to follow the latest Ukrainian habbenings as well as other topics, like crypto and gaming.

So it will be a mixture of tasteful war porn, banter about video games and financial advice on how to make money with bitcoin scams?
Hard not to wonder if this isn’t some coded expression of contempt for your audience.

Discord does not run correctly for me, I will have to look into options to join that forum.

Putin’s announcement is provocative, but still short of a guaranteed war. We will have to see what develops on the ground.

Not-The-President Biden’s attempt to exploit the Ukraine situation for personal gain has failed miserably. Inflation at home is so biting, the potential for a war overseas does not move the needle. Gasoline prices are particularly brutal on the working poor. (see below)

Without the ability to obtain Congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force [AUMF], there can be no substantive American backing for Ukraine. Most of NATO’s airlift potential is U.S. military and will thus be unavailable. If NATO is to join the fray, Turkey will be the indispensable logistics hub. And, it seems unlikely that anyone serious will rely on Recep “S400” Erdogan as a partner against Putin.

Ukraine has a losing hand. Do they realize that?

PEACE 😇

This isn’t just the crest of a wave: if Republicans offer a positive, credible alternative, as @GlennYoungkin did in Virginia, it’s the making of a realignment. https://t.co/5lzpE6B7IL

— Steven Law (@LawAmericanX) February 15, 2022

We have, by my estimation, almost 400,000 Russian/Belorussian troops and paramilitaries surrounding Ukraine.

Do you have evidence for that number? Sources consistently say 190,000. I guess they don’t take into account the Donbas militias with 40,000.

Are you suggesting the Belarus armed forces would also invade? Their total number is 62,000.

Back in December I guessed 10% chance of full invasion of the country, 80% grabbing Donbas (including oblast territory out of current rebel control, including possible missile strikes beyond to support this), 30% Donbas plus adjacent territory such as Crimean land bridge or maybe Kharkiv.

Still don’t see full invasion and takeover happening but I’d increase odds of seizing areas outside Donbas. Putin mentioned Kharkiv in his speech. Extent of the offensive may depend on the ferocity of resistance. And I’m guessing it will be more unpleasant than Russian cakewalkers will anticipate.

Looks like the “Freedom Convoy” in Ottawa is ended after some heavy handed police tactics. Now a police state, one needs to show papers to enter downtown Ottawa.

From the moment that it started, they fell into the leftist morality trap, constantly declaring how they are “not racist”. People were walking around the crowd, looking for non-whites to take photos with to prove how “inclusive” the movement is. The crowd was of course 99% white, despite the photo ops. Lots of beer swilling rednecks out grilling and drinking.

The police boot licking at these protests was even worse. Every speaker kept talking about how we should “thank the cops” for “being here”. Everybody was sure that the police were secretly on the side of freedom. Back the Blue! The Blue of course then came in acting like thugs and started making arrests, smashing windows, and towing trucks.

Most of the response to the thuggery and state tyranny was just trashy looking females screaming on Twitter about “imagine if this was a BLM protest!” “This is un-democratic!” “Trudeau is the real fascist!” The learned helplessness that’s been instilled in our people through decades of conditioning.

White people are by and large pathetic, both on the left and right. I say this as a pure blood, old stock Scots-Irish Loyalist. Hopefully this wakes some people up – “Freedom” and “democracy” and “tolerance” and “peaceful protest” has always been a sham. The only way to beat their thugs is to out-thug them and take over. Playing martyr on Twitter doesn’t cut it. Also, police always side with the state because the state pays their fat salary and pension.

The provincial vax mandates are being lifted (which is a good thing) but I expect them to come back with some kind of social credit score to be federally implemented this fall.

I don’t understand why AK makes you seethe so much. If you haven’t noticed, the fact that AK left didn’t affect the commentary activity on this blog much (which tells you a lot). Many of us just come here to shoot the shit in a relaxed bantz environment.

Anatoly, I almost hate to be the one to point it out to you, but your blog here at UNZ has been cruising along pretty good here, averaging about 500 comments per week. This seems to indicate that your stimulating intellectual insights are hardly needed to satisfy the needs of the various “bugmen, soylings, and sundry limitrophes” (AP, German Reader, AaronB, Songbird, Dmitry, A-123, LatW, sudden death, Blinky Bill, sher singh, Aedib, Thulean Friend, Emile Nicola Richard, Mikel, Mikhail, Yellowace Anon, Barbarossa and many, many others). The commenters haven’t really changed much since you’ve left, so why go out of your way to try and put them down?

None of these individuals has gone out of their way to put you down.

How does it feel to realize that your input has for all intents and purposes really become irrelevant?

We’ll all, most likely go on respecting you, so there’s no need to display these childlike tantrums! 🙂

The Doctrine of the Mighty:

Good game, but very weird to adduce it as support for your political views. Honestly, at this stage it’s hard to tell whether you’re just non-stop trolling or if you’ve really fried your brain with too much internet and genuinely think this style of discourse is appropriate.
But if they ever decide to slap personal sanctions on you for your war-mongering, I suppose the one thing that would really hurt you would be confiscating your Steam account.

I think that he’s amped up his power hungry persona while at the same seemingly descended into the trivial is a good sign of something more significant.

This new grandiose will to power thing he’s come back with has a genuine hint of desperation and showmanship in it – it certainly isn’t the calm confidence of one who is certain in his vision and values.

Tough guy personas always betray weakness.

At the same time, I was thinking recently how Karlin, Chieh, Ron Unz etc – the techno utopian types – seem somehow to have lost steam and to have either gone quiet, or descended into the trivial or the endlessly circular.

This site was fresh and original five years ago. Now? IIts just the same article over and over again – America and Jews are responsible for everything bad, no matter what or where it happens, no one else has any agency, etc, etc.

To me, what this means is that increasingly the entire global community is entering a period where the old story of our civilization is breaking down and losing credibility, while we have not yet created a new one.

It’s a remarkable thing – in the 1950s the average person genuinely thought that utopia would come from a few more decades of technological invention.

Today, who believes that, really, truly? We mouth the platitudes, but no one believes that the next invention will save us, in his heart.

So we cling desperately to this old story, that we will transcend nature, and along with that comes the tough guy power hungry persona, but it all seems increasingly shrill and tenuous.

Karlin seems to me like he’s trying to prop up a fading vision he no longer believes in in his bones by asserting ever more desperately and shrilly.

And that’s a good thing.

Sure, Russia might make a few splashy tough guy power hungry moves in service to this dying vision, but the global community as a whole is evolving beyond it.

We’ll all, most likely go on respecting you, so there’s no need to display these childlike tantrums! 🙂

Very well said.

He’s obviously hurting a lot right now and has some kind of new insecurity to compensate for with the Big Man act – I think the entire commenting community should give Karlin one big virtual hug 🙂

And assure him that we find him valuable and worthy no matter his views.

We love you Anatoly! You are a worthy person! 🙂

These kinds of overcompensations are always caused by an inner feeling of worthlessness and lack – that’s the sickness of modernity, having lost connection to spiritual values.

They are best dealt with by affirming with love the person overcompensating and acting grandiose.

I believe this is one meaning at least of love your enemy – the understanding that he is acting out of a sense of inner deficiency, which is only filled by love.

but the global community as a whole is evolving beyond it.

My impression is rather that traditional great power rivalry is back, on a global scale, and that we’re entering very dangerous times. A bit like before 1914 maybe.
Karlin also has a point to some extent, there’s no doubt that Russia is able to smash Ukraine and demonstrate the utter powerlessness of the West to do something against it…that’s hardly a sign of weakness as traditionally understood, and understandably gratifying to Russian imperialists. Whether such a course of action will be beneficial for Russia in the long run, seems more doubtful to me, but no way to be sure.

blog here at UNZ has been cruising along pretty good here, averaging about 500 comments per week.

It seems to be the real material insult to Karlin, so he throws back the wordy insult in response.

Spoiler: I don’t actually play games these days, haven’t in years. Long-time members of my Discord can confirm.

So it’s part of some strategy to cloak the hard edge of your views in fun pop culture and memes? What for? It’s hardly likely that your output in English will win over Russian youth for the national cause, where such a strategy might make sense.
Eh, who cares. Have fun with your Discord weirdoes, and fleece them of their money, they don’t deserve better.

Ron Unz and Mike Whitney are proven correct again. Washington texted new GPS positions directly to Russian tank commanders so they began moving in to rebel regions of Ukraine. Putin is furious realizing he is helpless against American perfidy and aggression.

there’s no doubt that Russia is able to smash Ukraine and demonstrate the utter powerlessness of the West to do something against it…that’s hardly a sign of weakness as traditionally understood, and understandably gratifying to Russian imperialists

Unless there is some tricky plan to give back smashed lands, Russia is going to have to pay to replace everything they break. It is the GW Bush Iraq problem. Winning the War is the easier part. Winning the Peace is incredibly expensive.

If Russia can secure the two breakaway provinces without a full scale fight, that is attractive as a long term solution. However, that may not be achievable depending on the Ukrainian response.

PEACE 😇

The 190,000 is supposed to include all Russian forces, explicitly identifies the National Guard and Donbas militias as part of the number; doesn’t mention the Navy:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-60158694

Doesn’t include the Belarussian Army.

So we are back to a sub Iraq War coalition number facing a better military than the one fielded by Iraq in 2003.

Hopefully we don’t find out who was right.

Pro-RF coping has begun?

Ukraine as a sacrificial lamb should redeem the West and unite it. Ukraine is also designed as a trap for Putin’s Russia. Putin is unlikely to take the bait, though. /3

— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) February 21, 2022

Also pretty funny that commies now understandably feel offended by Putin’s speech, lol:

Putin's speech is just whining about the USSR. Wtf moron. Talk about Bandera

— guapocracia (@realstar821) February 21, 2022

You know, through it all, and often being on different sides of the ideological divide, you and I have displayed if not a small amount of affection for one another, then definitely some respect. Since you’ve left this blogsite, the few postings of yours that I’ve read portray a sort of wild eyed nationalist that is really feeling hyped up by this Russian inspired war angst. I never felt this before from you when you were regularly posting here. Stop and think about what might happen: lot’s of blood being spent on both sides, most likely including civilians,babushkas and children too. Is this really something that turns you on?

The Ukrainians in my community gather at church on Sundays, and we’re fervently praying for peace. This whole idea, no doubt concocted primarily by Putin, is really so crazy, on so many different planes. I wish that you could see it more clearly and critically.

Today, who believes that, really, truly?

The Elonmuscovites. If your funding comes from an inner Pentagon ring fascism is going to be a great gig. Has he relocated his residence to Austin yet or is he still living in the gilded homeless encampment of Los Angeles?

Interesting, but I am saying something different.

I’m not talking about physical weakness or petty nationalist conflict.

What I am interested in is the new spiritual vision humanity will adopt as the old one of transcending nature increasingly collapses.

It may seem that escalating Russian power hunger indicates that the old vision of dominating nature, and the power hunger and tough guy persona that is part of that spiritual package, is still strong.

I think it may the dying gasp of an old vision – like the flare up of a dying star.

I am sure and wish for Russia as a country to flourish and be healthy and strong.

and some are destined to remain bitter losers indefinitely.

I’m indeed a bitter loser, and it doesn’t bother me much admitting it, so that dig doesn’t affect me. Nor does it affect the substance of my criticism. I think you’re out of your mind that you’re happy about present developments, and since you’re obviously not stupid in the low-IQ sense it’s all the sadder. But obviously there’s no point to a discussion about this.

If this will be the resolve of this manufactured crisis in current unchanged confrontation front lines configuration, it leaves everything the same in fact since 2014-2015, except military of RF becoming kinda “official” instead of “unofficial”:

BREAKING: Russia’s agreements just signed with the LPR and DPR give the right to use military infrastructure and military bases on each other’s territory, and provide for joint protection of the borders of Donbass

— ASB News / MILITARY〽️ (@ASBMilitary) February 21, 2022

But what is nature but the choosing of the slain?

https://loquaciousbibliophilia.net/2022/02/05/other-minds-the-octopus-the-sea-and-the-deep-origins-of-consciousness-a-longread-part-two/#more-58

War is, then, if not inevitable, than perhaps nonetheless an essential engine of innovation – the mechanism that both consumes lives and if one is to argue that innovation is essentially an invaluable form of existence, the mechanism that creates life.

Because as the Cambrian creatures discovered, claws create life. Claws might not cuddle and they may not create eggs, but in choosing who is slain and who is slaying, by influencing the flows of energy, they very much do create life.

I actually agree that great power rivalry is back, in a much more muted form in the age of nukes.

It will be a much smaller canvas on which to paint ones ambitions, when one knows only rather small and local victories are possible, and consequently, only increasingly petty men will be attracted to this.

No more world spanning Napoleons or Alexanders, but some local province may get reabsorbed. The caliber of men attracted to this level of ambition obviously won’t be like Napoleon or Alexander.

But the attempt to create a single global community and transcend nationalist conflict was itself part of the scientific project to transcend nature – national rivalries were to be set aside so mankind could collectively focus on the grand task of winning immortality and seeding the stars.

Tower of Babel kind of thing, really.

That power politics are back suggests exactly what I’m saying, that this vision of the “ascent of humanity” is no longer credible.

At the same time, the vision of transcending nature that dominated our culture for the past five hundred years itself emerged from the mindset of power politics – it’s just a more intensified form.

So the first stage of the collapse of the “grand vision” will be a reversion to it’s smaller and more petty form.

But I believe, that power hunger as an attitude to life, and the belief about nans relationship to the universe it rests upon, will increasingly be questioned.

Or at least, this is increasingly my way of looking at it.

this seems to indicate that your stimulating intellectual insights are hardly needed to satisfy the needs of the various “bugmen, soylings, and sundry limitrophes

I view calling people “bugmen” or “soylings”, as an exhortation not to be these things, which from my perspective is pure positivism. IMO, it would be better if people were called these things more often – if there were a national holiday and ceremonies around it. Or some right of passage, which involved winning the right to wear pants.

“Limitrophes” I have interpreted to mean people living in the in periphery of the former Russian Empire, who might have hard feelings against Russia. Not that I mean to be too blase about it (am not predicting big war), but I think last time a sizeable portion of my ancestors were there, they were all speaking Proto-Indo-European, so I feel somewhat removed from it. Though, naturally I would like Slavs to cooperate, as I view them as distant kin.

RF recognizes LDNR in current factual border configuration, says Andrey Klimov (RF Federation Council International relations comitte member) – if this is truth, this is crucial and end of hot conflict at the moment, but only if false flag propaganda exercises like “Ukraine spec ops attacking RF” are stopped.

22:28 Россия признает “ЛДНР” в границах, которые сейчас фактически установлены, заявил зампред комитета Совфеда РФ по международным делам Андрей Климов.

OK boomer

A misguided and knee-jerk worship of the police and military and therefore State power has been long instilled in the Right. It will take a while for them to become disabused of that.

Folks are starting to slowly wake up to the fact that these institutions do not represent the people and do not ultimately exist to protect them. They exist to ratify state power and that is where their ultimate loyalty lies.

The shift to an all volunteer military creates a nearly perfect loyal mercenaries. Unfortunately, open disdain for civilians by career military is far from uncommon, at least in the US. They do not feel they are cut from the same cloth as the rest of us.

In the US the main hold-outs against this are the locally elected Sheriffs and many local PD’s. They tend to retain some independence and local loyalty more frequently. Steps are being taken, at least on the State level where I am to rein in the independence of the Sheriff’s since the State sees them as a weak link.

so I feel somewhat removed from it.

Massive sanctions are pretty much unavoidable, if Russia proceeds to invade Ukraine, and installs a puppet government, or dismembers the country and annexes large parts (and I believe that’s what’s going to happen, even though I was sceptical for a long time). The economic consequences in Western Europe will be really painful, and the US won’t be unaffected either, will strongly drive up inflation. And in parts of the world that are already messed up price rises for fuel and basic foodstuffs might lead to all manner of political instability and increase migratory flows. So unfortunately this is going to have negative consequences for all of us.

OK boomer

How original. Apparently the racialists were correct that slant-eyes are lacking in creativity.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/02/21/neanderthal-gene-could-explain-ethnic-groups-suffer-worse-covid/

I wondered about something like this since fairly early on, since it appeared to me that African’s and East Asians were less affected by Covid than, say Amerindians. Even poverty levels, population density, or counter measures used did not seem to account for the disparity.

Which is quite ironic come to think of it, me being basically the only Anglosphere commenter who identified Russia’s cardinal change in ideological course very early, but there you go. Not all predictions can be easily monetized or even converted into reputational capital.

I think Mikhail Zygar did quite a good job of that with “All The Kremlin’s Men” back in 2016, though his liberal lense in viewing of this development was of course far more negative than yours, I thought he charted the ideological/PR developments and factional struggles within Putin’s government since 2000 quite fairly.

RF recognizes LDNR in current factual border configuration, says Andrey Klimov (RF Federation Council International relations comitte member) – this is crucial and end of hot conflict at the moment, but only if false flag propaganda exercises like “Ukraine spec ops are attacking RF objects” are stopped.

https://tass.ru/politika/13793109

After weeks of racial harmony in the forum where we were all like the children in a Martin Luther King speech, friends with each, and sharing our interest in Chinese culture.

Now I open this thread and the brown, yellow and white people are arguing with each other, based on nationality.

This is below us. (Edit – I’m sounding like Thulean Friend with this writing style).

–

Whatever else it can be, I think there is an important history event happening now.

I’m wondering how the expert historical community has been talking about this in Germany?

Are they talking about it through a lens of 1930s? Or is it viewed as something less dangerous?

economic consequences in Western Europe will be really painful, and the US won’t be unaffected either, will strongly drive up inflation.

Short term Pain — Long term Gain

The U.S. needs MAGA Reindustrialization, and Europe needs something similar. Exposing the extreme danger posed by dependence on China–Russia will accelerate these needed reforms. Disengaging from CCP owned firms will bolster the U.S. and weaken the most odious parts of the PRC.

The biggest losers will be the UN/NWO European Davos WEF Elites. The surge in Populism will drive a stake through the heart of their aspirational goal, ending national sovereignty.

PEACE 😇

These numbers can be increasing however. It’s not like Iraq 2003, where everything is transported across oceans. It’s all just things you put on the train inside the home country and pay the crew for the train ticket.

I guess nobody of us understand military, of course including myself.

But from internet chatter on Twitter by military people, they seem to regularly imply this buildup of forces is still continuing, and will be an ongoing process.

For example, he (who is a former special forces soldier in Finland) says about the video showing movement of the BMPT-2 “Terminators”.

They don't want this kit mixed with the first wave. This is for later stages.

— Petri Mäkelä (@pmakela1) February 20, 2022

Without "WEAPONS & KES"
You are nothing but a SHEEP",
Guru Gobind Singh Ji

Crime Rate in Punjab is lowest compare to other INDIAN STATE.

So go spread your PROPAGANDA & SIKHPHOBIA somewhere else. https://t.co/sZueUkY6H6 pic.twitter.com/wdpSERQhGr

— Entrepreneur COW MATA (@NAGPURI_CHADDI) February 5, 2022

Puratan Hath Likhat Sarbloh Guru Sahib Saroop, with an illustrated ang, with the caption

ਜਿਤੇ ਸਸਤ੍ਰ ਨਾਮੰ ॥
Wherever there are Shastar(Melee weapons) named,
ਨਮਸਕਾਰ ਤਾਮੰ ॥
I bow there.
ਜਿਤੇ ਅਸਤ੍ਰ ਭੇਯੰ ॥
Wherever there are Astar(Ranged weapons) placed,
ਨਮਸਕਾਰ ਤੇਯੰ ॥੯੧॥
I bow there. pic.twitter.com/sywWJfaoPn

— Gurman (@GSD1699) February 3, 2022

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-175/#comment-5182779

Based.

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

Co-morbidities.

…this is going to have negative consequences for all of us.

There will also be some positives, but EU just lost quite badly. The sanctions were coming anyway, it was built into the situation. The situation was 90% created by the NATO attempt at expansion. All the negatives are consequences of that initial error.

The final straw was Sholz laughing at the genocide in Donbas – that was after he claimed that NATO bombed Serbia to prevent a ‘genocide’. That was extremely bad taste and it removed last constraints – one cannot talk to idiots who don’t even consider people in Donbas humans and who lie about their own attack on Serbia. Finished, done for.

We can be grateful to that moron Sholz, his simple-mindness, and that of his green sidekick, made it all very personal – after all the Germans, the parents or grandparents of these two idiots, murdered millions in the east – including in Donbas. Whatever comes will be cosmic justice. But what a moron.

This is below us.

You’re generally correct, but since Chieh seems to find the present situation really, really funny (with him posting only idiotic memes to express his Karlin-fanboyism), I don’t feel bad about replying according to the style of the net weirdoes he seems to feel comfortable with (it’s all fun and games after all!). No offense to Asians in general intended.

I’m wondering how the expert historical community has been talking about this in Germany?

No idea. imo the opinions of most historians outside their narrow field of expertise are worthless anyway.

how can someone, who, presumably (at least my passing impression in the past) is concerned about the fate of european people(s) in the current circumstances, get butthurt about ‘war’, especially one with explicitly nationalist overtones striking back in the face of the globalising efforts of Great Satan USA?

as an English person currently suffering the effects of the West’s ongoing (and greatly intensifying) genocide of its own ‘state forming peoples’ (to use Putin’s own nice phrase when boosting Russians right to their own lands) – if we somehow survive this, it’s not going to be by being pussies.

Exposing the extreme danger posed by dependence on China–Russia will accelerate these needed reforms.

Damn, can’t believe my eyes it’s A123 writing it 🙂

The idea that mankind destroying the natural world is somehow the “purpose” of nature – if I understand the gist of this – because there is some level of competition in nature – which usually leads to equilibrium in a healthy ecosystem, btw, not limitless expansion of any one species or aspect, which is actually the definition of a dysfunctional ecosystem – seems quite silly.

Healthy natural systems involve equilibrium. Sure, there is competition – but the kind of limitless innovation or competition envisioned by modernity, if we are going to take out cues from nature, are clearly the definition of breakdown and dysfunction.

As we are seeing today.

Massive sanctions are pretty much unavoidable, if Russia proceeds to invade Ukraine, and installs a puppet government, or dismembers the country and annexes large parts (and I believe that’s what’s going to happen, even though I was sceptical for a long time).

I don’t believe he will annex Ukraine.

I believe his goal is to keep NATO out of Ukraine, and that doesn’t require annexing it, only sending a stronger signal than was sent before NATO expanded Eastward.

Considering the geography, IMO, his behavior is fairly rational, China went apeshit when Americans were set to land in Korea. US wept apeshit when Soviets were putting nukes on Cuba. Smaller countries don’t have the capacity to signal in the same manner.

These big mobilizations are necessary. You can’t send a signal with a small one. Russia is a land power, it can’t send three carrier battlegroups, to saberrattle. The US regularly saber-rattles with its navy. It just has no need to do so, in its backyard, because it was the dominant power, over that sphere, without its elites ever turning ways.

There are plenty of gas fields to reduce consumption from Russia to zero. Norway can supply Northern Europe. EastMed can supply Southern Europe. It takes time, funding, and especially will. The last has been the factor most lacking.

As an added bonus, the need for EastMed means that Europe/U.S. will soon be tossing the madness that is Erdogan straight under the proverbial bus.

It is a rare geopolitical WIN-WIN-WIN scenario.

PEACE 😇

It is almost 4am in Kiev and everything quiet?

–

This night, ruble was down to the “psychologically important” 1 $ = 80 р. with the fears of war beginning. (I am old enough to remember when falling to 60 was a horror).

I guess when the sophisticated world of finance, has to wait to see if Zhirinovsky was being a clown again or not.

RF recognizes LDNR in current factual border configuration, says Andrey Klimov (RF Federation Council International relations comitte member) – this is crucial and end of hot conflict at the moment, but only if false flag propaganda exercises like “Ukraine spec ops are attacking RF objects” are stopped.

Ukraine should introduce a state of war (voenniy stan) in the remainder of these provinces, full physical control of this territory to avoid provocations, complete control of who comes and goes there. Rada should implement it this coming morning.

Btw, there are rumors that the Generalshtab is not a 100% on board with the invasion. At least some officers aren’t too keen. Of course, they’ll have to follow the orders, but there are such rumors. The British had some intelligence along the same lines.

Disengaging from CCP owned firms will bolster the U.S.

Certainly wouldn’t call myself a freetrader, but I don’t know that trying to create a vertically-integrated economy built around maximization of diversity is going to very workable in practice.

Should be an interesting stress test, if it happens. Possibly even, a kick in the pants for a move towards sanity, and away from this insane track we are on, towards total destruction. Though, as I’ve said, I’m not sure that economic decoupling will happen.

I believe his goal is to keep NATO out of Ukraine, and that doesn’t require annexing it, only sending a stronger signal than was sent before NATO expanded Eastward.

It seems like Putin wants to resolve the issue once and for all…apparently Macron offered a moratorium on NATO membership for Ukraine, but that wasn’t enough, it has to be permanently excluded (and since the US is “agreement-incapable”, and any new administration might just walk back on commitments, what chance is there of that?). The most convincing way to get that would be a punitive expedition into Ukraine, smashing its forces and demonstrating that NATO’s promises were completely empty, that nobody is going to fight for Ukraine and Ukraine will always be at Russia’s mercy. Whether or to what extent there’ll be annexations, who knows, but on the other hand, why not, it’s not like it would make much difference to the Western response at that point.
We’ll see soon enough. And yes, I’m somewhat selfish, I’m not happy at all about the prospect of increased energy insecurity in Germany (but also find the prospect of carnage in Ukraine, with maybe tens of thousands going to be killed in a short time, pretty sickening).

Its just the same article over and over again – America and Jews are responsible for everything bad, no matter what or where it happens,

I know what you mean. But it’s not Unz, et al’s fault that it’s always the Juice and Americans.

The fault lies not in the stars, but in your idiocy.

I’m pleased that the mere whiff of my presence is already injecting more will to power in you. You shouldn’t suggest that there is anything wrong in simping for bipoc lesbian Russian writers, however. Diversity is our strength.

That certainly accounts for a lot when comparing similar ethnic groups. It’s clearly a major reason that Americans fared so badly. Being obese is risk factor numero uno.

This would explain why North American Rez Indians got hit so hard. They tend to be very unhealthy populations. But why would Central/ South America get hit so hard? They still tend to be relatively healthy. And why did they have such a bad time compared to Africa which should be somewhat comparable in development etc.?

It seems unsurprising to me that a genetic factor(s) could be involved as it would account for some inconsistency.

I don’t remember your channeling your inner Authoritarian Delphic Oracle quite so much in your pronouncements last time around. Must be something similar in the water that you and AK are drinking.

At one time, US was so paranoid about Euros possibly projecting power into its backyard, that it undertook steps which eventually made Puerto Ricans into American citizens. Admittedly, they are a varied group, but, the lower sort is, perhaps, best categorized as the Latino version of Chechens.

(Loose analogy, I know. But who has spent more? Russia on Chechnya, or US on Puerto Rico? Not counting blood, wouldn’t even come close.)
___
Expanding NATO into the Baltics was dumb, but, in a way, it could be interpreted as a political and economic integration, with the military forces being token, and there only with the intent to accomplish those things.

Ukraine would be a fundamentally different matter.

I don’t know that trying to create a vertically-integrated economy built around maximization of diversity is going to very workable in practice.
…
Though, as I’ve said, I’m not sure that economic decoupling will happen.

While the aspirational goal is decoupling, in practice it will be focused on strategic sectors like pharmaceuticals and raw materials (e.g. rare earth elements). Buying socks from Bangladesh is likely to continue indefinitely.

Should be an interesting stress test, if it happens. Possibly even, a kick in the pants for a move towards sanity, and away from this insane track we are on, towards total destruction.

MAGA Reindustrialization is a virtuous cycle. As American workers earn more, they buy more America goods, creating more American jobs. MAGA prosperity or SJW impoverishment? An easy choice. As workers do better, they will support the Populist MAGA party. It is a track towards victory and prosperity.

It will not be easy, and it will not be instant. Key to success is excluding #NeverTrump, defeatist, yahoo whiners. Low-IQ dregs cannot be allowed to sabotage the movement from the inside.

PEACE 😇

“compared to Africa ” – Look at population pyramid of US/European countries and compare it with African countries. You will see that in say 80-84 age range African countries have 20x less people than European countries. You can safely assume (because IFR(age) is an exponential function of age) that IFR(Africa)<IFR(Europe)/20. Then with that much lower IFR the excess deaths in Africa with African level of information/administration infrastructure is not detectable.

See:
https://www.populationpyramid.net/italy/2020/
https://www.populationpyramid.net/nigeria/2020/

Looking for genes that may explain different outcomes is just Unzian bias. Blacks and Whites in the US did not have that much different outcomes to the pandemic.

I think they are more desperate this time around…

As I said to GR, we seem to be approaching one of those moments where spiritual trends become clearly defined, where what was at stake all along comes into sharp relief.

Even two years ago, I did not really understand what was at stake like I do now.

But that means, that those on a downward trajectory get worse, and those on an upward trajectory continue on that path.

The two paths become clearer and clearer….

Biden’s response to Russian troops moving into separatists region of Ukraine is a joke. Banning US firms doing business in the area? Is that all? Hopefully tomorrow we will see something more substantial.

that wasn’t enough, it has to be permanently excluded (and since the US is “agreement-incapable”, and any new administration might just walk back on commitments

This is the core, 100% Putin made, error. He knew that that there was no way to get to a “legally binding” guarantee, yet he asked for the impossible anyway. Presumably Putin was expecting some sort of capitulation from Not-The-President Biden. When the Alzheimer’s patient did something unexpected, the colossal error came home to roost.

Putin never should have made such a demand without having a way out. That error, in the short-term, will be very costly to everyone. The most that can be hoped for is that such obvious proof of Russian unreliability and unreasonableness will hasten long-term decoupling.

PEACE 😇

Mowgli, who was raised by machines, is getting feisty. He would like to be Karlin’s attack red panda.

So far this is just “minor incursion” from Biden POV and he is right – only if RF keeps going beyond current de facto already existing frontlines, which have been more or less stable for several years already and are not crossed yet, then more serious measures should kick in.

True, there are some few last holdouts who believe in the old vision, but most of society no longer really believes it in it’s bones – without yet gaining a new faith, vision, and story, which accounts for much of the confusion and dysfunction of our time. We are in the space between stories.

But if you stop and think about it it’s astonishing how different our attitude is from someone in, say, the 50s.

Buying socks from Bangladesh is likely to continue indefinitely.

Textiles can be outsourced nearly anywhere, IMO. Meanwhile, some developing countries can reasonably handle the mass production of single products that might be sophisticated in some measure like hard drives. But China had complicated supply chains that probably can’t be duplicated at cost, anywhere else. Partly due to scale, but partly due to human capital. The end result might be that many electronics and other items become suddenly very costly.

This will be very disruptive politically, as cheap, easily available electronics was the major fig leaf on inflation. But I’m more worried about what will happen, if they drop US debt.

If the politicians go the sanction route over Taiwan, I expect it to result in mass unemployment, super-high inflation, and scarce availability of goods. It will be comparable, possible even worse than the Great Depression, as civil society was much more functional and well-mannered back then.

Possibly it might lead to reforms. But it might also lead to increasing totalitarianism. If we are lucky, IMO, they will chicken out, and only use rhetoric. But, probably, they are too dumb for that.

It does seem like folks around here are getting increasingly oddly amped up or edgy surrounding the whole Ukrainian situation.

As for myself, I’m feeling quite unperturbed since I just bought a very nice backhoe today. The world cannot touch me…

Maybe some good music would help…

@AaronB- It crossed my mind the other day to wonder if you were at all familiar with the Armenian American composer Alan Hovhaness. I’ve always like his work quite a bit and thought you might appreciate it.

Atomophiles should believe in a prophecy that begins: when the power of the atom has returned to Visaginas…

Lol, Japanese Hitachi wanted to build new nuclear station there instead of closed Chernobyl type Soviet one, but Lithuanian voters rejected the idea of a new nuclear build because of a high potential cost at the time in 2013. So probably not soon 😉

I was specifically thinking of the comparison between S. America and Africa. It seems odd to me that S. American countries skew so high in Covid stats, since they have a significantly younger median population than other countries with similar numbers.

You are correct that Africa is far and away the youngest continent which explains a massive amount of the outcome there.

FWIW I don’t tend to personally be all that big into jumping to genetic explanations for various things, though I can see why that would be a reasonable assumption around these parts.

You underestimate diabetes & pollution in the urban third world

Also status quo right wing won’t stop loving authority. They’re just old school liberals as I pointed out.

They simply represent the dominant status quo of another time period.

Hindus haven’t stopped loving authority, and since they’re both gay & a democracy they can be used as a succinct example।।

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

“Sunset in the ethereal waves:
I cannot tell if the day
is ending, or the world, or if
the secret of secrets is inside me again.”
― Anna Akhmatova

I believe this is one meaning at least of love your enemy

That’s it precisely. I hope that Svidomyatheart doesn’t read this – he’ll castigate me as not worthy of any svidomy stripes. NOT! 😉

Was Ben Franklin right that the only white Germans are Saxons? And what did he mean by Saxons? Coastal Germans? (As Finland calls Germany “Saksa”, though Scandis use a different word)

For the US, the big test will be when China annexes Taiwan. That might possibly lead to an economic decoupling, though I am not 100% sure. Will be very painful, for sure, if it happens.

The US can and should get ahead of that test by dealing with Putin’s Ukraine invasion boldly: challenge the Russians by hitting Russia’s far eastern flank a la MacArthur’s Incheon landing during the Korean War.

During the Korean War, the North Koreans were able to invade and take over the whole Korean peninsula save Busan in the far south. This left the North Koreans overextended, and MacArthur’s brilliant Incheon landing flanked the North Koreans. Russia’s buildup in Eastern Europe has left Vladivostok and the Russian Far East similarly extremely vulnerable and undefended.

The US has almost 100,000 military personnel stationed in South Korea and Japan, along with the US Navy’s Pacific fleet. The US should respond to an invasion of Ukraine by taking Vladivostok and Khabarovsk. This would also send a message to China regarding Taiwan.

I certainly do not have much warm feelings towards RF, but at least at the current hour, hope this is just satire, lol 🙂

There’s some funny things over the last day.

Putin presented this live broadcast of speech and meeting “discussion” with National Security Council in the evening.

But the watches of the people there show it wasn’t a live broadcast.

It was filmed at lunchtime. But then they tell everyone it was “live”

12.47 на годиннику Шойгу.
Тобто це не пряма трансляція як її намагаються показати.
Країна – ФЕЙК.https://t.co/GLExONwd4u pic.twitter.com/uhvd63VY4v

— Анатолій Штефан (Штірліц) (@Shtirlitz53) February 21, 2022

Suprisingly #Putin's and Defence minister Shoygu's watches showed approx. 13:35-13:40 Moscow time, while it was broadcasted as "live". So they planned it in advance and Putin's whole speech was just a trick and illusion. pic.twitter.com/cfxKxYwg2c

— David Moroney (@David__Moroney) February 21, 2022

Lol it’s typical though.

There are much more funny things usually in the media culture, like the reports which show that Putin meeting ordinary people, who are always prepared actors, etc.

–

Also the FSB reports yesterday that 5 Ukrainian terrorists attacked the Russian border. They say all 5 Ukrainian terrorists were killed by the FSB before their terrorist activity in Russia.

During the video, the vehicle changes from BTR-80 to BMP-2,

In addition, the video is filmed in the wrong season or location. Now is winter. But in the video, the forest is green, and at one moment you can see blossom. Moreover, it appears to be taiga, which is not the climate or trees in the Rostov region.

At 0:03 there is a young oak tree with fully green leaves. So the video of this terrorist attack by Ukrainian forces today, was filmed at least in May or June.

🇷🇺🇺🇦⚡️PILNE! Rosyjskie FSB opublikowało materiał video, na którym według niej ukraińskie BMP-2 zostały zniszczone podczas porannego najazdu w kierunku granicy państwowej z obwodem rostowskim. #Russian #UkraineRussiaCrisis #UkraineConflict pic.twitter.com/KYjnvH4kRG

— WarNewsPL (@WarNewsPL1) February 21, 2022

Russia shows video of destroyed Ukrainian invaders’ vehicles

FSB posts video of two BMP armored vehicles, destroyed after entering Russian territory

Moscow has published video evidence of what it says was an incursion by Ukrainian troops into Russian territory. A video from the Russian security service shows two BMP armored vehicles in the woods east of the disputed Donbass region, destroyed during Monday morning’s incident…

According to the Federal Security Service (FSB), Russian border guards in the Rostov region, due east of the self-proclaimed Lugansk republic, spotted a group of five Ukrainian saboteurs crossing the border around 6am local time on Monday. They requested support from the Southern Military District troops in order to capture the intruders.

After a firefight broke out, two Ukrainian BMPs crossed the border to extract the group, FSB said. Russian soldiers destroyed both vehicles and killed five saboteurs.

https://www.rt.com/russia/550157-fsb-video-ukrainian-vehicles/

–

They posted a video where I can see a young oak tree (at 0:03), with green mature oak leaves in it and say this video is an event in the 21st in February, where they killed 5 Ukrainian terrorists. But for such a tree to have mature green leaves, can be only May or June.

If there will be more such news and videos after the recognition of LDNR, then it means the real hot war is still ahead, despite the current strange (temporary?) quiet at the moment.

‘Dumb and lazy’: the flawed films of Ukrainian ‘attacks’ made by Russia’s ‘fake factory’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/feb/21/dumb-and-lazy-the-flawed-films-of-ukrainian-attacks-made-by-russias-fake-factory

During the video, the vehicle changes from BTR-80 to BMP-2,

In addition, the video is filmed in the wrong season or location. Now is winter. But in the video, the forest is green, and at one moment you can see blossom. Moreover, it appears to be taiga, which is not the climate or trees in the Rostov region.

At 0:03 there is a young oak tree with fully green leaves. So the video of this terrorist attack by Ukrainian forces today, was filmed at least in May or June.

Is the RF military financial situation really so dire, that they even could not afford to blow up some old BTR-80 yesterday, instead of finding some old videos from video archives?

Yes, that’s the explanation, the RF military’s dire financial situation! It’s so dire, they couldn’t conduct a war even if they wanted to.

No, you misunderstand the situation. As was indicated by an EU official at the time, these are the types of demands made by a victorious party. So they are the terms of surrender Russia will be demanding once it’s done fighting. Making them ahed of time was simply a relatively meaningless gesture of good will.

Nice to see such enthusiastic agreement 😉

Lol, my word but it looks like we’re having a commenter revolution. But do recall that it will soon be followed by Bolsheviks, then 80 interminable Open Threads about the importance of strong transsexual BIPOC public servants and striking down white supremacy.

It looks like the main battles are still ahead as those newly recognized and backed by RF “republics” demanded UA to step back and pull the military forces from the current positions.

How does it feel to realize that your input has for all intents and purposes really become irrelevant?

This comment serves you right for letting ungrateful peons make laws.

The tragic lessons of history when this is allowed are angels on the head of a pin.

OK boomer

Intemperate insults like this are why the gods will not allow you to grow nice asparagus.

And what did he mean by Saxons? Coastal Germans?

Probably the kind of Saxons fought and subjugated by Charlemagne in northern Germany (the other Saxony, with Dresden as centre, only got the name in the late middle ages for dynastic reasons). I suppose it’s an early example of Anglo-Saxonism (just as Jefferson was interested in Old English, traced American liberty back to the ancient Germanics and their assemblies and wanted Hengist and Horsa – along the ancient Israelites – put on the US seal iirc).
Ironically, there’s a book about the Saxons in late antiquity (e. g. the pirates who caused the creation of the litus Saxonicus along the English channel) and early middle ages by German historian Matthias Springer, and he argues that virtually nothing can be known with certainty about the Saxons before Christianization.

“You’re not a ’90s child’. You’re a 30 year old man.”
-Auto reply to anyone mentioning discord

Everyone is so wound up about war.

What exactly has Russia done that is different from South Ossetia or Nagorno-Karabakh?

Russia just took longer than usual this time (around 7 years).

To use an old meme:

1. Place ‘Peacekeepers’ right in harms way
2. Watch ‘Peacekeepers’ get lit up
3. ????
4. Profit

That’s what happened in Georgia and that’s what happened in Armenia and that’s what will happen here. No that doesn’t mean an invasion of the whole of Ukraine.

A lot of Bangladesh garment buying isn’t about divestment from China (like buying Made in the US Tees) but high labor costs in China and intentional upgrading on the value chain by Chinese local governments (Xinjiang excepted because Uyghurs). The West is planning for more “domestic” (certainly high-cost) or production in Korea/SEA to offset the loss of Taiwanese production, but only by that much.

Supply chains failures are already quite widespread, but can be even worse if major breakdowns in trade occur & (perhaps even more importantly) Randian ideologies take hold & intentionally reduce economic complexity, and high inflation is guaranteed by existing money printing. 80% of employment in the US are paper shuffling or 3rd-world menial labor, they might not be blown away with chips shortage, and it might even help slightly by slowing automation to a halt.

Any “reform” that is possible in a Progressive government will likely damage the interest of Conservatives and hence the common people, maybe even non-Whites if economic failure kicks in. And it will be much more Soviet with the constant “threat” (propagandized) of the Ruskies & ChiComs.

I’ll probably be the last to join the Discord gp, btw, since my main a/c is for anime. Will start a new a/c with the email I use here later, if enough commenters have migrated from here.

China had complicated supply chains that probably can’t be duplicated at cost, anywhere else. Partly due to scale, but partly due to human capital. The end result might be that many electronics and other items become suddenly very costly.

The rest of Asia has been busy catching up to China’s inefficient, CCP controlled industries. For electronics, options exist “at cost” or “near cost”. There may be some inconvenience and higher pricing for multinational instead of single nation manufacturing, but nothing at a disastrous level.

The long term solution is on shoring the high value tasks plus necessary supply industries. At that point, the U.S.will be decoupled from problems created by CCP economic malfeasance.

I’m more worried about what will happen, if they drop US debt.

Why? EUR is much worse than USD. And, China’s RMB is much worse than EUR. Evergrande was the first shoe to drop. Both commercial and residential property are headed towards total collapse: (1)

Chinese property stocks slid after Zhenro Properties Group Ltd. said it may not have enough cash to meet debt-payment obligations next month, in a move that may undermine efforts by the government to stem financial contagion in the sector.

Meanwhile, a bondholder is suing some directors of Chinese developer Fantasia Holdings Group Co. in Hong Kong, alleging that the company made “inaccurate and misleading” announcements last year, highlighting growing concern about surprise defaults by developers.

The loss of savings, lack of disposable income, plus crippling WUHAN-19 restrictions are churning around the CCP’s no longer managed economy in all sorts of destructive ways. For example, cruise ships cannot book enough passengers to survive: (2)

As of now, Crystal has suspended its ocean cruises through April 29 and river cruising through May. Parent company Genting Hong Kong, which also owns the Asia market-focused Star Cruises and Dream Cruises lines, is now being overseen by provisional liquidators appointed by a Bermuda court, where the company is registered, who will ultimately determine the fate of all of its assets.

China’s fragile economy is crashing down, and thre is little that Xi and his CCP Elites can do to stop it.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-21/default-warning-raises-investor-anxiety-evergrande-update

(2) https://www.travelweekly.com/Cruise-Travel/Insights/Crystal-what-happened-what-could-be-next

The US should respond to an invasion of Ukraine by taking Vladivostok and Khabarovsk.

If that doesn’t stir Dugin from his dogmatic slumber my god it ain’t going to happen.

Belmonte it is time for your doctor to update your psycho med cocktail.

Bolsheviks and transsexuals striking down white supremacy, somewhere here within UNZ? Unbelievable! Unless Karlin and his trustworthy sidekick Daniel Chieh instigate this new paradigm here, Karlin will continue to lose readership…..

For the US, the big test will be when China annexes Taiwan. That might possibly lead to an economic decoupling, though I am not 100% sure. Will be very painful, for sure, if it happens.

This would be a global catastrophe. A hot war would wipe out 100% of Taiwan’s chip making capability. This would be immediately followed by “Stuxnet” style reprisals against MITIC reducing mainland China’s chip capacity to near zero.

“Death to China” would be the new rallying cry for American and European Christian Populism. Knowing that China’s Elite rulers would be frantic after their total failure, it is not hard to imagine an American preemptive first strike against the CCP’s nuclear arsenal.
____

There is hope.

The CCP is displaying pathetic inability to cope with the peaceful handover of Hong Kong. Why would Xi volunteer for what is guaranteed to be a much worse disaster via a hot war with Taiwan? Xi can blame the HK fiasco on his predecessors. His legacy would be permanently destroyed by a catastrophic error in Tiawan.

Expect decades of status quo stalemate between PRC & ROC. Neither side has any potential gain by forcing hostile action.

PEACE 😇

OK I went and looked at the Anatoly Karlin powerful takes discord channel. That cunt has rules.

No not safe for work content.
No personal attacks.
It’s in English.

Also before I could see what is in there I had to “complete a few more steps”. Fuck that I don’t have time.

: )

The idea that mankind destroying the natural world is somehow the “purpose” of nature – if I understand the gist of this – because there is some level of competition in nature – which usually leads to equilibrium in a healthy ecosystem, btw, not limitless expansion of any one species or aspect

Mammals took over the world, within mammalia, humans have emerged to take over the world, through the use of very natural cognitive abilities. We all know non-man made natural events that are far more disruptive than man-made ones. People can of course create sublime things; to the extent that something is man-made versus natural, ugly and purely efficiently functional things created by man are more natural whereas more beautiful things transcend nature.

Medvedev trolls Scholz

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has issued an order to halt the process of certifying the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline. Well. Welcome to the brave new world where Europeans are very soon going to pay €2.000 for 1.000 cubic meters of natural gas!

— Dmitry Medvedev (@MedvedevRussiaE) February 22, 2022

I think that the pipelines via Ukraine will be closed after the expiration of the current contract that ends in 2024. The bifurcation has started.

America is working on replicating/replacing Taiwan’s chip-making capability at home. The process should be complete within a few years, before China takes Taiwan.

But do recall that it will soon be followed by Bolsheviks, then 80 interminable Open Threads about the importance of strong transsexual BIPOC public servants and striking down white supremacy.

False dichotomy.
I don’t get why so many online Western right-wingers seem to believe Russia is somehow on their side and they should feel some connection to the kind of imperial views espoused by Karlin. Not saying one should regard Russia as an enemy either (imo one of the negative consequences of current developments is that it will cement hostility between Western states and Russia for many decades, affecting many issues)…but there is no logical connection between the issues Western rightists care about (most prominently the great replacement) and “Ukraine is fake and gay, let’s bring back the Russian empire”.
From a Russian point of view the present configuration of Western societies with their policies against the national core populations and promotion of all kind of degeneracy might be even advantageous, since it obviously is bound to erode any kind of traditional patriotism and make Western societies weaker and unstable.

Assuming Not-The-President Biden does not screw it up, American will have its first facility with Taiwan level chip capability in a few years. It will take more years to build quantity/capacity.

Trump’s first term started things in the right direction despite gigantic obstacles. What is now needed is a consistent run where MAGA controls the House, Senate, and Executive branch.

PEACE 😇

No wonder that German_reader is keen to hold on to his hard earned sheckles. 🙂

I don’t get why so many online Western right-wingers seem to believe Russia is somehow on their side and they should feel some connection to the kind of imperial views espoused by Karlin

Christian Populists have little stake the Ukraine situation. To the extent there is a bias it is due to Not-The-President Biden’s ties to Burisma via his son. That is not an embrace of Russian imperialism. It is more Ukrainians are now reaping the fruits of bribery, corruption, and ties to the SJW/DNC.

You would have to seek out others to speak for the wacky forms of right extremism like White Nationalism.
___

I again mention that the term “right” no longer makes a great deal of sense in an American context:
— Right MegaCorporations and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce align to the DNC.
— Right wing NeoConDemocrats, also DNC aligned.

The old “left-right” spectrum is gone, buried, and never to return. Continuing to use “left-right” concepts when speaking about the U.S. is muddy thinking. You would be better served by adopting a more accurate spectrum, such as Globalist–Populist.

PEACE 😇

To be fair, and in a less trollish way – I do think that this switch to Discord is also interesting in that it does show a genuine kind of “walking the talk” insofar as the forum switches to more modern technologies, it very much shows its own desire to embrace technological evolution in spite of all of the messiness that it can have.

So in that sense, the OK BOOMER meme which to be honest I’ve been saving up for some time for the first person to object to Discord is quite reasonably accurate insofar as it aims against an arguably very fair standard – the willingness to adapt to and use new technological tools and in that sense, the sense of fondness for or at least tolerance for using new tools, which is very much a fitness advantage.

I would usually end this with my typical Embrace the Machine vibe, but I think the ultimate realization comes not so much in that notion as in a realization, which is ultimately rather affirmed by the excellent Ascent of Information that “the machine” as it might be, is ultimately very much circumscribed by the same system of utility, disutility, competition and whatnot as “nature” ever was, and “nature” is the “machine” in the same way as the “machine” is “nature.”

So, embrace the flow.

So long, and don’t forget your boosters!

If I may throw my 2 cents in…
I think that if you look at beautiful man made things you find that the transcendent build upon natural paradigm whereas the ugly tends to ignore it entirely or is hostile to it. Buildings are a good example and one that I am pretty well versed on.

If you look at classical and traditional architecture, i.e. the stuff that people generally instinctively find appealing and attractive, it is based upon all sorts of geometric proportions and rules which are actually found in nature. The golden mean or ratio, the fibonacci sequence, the proportions of man etc. were known to the ancients and used to design structures.

When you combine design principles based on the structures of the natural world with natural materials, your end product will be unsurpassed. For example, I find genuine stone to be infinitely appealing while I find synthetic stone to be quite distressing the more “real looking” it gets. It’s kind of the “uncanny valley” because I can immediately tell fake stone, but I find it less offensive if it is obviously fake.

Most modern architecture chucks both the rules and materials of the natural world aside when building, and the result speaks for itself.

When man attains his best I would say that he works with natural systems and rules to create transcendence. Ignoring natural rules and systems creates something which may dominate, but can never transcend.

EU will still buy Russian gas except pay a lot more. LNG gas is often from Russia – resold by intermediaries – gas is a commodity, it is fungible.

The German weakness (or stupidity?) means that Russia can sit back, produce less, and make money with less work. Great move sergeant Sholz. Globally, demand for gas is growing and anyone can build LNG facilities, Russia already has them.

Now how about cutting off SWIFT? It would have great visuals, and then how would they get paid or sell anything. Just do it, it feels good. Then Germany send gold as prepayment. F…ing 19th century all over again.

This will go down in economic history as one of the dumbest own goals. But Germans have never understood the big picture. At least since Bismarck.

… American will have its first facility with Taiwan level chip capability in a few years.

Probably true. But it is a lot more complicated and that first step will not mean much. You have to understand that by roughly 2010-12 US gave away the full infrastructure for tech production – the endless small suppliers and machine shops that are required for a full production cycle. The essential minutia that used to exist in Silicon Valley and a few other places, the suppliers and test shops, the craft-level knowledge base.

US companies moved it for higher profits, to recreate it is close to impossible (unless there is a war situation). The companies that moved, the CEO’s who competed to be the “Businessman of the year in China” (yes, look that up, they did) are not in a position to do it. China also has an incredible manual work advantage and that gives it a cost advantage – it is a global market and that decides who sells what. Price matters.

There has not been a major tech breakthrough in 10-15 years, it is stagnating, there are really no new products, only same old ones done better – Asians have an advantage in that business environment.

Trump was about 5-10 years too late. The eight lazy years of Obama were decisive in putting a fork in the deindustrialization of US. Good luck anyway, but mistakes have consequences. And nobody in US has been held accountable for the mistakes – instead they play golf in Jackson Hole, Hamptons and Carmel. You can’t run a country that way.

it will run into cost-structure problems somewhere, but Taiwan (while having an undervalued currency) already has high wages in the semiconductor industry (and Chinese interior-level poverty outside it)

If Karlin is big on Urbit why not invite us over

Atm it looks like RF is kinda trying to treat whole UA like some base inside Crimea they were blocking in 2014, that would be preferable to them than real fighting. Not that they will not attack, but Crimea type full UA surrender is primary gamble goal. It is like a big dog and average cat – no doubt which is overall stronger, but dog still can get unpleasant eye damage from that cat. RF is surely methodically raising temperature – there is a request of Putin to use military force abroad at RF Federation Soviet.

…But also we are approching Moscow time pretty zones of 20:02, 20:22 or 22:22 at the evening, so who knows lol

Afraid you are behind the times – military doctrine has moved on. No need for a ring of allies around China, so that they can be bottled up and kept from projecting power to the US West Coast.

What has replaced it is a more advanced and foolproof method of defense: turning the West Coast into a complete shithole, so the Chinese would not want it. They know that they will be barbarically attacked by feral blacks and antifa child-molesters, if they try to take over Seattle.

They also know that if they came to San Francisco they would be set on by raving derelicts and would slip on their shit, when trying to climb the hills, abrading their knees on the cobblestones, in an analogy to the punji sticks that the Vietnamese employed.

Finally, they know that if they tried to take LA, then roving Latinx bandits would derail their supply trains and steal their rations and ammo, so that they had to resort to eating garbage and throwing stones. So, why bother?

…to treat whole UA like some base inside Crimea they were blocking in 2014

Not a bad analogy. What is the morale now among UA military, militias, government officials, businessmen? Are they ready to fight? Or are most looking for a way out, to not be the last fool to die for a losing cause? There is also the explicit threat to hold them “accountable for crimes” – a rather flexible definition. How many will take a chance? Not everybody will manage to run away. And there are apartments, assets, family – who wants to lose it?

Post-Maidan Ukraine only chance was to be peaceful, to avoid conflict, to play it smart, stay quiet. They didn’t, they went for a war and big pronouncements (“in NATO now!!!”). Given the situation on the ground, the geography, this was a losing strategy. In December, Russia called the bluff and the West promptly run away and strongly suggested that Ukies just martyr themselves to make for some good visuals. Now will Ukies martyr themselves? How many?

Very sad, but stupidity has its consequences.

Who knows why you would make videos so fake that even citizens who trust the authorities will find it impossible to believe it?

I’m guessing that conventional historians of late stages in “Putinism”, will be writing that this is “typical symptom of changing priorities of the 2010s and early 2020s, as they move from more hybrid dictatorship (dictatorship with higher investment in democratic window dressing) to less hybrid dictatorship (dictatorship with lower investment in democratic window dressing).”

So, Winston Smith, says “2 + 2 = 5”.

And now we must say, “I didn’t see almost mature, green oak tree leaf on a young tree in the taiga. This video is February in Rostov. I didn’t see an almost mature green oak tree leaf on a young tree in the taiga. This is February in Rostov”.

–

This conventional historians view would match a bit of liberal mood of the last years, when they discuss about how appeasement of public opinion seemed to be less of priority for the authorities.

However, (without claiming I have much historical knowledge), I feel like it isn’t really so much of change of trend in the larger multi-century view, even of the same security institution.

If we returned to events of last century and it’s not like the public explanation to the citizens, was so much more logical than “I didn’t see green oak tree leaf”

and he argues that virtually nothing can be known with certainty about the Saxons before Christianization.

I was taught that the epic Beowulf was probably brought over to England.

Seems to be a substantial propaganda drive to call the Saxons some multicult troop, to echo modern Britain. Here there is some dumb article which cites variegated skull shape. (they once used the shape of an old, Roman-era skull in England to argue that it was of black man, but it was pure junk science, with the analysis basically phoney)
https://www.courthousenews.com/human-skulls-reveal-new-clues-about-early-anglo-saxon-ancestry/

Any idea of how they were able to take over England?

I’ve wondered if the Romans somehow destroyed the native clan system, (maybe, people began to marry farther away) which meant that there was no military robustness with a systems breakdown.

So Putin got his legal licence to use force abroad but not in UA yet, just “in Donbas”, but himself still mumbled something about “hopeful negotiations” – in words raising, but also stalling a bit at same time.

One of my more radical ideas is to require progressive talking heads to always have Jackson Pollock paintings greenscreened-in behind them.

20:02, 20:22 or 22:22

In another news, events have indicated that Zhirinovsky, is not part of the inner circle of numerologist astrologers (hopefully not politically correct way to say Kabbalists) in the Kremlin.

But who can blame them, for not inviting such a character? This troll who could have said “9am on 22nd”, but decided to make millions of people stay awake for 4am. Would you invite such antisocial people to your inner circle?

I was taught that the epic Beowulf was probably brought over to England.

Haven’t yet read Beowulf myself, but iirc it’s said to contain noticeable Christian influence. So even if the subject matter may be older, it must at least have been re-worked somewhat in Anglo-Saxon England.

Any idea of how they were able to take over England?

I’ve wondered if the Romans somehow destroyed the native clan system,

iirc it’s supposed that there was a resurgence of native rule after the last Roman troops had left (so maybe some British warlord was the historical basis for King Arthur; it seems to be generally accepted that the Britons managed to check the Germanic advance for several decades and there really was something like the battle at Mons Badonicus, so they weren’t totally de-militarized), but what form exactly that took seems hard to pin down. I think it’s not even clear how widely Latin had been spoken in Roman Britain. So a lot is conjecture. I can’t claim to have any firm opinion on the issue myself (seems clear though that there was substantial Germanic settlement, so not just some elite takeover, even if it wasn’t anywhere close to demographic replacement either).

The Romans isn’t just Rome, but an entire civilization sphere with all kinds of (mostly Caucasian) people either citizens or slaves. Nothing strange with North Africans entering Britain, but almost never the Sub-Saharan Black except as slaves. (This is where Cephalometry will come into good use)

Don’t think all the pre-historic demographic substitution between peoples, e.g. Celts -> Germanics, is “woke” in any meaningful sense. But that requires a TradCon understanding of ethnos – ethnos or culture(religion) – culture(religion) difference, not racial.

I think this dichotomy between the transcendent and nature is one of those really unfortunate ideas that crept into Western thought from Gnosticism. It’s a big part of the reason the West is such a mess today.

One reason I like the Eastern Orthodox form of Christianity more is because of it’s sense that the Divine is “immanent” in creation.

I believe, that recovering a sense of the Earth as sacred will be a key part of the path back to health for the West.

After all, it is said that when God made the Earth he stepped back and saw that it was indeed good. He saw that his work was beautiful. And yet we desecrate it, treat it like so much dead matter, and not the Divine creation it is.

A lot of them will love those if you give them better contrast between the green screen and themselves.

Try pitch your ideas to DeSantis or Noem. (They’d rather blacklist Progressive talking heads and take entire channels/programs off air)

False dichotomy.

I’d rather describe this as a prediction that history will repeat, if you will, as farce.

I don’t get why so many online Western right-wingers seem to believe Russia is somehow on their side and they should feel some connection to the kind of imperial views espoused by Karlin.

The uncomfortable implicit part of this issue is that the counterpart, Globohomo, is most definitely not on our side either — indeed they explicitly hate people like me (not to mention you, still being under some military occupation and all). Our societies following where Globohomo leads seems plainly idiotic and self-destructive.

Regarding Anatoly, I was surprised at the vehemence of the current missive. The part about absorbing and gaining 40m in human capital seemed a very Karlinesque point though.

On to the geopolitical issues. At the time of this writing, Putin’s actual moves have seemed modest, if one accepts that Donbas and Crimea were not going to rejoin the rest of Ukraine. We don’t know if the Ukraine joining Nato thing is finished though.

For my addled country Sweden the strategic lessons so far seem to be (i) we can’t spend the military budget at the bar indefinitely, and (ii) we should really avoid a large enough subpopulation of Russians forming within our borders, even if peaceful, in order to avoid future problems. And, while some are eager to draw the opposite conclusion, (iii) don’t join Nato.

I don’t actually think it is a false dichotomy, having seen it in action at times.

There are certain assumptions in the worldview of SJWs, and that include that total inefficacy of violence as pursued in a manner seen traditionally as masculine, such as war for resources, etc. By having it restored as valid will also necessarily alter the manner by which the current importance of “soft power” holds as sway over everything else. People admire the strong horse, of course, but more exactly, people want to become the strong horse and will adopt the measures of the strong horse, ultimately forcing them to lose their present mannerisms.

So it is hopeful.

I’m sure there is a gig battle now between the Atlanticist lobby and the industrialist lobby in Germany. If the Atlanticists think that the cancellation of NS2 will force to pump gas via the Ukrainian pipelines, they are wrong. Orban has shown to have far bigger testicles than Scholz.

You agree with Saker. He says Russia is gradually turning up the ‘pain dial’ no just for Ukraine but also for the whole European Union.

I believe his goal is to keep NATO out of Ukraine, and that doesn’t require annexing it, only sending a stronger signal than was sent before NATO expanded Eastward.

Considering the geography, IMO, his behavior is fairly rational, China went apeshit when Americans were set to land in Korea. US wept apeshit when Soviets were putting nukes on Cuba. Smaller countries don’t have the capacity to signal in the same manner.

What’s shocking to me is the pretense that Putin is some wild-eyed lunatic who is making outlandish demands. As I have maintained all throughout this crisis, I put the blame of escalation squarely on the West.

Putin tried to get a fair hearing by asking nicely for years. He got ignored or laughed at. He naturally concluded that the only way to get people’s attention and respect was to play hardball. Unfortunately, he’s not wrong.

These big mobilizations are necessary. You can’t send a signal with a small one. Russia is a land power, it can’t send three carrier battlegroups, to saberrattle. The US regularly saber-rattles with its navy. It just has no need to do so, in its backyard, because it was the dominant power, over that sphere, without its elites ever turning ways.

Indeed, but it’s a delicate balance. What worries me is the risk of a miscalculation or a provocation. I do not believe Putin wants to invade but he is forced to up the ante all the time to finally initiate a negotiated settlement. As part of that drive, the risks keep increasing. As the West foolishly turns down every demand, he can’t be seen backing down so he must escalate. It becomes a vicious spiral.

It would be enough for a hotheaded Ukrainian regiment to set off a firefight which could very well escalate far beyond what anyone imagined, and at that point events would take on a logic on their own. That’s why I refused to exclude the chances of an invasion, even if I, like you, do not see them as Putin’s primary aim. He may yet be forced into a situation where he can’t back out politically.

indeed they explicitly hate people like me (not to mention you, still being under some military occupation and all).

Germany isn’t really under military occupation, that’s a somewhat dumb talking point, all those transatlantic think tanks like German Marshall fund etc. matter a thousand times more than any American troops still in Germany. The key issue is that certain harmful assumptions have become internalized among Germans and that its freedom of action in foreign affairs is very constrained.
I agree about Globohomo, obviously I desire a very different state of affairs.
Anyway, maybe something good might still come of this, if there’s indeed a permanent confrontation with Russia and Western Europe is re-militarized, the advance of wokeness might at least be slowed, because they need patriotic white men for the army (and maybe that might eventually lead to other options). On the other hand, it might just as well intensify persecution of right-wingers, since they could be smeared as Russian agents and stooges, and it’s unfortunate if some seem rather too eager to play that role.

There are certain assumptions in the worldview of SJWs, and that include that total inefficacy of violence as pursued in a manner seen traditionally as masculine, such as war for resources, etc. By having it restored as valid will also necessarily alter the manner by which the current importance of “soft power” holds as sway over everything else. People admire the strong horse, of course, but more exactly, people want to become the strong horse and will adopt the measures of the strong horse, ultimately forcing them to lose their present mannerisms.

Wishful thinking Mr. Chieh. The Chinese are often proudly proclaiming – and who am I to disagree? – that their country’s rise is the most peaceful in history. The only real invasion threat from China would be Taiwan for natural historical reasons. Other than that, there is little to no scope for any imperialist adventures backed by force from Beijing. If this is the new world, it looks remarkably stable; even stale.

If China is the new strong horse the message it sends is harmonious and peaceful rise. This is not just their rhetoric, it is also matched by their actions (silly but ultimately unimportant border tussles notwithstanding).

‘Thucydides trap’ would predict war but in our MAD world, such serious conflagrations are rightly considered minimal even if the MIC has a moneyed incentive to convince you otherwise. As much as you may resent it, the world is becoming more peaceful and less violent than the imperialist 19th or 20th centuries. SJWs will continue to notch up wins and chuds will seethe into obscurity.

There are certain assumptions in the worldview of SJWs, and that include that total inefficacy of violence as pursued in a manner seen traditionally as masculine, such as war for resources, etc. By having it restored as valid will also necessarily alter the manner by which the current importance of “soft power” holds as sway over everything else.

This doesn’t make any sense. You’ve fallen for Western propaganda. The power of the US, the centre of SJWdom, isn’t based just on “soft power”, but rather on a very real willingness to kill lots of people by bombing other countries and inflicting massive economic suffering on entire populations through sanctions.
Similar dynamics apply in the domestic context in Western countries. The problem isn’t a general culture of non-violence, the problem is (at least in my country) that Antifa types can beat up political opponents and destroy their property, and almost nobody thinks it’s a big deal, because the targets are already demonized by the entire establishment.

Then it means I’m absolutely wrong and should just wait for big fireworkings soon, lol

And they say that Putin is the master of 4D chess!
Sly moves Biden…sly moves…

adopt the measures of the strong horse, ultimately forcing them to lose their present mannerisms.

Does this mean that the Dems, who are co-equals with the Pubs as the War Parties, will now also become enthusiastic defense spending advocates?

SJWs will continue to notch up wins and chuds will seethe into obscurity.

I think from a systemic perspective, this is actually quite senseless to think this way and incredibly limiting. Violence is a tool like any other, it has certain constraints and affords certain opportunities. Over time, nations and people will find ways around those constraints, as we’re already seeing with hybrid warfare and so on. The idea that “MAD means that warfare will never return as a major force” is a bit like arguing that “the existence of armor means that claws will never matter again as a major force” which is quite missing the point.

In a world with limited resources, there will always be conflict. So as long as force has utility, and it obviously does, as German_Reader noted of antifa(and I would mention various other guises that liberal states implement force, such as destruction of livelihood), it’ll find a way to manifest itself.

China’s rise as of late has been arguably peaceful – though it is also somewhat self-proclaimed, given the various border disputes. But of course, it didn’t magically come into possession of all of its land and it certainly doesn’t seem like it’ll be able to continue to make progress in conflicts without a substantial military backing(even from a defensive consideration).

But yes, fundamentally I think that “SJWs”(such as there is a thing) rely on certain errors of judgment that are rhetorically popular(thus the widespread reach) but ultimately may in fact be quite brittle in the coming years. No doubt it, too, will evolve to address changing conditions, however.

It might mean that they’ll lock up American rightists as Russian agents…maybe Tucker Carlson will be sent to Guantanamo as a Putin stooge? Such measures might be appropriate after all, if there’s an existential struggle with a resurgent Russia seeking to undermine Western democracies.
imo Chieh’s views are really naive. iirc he once mentioned that a big part of his political awakening was Gamergate, some scandal about crazy feminists trying to take over video gaming journalism (or something of the sort, I’m not going to look up the details). If you think you’re only up against crazy pink-haired SJWs who’d fold immediately if you just were manly enough to show them who’s boss, these silly paeans to the virtue of violence might make sense.

I mean, it’s not impossible, but there are multiple ways of dealing with disappointment. The Democratic party can certainly flip to funding defense as a focus while claiming that Republicans, starting with Trump, have always been traitors to the American way and underlined by Jan 6th. The mythology is there if they want to develop it.

There are contradictions and hypocrisy involved but ultimately that’s the way of all things.

Haven’t yet read Beowulf myself,

I’m actually kind of shocked. But I suppose I have more of an interest in myths. The great novels hold almost no interest for me, but not so the myths, as I’m fascinated by their connection to history and ancient people. There is something magical about knowing that the Song of Roland was recited at Hastings before the battle (even if the song may not be 100% accurate to history)

Heh. That certainly was my introduction to politics, but my thinking has evolved to become fairly orthogonal to politics, which I find to be more akin to performance art than anything else(and largely a waste of time).

https://minordissent.substack.com/p/politics-is-worse-than-video-games

Nonetheless, its less about people “folding” and more that people are strenuously driven to resist, and in doing so, they adopt any measures of their enemies that they see as successful. In doing so, they become the same and lose their original “virtue” as it might be, having essentially having to altered their essence despite any surface presentation.

Thanks!

I had heard of that composer – he sounds great! I will certainly check him out.

Biden says Russia is "carving out a big chunk of Ukraine," vows to impose sanctions "far beyond" those in 2014

— BNO News (@BNONews) February 22, 2022

If Putin decides Russia can’t escape the cost of sanctions and the best strategy economically is to move it onto an autarkic war grounding, then he’ll be resolved to grab as much land as possible. (The same dynamic with with the US did with Japan before the Pacific War, while Japan was slowly eating the face of China)

BTW, have you ever read Herodotus? (mixes myths with history)

He’s the guy who mentioned Carthaginians circum-navigated Africa. I find it really a fascinating claim.

Don’t want to say that I 100% believe it, but I would at least give it 50/50 odds. They were funded by the pharaoh. Potentially, would have been a lot easier, before full Bantu explosion. Coastal malaria would not have been near as widespread. (it was agriculture that unleashed it)

Seems also like a natural goal for Egyptians to want to know about the distant reaches of Africa and have the resources to fund an expedition.

And it also fits into the wider framework of great unknown explorations. Such as Pacific Islanders evidently bringing the sweet potato to the Americas.

I’m actually kind of shocked.

I know, certainly a defect in my half-education I need to remedy at some point. I’d like to learn Old English, some texts (e.g. Battle of Maldon) sound pretty interesting, and it’s fascinating that there was such a wide use of the vernacular in England already so early. Hopefully I’ll get around to it one day.

IMO, the Middle Ages has nothing as sophisticated as the Illiad or Aeneid (my favorite).

Another defect in my half-education…I haven’t read the Iliad. I know the Aeneis though. Obviously a very sophisticated work, but it also felt a bit artificial to me at times. tbh the aspects most interesting to me were the parts dealing with Roman history and imperial ideology (Aeneas’s shield with its scenes depicting republican heroes, Augustus as culmination of Roman history receiving ambassadors from exotic lands bringing tribute etc.). Need to read it again some time.

had to read Grendel by the American John Gardner, which I think is also worth reading.

Thanks, sounds interesting, might look at it.

Such measures might be appropriate after all, if there’s an existential struggle with a resurgent Russia seeking to undermine Western democracies.

There is no such thing as western democracies. You are all totalitarian shitholes.

BTW, have you ever read Herodotus? (mixes myths with history)

No, but I want to (have already pirated a translation). Had put reading those Greek classics off, because I thought I might re-learn Greek at some time (had it for three years at school, but forgot most of it) and could read them in the original. Seems like a distant prospect now, so I started reading some last year in translation. Read Thucydides, which I’d definitely recommend, fascinating work. Also read Polybius…interesting, but ultimately pretty boring imo, devoid of all literary merit (also didn’t like his authorial persona that much, he attacks other historians for their inaccuracies, but is quite blatantly biased himself).

Potentially, would have been a lot easier, before full Bantu explosion.

Strange thought, southern Africa must have been very different then.

Never used Discord, but my impression is that it is not truly a free speech platform (such as Unz is), hence the necessity for rules.

A lot of people disdain some of the crazier articles here, but, I like them, because I think they are are necessary to show a commitment to free speech. It goes beyond some philosophical idea – it makes the site fun, and rather unique.

Occasionally, I look at twitter. IMO, its quality has dropped a lot, as some of the more interesting and provocative people have been kicked off it. There are still a few interesting people on it, but I’ve never bothered to start an account because I fear they will be gone any day, and meanwhile, I would be too tempted to post things that they would ban me for. As well, as probably give me greater priority in some list of politicals to persecute.

Obviously a very sophisticated work, but it also felt a bit artificial to me at times.

Of course, it was unfinished, when Virgil died. His wish was that it be burnt, but Augustus prevented it – supposedly. For all its flaws, still a thing of incredible beauty. Probably beating a dead horse when I say this, but my favorite part is the fall of Troy. There’s just something so amazing about it. The language, and the iconography, the way it invokes first of all hubris, but also paterfamilias and filial piety.

Strange thought, southern Africa must have been very different then.

I am sure it was quite different, when the Dutch first showed up – at least the Western Cape. The Bantu did not have the technology to dig deep wells, and it is arid, so they couldn’t live there.

But I don’t mean only South Africa, but also much of Western and Eastern Africa. Pointed this out in a snide comment I made about Whoopi Goldberg not too long ago, but, shockingly, Guinea-Bissau was populated with hunter-gathers past about 1000 AD. It takes clear-cutting for malaria.

If Putin decides Russia can’t escape the cost of sanctions and the best strategy economically is to move it onto an autarkic war grounding, then he’ll be resolved to grab as much land as possible.

I agree with you, but it’s important to be clear about agency here.

In your scenario, the primary responsibility would be on the West. This does not gel with the narrative that Putin is a wild-eyed imperialist hellbent on conquest from the outset (the MSM narrative and Karlin’s right-wing mimicry), but rather was pushed into a situation where he had no other realistic exit. Who was doing the pushing? It’s a question our media would never dare ask, much less answer honestly.

He’s the guy who mentioned Carthaginians circum-navigated Africa.

Correction: meant to say Phoenicians.

Such as Pacific Islanders evidently bringing the sweet potato to the Americas.

Meant to say they took it from the Americas, so most likely round trip which actually is a lot more impressive. At least it seems more reasonable than the Kon-Tiki theory.

I’ve joined something called ‘cykelkök’, a Swedish term that means “cyclekitchen” in a transliteration but whose proper translation would be something akin to a “repair garage”. Kök (kitchen) is often used informally to signal a relaxed environment. It’s hard to get these nuances across languages.

The basic premise is that most bicycle repairs can be made by yourself, provided that you get access to the full range of tools required and have some amount of professional help to show you the ropes. It’s both a call for cheapskates in equal amount to people who like to learn something new and challenge themselves. As an office rat, who spends most of my days with R, stata, python etc, getting my hands dirty is almost cathartic. It’s shocking how helpless most modern men are even in trivial matters, such as changing a tire. I am no less guilty!

The annual fee is just 100 SEK, basically a cheap lunch. I have volunteered in the past with homeless shelters but always found the quality of the volunteers to be uneven, some who genuinely cared for the downtrodden mixed in with opportunists who simply viewed it as an opportunity to puff their CV (and it showed in their attitudes).

By contrast, the quality of the people here is astounding. I am not quite certain why. Perhaps because being a volunteer bike repairer is low-status, and thus repels opportunists. Most of us are not even full-time volunteers but get help from others, which is even less reason to brag about. At the same time, this garage is located in a fairly expensive part of town with lots of educated people milling about, e.g., I met an exchange student from Korea last time I was there. So it seems to attract high-quality people who are simultaneously not status-seekers. Best of both worlds.

I’m skeptical of generic advice about “putting yourself out of your comfort zone”, but would certainly recommend people to spend some time doing something that that’s a bit off the beaten track. You can often find amazing people if you are willing to follow a niche and learn a thing or two along the way. I think practical work is underrated, even if only volunteer work, especially if you spend as much of your time on computers as I do.

Never used Discord, but my impression is that it is not truly a free speech platform (such as Unz is), hence the necessity for rules.

A few years ago certain private rightwing communities were kicked off Discord, which, apart from the usual political bias, implies D were listening in on what was going on or perhaps even searching out dissidents. So much for “discord”. Based on this, I would consider Discord to be at best to be a temporary platform.

There is also the issue that you appear to have just one identity shared across all the discords you may be using. Seems potentially troublesome. I prefer to compartmentalize.

You make some good points. Multinational MegaCorporations whole headquartered in the U.S. are actually enemies of U.S. citizens. Restructuring taxes & regulation to incentivize on shoring of jobs is part of the MAGA Reindustrialization initiative.

You are far too fatalistic about Americas chances. While the U.S. has given away far too much, there is substantial native industrial knowledge available to drive MAGA Reconstruction. Other countries send their kids here to go to U.S. Engineering schools. The U.S. needs to fix the domestic labor market and university admissions so that U.S. citizens can obtain STEM degrees and have a career without being undercut by H1B visas and/or outsourcing.

It will take a concerted effort for an extended period. Far more than one President can deliver. However, it will become much easier once the virtuous cycle becomes visible to everyone — Americans buying American goods made by American citizens.

The WUHAN-19 global pandemic came from a CCP lab. Beijing Biden and his owner Xi will take the blame for the economic pain. This primes the American people to resist Chinese manipulation & exploitation.

PEACE 😇

It is possible, but it will take a decade or more – unfortunately US political system is not stable enough to give anyone that much time.

so that U.S. citizens can obtain STEM degrees and have a career without being undercut by H1B visas and/or outsourcing.

That would be a good start. You accuse me of ‘fatalism’, so how about the MAGA Trump guy was there for 4 years and restricting H1Bs can be done under any pretext any time. And he didn’t. If you can explain why, I will be less fatalistic. There is something screwy in Washington that even super-MAGA seems unable to fix.

If you would ever become a good bicycle repairer, you will probably be earning more money than most doctors and lawyers.

A few years ago we were living in a city with bicycles. (Not Stockholm or Sweden, although these places sound attractive). My girlfriend thinks it is a good idea to buy a bicycle for transport, whereas I wisely follow instinct not to.

Cost of her bicycle repair was usually more than value of buying new bicycle each time. We thought maybe the repair people are throwing broken class and spiky objects in the streets so they can increase the replacement of the peoples’ tires.

Lose the bicycle, join me and German Reader as natural walking people. You can notice that walkers are even more minimalist and ecological than bicycle. We are even more fashionable than you. Even from Brooklyn, there is AaronB who can appreciate our rejection of the “metal, industrialized bicycle, that only moves in a straight line and represents the inability of man to accept his multi-directional freedom”.

they adopt any measures of their enemies that they see as successful.

That might explain why from this distance the differences between the WWII Nazis and Bolsheviks seem like minor details.

whereas I wisely follow instinct not to.

You would be wise to not ignore her ideas, good or bad, too often.

That is, if you want to keep this girlfriend around.

I like that idea, but they should also be compelled to wear clown shoes and hair while discussing their ideas. The problem is that the Pollock paintings alone will only signal to many that the speakers are impressive aesthetes with a deep appreciation for the finer things in life.

The Western Miliitary District has 400,000 personnel definged very widely not of course counting Belarussians (yet).

Soon you will come over to the Dark Side, and start repairing cars.

Just imagine your sense of pleasure, when you call up the garage, ask how much for a certain repair, need to verbally dance around and combat the mechanic’s efforts not to give you a price (“We do a diagnosis – to get you in the door, sucker!”). Shrug off his coded insults, ask again, finally, get told the price ($1000), and then order cheap parts off ebay, and do it yourself for 1/50 of that, while also spreading the word that the guy is a jerk.

And I did that a few years ago. Now the price would probably be $2000.

Btw does anyone have a method how to invite Ano4/Bashibuzuk back to this forum? Also except me, does anyone here remember AltanBakshi?

What happened to those dudes and what made them never return.. especially Bashibuzuk used to post here everyday.

Had not thought of getting them to wear wigs, but it is a good idea.

Part of my original plan was to somehow get them to dye their hair neon colors, ideally in a color-coded system according to their level of crazy. Not sure how to go about it, but, maybe, getting the government to mail them free neon hair dye would be a start.

BTW, I rather like those long, pointy Mexican boots that they make in Matehuala. Not sure what they are called.

I don’t get why so many online Western right-wingers seem to believe Russia is somehow on their side and they should feel some connection to the kind of imperial views espoused by Karlin.

As I said before, I think it is mostly a tribute to the alienating power of the Great Awokening. The phenomena seems to be most pronounced in Anglo countries, where Intersectional Wokeness is strongest and public opposition to it weakest. It’s pretty funny to follow Zemmour’s campaign in France, the things he says in public speeches and on French MSN discussion programs would just produce some kind of spasm and meltdown in Britain, but it means the French right remains part of the political system

There is a certain logic to it as well in the light of the Intersectional revolution; racially, Russians, whether Slavic or Central Asian can be seen as preferable to the racial groups the Woke tend to idolise and who are presented as being the darling children of the future of Anglo countries, then there is all the anti white patriarchy, anti-heteronormativity, trans and genderqueer stuff as well. It is weirdly influential in the culture and institutions

This looks like it doesn’t exist in Russia, instead Russia gives the impression of being a kind of normal 1990s country. And Russia also looks like it is striking back against the idea of the inevitable liberal-progressive tide of history, there is usually this underlying assumption with the liberal Anglo-West, almost that in cultural and political terms they are always going to be all powerful and all conquering, pretty much everywhere.

I also think a lot of this is projection from another political context and doesn’t have that much to do with what is going on in the region, e.g. Ukraine and the Belarusian opposition may be aligned strategically with Western countries, but have little or nothing to do with Anglo-Woke ideology or these kind of social tensions, which will mostly appear incomprehensible.

As a matter of course, ,I taught my daughter how to repair a puncture on a pedal bike. It turns out that it is nowadays such a rare skill that she could walk into a job at any bike shop in town. She could fix other things too.

It is weirdly influential in the culture and institutions…

Should read:

It is weirdly influential in the culture and institutions, especially education, where it seems to have made a strong impact on teenagers and people in their early 20s.

Thankyou for that point. I overlooked it. I had been envisioning Russia doing something unexpected like capturing Livov first (by way of example). He still might but his legalism suggests maybe not given your observation.

Like you, I really enjoyed reading their commentary here, especially Bashibusuk’s. I do remember that Bashi took a sabbatical from here for a good while, and then miraculously made a return for a short while. And then he disappeared again?…..It would be great to hear from him again,but I have no idea how to lure him back. He provided viewpoints that were very unique and enlightening.

Hey Bashibuzuk, if you read this, come on back and let us know what you’re doing, what do you think about all of this Ukraine/Russia war stuff?

Tbf he just said it, but we should look at legal text of permisission if this is really defined so narrowly, it might be not, was not looking myself.

Heard a rumor that they sent Sheila Jackson Lee over to Ukraine to deal with the crisis. Despite my best efforts, I can’t seem to confirm it, though.

At least half of them, and especially the small fries, are toeing the Cathedral line for money. When the dominant ideology change, they will disappear or in a few cases switch to extolling the virtues of Conservatism or Reaction.

If some hard Right government wants to do it, don’t make them clowns, take a note from how Socialist ideology was being imposed initially in the Eastern Bloc, or send them directly to labor camps.

undermine Western democracies.

I think that we are doing well enough on our own with that project.

We should wear Leibniz wigs.

Make the Universe Logical Again.

MULA!

I subscribe to the view that the urban centres were greatly depopulated by plague and to some extent the countryside. The Angles at least were already present and had been for centuries in small numbers in fishing villages along the East Coast. They were able to move and settle up river without great violence. The clay soils of the Midlands were unfarmable with Roman technology. In the 7th C the Saxons invented the heavy plough. So the German speaking population exploded in a Malthusian manner. They became the rulers of the provinces of Flavia Ceasariensis – Mercia and Maxima Ceasariensis – Northumbria. The Western facing Severn Valley and the peninsula from Cornwall to Wiltshire (Stonehenge) stayed Romano British for much longer and was the Roman Province of Britannia Secunda. In between the German speakers, the Romano British spoke mainly Late Spoken Latin. In the West, Brythonic (early Welsh) regained ground. The East coast cities, London, Lincoln, York were never quite abandoned and each relates to a province. The Saxons settled in Brittania Prima. Their first rulers actually had Celtic names.

These are mostly the ideas of Professors Barry Cunliffe, Stephen Oppenheimer and Caitlin Green mashed together.

LOL. I’ve always liked the expression “whigs on the green.”

Ukraine and the Belarusian opposition may be aligned strategically with Western countries, but have little or nothing to do with Anglo-Woke ideology or these kind of social tensions, which will mostly appear incomprehensible.

Correct. They are more in line with a place like Poland. There is certainly some awareness that the West likes gay people so they will allow some support and wave rainbow flags for Western cameras, but the crazy woke stuff is unthinkable.

If you look at the old articles about the invasion published last year (even some from 6 months ago).

The articles’ theme is usually something like.

First, they will trick as much of the Ukrainian army as possible, to move into East Ukraine. This is to trap Ukrainian forces near Donbass, where they can be trapped by the movements from Belarus and Crimea.

Then would be vast bombardment of artillery and airstrikes to destroy Ukrainian forces and fixed positions.

With Ukrainian army trapped and facing vast bombardment in East Ukraine, they will surround it from the other side.

Surrounded, Ukrainian army would be destroyed in cauldrons in East Ukraine.

Precision strikes and artillery directed by drones, will be most of the fighting.

With Ukrainian forces destroyed, West Ukraine would be relatively undefended.

–

Here was one interpretation.

–

But while they have tried to created casus belli for the smaller trapping operation, to trick the Ukrainian forces to buildup in East Ukraine.

There still hasn’t been created casus belli for the larger invasion. E.g. There is no large terrorist attack yet in Moscow.

This is unlike in 1999 where there was elaborate casus belli created.

Currently, it is feeling more like Syria in 2015, where there was presented almost no casus belli.

MAGA Trump guy was there for 4 years and restricting H1Bs can be done under any pretext any time. And he didn’t. If you can explain why, I will be less fatalistic

Easy to explain:

Fixing visas (and many other issues) require the Legislative branch to change the law. Between the DNC and establishment GOP(e), the anti-MAGA coalition had enough votes to block visa law changes during Trump’s 1st term.

The next MAGA President will have a MAGA House. The Senate is more problematic. Between the Filibuster (60 votes) and GOP(e) swamp rats like Mitch McConnell, it is unlikly that MAGA will have unlimited freedom. Much more will be possible, but compromise is still required.

Politics is the art of the possible. MAGA needs to take what it can obtain each congressional Session and know that further gains will be made in the next session. To use the American football idiom, It is a game of field position..

The SJW Globalist war parties spent decades creating this problem. It will take decades to fix the damage they created.
___

Key is squashing Low-IQ yahoos before they can derail the movement. Those who whinge and lie about the unobtainable, willingly give Aide & Comfort to the Enemy. Irrational morons who demand instant, total victory must be ruthlessly shamed & forced out. Let them join the anti-intellectual SJW side and spread their poison there.

PEACE 😇

Everything is about status. Learn how to hack it, to up end the system, and everything becomes mechanistic.
_____
Heard the official word: the dollar store has hiked their price up to $1.25. Probably won’t be too long before they hike it again, and again, and again. Will be a pretty big signal of decline to a lot of Americans, IMO.

“National Security Council” meeting was more funny than understood before.

It was a live meeting where they discuss about whether to recognize “DNR” and “LNR”.

So, it was live meeting for 6pm. Shown on all television and media as such an important live television.

From their watches, it was actually pre-recorded many hours earlier.

But the scenes where Putin signed the recognition were 10am. So they even have filmed tis scene before they have the meeting where they discuss whether to recognize.

–

So it’s all a fake meeting, which is staged after as a pure acting performance, then they edit together difference scenes.

In addition, they seem to enjoy the artificiality so much as a kind of pleasure in itself, that they film the signing of the agreement, before they film the discussions about whether to sign the agreement.

What I don’t understand, is how can you not start laughing during the video filming? I would find it impossible not to laugh while trying to do such an acting, in the wrong order. I guess this is another reason to add to “why am I office plankton, rather than billionaire Kremlin oligarch”.

This meeting was to decide if Russia would recognize two breakaway regions in eastern Ukraine as sovereign states. If so, an agreement would be signed following the "important" meeting. In actuality, Putin had already signed the agreement almost two hours prior at 10:15. pic.twitter.com/UCXZawkS4g

— Forrest Rogers (@Forrest_Rogers) February 22, 2022

Putin even signed the document in the presence of the leaders of the self-proclaimed Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics, Denis Pushilin and Leonid Pasechnik. And their watches, you might ask? 10:15 and 10:17. #OSINT #RussiaUkraineConflict pic.twitter.com/SSuMDnRAaH

— Forrest Rogers (@Forrest_Rogers) February 22, 2022

Putin convened an unscheduled meeting with his Security Council in Moscow on Monday. The meeting was broadcast at 5 pm. But what time was it really held? Let's look at some participants' watches. Sergei Shoigu & Sergei Lavrov prep at 11:45. #OSINT #UkraineRussia #Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/YlnLodkjdq

— Forrest Rogers (@Forrest_Rogers) February 22, 2022

Putin, in his address to the nation, especially took time to detail the Odessa massacre: “We cannot but shudder when we remember about the situation in Odessa, when people were burned alive (…) And those criminals who did this, they are not punished (…) But we know their names, and we will do everything to punish them (…) and to bring them to justice.”

By Pepe Escobar

So, has Putin decided to hunt and liquidate the perpetrators of the Odessa massacre?

I don’t know about yahoos, and my iq seems ok, so it will be a bit of a challenge to squash me in my search for the instant gratification (it works most of the time).

Let me tell you how MAGA could do it: they are the administration, they process all paperwork, incl. visas. That gives them all the power they need. You read the law and the requirements are there: educational, work, financial, medical, etc… process it for 18 months, and then send back for some more documents. Move the consulates, close them, etc… declare that due to business, trade, medical, terrorist ’emergency’ processing will stop for 6 months, etc… Demand proof for each ‘irreplaceable position’.

Do you not understand how a byrocracy works? The MAGA chief had all the power, he just chose not to use it, until it was too late. Or maybe he didn’t really want to do it, he just wanted you to think that he does, but can’t….is that not a distinct possibility?

We were watching for many weeks all the buildup of Rosgvardia units.

Much of this buildup included Kadyrov’s most elite units, that are specialized in combat against political opponents within the Chechen Republic. What is the explanation for why they are driving and establishing tents in Ukraine’s border and Crimea, thousand kilometers from their home, including his most loyalist unit named after his father?

E.g. Kadyrov is not the “world’s least paranoid leader”, so would he usually like to have his most important units for internal control, to be “vacation” a thousand kilometers from Grozny, with all their armor vehicles? They are doing something important, to be traveling so far, with all their equipment.

So, either this is a genius bluff, or they are going to occupy somewhere.

What do you think?

There were sometimes hints it could be bluff, but this was not a balanced judgement, but more reflects our desire to try to write optimistic comments. We naturally want to believe the optimistic scenario and which allows us to deny there will soon be war with thousands of deaths.

But, of course, more likely explanation, is they are going to occupy somewhere. “If it walks like a duck..”

E.g. I found a video of OMON. (https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-174/#comment-5174523) Are there are some anti-government protests they have to imprison, which are co-incidentally near the Ukrainian border? No, but there can be protests soon on the other side of border.

https://www.eurasiareview.com/23022022-motivating-factors-behind-russias-recent-independence-recognition-oped/

I’m that way with vehicles myself and it is very freeing. It’s also nice to have a brake job done the same day rather than it being a two week scheduling ordeal waiting for the mechanic. Plus mechanics often use cheap parts, when I spend for the good stuff since I don’t want to do it twice.

The labor rate at my local Ford Stealership was $125 and hour last time I was in there and in all honesty I’m better at mechanical diagnostic than most mechanics I have seen. I was ripped off a few times when I was younger and I have no wish to continue on that track.

Though I keep my stuff old since I don’t want to get into the heavily computerized stuff. That is another kettle of fish entirely.

I would strongly encourage anyone to get into doing as much repair on their own as possible. It’s honestly not that complicated (even engine rebuilds) if one can follow steps and think logically. If one starts with simple things the skills build quickly.

I remember when I started out doing the brakes on my rusty Ford Ranger armed with a discount stubby 1/4″ ratchet set from Aldi’s…Painful to think of now, but one has to start somewhere!

dye their hair neon colors, ideally in a color-coded system according to their level of crazy

Are you sure you haven’t already implemented this plan? I’m pretty sure you have and are just playing modest for the forum.

I mean, have you been to a college town lately? My nearest village has two colleges and let me tell you, it’s self implementing!

Not changing the watches seems like an oddly sloppy simple mistake. It’s hard to imagine that they went to all that trouble and missed that.

I guess to err is human or they don’t really give a rip.

A123 would like us to believe that Biden can leave the southern border basically open for all intents and purposes (and I know first hand that the lawlessness down there is even worse than generally assumed) but Trump, the poor thing, could do nothing to at least reduce the number of visas granted. His hands, unlike Biden’s, were totally tied. In reality, I remember him bragging in 2019 that more legal immigrants than ever were coming to the US, such was his inconsistency and ineptitude.

That explains Skripal.

Btw, I don’t know what virtues spy chief Naryshkin has but composure and good oratory are not among them.

Humor for Philip Owen.

Lawyer during Putin’s speech about Donbass was afraid that troops would be sent to Saratov

Saratov lawyer Nikolai Skvortsov said that during President Vladimir Putin’s speech about the DNR and LNR, “I was afraid that troops would be brought into the city.” He wrote about this on his Facebook page.

According to him, he got such a feeling after he heard their discussion about the ruined factories, leaving doctors, unemployment, corrupt officials and dishonest courts. “At that moment, I thought that the conversation was about Saratov.”

Naryshkin should be nominated for Oscar then if he also knew everything in advance and was just acting:

Putin humiliates his own head of SVR (Foreign Intelligence Service), Sergey Naryshkin, Russia's Spy chief, at their last security meeting at the Kremlin.

The fear in Naryshkin’s eyes is palpable. He mangles the script.

Putin’s displeased with him! 😱#Putin #Russia #Ukraine pic.twitter.com/TWuy9KNihc

— D Alex (@DAlexTweets) February 22, 2022

To be fair, those are not always demanded traits in a spy chief – being a bit twitchy and evasive can be a good thing. But being unprepared is likely not.

Which part of Russia will Dmitry move to, after he renounces materialism? Tuva, or Chuvashia?

I’d like to learn Old English

As a bilingual German and English speaker (who presumably also has familiarity with some German dialects), how much of Old English can you understand?

Spies present as boring and nondescript, they wouldn’t draw attention to themselves with twitchiness. Their natural demeanor is of the type that go unnoticed in the background.

After the war, when Poland was occupied, its population was 25 million. This was similar to that of central and western Ukraine where the people would really hate Russian occupation.

For a few years the Soviets kept about 300,000 troops there as they subdued the country through mass executions, arrests, and deportations and wiped out resistance.* By the late 1940s as a puppet government took hold, the Soviets could keep the permanent garrison number down to only 62,000 soldiers and let the established puppet government keep order, though of course there were Soviet troops surrounding Poland in case it was necessary to crush a revolt.

*There are of course differences. In 1945 Poles were exhausted by World War II, with millions dead and revolts such as Warsaw Uprising already crushed, while Ukrainians would be much more “fresh.” OTOH modern Ukrainians are probably not as tough as 1940s Poles (though modern Russians are not as cruel as 1940s Soviets also).

Which part of Russia will Dmitry move to, after he renounces materialism? Tuva, or Chuvashia?

He claims he’s part Jewish so Birobizhan could be a legit destination.

Question for you. Why Zelensky did not order his troops to shell and bomb entering Russian columns? How does Ukraine expect serious sanctions and reactions from the West as it acts as if it did not care about Russian occupied region?

what virtues s Narysh

KGB colleague of the president since 42 years ago. Work together under roof of Sobchak in Saint-Petersburg Mayor Office, as “state capture” part, between Malyshev gang and Tambov gang. Some of those latter now, close to the top of the Kremlin.

That explains Skripal.

You mean incompetence?

Sometimes incompetence like they reveal the operation in Ryazan in 1999. But who cares? If everyone who investigates “die from radition poisoning” (Shchekochikhin) or shot in head (Yushenkov). Only a suicidal person would be interested in the topic. And you control media so to never talk about it. After years of not allowing a topic in media, it seems most of the people just forget and their consciousness moves to the next shiny thing.

Which part of Russia will Dmitry

could be a legit destination.

Hopefully not Kiev and Lvov.

Agree. I myself would probably rejoin my R1b brothers in Udmurtia, where there is supposedly the most red hair.

Maybe he doesn’t want to fall in this trap, that Saakashvili falls to in August 2008.

The Trumpist president in 2024 can pass an Executive Order negating all laws enacted after District of Columbia Organic Act of 1871. Trumpists that claimed Trump to be inaugurated last year imply that. 100% of 20th & 21st century institutions will not fit into pre-1871 laws.

Will be funnier if he writes all of Sovereign Citizens’ legal concepts into a new amendment and forces all the states & the Congress to ratify it. Those who dissent become secessionists for 1871-2024 US and/or traitors.

Canada can do this too after Trudeau.

(also, Putin is also a loser for not acting as a Regent for the Tsar)

I don’t post here anymore but this idea is too interesting not to
mention, even purely hypothetically: There is a simple way for
Ukraine to join the EU and even NATO. Consider that the 1.5 million
Ukrainians who work and study in Poland are effectively already in
the EU and in NATO. Add several million more, and a big chunk
of Ukraine will find itself in NATO.

Apparently, there are some Austrian experts who are convinced that
Putin indeed wants to occupy Ukraine but only the eastern half, through
the Dnepr river. About 10 years ago I read (but I don’t know if this was
apocryphal or not) that Putin floated the idea of going back to the
arrangement of several hundred years ago, and basically dividing Ukraine
between Russia and Poland roughly along the Dnepr. 6-7 years ago
there was a group of journalists, etc from western Ukraine who wrote
a letter to the Polish Sejm asking them to consider annexing the
western tip of Ukraine to Poland (specifically through Ternopil, roughly
returning to the pre-1939 borders). I mentioned this to AP but he hadn’t
heard of it, and the idea apparently went nowhere in Sejm. I don’t know
how true this is but I heard that many people in Lvov are absolutely
convinced that Lvov will return to Poland. Considering the hostility
of the Galicians to Poland I doubt this could ever happen. I don’t think
Poland is interested anyway. Ukrainian oligarchs would come as part
of the package. Who’d want that?

False flag BS debunked below, giving further evidence that Clarissa Ward and Richard Engel are shysters:

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/will-tensions-ukraine-boil-over-200725

How do you “bomb” entering columns without an air force? Do you not understand how outmatched the Ukrainians are without external aid? Do you think they’re suicidal, or that they should be?

Lol I doubt you want to live in Udmurtia. I guess even Perm.

–

As for Birobidzhan being apparently “Jewish”, it seems to me, the idea of the revival of a region’s national culture becomes a contradiction for boring, economic reasons.

Because on one hand, the region is being economically asset-stripped like most of the Far East, so there lack of opportunities for the young people is a rule, more than exception.

I don’t know personally this region, but I assume much of their young people try to emigrate to Khabarovsk, Vladivostok, if not even Moscow.

On the other hand, if you can find Jewish descent to the third generation, you can try to apply for repatriation rights in Israel. For Americans, this can seem funny. But in Russia, it is a golden ticket (really, it’s pretty lucky).
–

Also they focus the idea of reviving national culture with Yiddish (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIVdZgOQeVQ.). Nowadays Yiddish is a dead language. Whereas learning Hebrew would actually be useful even that far away.

He’s a manager, not a field agent. Likely his job composes of going through data and being suspicious of possibilities while giving nondirect answers to officials rather than having to infiltrate and live on his wits.

Being put on the spot and having to speak directly may be a relatively novel experience.

but there is no logical connection between the issues Western rightists care about (most prominently the great replacement) and “Ukraine is fake and gay, let’s bring back the Russian empire”.

The connection is indirect. The purpose behind rhetoric supportive of civilizational states like Russia, China and Hindu India is to discredit the globohomo value system. The average reflexive libtard and/or normie – by no means a deep thinker – tends to imagine that America’s position as military and economic top dog is assured for all time. He assumes the great problems of human existence have been solved and that all that remains are to put the finishing touches on the last few areas of discrimination. He therefore finds it very easy to go along with far left flapdoodle about trannies, female “wage gap”, “racial justice” and so on. In the libtard mind, it’s both the right thing to do and there’s essentially no cost to it – remember, the position of westerners as top dogs and moral pace-setters is assured.

Then, along come rising powers, enjoying tremendous (domestic) public support, social stability, and economic growth – and they’re doing it all while absolutely shitting on the globohomo value system. The hope is that this will make libtards and normies reconsider their priorities. That it will inure them against SJW tripe. It’s not from any great love for these regimes that I take this position or that I consider them “on my side”; it’s for the reason mentioned alone. (Although I do hold out hope that India and China might some day form part of the anti-black coalition I consider the Number One long-term global priority; nothing could be more important than keeping out the Africanus if the quality of non-black life is to be preserved.)

To bring this back to the topic of AK’s recent return, I have nothing against Ukraine. It would delight me to see them do well for themselves. But in terms of the specific dispute over the Donbass, I can only say to Russia: do it, stomp them. I don’t see that I have any other choice.

More specifics: September 1, 2009 Putin was indeed in Sopot, Poland, and
was involved in bilateral talks with Donald Tusk, then Prime Minister of Poland.
There is a photo showing the two of them on the famous Sopot Pier.
Putin said something to the effect that Lvov is a Polish city, and Poland and
Russia should get together and do something about that.
(Source: If you can read Polish, this was reported in today’s Onet.pl, specifically
in the conversation with Radosław Sikorski who is currently a member of the
European Parliament)

Trump did act against H1-B visas, in 2017 even.

E.g.,

https://money.cnn.com/2017/01/31/technology/india-h1b-visa-trump-tech-companies/
https://www.investopedia.com/news/impact-trumps-h1b-visa-crackdown-5-charts/

But it was apparently slow walked and then finally killed by Judge Jeffrey “Anti-” White in 2020.

Judge Jeffrey White argued Trump’s rules were illegal because officials had not spent enough time collecting and responding to comments from companies and workers who would be impacted by the change: “Defendants failed to show there was good cause to dispense with the rational and thoughtful discourse that is provided by the [Administrative Procedure Act’s] notice and comment requirements … the Court sets aside the Rules.”

A basic pattern of Deep State / Rotten Judiciary action, as I’m sure you recall.

It might be this Jeffrey White, seems to fit but the ruling above is not mentioned: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeffrey_White

Thats because Poland was always treated with kid gloves. They had to placate them somehow after all..like for example feeding them in 1947 at the expense of say..ours.. what else can USSR offer especially after the war?

I doubt Russian are going to do be using kid gloves here they will resort to “бей своих чтобы чужие боялись”. And if the Russins will refuse to do the job, they will use Chechens or something and I doubt Chechens really care about anyone else except other Chechens anyway.

Its going to be more of their multicultural hell. The same nightmares as America where you’re constantly walking on eggshells. Screw their 200 ethnnic races,screw their Turkics and Finno Ugrics but they want to bring it here and flood us with hundreds of thousands of their undesirables.

And once again, its unfortunately going take OUN levels of radicalism to gain freedom.

FFS and its all because of people like you(not you in particular im using a collective term that is)

But ur strategy is: nah lets not talk about OUN so we dont offend the Poles(look around you, nobody, nobody who is our neighbor maybe except Belarus is into that ethnic sadomasochism, every finno Ugric, Balt or Turkic is an ethnic nationalist ).

A Finno Ugric nationalist could possibly beat you up if you referred to him as a “R1b brother”.

just sayin

Do you not understand how a byrocracy works?

You really think the American bureaucracy was staffed by MAGAs?

Trump was a bolt from the blue. Even if he was serious about his campaign promises (I strongly suspect not), there simply weren’t enough hands on deck to turn the ship around.

“But he had four years!!!” Who of us really knows how long it “should” take?

And what’s the rush anyway? It didn’t happen in one term, why should that be cause for surrender?

You try, try and try again.

Any way you cut it, whether Trump himself was serious or not, an important corner was turned with his presidency.

Anybody on board with even some small part of the MAGA program must regard naysaying defeatists as the enemy. By this standard, commie sympathizer Beckow amply qualifies.

Nobody expected them to be effective and being able stop Russian columns but just few attacks here and there to put an exclamation mark at the end of the sentence: This is our country! They did not do it. Russians came and took it and from now on forever Russians will be saying: Even Ukrainians agreed with us that the land belonged to Russia because they did not try to defend it. There was no single Ukrainian who discharged rifle in the direction of our troops.

The invasion (or reclamation) is under way, but we don’t know what the end will look like.

One firm piece of information that will be proven is whether the national IQ of Ukraine is higher than that of Georgia.

Look at this retard, a “PhD student @warstudies. Previously @USMC, @ColumbiaSIPA, @CentreAST, and @AlfaFellowship. Focused on Russian defense policy.”

Good catch from @BVasylchenko. Most of the "Z" markings seen thus far have been inside a square, but this Ural truck with a Msta-B howitzer has one inside a triangle. Possibly indicating different task forces within a larger formation or echelon. This is in Valuyki. https://t.co/cDAO4lEY7D pic.twitter.com/rJxxRul7GY

— Rob Lee (@RALee85) February 22, 2022

Who can’t be bothered to look up Soviet symbology and realize he’s looking at artillery observers….

http://army.armor.kiev.ua/hist/takznaki.shtml

So called legit analysis. Which Karlin quotes willy nilly and claims Rob Lee (the queer in question) “thinks logically” -Karlin

They helped me with an electric bike a few years ago. Was a decent build 1KW motor with a 48V 15A battery. Topped out in the 40-45KM/h range, and got around 20km +/- depending on speed, terrain, and temperature.

They soldered all the leads, and gave me good ideas on how to secure the battery rack to the frame.

In the future, I’ll do another build with a bottle battery in the triangle. Don’t need it above 35KM/h although, it’s always nice for hills or unexpected outcomes. A 750W motor with a 48V 12A battery might be ideal with a space battery in the pack.

Electric bikes are quiet, ultraportable, and just overall fun since you can physically pick them up. There’s also not the reverse spin BS to steering you have with motor cycles, and leaning into a turn is fun.

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

Russia, India, and China all have a greater share of female business leaders than the West.
They’re just an older version of GloboHomo values, and catching up fast.

You won’t find honor killing, harems or wife abduction in these lands.

They are all unbased, and many have far less ‘personal’ freedom, self defence laws or weapons ownership than the West (America in particular).

The main thing they are imbued with is a female BMI norm below the point of morbid obesity. Although, this is also fast changing.

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

Do you think it possible for a negotiated settlement, or does either Ukraine or Russia have to be crushed?

Do you want to see bloodshed or what? So far Russia has simply annexed territory that has been def-facto outside of Ukrainian state control for nearly a decade now.

Russia is claiming all of the Donetsk and Lugansk oblasts though, so the moment of truth will come soon. If the Ukrainians don’t stand and fight for them, then they’ll be unlikely to fight for the rest also. In this sense, I suppose utu is right. Hopefully, they will stand down, and bloodshed will be avoided.

I don’t mean an occupation Odessa massacre. It seems like a hunt and liquidation of the perpetrators of the Odessa Massacre.

Ukraine must show some resolve if it wants support of the West because otherwise Kremlin narrative “Russia has simply annexed territory that has been def-facto outside of Ukrainian state control” will be accepted and Russian revisionism and revanchism will be normalized.

Our Lord Dowin threatens Russians with doomsday sanctions.

Dear @JosepBorrellF why did you delete your tweet?

I repeat 👉🏽 Please do your job, this situation has nothing to do with ´Diamonds in #Antwerp’😉

Your job is to handle Putin. 🙏🏽 pic.twitter.com/y408suQJWi

— Assita Kanko MEP (@Assita_Kanko) February 22, 2022

If you’re still mostly pandering to the needs of your old fans here, that you’ve spent 8 years developing, why the need to leave this blog space and create, as I understand it, two new ones to take its place? This one is still the most desirable as far as functionality. If you haven’t gotten a decent raise in a while, have you even asked for one? It all comes down to money, usually, eh?…

And if the Russins will refuse to do the job, they will use Chechens or something and I doubt Chechens really care about anyone else except other Chechens anyway.

Chechens were quite effective against Georgia in 2008. Then again, the Chechens have some beef with Georgia.

An overly tribalistic system tends to cause civilizational instability stemming from infighting related to honor/revenge killings etc. There is a happy cultural medium where a limited culturally attuned state takes some of this over.

However, I would rather live in world that takes the concept of honor seriously than not. To wit, I would honestly prefer to live in a world where Sikhs rule the earth rather than globalist materialists.

I find it so disconcerting how in the West now there almost universally no concept of honor, like it is a complete joke term. It’s such an aberration historically.

And once again, its unfortunately going take OUN levels of radicalism to gain freedom.

This may be true, but the type of ideology that goes with this type of movement needs to evolve too. The world is much different today that it was in the 1930’s. Poland is one of the few countries that has provided Ukraine with modern weaponry and instruction during this tense buildup of russian revanchism. Do you really think it wise to revert back to nasty Polish memes that may have been applicable in the past to today? If you’re so keen on the fascist model for Ukrainians, why haven’t you remained in Ukraine and joined up with the right sector folks? They’re the ones that like to march around garbed in Nazi swastikas instead of Ukrainian tryzubs.

The Russian troops are entering into Donbas from points that are far from the Ukrainian artillery positions. But, more importantly, they have not yet changed anything nor tried to take any additional ground. I guess that there is still some faint hope that this would not escalate into full combat and shelling the incoming troops would end that completely.

Ukraine is using the extra time to call up the first group of veteran reserves (another 40,000 troops, many of whom have experienced war in Donbas already) as part of the mobilization of the 250,000 total reserves-veterans. The Ukrainian government has also started providing the territorial guards in the cities with real guns rather than the wooden duplicates that they had been using in training (though many have already purchased their own weapons). State of emergency has been declared.

Some slim chance because technically nothing has yet changed. I think that if Russia was 100% committed to full invasion it would have moved with less warning, but the unacceptable nature of the conditions (not only no NATO but even full demilitarisation, what USSR demanded of Baltics prior to absorbing them) suggest high likelihood of no peaceful resolution.

Bloomberg (Bloomberg!) is reporting that US/NATO basically can’t do squat about this.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-23/biden-s-first-salvo-of-russia-sanctions-hits-with-thud-not-roar

I think, it’s time to stop here. In the current situation a deal according the following lines might be signed:
– Ukraine in the current effective borders has right to enforce the monoculture line you advocate. Russia must respect these borders. Ever.
– No Ukraine in NATO and no NATO in Ukraine. Ever.
– Ukraine has rights to move to the UE. Russia should accept and help.
– NS2 should be open with conditions that a % of the profits obtained by selling gas to Europe via NS2 must go to Ukraine. In this way Russia “buys” Crimea and the Donbass (for example 2000 million Euros per year during 100 years).
– NATO should recognize Crimea and the current borders Donbass as a part of Russia.
I doubt this idea is feasible and “digestible” for both sides, but something like that should be tried.

Why don’t focus on being a ruler rather than being ruled?

This also provides an interesting historical frame of reference for the purātan Khālsā practice of jhaṭkā tilak mariyādā, where decapitated animal's blood is used for anointing the śastar (weapons, the sarguṇa form of Bhagautī) with blood. pic.twitter.com/2wyxkjuTkp

— Ghost Of Jünger (@akali_berserker) February 23, 2022

Obviously, if I looked like Skippie Gates. (black) But anyway, while they were balling their fists, I would de-escalate by breaking out a scatterplot of ancient DNA and pointing to the relevant dots.

Actually, I am just joking, I am sure they are a friendly people, and we would bond over our shared colonial troubles.

All this situation might be litle bit(?) less rational than it should be, because there are elements of somewhat intrapersonal informal rivalries at the highest level too.

Biden was the political symbol of USA power after Maidan win in 2014, Zelensky’s main sponsor Kolomoisky had also important role then, now Zelensky legally persecuted pro-RF oligarch Medvedchuk, who has even some personal relation to Putin and whom even president Poroshenko didn’t touch.
Kolomoisky also was personally verbally insulting Putin in 2014.

So in Putin’s view it might be also seen as a final accord of a mighty powermen struggle and a very saticfactionary personal revenge to Biden&Kolomoisky for the humiliating loss in 2014.

This would certainly be a lot preferable to war but this is very far from Russia’s position.

In the same vein, the most practical way for Ukrainians to join EU is Russia annexing Ukraine wholesale and Galician refugees ending up in the EU en masse. Putin might help along.

Nowadays Yiddish is a dead language.

Perhaps, it has affected the patterns of speech in Hebrew? I don’t know. But I heard there was a debate in Israel originally about which language to use. It’s curious but you still hear a lot about Yiddish in America. (I mean not people speaking it, but, for example, it is mentioned in old TV shows or in newspapers talking about how it was a great language for insults. Probably as a result of Jewish ethnocentrism.)

Have you ever watched Bald and Bankrupt on youtube? He is a traveler but his specialty seems to visiting some of these down on their luck places in the former USSR.

He’s a funny character. I would be worried about being robbed in a lot of these places, but he goes into Chechnya without fear. When he gets a virus, he gets a ticket to some small Soviet town that he doesn’t even know where it is, and engages the locals in raspy Russian (from the sore throat), seeking people who speak the local, native language. He’s probably a super-spreader.

I like to see some of the old, Soviet architecture in some of these towns. The murals. Even the trash bins. I wish the old cars and buses were still running.
_____
I suppose I would have to scout Udurmtia first, to make sure it isn’t full of Babushkas.

Gurkhas also decapitate animals for kosher purposes and carry a special knife. Perhaps, Sikhs stole their customs from them?

If White South Africa had still existed Russia would have been immediately interested in importing their diamonds and setting up its domestic diamond-cutting industry with Israeli expertise. (Or use all the diamond substitutes Soviets developed for industrial uses).

The rest are awesome for cultural bifurcation and de-consumerization Russia needs.

How would you know of Discord functionality unless you try it, though? It can do things that a forum can’t do.

As long as you don’t run into the limitations (or, you know, get limited) I’d say it’s a nice app.

American Hasids in places like New York speak Yiddish.

Have you considered the mental state of most Ukie soldiers? They are sitting exposed on the border and infinitely stronger enemy has moved towards them. If Russia unleashes their weapons they can annihilate 50% or more of the Ukrainian troops in 24 hours. Any Ukie shooting would destroy a few buildings, if lucky a few dozen soldiers-civilians.

The officers have been warned that they will be held accountable afterwards for ‘war crimes’ – the guys on both sides know each other and talk. The Western minders are gone, and even the die-hard Galicians are probably heading home to pack, just in case.

Do you want them to die to make a small point helping the Western propaganda? Would any rational person? This was a losing situation for Kiev from day one: an idiotic overreach that depended on Russia’s inactivity. They put the success of the strategy in enemy’s hands – a basic error. Once Russia called their bluff, the trap was inevitable.

The West knows this, that’s why the awkward screaming and simultaneous running away. What exactly can they do? No shopping in Milano for some oligarch’s niece? No gas to EU? 800 Canadians in Latvia? How exactly does that matter when history is being made? They should had taken the Minsk deal while they could – it was a fantastic deal in the long run. But of course because they are morons living in their fantasy world, they didn’t. Now for the consequences for all of us.

Also except me, does anyone here remember AltanBakshi?

I remember that time that he accused my pureblood Kerry grandfather of being Jewish for thinking rabbits are disgusting animals.

And also when he denied Mongolians drink carrot juice with sheep eyeballs in them, and said it must have been invented for tourists.

He was a funny character, and I wish he would return.

My comment shouldn’t be interpreted that I intend to be ruled by either SJW or Sikhs. It was just a theoretical value judgement on competing world views using the two as counterpoints.

Trust me, in real life I prioritize independence and family/community cohesion, at least as much as is possible for me to influence in such an atomized society. I’m well far enough from the centers of American Imperial power that, similar to the Amish, I can largely do things my way. The area is rural enough that plenty of people are similarly minded to form some common purpose. In a way, my area reminds me of this forum or AE’s defunct forum in that it’s a pretty stimulating place on the fringes.

Have you considered the mental state of most Ukie soldiers? They are sitting exposed on the border and infinitely stronger enemy has moved towards them. If Russia unleashes their weapons they can annihilate 50% or more of the Ukrainian troops in 24 hours

Beckow in 2015 – Ukraine’s economy will not grow for many years.

So far, no mass desertions. Polls show increasing resolve in center, west and south but decreasing in east. 10,000 Ukrainians have bought new guns in February alone. To flee with?

Some people are sending their kids to cousins in Lviv or to the village while they get armed.

After the formal recognition of the Donetsk and Lugansk republics, what could be Putin’s next move? I continue to believe that a large-scale invasion of Ukraine is unlikely. Let me try to explain why. /1

— Artyom Lukin (@ArtyomLukin) February 23, 2022

Trump did act against H1-B visas, in 2017 even.

But it was apparently slow walked and then finally killed by Judge Jeffrey “Anti-” White in 2020.

Exactly. There are limits to what the President can do, primarily limited by law.

This also impacted Not-The-President Biden: (1)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday said the Biden administration likely violated federal law in trying to end a Trump-era program that forces people to wait in Mexico while seeking asylum in the U.S.
…
A federal judge in Texas had previously ordered that the program be reinstated last week. Both he and the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals refused the administration’s request to put the ruling on hold.

The judge, U.S. District Judge Judge Matthew J. Kacsmaryk in Amarillo, Texas, ordered that the program be reinstated in response to a lawsuit filed by the states of Texas and Missouri, whose governors have been seeking to reinstate some of the hard-line anti-immigration policies of the Trump administration.

Rational individuals grasp that changing policy requires winning in all three branches of government (Legislative, Executive, and Judicial). During Trump’s first term, MAGA did not control the Legislature or the Judiciary. Trump was highly successful obtaining the gains that were actually available versus the entrenched non-MAGA opposition.

Low-IQ yahoos are upset because the impossible was not achieved.

The way forward is continuously working on the House, Senate, and Judiciary over multiple election cycles. It will take time to place reliable MAGA majorities in these bodies.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/supreme-court-orders-remain-in-mexico-policy-reinstated

Agree. For this reason, a potential invasion and occupation of places like Kiev or Galicia is really unlikely. However, in his speech Putin specifically mentioned how close Kharkiv is to Moscow. If large scale hostilities commence (in taking the rest of Donbas, for example) then attacking this city with the large amount of military poised very near to it becomes very likely.

In the shadow of the current crisis, there’s a country that has been notching up major wins in recent days and weeks. Iran. The recent suspension of NS2 means they’re the only country in close vicinity with both surge capacity & baseline political acceptability to supply Europe with more gas. Europe has never been as hostile to Iran as the US has been. Iran is close to Turkey and would only need a few years to build a pipeline, after which they can use existing infra. They also have plenty of ships to be used in the interim. Of course, such a development would enrage the Israelis, but should Europe really endanger its energy security to please implacable curmudgeons holed up in Jerusalem?

Additionally, even before these fortuitous events, the nuclear negotiations continued to go their way. The departure of hardliners like Richard Nephew was a major milestone. He was a key official in previous sanctions implementation rounds against Iran. He publicly left the negotiation team after admitting to having been isolated.

I personally don’t understand the fetish that the Iranians have with getting a deal since the old one was ripped up by America. What’s the guarantee there won’t be a future DeSantis/Trump admin doing the same thing again? Whining impotently about life being unfair isn’t going to garner much sympathy from me. My view of Iran has been lowered in recent years as they seem obsessed with being in the West’s good graces at any price, despite all the tall tales spun by the likes of Pepe Escobar.

The MAGA chief had all the power, he just chose not to use it, until it was too late.

The House was guaranteed to deliver a “Russia, Russia, Russia” impeachment. Trump needed to keep non-MAGA Republican Senators on board to avoid conviction. Those GOP(e) were aligned with big business that wanted the visas to flow.

If Trump had attempted the illegal slow walk that you suggest, he would have been convicted in the Senate and thrown out of office.
___

You, Mikel, and Iffen need to create the “Committee to Overthrow the Constitution”. The only way for a single leader to achieve what you demand is by becoming an Emperor not President. Until you successfully get rid of the separation of powers, please stop the defeatist, anti-factual, emotionalism.

PEACE 😇

There’s both the ritual element such as weapons on altar, praying to or with weapons, using weapons to consecrate.

Training with weapons, maintaining weapons, gifting weapons.

Weapons are our spiritual guides.

@songbird they’re part of the same family.. Sikhs are a codification of Vedic kingship and not a separate religion. Neither are Gurkhas, just different warring denominations।।

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

You know that Ukraine’s economy has been dead in the water, stop denying the obvious. But that really doesn’t matter at this point, we are beyond counting shillings.

…no mass desertions

To desert is very hard, until the actual fighting starts. Then you have chaos. How many of the tens of thousands would run away or foist a white flag (or even the Russian flag) when faced with annihilation? How many officers would choose to save themselves? If Russia declares a no-flight zone over Ukraine (they could), block access to the Black See (they could), that would leave only land borders…how many officers sitting on the front would make it? These people aren’t stupid. You want them to die to make a point, but enough of them may disagree.

You are not thinking clearly: ‘increasing resolve‘ far away from the front means nothing – it shows that the pressures to conform and the risk of non-conforming are very high.

Let’s not test this – my response was to ‘utu’s’ desire for Ukies to shoot at something. They don’t have to – there is still a peaceful way out: a neutral Ukraine, equality for all nations living there, a quasi-Minsk deal (worse than before, but still possible). And above all, NATO’s advisors and missiles stay far away. Why would we in the Central-Eastern Europe want to die for Western idiotic dreams of conquest of Russia? For their uber-liberal nonsense with rainbow flags and imported African brain surgeons? Let’s just go back to living.

Ukrainians lining up to join their military:

#Ukrainians lining up to join their military forces to defend their country from a further invasion by the #Putin Army. They have had enough of this. pic.twitter.com/cRebJEEakb

— Michael (@MykhailoXPIH) February 23, 2022

Sikhi should also ban sex selective abortion lest the Khalsa wither away!

Hard to wrap my head around, as I was taught that Sikhs are monotheists. (though I guess it is sort of fuzzy, with the Gurus.) Whereas, Gurkhas seem clearly not to be, and worship what I think Kent Nationalist once called “demons.”

Why would it be any different next time? And don’t just say ‘MAGA wins both Senate and House’ – as we have seen, there are always enough people who will go liberal when the chips are down. Same as always.

Consider that this may be an unsolvable problem given the system constraints: that the parameters of the system itself preclude solving these issues. The business interests, the ‘lobbying’ nature of the American democracy (read: built-in corruption), the incentives for all involved.

That is not good, and having a hope that next time it would be different is fine. But look at the retard Justin-baby: when confronted with a possible loss, the liberal rulers will cross any borders, any lines. That pretty much leaves a slow system collapse due to issues like migration growing to the point that they can’t be sustained. Or the liberals wake up one day and say ‘oh, sh..t, we were wrong, let’s change the course’. But a MAGA-like reform of the system is very unlikely. Look it up, historically there are very few examples of a successful system reform.

They’re just an older version of GloboHomo values

China and Russia also have high abortion rates with Russia being a stratospheric 53.4 per 1000 women and China being 24 per 1000. India is quite low at 3.1 per 1000 which is quite favorable. For comparison the US stands 20.8 per 1000 women.

Abortion rates like that of Russia in particular don’t signal a rejection of basic materialist GloboHomo values. I can’t take discussion of Russia as “Savior of the West” seriously in light of that, much less China.

First, I don’t really trust people with C19 masks and briefcases. That is not the right demographic to fight to death. Any man afraid of corona at this point is not about to martyr himself.

Second, look up Czecho-slovakia’s mobilization ahead of Munich in 1938: cheering crowds, trains decorated with flowers, screaming girls. Then the rain washed away the slogans on the trains and the soldiers went silent. And then Germany, Poland and Hungary attacked and Chamberlain unfolded his umbrella – that time the cheering crowds were in London and Paris. Why would it be different now?

Wow. It seems that Mark Galeotti is really really buthurt.

https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2022/02/22/the-personal-politics-of-putins-security-council-meeting-a76522

How much signaling will the Indian space program have about scheduled castes and women?

Do Slovaks generally think that they got semi-idependent state under Hitler was due their non fighting with Germany? This is not sarcastic question, I’m really curious, cause do not know about that.

We aren’t ahead of Munich 1938 now, but on the cusp of likely invasion. No mass desertions, people reporting for the army. Ukrainian forces are buying time by not doing what Saakashvili did:

New: Spoke to a senior European intelligence official just now. The official says so far Russia’s attempts to draw Ukrainian retaliation have failed, “local warlords in Donbas are increasingly frustrated that Ukrainian troops are disciplined and not falling for provocations.”

— Michael Weiss (@michaeldweiss) February 23, 2022

I’m quite sure that the Russian war planning counts on desertions as a variable. This variable will not be as high as the 80% seen in Crimea but will be higher than 0%. Indeed, I think that bribes will be a weapon of choice. If desertions are around 50% the ugly phase can be “relatively bloodless” but if the variable is around 10% the likelihood of a bloodbath increases significantly. I hope the hot phase to never start.

Why would it be any different next time?

As a matter objective fact, the next MAGA President will have:

— MAGA House for Appropriations
— More MAGA friendly, but not filibuster proof, Senate

And don’t just say ‘MAGA wins both Senate and House’

So you are 100% emotion, 0% objective facts. Facts about Congress are “to you” irrelevant. Got it.

Have you so considered joining the fact free SJW DNC. Your emotional belief that “The Rule of Feelings” is more powerful than the “Rule of Law” makes you a natural Globalist acolyte. You believe that surrendering to the Elites is the only option.

historically there are very few examples of a successful system reform.

Thank you for admitting that there are examples of successful reform. The SJW/DNC authoritarian over reach, economic collapse, open fiction destroying all credibility of the Fake Stream Media, and total disregard for U.S. Citizens makes MAGA a prime candidate for successful reform.

the system itself preclude solving these issues. The business interests, the ‘lobbying’ nature of the American democracy

The new MAGA Republicans are quite different than the GOP(e). The change is still in progress, but the early signs are that MAGA party is much more willing to fight. A key policy cornerstone is U.S. Reindustrialization, and they mean it.

The “business interests and corporate lobbyists” loathe the idea of American Jobs for American Citizens. Fear of MAGA Reindustrialization has flipped the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. They are now stalwart supporters of Ilhan Omar’s DNC: (1)

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is poised to endorse nearly two dozen freshmen House Democrats for reelection
…
The clash also provides a window into a growing rift in the business community over its place in the Donald Trump-dominated Republican Party, which has at times embraced policies the corporate world opposes. While the Chamber has almost exclusively endorsed Republicans over the past decade, it has collided with the president over everything from tariffs to immigration. (read more)

The CoC was never a “right wing organization”, nor was it a “republican organization”; it was always a multinational globalist organization structured to support Wall Street and destroy Main Street. It was always a feature, not a flaw…. but no-one would believe it.

Well, now… believe it.

The “lobbyist” tactic worked when they could fund and control both sides. While no party is lobbyist free, the most perfidious job exporters and foreign agents cannot change MAGA positions no matter how much they lobby.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2020/08/28/the-bloom-is-off-the-ruse-tom-donohue-and-u-s-chamber-of-commerce-announce-support-for-far-left-democrats-in-2020/

What is the caste composition of scientists and astronauts in their space program?

Without modern abortion services parents will still resort to infanticide (and these remains a significant part of abortions in India). It takes a genetic-cultural natalist response to maximize fecundity.

We don’t worship the Gurus, and Idk look up Panentheism. Sikh blue uniform comes from Ma Kali

Watch the video, say based and move on.

Quit being a nerd.

I’m a Jatt.

ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ

>Norwegian

Huge news for the upcoming election in France: (1)

Marine Le Pen forced to suspend her presidential election campaign due to ‘insufficient signatures’ … Le Pen has received just 366, according to the latest official figures, and has only about a week to close the gap to 500.

Eric Zemmour has also admitted that it is “quite possible” that he will not obtain the 500 signatures required.

I have not seen an official number for Zemmour. The consensus view is that Zemmour is much closer to 500 than Le Pen.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://rmx.news/article/french-democracy-a-joke-marine-le-pen-forced-to-suspend-her-presidential-election-campaign-due-to-insufficient-signatures/

Thank you, I really appreciate you taking the time to express that.

For some reason, repairing motorcycles has a long pedigree as a spiritual activity, there are several books on this.

I’m not surprised repairing bikes seem to attract a similar quality of people.

Something about cheap, low impact, modes of transport seem to bring out the best in people.

Actually, I agree with you that walking is best, and is in fact the most spiritual activity one can do 🙂

Especially – wandering, that yes, gets away from straight lines and clear paths. When I hike, I’m increasingly “rambling”, or just striking out cross country in open land with a compass in an unstructured way.

To be confined to roads and paths – why? One connects to nature better when one simply jumps in and becomes a part of it.

Btw, yu made me sound here like a Marxist philosopher 🙂

Poke fun at me by all means, I don’t mind it, but recognize at least that Marxism isn’t the angle I’m writing from (although I agree with much of his critique).

Vishnugupta would probably know, but I suspect that the scientists are nearly all Brahmins. Heard rumors about astronauts being selected, but can’t find any names.

In the US, I am struck by how heavy the ideology is at the top, but also at the bottom (aerospace companies). One could choose between seeing it as top-down ideology, or it being mechanistic and bottom up.

Kennedy wanted a black lunar astronaut as a signal, but he was vetoed, due to lack of qualified candidates. At that time, the US did not have the mechanistic power inputs necessary to achieve blacks on the moon, and the idea could be vetoed by sensible men.

Johnson started laying the groundwork, but Kennedy probably would have, if he had survived. And not to make it about one man, congress, the courts, universities, Hollywood, and news media, were heavily involved.

“Putin mentioned Kharkiv in his speech.”

It would indeed surprise me if Putin went after Kharkov. Back when TSHTF in 2014, only Luhansk and Donetsk were in play because a majority voted that they didn’t want to be part of Ukraine anymore. A similar vote was held in Kharkov and they voted to remain in Ukraine.

I draw a line in degree between abortions/ infanticide which is done out of the desperation of crushing poverty and those who are just rejecting responsibility and chasing pleasure.

If an animal kills it’s own young it invokes automatic disgust from humans yet we kill our young as a species as a fundamental human right. I know abortion is a contentious issue, but it’s one that I’ve always felt unequivocal about. It’s too much of a rejection of the woman’s nurturing and the man’s protecting role.

What to do about about burgeoning population then becomes the next question. I’ve often thought that their is actually a strong “anti-vaxx” argument that can be made holding that the modern decrease in mortality is actually ultimately a bad outcome. I think the deferred suffering will come paid in the end, and it has opened too many other Pandora’s boxes.

In short, it would be preferable to live in a world with higher infant mortality but where children are a precious asset, then a world with low infant mortality that is offset by their intentional destruction and devaluation.

I am beginning to think I should confine myself to posting relevant Chesterton quotes.

Who will run against Macron then?

I’m reading now a beautifully produced book by Tuttle Press, a small publisher that makes attractively bound books on Asian themes and topics.

It’s about a Japanese poet I’d never heard of before – Santoku Taneda, from the early 20th century.

Apparently, at a certain point he just said fuck it all, became a Zen monk and started walking the mountains and back roads of Japan, and drinking tons and tons of sake – truly a man after my own hearts 🙂

Oh, and writing poetry that made him one of the most beloved poets of Japan. I love how Japan has this fondness for these vagabond types who drink a lot, and who existed even in recent times.

One collection of his poetry is called “For All My Walking”.

Apparently, sauntering comes from the French saint terre, to go on a pilgrimage to a holy site – long walks and rambles seem to go hand in hand with spirituality.

And there is the great French idea of the Flaneur – another casualty of industrial civilization thinking you only walk with a purpose.

Aimless rambling in an interesting city or countryside may one of the best things in life.

Walkers in NYC are the worst! They always walk in a hurry and are always trying to actually get somewhere – horrid!

Bangkok used to be great for walking. The sidewalks are so cluttered with carts and vendors and people and local life taking place, with sudden impromptu markets popping up every few streets, that you simply couldn’t walk fast if you wanted to, and anyone who actually has to get somewhere would never think of walking. It’s also way too hot to walk fast.

Last I heard the city authorities want to clean this riotous life of color up and make the streets boring and organized and efficient – that will never happen, of course, but it’s a sign of the times.

Somehow, I’m optimistic and joyous today 🙂 At times like these, all the dreary things about modern culture, the mentality itself, seems so brittle and so much on the way out already. I’m near Big Sur in California.

One of the cool things about Christianity is the idea that the “good side” has already won – that the world has already been overcome. That’s the good news.

I think this optimistic idea is deep down true.

Yep, the truths about these things have long been known but the small minded petty men of power never understand them.

Karlin thinks that Russia conquering a poor country like Ukraine is somehow “winning”, and of course that winning is the most important thing in life – it’s so palpably small minded, so lacking in breadth of vision and wideness if view in this great and mysterious universe, that one can only smile 🙂

It’s the same with transhumanism – control everything so you can survive. These people can never raise their eyes for a moment and see anything larger than their petty selves 🙂

Please continue posting as much Chesterton as you possibly can – the man is certainly an antidote to our times, not just in words but in expansive and carefree attitude!

If both Le Pen and Zemmour are excluded, Valérie Pécresse is the obvious choice.

Her platform seems sound. However, I know little about her. She has gotten little coverage outside of France compared to the internationally known migration realists.

PEACE 😇

And oil price is scratching one hundred dollars. May hysteria is agitated with that target in mind.

The SJW/DNC is attempting to blame months of inflation and high oil prices on recent events (1). They are failing miserably. The fact that they are trying to sell this bit of crazy shows the arrogance of Ilhan Omar and the Democrat party.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/02/22/western-leaders-blame-russia-ukraine-conflict-for-energy-prices-deflecting-from-g7-build-back-better-and-climate-change-agenda/

Dam all those expensive groceries and gas from the last two years can be attributed this happening today.

Makes sense. pic.twitter.com/M9MwjOeCF7

— Mayne (@Tradermayne) February 23, 2022

control everything so you can survive

Survival is highly overrated. I look forward to exiting this world at some point so the next generations can have their shot. Not to say I’m in a hurry to leave, but when it’s time to go I don’t mind making a gracious exit.

A static world of living forever as the transhumanists imagine sounds really awful. It would be a profoundly dead society. I find it hard to imagine that they take themselves seriously, yet apparently they do and would love to make their dreams everyone else’s nightmare.

Do you ever wonder the exact gerontology details when a guy like George Soros or David Rockefeller gets his 10th vital organ transplant? Is he bedridden for a month then he gets to walk around semi-normal for two months until he needs to have another one? Does he have medical techs poke him with needles every single morning from now until his near corpse finally gives it up?

We may already be living inside the zombie apocalypse. : (

Slovakia was loyal to Czecho-Slovakia until after Munich, there were some noisy nationalists, but our ancestors didn’t betray Prague until March 1939 – 6 months after the UK-France (and Poland, Hungary) betrayal in Munich.

In March 1939 Hitler told Slovak leaders: either declare independence under German protection or become occupied by Hungary (the Magyars were itching to do it). So they declared an independent state that was completely under Germany. Lesser evil is still kind of an evil – and the leaders who did it were punished after WWII. Fighting Germany after the Munich betrayal was not really an option – we are not insane. Czechs also didn’t fight.

In summer 1944 there was an uprising led by the army. It was suppressed after 2 months by invading Germans, pushed into the mountains and then the usual partisan stuff. Soon after that Russians liberated Slovakia at a cost of about 100k lives. We still appreciate it.

How do you define desertion? If there is a massive attack by superior weapons a large percentage of Ukie army will surrender. Would you count them as deserters. Also, the units that will not initiate a fight, that will hold back (very common) is that a ‘desertion’?

We don’t know and don’t want to test it. Based on the situation, my guess is that less than 50% of the Ukie soldiers facing Russia would aggressively fight. Others may shoot, but keep their heads down, or withdraw at first opportunity.

If Russia chooses to go medieval with massive remote bombing and destruction (they could), it won’t matter much because whether dead or a deserter, they would be out of a fight. Kiev needs to wake up – and also people like AP – that this is not a joke, that losing is not fun. People die, for what? So a few morons can Kiev can insist on joining NATO? Because, that’s what the fight is about. With a neutral Ukraine, they could have Donbas, trade, EU, everything.

If Trump returns to power in 2025, I don’t see why there is much hope in a return to American greatness. Demographics is destiny and America is headed for long-term slow economic growth and a permanent end to empire-supporting patriotism.

Non-Hispanic whites were 58% of the US population according to the 2020 Census. It will continue to decline to 40-45% by 2050. Real growth per capita will decline because there aren’t enough white taxpayers contributing to the economy.

The percentage of the US population that is (1) white, (2) Christian, and (3) married has fallen a lot. “from a high of 62 percent in 1974 to 28 percent in 2015.” https://www.prri.org/spotlight/white-married-christians-decline-in-u-s/ Projecting further based on the rate of decline over the last 50 years, the percentage will fall to 10-15% in 2050. How many people in America would be left to support the empire? Which group will contribute the bulk of military officers? The enlisted in combat units?

He’s a funny character. I would be worried about being robbed in a lot of these places, but he goes into Chechnya without fear. When he gets a virus, he gets a ticket to some small Soviet town that he doesn’t even know where it is, and engages the locals in raspy Russian (from the sore throat), seeking people who speak the local, native language. He’s probably a super-spreader.

I like to see some of the old, Soviet architecture in some of these towns. The murals. Even the trash bins. I wish the old cars and buses were still running.

I started watching Bald a couple of years ago via his Belarus videos, it was interesting to see some of the places I knew in Minsk in travel vlogs. I followed his career for a while after, about up to the time of the Chechen videos.

I heard he has been robbed a few times already; he also made that memorable Corona video about when he caught the disease in Serbia and ended up in intensive care in one of their top hospitals for 10 days, unfortunately it didn’t stay up for that long.

There was apparently some drama when he went to Chechnya to make videos. He made one or two vaguely suggestive comments about Chechen women when filming on a train and later had to be taken into protective custody by the Chechen police because some Chechen guys were seeking to meet up with him to vindicate the honour of their women. The police seem to have made him apologise on video, do a dance, then they expelled him and told him never to try to re-enter. The video with the dance was around for a while.

Another interesting thing about Bald is that before becoming a travel vlogger he had a long online career as a kind of PUA/sex tourist specialising in the FSU, and he would write long posts on PUA and sex tourist forums about his experiences and the techniques he was using. There were some really long and convoluted methods, like hiring expensive cars and making fake business cards, websites then befriending guys and babushkas in order to eventually get at their younger female relatives (he called this the ‘Oskar Schindler’ technique). Lots of the places he goes in his videos he already knew quite well from this sex tourism era.

I was in Belarus a bit in 2010-12, similar period to when he was in his sex tourism phase, in smaller towns and regional cities, if you were English it wasn’t that hard to find dates if you wanted, the lengths he was going to suggested some real thirst. These kinds of dark revelations about him kept me following him for longer, wondering if he would ever mention it in a video. I don’t think he has as yet but he probably makes a good living with his Youtube, talking about this topic would put it at risk.

So, you are betting on a 50% desertion level. That’s should made the mess quite less bloody. I, honestly, don’t know, so I insist in the 10%-50% interval.

So a few morons can Kiev can insist on joining NATO?

They were placed there, in 2014, just for asking “freely” NATO to step in Ukraine. That’s their duty. If thing go ugly, they will be “erased”.
Hopefully, the whole Russian “technical-military” deployment is for coercion purposes just to get the “No NATO in Ukraine and No Ukraine in NATO” objective. By the way

First Rada deputy, Ilya Kiva of the Opposition Bloc, to turn tail and endorse Russian intervention. We'll probably see more of this over the next few days. pic.twitter.com/LMvh9Owt18

— Anatoly Karlin (🚀,🧬) (@akarlin0) February 23, 2022

May be that’s the objective.

From Washington’s point of view this was always very simple: the first objective was to get the Crimea bases – Russia out, NATO in – over a decent time period. Russia stopped that in 2014 to extreme displeasure of Washington.

Then the second objectives: Ukraine in NATO and bloody the Russkies by having a war in Ukraine. Ukraine will not be in NATO, but the bloody part could still happen.

Based on the simple human psychology in 2022 (not in some mythical past), fewer than 50% of the assembled Ukrainian soldiers would fight given the odds. It could actually be fewer if the thunder and noise are overwhelming. People are not suicidal. Given that the Kiev elites would be visibly trying to escape to Lviv and further west, why the hell would the grunts line up to die? AP and his type are fantasizing, playing games, but they themselves would be among the first to run away.

The short delays between Russia’s moves give the Ukie soldiers time to think (and talk to the other side and their families). They are sitting there waiting to be killed, what do you think goes through their minds? Some drink, some watch videos, very few are getting all worked-up by Zelensky’s patriotic speeches. This one is for the military history books – what a complete f..k-up…

Wow, thanks! That’s really interesting. I hadn’t known any of that.

I haven’t watched too many of his videos, but I had noticed that he is given to ribald jokes, and one or two were already too crass for my tastes. And these caused me to fleetingly wonder about the psychology of the man, partly because he seems an extraordinary extrovert, and the places he goes to seem very out of the way, which almost suggests hidden motivations.

The very first time I saw him, I had wondered if he had been born in Russia, and so was drawn back. But I guess that is not the case.

Yes, I agree completely.

And yet, Karlin once said he expects normal people to clamor to get into the transhumanist community when they see how wonderful their sterile existence is 🙂

I wonder if they will be able to process the reality that large numbers of people will be leading joyous lives in the certainty of death while the transhumanists will be experiencing crippling and escalating anxiety as they try and hunt down ever more trivial threats 🙂

Covid was a precursor of the transhumanist reality.

Survival is highly overrated. I look forward to exiting this world at some point so the next generations can have their shot. Not to say I’m in a hurry to leave, but when it’s time to go I don’t mind making a gracious exit.

You care about the next generation because intuitively, you feel connected to others, and ultimately all life – that also underlies your appreciation for nature.

They see themselves as isolated beings, radically split off from everything else, in a dead world of Self and Other – of course they are afraid to die.

As for making a gracious exit, no one talks about a good death – it’s always try and survive as long as possible.

I heard someone say – hospitals don’t records of good deaths, only how many extra hours patients survived 🙂

still hear a lot about Yiddish

At some forgotten time, Yiddish was a very flourishing culture, almost civilization, with literature, musical theatre, poetry, many beautiful songs (e.g. “Papirosn”, etc.).

But it could not survive Zionist revival of Hebrew from the late 19th century, before the nightmares of Hitler and Stalin in the 20th century, who have thrown Yiddish to the trash heap of history, as now the Ukrainian language can be thrown to the trash heap of history by Putin.

Although while Ukrainian might soon be thrown on the trash heap by Putin, in a couple of generations, we will also wondering if even the Russian language can survive, at least in the Russian Far East, where much of region is being asset stripped, China buys the forests, and the young population is self-evacuating.

–

You can see at 21:40 minute in the video the professional Yiddish teachers explain the pessimism about preserving Yiddish language, trying to preserve a dead German dialect in a rapidly dying region of Russia (with English subtitles).

https://www.npr.org/2019/07/10/739902587/yiddish-fiddler-on-the-roof-is-a-dream-come-true-for-lead-actor

https://thehealthcareblog.com/blog/2012/08/06/how-doctors-die/

https://slatestarcodex.com/2013/07/17/who-by-very-slow-decay/

Scott Alexander was part of the cryonics transhuman cult at LessWrong before he went to medical school. In the first slatestarcodex reader survey he had a cryonics question.

Long gone. His membership in the Death Cult only took a short exposure to reality to expunge.

I think they are probably delusional about how much these sanctions can damage the ruling class in Russia. If they have enough money, then their whole life of activity is designed to prepare for this kind of scenario that happens now.

While the money has to be washed outside Russia, they are the most diversified and skillful people in the world for washing money, and will just move money through any of every island in every ocean in the world.

If you block one place, then they will just go to another.

On the other hand, ordinary middle class people, who live from the value of their own labor in Europe, can be damaged, or their lives destroyed by sanctions.

The sanctions can damage the little middle class people who are working in Europe, just living the normal life, while for wealthy oligarchs it will be a few more hours of paperwork, to wash some money through Seychelles instead of Jersey.

No more shopping in Milano

“No shopping in Milan”. This really is personal attack against the national culture of the Russian Federation. At least he didn’t insult oil yet.

Diamonds in Antwerp

Diamonds are mostly extracted from soil, in Russia, Austrlia and Africa.

Then they are mostly cut and traded in Israel and Antwerp.

Finally, they are sold in expensive shops around the world, e.g. especially like Switzerland, London, etc.*

I had an ex- classmate, who worked as a mining engineer for the largest diamond company. His job is apparently “the worst job in the world”, like slave labor, where he sleeps in a barracks in terrible places in the Far East.

I also know someone in Europe, who has a parent, who is somekind of high executive in the same company. They life was not so uncomfortable, to say it mildly

There is modern life – masters and slaves.

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* The idea EU sanctions could prevent Russian officials buying the diamonds, seems unlikely intuitively. When the officials buy these things, they send assistants to e.g. Switzerland, to buy diamonds or expensive watches. So, these products are not sold in name of the officials.

Even if they try to ban all Russian citizens from buying diamonds, then they can just hire non-Russian citizen, assistants, or buy the same diamonds in Singapore or Dubai.

Well, at least USSR didn’t mass deport your people to Siberia and didn’t flood your country with colonists, so that’s understandable why there is no such displeasure with aftermath like in Baltic States.

ADDENDUM

If you need further proof that MAGA reform versus “authoritarian liberalism” is a winner…

SJW Islamic Globalism has announced their next attack on Christian America (1)

Rep. Rashida Tlaib – an original to the “Squad” – wIll give a response to Biden’s upcoming State of the Union address

The speech will put on display the deep rifts within the Democratic Party that have marked Biden’s presidency. Months ahead of the daunting midterm election, many Democrats are looking to put aside those differences in order to present a united front against Republicans. But the left sees an opportunity in this year’s primaries to elect a more liberal Democratic majority to Congress.

MAGA reform is receiving the Red Carpet to Success. The Nazi-crat party is besieged by internal members wanting more even more, highly unpopular, SJW Islamic Fascism.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://redstate.com/sister-toldjah/2022/02/23/aoc-led-squad-reveals-latest-strategy-designed-to-give-joe-biden-midterm-election-nightmares-n526663

There were some Nazi collaborators deported from Slovakia in 1945-46, a few hundred who were in top positions during WWII. Most came back in 2-3 years, often to get a second whammy from the new commie government in Prague after 1948. (Incidentally, the current Prime Minister’s grandpa spent 2 years after 1945 in the Ural Mnt penal colony, he was during WWII the head of “Slovak air force” on the eastern front. Yes, that’s not a joke, I think they had mostly balloons and some pigeons.)

The Balts were different: they formed SS divisions, domestic mass murder of Jews done by them personally, shooting at Red Army as it came in. So there are two sides to this story – you just don’t like the other side. Regarding the ‘colonists’, there were many, but Latvia already had 12% Russian population in 1910, and Riga was a Russian-German city. Again there are two sides.

Quite interesting that in 1980, the CDU was still asking questions about lands lost to Poland.

The Balts were different: they formed SS divisions, domestic mass murder of Jews done by them personally, shooting at Red Army as it came in.

Mass deportations of peaceful population by Soviets started BEFORE any of this happened you listed above. The start of first wave was June 14, 1941, when about 30 thousand civilians were snatched out from their homes, pushed into cattle vagons and sent into northern lattitudes where many of them perished out of hunger and diseases the very first winter. That’s why anger&hatred was absolutely red hot because of this and just after one week Nazis came in they were enthusiastically greeted (mistakenly) as a liberators by many.

Although still no casus belli for a large operation, which is strange (feels like Syria in 2015 which was a comparatively small operation) I would write another motivation against “false flag” terrorist attack in anything central Moscow or other priority areas.

A virtue of the “Prince” in the postsoviet world, is to present impression that they are responsible for order, stability and wealth. The easiest way is to create displaycase cities, which present these impressions.

This is why Lukashenko converts Minsk to become as clean as Singapore, how Aliev’s Baku is like a disney version of Paris, and also central Moscow is intentionally cleaning up to a mixture of Switzerland and Monaco.

If there would be a “false flag” terrorist attack (besides all these interrupted “Ukrainian Nazi” attacks in the border or Crimea that are not a sufficient casus belli), it should not too much damage the sense of order, and this is displayed nowadays in the priority areas.

Yes, I mean these are the most “elite and special” Chechen units, which are used to hunt and liquidate the people who oppose the government within the Chechen Republic.

These have been identified as including Kadyrov’s most elite internal security unit which is now in Crimea.

This is what their “specialism” has been for years. So if they go to Ukraine, they can be “experts” in this. They would surely be used after the Ukrainian army is defeated, to manage areas.

Kadyrov’s most elite unit (from which killer of Nemtsov* graduated) is now near to Odessa so they can be managing this area.

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* To explain, Nemtsov was a politician who criticized the government a lot, especially Putin. He was shot in 2015 by the ex-soldier of Kadyrov’s most elite unit.

British media is publishing about this story, with a video from the company that sells the equipment.

If it was true that this would be used (which I have not seen evidence yet?), it is also a sign of how determined the political layer will be to attain the fast result in Ukraine.

But it would also means it would be difficult to know what is the real number of casualties there will be after the war, for little this is actually significant in the postsoviet space.

I guess people could try to calculate retrospectively deaths on both sides by looking at excess deaths?

Russia deploys mobile crematoriums to follow its troops into battle

Russian forces have prepared a mobile crematorium for use in any future conflict with Ukraine in what Britain’s Defence Secretary has described as “chilling”.

The MoD released footage of a vehicle-mounted crematorium with room to “evaporate” one human body at a time, which has been seen trailing Russian forces and is expected to follow any troops into Ukraine.

Ben Wallace, the Defence Secretary, suggested the use of such a system may be a way for the Kremlin to cover up any future combat losses, fearing a repeat of the criticism at home when Russia first invaded Ukraine in 2014.

“Previously they’ve deployed mobile crematoriums to follow troops around the battlefield, which in anyone’s book is chilling.

But it would also means it would be difficult to know what is the real number of casualties there will be after the war, for little this is actually significant in the postsoviet space.

Why? Funerals and notes of death to relatives still will be happening, just instead coffins it will be urns. So far this propaganda video, just instad of RF, it’s UK and Skabeeva with Popov can say it’s meant for heaps of dead cruel banderites anyway.

Well, the ruble isn’t collapsing yet, but we have the weakest of all time.

And something happening according to Twitter.

Crimea!!! Kalanchak outpost is under attack. Ukrainian soldiers and civilians are running away #Crimea #Ukraine #Crimea pic.twitter.com/gemJ0TO2bA

— MilitaryLand.net (@Militarylandnet) February 24, 2022