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Carel Reyneke's avatar

enjoyable post - the tragi-comedy writes itself 💀🤡🇺🇸🎇

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Kaveh Ahangar's avatar

"The argument that since the Israelis have made Gaza unlivable for human life then we have to force the remaining Arabs out for their own good is every bit as disingenuous as saying a guy with a cock-and-balls is a woman just because he says so."

🤣🤣🤣 quote of the week right there

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

HAHA! - "and then proceeded to autistically wave it about to thunderous applause." Much/some of that "thunderous applause" was likely a mirthful & boisterous reaction - kinda like non-keener school kids do when any1 - keener, teacher, even 1 of their own - does something slapstick, like whacking 1's head onto something; like I would've if I witnessed Big-Dick Cheney shoot his hunting-buddy in the face with a shotgun.

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jacob silverman's avatar

ha ha. "gee. a CHAINSAW, brilliant. Such a genius, who knew?"

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

At least Musk didn't go full Gallagher and take the chainsaw to a giant watermelon. On second thought, that would have been better.

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

Would've been an even greater outpouring from the crowd if Musky started 'er up and proceeded to lose control of the tree-murderer and cut off his leg or Milli's head!

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

...Like the chainsaw went-all Tesla self-driving buggy!

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

...Tesla self-driving electric horseless-carriage!

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Josh Liveright's avatar

I watched Melancholia last night and the thought occurred to me (as it often does) that if the earth was destroyed what difference would any of this juvenile absurdity make. Answer: zero.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Logically irrefutable.

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Mark Taylor's avatar

A better use of the SS United States would have been to drag it onto the National Mall in DC where it could rust and collapse along with the country.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

It DOES have gantries...stop giving me fun ideas!

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jacob silverman's avatar

Very good. " Not to mention the poverty rate in Argentina rose to 53% after Milei took his own chainsaw to the Argentine government support system, and is now “only” 38% or so.

Marx would say the capitalist would-be Lord Milei is deliberately creating a large lumpenproletariat class of desperate people to keep wages down.

Marx would be correct. Again. " p.s. Marx was also wrong about half the time!

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Marx's predictions for what would happen politically in his own lifetime, and for a couple of generations afterwards, were wrong, but his method of analyzing capitalism still works very well.

A helluva a lot better than anything on CNBC or in the Wall Street Journal for sure.

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jacob silverman's avatar

No. His ideas about capitalism were not correct, and a lot of it in incomprehensible theory-creating nonsense from the early 19th century! So, no, he was quite wrong about some if it. When I look at “socialists,” they always say he got the “class analysis” right. No, that is exactly what he got wrong and it seems only normal enough …that is exactly the part his followers believe he got right! Some of what he said is just as wrong as what the “capitalists’ said.

This is what I write about, at my Substack webpage, but maybe you will just refuse to go there.

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jacob silverman's avatar

But NOT "for sure" as if that means Marx has to be right. " better than anything on CNBC or in the Wall Street Journal for sure" So what is for sure? That Marx is right , or that CNBC is wrong? So. Now you know what terrible things I have to say and you will definitely not visit my website.

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

Adam Smith & maybe David Ricardo are washing Marx's feet in "Economics Heaven". He was the last great classical economists.

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

Right or Wrong?!? Screw you & your retarded website!

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

CNBC and WSJ are controlled by vested interests, and do I really need to go into examples of how they would say everything is hunky-dory the day before a crash?

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jacob silverman's avatar

brilliant. thanks

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Bendt Obermann's avatar

Wrong. You express the trap of irrationality of wishing for the upward-mobility capitalism pretends to offer - true, you can better the neighboring Jones' if you are "smarter" (within the system of rentierism) and whore yourself better under the guise of "working-it" harder/better while the whole whore-system swirls down the drain because no1 is truly productive under such a system.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

If that is an accurate summary of Jacob's beliefs, then my visit to his Substack should be interesting indeed.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

I am familiar with you. often disagree with you and just leave you alone, but I'll be happy to visit your Substack page. After all, you visited mine; it is only fair that I return the courtesy.

Marx's class theory is quite simple. It just classifies people by how they make their livings and how those in power get it, keep it, and lose it to someone else.

I get the feeling you are a philosophical idealist, whereas I am a materialist. Are you SURE you want me visiting your Substack page?

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The Revolution Continues's avatar

The Dems find us working folks so "icky" that they're sending Bernie Sanders out to woo us once again... Too bad most of us can see through his sheepdog activities. Marxists may be poor, but we ain't dummies!

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

I've even had some, who knew I supported Bernie in the past, come up to me and say, "Bernie says X, therefore you have to believe X now because you supported Bernie then!"

They look genuinely shocked, or even angry, when I say that my political support depends on real-world action, not words, and no, I am NOT required to pick one of the proffered political leaders and blindly support them.

I think people like us bother them more than Republicans do.

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jbnw's avatar

I keep waiting for Russia to move into Dnepropetrovsk and Odessa oblasts - I think it's a political decision based on discussions with the US, at least in part.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

If casualty-aversion is a political decision, you're right. Have you ever been to Odessa? I haven't, but have heard there's a massive system of underground tunnels there, perfect for a prolonged, nasty and bloody defense. I can see why Putin would hesitate.

It would be nice if Ukrainians could have free elections and just pick what country their oblast should be in, but if that happens Odessa would join Russia and Ukraine would have no port.

I think Putin is willing to let Ukraine keep Odessa, and maybe Kharkov, though I'm less sure of the latter. He really does not act like the old Tsars.

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jbnw's avatar

I have a couple of times, but not to the tunnels - just more fun places like Deribosofskaya and the Black Sea. But it would be hard to leave behind - it was founded by Katherine the Great and traditionally Russian.

We'll see - there are limited Ukrainian soldiers and supplies, and it's still winter, but better than mud season.

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

The Rasputitsa. One of my hobbies are old-fashioned war games with the mounted maps and die-cut counters. The only good ones for the Great Patriotic War always have the Rasputitsa as a possibility.

Movement drops from 6 or 7 spaces to 2. Sticky.

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jbnw's avatar

I remenber taking the bus to Dnipro. Outside the bus station, instead of a concrete sidewalk, there was a wet and muddy path covered by a few boards. My first introduction to the reality of life in Ukraine.

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Alan Hodge's avatar

Everything I know about the Scottish, I learned from Scotty on Star Trek, and Scotty taught me everything I know about tech support: "Those who understand the technology hide in the engine room and drink."

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Prufie in the Woods's avatar

Quote for the Day:

“At what point shall we expect the approach of danger? By what means shall we fortify against it?-- Shall we expect some transatlantic military giant, to step the Ocean, and crush us at a blow? Never!--All the armies of Europe, Asia and Africa combined, with all the treasure of the earth (our own excepted) in their military chest; with a Buonaparte for a commander, could not by force, take a drink from the Ohio, or make a track on the Blue Ridge, in a trial of a thousand years.

“At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide.

“I hope I am over wary; but if I am not, there is, even now, something of ill-omen, amongst us. I mean the increasing disregard for law which pervades the country; the growing disposition to substitute the wild and furious passions, in lieu of the sober judgment of Courts; and the worse than savage mobs, for the executive ministers of justice.”

-Abraham Lincoln (long before he became arguably the greatest president in USA history… but obviously a genius prognosticator, with a Third Eye resolving clearly across nearly two centuries).

From “Address Before the Young Men's Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois,” January 27, 1838

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Ohio Barbarian's avatar

Well, whaddaya know? My old friend John can still dig up a great speech. But, like Socrates, I'm afraid I'm a little slow. What's your point?

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Crapp's avatar

Dude, you should totally do a Ron Burgundy/Conan cross over 5 minute Barbanchorman Headlines… my inner teenanzee is most certainly looking forward to the Valerie Quennessen weather section.

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