tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44098148827363573252024-03-13T16:12:33.372+08:00Lexis, Nexus, Solar PlexusQuips, quotes, queries, qualms and quarrels regarding atheism, god, religion, politics and other stuff.Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.comBlogger323125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-58925690774091929092022-10-10T17:06:00.000+08:002022-10-10T17:06:24.825+08:00Is Potato...<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjld5RfIAlxgh6yBku5NNxR9xlj1mslCkkDuutXFCTQMruBMNUFoQJlcbmS_o-ng3DEc_2toPRvyJXpVbDQNmUom7zwk9ysBnqaRsLzVEce5JSYQFZ-Bx0sbMzo4NSIq5uG8V26Ad6uAM3sAaZtbzea5sntpyDA-NGgZa3rY3r4Ujx2re3aJNz6y2d/s1024/Russians%20flee.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="576" data-original-width="1024" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjld5RfIAlxgh6yBku5NNxR9xlj1mslCkkDuutXFCTQMruBMNUFoQJlcbmS_o-ng3DEc_2toPRvyJXpVbDQNmUom7zwk9ysBnqaRsLzVEce5JSYQFZ-Bx0sbMzo4NSIq5uG8V26Ad6uAM3sAaZtbzea5sntpyDA-NGgZa3rY3r4Ujx2re3aJNz6y2d/s320/Russians%20flee.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Russian men respond to Putin’s call-up of recruits to replace the casualties of the Ukrainian war – er, sorry, 'special military operation’ - by heading <i>en masse</i> to the borders. Hundreds of thousands rush to escape the draft. These men are workers; middle-managers, I.T. specialists, psychologists, lawyers, accountants, clerks, line-workers, craftsmen and laborers. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">According to the New York Times, at least 200,000 have left Russia as of Sept 28<sup>th</sup>. That number is probably a vast underestimate. In the last four days, the independent Russian newspaper<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">,</span> Novaya Gazeta, reported that 261,000 military-aged men were estimated to have left. Some have committed suicide rather than answer Putin’s call-up. There are reports of Russian men crippling themselves to avoid conscription. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">The ones who have left Russia will be joined by wives who are also workers who contribute to the Russian economy, not only as vital employees but as consumers whose purchases are the foundation of the economy.</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"> </p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">None of these workers and consumers will be replaced. Draft-aged men (18 to 27 years) will not replace those who have left the work-force. They will be conscripted into the armed forces where, ill-trained, ill-equipped and ill-fed, they will be forced to fight a war for which they have no spirit. </p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">How does the Russian economy react to this upheaval? It can only be detrimental in a monumental way. Coupled with the effects of international sanctions, the COVID pandemic and the dire specter of nuclear Armageddon, Putin and the other Russian oligarchs are staring down the barrel of a gun with their own fingers on the trigger<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">.</span></p><p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">A top Russian economist warns in Fortune magazine that the Russian economy will collapse by winter<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">.</span> The Russian economy will go right into the crapper; there is little alternative.</p><div><br /></div>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-59816989175559874722022-09-01T23:58:00.001+08:002022-09-01T23:58:32.288+08:00Science illiteracy<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQXIA6NRnmprMUWOlySxF0feaN7qHF-52YIIuiIC4PWZgcEkl3jctC9W4l39xy3gu6Rp548L2LWaOf2oI4rQ9-pe3cc3zGISC7I1a87bLH0hMuMyQe_RsM36r430ZUjyrK-Oh3rXkWfsu6dyjCyMT-BdBKH-8fGRyD6CgrnGNs5o4_wivxBf19n6Xh/s1248/Webb%20Telescope%20image%201.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="1248" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQXIA6NRnmprMUWOlySxF0feaN7qHF-52YIIuiIC4PWZgcEkl3jctC9W4l39xy3gu6Rp548L2LWaOf2oI4rQ9-pe3cc3zGISC7I1a87bLH0hMuMyQe_RsM36r430ZUjyrK-Oh3rXkWfsu6dyjCyMT-BdBKH-8fGRyD6CgrnGNs5o4_wivxBf19n6Xh/w421-h237/Webb%20Telescope%20image%201.jpeg" width="421" /></a></div><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;"><br /></span><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px;">One serious irk I have is when people try to refute science when they have no understanding of the science they’re referencing. This happens all the time amongst amateur apologist for ‘god’ – particularly the god of the Bible.</span></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One such might begin by claiming that they can disprove Evolution. When asked to resent their argument, they immediate go to abiogenesis; ‘Well, where did the first cell come from?’ glossing over their claim to disprove evolutionary theory by natural selection completely and pole-jumping to abiogenesis. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">When abiogenesis is explained briefly to them, the apologist jumps the rails again to question the ‘Big Bang’ cosmological hypothesis. </p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">(Citing the ‘Big Bang’ seems to bring some delight to the apologist; I think because it’s an easy phrase to say and they revel in the silly, simplistic image, thinking that the image is debilitating, derogative and deleterious to a counter-argument.)</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 19px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Once the ‘Big Bang’ is discussed as a concept even the garbled cogency of the initial claim to refute evolutionary theory gets chucked in the bin, generally. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If lead back to the initial claim, (i.e. Evolution is wrong!) the apologist will attempt to assert a complete dearth of transitional creatures and/or fossils - easily refutable - before returning to the cycle of non-sequitur and rail-jumping obfuscation. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One wants to scream: ‘Let me get this straight: You’re trying to refute established science by using the science that you’re trying to refute. Save yourself and everybody the trouble.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Science is refuted by better science. Yet, there are some apologists who attempt to refute science by offering no evidence and falsely citing their timorous, erroneous grasp of the theories of science as the proposed evidence to refute science.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">One retort, when backed into a corner, is ‘Well, what I’m doing is just what science does.” This reveals just how ignorant the speaker is about the scientific method; as if scientific method was just gaggle of dudes in lab coats seizing on any and every hare-brained, disjointed notion and holding onto it for dear life. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Infuriating. Read a fucking book.</p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">“I’m talking about infinity… a bigger infinity<span style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal;">.</span>”</p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">What does this say about your ‘’god’?</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">… that it’s designed a scenario, a world, in which there are people who are totally unconvinced of the presence or even the existence of a god but who would be immediately convinced if the ‘god’ revealed himself in a ‘Road to Damascus’ moment. Would that be too much for your ‘god’ to do?</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">Couldn’t it provide a personal revelation to everybody on earth at the same time? How ‘bout to just a few people? Penn Gillette, maybe. Ricky Gervais… Richard Dawkins…</p><p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;"><br /></p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">If god appeared to any of them, the world would change. If your god could do that, why hasn’t it?</p>
<p style="font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px;">It’s not that this is desired or yearned for; it simply meant to point out that a solution to non-belief in any specific god would be, could be swept aside by such a manifestation. </p>
<p style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-size: 16px; font-stretch: normal; line-height: normal; margin: 0px; min-height: 18px;"><br /></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-52684729300801521582022-08-20T20:32:00.001+08:002022-08-20T20:34:34.824+08:00Creation!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLjn44VWiGUV9LZFwN5e3uhHWWU4nIj37eoveFaZhKfAss3dJefOEJKMqNGFi2SVUVbnZWSmKM9wrmqUSOpmRpim_A5xWy9fhQ6uUQoSmi4GtFNj2jbRM_KFGYAo_DCCDW_nZdE8DXZMJ78qAqSgdCfef6-9lprVvdtayrZ5WPgoAX1_VJytlInRB/s1084/wheel%20of%20Bible.jpeg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1075" data-original-width="1084" height="317" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhnLjn44VWiGUV9LZFwN5e3uhHWWU4nIj37eoveFaZhKfAss3dJefOEJKMqNGFi2SVUVbnZWSmKM9wrmqUSOpmRpim_A5xWy9fhQ6uUQoSmi4GtFNj2jbRM_KFGYAo_DCCDW_nZdE8DXZMJ78qAqSgdCfef6-9lprVvdtayrZ5WPgoAX1_VJytlInRB/s320/wheel%20of%20Bible.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Creationists all assume that the almighty, all-knowing magic genie snapped his fingers (always gender specific, as that’s the historic vernacular of ‘god’-talk) and poof, presto-change-o a universe! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Bob’s your uncle and there we are - all in one go. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">7 days and dusted. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Next up: creatures and plants and minerals and stuff to put on a specific, tiny blue marble, way off of galactic center of a ho-hum spiral galaxy of billions of planets for whatever reason an no reason whatsoever. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(‘god’ works in mysterious ways, right?) <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Booga-booga.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Adam and Eve poof right into existence in a lovely garden where everything is perfect and the lion lays with the lamb and everything is sustained by the grace and will of the magic genie – who is now called ‘Father’. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(so, we’ll dealing with the prevailing patriarchy of the particular tribes who told these stories) –<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">‘Father’ and tells Adam and Eve to go forth and multiply while having dominion over all the earth <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(as this blue marble is now called). <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14pt;">(…Ahem.. why this ‘god’ couldn’t have snapped his cosmic finger again to populate this tiny iron-cored rock is inconsequential to the absurdity of this story.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt 36pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 14pt;">Anyway…<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Cool! Adam says. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(Eve already knows her place, it seems.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">“Hold on!” the Father says – “The catch is that you can’t eat the fruit off those two trees; one tree yields the knowledge of good and evil, the other eternal life. Clear?”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Well, a challenge made is a challenge met, so a talking snake<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(!, yes, a talking snake – mysterious ways, again…) <br /></span></i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">persuades the woman <br /><i>(women… am I right or am I right!?) <o:p></o:p></i></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">to eat the fruit from the first tree cited by ‘Father’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Oddly enough, the snake convinces the woman (!) to eat the 1st fruit, the knowledge of good and evil - rather than the 2<sup>nd </sup>one which would have magically endowed them with eternal life – again for no reason. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(A mystery right? Eternal life would’ve given them the power to live long enough to eat the other fruit, but I digress.)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Well, Eve eats the fruit of the 1<sup>st</sup> tree and so does Adam <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(a wimp; p-whipped already! Am I right?). <o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">‘All-Father’ kicks them out of the ‘Garden’ to live lives of hardship and death on this little ball of rock that the ‘Father-god’ made… just for them(?) or something… <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Then, Cain and Abel, the sons of Adam and Eve show up. Cain kills Abel out of rivalry over sacrificial offerings to the ‘Father- god’. So already, these two are squabbling over which one ‘Father’ likes best. (sound like a TV sit-com, yet?)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Although things do not go swimmingly, <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(another little detail that the ‘all-knowing Father-god might have fore-seen… ahem)<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Eventually, Adam and Eve and Cain populate the earth. Or at least this one dusty corner of the middle-east. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(Various reasons are presented by apologists explaining how such a trio might have loads of off-spring in a rather short period of time, but incest is never mentioned. Nudge-nudge, wink-wink… )<o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">The talking snake <i>(who is the baddie in this little screwy tale)</i> gets off scot-free to do mischief at other times. ‘God-father’ does curse all snakes to crawl on the bellies as a punishment (!) <i>huh? </i>Not only does a snake have no legs and cannot move but by slithering but the tale reminds on of the goofy ‘Just-so Tales’ of Kipling; How the elephant got its trunk, how the bear lost its tail. Codwallop! <i>BTW, t</i>his herpetological baddie is actually ‘Lucifer’, a fallen angel and now known as Satan. More on him later.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">Then, ‘he/god/Father’ kicks back and, strangely enough, no more is heard of him until a certain, minutely small group of human who lived together in tribes on the dusty plains of Palestine – the ones who were telling this psychotic tale - as they herded goats and avoided killing each other while getting killed by neighboring tribes (who had apparently forgotten that they were all related).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">This one group, the Israelites, started getting messages from ‘god’ (known as Yahweh – a name forbidden to utter) along with visions and signs that ‘he’ was back in the game, as it were, and was not at all pleased with the way things were going.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">This wacked out nonsense goes on and on with loads of magic and wrath and blood and slavery and bloody sacrifice and this part would not be in the sit-com. One ‘message’ gotten was to slaughter this group and that group like the Midianites; man, woman, child and live-stock(!) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">(Again it slipped the all-knowing ‘Father’s’ mind that they were all kin, or something.) </span></i><i><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></i></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">That in a mish-mash synopsis is the ‘creation’ myth of those poor saps who accept this garbage as ‘god-given fact’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="background-color: white; color: #050505; font-family: Helvetica; font-size: 16pt;">“It’s in the Bible and the Bible is the word of god cuz the Bible says so…”<o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-42283582737835493412022-08-14T22:53:00.001+08:002022-08-18T16:36:23.877+08:00White Evangelicals (Again)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHGAAikb29FbI9heKV-4IM3HYjUFh1MXbi_255-XuAc5TS-4aIhaCF_Ve1mgZ7bZjT-Fy943xDFLOv5E9iA9stKhz_7HLRDEKjJqE8EYGuN1DRtEJTAMsAl9or3MCLGFCDQA8juw6G6IL6AnqAcVeLFUiY3DIjNiCfZQCPmh7R7E5PonzY38niR3eP/s627/Tax%20the%20churches%203.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="627" data-original-width="470" height="343" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHGAAikb29FbI9heKV-4IM3HYjUFh1MXbi_255-XuAc5TS-4aIhaCF_Ve1mgZ7bZjT-Fy943xDFLOv5E9iA9stKhz_7HLRDEKjJqE8EYGuN1DRtEJTAMsAl9or3MCLGFCDQA8juw6G6IL6AnqAcVeLFUiY3DIjNiCfZQCPmh7R7E5PonzY38niR3eP/w257-h343/Tax%20the%20churches%203.jpg" width="257" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">White Evangelicals.</span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">If that shop-worn phrase brings harps and halos to mind, you’ve been brain-washed.</span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">White evangelicals is a euphemism.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">It’s a euphemism for theocratic fascists.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Does that seem harsh? It doesn’t sound like Aunt Bessie sewing quilts in the church basement, does it? No. It wouldn’t. It wouldn’t because quilting bees in church basements is a very benign enterprise.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Now, imagine that the quilt that Aunt Bessie and company are making features the face of the Tangerine Beast – TFG – with a banner that reads ‘Stop the Steal’ or ‘Trump Won!’ with the stars and bars as a back-ground. Still benign?<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Preachers spewing anti-vax/anti-mask twaddle from their TV studio chapels. Evangelicals hopping up and down in a toddler-like rage that ‘Geezus is my vaccine!’; bloated braggarts of ‘god’ telling their congregations that MEDIA stands for ‘Most Evil Demon in America’! </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;"></span></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><span style="font-size: x-large;">Say fecking what?</span><span class="apple-converted-space" style="font-size: x-large;"> </span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">This ain’t Aunt Bessie taking cookies to the doddering, widowed pastor. The modern pastor may very well own a sizeable real estate portfolio or even a small fleet of private jets.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Think not?</span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Consider the mega-churches; temples to the grift that keeps on giving and forgiving. They represent a most substantial outlay of capital. Considerable<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><i>moolah</i><span class="apple-converted-space"> </span>has been invested in grandiose tabernacles on expansive and luxurious tracts of land.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span><br />(Sorry if this disillusions you but that money does not fall from the sky – no matter how righteous you are.)<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Investors want return on their investment. ROI. Bilking the gullible is the basic business plan. Wow ‘em with stage-craft and baffle ‘em with bullshit. That’s a proven method of getting a sustainable return on investment, quarter on quarter.<span class="apple-converted-space"> </span></span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Here’s the pitch:</span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; line-height: 18pt; margin: 0cm 0cm 7.2pt;"><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">‘Want to be delivered from perdition? Send a check or money order in an amount that hurts.’ Go without food. Let your dog skip its visit to the vet. Let your husband skip his medication or his chemo. Cut corners anyway you can but send the ‘Good Lord’ your dough. As George Carlin brilliantly observed, "God Loves you... and he needs money."</span><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 10pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p><span style="color: #29303b; font-family: Georgia; font-size: 16pt;">Harsh, right? Indeed, it is. Conning gullible folks out of their savings is despicable. Promising a pie-in-the-sky happy-ever-after prance in the clouds for eternity - redeemable only after you’re dead - is simply evil</span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-27424227174174238232022-08-12T21:33:00.001+08:002022-08-12T21:33:19.626+08:00Puny god!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3temqh8QbWyMa39yGKuy7BwBiX_sQx87yHRUju6eVuDSn4pIAzlT6tlaxtLDOtwaAIJIXnIcNkpn72QMpfI2oY6LmpSit5Z87xG55B2XpoRiEM1I1tNUCDt2RxAP35PzGY-9--HZ-xc5Fu8098DeY440EIHibNvXOyrY9nwlaledMcaL48omcumjS/s640/puny%20god.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="580" data-original-width="640" height="290" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3temqh8QbWyMa39yGKuy7BwBiX_sQx87yHRUju6eVuDSn4pIAzlT6tlaxtLDOtwaAIJIXnIcNkpn72QMpfI2oY6LmpSit5Z87xG55B2XpoRiEM1I1tNUCDt2RxAP35PzGY-9--HZ-xc5Fu8098DeY440EIHibNvXOyrY9nwlaledMcaL48omcumjS/s320/puny%20god.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Puny god!” <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One can hear the Incredible Hulk grunt it at Loki or Thor, both sons of Odin, a god/father.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Keeping that in mind, one can hear the same voice talking to a different son of a god/father.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Puny god.” Can’t answer prayers. Can’t feed the hungry or heal the sick – no matter the flimsy tales that comprise the miracles of G-zus. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Miracles supposedly done over 2000 years ago. None with a shred of evidence. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">And fast-forward to now? Crickets. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Bone cancer in children? Meh.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Eye-ball eating worms? Meh. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Malaria? You get the picture.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Got a cancer victim you’re paying for? Prayer and pure chance are neck and neck for effectiveness. It is just as likely that remission is a lucky fluke than as a result of prayer. Matters not how fervent the supplication might be. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Puny god.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">There</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> are lots of stock answers regarding the seeming disregard for the troubles of humanity.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">War?: ‘Free will’<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Hurricanes?: Punishment for exercising free will.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Plague?: Yeah, punishment again for being humans doing the ‘free will’ thing. (Not choosing to be a toady to the Lord, for example.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">‘My will be done!’ or else it's bunions and rain-storms of blood for y'all.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Or your car keys get misplaced. Watch out!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Of course, all that Old Testament warrior/god stuff morphed into the sweet, loving New Testament god/son of G-zus in a peculiar unilateral, self-serving deal: Sonny-boy, G-zus, is sacrificed to ‘itself’ for crimes against itself by creatures it ‘created’ which acted as predicted by itself and violated a secret law made by itself in a secret test for obedience of the creatures which it, itself, knew would fail the test and be expelled from paradise to suffer, toil and die just as 'it' knew </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">would</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> happen. <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Huh? Does that story make any sense to anyone not already deluded by a god-spell?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Let’s try a different telling of the down-the-rabbit-hole tale:<br />‘God’ creates Adam and Eve in order to keep ‘him’ company and to know, love and worship ‘him’ as the be-all, end-all. First, he creates them in a lovely garden - a paradise – where their every need is taken care of. Their every want and desire is met by the supreme generosity of the ‘god/father’. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then god/father poses the pair a little problem regarding the fruit of two trees in the garden; one the tree of eternal life, the other the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Why? <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Surely ‘god’, the all-knowing, would already know the result of this test, so why bother?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Puny god. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Then a talking snake (yes, a talking snake!) convinces Eve to eat the fruit of the 2<sup>nd</sup> tree; the one of knowledge. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Not my first choice either, but it’s not my story.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So, supremely miffed about the very thing god/father knew would happen, happened. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">God/father kicks them out of paradise to toil and suffer and die. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">How nice.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Puny god.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-59377896993661849322022-08-05T21:02:00.007+08:002022-08-05T21:02:47.870+08:00The Pelosi 'Problem'<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCv628w1-vz6U-TLTDj3kO9-1Iv3HRlE5T0X10UItV2G9RVPiD4gD6ac6KyoV_zByRFB1J-iD6k9yxCIzRD0Rdt9IAXxNs62KJsvCFkLZPrqjrW9cdb67OWzZAFyDKbTjmzfwMwyKuR4FjPNF6zcPxCK1D-dJoaYsy8AXepz-L9SqKxeL6LFy2exI0/s768/knvjl2uqofredzil_1659495497.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="438" data-original-width="768" height="237" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCv628w1-vz6U-TLTDj3kO9-1Iv3HRlE5T0X10UItV2G9RVPiD4gD6ac6KyoV_zByRFB1J-iD6k9yxCIzRD0Rdt9IAXxNs62KJsvCFkLZPrqjrW9cdb67OWzZAFyDKbTjmzfwMwyKuR4FjPNF6zcPxCK1D-dJoaYsy8AXepz-L9SqKxeL6LFy2exI0/w414-h237/knvjl2uqofredzil_1659495497.webp" width="414" /></a></div><br /><div class=""><div class="ii gt" id=":xe"><div class="a3s aiL " id=":xd"><div dir="ltr"><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Nancy Pelosi has Landed! And left…</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">After her trips to Singapore and Malaysia, Speaker Pelosi landed in Taiwan at the Taoyuan Airport.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> After much hysteria ginned up by the MSM, Pelosi landed thumbing a collective nose at Beijing and President Xi.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">After
living on this island for more than 30 years, it must be said that the
general feeling of the people on Taiwan has been understated at best.
All the while that USA MSM was airing clips of military activity, there
was little concern. <span> </span>Xi blustered and bloviated about egregious, drastic action and the people of the Republic of China didn’t even manage a shrug.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Since 1949, Beijing has threatened Taiwan. Taiwan is plenty used to hearing sabers rattling and grimaced alpha-male visages.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That
is not to say that there is no threat from the People’s Liberation
Army. No. There is always the threat. It’s just that the threat has been
so commonplace that, like earthquakes and typhoons, the threat is
simply taken as part of the fabric of life.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">But
let’s look at this with a clear-head. If Xi wants to slit his own
throat, he’s capable. He’s capable of bringing to ruin the ‘China
Miracle’ of economics. He’s capable of tossing the PRC onto the rubbish
heap of international diplomacy. He’s capable of risking and losing
blood and treasure in a military escapade. He’s capable. The PRC is
capable. <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However,
what will they gain other than a blasted rock peopled with die-hard
insurrectionists? To be honest, Xi has little to gain and everything to
lose by attacking Taiwan.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Perhaps
first and foremost is $$$! Taiwan is the source of loads – the lion’s
share – of investments on the Mainland, second only to the USA. It’s
clear; attack Taiwan, threaten Taiwan’s democracy and all financing from
the USA, the E.U. the UK, Japan, So. Korea, Canada, Australia, etc, etc
will be pulled.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Attack
Taiwan and any of the political prestige enjoyed by the PRC will be
forfeit. Beijing will be an international sick man once more.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Attack
Taiwan and any diplomatic leverage would be undone. One likely response
would be the recognition of Taiwan by the UN and other international
organizations which have thus far balked under pressure from Beijing.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> A
militarily assault would be far more demonstrative in immediate effect.
It would be a gruesome, bloody folly. It is close to an impossibility
for the PRC to launch a successful amphibious invasion of the island
nation. It would be expensive in both blood and treasure. One need only
look at the difficulty that the Russians are having in Ukraine and
consider that all the Russians had to do all was drive up the road to
Kiev! Comparatively, the PRC has 100 miles of ocean – the Taiwan Strait –
acting as a deep-water protective moat.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The
US 7th Fleet stand on the ready nearby, as well as the Japanese navy,
the So. Korean navy, the Philippine Navy, the UK Navy, the Aussie navy,
etc... Not what anyone would call a ‘walk over’.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Moreover,
should the invasion succeed, sad as that possibility is, Taiwan would
be turned into a blasted rock without any commercial value except as
volcanic slag. Taiwan is fortified from stem to stern and has been since
the early 1950s. Pill-boxes stand at the ready on every hill-top and at
every juncture. (Fact; until rather recently a hike in the mountains or
a day at the beach required a military ‘hall-pass’ for national
security reasons.) Furthermore, should such an all-but-impossible
military invasion succeed, any of the remaining population would be a
die-hard insurgency that would take a generation to subdue.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ask the Russians. Ask the Americans re: Iraq or Afghanistan or Vietnam.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Much
needs be said and done in support of Taiwan. It must be stated that the
situation - while superficially comparable to the Russian invasion of
Ukraine – has many critical details which are critically different.<span> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In
short, unless the PRC wishes to slice its own throat (hint: it doesn't)
it will continue to use the ROC as a diplomatic anomaly and its
‘situation’ as a red herring.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="color: black; font-family: Calibri; font-size: medium; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It
has little choice because there is far too much Taiwan money invested
in Mainland enterprises. Far too much American, Canadian, Aussie,
Japanese and British money to toss in the rubbish.<span> </span></span></p></div></div></div></div><table cellpadding="0" class="cf gJ"><tbody><tr class="acZ"><td class="gF gK"></td><td class="gH bAk"><br /></td></tr><tr class="acZ"><td class="gH"><br /></td><td class="gH acX bAm" rowspan="2"><br /></td></tr><tr class="acZ xD"></tr><tr class="acZ xD"><td colspan="3"><br /></td></tr></tbody></table>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-83037012301468982612022-07-28T14:42:00.001+08:002022-07-28T14:42:42.239+08:00The Lion of C.S. Lewis<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvo41AFrbWFd2IkzK2arbPQEAAHbdDxSTUnqqY9mCj-hozorHxZIdr0ntyafvpZU10-xeDK5NKfwcy_VRdHx8Y9te8zqSntNoXgaLULmoiJyA3_3h84nshjLDUBCb54fuBi-rjKM-Zx15IiRPK7JhV6qIkisK9bPnPW5iK4B9YH07atBkq9oeb9bnd/s259/Aslan%20Lion%20.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="194" data-original-width="259" height="194" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvo41AFrbWFd2IkzK2arbPQEAAHbdDxSTUnqqY9mCj-hozorHxZIdr0ntyafvpZU10-xeDK5NKfwcy_VRdHx8Y9te8zqSntNoXgaLULmoiJyA3_3h84nshjLDUBCb54fuBi-rjKM-Zx15IiRPK7JhV6qIkisK9bPnPW5iK4B9YH07atBkq9oeb9bnd/s1600/Aslan%20Lion%20.jpeg" width="259" /></a></div><p><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">C.S. Lewis had it right. ‘God’ did not. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Lewis chose a massive lion with the power to speak and influence hearts as his representation of the ‘Christ’ in his Narnia series. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Why, then, did ‘god’ determine that the best incarnation for a proposed ‘savior’ and deliverer of a ‘New Covenant’ to rule human society should be a member of a back-water, illiterate community subjugated by the Roman Empire without status, education or influence?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That is an immensely vital question to be answered by any who assert to being followers of the Christ or by anyone seeking to affirm or deny the veracity of the claim made by Christians for millennia that Y’shua ben Yosef of Nazareth was divine. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Or at the least noteworthy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Imagine if the god of the Old Testament had sent a creature of the characteristics of Lewis’ Lion, Aslan to deliver the new covenant. Would that have not been a most remarkable, historic and earth-shattering event? One which historians of the age would have most assuredly documented and broadcast throughout the Roman Empire? </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Would that not have been far more miraculous and divine incarnation than an itinerate preacher – one of dozens – who </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">purportedly</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> proclaimed the imminence of the ‘End Times’ and an establishment of ‘God’s Kingdom’ on Earth? Would not that have been the stuff of legends, irrefutable and well-reported? <o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Imagine a majestic, massive beast, a golden lion with the power of speech to stir the hearts of men; who epitomized goodness, justice and mercy. Imagine that ‘Y’shua ben Yosef’ was not a lowly carpenter of questionable means and without the least appreciable pedigree. Imagine that he was endowed with super-human strength and wisdom. Combine that with the reported miracles – raising the dead, healing the leprous, walking on water, changing water to wine, etc. - performed by such an exceptional and astounding creature as a talking lion. Would that not have been reported and noted by every historian of the era?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">If a human’s imagination can conceive of such a thing in the fantastical kingdom of Narnia, why then, it must be asked, would a maximally powerful and intelligent entity such as ‘god’ not do so? Why would ‘god’ choose to place the New Covenant in the hands of rag-tag group of disciples of an itinerate preacher who made nary a ripple amongst those of his provincial area?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">To be clear, the person known as Jesus of Nazareth from the Christian gospels is almost totally unknown and unaccounted for; the circumstance surrounding his reported birth are seriously doubted by all historians. The single entry by Flavius Josephus, a first-century Romano-Jewish historian and military leader, has been adjudged a forgery. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The supposed census declared by Augustus Caesar was never declared. There is no record of such a declaration ever being made; meaning that the instigation of Joseph and Mary’s trek from Nazareth of Bethlehem never happened. The story of the birth at Bethlehem falls apart like wet bread.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">he Slaughter of the Innocents commanded by Herod the Great, king of Judea never happened, either. Such a command must surely have raised the hackles of the People of Judea but nothing outside the Gospel of Matthew was ever reported. The Slaughter never happened.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Further, as meticulous as the Romans were in record keeping, no trial before Pilate was ever recorded and by extension, reports of neither the torture nor crucifixion of Jesus have ever been discovered outside of the Gospels. </span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Moreover, the multitude of parallels between the Jesus story and the tales of Gilgamesh, Osiris and Mithra most definitely call into question many of the details given of Jesus’ birth, life, death and resurrection as simple plagiarism or generous ‘borrowings’.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: "Times New Roman"; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">None of these obvious vagaries would have been possible had ‘god’ been as creative and imaginative as the Christian apologist, C.S. Lewis.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-31106874151621984332022-07-24T10:31:00.002+08:002022-07-24T10:31:29.009+08:00‘The Pet Goat’<p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGRDu-mBqvsWG8KZf5MmYQAV3v4Pj1eBZexjgV8IQtWKjG00quslxTuJjhbDRzj1wJSo3HlpZR99T17KoOo9gniSSIdcVeoz_UMpP536X1ihZEzH9Dvro7iMhMx8mNytsnv7vZZrqeQ3IOlqNUzgdNUxEVq3vxtxlnGozOChDPn95HBD7tpRxKn7O_/s1280/pet%20goat.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="233" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjGRDu-mBqvsWG8KZf5MmYQAV3v4Pj1eBZexjgV8IQtWKjG00quslxTuJjhbDRzj1wJSo3HlpZR99T17KoOo9gniSSIdcVeoz_UMpP536X1ihZEzH9Dvro7iMhMx8mNytsnv7vZZrqeQ3IOlqNUzgdNUxEVq3vxtxlnGozOChDPn95HBD7tpRxKn7O_/w415-h233/pet%20goat.jpeg" width="415" /></a></div><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Anyone else remember that little children’s book? The one that George W. Bush was reading when the Twin Towers were attacked on September 11, 2001?<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Upon being told that the US was being attacked, W sat, frozen and stunned; totally inappropriate behavior from anyone in a leadership position, let alone the Leader of the Free World.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Fast-forward to January 6<sup>th</sup>, 2021, when Donald Trump sat in the dining room next to the Oval Office and watched gleefully(!) as the attack he had organized on the Capitol transpired.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This a very ugly juxtaposition of tableaus which should shame and enrage all Americans and all lovers of liberty, freedom and democracy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The first scene revealed George Jr as an inept and cowardly leader who could not process a proper response to horrific acts of terror. The later bravado at ‘Ground Zero’ did not redeem him as a failed leader.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">What Donald J. Trump did was far more heinous and egregious; Trump was the planner of the January 6<sup>th</sup> attack on the Capitol. Donald J. Trump was the Usama bin Laden of that attack, no less than Charles Manson was the planner of the Tate/LaBianca murders.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Make no mistake, Donald J. Trump was a terrorist who planned the attack and set about organizing the attack with the help of Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and many other deputies just as bin Laden had deputies and co-conspirators, just as Manson had deputies such as ‘Tex’ Wilson.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The January 6<sup>th</sup> Select Committee has laid out Trump’s culpability in plain sight. What must be inferred is that Trump’s deputies (Bill Barr, Mark Meadows, Mick Mulvaney and others) are also culpable just as Mohammed Atef was culpable as bin Laden’s deputy.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Further, it must be kept in mind that even those who chose to testify to the Jan 6 Committee had previously chosen to serve a monster in order to advance their own careers. Mike Pence and Pat Cipollone knew that Trump was a person of low integrity, lower ethics, devoid of a sense of civic duty, and yet they chose to serve a monster who would devour their very souls. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Do not lose sight of that fact. Amid all the back-slapping and kudos for their service to the nation, do not forget that they chose to serve a monster whose lack of character led him to attack the very government that they had sworn an oath to protect.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-40314863815105829132022-07-23T16:18:00.001+08:002022-07-23T16:18:27.296+08:00Terrorist Trump<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKl95UJ6SCVaGdSTe4vEia3Hm1YLBpak6NYZAXuo9b0ktd3kMNQaA1dKOW-dGpE9xv7DtE8TAuZEoMSyKASpawpoqyXGP3D6vaIsvcPRSXsCMkmD-PtIzQG2SFP2-KQQHTMJni-BmjwTCInEmoN0QmNf3OE5yZ-Ks4Qk4aCbon6pnkBP2c0GNvPdi4/s960/Drumpf%20coup.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="960" height="355" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKl95UJ6SCVaGdSTe4vEia3Hm1YLBpak6NYZAXuo9b0ktd3kMNQaA1dKOW-dGpE9xv7DtE8TAuZEoMSyKASpawpoqyXGP3D6vaIsvcPRSXsCMkmD-PtIzQG2SFP2-KQQHTMJni-BmjwTCInEmoN0QmNf3OE5yZ-Ks4Qk4aCbon6pnkBP2c0GNvPdi4/w355-h355/Drumpf%20coup.jpg" width="355" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;">Let’s get this straight: Donald J. Trump masterminded the insurrection. (Not alone, of course. Donnie is a bumbling doofus and needed the nefarious help of Roger Stone, Steve Bannon and Mike Flynn amongst other treasonous, seditious arseholes.)</span><span style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><br /></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However, Donald was the one who championed the cause to over-turn the election and to over-throw the constitutionally based government of the USA. This is the point which everyone seems to tip-toe around. Donald Trump is a domestic terrorist just as the ‘Proud Boy’ Henry ‘<i>Enrique</i>’ Tarrio is a domestic terrorist.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Donnie expected his ‘militia’ to be armed and far more dangerous than they were. That explains why he had whined so vociferously about the ‘mags’ (the magnetometers, the metal detectors).<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">He was correct in saying that the Proud Boys et al. were not there to harm him. He knew they weren’t a threat to him because they undoubtedly had been given a wink and a nod by their ‘handler’ Roger the dirty-trickster Stone to be packing and on the hunt for the Speaker of the House, the VP and other unsympathetic congressional leaders. If the ‘militia’ was armed, then any resistance given by the paltry number of LEOs would be swept away in a trice. Fatalities were without doubt considered and factored into the planned assault to disrupt Congress.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Donnie demanded that this coup take place. What else explains the de facto ‘stand-down’ orders which hamstrung the National Guard, the State Police, the DC Police and the Capitol Police. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This was tantamount to the ‘dog that didn’t bark’. If - a big if – order was to be restored, the Attorney General, the director of Homeland Security and the Pentagon would have been called and directed to quell the riot forthwith. None of that was done, of course, as the most recent testimony in the public hearing of the January 6<sup>th</sup> Select Committee revealed.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Where was Donald Trump when the nation was under attack? He was in the private dining room watching the assault on his favorite television channel, Fox News. As former federal prosecutor, Glenn Kirschner, put it, “On January sixth, Donald Trump was not the leader of the country. He was the leader of the coup.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Donnie wanted a coup and very nearly got one.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This cannot and must not be ignored. It could not be more obvious that Trump wanted the coup and wanted the election over-turned. He wanted to remain in power no matter the cost to the nation, his ‘militia’, the Congress or his Vice-President. All of that mattered not a jot or a tittle. He even refused to say that the election was over on the following day, January 7th. All that mattered to Donnie was what Donnie wanted. Donnie wanted to keep his power and his privilege, no matter the cost.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As a fear-inducing brain-teaser, imagine if ‘Enrique’ Tarrio, Stewart Rhodes or any of their psychotic gangs had been allowed to keep and bear fire-arms when they assaulted the Capitol? Imagine if the guy who carried the pipe-bombs had done so on that fateful day in January? It would have meant the death knell for the Republic and the imposition of martial law - as Mike Flynn recommended. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Donald J. Trump must be tried as a domestic terrorist and found guilty.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-29417494942176679822022-07-21T19:50:00.000+08:002022-07-21T19:50:34.586+08:00Again with 'Belief'?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJJeDLalmaylGIxeDUoLjSNv5gZSgk3vpRImV_AmOfmhmRNXCpLaAXDv5rQOvTbSyz2aFjGakLEDnwlgY8UgOTEVOpU15ulA-MBcMoBEgxU86K2OV1k0oF05BtLtB0eynoPQqFUUEufrVjD1lmiIyzNtpUSeXPKo6zbyxA8SQ74St8ZCE9v62HrmT9/s236/belief%20Randi.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="236" data-original-width="236" height="299" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJJeDLalmaylGIxeDUoLjSNv5gZSgk3vpRImV_AmOfmhmRNXCpLaAXDv5rQOvTbSyz2aFjGakLEDnwlgY8UgOTEVOpU15ulA-MBcMoBEgxU86K2OV1k0oF05BtLtB0eynoPQqFUUEufrVjD1lmiIyzNtpUSeXPKo6zbyxA8SQ74St8ZCE9v62HrmT9/w299-h299/belief%20Randi.jpeg" width="299" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">“Science is just a bunch of wild guesses.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That was what one responder claimed. He reiterated that claim several times. “A bunch of wild guessing assholes…”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s more than evident that this dude had no idea about scientific method, the process of peer review and specifically what the word ‘theory’ means.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In science, theory is a technical term. In normal informal language ‘theory’ might be a wild guess. (e.g. My theory is that he wasn’t hugged enough as a child.) However, in science, the word ‘theory’ is reserved for a working hypothesis which serves as the best answer to a phenomenon. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">More precisely: “A theory is a carefully thought-out explanation for observations of the natural world that has been constructed using the scientific method, and which brings together many facts and hypotheses.”<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">We’re not talking wild guesses here. There’s a lot of problems with the lexicon of science which derails appreciation. Other examples are the words ‘fact’ and ‘law’. Look them up as they are used in discussion of science by scientists. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Back to theories; Evolution is a theory. Yes!<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So is gravity a theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So are cells.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So are germs.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">So is the heliocentric model.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Plate tectonics is a theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The Big Bang is a theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A theory is the highest level that an idea can attain in science.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That said, another word that serves as a stumbling block for many is the word ‘believe’. (Cue the eye-rolls. Here we go again.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Like many words in English, there is more than one meaning for this word. That plurality of meaning stems from context. If the word is used in an informal conversation, the word 'belief' might only mean ‘notion’ or ‘speculation’. (e.g. I believe it’s going to rain.) There is no proclamation of a deeply held tenet. It’s just an opinion based on a commonplace observation regarding an ordinary meteorological event. (Bring an umbrella.) <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However, in a discussion about religion, the word’s connotation changes with the more formal context; ‘I believe in the Bible’ indicates that that book is a basis for a deeply held religious tenet. In matters of ‘faith’, the word becomes a mighty touchstone. It takes on a technical definition specific to matter of faith much as the word ‘theory’ is a technical term in the fields of science.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The confusion arises when a person of faith asks ‘Do you believe in science (or evolution of the Big Bang Theory). Scientific theories do not require faith; they do not require ‘belief’ in the more technical sense of the person of faith. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Whether or not you ‘believe’ in gravity, you’ll fall down.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-679986385854978672022-07-20T11:29:00.000+08:002022-07-20T11:29:36.745+08:00Our Special Tribe; Wise?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqS4pa_SJMAyNrKRTU1IMyUT6WhpNQZQ_27FAMXqKKIZby9Iq6m_WdlLSkkn0i9W1s2rd1j2Zt6iCke8-XAIlSWeS5onbzdHjNegjpIIzbIH6W6uZGt4qGvSUVxOkKHV64KH_t-ewAwKvwcODXq3z2ZAyQFiqnpIR27KOHSVQzOygGI6c6hZKQOcZY/s2560/Douglas%20Adams%20don't%20panic.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="2560" data-original-width="1658" height="445" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqS4pa_SJMAyNrKRTU1IMyUT6WhpNQZQ_27FAMXqKKIZby9Iq6m_WdlLSkkn0i9W1s2rd1j2Zt6iCke8-XAIlSWeS5onbzdHjNegjpIIzbIH6W6uZGt4qGvSUVxOkKHV64KH_t-ewAwKvwcODXq3z2ZAyQFiqnpIR27KOHSVQzOygGI6c6hZKQOcZY/w288-h445/Douglas%20Adams%20don't%20panic.jpeg" width="288" /></a></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Douglas Adams wrote a very compelling bit of allegory about a sentient puddle of water which, upon viewing its condition remarked how well the hole it was in fit it so perfectly; as if the hole was created specially to fit the puddle. Then, as the day went on and the sun rose higher and the puddle evaporated, a bit of panic struck the sentient puddle as it slowly became non-existent. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The allegory was meant as a counter-argument to the proposition that the earth was made, designed, created especially for human beings. (That the planet is populated with thousands of species suited to this planet and no other seems to have gone unnoticed to the proponents of grand design.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As record-setting temperatures continue to topple to new record-setting temperatures, as glaciers evaporate and melt to raise ocean levels rise, as droughts grind on causing crops to fail amid rising world hunger, it must be understood that our own species; Homo Sapiens Sapiens, a twig on the branch of the Great Ape family, is NOT the sentient puddle. This world was NOT created to fit us. Homo Sapiens have been around for fewer than half a million years. A slim trifle when compared with the estimated four billion-year existence of the earth, itself. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It is estimated that more than 99% of all life on the planet has gone extinct over the course of the planet’s existence. Humans are but a slim sliver of the history of the planet of water, oxygen and life. Others of far more scientific erudition than this writer have stated that this is so and have provided reams of evidence in peer-reviewed papers. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However, the hubris of humanity, bolstered by the self-serving mythology that ‘we are special’ has placed the very existence of our species at risk. We are at risk of destroying our own bio-sphere – the sentient puddle’s hole – upon which our survival depends. Excessive heat warnings are issued by meteorological agencies and scoffed at hubristically by those whose very survival is at risk. (Recall the sight of the US Senator offering a snowball as proof that climate change is a hoax!)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Our species is most assuredly special in many ways; others have counted the ways in Shakespearean fashion. However, our species is less than 1% of all the species which were formed on planet earth and are now extinct. It must be kept in mind that there have been numerous mass extinction events on this planet; the end of the Age of Dinosaurs is but one such event. Another is the Permian Extinction – the Great Dying – which happened 250,000,000 years ago. It is the worst, most extensive extinction event in the planet’s history and all but eliminated life on ‘our’ blue marble. Keep in mind that there were at least 4 other mass extinction events before our little tribe split off from the bonobos, chimps and other great apes on our way to becoming Homo Sapiens about 300,000 years ago.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Doomsayers claim that we may be witnessing one more such mass-extinction event. Are we - Homo Sapiens Sapiens, the ‘wise man’- actually wise enough to understand how precarious our existence is on this tiny orb in space? <o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-14804696526110078142022-06-27T13:27:00.002+08:002022-06-27T13:27:51.575+08:00Roe, Roe Roe the Vote!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXr8ANLWAvjNzXaRBqF4N2PE1Qmq1JnhCMi2NiARM8TBufT5w-5gMLmjVsu7ZYaE6LAXeq3dJPRwaj5tikRYYGDFxJJRAAd7DMeTKRPHUynfXboMZlBgVLebEuqwWqq83h0XeXQDSmxGnHKmNezuQvqbosH_SuNdvnqfQ8fsGgfho03vuwCa_i20Vu/s273/images.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="185" data-original-width="273" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhXr8ANLWAvjNzXaRBqF4N2PE1Qmq1JnhCMi2NiARM8TBufT5w-5gMLmjVsu7ZYaE6LAXeq3dJPRwaj5tikRYYGDFxJJRAAd7DMeTKRPHUynfXboMZlBgVLebEuqwWqq83h0XeXQDSmxGnHKmNezuQvqbosH_SuNdvnqfQ8fsGgfho03vuwCa_i20Vu/w347-h235/images.jpg" width="347" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">I’m stumped. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">For the life of me, I can’t
figure out why the GOP are shooting themselves in the foot after they’ve lodged
it firmly into their mouth.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">To the point: Roe v Wade. The
Religious Right has worked for decades to get this done, driven by somebody’s
myopic, misogynic reading of a book from the Bronze Age. The GOP made their
deal with Donnie the Devil to stack the Court with the nefarious assistance of
Mitch McConnell who’d blocked Garland’s
nomination. Everyone expected it. The historic leak of the drafted decision
alerted everyone that this long-awaited catastrophe was imminent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">But, why now!?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Court could have sat on
this decision until after the mid-terms. The Court could have sand-bagged the
decision; that would have been understood by even most ‘pro-lifers’. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">If the Court had
back-burner’ed the decision until after the Jan 6 Committee’s final report,
that would have been understandable, as well. From the standpoint of the GOP
leadership, such a move might have been seen as ‘good optics’ </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">To release this decision now,
on the heels of their declaring the New York’s long-standing gun law
unconstitutional, in the midst of a very damaging Jan 6 Committee hearings and
in the same news cycle with Biden signing a new Gun Bill, seems ‘bad optics’,
at the least, and<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">, </b>at the worst,
tantamount to discharging a firearm into your ear.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Couple the continuing mass
shootings, the stripping of human and civil rights, the gross greed of
corporate overlords, the undermining of voting rights, the immense level of
sedition and treason exercised by Trump and his heinous minions; all of which
are the result of GOP policy and what we have here is a vast failure by the GOP
to govern in a representative republic.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This bodes rather well for a
resounding GOP defeat at the polls in November of this year.</span></p>
<p> </p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-62897295736702214012022-06-25T11:10:00.000+08:002022-06-25T11:10:06.477+08:00Expand the Court<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCB3eIM3_pQ8Yh7NFPUg7YQiEjJykNmWrhUxnsvJXYmuSvTreOtaA0IQd5Siwd6DNawxzTuP_KNPWFGDmL-_VqoKc584pNgcMUj0_Y5YRFZrDvwG80Z_4ImQfui03_COZUqNQecOf3HxBKUBQSuceyBXOilIfAOlfiHPxRfSJEYSbWbve-KC_VEuwM/s1248/hand%20maiden%20tale%20.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="702" data-original-width="1248" height="223" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCB3eIM3_pQ8Yh7NFPUg7YQiEjJykNmWrhUxnsvJXYmuSvTreOtaA0IQd5Siwd6DNawxzTuP_KNPWFGDmL-_VqoKc584pNgcMUj0_Y5YRFZrDvwG80Z_4ImQfui03_COZUqNQecOf3HxBKUBQSuceyBXOilIfAOlfiHPxRfSJEYSbWbve-KC_VEuwM/w396-h223/hand%20maiden%20tale%20.webp" width="396" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Well..<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">They did it. They over-turned Roe-v-Wade.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The GOP gambit succeeded. They courted the imbecilic, sociopathic insanity of Donald ‘the Narcissist’ Trump and got the ‘conservative’ majority on the Court. Of course, as Senator Susan Collins might acknowledge, these are not ‘conservatives’; they are reactionaries. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">They are also perjurers, liars and sociopaths as well: ACB, Beer Boy, Alito Thomas, Gorsuch. They all lied during their confirmation hearings. They all prevaricated. They all deserve to be impeached and removed from the Court for their felonious dissimulation.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It must be noted that lying to Congress is a felony. All of the aforementioned Justices lied through their teeth regarding Roe.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This radical decision of the highest Court means that more women will die from botched abortions. More women and young girls will be forced to carry the woeful result of rape and incest. This stripping </span><span style="font-size: 21.33333396911621px;">go</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> human rights will ruin their lives. It will, most probably, ruin the lives the resultant people whom these poor women will be forced to give birth to as unwanted babies.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">As preamble to this egregious decision, the Court saw fit to intervene on gun safety by tossing out the New York state law restricting the open-carry of side-arms. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It will become evident in coming months that the combination of these two woefully unfortunate decisions will result in the deaths of many in the US. People will be shot and killed in the street<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Women will die on make-shift operating table and in back-alleys as they did before Roe was supported.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Reaction to the Court’s over-turning Roe has been swift; streets are filled with protestors in all major cities and in front of the ‘Marble Palace’, where "Equal Justice Under Law" is chiseled.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The overturning of Roe is the realization of sociopathic, misogynic fever-dream of the right Wing. It must act as the catalyst for Dems and Independents to elect sane, educated, enlightened representatives to Congress. It must be the driving force that brings about the expansion of the Court and the expulsion of Thomas, ACB, Beer Boy and a return to humanistic justice.<o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-17891984480712172462022-06-22T14:45:00.000+08:002022-06-22T14:45:23.299+08:00News Flash: Evolution is Hard!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAd-htcz2lZbFW6qTb_HTRcB6kfdfjNS0k-QT8egl_KORSwqBRpFbwojD7nZimSmCECw3RLn44gdcECWCcW5dGw0oZHNgWACQ6TArcicDOawRLwBT9Qym4I-hmKhFUU_ZlUEnjfhnwJGlDQnDdPa3A3b5qqKGV1D3HQWc4fwGIvaRd6rV-ojiLkq6/s828/Darwin%202.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="625" data-original-width="828" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZAd-htcz2lZbFW6qTb_HTRcB6kfdfjNS0k-QT8egl_KORSwqBRpFbwojD7nZimSmCECw3RLn44gdcECWCcW5dGw0oZHNgWACQ6TArcicDOawRLwBT9Qym4I-hmKhFUU_ZlUEnjfhnwJGlDQnDdPa3A3b5qqKGV1D3HQWc4fwGIvaRd6rV-ojiLkq6/s320/Darwin%202.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><p></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">News Flash! <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Evolution is difficult. Evolutionary science is incredibly complicated. Learning even the very basics of the mechanics of evolution theory requires real effort. <o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It’s little wonder that most (including yours truly…) would prefer to leave the heavy-lifting to the professional scientists, teachers and professors. It’s a small wonder that many would rather just claim ‘god made it all!’ than to actually study and grasp the intricate implications of evolutionary theory.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">(Here, there must be a side-bar that addresses the definition of the word ‘theory’. A theory is not just a wild-hair, off-the-cuff notion that is declared without reflection or substantiation. A ‘theory’ in the parlance of science is nothing of the sort. (e.g. Your uncle at Thanksgiving may propose his theory that all ‘millennials are spoiled’ and cite his own nephew who refuses to come to the family table or purposes that the media is controlled by a certain Semitic community. (ahem) That is NOT a theory; your uncle is simply a blatherskite; he’s blowing it out his arse.)<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Gravity, for example, is a theory. That diseases are caused by pathogens is the ‘Germ Theory of Disease’. Both ‘theories’ are the best explanation of the phenomena of gravity and disease which have been tried and tested and accepted as fact by the scientific community.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One is tempted to include a link to a video of Hemant Mehta listing the Top Ten list of asinine attempts to rebut evolution theory. Forrest Valkai (the Renegade Science Teacher of Tik-Tok fame) would be another video link that entices this writer. The dear reader might avail themselves of those video counter-arguments as they wish.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Caveat: Be prepared to think and to do further cursory research. As was stated at the beginning; ‘Evolutionary science is incredibly complicated.’ However, as a scientific theory, it is the best explanation available for the diversity of life on our planet.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="font-family: Calibri; margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">It is no wonder that some would choose, in their utter and willful ignorance, to blurt out ‘god did it!’ <o:p></o:p></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-82470968771378465052022-06-15T00:03:00.000+08:002022-06-15T00:03:01.956+08:00Barr and Jan 6<p> <br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijuzBA8_CHgVjjArvCViHU6STCYQohQb1ZxLRfkrI54VE0imk9plon0dG0qLAq9eMWYxjppTIChXYeGdHkSD8dc9bR2booKMMmgoE2Z2b9AVbtBdnV03VTzUHhF156EQX8Ln3KWt9a5My-LFdwRzB6YeUAXPociJPTg6Uk6W8ZNsIufagizdggNNh0/s636/Groucho.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="402" data-original-width="636" height="235" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEijuzBA8_CHgVjjArvCViHU6STCYQohQb1ZxLRfkrI54VE0imk9plon0dG0qLAq9eMWYxjppTIChXYeGdHkSD8dc9bR2booKMMmgoE2Z2b9AVbtBdnV03VTzUHhF156EQX8Ln3KWt9a5My-LFdwRzB6YeUAXPociJPTg6Uk6W8ZNsIufagizdggNNh0/w372-h235/Groucho.jpg" width="372" /></a></div><br /><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"> <span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The obvious and pronounced
reason for the televised January 6<sup>th</sup> Committee is to gin up the
public, make them aware, enlightened, entertained and pissed. The sessions are
not primarily to educate the vast majority of the primary and secondary viewing
public.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">MAGA-dolts donated about
$250,000.00 ($25 million!) to what they (in their addled brain-pans) was a
‘worthy cause’: ‘Save America!’.
<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Not only could they send thoughts and
prayers, they could send their hard-earned money. Predictably (for those paying
attention), instead, the needed trip to the dentist went into the grimy, fingered
coffers of Donald J. Trump, Conman.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That should raise some
MAGA-hackles. It should. They may blame Joe for inflation but reminding them on
the TV that the Orange Scrounger made off with half a car payment is a very
finessed move. Don the Con gets revealed as the louse he is. On the telly. And on
repeat!</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That the money to ‘Save
America’ would squandered on aught else but Trump perquisites should have been both
obvious and expected. With the second televised hearing, that simple,
fundamental fact of Trump-land – that all was for the greater glory of the
Grand Persimmon and feck everybody else - was made clearly evident.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Kimberly Guilfoyle getting $60,00
for a 3-minute speech introducing El Grifto at the Rally prior to the
Insurrection should make some MAGA-folks miffed at the former Scamster-in-chief
and his crew of wanna-be douche nozzles. (One wonders if she got paid by the
word…? $20K a minute to scream some version of her tag line seems extreme even
for a former Fox regular.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Would Kilmeade
have gotten that much? Or Hannity?)</span></p><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"></span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">
As for the douche-nozzle ‘B’ team; Jason Miller had to have a filthy hand in
the dissemination of ‘Stop the Steal’ missives. That little scanky merkin
replacing his missing chin will not save him from prosecution. He undoubtedly
signed a deal with the DOJ. The smart ones do.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Trump’s last campaign
manager, Bill Stepien, has most assuredly cut a deal for testimony. The
opportune breeching of his child spared him from a ‘perp-walk’ into Committee
Chambers, but his video-ed testimony, with this lawyer by his side, bland and
hesitant as it was, verified the more candid remarks from the former AG, Barr.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">One might be inclined to give
an appreciative nod to Bill Barr for throwing The Donald so colorfully under
the bus. We must take measures not to lionize this pole-cat. Barr is the
under-handed arsehole who scuttled the Mueller Report, recall. He made like a
Romanian gymnast in bending over for Trump and warped the rule of law to serve
the Orange Monstrosity. He has done the good guys a favor with his colorful
language but one must conclude that it was to save his own fat back-side.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Hopefully, Barr’s apostasy
will induce other MAGA-muddle-heads to break ranks with ‘El Trumpissimo’. That
the damn has burst and the wall fallen may seem too Pollyanna, but considering
Ivanka Trump sided with Barr against dear-ol’ dad… That speaks volumes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Kevin, listen up!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This article is meant to go
towards answering the dissatisfied clamor over what is perceived as Merrick Garland’s
inaction. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The DOJ ain’t going anywhere
and neither are Trump’s crimes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The aim of the televised
committee hearings is this;<br /><br />
First, get the more peripheral MAGA-folks riled up enough to turn against
Donald Trump. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Second; present clear facts of
criminality for those who have been paying attention all along. <br /><br />
Third, prosecutorial referrals fall like cleansing rain on the seditionists.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Stay tuned. </span></p>
<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]--></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-35815753766732269412022-06-11T19:51:00.001+08:002022-06-11T19:51:33.115+08:00WTF and Why?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4re37aTrLvnudp2bg-w2dEFGNcjI4ghGdxltekRPNPRJlFBiSXWqUpCDu2ApgXAAkvkp7HggAEOQRSSv61FUOrhdHBoo5SPyef2fMHK6UEcYWLLiUH1f08K85NdJLY5NfFtIF336f-I2Ueql30rFRVin_9F8nMyMTTb45QDe_obR4tw-n4s4IiTok/s960/GOP.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="614" data-original-width="960" height="285" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4re37aTrLvnudp2bg-w2dEFGNcjI4ghGdxltekRPNPRJlFBiSXWqUpCDu2ApgXAAkvkp7HggAEOQRSSv61FUOrhdHBoo5SPyef2fMHK6UEcYWLLiUH1f08K85NdJLY5NfFtIF336f-I2Ueql30rFRVin_9F8nMyMTTb45QDe_obR4tw-n4s4IiTok/w445-h285/GOP.jpg" width="445" /></a></div><p></p><p><span style="font-size: medium;"><span></span></span></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">There is one, all-encompassing question that has plagued me
since the first evidence that the GOP were actually englamoured by Trump. <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why?</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why fear this bumbling bozo of a clown, born on third base
but thrown out at home trying to steal countless times? </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Why attach oneself lamprey-like to such an infamous fraud?</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">To the point, why do Kevin McCarthy, et al. continue to
provide aid and comfort to such an enemy of democracy as Donald J. Trump? </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">One can understand the warped reasons that impel McConnell
to pitch in on the evil; Supreme Court picks and association with a fellow
graft-master. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">But McCarthy,
Jordan, Cotton,
Hawley? What’s the deal?<br /></span>
<span style="font-size: medium;"><br />
(Notice I left off Boebert, MGT and Gosar from that short list. They all,
clearly, grabbed the short-end of the stick. When they passed out brains, these
three heard ‘rain’ and ran for an umbrella.)</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">I have always suspected blackmail as the glue that adheres
these venal people together. Given the Donald’s crime-blotched past and
well-known use of such tactics, blackmail has suited me as the motivating
factor. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">However, there was always a niggling reminder that Trump,
himself, would be subjected to counter-slander in a heartbeat. Then, it hit me;
another part of the dark substance that holds the GOP in thrall to the Orange
Pumpkin. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">It might be called ‘Alt-blackmail’. It was also known in
former times as ‘calumny’, vicious, false gossip. Nowadays it’s called
‘slander’.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Such accusations, founded or unfounded involve lawyers,
court cases, suits and counter-suits, motions and motions and motions upon
motions. This is a game that Donnie excels in; backed by Daddy’s money, this is
how Trump survived all his failures and scandals</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Playing the shady side of the legal system was what Donnie had
learned at Roy Cohn’s knee. <span> </span></span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">To wit: Should any of the GOP muckety-mucks choose to
throw-up their hands and back away from The Donald (as Kevin tried to do in the
emotional wake of the insurrection), then the muck-raking would commence. Dirty
laundry would be displayed with no regard to the source or in-authenticity of
the soiled undies in question. <br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">None of these folks are like driven snow; they all have dark
secrets. Hence, though acclimated to potential blackmail, the fear of prolonged
expenditures in attorney’s fees, retainers and court costs with little hope of
out-lasting The Donald’s neurotic resolve is call for concern. On an
existential level.</span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">As Trump loses his influence more Republicans will draw away
from him. His failing forays into social media and "Tish" James having
the Donald’s yarbles in a vise both went a good way to that end. </span></p><span style="font-size: medium;">
</span><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: medium;">Kevin (et al.) trashed their lives and tossed away any shred
of honor or reputation they had clung to in order to serve The Donald’. How
they deal with it will be at the core of the book deals they sign.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]--><span></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-12426149980906230242022-06-08T20:43:00.002+08:002022-06-08T20:45:38.028+08:00The Woefully Myth-taken (part, the first)<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7pFkTnuJIoRAkhgRWKQgcHskqmoo4-EV9lhHzGwkN3wPLQscE7LahnYWuxi_JtFlHpcH1CJ-hz7AqZIoU-T7Y54syux_tnb_EeGuVkjHTr1LsjaInm-zJaw-enCoNhyBhbQMw8T4pAyaAeLbkYkiIFXuS744uTygPo83BafJbvZ4b69K9H4LiHzf/s1280/Terry%20Pachett.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="1280" height="247" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEha7pFkTnuJIoRAkhgRWKQgcHskqmoo4-EV9lhHzGwkN3wPLQscE7LahnYWuxi_JtFlHpcH1CJ-hz7AqZIoU-T7Y54syux_tnb_EeGuVkjHTr1LsjaInm-zJaw-enCoNhyBhbQMw8T4pAyaAeLbkYkiIFXuS744uTygPo83BafJbvZ4b69K9H4LiHzf/w439-h247/Terry%20Pachett.jpg" width="439" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Pilfering </span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">the term ‘myth-taken’ </span>from Terry
Pratchett’s lexicon, <i>myth-taken </i>can be applied to the actions of a
disturbingly large demographic in the US of A.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Take the Trumpian/MAGA/Q GOP
for example; they are seriously myth-taken. They are not simply mistaken on issues such
as climate change, gun control and pandemic mitigation, bodily autonomy, etc., they
are, more fundamentally, wrong. Yes, they espouse a contrary view to those on
the ‘Left’, (or anyone slightly left of extreme right) but they also have a
deeper problem; a melding of confirmation bias and cognitive dissonance. In
short, they buy the lie. They are heavily invested in delusion. They take lame
metaphor as truth, The delusions they cherish are many and layered, intertwined
and inter-dependent. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">They are myth-taken.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Offered here is an primer
list of myths of the myth-taken. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">One of their shared
delusional myths is the one of white supremacy. The myth-taken are so invested
in the myth of racial superiority that there is a separate, supporting myth
called ‘The Myth of the Lost Cause’ which glorifies the Confederacy as a noble
enterprise. The ‘ Cause’ was the preservation of a gentile way of life; one
based on chivalry, honor and tradition. according to the myth.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This supporting myth to the
myth of white supremacy is meant to enable confirmation bias. The ‘Lost Cause’
is suffered by the perfect Southern man, a gentile and noble patriot. To assert
that the Myth is not founded in truth is to deny each of them the role of ‘perfect
Southern man’. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">This is a regional myth, less
substantial than Paul Bunyan or Johnny Appleseed and less believable. The
fundamental tenet of the ‘Myth of the Lost Cause’ is that the American Civil
War <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>- ‘War of Northern Aggression’, in the
parlance of the Myth - was about the struggle for ‘states’ Rights’ and only
incidentally about the issue of slavery. The Daughters of the Confederacy
(arguably the initiators and propagators of the Myth) erected monuments to the glory
of a seditious, treasonous, rebellious bunch of traitors so as to sow the meme-seeds
of the Myth of the Lost Cause’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Many Americans
wear and display the emblems of the Lost Cause. Many consider these ensigns as
‘call-signs’ to other white supremacists and white nationalists. White supremacy
groups in Germany (fascist right-wingers) have taken to displaying the Confederate battle flag,
the Stars & Bars, as replacement for the banned Nazi flag. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Much has been done and written on the
subject of slavery, reparations and civil rights. Constitutional Amendments
were enacted, for instance. Yet much yet needs to be done. Dismantling the myth requires more than enactment of legislation.
Criminalizing the display of sigils, signs and
flags of the treasonous Confederacy would deprive the myth-taken of their
symbols.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">Imagine a MAGA-mutt without his hat. Imagine the Jan 6 insurrection without Trump flags.<br /></span></span></p>
<p> </p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-85343799826974266432022-06-06T16:05:00.000+08:002022-06-06T16:05:11.957+08:00Here's Kevin!<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr9yVSwA_r9UNv2tn6jssp1LmsjQlqN0uHPY9rEXYMbpdC-LksjE05RT-jN-GIvoE1CMauYdS-tTGm3j25-ZKDIPmaNeqMZUksw-mRpi-Erdlq9C3LW31M5fspYfJL8LwY6lTX94hl_3YxsaTWf2q18eTVtRowwqAhihQm-O0LURCj7sAnHPHj0xTC/s1200/Kevin%20McCarthy.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="785" data-original-width="1200" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhr9yVSwA_r9UNv2tn6jssp1LmsjQlqN0uHPY9rEXYMbpdC-LksjE05RT-jN-GIvoE1CMauYdS-tTGm3j25-ZKDIPmaNeqMZUksw-mRpi-Erdlq9C3LW31M5fspYfJL8LwY6lTX94hl_3YxsaTWf2q18eTVtRowwqAhihQm-O0LURCj7sAnHPHj0xTC/s320/Kevin%20McCarthy.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:AllowPNG/>
<o:TargetScreenSize>1024x768</o:TargetScreenSize>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:DoNotOptimizeForBrowser/>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Kevin McCarthy (GOP, Cali) is
prepping for his role as featured, recurring goof-ball in the January 6<sup>th</sup>
Committee televised ‘<i>poli-com</i>’ premiering soon. Kevin will play the outspoken
neighborhood dolt reminiscent of Eddie Haskell but without the inherent wit or
intelligence. </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In his role as foil for the likes of Adam Schift and Liz Cheney,
Kevin will be punching far above his weight-class intellectually. His innate bone-headed
ineptitude will be the staple of his character. Whether he testifies before the
Committee or not is yet to be determined but his sustained bleating of ‘witch-hunt’
will become his catch-phrase in press scrums, there is little doubt.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That such a shop-worn
utterance will mark his nearly every media interview must be expected. Kevin,
by dearth of his limited intelligence will find his catch-phrase and the narrow
mind-set behind it a challenge, nevertheless. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">However, as comic as the
catch-phrase might be to some, it will be the intermittent faux-pas and ironic
bon mots which will accentuate his role of spoil-sport dope. Much as his
blurting out of Russia’s owning of a fellow GOP Congress member disconcerted
Paul Ryan, Kevin will bring his Dunning Kruger ‘A’ game as half-wit and
nincompoop in a daft attempt to thwart the Committee and frustrate its members.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Riotous hi-jinx will ensue!</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Cue the laugh-track.</span></p>
<p> </p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-35771522394980732602022-06-03T17:49:00.002+08:002022-06-03T17:49:41.788+08:00Gun Laws<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMRnMoGdD1w1_TmWOvA5YLVxlIlrdUQsjWqzGNFPBeGyjl9ZmtkCyzEiGM_SLkJ6uneTyae82941JhXILNvGAZHUpNfUXc54RFXbTCnGXJskXwQj_oErWZ1mlqPKIcuqI7JKJe8KCo1hKbvTEBLL7G94SySwBNpEnaN7WKOeIbdMAxZV_vkQygkOwN/s600/if-your-thoughts-5a91aa.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="500" data-original-width="600" height="338" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMRnMoGdD1w1_TmWOvA5YLVxlIlrdUQsjWqzGNFPBeGyjl9ZmtkCyzEiGM_SLkJ6uneTyae82941JhXILNvGAZHUpNfUXc54RFXbTCnGXJskXwQj_oErWZ1mlqPKIcuqI7JKJe8KCo1hKbvTEBLL7G94SySwBNpEnaN7WKOeIbdMAxZV_vkQygkOwN/w405-h338/if-your-thoughts-5a91aa.jpg" width="405" /></a></div><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Texas Congressman, Dan
Crenshaw was squawking to CNN’s Dana Bash that he was against 'red flag' laws (both
on the federal level as well as the state level) because 'such laws would require
enforcing the law before it was broken' (!) What utter gibberish. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">'Red flag laws' are
prohibitions, first and foremost; one cannot vote or buy booze or automobiles
or life insurance or a house, before a minimum legal requirement is met. The
minimum requirement for each is determined on both the state and the federal
level. Similar prohibition already applies to gun sales; one must of a certain
minimum age to legally buy and sell a firearm or ammunition. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In a similar way to the right
to vote, the right to bear arms is restricted until a minimum requirement is
met. (By the way, there is no constitutionally guaranteed right to own a
firearm. Chief Justice Warren Burger proclaimed as fraud that notion.) </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There is no sensible reason
that one prohibiting stipulation be that the potential purchaser of a firearm must
be of sound mind and character. Nutters and spouse-beaters need not apply. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">For example, if one is
required by law to go door to door announcing oneself as a pedophile, then said
person would be prohibited from buying a gun. Similarly, if one was convicted
of a violent crime (e.g. murder, rape, armed robbery, assault, etc.) then that
one would be also be prohibited from the legal purchase of a firearm.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Apologists for ammosexuals
and opponents to new gun laws will sputter that gun laws won’t deter the
determined criminal. Duh… A quite wonderful (snark) argument for undermining
the basic tenets of the Rule of Law. Following that fallacious logic: Why write
the Magna Carta when the nobles knew that King John was going to transgress and
break the law to assert himself? Why engrave ‘Thou Shalt Not Kill’ on stone
tablets if people would continue to kill each other through the ages? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">For reasons too obvious to
state, we must have laws and regulations in a civilized society. Ask Hammurabi.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Let us be stalwart in our
efforts to enact sensible gun legislation and deny the NRA such specious
arguments as the aforementioned against common sense and public safety. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Call, write and pester your
law-makers to bring the USA
up to the level of the UK, New Zealand, Japan,
Canada
and countless other nations where the mass slaughter of children and citizens
is not a regular occurrence.</span></p>
Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-46130235483400918132022-03-29T21:48:00.003+08:002022-03-29T21:48:49.980+08:00Putin's Folly<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjphdJLqI5w4Qg_u1PyzEBuauhyG7EEEGJ29feFW3s9n-OIS1lLE6EgO2BdQ29ABl2dCrw4UrxZ_ur8vksChUXTdSWflbpRpqTTHMU_REZhy-Vip5iq4QKRB-1gzYhPVWoRg9j2bcmujSureS_QrUJfLdKbBUO6EnkRv4zPcspNEdWA41G09qecpTR0/s800/Putin-chess-metaphor.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="533" data-original-width="800" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjphdJLqI5w4Qg_u1PyzEBuauhyG7EEEGJ29feFW3s9n-OIS1lLE6EgO2BdQ29ABl2dCrw4UrxZ_ur8vksChUXTdSWflbpRpqTTHMU_REZhy-Vip5iq4QKRB-1gzYhPVWoRg9j2bcmujSureS_QrUJfLdKbBUO6EnkRv4zPcspNEdWA41G09qecpTR0/w384-h255/Putin-chess-metaphor.webp" width="384" /></a></div><br /><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Mr Putin’s fundamental folly
is that he wanted more than life itself to return to the vainglorious eras of
the Russian Empire and the USSR.
His folly was two-fold; first, to think that anything of the kind of was
remotely possible and second, that a return to the Soviet era would not
necessitate the inherent presence of M.A.D. (mutually assured
destruction).<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Putin has provided us further
evidence of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. Vlad has over-estimated his talents, his
resources and has misplayed his hand based on those faulty estimates of his
own infallibility and genius. He has committed the age-old caveat about
under-estimating your opponent. The invasion of Ukraine has been far more than he
bargained for militarily, economically and diplomatically.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He and his sycophantic
general staff have botched up their ‘special combat operation’ at ever phase
and in every aspect of war: tactics, strategy, logistics and operations. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As example; tactically, the
surrounding/investment of Kyiv should have been accomplished in the first few
hours of the very first day of the war. The task bogged down from the very
git-go; under-supplied and traveling only on roads and highways. (Lessons
taught by the Germans ‘Blitzkreig’ were not learned, obviously.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Strategically, sighting on
Kyiv, such an obvious target, and announcing for weeks beforehand that
attacking Ukraine
and taking Kyiv was the Russian plan was both asinine and amateurish. For the
vaunted Russia
military - which defeated both Napoleon and Hitler - to bungle so badly is
baffling.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Operationally, the Russians
left themselves open to the ever-alert monitoring of communication by the
Western allies. Generals used unsecured cell-phones which Ukraine and NATO
could accurately geo-locate. Ooops. Jam up communications and see how far a
modern army gets when they’re deaf and blind. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Logistics seems to have been
absent from the curriculum of military colleges in Russia. It was as though the
general staff never considered that a modern mechanical operation might need…
fuel! WTF? Columns of mobile armor sat motionless for days and weeks for lack
of petrol. Fuel was so scarce that soldiers were suffering frost-bite because they
couldn’t even run the heaters in their vehicles. Not to mention that they were
sitting ducks sitting dead still on the highways. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The old maxim; ‘An army
travels on its stomach’ was another lesson Putin was ignorant of. The news is
rife with tales of Russian conscripts looting grocery stores sacking the
larders of babushkas and mugging citizens for food.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The word ‘cock-up’ does not
begin to describe the military bone-headedness of the invasion of Ukraine. Any
war-gamer or amateur military historian could do a better job than Putin and
his general staff have done.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Sadly, the military screw-ups
are bloody and deadly. The effects of diplomatic isolation and economic
strangulation, not so much. However, those less deadly effects will have to be
endured for many years by the entire world, not just those on the battlefield
of Ukraine.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is Putin’s legacy:
Folly, disaster and calamity.</span></p>
Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-53150101317639250782022-03-05T21:15:00.000+08:002022-03-05T21:15:30.499+08:00Putin's Debacle?<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbzmCesTAcBn21b7Rvz0kIzBoF4SMSCEGt3tRdHiLXWGIrTFzYr2a66vimkK8LAqO6-yhtkKMB1LFEB_kI3gxMX5Z_Dp_vEkHe5BWLMTIzTVUNniaOZeUd_9Y7fj7iGjHzBCfSFs1uR3DXRXudGeE1kQQhpLClaGUlt2iqNAKCqjRLmgh7-p2JIgo1=s850" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="850" height="209" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhbzmCesTAcBn21b7Rvz0kIzBoF4SMSCEGt3tRdHiLXWGIrTFzYr2a66vimkK8LAqO6-yhtkKMB1LFEB_kI3gxMX5Z_Dp_vEkHe5BWLMTIzTVUNniaOZeUd_9Y7fj7iGjHzBCfSFs1uR3DXRXudGeE1kQQhpLClaGUlt2iqNAKCqjRLmgh7-p2JIgo1=w444-h209" width="444" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]--></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">All of the military experts
and talking head noobies are scratching their heads about Putin’s battle plan
in Ukraine.
</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What’s he up to? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What does he want? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">It all? Piecemeal and in
utter ruins? </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Does he see Ukraine’s total annihilation and
destruction as a fitting punishment for not fulfilling Vlad’s fever dream of
empire?</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Entering the mind of a madman
is always a dangerous proposition but questions must be raised.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">What modern, mechanized army
launches an invasion in February/March, after a brief thaw when the ground is
marshy, sodden and impassible even for tread vehicles?</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As for the infantry, the word
‘slog’ comes to mind.<br />
This is not ‘lightening war’, that’s for certain.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As one military analyst
described, ‘The Russian assault on Kyiv is a single lane wide and stuck in
traffic. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">A forty-mile long convoy,
stalled for lack of fuel, replacement parts and solid ground; that is the stuff
of cautionary tales for military history classes. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The Russian slo-mo invasion will
be featured on a YouTube channel that animates history’s greatest military
blunders. It’s like Hannibal crossing the Alps but leaving the elephants behind. It’s the obverse
of a ‘bridge too far’; it’s as if no one amongst the General staff actually
thought any of this through. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"><br />
Tanks? Check…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Missile launchers? Check…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Conscripts? Check…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Fuel? … duh…</span></p>
<p> </p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-37920622788802550602022-03-02T12:34:00.003+08:002022-03-02T12:35:35.405+08:00Putin Bungles It<p><span><br /></span></p><p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_l7rEA5s6Ipdqt1thXwJ6mlUqZtFp3yBnXuFDGX6Sk286YP5daFECTncPs6XksMZhtAPoyOXdFwoOpx0EXG0B0ct17nBnNqcjugpCekTwX0X-G--OPWCgB4sla9lrHbeU0JMcg-44tFMCwf9kXd-1Rd6MSjDWpkLUWAMlmREQZfKmYIp_-1umDC6e=s2000" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1333" data-original-width="2000" height="330" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj_l7rEA5s6Ipdqt1thXwJ6mlUqZtFp3yBnXuFDGX6Sk286YP5daFECTncPs6XksMZhtAPoyOXdFwoOpx0EXG0B0ct17nBnNqcjugpCekTwX0X-G--OPWCgB4sla9lrHbeU0JMcg-44tFMCwf9kXd-1Rd6MSjDWpkLUWAMlmREQZfKmYIp_-1umDC6e=w496-h330" width="496" /></a></div><br /><span><br /></span><p></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ooops.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">A slight miscalculation.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Putin got two vital things
wrong; he overestimated the effectiveness of his unmotivated armed forces and
he underestimated the resolve of his enemy. He obviously <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">‘mis-under-estimated’</i> the depth and breadth of response from NATO,
the EU and the United States.
Even Switzerland
has taken sides against Putin’s madness.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Dispirited Russian forces seem
to take running out of petrol as a sign to surrender and tuck tail. The
Ukrainians, on the other hand, are determined to defend their nation to the
death rather than welcome the Russians with bouquets and warm wishes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">‘Go Fuck yourself’ is the
recurring war-cry from even old Ukrainian women. The granny who offered
sun-flower seeds to the Russian soldier she scolded for being in her country is
well-known. The troops on Snake Island who told the Russian war-ship to go fuck
itself outside Odessa
are international heroes.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">What this arm-chair analyst
got wrong was to base my assessment on the notion that Putin would act
‘rationally’. War, itself, is an irrational endeavor but war-planning follows
well-established tenets; tactics, strategy, operations. Writers such as Clausewitz,
Liddel-Hart and Sun-Tse are assiduously studied and adapted as changes of
technology are adopted and utilized. It is generally considered irrational to
try to swallow an entire nation in one go. (‘Biting off more than one can chew’
is a faux-pas in war just as it is a no-no at the dinner table.)</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">To recap:</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Putin snatched the Crimean Peninsula
from Ukraine in order to
maintain Russia’s only naval
access to the Mediterranean. Crimea
was the site of numerous wars and battles; including the eponymous one in which
Florence Nightingale gained fame. Since ancient times when the Greeks colonized
the area, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, Crimean
Peninsula and the Kerch Strait
have been regarded as the area of constant dispute and the place of opposing
political interests.</span><span style="font-size: 16pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Due to its strategic and
historic importance, it was concluded that the Russians would demand a land
bridge along the shores of the Black Sea to address the necessity of supplying
the Russian base in Sevastopol.
The Russians had built the Crimean Bridge at a cost of 230 billion rubles but
as magnificent as that bridge might be, it was not enough to meet the constant
need of re-supply which the various Russian military bases required. In the
world of war, launching military action to establish that land-bridge would
have been considered ‘rational’.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">In that rationale, threatening
to invade and occupy Ukraine was seen as a feint, a ruse, a political
arm-twisting to create leverage whereby Ukraine might be willing (under duress)
to grant Russian forces access from Rostov oblast (province) through the Donbas
region to the Crimean Peninsula. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">The rational war plan would
be for the Russian forces in Crimea to move north into Ukrainian territory,
taking Kherson and then procede east toward
Mariupol as forces move from Russia
through Donetsk, linking up with the forces
based in Crimea, all the while being supported by Russian war ships in the Black Sea. This would have been a war plan that would
have been seen as ‘rational’. The effort to subdue Ukraine by attacking on 3 sides
seems to have accomplished nothing of strategic value for the Russians.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">If, on the other hand,
Putin’s plan had been to take Kyiv and decapitate Zalenskiy’s government as has
been widely speculated, then the thrust from Belarus with the aid of
Belarussian forces, would have been done all in one ‘go’ without the
simultaneous attacks along the eastern and southern Ukrainian borders except as
diversionary tactics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This could have
been accomplished in a 90-minute Wehrmacht-like blitzkrieg before Ukraine had
steeled itself for invasion. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">That was not how it has
played out, of course. Apparently, Putin, in a massive fit of hubris, decided
to take the entire nation of Ukraine
in one giant bite. So far, he is choking on his own greed as the Ukrainians
offer stiff resistance, thwarting the Russian troops all along the border
between the two nations. One is inclined to ask what Putin is up to.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul told Chuck Todd
on meet the Press that “He (Putin) sounds completely disconnected from reality.
He sounds unhinged”. Others have remarked that Putin is not who he once was. Mark
Galeotti, an author and expert on Russia, wrote that it is “now clear
he (Putin) is truly divorced from reality. This is a tragedy.” Putin’s baseless
and bizarre description of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy’s government
as a band of ‘drug addicts’ and ‘neo-Nazis’ could be cited as an example of
Putin’s change. (It should be noted that Zalensky is Jewish.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">All in all, Russia’s battle plan has been a
massive cock-up. Former U.S. Marine Corps officer, Rob Lee, a war policy
researcher at King's College London, wrote in February 28<sup>th</sup> that ‘the
Russian military is committing some very basic mistakes from the strategic to
tactical levels.” Such mistakes, as was inferred are fundamental ones which
anyone of a military mind would have fore seen and avoided. However, Putin is most
asssuredly a megalomaniac who would have ram-rodded such a hubristic
cluster-fuck of a plan over the more clear-sighted objections his generals.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16pt;">Ooops.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]--><span></span></p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-12844576385489744262022-02-24T02:32:00.002+08:002022-02-24T02:32:58.055+08:00More on Brinkmanship<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzlrqmp0gKsRfDDEm_AHHUBhGuvP32AZ4O4N_0O31Kth_VeKQDAxR9gShUtLm_QeQ2H7i09E3hgsD6OkTo2QIZO-Yf4ch3T-FqJ5Z53Cnn8W06RldSPTlPwWLPX0P73iol6zSoMEDX5J0-Aa4RK4sYy1LZoHDnP_oM2P5r7g2qkxIw2O2LmBiBZP95=s918" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="918" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgzlrqmp0gKsRfDDEm_AHHUBhGuvP32AZ4O4N_0O31Kth_VeKQDAxR9gShUtLm_QeQ2H7i09E3hgsD6OkTo2QIZO-Yf4ch3T-FqJ5Z53Cnn8W06RldSPTlPwWLPX0P73iol6zSoMEDX5J0-Aa4RK4sYy1LZoHDnP_oM2P5r7g2qkxIw2O2LmBiBZP95=w408-h224" width="408" /></a></div><br /><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object
classid="clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D" id=ieooui></object>
<style>
st1\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) }
</style>
<![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
<p></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Saw one of CNN’s advisors on
military affairs proclaim what the Russian strategy would be re: the
‘peace-keeping’ forces expected in Donetsk
and Luhansk. He surmised that Putin would push to expand and create a buffer
zone well past the boundaries of the People’s republics.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">His appraisal sent me
squawking at the box and bellowing my own prognostication at my wife. As it
happens, my nerves were calmed when I later saw a different military advisor
whose assessment mirrored my own. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Putin’s aim with all this is
to gain a corridor through Ukraine
to the Russian bases on the Crimean Peninsula (that bit he stole last time from Ukraine). He is
assembling troops enough to accomplish that by force of arms but that is a sort
of window dressing</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He’s practicing brinkmanship
– the old Cold War modus operandi – by which one state threatens then backs off
from the brink with a stronger negotiating hand, diplomatically speaking. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Putin is banking on the
notion that Europe does not want another
European war. Indeed, the UN and NATO were supposed to have eliminated expansion
by conquest from the language of global politics; all but eliminating the possibility
of Europe at war.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Enter brinkmanship. Think ‘Neville
Chamberlain if the Sudetenland hadn’t yet been
invaded’. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Think of Soviet presence in Cuba without
the nuclear missiles. Think of a green gorilla in a tutu. <br />
Sorry…</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Russia</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">’s amassing of forces along the Ukraine border, threatening military invasion, declaring
prior sovereignty of territory, denying the sovereignty of an independent Ukraine, being stridently
bellicose and generally operating outside of the norms of the 21<sup>st</sup>
century is Putin’s exercise in brinkmanship. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Putin was raised in the world
of Real Politik and the global chessboard concept of willful domination and
power. This is Putin practicing brinkmanship; Brinkmanship Putin-style.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Push can assuredly come to
shove, but Putin is relying on the EU and NATO to dither, hem, haw, gather
support, spell out sanctions and schedule summits, while mustering troops and
setting battle plans. All of that global finagling allows for the build-up of
forces to create greater tension; greater anticipation. That tension is the
core of brinkmanship. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">When Putin relieves that that
tension by a slight draw-down or pull-back – when he backs away from the brink
- he’ll be in a more favorable position to demand a corridor from the newly
recognized Donetsk People's Republic to Russia’s
Black Sea bases in Crimea.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">That’s what Putin wants. (That
and to be seen as a Stalin-esque strong man and hero of Mother Russia, restorer
of the Empire.) He’ll risk the lives of thousands or tens of thousands of
Russians and Ukrainians to attain those ends if the ploy of brinkmanship fails.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Biden is also well-versed in
Cold War shenanigans; that he’s making all of Putin’s moves public is brilliant;
a stroke of genius. It takes the wind out of Putin’s sails and decreases the
tension by making known what would normally be held under wraps.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The EU and NATO, according to
the Cold War script, must play a kind of four-dimensional cat and mouse game;
play the mouse to Putin’s cat while preparing a bigger cat to bag Putin’s rat. Deception
within deception; standard fare from the Cold War.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Germany</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> halting the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2
gas pipeline from Russia
came as a big blow in the first salvo of sanctions. Germany’s
action will force the hand of the other nations to follow suit, cutting off the
flow of natural gas from Russia
and the cash flow thereof as well. That, in turn, will knock the pins out of
Putin’s reliance on the interminable vagaries of real politik diplomacy to
prolong tension and forestall an attack order. The threat of loss of revenue to
Gazpron may force Putin’s hand. Perhaps Germany should have acted more
mouse-like. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">We shall see.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The General Assembly is abuzz
with speechifiers denouncing in the strongest terms the reprehensible,
atavistic behavior of the Russian
Federation. Outlaws! Gangsters! Bullies! </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">All true, of course, but are
NATO and the EU willing to respond with a force of arms?</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Putin’s bet is that they are
not. However, his bet is also that this show of strength, if it succeeds in Russian
gaining some concession for a land corridor along the Ukraine coast to Crimea,
will be enough to off-set the economic effects of sanctions sure to be felt by
the Oligarchs and the people of Russia.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">There’s a lot riding on that
bet.</span></p>
Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-16892125882294654942022-02-17T13:09:00.004+08:002022-02-17T13:09:59.729+08:00Putin's Brinkmanship<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9InpmNYyhXXgoBEfQFmQnafhCCzvPYZGaeahgtUOzfiosEyTSvJbYYawC1-PoZI4xfYMYSR_0cOwJQdVZj8GgULUEa7U5YvhrljwnTMEeeh92FQNgxcOA84sVxwnbrlB-oYPedizHcGNAPrWtSgSfs4G7bGCRJB6eC4CBF_PcZ28esyhvBUP27Ffu=s2401" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1201" data-original-width="2401" height="296" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh9InpmNYyhXXgoBEfQFmQnafhCCzvPYZGaeahgtUOzfiosEyTSvJbYYawC1-PoZI4xfYMYSR_0cOwJQdVZj8GgULUEa7U5YvhrljwnTMEeeh92FQNgxcOA84sVxwnbrlB-oYPedizHcGNAPrWtSgSfs4G7bGCRJB6eC4CBF_PcZ28esyhvBUP27Ffu=w590-h296" width="590" /></a></div><br /><p></p><p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:View>Normal</w:View>
<w:Zoom>0</w:Zoom>
<w:PunctuationKerning/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:BreakWrappedTables/>
<w:SnapToGridInCell/>
<w:WrapTextWithPunct/>
<w:UseAsianBreakRules/>
<w:DontGrowAutofit/>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0in;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]--></p><p>
</p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“Brinkmanship’ is from the
lexicon of the Cold War. Brinkmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an
advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Brinkmanship is what Putin
is doing with Ukraine. He’s pushing a posture of war, threatening an armed
invasion. His stated purpose is to thwart the expansion of NATO and thusly
protect Russian interests by this military threat. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">The sub-text is that Putin
still considers Ukraine a vassal state. Putin’s stated aim is the re-invigoration
and re-establishment of the former Russian empire if not the Union of Soviet
Socialist Republics.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This is, in short, why
he snatched Crimea; to demonstrate for his nationalistic supporters that he is
the strongman – the ‘Man of Steel’ – which they crave.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">As a chess player, Putin is
playing to his nationalistic supporters as well as the Western powers and
Ukraine. The current situation can be seen as a ‘forking move’; threatening two
chess pieces with capture, forcing the opponent to choose which piece to lose. Putin
is banking on the nations of NATO, being roundly averse to another devastating
European war, would choose the sovereignty of Ukraine as the chess-piece that
NATO will sacrifice.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Putin bet that Ukraine would
buckle when confronted with a Russian military build-up on its borders. Putin,
further, has bet that the Americans – freshly withdrawn from Afghanistan –
would convince its NATO allies that defending Ukraine was not worth the price
of blood and treasure that would have to be paid.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Moreover, Putin’s military
display would bolster his support from the people of Russia. That is his plan;
by the display of force, Putin hopes to gain politically and militarily while
suffering little down-side.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This is not to assert that
Putin’s military threat isn’t real. Brinkmanship fails as a strategy if the
threat of military force is not perceived as viable and imminent. Putin’s
massing of forces along Ukraine’s borders in Belarus, Crimea and Russia
presents a clear and present danger; of that there is no doubt.</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">However, President Volodymyr
Zelensky has pooh-poohed Russia’s threat and thwarted one prong of Putin’s
strategy. The steadfastness of Biden’s administration and the NATO allies
(specifically; Germany, France, Great Britain and Poland) have, furthermore,
stymied Putin’s grander game of conquest and left him with a ‘Sophie’s Choice’.
He must either back-down and show weakness or signal the invasion and suffer
military and economic retribution from which he, himself, would not recover.
His claims of a draw-down is a subterfuge.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">He has been backed into a
corner and has placed himself and the Russian Federation between a rock and
hard place. (Never let it be said that diplomacy is a dull enterprise.) How
Putin will play his end-game in Ukraine will be most interesting.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p class="MsoNormal"> </p>
<p> </p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4409814882736357325.post-68987236447950074612021-12-21T21:21:00.003+08:002021-12-21T21:21:58.723+08:00Signal!<p class="MsoNormal" style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYPCPURNjCJjuFd7dz_-gbJaAnX-9fJzf94gz9aoNqfX287HPliaXPNxdKspeeYpoMmb3ZzenNsbcqIs6d3l0joh2i0CrIcosP43UFCH-dou4UwI43nxQQmZTbjSJ9pXHMD-wbO2ThreKoam2pZQrROr3WN8_cu_kv8d2eoPiAnOdy3Gi6lC4pTuJp=s275" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="275" data-original-width="183" height="421" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhYPCPURNjCJjuFd7dz_-gbJaAnX-9fJzf94gz9aoNqfX287HPliaXPNxdKspeeYpoMmb3ZzenNsbcqIs6d3l0joh2i0CrIcosP43UFCH-dou4UwI43nxQQmZTbjSJ9pXHMD-wbO2ThreKoam2pZQrROr3WN8_cu_kv8d2eoPiAnOdy3Gi6lC4pTuJp=w280-h421" width="280" /></a><br /></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">‘Signal’. Know what it is? Not
the common noun or the verb but the proper noun that signifies the
communication app. <br />
(FYI: Signal is a ‘cross-platform centralized encrypted instant messaging
service’.) It’s like ‘Twitter’ but -<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>and
here’s the Big But – but, it’s encrypted and private. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Interesting, you might say,
but what has this to do with anything?</span><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;"> </span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">One of the heretofore anonymous
texters (Congressman <span style="mso-bidi-font-style: italic;">Scott Perry</span>)
reached out to Mark Meadows on, January 6<sup>th</sup>, 2021, and recommended
that they use ‘Signal’ for further communication. Rep. Perry wanted to keep his
texts to the Chief of Staff secret. You know, like a crook, or a spy or an
insurrectionist might do.</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">In point of fact, Meadows
used his own personal cell phone and email addresses, as well as Signal, for
official government business. (This may trigger memories of the Republicans
(e.g. Gym Jordon, Trey Gowdy, etc) screaming bloody murder for years when they
accused Hillary Rodham Clinton of doing that very thing.)</span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Perry undoubtedly knew that
Meadows used Signal, rather than another app, for secret messages and so made
the recommendation to go ‘encrypted’. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">Why the secrecy if you’ve got
nothing to hide? Mr Perry can try to explain that when he testifies before the Jan.6 Select Committee.<br /></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">This adage may be applied to
Roger Stone’s recent use of the 5<sup>th</sup> amendment to stone-wall the
Committee and still give the appearance of not violating the subpoena to
appear. Simply reciting a claim of 5<sup>th</sup> Amendment protection when asked
one’s name is not compliance or cooperation. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">An observer with a functional
memory might recall, his Orange Eminence stated categorically that ‘taking the
5<sup>th</sup>’ in and of itself was a tacit admission of guilt. </span></p>
<p class="MsoNormal"><span style="font-size: 16.0pt;">“If you have nothing to hide,
you have nothing to fear” is generally attributed to Joseph Goebbels. It’s
undeniable that Pius Thicknesse uttered the sentence in ‘Harry Potter and the
Deathly Hallows’. It’s doubtful that either had ‘taking the 5<sup>th</sup>’ in
mind.</span></p>
<p> </p>Aeneaus 'Nye' Babbage IIhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09832167345304841380noreply@blogger.com1