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 | 7,631 Comments »

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50 Comments / 7631 Comments

  1. @Sebastien

    Marx, Doesn’t credit Trotsky, strangely enough.

    I have to say that I found this quite amusing and the article quite interesting. You never fail to impress.

    @Reader
    You should read the article, aside from the humor Sebastien added, it is an interesting tell on a few things including sourcing as well as a lack of fidelity in recorded statements. It displays the great temptation for people to associate a known/current celebrity to add a measure of gravitas to a statement that really can just stand on its own with the actual author. It also demonstrates how history plays the child’s game of Operator when documentary evidence is cited or reproduced, something I spent a good bit of time in my younger years tracking down the best rendition of original sources of ancient records when the ancient records were lost to history so long ago.

    **The game of Operator is likely well known to all, but for those less familiar with it, one person whispers a statement to a second person who whispers it to a third and so on and so on thru the entire group til it is finally passed to the last person who reveals what he was told, and the final comment is too routinely twisted so far from the original that it sometimes is quite unrelated, sometimes.

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  2. @Reader The normal response would be “Marx? Marx would never say something like that!” But your unexpected response typified what I was parodying, this obsession with Trotsky to the point of inappropriately and anachronistically inserting him in nearly every conversation.

    It was GROUCHO Marx among others quoting Robert Benchley in 1920. At the time Bolshevik Revolution and Civil War? Riots and revolutions sweeping the globe. Hello? And many of his friends like Dorothy Parker were becoming Marxists. It was all the rage. No pun intended. Not like now when Marxists have to sneak in through the back door disguised as something else.

    There are 2 classes of people, those who divide people into 2 classes and those who don’t.

    !

    You actually didn’t notice that?

    I didn’t expect anybody to respond. I expected that to be obvious.

    Great Expectations.

    Actually you guys have been pretty good for a few days but I know Trotsky and the Russian Revolution will make a roaring comeback in some irrelevant and anachronistic context any day now.

    Looking forward to it.

  3. @Reader You missed the joke because you didn’t click on the link and read the article, just the beginning, actually. That’s what you get for commenting on a a comment on something you haven’t bothered to look at. Common enough. We have periodic nationwide riots here in America by people who can’t be bothered to wait for evidence to be presented and arguments made in a trial.

  4. @Sebastien Zorn

    Marx, Doesn’t credit Trotsky, strangely enough.

    Trotsky was not even 4 years old when Marx died.

  6. @Edgar
    Fair point. Compromised sources are compromised sources.

    My point was really related to the long treatise that was written by a (former ?) member of the Bellingcat community, Oleksiy Kusmenko, who is an avid researcher on the far right groups in Ukraine and has described how the Far Right have extended their reach into every unit of the Ukraine armed forces, something less well inclined to support British or American interests in a very big way, espicially during the ongoing test of wills between the West and Russia in the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. In any event, the toxic association must be considered somewhat toxic by any associated with it, as you suggest.

    Considering all of this, it is quite ironic that Bellingcat has been used as a high reference over the past years, as I have seen in reading articles over the past decade where the Bellingcat seal of approval on evidence was used as the true litmus test of truth telling in many East-West tales. I found an association of the founder with intelligence groups, which cause me some concerns, and then I read their position on the Scripal poisoning which I find quite amusing given what has been revealed on the subject. Then the Navalny poisoning. Then the Roman Abramovich poisoning. It strikes me funny that all of these people are supposedly targeted by Russia for certain death and yet they still aren’t dead, LOL. Of course many supposed victims of Russian poison are dead, but on whose word do we stand that these Russians are being poisoned by Russia? MI6? CIA? In the middle of a cold-gone-hot proxy war with Russia? Trust but verify is the phrase that comes to mind, of course, and that was the role played by the Bellingcat information-laundry, to provide the verification. Their stamp of approval does tell you something, but it is not that the info is verified accurate, but that the govt wishes you to accept it without question. Just further evidence that the Western institutions are ever presented as beyond hope of recovery…as if we needed any more evidence to support this well known fact.

  8. @SEBASTIEN_

    I believe that this has been tried more than once, and it seems to me that there was a rash of pregnancies about 35 years ago, and again a few years later. that there were complaints from many parents about their daughters’ becoming pregnant. I seem to recall -could be wrong- that the IDF arranged “abortion on demand kind of policy, perhaps for a while.

    Some years ago there were assessments of the performances of women in the IDF and they came a bad second to men. They were in tanks for a while until it was decided that the proximity of the sexes distracted both from full attention to emergencies etc. It may have been only an experiment of limited duration, I can’t recall.the details.

    There are some areas where women serve efficiently. I knew a woman IAF pilot, for instance. She was the first one in the service. a friend of my Tel Aviv. cousins..

  9. @PELONI-

    I could well believe that BellingCat might release anti-Govt information by govt instructions, just to create a little non homogeneity. When you think abut it, to have a totally acquiescent info bureau a kind of govt “yes’ man, can stir watchdogs, to naturally look around for something really harmful to govt.

    To find a govt outlet releasing anti-ga=oct info gives the public the feeling that their interests are being looked after.

    Just speculating, but I’ve known it to happen and I have a naturally suspicious mind..

  10. In the past many months, the mention of Bellingcat has been made on numerous threads here on Israpundit, many by myself, but by others as well. In looking into the claims over the years made by Bellingcat, it appeared to me that Bellingcat’s conclusions were too similarly associated with that of the the British govt. I read the assertion by many that Bellingat was actually a information outlet for MI6, which did make sense to me, particularly given their support of the govt narrative on the Scripal poisoning which is at best debatable and at worst a complete fraud, but Bellingcat asserts the govt view that it was unquestionably a Russian state opp.

    Recently, Max Blumenthal received some emails that demonstrate that he was to be the target of coordinated attack by a former Trotskyist and journalist, Paul Mason, and Amil Khan, a military contractor. In these emails they discuss their coordinated attack as follows:

    Together, Khan and Mason plotted to assemble a coalition of anti-Grayzone actors, including the US and UK government-funded “open source” outlet Bellingcat, which Mason revealingly described as a channel for “intel service input by proxy.”

    The defense offered by Mason was that the emails were “likely to be edited, distorted or fake”. The conditional qualifier of “likely” solidly refutes whatever strength in the excuse that follows, but the excuse that follows is actually three excuses, “edited, distorted or fake”. Anytime someone offers you multiple excuses, you should recognize that you are most likely being misled by someone who is poorly skilled at the task of misleading. Hence, this very strong absence of a clear denial that these emails are genuine leads me to clearly believe the emails are indeed quite genuine and there is no reason to disbelieve the statements about Bellingcat, as they were supportive of the manner in which Mason and Kahn were going to be attacking Blumenthal.

    Still, I found the revelations about Bellingcat far from shocking, and still believe now as I had formerly that the information that they share that is counter to the British govt narrative is likely accurate – why else would an organization funded by the British actually reveal info that is harmful to their paymasters if it weren’t true. Still the revelation is a welcome support of the view I developed of the Bellingcat organization as being quite compromised in favor of the British. It does appear that the US has a piece of the Bellingcat pie as well, so there is that. To his credit, I believe Reader mentioned something about this as well, so score again for good research to you Reader.

    Note to Bellingcat – you can fool some of the people all of the time, or all of the people some of the time, but you can’t go out and suggest that a fraud is definitely legitimate when it has been clearly exposed as fraudulent, without someone noticing your MI6 badge is showing. Don’t they teach these things in Spy School?

    Here is Blumenthal’s comments on the emails:
    https://thegrayzone.com/2022/06/07/paul-masons-covert-intelligence-grayzone/

    Here are the comments of Caitlin Johnstone more specifically on Bellingcat:
    https://consortiumnews.com/2022/06/09/caitlin-johnstone-paul-mason-says-bellingcat-launders-information-for-western-intelligence/

  15. Far-Left Soros-funded San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin has been RECALLED and ousted from office

  17. Sébastien: And here I was thinkin that the French invented Cheesecake. That you for the great information. We seem to be on the same site Jewish Learning. I missed that article. My favorite Cheesecake recipe is on the Honey Maid Graham Cracker box. I add a little lemon juice and zest. ” A woman is know for her Cheesecake” Ida Morgenstern.

  19. And the end for me was when they blamed the mass murder of Jews during the second intifada on Sharon setting foot on the Temple Mount with a security detail, in other words, on the Jews.

  20. Most leftists, everywhere – then and now- just want to use us. The beginning of the end for me was my shock at the liberal and leftwing -” Progressive” – community – including Jews marching in lickstep – typo, but I’ll leave it since it fits – taking sides against the Jews during the Crown Heights Pogrom and murder.

  22. Cheese cake ?
    Brooklyn-Style Cheesecake
    “This is the best cheesecake I’ve ever eaten” was the response of the first three taste-testers who sampled this cake; and it’s gone on to garner similar responses everywhere it’s served. A towering, rich cheesecake, it’s made with a unique vanilla cake crust, the idea for which was pioneered by Junior’s Restaurant in Brooklyn, NY, self-proclaimed creator of the “World’s Most Fabulous cheesecake” — and they might just be right. Our thanks to Junior’s for the cheesecake recipe that inspired this one.

    PREP
    25 mins
    BAKE
    1 hr 25 mins to 1 hr 35 mins
    TOTAL
    1 hr 50 mins
    YIELD
    one tall 9″ cheesecake
    Brooklyn-Style Cheesecake
    Ingredients
    Crust

    1/2 cup (60g) King Arthur Unbleached Cake Flour
    6 tablespoons (74g) granulated sugar, divided
    3/4 teaspoon baking powder
    1/4 teaspoon salt
    3 tablespoons (35g) vegetable oil or 3 tablespoons (43g) melted butter
    3 large eggs, separated
    1 teaspoon vanilla extract
    1/4 teaspoon cream of tartar
    *If you don’t have cake flour, use unbleached all-purpose flour, reducing the amount to 7 tablespoons (1/2 cup less 1 tablespoon).

    Filling

    four 8-ounce packages (907g) cream cheese, at room temperature
    1 2/3 cups (331g) granulated sugar
    1/4 cup (28g) cornstarch
    1 tablespoon (14g) vanilla extract
    2 large eggs, at room temperature
    3/4 cup (170g) heavy cream or whipping cream, at room temperature
    Instructions
    Preheat the oven to 350°F. Lightly grease a 9″ round springform pan or deep 9″ round removable-bottom pan. This cake is very tall, and requires an extra-deep pan. Measure your pan; if it’s not at least 2 3/4″ deep, don’t attempt this recipe. Wrap the bottom and sides of the pan with aluminum foil, preferably a single sheet.

    To make the crust: Place the flour, 2 tablespoons of the sugar, the baking powder, salt, vegetable oil or butter, 3 egg yolks, and vanilla into a large mixing bowl. Beat until well combined; the mixture will be stiff and somewhat crumbly.

    In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until they’re frothy. Add the remaining 4 tablespoons of sugar gradually, beating all the while, until the mixture is stiff and glossy.

    Working in thirds, mix the beaten egg whites into the batter. Take care to keep the batter light; mix gently, don’t beat. You may find at the end there are still some tiny lumps in the batter; that’s OK.

    Spoon the batter into the prepared pan. Bake for about 15 minutes, until the cake has risen, is barely beginning to brown, and a toothpick or thin paring knife inserted into the center comes out clean.

    Remove the cake from the oven, and immediately loosen the edges with a table knife or thin spatula. Allow it to cool in the pan while you make the filling. It’ll settle and shrink a bit as it cools; that’s OK. Leave the oven on.

    To make the filling: Place 8 ounces (1 package) of the room-temperature cream cheese, 1/3 cup of the sugar, and the cornstarch in a mixing bowl. Mix on low speed until smooth.

    Add the remaining cream cheese 8 ounces at a time, beating on low speed until smooth.

    Slowly beat in the remaining 1 1/3 cups sugar, and the vanilla.

    Add the eggs one at a time, beating well after each addition.

    Add the cream, beating just until blended.

    Spoon the batter over the cake in the pan. The filling will expand and rise, so make sure you don’t fill the pan right to the brim.

    Place the pan into a larger pan, and fill the larger pan with enough hot water to come 1″ up the sides of the springform pan. Place both pans on a lower-middle rack of your oven.

    Bake the cheesecake for 75 to 90 minutes, until the cake is just barely beginning to turn golden around the edges, and the top appears set. The center will still look jiggly; that’s OK. A thermometer inserted into the center should register about 160°F to 165°F.

    Remove the cake from the oven, and gently lift it out of the water bath onto a rack. Allow it to cool at room temperature, undisturbed, for 2 to 3 hours, until it’s no longer warm to the touch.

    Refrigerate the cake, covered, until you’re ready to serve it.

    To serve, slice with a knife dipped in hot water and wiped dry. Repeat this step after every slice. This cake is traditionally served without topping; but feel free to add your own favorite, if desired.

    Tips from our Bakers
    Want to make easy-to-serve cheesecake squares, rather than a traditional round cheesecake? Use your favorite graham cracker crust recipe; we like this one from our Chocolate Icebox Pie. Press the crust into the bottom of a lightly greased 9″ x 13″ pan, and bake it for about 10 minutes in a preheated 350°F oven, or until it’s barely starting to brown. Prepare the filling, and pour it over the crust. Bake as directed above, reducing the time to about 40 to 50 minutes, or until the crust is set. If you have a digital thermometer, the filling should register at least 160°F at the center of the pan. Remove the pan from the oven, and cool, chill, and serve the squares. Yield: about 2 dozen squares.

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  24. I think feminists should have a problem with the article title, “stacked jury acquits Hilary Clinton operative.” since it suggests in the crudest possible manner that not only was this person exonerated by an all female panel but by a generously endowed one.

  26. sabastian!!!!!!!!!! “Bees gotta swim, fish gotta fly, I gotta love one person ’til I die.”Bees are voluntary and wisely celebrate our celebrity. A bee needs a drone like a fish needs a bicycle.

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  30. I guess they’ll have to change the lyrics to that song from Showboat from

    “fish gotta gotta swim, birds gotta fly, I gotta love one man ’til I die.”

    to

    “Bees gotta swim, fish gotta fly, I gotta love one person ’til I die.”

    ?

  34. @Reader It’s always a mixture but you can’t discount the role of the inspiring stuff, too.

  35. @Sebastien Zorn

    You should distinguish between what the politicians say and what they actually do.

    In fact, things will be much easier to understand if you don’t listen at all to what they say and just keep watching and noting what they do.

    Of course, they didn’t do anything knowingly!

    Of course, they wished for Germany’s utter defeat, etc., and the USSR was their ally in the fight against Nazism!

    Of course, their hearts bled for the poor Jewsies but there was absolutely nothing they could do for them (which they could do for the non-Jewish refugees and almost a million of the German POWs).

    Of course, they only start wars to fight for our freedoms, liberty, democracy, human rights, and against the evil dictatorships of all kinds and the evil forces which seek to destroy freedom and democracy everywhere!

    Etc., etc., and so forth…

  38. @Sebastien Zorn

    Palestinian Authority Grabs More E1 Land

    YAWN…

    The true headline should have been:

    Israel Hands Over More of Its State Land to the PA Arabs in E1 Area Crucial to Israel In a War – WHY!?!?

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  40. @Reader

    the US will follow the Canadian example.

    When or if they try this, and well they might try it, they will find the task to be a bridge too far to reach, a river too wide to cross, and the greatest of mistakes in the long list of mistakes they have made thus far, of which there have been many. There are, in fact, few things that they might consider pursuing which will compare to the response they will elicit by this overstep.

    mistake they wish had not been attempted. This will be the required first step to cancel elections, and neither the first step, nor the second will be tolerated by the American people.

  41. Canada to cap the market for handguns with new law
    Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government has introduced legislation that would put a national freeze on importing, buying or selling handguns
    By Rob Gillies Associated Press
    May 30, 2022, 7:46 PM

    https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/handgun-freeze-key-feature-canadas-firearm-bill-85074812

    Trudeau says it is for freedom from the fear of gun violence.

    I am not into guns, I just think that it is remarkable, and that the US will follow the Canadian example.

  42. @Edgar How have you been getting deliveries from Walmart without a credit card and if you have been getting deliveries, why do you have to figure it out, this young whippersnapper from the American colonies would like to know? And, wait, Litvak? I thought you said your folks hailed from Latvia. Or did uou jyst live in a Litvak community in Dublin.

  44. If elections were held now, the right-wing bloc would, with Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party in the front, win 60 seats in the Israeli parliament, a new poll shows, Israel Hayom reported.

    -i24 news

    https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/israel/politics/1653217223-poll-likud-led-bloc-close-to-winning-majority-in-coming-election

    Israel ‘enthusiastic’ about restoring US aid to Palestinians: US official

    i24 news

    https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/1652960567-israel-enthusiastic-about-restoring-us-aid-to-palestinians-us-official

    “4,600 Gazans enter Israel, highest total at Erez Crossing in 15 years”

    https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/1652625000-4-600-gazans-enter-israel-highest-total-at-erez-crossing-in-15-years

    “Senior Fatah official calls Israel’s PM a ‘nazi’ like ‘Goebbels’

    https://www.i24news.tv/en/news/middle-east/palestinian-territories/1652621134-senior-fatah-official-calls-israel-s-pm-a-nazi-like-goebbels

  48. We have changes in agriculture and I mean intensive farming causing great problems, global warming , viruses issue, Inflation, Bidens total divisiveness, and abroad all out war with Russia,

    Meirsheimer has got to be right. Great powers will defend themselves

    The whole base of life is so shaky.

    Consequently no nation or people can find a haven.

    *****
    I see similarity between position of Israel and Russia

    Russia cannot have NATO on border

    Israel cannot have Palestine on its border

    And that is a huge and telling point to make. But can they ever make that point?