It's so much simpler to surrender yourself to a belief system than it is to critically examine the world around you and life in general - be it a religion, a philosophy, ethical, or a socio-political system.

Note, I wrote "simpler," not "easier." Some systems require a great deal from their adherents and are far from "easy."

There is nothing *liberal* about the authoritarian socialists hiding under the banner, of Antifa, BLM, SPLC, most University administrations and to some extent the entire Democratic Party which has been hijacked by these goons.

The can call themselves what they wish, but need to be judged by their actions.

There are a lot of leftists murmuring platitudes of support, as they head down to the nearest gun store. This isn’t so much hypocrisy as a willful brainwashing induced by years of reading and believing the Washington Post and New York Times.
Never has there been a larger disconnect between what the monied classes profess to believe, and what they actually do.

The participation trophy kids have grown up. This is what they think being an adult means.

If you support peaceful protestors acting in accordance with their constitutional rights being shot with rubber bullets and tear gas canasters you are in support of authoritarianism.

This is not a difficult concept to understand.

We either believe constitutional protections apply to everyone or we do not... if you only believe they apply to people who think as you do, then you are on the wrong side of history.

What some folks seem to be getting upset about is they are starting to realize that they are not in the majority when it comes to voting anymore... the demographics have shifted from them and things are going to change in a way they do not like.

It will take time for them to come to terms with all of this.

Thomas Sowell discusses the "tragic vision" which recognizes that we are all flawed as humans, all have sinned, all can be idiots, all have committed crimes. That civilization is a grand achievement, fragile and worth preserving even if imperfect. Every revolution claims to be about freedom and justice and light but too often turns into horror. People should read about the aftermath of the french revolution, where tens of thousands were killed--not just the nobility--where churches were defaced and art destroyed. These rioters today want to destroy. The idea that if you destroy the old system a new one will be automatically born is simply lunacy. The result of this destruction would be chaos and out of chaos you get dictators who kill ruthlessly. At CHAZ in Seattle they already have their first dictator (a rapper) and armed guards. The white people rioting are claiming to be oppressed but they are only oppressed by their own ignorance. That is why they tear down statues honoring freed slaves who fought for the Union. Lincoln freed the slaves but he is no longer good enough. There is binary thinking. The Left also continues to believe that blacks do not commit more crimes or that they only do so because of oppression.They seriously believe that if you ban police crime will stop. This is crazytown. In Baltimore after Freddie Gray died and the police were pulled back, murders went up--more than doubled. When police were pulled back in Chicago in 2018 the murder rate spiked.

Artemis says if you support peaceful protestors being shot with teargas then you support authoritarianism. Since most of the riots started off as peaceful protests that ended with burning down 150 structures in Minneapolis and cops getting killed, and since there were curfews in place where teargas was used to break up the pattern, what exactly would artemis have preferred police do?

cc Asks:

"what exactly would artemis have preferred police do?"

To intervene if/when there is violence present and not engage in preemptive strikes on peaceful protests.

That is the same for any police intervention. I don't want an officer of the law arresting you because they think you might break a traffic law at some point in the future... first you break the law then you are arrested.

Justification of pre-crime is a hallmark of authoritarianism.

The idea that if you destroy the old system a new one will be automatically born.... ~ cc at June 15, 2020 1:50 PM

Not just a new system, but a better one; that the existing system is so irredeemable that anything arising from its burned-out corpse simply must be better.

They seriously believe that if you ban police crime will stop. ~ cc at June 15, 2020 1:50 PM

This is the same logic that believes banning drugs will end drug use and banning guns will end gun violence. Backwards logic: eliminate the effect and the cause will disappear.

Since most of the riots started off as peaceful protests.... ~ cc at June 15, 2020 1:50 PM

Peaceful, law-abiding protestors should be left alone. Rioters and looters should be subject to such crowd-control measures as the police deem necessary.

That a protest might turn riotous is no reason to implement escalated crowd-control measures before it actually does so.

That a protest might turn riotous is no reason to implement escalated crowd-control measures before it actually does so.

Conan the Grammarian at June 15, 2020 2:38 PM

My experience is having those assets on hand, and in force is what keeps a peaceful protest from turning into a riot.

But agree on the tear gas and rubber bullets. Those should not be deployed until the protestors actually charge the police lines, or start throwing rocks.

Of course the situation gets more complicated when you have protestors and counter protestors. Especially when it is the politicians themselves who create a situation to encourage a riot.

Isab Says:

"My experience is having those assets on hand, and in force is what keeps a peaceful protest from turning into a riot."

This is a double edged sword.

If you unnecessarily escalate violence on a crowd of peaceful protesters you can convert it into a riot by virtue of assaulting law abiding citizens.

Not every officer I have observed in the video evidence shows the kind of self-discipline and restraint required to properly handle these situations.

I do not want riots and I do not want police riots.

People should be striving to keep things calm while also creating the conditions conducive for people to peaceably assemble and voice their grievances.

My experience is having those assets on hand, and in force is what keeps a peaceful protest from turning into a riot. ~ Isab at June 15, 2020 3:01 PM

I agree. Having assets pre-deployed saves time. If a riot breaks out, you don't want the police having to send back to headquarters for the riot gear to be unpacked and brought forward while the rioters are getting a head start on the looting and burning.

An initial show of force can go a long way to convincing those up to no good to change their minds - witness the Rooftop Koreans during the LA riots. And the "Ay-Rabs" who kept this woman at bay.

I can smell the BS dripping from this page.

Gee, how wonderful that we've all agreed that singing "Give peace a chance" doesn't merit police action.

Now why do you have any doubt whatsoever that some people show up just to loot and burn? It wasn't decided at the scene, but beforehand.

Feel free to explain how police are the reason Uncle Gus's bookstore, and a 90-year-old artist's studio were torched in Minneapolis.

Or the looting of a Walmart. The looters don't give a damn about you. Don't pretend they're engaged in some magical social contract.

People who have been given a check for years have had it proven to them that you didn't earn anything you have. Why NOT burn your shit?

Protests? These today are just instant gratification, the shouting of a defiant "I Matter" in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. Slavery? None of these people mind that it goes on today, and they'll beat you for suggesting that the whiter a nation is, the more heinous slavery is considered. Oppressed? White man keeping you down? Why don't you ask that Native American over there being ignored about that. Can't get a job? Why is it that Carlos over there came a thousand miles on foot and you, "protester", won't get on a BUS for the same job?

Bah.

Radwaste,

Do you believe in the 1st amendment or not?

Freedom comes with some level of risk that some proportion of the population will abuse that freedom.

The only way to have a free society is to take action in response to the abuse of those freedoms and not to respond in anticipation of abuse.

That is how people justify striping people of their freedoms and is the path toward a police state.

I have watched for years as folks here constantly complained and worried about authoritarianism.

Attacking peaceful protestors because you suspect some unknown proportion of them might be up to no good... is the behavior of a two bit totalitarian regime.

It seems like many folks are driven by fear and as a result want to strike out at anything they do not like.

Democracy is not for the feint of heart.

Artemis: "What some folks seem to be getting upset about is they are starting to realize that they are not in the majority when it comes to voting anymore... the demographics have shifted from them and things are going to change in a way they do not like.

It will take time for them to come to terms with all of this."

I actually agree with you Arty - for years we've had either a Democrat (HUGE government supporter) or a Republican (not HUGE, but still BIG government supporter) elected as President.

And then along comes Trump who totally upsets the apple cart, delivers most of what he promised, people of all backgrounds voted for and support him; and you're right in that the "majority" who have been in power and expected that us "little people" will just do their bidding. Well, the little people are not going along with them any more.

So, they have tried for three years to accuse Trump of all sorts of garbage - and have failed. And, now they are using "useful idiots" to try a violent revolution. It is just causing more, not less, support for Trump. So, yes you are right; it will take them some time to come to terms with their lose.

> The only way to have a free society

Dood, you're from CHINA. You don't know anything about "free society"... Your culture will put up with anything, as long as your oppressor can pretend of have some kind of authority.

(I'll post a link to the full lecture a little later on… it's very interesting.)

Listening to Orion talk about freedom is like listening to an eleven-year-old brag about his erotic technique.

The big show.

Hard to know, I'm not on the ground. My hometown of Boston had riots one night, a Sunday.

My protesting friends in Boston say the violence didn't start until the police started boxing everyone in and closing escape routes, and the MBTA shut down.

My parents say the next day everything was boarded up and there were tanks, and police everywhere with machine guns, and there were no riots or looters, only peaceful protests after that.

So I don't know.

I do know that the Black Block smashers "les casseurs" they get called here have been around much longer in Europe, I remember them from the WTO protests in the late 90s/00 already.

Seems like the US kinda went through a golden age where protests were a fun family activity, and that ended around the time Trump was elected. The Women's Marches were the first I saw the Black Block taking over.

As for changing demographics, my guess is in a generation or two the Hispanics will be assimilated into the White mainstream, like the Italians have been. No one's going to care your grandfather was from El Salvador.

...as long as your oppressor can pretend of have some kind of authority. ~ Crid at June 15, 2020 9:01 PM

It's called "tien-ming" or "the Mandate of Heaven." The ruler has divine sanction to rule as long as he can:

1. maintain internal order
2. protect the country from outside invaders

Too many rulers focused on those parts and not on the underlying principle that the Confucian "Mandate of Heaven" requires the ruler to put the welfare of the people before his own. Like the "divine right of kings," rulers too often focus on what's in it for them and forget the responsibility to the people part of the equation.

Unlike the "divine right of kings," the "mandate" does not confer an absolute right to rule and did not require the ruler to be of noble birth or have any sort of dynastic lineage at all. Under the Confucian concept of the "mandate," the people have the right to rebel against an unjust ruler even if rebellion is against the law.

Conan, you are the best.

Crid,

That's enough of your nonsense... did one of your caretakers in the old age home forget to give you your meds again?

Charles,

If what you said is what you really believe I suspect you are going to be extremely upset over the decades to come.

Demographics are destiny. People under the age of 40 do not agree with your perspective. Each and every year that goes by the number of people who are in your camp politically dwindle.

The writing is on the wall and instead of trying to reach out and understand what is going on you are going to plant your feet.

I wish you luck with that.

“Demographics are destiny. People under the age of 40 do not agree with your perspective. Each and every year that goes by the number of people who are in your camp politically dwindle.”

In Charles’s defense, this is almost *exactly* what the socialists were saying in the 1970’s. Fortunately a lot of them grew up.

The Democratic Party unwittingly seems quite busy scaring responsible people into voting republican.

The permanent majority the socialists thought they were going to be able to take and hold has proven elusive for at least the last forty years,
The electoral college is a big obstacle. A national popular vote is much easier to hijack.

Also many of the blue states are going to run out of money rather quickly, while the red states are drastically cutting their budgets to stay solvent.

Most socialist schemes rely on buckets of other people’s money to rig elections, and pay off their supporters, This whole COVID panic has kinda backfired on them in the worst ways. Now even BLM is agitating against public employee’s unions.

And when you get to be 60, your perspective might change, especially if you are living in the authoritarian socialist hell hole, you so fervently desire now ( and not quite in the position of social dominance you imagine yourself holding in your new utopia)

Let's keep in mind that people under 40 do not stay under 40. Young people with few assets and no children gain both over time.

"A man who views the world the same at fifty as he did at twenty has wasted thirty years of his life." ~ Muhammad Ali

Isab,

McCarthyism isn't some new tactic.

It is simply a scare tactic that avoids the work associated with real policy discussions.

It is an empty and meaningless rhetorical device.

The overwhelming majority of people of all ages in the united states are not for "socialism"... in the sense that they aren't for government control of all aspects of our society and economy.

We are a mixed economy... we have always been a mixed economy.

The real discussions to be had are what aspects of our society should be handled by free market economics and which parts should not.

People are extremists when they feel all parts should be handled at one end of that spectrum.

Rational and thoughtful voters consider each situation on a case by case basis and evaluate according to the item under discussion.

Rational and thoughtful voters consider each situation on a case by case basis and evaluate according to the item under discussion.

Artemis at June 16, 2020 10:28 AM

Those people who are capable of balancing ten or more competing interests in their lives and voting accordingly in a winner takes all election, where the candidate you agree with most is usually not even on the final ballot is a tiny fraction of the electorate.

Most of your political representatives have been bought and paid for by people who do not share your interests.

Your incredible naïveté is showing again.

Oh Arty! How can you say that "The writing is on the wall and instead of trying to reach out and understand what is going on you are going to plant your feet."

What I said was: yes, things have changed by electing Trump and it is others who have firmly planted their feet and refused to reach out to understand why/how Trump won.

Just look at how blacks who openly support Republicans are treated! Just look at how those in power have treated those who openly support Trump by calling them all sorts of nasty names!

Continue with your head buried in the sand and call others ignorant - it is YOU who will be upset and continue to belittle others to make yourself feel better. My god, you're a sad little creature.

I am sorry that I responded to you - you're now like that pile of dog crap I stepped in and cannot get scrapped off the bottom of my shoe. The smell just lingers!

Isab,

As usual you are all over the place.

First you were talking about wide swaths of society being socialists and talking about the entire electorate.

Now you are talking about political representatives only.

As per your point here:

"Most of your political representatives have been bought and paid for by people who do not share your interests."

This I agree with and it has been demonstrated to be true by careful analysis.

You are still wrong about vast swaths of folks being "socialists" though.

They simply disagree with you on one policy position or another and instead of addressing the merits or flaws in the policy position you resort to just calling it "socialist" as a rhetorical scare tactic.

Deal with the facts and we will all be better off.

Charles,

You can stomp your feet all you like, it isn't going to change reality or the future.

You aren't a victim here and neither is Trump.

You can choose to spend the rest of your life bitter and angry, or you can understand that times change.

Charles,

Also... I never called you or anyone else ignorant.

I didn't even use that word, nor did I belittle you.

Go ahead and show me where I called you ignorant, I'll wait.

What I have noticed on this forum is that the people most likely to toss out insults are also the people most likely to imagine someone insulted them first.

“Demographics are destiny.”

The man from a country with the most grievously and violently torturous sex ratio on the planet wants to yammer about demographics.

Crid,

Something is seriously wrong with you.

Every argument you make relies upon your own made up bull shit about me being from another country.

Did you contract syphilis from licking public toilets?

No, you're not American, or you'd say so. You'd say where you live, where you were raised, what you do for a living, and you'd have shared all that information freely over the last six years. You're obviously on the outside, desperate to be regarded as an equal… But you're not.

The Third World attitude toward the United States is also easy to understand if you think of it in terms of adolescence. The citizens of the Third World are in a teenage muddle about us--full of envy, imitation, anger and blind puppy love. I have been held at gunpoint by a Shi'ite youth in West Beirut who told me in one breath that America was "pig Satan devil" and that he planned to go to dental school in Dearborn as soon as he got his green card. In Ulundi, in Zululand, I talked to a young man who, as usual, blamed apartheid on the United States. However, he had just visited the U.S. with a church group and also told me, "Everything is so wonderful there. The race relations are so good. And everyone is rich." Just what part of America had he visited, I asked. "The South Side of Chicago," he said.

We are a beautiful twenty-year-old woman and they are a wildly infatuated thirteen-year-old boy. They think of us every moment of the day and we take no notice of them whatsoever. If they can't have a chance to love us, a chance to pester us will do--by becoming "Communists," for example. Anything for attention.

PS- Darth's the same way, only about California.

"Do you believe in the 1st amendment or not?"

Well, as usual, you've made up something and wasted several people's time addressing that.

You're so self-absorbed that you haven't noticed that you have no rights in the absence of order.

When you show you have been... outdoors - I won't insist on knowing that you've even kissed an icky girl or engaged in some kind of confrontational exercise - maybe you could show you've been there.

Not so far.

Meanwhile, I fret that you may venture outside, to where someone might be short with you. You might be physically damaged in excess of the amount necessary to show you that platitudes are useless, keep THOSE to yourself.

You're gonna be hit with a brick if you go {to riot location}, however it starts. Be sure to exclaim your solidarity with those bricking you, looting and burning as 1st Amendment speech.

Crid Says:

"No, you're not American, or you'd say so. You'd say where you live, where you were raised, what you do for a living, and you'd have shared all that information freely over the last six years. You're obviously on the outside, desperate to be regarded as an equal… But you're not."

Take your Gestapo "let me see your papers" nonsense somewhere else you deranged syphilitic rodent.

This is the internet Crid… I don't know where any of you live or where any of you were raised or what any of you do for a living.

I also don't care because I'm not some uptight HOA busybody who needs to up in everyone's business.

Don't you have a neighbor whose lawn you need to put under a microscope so you can harangue them if it is the wrong shade of green?

Fuck off with your stupidity already... no one cares.

But Kitten… You ARE "up in everybody's business," even if you composed the sentence incorrectly. HOA's insist on unit ownership, but you got nuthin'.

You're so badly behaved because you're not part of this culture, no matter how desperately you want to be.

Amy's blog has always attracted wannabes from around the world, visitors who mistake American courtesy as fellowship… But they oughtn't.

Pinch their noses, corral them on buses, whatever… China is all about infantile servility.

Crid,

I think I understand what has your panties in a wad.

For years the only way you have been able to achieve an erection is by thinking about "misbehaved" members of society having their airway restricted... and it turns out you have recently discovered that the rest of civilized society actually frowns on that kind of thing.

Too bad, you will have to find a new antisocial manner by which to get your rocks off.

If you want to be dominated there are people you can pay for that kind of thing.

Is there anyone here you haven't ridiculed? Has anyone affirmed your desiccated, fact- & feeling-free "positions" on any two topics in row?

I think you're in English classes in Nanjing or something, and are being given extra credit for practicing idioms and our national temperament, the core of which remain well outside your perception. Your insults have become more vulgar since the days of "You don't say nice things about others," but not more pointed. The comfortable vernacular and shades of meaning which could them life remain invisible to you.

You can't be bothered to cook up a convincing American personality for a school project, especially when the required independence and introspection is precisely antithetical to your national character. (I didn't want to use the word "Confucian" without a refresher at the bookshelves… Though of course, it's been on everyone's mind for months, if not for the last five years. But Conan does his homework, and knew precisely what I was getting at.)

We're well beyond autism here: You meant to grow up like this.

Crid,

Why do you expect to be able to dish out insults without being insulted in return?

That is the principle question here.

I *never* initiate a negative interaction with anyone here.

This is how you approached me in this thread:

"...is like listening to an eleven-year-old brag about his erotic technique."

But then you whine and cry without end when you are treated in kind.

Get over yourself you entitled thin skinned little brat.

Treat people with respect and you will be treated with respect in return.

This isn't a challenging concept for mature adults to understand.

This stuff isn't even human… You don't share at all. You're not trying to persuade anyone of anything, you're just practicing mechanical engagement with Americans, probably for class credit.

Crid,

I don't know if you noticed, but almost no one on this site can be persuaded of anything.

~120,000 dead Americans hasn't persuaded even one Trump sycophant on this blog to so much as flinch in their support.

Nothing I could ever say would be more powerful than ~120,000 dead people.

People whose mental state is that ossified are completely beyond the reach of facts, evidence, or logic.

I just come here for fun now.

I anticipate some people will have a mental break down in less than a year since they will rapidly realize that society has moved on without them.

"just for fun now"?

I anticipate some people will have a mental break down in less than a year since they will rapidly realize that society has moved on without them.

Artemis at June 16, 2020 6:00 PM

A lot more people are going to have a mental breakdown when Trump is re-elected.

No real American actually worries about “society moving on without them” We aren’t part of the Borg collective here.

Crid,

A long time ago this blog hosted a wide variety of people with differing perspectives and was a fruitful place for intelligent discussion.

That is no longer the case because of folks such as yourself.

It has since devolved into a festering echo chamber of folks who have all of their information injected into their brains by the likes of Alex Jones and Dennis Prager.

Not a unique or interesting thought to be shared.

This is why I can so confidently show up, highlight the importance of *not* shooting peaceful protestors in the face and expect to find people defending that nonsense.

Few if anyone here actually has any real principles. It is just shifting sand so the goal posts can naturally move where they need to be located at any particular moment.

Such an environment is not fertile ground for persuasion because the conclusions are already baked in and any disconfirming evidence is dismissed without so much as a twinge of mental discomfort.

I might as well try persuading folks at a white supremacist rally that they aren't actually part of the "master race".

As the saying goes:

"You cannot reason someone out of something he or she was not reasoned into."

Go ahead though, prove me wrong.

Show me an instance where you held one position in a thread and on the basis of the ongoing discussion you changed your mind and let everyone know you were in error.

I'll wait...

Isab,

Do me a favor and define for everyone exactly what you mean by "real American" as opposed to an American who isn't "real"?

Isab,

Also... if you followed my comment on June 16, 2020 6:00 PM you would realize I was only discussing folks on this blog.

As a result your response doesn't make any coherent logical sense.

You think there is going to be some massive wave of people on this blog having a mental breakdown if Trump is re-elected???

Who exactly are all of these people?

You for example cannot even seem to fathom the possibility of him losing (hence why you use the word "when").

You are one of the people I am worried about because your entire perspective doesn't appear to be based on facts or reality.

You strike me as very similar to all the folks who couldn't even imagine the possibility of Hillary losing... I told them they were wrong then and I am telling you that you are wrong now.

That possibility is very real and you would be well off to come to terms with than ahead of time.

> Few if anyone here actually
> has any real principles.

You sound like a freshman from the farmland at a party at State U, hitting on a podiatrist's daughter in the kitchen, trying to feign sophistication through a dark persona. In a moment you're going to absentmindedly lean on the stove and set your denim jacket on fire, and she's going to go walk back out into the living room and hang out with cheerful people, ones less inclined to puerile pedantry.

(Also, "Few if anyone" is extremely awkward, almost as if you aren't a native English speaker.)

If you want to describe how your specific passage through the world has informed your ideas about our topics — as Sullivan's experiences in Britain and United States so famously and directly affirm his own — well, that might be interesting.

But you have no apparent experience with freedom, democracy, demographics, American politics, or restraining drunks on planes, and have obviously made no scholarly reading of such things.

Your pomposity earns our most heartfelt scorn… You just do not know.

China, right? I knew it.

That possibility is very real and you would be well off to come to terms with than ahead of time.

Artemis at June 16, 2020 7:47 PM

It doesn’t even occur to you that most people over the age of thirty have no emotional investment in politics at all.

I do not hang on the results, cry for the losers or cheer for the winners. I will be mildly disappointed if Trump doesn’t win, mostly because of the incredible corruption and incompetence of Joe Biden and his Chinese connections.
Sane people do not let politics control their emotional or psychiatric well being.

So don’t worry about me, cupcake. I’ll be fine whichever way it goes.

Where exactly is it that peaceful protestors were shot? I must have missed that coverage. I haven’t even seen any rioters being shot. You know Artemis, it might benefit you to read the WHOLE article when when reading the NYT, not just the tweets or the headlines. They usually provide the actual truth and context towards the bottom. I know that bc I do read it. Along with the Wall Street Journal, The Telegraph, The London Times, City Journal, Quillet, National Review and variety of other sources. Nobody out here links to Alex Jones except Patrick, and he hasn’t done that in a long time. My guess is that you get your info from social media which is why all of your arguments sound like meme cards and lack nuance.

Where exactly is it that peaceful protestors were shot? I must have missed that coverage. ~ Sheep Mom at June 17, 2020 5:36 AM

And who here advocated, supported, or defended the shooting and gassing of peaceful protestors?

Albuquerque, for which I required spellcheck, two or three days ago. It was protestors shooting each other, and there's been an arrest. A mob was pulling down a statue when it happened. There are smartphone vids from at least two angles, which I don't have the heart to find again and link. The vids are damning.

> My guess is that you get your info
> from social media

Does anybody remember commenter LTW? Or all those people from Canada who used to come to this blog to explain to us how America really works? They're obnoxious, and they couldn't be any more pathetic.

An alternative explanation might be that they're obnoxious, and they couldn't be any more pathetic.

I can't quote PJ twice in one comment stack.

Yes, I can.

"We are a beautiful twenty-year-old woman and they are a wildly infatuated thirteen-year-old boy. They think of us every moment of the day and we take no notice of them whatsoever."

— P.J. O'Rourke

…But to be clear, across my lifetime, the United States has accepted more immigrants than all the rest of the nations on this planet put together. So if you're not here already, you probably just don't have the balls. Or the clarity.

So you wanna live like an American, but can't make the Big Step? No one's stopping you from making those same efforts in your own little country.

Well, actually, everyone's going to try to stop you, including the people who tell you they love you the most, but that's not the problem of the Americans who visit Amy's blog.

> It doesn’t even occur to you that
> most people over the age of thirty
> have no emotional investment in
> politics at all.

That's certainly been the pattern in America. There's been money to earn (gold in the streets), a dream to fulfill (mid-century modern on a hill overlooking a lake), and tail to chase (tail).

In many of the places where spiritless people pretend to cluck at the United States this year, those aspirations were never available to the young.

Albuquerque, for which I required spellcheck, two or three days ago. It was protestors shooting each other, and there's been an arrest. A mob was pulling down a statue when it happened. There are smartphone vids from at least two angles, which I don't have the heart to find again and link. The vids are damning.

Crid at June 17, 2020 8:03 AM

Actually it was one guy shooting one of a group of four or five people who had chased him down yelling “we are going to kill you” .

And the guy who got shot had pulled a knife.

Doesn’t quite fit my definition of *the authorities* shooting peaceful protesters.

Surprisingly, there are a fair number of songs about Albequerque, most of them fairly unimaginatively named:

• "Point Me in the Direction of Albuquerque" by the Patridge Family
• "Albequerque" by "Weird Al" Yankovic
• "Albequerque" by Chuck Mead
• "Albequerque" by Neil Young
• "The Lights of Albuquerque" by Pat Duran

The television show, In Plain Sight, was set and filmed in Albequerque.

I guess at some point in time, the city captured the imagination of the artsy set.

Wrong thread. Sorry.

Nope. Right thread. Never post before your first cup of coffee. And always have coffee early.

> You are one of the people
> I am worried about

— Artemis at June 16, 2020 7:47 PM

That's easily the deepest reach into the Partridge catalog this blog has ever seen.

I though Chichi Rodriguez or Lee Trevino or somebody was from Albequerque. (Fuckit, I won't let the browser correct that.)

The Unsers.

Isab Says:

"Sane people do not let politics control their emotional or psychiatric well being."

I agree with you... I just don't believe your behavior here over the years suggests you are all that mentally stable.

You still bitch and moan about Hillary Clinton four years after she lost.

A sane person would not do this.

Sheep Mom Says:

"Where exactly is it that peaceful protestors were shot? I must have missed that coverage. I haven’t even seen any rioters being shot. You know Artemis, it might benefit you to read the WHOLE article when when reading the NYT, not just the tweets or the headlines. They usually provide the actual truth and context towards the bottom."

If you are unaware of the event in question why assume that I am obtaining my information from a particular source or that I am misrepresenting it?

The appropriate thing to do would simply me to ask for the evidence justifying that claim.

Where were peaceful protestors shot with rubber bullets and tear gas canasters?... Lafayette square in Washington DC.

You don't need to read tweets or news paper articles about what happened, you can actually watch the video footage yourself.

> You still bitch and moan
> about Hillary Clinton

What do you care? You're not from America, and you don't live here. There's no reason to be concerned with what your opinion of who we bitch and moan about.

I'm guessing things in your community are a shitbath, and you're powerless or too cowardly to improve them.

Crid,

If you have to constantly resort to making things up and lying it only indicates what a shitty human being you are.

You are literally having a conversation with me about your own hallucinations... you need mental help.

Crid,

Out of curiosity, did you learn your rhetorical tactics from propaganda techniques such as this one:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_lie

You are in no position to talk about freedom or American values when you choose to follow the philosophy of "If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it."

No, you've never said you were from America, because you're not. You've presumably never visited.

Nothing that happens on this blog, or within the thoughts of its readers, is any of your concern.

You have no business here; nothing to offer, nothing to take away.

Amy will let you read it; Americans are generous that way.

But your opinions and perceptions carry no weight… Zilch-a-mundo. Certainly less than those of Europeans or other Western or westernized cultures.

Honey, enjoying a Stones albums doesn't mean you sing like Jagger.

You're afraid to share your heritage, as you ought to be. It certainly didn't bring Wikipedia to the world, nor did it bring us the interesting sociological ideas within the online encyclopidia.

Crid Says:

"No, you've never said you were from America, because you're not. You've presumably never visited."

You've never said you weren't a pedophile... so presumably you rape small children on a regular basis.

If you can understand why such a statement is logically flawed you can understand why your own thinking is logically flawed.

It isn't valid to make factual claims about people on the basis of information not provided.

You can whine and cry all day and night... but at the end of the day my opinion and my perception carries exactly the same weight as your own at the voting booth.

I'm not a pedophile.

Are you American? It's not a complicated question.

Or are you just desperate not to answer in plain language?

After six years, your evasive obfuscations are a roar.

I was born and raised in America and have assets there in case anyone needs to know that in assessing any future arguments I make about America.

Crid Says:

"I'm not a pedophile."

Unfortunately that statement isn't useful yet.

You've never said you were an honest individual who never lies... so presumably you are a dishonest person who does lie.

As a result I cannot trust that you aren't a pedophile.

Whatever hellhole you're living in, you'd love West Los Angeles this morning. The June Gloom is slowly burning off into a painterly mist over the coast… Nothing like Lotusland in late spring to make you feel alive.

You're ashamed. We get it.

You're a wheelchair kid in Mom's basement in Shenyang. Someone told you you were good at languages, so you're practicing.

A failure of integrity profoundly diminishes your study.

Crid,

You've also never said that your primary source of income isn't from turning tricks for your local homeless population... so presumably you earn your keep 50 cents at a time by providing blow jobs to the less fortunate.

The point I am trying to drive at here is that your method of interacting with people lends itself to making up all kinds of baseless accusations.

How about you stick to the facts?

If you do not know where I am from it is sufficient to declare that you don't know... it is stupid to suddenly declare I am from China or anywhere else because of a lack of knowledge.

You might as well claim I am a visitor from the far future sent here on a time traveling mission to observe idiots like you on the ancient internet.

After all, I never said when I was born... so presumably I could have been born in the year 5000.

Crid,

We get it, you are a dishonest liar who rapes small children for fun and earns a living by sucking off the local homeless population for pocket change.

See how easy it is to just say things based on a lack of facts and evidence?

Any intelligent person understands that the kind of rhetoric you are engaging in is dishonest and stupid.

You're so desperate to hide your origins you'll say the most outrageous, hurtful anonymous things you can think of rather than admit you're not American: It would still be be less obscene to you than the truth. This will be the first time I've quoted a passage thrice:

They think of us every moment of the day and we take no notice of them whatsoever. If they can't have a chance to love us, a chance to pester us will do--by becoming "Communists," for example. Anything for attention. — PJ

Emphasis: Cridmo

Crid,

I'm not desperate to hide anything... I just see no relevance in the discussions we are having.

You just have a serious problem with the word "no" and you throw a temper tantrum any time you hear it or its equivalent.

What is plainly obvious is that you never advanced beyond the terrible two's stage of maturation.

This is the internet Crid… anonymity is often the name of the game here. Get used to it.

Crid,

Also... exactly what level of stupid have you attained to assert that someone is looking for attention by *not* talking about themselves?

What kind of twisted moron says something that deranged.

Someone who doesn't make conversations about them is by definition someone who isn't attention seeking.

Ponder that for a few months, get a tutor if you need to, but it will help with your personal growth.

Have you ever touched a black person?

Crid,

Please read the following quote and carefully:

"Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people." - Eleanor Roosevelt

Now ask yourself the following question... Why do you always insist on talking about people and avoid discussions about ideas?

One "idea" is that you have no experience of the world.

Have you ever looked a Jewish person in the eye?

Kissed a girl?

Carried a specialty license?

Subdued a drunkard?

Hitchhiked out of your own region?

Held a job?

Been to a college campus?

Taken relatives out to dinner?

Repaired an automobile?

Crid,

An idea about a person is still discussing a person.

You cannot effectively talk your way around this with such a stupid trick.

Your entire existence is focused on discussing people. It is time to move beyond this small minded way of viewing everything around you.

Let's try it... put forth an idea unrelated to any specific person. Go ahead, take your time, let's see if you can do it.

Jeez, you haven't done ANY of those things?


Ever fly in an airplane?

Ever go to another country?

Ever make friends with a foreigner visiting downtown, sharing a coffee or a sandwich at a diner?

Ever have a pen pal overseas?

Ever organize your family's photos?

Ever ride a motorcycle?

Ever buy some old furniture for the fun of repairing it?

Ever get a bill or charge corrected from an out-of-town bank or financial company?

Ever get called for jury duty? (Does that happen where you are?) (Never mind 😊)

Has anyone ever admired you, even a naive child?

Crid,

If you approach a woman for sex and she turns away from you and walks in the other direction... does that mean she agreed to your proposition?

Nothing? You haven't done ANY of those things?

Crid,

Have you stopped masturbating in public?

Crid,

Have you stopped masturbating in public?

Ever vote?

Ever been on a factory floor?

Do you have a library card?

Ever throw someone a birthday party?

Ever been to a professional sports contest?

Ever been to an extended family reunion?

Ever been in a casino?

Ever camp out, well away from home or a city, for a least a night and a day?

Ever help a friend's kids through the divorce of the parents?

Crid,

You really don't seem to be understanding and you are clearly obsessed.

Let's solve this using a capitalist mindset.

You have a demand for answers and I have a supply.

You have asked a total of 29 questions in the last ~6 hours.

I'll be happy to answer them all if you make it worth my while.

If you are willing to make a financial donation to the ACLU in the sum of $58,000 (rated at $2,000 per question... but this is a package deal)… and provide me with an independent means to verity that this donation was made... I will be happy to answer those 29 questions.

If you are unwilling to do this then just stfu already because you are boring me.

Worried about your credibility, kid. You begin with comments about "acting in accordance with their constitutional rights."

Do you have constitutional rights? From which country?

Would those answers not affect the timbre of your opinion? Are you afraid of being judged by them?

Like I said, this has happened on this blog a lot. Eventually the ninnies always crawl away with shame…

You'll understand when you're older. But you don't seem to have had any of the experiences or relationships to indicate that your beliefs have been tested. So why do you deserve attention?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhetorical_question

Artemis, Since possibly English isn’t your first language, or because you have a learning disability that prevents your from understanding both nuance, subtext and concepts that aren’t concrete, I thought this might help.

You might find this helpful as well.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Subtext

Crid,

As expected... all smoke, no fire.

You've been here six years. Can you recall an occasion when you've conceded that a counterpart has successfully made a point?

Isab,

I'm not inclined to take advice from you on any subject as you have already identified yourself as someone lacking sanity.

I present the following evidence:

"Sane people do not let politics control their emotional or psychiatric well being." - Isab at June 16, 2020 9:37 PM

However, previously you have stated the following:

"Oh, and did I mention? Really liking the part where Hillary isn’t President.
I’ve had a schadenboner about that for the last three years and a half years, but who’s counting?" - Isab at April 21, 2020 11:36 AM

As you have already indicated, a sane person would not have such an emotional response to a failed political candidate from nearly 4 years ago.

That is a hallmark of an emotionally unstable individual by your own admission.

Crid,

You've been here ~20 years... can you please provide a link when you've conceded that a counterpart successfully made a point?

As for me, I can prove I have done so in this very conversation:

""Most of your political representatives have been bought and paid for by people who do not share your interests."
This I agree with and it has been demonstrated to be true by careful analysis." - Artemis at June 16, 2020 11:12 AM

When people make valid and reasonable points I agree without reservation and without holding grudges.

It has gotten to the point Crid that I could tell you that the earth was spherical and you'd bitch and moan that I couldn't possibly know that because I never said I was born on the earth.

That is the difference between you and I... I am concerned with ideas, truth, and facts... you are concerned with trying to drive people away from this blog until you are the only one left like this is some bizarre highlander fantasy of yours (there can only be one!!!).

I've got news for you, if you end up being the only one left, there is no prize for you.

This is starting to feel like those list of get-to-know you questions one sometimes sees on FB.

Have you ever touched a black person?
Yes
Have you ever looked a Jewish person in the eye?
Yes
Kissed a girl?
Yes
Carried a specialty license?
No
Subdued a drunkard?
No. Sounds dangerous.
Hitchhiked out of your own region?
I've not hitchhiked from my region to another one but I've hitchhiked within other regions.
Held a job?
Yes
Been to a college campus?
Yes
Taken relatives out to dinner?
Yes
Repaired an automobile?
No. I occasionally learn to jump start but then I forget until next time.
Ever fly in an airplane?
Yes
Ever go to another country?
Yes
Ever make friends with a foreigner visiting downtown, sharing a coffee or a sandwich at a diner?
Yes
Ever have a pen pal overseas?
Yes
Ever organize your family's photos?
Yes
Ever ride a motorcycle?
On the back, hugging the driver. I've driven a moped. It ended badly, with two surgeries.
Ever buy some old furniture for the fun of repairing it?
Yes
Ever get a bill or charge corrected from an out-of-town bank or financial company?
I don't think so.
Ever get called for jury duty?
Yes and it came at just the right time, I needed a break from work.
Has anyone ever admired you, even a naive child?
Yes
Ever vote?
Yes
Ever been on a factory floor?
No. But I visited a museum where you can see the factory floor.
Do you have a library card?
Somewhere...
Ever throw someone a birthday party?
Yes, I'm pretty good at this.
Ever been to a professional sports contest?
Yes. Dull things.
Ever been to an extended family reunion?
Yes
Ever been in a casino?
Yes
Ever camp out, well away from home or a city, for a least a night and a day?
Yes
Ever help a friend's kids through the divorce of the parents?
No, my friends haven't started divorcing yet.

Let's hear everyone else!

Have you ever touched a black person?

Yes. Kissed one actually. Hot guy, good friend. USMA class of 78, could sing Gospel like an Angel. He was from California, and his mother was 14 when he was born.

Have you ever looked a Jewish person in the eye?
Yes. My grandmother was Jewish. I also was a token gentile at a very Jewish law school in New York City. Met some amazing people including a grand master chess player.

Kissed a girl?
Not that I recall. But lots of men.

Carried a specialty license?
Concealed carry Permit?

Subdued a drunkard?
No. But my first job in College was bar tending at my uncle’s bar

Hitchhiked out of your own region?
Not hitch hiked at all, but have ridden horses thirty miles or more in a single day a few times.

Held a job?
Many. Some more interesting than others.

Been to a college campus?
Many. Northwestern in Evanston Illinois was the most beautiful.

Taken relatives out to dinner?
Of course, all the time. I cook too.

Repaired an automobile?
I can do the easy stuff. But fixed a commercial espresso machine with an electrical problem a few days ago.

Ever fly in an airplane?
Way too often. Most scary, a C-130 which got hit by lightening over the Mediterranean. Lost an engine. We had to make an emergency landing at Sigonelli naval air station.

Ever go to another country?
Yes ten years of my life have been lived in Germany and Japan.

Ever make friends with a foreigner visiting downtown, sharing a coffee or a sandwich at a diner?
No, but I’ve taught a lot of people including complete strangers to shoot.

Ever have a pen pal overseas?
No. My only pen pal as a child lived in Winnemucca Nevada.

Ever organize your family's photos?
Too ADD for that. But I have framed a few.

Ever ride a motorcycle?
Father bought us a Honda 90 when I was 12. Then the law changed so you had to be 16 to ride alone so he sold it. But we had some fun with it one summer.

Ever buy some old furniture for the fun of repairing it?
No. Never had to. Plenty of it around in the relatives barns and garages.
Had a neighbor whose hobby was printing on those old style ink plate 19th century presses. It was fascinating to me as a child, and probably gave me an early appreciation for how stuff works.

Ever get a bill or charge corrected from an out-of-town bank or financial company?
Yes.

Ever get called for jury duty?
Yes. Federal case. My husband was Foreman for a murder trial once. That was even more interesting.

Has anyone ever admired you, even a naive child?
I was a Rodeo Queen. So I’m sure they did for all the wrong reasons.

Ever vote?
Almost every election.

Ever been on a factory floor?
No. Toured a brewery and looked down on the bottling operation. But I’ve herded cattle.

Do you have a library card?
Yes, but it seems a bit useless these days.

Ever throw someone a birthday party?
Yes. A Baskin Robbins ice cream cake is the best solution but I can bake a decent cake as well.

Ever been to a professional sports contest?
Used to watch spring training games in Arizona with my grandfather. I’ve seen Willie Mays, Willie McCovey, Gaylord Perry, and Leo Durocher in person.

Ever been to an extended family reunion?
Yes and I wish I could go back in time, and ask more questions of the relatives long dead now.

Ever been in a casino?
Yes, but I don’t gamble much Won a jackpot playing bingo in Reno when I was 21.

Ever camp out, well away from home or a city, for a least a night and a day?
Yea. The Army is big on that. You would have to pay me now to sleep on the ground, or it would need to be World War III.

Ever help a friend's kids through the divorce of the parents?
Once. it was a mess. I’ve also had kids live with me temporarily while their parents were behaving badly.

NicoleK Says:

"This is starting to feel like those list of get-to-know you questions one sometimes sees on FB."

You mean the ones that scammers use to scrape personal information for the purposes of identity theft?

https://krebsonsecurity.com/2018/04/dont-give-away-historic-details-about-yourself/

You are well advised not to respond to those surveys.

Have you ever touched a black person?
Y
Have you ever looked a Jewish person in the eye?
Y
Kissed a girl?
Y
Carried a specialty license?
(Fishing, Scuba certs, etc.)
Subdued a drunkard?
Y
Hitchhiked out of your own region?
Y
Held a job?
Y
Been to a college campus?
Y
Taken relatives out to dinner?
Y
Repaired an automobile?
N
Ever fly in an airplane?
Y
Ever go to another country?
Y
Ever make friends with a foreigner visiting downtown, sharing a coffee or a sandwich at a diner?
Y
Ever have a pen pal overseas?
Y
Ever organize your family's photos?
Y
Ever ride a motorcycle?
Y
Ever buy some old furniture for the fun of repairing it?
N
Ever get a bill or charge corrected from an out-of-town bank or financial company?
Y
Ever get called for jury duty?
Y
Has anyone ever admired you, even a naive child?
Y
Ever vote?
Y
Ever been on a factory floor?
Y
Do you have a library card?
Y (Mult)
Ever throw someone a birthday party?
?
Ever been to a professional sports contest?
Y
Ever been to an extended family reunion?
Y
Ever been in a casino?
Y
Ever camp out, well away from home or a city, for a least a night and a day?
Y
Ever help a friend's kids through the divorce of the parents?
Y

So, I need to do furniture and birthdays. (I dislike celebrating the passage of time, which never takes notice.)

Crid,

That is unfortunate as of all of your listed questions the birthday one was one of the few that related to doing something for someone else's benefit... if was one of the only things that wasn't self-focused and it is the only one you mention specifically not doing because *you* don't like celebrating the passage of time.

Throwing a birthday party for someone else isn't about you though... it is about doing something selfless out of care for another human being.

It also suggests you've never raised a child because there is no way in hell they would let you get away with that nonsense for the entirety of their childhood.

On that note, let's ask a slightly different question... did anyone ever throw a birthday party for you?... I assume your parents did when you were little, but maybe they simply told you that they don't like celebrating the passage of time.

For the record, I've kissed two black guys m'self this year, and I don't even like fellas… Longtime friends, parting evermore. (No tongue, but one of 'em made a reach for boobies.) When you're sixty+ you kiss whoever you want and nobody says shit.

And Nik, if jumping batteries is auto repair, that's a Y.

Perhaps for visitors from some corners of our planet (ahem), being identified through internet connections for interaction with particular ethnicities is indeed a security hazard. But it's remarkable that such people would be spending time here on our hostess Amy's site anyway.

Orion, we get it: You're a frightened kid, and your feelings are hurt.

Have you ever touched a black person?
Never without their consent.

Have you ever looked a Jewish person in the eye?
Yes

Kissed a girl?
Married for nearly 20 years, so yes

Carried a specialty license?
Ham radio, real estate, and concealed carry

Subdued a drunkard?
Confronted a few, even had one wave a gun in my general direction

Hitchhiked out of your own region?
Never hitchhiked

Held a job?
Several

Been to a college campus?
Hold a graduate degree, so 2 as a student. 3 as a tourist.

Taken relatives out to dinner?
Yes

Repaired an automobile?
I used to do points and plugs and other maintenance with my father on the old family wagon. I've bled the master cylinder on my car and other maintenance tasks. I used to install stereos in cars for friends. Don't do any of that on my latest cars - engines are no longer shade-tree friendly.

Ever fly in an airplane?
Yes. I used to be a consultant and flew all over. My first airline trip was when I was 10 years old.

Ever go to another country?
Does Canada count? St. Thomas, USVI is a US territory, but feels like a foreign country.

Ever make friends with a foreigner visiting downtown, sharing a coffee or a sandwich at a diner?
Yes

Ever have a pen pal overseas?
No. Never had a pen pal.

Ever organize your family's photos?
One of my hobbies is photography, so I've organized my own photos many times. The family ones I inherited are still in a box.

Ever ride a motorcycle?
Only as a passenger

Ever buy some old furniture for the fun of repairing it?
Not for the "fun" of repairing it, but to restore it and keep it.

Ever get a bill or charge corrected from an out-of-town bank or financial company?
Yes

Ever get called for jury duty?
Far too many times - 8 times in 10 years in 4 counties in 3 states.

Has anyone ever admired you, even a naive child?
I'd like to think so.

Ever vote?
In every presidential election since Reagan's first term.

Ever been on a factory floor?
Yes. Visited a welding shop and a brewery as an undergrad for class projects. Never worked on a factory floor, but I have relatives who have.

Do you have a library card?
Not any more - had one as a child and a teenager. I like to keep the books I read and the library frowns on that.

Ever throw someone a birthday party?
Birthday no. Bachelor yes.

Ever been to a professional sports contest?
Chicago Cubs (MLB), SF Giants (MLB), Oakland A's (MLB), Jacksonville Bulls (USFL), Jacksonville Firebirds (AFA), Tallahassee Tiger Sharks (ECHL), 24 Hours of Daytona, and TPC Sawgrass (PGA).

Ever been to an extended family reunion?
Yes - on both sides of my family

Ever been in a casino?
Yes

Ever camp out, well away from home or a city, for a least a night and a day?
Eagle Scout - so, yes. Hiked a leg of the Appalachian Trail while in Scouts. Camped on the infield at Daytona International Speedway with a couple of friends at the 24 Hours of Daytona.

Ever help a friend's kids through the divorce of the parents?
Fortunately, I've never had to.

Crid,

I was providing helpful advice not to respond to such surveys on social media.

Your questions are mostly superficial nonsense that I don't believe deserves serious consideration.

They lack sufficient depth to have any meaning.

Allow me to explain in terms I hope you can appreciate.

What do you suppose Derek Chauvin's answer would be to the following question:

"Have you ever touched a black person?"

His answer would certainly be yes... but what meaning does that have?... he snuffed out a black persons life by crushing neck for over 8 minutes.

Your question makes absolutely no distinction between touch that was violent and callous and touch that was caring and helpful.

It's just a box to check off that in your estimation then says something meaningful about a person.

However that question context free is completely meaningless.

The same goes for this question:

"Have you ever looked a Jewish person in the eye?"

There are lots of people who have looked a Jewish person in the eye... just before they did something horrible and unforgivable to them.

Your questions do not get to the heart of any meaningful human experience... they aren't designed to capture such things.

You are just as able to check off these boxes if you are a monster as you are if you are a caring person concerned about your fellow human beings.

Crid,

Good grief... did this nonsense work for you when you were 12 trying to get someone to smoke a cigarette because they were "afraid" and "everyone was doing it"?

As I said... you are very much bothered by the word no.

My first airline trip was when I was 10 years old. ~ Conan the Grammarian at June 18, 2020 12:48 PM

It was an Eastern Airlines flight with my father. I still have the plastic wings the stewardess gave me.

Before de-regulation (1978), airplane travel was a luxury. The old brands were about that - PanAm, TWA, Eastern, etc. Today, airplane travel is not far enough removed from livestock transport.

While there are definite societal benefits from making air travel universal, I can't help but think society loses something every time we make former luxuries universal.

Life in self-proclaimed egalitarian societies tends to be drab and dull gray. Life in capitalist societies may be "unequal" but it does tend to have color.

Conan,

Airline travel today is more cramped precisely because of a capitalist profit motive... it didn't get that way because of egalitarian principles.

The more folks that get crammed on a plane the more money is made.

The Concorde was extremely luxurious for example, and it failed precisely because it wasn't making money.

If you want more luxury in your flight you can always purchase 1st class or business class accommodations. No one is stopping you from doing this.

I suspect what you are observing it what occurs when a society becomes so very unequal that the luxury is more or less completely cut off from general society entirely.

Very wealthy folks just own or charter private jets now, which didn't happen so frequently 40 years ago.

> Airline travel today is more
> cramped precisely because

Have you ever been on an airplane? Even a commie one?

“Before de-regulation (1978), airplane travel was a luxury. The old brands were about that - PanAm, TWA, Eastern, etc. Today, airplane travel is not far enough removed from livestock transport.”

All depends on your point of view. My father didn’t get on a plane from 1945 until sometime in the 70’s.

I think he would really appreciate the 12 hour flight to Tokyo with a comfy seat, movies, drinks, food and a toilet which beats the hell out of a troop ship thru a typhoon in the Pacific, or an unpressurized B-17 with a heated flight suit.

Watching an average of one plane a day crash and burn on the runway in the Pacific didn’t help either.

My uncle didn’t fly much either after 35 missions over Europe as a ball turret gunner. ( 83 percent casualty rate for those guys)

Crid,

Nothing you say is worthy of serious response.

Conan could be talking about a clogged toilet... I could suggest using a particular brand of plunger... and you would chime in asking if I've ever had a bowel movement.

This is the behavior of a narcissistic idiot.

I don't care about your self indulgent questions.

Say something with more depth than the film of scum on the unwashed dishes in your sink and maybe you'll get something approximating a conversation.

So, we're talking about our experiences on airplanes, and those of our families, but you've never been on one.

I may have misused the term "luxury." Artie is equating it to a private jet. What he doesn't understand is that first class today buys you what a regular ticket bought you then. Flights served full meals, provided magazines, served drinks, provided warm towels, and offered legroom - to all passengers.

Airline travel was within reach of Artie's "general society" even then.

As for the suggestion to buy a first class ticket if I want luxury, I'm not lamenting the lack of luxury in my life, but the creeping gray sameness on the edges of our society today.

Forcing some political movement's notion of equality on society is not the answer. Societies that insist on enforcing egalitarianism don't bring "the general society" up. They push it down into homogeneity, into a drab sameness.

"The Revolution of Lowered Expectations had triumphed. By 1984 nobody in the country had any higher expectations than a feudal serf." ~ Robert Anton Wilson

Conan,

Flights also used to allow people to smoke on them (I certainly wouldn't call that luxury and in my opinion it is an improvement that this is no longer permitted).

None of that really cuts to the core of your original argument.

You posited that the cramped space on planes and reduction in overall quality of the flight experience was in some sense the fault of egalitarian principles.

That had nothing to do with it though. Airlines make more profit by cramming as many folks in as possible and reducing services. That is a capitalist mindset changing things in a manner you do not like.

If you want those services you must pay more for them and get upgraded seats.

I'm not defending the practice, just saying that the cause isn't egalitarian values.

> Societies that insist on enforcing
> egalitarianism don't bring "the
> general society" up. They push it
> down into homogeneity, into a drab
> sameness.

✔

It calls to mind a woman I knew a few years ago, in a department at work adjacent to my own. Perfectly lovely, but she felt everyone should be working in identical conditions: No one should have a stronger PC config, or a better connections to the networks, or a desk with more privacy, or a preferred day off or any of the other trivial distinctions which accrue between workers as they settle into their performance and make themselves known.

It took me awhile to figure out how it happened, and obviously it doesn't happen to everyone of her background— Her parents were Army, and she'd done a long stint in one of the services as well. "G.I." was to her the quintessential righteousness of her life choices, and not just the administrative injunction from a nation at war years ago: You will be issued precisely these blessings, because you are not special.

…But if you've ever had a job, you know that some people are in fact special, and deserve a little extra juice. You might even be special yourself.



They let her go in a bloodletting a few years later. I think she sued, but doubt it went anywhere.

> in my opinion it is an improvement
> that this is no longer permitted

Did you ever smoke on a flight?

Crid,

What about the following statement:

"I certainly wouldn't call that luxury and in my opinion it is an improvement that this is no longer permitted."

Is confusing for you with regard to my opinion about smoking on flights?

Are you able to logically infer anything at all from those words?

What do you believe my opinion of smoking is in general based on that statement, let alone on flights?

I don't care about your opinions: I'm asking if you've ever been on airplane.

Crid,

And I don't care about your inane mindless questions... I suppose we are at an impasse.

When you demonstrate the ability to ask interesting questions I might care to answer.

The Concorde was extremely luxurious for example, and it failed precisely because it wasn't making money. ~ Artemis at June 18, 2020 2:19 PM

Au contraire mon bete. The Concorde remained a profitable plane to operate, despite its rising operating costs.

The Concorde first flew in 1976 and was very innovative for its time. Most of what made it innovative, however, is now standard equipment on modern planes.

The fleet of Concordes remained in service for 27 years, retiring in 2003. That's old in plane years. Most airlines operate a plane for 25-30 years with a 4-5 year warranty, after which the airline takes over the maintenance costs. So, any incremental improvements to the plane, if a PMA/DER manufacturer for the parts could even be found, would be short-lived.

It was not an efficient plane to operate. The design hit the drawing boards in 1969, so it pre-dated the oil crisis of the '70s. With no concerns for fuel efficiency in its design, it gulped fuel. In fact, it took as much fuel to operate the 100-passenger Concorde as it did the 400-passenger Boeing 747. In addition, the 747 had greater range, able to reach the US West Coast from London, a flight the Concorde did not have the legs to make. The 747s range is just short of 8,500 miles while the Concorde maxed out at a tad over 4,500 miles.

With that short range and the loud noise a supersonic plane makes, the Concorde had a limited deployability - it was deployable on really only one route. In contrast, a 747 or an A380 (range ≈9,500 miles) could be deployed on multiple routes and could be moved to different routes as needed, making either a much more versatile part of a fleet.

The Concorde was a more expensive plane to crew as well, being the only plane left in the BA and AF fleets by the '80s that still required a flight engineer.

The Concorde's operational airspeed was 1,354 mph (Mach 2.04). Compare that to the 747's downright pokey 614 mph. Isab's father, in his B-17 would have been hauling ass at 287 mph.

With its supersonic speed, the Concorde remained profitable, being able to command high ticket prices for a trip across the Atlantic in half the time any other passenger aircraft capable of making the trip could manage.

The crash of Air France Flight 4590 did have a negative impact on ticket sales, along with 9/11, but ticket sales remained healthy enough to keep the plane profitable.

Only Air France and British Airways were willing to deploy the aircraft in 1976, meaning the British and French governments had to subsidize the cost of its development.

In short, logistics and economics killed Concorde. It simply did not meet the dynamic needs of a modern air fleet operator. Purchasing new 747s or A380s made more sense than keeping the aging Concorde flying.

Today, at least two faster designs are on the drawing boards. Lockheed and NASA are working on one while Richard Branson and Boom are working on another.

Conan Says:

"In short, logistics and economics killed Concorde."

In other words... it failed because it wasn't able to make money.

Um, Artie, What part of "it was profitable" in any way indicates it "wasn't able to make money?"

Conan,

You did take the time to write out several paragraphs so I don't want to be overly dismissive.

At the same time I don't feel inclined to invest tons of time correcting you on the factual inaccuracies of your statement because you have a tendency to ignore such things.

As a result I will offer the following middle ground. Here is a documentary video on some of the reasons the Concorde failed:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iBqoYPRd7qY

I'll point you to time stamp 2:57 where they directly indicate that during the 70's when oil prices sky rocketed, the plane itself was deemed to "not be viable" from an economic perspective. The reason it was such an oil hog was because it achieved supersonic flight via use of afterburners, which just eat up fuel like you wouldn't believe (future generations of potential supersonic aircraft will likely not be so bad because they will use something like a scram jet design which can deal with super sonic air flows)

It was simply too sensitive to prevailing market conditions because the ticket prices were already so high and it ran so inefficiently.

Time stamp 3:25... the buyers considered it to be a plane that ran at a loss... so almost everyone canceled their orders.

In total 12 planes were operated for ~25 years... this is not something to be considered an economic success from the perspective of the manufacturer.

There was simply not enough demand for such a plane to make it profitable and no additional orders were ever placed.

All of this was prior to Flight 4590.

As a final note, don't even bother to care about anything I have to say (I know it goes in one ear and out the other anyway)… and focus on the first lines of the following document:

http://www.concordesst.com/retire/faq_r.html

"Why is Concorde being retired?
It is all down to cost: the Airlines are not making back the money spent on the safety modifications and other upgrades."

Why was it retired?... the airlines were not making back their money associated with the cost of upkeeping the planes.

In other words... it was running a loss and wasn't able to make money.

Conan,

I don't recall saying it *never* made any money.

I said it failed because it wasn't making money... which is a factual statement.

The fleet was retired because the maintenance and upgrade costs exceeded any profits from running the fleet.

Conan,

Here is another direct quote:

"The costs of operating Concorde, and in particular maintenance and support, have become such that operations are unrealistic for any operator."

It was too expensive to run and so they were scrapped.

If the Concorde was making money hand over fist the operational costs would not be of concern.

The costs of operation at the end meant the airlines were running them at a loss, so they stopped running them altogether.

Again... it failed because it wasn't making money.

I said it failed because it wasn't making money... which is a factual statement. ~ Artemis at June 18, 2020 8:11 PM

Artie, the plane was still commanding ticket prices and passenger volume that made operating it profitable despite the rising operating costs. That volume was not projected to continue after the 2000 crash and 9/11 combined.

What killed it was age. It was at most 3 years from retirement and it was not deployable on any route but NYC-London route due to noise concerns. Nor could the existing planes be sold to a smaller or Third World operator - so, no salvage value.

You have to understand how an airline fleet is operated. Once a specific plane hits 25 years of age, its demise is foreordained and built into the operator's plans. The operating Concordes were 27 years old. I've worked in airline MRO with an OEM. I have a few insights you may not have.

The Concorde still commanded ticket prices in a volume high enough to keep it profitable. Each flight only needed to be half-full to break even. That's 50 passengers.

The Concorde could not be deployed on multiple routes the way a 747 or an A380 could. And those planes had longer ranges.

Granted, the Concorde was profitable, but it would not have remained so for long. The 2000 crash and 9/11 cut demand for supersonic air travel (and air travel in general) and operating costs were rising.

The existing 14 aircraft were also at the end of their operating lives. That meant replacement with another type or with an updated version of that type. Since the British and French governments had eaten the development costs, upgraded versions were not forthcoming from the manufacturer(s).

In summary, soon-to-be-unprofitable does not equal currently-unprofitable, no matter how much you want it to.

Conan,

I'm not sure what we are arguing about here.

I'm not saying the Concorde never in its entire life made any money.

What I am saying is that what ultimately doomed the plane was that it wasn't making money.

At the end it became unprofitable and so the fleet was taken out of service.

I'm not putting a specific date or set of dates on anything... only pointing out that ultimately it failed because it wasn't making money.

I have provided several sources that provide evidence that my claim is true.

I fully appreciate your full throated defense of the Concorde in genera, especially if you took my statement to indicate it never made any money. However I try not to make exaggerated statements like that.

"In summary, soon-to-be-unprofitable does not equal currently-unprofitable, no matter how much you want it to."

Conan... it was unprofitable at the time the fleet was retired.

It wasn't retired prior to running at a loss.

Good night, Artie.

I feel sorry for the doctor who does your hernia operation someday as you tell him how to do his job. There are people in this world with insights your don't have and can't get from a YouTube video.

Conan,

You can see what I am talking about here:

https://www.heritageconcorde.com/concorde--british-airways

"On April 10th, 2003, both British Airways and Air France announced the end of Concorde flights. Air France was reportedly unable to turn a profit and had decided to shutter the service, which would have left British Airways responsible for shouldering the weight of the entire program."

If you want to insist I am incorrect be my guest... but all of the evidence I have come across indicates that the cause for the failure was an inability to make a profit prior to shutting the program down.

Here is a contemporaneous WSJ article on the subject as well if you are interested:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB1049965001144748920

If you have other credible information showing this isn't the case I'd love to see it, otherwise I am not sure what there is to debate here.

Conan,

It was a documentary... not some rando with a youtube channel.

As per usual when the facts don't support what you are saying instead of acknowledging you are in error... you run off and toss some childish insult.

Oh, Isab, getting hit by lighting is scary! Last summer our return flight got hit,luckily no damage but and was on our descent to Geneva anyhow, I was still terrified.I can't imagine what you must have been feeling!

I was born in 77, so flying was part of normal life as far as I can remember, especially since my mom's family was across the ocean, and mom had some phD stuff to finish in her hometown when I was a baby.

Conan,

I was thinking about it and I am going to try and explain this to you one more time.

Here is the Concorde Requirement FAQ for you to examine once again in detail... actually read the whole thing carefully this time:

http://www.concordesst.com/retire/faq_r.html

Let's now focus in on the following couple of quotes:

"Day-to-day the aircraft still breaks even, but it could no longer pay back any big expenditure items, so its days were numbered. It is a sad time, but the inevitable really only came forward 3 years."

and:

"Was it a mistake to re-launch after the accident?
No. At the time of re-launch, there was no way of knowing that the downturn in business and premium travel would take effect to the extent it has. Indeed, for a period after the re-launch, services were profitable."

and:

"Why are Air France stopping 5 months before British Airways?
Air France have had very bad loads on Concorde an it is loosing a lot of money for them on a day by day basis."

Okay... so let's put all of these facts together into a simple summary.

1 - Before the Concorde fleet was taken out of service Air France was already losing money on a day to day basis (i.e., they were running at a loss)

2 - By the time the FAQ document was prepared British Airways was "breaking even" but was predicting losses imminently and ahead of the 3 year time horizon that it already considered inevitable. In other words, continued operation was not financially sustainable... to continue running meant running at a loss since there was no profit during normal service (break even means it wasn't making moment BEFORE the fleet was retired).

3 - They indicate that while there was a period of time it ran profitable after relaunch... it did not remain profitable because of a downturn in business and premium travel (this occurred while the Concorde was in service... it stopped being profitable BEFORE the fleet was retired).

Those are just the available facts Conan.

If you've got some "special insights" that for some reason contradict all of these facts... and the reports from the wall street journal and the new York times from 2003 that corroborate these facts it isn't rational for me to believe you over these sources.

You have to understand that every conversation I have with you happens in tandem with a conversation I have with someone else on another internet blog who calls himself Conan the Librarian... he is a real stickler for sources... and whenever I try and quote your statements and link to this blog he gives me some grief about how unsubstantiated claims by people on an open internet blog are not reliable.

He then gives me grave warnings about how I would be foolish to take medical advice from random person on an internet blog as opposed to someone who is a medical professional.

I've got to say... Conan the Librarian's argument really resonates... I cannot just trust random Grammarians on the internet without proper citations backing up their claims simply because they insist they have "insight".

As it stands, all of the verifiable credible sources I can identify on the subject agree that the Concorde fleet was retired before it was no longer making money... not because they projected it wouldn't be making money down the road... but because it already wasn't profitable to operate and it was only going to get worse.

“Isab, getting hit by lighting is scary! Last summer our return flight got hit,luckily no damage but and was on our descent to Geneva anyhow, I was still terrified.I can't imagine what you must have been feeling!”

I was more nauseous than scared. The plane got tossed around in the storm constantly. We seemed to be flying in almost every direction except for upside down. I didn’t puke until we bounced three times on the runway coming into Sigonella. I wasn’t the only one puking.

> I was thinking about it

We wanna know what's on your mind!

Have you ever been on an airplane?

Speaking of airplanes, I will crowdsource my summer plans.

Dear Advice Goddess Readers,

Should I get on an airplane to Boston in a few weeks?

Pros:
Covid's going down in MA, Covid's down here, this might be the only window for a while and my parents are in their 70s. If this thing lasts a couple years... will my parents still be around? I didn't go see my grandma during Covid and she died anyways. Without me seeing her again.

My life expectancy will be short if I don't go because my mom will kill me.

Cons:
Covid exists. What if I get stuck in America with Covid?

It'd be a socially distanced kind of holiday, just hanging out at my parents place (which is a very nice place, but I still wouldn't be able to do much touristing), and probably I wouldn't be able to see most of the people I usually see

Airplanes are apparently packed. Sounds unpleasant even without the Covid factor.

How the hell am I supposed to get a 5 year old to wear a mask on a 9 hour flight.

I've kinda gotten into the chill rhythm of hanging out locally and kinda wanna keep doing it.

My husband wouldn't come (his job wants him to stay put) but is also understandably upset at the idea of us ditching him for a month. But if I shorten it to two weeks and I have to quarantine for two weeks and what kind of vacation is that.

Rural Switzerland is arguably a nicer place to vacation that suburban Boston.

signed,
I can't come up with anything clever, maybe you guys can think of something

Another pro:

My best friend and her kids are summering at her mom's house, next door to my parents.

Con: Her husband might not let us hang out if we don't do the full-on quarantine thing.

Still digesting all your details, but I flew domestically over the weekend and strongly, strongly recommend that if you have FF miles to burn, or the resources in your budget, that you fly First.

And not just for proximity to the drinks.

Another pro:

My best friend and her kids are summering at her mom's house, next door to my parents.

Con: Her husband might not let us hang out if we don't do the full-on quarantine thing.

NicoleK at June 19, 2020 11:08 AM

I think the first thing I would do is see if you can get an antibody test. I hear there are two kinds now. One tells you if you have been exposed to Covid in the last 14 days. The other tells you if you were exposed before that.

I have a cousin in Florida, a few years older than me, who has a husband a few years older than that, so he is pushing 70. Through a serious of mixups he ended up getting a Covid antibody test, before she did and it came up positive. This is a guy who has not had so much as a scratchy throat in the last year. Zero, nada, symptom free. Neither had my cousin, and she must have been exposed as well since this is the guy who sleeps with her every night.

These people live very healthy lifestyles and they live right on the beach.

So if you and the kids could find out if you have been exposed or not it might relieve everyone’s worry. Especially on the plane.
I personally would scout out the situation with your parents. Can you now go to restaurants and go to parks in Massachusetts? If there is very little you can do, then maybe consider postponing but hindsight is always 20-20. There most likely is never going to be another lockdown, because the politicians overhyped this whole thing with excessive restrictions against disfavored groups while ignoring and even encouraging large gatherings by favored groups.

It just depends on your tolerance level really of the hassle of traveling.

I have tickets back to Japan early next year, and I hope things will be ok by then, but who knows? I may have to seek out an antibody test myself.

I've had both the PCR and IgG (antibody) tests, negative, but the MD still offers no assurance that I haven't had Wuhan. (I had the worst flu-like illness of my life on New Year's after spending most of November & December at LAX & SEA/Tac, our proud Pacific airports.) IgG is a qualitative test when what we really want is a quantitative one.

Repeated & routine tests are essential to keep this thing from spreading like wildfire, but they're not about reassurance on an individual level.

Crid,

I eagerly await when you decide to ask me if I've ever used a computer.

Additionally, exposure is not a binary proposition:

> she must have been exposed
> as well since this is the
> guy who sleeps with her
> every night.

Viral load is one of many variables, and is itself complicated.

NicoleK,

We've actually been thinking through similar issues in terms of reduction of exposure risk during travel.

I'll tell you the ideas we've come up with so far:

1 - Only travel with carry on luggage to reduce exposure at the terminal (ship other items to destination ahead of time or purchase upon arrival).

2 - Get TSA precheck approval to speed through screening

3 - Wear N95 masks through the duration of the flight and when transiting the airport

4 - Purchase 1st class tickets to improve social distancing while in flight

5 - Get picked up at the airport by family who is also wearing N95 mask to avoid exposure to Cab or Uber

6 - Wash up, change, and wash travel clothing upon arrival at final destination

Ultimately all risk decisions like this need to be made on an individual level, but maybe some of these ideas can be helpful for you and your family.

One last time, Artie. Try to keep up this time. It's time-consuming, tedious, and exhausting reining you in.

That the Concorde was losing money was always the airlines' publicly stated rationale for discontinuing Concorde service.

Yet, a fair number of outside analyses did not support that rationale. At up to $12,000 per ticket, the Concorde had a huge money-making potential, despite its higher operating costs and lower passenger capacity.

Another consideration for the Concorde's demise:

Consider again the financial analysis of flying the Concorde. While it seems plain that the Concorde can be profitable, there is another perspective than an airline cost accountant would almost certainly adopt in tight financial times. This perspective fixates on the issue that a first class passenger costs the airline an extra $1,224 if flown on Concorde rather than on a regular 747.

Is it possible that the two airlines have simply decided to cancel their Concorde services, not because they don't make money, but instead because they could make more money if their Concorde clients were forced to fly on regular 747s instead?

Add to that the deployment versatility of a 747 or an A380 compared to that of a Concorde and it makes more sense to put the nearing-retirement Concorde away and operate the upgraded 747s and A380s.

Naturally, any airline would not want to publicly announce cost accounting as its reason for forcing passengers onto slower aircraft and doubling the duration of their trip.

Please note that an airline spending less money by flying passengers on a 747 does not mean it was losing money by flying them on the Concorde.

A lot of choices made depend on whether a company concentrates on the bottom line or the top line - i.e., control costs or build revenue. Airlines tend to focus on the bottom line, costs.

Don't believe everything an airline tells you, Artie.
__________________________________________________

Democracy is not for the feint of heart. ~ Artemis at June 15, 2020 5:59 PM

Nothing is for the feint of heart.

The expression is faint of heart. A feint is a deceptive move intended to fool an opponent.

You know, for a guy who claims to have a PhD and to have authored several published and peer-reviewed papers, you make an awful lot of simple mistakes.

In the same post, you mis-used striping for stripping.

You frequently misuse punctuation and capitalization. You misuse words. Your verb tenses are often out of agreement. Your grammar is terrible. Your writing clocks in at a 4th grade level.

At least luj had dyslexia as his rationale. You don't. And his writing got better over time. Yours is getting worse.

It's almost as if you've gotten sloppy and are unable to keep up the pretense. I'm gonna call shenanigans on that claimed PhD and those papers.

> We've actually been thinking
> through similar issues

Who the fuck is "we"?

Why would anyone trust anything to say about personal safety in matters of travel?

We have no reason to think you don't work for the CCP in Beijing, and good number of reasons to believe you do.

> At least luj had dyslexia

Orion also does the Patrick thing where he regards challenges to his clarity on topics at hand as expressions of personal interest:

> I eagerly await when you decide to
> ask me if I've ever

It's painstaking, requiring many years, but this place is compiling a rich index of internet delusion.

Should I get on an airplane to Boston in a few weeks?

Well, the Sox aren't playing and it's too early for the Head of the Charles.

/sarcasm

Airplanes are apparently packed. Sounds unpleasant even without the Covid factor. ~ NicoleK at June 19, 2020 11:03 AM

I'm with Crid, fly FC if you can. If not, get an exit seat. You'll get extra distance from the folks in front and extra leg room.

I stopped being a traveling consultant years ago and have burned though all my accumulated FF miles by now, but use 'em if you've got 'em.

How the hell am I supposed to get a 5 year old to wear a mask on a 9 hour flight. ~ NicoleK at June 19, 2020 11:03 AM

Benadryl?

Maybe make it a fun mask - werewolf or vampire with blood and fangs. He'll wear if for the reactions.

Conan Says:

"That the Concorde was losing money was always the airlines' publicly stated rationale for discontinuing Concorde service."

Great... that was what was stated in public reports, financial records to the SEC, shareholders to whom they have a fiduciary responsibility to disclose accurate information.

It was also reported in the NYT and the WSJ.

All available public information indicates that it was losing money and not profitable.

"Yet, a fair number of outside analyses did not support that rationale."

Provide some links to these outside analyses and detailed explanation as to how those reports are more accurate than the reports put out by the businesses themselves.

Furthermore, I'd love to see documentation of legal action taken by any regulatory body on the basis those analysis that would lend credibility to your as of yet unsubstantiated belief that they are in any sense more reliable than the information and documentation provided by the businesses actually flying the planes.

"Don't believe everything an airline tells you, Artie."

Conan... it is far more important for me not to believe random strangers on the internet who have proven time and again to not actually back up anything they say with evidence.

I'll wait for you to provide the primary sources you claim informs your opinion... until then it is just you saying something on the internet in violation of every actual source I can identify.

Conan,

Once again we have gotten to the part where you get all of your facts wrong... refuse to provide sources to actually support what you are saying... and you jump to criticizing typos.

That being said, I pretty much always ignore your own typos because it simply isn't meaningful to bring them up. However, since you insist, here is one of yours from yesterday:

"There are people in this world with insights your don't have..." - Conan the Grammarian at June 18, 2020 8:50 PM

The word you were looking for was you Conan.

You can't even try and insult someone without making an idiot of yourself.

Thanks for the advice!

I've already got the tickets... purchased them back before the confinement. I don't think first class is an option, as they usually run around 5k, and Idon't have 12k to burn.

Gonna talk to my doctor about the antibody test. Maybe we can just test me, and if I have them we can assume the kids do, too.

Aie aie aie.

What if Artemis WAS a Chinese man? Would it matter?

Yes, yes it would. I have a catalog of about 50 pieces detailing the Chinese atrocities within their own nation and in other nations around the world during this crisis, and dozens for some years before. I've put a lot of them on this blog, but perhaps you missed them.

The servile nationalism of China is witless and self-abnegating, and they're savagely ruthless when dealing with any other nation on Earth. The few blossoming exceptions of late 2019, such as the freedom protestors in Hong Kong — who sang the American national anthem but were mocked by both Trump and the craven commercialism of Lebron James et al — have been kneecapped by both the practicalities and political distractions of the Wuhan virus.

These are not nice people. In the best imaginable reading, their reckless incompetence has killed a couple of football stadiums of Americans, maimed and tortured several times more than that, disrupted trade and development around the planet, and there's no reason to believe we're even halfway through this crisis.

Yeah— If this little shitweasel is Chinese, and he's certainly never denied it, that's something I'd want to know.

Only the most grievous personal limitations — institutionalization, profound physical disability, or some mix of all these characteristics — could explain the arrogance and brainless argumentation he's offered in recent years.

It's ENTIRELY possible that I'm reading too much into his polished depravity, and that he's just a troubled little guy somewhere with a 2002 Toshiba laptop running Windows XP.

But golly… his aggression has a remarkable global analog. Have you heard of Belt and Road? You might wanna read up on it.

NicoleK Asks:

"What if Artemis WAS a Chinese man? Would it matter?"

Your observation here cuts to the core of why I don't answer these questions. I have no interest in contributing to what I see as an inherently bigoted line of questions.

Similarly, "touching a black person" or "looking a Jewish person in the eye" are *not* things one should seek to document as if they are some kind of life accomplishment.

One treats people like people... you wave hello to people you know in the distance, shake hands with new people you meet, show genuine care and concern for the wellbeing of others, etc...

There is a reason Crid didn't ask if I've ever spoken to a Christian... or if I've ever been in the same car as a white person... you are free to speculate as to why that might be the case.

See also, the Uyghurs. Imagine a million Muslims cruelly imprisoned for, basically, nothing.

Crid,

It might not have occurred to you... but there are those on this blog (including yourself) who take great offense whenever someone calls a claim they have made into question and asks for evidence.

That is literally all it takes for them to lose their shit.

Such people have incredibly fragile egos and constantly feel they are under attack by folks who are simply skeptical of their evidence free assertions.

As the great Christopher Hitchens famously said:

"What can be asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence."

You and others aren't used to having your evidence free ideas dismissed and so it makes you very uncomfortable and pissed off.

Your own inability to cope with Hitchens's Razor is the source of the problem.

You can't even try and insult someone without making an idiot of yourself. ~ Artemis at June 19, 2020 3:01 PM

Typos are one thing, Artie. I've already owned up to the fact that I will make some typos and have made several already.

Yes, I changed that sentence while composing it and missed changing "your" to "you."

Does that make me an idiot? Not at all. A fat-fingered typist, perhaps.

What I'm pointing out with you are not typos, but the consistent misuse of words, failure to punctuate properly, failure to capitalize, etc. Your written communication skills are not at the PhD level, a level of education which you claim have achieved.
__________________________________________________

Great... that was what was stated in public reports, financial records to the SEC, shareholders to whom they have a fiduciary responsibility to disclose accurate information. ~ Artemis at June 19, 2020 2:49 PM

Really, Air France and British Airways disclosed model-specific financial data in the annual and quarterly filings - instead of the overall operational financial statements that are standard practice?

For their SEC filings, each of these airlines broke down specific finances on 7 planes out of the 300-400 planes they fly?

Have you ever read an SEC filing? They're not as full of detailed information as you seem to think.

Here is the Air France-KLM 6K from 2003-2004. There's no breakdown of Concorde-specific finances; or those of any other model; because that's not what airlines report in their SEC filings.

Conan Says:

"Typos are one thing, Artie. I've already owned up to the fact that I will make some typos and have made several already."

I've owned up to the same fact multiple times Conan.

I am not an excellent typist... get over it.

If I want to generate posts that are error free it would require me to proof read and edit, which is something I don't think is worth my time when having casual conversations on an internet blog.

Conan,

I'd like to also expand on something because you seem very confused about a few things.

What do you imagine it is like to author an academic publication?

Do you believe it is even remotely like posting to a blog on the internet?

I'll take a moment to describe to you how each of my published journal articles made it to print. This is the process that took place after all of the experimental data had been collected, theoretical models generated, and a general outline of the relevant conclusions had been agreed to by all of the relevant stakeholders.

First I would gather all of my files and start putting together figures (this would normally take place in a version of adobe illustrator at high resolution so there would by minimal losses in print). When all of the figures were done I would generate tentative captions for those figures such that they could be easily referenced within the main body of the paper.

Second I would collect all of the relevant references and make sure they were properly input into endnote (I would never recommend trying to write an article without a reference management system as citations often change through the editing process). Then I would identify the journal we were targeting for initial review and make sure I had a reference template tailored for that specific journal as each journal has its own citation scheme.

Only now would I begin a first draft and start with the introduction... move on to the experimental details section... present the discussion of the results... and finally the conclusions and the abstract would be completed kind of in tandem (the reason for this is that in a good paper they should mirror each other in some sense, the abstract tells the reader what they will be shown while the conclusion summarizes for the reader what they have been shown).

Then you begin to edit and revise... edit and revise... edit and revise some more. You make changes to figures as necessary, update references if you feel a statement you have made isn't sufficiently supported, you refine your arguments and conclusions so they logically flow for the reader.

At this stage it is important to review the length requirements for the journal to ensure you are not going over. If you are substantially over you then go back and create a separate supplemental section and move less critical items there that are pointed to in the article itself.

Finally you make sure you have your acknowledgement section complete and reference all of the correct funding sources.

That whole process takes about 2 weeks of solid work (about 10 hours per day including weekends).

Only now do you send your initial draft to each of your co-authors to get their input and edits... and this process takes a while.

After this is all complete you are then ready to submit your article for peer review. However to do that you need to also author a letter to the editor explaining why your work is important and suitable for the journal you are interested in. If the editor doesn't feel your work is appropriate for their journal either in terms of topic, scope, or impact they will refer you to a different journal they feel is better suited (lots of people want to publish in Science or Nature for example... but most get referred to a less impactful journal after editorial review).

Compare that to a typical blog post which is thrown together in about 5 minutes and you might begin to understand the difference.

Wordy

Crid,

When I am talking to you I write at your reading level... when I am talking to others I write at their reading level.

That post wasn't meant for you.

You're welcome to reach out privately, but it's a public forum. You're here to share. We're here to judge you: Prolix.

Crid,

Of course it is a public forum... you just aren't that important.

I think you like this place because it gives you the illusion of importance. You can't see the dismissive looks as you would out in the real world.

It was wordy, is all

Crid,

So are books...

Do you cite authors a lot?

Yup

Artie,

It's not about the research and fact-checking that it takes to write a paper for publication. It's about the habits of good grammar, spelling, etc. from repeatedly writing those papers, as you claim to have done. It's about putting those things into muscle memory.

Or do you not pay attention to the changes the editors make to your spelling, capitalization, and grammar?

Conan,

I don't think you are understanding.

If you've ever read a published article what you are going to see is a polished manuscript.

That polished look didn't just appear out of thing air, it was the product of care and editing.

None of that polish appears fully formed in draft #1.

There are typos in draft #1, there are repeated words in draft #1, there are erroneous punctuation marks in draft #1.

All of this is completely natural and is worked out through the editing process.

That you don't understand this suggests that you've never actually published anything before.

Conan,

To put things another way... do you honestly think that professional mathematicians *never* make arithmetic mistakes?

I feel like you are the kind of guy who would go out to dinner with a fields medal winner... observe them accidentally mess up the tip because they were distracted... and then suddenly declare that they cannot possibly be a professional mathematician because in your mind no one who does has such a profession ever makes a multiplication mistake.

These things happen to everyone Conan. We are all fallible human beings, it is impossible to stamp that out in its entirety.

I didn't earn my degree based on my ability to type... I earned it based on my ability to successfully run experiments, successfully interpret the data, and successfully draw useful conclusions from that data.

Do you really think anyone cares that I lack the precision typing abilities of a stenographer?... and yes, even a stenographer will have typos.

You have typos... how haven't you managed to commit perfection to muscle memory?

I feel like you are the kind of guy who would go out to dinner with a fields medal winner... ~ Artemis at June 23, 2020 9:59 AM

It's "Fields Medal." Proper nouns are capitalized.

Capitalization, Artie, is important -- the difference between helping your Uncle Jack off a horse and helping your uncle jack off a horse.

Good night, Artie.

Boom!

Conan,

All of your style over substance fallacies would be more convincing if you weren't planning on voting for an illiterate in November.

That your standards for the posts of a random stranger on the internet are greater than your standards for the communication for the POTUS suggests you are suffering from a pretty serious reasoning defect.

Crid,

I don't know exactly what you are so giddy about here. You typed the following gem just the other day:

"Y'know, Coney, Isab and I might all be in our sixties, as I am." - Crid at June 22, 2020 9:09 AM

The only difference between my typing, your typing, and Conan's typing is that I have enough class to focus on the conversation at hand instead of derailing with stupidity and minutia.

I notice all of your typos... I'm just not petty enough to make them the primary focus of my attention.

Surely Conan notices all of your typos as well... and yet crickets... because at the end of the day he really does understand that it doesn't matter.

This is why he is fundamentally dishonest.

We know you're watching us very, very closely.

Crid,

Maybe that wasn't a typo and your statement was evidence that you suffer from dissociative identity disorder.