Russell Brand on the Democrats and still more Russell Brand!

 This video needs to be seen since both parties like to demonise the other while neglecting their own faults. Meanwhile, people are being conned with "hot button" issues.

Seriously, how long would it have taken the US to have adopted serious gun regulation if there wasn't an obscure passage in the US constitution relating to militias?

Of course, it helps to have helpful people keeping the regime running.

There are a lot of reasons I left Facebook. One of them is the hope that we can bankrupt these billionaires who made their money off of us.

No, it's not socialism where people get money from not working: that's capitalism.

"What's a weekend?"

Greg Gutfeld on Whoopi Goldberg and CRT

I have a love-hate relationship with Greg Gutfeld. He says some things which are bang on sometimes. He also says some things that are a little off. I used to think I would get into a fight if we got together. Then, I realised he likes to shock the way I do.

 His monologue cuts to the heart of the matter here in that blacks are victims, which leaves out a lot. Given that one of the "Buffalo Soldiers" main tasks was to help control the Native Americans of the Plain, the concept that blacks are without sin in the "race game" is something which needs to be seriously examined.

If I am guilty for slavery as a white person, then aren't blacks guilty of ethnically cleansing the native American population?

A significant number of blacks left the south after the Civil War to make lives in other parts of the US. And quite a few of them joined the US Military.

And Idi Amin was one of the most notorious racists EVER. Even though Idi Amin may have been Ugandan, but ask an Asian who was deported from Uganda during the 1970s how well they were treated by his government. And wasn't that the beginning of the "taking a knee" thing?

Yes, blacks can be racist too.

And let's close with some Russell Brand on the Democrats:

Big Brother/Sister is watching you and you are giving him everything he/she wants

 You might find this interesting if you believe you support "capitalism":

Time to wake up because Big Tech is running your life.

Time to become a Luddite. This tells you the problem and how to fight it.

BTW,  Facebook's owner Meta Platforms saw its stock market value slump by more than $230bn (£169bn) on Thursday, in a record daily loss for a US firm.

The company's share price slide saw chief executive Mark Zuckerberg's net worth fall by $31bn, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The drop in Mr Zuckerberg's personal fortune was equivalent to the annual gross domestic product of Estonia.

Analysis of this from the BBC (https://www.bbc.com/news/business-60255088):

It's clear that Meta is facing a whirlwind of different problems.

Last year Apple brought in its App Tracking Transparency policy.

It lets people choose whether or not they want to be tracked around the internet by companies, like Meta, who can then sell that information to advertisers.

That is a major problem for Facebook, because finding information out about you and selling it to advertisers is exactly how it makes money.

Its quarterly results showed advertising income falling, partly for this reason.

 Get off of social media since YOU are the product. The Billionaires are getting rich off of YOUR information.

 

Russell Brand on Hillary Clinton

 Unlike Doggone, I KNEW that the Russia narrative was Rubbish. Russell Brand makes the truth easy to swallow:

Tulsi Gabbard captured Hillary Clinton best. “You, the queen of warmongers, embodiment of corruption, and personification of the rot that has sickened the Democratic Party for so long…”

"Why are we even invested in this? Because the media continually tells us we are doing something valuable instead of telling us the truth: 'Look, It doesn't matter who you vote for, you're getting the same deal. That's what you're gonna be getting, That's what's on offer. Shut up and like it.'"

Everyone MUST WATCH this!

 Many a truth is told in jest. 

Brand may be a comedian, but he is saying a lot of things which need to be said.

Are you wondering what is going on right now? He explains things which need to be explained.

Please listen to him.

HEY MITCH, YOU MIGHT WANT TO WATCH THIS BEFORE YOU ATTACK NEIL YOUNG!

 Maybe the evil is capitalism...

"The point of this is to open your eyes to see possibilities you may not have imagined."

And this is an interesting footnote to all this:

The US really needs to join the rest of the World

 In this case, it's the metric system. There are a lot of really good reasons: one of which is trade. There are only three countries in the world using the archaic system of measurement used in the US.

The other countries are:

Country	2021 Population
United States	332,915,073
Myanmar	54,806,012
Liberia	5,180,203

 

You would think that if someone were really serious about "Making America Great Again" they would follow up by finally implementing a system of measurement that the founders approved of.

Immediately after independence, the United States used a variety of units of measure, including Dutch units and English units. The 1789 Constitution grants Congress the authority to determine standards of measure, though it did not immediately use this authority to impose a uniform system. The United States was one of the first nations to adopt a decimal currency, under the Coinage Act of 1792.

 In 1793, Thomas Jefferson requested artifacts from France that could be used to adopt the metric system in the United States, and Joseph Dombey was sent from France with a standard kilogram. Before reaching the United States, Dombey's ship was blown off course by a storm and captured by pirates, and he died in captivity on Montserrat.

OK, early adoption was rather abortive, but the US SHOULD have been a pioneer here (as well as in other technological advancements, such as high speed rail, but that's another post). Anyway...

Congress included new encouragement for U.S. industrial metrication in the Omnibus Foreign Trade and Competitiveness Act of 1988. This legislation amended the Metric Conversion Act of 1975 and designated the metric system as "the Preferred system of weights and measures for United States trade and commerce". The legislation states that the federal government has a responsibility to assist industry, especially small business, as it voluntarily converts to the metric system of measurement. The legislation required most federal agencies to use the metric system in their procurement, grants, and other business-related activities by the end of 1992. While not mandating metric use in the private sector, the federal government has sought to serve as a catalyst in the metric conversion of the country's trade, industry, and commerce. Exceptions were made for the highway and construction industries. The Department of Transportation planned to require metric units by 2000, but this plan was canceled by the 1998 highway bill TEA21. The U.S. military has generally high use of the metric system, partly because of the need to work with other nations' militaries.

There are quite a few stories where differences caused by contractors to the US government using both systems of measurement to disasterous effects.

So, what's causing me to bitch like this since I avoid the "English" system of measurements used by the US? Actually, I don't use them normally.

I am trying to convert Liquid ounces, cups, pints, quarts, etcetera into metric. Metric is easy there are 1000 millilitres in a litre, 100 centilitre in a litre, and so on. On the other hand, a system of measurement which was based on the length of the monarch's arm has to be shit.

Seriously, once you get used to metric, you wonder how you ever bothered with the antiquated system of measurement. Trust me--it's much better.

 

Unicorns exist ! (At least they do in French)

Imagine my surprise when I see that the President of France talking about increasing the number of unicorns in France. Is it April First?

Nope, your French dictionary may be dated, but Antidote (https://www.antidote.info/en) came to the rescue:

économie – Jeune entreprise du domaine des nouvelles technologies qui, sans être cotée en Bourse, est estimée à plus de un milliard de dollars

That's "Young company in the field of new technologies which, without being listed on the stock exchange, is estimated to be worth more than one billion dollars" in English. Not to mention this is a really good term since some of these companies really have zero assets.

Their real assets are YOUR INFORMATION which they sell.

Maybe some of these companies actually have a product, but they sell airware for the most part.

Here's your unicorn.

Let's do Malcolm X's birthday instead of MLK!

Malcolm X, who became El Hajj Malik El Shabazz, is a very interesting person to me. He should have told the teacher who said he shouldn't be a lawyer, that he would be the best at whatever Malcolm put his mind to. 

He was.

And he made an impact in the Nation of Islam, enough so that he was probably under more FBI surveillance than MLK ever was. I watched the Netflix series on Malcolm X's assassination and I am even more convinced that his talent was wasted by that event. The FBI feared a charismatic black leader, which is a reason I think that even was allowed to happen. It was also why Fred Hampton met the same fate.

I'm not going to address the FBI and other "Law Enforcement" surveillance of either of these men, but it was extensive. But the threat they both posed as charismatic black leaders is dangerous, but the real threat was that they both were moving toward a rainbow coalition. The fact that oppressed people can be any race, creed, or colour.

Malcolm Little became El Hajj Malik El Shabazz because he made the Hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca. That trip opened his eyes to see that Muslims can be any race. Which was a dangerous event for the Nation of Islam. 

Think if both of these men, Malcolm X and Fred Hampton, had gone on to unify people to work together on the problems of society. They were formidable leaders who would have made Berniemania look like nothing. 

Sadly, both of them were cut down way too early.

Just when you thought it was safe...

 I was going through the French press and saw a headline about "duck bill masks" ("bec de canard") and wanted to find out if the term was slang. You are probably aware that cloth masks are pretty much worthless. That's where FFP comes in, or:

FFP2 is actually classed as a respirator, rather than a mask, meaning they offer better protection. FFP stands for "Filtering Face Piece", with the number corresponding to the level of protection the piece provides, 1 being the lowest level of protection and 3 being the highest.

So, these are a little more than the fashion statement that cloth masks make. I'm not sure how effective they are in real life since the one study used the FFP3 masks, which are the most effective of this type of masks.

 Alas, I am not trained to a level where I can make strong opinions on this issue, but people who are and I respect say that this virus may need to be accepted as a fact of life.

Interesting links:

• https://lexpansion.lexpress.fr/actualite-economique/production-de-masques-ffp2-et-d-autotests-enquete-sur-un-retard-francais_2165902.html
  
• https://www.dw.com/en/coronavirus-face-mask-face-shield-ffp2-n95-kn95-whats-the-difference/a-52291265
  
• https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7248188/
  

More reasons you need to be concerned about monopolies and oligarchs

 Yet another interesting interview by Russell Brand on why you should be worried about the current situation:

Wanting strong data protection laws isn't "privilige": it's sanity.

The billionaires made money on your information. And it all gets scarier.

Aux Armes, citoyens!

 Imagine my surprise seeing this headline in Le Figaro after listening to gun nuts extol how the US is the beacon of "gun rights" and gun ownership. Here's the link, but you need to:

1. Be a subscriber to Le Figaro and
2. be able to understand French

to be able to read the article.

https://www.lefigaro.fr/actualite-france/face-a-l-insecurite-de-plus-en-plus-de-francais-s-arment-20220109

Yes, the French aren't "victims" to use the Gun Culture paradigm since they can get a firearm for protection. Sure, they have to undergo some form of serious background check before they can get permission to own them, but France is in 24th place for armed citizenry in the world with a ratio of 19.6 guns per 100 inhabitants. Or 12 million weapons in civilian hands in France.

Anyway, it was amusing to see an article like this in a French newspaper since the gun nuts like to claim that the US is somehow "unique" in the ability to own firearms. This article could have come from a US newspaper, which is the source of my amusement. Here are a few excerpts:

"Stop hoplophobia", chanted the activists of the Association for the Restoration of Citizen Carry of Arms (Arpac). Hoplophobia? "The irrational fear felt by some people at the mere mention of a weapon, where a normal person distrusts the one who carries it," they say. On Facebook, their page has more than 45,000 subscribers - three times as many as five years ago - who promote self-defence and the carrying of weapons for "responsible citizens". With a firearm, "you are no longer a victim, but an actor in your own safety", they insist...

Does he see himself shooting a potential burglar? I'm going to take all the necessary measures to prevent that from happening," he says. I'm going to install an armoured door and close the shutters every night. But I can imagine myself taking the gun out of the window and firing it into the air to scare the attacker. What is not possible is to stand by and do nothing...

Marie-Hélène, who lives alone in her house in the heart of a small town in the Hérault region, has the same desire to be safe. During the lockdown, "in the middle of the night, the municipal police rang my doorbell: they had seen a man loitering near my gate", reports this 60-year-old widow.

I think the "uniqueness" is less in the ability to own firearms and more in the irresponsible manner that they are owned in the United States. Or as the police advice mentioned in the article says:

Don't shoot if the man happens to be passing through your garden. You would be in more trouble than the offender.

What are you doing on Social Media? Why are you there?

 I've been wanting to do a post on this topic for a really long time since I find it amusing how most of the right wingers are paranoid about their government, but have no problem with big business-oligarch crowd.

Here's the difference: government is supposed to be under citizen scrutiny. Private entities like businesses aren't--unless the government regulates them.

Russell seems a little slow on the uptake since nothing he is talking about here is secret. In fact, this stuff is all an open secret.

So, if you don't want your activities traced, you might want to get away from social media and big tech.

As Russell points out, the Internet was created by the US Department of Defence (DARPANET).

Sorry, Al Gore and Tim Berners-Lee, you can't take credit for internet.

je suis nouvellement vacciné (Je suis ennuyé vacciné???)

Je suis récemment vacciné et cette chanson m'a traversé ma tête. Changez "Je suis un noyé assassiné" en "je suis nouvellement vacciné" (ou "Je suis ennuyé vacciné") et rendez les autres choses plus appropriées. Par exemple, "un gars qu'en voulait a mon porte-monnaie" devient "un gars qu'en voulait à ma bonne santé".

 I'm newly vaccinated and this song went through my head. Change "I'm a murdered drowning man" to "I'm newly vaccinated" (or "annoyed and vaccinated") and make the other things more appropriate. For example, "a guy who was after my wallet" becomes "a guy who wanted my good health".

Could Carnival over take the Mummers?

 Serious question since the Philadelphia Mummer tradition owes a lot to Carnival. Carnival being:

Carnival is a Western Christian festive season that occurs before the liturgical season of Lent. The main events typically occur during February or early March, during the period historically known as Shrovetide (or Pre-Lent). Carnival typically involves public celebrations, including events such as parades, public street parties and other entertainments, combining some elements of a circus. Elaborate costumes and masks allow people to set aside their everyday individuality and experience a heightened sense of social unity. Participants often indulge in excessive consumption of alcohol, meat, and other foods that will be forgone during upcoming Lent.

This question is something I've been asking myself for a while since I heard the Mummer's Parade in Philadelphia was having economic problems.  Carnival It's a big thing in the Caribbean and is called Mardi Gras in the US:

Carnival celebrations, usually referred to as Mardi Gras ("Fat Tuesday" in French), were first celebrated in the Gulf Coast area, but now occur in many states. Customs originated in the onetime French colonial capitals of Mobile (now in Alabama), New Orleans (Louisiana), and Biloxi (Mississippi), all of which have celebrated for many years with street parades and masked balls.

 So, the two traditions. Carnival and Mummers, have a lot in common. I found this article in Al Dia about another tradition, the San Mateo Carnavalero, linking up with the Mummers

 Up until recently the suggestion that masqueraders of "San Mateo Carnavalero" should  join the long standing and massive parade of the "Mummers" had been nothing more than our suggestion. However recently there was a real rapprochement between multiple local cultural carnivals, all of which had, until then, remained mostly disconnected.

 My opinion, here's a tradition which exists that could join up with other ethnic groups. The Al Dia Article pretty much sums up how I think the Mummers Parade should evolve to become more inclusive. The issue is whether blacks are willing to join their tradition with that from other cultures.

What you miss by being monolingual.

 The US really doesn't have much in the way of a balanced media.

So, it was really refreshing to see this interview with John McWhorter in L'Express: https://www.lexpress.fr/actualite/idees-et-debats/john-mcwhorter-avec-sa-croyance-inebranlable-et-son-peche-originel-le-wokisme-est-une-religion_2165058.html

You can find English versions, but the French one is much more cutting about this movement.

You touch on a crucial point. There is certainly a form of theatricality in the way some blacks claim a place, and that can be traced back to simplistic attitudes already in the early 1960s. But I really think that the black American leadership doesn't think about black people as elected officials: it's not part of the black tradition. I think that Black America thinks of itself through a very troubled history, still in the present, and that this idea that Black people should have a certain place is not an egocentric idea, but rather a fear. It comes from the fact that it can be difficult, as a black person, why you exist in the world. The relationship with Africa, it goes back centuries, it doesn't make sense anymore. We are not Africans. What do we have? It is very difficult to think collectively in such a situation. For me, it's very important that we understand this because indeed, this aspect of black activism can be very irritating. But it comes from a deep insecurity. 

I find it interesting that Prof. McWhorter is a professor of Creole Studies and isn't offering the Western Alternative to Africa: Creole culture. The slaves made their own traditions in the Western Hemisphere.

While the narrative is that blacks "were stolen from Africa", the reality is that they were sold into bondage by other Africans (e.g., Mali Empire and Benin). Slavery has been part of African culture from Ancient times. Blaming white people won't change that.

US black culture is also not monolithic as is seen by examples like Prof. McWhorter.

Kwanzaa, Odunde, and what's that other one. Oh, yeah, Juneteenth: Reprise

 I'm sure that people are saying I am a racist because of these posts since they go against what we are told about how race relations SHOULD be in the US.

On the other hand, remember I am a francophone, which has been officially certified by the French government.

I wonder how many of the people calling me a racist listen to Radio France International (RFI)? They might want to since RFI broadcasts in one of the two most commonly spoken languages in Africa: FRENCH! 

TO AFRICA

And the other one is English.

As I said in the previous post:

The ethnic groups of Africa number in the thousands, with each population generally having its own language (or dialect of a language) and culture. The ethnolinguistic groups include various Afroasiatic, Khoisan, Niger-Congo and Nilo-Saharan populations.

So, having a common language is very helpful, even if those langauges happen to be the "imperialistic" ones, Arabic, Portugese, French, or English.

But another thing which is missing (or things that are missing) when I listen to news by and about Africans? Kwanzaa, Odunde, and what's that other one. Oh, yeah, Juneteenth...

There's a bit of local difficulty and the powers that be toss blacks a bone.

Unfortunately, like the ethnic groups in Africa, US blacks are not a monolithic identity.

I wonder how long it will take for the blacks to realise that maybe the people making the ctiticism might be their best friends. Although, they are probably smart enough to realise they are being pandered to.

Ann Coulter on Kwanzaa

This "holiday" would probably have blown by me except one e-mail  came with "What Kwanzaa Means to Black Americans—Now & Always" in its contents. I said "Kwanzaa has been built up, but I have yet to meet someone who seriously celebrates it other than my ultra liberal Jewish cousin. Get me somebody who is black who celebrates it! I don't know about "African-Americans", but this set of holidays leaves me dry." in a previous post on the topic.

On the other hand, the one e-mail did make me curious as to if this was a popular holiday.

Or just something being foisted on people as a distraction? (annoyance?)

I think I found one authentic site about a couple of black people in the Lehigh Valley trying to promote the "holiday". The rest were from MSM and business pushing it.

On the right, it was pretty much what Ann Coulter says:

Kwanzaa was the result of a ’60s psychosis grafted onto the black community. Liberals have become so mesmerized by multicultural gibberish that they have forgotten the real history of Kwanzaa and Karenga’s United Slaves — the violence, the Marxism, the insanity.

I don't think the issue is that people have forgotten anything, the whole story has never been discussed. It's like "Black Lives Matter", which started out as a good thing countering the "stand your groud laws". Now, its become a meaingless slogan to get people to work against their interests.

How can you have a world's series with only one or two countries participating?

There is a plaque commemorating the US High Speed Rail pioneers at Princeton Junction, one of them was my step-father. The US could have rail service like this if the government was willing to foot the bill. But these quotes pretty much sum up why France can leave the US in the dust sitting in a traffic jam.

Rail subsidies are largest in China ($130 billion) and Europe (€73 billion), while the United States has relatively small subsidies for passenger rail with freight not subsidized.

This film is in French, but you can get the point of WHY rail is important, yet the US is ignoring it.

 Cross-subsidies between lines go a long way towards explaining the development of the high-speed rail system in France. Thanks to those subsidies, it has been possible to develop a TGV service even in towns that are located far from LGV lines. TGVs also can run on conventional lines provided the lines are electrified.

 So, the US COULD easily develop high speed rail capable of speed in excess of 357 mph (or 574.8KmPH. TGV holds that record).

The sad thing is that the people chanting Make America Great Again are against a Green New Deal, which should have rebuilding rail infrastructure as an integral aspect.

Sadly, the clip is in French, because a lot of people in the US need to see it.

Move on--Nothing to be seen here...

Nothing like watching Fox News and being told about some péché mortale done by the "Democratic" party. Or the reverse on MSNBC, that is the "Republican" party is bad. Problem is that BOTH parties are pretty much the same thing, which is why they need those "Hot button", "culture wars" issues to differentiate themselves the same way Pepsi does from Coke.

Bad news: it's the big donors who call the shots otherwise Bernie Sanders would be well into his Second Term by now (there's a post simmering on why Sanders would have been more popular than most people think, but the short form is that he represents what was historically a red state and was popular with a focus group of Fox News viewers!).

Big money needs to be removed from US politics as one of the top reforms. Although that gives Tucker Carlson something to act surprised about when a Google consultant works to install an FTC head.

Anyway, the elections are not free and fair on a secret ballot by any stretch of the imagination in the US.

The US needs to start practising what it spend a good portion of the 20th Century telling other countries to do while pretending they were pratising what they were preaching. Here's this from the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (1948).

Article 21

1. Everyone has the right to take part in the government of his country, directly or through freely chosen representatives.
2. Everyone has the right of equal access to public service in his country.
3. The will of the people shall be the basis of the authority of government; this will shall be expressed in periodic and genuine elections which shall be by universal and equal suffrage and shall be held by secret vote or by equivalent free voting procedures.

See also:

• David Sirota and Andrew Perez: Unchecked Corporate Power Is at the Root of America’s Democracy Crisis

This is pretty good too: