Jump to content

Avaunt

Members
  • Posts

    8,874
  • Joined

  • Last visited

  • Days Won

    89

Posts posted by Avaunt

  1. That is the thing about the politics of division.

    Only the divides WE agree to are correct. You and I would ask a right wing person to ( well, on top of the impulse to say "WAKE UP TO YOURSELF/grow up man, for goodness sake/PLEASE try not being a selfish dick" etc ) NOT vote for a Bolsonaro or a tRump or a johnson because they are a toxic dick. We would be quite content with the line of reasoning that said

    "A reasonable person would be OK with their party preferences, and in fact their political aspirations being foregone for this term, because that person is objectively suspect". Or even manifestly so.

    Not so happy to hear the same said, admittedly with less evidence, when it is "our" team that is suspect.

     

    Was even a half of the things said about her justified?. No. Was she someone I would have voted for?. I mean, yes, but because of her opponent, not if I had my 'druthers. Does that make me a sexist?. Hmm. I voted for Helen Clarke 3 times, and J. Ardern twice, so maybe not that much.

  2. reading you ten-four on the J. Tiptree jr's stories.

    Sadly this is not so for Ballard. Obviously just because of personal taste issues.

    Because, Ugh.

    I am filled with hatred for that writer and his obtuse and pointless nonsense, non-stories that dared to take up room on the Sci-Fi shelves. Long long long before the interwebs I had arguments about him with people whose opinions I normally respected, so

     

    it is probably me, not you, dear friend.

    🤣

  3. Man, I read all three of those books, but so long ago I can only remember one thing, about one of them.

    Bug Jack was a kind of shock-jock "video" news-hound cum opinion shaper and "Electronic Media" was treated as a sort of seminal driver of change for their times ?. Other than that, a blank.

     

    Which for me is unusual, I have always had the ability to drag plots up out of my head, especially of books that I enjoyed and I remember enjoying that one.

    ( googles ) Yep, lots there that completely failed to save.

  4. On 4/24/2022 at 12:17 AM, dogpoet said:

     

    (Also, the trainer has taken a vow of silence until he wins the big chicken fight. )

    If they had made a silent Rocky, it would have been a more uplifting film I think. I honestly never had time for the character, it is just so difficult to sympathise with him imo.

    • Like 1
  5. I know it is kinda funny . . .

     

    But it makes me despair. Looked at dispassionately, the USA has been the greatest good for the human race.

    Does anyone think the various Empires would have folded their tents WITHOUT the salutary lesson they delivered with their declaration ?

    Or people would be as compassionate and understanding . . . and legally bound to be so  without  "The Civil Rights Act of 1964".

    Or the science support. Or the common culture, which is powerful in itself, it might be lowest common denominator but at least it IS common.

    And a hundred other great and important things, that the republicans becoming mental cases, undermines WORLD WIDE.  They have seriously damaged Democracy around the world, with their childish nonsense.

  6. 😗

    I came this close to wreaking two of my fingers just now, and it would have been simultaneously a bizarre, and a normal accident, at least by the standard reached at "Accidents Tigger has had" .com

    I was playing fetch with the house dog, and she is determined instead to play "I am not giving this ball to you but I am very willing to fight to hold it as long as you wish to try to wrest it from me". As is the normal event after her once or twice fetching it.

     

    We had reached that point where my insisting she does, indeed, drop the ball or I am going back inside, has her drop it and back away a smidgen. The games normal procedure is I try to pick it up normally and she doesn't let me and we debate for a while. This time the instant she dropped it and was rising away I struck just as fast as I can, from an almost upright stance, with my fingers already curling to encompass it . . . Nope. Denied.

    She had darted back at the ball with literally over-powering speed, and her nose rammed my fingers aside, so that in effect I drove my fingers into the rock-hard summer clay of our backyard with the entire force of my frame.

    OUCH.

    I can't understand why they didn't break. They certainly felt broken.

     

    To her credit she dropped the ball and jumped to console me when I cried and sat down holding my hand.

  7. And given no one overseas HOLDS roubles even in the normal times, they can only get roubles from buying them from a russian bank, and you can't.

    So as well as impossible, it would be impossible. The russian economy is going to free-fall, and unfortunately this is only going to strengthen his hand domestically. Money is a consensus delusion, and in times like this, that is a potent tool, he just re-words the whole issue to make it another tool of his control over the message the russians get.

    I am at a loss to imagine a way this doesn't end in a huge war.

  8. OK, you have made more clear what you meant, and  I entirely misunderstood. Sorry for not simply asking you what you meant.

    In fact I totally agree with your sentiment of not believing a single thing that is coming out about the whole issue, from local mouths, Russian OR Ukraine, so far as the events of the last 14 years. Not because I think there is one side right but indulging in propaganda, and one side inexcusably wrong and indulging in propaganda.

    The reason why I disbelieve is because of the complexity of human culture and actions.

     

    A situation like this in miniature has been ongoing in New Zealand  actually, and I KNOW that anyone who has  heard one or both sides public announcements on the topic ( The thorny issue of Te Urewera's , the land of the Tuhoe tribe ) DOES NOT KNOW SHIT about the actual issue. The whole thing is so complex, with such bad blood on one side, and double dealing and mealy-mouthiness on the other. For anyone at all, let alone foreigners, to think they understand any part of the truth of the issue is risible.

    HOWEVER. Regardless of the issues, we can fairly oppose putin in this. He had other avenues open to him, we have the rule of law, and he DID NOT pursue those avenues simply because it didn't suit him to obey International Law, it never has.

    And where there is such clear guilt, one can safely suspect the claims of the Ukrainians have more likelihood of being right. I agree they are probably lying too, but our sides are kind of picked for us.

  9. If the Agreements that Ukraine signed when they gave up their nukes were enforceable, the USA would have intervened already, and most of us would be dead.

    If you think NATO isn't up to dealing out the russians and the chinese put together if there were not nukes in the world, you know nothing about the respective strengths of the sides that would be drawn, their economic depth, and their ability TO PROJECT FORCE, AND THEIR EXPERIENCE OF DOING SO.. Russia is struggling to deal with Ukrainian forces for goodness sake.

     

    I am no kind of hawk. And this isn't  anything to do with hawk behaviour from the US or anywhere other than Russia. Russia's dictator has seen what other dictators have suffered, and he is killing his neighbours out of fear that the same fate will be his if he relaxes his rule. And that is EXACTLY the purpose of NATO. And the EXACT reason other countries wanted to join NATO.

    You said " i mean the big problem about russia is that you can not trust anything you hear, from our news, or gouverments, from theirs, from their domestic opposition or the same in exile. ", and that is where I take issue with the reason you are writing all this.

    Because we CAN trust that russia is a dictatorship, it just IS, the place is run by and for putin.

    And we CAN trust that they have waged a war of aggression on a peaceful state, without ONCE taking their actual concerns to the UN or any other legal avenue.

    And for you to be writing all this opinion piece suggesting somehow The West is guilty of some sort of provocation, somehow responsible, gets on my wick.

  10. Well, you are upset, we are all upset.

    If you don't oppose ( eye for an eye in your phrase ) ideologies that do wrong ( putin in this case ) they ride over top of you.

     

    We DO have to stress our differences. YES things have been done wrong here, but we are the good guys, made crystal clear by the fact that we can hold our officials to the fire, when they do wrong.

    We don't have 15 years inside because we criticise the government. We also don't do the (unexamined) supremacy thing anymore.

    And G.B. wasn't even in the top five of "worst Empires", of course, that was just you lashing out. Bit silly to indulge in, if you ask me.

  11. 20 hours ago, seventhcircle said:

    but whatever i guess, nazis never need to make sense.

    A.

     

    honestly, can somebody explain to me putins' endgame here? you could always see from a certain perspective how the Russian actions make sense. Even the hardcore nationalistic ideology that they pursue. This however seems just bullshit. I I think had he played his cards differently he might have been able to swallow a big chunk of ukraine, without the international outcry and isolation of russia, at least at that level.

    B.

    A. for A. Did we need another reason to hate the idiots on the far right?. No, obviously we didn't, but that never stopped them before.

    A. for B.  Nope, not me. I can only assume he is a solipsistic existentialist. He doesn't think there is any further need for planning once he has run his career to its obvious end. He can NEVER surrender effective power because in that instant people will start after his money.

    He is rich beyond the dreams of previous generations, and control of those illicit trillions can't be made legal, not an ounce of it will survive his passing. So he HAS no legacy to protect for his family. That removes a long-term plan. To him the world ends when he does.

    And he wants to make it impossible for his generals and functionaries to benefit from over throwing  him. They know now they are all complicit in a war of aggression, so none of them can run a coup, dust the inside of putins skull with gunpowder-smoke, and hold up their hands and surrender.

  12. Mordew by Alex Pheby

     

    Extremely well written and engaging fantasy novel. Many beauties in the flow of words, honestly some of the nicest writing I have encountered in  a while. The psychological aspects of the characters lives are always present, but alluded to with such a fascinating delicate touch that I was halting my read frequently to say "Bravo" mentally to the author.

    And the fantasy aspect is handled really well, magic is treated like the Outside Context Problem it really would be, "Normal Human Life" would not just go on unchanged if magic were real, and if the world had some competing Sauron level Mages, they would distort every single life that was crouched at their feet.

    Quite excellent. First of three novels apparently. Not gentle though, certainly a horror aspect. The sort of book where my mum used to write "Not to be read to Babies" on it, when Lance and I were being first taught to read.

  13. Yes, I totally agree, and it wasn't just the world wars, the Gnomes happily dealt with 70 years of Communists, people who held half the world in thrall and exported war across the world.

    They have so may more levels of information and, importantly, expertise of understanding the information they gather . . .

     

    Almost like they have reason to think putin is MORE dangerous, likely to go further, and be more disruptive to the core of Zurich's interests,  than hitler and stalin and mao combined.

     

  14. Well, the unity of the countries further East is practical, based on their idea of possible futures.

     

    The Gnomes will be more about profit and loss. Probably they are just looking long term, putin is one man, already elderly, and his economy is going to suffer badly for decades. These sanctions have a lasting effect, and will be in place for a decade or more, the russian economy won't recover from this.

    And after all, they HAVE the money from the ogliachs already. They are not going to "lose" custom from other people, or repeat business, no sensible businessman wants to see this sort of war, a war whose aim isn't business, but an individuals (putin) safety from rebellion or overthrow.

    He saw what happened to other dictators, and acted to have the initiative, control the conversation.

  15. No one Big Bucks tm  borrows in any other currency than Dollars.

     

    Trump's borrowing from Putin, yes, but he is borrowing Dollars. Similarly, Putin is selling his oil/influence/murders in Dollars. And putin knew he WAS going to war, so not a doubt he has sold rubles short AF, and is holding Dollars. He of all people wasn't going to be holding any Rubles this week

     

  16. Aye.

    And my twin got so angry that I was helping his sons and daughter-in-law that he almost stressed himself into a hospital bed. Lance is SO ANGRY but about what ?.

    Edit ! Nah, I can't do it to my friends, I just unleashed a flood of distressing stuff about what my twin has turned into . . . and what good would it do to upset you all if you read  it?. The SINGLE thing you can say in his favour is he has never "physically" punished his kids.

     

    So.

    tl:dr yeah, Lance is a nutter mate. And so is Kevin. And so is Steven. Sadly it is traceable back to my father, and HE became the man he was because right as he became a man, his older brother Peter Victor, his best buddy, his hero, died in the war, and it totally twisted dad's ability to love people.

    And even though my brothers repudiate our dads worst aspects, they are like copy-print Kens.

     

  17. lol.

    Well, actually, as mad as it sounds, I won't be living there for the foreseeable future.

    I suppose I am that thing from fiction, the insane genius who all the Heroes under-estimate*, but where I am living is 45 or probably 60 minutes closer to work, and more importantly it is heading into Winter, so it would mean dealing with rain some days as WELL as extra hours on public transport. And ( kind of not that important . . . but it is ME, and I am a soft touch ) the woman I am renting a room off was going to sell her much loved house before I came here, because she couldn't see an end to the bills and living alone, but had lost faith in tenants.

    And the Grandy-flat that is mine-all-mine-hahahaha is worth at least $450 a week rented out so the kids will rent it to one of  their mates, who are lining up for the privilege. That money will go straight to pay off the mortgage they have, which will make a real difference. ( If you can, you ought to front-load mortgage payments, it saws away effectively at the compounding interest thingy. )

    So I am carrying on here for at least six months, to the distress of just about my whole family, first and foremost the Kids themselves. Aaisha stared into my eyes and said

    " what ? . . . why ? ".

    And Sam shook his head and just pretended I hadn't said anything. Only my Sister-in-Law Sue got it, and SHE is the monetary genius of the family, I always run plans before her for her advice, and she was nodding her head before I finished giving my reasons. So fork the rest of them.

    My brother Kevin gritted his teeth and after a few minutes striving to command his temper just said "You live in a fucking dream-world" and walked off to do something on the other side of the yacht we were cleaning. He has been against me helping the kids since I first suggested it. 6 years ago. AGRESSIVELY against my helping my clone-children, and his reasoning comes down to nothing more profound than " No one helped ME ".

    So you guys will have to cultivate my Niece Aaisha ( the Power behind the actual  Throne that Nick and Sam are vying for ) if you want to bring your Pups to swim in the pool. Until this time next year anyway.

     

    * Full of out-of-the-box ideas of genius, but, unfortunately, "Quite Mad".

  18. Just WOW.

     

    I imagine the Whitheouse Permanent Staff knew it was happening, and just thought "GOD NO, just get the clown out of the place any way we can, DON'T check the boxes and sacks they are scurrying off with".

     

    What an appalling travesty of such a Noble Office he represented. It would be derided, were anyone to have imagined it as fiction.

    "Oh, what poor stuff, call yourself a writer ?".

×
×
  • Create New...