Author: polistra
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Holy wells
Paul Kingsnorth, a sort of Christian mystic, is doing a series on Holy Wells of Ireland. He goes to each place, takes pictures, and muses on its significance. His objective approach reminds me of the WPA Guides, which treated sacred places and sacred stories with perfect objectivity. All such stories are equally valid unless known…
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Reprint from 2014
Linked in previous, worth a reprint. The footnote at the end turned out to be especially permanent. I’ve made one important edit. In 2014 I was calling the modern elite Commies. I later learned more about the real Soviet system, and more about Stalin himself. These modern idiots are the exact opposite of real Communists…
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From an extremely different era 20
From an 1886 printers trade journal: Mahomet had said: The ink of the wise is worth more than the blood of the martyrs. Before 1990 it was possible to treat Mohammed as a source of wisdom. After Bush The Father declared war on Islam, the entire religion of Islam became our enemy, and we decided…
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Hollywood still isn’t learning
Celebrities who dare to question war are being kicked out. Dammit, ordinary people are tired of all this shit. Wars, “viruses”, “genders”, “racism”, all isms. Tired of politicians who destroy the world instead of solving problems. Hollywood, your job is ENTERTAINMENT. You’re not supposed to add more shit. You’re supposed to provide RELIEF from the…
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Useful timeline and landmark
Denyse points to this article about peer review. It’s headlined as a call for transformation, but it starts from a fake premise. The authors are puzzled that peer review doesn’t do what it was “supposed to do”. They do show a beautifully exponential timeline of the tenure fraud, and they bring out an important landmark…
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Still good advice
Continuing on the value of condensation. From an 1899 book Making a Country Newspaper: = = = = = START QUOTE: Newspaper English to be good must be simple and concise. Clearness and brevity of statement are all-important. This does not imply that the narrative should be limited to a few facts. On the other…
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If you’re doing it that way…
In Laura Shin’s reporting on Sammy’s testimony, she describes a setup for monitoring accounts. Sammy had one “trading engine” for running the bets in his betting parlor, and another “risk engine” for checking the bets against account limits for each customer. He claimed that the “risk engine” was slow in responding when the bets hit…
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Features
It’s fashionable to mock Youtube Shorts and Tiktok as catering to modern short attention spans. True except for modern. Entertainment has always provided brief moments and quick distractions for people who can’t devote several hours of intense concentration to a novel or an opera or a Gone With The Wind. Lately I’ve been talking about…
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Odd gimmicks
I’ve been enjoying the Jam Handy Chevrolet newsreels lately. Nice mix of features. Each episode includes pretty girls, activity in Death Valley, fishermen, unusual pets, school safety, and big construction projects. This 1937 episode focuses on trailer living, which was one solution to Depression unemployment. The text doesn’t overly glamorize the lifestyle, making it clear…
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Sidetalkers
Saagar and Krystal agree on the absurdity of ‘open letters’ and ‘petitions’. Why bother sending an open letter to the president telling him to do what he’s already doing? Or the opposite? Presidents don’t read petitions. This is a fine example of the Sucker Filter Corollary that I heard from some political strategist back in…
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More on C-Tactile
First, reprinting from a month ago: = = = = = START REPRINT: Yasuko has produced a huge number of tutorials using acupressure and similar methods to improve mood and health. This one turned out to be surprisingly effective: Is C-Tactile proper science? Yes. Exactly. = = = = = START QUOTE: The human equivalent…
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Used to be a job
Listening to the new breed of journalists covering Sammy. They had to get along without their iPhone mental prostheses. They’re doing a fair job of taking notes on paper, but they admit that they can’t keep up all the time. This used to be a standard job for shorthand stenographers. I wonder if anyone thought…
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Comparison
Comparing Sammy vs Elizabeth. Initially I treated both of these fraudsters as the same personality type: Professional Criminal. I’ve understood this type since prison taught me in 1969. The pro criminal MUST do everything the cheating way, the dishonest way. If there’s an honest way to do a task that takes one minute and costs…
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True and important
EnidBuzz has a meme: A southern goodbye is saying bye 20 times and standing around talking for another half hour while slowly inching your way toward the door. True and important. I noticed this as a child but didn’t associate it with broader culture. I thought it was just the way our family did things.…
Polistra's Mill 