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CABINET OF CURIOSITIES (NEW CONCEPTS)
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Mick Harper
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After losing two hours of the prime working day while Microsoft installed it all over again (they might have said) I did at least get the cheering news that my computer won't run Windows Eleven. Too sensible, I should think, to judge from the irate comments of the early adopter brigade. Mind you, they said that about the mould plough.
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Mick Harper
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30 Hilarious Scientific Jokes That Will Test Your Intelligence to the Limits David Graham
If you get all of these, you can claim to be a genius

I got them all, so no surprise there. However only one was funny and it was one I didn't get except by context.

Argon walks into a bar. The barman says “I’m sorry, we don’t serve noble gases in here.” Argon doesn’t react.

I didn't know argon was a noble gas and I didn't know it doesn't react. Perhaps that's the key to funny jokes, only getting them by context.
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Wile E. Coyote


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"The Electrical Life of Louis Wain"

The government really needs to do something very urgently about misleading film trailers. I haven't felt this depressed since my mum took me to see "Kes" as a birthday treat.
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Mick Harper
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What a coincidence. I took my mum to see Kes just before my birthday hoping to give her a hint. But she got me a budgie. Here's a non-coincidence: I don't know what the hell The Electrical Life of Louis Wain is all about nor what the trailer has got to do with it.
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Mick Harper
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Hatty was accused of being in league with the Rothschilds on Facebook the other day and a quote from Megalithic Empire about zebras being used to draw coaches at Mentmore was adduced in evidence. She denies it of course. "If only," were her actual words. "Why not 'fess up?" I told her but she prefers to remain undercover. I'm telling you all this because of this

The Rothschilds’ Party, the Most Extravagant and Mysterious Masked Ball in History Rocío Rivers
On December 12, 1972, Marie-Hélène de Rothschild offered a masquerade in the utmost secrecy.

Not perhaps the utmost utmost secrecy as it was the Event of the Season but just take a look at this

To read the attendance instructions, you had to see the card reflected in a mirror.

Only a member of the Illuminati would know this. Or to crack the code to signify Roger, Wilco.

and urged the recipients of the card to respond to the invitation with the distinguished acronym that spread from France to the world: R.S.V.P. (répondez s’il Vous plaît — please respond).

I am inclined to discount this as evidence of the Rothschild reach but not this

The construction, built in the image and likeness of the Mentmore towers in England, had 30 square kilometers of woods, 80 guest rooms, lodging for 100 workers, and the main hall supported by columns of atlases and caryatids sculpted by Charles Cordier.

I think I am right in saying that Mentmore Towers is one of the less distinguished pieces of English architecture so reproducing it is bizarre unless... well, I'll leave you and Pevsner to speculate.

The kitchen was separate from the main building, and for the food hot to the dining room. There was a subway train that transported it to the château.

There's always a secret tunnel.

Similar parties held later in New York got dubbed the Illuminati Ball.

Case closed. Case opened. Not sure.

The Rothschild dynasty, which began its financial activity back in 1760 in the German city of Frankfurt through the patriarch of the future banking empire, Meyer Amschel Rothschild, has been accused of centuries of wanting to take over the world through its membership in secret orders such as the Illuminati. That disbanded more than 200 years ago but is still in force through widely discredited conspiracy theories.

Clever, aren't they? Hiding in plain view as a secret society.

https://medium.com/the-rebel-clam/the-rothschilds-party-the-most-extravagant-and-mysterious-masked-ball-in-history-837c6e1a60c2
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Mick Harper
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The Perils of Irony (no 458)

I'm always being ticked off by Hatty for being too cute by half and not coming right out and saying what I think. I prefer subtlety and allusion but the wisdom of Hatty's strictures was brought home to me yesterday when I was roused by this from medium.com

Great Britain: The Birth Place of Human Rights Has Become its Graveyard Adebayo Adeniran
The nation’s descent into fascism is complete
.

After identifying Magna Carta as the birth place of human rights, the article leapt to 2010 and roundly denounced various bits of Tory legislation on the general topic of immigration and citizenship, ending with

My dear friends and would be readers, Britain, in the twenty-first century, has regressed beyond all recognition and is as far removed from the vision that King John had, when he authored that sacred document in 1215. The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, in 2022, is to all intents and purposes a fascist state.

This got 877 claps and dozens of 'You're absolutely right and here's another example...' responses. I should have contented myself by pointing out that King John very much did not author Magna Carta ["Did she die in vain?"© Galton & Simpson] but, you know me, I rise to any bait dangled before me

I'm a good bit older than you, Ade, though I don't go back as far as the Magna Carta. I think you should know that my earliest political memory was of fascism first being inaugurated here in 1963 (with the passing of the Commonwealth Immigration Act). And every year since. As you say, it's a year-by-year culmination.

This got 18 claps, more than I've ever had before and a very prompt (within minutes) reply from Mr Adeniran

God, I love your energy. But I do believe that the fightback should start now!

Too late! Too subtle by half. Actually I do see that now. I left with a whimper

No, I think I’ll wait. I haven’t actually spotted any fascism as yet so they’re too well hidden for us to fight back. But when they do break cover, I’ll be right behind you.
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Mick Harper
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As a polymath I am always surprised at what I don't know. A good example came up today from my chief window-on-the-world, medium.com

The Irvings
The Irving family monopoly started in the late 1800s... The corporation ... controls more than 250 other companies. The Irving family owns Canada’s largest oil refinery ... employs 1 in 12 people in New Brunswick ... one of the five largest landowners in North America, controlling nearly 6 million acres... the company has a stranglehold on New Brunswick media, including all 12 newspapers and 17 radio stations

I've no idea how much of this is true, nor even whether it is a good thing or a bad thing even if true, but I SHOULD HAVE BEEN TOLD.
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Mick Harper
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As you know I get sent papers in which my name (but not, alas, for the most part my person) gets featured in academic papers. This one arrived this morning

"Ego, scriptor cantilenae": The Cantos and Ezra Pound by Steven R. Gulick

No, as usual, it wasn't me in the cited sources but nevertheless I was impressed by the breadth of authorities trawled

...en City: Doubleday, 1984. Hall, Donald. "Ezra Pound: An Interview." 28 (1962). 18-51. Paris Review. Harper, Michael F. "Truth and Calliope: Ezra Pound's Malatesta." PMLA 96 (1981): 86-103. Hawking, Stephen w. A Brie...
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Mick Harper
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The divine Paul Mason has started popping up on my medium.com feed with long and mildly brilliant analyses of the Ukraine situation. On this question his brain (massive) and his ideology (childishly left-wing) are in kilter. Naturally I (brain: massiver, ideology: unattached) have been taking him on. He has not deigned to reply to me reinforcing my sense of lèse-majesté. Still, it's a feather in my cap being ignored by Paul Mason. I doubt that many of you could make the same claim.
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mason is correct in saying that the Russians (like the Chinese) want to be treated as equals.

The Russian position is simple and clear, stop your Great Eastward advance. Return to your military positions of 1997. They are worried that NATO are advancing towards them and "interfering" in areas closer to their border. They are fully entitled to seek negotiations on this and seek security guarantees, such as the U..S. pledging to bar entry to NATO to ex-Soviet states like Ukraine and Georgia. Of course Biden refuses on the grounds that Russia must de-escalate before negotiations start.

Still, why wouldn't the Russians be very concerned given that Mason keeps on telling us that western powers like the US, UK are about to be, or are being, taken over by Fascists?
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Mick Harper
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Mason is correct in saying that the Russians (like the Chinese) want to be treated as equals.

He may be correct, they may want to be, but there is the small matter of the actualité. The Russians aspire to equality, the Chinese have achieved it.

The Russian position is simple and clear, stop your Great Eastward advance. Return to your military positions of 1997.

Again, they may want this but the current position is all of their own making. When the USSR imploded, they lost the lot. They have to some extent clawed back Belarus, Crimea, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan and the Donetsk basin so they're not doing too badly. I accept however that NATO was far too precipitate in its forward thrust.

They are worried that NATO are advancing towards them and "interfering" in areas closer to their border. They are fully entitled...

In foreign affairs nobody is 'entitled' to anything. You get what you are given or what you can grab. Though it is true that 'a sense of entitlement' is a strong factor on the 'morale' side.

to seek negotiations on this and seek security guarantees, such as the U..S. pledging to bar entry to NATO to ex-Soviet states like Ukraine and Georgia.

If they get given it or if they grab it.

Of course Biden refuses on the grounds that Russia must de-escalate before negotiations start.

I don't think the US has a coherent position but anyone who thinks Russia will get anything if it de-escalates doesn't have a coherent position either.

Still, why wouldn't the Russians be very concerned given that Mason keeps on telling us that western powers like the US, UK are about to be, or are being, taken over by Fascists?

I doubt that either Russia or Mason holds these positions.
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Grant



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Big problem for the anti-Russia hawks in the Pentagon is that the US haven’t won a war since 1945, unless you count shooting fish in a barrel in Iraq. Biden knows this and is being careful but is he actually in charge?
I blame Trump. He should have invited Putin to the White House and asked Russia to join NATO
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Mick Harper
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What anti-Russian hawks in the Pentagon, Grant?
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Wile E. Coyote


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Mick Harper wrote:


Still, why wouldn't the Russians be very concerned given that Mason keeps on telling us that western powers like the US, UK are about to be, or are being, taken over by Fascists?

I doubt that either Russia or Mason holds these positions.


His book is titled How to stop Fascism.

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/perspective/20210830-author-paul-mason-on-how-to-stop-fascism
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Mick Harper
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I think you'll find that book was written in 1935, Wiley.
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