[YouTube] The Death of Stalin is one of the funniest political satires in film history, but it is the underlying themes that make it special. In this video, I discuss the political climate satirized by Armando Lannucci and how it's brought to life by comfortable lies and enforced silence. We're constantly told about the danger of politicians manipulating people with fear, but we're rarely told about the danger of politicians manipulating people with comfort. A friendly smile mixed with comfortable lies can produce quite the poison, and it's a poison the ministers in The Death of Stalin know how to use.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom ||
05/28/2022 10:40 ||
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Top|| File under: Tin Hat Dictators, Presidents for Life, & Kleptocrats
[Babylon Bee] SAN FERNANDO, CA—A lifeguard at the San Fernando Community Pool reportedly refused to jump in and save a drowning child who was fighting for his life in 6 feet of water because it would constitute risking his life. The lifeguard in question, Peter Stroll, claimed to be following standard lifeguarding procedure. "I just ate a sandwich. One hour is required"
"Are you kidding? I can't save you right now. I might drown!" said Stroll as he picked up the phone to call for help. "According to the procedure, I will block all access to the pool and call for highly trained Coast Guard rescue divers to arrive."
The child's father attempted to jump into the pool and save his kid but was prevented by the determined lifeguard.
"Sir, I can't let you risk your own life. Let me do my job!" Stroll reportedly said in between whistle blows.
"Then do your job! Save him!" pleaded the parent.
"Sir, please. It's a liability for me to risk my life. Do you know how much the city would have to pay my family? Hundreds of dollars!"
The child was eventually rescued when a group of parents overpowered the masculine lifeguard and braved the dangerous chlorinated waters. Authorities arrived on the scene shortly after to assess the child's health and arrest everyone who tried to save the child.
"This is a pool of law and order!" Sheriff Witherdrew told reporters at the scene. "We can't just have people bypassing our sacred lifeguard institutions to take rescues into their own hands. Millions could be saved! It'd be total anarchy!"
At publishing time, lifeguard Peter Stroll was awarded a key to the city by Mayor Rankowicz for extreme bravery in following procedure to keep the city free of liability.
Well, dunno, read it again. If info is true, am I seeing they had shooter trapped within 7 minutes of vehicle crash?
RO is on scene but misidentifies target?
Sounds like doors which auto-lock to the outside when closed?
Are 111 and 112 suites? If so, how or does the common door lock?
Looks like the bloc in question would be 11:35 trap to 12:50 breach after getting keys from janitor? What is the key setup and why didn't RO have key(s)? -or- they had the key, but waited until 12:50 to breech?
#4
Its a wall with windows, not a bastion, so what are we doing to make shooter uncomfortable, or are we just waiting on the FBI to show up and shut off the power?
Anyone think about cutting the power and having a fire truck on 150% foam hit the exterior windows, or is that not the right pronoun? Start clanking those keys behind shields with NVG for breech when the water starts, have a couple dudes bang the windows with hammer?
[American Minute] On February 8, 2011, Harvard Professor Clay Christensen, the Robert & Jane Cizik Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School, observed:
"Sometime ago I had a conversation with a Marxist economist from China.
He was coming to the end of a Fulbright Fellowship here in Boston, and I asked him if he had learned anything that was surprising or unexpected.
And without any hesitation he said 'Yes, I had no idea how critical religion is to the functioning of democracy ...'"
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
05/28/2022 12:05 Comments ||
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#5
If you want to control the masses use religion...or a gun
Posted by: Titus Hatfield2348 ||
05/28/2022 13:54 Comments ||
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#6
But if you want the masses to control themselves so you can work higher level problems, let them seek a religion that demands individual responsibility and own their own guns.
[American Thinker] The 18th century "enlightenment" changed the world. John Locke, Isaac Newton, Emmanuel Kant, and several others were largely responsible for the seismic humanist shift away from religion toward the complete sufficiency of science and intellectual thought. According to the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy,
Kant identifies enlightenment with the process of undertaking to think for oneself, to employ and rely on one’s own intellectual capacities in determining what to believe and how to act... Enlightenment philosophy tends to stand in tension with established religion, insofar as the release from self-incurred immaturity in this age, daring to think for oneself, awakening one’s intellectual powers, generally requires opposing the role of established religion in directing thought and action. The faith of the Enlightenment -- if one may call it that -- is that the process of enlightenment, of becoming progressively self-directed in thought and action through the awakening of one’s intellectual powers, leads ultimately to a better, more fulfilled human existence.
Does it? Putting aside for the moment that miracles, religion, and tradition can be a part of cogent reality, the Enlightenment thinkers took a step away from religion, which until that time was the primary basis upon which mankind pursued knowledge and meaning. In its place came a strident self-directed philosophy by which many lived and still live.
Today we can see the distinct influence of Enlightenment thinking in American life: People are excessively self-absorbed to the point of being self-consumed. You can readily see this in TikTok, Instagram, and the Twittersphere where the singular aim is to get attention through "likes" and retweets. The dopamine hit has become the drug of choice.
Because this self-absorbed Enlightenment thinking has largely decimated decency and comity in our culture, the vacuum they have left paves the way for a new Enlightenment. This vacuum solicits meaning, not in the shallow Hallmark sense but with the deeper observation that little that the world provides is fundamentally meaningful.
Sadly, the science-based, anti-religious Enlightenment does not allow for ethics. Nowhere within can be found the methodology to determine right from wrong. Leaving ethics in individual hands seemed at the time (and still does for the non-religious) a perfectly reasonable thing to do because supposedly within each person lay the seeds of altruism and an innate striving to do what is right and good. But that is not the case. Human beings are too flawed to determine what is right and good without having a baseline in something or someone less flawed. Ethics can answer the question, "Is this effective?" It can never answer the question "Is this good?" God alone knows what is good.
#5
Sure anti-Enlightement types have ethics. They display those ethics all the time. **THEY HATE YOU**. That's their ethics. They're not particularly for anything as they are against your continued existence. Once all of you are gone...well probably there will be some kind of infighting followed by technological tyranny for 1,000 years...but hey it will all have been worth it to slay the biggest monster the world ever wrought: the Western Enlightenment.
#6
The Printing Press and the mass production / dissemination of knowledge had a noticeable effect as well. Also more trade and more agriculture because that philosophy stuff works so much better on a full stomach.
"Science" has been used to strip us of medical rights and personal freedoms for the last two years. Now, "science" is touted as the justification for not eating real beef and getting used to insects and lab-grown protein alternatives instead. "Science" is also being weaponized to cajole us into accepting rolling blackouts and energy deprivation
Mirroring George Orwell’s dystopian novel, "1984," the Biden administration has been telling us the economy is good, the GDP is strong and inflation is transitory, even though data clearly tell a different story
Biden has even insisted that borrowing (read: printing) more money will reduce prices while not affecting the value of the dollar. It’s basic economics that increasing money supply results in inflation, but even inflation is being redefined at whim
At the end of April 2022, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security even created an actual "ministry of truth," the Disinformation Governance Board, in blatant violation of the First Amendment. Government has basically "memory-holed" the Constitution and pretends it doesn’t exist, hoping you’ll pretend along with them
Is government gaslighting the public? Gaslighting is a form of emotional manipulation and abuse where the abuser creates a false narrative and makes the victim question their sanity. Rewriting history is a key hallmark, as is refuting what is obvious fact
#1
The online manipulation of dictionaries and encyclopedias has been classic 1984. Everything that they have done with the school systems is right out of the book. There are some elements of Fahrenheit 451 in the idea of the Metaverse. The college curriculum is a continuation of Abolition of Man. At least the perps are literary; too bad the victims are not well-read.
Posted by: Super Hose ||
05/28/2022 21:38 Comments ||
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[Medium] A look at how accuracy is suffering by failure to "toss" unguided missiles onto targets. Both sides seem more focused on airframe survivability than on putting rounds on the target. While the aircraft/pilot returns for another sortie, the mission is a failure if the target isn’t destroyed. Nice details and pics in the link.
Commentary by Russian military journalist Boris Rozhin.
[ColonelCassad] 1. Svetlodarsk.
Fighting continues in the Novoluganskoye area. The Mironovskaya State District Power Plant was released. There are battles for the Svetlodarskaya CHPP. The enemy is preparing a retreat to positions southeast of Artyomovsk.
2. Avdievka.
Fighting continued in the area of Novoselka-2, Novobakhmutovka, New York and Krasnogorovka. Our troops have a small advance of 1-2 km.
3. Zolotoye.
Fighting continued in the Toshkovka area, as well as in Kamyshevakh.
Gorsko-Zolotoy fortified area, in fact, hangs on one road, which is also subjected to artillery fire.
4. Soledar.
Fighting continues north of Soledar near the Artemovsk-Lysichansk highway. The enemy confirms the complete fire control of our troops over the section of the road from Belogorovka to Berestyanoe, but declares that it is still possible to break through and even move away from Severodonetsk along it. To the south of Soledar, the front approached 10-15 km from Artemovsk.
5. Severodonetsk.
The fighting is taking place directly in the city near the bus station and the Mir Hotel. The enemy confirms that the city is covered from 3 sides. The bridges leading to the city from Lisichansk cannot be fully used, that is, the full-fledged supply of the group in Severodonetsk has already been disrupted. Today there was talk that the order to withdraw from Severodonetsk might be given. It is also worth noting the intensification of the offensive of our troops near Svetlogorsk.
6. Artemovsk (Bakhmut).
The enemy continues to use Artemovsk as the main supply hub for the Severodonetsk grouping, and is actively preparing the city for defense and street fighting.
Fighting continues in the Pilipchatino area and near Novaya Kamenka. Up to 2 BTGs of the Armed Forces of Ukraine were deployed to Artemovsk, which are used in the battles for the Lisichansk-Artemovsk highway and east of Artemovsk.
7. Krasniy Limon.
The city has actually been taken, although the enemy claims that there is still resistance on the southeastern outskirts. Moreover, the troops that bypassed the Krasny Liman had already reached the Seversky Donets.
The group defending Krasny Liman suffered heavy losses. The next serious barrier will be at Raygorodok.
8. Kharkov.
Positional battles in the area of Liptsy, Ternovoe, Rubizhnoye. Both sides operate here with rather limited forces.
9. Izyum.
Positional battles in the area of Kamyshevakhi, Kurulka, Dolgenkiy.
The enemy is waiting for the RF Armed Forces to launch an offensive against Slavyansk.
10. Maryinka, Nikolaev (the attack to the north of Kherson ended unsuccessfully for the Armed Forces of Ukraine), Krivoy Rog, Nikopol, Odessa - without significant changes.
[Dawn] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf ...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations.... (PTI) chairman Imran Khan ...aka The Great Khan, who ain't the brightest knife in the national drawer... ’s surprise decision about not going ahead with the sit-in at the end of the long march left almost everyone baffled — foes and allies alike — but there is convergence on one thing — the manner in which it all ended, at least for now, carried clear indications of who made it happen.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
05/28/2022 01:01 ||
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[12 views]
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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
Parallel results are likely to found at the MACRO level as well. 
[Mercola] STORY AT-A-GLANCE
...aka 
