Open Thread – Weekend 26 Aug 2023


Regatta at Sainte-Adresse, Claude Monet, 1867

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Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 28, 2023 9:55 pm

THIS MADE US VERY ANGRY!! FACTS ABOUT SLAVERY NEVER MENTIONED IN SCHOOL BY THOMAS SOWELL (REACTION)

You mean , blak people were slave owners, too?

Robert Sewell
August 28, 2023 10:02 pm

ZK2A:

You mean , blak people were slave owners, too?

And white people were slaves as well?
Noooo!

Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
Zulu Kilo Two Alpha
August 28, 2023 10:07 pm

And white people were slaves as well?

Flora and Fauna, anyone?

Dot
Dot
August 28, 2023 10:08 pm

They are trying to ban ciggies, but open slather for hard drugs.

It is anti working class & anti underclass. Look at how much ciggies are taxed.

Don’t forget vaping is treated as equally worse as ciggies, despite being many times more safe.

It’s a strange time to be alive. Remember what Bill Hicks said about drugs? The legal ones (caffeine and nicotine) help you be productive Mon to Fri and alcohol makes you dumb in your free time on the weekends. The ones that change your perspective or get you zonked without the lethargy of alcohol are illegal.

Steve trickler
Steve trickler
August 28, 2023 10:33 pm

Stevo hands over control to the young girl in the pink back pack.

“My Dog!”

Cash 2.0 Great Dane visits a local Elementary School 2023 2 of 2

John H.
John H.
August 28, 2023 10:37 pm

Dot
Aug 28, 2023 10:08 PM
They are trying to ban ciggies, but open slather for hard drugs.

It is anti working class & anti underclass. Look at how much ciggies are taxed.

Don’t forget vaping is treated as equally worse as ciggies, despite being many times more safe.

It’s a strange time to be alive. Remember what Bill Hicks said about drugs? The legal ones (caffeine and nicotine) help you be productive Mon to Fri and alcohol makes you dumb in your free time on the weekends. The ones that change your perspective or get you zonked without the lethargy of alcohol are illegal.

He must have read the same study I did. In the 60’s a sociological study of cannabis users found that while they aren’t personally alienated they are alienated from the prevailing morals of the day. His comments also accord with the huge government response against Timothy Leary. Admittedly Leary, while very intelligent, was being very stupid about LlSD. A friend of mine who was a neuropsych in NY at the time said the professional community was furious with him because at the time psychedelics were being explored as mental health treatments. It is now recognized that psychedelics can, with a single dose, provide huge benefits, a vast improvement over the need to continually take drugs. The latest antidepressant drug, ketamine, is one example of that but I warned people of its potential long term dangers and now it is being recognised that chronic ketamine use impairs memory. Well, der, what did they expect from an NMDA antagonist? Conversely, LSD and psilocybin have very high affinity for a critical brain growth factor so their potential goes way beyond depression. The recent analysis, focusing on the binding power of that receptor, points to a new therapeutic strategy that avoids the hallucination problem. However, coming back to your point that drugs can changes people’s perspective, both of those drugs have demonstrated, just like near death experiments, to profoundly alter a person’s philosophy.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 28, 2023 10:59 pm

Earlier:

I made them skoll when I found out I was the elder

Oh dear lord.

MatrixTransform
August 28, 2023 11:03 pm

Oh dear lord

and KD spontaneously wanks again

C.L.
C.L.
August 28, 2023 11:03 pm

Stan Grant was investigated by ABC for lengthily abusing unnamed woman at Ultimo. FOI report acquired by The Australian, heavily redacted.

C.L.
C.L.
August 28, 2023 11:07 pm

It seems Grant’s meltdown and walk-out from the ABC (three days later) may have been a PR smoke bomb.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 28, 2023 11:13 pm

and KD spontaneously wanks again

It wasn’t spontaneous.

On reflection, I suppose everyone needs a God Oracle Elder.

This self-pedestalling could perhaps become more cringey, but I doubt it.

Bruce in WA
August 28, 2023 11:14 pm

Very interested in reading the stories about Japan upthread. Have a friend who claims the term “Japanese cooking” is an oxymoron.

Anyway, later this week, Madame Lash and I fly out to USA for a quick rellie visit, then up to Vancouver and onto a Silversea ship, up through the Inside Passage, then over and down to Japan for a complete circumnavigation, including a stopover in Busan — 38 days all up. Bit the bullet and flying business. May occasionally be able to log onto the Cat, but if not, we’re back home 10 October.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 28, 2023 11:14 pm

Blockquote fail.

Apologies. I was laughing.

Black Ball
Black Ball
August 28, 2023 11:32 pm

So not racism then CL. Always a little more than meets the eye with this prick.

Black Ball
Black Ball
August 28, 2023 11:34 pm

Linky CL?

MatrixTransform
August 28, 2023 11:41 pm

Skoll said the Korean boss
Be fkd said MT, this beer is shit
You have to said my colleague, he’s senior
Oh yeah? says me … how old is he?
Same age eh? When’s his birthday?
Translating… November
Well then yr all in trouble … mine’s October
So … skoll

Except KD
Who’s a total wanker

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 28, 2023 11:45 pm

Well then yr all in trouble … mine’s October
So … skoll

Cool story, champ.

Knuckle Dragger
Knuckle Dragger
August 28, 2023 11:45 pm

Farter time.

I’ll be laughing all night.

MatrixTransform
August 28, 2023 11:53 pm

Cool story

it is isn’t it

Farter time

make sure you wear yr boxing gloves to bed wanker

Top Ender
Top Ender
August 29, 2023 12:20 am

Naughty Stanley:

ABC management investigated a public bullying incident involving Indigenous presenter Stan Grant and a senior ABC colleague, which occurred in the foyer of the broadcaster’s Ultimo headquarters in full view of witnesses.

Documents obtained by The Australian using the Freedom of Information Act reveal a complaint was lodged about Grant in the days after he allegedly erupted in a lengthy, expletive-laden tirade against the female ABC staff member.

Grant allegedly shouted at the woman, a longstanding colleague, for several minutes in front of dozens of ABC staff after she approached him with a question concerning production of a show.

At the time, Grant was hosting two ABC TV programs, China Tonight and Q+A. The incident took place in late January, the same day political discussion show Q+A was due to return for 2023.

Oz

Gabor
Gabor
August 29, 2023 12:51 am

On the early shift again.

While waiting for the dough to rise, I flipped to my inbox, came across Adam Piggott’s latest?

Not much interested in Catholic affairs but it’s an interesting take nonetheless.

Gabor
Gabor
August 29, 2023 12:54 am

Hmm, as they say something’s gone wrong’

Try again

Zatara
Zatara
August 29, 2023 1:11 am

Thalidomide was originally developed in Germany(1957) and quickly became a blockbuster drug in the USA where it faced less regulation than in Europe.

Baloney.

Around the world, more and more pharmaceutical companies started to produce and market the compound under license from Chemie Grünenthal. By the mid-1950s, 14 pharmaceutical companies were marketing thalidomide in 46 countries under at least 37 different trade names. In 1958, thalidomide was produced in the United Kingdom by The Distillers Company (Biochemicals) Ltd, under the brand names Distaval, Tensival, Valgraine and Asmaval.

One country that did not approve thalidomide for marketing and distribution was the USA, where it was rejected by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

Top Ender
Top Ender
August 29, 2023 1:47 am

We are finishing a pleasant stay on Hydra tomorrow morning. Recommended if you’re looking for something different in Greece.

The island is peaceful – unbelievably quiet. Roosters crow in the morning, donkeys/mules pad by, voices of neighbours, bells tolling, virtually no dogs barking, AND no traffic noise. No cars or bikes on the island at all – has a few small garbage trucks. Water taxis operate and there are some push carts.

Very steep, stone steps everywhere, no grass, one park. Temperatures above 35. The town is set around the bay and on the slopes. 1 ¾ hrs from Athens by fast catamaran, it used to be a fishing port. There are thousands of cats lying around; most look in reasonable condition. Beautiful clear cool Mediterranean sea-waters which we swam in. Very busy with many tourists. Lots of flower or herb pots, but few gardens as soil poor.

Our accommodation is under a house in a small unit with stone walls and wooden ceilings. We dined out at a 200yr old restaurant which Leonard Cohen use to frequent – he had a house here, and when he died a few years ago a memorial bench was installed on a clifftop by his fans. Lots of other “superstars” have frequented here. Boy on a Dolphin (Sophia Loren) was filmed here. Old windmills and very busy port. Greek Orthodox faith important – their churches are chock full of icons, chandeliers, gold, candles, wall hangings, statues etc. Today must have been commercial delivery day, there were pallets everywhere. Builders use a mechanised cart system on rails to shift building materials up the slopes. The symbol of the Hydra is brought to life along the bay in a huge rotating animated statue.

A ship of the Hellenic (Greek) Navy was in town to help celebrates the Greek Orthodox Church Feast Day of Agios Fanourios, commemorating the martyr and miracle worker who is asked to intercede when things are lost. A bit of a parade and band in the main area of the waterfront.

The ship was the Ypoploiarchos Tournas. Formerly the Leopard of the German Navy, she was commissioned in August 1973 – so now very old for a warship – and transferred to the Greek forces in 2000. Said to be decommissioned in 2011, she looks to have had a new lease of life, and was carrying two quad missile packs, as well as modern automatic guns.

The harbour was once defended by both a floating gate and a net, looking by the remains of chains and so on still attached to rocks.

Back to Athens tomorrow by fast ferry.

Gabor
Gabor
August 29, 2023 2:26 am

The purge begins, or continues?
A colonel of the Security Service of Ukraine (SSU) has been found dead in his office in the city of Kyiv.

Dot
Dot
August 29, 2023 6:03 am

You can trust Pravda.

LOL

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 29, 2023 7:58 am

38 days all up. Bit the bullet and flying business. May occasionally be able to log onto the Cat, but if not, we’re back home 10 October.

At a certain age, it’s time to spend the dosh and enjoy life, Bruce. Hope you and your lovely lady have a very good time travelling and reporting from travels. The Cat’s roving reporters are a feature not a bug. It’s the demographic.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 29, 2023 8:14 am

Today a mother, her husband and her two teenage sons are coming to ours for lunch.

I used to look after her very regularly when she was a child in primary school and down from Queensland on access visits to her dad (an ex-Cambridge mate of Hairy’s who had some lunatic moments lasting weeks where he couldn’t cope with a child). She’s now nearly fifty! She married a well-off man from Portland, which is woke central, in the USA. I haven’t seen her now for nearly thirty years though she’s kept contact with my kids on Facebook, and we exchange Christmas cards, where she does that American thing of having family photos on the front. I think old ‘familial’ ties may have to supersede political correction during this brief visit. Given our past closeness, there will be much about life in general to discuss, however Hairy and I won’t hesitate to say we very much like the Trump mugshot and hope he gets in and leave it at that.

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
Elizabeth (Lizzie) Beare
August 29, 2023 8:31 am

Hydra – there with Hairy thirty years ago, where he was reliving his university holidays always spent in Greece where a group used to meet up in the various houses of a Greek friend, whom we still see. He married a Dane and lives in Copenhagen now.

We stayed in a small and cheap local hotel on the waterfront, where you could throw open a shuttered window to the sea and the blue dome of a white church. The room was ensuite, the plumbing was weird, the floors were polished marble with rugs and the wooden bed sufficed. A pretty curtain covered the cubby where you hung your clothes. We ate at tavernas on the front, fresh seafood brought in by the fishermen, who still existed there then. Several small octapus hung dripping near the front entrance. Tourists were few; a wandering population of writers and artists wrote of their lives on Hydra before moving on.

I’m glad to hear that some of it still remains the same, Top Ender, so close to Athens.

johanna
johanna
August 29, 2023 12:15 pm

Lizzie – your boring reminscences do not increase with interest by volume.

I waded through the last lot, and thought ‘so what’?

It is like going to a slide night in the 1950s. Lots of images of the proponents, interspersed with landmarks. Status symbols 101.

If this site is going to have to endure your equivalent of slide nights and holiday snaps (with moi as the centrepiece) until you drop off the twig, what we need is a scrolling app.

johanna
johanna
August 29, 2023 12:18 pm

Yep, she thinks she’s on Instagram.

Except that nobody would read her poorly written and self indulgent diary entries on Instagram.

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