SocraticGadfly

March 28, 2024

Bye, Randy Langstraat

I have written briefly about Flickr photographer Randy Langstraat before, mainly on Twitter. 

I have noted his claims to have "captured" sunbursts, which he frames to shoot at the edge of a rock, when it's clear, by the regularity of the bursts, that he's using a filter. 

 I can't remember how much I've written before about something more serious, and non-photographic. That is, per the late David Roberts, that he appears to be one of those people who feel compelled, when hiking in the Southwest, to gather potsherds into one place, on top of a rock, for display. 

At times, he's hiking places with enough visitation, even in more backcountry, that, per Roberts' worries, he's not destroying "provenance" of the potsherds. In other places he's been at, though, he may be. 

A recent visit of his to Homolovi State Park in Aridzona has a twist. I quote: Shortly before sunset we went on one final hike together to the Homolovi I Pueblo where we found potsherds scattered all over the ground. But, in the picture that is captioned, they're NOT "all over the ground." They're on top of two rocks. So, were they there before, or did he put them there? Ditto with a lower picture, where the caption says: We found a couple large potsherds at this site, too. But, the pictured potsherds are all on one rock.  

In this album and blog post and many others, he has some great photos of petroglyphs, too, and has pictographs in other albums and on other blog posts. But, he rarely digs into details. He may say that site X is Fremont, not Anasazi, but he won't go into more details, like Basketmaker III, Puebloan I or whatever, nor will he talk much, beyond a Kokopelli, about what the figurines may represent, other than generally giving most of them Anglo names. I also am not totally fond of one of his hiking friends not spelling things like "Hubbell" correctly. There's also, to be honest, the bits of envy that DINKs who are in the tech world have both money and free time to blow.

In the album after that, he had THREE sunbursts. Enough. Bye.

March 27, 2024

Thoughts on Reddit and Zionism

Reddit may just be the front page of the internet in one way. Its algorithm for what subs it shows me is at least as stupid as Twitter and Fuckbook showing me what accounts I "should" follow.

About two weeks ago, I got presented r/jewish in my feed.

First, are there actual antisemitic instances happening today? (NOT antizionist ones.) Yes.

Have they increased since Oct. 7, 2023? If so, not that much.

Is antisemitism in the US worse today than 20-30 years ago? I doubt it, and certainly not worse than 40 or more years ago.

Does every pro-Palestinian supporter want you, individual Jewish commenter, or all Jews, dead? Of course not. But, as part of this post:

I cut ties with pro-Pal people. I don’t want to associate with people who want me dead.

There you go.

No, what you probably really don't want is associating with people who challenge "casual Zionism."

And, that same person, "NYSenseOfHumor," proves my point with their second lie:

They all chant “from the river to the sea,” so yes, they want all Jews dead.

And, lie it is. And, while it's a bit trollish, I'm also dead damn serious when I respond to bullshit like that with:

"From the river to the sea, Zionist lies will never set you free."

That same thread has one person who does explicitly call out Bibi. And an even bigger kudo for "iloveforeverstamps" saying:

Plenty of "Zionists" are antisemitic. We are talking about a real country with a government and a military, and any serious discussion SHOULD be far more complex than "If you're not with us, you're against us". Any stance that can be fully explained in a few sentences is not adequate for making decisions about your relationships and life.

Bottom line. Their whole comment is great.

But then, the lies continue. Being anti-Israel is not being anti-Jew. 

And, on that post and in plenty of others, the old lie that anti-Zionism is antisemitism is repeated ad infinitum.

And, although I didn't see the phrase "self-hating Jew," this, about Jewish Voices for Peace:

JVP is false flag BS

Is close enough.

Well, I din't see "self hating Jew" on THAT post that Reddit suggested to me. 

I figured I'd search for "Finkelstein," as in Norman, within r/Jewish. 

Among the hits?

"I Used to Think 'Self-Hating Jews' Were a Myth."

The ONLY good comment there is this:

Why are there more posts on this sub about people who are jewish and on the left than about people who are jewish and involved in the far right christian nationalist movement? Seems to me like a lot of these accusations apply to the far right activists like ben shapiro and they are actually in a position of power in the world unlike western leftists

Period.

Other posts have the lie that Finkelstein is a Jewish David Irving or similar, which is just not true. His position IS controversial, and IMO pushes envelopes too far. But, he's not a Holocaust denier, and he's not the first Jew to wonder about a possible Holocaust industry being used by the nation of Israel.

I then searched for "Bari Weiss." Other than one post from five years ago, all puff pieces.

Oh, a lot of these folks on those posts say variations of "I'm involved in Hillel." Rather than that giving you a pass for seemingly being in a lovey-dovey organization, per this piece at Mondoweiss, it's a self-own.

Otherwise? These people are online socially isolating, to the degree they are, based on a fear that's largely consciously self-induced based on a mix of cherry-picking, strawmanning and "othering."

Otherwise, two? There's plenty of racism there. Some of it's generic anti-Arab; a lot of it is specifically anti-Palestinian. Related? Some of the racists are also MAGAts. (Shock me.)

Otherwise, part three? These people are liars. They've seen Israeli hasbara refuted again and again. They've seen it shown to be deliberate deep lies. And they keep deliberately repeating it.

Or, in this post, the lies and the racism commingle. (Oh, contra comments on there, "Ashkenazi" is ultimately a linguistic divider as much as anything else. Jews from Poland-Lithuania aren't of totally the same background as Rhineland Jews, just because both speak types of Yiddish. And, far east European Ashkenazis do indeed, by both language and DNA, hint that a "small" version of the Khazar hypothesis has at least a degree of truth. Shlomo Sand knows this in detail; that said, most people at r/Jewish would probably call him a "self-hating Jew" or similar.)

As for the totality of the sub? I'm guessing it's 75 percent full Zionist, 19 percent muddlers/non-Zionist, 4 percent anti-Zionist and 2 percent non-Jewish, however they break out on the Zionism issue.

March 26, 2024

Texas Progressives talk abortions, Paxton, economy

The Texas Medical Board has partially punted on clarifying exceptions to the state's anti-abortion laws. Not surprising, and in this case, I don't totally blame them. At the federal level, a bureau or agency filling out what a federal law means (Chevron doctrine) is part of the territory. But, here in Tex-ass, it's not supposed to be.

Weasel shit Ken Paxton may pretty much beat the rap in his securities trial, as lead prosecutor Brian Wice is supposedly cutting a sweetheart plea deal that doesn't look a whole lot different than the one a second prosecutor supposedly was negotiating a month ago and that Wice blasted. Update: The rumors were true. Did a Wice assistant leak, trying to push their boss harder? Didn't work, if so.

Tom Oliverson is the first of what will surely be several contestants for Dade Phelan's throne. Phelan has fired back, saying the announcement is unseemly with several runoff elections still to be held, among other things.

"Mattress Matt" McIngvale flies under the radar screen of Ferris Wilks and Tim Dunn, but he's doing his own "hard work" to move Texas from rightist to far right. TNR profiles the reality, not just of his wingnuttery but his shysterism.

The economy is fantastic — unless you want a new job, a new home, or a new car. Let #BlueAnon talking heads spin that one. Biden would like you to compare now to the worst of COVID, and see what a genius he is, but that likely isn't happening. As I said on Twitter to Zachary D. Carter? Inflation is still above pre-COVID levels and unemployment has started creeping up again.

Even if SCOTUS eventually gives SB4 the green light, how are local sheriffs going to enforce it? Let's see Strangeabbott, David Spiller et al pony up all the money and such that would be needed. In addition, AMLO's government in Mexico has already said that on things like repatriations, it will only deal with the US federal government. Greg Abbott, a pouty-faced state version of Trump at times, will thus have reality punching him in his pouty face.

Meet Abraham George, Matt Rinaldi's likely successor as head of the Texas GOP.

Off the Kuff notes that hand counting ballots is still a bad idea.

SocraticGadfly talks about a new airline battle at Love Field.

Stace offers another edition of Thoughts on Viernes covering an SB4 protest, the Firefighter deal in Houston, and the election denying fascist on the METRO board.

Neil at the Houston Democracy Project said we must reach out with respect to the Palestinian protest movement. 

Eater Houston looks at the long tradition of Black cowboy culture at the Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo.  

Texas 2036 reports that our state leads the nation in billion dollar disasters. (And probably does not look in detail at how much Texas oil and ranching causes that.)

The Texas Signal looks at the latest report showing a significant increase in medication abortions. 

Evil MoPac has some thoughts about Ken Paxton's anti-porn crusade. 

The Fort Worth Report attended the beginning of construction on Opal Lee's new home.

March 25, 2024

Israeli genocide hits its Watergate point: What does the president know and when did he know it?

What else can you call it, per my currently pinned Tweet about this Washington Post story from last Monday? The nutgraf is right at the top:

On Oct. 27, three weeks into Israel’s punishing counterattack in Gaza, top Biden officials privately told a small group assembled at the White House what they would not say in public: Israel was regularly bombing buildings without solid intelligence that they were legitimate military targets.

Followed by this:

The previously unreported meeting shows that discrepancies were emerging far earlier than publicly known between the Biden team’s internal doubts about Israel’s conduct and its ironclad external support.

So, I think we're at the point of that Watergate question:

"What did the president know and when did he know it?"

That not enough for you? There's this from Twitter last Friday:

Per others who responded to the Ken Klippenstein Tweet  that I quote-tweeted, I have zero doubt that people fairly high up in the Biden White House knew from the start, from the moment Biden mentioned building this pier, that actually offloading stuff would need a lot more work than that. We're going to have a Pier Massacre about a month after the Flour Massacre with this level of brilliance.

That not enough? Let's wonder how much Genocide Joe already knows — and already knew before the issue became public — about Israel's reported cold-blooded executions at al Shifa hospital. Or torture inside Israeli prisons?

March 23, 2024

A few notes on Paul Thacker

Along with Eric Lipton he is a pseudoscientist on GMOs. (This is not to endorse them, but it's to oppose pseudoscience.)

If not an outright antivaxxer, at least a fellow traveler. More here, which also touches on the anti-GMO issue.

In parallel with the anti-GMO stance, also apparently willing to believe the worst, or print the worse, whether fully true or not, on glyphosate. More on that article here.

And a 5G conspiracy theorist.

Anti-GMO and anti-5G nuttery led me to my first skepticism of the Green Party.

The reason I have compiled this? He is also apparently a "Deep Stater."

At the same time? Some of my links above are from The American Council on Science and Health, itself not perfect.

On the third hand? Thacker harassing and doxxing a 12-year-old is despicable.

March 22, 2024

Presidential briefs, March 22

Instead of boasting about winning the Pennsylvania Green Party primary, shouldn't Jill Stein rather be concerned that she left 25 percent of the vote, and 20 percent of the delegates, on the floor against a craptacular field? Ditto on other recent GP state primaries. Related? Between that and other things, Texas Greens better have somebody damned good for at least one statewide office, or they'll miss the 2 percent mark for ballot access again, with 2026 the last election to hit it.

Don't win by too big of margins, anyway. It will hurt your fundraising, in all likelihood, and since SCOTUS officially said no on 2016, you'll need more funds.

==

"Shock me" that self-alleged Marxist Adolph Reed, who has a long history of sheepdogging for the left hand of the duopoly, is doing it again, and also, "shock me" that The Nation is giving him the space for it. Reed's first move to justify his decision is, "shock me," to attack non-duopoly leftists for leaning into electoral politics too hard. This:

A serious left movement would be driven by concerted strategic action aimed at eventually changing the terms of debate to produce electoral majorities capable of securing popular interventions—for example, eliminating our obscene, profit-driven healthcare system.

Really? Perhaps the action hasn't been concerted or strategic, but this has been a major talking point of third parties of the left for decades. 

Then, Gaza? Reed goes straight to the "lesser evilism" argument. 

In between, he says he won't discuss his previous voting history, though, reading between the lines and what I know elsewhere, I'm pretty sure it's all sheepdog, all the way down.

==

Speaking of? Biden is reportedly pissed off about his tumbling poll numbers in places like Michigan, but then has his Irish Alzheimer's kick and says he won't change on Gaza, even though that has nothing to do with US national security, contra his lies. Meanwhile, beyond his staff cocooning him over flub worries, he, they and surrogates are still failing to get out the Trump oppo research information that Trump is providing.

==

Mike Pence says he won't endorse Trump. I'm sure that Momma's Boy won't go as far as Lincoln Project people and come out for Biden, but even the public non-endorsement is a bit of a hit. He says abortion is part of the issue, but remains a "grab em by the pussy" hypocrite.

"Donald Trump is pursuing and articulating an agenda that is at odds with the conservative agenda that we governed on during our four years, and that's why I cannot in good conscience endorse Donald Trump in this campaign."

Really? Where? When? And this?

During his presidential campaign last year, Pence suggested during an interview on NBC News' "Meet the Press" that Trump is “walking away” from conservative principles, including "a clear commitment to the right to life," and accused Trump of holding a position on the national debt that “is identical to Joe Biden’s.”

Dude, that was exactly the case in your term together. You're a hypocrite indeed.

That said, is it as serious as deal as Dan Pfeiffer says? Uhh, no.

==

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., in a piece last week noting that Mike Rowe, as well as Aaron Rodgers and Jesse "the body" Ventura are on his Veep short list, promises an announcement March 26, although after those first names came out, it was leaked that Nicole Shanahan already has the nod. See my Twitter thread. Meanwhile, he's paused his petition signature drive. Stupid to do so, IMO, right now, right when the Veep hunt is ginning up interest, even with the allowance for needing to have a listed Veep in many cases. Focus on the states where that's not needed.

==

Tim Scott is reportedly on Trump's shortlist? Will the GOP accept a minority Veep who's also presumed by many to be a closeted gay?

==

At Columbia Journalism Review, Jon Allsop says Geriatric Joe risks further pissing off younger voters if he stands by the idea of a forced sale of TikTok. Don't forget that Trumpist Steve Mnuchin waved his hands to buy TikTok even as House wingnuts were passing their forced sale bill.