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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Iraq’s President Barham Saleh assigns Mouhammed Tawfiq Allawi with forming a new government
Today's Headlines
Headline Comments [Views]
Page 4: Opinion
6 16:17 Raj [5] 
2 11:09 Cesare [4] 
1 08:54 Lex [7] 
12 20:14 Lex [10] 
17 20:18 Alaska Paul [10] 
6 15:29 Bright Pebbles [9] 
5 13:25 3dc [5] 
7 11:30 Skidmark [8] 
5 19:25 charger [11] 
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1 10:53 Mercutio [3] 
6 14:22 AlanC [4] 
2 14:11 magpie [8] 
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6 20:10 SteveS [12]
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Page 2: WoT Background
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2 19:28 Barbara [8]
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5 23:51 gorb [13]
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3 08:23 JohnQC [15]
16 23:22 Beau [14]
4 15:54 trailing wife [7]
3 12:35 M. Murcek [7]
15 16:15 trailing wife [4]
9 19:20 Frank G [4]
7 17:53 Rob Crawford [2]
3 23:53 Texhooey [9]
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6 23:58 Caesar Shinelet1719 [9]
4 20:12 USN, Ret. [8]
Page 6: Politix
31 20:45 Frank G [15]
18 23:31 Caesar Shinelet1719 [12]
18 19:39 ruprecht [8]
2 12:07 PBMcL [5]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Mike Huckabee: Lindsey Graham Should Investigate Hunter Biden, ‘Whistleblower,' and Dossier
[Breitbart] Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee told Breitbart News Daily on Friday that when the Senate wraps up the impeachment trial, Republicans ‐ notably, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) ‐ should open a separate investigation into Hunter Biden, the origin of the dossier, and the so-called "whistleblower," whose complaint fueled the Democrats’ partisan impeachment effort.

Huckabee spoke to Breitbart News Editor-in-Chief Alex Marlow on Friday and discussed the impeachment trial in the Senate, the debate about witnesses, and what should happen once the trial concludes.

Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) is joining the majority of her colleagues in opposing additional witnesses, giving Republicans sufficient votes to block the Democrats’ plea for more witnesses. While Huckabee said it would be great to see Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden, testify, he conceded that Democrats "are never going to allow that." Because of that, Huckabee believes that Graham, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, should open his own investigation:
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 02:05 || Comments || Link || [11 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Lindsey doesn't show much interest in that investigation.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/02/2020 8:11 Comments || Top||

#2  LindTrey Gowdham will talk a good game and do nothing.
Posted by: charger || 02/02/2020 13:52 Comments || Top||


#4  charger, I just watched the video at this link and it sounds like Lindsey Graham is indeed interested and "wants to find out how all this crap started". Maria Bartiromo said she would be watching and Graham assured her that he would not let her down. Dunno how Graham suddenly got religion after Trump got elected and McStain departed but he has been walking the walk since then.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/02/2020 16:20 Comments || Top||

#5  As always, I'll believe it when I see it (i,e., actual investigations, arrests etc. not only announcements about intentions).
Posted by: charger || 02/02/2020 19:25 Comments || Top||


-Short Attention Span Theater-
The Great 6.5 Shoot-Out
[Outdoor Life] The ultra-popular 6.5 Creedmoor is a fine short-action cartridge, but is it better than the short-action .260 Remington? Or the venerable 6.5x55 Swede?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under:

#1  define "better" and we'll talk.
Posted by: Mercutio || 02/02/2020 10:53 Comments || Top||


-Signs, Portents, and the Weather-
What's the connection between climate change and infectious diseases?
[CBC] We still don't know where the 2019 novel coronavirus came from. The leading suspicion is an animal host ‐ a bat, likely ‐ infected another animal that has more contact with humans.

That's how the 2012 MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) outbreak is believed to have played out. A bat, at some point in the past, infected a camel, which may have sneezed on a human.

One of the reasons the human and animal worlds are bumping up against each other is a changing climate. Research suggests that warmer winters and springs are keeping bats, for example, around longer because the insects they feed on also like the warmth. And this may affect the spread of diseases bats carry.

"Climate change, coupled with other human environmental changes like urbanization and habitat destruction, is bringing us closer to wildlife," said Dr. Katie Clow, a professor at the Ontario Veterinary College at the University of Guelph. "So there's this very complex interplay of many different changes happening all at the same time."
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 02:58 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Well, there were never any infectious diseases or plagues before global warming, right? /sarcasm
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia || 02/02/2020 5:22 Comments || Top||

#2  IMHO — ignoring your ancestral pain & suffering by switching to a diet you are not genetically built for is setting us up for infectious diseases. For example: people infected with ecoli are often vegan or vegetarian.

We know from history things to avoid eating. I am sure bats were added to the list after a human crawled into a cave to light a fire and discuss climate change.
Posted by: Airandee || 02/02/2020 7:49 Comments || Top||

#3  Connection? Money in both?
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/02/2020 8:12 Comments || Top||

#4  Both promised to be "fixed" by governments who'll probably make things worse for their populations and enrich some insiders...
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/02/2020 8:22 Comments || Top||

#5  Umm, I've always been taught that the plague was maded much worse cause the cold climate forced people and animals to live in closer proximity. YMMV
Posted by: AlanC || 02/02/2020 9:01 Comments || Top||

#6  #2 We know from history things to avoid eating.
William McNeill's Plagues and Peoples(1976) is a good book. Strangers coming into areas and hunting exotic creatures causing Plague outbursts.
Posted by: magpie || 02/02/2020 11:21 Comments || Top||

#7  The leading suspicion is an animal host...infected another animal that has more contact with humans.

Puppies. Ah'm betting puppies.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/02/2020 11:23 Comments || Top||

#8  Or nurses.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/02/2020 11:24 Comments || Top||

#9  They both are always with us.
Posted by: KBK || 02/02/2020 11:29 Comments || Top||

#10  Al Gore's crotch.
Posted by: swksvolFF || 02/02/2020 14:07 Comments || Top||

#11  I see problems with large festivals in the world in this time period. Carnival in Brazil and Mardi Gras in New Orleans come to mind along with say Granada's Easter Week stuff.
Posted by: 3dc || 02/02/2020 15:26 Comments || Top||

#12  We just got home from the annual International Blues Competition in Memphis. All week there were pairs of police cars at each intersection with their uniformed police standing watch nearby. I imagine wolves move differently than us sheep.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/02/2020 17:35 Comments || Top||

#13  The police would help with Sudden Jihad Syndrome, but not with the corona virus. PIMF!,
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/02/2020 18:05 Comments || Top||

#14  Climate change and infectious diseases? One is psychosomatic and the other is viral or bacterial.
Posted by: AlmostAnonymous5839 || 02/02/2020 18:13 Comments || Top||

#15  Typically people do not eat animals that commonly get rabies (Bats, rats, and dogs). China ignores this rule.
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/02/2020 19:45 Comments || Top||

#16  You can't leave until you sing the blues.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/02/2020 20:17 Comments || Top||

#17  Mmmmmmmmm, flying fox bush meat. Tastes like chicken.
Posted by: Alaska Paul || 02/02/2020 20:18 Comments || Top||


Britain
Brexit REMOANERS: "The repeated stamping of a tiny foot in a vast and empty auditorium"
[Spectator]
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Giggle. Wrong again.
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 0:42 Comments || Top||

#2  What do the Brits like to snack on while they watch the "Elite" destroy themselves ? Popcorn seems to be the most popular in the US.
Posted by: Thaith Elmeresing6163 || 02/02/2020 1:36 Comments || Top||

#3  Afternoon tea?
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/02/2020 8:27 Comments || Top||

#4  I just had this pleasant thought - I wish Farage & Company unleashed thirty drunk soccer goons with baseball bats and trash the room on the way out. The guys without bats bull rush the podium and kick everyone's ass.

A guy can dream, right?
Posted by: Raj || 02/02/2020 8:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Why does nobody love a Brussel's Bureaucrat?
Posted by: Enver Snore3054 || 02/02/2020 12:37 Comments || Top||

#6  Brussels Bureaucrat, sounds sorta like a Moscow mule but made with chocolate liqueur.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/02/2020 14:22 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Politix
Is Hillary Clinton angling to become vice president?
[The Hill] A number of people in politics, the media and elsewhere are openly speculating that if Democrats wind up with a "brokered convention," with no strong or viable nominee evident, Hillary Clinton might enter the arena as the "savior" who could unite the delegates and go on to defeat President Donald Trump.

Clinton herself seemed to throw shade at that theory during an interview with Variety at the Sundance Film Festival. When asked about the "urge" to beat Trump, the former Democratic nominee said, "Yeah. I certainly feel the urge because I feel the 2016 election was a really odd time and an odd outcome. And the more we learn, the more that seems to be the case. But I’m going to support the people who are running now and do everything I can to help elect the Democratic nominee."

Several politically savvy Democrats have told me that "everything" may be a much more plausible and powerful scenario.
A Fort Marcy Park rally and announcement could be in the planning stages.
That is, Clinton and/or her team could be negotiating with former Vice President Joe Biden, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg or the last candidate standing to join the ticket as vice president. She would add the gravitas, delegates and, eventually, millions of votes needed to get them over the finish line on Nov. 5. I am assured that Clinton is on every shortlist for that position.

If I were in Trump’s world, this scenario would send chills down my spine.

There is no doubt that the former first lady, New York senator and secretary of State once again is raising her profile and stepping back into the spotlight to reengage in political discussions.

One such spotlight was provided by the Sundance Film Festival in Park City, Utah. There, aside from commenting on her presidential "urge," Clinton not only promoted the incredibly flattering four-part Hulu documentary about her, titled "Hillary" ‐ which premiered, coincidently, just 10 days before the Iowa caucus ‐ but she also attended the debut of a documentary about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 03:05 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under:

#1  With a president committing a suicide in a month?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 3:10 Comments || Top||

#2  .....but she also attended the debut of a documentary about the murder of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi.

Honing her skills ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 3:11 Comments || Top||

#3  ....I think she's aiming for a 'gray eminence' slot, where she thinks she'll be able to pull the strings.

Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski || 02/02/2020 6:51 Comments || Top||

#4  With a president committing a suicide in a month?

I'll bet you $10 on the under - two weeks max!
Posted by: Raj || 02/02/2020 7:01 Comments || Top||

#5  ^No bet.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 7:12 Comments || Top||

#6  Maybe? However, there may be a ton of evidence against her by that time from several cases being investigated (That might also be another head fake). Best decision, re-elect Trump.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/02/2020 7:14 Comments || Top||

#7  William Henry Harrison made it 31 days into his term before his vice president got promoted.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/02/2020 8:02 Comments || Top||

#8  It's time for Hillary to give it up. She had a good run - not many people take a go at being President. Although, losing to the Orange Man no doubt sticks in her craw.

But if she is determined to make people miserable, she should go be President of a Home Owner's Association, somewhere that she can give free rein to all her spite and pettiness. And leave the rest of us the f**k alone.
Posted by: SteveS || 02/02/2020 12:42 Comments || Top||

#9  There is the graft in it, SteveS?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 12:47 Comments || Top||

#10  Last person to lose the big show and then win the Presidency was Nixon. Generally if you lose, you never get a second shot.
Posted by: ruprecht || 02/02/2020 19:43 Comments || Top||

#11  Oh what nonsense this is. Hillary? AGAIN? Dream on.

Trump has 3% unemployment. 3% growth. No new wars plus a diminution of the wars he was handled. A major trade agreement plus Mexico's capitulation re colonists.

All of the above are hugely important to the only voters who matter, the swing voters located in about 100 precincts in Michigan, Wisconsin, central Florida and western Pennsylvania. They're not going to vote for Hillary. No f---ing way.

They won't vote for Fauxcahontas or the Butt-fugger. Maybe a few would go for B.S. / Sanders; maybe others would peel off and vote for Plugz the Sniffer.

But not this worn-out, bitter, rancid, lying old hag. No way.
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 20:01 Comments || Top||

#12  Lichtman's 13 Keys - the predictive model that works better than all others - is below.

If any FIVE or FEWER are FALSE, the incumbent is almost certain to be re-elected:

1. Party Mandate: After the midterm elections, the incumbent party holds more seats in the U.S. House of Representatives than after the previous midterm elections. FALSE - 1

2. Contest: There is no serious contest for the incumbent party nomination. TRUE

3. Incumbency: The incumbent party candidate is the sitting president. TRUE

4. Third party: There is no significant third party or independent campaign. TRUE

5. Short-term economy: The economy is not in recession during the election campaign. TRUE, in spades

6. Long-term economy: Real per capita economic growth during the term equals or exceeds mean growth during the previous two terms. TRUE, in spades

7. Policy change: The incumbent administration effects major changes in national policy. TRUE

8. Social unrest: There is no sustained social unrest during the term. TRUE

9. Scandal: The incumbent administration is untainted by major scandal. TRUE - Dems' Shitshow doesn't count

10. Foreign/military failure: The incumbent administration suffers no major failure in foreign or military affairs. TRUE

11. Foreign/military success: The incumbent administration achieves a major success in foreign or military affairs. Neutral

12. Incumbent charisma: The incumbent party candidate is charismatic or a national hero. FALSE - 2

13. Challenger charisma: The challenging party candidate is not charismatic or a national hero. Haha - TRUE, in spades

= total of 2 False, and 6 required.

Not even close. Game over.

No wonder the Dems are floating all kinds of ridiculous, crazy, desperate sh!t.
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 20:14 Comments || Top||


Lawrence O'Donnell: Trump may have killed Soleimani "to influence Bolton not to testify to the Senate"
[LI] MSNBC prime time host tweets bizarre theory, and his followers spread it far and wide.

I’m laughing. Legit laughing because MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell thinks President Donald Trump killed Iranian terrorist Qasam Soleimani to influence former National Security Advisor John Bolton not to testify.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 02:52 || Comments || Link || [9 views] Top|| File under:

#1  It's so obvious, why didn't I see it?
Posted by: Raj || 02/02/2020 7:06 Comments || Top||

#2  Sounds like that torturous milestones in hearsay and imaginary happenings such as occured in the House impeachment hearings.

"Ambo Taylor told the Democratic-led House Intelligence Committee about a phone a staffer allegedly overheard and told him about:

Ambassador Sondland called President Trump and told him of his meetings in Kyiv. The member of my staff could hear President Trump on the phone asking Ambassador Sondland about the investigations. Ambassador Sondland told President Trump the Ukrainians were ready to move forward. Following the call with President Trump, the member of my staff asked Ambassador Sondland what President Trump thought about Ukraine. Mr. Sondland responded that President Trump cares more about the investigations of Biden, which Giuliani was pressing for."
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/02/2020 7:53 Comments || Top||

#3  "All in all, you're just another..."
Tent in The Shitshow
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 10:43 Comments || Top||

#4  Larry needs his filters cleaned or replaced.
Posted by: Mercutio || 02/02/2020 10:54 Comments || Top||

#5  And this is what they call a 'Respected Journalist'.
He wouldn't get an interview at The National Enquirer - doesn't even get close to their level of believability.
Posted by: CrazyFool || 02/02/2020 12:31 Comments || Top||

#6  LOD "Trump is an Idiot"

LOD "Trump had a genius plan"
Posted by: Bright Pebbles || 02/02/2020 15:29 Comments || Top||


Biden Praises ‘Profound' Question Comparing Trump's Border Policies to Holocaust
[Free Beacon] Former vice president Joe Biden on Monday praised a woman at his Iowa campaign event for her "profound" question comparing President Donald Trump's immigration policies to the Holocaust.

The questioner, who identified herself as Kathy, used the occasion of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz to ask how Biden plans to deal with the ways "we are living in the 1930s again."

"What can we do, given what Donald Trump is doing at the border with those children who are incarcerated, so that they don't go out and experience the kind of stigmatization that so many Jewish people and gypsies and Romas did in Europe?" the woman asked. "It's so important, particularly when anti-Semitism in the United States is on the rise again and it's frightening. We are living in the 1930s again in so many ways."

Biden did not push back against the comparison, instead calling it "profound." He went on to address the recent rash of anti-Semitic violence by blaming it on Trump.

"There's a phrase in the Jewish community, which is ’Never again.' Never again, meaning we'll never allow this to ever happen again, but it is happening in other parts of the world, but it's not just in this case‐it's not just Jews now," Biden said. "In America, they are being victimized. There have been more attacks on synagogues and on Jewish houses of worship than any time in American history since this man's become president of the United States."

The Democratic Party has faced increased scrutiny over the last year for anti-Semitic scandals, prompting the House of Representatives to pass a resolution last March condemning anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric, understood as a response to Rep. Ilhan Omar's (D., Minn.) comment that supporters of Israel were being paid off.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 02:23 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Mysterious, unknown woman named 'Kathy' triggers Simon Wiesenthal moment. A fully prepared Joe Biden.... "profound question - Never again, Never again."

Thank you, unknown Kathy woman.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 2:30 Comments || Top||

#2  I used to wonder about the Left - are these people truly insane, or do they just pretend (I grew up in Soviet Union, where everyone was pretending - otherwise the system would destroy you.)?

I wonder no more. You couldn't survive (feed your family) if you were a true believer in Soviet Union. But in the West, there is enough wealth to allow true believers to prosper.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 2:48 Comments || Top||

#3  ^In fact, they are handsomely rewarded by money generated by capitalism.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 2:49 Comments || Top||

#4  You are not only useless dumb, but you are a malicious fucker, Biden.

I have nothing left to say to you.
Posted by: newc || 02/02/2020 3:26 Comments || Top||

#5  Prediction: Biden to lead march across Edmund Pettus Bridge in upcoming commemoration.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 3:38 Comments || Top||

#6  Ask a moronic question and you will often get a moronic answer.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/02/2020 8:08 Comments || Top||

#7  Ask a moronic question of a moron and you will often get a moronic answer.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/02/2020 11:30 Comments || Top||


Democracy And Tyranny
[Townhall] During President Donald J. Trump's impeachment trial, we'll hear a lot of talk about our rules for governing. One frequent claim is that our nation is a democracy. If we've become a democracy, it would represent a deep betrayal of our founders, who saw democracy as another form of tyranny. In fact, the word democracy appears nowhere in our nation's two most fundamental documents, the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution. The founders laid the ground rules for a republic as written in the Constitution's Article IV, Section 4, which guarantees "to every State in this Union a Republican Form of Government."

John Adams captured the essence of the difference between a democracy and republic when he said, "You have rights antecedent to all earthly governments; rights that cannot be repealed or restrained by human laws; rights derived from the Great Legislator of the Universe." Contrast the framers' vision of a republic with that of a democracy. In a democracy, the majority rules either directly or through its elected representatives. As in a monarchy, the law is whatever the government determines it to be. Laws do not represent reason. They represent power. The restraint is upon the individual instead of the government. Unlike that envisioned under a republican form of government, rights are seen as privileges and permissions that are granted by government and can be rescinded by government.

Here are a few quotations that demonstrate the contempt that our founders held for a democracy. James Madison, in Federalist Paper No. 10, wrote that in a pure democracy, "there is nothing to check the inducement to sacrifice the weaker party or the obnoxious individual."

At the 1787 Constitutional Convention, Edmund Randolph said that "in tracing these evils to their origin every man had found it in the turbulence and follies of democracy." Alexander Hamilton agreed, saying: "We are now forming a republican government. (Liberty) is found not in "the extremes of democracy but in moderate governments. ... If we incline too much to democracy, we shall soon shoot into a monarchy."

John Adams reminded us: "Remember, democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide."

John Marshall, the highly respected fourth chief justice of the U.S. Supreme Court observed, "Between a balanced republic and a democracy, the difference is like that between order and chaos."

Thomas Paine said, "A Democracy is the vilest form of Government there is."
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/02/2020 00:00 || Comments || Link || [8 views] Top|| File under:

#1  All of the above arguments can and will be used to justify nullifying the, er, democratic results of the (direct) election of the president this November.

Careful what you wish for, ur-republicans.
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 1:16 Comments || Top||

#2  A Lynch Mob is very "Democratic".

...And the actions of the Democratic Party in the Impeachment were an attempted political lynching.
Posted by: magpie || 02/02/2020 14:11 Comments || Top||


Science & Technology
Sarah Hoyt: UNDER THE WEATHER
...I do wonder how the coronavirus will play out not as an illness, but as an economic impactor.

One of the things to consider is that most illnesses that originate in the third world, and even those that create considerable panic/high death rates (which if China is reporting even semi-accurately* this one isn’t REALLY doing) tend to fizz out when they reach developed countries, because even the basics of washing yourself/your hands and disposing of bodily waste with some consideration to not causing illness seems to make a lot of difference. While on that, let’s remember that the population explosion of the west in the eighteenth century was mostly predicated on improvements in hygiene. A sub-though on this is whether the "progressives" (they name themselves by opposites) bringing medieval hygiene to our sidewalks are trying to eliminate the West’s immune advantage.

Anyway, as an illness this would seem to be a non-event being LESS lethal than normal flu, at least in the West. *In China we have to go with the caveat that they lie or massage the truth ALL THE TIME since their concept of reality is not the same as ours. So, who knows. It could be very bad there, but how much will that affect our economy?

Which brings us to: Does the Wahun virus give the left the edge they need to propagandize us into a recession, which in turn will place a commie in power?

Other things running through my sleep deprived brain include "Does G-d give us extra challenges when we’re main characters? And does being main characters mean our payoff will be better, or has He become a dystopian literary writer, and does it mean we just die more meaningfully?"
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 02:38 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  No, this is how we become acquainted with the truth of our lives. As Prince Andrei realizes upon seeing Natasha, come to give him comfort, knitting stockings quietly next to him while he lies, dying - Garnett translation:

"Can it or can it not be?" he now thought as he looked at her and listened to the light click of the steel needles. "Can fate have brought me to her so strangely only for me to die?... Is it possible that the truth of life has been revealed to me only to show me that I have spent my life in falsity?
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 8:25 Comments || Top||

#2  An impressive literary reference, Lex. Now do Pushkin.
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 9:30 Comments || Top||

#3  Sorry, Lex. That was me. More coffee needed.
Posted by: Matt || 02/02/2020 10:15 Comments || Top||

#4  See behavior change in global mobility, ethnic clustering and diet.
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/02/2020 11:28 Comments || Top||

#5  Brazil might have some trouble with it: consider that carnival is just around the corner.

Posted by: 3dc || 02/02/2020 13:25 Comments || Top||


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
The fall of Qasem Soleimani and the Mahdi Doctrine
[Jpost] This messianic creed is the raison d’être for the Iran according to its founders and leaders.

When he left Damascus for Baghdad late Thursday evening January 2, Qasem Soleimani was flying high. As the military leader, chief strategist and charismatic face of what he knew to be the world’s emerging and greatest empire, he had it all: prestige, power, presence. Not only did he command that rising empire’s independent military force, he was nothing less than the voice of Allah to leaders in nations soon to be absorbed: Iraq, Syria, and Leb; Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
and the Sinai.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/02/2020 00:07 || Comments || Link || [10 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Iran


Home Front: Culture Wars
CNN Condemns D-Day Soldiers For Lack Of Diversity
[Babylon Bee] Everyone was really happy that the Allied forces stopped Hitler. Everyone, that is, except CNN, who published a retrospective on the war this week, zeroing in on the real issue of Operation Overlord: no gay female trans POCs in any of the units.

While most people were really grateful that Hitler was defeated, despite the U.S. military's wider segregation issues at the time, most people are not as woke as CNN, who condemned the entire operation as racist and xenophobic.

"Ugh, look at all these cisgendered males," the CNN opinion piece read. "At some point, you have to ask yourself which is worse: living under Hitler's regime or getting rescued by straight, white males."

"The obvious answer, of course, is straight white males. They're always worse. Then again, you could argue that they're literally Hitler, and you're back to square one."

While CNN acknowledged that many minority soldiers fought both on D-Day and during the wider war, the piece argued that since the Allied task force did not meet CNN's modern diversity standards, the Allied effort should be condemned today.

"Other people focus on the minor things, like the fact that Hitler was ousted, but we've got the real story. Do better, Allies. Do better."
Posted by: Frank G || 02/02/2020 11:51 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  CNN is bending over and STIIL not able to reach the handle on that spoon up your fanny.
Posted by: Enver Snore3054 || 02/02/2020 12:22 Comments || Top||

#2  Hey! I thought Adolf was a straight, white male?
Posted by: Bobby || 02/02/2020 12:31 Comments || Top||

#3  #2 But a vegetarian AND anti-Zionist
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/02/2020 12:36 Comments || Top||

#4  Plus Hitler valued the lives of animals more than people, so he was truly woke and non-speciesist.
Posted by: charger || 02/02/2020 13:51 Comments || Top||

#5  ...and gun confiscation. I see a pattern emerging
Posted by: Rex Mundi || 02/02/2020 14:21 Comments || Top||

#6  Hitler was big on anti-smoking, right? There's another common link between them.
Posted by: Raj || 02/02/2020 16:17 Comments || Top||


Rush - 'The People in Washington Don't Care About Public Opinion' (video)
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 07:22 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  ..or Richmond. Seems to be a pattern here.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/02/2020 8:03 Comments || Top||

#2  Let's not forget Paris, Strausburg, London, Berlin, Beijing.
Posted by: Cesare || 02/02/2020 11:09 Comments || Top||


Victor David Hanson - The Cult of West-Shaming
[National Review] An ancient habit of Western elites is a certain selectivity in condemnation.

Sometimes Westerners apply critical standards to the West that they would never apply to other nations.

My colleague at the Hoover Institution, historian Niall Ferguson, has pointed out that Swedish green-teen celebrity Greta Thunberg might be more effective in her advocacy for reducing carbon emissions by redirecting her animus. Instead of hectoring Europeans and Americans, who have recently achieved the planet’s most dramatic drops in the use of fossil fuels, Thunberg might instead turn her attention to China and India to offer her "how dare you" complaints to get their leaders to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Whether the world continues to spew dangerous levels of carbon dioxide will depend largely on policies in China and India. After all, these two countries account for over a third of the global population and continue to grow their coal-based industries.

In the late 1950s, many elites in the United States bought the Soviet Union’s line that the march of global Communism would "bury" the West. Then, as Soviet power eroded in the 1980s, Japan Inc. and its ascendant model of state-sponsored industry became the preferred alternative to Western-style democratic capitalism.

If the West is guilty of carbon crimes, racism, and bigotry, what are China and Iran? Woke elites prefer not to say.

An ancient habit of Western elites is a certain selectivity in condemnation.

Sometimes Westerners apply critical standards to the West that they would never apply to other nations.

My colleague at the Hoover Institution, historian Niall Ferguson, has pointed out that Swedish green-teen celebrity Greta Thunberg might be more effective in her advocacy for reducing carbon emissions by redirecting her animus. Instead of hectoring Europeans and Americans, who have recently achieved the planet’s most dramatic drops in the use of fossil fuels, Thunberg might instead turn her attention to China and India to offer her "how dare you" complaints to get their leaders to curb carbon dioxide emissions.

Whether the world continues to spew dangerous levels of carbon dioxide will depend largely on policies in China and India. After all, these two countries account for over a third of the global population and continue to grow their coal-based industries.

In the late 1950s, many elites in the United States bought the Soviet Union’s line that the march of global Communism would "bury" the West. Then, as Soviet power eroded in the 1980s, Japan Inc. and its ascendant model of state-sponsored industry became the preferred alternative to Western-style democratic capitalism.

Once Japan’s economy ossified, the new utopia of the 1990s was supposedly the emerging European Union. Americans were supposed to be awed that the euro gained ground on the dollar. Europe’s borderless democratic socialism and its "soft power" were declared preferable to the reactionary United States

By 2015, the EU was a mess, so China was preordained as the inevitable global superpower. American intellectuals pointed to its high-speed rail transportation, solar industries, and gleaming airports, in contrast to the hollowed-out and grubby American heartland.

Now the curtain has been pulled back on the interior rot of the Chinese Communist Party, its gulag-like reeducation camps, its systematic mercantile cheating, its Orwellian surveillance apparatus, its serial public-health crises, and its primitive hinterland infrastructure.

After the calcification of the Soviet Union, Japan Inc., the EU, and the Chinese superpower, no one quite knows which alternative will next supposedly bury America.

The U.S. and Europe are often quite critical of violence against women, minorities, and gays. The European Union, for example, has often singled out Israel for its supposed mistreatment of Palestinians in the West Bank.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/02/2020 06:54 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  GREENTEEN
(poss. by Henry of Markle, lately of Brentwood/Cato's Cabana, 2020's.)

Alas, my brat, you do me wrong
To cast me off discourteously
For I have loved you well and long
Delighting in your snottiness

Greenteen was all my joy
Greenteen was my delight
Greenteen was my bio-diesel renewable heart of green
And who but my bratty Greenteen

Your vows you've broken, like my heart
Oh, why did you so enrapture me?
Now I remain in a world o' carbon
But my heart remains in captivity

I have been ready at your hand
To grant whatever you would crave
I have both wagered life and land
Your love and good-will for to have

If you intend thus to disdain
It does the more enrapture me
And even so, I still remain
A lover in captivity

My non-Herero non-cisgendered-normative men were clothed all in green
And they did ever wait on thee;
All this was gallant to be seen
And yet thou still didst snarl at me

Thou couldst desire no earthly thing
But still thou hadst it readily
Thy music still to play and sing;
And yet thou spat and shat on me

Well, I will pray to Gaia on high
That thou my constancy mayst see
And that yet once before I die
Thou wilt vouchsafe to love me

Ah, Greenteen, now farewell, adieu
To Gaia I pray to prosper thee
For I am still thy lover true
Come once again and snarl at me
Posted by: Lex || 02/02/2020 8:54 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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1Govt of Iran Proxies
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Two weeks of WOT
Sun 2020-02-02
  Iraq’s President Barham Saleh assigns Mouhammed Tawfiq Allawi with forming a new government
Sat 2020-02-01
  Qassim al-Rimi, the head of al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen tits up.
Fri 2020-01-31
  Senate Votes 51-49 Against Witnesses and Documents
Thu 2020-01-30
  #Hamas rejects ‘conspiracies’ as #Trump unveils Mideast plan
Wed 2020-01-29
  Turkish tanks and troops have just arrived at the port of Tripoli. In violation of the arms embargo
Tue 2020-01-28
  Iran foreign minister calls Trump peace plan for Middle East 'delusional'
Mon 2020-01-27
  USAF E-11A down in Taliban area.
Sun 2020-01-26
  JeM’s Kashmir chief among 3 killed in Pulwama encounter: Army
Sat 2020-01-25
  AlSadr orders his followers to withdraw from #TahrirSquare and dismantle the tents
Fri 2020-01-24
  PLA mobilized to deal with Wuhan
Thu 2020-01-23
  UN calls for strengthening international support for the Palestinians
Wed 2020-01-22
  IRGC Commander & "Soleimani Ally" Shot Dead By Masked Assassins On Motorcycle
Tue 2020-01-21
  Several civilians killed by female suicide bomber in western Chad
Mon 2020-01-20
  Iraqi counter-terrorism forces arrest high-ranking ISIS official in Fallujah
Sun 2020-01-19
  Protesters burn the Hezbollah headquarters in Iraq


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