Open Thread – Tues 9 Aug 2022


Mad Meg, Pieter Bruegel the Elder, 1564

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Rabz
August 13, 2022 12:41 am

I’ve known many of those chinese students over the years. Had them as friends and housemates. It is not their fault that the CCP uses them as leverage. That’s the way the CCP operates.

In other words, the CCP has your chinese neighbores reporting on you as well as themselves.

And many, many imbeciles were blasé enough to think that nayzees and commos had been banished to the dusty pages of history.

Yet here we are (again) …

Rabz
August 13, 2022 12:46 am

I’m here for the Arkynomics 101 lecture.
When does it start?

Scroll upthread Squire, you’ll even find me discoursing about it. 🙂

JC
JC
August 13, 2022 12:47 am

And many, many imbeciles were blasé enough to think that nayzees and commos had been banished to the dusty pages of history.

Yet here we are (again) …

Under Xi , China is pretty much a fascist regime. It’s not communist in the real sense. The ironic thing is that we saw, over the space of 25 plus years, a communist regime seamlessly converting from communist to fascist . Meanwhile the Western left is willfully blind to this move from one totalitarian room to another in the same house.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 13, 2022 12:49 am

And many, many imbeciles were blasé enough to think that nayzees and commos had been banished to the dusty pages of history. Yet here we are (again) …

Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn @AI_Solzhenitsyn · 13h
“For us in Russia, communism is a dead dog, while, for many people in the West, it is still a living lion.”

Arky
August 13, 2022 12:49 am

In other words, the CCP has your chinese neighbores reporting on you as well as themselves.

..
You misunderstand me.
It is economic leverage. They withdrew tourists from Taiwan as economic blackmail.
Likewise, universities are keenly aware of their dependency on that market. Which they themselves sought out.
They put their own heads on the vice.

Rabz
August 13, 2022 12:54 am

a fascist regime

Viktoriastan, come on down!

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
August 13, 2022 12:55 am

I have too much fun kicking m0nty about the place to give it up, so I’m not going to.

I can understand that up to a point, OCO, but don’t you ever feel guilty about mocking the afflicted? I do. I just can’t help feel a mixture of horror and pity when I read m0nty’s garbage. The pathos of someone spending so much of their time peddling something ludicrously stupid and getting crapped on non-stop. He has to be driven by a desire to wind ppl up. I am not convinced he believes in it, not in the sense of having thought his position through. Maybe he ‘believes’ it in something like the way ppl sucked into a cult ‘believe’ in the tenets of the cult. The joy of being absorbed by the borg, and never having to think for yourself ever again. He gives me the cold horrors sometimes. Like I’ve said before, he’s a zombie. And a willing one. You’re treating him as an extremely stupid human being; I think it’s much worse than that.

Rabz
August 13, 2022 1:01 am

It is economic leverage

No Arks, it is personal, in your face leverage. You submit or they come for everyone they can connect to you, inadvertently or otherwise.

Could you imagine this sort of all encompassing power being gifted to the vindictive staggeringly stupid z-grade mediocrities (BIRM) that are labore and the greenfilth?

Well, we might not have to imagine anymore, soon enough.

JC
JC
August 13, 2022 1:03 am

WSJ report

How much does a kennel cost to rent.

Out of all the neighborhoods that StreetEasy collects rent data from, 20 had median asking rents above $4,000 for one-bedroom apartments in 2022,

That’s ~$5,600 per month.

Colonel Crispin Berka
Colonel Crispin Berka
August 13, 2022 1:09 am

Maybe he ‘believes’ it in something like the way ppl sucked into a cult ‘believe’ in the tenets of the cult.

Have you *seen* his blog?
Stop me if you’ve heard this one before.
Conservatives are not conservative because by opposing the changes of the Left they have stopped being conservative and really become reactionaries.
No really, here’s the quote.

this stance of mine was developed in reaction to the direction of modern “conservatism”, which is actually reactionary with very little in the way of actual conservatism at its core. The culture war was lost by the right decades ago, and the things they want to nominally “conserve” don’t exist any more, like the primacy of the nuclear family, an unchallenged patriarchy, untrammeled exploitative capitalism and a strong Church.

When you stop laughing at that, you will be scratching your head wondering how monty adopts two different meanings of the word “conservative” in the same sentence without noticing his own switcheroo.

JC
JC
August 13, 2022 1:13 am

LOL

@TitaniaMcGrath
·

Joan of Arc was strong, courageous and independent, and so was clearly non-binary or trans.

A female Joan of Arc would have been too busy knitting, gossiping and shopping for shoes to fight the English.

JC
JC
August 13, 2022 1:29 am

Because the FBI never maliciously lies. Never!

U.S. Told to Pay $101 Million for Framing 4 Men
BOSTON, July 26 — In what appears to be the largest sum of money ever awarded to people who were wrongfully convicted, a judge today ordered the federal government to pay $101.8 million to make amends for framing four men for a murder they did not commit.

Two of the men died in prison after being falsely convicted in the 1965 gangland murder. Another, Peter Limone, spent 33 years in jail before he was exonerated in 2001. The fourth, Joseph Salvati, spent 29 years in prison.

“It took 30 years to uncover this injustice,” Federal District Judge Nancy Gertner said in announcing her decision. She said the case was about “the framing of innocent men,” adding that “F.B.I. officials allowed their employees up the line to ruin lives.”

The men were exonerated after the discovery of secret F.B.I. memos that were never turned over to state prosecutors or defense lawyers during the trial in 1968. The memos indicated that the government’s key witness, a hit man for the mob named Joseph “The Animal” Barboza, had lied when he said the four men had killed the victim, a low-level mobster, Edward Deegan, known as Teddy.

Mr. Barboza’s motivation was to protect the real killer, and F.B.I. officials went along, the memos suggested, because Mr. Barboza had been helping them solve cases and because the killer, Vincent Flemmi, was an F.B.I. informant.

In her decision today, Judge Gertner forcefully criticized the F.B.I. and the argument made by Justice Department lawyers that federal authorities were not required to share information with state prosecutors, and were not responsible for the results of a state prosecution.

“The government’s position is, in a word, absurd,” Judge Gertner said.

A spokesman for the Justice Department, Charles Miller, said the government would review the judge’s decision before deciding whether to appeal.

In their suit, the men had argued that Boston FBI agents knew that Mr. Barboza lied when he named the men as killers in the 1965 killing. They said Mr. Barboza was protecting a fellow F.B.I. informant, Vincent Flemmi, who was involved in the hit, according to The Associated Press.

The four wrongly convicted men were treated as “acceptable collateral damage” because the F.B.I.’s priority at the time was taking down the Mafia, their lawyers said.

A Justice Department lawyer had argued that federal authorities could not be held responsible for the results of a state prosecution and had no duty to share information with the officials who prosecuted Mr. Limone, Mr. Salvati, Henry Tameleo and Louis Greco, The A.P. said.

The judge awarded $26 million to Mr. Limone, $29 million to Mr. Salvati, $13 million to Mr. Tameleo’s estate and $28 million to Mr. Greco’s estate, as well as awards to the wives and children that brought the total to $101.75. The men’s lawyers had not asked for a specific amount in damages, but in court documents they cited other wrongful conviction cases in which $1 million was awarded for every year of imprisonment.

“Do I want the money? Yes, I want my children, my grandchildren to have things I didn’t have, but nothing can compensate for what they’ve done,” The A.P. quoted Mr. Salvati as saying. He had been sentenced to life in prison as an accessory to murder and served more than 29 years before his sentence was commuted in 1997.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Mr. Limone, who served 33 years in prison before he was freed in 2001. “What I’ve been through — I hope it never happens to anyone else.”

The more you read about the more Gestapo it looks.

DrBeauGan
DrBeauGan
August 13, 2022 2:41 am

When you stop laughing at that, you will be scratching your head wondering how monty adopts two different meanings of the word “conservative” in the same sentence without noticing his own switcheroo.

M0nty gives me the creeps. There’s something wrong with his brain. Pedos and some other perverts, or the lbgqtixyz crowd as they’re now called, give me a similar sense of something horribly wrong.

I don’t think we should chuck them all off tall buildings, you understand, but I can understand why other, less kindly, cultures might.

Plasmamortar
Plasmamortar
August 13, 2022 6:03 am

We can get all day about trade relations with China and how their regime influences us economically.

However, none of it matters to the average Australian, or anyone in the world for that matter.
Money talks, ask the average aussie if they are willing to cop a dramatic decrease in standard of living to reduce or cease business with China?
If all goods made in China were to suddenly cost 2-3x more because we changed who we import from.

The shackles we’re in are of our own making, that’s true, but people will not voluntarily pay more for everything just to fight the communists…

Winston Smith
August 13, 2022 6:14 am

rickw:

Flew over Lake Mackay today, was quite full!
More terraforming opportunities!

You’re really going to need that optional rustproofing.

Winston Smith
August 13, 2022 6:32 am

rabz:

“free trade will convert them to democracy” yet “we were sucked in”
Yes, it happens. I’ve never trusted the evil communist bastards (BIRM), if that’s any consolation, Arks.

For myself, it was a hope that democratic values could arise in China.
We’re allowed to hope, are we not?
It was also a fear that China, with a population generally smarter than us – according to IQ levels and I’m not saying they’re right – bloody hard wukkas, and an internal market of 1.5 Billion, could drown the West in mass produced consumer goods if they ever got their shit together.

Winston Smith
August 13, 2022 6:57 am
Gilas
Gilas
August 13, 2022 8:07 am

cohenite says:
August 12, 2022 at 5:33 pm

It’s not about changing his mind (sic). You’re so pure. The conservatives are fucked because they are so pure, above the fray. To beat the left you don’t convince them because that assumes they’re capable of reason and rational responses. You have to beat them, literally. As soon as the left dominate society is stuffed. Its an endless battle; but you keep sipping your sherry.

Just saw this.. since I don’t spend my whole time here.

You’re wrong! So wrong it’s almost criminal, especially for someone as intelligent as you.
Conservatives are fucked because they argue and fight each other, from a point of pedantic purity, rather than ACT(!) against the established leftard invasion of our society.
Arguing with trolls here achieves nothing, except for ruining the OT and making it unreadable (BIRM).

You have to beat them, literally. As soon as the left dominate society is stuffed.

You beat them with words and insults? How did that work out? Tired of winning yet?

The left already dominates society, you’re a bit late to that party.

After their decades of wildly successful institutional infiltration and moral debasement, non-leftards only have two options:

1) For a relatively quick result (years): force, not words. We are allegedly the silent, moral majority, so we would win, if we first manage to stop waffling into the wind and attack each other.
Leftards act in packs, cohesively and aggressively. They win, and will keep winning. Our division and rhetorical purity has been political death.

2) Centuries of decline and the eventual reckoning and re-birth. After the people of what-used-to-be-the-West get sick of eating shit and massacre the established authorities.
Don’t hold your breath for this one.

You lot are the pure ones.
Believing that, through insults and clever rhetoric, you can convince people like Montz of the error of their ways. How naive is that?
The failure of this approach is obvious. Here. Every day. It’s so fucking obvious that I’m amazed that I have to mention it.

BTW, you can have the sherry. Only Cognac and Grappa for me.

Gilas
Gilas
August 13, 2022 8:18 am

Boambee John says:
August 12, 2022 at 5:57 pm

I care because his idiocies must not go unchallenged. I would rather not have to do it, but the only worthwhile alternative is a total ban on him. The blog should not become a source of lying leftist propaganda.

What would Montz do if his BS comments were ignored?
Why not try it?
He only comments to rub our noses in it, and some of us happily respond, in highly predictable, Pavlovian fashion.
He wins.
End of story.

Zipster
Zipster
August 13, 2022 8:20 am
Boambee John
Boambee John
August 13, 2022 8:23 am

JC

Yes, and Wussiagate makes a return to the stage with a new Leftwing narrative. Trump was hiding nuclear secrets in order to sell them to the Wussians.

Didn’t Bill Clinton approve the sale of missile re-entry vehicle technology to China? If so, how do the two compare? Will he and Trump get “his and his” electric chairs?

Gilas
Gilas
August 13, 2022 8:41 am

Cassie of Sydney says:
August 12, 2022 at 6:19 pm

Sorry, but I’m not turning the other cheek.

It clearly makes you feel better, but wasting time rebutting Montz’s BS achieves exactly less than nothing.
It will give some meaning to an ultimately drab existence filled with self-delusion.
We all know he’s a brilliant, malignant troll. But he’s also ultimately useless.

Responding to his BS simply empowers him.
..and how does doing so, beat the left, exactly?

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 13, 2022 8:41 am

JC

Under Xi , China is pretty much a fascist regime. It’s not communist in the real sense. The ironic thing is that we saw, over the space of 25 plus years, a communist regime seamlessly converting from communist to fascist . Meanwhile the Western left is willfully blind to this move from one totalitarian room to another in the same house.

Liberty quote.

Boambee John
Boambee John
August 13, 2022 8:51 am

Gilassays:
August 13, 2022 at 8:18 am
Boambee John says:
August 12, 2022 at 5:57 pm

I care because his idiocies must not go unchallenged. I would rather not have to do it, but the only worthwhile alternative is a total ban on him. The blog should not become a source of lying leftist propaganda.

What would Montz do if his BS comments were ignored?
Why not try it?
He only comments to rub our noses in it, and some of us happily respond, in highly predictable, Pavlovian fashion.
He wins.
End of story.

And how did that work out, as the fascist left infiltrated all of the institutions of society?

To a degree, I agree with you, but are we collectively ready to take to the streets, and in the immortal words of m0nty-fa, “Punch a Nazi”? m0nty-fa is either too stupid to see what he has become, or did so willingly. Are we ready to join him?

m0nty
m0nty
August 13, 2022 12:09 pm

We all know he’s a brilliant, malignant troll.

Aww Gilas, you say the nicest things.

m0nty
m0nty
August 13, 2022 12:20 pm

You lot are the pure ones.

First of all LOL, that’s my phrase. Second: ROFL, if you think Cats are the pure ones then you’re seriously deluded.

I come here to bring some much-needed reality to what would otherwise be a fantasy land of make-believe. I laugh at the cognitive dissonance caused by reminding dumbarse cult members that they have faith in a stupid con.

How should Cats react to me? Maybe by learning something. I realise most of you stopped learning at about year 9, whether you stayed at school or not, but I believe it’s possible for people to change.

Or keep on believing in what the plutocrats want you to. Stay ignorant and angry. Go to your grave thinking you are the victim, living in the lucky country where the sun shines, the wattle blossoms and there is plenty for everyone.

The Beer whisperer
The Beer whisperer
August 17, 2022 12:58 pm

We’ve learnt that as soon as you see anything approximating a fist, you will rush over and batter it relentlessly with your eye sockets.

My brother thought it funny to put out his first and ask me to run into it.

If I was Muttley, I would have.

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  1. Their “dignity, autonomy and even ascendancy” is best achieved in their original homelands, which already include conquered regions. Return there,…

  2. Seems to me it would rely on a basic level of trust between the general population and the authorities that…

  3. Reeks of CIA psyops. They don’t have a great record. Trying to fix a problem you’ve created.

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