wj: I think it’s useful to distinguish between those ICE officers who have been hired under Trump and those who were not.
nous: I’m under the impression that US Border Patrol in particular has always been a Hive of Scum and Villainy
My take is that the history of the two agencies comes into play. It's a bit convoluted, but my take is that ICE is fundamentally a post 9-11 creature, being spun off when the INS was reorganized under Homeland Security (and everyone may want to reflect on what they said about the whole idea of 'Homeland Security'. If you engaged in hippy punching when people complained about how words like this could lead to bad outcomes, you may want to rethink your prior opinions) The Border Patrol was under INS, with roots back to 1924, and was also spun off, but seems to have a longer history to fall back on.
This has me think that the Border Patrol has its prejudices baked in, but ICE is more of a res nova. CBP were (or are, hard to tell these days) limited to performing duties within 100 miles of the border and were often called on to work with the DEA for drug smuggling. I was pretty surprised when I looked at Wikipedia and read this As early as 1998, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service implemented the Border Safety Initiative in response to concerns about the number of aliens injured or killed while attempting to cross the border. It was noted that Border Patrol agents routinely supplied water, food, and medical care to aliens.[48] That same year, Border Patrol, Search, Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR), a specialized unit trained in emergency search and rescue, was established with the purpose of assisting injured or stranded aliens at remote locations.
However, the stories of the Border Patrol destroying survival caches is also well documented, which strikes me as bureaucratic behavior ('we will save them, but only on our terms!' sort of shit)
ICE was also spun off from INS, but consisted of the criminal investigators as opposed to border security and port of entry. I imagine this creates a different mindset which, added to the lack of any geographical restriction invites a grander mindset.
I think this ends up with ICE being more performative. Of course, for CBP, you have Homan and Bovino, while ICE is more often represented by Noem, so I guess 6 of 1. But reports of Stephen Millier making demands about quotas are addressed to ICE as opposed to CBP. It's probably a lot easier to bend the rules when you don't have so much to fall back on.
In regard to wj's pleas to consider the good ICE agents, I'm thinking that deTrumpification is going to demand that everyone been tossed out. For example, Ross, who is the person who has been identified as murdering Nicole Good, was originally in the CBP for 10 years before moving to ICE in 2015.
It's interesting that the pdf link from bc doesn't mention Greenland at all and does not mention China in terms of geography, merely in production. It also fails to mention that the USGS, which maps mineral deposits (my dad worked for it before he went into the Navy Oceanographic department) was subject to the DOGE cuts, with about 20% being let go or taking early retirement.
While there is supposed to be a pivot, investigations into bioextraction, because they were linked to ecosystem research, have been halted, despite the fact that they are already proven, From Gemini Proven Success: It is already used for roughly 15–20% of global gold and copper production. Current Efficiency: For Rare Earth Elements (REEs), bioleaching (using microbes like Gluconobacter) now reaches extraction efficiencies of 65–80% in controlled environments. Specific Mineral Focus: As of early 2026, researchers have successfully used biological systems to selectively capture Cobalt and Neodymium from complex mixtures like old EV batteries and coal tailings.
This suggests that looking at this as geography might be Sweet Summer Child status if I understood what that meant.
I thought this NYT daily podcast on rare earths and how they are extracted was good, and the part that discusses the difference in Japanese and US industrial policy quite interesting to me.
“Historically”, however, meaning as recently as 2023, Denmark was below the NATO 2% standard. And a low of 1.11% in 2015. Slid below 2% in 1990 down to that low in 2015. So yes, historically.
Yes, 2015 was when Trump was in the GOP debate and praising Putin's intelligence and desire for a stable world. My point is that it's cherry picking of the first order and doing that to argue for Orange shitstain's latest fantasy is pretty weak.
This is funny
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/us-spy-chief-gabbard-excluded-from-maduro-plan-over-past-views
The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite,” according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. A White House official denied there was any such joke.
A bit late with this reply and a bit out of order
bc wrote And while I am reluctant to respond to what appears to be another litmus test of some sort,
This is a bit off. The reason we are asking these questions of you isn't to 'test' your TrumPh, it's to try and understand what is going on outside this bubble. I'm not sure why you think you aren't going to get questions.
Setting that aside, saying that Noriega had all his arguments knocked down is not what I was interested in. If we are entering an era of show trials, it matters not one bit what arguments are given. I'm wondering how parallel Noriega and Maduro are.
Refreshing my memory, Noriega was captured after a full-scale invasion (Reminding us that shit rises to the top, it was Bill Barr who wrote the legal justifcation for the invasion) The US did not recognize the election of Noriega and the Panamanian government declared a state of war between the US and Panama, so Noriega was technically a POW. It was also in the middle of the 20 year process of returning the Panama Canal to Panama, with a huge US military presence and a neutrality treaty that allowed the US to intervene militarily if the Canal was closed or transit was interfered with. I don't know how much I would agree with that, but that was negotiated during the Carter admin,
I also note this comment by bc Denmark has historically been way behind on NATO commitments.
Using the word 'historically' is pretty interesting, especially since Denmark is one of the top bilateral donors to Ukraine, last year agreed to 2% and will reach 3% this year. But if your gripes are 'historical', like Maduro, it doesn't matter for shit what you do now, the administration can simply resurrect something they didn't like from the past and use it to justify whatever.
bc, just a short note to thank you for answering. I'm getting most of my information from podcasts as opposed to written pieces, (which I think is a bad thing for everyone, it's difficult to nail down particular points), and most of them are talking about the precedent of Panama and Noriega, but the information is so scattered that, coupled with the inability to accept anything that comes out of admin mouths as being true or not makes it difficult to follow, which makes me think parsing all this is baasically a fool's errand.
I don't think it is real worthwhile to try and figure out where Trump gets his ideas. I suppose that everything is similar to something, until it is not. I'm thinking that bc is a lawyer, so I have to wonder if he sees everything that is going on as simply an extension of previous trends or something that is actually different?
I'm getting to the end of The Reich's Orchestra, (I'm going to wait until after New Year's to check out the documentary link novakant sent me, as you get a 12 day trial, so I want to have some free time to listen to as much as I can) but one 'bright' spot is this
Hartmann recognised the orchestra’s post-war ethical dilemma: the Berlin Philharmonic was to an exceptional extent cherished, groomed and protected by the Nazi regime. That the Berlin Philharmonic was, at the same time, not a Nazi orchestra, by spirit, constitution, or membership, was also true. The Berlin Philharmonic, however, did not have to be a Nazi orchestra to serve its purpose to the regime—in fact, it was desirable that it not be. And the regime went to great lengths to protect and promote the exceptionality of its prized musical asset.
The current crew doesn't understand quality and ability, and everything is subsumed under fealty to Trump, and that absence of taste should make things go incrementally faster.
novakant's comment had me dig around a bit, and I found Misha Aster's The Reich's Orchestra: The Berlin Philharmonic 1933-45. I'm through the 1st chapter, which describes how the orchestra, because of the state of the German economy, appealed to the government for support and entangled itself with the Nazis and I realized that governmental sponsorship and the history of orchestras are probably also why I have the differing ideas about German and French composers. The French government sponsorship of orchestras is much more limited (30-40 ensembles in France versus 129 in Germany according to Gemini) and looking at the histories of various orchestras, a large number of them originated as Staatskapelle, or the private orchestras of the various small states before German unification. Thus, you get the competition that gives rise to the symphonic tradition. So its understandable why things are weighted towards that German tradition.
It is unsurprising to me that you have so many problems with conductors, the whole hierarchical culture and the intense competition in some ways overdetermined this kind of outcome. I try to avoid putting up Gergiev (he used to come through Kumamoto at least once a year and sometimes twice with the Marinsky Orchestra because of Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who was originally from Kumamoto) because of links to Putin and Celibidache, who was one of the main antagonists in the Abbe Conant story and now, Dutoit.
Solti was known as 'the screaming skull' but apparently mellowed in later years. Going further back, you hear stories of Reiner and Toscanini (rehearsal recordings like this https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886gkXViXi8 make those stories of the music librarian 'pre-sawing' the batons so they would break easily, because they realized that after he broke a baton, he'd calm down, easier to give credence to)
A famous brass anecdote was Ravelli, the U of Mich band director, who often use to isolate a section and make each player perform the offending passage to humiliate them and one time, he went down and one by one, they misplayed the passage until the last one absolutely nailed it, and Ravelli, not missing a beat, says 'you were late for rehearsal last week, what were you doing?'
However, when you are in that environment, those kind of incidents become a sort of glue that the ensemble holds on to, It's no surprise that other high stress team environments (like the chef and the brigade de cuisine) exhibit similar tendencies.
I've somehow lost the gemini chat explaining it as a personification. I went back and got these
If you are hearing the phrase "Auntie Oksana" (Тетя Оксана) specifically in the context of Russian weather or "temperature," it is almost certainly a reference to popular internet memes or urban slang rather than a professional meteorologist.
In the Russian-speaking internet (Runet), "Auntie Oksana" has become a shorthand for a specific kind of unreliable or overly dramatic "neighborhood" source of information.
yokay, let me give you some more transcript
Now that I see the full context, the mystery is solved! This is a classic case of Speech-to-Text error.
The word isn't "Оксана" (Oksana); the reporter actually said "заставляют" (zastavlyayut), which means "force" or "make".
The Corrected Phrase
The transcript should read:
"...цифры на термометре заставляют: на улицу ни ногой!"
"...the numbers on the thermometer force [you]: don't set a foot outside!"
Why it sounds like "Oksana"
In fast Russian speech, the word заставляют (za-stav-lya-yut) can be mumbled. The middle "stav-lya" sounds can get swallowed, leaving something that sounds like "za-ya-yut" or "sa-na," which the computer AI then "corrected" to the common name Оксана.
I puzzled far too long over the phonetics and I don't see how the last one could be possible. Let's try that again
When she says "Auntie Oksana" (Тетя Оксана) at [00:09], she is referring to Oksana Fedorova, as discussed previously. Here is the breakdown of why she says it in that specific context:
The Joke: The reporter is describing a record-breaking cold snap in Moscow. She says, "The numbers on the thermometer, [Auntie] Oksana, say don't you dare step a foot outside" [00:08].
The Persona: She is addressing her "anchor" in the studio. In this comedic setup, Oksana Fedorova is imagined as the news anchor.
The Cultural Irony: In Russia, Oksana Fedorova is the quintessential "Auntie" of television because she hosted the famous children's show Good Night, Little Ones!. By addressing the news anchor as "Auntie Oksana," the video is poking fun at the cozy, domestic nature of Russian state TV, contrasting it with the "deadly" freezing temperatures being reported.
Well, the woman in the video resembles an Oksana Federova, but if she's an auntie, I'm Batman. Here she is
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=3b5cf2041e18d574&sxsrf=AE3TifP1ZrjiDImMWsmg-_tQH7vGKnlIvg:1766481139030&udm=2&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZ1Y6MJ25_tmWITc7uy4KIeqDdErwP5rACeJAty2zADJgeXKnD4z7v_UXM32TmNnj1yxfQDJKRFuKsiopx1kXI2HeCwSiMz_r_cLw9z-Mtg7tSmcI7MYFK_I8uSxj7ZdznMQoypHL9PYUQVEywwdBJtoqMFqGEmQsJQqv8HLDXTUeS3OS-&q=Oksana+Fedorova&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0hK2Gr9ORAxXEf_UHHcdJAecQtKgLegQIChAB&biw=1382&bih=1075&dpr=2
She could be the reporter in the video, but it isn't in her imdb
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1185905/
If should probably come as no surprise that Trump can lie continuously, given that the goal of AI seems to have been making a machine that can lie to use continuously.
Oksana thing may be an AI hallucination. I pulled out the transcript and saw Oksana after thermometer, and I got three different stories. Don't have any Russian speakers around, so can't ask anyone.
While the West drowned in its own diversity, Japan watched… and remembered who it was. Not with panic. Not with shame. But with the cold, ancient clarity of a country that knows what it's willing to die for. In a world that celebrates mass immigration — Japan says no.
It is AI generated (the "Not with panic. Not with shame." is a tell) and it is astonishing that not one of the videos discusses the shitshow that the US is operating currently. It's bullshit clickbait.
Actually, it is still around
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrov_Ensemble
It had to be reformed in 2016, but that was after 63 members were killed in a plane crash.
Newsome's appearance on Ezra Klein's podcast was enlightening.
https://youtu.be/PqBsRNUXWfs?si=EwDOTfV4F7dttjQM
I didn't enjoy it, but I can see he is pulling all the levers to be the next president. My main concern is that he's all ambition, and while he may be someone to beat Trump and the Republicans, he's not the person we need.
possibly apropos, from LGM which links to this CNN article
Other presidents receive similarly politicized descriptions, such as former President Barack Obama. “Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History,” the plaque reads. It dings him for passing what Trump calls “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act” and signing “the one-sided Paris Climate Accords.”
and
The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement when asked for more information about who’s paying for them.
My general rule is that everything that comes out of Leavitt's mouth, including and, but, and the, is a lie, so there must be a writer's room of monkeys churning out this shit.
Both marching and school band, when transported to Japan, became something that women could excel at. Instrumental stereotypes run deep (if you don't know about Abbie Conant, it's worth it to read about it. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it in a chapter in Blink which brought a lot of attention. I would pass that on, but Gladwell wrote the chapter without ever contacting Conant or even giving her the courtesy of letting her know she was going to be the focus of a chapter in his book. I guess some people would argue that he brought attention to her case, I tend to think this is shitty on the part of Gladwell)
Unfortunately, because brass band is often for women, it is often viewed as a skill to raise a woman's marriagability. English functions in a similar way and I tell people that in some ways, my job is like teaching needlepoint in Victorian England.
Hartmut, I suppose one could read it like that, but I'm just pointing out that linguistically, the wording is a bit implausible as something authored by Trump, which then has me imagining some writers' room where they are churning out these truth social posts. Gemini tells me that he averages 15-20 a day but that's skewed, and it was mentioned that he posted 160 times in a single evening.
That's Kyoto Tachibana HS. I hesitated to add it because it is a private school and so draws a lot of students because of the marching band (as well as the volleyball and soccer clubs) Fun fact, it was originally Kyoto Handicraft Girls' School and changed its name in 1957, going co-ed in 2000 (the band was formed in 1961 with the "original goal of improving girls’ health" according to a fan website)
https://kyototachibanashsbandunofficialfanblog.wordpress.com/tachibana-fact-sheet/
cleek, nous, that's really interesting, at my university and I believe at every other university, there is always a large contingent of students who are in a band, and I think the large majority of them leaning to heavy metal/hard rock. I'm wondering if it can be connected to the love of classical music, it is hard for me to see it as the same, though it could very well spring from the same source.
*Comment archive for non-registered commenters assembled by email address as provided.
On “An open thread”
wj: I think it’s useful to distinguish between those ICE officers who have been hired under Trump and those who were not.
nous: I’m under the impression that US Border Patrol in particular has always been a Hive of Scum and Villainy
My take is that the history of the two agencies comes into play. It's a bit convoluted, but my take is that ICE is fundamentally a post 9-11 creature, being spun off when the INS was reorganized under Homeland Security (and everyone may want to reflect on what they said about the whole idea of 'Homeland Security'. If you engaged in hippy punching when people complained about how words like this could lead to bad outcomes, you may want to rethink your prior opinions) The Border Patrol was under INS, with roots back to 1924, and was also spun off, but seems to have a longer history to fall back on.
This has me think that the Border Patrol has its prejudices baked in, but ICE is more of a res nova. CBP were (or are, hard to tell these days) limited to performing duties within 100 miles of the border and were often called on to work with the DEA for drug smuggling. I was pretty surprised when I looked at Wikipedia and read this
As early as 1998, the former Immigration and Naturalization Service implemented the Border Safety Initiative in response to concerns about the number of aliens injured or killed while attempting to cross the border. It was noted that Border Patrol agents routinely supplied water, food, and medical care to aliens.[48] That same year, Border Patrol, Search, Trauma and Rescue (BORSTAR), a specialized unit trained in emergency search and rescue, was established with the purpose of assisting injured or stranded aliens at remote locations.
However, the stories of the Border Patrol destroying survival caches is also well documented, which strikes me as bureaucratic behavior ('we will save them, but only on our terms!' sort of shit)
ICE was also spun off from INS, but consisted of the criminal investigators as opposed to border security and port of entry. I imagine this creates a different mindset which, added to the lack of any geographical restriction invites a grander mindset.
I think this ends up with ICE being more performative. Of course, for CBP, you have Homan and Bovino, while ICE is more often represented by Noem, so I guess 6 of 1. But reports of Stephen Millier making demands about quotas are addressed to ICE as opposed to CBP. It's probably a lot easier to bend the rules when you don't have so much to fall back on.
In regard to wj's pleas to consider the good ICE agents, I'm thinking that deTrumpification is going to demand that everyone been tossed out. For example, Ross, who is the person who has been identified as murdering Nicole Good, was originally in the CBP for 10 years before moving to ICE in 2015.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
It's interesting that the pdf link from bc doesn't mention Greenland at all and does not mention China in terms of geography, merely in production. It also fails to mention that the USGS, which maps mineral deposits (my dad worked for it before he went into the Navy Oceanographic department) was subject to the DOGE cuts, with about 20% being let go or taking early retirement.
While there is supposed to be a pivot, investigations into bioextraction, because they were linked to ecosystem research, have been halted, despite the fact that they are already proven, From Gemini
Proven Success: It is already used for roughly 15–20% of global gold and copper production.
Current Efficiency: For Rare Earth Elements (REEs), bioleaching (using microbes like Gluconobacter) now reaches extraction efficiencies of 65–80% in controlled environments.
Specific Mineral Focus: As of early 2026, researchers have successfully used biological systems to selectively capture Cobalt and Neodymium from complex mixtures like old EV batteries and coal tailings.
This suggests that looking at this as geography might be Sweet Summer Child status if I understood what that meant.
I thought this NYT daily podcast on rare earths and how they are extracted was good, and the part that discusses the difference in Japanese and US industrial policy quite interesting to me.
"
Gerardus Mercator has a lot to answer for...
"
“Historically”, however, meaning as recently as 2023, Denmark was below the NATO 2% standard. And a low of 1.11% in 2015. Slid below 2% in 1990 down to that low in 2015. So yes, historically.
Yes, 2015 was when Trump was in the GOP debate and praising Putin's intelligence and desire for a stable world. My point is that it's cherry picking of the first order and doing that to argue for Orange shitstain's latest fantasy is pretty weak.
On “An open thread”
This is funny
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-08/us-spy-chief-gabbard-excluded-from-maduro-plan-over-past-views
The move to cut Gabbard out of the meetings was so well-known that some White House aides joked that the acronym of her title, DNI, stood for “Do Not Invite,” according to three of the people. They asked not to be identified discussing private conversations. A White House official denied there was any such joke.
On “2026, as f**ked up as 2025”
A bit late with this reply and a bit out of order
bc wrote
And while I am reluctant to respond to what appears to be another litmus test of some sort,
This is a bit off. The reason we are asking these questions of you isn't to 'test' your TrumPh, it's to try and understand what is going on outside this bubble. I'm not sure why you think you aren't going to get questions.
Setting that aside, saying that Noriega had all his arguments knocked down is not what I was interested in. If we are entering an era of show trials, it matters not one bit what arguments are given. I'm wondering how parallel Noriega and Maduro are.
Refreshing my memory, Noriega was captured after a full-scale invasion (Reminding us that shit rises to the top, it was Bill Barr who wrote the legal justifcation for the invasion) The US did not recognize the election of Noriega and the Panamanian government declared a state of war between the US and Panama, so Noriega was technically a POW. It was also in the middle of the 20 year process of returning the Panama Canal to Panama, with a huge US military presence and a neutrality treaty that allowed the US to intervene militarily if the Canal was closed or transit was interfered with. I don't know how much I would agree with that, but that was negotiated during the Carter admin,
I also note this comment by bc
Denmark has historically been way behind on NATO commitments.
Using the word 'historically' is pretty interesting, especially since Denmark is one of the top bilateral donors to Ukraine, last year agreed to 2% and will reach 3% this year. But if your gripes are 'historical', like Maduro, it doesn't matter for shit what you do now, the administration can simply resurrect something they didn't like from the past and use it to justify whatever.
"
bc, just a short note to thank you for answering. I'm getting most of my information from podcasts as opposed to written pieces, (which I think is a bad thing for everyone, it's difficult to nail down particular points), and most of them are talking about the precedent of Panama and Noriega, but the information is so scattered that, coupled with the inability to accept anything that comes out of admin mouths as being true or not makes it difficult to follow, which makes me think parsing all this is baasically a fool's errand.
"
I don't think it is real worthwhile to try and figure out where Trump gets his ideas. I suppose that everything is similar to something, until it is not. I'm thinking that bc is a lawyer, so I have to wonder if he sees everything that is going on as simply an extension of previous trends or something that is actually different?
"
Two articles about the relationship to my neighborhood
https://moderndiplomacy.eu/2026/01/04/u-s-action-in-venezuela-risks-encouraging-chinas-claims-taiwan-still-not-the-target/
https://www.firstpost.com/world/venezuela-today-taiwan-tomorrow-trumps-maduro-move-hands-china-cheap-ammunition-for-taipei-strike-13965411.html
And this very interesting recollection by Greg Palast. A bit heavy on the conspiracy theory stuff, but one wonders.
https://www.gregpalast.com/when-venezuelas-president-delcy-rodriguez-banged-on-my-door-at-2am/
On “Moving towards Epiphany”
I'm getting to the end of The Reich's Orchestra, (I'm going to wait until after New Year's to check out the documentary link novakant sent me, as you get a 12 day trial, so I want to have some free time to listen to as much as I can) but one 'bright' spot is this
Hartmann recognised the orchestra’s post-war ethical dilemma: the Berlin Philharmonic was to an exceptional extent cherished, groomed and protected by the Nazi regime. That the Berlin Philharmonic was, at the same time, not a Nazi orchestra, by spirit, constitution, or membership, was also true. The Berlin Philharmonic, however, did not have to be a Nazi orchestra to serve its purpose to the regime—in fact, it was desirable that it not be. And the regime went to great lengths to protect and promote the exceptionality of its prized musical asset.
The current crew doesn't understand quality and ability, and everything is subsumed under fealty to Trump, and that absence of taste should make things go incrementally faster.
On “Weekend music thread #10 Maurice Ravel”
novakant, thanks!
"
novakant's comment had me dig around a bit, and I found Misha Aster's The Reich's Orchestra: The Berlin Philharmonic 1933-45. I'm through the 1st chapter, which describes how the orchestra, because of the state of the German economy, appealed to the government for support and entangled itself with the Nazis and I realized that governmental sponsorship and the history of orchestras are probably also why I have the differing ideas about German and French composers. The French government sponsorship of orchestras is much more limited (30-40 ensembles in France versus 129 in Germany according to Gemini) and looking at the histories of various orchestras, a large number of them originated as Staatskapelle, or the private orchestras of the various small states before German unification. Thus, you get the competition that gives rise to the symphonic tradition. So its understandable why things are weighted towards that German tradition.
"
It is unsurprising to me that you have so many problems with conductors, the whole hierarchical culture and the intense competition in some ways overdetermined this kind of outcome. I try to avoid putting up Gergiev (he used to come through Kumamoto at least once a year and sometimes twice with the Marinsky Orchestra because of Yoko Nagae Ceschina, who was originally from Kumamoto) because of links to Putin and Celibidache, who was one of the main antagonists in the Abbe Conant story and now, Dutoit.
Solti was known as 'the screaming skull' but apparently mellowed in later years. Going further back, you hear stories of Reiner and Toscanini (rehearsal recordings like this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=886gkXViXi8 make those stories of the music librarian 'pre-sawing' the batons so they would break easily, because they realized that after he broke a baton, he'd calm down, easier to give credence to)
A famous brass anecdote was Ravelli, the U of Mich band director, who often use to isolate a section and make each player perform the offending passage to humiliate them and one time, he went down and one by one, they misplayed the passage until the last one absolutely nailed it, and Ravelli, not missing a beat, says 'you were late for rehearsal last week, what were you doing?'
However, when you are in that environment, those kind of incidents become a sort of glue that the ensemble holds on to, It's no surprise that other high stress team environments (like the chef and the brigade de cuisine) exhibit similar tendencies.
On “Welcome to my world”
Yes, but Riga has an educated population.
On “Weekend Music Thread music thread #09 In Russia, Christmas music sings you!”
I've somehow lost the gemini chat explaining it as a personification. I went back and got these
yokay, let me give you some more transcript
I puzzled far too long over the phonetics and I don't see how the last one could be possible. Let's try that again
When she says "Auntie Oksana" (Тетя Оксана) at [00:09], she is referring to Oksana Fedorova, as discussed previously. Here is the breakdown of why she says it in that specific context:
Well, the woman in the video resembles an Oksana Federova, but if she's an auntie, I'm Batman. Here she is
https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=3b5cf2041e18d574&sxsrf=AE3TifP1ZrjiDImMWsmg-_tQH7vGKnlIvg:1766481139030&udm=2&fbs=AIIjpHxU7SXXniUZfeShr2fp4giZ1Y6MJ25_tmWITc7uy4KIeqDdErwP5rACeJAty2zADJgeXKnD4z7v_UXM32TmNnj1yxfQDJKRFuKsiopx1kXI2HeCwSiMz_r_cLw9z-Mtg7tSmcI7MYFK_I8uSxj7ZdznMQoypHL9PYUQVEywwdBJtoqMFqGEmQsJQqv8HLDXTUeS3OS-&q=Oksana+Fedorova&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi0hK2Gr9ORAxXEf_UHHcdJAecQtKgLegQIChAB&biw=1382&bih=1075&dpr=2
She could be the reporter in the video, but it isn't in her imdb
https://www.imdb.com/name/nm1185905/
If should probably come as no surprise that Trump can lie continuously, given that the goal of AI seems to have been making a machine that can lie to use continuously.
"
Oksana thing may be an AI hallucination. I pulled out the transcript and saw Oksana after thermometer, and I got three different stories. Don't have any Russian speakers around, so can't ask anyone.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
The opening of Charles' video
While the West drowned in its own diversity, Japan watched… and remembered who it was.
Not with panic. Not with shame.
But with the cold, ancient clarity of a country that knows what it's willing to die for.
In a world that celebrates mass immigration — Japan says no.
It is AI generated (the "Not with panic. Not with shame." is a tell) and it is astonishing that not one of the videos discusses the shitshow that the US is operating currently. It's bullshit clickbait.
On “Weekend Music Thread music thread #09 In Russia, Christmas music sings you!”
Actually, it is still around
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexandrov_Ensemble
It had to be reformed in 2016, but that was after 63 members were killed in a plane crash.
On “The Wiles Interview”
Newsome's appearance on Ezra Klein's podcast was enlightening.
https://youtu.be/PqBsRNUXWfs?si=EwDOTfV4F7dttjQM
I didn't enjoy it, but I can see he is pulling all the levers to be the next president. My main concern is that he's all ambition, and while he may be someone to beat Trump and the Republicans, he's not the person we need.
On “Author, author?”
possibly apropos, from LGM which links to this CNN article
Other presidents receive similarly politicized descriptions, such as former President Barack Obama.
“Barack Hussein Obama was the first Black President, a community organizer, one term Senator from Illinois, and one of the most divisive political figures in American History,” the plaque reads. It dings him for passing what Trump calls “the highly ineffective ‘Unaffordable’ Care Act” and signing “the one-sided Paris Climate Accords.”
and
The plaques are eloquently written descriptions of each President and the legacy they left behind. As a student of history, many were written directly by the President himself,” White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told CNN in a statement when asked for more information about who’s paying for them.
My general rule is that everything that comes out of Leavitt's mouth, including and, but, and the, is a lie, so there must be a writer's room of monkeys churning out this shit.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
re: marching band as being for girls
Both marching and school band, when transported to Japan, became something that women could excel at. Instrumental stereotypes run deep (if you don't know about Abbie Conant, it's worth it to read about it. Malcolm Gladwell wrote about it in a chapter in Blink which brought a lot of attention. I would pass that on, but Gladwell wrote the chapter without ever contacting Conant or even giving her the courtesy of letting her know she was going to be the focus of a chapter in his book. I guess some people would argue that he brought attention to her case, I tend to think this is shitty on the part of Gladwell)
Unfortunately, because brass band is often for women, it is often viewed as a skill to raise a woman's marriagability. English functions in a similar way and I tell people that in some ways, my job is like teaching needlepoint in Victorian England.
On “Author, author?”
Hartmut, I suppose one could read it like that, but I'm just pointing out that linguistically, the wording is a bit implausible as something authored by Trump, which then has me imagining some writers' room where they are churning out these truth social posts. Gemini tells me that he averages 15-20 a day but that's skewed, and it was mentioned that he posted 160 times in a single evening.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
That's Kyoto Tachibana HS. I hesitated to add it because it is a private school and so draws a lot of students because of the marching band (as well as the volleyball and soccer clubs) Fun fact, it was originally Kyoto Handicraft Girls' School and changed its name in 1957, going co-ed in 2000 (the band was formed in 1961 with the "original goal of improving girls’ health" according to a fan website)
https://kyototachibanashsbandunofficialfanblog.wordpress.com/tachibana-fact-sheet/
On ““We’re now poorer than Mississippi. It’s like Huckleberry Finn without the steamboats.””
It's interesting that Truss' Degree classification is not readily available.
On “Weekend music thread #08 How do you get to Carnagie Hall?”
cleek, nous, that's really interesting, at my university and I believe at every other university, there is always a large contingent of students who are in a band, and I think the large majority of them leaning to heavy metal/hard rock. I'm wondering if it can be connected to the love of classical music, it is hard for me to see it as the same, though it could very well spring from the same source.
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