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"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
USAID workers in Kinshasa left cut off, burned overnight in a dangerous area, one U.S. official is pregnant. They are cutting off funds and computer access, government email to U.S. officials and agents in the field all over the world. Basically burning the diplomatic corps that’s legitimately stationed overseas. It’s beyond criminality, and it’s stupid too because it’s strategically important to carry out diplomatic relationships and funding to aid those in need. And in Kinshasa in particular, it opening a door for China to take the minerals that Elon wants to get his filthy hands on.
Posts: 2006
Joined: Jul. 12 2004
From: San Francisco
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to kitarist)
I don't think many Americans want to annex Canada. As my friend in Calgary told me when I visited him "You don't want to come here in the winter" I don't even want to go to far northern California in the winter. Flamenco guitar is hard enough without freezing hands. Maybe trump is trolling everyone with these outlandish statements. While everyone is focused on him talking about Canada, Greenland, and the Gulf of America(Ha), he slips through his real agenda.
OTOH, my friend who works at the Presidio of SF is very concerned, as trump has just ordered the presidio trust, the organization that manages it, to close. Pelosi gave the trust 200 million in Biden's inflation reduction act, which may have put a target on the organization. My company has done work there for over 25 years. I knew the party would end someday, but never expected it would be this way. Another reason to retire.
Mars, and space exploration past the solar system? Whenever people start talking about aliens and ufos I think about the speed of light and the distances it represents. Then I think that any life form with the brains to get here would take one look at us, and keep on moving. We may explore the solar system one day, but I think it ends there. Capt Kirk out!
quote:
ORIGINAL: kitarist
You can keep your South Canadian accent.
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RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to kitarist)
The U.S. isn’t going to try to annex Canada, trump is high on huffing farts out of Musk’s ass. It’s unlikely Trump will get the U.S. out of NATO because it requires an act of Congress which involves a bigger majority than 50% I can check, but I think it’s a 2/3’s majority vote and it’s not there. He also cannot send troops to Greenland without congressional approval of 60% or more. All this crap is the ranting cog an old weak man who gets his ideas and marching orders directly from Vladdy his daddy.
The Russians must have dirt on congress too, or who knows what perverse knowledge musk could have hacked out of the personal lives of congressional leaders.
The part that really angers me is that members of the Republican Party who will not stand up to him because they have death threats from Trump maga idiots is weak. Our grandfathers and grandmothers on both sides of the Atlantic stood in the way of live fire in battles in Europe to keep Europe free from tyrants, and these f&ckers won’t step out and save their own voters from these petty mafia thugs. Weak.
It’s infuriating to understand that the world went through so much trauma to keep a democratic experiment alive in a cross Atlantic relationship between allies and that these 💩 bastards from backwater red states can piss on it. Eventually when the histories are viewed by three or four generations down the line, whether we get out of this or not, the smart students will see this as a dark tunnel of ignorance, filth, criminality and all to cater to one imbeciles need for attention and golf courses.
My middle sister is a nurse at a hospital in Shasta county California, which is as cold as some parts of Canada. She works at a hospital where most patients are maga leaning. She says they come in with an attitude like, I hate that ‘n___er’ Obama and his Obama care crap. Then tells them, sometimes, that the Affordable Care Act coverage they have or Medicare, is Obama Care or a service of the liberal government’s work. She is a good nurse, a professional who is selfless when it comes to taking care of her patients, but she loathes some of them because they are so stupid.
Today via email we had to chat about a minor family favor I needed, I sent her some money to ship me something I needed. She’s the only sibling I can rely on, the other four are ridiculously unreliable 😆. She says they frustrate her too. My niece asked her ‘mom I know you want to shoot any maga person between the eyes when they hassle you at work, but what about your other sisters?” My niece knows I voted for Harris. My sister says “straight up I’d shoot my dumb sisters too.”
To which I said, Ok don’t shoot Aimee because she’s still useful and could be changed if she ever moves out of ( certain small town in Butte county California / maga counties both Shasta and Butte) but I says as for our other sister in Wisconsin, be my guest. We have another sister, but that’s a different story and I’m not sure if she even votes, she’s not worth shooting.
My mom is all ok you kids stop throwing food.
People think or are taught that California is full of movie stars and elitist snobs who want to tell you what to do and flaunt ‘woke’ in everyone’s faces, but it’s not like that at all. California on the East side of interstate 5 is like the Midwest, it’s conservative majority and votes republican, its farm country mainly, but the counties gladly take the funding from the west side of California if they need farm subsidies or grants to build a new city hall or community college. Agriculture makes billions, but the West coast transports it out to buyers all over the world. And the biggest market is the west coast. But the coast is mainly workers in construction, military industrial production, food services including grocery and shipping. In past years California made steel, 30 miles from the coast.
It’s not elite at all, it’s a huge diverse population of hard ass workers. Remember if the red states weak 💩 leadership tells you otherwise.
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to estebanana)
It is disheartening and disgusting to see Congress completely cowed in abdicating its responsibilities. Meanwhile, we cozy up to our chief European adversary Putin and condemn our European allies. I reckon NATO is almost useless now, thanks to the reversal in our national security policy. Never thought I would see the day when the US began dismantling the security and financial architecture we (with our British colleagues) established after the War that has served us well for 80 years.
There have been several books written about Americans no longer believing in experts and expertise. It seems that many Americans want to believe the drivel put out by charlatans, conspiracy theorists, and the like instead of people who really know their field. That is demonstrated in spades by the election of Trump, Trump won both the popular vote and the electoral college. But it was demonstrated by Biden as well, who was just as much a proponent of trade protectionism as Trump. Both Trump and Biden were against the Trans Pacific Partnership, a free trade agreement that would have been a venue for political as well as economic discussions and proposals. It would not be wrong to conclude that we are living in an age that puts a premium on ignorance.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to Estevan)
*removed original post*
Reply was for Bill. I'll add it later..wasn't anything, just another poem...this one by Dylan Thomas. Bill can probably already guess which one, so no need...
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to RobF)
Turning and turning in the widening gyre The falcon cannot hear the falconer; Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold; Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world, The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere The ceremony of innocence is drowned; The best lack all conviction, while the worst Are full of passionate intensity.
--William Butler Yeats
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to kitarist)
About suffering they were never wrong, The Old Masters: how well they understood Its human position; how it takes place While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along; How, when the aged are reverently, passionately waiting For the miraculous birth, there always must be Children who did not specially want it to happen, skating On a pond at the edge of the wood: They never forgot That even the dreadful martyrdom must run its course Anyhow in a corner, some untidy spot Where the dogs go on with their doggy life and the torturer's horse Scratches its innocent behind on a tree.
A. H. Auden
He wrote it after looking at a painting called the Fall of Icarus by a follower of Bruegel ( used to be attributed to Bruegel, but now considered a copy of a lost Bruegel)
Icarus is in the middle ground, fallen into the sea, his legs a sticking up. On the cliffs above sea peasants are working he land and paying no mind to Icarus who has crashed, we all know why, he flew to close to the sun and his wings melted.
I like this poem for a different reason than most, the point is that the people are indifferent to the suffering of others. I see it as schadenfreude for the fall of the tech bros. And a mighty fall will be a coming.
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to estebanana)
It's a brilliant poem. The human condition.
I used to get that feeling a lot when I was a kid. Generally when on my way somewhere, usually to school or back home, to face the music for whatever transgression I'd managed to pull off on that particular day. Whatever, there was the sense of impending doom and yet all those around me were living simple, carefree lives, and the birds and the trees certainly didn't give a sh*t. I remember the sense of isolation and the envy I'd feel for them (like the lyrics in the Nik Kershaw song "Wouldn't it be Good"). I think we all still get that feeling as adults when facing adversity. He captures it well (as does Nik Kershaw).
The broligarch/Icarus association is astute. Couldn't happen to a nicer bunch, that's for sure.
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to kitarist)
And it’s also a message that other than several million people in a few countries that the US has various partnerships with, history and the other billions on the planet politely yawn and cook potatoes when the subject of the rape of the U.S. government comes up, if it even crosses their minds.
The U.S. created the cursed techbro culture, maybe it’s sweet and fitting that we die by it.
Next Wilfred Owen, Dulce et decorum est pro pro patria mori-
It is sweet and fitting to die for your country, Roman army saying. After WWI Owen wrote a poem called by that saying, but added the line “Put to rest the old lie, … Dulce et decorum est pro patria mori “
The First World War was so horrible that it ended the gentleman’s hitch in the military as a young man’s season overseas to fight for the empire in some asymmetrical battles against uprisings in colonies. The war came to Europe and the British boys went to France and fought in trenches a few hundred yards from the Germans, who had the same aristocratic culture of the elite boys going to the colonies and playing soldier. World War One didn’t discriminate an elite face from a common face when the shrapnel ricocheted off tree stumps and broken walls to smash a man’s guts out. Owen came to write the line - Put to rest the old lie, to mean the end of the romantic culture of the wealthy cosplay at soldiering. And mount into that thought, the threat of silence that kills, gas.
There are newer lies that need to be put to rest, but like the great Bauhaus goth band song goes “Oh classic gentleman, say your prayers, to the winds of prostitution…”
We don’t read poetry as a culture any longer, and it’s a pity because those of us who still dabble in its hope are not the ones that should contemplate the double meanings, mirrors and metaphors. But those non self reflecting tech bros sure could use some poetics.
Posts: 3497
Joined: Jul. 12 2009
From: Washington, DC
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to estebanana)
Speaking of the First World War, there is no better book about its effect on the generation of soldier-poets and subsequent literary efforts than "The Great War and Modern Memory," by the social and literary critic Paul Fussell. Published in 1975, it holds its own today. Fussell focuses on four British literary figures who fought in the trenches in France: Edmund Blunden, Robert Graves, Wilfred Owen, and Siegfried Sassoon. He carries forward the war's effect on later literary figures as well. Another of Fussell's very good books is entitled "Abroad: British Literary Travel between the Wars." Actually, anything by Fussell is interesting.
Another very good book on the generation of soldier-poets and literary figures forged by the First World War is "Muse of Fire: World War One as Seen Through the Lives of the Soldier-Poets" by Michael Korda, just published last year. Korda is more tightly focused on the literary figures themselves, without going into the War's effect on subsequent literary efforts. Very good.
Bill
_____________________________
And the end of the fight is a tombstone white, With the name of the late deceased, And the epitaph drear, "A fool lies here, Who tried to hustle the East."
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to Ricardo)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Ricardo
quote:
ORIGINAL: estebanana
One last thing, in response to Ricardo’s quip about scientists wanting to get it on in space. I do know through extensive experimentation at engaging in acts of romantic sex that when you put on that Sade album or whomsoever you choose to get it up with, that lesser atmospheres are not as fun. Example, I’ve had lots of sex in swimming pools, hot springs and even the ocean and it’s not as good. The ocean is salty and offers a near neutral buoyancy environment for doing sexual activity which could work as a stand in environment for zero gravity sexual encounters. Let me tell you from vast experience that weightlessness during the act of copulation isn’t as good. Sex is hotter under the friction of gravity, Earth is the place for love.
Since you refuse to watch Ariel's video, etc., but continue to comment about space activity, let me say, there will be ZERO space activity by humans (unmodified humans that is) without artificial gravity....which if you watch expanse you realize there are several ways to deal with it, as it is necessary for any biological system that goes up there. That includes the biological activity in question, which is not the point of doing it up there in frustrating zero gravity...(also since you did not watch there is no such thing as zero gravity as she explains). But that is fine. Continue the political rants.
I had some time today and I thought, should watch that video about that woman talking mars journey that Ricardo posted. So I go over to to it on you tube and click the arrow.
THE VIDEO IS FREAKING 2 hours long! What were you thinking? I have the attention span of a flea. I’m not wasting two hours.
I’m going to find her name and read 25 minutes of a paper or interview with her. The fuvk Ricardo? Telling your buddy to get watch a two hour fuccking video and then getting frustrated because they didn’t watch it? I don’t even let my mother or my wife have two solid hours of my time.
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to kitarist)
I found out who the woman is in the video and found her operation at MIT. She’s into space architecture, I get it, we already have a couple commercial space architecture companies I’ve been following for years and of course I’ve known about this stuff since I was a teenager reading Freeman Dyson’s books about space buildings and cable structures into orbit.
I’m on board with all the lunar and near earth missions and architecture, if it’s a combination of wacky science, practical science/engineering and speculative science experimentation. Like all the principal investigators and staff should get their experimental freak on, and do all the space humping they want to do, but I’m still anti Mars until far into the future.
I’d like to see more non despotic conflict resolution on Earth before we get out over our skis in space that’s not near earth.
I found this page on the MIT site prefacing an essay and study room called ‘The Democratization of Space’ in a world citizen democracy of people rendering thoughts on how we go into space, I’d like my voice to count as one that says go forward not backwards, but poco a poco.
Let’s keep the moon in sight and make sure it’s democratized space and not any particular nations military outpost. Looking at you China.
Posts: 4530
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to estebanana)
I think US should own and colonize Gaza first, before heading to Mars or annex Canada. Gaza looks like Mars right now anyways. Donald should build fantastic casinos and golf resorts there, The Gaza Accords. Brilliant Idea. Its gonne be so great. The immigrants (legal and illegal), all leftists, unsubmissive wannabe republicans, all iranians except me, all guitar makers except Conde and mayyyybe andalusian guitars, plus the 2 million palestinians should all be deported to the moon by SpaceX, all problems solved..
Posts: 294
Joined: May 3 2017
From: Iraq, living in Germany
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to Arash)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Arash
I think US should own and colonize Gaza first, before heading to Mars or annex Canada. Gaza looks like Mars right now anyways. Donald should build fantastic casinos and golf resorts there, The Gaza Accords. Brilliant Idea. Its gonne be so great. The immigrants (legal and illegal), all leftists, unsubmissive wannabe republicans, all iranians except me, all guitar makers except Conde and mayyyybe andalusian guitars, plus the 2 million palestinians should all be deported to the moon by SpaceX, all problems solved..
didn't know that this forum was a place for spreading one's genocidal right-wing maniac mental diarrhea, but it seems I was mistaken... if you as an immigrant yourself living in germany are really serious about what you're blurting out right there then I'm really worried about your mental state.
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to jalalkun)
Don't worry, Jalal, I suspect he'll be sitting right beside us on our one-way flight to the Moon. But that's cool. Once we perfect our sun-focussing giant space mirrors we'll be able to remotely fry objects as small as ants on old Mother Earth. Who'll be laughing then? Bwaaah-hahahahaha!
Anyone else sick of the use of the word "democracy" to justify all sorts of atrocities and misdeeds? I'd prefer if we could settle on freedom from tyranny and state controlled violence. Heck, if we could have that I'd even settle for anarchy, as long as we could figure out how to have it in an orderly fashion.
Posts: 4530
Joined: Aug. 9 2006
From: Iran (living in Germany)
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to jalalkun)
I thought I'm for sure not the only one who can only deal with the craziness in current state of the world with extremely dark humour und over the top sarcasm, otherwise I might end up in depression. But seems like you guys have other methods coping with all that. Have fun with your serious political discussions, it will for sure be fruitful at the end , as usual
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to Arash)
quote:
ORIGINAL: Arash
I thought I'm for sure not the only one who can only deal with the craziness in current state of the world with extremely dark humour und over the top sarcasm, otherwise I might end up in depression. But seems like you guys have other methods coping with all that. Have fun with your serious political discussions, it will for sure be fruitful at the end , as usual
The difference is our humor is self deprecating and takes a try at finding some light in the confusion. Yours was sick and overburdened with sarcasm that’s not what anyone wants.
I live ins country that my country bombed into rubble and now we are allies and business partners despite our differences and lingering racism due to a few nationalist rubes on both sides. What I understand is that any relationship between peoples can be changed because my country perpetrated the crime of using an atomic weapon on a population and this relationship still blossomed.
Anything is still possible and in my head going to Mars is forestalling making the earth a blossoming tree, maybe we try the moon first? Maybe we say farewell to tyrants big and small?
RE: Mars, do we really need to go there? (in reply to BarkellWH)
quote:
The far right in Germany and France, both gaining strength, supports neither that I can see
If I'm not mistaken, the RN's position was to support arming Ukraine, with the exception of long-range missiles, which they believe could lead to escalation. On NATO, they want to withdraw from the Integrated Command. That would bring us back to the status quo prior to 2009, when Sarkozy overturned De Gaulle's decision to withdraw from the Integrated Command. Le Pen will probably be barred from running in the next elections, or she'll be in jail. Bardella, the likely runner-up, has said that no decision would be made on NATO until the war in Ukraine comes to an end. But that was a few months ago. Not sure what their position is today.
Personally, while not necessarily an advocate of leaving NATO, I am baffled at how our European leaders got caught with their pants down. Even if you leave every other trend out of it and only focus on Trump, the fact remains that he already had a first term, and any reasonable European leader should've at least built some robust contingency plans after his first term. "We didn't see this coming" is a sorry excuse for our leaders in Europe. To be fair, some of them did see it coming but quickly realized just how difficult it is to align geopolitical interests across the entire EU...
While I have a lot to criticize about the US's approach to international relations, my focus is more on how European leaders reacted. Most of what I have to criticize about the US falls under what historian Edward Luttwak called "the autism of great powers" (admittedly not a phrase we would use in polite discourse today), i.e. a lack of awareness that seems to beset all great powers and prevents them from perceiving many aspects of international relations that are very important to their less powerful interlocutors.
For those of us on the European left, it's a rather difficult situation to navigate. Siding with Ukraine while simultaneously being extremely critical of the very industries and policies that will inevitably get a boost if we really want to help Ukraine. Going along with a vision of international relations as driven primarily by national interests while simultaneously believing that the only possible outcome of that kind of IR is war. That's a critique I would make of every left-wing movement I've ever encountered: they tend to leave the specialized military discussions to the right or center. There was a lot of scholarly work back in the 80s and 90s taking a serious look at geostrategy from a left-wing perspective, but a lot of that was abandoned when the Cold War ended. I suppose they thought, as many did at the time, that this type of discussion would no longer be needed. The Fukuyama effect, as it were.
I can't speak much to the AfD's policies re:Ukraine and NATO. All I can say is that their electoral results show that there's a lot of truth to the concept of "phantom borders", a concept that was unsurprisingly introduced by German intellectuals ("Phantomgrenzen"). It's also a reminder that, while there are some similarities between countries, in the end a lot of it is specific to local situations. E.g. the US religious support to the far-right doesn't fit with the situation in Germany, where the more religious former West Germany was far less likely to support the far-right than the more atheistic former East Germany. Or in Spain, the fact that the issue that put Vox on the map was Catalunyan independence...
@Arash You're not the only one. To be fair though, that's a hard sell when we live in a world where actual fascists go around sieg heiling and then pass it off as a "joke". So, I guess the line is too blurry for comfort these days. My own group of friends seems to have naturally drifted away from that kind of humor over the last few months. I think that's understandable, all things considered.
_____________________________
"Anything you do can be fixed. What you cannot fix is the perfection of a blank page. What you cannot fix is that pristine, unsullied whiteness of a screen or a page with nothing on it—because there’s nothing there to fix."
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