Saturday: Hili dialogue

59 thoughts on “Saturday: Hili dialogue”

1. I slept in today but this is no excuse. At least something about Britain or the orange thing. Everyone is exhausted. Don’t give up hope, Trump will still be gone before the next election and Britain, what about Britain?

   1. Enough time goes by and the Brits might just forget Brexit ever happened. 😎

      1. I seriously hope not. We need to remember what those lying Vote Leave leaders have done to this country for as long as it exists i.e. about another five years.

   2. I just saw on the BBC website that May is apparently going to try for a fourth vote on the Brexit deal.

      1. Let’s hope that Speaker Bercow slaps that idea down hard.

      2. She can’t be serious, it was defeated with the greatest margin ever!
         She should have the courage to call a vote on ‘revoke article 50’, leave things as they are and try to find a good Brexit deal. Then in 2052 or so, she -or some successor- can come back with this “good Brexit deal”

2. Sub

3. As usual, Trump got things wrong. None of the Great Lakes is the deepest in the world. The deepest of them is Lakes Superior, whose maximum depth is 1,333 feet. It doesn’t even make it into the top 30.

   https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/29-deepest-lakes-in-the-world.html

   http://sciencenorth.ca/mysteriesofthegreatlakes/index.aspx?id=1269

   1. What is that old saying that Trump uses every hour of every day. A lie makes it half way round the world before the truth gets out of bed.

   2. Strange that his buddy Putin didn’t tell him about Baikal. The Russian travel guides brag about it being a popular tourist sight for boating, fishing, ice skating, scuba, and windsurfing, and we all know how much tRump enjoys his Russian water sports…

      1. The very thought of T on water-skis…😂😖

      2. Whiah, just “got” your water sports allusion…

   3. My first reaction was “Lake Baikal”, and your site confirmed. I feel smirkily conceited now 🙂
      However as far as surface goes, lake Superior comes in at no 2 , after the Caspian Sea, and hence the largest (in surface) fresh water lake.

   4. Here’s the quote in its entirety:
      I support the Great Lakes. Always have. They are beautiful. They are big, very deep. Record deepness, right? And I am going to get, in honor of my friends, full funding of $300 million for the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative, which you have been trying to get for over 30 years. So, we will get it done.

      What he really got wrong is the fact that his administration wants to gut Obama’s Great Lakes Restoration Initiative. His latest budget proposal will reduce the Initiative from $300 million to $30 million. And to add insult to injury, it was Obama who created the Great Lakes Restoration Initiative in 2009! And it was fully funded during the rest of his Presidency. “Asking for over 30 years” my ass, asshole.

      1. Maybe he can do for the Great Lakes what he’s doing for the Special Olympics.

         1. Yeah, the kind of tactic his cult falls for every time. Take something away, then give it back and act like the benevolent leader who saved the day.

      2. What is this ‘deepness’? (Something like a Deepity?) Most of us with a nominal command of English would say ‘depth’.

         I think it’s a sign that his mouth is running ahead of his brain which is having to make catch-up attempts.

         Never mind….

         cr

      3. Thanks for the analysis Mark. I grew up on Lake Michigan, so I have friends there. They should know about this fraudulent attempt at self aggrandizement.

   5. It’s only 4th in the USA, after Crater Lake, Lake Tahoe, and Lake Chelan in Washington.

      cr

4. Those wacky medieval folk. They can’t create cats that look like cats, but they sure know how to depict cocks.

   Charles Bukowski claimed he could perform that feat. I’ll take his word for it.

   1. re: Wall Sculptures
      Could be about having a pot to piss in?

   2. That is extremely difficult to do. You would have to be a contortionist. Apparently. 😎

      cr

5. Cormorant versus lamprey with piece of wood The Tweet is deleted, but I found the pic in Google cache & here it is below [by Dale Miles, River Dee, Chester, Cheshire, UK]:

   https://flic.kr/p/2fnmGJ4

   1. Thanks for finding that – was super curious to see it! I’m a big fan of lamprey – they are just amazing. I’ve yet to see one in salt water, though I’ve surely caught salmon who’ve served as host to the parasitic stage (circular, tell-tale scars).

      1. I hope they feed the poor bird after work.

      2. Lampreys are pentachromatic (five cones!), a feat that doesn’t cease to amaze me.

6. The statue at the base of poor Bishop von Hochstaden’s sculpture was in fact destroyed by Allied bombing…. So, that’s not the original, but rather a replica, paid for during the 80s by the good (if somewhat perverse) people of Cologne, at a cost of around €10,000 or more, apparently.
   https://koelnfotos.com/2012/02/03/rathausturm-12624898/

   (I just moved to Cologne a while ago. I didn’t know this.)

   1. Alien Xenomorph, Paisley Abbey, Paisley, Renfrewshire, Scotland:

      https://horrorfreaknews.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/03/Paisley_Abbey__Xenomorph__Gargoyle.jpg

   2. Darth Vader grotesque [by Jay Hall Carpenter]
      Washington National Cathedral, Washington, D.C., USA:

      https://i.stack.imgur.com/3bzjb.jpg

      1. How the #$%& did those get there? Are they ‘official’? Or a very good prank?

         cr

         1. ALIEN XENOMORPH, GARGOYLE:
            On a 12th century abbey no less! Twelve of the thirteen medieval gargoyles were replaced in the early 1990s – all but one were copies of the originals & one was this Alien which it is said was the idea of an on site Edinburgh carver.

            The idea appeals to me because I imagine that masons could get away with all sorts in their work so far from easy scrutiny by their church masters [too fat & scared to go out on a plank & look is my mental picture – accurate or not]. It follows the tradition of mythical creatures too.

            DARTH VADER, GROTESQUE:
            Christopher Rader won third-place in a competition to design a grotesque for the cathedral [ran by National Geographic World magazine contest for children] with his drawing of Star Wars villain Darth Vader. It was sculpted by Jay Hall Carpenter in model form & carved by Patrick J. Plunkett. The other winning children’s designs to be found on the cathedral are a raccoon, a girl with pigtails & braces, & a man with large teeth & umbrella.

            This I don’t like at all! Design by committee & rather dull design at that – it is potentially fearsome/scary only if you know who Lord Vader ‘was’ otherwise it could be conquistador armour. It has no expression, no scary teeth & it isn’t irreverent. All the human [or humanoid] gargoyles/grotesques I’ve seen on the ‘net are extraordinarily rude or just a bit loony with goggle eyes & serpentine tongues. The four American grotesques are vanilla dull – which does kind of say something I suppose about current culture there where bawdiness is verboten almost everywhere.

            LOOK HERE at other examples around the world. Some amazing stuff. There’s an astronaut for example, although I think it has similar problems to Vader. Maybe.

            1. What an amazing collection!

               Evidently ‘moral’ judgements were suspended when it came to gargoyles.

               cr

7. Trump speaks like an idiot, lies his ass off, and it doesn’t seem to matter. There’s an amazing video explaining why he won and the video was made by someone who predicted his win months before the election and who didn’t vote for him (he even bet $1,000 that he would win in May of 2016, which I believe is before the Republican primary even ended). This video explains very clearly why his manner of communicating is so effective and why he was particularly effective against Hillary and in using the media for about $2 billion worth of free media coverage. I can’t recommend this video enough. It’s brilliant.

   1. I forgot to say that, as I got into the later parts of this video, I was instinctively nodding my head. It was all so clear and I never saw it. All of the people to whom I sent it (all Democratic voters and extremely opposed to Trump, like me) had the same reaction.

   2. “Trump speaks like an idiot, lies his ass off, and it doesn’t seem to matter.”

      Listening to Trump is reminiscent of a fourth grader speaking in front of his class for the first time. In a recent article posted on Project Syndicate, three scholars note:

      “Trump’s growing rages may partly be the result of cognitive decline. Over time, for example, his ability to form complete sentences, use complex words, and maintain a coherent train of thought appears to have eroded. There is documented history of his father’s dementia.”

      They go on to say:

      “Mental health experts must fulfill their responsibility to protect society’s health and safety by explaining publicly, where necessary, that Trump is not just a conniving politician, or a forceful leader, but a mentally unstable individual capable of creating widespread harm. It is both their right and their professional obligation to bring critical information that enables lawmakers to protect the country.”

      The tragedy is that the Republican Party doesn’t care. Leaving aside his policy positions and his corruption, Trump is an embarrassment to the nation and the world.

      https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/five-steps-to-counter-trump-by-jeffrey-d-sachs-et-al-2019-03

      1. I may hate Trump, but much of that article is ridiculous. Some things in it are outright lies (like the idea that he “uttered not a word of regret for the 50 Muslim worshipers slaughtered in New Zealand,” which is repudiated by the very link the article supplies), and the idea that mental health professionals should be telling the country that its President has dementia based on some on-the-fly analysis of his speaking (which, as pointed out in the video, is very effective and might be entirely intentional, but regardless…) is not only absurd, but an insane demand to make of actual mental health professionals. No mental health professional should be making claims about the US President (or anyone else) having a mental illness without clear, convincing evidence. Saying that professionals across the country have a duty to tell us that Trump has dementia or some other kind of declining cognitive ability based solely on the thoughts of “hey, he trails off in thought a lot, speaks in short sentences, and doesn’t use big words” is insulting.

         1. Trump and other potential presidential candidates must certainly be relieved to know that whatever mental illness they may suffer from, no matter how severe, need not concern them in their candidacies. All they need to do is avoid seeing a mental health professional. The latter must not be so arrogant as to point out problems since they did not interview the candidate personally.

            Although it is certainly better for mental health professionals to interview people before announcing diagnoses, it is unconscionable for them not to issue warnings when the “patient” could be the most powerful person in the world. As a layman, I would certainly suspect that Trump may be in the early stages of dementia. The input of an expert would be most welcome. And it is true that experts may disagree, but their discussion of the situation would help me better understand the man.

            By the way, you said Trump speaks like an idiot. What are your credentials to make such a characterization? Did you administer him an IQ test? Or maybe you think he really isn’t an idiot, but only speaks like one as a tactic to appeal to his audience, which, if that is the case, you are demeaning them. If it is the latter, I guess you think the audience is composed of idiots. Gee, I wonder which is worse.

         2. I would prefer the opinions and statements from the professionals over yours any day. 27 of them already gave us some information way back in 2017, The Dangerous case of Donald Trump. When speaking of Trump I would not worry too much about who is insulting who.

         3. There’s been a distinct change in Trump’s communication style over the years. He’s never been a particularly articulate speaker, but in his younger days he was more voluble and unctuous — more like A. Scaramucci, though not nearly as glib or bright. (See, e.g., here.)

            Long about his Birther days, during the latter part of his run on The Apprentice, his style changed into the sort of gilded Archie Bunker we see now. I took it to be part of a political strategy, an effort to re-position himself as a “populist” (despite his being a self-proclaimed multi-billionaire), though I suppose it could be symptomatic of some type of cognitive decline.

   3. Good video. It is easy to dismiss Trump. I thought he was a joke until about the sixth h GOP debate. He is talking with the camera in close. I suddenly realized he was going up be the next president. That was a shock. Almost went numb.

   4. Good video. It accurately breaks down some aspects of Trump’s winning strategy and highlights Trump’s brilliance as a political tactician. It even does a pretty good job in pointing out how incompetent Hillary was on the campaign trail, although it somewhat underplays her incompetence in that regard.

      One thing ignored however is Hillary’s dreadful track record in public service. Yes, she had the edge in experience, but the highlights of her policy record consist of failure and bad judgement and that certainly contributed to her loss. I also disagree that the election wasn’t decided on policy. Personality certainly played a large role in the election but stark differences of vision made an impact with voters on issues such as immigration, interventionism, accountability, identity politics, the hollowing out of the American manufacturing base, among others.

      1. Her referring to the people in the South, Appalachia and the Midwest as deplorables did not help her any either. That comment may have nailed it for Trump.

8. All credit due the Donald, no doubt, for the Great Lakes’ depth.

   I recall Mitt Romney’s campaign visit to Michigan where he said he loved the Great Lakes, too, and all the little lakes, and all the trees that were just the right height.

   Dafuq is with Republicans and their profound ruminations on nature?

   1. I think there is a principle of politicking learned by every politician on the first day of politician school. Tell your audience you like what they like and they will like you.

9. I think what Hili intended was, “April is the cruelest month.”

   1. Hili’s been brushing up on Eliot?

      1. April is the cruelest month, breeding
         Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
         Memory and desire, stirring
         Dull roots with spring rain.
         Winter kept us warm, covering
         Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
         A little life with dried tubers.

10. Technically they do have record deepness–if the record is “deepest lakes that are called the Great Lakes.” So cut him some slack folks.

    1. Make the lakes great again.

       1. Very very deep, folks. Such an effin’ moron🤯

    2. Is it just me, or do the Great Lakes make his hands seem small?

       1. Can’t be that. He was born way over in NY and his hands haven’t changed.

          1. Just call him Mushroom Donald.

             1. That seems to be what Stormy D. calls him.

    3. I just googled. Lake Superior is only the 4th deepest in US, after Crater Lake, Lake Tahoe, and Lake Chelan in Washington (no, I never heard of it either).

       Took me one minute to find that.

       cr

11. Man, what a great week our President has had. We went from “Trump will be impeached because he colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election” to “In an off the cuff remark, he misstated the depths of the Great Lakes!”

    1. He talks like a retard and he makes stuff up. Constantly. You expect us not to mock him for it?

       cr

       1. Mock away! I expect it.

12. Animal House for <Animal Farm – how embarrassing. Animal Farm is, of course, political satire in the style of a children’s book, while Animal House is a true-to-life documentary of college life.

    cr

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