Your Post of Posts, Thursday, Jan 26

UnkaWillbur Jan 26, 2017

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File Under: Kayfabe. Chuck Schumer, Leader of “La Résistance”, Keeps Approving Trump’s Nominees.

From Maverick To Lapdog: Trump Is Already Serving The Agenda Of America’s Oligarchs. He’s always been as much a creature of the plutocracy as Obama, the Clintons, or the Bushes.

Davos: Panicked IMF Head Calls For Wealth Redistribution To Stop Populism. Too Late.

The Year in Drones: 2016.

New clues uncovered, in the reasons for the Maya civilization’s collapse.

Russia to Develop Design of Hybrid Fusion-Fission Thermonuclear Facility in 2017. I love fusion, it’s always a decade away! “Develop Design” meaning, “We’re going to draw some pictures of what a fusion reactor looks like.”

Nice Idea, but one of the defining features of an authoritarian is epistemic closure, so they’re never going to read those books.

Watch this and try not to have nightmares.

Next week, Congress will begin to use the Congressional Review Act to roll back recently-issued federal rules; oil and other companies will benefit.

Supply chain shocks have already led to shortages of videotape and auto parts. Could food or medicine be next? How America Could Collapse.

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America's 2017 Derangement Tour continued this week. Starting of with Kathy "PLEASE LOOK AT ME!" Griffith proving that Democrats can be as eliminationist as their fellow conservatives…

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Your Weekend of Weekends.

UnkaWillbur - May 26, 2017

Here' some links to nosh on, to start of your weekend. I hope everyone's weekend is great; me, myself, I'm planning on jumping out of a perfectly…

Chunga

Unka I hope your food poisoning has vacated the premises and your GI is back to normal.
- Unkawillbur
  
  LOL & Whoops: Totally forgot the SoD AND forgot to recommend it.
  - Chunga
    
    Haha, yea I was kinda scratching my head that I was going to be the first comment. I would have covered you with the SoD but thought well wishes would be more appropriate. 🤠 Glad you’re back to normal.
    - Unkawillbur
      
      Yeah, 2 days of the old puke’n’dook was enough for me. 😀
      - Edwin
        
        🙁
        
        I had it once, really bad. Thought I was gonna die the first 24 hours.
towerofbabel

how America Could Collapse — Matt Stoller. This could be interesting.
- Dosido3
  
  We don’t make anything but we do build new buildings quickly. I see the possibility of a manufacturing renaissance in this country as a plus.
  - 17
    
    Sure. We can build ghost cities. It worked for China.
    - Dosido3
      
      Oh…that’s not what I meant. I meant build factories again and create manufacturing jobs, not empty factories.
      
      How are you doing, 17? I know the news is very bleak these days. All is darkest before the dawn. We knew Trump is/was going to destroy everything…like a forest fire.
      - 17
        
        I’m still on this side of the dirt, trying to balance my cynicism with hope. But things don’t look good.
        
        I agree with you to a point. I think we’ve let things get too far out of hand. I think we need the infrastructure shored up before we’ll get back to being a manufactrurer again. Then there’s the problem with competing wages with the rest of the world, so to get jobs back we have to be willing to take less pay. How is bringing jobs back to America gonna make things better under those conditions? It’s not like our expenses are going to drop. I can afford a cheap, chinese made $10 coffee maker that lasts 3 months, but I cannot afford a $100 American-made one that lasts a year.
        
        I’m glad I’m not the one who has to battle this problem.
      - towerofbabel
        
        We have to manage our interface with other economies. To do that we need honest governance. To do that we need a revolution because no one in power now is interested in good government.
      - 17
        
        Agree. But do you see “honest governence” coming down the pike? I don’t. So that makes it easy to be cynical. How many years have we waited, only to be disappointed? After seeing so many good things shot down by power, how can you look to the future and think something good will come?
      - towerofbabel
        
        We did that in WWII very successfully. Only this time lets build solar collectors.
17

.. https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/7de2418d26dd103761c5a6125e547e06a37dd6af3b5e50fbffa7d0c0315ccd16.jpg
17

The Entire Senior Management Team At The State Department Just Resigned

Demonstrating just how ideologically alligned with the Obama administration was the entire US State Department, moments ago the WaPo reported that “the entire senior level of management officials resigned
Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.”

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-26/entire-senior-management-team-state-department-just-resigned
- Dosido3
  
  chicken shits. They should stay to be the gum in the gears. To be the voice of reason.
- David Schultz
  
  That might be a good thing. I’m certain the GS13 crowd are not going anywhere. They are the ones that do the work anyway.
- Dosido3
  
  Turns out this is routine turnover of previous administration. Not a protest. Interesting that it was presented that way though, no?
  - 17
    
    No. It’s not the same this time. Normally, there’s a new crew waiting in the wings. Not this time. And look how it’s all “Top Staff”.
- Unkawillbur
  
  Probably all creatures of Clinton anyways.
  - 17
    
    True, but who can do what they could? Who knows what they knew?
Dosido3

OMFG. I just went to U of San Francisco’s website for an unrelated matter and who’s face do I see? The first speaker of their new series of “thought leaders” is Condi Fucking Rice. Jiminy Christmas.
- 17
  
  The fact that those kids allow her just shows what piss-poor parents they have.
  - Dosido3
    
    It was just announced by the school. I hope she comes, I hope there is a great turn out, and I hope they give her the worst reception ever. She is vile.
    - 17
      
      Surely the “Marching Ladies” will line the campus streets in protest, right? Right?
      
      Oh, nevermind.
      - Dosido3
        
        ok, tell me what you would do or want to see happen. I’m worried about you, 17.
      - 17
        
        I’d like to see the students physically block her from entering. Make the police state physically remove the protesters, and make her preach to an empty hall.
      - Dosido3
        
        sounds good.
    - 17
      
      She is vile. That’s why I blame those parents for not teaching their kids what she is, what she’s done.
Chunga

The four part interview with Thomas Frank author of Listen Liberal and Whats Wrong With Kansas.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9u2aR19P3g
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0TnS_P4JGDc
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9sGI5kiRbE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JONbGkQaq8Q
- EdgarHF
  
  I listened to the first three yesterday and the 4th this morning. Good reasons why the Democratic Party cannot be reformed.
EdgarHF

I just got a text from a lifelong friend that another childhood friend has died. I have mixed feeling as the friend who died turned into a rabid right winger as we grew older as did most of the people I grew up with. I am running out of childhood friends left alive. I am trying to stay at the back of the line for my turn.
- MeanValueTheorem
  
  Sorry to hear that Edgar.
  
  I understand the mixed feelings. I have dear friends that have gone down the right winger road to insanity too.
  The strangest people become right wingers for the strangest reasons.
  - Unkawillbur
    
    [waves]
- notisaidthepig
  
  Yes, it will be our turn soon… 🙁
  - Edwin
    
    Soon???? ……….. (yikes)
    - notisaidthepig
      
      Ask not for whom the bell tolls….
      - Edwin
        
        We’re not going to think about that now, we’ll think about it tomorrow. +_-
  - EdgarHF
    
    i ain’t uppin this one!
    - notisaidthepig
      
      I can respect that. Oink!
- Edwin
  
  Sorry to hear that Edgar.
- thud
  
  Me dear old Mum became a Bill O fan in her waning years. It’s harsh. Too much TV is what I’m thinking.
  - Dosido3
    
    I still remember my shock when I opened a kitchen drawer at my parents’ house and found a Rush Limbaugh cassette. O.O
    - notisaidthepig
      
      Yikes!
      - Dosido3
        
        yeah, it was like finding a snake…that was my awakening to my dad’s nuttiness
- Unkawillbur
  
  It’s rough. I’ve only had to deal with one close friend dying early, and that in our 30s, and from taking his own life. But my peers are all ~50 now, so it won’t be long. I too just want to stay at the back of the line, but I think I’m satisfied, if my number does get called.
  - notisaidthepig
    
    The readiness is all….
  - Edwin
    
    I’ve had quite a number pass away. Far too many for my young age!!
  - EdgarHF
    
    My friends are ~60 and dropping like flies
    - kreskin
      
      One of mine is losing his mind , seriously , he’s become a full blown idiot . 66 years old .
EdgarHF

https://youtu.be/O8n-78RUsCg
- towerofbabel
  
  I’ve seen this and loved it. Blyth shows the left how to talk about economics on a level people can understand.
Edwin

Greetings, comrades.
- notisaidthepig
  
  Hi, there.
  - Edwin
    
    How many hours til lift off?
    - notisaidthepig
      
      Oh, he’s been delayed. Sigh. I was expecting him within the hour but he’s only left in the last few minutes. Takes six hours to get here if traffic cooperates. 🙁
      
      He’ll arrive and we’ll just have to go to bed. Oink!
      - Edwin
        
        (censored)
      - 17
        
        You fuckers kill me.
- Unkawillbur
  
  https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bac72e9b55778e003644c6236329f2454799a2a119d76e6276ebc08994f64e70.jpg
towerofbabel

If anyone expects that Thomas “suck on this” Friedman is going to change his stripes at Davos and throw away his trivial career of sanguine neoliberal fantasy novels, think again. This “self-reflection” at Davos is just a moment of self-doubt before they double down. It won’t last a minute given the years of denial they have indulged in.
- Unkawillbur
  
  Well, that’s clear. Really, Friedman and his picture is just the clickbait. The fact that LaGarde and other “Thought Leaders” at Davos are talking about erecting defenses against labor is worthy of note: They’re worried.
  
  And let’s keep it up until they’re scared shitless. 😀
  - notisaidthepig
    
    Let’s do more than that. Think: French Revolution.
    - Unkawillbur
      
      Oh, I just didn’t mention what I want them to be dooking themselves in fear of, LOL.
  - EdgarHF
    
    I saw his picture and decided not to click.
- EdgarHF
  
  I thought he was a comedy writer.
notisaidthepig

I just read THE best comment. Someone posted on one of Jimmy Dore’s videos something like: I hope Bernie realizes that he doesn’t need the Democrats. YES! That’s exactly right. He doesn’t. If Bernie went out on his own or joined the Greens or whatever, people would follow him. Why, oh, why doesn’t Bernie realize this and do it?
- Unkawillbur
  
  Occam’s Razor: He’s a plutocrat, coerced into supporting them, or deluded. :`(
  - notisaidthepig
    
    (((pouts)))
    - Unkawillbur
      
      I don’t like it any more than you, believe me.
- kreskin
  
  Because he ain’t who or what we thought he was ?
towerofbabel

This is an interesting article about memorials in American culture:
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/1e4869e85dc821835a738aace3e302af44a9137f3f0329f68414c94ab16c17cf.jpg
Memorials to US Tragedies Often Reinforce a Self-Serving Narrative
http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/39228-memorials-to-us-tragedies-often-reinforce-a-self-serving-narrative

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b6f395859a408faa3d336be615d3f398d31bfb6c2f153910cf44d62d130dba09.jpg
Architect Rem Koolhaas’ made this biting statement about the Daniel Liebeskind design for the reconstruction of the World Trade Center site. He criticized the winning design’s lack of courage and ambition with this memorable salvo:
“Instead of the two towers – the sublime – the city will live with five towers, wounded by a single scything movement of the architect, surrounding two black holes. New York will be marked by a massive representation of hurt that projects only the overbearing self-pity of the powerful. Instead of the confident beginning of the next chapter, it captures the stumped fundamentalism of the superpower. Call it closure.”
kreskin

In the process of moving , man , what a bitch . My flight out is Sunday , Feb 5th , 9:24 PM .
- notisaidthepig
  
  I’ve moved more times than I care to remember. You have my sympathies.
- Edwin
  
  It’s no fun. I hate it. Hope it goes smoothly for you.
Unkawillbur

https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/bf5cb1e15d203ac0818c31b7a45441a7da6855cd03cb0a6e1cb7ae92b9bb3d00.jpg
Unkawillbur

Ah, my dear progressives, radicals, in a word, Exiles… It’s Friday!!!