1 - This made me think that I need to practice using the videotape function of my phone. I always panic in anxious situations anyway, so I can imagine myself trying so hard to be a hero, and winding up with a video recording of myself panicking.
2 - I thought it was sweet how hard they tried to pretend that they enjoyed the Bob Dylan song. Such polite kids.
3. It's all about proving to the Chinese how tough we are.
Got to give Tyler Cowen credit -- that's the only explanation I can think of that's even stupider than the apparent truth.
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NMM to the Arecibo Observatory. This really sucks.
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If you aren't all about the size, there are plenty of radio telescopes in West Virginia. You can even take a tour, but you can't take your phone on the tour.
If it's just because it looks like a giant breast smooshed into a hill, West Virginia is no help because they have radio telescopes on towers.
3: A nice little NY Times article about living near Green Bamk with no cellphones.
Couple of years ago, we had some time and, needing to catch up on performative middle class parenting, we took our son down to see the science. Then went to Hot Springs tl because it's reasonable I'm the off season.
OP.1 reminds me of the original function of traffic cops, mediating and witnessing.
It's all about proving to the Chinese how tough we are
Yes! You know what is, don't you boy? Shall I tell you? It's the least I can do. Steel isn't strong, boy, flesh is stronger! Look around you. There, on the rocks; a beautiful girl. Take off your mask, my child... breathe deeply... ignore the warnings... go to restaurants...
[she asphyxiates and dies]
That is strength, boy! That is power! What is steel compared to the hand that wields it? Contemplate this on the Show of Talk. Crucify him!
It's all about proving to the Chinese how tough we are
wait for the quipment at 25 seconds.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g2c_-9kIjyU
11 was me, I would like correct citation accumulation for this apposite ttreasure.
Somewhat randomly, a meal kit box I got delivered recently had a package of "traceable" chicken, such that I could look up what farm it came from, and it turned out to be from a farm inside the RF quiet zone. I'm sort of surprised that "EMF-free chicken" isn't its own marketing category.
The US National Radio Quiet Zone is a lot bigger than I expected. It includes Harrisonburg, Virginia? Where James Madison University is? The huge college where everyone goes who didn't get into UVA?
I feel I must point out that the utility of bringing cameras into these situations depends in a fundamental way on guns and a presumed willingness to use them. There is no order in human polities without violence or the threat thereof.
Guns aren't the only violence. People can just get beat up by the police too.
9: When I saw that scene in the movie when I was a kid, I thought it was the most profound thing I'd ever heard.
12: Credit? You should go to jail for linking to that video.
It's strange how many people must have watching movies in the 80s and thinking "When I grow up, I want to be just like the worst piece of shit in this film."
Guns aren't the only violence. People can just get beat up by the police too.
Or videotaping any sort of harrassment. There's a lot of behavior that coasts on the idea that if the recipient tries to describe it, the full force of the experience won't be believed (without video evidence).
There's also people videotaping cruel things for their YouTube channel.
14: The most severe restrictions imposed on the general public are only in place within the 20-mile (32 km) radius of the Green Bank Observatory
I think in the rest of the area the restrictions are more about commercial radio stations and the like using lower power.
21: I guess I'm still glad they've chosen camera over gun?
Pocahontas County (where Green Bank is located) 72% Trump. One of the areas where Trumps % went up form 2016.
If you are interested in a look into the non-Green Bankian parts of Pocahontas County I recommend the book about a notorious murder of two women on the way to the Rainbow Festival back in 1980. (Book is not really that well-written in my opinion but I think it does capture the milieu.)
23: A version of marry, fuck, kill; shoot, shoot, or walk away.
For instance: Mask complainer in Walmart, traffic stop of young black man, Rudy giving a press conference.
I was thinking more of the judge in Caddy shack.
Or Buck Henry in The Blues Brothers.
The insurance salesman form Groundhog Day.
So, those are really different people.
27-30 is a very specific edition of shoot, shoot, walk away.
I'm finding this thread fun: https://twitter.com/chiweethedog/status/1329543919961481218
what's one conspiracy theory you absolutely wholeheartedly believe in?
Andrew Cuomo's stranglehold on NYS politics is maintained through some level of straightforwardly illegal activity -- a combination of bribery and blackmail.
It's nice of the Washington Post to include my home county in their Covid-death example zone.
It took me a second to realize 35 was to 34.
I do just drop that into conversations at random. People should know.
My first thought was to check the news thinking he'd recently done something.
2: We were in PR last year and really wanted to see Arecibo before it was shutdown (that is to say, we expected it would happen due to the earthquake(s), etc.) but it was really hard to get to and to get in and we eventually gave up. I'm not sure that persevering would have helped, but I'm sad we didn't try harder.
34: Democrats (Obama in particular, who once said his mission was to "destroy the Republican Party") actually helped Trump get the GOP nomination with the help of Putin, because they thought there was zero chance he could be elected.
*Well, not really, but sometimes I wonder...
1) The Bush administration let 9/11 happen on purpose, likely expecting a smaller scale attack.
2) Cheney and his staff were responsible for the anthrax mailings that helped them point the finger at Iraq and were sent to potentially dovish Democrats and journalists. There was a Washington Post article in the brief window between 9/11 and when the letters were received that mentions them, and only them, being treated "prophylactically" with antibiotics. The FBI's* investigation is incredibly sus, down to pinning it on a guy who conveniently turns up dead by suicide.
3) They left Tora Bora up to local forces knowing they would likely let al-Qaeda escape to preserve their bogeyman.
*Led, at the time, by Robert Mueller.
Those seem like pretty reasonable beliefs to me. I guess I should add Epstein didn't hang himself.
Epstein seems kind of overdetermined. Sure, lots of powerful people would like to see him dead, but if he's even remotely guilty of what is suspected, then it's not hard to see suicide as a totally reasonable option.
Epstein has those weird connections that will make it liv on forever. Trump being President for one, of course, and the attempts by his lunatic base to tie it to the Clintons. But the deep cuts like Barr's* father having hired him years previously to *teach* (and of course BArr's awkward and stupid response didn't help). Also Dershowitz, and on and on.
*For JFK things like the fact that Ted Cruz's father apparently did see the motorcade go past (he was having lunch with colleagues) about 15 minutes before the shooting. Although my favorite little trivia bit is that GHW Bush** was on his way from Houston to Dallas and called in a tip to th FBI while on the road in Tyler, Texas that he heard that someone had been talking about killing JFK 9and named a name). FBI memo here
**The Bushes are rife with this kind of stuff. For instance Hinckley's parent were to have dinner with Neil Bush (jEB AND GW's brother) the night that their son shot Reagan, (knew each other through oil industry I believe).
Yeah I used to read a blog called rigorous intuition that had all kinds of theories about Papa Bush. His having been head of CIA helped too.
42.1 I can believe that someone at some level was thinking AQ'a capabilities were at the shoe.underwear bomber level. As indeed they were, but for drawing into an inside straight with 9/11.
42.2 Have all the conspirators but Cheney and Libby turned up dead? If not, I don't believe it, because I can't see Cheney leaving loose ends untied.
42.3 Yeah, no. At the time, no one knew how deep the US tolerance for casualties was going to turn out to be, and they didn't want to risk a bunch of our heroes on a mission that might not work. Let the brown people die. Then someone realized a couple of years later just how black/brown/white trash our armed forces have become, and so hell why not send them to Baghdad.
Putting aside implications for the rest of the country, I wonder if Obama might have been a better president after 10-15 years in the Senate getting a better picture of GOP bad faith, as opposed to being groomed for the White House almost immediately.
I'm roasting a chicken tonight as practice for roasting a turkey on Thursday. I haven't cooked one since 2001 or so.
NMM to Sidney Powell being amember of the Trump Campaign legal team...
Going to be a dry spell I can see.
Charlie I think conspiracy is not what happened. It's very clear that they were warned again and again that an attack was likely. Bush told his biographer that if he had the opportunity ( he used the word opportunity) to go to war he would get everything he wanted done and be a successful two-term president. Most of his foreign-policy team including Chaney were on record saying they hoped there would be a new Pearl Harbor that would let them remake the Middle East. So they got to do their project for a New American Century.
I think malign neglect was sufficient
They also blew up several US embassies, tried to assassinate Clinton, tried to blow up the WTC, and, just before the 2000 election, blew a hole in the USSS Cole. The Bush administration's response was to halt the program responsible for tracking Bin Laden.
The timing is off in 47.3. They were already redeploying assets to Iraq at the time.
In response to 48 I feel I have to say that it's difficult for a man to understand anything if his paycheck depends on not understanding it
Seems like there are plenty of long-serving Democratic Senators still in denial about the nature of the GOP.
52.2 Yeah, never to early to be racists. I think, though, that they thought Saddam would fall easily, they'd be greeted as liberators, and casualties wouldn't be much different that the First Gulf War. Morons.
52.1 Condi and the rest were obsessed with Russia. My guess is that they though AQ was small potatoes, and would be deterred anyway by all that Republican Resolve that just oozes out of them
51 I definitely think Cheney and the oil folks were hoping for a go at Iraq, and GWB was happy to outdo his dad on that. There were saying stupid shit about how getting rid of Saddam would lead to peace in Palestine even through 2003. Idiots. Anyway, I think they were very disappointed when it turned out that 9/11 wasn't an Iraqi operation. (I'm pretty sure there was a pre-invasion lawsuit against Iraq for injuries caused by the 911 attacks -- a person could look back at that and see who the experts were connecting those dots.)
50.1 So, are we going to have Powellistas who think that Trump wimped out?
Oh, and it seems like Powell isn't standing down: https://twitter.com/kathrynw5/status/1330672355178266624/photo/1
54: Of course - just wondering about what that experience might have done to Obama. Maybe the same as to most of the others, but who knows.
Do I want to know what "Kraken on Steriods" means? If Harry Hamlin has to put on a short toga and stab something, it only seems fair to warn us.
Charlie I feel like you're 55 ascribed too much good faith to them throughout. I think the war went too well. They were concerned that combat operations would end. They I thought they needed that to use as a campaign commercial for the midterms.
That's why Bush fired the whole Iraqi Army.
Serious question: How much of the news of the past month can be explained by people making decisions while using cocaine?
Are you implying there would be times when that wouldn't explain the news.
I think they believe stupid things, and act on those beliefs, stupidly. I guess that's a form of good faith.
51: And then along came Trump with the Project for a Post-American Century.
At the time, no one knew how deep the US tolerance for casualties was going to turn out to be, and they didn't want to risk a bunch of our heroes on a mission that might not work. Let the brown people die. Then someone realized a couple of years later just how black/brown/white trash our armed forces have become, and so hell why not send them to Baghdad.
US soldiers are on average better educated and more middle-class than their civilian counterparts, and this is particularly true of combat-arms troops, who are also considerably whiter than the US population as a whole.
What happened in Tora Bora is on Rumsfeld and his determination to prove that the SF concept - small teams leading local militias - which had got the US to Kabul would work under all circumstances. He overestimated the competence of Afghan troops and the lengths to which Pakistani intelligence would go to protect their people.
I definitely think Cheney and the oil folks were hoping for a go at Iraq, and GWB was happy to outdo his dad on that.
AIMHMHB it is very important to remember decision timing here. The spotlight started to drift away from Afghan in November 2001 - when CentCom was given the directive to begin planning for an invasion of Iraq. That was the month before bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora. Any argument that presumes that Iraq was a distraction from a perceived failure in Afghan is invalid for this reason.
Was 66.1 true *at the time*? If I recall correctly, for example, the Marines were much less white before the forever wars started.
Also, like pulling out a gun, the people who you put in your sights get SUPER upset. If you think they are pricks, that makes it a lot of fun.
