The Truce Be Told

32 thoughts on “The Truce Be Told”

1. to paraphrase rudy guiliani’s “truth isn’t truth … because it’s somebody’s version of the truth. Not the truth,” 

   a truce isn’t always a truce because it’s only someone’s version of a truce, not a truce for all sides

   or perhaps this truce is along the lines of kellyanne conway’s “alternate facts” situations.

2. Some of President Biden’s advisors want to protect his reelection chances by easing up on his schedule, the turkeys pardoned at the White House today were reported to be Taylor Swift fans, and Argentina’s president-elect is modeling himself after America’s former president.

3. click here for kimmel’s monologue last night:

   The Kansas City Chiefs & the Philadelphia Eagles go head to head on Monday Night Football and the Kelce Brothers face off, President Joe Biden pardoned two turkeys in honor of Thanksgiving, we play a game in honor of his 81st birthday, the MAGA troops rallied in Iowa to see their Orange Jesus in the flesh, and Guillermo goes full-on Formula one at the Las Vegas Grand Prix.

4. lest we forget the other casualties and hostages in the other war.

   wonder where is the outrage against russia and where are the protestors demanding that putin cease fire and withdraw? 

   Ukraine War Casualties Near Half a Million, U.S. Officials Say – The New York Times (nytimes.com) [as of 2023 and not counting the tens of thousands of civilian casualties] 

   Ukraine says 400,000 citizens have been forcibly taken to Russia | CBC News [this reported last year]

5. They remember this first lady for her tool belt, not her ball gowns. Rosalynn Carter helped build 10 homes in Southeast Washington. Nine of the original homeowners are still there.
   https://wapo.st/3MT60sy

6. Pollster sees hope for Biden: “Republicans are in far greater trouble than is generally understood”
   Trump needs 95% of Republicans to have a chance of winning. Simon Rosenberg explains “he’s very far away from that” (He was one of the few experts who predicted that the so-called Republican “red wave” in 2002 was an illusion). — Salon
   Rosenberg: “It just gives me hope that people have been voting against MAGA and the Republicans repeatedly, especially, in the battleground states.”

7. Herodotus
   Croesus was the last king of Lydia, proverbial for his enormous fortune; even nowadays, many Romance languages use the expression “as rich as Croesus” to describe a fabulously wealthy person. Solon, on the other hand, was one of the Seven Sages of Greece, the philosopher-statesman who first laid down the laws which consequently shaped the Athenian democracy. The former was known for his self-confidence and excesses; the latter for his reservation, dignity, and wisdom
   It so happened that soon after Croesus conquered almost all of the nations in what is today known as Anatolia (Asian Turkey) – and was at the very height of his power – Solon visited him at his palace in Sardis. The philosopher had recently finished his reforms in Athens, and so that the vow-bound Athenians could not force him to repeal any of them, he had embarked on a journey around the world.
   Knowing full well the reputation of his esteemed guest, Croesus entertained Solon for at least two nights and ordered his attendants to show him around his treasures on the third day of the visit. Not that there was any reason for that: Solon was quite aware of Croesus’ extravagant wealth, if merely because in Sardis even the temples for the gods were built of gold.
   However, Solon wasn’t impressed in the least bit by all this splendor; and he seemed even less fascinated by the achievements of his host.
    
   “How can you not be?” – asked the annoyed Croesus eventually. “Have you, on some of your travels, encountered upon someone more fortunate than me? Indeed, my Athenian friend, as one who loves learning and who has traveled much of the world for the sake of seeing it, tell me whom you consider to be the happiest man in the world?”
    
   Solon was famous for his integrity, so he offered no flattery:
   O, King,” he replied, “it is Tellus the Athenian.”
    
   “How so?” replied sharply the amazed Croesus, who had been confident that Solon would name none other than himself.
    
   Well,” Solon said, “Tellus was neither rich nor poor, and all of his children were good and noble; he lived to see them give birth to their children and died an old and respected man while volunteering to fight for his country.”
    
   Not entirely pleased with the answer, Croesus then asked Solon who he thought was next, to which Solon, after some thinking, replied:
    
   “It has to be Aglaus. The man was so happy living on his farm that he never even felt the need to leave it. And that’s where he died, admired by his friends and surrounded by his loving family.”
   “And what about third?”
    
   “Cleobis and Biton, mighty king. They were healthy and beloved youngsters who always had enough to live on. One day, after the oxen of their mother Cydippe went missing, they yoked themselves to the cart and drove their mother for five miles until reaching the temple of Hera, where Cydippe, a priestess, was headed to honor the goddess at a religious festival. Overjoyed and proud, Cydippe asked Hera to bestow the best gift upon her children. She did: they lay down in the temple and died peacefully in their sleep just moments after. They are still fondly remembered for their strength and devotion.”
    
   You perplex me, my Athenian guest,” cried the displeased Lydian king. “Do you despise my happiness so much that you consider me less worthy than these common men?”
    
   “Oh, no, Croesus,” replied Solon. “I’m just saying what I know to be true. You seem to be rich beyond comprehension, and I’m sure that, at this moment, no man can fulfill more of his fantasies than you can in the whole wide world. However, I’ve seen people just as rich as you die more disgraceful deaths than the commonest and poorest of all men. Because, Croesus, man is entirely chance, and nobody knows what the gods may bring tomorrow. You should count no man happy until he dies.”
    
   Solon’s words did not at all please Croesus, which is why the king sent the sage away without regard for him, thinking Solon either a great fool or an even greater liar.
    
   And in few days’ time, Croesus completely forgot about Solon.
    
   The Subsequent Fate of Croesus
   But not long afterward, Croesus’ son went hunting and wounded himself by a mischance; the day he died of the wound, Cyrus the Great, the powerful Persian king, attacked Croesus’ kingdom. Cyrus’ soldiers penetrated to the capital and captured Croesus at his palace. They built a great pyre on the city square of Sardis and bound the once-mighty king to it, setting it on fire afterward.
    
   As the flames started engulfing him, Croesus tried to imagine what people will say of him after his death; and, bursting into tears at the unpleasant thoughts, he suddenly remembered Solon’s wise advice, and, almost too late, cried out loud:
    
   O, Solon, you true seer! O Solon, Solon!”
    
   Intrigued by the meaning of these words, Cyrus ordered that the fire be put out and Croesus be taken of the pyre; and after the defeated king was brought to him, Cyrus immediately inquired of the meaning of Croesus’ cry.
    
   “I was just naming the name of a wise man,” replied Croesus, “one who revealed to me a truth worthier than all of our riches and glory.”
    
   And then Croesus told Cyrus the story we’ve recounted here. It is said that Cyrus the Great was so moved by it that he pardoned Croesus and spent the rest of his life as his friend.
   Source: https://www.greekmythology.com/Myths/The_Myths/Solon_and_Croesus/solon_and_croesus.html
    
    
    

8. Long, but nice story as it related to Jimmy and Ros.     

9. More Simon Rosenberg:

   “In my opinion, part of what’s happening with polling is that because of low response rates, where people just aren’t responding to polls in the way they used to, the quality of polling has deteriorated. It’s harder for polling to capture the current moment in the way that it used to. Our country’s more diverse; it’s a very big and complicated country. The polling industrial complex oversells the predictive capacity of polling. Polling can’t predict anything; all it can do is tell you what’s happening today. There is usually three to four points of margin of error. That means if Trump is ahead 46 to 44 percent in Wisconsin due to margin of error, then Biden could actually be ahead by two points. Because of low response rates and different techniques and people not answering phones, it means that polling is struggling to capture the moment. Other data is necessary to capture what is really happening with the electorate. In total, polling is much more of a sketch than a detailed painting.”

10. I always wonder who gets polled and how? It’s a bit like being called for jury. Random, rare, and you can’t “volunteer.”

    I vaguely remember being “polled” only one time ever, back in the ancient days of landlines. I got disconnected or hung up on because, as I recall, I tried to tell them they weren’t asking the right questions.

11. David Horsey at Seattle Times

    

    Trump keeps telling us exactly who he is | The Seattle Times

    Former President Donald Trump has never been an ordinary sort of politician. He is an entertainer, a con man, a relentless self-promoter who shows scant interest in governing and obsessive interest in his personal glorification. Those things made him a terrible president in his first term, and, now that he is cruising toward the Republican presidential nomination in 2024, his evolution from bombastic buffoon to aspiring autocrat turns the 2024 presidential election into a campaign unlike any other.
    Trump wants revenge for the humiliation of his defeat in 2020 and he is portraying his perceived enemies in terms that echo the most vile rhetoric of mid-20th century fascist leaders.
    “We pledge to you that we will root out the communists, Marxists, fascists and the radical left thugs that live like vermin within the confines of our country, that lie and steal and cheat on elections,” Trump said at the climax of a Veterans Day speech in New Hampshire last weekend. “They’ll do anything, whether legally or illegally, to destroy America and to destroy the American Dream.” Trump went on to assert, “The threat from outside forces is far less sinister, dangerous and grave than the threat from within.”
    This kind of talk is far out of the bounds of even the nastiest negative political campaign. And we should have learned by now that early assessments of Trump as all talk and no action were very wrong. He did, after all, attempt to overturn the results of the last presidential election. There are also credible reports that the radical nationalist coterie around Trump has developed a speculative plan for declaring martial law as soon as Trump is sworn in for a second term.
    Certainly, a second term would be very different from the first, during which many seasoned government officials and traditional conservatives in the White House and the Justice Department were able to check Trump’s worst impulses. Next time, there will be no impulse control. Trump will make sure his loyalists are installed throughout the government.
    Could Trump become an American Mussolini? Yes, he could, if we cling to the illusion that this is politics as usual.

12. Always up for a bit of Herodotus  👍 

13. Ivy… living here in NH… polling at this time of year is a fact of life.  We still have a landline… and it’s ringing a lot at night.  We know it’s pollsters… especially if our caller ID says “Boston”.  We don’t bother to answer.  But I know people who love to answer pollsters and lie to them.

14. I don’t know the “how” but I DO know the “whys”——the polls hav become unreliable and are mere tools for opposing factions.  
    The polls ain’t what they used to be but the pollsters are workin’ overtime to make you believe that they are the cat’s meow.  

15. Opinion polls are typically remarkably accurate- it’s all statistics, which is a hard science
     
    Sample size of 1000 is considered the standard, 1200 is ideal, so you can justifiably be skeptical of polls with sample sizes less than that, of which i’ve been seeing more

    That said, a poll for an election with an undefined field a year away isn’t a great basis for decision-making

    Like Tomasky said in that article i linked a couple of weeks, ago, traditional news-media is covering Biden as fairly as it would any other President, both positive and negative, while right-wing media simultaneously and relentlessly hammers him for anything and everything- the polls reflect that

    You can go back to the 2020 polls a week before the election and compare them to the actual results, and i have, and you’ll be depressed at how accurate they are

    ok daily word limit reached 🔚

16. The Big Picture blog addressed the polling question a few weeks ago. Complete with a list of sources. 

    Polls within the final week of an election tend to be about 60% accurate, e.g.,60% chance of the result falling within the margin of error. More than 10 weeks out, it is a coin toss — about a 50% accuracy rate. Research shows polls 300+ days before an election have no predictive value – they are no better than random guessing.

     From one of his links a scholarly research article on polling accuracy, University of California, Berkley, Haas  Business school. 

    Yet an analysis of 1,400 polls from 11 election cycles found that the outcome lands within the poll’s result just 60% of the time. And that’s for polls just one week before an election—accuracy drops even more further out.

     
    Ritholtz makes this further observation that we always need to keep in mind as we discuss these issues.

    Debates about media bias tend to get framed in a left/right context; it would be accurate and useful to frame media bias in terms of sensationalism and the affinity for a lazy clickbait approach. The media knows how to do horse races, but complex policy analysis and nuance simply fail to generate views.
    I complain about how poorly the media covers fund managers and stocks; I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that media coverage of an election that won’t happen until 1 year from today is just as terrible.

    Jack

17. who cares how accurate polls were 60 years ago? 🫤
     
    Once again, in 2020, a week before, they were stunningly accurate:

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Statewide_opinion_polling_for_the_2020_United_States_presidential_election
     
    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/11/03/us/elections/results-president.html
     
    Enjoy 🤐 
     

    ok, not 60 years, but unclear on what “11 cycles” means, anyway, from the Haas article:

    “ Many people were surprised when President Donald Trump beat Hillary Clinton in 2016 after trailing her in the polls, and speculated that polls are getting less accurate or that the election was so unusual it threw them off”

    Yeah, and like 6 days before the election Comey announced HRC was under investigation, the information changed

18. Y’all piqued my interests on “landlines”.  Now I have one as part of the over priced Verizon package, cable/intertubes/landline, that I need to get rid of.  Truth is a landline does not exist, just a VOIP, phone over internet.  I do not use it and the only reason I still have it around is to handle FAX exchanges.  Yup, FAX are one of the most secure methods of transmission of information, so banks, Federal government, and others still have them around. 
     
    The last week or so I have been hearing the calls to the FAX portion of my multi-use HP does it all printer because it sounds the dialing in part of the calls, low volume but just enough to hear it.  Several times a day there are calls in, but not much after that as the FAX sends out the tones.  About once a month or so a FAX will call in, but if the number is not on the approved list nothing happens.
     
    If I cared I would plug in the phones and catch one or two of the calls.  It might (sure, what are the odds?) be a pollster wanting to know why I would still be voting Dem after all the good ol’ fashioned hate the m party has produced.  But, I don’t care.  Right now I am trying to remember where I left a tax statement that needs to be paid and where I left some of my watchmaking tools.  This is not a big house. 

19. The more Project 25 info gets to the general public who do not pay attention, the more they will understand not only who Orange Adolf is, but will see the cadre around him is trying to to take power from the people completely and forever. 

20. In light of the Israel Hamas war, if you have Prime Video, you must watch the one woman play starring Dame Maureen Lipman as “Rose”.  It is generations of history wrapped in a play with enormous amount of things to consider particularly at the end when she reaches modern Israel after a trip from the far back Warsaw ghetto, through husbands, children, travels, terrors and joys.

    Great actress and a needed message.  

21. OK, so I have these cases with a certain lawyer here in East Bumfuck – 2,3 if you count an appeal – who thinks he’s a lot smarter than I am (he isn’t) and wouldn’t know a lie if it bit him in the ass (sorry if that’s a mixed metaphor) but is an expert at putting them in pleadings.  So I asked our little staff, tongue in cheek, if there is any polite way to refer to a lying sack of shit in a paper I might file with the Court.  Our paralegal – BIG TIME TRUMPER – told me she found two words that might fit the bill – the first, gobshite. I really like that and it somehow fits this prick. The second one, from at least the time of Ol’ Will, who used it in The Tempest, is, …………wait for it………….. TRUMPERY. The second – attractive articles of little value or use or practices or beliefs that are superficially or visually appealing but have little real value or worth – is what the first – One who engages in nonsensical chatter or unwanted conversation – might say to earn him or her the distinction of being a gobshite. I almost pissed myself when she told me that.  Now if that ain’t some useful shit….

    But now, off to the homestead to see if LP can find and erect a couple of Christmas trees before we spend the weekend doing that traditional Thanksgiving celebration – remodeling the powder room.

22. Trumpery:  N:  fancy garments, showy rubbish, worthless finery 

                     V:  Farting

23. And to add insult to injury, trumpery “derives from the Middle English trompery and ultimately from the Middle French tromper, meaning “to deceive…Trumpery first appeared in English in the mid-15th century with the meanings “deceit or fraud” (a sense that is now obsolete) and “worthless nonsense.” Less than 100 years later, it was being applied to material objects of little or no value.” (Thanks to the Merriam-Webster Webster online dictionary). Now, Jesus H… if you can’t find an insane amount of irony in that you ain’t looking hard enough. 

24. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/21/tech/democrats-accuse-x-elon-musk-hamas-propaganda/index.html

    “More than two dozen US lawmakers signed the letter dated Tuesday addressed to X owner Elon Musk and CEO Linda Yaccarino.”

    “Citing analyses by groups including the Institute for Strategic Dialogue, NewsGuard and the Tech Transparency Project, Tuesday’s letter said lawmakers were “outraged by the clear indicators that X is profiting from the spread of Hamas’s terrorist propaganda — both through monthly subscription fees collected from some propaganda spreaders, and through ads displayed in replies to posts by both Premium and regular accounts.”

    “In recent days, X has suffered a notable exodus of high-profile advertisers following Musk’s public embrace of an antisemitic conspiracy theory popular with White supremacists and a report by Media Matters, the progressive media watchdog group, that said major brands’ advertisements appeared beside pro-Nazi content.”

    Elon Goebbles is in this deep.

25. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/texas-ag-ken-paxton-launches-probe-into-media-matters-over-elon-musk-fraud-allegations/

    “Texas attorney general Ken Paxton launched an investigation into Media Matters for “potential fraudulent activity” after one of the liberal media watchdog’s reports prompted multiple corporations to pull their advertising from X.”

    “The suit was filed in Texas because Media Matters’ report harmed the platform’s “significant business” with advertisers in the state, which contains millions of users and holds some of the company’s offices.”

26. https://www.cnn.com/2023/11/20/business/brody-musk-lawsuit-invs/index.html

    “Far-right conspiracy theorists accused a 22-year-old Jewish man of being a neo-Nazi. Then Elon Musk got involved”

    “The lies and taunts, which Musk engaged with on social media, turned his life upside down, Brody said. At one point, he said, he and his mother had to flee their home for fear of being attacked.”

    “His being Jewish was relevant to them because conspiracy theories are often steeped in antisemitism – suggesting there’s a Jewish plan to control the world.”

    “Brody’s social media inboxes filled up with messages, such as “Fed,” “Nazi,” and “We got you.” He and his mom were forced to leave their family home after their address was posted online, he said.”

    “On June 27, having engaged with conspiracy theories about the subject over a number of days, Musk alleged that the Oregon skirmish was a false flag. “Looks like one is a college student (who wants to join the govt) and another is maybe an Antifa member, but nonetheless a probable false flag situation,” he tweeted.

    “That tweet has been viewed more than 1.2 million times, according to X’s own data.”

    “Brody filed a defamation lawsuit last month against Musk, the owner of X, formerly known as Twitter. The suit seeks damages in excess of $1 million. Brody says he wants the billionaire to apologize and retract the false claims about him.”

    “Brody’s lawyer—who is the same attorney who successfully sued conspiracy theorist Alex Jones over his lies about the Sandy Hook Elementary School massacre —said he hopes the suit will force one of the world’s richest and most powerful men to reckon with his careless and harmful online behavior.”

27. Did Susan Sarandon get hit in the head with a baseball during filming of 1987’s heartwarmingly-risqué “Bull Durham”?

28. “This is a piece of something that looks like charcoal,” he said. “But then you see it through a CT scan, and you see two spines,one of an adult and one of someone younger, maybe 10 or 12 years old. And two sets of ribs. You can see they are roped around with this metal wire. These were people who were hugging one another and burned while they were tied together. It might be a parent and a child.”

    https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2023-11-16/la-fg-col1-israel-forensic-pathologist

29. https://people.com/susan-sarandon-dropped-by-uta-for-remarks-at-pro-palestinian-rally-8405842

    “Susan Sarandon has been dropped by her talent agency UTA due to controversial comments, PEOPLE has confirmed.”

    “The Thelma & Louise star also recently retweeted a post on X about Roger Waters. The Pink Floyd musician has come under police investigation on suspicion of “incitement of the people” after wearing Nazi-like imagery in Germany. Sarandon’s reshared post read that Waters took the stage in Uruguay to perform “despite attempts by the Israeli lobby to cancel the event.”

30. In French, trompe l’oeil means “fools the eye,” from tromper, “to deceive,” and l’oeil, “the eye.” 

31. Sarandon is an idiot.  

32. NEW THREAD

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