Lily and Rustic start off the walk
February wraps up with a whole lot of nothing stellar-wise. The most I can make out of what the sky is telling me is that it’ll be an exciting (probably unpleasantly so) for Pisces. Which to be honest is the most boring sign out there — I mean, fish really? I know it’s not your fault but your parents really should have picked a more auspicious conception time.
Then Callie shows up
Pisces: 10 of Swords – Abandonment, betrayal, defeat, pain, affliction, tears, sadness, desolation.
Aries: 4 of Swords – Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit’s repose, exile, tomb and coffin.
Taurus: Judgement – Elevation, sudden understanding, transformation.
Gemini: Queen of Cups – Good, fair woman; honest, devoted woman, loving intelligence, the gift of vision; success, happiness, pleasure; also wisdom, virtue; a perfect spouse and a good mother.
Cancer: 3 of Coins reversed – Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.
Leo: 3 of Swords reversed – Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.
Virgo: Queen of Coins – Opulence, generosity, magnificence, security, liberty.
Libra: 8 of Wands reversed – Jealousy, internal dispute, stingings of conscience, quarrels.
Scorpio: 3 of Wands reversed – The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
Sagittarius: 7 of Wands reversed – Perplexity, embarrassments, anxiety. It is also a caution against indecision.
Capricorn: 2 of Swords reversed – Imposture, falsehood, duplicity, disloyalty.
Aquarius: 2 of Cups reversed – Promises broken, premature celebration, issues thought resolved have not been.
Wait…wut? I actually have a good one this time? That cant be right
I know, it’s making me more nervous.
Sagittarius: 7 of Wands reversed – Perplexity, embarrassments, anxiety. It is also a caution against indecision.
I guess I should practice my coin-flipping technique.
Pretty much where I’m at these days. If it weren’t for this dog…
I hear an endless stream of horseshit on the TV about the Russia/Ukraine war. I think every single word of it is false. People have the memory of goldfish?
Two things: 1. Clinton said she wanted war with Russia. Trump said he would not have war with Russia (the Trump/Russia hoax was born)
Trump got elected – no war with Russia. Biden got elected – war with Russia. The Democrat leadership wanted that war as a money laundering operation, they planned it for years.
2. Zelensky wanted the Russians out of Ukraine. He harassed them endlessly and finally resorted to bombing their cities. Putin asked a number of time for him to stop. Finally Putin invaded to put a stop to that shit. (I just heard Putin’s invasion described as ‘unprovoked’)
What a fucking shitshow.
I have a question for all: Does anyone know whatever happened to our friend Groovus Maximus?
Which Russian cities did Zelensky bomb? NB: Nothing in Crimea, Donetsk, or Luhansk is Russian under international law, and if you think those count as Russian then Russia committed the act of war by invading those areas.
Ethnic Russians. Just ask Samantha Power. R2P means Russia was obligated to invade Ukraine.
Those are all ethnically Russian. In the Crimea, the Soviets expelled the Tatars and introduced ethnic Russians – before the Ukraine SSR was granted control of Crimea.
Those regions voted for the president in 2014 that we sponsored a coup against.
It is truly a mystery why any Russian let alone Putin might have some concerns.
It’s funny how you all go apeshit over the idea that the US is interfering in the internal affairs of other countries, while at the same time braying that countries deserve to have Russia interfere in their internal affairs.
All I can find now are discussions about what Trump said blah blah.
I remember Groovus telling me that he and his family barely escaped being killed when Zelensky was trying to push the ethnic Russians out. I do remember Zelensky resorting to artillery attacks in some of the Russian majority cities, perhaps in the Donbas war? The Russian army moved in then to protect those people.
If I have any of this wrong please point it out. I was not paying all that much attention at the time and most of my recollection is from discussions here. I do remember saying Russia will never give up the port in the Crimea. I also remember thinking “What the fuck?” when Zelensky starting shooting at Ethnic Russian civilians inside Ukraine. I was confused because I have an American’s view of my fellow countrymen…no matter where they were born, whatever they speak, whatever holidays they celebrate they are still Americans and I dont shoot at them. Europeans in general apparently have a different view of such things. That seems to be especially true with Russia/Ukraine.
If Russia had troops in those cities, they were violating international law and I think would have been committing an act of war.
Imagine if California decided to secede and Mexico supported them by actually sending troops in. Regardless of our views of Gavin Newsom, I don’t think anybody here would consider it acceptable. Russia does it in Ukraine, and people here cheer it on.
It seems to me to be a “principals over principles” argument: 1) This group is liked by the western foreign policy establishment. 2) I hate the western foreign policy establishment. Therefore 3) Anything that happens to them must be right, and the people doing it to them who oppose the western foreign policy establishment are incapable of doing anything wrong.
JI made the claim that the US led a coup, as if none of those people protesting on the Maidan in 2014 could have been thinking for themselves. I don’t think, however, that it’s plausible to claim that the disaffection from Donetsk and Luhansk was wholly organic and Russia had nothing whatsoever to do in fomenting it and propagandizing against the substantial portion of Ukrainian society that wants to be aligned with the west.
To put it another way, in a war of attrition between Russia and Ukraine fought out in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, I think if no outside forces got involved Russia being bigger could survive long enough to “win”. But by the same token, in 2014, barring interference by outside forces, Ukraine would have been able to win a war of attrition against Donetsk and Luhansk. Again, however, because of who the principals are, a lot of people on the non-establishment right think certain outside forces coming in is A-OK.
Ted, I am not cheering anyone on. There are no good guys. I am pissed about the dead on both sides and about the money stolen from us – stolen by Americans.
I do remember Putin fucking around in Ukrainian politics. He instigated rebellion and didnt he try to assassinate one of Zelensky’s predecessors?
Now lets go back to the Holomodor, and before that and before that all the way back to the beginning of time. It is the same shit as the ME mess. There are no good guys and no event or time you can point to as the start of it.
One of my grandfather’s business partners rode his horse down to the Post office one evening after closing time to check his box. Old Mr. Soandso was beating his wife in the lobby. The guy jumps on Mr. Soandso to make hims stop. The wife jumps up off of the floor then she and her husband proceed to beat my father’s buddy unconscious. They then threw him over his saddle and smacked the horse on the ass. He came to laying in his front yard and the horse grazing next to him.
We really need to stay out of it. We also need the American pols that got us into it to pay back every fucking penny we sent to Ukraine out of their own pockets then decide if we should hang them anyway.
“The Russian army moved in then to protect those people.”
You Know Who Else sent their army into other countries to protect their ethnic brethren?
Churchill?
RC: That is not lost on me. When Putin did that I thought at the time “Great. Here we go again.”
Ok, three things: I think someone has told zelensky to keep the war going. Trump will be gone soon and the money will flow again.
That is my suspicion based on his behavior and attitude.
Try to get your head around the evil at work here: 1,000,000+ people have died in that war. Imagine walking down a line of one million people and looking each one in the face. Every one of them was a human being just like you. Those people were essentially murdered so that the ruling class could look the US treasury of hundreds of billions of dollars. They were murdered so someone who never has to face a bullet or a bomb could get rich.
I hear the average age of Ukraine soldier is ~45. I have seen videos asking people to come get Russian women because they have no men left. The scale of this is hard to get your head around.
For money. So Hillary Clinton and the CEOs of the MIC can fly on their private jet liners to attend a cocktail party.
He won’t win re-election so he has to keep the war on and elections deferred until there is peace.
You also apparently heard that Ukraine was bombing Russian cities, so we can reasonably laugh at anything you claim to have heard.
Ethnic Russian cities, not cities under Russian control at the time. Putin absolutely instigated the rebellions, and it is perfectly fair to point that out, but since we instigated the revolution which removed the pro-Russian government and installed the hostile one, which immediately began oppressing the ethnic Russians in the eastern portions of the country it is blatantly dishonest to pretend that on the one side is innocent democratic Ukraine and on the other side is evil empire 2.0. There are no good guys here.
JI: Democracy!
“Putin absolutely instigated the rebellions”
That’s right. I forgot about that. What a fucking huge shit mess. Untangling all this is a fool’s errand and exactly why the founders warned us not to get mixed up in foreign intrigues.
There are no good guys and we get shit on us no matter which side we choose or what we do. It is not a game we can win. Something something wrestling pigs.
One of my grandfather’s favorite sayings is appropriate here: “You can’t stir the shit without getting it on you.”
The irony is that Putin has killed more of the ethnic Russians in the Luhansk and Donetsk regions than before the invasion.
I agree with Jarflax.
I agree with Trump and Vance – the Russians have won and this brother war will be over soon.
I hope the money laundering operation is fully investigated and people responsible land in jail.
“Clinton said she wanted war with Russia.”
Which must have really pissed them off, after they paid her to the tune of, what, 8 or 9 figures? Let’s not forget she was the one who gave them the famous “reset button”, either.
I can’t find a link to that, Did she actually say that? My guess is this is a case of ‘She pushed policies that in my opinion would have led to war with Russia’
Vigilance, retreat, solitude, hermit’s repose, exile – I’m fine with that
tomb and coffin but that is taking things a step too far
The end of troubles, suspension or cessation of adversity, toil and disappointment.
Does this mean group lookups on the NAS will start working?
I’m looking for an Glibs post, by Richard I think, in which various options for capturing video/audio streams from Youtube were discussed. I can’t figure out how to search for it and I’ve run out of patience scrolling back through previous posts. Any help?
According to my dim inattentive recollection of the run-up to the war,
NATOcertain parties in Europe basically double dog dared Putin to invade, based on their delusions of grandeur.There are no good guys here.
I’m definitely willing to accept that.
On the comeback trail
Former Vice President Kamala Harris stepped on the NAACP Image Awards stage Saturday night with a sobering message, calling the civil rights organization a pillar of the Black community and urging people to stay resilient and hold onto their faith during the tenure of President Donald Trump.
“While we have no illusions about what we are up against in this chapter in our American story, this chapter will be written not simply by whoever occupies the oval office nor by the wealthiest among us,” Harris said after receiving the NAACP’s Chairman’s Award. “The American story will be written by you. Written by us. By we the people.”
——-
In her first major public appearance since leaving office, Harris did not reference her election loss or Trump’s actions since entering the Oval Office, although Trump mocked her earlier in the day at the Conservative Political Action Conference.
Harris spoke about eternal vigilance, the price of liberty, staying alert, seeking the truth and America’s future.
“Some see the flames on our horizons, the rising waters in our cities, the shadows gathering over our democracy and ask ‘What do we do now?’” Harris said. “But we know exactly what to do, because we have done it before. And we will do it again. We use our power. We organize, mobilize. We educate. We advocate. Our power has never come from having an easy path.”
No reference to President Cartoon Villain. We must RESIST the nameless faceless forces of evil and chaos. She takes the high road, wink wink, nudge nudge.
Jesus, these people are worse than herpes. Go the fuck away already.
Meaningless platitudes and crying over Bad Man.
That’s all they’ve got? What the hell are they even agitating for, anyway?
Anyway…I did not intend to start trying to sort out who was right or wrong in Russia or Ukraine…my main point was that the war got started because of the corruption here as a pretense to launder oceans of money to the American MIC. Russia/Ukraine is not my concern. American political ghouls trading other people’s blood for money is.
I accept that you and most people are trying to understand the facts and apply high principles all the time. I agree with 90% of what I read here, a record for me with no close seconds.
I envy and do not doubt Ted’s recall: it’s clear he has studied those languages and is close to the cultures and history. For myself, it’s nearly impossible to keep current and keep score on everything going on.
What I will say is that the details don’t matter to most of the people on the ground: decisions are being made on their behalf. Whether your house is bombed or your daughter raped or your son drafted, there’s really not a face that stands for you. From Putin to Arafat to Zelenskyy to the houses of Kim and duValier, they speak for no one but themselves…they are mere avatars, bumper stickers for people to choose between.
I tend to zone out because I fear that media and identity politics and self-interest are what are really driving the nature of the reports; even if I pick the right guy to hate between Ukraine and Russia, it won’t matter to the majority of the masses involved….and I certainly don’t want to paint them one way or the other.
I will say that I have inherited some patience with those who are caught up on the ground. I believe that even “evil” people have a right to self determination, to autonomy on the smallest scale practicable. I also believe that it is okay to remember and resent the loss of wealth that would have come to you, to hate those responsible for those who burned your crops or pushed your grandfather off a farm that had been in your family for generations or bull-dozed your house. I will not tell a man that his memories and feelings are wrong just because his government is led by someone despicable.
If I have a side other than ‘American’ it is for the people on both sides who are caught up in the gamesmanship of the evil people in charge who are really only fighting for money and power. As in all times and all places those people have no principles other than ‘I win, you lose’. They couldn’t care less about the people they are destroying.
This war really needs to end.
I dropped the pushrod for the clutch fork into the transmission on my Audi. Looks like I’m pulling the tranny to get it back out since magnets aren’t working to fish the gotdammed thing out. Oh well, that adds another 6 hrs onto what should have been a 1.5 hour slave cylinder job. I assure you, there has been no premature celebration, despite my horrorscope.
The last time I changed a water pump on my Honda Odyssey I started out saying “Nuthin’ to it. I can knock that out in an hour!”
36 hours later I had run out of curse words and almost had to be captured by those guys with butterfly nets and a white van.
One of the main things I learned going from a shade-tree mechanic to an actual auto shop (and I know that you know this) was that there was a reason for jobs being booked at much more time than you than you think they should vs. what you will actually spend on it as an amateur.
And we were a hourly rate shop.
I dropped the pushrod for the clutch fork into the transmission on my Audi. Looks like I’m pulling the tranny to get it back out since magnets aren’t working to fish the gotdammed thing out. Oh well, that adds another 6 hrs onto what should have been a 1.5 hour slave cylinder job. I assure you, there has been no premature celebration, despite my horrorscope.
Ouch. Can you see it with a borescope? Could you possibly get in there and latch on to it with the aluminum magnet?
Pulling the gearbox to change the slave cylinder is why I hate inside-the-bellhousing slave cylinders. I mostly liked my Ford Explorer, but I dreaded the thought of having to do that job.
Going to try that first, just not today. First nice day in awhile, so going to take my avatar for a spin.
On a different topic, looking at the exit polls from the German election, a few interesting points:
1) Under-30s voted 24% for “The Left” (the former East German Communists plus a disaffected left flank of the Social Democrats), followed by 21% for AfD.
2) The Greens had their highest vote percentage among govsec workers (19%) and lowest among blue-collar (6%). Obviously the exact opposite for AfD.
3) The Greens’ percentage of votes also correlated with academic credentials. The more credentialed, the higher the percentage the Greens got.
4) If you look at the four parties on the left from the German perspective (SPD/Greens/Left/BSW) vs. the three parties on the right (Union/FDP/AfD), women voted 48% for the left wing and 48% for the right wing. Men voted for the right by a 58-38 margin.
Oh, the exit poll also had a tab for under 25s, who were 27-21 Linke v. AfD, with CDU third on 12%.
This German political map is interesting.
https://x.com/nealasher/status/1893739418382418211
I don’t fully understand that phenomena. Boys who have never been to war are guns-ho to go slay dragons. Vets? Not so much. People who have never experienced communism fall in love with the idea. People who have want nothing to do with it.
At what point will we evolve to take the advice given by those with experience?
My grandfather comes to my mind again. I once explained to him what a terrible mistake prohibition was. I went on and on while he said nothing. When I finished he said “You weren’t there. You didnt see it.”
“ Cancer: 3 of Coins reversed – Mediocrity, in work and otherwise, puerility, pettiness, weakness.”
Idc. I’m still gonna have a kick ass week. 🍆💦
Another week of mediocrity isn’t really news.
Email in draft. I’m not opposed to justifying my work. I think the execution isn’t well…but what ya gonna do?
Now on hold though waiting for FAA Administrator to say one way or the other.
So really, it should have just been sent from Trump to each secretary to require it and it would have probably not had this blowback.
My understanding of this business is that tons of fed workers are suspected of not only doing no work but paying little to no attention to their jobs or working second jobs to the point of never checking their email. Apparently this is an attempt to smoke those people out.
Probably correct. I’m not sure how air traffic controllers though will meet this requirement. They rarely even need to check email as they arrive, go on position, do any training and go home.
Again, execution is poor….but it’s on target
Are they doing the jobs that they are paid for?
Yes- so what
No- where is their manager?
You forget: Is the job they are paid for both useful, and justifiable under a strict reading of the Constitution?
No employee is entitled to their job; no employer is entitled to an employee’s labor. Don’t like what an employee provides? Fire them. Don’t like the employer’s demands? Quit. Life is hard sometimes.
Air traffic controllers will meet the requirement by responding to the email. One bullet point for them:
My job is to keep crashes from happening. No crashes happened on my watch.
Sorry that wasn’t 5 bullet points…
You’re right. Not constitutional. They should just not show up.
Been done.
Jarflax, well yes, that’s the larger issue as to whether the positions should exist at all. And many/most shouldn’t.
I’m not sure how air traffic controllers though will meet this requirement. They rarely even need to check email as they arrive, go on position, do any training and go home.
Typical of everyone everywhere, whoever was responsible for this (Musk?) likely assumes other people do the same things in the same way as they do.
“Mental alienation, error, loss, distraction, disorder, confusion.”
Well, I got my last tax form yesterday, so I’m doing my taxes next week. So, sounds about right.
Hey, they are going to give you $5K back! Of course, they’ll have to borrow that money so the Fed will get another magical transfer of wealth from us all, and the US will inch closer to the day the house of cards collapses.
I was reading that the $5K is 20% of what they are expecting to save. Which makes me more comfortable with cutting borrowing by 80% of the savings instead of 100%. It’s a price that might be worth paying to maintain political support/momentum.
I get the optics of it, but I hate it. The thing about almost all the ‘issues,’ whether it is Ukraine, woke silliness, vilification of fossil fuels, or whatever, is that they burn capital. The staggeringly large economic gains for all of mankind, baring maybe the Sentinel Islanders who have opted out, over the past 200 years have cut real poverty, that being people who are likely to starve, from a majority of mankind to a tiny minority. The average Joe, in the western world, has luxuries beyond the wildest dreams of 18th Century royalty, not just in cool technological toys, but in terms of living quarters and diet, hygiene and transportation. Even in the poor quarters of Africa, Asia and South America life has improved dramatically. Capital drives that progress. The magic of the Industrial and Scientific Revolutions is that they allowed wealth to be a non-zero sum game. That means wealth can produce more wealth, and despite all the nonsense spouted, EVERYONE benefits. Imagine how much better things would be if we, and the other western ‘democracies’ stopped burning half the capital produced?
Jarflax: Capital isn’t just squandered on idiocy but for me most notably one particular idiocy: Savagery and thuggery. What other use could we put all of the capital presently consumed by war and crime? From the cops to the courts to the prisons to money spent by individuals for security. What about all of the associated industries, rehabs, councillors, child protection agencies, parole etc.
War? I dont even know where to start.
All of the other idiocy starts to look minuscule. What world would we live in if people could just stop hurting and stealing?
I will be filing for extensions, because I’ll have to do mine and my mother’s (although I think my son wants me to do his state return for some reason I don’t remember).
This is in response to @Suthenboy.
1. “Kids these days.” Hype is particularly irritated by this, but it’s nothing that hasn’t been going on for millennia, and it will continue to as people grow up, have their own kids, and forget how stupid they really were when they were young.
2. We all think our time and population are unique from the past. That’s true, but as far as I can see, there are only about 1-1/2 generations on the wheel of time before we forget what went before and, more importantly, why and how and by whom.
2a. “History doesn’t repeat, but it does rhyme.”
2b. “‘Tradition’ is the solution to a problem we forgot we had.”
2c. “Shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves in 3 generations.”
By the time I was in high school, FDR was being held up as a savior of WWII and the Depression. That was only 50 years. But when I was a child, I had listened my very old relatives trashing the shit out of him because he knew Pearl Habor was coming, let it happen because he wanted to get us into a war the rest of the country did not, and he trashed future generations with “a chicken in every pot.” Those opinions got lost to time very quickly, squelched and overrun by a very successful propaganda campaign.
How is anyone supposed to look back at the past and see what was and was not propaganda when the contemporary newspapers and history books are all written with an agenda, and be expected to learn the right lessons?
3. There may have been a time in history when non-aristocratic/non-elite/non-upper class young men stayed in their mothers’ basements doing some mind-numbing, distracting, addicting, time-killing endeavor, no jobs, no families of their own, being happily enabled by mommy, but I couldn’t pinpoint when. (Although, to be fair, my gma would’ve done that for my dad, and her sister did do it for 2 out of her 3 sons. Greatest and silent generations, respectively. WTF is up with mothers who husbandize their sons and worship all that is male?)
4. Our grand American experiment may actually be unique in the annals of history, but we here on Glibs won’t know how it turns out because we’ll be dead. The Roman Empire lasted far longer than we will. Why? Because they conquered. At one time, Spain and Britain conquered. Us? Well, since Vietnam, we have just wiggled our fingers in the custard of perpetual global conflict so a few people can make some money. Rampant imperialism would be better and more profitable than this.
But Rome died. Spain died. England died. We will too.
5. People still go on and will survive and adapt. Somehow. That’s what humans do. Maybe my kids will have to go through an apocalypse. Probably not. They’ll probably just further slide down into survival and hedonism, and think it’s normal. Then they’ll wisen up a bit. Or not. My aunts are ancient and don’t have a smidgen of wisdom between them. This is jarring, really. Even if I wanted to mine their memories for what went before, I wouldn’t trust that they’re correct.
I’ve always been a fatalist, though. I wish I weren’t, but right now it’s all I can do to put one foot in front of the other and get through this stupid fucking project that means absolutely nothing in the long run, but is a matter of survival in the here and now.
“this stupid fucking project that means absolutely nothing in the long run”
Nothing we do means anything in a long enough run. I don’t worry about the long run. At most, we can make a difference to some* people for a generation or so.
*maybe just family, maybe a bigger “some”. If that ain’t enough, well, too bad. Trying to make a difference to too many people over too long a time frame has filled more graves than anything else.
Taurus: Judgement – Elevation, sudden understanding, transformation: Still waiting on my background check to process, but I should be starting full-time work at Walmart this week. This is a tremendous elevation. Dad’s knee is doin’ what it does, especially as he does what he does, and get competitive about it. He had grand schemes for the day, but after managing to go out and get brunch, he realized that is a remarkable accomplishment and he needs to chill at the “base of tranquility,” which got a laugh. (Half-stolen from here.)
I think there’s a psychosomatic connection, and I’ve noticed it frequently with Dad: told my doc last week that I officially notice stuff in my replaced hips. Not outright pain, but an odd tightness. Enough to think about. My left one tweaked helping dad put his shoes on, an unpleasant reminder.
Ovechkin scored a hat trick and is 13 goals away from trying Gretzky. As far as I’m concerned, The Great One’s goals are monstrous, but his by-far the most assists all time furthers his overall, indeed, greatness. Rangers are tied with Pittsburgh, 1-1 after the 1st. Munchkin and I had a lovely talk last night, helping her write political takes (and assaults) of her folk on FB. She’s genuinely curious about coming here. My playful snare, set. She’s an intense creature. Our kind of intense creature. We joked about reconquering America together last night, and is legit on our minds. My playful mind twinkles.
Something happened on May 18, 1980 in southwest Washington where my parents lived. I’m sure it’s just a coincidence that I was born 9 months and 7 days later.
https://www.reddit.com/r/nonononoyes/s/4vvCZk18cs
Yikes.
Good lord
Ha! I can do that but I don’t wanna.
Damn. For her, bless physics+luck. Wondrous phucking, right there. Would.
She should not bother buying a lottery ticket.
There’s a sidewalk right there, sweetheart.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt27351074/
Enough already.
It’s not over until we tell the triumphant story of the guy who changed tires during pit stops.
Only if they were black. /Netflix