I don’t know about anyone else, but what’s happening in the USA these days seems very ugly.
Firstly the election was stolen from Donald Trump, And now his impeachment has started. Whatever next?
Is it possible to impeach an ex-president? If so, doesn’t that mean Obama can also be impeached? If not, doesn’t that mean Trump is rightly still president?
If nothing else it seems horribly spiteful and vindictive. It looks like a show trial.
And also it seems politically dangerous. 74+ million Americans .voted for Trump back in November. Stamping on Trump also means stamping on Trump voters. It’s extremely divisive. And America is already deeply divided.
Something Paul Craig Roberts said, 17 minutes into this:
Everybody knows the election was stolen,
And that’s the horrific fact of the matter.
He also said that the United States, as a political project, had ceased to exist.
And that’s the terrible fact of the matter too.
And he said that Donald Trump was being punished.
And that’s obviously true too.
He asked how long it would be before everyone else was told to repeat the official narrative.
That’s a good question.
I wonder how long I’ll be able to continue to write this blog.
It’s all getting ugly.
We’re entering a totalitarian world.
Maybe it’s always been one.
https://lifeonanalienplanet.wordpress.com/2021/02/09/whole-article-the-secret-history-of-the-shadow-campaign-that-saved-the-2020-election/
Dear Frank, losing patience is natural, but useless. I’ve just finished a book on 1420-sh religious wars in Checkia (Yan Gus and all that). It was bad. And I don’t mean the book, but the times. Good times always come and go, and the only thing we should do is to hasten up the return of good times. It’s like dusting your room – you know that the dust will be back in a week, but still you do your job to remove it.
Now, I’m starting a chain of my columns about what kind of world do we want. Since there are folks that love telling us “the world will never be the same again”, first thing you do is tell them “who the hell are you to tell things to us?”, and, second, we inform these people what kind of world we want to have after they have riuned things. Isn’t that natural to do it?
http://www.cigarinfo.ru/news/zapiski-afisionado/
Thanks for mentioning it, but I can’t help boasting about a totally new project, called Fitzroy Magazine (snobs!), meant for Russians abroad, clever and conservative. I love it. I’ll give it my best. My next column there will be about fear as a technolgy, very instrumental in the current attempts to ruin what remains of our world. If I steal a couple of ideas from you (again), then… well, you’ve already said “you are welcome” a couple of times.
It does look like a Stalinist show trial. Pretty soon the libs will be airbrushing Trump’s image out of photographs.
They’re already well on the way…
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/jan/14/macaulay-culkin-joins-calls-to-get-donald-trump-cameo-removed-from-home-alone-2
Or maybe they will start airbrushing cigarettes into photos of Donald Trump in order to claim that he was a smoker so that they can attempt to foist even more shame onto him.
American initiative to stop people smoking coincides with rise in obesity
Sunday 05 June 2016
“Few public health initiatives have been as successful as the campaign against cigarettes, an effort that began in the early 1900s and culminated in the now-famous 1964 surgeon general’s report stating unequivocally that smoking causes cancer.
“In the years that followed, the response was as swift as it was significant.
Americans quit smoking cigarettes in droves, abandoning the once beloved habit on a scale that was hard to imagine at the time. Today, American adults, on average, smoke fewer than 1,300 cigarettes per year, or about a third as many as they did in 1963 (4,200).
But it has also, interestingly, coincided with another trend that isn’t quite as encouraging: the rise of obesity. And it’s not unreasonable to think that the two might be at least somewhat related.”
https://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-families/american-initiative-stop-people-smoking-coincides-rise-obesity-a7065971.html
I’ve often characterized the switchover from smoking to snacking as being a desire for (or addiction to) “treats.” While some smokers just automatically smoke 40 or more cigarettes a day and are more or less accustomed to the physical presence of a cigarette between their fingers or in their mouths as they perform certain activities, I believe that many smokers in 20 or so per day crowd light their cigarettes as a “treat” — as a momentary break or a minor “reward” for finishing a little task.
So, smokes are gone… what better to take their place than a chocolate bonbon of some type?
And then…. WHAM… where the hell did that extra 100 pounds come from????
– Michael
Behind the Headlines: Is diabetes linked to quitting smoking?
14 January 2010
“Giving up smoking leads to a sharp increase in the risk of developing type-2 diabetes, according to media reports.”
What is behind the raised risk?
“Extra weight put on by new quitters explains around a third of the increased risk, the researchers said. A further third of the excess risk is accounted for by systemic inflammation, as assessed by increased leukocyte counts.”
https://www.gponline.com/behind-headlines-diabetes-linked-quitting-smoking/article/976970
I have never found a satisfactory explanation for that “systemic inflammation” but I have my own thoughts.
Auckland lockdowns at midnight
https://www.kiwiblog.co.nz/2021/02/auckland_lockdowns_at_midnight.html
Comments, worth reading, write in from anywhere over the world… just say your piece, peace!
Meanwhile, enjoying a 4pm & 5pm yacht race last couple of days, the Prada Cup semi-finals to see who will challenge NZ as current holders of the Americas Cup, held by US (New York City Yacht Club from memory) for ~ 137 years, I find that has also been interrupted – for 3 new cases Ovid.
https://www.americascup.com/
A posting cluster around 1 am here, nearly noon in London !
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2021/02/13/uk-cold-weather-river-thames-freezes-over-for-first-time-in-60-years-pictured/
So for relief see summer as above down under. Those Americas Cup videos.
Let’s hope that the madness reduces.