Monday, September 13, 2021

The Arc of the Universe...



Then! Eldest’s comment did my heart good:



 

21 comments:

  1. Alan, I wrote a response to your weather posts yesterday, but it apparently disappeared. I hope you saw it, but uncase you didn't I rewrote it on the previous thread. And thanks again for the photo!

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    1. Thanks; I hadn't noticed the original. The New England (or Maine?) weather description that sticks in my mind is "three months of winter and nine months of hard sledding."

      What Happened In Dyatlov Pass Incident? New Paper Explains [Click] This seems to pull the evidence together reasonably well.

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    2. Oops--that second reply was supposed to be a separate comment. Oh, well.

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  2. Oh, and it seems that they have discontinued the Honda Fit in North America. Boo!

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    1. Oh noes! They had already discontinued the HRV, their larger vehicle that also has the back seats that transform into a deep cargo area. What's up with that? Phooey!

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    2. A cynical person might suggest that they weren't making enough money from it.

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  3. Long-Secret FBI Report Reveals New Connections Between 9/11 Hijackers and Saudi Religious Officials in U.S. [Click]

    Suspicious person that I am, I can’t help but wonder if there might be a connection between release of the [redacted] FBI report and this:

    U.S. Alarms Saudi Arabia by Withdrawing Missiles [Click]

    Of course there could also be a connection with the Saudi war on Yemen as well as the murder of Jamal Khashoggi.

    Could it be that Mr. Biden thinks the US need not, and should not, be a puppet of Saudi Arabia?

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    1. Whatever the reason, it's not before time!

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    2. Religion and race serve as convenient distractions from the real reasons of events. The fact that it was the World Trade Center that was twice attacked and that the trade regimen controlled by the World Bank might be an irritant has been ignored. So, it is convenient for Saudi Arabia. with its commercial interests, to be sidelined. Also, the operations of the CIA need to be kept hidden.
      We know, for example, that the CIA taught Iraqis how to construct car bombs in order to destabilize the government of Saddam Hussein. And, we know (from the registration numbers on their engines) that some of the vehicles used as car bombs in Baghdad had previously been stolen in southern California. How did they get from California to Iraq?
      U.S. commercial interests often masquerade as religious or ideological interests, but it is the commercial exploitations which cause harm.
      On the other hand, I have read that the people who supported the arrival of the U.S. in Afghanistan expected that the result would be similar to the "prosperity" and modernization that followed our presence in Japan and South Korea and even, to a lesser extent, Vietnam, and have been disappointed.
      That one would invite an enemy into one's country in order to exploit them is perhaps too sophisticated a notion for the U.S. Trump may have recognized the pattern because it is his own. "'Will you walk into my parlor?' said the spider to the fly."

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  4. Fresno AQI = 37, pollen “none,” and we can see the Sierra Nevada foothills for the first time in months. There is a lightning-sparked forest fire in Sequoia National Park, to the southeast of us, but winds are from WNW at 5-10 mph.

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  5. IMHO, the problem with the arc of history quote is the verbal tense. The arc does not bend on its own; it needs to BE bent!

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    1. I'm not so sure about that, Hannah. After all, when supercomputers analysed chaos, they found patterns.

      I think it's a both/and kind of thing.

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    2. Where humans are concerned, it is best not to rely on natural forces to restrain their bad behavior. Justice, after all, is a human concept. No reason to expect it will be automatically arrived at without a constant effort. :)

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  6. That said, Barack Obama, who happily repeated that quote, is a bit of a lazy fellow who, according to his wife, leaves his dirty socks on the floor. He made a good figure head, but his policy decisions were definitely deficient. I thought for a long time that Biden had failed to make his long experience available. It now looks like Obama did not follow advice. Too impressed with his own charm.
    I supported Dood in 2008. His input on the ACA and Dodd/Frank proved much more valuable in the long run. Another unsung hero.

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    1. I wonder if the judge references the Ku Klux Klan Act of 1871.

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  8. The Texas legislation is another example of legislation that is designed to fail. It is a strategy Republicans deploy all the time to gain an advantage over law-abiding Democrats. How long did McCain/Feingold work to restrict Democratic candidates' access to funding until the SCOTUS struck it down?
    That candidates for public office are extorting donations from corporations whose activities they are empowerd to control is despicable. However, the answer is not to restrict citizens from organizing to select and elect public servants.
    That the major political factions are losing control of elections is a good thing. Many of the candidates they have been promoting have not performed well.
    What was really scary about the Georgia Senate election was that there were 21 people on the ballot. None of the political operatives want to talk about that. Just as nobody want to talk about the 20+ presidential candidates that are normally on the N.H. primary ballot.

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  9. From Eugene V. Debs’ “Bending Cross Speech,” 1918: [Click]

    When the mariner, sailing over tropic seas, looks for relief from his weary watch, he turns his eyes toward the southern cross, burning luridly above the tempest-vexed ocean. As the midnight approaches, the southern cross begins to bend, the whirling worlds change their places, and with starry finger-points the Almighty marks the passage of time upon the dial of the universe, and though no bell may beat the glad tidings, the lookout knows that the midnight is passing and that relief and rest are close at hand. Let the people everywhere take heart of hope, for the cross is bending, the midnight is passing, and joy cometh with the morning.

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