willem
Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
@Dr. D quoted: “Polyanskiy, that is the exact Skull Symbol used in the comedy skit “Are We the Baddies?” “We’re wearing literal skulls on our uniforms…are we the baddies?” How about the people who openly lie and cover for them, are they also the baddies?”
I heard a good line in the old 1966 movie “The Professionals” last night. “Maybe there’s only one revolution: the good guys versus the bad guys. The question is: who are the good guys?”
In the painting, the woman looks somewhere between sad and resigned to me. I think it’s the eyelids.
@boilingfrog: “I am absolutely stunned by the single-mindedness, close-mindedness, of those around me. Just stunned. There is no logic, no thinking, no even LOOKING at information that might challenge their (very simplistic, in my opinion) world-view.”
Bingo. My experience precisely.
@Dr. D: Speaking of bulls—t, “Manure Supplies Tighten as Fertilizer Prices Soar”
What I want to know is where the bulls**t we’ll be using to return to these “sustainable farming practices” will come from after they get rid of all the cows…..
Raul: Although I have always tended to disfavor abortion, I was not passionate about my beliefs, and could see both sides of the argument–it is a difficult moral question. But last year, my daughter’s first born arrived early after only 24 weeks, and was little bigger than my thumb. But in what almost seems like a miracle, the NICU saw him through those 12 or 13 weeks, and he went home at about the time he would have reached full term. Last month he celebrated his first birthday, and he is a happy and healthy baby with no apparent problems. This has rather changed my beliefs on the issue, since the early foetus has thus been shown to be a viable human being. I think this makes the moral argument for permitting abortion much more difficult (again, barring exceptional circumstances).
As an aside, the early birth was a placental failure/infection that occurred about 7-10 days after my daughter’s doctor advised her that getting the jab was perfectly safe and that she should do it. That is ground already well-traveled, and need not be revisited here.
@Mr. House: I wonder if the doctors seeing exclusively vaxxed patients has anything to do with a loss of trust in their profession by the unvaxxed. Although I myself admittedly have never been a great one for going to the doctor anyway, I have now lost my trust in the profession almost completely, and would only go see one for acute care like an injury. And hospitals–I guess I’m going to be dying at home….
@Veracious Poet: Hang in there, friend. If we didn’t care, we wouldn’t be feeling so discouraged. While nevertheless preparing, I can’t quite bring myself to give up yet.
I like this idea from Dr. Robert Malone. It is a quiet way for like-minded free thinkers to spot each other, and perhaps it would give them a chance to reach out and form community with one another more easily.
https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/a-white-band-to-show-support-against?s=r
When I try to engage others on these things, I sometimes get reactions similar to the one Maxwell Quest got from his sister. But even when the reaction is milder, I find that even having an intelligent conversation is almost impossible. Once in a great while, I meet someone and have an interesting verbal dance where each of us kind of probes the other subtly to establish some common ground. It’s great when it works, but it doesn’t happen often.
I don’t like “in your face” symbology where I boldly assault strangers with my sympathies by displaying something obviously polarizing–you just can’t make connections that way. The plain white band is a nice touch.
@Mr. House: I don’t disagree with anything you said, quite the contrary in fact. My main takeaway from the article was that Russia might have some downsides I hadn’t previously considered.
@Germ: I took a look at this paper, and the abstract & conclusions read more like a political science term paper than a piece of medical research. Although I’m not done picking it apart yet, it looks like the authors may have started with their conclusions and worked backwards.
Interestingly, I searched on the first listed author, David M. Fisman MD, and looked at his Wikipedia entry. Interestingly, the study was published on April 25, and here it is only a day later, and his page has already been updated with a paragraph prominently reporting the “results” of this “study”.
Yesterday I saw the following interesting post by Riley Waggaman (aka Edward Slavsquat), which has me revisiting my theories about what exactly is going on with the Ukraine situation:
https://edwardslavsquat.substack.com/p/russia-says-its-fighting-the-whole?s=r
For those not familiar with Riley, he is an American “self-exiled living in Moscow”. Interesting perspective.
@Susan C and others: Interesting. My difficulty connecting to Strategic Culture seems tied to Mozilla Firefox. When I swapped over to Brave browser, the site loaded normally. I wonder if Mozilla has gone ahead with their censorship campaign somehow…..(I know, another ‘conspiracy theory’!)
@Susan C: I cannot connect to Strategic Culture either, even though I use a VPN. (I am in California, usually using one of the VPN service’s servers based here in-state.) The new articles are still coming up on my RSS feed, but when I click on one, all I get is a blank page and a lot of CPU activity. I tried selecting VPN servers in several other countries besides the US, but none of them worked. Sometimes I can get to sites like RT by using servers based in non-western countries, but it didn’t work this time.
It could be my blockers–I have ad blockers and popup blockers, and use Private windows, and some websites don’t like that. I’m kind of a security freak that way. But a couple of weeks ago I was able to access Strategic Culture content just fine with exactly the same settings.
PCR has become increasingly shrill as he ages, but as many others have said, his heart is in the right place. I’ve read him off and on for years, and personally cut him a bit of slack at this point. For one thing, I’m sure his frustration has been growing over the years as he has been forced to watch more or less helplessly as this fustercluck heads inexorably for the cliff edge. Also, one has to make some allowance for his advancing years; as one of that club myself, I know we grow less temperate as we carry our unresolved frustrations into old age.
@Fattigmann said:
“Face it, young, intelligent people don’t want to live in Russia or Ukraine; they want to partake in the freedom afforded by the 2,500 year old European tradition.”
That so-called “European tradition” is disappearing fast, with Western leaders now openly admiring the Chinese social management model. A strange inversion is taking place, and Russia is now starting to seem more “Western” in a moral and religious respect, than the West.
This interesting piece appeared yesterday. Linh Dinh interviews a 40-ish woman from the US who emigrated to Russia in 2014. She does not appear eager to move back.
https://linhdinh.substack.com/p/escape-from-america-mosocow-russia?s=r
Obama: “People like Putin, and Steve Bannon for that matter, understand it’s not necessary for people to believe disinformation… You just have to flood a country’s public square with enough raw sewage.
Hey, Barack–they aren’t the only ones that have figured that out…..
Part 1 of what promises to be a great series of posts by Igor Chudov on the methods used to manipulate public behavior in the wake of Covid:
https://igorchudov.substack.com/p/vaccine-skeptics-are-the-true-critical
@Dr. D: Good point regarding the profit picture for growers cutting back on fertilizers. Not to be forgotten is that organic farmers and those others who have been practicing sustainable agriculture will find their asking prices can now be more competitive. Also, their profit margins will jump for two reasons: their costs will not rise, and their yields will not shrink.
So sorry to hear about Gonzalo Lira. All along while watching his reports I have wondered how much personal risk he was putting himself at, webcasting inside a war zone with bad people nearby that were certain not to like what he had to say.
The Patrick Lancaster reporting looks mighty risky, too. I hope he can stay out of the line of fire.
@Veracious Poet, @WES: I’m with you. You’re right on target about the destruction of the credibility of the health care system. No longer can one trust what might be in that syringe…..
@Figmund Sreud: Thanks for that Patrick Lawrence article. It gets right to the heart of my own observations. Again last night, my sense of isolation was renewed by a call from a good friend on the other side of the country. Since he retired and moved back east, we now only talk maybe once a month. He started out by expressing his depression/distress/anger at “the evil Vladimir Putin.” I thought to myself, “there goes another one.”
Literally every single personal contact I’ve preserved into retirement, including my extended family, is seemingly “assimilated.” This is profoundly discouraging, especially since none of them are even close to what any reasonable person would label “stupid.” If I didn’t frequent forums like this one, it would be quite easy to believe that I’m virtually alone in my beliefs about what is happening around us.
Wouldn’t this be the perfect “false flag” opportunity, with the added bonus of a “clean exit” for someone the Deep State has already decided needs to go…
“As you may know, the WHO is proposing a global pandemic agreement that would give it undemocratic rights over every participating nation and its citizens. Put simply, in the event of a ‘pandemic’, the WHO’s constitution would replace every country’s constitution.”
No one seems to be pointing out the obvious–that the proposal on the table is to put in charge of the world an agency whose single biggest funding source is not UN member governments, but the Gates Foundation, which is not only an NGO, but one who has very obvious conflicts of interest.
I know, all our governments and their agencies are already pretty much captive to lobbyists and other corrupt influences. But do we have to say the quiet part out loud with this outrageous proposal?
I just saw that Pepe Escobar got suspended on Twitter. Why any serious journalist still posts there is beyond me.
Thanks for the Self Fulfilling Prophecy reference. I follow that site but somehow missed that particular article.
@Dr. D: “So would these same people kill 1/3 or more of their own people to win WWIII? Why not? There’s literally no difference in killing them BEFORE you declare war, or if they die DURING the war, and since these same people have the same wars, always voluntarily, it’s literally like choosing where to place the comma, before or after the verb. So they kill 25M of us, THEN invade Russia, who then has no Commodity producer leverage over Joe and BoJo.”
A very interesting point. It is also worth considering that many of the “winners” of 20th century wars (if indeed they can be called that in view of what they suffered) were nations that were willing to absorb the highest casualty counts: Russia, China, Vietnam, for example.
As the effect on itself of the West’s Russia sanctions quickly became clear, I have suspected that one ulterior motive for spinning up this was was to give TPTB a way to propagandize the public into consent for radically higher prices, especially energy. This seemed to be a back-door way of forcing a reluctant public into the “green energy” scheme.
Now Zelensky himself has confirmed that he is a WEF tool and that the public is being played:
Zelensky's proposal to stop war: Green energy.
I wish I was kidding.🔻 pic.twitter.com/zFYYveS0Zn
— Kyle Becker (@kylenabecker) March 30, 2022
Saw this on Armstrong Economics this morning. I already know the answer: NO. And that is because the purpose of these sanctions is not so much against Russia as it is against ourselves. Forcing food and fuel shortages on ourselves and saying “we need to make this sacrifice” is how they get in BBBBB (Build Back Better By the Backdoor). In this manner they are going to attempt to force the adoption of renewables and fake food by strangling the alternatives with the flag.
@Red: I’ve seen numerous references to the experiment with the marshmallows over the years. Supposedly it is all about one’s ability to defer gratification. But IMHO, the thing that is constantly overlooked is that this finding can’t be completely translated to adult decision-making, as so many are wont to do.
This is because a mature adult makes his choice at least partly based on his certainty that the promised future outcome will take place. In other words, you can have one marshmallow today, or MAYBE you can have two marshmallows tomorrow. You can put the effort into educating yourself and MAYBE get a better job as a result. And certainly you will not leave your car at home and turn down holidays abroad so that strangers MIGHT not have to cope with economic collapse and climate change.
Our decisions are (consciously or unconsciously) based in part on our assessment of the probabilities of desired future outcomes. Also, one thing feeding into our assessments is our level of trust in whatever authority is supplying us with all or some of the data we use to make that assessment.
On a societal level, some actors reach the point at which their faith in certain future outcomes fades, and they start to make choices that allow them to take what they can today, “for tomorrow is promised to no one.” I think the greed and impulsiveness that has been growing in our society reflects this trend.
@a kullervo:
“…all TPTB are doing is trying to extend mankind’s shelf life via a dramatic catharsis.”
Most of what you say definitely qualifies as food for thought. However, that is not all they are trying to do. You imply that although the methods being used are ignoble, that there may some kind of noble end to it. In reality, TPTB probably don’t care about “prolonging mankind’s shelf life” at all, except for the small number they believe are necessary to provide a sufficient number of serfs for themselves.
Beyond the discussion of the methods being used, the biggest problem I see is that their vision of what comes after our current “failed” society is a successor that leaves the same shitheads intact and in charge of the remnant. If one truly wishes to assert that mankind has failed and needs a do-over, I think that at a minimum we should start with FRESH shitheads rather than recycling the old ones.
“China Won’t ‘Condemn’ Russia”
“Never interrupt your opponent when he’s making a mistake.” –NapoleonIs Putin really just playing his part in a Davos-directed script? Russia’s response to the virus and its pushing of a vaccine seem right on script. Even now it continues to push this, even after being ostracized by a large part of the world.
Without a doubt, the various elite cliques across the globe contend with one another while simultaneously being forced to deal with the uncertainties introduced by the behaviors and reactions of masses. Perhaps Schwab’s inspiration was recognizing how to eliminate most of those uncertainties if the elites would simply agree to suspend the competition long enough to implement some new methods of controlling those masses (e.g., “biosecurity”).
I can’t find it now, but not too long ago there was a video floating around showing what was supposedly a forum of “Young Global Leaders.” If you look at the white board that appears briefly in the video, one thing you will notice is a bullet point that says “Support one another.” This is key.
@Dr. D: My exact thinking on IVM–although I have never viewed it as the magic cure, I think that it is worth a try, given that it is virtually risk-free. If it turns out not to work for you, what are you out, other than the trivial expense of the medication?
BTW, NH is moving toward making IVM available over-the-counter. This would remove most of the stigma for doctors who want to tell their patients to give it a try but are reluctant to prescribe it for fear of the professional consequences.
@Veracious: “BTW, when I logged onto gmail today I got a pop-up asking if I wanted to “donate” to help Ukraine…”
No thanks, I gave at the office……(and you did, too!)
@Red: I’ve been trying Presearch and Brave Search since jettisoning DuckDuckGo last week.
Oxy’s party experience at least confirms that we are not just dealing with on-line caricatures of people like this–they really exist. Sometimes I have wondered, since I have been fortunate enough to been spared the experience of such encounters en masse.
“I think the dollar has reached the end of its rope.”…“Not until there’s something to replace it.”
Commerce will always find a way. Although perhaps less internationally efficient, the replacement need not be the product of a Bretton Woods-style agreement.
I don’t understand why the public hasn’t just accepted the reality that Twitter, Facebook, and Youtube are not platforms where meaningful discussion or analysis of anything even remotely political or otherwise controversial can take place. Just give them up and move on unless all you’re interested in posting are cat pics or how-to videos. Other forums are available that have shown a clear willingness to host such content.
Raul: I went looking for the CNN story about Chernobyl and couldn’t find it. Either it was so outrageous that they backed off on it and took it down, or it is a fake banner that was posted somewhere.
Anyone who thinks this is a good idea is insane. I am a 40-year veteran of the nuclear industry and know what I’m talking about.
“Bill Clinton Relaunching Clinton Global Initiative”
The best confirmation yet that Hillary intends to run again in 2024. The biggest reason the CGI went inactive in 2017 is that it could no longer attract contributors once it became obvious that there was no longer any possibility of any quid pro quo. Now, incredibly, HRC has been making the rounds again, and dusting off the CGI gives all those “supporters” somewhere to send their money (on a wing and a prayer).
