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Rat's avatar

Coincidentally, the official anthem of the European Union (since 1985) is «Ode to Joy», adapted from Beethoven's 9th Symphony. The rabbit hole might be deeper than it seems at the first glance.

(It's rarely ever performed publicly but formally it's there)

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

I know. I used to like that symphony. Now?

Meh.

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An American Writer & Essayist's avatar

Ode to Joy is good, but I prefer the Christian and Rhodesian versions.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Well, I’m a pagan when I’m anything, so that’s not really up my alley. Neither is Rhodesia in general.

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An American Writer & Essayist's avatar

That's fair. I was just saying what I prefer.

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djean111's avatar

My grandson's best friend, high school buddy, autistic, intelligent - called Kamala "a breath of fresh air". Also a big fan of Ukraine and Zelensky. Does all his "research" on $MSM and Reddit. Grandson is really struggling with the friendship thing.

Evidently Fauci was hospitalized with West Nile Virus. I guess Covid would be too embarrassing.

Ooooh! Lockdowns, a new "vaccine"? Bill Gates loves to invent new ways to kill mosquitoes - none very successful yet, as far as I can tell.

Elon Musk should probably be careful about where he travels. His money would keep the EU and Ukraine pockets all greased up for a few weeks or months. Seizing assets seems to be addictive.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

My wife hasn't spoken to her favorite aunt in years because she, a retired schoolteacher who never had any kids, is a full-fledged member of the Democult. Gets all of her news from NPR and the Guardian, BBC, etc.

The final blowup was four years ago when she really pressured my wife to vote for Biden. My wife told her if she was forced to vote she'd vote for Trump, and became outcast unclean.

The aunt called my stepdaughter to wish her a happy birthday yesterday. She is one of those incredibly nice people who will seldom say anything bad about anybody, and remembered her great niece, but asked my stepdaughter if she had read Kamala's wonderful and inspiring autobiography.

My stepdaughter's nice, too, and said she might, but she never will, and will never vote for $kamala.

I don't know what to say to your grandson, other than when people are immersed in a cult friendship always comes in second place to that cult. And they will only get angry if their friend, even gently, tries to tell them they are believing fluff and nonsense.

I guess the real question is just how much your grandson really values that friendship. Friends, like everything else in this world, change, and often for the worse. His friend may see the light, but only when he decides it might be real and actually looks for it.

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Pam2's avatar

Not worth losing family over these idiotic candidates. Hope your wife and her aunt patch things up eventually. Life's too short etc.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

It wasn't our choice, so that's not up to us.

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Raveen's avatar

Thanks a lot for mentioning my article and recommending my newsletter! Much appreciated!

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Thanks for blocking me because I support gun ownership loser.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

For the record, so do I.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

I know, real Communists need guns, pretty basic.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

Is that Kamala shirt real and one made by her supporters? Because it makes Democultists look like total assholes. I am using Democultists BTW which is great.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

I'm not really sure who made up that particular version. I suppose it could be sarcasm, but there are whole pages of T-shirts with that message on Democult web sites, and Stephen King modeled another version and meant it.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

The laptop class Democultists are setting themselves up to be a new aristocracy you are not allowed to make eye contact with, and who you are only to speak to when spoken to. It’s super creepy, and they are so out in the open about it, I am surprised this point isn’t brought up more?

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Check out Due Dissidence's video on Democrat delegates plugging their ears, and worse, when a protestor was reading the names of dead Palestinian children.

I've seen clips of Dems saying that interviews of presidential candidates are not required, and that the press should stop whining about it. They're basically demanding unquestioning obedience, which is what they get from their cult, I guess.

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Mr. Raven's avatar

I hear ya, I see those guys on Jimmy Dore, I should check out their solo stuff.

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djean111's avatar

Putin just mentioned Durov, and said everyone in the West says the West is better and more free - how about now? (paraphrased a bit).

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Kevan Hudson's avatar

Reportedly more people were arrested in the UK in 2023 for social media posts than in Russia. And after the recent demonstrations and riots we are bound to see the UK numbers go up.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Oh, yeah, the Russians are raising a stink. The thing is, Durov's a Russian dissident of sorts. He moved to the Caribbean and became a French citizen.

Isn't it weird to see RUSSIA championing free political speech, after all those years of the Cold War? It's certainly weird to see France suppressing it like this.

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djean111's avatar

From what I am hearing, this is more about getting the names and locations of telegram users - evidently telegram is very very encrypted. And it has been mentioned that the CIA/Israel are behind this. More about hunting people down than censoring, perhaps.

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djean111's avatar

Also - Telegram was going to issue its own currency, and that is/was a threat. Khadafi would still be alive, perhaps, if he was not planning to have an African currency based on gold. The US is not going to quietly let the dollar be threatened, unless they are in charge of its replacement. Yeah, telegram is tiny next to the dollar, but BRICS and Africa and Russia and China are all threatening the US hegemony. Social platforms are telling too much truth to too many people. IMO things are going to get very ugly. Uglier.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Yah, they got ugly during the Reformation, too. In some ways it's similar. The Democrats sound like the Roman Catholic priest telling Martin Luther, "You cannot question what you have a duty to believe!"

I just don't think the establishment can control the internet now any more than they could control the printing press back then, or the magazines that were invented before the French Revolution.

No way I'll bet against ugliness, though.

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MrMickeysMom's avatar

Actually, Jupiter's closest conjunction with Mars (this time) was around August 14th, and it's becoming wider in its degrees away from Mars. That's just due to a faster trip around the sun by Mars. It's only noteworthy in daily life (think cosmically, act locally) to remember what things in our lives may have been culminating during that that time. If one had been floundering around some issue prior to this conjunction cycle, then one could now be confident of moving in the right direction. This would have been a beneficial time for anything that requires confidence and energy. Hey, if one were living in ancient times then one might be ready to take off on a crusade!

Personally, I'm more alarmed looking at that area of volcanic activity in Naples, Italy. I understand that the "leadership" is not too worried in the land from which my grandfather. immigrated... This sure seems to be a very incompetent group of world leaders who continuing to ignore what's likely gonna blow and wipe out a bunch of humans.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Shows how much I don't know about astrology, doesn't it? Oh well. I remember the conjunction on the news, and even saw it a few times at 5 am or so, and the two planets were still real close to each other in the sky the other day.

Besides, I thought the picture was cool.

I'm more worried about Yellowstone than Etna. Yellowstone's far larger and much closer. Besides, if the EU isn't worried about thousands of refugees drowning in the Med, much less a war with Russia, then they sure aren't worried about a bunch of southern Italians living too close to a volcano.

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