Miscellany 35: Genetically Modified Miscellany from an Off-The-Books Biotech Lab in Poltava

“According to my results, these woo-woo shots need eight percent more tequila.”

(1) You can’t write a headline like the one for this post without a quantum of concern that there might actually be an off-the-books biotech lab in Poltava, and I just got myself on some deep state “naughty” list. But that’s life in Clown World. If we never say anything that might possibly get us into trouble, we’ll never say anything. Note to deep state agents: If there’s a biotech lab in Poltava, I’m not aware of it. Everyone knows the secret bioweapon lab is in [redacted].

(2) The media says “Far-right extremists are trying to prevent education about human sexuality.” The reality: It’s explicit gay porn. Brace yourself and follow that link. It includes a photo of a comic-style book used in schools that features two panels of one young man sucking another young man’s penis. (The parts in which the mouth is touching the penis are fuzzed out, but there’s no doubt what’s going on.)

Also: Like Winston in 1984, I understand the what and the how of the media’s outrageous dishonesty on this topic, but I don’t understand the WHY. The “journalists” are saying to themselves, “We need to have 13-year-old kids looking at gay porn provided by their schools. Most people will object to that, so we’d better hide what’s going on from them.” This is the part I don’t get. What kind of person says, “We’d better cover up public school teachers shoving gay porn in children’s faces, so they can continue to get away with it”?

How can you fall that far and not have a moment of clarity, in which you come to your senses and say, “Oh God, what am I doing?”

(3) “All our problems can be solved by money and bluffing!” Magical thinking in the Clown World Establishment.

The article notes the US government’s instinctive lunge toward spending money to solve problems, with reference to the Ukraine-Russia conflict. This has been the government’s reflex since at least the Great Depression, and it became especially notable in 2008. As the author notes, the US went through two economic crises from 2008 to 2021; first the mortgage recession and then the economic disruption of COVID-19. The federal government spent a lot of money on “bailouts” and whatnot to get out of those economic contractions. The extent to which they worked is debatable, but either politicians believed it helped, or they believe that voters believed it helped. But if there are no guns or ammunition to be bought, and not enough soldiers to use them, then “allocating funds” to the problem doesn’t help. Not much, anyway.

Money quote:

Magical thinking is a recognizable symptom of that particular moment in time when an erstwhile great power is in decline but events have not quite yet forced it to come to grips with that decline.

Then there’s the role of jaw-jaw; as the article notes, “markets can be driven by sentiment and… narrative can be just as important as substance. If markets believe the commitment – whether to propping up a bank, the Treasury market, or the repo market – is credible, things are less likely to spiral out of control. In other words, the art of addressing a financial crisis involves not only ponying up the money to close the basis but also shaping sentiment.” This is indeed true – beliefs are important – but the leaders of the western world have taken this to a bizarre extreme. They now believe that narrative is all that matters. They have followed their high priests – the post-modernist theorists – off a cliff. They tell themselves not merely that narrative is important, but that there is nothing but narrative. Thus they think they can defeat Russia by simply putting forth the narrative that it is defeated.

The notion seems to be something like this: “If enough Russians believe that it is impossible for Russia to win, that will influence their actions in ways that will create a self-fulfilling prophecy: Russian soldiers will flee the battlefield, voters or high-level government officials will depose Putin, a wave of panic will overtake the Russian economy, causing a recession, etc.” But this has not worked. There are several reasons for this, no doubt, but I can’t resist laughing at the notion that telling the US population (in English-language propaganda no less) that Russia is losing is somehow going to sway Russian-speaking Russians in Russia, or Russian-speaking soldiers in Ukraine. It’s all so stupid.

In this light the article quotes one Max Bergmann at a defense-oriented Washington think tank:

“Passing the supplemental [appropriations bill] would likely sap Russia’s morale, in addition to boosting Ukraine’s,” Bergmann writes… The view that “this war makes little sense and was a mistake could spread like a virus and prove corrosive to the Russian system,” he concludes.

If your only tools are a money-printing press and a microphone, every problem looks like a banking crisis.

(4) Having noted the prominence of narrative-based magical thinking in the ruling heights of Clown World, we now turn to another psychological feature of leftism: projection, which often manifests as DARVO: Deny, Attack, and Reverse Victim and Offender.

Relentless warmonger and genocide enthusiast Frederick W. Kagan and a couple of co-authors claim that it’s Russia that has nothing but narrative.

From the shockingly delusional second paragraph:

The notion that the war is unwinnable because of Russia’s dominance is a Russian information operation, which gives us a glimpse of the Kremlin’s real strategy and only real hope of success… The Russian strategy that matters most, therefore, is not Moscow’s warfighting strategy, but rather the Kremlin’s strategy to cause us to see the world as it wishes us to see it and make decisions in that Kremlin-generated alternative reality that will allow Russia to win in the real world.

God! The Kagans et al really have convinced themselves that There Is Nothing But Narrative. So they are putting forth the notion that Russia fundamentally can’t win, trying to create the self-fulfilling prophecy I detailed in the previous item.

And the projection! The authors attempt to create a self-fulfilling prophecy of victory based on nothing but narrative, while accusing Russia if doing that! The projection, the DARVO, the lying, the desperate attempt of the militarily weaker side to win through sheer propaganda while accusing Russia of being the militarily weaker side that is attempting to win through sheer propaganda… God! The utter shamelessness of the dishonesty!

Well, they must be desperate if they’re resorting to this.

Another quote: “Perception manipulation is one of the Kremlin’s core capabilities — now unleashed with full force onto the Western public as the Kremlin’s only strategy for winning in Ukraine.” God damn it! The sheer brazenness of the projectionist, DARVO lying! It’s an assault on the reader’s brain.

Trying to win by lying, propagandistic bluff, the core lie being that Russia is trying to win by lying, propagandistic bluff… God!

Someone spray some holy water on this asshole; I want to see if it just makes his skin sizzle or if he explodes outright.

Via Founding Questions.

(5) With all the concern about those monstrous fascists in Russia and Hitler’s, I mean Putin’s, horrible nuclear saber-rattling, this is a good time to remind everyone that Hillary Clinton sold a uranium mining company to Russia. Google Hillary Clinton, Russia, uranium or uranium one (Uranium One being the name of the company). The usual crowd tries to exculpate Clinton, but if you dig around you can find the facts. Wikipedia points out that Clinton was never convicted of a crime in this incident, as if that’s what’s important.

(6) After getting crushed abroad in the Russia and China conflicts, the US left will accelerate their domestic genocide plan. There are a few reasons for this:
(a) Most importantly: SJWs are extremely emotionally reactive. Getting their asses kicked will make them freak out and lash out.
(b) The left hates to lose, another factor that will make them lash out. No one likes to lose, but leftists are insane about it.
(c) Having just lost a major war abroad, they will want to notch a victory at home to “even things up.” No, this doesn’t make sense, but these are leftists.
(d) Leftists are extrmely sensitive about image. Anything that makes them look weak will prompt a desperate search for a way to make themselves look stronger. Genociding millions of people would do it.
(e) They have been planning a domestic genocide anyway, so accelerating it is really just a matter of changing the time table.

Be prepared.

(7) Ending on a lighter note:
T-800 TERMINATOR VS 1,000,000 ZOMBIES. Things I learned: It takes one 800-series Terminator 13 minutes to kill a million zombies. Actually it kills all but 21 of them. The last 21 are not in evidence so they must have fled after they saw their 999,979 comrades killed. And have you ever wondered who would win if 3,000 GIANT CHICKENS FOUGHT 2,000,000 EGYPTIAN WARRIORS? Admit it, you have. Well, you can finally find out!