90 Miles From Tyranny

Thursday, February 17, 2022

The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #1632

You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?

It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,

from the beautiful to the repugnant,

from the mysterious to the familiar.

If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,

you could be inspired, you could be appalled.

This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.

You have been warned.

Flashback: 2019 Media Chant ‘There Was No Spying’ on Trump

Visage à trois #49

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

La petite mort bonus video:

Videos That Are:

Usually Short.
Usually Timely.
Usually Scraped, Gleaned And Pilfered From Social Media.

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything - turn, turn, turn
There is a season - turn, turn, turn
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones
A time to gather stones together

Visage à trois #48

Three Videos For Your Viewing Pleasure:

La petite mort bonus video:

Videos That Are:

Usually Short.
Usually Timely.
Usually Scraped, Gleaned And Pilfered From Social Media.

Visage à trois #42

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #242

Quick Hits Of Wisdom, Knowledge And Snark #241

Sandy Hook Families Settle with Remington Arms to the Tune of $73 Million

On Tuesday, the families of nine children killed in the Sandy Hook mass shooting settled with Remington Arms, receiving a collective total of $73 million in compensation from the gun manufacturer.

As Insider reports, Remington was targeted by the families of the 2012 shooting due to the fact that one of the guns used in the attack, a Bushmaster rifle, was manufactured by Remington. The company was not sued by families until 2014, two years after the attack.

The basis for the lawsuit was that Remington marketed its rifle in such a way that it became appealing as a weapon of choice for the shooter, Adam Lanza, who committed suicide after he killed 27 people at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. Twenty of his victims were children, while six were staff members at the school; he had earlier killed his own mother at their home before heading to the school.

Following the settlement, several of the plaintiffs and their lawyers expressed explicitly anti-gun sentiments in their public statements. One of the plaintiffs, Nicole Hockley, claimed that “today is a day of accountability for an industry that has thus far enjoyed operating with immunity and impunity. And for this I am grateful.” She also described the settlement as a “crack” in “the gun industry’s impenetrable armor.”

Josh Koskoff, the attorney for the coalition of families, similarly claimed that the ruling was proof that “the gun industry’s protection is not bulletproof.” Koskoff added that the settlement not only included the financial compensation, but the sharing of “hundreds of thousands of documents” detailing Remington’s internal marketing strategy as it related to that particular firearm.

Remington tried to argue that it was protected under the 2005 Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act, but the Connecticut Supreme Court allowed the lawsuit to proceed. The Connecticut court’s justification was that the law does “not permit advertisements that promote or encourage violent, criminal behavior,” without citing any evidence of what “violent behavior” was in any of the marketing.

Remington’s attempts to appeal to the Supreme Court of the United States were denied when the high court declined to...

More Great Photos:

For a few minutes, forget your troubles, forget your worries, open up and take a journey...

Camels and burning Kuwaiti oil fields that had been blown up by retreating Iraqi troops, 1991.

The Zeppelin Columbia over the Empire State Building in 1931

One of the first underwater photographs ever made - 1893

To demonstrate the superiority of the Red Army, 57.000 German prisoners of war are herded through downtown Moscow, July 1944

The last prisoners leaving Alcatraz, 1963

British soldier observing Argentinean helmets after the Battle of Goose Green on the Falkland Islands, May 1982.

Execution by cannon, in Shiraz, Iran, mid-late 19th century

New York City, 1947, photo by Fred Stein

Central Park in 1930

Alligator farm in St. Augustine, Florida, 1926

Depression In America: 1929 - Is This Our Near Future?

Uploading the first 5 MByte hard disk to a Pan Am plane, 1956

Carl Akeley posed with the leopard he killed with his bare hands after it attacked him, 1896

Confederate and Union soldiers shake hands across the wall at the 1938 reunion for the Veterans of the Battle of Gettysburg

Che Guevara and Fidel Castro fishing, 1960

A German U-boat stranded on the South Coast of England, after surrender, 1918

Banksy Parodies Government Spying..

American Soldiers Used For Nuclear Testing In 1953..

Will Xi Jinping's 'End of Days' Plunge China and the World into War?

Xi Jinping, China's mighty-looking leader, has an "enormous array of domestic enemies." — Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association and editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, to Gatestone Institute, February 2022.
Xi created that opposition. After becoming China's ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as "anti-corruption" campaigns.
Beijing is panicking, adding nearly a trillion dollars in total new credit last month, a record increase.... When the so-called "hidden debt" is included, total debt in the country amounts to somewhere in the vicinity of 350% of gross domestic product.
Not surprisingly, Chinese companies are now defaulting. The debt crisis is so serious it can bring down China's economy—and the country's financial and political systems with it.
In the most recent hint of distress, "Fang Zhou and China"... wrote a 42,000-character essay titled "An Objective Evaluation of Xi Jinping." The anti-Xi screed, posted on January 19 on the China-sponsored 6park site, appears to be the work of several members of the Communist Party's Shanghai Gang faction, headed by former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang's faction has been continually sniping at Xi and now is leading the charge against him.
Xi's problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. He has, for various internal political reasons, a low threshold of risk and many reasons to pick on some other country to deflect elite criticism and popular discontent.
The Communist Party of China has always believed its struggle with the United States is existential—in May 2019 the official People's Daily declared a "people's war" on America—but the hostility has become far more evident in the past year.
Virulent anti-Americanism suggests Xi Jinping is establishing a justification to strike America. The Chinese regime often uses its media to first warn and then signal its actions.
America has now been warned.

When truckers took over Canada's capital, Ottawa, and shut down border entry points to America, some called it a "nationwide insurrection." Mass demonstrations have occurred across the democratic world. People have had enough of two years of mandates and other disease-control measures.

Not so in the world's most populous state, which maintains the world's strictest COVID-19 controls. There are no known popular protests in the People's Republic of China against anti-coronavirus efforts.

Yet China is not stable, and Xi Jinping is facing his "End of Days," as a recent essay by opposition figures (see below) puts it. The revolt is not in society at large but at the top of the Communist Party. As Gregory Copley, president of the International Strategic Studies Association, told Gatestone, Xi Jinping, China's mighty-looking leader, has an "enormous array of domestic enemies."

Xi created that opposition. After becoming China's ruler at the end of 2012, he grabbed power from everyone else and then jailed tens of thousands of opponents in purges, which he styled as "anti-corruption" campaigns.

Xi also used the disease to great advantage. As Copley, also the editor-in-chief of Defense & Foreign Affairs Strategic Policy, points out, "Xi's 'zero COVID' policy is, indeed, less about stopping the spread of COVID and more about suppressing his internal enemies, both in the public and in the Party."

The "enormous array" is now starting to strike back. Xi is most vulnerable on his handling of the country's stagnating economy. For one thing, the draconian campaign against COVID—massive testing, meticulous contact-tracing, strict lockdowns—have of course undermined consumption, which Beijing has touted as the core of the economy.

Beijing is panicking, adding nearly a trillion dollars in total new credit last month, a record increase. Chinese technocrats have also become sneaky, embarking on what the widely followed Andrew Collier of Global Source Partners terms "shadow stimulus"—stimulus provided by local governments and their entities in order to allow the central government to avoid reporting spending.

China needs a vibrant economy to service enormous debts, largely run up as Beijing overstimulated the economy, especially beginning in 2008. When the so-called "hidden debt" is included, total debt in the country amounts to somewhere in the vicinity of 350% of gross domestic product.

Not surprisingly, Chinese companies are now defaulting. The debt crisis is so serious it can bring down China's economy—and the country's financial and political systems with it.

For three decades, a Chinese leader was essentially immune to criticism because all decisions of consequence were shared by top figures in the Communist Party. Xi Jinping, however, as he took power also ended up with accountability—in other words, with no one else to blame. With things not going China's way in recent years, Xi, often called the "Chairman of Everything," is taking heat.

There are signs of intensifying discord among senior leaders. In the most recent hint of distress, "Fang Zhou and China"— "Fang Zhou" is a pseudonym meaning "ark"—wrote a 42,000-character essay titled "An Objective Evaluation of Xi Jinping." The anti-Xi screed, posted on January 19 on the China-sponsored 6park site, appears to be the work of several members of the Communist Party's Shanghai Gang faction, headed by former leader Jiang Zemin. Jiang's faction has been continually sniping at Xi and now is leading the charge against him.

Fang's piece incorporates previously voiced criticisms but does so in a comprehensive fashion. Fang blames Xi for, among other things, ruining the economy.

"Xi will be the architect of his own defeat," writes Fang at the end of the rant, in a section titled "Xi Jinping's Denouement" or "End of Days." "His style of governance is simply unsustainable; it will generate even newer and greater policy missteps."

Fang notes that Xi was able to take advantage of a feeble opposition but has not been able to accomplish much. "Xi's policies have been retrogressive and derivative, his successes minor and his blunders numerous," writes the Asia Society's Geremie Barme, who translated the essay, summarizing Fang's thoughts. Fang believes Xi "deserves a score of less than zero."

Xi is not one to let a decade of zero scores get in the way of his continued rule. Communist Party norms require him to step down at the 20th National Congress, to be held sometime this fall if tradition holds. He obviously wants a precedent-breaking third term as general secretary so that he can become, as outsiders say, "Dictator for Life." Most observers expect he will get that new term.

Maybe. Fang Zhou's essay shows Communist Party leaders are risking stability by airing disagreements in public. Xi Jinping therefore, now realizes he is in the fight of his life.

Xi's problems, unfortunately, can become our problems. He has, for various internal political reasons, a low threshold of risk and many reasons to pick on...