“Russia — home of the elephant!”
 

Central Plains was the home of the elephant, long before there was ever a Russia. It even says so on Russian wikipedia

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Боевые_слоны

And used extensively at war. Hence "elephant chess"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiangqi

I'm sure you are familiar with this reference

成王立，殷民反，王命周公踐伐之。商人服象，為虐于東夷，周公遂以師逐之，至于江南，乃為三象，以嘉其德。

《吕氏春秋·古乐篇》
 

Als der König Tschong auf den Thron kam, da machten die Leute von der vertriebenen Yin-Dynastie einen Aufruhr. Der König befahl dem Herzog Dschou hinzugehen, um sie zu bestrafen. Die Leute von Schang (Yin) hatten Elefanten gezähmt, um die Barbaren des Ostens einzuschüchtern. Der Fürst von Dschou folgte ihnen mit seinem Heer und vertrieb sie bis südlich des Großen Flusses (Yangtsekiang). Darauf machte er die Musik der drei Elefanten (San Siang), um seine Tugend zu preisen.
 

Replies: @From Beer to Paternity

This is the hardest thing about making a good WWI movie - the same pointless, hopeless, meat grinder, day in day out slaughter for four plus years that affected all participants - and for what - a few yards here a mile or two there? The air war is about the only thing in that conflict that can occasionally produce a decent story, but even that’s relative.

Derb links this Ron Unz WWI American Pravda article, which is quite interesting.

https://www.unz.com/runz/american-pravda-lost-histories-of-the-great-war/

In the middle of this Ukraine war, we can see how the Allies would have talked themselves into turning down a German peace proposal. Russia wants talks? Must mean they're losing! Don't negotiate now! Sad.

Aha caught yo JD old friend.And I claim this to be only 95% OT after reading your linked piece.

we must do something about our shame and disgrace as old H-bd buffs that (I say with near certainty) none of us dealt with the crudities of Philippe Rushton, or apart from some side blows from Ron) the over statements and over simpliifications of Lynn and Vanhenen by attending to an obvious possible factor in assessment of African derived cognitive abilities that we should have been alerted to by the huge differences between caste bound India and caste free China.

I refer to our completely ignoring caste in Africa, probably because we were actually ignorant of it. Just look it up! It is not a peripheral influence on the bloodlines of Africans and African-Americans. UK exam results, Ivy League "diversity", Kwasi Karteng's academic record - and that doesn't even suggest the obvious horrible possibility, viz. that the Africans who captured and sold the slaves captured and sold mostly the dumber brethren to foreign traders.

C'mon! Let's stir. It's time to find out how the good thinkers are going to cancel this embarrassing topic

Replies: @Steve Sailer, @Steve Sailer, @Corvinus, @Curle

Arggh, I searched the Internet every which way so I could quote you correctly, and never got close.
So thanks for the reminder of where I saw the green tea paradigm!

Replies: @Almost Missouri

Agreed: there is no better title of a book about music. The book itself is a piece of work, as well: wildly opinionated, lovingly out of date to 21st century ears and often offensively wrongheaded (Cohn refers to the Stax/Volt label -- home of Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Booker T. and the MG's, Eddie Floyd, William Bell, Rufus and Carla Thomas, et al. -- as "the heart of the sweat-and-Tom syndrome" with "much to answer for"). He spends an entire chapter on P.J. Proby, and three paragraphs on Sam Cooke.

On the other hand, he gives appropriate credit to Charlie Rich, one of the most versatile singers in pop, whose range encompassed country, soul, R&B, pop and jazz. And he absolutely loves the Who ("the last great fling of Superpop"), although I suspect he had little good to say about the group's metamorphosis into a stadium act.

It was just about the first book on rock music I ever read, when I was twelve or so, and it's stayed with me ever since. Highly recommended for an afternoon's reading. (It's also been issued under the titles Rock from the Beginning in the U.S., and Pop from the Beginning in the U.K.)

Replies: @Meretricious, @Reg Cæsar

No, he's saying that we are a perch, and the budgie that stands on us is the government.

Replies: @Reg Cæsar

https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/Culture/dreamingforworld.html

John,

it's actually "homeland of elephants"

Although the whole "Russia is a homeland of elephants" propaganda campaign was of course ridiculous, it should be kept in mind that strangely large number of inventions have the Russians come up with an idea but doing nothing with it.

Tsiolkovsky is the most spectacular example probably.

For what it's worth, one category of records that Guinness no longer will recognize is that pertaining to elephant polo.

https://www.aljazeera.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/41b3a13ead7d465ebd3d9ea452e5f9ed_6.jpeg

Those avatars of white supremacy, PETA, are striving for its elimination.

Replies: @International Jew

But it usually doesn't work.

I happen to be reading The Mandibles for the second time. Amazing book.

Replies: @Seneca44

Years ago I thought Ron Paul was crazy when he said a border wall would turn into something to contain Americans. Wise man.

In Lionel Shriver’s The Mandibles Americans have to pay coyotes to smuggle them over the border into Mexico. It’s coming.
 

So I stupidly downloaded that book and after the first 1/3 or so, now I’m terrified.

She obviously wrote it before the current pre-shtf episode, but it can’t help but be considered in light of current events.

Smugglers gonna smug.

I used to think Chomsky was the smartest intellectual alive. His working memory, the breadth and depth of Information, and the ease with which he could Intellectually disarm pretty much any challenger (see his Foucault debate) were highly impressive. The fact that he has published over 90 books, and published countless interviews and articles only added to his godlike status in my mind.

Eventually I followed a similar trajectory as the neocons, from Jewish leftist to a child of the right, except instead of supporting endless wars, I became a reader of Steve sailer and Unz. I think Steve and Chomsky are on par intellectually, and when you aggregate Steve’s blog output, I would venture to guess it may match The volume Chomsky’s published works. I still have immense respect for Chomsky and would love to see a debate between the two of them

The Mannichon Solution
 

Thanks for those links!

I loved the book, but the economics part doesn't quite make sense. Getting cut out of international trade wouldn't by itself plunge the US into 3rd World status. We'd lose our "gains from trade" sure, but we're not that open an economy to begin with. Imports are just 13% of our GDP — where places like Ireland or Belgium are near 100%.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.com/rankings/imports/

If you wanted to really ruin the US, you'd need to do what Venezuela did — let civil disorder get out of hand and confiscate productive assets thus driving commerce and industry underground (or to extinction altogether). Now there's plenty of that too in The Mandibles. So Shriver's imagined world is very much consistent with a catastrophic impoverishment of the US, she just doesn't put the blame in the right place.

On my understanding of the economics, the book becomes especially scary. Because while getting cut out of international trade isn't in the cards, the US is very much on the Venezuela track already.

Replies: @J.Ross, @Bill Jones

Estonia never had many Jews — far fewer than Latvia or Lithuania. That joke would work better if there were a prestigious English school that sounded like Vilna or Lubavitch.

Straight from the mouth of our budding young scholar:

“I am really passionate about policy and using policy to empower communities. And so in the short term, for me, that looks like becoming a lawyer,” she said.

“But in the long term, I want to use that as a platform to do work in policy.”

You just can't make this shit up!

https://nypost.com/2022/06/12/first-generation-florida-teen-gets-into-every-ivy-league-college/
 

Replies: @Charon

With trepidation, a few uni students are starting to call a deer a... deer.

A letter from Virginia Tech swimmer Reka Gyorgy is discussed on Twitter in this thread by Mary Margaret Olohan.

Replies: @Reg Cæsar

See also:

https://spandrell.com/2015/06/03/the-purpose-of-absurdity/

He makes the point that the moral of the [apparently historically-based] tale referenced by this Chinese proverb is almost exactly the opposite of that of the [fictional] Emperor's New Clothes. Hmm...

Also Havel's greengrocer, of course.

And this -- the main blog post is an interesting model for how dictator-focused personality cults function, and why they tend to exhibit a sort of rhetorical "ratchet effect," that's worth reading on its own:

https://abandonedfootnotes.blogspot.com/2011/03/simple-model-of-cults-of-personality.html

But this comment from "AC" is more directly relevant:

Thought experiment: suppose that instead of a single dictator, there is an elite class, which has general control over most cultural organs and elite institutions but whose political ascendancy is somewhat tenuous. Like the dictator, it will want signals of loyalty (both for determining loyalties and because of general ingroup/ outgroup dynamics.) But because it’s not a single dictator, the signal can’t just be “the Generalissimo is awesome.” Instead, the shibboleth would be particular statements, or articles of faith, that are known to be supported by the ruling class.

Of course, making the shibboleth a mathematical axiom would be pointless; if nothing else, non-loyal mathematicians would be misperceived as loyal elites. The signal must be costly. So the articles of faith must be faintly ridiculous; easily challengeable on the facts, so that only people really devoted would at first make those claims. (Of course they can’t be obviously false either, else the integrity of the ruling class would also be called into question.)

Like cults of personality, there is a ratchet effect. As the elite becomes more entrenched, the shibboleths, while never changing in form (too costly to coordinate), will ever increase in intensity and audaciousness. And the enforcement of the party line will be strongest in educational institutions where the future members of the elite class are trained. It would be considered a matter of proper education – like the finishing schools of old – when “politically incorrect” thoughts in these institutions are mercilessly squelched.

Not a bad analogy. And it sounds... kind of familiar. Of course, over time, it's easy to see how the "ratchet effect" might eventually bump up against the "shibboleths can't be obviously false" constraint... which seems like what we're starting to see in the current year.

https://twitter.com/SAM_Volhov/status/1501883688187015169?s=20&t=_K-N73LWeZCTWMDKBnzoDg

St. Pat was not English, but he was British.
 

St Piran actually was Irish, and washed up in Cornwall in a story that beats any of Patrick's. He's Paddy-in-reverse. And he has a mountain somewhere in Canada.

Tory Authoritarianism? Maybe. But there's a simpler explanation for the Canada-Australia-New Zealand tyrannies. To adapt another classic Derb-ism, "it's the blecks, dear fellow." Or rather, their absence.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/like-father-like-son/#comment-5176744

Besides that Anglosphere but bleck-heavy South Africa has less covid-despotism, among US states, it is the black-heavy Southern states that are least covid-despotic.

Hungary is not so subject to the cultural influence of Britain as is English-speaking Ireland.

Perhaps it is because, in the minds of British people John Derbyshire's age, it is associated with the guy who wrote this book, which was big during their formative years. Okay, he's a "Nevil" and not a "Neville," but that's my wild guess.

https://i.imgur.com/3lAPPPP.jpg?1

Replies: @Cortes, @Reg Cæsar

Oh I don't know about that. What about Neville in The Cloggies (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cloggies#/media/File:ProtoCloggies11.gif) that magnificent cartoon series about clog-dancing folk?

Perhaps you're thinking of Neville the Concrete Aboriginal? (I googled it and was surprised to see they still sell them.)

"Crichton" is pronounced "Cry-ton"

"Taliaferro" is pronounced "Tolliver"

Replies: @JMcG

And Cholmondeley is pronounced "chumly.' Back in grad school, I slightly upset a Brit prof by knowing how to pronounce that one.

Replies: @Anonymous, @Ralph L, @JMR

I raise you:

There was a young Cholmondeley Colquhoun
Who kept as a pet a balquboun
His mother said, “Cholmondeley,
Do you think it quite colmondeley
To feed that balquboun with a spolquoun?”


Norman, rather than Anglo-Saxon, but still handy for avoiding a scene at parties.

Replies: @silviosilver

I can think of some 'Strawns," like dead 70's aussie pop star Shirley, or non-dead youtube antifeminist Karen. But more famous by far would be redknob soccer star/manager Gordon, who is a "Stracken." It's a bloody minefield!

And Sevenoaks is Snooks.

And “Strachan” is “Strawn.”
 

Evelyn Fauntleroy-Derbyshire.

Replies: @houston 1992, @Alden

Neville.

Remember Churchill's advice to his predecessor when wresting control of their party: Neville, give in, Neville, give in, Neville, Neville, Neville, Neville...

Replies: @John Derbyshire

Or, perhaps, Geraint, Dylan, Ioan or Dafydd?

Replies: @SunBakedSuburb

Ethelred is my idea of a a good Anglo-Saxon name
Though to my eye this guy does have a passing resemblance to Hugh Grant

Lord Nigel Wingate, upon waking noticed the tent pole in his bed.
Cuthbart, the loyal servant asked, "Shall I awake Lady Wingate?"
Nigel replied, "No, Cuthbart. Bring me my baggy tweeds. I think I shall smuggle this one into town."

Throat Warbler-Mangrove.
But it is pronounced, "John Smith".

Replies: @International Jew

Fair enough Mr. Derbyshire. But you shouldn't conflate rejection of cultural self-flagellation with moral apathy:

-There are no serious CCP historians today who don't repudiate, to varying extents, Mao's misdeeds. GLF and CR are termed as 十年浩劫 Ten Year Great Disaster. (For reference: youtube talks of Nanjing University's Gao Hua 高華)

-Both the CCP and Japanese ruling class tells a self-serving narrative of history which stokes Sino-Japanese enmity. But jokes aside, it's simply untrue that the Japanese, across political spectrum, have not expressed remorse.

Replies: @nebulafox

Bugger and vulgar both were inspired by Bulgar, i.e., Bulgarian.


Leave the poor Bulgars alone!


https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/pnp/cph/3c00000/3c05000/3c05300/3c05351r.jpg


BTW, today's Google Doodle is Georges Seurat. Does that mean when it disappears tomorrow, Google will be pointillistless?

Replies: @nokangaroos

Yeah, see, I can't be listening to whole podcasts. ;-} It's nothing personal, as I'm sure the sound clips are funny, but I can read 5 - 8 x faster. I will read this on Wednesday, of course, as I hardly ever miss them.

Thanks.

Replies: @Buzz Mohawk

Another great episode Derb!

Gay marriage is ridiculous but "huge majorities of people don't approve of gay marriage" is the worst conceivable argument against it. It's also been outright false for years now in the US.

"The bible condemns homosexual behavior" is a much, much better argument against it, and I say that as someone who couldn't care less about the fairy tales of Bronze Age Semites.

"Because God says so" has moral weight that "the neighbors might find it icky" doesn't quite have.

Derb, I love ya man, but...

“... civilized ... harmless ... tolerance, civility ... proper respect ... sensibilities ... decent restraint ...”
 

Replies: @Achmed E. Newman, @SafeNow

“In a civilized liberal democracy, majorities owe certain things to harmless minorities..."
 

You mean like this?

https://youtu.be/fmO-ziHU_D8?t=88

Replies: @Hans

Seriously, the price of living in a tolerant society is that sometimes minorities WILL offend the sensibilities of the majority. Europeans find 1st cousin marriage to be offensive but when Sephardic Jews (who had picked up that habit in the Arab world) wanted to marry their first cousins, early American government accommodated them despite the fact that it was offensive. As long as only consenting adults are involved and you are not harming 3rd parties, you should be able to do whatever you want and not have your neighbors enforcing their "tastes, beliefs and sensibilities" on you. This is even more important now that the surveillance state has the capability of knowing where you are and what you are saying and doing at all time.

I think that driving cars around fast in a circle (where they sometimes lose control and kill people) is a pointless waste of fuel and lives. A long time ago it was a proving ground for new technology but it lost that function long ago and the cars and drivers became clownish rolling/walking billboards for corporate crap. It offends my tastes, beliefs and sensibilities. If this was a monarchy and I was the absolute ruler, I would get rid of it with a stroke of my pen. But we don't. To each his own - if that is your thing, then go for it. I will just have to put up with the noise and the fumes as the price of living in a free society.

Replies: @War for Blair Mountain, @D. K., @Art Deco, @Technite78, @Alec Leamas (hard at work), @obwandiyag, @pyrrhus, @Ian M.

"However, it seems to me that minorities owe something to the majority in return: mainly, a proper respect for their tastes, beliefs and sensibilities, and a decent restraint in challenging them"

Wonderful response. Yes, the celebration of Christmas comes to mind.

Mr. Derbyshire, maybe you could be instrumental in getting us a [Groan] button out of Mr. Unz. I could use it right now ... for something ...

For those not familiar with the concept of Narrative Collapse, here is my description from a column where I defined it:

Innocent black person going about his/her private business is accosted/harassed/beaten/killed by evil racist white cop/vigilante.

Media report the incident thus, based solely on testimony of victim/friends/black witnesses, stirring up widespread resentment about white racism.

Actual facts emerge, placing the victim in a much more dubious light and showing that the white offender was responding legitimately to bad/violent/crazy behavior.

Media reports the revised story without apology.
 

"Turtle, flippers; tortoise, feet."

Oh, thanks!

My Webster knows nothing about your distinction between the two though. Tortoise: Any of an order of reptiles. Turtle: Any of an order of land, freshwater and marine reptiles (am. English).
Since they are no frogs, we can't ask.

Replies: @Achmed E. Newman

Thus Spoke Derbythustra...

Well gosh, they've gone from being suspected of charletanry to respectability to superceding our government and being able to ovetturn our rights based on nothing.

Diphtheria was rampant and usually deadly. Until a vaccine was developed in the 1920s and the disease was wiped out during the 1930s.

"Medicine is a form of courtesy we pay to the aristocracy."

- Erasmus

I read this a few years ago after seeing it recommended on Greg Cochran’s blog. Good book.

"nothing a doctor could do for you before about 1930"

I'm just reading A.J. Cronin's (creator of Dr Finlay if you're a Brit) autobiographical "Adventures In Two Worlds".

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._J._Cronin

Not quite true. A lot of things which could be cured by antibiotics post-45 could still be attacked by surgery.

His first call out in the 20s as a general practitioner was to a boy dying of diptheria, he had to perform a tracheotomy by candlelight on a kitchen table. On another occasion he operated in similar conditions on a girl with acute suppurative mastoiditis, worrying about cutting too deep and killing her, uncomfortably aware of her father, demented with worry and with a reputation for mania, watching him closely.

On the other hand he had to watch people fading away with TB.

Replies: @MEH 0910

Czechitania, from the Prisoner of Czenda, has a little more heft.

It's painful to see one of one's heroes so wrong on something. They have the right to name their country in their language. We reserve the right to name their country in our language.

If Czechia is so euphonious, why don't they use it themselves? They have three excellent names in English already-- Moravia, Bohemia, and Silesia.

And why is CZ pronounced "ch", and CH not?

Great publicity but it'll be interesting to see if Tuck asks Murray if he regrets continuing to completely depend on his enemies.

Very nice hearing this. Thanks for posting. I'll be looking out for the interview.

Are any of Murray "friends" on the "center-left" talking to him about the book? Are any of his old buddies at the Dispatch or the Bulwark even going to review it? Of course not, it would send their liberal readers and donors to the fainting couches.

https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1404910022010748933
https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1404919211013574658

https://twitter.com/charlesmurray/status/1404942505674788866

https://twitter.com/foxnation/status/1405257460416495628

Have you or Steve seen the recent opinion piece on politicizing science ? Instead of the woman who wrote it being cancelled and denounced by the responsible majority of her peers, a wave of moderate debate is breaking out on twitter. Perhaps I am being premature though.

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.jpclett.1c01475

I am reliably informed that Murray has taped an interview for the Tucker Carlson show.
 

Replies: @res

Is that true? Ha! Even as much as they were in the process of greatly accelerating the destruction of America, at least the ctrl-left were civil and more clever back then.

Replies: @Desiderius

That comment deserves a Goldwater Box.
 

But the Democrat come-back was: “In your guts you know he’s nuts.”
 

Replies: @Getaclue

The Niebelung is orders of magnitude older and uglier looking. Bezos is merely facially goofy (and of late, muscular). I believe he's much taller too. There's a reason Mayorkas is generally photographed alone: he is dwarfed by anyone he is seen with. Also, Bezos is heterosexual. Mayorkas is a homosexual who works tirelessly to enable the international trafficking of unprotected, maximally vulnerable children for some reason.

Replies: @flyingtiger

You need an ebonics refresher course.

“…where the Torch Club be”

should be “…where the Torch Club be at”
 

...parents moving their families out of America.
 

Where’d you’d think they’d try to go?
 

Uruguay!
 

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uruguayan_Invasion

"Pics, or it didn't happen!". Okay:

https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/51J1jmYKeWL.jpg

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/IpxMhbjqTGk/hqdefault.jpg

https://img.discogs.com/vOR3DAVi93D9D_-VUwkX71sZ50U=/fit-in/300x300/filters:strip_icc():format(jpeg):mode_rgb():quality(40)/discogs-images/R-6444888-1424695663-5495.jpeg.jpg

Replies: @duncsbaby

Thank you for this extraordinary account. In September 1968 I started as a Research Assistant at the Department of Child Psychiatry, Guy's Hospital. I was a test basher, doing at least 2 Wechsler Intellignce tests for children each week, plus an adult one or two, and one or two on my main job, testing patients who had acquired a brain lesion in childhood.

As you may see, I learned a lot about intelligence testing, but still did not have a genetic interpretation of what I saw.

"Memoirs From A Mousehole"

Dearest Pasty-Faced* Derb:

While I was a Cornish woman, I deeply resembled "By Tre- and Pol- and Pen-
Ye shall know the Cornish men."
My surname ended (as THomm begins) with a dental fricative - something which tends to be lost by NeanderTHalish speakers of GoTHonic tongues - unless living in prolonged proximity to various and sundry Celts and Sunts.
With respect to Thomm's aforementioned "Cornish pasty," * an etymologist might wish to avoid stripping that word down to its nearly bare essentials.

Your Humble Ectoplasmic Ex-Ecdysiast,
Dolly "Nipple-Titties" Pentreath,
Mousehole, Cornwall

* Pasty-Faced - it's possible that after forswearing allegiance to the Crown Mr. Derbyshire might now be getting more sun
** https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pasties

To be fair, there is no range training for that.

Works as a British joke but there are obvious considerations: alcohol, shaking hands, and last-minute second thoughts.

The English hangman John Ellis also tried to kill himself and failed. He shot himself in the jaw and was prosecuted for attempted suicide. He tried again some years later and succeeded.

The point is to weaken (humiliate!) the totally rogue, federal courts.

• Eliminate the 600 or so (always expanding) federal judgeships.

• To be safe, up the # of justices to at least 50M.

See #5.

@Achmed E. Newman

You & me both, Achmed:

“A Tucker Carlson run for president in 2024? Permit me to make a bold prediction. At some point in the next four years, probably even next year, Tucker Carlson will be deplatformed. He may even lose his bank account.”
[Last graf here https://www.johnderbyshire.com/Opinions/USPolitics/dirtyelection.html ]

 

Replies: @Brutusale

My perusal of Tucker google search results this morning has CNN, Washington Post, Huffington Post and The Hill at the top of the page with associated white supremacist rhetoric.

They have no need to debate or refute him. Simply label it white supremacist then ignore/censor all substance.

If that happens then I hope Ron will give him a home here.

As I indicated earlier, last year around this time I figured him to be ousted by January of this year. I still think that at some point in the future he will go the way of his predecessor, O'Reilly, who now spends time peddling his books. The difference is that if/when Tucker is sacked, his curtain will continue to stay very much aloft.

Tucker Carlson will be deplatformed. He may even lose his bank account.
 

Replies: @Matthew Kelly, @Corvinus

John, Tucker is not invincible and, sure, he's clearly in the crosshairs of a whole bunch of the crazed wokesters.

But he has a better than even chance, I would argue, of surviving the assault.

1. He has both an instinctive of conscious sense of where he can push, and how he can "modulate." It's a unique talent.

2. He fights back. He will not allow the specious arguments to derail him. He aggressively goes after the attackers with strong arguments. He puts the opposition on defensive.

3. His personal life is impeccable. There will be no sexual harassment issues and such like.

4. Above all, he is indispensable to Fox News. Without him, they become much weaker. It would take a gigantic gaffe or amazingly out of character utterance for him to be in danger. He also takes positions that management agrees with.

So yeah, it could happen, but I put my money on No.

You bet. Big fan of Prime Obsession by the way.

Japan "not a fully sovereign country"?

 

In July 1971, the Japanese government was stunned by Nixon's dramatic announcement of his forthcoming visit to the People's Republic of China.[97] Many Japanese were chagrined by the failure of the United States to consult in advance with Japan before making such a fundamental change in foreign policy, and the sudden change in America's stance made Satō's staunch adherence to non-relations with China look like he had been played for a fool

 

They don't fear Biden. Instead they view him as feeble and non-hostile, and, as suggested by recent revelations about his family's business dealings, they may have kompromat on him. 

 

The Chinese don't want to rule the world; they only, in the apt words of Asia Times columnist David Goldman

 

Goldman was global head of credit strategy at Credit Suisse 1999-2002

 

This being China, it would be called qiāozhà xìnxā

 

Replies: @John Derbyshire

Lol when I went to Arlington, I randomly stumbled across the grave of Lt General Arthur MacArthur Jr, who was Governor-General of the Philippines for a short time. His son is much more well-known, primarily for his stint as the gaijin shogun after the US invaded and occupied Japan.

You may have heard of the McCain family. John Sr was an admiral. Jr was an admiral. III was a senator for decades and almost became president. His daughter Meghan is an obese, vapid co-host on some women's talk show on ABC or something.

I could also mention the Kennedy, Bush, Roosevelt, Harrison, and Adams dynasties. I know there are other dynasties I can't name off the top of my head.

My point? Nepotism doesn't mean you can't succeed geopolitically. Pretty much all ruling classes in every society in history have had lots of nepotism and corruption. Nepotism is still enshrined in all monarchies besides the papacy (which is no less corrupt than any hereditary dynasty). I'm sure your friend is smart and well-connected but the US government would do well to take his claim with many grains of salt. At this point the US military is extremely corrupt and openly practices ethnic nepotism. Is that better than family nepotism?

Or perhaps Singapore and then bring down a bank where the Queen keeps her money. Prince Philip is no more but he could have told you a funny joke about the Berrings bank and that expat idiot who burnt through a billion dollars. Dummies who do not fit in the City of London, should be in jail and not it the colonies!

And also, these days, Dubai.

Replies: @Jeff Stryker

"When I was 80, I finally stopped thinking about what others were thinking.
When I was 100, I felt lucky to be thinking at all."

Imagine what the typical unit will look like in 10 years. Half the youth population is non-white today. Half the high school graduates this year are not white. Will our armed forces still be majority white in ten years ? How will this be acceptable ?

My father was in the 509th back in 1964. A FOB Irishman.

Replies: @Piglet

Junior second from far right [sic] wearing shades.