manipulated, does not mean that the impulse is evil or wrong — in the right context, it is one of the things that binds healthy human families and societies together.

[phoenixvoice]

DBS yesterday
The reason that the bad guys are compelled to show and tell you what they’re doing and intend to do is that by you allowing them do that action, without consequential restraint or punishment, is demonstration and proof that you find it acceptable. Really!? Well, you accepted it didn’t you? That’s proof that you find it acceptable, and since it is acceptable then I’m going to keep on doing it.

My ex was like that. He erroneously believed that by following that course of action that he wouldn’t lose me, as he had checked with me first to make sure his behavior was “acceptable.” What he didn’t understand is that I wasn’t interested in putting ligatures on him — I preferred that he behave the way he pleased, without fear of reprisal from me, so that I could see who he truly was and what he wanted. Piece by piece he shattered the myths that I originally had crafted around him until there was nothing left that I could love, and then I then I carefully analyzed the situation and found a way to legally eject him from the home, because the home was key to the long term well-being of myself and the children. (It probably sounds very cold for me to write it in this way — actually, the process was heart-wrenching and very emotionally painful. By the time I found my solution he was an alcoholic and addicted to psychiatric medicine and barely brought in any income.)

What the “bad guys” don’t realize is that the “good guys” often play by rules. Those rules mean that the good guys won’t rain down repercussions on the bad guys until they have proof of the bad guys’ malfeasance. The good guys are giving the bad guys the opportunity to show their “true colors.” The bad guys don’t understand that rules can be followed out of desire, rather than only out of fear of reprisal; the bad guys have a fundamental misunderstanding that the good guys do not see the world as they do, and do not operate on the same assumptions as they do.

[phoenixvoice]

Forced degrowth leads to poverty of individuals and households, however…
Voluntary degrowth can lead to an individual or household to monetary surpluses which can be invested and lead to long term wealth.

[phoenixvoice]

Therefore the natural food source for a proposed Jewish mafia is…?
Good point. And so many of the Jews (all types) are fully vaxxed and up to date on boosters….

[phoenixvoice]

. Those “people” (horrible scum) who Biker rightfully despises (who he THINKS are Jews) are not in fact Jews at all, not by any stretch. In fact, they’re not even Semites. They are Ashkenazim
Right. Yadda, yadda.
And the Ashkenazim are descended from a different son of Noah, and converted to Judaism (becoming Jews…in a way), what, a thousand years ago? I don’t feel like looking it up.

Whatever. It ends up being yet another excuse to look at the nefarious escapades of some members of a few families and then frame all of their distant relations throughout time and space as responsible for the actions of a tiny cabal. Humans have strong tribal tendencies. Shakespeare explored this theme in Romeo and Juliet. My spouse is descended from Ashkenazim from Poland, one of his grandfathers bore a tattoo from a Nazi camp. He has a lot to say about his family (whom I’ve never met — they all live in New York and Israel), but they are not a part of the WEFfers and elites trying to take control of everything. He has rejected their Orthodox traditions, but he has a strong moral compass and integrity — and this is related to his upbringing. (Actually, they are all vaxxed and boosted up the wazoo, so…who knows what may befall them in the next decade.)

Who cares whether or not the “evil cabal” elites are Jewish or Ashkenazim or members of European royal houses or from the nouveau riche: Vanderbilts, Carnegies, Rockefeller, Soros, Gates, etc.? People are not intrinsically “evil” (definition here: hell-bent on the misery, servitude, pain, and or death of fellow humans, often with the purpose of aggrandizing oneself or one’s close kin and friends,) because of religion or ethnicity or even family. Typically, a group of humans “hates” on another group of humans because of tribal tendencies (viewing the other group as “wrong-headed,”) because of cultural misunderstandings that could be overcome if both sides would sit down together and communicate.

In my elementary school in a Denver suburb there was only one black kid in the grade of 85 students. She was mean. I still remember her name. Since she was the only black person that I’d ever interacted with, for many years I thought black people were unkind. It took years to unlearn that impression. It was worth the effort to unlearn.

[phoenixvoice]

Eagles are similar in body size to chickens — but leaner, and with much larger wingspan.

[phoenixvoice]

Regarding the Charles Hugh Smith post shared by Dr John yesterday…
It is true that a couple of people recycling does nothing to significantly adjust the larger system.
However…
I have found that by examining areas of my life and looking for ways to live more harmoniously with the planet and/or cut costs (as many resource reducing strategies do both), that it adjusts my perspective, and allows me to make connections that I did not see previously.
In his blog post, CHS bemoans more than once how he must import in fertilizer. I have found that between chicken droppings and compost that my garden’s fertilizer needs are satisfied.
I have found that on an income that is easily a quarter or less than my family had when I was growing up, that I can provide a lifestyle for my children that approaches what I was raised with.
Just one person can create a significant effect in that person’s life.
I don’t buy the existential anomie nonsense that because my individual contributions are insignificant in the big picture that they are useless. My individual contributions are huge — to me, to my children, to my spouse, and to the lives of others that I touch directly — and they work together synergistically in my own life.

[phoenixvoice]

He said a little but he “learned basic math so long ago it was hard to remember that far back”

That’s not what was going on. What happened is a product of two things in our society that are certainly not the fault of the worker…
(1) use of technology, making stuff “easier” for human brains, and
(2) non-cash forms of payments. (Checks did this, too.)

When someone makes change in their head, they are putting in a public “performance.” The mind does funny things in performance — we are more interested in how we will be perceived than we are customarily. We overthink aspects of what we are doing, which can distract us from the task at hand, or from the routine. When we do such performances routinely, they become routine and easy. When they are rare, we are surprised at how the performance situation disrupts our usual routine. Also, the type of thinking used in math is easy to disrupt…when I was in labor and had pre-eclampsia I was put on a magnesium drip — one of the side effects was that I couldn’t “think” math. Math thinking is easily disrupted by sudden “public performance” that we are not accustomed to.

That is most likely what happened to the young man. He said that basic math was so long ago as a means to cover up his acute embarrassment, not because of basic ineptitude in math. He is presented with cash so infrequently that he hasn’t developed the routine of handling himself calmly in this form of public performance. When I cashiered — 30 years ago — although the register could do the math for me, very often with cash a customer will present a few more coins, etc., necessitating math-in-the-head, done-on-the-fly, so I got over the performance anxiety after a few days. Next time this happens, we might show some compassion, saying: take your time, you probably don’t get presented with making change very often. This will help the cashier move through the performance anxiety, promoting better brain functioning in the future. Or, we can continue the old school method and simply give a look of disgust…. 😀

This is something that doesn’t get discussed much — a tractor saved a lot of time over a plough, and this translated to more food. The same could be said about the plough, versus cultivation by hand. But…a phone that remembers all of the numbers so that you never have to enter them by hand? — this promotes a lazy human mind. Every time an individual has to pull out an address book to look up a number it is an annoyance, and encourages the mind to remember the number. Eventually, the number is recalled without the book, which saves time, and keeps the mind functioning well. And lazy minds are not disciplined to do real research, accepting whatever fodder the fact checkers or legacy media or top search results or AI gives them.

[phoenixvoice]

DBS
Everybody seems to think (seems to fear, actually) that just because a tiny Cabal can oppress 8 billion people….

I think that this hits the nail on the head neatly. It isn’t that capitalism, socialism, the writings of Karl Marx, the writings of Adam Smith, or the US Constitution are inept, innately corrupt, or untenable — it’s that small groups of very corrupt, very self-serving humans concoct plans designed to disempower the masses.

(I’m sure that some here will take umbrage that I included Marx, but let me share an explanation. Capitalism isn’t perfect. Marx penned a cogent, detailed critique that analyzed capitalism. His writings, and the works of others, helped spawn movements that, yes, led to the USSR and Red China, however, these writings and efforts also contributed largely to reforms such as universal pensions, compensation for those injured on the job, banning of child labor, the concept of “overtime” and minimum wages, etc. We can rail against the specifics of various programs for workers, but does anyone argue that children should work for pittance wages rather than receive an education? Or that those injured on the job should be hung out to dry? In the Communist Manifesto Marx did say that he wanted to see the destruction of the family. Well, actually, he said that he wanted the destruction of the “bourgeois family.” Interestingly, by now, the “bourgeois family” doesn’t really exist — it has been effectively destroyed — women can own property, vote, divorce, work outside of the home in a respectable fashion, put their kids in daycare, never marry, control their own fertility, and a woman can still marry and be a stay-at-home mom, if that is the woman’s wish. The “bourgeois family” was created by the social dynamics that flowed from women being unable to own property, subject to the whims of male family members or husbands, unable to vote, unable to work respectably outside the home, unable to control her own fertility, whose only role was as caretaker of the home and children. It is beneficial to look “under the hood” rather than have our emotional buttons pushed by explosive statements framed in ways that are designed to get us unto “emotional thinking” mode, rather than “logical thinking” mode.)

[phoenixvoice]

I have a singing student who is a middle-aged, “butch” lesbian. In her lesson yesterday she blurted out indignantly: “There are men and there are women. There are trans-women and trans-men — but a trans-woman is not a woman.”

I agreed. I think that her usual daily community are LGBTQI folks, and she must have been seeking a safe harbor to express her true views.

She is possessed of an amazing low female voice. She can sing significantly lower than most women. I’ve been teaching her to access her head voice as well. She says that it has been an eye-popping experience in femininity. She is in a gay women’s choir, and apparently many of her butch lesbian peers disdain all things feminine and refuse to sing high notes. I say, learn to use the voice you’ve got — and if you can do something that many cannot do, go for it! Utilizing fully the voice that you have, that is an intrinsic part of your identity. And she can be a butch lesbian singing lower than most women, and higher than them, too, because she knows how to access her head voice.

[phoenixvoice]

Hot weather in June
Well, sure, in some part of the world there is unusually warm weather in June. Meanwhile, in Phoenix, AZ we are about five degrees cooler than is typical in June. It isn’t a huge difference, but it means that although my house’s air conditioner was replaced last Saturday, we are running the evaporative cooler, and the house was 67 degrees when I woke and is pleasant all day, never budging above 73. Usually, by this time in June I’m debating when to switch to air conditioning because the temperature inside in the late afternoon is 80 degrees and humid.

Is the climate changing? It is always in flux. Getting warmer? Possibly. But that would have to be determined by careful temperature measurement and analysis from multiple locations across many years — not by one location nor one month.

[phoenixvoice]

National Digital Health ID
I’m guessing that this is tied to the “health exchanges”? Anytime anyone in the US goes to a doctor or medical facility of any kind these days, take a look at the paperwork that you are required to sign. Generally, your data is going to be entered into a digital “health exchange” unless you actively opt out.

[phoenixvoice]

“Nudge”
It is a very useful parental technique.

When I had three young’uns 18 months apart in age (preschool and the early years of elementary school,) getting them all to bed was challenging. I learned the art of the “nudge.” They shared a bedroom. The bathroom was on one end of the house, their room on the other. After bathroom stuff was done, I tuned off the light in the bathroom, then the light in the hall to the bathroom. The kids were in the living room. I turned off the light in the living room, and the kids moved forward to the kitchen and family room. I turned off the light in the kitchen, and soon all three were in the family room, perhaps one or two had gone down the hall to their bedroom. I turned off the light in the family room and walked into their bedroom. Any of the kids still in the family room followed down the hall into their bedroom. I shut of the light to the hall, returned to their room, and commenced putting in pajamas and story reading. I didn’t have to make any demands, cajole, threaten, sweet-talk, bribe — nothing. They were tall enough to put the lights back on. (Occasionally they did do that.). They left the dark and followed the light to their bedroom.

However, that our managers are attempting this through digital means tells us that they think of us as children, and not as sovereign adults.

[phoenixvoice]

@ dr d
When people participate in Democracy, it becomes “Demagoguery” and “Populism”. Brrr. Unacceptable
So happy to see someone point this out. Some weeks ago I ran across a definition of populism that suggested that a populist candidate was ALWAYS a bad thing. It insinuated that populism=fascism, which is ridiculous. I think what it comes down to is that populism is organic, edgy, and impossible to control — and that is the antithesis of what our powers-that-be management desires.

[phoenixvoice]

Scientist Suggests ‘Eating Human Meat’ to Tackle Climate Change
Hunh, what?
Life imitating art again?
Soylent Green

[phoenixvoice]

@ Morongobill
Yes. It is utterly revolting.

However…I want more information. What we saw there were compromising photos plus a translated allegation. They are collected together in a way to suggest a specific narrative. There is no information regarding the source — other than it being “Russian.” It could be 100% real. It could be fake. In Russia, it works well as propaganda — stoking an emotional response from the people of Russia as they sacrifice to fight The West in Ukraine, Hunter standing as a proxy for his father, who represents the US, who represents the fight in Ukraine. For the Russian people, the Biden family influence-peddling scheme is likely to sound like “business-as-usual” political corruption. In the US, the Biden money-laundering alone can cause anger in the people. If it is real, there are many in the US who carry no love for the Biden family, and more information will come out.

One of the first questions that I have about the images is what is the significance of the headband things that the girls are wearing? I think that may shed some more light on authenticating the images.

[phoenixvoice]

…and you can’t just “abolish” the IRS. Then its many mistakes would never become resolved. The people who actually committed gross tax fraud would get off Scott-free. If it were allowed to fade away, just tying up all of the loose ends would be a monumental task — what about all of the folks slowly paying off their accepted “offers in compromise”?

[phoenixvoice]

desantis-says-he-would-sign-legislation-to-defund-corrupt-irs
Oh, yeah, that’s going to work well. And when the IRS makes a mistake and no one can speak to a real person? The IRS cashed my business’s check for 2022 unemployment tax, but claims to not have received the paper return present in the same envelope. I have to get a copy of the deposited check from my credit union. The check was converted to an electronic transaction, so my credit union has to request the paper check from the federal government. I filed my corporate taxes electronically with HR Block software. The software received confirmation that the return was received. The IRS claims that they never got it. Instead, the IRS claims that they received the FUT return, the one on paper that came in the en elope with the check, electronically.

The IRS needs to drop partisanship and focus on the business of correctly handling federal tax and the associated data, etc. “Defunding” it doesn’t help the situation and is likely to make it worse. The IRS needs proper management.

[phoenixvoice]

@ Kassandra
Hear you. A music student yesterday in his late sixties commented that he has had 5 Covid vaccinations and had Covid three times! Survived them all, though….

I replied that I wasn’t impressed with the Covid vaccine. Back in spring ‘21 there were all of these claims about it but I looked at the study, and the study didn’t support the claims. Besides, I had Covid before the vaccine came out, so getting vaccinated for a disease I’d already had didn’t make much sense. I never got the chicken pox vaccine either, because I had chicken pox as a child. And by now, the claims about the vaccine from spring 2021 have all been proven false.

Chipping away at the mass formation, one bit at a time. Oh, BTW, this student was recently diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease.

[phoenixvoice]

Maritime security
This is especially concerning because network segregation is challenging onboard a vessel and often broken down for ease of use. Yet it is critical for protecting OT onboard vessels from less-trusted IT networks where threats propagate with relative ease.

At what point is it going to be realized that interconnectivity, while convenient, is *always* going to be a security risk?

The only fail-safe way to keep a system secure (barring physical user error or malicious act) is for it to be “air-gapped” — physically separated from other devices and networks. Maritime ships for years did not have full interconnectivity — why must they now? The satellite GPS system is passive — the GPS receives signals from at least 3 satellites and calculates position on a hard code map. The satellites do not know how the data is used — they just broadcast. (Ah….but interconnectivity equals totalitarian control, hence all must be connected.)

[phoenixvoice]

The US is “still training Ukrainians how to fly our F-16s that will be shot down by Russia

And, apparently, are doing so locally. I had noticed the past few months on and off rumbling from jet engines all through the days, and figured it was from Luke AFB. I have a client in Globe, a small town about 2 hours east of Phoenix. They have been experiencing frequent sonic booms of late that rattle their buildings and sometimes cause the power to wink out for a couple of seconds. The rumor there is that the sonic booms are from the training of Ukrainian pilots. I suppose the population on Globe is considered inconsequential, as compared to the greater Phoenix metro area, and so the AFB lets the sonic booms rip overhead in that region.

[phoenixvoice]

@ Dr D
Enjoyed Imagination Land — spot on. 🙂

[phoenixvoice]

Ancestral mathematics
Just think — if that were taught in the schools, we’d have people who intuitively understand much of the the math that underpins computing. 😉

[phoenixvoice]

Greco: Farming is a crapshoot, facilitates population growth which in turn sets the stage for great famines when it fails.

Hence, the lesson Joseph of Egypt: don’t eat your entire harvest each year, it is important to store food for times when weather is uncooperative.
And to rulers: lean times are great opportunities to leverage resources and enslave others who don’t have access to your resources.

[phoenixvoice]

My daughter’s friend came over yesterday afternoon. The friend is clearly a biological female, but wants they/them pronouns and wants to be called by a gender-neutral nickname. Fine. Before we picked up the friend, my daughter says that, today, we are to call the friend by a different, clearly feminine, name, still using they/them. She went on to explain that the friend believes that she has multiple personalities inside—“multiple personality disorder,” I interjected—“yes, something like that,” she replied.

I pointed out that, typically, people with multiple personality disorder don’t know that they have it. My daughter agreed that the best course of action was to accept these identity labels at face value and call people as they wish — especially friends.

I don’t fault the young people — even 20-somethings — for these odd identity beliefs, because I believe the blame lies in the older adults promoting these ideas, suggesting to *all* young people that “identity” is some elusive thing the emerges from within, and needs to be declared on the outside by one of these ever-multiplying labels. This is wrong. Humans *are* complex and our minds take a very long time to develop. Adult human minds are needed to give references, framing, and structure to young minds. Identity is a hybrid, a synthesis, formed partly from the structure imposed on the young by adults and partly from the individual. There is no “perfect formula” for the amount of structure that needs to be provided by the adults. (Of my children, one requires little outside structure and chafes at such structure easily. One can function well with many structural modalities. The third requires extensive structure, but it has to be arranged a specific way or his anxiety causes him to explode emotionally.)

[phoenixvoice]

We have global warming because too many people are using too much stuff
Ted Turner

Hm. So, according to Ted:
“Global warming” is not caused by solar activity
“Global warming” is not caused by normal earth processes, such as the fact that we are still on the upswing from the last “little ice age.”
The problem is not “too much stuff,” per se, but the quantity (“too many”) of people using large quantities of stuff.

Malthus’ theories from 1789 are often trotted out and justified and/or debunked.
Personally, it doesn’t take great study nor advanced degrees to understand that it is not ideal for humans to blindly and blithely live like a bacteria colony in Petri dish, blissfully reproducing until all resources are consumed, and then the colony dies. According to the principles of the Enlightenment, we support intelligent and informed humans making their own choices. I believe that it is appropriate to give humans access to technology that allows them to limit their reproduction, while at the same time I am opposed to any sort of coercion to do the same. This is, of course, challenging because how does a society support women who want to carry a child full term and raise it while at the same time discouraging women from having children in order to abdicate the responsibility of caring for themselves? There are always freeloaders. And measures to discourage freeloaders will also deprive some who truly need the assistance and have no intention to freeload. Ideally, we want children to grow up in homes where they are loved and well-cared for, as this is what leads to the well-being of the next generation.

[phoenixvoice]

Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened,”
I grudgingly admit that Trump was a much better president than is Biden. (I didn’t vote for either of them.). If Trump were president right now, I believe that the US would be on a better course than it is presently. But this quote illustrates so well why I really, REALLY don’t like Trump.
It would be great to see RFK Jr garner the Dem nomination, but that is less likely than Bernie Sanders receiving it — Bernie had years of experience putting forth legislation that neither party would further, to the delight of his constituents. He had some good points to make — but he wasn’t directly attacking the foundations of the current power system in the US. Bernie was, essentially, just trying to make sure that the voice and concerns of the common folk were addressed at the national level. RFK Jr *is* attacking the current power foundations, is saying “that which must not be uttered” — and I hope that he has a very good security team.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr D
Creation of factions – this one took a long time, esp after they found out race doesn’t work well

It is interesting to note that the current set in power who are gunning for ever-increasing totalitarian control have been specifically fomenting division between “races.” Why? Due to the fact that nazism was birthed from racist sentiment that grew out from colonialism (Europeans tended to believe that their culture was superior to the native cultures of their colonies) and nativist sentiments stoked by all of the displaced peoples throughout Europe who were impoverished and had no place to go (original people to an area were discomfited by the displaced people in their midst, especially during a period of economic hardship), it is often believed that racism and totalitarianism go together, like hand and glove. I’m not convinced that this is the case — it seems to me that what is endemic to totalitarianism is the “in-group” vs. “out-groups,” not specifically race. I sometimes wonder if the rhetoric dividing “white” and “brown” people has been specifically crafted to try to create a public sentiment in the US similar to that of Europe between the world wars. However…that sentiment is not likely to take hold in the US in the same way as it did in that European era, because the US public has been spending the last 6 decades learning to appreciate the descendants of African slaves, and the unique contributions that they have been making to US culture, music, sports, etc. However, a wave of migrants during an economic downturn IS likely to cause strife, as people scramble for scarce resources. It is possible that the migrants may play an important social role, however, as there will be great need for hands to take care of all of those injured by the vaccines. Migrants who are criminals or who are here to do the bidding of the Chinese government are a potential real concern. Regardless, I suspect that the migrants are not going to be as sympathetic to the a Democratic Party as the leadership of that party may expect them to be.

[phoenixvoice]

Feisty chick
It looks to be between 1 and 2 weeks old. I think that it is facing off against an older chick — one between 4 and 6 weeks old. I have seen older chicks bully younger chicks. I have NEVER seen a chick attack like that — VERY unusual.

[phoenixvoice]

Dr. D…
Your premise about the nature of the pre-Nazi party is based on the idea that it was functioning along the lines that we are familiar with in our own history…and this is not what was going on at that time and place.

Hannah Arendt, Origins of Totalitarianism, p. 259-264 “new edition with added prefaces”
There are no movements without hatred of the state, and this was virtually unknown to the German Pan-Germans in the relative stability of prewar Germany. The movements originated in Austria-Hungary, where hatred of the state was an expression of patriotism for the oppressed nationalities and where the parties–with the exception of the Social Democratic Party (next to the Christian-Social Party the only one sincerely loyal to Austria)–were formed along national, and not along class lines. This was possible because economic and national interests were almost identical here and bcause economic and social status depended largely on nationality; nationalism, therefore, which had been a unifying force in the nation-states, here became at once a principle of internal disruption, which resulted in a decisive difference in the structure of the parties as compared with those of other nation-states. What held together the members of the parties in multinational Austria-Hungary was not a particular interest…or a particular principle for organized action as in the Anglo-Saxon [my aside: that is the type of political party we are most familiar with, being English speakers primarily], but chiefly the sentiment of belonging to the same nationality…. The [European] pan-movements…transform[ed] parties into movements and by discovering that form of organization…could change its policy from day to day without harm to its membership. Long before Nazism proudly pronounced that though it had a program it did not need one, Pan-Germanism discovered how much more important for mass appeal a general mood was than laid-down outlines and platforms. For the only thing that counts in a movement is precisely that it keeps itself in constant movement. The Nazis, therefore, used to refer to the fourteen years of the the Weimar Republic as the “time of the System”…the implication being that this time was sterile, lacked dynamism, did not “move,” and was followed by their “era of the movement.”
…
The pan-movements’ hostility to the party system acquired practical significance when, after the first World War, the party system ceased to be a working device and the class system of European society broke down under the weight of the growing masses entirely declassed by events. What came to the fore then were no longer mere pan-movements, but their totalitarian successors, which in a few years determined the politics of all other parties ot such a degree that they became either anti-Fascist or anti-Bolshevik or both. By this negative approach seemingly forced upon them from the outside, the older parties showed clearly that they too were no longer able to function as representatives of specific class interests but had become mere defenders of the status quo….
…the more class-conscious its [i.e. a country’s] people had been, the more dramatic and dangerous was this breakdown [of the class system].
This was the situation between the two wars when every movment had a greater chance than any party because the movement attacked the instituttion of the state and did not appeal to the classes. Fascism and Nazism always bosasted that their hatred was directed not against individual classes, but the class system as such, which they denounced as an invention of Marxism. Even more significant was the fact that the Communists also, notwithstanding their Marxist ideaology, had to abandon the rigidity of their class appeal when, after 1935, under the pretext of enlarging their mass base, they formed Popular Fronts everywhere and began to appeal to the same growing masses outside all class strata which up to then had been the natural prey to the Fascist movements….
The breakdown of the European party system occurred in a spectacular way with Hitler’s rise to power. It is now often conveniently forgotten that at the moment of the outbreak of the second World War, the majority of European countries had already adopted some form of dictatorship and discarded the party system, and that this revolutionary change in government had been effected in most countries without revolutionary upheaval….
Different in appearance but much more violent in reality was the breakdown of the party system in pre-Hitler Germany. This came into the open during the last presidential elections in 1932….
…(Hitler for the Nazis, and Thalmann for the Communists), it was rather surprising to see that all other parties could suddenly agree upon one candidate.

I had to do some elisions for brevity…Arendt’s writing is so full of clauses that it is really easy to get sidetracked and lost. Feel free to look up the original.
On its face: last presidentail election in pre-Hitler Germany was between the Nazis, the Communists, and “all other parties” — and a perusal of the names and platforms of “all other parties” suggests that nearly all of them would have been considered “on the left” based upon the definition of “the left” given by Dr. D. At that point, the divisions between “right” and “left” would have to be determined by something other than merely the official party platforms…and perhaps “right” and “left” just were not very apt explanations of what was going on politically at the time in Germany and Europe generally.

Arendt suggests that classism had broken down in Europe generally in this time (because of the vast number of internally displaced people, which was due to centuries of colonialism and the first world war), and of course we are somwhat familiar with the struggles of Weimar Germany, the poverty and crazy inflation, etc.

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