The show will be delayed. Perhaps this afternoon or tomorrow, God willing.
109 thoughts on “Technical Difficulties”
National Review let some intern they have named Bobby Miller criticize Zelensky. Possible sign the regime is preparing its minions to abandon him?
This closing comment did make me laugh:
“To increase support among conservatives, he(Zelensky) should avoid U.S. political entanglements and stress that his nation’s fight is for Western civilization, not its decadent distortions.”
How does Georgetown accept such a laughably stupid white man into a grad program?
“Western civilization”, at least the parts that put Zelenskiiiii in power, pretty much IS its decadent distortions. Or is Beltway Kid here hinting that Zelenskiiiiiiiiii should hold off on staging interviews with obvious LGBTQWERTY media like Buzzfeed or Huffpo until he somehow defeats the Russians?
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it’s Saturday morning. And still no Zman? Bummer! Hope youre back up soon, Zman.
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Did anyone see “V for Vendetta”?
When the good guys ran afoul of the system, they would be disappeared, a black bag forced over the head of the poor bastard when he was taken.
Forgive me, but that was the first thing I thought of when I saw that graphic.
I gotta spend more time at the farm.
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Indeed. If there’s no Behind the Green Door stuff tomorrow or an essay on Monday, I’m prepared to think the worst. As Severian often suggests, we’ll all soon be in the camps for failing to applaud long enough or loud enough because Defeatism is simply not permitted in current year AINO.
“I have been trapped in work hell the last week, trying to get a last-minute project over the finish line before a non-negotiable deadline.”
It’s possible that his captors made him write that, though.
2
BLINK TWICE SLOWLY ZMAN
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Re: your post on Gab showing the 1991 NHL All Star Game National Anthem at Chicago Stadium…
Not sure how many are aware, but that is a long standing tradition for Chicago Blackhawks fans to cheer loudly throughout the National Anthem. Obviously, during the Gulf War for a big game, it was even more boisterous than usual. But that tradition still stands today. I find it to be one of the neatest traditions in sports, especially as they always have a top notch opera singer belt out the lyrics. Back then it was Wayne Messmer, now it’s Jim Cornielson. Unfortunately I no longer have the same emotional reaction to the Star Spangled Banner that I used to.
It is really the unfortunate thing about Chicago. Unlike the coastal metropolises, there is still an undercurrent of basic white midwestern sensibility. You should hear some conversations I have with my neighbors and friends in the suburbs. Unfortunately that sensibility has been overrun by the minorities and foreign invaders and (((shitlibs))) on the North Shore.
13
An open call for secession published today at American Greatness
I find it more than mildly amusing that a very serious subject like secession, rebellion, and independence has to be couched in gay neologisms like “opt-out” so as not to scare Normiecon G. CivNat away from such terribly freighted words, that were last spoken by “traitors” in 1861 who were also “immoral” slaveowners. DR3 strikes again.
11
Your Native American Chief in BlaQface has triggered me.
9
Your tax dollars at work as it is revealed Ukrainian intelligence pressures the FBI into censoring people on Facebook:
This is what the shitlibs meant (though I doubt most of them knew it) by all that “I’m a citizen of the world” garbage. It means if you piss off the security apparatchiks ANYWHERE in the world, they can stomp you.
Imagine there’s no countries…
No Bill of Rights to save you…
Above you only satellites from CNN…
2
I’m too young to have ever seen that “stand by” graphic. Is there a reason that it has an indian on it? And what are those circles and numbers? It all seems kind of random.
3
I’m not sure if there’s any reason for the Indian, other than that this graphic was made in an America which still appreciated whimsy. I.e., about 70 years before our current Clown World.
If you’re of “a certain age” and you were a night owl as a child, you’d have seen that particular display showing on television stations from maybe 12 midnight or 1 AM to maybe 6 AM. Way back in the Before Times of the late 1960s or early 1970s, television stations actually went off work for the night, and they broadcast the Indian head as a way of saying, “we haven’t been atom-bombed, we’re just off work ’cause we’re still sane enough not to have 24-7 programming”.
Before the days of LCD, flat screen TVs, we had something called a “picture tube” (or CRT for cathode ray). It projected electrons onto the screen from behind at a frequency of 60 cycles per second in a vertical/horizontal pattern. (Completely sweeping the screen up and down). We had to adjust the “horizontal and vertical hold” in order to stabilize the picture. This, to put it in kinda simple terms, acted like an electromagnetic lens that focused the beam and directed it very fast as it scanned.
When this greyscale image was created for that purpose, when a TV station had to stop broadcasting media for a while, it gave the viewer an image to adjust his hold, and also the contrast and brightness, in order to get a clear and sharp image.
I have no exact reason why to explain the Indian head, but I surmise that it was just a random and easy to recognize image with a good bit of contrast in the various greyscale varieties. It could have been a picture of a bald Eagle or just about anything, someone just happened in to choose the Indian head.
10
To further illustrate the concept of the picture tube.
Think of an “etch a sketch” toy. You draw vertical lines and horizontal lines to make a picture. One knob controls one axis, while the other knob draws the perpendicular axis.
This is a very simple and not entirely accurate mental model, but it kinda gives you the idea of how the beam of electrons were directed up/down and left/right. Very fast, so fast that the human eye couldn’t detect it.
4
My uncle used to build his own TV sets out of parts. The neighborhood where the World Trade Center was built in the late 60’s – early 70’s was what we used to call the job lots. Store after store of capacitors, resistors, vacuum tubes, potentiometers and the like. Wooden ships steal minds back then. My brother in law is always bragging about building his own computers , that’s nice….
7
Many ‘average Joes’ replaced tubes and other parts in their television sets in the 50s- tube testers were common in grocery stores when I was a child. I recall smoke coming out of an early set when an amp tube when south…. good times.
4
The Indian is for setting brightness and contrast. There’s an article at Wikipedia describing the functions and hisrory.
I was in my 30s during his WH— anyone else amazed that the lasting-legacy items of the Obama presidency are Biden, Harris, Yellen, and shooting at the cops? Nobody talks about universal health care or free online school for all any more. On foreign affairs, particularly E. Europe, I would say there has been an almost comical exaggerated-pendulum swing against whatever Obama tried; unintended consequences from the Iran scheme as well.
I think he botched the outreach/pandering to Hispanics because he is from Hawaii and therefore understands nothing of them. Latinos he elevated tended to be weirdos like Tom Perez or the Castro brothers. Yes, I know the “Nuyorican” to SCOTUS but if I’m a Democrat, that one seems as impactful as the current VP choice he supported (at Michelle’s goading).
Anyway. Just seems odd how inconsequential was the Hopenchange drama, but I’m not old enough to remember Mario Cuomo who had a similar influence, I’m informed.
5
Somebody once referred to Mario Cuomo as the “Hamlet of Albany” or “Hamlet on the Hudson” because he was so indecisive about running for president in 1988 and 1992. Cuomo dithered and ultimately refrained from running both times and missed his window of opportunity to become president.
3
I think too that while the country was willing to elect a mixed-race black as POTUS, but maybe not a New York Italian.
8
All the single ladies understood that Obama is a halfrican “exotic,” not an actual American black guy. Every job he ever had depended on that, especially the presidency.
Clarence Thomas, e.g., is black beyond belief, an absolute *parody* of American blackness, the like of which can’t be produced anymore. Not least because of that, and the dissonance of that with his being ideologically “white” (basically a founding-stock libertarian), he’s hated insanely, especially by white women.
America is a stupid thing.
13
Cuomo had too much dirty laundry for those times.
It was the waning days of actions having consequences.
7
1
I doubt either would have won
Oh, don’t you worry, the Lightbringer still has things well in hand.
4
Well darn it, I like to use the podcast to drown out the ethnic gibbering while having lunch at the asian buffet.
13
You go now!
No mo foo for you!
6
I’ll sit on the toilet for a while in your honor.
2
Test Pattern Indian could undoubtedly kick the hell out of Crying over Roadside Litter Indian.
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But the Test P Indiana would have no chance against Chief Nocahoma, the thoroughly memory-holed mascot of the 1970/80s Atlanta Braves. Whenever a Braves player hit a home run, he would dance around his teepee in the outfield bleachers. Oh, the glorious days of cultural appropriation writ large.
We have something partially in common. I get replies when I don’t post anything but, sadly, not when I do.
3
I’m starting to see “whispers” and “concerns” amongst Republicans that it is not “conservative” for Ron DeSantis to go after Disney the way he had, because it is a governor “meddling in a private company’s affairs.” They are even bringing up liberal governors during the lockdown, as if lib governors would not do the same exact thing tomorrow if they could. As if AGs like Laetitia James are not pursuing lawfare on ideological opponents.
If you need exhibit #54434835598 on why conservacucks never, ever win and never, ever want to win, there it is. I am so sick of these people.
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It was refreshing though to see Tennessee kick the malcontents out of their house assembly and Montana kick out that pedo-tranny (as if there’s a different kind), how long until the regime sends in the goon squad to make sure their allies get re-seated?
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1
I thought they caved and let them back in because the insurrectionists and anti-civilizationists called them racists.
Was there a second expulsion?
8
Naw I’m probably not keeping up with the latest con-surrender news, and I’m too lazy to check because it’s depressing…
8
Mycale: ‘I’m starting to see “whispers” and “concerns” amongst Republicans…’
There was also Don Jr telling folks to back off of Bud Lite, followed by the news that Don Sr had a large stake in the Brazilian holding company which controls Anheuser Busch.
If Trump II is gonna be all about trannies & neverending shenanigans perpetuated by the Kushner family crime syndicate, then I’m not sure what the purpose of voting would be.
The older I get, the more I am drawn inexorably to the point of view of empirical historicism.
How does one interpret the following graph?
J Edgar Hoover (((Roy Cohn))) Fred Trump [progenitor]
As Saint Joseph Djugashvili prophesied, “The future is known; it is the past which is in doubt.”
But I wouldn’t vote for DeSanctimonious if he were running for Dawg Catcher. What a greasy little passive-aggressive back-stabbing creep that guy is.
8
0
Maybe Z got taken out by DeSantis, after the governor went to Jerusalem to sign a bill making it a felony offense for Floridians to say anything “offensive” about his masters:
Sickening, just sickening, the craven self-abasement and cuckoldry. I wondered if he offered them his wife while he was there?
31
Great call on DeSantis! He’s an Israel Firster all the way — just not as obnoxious about it as Trump was and remains (it’s not possible to outdo Trump in the cringe department when it comes to fellating “our greatest ally”). So DeSantis is slightly sneakier about it. Not an improvement.
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Desantis is scum. He makes a few good decisions as Florida governor, and that gets him lots of good press from conservative media. But he is definitely not our friend. His loyalty is with the Israelis, not with Americans.
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Ron DeSemitophilous
Sad!
4
Completely disgusting. There’s no way I’ll vote for that traitor even if Pedo Joe survives to be on the next ballot.
2
I like when a photo shows a power dynamic so clearly.
2
I suspect that at least some of the conservacucks do actually want to win (though many very clearly have ulterior motives). A lot of conservacucks aren’t particularly bright, yet countless others simply lack the psychological fortitude to face how far behind the eight ball we really are. Sadly, a considerable increase in pain will likely be required to jar them into full consciousness.
8
I have tried to explain to several friends that large “private companies” these days basically are an extension of the government.
They look at me like I have two heads.
6
They look at me like I have two heads.
I’m of two minds about that.
I do have two heads.
1
bad week to give up sniffing glue.
27
Maybe Zman should reassess. No show needed going by all the comments today without any content.
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Ha ha–just what I was thinking. 38 comments so far and no show. Incredible.
5
like a chicken running around after it’s head has been removed 😛
9
My line when people invite me on as a guest is “I’m not a great guest, but I am better than no guest.”
Seems I may have been mistaken. No one is as good as me!
8
My dad told me about a TV channel back in the olden days that ran out of programming so they just put a camera on a fish tank, which proved to be extremely popular.
4
I think this is your version of the dreaded “Open Thread”.
“Eh, I got nuthin’ today. I’ll just tell ’em I’ve got ‘Technical Difficulties’ and let ’em comment.” 😏
3
It’s like bernhard (did I get the name right?) on moonofalabama. Great site, but he doesn’t do half of what Z-man does and at least once a week he has to cop out with an open thread.
Uh oh, the kittens may be on the warpath.
8
Z-man, ever consider recycling an old show under the heading: “The Best of….”?
My radio station does that all the time. 😉
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If you want a replay, just download an old post.
All are classic.
4
My 79 year old mom lives with me and my family. The other night a nephew came over to visit and we got a spam call from someone named “Robert Harvey”. I remarked, “it’s probably Paul’s brother and he wants to tell grandma the rest of the story.” He looked at me quizzically and said, “The rest of what story?”
I told him to get off my lawn.
26
I’ve recently gotten into watching “First Time Watching” YouTube videos, where some young person watches a movie I fondly remember. The best ones are the old classics, but I’m truly astounded at how untutored many of these young people are. The things they don’t know frankly shock me. In ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, most of them have never heard of “Shave and a Haircut”. But the worst was a girl watching ‘Casablanca’ for the first time. When the cast list came up on the screen, she blandly announced that she’d never heard of any of these actors. I simply mouthed to my husband “HUMPHREY BOGART?????” Never heard of him. How did our culture become so uprooted?
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1
Loved Paul Harvey on the radio, my favorite one was the guy who went hunting and came back to berate his wife for not including extra socks, she said she put them in his gun case—also remember laying in bed at night secretly listening to Father Patrick Payton and “the family that prays together, stays together”. A short Christian program along the lines of the Twilight Zone and Cosmic Justice. Good times-
5
In my crummy outdoor summer job, our entire crew would pause to listen to PH on the radio. We would all try to say “Good day!” exactly when he did.
4
Harvey today would be tarred as a far-right extremist, instead of being just a normal gentleman who espoused solid mid-western values.
2
“Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck in more inaccessible places.”
— Paul Harvey
Good Day!
He should repost the one he did on the American jury system being a colossal racket. I recently spent a few days in that situation. If anyone recalls the date of that podcast or article, please let us know.
1
Sorry Z…but it’s my fault.
Cornelius Rye showed up in a pink 1959 Cadillac with a gaggle of black hoes n’ bitches…and they went into your studio to do their business. I tried to stop them but Puffy C shoved his 9mm Glock in my face and said he’d light me up if I didn’t get lost…😞
He said to tell you the black tax just went up…
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You should swing by Tucker’s house and see if you can use his basement.
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1
I feel like a junkie whose dealer has left him waiting for his fix. I’m jonesing, man!
Stay safe out there in Lagos if your quest for repair requires a search and acquisition in physical space/time. Always a miss when your show doesn’t hit.
For the readership. I arrived at Chapter 3 in G. Faye’s, “Archeofuturism.” This is a great read. It is great in that it analyzes the problems without moaning and it is proscriptive as well as a call to joining in with radical thought and bold action. I highly recommend, for Chapters 2 and 3 alone.
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always avoid the electronics shops on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
13
Great prices, only fell off a truck once!
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Since we have to make our own fun today, you should hit us with a deep quote from Archeofuturism.
2
I love the Fallout allusion, given that… well, you know, the current trajectory of things.
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That was the first thing I thought of too. 😉
For the aged here the Fallout series (referring explicitly to Fallout 3) takes place in an alt-past/future where nuclear war occurred in the late 50s. Needless to say, the ruins of a once great civilization depicted in the game are in many ways preferable to the situation we’re in now.
5
ACKSHUALLY, the backdrop of Fallout is an alternate history where an over the top hyper-jingoistic version of 1950s culture persisted into the late 21st century, causing a nuclear war over the last bit of accessible oil. That’s meant to explain the existence of ray guns and robots that didn’t exist in the 1950s.
Considering that the games largely blame the nuclear war on nationalism the setting wasn’t intended to be based, but they accidentally made the “bad guys” look too cool (like with a 100 ft tall robot that shouts anti-communist slogans as it throws miniature nuclear warheads), so the games have been favorites among right-wingers.
2
I demand a refund…oh, wait.
13
You get what you pay for, amiright?
5
I am actually old enough to remember those standby technical difficulties slides on TV screens.
23
Yeah. At least once a week in those glorious sixties.
7
Woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee, watched the sun rise, the spring flowers bloom, and listened to the birds singing. I was at peace, and one with the world.
“This sucks!”, I thought. “I’ll tune into the Zman Friday broadcast, that will bring my mood to appropriate levels of curmudgeonly grumpiness befitting a man my age”
Now this? WTF. Time for more coffee.
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I blame it on transphobia!
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Don’t be an idiot Hoagie!!! Nobody appreciates your rude joke!!!
If he ran an electric blog instead of one powered by fossil fools things would work a lot better!
7
I blame it on the Bossa Nova…
5
Z-man show cancelled — Climate change cited.
3
Z-man show cancelled; men, majorities hardest hit.
2
Went to my nabe water mill for a 5-gallon jug o’ water. Put a quarter in, a message saying “Out of water” flashed, the machine refused to give me my quarter back and I didn’t have a spare for such an eventuality. I knew right then and there this day was gonna sugg.
8
Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream
9
When I woke up this morning/
You were on my mind/
And you were on my mind/
I got troubles, whoa-oh/
I got worries, whoa-oh/
I got wounds to bind/
So I went to the corner/
Just to ease my pains/
Yeah, just to ease my pains/
I got troubles, whoa-oh/
I got worries, whoa-oh!
2
Or there’s this:
Well, I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer
The future’s uncertain and the end is always near
Let it roll, baby, roll
6
Woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand
Whose wine, what wine, where the hell did I dine?
Must have been a dream I don’t believe where I’ve been
Come on, let’s do it again
2
Or the Monty Python classic: “I wrote this song when I was in the show this morning” Long guitar riff. “I woke up this morning!” Bows and says “Thank you, thank you!”
In the shower, dangit. Learn to spell, self.
There is nothing wrong with your television set/computer. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical….
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A most apropos reference to the Outer Limits. Who knew 60 years later how true that would be?
14
Let the magic smoke out again? I had a 1600 watt PSU go that route last year. They weren’t kidding – capacitor goes “POP!” and white smoke shoots out the vent. Kill the power and take the case off and the PSU is going *tink tink tink*.
3
Probobably you must do the needful and contact the support hotline sar. Amirite amirite. (Head bobbles in random pattern).
Good luck Z, sage and salt poured in a circle sometimes helps, too.
8
Love that graphic.
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Rage meter hit critical level? Can’t say I blame you.
Best wishes resolving the issues. Always look forward to your great work.
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Probably needs an adjustment, time to find the hammer
10
You turned it off and on again, right?
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Try adjusting the nut behind the keyboard..
Or jiggle the handle.
9
How can he jiggle the handle when he can’t get no good porn?
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1
Is the computer plugged in Mr. Z? 🤔
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thinking of the South Park “logging” episode where they “ran out of Internet”….and the references to The Grapes of Wrath. Soon we will all be Eloi and no one can remember how to do anything.
National Review let some intern they have named Bobby Miller criticize Zelensky. Possible sign the regime is preparing its minions to abandon him?
This closing comment did make me laugh:
“To increase support among conservatives, he(Zelensky) should avoid U.S. political entanglements and stress that his nation’s fight is for Western civilization, not its decadent distortions.”
How does Georgetown accept such a laughably stupid white man into a grad program?
https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/zelenskys-missteps/
“Western civilization”, at least the parts that put Zelenskiiiii in power, pretty much IS its decadent distortions. Or is Beltway Kid here hinting that Zelenskiiiiiiiiii should hold off on staging interviews with obvious LGBTQWERTY media like Buzzfeed or Huffpo until he somehow defeats the Russians?
it’s Saturday morning. And still no Zman? Bummer! Hope youre back up soon, Zman.
Did anyone see “V for Vendetta”?
When the good guys ran afoul of the system, they would be disappeared, a black bag forced over the head of the poor bastard when he was taken.
Forgive me, but that was the first thing I thought of when I saw that graphic.
I gotta spend more time at the farm.
Indeed. If there’s no Behind the Green Door stuff tomorrow or an essay on Monday, I’m prepared to think the worst. As Severian often suggests, we’ll all soon be in the camps for failing to applaud long enough or loud enough because Defeatism is simply not permitted in current year AINO.
Z Man on his substack, https://thedissident.substack.com/p/the-draft:
“I have been trapped in work hell the last week, trying to get a last-minute project over the finish line before a non-negotiable deadline.”
It’s possible that his captors made him write that, though.
BLINK TWICE SLOWLY ZMAN
Re: your post on Gab showing the 1991 NHL All Star Game National Anthem at Chicago Stadium…
Not sure how many are aware, but that is a long standing tradition for Chicago Blackhawks fans to cheer loudly throughout the National Anthem. Obviously, during the Gulf War for a big game, it was even more boisterous than usual. But that tradition still stands today. I find it to be one of the neatest traditions in sports, especially as they always have a top notch opera singer belt out the lyrics. Back then it was Wayne Messmer, now it’s Jim Cornielson. Unfortunately I no longer have the same emotional reaction to the Star Spangled Banner that I used to.
It is really the unfortunate thing about Chicago. Unlike the coastal metropolises, there is still an undercurrent of basic white midwestern sensibility. You should hear some conversations I have with my neighbors and friends in the suburbs. Unfortunately that sensibility has been overrun by the minorities and foreign invaders and (((shitlibs))) on the North Shore.
An open call for secession published today at American Greatness
https://amgreatness.com/2023/04/28/the-great-american-opt-out-a-matter-of-willingness-willfulness-and-will/
I find it more than mildly amusing that a very serious subject like secession, rebellion, and independence has to be couched in gay neologisms like “opt-out” so as not to scare Normiecon G. CivNat away from such terribly freighted words, that were last spoken by “traitors” in 1861 who were also “immoral” slaveowners. DR3 strikes again.
Your Native American Chief in BlaQface has triggered me.
Your tax dollars at work as it is revealed Ukrainian intelligence pressures the FBI into censoring people on Facebook:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/04/28/ukraine-intelligence-admit-to-using-fbi-to-remove-facebook-content-they-view-as-against-our-country/
WTF?!?!
This is what the shitlibs meant (though I doubt most of them knew it) by all that “I’m a citizen of the world” garbage. It means if you piss off the security apparatchiks ANYWHERE in the world, they can stomp you.
Imagine there’s no countries…
No Bill of Rights to save you…
Above you only satellites from CNN…
I’m too young to have ever seen that “stand by” graphic. Is there a reason that it has an indian on it? And what are those circles and numbers? It all seems kind of random.
I’m not sure if there’s any reason for the Indian, other than that this graphic was made in an America which still appreciated whimsy. I.e., about 70 years before our current Clown World.
If you’re of “a certain age” and you were a night owl as a child, you’d have seen that particular display showing on television stations from maybe 12 midnight or 1 AM to maybe 6 AM. Way back in the Before Times of the late 1960s or early 1970s, television stations actually went off work for the night, and they broadcast the Indian head as a way of saying, “we haven’t been atom-bombed, we’re just off work ’cause we’re still sane enough not to have 24-7 programming”.
Wikipedia’s description is oddly good. I guess no blue-haired leftist lunatic has yet discovered this particular entry and decided to crap it up, yet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian-head_test_pattern
Before the days of LCD, flat screen TVs, we had something called a “picture tube” (or CRT for cathode ray). It projected electrons onto the screen from behind at a frequency of 60 cycles per second in a vertical/horizontal pattern. (Completely sweeping the screen up and down). We had to adjust the “horizontal and vertical hold” in order to stabilize the picture. This, to put it in kinda simple terms, acted like an electromagnetic lens that focused the beam and directed it very fast as it scanned.
When this greyscale image was created for that purpose, when a TV station had to stop broadcasting media for a while, it gave the viewer an image to adjust his hold, and also the contrast and brightness, in order to get a clear and sharp image.
I have no exact reason why to explain the Indian head, but I surmise that it was just a random and easy to recognize image with a good bit of contrast in the various greyscale varieties. It could have been a picture of a bald Eagle or just about anything, someone just happened in to choose the Indian head.
To further illustrate the concept of the picture tube.
Think of an “etch a sketch” toy. You draw vertical lines and horizontal lines to make a picture. One knob controls one axis, while the other knob draws the perpendicular axis.
This is a very simple and not entirely accurate mental model, but it kinda gives you the idea of how the beam of electrons were directed up/down and left/right. Very fast, so fast that the human eye couldn’t detect it.
My uncle used to build his own TV sets out of parts. The neighborhood where the World Trade Center was built in the late 60’s – early 70’s was what we used to call the job lots. Store after store of capacitors, resistors, vacuum tubes, potentiometers and the like. Wooden ships steal minds back then. My brother in law is always bragging about building his own computers , that’s nice….
Many ‘average Joes’ replaced tubes and other parts in their television sets in the 50s- tube testers were common in grocery stores when I was a child. I recall smoke coming out of an early set when an amp tube when south…. good times.
The Indian is for setting brightness and contrast. There’s an article at Wikipedia describing the functions and hisrory.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian-head_test_pattern#:~:text=The%20Indian%2Dhead%20test%20pattern%20was%20created%20by%20RCA%20at,at%20a%20glance%2C%20identify%20problems.
I was in my 30s during his WH— anyone else amazed that the lasting-legacy items of the Obama presidency are Biden, Harris, Yellen, and shooting at the cops? Nobody talks about universal health care or free online school for all any more. On foreign affairs, particularly E. Europe, I would say there has been an almost comical exaggerated-pendulum swing against whatever Obama tried; unintended consequences from the Iran scheme as well.
I think he botched the outreach/pandering to Hispanics because he is from Hawaii and therefore understands nothing of them. Latinos he elevated tended to be weirdos like Tom Perez or the Castro brothers. Yes, I know the “Nuyorican” to SCOTUS but if I’m a Democrat, that one seems as impactful as the current VP choice he supported (at Michelle’s goading).
Anyway. Just seems odd how inconsequential was the Hopenchange drama, but I’m not old enough to remember Mario Cuomo who had a similar influence, I’m informed.
Somebody once referred to Mario Cuomo as the “Hamlet of Albany” or “Hamlet on the Hudson” because he was so indecisive about running for president in 1988 and 1992. Cuomo dithered and ultimately refrained from running both times and missed his window of opportunity to become president.
I think too that while the country was willing to elect a mixed-race black as POTUS, but maybe not a New York Italian.
All the single ladies understood that Obama is a halfrican “exotic,” not an actual American black guy. Every job he ever had depended on that, especially the presidency.
Clarence Thomas, e.g., is black beyond belief, an absolute *parody* of American blackness, the like of which can’t be produced anymore. Not least because of that, and the dissonance of that with his being ideologically “white” (basically a founding-stock libertarian), he’s hated insanely, especially by white women.
America is a stupid thing.
Cuomo had too much dirty laundry for those times.
It was the waning days of actions having consequences.
I doubt either would have won
Oh, don’t you worry, the Lightbringer still has things well in hand.
Well darn it, I like to use the podcast to drown out the ethnic gibbering while having lunch at the asian buffet.
You go now!
No mo foo for you!
I’ll sit on the toilet for a while in your honor.
Test Pattern Indian could undoubtedly kick the hell out of Crying over Roadside Litter Indian.
But the Test P Indiana would have no chance against Chief Nocahoma, the thoroughly memory-holed mascot of the 1970/80s Atlanta Braves. Whenever a Braves player hit a home run, he would dance around his teepee in the outfield bleachers. Oh, the glorious days of cultural appropriation writ large.
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/46/22/f1/4622f1bdb645887e73bff9bbee18c528.jpg
Wes Studi would laugh at Nockahoma. But Wes Studi does not laugh. Magua wins.
https://cdn.quotesgram.com/img/2/63/2047194395-3e0740149d1fe25e737bf1b59f5d56e6.jpg
My friends used to come to my house to learn new ways of cursing when my Dad got mad. I’m guessing your neighbors are learning a few today!
I think this one is on topic with the big topic of the week – Carlson being sent to his room. Well worth the read:
https://www.ericpetersautos.com/2023/04/27/on-tucker/
We have something partially in common. I get replies when I don’t post anything but, sadly, not when I do.
I’m starting to see “whispers” and “concerns” amongst Republicans that it is not “conservative” for Ron DeSantis to go after Disney the way he had, because it is a governor “meddling in a private company’s affairs.” They are even bringing up liberal governors during the lockdown, as if lib governors would not do the same exact thing tomorrow if they could. As if AGs like Laetitia James are not pursuing lawfare on ideological opponents.
If you need exhibit #54434835598 on why conservacucks never, ever win and never, ever want to win, there it is. I am so sick of these people.
It was refreshing though to see Tennessee kick the malcontents out of their house assembly and Montana kick out that pedo-tranny (as if there’s a different kind), how long until the regime sends in the goon squad to make sure their allies get re-seated?
I thought they caved and let them back in because the insurrectionists and anti-civilizationists called them racists.
Was there a second expulsion?
Naw I’m probably not keeping up with the latest con-surrender news, and I’m too lazy to check because it’s depressing…
Mycale: ‘I’m starting to see “whispers” and “concerns” amongst Republicans…’
There was also Don Jr telling folks to back off of Bud Lite, followed by the news that Don Sr had a large stake in the Brazilian holding company which controls Anheuser Busch.
If Trump II is gonna be all about trannies & neverending shenanigans perpetuated by the Kushner family crime syndicate, then I’m not sure what the purpose of voting would be.
The older I get, the more I am drawn inexorably to the point of view of empirical historicism.
How does one interpret the following graph?
J Edgar Hoover (((Roy Cohn))) Fred Trump [progenitor]
As Saint Joseph Djugashvili prophesied, “The future is known; it is the past which is in doubt.”
But I wouldn’t vote for DeSanctimonious if he were running for Dawg Catcher. What a greasy little passive-aggressive back-stabbing creep that guy is.
Maybe Z got taken out by DeSantis, after the governor went to Jerusalem to sign a bill making it a felony offense for Floridians to say anything “offensive” about his masters:
https://flvoicenews.com/desantis-signs-bill-in-israel-to-fight-antisemitism/
Sickening, just sickening, the craven self-abasement and cuckoldry. I wondered if he offered them his wife while he was there?
Great call on DeSantis! He’s an Israel Firster all the way — just not as obnoxious about it as Trump was and remains (it’s not possible to outdo Trump in the cringe department when it comes to fellating “our greatest ally”). So DeSantis is slightly sneakier about it. Not an improvement.
Desantis is scum. He makes a few good decisions as Florida governor, and that gets him lots of good press from conservative media. But he is definitely not our friend. His loyalty is with the Israelis, not with Americans.
Ron DeSemitophilous
Sad!
Completely disgusting. There’s no way I’ll vote for that traitor even if Pedo Joe survives to be on the next ballot.
I like when a photo shows a power dynamic so clearly.
I suspect that at least some of the conservacucks do actually want to win (though many very clearly have ulterior motives). A lot of conservacucks aren’t particularly bright, yet countless others simply lack the psychological fortitude to face how far behind the eight ball we really are. Sadly, a considerable increase in pain will likely be required to jar them into full consciousness.
I have tried to explain to several friends that large “private companies” these days basically are an extension of the government.
They look at me like I have two heads.
They look at me like I have two heads.
I’m of two minds about that.
I do have two heads.
bad week to give up sniffing glue.
Maybe Zman should reassess. No show needed going by all the comments today without any content.
Ha ha–just what I was thinking. 38 comments so far and no show. Incredible.
like a chicken running around after it’s head has been removed 😛
My line when people invite me on as a guest is “I’m not a great guest, but I am better than no guest.”
Seems I may have been mistaken. No one is as good as me!
My dad told me about a TV channel back in the olden days that ran out of programming so they just put a camera on a fish tank, which proved to be extremely popular.
I think this is your version of the dreaded “Open Thread”.
“Eh, I got nuthin’ today. I’ll just tell ’em I’ve got ‘Technical Difficulties’ and let ’em comment.” 😏
It’s like bernhard (did I get the name right?) on moonofalabama. Great site, but he doesn’t do half of what Z-man does and at least once a week he has to cop out with an open thread.
Uh oh, the kittens may be on the warpath.
Z-man, ever consider recycling an old show under the heading: “The Best of….”?
My radio station does that all the time. 😉
If you want a replay, just download an old post.
All are classic.
My 79 year old mom lives with me and my family. The other night a nephew came over to visit and we got a spam call from someone named “Robert Harvey”. I remarked, “it’s probably Paul’s brother and he wants to tell grandma the rest of the story.” He looked at me quizzically and said, “The rest of what story?”
I told him to get off my lawn.
I’ve recently gotten into watching “First Time Watching” YouTube videos, where some young person watches a movie I fondly remember. The best ones are the old classics, but I’m truly astounded at how untutored many of these young people are. The things they don’t know frankly shock me. In ‘Who Framed Roger Rabbit’, most of them have never heard of “Shave and a Haircut”. But the worst was a girl watching ‘Casablanca’ for the first time. When the cast list came up on the screen, she blandly announced that she’d never heard of any of these actors. I simply mouthed to my husband “HUMPHREY BOGART?????” Never heard of him. How did our culture become so uprooted?
Loved Paul Harvey on the radio, my favorite one was the guy who went hunting and came back to berate his wife for not including extra socks, she said she put them in his gun case—also remember laying in bed at night secretly listening to Father Patrick Payton and “the family that prays together, stays together”. A short Christian program along the lines of the Twilight Zone and Cosmic Justice. Good times-
In my crummy outdoor summer job, our entire crew would pause to listen to PH on the radio. We would all try to say “Good day!” exactly when he did.
Harvey today would be tarred as a far-right extremist, instead of being just a normal gentleman who espoused solid mid-western values.
“Four wheel drive allows you to get stuck in more inaccessible places.”
— Paul Harvey
Good Day!
He should repost the one he did on the American jury system being a colossal racket. I recently spent a few days in that situation. If anyone recalls the date of that podcast or article, please let us know.
Sorry Z…but it’s my fault.
Cornelius Rye showed up in a pink 1959 Cadillac with a gaggle of black hoes n’ bitches…and they went into your studio to do their business. I tried to stop them but Puffy C shoved his 9mm Glock in my face and said he’d light me up if I didn’t get lost…😞
He said to tell you the black tax just went up…
You should swing by Tucker’s house and see if you can use his basement.
I feel like a junkie whose dealer has left him waiting for his fix. I’m jonesing, man!
Did someone “accidentally” pull the fire alarm?/
https://foundingquestions.wordpress.com/2023/04/28/friday-mailbag-40/
fillerfillerfiller
more filler
Stay safe out there in Lagos if your quest for repair requires a search and acquisition in physical space/time. Always a miss when your show doesn’t hit.
For the readership. I arrived at Chapter 3 in G. Faye’s, “Archeofuturism.” This is a great read. It is great in that it analyzes the problems without moaning and it is proscriptive as well as a call to joining in with radical thought and bold action. I highly recommend, for Chapters 2 and 3 alone.
always avoid the electronics shops on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
Great prices, only fell off a truck once!
Since we have to make our own fun today, you should hit us with a deep quote from Archeofuturism.
I love the Fallout allusion, given that… well, you know, the current trajectory of things.
That was the first thing I thought of too. 😉
For the aged here the Fallout series (referring explicitly to Fallout 3) takes place in an alt-past/future where nuclear war occurred in the late 50s. Needless to say, the ruins of a once great civilization depicted in the game are in many ways preferable to the situation we’re in now.
ACKSHUALLY, the backdrop of Fallout is an alternate history where an over the top hyper-jingoistic version of 1950s culture persisted into the late 21st century, causing a nuclear war over the last bit of accessible oil. That’s meant to explain the existence of ray guns and robots that didn’t exist in the 1950s.
Considering that the games largely blame the nuclear war on nationalism the setting wasn’t intended to be based, but they accidentally made the “bad guys” look too cool (like with a 100 ft tall robot that shouts anti-communist slogans as it throws miniature nuclear warheads), so the games have been favorites among right-wingers.
I demand a refund…oh, wait.
You get what you pay for, amiright?
I am actually old enough to remember those standby technical difficulties slides on TV screens.
Yeah. At least once a week in those glorious sixties.
Woke up this morning, had a cup of coffee, watched the sun rise, the spring flowers bloom, and listened to the birds singing. I was at peace, and one with the world.
“This sucks!”, I thought. “I’ll tune into the Zman Friday broadcast, that will bring my mood to appropriate levels of curmudgeonly grumpiness befitting a man my age”
Now this? WTF. Time for more coffee.
I blame it on transphobia!
Don’t be an idiot Hoagie!!! Nobody appreciates your rude joke!!!
If he ran an electric blog instead of one powered by fossil fools things would work a lot better!
I blame it on the Bossa Nova…
Z-man show cancelled — Climate change cited.
Z-man show cancelled; men, majorities hardest hit.
Went to my nabe water mill for a 5-gallon jug o’ water. Put a quarter in, a message saying “Out of water” flashed, the machine refused to give me my quarter back and I didn’t have a spare for such an eventuality. I knew right then and there this day was gonna sugg.
Woke up, fell out of bed
Dragged a comb across my head
Found my way downstairs and drank a cup
And looking up, I noticed I was late
Found my coat and grabbed my hat
Made the bus in seconds flat
Found my way upstairs and had a smoke
And somebody spoke and I went into a dream
When I woke up this morning/
You were on my mind/
And you were on my mind/
I got troubles, whoa-oh/
I got worries, whoa-oh/
I got wounds to bind/
So I went to the corner/
Just to ease my pains/
Yeah, just to ease my pains/
I got troubles, whoa-oh/
I got worries, whoa-oh!
Or there’s this:
Well, I woke up this morning and I got myself a beer
The future’s uncertain and the end is always near
Let it roll, baby, roll
Woke up this morning with a wine glass in my hand
Whose wine, what wine, where the hell did I dine?
Must have been a dream I don’t believe where I’ve been
Come on, let’s do it again
Or the Monty Python classic: “I wrote this song when I was in the show this morning” Long guitar riff. “I woke up this morning!” Bows and says “Thank you, thank you!”
In the shower, dangit. Learn to spell, self.
There is nothing wrong with your television set/computer. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. We will control the horizontal. We will control the vertical….
A most apropos reference to the Outer Limits. Who knew 60 years later how true that would be?
Let the magic smoke out again? I had a 1600 watt PSU go that route last year. They weren’t kidding – capacitor goes “POP!” and white smoke shoots out the vent. Kill the power and take the case off and the PSU is going *tink tink tink*.
Probobably you must do the needful and contact the support hotline sar. Amirite amirite. (Head bobbles in random pattern).
Good luck Z, sage and salt poured in a circle sometimes helps, too.
Love that graphic.
Rage meter hit critical level? Can’t say I blame you.
Best wishes resolving the issues. Always look forward to your great work.
Probably needs an adjustment, time to find the hammer
You turned it off and on again, right?
Try adjusting the nut behind the keyboard..
Or jiggle the handle.
How can he jiggle the handle when he can’t get no good porn?
Is the computer plugged in Mr. Z? 🤔
thinking of the South Park “logging” episode where they “ran out of Internet”….and the references to The Grapes of Wrath. Soon we will all be Eloi and no one can remember how to do anything.