Open Thread 232
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Here’s a new Open Thread for all of you. To minimize the load, please continue to limit your Tweets or place them under a MORE tag.
I’d also recommend my own recent article, on of the most important—but almost totally forgotten—events of the the last two decades:
- American Pravda: The Forgotten Anthrax Attacks
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • October 17, 2023 • 10,100 Words
And several video interviews:
Those video clips of USSA President Joe Biden remarkably remind me of the last years of the USSR’s Leonid Brezhnev:
- American Pravda: The Rise of the BRICS and the Fall of the USSA?
Ron Unz • The Unz Review • September 4, 2023 • 3,300 Words
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Good Israel-Palestine discussion with an easy enrollment if not already such:
https://america.cgtn.com/2023/10/19/the-heat-israel-hamas-conflict
Great interview about the current status of the conflict in Ukraine: https://slavlandchronicles.substack.com/p/interview-is-russia-run-by-incompetents
Obviously the stuff about Putin/Russia’s relation to the Israeli Palestinian conflict is incorrect. I’ll admit that I was very surprised that Putin condemned the Hamas attack, but, given that even Abu Mazen condemned the attack, I wouldn’t read too much into it. The pro Palestinian stuff in the Russian state media is clearly meant to prime the Russian public for a direct military clash between Russia and Israel.
Remember that the Vilna Gaon said that the war of Gog and Magog would last 12 minutes. Since this obviously refers to some sort of nuclear exchange, it means that we shouldn’t expect direct intervention of Russian conventional forces in a Middle Eastern war. Why would Russia bother to use nukes if they had already defeated the IDF on the battlefield? So maybe something like Israel threatens to overrun Russia’s Syrian client and then Russia launches a tactical nuclear weapon to save Syria/Iran and that leads to a full scale nuclear exchange between Russia and the US.
But the rest of the interview is very good and it gives the best account of the conflict that I have read so far. Tl;dr: things aren’t nearly as dire as Strelkov says but they are far from as rosy as guys like Simplicius and Berletic say. It really is a great overview of the conflict.
The 10 year US Treasury year did indeed hit 5% this week, congratulations Bidenomics.
Canada Will Legalize Medically Assisted Dying For People Addicted to Drugs
https://archive.vn/J89ea#selection-869.0-869.74
>Invites Nazis to Parliament
>Supports Sikh Militants
>Dresses in Blackface
>Purges Drug Addicts & Mentally Ill
Remember, ‘Conservatives” oppose all this.
ਅਕਾਲ
Hmm, so in India they never really let untouchables convert to Islam.
So Islam gets associated with elites & Hindus get labeled the retard religion.
Same thing happening with wokeness ala hillbillies.
Hmm, liberals tried socialism but have now settled on eugenics.
Simon Webb seems to think all the kowtowing is due to the Samson Option.
Seems laughable to me.
Don’t think that explains why Pence was blaming the other Republican candidates for the Hamas attack, or why Jared Kushner was saying that it wouldn’t have happened, if Trump were in power.
Response to QCIC’s comment #1052 from the previous thread:
The significant combat assets today are missile defense systems that surround the larger cities, that have proven to be reliable and formidable (although not perfect). Russia continues to try and penetrate these systems and has never really stopped looking for rare opportunities to make a score. Because these systems have performed relatively well, a large portion of the city citizenry has remained at home. A cousin of mine has returned to Kyiv from spending several months in Western Ukraine. The local citizenry did a great job in defending their homes though, remember the Russian about face in Kyiv? These same folks are better equipped and more motivated to push back the unwelcome aggressors!
Really, all that its been able to accomplish is hit a few apartment buildings and kill and mame civilians, that have long memories. Unable to hit military targets for lack of more sophisticated missiles with guidance systems, the Russian military settles for whatever its primitive non-guided systems provide.
Couple this fact with further Russian mishaps on the battlefield and you can see the trajectory of this “war of attrition” that Russia is waging in Ukraine. Let’s see, missiles hit the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet last month, 9 Russian tanks destroyed 3 days ago, and now the Russian disaster in Adviivka. What a disaster, another “meat waive” for the Russian military. Watch and weep!
My dad likes watching Simon Webb, he is convinced Simon is at least partly Jewish.
I thought all the support for Israel was because the British Jewish community is still influential, even though it is pretty low profile now.
But why they are combining the pro-Israeli stance with attracting immigration from the Middle East and other Islamic countries, not sure.
Copied from the last thread. I should have posted it here originally.
@silviosilver
Precisely the point I was going to make. I don’t feel vindictive toward these young women and would disagree with them being prosecuted harshly in any way. However, behavior like that is, in my opinion, corrosive to a functional society.
@Dmitry
To clarify, there a few basic questions which pertain to human civilization at stake here.
1. Is it possible in your view for there to be unacceptable behavior in a public context, or would you advocate a radical “you do you, it’s all cool as long as no-one is physically hurt” mentality?
If you advocate this than I can completely understand, while disagreeing with, your position. This is a fairly common opinion today, but I would argue that it has been demonstrably bad for society.
2. Various public venues demand various states of decorum or respect to be demonstrated. A day at the beach might have very different acceptable norms as compared to showing up to a class lecture or a family wedding.
This question, if the premise is agreed to, then leads to another question.
Does society have a responsibility to enforce those expected upon norms, either through informal means such as family and community ethics or more formally through institutions like government and religion?
If one rejects that it is desirable for society to enforce the norms in any way than it makes a mockery of believing that such norms are desirable. In that case you should just take the first position, since that is where your society will end up.
If one accepts that society should enforce these norms then the question becomes how this is done.
Personally, I find it reasonable that, provided they are not prosecuted harshly, it is reasonable that they were arrested since their behavior is completely disrespectful to any sort of dead, especially dead soldiers. As an important additional point, their father’s grave wasn’t the only one in view. They were posing and cavorting around the graves of all sorts of fallen soldiers and so are subjecting all sorts of strangers to their lack of respect. This becomes a very public matter in which a public response does not seem unjustified.
Kowtowing is a bizarre word choice.
One can understand why Webb thinks that Netanyahu might nuke Tehran as a response for Iranian Hamas aggression. It is a valid, though tail risk, consideration. Sunni Persian Gulf leaders have to be circumspect, even while they allow their under classes to rage publicly.
Why is Pence even pretending to be a Republican anymore?
He is blaming Republicans because he is a pro-war NeoConDemocrat. I keeping hoping he will officially switch parties to primary against the Veggie-in-Chief.
Would this still have happened under Trump? Possibly. It was a desperate attempt to stop Saudi/Israel normalization.
Trump’s good relationships with both MbS and Netanyahu would have delivered a deal faster, giving Iranian Hamas less time to prepare. Putting the idea on the table makes some sense. However, any analysis would be extremely speculative. It would be impossible to reach a definitive conclusion.
___
Not-The-President Biden is incredibly weak. He gave Iran $6 Billion. That was practically a green light for an Iranian Hamas attack.
I could not stomach watching the White House occupant’s Israel speech last night. Unsurprisingly, it was about Ukraine not Israel. To say it ‘was not well received’ by America is an understatement.
What did he propose? (1)
Why is over half of the Israel Bill total for Ukraine?
Yet another embarrassing performance that diminishes his personal credibility on the world stage. Not-The-President Biden clearly does not represent America.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-deliver-oval-office-address-israel-ukraine
Did women in pagan, northern Europe enjoy more rights and freedoms before Christianization?
I will be watching Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta this weekend. It is a 10 hour race and concludes the IMSA 2023 season.
Look there is a Semite competing [MORE].
This is the last outing of the full factory effort of Team Corvette Racing. The new GTD/GT3 class rules are aimed at customer cars.
Pratt Miller Motorsports have purchased two new GT3.R Corvettes for 2024 for entry in the GTD-PRO category. Two additional GT3.R’s will be fielded by AWA Racing in the pro-am GTD category.
Multimatic Motorsports have two new Ford Mustang GT3 cars on order for GTD-PRO They are also expected to be ready for Daytona 2024. Alas, I have not heard of a Ford pro-am entry.
PEACE 😇
Fooled you. Pipo Derani is Brazilian.
I wonder what source material is left to answer the question, but it would be quite based if the answer was no.
Iirc the Golden One used to say some interesting things about that topic when he was posting more often on YouTube.
Was that a typo? It looks like your source in near 100% correct on Russia’s actual stance.
That last bit is a very solid point. What appears to be Russian criticism towards Israel is in many ways meant to point out European Global st inconsistency.
PEACE 😇
Sunak is indeed quite fortunate that Bibi is not a homosexual.
Well, unfortunately for you he does, and his actions (like ’em or leave ’em) set the tone in the congress for these sorts of spending bills that you so abhor. His actions are more impactful than anything notthepresidentTrump’s team is up to with regards to fighting felony charges. Biden, at this point may even beat Trump/Kennedy, in next year’s elections, as JJ pointed out to you in comment #1085 fro the last thread, that you conveniently failed to reply to:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-231/#comment-6215843
appears to be not an uncommon theory
He can be amusing, at times. Such as when he provocatively proposed that the Khoisan may have been white before they admixed with the Bantu.
I believe hardcore Zionists see the West as a pressure relief valve and dumping zone for when they inevitably (as they imagine) ethnically cleanse the Palestinians. I think they see Arabs in the West as malleable, controllable, or not to be greatly feared.
But of course many Jews are not Zionists, so immigration ideology is not necessarily something dominated by them.
From what I have read that the answer would broadly be no. I read Marriage and Family in the Middle Ages by Frances and Joseph Gies and it seemed solid.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/597256.Marriage_and_the_Family_in_the_Middle_Ages
Much of Christianity’s battle in the process of Christianizing the West was enforcing monogamy on elites that preferred to change out sexual partners when someone else caught their eye. This was a form of sexual egalitarianism that elevated women within marriage.
I think Sher Singh would emphatically agree with this take, but in a disapproving sense.
I haven’t researched the counter-arguments in any detail but I’m sure that they exist. Maybe even in more detail than, “Muh Gaia matriarchal, earth worshipping, pagan paradise!”
The interview is mixed but interesting. The main point is that Russia has been fighting a complex internal power struggle the whole time which colors everything about the SMO in Ukraine. Hopefully everyone at Unz already knew this, but the importance of this aspect cannot be overstated.
These are two valuable quotes from the author which I agree with:
The Russian military is not as incompetent as the hands on fighters and arm chair generals may believe; the big picture of the war is vastly above their pay grade and invisible to them.
Russia’s avoidance of shock and awe tactics (pervasive high altitude bombing) is largely intentional and not due to a lack of capability. Destruction of major cities does not promote Russia’s goals for this conflict, it negates them. This highlights one reason a successful coup is a difficult problem. To destroy the threat requires a country to wreck what they want to preserve.
What do you make of the fact that Russia hosts Hamas’s website?
Watch this Russian advance on Avdiivka:
https://funker530.com/video/russian-equipment-losses-at-avdiivka-are-staggering/
The Russian military is not as incompetent as the hands on fighters and arm chair generals may believe; the big picture of the war is vastly above their pay grade and invisible to them.
Their incompetence is quite visible in that video.
They are needlessly bunching up their armored vehicles and not clearing a path through the mines before proceeding.
They’re sending in armored vehicles with troops instead of scout units. Armored vehicles are loaded with ammunition for battle and explode when they hit a mine.
They are ignoring Modern Warfare 101.
Instead of making adjustments they mindlessly follow orders to advance and even more armored vehicles are needlessly destroyed.
Incompetence confirmed.
Very similar to Hitler in his last few years demanding offensives even if they didn’t make any sense. Russia was doing fine on the defensive and this is most likely Putin demanding offensives to “take back the initiative” which itself is a nebulous concept.
Russia has a much larger force and Putin may well indeed leave the war with a chunk of Donbas. That doesn’t make his military competent. It just has a lot of equipment and people willing to die as Russians don’t seem to value their own lives. Most Russian POWs in interviews don’t believe in the war and just wanted a paycheck or had the classic fatalistic Russian attitude that everything is beyond the individual.
For every pro-Ukrainian news article about Russian failures/Ukrainian successes there are many similar articles with the opposite perspective. While most of the pro-Ukrainian reports are from sources shown to be tainted, much of the alternative information is from non-aligned countries, that is not aligned with Ukraine or Russia. People who want to understand what is going on have a variety of sources of information. And don’t forget the propaganda is often strongest within the embattled country, which makes anecdotal Ukrainian reports potentially unreliable.
What really happened with the Russian strike on Kiev to take out the Patriots and other air defenses? I suspect the Western world buys into the very sketchy claims the attack was thwarted and did limited damage. The rest of the entire world likely believes the more detailed discussion which showed Russia was able to largely neutralize the air defense protection. Had Russia wanted to start leveling Kiev I think an attack of about 5 times the total number of missiles (drones, subsonic cruise, and hypersonic) would have been applied in a much more massive strike. Russia has subsequently shown they have plenty of missiles for such a purpose. This would be followed by aircraft strikes and general bombing. They are not doing this because they do not want to. The West does this sort of attack because they HATE the enemy. Russia does not hate the Ukrainian people.
That Putin has an internal Kadyrov concerns. Minor and mostly immaterial gestures serve to placate such individuals.
PEACE 😇
Is this guy, named Amir Veitman, some kind of euroleftie from Likud party, according to your classifications?;)
Russia has subsequently shown they have plenty of missiles for such a purpose.
If they have plenty of cruise missiles then why have they had such a hard time defeating HIMARs? In theory they should be able to spot them on sats when they fire and then track them. Then finish them off with a cruise missile. HIMARs should not be a problem at this point. From what I have read HIMARs is limited by ammo and Russia hasn’t destroyed a single one.
This tells me that Russia’s satellite technology was exaggerated along with everything else. NATO most likely has computer enhanced satellite tracking. A BMP enters the warzone and it is tracked until it is destroyed. They probably have a supercomputer predicting the paths of the vehicles and doing all kinds of calculations for the artillery. That is most likely Ukraine’s advantage. Russia probably has a human based sat network while Kiev is being fed tons of information from DC. The US and Britain probably wargame every possible move. Zelensky ignored US advice on Bakhmut which I believe was a mistake. I’m sure it was wargamed and a tactical retreat was the best option against Wagner.
This would be followed by aircraft strikes and general bombing. They are not doing this because they do not want to.
Russia started the war by hitting an apartment building with a cruise missile and the entire world saw the results. Putin’s defenders told us it was an accident or VIP hit. Putin has since launched over 1000 Iranian drones at civilian areas. They’re too crude to be used for VIP hits. They are two stroke engine drones that can be made in a garage. So there goes your theory that Putin is trying to avoid civilian casualties. Putin’s defenders also subsequently looked like chumps for wanting to believe their hero mass murderer wouldn’t do such things.
Why is it not a Border Security Bill with all those funds going to combat the invasion taking place in the South?
And why does Israel need any amount of billions to combat a group of jeans-wearing terrorists? Does it not have enough sophisticated weapons and a prosperous economy, on top of two American carrier groups stationed nearby? Wouldn’t a few million for more intelligence training be enough to respond to the failures shown in that attack?
This is the one issue where Democrats and Republicans will work together.
Israel hasn’t even asked for assistance.
ROTFLMAO. Why do you care what a backbencher is saying? No one else does. Is there any chance this will become official policy? Nope.
You do realize this sort of silliness invites comical haiku:
===================
SD acting foolish;)
Losing on the merits;)
Seeks distraction;)
===================
PEACE 😇
If Trump were in office, the ask would look more like $60 Billion for border security and $6 Billion (perhaps less) for Israel.
Why do you keep opposing MAGA when you want Trumpian outcomes?
PEACE 😇
You still couldn’t answer the one simple question about the “backbencher”- is he euroleftie in Likud?;)
I don’t know what these losses tell me except that war is hell. Maybe the guys who knew how to keep those men out of trouble were killed the week before and the bosses said we can’t sit this one out just because we are scared. Maybe the actions opened up a useful window somewhere else even though many troops were killed. I have no idea.
When I say the Russian military is competent, feel free to substitute ‘reasonably competent’. I don’t have the information or skillset to make detailed evaluations. I know they have a long fighting tradition which was been kept alive with serious combat in Afghanistan, Chechnya, Georgia, Syria and now Ukraine, along with mercenary efforts in Africa. I know they have a mixture of deadly weapons systems including old (mostly), upgraded (a lot), and new/advanced (very limited amounts) equipment. I believe their nuclear forces (Air, Sea, Land, Space) are very competent. I don’t think it is credible to have competency there without some shared competence in conventional army infantry and artillery forces. Maybe the ground troops are the weakest for the same reason they have the least advanced equipment: Russia has been prioritizing strategic defense over tactical capabilities. If so, I think that will change.
Chinese maritime anchor security standards malfunctioned very succesfully on target and severed Finnish-Estonian underwater natgas pipe?
https://www.barrons.com/news/finland-suspects-chinese-ship-linked-to-gas-pipe-damage-88a5ab21
Where does the gas transported in this pipeline come from?
My guess would be it was sabotaged by Russia as retaliation for the Nordstream sabotage.
Can’t imagine China would do something like that in the Baltic sea (why? what do they gain from it?), but who knows.
Bloomberg has reported that US involvement in the Israel Hamas war is so deep that the US is essentially running the operation. The US is seeking to drastically scale back the planned ground invasion in the interest of reducing civilian casualties and thereby preventing a regional war. Knowing the Israeli gov and the IDF, we can be sure they will comply with any American diktats.
The issue remains that once the operation starts, ANY operation, things have the ability to take on a life of their own. And the US public clearly doesn’t want to be involved in the conflict.
Support for Bibi and the Likud is tanking among the Israeli government. Jews in Israel seemingly have lost all faith in the Zionist entity and are ready to see it replaced with something better. But it isn’t like their can be a coup or anything as the IDF is even more weak and faithless than the Israeli government is.
Not that it matters much, since the Messiah will be coming soon after all, but what would this “something better than the Zionist entity” be exactly?
All sorts of “off color” stuff gets hosted on Russian servers since Western ones don’t want to touch them. Sites like DailyStormer do the same thing often enough.
I would say it doesn’t mean anything but scarcity of service from other venues.
You kremlin stooges are all the same and think that people will uncritically fall for all of your BS:
“Russia is fighting a defensive war against Ukraine” and now: “Russia does not hate the Ukrainian people.”
Russia has an incredibly strange way to show its love for the Ukrainian people. 🙁
I’m no Kremlin stooge, just an American who wants to stave off WW3 and nuclear armageddon.
Most Russian and Ukrainian fighters are probably a lot like troops of the North and South in the American civil war. I think they shared many of the emotions of war but not so much genuine cultural hatred, at least until the Yankees razed the South.
That is why the Ukrainians have NeoNazis, part of their role is to clearly emblemize hate against Russia.
You know less than I know about this and I do not know did lee squat.
Honestly, at this stage things are so bad I’m not so sure that direct Palestinian rule wouldn’t be an improvement over the Zionist regime.
Basically the current state of Israel is a modern version of Israel during the time of Judges. It was sort of a state but it really wasn’t. It didn’t really function, it provided no security for its people, it had horrendously bad leaders and the different tribes all hated each other.
Interestingly, the 4th Judge of Israel was Deborah, a woman. The 4th PM of Israel was Golda Meir. Israel had 15 Judges before the monarchy.
I think you can guess which number PM Bibi is
I bet you if you did a poll of people who lurked these threads that most readers would rate me as the best commenter here. I’d show some respect, if I were you
I wish you were kidding about HIMARS and cruise missiles. Air defense systems like Panstir are needed to destroy ATACMs in flight. The main limit is the Russians have other uses for these systems so many assets will always be exposed. All armies are the same in this regard. If ATACMs becomes a more serious threat I imagine the Russians will change tactics, either by destroying the launchers immediately as opposed to putting them as mid-priority targets on list or by simply destroying the missiles before they get to the launchers.
I suspect Russia’s satellite technology is probably mid-pack. Like other Russian hardware the strategic role is probably emphasized over tactical surveillance in nearby countries where they have at least some coverage from lower cost assets. I have never heard of any giant Russian optical systems such as the US launches which led to the Hubble telescope. The Russians have made other advanced satellites and also sophisticated optics for lasers but I don’t know about the reconnaissance role.
There is a difference between indiscriminate casualties from large scale bombing and limited civilian casualties as collateral damage from focussed strikes on exclusively military targets. This can be a blurry line.
Previously I forgot to mention the Russians also have Strela missile systems and anti-aircraft cannons which might help against ATACMs if employed properly (possibly untenable). At the end of the day there will always be more juicy targets than air defense systems so it is a calculated risk on what is left exposed to Ukrainian/NATO missile attacks.
There has been no polling that would show Netanyahu losing popularity. How could Greasy possibly know?
He was 180° backwards on the IDF’s stance towards Iranian Hezbollah. It would be unsurprising if Greasy was equally wrong on this point.
PEACE 😇
It’s difficult to understand how after all the discussions we’ve had you keep getting this so wrong. What I keep supporting is MAGA and what you keep offering me instead is Trumpian outcomes. A good part of the MAGA agenda was authored by Coulter btw, not by Trump himself.
But you didn’t answer my question of why Israel suddenly needs billions of additional US assistance. After all the $$$$ Obama, Trump and Biden have taken out of my pocket over the years, perhaps I have earned the right to ask such questions, if only rhetorically and on an little known blog like this.
Yes there is. Bibi just allowed the largest murder of Jews since the Holocaust to happen and then offered no response. The man is a coward and people are sick of him. There are multiple polls showing that the Israeli public are done with Bibi
Finland and Estonia own shared LNG import facility which is physically stationed in Finland, but not sure if it alone can sustain peak winter natgas demand there.
Estonia in theory should not be affected much this winter, because they have ability to get natgas from Lithuania LNG import facility, also from relatively large underground natgas storage site in Latvia, which now is almost completely full for the first time in many years.
Forget if I made this joke before, but:
Would support a Disney Latina Snow White, where Snow White and Prince Charming were visibly less Mestizo than the other characters.
The reverse repos dry up in 16 weeks. Bond market could completely collapse at that point, unless we are already in a severe financial crisis by then
I can’t possibly be the only man who has problems with touchscreens. Or rather, they have problems with our fingers. They were just not designed for adult men’s fingers, which is quite incredible, given that we are 50% of the population. It’s probably not a coincidence that the rise of the “smartphone” occurred at a time of general low T levels, gender confusion and docility of the population, especially its male segment, to unprecedented levels of censorship and group-think.
But the origin of this all was probably technical and economic in nature. It started with Steve Job’s fateful idea that you could convert a flip phone into something that it was NOT designed to be: a computer. And for some strange reason, society and the market just went along with it. Suddenly, everybody started to pretend that you could substitute a keyboard and a mouse by your thumbs, even the thumbs of a rugged farmer or a bricklayer (which is obviously an idiotic idea) and that tiny devices could do the work of much larger equipment with cooling fans and large screens.
This collective fantasy led to what then became the second insurmountable problem for ordinary men like me who don’t carry purses everywhere with them. Smartphones could not possibly do all those things unless they were designed bigger and bigger in size and we were all led to accept that the small, compact, easy to carry flip phones had to be turned into large bricks impossible to carry with you conveniently anywhere. I mean, what do you do in summer when you are always wearing just shorts and a t-shirt? How can you carry that delicate electronic thing along with you at all times if you don’t have a pocket big enough for it? What I personally do is just leave it at home. But when I asked this question to a male friend of mine, he confessed that in summer he just takes the phone with him everywhere in his hand. This is silly. We are not designed as a species to have a cumbersome, delicate and difficult to carry appendage at all times with us.
I’ve just had enough. For years I’ve been trying to tell me that it was my fault. That I’m just old-fashioned and that every time the stupid screen does something totally unpredictable at the touch of my fingers, it’s due to my clumsiness. Not anymore. They should have thought that many men work outside and don’t have the sensitive fingers of women and children. This weekend I’m ditching the smartphone that so many times has shown his contempt for my male anatomy and I’m going to substitute it by a combination of an outdoor smart watch (which I should have bought long ago anyway) and a small flip phone with hopefully google maps and the other couple of apps that I use regularly. If people start giving me bad looks at the restaurant because I order a paper menu or at the doctor’s office because I cannot fill in the paperwork on my phone, I don’t care. That’s their problem.
I invite every man here to join my rebellion against touchscreens for a future with less discrimination against us.
I often get Dutch language results, when I search on a phone.
It is difficult to understand why you keep getting this wrong.
There is only one MAGA candidate in this election cycle, Donald Trump. When you lie about Trump, you work against MAGA. This should be really easy to grasp, but it keeps eluding you. You give aide and comfort to Not-The-President Biden every time intentionally try to break MAGA by senselessly attacking the only MAGA candidate.
_____
Do you really want to further embolden sociopath Khamenei by cutting off Palestinian Jews? That sounds like a position your beloved Veggie-in-Chief would embrace.
Why do you want to undermine the strength of MAGA abroad?
_____
If you are thinking about shifting your anti-MAGA allegiance from Not-The-President Biden to RFK Jr., you may want consider carefully: (1)
I did not see that one coming. There was early concern that RFK might on net steal votes from MAGA, but that worry is now fading away.
PEACE 😇
___________
(1) https://nypost.com/2023/10/18/rfk-jr-comes-out-for-reparations-forging-lane-to-bidens-left/
Russia will ‘pay the price’ for supporting Gaza: Netanyahu deputy
Since the start of the war in Gaza, Israeli officials have taken to western media outlets to claim all Gazans are “Nazis” or “terrorists” that need to be eradicated
DD Geopolitics
@DD_Geopolitics
Amir Weitmann, member of Israel’s ruling Likud Party threatens Russia on RT
“After we win this war…we will make sure that Ukraine wins…Russia will pay the price…”
The masks are off…
“Russia is supporting the enemies of Israel, Russia is supporting Nazi people who want to commit genocide on us, and Russia will pay the price […]. We are going to finish with these Nazis, we’re going to win this war […] we’re not forgetting what you are doing […] we will come, we will make sure that Ukraine wins, we will make sure that you pay the price for what you have done,” the close ally of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu continued.
https://new.thecradle.co/articles/russia-will-pay-the-price-for-supporting-gaza-netanyahu-deputy
This guy needs Biden to calm him down and teach him privately that the world doesnt give a shit to his tribe or
counyry .
——-
” Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday compared Israel’s blockade of the Gaza Strip to Nazi Germany’s siege of Leningrad during World War Two and called for a resolution to the conflict to be reached through mediation.”
”
”
https://www.reuters.com/article/israel-palestinians-putin-gaza-idAFS8N3A2088
What does this mean?
Out of curiosity–do you think that the Israeli right-wing is going to refrain from discussing or touching the Grandchild Clause in Israel’s Law of Return for a very long time to come due to just how badly Bibi’s government got discredited and Israel getting much better priorities right now?
Before Israel’s version of 9/11, the Israeli right-wing wanted to produce some changes to the Grandchild Clause, though it was unclear exactly which changes because any changes needed to get a majority of the Knesset to support them as well as the approval of the Israeli Supreme Court. But Israel’s version of 9/11 appears to have indefinitely shelved these plans. The crucial question, of course, is whether these plans will still be shelved in 2030, or 2040, or 2050. Though the longer that these plans are shelved, the less advantageous that a repeal of the Grandchild Clause becomes for the Israeli right-wing because the benefits from this will become less and less (the Law of Return-eligible population in Russia appears to be rapidly moving to Israel with each and every passing year, after all) while Diaspora Jews will still be significantly pissed off at such a move.
Of course, I would also quite rightly expect Israeli left-wingers and centrists to accurately point out that Hamas also wants to kill those Israelis of Jewish descent who are not Jewish according to halakha and that thus they should still be allowed to move to Israel since ultimately when it comes to a Jewish safe haven, it’s much more reasonable for anti-Semites (like Hitler, or Hamas) than for Jews themselves to determine the definition of a “Jew”.
iPhones are good for the clock mechanisms–alarm, stopwatch, timer–and always having a camera at the ready. Also it works fine as a phone.
The rest of it is pretty useless to the user but to the surveillance goons it’s the greatest thing ever invented.
I have never used it for any media whatever. Every day I see people in the park ignoring the birds and the rabbits and the deer and attending to their phone. People are very stupid.
The other day I heard an interview with a longtime friend of Terrance McKenna who claimed the man was a first adopter of the cell phone and spent years entire days with the damn thing pressed against the side of his head. Before he contracted brain cancer and died.
First there was the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Then right after there was murder.
Israeli panelist targets Indian news host over ‘pro-Palestine’ clothing
The claim was made due to the colors of the presenter’s saree, leading to a heated exchange
An Israeli commentator taking part in a discussion on an Indian news show on Wednesday targeted the host over the green, red, and black garment she was wearing, claiming that it demonstrated a ‘pro-Palestine bias’.
https://www.rt.com/india/585341-india-news-host-saree-color-israel-palestine/
This moron thinks the world revovles around his tribe and his country. World dont give a toss to what you feel or think.
Only nation that wakes up worshipping YAWEH and sending the offerrings to you is high IQ Evangelical and their minions with more IQ ,
posting on certain blogs and talking on Fox ,penning words for WSJ , and Telegraph (UK).
Real men don’t use google maps – their natural inborn sense of direction suffices – same reason you never see men asking for directions, at least during the day or on a clear night with a moon. And, yes, I’m male, 5’5 1/2″ (Euro but with little more than a Chink physique except for my substantial low hangers) small but square fingers and yes, those touch screens are useless not to mention every time I grab that device, I hit some place that puts up anything but the touch pad for the telephone and I miss answering as 15 different pieces of shit come on the screen. My i phone lives in the drawer. I went back to a flipper..
Why are you so obsessed with this law?
Right now I would assume that any domestic issues are entirely frozen until this war is complete. When things return to some degree of normalcy, I think changes to things like the courts or the Law of Return will only be made when there is overwhelming public consensus. Nobody wants to create more divisions within the Jewish people at a time like this.
Bloomberg has reported that US involvement in the Israel Hamas war is so deep that the US is essentially running the operation.
Well you should have no problem providing a link then.
Support for Bibi and the Likud is tanking among the Israeli government.
Where did you get that idea? Wishful Thinking Daily?
Although Trump is talking smarter and way more consistently so these days, Vivek is what I’d call unprecedented. The problem is that he talks way over the average bowling league bowler’s head. But he sure has it right, and anything he’s not 100% sure about, he obviously gives a lot of thought and addresses at a later interview. You can tell he went to Catholic school. Turned in my MAGA cap and bought a box of those red stick on dots.
I wish you were kidding about HIMARS and cruise missiles. Air defense systems like Panstir are needed to destroy ATACMs in flight.
Why would I be kidding?
Private satellites are used to track and identify objects in peacetime.
In theory they should be able to use computers to identify and track HIMARs. Send a cruise missile at the location where it parks.
Should not be that complicated.
If ATACMs becomes a more serious threat
What do you mean if? Ukraine can now hit anything within their borders. You don’t think that is a serious threat? They just took out 9 helicopters and an airport.
I suspect Russia’s satellite technology is probably mid-pack.
I actually doubt it. There have been numerous times where Ukraine built up an attack force and had the element of surprise. Russia has also been extremely poor at intercepting Western weapons being shipped by train. That tells me they exaggerated their satellite technology like everything else. Some are probably malfunctioning.
There is a difference between indiscriminate casualties from large scale bombing and limited civilian casualties as collateral damage from focused strikes on exclusively military targets.
There you go again making assumptions before doing any research.
Putin has been using Iranian drones just like Hitler used V-2s. Aim them at the general direction of population centers to terrify the locals. They use crude 2 stroke engines and the locals call them flying mopeds.
Unless you want to tell me that downtown Kiev and Odessa are military targets?
No answer to that, of course, except for some mumbling about emboldening Khamenei, whose “sociopathy” appears to be accounted for by his regarding indigenous Palestinian Gentiles as human beings – unlike sociopath Nutandyahoo – and an absolute howler about “undermining the strength of MAGA abroad.” Give the little Israel-firster credit where its due: he certainly tries hard.
I can’t possibly be the only man who has problems with touchscreens. Or rather, they have problems with our fingers.
I hated the earlier ones but not the newer models. Seems like around iphone 8 they really improved the touchscreens for typing. Same for Androids. I used to hate them until a few years ago. The voice recognition also works a lot better. I know someone who rarely types anything.
What I hate is the Tesla trend. I really hate cars that have one big touchscreen for everything. It seems unsafe to be fumbling through a touchscreen to turn down the AC.
GM/Chrysler vehicles aren’t that bad but the newer Toyotas are frigging annoying as hell. Some of the Teslas actually have a screen that compromises your view.
This is not minimalist:
This is trying to jam everything into a giant tablet. It’s not minimizing if it takes you longer to do something.
/rant over
Isn’t the purpose of the Geran strikes to force Ukraine to use up its AD ammo?
According to a poll released by Ma’ariv, support for Bibi and the Likud have completely collapsed. If Bibi doesn’t destroy Hamas, absolutely no way that he remains in power. But Bibi is Bibi and he will obey US orders if push comes to shove, just like he has by delaying the ground invasion.
*IF* the IDF conquers Gaza, it will only be because America wanted it that way.
I have wondered about this myself. I have small, svelte hands for a man, and to look at them you would (correctly) guess they belong to someone who’s never done a day of manual labor in his life (not strictly true but close enough). I’ve always worked in office environments, and even there, when I began paying attention, I noticed virtually all the guys’ hands were bigger, their fingers thicker than mine (except maybe a couple of tiny guys, I’m 5’11). At the gym there are comparatively fewer delicate office types and many more rugged tradie types, and I’m often amazed at how big the hands are of some dude who’s like 5’7 and a lot skinnier and weaker than me – often still way bigger than mine.
I was a late adopter of smart phones. I think I didn’t transition to a touch screen until 2014 or 2015. And when I did, I found it quite frustrating trying to click things, let alone speed type (prob spent more time hitting backspace than letter keys). Since then, I’ve gotten a lot better. I can bang out txt messages nearly as fast as a teenage girl, although I still often make plenty of mistakes. But I have wondered if I, with my small hands and thin fingers, still find it frustrating, how the hell does average guy fare – let alone those dudes with humongous hands?
All in all, though, I like the convenience of being able to look things up (directions, sportsball scores, weather etc) wherever I find myself.
Also, the last couple of years I have gotten into the habit of leaving my car unlocked and putting the keys in the glove box whenever I go shopping, gym or to the park for a walk. More recently, especially when parking at the supermarket, I’ve been leaving the keys in the ignition, for no better reason than simple human laziness, freeriding on everyone else’s security-mindedness.
I’m having second thoughts now. My car was broken into yesterday. Although in this case it was in my driveway and my friend had been driving it and when she handed me the keys I noticed the driver’s window was left down but I couldn’t be bothered inserting the key so I could put it up and just left it. I thought I live in a wealthy neighborhood, as if anyone around here is going to walk up my driveway to check if car’s unloocked, but lol, that’s exactly what happened. The funny thing is the only thing they stole was a government form I had filled out but left in the glove box when I brought it back home with me because I had forgotten to take the necessary ID documents when I was handing the form in.
During Covid, the Fed jammed so much cash into the banks that the banks couldn’t afford to either hold it or pay the interest on it, so the Fed established the reverse repo program which allowed the banks to loan the money that the Fed had forced fed them (the NY commercial banks) back to the Fed and pay them interest on those deposits.
The banks have been using the money in their reverse repo accounts to buy USTs. These massive treasury purchases are actually the last remaining source of liquidity in the US economy. At the rate that the reverse repos are currently being used up, there will be no more left by March 2024. That means that there will no longer be buyers for UST’s at current yields.
At this point, there would be two options: 1. The Fed could do what Japan is currently doing and implement YCC, buying the needed amount of bonds to keep the rates down or 2. The Fed could allow the entire global financial system to melt down.
You’d think that the Fed would go with the first choice, but I’m not really certain what the Fed is doing these days so I can’t dismiss option two a legitimate possibility.
Now, there is a way to avoid all this, though. If the US economy implodes sometime in the next 4 months, treasury yields will decline by such a massive amount that the US gov would be able to continue it’s 8.5% GDP deficits without the Fed implementing YCC. I do think it is possible that this is what Powell is aiming for. It may very well be the case that Powell is willing to see Biden’s Presidency destroyed and the currencies of all US allies set on fire if that is what it takes to save the USD.
How far are you willing to go for your Khamenei First ideology?
America has an unprecedented opportunity: (1)
Are you so committed to your beloved Khamenei that you will prevent the U.S. from becoming Cher free? How could you hate MAGA and America First so much?
Even if you do not like Trump is the logic of voting for him obvious! No more Cher! What more could you possibly want?
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/lincolnbrown/2023/10/20/weekend-parting-shot-no-please-dont-cher-threatens-to-defect-if-trump-wins-n1736494
I misunderstood your original comment. I thought you meant using cruise missiles to hit the missile in flight, I now see you stated otherwise. I’m sure Russia does some version of what you mention. Why they don’t do more I don’t know. There is some limitation of the Russian hardware or tactics, so Ukraine striking higher value targets may be an attempt to goad Russia into wasting aircraft or higher performance missiles to take out the HIMARS. In other words a Zircon for a HIMARS might not be a good trade, but if the Ukrainians can take out a couple of helicopters with each strike then Russia may not have a choice. Time will tell.
We have seen that Ukrainian forces put hardware assets and manpower within cities. Russia will hit these from time to time. I think this happens in all modern wars to varying degrees. The shock and awe approach is to level everything, destroy the military assets and wreck the infrastructure so that recovery and repair is much more difficult than with precision strikes on just the key military targets. With shock and awe a bunch of civilians get killed. Then they can’t help rebuild and regroup so this is a feature. With a precision strike any civilian deaths are a bug or so the story goes.
Was the general location of the HIMARS units which launched ATACMS at Berdyansk disclosed by either side?
thoughts on the interview I posted?
Would you recommend any book on Sikhism or recent subcontinental history for an outside observer?
The physiognomy of the Palestinians varies so widely. Some of them look like Swedes and some would be regarded as black in America. I have never seen a nation with so much variety in their physical appearance.
Any transcripts? If not, could you resend the link?
NVM I found it. I can’t speak to what he claims about the front because I’m not there and don’t know anybody there. Still seems too optimistic about Russia, though not crazy. Of course he repeats Russian fantasy of Ukraine being a puppet. And he minimises Russian contacts with Hamas. He argues that Russia can’t not be an ally of Israel because many of the elites have or wish they had Israeli citizenship. Well, same is true of Western countries, does that mean Russia can never be an enemy of the UK or USA?
His description of the military situation was the most balanced that I had ever read. This entire war the only sources we’ve had are the Western lugenpresse, the Russophiles/alt media and the Strelkov doomers. Since all of those sources have repeatedly proven themselves to be untrustworthy, it has been impossible to get a bearing of what is really going on regarding the military situation.
The stalemate he describes where neither side is capable of successfully conducting large scale offensive operations fits with what we have seen over the last year. It sounds like Russia’s entire strategy is to just wait until the US gives up.
Thanks for those insights. It’s nice to hear other people’s impressions on this matter, so far mostly sympathetic to my side.
I don’t have very big hands either but I do do some manual work outdoors all year round and apparently that’s enough to thicken the skin of my fingers and turn me into a modern tech-impared person. I can’t possibly compete with my wife and son on smartphone dexterity. As others have mentioned, the simple task of answering a phone call without activating unwanted crap is a constant challenge.
I refuse to accept than I am the problem though. This is all a form of social conformism towards a technology that puts an important proportion of the population at a disadvantage, especially considering that today we are all expected to carry our smartbricks along with us, at least here in the US.
But, as I said, silly touchscreens are only a part of the problem. Don’t you find constantly carrying a delicate 6″ gadget with you uncomfortable and irritating at all? I don’t remember having bought any but even the much smaller flip phones opened a market for holsters and cases that made it more comfortable to carry them around. I don’t see anything of the like for smartbricks. If you don’t have a purse or wear baggy pants all year round you’re screwed.
You don’t wear cargo pants? And even modern regular pants seems to come with deep pockets nowadays. They don’t have to be baggy, though I suspect skinny jeans would be difficult. I don’t wear those.
This guy seems to be fairly objective about the battlefields:
https://substack.com/profile/137222197-sarcastosaurus
Only occasionally. That’s when carrying my smartphone becomes acceptable but not great. It doesn’t stand a chance if starts raining hard. This wasn’t such a problem with the much more rugged flip phones of the past. With a regular cover in your pocket or clipped to your belt you basically forgot about them.
I don’t think pocket sizes have changed at all. I don’t wear skinny jeans either, I still have a reputation to maintain, but I do like modern stretchy pants and shorts and they’re just not designed for smartphones. They keep slipping out of the pocket when you sit down, adding unnecessary frustration and stress to one’s life.
I don’t mind it at all. I don’t even notice it really.
When I am traveling, going for a walk, shopping (if alone), at gym, I have headphones/earphones on and listen to lectures/podcasts or music, which I wouldn’t be able to do without my phone. It fits comfortably in the pockets of all the pants I have. (And I often wear “skinny” jeans – not super skinny.)
The way I see it, the convenience of having it with me easily outweighs the inconvenience of not having it. It would probably be “useful” to practice making do without it for periods of time though, just to help me “stay human.” 🙂
IslamoGloboHomo has an anti-Semitism problem. (1)
Decades ago, Jews were instrumental in founding progressive organizations, such as the SPLC. Somehow they missed (or conveniently ignored) the inherent contradiction between SJW activism and traditional Judeo-Christian values. Even left leaning Jews believe in merit, a concept loathed by the DEI Equity zealots.
Now that they realize the problem, “What is next for American Jews?”
The Orthodox believe in traditional Judeo-Christian values and overwhelmingly vote against the Islamophile DNC. When will other branches follow? There is no place for them in Globalist dogma.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://instapundit.com/612557/
Vivek is good on stage and benefited greatly by being the most sincere MAGA voice in the primary debates. Some labelled him “The Trump Surrogate”, though I would not go that far. He has slipped down into the single digit club.
Long-term, Vivek’s business background draws unfavourable scrutiny. He made his fortune in one BigPharma play, and the underlying drug never made it to market. That does not make a compelling personal story. He needs to build up a track record of successes in business and/or lesser offices. If he can do that, he will have future opportunities.
PEACE 😇
Quite noticeable that strictly antitrumpian sentiment (Pence, Haley, Christie) has been increasing lately – already around 15%, instead of around stable 11-12% previously.
I’m right there with you on the entire issue. I actually never went to a smartphone and still operate exclusively on flip phone.
That is for a number of reasons, but durability is one of them. I’m always running around, climbing, etc. and a smart phone would get destroyed in about 24 hours of being around me. I did just break my last flip phone the other day, but that was from dropping it 40ft. off a roof. It actually still worked fine but the hinge was smashed.
I can’t do touch screens either. Picking up my wife’s phone and trying to operate it is like a form of torture for me. Usually my fingertips are worn fairly smooth without very definite fingerprints and I wonder if that messes with it. Same for whatever dust, oil and who knows what is on me.
The bigger issue for me though is that I don’t want or need the internet in my pocket. I think the internet is generally an addictive degenerate time suck which I don’t need more of in my life. I also don’t ever use or need GPS and think that outsourcing one’s brain for such tasks to a phone just decreases competency.
Additionally, having a flip phone means that the data that is compiled on you is that much more general.
The downside is that many flip phones suck compared to the past. Companies are allocating relatively few resources to the operating systems of these, and it shows. I want my 3G flip phones back dammit. This should resolve as increasing numbers of people make the switch back to flip phones, but currently it’s a bit of an awkward spot.
Good luck with it! What flip phone are you looking at getting?
Haley is having her bounce. It is not going anywhere.
Quote noticeable that Anti-Trump (DeSantis, Haley, Christie, Pence) is collapsing. It was ~30% six months ago. That has diminished to 23%. And that figure will almost certainly fall further as people experience more Nikki Haley. MAGA/Trump is in ascendancy.
PEACE 😇
I increasingly feel like “staying human” can be a full time job in this age. So, if there is something like a smartphone that takes me away from that end goal, I just prefer to avoid it. I know it’s inconvenient at times, but I just don’t feel like the trade-off is worth it.
I do think that the time not spent listening to things or scrolling is hardly wasted time. I spend a lot of time ruminating while I’m driving or working, and I find it very productive. I don’t know how people go without that time.
I even have a truck that came without a radio wired and I haven’t taken the time to put one in. After a bit I decided that it’s kind of nice not to have the radio or music as it gives more time for thought and observation to just flow freely.
Last week when it was Ukes trying to advance and being destroyed, everyone in the West was downplaying it and saluting their bravery. The Battle for Avdeeka is ongoing, and unfortunately, a lot more men will die. I often thought it was a miracle more of us didn’t die because of the moron officers I served under in the US Army. And all of this could have been avoided if the Ukes had abided by the Minsk Accords. Crazy.
You’re much more naive than I ever imagined if you believe what you wrote. Ukrainians don’t need “NeoNazis” in order to project deep disgust at what’s transpiring within their country thanks to Russian aggressive incursions. I have cousins that are half Russian and half Ukrainian. Before the war, they kept strong and friendly ties with their Russian relatives that live in the Murmansk area. No contacts, whatsoever today. Having to live a lot of last winter in their cold unheated cellar, for fear of being bombed from Russian bombs overhead, they came to the conclusion that their Russian relatives were not concerned enough regarding their unenviable plight. The comfort zones that Russians and Ukrainians feel today are vastly different.
Maybe it depends on brands. I seem to have noticed significantly deeper pockets in pants nowadays. I wouldn’t buy pants with shallow ones anymore.
I have a pair of Haglofs fjell cargo shorts that can easily swallow a phone and a bulky Cannon G5 X camera.
I beat silviosilver with smartphone adoption: my first one wasn’t until 2018.
The past has now become my future:
The Galaxy Flip 4 is a sophisticated and durable little phone. I just hated the other newer phones that kept getting larger and larger all of the time, I didn’t want to have to carry a small lap-top in my pocket. The camera within provides incredibly sharp photos and is very easy to use too..
I had a razr that worked for many years, until a young dog chewed it up. It still worked, despite the holes. My last flip phone (2018) was cheap plastic junk in comparison.
If you’re not busy today, why not stop bye and help support our Ukrainian brothers and sisters in the old country? Our small church and larger community have gathered over $250,000 in funds for Ukraine support since the war began. This figure was back from over a month ago. Help us go over $300,000 today:
Went to the centre of the shithole city I live in today (which I usually avoid except when passing through on my way to or from the railway station, since the demographic realities on display there are too depressing). And lo and behold, I saw a small group of pro-Palestine activists standing around with placards claiming that solidarity with Israeli “apartheid” and its settlement policy can’t be Germany’s raison d’etat, as claimed by the entire establishment (and even a large part of AfD btw). Seemed to be mostly aging German lefties, some of them draped in Palestine flags and one wearing a keffiyeh, lol. Didn’t see any poc among them. A headscarf-wearing Turkish or Arab woman talked to one of them for a while, but otherwise they didn’t seem to generate much interest and looked pretty lonely.
When I left my way was blocked by a gaggle of black children (maybe seven or eight in total) running around on the sidewalk, their two headscarf-wearing mothers standing nearby and of course making no effort to discipline their brood. Probably Somalis. Couldn’t help but think that those grey-haired pro-Palestine activists have rather misplaced priorities, given how unbelievably fucked this country will be in 20-30 years. But those boomers will be dead by then, and so they’ll keep doing Boomer things, just like their equally retarded pro-Israel counterparts.
Power of Siberia-1 to hit max capacity within a few years.
Power of Siberia-2 looking good. https://archive.ph/kSnzy
Thanks. We are in total syntony on this issue. I also dread the idea of taking such a delicate thing with me to many of the places I go. I have even been doing some scaffolding work lately but only half the height of that roof of yours and using a harness and a rope. Why pay anyone big bucks to do something I can do quite safely myself? The idea of carrying a 6″ touchscreen to such places is a non-starter. You need focus and maximum flexibility in all directions.
Trail running in good weather (half of the year in these parts) with a smartphone is also unthinkable to me. If I don’t have a jacket or long pants where do I even put it? I see people strapping it to their arms or legs but no thanks, I’m not doing that even to keep track of my HR and exercise zones, which admittedly is a nice thing to do, but I can keep relying on my senses and now I’m going to buy a proper wearable watch for that. There is a reason why electronic stores distinguish between phones and wearables, implicitly admitting that their phones cannot really be worn. What’s more, smartphones are also pretty useless the other half of the year. Cold temperature drains their batteries in no time. You may think you have a safety device to call for help if you get stranded in the outdoors but all you have is a useless dead brick. Much worse than a GPS watch.
Where we part ways a little is on the GPS thing. Apart form hiking a lot, you may remember that I am a bit more hedonistic than you and I gave up dairy animals on my farm in order to travel a lot. While it’s probably something that I should be able to live without, having a device that tells you where you are, what the next train or bus is to wherever you want to go, what the last one is to come back, etc is a great invention. I think it’s allowed me to explore and enjoy traveling more than I would have done without it. Not to mention that in the US and large parts of the world taxis don’t roam around anymore, neither can you expect to find them at certain locations, so you sometimes need a way to call an Uber or Lyft.
These are the two ones I’m considering at the moment but I have given myself the whole weekend to decide:
https://www.androidauthority.com/best-flip-phones-1195322/#6
https://www.androidauthority.com/best-flip-phones-1195322/#4
The funny thing is that they’re incredibly cheaper and have much longer lasting batteries on top of all the other advantages. I may miss a couple of things at first and it may even take me a while to get used to carrying them along, which I just had to stop doing with my smartphone, but I’m looking forward to a life of less frustration and anxiety.
Last week when it was Ukes trying to advance and being destroyed
There were few offensive actions by Ukraine last week. The Avdiivka offensive by Russia started last week and has failed.
It was a very strange choice by Putin and he lost 55 tanks in a day:
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-russians-may-have-lost-55-tanks-in-one-day-trying-and-failing-to-capture-avdiivka/ar-AA1iAK0N
Almost as if he was jealous of world attention on Gaza.
Very similar to Hitler ordering offensives in the last years for the sake of it and ignoring Soviet defensive advantages.
And all of this could have been avoided if the Ukes had abided by the Minsk Accords. Crazy.
You are saying that Putin attacked Kiev and tried to take Ukraine because of the Minsk Accords?
Did Putin abide by his sworn promise that he would make DPR and LPR independent Republics? I can source his declaration and signature if you would like. He in fact claimed that Minsk was over and not needed because DPR and LPR would be their own states and backed by Russia.
Did he keep his promise?
Well, look at the bright side, at least you don’t have to live in your cellar.
The deal was the majority ethnic Russian areas in the East and South would get limited autonomy, Ukraine would stop bombing them (killing many civilians, by the way) and the regions would remain part of Ukraine. I’m not looking to play a propaganda game, just read up on the actual facts. You can support the valiant Ukrainian people all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that this war could have easily been avoided by following Minsk.
The 55 tanks destroyed isn’t actually confirmed, either, and from what I’ve read, the Russians are still advancing. I take no joy in the unnecessary deaths of the young men on either side. Some seem to pick a side and cheer the deaths like they’re cheering for their college football team to score more points.
Thanks. I did consider the foldable option but they are still touchscreens and I don’t want them in my life anymore. Neither do they seem to want someone like me.
But, as I said, silly touchscreens are only a part of the problem. Don’t you find constantly carrying a delicate 6″ gadget with you uncomfortable and irritating at all? I don’t remember having bought any but even the much smaller flip phones opened a market for holsters and cases that made it more comfortable to carry them around.
When did you last try one? There is the iphone mini if you don’t like the big one.
But, as I said, silly touchscreens are only a part of the problem. Don’t you find constantly carrying a delicate 6″ gadget with you uncomfortable and irritating at all?
This is how I feel about wallets. I don’t see how guys can sit on a thick wallet all day. It’s bad for your back.
There is no rule that says you have to take your phone everywhere. Get a man purse or a planner. If you don’t feel like taking it then leave it.
That’s supposed to tell me what exactly? That I’m insufficiently supportive of Ukraine, or what? Has it ever occurred to you that people have different interests and not everybody is obliged to share your own concerns?
Maybe tell your cousins they should move to Germany. Ukrainians have privileged access to the welfare system here, and if the country is overrun by foreigners anyway, at least they’ll provide a contrast to all the Mideasterners and Africans.
The deal was the majority ethnic Russian areas in the East and South would get limited autonomy, Ukraine would stop bombing them (killing many civilians, by the way) and the regions would remain part of Ukraine. I’m not looking to play a propaganda game, just read up on the actual facts.
What did I say that is not factually true?
Putin in Feb of 2022 decreed that LPR/DPR will be independent Republics:
https://www.ukrinform.net/rubric-polytics/3408844-putin-recognizes-independence-of-lprdpr.html
That would formally end what remained of the Minsk agreement.
“I consider it necessary to make a long-overdue decision – to immediately recognize the independence and sovereignty of the ‘DPR’ and ‘LPR’. I ask the Federal Assembly of the Russian Federation to support this decision and then to ratify the treaties of friendship and mutual assistance with the respective ‘republics’,” Putin said, an Ukrinform correspondent reports with reference to a broadcast on Russian TV.
Did he abide by that decree? Yes or no?
You can support the valiant Ukrainian people all you want. Doesn’t change the fact that this war could have easily been avoided by following Minsk.
That’s your opinion and contradicts Putin’s original speech where he said the war was about NATO.
Belarus has been pro-Russian since the end of the USSR. Would you say that they are the model that Ukraine should have followed?
Wasn’t Putin’s ultimatum that NATO leave Eastern Europe entirely, not just pledge not to admit Ukraine?
Look classy enough and I could put a smartbrick in there but they’re not quite my style. On the understanding that I’m well past my prime time, my wife has convinced me that I still have a bit of a shape to show off and that quality strechy, elastic pants look best on me so I follow her expert advice. They’re very comfortable too and I guess having European origins makes me less willing to compromise looks for convenience than many Americans. Speaking of which, you can surely find plenty of trashy looking Europeans of all sorts but something like Fetterman’s outfit is quintessentially American, in an almost charming way. Like he couldn’t care less what he looks like and what the norms are.
I don’t read Arab lovers, but thanks anyway. I’m sure he does a good job on the Ukraine war
You may have a point there but wallets do fit in your back pockets very well. Either wallet makers designed them to or pant makers did. No such evolution has happened with smartphones. Besides, wallets are not delicate electronic devices. And I got used to carrying one in my pants since my early teens so that’s not an issue for me. Not sure if it was for earlier generations.
There is. It’s not written anywhere but I see all the time: at home depot, at the restaurants, at the doctors office, with relatives and friends that expect you to be on their social media apps and will even occasionally mock you if you’re not,… When they called me to take my Covid shot at my local hospital I was babysitting my young son and drove there, as instructed, taking him with me. After waiting for a long time in a line of cars they made us return back home because I wasn’t carrying a phone with me so how could the nurses call me when my turn came? The social expectation has become that you must carry your smartbrick everywhere with you (unless may be you are an elderly or impaired person, in which case you may get some compassionate treatment).
LOL
Real frustration from the Arab/Islamic world over their complete inability to help out the satanic Palestinian people. How many Palestinian dead so far, like 5k? Over 1000 children. And they are being literally starved. They can’t even get water.
I doubt the Arabs/Muslims have any regrets, but it is clear that they assumed that Israel would not, or could not, respond to the massacre on the 7th. I still can’t fault them for that assumption because it never even occurred to me that Israel would launch a meaningful response. I still don’t understand it. What the hell has gotten into the Israelis?
We’ll see how much longer Bibi and the IDF can stall the invasion. Right now I think the bigger problem is Bibi. While I’m 100% sure that Bibi does not want to invade, I’m no longer as confident about the IDF. In fact, I think the IDF may actually want a regional war, although I have no idea why they would want such a thing. I hate the IDF but they should launch a coup and put that rat Bibi on trial for his crimes against the Jewish people.
“I still have a bit of a shape to show off and that quality strechy, elastic pants look best on me so I follow her expert advice. ”
I have been following the pocket-too-small-for-smartphone thread since last night. Two suggestions: 1) Walmart has a clear waterproof bag/case for smartphones. It has a nice long cord/lanyard to drape over your neck and can be found in the sporting goods section. 2) Also, most Lycra shorts now have a pocket on the inside of the waistband. A shirt that drapes over the top of your bike shorts should hide the outline of the phone so you can still look spiffy.
Seems unlikely to me, Hamas must have known that after such extreme, unprecedented attacks there would be a very severe reaction. And from their pov that’s probably not even unequivocally bad, since the civilian casualties from the bombing of Gaza (which would rise even higher if there’s indeed a ground invasion) are wrecking or at least severely complicating the recent rapprochement between Israel and various Arab states. Palestine is now a top issue again.
Of course if Israel had reacted only in a muted way, it would also have been a major propaganda victory for Hamas and they would have used the hostages to extort prisoner exchanges and other concessions. So they couldn’t lose either way.
Zelensky’s interpretation of this was that they could elect their own governors. Russia demanded that these territories would be able to have a free trade zone with Russia, which would effectively prevent Ukraine from integrating with the EU. This was unacceptable.
9 Civilians were killed in all of 2021. By shooting from both sides.
Russia has killed over 10,000 civilians when it invaded (per UN, which doesn’t include Mariupol – real number is at least double that if not 10,000s). Mostly people from Eastern Ukraine.
It would take at least 1,000 years to “break even” with the deaths from 2021.
There is plenty of documentation of large amounts of Russian vehicles being destroyed. Whether it is 55, or 40, or 70 – it is a lot. Russia has been “advancing” there for about 2 weeks (?) now but hasn’t advanced. They gain a few meters and then lose them, while losing large amounts of men and equipment. It’s a way for Ukraine to grind down the enemy with a favorable (for Ukraine) kill ratio.
I agree. I hope that Russia withdraws, far more than I hope that Russian invaders get killed. But if Russians invaders are in Ukraine, I support Ukrainian defenders killing them, as a lesser evil to Ukrainians getting killed and their lands occupied by the invaders.
Those were really popular in Russia. Even track-suited thug-looking guys carried them.
I think it’s an evolution from carrying stuff in plastic bags. People were used to that, so they upgraded to man purses.
Regarding Afd have no knowledge about about motivations, but imho tactically such position can be used when arguing in favour of building hard borders and restricting muslim immigration in EU – should strive to protect our precious rare remaining european jewry from growing pogroming menace;)
And overall strategically several billion muslims seem to be way bigger demographic threat than the nuisance of those thirty or so million worldwide Jews out there, even if many seem to think otherwise by constantly attributing some demigod powers to them.
No, not at all. It was an attempt to help you see the bigger picture. Maybe things aren’t as bad as you perceive them. Not everyone shares your butthurt views of every day activities. 🙂
Not all Ukrainians want to emigrate to Germany, but would rather live in Ukraine…
That’s their rationale, and a wish to become “respectable”, to show they’re not Nazis.
But it doesn’t work at all, the Israeli embassy not only categorically refuses all contacts with them, but periodically goes out of its way to condemn them.
Back in June former Israeli ambassador Shimon Stein published this article against AfD (where he explicitly attacks them for promoting ethnocentrism and attacking the federal republic’s refugee policy):
https://www.tagesspiegel.de/politik/die-afd-im-umfragehoch-wo-die-erosion-der-demokratie-beginnt-9955290.html
Includes also a negative mention of Hungary and Poland as countries where the radical right is in power and endangering “democracy”. Stein is a liberal by Israeli standards, so of course he also includes some criticism of the extreme right in Israel’s government and presents it as equivalent to AfD, PiS or Fidesz. Which imo is a total distortion. Pretty much the entire political spectrum in Israel is ethnocentric in the sense that they want to preserve Israel as a Jewish nation state, the radical right there are actually people who not just want to keep what’s already theirs, but are advancing an aggressive, expansionist programme. But of course you’re not supposed to point out such fine distinctions, but rather just nod in agreement.
imo there’s no point for European right-wingers in adopting hardcore pro-Zionist positions, since there’s no reciprocity and it doesn’t even work to get anti-national Jews and their organizations off your back. Of course it would be even dumber to adopt pro-Palestinian positions or be naive about the hostile intentions of Islamic organizations in Europe. Best way is to limit oneself to uncontroversial, general statements (e. g. two-state solution as the ultimate goal, or just referring to general humanitarian principles) or say nothing at all about the conflict.
They’re probably even worse.
That’s understandable, but I wasn’t even joking about your cousins. Unless they’re somehow contributing to the war effort, maybe they should really leave for the time being.
I understand there is a long-standing nationalist dream based on the hopes and efforts of many Ukrainian people.
These dreams are woven together in a complex way with Ukrainian, Galician, Russian, Soviet, Polish and other regional histories. This history involved many wars and conquests so there is lots to be angry about, especially if one choses to tap into what happened to ancestors and even recent earlier generations.
Obviously an active war makes a great many people extremely angry and others inconsolably sad.
I understand there are important connections between Ukrainian nationalists and Nazi Germany which do not “map” simplistically into the post-WW2 view that Nazis are all bad, all the time.
I even appreciate that much of the profound mythology and history which the Nazis tapped into predates Germany and is channeled by various Northern European peoples in different ways.
With that out of the way, here is my point stated more carefully:
This is not inconsistent with the existence of NeoNazis in Russia. Life is complicated.
In light of current events, that can be regarded as whole eternity ago – they were self confident and arrogant about inner security and settler expansion, but that faith has been shaken now. Ofc situation is in developing mode, final outcome and resolutions stay not clear atm, but would be bit surprised if all official Israel messaging tunes would further stay entirely unchanged in EU.
Here’s another great article on the proper Jewish attitude towards revenge, if anyone is interested (I’m sure at least some lurkers are): https://etzion.org.il/en/philosophy/issues-jewish-thought/issues-mussar-and-faith/positive-aspects-vengeance
I think everything written there could be just as helpful to any non Jew who has mixed feeling towards taking revenge. It’s a much more intellectually and spiritual satisfying philosophy of vengeance than the totally useless Buddhist/Christian/Humanist attitude.
Maybe. Of course rationally it’s hard to argue that an increasing Muslim presence in Europe is good for Jewish interests; in France there have even been several antisemitic murders by Muslims in recent years, and the threat of terror attacks or spontaneous violence is only increasing due to the recent Gaza events (another factor: the demographic shifts due to on-going mass immigration are also radicalizing some right-wingers into an antisemitic direction, so there’s also some threat in that regard, albeit marginally so compared to the Islamic one). But that could all be known long ago, and it didn’t change anything.
Of course hard to predict anything right now, when we don’t know if the current Mideast crisis will lead to something bigger or if it can somehow be contained.
Yes, it is. Do you realize that those Ukrainian parties that allied themselves with the Nazis for a time also fought vociferously against them when they figured out that their ideologies and political aims were quite different, one from the other? It was, purely a marriage of convenience. After all, most of the leadership of the OUN(b) including Stepan Bandera was ultimately captured and imprisoned by their German “allies”.
Pretty unreadable tbh. Not sure what the lesson is supposed to be…revenge for personal motives is prohibited and you should strive to improve yourself instead (because that will anger your enemies), but revenge is allowed when done in the spirit of carrying out God’s will?
How is that supposed to be more helpful or profound than the “totally useless Buddhist/Christian/Humanist attitude”?
Wars tend to simplify it. So they are good for something.
I agree about the manipulative third parties who funded the NeoNazi Ukies. It was an obvious choice for continuing the attack on Russia – maybe the only viable one. The us-vs-them Manichean ideologies don’t survive the encounter with reality. The Ukie pro-Nazi mythology aimed at Russia was incoherent – but with cheering for Nazis in the Canadian Parliament and the current Western need to rediscover Holocaust it has become comically incoherent. When Kiev loses the war, Nazis will go back to hibernation.
But I don’t think they are done: more heroes and tragic losses will keep it going. Maybe the world should give them a Galician homeland where they can go openly salute Waffen SS, ban even a mention of “Russia”, and build all the silly monuments their hearts desire. I suspect that if Nazi Germany didn’t also murder Jews, but only focused on the damn Poles, Ukies, Russians, they would now be openly celebrated in the West.
Even the ones not directly contributing to the war effort benefit Ukraine with their presence (Ukraine still has an economy that produces stuff, it needs workers). I think if there are going to be problems with the electrical grid it would make sense for little kids and the elderly to leave temporarily for the winter.
All of my numerous relatives who had been in Poland and Germany have returned to Ukraine, except for a young couple (husband has a legitimate medical exemption) who have stayed in Germany and just had a child there. They have learned German and the husband is already working.
Hey Barbarossa, how did those children’s/young-adult book recommendations for some time ago go?
Nice vignette, but you forgot to update us on rocketing cheese prices. Did you finish Badian’s essays on the Pentekontaitia by the way? I’ve been reading the Cambridge History of Iran III & IV, alongside Runciman’s ‘History of the Crusades’, he’s great at narrative prose.
We need our unboxing and foot apparel expert Dmitry to elaborate on this phenomenon.
I do agree that is is probably difficult to read if you aren’t used to the rabbinical style. I didn’t consider that and I apologize.
The standard Christian/Western view towards revenge is that it is morally wrong. You shouldn’t take revenge and you shouldn’t hate because you are obligated to love or at least forgive everybody. I really hate this attitude and consider it very dangerous and harmful.
The Buddhist view actually isn’t completely useless, but still incomplete. The Buddhist view is that you shouldn’t take revenge because doing so hurts you. Mercy is something you grant not for the sake of your enemy, but for yourself.
However, the Buddhist view doesn’t leave room for full justice and also isn’t even practical for most people unless that person achieves anatta (something that I, and most other people, see as undesirable).
So the Jewish view of revenge is that it is technically permissible provided solely for the purpose of sanctifying G-d’s name. However, few people have souls that are so elevated that they are able to take pure G-dly revenge. My desire for revenge on the Palestinians has absolutely zero to do with sanctifying G-d’s name, but rather is out of an evil (although certainly understandable) impulse to “get even”.
I hate the Palestinians. All Palestinians. Man, woman and child. Actually, I hate the children most of all. My hatred for them is so pure and so deep that I doubt even the Nazis or the Palestinians themselves could understand it.
But I also know that these feelings are evil because every time I give in or indulge in them it just makes me feel worse. A lot worse. So while I know that I can never make these feelings go away, I can at least intellectually understand that the only person harmed by these feelings is myself. And when these feelings come up, instead of indulging in my feelings of cruelty I can instead use those same feelings as motivation to do something positive like pray or commit an act of kindness. So it becomes another opportunity to use evil in the service of Good, and at the end of the day that’s what Judaism is all about.
It was meant as an illustration of larger trends (just as my comment about cheese prices was meant as an illustration of inflation, which is still at high levels btw). But ok, if it’s so ridiculous I will keep such observations to myself. Doesn’t change anything anyway.
Sent you a long email about that more than a month ago. Can send again if necessary.
Read Runciman long ago. Don’t remember much, except his pro-Byzantine bias. Certainly entertaining though.
Seems simplistic to me. May be true for (much of) Christianity today, but that’s because it’s essentially already a dead religion. It was different when it was a vital force (in the sense of punishing God’s enemies, obviously the Church wasn’t in favour of personal vendettas among Christians).
Doesn’t sound much different from the standard view of modern Westerners.
And no offense, but it’s easy for you to adopt that stance. You’re in America, in theory you could just stop watching the news and forget about the Palestinians.
Thanks for your response here, Greasy William! I’m personally obsessed with this law because I am both an Israeli citizen and, in halakhic terms, the grandchild of a Jew, which causes me to strongly sympathize with other people who are similar to myself and don’t actually have Israeli citizenship yet but might nevertheless want to move to Israel at some future point in time.
Yes, IMHO, making Europe more Muslim does not benefit Jews, and neither does it benefit gentile Europeans unless they are either Muslim cognitive elites or liberal/progressive Muslim reformers.
Worth noting that the Israeli left-wing has a more inclusive concept of a Jewish nation-state relative to the Israeli right-wing. The Israeli right-wing wanted to change or repeal the Grandchild Clause to Israel’s Law of Return until Israel’s equivalent of 9/11 put this issue (and Israel’s judicial reform) off of the agenda indefinitely, hopefully permanently and for good.
Israeli left-wingers don’t want to accept huge numbers of gentiles with no connection to the Jewish people, but they are nevertheless considerably more welcoming of “gentiles” with a Jewish connection relative to Israeli right-wingers. The European equivalent of this would be granting EU citizenship to anyone who seeks it (and who doesn’t have a serious criminal record, I suppose) and who is at least 25% European by (genetic) ancestry as well as to their children and/or grandchildren if they will move to the EU along with them.
Sorry, it wasn’t my intention to be mean. But for some reason the tone in which you complain about the decline of modern Germany (which I broadly agree with, though I doubt it’s that hopeless) always comes across as amusing. It’s definitely an easy foil for Dmitry’s characteristic polite mockery, whose technocratic-managerial worldview I find vaguely repugnant. Though conceding he’s one of the few happy and psychologically normal posters here, with an usual friendly patience for idiocy.. he missed his calling as a state psychiatrist.
Yes, I remember you mentioned Badian’s friendly criticisms of Ron Unz’s classical scholarship, but I don’t recall you mentioning you’d finished it at that point. Since you’re back here (more than ever, despite everything) you might as well post it here.
Pockets have become oversized in some common mens clothing. While a man purse is definitely out, a pocket organizer is potentially an option.
I carry a touch stylus with my minimum size, 4.7″ screen, smartphone. I liked my Blackberry with the full keyboard, but that has become a relic from a bygone era.
PEACE 😇
I’m currently “on vacation” (lol). Will post less again in November.
Anyway, doubt it will be of much interest to most people reading here, but I’ve copied my mail (final impressions about Badian’s essays) below the -more- tag.
I’ve finished the collection of Badian’s essays about the Pentekontaetia. It was interesting, thanks for recommending it to me.
Can’t comment on the chronological issues, but Badian’s thesis about the peace of Kallias and his reconstruction of political developments in the 460s and 450s BC seemed plausible enough to me. But it’s probably the kind of issue where there can’t be any certainty, unless some new source (like an inscription confirming the existence of a formal peace) is discovered.
Badian’s criticism of Thucydides’ narrative about the origins of the Pelopponnesian war seemed a bit exaggerated to me tbh. He’s probably right there’s quite a bit of subtle bias and strategic omissions, but when I read it about two years ago I didn’t get the impression that Thucydides aimed at creating the impression that the Spartans had been malevolently scheming against Athens for decades and only waited for a good opportunity to start the war. Maybe I’m misremembering it, but my impression was actually rather that the Spartans came across as somewhat reluctant to start a war and were under strong pressure from their allies like Corinth and Megara whose interests had been harmed by Athens (with an implied threat that Sparta’s Peloponnesian hegemony might erode if she didn’t protect her allies from Athenian depredations…why accept a hegemon that doesn’t do anything for you?). Sure, there probably is some bias in favour of Athens and Pericles in Thucydides’ narrative (would hardly be surprising after all, every author has a bias of his own, total objectivity is impossible), but to me it’s actually more striking that Thucydides never veers into outright propagandistic mode, where the enemy side is just evil for no reason at all and acting out of pure malevolence. Both sides have very good reasons for their actions, the Spartans fearing the loss of their traditional preeminence and their Peloponnesian hegemony, with all the security risks that would entail, and the Athenians unable (and unwilling) to give up their empire, whose loss would leave them open to domination and revenge; maybe it’s because of preconceptions of my own (to some extent I read Thucydides through the lens of WW1 and my own view of that conflict), but to me it felt like there was a strong sense of tragedy to it, since both sides were locked in a ruinous conflict they couldn’t easily escape. Just compare that to another supposedly “objective” historian, Polybios, with his constant denigration of the Aetolians as just being bad, sacrilegous, predatory etc.
The general issue of Thucydides’ narrative about the Pentekontaetia reminded me of a debate among German medievalists in the 1990s, about the early Ottonian age (East Frankia from the early 10th century to the 950s/960s). The key source for much of that period, Widukind of Korvey, wrote his work in the late 960s, and it contains some pretty strange elements (e. g. a bizarre tale about an archbishop supposedly plotting to have the future King Henry I strangled with a golden chain), and puzzling omissions (e. g. no mention of Otto I’s imperial coronation in Rome, instead he’s called imperator already after his victory over the Hungarians). There were essentially two explanations for this: a) in a predominantly oral society events are constantly transformed in re-telling, adapted to later perspectives, confused and mixed up with with earlier and later, originally unrelated events etc., or b) certain omissions (or selectively emphasizing certain events, without the context known from other sources) are deliberate, to make a case to those in the know, almost as coded messages. Now Athens in the 5th century BC was probably quite a bit more of a literate society than East Frankia in the 10th century (it did have quite a few public inscriptions after all), but, as Badian himself points out a few times, knowledge of the events of the Pentekontaetia was probably already becoming somewhat hazy by the end of the 5th century (striking how in some later authors, like Diodorus, the battle of the Eurymedon, and Kimon’s last campaign, separated by more than a decade, have become fused into one). So both the general process and a more personal bias probably played their role.
CGTN Exclusive with Russian President Vladimir Putin
From the comments section of the above linked:
When Putin talks, I’m always impressed by the way how well structured are is his thinking about any issue. He start with giving a starting sentence on which he’ll be presenting his dissertation. Awesome. On the contrary westerners language is offensive, disrespectful, full of adjectives belittling whoever happens to be their opponents in turn.
&
I don’t know how to break it to you, but Putin engages in a lot of conversations, he regularly does live Q&As. He is not an actor, you are mistaking him for Zelensky. Or probably your standards in the West are so low that for you Biden and Zelensky are the norm. But they are not. A president is supposed to be a diplomat, not an actor. And that’s exactly what Putin is. An intelligent diplomat. That’s why he is respected so much in those countries where diplomacy exists and the leaders are intelligent professionals. And not actors working for those who govern the country from behind the scenes.
I used to be a big believer in ruminating in solitude. I can’t prove it, but I feel quite sure that this helped me resolve some very pressing personal issues. Aside from that, it’s also an effective way of giving yourself a “mental recharge.” The way my life is set up now, I still experience plenty of “solitude” – I’m alone for long stretches of most days – but it’s channeled into productive activities rather than rumination. Also, I think with the major personal problems I had having been resolved, I feel less need for regular rumination. Still, I should probably deliberately set aside a bit more time for it.
I get you, but I do wonder if it really means anything though. We may share a common biology with our prehistoric ancestors, but mentally, it’s like we’re different species – and you could argue that was already the case hundreds of years ago. Whenever I’ve found myself pining for a return to the relative simplicity of my younger days, I’ve had to laugh because that was already a world that changed monumentally from even a generation before, and the portents as they were back then were just as worrisome and threatening as today’s.
Biden rebuked:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22102023-answering-biden-on-russia-ukraine-and-israel-palestine-oped/
2007 was the year I was first really hit with full force by the realization of how unimaginably fucked things are going to get within my lifetime. All those optimistic plans I had for the future? Hah. “Shipwrecked by the laughter of the gods.”
That same year I was visiting a medieval theme park (castle, costumes, performances etc) down here with some friends. It was located somewhat out in the sticks, and as we were watching one of the performances, I saw a big group of muzzes – probably arabs, but the more paki looking variety – arriving. The women in hijabs, each pushing double-prams, still more kids running about. There was a middle-aged anglo couple seated near us, and the guy noticed them first, and his face immediately took on a “WTF…” expression. He motioned with his head to the woman, who also responded that way. I remember thinking to myself, “That’s the future, dude. You’re looking at it.”
That guy had what I used to think was a “normal” response: you’re greeted by a sight like that and you instinctively (as well as intellectually) experience it as a loss, and the greater the alienness of the sight, the greater the sense of loss. I guess I was dead wrong about this. Probably half the people don’t even feel anything of the sort, and even for those who do, hedonic adaptation eventually brings them to heel. At this point, merely a cultural restoration will require a superhuman effort; whereas for racial salvation, lol, nothing short of a miracle will suffice.
Yeah I’ve adjusted too it as well. I used to really hate diversity and seeing immigrants, but now I’m so used to it that it doesn’t bother me. I have just accepted that America is gone and is never coming back.
Those were really popular in Russia. Even track-suited thug-looking guys carried them.
I think it’s an evolution from carrying stuff in plastic bags. People were used to that, so they upgraded to man purses.
Technically it’s a messenger bag but around here even the guys that wear them call them man purses.
They have increased in popularity for concealed carry. Guys pack a handgun and tablet in them.
Something like this that can spin around for quick access:
G.S. Goraya
The Great Game: Afghanistan, British India and the Hundred Year War for India’s Northern Frontier
https://sialmirzagoraya.substack.com/p/the-paracolonialism-of-the-liberal
Idk never been an outside observer so hard to say.
That author seems ok.
Another important piece covered by them… And certainly “Russian Reaction”.
“I have just accepted that America is gone and is never coming back.”
It’s obvious you’re retired from the number of comments you post but don’t you think it’s a little too soon to resign yourself to fate?
Agree with that… The other issue is people consider Tesla luxury. That is a cheaply made interior with a tablet attached to it. A Honda Civic is made of higher quality.
In Russia there was an epidemic of these arbitrary cases before 2022.
If you want to understand the process, it is hazing of the population, so they begin to understand who has power, after they give the population too much abilities of disobedience after the 1990s.
If you have a group of cattle, and hit a few with an electrical cattle prod sometimes so they will know and respect their master.
It’s arbitrary, usually random, rules are not really known or understood why some people will be prosecuted and other people are not.
Most people are not prosecuted, but some low level people will be randomly prosecuted, usually for small reasons. Especially for small reasons.
–
For example, in many Russian cities, war memorials are often some of the main objects.
So, in the last decade it’s easy to find any young people with war memorials in the back of their social media. Randomly, some are prosecuted.
Often the people who are prosecuted, are the one who doesn’t actually contravene any rules.
It’s not respect for the Second World War, it’s more of test of authority and control of people in the new social spaces created by the internet.
In February 2022, they have also added some new laws like “discrediting the Russian army” which has a very wide application. Generally, the control level is still kind of “light” compared to the Soviet times. Although there were more cases in 2022 than in any of the years of Brezhnev.
This looks like a small backpack.
The ones I remember from Moscow looked more like purses and were worn as such. It was kind of amusing.
I cropped this of some random fat guy from when I lived there:
Also:
This is some Russian website, naturally:
Most Israelis including the rightwing support increasing the immigration from Thailand, Philippines, China etc,* as the alternative are the workers from West Bank/Gaza/Jordan.** And most Israeli Jews are descendants of third world and second world people also, so they don’t have the same kind of distance from the second/third world.
The idea it can be analogous to Europe, is a not closely similar situation.
Israel is created by religious filtered immigration from originally mostly third world/second world people.
Maybe if you are in a very elite area of Israel, you don’t notice this. But in most of the working class cities in Israel, it’s not very mysterious Jewish population are descendants of second world and third world immigrants. People still have the trace of their country of origins.
–
* Where not always very safe for them near the Gaza border, with content warning. Perhaps there will be lower demand from those workers to immigrate to Israel in the future after the massacre of those workers.
https://twitter.com/Iyervval/status/1711092340339933341.
** Israel’s “right-wing” Naftali Bennett added 10,000 more workers from Gaza.
Yes, Israel has a lot of guest workers from places like Southeast Asia, but isn’t it very wary about actually giving them a pathway to citizenship because they’re not Jewish or even of Jewish descent?
FWIW, I do think that it’s a missed opportunity for Israel. Israel could at least give them the opportunity to become Israeli citizens if they will sincerely agree to convert to Judaism or something like that.
I would say this is opposite of reality.
Before October, 2023 was the worst internal crisis year in Israel’s history, with mass loss of self-confidence, daily protests, mass objection of the reservists, media rebellion against the government, hi tech industry rebellion.
One of the most popular themes in the media in 2023, was how to emigrate.
There was a war in the West Bank also where Hamas was becoming strong.
1142 Air Force reservists resigned in July, including 300 fighter pilots. It is probably part of the reason of the slow response in October. https://www.forbes.com/sites/erictegler/2023/10/13/last-week-israeli-air-force-pilots-were-on-strike-this-week-theyre-at-war/
800 internal security agents resigned in the year.
Probably this is viewed as weakness by Hamas/Iran/Hezbollah, as the internal crisis of the country was not a secret outside Israel.
Their children become Israeli citizens if they go to the army.
From the practical view if the authorities are not going to create more attacks, they need workers who don’t have the security issue of using the workers from Gaza.* They don’t usually need to create more religious people, soldiers or people who can receive welfare payments from the government.
Actually, if the Haredim had higher employment rate and would do the working class job, they would also not need to use so many workers with the security risks from West Bank, Gaza or Jordan.
–
* The daughter of Eyal Waldman was killed in the music festival. He is Mellanox founder which was sold to Nvidia for $7 billion in 2019. He was famous for promoting employing workers from Gaza and West Bank.
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/israeli-exec-who-hired-palestinians-in-tech-boom-still-hopes-for-peace-while-mourning-slain-daughter-c8af06c8
He still says after his daughter was killed, he wants to employ the Palestinian workers.
Hamas has a strong control of Gaza’s population and of course they can recruit those workers for information. So, it’s not very rational compared to employing workers from countries like China or Thailand.
Would the Israeli Army automatically accept them?
And would this allow their parents to stay in Israel permanently, albeit without Israeli citizenship?
And Yes, I’m very well-aware of the huge risks of importing Palestinian workers to do various jobs in Israel. They’re a security risk, unfortunately. I’ve heard that Hamas got some of its information about sensitive targets in Israel from Palestinians who have previously been guest workers in Israel. Thus, you are absolutely correct that importing non-Muslim Asians to do these jobs is much better for Israel.
It would also certainly be very nice to try getting the Haredim to work more, as you yourself said. Apparently they worked more in Europe in pre-Holocaust times, before Israel was created and began pampering them.
As a side note, I wonder if Israelis would ever be interested in having a merit-based immigration policy for non-Jewish high-skilled immigrants alongside Israel’s existing current Law of Return.
Anyone who converts to Judaism is automatically entitled to Israeli citizenship, the issue is getting your conversion through the Haredi controlled Chief Rabbinate. The Haredim are so wary of converts that they are still denying a conversion to a young Arab man who fled Kuwait and snuck into Israel so he could convert to Judaism, using the lame excuse that they doubt his sincerity. Of course if you are a white guy from America who has converted to a non Zionist strain of Haredi Judaism, the Chief Rabbinate is likely to be much more sympathetic.
The foreign workers in Israel come from countries that are so terrible that the workers would all agree to convert to Judaism if it meant that they didn’t have to go back home. Obviously Israel doesn’t need hundreds of thousands of 3rd worlders who are only converting for quality of life reasons so just letting these people convert is a non starter.
Hell no they would not. Well, the Yair Lapid types would but they are only 1/3 of the Jewish population and their numbers shrink every year.
Do you have a link to that Kuwaiti man’s case?
Yes, but on the flip side, wouldn’t allowing them to stay mean that Israel would be in less need of foreign workers in the future? Or would their children simply often end up becoming economically useless and thus Israel would still have to import more guest workers in the future?
Interesting question, isn’t it? Whether giving guest workers a pathway to citizenship reduces the need for future guest workers.
Yeah, I think that even getting the Israeli left to rally behind this would probably be asking for too much, unfortunately. I suppose that they could add a conversion to Judaism requirement as a part of the package but this might significantly decrease the inflows of such workers (who’d probably prefer to go to the Anglosphere anyway instead) and as you said, with such conversions, there would still be the question of sincerity since they would primarily be doing it for quality of life reasons. Personally, I don’t mind someone converting to Judaism for quality of life reasons just so long as they also admire the Jewish people, their history, their culture, et cetera, but a lot of Jews unfortunately beg to differ with me in regards to this.
As a side note, I think that it’s terrible that secular Israelis aren’t breeding as much as their religious compatriots are, or at least it would be terrible if Israel didn’t have a severe overpopulation crisis. Still, long-term Haredi political dominance in Israel is a very real risk.
Western leaders mostly talk in cliches lacking meaningful content. They are not meant to be original but to be spokesmen for particular policies that seldom change. Like business promoters for a product – on this forum J Johnson, AP, Mr.Hacks endlessly showing their devotion to the pre-approved cause.
That’s the ideal, they are supposed to act that way but the discipline is not (yet) enforceable and a few fresh unscripted people are still present: Trump, Corbyn, Meloni, RFK…It is not clear if that is an anomaly or a sophisticated feature to liven up what would be unbearably dull. Imagine the Western public space with only Bidens-Scholtzs-Macrons and an assortment of hired Indian pleasers. It would be too boring for our times…like Johnson, Hacks, AP discussing whether 50 or 200 Russian tanks were destroyed yesterday…or whether Russia joined Nazis in or is actually fully responsible for WW2. It wouldn’t work.
The West manages plurality in its spokesmen class – in faces put up front. Russia, China, others, don’t do it well. It makes them look dull, responsible, boring, controlled. The Western variety is more entertaining and has appeal to lower-gut instincts – most people are not capable of critical thinking, it pleases them to hear same cliches again and again. Russia needs at least a dozen Putins and Lavrovs – something they either don’t know how to do or are too fragile to try.
Hmm, there is always this:
…But when the first shipment arrives, he has no idea what to do with the ten thousand red-skinned cheeses, and spends most of his time looking for a pedestal desk for his office instead of selling.
It is the tragedy of a man cornered in life by too many balls of Edam.
This is a warning to us all.
All those mentioned events were done probably mostly by the part of population who voted against Bibi coalition, so roughly around half of all, but the other half and recent winner officialdom were relatively far more content/confident till October Hamas attack?
I feel so embarrassed. The master of “critical thinking” has exposed my base instincts to the whole world. Congratulations Beckow, I don’t know where to hide?…
I never cared much for the “man purse” look when it first came out during the disco era in the 1970’s/1980’s. It always looked a bit faggy, especially if coupled with some platform shoes:
Can’t really recommended anything though, sorry.
I just read manglacharan.com though
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Panth_Prakash
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suraj_Prakash
You might like these 2 links:
reddit.com
/r/Sikh/comments/gin5v7/kirpan_the_struggle_for_spiritual_and_martial/https://www.sikhmuseum.com/nishan/weapons/kirpan.html
Punjab has been more polycentric than India (Hindustan – Gangetic plain)
Due to its frontier status.
Brahmins in Multan were Zoroastrian I believe.
OOOOOOO
Wait there’s bunch of Farsi Books on Sikhs if you read Persian.
Jangnama by Qazi Nur Muhammad (Sikh-Afghan)
Jangnama by Shah Muhammad (Sikh-Anglo – in Punjabi tho)
https://nitter.net/sialmirzagoraya/status/1715726301548646483#m
https://www.thesikhencyclopedia.com/historical-events-in-sikh-history/sikh-struggle-against-mughal-empire-1708-1799/jangnama/
You can probably find all of them on Punjab Digital Library.
If you have telegram I can link you to some people.
https://nitter.net/sialmirzagoraya/status/1715724849715494979#m
https://nitter.net/sialmirzagoraya/status/1708124228179148904#m
French historian Jean-Marie Lafont in his book on Sikh-French relations, proposes that Ranjit Singh had planned on annexing Sind since 1809, and was ready to move in the 1820’s; in a countermove the British might have implicitly supported the Jihad of Syed Ahmed Barelvi against the Sikh Empire.
The Maharaja maintained something of an intelligence network in Central Asia through the Indian diaspora (primarily Sindhis and Khatris) settled in Baku; and kept up with global affairs through his European officers and travellers. Sind was probably his first target; after the English manoeuvred themselves to bring Sind under their control, Ranjit Singh simultaneously acquired two northern regions, Peshawar and Ladakh. It seems he was expecting a British offensive, especially after the conquest of Ladakh, and had been conducting diplomacy with Nepal to build a balancing alliance
Sikh history on West Coast – thread on Shaheed Bhai Mewa Singh
https://nitter.net/hukamdeyakke/status/1715172549116453195#m
ਅਕਾਲ
If you are on a low income the cost of cheese, baked beans, bread etc. is more noticeable; here cost of housing and energy bills has been rising at the same time.
I guess, together with the growing number of Africans and other migrants, these sort of things can be considered part of the ‘boomer legacy’ to the future. I feel like questions are bound to arise about the nature of it, probably more and more as time goes on.
https://nitter.net/DJ_5150/status/1715112161146712245#m
“And I, performing the duty of a true Sikh and remembering the name of God, will proceed towards death with the same amount of pleasure as a hungry baby goes towards his mother.
—
embracing the mindset of victimhood is identical to giving up arms
https://nitter.net/weaponrespecter/status/1715897138893521383#m
Tbh When you asked for a Book
Politics of Genocide by Inderjit Singh Jaijee was first that came to mind.
https://sikhinstitute.org/politics-of-genocide.pdf
Read that.
ਅਕਾਲ
That video was a good one. It reminded me of one of the early videos he did comparing the structures of the Great Zimbabwe complex with European and Asian structures of the same period, there was some comparison of art works in that as well. Iirc that was the first of his videos I watched.
That’s true, I doubt he would get away with ones like this latest otherwise:
Boomers showed up in large numbers too lazy to work. Instead they ate everything, copulated on floors, brought cheap labor to clean up…as they aged they feel unsure of their own identities and obsess about minutia of their health. They gave us the Covid hysteria, gender madness, and worship some guy named Floyd… ’cause he is black.
Nobody will miss them. As they get older they are vulnerable, narcissistic, ignorant, preachy – a pathetic generation. That old fellow Biden is a perfect leader for them. What will be said about them in the future won’t be nice.
Galaxy Flip 4 is targeted at women, the Fold is for men, more than I am prepared to pay for a phone.
Jewish identity is a tricky proposition. It is simultaneously genetic/tribal and religious. The idea of recruiting outside the tribe to acquire population by conversion simply does not function well as a concept.
If third world labour is needed, it is much better to have explicitly temporary migrants. Cheap air flights could be used to obtain seasonal workers for 6-8 months and then let them winter in their home country. With no hope of citizenship and brutally high housing expense, bringing family would be unappealing.
PEACE 😇
In his follow-up, Mr Hack proved your point. Meloni and RFK Jr have clear limits. The former on Russia-Ukraine and the latter concerning Israel-Palestine.
Yeah those Russian tanks are really getting destroyed, making you wonder why the Kiev regime keeps begging for more tanks, planes, shells etc.
From my experience, both men and women like the flip 4. The problem with the fold is that it opens and closes vertically and still presents the owner with the unenviable situation of trying to fit its 7.6″ frame into a pocket. And then it costs almost twice as much too, $1,799. Try putting the fold into your shirt pocket, that I can easily do with my flip. When I purchased it a year ago it retailed for about $1,000, but with a great promotional trade-in offer, I got mine for $600. Sure the fold offers you a larger screen, but I’ll trade that function for the ease of transport anytime.
Would like Mikel and Sher Singh to work together on a comedic skit where a man with the illustrious name Cabeza de Vaca soujourns in the Sikh kingdom at the time of the first maharaja, who was known for being somewhat sanguinary or cruel.
“He” was white and not black, and the group’s name was Pink Floyd. They were one of the greatest rock bands ever, just try and name one from your era that compares? And as for laziness, the boomers were much more productive than any generation that came after them, including no doubt your own.
Meloni’s willingness to back Kiev aggression is indeed a problem. However, the perpetual illegal immigration flows are much more concerning.
A huge lag was expected as the Italian legislature is notoriously cumbersome and slow. However, she now has the law on her side and is still not producing results. Too busy playing nice with the EU. Not implementing the expected “Stay in Africa” plan. Unless she manages to suddenly make substantial progress, she is unlikely to survive the next election.
___
RFK Jr’s anti-vaxx crusade is the main thing he has going for him. However, that will bring out non-voters who would never ballot for either major party. Impact on the general election from this issue will scant.
The DNC made a serious mistake by chasing him out. On issues other than the mandatory jab, RFK Jr is fully Globalist & Progressive. He burned any chance of being a centrist by openly supporting reparations.
Anti-MAGA #NeverTrump Sheeple will bleat & gibber about ultra early polls with biased samples, predating the reparations announcement, that seem to indicate the RFK Jr might hurt Trump. In the real world, RFK Jr is currently largely unknown, so those polls are capturing uninformed first impressions. Honest observers would admit that, but Anti-MAGA zealots are dishonourable.
Any general election campaign RFK Jr fields will be highly appealing to DNC types looking to avoid Not-The-President Biden. And, it will push GOP voters towards Trump.
PEACE 😇
You had boomers copulating on the floors?
: (
Do they have boomer mockery in China? That might be pretty funny to see them trashing the family shrine and whatnot.
Watched Wandering Earth 2
Could hardly believe that they made a sci-fi movie that was three hours long. Was surprised by all the f-bombs. Amused by the crazy Indian at the start (the other film also had crazy Indians).
Honestly, for the most part, the film was a mess. But it was sort of a spectacle to see because of its weirdness.
As with the first, I felt that there were a lot of elements that had been lifted from famous Hollywood sci-fi films, without much inspiration to give them a veneer of respectability. I thought I also noticed some stylistic influence of the Japanese, in some of the title captions changing scenes.
Felt that there were often too many people or elements on screen, and it would have been better, if they had pared some of that back, just on a visual level. To speak nothing of having too many characters – a common complaint, I have when viewing mainland films.
Didn’t like some of the dynamic shots, where the camera panned and spun at funny angles. Thought it was showboating, but only to bad effect, by adding needless complexity.
It was a weird spectacle just to watch the credits, wherein they had almost endless names. Names of extras and other people like hair dressers who I don’t think would be featured in a Hollywood movie, and whose names only flashed on the screen for the shortest time possible. But I think many of them probably worked for free, to keep the costs down, and that explains it.
The film was insanely unscientific. Just to take one aspect – the space elevator had rockets on it. The whole point of a space elevator is not to use rockets. And the end of it is a counterweight, not something that can fall to Earth, but which would fly off into space, if detached.
The UN featured prominently in the story, which made me think of the Japanese, who often feature it in their movies. My previous idea was that it was a legacy of Japan’s defeat, but if the Chinese also do it, then I wonder if it could be something HBD.
To a small degree, I thought the film was obviously pandering to Africans. (And here I really mean people in Africa, for diplomatic purposes.). But only to a small degree.
There was a very un-PC scene set in NYC where two blacks driving a car, get distracted and crash into the back of a parked police car, in front of a policeman. It reminded me of some Japanese scene I had once scene set in the US, when Godzilla is attacking or something and a cop is dealing with black punks.
The film took place in the future, in the 2040s and I think 2060s. I was very gratified to see that they didn’t have any blacks in Ireland in the future, and in France, I got the idea that they were only there as some African contingent of the UN, at a UN installation.
Overall, I thought it was better than the first one. But still a long way from being a classic.
He’s back to bashing boomers again, I think that his father must have been one and relied too much on the belt when disciplining poor little Beckow (its an east european thing, not a generational one). 🙁
Don’t know whether it followed from the early studies on British sailors, but seems like American hunters long ago knew that leaving a hunting dog out at night in bad weather could cause him to suffer from rheumatism.
Curious to me that dogs can get rheumatism in this way as I thought they were typically much more cold-selected than humans. I wonder if the same would be true of wolves, or if dogs or certain breeds have been adapted to be less cold-selected as they were domesticated.
45% of Israeli Jews at most. Although this is the portion of the country that controls the media, the economy, the court system and the IDF so it sometimes seems bigger than it is.
Definitely not. Public opinion surveys in Israel have all shown that all sectors of Israeli Jews regard the State of Israel as a joke that is living on borrowed time. Of course they didn’t think the state and the army were quite that incompetent, but they had the general idea.
You need more energy drinks.
https://pluralistic.net/2023/10/20/release-energy/
The family loved the Bartimaeus series. My wife got them on audiobook and they have since worked thought the entire thing. It held the attention of everyone, from 3 to 15, and it seemed, from the bits I caught, to be a really well done fantasy series. It certainly deserves to be much more well know than something like Harry Potter, in my opinion. However, we live in an unjust world! : )
One thing that I’ve revisited from my childhood recently, and been happy with how it’s held up is Batman: The Animated Series from the 90’s. My youngest, and only boy, has recently developed an obsession with Batman. It seemed to trigger his boy-stincts strongly.
Clearly, he’s not going to be watching Nolan’s films anytime soon, but I got to thinking about the series from my own youth and pulled some up on YouTube.
I’m glad to say that it’s actually shockingly well done for a kids cartoon. The animation is great, the music is good, and the dialog and characters are even well developed. We ended up buying a disk set of the entire series so we can pick away at it over the next couple of years. We all actually enjoy it quite a bit and watch it together as a family.
It’s kind of nice to revisit something from your youth and find out it was actually pretty good. Though it’s not always the case. The animated Spiderman series of similar vintage is pretty bad.
This looks like a small backpack.
It’s like a small messenger bag that you can wear on your back.
You might see actual purses in a city like LA but that isn’t what I was talking about.
The ones I remember from Moscow looked more like purses and were worn as such. It was kind of amusing.
I think on some level the man makes the clothes. Hipsters look overgroomed and urban in outdoor clothes. They can sport the lumberjack look and they still look like they have never chopped wood in their lives.
I once saw two lumbersexuals at my local starbucks. I had to do a doubletake:
https://www.dictionary.com/browse/lumbersexual
They had these perfectly groomed long beards and were sipping coffee like chatty ladies. I don’t think a bag of any type would change their appearance.
Once my wife left me her purse at the mall and I forget I was holding it and walked around with it. Pretty sure it sapped 25cc of precious masculinity juice. I only noticed when I started skipping and singing showtunes.
I don’t want to denigrate boomers in total (it’s my parents’ generation after all), but find it difficult not to have negative feelings about the political legacy of that generation. There may have been other factors (like the end of the Cold War, which in retrospect seems to have unshackled Western elites from taking even residual account of popular sentiment contrary to their own agenda), but can it really be a coincidence that things took such a drastic turn for the worse in the 1990s, when boomers started to be in full control politically? GW Bush, Blair, Merkel…disastrous figures all of them.
Obviously much of the progressive agenda has earlier roots, but the degree to which it became the hegemonic ideology under the boomers is still noteworthy and demands an explanation (not that I really have one myself).
I have had 2 of the Kyocera Dura’s that are on the list and I liked them a lot. Both broke at the hinge when dropped off roofs, which was not their fault! Currently, I’m using a Sonim which seems good so far. I’m just getting used to the different OS which is annoying. I haven’t had any of the other phones on there so can’t really comment on them.
https://www.pcmag.com/reviews/sonim-xp3plus
I tend to be an incorrigible contrarian with tech, so I probably take perverse pleasure in going without GPS and other conveniences like that. Sometimes it’s somewhat inconvenient, but for the most part I find it kind of fun to feel like I’m living by my wits a bit more.
Once you have the flip phone for a few weeks, fill us in on how you feel about it. I’d be interested in your reaction. One of the most common reactions, particularly from men, that I get when people see my phone is that they state that it’s awesome and they wish they could go back to a flip phone. Guys get genuinely excited about it but then seem daunted and downtrodden at the gargantuan impossibility of going back. I don’t really get that in many cases, though for some it’s a work issue where they are required to have a smartphone.
Tavistock CIA propaganda brainwashing. What would you expect if PTSD were inflicted on hundreds millions people with television programming?
Far fetched maybe but I challenge anyone to come up with something better.
― Heraclitus
This is starting to turn around. There are a variety of good flip phones on the market now, but if I remember correctly, 2016 to 2020 was kind a nadir point for good devices.
Thanks but I don’t use lycra. I think my pants are just ordinary fabrics like polyester mixed with spandex to make them more elastic and comfortable. I may have gone on a tangent with my comment on stretchy pants though, because I have the same problem with ordinary jeans. With stretchy pants the brick just wants to slip out all the time and with jeans it constrains your movements and makes you permanently aware of the bulky thing. You can’t simply sit down or start running or take a bike, etc.
I’ve already bought a Cat-22 on Amazon anyway. It may actually be a little too bulky for my taste but it seems to offer the best of both worlds with an Android light OS that lets you optionally use some apps on a small screen, a regular flip phone that really ends the call when you close it and a very durable design, shock proof and submersible. All for $72. Let’s see how the transition goes to the good old days of being always connected without big efforts and frustrations.
@JJ
A small backpack would be more comfortable and I could rather take a tablet or a netbook everywhere with me. But why would I want to do that?
I am glad you admire Roger Waters, quite a guy, he is also right about Ukraine. Old rock bands are fine, but the genre is used up and musically almost dead. Try this, it has more vigor and seems more 2020’s…
Looks great. It seems to be in the same league as my soon to arrive Cat S-22 (made by Caterpillar, as I understand it, so designed for active users). Only it lacks the few apps I may miss if I go back to a pure flip phone cold turkey.
I can perfectly understand that feeling. But I must be a little weaker than you and GPS won me over. Whatsapp, Uber and possibly Android Auto (not sure if it will work) are also conveniences that I want to keep for the time being. Google Maps is better than my Mazda navigator (it even warns you of speed traps and traffic jams ahead) and during long drives here in the West having YT music and podcasts is nicer than constantly looking for a new radio station when the good one you finally found fades away.
NYT apparently has a story that the Israeli defense minister has argued in favour of a preemptive strike against Hezbollah (Netanyahu apparently undecided). Sounds like a pretty crazy idea. At least Biden’s administration seems to have told the Israelis not to do it.
You should have had some fun with them and asked why South Africa is on the decline now, that one man, one vote is a reality.
Interesting. Had heard Scholz used some language like that. I thought he was getting carried away in the moment, but you make it seem like stock rhetoric.
I believe these Somalis will become an economic asset in the future, when man-catching becomes a competitive spectator sport, financed by well-to-do Chinese and Indian businessmen.
Both in person, and with an e-sports division using drones and robots.
Merkel said it first, in a speech in the Knesset in 2008. Scholz merely repeated it. Of course it’s meaningless cant. If there really were an existential threat to Israel, Germany wouldn’t even have the means to do something about it.
Couldn’t be bothered to talk to those pro-Palestine activists, so I don’t know if their preferred solution is one bi-national state. If they have any opinion about South Africa, it probably wouldn’t go beyond thinking that Mandela was a saint.
Yup, that’s a Zionist alright.
Good rule for dealing with Zionists: simply ignore everything they say. I can’t ever remember a Zionist ever saying something intelligent or accurate. I’m not trying to be funny here, I literally can’t recall a single instance of such. It isn’t even worth making the effort to refute their nonsense.
Nope
I’m here in America, believe me when I say that NOBODY cares about this. I doubt most Americans even remember that it happened. A large minority of Americans still don’t know which side is which.
Even when the elections come none of this will be an issue. The progressives and the Arabs will talk a good game but in the end but in the end they will all dutifully vote for Biden as a means of blocking Trump.
Even though you are an accursed Ishmaelite (and probably an anti black racist as well) and I hate you, I don’t think that you have done anything to merit being subjected to listening/reading Ben Shapiro content. No human being should ever be forced to endure that kind of torture. I’m genuinely sorry that happened to you.
Do you believe Jews should have a state or not? If yes, you are by definition a Zionist, that’s all it means.
You should download ‘Youtube Revanced’ if you want to listen to music (or whatever) without ads & allowing play after turning your screen off. Don’t give them a dime.
That’s goyspeak. People who think the way that I do are not regarded as Zionists in Israel. The anthem of the Hilltop Youth contains the line, “the Zionist state crumbles”. Ask any soldier who has served in Yitzhar and Hebron what the number one insult they get attacked with (by Jewish settlers, I mean) is and they will answer, “Zionist”. Yigal Amir would roll his eyes if you called him a Zionist.
Can you do twitter on it? Your followers will no doubt want to know your latest belch on Joe Rogan’s diet, workout, supplement, and drug advice of the day!
: )
Battle of the Nations
United States
Russia
https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2023/oct/22/ben-shelton-japan-open-atp-title-aslan-karatsev
“I’ve already bought a Cat-22 on Amazon anyway. It may actually be a little too bulky for my taste but it seems to offer the best of both worlds with an Android light OS that lets you optionally use some apps on a small screen, a regular flip phone that really ends the call when you close it and a very durable design, shock proof and submersible. ”
I’m in one of my ditch google and apple moods. But, last time I tried it, my Linux kept getting hacked. I haven’t tried this with a phone and didn’t realize it was possible to use an updated version of the early Nokia that mostly just does phone calls. I had considered one of those Lenova Linux laptops with Skype but it seemed too complicated at the time. You’d still want a mobile for emergencies anyway. I’d still really love to cut the cord with Google, Gmail and Apple dominance.
Preferred solution for both sides is to eliminate the other side – but that is not going to happen so it is meaningless. The two-state solution is not geographically possible, where would the second viable state be?
That leaves the current mess that can go on for a long time, or eventually a bi-national state. And yes, it may resemble South Africa. (Or possibly Germany around 2050.)
To some people it is not obvious that Borat (a.k.a. Sacha Baron Cohen) is Jewish. I am mildly surprised he has not been shot by an individual unaware of being punked.
Are American Jews flocking to the 2nd Amendment? (1)
That is a fundamental shift in American politics. Historically, California’s Jews have been among the most “progressive”. It is amazing how quickly attitudes can change when one’s life is on the line.
Gun laws are also almost sure to change in Israel. Perhaps they will enact something similar to America’s 2nd Amendment.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://bearingarms.com/tomknighton/2023/10/21/jewish-arming-up-n76342
Since the massacre on the 7th, Bibi has held not a single press conference nor answered a single question from the media. Not one. He hasn’t attended a single funeral for one of the victims of the slaughter that he enabled. Can you imagine any other leader in the world behaving this way?
Multiple sources in the Israeli cabinet report that Bibi is scared to death of a conflict with Hezbollah and does not believe that the IDF can win a war against them (I think that Bibi also doesn’t believe that the IDF can defeat Hamas either, but Bibi uses Hezbollah as a convenient excuse).
Netanyahu is the biggest coward to ever live and he is the weakest leader that the Jewish people have ever been inflicted with, which is not an easy bar to clear. I still hate Rabin and Sharon more, those two were outright evil, whereas Bibi is just a coward, but Bibi remains objectively a worse leader than either of them.
This is actually good news though because the situation can’t last. Eventually there is going to be some sort of coup. Gallant sucks too but he at least will make an attempt to do his job.
Why should the Arab states take in Palestinians?
I don’t want to denigrate boomers in total (it’s my parents’ generation after all), but find it difficult not to have negative feelings about the political legacy of that generation.
Oh I will denigrate them in total. I hate them all except for Unz and Sailer. I used to respect Bannon but he disappointed me with his border scam.
I hate their persistent reality denial. The women tend to be dopey wacked out libs and the men weird me out. Some of the men don’t seem to know how to be men. They can’t just crack a beer and tell an off color joke. Anything related to race or politics makes them go bonkers. Something snaps in their brains and they resort back to mumbling about MLK or “big government” instead of facing the simple truth of race. I’ve never met a boomer male in real life that could think clearly about race. Not one. They all turn emotional like 12 year old girls and do everything to deny the obvious.
I wish there was a separate restaurant section for boomers. I saw one yesterday in shorts who could get barely get his gut inside the booth. If you can barely fit your stomach in the booth then maybe go for a walk instead of stuffing your face. He was not only wearing shorts but didn’t know basic restaurant etiquette. He was smacking his lips and choking down food like a dog.
When the local boomers are hanging out at the sidelines at the game it looks like a maternity league. So many of them have the pregnant with twins look. My kid had a boomer coach who looked like he should be barefoot and cooking. His pregnant belly completely stretched his shirt. Can you not have any shame looking like a pregnant man who got f-cked? Aren’t you supposed to be teaching the kids to be in shape?
F-ck these pregnant race denying men called boomers. Derpa derpa big government is the problem now pass the extra cheesy pizza I’m gonna watch 3 more football games today.
Unz and Sailer get exemptions. The rest I can’t stand. Cannot stand them and if there are 3-4 in a room then I will leave. Their self-centeredness sucks all the positive energy from the room.
Gun laws are also almost sure to change in Israel. Perhaps they will enact something similar to America’s 2nd Amendment.
There are already changes in the works.
They are going to loosen the laws so more Israelis can buy rifles.
Ukraine is also going to increase private gun ownership.
The common argument is that it would have been possible in the 1990s, but isn’t possible anymore now because of the extent and location of Israel’s settlements in the West bank (and because of the contested status of East Jerusalem). So settlements would have to be scaled back, and/or there would have to be land swaps. Theoretically something like this should be possible, at least if outside powers (notably the US) pressured Israelis and Palestinians to accept the necessary compromises (Palestinians would also have to give up right of return and other demands). But of course it’s unfortunately not very likely.
Bi-national state seems unworkable, given the depth of hatred for each other generated by 90 years of conflict. If even Czechs and Slovaks decided on a national divorce, the idea of a 50/50 Jewish-Muslim Arab state with equal rights looks pretty grotesque. The contest would just go on in a new framework.
One side eliminating the other would resolve the conflict, and there are probably plenty on both sides who hope for such an outcome. Maybe they’ll get their chance, if the current crisis escalates into a regional conflagration.
After a jihadi (who had come as an asylum seeker) had killed a dozen people on that Berlin Christmas market in 2016, it took Merkel a year to send condolence letters to the relatives of those killed. She only did so once a group of victims’ relatives had criticized her in an open letter.
Would have expected different behaviour from a nationalist politician like Netanyahu though.
Who would your ideal leader be?
Caldwell makes a good point that, in the US at least, the World War II generation (the ones who were children in the 1930s and fought as young men in World War II) and not the boomers are to blame for all the problems. The boomers just inherited and profited from it.
The GIs are the ones who, used to barracks, created the ugly uniform and practical suburbs. Perhaps because their childhoods were ruined by the Great Depression, they set up the advantageous (for them) economic system to maximize short and medium-term gain at the expense of later generations. They opened up the USA to mass migration. They also created the civil rights regime. Rather than raise their boomer kids, they set them up to the TV, where boomers were socialized by other GI generation entertainers. All of these happened in the USA in the 1950s-1970s when boomers were kids or teenagers. To be sure, the boomers who came right after also reaped the rewards of their predecessors’ policies. Gen X did too, to a smaller extent, but it has faded by our time and we may not have the golden years in our old age that boomers enjoy. Unless some of us retire among the Europoors.
It seems that in Europe the bad policies came later. Maybe the Euro-Boomers were compensating for the deprivation of the post-war years?
I recognize that they are often self-centered and self-indulgent (often comically so), but I can’t bring myself to hate my parents’ generation. In the USA, their parents are the ones who are really to blame. Those bad policies were mostly made while boomers were kids and teenagers (plus, they are the ones who raised the boomers to be what they were), they weren’t responsible they just went along because it was great for them, too.
I dunno. Good question. Maybe somebody like Samuel. I’ve never been a huge King David fan.
I would rather have even Bibi than some nationalist wackadoodle like Ben Gvir or any other Kahanist and Kahanist lite type like Feiglin. The Babi Sala is the only one in recent times who I think would be good at the job but he would never have agreed to accept the position and he’s dead now anyway.
Even still, I’m certain we can do better than Bibi. Bring on the Gallant dictatorship!
Caldwell makes a good point that, in the US at least, the World War II generation (the ones who were children in the 1930s and fought as young men in World War II) and not the boomers are to blame for all the problems. The boomers just inherited and profited from it.
Excuses excuses. The absolute worst left-wing profs I had were boomers. They were not trying to sort through an inherited mess. They wanted to indoctrinate us with whatever was at their disposal and that included textbooks and dishonest studies written by boomers. The right-wing boomer profs were all dopey libertarians. Blacks just need lower capital gains rates er something. Good lord how can you make it past 50 and not figure out that race is real.
It was boomers that elected GWB. A spoiled brat boomer that failed at managing a baseball team but the boomers thought he would make for a great president. Cause failing at management is a good reason to make someone the manager of the country. Total embarrassment who would screw up a teleprompter.
It was Con Inc boomers that told us the election of Obama would be a win/win. Electing a multatto will make the Blacks happy because they will have a role model. If we don’t vote for Obama and patronize Blacks with a half-Black Democrat then they’ll think we are racist.
I didn’t see a single conservative under 50 suggesting that electing a half-Black junior senator would fix the country. It was all from race denying boomers that still *wanted to believe* an MLK type figure could fix everything through super good Black powers. Blacks just need a role model. Those same boomers forget that the same argument has been made with Black mayors and governors. Just give them a Black guy in a suit and they’ll be Whites overnight. Boomers believe that Blacks are unrevealed Whites that need either capital gains tax breaks or more role models to reveal the suppressed Swedes within. Criticizing their beliefs on race will of course lead to accusations of racism or White nationalism. I’m not a White nationalist, I think this is all just stupid reality denial and we need to get over it. Dinosaurs exist and race is real. Both are most likely the result of evolution. Sorry if the world isn’t built to your needs and desires. Go hit the boomer bong if it bothers you that much.
Greasy sounds like he is quoting Haaretz, the voice of discredited Labour/Gesher and an open enemy of Likud.
Netanyahu made public appearances such as meeting troops. Trying to attend a funeral could bring terrorism down on the service. IMHO he should have found the way to make such a gesture, however I am not responsible for event security.
As has been pointed put before, media elites are diametrically opposed to the Israeli people. What would be served by giving them a platform?
Given public sentiment, it might be better to ask, “Who the next leader might be?”
Netanyahu is potentially in trouble for being too soft and timid. The much softer and even wimpier Gallant is a laughable non-starter.
Itamar Ben-Gvir is a more likely prospect if the existing coalition changes Prime Minister. I can see Ben-Gvir nuking Tehran if Iranian Hezbollah enters the fray. Or, possibly even if they do not. Those trying to push Netanyahu out could easily wind up empowering the very faction they are most concerned about.
PEACE 😇
I don’t believe a second that you have never seen Israelis…
Other than Jews, I meant. And everyone knows that Jews are hyper mixed after having been scattered all over the world. Palestinians aren’t mixed at all and yet their physiognomies are all over the place. I guess the region has just been such a crossroads that all peoples have left some DNA there over the years.
Why do you see achieving anatta as undesirable?
“You wouldn’t be punished for your anger, but you will be punished by your anger”.
Anger is toxic in a biochemical sense…
There will be none.
I’ve read that that early 90s Batman series is highly rated by fans. I’ve tried watching it, but I was never into Batman as a kid, and couldn’t get into it and didn’t even finish an episode.
Some cartoons I’ve revisited that I think hold up pretty well are: He-man, Star Blazers, M.A.S.K., Defenders of the Earth, Ulysses 31, Flash Gordon. Saying that, I only rewatched an episode or two of these, and I feel no interest at all in watching any more, but it was nice to know they were pretty good, since I’ve rewatched plenty of other shows that I used to like and now think they were terrible and left me with a “what was I thinking?” feeling.
Why do you write about topics you don’t know about and write the factually incorrect claims. For example, you don’t understand Hebrew.
Israel allows converts of different kinds (“reform converts”, “progressive converts” etc) to immigrate to Israel with the Israeli citizenship visa from outside.
The problem for citizenship path is inside Israel for people who already live inside Israel. So, the people already inside Israel, can’t convert to get citizenship.
It’s incorrect.
Immigration in Israel is controlled by the Ministry of immigration. It accepts reform converts or American progressive converts for immigration.
The issue Israel doesn’t allow, is for the illegal immigrants in Israel, to convert inside Israel for immigration status change.
There were also groups outside Israel like Nigerian converts in Nigeria who had problem for approval to immigrate.
Those are just facts. The immigration legislation that brought in all the non-Europeans, Johnson’s failed mass welfare “great society programs”, etc. were all made in the 60s when boomers were kids. Ditto with the economic policies.
They can certainly be blamed for conveniently not fixing the problems their predecessors made, because they benefitted too. But they didn’t make the problems.
Those studies were made by the pre-boomer generation. Like Zimbardo, born in 1933:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Zimbardo
Stanley Milgram was also born in 1933.
Young boomers were also indoctrinated by people like Derrida (born 1930), Timothy Leary (born 1920), Peggy McIntosh who invented the idea of “white privilege” (born 1930) etc. Yeah, they repeated and taught that stuff, but didn’t create it. No one cares about boomer thinkers.
Can’t disagree with that. He was the worst president since Johnson.
I don’t remember conservative boomers liking Obama tbh. Weren’t they listening to Rush Limbaugh, who was always making fun of Obama?
A five star comment Greasy ! This part made me laugh so much. Excellent. And yeah, you’re right about the Zionists, they have always been entirely nonsensical, only outdumbed (not sure we say that in English) by the Islamists. Their self-serving moralizing is absolutely hilarious.
Israelis are a mix of different races, but not yet “racially mixed” which would imply a homogenized group that mixed with each other and created an ethnogenesis.
The Jewish population in Israel are a mix of the different races of the second and third world which mostly hasn’t mixed.
They also have some populations from India and East Africa. The people they don’t have so much of are East Asians.
In a normal or working class city in Israel the Jewish population is a lot of Asian and postsoviet peoples. Any of the secular Jewish schools in the working class cities looks like a usually multiracial group (excluding East Asians).
Perhaps he is a Yiddish or Ladino irredentist ?
After all, modern Hebrew is an artificial language and Jewish historical experience has been voiced in other languages that are today being erased.
Well, that doesn’t make any sense to me at all, unless the hilltop youth you’re referring to hate Israel for being a secular European creation and demand some kind of theocracy or revived Davidic monarchy (any claimants over there?). Anyway, Yigal Amir, settlers, hilltop youth, all various flavours of parasitic scumbag leeching off the Israeli state whilst calling on it for protection after they burn Palestinian olive trees or whatnot.
Never thought I’d say this, but I’ve actually been a little disturbed at the level of vitriol directed at Israel coming from sections of the Western-Left and Hard-Right at this point. And of course there’s some frontpaged article here at Unz titled ‘Four Ways the Destruction of Israel Can Benefit the West’… as if any Palestinian state ‘Free from the Jordan to the Sea’ (presumably established after comitting their own ‘counter-Nakba’) would be well-inclined towards the West after their memory of the past century… just idiotic.
Cut the 3 billion dollars of ‘aid money’ (in practice lucrative purchases for the US arms-industry) and I imagine the behaviour of the Israeli government would adjust accordingly to that weakened position. Israel is neither the source of all the MidEast’s problems nor any defender ‘Western Values’, it’s just another moderately Westernised state with pockets of liberal culture and a terrible human rights record, no different from say, Turkey. It doesn’t either merit being destroyed or becoming a fanatical focus of universal Western lobbying, sympathy and support.
Return the West Bank to Jordan and Gaza to Egypt and make it their headache to deal with, if the settlers want to stay under those conditions good luck to them. Palestinians are not getting the ‘right of return’ to places they were expelled 75+ years ago, not happening, get real, shouldn’t even be discussed. It’s really not that complicated.
This is true, although legal foreign workers are also ineligible to stay, but then again…
so, uh, yeah.
How many people do you know from Yitzhar, Bnei Brak or Meah Shearim? I really don’t care how many people you know who are from north Tel Aviv, it doesn’t impress me.
In other words, Israelis from the worst-educated, poorest and most backwards part of the entire country? Do you fantasise about Israel becoming some kind of Chabad version of today’s Iranian regime or what?
I recognize that they are often self-centered and self-indulgent (often comically so), but I can’t bring myself to hate my parents’ generation. In the USA, their parents are the ones who are really to blame.
Well I disagree that boomers are somehow off the hook because of their parents.
Rush Limbaugh was a master Con Inc propagandist and boomer. He convinced millions of Whites that racial gaps in schools are caused by teacher’s unions. Did his parents force him to lie to millions? Or are you going to tell us that in all his years he never read about race and genetics?
Both US liberals and Con Inc hucksters at the top are fully aware that they are lying. They’re not victims of the previous generation.
They support lying because they hate the truth. The left and Con Inc don’t want to live in a world where race exists. They’d rather tell fantasy tales because it feels better. Has nothing to do with the WW2 generation.
Boomers both right and left were more likely to support GWB and Obama than their parents. Care to explain that in the context of them being victims?
I have plenty of criticisms of all generations but boomers are the worst. They’re stuck in a state of arrested development. They will not give up the fantasy of Leave it to Bantu and their conservatives are unable to admit that government regulation can be useful.
Their women are hippie dippie idiots that fuel natural medicine. Homeapathy would collapse without the boomers. Go park outside a Homeopathy business and have a look at what generation is showing up to write checks for treatments that involve micro amounts of herbs and spices.
https://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/245320
https://popcholent.com/the-pork-predicament-or-how-to-embrace-year-of-the-pig-as-jews/
Yiddish isn’t going to be erased as hundreds of thousands of “dosim” are speaking this while having an average of 7 children each married couple. If continued, in a couple centuries, Yiddish would be one of the world’s most popular languages, with the competition of Pennsylvania Dutch of the hundreds of millions of Amish of the future.
Languages killed by immigration to Israel will be more small minorities in Asia and East Africa. Wikipedia has articles of those like “Inter-Zab Jewish Neo-Aramaic”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inter-Zab_Jewish_Neo-Aramaic
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Malayalam
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bukharian_(Judeo-Tajik_dialect)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judeo-Tat
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qwara_dialect
Those are just facts. The immigration legislation that brought in all the non-Europeans, Johnson’s failed mass welfare “great society programs”, etc. were all made in the 60s when boomers were kids. Ditto with the economic policies.
So when boomers took over the parties did they promote America first immigration policies?
Reagan actually made a deal with the Democrats to legalize 3 million illegals:
https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=128303672
That’s the same boomer conservative hero that kicked off state based gun control:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mulford_Act
Bush was a classic Texas Republican who talked about illegal immigration as if he cared and then supported policies that favored agribusiness.
That was of course expected yet boomers still rallied around that failed businessman who was handed multiple businesses from his rich daddy.
They can certainly be blamed for conveniently not fixing the problems their predecessors made, because they benefitted too. But they didn’t make the problems.
They didn’t make any problems? Bush started his “war on terror” without running it by congress. Is that creating new problems or fixing existing ones?
GWB passed tax cuts for the wealthy, claimed they would pay for themselves, then left office with an increase in the national debt and budget deficit. Is that creating new problems or fixing existing ones? He in fact outspent the boomer Bill Clinton that became known worldwide as the president that got his dick sucked while in office. Another fine boomer for the history books.
Those studies were made by the pre-boomer generation.
So a left-wing boomer prof that tries to indoctrinate her students is not morally responsible as long as the cited studies are not from boomers? Is that what you believe?
That’s a good point. Television is a pretty perverse concept anyway, it must have had a lot of pernicious consequences (like advancing social atomization, promoting increasing shallowness of public discussion, and a “If the man in the box says it, it must be true” mentality).
Boomers aren’t homogenous in that regard though (the term is a bit problematic anyway, almost 2 decades is a long time where the earliest and the latest members of the cohort don’t have that much in common). The ones born in the mid- to late 1940s may have experienced genuine post-war deprivation, but the ones born in the 1950s and early 1960s much less so. My own personal, anecdotal impression is that the latter are much worse. I’m not sure I’ve ever encountered someone born in the 1950s I actually liked.
Will be darkly funny if by then the German language goes extinct.
Demographics is destiny after all…
1. Yigal Amir has sat in prison under inhumane conditions that are applied to no other prisoner in Israel for nearly 30 years now for an (admittedly mistaken) act that he committed out of love for the Jewish people. You don’t have to like the guy, but he can’t be described as a parasite
2. The Hilltop Youth don’t want protection from the IDF and they certainly don’t demand it. They want the IDF to fuck off from Yesha. In the years between 2005 – 2011 there was some talk among the more extreme settlers of working jointly with the Palestinians to drive out the IDF from Judea and Samaria. It never really went anywhere though, for obvious reasons.
Exactly.
That is what they demand, yes.
Personally, I think they are all a bunch of nut jobs but I do agree that the secular democratic state of Israel is an abomination that is corrupt to its core and needs to be replaced with a theocratic dictatorship. And I would go further still and say that full Arab rule of Eretz Yisrael would be preferable to the state of Israel as it currently exists. The only reason I support Israel at all is because I believe it is paving the way for Moshiach. If it isn’t, then absolutely let’s give the country back to Yishmael ASAP. At least a Palestinian state won’t allow gay pride parades or for Jews to be massacred 1,300 at a time.
Now I agree that the Arabs would see that as a difference of semantics and they would also define me as a Zionist. But Israeli Jews would not see me as a Zionist, they’d probably regard me as an anti Zionist because the word simply means something different to them than it does to non Jews. If I were an Israeli I categorically would have refused to serve in the IDF and I would have been granted an exemption because the IDF doesn’t want anti Zionists in its ranks.
C’mon man, do you know any Palestinians? They won’t want revenge on the West, they will be too busy trying to immigrate there. That and slaughtering each other. And even if the Palestinians did want to harm others, they wouldn’t be able to. We aren’t talking about the world’s most intelligent or capable group of people here.
1,300 Jews just got slaughtered for what reason, exactly? So that there can be gay pride parades in Tel Aviv? So we can conduct fake conversions of Russian gentiles in the IDF as a means of waging demographic war against the Palestinians? So that the totally disgusting Sabra culture can continue to pollute the country? So a brave (if insane) Jew like Yigal Amir can rot in prison? So that the Jewish people can continue to be disgraced, humiliated and even killed everyday due to the cowardice and incompetence of its leaders?
As much as I hate the Arabs, they are correct about one thing: there is nothing positive about the criminal, fake state of Israel and that the sooner it disappears, the better.
I’m glad I’m done now because now I’m getting really pissed. I had been ignoring Israeli politics for years before this massacre, preferring to focus on things here in America. Thank you for making me remember what utter garbage the state of Israel is.
These orthodox/ultraorthodox Jewish people would be the best educated from the Jewish traditional religious pov. I would guess for a truly religious Jew, that should matter more than secular education.
I agree. I don’t really like Israel, but I looked at Twitter earlier today (just discovered you can still do so without having an account through a site called Nitter) and the level of unhinged fanaticism against Israel is really a bit disturbing and can’t be explained on rational grounds. Lots of people claiming Israel is conducting a “genocide”. imo such hyperbole isn’t motivated by genuine humanitarian principles or worry about this crisis turning into a regional conflagration (which is my main concern), something else is going on. And among a certain kind of left-winger at least it’s also linked to a generalized anti-Western sentiment. Saw one leftie express his solidarity with Arabs holding pro-Palestine protests in France, and how tyrannical Macron’s crackdown against them supposedly is. He gloated that “they” (presumably Europeans) had oppressed the world for 500 years, but now they had trouble even ensuring internal security. Such types might well cheer on Islamic insurgencies in Europe.
Also got the impression that Israel/Palestine has largely displaced Ukraine as a topic among the Twitterati. Despite NAFO and the like the level of emotionalism and fanaticism among both anti-Israel and pro-Israel types is a billion times worse. There’s something about this conflict that turns people into total maniacs.
He’s confusing Haredim with the National Religious people. It’s different categories of cults and they are opposite in the superficial ways.
E.g. Haredim are poor, National Religious are above average incomes. Haredim are often anti-military and anti-Zionist, National Religious are usually pro-military and pro-Zionist.
Also associating Yitzhar with Bnei Brak? I would guess he doesn’t have experience in Israel. Those are not similar in any ways.
I don’t think it would be possible after the recent events.
If you see what it looks like with the “empirical result” of the 2005 Gaza disengagement.
The story of Gaza after 2005, is like an Islamist horror film version of the “Vajont Dam” disaster of 1959.
I would say Israel is quite Western, maybe it will have to change direction after this year and change to something else.
Sure, population base can be similar to Turkey, Ukraine and Iraq. Urban planning is like in the postsoviet space.
But there are also things which are more Western than some of the Western European countries i.e. countries like Greece can feel less Western than secular areas in Israel for my experience.
Year of pig is ancient history almost.
It’s now the year of the fluffy bunny.
Next year is going to be GREAT.
Mickey Roarke used to be a movie star!
You’ve obviously never been to Yitzhar. You really don’t know anything about the Haredim or the Hardalim. You only know secular and traditional Israelis.
The theology is Yitzhar is much different than the theology in Meah Shearim. You think I don’t know that? But both groups hate the state of Israel and hate the IDF. Ask anyone in Meah Shearim or Yitzhar what they think about secular Israelis and they will say that they want them to return to Europe and the Arab countries.
You don’t know anything.
Excellent Thread.
1/n Part 13/16 of a #Sanskrit review of Ernst Junger’s “On Pain”.
I titled it “The Commonness of Sacrifice/Victimization”.
Junger says that the real spirit of a society can be gauged by noticing which sacrifices it considers “normal” as unavoidable tradeoff for a greater good.
https://nitter.net/Parikramah/status/1716272470955626801#m
I knew that there was some good in you Greasy.
Thanks for confirming it!
Now, if the Moshiach doesn’t come in the next few decades, all you have to do to fulfill your spiritual obligations, is joining these guys:
And as I already have written, if your mindstream is still being reborn around 2400 as an Abrahamic, I will vouch for you on the day of the Rudrachakrin’s final battle against the Abrahamic Mlecchas.
I will make that a part of my meditation.
You don’t understand Hebrew. Your comments about Israel are incorrect in some simple ways, which I often need to correct.
So, I’m wondering why you write aggressively and confidently without having knowledge about it? It’s a high noise to signal in your posts, enough to usually regret not skimming them
Meah Shearim is populated with several Haredi inbreeding cults like “Neturei Karta”.
I’m not sure why you consider this exciting or special. It’s like you are saying “if you aren’t friends with Westboro Baptist Church, Nation of Islam and David Koresh, I’m not talking about America”.
–
Bnei Brak is not so bad actually except the buildings, atmosphere is kind of relaxing there.
Maybe a stupid question, but why is it so important to have a phone on you when you’re on a roof? Couldn’t you just leave it at ground level? Is it because you get a lot of calls and can’t afford to miss them and it’s inconvenient to constantly climb down and check your phone?
I seldom answer phone calls these days, even if it’s someone I don’t mind talking to. (I never answer calls with no caller ID.) I usually have the volume off so I’m often not even aware the phone’s ringing. If people want to contact me, they can just text – and I take my time, often hours, replying to texts too. (If someone says it’s urgent I will reply immediately.) I used to catch a lot of flak for this – “God what is wrong you, you never answer your phone!!!” – but these days most people in my circle have a similar attitude. If you want to “keep tech at bay”, isn’t ceasing to make yourself immediately available to anyone who wants your time a simple step in that direction?
Are you sure it’s genuine? I very occasionally see a guy with a flip phone, and when I do the impression I automatically form is that he’s either tech-incompetent or that he’s some kind of “techphobe” malcontent, even though I understand there are perfectly valid reasons for eschewing touchscreens. I don’t say anything, but if I were to, it’d be something like “bucking the trend eh? that’s pretty brave” or point to it and say “I can see the sense in it…” but both those remarks would be insincere.
Personally, even if I were as anti-touchscreen as you and Mikel, I would persevere with the touchscreen, because living in shitlib central it’s already viewed as “suspicious” that I don’t have any social media accounts, and I couldn’t afford to compound that by having a flip phone. And when I mention I don’t have social media accounts, I have to phrase it as “nah, I deleted all that” – which often gets “wow, that’s impressive” comments, half of which are prob insincere – rather than “nah, I don’t use that stuff” (which gives off techphobe vibes), or if the person gives me reason to think they’re okay with a bit of anti-PC, I say “when you’ve been banned as many times as I have, you give up,” which tends to get a laugh (again, prob half insincere).
Damn, Greasy!
That was easily one of the most interesting comments I have come across at Unz – I didn’t know you threw in with the classic anti-Zionist Jewish camp.
Tel Aviv?! Tel Aviv can take it up the backside all it wants…there are public gay pride parades happening in Jerusalem where the blessed feet of the prophets and the saints and martyrs have tread. That is unacceptable. These have happened under the watch of Bani Israel within the short time they have had sovereignty over that holy city.
Bani Ismael and her confederates would never have allowed this.
Peace.
The ultra-orthodox are at least 13 – 14 % of Isreali population nowadays.
Their population has nearly doubled in less than 15 years. They hardly are a negligeable fringe phenomenon. And speaking of inbreeding, that was the way for Jewish population for centuries, which didn’t prevent it from surviving and even becoming a force to be reckoned with.
The time is on their side Dima, my secular Russian Israeli friends are actually worried about it. What happens in Israel these days will induce secular Jews to emigrate somewhere else, while the ultra-orthodox will stay put. I wouldn’t be dismissive about their influence on Israeli affairs.
Exactly, and this is why the Islamic Ummah is the only Abrahamic fraction that can manage preserving the purity of the Abrahamic traditions and should be put in charge of protecting the common Abrahamic heritage of all the Abrahamic creeds. The Judeo-Christians are not fit for the job as was already amply demonstrated in the last two hundred years or so.
I am writing this as an outside observer who simply sees the way things are evolving.
I suspect my luck and trade skills are worse than Barbarossa. When working alone, I like to have a phone so I can call the neighbors. Contingency planning…
— Help! My foot fell through a bad board and I am stuck.
— Help! Wildlife has displaced the ladder.
— Help! There is a gator down there.
— Help! “It seemed like a good idea at the time”
PEACE 😇
Your such a typical stupid and arrogant Israeli, even if you aren’t actually an Israeli. The people in Bnei Brak hate the state of Israel and hate the IDF. They don’t want to integrate into the state and they never will. You live in the same fantasy world that all secular Israelis do that the Haredim want to integrate into Israeli culture. If you actually knew any fucking Haredim, you would know that is bullshit.
Just like your Chiloni friends, you think that because the Haredim smile at you when you walked through Bnei Brak that they are your friends. They aren’t. The Haredim don’t like you, they don’t want to associate with you and they will NEVER serve in your army under any circumstances.
How many Zionist flags did you see in Bnei Brak, btw? I bet you didn’t see a single one.
Lions…
Alas, the Islamic Ummah is big on brutal purification and religious cleansing.
Suckers rely on Abrahamic traditions. Judeo-Christians realize that the relationship is akin to cold war Reagan… Trust But Verify.
It is easy to assume the best as an outsider — Extremely far and massively distant from the danger.
When friends, family, and children are at imminent risk, the only prudent behaviour is being armed for self defense. The Ummah’s shock troops, Allah Ahkbar Death Screamers, are trained to butcher Judeo-Christians. That was just demonstrated by the Hamas Ummah of Satan/Allah/Lucifer.
PEACE 😇
Since when has it been a requirement that anyone be “in charge of protecting the common Abrahamic heritage of all the Abrahamic creeds”? It’s a job role that you’ve plucked out of thin air, one that no one else on this planet would take seriously.
You are an outside observer making overconfident predictions on the basis of too little knowledge in order to satisfy deep-seated psychological needs that your Buddhist values have evidently failed utterly to help you deal with.
I’m sorry, are you claiming that it is inherently immoral to kill male prisoners of war and take their women as concubines?
Peace.
Yes. Murder and rape are inherently immoral.
PEACE 😇
Well thank you!
But given your hedonism and self-centered philosophy, I would think you are also an outsider to the Abrahamic creeds.
And anyway, given that you have been somewhat wounded in your pride by my friendly a couple of threads ago. So I won’t be too certain of your “deep-seated psychological needs either”.
Be well friend…
🙂
There is no greater condemnation of humankind than that it came up with Islam. I would happily – with utmost joy in my heart – prefer to see us all perish or go extinct than to turn muzz. Some things can’t be comprised on.
It’s a shame that you don’t heed your own advice when it comes to the Ukrainian people (or you’re a lousy hypocrite). I suppose that you try and justify your own convoluted sense of hypocrisy here, by trying to convince others (and even yourself) that Ukrainians are not waging a defensive war. The problem is, that the Ukrainians are fighting a defensive war against an imperialistic aggressor within their own country. Your inability to acknowledge this is either a sign of your lousy hypocrisy or just a manifestation of severe cognitive disabilities.
kremlinstoogeA123’s convoluted world where Ukraine is waging an “offensive war”against Russia.
So, in Samuel (in the Bible) when God/Yahweh/Jesus orders, through the mouth of his prophet:
“Now go and smite Amalek, and utterly adestroy all that they have, and spare them not; but slay both man and woman, infant and suckling, ox and sheep, camel and ass.”
And in Numbers (in the Bible) when Moses ordered:
“Now therefore kill every boy, and kill every woman who has been intimate with a man in bed. But all the young women who have not experienced a man’s bed will be yours.”
Then God/Yahweh/Jesus ordered something inherently immoral according to you, correct?
Peace.
I’m still partial to Christianity, though certainly not in any orthodox, true-believer fashion. If I had my way, I would strip it of all association with Abrahamic excrescences. “Helleno-Christianity” rather “Judeo-Christianity.”
I don’t recall my pride ever being wounded by anything you said. Refresh my memory. I swear by all I call holy to report honestly what I feel after I (re?)read it.
Islam has its “shadow” just like other spiritual traditions do, but it had its achievements back in the day, before it became somewhat degenerate and corrupt (something that Muslims themselves acknowledge).
Nevertheless, as Talha astutely noted, under Islamic rule there were no Gay Pride parades in Jerusalem. And the three Abrahamic creeds co-existed more or less peacefully there, except for the Crusader exactions.
Truth is, even though weakened and corrupt, Islam still has what it takes to defend the traditional way of life for most humans, as opposed to the defense of this way of life for the chosen few by Judaism.
Christianity, alas, has lost its vigor and is slowly dying out. It would probably fare better under Islamic rule.
BTW, what have you done lately to prevent Islam from reaching the Abrahamic Apex in a few generations?
Any kids you have sired and raised as Good Christians ?
🙂
No, they did not. As I said, they continued their predecessors’ bad policies.
Boomers loved Reagan but he wasn’t a boomer. He was born in 1911.
And while Reagan was popular across the board, he was most popular among pre-Boomers:
https://ropercenter.cornell.edu/how-groups-voted-1984
He was less popular among Boomers than among previous generations. Even Gen X liked him slightly more.
Point taken. War on Terror was a stupid problem made by boomers.
But in the overall scheme of things, the big problems came from the generation before the boomers.
It’s following a precedent created by the pre-Boomers.
It started going up in the 1980s under pre-boomer Reagan. Boomer Clinton actually brought it down. Then boomer GW Bush exploded it.
The person administering the poison is also responsible, but not as bad as the person who created it.
Was that legislation really such a bad thing? It seems like the main issue with it was that it didn’t bring over anywhere near as many cognitive elites to the US as it should have. The US could have imported working-class Latin Americans and huge numbers of cognitive elites from all over the world to a much greater degree than it actually did (and still does) in real life, similar to what Canada, Australia, and New Zealand have done (but on a smaller scale, since they have much smaller total populations).
Even as it is, other than the Latin Americans, the non-Europeans whom the US got have mostly been cognitive elites. We just didn’t get enough of them relative to the working-class Latin Americans until fairly recently.
Vietnam was a much bigger mistake, IMHO. The US should not have fought that war at all and instead simply opened its doors wide open to Vietnamese refugees who were fleeing Communism.
Lol, now there’s a great religious marketing line: “In Islam we only kill your menfolk!”
Thanks for reminding me what utter garbage the OT is. Curse the “Early Christian Father” fuckwits who, back when there was still a chance for a clean break, cemented the ties of the new faith to these stupid semitic sand fables, as though they were in way whatsoever an improvement on the paganism they displaced.
I kindly refer the gentleman to the answer I gave some moments ago: (1)
The Old Testament has even more verbiage evolution issues than the New. Not to mention wildly different historical context.
You provide an example why Attempting literal word for word blind acceptance will fail. This is among the many reasons why Christianity is morally superior to the debauched Islam that worships Satan/Allah/Lucifer. Those who follow God, opposing Allah, are not lured to immorality by past errors of transcription and translation.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://www.unz.com/imercer/hamas-israel-and-the-anatomy-of-state-treason/#comment-6206964
Sure, that was pretty merciful for Late Antiquity and up until the Geneva Conventions started rolling around fairly recently in human history.
Asserting that the killing of military-age male prisoners of war as murder prior to that would be dismissed without second thought by every civilization and culture on the planet.
I know people like you think we are moral apes that just climbed down from trees, but our grandfathers watched as your grandfathers came up very, very creative ways to incinerate men, women and children indiscriminately and on an industrial scale. And do it from such a convenient distance as to not even have to look them in the eye or hear their screams.
Whoa – a Marcionite, in the flesh!!!
Peace.
What? The history of the Islamic world been one of uninterrupted political failure, obscurantism and scientific/cultural decline for several centuries. If you leave aside the Ottomans with their virtually European-by-blood elite and armies drawn from child-soldiers of the Christian Balkans and Armenia, Islam has been a loser religion at least since the Mongol invasions (beating up Pajeets & negroes is not any real military accomplishment).
So, you evaded my question. No problem, let’s try again.
Are you saying that God/Yahweh/Jesus did not order the killings of women and babies in the Old Testament?
All the translations basically say the same thing:
https://www.biblegateway.com/verse/en/1%20Samuel%2015%3A3
Or are you saying that this is just a made up story with no actual historical occurrence? If so, what is the purpose of putting in mythical story in which God/Yahweh/Jesus orders the killing of women and babies? What is the moral lesson to be derived from that (for instance like one would derive from any one of Aesops Fables)?
Or are you saying the Bible is inherently contradictory and thus unreliable as a source text?
Peace.
Actually – after reviewing this, don’t worry about my previous questions…this is sufficient, thanks!
Peace.
The New Testament and early Christian writers were a heroic if quixotic attempt by Hellenised Jews and Greek writers to reconcile the inherent barbarism of a Bronze Age Semitic cult with higher standards of subsequent philosophy & internalised morality. Of course it was deeply contradictory.
Islam was simply reversion to the earlier tribal savagery, naturally appealing to a people on a similarly primitive level of civilisation to that of the Jewish tribes over thousand years earlier. Which is more logically consistent, if you like.
Christianity from the beginning at least acknowledged the Bible as the work of many authors over a long period. Imagine being gullible enough to seriously believe something as flawed as the Quran was the literal word of g-d. Or to believe in rewards of divine prostitutes after death.
Well that wasn’t my question. My question was pretty clear; did God/Yahweh/Jesus actually order the killing of women and babies through the mouths of His messengers? And was that order inherently immoral?
Yup.
See what I mentioned up thread. Higher level of civilization did not prevent European Christians from reversion to tribal savagery…their technology simply amplified their capabilities. Higher standards of philosophical discourse are nice – why didn’t they prevent the most educated and civilized cultures on the planet from record-setting bloodbaths? I mean, I get it – we’re primitive retards as you pointed out – but what’s your excuse?
I guess making it up as they went along, no problem. Makes total sense to me, that’s basically what we say about the Bible – thanks for the confirmation.
Yes, divine prostitutes would be a very, very silly belief. I can’t think of a single Muslim that believes in divine prostitutes.
Peace.
Does raise the question how the “counter-offensive” is going. Or has Gaza drawn a helpful veil over that embarrassment?
It is not 1990 and it can’t be rolled back. The colonization of the West Bank was a huge mistake, unsustainable. The fact that “freedom-loving” West actively supported it with money or pretended to look the other way tells us who gets human rights and who doesn’t.
Once Palestinians have any legal rights – it will happen eventually unless they are exterminated – the right of return can’t be outlawed. How would it work? We can’t even keep a spouse and her relatives from joining a refuge in Europe, how would anyone control who returns to Palestine?
We like each other and have almost no issues, other than who gets to be a minister…:), and the overly-centralized modern state. You have to understand that Praguers can be unbearable. Just visit Prague, it is beautiful, but also an absurdist horror show of liberal self-regard and narcissistic infantilism. The failed writer Havel was a typical representation, try to watch one of his “plays”. They are unbearable. I suspect most of the Czech countryside would separate if they could. Nothing at all like the Middle East.
The largest fault I find with my parent’s generation, and there are many, is their absolute faith in what television tells them. Television news has a remarkable hold on them, and this hasn’t shifted, despite everything. That poll on support for Israel amongst age groups is very telling, sure there is a demographic angle, but really it is measure of the boomers faith in TV.
Jews are segmentary people, as are all Middle Eastern people, a two state solution, or rather a binational state, with a minority in each state is perfectly possible. The real issue is Jewish fundamentalism, the desire to build a third temple and establish a state stretching from parts of Egypt to Iraq. Jews are not a rational people, so this would have to be imposed from the outside, perhaps China and Russia can do so. As mentioned settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem would have to be dismantled.
I remember that Batman cartoon from when I was young, it always had a darker, more mature feel, that made it seem out of place alongside the other cartoons.
I always liked Dogtanian and the Three Muskehounds, as well as Around the World with Willy Fog, of course both cartoon retellings of classics.
Man, I check in briefly and Ivashka/Bashibuzuk finally admits he’s an Islamic fundamentalist – although it’s been obvious for some time.
All the “Islam is about to conquer the world!” at every moment was always obviously projection of desire rather than “prediction”.
And Talha gleefully joins in saying, bizarrely, that in Islam you should kill adult men and take women as sex slaves.
Religion is truly at a low point – I almost want to apologize to all the atheists here for my saying that religion is the answer. I may have been wrong.
I don’t know about that, but it does come across as more than just rolling out the welcome mat for our new overlords.
It can be the “answer” for an individual, privately, but even then one should be wary of taking it too seriously. Not only do I think you place far too much hope in any global (or even merely national) good coming from religion, you are also far too hasty, like the world has to be transformed right now, no more waiting. (Almost as bad as some “net zero now” environut, lol, sorry.)
It was oppressive spiritual and cultural trash from day one. It has nothing to offer the world, whether in its degenerate and corrupt form or its pristine upright form.
Let me in turn “astutely” note that a gay pride parade is obviously the lesser of two evils if the only alternative is Islamic rule. (I am disgusted – utterly disgusted – that this would even have to be spelled out.)
Nothing “gleeful” about any of my responses…nor did I say you “should” kill adult men prisoners of war or take women as “sex slaves”. These are your words, not mine – and you have been known to put words in people’s mouths before. This is how you argue against straw man points.
My question was clear about whether the critics of Islam consider something like killing military age male prisoners of war as “inherently immoral” – and, if they do, how do they square that God/Yahweh/Jesus ordered the killing of women and babies in the Bible.
Peace.
I was writing about Abrahamic religions, you are writing about culture and science. The preservation of Abrahamic creeds heritage has absolutely nothing to do with scientific or cultural achievements of the Western civilization. What you wrote is therefore irrelevant.
For people like you – post-Christian secular hedonists, it certainly is preferable to be ruled by the GloboHomo. But you are endliners, a dying breed whose opinion hardly matters at all given that your type will exit the historical scene before this century’s end. You are not a religious person, so your pronouncements are just opinions not firmly linked to anything spiritual, just online posturing.
Another idiotic comment from our liberal NY hypocrite. Another proof (if any still needed) that you have no theory of mind, just your bizarre projections.
I have no intention of reading the Quran, but my understanding is that according to the standard view it does contain different layers whose prescriptions are contradictory and reflect an evolution in the writer’s thought (fitting with Mohammed’s different circumstances in Mecca and Medina). Which might be considered a bit odd if it had come word for word directly from God.
What are those in your understanding:
https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Houri_(Heavenly_Virgin)
I’ve noticed people tend to be happier living in dictatorships/less democratic countries. It seems like defending an authoritarian government and “Dear Leader” type figure gives a lot of people purpose in life, they feel part of something in contrast to “democratic” countries which tend to be more individualistic and “anything goes”.
In Western countries, I think the “freedom” results in people harbouring all sorts of grievances and dissatisfactions that people in authoritarian countries don’t, because to even entertain such thoughts would be seen as subversive and anti-government.
I know, and imo it was impressive how Czechs and Slovaks handled their national divorce in such a civilized manner without any bloodshed. But if even two closely related peoples with not that much historical baggage decided they’d rather live in two separate states, there’s no prospect imo of Jews and Muslim Arabs living harmoniously together in one state. They’ll just keep killing and waging a war of the womb against each other in that new framework.
Do you see many Germans moving to (former) East Prussia?
Not even that many in the former Sudetenland or Silesia, where theoretically they could go without too many problems. The idea that descendants of the 1948 refugees could return en masse to historic Palestine is absurd, unless Israel is destroyed this won’t happen.
They aren’t women; they’re never called “women” linguistically. They have the likeness of human females, but they never descended from any branch of the human tree – they are not from the Children of Adam (as). Nor did they gestate in a womb or grow up from being infants to adulthood, etc…nor is it clear that they actually have any level of free will as human beings do. Furthermore, the Quran clearly states that:
“They will recline on thrones arranged in ranks. And We shall marry them to lustrous-eyed Houris.” (52:20)
Peace.
This is an interesting observation. Just up the thread, the answers I received from proponents of Christianity about its epistemic foundations are about what I would receive from an atheist professor in any university Near Eastern Studies program; the Bible is a work that was in flux and edited along the way by unknown authors over the centuries trying to reconcile the philosophy of a Bronze Age cult with Hellenistic ideals. This is a postmodern understanding of Christianity that few premodern Christians would have recognized and may have (in practice) cut out the tongue of anyone taking that position.
You cannot build a religion on that foundation – and we are seeing the consequences…no other religion is collapsing faster than Christianity. I personally do not like this fact, since I would much rather prefer a world populated by believing Christians than atheists, but wishes are irrelevant to what is actually happening:
Peace.
Maybe Christians (including cultural Christians, this is embedded in the culture) are always going to understand religious purity in Christocentric terms, and in terms of the NT as the standard of purity.
I think one of the products of this is the ‘New Covenant’ versus ‘Old Coventant’ split, where an eternal society under the rule of the New Covenant of Christ (the Church) is supposed to co-exist on earth with one still partly under the Old, the finite ‘world’, where Satan and mortality still retain their power. And this will be the case until the Second Coming when the imperfect and mortal element will end.
A kind of dynamic revolving around this division seems to persist through European thought. There is a question about how truly religiously neutral and religion-independent European derived ideas of secularism, the state, society, religion etc. because they are mostly rooted in this cultural background.
Like the Church/state thing, this seems to ultimately derive from the old split between the spiritual power and temporal (or secular, of the century) power you found clearly in Latin Christianity after Augustine.
Although unwilling to push too hard, the US will ceaselessly react to tip the balance in Ukraine’s favour, but that will always produce a counter reaction from Russia. In the final analysis its all going to cancel out and no decisive result is now possible. Anyone who thinks that when Trump fails to win– money and time tied up by criminal prosecutions–V.Putin will quit the war in Ukraine must be living in a fantasy world. So there is going to be no end to this until both sides accept that in a fair fight of good against evil the result will be a draw.
I run AdBlock Plus and that nixes the ads on YouTube as well. I agree fully about not giving them a dime.
I don’t think we could call A123, GR, Silvio or Yevardian Christian. Just like we couldn’t seriously consider Aaron or Dima as Jewish. They are secular and postmodern. Therefore, whatever they write in defense of Judeo-Christian tradition is simply grandstanding. Same about their rejection of Islam, they dislike Islam not because of some fundamental theological differences with Judeo-Christianity, but because Islam is simply less pleasurable from their pov. Their attitude towards religion and spirituality is pragmatic and utilitarian, it should be “fun” and “trendy” to be a believer. If not it is not worth it.
Of course this attitude is leading nowhere, and the postmodern West is the exact demonstration of this failure to have a meaningful evolution towards anything greater than the present sate of affairs. Our post-Christian friends would decry the West sliding down the historical drain, and complain about the Great Replacement, but they fail to see the root cause of this degradation. The root cause is excessive rationalism leading to moral relativism, hedonism and in the end nihilism.
Barbarossa has written that he noticed lately that he has no problem finding some common ground with any deeply religious person, while it is getting more and more complicated to find a common ground between a secular and a religious persons. I think he is right. The divide of our era is not Islam vs Judeo-Christianity, or perhaps even Abrahamic religions vs Dharmic religions, but between postmodern secularism and traditionalism.
And I agree with you that the de-Christianisation of the West and formerly Christian realm is sad to witness. So much struggle for such a waste in the end. Centuries of effort to give up and “go shopping”, “keep partying” and “have fun” while the future is increasingly decided elsewhere.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Grand_Inquisitor
I don’t really need it up there but usually my phone is just riding in a pouch throughout the work day. I don’t answer it if I’m climbing but I do keep it on me since I often have to take questions from other contractors or employees etc.
Thankfully I don’t live in shitlib central so I’m not worried in the least in advertising my strangeness. I go as far as writing articles in the local papers that actively advertise my contrarian view, so I’m not worried about what anyone thinks of my malcontentedness.
Once in a while I do get some snark, but I’m fairly sure that most of the reactions are genuine. I live in a somewhat atypical corner of the world and tend to associate with atypical people within that, so I guess it’s not too surprising to me.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apsara
An idealized feminine archetype. Funny and telling how our post-Christian friends tend to generate sexualized projections about it. Where a religious person would think of beauty and purity, they automatically think of spiritual prostitution. Hylics cannot see the Real as pneumatics do. It is a fundamental divide. Anyway, “let them eat cake”…
🙂
Russia on Gaza and Israel – Security Council Media Stakeout | United Nations
My wife just spoke to a friend of ours (former nanny) who has just returned from visiting family in a small provincial Russian city in the Volga region. Her impression was very bleak – funerals all the time, everybody is very angry though they don’t focus their anger on Putin (perhaps this is good for the sake of self-preservation). She spoke to a young woman at a playground with children: the father was sent to war, lost his ear, it was fixed, and he was returned to war. Our friend’s impression was that the number of casualties among provincial Russians was huge. Many deaths, many injuries, nobody can do anything about it but seethe at life and each other. A very sad, angry and hopeless place.
This is a very different impression than what we get from our family and friends in Moscow, which has been insulated from the war. People are less unhappy and less angry in Moscow. Funny thing from Moscow: many of the Western brands have left, but are replaced by identical knockoffs. It seems since the nice Western stuff is produced in China, factories with the same things are reproducing facsimiles of similar quality but a slightly different name.
One thing about Moscow however is that there has been a large exodus of young educated men with means to live cheaply abroad (and many of their educated girlfriends). Even though they are not eligible for the draft (yet) they aren’t taking chances and have left.
It’s also different from the situation in Ukraine, at least the western and central parts where life is more normal than, it seems, in provincial Russia. There is anger there too, but it is focused on Russia.
If there is a Palestinian state, or a bi-national state, the returns will happen – there is no way in the modern world to prevent it. It is not the same as Sudetens – there isn’t currently a community in Czechia where they could function, so they don’t move.
The Israel-Palestine problem has no humanly acceptable solution, i agree that coexistence is close to impossible. But neither side is moving. So it is tempting to look the other way, ‘not our issue’. What it does is put a lie to things the West is claiming about itself. That is significant.
Czechs-Slovaks had the advantage of a 1,000 year old border and no mixed ethnic areas. That is almost never the case in these disputes. See how ww2 ended. The current ethnic wars – because that’s what they are in Israel-Palestine and Ukraine – will end like ww2, or not end at all.
Total bs. I have never written that the point of one’s life should be to “just have fun”. You should at least make an effort to understand the views of your interlocutors instead of just resorting to lazy cliches about secularists only being interested in hedonism.
At core the issue is simply one of truth for me. I believe Islam’s claims to truth are utterly false. It also happens to be a historic (and latently present) enemy of the civilization I belong to, so that’s another reason to be opposed it.
I have never claimed to be a believing Christian (though unlike with Islam I can’t claim to be certain that Christianity is false, the resurrection is a mystery), and have in fact often criticized what I view as harmful consequences of Christianity. However, my position on Christianity, like that of pretty much all Westerners, is bound to be more complicated, since it isn’t something alien like Islam, but historically at the very center of our civilization and something that still has profound effects on our modes of thinking, for both good and ill.
@Talha:
Ok, but you’re not really denying that rewards for the believer in the afterlife are understood in a sensual, sexual way. Which must sound quite hilariously stupid to most people outside Islam.
There was some recent discussion about peace plans for the Donbass conflict before Russia’s 2022 invasion, maybe interesting in this regard:
https://responsiblestatecraft.org/sergei-sivokho-dead/
Can’t judge how accurate the details in this piece are (as I wrote before, I think Petro is at least somewhat biased).
No, why would I deny this? The human experience on earth has a pleasurable side – everything from delicious food and drink, expansive living spaces, beautiful sights (like verdant gardens) and sexual experience. That paradise should have some sort of analogous experience of all of these (plus things that are even beyond human comprehension and imagination) but of a profoundly more intense and extraordinary nature is not incoherent or illogical.
OK, but it doesn’t to those inside…virility is considered a positive and laudable trait.
Peace.
The “counter-offensive” is obviously going slower than what the pundits of this war expected. I summed up most of my thoughts about this in comment #9 above. On the whole though, Ukraine is winning this campaign:
Watch the video clip that I posted above, hosted by Denys Davidov. It highlights the differences and strategies of the two opposing sides quite well. The Ukrainian side is very thoughtfully and carefully progressing being very mindful of avoiding Russian defensive lines of trenches, in effect avoiding them or going around them, whereas the Russian side is clumsily and haphazardly trying to achieve its goals by sending many lines of combatants forward with no deference to maintaining lives…into the “meat grinding” slaughter. No wonder the folks back home in the Volga area are depressed with the mounting number of coffins and funerals for their loved ones. Sad, very sad.
White House Fears 2 Front War, No Plan, Multiple Crises, US Overextended; ATACMS Flopped
Past Israeli Ground Operations & the Limits of Israeli Military Power
Less biased than the overtly pro-Kiev regime advocates.
I think we have to call you a Muslim… Your Islam is leading you astray
Those of us who are Christians are appalled that theoretically Christian institutions are sliding. I have discussed the fact that I live one a one church town and the woke minister sent by HQ has functionally killed it.
As a Muslim you should be celebrating the elevation of Pope Muhammad Francis of Islam. He is the Dhimmi slave your faith always wanted. Those of us who are Christians obviously take the opposite view.
I am not sure why you accuse Judeo-Christians posting here of being hedonistic. I will mark that down as another Muslim lie on your part.
PEACE 😇
I realised afterwards that I should have written something about the importance Protestantism and the Reformation in Northern Europe had in the evolving idea of secularism, the particular approach that developed to Christ, the Church and the temporal/spiritual split etc.
Because after a certain point, imo the momentum behind spiritual/cultural debates in Christianity has tended to come from this source.
Killing adult males on the battlefield is obviously legitimate, but killing prisoners of war? And taking concubines?
As for the Old Testament, both Jews and Christians have interpreted it allegorically and not literally. And the Hellenistic pagans similarly interpreted their myths allegorically.
Philo of Alexandria is most commonly cited as systemizing for Jews the allegorical approach (not inventing it, systemizing it), and Origen was the church father who systematized (not invented) the allegorical method for the church, but non-literal interpretation was standard in the late Hellenistic world – one of my favorite fathers, Gregory of Nyssa, wrote a Life of Moses in which he explicitly says it’s likely much of the biblical narrative didn’t happen, but are allegorical spiritual lessons.
Last week I was reading in the Philokalia, book three, and it was quoting extensively from some third century Syrian ascetic, I forget who, who was giving an extended – and quite beautiful – treatment of many Bible verses, entirely allegorically.
Monks used to chant the Psalms as their main liturgical practice, and it was long considered that the nasty bits were entirely a spiritual allegory.
And what about Islam?
I am certain that Islamic theologians have also developed a sophisticated allegorical method. There are countless verses in the Koran that no decent or intellectually serious person can take literally. And Islam had an immensely sophisticated philosophical tradition – Ibn Sina, for instance, was a big influence on the Rambam and through him St Thomas Aquinas.
It is only in modern times, under the influence of science and materialism, that some religious people began to interpret Scripture very literally, and that the practice became widespread.
Today’s Islamic fundamentalism is as much a version of modernity, and as much influenced by the modern climate of materialism and science, as communism or any other totalitarianism.
They are all the dark side of modern “realism”.
Yeah, I think it’s been obvious for some time that Ivashka had more than a neutral relationship to Islam – or really, Islamic fundamentalism, I should say.
He was celebrating the Hamas massacre as revenge for Soleimani in a very personal way. And the Israel and Palestine thing is personal for him, too.
Yeah, I think you’re right. I was investing far too much hope in it. I’ve always been against organized religions as corrupt, but I was still hoping for some kind of religious transformation which is unlikely to happen.
I’m going to back off of my social advocacy in general – I’m not sure I really believe in social or historical solutions anymore.
I want to return to my original approach to spirituality, which was always to me it’s most attractive aspect – mystical and personal.
You know, it’s often thought that in Judaism and Christianity history has meaning, a direction, purpose – but that’s not strictly true. That’s a secularization of Christianity. In real Christianity, were basically just waiting for God to renew the world as promised, and rescue us from history 🙂
So I’m just gonna wait 🙂 And do my best to live right and approach the world mystically. But social advocacy is just sublimated will to power, reality.
Well that is the question; are these actions inherently immoral? And, if so, did God/Yahweh/Jesus command, not only those in the Bible, but the killing of babies as well?
I don’t know if this is absolutely true, but if you are saying the Bible is simply allegorical when it refers to certain historical events, that’s fine. That brings up a couple of other conundrums; 1) what exactly is the purpose/teaching-lesson behind an allegorical tale commanding the killing of babies and 2) if it is not historical and simply allegorical, then one can dismiss everything from the exodus to the Hebrew prophets and everything besides.
And that’s OK – that’s why (as Ivashka pointed out) you are simply looking at it as an intellectual/academic exercise, neither Christianity nor Judaism has convinced you either. A religion supported and defended by a bunch of people who don’t believe in it or practice it is simply a dead man walking – it has long lost its capability to attract actual believers rather than those who consider it like an interesting phenomenon of human history and evolution.
As far as Islam, sure there are indeed verses in the Quran to be taken literally and also those that are metaphorically interpreted. Yet there are still no allegorical verses talking about the killing of babies. And I don’t really know of any traditional scholars that espouse the idea that events posited as historical events were otherwise.
Peace.
That is kind of a cheap shot. Silva can’t do anything by himself. First he needs to find a woman who would cooperate. Have you talked to a lot of women lately?
Possession of sperm is no where close to the minimum requirement. : )
If that’s all that I am, why would I waste my time posting here? There’s nothing stopping me from living it up and adopting a devil take the hindmost attitude toward my society and civilization.
“Posturing”? What a silly accusation. Why would I need to posture?
That there are different degrees of religiosity should go without saying. Frankly, I resent having a disagreeable asshole like you tell me I’m not religious at all – as you if you actually knew anything about me or the journey I’ve traveled – but you seem to have taken a disliking to me because I questioned some of your beliefs, so okay, go ahead, hit back.
Your understanding of the history is biased. Other sources will explain that there were remnants of the Nephalim which required extermination so that proper civilization could emerge unencumbered with demonic DNA.
Get your facts right first before spreading bizarre opinion!
: )
There is already conflict in the above two sentences. It is a mess, too many Jews want it all and nobody in the West has the balls to tell them that is neither just nor possible.
There is also not enough land between Mediterranean and Jordan river for already 10 million people and both sides trying to multiply as fast as they can to get an advantage. If we project 20-40 years forward it will become a hellish place with too many people for the resources there, deep hostilities and hatreds. Really a true Holy land….could they just move it to Vegas?
Historically, poetically and yes allegorically, perhaps some other metaphoric ways too…it’s not always easy to know when one system ends and another begins. Reading the Philokalia eh? Pretty heady stuff as I recall? I read parts of it some 30 years ago. Perhaps, when I retire more from this world, I’ll pick it up again.
I recently recommended a book to you (“The war for righteousness” by Richard M. Gamble). It deals exactly with that kind of phenomenon. It focuses on how this played out during WW1, but I also found it quite fascinating in a more general way about the mentality of “progressive” Christians in early 20th century America (who indeed believed in progress towards some perfected end state of history, in this world, with some going even so far as claiming that there would be no real 2nd coming, it was just a metaphor for the long process of progressive improvement).
It’s strange though. I thought he was delighting in them killing each other, having no use for either of them.
Now it’s like he’s on his knees happily slurping islamic cock.
I wonder what the next iteration will bring.
Why does someone who loves Putin and hates the evil West so much live in the UK? I don’t get people like that.
Let’s say it is true: it was about allegorical myths meant to pass on as traditions. But why would they create allegories that are so bloody, gory, xenophobic and power hungry? Doesn’t that give us a window into their thinking? The very same people then also presumably created the divine stuff, preached about morality, set up rules to live by.
The idea that the evil stuff is there to highlight the divine good – an ancient idea that good can’t exist without evil – doesn’t fit: the evil is done by the so-called good people, by the people who are worshipping the correct way. Why wouldn’t they assign all evil to the enemy if it was only an allegory? They seem to boast about it.
Something doesn’t add up. One suspects we are being duped…
I’m certainly biased, but I’m asking fairly clear questions and letting people answer them in their own words.
No problem, this seems to be a different angle than the allegorical explanation. Based on the above, would you say that your position is that; the Bible contains a historic account of God/Yahweh/Jesus ordering the killing of women and babies in order to purify the human race from genetic detritus. Does that sound correct?
Sure thing, I’m enquiring from people like yourself what exactly the facts are surrounding this subject.
Peace.
A better phrasing would be … too many Muslim colonists want it all and they refuse to listen when rational nations tell them that is neither just nor possible.
It does not even take that long. Iranian Hamas unilaterally destroyed the aquifer under Gaza. How many can surface water support? Probably ~500K? There is no way to fix the aquifer. Therefore, the clock is running on around two million Muslims abandoning Gaza.
Why Vegas? Neither Europe nor the U.S. wants them. What is needed is a “Right of Religious Return”. Muslim occupiers would be able to leave Palestine and return to Islamic lands.
PEACE 😇
I don’t know.
That is what seems to be playing out from my perspective as well.
Peace.
Thanks. If you have ten more unbiased anecdotal vignettes maybe we can then generate a tentative understanding of the Zeitgeist of contemporary Russia vis a vis the SMO in Ukraine.
Please include some representative contract soldiers and military professionals as well as engineers, managers and workers from the Russian military industrial complex. Please get input from a bureaucrat or two and also one each, pro- and anti-Putin oligarchs.
Personally, I think the Old Testament is quite a mash up of hagiographic ancient Jewish history and sacred scripture oftentimes informed by the Jews undeveloped conception of God as angry High Chief. The Great Tent Lord in the Sky if you will. Which is not a surprising conception for a pastoral, tribal, monotheistic people to gravitate to.
It’s a highly limited view though. The prophets often transcended this, but the Jews in general were stuck with this conception of a demanding, legalistic, transactional Deity. As a Christian of course, I believe that Jesus came to clean up those misconceptions and make clear that much more is required of us as humans. We have a divine responsibility to do the work of God here on Earth and to direct ourselves toward developing communion with God.
It’s all a matter of progression, and anyone looking to take the OT completely at face value is going to stuck with some simplistic notions about the Divine.
Moving to Shanghai fortunately enough won’t be a option for you, since you’re Christain. The Chinese State Ideology is after all Judeo-Bolshevism and not Judeo-Christian-Bolshevism.
Thanks for the reply. So in your view, the Old Testament is:
1) not Divinely inspired
2) basically a work of many Jewish authors and historians over some period of many centuries
So when they record an event like I mentioned; God/Yahweh/Jesus ordering the killing of women and babies through such and such Hebrew prophet, it just flat out never happened and some folks just made it up?
Is the above correct? Would you say that is a traditional Christian position? Something that would hold sway among the early Church fathers?
What is your view of the New Testament, if I may ask?
Do you consider it the Divinely-inspired Word of God, or is it similarly authored as the Old Testament? It is interesting to get an actual Christian’s take on this.
Peace.
BSW – the new conservative leftist party founded by Sahra Wagenknecht is at 12% .
I doubt the validity of that poll, the party hasn’t even been founded yet nor is its future programme known except in outline.
But sure, the big hope is that it will take votes away from AfD by offering voters a “reasonable” kind of leftism, without excessive wokeism and focused more on economic issues. We’ll have to see if it works. Personally I’m skeptical. Wagenknecht has certain talents, but she isn’t that great an organizer and so far there are no other prominent and popular figures associated with her project, it’s essentially a one-woman-show. She’ll also be unable to adopt the hardline position on immigration that is necessary to save Germany.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2003/dec/24/israel1
Not sure if you are being serious or sarcastic. Is there an antipathy towards Christianity in China due to the historical experience with the very bloody Taiping Rebellion?
Peace.
Both the Old and New Testaments were divinely inspired, but the work of fallible men.
There is no reason to believe that God explicitly gave instructions to murder that were subsequently transcribed. Oral tradition came before the written Old Testament. Dramatic story telling seems the most likely explanation for unbelievably extreme tales, but there is no way to know for sure.
If taken literally, what % of the human population was wiped out in The Flood? It is a distressingly large number. The allegory of Noah is a good one, however it is hard to accept as precise articulation of a real world event.
PEACE 😇
Why couldn’t God order that kind of massacre and remain perfect? What standards are there to judge God’s behaviour against?
I think Christians are going to have to accept that God did order those killings under the Old Covenant because of pervasive sin, and that it was just at that time. But since the Incarnation God won’t order any such killings any more.
🤷♂️ I’m not in a position to come to terms with Divine commands to kill women and babies.
OK, so – just for the record – the intentional killing of women and babies isn’t actually inherently immoral (otherwise God/Yahweh/Jesus would be commanding something inherently immoral – even for an instance here or there…but maybe not any longer), the only question is whether or not it was actually commanded by God/Yahweh/Jesus. Does that sound correct as your position?
Peace.
Opposing the Anglo-American media and political establishments doesn’t necessarily mean hating everything in the US and UK. It’s not so much about Putin as some suggest.
My basic position is what A123 articulated. I don’t take the position that the entire Bible is 100% scientifically and factually true. That being said, that does not preclude Divine inspiration. As A123 pointed out, humans are fallible, translation is fraught, memory is incomplete, and ulterior motives can sometimes be a factor. Just as today, it is easy for people to do terrible things believing that God is on their side and I have no issue believing that some of those Old Testament brutalities are a result of similar misattribution.
The Bible is valuable, but I don’t tend toward a Sola Scriptura approach. Christ promised the Holy Spirit, which is direct communication with God, and I’ve never found myself to be misled by that. That makes people uncomfortable sometimes since it’s hard to define and takes substantial discipline and discernment. Otherwise, it has the potential to become a form of deluding oneself that one’s own desires are God’s.
We can never know the truth in its’ fullness because we possess a fundamentally limited nature and perspective, but we can be pointed in the direction of truth throughout our lives, hopefully in an ever-deepening apprehension of it.
Why does someone who loves Putin and hates the evil West so much live in the UK? I don’t get people like that.
Don’t bother asking. They can’t admit such truths to themselves.
Putin’s top propagandist Solovyov threw a major fit when his Spanish villa was taken away. That’s the Jewish propagandist that Putin’s White nationalist fans never mention. One of Putin’s Voldemort Jews that are never to be discussed at White nationalist ice cream socials. They still cling to the belief that Putin is playing a long game against the Jews where he pretends to like them and keeps them in his inner circle for decades. A very long game you see.
Solovyov rants daily about how Russia is this great nation and yet he lost his mind on live tv over losing a Spanish property.
We can all observe the actions of Putin’s fans.
Very similar to how Western Marxist professors during the cold war kept their cushy 100k jobs instead of boarding a plane for the people’s utopia.
They really do love Marxism. They just love their BMW and McMansion even more.
The church is open from 9 to 11am on Sundays and Typica is usually prayed in Chinese at 10am.
Fresh footage of Russia’s disastrous Avdiivka offensive:
Ukraine can clearly see these offensives from miles away and they time the artillery to hit them well before they enter the battlefield. There are probably computers that do all the calculations.
Putin seems stuck in 1939. I really think he has watched too many WW2 movies. He is probably pounding his desk yelling “ATTACK” without understanding it is 2023 and big arrow offensives across open terrain are a bad idea when the enemy has better satellites and artillery.
The question is why he feels the need to attack at the moment. He is attacking under clear skies and without air support.
By any rational definition colonists are people who move to a place and not the ones who live there. Your wishful thinking doesn’t change that.
Sure they did. Was it before or after they moved in from somewhere else? Also, Hamas is supported by Qatar. You probably meant Hezbollah.
They are not occupiers, they live there. Are you suggesting an expulsion? That would be quite controversial and on its face illegal by any standard. It also doesn’t go with that PEACE that you stick in your messages. Grow up.
Jared Kushner and Ivanka have a Chinese nanny. According to Kushner, their kids speak fluent Mandarin.
This news caught my eye because Wagenknecht has been discussed several times in past open threads, especially concerning her ancestry.
I should think it’s obvious to any sufficiently developed moral sense that it’s inherently immoral. It’s also obvious that a God of Love would not command the killing of babies – and Christianity has never thought he did, and made clear that any passages that display God as worse than evil men ought obviously not to be taken literally but read as allegorical.
A religious text has to be read on multiple levels – there is obviously a literal historical substrate there, but the precise way it’s portrayed and the precise language used is meant primarily to contain spiritual lessons.
You’re being very fundamentalist here and very either/or.
It’s not me. It’s the Church in all of its history, and the Rabbis.
That’s why every religion has reams and reams of commentary – because you need exegesis to understand, you can’t simply take it literally.
Interestingly Zen has perhaps the most commentary and secondary literature of any tradition – even though it’s supposed to be a transmission without words.
It also has the famous injunction to kill the Buddha when you see him – not, of course, meant literally.
This isn’t intellectual or academic exercise, but necessary to understand texts that are at least partially gnomic, elusive, and beyond mere fact or reason – religion pertains to that side of life that is mysterious, and a religion that offered only clear cut literal texts would be a science, not a spiritual path.
Literalism and fundamentalism is the early stages of the death of a religion – it’s when the spirit begins to leave it and rigor mortis is beginning to set in.
Christianity flourished for longer than Islam, and it’s recent loss of credibility was preceded by a turn to literalism and fundamentalism of the kind Islam is currently in.
Fundamentalist Islam isn’t vigorous, it’s the first stages of the death of a religion. And the violence of the Muslim world is like the violence of the Christian world in the early 20th century – the last stage before the end.
But mystical Christianity is today making a revival, and after fundamentalist Islam declines, mystical Islam can likewise.
Thanks – the book does sound interesting I may have to pick it up.
I think one ought to live as virtually as one can, and one ought to promote a virtuous society. But we must remember that we’re really just biding our time here, and even the most virtuous society on this earth isn’t what the promise of Christianity is.
But it’s easy to lose sight of that and to just become socially progressive – I did.
Jews too have their Tikkun Olam – the original idea is likewise not social progressivism, as it’s been corrupted into, but theurgy – repairing the spiritual fabric of the universe through ritual, liturgy, and a life of virtue, whose ultimate goal is not merely a virtuous society but a renewed and transformed universe.
It is critical to grasp that the issues are religious, not ethnic.
I agree. The non-Palestinian religion of Islam colonized Palestine ~1,400 years ago. Your wishful thinking doesn’t change that.
Obviously, after the non-Palestinian religion of Islam moved in from Arabia.
Iranian Hamas, Iranian Hezbollah, and Palestinian Iranian Jihad [PIJ] are all proxies for Iran. Qatar may be putting in money too, but they are not calling the shots.
The non-Palestinian religion of Islam being in Gaza is an occupation. Living there is a prerequisite for an occupying force. I am not sure why this is confusing you.
There is no need. The lack of resources that the non-Palestinian religion brought down on themselves in Muslim occupied Gaza will drive a relocation.
Why are you against Islamic colonists peacefully returning home to Muslim lands? Your desire for violence is loathsome. You should grow up.
PEACE 😇
The problem here is that you are making absolute claims without any evidence. You are speaking on behalf of the Church “in all of its history” such that one example is enough to refute:
We read in Father Challoner’s commentary for I Kings 15: “The great Master of life and death (who cuts off one half of all mankind whilst they are children) has been pleased sometimes to ordain that children should be put to the sword, in detestation of the crimes of their parents, and that they might not live to follow the same wicked ways. But without such ordinance of God it is not allowable, in any wars, how just soever, to kill children.”
https://catholicism.org/ad-rem-no-267.html
“Q: Did G‑d once not just promote, but command genocide, including women and children, even infants?
A: Yes. Not genocide as we know it, since no one spoke of genes in those times, but something that looks quite ugly nonetheless.
The Israelites were commanded to entirely eliminate the tribes that inhabited the Land of Canaan in their conquest. The reason given was so that they would not assimilate their evil ways.
That’s one of the reasons it’s not really genocide: If a tribe or a member of one these tribes abandoned the offensive behavior of his or her tribal cult, they were no longer targeted. There is a tradition cited in the Jerusalem Talmud that Joshua sent three letters warning these people and offering a truce if they would keep the Noahide Laws (basic, universal law) and pay a tax to the Israelites—or leave the land.1 Those who did not accept were to be entirely wiped out.2“
https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2494730/jewish/Torah-and-Genocide-FAQ.htm
That is not allegorical interpretation. Religion and history are not what you would like them to be but rather what they are and have been.
Sure, but this is only tangentially related to the question I have been asking.
Peace.
Within the four seas, all men are brothers.
Did Spearchucker use the word “racist” more often than JJ uses the word “Putin?” Or was it (as I am guessing) less?
Anyhow, it is interesting how some wars get defined by someone’s name, while others don’t. Who makes the determination and how (or why) is it done?
Seems to me, if you can a name past a certain threshold – personalize it more – or deviate it more from some national categorization, then that is a successful way to build unilateralism, and stay away from the negotiation table.
Friendly reminder that thanks to your coreligionists, who in their literal interpretation of Islam find no problem in killing infidel women and children, a full generation of people around the world has been unable to travel by plane without being harassed with aggressive security measures for fear that some Islamist may be among them.
Incidentally, these odious screening practices are stupidly applied to poor Western elderly ladies and children that obviously pose no danger so that people like you will not protest about discriminatory profiling.
In fact, the only people that continue practicing indiscriminate massacres for religious reasons in the 21st century are Muslims. And they would commit many more massacres if whole departments of the security forces around the world weren’t continually monitoring Muslim communities.
Perhaps this could somehow be compared to the wars of religion that Europeans managed to leave behind centuries ago but by no means can it be compared to atrocities committed by Europeans that had nothing to do with religion, as you have done above. In fact, WW2 and the Holocaust were unleashed by deeply irreligious people that explicitly rejected Christianity and its values.
You do believe God is omnipotent don’t you? That God can prevent the deaths of any babies if he wills it?
Where do the criteria for judging whether an action is inherently immoral come from:
Human reason?
Human sentiment?
God’s will?
Is God’s will bound by laws external to God himself?
His whole a pox on both their houses never seemed real to me.
It was obvious to me he especially hated Jews and favored Muslims, and particularly admired Muslim aggression and fundamentalism.
I think that’s a not uncommon attitude on the Alt-Right, to admire nihilistic aggression and fundamentalism as an expression of masculinity and strength.
It’s actually weakness, but they don’t understand that.
No, actually the most authentic hadith explicitly forbid the killing of women and children.
Probably, though there are others, but certainly Muslims are the forerunners in this regard currently.
Yes, nothing rivals the European intra-Christian wars of religion in that sense.
Well that wasn’t the point I made. If you read carefully, it is clear that I was saying that things like WW2 were a case study in the dysfunctional hyper-violence that could be committed by the most educated and civilized societies. I didn’t mention it was done in the name of religion, that is an inference you made.
Peace.
Oh, I see what you mean. Cabeza de vaca lol. Let’s hope Sher doesn’t get it. What a surname btw, I wonder if there’s anyone still carrying such a family name in Spain or Latam.
Speaking of Latam, my prediction from a couple of months ago proved accurate and, contrary to what the latest polls were saying, the leftist candidate beat libertarian Milei in the Argentine elections. Theoretically, the latter still has a slim chance in the second round but no, a majority of Argentinians are not going to vote for dismantling the thick web of corrupt subsidies, regulations, welfare and bribes they have been living in for generations. By backing none other than the current minister of economy they have clearly said that they prefer the current poverty and hyperinflation to such an experiment.
No sweat, I get your position, it seems echoed by the Catholic priest i quoted:
We read in Father Challoner’s commentary for I Kings 15: “The great Master of life and death (who cuts off one half of all mankind whilst they are children) has been pleased sometimes to ordain that children should be put to the sword, in detestation of the crimes of their parents, and that they might not live to follow the same wicked ways. But without such ordinance of God it is not allowable, in any wars, how just soever, to kill children.”
https://catholicism.org/ad-rem-no-267.html
Does that sound about right?
Peace.
That’s clearly a matter of interpretation. So much so that thousands of devout Muslims, some of them highly educated, are willing to immolate themselves for the opposite view. You very seldom get that kind of disagreement on the true meaning of a text so it can’t possibly be so unambiguous.
I don’t think we are in control of creating myths – they well up from the unconscious, or if you prefer, they are divinely inspired.
As for the negative content in myths and sacred scriptures, the problem of evil – and it’s ultimate transmutation into good – is one of the prime subject matters of the spiritual quest.
Israel had about a decade of total regional dominance. Syria in Civil War, Hezbollah distracted, PLO totally dependent, Hamas asking for rapprochement and Iran eagerly working towards normalisation with the West. A decade to lay down diplomatic channels with all or some of the above. Opportunity missed.
No, I certainly didn’t mean to imply that every Christian always didn’t interpret Scripture literally – obviously, many did, and towards the end of the Middle Ages it became more common.
What I am saying is that there is a broad, central tradition within all the three monotheisms to read Scripture allegorically – or rather, as having a historical and literal dimension but not always or entirely literal – and that Hellenistic pagans had the same approach. The monotheisms grew up in a sophisticated Hellenistic environment.
And this isn’t an accident, but of the essence of the nature of sacred scriptures.
Anyways, here is a good and rather thorough discussion of the subject in Christianity, Judaism, and Islam –
https://historyforatheists.com/2021/03/the-great-myths-11-biblical-literalism/?fbclid=IwAR298LZMRyzjSc9XdpjC2Fxl8eff06VOnyv78yxKdOMFIQZZovD0wsrZSl0
No it’s not, any more than it’s a matter of interpretation that drinking wine is OK. There is a consensus ruling on it without any exceptions to when it comes to intentionally targeting women and children. Even on the battlefield.
The only discussion is about issues of collateral damage or if you can kill them if they are armed (and even then whether they are facing you and advancing versus retreating). We have a pretty detailed corpus on this since we never claimed to be pacifist.
The extremists who do these things tend to have actual little knowledge about the religion, as Oliver Roy (an expert on religious radicalism mentioned):
“Another common feature is the radicals’ distance from their immediate circle. They did not live in a particularly religious environment. Their relationship to the local mosque was ambivalent: either they attended episodically, or they were expelled for having shown disrespect for the local imam….To summarise: the typical radical is a young, second-generation immigrant or convert, very often involved in episodes of petty crime, with practically no religious education, but having a rapid and recent trajectory of conversion/reconversion, more often in the framework of a group of friends or over the internet than in the context of a mosque. The embrace of religion is rarely kept secret, but rather is exhibited, but it does not necessarily correspond to immersion in religious practice….As we have seen, jihadis do not descend into violence after poring over sacred texts. They do not have the necessary religious culture – and, above all, care little about having one. They do not become radicals because they have misread the texts or because they have been manipulated. They are radicals because they choose to be, because only radicalism appeals to them. No matter what database is taken as a reference, the paucity of religious knowledge among jihadis is glaring.”
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/apr/13/who-are-the-new-jihadis
Peace.
When did Hamas ask for rapprochement? The furthest they’ve ever gone is to offer something like a generational truce (along the lines of “We’ll leave it to the next generation to decide what to do”), which I suppose is in line with traditional Islamic ideas about relations with the infidel world. Now that’s not nothing, but still, they operate on different principles than a state like Syria does (where arguably there once was really a chance for a permanent peace treaty).
Riiiight. That sounds like a psychopath….so I will assume you are only playing one here. If not, well it takes all kinds to make the world.
Are we going to list everything that has happened in the last 1,400 years and try to redo it? Or does it only apply to Palestine?
Actually we are in control of everything we think or write. The myths reflect the times, how the authors thought – they enjoyed boasting about wiping out the “enemy”…I am not sure how that goes along with their simultaneous preaching about morality and God. But I wasn’t there, maybe it made sense to them at that time.
That’s just psycho-babble, fairy tales for simple people. As you say, quite a spiritual quest. I will refrain from questing, you enjoy your bloody myths and their transmutation…but what the hell is that? some obscure papist jingle?
Imagine Salman Rushdie.
And then there are those artists that are able to capture, embellish and further disseminate the myths and legends of the past to future generations:
Despite often saying it refuses to negotiate with Isreal, Hamas has quite a lengthy track record of doing so, albeit through third parties. In various instances, agreements between Hamas and Israel have been negotiated and have partially held for periods of time.
Most of these were cease-fire accords aimed at halting projectile fire from the Gaza Strip. It should be noted that Israel’s military options in stopping projectile fire are limited. Even when Israeli soldiers were stationed on the ground in Gaza prior to the 2005 removal of settlers from the enclave, Israel was incapable of eliminating it. That was also true when the Fatah-run Palestinian Authority was engaged in security coordination with Israel throughout the rest of Gaza. From outside the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, Israel has deployed shields. It has also tried both preemptive and punitive strikes, but at best, this is management of a problem and not a solution to it. Even after intense bombardment for weeks, Hamas has shown the capability to launch projectiles on the last days of such wars. Only through agreements have such weapons been brought to a near halt.
One such arrangement was in 2008 when Israel and Hamas agreed, through Egyptian mediation, that shelling from Gaza would cease if Israel would end extrajudicial assassinations there and ease the blockade. While Israel did not moderate the blockade, it did halt extrajudicial assassinations; firing from Gaza then dropped to near zero until the first week of November, when Israel killed several Palestinians. This attack effectively ended the cease-fire and led to a nearly three-week bombardment of Gaza, from late December 2008 to January 2009, killing some 1,400 Palestinians and destroying massive civilian infrastructure.
In 2011, Hamas again negotiated with Israel, through Egypt, for a prisoner release in exchange for one of its captured soldiers. Over 1,000 Palestinian prisoners would be released in exchange for Corporal Gilad Shalit, who was captured in a joint operation by the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC) and Hamas’s military wing in 2006. Leading the exchange from the Palestinian side was Ahmad Jabari, a leader of Hamas’s military wing. The exchange was made and the prisoners were released. Negotiations with Jabari proved fruitful; in the fall of 2012, Hamas was in the middle of negotiating a long-term truce with Israel through Jabari when it decided instead to assassinate him. This sparked yet another conflagration, only to return to the status quo ante after the war was over.
I actually regard the Philokalia as “light” reading – there is no complex theology in it, and just reflections on the importance of love, freedom from hate and anger, detachment from this world, and focus on the other world.
It’s a manual to “orient” yourself correctly and live beautifully – not really any theology in it and no hard thinking required 🙂
The title, as you know, means “love of beauty” – and it really is a guide to that.
I was reading it under the stars in my recent trip out West – the perfect reading matter for that environment 🙂
We must have discussed this many times before but this is clearly so wrong. Scripture was taken literally for centuries before the scientific revolution made its presence. God created the Universe in 7 days, we all descend from Adam, the Great Flood did happen,… There is reams of literature proving this. Just read the lyrics of some Baroque song.
The scientific revolution did force every Christian to decide if they were willing to continue believing in all those myths. And those who didn’t want to abandon religion came up with the easy workaround you are defending: the allegorical meaning of 50-75% of Scripture. What is never said explicitly is what the exact allegorical value of those incongruent and often barbaric texts is. Allegory means that there is some hidden message in there. What hidden message of any value is there in the unsound fables of the Genesis or the savage passages of the OT that Talha has quoted? Failure to answer this simple question puts the allegory narrative into question.
Isn’t it much more rational to conclude that indeed those primitive people found those fables intellectually satisfactory and those barbaric texts were a faithful manifestation of their morality? As our understanding of nature progressed and civilized societies evolved, they just became sad reminders of what our ancestors used to believe in with zero allegorical value for us today. They remain there just by inertia and rancid tradition.
There is one additional problem with the allegorical narrative. Once you admit that a good part of your religious cannon is “allegory”, nothing stops you from wondering if the reminder is to be taken seriously or can also be considered to be of a rather lyrical nature. I think that’s exactly where some branches of Protestantism are now: literal belief in not just the OT but also the NT is optional. Catholicism has also been transiting slowly towards this interpretation of the Bible. Even in my childhood I knew friars who didn’t much believe in anything anymore.
There is a Mexican politician with the name. Campaigns with the symbol (not in the original heraldry). Has seven children, and I imagine the name is more common than that.
The original sire who chose the name in the 1200s started out as a sheppard. He used a skull to mark a spot where he would meet the Spanish army to lead them through some pass to fight the Moors, and was ennobled afterwards.
I have a great fondness for all these old names that were said to come from battles or have other interesting origins.
In Ireland, in the 1800s, many families with common surnames had nicknames. I suspect that at least some were medieval in origin, and that they would have known the stories behind them. But unfortunately, it seems that they were mostly forgotten by now, including one rather mysterious one my own family had.
https://www.dailysabah.com/mideast/2018/08/06/hamas-israel-close-to-accepting-five-year-gradual-truce
It is critical to grasp that the issues are religious, not ethnic.
Here are some easy questions about religious geography:
— Where is Judaism from? Hint: Palestine
— Where is Christianity from? Hint: Palestine
— Where is Islam from? Hint: Arabia
Are you denying the violent, Arab religion of Islam entered Palestine ~600 AD?
Are you being pedantic about terminology? Do you prefer Jihadist invasion? Is there some other verbiage you would like to apply for Muslim violence including forced conversions?
I would like to help you grasp what should be simple and obvious facts. What part of this is giving you trouble?
PEACE 😇
You know you believe God directly wills the death of these children, you also know that the only reason you believe that ordering the death of children is wrong is because Mohammed said so.
I guess the thing about dissembling to promote Islam being a virtue within Islam also makes discussions fairly pointless in advance.
I believe the Oracle at Delphi said “govern your women”, not “be governed by women.”
https://www.rt.com/news/585618-italy-giorgia-meloni-boyfriend-split/
There is no dissembling going on here. The Islamic answer is fairly straightforward; the Divine sets and defines the standards of justice – what the Divine has commanded is true and just and what the Divine has prohibited is not. The Divine answers to no one and is not subject to any law/standard/judgment above the Divine.
The Divine has made it clear on the tongue of His Messenger (pbuh) that the intentional killing of women and children is prohibited – and thus it is so made immoral by the Divine Prerogative, not by any other standard.
The question is, whether you believe the Divine actually ordered the killing of women and infants at some point (as is presented in the text of the Bible), you have to reconcile that somehow. Either you question the epistemic foundations of the religion or you simply discard the source material as myth or you come to a similar conclusion that the Catholic priest has in the quote. The various people on this forum seem to have their own distinct conclusions to the conundrum.
Peace.
Basically…
“A Majority Of Americans Think Jesus Is A Great Teacher Yet Reject His Claims To Be God”
https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/a-majority-of-americans-think-jesus-is-a-great-teacher-yet-reject-his-claims-to-be-god-301119281.html
Peace.
It was talking about the cults in Mea Shearim, which is a romantical 19th century place in Jerusalem, with 18th century lifestyle, which is famous for having extremist, marginal cults and attacking tourists who go near there, spitting on tourists, burning Israel flags, shouting at women who wear trousers etc.
Haredim are a wide category with a many different religious cults.
The larger Haredi groups in Israel are more moderate than those, at least in the relative terms. Mea Shearim is a place which is more controlled by some of the most extremist Haredi cults.
–
By the way, it’s even true with the Arab Muslims in Israel. A lot of the middle class Arab Muslims in Israel have moderate views. After October 7th, a lot of the famous Arab Muslims in Israel were condemning Hamas. Also some of the most Zionist speaking people in Israel nowadays are some of their Arab Muslim celebrities there.
I’m not sure. The Haredim have the lowest gun ownership rates and conscription rates, so they wouldn’t be adapted for the “times of regional instability” in the Middle East.
Recent Ukrainian immigrants in Israel are the people adapted for missile alerts and war.
There are more than 10,000 Chinese construction workers in Israel, you see those a lot of Chinese male workers last time I was there. But those are talking about guest workers.
It would be possible for their children to attain citizenship if they are born in Israel, only after they join the army. But it’s mostly Chinese men, not Chinese women in Israel.
After October 7th, Israel says now they want rapidly to have 160,000 Indians immigrate to Israel for guest working. Israel already has lot of Indian Jewish community, but it would probably be a good idea to build a local Hindu community there.
• Raised a Jew.
• Sided with ordinary working class Jews.
• Denounced by elites and oligarchs.
• Killed on the orders of Pontius Pilate, the Roman Prefect of Judea.
There is no doubt that Christianity is one of the only two indigenous Palestinian religions. The other being Judaism.
PEACE 😇
I actually know more of the Christian texts, sit in more of the Christian holy sites, visit their sites in the Middle East, than I would guess over 99% of Christians. Also I was even baptized, unlike most people. So, I find some of the comments here amusing.
The thing is, apparently having a brain and being able to use our traditional reason, skepticism and logic, which are centuries older traditions than Christianity and millenia older traditions than Islam, implies for you something about “postmodernism” and “hedonism”.
Because of traditions of more serious people, who use skills which we inherited, instead of following some of the recent cults, is “postmodernism” and “hedonism”.
It’s also, that doing things like engineering and studying textbooks, requires a lot more self-discipline, calm mind, maturity and less self-pleasure, compared to the people who follow the immature religious texts which were often designed to give imaginary rewards to a rat in a box.
As a Jew, I give this warning to any Muslim/Arab who so much as even thinks about capturing a Jewish woman: no refunds.
Pfffshshwahahahahaha!!! Classic Greasy!
Greasy, question about the commands in the Bible from the prophets about killing women and infants; in your view and the view of similar folk, is this allegorical or was this a historical event?
My understanding is (correct me if I’m wrong) that this was traditionally seen by most Jews and their scholarship as an actual event and a Divine command, correct? Any specific example from Rambam?
Peace.
I have semi-regular contact with Russia, but everyone else is from Moscow, which is a bubble. Restaurants are open, stores function under similar names. A lot of young people have left. A friend compared it to after the Revolution, when Russia lost many of its best and brightest, who fled abroad.
Moscow is insulated from the war, in part because the elites live there and also because it is dangerous if the capital becomes bitterly anti-regime. For good reason, Putin would not want to have the same relationship with Moscow that Yanukovich had with Kiev (Muscovites are less pro-Putin than much of the country but as long as they are relatively happy and not desperate, things are safe).
A few years ago at an in-laws birthday party there was a guy who was on the board of Sukhoi but there is a zero chance of me having contact with him again. A friend was a “former” FSB officer but he had a nasty divorce with my wife’s friend so no contact with him either, I knew him through his wife. One of my friends is a general’s kid but the general retired in the 90s.
So I can’t help you.
I don’t know from which view you are attacking Tel Aviv. From the unkind interpretation, it could look like you believe the Islam cult has to conquer or oppress people who have different view than this cult, or who is part of a different cult with different rules (like in Tel Aviv, there is no public transport in the sabbath)?
Tel Aviv is a relatively happy city with a healthy atmosphere. It would be a good example for Pakistan, as it develops from third world kind of buildings and lack of infrastructure.
Upper class Muslims actually want to live there nowadays. https://www.architecturaldigest.com/story/tel-aviv-real-estate
I even saw a review on YouTube from the pro-Palestinian Pakistani motorcyclist. He wrote English subtitles for video I was watching it with and from Pakistan it’s probably seen as a positive example.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ukHMWvxuTIM.
It’s understandable, you’ve asked this question a dozen times, evidently thinking it’s some kind of supreme ‘gotcha’ moment. I don’t really want to debate further, because I think you argue in bad faith (I’m fine with intemperate words or even total rudeness, but arguing in bad faith is something else).
I’ll rephrase and old quote and state that demand for total consistency is the hobgoblin of tiny minds.
You can say I argue in bad faith, and that’s fine, not looking for acceptance and you can certainly ignore me.
What I have been doing is asking the same question to different people and letting them answer for themselves without putting words in their mouths. What I am seeing is that people seem to reconcile this issue in a variety of different ways – I find this quite interesting. There doesn’t seem to be one answer here that everyone agrees with.
I’d like to ask Greasy the same question because he comes from a very different viewpoint than others due to his religious background.
Inconsistency and incoherence in doctrine and epistemic foundations also has its own consequences.
Peace.
I literally said Tel Aviv could take it up the backside all it wants.
The major concern is the holy city of Jerusalem; if we are ever in control again, we will shut down public gay pride parades. We don’t consider that oppression just because someone says it is.
Very interesting video, thanks.
Peace.
Islam is a relatively recent, in this way “less authentic” cult, from the medieval Saudi Arabia. It’s connection to the older cults is because it was copying and pastes parts of the texts of Christianity and Judaism, so it was a derivative which copied the older religions.
This idea of “Abrahamic religion” is false, as Abraham is a character of the Bronze Age, while Islam is created in the medieval history. In this way, you could also call anything new you invent “Abrahamic” if you copy-paste from the bible.
Christianity and Judaism are cults of the Ancient Mediterranean. They were part of some of the ancient world’s culture, while Islam is a modern Arabian culture so part of the medieval history.
Just go the Mediterranean, visit any old buildings like Castel Sant’Angelo in Rome. Any of the old buildings in Italy, are centuries older than Islam. Even in Northern Europe, many of the famous buildings are older than Islam.
I think people confuse “traditional”, with “low level of economic/cultural development”. Because the immigrants from the less developed countries follow Islam, it’s believed this is somehow “traditional”, even though it’s a new derivative cult which is only created around 50 generation ago in the Arab world and less for foreigners who later followed it.
You also call people who use like the traditions of logic or skepticism, “postmodern” or “hedonist”.
Of course, there were schools of logic and skepticism, thousands of years before these recent cults were created. They are more “traditional” parts of our history.
Well why not read what those unintelligent ancients actually said?
https://historyforatheists.com/2021/03/the-great-myths-11-biblical-literalism/?fbclid=IwAR298LZMRyzjSc9XdpjC2Fxl8eff06VOnyv78yxKdOMFIQZZovD0wsrZSl0
But if you prefer not to, that’s also ok 🙂
As I said earlier, I want to return to a more mystical and personal religious vision and so les social advocacy.
Ultimately, I think we’ll all be ok in the end one way or another – it’s only a question of how much you want to suffer in the meantime (I mean even after death). I think religion, done right, is just a ton of fun – if you’d rather not enjoy yourself, don’t do it 🙂 Eventually, the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, will open your eyes, after death.
As for believing in things, religion isn’t assent to propositions but the experience of God, which is fun. Emphasizing right belief gets you fundamentalist Islam and fundamentalist Christianity – which are both distinctly unfun.
As Plato says – let them know even if they cannot understand, that all be well.
Who is “we”? I thought you are an American with Pakistani roots.
I would guess no Arab country will give the Pakistanis citizenship or allow you to live in Jerusalem, even if the East Jerusalem would be divided again in the future with Jordan or a Palestinian state.
You might be to live there under the Kafala system, probably would be better to visit Jerusalem as an tourist than as a Pakistani who wants to live there.
You are mistaken.
Such stories are good enough for simple people and children (they still teach them for children as if they were literally true). There were a lot of simple people centuries ago so there would have been widespread belief that these events in the Old Testament were literally true, but this was not the position of the Church or Church leaders.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biblical_literalism
Early in Christianity, centuries before the Scientific Revolution:
Origen (184-253 CE), familiar with reading and interpreting Hellenistic literature, taught that some parts of the Bible ought to be interpreted non-literally. Concerning the Genesis account of creation, he wrote: “who is so silly as to believe that God … planted a paradise eastward in Eden, and set in it a visible and palpable tree of life … [and] anyone who tasted its fruit with his bodily teeth would gain life?” He also proposed that such hermeneutics should be applied to the gospel accounts as well.[12]
Church father Augustine of Hippo (354–430 CE) wrote of the need for reason in interpreting Jewish and Christian scripture, and of much of the Book of Genesis being an extended metaphor.[13] But Augustine also implicitly accepted the literalism of the creation of Adam and Eve,[14] and explicitly accepted the literalism of the virginity of Jesus’s mother Mary.[15]
This was written for people with your mistaken belief:
https://historyforatheists.com/2021/03/the-great-myths-11-biblical-literalism/
Augustine:
“Usually, even a non-Christian knows something about the earth, the heavens, and the other elements of this world, about the motion and orbit of the stars and even their size and relative positions, about the predictable eclipses of the sun and moon, the cycles of the years and the seasons, about the kinds of animals, shrubs, stones, and so forth, and this knowledge he holds to as being certain from reason and experience.
Now, it is a disgraceful and dangerous thing for an infidel to hear a Christian, presumably giving the meaning of Holy Scripture, talking nonsense on these topics; and we should take all means to prevent such an embarrassing situation, in which people show up vast ignorance in a Christian and laugh it to scorn.”
The perils of pride leading one to go outside Church tradition.
Well, Muslims obviously. iirc I asked Talha about that years ago and he was pretty clear that Israel in its present form would at some point cease to exist and Muslims would rule its territory again. Though I think he was generous enough to state that Jews wouldn’t be expelled or murdered, but could continue to live there under some form of autonomy (maybe like in the Ottoman empire with its millet system).
It’s rather remarkable how much of what many moderns consider to be “traditional” is only a couple of centuries old, and is the work of more-modern Protestant heretics. Puritanical sexual attitudes are another example.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gropecunt_Lane
Gropecunt Lane (/ˈɡroʊpkʌnt/) was a street name found in English towns and cities during the Middle Ages, believed to be a reference to the prostitution centred on those areas; it was normal practice for a medieval street name to reflect the street’s function or the economic activity taking place within it. Gropecunt, the earliest known use of which is in about 1230, appears to have been derived as a compound of the words grope and cunt.
Its steady disappearance from the English vernacular may have been the result of a gradual cleaning-up of the name; Gropecuntelane in 13th-century Wells became Grope Lane, and then in the 19th century, Grove Lane.[27] The ruling Protestant conservative elite’s growing hostility to prostitution during the 16th century resulted in the closure of the Southwark stews in 1546, replacing earlier attempts at regulation.
We might have a difference of outlook here. For me at least, firstly cultural and secondly scientific (those with a managerialist outlook put this first, you can refer to Hanania’s repulsive takes or Karlin’s final full embracing of it after Putin’s repeated failures induced his mental breakdown) achievement is the best comparative measure of success for any civilisation. And for productive scientific inquiry or in order to produce works of genuine beauty, both inherently require a generous allowance of intellectual freedom, the fourth factor (libertarians make the mistake of putting this first). Then as a more distant third, how that society treats those who have been unlucky or disadvantaged. This with the crucial provision that these people be members of that society which accept its core values, always a tricky proposition.
It’s arguable that many if not most of the world’s greatest works of architecture and music would not have been produced without the stimulus of religious believers. More doubtfully there’s that religion fosters social cohesion and mutual aid, which generally I think is true but there the tendency is far weaker.
Do I have purely an instrumentalist view of religion then? Ultimately I’d say I don’t think so, as I really strongly believe that the artistic impulse or reverence for beauty (the characteristic that, if I’m in a generous mood, is I think what makes us more human than any other trait) is categorically inseparable from religious/spiritual feeling. Incidentally, this is also the character trait most conspicuously absent (to a pathological degree) from guys like Karlin, Hanania, or most contemporary leaders.
But addressing your question more directly, do you really expect someone with recent ancestral history of living as a ‘Millet’ or ‘Dhimmi’ community to react to a sympathetic proposal that Islam should ‘lead’ the Abrahamic faiths’ with anything but disgust and contempt?
I notice the Islamophile feelings like yours or DragonMan’s are still comparatively common amongst Russian Slavs (я имею в виду русские, не россиянские) of the Soviet/post-Sovok generation. I suppose it was the cultural climate where Christianity and the dogwhistle of ‘Zionism’ were relentlessly and viciously attacked, whilst Islam was essentially ignored, as a part of the USSR’s 3rd-worldist propaganda.
Rather generous. He’s an Islamicised Indian (I refuse to recognise the post-1947 Jinnahist Entity) who may or may not have been born in America. Perhaps he doesn’t speak Urdu/Sindhi etc, but nonetheless doesn’t seem to have assimilated a single facet of American cultural values or loyalties. Perhaps he believes enjoying Marvel films and speaking fluent English makes him an ‘American’. I prefer people like Sher Singh who at least aren’t pious hypocrites about being aliens taking advantage of a separate host society.
‘Pakistanis’ are rather in a difficult bind as their entire entity depends on a religion imposed on them by foreign conquerors who deeply despise them on a racial basis, whilst recognition of their any recognition of their native history or cultures (the crucial spark that incited Pakistan’s Muhajir War) is easily tarnished as a sop to their existential rival of India.
Do you read Greek or Syriac? Of course I know there’s translations, but as you’re delving that deep its reasonable question to ask, and I imagine Syriac is not especially difficult for a native Hebrew speaker.
I thought of posting some Omar Khayyam to point out atheists (or at least, atheistic thought) have been at least as common in the Islamic world as in Europe, and in fact were probably more common in the past, but it seems a waste of time for him.
To me it seems nonsensical that an act of brutality would be sanctioned for mankind to practice because of a special dispensation by God. I don’t believe that the Divine Law operates under Special Use Permits.
There would clearly be issues if there were. How would one precisely discern that such a special dispensation has been granted? Everyone can claim such a thing to satisfy themselves and convince others. Humans are, if nothing else, masters of self-deception and justification.
I have a question for you. How does Islam broadly handle creation? In my opinion, one of the worst corners that many Christians, particularly Evangelicals, paint themselves into with a hyper-literal OT interpretation in Young Earth Creationism. I’d be interested to know how Islam conceives of that. My impression is that it is largely a non-issue for most since Islam seems to focus on practice.
Muslims.
Visiting would be just fine; my mom and brother visited Quds last year. Madinah would be higher on my list than Jerusalem for cities to live in.
Peace.
It was a rhetorical suggestion. I think one often needs to sample a diverse cross-section of people to get the full story. Of course defense of the country is not something for which the people usually get a short-term vote, unless they pick up a rifle. Perhaps they influence the creation and staffing of the government which is then empowered to pursue foreign and military policy as it sees best. This is an imperfect process, but the people at the top have access to more crucial information than most of us.
You make very good points regarding the “special dispensation by God” approach.
That’s an interesting subject…and the answer depends on what you’re specifically asking about. The Quran gives broad strokes and is poetic in its language about creation. There was a fad in the 80s and 90s of Muslims trying to find “scientific miracles” all over the Quran, but it was fairly obvious they were really trying to read into the text what they wanted rather than let it speak for itself. As far as creation, are you talking the phenomenal universe or mankind specifically, etc.? We aren’t tied to OT timelines or interpretations in any sense. We don’t have a problem with the earth being billions of years old or dinosaurs or whatever. Or even hominid type creatures living on the earth millions of years ago.
Peace.
Thanks, I understand where you are coming from with your stance more now.
There is lot of space between the extremes of a nation that does absolutely nothing to foster respect within it and a nation that uses fictitious appeals to respect to hassle people for nothing. Somewhere in the middle is an optimal spot in which common purpose and respect create social stability and order without being overly repressive.
Clearly, we disagree on where that sweet spot is, and there is probably little point discussing further. For the record though, I would similarly believe it justified for the police to make a point if young men were recording a profane rap or something through a military cemetery. It’s also different than a public war memorial because of the presence of the actual graves of the dead. Respect for ones’ dead seems to be one of the earliest and most universal instincts of man. It should be expected.
Well, Taliban literally means “students of Islam”, doesn’t it? Who am I to argue with such a longstanding tradition of Muslims who have dedicated their lives to studying the Quran? And if things were as clear as you say, how could all these students of the Quran have gotten them so wrong?
In any case, I’m not particularly interested in how rooted the Talibans’, Al-Qaeda’s, the Wahabbis’, ISIS’, etc views are in the Quran. Much less do I have any expectation that you may reconsider your religious views. For obvious reasons that would be silly.
The only issue at stake here is how you may convince me that so many Muslims are totally wrong about their own faith. I don’t think you can either. I took the time to read some surahs of the Quran to make up my own mind and the impression I got is that an intolerant and aggressive behavior towards infidels and non-believers was definitely consistent with those passages.
Beautiful as Pakistan is with its huge mountains, deserts and tropical beaches, I would never dare live there with my infidel family. I’m pretty sure that most people are friendly but I’m not even sure that I’ll ever visit it, except for maybe an organized tour to the established routes in the Hindu Kush and its surroundings. Doesn’t the fact that Muslims have no such fear of living in Christian and post-Christian countries tell us something about the matter we’re discussing?
One of the stories in Israel in the recent years, it has lot of illegal immigrants from East Africa, especially Sudan and Eritrea.
The group which polls as most against immigration of Muslims from Sudan are Arab Israelis.
In some of Arab countries, people like Pakistanis, Indonesians and Sudanese are allowed to live under a Kafala system, where they don’t have access to a passport. In comparison, Europeans have a higher status in the Arab countries usually, can work there with normal rights.
So, in the imaginary future with the Jordanian or Palestinian Authority ruling in East Jerusalem, Talha if was allowed and without the American passport, would have probably lower status than the European workers who could still have their passport.
A lot of the Pakistani public maybe excluding the elites, support the Arabs in the Arab-Israel conflict, as a kind of vicarious conflict for them, like supporting their side in a football game thousands of kilometers distant from their country.
As a result, the lower class Indian Hindus have a reflex in response to the Pakistanis, so they begin to support the Israeli side.
I would guess the internet has contributed to this as Pakistani and Indian public are now interacting in the online spaces, using the cheap smartphones from China, so they fight vicarious conflicts between the two countries.
India was part of the non-aligned movement. India is historically one of the important supporters of the Palestinian national movement. Indians supported the Palestinians as an anti-colonial conflict, like the fight against British colonialism.
But in recent years, it seems Indian ordinary people or lower class begins to support Israel, probably as they view it on the other side from Pakistan.
With those trends, the Indian elites’ traditional support of Palestinians is probably becoming not democratically successful policy.
–
With the Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, there was even a similar trend. Pakistan has been recently supplying weapons to Azerbaijan. As response, India is planning to supply weapons to Armenia.
If India becomes a great-power or the super-power in the future, there will be a common exploit there for countries to create support. India’s public will support you as a reflex, you just have to be unpopular with Pakistanis.
Unfortunately I don’t read those languages. I took one semester of ancient Greek in my freshman year in college, which I enjoyed, but then I dropped it.
But I do have a lot of free time on my hands these days and it wouldn’t be a bad idea to take up languages again.
Yeah, Omar Khayyam is a good example of the diversity and flexibility that used to exist in Islamic culture – the poetry of Rumi also, with his celebration of wine. Modern Islam, which is fundamentalist and literalist, is a creation of modernity like Communism and other dark authoritarianisms.
The Indonesian education system (mass-infiltrated by Islamists since the 80’s and finally given enthusiastic sanction under ‘Islamic Scientist’ turned 1998-1999 president Yusuf Habibie) has pursued its version of ‘intelligent design’ aggressively in recent years.
India still hasn’t achieved universal adult literacy.
ਅਕਾਲ
Was prostitution tolerated to a much greater extent in Catholic Europe in Victorian and pre-Victorian times?
Out of curiosity–did any of the early Christians believe in a spiritual rather than physical resurrection for Jesus?
Apparently some of the early Christians (especially, but perhaps not only, Gnostics) believed that once the general resurrection of the dead was going to take place, it was going to involve the dead being given spiritual rather than physical bodies:
https://brill.com/view/journals/scri/11/1/article-p225_20.xml?language=en
If I remember I think he is an American with Pakistani roots, not really Pakistani (or “Islamized Indian”). If he is Pakistani from Pakistan, I will view him as a brotherly immigrant.
He says he wants to live under the Arabs in Saudi Arabia more than under Jewish “al-Quds”.
From what I read, Pakistanis in Saudi Arabia are generally viewed as low status, work under Kefala system and the most executed nationality.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/north-africa-west-asia/death-row-saudi-arabia-forgotten-pakistani-prisoners/
Also Pakistani immigrants with Islamist views, would be probably monitored in Saudi Arabia. Even Saudi elite secular people are a bit scared of their government.
–
One of the cool things I want to visit in Saudi Arabia, looks like their date shops.
The Taliban were targeting women and children? When did this become their policy?
Definitely ISIS and their ilk have done so and proudly taken credit for it.
OK, but you’re changing the goalpost here. Islam has rules for circumstances of both peace and war – when Muslims are at war, the recommended attitude will be aggressive for sure.
But even in the circumstances of war (which is where we find the hadith prohibiting the killing of women and children) there are rules of engagement and proportionality – there is no contradiction here. It’s not like the only two options are either pacifism or total war without limits.
You can be at war and prosecute war according to rules.
Well, you chose a place like Pakistan as if it’s the only place; plenty of non-Muslims travel through places like Morocco without problems or worries. Morocco is also a popular destination for French expats that want to retire.
Peace.
Yes, immigrant from Karachi.
Well, it depends on the capacity of work – my uncle lived in Saudi for many years with his Punjabi wife. Both were doctors, they reported living just fine and being treated with respect except for the odd exception here or there.
Peace.
Honestly, I don’t get why exactly the left is opposed to religious profiling or, for that matter, to racial profiling when the benefits of this likely outweigh the harms even for the affected groups themselves.
Think of it this way: One views it as permissible to prevent a minor-attracted person (especially one with a predominant attraction to minors) from becoming a teacher even if they have a clean criminal record, correct? This would also be a case of profiling someone based on an immutable trait (a sexual attraction to minors), but it’s viewed as justified because the stakes are so high (the risk of children getting harmed if left unsupervised with such a person; even though there are some people with such urges who would never dare to actually offend, the risk is still too high to be willing to take any chances with this). If one views this as being permissible due to the extremely high stakes involved, why not religious profiling of Muslims (anyone who looks Muslim gets extra scrutiny) at airports in order to ensure that airplanes don’t get blown up by Muslim terrorists? Or racial profiling by police that makes police more willing to use deadly force against young black men who don’t follow police instructions and reach for something in their pocket and/or car relative to old Asian women who engage in the exact same behavior (because the risk of a young black man reaching for a gun in such a situation is probably considerably higher than it is for an old Asian women who exhibits identical or similar behavior, which is why the police are less willing to take chances with young black men relative to old Asian women)?
It’s easy to insult people over teh internets, isn’t it ?
But you didn’t answer my question about what have you personally done to prevent Islam ascending and being in control of most of the formerly European civilizational space in a few generations.
It is probably harder for you to come with an answer than just writing stupid stuff about me.
My guess would be that you have never did anything to prevent Muslims eventually having the upper hand, but I might be wrong. That is why I am asking you again: what have you personally done to prevent the Islamic takeover?
Have you done anything other to write aggressive rants on anonymous forums?
Now, a little information about myself. There is a difference between you and me Silvio. I talk about Islam due to first hand knowledge of its good and its bad sides. In general, I avoid writing about things I don’t know enough about. And Islamist terrorism is something I know first hand, because I have experienced it first hand, which doesn’t prevent me from being admirative of many aspects of Islamic culture.
As I have written before, I have known war too. War against Islamist terrorism. Been there, done that. Now I am a man of peace.
What about you Silvio, is there anything you would be ready to kill and/or die for?
Or is insulting people over the web is the maximum extent of your narcissist “virility” ?
🙂
Bashibuzuk is quite Soviet programmed. One of his beliefs is the prophecy of the “decaying West”, which was programmed when he was learning about Western countries.
He was also Moscow hipster of the 1980s, when there was fashion for the bohemians about “Eastern wisdom”.
I think he is about 21 years old than me. Those people receive high dose of the late Soviet ideology, with also a lot of the KGB views. They were really in the “radioactive” zone from the view of receiving the Soviet perspective.
Although I’m surprised he was calling people “postmodern” because they prefer culture of logic, engineering, skepticism. The Soviet culture had encouraged some parts of this tradition.
I’m not sure anyone doesn’t notice the classical traditions are older and wise than the newer religious cults of today, unless they didn’t read old books and compare them.
In order for the final Kalachakra Tantra battle to occur, Islam must end up dominant over all other Abrahamic creeds. It is comforting to see one’s eschatology being confirmed through personal experience. Islam being on the ascending path is proof of Buddhas and Bodhisattvas being a valid source of knowledge. Do you understand?
Basically, all men are in competition at all times because a womb holds one man’s seed.
All of this rhetoric comes down to disarming yourself & letting others pillage your honor (women).
Then, you can become the poor, oppressed minority who crawls in front of libs for help.
I get that this is how Christianity started – among slaves, downtrodden & the genuinely worthless.
Genuinely curious though & posted the above dialogue in good faith.
I think the answer to the question of expectations is-
Women & the lower classes are like children.
Rarely satisfied or cognizant of their own wants/needs they respect those who humiliates them, and lash out at those who’re overly compliant.
Squeaky wheel gets the grease.
ਅਕਾਲ
Дима, дорогой, я тебя прошу перестань ересь гнать.
Ты обо мне вообще ничего не знаешь и совершенно меня не понимаешь. И это нормально, между нами конкретно пропасть.
Я бы тебе всё рассказал и объяснил, но зачем ? Ты же и так создал себе какое-то довольно странное представление о мне сиром и убогом..
Ну ладно голубчик, раз ты у нас Христианин, то Бог тебе судья…
🙂
Eh, I’m woke because the military is full of boomers who have to be firmly told to stfu.
All my positions are politically to the right of everyone here including on white ethnic preservation.
Thanks though.
ਅਕਾਲ
Ignore was meant to delete.
Here’s a bonus for everyone –
ਅਕਾਲ
I studied a little with some Saudi classmates and they always were saying to me about how living in Saudi Arabia is great. But you can also see they were very scared of their government.
I could be remembering incorrect, but I think they had to speak every week to their embassy, from the telephone. They were always nervous about their embassy and once a week there was something they had to do related to it.
I was feeling “I’m lucky not to be from such an undemocratical country”.
Well, yes – in general those countries have their mukhabarat (secret police) that listen in on everything. As long as you leave the king/dictator/grand-poobah alone and out of your conversations, you will be left alone. Those countries don’t make overtures about being democratic and have no qualms about making you disappear.
If I ever did move myself to a place like Madinah, it would be because I wanted to live in the city of the Prophet (pbuh) and visit his grave daily, not because I was interested in fomenting revolt.
You know what, Dmitry…I may disagree with where you want society to go and think your path is taking you to commit genetic suicide em masse, but you seem like a guy I might enjoy some choice Yemeni coffee with while bantering about random life experiences.
Peace.
I don’t know anything about you? Your war against Islamic terrorism?
You want to re-create my romantic dream you are a spear fishing instructor drinking coffee under African stars, not another pale system admin in Edmonton Alberta.
As for “Islamic takeover”.
Islam has higher fertility rates in Europe and the high immigration flow from Muslim countries. But it is net negative for religious switching.
So, in Europe, more of the Muslims are exiting Islam every year, than non-Muslims are converting to Islam. So, this is a religion in Europe which is increasing size by births and immigration, but reducing its size by peoples’ choices.
;-))
It was not “my war”. Why would it be mine ?
And I have never written that I was a spearfishing instructor, only that I have done some spearfishing many years ago.
It is true though that I have seen something that I believe was an UFO. But I am hardly the only one who has seen something weird up there.
Anyway, I don’t think that I am that interesting as a person.
Do you know how Islam came to dominate in the late antiquity / early middle ages ?
How do you define truth ?
When you wrote “truth for me”, did you imply that truth is something that can be subjective, that there could be some “truth for you” that would be different from some “truth for me” ?
Hah, look around you bro, I think our society has got that precept down pat.
This remarkable passage is from Stephen R.L. Clarke’s book on Plotinus, the great neo-Platonic Hellenistic philosopher.
It’s a vivid reminder of how close late antique religious thought already was to Christianity – I’ve heard it described as two traditions following their own lines of development and converging on the same point – and that Christianity did not merely “assimilate” neo-Platonism, as if it was unquestionably the superior, but the two traditions joined together.
Academic questions aside, living this way is to my mind the height of wisdom 🙂 And I seek to model my life on this.
It has distinct echoes in Taoism and Zen.
And perhaps these ancient truths are good to remember in our times of turmoil, when the world becomes over-serious.
Last year in Russia, the local government begins to install microphones for wiretapping the highschool classrooms, with software to highlight children’s conversations if they include certain words.
The idea to prevent “school shootings”, so it will highlight words like “bomb” and alert the recorders.
But you know current trends and Chekov rifle, when they have the equipment to listen for “Putin”, this will be probably the direction the equipment could be used to record in a few years.
I knew a Saudi from Madinah.
Actually I would like to visit Saudi Arabia more than other Arab countries, it seems the most interesting Arab country for me. Deserts are some of my favorite places to visit. Ideally we would rent a car and drive in the desert.
But I won’t visit soon, as I don’t want to interrogation in the airport next time I visit Israel. I’m sure the security in Israel will become a lot more strict after this year.
Because I don’t think recreating Soviet political repression against Ukrainian orphans is a good idea, will be “genetic suicide en masse”.
Political repression is not a good motivation for citizens to not exit the country and the “genetic suicide en masse”, well if you think school with microphones listening is an attractive future for your children.
I am very much against a surveillance security state – it is a frightening prospect. I am fine with regulating things people do blatantly and in public, but I don’t support secret police or monitoring people.
They are opening it up more…I have even seen that non-Muslims are being allowed into Madinah.
No – because your views in general seem sort of left-liberal and too accepting of LGBT. If people follow your general trend and lifestyle, TFRs will collapse…am I wrong?
Peace.
Apples to oranges. The Christian world in the early 20th century wasn’t violent – didn’t go to war – for Christian reasons. Islamic fundamentalist violence in the early 21st century is totally related to Islamic reasons.
Isn’t this obvious? I think you overlook it because here are again you’re trying to too hard to shoehorn reality into the prefabricated categories you have for understanding it.
Who are the sides? Who wins?
Peace.
Funny how you are unable to communicate without insulting others. Un vrai fier à bras fort en gueule…
🙂
About your stance on religion, you have written many times that you were not religious. Now, as the French saying goes: il n’y a que les cons qui ne changent pas. And I don’t think that you are what the French would call un con, so there is perhaps some hope in your case.
You cannot truly question something that you cannot understand. All you can do is writing silly stuff about it. If and when you decide to know better, let me know…
No, it’s about objective truth. I see no reason to think that Mohammed was anything other than a Joseph Smith-like figure, a madman or con man, or a mixture of both (if the Islamic tradition about him is correct, there’s also the argument that he didn’t really exist like described in that tradition, but was is a fiction created after the fact to legitimate Arab conquests). There is nothing even to debate here.
And your entire argument about atheists (which I don’t even consider myself to be) and/or secularists preferring a life of pleasure was pretty stupid and indicative of a lack of serious thought. There is nothing pleasing about facing the possibility that there may be no ultimate meaning to our existence, no divine justice, no afterlife, just a brief timespan in an endless Darwinian struggle. Nor do I think that most of Islam’s adherents live especially austere lives that would be somehow worthy of admiration. Their religion prescribes an excessive amount of meaningless ritualism, but it isn’t as restrictive about sexuality as Christianity (traditionally it was fine in Islamic culture for successful men to have multiple wives after all, or even to keep slaves for their sexual needs, not much of an advance on pagan antiquity in that regard) and its ethical content is shallow, since its concept of universalism is founded on domination, subjugation and extreme hostility towards non-Muslims.
There is just how I imagine the spear fishing, former special forces soldier should say to us, before we ask too many questions about his interesting life.
Mainly from latitudinal military conquests of the medieval times. Although later epochs, it was sometimes in reverse, when the Mongols conquered the Muslim centers and after some generations most of the Khanates convert to Islam.
But in the modern world, Islamic countries didn’t have many military successes. In terms of the modern army, perhaps Turkey and Azerbaijan have good organization. There are some guerilla war groups.
Mostly today it is wars between Muslim countries.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yemeni_civil_war_(2014%E2%80%93present)
Maybe the Bangladesh genocide in 1971 would be interpreted from some Mongolian style perspective, as a “successful” conquering of Bengali Hindus.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bangladesh_genocide
But is there a more recent conquering?
Year around 2400 AD. Plant Earth is divided between two civilisations. The Abrahamics on one side, the Dharmics on the other.
Islam is the dominant dorce among the Abrahamics. The Caliphate has been rebuilt, my understanding is that it happens after the coming of the Imam Al Mahdi (but it is my take only). The Caliphate enters into war with the Dharmic King of Shambhala – Rudrachakrin who is the last among all rulers of the Earth not submitting to Islamic rule. Advanced weapons are used. Planet Earth is destroyed.
Before the destruction of the planet, the Dharmics manage to disentangle their stronghold from the time-space continuum and make it free to appear in any time-line, therefore Shambhala exists in the past as well as present and future. The future Buddha Maitreya is its ruler after the Kalki Rudrachakrin. Maitreya teaches the pure Dharma to the survivors and anyone who is sincere enough to receive his Teachings.
It is unclear what happens to the Abrahamics and whether any among them survives this final war, but if we look at the Apocalypse of St John as the Abrahamic take on the same conflict (where the Dharmics are portrayed as “the Dragon”), there should be a “Celestial Jerusalem” for Abrahamics, and a “new Earth and new heavens because the old ones have passed” (I translate from memory of my reading of the Russian Bible).
How do you recognize objective truth ?
Through the power of my intellect. Sorry, I’m not going to play word games or enter into long, fruitless discussions with you.
Yes, and fun too. Although on this occasion it gives me no joy at all. I’m struggling to find the words to express my disappointment in seeing you not only give comfort and aid to the ancient enemy, but to actively promote its cause. Much easier to turn straight to insults. (Though I see now you’re doing it for “eschatological” [aka psychiatric] reasons, which makes me more compassionate towards you.)
You know very well the answer to that question. I speak out when and where I can, but beyond that I have next to no idea about effecting political change, especially change of a magnitude that would stop islamification in its tracks. Do you? Or do you just tell yourself that you had kids, therefore the job’s done?
I’m not impressed. I would bet I have known more muslims in my life than you, and been intimately close with more of them too. This doesn’t mean very much though, although it did help me confirm the view I developed from a very young age, when I first learned of their conquests and the harm they caused my people and civilization, that there is an unbridgeable gap between us. I admire nothing in islam. Every last bit of it repulses me: its morals, its values, its folkways, its theology, its art, its architecture, its garb, its people, the whole rotten lot.
Because you were a conscript, not because it was a personal choice.
Yes, I’m sure we can all see that. Nothing says “man of peace” like sitting back in your recliner giddily anticipating a “final battle” of epic scale.
As a matter of fact there is. What now, are you going to ask me to prove it, since it strikes you as improbable that an alleged “hedonist” like me would ever take any but the path of least resistance?
Demographic transition is not connected causally with the LGBT toleration. It’s possible both are caused by economic development.
Liberals in Tel Aviv. They have LGBT flags and their fertility rate is significantly higher than the Muslims in Iran, where they have the modesty police.
Iran has a lot lower fertility than you would guess from its economic level.
In terms of trend, the countries with most rapid falls in fertility rate are in the Muslim world at the moment, although they are falling from the highers level with young populations, so they will have the demographic momentum for some time.
In some countries like Bangladesh, the demographic transition happened often before economic development. Previously, it was expected it would happen only after economic development.
Does Islamist politicians help? Turkey’s fertility is falling very fast under Erdogan, especially if you don’t include minority groups like the Kurds.
–
Saudi Arabia has high economic development, with Sharia law. Saudi Arabia’s statistics said that its citizen women (i.e. ethnic Saudis) have total fertility rate of 2,33 in 2018, while non-citizen women living in Saudi Arabia have fertility rate of 1,92.
Saudi Arabia’s citizen fertility rate falls from over 7 in 1982, to around 2,2 in 2020. It’s one of the faster demographic transitions. In the same time, Argentina falls from 3,2 in 1982 to 2,2 in 2020.
It’s one generation, the Saudis transition from the average 7 children each, to the 2,2 children each. This is faster than in early 20th century Russia.
They killed lots of them during their campaign of terrorist attacks and suicide bombings. They were clearly not averse to the idea of letting Allah sort the innocent souls out from the corpses. And they let the AlQaeda nutters use Afghanistan as a shelter and training ground.
No, you are. This was always a discussion about comparing how Christianity and Islam differ on cruelty towards innocent people. A discussion that you started. How is it moving the goalposts pointing out how actual Muslims behave (in the name of their religion) and what the Quran says?
I chose Pakistan because it’s one of the countries with the most gorgeous landscapes on earth, a very important consideration for me. But, sadly, where in the Muslim world would I be able to say what I truly think about Mohammed, Islam and the Abrahamic religions without fearing for my life?
There was much about religion I disliked and which I still dislike, but I have undergone a change over the past two or three years, very little of which I have mentioned on here, except for a flurry of exchanges with Aaron and Mikel (mostly, a couple of others maybe, I can’t remember) that took place a few months ago (during which time I think you were absent).
If you don’t understand something, you ask questions about it. Isn’t that how it normally works? I didn’t find your answers particularly illuminating or convincing and I think this upset you. That wasn’t actually my intention, but when you put your ideas up for examination on a blog like this, you should expect them to be challenged, that’s all.
I was not playing games at all.
And I don’t see why simply explaining how you get to reach objective truth would be long and fruitless.
Your opting out of the conversation (that you have yourself started) makes me think you are not so certain about your takes being objective. And without any disrespect meant, no intellect/reason are entirely capable of transcending one’s subjectivity.
Even though you come out as a fairly intelligent person, I am certain than you are not more or less objective than most other people. Especially when it comes to a topic (Islam) that elicits in you such a strong emotion of rejection.
To be objective, one would first need at least to be dispassionate and look at both sides of a topic. While you refuse to read Islamic scripture and probably also reject everything Islamic historians have written of their community’s past. You are of course partial and biased, you just refuse to admit it.
Well, at your suggestion I actually read what some of the ones you pointed out wrote and, to be honest, I didn’t find their prose (or poetry, not yet sure what it was) very engaging so I abandoned my efforts. But I do have a couple of links bookmarked for the future, in case I find myself in the proper mood.
However, I was by no means talking about the most intelligent minds of Antiquity. I have no doubt that even then many sharp minds realized how unlikely folk beliefs were to be true. What I was talking about was the predominant beliefs, those that actually satisfied the existential needs of the pre-scientific minds, and the organized religions that formed around them. I also offered what I think is a much more compelling history of these ideas than the allegorical narrative.
In fact, I’m not even questioning that the ancient mind could not offer us valuable insights about immutable characteristics of nature and ourselves. I’m convinced they could and in many ways they were probably in a better position than ourselves to grasp those truths. The only thing I disputed was the idea that biblical literalism was something new. So many people executed for questioning the truthfulness of the Bible over the centuries and now it’s all going to be a recent American aberration….
Anyway, did you get to visit the red country before returning to the NY jungle? And any chance you may give us the long awaited report of your last visit to the wild west?
What answers?
As soon as I understood that you are not interested in a genuine open minded discussion I just stopped. I haven’t really gave any answers at all because your questions came out as not being asked in good faith and you having already made your idea about what I attempted to start discussing with you.
I won’t discuss Buddhadharma with anyone who is describing Buddhism as conducive to nihilism because it is so wrong as being below the basic level of discussion on that topic. I won’t discuss my convictions with someone who thinks that my convictions make me worthy of psychiatric intervention. And of course, it would be below my dignity to discuss anything seriously with someone who is incapable of exchanging on a topic without insulting his opponent who hasn’t shown any disrespect at all.
Would you discuss something that is deeply dear and precious to you with someone who insults you and writes that your spiritual convictions are “psychiatric” stuff?
Of course you won’t.
Biden on Funding Ukraine & Israel
Re: https://theduran.com/mcconnell-axis-of-evil-blinken-hamas-putin-threat-milei-massa-run-off-swiss-green-collapse-u-1/
Surprising that numerous observers don’t mention the otherwise obvious.
The reason Biden is proposing considerably more money to the Kiev regime than Israel is because the former is much larger than the latter. It requires more arms (as a proxy in NATO’s war against a major power), in addition to having an economy which has become very dependent on the US. (Not that the Kiev regime/NATO will achieve their objectives.)
Per capita, it looks like Israel (under Biden’s proposal) might be getting more than the Kiev regime. The actual population in Kiev regime-controlled Ukraine has dwindled.
When compared to what Israel faces, the Kiev regime is (put mildly) in a weaker position and not as likely to prevail in its objective. Regardless, both situations would be better served with smart diplomacy over simply throwing arms and rhetoric as a means of ending the respective conflict.
Pro-Israeli/Kiev regime skeptic Trump probably favors less aid to the Kiev regime, adding that Europe should carry the weight on that matter.
You’re not wrong and my analogy is not perfect – the European wars were not done in the name of Christianity, whereas the nihilistic violence convulsing the Islamic world is done in the name of Islam. But they were ideological wars.
But I think as a general theory, when a civilizational sphere finds itself awash in violence – with very nihilistic forces unleashed, like with ISIS and Hamas – you’re witnessing the breakdown of the old synthesis and people are fighting over competing visions of a new synthesis.
So I think we’re witnessing the breakdown of Islam.
In addition, the kind of fundamentalism and extremism you find in the Muslim world indicates doubt and a lack of faith in the truth of Islam. What must insist on itself so strongly does not truly believe in itself.
Life is short, time is finite. I haven’t even read most of the great texts of the Western tradition, nor all of the Bible. Why would I want to read Islamic scripture (which you’re only supposed to do in the original Arabic anyway)? Would reading a translation of the Quran (not particularly exciting reading material by most accounts) really be likely to fundamentally change my view of the nature of Islam and its historic interactions with the rest of the world? Would it somehow enrich my life? I very much doubt it.
For similar reasons I’m not going to enter into long discussions about certain topics which for me personally were settled long ago. E.g. I’m not going to waste time debating standard prog talking points about why mass immigration and multiculturalism are wonderful etc. There is no genuine dialogue to be had with such people anyway, just as there isn’t with a Muslim missionary like Talha, they’re just trying to convert you to their own position, and you’re not even likely to learn any genuinely interesting new information (except maybe getting additional insights into how your enemies think). Some discussions really are completely pointless.
I’m partial to my own nation and my own civilization, which I have never denied. But that fairly trivial observation doesn’t amount to a refutation of my views on the validity of Mohammed’s revelation.
Well, I’ll have you know that I first felt disrespected by you before I turned to insults. So if my remarks annoyed you, good, I can at least feel we’re even. Also, please know that very few people on this site have ever managed to truly anger me, so you can count yourself among elite company in that respect.
With that out of the way, seriously, when you start talking world-ending final battles without any apologetic prefatory statement like “this is going to sound weird but…”, you should understand that you are going to come across like a weirdo to people. Wouldn’t you react the same way if you were at a bar and you were chatting about some current event and your interlocutor with a straight face went on to describe it as a consequence of “kali yuga” or something? Even if you found that topic interesting, wouldn’t you think of him as a bit of crank for simply assuming there’s nothing strange with talking so straightforwardly about it?
But will it be enough? Biden talks like WW3 is about to start and the West will mobilize and put all they have into the fight. Very unlikely. His people are stuck rehashing WW2 and other past wars in their heads. It is different today.
The sides are evenly balanced and not interested in a struggle to death. Biden is creating Manichean expectations that can’t be met. Both current wars will have to end in a deal and not by completely destroying the enemy as in WW2. What’s the point of escalating ad infinitum?
I suppose a new crew can be put in place who will modestly say that mistakes were made, let bygones be gone. It will be awkward. Or we will get years of inertia and frozen conflicts to wait out.
Money out of thin air will flow and trigger demands that it also be spent elsewhere. That will undermine the Western economy that no longer produces much. And all they had to do was observe minimum human rights for Russians in Ukraine and for Palestinians, keep Taiwan status ambiguous and warships out of other countries coastal waters. Was that so hard? Instead a crazy fever took over with people afraid to speak up and everyone hiding in false analogies.
What did he say that bothered you so much?
It wasn’t any one thing. The haughty attitude combined with evasive answers began to annoy me, then his doubting the sincerity of my spiritual convictions and dismissing me as nothing but a “hedonist,” all of it capped by his championing the islamites, really got under my skin. Ultimate responsibility for allowing it to get to me rests with me, I guess. My excuse is I can’t always be on top of my game, as well the fact it’s been a long time since I’ve felt worked up about islam. I’ve always hated that faith/culture/civilization with a fiery passion (kinda like the way you feel about palestinians). It’s just that in more recent years I’d come to regard race as more important, which pushed the islamic issue into the background. It’s like I’d “forgotten” how agitated I can get about it.
Good question. I’ve never heard of nor can I come up with any good answer to it. (I notice Aaron ducked it.) I mean, I can come up with “answers,” but not satisfying ones, and I just end up feeling like I’m bullshitting myself. Also, the rule seems to be the stuff you like can be read literally, the stuff you don’t like is allegorical. That’s why the story of a talking snake, which seems tailor-made to be read allegorically, is often read literally – since it’s the kind of thing a God could make happen, and there’s nothing morally icky about it – whereas a straightforward account of a war and the slaughter of the losers, which strikes us as morally repugnant and of questionable holiness, is treated as “obviously” allegorical. I’d rather just junk it than try and creatively interpret it.
Yeah, if one had any doubts, Hamas’s extremely brutal 9/11-style attack on Israel proved that the one-state solution is likely unworkable.
They could settle in the Jordan Valley if a future Palestinian state will acquire it, no? There’s still plenty of available space there.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hinduism_in_Bangladesh
It wasn’t even that “successful”. Bangladesh (East Pakistan) was 18.5% Hindu in 1961 and 13.5% Hindu in 1974. Even the total number of Bangladeshi Hindus was slightly higher in 1974 (9,673,048) than it was back in 1961 (9,379,669). Some genocide indeed! And the slow Bangladeshi Hindu growth rate already began back in the 1950s.
yeah I hear you about the way that anger can come from directions you don’t expect and then you don’t know how to properly cope with the emotions. Happens to me all the time.
I guess it’s all about picking yourself back up and trying to do better the next time. I don’t know if there is a way to be totally immune to anger other than just ceasing to exist entirely.
Off-topic, but do you believe in the divinity of Jesus Christ?
Where were you for the last 20 years? The fast growing settlements in the West Bank have made a two-state solution impossible, it didn’t happen accidentally. That leaves the continuing current bloody impasse or one-state. Complete elimination of Palestinians or even a “three-state” solution are remotely possible but extremely unlikely.
What happened will make freezing the war and keeping it out of public view very difficult. It has also made the pro-Palestinian countries much more likely to express their views, and there are a lot of them, from Turkey to Indonesia, most of the southern world, etc… The polarization will be costly for the West – Macron is rushing to Jerusalem to show loyalty and plead for some good-will gestures. Macron going places suggests that team B has been engaged. (Or some elderly lady caught his eye over there.)
Not really, but as I’ve already written I can’t be 100% sure. There is no mystery at all for me regarding Mohammed’s “revelation”, the only thing special about him was his extraordinary success. It’s harder to explain how a belief in something as strange as the resurrection, supposedly testified by many witnesses, could have arisen.
But I’m not really interested in religious discussions, there’s usually no point to them.
Most of the Israeli settlements can easily be incorporated into Israel:
https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/12/opinion/mapping-mideast-peace.html?_r=0
Israel could, in theory, agree to a border along the West Bank barrier, for instance:
Even the Mofaz Plan, while worse for the Palestinians if they will ultimately end up never acquiring the Jordan Valley (Mofaz did eventually envision giving it to them, but some Israelis nowadays want to permanently hold onto the Jordan Valley), still allows for a viable and contiguous Palestinian state:
Would look similar to Nagorno-Karabakh in the 2020-2023 time period. A narrow corridor connecting this Palestinian state to Jordan, with Israel almost completely surrounding this Palestinian state. In such a scenario, the Jordan Valley could be used by Israeli Jews for future settlement.
tbh I doubt late antique or medieval Christians interpreted these particularly violent stories in a way that would have implied they thought it didn’t really happen, because the idea of God ordering something so inhumane embarrassed them. On the whole they took those quasi-historical parts of the OT to be reliable accounts (and I don’t think that was even totally absurd, e. g. someone like King David might have possibly existed after all, and the general historicity of OT stories is still disputed). They also thought the fall of man was an actual event that really happened. The allegorical interpretations rather served as an often strained attempt to make the OT and NT coherent, to see pre-figurations of Christ everywhere, and to adduce arguments for particular views of the relations between sacred and secular, of the role of the Church in the world etc. And not always just for non-violent or strictly ecclesiastical purposes, as we today would understand them. E.g. in the 11th century Pope Gregory VII and the reform movement led by him were fond of a verse from 1 Samuel 15: melior est enim oboedientia quam victimae, obedience is better than sacrifice. This is in the context of King Saul not having carried out God’s order to completely exterminate the Amalekites, including even their cattle, for which Saul lost his kingship. Gregory VII interpreted this in the sense that every believer owed total obedience to the pope as Christ’s representative on earth (and famously, he also sought to act on that belief and tried to depose the German king Henry IV for not having mended his ways despite papal orders). All those violent parts of the OT, about destroying Amalekites and other enemies of God, also played a crucial role in the ideology of the crusades. So one can’t say they were always interpreted just in an allegorical way that would be pleasing to modern sensibilities.
I still think there’s a certain difference with Islam though. One could see something like the crusades as a perversion of Christianity, or at least a novel development that was at odds with much of earlier Christian thought on just war. Whereas the incident cited by A123 that started this discussion (the mass execution of prisoners of war and enslavement of their wives and children) is something that happened under the command of Mohammed himself, Islam’s very founder. Given that Mohammed is regarded as the perfect human being by Muslims whose conduct is an exemplary model, and that Islam had a highly developed concept of holy war for pretty much its entire existence (and crucially, not just defensive war), the violent tendencies are much closer to the center of the faith in Islam than they are in Christianity (and possibly in Judaism as well, the OT contains many different elements after all).
I would have to add that I know nothing about how the Orthodox church or the various Eastern churches interpreted those stories about God ordering the destruction of Amalekites etc. My understanding is that there never was a real equivalent to crusading ideology in them, but I don’t know for sure.
It’s not anger per se that bothers me, it’s what I do or say in consequence of getting angry. Sometimes I manage to channel it into productive ends, and in those cases it’s helpful. But often I end up doing something stupid or hurtful, and then I feel full of regret and kick myself. As you say, as long as we live, it’s bound to happen; we just have to try to do better the next time.
I don’t disagree with you, but I should have clarified that I was referring to apologists in our own time. There is a pretty consistent pattern to what they interpret away allegorically and what they’re happy to take at face value (especially when skeptics are holding their feet to the fire).
Personally, I really don’t care about scripture. The way I see it, the early church made a great mistake in tying itself to scripture, although it was perhaps unavoidable, given the way the various early Christian factions vied with each other for dominance – being able to produce a piece of paper with the “truth” scribbled on it seems to have been advantageous. It took a while, but when the autiste Luther came along, he was able to use scripture to pull the rug out from under the church.
I agree that it is not such a great read. I read it decades ago in a French translation and was disappointed, then tried learning Arabic to read it in the original, but it is quite complicated as a language, although its grammar is very logical and consistent.
I agree. For example, I see discussing Ukrainian war as completely pointless. But here I was interested into your take on the possibility of knowing ontological truth. Do you have anything to comment about it? Were you serious about it being possible to witness and understand objective/ontological truth through your intellect alone?
I don’t care about Mohammed’s or any other Abrahamic revelation. They are all false from my pov, although there are elements of truth even in their false doctrines. But the fact that the Abrahamic creeds are all false, doesn’t make me an ennemy of the Abrahamic traditions. People are more or less deluded one way or another. Being human is being biased, that’s just the basics of our existence. Hating on Muslims because their prophet was somewhat misguided is biased because many OT personages were a little weird to say the least. Mohammed is just one among this uncanny Abrahamic lineage after all. Nothing special about him in my pov.
Even until quite recently these passages have had their fans, I know Drieu La Rochelle admired the virile warrior energy on display in some of these primitive (that was a word of praise for Drieu) parts of the OT. This was the influence of Nietzsche, and Drieu’s belief that without war and violence men would become impotent. He had a particular view of Christianity that minimised the forgiving and loving parts.
Bronze Age Pervert still makes some use of ideas like this so the tendency isn’t entirely gone.
A possible explanation would be that the OT God is just a very powerful, self centered, deceptive and cunning entity. It is not who it pretends to be. It is not the Perfect, Absolute, Immanent while at the same time Transcendental Being. It would like to be all that, but it isn’t. Of course the God of Gospels is something else entirely. They should never have been conflated. It was the “original sin” (pun intended) of the Christian Church.
And yeah, just so you know – I am not angry against you. But I felt your being annoyed even before your burst into the silly insults and therefore stopped short of discussing seriously the matters I consider truly important. Anyway, you’d choose the blue pill, wouldn’t you?
🙂
Existence and Being are two different things. One could cease existing, but actualize one’s Being. Existence is probably overrated anyway, because it separates the subject from the object and places all of us “besides the truth” while Being is the Truth itself. There is nothing wrong with anatta, it does help cure anger.
Not really, I don’t have anything profound to contribute to discussions about the reliability of our senses etc. I can’t make any claims to have a profound understanding of the deep nature of reality. But imo that’s something different from evaluating Islam and other belief systems. If you’re denying the capability of human reason for that, you’d have to accept anything (which imo is way more post-modern and nihilist than the views held by me, Silviosilver etc.). And since Islam isn’t just another philosophy, but claims universal validity in a fairly aggressive way, there’s not really much choice about having an opinion on its claims. Absolute claims inspire absolute judgement.
Mohammed has a special status for Muslims, he’s seen as the perfect human being whose conduct is to be emulated. Given the character of many of his actions that’s quite obviously a problem. I don’t think you can find an exact parallel in Christianity, nor probably in Judaism (maybe Aaron or GW can comment).
And I’m not “hating on Muslims”. I’m not keen on a war of civilizations or going on a crusade to reform the Islamic world through military means, as was (or is) the Neocon project. But nor do I think one should be naive about the ultimate goals of people like Talha (which he hasn’t even really tried to obfuscate, I’m pretty sure I once got him to admit that of course his ultimate aim, supposedly inevitable due to Allah’s will, is the creation of an Islamic system in the US, with punishments for blasphemy, and presumably apostasy too). This idea “all religions are essentially the same, just about believing in God and being a good person” which far too many Westerners still believe in is just incredibly stupid.
To some extent I don’t find that strange tbh, these OT stories often do have a certain heroic quality to them after all. Obviously the mentality is pretty alien from a modern perspective, but one could say the same about Norse sagas or stories from pagan antiquity. As long as one doesn’t read them like an instruction manual, I don’t think it’s necessarily bad to appreciate certain aspects of them.
Not a bellicist or prone to glorifying war myself, but given how enervated Western Europe has become, I’m not even sure one can totally dismiss such ideas as Drieu’s either.
The factor connecting the LGBT+ stuff, economic development and falling TFR could be the emancipation of women.
I notice that women are more pro-LGBT as a rule, and the feminist and gay liberation movements have been connected for a long time.
Economic development is often linked to the emancipation of women, improving educational level of women, access to contraception, increases in female political and cultural influence. And low TFR follows from this. Even in Iran, I think a lot of women go into higher education. More than men iirc.
Then there is urbanisation, which seems to lower the birthrate. It may be possible to resist feminism at least to some extent by resisting the cultural influence of LGBT as a proxy for it, hard to say.
Human reason is not the whole of our cognitive capabilities. Our consciousness is way more than our intellect alone.
It has been tried and it proved a failure.
Talha is quite outspoken about his convictions, which is very honorable from my pov. He is not an hypocrite and he is capable of discussing different topics in a polite and well structured manner, which is way better than some other commenters do on a daily basis. Singling him out because he is a Mu’meen is another proof of your islamophobic bias.
Agree with that. There’s a great deal of difference between Dharmic (Aryan) religious traditions and Abrahamic (Semitic) ones. Wonder why so many Westerners still cling to the Abrahamic bandwagon that has brought them so many suffering overall.
Joe Biden is doing a great job, actually.
No, he adopted these ideas partly as a result of his own war experiences and wounds, so he wasn’t advocating something he didn’t know first-hand (he is maybe somewhat like Junger in that respect).
As I read into his stuff he started to seem more relevant. There is a lot of social commentary on the mid-level and wealthy French bourgeoisie in the 20s and 30s and it’s fairly easy to find parallels with current society, by now it has just spread more broadly outside these more narrow milieux. He was a Chad of his own time (or a ‘man covered with women’, title of one of the novels) so there is this 1920s red pill aspect to it, bringing the two strands of the war and this sort of decadent social life together is a recurring theme.
There were a few big political novelists in France in the 30s, André Malraux was one, Drieu was another. In the 90s I was reading Malraux, he seems to have been a healthier character overall and a better writer, but I can see the zeitgeist broadening to include Drieu again now.
Incorrect.
Gregory of Nyssa –
Augustine of Hippo
Origen –
I didn’t duck it 🙂 I just figured anyone can read my link and do research in general, if they’re sincere.
Generally, the “savage” bits of the Old Testament are read as the “war on the passions”, not as actual war, or as wars on evil habits of thought, etc.
As for the fables of Genesis, the story of the Fall and expulsion from Eden as the result of a desire for power is one of the best ways of explaining the human predicament there is.
But anyone who’s really interested can read the allegorical interpretations of the church fathers – they’re quite fun 🙂
Sure, there’s always been people who believed in biblical literalism, and the church fathers even warned against it, as AP’s quotes show. Gregory of Nyssa in his commentary on the Song of Songs has an extended defense of allegory and explicitly condemns people he claims are prone to take things too literally – he obviously thought it was a problem during his time, and needed to be condemned.
All modern phenomena also existed in past times as well – I quoted Cicero recently describing a recognizably modern version of determinism.
In ancient India, one of the most religious societies on earth, there was a school of modern-style atheists, who preached hedonism based on the idea that there is no God and death is final. They are indistinguishable from current atheists.
Nothing is unique to modernity. It’s just a question of relative emphasis and prevalence.
As for the average majority being idiotic, most likely – but sacred scriptures and myths were created by the intellectual class, and curated and lovingly tended by them – first, most likely by shamans and seers, then later by priests and scholars. Most people couldn’t read for generations and didn’t have a clear idea of what was in the bible.
As divinely inspired poetry, I think Genesis is fabulous – packed with meaning. The story of the Fall and the expulsion from Eden seems to me to get at a basic truth about the human condition in a way few other stories can. It has echoes in Taoism.
Ah, I see your soul hungers for true mystical religion!
I do still plan on writing a bit about it and posting some pictures, although I have to disappoint you as I didn’t end up doing the Sierra High Trail. Still was a very fun trip.
Just world events sort of got ahead of me, but yeah, will write.
Interesting, but I don’t think it’s as clear-cut as that. In the medieval texts I’ve read (notably those from the reform movement of the 11th century) there was a rather different approach. The violence of those OT stories is explicitly endorsed as being justified against God’s enemies. I didn’t get any impression that there was a perception of some deep moral gulf between the OT stories (understood literally) and the Christian world view of the authors of those texts (which admittedly were quite controversial in some ways in their own time). Maybe the contradictions were felt more keenly by the Church fathers, but I haven’t read enough of them to judge the matter.
The “Christ the Warrior King” image seems to be an exclusively Western Catholic imagery. I always took it as an attempt to legitimize conquest under religious auspices, given how much internal and external warfare Europe went through. Byzantium already inherited a relatively stable empire and had no need for the same religious justifications in that regard.
Well, if it was permanent or at least long-lasting they would have something. But three days? Are they serious? Underwhelming, as if a group of confused and emotionally ambitious people put together a story without much thought.
Sure, that would be in line with many gnostic interpretations. I still think that it has more to do with the fallibility of man though. It seems perfectly consistent with how we’ve seen people twist any idea to suit their base desires.
Even Christ and his teaching, which is pretty darned clear, has been twisted around to justify anything from absurdities like the Prosperity Gospel to armed conquest.
It’s about ethnicity. I am not sure it matters where acquired religions started – e.g. Christianity could be argued as starting along Aegean coast, Constantinopole, or Rome.
In any case, going back 1,400 years is psychotic. If you don’t see it, there is no point in arguing it. We live now, maybe stuff that happened 3-4 generations back matters, but refighting older history is pointless. Anglos colonized America 300-400 years ago, Spaniards too…should they all leave? Or are Palestinians a special case?
This sounds like a collateral damage calculation that they may have made. I’m not saying I agree with them, but that does not constitute intentionally targeting women and children. They did allow Al-Qaeda as guests because many of them helped fight the Soviets. When the US accused Al-Qaradawi of 9/11, the Taliban had stated publicly, give us the proof and we’ll hand them over. Again, I’m not a fan of theirs, but they aren’t the same as Daesh and the like (in fact they are at war with Daesh).
No it was not. That, again, was an inference you made. From a doctrinal perspective, it could be argued that Christianity is a pacifist religion at the core, so there is no comparison to Islam which makes no bones about dealing with the realities of war at the outset. In actual practice – the pacifist doctrine didn’t much get applied, since Christians fought the worst wars of religion with the highest body counts among themselves and hold the record for torturing and burning alive heretics – with full ecclesiastical support (it should be mentioned). Furthermore, Christians (after going more secular) still went hyper-violent on each other, eliminating each other in creative industrial fashion and pounding each other’s cities to the ground. So, in historical practice – despite doctrine, Christianity has very low success rate in curbing violence (in proportion to its ideals) especially among its own adherents among themselves.
As I said, Islam has rules (from the outset about peace and war) just as it has rules about prayer, fasting and dietary laws. There is no dissenting voice among the schools of law about the prohibition on intentionally targeting women and children. If some Muslims choose to ignore that out of a utilitarian calculus, that is on them. It doesn’t change the fact that the sacred law defines rules.
Pakistan does have very beautiful landscapes, especially in the north, but Turkey and other places have wonderful scenery also.
You can have these conversations in Pakistan itself. There are plenty of agnostics and atheists there. one of my spiritual teachers goes there time to time and discusses/debates with them about their issues with Islam. Academic debates with atheists and Muslim scholars were held publicly even back in Abbasid times. That isn’t the issue necessarily.
BUT, if you want to stand on a street corner and shout out insulting, vile and denigrating things about Allah swt and His Messengers (pbut) you will be arrested, prosecuted and punished according to the local rules. If you just can’t help control yourself from being offensive to religious sensibilities in this way, i would avoid the Muslim world. Just like if, every time you see a black person, you just have to blurt out “nigger”, I would avoid the South side of Chicago.
Peace.
Muhammad raped Aisha when she was 9. That is not a good role model to emulate.
The connection between “Real Islam” and crime is undeniable. Here is a recent example: (1)
Even Henry Kissinger admits that a catastrophic mistake has been made.
Someone earlier posted about online radicalization and its connection to terrorism. The safest number of Muslims in Christendom is zero.
Europe and America can sharply bring down the number of incoming with some easy and obvious steps — No employment, no welfare, no asylum, no diversity visas, no path to citizenship, 100% detention of illegals, etc. Achieving de-Islamification of those already present will require modification of citizenship laws.
Yet another reason the EU needs to be dissolved. Those supranational bodies will attempt to block minimum necessary citizenship reform. American is probably headed to a Constitution 2.0. The one we have now has been slowly dying for a while.
Where necessary, a big beautiful wall can be built between Judeo-Christian and Muslim lands. The idea of a cohesive multi-national Abrahamic collective is self evidently unworkable. Any Judeo-Christian association would have to be secondary to national sovereignty to avoid the problems the EU is currently creating.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://rmx.news/belgium/over-half-of-those-arrested-in-brussels-last-month-were-illegal-immigrants-police-chief-reveals/
That is fascinating actually, thanks! Even time-space rupture is involved – that is very interesting.
Another question; is this the general consensus among all the Dharmics or a particular branch of them? Are there permutations to this end times narrative or is this something they all seem to agree on (even if they differ slightly in details)?
Peace.
Quite astonishing that you can write that, as if that’s all there was to it. Boo-hoo, we’re being mean to poor Mohammed, who just a bit misguided and dindu nuffin really.
They are hated, first and foremost, for what they have done (and are doing) to us (and to you). Learning about the religious ideas that inspire and justify that harm simply makes one hate them more.
I understand it’s not really their fault. They are born and raised within that ghastly islamic milieu and very few of them ever manage to think their way out of it. Their only saving grace is that many of them are humans before they are muslims and, just like christians, don’t know or don’t care about the harsher doctrines of their faith.
Nevertheless, one must be prepared to defend oneself against their incursions – demographically, culturally, religiously and militarily. The last thing one should do is apologize for being critical of them (as you would apparently have us do).
Are you suggesting that sexual licentiousness was a pillar of the Church in western lands at one time? Even just tolerated in a non critical way (a sort of union of the spiritual with the profane?)? I don’t recall any such thing in the eastern, Orthodox lands?…
There seems to be no avoiding miscommunication and misunderstanding, even when our motives are pure. For instance, you have previously expressed disdain at the thought of being considered a “consumer” here. Ordinarily (or charitably), one would not presume from that that you scream at your kid, “Billy, put that big mac down! That’s consumption and you know we don’t do that here. As long as you live under my roof, if you want a hamburger – start with a cow.” And yet one could quite innocently imagine that you run your household along similarly strict lines, especially with the distance of a few hundred years. And if one weren’t so innocent, the sky’s the limit.
This is true, but what is not mentioned is that this is not actually the general practice. This was an exceptional case for a very obvious reason as is recorded in the most authentic sources like Bukhari. Bani Qurayza had actually allied with Bani Nadhir (both Jewish tribes) and fought the Muslims previously. After defeat, Bani Nadhir was exiled while Bani Qurayza were allowed to remain. When Bani Qurayza (living in Madinah) allied with the Quraysh and their confederates during a siege on the city of Madinah, they made a huge gamble. If the pagans won, the Muslims would have been overwhelmed and Bani Qurayza would be spared in the subsequent sack for their treachery against the Muslims. The Muslims won and Bani Qurayza paid a heavy price for their miscalculation.
https://sunnah.com/bukhari/64/77
Out of the many battles conducted by the Prophet (pbuh) – summary execution of all the military-age male prisoners of war does not occur except for this instance. Depending on circumstance; they were usually either simply let go or ransomed or enslaved.
Peace.
When Edgar Cayce said Russia is going to save civilization I’m pretty sure he was not envisioning you.
No. I have taken academic courses on the Christian Holy Bible. True Scotsman Christians never cite Revelation. It only begins or continues pointless argument that never ends. It’s akin to Palestinian rights at the United Nations.
Netanyahu’s 30 year old soldier man son is sitting out the festivities in Miami!
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-12664565/yair-netanyahu-benjamin-son-idf-reservists-miami.html
You have to walk to get to them. In the United States we had the Great Depression and the WPA to bulldoze and pave roads right up to the Park parking lot. In Pakistan the rich tourists get to rent a donkey and ride donkey speed to the similar points. Also you have to hire guides and be super careful what you eat and drink. I have no ambition to ever travel to Pakistan although I agree the mountain photographs are splendid.
In California the WPA built a road to the peak of Mt. Diablo. This is decadence.
I know one such young reservist (25), who was born in the US, who has already served one full tour in Israel. He brought a lot of body armour along with him to help others. No Yair is he.
Well, Dmitry – you make some very good points here. As does Coconuts. You left out China from the mix but they also don’t have much LGBT tolerance but a horrible TFR. They are also heavily urbanized and that directly corresponds to low fertility (as Coconuts mentioned):
It does seem that once many people reach a certain level of wealth and education (especially career-first women) – children become more and more an afterthought. Religion seems to help stem the tide, but the trend is undeniable.
Thanks for giving me some things to think over.
Peace.
It certainly wasn’t celebrated but it was not suppressed in a Puritanical way either. It was tolerated and recognised as a negative part of human nature and dealt with practically.
There’s a funny book by an American linguist, McWhorter, about shifting taboo words over time. In the medieval world, profanities involved words dealing with religion such as hell, damnation, using the Lord’s name in vain. Decent people wouldn’t speak such words. On the other hand, words such as fuck or cunt were not considered to be a big deal. This contrast reflects the reverence for God and the more casual attitudes towards normal (heterosexual) sexual activity by the devout Medievals.
Later Puritans and then Victorians introduced all the sexual taboos and, accordingly, Gropecunt Lanes got renamed. It’s like people who were losing their faith chose to cling to strict sexual behaviors as a proxy or substitute.
The sexual preoccupation faded in the mid to late 20th century, to be replaced by words referring to national origins such as “the N word” becoming taboo. While blasphemies and sexual words have become normalized.
Dostoyevsky’s writings suggest that pre-Revolutionary Russia was hardly Puritanical
Have you ever read the Jorjani bit that Mohammed was tricked by a Persian spy and Islam was a psychological operation that avalanched out of control? He has quite the imagination.
I would say that ignoring thousands of years of history is psychotic. But if you cannot see the value of history, there is no point in arguing it.
No. It is about religion.
Here is an easy thought experiment to prove the point.
–A– If 100% of the Muslims could be made Jewish with the “wave of a wand” would the problem look like?
The situation would be vastly better because the threat of Muslim terror would be gone. No more Allah Ahkbar death screamers. Security barriers would be removed. Day to day life would be safer. Etc.
That is not to say things would be instantaneously perfect. Nothing is ever perfect. Perfection is an unachievable goal, so that would be an irrational standard.
–B– Now “wave the wand” and make the Muslims a different ethnicity. What would be different?
Why would anything change? The irrational Muslim hostility towards Jews in the religious homeland of Judaism would remain. All of the security measures would still be present. Any alteration to the status quo would be very limited.
___________
What more can I do to help you understand that it is about religion rather than ethnicity?
I am suggesting that the non-Palestinian religion of Islam in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza is NOT a special case.
Can you provide an explicit number of years for case management? 3-4 generations is ~100 years. Do you accept that if Palestinian Jews manage to hold their land for 100 years, the Muslim claims become void? If not, what is the requisite number of years?
Trying to apply different rules to different groups by creating a magic line between ‘historic’ and ‘current’ is problematic. Logic dictates that everything ‘current’ must eventually become ‘historic’.
What you seem to want is the special case. Take the ‘current’ situation, ignore the past, freeze it as a snapshot, apply those lines forward eternally. It comes across as temporal cherry picking to give your preferred side maximum advantage.
PEACE 😇
There is a bit of this in Dune. The Bene Gesserit spread messianic narratives among different world populations in order to ready them for the arrival of the Kwisatz Haderach (that they are actively engaged in breeding) so that they can be centrally controlled. Of course, he does arrive – earlier than they predicted – and goes rogue. The irony being that people like the Fremen have already been conditioned to await and follow him.
Is Jorjani a Dune fan?
Peace.
This reminds me of the Evangelical hope for war in Israel to bring in the return of Christ.
Is it though? The Islamic world’s TFR is collapsing more quickly than Christendom’s ever did. The Western half (maybe two thirds) of Europe may be becoming more Islamic,* but Christianity is growing in China and Africa.
Islam is growing faster than Christianity but this is due to higher TFR (currently) which as we see is falling in the Muslim world. Christianity is growing more quickly by conversion than is Islam:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_population_growth
* And a big question about how permanent this is. Muslim TFR converging with Euro norms suggests an eventual resting state of Europe being 1/3 or so Islamic. And that’s if there is no backlash resulting in mass expulsions of Muslims from Europe.
Vienna was infamous for its many brothels frequented by people from all social classes, many of whose workers were Jewish girls from the East.
It was common in Victorian England but seems to have been limited to the poor ghettos.
And of course Paris.
In America, it’s Catholic New Orleans and Montreal being more comfortable with this stuff than Protestant cities.
You like Talha because you think Pakistan = Punjabi = Cousin
He’s a migrant from Gangetic India.
He’s black.
ਅਕਾਲ
In America, it’s Catholic New Orleans and Montreal being more comfortable with this stuff than Protestant cities.
Catholic New Orleans????
That’s a Black Democrat city first and foremost. Yes they have a Catholic history but it’s a Democrat city that associates Catholic values with trad Bad Whites.
Being a prostitute in New Orleans would be a good way to get killed. I watched a First 48 where they didn’t even bother investigating a dead prostitute.
Vegas is the prostitution city of America. LA is probably number two. The libs stopped cracking down on streetwalkers and now they walk around with bare asses exposed. Another fine day in libland.
Islam lowers iq by 8-10 equal parts due to incest & the religion itself. Islam is singlehandedly responsible for gay sex, nigger respect & the dominance of Western Europe.
If you hate globohomo then you must hate Islam which enables it. Without its retardation the Middle East would be the political Centre.
We could have Alexander style wars every century & lots of concubines. Islam is why we can’t have nice things. Islam prefers little boys.
ਅਕਾਲ
And before that, my ancestor was a Persian Sufi from Kirman. So there’s also that.
But who knows…
Peace.
Europe is much worse in that respect. Even in California you can find more unspoiled natural landscapes than in the whole of Europe. Building roads and rail lines to the top of the highest mountains (Mt Snowdon in the UK, Zugspitze in Germany, Eiger in Switzerland, Mount Teide in Spain, Sniezka in Poland,…) is not the worst part by any means. The lack of primeval vegetation everywhere is what stands out the most in comparison to the US. Imagine the Sierra Nevada with no natural forests of pines, firs and sequoias and the slopes covered by terraces of foreign exotic species: that’s Sierra Nevada in the south of Spain. The most common tree in the mountains of my homeland is by far pinus insignis (a species native to California), probably followed by eucalyptus (an Australian species).
If I looked that way, I would be grateful to the Divine for the form that I was granted and the womb through which I was born. But accuracy is necessary…this is me in my college days in my favorite Oilers jersey:
The beard has grown, some white hairs have set in, but the complexion is the same.
Peace.
I mean historically. New Orleans and Montreal have been more laid back for decades, probably 100+ years. People from the USA had been doing bachelor parties in Montreal at least as far back as the 50s.
Incidentally, I heard that in the Québécois French, the less spoken curse words continue to be religious in nature while words such as fuck are spoken casually. But I could be wrong, I’m not a French speaker.
Prostitution was legal for most of American history and expected in areas where men outnumbered the women (logging areas, gold mining, etc).
Brothels were part of Western towns and some even operated up through the 50s and 60s. The movie Porky’s is in part about a 50s brothel that is sort of at the end of an era.
Women have always hated brothels and the decency leagues were mainly headed by women and a few Christian men.
From what I have read it seems that the remaining brothels were chased out by Christian conservative alliances. Politicians were afraid to side with brothels given their reputation.
The problem with this attitude is that it drives prostitution to the streets. Prostitution in Vegas is tolerated but the women are exploited by Black pimps since it isn’t in the open. The women don’t get most of the money which means they have to work more.
I find Vegas prostitution to be a peculiar curiosity since it is everywhere and yet officially it is illegal. When you are on the strip there are illegals handing out flyers for prostitutes. It’s all very strange.
But overall you are correct. Western towns were not puritan as Christian conservatives like to imagine. It was expected that cowboys would gamble and buy prostitutes. That was how these towns made their money off real cowboys (21 year olds on long cattle drives and not the gunslingers in the movies).
You may want to make it a literary discussion on some passage of the Quran but if the passage in question is not meant to transmit compassion towards innocent people and is just a simple rule of military engagement it has very little value in comparison to atrocities committed by Christians, that you chose to mention.
Christians already have the 6th Commandment, that trumps that hadith by disallowing the killing of any person, innocent or not, and is above any other passage of the OT. You can’t get your confirmation or call yourself a Christian in any meaningful sense if you don’t know about the Ten Commandments but most Christians of all ages never knew anything about Samuel or Numbers. Just because the Bible is a disjointed collection of stories (exactly my point in my parallel conversation with Aaron) it doesn’t mean that you can take some isolated passage from the OT and say look, the Ten Commandments were abolished here, Christians were dispensed from following them the moment someone chose to include those passages in the OT. That’s either ignorant or frivolous.
I don’t find either Christianity or Islam appealing at all. But if I had to choose one based on how compassionate they are, both in theory and in the practice of the last couple of centuries, I’d go for Christianity without hesitation. In fact, I don’t think I have any disagreement with the catholic theory of the Just War, that has been in place for centuries.
Everybody should be a Dune fan. Herbert came up with all of that when oil was two dollars a barrel and after it still took two wars for the Arabs to get OPEC, production quotas, and embargos.
But to your question, Jorjani has a number of retarded ideas but he is a spectacularly well-read fellow.
Quebecois are famous for all their curse words being Le Tabernac & CRISSSS (christ)
Montreal was allowing open nigger loving in Jazz bars from the 20s.
They teach this in school as a mark of pride.
Obviously, it was french women with blacks but Anglos leave this part out..
This is a good post. The area between the curves represents why the USA could be doomed by the forced importation of a great many people who are somewhat less intelligent on average. I don’t know if the numbers are exactly correct but the idea seems important.
The basic point is itself an IQ test.
It also highlights one reason why smart people leave areas of lower typical intelligence. With average IQ below a certain point, improvement of their country may be hopeless since there will be too many midwits wrecking everything and not enough of a smart fraction to keep them connected to reality.
Lol, sounds a bit like imperial Germany sending Lenin to Russia.
Doubt there’s much basis for such a thesis, but at least it’s an interesting idea.
Nearly all women in the premodern spent most of their adult lives having uncontrolled pregnancies, suffering miscarriages, raising and very often burying children. There was both no reliable contraception and extremely high infant mortality, so even very fecund couples with 5 or more children often didn’t go on to have any surviving descendents. Even into the 19th Century, look at the lives of the typically middle-class Bronte sisters for example, all three died of tubercolosis quite early in life.
What I’m saying is that ‘women’s liberation’ never existed in the past because all but the most aristocratic women were previously preoccupied with manual labour and raising families. Then modern medicine and contraception changed all that, a woman could give birth to three or even only one child in fairly secure knowledge it would survive to adulthood. There was a period at the end of the 19th and early 20th Centuries in which aristocratic standards of women’s seclusion was able to be applied to a much larger section of the population due to technological advances, and they revolted against it. Of course there were ideological factors as well, but these basic facts are often forgotten.
There is one more important element here, but it would require breaking our humanity to be enforced, it could be very effective – food. MENA and the rest of Africa are food insecure to a very high degree and it will only get worse (not to mention water issues). They import a lot of food from places such as Europe, the US, Brazil. Ukraine is very important here as well. If things get really bad and if fragmentation starts in the EU and Europe can no longer withstand the immigration pressures or if the European population decides that islamisation has reached some critical mass, food imports could be used as a bargaining tool with the Arab world.
I’m not endorsing denying access to food – just using it as a bargaining tool if things get culturally unbearable.
Right now the impulse is to share and export more food from Europe. And this is generally very positive – we can produce and export much more. But if things get really bad, maybe ask the Arabs to handle the migrant problem on their soil – and hold them to it.
We could still have Arabic studies and some local types of Islam (such as Tatars in Eastern Europe, Dudayev Chechens (Sufis), or other mild, more traditional, more organic forms of it – but those would be based more in their own ancestral lands and on our lands they would be just guests or well behaved traditional minorities).
This is extremely cruel and I personally cannot imagine bringing myself to something such as this (except if the cultural existence of my own people was literally threatened) and most people are probably that way, but maybe in the future there will be a strong leader who can? Or a group of leaders or a consensus of some sort (where they agree that there is simply no other way out).
Of course, this would require giving up the whole humanitarian world system, but we’re already on our way in that direction anyway.
Would someone such as the Mufti of Jerusalem Amin al-Husseini (a Palestinian Arab nationalist) been able to do something like this? I mean he was able to put tens of thousands of Muslims under the Waffen SS banner once… question is – is there a White guy equivalent of that out there… or possibly in the future.
I mentioned this a few times here, but a long time ago I read an absolutely fascinating if slightly bonkers (mostly due to Heribert Ilig stuff in the last chapter, which the thesis below still works without regardless) book which claims that the ‘Arab/Islamic Conquests’ were in fact the product of an internal Arab/Christian heretic coup de’etat within the Sasanian Empire at the time of the final cataclysmic Byzantine-Persian War (602-628 AD), and that Heraclius’ reconquests of the Persian-occupied Levant & Egypt were ‘a forgery covering some real disgrace’.
The Sasanids extensively employed Arab mercenaries and tolerated a very large Christian population, so its plausible. And of course the administration (even the first coinage) of the early Caliphates and the earliest Islamic secondary texts were extremely Persian in character.
It also highlights one reason why smart people leave areas of lower typical intelligence. With average IQ below a certain point, improvement of their country may be hopeless since there will be too many midwits wrecking everything and not enough of a smart fraction to keep them connected to reality.
The confederacy of dunces is a real problem.
The mediocre will collude against the talented to make themselves feel better. They will rally around a mediocre leader that affirms their beliefs even if he doesn’t have any good ideas. I’ve seen this in the office and it can be extremely destructive. The mediocre don’t try to improve or compete and instead seek out unethical means to protect their positions.
It’s easier for them to collude in closed societies where there is zero accountability. Dissenters can’t start their own political party or appeal to the authorities. They can in fact disappear and no one asks any questions. Hamas is basically a mob of idiots and they can eliminate anyone.
Dune has a better plot line than the Quran.
Was so bummed that the sequel was delayed till next year. I had a weekend reserved to watch it on IMAX.
The so called “emancipation of women” – a very old fashioned and outdated term at this point – (and which btw goes hand in hand with the “emancipation” and essentially unearned privileges for alpha males in society – read: free for all) is no longer the issue at least when it comes to the European TFRs. Most European women today want both – both children and an interesting occupation with the ability to thrive professionally and financially (and maybe some free alone time). This is all totally doable if it’s managed the right way (since we are only talking about a small number of children here, albeit bigger than what we currently have on average).
The problem is – the society and the alpha males would not allow it, because it’s against their selfish interests. These interests are being furthered at the expense of the White women’s interests and desires. Contraception (which in many cases significantly limits women’s physical and psychological pleasure) is forced on women mostly by alpha males (or concerned family members and more indirectly – by employers).
What about negative impacts of intelligence on a population?
“Demographic studies have indicated that in humans, fertility and intelligence tend to be negatively correlated, that is to say, the more intelligent, as measured by IQ, exhibit a lower total fertility rate than the less intelligent.”
https://psychology.fandom.com/wiki/Intelligence_and_fertility
Are intelligent people simply too busy building a world that they are leaving behind for the less intelligent to inherit? Is that intelligent? Maybe. Is it evolutionarily selectively fit? You kidding me? Intelligence is a survival mechanism that is part of a basket of traits for optimization of hominid survival in a given environment – you cannot retcon evolution. Evolution doesn’t care for aesthetics. If the dust clears and the less intelligent survive and perpetuate their genes, lower intelligence is more selectively fit. Prove me wrong.
I suggest you look at the circles you inhabit and judge for yourself. I can say for myself, and – by the grace of God, my intelligence was high enough that I was tested and selected for the gifted education track in school – I have been around a lot of very intelligent people in my life – going to UCLA and being in IT. However, I cannot tell you how many of them lack the key trait of wisdom (which is not intelligence) and is very difficult to measure. I can also tell you that I’ve met plenty of guys who lack an education, but easily have a more evolved sense of wisdom.
Peace.
Yeah, but hopefully the sequel is worth the wait. Based on the first, and the trailers I’m seeing, I think it will be.
Christopher Walken as the Emperor??!! Boss move!
Peace.
I got that book and read it a couple years ago probably on your endorsement. It was definitely new to me when I saw it. I know it was on this web page. There are way more blanks than data in the record and countless ways to fill in the blanks.
There is a fellow in the current frontpage Unz Gaza article who makes a case that today’s Jews have zero lineal descent from Abraham and Moses. It isn’t that hard to do.
I think you are talking about play boys, not alpha males as traditionally understood. The key word being “boys” who want fun without responsibility.
Alpha males in premodern times and places like Turkey or Japan (hell, even Aztlan) would have a harem of women that they could support along with their retinue of so many children that they couldn’t remember their names.
Peace.
No disappointments there 🙂 I imagined you were too late for the HST. Those early season snowfalls on top of last year’s historic snow cover made the plan quite challenging in my mind. Probably not the best environment for reading Chinese poetry. Though who knows… Anyway, we all usually start with greater plans than what we later accomplish. How would we ever accomplish anything if we didn’t at least make big plans?
FYI, your latest report inspired me to spend a night camping in the Swell and enjoying some hot coffee in the early hours of the morning as the sun started to rise and warm the desert. It was just instant coffee heated in a camping stove but what a wonderful experience. Hope you had many like that.
Actually, no, I wasn’t talking about some mystical “playboys” but about European alpha males (and upper beta males) in exclusive (for the most part), long term hetero relationships. The good old European family planning.
I was talking about strictly my culture, not yours. If we, Europeans, are going to be red pilled, we need to be red pilled all the way. Let’s go red pill to the very core, if we’re going to talk about vague things such as “women’s emancipation”. Anyway, don’t want to push this topic, but had to mention that since it was brought up.
This is true but you are wrong to claim that Judaism and Christianity are not Aryan religions. The Jews got their God from the Scythianized Persians during their time in Babylon, it’s the Aryan sky God. This is why Jews consider Cyrus the Great to be a prophet. The Aryan God came to the Jews so that He could be incarnated among them, that was their historical purpose. Monotheism came from the Scythians, whose God was God of gods just as in this world the Scythian (and Persian) kings were kings of kings.
Christianity wasn’t an imposition of a Semitic God upon Europeans but a triumph of Aryan monotheism over European paganism, with the Jews having been a temporary vessel.
Therefore there is no struggle of a Semitic faith versus an Aryan one, but of Aryan monotheism versus Aryan polytheism/paganism. An ancient struggle with many ups and downs. Xerxes the Great crushed the pagan gods and demons, only to have his empire destroyed by the polytheistic Greeks. But then Xerxes’s God was born among the Jews who worshipped Him, and in this form the faith would erase and permanently triumph over the paganism of the Greeks, be adopted by the Europeans, including the Slavs whose polytheism was a primitive cousin of that of the people of India. And from Europe, the faith would conquer most of the world.
I don’t know enough about Islam to know whether Allah is the God of the Scythians, Persians, Jews and Christians, or whether he is some other force.
you are milk toast
http://web.archive.org/web/20201117002719/https://www.vice.com/en/article/ppxqan/augustus-invictus-the-florida-libertarian-who-loves-paganism-civil-war-and-goat-sacrifice-105
More here but probably scroll down to invictus:
https://marcovisconti2393.medium.com/the-wasteland-504de7a40ee8
Well yes, that’s the point. Those were profanities for them, while fuck is no big deal. As in traditional Christian societies.
Allah swt the Divine without partner or equal – this is the primordial creed of mankind in a transcendent Uncreated Creator. It is not particular to Scythians or anyone. Paganism/polytheism does not predate monotheism, any claim that it does is incoherent.
To have the concept of two gods, you must necessarily first have the concept of God. It’s like claiming multicellular organisms arose before single-celled organisms – dead on arrival.
Peace.
There are many different types of paganisms, but in European paganism, God / Dievs / Dyḗus ph₂tḗr was always present way before the arrival of both Christianity and Islam (both of which are late religions). There is Dievs as the ever present, all encompassing force, as the background for all the other deities, in the Norse tradition there is Alfader.
I wonder if this negative correlation between IQ and family size was not true in the West until about the same time they started measuring IQ? Up to that point families were larger in general and kids of intelligent parents tended to do better in life leading to a virtuous cycle. The r-K election idea plays into this in some areas, since less intelligent people simply died off. On the other hand, once prosperity reaches a certain point perhaps the benefits of K-successes are bestowed on more “r-like” people and the successes are diluted away.
Western society reached a certain level of prosperity and technological capability and then many striking and sometime confusing social phenomena blossomed. These included world wars, women’s rights, birth control, universal public education, mass media, extended life and a thousand others which had major influence on intelligence, the general ability to think clearly and the health of the family.
Some of the big factors working against a higher average intelligence in the West are overtly self-destructive and do not appear to be natural. Once free will comes into play evolution may be a moot point.
I think I wrote in my post that economic and technological factors were behind the rise of feminism and women’s liberation. This looks similar to liberalism, socialism and so on, it was another movement with the same type of underlying basis.
Dmitri and Talha were discussing the link between LGBT movements and TFR, there are many cases when it seems like there is correlation, but other examples suggest there can’t be straightforward causation, I was suggesting feminism as a connecting factor. Economic progress leads to more freedom for women, which in turn, when the conditions are right, can be helpful to the LGBT movement.
Technology has continued to develop and maybe it has continued to strengthen women’s position in developed countries as clerical and knowledge work has grown in importance and physical labour has declined.
At the same time a lot of people are concerned about the demographic trends, even important demographers like Paul Morland talk about this. He expects a steep fall in British TFR to below 1 child per couple fairly quickly, it inspired him to start writing a book about the benefits of family life based on his own experience.
“But will it be enough? Biden talks like WW3 is about to start and the West will mobilize and put all they have into the fight.”
Ha! I was so angry over Hamas massacring civilians and taking hostages that I’ve been perfectly open to the idea of WWIII. Fortunately, countries like Russia and China really don’t see this as their fight. This is enlightening in and of itself. Many countries are willing to fight over some claim of their own, Ukraine for the RF and Taiwan for China, but they’re not so willing to involve themselves militarily over some tertiary dispute. Even some of the Muslim nations seem to want to avoid a larger war over Gaza. Two weeks after the horrific attack in Israel Netanyahu also seems to be calming down.
While I view the incident on October 7th differently than you, I do agree that WWIII isn’t a good idea. Unfortunately, I also think there’ll be a ceasefire that restores the status quo instead of resolving the ongoing tensions. That’s my prediction anyway. What greatly interests me, however, is that the alliance between Russia and China consistently leads to efforts at diplomacy. Do you think it’s possible that Russia, China, India along with some of Latin American and maybe all of Asia would remain neutral if serious warfare did break out over Israel and Gaza?
At the core…you have to start with monotheism as the foundation and then stuff gets piled on top. Studies on small children keep reinforcing that theistic belief in and Unseen God is their natural disposition – you have to then teach them that there is some super-being out there that looks like a red-bearded viking or has an elephant head or rides a chariot led by antelope or whatever – these are not primordial nor intuitive inclinations.
Ivashka pointed out that Buddhism didn’t have representations of the Divine in art until centuries later.
Peace.
Yeah, I have to agree that citing Revelation is always a red flag for me. I suppose that theoretically it could be for a good reason but 99.9% takes on Revelation are nonsense. It’s a dangerous book of the Bible since its’ lurid nature provokes obsession too frequently.
You could end up writing something like the Left Behind series. Heaven forefend!
It seems to me that the trend in the younger Chinese (one can include Korea and Japan) to drop out of society, not get married, and obsess over video games is really part of the same root malaise as LGBT culture. It’s all at root a rejection of cultural continuity or belief in the future. These are all individualistic dead-enders.
LGBT is just the weirdest manifestation and most cancerous iteration of the Western liberal notions of self-determination and individualism. Asia really hasn’t had that in their culture so it makes sense that it would really not be so dominant there.
Worth noting that some Marian apparitions had many witnesses. Does that automatically make them true?
Here’s one example:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Our_Lady_of_Zeitoun
If some of the people who saw this would have subsequently been willing to die for this belief of theirs, would this have prima facie proved that these people actually saw what they thought they saw?
I think that the biggest argument against Jesus’s resurrection was that he failed to get most of the Palestinian Jewish community from which he came from to believe in it or even in his divinity in general (these two things are related). If Jesus was really supernatural, then he could have easily made personal vision appearances to all Palestinian Jews who doubted his divinity and resurrection, but he never actually did that, even though it would have likely caused more, perhaps many more, Palestinian Jews to believe in him as the Messiah (even if Jesus’s message would have contradicted some Jewish teachings, his proof of his divinity would have spoken in favor of his credibility as a religious messenger). And yet Jesus only apparently appeared to 1% or so of 33 AD’s Roman Palestine’s total population after his alleged Resurrection.
I do agree with you, though, that definitively establishing the truth in regards to this matter would likely require a time machine or something of that sort.
And, we would argue – and you are free to disagree; at the core of polytheistic divergence from monotheism is self-worship which is fairly evident once you just examine the output…again from Xenophanes:
Peace.
One of the largest impacts on TFR is wage suppression. Households that need 2 wage earners often cannot afford to have children. The minimum stable family structure is a single breadwinner bringing in sufficient earnings for spouse and children.
The material factors that would do the most to increase TFR are those that would increase blue collar wages:
• MAGA Reindustrialization
• Onshoring jobs
• Reducing or zeroing out immigration
On the social side, elevating the virtue of motherhood along with other Judeo-Christian values have been lost. Education needs to be fixed, more home schooling would help.
I am unsure how to deal with broken religious institutions that have succumbed to woke contamination. Building a second competing church in a town struggling to support one could easily result in two abandoned buildings.
PEACE 😇
Somewhat off-topic, but what do you think of Akhenaten’s monotheism in ancient Egypt? Him mandating the worship of the sun god Aten and no other gods, before this move was quickly reversed after his death?
Worth noting that while I don’t believe in the supernatural parts of the Bible (either the Old or the New Testament), it appears that even parts of the Old Testament might have been based on actual historian events. For instance, the Exodus of Jews from Egypt might have possibly been based on an actual historical event, but with much, much smaller numbers, maybe a couple dozen or a couple hundred people. At least, that’s what Egyptologist Robert Brier argues in one episode of his 48-episode lecture series on Ancient Egypt. He also argues in another episode that the story of Joseph going to Egypt in the Bible might be a reference to the Hyksos, Semites who ruled over ancient Egypt in the 1600s-1500s BC. Finally, he argues in yet another episode that the Pharaoh Shishak in the Bible is probably the ancient Egyptian Pharaoh (of Libyan descent) Shoshenk.
Historically that’s of course true, but Muslims believe theirs is the original religion, everything else is a later aberration (even Judaism and Christianity are just corrupted versions of the true faith).
Found this through some quick googling, I guess it’s representative:
https://www.al-islam.org/articles/islam-first-and-last-religion-mansour-leghaei
Later on this sheikh also goes on about the Bible being corrupted, Christian traditions being unreliable etc., which is also one of Talha’s frequent themes. Which is of course all quite bizarre, but these are ideological claims, there’s not much point to arguing about them with people believing this sort of thing.
A Sher Singh and A123 moment of convergence!
UNSC live:
This is not what paganism is – certain representations – and there are many – such as, for example, the image in which Zeus is represented, are beautiful, expressive and meaningful, but they are not the primordial or universal essence of the Ancestral Faith. Those are expressions of our archetypes, and both earthly and celestial relationships in our perception of the universe. But they are not the essence of the Ancestral Faith.
Dievs is the very existence, the remaining constant, the beginning of everything, the original thought and knowledge. There are no words to describe Dievs fully, the human mind can attempt to grasp Dievs, yet the wisdom may not be fully accessible (as Dievs can be both visible and hidden behind nature). Dievs is the sky, the day light, but also the original Thought (Logos) – the concentration and “thickening” of this Thought creates the Universe and the variety it contains.
But Dievs is paired with Primordial Matter (Māra), the embodiment and the recognition of the empirical world, the material world, both visible and invisible. They are united, we live in the world of Dievs with His aid and through the presence of Māra.
Well, these claims of universality – this is no longer the sphere of pure religion, pure spiritual experience, but it becomes the sphere of essentially philosophizing and institutionalizing – it’s a departure from purely exploring the mystery to trying to find some kind of a legitimizing grounds for just one stable religion. These claims are totally arbitrary and culturally based, even epiphanies of these high priests are still just individual, one may or may not listen to them (but they are necessary for a certain society because it needs to have the universal “Truth”).
If one is strong and creative, one can make various religions “universal”, at will. What is truly universal is not a religion, but the idea of the Divine, and the human experience of the Divine.
The claim of the “universality” of Islam will come into direct conflict with our claim of universality of our worldview. It’s inevitable.
The problem in Europe is that, despite of these spiritual and “Godly” claims of Islam, the carriers of Islam have no scruples whatsoever to use secular politics to their advantage. We kind of have an asymmetric situation here that needs to be fixed. If they do not recognize freedom of religion (claiming that Islam is universal is by definition a rejection of freedom of religion), they should not have the privilege to use it (on our soil).
I’m so obsessed with this girl: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/XCwHycBHAaM
She’s boring, annoying and her content is shit, but I keep watching her stupid couples tiktok videos because she has me totally bewitched
Well there you go – that seems like primordial monotheism in a nutshell and is the foundation at the core…and then stuff gets piled on top of it; it seems like we basically agree.
Couple of questions, if you don’t mind:
1. It seems your version of paganism is pantheistic, correct?
2. When you say something like “the image in which {{{enter local deity}}} is represented, are beautiful, expressive and meaningful” – do you believe that it has an ontological existence or is it something you recognize you simply came up with? Honestly curious.
Peace.
Full disclosure – and I’m not joking or trying to be offensive – I literally have a visceral reaction to being around idols – it makes me want to throw up. I have literally felt this going into a friend’s house who had idols and even when we were house shopping if I ever enter a house that has idols in it. I have to suppress the feeling and want to leave the environment as soon as I can.
I was somewhat surprised to learn that Iran performs the most sex change operations in the world after Thailand, and transgenderism is sanctioned by the mullahs as complying with Islamic law. That pretty much sums up how screwed up Islam is.
Beneath the facade of pious conservatism there’s a big undercurrent of faggotry going on in that culture.
Yes, there is a lot of subversion, facilitated by a rotten establishment and a general naivete. Not easy to see a way out of this.
It was mostly worship of himself IIRC. He claimed to be the Sun God.
Did Musk make a mistake in building Starbase on the Texas side of the border? Or is it implicit that it has to be there to get key subsidies?
I didn’t like his portrayal of Fremen society. They have all these special powers and yet they still live like backwards third worlders? It’s like if in our world aborigines had the highest intelligence but never managed to invent so much as a door hinge. Just not believable, a product of romanticizing exotic peoples.
Not sure, but a selectively adaptive trait in one environment given one set of pressures does not necessarily correlate to being adaptive given a different environment and a different set of pressures. That’s just built into the evolutionary process – high intelligence could have helped up until it doesn’t – just like higher bone density or high muscle to mass ratio – that’s the breaks.
If the stupid inherit the earth, good for them, they deserve it – a lot of good their intelligence did for the intelligent. And I’ll tell you why they deserve it. I have come across so many intelligent people who whine and complain about how horrible and tough their life is. BS – intelligent people have it much easier to navigate life in our technological world as opposed to those with a cognitive disadvantage.
Those less intelligent guys (and sure this doesn’t describe all of them, but those guys with heart and tenacity) – they’re scrappy, struggling SOBs that show up and put in the effort to survive – hats off to them for that (white, black, brown – whatever underclass). I see a lot of people seem to have contempt for them around here for something they really didn’t choose – being born to one set of parents vs another.
I’m not sure you can philosophically or coherently reconcile free will and evolution; ghost in the machine vs organic meat-robot cranking genetic-based algorithms.
Peace.
Has she taken the experimental gene medicine?
Of course there isn’t. The sole point of talking about it is to make your own people aware of what they’re up against, not to convince muzzes oft the error of their ways. This whole discussion takes me back some twenty years, when I naively thought the truth had a chance to prevail and islamic (at least) immigration could be brought to a halt. I had no idea of how fanatically determined leftards were to delude themselves and deceive everyone else, all because of the overriding importance of keeping “fascism” at bay. It’s the political equivalent of cutting off your nose to spite your face.
Did you read all the paragraphs that I wrote? Dievs has two aspects. Māra belongs to Dievs but She can also be considered an aspect of Dievs. In a more lyrical way to describe it, the Father Sky is holding and enveloping Mother Earth, as if laying on top of her and looking in her eyes. They are intertwined, they are moving into each other, with the Divine Thought guiding and structuring everything. Like ink dots appearing on paper. But more accurately, Māra is a kind of an embodiment of Dievs in our reality. Reality that is accessible to us. Form and Matter.
It’s not “my version” – it was already there when I arrived on this planet. (But I do have my own version of it, too). It would depend on what you mean by pantheism. It can be described in many ways, we can only grasp, we do not fully know how the Ancestors thought but we can try to come close to it. What I wrote above about Dievs, can also be considered a kind of a pantheism, however, in the sense that we consider Dievs ever present (and omnipresent), all encompassing, eternal, both the origin and the remaining. Dievs is visible in nature and also exists beyond nature (behind nature so to speak), so metaphysical in that sense.
There are also more animistic forms of pantheism (the so called “mothers” that reside in different natural phenomena and in elements – but even that is all part of the world of Dievs so cannot really separated from it).
I understand what you’re aiming at. It is a representation that doesn’t have an ontological status of its own.
But it is a symbol which can help access the Idea in our mind, or through which we allow the Idea to be present in our minds and in our midst, to unite us and to comfort us and as a means of communication, sometimes sacral communication. But we do not need this image to connect with the Idea.
We, Balts, mostly worship through elements and special words, not so much representative images.
But these representations are still important. A statue of Zeus, for example, is beautiful and powerful, but we do not worship the statue. Or even the Idea of Father Thunder through this statue, because we connect with Him directly, through our mind, through our invocation. Through His constant presence. All of the representations, including the oak tree and the oak leaf, are just symbols of His presence, if we didn’t have those, He would still be present. But as His symbols they are also sacred.
Then maybe you shouldn’t live in a Western society, sorry, it’s really your choice. The onus is not on the Western society to change for you – “you wouldn’t be special”, as you once told me. That’s not to say that idolatry should be made the focus of any religious practices. It’s never the center of the religious experience.
OK, so you’re going all over the place now and lots to unpack so I’ll respond more comprehensively later – cooking black pepper and cabbage beef tonight.
But for starters…
Sure, which they simply have ignored – so it is (on a practical basis irrelevant, unless you are Amish). I’m not trying to convince you Islamic doctrine is better than Christian doctrine, I’m just laying out historical
record and facts regarding doctrine.
I already agreed that Christianity is doctrinally far more pacifist than Islam – hands down. If that is the criteria for a religion I suggest Jainism, which nobody around here is going to adopt for the following reasons:
1. That’s not the only criteria by which one chooses a religion
2. Human beings actually don’t like pacifist religions – they don’t scale well, otherwise Jainism (which is older than Christianity) would not be smaller than the Jewish population even in its own turf in India and the Amish would be the majority of Christians instead of some latter day afterthought
3. If they take on a pacifist religion, they simply ignore it as an inconvenience while talking it up – this leads to hypocrisy and massive cognitive dissonance
Doctrinally one can argue turn the other cheek and historically you get this as facts on the ground:
“This issue, more than any other we’ve published, raises the awkward matter of forced conversions—”Be Christian or die.” There’s no sense in pretending this was an exceptional missionary tactic; for many centuries, it was the method of choice among Christian rulers and missionaries. The conversion of much of Europe and of Latin America is unimaginable without the sword.”
https://christianhistoryinstitute.org/magazine/article/interview-converting-by-the-sword
Better to deal with the world and history and reality as it than some idealistic world that never existed.
More to come…
Peace.
God is uncreated and universal, but the Aryans/Persians were the first to recognize Him, while Arabs were worshipping some desert demons. The Jews were taught about Him via contact with Persians (and maybe came to identify their old national god with the true one):
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/309/zorojud.htm
And Arabs were later influenced by Jews and Christians.
The question is if Allah is a flawed Arab understanding of God, or some other entity pretending to be the true God.
I didn’t like his portrayal of Fremen society. They have all these special powers and yet they still live like backwards third worlders? It’s like if in our world aborigines had the highest intelligence but never managed to invent so much as a door hinge. Just not believable, a product of romanticizing exotic peoples.
The Fremen have limited resources and spend a lot of their time trying to survive the desert.
Humans spent tens of thousands of years struggling to survive. It was only a thousand years ago that Northern Europeans walked around in crude animal skins.
How do you explain the inability of the leftards, who always argue against “violence” & “aggression”, to see that same violence in certain displays of Islam? Or even at the core of Jihad (even if Jihad can be not just physical but also spiritual, that doesn’t change the fact that it’s still an aggression of sort).
It can’t be just cowardice.
Btw, the leftards are also exhibiting passive aggressive forms of aggression now. What’s her name Greta Thunberg put out a post with a plushy octopus – not to make this about Jews again, but that was a pretty aggressive gesture (showing Jews as an octopus, she deleted it later). These leftards do have aggression in them.
probably
Greta is too astroturfed and monomaniacal to use symbology that I never heard of before, while sitting next to a Jew.
It’s anti-West so they are for it.
The octopus toy is an autism symbol and she is autistic.
Free will is to be observed, not reconciled.
Investigation and discussion of intelligence and associated HBD aspects do not have to be contemptuous, though some parts of the dialog can require a saintly level of sensitivity, as with discussions of race.
Being bright is as much of an obligation as it is a gift.
Oh, ok. It’s still a bit strange to display that toy while holding a Gaza related poster and Palestinian flags. That’s something different then (although not sure it’s all that great to display “pride” in neurodiversity, but, if it helps someone, then ok).
Thanks for the detailed explanation – much appreciated! I did read your original response, but the further clarification helped.
I can certainly agree there, I’m no special snowflake – well maybe my mother thinks I’m special, and my kids – they get me those “best dad in the world” cards (but I know those retail at Target for like $4).
And I actually agree with what you stated before about Europeans changing their laws to legally handicap Islam or preventing proselytizing (with the internet though, that boat has likely sailed) or whatever – it’s honestly their choice, they have every right. It would be pretty hypocritical of Muslims to complain while keeping Islam legally ascendant in Muslim-majority countries. Fair is fair.
Peace.
Oh, come on. 🙂 Northern Euros had nice cotton tunics and wool clothes, beautiful cloaks and ornate brooches. 🙂
Solid copy on all points.
Peace.
It is a Tibetan Vajrayana mythology. Other Mahayana schools do believe in the future coming of Maitreya Buddha, but have no myths about the final battle between Shambhala and the future Caliphate. Buddhist schools are quite diverse. Their approach to the Dharma is varied, what is constant and consistent though is the aim of the teachings and the spiritual work: remediation of the sentient beings’ suffering.
You may find more about the Kalachakra Tantra in the Berzin Archives:
http://studybuddhism.com/en/tibetan-buddhism/tantra/kalachakra/overview-of-kalachakra
Unfortunately Gnosticism makes perfect sense. It is a very clever explanation of the reality in which we live. I don’t know if you are interested in Gnostic scriptures, but the Nag Hammadi Library has an excellent collection online.
http://www.gnosis.org/library.html
They have also added Cathar and Manichaean scriptures to the collection. One of the most touching texts is the “Book of the two Principles” that explains the Cathar beliefs. I find it touching because these people have been murdered simply because they adamantly believed that God could not be the cause of evil. They truly and profoundly believed that God is absolutely good. So Catholics put them to the sword, just like the Orthodox also did to the Bogumil – the Slav dualistic Christians, and Muslims did to the Manichean Zindiks.
http://www.gnosis.org/library/cathar-two-principles.htm
One has to wonder who and why needed exterminating these people…
That’s the point. When you’re still struggling to merely survive, and your material base is so low, it’s hard to see how you can develop the sophisticated technology they have – Kalahari Bushmen manufacturing “stillsuits” lmao.
We always draw our own personalized cards. Even male family members should get “authentic” and “original” home made ones (they do care sometimes). 🙂 But, you know, even if you get the “best dad in the world” type of items, that are made in millions of copies, that still doesn’t mean it’s not true. 🙂
Btw, have you ever thought of language itself as a form of “idolatry”? Not in any judgmental way, but strictly in logical sense. Because we’re still using written and spoken language as a window to the Divine so it is a type of representation, the same way that any image is. If, for ascetic purposes, we should avoid icons or music, then why are we leaving language? Language as a tool that humans use, not language as a form of logic (that exists on its own).
You have to wipe everything out of your conscience then, even a beautiful nasheed, in order to reach purity of mind. (Ofc, I don’t believe this should be the case, just being nitpicky out of curiosity).
I agree that it’s messed up, but the reason that they are for the sex changes is that they are way more opposed to homosexual behavior.
I guess there is a certain logic to it, though I would say it’s a mistaken logic.
It’s a matter of priorities. Of those who actually know something about islamic violence (and sexual oppression), they may see it as bad, but see the western world and its “exploitation” as worse – the greater evil that needs to first be defeated. Furthermore, they see criticising islam as pointless, that it only riles muslims up without doing anything to get them to change their ways; and that criticizing islam only empowers domestic “racists,” clamping down on whom is, again, a higher priority. Of course, there are plenty of leftards who know next to nothing about islam; for them, simply the fact that it’s not western makes it automatically benign.
Prob not true in her case, but leftists criticizing Israel, often in very harsh terms, is nothing new at all. There is a possibility that some might start being more forthright in their criticisms by pointing to the overwhelming dominance of zionists in western media. Actually, this is already happening, but to me it still seems rather tentative – they still seem very fearful of being termed “antisemites” – and once again there is the concern about empowering domestic “racists” (“Nazis”).
Indeed, it might well have been a Manichaean psy-op against both the Zoroastrian Persian and the Christian Roman Empires. Salman al Farisi was one very gifted individual.
Thanks, I do own the Nag Hammadi collection and others and have read a lot of it. I find the origins of Christianity and the books which didn’t make it into the canon quite interesting and have enjoyed much of the reading I’ve done that way.
Works like the Gospel of Thomas or the Gospel of Mary always resonated with me more than some of the material regarding creation or redemption like the Hypostasis of the Archons.
I fully agree that the extermination of the Cathars is a tragedy. I always had sympathy for the Pelagians too, and that there is merit in their line of thought.
Allah is YHWH.
Satan/Allah/Lucifer is the enemy of God/YHWH.
The Anti-Christ Muhammad is the enemy of Jesus Christ.
PEACE 😇
Yes. They call it Fana’a and we call it Nirvana.
Isn’t this due to some semi-formal loop hole in Islamic culture? Something along the lines of the gay man embraces his “femininity” (born in the wrong body sort of thinking) so he will not be tortured and killed? Surgery just makes this even more bizarre and evil.
Yeah, I was just being silly. I’m not much into cards and such anyway, I actually use things like Father’s Day to get real stuff out of my kids.
@Barbarossa, this personal experience might help you with your girls…
What I do is, I tell my kids I don’t want anything, but I want to simply take them out to lunch and to have their attention for an hour. Then I praise their good traits and then mention that what I would like for Father’s Day is for them to work on something that would make me happy and content as a father to know I’ve got them on the right track. And then I’ll mention some small thing I want them to start doing or stop doing in their routine. They are more open to the advice at that time and want to be accommodating, so it generally works (sometimes it drops off, but reminders help).
Very interesting thought, I can’t say I’ve pondered this. I mean, language is the only tool we have to communicate concepts to each other at this point…though one can argue spiritual experiences like dreams and such are another. My teachers have taught that; if you ever conjure an image in your mind about the Divine, know for certain that the Divine is other than that. I don’t know if that helps, but again – what else do we have but language to communicate such things?
Second aspect is; did we invent language or is language Divinely inspired in the first place – it’s been a very long time since I read Prof. Noam Chomsky’s writings on the subject.
But I do remember coming across a beautiful saying by an aboriginal tribe (if I recall correctly) that states something like; when a language dies (as so many languages recently have), humanity loses a way to praise God.
Peace.
We have exactly the same approach in Zen. Even if one “sees” Buddhas or Bodhisattvas during meditation, one should not give it any importance. The True Nature (that you call The Divine) has nothing to do with these imaginary representations. Bodhidharma actually warns that “demons have the power of manifestation” and appear under various “holy” guises to entrap the gullible. That is also where the famous Zen saying about “if you see the Buddha, kill the Buddha” comes from. It is a radical expression of apophatic theology.
And in our tradition Absolute Truth has nothing to do with words either. Words are inherently imperfect and cannot entirely and adequately describe Truth. That is why we have this saying about “words having no meaning” and why Bodhidharma has advised “examining one’s mind to see if we can really find words and characters”.
Thanks – as usual – for sharing those insights.
Very interesting indeed.
One of my teachers mentioned something interesting; he said, you’ll notice that there are many, many volumes written on the subject of jurisprudence and creed, etc. but comparatively few books written on the subject of tasawwuf…and that is because it’s not a subject to read about, but a reality to be experienced/tasted.
One can tell a man who has never eaten a German chocolate cake how to make one, but you can’t accurately describe how it’s supposed to taste. One simply has to put in the effort to bake it and then savor the taste.
Peace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Criticism_of_modern_paganism#Violent_incidents_of_Rodnovery
A Russian collapse post-Putin will harm only the Orthodox.
Native Sindhis & Baloch get dark but they’re not ‘black’.
The Gangetic Abo-max pheno/physique is what we call Nigger.
W/e either way – let’s see how the map looks in 50 years.
ਅਕਾਲ
Yes. Bodhidharma has directly pointed to the fact that the knowledge acquired through reading of sutras is inferior to knowledge acquired through direct meditative experience. It is in one’s own heart/mind that the Truth must be found because it is in one’s heart/mind that the Truth is lost.
So, before going any further, what’s you point then?
Why did you bring up a hadith in opposition to two passages from the Bible?
I’m partial to the Meccan moon god theory.
Alternatively, I pray that Hubal, the true moon god, will one day return in glory to reclaim his rightful place in the Kaaba that he was cheated out of by Mohammed (ptui), the wicked child-rapist messenger of “Allah” (aka the Demiurge).
There are multiple axiomatic assumptions in what you claim and they are simply unsubstantiated.
The only way to substantiate this claim is through archaeological evidence (writings, relics, reliefs, etc). The vast majority of human cultures have never had a written or history until recently. To assert a monopoly for something that can be recognized by the most primordial peoples (and is intrinsic in children) is like asserting a murder didn’t happen because the newspaper didn’t write about it.
Second axiomatic premise is that humans systematically create religions and formulate concepts and ideas about the Divine rather than the Divine making Itself and Its Will known to mankind. Both are beliefs at their core; initial premises without substantiation.
m
The Arabs of the Hejaz were original transcendent monotheists – descended from their progenitor, Ishmael (as) – and like many others – diverged towards polytheism.
If one wants, they can easily read a credal primer like Imam Abu Hanifah’s Fiqh al-Akbar (chapters 1 and 2) and decide for themselves:
https://archive.org/details/Al-fiqhAl-akbareng.-AbuHanifah.pdf/mode/1up
If this an entity pretending to be God, then it will simply play out in accordance with the reality of existence – the True Divine is Sovereign in an absolute and perfect sense without blemish or deficiency – everything else besides is created and subordinate and cannot possibly in any sense win…it is only existing on borrowed time and causing trouble at the sufferance of the Creator and by Its permission as part of some greater purpose and wisdom.
If Allah swt Is what He claims to be, then the conclusion is likewise inevitable:
“Allah bears witness that there is no deity besides Him. And the angels and the men of learning (too are witness). Maintaining His creation in justice, there is no deity save Him the Almighty, the Wise.” (3:18)
“Allah has written, ‘I will most certainly prevail – I and My messengers.’ Indeed, Allah is All-Powerful and Exalted in Might.” (58:21)
Peace.
What’s going to happen?
If you’re talking about muzzes being run out of town, that’s always the right thing to do, and I hope I live to see it.
There was some explanation about how their ancestors got there.
The Saudakar however come from Planet Rain. They all look a little Scottish.
It’s like Edinburgh Tattoo. But with weird Mongol throat music chants.
If you want to call me nigger, that’s fine (“house nigger” is an insult) – and I’ve been called worse.
Reminds me of that Public Enemy song:
Which contains of the best lines in a rap song ever:
My boss told me, “Yo nigga, you’re fired!”
Cause my body told me, “Yo nigga, you’re tired”
Peace.
According to the pre-Islamic lore, the Kaaba is supposed to have been built by Ishmael and Abraham. It was initially dedicated to the G-d of Abraham. You know who the G-d of Abraham was, if not ask Greasy.
Leave our Lord Jesus out of it.
Yaldaboath?
Why? Mohammed obviously is the enemy of Christ.
Are you so keen on seeing the muzzes take “leadership” of the (completely fallacious, illusory) “Abrahamic creeds” (whose mutual antagonism is so profound it makes a mockery of any attempt to unify them under a common label) that you’re willing to lie?
And I can only lol at your referring to him as “our” lord. Pretty shameless for someone who despises the faith that grew up around his figure. How would you like it if I, with my distaste for his teachings, referred to the Buddha as “our” and presumed to speak in his name?
There is one relevant noble truth to 90% of the real life pagans I have known.
Pagans have the best weed and mushrooms. What might be informative is for a hit man religious sociologist like Tanya Luhrmann (not her–she has been washed up for years) to survey the number of pagans in the population before and after legalization. If my experience is the norm that number is going to plummet.
To commence…
I never made that claim at all – you keep making inferences about things that I never claimed. Read my question very carefully:
“Well that is the question; are these actions inherently immoral? And, if so, did God/Yahweh/Jesus command, not only those in the Bible, but the killing of babies as well?”
That is not a question about praxis, it is about belief/creed – understand the difference.
Now I’m going to stray a bit from my original points to cover some more history and context based on your expanded topics.
Peace.
What I referenced was the hadith – not the Quran. And here is the issue, there are verses like this in the Quran:
“Allah does not forbid you from dealing kindly and fairly with those who have neither fought nor driven you out of your homes. Surely Allah loves those who do justice.” (60:8)
And this:
“And when the inviolable months1 have passed, then kill the polytheists wherever you find them and capture them and besiege them and sit in wait for them at every place of ambush…” (9:5)
And hundreds of hadith and the practice of the Companions (especially the Rashidun Caliphs) that make up what is actual doctrine and praxis. You cannot escape this – all of it has to be filtered through by scholars with the requisite knowledge and authority – not some gun-toting 20 year old.
That seems to be a convenient cut-off. I mean, it’s like me saying (accurately) – the Ottoman Empire was awesome because it was one of the safest places to be for heretical Christians during the 30 Years War.
You are simply discarding the lion’s share of problematic Christian history in actual practice when – for instance – they were zealously applying their interpretation of Christianity (this was not marginal, this was at the official Church levels) often at the expense of other Christian sects – going back to the official Byzantine persecution of the non-Chalcedonian creeds.
See, in reality – not theory, if some whack, marginal group like Daesh sets up a mad-max caliphate for a couple of years only to cause mayhem and then be crushed by surrounding Muslims – that is relatively easy to reconcile, doesn’t take much thought and doesn’t cause a crisis of faith. Now imagine if Muslim scholars of al-Azhar are going around physically torturing people and having them burned alive for non-conformity to a confusing and unclear point of creed that can have multiple possible interpretations. That causes serious crises in faith and institutions and trust in authority – and paves the way for Christianity to lose its helm as the cornerstone of a civilization. Extreme occurrences have extreme results.
And you are just dismissing that history as if it doesn’t matter.
Now I’m not saying that you can lay any of that violence at the feet of the Son of Mary (pbuh), you can’t. But if official gate-keeping ecclesiastical authorities are going to completely discard “thou shalt not kill” as inconvenient – then who cares, it’s just window dressing. It’s as if Jains firebomb Tokyo and burn alive everyone indiscriminately, but then say, “yeah, but our religion actually preaches non-violence at its core“.
And honestly 200 years is not a good cut off time either. European Christians were shipping in Muslims from overseas to kill other Christians in conflicts like WW1 and WW2. Were those fought for religious reasons? Of course not – they were were fought for much more lowly materialist reasons – land, resources, etc not much higher a purpose than chimpanzee tribes kill each other for. But again, why did Christianity fail to stop the unprecedented bloodbath (amongst fellow believers) when it is so obviously pacifist?
You should listen to this comment by Peter Hitchens who pegs the moral collapse of the authority of the Western Christian institutions in their support of and inability to prevent things like the World Wars:
Cognitive dissonance is a real issue at play here. Again, in spite of doctrine to the contrary, Christianity as an institution was factually a foundational root cause for some of the worst bloodshed and atrocities in European history (not necessarily for Oriental Christianity which has different circumstances) and proved incapable of halting record-setting catastrophic wars (for non-religious reasons) among its adherents.
That’s fine; we’ve had our own pretty well defined by the 8/9th century and I don’t have a problem with ours.
Do you know where I can get mushrooms? I’m interested in trying them for their alleged anti depressant effects but I have no idea where to find them. Is there a way for me to just grow them myself in my room or something?
What did Catholics historically think about polyamory? Did they believe that prostitution should be limited to those people who are unmarried or divorced, with them condemning married people who visited prostitutes, even if they did so with their spouse’s consent (consensual polyamory)?
Robert Brier also argues that the parting of the Red Sea is incorrectly translated and actually means the parting of the Sea of Reeds:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yam_Suph
He also argues that Ramses II was likely the Pharaoh of the Exodus and that the Exodus occurred in around year 20 of Ramses’s reign since Ramses’s eldest son died around in the 17th year of Ramses’s reign and since in a plaque that was created under Ramses’s son and successor Merneptah, Israel is listed as a people but not as a country yet, which Brier interprets to mean that the Jews were still wondering around in Israel during this time.
Certainly true
I really don’t think so. None of the timing or archaeology works out for that period
They were a settled, but tribal, confederation that was similar to the Indian quasi states that existed in North America until the late 19th century; located in Judea, Samaria and on the east bank of the Jordan but not on the still Canaanite dominated coast. A proto kingdom. The Stele implies that this proto kingdom was well established at this point in time, likely having already been in existence for hundreds of years.
Talk about moving the goalposts 🙂
First you extract passages from the Christian and Muslim sacred texts to compare their doctrines and now you want to forget doctrines and focus on actual historical records.
You must understand that I don’t disagree with the idea that in practice Christianity has always been contradictory with its own teachings at all. That’s what I keep arguing here against other regular posters so don’t waste your time convincing me about that. The problem is that also on that account I don’t see Islam as being superior in any way.
From a broad historical perspective, Islam expanded (militarily) as far as I could and then it expanded no more. Christianity was able to expand much further across all continents thanks to the European technical and military superiority and perhaps this advantage led to a higher body count in terms of atrocities over the centuries. I’m not going to start counting beans or corpses so I’ll just concede that point. But that is like comparing the total body count of the Aztecs throughout history to the Christians’ to decide which religious belief is more savage. Apples to oranges.
If you want to leave doctrines aside and focus on actual deeds I don’t think it favors you at all. If I go to Mecca and decide to publicly insult Mohammed there I wouldn’t expect to leave the city alive. If you go to the Vatican and start loudly insulting Jesus you’ll just be asked to go somewhere else and will likely not even spend the night in prison. There is the factual comparison for you.
In fact, the Turk Agca went to the Vatican, shot the Pope and ended up receiving his pardon and his visit in prison. The Pope even became later friends with his shooter’s brother and mother. I understand that Agca is a free man now.
Oh, come on. 🙂 Northern Euros had nice cotton tunics and wool clothes, beautiful cloaks and ornate brooches. 🙂
I’m sorry but 1000 AD Europe was not like a renaissance faire.
1023 would still have had commoners in robes that were basically animal skins.
Even the royalty would drape themselves in animal skins during winter. Those castles were cold. You can’t heat a massive building like that with a fireplace.
Europeans were still pretty crude in 1023. Black death was 1350 and in spread in part because of all the dirty European cities.
Right, but I wasn’t really talking about “communicating concepts to each other”, as in talking to other people, I meant during prayer, when communicating with the High One.
Well, that’s the problem, language itself can be construed as a form of anthropomorphism, maybe even formal language, I realize this may sound like taking it to absurdity, but this seems problematic. I was just thinking if Allah doesn’t like to be addressed or approached through icons or similar channels, then maybe the easiest is to just approach Him in complete silence (and even without thoughts because thoughts are language, too).
In our tradition, silence or quiet is sometimes encouraged, especially around this time of the year (the time of the communion with the Ancestral spirits). It is encouraged before prayer as well during special times of the year (such as the Winter Solstice, “Young and old, be quiet, Dievs has entered the room and is amidst us,” is one of the common prayers.
Similar things were observed in the Belarusian traditions during the time of Dzyadi – the time of the Ancestor’s visiting (Дзяды), a feast was held for them, but before it, some time was spent in silence and serenity. During this time one also practices abstinence from certain things.
Do you know where I can get mushrooms? I’m interested in trying them for their alleged anti depressant effects but I have no idea where to find them. Is there a way for me to just grow them myself in my room or something?
Just go to Eugene Oregon and put on a dead head t-shirt.
Are you really that depressed? Have you tried moving away from the city?
Actually I was very consistent about keeping the matter focused on a question of creed/belief – you derailed it by saying:
“Friendly reminder that thanks to your coreligionists, who in their literal interpretation of Islam find no problem in killing infidel women and children”
Turning it into a discussion about praxis, history and such.
No problem, that’s a judgment call.
I’m actually keeping overseas territories out of it – I’m actually just talking Christians in Europe. I’m pointing out that historically, no one committed religious fratricide on the scale of Christians. If you say that is counting beans – OK – but it is what led to Westphalia and secularization. European Christians decided – not from any external input – that they had lost confidence in Christianity as an institution to maintain the peace and that other institutions had to replace it.
Yup – Christianity has been defanged as an institution, see above – secularism is unconcerned about such things.
You see, we never defanged Islam because we never had an extreme crisis of confidence (due to extreme circumstances) in its ability to provide the backbone of our civilization.
Implicitly you are saying (without being explicit about it); see, Christianity is nice because we don’t have to worry about it or pay it any real attention – it’s not really relevant anymore in any meaningful capacity.
That shows a high character – good for him. Reminds me of this:
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2012/07/26/injured-muslim-leader-forgives-his-bombers-a16553
Peace.
That’s the point. When you’re still struggling to merely survive, and your material base is so low, it’s hard to see how you can develop the sophisticated technology they have – Kalahari Bushmen manufacturing “stillsuits” lmao.
There is no evolutionary law that states the desert could not favor intelligence. Consider the possibility of a catastrophic event in a desert environment where only those that planned for the worst cases of drought are able to survive.
I am aware of Hollywood’s “noble natives” fantasies but this is not the case.
The Fremen are not native to Dune. They are inter-planetary travelers that adapted to Dune since it was viewed as worthless. We don’t know their full history.
I can see what you are getting at…in our tradition, when we offer prayers it is done using the words of the Quran (which is considered Divine Speech) exactly as they are. Interjecting human speech nullifies the prayer.
I belong to the Naqshbandi Mujaddidi chain of tasawwuf whose teachers trace back through the sages of Central Asia – our training relies heavily on clearing one’s mind, remembering Allah swt (called dhikr/zikr) and listening to one’s heart/inner core. Some chains of tasawwuf emphasize loud verbal and communal zikr, but ours is very silent and very personal. My teachers remind us of these verses often:
“And remember your Lord within yourself humbly and with awe, below your breath, at morn ing and evening. And be not among the heedless.”
(7:205)
“They are those who remember Allah while standing, sitting, and lying on their sides, and reflect on the creation of the heavens and the earth…” (3:191)
Peace.
By the way – thanks for keeping this discussion civil even though we seem to disagree quite a bit on conclusions.
May God grant you honor in this life and the next.
Probably should call it quits though, it’s been OK since work hasn’t been too crazy – but it’s about to get very busy.
Peace.
Imagine, if this lunar deity (or idol rather) was connected to the crescent image in the Islamic culture. If that was where the crescent symbol is derived from… a beautiful desert landscape and the Moon showing the way… they say the crescent appeared quite late (middle of Ottoman Empire), but who knows…
I live in an extremely rural region now. My closest neighbor is nearly 2 miles away.
My depression is actually totally under control at the moment, but I know that it will come back eventually.
Both are great. Both silent meditation and chants, singing and chanting are very healthy actually, they enhance lung function, relieve stress, allow one to feel communal unity, probably even improve cognitive function. And repeating the prayer words gives one strength.
Those Chechen circling zikrs are absolutely amazing, those deep voices are so cool. And, wow, what a workout that must be. One can probably achieve great trance and a real high.
No mention of Avdeevka?
Of course I was one of the very few to predict the great Ukrainian offensive would end up the same disaster the Kherson offensive was, the question was whether the Russians could deliver the same success they had in Mariupol, Severodonetsk and Bakhmut? Looks like they are, and with light losses, despite the heavy fortifications there.
It’s not about intelligence, it’s about the their low level of resources and economic development. They’re going to manufacture a hi-tech product like stillsuits with what? Well, it’s fiction, so we can dream up anything we like, but to me it seemed unrealistic and obviously romanticized. Guess you see it differently.
I’m disappointed people keep trying to discuss anything with this obvious islamic snake. I thought he had been permanently put out to pasture, but I guess the latest flare up in Palestine brought him slithering back, hoping yet again win to a few converts to his odious cause. (Seems to have found a confederate in Ivashka, it pains me to note.)
In other words, women could have it all if it wasn’t for those damn men.
Sure, some of it. Or an observation that if there is one deity why not more? If we conceive of one meta-physical, eternal deity we have crossed into the super-natural world and anything divine is possible.
That didn’t sound like no British accent.
It depends on how Egypt, Turkey, Saudis, Iran, Qatar, etc… would react. Now it is calming down gradually. Time heals most wounds.
What has happened – apart from the bloody carnage – is that the Palestinian issue has been thrust into the forefront again. Maybe that was the point or it has just worked out that way. The issue is very simple: how long can millions of Palestinians be kept as non-persons with no rights, no future and an occasional bloody attack? Indefinitely?
We can’t get away from a simple equation: in the territory between Mediterrenean and Jordan river there are 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians (roughly). Apart from the fact that is too many for that small area, they will have to find a way to exist together. The idea that the Palestinians will be expelled or forever kept subservient is not realistic. And Israel over time destroyed a realistic idea for a two-state solution.
It can escalate to WW3. I worry more about Biden’s over-the-top rhetoric and the neo-con obsession with not losing in Ukraine (they will). The combination of too many crises can end up in an explosion. But the Palestinian issue has to be addressed. And not in a one-sided way.
Your convoluted argument ignores what I said and tries to misrepresent. It shows that you have no rational, logical, objective case to make. You repeat the specialness of Judaism in Palestine and base your arguments on it. Anyone can do it, it is meaningless and self-centered.
You are free to believe what you want but there is no such thing – the universe doesn’t speak to us, doesn’t script our lives, doesn’t create categories like “special” and “screamers”. You have created them in your mind to have a simpler existence and to push other more secular goals. Drop the “holy-this-and-that” verbiage, it doesn’t travel well.
To answer your question about time: no amount of time will solve it if Jews and Palestinians continue living in the small space next to each other. Over time the ethno-religious identities could weaken and the usual mating practices could solve some of it. We both know that is extremely unlikely – and the polarization makes it almost impossible.
What is your solution? Do you want to expel the Palestinians? Do you want to give them a viable piece of land? Do you want a single state with an arrangement for two communities to manage their lives? But escaping into “we are special, so shut up!” or into name-calling and anger doesn’t help anyone.
You were writing this earlier and I thought, that sounds very questionable, even maybe totally wrong, but it is a quite good frame game.
Pointing out all of the problems with it then feels a bit like, to use a colloquial expression, pissing on somebody’s parade and/or being boring.
But the Thirty Years War did not lead to the advent of secularism or its establishment in Europe, where does that claim come from?
One of the reasons for confessional conflict following the Reformation was the idea that Christian monarchs should have ultimate responsibility and authority in maintaining the peace, and not the Pope.
In discussions of the secularisation process, it is now pretty accepted that:
And this:
Just to take a few basic things from the wiki article on the secularisation process.
You couldn’t legally go to Mecca, entry is limited to Muslims:
https://www.ivisa.com/saudi-arabia/blog/can-i-visit-mecca-as-a-tourist
“It can escalate to WW3. I worry more about Biden’s over-the-top rhetoric and the neo-con obsession with not losing in Ukraine (they will).”
Some people certainly want to tie Russia and China to Hamas. Biden said this openly and I’ve read a few articles asserting that either Russia and/or China had instigated the Hamas attack. There really isn’t any proof of this and there hasn’t been enough time to investigate such a matter. So these people are merely producing agitprop. It’s completely irresponsible. I don’t believe it anyway. From my observations, China prefers diplomacy as would Russia if it could expect fair treatment.
Definitely some Americans want a wider conflict. It has occurred to me that Hamas wants this too. They’ve made very recent trips to Russia which is probably the circumstantial evidence being used by Biden. At least I read that the Saudis and Israelis may begin negotiations again. I wondered who persuaded MBS. I’m sure it wasn’t Blinken.
My favorite Victorian explorer, Sir Francis Richard Burton, was the first Western Christian to enter Mecca – he disguised himself as a Muslim, and fooled everyone. He wrote a fun book about it describing his adventures through Arabia.
He was also the first to enter the Muslim city of Harar, in Ethiopia – another one where you couldn’t go if you weren’t Muslim, apparently these off limits Muslim cities were not uncommon lol.
I haven’t been to Mecca – yet! – but I have been to Harar in Ethiopia – fun place, but it’s fanatical Muslim past is behind it. They feed hyenas outside the city walls at night – if you get a hotel near the city walls, you can hear the eerie sounds hyenas make throughout the night.
There is also a museum of the house of Arthur Rimbaud, a rising French poet who at 19 fled Paris and became a gun runner in Africa, fed up with life in the increasingly unromantic West.
The form and matter distinction is interesting, it reminds me of the form/matter distinction in Aristotle and the tradition he gave rise to. There is also the act/potency distinction that is the form/matter distinction applied to change.
Form is always ontologically prior to matter, if not chronologically, the same way act is prior to potency.
Was something like this also known in Baltic thought?
Well, during winter my wife drapes herself in animal skins (mink). It’s just as warm if not warmer than fancy high performance parkas.
Medievals weren’t hunter-gatherers, there were lots of sheep and they wore plenty of wool. Rich ones wore silk.
Wouldn’t want to encourage you to try it, but keep us updated, if you ever do (though who knows, given MBS’ “modernization” programme, maybe it will eventually become legal anyway).
More to your point though I’ve never found dualism to be a form of thought that I’ve gravitated to. The primacy and essential unity of God is more my focus.
Gnosticism certainly is clever, but there are plenty of clever things that don’t bear out. Take Libertatrianism or Communism for example. Clever as hell, but terrible in practice!
So, I’m curious, are you saying that dualism makes sense to you? If so, how do you reconcile that with any sort of Buddhism?
I’m not sure of the exact justification. Maybe Talha could give more context.
And I’m not disagreeing with you. I find trans to be more fundamentally disturbing and more a rejection of the natural order than homosexuality. I’m just saying that the Iranian Muslim position (not sure if it is true for all Shia) has a certain anti-homo logic to it, albeit faulty logic.
Lots of heady discussion going on here that I usually enjoy reading, but last night I took a break away from it all and watched the Arizona Diamondbacks defeat the Philadephia Phillies in the 7th game of the National league pennant. A minor miracle of the grandest kind: The Arizona Diamondbacks are going to the world series, folks:
Diamondbacks stun Phillies, 4-2, to reach first World Series in 22 years. 🙂
I was going to make the same point about language and its’ inadequacy. Words can only hint at the shadow of meaning when we are talking about things which are fundamentally beyond the human scope of perception. They lose their value entirely and could become a form of idolatry if we take them to actual define or circumscribe the Divine.
This is where symbolism becomes critical. It is a way of discussing and articulating things which are beyond the bounds of human comprehension, in a way that is fundamentally understood to be non-literally defining. As soon as the symbol becomes understood literally it becomes a mockery.
Are there any other sources other than the article by N.F. Gier that you’ve cited above that you’ve read that helped you form such an interesting opinion? I look forward to reading the Gier article in its entirety, however quickly notice that it includes a number of interesting citations in itself. Thanks!
Dualism makes sense if we frame the religious narrative into a narrative of competing “spiritual entities”. When all the entities are relative, conditioned and impermanent, while the Truth transcends them all, then it is irrelevant if there are 0, 1, 2, or 10 000 “spiritual entities”.
Early Buddhists recognized Mara as the primary ennemy of Awakening, later Buddhists have understood that Mara is just the archetype of self-centered ignorance. The Mind / True Nature / The Path (Tao) is beyond single and multiple. It is beyond all limitations and categories: 0, 1, 2 … 10 000 “gods” – it doesn’t matter, “they” are all just actors in the relative conditioned reality of the non-awakened mind. When the mind of the sentient beings awakens into Mind, and all the dharmas are resolved into the Dharma, then it all becomes irrelevant.
There is a Zen koan: “when 10 000 things resolve themselves back into the One, where does the One resolve itself into ?”
Before Awakening:
During the spiritual work towards Awakening:
After the Awakening:
Also, the World is a “washing machine”…
The maple trees outside my window are beautiful under the autumn rain…
🙂
In no way have I misrepresented anything you said. What have I misrepresented, be specific?
Such an unsupportable accusation comes across as highly emotional. At some level is this an admission to yourself that you are losing on the merits? Please, stop your name calling anger.
You (and others) are pushing a special case that defies both history and rational, logical, objective analysis. You do so quite obviously to favour you preferred outcome. Sadly, your special case outcome is incredibly bad for your side. It offers no relief and ultimately makes their plight worse.
The key start is making available, voluntary, honourable, compensated departures available for those who want to leave. Orderly departures from Gaza would last over many years. However, the symbolism of a decreasing population in Muslim occupied Gaza would quickly generate hope of a better future.
Placing a viable New Muslim Palestine on Muslim land is certainly one possibility. That would facilitate the “Right of Religious Return” whereby Islamists can leave Jewish & Christian land to return home. Here is recap of one possible plan.
If this location cannot be acquired or you have objections — please feel free to substitute alternate sites on Muslim land. The most critical factor is the “Right of Religious Return”. No relocation of Muslims to Ukrainian, European, or American Christendom.
If you do not like voluntary religious relocation, What is your solution?
Forcing the descendants of colonial Islam to squat on stolen Christian & Jewish land? Your special solution has a 70+ year track record of that making things worse. It is simply not viable.
PEACE 😇
The Scythian Empire also writes about this:
https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691240534/the-scythian-empire
Were those later Buddhists non-Indo-Aryan ones?
NBA had opening night yesterday. This is the 8 or 9 days of the year when all three American big sports are activated. Budweiser and the Miller brewing company tools are counting their bonus checks.
Has the Budweiser tranny ad fiasco been forgotten in time for the bonus calculator?
One could make a case for keeping it closed off: making Hajj to Mecca is one of the Five Pillars of Sunnism.
Don’t know if it is still on track but population of Sunnis was projected to reach two billion in 2030. From what I’ve seen the crowds there already look crazy.
Presumably opening up to global tourism would make it more difficult for some Muslims to go there. Of course, I have no desire to go there myself.
While it may seem like an obvious double standard, and no doubt is to some extent. My preferred solution for Europe is remigration.
I don’t know if I would go so far as to ban all foreigners from visiting (maybe, some groups) but I must admit I find the Carthaginian model of banning foreigners on one day a year to be somewhat appealing, at least, perhaps, at certain places.
I wouldn’t know. I stick to European or local craft brews. Along with some spicy Italian sausage on Philly styled pretzel brat rolls, the two beers that I was serving last night was :New Belgium Tripple” and the equally rich Ukrainian beer from Lviv, “Avtorske”. The sausages were smothered in a zesty kapusta salad that I put together and accompanied by some red potato salad with dill that I picked up at Sprouts on the way home from work. Everybody seemed pleased!
You should have looked into getting your wife a skunk coat. Probably would have been a lot cheeper, but just as warm.
I would not have thought it, but apparently in England red squirrel fur was set aside for the aristocracy according to sumptuary laws.
One of my distant ancestors, as a condition of holding his land (coastal), had to supply so many pairs of sealskin gloves to the treasury.
I thought so. You’ve recently mentioned this book before, I’ll need to buy a copy to add to the two other books (much older) that I already own about the Scythians. Ones a really nice coffee table type
art book…
Do you have any idea how many soldiers each side has in the Eastern theater, say everything east of the Dniepr from Kharkiv down to Kherson? Not counting Russian troops on Russian soil.
By soldiers, I mean men in combat fatigues carrying at least a pistol in a formal capacity.
Wish I could, I’m not Shiah so their tradition is honestly a black box to me. They have entirely different chains of hadith transmissions and foundational premises for jurisprudence. They also have a lot in common, from a credal perspective, with heterodox Mu’tazilite (hyper-rationalist) school’s views which was debated and rejected (and certain specific views accepted and absorbed) by Sunnis centuries ago.
So I can’t speak on it with any level of confidence – and you should take anything I say about Shiahs with massive spoons of salt and do your own research.
One thing I have seen in actual facts-on-the-ground (without any delving into details), any Muslim academic that speaks about reviving the Mu’tazilite school as normative always (without any exception I’ve seen) trends towards LGBT support. Do with that what you will.
Peace.
Sure, one of Musk’s recent rocket launches was a bit messier than normal, but I suspect the bulk of Musk’s troubles of late stem not so much from that but his being perceived as not being wholly onboard with the woke progressive agenda. Otherwise, messy launch or not, I suspect his launch schedule would be right on track rather than being officially delayed as it’s been.
As an aside, it’s looking like more and more of Trump’s past friends and associates, rather than see their lives utterly destroyed via lawfare, are ‘confessing’ at these Soviet ‘lite’ (for now) show trials that they and Trump are being put through currently in regards to the blatantly stolen 2020 elections.
Come a Communist Revolution in the United States, which may well happen sooner than later, and Musk continue his reticent ways, the next time one of his rockets explode (not even ‘messily’ mind you) they may well put Musk and his top rocket scientists on trial for ‘wrecking’ the American economy. That’ll show ’em!
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakhty_Trial
Shakhty Trial Defendants
The Shakhty trial marked the beginning of “wrecking” as a crime within the Soviet Union.
Erdogan has said Hamas aren’t terrorists, rather a liberation group. Not that surprising given his past role as patron for the group, but still remarkable. It’s darkly funny in a way, when one remembers how Western media once tried to portray him and his party as the Islamic equivalents of cucked Christian Democrats in Europe.
It was probably always fake just to attract the girl, but he can’t really give it up now and take the risk of losing her.
He’s trapped now. 🙂
So…. What have you learned?
I think everyone has responded that multiple versions of Biblical text have passed through fallible human hands. Thus, while divinely inspired, it is not a literal & explicit directive from God/Jesus/YHWH.
Almost everyone has conceded that bad things have happened in Christian military campaigns. Mortals in the chain of command and the troops that follow them are fallible. Doing the wrong thing in the name of the divine is a problem in every religion.
___
You keep asking, but you are not getting much out of it.
The repetition is suspicious. Even potentially friendly commenters are raising warning flags that your questioning may be rooted in bad faith.
PEACE 😇
I already wrote what I learned to Yerdavian. Look it up earlier.
Peace.
Okay, but I guess this is what I’m saying about dualism in general is that it is illusory and doesn’t get the heart of the matter, which is that God, or Truth, transcends. So, then it would be fair to say that you personally don’t adopt a dualistic framework other than as a rhetorical device?
Sadly, the Maples are about spent here though the Oaks are still holding on. Thankfully it’s not raining since I have terra cotta tiles to lay on a roof after lunch!
I think there are definitely people at the FAA that have it in for him, not to mention FCC and other regulatory bodies, like the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
FAA just put out a report saying something like by 2035, there is expected to be 0.6 annual ground fatalities from orbital debris, with SpaceX accounting for 85% of that.
But I think a certain part of it is bureaucratic creep. There are probably genuinely bureaucrats that are being overworked filling out paperwork.
The irony is the might need SpaceX for Artemis. (Which is openly about sending blacks to the Moon.)
As far as Trump et al is concerned, I find the derangement and persecution around him bizarre, as it seems like he was for the most part surrounded by very establishment figures.
Saw a video on YouTube a week or so ago that claimed Erdogan was sabre-rattling against the US fleet in the Eastern Med. That he was moving the Turkish fleet into the same area, and they were going to conduct live-fire drills.
Sounds too absurd for me to believe, but it is interesting how he has this cult of personality around him.
Just posturing or is the taboo on territorial revisions about to be broken even further?
https://caribbean.loopnews.com/content/guyana-calls-venezuelas-upcoming-referendum-essequibo-annexation
Venezuelan government calls it “matters of special national transcendence” while accusing Guyana of being a puppet of “transnational capital” in general and ExxonMobil in particular.
https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Venezuela-Rejects-Guyanas-Statements-on-Essequibo-Referendum-20231024-0015.html
Perhaps it is relevant to note that in recent years due to offshore discoveries Guyana has been developing a nascent oil industry.
Ethiopia demands a port for sea access while neighbours reject negotiation.
https://www.semafor.com/article/10/19/2023/ethiopia-demands-access-to-red-sea
https://maritime-executive.com/article/ethiopia-s-new-desire-for-a-red-sea-port-leaves-neighbors-uneasy
Well, I’m almost always disappointed in myself when I see me spending too much time debating people online. The important points are usually made at the beginning and the rest soon becomes wasted time, so much better spent on something else.
However, in this particular case I’m also disappointed that I’m not doing a much better job at debating such an easy target as a Muslim in the 21st century talking about the superiority of Islam to Christianity in terms of violence and compassion lol. Perhaps it’s the boldness of the claim that lowers my defenses. Like the little skinny guy on the street that you never imagined would be a threat but suddenly comes and punches you in the face. I’ve had that experience and it’s quite startling.
The other thing is that I understand your visceral dislike of Islam and it’s adherents. But well, this idea of collective boycotts to certain people on an open, unmoderated forum like this doesn’t seem to work very well. Remember that we have a resident perv with acknowledged mental issues who keeps derailing all threads but, to my amazement, people keep fueling his habit by interacting with him. It must be compassion or something. Perhaps it’s OK if that’s what it is. I can’t do anything about it so I don’t care anymore. Talha, at least, has brought some variety to the usual topics discussed here. And, as is typical of Muslims you meet in the West who have been living here for a while, if you leave (their) religion aside, he seems to have a properly functioning brain. Europe is committing a civilizational suicide by importing so many of them though, that’s not up to debate for me.
You claimed that I ignored “history” since I argued that what happened 1,400 years ago is largely irrelevant. That is a stretch and an obvious misrepresentation. But to understand the point you have to let go of your deep biases, and you don’t seem to be able to do it.
Call it whatever you want it is an expulsion. Completely illegal and it wouldn’t be accepted by most of the world. Your dream of a “New Palestine” is basically the same idea – expulsion. That is calling for a form of genocide.
I listed the solutions that are possible. It will most likely end in a one-state with some community separation of Jews and Palestinians. It is not ideal and nobody likes it, but since Israel has colonized most of the usable West Bank there is no other solution available. Expulsion or a genocide are nor a “plan”, that is a call for a war crime. If you don’t see it you are living in a very tight ideological bubble.
He’s got a one-track mind, literally EVERY conversation with him sooner or later revolves around the truth and superiority of Islam and its way of life. Because at core he’s a missionary. It can be interesting and illuminating to interact with him, for a while (most of us probably don’t encounter such views all that often, and in all fairness, at least he’s polite and answers questions), but in the end it’s a frustrating experience that only reinforces how utterly alien people like him and their way of thinking are. And there’s not much point of entering into an in-depth discussion with him, because he’ll only throw various Islamic authorities at you, which none of us can check (and why should we tbh).
Pervy Mr. XYZ at least has the decency to write on different topics, and imo some of his comments are fairly normal and sometimes even interesting. If only he could stop writing about topics like child sex dolls.
You’re welcome. It’s just the Christian education I received as a child. Even if you reject the religion afterwards, the habits of tolerance, peace and empathy stay with you. It’s just part of the Christian cultural tradition.
Unfortunately, I don’t have anything to offer you for the afterlife but I also wish you well. May your intellect allow you to make religion a much less central part of your life for a more cheerful experience while you’re here.
Wow, there’s a name we haven’t seen for a long time.
Can’t comment on the issues with Venezuela and Ethiopia…I suppose in the former the US might get involved in some way. As for Ethiopia, I’m not convinced any taboo on territorial expansion was ever much in force there, “the international community” just doesn’t care that much about it and many other “Global South” countries. E.g. I’m vaguely aware there was some kind of separatist conflict/civil war in Ethiopia in recent years which supposedly killed hundreds of thousands of civilians, but I couldn’t tell you about any of the details, because it’s been ignored by most Western media and you don’t hear anything about it, unless you’re actively looking for information.
Yes, I’d forgotten about that. Is the report even real, though, or is it just some more trumped up stuff they came up with to hurt Musk’s reputation now that he simply appears to question some of the woke agenda?
‘Creep’ is a good descriptive word for an individual who allows their petty political biases to dictate how they perform their public service role. 🙂
Let’s get something out of the way; you like Christianity and I like Islam – so let’s turn this into a fruitful discussion about history and human psychology so that we can understand the rationale behind the other’s viewpoint.
I agree with you; to take a cultural phenomenon that took centuries and role it into just one war or one event doesn’t make sense.
It would be more accurate to say “what led to Westphalia and the start of concrete steps towards secularization”.
Neither does it start or end with The 30 Years War. The Peace of Augsburg was a progenitor, but localized to Germany and specific to Lutherans and Catholics. And, for instance, there were pogroms against Huguenots in France which led to turmoil before the 30 Years War. That was ended by the Edict of Nantes (granting them limited rights) which precedes Westphalia, but the Edict was then revoked almost a century later (and well after Westphalia) which led to mass exodus by Huguenots and helped set the stage for the Nine Years War.
And definitely, the authority of the Catholic Church was already in question from the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, but the dissent had spread too far and wide for it too be strangled in the cradle like the Cathars. The Protestants themselves had political power and were ready to use it for religious purposes also, for example the famous incident of Calvin’s execution by burning of Servetus.
There was a wide cultural shift that needed to happen:
“Nowhere was toleration accepted as a positive moral principle, and seldom was it granted except through political necessity.”
https://www.britannica.com/topic/history-of-Europe/The-Wars-of-Religion
This was not just at the institutional level, but at the common man level also:
“Actually, the novelty of massacres during the Wars of Religion resided in the fact that they were beyond the control of central governmental authorities. Two-thirds of the massacres committed by Catholics were carried out independently by city-dwellers.”
https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/en/document/massacres-during-wars-religion.html
And you can see how the Catholics viewed the Protestants in this Catholic perspective:
“While these men thundered against the Scarlet Women of Babylon and preached slaughter with a fervor more becoming to Mohammedans than to men who called themselves Christians… they had begun to sack bishops’ houses and churches, to destroy altars and images of Christ and of the saints, and to deprive Catholics of their arms…. Within a year the Calvinists, according to one of their own estimates, ‘murdered 4,000 priests, monks and nuns, expelled or maltreated 12,000 nuns, sacked 20,000 churches, and destroyed 2,000 monasteries’ (Novuvelle Collection de memoires relatif a l’histoire de France, Ch. XI, p. 512)”
http://www.catholicapologetics.info/catholicteaching/history/calpersec.htm
Westphalia was the culmination of that “political necessity” towards tolerance to stop the bloodshed and widely (not just in localities) adopt concrete legal guarantees for all Protestant varieties and Catholics to the right to a private religious confession (that could differ from the kingdom’s official doctrine) and, importantly, the right to assemble and worship without harassment.
And then this trend continues as secularism gets more entrenched and then the Renaissance and then various political philosophers (often antagonistic to Christianity)…and you likely know the rest.
Peace.
Muslims are like that. Some of them do abandon their religion in the West, though I’m not sure that always makes them better citizens. But the lives of the majority of Muslims revolves around their religion, even in the most trivial aspects of everyday life. And they clearly want to make that primitive religion predominant everywhere they go, if not outright impose it, so it’s just mind-boggling why Westerners, especially Europeans, keep letting them settle in such huge numbers. At least here in the US they’re a small minority of the newcomers, though leaving some very intellectually gifted individuals aside, one wonders what contribution the rest are expected to make.
But he clearly can’t. In fact, I suspect that’s all he wants to talk about and the rest is his way of joining the conversation to then bring up what is clearly always in my mind.
You misrepresented my position with this.
And, called me psychotic to boot. Now you are having a mental breakdown over your own rhetorical flourishes being used the other way. Very sad.
__
To understand that the issues are religious not ethnic, you have to let go of your deep anti-Jewish bias. I keep trying to illustrate this point in various objective, fact based ways. Alas, you are too emotionally desperate for a special case that favours your preferred outcome.
Why are you intentionally misrepresenting my position? Voluntary departure is the opposite of involuntary expulsion.
That is some Chutzpah you are wielding. Falsely accusing the other side of your own misbehaviour is very Pallywood. However, no one is too surprised by your failed attempts at deception.
PEACE 😇
A beautiful woman is still just a woman. She doesn’t know anything and I wouldn’t expect her to
Karlin took his “Weltmacht oder Niedergang” worldview to its logical conclusion and had a Damascene conversion to the cult of EHC, so I got curious as to whether or not the commentary on his old blogging space had turned into as trashy a place as the rest of Unz seemingly has.
Probably yes, I’m just sort of wondering how, assuming the much-hyped Sino-American war starts 5-10 years down the line, they are going to handle all these other fires. Sooner or later they are going to have to draw up a list of priorities if they are interested in remaining on top.
That was a really weird war, I was reading about it at the time and it seemed like the only ones that really cared about it in the West were international relations professors, lobbyists paid to write atrocity porn and some functionaries at the State Department even though the war started during the Summer of Fentanyl Floyd and BIPOC Resistance and “we need to decolonise our foreign policy” articles.
Apparently a million people died of which 600,000 were civilians and all sides committed horrific war crimes and all those people crying “Oh, the humanity!” on either side during the present Hamas-Israel war… just didn’t care because there were no emotionally tugging bad guys.
I mean, I don’t care either about the Tigrayans or the federal Ethiopian state but it was an illuminating moment that I’ll remember next time we are asked to get emotionally engaged in a war between Third World participants.
Simplicius has covered this a lot.
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/the-coming-russian-offensive-2023
There has never been that high a number committed, he/they think 70-90k has been the general figure so far, perhaps that number is rising now.
Of course it depends how you count Wagner and the militias, the old DPR militias are fighting to liberate Avdeevka.
To me a terrorist group tries to impose a minority viewpoint on society, so the IRA are terrorists, as were Irgun, Hamas certainly aren’t.
Welcome back, you’ve certainly been gone for a long time!
I hope more of the old timers return, since we all live in such interesting times.
I saw a clip of MacGregor on Tucker Carlson, he says US special forces, presumably the Delta Force guys the incompetents in the White House outed on the internet, were part of the recon group that suffered heavy casualties when at the hands of Hamas when they tried to reconnoiter Gaza.
Mink supposedly has good snow resistance compared to other furs, it’s particularly popular in Russia.
I didn’t buy her the coat, it was a gift from her parents. With that money I would have bought a new economy car for my teenager.
But the coat is extremely warm, soft, and looks nice (it was from Italy). It will probably last forever.
ISIS or Al Quada havent done anything that US or UK hasnt done anything in recent history. I am talking of last 22 years .
Now give me some idea about the faith and religious affliations of this ‘ US’ or ‘ UK’.
What do they read as religious book, what kind of religious shrine they visit, what do they say to the kids before dinner and bed time or before Santa Clause show up? Who do they ask to officiate the naming, the marriage ceremony, and what do they say about those not believing in their religion?
It’s pretty much like it always was. Mostly focused on the Ukraine war (this thread is a bit unusual in this regard), which can get a bit tiresome, since it’s always the same arguments about past events.
Most people still regularly commenting here probably have a negative view of Karlin, well-deserved imo. Don’t know if you saw it, but his comments in early 2022 really discredited him on both a moral and intellectual level (“The FSB with its cool Punisher vehicles will soon be coming for the rainbow people in Kiev”, or his ridiculous “Shock and disbelief” phrase). One would think he’d atone for that by showing some humility, but instead he’s as arrogant as ever with his EHC nonsense.
Already looks like a bad case of hubris and overstretch imo. If the US gets drawn into a big Mideast war (which is quite possible), who knows, maybe Xi will regard it as a good opportunity to go for Taiwan, or at least increase the pressure drastically.
This was just a few days ago:
https://edition.cnn.com/2023/10/22/asia/south-china-sea-philippines-collision-intl-hnk/index.html
Indeed. I find the reactions by both the pro-Palestine and the pro-Israel crowd in the current crisis extremely irritating. Hard to explain on any rational level.
America has been forcing for more than 100 years its way of life on others .
Poll in Turkey on the Israel-Hamas war:
34.5% Ankara should be neutral.
26.4% should mediate between the sides.
18% should support the Palestinians but be distant from Hamas.
11.3% should support Hamas.
3% should support Israel.
Three quarters of those views look fairly reasonable to me. Erdogan’s sympathy for Hamas doesn’t seem to enjoy majority support. One wonders what his agenda is.
Not trashy, but not that much progress being made either.
One can sum up the Post Karlin OT scene in picture form.
PEACE 😇
Is the rest of Unz trashy, in the sense it is different compared to times past?
I think the Ukrainian war discussion has recently died down here in the Unz “Russian Reaction” community because the pro-Ukraine zealots have realized the war/SMO is not what they had hoped for.
Karlin is simply growing up. He steeped himself in a very specific bubble so the result is naturally a bit unusual.
There are a couple of dedicated American imperialists like Elbridge Colby who recognise that China is the main adversary and that Ukraine, Israel and the like are a dangerous distraction but most commentators are simply deluded about the USA’s power. China is the only rival that has the population, economies of scale and deep techno-economical base to push for world power status.
For what it’s worth based on what makes sense, I think China will launch a war later on in the late 2020s. There’s a gap where the US Navy is shrinking before the new systems come active in the 2030s all while the PLAN and PLARF is growing immensely every year (and that’s without even having started a war economy yet).
https://scholars-stage.org/welcome-to-the-decade-of-concern/
Maybe there’s a chance China screws it up and doesn’t win the war in the end but American politics are going to get really nasty in any eventuality.
A Sino-American war is also going to have nasty consequences for practically every country that isn’t already isolated like Russia or North Korea, just starting from the instant global economic crisis and everything that follows.
For us in Europe that most likely means the collapse of several Middle Eastern and/or African governments and massive migration flows at a time when unemployment and inflation explodes.
No, it has always been overrun by lunatics.
Starlink doesn’t seem to have mass to reach the ground with pieces intact.
https://www.space.com/spacex-counters-faa-claims-starlink-space-junk-dangers
I once came across a book in a giftshop in a science museum that had some mystery problem, where you had to explain a guy’s mysterious death and the answer (for which there seemed to be no clues) was that he was hit by a micrometeorite.
But doesn’t seem like it was ever recorded, in modern times. Though there appear to be a number of historical accounts of people being killed by bigger rocks, falling from the sky.
I’d like to see the Chinese dig up this city of Qingyang and see what they can find
https://www.astronomy.com/science/death-from-above-7-unlucky-tales-of-people-killed-by-meteorites/
China may be too dependent on world trade to start a war. They don’t have the ability to protect the sea lanes needed for this trade. OBOR will help a little in this regard.
I think China expects the west to collapse from factors like unassimilable migrants, massive drug use, general mental incompetence, etc. which I suspect they foster and sponsor.
It’s not about intelligence, it’s about the their low level of resources and economic development. They’re going to manufacture a hi-tech product like stillsuits with what? Well, it’s fiction, so we can dream up anything we like, but to me it seemed unrealistic and obviously romanticized. Guess you see it differently.
We don’t know what they started with and the planet Dune holds mysteries from when it was a thriving planet. It’s more of a post-apocalyptic situation. Mad Max had guns and vehicles even though they no longer had the means to make them.
Dune like all science fiction has some holes but the Fremen aren’t supposed to be the equivalent of aboriginals. They didn’t evolve in the environment like the sand worms. They came much later and had already lived on other planets.
Did you like the original Dune movie or the recent one?
I think the original Dune would have been one of the greatest sci-fi movies of all time if they let David Lynch edit it as he wanted. I think the weirdness he adds was actually a good fit for the book.
What boggles my mind is how popular the Disney Star Wars rehashes are compared to Dune.
My son recently told me he had thought about it and decided to delete TikTok…sniff…proud dad moment.
Peace.
I know about Colby, interesting case. But as you write yourself, hardly representative, more typical is the “We can take on a world of enemies, crusade against all autocracies, no problem” approach.
Find it very difficult to come to any firm conclusions about China. Read two books about the issue earlier this year, Graham Allison’s book about the Thucydides trap, and the recent book by Australia’s former PM Kevin Rudd, both interesting, but not really fully convincing imo. Rudd came across like he thought there’s a good chance Xi will screw up the economy because of his Marxist-Leninist ideology and return to greater state control; apart from that vague hope his policy prescriptions were really weak imo, essentially just “Let’s kick the can down the road for another ten years, maybe China will have joined the Davos world order by then, and if not we can still have a war”.
If there’s a war, the US will probably be forced to strike missile sites on mainland China, because otherwise its carriers and other valuable assets can’t operate safely in the theatre of a Taiwan war. So there’s not much chance of it being limited to a relatively contained defensive action, rather a lot of potential for escalation up to nuclear weapons use. And yes, will be very bad news for the rest of the world too.
If I recall, their underground sietches are noted to be massive. The Harkonnens massively underestimated both the size of the sietches and their number:
“The actual size of the mountains and rock outcrops had to be quite large as was the network of tunnels and caves. It had to be capable of not only housing the hundreds or even thousands Fremen families, but also large enough to house all the internal economies and industries, basically a small city and all the civic necessities that would be needed even for a minimalist society like the Fremen community. Stillsuit manufacturing, processing spice and converting it into fibrous form, small scale farming, food processing, as well as the tribe’s water storage, water reclamation facilities and power supply, seem to be common to most if not all sietch communities.”
https://dune.fandom.com/wiki/Sietch
Peace.
Hong Kong was acquired peacefully. Had no long standing tradition of democracy. Yet, HK is still not successfully integrated into the mainland. Xi can blame this on his predecessors.
Why would Xi bet his reputation on violently acquiring Taiwan? Taipei defensive strategy anchors to the chip fabs. Any CCP offensive would destroy the infrastructure that they want most. A deindustrialized Taiwan would be an disastrous blight on Xi’s legacy.
___
The CCP badly needs to work on internal problems: (1)
The CCP needs to focus on fixing domestic risks that could sink the country. Being distracted by expensive & exceedingly lengthy post-war reconstruction is economically unsustainable.
___
Long-term — The WUHAN-19 virus showed global vulnerability to excessively long supply chains. Gradual decoupling from Asia (not just China) and MAGA Reindustrialization is coming to the U.S. This should slowly decrease tension as there will be less opportunity for the CCP to interfere with U.S. supply chains.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://instapundit.com/613367/
IIRC, Venezuela is trying to litigate its claim in the World Court, and I suspect that they are looking to bolster it on paper, after their earlier efforts failed.
Don’t know how functional the Venezuelan state is, but they could almost assuredly take the land, in the absence of outside intervention, based on population numbers. But they would have to build the roads. I suspect Brazil (with its own territorial disputes) would oppose them, even in the event the US wasn’t able to.
Very much doubt Ethiopia has the military capacity to annex coastal lands. In any event, Egypt would likely oppose them. Djibouti itself is locked into being fake and gay by geography. Too convenient a place for foreign naval bases. Unless the nukes fall.
I once proposed sending the Somali diaspora back, to help build port for Ethiopia. But it does not seem like a likely scenario.
Of course this cutoff will involve a lot of economic hardship but Germany and Austria-Hungary proved it was possible to survive a naval blockade (even if it came at a heavy cost) and China has the crucial fortune of being able to buy food and other raw materials over land from Russia, Central Asia and Iran while on the demand side China has plenty of industry that can be converted to war production.
Even if this is true I don’t see how this solves the Taiwan question? Taiwanese youth are overwhelmingly anti-China and every year that passes the more pro-China seniors pass away.
One Country, Two Systems as a possibility for Taiwan is dead and buried.
It’s not a war crime if you get away with it.
Ask the Armenians to cite only one example.
What happens with Muslims is that they keep their heads down when they are a minority. They will even adapt to the local culture and look past requirements like the mid day prayers.
Liberals and conservatives look at these Westernized Muslims and think gee whiz their religion doesn’t seem that much different than Judaism and they are family oriented.
When they get larger in number they start enforcing each other. No more skipping prayers at the office since there is now another Muslim.
Eventually they start taking over areas and push their beliefs on everyone else. No pork in cafeterias, cartoons are offensive, need a prayer room, toilets can’t face mecca, etc. Weirdly enough they find pigs themselves to be offensive. They flipped out of a pig race in Texas. Would God really find a pig race to be offensive?
I recall a couple of Curtis LeMay’s (who was the strategist behind the aerial bombing campaign over Japan) sayings:
“There are no innocent civilians…so it doesn’t bother me so much to be killing innocent bystanders.”
“I suppose if I had lost the war, I would have been tried as a war criminal. Fortunately, we were on the winning side.”
Bruh…
Peace.
Good points on both.
I sort of wondered if the Ethiopians might support the Somalilanders in their struggle against the central government in exchange for a long-term port lease but besides setting a bad precedent in favour of separatism I’m not sure what side Ethiopia’s own Somalis support. It would also require a large expansion of infrastructure through the desert in the east of Ethiopia to make it worthwhile.
What percentage of youth in the Confederate States of America opposed Reunification? Did they ever change their minds? Did anyone even bother to ask their opinions after the war?
I think this is a Venezuela versus England dispute which Venezuela has always hoped to eventually rectify. Maybe in their minds it would be the last step of the Bolivarian revolution against colonialism. Modern maps sometimes show a contested border.
They could be stirring it up now if they think England is weak. Or maybe a faction in the government is intentionally causing trouble to give the USA and Great Britain an excuse to take over Venezuela and clean house.
The Western goal might be to line up oil supplies to replace the expected decline in USA shale oil production.
Maybe the numerous Venezuelan illegal immigrants were sent up to the USA to make a fifth column for exactly this situation. The scenario would be Britain gets into a war with Venezuela with assistance from the USA. That might make Venezuela a tar baby set up by China to weaken the USA, UK and maybe even France and the Netherlands.
ISIS or Al Quada havent done anything that US or UK hasnt done anything in recent history. I am talking of last 22 years .
Ok how about a mass execution of non-Muslims by beheading them. They filmed it so don’t waste your time trying to prove it didn’t happen.
Do provide the counter-example of when the US or UK did the equivalent.
I wonder what the Turks in Germany think.
I don’t see the Taiwan problem as a real issue. Eventually the societies will become similar enough that no one cares very much.
This slow process has ups and downs but Taiwan is too small and too close to resist it now that China is becoming preeminent in the world.
At some point powerful Taiwanese families will get more benefit from something like the contract for the cross-strait tunnel than anything else and resistance will collapse.
On the other hand, the reason for blockading China is to collapse the CCP and create massive chaos between warring states. Perhaps Taiwan have been waiting for the West to pull this off. Maybe the islanders will try to get in on the action and be promptly conquered.
Like our dictators, they are our lunatics.
The Chinese are trying to develop more advanced chips on their own. And if they don’t get to the absolute leading edge of the technology, so what? What they have is sufficient for domestic and military use. And if they destroy Taiwan then no one else has access to those chips either.
Regarding housing, look at the funding chart posted by Noviop Co-Prosperity Sphere. Things like housing and the tech industry are part of “fictitious capital”, it’s unhealthy fat when you want muscles. What matters for them are industry that you can see with your own eyes.
We can debate whether it is a healthy economic view overall, but when you’re preparing for war things work differently. Command economies have a sketchy in peacetime but it is a crucial tool for war economies.
Whatever he may think in private Xi Jinping is the sort of guy who talks about his experiences being sent down to the countryside during the Cultural Revolution and having to live in a literal cave and walking barefoot for miles everyday as a positive experience and his propaganda organs repeat that the Chinese should draw lessons from this. Yes, I believe that Xi is absolutely the sort of person who would start a war if he believes he can win it and damn the consumers if they complain.
Year-on-Year growth… So, the “Real Estate” hole is still being dug deeper, but more slowly. At the bottom of a drainage canal that would be solid progress. However, CCP property exposure is more akin to being at the bottom of the Marinas Trench.
What is actually in the “Industry” bucket? If an industrial company takes out a loan and then acquires real estate, how is that scored? Some of this is actually good if a company buys out a lease to own their own property. However, some of it is weakness as debtors are turning over property to compensate on overdue contracts.
There is also local & regional government exposure to “Real Estate” that does not show in the private sector numbers. I will have to try to find the article again — Debt is being shifted around to meet targets demanded by Beijing, but the underlying exposure is still there. Only the names are different.
PEACE 😇
Why would Xi bet his reputation on violently acquiring Taiwan? Taipei defensive strategy anchors to the chip fabs. Any CCP offensive would destroy the infrastructure that they want most. A deindustrialized Taiwan would be an disastrous blight on Xi’s legacy.
An invasion would also spur US/UK chip development. There is no reason to assume that China could just paratroop in a large force and business would go on as usual.
Of course China may invade and without any care about if the economics make sense.
Taiwan is a reminder to China that their bloody revolution was a complete waste of time. The Taiwanese workers not only live better but are free to start unions and political parties.
Taiwan’s existence is a nearby affirmation that Communism is stupid and the Chinese were suckers for following it after WW2. It had already failed in Europe but Mao was certain that he could make it work.
China is now a totalitarian state with a mixed economy. You aren’t allowed to criticize the government and depicting the president as Winnie the Poo is a serious crime. Unsurprisingly the Taiwanese do not want to join their totalitarian neighbor and give up their political freedoms. I find it disturbing by how many Unz posters claim to be for “Free speech” but then go out of their way to defend China’s desire to gulp up Taiwan. They really don’t support free speech in the least and just want a changing of the guard. They view China as an obstacle to Western powers and are willing to look past their 1984 nightmare state that opposes any and all individual rights.
Thanks for the interesting account about the alleged Chinese meteor event in 1490. I wasn’t aware of it. Would be interesting if they could ever verify it some day.
I’m sure you are aware of Mrs Ann Hodges being struck by a 9lb meteorite in 1954. Probably the only thing that saved her was that the rock went through the roof of her house and ricocheted off a radio first before striking her.
The Life magazine article on the event is kind of intriguing.
https://books.google.ca/books?id=c1MEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA27&dq=meteorite&pg=PA26#v=onepage&q&f=false
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ann_Elizabeth_Fowler_Hodges
Urbanization Rate
“If I could save the union without freeing any slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone I would also do that.”
I am not here to teach you or illuminate your dark mind.
Let me know if you want to be behaed or burnt alive slowly or sentenced 10 yerars’s slow painful death outside in your community with disfigured face or be sexually assaulted and gagged in Guantanmo bay or be lost in the rendition with body misisng for ever or have your lung exploded with bomb or be raped in front of your offsprings and parent at home followed by stabbing in the chrst.
Kind of gory. But get the drift .
Can the CCP over run and thus de-industrialize Taiwan? Highly likely. Then what? Would Xi intentionally buy into a “Win the War, Lose the Peace” boondoggle like GW in Iraq? I doubt he is this sort of person.
Please tell me that Xi is more savvy than GW Bush.
And not doing well at it. Their own fab gear from Shanghai Micro Electronics Equipment [SMEE] has been stuck at 28nm for over a decade.
SMIC produces smaller die size chips however they are totally dependent on foreign equipment and spares. ASML is now looped into global restrictions on sales, though support for existing DUV machines is still available.
Global industry standards are 5-7nm. Production at 3nm has, to the best of my knowledge, not reached commercial scale. However, 3nm has cleared Proof of Concept and is coming. The CCP is multiple generations behind and falling further back.
Unlikely they would keep it post-war.
Taiwanese Intelligence reputedly has covert sleeper cells that will wipe out SMEE and SMIC facilities. Highly credible as some key staff is from Taipei. Other nations dependant on TSMC have their own doomsday plans.
The CCP has opportunities to significantly command & control official financial reporting. See my response here to him here:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-232/#comment-6226858
____
The good news is that gradual decoupling is also gradual de-escalation. The American block has work to do on MAGA Reindustrialization, however there is no need for problems to become deeper.
On our side, we have to wipe out NeoConDemocrats like the Veggie-in-Chief and his policy team. If the swamp cannot be drained… Everyone loses, possibly in thermonuclear fire. Pro-war, deranged #NeverTrump Leftoids are dangerous.
PEACE 😇
Tangential and missing context. By itself, a graphic rarely makes a meaningful point.
Even if your numbers are accurate, they concede that the CCP is many decades behind America. And, they assume that urbanization is a desirable measure. I am not sure I accept that for America or China. Over urbanization anyone?
How many coal plants can the CCP build before they repeat problems experienced by America? Geography can trap pollution, smog, and acid rain in various ways. Clearly wind & solar are stupid, but coal does have sulfur.
PEACE 😇
What is interesting is that it’s not a strict distinction but more of a distinction and simultaneously an interconnection. It’s almost like Yin and Yang (as a kind of a perpetual interconnection, but maybe that’s going too far, maybe that’s too dualistic). But there may be some notions and even some scant evidence that the Ultimate Deity has two aspects (father/mother, sky/earth). Or at least had originally.
And, yes, Aristotle is, of course, a good comparison – in the sense that form and matter are closely tied together in creation.
Aristotle is more “naturalist”, his thinking more empirical (yet still preserving a strong logical core) than Plato’s obviously, so his tradition fits well here, Plato’s Forms are super-natural, and exist in a metaphysical world. Aristotle’s description is similar but still differs crucially – maybe more “down to earth” so to speak (less idealistic). It’s a clearer description, even more scientific, I’d say, Plato’s Forms are a bit obscure.
The similarity with Baltic mythology here is that Dievs apparently has these forms as well, but it is often repeated in the daina (the ancestral poems) that He has the “advice”, “wise council”, but the actual word for it is connected to “thought” (and “to think”, maybe “concept”, “knowledge”). And this thought then creates and organizes the world. So it can be viewed simultaneously as “wise council” (God’s laws), and the creative force of the Universe (in this sense as Plato’s Forms or even Aristotelian categories which structure the world, hold the world together).
Dievs is sometimes depicted as riding slowly and gracefully across fields and so delicately that not even a single flower is disturbed, this probably means that there is an order of things that is maintained and guaranteed by Dievs. It’s actually a recurring theme: a movement is described as taking place, and it is followed up by something like “not a single leaf trembled”, which could mean that even if there is movement (or change), there is always a constant (that keeps this movement together or contains it and that this is the power of Dievs, the form that holds the moving matter in place).
As I mentioned, this “wise counsel” or “thought” could be the form that organizes the matter. The Goddess Māra could be connected to Mater rerum, “mother of things”. There used to be an ancient deity, Ma-Rea, the flowing, moving mother, or the one who is in flux. How the Greeks say Panta Rhei – everything flows, everything is in a flux, it might be the same word (although I’m not sure rhei could be connected to rerum).
So here you could see the Form as the constant, the Matter as the ever changing element. But they kind of flow into each other in an Aristotelian manner indeed – symbolically speaking, it’s kind of like when an ink blot appears on white paper, is when the material life begins, but it is intended by someone or some guiding, intentional force.
Interestingly, there is another deity – Laima, Who also lays down laws but more with regards to the life of an individual human. The Goddess of Destiny (like Fortuna) and there is a deterministic element there. One cannot change this destiny (which is created through a weaving done by the beautiful Goddess Laima, like with the Scandinavian Norns) but only ask that one is given a good life (it’s ok to sometimes get angry over it, too, lol). She is subordinate to Dievs, but the Ancestors prayed to both. So it’s actually a kind of a trinity with Dievs and two Goddesses alongside (at least in the current neo-pagan ensemble, but they are mentioned together in the daina as well)>
Never forget who the real racists are.
Not really, in this context it is staying where they are that is the opposite. There is no way people will leave “voluntarily”…and you know that. So you asking for them to depart is an expulsion. Period. Get over these rather inhumane dreams.
And stop hallucinating about “but, 1,400 years ago…“…it is not any kind of an argument, it just sounds very stupid. (As the saying goes, it was a long time ago and it wasn’t true anyway.)
There are still few smart posters on Sailer’s threads or Ron Unz’s articles (Art Deco, Peter Akuleyev), but the noise to signal ratio there is so high I generally just check the commenter archive every few months instead.
The commenterbase is pretty much same as it’s always been, though I think the quality of columnists here very rapidly declined sometime around 2017-2018 or so, and then dumb Covid arguments disappeared the last of the writers on Unz who didn’t write exclusively about black crime (yes it’s true, but what is there left to say?) or Jewish goblins hiding under their bed.
I think Ron Unz’s ‘American Pravda’ series is excellent but the problem is only nutcases with nothing to lose are willing to attach their name to this site after his WWII & Holocaust articles.
@ Coconuts
I meant “wise counsel”, of course – sorry for the bad spelling.
In regards to Taiwan, there is the option of committing to protecting it until 2028 or so (Vivek’s plan), when the US should hopefully (as per Vivek’s agenda–I don’t support Vivek BTW) achieve microchip independence, and then afterwards being willing to, say, arm Taiwan, including the Taiwanese people, to the teeth NRA-style while not actually being willing to have the US/West fight on Taiwan’s behalf after 2028.
Ukraine can fight Russia by itself, albeit with a lot of Western aid, but I have extreme difficulty in believing that Taiwan could do the same in regards to China because the power differential between Taiwan and China is just too large.
It’s funny, I looked up skunk fur, it’s not as bad as I had imagined – looks fluffy, soft and pretty. So you could definitely lure Eastern Euro chicks into considering it as a prized possession.
But, dear songbird, you do not know East Slavic women at all! A nice shuba (luxurious fur coat) is the most important thing for them on this planet! 🙂 Well, at least it used to be that way until quite recently, it may no longer be a thing for 20 year olds. I once heard a stunning Russian bimbo say something like: “A real shuba doesn’t even start before at least several thousand dollars”. Or insert whatever number, I don’t remember. And guess who has to buy it? Yes, the poor hubby. LOL Haha, I’m starting to like Russian women – they’re so red pilled. What is funny is that for Russian men too this viewed as some kind of a sign of achievement (that they’re able to buy their wife or gf a nice fur coat). Or at least used to be back in the day. It’s so endearing (and so sweet, they just want their wife to be warm) even if it is “old fashioned”.
Personally, I think it’s a bit ridiculous, even if those coats are indeed very pretty. And it’s practical in a cold winter. It might also be a status symbol (once I put on a white fur coat and got much better and more respectful treatment). It’s crazy. I do have a winter hat made out of a polar fox from somewhere in Russia (I feel bad about showing it off because of the whole animal rights thing).
What are your thoughts on having the US develop its own microchip capacity by the end of the 2020s?
Egypt actually has power projection capabilities in the Somaliland?
It is the oldest game in town to tie one enemy to another – the pulling strings theatre. That way enemies can multiply indefinitely. But the real consequence is the worldwide polarization where all countries and groups are being forced to line up and engage in the conflict. Objectively most of them have no reason to do it, but the rush to demonization has its own internal logic.
I am not sure much can be done other than to hope that the fever will blow over, that forces of inertia will keep the crazy escalations from going too far. China, India, Brazil, a few other large countries have been solid. That role that in the past used to be played by EU, but no longer, they are now the most enthusiastic lemmings: earnest, eager to please, scared, irresponsible.
We are one or two dramatic events from a catastrophe – it is not a steep hill to climb, random sh..t happens all the time. The EU statesmen are forgetting that any “state” is primarily about maintaining stability. It is like having adolescents in charge.
Haha, very true. Russian women might eat you alive, but they won’t lie to you, the manipulation is blatantly open and frank in a way that can be disturbing to dudes who grew up in the West.
Right, you have to win. And not a small win, a total win like in WW2. Then nobody will question it. A win of that magnitude is unlikely today. So it gets messy and the crimes issue doesn’t go away.
https://skandinavikfur.com/chinchilla-fur-coat-margot/
I think she looks pretty spiffy. I presume the African lady models would refuse an assignment like that due to their high moral principles. : )
I am not here to teach you or illuminate your dark mind.
I’m not asking you to teach or illuminate me.
I asked you for a counter-example to support your assertion and you didn’t provide one.
When I was 18 I also had a blame America first attitude and tried to find moral equivalency where it didn’t exist. I now look at those days with embarrassment.
I don’t hold America as the moral standard but trying to equate them with an extreme theocratic state where non-Muslims were routinely beheaded is not an argument that cannot be supported with reason.
The extreme forms of government (Nazis, Communists, ISIS) don’t let the people decide on if they like their rulers. Americans can at least vote the bastards out and we have term limits.
I can tell you are most likely Dot Indian so maybe try to master Roman era plumbing standards before trying to lecture us. They had cities that didn’t smell like shit.
You know, I used to kind of look down on them for that, it just seemed a bit too transactionary or primitive and not dignifying. But on the other hand – why not? Especially for young and beautiful women – we have a saying, strike the steel while it’s hot. Play ’em while you can play it, right? Men take advantage of women, too. And if it’s the husband doing it, not just a boyfriend, then it’s totally legit and normal.
I’m definitely not endorsing this as it doesn’t really jive with my value system (the gifts I used to receive in my youth were typically inexpensive but “with deep symbolic meaning” which I actually value higher), but it’s by far not the worst thing in the world. And, from what I understand, it’s reciprocal, they take good care of the man (and men have expectations, too). At least for a while I hope. LOL
And those coats actually do bring beauty into our lives. I wonder if all these things are still the same in the Russian society, or if things have changed now.. the Russian people have changed in so me ways. But maybe there are still such things from the old days.
It looks super soft and quite elegant. There are so many possible combinations too… I’m imagining a traditional Russian look, with a black fur coat and bright ruby earrings, yes, they used do that! It’s super flashy and beautiful. Or a white or light grey one with matte nude lipstick… I’m sorry, please don’t show this stuff to me, it’s super distracting. 🙂
African models can look quite beautiful too. A white coat would make a great contrast with their skin.
Actually, they might refuse these days, some African countries are getting somewhat progressive, at least in business culture. But, hey… all the moral principles go out the window when you see this kind of stuff… 🙂
But, dear songbird, you do not know East Slavic women at all! A nice shuba (luxurious fur coat) is the most important thing for them on this planet!
I have been around Slavic men but not women. I certainly won’t speak for the women.
I can however tell you that in the US it is a social faux pas to wear fur. The only allowed exceptions are where it is assumed the fur is fake like on winter boots. It’s quite a shame since Nutria makes for decent fur and is an invasive species. The state of Louisiana pays people to hunt Nutria and nothing is done with it. However I understand the original intent of shaming fur since mink companies are known to be amoral. There have been numerous cases where the price of fur crashed and the mink farmers simply let them go.
LOL Haha, I’m starting to like Russian women – they’re so red pilled.
Every year there is at least one story about how someone married a Russian mail order bride and she either murdered the husband or scammed him. Or on occasion the man kills her out of rage over cheating. It’s always a Russian or Ukrainian woman that is too pretty for the man. Some out of shape fat White guy who I guess thinks a hot Russian woman has been dreaming of living with him in the burbs. ANOTHER BEER NATASHA…GAMES ON SOON.
In real life I’ve only known two people actually married to a Russian. In one case the woman is a total materialist who doesn’t want kids and wants every Prada product. Yea she is pretty but….at what price? What is with Slavs and designer products? In America we snicker at the White trophy wives or Blacks that buy such things.
IsolationismTM at its finest;)
Why are you misrepresenting my position?
You need to get over your inhumane dreams that Muslim colonists in Gaza want to remain prisoners of Hamas concentration camp guards. Why do you fear parents receiving the opportunity to voluntarily go somewhere where their children have a shot at a better life?
Stop hallucinating about “but, 70 years ago”… Everyone sees that it is a bogus & irrational argument. You are emotionally & desperately pushing it to obtain your preferred, special case outcome.
‘Those who do not learn history are doomed to repeat it.’ — George Santayana
PEACE 😇
6 years away… No chance.
Gradual decoupling will be the work of decades. Things will be better when the TSMC facilities come in line, but that is only a step down the path.
PEACE 😇
Your wife’s parents are rich?
I thought that he claimed to be the Sun God’s representative and messenger on Earth but not literally the Sun God himself?
You should check out this Anatoly Karlin article about this topic:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/progressive-russian-empire/
That’s funny how they couldn’t find any buyers after the initial fame wore off. I wonder how much it would go for today.
This Indonesian man seems to have possibly gotten a hefty sum after one crashed through his roof. But I suspect it was a rarer type.
https://nypost.com/2020/11/18/rare-meteorite-worth-2-million-crashes-through-mans-roof/
This lady seems to have also made a few bucks when one crashed into her old Chevy Malibu in 1992, which she had paid $300 for.
$50,000 for the meteorite and $25,000 for the car. But she might have been better off holding onto it, unless she invested the money smartly.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peekskill_meteorite
I imagine that the internet has led to an inflation in prices for such things.
I hadn’t really thought about this for a while, but when I recently heard about this again, out of the blue, it actually made me think that it’s so sweet that a husband gets his wife something that makes her warm. It is so primal, isn’t it? Even a cave man would do it, right?
So I was able to look at it from a completely different side, since I used to think that in their culture it is more about showing off and having nice clothes and male chivalry or gold digging, or what not. I grew up along side with all this stuff and got so fed up with that materialism and obsession with externalities (it just drove me nuts). But now looking back.. there is a sweet side to it. I wonder how that tradition started, if it was just because of the cold (there are many cold countries, but they don’t have this tradition), or because of status or whatever (since there may have been few other status symbols back in the day). There will soon be a book out about this.
On a darker note, I was recently listening to White Rex ranting, and he was talking about the reasons why the Russian guys sign up to go to Ukraine for the “special military operation”. And he was saying how some of them are poor and go there for the money while others who are a bit less poor just want more money to pay their loans. And he was saying some kind shit like “These are losers who can’t make decent money, can’t attract a pretty wife, can’t buy their wife a nice shuba.” I was like “Whoa, Denis, calm down”. It seemed a bit excessive – as in, those expectations are still there.
Maybe if the Russian men in the regions didn’t have such pressures, there would be fewer of them going to Ukraine to kill Ukrainians (only the ideological ones would go and the forcefully mobilized ones). They should’ve distributed the Moscow money across the regions. Moscow is sucking up too much, it needs to be spread out (it was being spread out a little but not enough).
It may depends where. My wife hasn’t had any trouble. I think activists were throwing paint on people wearing furs 20 years ago.
True. Also, fur coats can be worn for decades and are legitimately warm. It’s much less of a waste of an animal than is some garbage and unhealthy fast food.
In the nineties I knew or met three mail order brides. One had been a prostitute in Russia and all the Russians were laughing at her American husband, who spent lavishly on her. Another was very young from a small town in Ukraine and married an American veteran twice her age. Surprisingly, she took over the family with an iron hand, they have several children, and they seem to be happily married for many years. The other married an American and tried to make it work but kept complaining that the guy did not know how to act like a man. Even though he was wealthy, she eventually left him for a poor off the boater house renovator from Ukraine. She was decent about it, and didn’t fight for any of his money in the divorce.
I think a lot of Americans have been ruined by feminism and falsely equate being feminine and somewhat traditional, with being a doormat. That does not work out well.
I kid you not – one night I was sitting in a chair and a skunk came up quite close to nibble on some crumbs that I had left, after eating, and I was very sorely tempted to reach down and pet him.
I felt about 90% confident I wouldn’t have been sprayed. But there was that ten percent left. (And I think one could lower that with a bit of acclimation.). But I have heard some animals that you can pet don’t react well at being petted from above as it triggers an instinct against predators.
But skunks always appear to me fairly tame and good-natured.
I have seen a mink in the wild before and it impressed me in the opposite way. I have never seen such concentrated predatory instinct.
could you mean ‘silver fox?’
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silver_fox_(animal)
I am a big fan of this old and ongoing Russian experiment:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Domesticated_silver_fox
Unfortunately, they never could housebreak them.
Your theory of skunk mind might be a little raw. One time I was sitting meditating and a mama skunk with pups walked right by me and she looked at me but was not alerted whatsoever. They trooped by like I was a tree. Another time I came upon one off the trail about five yards and it was a wide trail (bulldozed–a fire trail in California jargon) and went I real quiet totally opposite the skunk and did not look directly at it. I still got the front foot stomping threat reaction from it.
Skunks, like dogs and cats, have a personality spectrum.
We Slavs take care of one another in relationships. And take care of our children. Anglos seem to be much less generous all around. I know quite a few who wouldn’t even pay for any of their kids’ university education, despite being able to. And husbands being cheap with their wives, wives being cold with their husbands. Sad.
My impression is that Russians are the worst of the Slavs though – they drink more than either Ukrainians or Poles. Which results in problems that Anglos don’t have as much and that are worse among Russians than among their western cousins, such as violence. An old expression – ot milova pana, mne mila i rana (from a beloved/nice man, beloved/nice wounds). Anglo decency is certainly better than drunken violence.
Egypt has the largest navy in the Middle East or Africa. Meanwhile, the Ethiopian navy has no salt water vessels, AFAIK.
While Ethiopia has supplied arms to different Somali clans, or sometimes occupied Somali towns in the past, I’m not sure how well they would be able to stabilize any area, given their own internal divisions.
I don’t think it is so much a question of projecting power, as supplying arms and advisors. And I suspect they would be assisted by other Islamic countries, while Ethiopia doesn’t have any obvious local, national allies in the neighborhood.
You can find videos of people purportedly petting wild skunks. But I suppose it could be some kind of prank.
https://youtube.com/shorts/Delu1B_vMcU?si=o_9yfZpW1dsfb69z
Israeli-Russian UN Exchange
Re: https://www.reuters.com/world/un-security-council-vote-rival-us-russian-plans-israel-gaza-action-2023-10-25/
Nebenzya backs me up regarding Wednesday’s October 25 UNSC discussion. The 104.42 mark of the below video begins the Israeli-Russian UN exchange and (further below) a recent article concerning what Nebenzya said:
https://www.eurasiareview.com/22102023-answering-biden-on-russia-ukraine-and-israel-palestine-oped/
Excerpt –
It depends with Anglos, some are very stingy and individualistic, others buy their kids SUVs, pay rent while kids are in college, especially daughters, etc (but you have to look, there might be an Italian or a Celt in the family). Protestant Northern Germanics are not generous but there may be ways that they compensate for that, but there may not be. It depends. At least in Europe, it is usually that they pay into society as a collective and then the collective derives benefits from that. But they do have decent family relations as well, they’re not heartless. What I like about them is that they value you more as a friend or as a personality and they are much more stable.
It is sad, indeed, that’s why it’s best when husband and wife are friends but there is also romantic attraction. But I don’t mind E. Slavic gender stereotypes and find them endearing.
I’d say, Poles and Balts are kind of in the middle between Russians and Anglos / Germans (and Nordics). They may be kind of bland “in-betweens” that way, but it also makes them more balanced. Ukrainians can be all over the map, I think, there are different types, Ukrainians are much warmer though, Russians can be passionate and rough at the same time, Ukrainians are warm and sweet. Less brutal on average. Although some of them can be bold.
True, tolerance for violence differs, for sure. I don’t know how it is now and it probably depends on social circles, but until quite recently it was ok or totally normal for them to hit each other to solve their conflicts. Obviously not for the “intelligent” and “well raised” ones. But as a culture they had more tolerance for it. And more subcultures that revolve around violence than what their Western neighbors have. Can be fun and even exciting if observed from a safe distance. LOL
See that’s where we draw the line, absolute no. Especially man on woman.
Overall yes, and it’s safer, which is better for society. But eventually it may become less free and overly controlled. There needs to be some kind of a balance, a middle ground.
Americans dont allow votes . When it allows,the results are fixed be it in Japan or in Egypt or in Australai with variations in space and time.
If US allowed votes in Afgianstan and in Iraq instead of planting democracy in a suit case,may be things would have been different.
The mass beheadings you are refering to needs more precision . I can then help you .
Related information —1 Exclusive: Israel will flood Hamas tunnels with nerve gas under US navy supervision
Source tells MEE reports of delayed ground invasion part of misinformation campaign designed to obtain element of surprise in multi-pronged attack
Middle East Eye
2 These remarks prompted Israeli extremists to heckle her and push her to cut short her speech to the press. But when a reporter asked why she shook hands with the Hamas fighters when they released her, Livschitz replied: “Because they treated us very nicely.” https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/20231025-the-truth-damages-the-israeli-narrative-built-on-lies/
Well, taking inflation into account, I imagine the 1954 meteorite would have gotten something similar to what the young woman in 1992 got for hers, something like 50,000 dollars. I think Hodges husband was right not to sell the 1954 meteorite like she did for $25.00 cheap. [What was really bad was the neighbor finding a piece of that same 1954 meteorite (it had broken up into three pieces coming to ground) and selling it and getting a new house and car for himself. He didn’t have all the legal wrangling though Hodges had.]
Funny about that Malibu in 1992 going for only 300.00. During the 1990’s you could easily find running used ‘good’ cars for just 500.00 cash. Not now of course.
The fur on the hat I have is completely white. They are both gorgeous, the silver one and the polar one, I hope the polar one is not endangered. Just feel total gratitude to this little fox.
It’s cool that the skunk came so close to you, it is quite cute. The tail looks really funny. 🙂 What evolutionary goal was this thing trying to achieve that way… LOL Is it meant to scare or to charm?
If you’ll pardon me for saying so, you don’t come across like Mr. Equanimity to me, so I think this statement is aspirational rather than descriptive – I mean, if you haven’t actually attained a state in which everything becomes “irrelevant,” then how do you know it’s even possible? You have to accept it on faith.
Now, I don’t doubt that as a result of your Buddhist practices you have attained a “higher level” of consciousness, and that many of the ego-related issues that bedevil so many of us and cause us to hurt other people have subsided (some perhaps vanished entirely), but this goes back to a point I made in the other thread, that it seems a man can reap the benefits of “ego-lessness” without actually reaching that state, and imo it becomes a waste of time trying to wring out every last ounce of ego (which I doubt is even possible).
It’s like ‘decreasing returns to scale’ in economics – a condition in which you pour more and more effort/resources into production but get less and less additional output for it; iow, costs are skyrocketing for very little gain in output. That is what striving for complete ego-lessness looks like to me. I think after you’ve picked the low-hanging fruit, there are better uses of your time. If you’re going to cease to exist anyway, then whether you’ve attained total ego-lessness or not doesn’t seem to make any difference.
Meanwhile, in your heart, turmoil reigns?
(Okay that was a low blow. Couldn’t resist. 🙂 )
“But a detailed visual analysis by The New York Times concludes that the video clip — taken from an Al Jazeera television camera livestreaming on the night of Oct. 17 — shows something else. The missile seen in the video is most likely not what caused the explosion at the hospital. It actually detonated in the sky roughly two miles away, The Times found, and is an unrelated aspect of the fighting that unfolded over the Israeli-Gaza border that night.
The Times’s finding does not answer what actually did cause the Al-Ahli Arab Hospital blast, or who is responsible. The contention by Israeli and American intelligence agencies that a failed Palestinian rocket launch is to blame remains plausible. But the Times analysis does cast doubt on one of the most-publicized pieces of evidence that Israeli officials have used to make their case and complicates the straightforward narrative they have put forth.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/10/24/world/middleeast/gaza-hospital-israel-hamas-video.html
If occupation were a missile, Israel would have told that Hamas had used it against the sick, the children and the elderly civilians .
I disagree. The USA could pick this up ‘immediately’, that is as long as it takes to build a state-of-the-art fab.
The problem is that building chips is much more expensive here in the States. Therefore it has to be subsidized. The subsidies bring all sort of entanglements which slow the project down beyond the inherent challenges.
Even if the fabs are local the supply chain is still global, which is good or bad depending on your perspective.
The R&D grind work to create the next node or the one after may rapidly become increasingly Chinese.
Idiots hand feed park bears and take photos with bison. Petting skunks is a comparatively minor offense.
Feeding animals includes you in their group. One of the keys of domestication is finding animals that retain that inclusion. Farm critters willingly approach sources of convenient calories.
Non-domestic animals are unreliable. The skunk that you fed and petted multiple times could bite or spray you anytime their instincts are triggered. With larger beasts the downside risk is much higher. Remember:
The Stupid Are Everywhere! Be Wary!
PEACE 😇
Bibi made a speech today saying that there would be a ground invasion and that the date had already been decided. I think he’s lying. There is intense anger in Israel towards Bibi right now and the public believes he is trying to get out of launching the ground operation so he is just trying to calm things down domestically.
The US is desperately trying to get forces in place for the regional war that they fear Iran will launch of Israel goes ahead with the ground attack.
I think there are a couple of fears right now that are preventing the ground invasion:
1. Most, if not all, of the remaining hostages are dead should the IDF launch a ground offensive. To make things worse, many of these hostages are citizens of other countries and those countries will not be happy if Israel gets them killed
2. I think there are serious doubts within the Israeli government that the IDF is even capable of defeating Hamas
3. It is still less certain that the IDF is able to defeat Hezbollah. Nor does Israel want to absorb the massive infrastructure damage that a full on Hezbollah rocket assault would bring
4. Israel is afraid of a truly regional war or even WW3
5. The Israeli govt is super terrified of having to occupy Gaza permanently . If Hamas really is destroyed in Gaza, who is going to run the place? The PLO can’t do it. Israel knows that if it reconquers Gaza that it will never be able to leave.
The last two reasons are the most significant, I think. Ultimately, I think that if Netanyahu has to choose between invading Gaza or losing power, he will choose to lose power. Bibi is who he is. I would expect Bibi’s successor to launch the ground operation, though.
I guess this is as a good time as any to introduce the Aboriginal Nikola Tesla to Karlistan.
David Unaipon took out provisional patents for 19 inventions but was unable to afford to get any of his inventions fully patented, according to some sources. Muecke and Shoemaker say that between “1910 and 1944 he made ten applications for inventions as varied as an anti-gravitational device, a multi-radial wheel and a sheep-shearing handpiece”. Provisional patent 15,624 which he ratified in 1910, is for an “Improved mechanical motion device” that converted rotary motion which “is applied, as for instance by an Eccentric”, into tangential reciprocating movement, an example application given being sheep shears. The invention, the basis of modern mechanical sheep shears, was introduced without Unaipon receiving any financial return and, apart from a 1910 newspaper report acknowledging him as the inventor, he received no contemporary credit.
Other inventions included a centrifugal motor and a mechanical propulsion device. He was also known as the Australian Leonardo da Vinci for his mechanical ideas, which included pre World War I drawings for a helicopter design based on the principle of the boomerang and his research into the polarisation of light. David Unaipon spent five years trying to create a perpetual motion machine. In the course of his work he developed a number of devices. He was still attempting to design such a device in his seventy-ninth year.
Approximate completed fertility (average no. of children ever born to women aged 45-49) in Australia, by mother’s country of birth, 2021.
I hadn’t really thought about this for a while, but when I recently heard about this again, out of the blue, it actually made me think that it’s so sweet that a husband gets his wife something that makes her warm. It is so primal, isn’t it? Even a cave man would do it, right?
I hadn’t thought about the connection but I have heard from rural women that there is something special about a man bringing home wild game. A similar primal connection.
And he was saying how some of them are poor and go there for the money while others who are a bit less poor just want more money to pay their loans. And he was saying some kind shit like “These are losers who can’t make decent money, can’t attract a pretty wife, can’t buy their wife a nice shuba.”
We unfortunately have a similar situation in the US where men feel pressured to buy not only an expensive ring but pay for a wedding.
It’s not even simply pressure from the wife. There are situations where the wife’s family wants to see a decent ring as proof of commitment. The wife might not care but the dad or mom can have expectations. Most guys don’t have the balls to shrug and say be happy she is getting married and I’m not going to spend 3 months salary on a shiny object when it could go to a down payment on a house.
The wife’s friends can weirdly be jealous even if they are already married. They will make snide comments about how a ring is “cute” if it isn’t expensive. Women can be terrible to each other and it is magnified in materialistic areas of the country. In rural areas you will still see potluck weddings.
I don’t like to see materialism infect what would be a normal relationship. A friend of mine got married and his bride expected a 15k wedding with a hundred guests. F-cking unreal. I really think some of these women are just seeing how far they can go. Women will test men and they fail by giving into them.
Sorry if you took it as an attempt from me to police what people talk about or to chide you personally. Not at all. I just meant it descriptively – ie, I’m witnessing it happening and reporting my forlorn wish that it wasn’t. Kinda like you wrt XYZ. Otherwise people are free to discuss whatever they like, however they like. That said, I find complaints about low quality posting almost as tedious as low quality posting itself. It’s not hard to scroll past them or hit the ignore button. I guess I should have held myself to my own standard.
Charles Johnson’s Thoughts & Adventures
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I want to be fully on record that I saw Ben Shapiro receive tasking from Israeli intelligence connects to Netanyahu when I worked next to him at http://Breitbart.com. When I asked him about it he said he always kept close ties. It’s time for Ben to register under FARA.
Ben Shapiro
@benshapiro
If you were fooled by Hamas, it’s because you wanted to be fooled. There are only two possible reasons you wanted to be fooled:
1. You think everyone thinks like you, and can’t imagine people who think like Hamas, so you blame Israel for Hamas’ barbarity. Or…
2. You hate Jews.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2023-10-25/former-breitbart-colleague-i-saw-ben-shapiro-receive-tasking-israeli-intelligence
I forgot to add: thank you for that. When I first got to grips with the nature and scale of immigration and its long-term implications, I was monumentally frustrated that so few people seemed able to grasp the specifically islamic dimension. I oppose islam for two reasons: my historical consciousness and islam’s intrinsic and intractable illiberalism. I could understand that not everyone shared the former, but I was beside myself that so few were willing or able to grasp the latter. I think someone like you (an Iberian as well as a generally liberal sort) should be able to understand both of these concerns (even if its’ a bit complicated for you as a Basque wrt Spain), and indeed it seems that you do. (Ie, you struggle for centuries to rid yourself of them only to invite them back in, and tell yourself that you’re somehow benefiting from their presence? Absolute insanity.)
Sadly, it is more complicated.
— The fab needs certain skills & capabilities. Current U.S. education is problematic.
— Entire supply chains must develop
— Post production, such as waste handling needs to spin up
— Maintenance specialists are required. The equivalent of Schlumberger for hydrocarbons
There is an entire constellation of subsidiary and related functions. Intel’s operations in the U.S. can speed adoption, but there are technical differences that make the situation more complex than copy/paste. It is much longer than a 6 year build out.
Only because 50+ years of deindustrialization has taken place. National industrial policy could use tariffs rather than subsidies.
Fundamentally the CCP is engaged in supporting their nation. The U.S. government must be involved to counter that CCP effort. Arguing that the U.S. is too expensive is the equivalent of advocating unilateral disarmament. It may sound good in theory, but the real world will not tolerate it.
PEACE 😇
at first, I was wondering whether it could be ermine. (A type of weasel) I have seen white ones myself – they turn white in winter.
But I guess arctic foxes aren’t as rare as I first thought. This website sells them for $800, which is cheaper than many purebred dogs.
https://www.frazierfarmsexotics.com/foxes
Poor girl…
Nothing surprising.
The only undomesticated megafauna that I have ever felt any affinity for are tamed (and I emphasize this word) Asian elephants and tamed bears. I have ridden on the former, but not on the latter.
Americans dont allow votes . When it allows,the results are fixed be it in Japan or in Egypt or in Australai with variations in space and time.
If US allowed votes in Afgianstan and in Iraq instead of planting democracy in a suit case,may be things would have been different.
The mass beheadings you are refering to needs more precision . I can then help you .
So you haven’t mastered 3rd grade punctuation but you are convinced you understand our voting system.
Snobby Dot Indian confirmed. Another Brahmin class honorary Aryan that wants to believe his culture of filth is somehow superior.
Your massive die-offs of children only ended because of the White man’s vaccines. That is how nature cruelly kept the Indian population in check. 50k children would die of smallpox and the Indians would write it off as an unchangeable fate in a fixed universe where past lives justify the suffering of children.
The same country that still has children working in toxic conditions cause junior was born into the wrong class. Isn’t that right?
I suppose it’s because the fur may enhance the woman’s natural beauty, besides being a sign of wealth. Similarly if a man is perceived to be wealthy they get better treatment, the money perhaps seen as enhancing their personal power.
While those material things can be nice, of course, they also can be quite transitory. A solid attractive personality, with ideally a reasonably good intellect, must reign supreme in importance for their to be a happy long lasting relationship. 🙂
Being and existence are two different things. Existence is secondary to Being.
Have you ever heard of :
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/madhyamaka/#AaryFlCa225250CE
I was actually feeling great, looking at the drops of rain falling on the colorful maple leafs, when I suddenly realized that after finishing the work late yesterday, and being tired I decided to leave my laptop on-site. Today I was due to have a video call in the next hour and share some data, so I had to rush through the traffic to reach my work. That caused a passing “с☆ка, бл☆дь !” state of mind after a few perfectly peaceful and contemplative minutes of pure wonder, typical samsaric impermanence…
OTOH, when I drive is mostly when I listen to music, and I have recently discovered another great Russian postpunk band, so driving in the traffic was not so bad.
The video clip is good…
I have tried watching the original a few times, but I’ve never made it more than 15-20 minutes in before giving up. I reread the novel for the first time in many years just prior to the new movie coming out, in preparation for watching it, but then I never got around to watching it. I had forgotten how much of the novel is set within Fremen society, and I was put off by their clannish and backwards social customs which for me sat incongruently next to their technological sophistication, and I felt I couldn’t be bothered sitting through a movie which plays this up. I should just watch it though, might do so tonight.
I have watched the two Dune miniseries, Dune and Children of Dune. One of those was pretty bad (I think it was Dune) and other was actually pretty good.
When I was young, I greatly enjoyed the Dune 2000 real-time strategy game, a sort of ‘grandaddy’ of the genre. Pretty sure it was this that prompted me to read the novel.
Chinese real estate has been a mixed bag, with some regions over-investing and others under-investing.
The issues with China’s real estate market are due to supply/demand mismatches at the city level.
▪️ Tier I cities are UNDER-supplied, and that’s why prices are high.
▪️ Tier III and below cities are OVER-supplied – not enough demand despite relatively affordable prices.
The reason is because of general migration patterns in China. The top 30 cities (mainly Tier Is and IIs) have been getting population inflows while Tier III and below cities are dealing with stagnation or outflows The adjustments in the property sector we are seeing in the market today triggered by the 3 red lines (The “three red lines” metric put caps on debt-to-cash, debt-to-assets and debt-to-equity ratios), tightening in 2020 was largely aimed at solving these city-level supply-demand mismatches. A key part of it is simply starving capital to cities that don’t need more housing.
China’s property issues are not from housing investment in aggregate being too high. It was that it was too much in some places (Tier III and below) & not enough in others (Tier I and some Tier IIs). There was over-building AND there was under-building too. These nuances are very important to understand this question of whether or not China is over-investing / under-consuming and the evolution of its economy as a whole over coming decade.
That doesn’t mean new real estate is vanishing off the face of China’s economy. This is an adjustment not obliteration, real estate firms have been unwinding for two years now, and last year it was during an economic freeze due to lockdowns. If there was risk of a cascade big enough to take down the whole economy it would have happened by now.
Friendly or rabies?!!!!
I am all-in on ‘re-industrialization’ of the USA, but it is difficult to lead this from the top. Fabs could be brought in more quickly by hiring foreign workers to kick start the process and bridge the gap to a local work force as is done in high tech plants around the world. The problem there is unions and EEO laws, especially if government subsidies are involved. The ultimate problem is it just costs too much to make positive cash flow so then you are into some version of statism.
The politicians’ way around this is tariffs, but that is a subsidy and has similar problems.
A better idea for the USA is probably to ban agricultural robots, GMO seeds and advanced chemicals from agriculture to foster a high quality 21st century USA agriworld. I think a healthy society needs a highly populated agricultural sector to keep itself grounded in reality.
If you like stage/theatre the SciFi miniseries is the best adaptation.
The current movie has better FX. The miniseries has better characters.
PEACE 😇
It depends on the time of the day.
Just kidding.
Seriously, existence is interdependent in all its features. So dualism (and plurality of entities in general) is perfectly acceptable as true on a certain level, while there is only unity on another level. It’s like Truth’s immanence on a certain level and transcendence on another, both are simultaneously true. Even hardcore Gnostics thought that πλήρωμα encompasses every potential manifestation. Same of the तथाता in the Buddhist tradition.
We often think of Mazdayasna as a dualistic religion, but in fact its later embodiments comprised Zurvan (creator principle of time) as the original and neutral ground of being on which both Ahura Mazda and Ahriman appeared. I think that only the Manichaean creed and its offshoots (Bogumil and Cathar) were truly dualistic. Manichaeans were quite interesting in their approach, but they admitted themselves that their end goal was to completely end this worldly existence and resolve every consciousness into Darkness or Light. It was a religion for terrible and painful times, a religion for those who find life itself unbearable. I am not one of those.
https://youtube.com/shorts/mDVv_rOc4Ws?si=laNX7f_MJuv8_WEM
BTW, I quite like this one scene in the original Dune
Though it is not a great movie, on the whole.
Arguably all most important Buddhist concepts have mostly been developed in the Aryan (Indo-Iranian) cultural realm. The Far-Eastern, Tibetan and South-Asian Buddhists simply adapted these concepts to their cultural milieu without changing much of the philosophy.
Can Ethiopia try relying on Russia and/or China for this? Or, alternatively, on India? The country sponsoring Ethiopia here could get itself a nice new naval base in Somaliland. That could be a part of the bargain in exchange for helping Somaliland secure its independence.
Hmmm….. You seem to be missing the point that I am trying to make. One cannot exclusively ‘lead from the top’. Sophisticated core industry needs a constellation of supporting firms to function effectively.
There are huge gaps in America’s industrial pattern. Rare earth extraction and purification are two examples in addition to chip fabs. These enterprises need support:
Hyper focus on “hiring foreign workers to kick start the process” will backfire. The prime entity has to advance in coordination with its linked base of less visible support.
Thus, the solution is abolishing EEO. I concur.
For the most part tariffs are vastly better than subsidies. The incompetent Feds have to apply a universal rule, without lobbyist exceptions, across an entire import class.
Can the multinational Globalist SJW weasels screw this up? Of course. That is why America needs strong nationalist trade policy to crush anti-American lobbyists.
That sounds like ZARDOZ.
Wonderful as a concept. Wholly impractical as policy.
PEACE 😇
Did you also wear knee-high boots and/or tight jeans as a part of this outfit? Please forgive me if this question is too personal for you.
Why not? Is it incapable of being as repressive as Hamas? Or would it simply be less capable of appealing to the Palestinian Arab street relative to Hamas? If the latter, would it really matter if the PLO will still be sufficiently repressive?
Losing power means that Netanyahu will have to go on trial for corruption allegations, no? Doesn’t he want to avoid that at all costs? I mean, heck, he even normalized Kahanists such as Itamar Ben-Gvir so that his coalition could have an extra Knesset seat or two (knowing that this extra seat or two might be decisive in securing a parliamentary majority for his right-wing bloc) because the Left refused to be coalition partners with him after his corruption allegations came out.
Existence is “secondary” to Being? I don’t know what that means. If it even makes sense (can there be Being without existence?), it seems it could mean many different things. If you’re going to bring it up, why not briefly summarize what you mean by it, instead of just linking me to essay-length passages which, sorry, I’m obviously going to consider a poor investment of my time to patiently read through (given the enormous distance between my point of departure and the conclusion you’d presumably like me to draw)?
Where did you see it (how far from civilization)? That one looks great, with nice fur, would be a shame to kill such a cute creature. But, no, my hat is fluffier, it is a kind of an ushanka, that you can tie on the top (or you can cover the ears if you want). It cost $160 and I assumed it was real fur, I forgot what the guy told me it was, but I’m pretty sure it was the arctic fox (now I feel bad about it, as that creature deserved to live).
The above website is for keeping them as pets, probably not for growing for furs (not sure it is banned in the US, they’re trying to ban it in many European countries). Btw, it looks like they’re selling the Madagascar monkeys, lemurs, never thought one of those could be a pet. They’re so freaky looking (in a cool way), similar to those long haired decorative looking monkeys that are just incredible to look at. I wonder how a lemur behaves at home, they don’t look like they’re too high maintenance. Not sure keeping a fox at home, even on a farm, is such a good idea, they probably need more space.
LOL, a few years ago my girlfriend at the time discovered my alter-ego facebook and read some abo-bashing comments that I had left and went berserk at me, part of which involved lecturing me on the incomparable genius of this dude. I shrugged it off with “well, you know I’m a ‘fascist’ [finger quotes] – I’ve got a reputation to keep up.” I was the worst person in the world for a couple of weeks and then she let it drop. (I am more wary of letting my true feelings be known these days. Never know who’ll turn out to be a vengeful cunt that stores material for later use.)
Btw, I watched an excellent TV series about Wu Zeitan when I was kid, the 1984 Hong Kong production “Empress Wu.” It aired on SBS some years later and I videotaped most episodes, but I can no longer watch them. It’s on YouTube but only in Cantonese. You wouldn’t know where I might find a version with English subtitles, would you? (Inc DVDs or paid streaming.)
Ugh, not a fan of fur headwear or fur coats at all. But similar to XYZ’s suggestion, a fur coat (white especially) with a short skirt and high boots, that would be a good look. 🙂
Hahaha! Knee high would be a little too much for me, I wouldn’t go that far (I consider that a rather bold fashion move that I didn’t really have the guts for), just normal, nice long boots (with a heel but not with those super long skinny heels). Wouldn’t want to fall over on those icy cobble stones. And, yes, I’d wear tight clothes but I’d be covered by the coat anyway (so it wouldn’t matter).
You should really watch this, it’s really that good!
The Mossad should get their money back
There’s likely more Muslims right now in Iberia than at any time in history, including the times of Al-Andalus, when the total population of the peninsula was around 5 million. And contrary to the last time, now they have also settled in the Basque Country, even in remote corners where I’m being told they demand to have their mosques.
European countries are not like the Americas, where there is a long tradition of immigration. The demographic changes taking place in Europe right now are unprecedented in historical times. On the one hand, there are no internal borders in the EU space for EU immigrants and, on the other hand, Europe is simultaneously receiving a constant influx of non-Europeans that doesn’t look like is going to stop and is quite likely to increase as time goes by.
The first phenomenon may be tolerable, as far as I could see when I still lived there, as everybody benefited to one extent or another from the freedom of movement and modern Europeans are more docile than in the past. Still, large amounts of foreigners coming to any place are always a source of friction and one shouldn’t play with fire, given Europe’s history. The second experiment I have no idea how is going to end. There is no precedent really. The population is kept in a state of passivity by the media and the prevalent culture and they even vote for the politicians who enable this experiment but I know what people keep saying in private everywhere and nobody really ever voted for this invasion. I find it hard to imagine that any European society would ever vote for these levels of non-Euro immigration in a free and fair referendum.
Having said that, I must confess that I personally have no stomach for cruel measures against people that obey the laws and try to assimilate to their host societies. There is always that schoolmate of your child, that nice Muslim guy who brought you Arab sweets from his last visit to his country,… you don’t really want to cause any harm to these people. I guess politicians count on this sort of feelings to keep things going and, to some extent, the more immigrants there are, the more difficult it is to stop the flow. But at some point some level of “cruelty” is unavoidable if borders are to continue to have any meaning. I don’t think it’s really cruel of me not to invite every homeless person in my town to my house. By keeping them away, no matter how dire their situation, I am just protecting my family and my property. The same applies to countries for largely the same reasons.
Trump should have built the wall at all costs, no matter the consequences, as Coulter and others kept insisting. There always were legal measures he could adopt as Commander in Chief if he really was willing to fight the battle. It would have been a huge step in restoring sanity to the current open borders situation in the West, since everybody knows that all important political trends start in the US. He also had the momentum started by Brexit. We got no wall and the Biden-Mayorkas pyromaniacs instead. More insanity instead of the necessary first step to stop the insane trend.
The PLO’s power base has always been in Judea and Samaria. It has never had much support in Gaza. Palestinian society is very clan based and what we think of as “Hamas” is really just a collection of the most powerful clans in Gaza, and those clans will still be where they are now after this is all over. The only way to keep Hamas out of power in Gaza is either for the IDF to occupy the region permanently or for Egypt or Turkey to take responsibility there. The latter will never happen, no matter how badly Israel wishes for it.
Even in Judea and Samaria, the only reason the PLO is able to stay in power is because they have the IDF backing them up. Without IDF support for the PLO, there would be full on civil war among the Judea/Samaria Arabs.
This is Netanyahu we’re talking about. For Bibi, his cowardice tends to override any of his instincts for self preservation. Ultimately this will end with Bibi’s cabinet presenting him with an ultimatum: conquer Gaza or step down. I think Bibi will choose to step down but neither result would surprise me.
How do Scots-Irish compare to this? I had a white liberal professor at my university several years ago who was originally from Louisiana IIRC and she had that before the Great Depression people in her parents’ hometown (it might have been a village, I don’t remember exactly) took care of each other to a huge extent. She lamented the fact that nowadays this role has been taken over by the government because people simply can’t be relied upon as much to do this nowadays (though IIRC she also believed that it was a two-way process–as in, greater government assistance for needy people makes less-needy people more stingy with their own money).
Did your clothing ever get you any male attention, including any unwanted male attention? I don’t mean specifically this clothing, but rather clothing in general.
What about having Israel make a deal with the Gaza clans to turn against Hamas? Or would that work as well (very poorly) as trying to get tribal Pashtuns in Afghanistan to actively turn against the Taliban?
BTW, this attack has convinced me that Israel should make peace with the Palestinians but contingent upon Israel aggressively propping up any pro-Israeli and pro-Western government in Palestine afterwards over the long-term. In other words, create a Palestinian puppet state, give it some legitimacy by signing a final status peace deal, significantly improving its citizens’ lives securing a lot of Western and other (Gulf Arab, et cetera) investment for it, and having a permanent Israeli military presence there to ensure that no bad actors such as Hamas will ever come to power there.
If Ukraine’s sovereignty being compromised by Russia is fair game in order to make Russia feel more secure, why shouldn’t the same also be true for an independent Palestine’s sovereignty being compromised by Israel in order to make Israel feel more secure?
I agree that that does sound like it would be the best solution but in practice Israel has been unable to pull it off for whatever reason. I guess some people just can’t be bought
That’s exactly what has been in West Bank for the last 20 years. How is it working out? Elderly Palestinian autonomy government with Israeli soldiers roaming free and occasionally shooting people and half a million settlers taking the best lands…
Scandie retards even gave the Nobel peace price for it to highlight their own lame liberal depravity. (That was later exceeded by the Nobel to Obama in his pre-bombing phase.)
So you got nothing: it has been tried and failed. It will fail again. That leaves an imperfect one-state deal or a total defeat of one of sides. The unhinged A123 openly advocates the expulsion of Palestinians, but I hope he is doing at as a satire.
Sovereignty is compromised all over the world and always has been. US won’t allow Chinese bases in Quebec depriving the froggies of their sacre sovereignty. Imagine Russia forming a military alliance with Ireland or the newly independent Catalonia – you would see how quickly all talk of “sovereignty” would be dismissed.
I wonder how so many people can pretend that what is right in front of their eyes all their lives simply doesn’t exist.
In the last few decades the trend has become self-enforcing. Trump was elected by a coalition with the business laissez faire Reps. They are by far the strongest open-borders cheap-labor political force. The deranged all-you-need-is-love liberals joined later and provide a convenient face for the insanity since they are naturally insane. Trump could only do so much.
There are large parts of the West where the demographic change can’t be reversed – it is baked in. You can either learn how to live with it – many are nice – or isolate. It is irreversible in all main cities and many rural areas – I was in a small city north of Lyon and it was completely migrant dominated, maybe the native French retreated into private life.
In some regions it could be controlled mostly in Central-Eastern Europe. The political fight has been lost due to the business dominance and the earnest stupidity of people – geographic withdrawal. The chain migration is more powerful than speeches.
It is the price that West is paying for its Faustian deal to defeat socialism by any means – and by “socialism” I mean a regulated worker-friendly labor market with decent incomes. The “enterpreneurs” wanted a labor surplus and the sheep went along. No society with a labor surplus works well. They suppressed the evil socialism and now is the time to pay the Mephistopheles. Good job. But everyone has a smart phone so it was all worth it, right?
What is your point of departure?
The link below is to an IDF man’s interesting take on October 7 (ie he questions the official account).
https://www.unz.com/pgiraldi/gaza-strikes-back/#comment-6222484
Anyhow, the United States has got it’s emotionally charged casus belli with Iran now and seems to be openly pushing with renewed vigor to inaugurate WWIII. If they still can’t goad Iran to do something rash, there are the alternate hot spots of Taiwan, Ukraine, and North Korea readily available to get things rolling.
If the IDF can simply continue stalling it’s invasion of Gaza until WWIII formally starts, which may be what it’s attempting to do, it can avoid needlessly Stalingradding it’s army there.
Potentially related, it might surprise some to know that they can dial up or down the residual radiation resulting from a nuclear bomb blast. When the Tsar Bomba was set off in 1962, for instance, within two hours of the bomb going off they were able to land Russian scientists by helicopter at ground zero in perfect safety, as the background radiation was so low.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsar_Bomba
My guess is that Gaza may already be targeted with a low radiation yielding nuclear device. WWIII and the accompanying ‘fog of war’ would allow an ideal cover to (‘accidentally’ of course) lob one or more atomic bombs into the city. [As these world wars have in large part been about the destruction of identity, I’d suspect other citys such as Mecca and Rome are similarly targeted with nuclear devices, but in their case leaving high residual radiation, making them uninhabitable for quite some time, and thus discouraging their rebuilding.]
It’s true there’s a business lobby for mass immigration (e.g. in Germany the Bertelsmann foundation is behind much pro-immigration “expertise”), but a lot of the immigration makes zero sense from an economic point of view. MENA and African immigrants don’t really add economic value, their primary role is working in low-paid service jobs and/or living from generous welfare payments. At least in continental Europe I don’t think the explanation “it’s all about capitalists trying to suppress wages and abolish the welfare state by importing a reserve labour force” really works that well, something else must be going on too.
https://www.coe.int/en/web/documents-records-archives-information/count-richard-n.-coudenhove-kalergi-and-the-council-of-europe
Funny how you don’t apply the same (near-pathological) skepticism to his claim of being an “IDF man” as you do to all standard accounts of… pretty much anything. Nope, the dude says he’s an IDF man, therefore he’s an IDF man.
I love the way he begins. “If you don’t want to hear anything that might rattle your preconceived notions of what is going in Israel right now, I suggest you turn this video off right now. I’ll wait.” Oohh, he’ll do you the honor of waiting while you turn off the video, just in case he leads off with something that you definitely don’t want to hear, what a great guy, lol.
That’s fair enough. Who can definitely say this wasn’t the case? (Of course, it would make more sense to refer to American neocons rather than “the United States.”) On the other hand, who can say they didn’t simply seize an opportunity that came along rather than deliberately manufacturing one (when you consider everything that would be required to negotiate the risks of staging the incident, as Ron Unz summarizes it in his most recent piece)?
Presumably by controlling the level of Red Mercury in the device, right? 🙂
Briefly:
– that various psychological methods/philosophical traditions can help see and thus experience the world differently, often resulting in the amelioration of our mental suffering, none of which require denying our ego or casting the fact that we experience desires in a negative light;
– that these methods are grounded in the ability of our rational faculty to comprehend what I recently began calling ‘mere reality’;
– that ‘mere reality,’ which given the kind of apparatus for discerning reality that humans come equipped with is theoretically knowable, can be distinguished from ‘ultimate reality’,’ which is unknowable, whose existence we can only posit and whose nature we can only guess at, but which guessing at can be rewarding in its own right (in a word, “religion”).
Are you suggesting Trump should have overthrown the Constitution, disbanding Congress?
If not. Be precise as to how he could have:
— Forced the anti-MAGA House to appropriate money for the wall
— Forced the anti-MAGA Senate to confirm cabinet nominations
You keep saying things like, there were “legal measures” he could have taken. But you never go into detail on those measures.
The reality of the situation is that there were “legal measures” available the other direction. Trump was impeached by the House. A vote of 2/3 of the Senate could have ejected him from office. Because he cooperated with enough Senators to keep them on his side, there was no conviction and removal from office.
___
As a MAGA supporter I believe border security is very important. However, it is not something that can be fixed exclusively via executive action. It also means passing laws and filling Judicial seats. Obtaining Speaker is a good step. Now let us see what the House appropriates for border security.
PEACE 😇
Rural woodlands in New England, about 40 minutes by car from any significant town.
my main objections to fur are the cost (and I think it is not a good idea to advertise wealth), and that I assume it would be difficult to keep clean. It makes some dogs very excited too.
I have seen a fox with mange before, and it was both alien-looking and a very remorseless predator.
before humans arrived on Madagascar, there were ones that were gorilla-sized.
That’s true. But the initial push 30-50 years ago was for laborers – so the fast-rising wages of working class in Germany, Uk, France could be kept under control. The addition of 10-15% willing workers made all the difference – it check-mated the labor power.
Today the same works in services – the proliferation of endless “service jobs” is possible by wages kept low by the oversupply of willing workers. Most service jobs don’t pay enough to start a family or have one’s own place. They are essentially outsourced house servants of the past who have been turned into servants for the whole society.
The fact that the plan has not worked economically for most people or the society doesn’t bother the people who pushed it: they benefitted enormously, their incomes and living standards rose dramatically with open borders and over-supply of workers. They acted in their own self-interest – but the amazing thing is that the masses in the West chose not to, they let go of the protected labor market, bought the liberal clap-trap about “diversity” – and have suffered less pay and worse working conditions. This is what is so weird about it, the total lack of self-interest and even awareness – now they even pay huge welfare sums to the incoming migrants.
This has seldom happen in human history. How brainwashed or stupid do you have to be to do it to yourself and your children?
But I agree, there were also other reasons…
It could be the naive idea that their children and grandchildren can become assimilated and will have a German work ethic and work culture, so they will work in high end manufacturing and scoot German behavioral norms. They may be looking ahead 20 years – it could be a misguided long-term strategy of dealing with negative natural population growth.
In the USA, our poor Latino immigrants are typically hardworking and do provide cheap labor that is actually useful, such as picking fruits, working in slaughterhouses, mowing lawns, washing dishes or preparing food in restaurants, construction, roofing, etc. that result in some tangible benefits in the form of cheaper products and services for the middle class and above (of course by keeping labor costs low this screws the native laboring class).
There are apparently people who go through Wikipedia and try to hide a certain ethnic identifier in early life history. For example, the page of director John Landis now reads:
Where the source for #2 is Cleveland Jewish News.
I can’t say I am a particular fan of Landis (though I did like the Three Amigos, when I was a boy.). But I think it is very strange that someone would want to hide that, on his page.
I dont give a fuck to your english knowledge. That language has robbed you of capacity of learning anything outside of Foxnews, Hollywood, WSJ, Telegraph ( UK) . You still could use the same language to reach other sources to enrich your paternally -mediated ill -equipped brain.
Control and rein your robust anygdala and pump more blood to your shrinking prefrontal brain . You can salvage the deficiencies gifted to you by the genetic and congenital factors .
American democracy is so defective that it cant even offer safety and protection to its vital interests – foreign entaglements, bribe and control by foreign lobby ,illegal migration, and impact the psychological – fianacial meltdown of the youth .
American democracy equips itself with the power of anti-democratic forces at home and allows it to destroy the public voices emanating from anywhere in the world .
Corbyn and Imran Khan, Morsi and 2014 Ukraine and many more .
Educate yourself before the sulci of your frontal brain attain the size of the grand canyon .
By the way you still havent told anything about the mass beheading . Has your hippocampus been removed illegally by the organ transplant network of Israel?
That was what the Oslo deal was supposed to start. Alas, it is now proven that there is no way to guarantee long-term performance.
The current Muslim authority is headed by Abbas, who is in the 19th year of his 4 year term in office. One of his crowning achievements is “Pay For Slay” where murderers receive cash stipends. Hamas was able to gain traction in its early days due to the corruption and incompetence of Fatah.
___
Encouraging VOLUNTARY departures is clearly the only viable way forward. Parents will sacrifice for their children if they have an option to do so. Right now they are trapped by Hamas concentration camp guards who exploit them. There is every reason to believe many would VOLUNTARILY choose to leave Gaza if an honourable alternative was available.
Sorry for the all caps, but there is a certain deranged commenter who routinely lies about my position.
PEACE 😇
What Beckow was saying sounds more true for the UK, every aspect of the immigration thing seems to have been turned into a money making vehicle for some interest group, even housing all of the migrants arriving in small boats is a for-profit enterprise at the moment.
Also it seems like so far they have been more careful with filtering migration than in the rest of Europe, there are more Indians, Chinese, wealthier Christian West Africans, but this can create different challenges.
I would guess things will come to a head sooner in Europe, the situation in France looks like it is moving towards something.
A while ago I posted a link to this article, interesting perspective on decolonisation and the French left:
https://www.firstthings.com/article/2023/05/spiritual-death-of-the-west
And there is always Sartre, explaining things directly in his own words:
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/sartre/1961/preface.htm
It’s like there is some underlying, maybe almost unconscious belief among boomers and that spirit of ’68 generation that revolutionary socialism is still hiding somewhere over the horizon.
Why stop here? You’ve got my attention with a well thought out and written response…
There is definitely at least one additional explanation.
SJW Globalism is a dogma that relies on faith. Therefore Judeo-Christian religions are the competition. Importing a population with animus to Jews and Christians was intended to create separate camps that can be manipulated.
PEACE 😇
I think the way it worked in the UK, the economic liberalisation that started in the early 1980s did raise living standards for many, and the ‘old left’, the trade unionists and the more traditional socialists, got politically marginalised.
A lot of the industries they had depended on were closed down. The left was taken over more by ‘champagne socialists’, middle class or aspirational people, and it became more focused on identity politics, LGBT liberation, being pro-diversity, pro-immigration. These were the people who might have been student radicals, Troskyites or larping as Maoists, then went on to have a successful career in the law or Civil Service, doing pretty well from the economic liberalisation themselves.
The (significant) flaws in this model have only started to become more obvious for the younger generations.
The foxes that have specifically been bred to be pets do well as pets. It takes a few generations to select for the necessary docile traits, it was done in Russia but the Russian foxes are also now being bred in the USA. Interestingly, such foxes develop dog-like traits, such as tail-wagging, and barking-like noises.
Unfortunately most US states ban having foxes as pets, even the domesticated kind.
>3000 cell types in the brain, and they differ in proportion between individuals.
Apparently, if you are searching for old archeological sites, then Google Earth sucks.
And you can’t buy high res from commercial satellite companies because the government bans it and uses the data itself.
The way to go is declassified spy imagery from old satellites and the U2.
https://www.space.com/spy-satellite-images-declassified-roman-empire-forts-discovered
https://www.cnn.com/2016/09/01/us/declassified-spy-satellite-hexagon/index.html
The newest Dune is quite impressive on a quality HDTV.
I also like the 80s version but I can see it being confusing for anyone that doesn’t know the backstory. It also has some jarring edits like Twin Peaks. They clearly cut some major sections instead of letting David Lynch have full control. Both Twin Peaks and Dune were compromised by producers that wanted a mainstream product. Twin Peaks is still a quality show up until when they rushed the reveal. Some of the later episodes are also decent which was after the ratings rush didn’t work.
Isn’t this also true of the faith of the Jews in the centuries immediately preceding Christ, whose God was the Persian one? Those Jews, who considered Cyrus the Great to have been a prophet?
How was this faith less Aryan than the Buddhism filtered over a thousand years through the Chinese, Japanese (Zen), and Tibetan peoples?
In Christianity there is the Aryan God of the Scythians-Persians, born among the Jews who had come to worship Him, and then further developed by the Europeans (though Augustine was a Latinized Berber).
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/309/zorojud.htm
Zoroastrian influences on late Judaism was pervasive, profound, and continues with us today.1 The traditional claim that the Jews learned monotheism from the Zoroastrians during the Babylonian captivity can be disputed by the fact that by that time Zoroaster’s strict monotheism had been compromised by polytheistic practices. The famous inscriptions of Darius, although mentioning the supreme God Ahura Mazda on almost every line, nonetheless refer twice to “other gods which are.”2
It was not so much monotheism that the exilic Jews learned from the Persians as it was universalism, the belief that one God rules universally and will save not only the Jews but all those who turn to God. This universalism does not appear explicitly until Second Isaiah, which by all scholarly accounts except some fundamentalists, was written during and after the Babylonian exile. The Babylonian captivity was a great blow to many Jews, because they were taken out of Yahweh’s divine jurisdiction. Early Hebrews believed that their prayers could not be answered in a foreign land. The sophisticated angelology of late books like Daniel has its source in Zoroastrianism.3 The angels of the early Hebrew books were disguises of Yahweh or one of his subordinate deities. The idea of separate angels appears only after contact with Zoroastrianism.
The central ideas of heaven and a fiery hell appear to come directly from the Israelite contact with Iranian religion. Pre-exilic books are explicit in their notions the afterlife: there is none to speak of. The early Hebrew concept is that all of us are made from the dust and all of us return to the dust. There is a shadowy existence in Sheol, but the beings there are so insignificant that Yahweh does not know them. The evangelical writer John Pelt reminds us that “the inhabitants of Sheol are never called souls (nephesh).”4
The claims about an advanced eschatology in the psalms cannot be supported. The judgment of the wicked in Ps. 1 may be due again to Persian influences, as most scholars date the writing of this psalm after the exile. But even if it is pre-exilic – Dahood has established enough Ugaritic parallels to make this a possibility – there is no explicit mention of a Last Judgment or an end of the world. The punishment of the wicked could just as well be worldly as other-worldly. This interpretation is certainly to be preferred given the general context of early Hebrew thought.
The fiery judgment and immortality mentioned in Ps. 21:9-10 has also been used to support the idea of an advanced eschatology in the psalms. Mitchell Dahood helps interpret these passages correctly. The Canaanite parallels show that God makes the king, not any other human, immortal. Furthermore, those who are burned are the king’s foes, not all the wicked; and the burning furnace is probably the mouth of Yahweh and not any burning Hell.5
Some say that the Hebrew ge-hinnom is fiery hell independent of Persian influences. But all references to ge-hinnom refer explicitly to a definite geographic place, the valley of Hinnom outside Jerusalem. The only eschatological implications we can find are in Jer. 7:31ff, where Jeremiah predicts that the Lord will destroy the place and it will be used for the disposal of dead bodies. This is obviously not the place of fiery torment of the New Testament gehenna, which was definitely influenced by Zoroastrian eschatology. Even an evangelical scholar admits that gehenna a place of eternal torment is a late concept, probably first century B.C.E.6
Saosyant, a savior born from Zoroaster’s seed, will come and the dead shall be resurrected, body and soul. As the final accounting is made, husband is set against wife and brother against brother as the righteous and the damned are pointed out by the divine judge Saosyant. Personal and individual immortality is offered to the righteous; and, as a final fire melts away the world and the damned, a kingdom of God is established for a thousand years.7 The word paradis is Persian in origin and the concept spread to all Near Eastern religions in that form. “Eden” not “Paradise” is mentioned in Genesis, and paradise as an abode of light does not appear in Jewish literature until late books such as Enoch and the Psalm of Solomon.
Satan as the adversary or Evil One does not appear in the pre-exilic Hebrew books. In Job, one of the very oldest books, Satan is one of the subordinate deities in God’s pantheon. Here Satan is God’s agent, and God gives him permission to persecute Job. The Zoroastrian Angra Mainyu, the Evil One, the eternal enemy of God, is the prototype for late Jewish and Christian ideas of Satan. One scholar claims that the Jews acquired their aversion to homosexuality, not present in pre-exilic times, to the Iranian definition of the devil as a Sodomite.8
In 1 Chron. 21:1 (a book with heavy Persian influences), the Hebrew word satan appears for the first time as a proper name without an article. Before the exile, Satan was not a separate entity per se, but a divine function performed by the Yahweh’s subordinate deities (sons of God) or by Yahweh himself. For example, in Num. 22:22 Yahweh, in the guise of mal’ak Yahweh, is “a satan” for Balaam and his ass. The editorial switch from God inciting David to take a census in 2 Sam 24:1, and a separate evil entity with the name “Satan” doing the same deed in 1 Chron. 21:1 is the strongest evidence that there was a radical transformation in Jewish theology. Something must have caused this change, and religious syncretism with Persia is the probable cause. G. Von Rad calls it a “correction due to religious scruples” and further states that “this correction would hardly have been carried out in this way if the concept of Satan had not undergone a rather decisive transformation.”9
The theory of religious influence from Persia is based not only on the generation spent in exile but the 400 years following in which the resurrected nation of Israel lived under strong Persian dominion and influence. The chronicler made his crucial correction to 2 Sam. 24:1 about 400 B.C.E. Persian influence increases in the later Hebrew works like Daniel and especially the intertestamental books. Therefore Satan as a separate evil force in direct opposition to God most likely came from the explicit Zoroastrian belief in such an entity. This concept is not consistent with pre-exilic beliefs.
There is no question that the concept of a separate evil principle was fully developed in the Zoroastrian Gathas (ca. 1,000 B.C.E.). The principal demon, called Druj (the Lie), is mentioned 66 times in the Gathas. But the priestly Jews would also have been exposed to the full Avestan scripture in which Angra Mainyu is mentioned repeatedly. His most prominent symbol is the serpent, so along with the idea of the “Lie,” we have the prototype for the serpent/tempter, in the priestly writers’ garden of Genesis.10 There is no evidence that the Jews in exile brought with them any idea of Satan as a separate evil principle.
In Zoroastrianism the supreme God, Ahura Mazda, gives all humans free-will so that they may choose between good and evil. As we have seen, the religion of Zoroaster may have been the first to discover ethical individualism. The first Hebrew prophet to speak unequivocally in terms of individual moral responsibility was Ezekiel, a prophet of the Babylonian exile. Up until that time Hebrew ethics had been guided by the idea of the corporate personality – that, e.g., the sins of the fathers are visited upon the sons (Ex. 20:1-2).
In 1 Cor. 15:42-49 Paul definitely assumes a dual-creation theory which seems to follow the outlines of Philo and the Iranians. There is only one man (Christ) who is created in the image of God, i.e., according to the “intellectual” creation of Gen. 1:26 (à la Philo). All the rest of us are created in the image of the “dust man,” following the material creation of Adam from the dust in Gen. 2:7.
Apropos of nothing…
But, if you ever start a band, can you call it Bashibuzuk and the Dharmics? Then can you make a sweeping concept album about the battle between the Abrahamics and the Dharmics? I think that would be sick!
That language has robbed you of capacity of learning anything outside of Foxnews, Hollywood, WSJ, Telegraph ( UK) .
This is a strange accusation given that this is an alternative media forum.
I have news for you which is that Fox/Hollywood/WSJ/UK media don’t talk about the Dot Indian class system or how India once had mass die-offs of children. That is too politically incorrect for corporate media. Even Fox won’t cover what really happens in Black areas. There have been heinous crimes within miles of Fox NYC headquarters that they ignored because of race. They don’t support questioning all liberal narratives. Fox/WSJ is mostly an alliance of wealthy White libertarians that support lying about race.
By the way you still havent told anything about the mass beheading .
Well if you Google “isis beheading” it is pretty easy to find:
https://time.com/3624976/isis-beheading-technology-video-trac-quilliam/
What is with Dot Indians and their insistence on adding a space before a period?
India: Over 1 billion people and they are known on the internet for their call center scams where they defraud old people. White people invent the internet and Dot Indians use it to rip off our seniors:
What a fascinating country. Borrowing the technology of other nations to exploit and defraud their seniors.
The new Dune was a good adaptation, at least as far as it’s possible to adapt such a book that plays out internally within the characters so much.
Villenueve seems to have this thing for muttered dialog and a big booming soundtrack. It’s annoying that it’s really hard to catch what the dialog is a substantial part of the time. Enunciation! Please!
Oh That ISIS that was created by US and sent out from US jails to wreck havoc locally !. Being impressed with the successes . US sent them to Afghanistan. That ISIS who learned the tactics and got the machines from US!
One time they found themselves encircled by Syrian forces . US and UK allowed them safe passage with thousands of military gears ,transport -vehicles and thousands of swords.
Israel took care
of their
medical needs.
This is something of a trend in Hollywood. And common in Nolan movies.
Supposedly, it is explained by them making movies for theaters with multidirectional speakers with a lot of channels. While the average home system does not have the same number of channels, so it doesn’t sound as clear.
There is also a similar thing with dark scenes, where on the average home TV, you can’t see anything. But on the very high end systems that the film-makers use, it is possible to see more detail.
But I blame it more on degeneracy, and poor film-making, rather than technology.
Lol. I thought about football chants when I first saw this. Back in the day.
Schumacher rams Battiston
Breaks his neck
Beckenbauer hacks at Hurst
Rudi Voeller has a silly moustache on!
Rowan Atkinson, Queen College, Oxford grad 160 IQ apparently.
Oh That ISIS that was created by US and sent out from US jails to wreck havoc locally !
Why don’t you explain that for us given that their leaders are not US nationals.
US sent them to Afghanistan.
You seem very confused. Are you talking about ISIS-K? They are a made up of ex-Taliban:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_State_%E2%80%93_Khorasan_Province
Israel took care
of their
medical needs.
Was this an attempt at Haiku?
Circumcision and cow slaughter.
Nigger loving too – modern Hinduism is Anarya as well.
https://vajrin.wordpress.com/2012/11/25/sarva-dharma-samabhava-an-astika-view/
Almost any faith can become more Arya though so not really worried.
ਅਕਾਲ
@emil
@a123 wanna do a stint in the IDF?
This is something of a trend in Hollywood. And common in Nolan movies.
Supposedly, it is explained by them making movies for theaters with multidirectional speakers with a lot of channels. While the average home system does not have the same number of channels, so it doesn’t sound as clear.
That is correct. They don’t have to resample the sound for Dolby stereo.
The software on the tv or blu-ray player then tries to smudge multi-channel audio into two speakers.
You turn up the volume to hear the dialog and then get blasted by the soundtrack. In a 6 channel setup it is all moderated.
But you don’t need a 6 channel setup to fix the problem. A quality soundbar will do it. The newer ones can actually work with your existing tv speakers.
I hope that Ivashka affords you with a reply worthy of your efforts in putting this one together. I’m pleased that you’re pursuing this line of thought and not letting the embers go out….
The new Dune was a good adaptation, at least as far as it’s possible to adapt such a book that plays out internally within the characters so much.
Did you watch Ender’s Game? I have held off because I enjoyed the book and the movie had mixed reviews.
I hate watching a book to movie adaptation that ruins my own imagination of the characters.
One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen. Absolutely horrible
Nobody has been capable of mixing music and metaphysics since Wagner. It is very tricky and requires very high skill. And there are a bunch of people (granted they are ignoramuses) who detest Wagner.
“Why don’t you explain that for us given that their leaders are not US nationals.”
Look at the leaders US created or elevated out of nowhere for deacdes in Africa,Latin America, Iran, Egypt and so on.
Putin,Erdogan, Karzai and eevn Taliban have accused US of flying ISIS to Afghanistan .
Uzbekistan accused US of sheltering them in its base in Kryzistan and sending to Uzbekistan .That led to a lot of changes both in Krygzistan and Uzbekistan .Both downgarded relation and did not renew the base.
I am sure someone has told you before, providing the links that included also the Israeli colluson with ISIS.
Now go home , play with crayon and stop asking same questions in different or same sites on differnt
occasions.
STOP.
8 Indian ex-Navy officers get death penalty in Qatar.
Spying on Qatar’s submarine program for Israel.
https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-722034
Insane fact from the Atlantic: they found that “roughly two-thirds of the disinformation about the [Israel-Palestine] conflict was coming from the Hindu Right”.
That’s honestly impressive.
I agree with your description of how it played out in UK – there was an element of making sure that the initial labor market liberalization didn’t negatively impact too many people. There were also the accumulated goodies to distribute from the decades of state (society’s) investments: housing, privatizing utilities, monetizing what was essentially free or inexpensive before. That was a huge one-time opportunity for enrichment – and boomers jumped on it.
It was a multi-layered pyramid scheme and the flaws were obvious: there was no mathematical way that the exponential growth in the unearned wealth from housing and other assets could continue. Add the fact that a lot of it was financed by debts to be paid by future generations and the screw-the-young policy is quite obvious.
My experience is that even stupid people understand their own self-interest – there is an intuition that kicks in when dollar sign is added to any discussion. So I don’t buy the lame: it was not conscious, it just happened that way, you know “markets”… No, it was a one-time selfish grab by one generation of all they could with no regard for whether it is sustainable or what happens when the pyramid can’t grow any more. I suspect that the young will find a way to get even. Open borders were a big part of it.
They’ll be passing it down soon. I expect a lot of it to go towards woke causes. They’ll be enriching recent arrivals who will fight against the interests of the young natives. Let’s hope not most of it at least.
The status quo has a very serious lack of contiguity for the Palestinians:
I saw Dune in the theater and even thought it was annoying there. Ditto on everything being monochromatic/ dark. I guess it’s supposed to portray a particular mood, but gets annoying when it’s overused.
But then again, overused is Hollywood’s specialty!
Same here. I skipped watching Ender’s Game because I liked the book so much and the movie seemed like a waste of time. I’m pretty picky with what movies I watch anyway.
Funny you say that, my wife has institutionalized this in our household as official policy. The kids can’t watch a movie adaptation of a good book unless they have already read the book. My oldest daughter is old enough to watch the Lord of the Rings but she hasn’t taken the time to re-read it. (We read it as a family several years ago, but my wife thought it was long enough ago to not count. 😉 )
Hey, he might be just the man to pull it off!
What about if it was a funk group called, Bashibuztastic and the Karmic Funk Dharmics?
Would that help its’ chances of success?!?
Sun Ra is one of the few who got very very very close.
It would be easy to find Ann Coulter’s plan of the time for you. She is a lawyer by the way, and was in contact with legal experts of the anti-immigration movement. But no thanks, I’ll pass. You’ll just retort with some Islamo-Coulter silliness of yours and I don’t have the time for that. But the whole idea that Biden can circumvent the laws of the nation from day one and let millions of economic migrants enter the US pretending to be “asylum seekers” while Trump couldn’t do anything to simply enforce the existing laws and and take forceful measures at the border to stop illegal immigration is ridiculous on its face.
You should stop being so combative and start building bridges anyway. It’s looking like we’ll all have to vote for your idol (if the Balts don’t object to those of us with impure blood taking part in American elections of course, I’ll ask them as the date approaches). At some point Trumpers will have to start regaining the support of those who opted for better MAGA choices if he is to have any chance at all.
Speaking of the Balts, it’s very strange that all the RINOs in the House have finally given their support to a MAGA speaker who has been very vocal against the Ukraine aid. It may be that now only Israel matters or there may be some secret deal but something’s up.
Look at the leaders US created or elevated out of nowhere for deacdes in Africa,Latin America, Iran, Egypt and so on.
You keep making statements that you can’t back.
ISIS was founded by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Musab_al-Zarqawi
It has nothing to do with US jails.
I am sure someone has told you before, providing the links that included also the Israeli colluson with ISIS.
You haven’t provided links to anything. You operate on conspiratorial imagination and have the classic Dot Indian lazy form of punctuation. Maybe try to master basic plumbing and use of the period before lecturing us on politics.
My oldest daughter is old enough to watch the Lord of the Rings but she hasn’t taken the time to re-read it. (We read it as a family several years ago, but my wife thought it was long enough ago to not count. 😉 )
That’s a good policy and congrats on finding a good wife.
I’ve never seen Lord of the Rings. I haven’t been able to watch more than 10 minutes.
Elijah Wood makes an awful Frodo. I can’t stand him and it doesn’t match the Frodo of the book.
He is normally a good actor but doesn’t pull off the character. It reminds me of the latest Star Wars movies where nerds can’t admit the main characters suck.
But I have friends that love the series and think I am just being picky. Well I’ve seen the 70s cartoon and enjoyed it.
Area B was about building confidence. The plan was for Muslims to take over more responsibility in those zones as they proved the will & capability to prevent violence against indigenous Palestinian Jews.
In the 30 years since the Oslo accords were signed, they have demonstrated neither the will nor the capability to counter terror. Just the opposite, they have intentionally inflamed the situation with policies such as “Pay For Slay”.
There is a price for Muslim malice. Now, the best the West Bank can possibly hope for are cantons. These will be limited by the minimum necessary security to protect indigenous Palestinian Jews.
Here is a more practical “One State” solution. Let the cantons merge with Jordan.
Corridors could be opened allowing more east-west transit between the cantons and Jordan. If done cleverly, it may even be possible for some exclusive roads to reach & cross the river preventing the need to clear a border check point. And, of course, Jordanian citizens could voluntarily choose to live in Jordan proper rather than a Jordanian canton.
PEACE 😇
Yes, iirc Aristotle’s argument was that the forms existed in the things themselves and I think in the mind of the beholder, but not in the mysterious immaterial ‘3rd realm’ of Plato. His writing is also less literary and more dry and technical (there is this idea the books might have been lecture notes originally) than Plato. A lot of Aristotle’s followers are the same.
The idea about the thought of Dievs is interesting too. In Aristotle there is the well known idea that each substantial form has a telos as part of its content, the specific set of ends to which its activity is directed. I think it was among Aristotle’s later followers, but the argument developed that the telos of every substance must be known by and present within the prime mover or first cause, who is always active and directing all of the natural entities to their appropriate ends. The telos of a thing is also its good, which could relate to the idea of wise council, as everything is moved by its attraction to the good.
It’s interesting that Aristotle originally developed his ideas to defend the reality of change and also persistence, against arguments that reason showed change must be impossible (from Zeno’s paradoxes) or that only change existed and nothing had any stable existence (Heraclitus I think).
This reminds me of the Fates as well, it is quite a poetic idea.
Indeed, he s both very intelligent and well-informed, I hope he takes me up on the invitation to comment on that stuff.
He may personally be against it, but he stated that he will put it to a vote so it will pass easily. The ones opposed to the aid will be on record as opposing it, the ones for will show that they supported it, and Ukraine gets the help it needs. A good solution, so the pro-Ukrainian Republicans don’t object to his speakership.
You should stop your #NeverTrump combativeness and start building bridges to MAGA/Trump. Here is a good first offer:
• You stop lying about Trump.
• I will stop calling you out for lying.
If you actually want to join MAGA, this should be a really easy deal for you to take.
If that is your idea of bridge building, its not going to fly. That is a bridge burning attitude.
Hero is better than idol. Delivering what Trump could during his first term is indeed heroic.
Here is another opportunity for bridge building. Say “our hero” rather than “your hero”. Trump is a genuine MAGA hero, so this should be straightforward if you actually believe in MAGA.
The 🇺🇦fad🇺🇦 is losing momentum. Spending $100B last year and being on the winning side was a tough sell. Coming back for $60B more with no plan to win is a re-election risk. Pols, like rats, want to get off the sinking ship. Or, is that unkind to rats?
If Not-The-President Biden insists on linking Ukraine and Israel, you may get your wish. There is a high chance that such an abomination will never pass. If that obstacle can be overcome, it is your opportunity for bridge building and compromise.
====================
“Politics is the art of the
possible, the attainable,
the art of the next best”
― Otto von Bismarck
====================
How much would you be willing to trade in Israel funding to obtain border security funding? $45B for border and $5B for Israel? Or, would you insist on $0 for both?
PEACE 😇
You are milk toast
https://cryptidz.fandom.com/wiki/Giant_of_Kandahar
This is the real thing man. Megiddo.
https://phoenix-fall-division-fanfiction-universe.fandom.com/wiki/Megiddo
Makes sense.
I was contemplating the writing of a Sci-fi / Fantasy / Psychological novel / thriller named the Shambhala Chronicles. A little similar to War and Peace, but with characters taken from the opposing sides of the final conflict. But yeah, creating a rock band named Bashi & the Dharmaniacs would be a great idea if it is a punk rock band. Something along the lines of Amyl & the Sniffers. The Japanese translation of the Heart Sutra makes for a nice punk rock song:
Christian God is an entity. Being an entity is a limitation. Although I would agree that Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite reads a bit like some of the more philosophical sutras, especially when he uses the neoplatonicist jargon. But most Christians don’t even know who he was.
I can back it up but that h wont help .You will ask same question in future and claim same lies as being the facts
Israel does it all the times about the zionist activities before 1948 and after 1948 .
“You keep making statements that you can’t back.”
Check with Congo, Hondurus, Phillipine. Egypt, Chile, Russia , and Austria ( 1999 this one so grotesque that it needs speacil attention ) and many more .
Off-topic, but what are your thoughts on having Israel build huge cities in the Jordan Valley for its still-rapidly growing population?
@A123: Here’s another canton plan for Israel and Palestine:
https://www.federation.org.il/index.php/en/the-federation-plan
But I’ve heard an objection to it being that the Palestinian cantons would be surrounded by the Jewish cantons.
AFAIK, Trump did try to take some measures against illegal (and legal) immigration, but sometimes or even often had his moves stopped or at least slowed down by the courts.
Also, AFAIK, the US President has broad power to parole people for immediate entry into the US even if they are not in strict compliance with US immigration laws. That’s how Biden was able to get a lot of Afghans into the US legally after Kabul fell in 2021, for instance.
If the Palestinians are given sovereignty in any part of the Land of Israel, they will use that territory as a base from which to launch attacks on Israel. In 1948, British FM Ernest Bevin (who hated Jews) said that the conflict was unsolvable because the goal of the Jews was to have a state in Palestine and the goal of the Palestinians was to prevent Jewish sovereignty in any part of the country come what may. Compromise has always been impossible because the goals of the respective national movements are inherently irreconcilable.
If the Palestinians really wanted a state, they could have had it. They still could have it. But that isn’t what they want and they themselves will be the first to tell you as much.
Almost entirely the reverse. The already rejected, one state “Federation” plan calls for giving non-Palestinian Muslims Israeli citizenship. Out of the gate it is a 100% laughable non-starter.
Knowing that those who drew the map hate indigenous Palestinian Jews, failures are obvious within seconds.
#14 — Attempting to divide Jerusalem is intolerable.
#23 — Bethlehem is South of Jerusalem. It is an obvious attempt to cut off Jewish access to the Jordan Valley.
#20-22 — Attempts to steal huge amounts of the Jordan Valley for Islam
#16 — Another attempt to isolate indigenous Palestinian Jews
Literally, in less than 5 minutes this can be objectively demonstrated to be “point & laugh” material. No one could possibly take it seriously. It is either propaganda trying to make things worse, or Darwin Award level naivety.
PEACE 😇
Judea & Samaria is the religious homeland of Judaism. Let me reframe your question.
What does everyone rational think about indigenous Palestinian Jews building Jewish cities on Jewish land in the religious homeland of Judaism?
No one sane could object to such an obviously common sense initiative.
PEACE 😇
Or maybe our understanding of such an entity as God (the Alpha and Omega) is inherently limited? That is, we are incapable of truly grasping a limitless entity.
What do you make of the fact that the Jewish understanding of God, Satan, etc. was basically learned from the Persians, and thus the Jewish God at the time of Christ (the Christian God) was God of the Aryans, not of the Semites? Thus, Christianity is not a Semitic faith but an Aryan one, and your prophesied battle between “Abrahamics” (if they are Christians) and Dharmics is an intra-Aryan struggle and not a Semitic versus Aryan one.
Do you have a citation with Speaker Johnson’s exact verbiage?
I too am still looking for a solid citation. Much of this was behind closed doors. Chaotic press question “walk-bys” are notorious for producing contradictory sound bites.
The indirect copy that I have seen indicates — Speaker Johnson stated that Ukraine funding will go through “Regular Order”. That means that one or more committees will have the opportunity to cut, modify, and audit any appropriation.
McCarthy was ousted for his Ukraine First, America Last sell out to the Veggie-in-Chief. If you are correct, Speaker Johnson is equally corrupt and will join McCarthy as a former Speaker within days. It is much more likely that the new Speaker is actually America First and your rumoured capitulation will not occur.
PEACE 😇
This is what I heard was a condition to get the pro-Ukraine Republicans on board, to bring Ukraine aid to the House floor. Otherwise why would they approve him as Speaker?
Unlike you, he does not appear to be a fan or tool of the Russia-Iran-Hamas Axis.
A few weeks ago he said “Ukraine has to prevail.”
He said, about wanting to provide aid to Ukraine, ““We all do…we are going to have conditions on that, so we’re working through,” Johnson said while walking through the Capitol, in a clip posted Wednesday to X, the platform formerly known as Twitter.
“We want accountability, and we want objectives that are clear from the White House,“ Johnson later said in response to a question about what the conditions would be. ”
Accountability is good, making sure every penny goes to what it is supposed to go to.
He also said that he is going to have discussions and they are going to be productive.
BTW, your ally (or at least, friend-of-a-friend) Hamas is visiting Moscow again.
https://www.timesofisrael.com/moscow-hosts-hamas-delegation-and-irans-deputy-fm-prompting-israeli-outrage/
Moscow hosts Hamas delegation and Iran’s deputy FM, prompting Israeli outrage
As terror group leader Abu Marzouk meets with Putin’s Middle East envoy Bogdanov in Moscow, Jerusalem brands invitation ‘obscene,’ calls for immediate expulsion of Hamas officials
Johnson:
https://www.boundless.com/immigration-resources/what-is-immigration-parole/
The one thing that I wish that Biden would have done more of is accept more cognitively elitist immigrants to the US (alongside rather than an alternative to the immigrants that we actually did get). But AFAIK the GOP is sometimes or even hostile even towards large-scale cognitively elitist immigration, viewing this as having the potential to result in the importation of a hostile overclass.
But do you think that huge numbers of Israeli Jews would actually be willing to permanently settle in the Jordan Valley?
That reminds me of the ‘aerial archeology’ of this guy back in the 1920’s and 30’s. They used existing RAF aerial photos (and made new ones) to study the landscape of Britain and locate potential new archeological digs. Some how or other from the air you could just make out the outline of all sorts of long gone wooden structures from medieval times in the B&W photos. Remnants of Roman Britain, and presumably earlier, were found this way as well. It was rather interesting.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/O._G._S._Crawford
OK. But is Coulter a disguised Muslim or not? That is the only thing I wanted to learn from you and you’ve left me in the dark.
Also, another question: What are your thoughts on Israel’s Law of Return as it is currently written?
There is the formal cause which provides the structure or the type for any particular thing, and telos is part of the final cause – everything has a functionality or a purpose in a kind of a deterministic way.
There is the idea of actualization of potential and nothing is without purpose. “God and nature create nothing that has not its use.”
And this creation is a kind of a discovery of potential – for example, an artist doesn’t create something entirely new from the material, but instead discovers the natural potentials in the physical elements. Finds some possibility of how a thing could be and actualizes it.
Yes, the unmoved mover, this is a fascinating concept (“that which moves without being moved”). And it reminds me of the idea of Dievs as the original Thought (the unmoved mover is self-contemplating yet it moves everything else). This might be derived from pre-Socratics.
This is a great observation because the daina says “Dievs has wise counsel” (as in knowledge, advice, thought or knowledge of what is good and right) so it is implicit in this statement that this thought is good (not neutral) in its essence and intention. It is a kind of a goodness for humans to seek or look up to. It is very similar to how it is with Greeks where the good is connected with telos and order. Everything that is orderly and beautiful is intrinsically good.
Yes, it is Heraclitus, of course, who is the author of the majestic phrase Panta rhei – everything moves, everything flows. “All things take place by strife”. And fire was his central element (because fire, too, moves all the time).
That is about what I suspected. One (or a few) sound bites sound favourable to funding Kiev aggression. There is no explicit date for an unencumbered floor vote.
Speaker Johnson seems to be explicitly adding accountability that the MIC lobbyist “pro-Ukraine Republicans” do not want. And, there is no open pronouncement on the dollar amount.
This ties back to the suggestion that I made some time ago. The funding for Kiev aggression will not be zero. However, it will be far less than the European Empire is demanding from their puppet, Not-The-President Biden.
PEACE 😇
OK. How does asking a stupid & pathetic question about Ann Coulter support your supposed “Bridge Building” effort? That is the only thing I wanted to learn from you and you’ve left me in the dark.
PEACE 😇
Is there some tangential point you are trying to sneak up on? You seem to be asking questions with exceedingly self evident answers.
Clearly — Orthodox indigenous Palestinian Jews are interested in building Jewish cities on Jewish land in the religious homeland of Judaism.
I am a Christian. This is totally outside my purview.
PEACE 😇
What if they choose to stay put no matter how much carrot is dangled before them, what then? Say what you will about them, but they are some stubborn bastards. I can’t help thinking it’s going to require more than a bit of stick to get them to move.
Leaving aside the whole morality of it and looking at their predicament coldly analytically, the first and foremost distinction one must draw is that they have lost. They have lost comprehensively, on every front, militarily and diplomatically. If they want self-determination, there is simply no chance they’re going to find it in Israel/Palestine.
It is time for them to recognize what should have been apparent decades ago, that they have a homeland-in-waiting in Jordan. That is the only they are going to experience normalcy in their lives. Trying to tough it out in Israel/Palestine is only going to bring them to more tears. They tried hard, but it’s time to face reality, enough is enough.
I didn’t get around to watching it last night. Today I went and saw Exorcist: The Believer, with an ex and her daughter. (Rating: 4.5/10; if I was watching at home, I would’ve given up. Not horrible, just not interesting.) That ex has a huge big screen HDTV, pretty sure she paid a pretty penny for it (she’s the working class type who equates stuff like this with “the finer things in life”). Might try talking her into watching it at her place (it’ll take some convincing because she’s not a sci-fi fan).
On a side note, her daughter is already very, very good looking at 15. Barring some major developmental misfortune, she’s gonna be superhot when she’s older. But painfully shy! She wouldn’t even address the waitress at our table out of shyness, yowza. It has always surprised me, dating all the way back to early high school, when really attractive people are ultra shy (so easy to confuse it with arrogance).
I’ve read elsewhere that it turns kinda crap at some point. I think I’ve watched like six or seven episodes, and so far it’s been really good. (I can’t even pinpoint what I like about it, but like it I do.)
I’m asking about this because right now there aren’t that many Jews living in the Jordan Valley.
AP, do you think that lower-caste Indian Hindus could play a similar role in Europe had Europeans themselves desired this? With the Muslims and Africans, there is a crime and/or radicalism problem, but with Hindus, even lower-caste ones, there might be less problems, just so long as they will not be as dysfunctional as the Roma are.
In regards to Latino immigrants taking jobs from working-class Americans, Yes, that might be true to some extent, but they can also create promotion opportunities for such Americans, such as the role of (lower-level) supervisor, which working-class Americans with their superior English skills could take advantage of. And the parts of the US with a lot of Trumpists (especially rural areas) don’t have all that many immigrants anyway to my knowledge.
There is an increasing feeling among the Israeli public that the ground offensive isn’t going to happen. The longer the delay, the more the shock and anger over the events of the 7th dissipate and eschewing a ground operation becomes increasingly politically feasible. Especially if there is some type of deal where Israel got back the hostages that are children or are fuckable age girls (not trying to be a dick, just being realistic that every society values young women more than other demos). Obviously Israel wants back the elderly captives and the young men too, but the loss of them wouldn’t be nearly as painful for Israeli society.
Government ministers can say whatever they want, but it is clear that none of them want to invade Gaza if they are the ones who need to take responsibility for said invasion. I said yesterday that Bibi would eventually be faced with an ultimatum from his own ministers demanding an invasion of Gaza, but I now realize that the ministers have only been talking tough insofar as they are able to push ultimate responsibility onto Bibi.
Right now what I think is most likely is some sort of partial invasion with the following goals:
1. Draw blood from Hamas and at least partially restore Israeli deterrence
2. Calm down the Israeli public and partially restore the public’s faith in the IDF and security services
3. Force Hamas to agree to some type of prisoner exchange, at least for the children and the young women
Israel wants to do all of this with minimum casualties and while maintaining the full American/Western support it has had since Oct 7th. And of course avoiding a war with Hezbollah which the IDF would likely be unable to win.
I actually don’t think this is necessarily a bad strategy as, like I’ve said before, even if the IDF conquers Gaza, Hamas will just come back the day that Israel leaves.
The big danger is that anything less than the conquest of Gaza means that the Arab/Islamic world will see Operation Al Asqa Flood as a victory. This weakens Israeli deterrence and increases Ishmael’s appetite for more such operations in the future. Israel really doesn’t have any good options.
The good news is that if there is no conquest of Gaza that we finally will be done with Bibi and the Likud forever. The polls already look horrible for them and it will be even worse after Israel has officially lost the war. Bibi is the worst leader in Jewish history and the Likud remains the worst thing to ever happen to the State of Israel.
If anyone’s looking for a solution to youtube’s anti-adblocking scripts, I have found the uBlock Origin browser extension does the trick. (Install, go to settings, click “clear cache” and then click “update now. Works for me.)
Kinda weird how reluctant humans are to pay for stuff we can get free. Given how much I use youtube, the monthly subscription is bargain basement and yet…
Sure, they could carve out 2-3 Luxembourg style mini-states with no water, arable land or access. There are 7 million Palestinians there, how would that work? Would any other national group, e.g. Jews, agree to that? The reason it is unsolvable is that the dominant side (Israel) is unwilling to let go of what they have.
You can talk about the “past” all you want, the physical realities – people and the available-resources – require a more painful compromise by both sides. The lesson in many similar historical conflicts is that the stronger side is better off if they offer an acceptable compromise while they are in charge.
The empire-building often collapses not by defeat but by indigestion. That applies to mini-empires. The most likely outcome is a one-state dysfunctional mess. Or a genocidal catastrophe that A123 proposes as “voluntary expulsion“, whatever that means. No country today can survive that – the consequences would be horrendous. Stop dreaming about “Lichtensteins in West Bank hills”, it is not going to happen because it doesn’t solve anything.
Always answer a fraudulent call, then just put the phone down and let them hang up. They have to pay for the call.
I remember an article here where someone bought a house and kept the old people’s phone line, they plugged the phone in and it just rang continuously. Pretty horrible, the phone companies could do something about it. Bought my mother a phone with call screening, if the number calling isn’t in her phone book they have to state their name, not a single scam call since,
One day…but thanks anyway.
When New Labour came in they opened up immigration because they were new left and wanted to ‘rub the right’s face in diversity’, Jewess Barbara Roche also wanted to feel ‘safe’. Of course there is an economic incentive, often after the flows start up, but don’t underestimate the ethnic lobbying, originally solely Jewish, that drove it. Kevin MacDonald has amply documented this.
It has become so one-sided that everyone can grab what they can and fight for their own self-interest – except the young natives. They are immediately attacked, ostracized, banned. That tells us who the elites see as the primary enemy.
You don’t have to take my word for it. Just go talk to a Palestinian online and ask them if they would accept a Palestinian state from the river to the sea except that Israel would maintain a city state in Tel Aviv. Just 52 square kilometers. I promise you that no Palestinian would ever agree to that and they will openly say as much. This isn’t something they are shy about.
I’m not even saying it as a criticism. I kinda admire it, if anything. But it’s simply a fact.
I don’t underestimate it, but the New Labor came to power when the open-borders-cheap-labor policy was already in place for 30-40 years. They massively accelerated it for their own ideological reasons. But it has also happened all over Western Europe. Without the economic motivation by libertarian businessmen it would be impossible.
What played a role was the gradual US dominance of all European spheres: many Americans in charge prefer Europe to be like what they had at home. It was more familiar, simpler – some resented that Europe avoided the fatal mistakes America made and they pushed to make it the same. Now it almost is, are we happy?
This just reminded me of a book I translated a while ago. I had to write an introduction, there are a couple of extracts that might be relevant to this idea under the more tag because they are quite long:
The book was Charles Maurras’ ‘Mes Idées Politiques’ from 1937. (When it is published in English the title might be ‘The Politics of Nature’, from the title of the introductory essay).
Also:
It’s sometimes said that one of the traits associated with that generation was a vague idea of the future, and a vaguer awareness of future generations. Compared to previous generations that were more austere and concerned with saving, delaying gratification, that seems to have been true.
I think part of the reason for the adoption of radical ideas among the young is that the prospects they are faced with look worse than for some time. Even taking into account that they might have higher expectations due to the prosperity of the recent past. LatW might be right about the assets ultimately being used for woke causes.
I remember some two decades ago observing a hammerhead shark and thinking that whomever/whatever created this had nothing similar to humans in himself/itself. We are stubbornly anthropomorphic when we discuss Truth. We want Truth to have some human(ised) dimension for us to grasp upon. But Truth is way beyond our preferred scope of reference. That is why approaching it through an apophatic theology angle makes sense. We cannot fully say what Truth is, but we perhaps could say what it isn’t. Zen is in a sense the ultimate apophatic theology. Everything that is not absolutely and unavoidably evident is dismissed, every limitation abandoned, every paradox transcended. It is all done in the mind alone. What is left in the end (if anything) is Truth / the Real / the (original) Mind etc. We could call it a 10 000 names it doesn’t change its nature. We could never mention it all and it wouldn’t change its inherent reality.
While technically what you wrote is correct, that is the understanding of the Jewish G-d and theology in general having been strongly altered by the Jews interacting with Mazda Yasna in Babylon, it would be nevertheless exaggerated to say that their G-d became the same as Ahura Mazda. The YHWH / Shekinah diad goes back to the typical religious framework of the Bronze Age civilization, quite similar to what LatW described above when discussing Dievs / Mara diad in Balto-Slav paganism. There is an intriguing possibility that this Bronze Age religious framework is somewhat linked to the “second Globalization” which during the Bronze Age connected the Northern Bronze Age cultures, the Unetice Central European areas and the Mediterranean area / Levant (the first Globalization being Paleolithic).
That would actually coincide with the emergence of what we might call Aryans and the spread of the Indo-European languages. A while ago, a cheeky Buddhist once made me realize that Abraham is somewhat of an anagram of Brahma, which is of course entirely coincidental. Another coincidence is that Abraham had to purchase a plot of land from a Hittite to make it his spouse’s Sarah burial place. That is, there were Indo-Europeans in Palestine before the legendary ancestor of both Jews and Arabs arrived there.
Klyosov has investigated Y haplogroups R1a among the Jews and the Arabs, and according to him, some of these haplogroups are dating way back to the Bronze Age and to the invasion of Anatolia and modern day Syria by the Indo-European tribes. It was before the Scythians appeared as horse-riding culture of the Eurasian steppes.
Western Civilization and all the cultures it made converge into its cultural realm in the last 200-300 years, are now facing an existential crisis. These crises are usually resolved through radical violence. It is not just that the young are manipulated it is also that they must break through this crisis somehow. Otherwise some of the most advanced cultures of our World would simply cease to exist for demographic and environmental reasons.
The out of control Israeli “judiciary” unreasonably blocks Jewish development in most of Area C, which includes the valley. Thus, the population artificially low.
PEACE 😇
When you are living in a politically repressive society and cannot speak freely without fear of retribution its important to learn to express yourself elliptically and with tactful ambiguity.
Thanks. Am not sure anyone in Peru understood the Nazca lines were pictographs until pilots saw them. Supposedly, they are still discovering new ones using drones.
Crawford worked for the Ordinance Survey apparently. I have looked at some of the old maps in Ireland, though unfortunately many of the maps they made before they started it don’t survive.
It is interesting to look at satellite imagery of old plots where your folks farmed and see mounds. Sometimes they were marked on the survey, but not always. I think I heard some years they are more visible than others, due to drought. I wonder what they would have thought of them, or if they even perceived the smaller, harder to see ones.
There is a great deal of false hope preventing acceptance of that undeniable reality. One of the factors contributing to that is the large population, and the myth that “demographics is destiny”.
Arranging for population to have a downward trajectory punctures the demographics based delusion.
Some may be stubborn. I suspect many are just stuck. In Gaza, population exceeds resources to the point where nothing functions correctly. It is not hard to envision the desire to escape Hamas concentration camp guards. Parents would VOLUNTARILY take their children away from the hopeless mess if they could
Imagine what Gaza could be like if the population matched the resources. Call it 500K rather than 2,500K. A large chunk of that population would have jobs that require trade or working in Israel. If everybody needs the borders to stay open, the local population will deal with anyone pushing border closing violence.
The false hope of conquest could be replaced by real hope for normalcy.
____
Warmongers, like Beckow, want to genocide 6MM+ indigenous Palestinian Jews. Any plan that could reduce tensions causes them to panic, because that blocks their deranged blood lust. I already pointed out his personal catch phrase “voluntary exclusion” is internally inconsistent English language usage. Sadly, his self delusion is overwhelming.
Jordan as Muslim Palestine certainly makes sense as two state solution. However, they have their own resource limitations. Stressing Jordan could result in an Israel/Jordan war.
It would he better to help the Muslim colonists move further away, where they will not be physically adjacent to Jewish Palestine. They would have more natural resources. And, it eliminates the opportunity for provocative head butting at border walls.
PEACE 😇
India has a tentative goal of sending a man into space by 2024 (though it seems to have been delayed several times in the past), and to the Moon in 2040. They also have plans for their own station in LEO.
Political pressure to have women astronauts seems high. But I am more interested in how quickly they will send Untouchables to space and to the Moon.
But it’s not and exaggeration to claim that the God of the Old testament, Yahweh, was the representation of the demonic Mara, “the personification of the forces antagonistic to enlightenment.” found within Buddhist cosmology?…
I’ve done a bit of poking around trying to validate your beliefs here Bashi, and have come up short, and will have to remain unconvinced unless you can better substantiate these claims of yours.
Muslim?
I thought there was a different question: is Coulter a disguised male or not? They both start with M (male and muslim) but I think you have to pick your conspiracy.
Hmm, dark blue is Sikh stronghold.
Nihang Singhs in Indiana.
Lot of Scottish Sikhs in West Virginia.
Every guy from Tennessee I met been ready to smuggle me across.
Hillbilly Khalsa 🙏⚔️🇺🇸
ਅਕਾਲ
The other week I was listening to a YouTube interview with a young black girl from South Africa, she had been adopted and brought up by more working class Boers and then had gone on to study politics at Cambridge in the UK. It’s in my mind because one of the things she said was that from her pov the university decolonisation movement marked the end of a historical and cultural arc, and the arc had entered its last phase in the post-WW2 era. I thought, you noticed that too, it doesn’t often come up.
The dissident-right are talking about cyclical history more often now, but afaik less about a specific crisis linked to belief in inevitable progress that might be the problem here.
I think people will have to work through it, even if it is pretty challenging and forbidding to think about at this stage, hopefully avoiding things like the techno-dystopia in the process. It’s also possible the decline has already started, the gradual improvement in standard of living and quality of life of my parents and grandparents generations hasn’t been repeated in my own life, and this seems to be true of a lot of people.
All gods are archetypes.
The G-d of OT that promotes genocide in the Book of Joshua, is without any possible doubts a demonic entity. Given its (not his, but its) attitude and declarations, it matches the aggressive and self-centered aspects of the Mara archetype. No truly holy being would have promoted unrestricted violence against non-combatants as the G-d of OT has done time and again.
That is why our Lord Jesus has said in John 8:44 to the Pharisee Jews : “You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him.”
I wholeheartedly agree with the words of our Lord.
Also in the apocryphal Apocalypse of John it is written that: One day John, the brother of James [these are the sons of Zebedee], was going up to the Temple. A Pharisee by the name of Arimanios came up to him and challenged him, asking: “Where is the teacher you used to follow?”
John replied, “He has gone back to the place from which he came.”
The Pharisee said, “That Nazarene misled you (plural), told you lies, closed your hearts and turned you away from your ancestral traditions.”
This is true, that’s what our Lord came to do and that’s why he was martyred for. He came to save the Jews and other people from the traditions ensuring the domination of the Demiurge/YHWH/Mara.
That is why the YHWH worshipping Sanhedrin sentenced him to death. Note that the name of the Pharisee Jew is here given as a Greek transliteration of the chief demon in Zoroastrian religion – Ahriman. Also note that all modern day rabbinical Jewish denominations derive from the Pharisee sect that has found its refuge in Sura and Pumbedita rabinical academias after the destruction of the second Temple. That is where Babylonian Talmud has been put into writing, in which our Lord Jesus is described in very unflattering terms.
I pay plenty for my ISP for which I get a firehose of “free” data. Paid internet content has never demonstrated superiority over free content, which isn’t even close to free. Why would I pay a single penny more than necessary?
Do you pay premiums for so-called organic fruits and vegetables? If you want the real thing you need to grow your own. If you want premium content you have to get out of your mother’s basement and see go see live performers.
(Thank you very much for the extension rec I will definitely try it!)
Am probably making a mistake even bothering to respond…
My very first interaction with you online was giving you a straightforward simple open compliment about your thinking on immigration and immigrants, ie that immigrants (whether they be Euro immigrants or not, whether the immigration be in the Anglosphere or not) are typically simply a tool used by elites against their own people, to divide and rule, not to mention mercilessly profit from and exploit.
Your response, instead of simple appreciation, was (somehow) to turn this simple open compliment into an argument, which you combined with what seems to be a standard snarkiness on your part. I actually regretted making the original compliment.
Your not alone in that kind of a hostile response to a simple compliment at this place. I take it simply as a sign as things devolve of how dysfunctional many Europeans have become where even a compliment can’t be received in a healthy gracious manner.
Besides seeming to have something of a contrarion streak (ie someone says ‘A’, you kneejerkedly respond with ‘B’, and vice versa, just ‘because’), you also like to (somewhat sadomasochally it appears) engage in pointless arguing, just for the sake of pointless arguing.
I’ve had these observations reaffirmed recently when (again, somehow) you managed to get into a cursing match with easy going Ivashka, which is something not particularly easy to do, but you managed it. The very first line of this post of yours I’m responding to here, which I didn’t bother to read beyond, consist of a personal attack upon me…
Life’s too short.
So I agree to disagree with you, and am leaving it at that. [ie…Don’t have any expectations of any further responses.]
In regards to Coconuts.. Please see this as constructive criticism, and not bashing.
Your posts are simply too demoralizing to read. You appear to have not only surrendered for yourself (bad, but your prerogative) but for everyone else besides (terrible, and not your prerogative). It seems as though you actively look for reasons as to why there is no chance of anything possibly succeeding. [Please consider lightening up some in this regard is all I can suggest, or, perhaps withholding certain commentary.]
I don’t know exactly what you think you might be doing, but if anything of Europe and Europeans is preserved, it will have been in spite of you and not because of you. I say this as someone who sees the situation as quite dire, but I at least allow for others to have some hope, and myself too.
So, as with silviosilver, I agree to disagree with you, and am leaving at that. [ie…Don’t have any expectations of any further responses.]
Hi Coconuts,
Please read under ‘More’ in my response comment to silviosilver linked below…
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-232/#comment-6230147
Anon Tennessee claims there is nothing to see. Maybe he lives by the Mississippi. The mountains are gorgeous with plenty of bears and bobcats. Keep a look out for the snakes. Also there is a bunch of fed restricted property which you definitely have to stay out of.
We have better rocks in the west.
In the future, I hope they will make a Robert E. Lee statue in Charlottesville that is also a terminator-style robot, which will guard the park from Antifa, litterers, and other deviants.
I imagine Columbus and other currently controversial figures being given a similar treatment. Can’t wait until someone tries to steal Washington’s sword.
That is an exaggeration ad absurdum and an obvious untruth. You are trying to make the other side crazy and unreasonable so that you have an excuse not to make peace and to compromise. A very hackneyed technique.
That’s how we end up in wars. You have people seriously arguing that Russia after Ukraine will for sure conquer Belgium or even Bretagne. Or that giving an inch on language rights will inevitably lead to Kim Il Chun Asiatic despotism. The claim that “no Palestinian” would leave an inch of land for the Israelis is along the same lines. It is not serious. They would if the settlement is minimally reasonable. And Israel is strong enough to tamper any later consequences. You just don’t want to do it.
Are you mad? Coulter is the hottest 61 old woman alive. In fact, is there any other 61 year old woman anywhere in the world who can wear mini skirts, a tight top showing her belly button and still look sexy? I know she doesn’t look like that when she wakes up in the morning but still. And her bone structure is 100% feminine. Look at her wrists. Sorry but that’s not a conspiracy theory, that’s just madness.
Any horror recommendations?
Here’s four that I saw over the past year or so, that I thought were alright:
Invaders from Mars (1953)
Extremely corny, but short and amusing. It seems very idealized in how easily they deal with a subverted chain of command.
House of Usher (1960)
Quite liked Vincent Price’s performance as an extreme neurotic. I must reread the story to see how it compares.
It was a budget movie, and unfortunately that shows in both the technical effects and when Price is showing the portraits of his ancestors – I would go so far as to suggest the latter should be digitally replaced.
I am a Hero (2015, Japanese)
I appreciated how it was monoracial. Hard to think of many Hollywood zombie movies like that.
Even Return of the Living dead, which broke tropes by having a sympathetic Nazi character had a typical multiracial gang in it, and somehow felt degenerate.
I also liked how Hero was lighthearted and had a sort of comical Chekov’s gun.
One Cut of the Dead (2017, Japanese)
This is an interesting film both for its ultra low budget (supposedly $22,400). And the fact that it is an inversion of themes. About ambition and creation, rather than destruction and death.
Anatoly Karlin endorses!
The melting down of the statue. Not your melancholy postscript.
I recommend having a look over at the latest iteration of the Order Nine Angles wikipedia page. MI5 and the FBI have been busy as Donald Rumsfeld’s Soviet termites.
A loud mouth is repulsive on a female.
In the Christian tradition, there is a clear distinction between Yahweh and Satan. How are you sure that Christ isn’t referring to the simple meaning of his utterance here?
Also, we know that Christ refers to the Father depicted within the OT several times, in a positive way. Here’s a clear reference to the sonship/equality and even Trinitarian view that Christ shared with YHWH, in Mark 12:34 – 12:36:
“And Jesus answered and said, teaching in the Temple
“How do the scribes say that the Christ is the Son of David?
David himself said in the Holy Spirit, [the word of the Psalm is authoritative, it is divine revelation.]
The Lord said to my lord, “Sit on my right [In the Hebrew text of this quote the word is used for God, YHWH.]
to [my] Lord” – [says] to lord [of me]. Dative of indirect object. David recognises “my lord” “as his superior rather than his son”,
until I put your enemies under your feet.”
David himself calls him lord;
and how is he his son?”
https://www.lectionarystudies.com/studyg/studyn/advent4bbgn.html
Summary: The Lord YHWH confirms Jesus Christ’s equal divinity with himself.
Any woman >30 who dresses like Coulter does should be sent to a cloistered nunnery, IMO. ESPECIALLY, those who do it on TV and are over 40.
One of the worst offenders was Emily Rooney, daughter of Andy Rooney. Fortunately, for the rest of the US she did not get much play time outside of the Boston area.
You think its crazy and unreasonable to for a people to refuse to part with a portion of their country? How much of Slovakia would you give up for peace?
I’ve got no dog is this fight at this stage because I expect this conflict to be resolved by next August regardless. I’ve got no incentive to make things up. Literally all you need to do is go talk to some Palestinians on Twitter and they will back up what I am saying.
Here is a more practical “One State” solution. Let the cantons merge with Jordan.
Jordan doesn’t want them.
Egypt doesn’t want them.
The nearby Arab states don’t want to import Iranian backed agitators. They would prefer them to remain as a pain in the ass for Israel.
Syria had the potential to take them but Russia stepped in and backed the despised secular monarchy.
YHWH has never confirmed anything regarding our Lord Jesus. This is just “adaptive theology” brought forth during the early Church evolution into a more mainstream religion. Of course you would see it as entirely canonical, and it is nowadays, but Christian doctrines might have evolved into an entirely different direction. For example, Marcion was a proponent of a clear-cut separation of the Gospels from the OT and in the hindsight he was right. It is interesting that Marcion saw himself as a disciple of Saint Paul, who was himself before his conversion to Christianity, a student under Rabbi Gamaliel, one of the most authoritative Pharisee teachers of the time. Both Saint Paul and Marcion have probably had a good grasp on the rabbinical teachings about G-d and the rabbinical teachings about our Lord Jesus. That might be the reason why Marcion was aware of the impossibility to reconcile OT with the message of our Lord Jesus. Other Christians might have had a lesser understanding of the rabbinical theology, which would have made them attempt to develop a doctrine open to receiving the Jewish people among the Christian congregations.
Why should anyone assist Jewish policy aims?
Always answer a fraudulent call, then just put the phone down and let them hang up. They have to pay for the call.
I once let them talk to me for 30 minutes while I was working and pretended to follow his instrucions. Then I told them the software wasn’t working. He asked which version of Windows and I said Windows 95.
They never called back.
I remember an article here where someone bought a house and kept the old people’s phone line, they plugged the phone in and it just rang continuously.
I have seen that already. They buy and sell the numbers of seniors.
I have a relative who gets a Social Security fraud call every other day. He won’t change his number and just deals with it. They call him by name which shows he is in a thousand Indian databases.
Another Windows support story:
I let one talk on mute while I was working. He said he was “From Windows” and could see inside my computer. He then went on about how I had viruses and such. I said oh dear, that sounds serious. I pretended to download the link and told him I would get a credit card.
I then said it’s amazing that you can see inside my computer. He said yes well I’m from Windows and an expert.
I said no it’s amazing because I’m using a Mac. Oh and this Windows software doesn’t appear to be working.
He had to keep himself from screaming at me. Was hilarious.
The IDF ground operation into Gaza has begun.
I still expect it to ultimately be a partial invasion. If Hamas is truly dismantled in Gaza, the IDF will never be able to leave
That ex has a huge big screen HDTV, pretty sure she paid a pretty penny for it (she’s the working class type who equates stuff like this with “the finer things in life”).
I’ve never spent more than 600 on a tv. In fact I haven’t bought a new one in ages. I picked up a Sony 50″ for $60 on craiglist.
I’ve read elsewhere that it turns kinda crap at some point. I think I’ve watched like six or seven episodes, and so far it’s been really good. (I can’t even pinpoint what I like about it, but like it I do.)
What happened is that David Lynch was pressured to reveal the killer early for ratings. It broke the pace of the show. I enjoyed some of the later episodes even if they were a bit out there. Also make sure to watch the movie after the show.
The sequel to Twin Peaks is another level of weird. Probably the weirdest show ever made. Read about the ending after you watch it. It’s incredibly creative.
Also watch Mullholand Drive if you haven’t seen it. Probably my favorite Lynch movie. I think you have to watch it 2-3 times to fully get it. I would watch it fresh if you can. Don’t read reviews or a synopsis.
Most of the assets will go to the following generation of Whites, but some will definitely go to woke causes. There are rich widows who donated to Obama and such. Thankfully, some of the causes might be good (health, nature conservation, maybe some local infrastructure). But definitely a certain chunk will go to the LGBT and multi-culturalists.
Any truth to the allegation that UK supermarket chain Asda went superwoke and anti-Euro after being acquired Muslims?
Heard someone imply that, but I vaguely thought it must have been superwoke and anti-Euro before that. It was a fairly recent acquisition. 2021, I think.
There’s Sikhs and a long military tradition.
https://nitter.net/bhupachad/status/1717921554070491295#m
@barbarossa Insights into behavioral differences between Bos Taurus & Indicius?
There’s debate over whether only one is protected.
ਅਕਾਲ
Why should anyone assist Jewish policy aims?
A great question for Hamas and their Al-Auxa Peace Concert and Suburban Homes Assault Brigade.
Might as well just make a deposit directly to Netanyahu’s re-election campaign. Less effort and doesn’t require getting blown into pieces.
All the contemporary artists should follow this – and they wouldn’t even have to compromise artistic freedom… alas..
Your argument is that “some people say on Twitter…” – that literally means nothing.
Comparing 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians living side by side to countries where nothing like that exists is pointless. You sound like you prefer not to give an inch of today’s Israel to Palestinians. That simply means that it will end as a single one-state – and that is a mess. Not giving an inch inevitably leads to that. Hiding behind exaggerated threats from the other side doesn’t help.
What happens next August?
Not sure about behaviors , but pretty sure the highest milk-yielding breeds are among bos taurus. It is interesting to ponder why. Whether it is related to temperature, the costs of parasite resistance, or other factors.
Found this factoid surprising:
One thing we might want to keep in mind is how dramatically things have changed in the last few years with regards to border changes and population displacement. The city of Mariupol was razed just like that (witnesses talk about how things changed literally in days from a thriving city to hell on earth), millions of Ukrainians forced into exile just like that, pushed out of their homeland. Donbas was cleansed of millions of Ukrainians whose ancestors had lived there for generations. Many people shrugged it off and blamed the Ukrainians for it. But the fact remains that these are insane levels of displacement for modern times that have been essentially normalized. Now deal with that, as Alex Parker says.
Same goes for the normalization – or rather acceptance – of barbaric fighting methods.
Of course, I do not suggest that the poor so called Palestinians should be displaced (or bombed), yes, some of them are settlers but in general it can be viewed as their ancestral land. But if this was done elsewhere (Eastern and even Central Ukraine) then why should we assume that something such as this cannot be done in the Middle East? It has been normalized. Ideally, after this war is over, there should be some kind of a peace conference, but who knows what this renewed border revision trend falls into.
Btw, the leftards shouldn’t pretend that Arabs do not want to erase Israel – many of them do. Apparently Pali children are taught these things early on. 80% of the UN humanitarian donations went to building the tunnels.
Remember that back in the day Palis had leaders such as Amin al-Husseini, the Mufti of Jerusalem who was a strong ally of Hitler and who wanted to destroy Zionists. Some may sympathize with his position, but then at least be open about it.
Well yes… However, it is the only even slightly viable “One State” solution. If someone insists on a one state solution, this is the plan that needs to go on the table.
I have indicated elsewhere that it would better to form a New Muslim Palestine on Islamic land further away from indigenous Palestinian Jews.
Having a strong governorship/protectorate structure as the launching point for New Muslim Palestine is critical. Those who wish to VOLUNTARILY leave Gaza will over subscribe the capacity of the new entity to receive them. Thus the protectorate will be able to choose applicants who are not Iranian backed troublemakers.
PEACE 😇
So why go on about how displacement has been normalized? And “so called”? How can’t you bring yourself to call them by their name? thou protest too much.…you give an impression of someone who would look the other way if the “Palis” were expelled. Or cheer it on.
They did. But it takes a real gall for a Latvian to point that out. Latvians were also allies of Hitler – very active ones unlike the Palis. And Latvia still to my best knowledge celebrates its Nazi heritage with Waffen SS marches, rewriting history, destroying monuments, etc…
Seems somewhat mutual? A poll earlier this year found that 30% of Israeli Jews want to annex the West Bank, with an additional 10% unsure. And historically, one terrorist group had territorial ambitions on Jordan, IIRC.
These are fairly alien numbers compared to most of the West. (BTW, I do not include Israel in that category – though it may have some similar elements).
Wish we had a recent poll on annexing Gaza. I imagine the numbers might be higher, but am uncertain because it is more densely populated.
Your argument is, “Concessions will make things better”. Look at the history:
-1- Allowing Jordan to control the Temple Mount turned al’Aqsa into a flashpoint. Conceding land made things worse.
-2- Allowing the PA to have land and money led to “Pay for Slay”. Concessions made things worse.
-3- Evacuating Gaza created a breeding ground for Iranian Hamas terror. Conceding land made things worse.
Why would the next concession be any better? History shows that your position is unworkable. More concessions = more suffering.
It is not inevitable and is 100% guaranteed not to happen. Jewish Palestine is now officially a Jewish nation, much like Saudi Arabia and Iran are Islamic ones. Other than the very rare Orthodox conversion, Muslim colonists in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza can never become Jewish citizens of the officially Jewish nation of Israel.
Why do you refuse to even consider VOLUNTARY, honourable, compensated “Right of Religious Return”? Living conditions in Gaza are poor, unemployment is high, and due to Iranian terrorists the situation is not going to improve any time soon. It could easily become much worse.
Why do you believe parents would not help their children by moving to a place that would give them a better future? Parents do sacrifice for their children. Very basic human drives would propel VOLUNTARY moves to a viable New Muslim Palestine.
PEACE 😇
Or as an indefinite continuation of the status quo. I suspect that most Israeli Jews even among the liberals would prefer Smotrich’s or even Ben Gvir’s vision to that of a one-state solution because at least Smotrich’s or Ben Gvir’s vision would be easier to reverse for them since their descendants could become bleeding-heart liberals in due time. But having Jews be replaced by Arabs is irreversible unless the Arabs subsequently convert en masse to Judaism, the odds of which are virtually zero.
I remarked about this because it is very important and overlooked, imo. This should’ve never been normal, yet it was done. This is a really big deal. As well as mass bombardment of urban spaces with missiles (that in fact started in Syria). To wipe out a whole city in such a short time as was done with Mariupol is a huge deal that should not have been overlooked.
All I’m saying, is that – do not be surprised if something like this, in one form or another, happens in Israel / Palestine. And if this becomes a huge war, then this might even turn into the biggest trial in Israel’s history as well.
Is there a Palestinian language? Palestine is a geographic location.
Absolutely not. Their displacement would be unnatural. But to pretend that the tactic of “our wombs will be our weapons” hasn’t backfired and that many of them do not support Hamas is also dishonest. And it’s totally understandable – Hamas are just their nationalists! Crazy ones, yes, but still normal in the sense that they are just the radical wing.
That’s exactly why I’m pointing it out! Because we got so much crap about it from leftards such as yourself and even neocons yet all these other nations were much worse. Latvians never proposed the things that the Mufti of Jerusalem did (mass extermination of Jews) and Latvians never conspired with Hitler (but were occupied and forcefully mobilized). This is a huge difference.
How come all the pro-Pali leftards do not even mention this guy? Or the typical Russian propagandists who used to rail against Baltic and Ukrainian “Nazis” (80 years later)? This guy wanted to exterminate Jews together with Hitler at the time when all these Ukrainians (and Russians) were fighting to expel the Nazis. Yet not a peep about him.
I really only have experience with Euro varieties of cattle, so I can’t help you there. There is a fair differential even between domesticate breeds. Holstein are overbred so are dumb as a bag of hammers while something like Jerseys are relatively smart with better instincts.
What is the substance of the debate? Does the presence of instinctual “cowness” factor in as a defining factor?
Is consumption of non Indic cow permitted?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zebu
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sahiwal_cattle
Secularized modern Hindus will say yes, but there’s no religious consensus on it.
As the ਖਾਲਸਾ expands South this is the primary question.
The natives of the United States are very much fans of Sikhi.
ਅਕਾਲ
The quotation of Christ’s in Mark 13:24 – 13:26 has Christ himself referring to nobody else than YHWH. Unless you feel that St. Mark was playing loose and free for some reason and transmuting false information, I find this as clear evidence of the interconnection of the OT with the NT.
Marcion may well have been a student of St. Paul’s at one time, but there is nothing to indicate that Paul was at all a proponent of separating the Gospels from the Old Testament.
But they didn’t evolve entirely in a different direction. With heavyweight luminaries like Justin Martyr, Irenaeus, and Tertullian that denounced Marcion as a heretic or antichrist, it’s no wonder that his thesis was neve adopted by most of the rest of the Church fathers.
In order to accept any of Marcion’s teachings, you probably should have to accept all of his “wisdom” I’m not ready to do that yet, are you:
More of the same sort of BS (brash sentiments). 🙂
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marcion_of_Sinope
Well yes… However, it is the only even slightly viable “One State” solution. If someone insists on a one state solution, this is the plan that needs to go on the table.
How is it viable? Jordan is an autonomous country and doesn’t want them. They made that clear:
https://nypost.com/2023/10/27/opinion/arab-worlds-indifference-is-killing-the-palestinians-they-pretend-to-love/
It isn’t simply about Israel. None of those countries want Iran backed agitators that might try to start ISIS style revolutions.
How about you take some in? Is that viable?
I have indicated elsewhere that it would better to form a New Muslim Palestine on Islamic land further away from indigenous Palestinian Jews.
Well that has been suggested for decades. Easier said than done. Where are they going to go? What will their economy look like? We can’t just drop them into a desert.
Syria has plenty of empty land but they won’t take them with the doctor in charge. Putin has influence over Syria which makes it even less likely.
The best plan I have seen is to pay Egypt to take them. Their economy has problems and could use a cash infusion. Spread the Gaza Palestinians across Egypt. Make the men work so they can’t spend their days plotting.
That’s when Moshiach is supposed to arrive. We’ve been wrong before but this time all the numbers add up
I saw a pro-Palestine rally college that was practically all White women. It was even Whiter than the usual pro-abortion rally.
Would be nice if our doofus Con Inc conservatives did something about college indoctrination.
The left is successfully convincing White women that their role in life is to lift up the non-Whites. It’s all part of the narrative that Evil White Men have held back Wakanda.
The college system has mastered the exploitation of the White woman’s natural sense of empathy. Our Con Inc doofus conservatives are asleep at the wheel.
Now for a hard hitting Fox News debate on whether or not Israel should be sent more warships.
Would have thought the answer was some species of nematodes, as there can be tens of thousands in a gram of soil, but maybe they are more biodiverse than that.
If White women wanted to achieve real equity, then they’d be willing to share much more of their own White booty with non-Whites! Yes, seriously. Would be bad for future White demographics but would nevertheless show that these White women are genuinely committed to fighting racism all of the way.
there was at least one scene that the Peter Jackson movie lifted the imagery from. The normal parts of it are okay, but on the whole, I honestly found it disturbing.
The sequences with orcs – I forget how they did it exactly, but the root of it was dressing up men in real life and passing them through some sort of green filter, I think. I am not sure if they even rotoscoped them.
I don’t think it was intentional, but to me it had the same effect as Brutalism. Perhaps, it was built on the same economic underpinnings. But the effect is just as psychologically disturbing, IMO.
I think Talha already checked out, but I was going to tell him that I did not like the style of the animation of Watership Down. (Same company?) It is kind of weird – especially when combined with all the blood. But I held my breath since it wasn’t a substantive criticism of the novel, of which my memory of is more vague.
But if he was still around I would recommend the Aneid to him, if he hadn’t read it. Whatever flaws it may have, the beginning is a work of pure genius, IMO. Similar theme.
I was trying to be a bit indirect, and I do not think it translated well over the internet (sigh).
What is the least bad “One State” solution?
Clearly the Beckow solution, a one state option within Israel is a 100% non-starter. Thus, if a Leftoid insists one a one state solution, Pali/Jordan is the least bad one on offer. MbS had one of his people float this idea a year or two ago. With enough money it has slight plausibility.
I concur with you that even the best “Beckow/One State” option is pretty atrocious, but we are trying to work with the commenters we have.
Spreading them around and placing them on a citizenship track is unappealing. However, paying Egypt is a possible starting point.
I suggested the Southern Sinai option in a prior post (1). Helping them via a non citizenship track, special administrative zone prevents future election risk. It also gives Egypt a free hand to ruthlessly suppress the Muslim Terrorist Brotherhood and other Iranian sponsored riff raff.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://www.unz.com/aanglin/two-state-is-off-the-table-were-gonna-have-to-do-a-one-state-solution/#comment-6219002
And Russians still celebrate Lenin and Stalin even right now, such as by refusing to finally bury Lenin.
You’re actually serious? The Messiah is actually going to arrive next August? August 2024? What happens if he doesn’t show up? Are you going to abandon the Jewish faith?
Any thoughts on roosters supposedly being able to recognize themselves in a mirror?
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/10/231026131543.htm
I’ve never been impressed by the intelligence of chickens, contrary to PETA claims. Hens in particular seem to be fairly stupid, and I wonder how much of their defensive instinct has been off-loaded onto roosters or other guard animals.
I noticed you overlooked Serbia Bosnia Herzegovina Croatia.
Also you forgot about the nerve gas plan. You have to admit that Palestinians in haz mat suits shooting at Israeli nerve gassers with machine guns and subsequent telegram videos would be interesting.
Don’t joke, it looks like one of the hypothetical scenarios is gassing the tunnels, but it might be the type of gas that puts one to sleep. We don’t know if the operation has been started based on the decision to sacrifice the hostages or not (probably not). So it would need to be a technically very complicated operation.
That’s what the prophecies seem to suggest
Yeah. Definitely we’d expect it sometime between then and 2034, but August 2024 is the date that all the calculations appear to point to
Then we’d know that we had calculated wrong
If Israel actually goes for the ground offensive it will be an unmitigated disaster. I’d even say the primary purpose of Hamas’ original October-7 attack (after scuttling normalisation with Saudis) was goading the IDF into exactly this sort of emotional reaction.
But anyway, I’d rather watch Dmitry, AaronB and utu argue over this. I’d just slightly more informed enough on contemporary Israel than you that I’m actually aware of the depths of my ignorance. Even just Israel’s internal Hebrew media discourse and it’s English language outreach can be so different as to describe alternate realities.
Hmm, do human women pass the mirror test?
Why do they all fhange dress in sync with the seasonal fashions?
I’ve heard ants can pass the mirror test before african babies.
Interesting questions.
ਅਕਾਲ
If you show me your calculations I can revise them for you. Right now you have a spread that doesn’t inspire any confidence. August 24 to 2034? Come on.
There may be certain aspects of the nature of the Brahman cow which make it suitable for worship. For example, they regularly approach humans and can be led without reins. This suggests a Sattvic nature amenable to humans. Killing it would be akin to killing your pet dog & done only in emergencies. Many would rather starve, and Arya history shows many have.
The aggressive nature of the water buffalo & lack of sulfur in its milk for example are cited as reasons for why its slaughter is not objectionable (Male)
A2 milk considered better for brain V buffalo milk having 50% more protein for better labor.
Singhs are moving into Indiana & Mississippi. With that American beef question solved on the matter of peace or war – we can then become the default religion of 2a and activists.
It’s literally a natural fit and already happening, just want clarity on how to move.
Caste was set up to keep slave (black) & Brahmin Baniya (Priest Merchant) blood out of Kshatriya (Warrior) gene pool.
For example, Jatts marry Afghan & Baloch in W Punjab/Pakistan without issue. Very few tribes in the Subcon lack the above blood dilution & its seen in the character.
Expanding into the Scots Irish areas with a military tradition is mutually beneficial. The latter need an energized minority leadership/religion to ward off suicidal wokeness.
We’re starting to suffer from being in one area too long. Jatt means bandit across most of the middle east. If you’re going to end up mixed, better with warrior tribes. If you’re going to end up assimilated than better a christian than lgbtp (pedophile).
That’s why the beef question needs to be solved. Is it Arya or AnArya? Going to go lift, but will clarify the political impact later. Many Scottish brothers have become Singhs in both West Virginia and the highlands themselves.
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Slaughter of European Bull is permissible.
Also part of their religion.
Heifer is not.
Preservation of Zebu cow is symbol of Arya supremacy.
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
1. I understand Israeli politics better than any of the people mentioned above. Like, much better
2. You and (especially) Dmitri know vastly more than I do about Israeli Chiloni culture, of which I know practically nothing and have never pretended to, so I don’t get why you and Dmitry keep bringing it up as some kind of gotcha.
I’m the only one here who knows people in Yitzhar, Hebron and Meah Shearim. Even Dmitri who has lived in Israel has never even spoken to someone from those places. AFAIK, I’m the only person who has ever posted on Unz, let alone these threads, who knows anything about the Israeli Haredi or Hardali sectors. I have spoken personally with Haggai Amir and have exchanged a message with Yigal through him. I spoke with Eden Natan Zada a few times (and no, I did not know what he planned to do). I’ve never spoken with Noam Federman but I have spoken extensively with David Ha’ivri and some of the other old school Kach activists. Dmitry, otoh, knows pretty much nothing about the haredim/hardalim. Dmitry even said that most people in Meah Shearim are Neturi Karta which is insanely false. So really we are just usually talking about completely different things. I doubt you or Dmitry even understand the difference between Shas and UTJ.
Something you and Dmitry don’t seem to understand is how little interaction the different sectors of the Israeli population have with each other. When you guys talk about “Israel”, you mean Gush Dan + Haifa, minus all of the Arabs and religious who are just completely invisible to you.
Dmitry also said in a previous thread that I was trying to contact him outside of this board. How the hell would I have done something like that? He’s got a screw loose.
By the way, if you talk to people in Meah Shearim, they know even less about Israeli Chilonim than I do. Ask them who the President of Israel is and most of them will have no idea.
Agreed
Not agreed. No way Hamas expected the attack to be so successful, nor did they anticipate that the Israeli response would be even this harsh. I’m sure that Hamas has no regrets but I’m also sure that they want a ceasefire.
But it does look like someone was trying to push Israel into a corner – there is no good way out of this, all scenarios are bad. And it looks like this attack was planned rather carefully, apparently they practiced attacking the wall several times, and apparently there was a cyber attack taking place simultaneously. With thousands of militants and such barbaric acts Hamas expected no retaliation?
Should be done for religious reasons though – Pagan only.
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Since I got a couple LOLs from that Action Movie Trailer bit here are a couple other Auralnauts bits. I think they are pretty brilliant guys.
And just for A123…
Dude, that is insane how dead on that is. That’s fucking crazy. wow
Speaking of burial mounds I was just reading about the Vix Grave excavated in 1953 in north-central France. It was a completely undisturbed Celtic burial of a high status woman from 500 BC which contained this 5ft tall nearly 500 lb bronze Greek krater (kraters were vessels used to mix water and wine).
Apparently Greek goods were highly sought after and they had access to them at this Celtic settlement from the Greek colonies located on the Mediterranean shore in the south of France. Pretty interesting stuff.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vix_Grave
Moshiach has to come at least 200 years before the year 6000 on the Jewish calendar. It’s currently 5784.
28 epics in the book of Ecclesiastes. 214 years of history for each epic. The second to last epic, “A time for war”, ends this year. The beginning year of that epic was 1812, when Napoleon invaded Russia. Napoleon’s army was 600k strong, a very significant number in Judaism (no Holocaust jokes please).
The war of Gog and Magog is supposed to begin on the day after Sukkot, which is the day Al Asqa Flood happened on. It’s also the same day that the Amalekites attacked the People of Israel and took captives. That attack also originated in the Gaza Strip. Amalekite is also referred to as the “Strip of Punishment” by our sages.
The climactic battle of the war of Gog and Magog, the battle that the Vilna Gaon said would last 12 minutes, is going to happen on the 13th of Adar. The war has to come 3.5 years after Moshiach arrives. If Moshiach arrives in August of 2024, that will be 3.5 years before the war of Gog and Magog. The war of Gog in Magog has to occur in either 2027 or 2030 depending on how you calculate it, but I believe it will be in 2027. March 2030 is the absolute latest date that Gog and Magog can take place, forget what I said in my previous post
And as I’ve mentioned before, Israel had 15 Judges before the United Monarchy was established. Bibi is the 15th “Judge” of modern Israel.
I like the one where they tally up every body that Arnold Schwarzeneger stabbed, bludgeoned, shot, and exploded to death over his filmography. Darth Vader blew up a whole planet but that is sanitary like Curtis LeMay dropping fire bombs on Japs and does not have similar visceral impact.
LOL, the Med guy is simply entranced by the blonde. 🙂
What if it’s the year 5800 and the Messiah still hasn’t come?
I know. It’s sad but true!
They also have just a blockbuster movie trailer spoof which is at least as good. Apparently it’s really a thing how formulaic trailers have gotten. I know someone who was in a movie theater when they got the trailers goofed up and it started playing Transformers and Little Mermaid trailers simultaneously…and it turned out that it was somehow coherent, because they were basically Exactly The Same Trailer!
Then your next one’s free
I don’t know about roosters and mirrors. I do that roosters have way more personality than most hens, although there are exceptions.
The kids and my wife form attachments to the roosters much more than the hens. It doesn’t hurt that the roosters are much more impressive looking as well. Chickens are generally smart enough to be chickens. Just don’t put them in charge of a nuclear power plant or anything like that. It won’t end well.
Yeah, was the same with Black Lives Matter. I live near a college town with two colleges, the State school having a fair number of black students.
Who showed up to every single BLM protest when that was the vogue? Like 40 white chicks from the private university. The local blacks couldn’t have cared less, apparently.
Well, humans themselves have created far weirder things than endearing hammerhead sharks.
And God incarnated among humans, we are His children and heirs.
This may be correct about a limitless being such as God, and as you are aware there is also an apophatic tradition in Christianity for those who want to try to gain some understanding of Him, specifically.
But for those not so inclined – He was born among us, to a human woman, and can be more easily understood through His incarnation.
He sounds rather similar, and moreover became different than how Jews understood God to be prior to their exile among the Persians.
In you post to Mr. Hack you wrote:
From the article I had linked to earlier:
“In 1 Chron. 21:1 (a book with heavy Persian influences), the Hebrew word satan appears for the first time as a proper name without an article. Before the exile, Satan was not a separate entity per se, but a divine function performed by the Yahweh’s subordinate deities (sons of God) or by Yahweh himself. For example, in Num. 22:22 Yahweh, in the guise of mal’ak Yahweh, is “a satan” for Balaam and his ass. The editorial switch from God inciting David to take a census in 2 Sam 24:1, and a separate evil entity with the name “Satan” doing the same deed in 1 Chron. 21:1 is the strongest evidence that there was a radical transformation in Jewish theology. Something must have caused this change, and religious syncretism with Persia is the probable cause. G. Von Rad calls it a “correction due to religious scruples” and further states that “this correction would hardly have been carried out in this way if the concept of Satan had not undergone a rather decisive transformation.”
:::::::::::::
Could it be the the change did not come with Christ but earlier, from the Persian influence, when Jews learned to worship God as a separate entity from Satan? That the Persians liberated the Jews not only from the Babylonians but also from their earlier faith and helped them to recognize and worship the true Aryan God? This would mean that the Jewish God by by the time of Jesus, Jesus’s father, was already the Aryan God.
Not that I am convinced of your theory, but if what you say is true, then the change in whom the Jews worshipped occurred centuries before Jesus. It would not have been a demiurge through all the Old Testament but only in the earlier books.
Interesting! This suggests that the Aryan roots of the faith of the Jews is much deeper, and perhaps why the Jews were much more predisposed to adopt the Aryan God from the Persians than were other Semites living further South (or perhaps the Phoenicians who continued to worship the devil Baal). Except that if what you write about the the earlier God in the older books of the OT is true then they got under the Aryan Devil first.
They knew it was bad. The Sassoons had to dismiss some of their Chinese employees because they were addicted to opium. Many of the Jewish families fought tooth and nail against banning opium.
They also looked upon the Chinese as being different from Westerners. They felt that the Chinese weren’t like us, so selling opium to the Chinese was seen as something that could be done
The politics of Shanghai were different from the politics in Europe. Japan had conquered China, and unlike the Germans, did not believe that they needed to destroy the Jews. They felt that the Jews were immensely powerful, but if they got the Jews on their side, they could be influential
. Sassoon saw that you could charm the Japanese or even con them into protecting these Jewish refugees from Europe.
https://forward.com/culture/442250/when-jews-were-kings-and-opium-lords-in-shanghai/
China hates the Jews .
Free in what sense?
it was a joke, like, “if your pizza doesn’t arrive in 30 minutes or less, your next one’s free!”
And/or the undesirability of it.
I know that one has to give fan productions a break. However that was horrifically bad towards unwatchable.
Under GW, Dick Cheney assumed the mantle of Darth Vader. The Veggie-in-Chief’s nominee Lloyd Austin makes Cheney look like a paragon of virtue.
Star Wars provides a flowing haired aspirational hero in Trump Skywalker. If you insist on more recent offerings, Trump as defender of the people:
PEACE 😇
I think you’re being very extreme here. Perhaps I was also a little extreme when I characterized Ann Coulter as “sexy” but well, I must confess that I am a little bit on the lustful side of the heterosexual spectrum. I do agree that there’s no substitute for the youthful female beauty but what is a woman over 30 supposed to do? Hide any charms she may still have and start signalling to everybody with resignation that her years of high fertility are over?
Of course, it’s true that a woman (or a man) dressed way below their age may look quite ridiculous, especially when there’s nothing left to show, but all things considered, I prefer a world where mature women look like the first example below rather than the second.
Thanks but I see lots of iffy assumptions there for my comfort. Has this method ever been used to successfully predict any concrete event?
I remember you once showing me an article that said that Basques are genetic relatives of the Irish. Are we now Meds because I don’t support Ukraine enough? LOL
As a matter of fact, having gone as far as we’ve gone with no nuclear war, it maybe makes more sense to send some money to Ukraine to prevent the Russians going towards the big cities again than to Israel to combat a group of terrorists. But that doesn’t mean that the US should fight anybody else’s wars or that we should have foolishly insisted on expanding NATO towards Russia even more. And as the sane Republicans say, any money spent on Ukraine (or any other foreign country) should have a clear goal and an exit strategy.
Yes, specifically that corrupt Ukrainian politicians, oligarchs, and military personnel don’t steal some of that aid. AFAIK, this hasn’t been a serious issue so far, but it doesn’t hurt to be safe in regards to this, assuming that the Republicans actually do care about accountability and aren’t merely using this as an excuse to block Ukraine aid.
It started with Nato bombing of Serbia in 1999, and really got going with bombing of Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. How do you manage to overlook that?
Is there an Israeli language?
If it happens – and I agree it is possible, at least partially – the consequences for Israel and by extension the West will be absolutely horrible. It would be a catastrophic descent from the claimed high ground that would totally reshuffle the world. If you think we have problems now imagine a mass expulsion or murder of millions of Palestinians and the West looking on with excuses. It is too risky and that’s why the rational West is trying desperately to prevent it. Maybe it’s too late…
The only difference is that Latvians actually murdered their Jews – and commies, Russians, others. Mufti only talked. Latvians were not “forced”, they cooperated with Nazis willingly, creating SS division, adopting policies, etc…it is not something that you can deny. Mufti got nothing on the Latvians. The elderly SS marching Latvians do not exist in Palestine.
(I am neither leftard nor neo-con. Not sure where you got that.)
I agree, in the sense that this what I actually feel, but at the same time, intellectually, I think there is some element of “denial” in being sixty and still trying to look “hot.” I don’t think it’s really a great recipe for individual happiness and the cumulative effects of large numbers of people embracing this ethic are probably not great for society either, in terms of the priorities it urges. Easy for frumpy conservative types to say “I told you so,” but I wish they’d tried harder to understand where more open-minded people were coming from when they rejected the old ways, instead of just damning them. It could have made a difference.
Sure, but how are we going to know it is him? Or her, it, whatever? Any special markings, maybe a T-shirt? I don’t want to miss it.
None of those can hold a candle to the devastation Russia wrecked on Chechnya. How do you manage to overlook that?
(Easy: you’re a lying commie propagandist, as amply documented in these pages. Thank you for so effectively discrediting yourself – saves us all a great deal of time.)
Nothing in human affairs is indefinite, things go on until they don’t. That is not going to be a solution.
Correct, usually. Let me repeat: 7 million Jews and 7 million Palestinians are living in that small piece of land. You don’t have to be a genius to figure out that the sheer numbers are more important than their status – citizens, residents, aliens, etc…Unless formally separated they will eventually be equal – it has always happened. We got time.
The ethno-enthusiasts like A123 want to expel the Palis. But it is not thought out – process, consequences, risk of massive escalation. It wouldn’t work the way the proponents imagine. It is 2023 and many things are not possible, the numbers are what they are – Palestinians effectively won by surviving. The: “but, can we expel them talk” shows is the desperate situation that Israel (and the West) got themselves into.
https://nitter.net/boparaiied/status/1717015851256484252#m
https://nitter.net/BlueBlistering/status/1716654242990055439#m
Interesting stuff on common Tengri & Saka themes in daily Punjabi culture.
https://nitter.net/boparaiied/status/1716482644576485578#m
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The real war on Chechnya happened in the fall 1999 – 6 months after Nato devastated Serbia. Are you actually defending the Nato bombing? I would remind you that Chechnya was and is a part of the Russian Federation – Serbia (including Kosovo), Iraq, Libya were independent countries. For a fanatic like you none of that seems to matter.
Don’t be a bitter, lying Polish propagandist who only sees what he wants to see.
We’re not discussing chronological precedence here. It is a simple fact that the devastation Russia wrecked on Chechnya vastly exceeds Serbia and Iraq, repeated again in Ukraine (which was LatW’s point, which you unsurprisingly missed). Insofar as urban devastation and human suffering is concerned, that Chechnya is officially a part of Russia is an irrelevant technical distinction, solely of interest to propagandistic fanatics, for whom only the West is ever truly guilty of anything. But there is no getting around Chechnya being a case of mass bombardment and mass devastation of urban areas.
I couldn’t care less about terrorist attacks against the Jew. No one ever shed a tear for the British victims of IRA terrorism, both on the left and right alike and most Jew leftists would support the Marxist IRA when the shoe is on the other foot.
What goes around comes around, double standards don’t wash with me.
Yes we are, we are discussing full context. You don’t get to cherry-pick.
Really? Why? Are you saying that borders and countries don’t matter? You just pulled that out of your…whatever
Sure. But first the post-Maidan government bombed and killed 3k Donbas people because they asked to keep their rights as Russian minority in Ukraine. Talk about devastation, what was that?
People like you are hopeless, you manipulate, omit, emotionalize – all in the name of “us vs. them”. It doesn’t work against a stronger opponent, we have been over that. It will be decided by force -the talk about this-or-that-rights-precedense… is irrelevant.
If Russia wins they will settle it as they like. You produce empty chest-beating slogans that have been discarded as based mostly on lies and half-truths, pushed by hypocrites.
So it is vae victis, but don’t cry over it, it is too late…you should had showed some conscience in 1999 when Nato bombed Serbia or in 2014 when Kiev bombed Donbas…we are in the management of consequences phase.
From what I can see in your posts you’re often thinking about the outbreak of nuclear war caused by an opaque but possibly demonic conspiracy, something like the Russian Civil War breaking out in the US, racial genocide etc.
From my pov you are think in a different framework to me. I am posting about something closer to normal politics, about cost of housing and education, impact of demographic change on culture, will standards of living rise the same way they have since the war etc.
Demographic change in a place like the UK is baked in now, unless in the next year or two a government took power which totally reversed current immigration policy and instituted Ceaucescu style pro-natalism among whites. But the chances of that happening, if you are following British politics at all, you would recognise to be very minimal.
Otoh, there are predictions, which seem pretty realistic, that due to the demographic change awareness of identity and ethnic issues among the white British is going to increase over the coming years.
The end of the cultural arc that black girl was talking about was the end of the middle class progressive one that has dominated British intellectual culture for about 40 or 50 years, and which was present as the rising model for the future decades before that.
It’s always possible I have been reading too many French writers, they like the theme of decadence more than Anglos:
Surely you meant Madonna and not Coulter? 🙂
[The problem I have with Coulter is she can sometimes come off a bit shrill, but no problems in the looks department.]
https://www.manglacharan.com/post/ugardanthi-explanation-bansavalinama
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I suppose they just want to go to McDonalds like “normal” Americans. Easy to figure the motivation there.
I actually think it’s an interesting question to consider at what point selective breeding creates animal which have no natural animal dignity left. Though, to be fair, I wouldn’t raise and eat such perverted animals anyway. Part of the reason that I raise animals is so that I can raise the animals I eat with dignity. There is no to little point with certain exceptionally dumb breeds.
I’m surprised that you can find any that know what it is, quite frankly.
One might argue that we are at the end if a 1000 years cycle that started with the first Crusade. During this cycle, the West (the cultural realm that first structured in formerly Latin space under the Germans/Norse influence) would have been an increasingly important actor in the global affairs. The importance of the West went constantly increasing until the decolonization, which only happened because the Western powers got themselves weakened in two extremely deadly world wars and had as well to contend with the USSR in an existential Cold War.
A side note, Spengler seems to have been aware of this potential “decline” of the West a 100 years ago. I wonder what he would have said if he could witness our times.
They do so like to peck and scratch that is tempting to try to train them to push buttons.
Almost moreso than the great apes.
This began when Russians sent soldiers and arms into Ukraine. And the number of civilian deaths caused by Ukrainians was 2400, 3000 includes those killed by Russian forces.
At this point everyone knows that you lie all the time but as a reminder- if you were actually right, you wouldn’t have to lie.
Russia removed a piece of Moldova before NATO removed a piece of Serbia.
You repeat your tedious old lies. Wars aren’t real or unreal according to your convenience.
There were two real Chechen wars. Wars where many soldiers and civilians died. The first one was in 1994 and lasted almost 2 years. The lowest estimate for civilian death toll was 30,000 by the Russian government. Human rights groups estimate up to 100,000 dead civilians.
Out of a population that was a fraction of that of Donbas.
Poroshenko was an incredibly gentle humanitarian compared to the Russians.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_Chechen_War
Like teacup pugs and chihuahuas?
If God is seen as an Absolute that is simultaneously transcendent and immanent, as the Ground of Being and the Master of Pleroma, then there is nothing special about the incarnation. Think of Advaita and all the Avatars in Hinduism, would any Hindu find it surprising that “the Logos has been made into flesh” ?
Correct.
God is many things to many people. In the end, the word God itself ends up loaded and becomes somewhat misguiding if we make it into an idol of sorts. And I doubt that God can be “understood” at all, but I believe that God’s presence in this finite World of ours can be experienced in many different ways.
Well yes, there’s no doubt that the Pharisee and the Essene were strongly influenced by Zoroastrianism. The word Pharisee itself might have originally been understood as “of the Persians” that is a Jewish sect under strong Persian influence. And the Jews have indeed declared Cyrus the Great to be the Messiah (not a prophet, but a divinely announted King, the equivalent of a Chakravartin in the Indian Civilization: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chakravarti_(Sanskrit_term)). It doesn’t mean that Jews have replaced the worship of the fire, smoke and brimstone G-d of the OT with the worship of the God of Light, rather their view of YHWH has been altered by what they learned from the Magians. Their G-d became a little less parochial and petty minded, but it was still far from becoming an universal Absolute God. Arguably, the Jewish G-d is still much more preoccupied with the “Holy Land” sandbox than with the rest of “his” creation, which is actually funny in a rather dark way.
Agree with that.
I think it would be very mistaken to try to put an ethnic identification on the archetype that we call God. As soon as we start doing this, we can be sure that we are losing sight of true Godhood and entering the realm of human factitious definitions. Human minds are impermanent and our ideas evolve, but God is above and beyond our semiotics, our logic and anything else we might come up with.
Scythians were not Aryan in the sense that Persians attached to the word. Only those Indo-Iranian tribes that went through BMAC and became sedentary might really be described as Aryan. Other should be described as Turanian, especially that they ended up completely intermixed and assimilated into Turkic peoples. Also the Hittites were Indo-European, but they were not Aryan. Anyway, as I wrote above, although ethnic culture has an influence on the way people see (or rather imagine) God, it doesn’t change God’s nature.
IMHO, the “best possible description” of the Absolute God is to be found in this essay by an Ismaili blogger:
https://ismailignosis.com/2014/03/27/he-who-is-above-all-else-the-strongest-argument-for-the-existence-of-god/
Not surprising, given that the Ismaili are basically Islamic Neoplatonicists.
In my scenario, nobody would see a picture of the second
But more seriously, I am something of a hardliner on this.
Imagine if Coulter was a Progressive and on state media and lower in the looks department. Elderly-looking, wizened cleavage, but dressing exactly the same. And on TV every day. That was Emily Rooney in Boston.
And there is something greatly disturbing in it, even more than the experience of the eyes. It hints at all sorts of social ills. A gerontocracy, partly of feminist whores. (Coulter isn’t a good role model for girls, IMO. No children.)
In a way, it makes you appreciate that a lot of these media people are complete sluts. Barbara Walters had some relationship with a black senator from Massachusetts, when she was younger. This guy:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_Brooke
But more broadly, I think it sets a negative example for society in a number of ways.
Youth is beautiful. But our society wastes it, in so many ways. It miseducates it, prioritizes the wrong things, and burns it, and the result is a dying Western society, where many young women actively don’t ever want to become mothers – partly because it’s I’ll ruin their body.
I am still hopeful that it can be revivified. Maybe, the distant future is better than I can imagine.
But whatever part of it may survive, IMO, will have to reject this idea that we don’t age.
TBH, I think even Lauren Southern (b1995) is too old to be a thot.
I think I would force marry her to GR, and he would make an honest woman out of her.
This is a non sequitur. It doesn’t follow that if God is seen as Absolute etc, then there is nothing special about the incarnation. God can be Absolute and the incarnation still “special” to huma beings, since it changes our experience of the absolute. No incarnation, the Absolute is experienced one way; with the incarnation, it’s experienced another. Hence the incarnation is special.
Two can play that game.
“Truth” is many things to many people. In the end, the word “Truth” itself ends up loaded and becomes somewhat misguiding if we make it into an idol of sorts. And I doubt that “Truth” can be “understood” at all, but I believe that “Truth’s” presence in this finite World of ours can be experienced in many different ways.
The status quo is ending.
It is artificially propped up by deference to the temporary high court, which is ill designed and failing. Either, Bibi will do well and thus have the popularity to fix the judiciary. Or, he will screw up and be replaced by someone more hardline who will complete that task.
Muslims view those who make ill thought out concessions as weak. This emboldens their aggression, thus the concessions never work out as planned. Court reform will allow Palestinian Jews to show strength via a consistent application of the “No Concessions Ever” concept. Peace Through Strength! may not be the catchiest slogan, but it works.
For example, critical Jewish projects will proceed. Notably allowing development of the “E1” area east of Jerusalem. Total encirclement will create facts on the ground. The idea of a 2nd capitol in East Jerusalem will be eternally quashed.
____
The idea that Demographics are Destiny is a bit problematic, but can provide some insight.
Islam unilaterally destroyed Gaza’s fresh water supply. There is no need to organize an expulsion, mass Muslim migration out of Gaza is inevitable. On the flip side, highly productive Palestinian Jews can afford desalinization to expand their water supply, and thus their population.
We may see a split on the order of 9 million Jews / 5 million Muslims within our lifetimes. And, the courts will be on the side of the 9 million indigenous Palestinian Jews. Ethno-euthanist Beckow’s false hope for a Judenfrei land from the River to the Sea will be quashed by demographics, opening the door to discuss practical solutions.
PEACE 😇
The plastic surgeons and the semaglutide patent holders and the investors sure love it. We need an accountant to compile the expense statements on Ann Coulter’s glamor. I bet leasing a new Ferrari every two years might be comparable. For sure a Porsche.
A lot of right wing type people in England idolise Sikhs for some reason, I think they’re misguided personally on the virtues of Sikhs as if Sher Singh is anything to go by they are most certainly not our friends.
The same people also tend to idolise Kurds as well, again I’m not sure why.
How did you get to move in such peculiar circles? iirc you once wrote that your mother isn’t religious and that your father isn’t even Jewish. Was that an act of youthful rebellion on your part?
(sorry if that’s too personal a question, I’m just curious since as you write yourself this isn’t a milieux familiar to other commenters here).
I don’t play games with these notions. Do you ? And if you do, why ?
“Two can play that game” is a figure of speech, meaning I can do to you what you do to me. In this case, everything you said about the word “God” and the way it is used can be said about the notion of “Truth” that you like to talk about.
Austria, Croatia, Czechia, Hungary voted with the US against the Palestinians at the UN. There were only 14 nay sayers although some abstained.
Is there a Hapsburg empire reconstruction fantasy out there only a few people know about?
Even the Zulu are using the euphemism ‘illegal immigrant.’
It is interesting to consider how SA has open borders. Isn’t it nominally run by black nationalists? And don’t they have massive unemployment?
Eh, I’m anti liberal pro white.
You might be a homosexual so I’m not your friend I guess.
I just assumed, wrongly, that everyone in North America was similar to Canadians, but just more or less racist V prog.
The whole small government, leave me alone, cowboy culture is basically a carbon copy of mine minus the obvious stuff.
You seem to be in Europe. You don’t carry guns or knives, you don’t say nigger. Please stfu, vassal.
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But I haven’t done anything to you. I was just discussing something with AP and Mr Hack. When you replied with your take on these things after I have asked you “what is your point of departure”, I just answered that what you wrote ” makes sense”. I am actually puzzled that you still continue this discussion.
Of course, but why do you consider it important to mention it ?
What is your point really?
Truth, God, Whatever…
We can use a lot of different words to attempt to describe the Absolute, all of them will miss something.
Absolute, the Real, Whatever…
It is not important.
We attempt to describe something we cannot even fathom at all.
It is actually completely futile.
But deep down in the very inner core of our mind, we might already be inherently connected to that what we cannot possibly describe.
Hence the attempt to use intuition as opposed to reason to experience something that cannot be logically categorized and defined.
As a female Jewish friend of mine once opined: everybody have “their own Arabs”…
They’re the least likely to own guns & most supportive of gun control.
I actually experienced the Pajeet gang rape culture yesterday. Was speaking to a chick & this 5ft tall black pest comes up.
She swatted him away before I noticed. He had the I want to rape & descerate you because out of my league vibe. He’s (me) also an Indian so I getting 2nds vibe.
Jokes aside, at my core I felt that it’s Arya (noble) to protect women from such beasts. Was born for such a duty.
ਅਕਾਲ
I notice how in South Africa they always refer to blacks murdering blacks from other countries as “xenophobia”, presumably because they couldn’t bear to call them “racists” because it would undermine the idea that only whites can be racist.
Of course, whites in England who are opposed to mass immigration from Eastern Europe are just referred to as old fashioned racists, no “xenophobia” euphemism is used in that case.
Worship weapons, lift weights.
Stop over complicating it lol.
Not everyone needs to experience ‘Brahman’.
Or be overly mercantile or spiritual.
You’re making Dharma look bad/gay. Dharma for silvio may simply be a mortar team & a bosnian village.
The simple is sublime, the simple is effective.
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
ew
Limonov about psychosomatic pain:
https://t.me/paragnomen/2454
It was 9/11.
I was a news junkie for months after 9/11 happened. Because there was a lot of focus on the Israel/Palestine conflict, I started researching it. This was during the dark days of the 2nd Intifada.
As I started to develop more of an emotional connection with Israel, I became increasingly frustrated with the impotence of Sharon and started looking for more right wing figures. That was how I found Moshe Feiglin and through Feiglin I found out about Kahane. Back then, there was still an English language Kahane message board (remember message boards?) and that was where I met a lot of right wing activists in Judea/Samaria. Through them I eventually came in contact with some of the even more extreme figures. Zada, for instance, never would have posted on an English language message board.
In the aftermath of the expulsion from Gush Katif I adopted an increasingly anti Zionist line and became frustrated with the Kahanists who continued to regard the Palestinians as the biggest enemy whereas I had started to see the Palestinians as useful allies against the State of Israel. Some of the Kahane message board OG’s who shared my views (nobody was as extreme as me back then but they sympathized) got me in contact with Haggai and some anti state activists in Meah Shearim. Mainly I just interacted with them during the Haredi war against the Zionist draft, once it became clear that the State of Israel had completely failed in its quest to draft the Haredim, I lost touch with all of them.
Thailand is poised to legalize gay marriage. The first in SE Asia.
While I consider it unfortunate, am surprised it took so long, given certain stereotypes.
Find phrases like “anti state” pretty ominous tbh, if you don’t accept the state as a framework (even if only with the intent of taking it over and then using its power for your own purposes) imo you’ve left the realm of politics.
Thanks for your comment, that was quite interesting.
I agree with this:
https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2023/10/how-much-time-should-children-be-forced-to-spend-in-school/
IMO, 1/1000 of what is spent on public schooling, if invested correctly, would make the internet a vastly more useful tool.
We would likely still be better off even just writing checks to kids. Though it is easy to think of more prudent uses.
You are right. Discussing this with most people is a waste of time. Better go jogging instead.
I guess so. But remember that my point was her having an exceptional (and very feminine) physique. You don’t get those abs and that hourglass figure without some extraordinary genes. What’s she gonna do about it? Keep it secret? She seems to prefer having fun by exploring how much attention she can still get from men, which happens to be quite a lot. A guy in his 20s actually proposed her and she accepted a date at Red Lobster that she posted pictures about on Twitter. Let her have that fun while she can, as far as I’m concerned.
I’m biased towards her anyway, because I find most of her ideas sexy too.
Mr Hack, I have a great deal of respect for Orthodox Christianity even though I left the Church. Therefore I prefer to stop this discussion. I don’t want to disrespect anything you might believe in, it is just that I have come to different conclusions. Be well and enjoy your weekend!
🙂
There are different ways of aging though. The grip strength champion of the world happens to be a 73 year old Norwegian guy. Should he have accepted his inevitable decline 20-30 years ago and stop trying to improve or is he right in ignoring age and continuing to test his limits?
What you were posting sounds quite Spenglerian, making civilisational or racial spirit the main explanatory or determining factor in history.
How well can Spengler be used to explain near and medium term political events compared to other approaches? I always wondered how testable it is for this stuff, and also what it is telling us about, the fate of races, cultures (because some cultural forms of the West have spread all over by now)?
There seem to be various different ways of interpreting this though, variations on the master-slave dialectic used by the post-colonialists, the idea of a ‘dialectic of the West’ in politics that arose due to the mixed inheritance of the Roman Empire, the Church and the barbarian kingdoms, Gobineau’s idea about racial mixing, among the various options besides Spenglerism.
Should have added the materialist/Marxist explanations as well.
Yes, and of course the bizarre things that people create with physical objects.
1. Hindi Avatars were of “lesser” gods such as Vishnu or Kali and not of the one God above all (God of gods) as was Jesus.
2. Hindu avatars were IIRC not fleshly beings born of human mothers; they probably could not experience pain and other things that we humans do and that Jesus did.
So, Jesus is unique.
The God that the Jews worshipped after their encounter with the Persians was indeed universal, they just gave themselves a special place, as later nationalists would do. Some Russian Orthodox do the same.
https://www.webpages.uidaho.edu/ngier/309/zorojud.htm
“It was not so much monotheism that the exilic Jews learned from the Persians as it was universalism, the belief that one God rules universally and will save not only the Jews but all those who turn to God. This universalism does not appear explicitly until Second Isaiah, which by all scholarly accounts except some fundamentalists, was written during and after the Babylonian exile.”
This is an excellent source with more details about the conversion of the Jews to the correct Persian faith:
http://www.cais-soas.com/CAIS/Religions/non-iranian/Judaism/Persian_Judaism/book2/pt8.htm
The Persian king Cyrus was seen by the Jews as a Saviour. He ordered the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, as we know from inscriptions as well as the Old Testament and was much admired by the prophet, Isaiah. The end of 2 Chronicles has exactly the same verses as the beginning of Ezra:
Now in the first year of Cyrus king of Persia, that the word of the Lord by the mouth of Jeremiah might be fulfilled, the Lord stirred up the spirit of Cyrus king of Persia, that he made a proclamation throughout all his kingdom, and put it also in writing, saying, Thus saith Cyrus king of Persia, The Lord God of heaven hath given me all the kingdoms of the earth; and he hath charged me to build him an house at Jerusalem, which is in Judah. Who is there among you of all his people? his God be with him, and let him go up to Jerusalem, which is in Judah, and build the house of the Lord God of Israel, he is the God which is in Jerusalem. (Ezra 1:1-3)
Cyrus in this citation does not simply say that Yehouah charged him to build him a house at Jerusalem, but the “God of Heaven,” none other than Ahuramazda, identified as Yehouah (Lord), but he then calls him (or the author of Ezra does) Yehouah (Lord) “God of Israel.” After the exile the “God of Israel,” Yehouah, has the title, the “God of Heaven” declaring him to be Ahuramazda.
“…Zoroastrianism was monotheistic. Ahuramazda was the only god, but there was nothing that proclaimed that Ahuramazda was god’s only name. Cyrus was happy to adapt all the “Great Lords” of his empire into the one Great Lord. All the king was doing in setting up a temple in Jerusalem was making Yehouah into Ahuramazda as well.”
The Yehudim that returned came with the propaganda that Cyrus was restoring an old god when he was creating a temple to Ahuramazda, dressed in local habit. But the “returners” had to persuade the ordinary untaught and unskilled Israelites who were not transported and retained their original beliefs that the change was what they wanted. The locals in the Judaean hills did not recognize the new god and rejected him and his followers. They opposed Zerubabel and his “returners”.
The construction of the temple designed by the Persian king, Cyrus, was delayed by both political and physical means. These Yehudim that had not been exiled eventually built their own temple on Mount Gerizim and dismissed Jerusalem from their Pentateuch. They were the original Israelites but were dismissed as Samaritans and the “Men of the Land” or Am ha-Eretz, by the worshippers of the new Yehouah. Under the Greeks, further factionalism occurred, the pro-Greek faction placed in power becoming the Sadducees supposedly following the line of the temple priests named after the mythical Zadok (Greek, Sadduc) and rejecting Persian ideas, but the pro-Persian faction called themselves Hasids, the Pious Ones, before splintering into Pharisees (Persians) and Essenes (Saviours or Deliverers).
Zoroastrianism was the source of Jewish monotheism, brought from “exile” on the “return” (Isa 43:10-13; Jer 10:1-16). Even Christian scholars note that the concept of Ahuramazda is closer to that of the Jewish God than that of any other eastern religion. The old Israelites of the Palestinian hill country were not monotheists. Before it was remodelled by the Persians, Judaism was polytheistic. The Jewish god was a tribal god—one of many Semitic tribal gods, generally called Lord, which in Semitic languages is Baal or Bel. A tribal god, of necessity, implies polytheism since there are other tribes. The idea of the covenant with one tribe, the Israelites, implies polytheism. In it God commands:
Thou shalt have no other gods before me,
Ex 20:3
admitting there were other gods. When the sages wrote down the holy books, they introduced ideas from Zoroastrianism. Spentas became angels and divas became demons (devils). Their tribal god became a universal God but one which still favoured his Chosen People.
In Judaism, Deutero-Isaiah contains the first monotheistic declarations in the Bible, the first expression of universalism which has no antecedent in it, approaching the monotheism and universalism of Zoroaster just when the Persian King Cyrus appears as an apparent saviour for the Jews! A universal God must be monotheistic because only he is worshipped. A local god is only one of many. The Persians introduced the idea of a perfect, loving, universal god—Ahuramazda by any other name—whose earthly presence and saviour was the king of kings, the king of the Persian Empire.
Agree. I did not mean that, but was unclear. I was using Aryan to denote that the Aryans worshipped him earlier, but as a way of claiing that He was some sort of ethnic Aryan deity.
She was a cheerleader for the Iraq war. I thought she was ugly, with a horse face. Haven’t paid attention since that time, but I’m not into blondes.
With regard to men, to a certain degree, I think it is important to know your limits – frankly, I think not knowing them has been the death of many, for example, in shoveling snow. But I have nothing against lifting into old age, if you can do it. Or figures like Tom Brady and Brett Favre – I think loosely they an inspiration to vitality, if perhaps an unrealistic example for most to match, at the same age. And though I do frown on the woke and antinationalist characteristics of sportsball and don’t watch it myself.
Where potentially it might be a bit less beneign is Hollywood misrepresenting age. But overall that is a very minor point to the bigger ones I would make:
We should encourage young men to be fathers. Remind everyone of mortality. Try to move away from the BS of over-education and other ways that young men are exploited and youth misspent.
(BTW, I hear Greta only just graduated high school at age 20)
In an ideal society, you’d want to move fatherhood to a younger age. (I don’t mean by discouraging old fathers, but by encouraging young.)
Thottery IMO is something that in general should be discouraged. Perhaps, there should be a certain tolerance for young women showing skin, but only to a certain point. Not ad infinitum. Not the obese and not to the Emily Rooney or Crypt-keeper stage.
It begun on Maidan when Nazis were screaming “Kill the Moskali!” Maidan leaders immediately canceled the status of Russian language as the second language for minorities in schools and offices. Ukraine was 50% native Russian speakers, in Donbas 90%. Then Kiev started to bomb Donbas and killed 3k civilians. That’s when it begun…
When you start blabbing about “Moldova” you know you lost the argument. How about also Grenada, Panama, or even Vietnam? You seem quite mental and I will leave you to it. It must be now very hard so we should give you some space….
1. I wasn’t against all states, just the State of Israel. I wanted there to be a Palestinian state that would hopefully allow non Zionist, religious Jews to remain. But even if such a thing weren’t possible I would have preferred to see all Jews banished from the Land of Israel permanently than to allow the Zionists to continue to rule any of it. I remember talking to an Israeli woman on a bus in Toronto about my feelings towards the State of Israel and she said, “It sounds like, ‘Let me die with the Philistines’” and I agreed that that was a perfect summary of my feelings.
2. I was young, eventually I mellowed out. By the time I started post on Unz I was no longer as extreme as I had been in the 2005 to 2013 time period. Well, not always at least. It’s impossible to describe the sense of betrayal I felt towards the state and Israeli public after Gush Katif. Even all these years later there are still times where I can fall back into murderous, outright genocidal, hatred towards the Chiloni/traditional public and I have to use anger management techniques to cool down*. The only analogy I can think of is imagine if you had a brother who raped your sister. You would hate that brother with a greater intensity than you would have if it were some random shlub who raped her because there would be an added sense of betrayal.
And one of the things about hate is that it warps your judgement so you start to believe things that don’t really make sense. The scary thing for me is that if I hadn’t gone to jail and developed major depression (unrelated), I’d still be trapped in the same place today. Because the truth is, I enjoyed hating.
*For the record, I have had serious anger issues my entire life. I once told my father that I hoped that the cancer that he had killed him, I once told me sister that I hoped that she would be raped and murdered when she went away to college and one time I even threatened my mother that I was going to kill her when she blamed Trump for COVID happening.
sorry for the autobio
Also try the wonderful, uplifting, and at times silly Russian folk group “Otava Yo.”
Here is a beautiful children’s song:
Here is the indescribable “Russian Couplets While Fighting”:
And the new classic “Pro Ivana Groove”:
Fact checks welcomed:
https://thegrayzone.com/2023/10/27/israels-military-shelled-burning-tanks-helicopters/
Related –
“People of Darkness” – The Grayzone live
Max Blumenthal and Aaron Mate discuss the ongoing war in Palestine, Israel’s gruesome assault on Gaza’s civilians and its desperate campaign for sympathy on the world stage. They will also cover US airstrikes on northeastern Syria and the looming threat of regional war.
I’ve looked really hard and I just don’t see it at all. I think she’s homely, actually. I have weird tastes but in this case I think I’m with the majority. I think what happens is there are some maladjusted, young right wing guys who have this fantasy of “getting back” at the Jews by fucking their women so it warps their perception.
Call it the Abigail Shapiro test: do you find Abigail Shapiro attractive? If yes, you are definitely an antisemite.
There should be nothing in that bill except the border security, along with cuts to military overspending to offset the increase.
If you, like most “israelis”, want to degrade, terrorize, and murder Arabs, go try and do it yourself. Don’t start down the path to US soldier thugs doing the dirty work for you.
If you want to donate money to the israeli thugs, donate your own money, not ours.
If you want to live in a society and government that revolves on what is best for one particular inbred race, move to israel (while it’s still there, Bubela 😉
The “israelis” do need your help. They’re getting tired bombing apartment buildings and hospitals, and sometimes those women and children scratch you and try to fight back before you shoot them. Genocide and theft are hard work.
Can’t relate tbh (just like I couldn’t relate to something like the Amish). I mean sure, it might not be totally impossible, but even if you had internal autonomy, what’s so great about being a dhimmi community? Doesn’t seem preferable to me to one’s own state with real sovereignty. But I suppose that’s a question of perspective, different values and all that.
I don’t understand the logic here. Those settlements wouldn’t even have been there without the Israeli state. Sure, you could see their evacuation as a sort of sell-out from a religious-nationalist perspective. But if you’re against the Israeli state per se (not just particular policies), there doesn’t seem to be any basis even for that complaint.
Based. I recently wanted to eat something in the canteen of my former university, and was pretty angry when I noticed they now don’t serve meat or fish on Tuesdays and Fridays, only vegan slop. I’m convinced this is the fault of all those young women with their stupid sentimentality about not eating animals (and not keeping undesirable foreigners out). Feminization of higher education has been a really pernicious trend.
“Jesus is unique.” Perhaps the incoherent notion of “the trinity” is unique, but jesus himself was not.
He lived, he spouted idiocy due to mental illness or fraudulence, he gave useful advice and guidance amidst the stupid or pointless or vicious things he said, then he got himself killed (according to the christian account, though not the muslim one), and his followers ran away while he was nailed to a post like a common criminal.
Now jesus is long dead, far from unique for a mere human being.
Luckily for humanity, jesus won’t be coming back to fulfill his sick threat that when he returns, he will command people to find all his enemies “who do not want me to reign over them, bring them to me, and slay them before me.” That quote comes from whichever sick bastard wrote “the gospel” of luke 29:7. Notice he doesn’t say that he will have murderers or, say, child-rapists/molesters killed as punishment. Instead, everyone who doesn’t want to be ruled by him must be murdered in front of him.
Nice role model and spiritual “leader”, christians. Good thing your dead hero wasn’t vicious and off his rocker like that uniquely evil mohammad.
Only have a vague memory of what she looks like, but I feel like she would be a terrible nag. Ben Shapiro sounds like a normal person sped up to like 3x or 4x. Not an attractive quality in a GF, IMO.
Cool, I’m finally not as antisemitic as I thought I was. I don’t find her attractive at all. Probably wouldn’t be able to find anyone named Shapiro attractive though, not because they would be Jewish, but because they would presumably be from the same lineage as Vladimir Solovyov (whose Jewish family name is Shapiro).
As I have already written, I agree that Zoroastrian influence on Judaism was very important. I was aware of what you posted about it and would like to add to that list of yours the Elephantine Island letter, discovered in Egypt, sent by a high ranking Jewish aristocrat serving under Darius II to the local (and quite ancient) Jewish community, describing the exact manner of celebrating Passover, and which was sent under the Shahanshah’s august patronage.
https://thetorah.com/article/darius-ii-delays-the-festival-of-matzot-in-418-bce
Unfortunately, all this did not prevent Jews from betraying their Persian benefactors when the Macedonian conquerors came around. And yes, these Persian-influenced Jews split into two antagonistic sects of Essenes and Pharisees, of which the Essene had to vacate Jerusalem and find refuge in Qumran and other similar places. The Essene were probably influential on the religious movement started by John the Baptist, whose offshoots that did not join early Christian churches, would become bancestors to modern day Mandaeans, and would also contribute to the inception of the Manichaean creed. Religions evolve in clades, their memetic content mutate and adapt.
Of notable importance from my pov are the lesser known Therapeutae, another syncretic Judaic sect:
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Therapeutae
I do think that it might have been this community that Jesus joined while living in Egypt in his youth, before coming back to the land of his ancestors, where his aging parents have already returned with his brothers and sisters. That would explain a lot of his somewhat heterodox (from the strictly Judaic pov) opinions on religious matters and his dedication to heal those afflicted with physical and mental illnesses (something that Theurapeutae were renowned for). I have already commented in the past about Celsus writing in his “Against Christians” that young Jesus had joined a “mystical order” and that Jesus taught his followers to “become beggars” which is of course what Buddhist monastics were supposed to do.
Not all Aryans, the Vedic Aryans did not worship Ahura Mazda, quite the opposite, given that Zarathustra had declared the Devas worshipped by the Vedic Aryans and (the more primitive nomadic) Turanian tribes (Scythians) to be demons and enemies of Ahura Mazda. Later on, most northern Vedic Aryans converted to Buddhism, and so also did the Indo-Scythians and also of course the Kushans who were related to Tokharians.
Those who did not convert to Buddhism or Zoroastrianism, either in India kept practicing proto-Hinduism (which only became properly Hinduism under the influence of Buddhism) or in Central Asia practiced Mithraism (as did Parthians and those Turanian Scythian tribes who ended up under Hephtalite Hun domination), and finally some still practices the very primitive form of archaic proto-zoroastrian religion that survived in the remote highlands of the Zhangzhung and finally morphed into Bön while the natives admixed completely with the Tibetan.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zhangzhung
What is interesting, and is closer home for both of us, is that according to some accounts I have read of the early Christian (Ossetian / Alan) Christian missionaries’ activities in Slavic lands (preceding Saints Cyril and Methodius) , the pagan Slavs might have also had some higher form of paganism, along the more ritualistic folk religion. In that higher form of paganism, the Divine Essence would have been equated with the White Light pervading the creation (hence the expression белый свет in modern day Russian). All the gods would have been “incarnations” of that White Light. If that was truly the case (impossible to prove or disprove nowadays), Svyatovit would have been the main “personalisation” of this White Light – a higher God with a certain “universal” outlook about him. But it is possible that all this is just neo-pagan новодел and has nothing to do with what really was the case 1500 years ago.
The two may be connected. I am not sure it is sentimentality, the young feminist militants are driven by demons that are more biological. They want a different world – basically they reject the societal deal: mating, eating, keeping one’s people going. It seems unsentimental, more like a temper tantrum.
When I was a kid commies wouldn’t serve us meat on Fridays in school, they substituted some heavy-carbo-saucy-slop – I wish it was veggies. We never understood it but the theory was that the school cooking staff needed to steal the meat for the weekend. The truth is that any institution taken over by women ceases to be rational.
Those took place when the world was still somewhat stable, but now the strategic power balance in the world is changing rapidly so what I was talking about is something different – the perception that this is normal, that, yes, you can expel millions, yes, you can raze a city and nothing will happen, you will not be punished. And that’s what’s happening now. You can maybe argue that those things started it and that there is a chain of events, but right now one can see very clearly how the two current wars are connected.
The other examples you mention are of course problematic from the pov of international law, even though those are also different – Serbia was less devastating than Iraq, etc. And, yes, you conveniently omit Chechnya (which was absolutely horrific, with a huge portion of that nation killed, yet the world accepted it – this, too, is highly problematic and one can even argue that this is how these violent Russian “salami slicing” incursions continued because they were tolerated).
Yes, Hebrew. Palestinians are a type of Arab, and several Arab states were created. Ofc, that doesn’t mean Palis should be “expelled” or killed. And ofc we have Austria and Germany, etc, that speak the same language but are different states.
The Israeli intelligence knew months ago (at least 6 months ago) that a big war with the Iranian proxies is coming (but they were concentrating more on the north, while the surprise came in the south). The key now is to avoid a large regional war. There are actors who seem to want it. As I said, everyone will now try to settle old scores because “they can”.
The Jews were killed by the SD who were German nationals.
They were not innocent but actually murdered and tortured Latvians a year prior. Also were supporters of the Soviet power which was criminal and very brutal. So they were totally ok with their compatriots being murdered by the Soviets.
Hahah, nonsense! The mufti organized pogroms where Jews were killed, was a friend of Eichmann and egged him on to kill all the Jews, he stayed in Germany for 4 years under the auspices of the Nazi government, he met with Hitler personally, he sieged. I haven’t seen one Baltic Legionary who sieged. Not to mention the leadership of the Lutheran church.
Not that there’s anything wrong with sieging, but then let’s be honest about everyone who did (including Slovaks who collaborated happily – you guys were literally Nazi allies while we were occupied and so were the Lithuanians, and many in the Lithuanian elite (non-commies) were actually executed for resisting the Nazis).
We were under the German occupation and had a Gauleiter, while Amin al-Husseini did all this on his own (yes, he had issues with the British but he did essentially live with the Nazis). After the war the British didn’t even want to admit the Jews that survived the Holocaust into Palestine, they were all emaciated on the ships and they attacked those ships.
Yet the “progressive” part of the world is quiet about all this and doesn’t even bring it up.
No, the Legion was formed by the command from Hitler. And there was a massive, illegal mobilization.
How many Muslims fought under the SS? Tens of thousands? More?
Most Legionaries are now dead, yet the Palis are almost all anti-Jewish. Rightfully or no, is a different issue. They hate each other and you ignore it. Act like there is no issue. The kids in schools are presented with math problems where they have to “count dead Jews”.
I didn’t mean you personally, but the hypocrites who will not admit all these things. But you seem to be included in that group. You rail about Baltic Legionaries but you do not see those Palis that flash the German swastika during anti-Israel rallies.
Mossad didn’t share your belief that Arajs Kommando hadn’t done any killing themselves:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herberts_Cukurs#Assassination_by_Israeli_agents_(1965)
Not that it should matter today. But there’s something very strange about you repeating all those Zionist talking points (with even the British making an appearance as villains), while also pushing WW2 revisionism when it comes to your own people.
When did I say this? Maybe in your imagination.
Lol I think there is some projection here.
You couldn’t understand Hebrew videos you posted to me, so you don’t understand simple Hebrew.
Also most of your comments about Israel are incorrect in factual ways, which waste time to correct.
No, I said most people are inbreeding cults like Neturei Karta. You can read the comment it’s in the same thread.
Any generalization about slavs and dating doesn’t make sense though, unless you want to exclude large nationalities like Poles.
The language families are not a useful category there. For example, Polish women are very different culturally, than Russian women, probably closer to Germans overall.
To be fully accurate, there was an independent Ichkeria for a while (in 1994) and they won the first war (the Independence war essentially). They were de facto independent for a while, but they were not internationally recognized despite their attempts. So we can argue at least that they were overwhelmed by Russia against the will of a large part of the local population. There are just bare facts Beckow that you do not want to see.
It’s the famous “demographic transition”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographic_transition
The surprising thing we could notice in the last decade or more, is the demographic transition is happening also in countries without significant economic development.
–
If you want my “mystical” interpretation of the demographic transition, it could seem almost a “species wisdom”.
In the Malthusian trap, if you remove the limit in food supply, the population should continue expanding until catastrophe. Rats are supposed to continue to breed until they eat all their food.
In humans, if the food supply is not the condition to prevent the overpopulation, you will expect something eventually like world wars, low value of life, perhaps thermonuclear wars. You could imagine an expanding India and Pakistan going to this scenario.
But now even those third world countries are going to demographic transition, without much economic development. If you look at countries like Bangladesh, even soon Pakistan. They are going to demographic transition while a high proportion of their population are still farmers living in the traditional village.
Actually, she looks pretty low maintenance. She is just very thin naturally and has good hair (especially given that her hair seems to be regularly colored, some British folks have very good thick, but light hair although her original hair is not that light). And she hasn’t carried a baby to term – although I’ve seen some pretty hot milfs.
But your general point is of course correct – the beauty industry is huge, a billion dollar industry. With what I’ve spent over the years I could’ve probably bought a luxury condo. Just can’t help it, it’s just so addictive. And it may not even be about the drive to maintain youthfulness, but more about self-care.
Here’s the original Ann Coulter look:
https://snakkle.com/galleries/before-they-were-famous-stars-political-commentator-tv-hosts-photos-then-and-now/ann-coulter-yearbook-high-school-young-red-carpet-2011-photo-split/
On a more serious note – what is the exact problem with the wall? It shouldn’t be that hard to build.
I never have claimed to. I was raised Christian, I never went to Hebrew school. I can’t read a single letter of Hebrew. I’ve never claimed to know anything about the Hebrew language. Why do you keep bringing this up like it proves anything? What point are you trying to make?
Also, you do realize that knowing a lot about secular Israeli culture is a bad thing, right? Why do you keep bragging about it like it’s a positive? Even if Moshiach doesn’t come soon, secular Israel won’t exist in another 30 years. You are so proud to know so much about a society that is nothing more than a living fossil. Why?
Meanwhile you don’t know anything about people in Yitzhar, Hebron and Meah Shearim. Real Jews. The Jews who go back over 3000 years. That is something you should be ashamed over, not proud.
Dude, it’s in the same fucking thread you cite later in this same post. I can’t believe you are denying saying something you said less than 2 weeks ago. This really is how all Israeli Chilonim speak. This is amazing to witness. You have gone native.
Okay, that’s not true either. Most residents of Meah Shearim are part of mainstream Haredi groups. Unless you are trying to say that anti Zionist sects like Satmar are comparable to Neturi Karta, which is so retarded that even a Chiloni wouldn’t say it. Honestly, Meah Shearim probably has more non Zionist than anti Zionists.
Are you sure that you are actually a Russian and not a Chiloni Sabra? Because you speak the exact same way that Chiloni Sabras do.
Greasy, you have might be the strangest individual I’ve ever encountered here over the near decade that I’ve visited Unz-Dot-Com (Lord Have Mercy), that’s really no mean feat.
Decolonization literature sometimes glamorizes violence of the “colonized peoples” against the “colonial peoples”. E.g. terrorist attacks in the West are sometimes viewed like this.
If the beheading and rape is against the “colonial peoples” then it is some kind of “resistance” against “Enlightenment”.
For many of these writers European Enlightenment is viewed as a kind of prison, so violence against it is romantic atavism. Especially because of the violence, Islam is viewed as kind of romantic resistance movement of the colonized peoples.
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An example is a French philosopher, Michel Foucault, who was supporter of the Islamic Revolution in Iran.
He was part of the LGBT community of his epoch, but has been visiting Iran, supporting the Ayatollahs.
https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/F/bo3534884.html
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Today, some of the most anti-Israel groups, are the LGBT and feminist organizations.
It’s not very logical on the surface.
But maybe from the view of the psychology of these suburban people who live on the college campus, it makes sense.
You are writing about a country where you can’t understand a letter of its language. Then you wonder why are your comments about it are incorrect in the most simple ways.
It explains why your posts are low quality in this area, although it doesn’t explain the other areas.
Post the link to the comment where “Dmitry also said in a previous thread that I was trying to contact him outside of this board.”
It could be difficult, as the location will be someone in your imagination.
“It was talking about the cults in Mea Shearim, which is a romantical 19th century place in Jerusalem, with 18th century lifestyle, which is famous for having extremist, marginal cults and attacking tourists who go near there, spitting on tourists, burning Israel flags, shouting at women who wear trousers etc. Haredim are a wide category with a many different religious cults.”
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-232/#comment-6223318
I seem to trigger memories of an interaction with the native Israelis, who noticed you didn’t know anything.
It’s someone writing about America, who doesn’t know a letter of English, never visited America. Then they argue with people who know English, visited America.
Lol, I didn’t say you had. You seemed to take the word “game” very literally when I said “two can play that game,” so I thought you might be unaware that it’s a common figure of speech and I went on to provide a definition of it. “What you say about my position, I can say about yours” is one way of defining “two can play that game,” which is particularly apt when we are talking about debates and arguments. It’s not that I took anything you said personally, and as a result felt some need to jump in. (And anyone should be free to jump in at any point, as far as I’m concerned; this “I wasn’t talking to you nonsense has no place on an open message board, as long as points made by a poster are being addressed.)
Actually, I took your curt “makes sense” reply as indication that we were done with that discussion. This is a different discussion. I posted in response to your claim that the Absoluteness of God means the incarnation isn’t special. It’s not some crime to continue a discussion, but this is clearly quite unconnected with what we were previously talking about.
Because you were using the vagueness of term “God” in order to be dismissive of the concept of God.
You clearly want to insist on the relevance of “Truth” as you use it (as part of your Buddhist-influence belief system), but you seemed unaware that the very same vagueness you use to dismiss God can be used to dismiss your “Truth.”
I’m not pretending to be impartial. I don’t much like your religious views. When you are posting about them in an attempt to convince others of their validity – which is what you are doing, whether you want to admit it or not – it’s understandable I’d be unwilling to overlook what I regard as logical shortcomings. Isn’t this the way it normally work in life? If someone is saying something you agree with, you won’t mind much if they’re doing it less than perfectly logically, but if someone is trying to convince you of something you’re disinclined to accept, you will have a very sharp eye for any chinks in their armor.
Lastly, wrt to your comment to the singh, I disagree that it’s a waste of time to discuss all this. Even when people state their disagreement with you, it shouldn’t be taken to mean that their views are not being subtly influenced. The stated disagreement is sometimes (not always) only the viewable surface, and we don’t know what is happening below. “You were right and I was wrong” are words that are seldom heard in discussions and yet people often have their views changed.
Why do you insist on humiliating yourself? Read it and weep:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-230/#comment-6197333
You are doing the typical Chiloni thing of saying that only Neturi Karta, Satmar and other similar groups hate the State of Israel and that most Haredim have no problem with Israel or the Chilonim. And that’s total bullshit. Chilonim always say, “Oh the Haredim are just like us and they want to serve in the IDF and be our friends, it’s only some extremist like Neturi Karta who don’t like us”. It isn’t true. Your Chiloni friends were all certain that the IDF would succeed in drafting the Haredim but I knew that would never happen because, unlike you, I actually know some Haredim. Your Chiloni friends also supported Oslo and Gush Katif, and have never repented. The Chilonim have repeatedly proven that they know absolutely nothing. Knowing a lot about a group that knows nothing, a group that will be extinct within 30 years no matter what, that is not something to brag about or be proud of.
By the way, back in 2011 – 2013 when I argued with Chilonim about the draft, they all used that exact same argument: “You don’t even know Hebrew! You have never been to Israel! I live here and the Haredim love this country and will serve in the IDF!”. So yes, you do remind me a lot of the Chilonim I’ve had the misfortune of interacting with.
We’ve had our spats, but I’m not saying the following just to be an asshole.
Foucault is dead, so in English it’s flatly incorrect to say of him that “he has been visiting.” If you insist on using the gerund then you’d have to say “had been visiting.” On your overuse (sometimes ungrammatical) of the gerund, it sometimes makes your arguments hard and tedious to follow – especially in longer posts – because it requires first untangling what you’re actually trying to say before figuring out whether it’s a valid point or not. (To be clear, in the quoted sentence, the error is utterly negligible wrt to your meaning; other times it’s not.)
You’ve defended your grammatical errors in the past by saying you really could write perfectly grammatically if you weren’t in a rush etc. Well okay, but if that’s the case, I really wish you’d take the time to, because it would make a dramatic difference to the clarity of your arguments and the quality of your posts. Wrt to the gerund, this is certainly not some arcane aspect of grammar it would be unreasonable to demand of a non-native speaker to get right. A few brief remedial grammar sessions would get you up to speed quite quickly, I imagine, and your posts would immediately benefit (as, I’m sure, would your IRL verbal communication).
Dude, come on.
He said “[Greasy] was writing to me recently.” Technically, that does sounds like you had sent him a private email or a snail mail letter to his home address, but the more charitable interpretation is you had said to him those things in the course of your back-and-forth in these threads (or at least on this site). That goes for a native English-speaker using the phrase “was writing to me” ; you should be doubly charitable if a non-native speaker uses it this way.
I think he meant it as I had been trying to get in touch with him outside of this site. At the time he posted this, I had not appeared in these threads in a while so his use of the term “recently” clearly meant at a time that I was not active on Unz. That’s how I read it and it’s probably what he meant, although I do expect for him to deny it now
So Mossad is now some godlike organization that never makes any mistakes or wouldn’t deliberately kill someone they don’t like?
That one case is particularly shady, over researched but with very scarce results. He was most likely an escort.
Besides the most widely quoted historian admitted that he did not have enough proof (right before his death he regretted things and admitted he would change certain things in his books – this absolutely scandalous admission was, of course, ignored). Recently I also witnessed how Western “researchers” simply lie and make things up to bolster their narrative.
No, it shouldn’t and the men should be allowed to rest in peace (especially the front soldiers). Yet again and again this is used for political and sometimes financial purposes (and of course as a stupid argumentation method on this very site). That’s why I insist – if you’re going to trash Balts and Ukes, let’s be open and honest about everybody.
I’ve never read those and don’t know what those are (but I remember vaguely David Duke ranting about some kind of “evil Zionist” back when I still listened to him years ago).
I didn’t say they were villains, simply stated a bare historic fact – the British did not want to allow the Holocaust survivors off the ships. They sent the Jews back to Germany! I don’t blame the British for anything (I have deep sympathies for them and I simply do not care enough), they probably had their hands full with this Middle Eastern mess anyway.
The only reason I bring this up is because certain people have brought these things up tirelessly when it suited them. I’d prefer to talk about something else, but if we’re going to play this game, then let’s have all the facts out.
Oops, to correct myself, I should have said your overuse of the present participle not gerund. (Although it’s the same set of “-ing” words.) I have confused these two terms many times in the past, so I should take my own advice about exercising more caution, lol.
Quit blaming women – you were simply not productive and efficient enough. We had meat and chicken and quality dairy in the Baltics whenever we wanted, because we kept to our own old farming and cooking traditions and the grandparents worked their asses off. Any deficit or lack of good food was due to the inefficiencies of the Commie economic system (which couldn’t match the growing urbanization) which was mostly run by men top down.
Just please not on the territory of the EU. This is where we need to delineate that, draw boundaries.
I understand the dynamic you’re describing, but they should keep it “at home”, if they’re going to engage in that. But not on European soil, please. This includes language and politics, not just actions.
Again, if they want to, they’re free to keep those perceptions, however, cultivating that on European soil is problematic as it legitimizes certain actions and creates an air of permissiveness, and anti-European sentiment (which is problematic on its own as well as could lead to violent action or simply crime).
He’d be hanged in Iran for being a pedophile.
That’s because they’re isolated and will not become direct victims of this, but European children and grandchildren or even current Europeans, once they are elderly, could.
Again, I’m not against the “support for Palestine” per se, but let’s do it openly, let’s mention everything. Because otherwise it’s just showing off and signaling.
Btw, I have a question for you – those Haredim in Israel (who draw income from the government btw, I think 30% of their income is welfare), if the state of Israel didn’t exist, do they believe Palis (and the rest of the Arabs) would spare them?
There’s a lot of middle ground between “keeping it secret” and flaunting it. I having nothing against people trying to look their best (I’m all for it) and I am far from prudish in this regard – I did hit “Agree” on your post – but recently I suspect I have been mistaken in my estimate of “how much is too much?”
I don’t doubt it’s fun. And perhaps if it was merely fun, I wouldn’t have anything to say about it. But it’s the kind of “fun” one gets from receiving Likes – particularly those most pointedly aimed at gaining attention. It’s fun in the moment, but it wears off quickly, and you’re left seeking another “hit” – and not getting one leaves you feeling way more down than you really should.
Secondly, even if it’s actual fun, it’s a case of what is good for the individual isn’t so great for the collective. Flaunting an image of sexiness at a ripe age tends to suggest she’s “living the dream.” But what kind of dream is it, really? It sends the message to other women that “I want to be like that and I can be like that.” But in reality, serial monogamy isn’t a recipe for lasting happiness, it’s even worse for females than it is for males, and too many many women are deluded into holding out for far higher quality men than they deserve (which boomerangs back on the males in society).
Well, let’s consider what would happen if everyone followed his example. The result would be men being stronger and (likely) healthier well on past their retirement age. Great.
What would happen if everyone followed Coulter’s example? They’d be single, childless and still trying to flaunt their hotness at sixty. Not so great.
You do realize that older attractive women get plenty of attention even if it’s unasked or they don’t even try? No, not as much as when they were younger, but they still get it and it has nothing to do with collecting “likes”. You do realize that male attention doesn’t really mean that much (if it’s not backed up by something more serious)? These things are different for men and women.
That said, Anne Coulter really does show off too much, even if she were younger it would be a bit over the top and tasteless. The general rule is you only show one part – if you’re going to show a bit of cleavage, don’t show the legs, if you’re going to show the legs, keep the top covered (leave something for his imagination – and we all know men have a vivid imagination). Showing both at once will look cheap. But it looks like she’s just a nerd who lives in her head and who cares more about politics than about her appearance so she forgets that. It’s understandable, I don’t blame her, being constantly deliberate about one’s appearance can be a lot of work.
Yes, of course I realize all that. If it’s happening a result of minimal effort, simply as part of the ordinary course of efforts people make to look presentable, then it’s rather different to the point I was making about women at a ripe age who go to great lengths to not merely looking presentable, but “hot” and “sexy.” The latter behavior amounts to saying “I will only be happy if men’s reactions conform to my self-image of being sexually highly desirable.” (And if those reactions are forthcoming, it’s nice, but it’s a hamster wheel; and if they’re not forthcoming, or not forthcoming in the desired rate or quantity – misery.)
You and I would probably agree that the unnecessary and very brutal Nato attacks on Serbia, Iraq, Libya, etc…are the main reason we have lost the stability. Others certainly played a part, Russia was clumsy and bloody in Chechnya, assorted Middle Eastern anti-Western fanatic with weirdo leaders, etc…But it was unquestionably the West with mostly cheering on media that opened the gates of hell. Without the West realizing it and holding its main players accountable nothing will change.
The current wars polarize the world and that helps to deflect from what the West did first – in that way the main perpetrators, the liberal crazies and neo-cons, try to hide the catastrophic consequences of what they did. When you start slicing it like “well, Serbia bombing was less brutal than…” you are assisting this deception.
Don’t obfuscate. The Arab dialects are far from each other, if one claims Hebrew as unique revived language, the same is true about the Palestinian Arabs. By the way, the languages are surprisingly close to each other.
No, they were killed by Latvians who volunteered. Why do you lie about that?
Some did. And before that in pre-war period the Latvian dictatorship killed many of them. By your absurd logic after WW2 Soviets could have killed all Latvians as revenge. They didn’t and actually seem a bit better than the Latvians….:)
You are mixing up “Moslems” in general with Palis – that is deceptive. The SS Latvians were volunteers and fanatics, often killers. You know that and yet your country celebrates them. In Slovakia all collaborators with WW2 Germany were and are completely denounced. We had no SS division, we also had an uprising in 1944 against Germany that was partially suppressed by the Ukie Galician SS-men. The idea that our WW2 Nazi collaborators would march or get memorials is absolutely preposterous – same in Norway, France, Holland. But in Latvia they march and are celebrated.
I don’t. But for each example of Pali hatred you can find an equal example among Israelis. The situation on the ground speaks for itself: you have 7 million Jews with all rights and almost all available land, and 7 million Palis in what are modern day ghettoes. Are you ok with that? Do you think it can last forever?
Are you bothered by the equally Nazi “flashing” in Ukie marches? You don’t seem to be. I am generally tolerant of all human expressions no matter how wrong, odious or stupid – it is better that way. It is a worthwhile tradeoff. When it gets serious is when people act on it. Ukies did…
You completely missed my point…these were school cafeterias! and cafeteria ladies who run it predictably selfishly), I doubt any of them were communist.
Regarding availability of food, we had more than people could (or should) consume. And it was dirt cheap – the villages lived much better than ever before or after, little work, total security, freebies and trips, plenty of food.
But now they have acai and avocado, Ukie refugees and miltary planes practicing above. They like the avocados…:), but otherwise. See how they voted a month ago.
That’s not true either. Latvia’s dictatorship before the 1940 Soviet invasion was a moderate authoritarian system. They locked up commies and the local fascists, but they didn’t kill people on any significant scale (if at all). The Soviet Union with its mass terror was a lot more dangerous for anybody, including commies from Latvia (most of whom were killed during the Great Terror).
And no, the Soviet Union definitely wasn’t “better” than the Latvian dictatorship (or the interwar systems in Lithuania and Poland). When it occupied those countries in 1939/40 (so before any Latvian Waffen-SS units had ever been created), it outright murdered tens of thousands and deported hundreds of thousands to the Gulag. Your approach always is that this was just no big deal, because you like the Soviet Union and think its victims had it coming anyway (because they were “fascists”, oppressed workers or whatever). Which makes your humanitarian pronouncements on issues like the Palestinians (which otherwise would have a certain validity) sound quite hypocritical
You and LatW aren’t so dissimilar in one respect at least, both of you just deny some aspects of history that are beyond doubt, because you find them inconvenient.
LOL! I’m a little surprised you wrote that LatW. 🙂
Are you sure you don’t share your account with hubby? 😉
I don’t really know what to make of this comment? I doubt that whatever you would reply could hurt me, nor the Orthodox church. We’ve had similar discussions in the past and have remained amiable friends. Trying to defend the views of Marcion or perhaps some other similar thinking gnostic thinkers could be a daunting task, but I’m sure I could benefit and learn something from just such an exchange. Perhaps you could too?….
She might be bisexual. A lot of women are, it makes sense from the evolutionary pov. Helps raise the offspring if the male partner get trampled by some mammoth or eaten by some sabertooth tiger.
Hahah, I just meant that plenty of moms have good figures. They’re just objectively pretty, I mean who doesn’t love beautiful women, right? (Doesn’t mean I’d try to jump on top of them at every opportunity).
The Latvians were mostly escorts, the majority of the actual shooting was done by German nationals (under the direct supervision of German nationals).
None of the horrors would’ve happened if there had been no Nazi German occupation (pogroms were never really a thing for us, unlike in Russia and elsewhere). While Amin Al-Husseini organized those pogroms on his own and he called for destruction of all Jews, where ever they are. Yet this won’t mentioned openly.
Complete, total lies. Some communists (and other political extremists) were put in prison, but they were not killed.
Complete, utter nonsense. Beckow, this isn’t even offensive or insulting, but just plain boring and so redundant coming from you. Actually, it makes me chuckle how silly it is.
Well, the answer to my question is that there is no such thing as a “Palestinian language”.
They never flash the German Nazi flags in the Ukie nationalist marches. The flags they typically carry are their own party flags, the Azov flag (“the idea of nation”), the red black flag, and very very rarely the Celtic cross.
What I described applies to cafeterias in the village that I remember, there was always meat and poultry available, maybe they did take some home, I have no idea (why shouldn’t they take leftovers?).
Little work? Slackers! 🙂
Who cares. 🙂 You’ve already given most of your weapons to Ukraine.
Sure, not on every opportunity. Just on some special occasions…
😏
Hahahaha! Right… very special. 🙂
That would depend on what the few thousand locked up thought about it. When they were in charge later they got even. Or do you insist on “proportionality”? That’s never the way it works and when people start suppressing enemies by obviously illegal methods – as Latvia did during the 1934-40 dictatorship – the consequences can be order of magnitude worse. Something about human nature.
Well, not really, but it was often a retaliation for previous acts by those victims. When Germany attacked Russia in WW2 and murdered millions and lost, Russia in turn committed horrible crimes in East Prussia and elsewhere. Was it appropriate or revenge? My point is that half of the story is now left out in the West – the reality that many of these atrocities were back-and-forward killings with the West and its favorite allies seldom only being innocent bystanders.
I try to add that part of the story. I know the other side too, but it gets constantly repeated, I should not have to also repeat it. It is not inconvenience, it is simply that a discussion requires brevity.
Right, why not? The religion of hard work is a complete nonsense – see the mental damage it has done to AP and Mr.Hacks, they are like poodles waiting for instructions.
We define work as “the activity that nobody wants to do“. It should only be done when well compensated. Having said that, most of the acts that today pass for “work” are really not work. I don’t know what the hell they are…
Mostly old junk. We are making a lot of new ones, Ukies can buy them. But don’t underestimate the dramatic shift, it matters. Our new premier came back from Brussels claiming that behind closed doors lot of people agreed with him. Maybe they did, maybe not, but it seems the Ukie-euphoria is ending. These emotional fashions usually last three years – we are almost there.
LOL, that’s a bit harsh. 🙂 But, yea, I was joking. Work in itself is praise worthy, of course, but some relaxation is also great.
I’m still trying to figure out how to pull off the “work less but more efficiently” approach which is so amply advised these days. Haven’t yet been able to, not sure it’s a real thing. 🙂
Are you making them to sell mostly?
Well, some support will continue and the fighting will continue. It’s a terrible reality. And the chaos around the world just seems to be growing. Makes one feel really grateful for the peaceful and prosperous places.
As I said, you were writing to me a few threads ago. You know like I’m writing to you in this post.
I said nothing about you “trying to contact him outside of this board”, which is from your very “creative” imagination.
They have more Haredim than the army wants or needs. Thousands of Haredim tried to join the army after the attacks this month. https://www.israelhayom.co.il/judaism/judaism-news/article/14711547
From Israel’s view, Haredi soldiers are far more expensive and require a lot of additional rules, separating genders, while almost half of the army are women. They need to build special bases for the Haredim, with different food and different logistics.
The issue for Israel with Haredim, is not to have more soldiers, but to increase the male employment rate and the education level.
I know the rules of English grammar and can write perfect English, if I have time. I studied them for years. I can also notice what sounds “natural” in English.
But as it is not my first language, it is using a different pathway in the brain. So for me to write perfectly in English sometimes requires re-reading and editing my texts.
If I just write super fast like I do in this forum, the grammar will not be perfect. For the perfect text, I need some more time to re-read and edit it until it matches the grammatical “homologation requirements”.
Re-reading the text adds time, which I don’t always have. Unz also doesn’t allow us to edit our posts after 5 minutes. I see the mistakes in my post when I re-read them. Then, it is often too late to edit them, unfortunately.
So, with apologies, I’m usually too impatient to re-check the text and I’m not sure the cost/benefit ratio would be sensible. If a lot of people complain, I guess I could use the same quantity of time, writing less posts with higher accuracy.
Why else would anyone make things?
Yeah, I agree it will go on and probably spread. The world is slowly removing its morality chains. Chaos lacking restraint is very ugly. I knew when I saw the Maidan circus that the good years were over…
We have been bamboozled by amateur Manichean dialecticians: everything is either good or must be total evil: the modern version of us-versus-them. They lack experience and seek absolute justice as they feel it. We know from Shakespeare it only leads to a lot of dead bodies at the end. Maybe it will be worth the drama…what else do we have to look forward to?
Maybe you were going to keep some for yourself? You might need new planes now since you gave away the MIGs. That’s super expensive though. Did you get a new F-16 jet?
This was exactly my original point about normalization of large expulsions and erasure of whole cities, that this simply increases the spread of conflict since there is an air of permissiveness that will tempt various actors to settle old scores.
Well, there is reason why it was so explosive. There were pent up energies there, since some of the Ukrainian nationalist tendencies had been suppressed by force.
Well, it is crystalizing now but for a while it was less clear. Except when GW Bush talked about the “Axis of Evil” (not sure he included Russia in that, I guess not).
If it gets as far as a war with Iran, it will become extremely dangerous (at that point, could already be considered a world war), but I kind of doubt it will get that far. Either way some effects of this chaos will be felt in the EU as well. Maybe less in the States.
I don’t really know about RW people in England idolizing Sikhs or have any experience of Sikhs being idolized or even known in Trumpy rural America, hence my comment.
I’ve made the comment before, and I’ll reiterate it, that in many ways I find some of the mindsets of someone like Talha or Sher Singh to be more intelligible than with my fellow white super-lib American brethren.
The truly fundamental battleground in the modern world today is between religious/ traditionalists opposed to atheist/ progressives.
Honestly, I would rather that Muslims or Sikhs won out in the long term than progressive liberals. Transhumanism is the ultimate abomination in my worldview and it is the inevitable end point of progressiveism. This is not to say that Muslims or Sikhs represent my preference and honestly my own area has a pretty robust white rural culture so there isn’t much of a vacuum. However, other traditionalist minded Euro derived people are going to have to suck it up and start making a viable cultural future, surrender to liberalism, or get overwhelmed by peoples with firmer beliefs and more kids.
Right! 🙂
Of course not! [No need to downplay things, Lat W, now that the cat’s out of the bag. Your secret is safe with us! 😉 ]
No offense towards LatW or any other women who might read this, but that reminds of when I was enrolled in an athletics program at school.
Though the young men and women were segregated we shared the same sports fields and were in fairly close proximity. We fellows noted how very physically expressive the women were towards each other whenever a goal was scored or a point made, often hugging each other either individually or collectively for extended (overly long it seemed) periods of time.
The joke among us fellows observing this was that this was simply women displaying their ‘natural lesbian tendencies’.
It is a useless piece of junk for a small inland country surrounded by friendly countries. They couldn’t even circle without crossing borders. It is basically a tribute to US defense industry.
When? For god sake Ukraine was independent since 1991! There was no Ukie suppression, there was also none in the last 30 years of commies. That is a crazy fantasy.
I do too, but it could come close. Something else is going to happen. The old world is gone, I kind of liked parts of it…:)
Well, I’m mostly straight. But it’s nice to have options. 🙂
And, yes, I’m very confident that you will keep my little secret. 🙂 It’s safe.
During Yanukovich’s time. Biletsky was put in prison on concocted charges and they were messing with language laws.
We’re in a dangerous situation right now (like you said, we are just a few escalations away from something really serious, but I am relieved by the assumption that most big players do not want a big war, even if there are unresolved issues). The old world has been gone for a while now. It may have been just a lull, and, yes, it’s really sad. It was good.
The two may be connected. I am not sure it is sentimentality, the young feminist militants are driven by demons that are more biological. They want a different world – basically they reject the societal deal: mating, eating, keeping one’s people going. It seems unsentimental, more like a temper tantrum.
I’ve been around a lot of feminists and concluded it was largely a combination of the following:
1. Being taught that White men are the devil and held everyone back (including women)
2. Not getting enough male attention at some age or having a lousy/non-existent father
That was like 90%.
The colleges have mastered the art of indoctrinating women. In the social sciences the curriculum is very female focused and exploits their nurturing nature and desire for group affirmation. Skeptical men are discouraged and ostracized. I once came across a Sociology website where profs were talking about how they deal with White men that ask questions. Sociology profs are fully aware that they are full of shit and don’t actually want to investigate something like racial inequality.
But I don’t want to place everything on women. I also knew women that were ostracized for being skeptical in college. Some women are sort of male brained in their desire to question what is being taught.
Then there are plenty of men that know they are being taught bullshit but go along with it.
We also had liberal male profs that fully knew they were lying and wanted to take all the White students down a notch. These profs were hopelessly bitter boomers for the most part.
We fellows noted how very physically expressive the women were towards each other whenever a goal was scored or a point made, often hugging each other either individually or collectively for extended (overly long it seemed) periods of time.
The joke among us fellows observing this was that this was simply women displaying their ‘natural lesbian tendencies’.
I don’t buy for one second that most women are bisexual or bi curious. Not even 10%.
There would be far more bisexual couples in liberal areas if that were the case. Most liberal women would prefer to not be attracted to men and especially not White men. I used to work with liberal women and the dyke of the office could never talk them into it. One told me she wanted to do a 3 way with 2 guys someday but was disgusted by the dyke.
As for athletics I don’t think you realize how much pressure is on the men that are playing a sport like baseball. For women on a college softball team the worst case scenario is that they get a degree and get married. A lot of the men are academically marginal and don’t have a career plan. A bad season could mean that their life changes drastically. I used to be friends with someone on athletic scholarship and he was barely passing the classes. Then one day he was gone. He was most likely dropped from first string and I never saw him again. They just don’t have the support if they aren’t making plays. It’s kind of sad honestly. For every star quarterback there are a dozen guys that will drop out. The guy that plays baseball and becomes a dentist isn’t the norm. College athletics are more of a business. They overlook a lot for top players and then cut them without hesitation. Look at the size of a college football stadium and do the math on how much revenue they bring in with tickets.
She might be bisexual. A lot of women are, it makes sense from the evolutionary pov. Helps raise the offspring if the male partner get trampled by some mammoth or eaten by some sabertooth tiger.
Humans were in groups which would make polygamy the more likely result.
In any case there wouldn’t be the requirement that women eat at the Y. Women can help take care of each other without lesbian sex.
I used to buy more into women as open to bisexuality until working with actual gays.
The lesbians were overwhelmingly butch and annoying as hell. The lipstick lesbians were rare and avoided the dykes.
I rarely heard anecdotes of bisexual anything. Dykes, fags and the occasional trannie. That is the gay population. I rarely heard about anyone going between groups and the most common story was a woman that went back to men. I found those stories amusing as they always angered the bull dykes (didn’t she find her “true” self??).
This theory that Christianity or society keeps women from going bisexual is definitely not the case. I’d walk by the gay bar on the way to work and it would be the same 5-6 dykes hanging outside after a night of partying. Thousands of liberal women in the city and not once did I see one walking out after a night of experimentation. Liberal women might on occasion fantasize but in the stark reality of daylight it’s the same 5-6 butch dykes smoking outside a gay bar. White liberal women that say they are bisexual at most fingered a girl in college and now like to think of themselves as a sexual minority even if they never did it again and have since married.
That’s not where it happens.
When I was in my 20s a decent number of straight girls seemed to be interested or involved in it at some time, I think it’s a different thing to the real lesbians/full bisexuals.
That is so weak that it is not worth a reply. “Messing”, you don’t say, so allowing a minority to use its own language is why Maidan was so anti-Russian? You are reaching levels of incoherence usually reserved by AP…:)
They almost never do, WW1, even WW2. And yet it happens.
I was referring to the language law that was changed back from more Ukrainian friendly to more Russian friendly. This is important. Also, political prisoners are important, I’m not going to turn this into a point of contention for the sake of an argument, but it was clearly a factor.
These things seem to have an internal logic of their own, and may go out of control, increased interconnectedness is more of a factor now than before, so maybe it’s not even that bad that the world is fracturing into blocs, there will be more clarity.
Wars always provide clarity. That’s their silver lining, things get clearer for a while.
But this one is really stupid, unnecessary, based on too ambitious escalation – and I mean the nationalist Ukies and their friends.
That’s not where it happens.
Statistically it should very well happen given the number secular liberal women that were sexually uninhibited. They go off with the dyke and end up at the gay bar. Should definitely happen in a city if bisexuality in women is natural or common.
I used to work in an office with White liberal women and not a single one had taken up the offer from the dyke. I had a mole who would tell me all the dirt on them. They were all holding out for a professional White guy outside of their league. They had no interest in experimenting with women. They also pretended to be interested in Blacks but never dated them. Liberal women are completely full of shit and I honestly wish they were as interesting as depicted in media. I would have enjoyed some stories about them experimenting with women. Most of them didn’t even go out on the weekends. I had one that would talk about her damn dog all the time. I doubt most of them got married. They are all probably spread out in other office buildings talking about dogs and how they “can’t find a man” or would date non-Whites if they met one (hint: they are everywhere).
When I was in my 20s a decent number of straight girls seemed to be interested or involved in it at some time, I think it’s a different thing to the real lesbians/full bisexuals.
I’ve never said it doesn’t happen. I have known women that experimented and they followed the same pattern which was trying it once or twice in college and then latter getting married.
If even 10% of women were naturally bisexual you would see far more female couples. Most uninhibited liberal women would in fact prefer to be bisexual. They aren’t held back by societal shame and would prefer to be a sexual minority. I have had liberal women not only lament being straight but also resent the men they find attractive.
Bisexuality in women is mostly a male fantasy. Women are hardwired to lock down a man to assist with child rearing. Even their sexuality towards men is exaggerated. They operate on a cycle like other mammals.
Well, it was just a joke. I think since then most of us guys that were making those observations then have come to realize that men and women simply express themselves a bit differently. No doubt the media exaggerates just how prevalent same sex attraction is, though, just as they exaggerate a lot of things.
It happens in private (as such things should), not out in some bars. I think in bars they just hang out with real dykes, just as a pastime. Real femmes date in private and this is more of a slow, aesthetic experience rather than some hook up (and, yes, it’s a very small percentage of female population but enough to be able to select for some beautiful ones, although I can’t really speak for North America). They can still go on and have marriages and relationships with men and have kids. Sometimes women in their 40s get tired of marriage (if it’s too stressful) or of men in general, and they can explore other options. But all of this is quite rare.
And, yes, women are more comfortable touching each other (they are care takers), men aren’t (only in short moments during sports).
Real femmes date in private and this is more of a slow, aesthetic experience rather than some hook up (and, yes, it’s a very small percentage of female population but enough to be able to select for some beautiful ones, although I can’t really speak for North America).
Sure but I doubt it is more than 5%. My guess is around 3-5% could go bi under the right conditions and they would still prefer men. 1-2% dyke. I think at least half the dykes are lying and still retain some attraction to men. But I do not believe that is true for gay men. Working with fringe populations led me to believe that homosexuality is different for women than men. More of the dykes were raped than people realize. The butch look can be a subconscious defense mechanism. They don’t want to look pretty or have anything to do with men.
Sometimes women in their 40s get tired of marriage (if it’s too stressful) or of men in general, and they can explore other options. But all of this is quite rare.
I assume everyone in America has seen the dykes after 40 couples. I remember reading an article on how such relationships can suffer from a lack of sex. This tells me that most are probably closer to life partner roommates than lesbians.
For the record I really don’t care if women want to hook up and rub fuzzies. In fact I’m glad some of these lesbians have a mate. Some of them are very obnoxious and would make a man miserable. Lesbianism gives them an outlet and social circle.
And, yes, women are more comfortable touching each other (they are care takers), men aren’t (only in short moments during sports).
Yea backrubs and kisses. But there is this fantasy of 20-30% of the female population ready for hardcore action under the right conditions. Even the often cited 10% by the media is an exaggeration. That is really what I am saying. If 10% of the female population was truly bisexual then you would see a mass movement of women dropping out of the dating market. I live in rural America and it is slim pickings for some of the women. You would see female couples everywhere if 10% could switch like going to diet soda.
https://archive.ph/MD6CN
It’s probably less than that, maybe even under 2% (for real ones). There is absolutely no way that 10% of the population are gay of any sort, that is complete nonsense. That would mean every tenth person is gay, that’s just not true. It’s propaganda.
You’d need a pretty big event to produce this. For instance, Algeria’s pieds-noirs were only ethnically cleansed after an extremely brutal eight-year war of independence. Eastern Europe’s Germans were only ethnically cleansed after WWII. Much of Palestine’s Arab population was only ethnically cleansed during Israel’s War of Independence in 1948-1949, in which Israel fought and won an existential battle for survival.
So, Yeah, you’d need something comparable to occur in Europe. And it would likely require Fascists of some sort coming to power there since countries normally don’t just expel their citizens en masse. And AFAIK a lot of Muslims are already European citizens.
It’s probably less than that, maybe even under 2% (for real ones). There is absolutely no way that 10% of the population are gay of any sort, that is complete nonsense. That would mean every tenth person is gay, that’s just not true. It’s propaganda.
It is indeed propaganda and working with the public made me further despise liberalism and its ongoing lies. When I was in college it was taught it as scientific fact that 10% of the male population is on the gay spectrum with most being bisexual. In my psych class it was also theorized the 50-60% of the population could be bisexual if not for environmental conditioning (unspoken suppression by Bad Conservative Whites).
I worked with a very liberal public and not once did any of the gays talk about interactions with these bisexual men that should be everywhere. I’ve asked liberals about why they are certain the 10% number is true and they give you a look as if you are questioning a physics equation. I’ve talked to liberal women that have had sex with over 50 men and none of them had a bisexual boyfriend nor were they ever offered. I only knew of one case and the guy was a total lunatic who had major identity issues. Also a public school employee who was trusted to work with children from broken homes. I wish I was making that up.
But the absolute tragedy in all these lies is how much damage is done by letting the gays go wild. Gay male proclivity towards perversions and reckless sexual practices is well beyond what even conservatives imagine. They are not “just like us” but with one difference. Their brains quickly go to sexual extremes and they will take part in such desires with multiple people that they don’t know. These hook apps are an absolute disaster as they will connect gays that were previously socially isolated. The older men in fact know how to exploit the loneliness of the younger ones.
It’s just a massive world of lies. I had a front row seat and it was depressing. It made me not only despise liberalism but also Con Inc/Christian conservatism for retreating to the burbs and allowing these lies to continue. No one on either side has any idea as to how much damage is done when some 18 year old gets HIV after being talked into unprotected sex through an app hook-up. Conservatives stick to their churches and liberals watch these TV shows where gays are all funny waiters or snarky hairdressers.
So, Yeah, you’d need something comparable to occur in Europe. And it would likely require Fascists of some sort coming to power there since countries normally don’t just expel their citizens en masse. And AFAIK a lot of Muslims are already European citizens.
This type of talk ignores how many of those Muslims are working undesired jobs behind the scenes.
It’s similar to talk of kicking out the Mexicans. White nationalists would even kick out the ones were born here.
Ok then who does all their jobs?
White people don’t want to face the nature of the economy. They want to believe either conservative or liberal bullshit on inequality. Either Lost Wakanda or people are poor because they deserve it.
This same problem occurred during the days of slavery. Wealthy White landowners didn’t want to pay White workers a decent wage and brought in slaves.
White people are their own worst enemy. You give most of them a taste of wealth and they turn into Randbots that come up with all kinds of rationalizations of why they can’t pay a White worker a decent wage. That is why there will be no kicking out the Mexicans or Muslims. Whites would balk at paying family wages. They’d drone about how “poor Whites deserve it for not passing Calc 3” and then we’d be back to importing from the third world.
Anyone who thinks I am exaggerating is free to visit here in rural America where Trump MAGA hat wearing Whites will pay illegals to mow their lawns while they watch sports. I’ve got a couple wealthy neighbors and I have never seen them work on anything. I think a Mexican even takes their garbage out. According to conservatives those Whites are “wealth creators” that need tax breaks.
And AFAIK a lot of Muslims are already European citizens.
It should be noted that German Muslims go back to WW2.
The only viable way to reduce the Muslim population in Europe is to fix Syria and make it a home to any Muslim expat. But kicking them all out like Armenians will not happen.
That requires regime change in Syria, since Assad and his regime do not benefit from having more Sunnis in Syria. They instead prefer the Shi’ization of Syria:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shia_crescent
“Good on stage”
On stage is all you’re gonna get babe! It’s a campaign. No different from where Don was in 2016. So, best compare Donnie in 2016 to what Vivek is saying now, (and, quite clearly, eh? )
Trump, once in office, got a C+. (that Deep State is way deeper than he thought) So, we assume he’s much more “studied up” now. so I see the MAGA thing surviving. He’s well aware of the Democrats’ weaponized judicial and intelligence system, that’s for sure.
But, Trump obviously cowtowed to the Deep State (do you remember that?). Only “proof” we got of his skills to date. Will he be guaranteed to do better next time? I don’t know. You don’t know.
He’ll have to throw off his mute testimony and get in the game. If I don’t hear him talking at least 90% Ramaswamy (big jump there), I’ll vote Vivek [if I vote at all]. Donnie knows better than the rest. (one hopes), just through experience. He’ll have to prove that at this point, “on stage” just like everybody else. And start talking about it. Right now the voter base just assumes.
Oh yeah, it’s early in the game….I’ll give him that much. But he’s gonna have to debate face to face – like it or not.
Vivek is not a big white male. That will be his down fall. That & talking way over the conservative ‘publicans’ heads.
Are these Russian conscripts or slaves?
https://funker530.com/video/russians-punish-drugged-out-soldiers-with-beatings/