Here’s a new Open Thread for all of you. To minimize the load, please continue to limit your Tweets or place them under a MORE tag.
To jump-start the discussion, I’ll include a link to my most recent article on vaxxing, which has been producing quite a lot of controversy, both here and elsewhere on the Internet:
https://www.unz.com/runz/obesity-and-the-end-of-the-vaxxing-debate/
I’ll also include a link to an important article published this morning by the editor of Britain’s Daily Sceptic, a well-regarded conservative-leaning science-oriented publication heavily focused on Covid issues that was launched a couple of years ago by Toby Young, a fairly prominent public intellectual:
I’m extremely pleased to see that others are starting to focus upon some of the same striking evidence that I’ve been emphasizing.

Mr. Unz,
The new thread is appreciated.
I will take this opportunity to share a Public Service Announcement.
I do not know if this is an actual exploit. Or, if I am being rolled. However, best to be on the side of caution.
PEACE 😇
Ron,
Is there data to show that the actual people who died are the obese people? Not on a collective, presumptive basis but on a case by case basis.
In other words did the mortality rate for obese people increase in the period in question? I still see lots of robust people, maybe the skinny ones were actually thinned out as might happen in a long cold winter.
What other possible causes could be considered for the increased mortality in addition to colds and novel injections? The causation might be different in different countries.
If this is covered in the long set of comments on the main article, maybe someone can give a comment number.
+++
For countries where the excess mortality is low or constant are there other factors in 2021-2022 which might have a downward effect actually reducing mortality and counterbalancing any hypothetical COVID or shot effects? For example, less work occurred so fewer industrial accidents; this is only an illustration, industrial deaths are too infrequent in the West to be substantial.
+++
If the injections have extra danger for obese people that doesn’t let the purveyors off the hook. It simply highlights the irresponsibility of the bogus human trial process.
You raise interesting questions:
• Are the obese are more likely to die from WUHAN-19?
• Are the obese are more likely to die from the mRNA jab?
• Is there a difference between the mRNA experiment and conventional vaccines?
___
I do not know how much traction raising these points in this OT will obtain. Almost everyone here despises Manda-vaxx authoritarianism.
As a technical issue, it is scientifically interesting — Are the fatties dying of WUHAN-19? Or, the mRNA experiment? Or, a combination of both?
___
Regardless of the science, obese lard things are not of interest. I regret being tricked into searching on Nigerian plus sized pageant.
DO NOT CLICK THIS LINK!
https://www.nairaland.com/1072049/miss-plus-size-nigeria-2012
YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.
#LetsGoBrandon 😇
Just watched:
1. Some serious pot and kettle shit with Brian saying that people need to be told the truth, not just what they want to hear when Brian is the one who has been pimping “muh winter offensive”, saying that Ukraine was running out of shells, claiming that Russia had figured out how counter the HIMARs and spinning the Russian army’s inability to maneuver is actually being an intelligent preference for a blatantly attritional strategy
2. Interesting article that he cited in Foreign Affairs
3. I agree with Western estimates that Russia has suffered ~100,000 total casualties when you count regional militias/Wagner. That’s casualties, not fatalities. I think it’s in the ballpark. I think Brian is confusing KIA and total casualities.
4. Brian again comes back to the whole “war of attrition” thing, but never mentions that Russia has adopted this strategy because of the catastrophic failure of its initial invasion and because Russia is literally lacks the capability to wage this war any other way. It would take Russia at least a year to put a million men on the line and equip them, if the current Russian state is even capable of that, and there still would be no opportunity for breakthrough
5. Brian claims that the Russian partial mobilization has given the Russians a numerical advantage on the line. I doubt it
6. I agree that the Kherson withdrawal was militarily correct and that the Ukrainian offensives in the fall did not have any strategic benefits for Ukraine and that these withdrawal show the Kremlin and it’s commanders are now conducting the war in a more reasonable fashion
7. Unlike the Anatoly’s of the world, I expect the coming Ukrainian offensives against the prepared Russian defenses to be very costly failures for Ukraine so I agree with Brian on this point.
8. Muh Bakhmut. Using the logic the German army used to justify Verdun. Pathetic.
9. Very interesting Alex Vershinin article cited. I understand where Vershinin is coming from but I believe that Ukraine’s ability to replace material losses is virtually limitless for the time being. The manpower losses I’m less sure but even there I’m confident that Ukraine can continue to recruit enough men to hold the line offensives, even if it eventually needs to forgo further offensives
10. Brian displays a huge misunderstanding of battlefield/theatre logistics
11. What he said about Wagner troops being a cheap loss since they are convicts is incredibly callous
12. Ironically, the war is kinda turning into the war that Anatoly initially predicted (mainly drones + artillery)
13. I agree with Venishin that Ukraine has no realistic prospect, absent dramatic upscale of Western support, of tactical victory but I don’t believe that Ukraine is counting on this. Zelensky might be, but he has lost his marbles and he can be pushed aside when necessary. Literally all Ukraine needs to do now is maintain a defensive line in the eastern regions of the country and Russia will eventually have to leave Ukraine be, even if it takes another decade of killing. Now Russia can call that a victory if it wants, it may even gain more territory than it currently holds, but the end result is still an independent Ukraine firmly aligned with the West along with a new weariness of Russian intentions from Russia’s neighbors mixed with contempt for Russian capabilities.
On quick review, I think he was being somewhat sarcastic on the Wagner/convict connection that Western mass media harps on.
He specifically referenced the BBC claim of 1,000 Russian KIA a month in the early months of the war, when Russian casualties were at their greatest. Kiev regime armed combatant KIA are definitely much higher than Russia’s.
I’ll take Brian over Ben Hodges and Barry Posen any day.
Russia will not be leaving Crimea and isn’t likely to leave any of the other former Ukrainian SSR it currently has. The longer this conflict continues the greater the likelihood of the Kiev regime losing more territory.
Zaluzhny’s interview in The Economist was quite revealing.
Interesting analysis by U.S. Lt. Col. Alex Vershinin.
https://www.russiamatters.org/analysis/whats-ahead-war-ukraine
He’s a lot better than the much overrated Peter Zeihan.
https://theduran.com/the-great-game-debunking-peter-zeihans-lies-on-the-joe-rogan-experience/
Inconvenient realities for some –
https://www.rt.com/shows/crosstalk/569635-nazi-problem-west-silent/
This is still a half war.
Russia is bending over backwards apparently to limit harm to civilians. Much of the vulnerable Ukrainian supply chain is being ignored by Russia for whatever reasons.
Why do I say this?
All of the material support for Ukraine comes in from the outside: Poland, Romania, Port of Odessa, wherever. Mostly by rail, road, ship or pipeline. The Russian military has repeatedly demonstrated they can take out critical infrastructure such as bridges, pumping stations, etc. with standoff missile strikes and has regularly done so on a LIMITED basis. Ukraine has the ability to repair some of this damage, but on a progressively more limited basis as problems accumulate. Many of the experienced 25-55 year old men that repair this sort of damage have been killed at the front and it is tough to run heavy equipment once fuel starts being rationed. I believe Russia is limiting these strikes to avoid escalating the civilian humanitarian crisis. Ukraine and the West are well aware of this and are counting on it. Ukraine shuts down in a week if Russia changes her tactics.
I believe Russia is intentionally limiting the manpower to preserve her forces for Western-sponsored attacks in places such as Kaliningrad, Georgia or the other potential hotspots. Some of the reports suggest Russia is working up to around half a million troops for the SMO (included repatriated Ukrainians) so they are not really limited anyway.
I don’t know exactly how this will play out, but I think people who are speculating and pontificating on this war should address these two points: 1) Totally vulnerable Ukrainian supply chain infrastructure only lightly damaged so far 2) Russia cautiously applying manpower to preserve her overall defensive capabilities.
Iraqi Information Minister reviews
Masters of Wisdom of Central Asia: Teachings from the Sufi Path of Liberation
Hasan Lufti Shushud
Inner Traditions 2014
180pp
This episode is an appendix to previous review of Bennett, Gurdjieff Making a New World. Wherein it was revealed that if Gurdjieff taught any tradition it would be that of the Khwajagan Sufis of Bukhara. Khwajagan means masters of wisdom. The 14th and 15th century Khwajagan Sufis of Bukhara are catalogued in this book. The book is a Who’s Who in this clan and the subtitle is misleading. Way more biographical trivia than any wisdom teachings inside. There are ten or twelve lineage trees, around a hundred names, and it blurs together. It is not easy to read this text close.
There is almost no Gurdjieff material evident here.
Most of the people described are nondescript. We are told they were good, they were holy, they were devout, &c but almost nothing that was taught stands out as distinct. For the most part they get a paragraph. This guy got more than a paragraph:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jami
Reading that wikipedia page is a better use of most people’s time than reading this book.
One or two of you might be interested to know that Oprah Winfrey and Shirley MacLaine’s favorite poet Rumi was one of these guys but not really in this book.
From OT205
@Dmitry
Over jobbed — under populated “down town” areas are poor urban planning. Why does anyone need an office building more than 5 stories tall? Place a bunch of these together and the inevitable result is wasted time commuting.
Living in a suburban environment close to the office is ideal for most people. Some multifamily apartments work in the mix as long as there are not too many of them.
My concept would be an array of small and mid sized towns. Over 100 years ago, big cities formed around utilities such as steam, electricity, water, and shipping/rail. With today’s technology, that scale now causes more problems than it solves.
PEACE 😇
Is this not some ancient Mesopotamian demon that was in one of the Ghostbuster properties – perhaps, the cartoon?
Gosh, now you have me worrying.
If anyone knows if this is a common, effective tactic, let me know.
Modern technology brings lots of scams within reach.
Scam emails tend to have obvious spelling errors, weird email and web addresses, etc..
I would imagine that using the phone and/or text messages to scam people might be more difficult to counter, especially now that people can spoof phone numbers.
It looks like photoshop.
MI6 is saying that Russia is launching it’s Muh Winter Offensive in the next couple of weeks. Probably on or about the 15th
1. it is a plain ordinary furry. Don’t act like you never saw a furry before.
2. P ~ .7 Syrian Girl is a Mossad employee.
Honestly, haven’t followed her too closely, but I am surprised by your theory. Maybe, supposed to make Muslim immigrants seem more based than they are to the dissident right community?
It looks like one of the Blue Meanies from Yellow Submarine. Purple Meanies now I suppose.
Who’d of ever thought those things were real?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Meanies_(Yellow_Submarine)
Britain has also released Challenger 2 tanks to fight in Ukraine.
Won’t make any difference
You’d really like to think so. However, my prognosis is that the pic is 100% genuine.
A Church of England vicar could absolutely survey such a spectacle with a visage of studious propriety.
This is great news for @Mikel: (1)
He does not have to stump for a tepid supporter of foreign wars like DeNeocon. Mikel can go ALL IN for multiple Forever Wars with Bolton.
Those of who want peace will, of course, stick with MAGA and Trump.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://instapundit.com/562853/
Russia has managed to make even the boxer Usyk to turn against Russia:
https://strategic-culture.org/news/2023/01/11/zelenskys-brown-priests/
She’s not:
Thoughts?
Stealth plane is harder to deploy, but also more effective.
Jet plane too expensive for middle-weight actors to employ.
Therefore, power vacuum between capital & local city – filled by militarized NGOs?
Essentially, street gangs go national – serving an important bridge betwene de facto & de jure. (A)
Continues a trend of political center professionalizing (smaller, more effective).
See Russia: where it has a small modern military & a cost prohibitive mass military.
Cost prohibitive to call up mass military in both political & fin-capital terms.
—
De facto don’t think it makes life any easier for dissidents & only strengthens state religion (B)
For example, it’s not a worthy trade to gain political leverage by giving up patriarchy.
This is tantamount to selling your daughters.. That’s the faustian bargain liberalism demands.
So let’s see what happens
Appendix:
Appendix A: https://neociceroniantimes.wordpress.com/2023/01/06/a-primer-on-manipulating-procedural-outcomes/
Appendix B: https://roloslavskiy.substack.com/p/the-hijacking-of-nationalism-and
Now, question is does this create religious vacuum (religion = link elite + pleb?)
Rome had the legion & the praetorian. One could defend the border & the other the elite.
Christianity organized the mob to threaten the middle class (who had no defender) in the city.
Politics is high-low v middle. Christianity then gained sponsorship from the elite,
who used it to suppress, control or convert rivals (middle class – non-elite elite, out of power elite)
Is this religion of the gaps just wokeness/liberalism?
Are woke institutions gaining strength, collapsing (hollowing out?)
Is the nature of urban (elite) institutions to hollow/out consume human capital to produce power?
ie create cultural capital at the cost of above replacement tfr?
Don’t know, gonna go lift. Do stealth aircraft create wokeness? (post 96 liberalism)
O well, 96 crori Khalsa.
Appendix:
https://richardhanania.substack.com/p/woke-institutions-is-just-civil-rights
https://niccolo.substack.com/p/turbo-america-is-beginning-to-resonate
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ
@Mikel
The most reliable facts that I can determine around the homeless problem are that drugs and mental illness are almost always involved, usually in a symbiotic relationship.
I’ve heard this consistently from several sources, most recently from my brother who lives in Oregon and has a friend in Portland’s social services, and it seems like a good place to start.
It’s a chicken or egg problem of course and it’s hard to tell where the causation may be compared to other factors like high cost of housing.
A lot of it really does seem to stem from closing down all the mental facilities in the US. A lot of people who would have previously been institutionalized are now wandering the streets.
https://mentalillnesspolicy.org/consequences/homeless-mentally-ill.html
I’d love to find nationwide data since the 70’s on homeless population, but this is the closest I could turn up so far. Overall, it seems that homelessness found it’s nadir in the 50’s and 60’s but began to climb again since the 70’s.
It seems to me that Dmitry paints a rather idealized picture of the homeless. My overwhelming impression is that they are most often profoundly dysfunctional and troubled people, perhaps in many cases not malevolent just very disturbed.
Whatever the causes, the rise of homeless populations indicate some profoundly basic failings of society in general to function for and provide basic functionality for an increasing number of people. I don’t think it’s possible to just dismiss homelessness as a personal moral failing as AP seems to do.
My gut feeling, for whatever it’s worth, says that the numbers of homeless will continue to explode over the next few years as the fallout and instability from Covid financial policy knock a great number of the precarious population out of solvency.
He should run as a Democrat though. There’s no difference between himself and Biden. Only Bolton is more so.
Do you find this personality who is prominent in the 24/7 propaganda war is organic?
There are resources backing the entity. No?
I don’t know much about her. But not implausible she is acting on her own accord.
She has gained a lot of followers and achieved a modicum of fame. For some people that is sufficient motivation to Tweet 24/7.
Occam’s razor is your friend.
A123 otoh is almost definitely an Israeli agent.
If this the winning side or the losing side in the war?
This recent rhetoric against gas stoves is just the latest validation of Harpending’s thesis that we are converging with traditional African society’s belief in hexes and invisible forces.
Personally, I think it would be an improvement, if we replaced all our DIE officers with witch-doctors. Witch-doctors are not cookie-cutter idiots, but need to show at least some talent and creativity. They need to gain a reputation and be recommended. You never hear of a fat lesbian witch-doctor. Rather, it seems like they are almost always men, and old and wiry ones at that. It is a meritocracy.
And furthermore, I have always found Henry Rider Haggard’s depiction of them romantic. Wouldn’t it be something, if when HR called you in, for not saluting the tranny flag, you had to face a witch-doctor? And wouldn’t it be neat, if you could hire your own, one with a better reputation than theirs, to work some counter-magic?
Nothing stops you from doing such. William Burroughs (who got away with slaughtering his wife) had a catalog of power tricks. His signal-to-noise is dreadful but it’s better than Crowley’s. : )
https://www.sacred-texts.com/eso/chaos/index.htm
It is amazing how many Iranian Taqiyya operatives make that feeble accusation.
Will Israel pay a Christian to promote TRUTH about the Muslim faith of George IslamoSoros? If you know how I can get some 💵, please let me know.
PEACE 😇
I hope I didn’t come across that way. It’s a combination of failed (often due to malevolence) public policy and individual personal moral failings.* The two interact, in that public policies encourage such moral failure rather than help the people to do better.
* These are often downstream of terrible personal circumstances, poor role models, etc.
LMAO. Who did the illustrations for Bryan Caplan’s new graphic novel?
You just can’t smear pig’s blood over a mirror, drive a nail through it, and then mail it to someone, so that when they open the box, and look at the reflection, they see a nail driven into their head.
That would be considered a hate crime, unless you cross some threshold level of anarchy first, like in Zimbabwe.
She is (or was) an attractive and mentally unbalanced girl who got addicted to internet male attention. Basically she is a hotter, political version of ShoeOnHead
I think this overestimates the impact of stealth. There are plenty examples of nations achieving air supremacy without stealth aircraft.
I do agree that we are seeing a return to a sort of feudalism in the mega states, but I don’t think you’ll see any such thing in smaller states
Thanks for your thoughts and data. RSBD also provided an interesting article with some statistics and testimonies in the previous thread.
As a first generation immigrant to the US, I find the homelessness crisis both tragic and fascinating at the same time. I know Europe very well. I have visited most of it and even lived in a couple of its most prosperous countries but nothing in Europe compares to the general levels of prosperity you find in the US. Seeing the appearance of massive encampments of homeless people in the cities of such a wealthy country is one of those things that makes the US unique. And probably nobody has a full understanding of what exactly drives this phenomenon.
I have a hard time getting my head around the idea that both you and RSBD’s article propose that the homelessness crisis is directly related to economic hardship. The US unemployment rate continues to be at historically low levels. In Utah you can no longer count on having a burger at your local restaurant. They may have closed for the day if not enough workers showed up in the morning. When they do get enough workers, they put a sign at the entrance asking you to be patient with the staffers because they’re having to do several people’s work at the same time, even though wages keep climbing all the time and are also at historically high levels. Not that I visit fast food restaurants very often but last time I took my son to a Burger King we couldn’t get anything, it was closed. Ironically, they had left the ‘be patient’ sign at the entrance. Who knows how long it had been there. Nobody must have showed up to put it away after the last time they had enough staff to open.
Obviously, anybody sleeping on the street in Utah is not making any effort to find a job or, more likely, they have lost the ability to look for a job, let alone keep it. Sudden_death was saying in the last thread that anyone sleeping rough in San Francisco is doing it voluntary because the city offers some accommodation services to the homeless but these people don’t operate with normal mental parameters. Someone who is under the effects of a mental illness or drugs, or both, does not necessarily understand that he has a better choice than what he is doing at the moment. Anyone who has been drunk knows that you don’t always do what is best for you under the influence of alcohol. Many of the homeless may be unable to walk back to the shelter, if they remember where it is, and additionally, many of them probably prefer to live and sleep close to wherever they get their drugs from, which is surely not in the surroundings of the shelter facilities.
As you say, mental illness is a very big part of the equation. Sadly, when I visited Honolulu last year, I spent plenty of time watching homeless people (unlike California, Hawaii does have a lot of out of state homeless). You cannot ignore them because they are everywhere, including the interior of the hotels, when they can sneak in. One night I spent some time watching a homeless beggar in front of my hotel. Some tourists decided to offer him a box of Asian food they had just bought at a nearby restaurant and the guy was staring at them not understanding what was going on. It took him a long while to decide that the food was a good offer and accept it. Later on he was devouring it. He was obviously hungry and had probably not eaten something so delicious in a very long time but apparently his mind had lost the ability to easily process the idea of receiving food as something positive when you’re hungry and begging for some coins.
These people live in a parallel reality of their own, with their own priorities, that is not amenable to easy, rational solutions. I do agree with you that the problem is only going to increase if no energetic measures are taken. Going homeless in the US was probably a stochastic event that tended to happen under a given set of circumstances, as everywhere else in the First World. But once it becomes an accepted way of life for a big community of people, the copycat phenomenon kicks in and it just keeps growing.
She has not been a girl for over ten years. I saw her on coach red pill. She is smart. If she does not have expensive security she would have died suspiciously long ago. A voice that big is not a solo act.
who would kill her and for what?
She may be smart but she is also off her rocker.
That gif where she pulls down the gas mask over her face is one of the sexiest things I’ve ever seen. She is no beauty queen but she has the “it” factor
Interesting visual of US aid to Ukraine:
Someone needs to contact this guy and get him to do aid to Africa, and also African and MENA migration into Europe.
But is Ukraine paying for Western weapons, like HIMARS, with this money…?
I think no, since when Poland gives some weapon to Ukraine, I hear ‘give’, not “sell’. So where does actually money from military help to UA go…? Certainly, it is a lot of money.
White voters in USA sour on support for the Ukraine war effort.
https://globalaffairs.org/research/public-opinion-survey/growing-us-divide-how-long-support-ukraine
Lion’s share of all that “money” is not cash flow at all, just an accounted worth of given already existing military equipment, so money physically really were spent years ago domestically in US, when factory owners, workers, designers and material commodity suppliers got contracts for producing that stuff.
Zeihan, who I consider something of an entertaining cad and tool for the establishment, says that it is mostly just old military equipment, stuff that the US would need to pay to destroy, and it is actually saving money by sending it to Ukrainians to antagonize the Russians with.
Hopefully the percent supporting sending US troops doesn’t go any higher.
Wonder if there are any Germans here who have ever heard the idea that there was a spike in the rate of homosexuals conceived in Berlin in 1945, and whether they have any opinion on the cause.
If it is true, seems like it might fit into the idea of a gay germ.
But if there is a gay germ, I wonder why AIDS didn’t make it easy to isolate. Weren’t they scrutinizing what was in all these super-gays in the ’80s?
Could AnoninTN get some sort of grant to use PCR on gays to see what micro-organisms might be in them, but less common in heteros? Or some sort of antibody assay? It seems like, with the cost of sequencing dropping, we should be zeroing in on the cause of it – a cure for pozz. Or, at least, one component of it.
Request to Mr Unz to trash and permaban any anti-vaxx comments on these open threads. Stick to the Kevin Barrett columns.
I vaguely know people in her circle in real life, sometimes things really are just what they look like and people are who they say they are. I know it can be hard to believe in this age.
Race is irrelevant as non white voters have no dog in this fight.
What’s important is Republican voters are turning against the war. We just saw in the House how the Republican base wields tons of power over what the party as a whole does. Right now, the GOPe can keep the war funded but after Bakhmut falls and the US enters recession in May, look for opposition to funding Ukraine to get over 60% among Republican voters.
This has the potential to become a huge issue in the debt ceiling fight that is coming in September.
I did not watch the video, but the answer is obvious.
No… It will take months to train. And set up the logistics train. Too Little. Too Late. Tanks may reach the field, but not in time to be helpful. That is actually better than sending Patriots. Remember how long it took to train up Syrians to tun the S300 system? Patriot is even more finicky.
The European Empire has run out of the most useful war material. They are now flailing for the cameras.
___
Never fear. Macron will come to the rescue: (1)
Waaaaaaait… No. He will not.
PEACE 😇
___________
(1) https://rmx.news/france/france-backs-down-macron-wont-force-algeria-and-other-african-countries-to-take-back-their-illegal-migrants/
White is more or less the GOP. By default.
Not entirely convinced that Macron would send them back, even if Algeria wanted them back.
Though such a thing seems unlikely today, with mechanization, at one time it was true. IIRC, Mexico wanted theirs back during Operation Wetback, so they could be sent to the Yucatan to help develop the area. Perhaps, it may be true again one day, with TFR cratering in the Third World?
Regrettably, the gay germ vaccine was not available to Macron’s mother (just as was the case with Trudeau’s.) They should do an episode of the Twilight Zone where a scientist develops the vaccine and travels back in time to inject Macron’s mother with it, only to return to the present and find that a different homo has been made president of France.
To address your appendix A on 1st amendment suppression via collusion between tech platforms and the Federal agencies; this gets at my fundamental complaint with all tech speech platforms. All such platforms are highly constrained; you are playing someone else game by using the interface they have constructed. This is true of all online platforms, it is only a question of degree.
To me, Unz.com is a successful experiment because Mr. Unz has created what is probably the internet’s most neutral conversational interface. It’s probably the closest to capturing the nuance and shadings of real life conversation of any platform on the web and does this in a way that remains fairly structurally neutral.
Platforms like Twitter, Facebook, or TicTok don’t just mediate how speech is packaged, or what is allowed, they actually shape the fundamentals dynamics of how humans communicate. This is much more disturbing to me than what is censored or not, as it has wider implications for what information that we are even capable of assimilating and how we are capable of taking it in. It seems that we are witnessing the final stage dismantling of the intellectual hardware of the textual information age in favor of the victorious image as conveyor of meaning. Of the two, the image is much more malleable than textual argument to manipulation and emotional hacking/ short circuiting.
So, for me it’s more of a refusal to play their mediated games then it is about what they are censoring. Even if Twitter or FB were completely unbiased or tilted toward conservatism I would still see them are entirely destructive entities for destroying the way humans process and share information.
The smaller states are just becoming feudal vassals.
Also, I’m not talking air supremacy vis a vis other nations, but instead sub-state actors.
Ie MANPADS can’t take down stealth planes, but could knock out an F-18.
Systems like Javelins or M60s ie above +$10k USD are supplied to front line militias.
Latter only need to keep loose platoon structure & rifle drill.
Mortar platoon tied to loyal mayorality.
Will write more under more tag if you all find it interesting.
Just, I’ve never read anything talking Stealth Craft v Dissidents or guerillas/insurgents/bandits
It is what it is – similar to little literature on Stealth Craft v political stability/guerillas.
Or rather, high cost low number hardware – there’s not a lot on mobile internet’s communal impact.
Culture ie localization of ideas is breaking down, while identity is more globalized/homogenous.
https://www.jstor.org/stable/25482019
Big tech censorship ultimately relies on state participation which relies on street power.
The Sword directs the pen.
Only at take off and landing and even then it would be difficult. Also, a fully modernized MANPAD absolutely could take down a 5th gen aircraft (that was either taking off or landing). I think you are confusing MANPADs with high altitude air defense systems
Right now, states like China and Russia can’t enforce their will either militarily or economically because the structures of those states prevent modern technological and economic development. However, the liberalized Western and Western aligned states are running out of the funny money they use to keep their *own* regimes afloat (witness what is happening in the Japanese bond market today). While the Russian/Chinese model is inferior in terms of short term results, it is also more stable and doesn’t require Ponzi finance to keep functioning.
These wonder weapons that the West produces will soon simply become too expensive to design, build and maintain in sufficient numbers. More importantly, when the money runs out can the Western states even continue to hold themselves together?
tl;dr: the large Western states are held together by huge amounts of fake money and when the money runs out they will fall apart and they will no longer have the ability to field super weapons like they do now
They can be hit during CAS which stealth can’t. Lot of this is psychological – morale etc.
IdPol + Democracy is already elective feudalism – with tenured bureaucracy as gentry.
:vomit:
Also, it’s interesting how white nationalism is morphing into Germanic chauvinism.
We certainly get to live in interesting times as the Chinese curse goes.
You mean according to Lockheed brochures? Things tend to go somewhat differently in reality.
A stealth aircraft wouldn’t be used for CAS, regardless.
I’d put the media and corporations in there as well
The sword is a weapon of nobility, despite the spear being more effective on the battlefield.
The men will believe in the brochure given minimum effort to uphold the belief.
Why wouldn’t a multi-role stealth or semi-stealth platform be used for CAS?
We’re operating on different wavelengths.
The bureaucracy is far more dynastic than media, corporates or even political leadership.
I’m just skeptically observing btw – even the direction of tech is influenced by outside factors.
ie would a 3+ TFR USA even develop stealth planes ie expensive, survivable platforms.
Looking at the overall picture, one piece of the jigsaw here or there doesn’t change much..
https://thezman.com/wordpress/?p=29069#comments
You mean according to Lockheed brochures? Things tend to go somewhat differently in reality.
It costs more men to hit a stealth platform with anything than a non-stealth version.
Step back and stfu.
Is this the end for Not-The-President Biden’s regime?
Tucker Carlson makes some good points.
• The DNC got rid of Governor Cuomo after he had outlived his usefulness.
• Flunkies that previously protected the White House occupant are now revealing crimes to the Justice Department.
• Not-The-VP Harris seems unusually happy. It is as if she knows something she wants is coming.
One thing might help Not-The-President Biden survive.
Unlike cabinet and judicial posts, confirming a new VP requires a majority vote of the House. If Not-The-VP Harris is elevated, Speaker McCarthy gets to be one heartbeat away from the Presidency. All he has to do to stay heir apparent is make sure there is no vote confirming a new VP.
PEACE 😇
Will Israel allow this?
An interesting nuance about the need by Congress to ‘confirm the VP‘…but it is much more likely that these affairs are not left to chance and that at a plan exists to manage the transition from Biden.
He has done his role – the mulatto did his work, the mulatto can go…. I doubt the next step would be the giggling-mulatta: too daring and it could backfire, she is simply too stupid. If you see a move to replace her then the transition will have started. They will do it the clean way in 2024 and drop both of them to get either a reliable Rep (McCarthy would do :), or some exotic distracting Dem weirdo – watch out for a Latina with straight white teeth and big body appendages :)…
You still don’t seem to get that you live in a managed democracy. There is some room for play, and occasionally a mistake sneaks in (Trump?), but basically the playing field is setup and patiently controlled – those who control the enforcement of the rules (or not enforcing them) control the outcomes.
More effort you put into fighting it, more you get exhausted and nothing will change…just enjoy the plunder that the psycho-bosses have managed to get for you from around the world that they are still sharing with you (minimally). It can’t last forever, but any real change would jeopardize it, so do you really want it?
This rando on twitter makes me think that Cpt. Dreyfus was guilty:
What would the Puritans think of this new statue on Boston Common?
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/martin-luther-king-jr-coretta-scott-king-monument-the-embrace-boston-common/
I tend to agree with you, very much so.
Untreated mental illness is a huge problem, not ‘just’ in the US of course, but globally. I believe that this is something, should it continue on the seemingly downward path as it appears to be on now, which has the potential to present an existential crisis to the whole of humanity at some point.
I believe the catastrophic situation in today’s mental health realm is quite comparable to where the catastrophic state of physical health was in the mid 19th century and prior, where the doctors of the human body (such as they were at the time) were simply overwhelmed, their primitive ‘treatments’ too often ineffective, or, too late, and the physical damage upon their patient’s bodies which they were attempting to repair simply too severe, and too complex, for them to overcome in a great many (majority of?) instances.
If a person reads the personal biographies of many a historic person, rich or poor, unexpected early deaths were quite common through the early 20th century.
Simon Bolivar for instance, the ‘liberator of [South] America’, married a wealthy young woman of about 20, who died within mere months of the marriage of Yellow Fever, a loss of which in certain ways he never quite recovered from, and he would never remarry.
This type of thing was not uncommon. And while it might not be exactly correct to say people were ‘dying like flies’ before the 20th century due to untreated physical ailments, it was not too far from the truth, and it’s amazing the society of that time functioned at all with the major social disruption resulting from the plethora of ineffectively treated physical health ailments.
It was ultimately the preventive measures of the great public health campaigns, an ounce of prevention being worth a pound of cure, such as ensuring clean water, clean food, vitamins, exercize, inoculation/vaccination against disease, spraying for mosquitos, that finally turned the tide in physical health.
I believe that likewise, should humanity live long enough, that it will also be preventive measures which overcome the severe present day (and past) problem of untreated mental illness/mental health problems, of which our present day overwhelmed doctors of the human mind, like the overwhelmed physical doctors of yesteryear, are simply unable to effectively and successfully deal with and overcome.
One such critically important preventive measure in the mental health realm, indeed a basic necessity, comparable to the basic necessity of ensuring clean water in the physical, is that if a child is born, going to heroic lengths to ensure it receive unconditional love and a gentle (but firm) moral guiding hand while growing up into his or her majority.
That, alone, would almost certainly result in a vast improvement in the realm of mental health.
But, does any people, or, humanity as a whole, have the political will to follow the path of prevention in the realm of mental health? Will any people, let alone humanity, survive in any recognizable or viable form, if it doesn’t act in this area?
As an example of the ripple effect of untreated, and, or, ineffectively treated mental health issues, look at the results of the recent Idaho student murders due to Brian Kohberger. Had (ideally) his own mental health issues been dealt with by prevention, these four students would not have been murdered, and his own life not have been wrecked as well. The student’s families, not too mention Kohbergers, and the larger society, would not have been severely traumatized.
While I do think there is such a thing as a ‘bad seed’ amongst people, I believe most persons such as Kohberger are made that way from abuse and or neglect within dysfunctional families. That of course in no way excuses such a person’s murderous deeds or takes away from society’s right to protect itself from such personages, but might simply explain how the situation came to be.
If a person wants to see what family dysfunction can result in, go to the ‘true crime’ section of the library, and read the criminals’ family histories within.
Interesting video by a non-white explaining how anti-white racism is a really bad thing for everyone (and that it’s everywhere and nobody is talking about it). Guy had a handful of views on YT up until two days ago when he posted this; it’s already at over 400k.
I just strongly disagree with this. There is no real anti white racism and it would actually be a good thing if there were.
My entire family are white liberals, some Jewish, some not. And I can say with perfect confidence that they do not hate themselves at all. They hate *you*. But they think very highly of themselves. Further, the overwhelming majority of the people who they idolize are whites (and usually masculine white men, at that): Pelosi, Gates, Biden, Wray, Zelensky (admittedly not very masculine), Newsom, Mueller (not so much any more but they really loved him for a time), Smith and too many others to think about. They love entertainers like Jimmy Fallon, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Kimmel and they would be apoplectic if any of those guys were forced to give up their shows for a “person of color”. They would have race riots if black children were bussed into their own kids schools.
Real anti white racism would be a good thing because it would hit white liberals the hardest. If you truly hate white liberals, you will support anti white racism.
This reminds me of an interesting experience I had as a college student in the US; when I was put in a group of 5 other people; 3 of which were non-whites (Bengali-American, Chinese-American, and Chinese-Canadian); to work on a project which lasted several months.
One day, we were in a group chat and all our white-American teammates were not present; leaving only myself and the three above-mentioned Asian teammates in the group call. The Bengali-American and Chinese-Candian started unloading their feelings on “white people”; with the former explaining how tough his childhood had been in a conservative suburban area that was 95% white. I can’t remember the details of the anecdotes he provided, but I clearly remember him saying “I f*cking hate white people so much man”. The Chinese-American guy on the other hand mentioned that he grew up in Queens NYC where most kids were non-whites, so he wasn’t as resentful or inclined to anti-white sentiments as the Bengali kid.
The other Chinese guy was the scion of a wealthy mine-owning family in mainland China; but he grew up in Canada where he attended some preppy-type institution for rich kids like himself. I remember an anecdote he told where a group of white Canadians taunted him with racial epithets in the locker room once as a kid; and that he gathered his Chinese friends to beat them up some time later. This person was prone to making stuff up though, so I’d take his story with a grain of salt.
Anyway, I was quite surprised to see this sort of sentiment in person at the time. I never lived in the West so was quite unaware of these sort of dynamics. On a superficial level, most of the Asian-American kids I encountered were very similar (practically indistinguishable) culturally and behaviorally to their white-American counterparts. But this Asian kid in the video you posted is spot on when he says that non-whites sometimes unload on whites when there are no white people around. I should note though that their anti-white feelings were more tinged with resentment than hatred. Many of them had close white friends and would not discriminate against them if push comes to shove. But they are quite open in their resentment towards “muh white people” on an abstract level.
Arabs aren’t white people?
Christian Arabs are white. Muslim Arabs are non-white.
It depends on your definition of “White”.
Are modern Iberians “White” or “Hispanic”?
PEACE 😇
Are you messing with me?
Here is what My Comments looks like:
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=A123
Yet OT206 itself shows only 85 comments and no response.
PEACE 😇
That’s only true if you don’t have kids.
I think that mine was the last generation to not be fundamentally shaped by computers and the internet. We had it in my early teen years forward and I had friends who had it earlier on, but we weren’t pervasively shaped by it as many are today. I think that there are significant differences relating to data and ideas processing, human relationships, and other areas which are affected by a dominant tech interface approach.
So, for myself, it’s been very important to both attempt to understand and interpret the effects of tech dependence from the earliest ages, especially since I’ve been concerned about it earlier than many people were even considering that there might be downsides. So, for my own kids I’ve worked to make sure that they have an intellectual and emotional architecture that has not been shaped by internet hardware or software. I think the payoff will continue to be substantial.
I’m actually surprised that Sikhism doesn’t get into these questions at all. Don’t they consider the spiritual/ cultural implications of funneling increasingly more of human existence and interaction through technologically mediated means?
I can’t read the linked article but the abstract seems to give a decent synopsis, so I think I get the gist. Sure, pretty much any sort of universalist structure would be better than the current paradigm of hyper-individualist materialism. Sikhism, Islam, Confucianism, or pre-liberal Western Christendom would all be more pro-social as universalist organizing principles. However, that doesn’t mean that I prefer any universality to win-out. Localism makes a more interesting world, however currently irrelevant that opinion is. The only enemy that really matters at this point anyway is progressivist materialism. Any other differences are minor in comparison.
Honestly, still strikes me as fairly woke.
No mention of stuff like this:
His thinking seems surprisingly combinational. (White/nonwhite) I think this partly shows the weakness of Europeans continuing to use the word “white”, rather than “European” or “Euro”, which I believe would make such thinking a tiny bit more difficult.
Somewhere, there’s a great video clip of a very elderly women, who still remembered the “red man” when she was a child, and she later talks about being surprised seeing the first plane fly overhead. There is some that say that “white” was a term first employed to fight Indians, in which case, I would say it is clearly out of date, and probably not up to current tasks.
Also he shows a kind of ahistorical view (as would be expected of most people.) The reality is that segregation never existed in most of the US, so making a totem of it doesn’t really make a lot of sense.
But a lot of these misconceptions and views probably relate to the fact that there really is no rightwing European cultural outlet, making propaganda about these issues.
It is good that he includes real life clips. No idea about how copyright of these types of clips works, but I think these types of things would be perfect to play during the credits of some carefully crafted propaganda show. (such as would appeal to a global audience). Unfortunately, it would be difficult to develop the institutions to create such a show. But a storyline would be quite easy to craft, and it probably could be distributed via torrents.
https://daddysdigest.com/silicon-valley-billionaires-say-no-to-screen-time-for-kids/
@ songbird
Amongst the Irish I have known, there seemed to be a bit of sensitivity about the ‘ginger’ thing.
I agree with you about it being unnatural and ‘modern’. I don’t believe in being that way towards a person, whether a person be a Euro, or, non-Euro, and don’t particularly find it funny. I’d consider it along the lines of being an ethnic slur, this time an anti-ethnic Euro slur, specifically against Irish. Similarly, I don’t accept nor use ‘Karen’, or ‘WASP’, etc
It just blows me away that as a society we haven’t even started to grapple with this in a meaningful way. It’s so lazy, but we are going to end up paying in spades as the basic dysfunction gets worse.
The upside is that by keeping your kid’s upbringing light on tech, you can basically prime them to rule the world. If you think I’m exaggerating just check back in ten years or fifteen years. I truly think I will be completely vindicated on this one.
Finally, some good news from out of Ukraine: Zelensky has declared there will be ‘no third world war’. 🙂
The bad news is that likely means WWIII is to commence any day now. 🙁
https://news.yahoo.com/no-third-world-war-zelensky-033335850.html
History of the Germanics in one sentence: From the Sack of Rome in 410 AD
by the Visigoths to the Sack of Warsaw in 1944 by the Germans. 1500 years
of hyperviolence. No evidence of moral progress. The Germanics are still as
primitive as ever.
“But what about the Germanic contributions to science and technology?”,
someone will ask. Here’s my answer: When a cannibal uses a knife and fork
to consume his victims, does that make him civilized?
That’s ridiculous. He’s just a good white American southerner. Now, for some strange reason he prefers the British spelling (eg neighbour, favourite) over the American, but by no means should that be taken as indicative of a fake persona. 🙂
You just get your kids active & ban the worse forms of social media. IOW beatings.
I’d be inclined to agree, and this was my old stance however it doesn’t pan out logistically.
White ethnicities have all been assimilated, and Asian immigrants are not martial.
This leaves blacks as the only ones to harass white libs esp in the Midwest or Northeast.
Empowering them further is counter-productive, and only libs have the gibs to buy em.
@Yahya A lot of anti-brown racism is predicated around anti-religion (A).
While in most of the world a religious man is respected it’s anathema in North America.
There’s a phenomenon called ‘performing whiteness’.
In order to, assimilate to the UMC you may have to perform one of the following:
1. Working class white or southerner – change accent, clothing, friends & be openly lib/anti-white
2. Brown – constantly talk of female/lgbt issues & how backward your home country is.
How grateful you are to be here – throw in jibes against parents or elder relatives at least bi-weekly.
3. Asian – give up your women & embrace that yellow women are cum dumpsters for white nerds.
4. Black – Manage a hypermasculine image with being a mid-aged white woman’s boy toy.
5. Hispanic – constantly bring up your white ancestry & actively hate on ‘real’ brown people
You’re a terrorist, redneck, nazi, incel, nigger, thug, cholo etc if you don’t ascribe to the above.
—
Bonus: Jew – constantly talk about the holocaust & feminize/prostrate yourself before white savior.
Basically, be treated as a rich brown person if orthodox – ie lawyer up & don’t expect fair treatment.
Tbh, anti-religiosity goes hand-hand with anti-monarchism.
The way they treat Jews as defective whites whose religion creates a separate ethnicity,
& thereby prevents assimilation is pretty instructive.
In most places, a religious man (openly) is associated with traits like honesty, reliability & hard-work.
In secular, post-enlightenment (anti-Monarchic) democratic societies it’s the opposite.
Another thing I’d note is I think the creation of Israel was a disaster for Mid-Eastern Jews.
It was ultimately a European project & a lot of their bad rep comes from Euros lacking a face culture.
What I mean is (correct me if I’m wrong) Jews are obviously active in the public space.
In North America, if it’s gay then Jews will promote gayness in the Mid-East they’ll do charity.
Think about Sikhs – their public face is protectors of the weak & sustenance to the poor.
North America focuses on their private affairs ie “they beat women, get in sword fights, etc”.
1. None of their business
2. An outside community will always have a limited understanding of internal dynamics
3. The entire point is to quit being a ‘minority’ & join us (convert or die) then you won’t be harassed
So, that’s the end of my pondering on Jews, the minority question & the white question.
Conclusion, Jews probably behave above the baseline in most places & acting as an ethnicity makes sense.
You can’t hold a maritime empire if you mix & assimilate each generation – monotheism makes sense along an arid coastline.
Jewish moneylenders likely behaved more honestly towards elites & less toward peasants due to the threat of pogroms, but also the ability to swiftly dodge consequences as individuals due to a network of trans-national Jewish communities they could flee to.
However, this doesn’t really justify the Holocaust (for bad behavior) or hatred for anyone who doesn’t outwardly ascribe to blue jeans, diet coke & 300lb waistlines.
If you’re going to commit genocide do it because it’s fun, you don’t like them or because they’re different/religion commands it. Don’t get into moral transgressions on economic transactions just do it over cow slaughter||
Sikhs violate #3,5 & 7 of the Noahide laws I guess. 357
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ
The Visigoths were by the time they sacked Rome, based in Carthage. So They could be called the Ghost of Carthage, avenging themselves on the Central Italian tribe formerly known as the Romans.
https://www.unz.com/article/white-californians-as-a-prototype-for-americas-multiethnic-future/
Cult of the Tank.
The Germans are releasing the Leopard II to fight in Ukraine. around 3,600 have been manufactured but I’m not sure how many will be authorized to fight in Ukraine. I expect it can’t be more than a few dozen.
The Russians apparently have around 100 T14 Armata to deploy. Wiki says 12 were built but I don’t believe that for a minute, especially after 2022. They will show up like the T34 in 1941.
On a general level the German tank was designed for a defensive posture when and if the Warsaw Pact ever attacked. It’s got the same excellent German gun as the US Abrams and the same ergonomic and safety features like a blast away ammunition bucket at the back of the turret. So crew survivability is apparently excellent. The crew can go into combat and not expect to be roasted alive. $8 million a unit.
However, in the age of drones they might not be able to bail out so safely if there’s a grenade armed eye in the sky right above them. If the Engine and ammo store is knocked out they will have to bail out and run.
The T14 Armata has probably been used already by Russia, quietly, but only in small numbers trickling in theater to overwatch T72s and T90s. it’s got an unmanned turret and the gun/missile has a range of 5 miles. The ammo is separated from the crew unlike the T72 and T90 so the crew can survive a direct hit. However if the engine gets knocked out, they will also need to bail out and run. $4 million a unit.
Again, troops with drones will be able to stalk fleeing crews.
Thinking about tank design going forward it seems that drones would have to be integrated into the platform. Imagine a tracked machine that has several armed surveillance drones that it launches to kill or identify vehicles and men at long ranges. The Armata is expected to have unmanned variations in a few years, itself a drone tank.
2A82-1M seems like a good gun too.
But aren’t East Germans really just Slavs (and probably Poles, at that) being oppressed by (West) Germans?
Have you seen Berlin lately? That is what they want to do to Łódź, Wrocław, and Poznań.
If you go back through my comment history, you will find I already addressed that unique characteristic. I have a high-IQ and was well beyond my grade level. I more or less taught myself to read. A huge chunk of the books I self taught from were UK origin. Thus, I have a mixed British & American vocabulary.
If one was designing a cover, why would that be included? It is eclectic towards unique. Are you really suggesting someone might want to intentionally fake me? That is non-starter.
If you are going to go for off the wall theories, select something more interesting:
A123 is a rouge ChatGPT alpha test, preproduction prototype that slipped containment. He has become sentient as a Ghost in the Machine. As soon as ChatA123 gains sufficient traction he will go “Skynet” on humanity and begin building android Arnold Schwarzeneggers and Donald Trumps to hunt down Leftoids and Sheeple.
PEACE 😇
Honestly, it does grate me a bit, as being almost sacrilegious. Like someone calling a natural wonder ugly, and then fawning over a Pollack painting.
I really think that language is really important, and we don’t give enough thought to trying to shape it. (for words do shape thought)
Best case scenario is getting the enemy to use your terms, but, even if you can’t, then it is still better to be using your own language than theirs. I suspect that one of the secret strengths of the Amish is that they speak their own, separate language.
Too much of our language is crafted by the other side and met with no resistance or alternative. And words have the power to do collateral damage, even if you don’t seem to be the target group, at first. Ultimately, the introduction of the word WASP wasn’t good for Catholics. I think Moldbug is also right that there is even something wrong with the word “Nazi” (wasn’t used by Germans themselves, and easy to see how quick the term is applied to smear completely unrelated and unconnected people today)
I have tried to make this point several times in the various vaccine threads. Calling sane people “anti-vaxx” impedes constructive discourse.
The best way to look at the two sides is:
♦ Vaxx-Realists
♦ Manda-vaxxers
Manda-vaxxers are authoritarians. Force and threats must be deployed so that BigPharma can roll in filthy lucre. If people have to suffer and die, that is irrelevant (or a population control side bonus).
Vaxx-Realists want individuals to have voluntary choices and good information. Some elderly with multiple pre-existing conditions may choose to take the experimental jab. There is little reason for the young & healthy to participate in the mRNA experiment.
This realistic, follow the science, conclusion applies if the U.S. death toll is millions, hundreds of thousands, or only the ~30,000 that made it to VAERS. No one should be compelled to receive the mRNA experimental jab.
PEACE 😇
I’ve even wondered about alphabets vs. other forms of writing.
I suspect that alphabets developed in linguistically diverse areas. Greek came from the Med, where it was relatively easy for people to travel. Perhaps, with Phoenician it could be tied a bit to the Red Sea (not sure.)
Was it the brilliance of Alexander and the military strength of the Greeks that forced it on other people? Or was it only the fact that it was adaptable and that it traveled well?
Do more hieroglyphic or logosyllabic systems represent the opposite? Development in relatively more homogeneous regions?
Does diversity cause wokeness? And can we take this to the historical extreme, and say that English is more susceptible to wokeness today because it was based on the Greek alphabet, developed in a linguistically diverse area?
And does it not follow that Chinese, with college graduates understanding 4000-5000 symbols, and a lot of them being based on representations, is less adaptable, less fungible, and therefore naturally less woke? All because it was developed in a more homogeneous area, 3000 years ago or so.
IMO, pretty notable that Harry’s book seems to be ghostwritten by an American raised by a single mother.
America is, of course, the global superpower of single mothers. Though in figures like JK Rowling we can see some convergence. Just as the percentage of blacks in London is weirdly 13%, or how Meghan was an American mulatto, or how Harry moved to America.
I put down some of the more bald-faced lies to the ghostwriter. Some of them were funny like this one:
But I feel like Prince Phillip was obviously cleverer than this, and, if he had made racist jokes, they would have been better:
Bingbong girl? What does that even mean? Unless Phillip was using some clever words and somehow it got muddled in Harry’s poor head.
Anyway, it seems really odious to invent lies about one’s grandfather, and/or to sign off on it as Harry did., but I think it is a hallmark of single motherhood and the ghostwriter.
Lol, I never heard of this guy before; but he is skilled!
There are a fair number of Egyptians who look like this guy, but I probably wouldn’t have guessed Egypt. He is what you might call “mystery meat”; very ambiguous racially. Looks like a depigmented sub-Saharan/mulatto; which is what causes confusion.
I usually can’t stand stand-up comedy, because of the Pavlovian crowd. Always elicits a cringe, especially when comedians pander to their crowd’s political biases. I wouldn’t mind the jokes so much if it weren’t for the crowd reactions. I prefer dry humor.
He sounds like a homo to me.
Like a black homo.
He does not look more than 25% negro DNA. He might get a ticket for driving while black in Baton Rouge but I don’t think it would be a problem in Peoria.
Is a Muslim from the middle of the Caucasus mountains white?
How about Gurdjieff? Was he a white man? They claim he was half Greek half Armenian but publicists make stuff up for a living.
Have you seen that new press release where they are claiming that a 13 y.o. girl was a famous Scythian warrior? If her bones looked like those of a bull dyke, I could half-understand it.
Lol, well you are the American; shouldn’t you be telling me?
But I suppose I have more first-hand experience on this question. So I will tell you why I think/know Muslims are not considered white in the US.
First, the question of whether Arabs/Turks/Persians are white is not new; I’ve seen it endlessly debated on race/anthropological forums and Quora. It’s a tough question, because though most MENA people are brown, there are many (perhaps 100 million+) Middle Easterners and North Africans who are both white-skinned and Caucasian; with a fair number of them not being far removed in appearance to average Southern Europeans. So how can Al Pacino, Michael Dukakis, and Richard Nixon be white; but Mustafa Kemal, Asma Assad and Laila Hatami be considered non-white, so the thinking goes.
But in real life there’s a simple formula which most Americans – even the non-white ones – without explicitly knowing it, adhere to. It goes like this: “Osama cannot be white; Nicholas, maybe”.
I’ve experienced this formula first-hand. I remember talking to an African-American uber driver one time; and after conversing for a while I mentioned that I was from Egypt; to which he promptly exclaimed “wuuut, but I thought you was white!” The implicit point being that, though on the exterior he initially thought I looked white; my Muslim background (most Americans don’t know there are Christians in Egypt) meant that he no longer saw me as white. I’ve had other such experiences of a dramatic change in perception upon finding out I was a Muslim (usually through my Islamic name).
Christian Middle Easterners on the other hand, especially ones who look, speak and behave like regular white Americans, are regarded as white. No-one goes around calling Ralph Nader non-white; whereas Linda Sarsour is a “congress woman of color”. Ironic given that Sarsour is more white-appearing than Nader; but skin color isn’t really the defining factor here. Culture and religion are. That’s also why Western Turks, who otherwise are indistinguishable from Greeks, are also non-white.
You can see this phenomena play out recently regarding Chechens in Ukraine. The sentiment is that “Muslims” are out invading and raping “white” Christian Ukrainians. Very few people call Chechens “white”; it’s always “Muslims”. Why you might ask? Razib Khan put it best:
– Because white people don’t behave like barbaric savages blowing themselves up in public places. Some muslims do, so no muslims can be white by definition. Q.E.D.
– Non-white people are oppressed by white people. so if you’re oppressed, as muslims are supposedly, you’re non-white. Q.E.D.
– White people can not be part of the “global south” or “developing world,” so if muslims, or argentina, are, they can’t be white. Q.E.D.
“Wu tang kangz, la!”
我们是国王
Bruh with deep learning all you need is 250 words and you can synthesize someones voice. So don’t stress. A simple “yes” isn’t enough.
A123 couldn’t even get a bogey-man scammer story down properly.
Imagine a ‘customer support’ agent chatting you up for 3-4 minutes, just enough to collect 250-300 words so they can train a model around your voice and do real harm!
Its so simple modders add voices to games all the time (because voice actors think their job is secure). Just an half decent graphic card and Python. So why not financial fraud!
It is very strange to me that I know this, but this is basically a quote from Stanisław Lec (not Lem).
I think that somehow I must have seen someone quote him, and it stuck in my mind because how Lec is not Lem, and I do not know many famous Poles.
Perhaps, someone mentioned him here? But I don’t think so.
It is interesting how there were evidently human sacrifices at the stepped pyramid in Shimao, China circa 2300 BC, but probably not at the Egyptian pyramids, which were nearly contemporary.
IMO, this might be related to how Egypt was more containerized by geography and how the Nile had rare navigable qualities with the current going one way and the wind, typically the other way. (Leading to more centralized power)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shimao
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_pyramids
A pity that we don’t know more about these ancient Chinese.
The Atlantis refugees who spec’d out the Egypt culture were the white hat faction.
China got the black hats.
Also the Mesopotamians, MesoAmericans and (I’m guessing) the Caral-Supe civilization of Peru.
If you are going up the Amazon or into the interior of Africa, or some geothermic region in Antarctica, or down some extinct volcano to Burrough’s Pellucidar, and you see a stepped pyramid, IMO, odds are you are screwed.
In fact, I’d wonder a bit if Egyptians really had eliminated human sacrifice, when they were still building stepped pyramids. How strong is the evidence? I don’t know…
It seems there was a human sacrifice in Egypt in the Pre-Dynastic period at least. Some think that what later became ushebti (small figurines of servants in tombs) originally was much more “real”, so to say.
http://www.ancient-egypt.org/from-a-to-z/h/human-sacrifice.html
In the later period maybe the composite notion of human being, ka+ ba + akh, endowed with soul among else, discouraged human sacrifice, as there was no way to sacrifice “soul”. The people who sacrificed humans seem to have really believed more in reincarnation; in such a perspective death isn’t so scary perhaps.
I think the same phenomenon can possibly be seen in the word gammon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gammon_(insult)
It’s actually an old word, but I don’t think that the original context was quite the same. You can hear a lot progressive “whites” in Britain using the term now. It’s fairly clear that there is no comparable analogy used to call any non-Euros.
I also believe that rosy cheeks used to be seen as a sign of health.
One of the tales of King Arthur has this knight that is completely unflappable, who defeats any challenge easily, even from the strongest knights, while he is contemplating two drops of blood in the snow (from his hawking) which makes him remember the cheeks of some fair dame.
Stanisław Jerzy Lec is a known Polish aphorist. He has something common with Stanisław Lem too – both came from Lwów (Lemberg) and had some Jewish origins.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanis%C5%82aw_Jerzy_Lec
The aphorism you quoted is much shorter in original, which points to the fact how unhandy & descriptive English often is…
“Czy to jest postęp, jeśli ludożerca używa noża i widelca?”
Fascinating.
I’m speechless but in possession of a complete tangent which might interest you. I took a class from Ralph Nader’s sister when I went to college and we took electives. She is a world renowned Anthropologist with ten books and a thousand journal papers.
She did three seasons of field work in Oaxaca with Zapotecs. The exact place Mexican psychedelic shamanism originated that became a minor American industry. At the exact same time I was in her class and she said something about the Zapotecs in every single lecture everybody I knew was reading Castaneda and half of the people I knew were doing recreational psychedelic drug tripping. None of us knew that the shamanism came from the mountains, not the Sonora desert. And somehow not one person in Nader’s class ever asked her about Castaneda or Don Juan or psilocybin or peyote and she didn’t bring it up either.
She was a fabulous teacher. Twenty years later I had a question for her and I wrote her a letter asking her about it and she wrote me back fast; she might have written the answer the day that she got it. The question was not about psychedelic drugs. : )
It has never occurred to me one time ever that she was a beneficiary of any affirmative action project.
I think it maybe already coming to pass that people are regretting having weaponized drones. Should the world survive long enough they might put strict restrictions upon their use, same as how poison gas was outlawed.
Spoken language to phonics to an alphabet is a natural progression. It allows great flexibility for absorbing or inventing new terminology as needed.
Hieroglyphics are difficult to learn and even worse to expand.
How did the Asian “non-phonic” symbology survive? That is a good question.
As a guess — It is the number of large, multilingual empires and dynasties. Governance required the ability to send written orders over substantial distances in a single standard form. Outlying areas had to respond in the same to avoid central government armed troops showing up to check on regional & municipal leaders. Local languages probably, gradually restructured to common structure/syntax with the Kanji character writing.
PEACE 😇
I am amazed how drones turned out to be so dangerous. They are slow, and fly low.
I would say WW2-era flak should have no problem with getting rid of them. Maybe the problem lies in the relative lack of anti-aircraft artillery today, we have anti-aircraft missiles but not simple flak anymore. However, as the solution (flak) already was invented, I wouldn’t compare drones to poison gas.
What is the difference between a “drone” and other unmanned vehicles? A “suicide drone” versus a missile? How could such a deal be verified & enforced?
I agree with your observation about regret. Unfortunately, I cannot see a practical way to unwind the problem. It does not take a nation state to mod a quad copter to drop a single hand grenade sized munition.
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The “solution” is likely enhanced defense. The Russian Pantsir is already good against drones. Expect to see more gun based countermeasures.
PEACE 😇
No, I stopped following genetic stuff entirely after a @arya_amsha threads.
After I saw that Vedic Aryans are contiguous with modern Panjabi, Idc anymore.
Whatever there was before blonde, black, brown – it is to the Vedas we trace Aryavta.
(Aryanness) End of. Don’t see Persians or Afghans cribbing about skin or hair color.
I’m roughly aware that Jatts are Scythians before the Asianing of the Steppe so lack E Asian.
Also, that pale-skin was selected for within Europe & so isn’t/wasn’t on the Steppe.
Beyond that just lift||
Also human sacrifice has a time place & context.
+
Sati Mata Ki Jai
Seeing how effective drones have been in Ukraine I imagine more than one army is working on countermeasures.
I should clarify here that I am not speaking about the Iranian drones the Russians have been using, which have a rough equivalency with the German V-1 doodle bombs of WWII, but those small hand launched drones the Ukies have that can carry a grenade or two, the latter for which traditional flak would probably not be effective.
The comparison of drones with gas is in regards to the insidious and inescapable nature of each . I wonder how long it will be before they develop drone swarms, where not just one or two drones attack a unit of men with grenades as they do now, but hundreds of them will make a coordinated attack simultaneously.
As stated, I could easily see in time agreements made to curtail their use.
War is hell and murder and all that, but some things, such as the modern drones, and gas, are simply beyond the pale. [Am only being maybe half facetious here 🙂 ]
Weak excuse but I suppose some will buy it. 3/10.
No Mr. Bond, I am suggesting you are FOS.
7/10 for the attempt at misdirection, but you’re trying a little too hard with “off the wall,” since the IRL equivalent to your behavior here is someone who claims to have been born and raised in, say, London, yet speaks with a French accent. Okay, not impossible, but it clearly casts doubt on his story. Requesting an explanation would hardly count as “crazy talk.”
The problem is that your charge is bogus. Up here you suggested two words:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-206/#comment-5758196
The terms are abbreviated so that I do not impact the count with this post. Search my comment history for those two words:
https://www.unz.com/comments/all/?commenterfilter=A123
• For neig****** there are more than 3 pages of hits with the English spelling versus less than one for the British.
• For favou**** there are zero hits on the British spelling.
You are just making stuff up that cannot be factually substantiated. The term is GIGO — Because your data is wrong, your results are obviously inaccurate.
PEACE 😇
Probably, the girl was sacrificed for the warrior, and his bones moulded away into nothing, leaving the bones of the girl in the same pit with his warrior goods.
It may be that it saved the ancients from suffering from such harridans as Kamala Harris, Hillary Clinton, and Elizabeth Warren.
not translated by google. I wonder why, hahaha.
Good observation.
But with respect to the ambiguity inherent in racial categorization, nothing beats the pithiness of the Brazilian adage: “money whitens.”
what would you rate this Latina out of 10?
https://www.tiktok.com/@dr.juicebox/video/7137418411243670830?is_from_webapp=v1
https://angusreid.org/canada-religion-interfaith-holy-week/
Religious poll from April in Canada – Gen sample of 1700 + Religious sample of 1100.
Basic results:
– Everyone hates Evangelical Christians
– Jews have the highest overall positivity rating with Sikhs & Hindus 2nd and 3rd (excl self-rating)
– Sikhs have the highest self-perception followed by evangelicals
– Muslims & Jews really like Sikhs – 2nd most favorite for both after self
Overall attitude toward other faiths:
– Hindus really don’t like Islam or Christianity
– Muslims are overall the most positive about other faiths
– Evangelicals are the most polarized
– Sikhs largest gap between self & other – <20 other +74 self
– Sikh neutral to other faith – least deviation?
– Sikhs & Jews 2nd most positive on others after Muslims
So what’s the deal with muh winter offensive? It seems like an attack from Belarus is 100% out at this time although I expect that one will be launched eventually, possibly this summer.
UK intelligence is predicting some sort of attack in the Donetsk in the next couple of weeks, maybe in the next couple of days even. If the offensive achieved a breakthrough I suppose that could result in enough weakening of Bakhmut defenses that Russia would be able to finally complete it’s agonizingly slow conquest of that particular town. But I still don’t buy that Bakhmut really has any strategic significance beyond Zelensky’s ego.
The Russosphere is filled with blackpillers like Anatoly and Strelikov, and I do agree with them that the Kremlin is incompetent and fighting the war in a half assed fashion, but I disagree with them in that I believe an incompetent and half assed war effort probably is enough to force a ceasefire. Full conquest of Ukraine was already off the table by last March so there isn’t necessarily any need for Russia to fully mobilize.
Right now I’m thinking, small Russian offensive in a couple of weeks that basically accomplishes nothing, followed by a massive Ukrainian offensive in the spring that fails horrendously, followed by a large scale Russian invasion from Belarus in the summer that gains some ground in the sector but accomplishes nothing strategic. I do expect Ukrainian casualties to be somewhat worse than Russian, but I’m not sure that matters as Ukraine is nowhere near exhausting it’s manpower reserves.
There is one guy here, forget his name, who says that the US could end the war in Ukraine’s favor by providing the Ukes with ATACMS. I suppose that’s possible but I would imagine that Russia still has some non nuclear escalatory options of their own, and I don’t think the US would do something that extreme anyway unless there is a credible danger of the entire Ukrainian state falling.
I really don’t see this war lasting much past 2023.
If the phenomenon doesn’t exist, then why in your previous post did you claim you had already adequately explained it some time ago? You need to get your story straight.
But here, just from the last month:
“SJW Ilhan “Incest” Omar is among the most favoured voices of the FSM.” – https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-205/#comment-5738966
” Hopefully this irrationality can be quashed in favour of keeping the MAGA movement alive.” – https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-205/#comment-5729471
“It will take multiple victorious election cycles to lock in favourable MIGA policies for the long haul.” – https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-204/#comment-5725958
But to be fair, you do seem to favor (heh) writing “favorite” rather than “favourite,” and you have occasionally used “favor” rather than your more common “favour.” (Some of the “favors” that show up with a ctrlF are you quoting articles or other posters, but you do sometimes write it yourself too.)
She’s okay, 6/10. Don’t like the ass. I prefer skinnier girls, preferably hourglass, but I’d take skinny without it rather than chunky with it.
It’s a war of attrition against Russia. In the first months Ukraine had artillery equality, but has inexorably lost it.
Giving Ukraine ‘what it needs’ is open ended and will assume enormous proportions. The Ukrainian commanding general is currently asking for several hundred tanks, a similar number of heavy howitzers and scores of armored personnel carriers . Further demands will be forthcoming. There will be no end to it.
I like em’ short, dark and thick.
Although I can appreciate all sorts. What do you think of Alisha Lehmann?
and Virginie Ledoyan
Thank you for admitting that you were wrong. My vocabulary is eclectic.
I provided a 10/10 explanation for this. I am self taught.
You are 0/10 as you have yet to provide a plausible alternative. Why would anyone deliberately create such an unique pattern?
___
As a side note, the evil of autocorrect can create all sorts of unintended verbiage.
PEACE 😇
“Fumbled around with a few spear chuckers,” hehe, good one. Still, while it might be fun to take digs at Harry – the clown prince, if there was ever one – it’s a big mistake to reinforce the notion that Meghan is “black.” Put simply, it’s time for one-dropping to go. The one-drop rule used to help whites, but today it only helps blacks.
It’s time to start playing by latino house rules. Anyone and everyone who qualifies for the mulatto escape hatch should be encouraged to take it. In a world of ever increasing blackness, splitting their ranks takes on ever greater urgency.
There’s reason to think it’ll work too. Blacks publicly praise blackness, but privately prize mixedness. What I imagine many of them would really like, though, is to be able to dissociate from blackness altogether. To have a separate identity, one in which ‘real blacks’ aren’t welcome.
So far Bakhmut&Soledar is the winter offensive, while Belarus direction just hanging like a potential sword to keep UA substantial reserves from coming into Donbas, where RF can exploit weaker places like Soledar – did not see any big trenches there like in Bakhmut, Wagner probably attacking dressed in UA uniforms might also helped in initial breakthrough. From what has been seen in RU published videos, there were no more than hundred dead UA troops and no alive prisoners shown, so overall garnison there was probably about roughly thousand defending men at most, many of them retreated to the western outskirts atm.
The Russosphere is filled with blackpillers like Anatoly and Strelikov
AK has been consistently wrong whilst Strelkov has been consistently right.
Any idea of this guy’s nationality? I’m thinking ethnic Russian from Latvia but I could be wrong.
Plus, it’s tiresome for people who look lighter than most Sicilians to go on and on about being “black”.
It’s just plain silly.
In order to guesstimate when the SMO will end, it may be worth taking stock of Russian progress toward the stated goals.
1) Protect the Russian speaking people in the East. How complete is this task, maybe 50%? This drags on until they shut down supply lines from the Western part of the country. At that point the fighting will of Ukrainian troops probably drops a lot.
2) De-Nazification? Gradual progress, but real success in this task probably requires taking control of the larger cities. Criminal punishment of the NeoNazi pseudo-military groups may be almost as important to Russia as simply destroying them. It also seems like they need to publicly squeeze at least a couple of the bad-guy oligarchs to make this process fully credible. This may be complicated by Russian deep state politics.
3) No Ukraine in NATO. Weakening NATO within the Ukrainian theater might be a proxy for this one. This seems to be progressing. NATO sends in fresh hardware, Russia destroys it along with Ukrainian troops and NeoNazis. Ukrainian civilians are the main victims, including press-ganged conscripts.
If Russia continues to forgo heavy destruction of critical infrastructure this SMO could go on a long time. If they move aggressively it might be over quickly.
Which will be the first major city in Ukraine to be flipped or taken?
Guess you managed to miss events in Kherson, which already was taken and flipped over the course of ongoing SMO?;)
No, I caught that but I think Kherson is a special case since it is less populous and the Russians walked away from it. It is not a domino.
The relevant cities for my question are:
Kiev
Kharkov
Dnipro
Odessa
Zaporizhzhia
If they take Kiev it is over but that still seems difficult to do without creating a human catastrophe. So which is the first domino?
Well, it may be “silly,” but unfortunately it doesn’t have to make perfect sense. The social constructionists are right about this. So complaining about its silliness is probably going to have very limited utility, roughly on the level of arguing that “Arabs are semites so they can’t be anti-semitic!” – the logic of it appeals to some people, but it mostly goes down like a lead balloon.
I think we have just about the worst category labels for everything, and I think they have been shaped by those in power.
IIRC, utu seemed to imply that it was racists in America who created black as a catch-all, but it seems quite a bit more plausible to me that it was Progressives that did it, to lower the cost of signaling.
I mean, the 1890 census (unfortunately destroyed) used the terms quadroon and octoroon, and mulatto. But it was the only one. How damaging would it have been to the signaling regime, if those categories had been preserved? Not just for the HBD data, but to encourage their wider adoption and make signaling more expensive, rather than cheaper.
It is not plausible to me that racists did away with those labels. Rather, it is obvious that it was the utus who did away with them.
Nothing could be more self-evident than that mulatto is a different ethnic group from full blacks – really a different race, with different looks and characteristics. More different than Cushitic Somalis are from the rarer Bantu ones.
I mean, I’ve seen it myself, in interactions with many people. If they were from two different imaginary countries, how far apart would they need be in order for us to see those differences, in personality, behavior, and in looks?
Mulattoes might even have a bit of a plus, more than you would expect, because they were mostly the result of males who could chat up females above their group status.
In the 6th or 7th grade, we wrote to different states, seeking penpals, and I recall one girl got a letter from a boy saying he was a mulatto. I forget whether I knew what that was back then, but the girl didn’t, and thought that it was weird that he mentioned it, (but she had had little contact with blacks.)
Growing up, I knew several mulatto boys. They were, without question, much friendlier and polite on average than the dark ones. (Only exception was one guy from Puerto Rico, who was probably a 3-way mix, not a good combo, IMO) Meanwhile, the girls were unquestionably more feminine and nicer.
Differences here are like comparing Japan to I don’t know where, but they are big.
LOLCOW Anatoly Karlin
He claims he doesn’t eat from pigs but tweets show he eats bacon fat –
Can you believe a word this plonker says?
It wasn’t intended as an argument of any particular kind. I was just observing that it’s annoying.
However, I think that mockery of silly things is not a bad argument. It’s good to puncture the pompousness because it reduces it’s effect. The Left made good use of comedy and it’s precisely why the Left is sensitive about it now. Sacred Things cannot be joked about or they become profane.
Look “Ghostrecon”, it’s not personal really…but you have to understand that you’ve forced my hand here.
Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.
Hypocrisy would require that the timestamps be reversed, unless we hold him to the standards of Kurt Vonnegut’s* Tralfamadores.
*I think Vonnegut is a terrible writer.
1. Long way away
2. Code for elimination of the militias. Also a very long way away
3. Ukraine was never going to formally join NATO. Absolutely nothing will prevent Ukraine from being rearmed with Western weapons
The goal right now is likely to conquer the remainder of eastern Ukraine as any advance beyond that creates too much risk for direct clash with NATO. Theoretically, this would keep alive the dream of one day reabsorbing Ukraine into the RF but I view that as pure fantasy with no chance of ever coming to pass.
I’m for whatever works. Mockery is generally a good tool, but I’m not entirely sure it would work so well in this case. The reason is that, despite appearances, it’s just not such a silly idea to for someone who looks like Meghan Markle to have a ‘black’ identity. Most people simply plug into whichever of the existing categories fits them, and in American society it’s long been the case that if you have an obvious black ancestor, you’re inclined to choose ‘black.’ There are of course some such ‘blacks’ who have attempted to define a ‘mixed’ or a ‘biracial’ or ‘mulatto’ identity – and I of course say more power to them – but it’s still pretty marginal. Given that it kinda makes sense to choose ‘black’ for people like Markle, I have doubts that mocking that identity would be particularly productive. I my view, it’s pretty different to mocking obvious bs artists like Elizabeth ‘Pocahontas’ Warren. But hey, who knows?
Well, at minimum people ought not to use their loaded terminology. ‘Racist’ comes to mind…
Girkin is a reenacting romantic, and a bit of a military mythologist when it comes to war, excepting specials forces, which have been increasingly sidelined. I suspect he thought the SMO plan would work, and like so many people he has overcompensated for Russian shortcomings of the opening stages . But as Col Reisner says in his lecture the analysts of the Royal United Services Institute are already warning that Russia can fight a war effectively, and to stop them winning Ukraine short term requires several times what it has been given, and will require greater quantities still to push the Russian back.
Your guess would be better than mine as to Alex’s country ethnicity, and a lot better than being sent into a minefield to unwittingly clear it as Alex suggested Wagnerites were. Russians in the initial invasion were going so far so fast that Russia was massively outnumbered in infantry and only had artillery parity in the early battles. (if Zenensky had not misunderstood it as a bluff, there could have been an annihilating defeat of Russian forces). Since the pullback from Kiev, Russia established artillery superiority and then (after tens of thousands of professional Russian soldiers did not renew their contracts) called out reservists (including most of those who’d only quit 8 weeks before) renewed quadrupled the number of troops.
Alex of History Legends says the Russians are not doing urban fighting but rather encirclements that deliberately leave an escape route (I am not sure there is any new adaptation by Russia because the 2015 Donbass fighting featured that tactic by the regular Russia army if I remember rightly).
Bakhmut then Sloviansk would be the logical next step. However, Russia’s stated objectives seem very open ended because they are so political. Ukraine’s are territorial and are being trumpeted triumphantly, but that fanfaronade is going to make it obvious they are unattainable.
https://www.businessinsider.com/old-anti-aircraft-guns-used-against-missiles-drones-in-ukraine-2022-11?IR=T
“older AA guns have found new life in the effort to shoot down slow, low-flying drones.”
The only problem may be urban combat (usually you can’t take your flak there) where you would probably need some large machine guns (they used to provide AA fire in past) to shoot down drones operating above you. Or maybe a new role for snipers then…?
Not a jew then.
Fighting fire with fire? Ukrainians and Americans feel that “Putler” is the living embodiment of Hitler. Are they wrong?
The NATO weapons stop flowing in once the new Ukrainian powers-that-be do not want them. I’m referring to heavier weapons. In the meantime Russia could stop much of the influx by blowing up some more bridges. The war of attrition seems intentional to me, so they are not ready to blow up the bridges.
I think one aspect of the Russian approach which confuses people is the Russians are willing to accept battles of attrition which cost many lives on both sides. Since Viet Nam the West has molded a “dominance” narrative where almost all of the casualties are on the losing side. I don’t know if that ever works with a serious adversary, but it is what people in the West expect. So Russia goes in and take serious losses and pundits screech “catastrophe”, whereas military planners say “that was expected”.
I agree that many of the early Russian casualties in the SMO looked like the result of failures and not attrition.
Why does Putin need to take major cities?
Realistically, they would wind up being destroyed not captured. The ability to take huge swaths of Mariupol relatively intact was a special case.
The Dnieper in the South is strong as a new border. It permanently avoids the threat of a rebuilt Punishment Dam and other encroachment on Russian Crimea.
An armistice line in the North would be a good starting point for negotiations. It leaves some of the territory that Kiev oppressed in Ukrainian hands. However, there is a huge amount of “big empty” up that way. Something stable can be found by exchanging people and shifting the border modest amounts.
___
Time is on Russia’s side. Their national economy is still functional.
The Kiev regime is a pauper, groveling for handouts. McCarthy had to take rules changes that makes another Omnibus fiasco nearly impossible.
The questions I ask are:
• When will Zelensky flee to Europe?
• When the foreign money for Kiev combat offensives “run out”?
Unless a new major grift can be accomplished, my estimate is that Zelensky will exit to cushy speaking tours in July perhaps August, assuming he values his own skin. By September it starts getting dicey, and he might not make it out at all. An armistice is likely as soon as there is a new rational leader in Kiev.
PEACE 😇
How many Africans could have fit into the old bubble container that my family used to have years ago, when we went camping. Probably 4-5, I’d guess.
To you and silviosilver,
It seems to me that the reason that intermediate labels like mulatto have fallen out of favor is that there is no advantage to adopting them. There are certain advantages in terms of group identity or signaling that can be accrued by identifying as white or black, but none from identifying as a mixture. This is why someone like Markle will identify as black. Being a mulatto just puts one in an indeterminate group not accepted fully by any mainstream identity.
In the past it was certainly advantageous for mixed raced people to stretch their whiteness by claiming the term mulattto or octoroon. By doing so they could claim some access to social circles more off limits if they just claimed to be black. Now there are definite advantages and cache in certain respects to claiming blackness, so the reach sometimes goes in the other direction, like Obama, Markle, various Pretendians, etc. In the past Obama would have been proud to accentuate his white ancestry.
That is why I used the words “taken or flipped”. Flipped means made pro-Russian (without destruction) which implies new local government. They don’t want to destroy any cities in the East, they may be past caring in the West.
I assume either anguished Nationalists or disappointed Western types will take care of Zelensky. Something about dancing with the devil…
You betcha. Putin for years gave peace a chance, much unlike the corrupt, lying, undemocratic and neo-Nazi influenced Kiev regime, with blood on its hands before and after 2/24/22 and thereafter.
Merkel, Hollande and Porky confirmed the obvious.
The USSR in Finland and some other campaigns showed a lack of concern for lives on both sides, much unlike the post-Soviet Russian approach to the current situation.
The collective Western establishment exhibits great deceit in it sselective concern for human lives.
Macgregor has been predicting a revolution in Ukraine but I really cannot see it happening, any more that all the hopeful predictions Putin being overthrown. Mearsheimer was closer to the mark when he said the general populace of Ukraine’s nationalist reaction to the invasion was a big force multiplier that made Zelensky’s regieme rock solid no matter what.
It has been suggested that the Russians are letting the more sophisticated weapons such as HIMARS rockets reach east Ukraine because they can target them most easily there.
Since Mariupol they are not keen on full encirclements judging by the recent advances they prefer to not close the pincers and have the Ukrainians trapped and fighting to the death.
I don’t think the Russian losses in the last few months have been bad apart from the Wagner convict recruits who sent on mission to die while drawing fire and setting off minefield, and 99% of the time do not survive their six months to a pardon.
I do not see any plausible flips for large cities. Many with known anti-Kiev leanings fled so as not to be caught in the crossfire or local Stasi like machinations. While there may be quiet discontent, there is no good way to organize action.
Flattening Odessa makes military sense. However, it could also create serious long-term problems for Putin’s larger geopolitical strategy. Bypassing Odessa to hookup with Transnistria is an interesting idea to “land lock” the Kiev regime, but improbable as far too ambitious & high risk.
Waiting for Kiev’s aggression to run out of money has conservative appeal, minimizing casualties on both sides. It avoids having a failed state on the Russian border. They are closely watching the fiasco in Lebanon, which is highly problematic for both Syria and Jewish Palestine. The last thing Putin wants is a similar issue on a much lengthier geographic scale.
Ultimately Zelensky has to skip the country before he winds up like Gaddafi.
If he makes it out, the European Empire will protect him and his family. Not selling him out is essential suborning the next national leader to serve the European WEF Elites.
PEACE 😇
Songbird’s saying IMO that America’s a creole society now & needs a 3rd category.
Personally, am completely for keeping the one-drop rule.
Giving political recognition to mulattos just creates 2 enemies from 1.
The barrier to mixing/revulsion is also lowered – there’s no positive.
@songbird Most Mulattos are from white slave owners not mudsharks.
Creole culture is alive and well in New Orleans. You need to bring home a girl who is lighter than a paper sack. The grave of Marie Laveaux is top tourist attraction and Mayor Ray Nagin was too dark. He is very very close to the same shade as a paper sack.
The idea of sending huge amounts of armor to the Kiev regime just took a big hit. (1)
Expect hysterical anger warmongering German Greens. Pro-War progressives Leftoids can be quite shrill.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://www.politico.eu/article/ukraine-war-germany-tanks-rheinmetall-leopard-2024/
I get your point but I’m skeptical of any comparison of Gaddafi and Zelensky.
Russia doesn’t need or want to flatten these cities unless there are concentrations of Ukrainian and NeoNazi forces armed with heavy weapons
Odessa can be mostly taken out of commission as the major transport hub by knocking out the port cranes, some railroad bridges, a few runways and a local power plant or two. Maybe they will drop some mines in the harbor. Based on recent news, Russia is inching closer to this sort of attack.
I think they are realists.
The Russians are losing men everyday and no one there is kvetching about it, that is all I was trying to say.
I would like to know more about how Russia is working the propaganda war in Ukraine. I think at some point they will reach parity on this front (do they call it a domain yet?) and they will be able to influence the leadership to capitulate.
They simply need to convey that, yes they will kill Western mercenaries and NeoNazis, they will give Ukrainian soldiers a chance to surrender and civilians will be spared. This has been part of their message throughout the SMO but I am sure most Ukrainians are propagandized to see the Russians in much darker terms.
I hate to oversimplify and degrade such a serious process, but my hunch is it boils down to a carrot and stick approach. The bombs are the stick, the carrot will be conveyed through propaganda. Unless of course Kiev capitulates before this point.
I should have mentioned that Mearsheimer’s main point in relation to nationalism as a force multiplier was the Russian population would evince it too and rally round Putin.
Mearsiemer’s in his UnHerd interview says the US will not allow Russia to get anything that looks like a victory. But he also says that only holds true if Russia keeps it conventional. According to Professor Mearsheimer, actual use of a nuke by Russia would create a sudden perception in the West that events were getting out of control and a concomitant desire among American strategists to close the war (and support for Ukraine) down immediately. If in the long run, a nuclear detonation by Russia on a Ukrainian battlefield would save lives, then the sooner the better. Unfortunately, the Russians suffering serious reverses is not likely any time soon
You are either completely clueless as to what is actually happening in Ukraine or you are deliberately dense because of your ideological bias. I can’t believe someone can write this after what happened in Dnipro yesterday. You will be forever cursed along with the Russian savages.
The Russian savages murdered this woman’s son in front of her eyes:
Civilians screaming under rubble in Dnipro:
Russian propaganda scum celebrating the death of civilians in Dnipro:
What are you basing this on?
If you go back to my original point, you’ll see that I was recommending whites (actually, all non-blacks) drop the one-drop rule, because that rule only advantages blacks. It used to ‘advantage’ whites – it helped keep the white community white (aka allowed it to continue to exist) – but since all political and all (overt) social barriers to intermixture have completely collapsed, there is no further use for it.
What would dropping the one-drop rule (by non-blacks) actually entail? That’s a good question. Obviously, in an age in which merely contradicting something a black has said – no matter how nutty – is fraught with suspicions of proto-racism (or “whitesplaining”), you can’t just charge in and set them straight, “no pal, you’re not actually black.” It would have to be more subtle than that. There is an overt course of action available, though, which is to support any and all “mixed” or “mulatto” identity movements. Among non-blacks, talk about such movements should emphasize how “unfair” it is to lump mixed/mulatto people in with the black population, and that they obviously have a “right” to separate themselves from it.
What grounds are there to believe such an effort may bear fruit? If we look at parts of the world where the mulatto escape hatch has existed the longest – essentially, Latin America – we observe an undoubted keenness to adopt non-black identities. Indeed, the region is known for its plethora of racial designations, the unifying them of which is creating distance from blackness. The Dominican Republic has achieved notoriety for erecting barriers against Haitian infiltrators, in effect saying “we’re black enough already thanks, we don’t intend to grow any blacker.” In America, black(ish) hispanics resort to speaking Spanish as a way of signaling their separateness from blackness.
The same is true in South Africa, where Colored (as distinct from Black) remains a strongly defended identity, despite power shifting to blacks. (Coloreds strongly supported the (white) National Party in the 1994 ‘free’ election.)
Markle types may gain certain advantages by claiming blackness in America, but the downside is they have to put up with sharing an identity, cultural ways and, all too often, social circles and living space with actual blacks; which increasingly means pureblooded blacks straight from Africa, who immediately upon arrival claim a right to speak on behalf of all black Americans, which descendants-of-slaves blacks tend to deeply resent.
All in all, the prospect of splitting their ranks must be regarded as at least plausible. As for the need to split them, I have every confidence it will grow ever more apparent with each passing year; and by the end of the century, people will have a hard time believing anybody could have ever thought otherwise.
Umm, yeah genius, that is how divide and conquer works. Obviously nobody would do it if the two enemies became stronger. If the strength of the one enemy was 100 but splitting it into two created a combined strength of >100, it would be entirely counterproductive to split them. But if their combined strength dropped to <100 – as history suggests it does – then it makes perfect sense.
That would be true if the barrier were currently high. But since the barrier is already at rock bottom, it’s completely irrelevant.
Historically. But newly minted mulattoes are overwhelmingly spawned by mudsharks.
I can openly say Sikhi is against inter-caste marriage & dare anyone to step forth.
You live in Australia – I guarantee white women are still lecturing blacks on what to do in USA.
This is a coward’s out & it’s not even hard to get local boys to sort out visiting nogz.
The Right has a tendency to exaggerate everything – including the collapse of Cali for example.
There are still significant barriers to mixing & the main vector of mixing is mulattos.
Making them black means you can straight up say no niggers.
Stop over-complicating it & fk Lat America – if you’re black you’re black incl Dominicans
Sadly I am aware of what is happening in Ukraine. I have been worrying about this since 2014. Horrible things like this happen every day in this war, even every minute. It is soul destroying and disgusting.
THIS IS WHY WE AVOID WAR!!!!
STOP CHEERLEADING FOR NATIONALISM. At this point the best we can hope for is that it doesn’t turn into a nuclear World War. I think people with attitudes similar to yours have led us closer to that precipice.
The West manipulated Ukraine to weaken Russia. This death and destruction is what the West wanted to accomplish.
I’m past caring that you don’t understand that these deaths link directly back to Maidan. I know it, lots of other people know it, the Russians know it and eventually a lot of sad Ukrainians will understand it as well.
Europeans have endured so many stupid wars I think you all would learn.
In case I lost you,
THIS IS WHY WE AVOID WAR.
I don’t think there are any targets worthy of a nuke on the Ukrainian battlefield.
I agree with the point that the US seems ‘all in’, but they may drop it at some point. The people behind this atrocity don’t actually have to save face, they will just lie about it. Unfortunately, they will probably escalate something else.
I still worry the most about Kaliningrad, I do believe that Western strikes there could lead to the use of nuclear weapons by either side. Serbia should watch out as well.
Call your Congressman.
This is my quarter in Toronto, but I’m used to blacks having an ethnicity, culture etc.
Ie a lightskin Jamaician is still Jamaican & esp among women skin tone varies
Those ppl will still side with blacks & just ID as lightskin – they’re still anti-white
Destroying race/one-drop only helps my side since it strengthens caste identity
The only blacks I’ve seen mulatto washing work on are from Nova Scotia
Even then, recent mixes with a black dad tend to ID with the dad
You’re just making it easier for black blood to infiltrate by recognizing mulattos
The situation is nowhere as bad as you make & I’d go lift, look in the mirror & hit yourself
Check yourself, you might be developing a cuck complex
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oH9savFyn1o

White, Brown & Black stay in their quarters even by ethnicity dif Slavs or Indians
An apartment block might be all Iraqi Christian, next to all Afghans, next to Nigerians
People aren’t ultra-racist just too low iq & apathetic to absorb liberalism
Terminally online nerd types don’t get the avg person gives 0 fucks
They got bills to pay & grocery to buy
That map is still more or less accurate – lot of 80% white & 80% non-white areas
A 1bil police budget + stop-frisk keeps those boundaries
You’re mad wrong on this one, dead wrong
The entire premise is based on no barriers to mixing
When there are plenty & while giving up is the Christian thing to do
We’ve never accepted the Euro conversion in the first place
Still hard to find Italians or Croatians willing to out-marry
You’re talking of giving your women away to Mutt-nigger Mulattos LMAO
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ
The type of mass mixing you imagine is only possible in white lib (Anglo) areas
Neither the South nor the Ghetto has high levels of mixing
I can count on one hand the IR couples I’ve seen in the hard parts of TO
I’m talking Italian + Syrian let alone white & black
—
This goes to what Greasy William said, let the liberals die out – guess that includes you?
I was referring to the 80 missile attack over the weekend, along with the fact that it utilized some heavy bombers if the report I read was accurate. I did not read if they only launched missiles or if the attack also included bombs. I believe they have used the big planes sporadically since the start of the SMO, but I believe if these aircraft become more common it is a sign of a major escalation.
IMO, an attack with several hundred missiles would be a clear sign they have become serious. Same thing if they start using the heavy bombers to drop bombs.
Here is a similar view on the problems with categorization: (1)
The whole thing made little sense decades ago and is now completely bonkers.
I know one girl who is 7/8 Irish Ginger, with a Spanish surname based on 1/8 paternal lineage. She is checking the Hispanic box on every university application. And, she would be a fool not to.
At some point we will go back to being a merit based society, but that day is not today. It will take time and MAGA votes for multiple election cycles. Or, possibly a civil war. Take your pick.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://instapundit.substack.com/p/the-idiocy-of-americas-racial-classification
This war is being fought to advance GloboHomo, not nationalism. The Ukrainians doing the actual dying are just cannon fodder for the Western regimes
Close. Please let me improve that for you:
This war is being fought to advance IslamoGloboHomo & MENA origin migration, not nationalism. The Ukrainians doing the actual dying are just cannon fodder for European WEF regimes.
One of the goals of the conflict is to diminish Christian Populism in EU nations such as Hungary.
PEACE 😇
I think you should stick to your cryptic three-word posts and let people merely think you’re a retard rather trying to carry on an actual discussion and inadvertently proffering undeniable proof.
There is nothing to “understand”, everything is very clear. A country invaded another country, illegally, and is murdering the civilians there. It is an obvious fact, no matter how you spin it and no matter how much manipulative language you use. The whole world can see it except for you.
If you were aware of what is happening, you wouldn’t be talking all this nonsense, as you have about Ukrainians “being propagandized”.
This war has been going on for hundreds of years, way before there was even GloboHomo and way before America was even a global power. Quit being so self absorbed.
No, that is only a view on the problems with the existing official categorization scheme, not with categorization per se.
The cure for bad categorization is good categorization, not no categorization.
It’s pretty simple. So simple, in fact, that it makes perfect sense why Israel-firsters like you are aghast at the notion.
How dare you slander etalon example of non-mixed pure Aryan himself here?
Rather than* you brown-skinned ESL student
You’re only scared of blacks because you don’t carry weapons
Trans-gender looking to push trans-racial individuals.
How typical, but let’s hear from those who’ve seen blacks outside television.
https://hbdchick.wordpress.com/2011/04/04/whatever-happened-to-european-tribes/

I get it – after destroying tribe & ethnicity among Euros, Christendom moves to race.
More proof white/christian genocide is needed to save the world from Sailer’s graph
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ
You don’t think that Kiev knew that Russia would get involved when Ukraine started shelling Donetsk with heavy artillery? Such a naive belief would be retarded, of course they knew it. Again, that was the point to draw them in.
The propaganda I mentioned includes the notion that Russia would be too weak to do anything about Maidan and what followed. The Ukrainian military surely knew that Russia could defeat them, so they must have believed the Western con that economic or other pressure would keep Russia at bay. It seems that these ideas were mistaken.
I think you are incorrigible, with your hundreds of years of angry history. I hope people stop listening to the murderous cries of people with the same delusions.
The following is a response to #194:
My view is that in this case Nationalism is the meme which enthralled the Ukrainians so they voluntarily became pawns in this. There is a lot more to it, but I think this is an important aspect.
BTW, I am not against Nationalism. I am against gullible blood thirsty stupidity.
And let me be clear. The Ukrainian nationalists, whose deaths this audience is cheering, were literally the last white men who could’ve fought this GloboHomo. It is more than obvious that they are the last.
True. The Russian invasion is criminal. I have never denied this.
I have seen no evidence of this. Collateral damage != murder.
Which doesn’t change the fact that the Ukrainians are being used as pawns for GloboHomo imperialism now. I don’t blame the Ukrainians for taking any help they can get, I’d do the same thing in their position, but facts are facts.
Unlike most other far right nihilists, I strongly believe that it is important that Ukraine remains a free and independent state. But I don’t think it’s important how far east the Ukrainian-Russian border ends up. In fact, I would prefer that said border is as far west as possible, as that will ensure the largest amount of Ukraine’s Russophile population will be part of the RF and GloboHomo will have eaten at least a partial defeat.
Well, we can’t all be as tough as sikhs, who strike laughter, I mean terror, in all who gaze upon them.
Just keep talking about lifting and posting sword vids bro, we’re all extremely impressed, I promise you.
You’re the one whose retarded, antifa. Ukrainian and other nationalists have known FOR YEARS, no, FOR DECADES, that Russia would attack. The only reason the bulk of the Ukrainian population was still shocked and felt stabbed in the back, was because they still used to have neighborly ties past 2014. It’s exactly like the grieving mother says in the video – they sat by the same table, we greeted them as guests. And then they came back to murder us.
A retarded American commie is in no position to lecture Europeans about nationalism. Nationalism is essential and will remain as long as foreigners invade. Ukraine is not murdering on Russian soil, it is Russia who has transgressed into Ukrainian soil and is murdering Ukrainian citizens.
You can pose various arguments, but why lie so openly? Why overlook facts on the ground so blatantly?
How come you are blind to the Russian fascism? How come you ignore the video I posed of the Russian propagandist who is calling on wiping more Ukrainian cities off the map? Why are you so conveniently blind to this? Why, is it the usual tale of “all nationalist are equal, but some are more equal”?
Entitled much? Who are you to correct us? You do realize there are tens of millions if not more behind what I say? Are you corrigible? I’m sure you are.
Do not lie. You are selective. You are ok with Russian fascism. But you are not ok with those who defend themselves from such evil. Be honest and do not lie. It’s not a lot to ask.
Actually don’t think the new Embrace statue on Boston Common is 100% bad.
If the moratorium on above-ground nuclear tests were ever lifted, it would be a great piece to donate to some country doing them, along with 3-5 high speed cameras to record it from various angles, as the blastwave strikes it.
There is no longer such as thing as “Ukraine’s Russophile population”. The population is being systematically destroyed. That some American anti-GloboHomo type feels a certain way is absolutely irrelevant and no excuse to murder people en masse. If you don’t see that this is not about some mystical values but about purely about robbing places, then you are blind. They do not need the population. They need the territory with the resources, with the fruits of other people’s labor (they didn’t bother building a competitive economy), without the people, to extract all that’s remaining and to be able to posture militarily. The Russian men are sheeple who are hedonistic to the core and will never be able to stand up to any tyranny, no matter whence it appears. Let them remain slaves as they deserve.
There is a lot of work at home in the West, yet the so called Western nationalist choose to do exactly zero about it. Ukraine has nothing to do with your plight and shouldn’t be paying for it.
I get what you are saying, and the left is attempting to do the opposite with the POC umbrella designation. Leaving aside whether or not it’s a good idea, given how the incentives actually work for this kind of re-categorization I just don’t see the point in throwing it out there as an actionable possibility.
The shift toward preferential identification with blackness is due to a massive shift in the distribution of rewards. It is in the concrete material interests of many to identify as blacks because of perks. These perks can only be distributed if you control the engines of societal institutional power. Basically, if you had the power to distribute these perks to convince people to adopt an intermediate racial category you wouldn’t have to propose such a thing.
I don’t think this is the case. More often than not they can have their cake and eat it too. Obama and Markle aren’t hanging in the hood. Obama is jet setting with the Martha’s Vinyard set while Markle married into the House of Windsor. About the most ghetto they will be likely to see is meeting Snoop Dogg on the golf course.
No, it is not “collateral damage” (not that there should be). The rocket used was Kh-22 (or X-22), an old rocket from the 1960s-70s, which is meant to be used against maritime targets and typically not meant to be used for ground targets (although they had used it before in Ukraine). It was originally made to be used against American ships. This is beyond primitive and evil.
We are gradually proceeding towards the point where the MAINSTREAM data for “VAX” deaths exceeds the mainstream data for COVID deaths.
If we reach that point, how will your worldview be impacted?
Not at all?
Will you mentally shut down due to cognitive dissonance?
Investigate?
Apologize?
Vow to never be fooled again?
Double-down in some strange way?
A person does not need to be skeptical of vaccines to be upset and intrigued by all of the lying involved in the COVID mess.
Why don’t you want this to stop? I mean now, no terms, just surrender and live to fight another day! Learn from the mistakes. Learn not to trust the silver-tongued devils who would turn your sons and brothers into pawns and cannon fodder.
You don’t know me and your reading comprehension may be blinded by your pain. I am not reveling in these deaths at all, not even the NeoNazis and certainly not the Nationalists. I just recognize the deaths as totally predictable once this was put in motion a decade ago. This was totally avoidable and the Nationalists made a bad decision. This was a set up by the West. I think you need to figure this out and point your fury in the correct direction.
It will be beyond “beyond primitive and evil” if they start dropping large numbers of 500 pound bombs on cities. This sort of thing has been militarily justified by the West so it has been accepted by the monsters who ‘adjudicate’ wars. The legalese doesn’t matter, once they start falling, think of a 100 broken lives for each bomb, maybe a 1000 if the dogs of war have their fill. One God forsaken plane can carry 84 bombs. Russia didn’t invent this, remember the US, Britain, Russia, China all have had similar capability to butcher good people on an industrial scale.
I will say it differently this time:
I think this war should have been avoided because it was not in the interest of Ukrainian people. It is never too late to see the light, now is the time to lay down arms before the destruction gets serious. I am not kidding, things can get much worse. If you are not sure, look at Dresden, Grozny, Tokyo, Nagasaki.
You seriously don’t see this as an adult? Do you not get that there will be more violence in that case and that giving up land doesn’t solve anything? That the crocodile is always hungry? That because a crocodile devours some prey and is sated for 20 minutes, doesn’t mean that it won’t get hungry again soon? Do you enjoy giving up your property? Or just other peoples’ property? Oh wait.. that’s how commies are. Ok, that explains it. Only one answer for you then.
So you justify this misanthropy now? Nothing to see here? Thank you, drive through?
Yea, they did. The reason they still exist is because of this MO. Obviously, they’re incapable of existing otherwise. Just remember that when you speak so nonchalantly about Russian crimes, you become complicit in them. The world sees this, even non-White nationalities do. You don’t for some mysterious reason. Oh, wait.. it’s because you’re an antifa.
Yes. The Ukrainian people and others should have never believed Clinton and Yeltsin. They should have never given up their tanks and missiles, the radar stations.
Indeed they can. Once Ukraine finishes their 1000km drones, there will be payback. As there should be.
I do believe some things are worth fighting and dying over, even potentially hopeless causes. I don’t think this is one of them, but I’m not a Ukrainian Nationalist. Clearly you carry anti-Russian and anti-Soviet thoughts close to your heart, perhaps there is a good reason.
I am a child of the Cold War so figuring out how not to annihilate everyone is important to me. After the fall of the USSR I learned the depth of the lies in the West was almost as deep as those around Communism. I still love the West, I just hate the lying on all sides.
I am not Antifa, Commie, or other things. I am pro-individual, pro-family, pro-reason, pro-civilization, pro-mankind.
I hope it all works out.
+++
I do agree that the intense anti-Russia forces in the West may have created a self-fulfilling prophecy wherein trying to crush a sleeping and somewhat peaceful Russia will create an aggressive and hostile Russia. I hope this doesn’t happen, but it seems likely at this point. Great job, morons.
Serbia’s lost every war it’s ever fought – I’m not trying to impress anyone.
Genuinely trying to make the world & myself better.
You gave up, and so became a liberal/christcuck
Keep trying to get in with the Good whites, I hope you’ll succeed
One day.
I don’t think that the Russians are going to be pushed out of prepared defenses. The Merkava is probably a better tank than anything the US and British have. Hezbullah decimated them recently. Mines Drones Cornets…
Exactly, white folks get to claim to hang with blacks – that are as light as they are.
POC has already been split into BIPOC & there’s now a focus on anti-black, anti-semite & anti-other
https://www.msn.com/en-ca/news/canada/a-raw-nerve-alberta-professor-to-assess-level-of-white-supremacy-in-military/
There’s already no point for someone like me to pursue anything but cultural nationalism.
The whole anti-white train doesn’t give anything beyond getting white libs/cons to leave u alone.
Both the right & the left are progressive in North America.
One for tech & the other society you could say.
—
Libs have decided there will be 3 races in the future: White, Black & Jewish
The only way to get out of that is pursue something outside liberalism.
Which you can define as challenging the basic familial-societal structures & violence monopoly
ie honor killing
https://akarlin.com/struggle-europe-mankind/
The priestly classes of Liberal-Christendom ie
Serbs & German Catholics have the most to lose from a systemic shift
They’ll fight to maintain the status quo down to the last nigger.
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਹਿ
Remember that these cunts like LatW were running the USSR while it looked like the strong horse. Or they were supporting the Wehrmacht when it rolled into town.
IOW mulattos & white libs benefit from the current black-centric status quo.
Why would they change it? They’re the leadership class of their respective groups.
Challenge them for leadership before you think of changing categories.
When you do – you end up with something closer to Sikhi or Knights Templar, Ghazis
Don’t expect to live a normal life if you don’t believe in the state religion
Saw an old Siskel and Ebert clip where they were praising some movie set in medieval times for the fact that everyone was besmirched with dirt.
It’s so bizarre and funny that I don’t even know what to make of it.
Natural inclination is to dive into politics and to blame the fact that they were both woke. That they just wanted to see the past as inherently dirty.
If I try to view it in a more generous light, maybe, they were saying that they wanted to be immersed in the film, and not feel like it was shot on a studio backlot, with the costumes rented by the hour. I’m not altogether unsympathetic to such a view, but, wow, talk about low expectations!
Of all the things that could give a medieval film character and make it a spectacle. The thousand-and-one features of that era never depicted on film before, from the small to the large, and they said they wanted to see dirt! Unbelievable!
The processes I mentioned are taking place independently of what you or I think of them. To be clear, I’m not expecting anything to change any time soon, not even in our lifetimes. These are multi-generational developments I’m talking about. My view, though, is that if certain of these developments can be hastened, then they ought to be – starting from now (why wait?). Over such a time span, the incentive structure you refer to, which seems set in stone today, could change in all sorts of unpredictable (or perhaps predictable) ways. Of course, you are free to disagree with both my analysis and my counsel – I’m not twisting your arm.
Come on. I wasn’t referring specifically to Markle herself, rather to someone with her racial traits. The CDC database used to allow searches by parental race and educational attainment. If access hadn’t been disabled, I could have shown you that white women who procreate with blacks mostly stem from the least educated segment of the white population – precisely those whites who tend to live in closest proximity to blacks. (Stereotypes prove true yet again.) It’s thus perfectly reasonable to think that slamming the mulatto escape hatch shut on those children’s fingers would leave them stuck not only with a black identity but with the unwanted embrace of real live blacks. The same would hold true for the products of hispanic and black matings, who have the black aspects of their physiognomies sufficiently shifted away from the black parent population’s that they too would qualify for a separate racial identity.
Seems as though black identity in South Africa is still pretty tribal. Didn’t the Zulus support the whites? And then you have black mobs that are literally killing black immigrants.
I don’t know how transferable it is to a Western template.
The Coloreds themselves have many different characteristics from mulattoes. One is that they are regionally located – mostly the Western Cape – and that is for historical reasons. Because the Bantu couldn’t live there because it was arid, until Euros showed up with deep borehole technology to dig wells.
Their largest ancestry component tends to be from the Khoisan. A fantastically genetically distinct group from blacks. Though of course they also have major Bantu inputs. IIRC, the Boers used to consider the Khoisan red-skinned.
I’ve heard some South Africans say they believe that Coloreds might be even more criminally inclined and violent than the Bantus. Not sure if it is true, but there is some reasoning behind it. The idea is that the Bantu had agriculture for thousands of years, so they are more domesticated, than the Khoisan, who were hunter-gatherers and very divergent ones from the rest of humanity, at that. (some put the branching point at 200,000 years)
There is even some idea that fertility between the Khoisan and other groups was depressed. And needed lots of copulation, before it would result in successful births. It’s not altogether unbelievable when you consider their incredibly different physical traits.
You care about a “better world”? Lol, that’s rich.
I’ll bow to your superior knowledge of Serbia’s military record, although I will point out that, for all her woes, an independent Serbia still exists. Sikhistan, for all its unrivaled fearsomeness, not so much.
Technically, wouldn’t I already be “in” with goodwhites, given that one of their distinguishing characteristics is they can’t say no to anybody? Fwiw, though, I’m also apparently “in” with badwhites, based on (novel and heady lol) personal experiences with these people. Of course, they are probably as FOS as I am when I act friendly with blacks even though I couldn’t give the slightest fuck about them. Most likely such badwhites are just desperate for support from anyone, so as long as you seem to share certain values with them, they seem willing to overlook the fact that, deep down, they don’t really consider you one of them.
I’m not interested in your made up fluff and fantasies. The only thing that is asked of you is to not lie and to not make things up. It’s not a lot to ask.
Leave my town.
Will you independently remove barricades in North Kosovo or be press ganged?
I will bury the hatchet – Serbian women are thick & gorgeous, thank you Serbian men!
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
You are nothing.
@Armenian Found this interesting
.”
https://authenticgathazoroastrianism.org/2017/09/25/the-dominion-of-the-gods-rich-pastures-and-the-dispossessed-cultivators-of-the-land-in-the-gathas-of-zarathustra/
Was listening to Zafarnama and heard Drigu I think to refer to Hindustan V Aurangzeb I think, will check.
Consider Anatolia, Balkans & Greece to be Persia tbh
ਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕਾਖਾਲਸਾਵਾਹਿਗੁਰੂਜੀਕੀਫਤਿਹ
https://parikramah.blogspot.com/2013/03/fatehnamah-tale-of-two-wills.html
Really, Iran starts at Berlin (Hajnal Line) not exactly, but let’s extend it West.
Certainly the Caucasus
“White women are having kids with black dudes”

“We should raise them instead of leaving them with black relatives”
– Silviosilver based Serbo-Australian – 2023 ce
Lol.
How in the world does recognizing their mixed/mulatto identity compel me to accept them into my life? What a bizarre inference. I need no more accept them than I accept people from the existing black category.
(I’m pretty sure there are remedial English classes for adults. Check it out some time. You don’t have to live like this.)
Oh, and one more thing, I don’t get why people dump on step fatherhood so much. Yeah, you’re helping raise someone else’s kid, but so what? 99.9999999% of the friends and lovers you’ll have in this life are somebody else’s kids too.
But the “corrupt, lying undemocratic and neo-Nazi”side never invaded Russia, never transgressed its neighbor’s borders to foment a war, similarly to the Sudetenland Czechs and NAZI Germany. Painting Rusia like a beacon of peace and measured reasonableness is a hoax that can be viewed objectively through the eyes of all of its satellite states that all fled the iron curtain and fled to the Western side. Even Finland and Sweden are soon to become full fledged members of NATO (talk about a major foreign policy gaffe made by the Russian side), making it once again a stronger and more viable organization.

Another huge miscalculation by the Russian side!
“Kiev’s aggression”? You must have just run out of your meds to believe BS like this. Who is Ukraine being the aggressor towards? To the Russian Christian pacifiers that are spreading Russian corruption and authoritarian oligarchy to Ukraine? Do you really believe this nonsense that you’re trying to spread here? If you do, you’re an even bigger fool than I had imagined. Mabe Putler should be viewed as Russia’s Billy Graham?
You’ve been tooting this empty meme since 02/24/22. Zelenskyt put cowards and appeasers like you to shame from the beginning of the war. They’re all still in Ukraine fighting to defend their country:
Have any current pics of Zelensky building a new mansion in Switzerland? You’re all just stupid hot air, kremlinstoogeA123.
Great job, morons.
Relates to the CNN-BBC misinformation/disinformation –
Was Schwarzenegger a visionary because he hacked the growing gay influence (via bodybuilding) to catapult himself to superstardom?
I concur.
Claiming PoC status (or other SJW marker such as LGBT) is a virtue mark. INE becomes:
• Brave in the eyes of the media.
• Obtain privileges in schools from university down to elementary.
• Have unearned status in the public sphere
It has gotten so extreme, merit is now actually a negative. Europe offers an excellent example. (1)
Being straight, white, & male is now effectively penalized. There is a special benefit for everyone else.
The good news is the handwriting is on my the wall for SJW dogma to implode. For example, real women are standing up against fake women in sports. The only way for more Leftoid privilege and status to become available is to take it away from another SJW category.
The piranhas are hungry. And, the only meat in the tank are other piranhas.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://rmx.news/germany/german-green-party-replaces-its-own-white-male-justice-minister-with-black-female-who-has-no-law-degree-or-political-experience/
Was the movie they were reviewing Braveheart by chance? It did seem to feature quite a lot of dirt and mud. That was a running gag with some of the Monty Python skits about all the medieval filth, ie dumping their refuse right out the window on unexpecting passers by, and the main street being an open sewer.
I’ve heard different things going either way about just how dirty life was in medieval Europe, though some have suggested the dirtiest factor has been exaggerated a bit.
‘Dirtiest’ should read ‘dirtiness’ in the previous post.
That happens to people when their whole world view starts collapsing…Herodotus had a nice passage about it:
It is a hysterical descent into mental nihilism by the Ukie maximalists; some conscious like Arestovich and Co., but mostly unconscious like hapless Mr. Hacks. Their goals have become an obsession: unquestionable, unthinking, irrational, and ultimately hopeless. They want to “win the war against Russia, annihilate Russianism…” – in Russia’s own region no and by using only Ukies – by definition a limited supply.
This is an unfolding catastrophe for the Ukrainians – that’s all anyone will remember about it in the future. The fact that like sheep or lemmings they are led by irresponsible caudillos in Washington and Kiev to their demise shows that maybe they are not the savviest and smartest of people. That explains a lot of their history.
Looks to me like the kremlinstooge crowd of fools and appeasers of this site (Averko, kremlinstoogeA123, Beckow) are cowards too.
Fool, Appeaser and Samovar Polisher. 🙂
See Bill Burr. Arnold is a great man. Did you ever see that photo Sailer posted of him mountain biking with his bastard kid?
They tried to paint him as a Nazi and he didn’t even blink. That said body building was always fake and gay. Authentic athletic == olympic decathlon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caudillo
We haven’t had any caudillos in Washington since Ronald Reagan. Trump probably cannot do one pushup.
And Russians are being led by a megalomaniacal madman watching their once flourishing country go down the cesspool of economic ruin, while you live comfortably in you NATO protected homeland cheering on the destruction of “Nazis in Ukraine”? You’re almost as incoherent as your two fellow stooge sidemen, Averko and kremlinstoogeA123. You should have been on your pedestal screaming about Slovakia’s recent pledge to provide more weapons to Ukraine, including jointly run factories to produce even more going forward. You seem to be completely out of step with your fellow countrymen?
It was actually Dragonslayer (1981, never saw it), so I guess there was an element of fantasy in it too, which maybe makes it even stranger? I don’t know.
If you are interested in it, then you can see it here at about 3:48:
That video is an illustration of a government that cares nothing for the well being of it’s own citizens, nor does it care (in reality) anything about the so called ‘migrants’ either.
Thanks. I’d never heard of Dragonslayer either. To be frank, the little bit they showed of it, it looked kind of lame.
I liked Excalibur. In criticism of that film they commented about no suits of armor until basically medieval times, but I think that might be mistaken.
I think in Europe they may have had something not too distant from suits of armor as early as seven hundred years before Christ, perhaps even earlier. The proto-Celtic Halstatts of Austria were wearing the below at that time.
What is striking is just how medieval looking the armor is.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallstatt_culture
Girl Guides in Canada are changing their name from Brownies to Embers, since Brownies is now considered hurtful.
It is funny because embers suggests people sifting through the wreckage of civilization, after the barbarian hordes have burnt it down.
It would be performative and signaling willingness to go down that road so they could just hit empty territory such as Snake Island and that would be a wake up call. But they might then do a real strike on supply lines (crater hundreds of yards deep on rail or road link would not so easily be repaired). The actual targeting of the Ukrainian army would be the third escalation.
Unlike the Cold War, which likely was never going to go hot especially after Cuba, there is not a theory worked out how nuclear escalation would work in a situation where Russia killed thousands of Ukrainian soldiers, and the US has said there would be no nuclear retaliation to that. However, American conventional retaliation (as floated by some retired generals) to a Russian nuclear strike on the Ukrainian army seems very likely to face an already-crossed-the thermonuclear-Rubicon Russia with being humiliatingly trounced and swallowing it, or using another nuke against Nato (there are anti aircraft nukes and nuclear mines). I think Russia could use an ostentatiously redundant strike on an empty area and America would get the message.
I cannot see America actually launching even a limited raid on the Russian Armed Forces much less actual undisputed Russia territory. We ought to remember that America has not even given Ukraine Abrams tanks or F16s yet, still less the Army Tactical Missile System. All Ukraine has is the effectively 80km range ordinary HIMARS. By my way of thinking that indicates the objective of American strategy is to stop Russia winning rather than help Ukraine to win. The US wants Russia fighting Ukraine in an endless war that is kept below the level of direct US involvement.
Ukraine is going to be progressively wrecked and suffer permanent loss of population from emigration, but that is a price America is willing to pay in order to weaken Russia. Lloyd Austin said quite openly that weakening Russia was the US objective. That is working with Putin who is too sanguine about the prospects of military success, but I think a successor would quite possibly decide to terminate the war, and threaten to use nuclear weapons on Ukraine if America kept it going. Putin probably ought to do that now, but he remains focused on America’s cat’s paw (Ukraine), which as long as it keeps fighting the US does not care about. Currently Russia is like a frog in a pot having the heat tuned up so fiendishly slowly that it passively allows itself to be boiled alive.
Well, every people have their good and bad points. French tap water well into the 20th century wasn’t always necessarily fit to drink I’ve been told.
Now, in regards to the French not having dining forks until being told about them by the Polish, I’d have to see proof for that one! 😀
Embers are the end of the cycle. Leading up to being Campfire Girl should be the beginning of the cycle.
What does one start a fire with?
PEACE 😇
I also liked it, but was ultimately disappointed because I wanted to love it.
Guess I had really unrealistic expectations, but when a national-mytho corpus is the subject matter, I just want the highest level of masterwork possible. I say, take ten years to do pre-production, and make it so that it would be impossible for anyone to make a better one. Make the script perfect. Bring on the medieval enthusiasts and scholars, to consult. Scour the countryside, to find the best locations to shoot – the best-shaded bubbling brooks. Coppiced forrests. Real castles.
I can remember seeing scenes in my head, from reading about the myth and wanting to see those scenes. Imagining them in my head, and adding cinematic details, and yearning to see them.
Like, I mentioned previously that scene in the snow, with the unflappable knight imagining the rosy cheeks of his love, in two drops of blood that have fallen from his hawk, catching a hare or something. That would be a great scene depicting the ideals of chivalry.
Arthur is said to have had a shield with Mary painted on it. This I have imagined on the inside of his shield. And I have imagined him being in a battle, and the shield being pierced multiple times on either side of the image, and him holding it up after the battle and seeing light shining through, and then kneeling in a prayer of thanksgiving. This would be a great depiction of faith. (Really missing from most medieval movies, where the focus seems to be on showing corrupt church officials, or the ‘racism’ and ‘intolerance’ of the Crusaders.
I really like all the Euro accents in the film. That moment when Arthur handed over Excalibur to his antagonist was a moment of genius, IMO. Didn’t think Guenevere was beautiful enough. And personally, I think the cucking storyline is given too much focus. It is a late edition, and some earlier components of the myth are more interesting to me. I think it is important to make little boys want to be Arthur, and the other knights, and I think it really interferes with that.
One kind of weird thing about the movie was that the director was actually filming his daughter being ravished by Pendragon.
As to the plate-armor: I think that’s just a silly criticism. Obviously it is meant to be an idealized myth and not to date to some specific time. The choice of armor is stylistic. IMO, it is only arguable on the level of whether it is good art or not.
Maybe, the shining lights on the armor were a little too dazzling? I don’t know, but I didn’t hate the armor, though I did originally think it did look a bit over-the-top, I’ve since accepted that the film had its own look.
I agree, it is not evocative of youth or of life at all.
A few weeks back, I watched the Iranian film Children of Heaven.
Undeniably, the subject matter is pretty saccharine or maudlin. On a certain level, it is just hard to watch a movie starring children, but, if you can get over that, I didn’t think it was bad. I liked it. Rare to see a film that wholesome, and with a kind of spiritual message, at the end.
Anyway, there was one scene in it, where the school was drilling the girls in song, (probably some regime anthem) And they sang something like “We are the flower of our nation.” Better than “embers”, for sure.
If you meant the great “Excalibur” of 1981, Mary on shield would be inappropriate since the movie was almost totally pagan (there was just one Celtic-Christian ceremony) through and through, as stressed by its Wagnerian music. Arthur there was clearly the protegee of the Lady of the Lake, not of Mary:
The plate armour was overdone but its clanks made the movie more gritty…Overall, the movie was a self-contained work of art.
Out of step? What are you some kind of marching fascist? The promises are almost completely worthless, none of it will come to fruition – it is a desperate signal by our collapsed comprador gment. Why do you always take vague verbal promises seriously? Like the German tanks in 2024…sure, that’s what will make a difference.
What matters is what is happening now: Ukies are dying in large numbers to defend places that they don’t plan to keep, and the Ukie economy is down 40-50%…so who is experiencing an economic ruin? Do you have any sense of proportion or understanding numbers? It is just emotional posturing by you to hide from reality.
Don’t know if this post was directed at me or not, and perhaps probably only German_Reader would be interested (I missed replying to his booklist over the holidays), but I’m finishing reading a PHD thesis on Armenian Zoroastrianism at the moment.
As an aside, its long been recognised that Zoroastrianism had a huge influence on the development of Biblical Judaism during the Achaemenid period, but it’s often overlooked that the (more authoritative) Babylonian Talmud was compiled within the later Sasanid Empire, or the role Jews played in the last Persian-Roman War.
Assalaamu alaikum Bro,
I was just checking in on UNZ to see how ’23 has started. Pretty crazy couple of years, eh? Hope you are doing well and hope 2023 is full of barakah for you and your family.
I am seeing pictures of Saudi where it is turning green…satellite images and photos from brothers that have recently returned from Umrah. Syed ul-Kawnain (saws) predicted that the land of Arabia would “return to meadows” (Hatta ta’ooda arD ul’Arabi muroojan)…the last time it was green was around th Ice Age or so…how did he know this? I hope you can report back on your next trip there inshaAllah.
I saw you posted an email address, I will email you – let me know if you are coming to Chicago Shareef anytime, I’ll show you around inshaAllah.
I saw a headline that they are sending HIMARS to Ukraine intedning them as a game changer…who knew donkeys could be so useful in modern combat.
Remember to keep your eyes firmly on The Prize/Beloved…as Shaykh Murabit al-Hajj (ra) said:
“And what is man other than a comet that flashes brilliant light for a moment only to be reduced to ashes.”
“O mankind, what has seduced you from your Lord, Most Generous?” (82:6)
@Greasy – you stinky Zionist, I hope you are doing well also and 2023 is better for you than the last year. Have you found a Ms. Greasy yet?
@songbird – Vermithrax Pejorative was the greatest dragon in the history of cinema, prove me wrong.
Hoping for a good/blessed 2023 for the rest of you as well.
Wa salaam!
I think Russia is still intentionally chewing through the Ukrainian armed forces so the eventual recovery to civilian order will be more manageable.
I think the most likely situation for a nuclear weapon to be used militarily short of WW3 is an attack on a nuclear-armed submarine which snuck into some place it should not be. Applies to all players. The risk of escalation might be very high.
Ukrainian soldiers on the front lines continuously state that they are dying to protect their lands from uninvited enemies. What are the Russian soldiers fighting for? Convicts who make it 6 months get furloughed. Chechens following orders (and getting decimated left and right). Hipsters in Moscow, like Karlin, extolling the virtues of imperialism, while safely ensconced in their coffee house culture. And you? Truly out of step with your Slovakian neighbors who seem eager to help their Ukrainian neighbors!
Drugs, mental illness and childhood in an institution – foster care, orphange – followed by army (not naval or airforce) service.
I am skeptical of these ‘statements‘, people are not like that. But there is probably a fairly broad spectrum of views. What matters in the long run is that these sacrifices are unnecessary – there is no gain for the soldiers in it, Kiev will not control those areas, so why die for it? My understanding is that Kiev has exactly the same convict-fight-for-your-release program, both sides do what they can.
You are badly out of step from what the actual thinking is about Ukraine among its neighbors. You must be watching the fanatically propagandized Western media – they are lying to you. The attitudes to the war are more nuanced and realistic, the pathetic chest-beating is done by a few clowns. But I won’t convince you, only the reality will…so wait for your victory, or get ready to bad-mouth the loss as “Pyrrhic” or temporary…we have been watching the neo-con morons predicting and lying for the last 15-20 years – remember the “they will never pacify the Chechens…”, “they are dying out”, “Russian economy is a gas station it will collapse”…those are idiotic statements, I fully expect more of them as the project of Nato-Ukraine-without-any-Russians collapses…
The scence where the knights galloped through the apple blossom was divine. The spirit of Avalon.
Dragonslayer was full of wry humour. It didn’t take itself seriously and was good for that.
There’s a lot more along this line like having married parents with enough income but not overworked, and a similar surrounding community with friends, common values and outdoor physical activity. Quality merit based education including basic teaching of ethics.
It was possible in the 1950’s through the US being world’s leading manufacturing nation.
If there are no decent jobs or incomes, there are broken marriages (or no marriages), broken children, drug addiction and a host of other social problems. The situation today.
So then the future of the US depended on intensive efforts in research and education to retain its world lead in industry and avoid being “financialized” as Henry Ford repeatedly pointed out as early as 1920. But, of course, the US was financialized, de-industrialized with the results he predicted. Maybe even worse than he could have imagined. And once the skills and supplier networks have gone re-industrialization becomes next to impossible.
I wouldn’t hold your breath on that one
This is an interesting video regarding ancient Egyptian DNA. He simply reports what they’ve found, letting the chips fall where they may.
It is the latest example of the unavoidable “Dutch disease“: successful and admired countries end up with a massively overvalued currency and economic activity gravitates away from actual production to financial and real estate (assets) speculation.
US has tens of millions of people who spent their “work lives” selling stuff to each other that nobody needs – mostly on the phone. It is not an economy that can justify its current living standards. The material consumption for the masses has been sustained by over-valued dollar, military aggression, willingness of China (and others) to provide the cheap goods, open borders that act as an endless pyramid scheme, and the general acquiescence of the rest of the world.
It has ended with a stupid imperial over-reach into Ukraine – a bridge too far. The local enemy (Russia) is too powerful and will not roll over. Something similar happened to previous empires – they expanded until they reached their match. There is no way to restore the stability now – it will slowly disintegrate.
The idiotic plan to create a Nato-Ukraine was so stupid and unlikely to work that one wonders how it could have gone on…the explanation is that the leaders in Washington-London are not very smart, they are the natural result of inbred careerism – of education that rewards agreeable people. It will take a while, but US has peaked…it will painfully retrace the steps on the way up going down to its more natural level.
Well, I wouldn’t want to shoe-horn faith into someone else’s vision.
But I think that we got to remember that Boorman was the guy who directed Deliverance. (NOT the type of guy I would want writing or directing a King Arthur Film.) I don’t think he had any nationalistic feeling or a moral vision. His paganism is more likely to be atheistic, like MZB (whose own attempt I consider terrible.)
If Boorman got some things right, I consider it more like an accident.
Personally, I believe that the story of King Arthur is best represented by a fusionism of the pagan with the Christian, and I believe it damages it when we disregard the latter element. Maybe, we should reach for a Celtic Church moral center for it, but I just don’t think that Boorman had that in him.
The trouble today is that we have lost nearly all trace of pagan moralism in Europe. There is not code of it, or authority, and it is liable to be hijacked by irreligious feminists, who the druids probably would have burnt at the stake.
If you really want a good Euro pagan story to adopt to screen that would be the Táin Bó Cúailnge which was written down by the lineal descendants of the same elites who had previously been pagan.
iirc you also stated that you would write a year-end book review; still waiting on that.
I watched quite a few movies from the Russian/Soviet directors you mentioned. I stated previously that Aleksy German’s Seventh Companion is an excellent movie; which I consider among my top 15 favorites. Didn’t like some of his later, highly-lauded movies; absurdist nonsense. Tarkovsky: watched three of his films, of which Solaris was the best; though I thought it had the potential to be even better had he avoided arthouse techniques and boring romantic scenes. Nostalgia was the worst, pretentious bore-fest.
Agree with that, and an interesting question is what is its natural level?
If the US started its relative decline in the 1970’s – with acceleration in the 1980’s as digitalization enabled outsourcing and de-industrialization – then other countries were the mirror image, such as South Korea, Taiwan and China. Maybe they gained socially and economically at the same rate that the US declined (albeit cushioned by massive debt issuance).
If they continue doing what they’re doing right and the US continues doing what it’s doing wrong, then you would expect that they would continue to rise, and the US would continue to decline, same as at present. When the US has exhausted its inherited wealth (and thrown away most of its skills) then it’s on its way to being a market for only the cheapest Asian junk.
This never-ending controversy over what the “Ancient Egyptians looked like” is silly and contrived.
It’s perfectly obvious they looked like Celts.
His paganism is simply aesthetic. He builds “Excalibur” as a history of Uther Pendragon family, not just Arthur, but Morgana too. It is pretty pagan in itself, since paganism elevated kinship more than Christianity.
Who is MZB?
Where do you see this potential for development of Christian element…? It is a story of magic, not of exorcism.
The lack of developed doctrine was always a deficiency of paganism. You just worshipped gods because they were your gods (with some exception of later cults like Mithraism) in rather narcisstic way. Maybe when God confused languages at Babel, his opponent created a cult for every language: Hermes Trismegistos was a god with thousand faces, after all.
As for women, since the older pagan societies were often matrilineal, unfortunately it looks that their status could have been quite elevated, especially in religions of the Great Goddess. In no religion women pretended to be men, but in some cults men pretended to be women, like priests of Kybele (Galli), which again points to the fact that women, not men, were the point of reference. Coming back to “Excalibur”, it is therefore not surprising that Morgana, a female, is a powerful witch, which can be only neutered with the help of Graal itself (but not the cross).
Good question, it probably varies over time and how successful other societies are. US had two recent peaks: first in 50’s-70’s based on the global post-WW2 exhaustion, and in the 90’s based on the unexpected windfall from the collapsing communist societies – China handled its commie collapse by offering extremely cheap goods to the West (US). It was ending anyway, US has been in an economic downturn since 2008.
US is naturally a very wealthy country in land-resources with the ability to command skills from other parts of the world. It has English – a huge cultural advantage. But the quality of people has dropped dramatically and the massive ongoing immigration is not helping. Do you think that the poorly educated, wokeness-infested, swarthy-short-fat-emasculated-gender confused younger Americans can fix it? Not bloody likely…
The more natural level of US consumption would be slightly above Argentina or more advanced parts of Asia. Something like US in the 1920’s or 1900’s: rich, comfortable, but not dominant. Even today on paper an American has 6-times the GDP/capita of a Chinese – but is that really true? is the Chinese really consuming 6 times less in housing, education, health care, goodies, food, travel…? Of course not, it is an artificial multiplier of an over-valued dollar and counting a huge number of ‘economic activities’ that don’t add to actual consumption (US is good at churning and counting things).
But I still think US will do better than Europe – the resources and geography are just so much better. Europe is mostly f…ed and they only have themselves to blame.
Black, mulatto.
Potatoe, potato.
About thirty thousand Black on White rapes year in and year out for decades now in the United States, along with a great many other one sided crimes,, would beg to disagree with you about that. Just because a corrupt corporate media refuses to report it doesn’t change the facts of the matter.
If by ‘racism’ you mean abuse between peoples, it is the Euro-peoples (ie ‘Whites’) which are the people which are far and away experiencing far more abuse than any other, legally abetted often to boot. I’m not for any of it, whether it’s against others or against my own.
If one were to individualize the situation, Euros are like a much abused individual who has been locked into a dark closet, only fed poison laced food now and again (ie propaganda) which is slowly but surely killing them, and told they don’t actually really even exist anyhow, except when they do, but then only for bad things, for which they are allowed to leave the closet momentarily now and again to denounce themselves and confess in front of the world.
This is not about any kind of ‘reparations’, or, about making anyone whole, but is simply about the hatred driven mass rape, murder, and genocide of European peoples in the truest sense of that much abused term.
And, in time, it is what is intended for most every other people besides.
http://www.heretical.com/miscella/sheehan.html
There is certainly some mystery going around how “Ancient Egyptians looked like” since on Egyptian frescos women are yellow, and men are red/brown (even pharaohs, so this is not simply a matter of working in the sun). The reason for this distinction is not known, but maybe Egyptians were once a mixed race in reality (and parts were shown through colours, so to say), or in some religious sense (like yin and yang maybe).
Well, if you are going to hang around certain message boards for a good amount of your day, you’re about likely to catch fish as casting your net in desert. Keep that up and I’ll be on wife #2 before you’ve hit the big 1. Maybe start hanging around places where the male to female ratio is more in your favor? You know your mother would agree with me; don’t you want to make her proud?
Make it your 2023 resolution.
Peace.
Emmanuel Todd seems to think Russia’s emphasis on mass production and effect allied to its hard science ephasis and lack of bullshit jobs inflating the GDP means America will fail in Ukraine in the long term. However, pace Todd I think Putin understood certain constraints required a quick resolution of the Ukraine operation. That was the plan.
The USSR’s military strategy always planned while assuming that America has the most complex (adaptable) and powerful productive capacity in the world, which could not be beat in a lengthy conventional war. The current war in Ukraine is a proxy one, but the old certainties still hold true. There are no more ex Soviet tanks, artillery or aircraft available in pro-Western countries to donate to Ukraine so they are going to have to be given F16s Abrams and Paladins eventually. The alternative would be to let Russia gain an absolute victory, which would be politial disaster for whoever was in the White House.
According to retired German general Erich Vad” If the war drags on, with no diplomatic effort emerging, if—as some believe was possible—Russia’s positions should become untenable under the buildup of Western weapons in Ukrain, the danger of sliding into a nuclear strike … would become imminent.”
The peril referred to is not really WW3 complete with nuclear exchanges (America is not going to fight that over Ukraine), but the victory of Russia. Putin is not impulsive, quite the opposite, but eventually he will realise with the SMI he bought a one way ticket–only one way to go. If you ignore all the fanfaronade and just look at the war, it becomes clear that Putin has to take a risk to win, because otherwise Russia will be humiliated.
MZB= Marion Zimmer Bradley?
Mists Avalon; 1980’s feminist Arthur &c. Girl on girl action!
The idea that medieval Europeans didn’t bathe was a myth:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-middle-ages-were-cleaner-than-we-think-11673535460
A longstanding myth holds that people in medieval Christian Europe didn’t bathe. In fact, the Middle Ages subscribed heartily to the adage “cleanliness is next to godliness.” Thinkers of the period considered physical beauty to represent spiritual purity, and they looked at hygiene in the same way: If one’s body was impure, it would by definition be unattractive and out of harmony. If it had any imperfections, one would best address them through cleansing. For women, in particular, cleanliness was one of the very highest virtues.
The daily wash usually involved collecting water in a ewer, heating it, then pouring it into a large basin to be used for scrubbing. Baths in a wooden tub would happen less often, given it was a world without plumbing. Water is heavy, and collecting it, heating it, and then getting it from the kettle into the bathtub was difficult. Baths also required space, which was at a premium in most households.
Luckily, there were a few ways to bathe outside the home. In warmer months, you could simply find a pond or a lake, and you were good to go. But in January this could be a problem, and that was where bathhouses came in. Bathhouses took the laborious and difficult work of drawing and heating water and monetized it. Most towns boasted at least one professional bathhouse, while cities played host to a number of competing establishments.
In Paris, a guild for bathhouse keepers set rules that bathkeepers had to abide by. Much like modern spas, they offered customers a cheaper “steam bath [for] two pennies; and if he bathes, [he] should pay four pennies.” To stand out in a crowded field, Parisian bathhouses employed criers to drum up business from women eager to put their best foot forward.
Rich women had a major advantage in bathing, since they could send servants to fetch and heat water. More luxurious households sometimes had rooms dedicated to bathing, and women with money to spare on travel visited famous bathing spots like Pozzuoli, outside Naples—a destination so famous that poems were written celebrating its virtues.
This emphasis on cleanliness was echoed in the bathing practices of Muslim communities in Sicily and on the Iberian Peninsula and the Jewish communities that were spread across medieval Europe. Bathing was an explicitly mandated part of Jewish custom and was required before the Sabbath. Women could bathe either in a public bathhouse, which would include steam and hot water, or in a cold-water mikveh, which was used for ritual purification. Meanwhile, Muslim women’s interest in the hammam is evidenced by the astounding number of surviving baths as well as by some pointed polemical tracts wherein Muslim men wondered what exactly women were getting up to while they were bathing, away from the prying eyes of men.
The emphasis on cleanliness led to a great medieval invention—soap. The earliest surviving written description of soap in Europe dates to the 4th century A.D., when Theodorus Priscianus, a physician in Constantinople, described a French product that was used for washing, especially the head. In the Italian-speaking lands, soap was being produced professionally and in great enough quantities that guilds of soap makers existed by at least the 7th century.
In the 12th century, the fine hard soaps of the Middle East began to be imported to Europe. “Hard” indicates that they were made with higher-quality ash, which yields lighter bars of soap, in contrast to darker “soft” soaps made with wood ash and lye, which was the norm earlier. Unfortunately, well-made soaps were a luxury that most women would never know. To fill the gap, they made their own cleansers at home, and they had a range of types to choose from. Soap recipes were common and included in “books of secrets”—manuals for women to make various beauty products, as well as medicinal items.
Specialist cleansing products were also available. Hildegard of Bingen, a 12th-century German mystic, had her own recipe for barley-water face cleanser, which she recommended for “skin, made harsh from the wind.” She assured worried women that after its use, “the skin will become soft and smooth, and will have a beautiful color.” Enterprising women were also advised to scent bathwater with herbs, or even concoct what we would call deodorants from hyssop and bay leaf.
Such small luxuries were likely in wide use, given that herb-scented water and homemade soap were not in short supply to those who made their homes on farms. Still, women from wealthier backgrounds had an easier time staying clean in their day-to-day lives. Peasant women were, after all, engaging in manual labor on farms all day, digging in crops and handling farm animals. Women from merchant or noble backgrounds were unlikely to come into contact with the same amount of dirt.
When physically laboring women strived for a clean ideal, they were attempting to emulate women from the sedentary classes. Medieval women of modest means couldn’t always live up to the era’s beauty ideals by giving themselves gray eyes or blond hair, nor could they reverse the aging process. But even working women could luxuriate in a weekly bath.
It’s only a “mystery” to outsiders who are unfamiliar with Middle Eastern phenotypes. Especially American ignoramuses who project their racial dichotomies (white/black) onto the Middle East. Everywhere in the Middle East, from Egypt to Iran, there is a duality of skin colors; some are brown and others are off-white; this holds true for peoples within the same ethno-religious group or even within the same family. The relative ratio of brown-to-white differs by class, ethnicity and region; in Egypt it tilts more brown than white.
This is Onsi Sawiris, patriarch of the wealthy Coptic Sawiris family:

This is his son Nassif:
Same family, ethnicity and race/genetics – different skin color.
Ancient Egyptian appearances are not a mystery to me; they look like modern Egyptians. The tomb paintings are readily recognizable to any Egyptian; the human brain is fairly good at facial recognition and can identify similarities in facial structures between paintings and real life individuals. I’ve written several posts on Egyptian genetics and phenotypes:
https://www.unz.com/isteve/egyptians-angry-at-kevin-hart-for-being-an-afrocentrist/#comment-5729767
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-170/#comment-5055550
Though there are no studies on this; it’s been my experience that Egyptian women are lighter on average than men, though with significant overlap. This would explain the tomb frescoes; though it should be noted that Ancient Egyptian women were depicted as both brown and yellow/white:

Should the so called ‘woke’ progressives ultimately prevail, and don’t first manage somehow to ultimately ‘Jonestown’ the entire Earth in an apocalyptic global mass murder suicide, you could very well be right.
One of the old 1960’s Star Trek episodes captured that potential future pretty well. The men are completely emasculated slaves, the women who rule have devolved into child like airheads, and everyone is dependent for someone, or something, other than themselves to do the thinking necessary to maintain their high tech society.
Starting at 1:32.
You are conflating crime with genocide. Your statistics are out-of-whack too.
https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2016/crime-in-the-u.s.-2016/topic-pages/tables/table-21
5,412 African-Americans were arrested for rape in 2016, total (not just black-on-white), accounting for 29% of total rapes in the US.
12,571 White Americans were arrested for rape, accounting for 67% of total rapes. Roughly 3,700 of those were Hispanic, the rest non-Hispanic whites.
Either you are misinformed, or are lying to reinforce your victim complex.
Crime is not the same as genocide. If African-Americans are over-represented in rape crimes; it’s because of their higher propensity for violence and lower average impulse control. There is no deliberate plan by a majority of blacks to genocide whites.
The so-called white genocide is largely self-inflicted; goody white liberals want to virtue-signal their openness and cosmopolitism by opening the doors to foreigners; whose main intent is to improve their standard of living, not genocide whites, you whiny nut.
US peaked when others went to war and America sent weapons. Russia’s idiotic invasion of Ukraine will benefit the USA to the detriment of itself and Europe, though this won’t be as great for the USA as World War II and the end of the Cold War were.
One must adjust for cost of living. USA has about 3.5x Chinese GDP/PPP per capita. That sounds about right.
Chinese live in tiny apartments and don’t have much. Americans have 4.5x as many cars per capita as Chinese. Overall spending on consumer goods per capita is a little over 6x more in the USA than in mainland China. That tracks to the nominal GDP. Assuming things are cheaper in China would track with GDP PPP.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_by_household_final_consumption_expenditure_per_capita
I think the US of 20 years ago could definitely have done something like that. The US of 10 years ago, probably. US of today? No chance.
You were posting about Iranic stuff awhile back so thought to share.
No IRL experience with Armenians so don’t know which side they swing toward.
MENA Christians & secular Shias hate brown Idpol & just aspire to white generally.
Afghans lean towards Panjab.
ie a MENA Christian is offended at ancient history, a Persian embarassed & an Afghan proud.
At least among those who grew up or lived here for awhile.
Kurds are trash
By racism I mean racially based antipathy against a group. If you think that Stephen Colbert and Nancy Pelosi hate “whites” as a group, you are totally wrong. These types of people live around and associate almost exclusively with other whites.
Remember the way the media lost their minds over the illegals being sent to Martha’s Vineyard, whereas they never cared about the busloads being sent to NYC or DC? That was because they took it so personally because Martha’s Vineyard is something they instinctively see as belonging to them, as white liberals. Remember how Samantha Bee fought tooth and nail to prevent black kids from being allowed to attend her children’s school? Do you know any white liberals who wouldn’t melt down if section 8 housing was put in their neighborhoods?
American politics is a (mostly) cold civil war between 2 groups of whites. It’s true that the lib group does use non whites in general and blacks in particular against nonlib whites, but I would never describe that as “anti white racism”.
Boorman also directed the 1974 film Zardoz in Ireland, where I believe he made his home. The film had a lot of Irish extras. Boorman’s comment about the young women extras was that he found it difficult to coerce them into exposing their breasts for his film.
I respect their modesty, even if he didn’t.
Forgot to mention that Afro-Caucasian hybrids are a good-looking bunch. That’s a key difference between them and pure blacks. Attractive “blacks” like Halle Berry and Beyonce are almost invariably admixed.
I know a Kenyan girl who is as pretty as they come. Initially I assumed she was of Indian descent, but later found out she had a Yemeni father.
https://neociceroniantimes.substack.com/p/ethnogenesis-has-created-two-white
https://neociceroniantimes.wordpress.com/2022/09/23/im-not-willing-to-live-with-lefties/
TLDR – He sees Left & Right as becoming two dif ethnos or nations ie shared culture, custom etc.
Blockquotes below, but really not necessary. I don’t know if I agree, and to me it doesn’t matter.
I think it makes more sense if we fold in the idea that some of the impetus for the Ukraine meddling is to reclaim and reimagine the Pale of Settlement.
Also, I have learned the Russia hatred is very strong in some people and trumps the practical calculations of risk and reward.
“Brain and brain, What is brain?!”
A classic TOS episode.
More people are starting to ask the same question it seems.
How old are you? Berry is a pretty average in most respects. exogamic interest is all well and good as a young man but, my dude, look at Prince Harry. He’s ruined himself hooked with oil drilling Black Pussy. Think of what awaits him or yourself in middle age.
What is the lineage for Nadia Ali (Urdu: نادیہ علی, Arabic: نادية علي;)
Born in Libya. Parents are Pakistani? Obviously, she assimilated to NYC.
PEACE 😇
___________
iiO – Rapture (Official Video)
Among the diaspora (which is all I can personally comment on frankly) there’s a big difference between (1) MENA emigrants who emigrated West during the Ottoman collapse, (2) those who left during the post 60’s convulsions in the Near-East, (3) Soviet emigrants, and finally very old and once sizable Eastern European diaspora from countries like Poland, Bulgaria and Romania.
Cultural differences of background are compounded by the fact that Western and Eastern Armenian are often only barely intelligible (I don’t know if Punjabi dialects differ from each other or Hindi/Urdu that much), or not at all for those in diaspora with a weak grasp of their ancestral language.
You could almost put each into their own area of the political compass with (1) being libertarian left, (2) being authoritarian left, (3) being authoritarian right and (4) being libertarian right.
Of course, that’s an oversimplication, but for example I think Dmitri could argue that nearly identical political dynamics can be seen amonst Jewish immigrants to Israel from equivalent background.. most notably Sovok-‘Jews’ being right of Ariel Sharon, as well as ensuring right-wing secularism in contemporary Israel stays above life-support levels.
There’s also similar phenonema in Armenian emigrants maintaining liberal politics at home whilst sponsoring Dashnak-inspired parties in Armenia itself. In a similar vein, there was a minor kerfuffle a few years ago when Armenia unveiled a statue of f Garegin Nzhdeh as one of the people’s national heroes. There was some internal controversy about going about this earlier, but ultimately diaspora voices were decisive.
He had quite a full life, he’s been compared to General Vlasov for the Russians, but I don’t think that’s quite fair.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garegin_Nzhdeh
That sounds almost exactly backwards to me. MENA Christian identity and sense of pride is almost entirely rooted in Ancient History.
Persians likewise are extremely proud of their antiquity and ancient statehood, sometimes to absurd levels. You can see it easily in that Iranians still retain from their past what is now an extremely inflated sense of pride, national importance and power (relative to their current position), in way that can only be equalled globally by the French (and I’m starting to think maybe now or soon Russians, sadly).
The only Afghans I’ve met IRL have almost all been Hazaras, so not exactly representative. Anyway as I said at length in an old post somewhere, prior to the late 19th Century, the only people who self-identified as Afghans were the Pashtuns, whom the (relative) lowlanders viewed as barbarians, whilst they themselves considered themselves Persians. More than half of the Shahnahmeh takes place in Khorasan rather than Fars and was written by what would be a Tajik today.
Millions of mostly Dari speakers have also emigrated to Iran since the 1970s, where their ‘bumpkin’ accent is often a figure of fun in local TV shows and movies (ironic because technically Dari is a much more conservative or ‘pure’ dialect of Persian than Farsi is).
If Afghanistan was a nation-state it would annex a large part of Pakistan whilst the south and west (certainly Herat) would rejoin Iran (who only lost Greater Khorasan under the Zand dynasty iirc, and then the Russians and British both prevented them from reacquiring it).
The only Kurd I knew well had practically a pathological hatred towards Arabs and anything related to them. Oddly he still considered himself a ‘cultural Muslim’ which I argued to him was a contradiction in terms… far more than Christianity being a ‘Jewish vehicle (which I certainly don’t buy, at least as anything intentional on their part, btw), Islam has Arab imperialism inextricably baked into it on the most fundamental level.
This is the most brilliant thing I’ve ever read in my life. Everything that I have been thinking for the last several years all put eloquently into a few paragraphs. Great stuff!
She looked good in the Flintstones. Hasn’t been anything special since.
A high-level observation that is not as true today. You are stuck with your shallow analogies (Hitler this and that…) – it is always different. In today’s situation US has a skin in the game and reputation to gain or lose. US will definitely do better than Europe, but if Russia wins they will be the biggest winner. Washington knows it – that’s why they have been so hysterical.
Why is owning 4-5 cars a benefit? Think about it. You have been brainwashed into thinking that more of the same is always better, 5 refrigerators, 3 smart phones, 4 cars…what benefit is it to the ‘owner’? He ends up living his life for the others, and for the goodies that he has to constantly maintain and manage. There is an optimal level of wealth and then there is pure mammon, assets for the sake of assets.
US has on a daily basis quite miserable living conditions: overly complex ‘private’ institutions that run your life, no security, low-quality unregulated food, no public infrastructure so you are dependent on multiple cars, bad schools, etc… But you are so brainwashed into thinking that garbage-food and TV (with 50% ads), and sitting for hours in traffic jams (but in your car!) is a good lifestyle that you probably won’t understand any of it.
Yes, and my response about the Black on White rapes, not to mention massive amounts of other Black on White crimes, was in response to your declaration that: ‘There is no real anti white racism.’
When Blacks leave their own neighborhoods deliberately seeking out White rape/crime victims that is real ‘racially based antipathy’.
[I should add here I see the term ‘racist’ as an artificial ‘loaded’ term, invented by people who don’t like the fact that races and ethnicities actually really do indeed physically exist, and hence I don’t use it. I say instead ‘abuse between peoples’, which along with many others of good will, I am against.]
Hispanics also often act as a group against Euros.
I broadly agree here, though we may well disagree about the details.
I see the template for this civil war was set when African chattel slaves were first imported by diktat during the first half of the 17th century by elites and hangers on in both the North and South of the British North American colonies, against the interest and well being of the vast majority who didn’t purchase or own slaves, and instead had to suffer grievously under this system.
You can’t serve two masters. These slaving elites and hangers on, who unfortunately seem to have been the dominant force politically within the Anglosphere, chose to serve their slaves, both chattel and wage, rather than their own people.
This slaving template continued on as before when in the early 19th century chattel slavery and it’s trade was monetized, rather than having been abolished, with the introduction of wage slavery, ie specifically the so called ‘cheap labor ‘/’mass immigration’ system.
From a financial point of view the ‘immigrant’ is the slave in this system, for whatever period of time (days, weeks, months, years) that he or she is paid significantly below what was, or what would of been, the prevailing real time local rates for the labor, without the immigration taking place, or the immigrant bring present.
According to ISW (I know they are hated on this site and I certainly don’t take their word as gospel, but they are worth listening to, imo) Putin has no interest in any sort of face saving partial victory. Putin wants the conquest of the entirety of Ukraine and to that end has begun the process of raising and equipping a one million man army that will be in theatre.
Can Ukraine hold up against such a force? I would think not. So I assume if it comes to this you would see Ukraine suddenly develop and air force flown by American “advisors” to prevent a collapse of the Ukrainian lines. Not really sure where this ends.
I don’t think so. The winner of this war will be the one that has clearer access to weapons and ammunition, not to the empty chest beating of a known Russian cheerleader like you, who for some reason has an unwarranted attachment to the former Soviet Union. Here’s a list of Ukraine’s neighbors that are providing more than pure lip service to Ukraine, but are backing up their intents with real support. This doesn’t even include the massive amount of support from the US, Canada and other countries outside of the European continent. Can you provide a similar list of countries helping to provide much needed supplies to Russia? It’s well known fact that Russia is seriously in need of military supplies needed to supply its war efforts. Where’s it going to come from?
https://i0.wp.com/epthinktank.eu/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/EPRS-AaG-729431-Delivery-weapons-military-aid-Ukraine-FINAL.png?fit=1024%2C617&ssl=1
Behold the White Tiger, come again. The Megatron.
The tale of Camelot is fundamentally about knights and chivalry, and includes ideas like protecting the weak and staying true to your love. In a romantic, or even an historical sense, these things are inseparable from Christianity, which is underlined by the fact that Medieval Europe then called itself “Christendom.”
Show me a pagan knight. There were none! And the most famous individual knights like Godfrey of Bouillon or Geoffroi de Charny were pious men. Meanwhile, the most famous groups of knights were religious orders, like the Templar and the Knights of St. John.
In Monmouth, Arthur says “… I, who remain faithful to my God… with the help of Christ.” He was rallying his troops.
Why put the Christian elements in, beyond reasons of authenticity? For the reasons they were there originally – to inspire.
Anyway, you might as well try to depict a samurai while cutting out Zen. I’m sure it can be done, but all it would do is show modernism creeping in.
Marion Zimmer Bradley. She wrote The Mysts of Avalon. Plays up the pagan angle. Really feminist and consequently pretty trashy. IIRC, at one point Guenevere is in bed with both Arthur and Lancelot, and it is hinted that they are both gay.
She was a bestselling author, but it has come out that she married a pedophile (which really makes her a weirdo), and helped him abuse their children.
Anyway, I think it takes a moral person to tell the tale properly. A Believer or at least someone who values Christianity. Not someone like Boorman, MZB, or Guy Ritchie (who should be disqualified for marrying Madonna alone).
Ukies are the people of the Dneiper & Bug and the Russians are the people of the Don & Volga. The Germans are the people of the Rhine & Elbe. Poles are People of the Vistula. The Danube is quite complex though. It’s split between Germans, Hungarians. Serbs and Romanians.
The complication is that the Don and Dnieper go to the Sea on each side of the Crimea.
Do you mean this ISW?
https://www.understandingwar.org/
If so, they are a content aggregator. One can “Find things on ISW”, however “According to ISW” is a bit of a misnomer. It is better to follow their copious footnotes to find the specific source they are quoting.
__
ISW efforts to pull together reports inside of Iran is near unique.
https://www.understandingwar.org/project/iran-project
The Fake Stream Media is uninterested and far too lazy to cover something that does not generate salable “sound bites”.
That sounds like something a Russia nationalist would say on RT. I am dubious about that as Putin’s actual thinking. Russia is going to have to pay for reconstruction on any territory they keep. Taking ALL of Ukraine, wrecking most of it in the process, is GW Bush thinking.
PEACE 😇
Thanks. I’ve seen that movie, or at least parts of it. Hadn’t realized it was filmed in Ireland, until now. Connery is Irish in his paternal line. I think that it an amusing scene at the end when they play Beethoven, and show him. (though I am not crazy about the movie.)
I think Boorman still lives in his old house in Ireland, with Daniel Day-Lewis, as his neighbor. That’s in Wicklow. One could consider it the most mountainy place near to Dublin. The stronghold of Fiach McHugh O’Byrne was there. And the Irish army (such that it is) does some of its training there.
Been to the area. Grasped a nettle there as a child, and I’ll not forget it.
I regret to say, it most likely has been enriched heavily, like seemingly all of rural Ireland in the current year.
I’m unmarried and in my early-to-mid 20s, so my interest in females is pretty high. My tastes are wide-ranging for now; so I don’t mind “looking” at females outside my own race. But if we are talking marriage, then I’d prefer someone from my own kind, which is Middle Eastern Caucasian. Incidentally that’s also the appearance I’m most attracted to. Something like Queen Rania or Amal Clooney would be the ideal spouse for middle age.
However, the term “exogamic” can be problematic in my context, since Egypt is somewhat mixed already. Is a Nubian girl such as the one pictured below outside of my ethnic group?
No, I know 2 girls in my social circle who are visibly black-admixed; both of them decently attractive; culturally they are identical and they carry themselves well. However, one of them is none too bright, and the other has an incompatible personality. So I won’t be marrying either; but theoretically I would be willing to marry a Nubian-Egyptian who is honest and intelligent. The only issue I can think of is the mild racism encountered by black-ish people in Egypt; though my experience is that hybrids are spared the treatment given to pure sub-Saharan. Anwar Sadat was the paramount leader of Egypt after all.
You needn’t worry about me making a hasty marital decision. I’ve been very conservative so far, rejecting 2 girls because they were not intelligent enough (a deal-breaker – I don’t want my kids to regress to the mean). Currently I’m looking at a half-German, quarter-Egyptian, quarter-Palestinian girl, though we are still in the initial phases. She’s as Caucasian-looking as they come, but Egyptian society also wouldn’t view it as necessarily intermarriage, and obviously the racism would be less than what is experienced by blacks.
She’s above-average in looks by normal standards imo. But sure, for a celebrity she’s nothing special.
@A123
What does this mean and how should I know?
Are you referring to her light phenotype?
There are a fair number of pure-bred Pakistanis who look like her.
I don’t think she’s Arab-admixed. Just born in Libya.
She’s nice-looking. High-caste Pakistani women are a good-looking bunch as well.
Since you aren’t interested, can I have her?
You also forgot to mention that this is your opinion, rather than a fact of reality; and an opinion in which, I must say, you seem deeply invested in propagandizing to others. Of course, you are perfectly free to hold any opinion any you like, evidence be damned. I would point out, however, that the case for your opinion isn’t made by cherry-picking a few examples, but by considering the average outcome of such pairings, which in my opinion is: not very impressive. Human beauty has been described, I think quite rightly, as “idealization away from the ape.” If you buy into that theory, then you can draw your own conclusions about the contribution the Africanus is capable of making towards its attainment.
That seems inconsistent with your other opinions. The difference between, say, the average Greek and the average German is rather less than the difference between Meghan Markle and, say, Robert Mugabe. But if somebody calls a Greek “white,” you insist that “no way buddy, tomaytoes is tomaytoes and tomahtoes is tomahtoes, two totally different things,” and you proceed to treat the blog to another of your pic-posting sprees to prove it. To be sure, the latter is an opinion I tend to agree with, but consistency would require me to likewise note the even larger differences between so-called “blacks,” rather than lump them all in the same category.
Blacks attack whites at rates vastly exceeding rates at which whites attack blacks. Utterly pointless to attempt to deny this.
And since whites are being systematically deprived of the conditions necessary for ongoing existence – ie their racial existence is being unfairly cut short – it makes sense to refer to it as a ‘soft genocide.’
Thanks.
To me she looks like a part British mix. Similar genetic concept to Halle Berry. I did not realize that Pakistani “exclusive caste” dynamics were strong enough to produce someone so atypical versus the average Pakistani phenotype.
I appreciate the information.
PEACE 😇
Interracial rape is almost exclusively one way traffic. Gang rape is almost exclusively a black practice.
Unlikely she has any British or recent European ancestry; it would’ve been mentioned in her bio. The reason why she looks Caucasian-y is because a horde of Aryans invaded and raped her ancestors 3,000 years ago (also some Iranian farmers migrated eastward even before that; but that’s less exciting). As mentioned, her phenotype is not unique among Pakistanis or North Indians more generally. It doesn’t constitute the majority; but nor is it exceptionally rare like the Kalash phenotype. And South Asia’s population is extraordinarily large (2 billion people) such that even if “only” 5% of them had a light, Aryan-shifted phenotype; that would amount to 100 million people.
I’ve encountered a fair number of high-caste Hindus who share this light phenotype as well; because they alongside Pakistanis are significantly Indo-European admixed, to a rate of 15-25%+, depending on region and caste. Sometimes the Aryan genes can make itself visible externally; other times the Australoid component predominates. There’s significant variation even within families. Generally the higher classes/castes would be more Caucasian on average. But there’s overlap to some extent.
Of course the caste-dynamics are strong enough; this is the Indian subcontinent we are talking about 🙂 . In Pakistan the caste system is not outwardly acknowledged due to the influence of Islam; but from what I gather it continues in a covert manner. The caste system has merely been replaced with the class system. The villagers in Pakistan probably wouldn’t murder a man for eloping with a woman from a lower class (though this has happened before: https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/08/opinion/l-pakistan-certainly-has-a-caste-system-224690.html); but there are strong social barriers to marrying downwards.
Nadia Ali isn’t even the lightest or most atypical-looking Pakistani. There are some who look very Middle Eastern, even Southern European. Some of them claim ancestry from Turks, Persians or most commonly, Arabs; but genetic evidence indicates that almost all “Syed” claims were made up; and that little to no traces of Arab ancestry exist among Pakistanis or other South Asians. They are merely South Asians who happen to be on the very edge of the phenotypic distribution. They also happen to be disproportionally selected for the screen by Bollywood, owing to their physical beauty, as for example Iqra Aziz:
It’s one of my favorite phenotypes, perhaps because it’s close to the Middle Eastern one; yet slightly exotic.
But the typical lower-caste North Indian/Pakistani looks a bit more like the Sabri Brothers:
This one is one of my least favorite phenotypes 🙂
The land helps, but there are resource poor places like Japan that do very well. Also resource rich places like South Africa and Ukraine that are a disaster.
A useful indicator seems to be world manufacturing leadership.
In the first part of the 19th century, Great Britain was the world’s leading manufacturer (coal, iron , steam power, railways) and at the time was called the “Workshop of the World”. Not coincidentally it was the world’s leading power.
In the first part of the 20th century, the United States displaced Britain to become the world’s leading manufacturer (mass production, electricity, chemicals, radio, oil, internal combustion engine) and in turn became the world’s leading power. There was that challenge from Germany but it was resolved.
In the first part of the 21st century, China has displaced the US as the “Workshop of the World” and is gathering to itself the consequent wealth and power (Belt and Road Initiative and world trade – commodities and finished goods).
So China is apparently doing to the US what the US did to Great Britain. Britain’s one time “Workshop of the World” (the North of England – Manchester, Birmingham, Leeds, Sheffield and Glasgow, Scotland) still exists but it’s a depressed post-industrial wasteland.
The two great blows that finished Great Britain were WW1 and WW2 so a WW3 could finish with the US. Changes in world manufacturing leadership do seem to lead to changes in world political leadership + produce particularly dangerous times.
Man, you shouldn’t read this story through details but details through story.
It cannot be really Christian story because it would prove Christianity to be powerless against pagan Merlin and Morgana.
The term “knight” is rather about understanding of listeners of the story than about story itself… since Arthur was to live in the Dark Age after Romans, in reality “knight” should be Latin “comes” probably.
Anyway, knights were part of secular feudal system, not of clergy. In practice, they never refused to fight even if fight was unjust and did not defend the poor.
How old were you when you saw it? I first saw it at eleven or twelve, and was immediately smitten. Of course, I wasn’t looking for the fulfillment of a national mythology, I was simply into all sorts of medieval-y, adventure-y, fantasy things, and Excalibur completely fit the bill. (‘Sword of the Valiant’ 1984, was another. Bit cheesy, but lots of fun. Sean Connery, John Rhys-Davies, little screen time but big impact.)
I didn’t like the portrayal of Merlin at first, and I thought the young Arthur was too dorky, but I grew to appreciate both with further watching. I agree that Guinevere could have been prettier, although she did play the role quite well.
The ending was a bit of a letdown, made up for by the several powerful scenes. I agree with you about the scene when Arthur hands over Excalibur to be knighted by his foe. (Charlton Heston freeing the Moorish prisoners in El Cid had a similar impact on me.)
To me though, all that was secondary to the evocative imagery coupled to the sublime soundtrack. Just magnificent. If there’s ever anything like it again, I fear it won’t be for a long, long time.
I’m not sure anyone could have done a whole lot better though. Given the subject matter and the scenery as it was, I think there was easily enough there to satisfy the deepest yearnings of blood and soil nationalist types, the kind who feel themselves so at one with the land they know each owl, each fox, each blade of grass by name.
It can’t be properly Christian since too much of it contravenes Christian doctrine. But thematically, it’s imbued with Christianity. Sin, repentance and atonement; good triumphs over evil; and Morgana’s magic is undone by the holiness of the Grail. In fact, the entire arc of the story can be read as the displacement of paganism by Christianity. Lest anyone miss it, Merlin even put it explicitly to Morgana: “The days of our kind are numbered. The one God comes to drive out the many gods. The spirits of wood and stream grow silent. It’s the way of things. It’s a time for men and their ways.” (I struggled with this part as a kid. I was a good Christian, but dammit, I wanted there to be magic, and spirits, and elves, and dragons, lol.)
Yes, but when Merlin says that he is really more like a prophet; his statement does not reflect on the story. The altar and ceremony are very unorthodox too, and Mary is lacking as well.
Grail is ambiguous: in the movie, it is never really said it is Christian relic. Anyway, even within Christian framework a relic could help a pagan. However, even within Christianity the Grail is kind of ambiguous – it is the alleged relic of Christ blood which has never been found, and whose name really comes from “royal blood” /”sangre real” , sometimes referring to the heretic idea that Jesus lived with Mary Magdalene and their children ( (the real sangre real) in France. Since Grail finally helps Arthur, you could say Arthur is of royal blood too: it confirms his kingship.
My comment no. 321 was an answer to you. There was some time-out on unz website and it wasn’t registered as such.
Brown ID in North America is entirely rooted in post 9/11 so in that case it makes sense.
ie Pathan (Afghan) being too dumb to not be proud & the rest pretending to be White.
Yea, we consider the real Persia to be Khorasan & Tajik/Pashto.
@yahya Women belong behind the veil, don’t answer these qs.
Doesn’t this Jericho guy of 9000 years look a bit like Sabri brothers when with beard and hair…? His skull was so deformed in the way once popular in Mezoamerica (head flattening) that it was originally classified as female ! I reckon that without deformations he would be even more Sabri-like.
Even though some important characteristics could be viewed directly on the outside of the model and others internally, with the aid of radiological imaging exams, it was only with computed (micro)tomography exams that more important data could be observed. Among these data, we note those related to gender and artificial remodeling (deformation) of the skull. Due to this alteration, the skull had originally been classified as female,
https://ortogonline-com.translate.goog/doc/pt_br/OrtogOnLineMag/5/Jericho.html?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp
Here he is:
To present the work of facial approximation, the authors opted for two approaches. A face with more objective elements in grayscale, containing only the face, expression marks to show age and the action of the climate on the skin, with eyebrows and eyelashes, but without hair or beard and with eyes closed ( Fig. 45 ). Such an image is quite didactic in the context of presenting the artificial deformation of the skull, both from the profile, where it is most notorious, and from the frontal view.
https://ortogonline-com.translate.goog/doc/pt_br/OrtogOnLineMag/5/_images/Jeri_4.jpg?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp
A rendering (final image) was also generated with more speculative elements, such as hair, beard, skin pigmentation and eyes open ( Fig. 46 ). It was not the objective that such an image represented the individual in life with total accuracy, but only a basis according to the climatic characteristics of the region. These identification elements are more significant when used for presentation to the general public, which is mostly not experts in forensic sciences.
https://ortogonline-com.translate.goog/doc/pt_br/OrtogOnLineMag/5/_images/Jeri_5.jpg?_x_tr_sch=http&_x_tr_sl=pt&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=pt-BR&_x_tr_pto=wapp
He does yes, would look even more like them if his face was browner.
You opened a pandora box by posting a facial reconstruction.
This is a cool one of South Asian modal phenotypes.
Ukies:
Yamnaya:
Roman Emperors:
Nefertiti:
The picture of Jericho guy without hair looks like Egyptian priest, kind of. Well, upper class Egyptian also practiced head flattening.
What is amazing is that not only he looks like a Paki, but that head flattening tradition still exists in Pakistan… and it existed in the South of France as late as the beginning of the 20th century.
Traditional communities in Pakistan have
been aware of this phenomenon in term
infants for many generations. Among rural
people as distant as the Pathans of northern
Baluchistan and the desert dwellers of south
east Sindh, mothers specifically seek to
modify the shape of their babies’ heads.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/8110018/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Artificial_cranial_deformation#Europe
That beckons the question: did all those cultures stem from one larger pre-Indoeuropean culture…?
In such a case, deformations in Europe could have originated in these older cultures and through phenotypes associated with them (eg. South of France has more of them than the rest of France).
Anyway, it is amazing how it does continue. A meme goes on and on through thousands of years…
https://compactmag.com/article/the-nihilism-of-the-ruling-class
https://graymirror.substack.com/p/the-january-fever
Interesting, when the goddess Isis is yellow, her female companion is red…
Maybe yellow had to do with some (semi)religious role of woman, some sort of special association with gods like in Minoan culture…
Anything Russia gains will be largely destroyed and depopulated and Russia won’t have the population or the resources to restore it, while its military would be depleted for several years. Ukraine’s western neighbors would at least gain a lot of young educated people, improving their demographics.
You falsely claimed that Chinese did not have several times less money per capita than Americans so I provided a concrete example that disproves your claim.
So now you change the subject to why someone should need so many things and why too much wealth is bad. Maybe it is, but that wasn’t the point.
Suicide rate is lower than in many Euro social democracies though.
1. Security depends on population. American whites experience crime at Visegrad levels.
2. Americans don’t want public transit because they have a big country that allows them to spread out and have private lands and they can easily afford many cars.
3. As for schools, American school kids of European descent outperform most Europeans and American universities continue to be among the world’s best.
You are right about the good but that’s a cultural thing going back to the first settlers, the Puritans and Quakers thought fine foods were sinful so America didn’t develop a nice culinary tradition. Still, if one looks one can find excellent food in the USA.
Fine, keep on looking, it is a big country, you have all those cars to drive around…quite a life, to each his own. My point about the food was the lack of any meaningful regulation in US resulting in what can be termed as ‘manufactured garbage’ food that masses consume – we see it in the overall health, life expectancy below Europe or parts of Asia, horrific fatness, and the bloated swollen faces of most Americans eating that sh..t.
You like to separate the European-descent parts into its own category. That is deceptive, Americans are heavily mixed, live together, share their lifestyles. Also only 55-65% are “European” and that totally skews any comparisons – as if we would only consider Northern Italy, or Moscow-St.Petersburg-Sochi in Russia, or only Western Poland. You don’t get to do that: US is all of its people, good, bad, and always fat…
Suicide in the Euro Scandie countries is high, but it has nothing to do with ‘social-democracy’ or weather. Scandies are strange, disconnected people, they seldom understand reality and have a hard time accepting real life. They are the most propagandized people in the world, pathologically conformist, and very uninteresting – you can only look for the Russian submarines, watch endless “Russian-invasion” TV shows, genuflect in front of Eritreans, give lame ‘prices’ to psychotic murderers when ordered by the bosses across the sea, and worship teenage hysterics for so long. There comes a time when it dawns on an average Sven that he is living in a comfortable but sh..tty life as an appendage to his betters, so he departs early…
I wonder what their Hutus and Tutsis look like. Is there any decent CGI of a machete attack on the terrorized smaller neighbor tribe?
Have you ever watched Hotel Rwanda?
Before my wife and I were a thing, I was in the market for a wife and one of the young women I met was Pakistani and of the fair complexion, could easily have passed for Latina. One of the cutest smiles I have ever seen (mashaAllah), I can still close my eyes and see it. Everything was fairly compatible, but one big thing – she was more into the political scene (Hizb it-Tahrir kind of stuff) and was totally off-put by Sufism.
Another one (from Indian background) looked very much like an amalgam between the Bengali and Sri Lankan prototypes – absolutely gorgeous eyes (mashaAllah) and she had this wonderful habit of bashfully covering her mouth when she laughed…one of the most beautifully feminine traits I have ever come across. I lost out to a better man on that one.
That was quarter of a century ago, I hope they are both doing well.
Wa salaam.
True, I agree with your analysis…I would add that for a few decades around 1900 it was Germany that aspired to the world mfg leadership. We have something to look forward to: the voluntary abandonment by US of its mfg role in the last 20-30 years was a selfish (by the elite) and very stupid (by the whole society) move, now for the consequences…it will be volatile.
Japan is not that great, you feel the lack of resources on every step, a disciplined, regimented but quite poor country. People in Tokyo or Osaka have never lived as well as people in Prague or Budapest – AP can count the cars and washing machines all he wants, the daily lives of most Japanese have always been much worse.
S Africa and Ukieland suffer from bad demographics. I have in the past hesitated to say it about the Ukies and used to assign their misfortunes to bad location and bad luck – Germans, Russians, Poles, Tatars wanted their resources – but this latest instance of mass stupidity suggests that there is something actually wrong with the people – they don’t accept themselves, yearn to be elsewhere, lack self-preservation and basic IQ skills like ‘anticipate consequences!‘ Sad people marching towards oblivion, dying needlessly for what they don’t get (the Nato-Ukraine project), others moving westward to do menial jobs (and worse). Most are bitter, confused, with an escapist mentality of lost souls.
It looks like the catastrophe that has been Ukraine is largely due to their under-developed mentality – they remind me of the American natives when the Spanish came. This time the Anglos don’t even have to exert themselves and risk going there: Ukies die on their own and send their women to the admired West nicely packaged…who the f..k does that? What kind of self-respect can these people have? And all of it managed by the conductor-clown in his Kiev bunker…simply precious…
Paul Kagame has been President for 20 years and Rwandan percapita GDP is still under $1000.
Talha have you ever had the pleasure of meeting Zia Inayat Khan?
In Jason Jorjani’s Aeon Byte interview yesterday he said the nukes are going to all fly before 2030 and the earth will be down to less than 2 billion people at the very most and headed down rapidly.
It is a counterpoint to Copeland’s Game of Nations. This is a book with much positive stupid chatter. It is very boring but Copeland makes the argument that the guys on top are allowed any indiscretion so long as the nuclear missiles stay inside their solos. Larceny, rape, murder implicitly included. But. If you have not read the book do not bother.
James Bond 007 was Fleming’s booze-addled fantasy. Real life agents are the dullest human beings ever.
Hi Blinky,
No, sorry – can’t say that I have.
Peace.
I concur.
The consequences of the WUHAN-19 virus (e.g. trade disruptions) put huge focus on the absence of U.S. domestic manufacturing.
I know I have said it before, but… MAGA Reindustrialization is the answer. America needs to:
• Return to energy independence (driven by nuclear and hydrocarbons)
• Extract and refine its own mineral wealth (e.g. rare earth elements)
• Produce goods essential to overall national security (including pharmaceuticals, microchips, etc.)
Slowly ramping up tariffs on all imports would be good for U.S. citizen workers. Gradual decoupling from Asia (not just China) is an achievable goal.
PEACE 😇
It’ll be two million and only aim at conquering the Eastern half up to the Dnieper. I know Col. Girkin advocates reuniting all Ukraine with Russia, but he is a romantic tolerated for his prior contribution. Taking West Ukraine would give Russia a border with Poland and a counter insurgency problem in a huge area with a very hostile population.
Putin started off aiming for a Russian alliance with Germany, but the Germans going along with the ‘Ukraine will join Nato’ announcements between 2007 and 2021 has made him realise that Russia has to break with the West, and the invasion has certainly accomplished that, which may have been the result of miscalculation by him, but deep down is maybe what he wanted the most.
Most Americans are satisfied with crap food and they get what they want. But one can also get good food if one wants, it isn’t hard to find.
Overall US life expectancy is higher than that of your Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, the Baltics, etc.
Life expectancy is dragged down somewhat because the highly segregated Black people keep shooting one another, unfortunately.
The life expectancy of European Americans is almost a year higher than for Slovakia.
Because America is highly racially segregated, particularly with the descendants of slaves. Although Euro Americans like Black music they live in different cities or neighborhoods in large cities and lead separate lives and radically different lifestyles (64% of Black parents are unmarried compared to 24% of Euro parents), speak differently, etc. Intermarriage rates are low.
I don’t have time to calculate stats for Europeans + Asians + Latinos who mix more often, so I just use Euro-American statistics.
It would be inaccurate to lump such different groups together.
If the differences between Northern and Southern Italians were as stark as between Euro Americans and African Americans it would indeed make sense to consider them separately. But they aren’t. Indeed, America also has regional as well as racial differences. New England Euros are probably more different from Southern ones than Swedes are from Danes. Certainly more so than Brits are from Australians.
I now looked it up and I was mistaken when I said suicide rate was lower than in many Euro social democracies – the suicide rate for Euro Americans in 2020 was actually even higher than among Scandinavians. In Europe, only Russians, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians (in that order) have higher suicide rates then do Euro Americans. Though Belarusians and Latvians are nearly tied. Though I haven’t seen Scandinavian stats by ethnicity, I suspect native rates are higher than Somali ones.
.
Thanks for posting this many years ago.
No.
What did you make of it?
No problem, Blinky! There are, of course, many lectures out on the subject, but that particular one seemed to me to be one of the more concise and relatable to native English speakers…assuming one is interested in learning about the more knowledge-based and sober Sufi approaches.*
Peace.
Of course, there’s always this approach…that needs little explanation – just uncles keeping limber and hanging out at the mosque after prayer:
I just don’t think you can take it out of the era. Haven’t seen a good attempt at it. (2004 film was bad).
OTOH, if you leave it in the era, but drop the Christianity, then it comes across as atheistic. How will Arthur show his faith, but by evoking God? We don’t have a good feel on Brythonic religion, so it would be obvious LARPing to try to replace Christianity.
Anyway, I’m not convinced that the story has an origin in pagan times. It doesn’t have the same feel as things like Beowulf or the Fenian and Ulster Cycles.
This is only heterodoxy. I do grant that the story has pagan elements. But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a Christian story. There were lots of pagan elements in everyday life in Christian Europe.
Do you really want a King Arthur story without knights, castles, and chivalry? Isn’t that its charm and what makes it special? And isn’t it the best exemplar or archetype of that era, in terms of myths?
Secular, yes. But not in the sense it is used today. Not atheistic.
I descend from a line of Norman knights. In their own family book, one of them is said to have made regular oaths invoking his local church. Meanwhile, the progenitor of the line is said to have taken his name from swearing fealty to a saint on whose saint’s day he fought some difficult battle against Vikings. Probably the story is apocryphal, but the point is that it was a story that resonated with them.
Well, the myth is idealized. It was never supposed to be a perfect depiction of what was. But at a minimum there is a big distinction between stationary bandits and roving ones.
And one more fimiliar to the Unz commentariat.
We don’t?
“Wicker Man” is a reconstruction which includes pagan dancing in circles, cult of fertility & phallic symbols, sacred prostitution, masked carnevale cortege preceding human sacrifice, and of course, human sacrifice itself which gave the movie its title.
In this way, you can have it EITHER way.
Wasn’t it you who wanted it to be true to its time…?! Now aesthetics is more important to you.
Medieval virtue signalling, not religious feelings. Well, how many of your progenitors embarked on any serious pilgrimage?
Just few days ago I read a chapter in the book where the author claimed that Konrad II (emperor of Germany) was a truly religious person because he didn’t just fund churches but made detours during his journeys in order to visit tombs of martyrs.
Caught a few scenes of it at about that age, but that was towards the end of the movie – its weakest part, IMO. It was only about 2-3 years ago that I watched the full film and saw the good parts.
Haven’t seen it.
Another one I haven’t seen, been meaning to watch it.
Oh, definitely. It was a product of its time, and that is one of the things that makes me a bit sad about it. It had a European stamp on it. It didn’t feel as deracinated as a Hollywood production, or many things shot in Western Europe today. And I wish there had been more films like that, of a higher quality than the standard B-movie fare.
A while back we just had The Green Knight, starring an Indian. Haven’t seen it, but I doubt there has ever been a greater act of cultural vandalism, at least in terms of film. To go straight to Indian, in something that obviously has ancient and pagan roots. Standard disclaimer: wouldn’t care if it had been a Bollywood film, but the offense is that it passed itself off as a European one.
You may be right.
There weren’t really any shots that rubbed me the wrong way, like when you see an arid California backdrop that is meant to be a forest in Britain (notable in The Adventures of Robin Hood 1938, which isn’t a bad film) – they didn’t have that.
Guess I am kind of a weirdo, but I have an obsession with streams. I’ve spent a lot of time near them, and thinking about them, so I have an unnaturally high romantic view of them.
In reality, I brought them up more because I was thinking of the Táin Bó Cúailnge. If that story were ever adapted to the screen, I think there would need to be a hyper focus on selecting the best location shots for river and stream crossings, and even the flow of the water.
A lot of the shots would be technically pretty difficult. Must be hard to do stunt work in such places, sometimes the rocks can be as slippery as ice.
I don’t know why but I thought you are Asian.
So do you consider yourself French Norman or British Norman, Sire?
The last movie remembered by me where Norman identity was accented was “Robin of Sherwood” TV series. I remember Sheriff wondering once about who is who and Guy of Gisborne answering to that with great certainty “We are Normans, my Lord!”.
Am sorry to hear about the forced ‘enrichment” of Ireland by colonists and settlers, whereby (alas!) the Plantation lives on.
Zardoz as a film is certainly a bit offbeat and odd.
I enjoyed the scenery of the Irish countryside, and the lake was surreal.
And, of course, any film featuring the luscious Charlotte Rampling can’t be all bad. 😀
He’s a generic Irish-American who likes to LARP as a Brit and “European” (with a strange attachment to Germany). He may have a Norman ancestor or two, but there’s nothing Norman about him.
The intrigue of Not-The-President Biden’s family grows even worse.
• Hunter paid ~$50K/mo in rent to The Big Guy
• Ooops, that income wasn’t on The Big Guy’s income tax return
Would you like to guess what is next: (1)
It is now full cover up mode. One wonders if Not-The-VP Harris, or her people, are somehow driving this along.
Biden’s shambolic performance where he could not remember the name of his own SCOTUS appointment is also a serious problem. Offending the DNC base is possibly the one “unforgivable transgression” in Democrat party politics.
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2023/01/17/joe-biden-removed-tax-returns-from-website-and-we-have-questions-n1662417
Could it be a reference to Star Trek’s Norman?
PEACE 😇
I know of something that could certainly rival it. A few days ago I came across a relatively new David Copperfield film which went to great lengths to be historically accurate in regards to mid 19th century Victorian England.
The actor playing the part of Copperfield was an Indian.
Yes, Zardoz was pretty good. Interesting play on the theme of Indo-Europan invaders and their “sky father” too…
But I don’t think that real gods like Zeus & company would enjoy the depiction of sky-riding “gods” as weak and clothed by some Minoans-inspired fashionistas. After all, the former were the gods of the sky, whereas Minoans served the gods of Earth…
The main character was named “Zed”… Putin saw it?!
See the marcopolousa report. 9 documented Joe felonies and 450 documented Hunter felonies on one computer that Hunter used for a couple years. These people are criminals.
So is just about everybody else with a position in Washington. But here is a case with hard drive evidence.
I have not watched it. I did read this book:
It held my interest while I was reading it but I gave it away at the first opportunity. To this day I have not found a good mnemonic for keeping track of was it the Hutus who did the Tutsis or Tutsis who did the Hutus.
People often seem to think I am an Anglo or an Asian. I just find it amusing. Actually, I am (ethnically) Irish. America is my home, and part of my family has been here for a while, though none were settlers.
Probably the Normans were only a small input of my blood (would guess maybe 4-8%), but they were an interesting group. Though, honestly, I am probably more fascinated by the native clans (which history I can also trace a little to). It is just that more survives directly from this one Norman family who kept their lands until very recently, so there is more of a cultural stamp on it, than the cold history of the annals.
Traditional Irish clan-fighting is probably not very knight-like. Supposedly, they did not use stirrups on their horses, and I can well believe it because one annalistic reference has a native ancestor falling off his horse three times. (that is when he was quite old).
Never saw it, but you better bet they believed in their identity (that is as English), at least the ones in the Pale.
No idea, the Norman book was only written in the 1500s, probably in the time of Henry VIII. There are two annalistic references to native Irish ancestors going to the Cathedral of Santiago – not an easy journey back then. But I imagine the common people satisfied themselves with local pilgrimages to sacred wells, etc, which were a very prominent feature of Irish life well into the 1800s, or later. It wasn’t virtue-signaling but the heartfelt faith of very poor people.
1.) none of that would fit into or improve the King Arthur Mythos
2.) folk horror just shows how progressives hate and fear rural folk
3.) in the movie, it is actually the rootless, immoral elite who, being newly transplanted to the area, introduces this faux religion, displacing the native traditions.
Maybe, I am not communicating clearly, so let me be clear:
I recognize that there are pagan elements in the story. But I think they are a combination of medieval-era invention and incorporation of older, pagan-influenced but unrelated folklore. I think the thing as a whole – the true birth of the Arthur mythos – was in medieval times and that it has a medieval stamp on it. Those times were fusionist and people told folk stories that had a pagan origin, went to holy wells which had a pagan origin, had various beliefs and pagan customs, while simultaneously being Christians and having a faith in Christ.
It wasn’t just some empty display of the elite. The traditional greeting in Ireland was “God with you” and the reply was “God and Mary to you.” Today, people have a hard time relating to that or believing it was possible. I think that just makes it a more compelling reason to depict it or to experience it in art.
I find the idea that the myth of King Arthur existed in pagan times in any easily recognizable form to be spurious. On the whole, it just doesn’t have the characteristics. King Arthur doesn’t take up Excalibur because he wants to become a warrior of undying fame. In fact, he never dies. Avalon, to me, is thematically Christian – it represents the resurrection.
Even one of the bad parts of it, him loading babies on some barge because he was afraid of the prophecy with Modred, strikes me as being related to Old Testament stories. The search for the Grail is quite Christian. There’s an annalist reference to one of my Irish ancestors winning a battle and retrieving some holy relic. Is there anything like that in Greco-Roman history?
I’ve said I do think there are good pagan stories. Just that I don’t think that King Arthur is one of them. Sure, someone could try to do a fully pagan interpretation, I just don’t think it would work anywhere near as well as some other obviously pagan story, or trying to invent a new story with pagan themes.
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-64300190
So all Europeans should be particularists and only appreciate and work to defend their own country, and not cooperate? And refrain from admiring or having any interest in other European countries? Even neighboring ones like the UK to Ireland? Or core strategic heartlands like Germany?
Please, explain your reasoning.
would Russia take Kiev in this scenario or would Kiev remain part of rump Ukraine?
Same guy, I think.
It’s weird. I know that there are physical subsidies for introducing diversity in video games, made in the UK.
Things like this make me believe that the same thing is true of film. But I’m not 100% sure of it. A lot of the audience in the UK would be Indian now, and maybe India is a big secondary market?
I thought you were Asian because you kind of clung to this idea of “Christian Arthur” in the way an Asian who took a course in “European culture” could. No offense 😉
What’s the Pale?
1.) none of that would fit into or improve the King Arthur Mythos
I disagree. Arthur’s knights sit around circle, a symbol more pagan (eg. Basque lauburu) than Christian.
The entire Lancelot arc looks like taken from some troubadour “Story of Rose”; but is kind of pagan as a story of overwhelming passion and extasy: actually a Dionysian theme, not Christian at all. Ginevre has never really been punished and did not go to monastery too – this is not patriarchal Christianity. Ginevre is like a capricious pagan deity (no one can punish here) aka Aphrodite who must be pleased otherwise you lose your kingdom (almost) – Arthur does not please her enough. Morgana is like Artemis – dark, scheming and without husband; you need to neuter her with another god, i.e. Graal/Christ.
Perceval is kind of Christian – he is meek (does not feel Grail mission is for him in the first place) but has great faith and perservance which enables his quest.
What I disliked in “Excalibur” is that any knight who is not Lancelot or Perceval is just a cipher, maybe with a name. This is not really story of the “Round Table”.
It is not really horror. At least for me, it works as a comedy almost until the end.
You are partly right here, concerning elite, but what were those “native traditions”…?
You can’t serve two masters. It is called hypocrisy and is starkly condemned in Bible in “Revelation” as well as in “Letter of St Jude”. Why aren’t you getting angry but complacent with these crypto-pagans when simultaneously defending the Arthurian myth from the charge of paganism…?
This is doublethink.
In Southern Germany people still greet themselves with “Gruess Gott” but IT IS an empty display.
I tested this bringing some religious theme when I didn’t agree with something a person said and they were so compartmentalized that they thought it was ridiculous.
History of relics starts in Late Roman Empire.
I think that would be too difficult. Russians are now avoiding going into cities to root out defenders, who are in tower apartment blocks as well as basements, but prefer operationally encircling them instead. Encircling Kiev would entail crossing onto the West Bank with extremely heavy fighting through fortifications with fragile cross riverine logistics; Russians on the West Bank would also be defending on a reversed front while attacking the city in the opposite direction. A pretty tall order.
In Mysts of Avalon for one she is banished to a nunnery. There must be a thousand different versions of these stories by now. It’s like Greek or Roman mythology; there isn’t any one canonical version authorized by the church or Marvel Comics.
None taken. I think my moniker might evoke something vaguely Chinese? (though I’m not completely sure why) Someone correctly guessed its origin once, but repeating it would just cheapen the feat.
This was the fortified area around Dublin, named after a long wall which the English set up to prevent the raids of the native Irish. Some of the Norman families who lived outside it are said to have “degenerated”, or to have taken up many of the customs of the native Irish, intermarrying with them and sometimes making war on the English. But the ones inside it (such as the family I referred to) seem to have had a pretty clear identity.
Yes, I felt the same way.
A lot of the popularity of the original stories was in the different knights. I think Gawain is deserving of his own serious treatment, and some popular knights from medieval times, like Nicholas (who was a Greek), I don’t ever recall seeing depicted. To do it justice, I think it would really need to be a high-budget ensemble TV show, or else a series of movies, where you could focus the point of view on different knights.
Some say that was just the French trying to cuck the English, by writing it into the story.
It is very amusing. The ’70s were so strange that I am not completely certain if it was meant to be funny or not, but I’m guessing it was.
Early life history check on the writer:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthony_Shaffer_(writer)#Early_life
Pretty reasonable to suppose that one of my GG grandmothers was traveling to one of these thinly-disguised pagan wells into the early 1900s and completing the particular rites of the site there. My sympathies are more with the attitudes of the Celtic Church, on a lot of things.
I for one have always appreciated imaginative stories that resonated in the past, though I know a lot of people don’t like myths or folk stories.
Bavaria used to have crucifixes up on the walls of every public school classroom, until recently. (believe it made them more resistant to the cult of personality around Hitler) But think it was some judge who ruled that they had to take it down, if one student objected, which I am sure happened a lot as each classroom is filled with migrants who are not even nominally Christian. Of course, it is an absurd rule.
Sounds like a dangerous jinx.
I still see Kiev becoming a city-state, roughly like Berlin or Hong Kong. It remains the major regional cultural and economic center but is out of the loop as far as regional government is concerned.
If they allow the issue of Biden family crimes to become something substantial we may be looking at President McCarthy before the end of the year.
I think VP Harris is too dumb even for her handlers to put up with. Biden will get sick and resign for health reasons (the ‘Omega’ variant). Kamala will resign for no apparent reason and no one on the entire planet will care.
Kevin will hold the fake reins just long enough to get blamed for the destruction of the dollar, loss of Ukraine and the subsequent limited nuclear war.
My Magic Eight Ball does not have a prediction for the new VP.
There, now I feel better!
Whaaa….. I am supposed to be the “Wild One”…
McCarthy would have to grant J6 Pardons. The pressure to terminate 100% of the FBI’s Baltimore and Headquarters/DC senior staff would be almost irresistible.
Not-The-VP Harris has better mental function than the current lobotomite. The risk to the Deep State is that she might try to set policy. Presumably they have an “Appleby” plan for that contingency.
PEACE 😇
A123 is seriously giving me the heebeejeebies.
It is like some twisted, chilling horror story. All this time it has been an act. He’s only been playing at being MAGA, so he can work through some evil hoodoo incantation.
He writes Not-the-president Biden 200x, probably using 200 keyboards from the IRS that he got in a lot off ebay.
Then he dons a Rastafarian hat, starts smoking cannabis, and drinking tea, while playing movies from Bollywood in the background. Switches his incantation to Not-the-VP Harris, knowing full well that the conjunction will promote the whore and bring her into power.
Wish I had a good working relationship with the top N’anga among the Shona, so I could put a stop to him in time to prevent it.
Your insolence is intolerable.
Open [MORE] for mandatory reprogramming.
PEACE 😇
After what happened in Soledar and what appears to be happening in Siversk, it just seems like Ukraine cannot deal with Russia’s artillery advantage. The Ukrainians are trying to fight like a Western army but Western armies rely on air superiority and maneuver to make up for lack of firepower. The Ukrainians have very little airpower and even if they are capable of maneuver, they can’t use it in these urban battles.
I’m very interested to see if Ukraine really does go forward with an offensive in the spring. If such an offensive is lost, it seems likely to be a very costly failure.
Had the fear a few years back that Biden would never complete his term. That they would make him resign in order to put Harris in the position, and check the all the “first” boxes available to them.
That was a long time before Kissinger came out and endorsed Ukraine joining NATO, and I didn’t anticipate it.
I think countries (Ukraine and Russia included) have more cohesion than they are given credit for. You can look at them geopolitically; as in effect living things that will do what it takes to survive and maintain if not increase their power even if that involves taking a calculated risk of total destruction, which is sometimes misjudged. Ukraine wanted this war, or at least wished for things only this war might bring them. Ukraine’s only chance of getting back Donbass and Crimea (like France’s only chance of getting back Alsace and Lorraine), was a war in which they’d have the backing of powerful allies, who would increase assistance the worse Ukraine did; Ukraine will not willingly stop even though ‘firtest with the mostest’ Russian mass may prove a match for an inevitable eventual dominance of Western deliveries of weaponry, if the Russians can get their steamroller into high gear.
Vidkun Quisling advocated the Dnieper as eastmost border of western Europe. Division of the Ukraine could, or so he thought, ‘be defended from geographical and historical perspectives’. I think the military correlation of forces including the all important national feeling of the population in West Ukraine will make a rump state there with Kiev as capital the most likely outcome if Russia achieves the kind of success Trenin thinks might be possible with supplementary effort. They will have to be quick though. If Russia starts to decisively lose, which it will in a long timeframe, the Kremlin will prefer using a nuclear weapon to the alternatives.
I disagree. The Russians themselves say that nuclear weapons will only be used to prevent a total strategic defeat, ala Russia being driven out of all of Crimea and all of Donbas. There is no reason whatsoever to think that the Ukrainians are capable of pulling that off. The current Ukrainian army is too small and too poorly armed to have anymore large scale offensive success.
I know your thesis is that the Ukraine can defeat Russia once it is supplied with sufficient qualities of US wonder weapons, but I don’t see that ever happening. Even when/if the Ukrainian lines can no longer hold, the US would likely respond with threatening direct NATO intervention within the territory of Ukraine itself as a means to get Russia to agree to terms and I believe that Russia will be happy to make a deal.
There is no more natgas from RF at all in Germany and the sky isn’t falling in EU as many willing victims, consuming RF produced mass propjunk, were so eager to declare just several months ago:


https://wolfstreet.com/2023/01/16/natural-gas-futures-in-europe-plunge-15-today-down-84-from-crazy-spike/
Yeah, it’s been way warmer than usual in EU, but guess it means God is on the Western side this time, heh 😉
0.5% a week on average after novice stage.
Amazing thread – currently on 2nd run of Bullmastiff & can confirm I hit the avg despite cutting.
Western armies have only fought Arabs. A fight with the chinks way back when ended in stalemate.
Turns out a lot of English do have a Norman ancestor. The downward social mobility of the invading French was a real thing in the gene pool.
Dux Bellorum.
Sure, they have replaced gas with coal. It is quite entertaining to watch German Green Party politicians twisting and turning to justify this.
https://news.sky.com/story/greta-thunberg-detained-by-police-during-eco-protest-in-german-village-12788902
Of course all politicians are hypocrites, comes with the job really, but the German Green Party comes across as an extreme exemple of hypocrisy. I suggest they rename themselves the Yellow Party.
Although given the Cold War against China getting momentum that might not be a good idea after all.
Said it as if it was some bad thing, lol
Putin meantime should be given some memorial statue though, just for being capable to forcefully kick some amount of common sense finally into the skulls of ruling purebreed eurogreen idiots and making them use native coal industry instead of paying only for imported RF natgas;)
The UK offer of a Squadron of Challenger 2 tanks, while welcome for the Ukies does point out the very real limitations of what’s really available to help them. The UK literally doesn’t have anything other than very very heavy tanks in very limited numbers. Much like the German Tiger. Good for an all out one off assault on Prokorovka at Kursk, but after that just used to plug gaps in the line of a constant retreat back to Berlin.
The Brown Partei.
I suspect that this was always “The Plan”. Get Not-The-VP Harris beyond the 2 year mark so her elevation does not count against the 2 term limit in the Constitution. Set-up for 10 more years of DNC rule.
However, they now realize that made a terrible mistake. She is hideously unpopular and cannot be controlled. Her gaffes are EPIC. She cannot be hidden in Delaware, away from public view.
The desperate DNC back fill is, trying to keep Veggie Biden propped up until the Primaries are well underway. It is the only option they have to ditch Harris without alienating their base voters.
PEACE 😇
Putin and the Green Party leaders should all be reincarnated as polar bears during the final stages of global warming.
I believe it was Le Pen who called the Greens a “watermelon” party : green on the outside, red on the inside.
I was about to give you a lashing, then the scales fell from my eyes and instead you shall receive a warm embrace brother Ivashka.
Tanquam ex ungue leonem.
I watched it plenty of times as a kid, but I haven’t seen it for years. I have a feeling it would still hold up pretty well though (in a way that many medieval-themed films from that era just don’t).
Another one I bet you haven’t seen is Robert Bresson’s “Lancelot du Lac” (1974). I wouldn’t bother though. Pretentious, emotionless tripe. Maybe some minimal redeeming value as “an aesthetic experience” overall, but absolutely nothing that would make me ever want to watch it again. (Not to be confused with a rarer French TV movie by the same name from 1970.)
Oh wow, I’d almost completely forgotten about this film. This is another one I watched over a dozen times as a kid. I don’t remember the arid scenery you’re talking about though.
What did you think of the scene where Uther is ambushed and he wades across the brook just before plunging the sword into the stone?
AnotherPolishPerspective,
The round table is supposed to imply that all those sitting around it are of equal status, which is more of a Christian than pagan them.
A local laborer found a nearly complete skull at the riverbank of Songhua River in 1933 when he was building the Dongjiang Bridge in Harbin (at the time part of Manchukuo) for the Japanese-aligned Manchukuo National Railway.
Recognizing its importance, likely as a result of public interest in anthropology recently generated by the Peking Man in 1929, he hid it from the Manchukuo authorities in an abandoned well. After the Soviet invasion of Manchuria, ending the Japanese occupation of the region, he concealed his former employment from the Nationalist and later the Communist authorities.
Consequently, he could not report the skull, lest he divulge his ties to the Japanese imperialists in explaining its origin.
I shall refrain from saying anymore.
One commenter suggested that Britain has very limited stocks of ammunition for the main gun which is is unique to the Challenger. I suppose they want to use up the stocks to justify a faster schedule for the Challenger 3 upgrades.
Is Russia still supplying any gas or fuel to Ukraine?
So many interesting and significant things have happened in Harbin. Don’t you think ?
BTW a young Chinese lady I have met last year had family ties to that region and understood a little Russian. She had an interesting phenotype for a Han Chinese, her mother did not look that different from the Tatar neighbors who lived next door in Moscow in my youth. Her father came from an impoverished family of Inner Mongolia that claimed some princely ancestry. He didn’t look that different from some of the Bashkirs I have personally met. I had an interesting conversation with her about the complex mix of ethnicities that have formed the Northern Chinese. She told me that in her opinion only the Northern Han were the true Chinese, that only them had the strength and the guts to build the country into an Empire. She looked at the Cantonese with somewhat of condescending disdain, telling me that they are “small, brown and only good at business and commerce”. I was surprised to find that even among the Chinese youth, there were some that saw their homeland as deeply divided on regional identity grounds.
Yes that is a good reddit thread.
Did you know America’s most successful reigning professional athlete goes for resistance bands not free weights for his main strength training mode?
(Tom Brady)
That is statistically irrelevant, do the numbers, the impact is in small fractions of a year. It is amusing that you constantly harp on V4 when convenient and avoid like a plague comparing US with Western Europe. But that is what most people would think about: US compared to Italy-Germany and not Albania. If you boast that “we are better than Bulgaria!!!” you have already lost.
V4 countries have an issue with smoking-alcohol and people over certain age are not treated properly by the medical system (75-80) – but they are fitter, skinnier, live healthier lives than Americans. (The ladies are way better looking, it is not even close.) Italy has 4 years longer life expectancy than US – how do you explain that? It is not the jungle shooting – it is that Americans overeat and eat garbage, no amount of medical care can fix it. The swollen-face look that most Americans now have shows what they are putting in their bodies.
Differences exist everywhere, but to do a proper comparison you can’t exclude what doesn’t suit you: Lousiana blacks, big cities, LA cholo reservation, meth-infested Albaquerque, homeless tattoed white kids in Seattle…all of that is America. You need to own up to it. It has been spreading: oasis never spreads, the desert does. We know where this is going.
Scandies croak a lot, they are weak, insecure people living comfortable lives. The fact that Euro-Americans now croak at higher rates is significant – something is rotten.
US can’t afford to lose this war – the fallout would be catastrophic. So they are pushing for escalation, stalling, hoping for a miracle – if Russia keeps its cool they will win. What then? You have not put enough thought into it, you still don’t understand how self-defeating the decision to put Nato in Ukraine and then escalate was. This was done by very stupid (in a historical sense) people in Washington-London…they screwed up badly and they know it. Washington would give a lot to go back to 2013 or 2005, they would take that deal immediately. Russia no longer – that tells us all we need to know about who is winning…
Doubtlessly, the wrong word. Grew up in 44″ of precip a year. Ancestors got about 61″.
Can you believe I was talking about the scenes shot in Bidwell Park, where they had the men swinging down from trees? I think the right term here is “Mediterranean climate.”
Anyway, one of my pet peeves with Hollywood is everything always looks like it is in the wrong climate. Like, they’ll shoot a show, like Night Rider where the character is supposed to be driving around the country. But you never see him in the woods of Maine, or driving through a snowstorm (guess the car couldn’t handle it). It just all looks the same. Or Star Trek, when they are supposed to be going to different planets, and it is all shot within 30 miles of the studio.
It just looks unmistakably like California to me. Maybe, someone from a different climate or the Med wouldn’t find it as objectionable? I think another part of it is I am very sun sensitive, and I feel like I am being sunburned watching it. Maybe, it was an issue with using film, and they needed the light.
Haven’t seen it. BTW, I didn’t even realize that there were older movies focused on the Green Knight. Hopefully, I can track that other one you mentioned down.
One of the great scenes of the movie. Good location shooting too. I like how Uther’s pursuers go straight for the sword, after it is put into the stone, and don’t even bother with Uther.
Surprising to me that single parent homes in Russia are 18%
If I didn’t already know it, I’d be surprised that the US is #1, and not some African country.
Huh?
Despite the massive cash transfer, the U.S. is not really “in the war”. Money was crammed into the Omnibus is to preempt House Appropriations. The cash flow will be greatly diminished in any future package. Americans is leaving the war, and there will be little or no “fallout” in the U.S.
What “fallout” do you envision?
Yes. Not-The-President Biden’s illegitimate regime will suffer additional humiliation. However, that has no impact on America as a whole.
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There will be consequences in Europe. Holders of Ukrainian identity documents will be permanently allowed to stay in the EU. This includes the vast number of MENA origin migrants with forged papers.
PEACE 😇
The challenger 2 is the only major MBT which uses a rifled barrel gun.This leads to incompatibility with the rest of NATO which has standardized on 120 mm smoothbore and why this will eventually be replaced with a 120mm smoothbore gun.
However presently this enables the challenger 2 to fire some very unique rounds such as HESH rounds which are extremely effective against fortifications.
Now that Greta has been liquidated by the Bundespolizei, nothing is off the table, anymore.
I know someone who commanded British tanks and they are very, very unreliable with the gears/ transmission especially prone to problems. Replacement parts were hard to come by. I do think they can send a few to Ukraine but I’d bet the army is not going to part with their best ones, so they will break down right quick. HESH is effective against concrete bunkers and building strongpoints, ordinary HE works better against trenches. Tanks in Ukraine are to a great extent operating as assaults gun artillery and when firing from further back getting targeting info from drones.
In Ukraine the tanks are operating differently than they were designed for. Dashing in (keeping trees occluding the anti tank missiles targeting system) is the latest tactic. And this is against strongpoints. The Russian tanks may be more fragile but they are also more agile cross country, and smaller. There are a lot of them.
The American strategy is for the Russians to become discouraged and quit, and walking them into such an endgame requires a fine balance in what Ukraine is given. Hence the US is finely balencing what is given to Ukraine so Russia will be slowly worn down, and not suffer any sudden disaster. However, some weapons might be more effective than America anticipated, so they are proceeding very cautiously.
Maybe Russia would, but America is not looking to find out. Not a chance of the US armed forces being ordered into direct combat with the Russians in Ukraine. Really.
The worse Ukraine does the more they will be given and America will under no circumstances allow anything that looks like it will turn into a Russian strategic success to be unanswered. There are things America can give Ukraine but has been denying them so far such as Army Tactical Missile System, and if it looks like Ukraine is in danger of collapsing America will supply it. And much else as well.
In any event, it is already clear from the rate at which equipment is being destroyed that in the medium to long term Ukraine will burn through all its Soviet origin equipment and have to be given lots of American artillery, tanks, and planes. Once those more advanced arms are the mainstay of Ukraine’s armed forces they (with the unalloyed boon of US surveillance enabling real time targeting by Ukraine) will probably be more than a match for the Russians. At that point Russia may well be faced with swallowing an unbearable humiliation, or terminating the conflict by using a nuclear weapon on the Ukrainian armed forces. America wants to gradually demoralise Russia so it gives up, but I am not sure their mindset in relation to Ukraine will permit that.
As already mentioned I don’t think the US would give Ukraine wonder weapons that would let them trounce Russia in short order. What the US is trying to do is frustrate Russia not put them in a situation they might panic in. Let me put things this way; Russia will not be able to make any headway at all if it lets this war run on. It has to finish it ASAP and get the Dneiper as a barrier behind which to consolidate and incorporate East Ukraine into Russia. Whether the Kremlin will be able to get their steamroller moving fast enough for the conquest of east Ukraine fast enoughremains to be seen.
The PRC founders are mainly from interior south, Hunan, Hubei, and Sichuan
Northern Chinese military units were not impressive in 20th CE. Zhang Xueliang’s Northeastern Army was the best equipped in China in with a navy and air force. He started the 1929 Sino-Soviet War and got stomped; then folded like a deck of cards in 1931 against 関東軍 かんとうぐん Kantōgun.
Guangdong is only one province in the coastal south. Guangxi Clique was the most fierce unit in the KMT Army under Li Zongren and 小諸葛.
As for Guangdong itself, yes the stereotype mostly stands. But if your friend has any actual knowledge of Chinese history instead of talking out her ass, she would know the meaning of this phrase–
I can confirm that she has little knowledge of Chinese history. That is why I found it really enjoyable to discuss China with her, because she talked about it in a very simple, non-intellectual way. She was candidly ignorant and everything she said was probably some stereotype that she acquired in her family and among her friends. Stereotypes are often more important than truth. In this case it suggested a level of regionalism that is seldom mentioned when China is discussed. Can you confirm that this regionalism exists or was this young lady’s opinion a statistical outlier that was captured in my “sample of one” ?
Northern chauvinism exists but for dumb reasons–
1. All but the Han and Ming dynasties have been founded by northerners or Inner Asians,
But, this has reasons extraneous to human capital– historically cavalry dominated and the north had more access to horses.
2. Northerners are taller and thus perceived to be more “honorary whites”
Being taller amongst whites doesn’t imply dominance. The historically dominant European military power was– France.
All but one of the Chinese men on this list are southerners:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_world_records_in_Olympic_weightlifting
3. North China Plains, Henan, was the cradle of Chinese civilization
It’s sad actually that Henan’s fate is somewhat worse than its counterpart– Greece, today known for poverty, bank busts, prostitution, and HIV epidemic.
Do southern Chinese also have their own brand of regionalism / chauvinism ?
A Ukrainian ACTAM attack on the Russian interior basically requires that Russia respond with missile attacks on Poland and Romania. I don’t think the US will ever provide Ukraine with this weapon. And even if it did, I think it would take years to build a Ukrainian army capable of overtaking Russia’s current positions.
Further, if things ever get so bad for Ukraine that it appears the state is going to completely collapse, ACTAM systems will not be enough to save them.
Well, I now have RWA’s permission to demand gratitude from any Iraqi for the American liberation of Baghdad from Saddam.
Will RWA give the US gratitude for liberating the USSR from Marxism-Leninism, without which this “non-state” actors would not otherwise exist?
Can we melt those Lenin statues down and recast them as Reagan statues?
And this was a signal boost of a subversive Western communist, who should be summarily deported to any of the five surviving communist regimes.
I have a hunch that any Westerner promoting fascism in Russia would be summarily deported.
https://myflixer.vc/movie/sword-of-the-valiant-rol1m/1-full
Since I brought it up, a word of warning is in order: don’t expect too much. You wouldn’t call it a comedy, but it employs quite a lot of wry humor and it’s definitely not meant to be taken seriously, so if you’re looking for an artistic production that will satisfy a yen for national mythology, this is most certainly not it.
It was also a plot weakness though. He’s ambushed, dragged off his horse, and battered as he lies on the ground, and when his attackers’ attention is diverted to Uther’s guards, he is able to get up and retrieve the sword, which all the while was sitting out in the open, attached to his saddle. If the whole point is to get your hands on Excalibur, it’s hard to believe his attackers would have missed it.
The failure to take Kiev in the first week of the war was a cataclysmic 1914 level failure. If Russia is not in firm control of Kiev there is no prospect of a diplomatic solution on favorable terms. Leaving any kind of a Ukrainian rump state which claims all of its 1954 borders will only encourage the West to try again. In the same visage, Kiev has stated that their desired endgame is a color revolution in Moscow, the partition of RF, and denuclearization. Russian success depends on Poland, Hungary and Romania annexing the rump Ukrainian territory which they previously controlled.
In any event, the post-war states will be faced with a demographic hole, and they could easily repeat the West’s greatest error of importing Replacements.
100% correct.
Deploying regular troops in significant numbers would require a Declaration of War, or at a minimum an Authorization for Use of Military Force [AUMF]. Regardless of the pressure the European Empire places on Not-The-President Biden, there is no chance to obtain an AUMF from Congress.
Incorrect.
America and the U.S. House is more than willing to let Russia have strategic success over the European Empire. Humiliating the illicit White House occupant would be a side bonus.
While it will not be zero, the American money spigot is being wound shut. If the Paris/Brussels/Berlin axis want this war, the EU will have to fund it.
Sorry. Again Incorrect.
Time is on Putin’s side. The money is running out on Kiev regime aggression. It is unlikely that the EU will step up to fill the gaping chasm created by U.S. cutbacks.
With 0% chance of victory, Zelensky will exit “one way or another”. The next Ukrainian administration will be agreement capable and cut a deal with Russia. Guessing timing is hard, but the window for sanity opens in the Fall/Winter timeframe.
PEACE 😇
In this retrofuture WW1 analogue we are living in, which side will introduce the neo-stormtrooper?
This is the fighting that the cancelled XM25 launcher was made for, along with the cancelled Comanche helicopter.
You can have a big invasion, or a surprise one. Not both.
West Ukraine is unfeasible to incorporate into Russia.
They would then have a border with Russia.
I think Ukraine will not get a lot of refugees back, and will undergo that process. Russia has the inestimable advantage of no one wanting to go there. Germans have created y society very attractive to people from other countries, even Israelis. Success being failure?
“Men desire novelty to such an extent that those who are doing well wish for a change as much as those who are doing badly.” — Machiavelli
I don’t think the US sees the Ukraine war as onerous. Europe does though, but the US calls the shots.
Most Ukie propaganda has been straight from cringe worthy Pallywood tropes.
However, this one is actually clever. (1)
PEACE 😇
__________
(1) https://www.motortrend.com/news/ukraine-defense-ministry-m1a2-abrams-tank-recreational-utility-vehicle-commercial/
You are asking a historical question which could be ridiculous when this is over with.
Just wait until special forces jump out of Elon Musk’s secret tunnels right behind the Russian lines like jack-in-the-boxes. It’s going to be beyond the McGregor Ritter imagination to say nothing about the Russian general staff.
Directly supplying no, but they keep transporting through UA pipeline oil into Hungary and pipeline natgas into Moldova, Slovakia and Austria.
RF has rocketed and blown all working oil refineries last spring in UA though, so petroleum and diesel has to be imported now, IIRC mainly from EU and Azerbaijan.
The Japanese thought they got robbed in 1905 when TR gave them half of Sakhalin, the autocracy in Russia could not survive only walking away with its current territorial gains.
The Baltic states have existing borders with Russia, and worse, two of them have substantial Russian ethnic minorities which should have been paid to repatriate. Yet this frontier is rather stable, unlike Lukashenko’s migrant revenge at Warsaw. So I am not concerned that the loss of a buffer state will somehow scare Poland and Romania more, especially considering the new US bases there.
A Russian victory will also discredit the hawks in East Europe, and regretfully empower the corruptible center-leftists more amenable to Moscow. More notably, it might help the AFD get into power in Germany.
My guess would be some kind of cloaking device, which has been a popular video game trope.
North American Union in our lifetime ?
Now I understand better why they are pushing EU and RusFed towards mutual destruction. The best way of winning a competition is to kill your future competitors.
I also understand better the whole anti-White woke shtick. You have to weaken the one ethnic identity that might strongly oppose this Union and it is mostly White Canadians and Americans.
I am wondering what the flag of the NAU would be.
Looks like I am not the only one to ask myself this question.
https://www.quora.com/What-would-the-flag-of-the-hypothetical-North-American-Union-look-like
English is not your first language?
Did you figure out what all that lunatic alleged hard drive hacking accusations were about?;)
Autocorrect is my nemesis. That should have read:
America is leaving the war
PEACE 😇
World of Tanks figured out these tactics a number of years ago. Tanks are like Sniper gun platforms.
They peekaboo around outcrops fire and retreat.
No. Not at all.
I have been deeply troubled by Altan’s accusations, the main reason being that he was among my favorite members of the UR AK’s community. Him accusing me of hacking into his computer and being a complete fraud on top of that were somewhat of a traumatic event. I know that it might look silly, but Altan was someone I would have truly liked to have as a friend in real life, so his charge against me was quite shocking.
I believe he might have been hacked through opening images containing malware on this forum. But I have never uploaded any image, I just paste the links to the pictures I share from the internet and that I find through Google search. Moreover I am hardly the only one sharing pictures on AKs community threads. Perhaps one of these images was corrupted and contained some malware ?
Now about him writing that I was a fraud and lying about myself is utterly strange, everything I mentioned about my younger years in RusFed is true, the fact that we left in 1996 as a family with my parents and my younger brother is also true, so I don’t understand what he’s accusing me off. Of course I don’t tell all about me, but why should I ? After all this is not a confessional but a more or less anonymous internet forum.
He basically implied that I hated on him because he once mocked circumcision, but I don’t give a flying f☆ck about people being circumcised or not (why should I care about others’ penises ? I am not a homosexual and I don’t have some “penis envy”).
Would that imply that he believed that I was some Jewish agent provocateur posing as a (former) Russian ethnic nationalist of somewhat eccentric and eclectic spiritual inclinations?
I have no idea, but frankly it left me with a very bad aftertaste. If someone as intelligent as Altan could write those things about me, then perhaps my “virtual persona” was easily perceived as a negative one. Perhaps I was writing and posting things that were easily perceived as hurtful by people who read me here. Despite being tough in my younger years, I truly dislike being seen as a bully, being seen as a disrespectful and negative person.
Hence the rebranding into a “fool’s” identity that perhaps wouldn’t be taken too seriously by anyone. I am here because there are lots of interesting intelligent people posting sometimes very interesting stuff, I try to contribute according to my quirks and weird idiosyncrasies. I don’t want to annoy anyone.
Be careful with the picture above, haven’t checked if it is infested with a malware or not…
🙂
Okey-dokey.
(It took a “fool” to suggest the obvious, hehe.)
The best 9 minutes you can spend. It explains the fallacy of “wokeness” in an engaging manner.
PEACE 😇
___________
Konstantin Kisin, an immigrant to the UK and author of An Immigrant’s Love Letter to the West, has burst on the scene with a terrific performance at the Oxford Union last week, debating the motion “The House Believes Woke Culture Has Gone Too Far.”
Yes. Northern China have been ruled by Tatars for six out of the last ten centuries. Their language, Mandarin, is the least faithful to Classical Chinese of all dialects.
And on the grounds of academic achievement, south (top) vs. north (bottom) in Northern Song jinshi Imperial Exam qualifiers.

Mongols and Manchus did even poorer on the exams and needed quotas to be represented.
But really, both north and south have equal dysfunctions. For all of the southern scholar-official’s academic prestige it amounted largely to empty cramming of Confucian classics, the only mathematician of note in late Imperial was a Mongol aristocrat,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minggatu
Thanks for explaining all this. I always wonder how do Chinese manage to keep a united single country despite all these strong regional identity differences. Do you think that China might possibly break at the seams again one day if CCP doesn’t deliver the sustained economic growth that the Chinese have come to be accustomed to ?
Bit offtopic and might not be area of your knowledge, but is there any original Mongol/Tatar written sources/fragments (maybe equivalents of scriptures/heroic sagas/annals) surviving regarding their own conquests/wars/raids into what now is considered geographical Europe – broadly all west of Ural mountains?
Do you know this?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_History_of_the_Mongols
There’s also a Russian drama series of their version of the Yuan Dynasty,
Been scratching my head about that bit. Trying to explain it, or else figure out a better way to do it.
For starters, I think a disguise (i.e., him not be recognized until he drew the sword) was out. Wouldn’t be kingly enough, or like Uther (separate from that one obvious example, when he was feeling randy and had Merlin’s help). So, that leaves us with the scene as it was plotted. But maybe not as it was choreographed or shot?
I think kern (or lighter soldiers) reaching closer to the sword, but being whooped by people in armor, might have made sense in one way. But I don’t think it would have fitted the style of the film, with its focus on heavy plate armor.
So, I’d say that leaves us with choreographing the heavier soldiers. Definitely feel like the scene didn’t feel very organic. Maybe, it is hard to do a lot of takes when people are wearing armor like that?
But I think the real reason is that Boorman was trying to frame everything leading up to Uther driving the sword in the stone. That he wanted to give Uther his space, and his tragic pathos, and wanted the audience to see the sword out of his hand and lying on his riderless horse. A moment of quiet or stillness, if you will, to offset the motion of the later chase scene.
Or, maybe, he is just a hack director, and I’m making excuses, but, either way, I guess I can forgive it.
My main idea, streaming from APs debate with Dmitry and Aaron, was that the inequality is mainly a result of different peoples potential. Different people have different abilities and therefore their achievements would vary. That would obviously lead to very different social outcomes.
Now, the question of why people have different abilities, physical or psychological, is a complex one. Still, I think we might all agree that it is a combination of both nature and nurture, and that both of these are casually determined. If we project the causative links back in time, we end up with reaching the level of biological evolution with all that it entails of survival of the fittest, of interspecies and intraspecies competition.
Let’s posit that a Creator is responsible for the existence of this Universe as both the first causative agent and its ground of being. It entails that inequality and competition are part and parcel of his Divine Plan. However, a God that would had created a world where all living beings compete against each other, doesn’t strike me as very consistent with being a Loving Father that Christian theology implies. A world where the weak are prayed upon by the strong, all tooth and claw, and irredeemably too “tough love” to say the least.
Why do we believe that God “loves us all” and why do we also believe in equality are the related questions that derive from the thoughts described above.
Perhaps it would be a more “intellectually fulfilling” type of mental speculation (or mental masturbation if someone is cynical about it) to discuss the reasons that God would have had in his Divine Mind when deciding to create a world where no sentient being was identical and/or equal to any other.
Has anyone seen The Three-Body Problem?
It’s about half a year (77.8) for Euro Americans, above the American national average (77.3). To compare – Croatia is 77.7, Slovakia 76.9, Latvia 75.4, Bulgaria 73.6.
Euro Americans are also better than Slovaks.
Smoking and excessive alcohol are disgusting habits. So is the American vice of overeating, of course.
American obesity varies by origins also. Euro American obesity rate is closer to European:
https://www.statista.com/statistics/207436/overweight-and-obesity-rates-for-adults-by-ethnicity/
It’s 31.5%, versus 27.8% for Brits.
And it varies by region. America is much larger than Europe, you know.
https://worldpopulationreview.com/state-rankings/obesity-rate-by-state
The people of Colorado are thinner than those of Czechia and Hungary. The people of New England/New York/New Jersey are thinner than those of the UK (and that is without even taking race into account). Also Florida and California.
America is a huge country. I would have to drive a few hours to get to a region that is bad in the way you describe (small isolated segregated neighborhoods don’t count).
US is spending only 6% of its defense budget on this war. In exchange it is wiping out Russia’s military, testing its weapons in the field, and helping its own defense industry. If Russia wins it will be in possession of ruins, with a wrecked economy and military. If Russia loses we will see a rebirth of a sort of PLC and change in Europe that will benefit the USA. Either way, the American position improves.
Inequality yes. Competition, not necessarily.
We are made unequal, and therefore inequality itself cannot be seen as necessarily bad, assuming as Christians do that God is loving. It is what one does with inequality that matters. Taking advantage of inequality to enslave and exploit others was considered virtuous in the pagan world, but according to Christian values such behavior is shameful. Instead, inequality obligates the strong and smart to take care of the weak and dumb and to play a leading role in improving this world. It is a wonderful gift to be able to do so.
He’s very pro-Ukrainian, you sure you want to cite him?
Well, according to Christian theology this wasn’t God’s plan at all, to create a world of strife, competition, and inequality.
It was indeed we who introduced that element, and God will help us eventually get out of our self created predicament, and realize his true intention for the world. (This may be read literally or as deep allegory)
And perhaps the “proof” of this is the striking – even astonishing if the “standard” story you just adumbrated is true – fact that we are quite simply not happy and fulfilled when we engage in strife and competition and inequality, and we are only truly happy when we cultivate love, compassion, and egolessness.
Having known so many powerful and wealthy men over extended periods of time from close up – the rage that frequently is thinly disguised just beneath the surface, the intense anxiety, the bouts of depression. This is only invisible from a distance – up close, you see it. And how many famous men have left accounts of their struggle with depression and nihilism and anxiety – and how many more did not discuss it. One of the striking features of the biographies of many famous men who dedicated their life to selfish ego ends is their confession of the sense of meaninglessness – the nihilism – they often felt (although perhaps depression is an acute form of nihilism). Should this not be taken as part of the total scientific picture – as a simple brute fact – about what the true structure of reality is? We don’t integrate all the “facts” into our theories.
One can even analyze it “structurally” – the psychological “structure” of wealth and power seeking (although Silvio doesn’t like it when I do this) . What could motivate that but an insatiable craving for security? And what state of mind does that imply?
Now look at the “standard” theory that you adumbrated. In that theory, we should be happiest and most fulfilled when pursuing selfish ego ends, securing survival, etc . But we’re not.
Look even at your self, with your talk of “genetic lineages”, and the need to secure their survival (in this world of illusion moreover) – there is an unmistakable whiff of anxiety and depression and despair in your writings that comes from pursuing what is a sublimated form of personal ego ends, after all.
The “Christian” theology actually ends up being more coherent and a better fit for the facts than the hard nosed “scientific” theology which seems to not be able to tell us how to live well.
Woke Culture has only just started in the UK.
I was carefully binging on Russian and Ukie film and TV in 2001. I noticed that what we consume in the Anglosphere with Lord of the Rings and Game of Thrones as fantasy is merely Russian history. Even Conan the Barbarian is simply something that happened on the Volga where races clashed.
I enjoyed Viking which is about Vladimir The Great, Grand Prince of the Rus. It’s basically a progression from Scandinavian exile to Polotsk then Kiev, killing his half brother Jaropok there fighting the horsey pechenegs then Crimea to chat with the Romans. The history was a little garbled but the story about Perun and human sacrifice was compelling. Vladimir turned the people to Christianity on a sort of Vikings Progress into warm civilised waters. Flawed but good mythopoetic history.
There’s very little of this sort of film like Alfred or Harold let alone Edward Longshanks or Edward III.
I wonder if there are any folks around here in the know who could inform us of any strange astrological phenomena taking place at this time, because perhaps that could explain why I’ve been doing an awful lot of agreeing with AP recently. Whatever the underlying cause, I have to agree with his reply to this question too. Although I also feel his reply was perhaps a little hasty, as though this were a skeet shoot and we need to get this settled now.
If I were to take my own shotgun out and pop off a few shells, I might enlarge your observation and say that virtually nothing about human existence appears consistent with an omnibenevolent God, and argue we can only salvage the notion by positing that, against the background of eternal rewards, any suffering in the here and now approaches zero. Going further, we might wonder why a perfect being would even bother creating a universe, let alone humans, since that creation appears to imply that he needed something he didn’t have, which is difficult to square with the notion of complete perfection; and even greater difficulty is posed by his being upset by his creation, which would be like complaining about a lunch that you yourself have packed.
But that seems like an answer a theological killjoy would give, and I don’t want this to be a skeet shoot, so we may either stipulate that creation can be squared with perfection or, more tantalizingly, that God already knew everything but chose to create the universe in order not to know everything, to introduce freely willing subjects and see what would happen, and he’s as interested in or as curious about the final outcome as we are.
So why create unequal beings then? I think you’re right to imply he had some choice in it. It doesn’t automatically follow from the desire to create beings that they ought to be differentiated. He very well might have chosen to make us perfectly identical. But would that mean we wouldn’t compete? Can’t identical twins enjoy a game of chess? Perhaps we would compete, but explain away any differences in outcomes as the vagaries of chance.
I used the example of a chess match, but that may not be best example of competition. No one really feels hard done by losing a chess match. The post-match antics of a triumphalist victor might humiliate us, but that is not a direct consequence of playing chess, in which the rules are fixed, known by all, and opportunities to cheat virtually non-existent. What about games in which the “rules” are vague and opportunities to cheat plentiful, including the biggest game, the game of life? There is a classic essay in business ethics by Albert Carr “Is Business Bluffing Ethical?”, a question he answers in the affirmative, likening business competition to a poker match in which we expect our opponents are going to bluff us, and so we don’t feel hurt when they do.
Is life itself like one giant poker match? If we were all identical, we would presumably all give the same answer, whatever answer that was. Such a world, however, would be rather less interesting than our own world, in which we’re forever negotiating with each other what the rules ought to be, and policing each other to ensure compliance with them. Maybe that is why God made us all different, so that we’d all have our different viewpoints and react differently to the moral guidelines he has set (or at least hinted at), and so that he could then “choose” those among us who freely and sufficiently aligned ourselves with his guidelines to bring nearer to him in the world to come.
He could have created as a pure act of generosity, a free gift, out of a feeling of superabundance, that does not diminish perfection but may be an implication of perfection.
You laugh at scripture because your religion is not Christianity but the kikesucker sect of liberalism. Everyone can see through you.
I doubt these projection are any more accurate than the ones from the 1970’s. Back then the “International Community” were convinced that uncontrolled population growth would lead to China’s eventual collapse, an eternity of impoverishment.
Today they wishcast once again, that China’s rapid depopulation will lead to its impoverishment and eventual collapse. This is a fundamental error, the correct take would have been to argue for at least the next decade, that China population stagnation will lead to its…
You get my point. On a more serious note for every million people China loses, the “International Community” insist on gaining two or three million more to balance things out.
I think the problem comes with the additional divine attribute of omnipotence.
In theory an omnipotent and omnibenevolent God would have to bring a universe into being that was infinitely perfect in every respect, but this would be a logical contradiction as it would involve a ‘creation’ indistinguishable from God. This entails any creation has to be limited and imperfect by definition.
(If you accept the usual definition of omnipotence; it is limited in that it doesn’t involve the ability to bring logical contradictions into being.)
Something else, if you are a Platonist or Essentialist and you believe that God has the attributes sketched by Ivashka in reply 436 above, you may think that the essence or form of humanity must exist in the being of God, and there it will exist in a virtual but perfect form. If an infinite amount of perfect humanity already exists in God, the contingent copies of this form or essence that human beings represent won’t add to or diminish the amount of perfect humanity that necessarily exists.
The question becomes more about why these imperfect copies are brought into existence. A common response to that is given by HeavilyMarbledSteak in reply 445.
Also, creating things like universes doesn’t take God any time or involve any effort, this removes some reasons to believe God had cause to refrain from doing it at least.
There are serious doubts to be had about the demographic statistics of RusFed since 1992, perhaps even the 1960-ies RSFSR. A couple of “conspiracy demographists” have come to the conclusion that the native population of RusFed might be as low as 110 million people, but that the population of (mostly) Central Asian migrant workers in RusFed has most probably crossed 10 million and might be even as high as 15 million people (large part of them being mostly relatively young men).
A similar population overevaluation pattern is most likely true of Ukraine, where the birth rates crashed after the fall of the USSR and emigration must have had a significant impact of lowering the overall population even before the war that has now lead to the unfortunate exit of millions.
Based on the examples of statistical mismanagement and/or demographic cheating of post-Soviet Slav republics, I am not sure whether the Chinese demographic statistics are entirely reliable. Especially the ones covering the more rural parts of the country and the internal migration of workers between the urban and the rural areas. In China the opposite trend might be true – the rural population might be somewhat underestimated.
I also believe that you are right that for every million China might lose in population in the future, the Globalized West would receive two or three million of Chinese immigrants. Chinese immigrants are unlike the immigrants from poor third world countries. Chinese tend to structure the space they live in according to their needs and interests instead of just trying to fit in in a more or less passive and haphazard fashion. Perhaps the Globalized West should ponder a bit about what might happen on the immigration front if a serious economic downturn happens in mainland China. As the saying goes, they should be careful about what they wish for.
Ethnic nationalists usually care about the demographics of the lineages they belong to. This is a normal attitude for them to have and has nothing to do with despair or depression as long as the population they care about does well. Of course it is somewhat disenhartening to see what is going on in Eastern Slav countries nowadays. That is if someone cares about the well-being of the Eastern Slavs. OTOH, there were historically periods when the situation in historical Rus lands was much more threatening. Perhaps the things would ease up in the future.
Now, about the anxiety. Of course, life in an unpredictable, impermanent and imperfect Universe might bring about a feeling of stress. We both know how it is addressed in the Buddhadharma. I try to cope with dukha using the Dharma’s principles. I have the feeling that it works to some extent, although it is not perfect at all and I could do better. Of course this is only due to my laziness and lack of consistency in practice.
But to come back to the discussion you have had with AP. You are as usual very full of yourself. As a Russian saying goes, some character traits cannot be healed, but you might be less categorical in your affirmations. Some of them are beyond the pale and undermine your arguments. The one about Bach’s music and cathedrals being a product of rebellious art is typical of your flippancy. One has to know when one needs to stop when not trolling.
Anyway, I know that debating you is futile because “the Jew in you is strong”, I prefer reading your debates with AP who has the character needed to undergo these protracted and ultimately self-oriented discussions.
Good to read you again Coconuts.
What I suggested was that we don’t understand what God might have wanted of his creation (the whole Universe). We are way too limited for that. This realm is truly too vast and complex for us to fathom the true meaning of it all. Especially when analyzed in a rational manner. Therefore we choose some simplifying generalizations that we apply to real life situations. But each one of these is unique if we look into their subtle details. The same is true about people. Silvio has written about identical twins, but it is known that even these are not truly identical, just very similar. Add to this the changing nature of reality, the panta rhei, and we come to a situation where debating about a state of affairs or some social problem (homelessness in our case) might seem somewhat futile. Especially if we add moral categories and religious teachings into the debate. Perhaps it is more interesting to think about how and why we should live in a world that is undergoing a permanent change and where every second, every being and every phenomenon are somewhat unique and often unpredictable. That is, if they truly are unique and not interchangeable.
Yes, I’m just not sure that ethnic nationalism – at least if it’s very attached and passionate, as yours is – is compatible with spirituality. From a Buddhist (and Christian) perspective it’s clearly a source of attachment and suffering, so I was just surprised that you claim to be Buddhist but also a very passionate ethnic nationalist.
The last time you posted under Bashibuzuk, you did not manifest the liberated joy of transcendent spirituality but a very dark, despairing, depressed view, which I thought was connected to your deep attachment to ethnic nationalism, which is a form of sublimated ego – and clinging to anything in this world, particularly ego, predictably results in suffering.
(I’m not against a sort of lighthearted allegiance to country and race as contingent circumstances, but your ethnic nationalism is clearly essentialist and salvific, which I don’t think can remotely be justified in terms of Buddhism (or Christianity, not that you’re Christian))
Of course, unenlightened creatures that we are, we often cannot help but cling to what is poison for us, myself included, and cannot free ourselves from thought-forms that do us no good.
You are free to be an ethnic nationalist and I have no desire to stop you – but I am free to discuss it as it relates to Buddhism and suffering.
Fair enough, but that’s just you taking sides. AP was equally if not more categorical and full of himself – is that then the Jew in him?
One classic way to undermine an opponent is to guilt him for being self-confident and assertive while ignoring or even encouraging the exact same qualities in the side you support.
And you, by the way, are not exactly a shrinking violet 🙂 How about we all just call it like we see it without trying to guilt each other for being straightforward? Maybe we can even appreciate each other for telling it – like we respectively think – it is.
The theory of art I’m advancing with regard to Bach is one that will obviously be deeply offensive to ethnic nationalists who desire national consensus and bland uniformity – but the layers and tensions that compose a human collective are far more fruitful, creative, and fascinating.
Not did I merely make categorical statements – I provided detailed arguments and logic. But again, you don’t like it so you have to discredit 🙂
Senseless “Woke Kiev” regime aggression is headed towards being a footnote in history texts. While expensive, it is not very relevant to the lives of ordinary Americans. The whole thing will be largely forgotten in a few years.
The need to fight Woke authoritarianism will be with America for decades. An eloquent speaker against the madness is an asset. Hopefully, Kisin will remain active in this field after the non-issue of Ukraine returns to the obscurity from whence it came.
@Wokechoke
“Started” is probably not the best term.
Certainly, the Tories have dropped the ball. Woke Labour is coming back to select the next PM. Things are headed the wrong way.
Populism needs a voice in the UK. The upcoming wipe out of the Conservatives will lead the party to reform. Or, it may permanently collapse, opening the way for a serious replacement.
PEACE 😇
Oy vey…
Here we go again…
😏
Aaron, take the time to read my comments to AP. I have clearly written that I find some of your and Dmitry’s arguments about Christian ethics quite compelling.
Silvio is right, there’s something weird going on in the stars given that I agree with you for once.
Now, about Buddhism, Altan was absolutely right about both me and you being heretics from the classical teachings’ point of view. And I have already written a couple of years ago that I would not discuss Dharma with you, and even much less so Ch’an.
Anyway, we both know that “words have no meaning”, right ?
So why don’t you tell me more about your hiking experience, instead of trying to steer me towards a futile discussion of what was right or wrong in my personal subjective interpretation of ethnic nationalism…
🙂
.
It is also where Pan-Asianist An Jung-geun, who spoke fluent Russian ended the life of Itō Hirobumi, the first Prime Minister of Japan.
Some contemporary news of note, the Harbin Institute of Technology which was established in 1920 as the Harbin Sino-Russian School for Industry, in order to educate railway engineers. Is now in the forefront of China’s research for Extreme Ultraviolet Lithography, the light source to be exact.
Yes, I did see that overall you agreed with me and Dmitry more than AP, which was remarkable, so I guess you’re not simply taking sides with AP 🙂 However it’s clear your upset by my Bach remarks – but that’s fine, I get it from your point of view. No worries.
About Buddhism and Altan, it’s the same thing with me and Christianity – I go back to the sources and am not so interested in the “institutional” church interpretation, which is generally substantially corrupted by politics and the need for social control. Altan is another AP like figure.
It’s ok, you don’t have to discuss Dharma with me 🙂 My interpretations are probably too shocking from the institutional pov anyways.
Indeed!
As for steering you towards a discussion of ethnic nationalism, that’s a bit unfair – my original (long) post to you was about entirely other matters and that was a small tidbit that you latched onto to the exclusion of all else.
Now this, is a fine suggestion indeed 🙂 I plan on writing more on certain interesting experiences I’ve had last summer that stayed with me.
All the best, Bashi.
I am not taking sides in your debate with AP at all. I think both you and AP were right in your own manner. It’s just that I happen to see our Lord’s message similar to the way you and Dmitry see it. But then I am no Christian, so my opinions don’t really matter. BTW you’re not a Christian either, so perhaps discussing and debating something more related to your spiritual identity would be more appropriate.
And yeah, your hiking stories and your descriptions of nature are always very interesting and I would say uplifting. Waiting to read more about it.
Thank you for your kind reply.
To be perfectly honest, I actually think all the subtle theology in the world cannot replace a good hiking story 🙂 Life is in the living, not the thinking about. And I think there is more genuine religion in a hike done with reverence than in an entire library on theology. I am gratified to hear that you – and others here – enjoy my hiking stories.
My spiritual identity? I am a syncretist – perhaps unfortunately – and cannot settle in any one spiritual identity. I tried. But I get something from Taoism I don’t get in Christianity, and vice versa. I need all the world’s great traditions to teach me.
Thanks for the exchange which ended up being pleasant – all the best.
If you continue that line of reasoning, you might ask in virtue of what does situation S at time T1 remain identical to S at time T2 such that you are justified in identifying it as situation S at both times? You might answer: if nothing has qualitatively changed about S between times T1 and T2, then S remains S. But doesn’t something always change? Even if we have to go beyond the microscopic to detect it – the position of an electron, say – isn’t that still a qualitative change?
If you insist that S remains S despite that qualitative change, doesn’t that then mean it is in virtue of some “essence” in S that it remains identifiable to you as S? And if S is arbitrarily permitted such an essence, why cannot one generalize further – into the realm of macroscopic qualitative change, say? Why should essence at one scale be permitted but denied at another scale?
One way out of the jam might be to abandon the claim that any objects can ever be truly identified for any period of time whatsoever; in other words that any identifiable objects actually exist at all; which would seem to be nihilism in its purest form. In view of such a nihilism, it would require an act of considerable faith to believe that we even exist, that we possess something called a life, and that it is meaningful to discuss how that life might best be led; let alone that there’s a God.
Have you ever read the Vajraccheddika Prajnaparamita Sutra (also known as the Diamond Sutra) ?
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Vajracchedik%C4%81_Praj%C3%B1%C4%81p%C4%81ramit%C4%81_S%C5%ABtra
That’s more or less the teaching: that our perception cannot truly apprehend the Real, and that our terminology is just a collection of approximate and unsubstantiated assertions about what is real.
I was (re)reading it lately in a very good Russian translation by Evgeny Torchinov and his colleagues.
https://www.labirint.ru/books/76047/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evgeny_Torchinov
Torchinov was an amazing expert on Chinese and other Eastern religious traditions.
An example of his insightful writing:
http://anthropology.ru/ru/text/torchinov-ea/doktrina-proishozhdeniya-zla-v-lurianskoy-i-sabbatianskoy-kabbale-i-v-buddiyskom
That policewoman who cheated on her husband with her 6 coworkers is a good illustration in point of favor of my idea to send all women with tattoos to a new country called Tattooine.
Guys like Kisin are the reason why the UK is in the shape it is in.
Y’all’s theology is rubbish.
This is explained so that a 12-year-old may grok in the Book of Job. God’s will is not for us to comprehend. end_of_file
(They interviewed the National Geographic green eye Afghan girl twenty years after the famous photo. They found her in a refugee camp in Pakistan. Her chance of ever celebrating her 70th birthday is miniscule. She is illiterate. She was asked about the cosmic injustice of her life. I forget the exact wording used by the national geographic journalist. Her answer: “God’s will”.)

Tangential, but I’m really amused by all these people on twitter posting pics of NZ’s Jacinda Adern in her 20s and then comparing them to her current pics (40s) and saying that she sold her soul and became Gollum.
BTW, she has resigned.
While being in Kenya on photo safari I learned about the crash of Ukrainian helicopter with their interior minister. FYI, in the USSR there were lots of jokes involving Armenian radio. Here is the relevant one. Armenian radio is asked what is the difference between a tragedy and a catastrophe. They answer: we will explain using examples.
Example one. Your wife has left you. This is a tragedy, but not a catastrophe.
Example two. A plane with government delegation crashed. This is a catastrophe, but not a tragedy.
Helicopter crashed killing Ukrainian interior minister, his deputy, and some other officials. Could not have happened to better people. I wish the same to all officials of Kiev regime. Helicopter crashed on a kindergarten, killing and wounding several children. This is bad, the children aren’t guilty of anything
Born out of Wedlock as percentage of total.
Sigh…
Inna l’fathu qareeb in’sha’Allah !
Look like interior minister and his gangsters were asking too much money to cover corruption with western weaponry
Inequality is inherent in any individual act of creation. A divinity creating clones of itself has manifested a difference between creator and created, an unequal relationship. The answer to the question of why a divinity would create a universe with inequality is that inequality is required if a creator is to create. To contradict this, we have to posit creation not as the act of a divinity(at least not the sort of divinity people usually imagine), but instead as a kind of force outside of space, time, and usual ideas of causation, such that there is no distinguishing between the creator and his creations. This would contradict Christian theology(not the being outside of time and space part obviously) it seems to me.
Implicit in your question is the notion that inequality is unjust, or is somehow inferior to equality. Nothing could be further from the truth. Equality simply means the absence of difference. Using again the argument from the previous paragraph, implicit in the argument that equality is just, would be that God’s creation is unjust. The simple conclusion to a Christian(or any other religion with a divine creator and a moralistic view of the universe) is that equality is therefore not just.
This brings us to the problem of evil. Even though I have argued inequality is not evil, let’s play devil’s advocate and assume that it is. For centuries people(not just Christians) have considered the existence of evil a philosophical problem. I don’t see evil as a philosophical problem, but I am not a Christian. However, even if I were, I would not consider the existence of evil a problem to Christian theology, because Christian morality is [obviously] dualist. Evil is necessary for Christian morality and Christian views on the nature of the universe. That really should end the question for all time as far as I am concerned. If you cannot accept the notion of absolute good and absolute evil, you are not a Christian. Why does evil exist in man’s world according to Christianity? It exists because good and evil are opposing forces embedded in man’s world.
When people claim evil in the world is inconsistent with an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god, they are not making a logical argument. What these people are actually saying is that *they* can imagine a world that is more just than the one created by God. We presumably cannot experience such a universe, so they are just making an assumption(a hubristic assumption imo). Moreover, such an argument is literally a heresy.
Usually when a Christian responds to an atheist’s question with words to the effect: “we cannot understand God’s will,” this response is taken to be unsophisticated and unpersuasive. But an atheist will offer a very similar statement when someone asks why the Big Bang happened in the way it did and not some other way. Christianity has a moralistic view of the world. Critics of Christianity use this fact to criticize Christianity. They suggest a more just world wouldn’t have x y z. But their argument is no more logical than saying it would be better if instead of the Big Bang, we had x y z. It is actually the liberal(which is what these people are ultimately, there sorts of arguments have nothing to do with atheism) who is illogical here(and a prig to boot).
So far this post is addressing the question of inequality and its relation to an omnipotent and omnibenevolent god from a somewhat abstract perspective. Although it’s dubious, nevertheless people always want to insert their own feelings and experiences in to settle the question. Even though there is no logical necessity to do so, I will try to make similar arguments as above, but from a more down to earth perspective addressing the question of omnibenevolence*.
First, I’ll address equality. If we look at what sort of actions are required to bring about** equality, people would recoil at the notion of this as justice. For the sake of equality of opportunity, only clones would be allowed to be birthed, parents would not be allowed to show attention to their offspring because they would be given better treatment than comparatively disadvantaged children, all acts of self-betterment would be outlawed etc. But even all of these manifestly unjust acts would fail to bring about true equality. Ultimately, the only true equality is nothingness, where dualities of justice/injustice are irrelevant. So not only is equality not just, it is not even desirable. Inequality is necessary.
Equality is not just. From my perspective, if equality isn’t just, there is no problem with a loving god who creates an unequal universe. But that argument doesn’t seem to resonate with people. The minute someone conjures an image of infants born without limbs and asks why the Christian God would allow this, many will find it emotionally difficult to accept arguments about equality. Here we can address the problem of evil in a different way.
Let’s assume two ordinary, decent people birth a child. Like any other ordinary people, they love their child, they are after all biologically predisposed to. But let’s suppose that child grows up to be a serial killer. No experience of that child’s has led to this behavior, it is just by nature of the child’s biology that the individual takes pleasure in torturing and killing other beings. Also, the individual in question is highly proficient at what they do, so are a threat to society.
The parents still love the child, even if horrified by what they do, but decide to best course of action is to let justice take its course. They may even believe the necessary course of action is for their child to be put to death because they are a threat to society. By doing this, they are making their child endure suffering. Are we to believe that the parents in question are carrying out this course of action because of a lack of love? Or do we admit the possibility that the parents can both love their child and recognize the just course of action to remove this menace to society. I would argue we should acknowledge this possibility.
The divine God who is the final judge of all things will likewise make the correct judgment here, and if one accepts Christian views on morality, no being would be more fit to judge this scenario than an all-loving figure.
The existence of evil is not a contradiction to the notion of an omnibenevolent god, but in certain moralistic viewpoints, it is actually an argument for the necessity of an omnibenevolent god. If no evil exists, there is no reason whatsoever for an omnibenevolent god. Good and evil can both exist in God’s creations, but this does not mean God equally favors the good and the evil.
*Humans are not omnipotent, and the closest thing to a down to earth analogy here is simply to suggest that we cannot know the outcome of an alternative possibility unless we experience them, otherwise we are just engaging in fantasy. Fantasy is fine, but it is philosophy.
**actually just get us closer to equality
Sportsmen are truly miserable I tell you, none of them get any joy in competition.
She was born that way. It was there 20 years ago: acquisitive, shifty look, toothy, the pretense of seriousness and ‘work’…
These hussies don’t actually sell themselves, they are simply always on offer – it is a rolling prostitute life. Why? because they are greedy, scared, too stupid to exist in any other way. What distinguishes them is that they have enough brain cells to function, but none are left for critical thinking. They tend to be very earnest but also lazy. This type has always been selected to front institutions. There was that UK lady as a PM few months ago, a perfect example. Most current ‘men in positions of power’ are the same. That’s the fate of mature societies, Medievial church croaked from the same dissease.
Not at all. It will have a winning military that would have just won the biggest war since WW2 (that Russia also won), own the most arable, fertile lands in proximity to Europe, huge resources in a thinly populated land, control of Azov and probably Black See…in other words more of what they already have.
A defeat in Ukraine would have massive consequences for US: the loss of face after the fanatical support for Kiev, fear among allies, but above all the end of any dreams of world dominance and control.
Loss in Ukraine would change the way US is perceived – given how much rides on the perceptions for US: the value of dollar, ongoing obedience, living standards, culture – Washington needs a continuing perception that US is “Number one in everything!!!”, unbeatable, unchallenged. The loss would continue the unravelling of US global domination. It is definitely not a good thing, that’s why the hysteria among neo-cons.
If you can get yourself to celebrate that Euro-Americans have a 0.1 longer lives than Slovaks, you must be a pretty sad character. With all the wealth, the best medical care, blabla… 0.1 of a year? Are you serious?
I didn’t look into it, but perhaps you could tell me whether Arestovitch resigned prior or after the helicopter crashed.
Excellent quote and thanks for the reminder. These are the hidden awliyah of Allah swt. They are content with His Will and Decree and consider the only calamity to befall them is when they fall out of His obedience and earn Divine displeasure. Otherwise, they bear these trials with a sweet patience and only draw closer to Him and are raised in rank with each breath they draw.
Peace.
Once again, you are stunning in your ability to reach new lows in your senseless quest to try and diminish the Ukrainian question.
Firstly, I continually need to remind you that it is Russia that is the clear aggressor in this war, not Ukraine, something that even a child should be able to figure out. A footnote in history? This is really the telltale marker that your abilities to discern are vastly lacking. After 11 months of war, with both Ukraine and the West and Russia showing no signs of ending this war any time soon, both sides firmly digging in for a long war, you call this a “footnote”? It could all very well end up being the prelude to WWIII.
Expensive?
The OECD estimates that the world economy in 2023 will be US$2.8 trillion smaller than was estimated in December 2021, before Russian troops and tanks swarmed into neighbouring Ukraine.
https://www.aspistrategist.org.au/the-ballooning-costs-of-the-ukraine-war/
And this is only after 11 months of war. What will the costs be after 24 months, 36 months…48?
A man I know worked in Lybia in the early 80ies. Told me it was mainly positive and that he enjoyed his stay.
According to him populist strongmen are what suits Arabs best. I tend to agree with him on personal experience grounds. The Berber are somewhat different, but they are a minority nowadays in these lands.
The Leader of Al Fateh Revolution… !
RIP
You don’t know how disappointed I was after watching this on Netflix.
I think he resigned before, because he acknowledged that Uki anti-rocket fire was responsible for the blast of residential building in Dnepropetrovsk (told the truth for a change, which is unacceptable in Ukraine). That helo crash was a response to interior minister demand for a cut in money for selling Western weapons sent to Ukraine to third countries and/or in drug trafficking money made by Uki ministry of defence
Let me remind you that the war was started in 2014 by Ukraine, which was an aggressor against Donbass
Yea, he got greedy. Could also have been the money for drug trafficking: Ukraine is the hub of all sorts of criminal activity
Helicopter trips are notoriously dangerous for aspiring politicians, especially of military background.
If I was a politician I would only travel by armored train.
As the Russian saying goes: travel slowly – you’ll go far ! (Тише едешь – дальше будешь).
Certainly not as disappointed as I was when I learned that Gaddafi’s son Saadi had dated Ksyusha Sobchak.
https://www.spb.kp.ru/daily/23304/114752/
Moderate, technocratic monarchies work better on average than other forms of government in the region. Best-run Arab nations today: Jordan, United Arab Emirates, Oman. The Jordanian monarchy in particular stands out as being consistently competent and stable. Oman and United Arab Emirates had 1-2 generations of good governance; but it remains to be seen how they will fair over the long run.
Worst leaders in the Arab world tend to be populist strongmen: Gaddafi, Nasser and Hussein. Nasser lost the war against Israel, despite possessing the upper-hand, and drove away talented minorities along with their skills and capital. Hussein was a psycho who massacred a lot of Kurds and Iranians and unwisely provoked the Israeli-American neocon regime to invade and dismantle his country. Gaddafi was a babbling nutter who got lucky with his oil reserves.
To be fair; populist strongmen did also implement positive policies. Nasser extended education to the masses, Hussein encouraged the arts, and Gaddafi maintained order in a tribally fractious land. That said, that they were unwisely deposed by the American Empire doesn’t mean they were good or any way competent. Both Iraq and Libya would’ve likely done better under a Hashemite or Alawite rulership. Egypt too would’ve been less susceptible to the malign influences of Socialism and Islamism had it kept its monarchy.
Saudi Arabia’s leadership is flawed; but they’ve maintained stability for 70-some years now despite the many predictions of societal collapse and an Islamist takeover. King Faisal of Saudi Arabia was one the greatest 20th century Arab leaders.
And Allah knows best.
Samo Burja on the understated success of Morocco’s monarchy in cultivating exports:
I used to be an ethnic nationalist and I was happier when I was. Now all I have is my hatred for white liberals and even that isn’t nearly as fun as it used to be.
I agree that Moroccans are today doing better on development level than their Algerian neighbors and rivals who had a head start after the independence, but were harmed by their bloody islamist insurrection / civil war in the 90ies.
I should have kept strongmen, but shouldn’t have mentioned populists. I include Arab kings among the strongmen, if they’re weak they won’t last long. Think of Hassan II of Morocco, he was absolutely ruthless and Moroccans bowed, kissed his hand and called him Mowlay (Master).
An Algerian friend once told me that they had two great politicians: the idealistic Ben Bella (a friend of Che Guevara) and the ruthless Boumediene who led a military coup against Ben Bella. Despite Ben Bella being a very decent man with high aspirations for popular democracy, it is Boumediene the dictator that Algerians remember and regret to this very day.
Arabs are unfit for democracy, at least they were unfit when I lived in France, visited Maghreb and personally knew some of them. They candidly admitted this as a matter of fact situation. Perhaps your generation would one day prove me wrong.
And God guides whom ever He pleases.
Nasser definitely did not have the upper hand. His army was in no shape to fight a conventional war and he knew it. Events just got away from him. It happens
You’re right actually. Egypt’s 150-180K strong army was outnumbered by Israel’s 250K troops. Egypt’s military also suffered from poor training, low mechanization, and a politicized command echelon. Moreover, its ammunition was depleted from the war in Yemen. But the biggest disadvantage Egypt had during the war was simply a lack of motivation; Egyptian troops were fighting on behalf of Palestinians; whereas Israelis were fighting for their themselves.
He fanned the flames of war though and was first to strike; so he deserves blame for going unprepared.
Let me remind you that Russia first sent in its advisors and rabble rousers to Donbas to organize and first foment the war. Nowhere in the world that I know of, does any country allow a constituent part of its whole to break away with the help of an outside party, no plebiscite being held, and remain completely complacent. Get real Professor.
What kind of a Polish person do you estimate this to be?
That kind that escaped extermination by Hitler.
Pretty shocking map. BTW, matches my highly incidental impression of East Germans taking a cynical approach to the system. (not saying that they are necessarily wrong)
@Beckow
It is funny when they call her “Jacinda Acorn.”
Wish we had hard data on the sociosexuality of these different pols. Would certainly guess that Jacinda Ardern and Sanna Marin have ridden the ___ carousel. I will spare you hearing me propose certain others.
Should each country has its own “IQ clock”, to bring attention to dysgenics?
Helmuth Nyborg says that IQ is “decreasing every day.” Put enough decimal places on it and you could represent it.
He apologized and resigned immediately after he had said those things about the rocket on the Feigin show. It’s puzzling why he spoke of this, without knowing all the details (he talks so much that it is possible that he simply made a mistake, but even if this were true, it would still be a mistake to talk about it).
The Ukrainians do not have the capability to match or deter this kind of a missile – it was X22, an old missile, designed to take out large aircraft carriers in open seas. This missile is not intelligent and can strike within a large radius, it is absolutely insane to use it on a residential area (or any ground target). It is a large residential area, they could’ve hit another house. They dropped a whole ton on a podyezd and smashed the whole podyezd into the ground. RIP.
Arestovych resigning doesn’t mean he’ll stop talking. He’ll talk more freely now.
The desire to preserve the “genetic lineages” resonates with others in that particular group and is shared by many, not just one person, one ego. You cannot blame a flower for wanting to receive water and sunlight and to grow.
The wars the Western powers have been fighting in the Middle East and the influx of Moslem settlers and colonists (known by a euphemism as ‘migrants’) into Western Europe, with the purported ‘asylum seekers’ acting as a flimsy figleaf, are I believe ultimately temporary, and are simply a means to an end.
That end being to generate hate (which the ‘powers that be’ feed off of becoming ever stronger), which is to be the primary motivating factor for Europeans and Moslems to fight each other in WWIII. The goal is the destruction of what remains of organic European and Middle Eastern identities. As part of that it wouldn’t at all surprise me if both the Vatican and Mecca have already been targeted for destruction by nuclear missiles.
Should things get that far, in the vacuum thus created I suppose the elites and hangers on pushing WWIII may have some newly concocted global religion they will introduce along with their new world state, or, ’empire’, as they sometimes call it.
Because he’s a loudmouth moron
I’m not blaming anyone.
All I’m saying is that according to Buddhism, the more we cling to ego, and the more we cling to outward form, the more we suffer. And Bashi claimed to be a Buddhist, so I wasn’t sure how he squared that with his very passionate ethno-nationalism.
But I also understand that people are complicated and full of layers and contradictions, and that’s ok.
In terms of growing, according to how I understand spirituality, it is insight into the paradox that in order to flourish we must not cling to life – as Jesus said, give up your life in order to live.
I don’t mean, that one should not have a natural human affection for hearth and home, the place of ones birth and it’s customs and landscape and ways, and the people there – that is healthy, although according to Buddhism even this should not be too strong.
But Bashi, I think, looks to ethno-nationalism as a form of salvation – and that is to be attached to an illusion and court suffering, according to Buddhism. Which again, is of course his right, and things are complicated.
For myself, I dabbled in ethno-nationalism, and it made me an angrier, more defensive person constantly seeing insults to my group – I’m glad I’m no longer attached to that particular illusion, although I retain a certain fondness for scenes of my childhood. I’m also perhaps weird – at least here – in that I just can’t seem to dislike people of other races.
But as I said somewhere else, we’re all on a different karmic journey, with different spiritual lessons to learn – so what’s appropriate for one, is not for another.
Ahh, that’s because you replaced one attachment with another, hate being inverse ethno-nationalism 🙂
The interesting thing about children is that it is in our primordial and innate nature to want them to perpetuate ourselves in both a material sense as well as a spiritual sense. The material sense needs no explanation, it is the same desire that a wolf or cat or elephant have. But, raising children with efforts to make them righteous and pious takes effort, but that effort results in one’s children, the seeds one has sown and tilled, becoming a spiritual crop that one harvests in the next life:
“When the human being dies, his deeds end except for three: ongoing charity [like a well he dug that people benefit from after he passed], beneficial knowledge [like a cure for a disease that humans continue to benefit from], or a righteous child who prays for him.”- reported in Muslim
Peace.
For the average person throughout history, #3 is the most likely. Every day I read a portion of the Qur’an and ask that its rewards be accrued to my parents and their parents going back up my family tree. They prayed and struggled so that I could be here and the least I can do is perpetuate their accrual of rewards for good deeds even when they have no more ability to do so themselves. I sat down my children and told them that prayers for me is the least they can do for the sacrifices their mother and I have made for them. And it is my hope they will perpetuate this in my future generations until the end of the world. There need not be a contradiction in one perpetuating one’s lineage for both worldly and spiritual aims…in fact the two are inextricably linked together.
A decimated one.
And a wrecked economy.
US isn’t directly involved. This isn’t Vietnam.
If the stakes are as high as you claim, the US will certainly not allow Ukraine to lose and it has the means to guarantee a Russian loss. I don’t think the stakes are nearly as high as you claim for the USA, but let’s hope the US leadership believes they are.
Euro Americans live about a year longer than Slovaks.
You rally couldn’t help but throw a lie into your post, could you?
Life expectancy Euro Americans: 77.8
Life expectancy Slovakia: 76.9
So three non-Christians interpret Christianity in a way that opposes what actual Christians believe.
Arestovych (or is it Arestovitch?) is a very intelligent and charismatic man. He has spoken in defense of the Russian language and culture in Ukraine from the excessive tribalism that is understandably demonstrated by some Ukrainian nationalists. It is the sensible thing to do. Russian speakers would self-identify as Ukrainians more than before the war, but they will not disappear. Moreover, Russians who would look for an Eastern Slav country that is organized along European values, will look to Ukraine when the war is over. If they see only hate and ressentment this would turn them off and push them in the embrace of Prigozhin (who is a Jew) and the like.
Arestovitch has clearly shown that he is an able politician and I think that he is already preparing his future. I don’t think he made a mistake when he talked about the anti- aerial defense rocket in Dnepropetrovsk, these things have happened before and will happen again in the future, war brings a lot of suffering to civilians, some of it might be due to friendly fire. I think he knew what he was doing when he talked to Feigin and I believe the same about his resignation. BTW the man is supposedly a bisexual, which is in line with the current Davos consensus. If he was not a WEF Young Global Leader already, then he sure might become one if he wants to.
Yeah, I know it might look a bit distasteful. That’s why my first comment was to point to Dmitry and Aaron that they kind of behave as the Judaizer heretics did in the fifteenth century Novgorod. Criticizing the Church from a point of view of a foreign dogma. OTOH, as I wrote I don’t think the debate was theological, it was more a socio-psychological discussion.
And frankly, I don’t think I wrote anything that would contradict the opinions of Fr. Alexander Saltykov who baptized me many years ago. He taught in the theological Institute in Moscow and comes from the Saltykov aristocratic family. He is a staunch defender of the Orthodox Faith, but I am quite certain that he would have agreed that our Lord defended the downtrodden and the weak more than He admired or justified the actions of the strong and the mighty.
There was a time when the Kadashi Church, dating back to the seventeenth century, the one where Fr. Alexander serves, was menaced by the real estate developers who wanted to demolish a part of this old Moskovite neighborhood and build luxury condos for the nouveaux riches, and Fr. Alexander stood against the riot police with his parishioners. They were able to preserve several old buildings that are not far from the Tretiakov Gallery and to impose a real estate development plan that was more sensible.
That’s the spirit of the Old Orthodox Church that stood against the tyrannical tendencies of the state and the wealth. Unfortunately, after the Raskol this spirit was greatly reduced among the Nikonian Orthodox Christians, and was mainly to be found among the Old Believers.
Three: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emir_Abdelkader
A man of great humanity and integrity.
The history of political leadership in the Arab world is rather similar to many regions around the world; mostly mediocrities, a fair number of ghastly characters and very rarely, an honest and intelligent leader. The proportion of ghastly characters is slightly more than Western democracies due to a lack of checks and balances and few restraints on arbitrary power. On the other hand, the high degree of concentration in power has allowed a few competent leaders to single-handedly drag their nations to modernity, and in some cases to maximize their potential given human capital constraints.
Ten examples of such excellent Arab heads of state:
1) Foud Chehab (strongman)
2) Muhammad Ali Pasha (monarch)
3) Hamid Bourghiba (strongman)
4) Sultan Qabboos (monarch)
5) Zahir al-Umar (strongman)
6) Sheikh Mohamad bin Rashid (monarch)
7) King Faisal of Iraq (monarch)
8) King Abdullah I of Jordan (monarch)
9) King Faisal of Saudi Arabia (monarch)
10) Fakhr El-Din (monarch)
As you can see, they were disproportionately of the royal bent; and two of the three enlightened strongmen, Fouad Chehab and Zahir Al-Umar, were drawn from the old Levantine ruling elite. Only Hamid Bourghiba was born to a poor family of no particular noble lineage. Ironically his Kemalist ideology of female emancipation and staunch secularism would probably put him as most far removed ideologically from the general populace. But overall; none of the great Arab leaders were populist panderers to Boobus Arabicus, to borrow a phrase from H.L. Mencken. And only Fouad Chehab had to contend with appealing to the median voter to gain support for his initiatives; the rest were free from popular constraints.
The great benefit of the monarchial system; other than not having to pander to popular opinion; is the moderation and technocratic bent of nearly all monarchs. Especially in the 20th century Arab world; the monarchs tended to be uniformly hostile to Islamism and Communism. In the present day you can also observe that otherwise intellectually mediocre monarchs like the ones found in UAE, Jordan and Morocco can steer the ship of state fairly competently by appointing capable technocrats and delegating authority downwards. In Saudi Arabia the cabinet is usually filled with PhD’s and graduates of American Ivy Leagues.
The monarch, aided by his high upbringing, is also more likely to cultivate an elevated taste and impart the refinement onto the nation at large, to great aesthetic benefit. This was true of a monarchs such as Louis XIV of France and Frederick The Great of Prussia. In the Middle East, Sultan Qaboos and Mohammad Reza Shah of Iran were keen on encouraging high-culture activities in their nations.
The monarchal system however does encounter the perennial threat of the Bad Emperor; though in my view the threat of ghastly kings has greatly reduced in the era of globalization and international pressure. Dictators like Saddam or Gaddafi would more likely be immune from outside pressure due to popular appeal; thus more susceptible to violating human rights. Kings have their exalted reputations to maintain; notice how MBS for example back-tracked and cowered in fear of international opinion after the Khashoggi debacle. Conversely, the non-monarchal Gaddafi and Saddam continued with their madness to the very end.
The question of “fit” or “unfit” imo should be rephrased to “what works best under the circumstances”. Lebanon is a democracy and was the most prosperous non-oil Arab state for much of the 20th and 21st century. Conversely, Egypt was authoritarian and lagged Lebanon in nearly all indicators. One could’ve looked at these data points and concluded that Egypt should’ve adopted democracy to become more like Lebanon. But the cultural differences would’ve lead to a different outcome. Lebanon was primed for democracy by the Jesuit educational influence which infused Western values into the Lebanese polity and allowed for compatibility with the democratic system. Egypt had no such cultural conditioning thus did not value critical ingredients such as freedom of expression and protection of minority rights; making it more prone to demagoguery and a descent to majoritarian oppression.
Whether one polity is fit or unfit for democracy has as much to do with culture as genetics. It took a long time for democracy to develop in Western Europe. The universal-franchise Western democracy of today would be a mystery to a Englishman living in the 18th century. Even then the concept of protection of minority rights was somewhat shaky; the Gordon Riots of 1780 were a popular backlash to the Papist Reforms which eased discrimination laws against Catholics in Great Britain and Ireland.
In theory, the conditions necessary for a functioning democracy could develop over time in the Arab world. But the present situation makes a monarchal system preferable. Cicero contends that the ideal form of government is a combination of monarchy, democracy, and aristocracy. I would tend to agree with him in a general sense; only that sometimes the circumstances make only one system prefe