Darkest Hour: another film about 1940 openDemocracy. I missed the US theatrical release. This article makes me wonder about seeing it, since it seems to be wrong in almost all of the historical details. And that seems just bizarre given how Churchill’s flair for drama and the quick barb, along with high stakes decisions taken when he was PM, should mean there would be no need to look all that hard to find plenty of grist for a screenplay. Contrast this with one of my favorite movies, Patton, which is true to the record (save for depicting Patton as being reckless with the lives of his men. American soldiers wanted to serve in the Third Army because their odds of survival were higher there. That distortion may have been included so that the movie would not appear to be military boosterism when opposition to the Vietnam War was rising with every passing day).
How Philip K. Dick redefined what it means to be (in)human The Conversation. Alternet just picked this up. I have trouble with an article that misrepresents Dick’s work. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was first published in the short story anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, Dangerous Visions.
Meet the man who’s survived a snake, bear and shark attack BBC
Cow could soon be largest land mammal left due to human activity – study Guardian :-(
Copyright Protection for Monkey Selfie Rejected by U.S. Appeals Court Wall Street Journal
Watch out! Goose attacks Michigan high school golfer ClickonDetriot (J-LS). Another unusual run of animal stories. No one has figured out yet what this portends…
Move Over, Double Helix: A New Form of DNA Has Just Been Discovered Inverse (David L)
Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans? Atlantic. From earlier this month…
Scientists finally confirm that Uranus is surrounded by fart clouds PopSci. Robert M: “Given the planet’s name, this really isn’t surprising.”
One of the most worrisome predictions about climate change may be coming true Washington Post (David L)
Carbon Ideologies: “Could You Do Any Better Than We Did?” Boston Review (witters)
Now you can visit world heritage sites in virtual reality NBC (furzy)
North Korea
If summits fail, US naval blockade of North Korea looks doomed Asia Times
America’s petty policy on used clothes for Africa The Conversation
Australian banks behaving badly Asia Times (J-LS)
Crossing Divides: Europe ‘more split’ than decade ago BBC
Italy Rapidly Running Out of Options to Form a New Government Wall Street Journal
Millions of voters feel politically homeless and would back new centre-ground party, finds poll Independent. JTM: “Haven’t they learned that the Center cannot hold?”
Brexit
More Brexit defeats for No 10 in Lords amid reports of cabinet split Guardian
‘This lady died in front of me’: Toronto shocked into silence after van fatalities Guardian
Latin America in the Time of Trump James Petras (UserFriendly)
Syraqistan
Condemned By Their Own Words Craig Murray (witters). Today’s must read. Also note Murray is now soliciting donations.
MSM Is Frantically Attacking Dissenting Syria Narratives, And It Looks Really Bad Caitlin Johnstone (Chuck L)
In Middle East Wars It Pays to be Skeptical Counterpunch (J-LS)
In Yemen today, the Saudis bombed a wedding, killing at least 20 people, including the bride. They killed "mostly women and children." The US & UK – who some believe do humanitarian interventions – both play vital roles in the Saudi destruction of Yemen https://t.co/496jXAigq7
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 23, 2018
Dear Natalie Portman: I too was once a liberal Zionist Mondoweiss (Chuck L)
The Great Day Counterpunch (Chuck L)
Big Brother is Watching You Watch
Google Accused of Showing ‘Total Contempt’ for Android Users’ Privacy Bleeping Computer
Amazon Has a Top-Secret Plan to Build Home Robots Bloomberg (Kevin W)
YouTube says computers helped it pull down millions of objectionable videos in three months Recode
Google discloses Nest finances, and they aren’t great MarketWatch (Kevin W)
Trump Transition
Trump aide urges Congress to pare back bipartisan spending deal Reuters. EM: “We have to pass this bill to see just what pork is in it: ‘Congress needs to consider rolling back the spending deal that U.S. Republicans brokered with Democrats last month, because lawmakers voted to enact the $1.3 trillion legislation without reading it, an aide to President Donald Trump said on Sunday.'”
Just When You Thought “Russiagate” Couldn’t Get Any Sillier Counterpunch (Li)
Everything you need to know about Trump’s first state dinner Politico
Colorado Supreme Court boots Rep. Lamborn off primary ballot Politico (Kevin W)
Black Injustice Tipping Point
Chikesia Clemons was body slammed and partially stripped by police officers, while waiting to make a complaint at a Waffle House in Alabama. Many are now calling to #BoycottWaffleHouse pic.twitter.com/jfXKhKQQdJ
— Truthout (@truthout) April 23, 2018
Pennsylvania golf club apologizes for calling police on group of black women The Hill
Fake News
Martin Lewis sues Facebook over fake adverts with his name Guardian
MSNBC’S Creepy Comcast Commercial Is Sinclair Lite FAIR (UserFriendly)
Former MSNBC journalists expose the channel’s ‘pro-establishment bias’ RT (Kevin W)
For some cheery not fake news: Issue 68—The point of utopia Small Victories
Amazon, Oracle Battle for Pentagon Cloud Contract Worth Billions Military.com
KPMG facing shareholder protest over GE and Wells Fargo audits Financial Times (J-LS)
Controversial Contractor Was Behind Island-Wide Blackout, as Puerto Rico Debates Full Privatization Intercept
Junk-rated Netflix Borrows $1.9 Bn, Most Ever, in “Drive-By” Bond Issue, to Burn $3-$4 Bn in 2018, Debt Soars to $8.4 billion Wolf Richter (EM)
Class Warfare
Walmart’s CEO earns 1,188 times as much as the company’s median worker CNN Money
Codetermination Enters The American Political Debate Social Europe (J-LS). The fact that this (on the one hand) has sponsors in the Senate but on the other hand has gotten zero media attention is telling.
1/n This quote from an article on Bernie's upcoming job guarantee proposal is the sort of widespread naivete the proposal is up against. Note that this is an economist from the Obama administration, not, say, CATO or AEI. pic.twitter.com/jwM8fp13RJ
— Scott Fullwiler (@stf18) April 23, 2018
Antidote du jour (Tracie H):
And a “surprisidote” from Richard Smith. Click on the tweet time and date stamp and scroll down for the story:
Camels Crossing the Sea ? pic.twitter.com/LMuKRnd7FG
— Nature is Scary (@TheScaryNature) April 21, 2018
See yesterday’s Links and Antidote du Jour here.
147 comments
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https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/news/media/releases/johns_hopkins_performs_first_total_penis_and_scrotum_transplant_in_the_world
I’m kinda wondering why my news feed thinks I would be interested…..not that it isn’t quite a scientific and medical breakthrough. Yeah, that’s the ticket…..
Always handy to keep a spare.
But whose spare? Does that mean that genetically, after the operation, that person is … ? Who is that?
And whose kid is it?
Article states that the testicles were not part of the transplant. If successful, at a later date they might implant prosthetic testicles. Regardless, there won’t be any pregnancies following the procedure, unless insemination by another means.
Reminds me of a song:
What Does Your Doodad Do?
Last line: It Don’t Do D**k.
Ah, the Canadian sense of humour. — and spelling.
Mel
April 24, 2018 at 8:20 am
I’m just wondering if the recipient has any say….regarding certain criteria… I could never accept certain colors…..green for instance. Green eggs – with ham (or bacon….hmmmmm) is OK, but a green Johnson? I have a tough enough time as it is.
I could accept a dark member….because…uh, when I go to the nude beach, I could forgo slathering suntan lotion on it. And you know what happens when you slather lotion all over your willie – people call you slick willie.
fresno dan,
Green you say ? .. PANDORA hasn’t even been discovered yet !
… oh wait, silly me … I was thinking wagging BLUE Johnsons .. like close encounters of the ‘Craker’ kind*. ‘;]
*see Margaret Atwood’s ‘MaddAddam’ trilogy
First time I’ve thought of that King Missile song “detachable penis” in quite a while
Never know what I’ll find on the links here
Oh, the things the “news feed” thinks we should be reading.
I see it as an ‘upscale’ ‘dumbing down’ phenomenon. People whose browsing history shows more ‘educated’ types of interests must be bombarded with a more ‘scientifically’ based ‘bread and circuses’ content stream. Either way, we are being led into the fetid swamp of illusion. Meanwhile, behind the curtain…
See: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NZR64EF3OpA
The advertising aphorism says that the two things that ‘sell’ products are sex and death. We’re getting plenty of both in politics nowadays.
Got any clues as to what the driving ‘organizing principle’ might be behind whatever is determining what the “news feed” delivers? Or has the Singularity, https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technological_singularity, passed by us in the night, and is now busy locking down the last bits of what might become an actual, Butlerian Jihad-type resistance? Bearing in mind the claim, backed by a fair amount of evidence, that “resistance is futile”?
Some kind of strange attractor at work, maybe. Maybe it is indeed just the Density (sic intended) (see original “Back to the Future”) of all of us, powered by the actions and intentions of a relative few of us, embraced and effectuated by too many of us…
I cannot resist; “#Resistance is futile.” (By design?)
I hardly ever see stuff like that, maybe because I hardly ever click on stuff like that. I used to click on stuff like, “Only a true nerd can pass this test,” because I enjoy taking tests. I got bored because they were always too easy, but now I wouldn’t click on them because they’re probably from NSA or Cambridge Analytica or the Army’s CyberCommand.
I feel bad for the kitty. Poor thing is so worried.
That cat is so darling!
That cat is so dear! Almost made me start weeping tears of love here at my desk. What a great creature.
Now imagine that cute kitty noshing on a SONGBIRD !!
… × millions
My dog sits at my feet while I’m at the computer and when she heard the kitty crying she went berserk…jumped up on my lap and started hitting the computer screen with her paw, crying the whole time. She loves all cats, especially hers. BTW – the only time my dog and cat go into the bathroom is when I take a bath. They wait by the side of the tub for the entire time with an occasional head pop over the side to check up on me….
When we got our two rescue dogs, they would go bananas when the kids swam in the pool. Barking, jumping in, yowling, running back and forth from the grown up watching them to the edge of the pool.
But now they barely notice.
My little black cat either sits on my lap or at my feet. The other day he was furiously at war under the desk, and I look down to see a spider in his clutches. He was very concerned as I did not have socks on at the time. It’s true what De Niro’s character in Meet The Parents said about cats vs dogs.
“Google Accused of Showing ‘Total Contempt’ for Android Users’ Privacy ”
Does (Google ) Android dream of electric sheep?
“Sheeple”
Nice one, flora.
Re Darkest Hour–that the movie plays fast and loose with some of the facts is hardly a big shocker and I doubt anyone watching thought Churchill literally stared out the window of his airplane (not a DC-3 btw) at those fleeing refugees or had a chat with the working classes on the tube. A more interesting article might have explored the movie’s central conceit: that the English upper classes could have lived with a negotiated peace (something Hitler, certainly, expected) whereas the ordinary English people had a better grasp of what they were fighting for.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-british-high-society-fell-in-love-with-the-nazis
The real question is not whether the movie is literally true but whether it is dramatically satisfying and true to a larger theme. On this larger level one suspects it very well may be.
I don’t know if that’s the only real question — people may take the movie for the real story. But truly, in the very long run the story will become unimportant. This leads into Anthony Burgess’s fascinating novel The End of the World News, about the culture maintained on an interstellar colony ship.
William Manchester takes that point of view explicitly in the rousing close to the second volume of what was to be his three volume biography of Churchill:
That quote almost brought a Patriotic tear to my eye, until I got that lump in my throat the one feels when one is about to commit emesis…
Thank you so much for that quote. That is amazing writing. I will have to check William Manchester out.
William Manchester wrote of a marine on a transport ship in the South Pacific early in the war around the time of Guadalcanal, that claimed he could speak Japanese, and duly instructed all aboard on various phrases in great detail, the only problem being that the cunning linguist was faking it and knew not one word of Nipponese…
Whoops~
I was so looking forward to Manchester’s volume three. A real shame he wasn’t able to finish it. He was a powerful and intelligent stylist, a rousing pleasure to read. The “cowritten” third volume just isn’t the same.
Haven’t seen it, but the the most interesting criticism I’ve read is over the failure to represent properly Labour’s role in removing Chamberlain and backing Churchill.
I’ve seen Dunkirk, which is impressive, but the best portrayal of the evacuation is still the long tracking shot from Atonement. My favourite of the recent movies on the event is Their Finest – bittersweet romance that actually goes at it through the theme of propaganda, and so quite candid about the myth of the little ships.
begob
April 24, 2018 at 8:39 am
Thanks for that – I had never heard of the movie.
I was reading Netflix reviews of the movie and this quote is taken from the movie:
“Don’t confuse the truth with facts and don’t let either of them get in the way of the story.”
Well, sums up the news business quite well, and partly the movie business as well…..
I really enjoyed it, but the twist was a problem.
Their Finest….an excellent movie. Who can fail to get a lump in the throat as the BBC plays Land of Hope and Glory while the bombs fall?
Me! As an Irish Brit I don’t much go for LOHAG. But the grimness of urban bombing is well done on a smallish budget.
Thank you for highlighting the sympathies of the British aristocracy. It wasn’t just them. There were plenty of middle and working class supporters, too, including some suffragettes and defectors from the Labour Party.
As the WW2 drew to a close in the spring of 1945, a cousin of the Queen, later Queen Mother, was sent to Germany to retrieve correspondence between the royal family and its German cousins, including members of the British royal family who had settled in Germany before WW1 and sided with Germany in both wars.
These German(y based) relatives were not invited to the wedding and coronation of Princess Elizabeth. Her husband’s sisters were also not invited as they had married Nazi princes.
The above cousin sent to Germany was Anthony Blunt, later Surveyor of the Queen’s Pictures and unmasked as a Soviet agent. Blunt was unmasked in 1964, but this was covered up until 1979. It has been suggested that Blunt’s kinship with the Queen Mother and position at court motivated the cover-up. It has also been suggested that Blunt knew what the royals, supporters of Chamberlain and not keen on Churchill, had been up to between the wars.
Oswald Mosley was a cousin of the Queen Mother and Churchill. Churchill had relatives in Mosley’s movement, some of whom were interned. Churchill himself had expressed admiration for Mussolini.
It is richly ironic that the Daily Mail, still controlled by the Rothermere family, hounds Labour as being anti-Semitic and remainers opposed to Brexit as traitors.
Hurrah for the Blackshirts!
Have just been checking with William L. Shirer’s “The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich” as to Nazi plans for England and they were as bad as I remembered then. All males from 17 to 45 years old were to be evacuated to the continent, probably for slave labour. That was just step one. The whole country was to be totally stripped of any resources not nailed down. Hostages were to be taken and any transgressions were to be punished with death. The SS put together six “Special Action” groups (as were also used in Russia) to be based in London, Bristol, Birmingham, Liverpool, Manchester and Edinburgh to terrorize the remaining population and round up some 2,300 prominent people on a Special Search List. Foreigners and emigres were also to be rounded up as well. Most of these people were marked down to be taken care of by the Gestapo. I am willing to bet that a lot of the Establishment, Royalty and the press were also marked down on this list so it looks like the common people had it right all along.
I see that Patton’s name has come up and I thought that I would add something here. There was a movie made about him in 1970 which tried to portray his complicated nature. Most people think of him as an aggressive, gung-ho type but there were also very unexpected sides to the man as shown in this clip from that movie-
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7ER08F9rGo
All non-medical visitors, except for Patton’s wife, who had flown from the U.S., were forbidden. Patton, who had been told he had no chance to ever again ride a horse or resume normal life, at one point commented, “This is a hell of a way to die.”
Being completely disabled does not sound like “a hell of a way to die”
He wasn’t just paralyzed. He died when he was transported from a German to a stateside hospital. Had he been merely disabled, that move would not have killed him.
Uh huh RevKev,
About as credible as Stalin’s plan to invade Europe and pull a Pol Pot on all the intelligentsia and establish a Communist state all the way to the English Channel and perhaps as far as Ireland.
Is that why Rudolph Hess flew over to Scotland to sue for peace and was then kept locked up for the rest of his life?
Without the RAF, these plans would have been actually executed. They already had the units in place with the SS for the invasion and it was to be headed by Professor Dr. Franz Six. This was not a case of wouldn’t-it-be-nice but dead set plans waiting to follow up on Operation Sea Lion – the actual invasion of England. Hess just went off on his own and it was not part of a Nazi offer. I think that any invasion would have lead to something new in savagery between the Germans and the British fight.
Shirer reports in The Rise and Fall that H told men of wealth and influence in Germany – financiers and business executives – exactly what they wanted to hear in order to get financial backing and move himself closer to the chancellorship seat. As Shirer says, these “politically childish businessmen” woke too late to the fact that H meant what he said about eliminating all Germans’ personal freedom, without exception.
Flattery of the elite to gain favor and then power, followed by treachery and destruction – even of many of those now former elites, was a pattern begun in Germany.
adding: The pattern was not devised by H to apply only to other countries. He started with his own country.
I thought the movie left it a bit ambiguous as to whether he was truly reckless with the lives of his men or not.
On one hand, they showed Omar Bradley (‘s character) criticize Patton for aggressively pushing toward Messina & risking the lives of his men, solely so he could beat Montgomery into the town.
But on the other hand, they did give Patton the opportunity to provide a response, when Bradley questions him as to whether he’s seen the casualty lists, and he responds that it’s important to consider what their casualties would be if they hadn’t taken an aggressive approach and were still fighting.
I know the movie never said who was right, but I took the fact that Patton got the last word to support the premise that his approach – fighting aggressively (while preparing adequately) – lead to lower overall casualties by shortening the duration of actual combat.
I’m going to do some bing-ing (I hate google) because I’m curious to read accounts of American troops preferring to fight under Patton’s command, as their survival rates were higher.
The movie was largely based on Bradley’s memoirs and after action reports which weren’t known for rhetorical flourishes. Bradley like Ike owed their military careers to Patton. Yes, Patton was reckless with his drive to Messina, and there were his actions trying to seize a fortified town because he didn’t want his men to get too bored.
It’s actually worse re Bradley. He managed to be promoted over Patton, as the movie makes clear. Bradley would take Patton’s battle plans and present them to Ike before Patton would see him, successfully getting Ike to believe that Patton was stealing Bradley’s ideas and presenting them as his own when the reverse was the case.
It’s hard to judge WW2 movies made during the most anti-Vietnam War epoch, as they are often a bit goofy, such as Kelly’s Heroes, with Clint Eastwood.
I know what you are saying but “Patton ” is not that sort of film. Almost biographical in nature with the war as an intimate background. Try the clip from this film at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PehCORojjtw as an example.
Another good film from this era is “Tora! Tora! Tora!” which was about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbour and was almost a documentary in nature. Too many modern war-films are like that god-awful film “Fury” though you get excellent ones like “Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World”. Just my own opinion of course.
And let’s not forget that leading up to WW2, virulent anti-semitism was far from being a strictly (or even mainly) German phenomenon. One wonders how much worse it might have been had Britain suffered a similar post-WW1 humiliation as did Germany, providing fertile soil for populist demagogues like Hitler.
My mom worked for United Airlines in Denver in the early 50’s, and she told me there were a couple of hotels in town there that would refuse you a room, if your name was obviously Jewish.
There were, and I hear, still are, some small areas of Miami Beach where Jews are not ‘allowed’ to own property nor live.
Anti Semitism is alive and well whenever and wherever people need someone to look down on. The same I feel with anti-whoever, Black people being the group of choice in America, for some esoteric reason.
And, of course, there are all those gated communities where material wealth is the discriminating factor.
If I recall Hannah Arendt’s view was that the Jewish fixation and the genocide by the Nazis wasn’t about anti-Semitism as much as sending a message to a group sizable enough to intimidate other groups without provoking a forceful response (she stopped getting invited to Passover Seders for her views). My guess is the Irish would have factored into any UK style fascist response. The Irish couldn’t win, but the power in London could deliver a message to labor unions, the Scots, Catholics, and so forth if they felt the need. Of course, the Irish might be so numerous in their area as to limit such an industrial scale horror. Jews in the UK would be too minor a factor to send a message despite anti-Semitism.
The KKK had chapters operating where there were virtually no blacks, rather choosing Catholics and Jews as the targets. Those chapters may not have been as violent, but at the same time, the targets were selected for
I dated a Catholic woman from south Mississippi whose family had a cross burned on their front yard back in the sixties. There were out and about KKKers working at the USPS when I was there for a few years. They did not hide their views.
Ad accuses Rand Paul of supporting terrorists, not Kentuckians [The Hill]
Throwing this up here not because I care about St. Rand of the #FakeResistance, but because it shows
why Blue Dogs like Donnelly, Heitkamp and Manchin are fools if they think that voting against gun reform,
for bank deform, and for Pompeo and Haspel is going to inoculate them against attacks from the right.
Glad to see Rand Paul called out for his support of terrorists, for example the terrorists infesting the CIA:
Why I’m old enough to remember when Paul vowed to “do whatever it takes to block Pompeo and Haspel”.
“We have determined what you are, madame. Now the only question is your price…”
One of my favourite jokes.
My question is if Ron Paul has determined what Rand Paul is. (For the record, I also had this same question with regard to Hilary and Tony Benn.)
Option 1: Social tensions are rising, aggression is being defensively projected everywhere >>> smartphones with decent cameras are also everywhere >>> the animal in us is seen in animals.
Option 2: Social tensions are rising, aggression is being defensively projected everywhere >>> [fill in the blank]
Perhaps the tensions and anxieties we humans exude are being picked up on by animals.
On the other hand, I was likewise attacked by a goose as a young child, so not exactly new behavior.
KevinD
April 24, 2018 at 9:05 am
I was at the Fresno zoo 30 (hmmm…could it BE….closer to 40???) years ago, and a duck (not in an exhibit, just waddling around, and as I recall with a few other ducks) put its head down, like a bull or something, and charged me, beak first. I wasn’t doing anything, just standing talking to my girlfriend. The duck just bounced off my shin, and I scarcely felt it, but it was like, “Whoa, dude, switch to decaf.” The duck, apparently satisfied that he had made his point, waddled off.
Kevin,
I was attacked by a rooster as a young child. My aunt told us kids to not chase the rooster. Guess who did?
In Ireland a decade back my wife and I admired two beautiful swans aswimming where we were moved to picnic. The beautiful birds turned right for us, and more closely resembled Spielbergy dinosaurs as they staggered up the grass to eat our lunch. We fought for every sandwich. Irish laughed knowingly.
And I naively fed some Canada geese whilst picnicking on Toronto Island, many decades ago. When we ran out of things they wanted to eat we tried potato salad. The geese said NO WAY! and started toward me and my picnic-mate. We ran to the Park Rangery-guys, who assured us that the geese hadn’t killed anybody ‘this year’. Crestfallen, and a little humilated, we went back to our picnic, where we were once again greeted with advancing, hissing, and snapping geese. I was reminded of the Little Goose Girl and my grandmother’s saying and decided that, dammit, I *would* say ‘boo’ to a goose. I walked toward them, loudly saying ‘boo’ and flapping my jacket (didn’t have an apron). The geese grumbled but eventually got the idea and waddled away, no blood shed. We resumed our picnic and neither of us have ever been intimidated by geese since.
Since I was a child, geese always seem to charge at me whenever I’m in their vicinity, it probably goes without saying, I avoid them like the plague. I’m not sure why either, because I’m definitely an animal lover.
http://jumpingjackflashhypothesis.blogspot.com/2012/02/jumping-jack-flash-hypothesis-its-gas.html
“Watch out! Goose attacks Michigan high school golfer ClickonDetriot (J-LS)” — In my area (NoCal) the geese are currently protecting their several-weeks-old goslings, making them even more ornery than usual. Anyone who thinks the dinosaurs died off 65 million years ago should just listen to the reptilian hiss of a goose making a threat display.
Is it possible that animals are more hep to human societal trends, and they can plainly see that whacking off repeatedly, whilst chasing a little ball, isn’t all that?
Iran has 22 recognized World Heritage sites, and numerous edifices of historical, cultural, or religious significance. We decry the Taliban destruction of Bamyan and the Daesh/ISIS destruction of Palmyra. Will the Israelis, Saudis, or US be similarly irresponsible in a war with Iran?
CyArk’s work is valuable, but we still need to preserve the actual artifacts too.
I will never forgive the US military for setting up a sprawling airfield and military base on top of Ur in Iraq during the occupation and damaging that site. For those not familiar with that place, it was a Sumerian city and is perhaps the oldest city in the world making it world heritage in the extreme. And it was vandalized by those occupying forces-
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/may/18/internationaleducationnews.iraq
The generals saw too many Indiana Jones movies and figured they may as well scarf up the Tablets of Destiny since they were now running the place. (Some of) the antiquities dealers loved it.
Ur was the home town of Abraham. The US military also chose to defile Babylon. I remember suggestions at the time that they thought they were fulfilling some biblical prophecy.
Can you really blame the Iraqis for finally giving Unka Samual the Big Finger ! … especially as they had nothing to do with 9/11.
There are lots of reasons the US imperial policies and behaviors are what they are in the world, especially the Middle East. But a significant part of those reasons relates to “support” for the Israel – ites, like Gen. Zvika Fogel, who (see today’s link “In their own words”) offer this “justification” for ghetto-izing and “mowing the lawn” in Gaza and the West Bank and even over Arab and Muslim “citizens of the State of Israel:”
…I want the leaders of Hamas to wake up tomorrow morning and for the last time in their life see the smiling faces of the IDF. That’s what I want to have happen. But we are dragged along. So we’re putting snipers up because we want to preserve the values we were educated by. ….
Compare and contrast: From the Israel Defense Forces Code of Ethics:
Purity of Arms – The IDF servicemen and women will use their weapons and force only for the purpose of their mission, only to the necessary extent and will maintain their humanity even during combat. IDF soldiers will not use their weapons and force to harm human beings who are non-combatants or prisoners of war, and will do all in their power to avoid causing harm to their lives, bodies, dignity and property.
Sophistry and hypocrisy being one of the observable characteristics of the millennia-long efforts of Judaism (and “Christianity” and other religions, of course) to define right conduct, one can quickly search the web on “Purity of Arms” to find a host of excuses and justifications and rationalizations for “interpretation” of that bit of doctrine (subject to being re-written like the “All animals are equal” words on the barn wall), justifying what most folks, including a lot of disaffected Israelis who see the death of ethics and eventually Israel (some definition thereof) in the Likudnik “policies” of apartheid. Here’s one of so many exegeses: http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/purity-of-arms-2/ A lot of conflicted notions there…
Pretty sure Maimonides would rebuke this charming General Officer of the IDF, and the “policies” of attack-as-defense and destruction and taking and killing that he represents. But then one only has to go and re-read the first seven books of the Torah, to see that this whole business of invading and occupying and taking the land and property of “Others” by force of arms, putting the Others to the sword and enslaving their families, is part of Tradition.
JTMcPhee
April 24, 2018 at 8:47 am
Your comment, and the preceding thread of talk about Winston Churchill brings to mind:
“In wartime, truth is so precious that she should always be attended by a bodyguard of lies.”
It is said that truth is the first casualty of war, but I am beginning to believe the causality is reversed – that the need to make the truth “inoperative” causes the need for war so that lies can be rationalized. No wonder we are in a permanent, unwinnable war on terror….
@JTMcPhee
April 24, 2018 at 8:47 am
——
“…re-read the first seven books of the Torah…”
There are five books in the Torah: Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy.
Like, the Torah consists of twenty-four (24) books, of which the first five (5) are the Pentateuch — Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy. And I didn’t even attend Hebrew schul…
@JTMcPhee
April 24, 2018 at 11:48 am
——
Sorry, JT, but the Torah and the Pentateuch are the same thing, the first five books of the Bible. There are 3 categories of books in the Old Testament, the Torah (first five books), the Prophets (Joshua, Judges, 2 books of Samuel, 2 books of Kings and Isaiah) and everything else, mainly the Psalms and the minor prophets.
I didn’t go to Hebrew school either (a schul is a synagogue, not a school), but I was a Bar Mitzvah.
https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tanakh
I’ve been hearing about Purity of Arms (Tohar Hanishek if I recall correctly?) my whole life. Seems like an oxymoron to me. But I have always despised war. Nobody wins, not even the winners.
Especially the winners.
Re: Netflix junk bonds
“backed by nothing other than its sky-high stock price, which is premised on its being part of the FAANG stocks whose shares can never decline…”
I don’t know where the competition will come from, but the sooner the better.
Netflix is going to get theirs sooner. So I have to think they are building up a catalog that will be sold for a hefty price down the line (but not too far). Or maybe it’s all about buying into the fantasy while it’s “hot”….
Speaking of FAANGs and the iPhone X discussion here recently, Zero Hedge just reported:
–“Spectacular Miss” By Key Apple Supplier Paints Ominous Picture For iPhone Demand
$1000 iPhones… a price-point too far?
Someday the share prices of all these FAANGs and their friends (TSLA e.g.) will come crashing down like the house of cards they resemble.
It may be that Taiwan has to rely more on China and less on Apple.
The CEO gave $7 million to the charter school movement recently. Proof that too much entertainment isn’t good for one’s judgment.
I’ve occasionally wondered how Netflix makes money. Simple answer: they don’t.
“Lack-lustre Smiley?” I saw Oldman’s performance as outstanding!
“Pennsylvania golf club apologizes for calling police on group of black women”
So I was browsing the net today when I came a cross a black cop’s anecdote which may have been from a twitter account. He was looking for spent shell casings by flashlight at night-time between two houses in connection with a crime. He suddenly heard a call that came directed from a 911 call that there was some black guy wearing police clothes flashing his flashlight into people’s windows in his street. I can only imagine his thoughts here.
I remember that kid from the bear attack. Well I guess now he needs to go gator hunting with the swamp people. Why not?
Fiscal religion, comrades — columnist Howard Gold excoriates the R party:
America’s R party — selling out our children’s future. Flake-o-nomics just don’t pay.
The Tea Party was a fabricated movement created by the Koch bros. Their only consistent ‘policy’ was opposition to Obama.Howard Gold has some serious amnesia…
Yes…and no. Rather, the Tea Party started as a movement of people who were so brainwashed into terror by the constant hammering on the terminal danger of national debt and deficit they decided regular fiscal conservatives weren’t doing their jobs. It was co-opted by the Kochtopus, who saw it as a way to speed up replacing those same moderate Republicans with others of their own Libertarian ilk.
I also think part of the problem the GOP will have is that most people didn’t get much from the cut. Plus the tea party and the Freedom caucus will magically disappear from the radar since the R’s own the 2 branches. There were some rumblings about the recent Omnibus spending bill, but they did nothing to stop it. Funny how that happens.
Scientists finally confirm that Uranus is surrounded by fart clouds PopSci. Robert M: “Given the planet’s name, this really isn’t surprising.”
Must I be the first one to comment? REALLY, no one else wants to say anything. Very well….
Uranus is surrounded by fart clouds
and so is the 7th planet from the sun….
Sometimes the pitches are so soft…one feels guilty swinging at ’em.
I’ll take a swing though:
Uranus… also has the most powerful wind observed in the solar system, blowing at more than 500mph.
next please!
What if they find Klingons on Uranus?
People who object to such juvenile humor will be relieved to find that this is sorted out in the future(2620) when Uranus is renamed.
The new name will be: Urectum
troublemaker!
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was first published in the short story anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, Dangerous Visions.
I’m afraid it was always a novel, ‘faith of our fathers’ was dick’s entry in dangerous visions.
I’m unsure about the article’s caveats, Dick saw human traits in all creation, dogs in droog, black characters such as jim fergesson in dr bloodmoney and the mentally ill in the clans of the alphane moon.
I am now going to have to dig out my original edition….which is in Alabama….I’ve regularly encountered errors on Wikipedia.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/600349.Dangerous_Visions
or
https://www.sffworld.com/2012/02/bookreview816/
PKD – Faith of our Fathers
Sorry.
DV was an excellent series, and 1960s/early 70s were IMO the gold age of good SF.. ah well..
It is hardly a big deal, and I have regularly encountered errors in my own memory.
I did read dangerous visions,do androids and the glass teat at a similar time, there was no overlap.
The article argues that PKD’s work challenges “whiteness, masculinity, heterosexuality, rationalism, professional success and physical prowess.” Each of those are ludicrous. Most of the main characters in Dick’s great works are white men going through existential crisis of some sort. They don’t challenge the world’s injustices but instead observe them, get overwhelmed by them, and occasionally survive them.
There are a lot of reasons to read PKD but the notion that he was some sort of proto-woke third wave feminist is truly silly.
This is correct: I dug out my copy of Dangerous Visions to verify.
OK, I stand corrected. Thanks for checking.
“Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was first published in the short story anthology edited by Harlan Ellison, Dangerous Visions.”
no
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was first published as a novel. The story/novelette first published in Dangerous Visions was “Faith of Our Fathers”.And a Dangerous Viaion it was.
See my comment above.
“Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?”
This article reminded me of something that I read some time ago. Some people here may have heard about Robert E. Howard’s Conan the Barbarian series. This was set in a prehistory in what was called the Hyborian Age (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyborian_Age) and if I remember right, I think that it was mentioned once that the reason that we do not know about them is that the last ice-age bulldozed all traces of this earlier history. It certainly is an attractive idea.
And did that young cat try to save that woman’s life by trying to pull her out of the water?
the title of the article reminded me of that gandhi quote about european civilization.
My first thought was that these guys don’t get out enough. There are literally a couple of dozen sci fi books about this very idea and I have had a dozen discussions with other sci fi types over the years about this very subject. It is kind of funny that they think they thought it up.
What are some of the SF books? I might want to read some of them sometime.
If I remember right, David Brin touches on something like this in his Uplift series. It’s definitely not the theme of the series and it isn’t set on Earth, but he does posit a subduction zone where all evidence of a civilization is wiped out as the tectonic plates grind against each other. IIRC, characters would sometimes deposit items near the zone if they wanted all evidence destroyed.
another series that has an older civilization on Earth is by an author named Julian May, the series is called the Saga of Pliocene Exile, and the books are:
– The Many-Colored Land
– The Golden Torc
– The Non-Born King
– The Adversary
One of my favorite series ever!
Try Old Earth by Gary Grossman. It’s listed as a thriller rather than SF.
Instead of books, I will mention authors. You could start with the grands dames, Joanna Russ, Ursula K. Le Guin, Ann McCaffrey, C. J. Cherryh, and Doris Lessing. Here are a few more names from good reads.
And don’t forget Lois McMaster Bujold (not my taste, but much lauded), Tanya Huff, Madeleine L’engle, and, if you can find anything by her, Eve Forward.
Superb list of writers, HotFlash. I would add Suzette Haden Elgin (1936-2015) to that list.
Thanks to everyone for the recommendations.
Sorry I don’t remember a title, but I remember a story about a bacterial “civilization” in the pre-oxygen Earth, which might represent a longer time than post-oxygen life.
It involves extra-terrestrials coming back to discover that their friends had vanished utterly. The interesting point is that green plants accomplished the first and likely the greatest extinction, of an entire planetary ecology.
It is my impression that the correct answer to yes-or-no questions used to title articles is usually “no”.
Betteridege’s Law as Lambert often mentions.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge%27s_law_of_headlines
I think that cat was trying to pull her out of the water. So cute!!!
The cat displayed so much distress and fear that I felt really bad for her. /o\ It was stressful to watch. I hope the owner comforted her and that she got desensitized to it eventually. It’s just a bathtub, kitty.
Our dog hated to swim and would get quite upset when we did. Once we dragged her in, just to make sure she COULD swim if necessary. She could, but she didn’t forgive us for quite a while.
I read quite a bit of it. The useful point is that fossilization is very haphazard, so it’s possible for entire eras to leave no record, to say nothing of areas. Sea level rise at the end of the last glaciation probably hid most of the record of human arrival in the New World, for instance. They probably came in boats. People like to live at the seashore, and all of that is underwater now.
OTOH, one reason for the “anthropocene” is that civilization is leaving a massive record in the ground. Pavement and concrete or brick buildings, for one example. Concrete does break down over time, but nonetheless leaves a very distinctive deposit. And burial is the first step to fossilization, so there will be whole layers of human skeletons. (In contrast, there are cultures that do not bury their dead – some practice “air burial” – which will not leave much in the way of fossils.)
If there was a pre-human “civilization,” it left no evidence at all, so it wasn’t anything we would recognize as civilization. There are other options; e.g., dolphins have every bit the brain we do, but we can’t decipher their communications and they would leave essentially no trace.
The Munich appeasement was not about avoiding war with the Nazis. It was about trying to get the war-happy Nazis to go after the Soviets and let the West sit on the sidelines and watch.
Both the West and the Soviets were playing “let’s you and him fight”. Both sides have ever since done their best to write this out of history.
The Soviets responded to Munich with the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, but that only worked until June 1941 when the Nazis attacked the Soviet Union. In the end, it was the Soviets who had to do the vast majority of the fighting in Europe.
Thank you for linking the PKD article — Had never thought about Cartesian metaphor (Rick Deckard = Rene Descartes), very cool!
I gobbled up everything I could by him when I was a teenager, and still reread my favorites on occasion. Great to see he’s still deemed culturally relevant and his work is still discussed. Perhaps a little too much focus only on Androids, as there are a lot of other works that beautifully deal with questions of identity, reality, authenticity, etc. I encourage anyone if they want a fun, engaging reading experience to grab a bottle of wine and give something like Ubik, The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldrich, or Flow My Tears, the Policeman Said (my personal favorite) a shot.
You wil not be unrewarded, PKD’s work,I find, is quite different each reading.
Valis is a must read.
As for co-determination, with worker representation on corporate boards mandated by federal law, you will get Democrats howling in unison with Republicans “We fought and won the Cold War against international communism to prevent EXACTLY this sort of thing!” Well actually they’ll just quietly ignore it to death. But the hostility level of their silence will be the same as thundering Republican denunciations.
You’ll see health care as a public good, guaranteed as a right of United States citizenship and paid for by the government, long before you would see labor co-determination as a legal obligation placed on chartered corporations. As I indicated earlier, we are light years from universal health care as a right. We went in the opposite direction in fact. It became an obligation to enrich the already rich corporate interests of health care, actively enforced by the state on their behalf, not a right. The only right asserted in the ACA is the guaranteed right to profits for the insurance mafia. Democrats answer firstly to shareholders and financiers, not to vestigial labor unions as still remain, whose leadership in any case was bought off with class perks ages ago.
As for co-determination, with worker representation on corporate boards mandated by federal law, you will get Democrats howling in unison with Republicans “We fought and won the Cold War against international communism to prevent EXACTLY this sort of thing!” Well actually they’ll just quietly ignore it to death. But the hostility level of their silence will be the same as thundering Republican denunciations.
You’ll see health care as a public good, guaranteed as a right of United States citizenship and paid for by the government, long before you would see labor co-determination as a legal obligation placed on chartered corporations. As I indicated earlier, we are light years from universal health care as a right. We went in the opposite direction in fact. It became an obligation to enrich the already rich corporate interests of health care, actively enforced by the state on their behalf, not a right. The only right asserted in the ACA is the guaranteed right to profits for the insurance mafia. Democrats answer firstly to shareholders and financiers, not to whatever vestigial labor unions as still remain, whose leadership in any case was bought off with class perks ages ago.
S&P 500 Reporting Record-High Net Profit Margin for Q1 2018
thank godfrey these poor overtaxed souls got their tax cuts!!!, hopefully the next report will be much better!
Columbia University graduate students go on strike over union fight [NYDN]
Before anybody starts up with “the 10%”:
That’s not the 10%. It’s not even the 1%. It’s well into the 0.1% territory.
Re: Goose attacks Michigan kid on golf course
Apparently this is common, although the photos are uncommonly spectacular.
University and government wildlife departments report that the population of Canada geese in the U.S. has risen sharply, with many becoming “residents” instead of migrating. Among the reasons, they say, is that people feed them, which encourages them to hang around — and they especially like golf courses. During nesting season, they become aggressive and attack people who get too close to their nests, as the kid in Michigan did. According to these sources, Canada goose attacks have resulted in broken bones and other serious injuries to humans, mostly due to falling while trying to run away.
Somebody (original source unknown) came up with a list of things not to do in an encounter with an aggressive goose, including turning your back on it and running. They recommend backing away slowly while looking it straight in the eye. Squinting is bad.
“The Darkest Hour” is a good movie, as a movie, and as history it is much better than what you usually get from movies. The general plot outline, that the British establishment briefly considered and then rejected trying for a negotiated settlement, is correct. The long “Open Democracy” article posted by another commentator (https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/david-elstein/darkest-hour-another-film-about-1940), though long, is worth reading and lists the historical inaccuracies.
In regards to the gentleman who gets bitten by snakes, bears, and sharks.
I once read a park ranger who said the prototypical person who gets bitten by a rattlesnake is white, male, tattoed and who’s last words are, “hold my beer, watch this.”
I am white, male, and tattooed, but I will be switched if I ever let anyone hold my beer.
Re the Google robot casting out objectionable YouTube videos:
Doesn’t the fact the Google and Facebook do ANYTHING AT ALL to control content on their sites confirm that they’re not mere platforms but, rather, publishers?
Newspapers are legally liable for all they publish, including letters to the editor. That’s a big, costly burden. Major newspapers have (or used to have) lawyers on staff to vet the most contentious content and several layers of editors who did likewise for everything else — not to mention reporters well trained to know which legal lines not to cross.
If Facebook and YouTube were platforms only, they would exercise no content control whatsoever. The fact that they do puts them firmly in the category of newspapers, meaning they should be held liable for every single piece of content they carry. Of course, if this were the standard, they’d both be sued out of business in a heartbeat.
As noted copiously here, online business models appear to be firmly and mainly based on violating laws and norms that apply in every other walk of life and type of business. So I suppose these monstrosities will continue to get away with whatever they choose to get away with.
Pelham
April 24, 2018 at 1:38 pm
online business models appear to be firmly and mainly based on violating laws and norms that apply in every other walk of life and type of business.
Rick Falkvinge calls for “Analog Equivalent Rights” and has been all over this for a long while: https://falkvinge.net/?s=Analog+Equivalent+Rights
-One of the most worrisome predictions about climate change may be coming true –
which is why private jets are still a thing. why we have 10,000-mile supply chains to stock the shelves with tube socks and shirts. why we’re globally building an entire generation of dual fuel nat. gas/fuel oil electricity plans and cheering on the decommissioning of nuclear power.
just saying as my thermostat can’t go any lower (or higher in summer).
America’s petty policy on used clothes in Africa.
1. Open to debate.
Should Americans spend less on clothing (thus not as much to dump overseas)?
Is this unconsciously linked to China’s refusal to take our trash (here, Africa is restricting our clothing waste)?
Do Africans have only 2 viable options – used clothes from America, or more imports from Asia?
2. Suggestion for the US to remain the superpower that dominates? Is that the goal? Not the idea that people should make their own policy decision?
Africans, at least the ordinary mope people in those mostly post-colonial “nations” on the African continent, have probably less choice of “policies” than we Nacerima do. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacirema, and there’s this recent recognition of the reality (or maybe it’s just another Borg plant to teach us more sense of futility,) https://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/civil-rights/214857-who-rules-america .
A lot of good questions there, though. Leading to “should all humans lessen their collective and individual deleterious impact on the planet, sufficiently to allow us all to go forward sustainably until the next termination event, and all learn to just get along?”
But of course the curse of power, and the seductions of dominating others and accumulating vast wealth from looting and extraction and fraud, will always bubble up from the limbic systems from enough of the worst of us to keep things on the path they are on…
Why aren’t they MAKING clothes? We see distinctive costumes in some places, such as Nigeria, so they do make some. Clothing manufacture generally migrates to areas with low-cost labor; why not Africa? The investment need not be huge, compared to some, so most countries could self-finance.
Business imperialism at work?
“Was There a Civilization On Earth Before Humans?”
Well, if there’s no water cooler than I’ll put in my two cents worth:
I remember back in the early to mid eighties there was a newspaper article in the S. F. Sunday Chronicle about something similar. I’m not sure what caused the article to be written ( it was a decade before Jurassic Park ) but for some reason it was concerned with whether dinosaurs or another previously dominant species could have had a technical civilization and what traces would remain. It was claimed that the only trace after such a long time would be heavy metals buried deeply in ancient river deltas. All other traces would be long gone.
The end of the article mentioned that there are traces of heavy metals in ancient river deltas. I was disappointed that wasn’t mentioned in this article, but the time when I believed everything I read passed about 50 years ago.
Re: Move Over, Double Helix: A New Form of DNA Has Just Been Discovered
Thanks for the link.
Unfortunately, the title of this article somewhat overstates the case for ‘discovery’. Although the authors are the first to demonstrate definitively that these quadraplex, knotty DNA structures actually form in cells, since in vitro experiments showed that the DNA sequences discussed in the article form quadraplex structures under physiologically relevant conditions this seems to have been taken for granted for at least the last few years. Interestingly, these knotty DNA structures appear to regulate the expression of some well studied (and well known) oncogenes, including ras, the first oncogene ever identified.
This Scientific Reports article from 2015 discusses these extremely interesting regulatory elements in a little more detail: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep18097
Europe more split than a decade ago
1. At the top of the article, it shows, in Europe, the percentage for ‘my country is MORE divided than a decade ago’ at 66%, and still in Europe, the percentage for ‘my country is LESS divided than a decade ago’ at 47%.
Did some people vote twice? (66 + 47 > 100).
2. And the news from China is a reminder to interpret the results carefully.
That is, a person (anywhere, really) can be encouraged to see his/her corner of the world as more or less divided, depending on the request.
“MSM Is Frantically Attacking Dissenting Syria Narratives, And It Looks Really Bad”
It’s funny when you get to see the mask slip and you see how things are really done such as when that BBC reporter tried to shut down that Admiral for spoiling the “information war” effort against Russia. Or go after Jimmy Dore who describes himself as a jagoff nightclub comedian but who gives biting comment by showing you how things are done. Or Partisangirl. And let us not forget that ProporNot fakery that tried to smear this site some time ago.
They attack people like Vanessa Beeley who are actually on the ground in Syria reporting but will give creedence to The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights which is actually some guy in a house in Coventry in England. Or they will take the word of Bellingcat – who is also just some guy sitting in his house in England. Saywhat?
Caitline Johnstone is right. It’s getting too blatantly obvious this propaganda campaign and it is getting too obvious who the main stream media works for. Hint – it is not us. It’s like they are saying: “Here. This is our accusations. We know that they are stupid but you have to believe them. If you don’t, you are a traitor.” You can actually start to feel the desperation in their voices and actions and perhaps that is why the normal mask is slipping.
In other news, with the remaining Jihadist pockets under attack by the Syrian Army, the different Jihadist factions are now negotiating what their next move should be and an image has emerged of these negotiations in progress-
https://www.almasdarnews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/27654660_192240408191691_1955561131330395253_n.jpg
It looks like those takfiris are playing the old fashioned version of “American Roulette.” Each has only one bullet in the gun. Will they be lucky?
Humphrey Bogart starring in “Sirocco” on cable.
“A gunrunner gets caught in the middle with a French Colonel’s mistress in 1925 Syria”
Wow. Current events.