November 30, 2022

Thanks for the post. You can't really go against anyone's religion...

unless of course they're crazy, violent, racist, anti-semitic christofascists...or some other violent sect.

And aren't the Sufis peaceful mistics who study and contemplate how to get closer to Allah? They don't eff with anyone.

November 26, 2022

Thanks for posting. She's an expert musician. I have a smaller kora I bought back when...

I visited Senegal back in the late '80s. I can't play it but here's a photo. It's 25" long from the top of the neck to the short legs under the bowl. I did a quick photoshop job to combine the image of the whole instrument and a close up of the bowl to show the cowry shell ornamentation, the handles and the strings are visible. It also has a couple of horn ornamentations on the back of the bowl. One is visible protruding from the back.

November 16, 2022

Poor Russkies, never a history of democracy...

just Czar/landlord/serfs for centuries, and then dictator/apparatchik/peasant in the Soviet Union...too bad. They just don't get the concept of people voting in their leaders, and voting them out if they do a piss poor job.

They just want to be dominated by a strongman daddy figure either in royal robes or Stalinist military garb or poorly tailored Soviet-era suits. Which is why they couldn't adjust to Gorbechev in his stylish Euro cut suits and his modern, reformist ideas. He definitely had to go.

No wonder they feel empty now...and Ukraine was just sitting there...all bread-baskety with food worth billions and plumb for the taking.

November 14, 2022

Welcome. You'll find that most DUers prefer a Nordic model society...

and work and vote for candidates as far as possible who lean that way. Progressive pragmatism does creep in as we need to win elections to implement policies, and not be so inflexibly idealistic that we never get anything done (see the accomplishments of the Biden Admin in just two years).

Things have to get done for the general welfare of the people.

That last sentence sounds somewhat socialistic, right, and I'm sure you agree with it. We lean left but understand the nation doesn't lean as far left as we do and that the word "socialism" is toxic to many (many boomer and GenXer voters, not all by any means, who were school as kids about Khrushchev, Brezhnev, fallout shelters, the Cuban missile crisis, the iron curtain, Red China, failed communist collectives, Stalininst purges and on and on. Many of those voters never lost the fear of socialism/communism and vote that way. Florida's Cuban and Venezuelan voters for instance, and of course republicans.

What say you? And really I myself voted for Gus Hall and Angela Davis in my first presidential vote, lived in Berkeley across the street from a hippie commune...the whole works.

So I get where you're coming from but understand pragmatism is often necessary. BTW, IIRC the world is still waiting for a sustained society/nation that has a socialistic economy.

July 4, 2022

IMO it's hypocrisy and cherry picking of amendments.

More justices needed on SCOTUS to counteract the Taliban 6.

July 4, 2022

Uh-oh, SCOTUS original constructionists of the Constitution...

better take a look at the 9th Amendment.

It being the 4th of July I thought I'd take a closer look at the Constitution and its amendments. The Second Amendment is of course hugely problematic, as is the EC provision, but Scalia and his disciples must have entirely skipped over THE 9TH AMENDMENT in their strict constructionist theorizing (or chose to ignore it), as it states as follows:

Huh? WTF? Did I read that right? The Ninth Amendment of the United States Constitution states that the federal government doesn't own the rights that are not listed in the Constitution, instead, they belong to the people. The 9th Amendment states that the rights not specified in the Constitution belong to the people, not the federal government.

So Alito's weak ass argument for striking down Roe because it's not mentionned in the constitution is in direct contradiction to the 9th Amendement, as is Scalia's Heller decision on guns, and all the other originalist claptrap being pushed by the SCOTUS Taliban 6.

I therefore move that blue state attorneys/legislatures immediately draw up bills and pass them that can be moved into the appropriate protocol through lower courts which lead to the Supreme Court taking it up—if they dare.

June 30, 2022

Yep, much flotsam already adrift with more jetsam...

being thrown over to save the orange turd.

The man is not a brilliant, once-in-a-lifetime figure worthy of such devotion. It's makes no sense as he's actually a once-in-a-lifetime, hopefully, incompetent, bloviating bully.

Guess they all checked their critical thinking skills at the WH door on taking their jobs. I give some credit to the ones who got out early like Tillerson and a few others once they realized trump was a moron.

There's no hope for the once who stay to the end or near to the bitter end like Kelly Ann Conway.

June 24, 2022

Madame Speaker is on MSNBC now and she just said...

"How about those 3 judges who stated they respected stare decisis, privacy. We're they lying then?"

Yes they were. And now they're SCOTUS justices.

Kavanaugh, Gorsuch and Coney Barrett...liars all.

June 23, 2022

Got to give it to Clark, a mid-level DOJ environment flunky...er, ahh...lawyer...

a nobody really, but he took a shot and went for the top spot at DOJ.

He failed miserably, thank God, and his house was raided by the FBI today and he's undoubtedly waiting for the other shoe to drop now...which is assuredly an indictment for his coordination with trump in the attempted coup.

June 22, 2022

Ok, I looked it up. There could still be vibration problems.

Probably solvable but since it's never been done who knows what the vibrations will do to deeply buried tunnels or tubes. Probably solvable but experimental ones have to be built and tried, just as high-speed aircraft have to be wind tunnel tested, build and test piloted to find out what problems develop to figure out how to fix them.

It's probably doable but will take years and a commitment much like the interstate highway development of the '50s.