Chit Chat

By Ted Belman

From now on comments on every post must relate to the content of the post.

Comments that don’t relate to the post must go here.

Any person who contravenes this demand will be put on moderation. Also their offending comment will be trashed.

The reason for this demand is so that people who want to read comments which pertain to the post, don’t have to wade through the chatter.

Everyone will be happier.

April 16, 2020 | 7,945 Comments »

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50 Comments / 7945 Comments

  1. #LiKeqiang delivered his last government work report on 5 March in his capacity as Chinese premier, a role he had held for a decade. With his #departure from the scene comes the retreat of fellow CYL faction cadres, and the retirement of the of the political leaders of Xi’s generation.
    — https://gettr.com/post/p2fj02r6652

    This is signal, not noise. President Xi has effectively eliminated all his PEERS, making himself China’s GRANDFATHER. It would be like the Biden Regime eliminating Harris, Schumer, Trump, McCarthy, Obama, etc. and replacing them with Hunter’s pals. It means that any pretense of balance and competition in China will only come with Xi’s forcible removal — by political murder or political suicide. Unfortunately, people of this degree of exaltation generally pull millions of innocent victims into the grave with them (cf. Hitler, Napoleon).

  2. Biden’s Declaration of War (in Sudan!)

    Letter to the Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148)

    Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Madam President:)

    At my direction, United States Armed Forces personnel have conducted an operation to evacuate United States personnel and others from Khartoum, Sudan, in response to the deteriorating security situation in Sudan. To conduct and support this operation, United States Armed Forces personnel with appropriate combat equipment deployed to Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Sudan. United States Armed Forces personnel will remain deployed in Djibouti to protect United States personnel and others until the security situation no longer requires their presence, and additional forces are prepared to deploy to the region if required.

    I directed this action consistent with my responsibility to protect United States citizens both at home and abroad and in furtherance of United States national security and foreign policy interests, pursuant to my constitutional authority as Commander in Chief and Chief Executive and to conduct United States foreign relations.

    I am providing this report as part of my efforts to keep the Congress fully informed, consistent with the War Powers Resolution (Public Law 93-148). I appreciate the support of the Congress in these actions.

    — https://www.lawfareblog.com/white-house-releases-war-powers-notice-evacuation-khartoum

    I cannot over-emphasize how dangerous this is. It commits “boots on the ground”, in a conflict with no exit plan, with the expressed expectation that the conflict will widen.

    For those who cannot remember, this is Vietnam — but far worse.

  3. Anger escalates in Iran as regime continues chemical attacks targeting schools
    Latest update – 10:00 pm CET

    Cities across Iran are reporting protests by people from all walks of life as the country is witnessing a growing number of horrific chemical gas attacks targeting mostly schoolgirls and the economy plummeting. People from different strata are finding it extremely difficult to make ends meet, and are taking to the streets to voice their continuous protests.

    https://english.mojahedin.org/news/live-report-iran-regime-chemical-gas-attacks-schoolgirls-poisoning/

  5. The conflict in Sudan pits the US-Egypt-Tripoli-Turkey-backed government against Russian-French-UAE-Chad,etc -backed.rebels, with tentacles that leas to Syria, Rojava, Iran… (But why stop there?)

    No comments on Israpundit?

    Meanwhile, Biden has shut off embassy services to 16,000 US citizens in country.

  10. @seb
    It could be that your commenting difficulties have to do with the fact that you are commenting many times in rapid fashion. If you leave a little more time between comments, you shouldn’t have any trouble.

  15. @Sebastien

    Apparently, in the 20’s and 30’s, political assassinations were common in Japan.

    This is a good point, but since the American occupation and transformation of Japan from its pre-war feudal society into its current iteration, such political violence is very alarming and very unusual in the current era. Of course, the Japanese are always good for a parlaimentary tussle:
    https://www.france24.com/en/20150918-japan-brawl-lawmakers-parliament-controversial-security-bill-military-abroad-wwii
    but this is very different from political assassinations.

    The motives given don’t usually make much sense.

    Yes, this is another curious point, the connection of which I failed to note. Good observation.

  16. @Peloni Maybe Japan needs stronger pipe bomb control laws like Israel needs knife, rock and car control. (Rock, paper, scissors? ? ) After 9/11, we had box cutter control laws, for a few years. Seriously.

    “The Car” (1977) Official trailer.

    https://youtu.be/j6-yVoJTCo8

    But, seriously, I googled your question and found this:

    https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/before-abe-a-brief-history-of-political-assassinations-in-japan/

    Apparently, in the 20’s and 30’s, political assassinations were common in Japan.

    Maybe it just has something to do with national character, who is killed, what weapons?

    Palestinians murder Jews with any weapon available. In the U.S., guns are a perrenial favorite.

    Maybe, it’s a cultural thing. The motives given don’t usually make much sense.

    like, “Abe murder suspect says life destroyed by mother’s religion”

    https://apnews.com/article/shinzo-abe-religion-japan-social-media-68f18b50c5698bb65f024ff5c5d2c3ba

    huh?

  17. @Peloni Maybe Japan needs stronger pipe bomb control laws like Israel needs knife, rock and car control. (Rock, paper, scissors? 😀 ) After 9/11, we had box cutter control laws, for a few years. Seriously.

    “The Car” (1977) Official trailer.

    https://youtu.be/j6-yVoJTCo8

    But, seriously, I googled your question and found this:

    https://thediplomat.com/2022/07/before-abe-a-brief-history-of-political-assassinations-in-japan/

    Apparently, in the 20’s and 30’s, political assassinations were common in Japan.

    Maybe it just has something to do with national character, who is killed, what weapons?

    Palestinians murder Jews with any weapon available. In the U.S., guns are a perrenial favorite.

    Maybe, it’s a cultural thing. The motives given don’t usually make much sense.

    like, “Abe murder suspect says life destroyed by mother’s religion”

    https://apnews.com/article/shinzo-abe-religion-japan-social-media-68f18b50c5698bb65f024ff5c5d2c3ba

    huh?

  21. Nasrallah just accused Israel of bombing Lebanese banana plantations. Now, it occurred to me that if this were true and if Israel were a halachic state, this would pose a philosophical challenge even for the fabled wise men of Chelm.

    See, Deuteronomy 20 says:

    “19When you lay siege to a city for an extended time while fighting against it to capture it, you must not destroy its trees by putting an axe to them, because you can eat their fruit. You must not cut them down. Are the trees of the field human, that you should besiege them? 20But you may destroy the trees that you know do not produce fruit. Use them to build siege works against the city that is waging war against you, until it falls.”

    Now, it recently came to my attention via Facebook, that banana trees have no wood in them. They are actually giant herbs not trees. But they Are fruit bearing.

    It’s a conundrum.

    😀

  23. @Sebastien
    Indeed, the irony of the truth of such a statement is quite a striking reality. Being honestly described as a banana republic by a banana republic is both a sad and terrible reproach upon America, but it is both a fair and honest reproach and I thank Almo for having the tenacity and independence to acknowledge it as such. America would be better served by her allies should they join Almo’s condescension for this too well practiced antic of the installed junta, but then again, America’s allies are not allies of the American people so much as they are allies of the installed junta which is dominating the American public.

    2

  27. 20 year old Dr. Greta Thunberg, not a joke, whose claim to fame, as Candace Owens pointed out, was refusing to go to school to protest Climate Change, was just awarded an honorary PhD in Theology from Helsinki University.

    This is why comedy is dying. Can’t compete with the news.

    —

    “Scientists warn Earth spinning faster than usual”

    Am I being paranoid or is this going to be the latest globalist salvo?

    https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/357471

    1

  28. Seb-

    No that’s not it. Can you think of any of the others if there are several on that theme. This is about the hapless husband, the critical father-in-law AND, the HUGE fireplace. I am pretty certain that there are none featuring a huge fireplace but this one only.

    The unveiling comes at the end with a CRASHING musical sound…. PRESTO. !!

  29. Seb-

    You certainly seem to be a movie buff. So I have a question for you. It’s been very frustrating to me. I saw a movie many years ago that I really liked. I’ve described it on the various internet “find the name of that movie” pages with no success. I want to describe it to you and you may succeed. I’d bet you’ve seen it.

    O.K. A just married young couple buy a house. They get an unexpected visitor, the girl’s father from Italy. He is a stonemason, and a self styled know everything sort. He is fat, very critical. The first thing he does is grunt st the house, and roll a bottle on the floor showing how badly is sags in one corner. He interferes with sarcastic remarks driving the husband crazy. He’s budding author who’s trying to complete a book.( I think he writes in a hut at the bottom of the garden.)

    Anyway, the father decides to make then a REAL gift. He strings a large sheet across the middle of the living room and gets to work behind it. Masses of dust drift around everything.

    At the end , he unveils his gift, …….a HUGE floor to ceiling ,wall to wall FIREPLACE of natural stone.

    You must have seen this movie It was in colour and possibly 60s/
    It isn’t the Mr. Blandings one.

  30. MICHAEL-

    I didn’t see much of Bob Newhart, In fact, although I may be wrong, he seemed to have a “nervous” delivery style. Maybe part of his schtik, and I may be thinking of another person altogether.

    I much prefer the “Yiddish” kind of comedians, the Potash and Perlmutter kind, as I grew up with with people who came from the Shtetl and spoke very much like those comedians I like. They actually, as well as being broadly funny, can be very subtle too.

    In fact, and no kidding, some of them, if they’d been in America could have made a very good living as comedians ,, as they were, every day unconsciously funny, both in their speech and what they said

    I recall vividly, and I’ve related it here before, a scene in the Jewish Men’s Club, where during an argument around the card table, between an older man, born in a shtetl, and a young man who, although born in Dublin, hardly ever went to school and grew up with both his Yiddish only parents..

    The older man …”Lissen to dot feller, vat kuddnet even shpoke prrraper, de Kenk’s English:.

    The waiter dropped his tray of pickled geef sandwiches, and was rolling on the carpet howling, and everyone else, including my late uncle, were hysterical with streaming tears .

    So perhaps you can understand my preference.

  32. @ Ted
    How in the world do you manage to manage all of this? Seems like it would be easier to herd cats.

    BTW, I like the extended editing time, too.

    1

  36. Sebastien One can only hope that whilst your tongue ? is ” stuck out” a honeybee ? flies by and stings it.

  37. SEBASTIEN-

    What’s that suppsed to mean. I merely asked you if you knew the name of the mediocre comic with the battere cornet.

    He actually could play well and had been in several bands.

  39. SEB.

    I forgot to mention that Shecky Greene was really a top example of a 2nd or 3rd rate comedian. He was funny

    , in a mediocre way, no personality appearance or drawing power. Rodney Dangerfield was in the same bracket for many years and rose to the top mostly by attrition.

    He was better than Shecky.

    By the way, who was the guy who always came onstage with a battered old cornet, which he occasionally blew raucously. His schtik. I see him in my mind’s eye but nor his name. I have had ideas but am not sure.

  41. SEB-

    Twain’s essay on Fenimore Cooper was brilliant, but as we knw, was highly exaggerated in his own particular style. You see no humour in it. I’m more than a bit shocked, a few years ago you would have. Why do you have to compare Orwell’s stuff to Twain, he was strictly a hunourist.

    To “highfalurin’ for me, and THAT is something that I hvae noticed for a good while creeping into your posts.

    Myron Cohen was a top linestand ypm comedian on a par with all the greats, Mson and others. He was so for over 20 years top billing everywhere.

    So….you don’t like his humour… 5 million Jews and innumerable Christians loved it, and made him a handsome living.

    As for your concept of “symbolism”…I say… shimbolsm , who cares. ??
    It was aTV show, concocted to MAKE MONEY. Whatever any viewers saw in it was in their own imaginations. If it was good for the show it made MORE money. They were just actors with learned scripts, expressions to order, and and movements controlled by a director. The cameras were there just out of sight of the finished product.

    This is what I mean by referring to your creeping REVERSE metamorphosis.

    Sorry…I’m sentimental, but a realist. I gave away my TV over 50 years ago, after and before that used it mainly for making boxing tapes, of which I have hundreds, maybe thousands, now likely all stuck together and unuseable…

    I see someone clicked an approval. Rare but appreciated.

    1

  42. @Sebastien
    @Honeybee
    Sticking your tongue out : 😛
    Type ‘&’ followed immediately by ‘#’ followed immediately by 128539 followed immediately by a semicolon

    I have to confess I don’t know the finger gestures, not even the thumb’s up or the A-OK formula

  43. @Peloni cc: Honeybee What’s the emoji formula for sticking your tongue out or giving someone the middle finger, please?

  46. Edgar Actually, I was. A lot of your references go past me, as well. For example, I thought the Twain on Cooper, written in 1895, which I got part way through, was brilliant analysis sounding a lot like Orwell’s 1946 essay, “Politics and the English language,” which I’m sure it influenced. But, humorous? And Myron Cohen. He just told jokes expressionlessly with poor timing and the jokes aren’t that funny. I never heard of him growing up. Or Shecky Greene, another one had never heard of before a black antisemite assumed that was my style.

    For the life of me, I can’t understand why you are missing the message of that scene from Kung Fu when it is so literally explicit. It’s the whole point of the scene!

    But, I was polite enough just to not respond.

    Ted: When can you remove the timer? Thoughts don’t come conveniently all at once.

  48. Seb-

    I know all about the TV series, I have watched it. One of the Carradines; shaven head trying to act as if he’s an acolyte of the “blind” monk.

    My opinion, based on the whole action, is that “grasshopper’ was an affectionate pet name from the master to the willing pupil. Nothing to do with wisdom.

    I’m sure you were not expecting me to know that your “grasshopper” was your attributing wisdom to me, It was too obviously from the TV show . Like calling someone “a young tiddler”. Patronising..

    I recall reading years ago that David Carradine died by suicide aomewhere in Thaiand.

  50. Kung Fu (tv series 1972-75) He is also searching for his American roots. This is the period when Alex Haley’s “Roots” came out and suddenly everybody wanted to explore their roots. These two shows transformed the culture.

    @Edgar In Vietnam, it’s the turtle. No relation to Dr. Steve.

    @Edgar You misunderstood my intended symbolism. Grasshopper is a traditional symbol of wisdom in China. The early 70s, Buddhist western miniseries about a half Chinese Shao Lin monk on the run from the emperor’s assassins who helps people in the old American West, is about half flashbacks to his childhood in the monastery. His master – whose murder at the hands of an aristocrat he later avenges – is a blind elderly monk who – in the scene where they meet after he was the only candidate who was accepted into the monastery – tells him to charge him with a stick bur he can’t touch him. Then he asks him what he perceives with his five senses and says, “Are you not even aware of the grasshopper at your feet?” And the boy is surprised as the grasshopper flies away. From then on, the old master called his talented pupil, “grasshopper”. A very famous bit. So, it symbolizes, at once, great wisdom, and great naivety as I was using it. I was merely teasing you, not insulting or shouting at you. Remember, my background is more in East Asian Buddhist and Hindu lore. Growing up, I knew next to nothing about Judaica apart from borscht belt comedians whose recordings I loved.

    @Edgar No, Chai don’t.