Anti-gentilism has been all the rage these past few decades in the post-Christian world..

I suggest you write in to Ms. Van Kampen (aka Mrs. Rylance and writer of the play featuring manic-depressive Spanish monarch Philippe V) about naming conventions for her characters going forward? I think she chose the French naming style because he was the first Spanish monarch from the House of Bourbon but of course I can’t know for certain..

Mark Rylance just got nominated for an Olivier award for the show “Farinelli & the King.”

He played the King of Spain (Philippe V) and the show was excellent; it was about the castrati curing the King of his melancholy.

I only saw half of it as the Duke of York theatre were being very stroppy about our seats (we were meant to be sitting “in the stage” but it wasn’t as ideal from a visual perspective. Just a little aside..

Respect to Trump for saying that; he’s right!

You do understand that June isn’t about meaningless rhetoric?

Co-ethnic rather..

I like history (Royal history to book) but comments like these make me suspect ur a bit of a polymath, Steve.

In another life you would have made a popular, if colourful & contrarian, professor at a nice liberal arts college in flyover country..

In Britain the manic (moronic?) author of this article would have been liable for hate crime & a potential incitement to violence.

The Home Office has very good reason to look at a ban for travel to Britain for this author. This would have never flown about any British politician, even Nigel Farage or the BNP chap..

Other than that it was simply an incoherent piece; someone sent around a clip of Trump’s “funny moments.” It’s very obviously he’s a very wealth man, with an indomitable charisma & passionate patriotism, who says what he feels + what works. Kudos to him if he wins the Primaries; I think a Trump-Hillary showdown will actually be very reinvigorating for the Old Republic (Bernie’s a bit of a pansy & the Spanish chaps are still a little raw).. May even be Wasp America’s final decision on which path it wants to go down (more of the same with Hillary’s impeccable establishment credentials vs. Trump’s populist Paleo-conservatism).

My professional training and faith sort of abhors volatility so my (weak) inclination is towards Hillary but luckily for readers of this blog I don’t have the right to vote. But then come June I’ll be voting to stay in Europe, Boris Johnson has really crossed the line with his shameless opportunism and I daresay he is no Trump (at least Trump triumphed in the world of business, BJ is simply a classics boffin posturing in the world of politics and academia). The blonde clown should have stayed Mayor of London but let’s hope Zac G is able to succeed him, he has this Zac’s backing

I think moving the Supreme Court is an excellent idea; it makes sense for Congress and the Presidency (even the Pentagon) to be in situ because they are inherently political.

Personally I think the campaign to Ferguson is very clever!

She’s already ahead of the game

http://www.wired.com/2016/02/why-a-flight-to-flint-may-be-clintons-cleverest-move-yet/

The same white liberals who want Bernie in probably would go for Trump on the domestic programs (sans the whole chauvinistic bombastic persona)..

Anecdotally on the puberty landscape thing.

During those years I schooled in Islamabad (so I was there during the spring and Autumn season), which is very leafy, mountainous and prone to downpours.

To this day my all-time favourite landscape are green hills paired with grey skies, essentially the wilder bits of the English countryside.

It might be worth to compare varying levels of “parental influence” on home schooled children vis a vis normal schooled children. That would determine whether it is the setup of our modern society (the schooling system etc) or is it an innate evolutionary trait (children want to be au fait within their peer group)..

That would make sense the Anglo-Saxon invasion/immigration had a more definitive impact on East Anglia (diffusing as one goes further West/upland – I imagine Devon or Northumberland must have a negligible fraction) more so say than the Turks on Anatolian landscape.

Also re the Normans I doubt that they had a great genetic landscape across the board however there is very little doubt there is a huge “ancestral” Norman component to the upper & upper middle classes.

I think for the purposes of statistics, if we are going to deconstruct “white”, best to use the word gentile. Makes it all the more clearer..

Funny I always thought having children, rather than importing foreigners, was the “ultimate act of self-renewal.”

So true !

I just nipped down the M11 (back & forth from Cambridge) to attend my sci-fi book club. “Clubs” are such an English (or Anglo thing).

I was remarking at Book Club though that England of the Provinces (Cambridge as an example) is still very “white.” London’s diversity and integration (as opposed to the segregation elsewhere) is still very much the exception rather than the rule..

(1.) It’s interesting re your observation on Twitter, I realise I inhabit the Mark Zuckerberg subset of social media (Whatsapp, Facebook & marginally Instagram). Other than that Unz.com has now replaced all the other opinion sites (and blogspots etc). Consolidation and concentration seems to be the name of the game.

(2.) I used to have a very good English friend (uber-wasp / Norman surname) who used to go on and on to me about how much he “loved” black women. He came over to visit me when I lived in Uganda (and Ugandan women are reputed to be very pretty, especially Western Ugandan – who blend into “Rwandans”, code for Tutsis) and I asked me what he thought of the local ladies. He turned to me sheepishly, “Zack when I meant black women, I meant girls like Beyoncé.” It is arguable that Beyoncé would be coded as white (or at least light) in Africa like Rihanna was back home so black has different meanings in different places (obviously).

(3.) great job on the pull bar; I also am a fan of 10k steps a day. I notice it dramatically helps the fitness profile (helps one go out and get fresh air) but I was only able to do that once I upgraded my phone (after ages).

Finally on top of my book club reading (Vurt by Jeff Noon as part of our “mindf*ck” scifi season) I’m trying to read I Claudius and Claudius the God, there is something so compelling about Rome..

From your link (http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2016/01/11/the-mogul-of-the-middle):

“But one of Fogelson’s own rules is “Only make a film you already know how to sell.” Having come up as a marketer at Universal Pictures, which he ran from 2009 to 2013, Fogelson believes that seventy-five per cent of a movie’s success is due to its marketing and its marketability. One of his biggest bombs at Universal—a hundred-and-sixty-million-dollar bloodbath—was “47 Ronin,” which starred Reeves, regrettably, as a samurai warrior. Nonetheless, Fogelson believed he could sell Reeves here by positioning him as the kind of reluctant hero that he had played in “The Matrix.””

I fear my natural instinct is to love movie flops since I was really moved by 47 Ronin.

I wonder if alot of iSteve readers (being somewhat alternative media) have the “flop affinity” gene.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/science-discovers-my-people-we-harbingers-of-failure-with-flop-affinity/

Also this is an interesting passage:

The six major studios, besieged by entertainment options that don’t require people to get off the couch, have bet that the future lies in films that are too huge to ignore. Although they make low-budget films for targeted audiences (teen girls, say, or horror fans), they focus most of their energies on movies that cost more than three hundred million dollars to make and market. Such films are predicated not on the chancy appeal of individual actors but on “I.P.”—intellectual property, in the form of characters and stories that the audience already knows from books or comics or video games.

I do like your notice on Turkey, (even Thailand makes beautiful ads, I sometimes feel that Turkey and Thailand are symmetrical countries in the way Japan and the UK are). A Turkish Soap Opera called Ferihe is all the rage in India at the moment.

I loved:

Hunger Games
Joy (I like J-Law as an actress and Bradley Cooper)
Mad Max (amazing film; I liked the theory it’s not a reboot but actually the little kid from the original Mad Max)
Furious 7 (beautiful tribute to Paul Walker)
War Room (African American film on Prayer)
Ricki & the Flash (Meryl Streep is like the older J-Law or Vice Versa).

Foreign Language films I loved:

Bajirao Mastani (super Indian historic hit)
Piku (offbeat Independent Indian film)
La Famille Belier (beautiful French film about a talented singer from a deaf family)

I liked:

Martian (good film bit long, Matt Damon tad annoying, Bradley Cooper is a much nicer actor)
Star Wars (extremely derivative, a Reboot but have to like it)
Jurassic World (it was good fun but not much of a storyline; I loved Jurassic Park as a kid)
Trainwreck nice film but Amy Schumer can be a bit of a trainwreck!

Foreign Language Films I liked:

dil dhadakne do (Bollywood hit on Cruise holiday, bit saccharine)
PK (Aamir Khan film on Hindu though not Muslim superstition)

Eek! I side with Donald Trump

http://www.isidewith.com/elections/2016-presidential/1614581687

Discrimination is bad but perhaps a better word would be discernment? Most people, especially SJWs, like to think of themselves as “discerning.”

Happy New Year Razib- have a wonderful 2016

I do think that rock climbing outdoors (and outdoor sports in general) is an excellent way to stay fit & healthy.

Also doing push-ups at home is just a great way to stay healthy, do it as and when required..

Very impressive predictions; didn’t find myself in any serious disagreement with any one of them..

The words of Queen Elizabeth I before the Battle of the Armada.

“And therefore I am come amongst you at this time, not as for my recreation or sport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live or die amongst you all; to lay down, for my God, and for my kingdom, and for my people, my honor and my blood, even the dust. I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman; but I have the heart of a king, and of a king of England, too; and think foul scorn that Parma or Spain, or any prince of Europe, should dare to invade the borders of my realms: to which, rather than any dishonor should grow by me, I myself will take up arms; I myself will be your general, judge, and rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. I know already, by your forwardness, that you have deserved rewards and crowns; and we do assure you, on the word of a prince, they shall be duly paid you. In the mean my lieutenant general shall be in my stead, than whom never prince commanded a more noble and worthy subject; not doubting by your obedience to my general, by your concord in the camp, and by your valor in the field, we shall shortly have a famous victory over the enemies of my God, of my kingdom, and of my people.

Queen Elizabeth I – 1588”

http://www.historyplace.com/speeches/elizabeth.htm

Ironically according to good old Wikipedia the first foreigner the Zuni encountered was the Spanish scout (spy) Esteban the Moor, who they summarily killed off.

Off-topic Steve but have you heard about the ridiculous campaign emerging in Oxford to topple the statue of Cecile Rhodes from Oriel college.

Ridiculous I genuinely thought Britain (and especially Oxbridge) was above that:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/universityeducation/universities-and-colleges/12058543/The-campaign-to-topple-Oxford-Universitys-Cecil-Rhodes-statue-is-too-silly-for-words.html

I must say that her writing style really is fantastic; I found it a very compelling read.

She relates very mundane experiences in a very meaningful way (watching a YouTube video, telling her son a story, getting a bank loan).

No comment on her politics but she really is a gifted narrator; well done Eula.

Mahraba from Istanbul, my second home. It doesn’t seem to be causing any ripples here; people are far too busy thinking about the EU deal..

To be fair Dan doesn’t *get* Britain

Interesting but is Demographics really Destiny?

It’s all very well to breed but it’s also important to be well-bred je pense..

So I have some sympathy for White Democrat uber couples struggling to raise their blonde spawn in the gentrified tracts of inner-city America. My only contention is that it may sometimes be more helpful to provide a sibling for their child’s well-being rather than add the umpteenth after-school activity..

Off-topic but I just saw Spanglish on the flight (I remember you had reviewed it).

Rarely has a film made me so upset; essentially it’s a bunch of hyper-assimilated Jews trying to tell Latinos not to make the same “mistake.”

Wasp culture maybe dry sans alcool but the Movie was bloody ridiculously.

*Spoiler Alert*

She made her daughter reject the Private School Scholarship so that they wouldn’t diverge. WTF did they move to the US then; is the height of aspiration staying in the Barrio?

Glad to see that our pan-Asian community in the Diaspora are diverging from this mad consensus (staying in the Barrio/ghetto is redemptive) and are following Jews of yesteryear in escaping from the Shetls.

By the by I’m not suggesting that our Ethnic culture has no redemptive value, in fact I’m a big believer in blending East & West, but when in Rome.. Don’t stand apart simply for the sake of resistance or pride!

This is just the Left splintering itself in tbe next decade that It will be out of power in the Uk. Maggie was right when she said her greatest achievement was New Labour; Blair really resurrected a dying party.

Anyway I mentioned Sean Gabb in my last comment but even though I’m a tribal Tory, his analysis of Margaret Thatcher and the Miner’s strike is so compelling that it is a must-read. I’d regard Sean the Steve Sailer of the U.K. (and in classic British understatement has probably the worst website to follow comments etc)

http://thelibertarianalliance.com/2015/04/20/margaret-thatcher-the-miners-strike-and-the-triumph-of-middle-class-leftism-2015-by-sean-gabb/

remember Sean votes Tory but his contention that ironically Margaret Thatcher inadvertently (or deliberately) smashed the Mining Communities in order to prevent any opposition to the government; laying the groundwork for the soft authoritarianism we take for granted in Britain today (why is London so secure after all especially in comparison to Paris?)

Jordan doesn’t seem to have been a Baha’i but rather seems to have invited and interacted with a very prominent Baha’i figure.

Furthermore the website isn’t necessarily about the Baha’i Faith but rather tracks journey of an extremely significant Baha’i figure (Abdul Baha) across the West in 1912.

I also read somewhere in the comments board about miscegenation. It is instead related to our core principles concerning the oneness of mankind, http://www.bahai.com/Bahaullah/principles.htm.

However cultural authenticity and diversity remain very important tenets; we also do not (as a rule) get involved in local or international partisan politics so there is a very wide range of spectrums and opinions within the community.

As an example I personally am a very strong libertarian of the Sean Gabb school (his recent take on the necessity of the British Welfare state is highly recommended – http://www.seangabb.co.uk/libertarian-thoughts-on-state-welfare-2015-by-sean-gabb/). The commentators here may also be interested in the Libertarian case against Mass Immigration: https://libertarianalliance.wordpress.com/2013/05/24/a-libertarian-case-against-mass-immigration/

Disclaimer: I am of course a member of the Baha’i Faith.

Common sense is not so common.

Congratulations as I was watching the Martian I was like what would Steve think (WWST) lol..

I do like science fiction but I also am a “people’s person.” I think it’s about striking a balance, which admittedly is very rare for “individualists.” I do think the West underplays the concept of Renaissance Man, these days everyone must specialise.

I love sci-fi but wasn’t big on the film whereas my fiancee is into science and she really liked it (to be fair to her she’s watched Interstellar at least twice w/o me).

Vincent Kapoor is supposed to be Venkatesh Kapoor in the book (which is anyway an incorrect name since it’s Tam-Bram first name and a Hindu Punjabi second name), which they sort of “blacked up.”

It’s the same observation I had in the London Olympics where the only ethnic minority on show were black people. When I complained to my UKIP friends they were grinning to each other, when “open the door to one minority all the others want in.”

Anyway the black-white symbiotic relationship is simply too confusing to get into..

I thought the movie could have been a lot stronger to be fair; I don’t think it was on the same calibre as say Gravity but it was better than Interstellar. It’s also interesting how Whites seem to be the stars but there has to be a very generous “padding” of ethnic minority actors to tick all the quotas. I think Kristen Wiig as the NASA PR director was completely underplayed; also it’s interesting how there were no ethnic minority women whatsoever except for the very attractive Chinese scientist (the uber-blonde girl in the panel room, working the cameras, was also extremely distracting!).

This article is a masterwork- like the golf architecture one written a while back.

Exactly! The fact is that birth rates in the developed world have just collapsed; as though the will to procreate has disappeared among non-Mormon/Amish westerners.

Western Christianity will have to undergo a series of amalgamations to be able to reinvent a more vigorous doctrine. I like the idea of “one & done” that Steve pioneered but I also remembered a phrase he once used (& I paraphrase) middle class white people in the suburbs are like endangered animals in the zoo, they need lots of space and time to be able to eke out one child, let alone two.

It may come to a world where the huge mass of the population will be black and brown but the elites will be light & white (think South Asia and Latin America). Maybe demographic dwindling is the price you pay to become a patrician (the once vigorous Julio-Claudian dynasty ultimately died out through lack of breeding and of course family feuding, kind of like the warfare between white liberals & conservatives etc).

I was in Istanbul last week since a few friends were there for a big Persian wedding on the coast. Everywhere my friend and I went we were asked if we were “Arabi.”

Turkey has absorbed huge waves of Syrians, it’s always been a polyglot and frankly I found the Turks an extraordinarily sensible people much more so than European bleeding heart liberals, who don’t seem to grasp basic demographics.

Slightly off-topic. There is a quote that I read about President Roosevelt from his daughter:

“My father always wanted to be the corpse at every funeral, the bride at every wedding and the baby at every christening.”

I always found to be very inspirational because I could identify with it somewhat (it’s an impulse I’ve had to somewhat manage over the years) and I had always assumed it was about FDR, whom I never really identified with so much. When I looked up the quote today I realised it was said by Alice Roosevelt of her father Teddy Roosevelt and it now makes so much sense..

When I used to live in Uganda I would sleep on the marble upper floor in my compound under a mosquito net (pillow and blanket). To be honest they have very good beds in Uganda (in fact my apartment was in the same neighbourhood as a burgeoning mattress factory) but it’s just something I always wanted to do.

To be honest I loved it and think soft mattresses aren’t good for the body. There are many “civilisational” conveniences that we have that are probably not that good for us (the seated, as opposed to squatted, toilet immediately comes to mind).

It reminds me of a (truth story I heard just the other day.

Apparently in Whitehall in the 80’s (no one does bureaucracy like the Brits) there were two very senior civil servants who were so at loggerheads over immigration that they wanted to stage a departmental debate.

On the anti-immigration side was a white working class chap who was the first in his family to go to university. His father had 7 siblings and only one was able to buy their own home, which was then compulsorily purchased to be demolished into a mosque.

Of course on the immigration side (who could only be convinced of the benefits of immigration) was the grandson of Lithuanian Jewish refugees. ‘Nuff said ..

I recognise my natural conservatism (I recounted in an earlier comment about the Tel Aviv, Lahore & London story that my Welsh lawyer friend relayed) and I was just called a “white man’s slave” the other day (by an Indian) because I opposed Shashi Tharoor’s ridiculous reparations (and apology) demand.

Finally it would be nice to see a post about whether Cecil the Lion would have been killed in Rhodesia..

The myth of meritocracy is a very harmful one.

University should increase their fees as much as possible (at which point the laws of demand and supply begin to invert; the scions of the ultra-rich want their kids to school with each other).

Dumb rich kids are anyway going to be world leaders in our hyper-capitalistic (corporate) society. Highly intelligent and gifted kids get scholarships to offset the eye-watering fees..

Anyway maybe all that matters to me is the bottom line but honesty goes a long way towards a productive conversation.

“Granted, tripe extruded with the self-confidence that only an Oxbridge PP&E bachelor’s degree combined with anonymity confers …”

I’ll remember this line for a long time to come!

Another example of a very successful (& stirring) posthumously published novel is the Master & Margarita by Bulgakov. I believe he had to rewrite the book after he had burnt his first draft and it sold out immediately when the first half (or book) was published in a literary magazine after his passing (Bulgakov had to appeal to Stalin’s protection at one time).

Obviously M&M is open to many interpretations (as is any novel about the Devil visiting 1960’s Moscow) but I thought it was a particularly poignant appeal to the ethics of Christ (is it anti-Semitic to pity Pontus Pilate) in an atheistic milieu. The irony of course is that the very people in the English speaking world likely to read M&M (post-Wasp Wasps) are the ones that the book is appealing to abandon their politics.

Slightly O/T but your reading trajectory is scarily close to mine; I read a huge amount of Greek Mythology when I was around 9/10 before I moved onto Foundation and Sci-fi.

As I commented on Derbyshire’s column there are more sensible ways of “helping” the Third World rather than trigger irreversible changes in the West.

Why not lease land or cities in the third world that can be de facto ex officio colonies for the boat people?

It can be administered by a pool of Western nations.

Nice; I wonder what the NY Times will say when they find out about the millions of the third world who are spending billions who are trying to be white & light.

The dead giveaway of course as to why Professor Dolezal isn’t black is her over-sized black perm. If she really was a black lady, she’d have had dead-straight hair with coloured weaves.

Apparently she did wonders for the local NAACP so they should really cut the sister some slack.

Interestingly enough the first time round I scanned the article, I simply assumed Brittney was the bride dressed in white. As I was trying to figure out what the fuss was all about it, I gradually realised (with a start) that Brittney was in fact the “groom.” That was a shock but it all made sense when I saw the video about “his” ink. Made for morbidly fascinating watching!

“One and done” would save the world so much grief. Society prioritises the “right to be offended” rather than the rather sensible approach that successful couples should instead try to have as many successful grandchildren as possible.

Every youth I spoke to in Africa wanted an escape route to the West and it wasn’t their fault. They were being culturally coerced into “breeding for the tribe.”

That’s why I find Spengler’s obsession with Iran’s low birth-rate to be amusing; it’s actually a sign of civilisation in my opinion to prioritise quality over quantity. The West can mitigate low-birth rates (they usually readjust after a generation or so as the low-breeeders get replaced) but the immigration influx is what threatens to make irreversible demographic changes (we go from a world of white elites to “light” elite as in Conquistador Americans).

I like Chambers Way but then I’ve acquired the wry neo-Wasp aesthetic of “less is more.”

Not even wrong.

I thought the idea of having different nations and states is that each could be as “diverse” as they wanted to be; the idea that one could be a liberal metropolitan paradise and the other a Biblical backwater.

My only point is that the culture war has evolved to the point of universal liberalism; all Western societies must be configured the same way on core issues (essentially no one can ever be discriminated against) and ultimately the West uses that as a tool to browbeat the rest of the world. I remember hearing in Uganda, an African saying that a century ago Christianity was the tool of the imperial overlords and now it’s gay rights, how times have changed!

I love to read physical books but now I just find it easier to read epub versions on my mobile or laptop. I’m reading two books at the moment, H is for Hawk and Dead Beat of the Dresden Mysteries. I do find that my reading time shoots up because I always have my mobile on me.

I’m impressed that Mackinder is being referenced increasingly in the UNZ Review; this is turning to be a serious geopolitical blog!

Slightly O/T but still in the vein of the general discussion:

“While we’re on restaurants, I like French waiters and waitresses. The French, like most Europeans, recognise being a waiter as a proper job which commands respect. This is why you get older waiters who know their stuff, rather than our endless stream of often clueless 22-year-old Australians and Latvians who do it for a year or two. It’s also why the waiter-customer relationship is so different. French staff know the customer isn’t always right and I rather I enjoy their snootiness. The thing is, companies are always banging on authenticity and I’m pretty sure that the disdain my French waiter has for me is authentic. By contrast, the plastic, Americanised bonhomie of their British counterparts almost certainly isn’t. It also makes me a little nostalgic: not so very long ago we too had snooty waiting staff. Now, we have a second-rate imitation of American service.”

Bien Sur!

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/men/thinking-man/11655310/France-is-better-than-Britain-but-were-scared-to-admit-it.html

I haven’t finished the article yet but my respect for it jumped through the roof when I saw Mackinder mentioned (30 times actually, good job!)

But in Brave New World; the whole sleep conditioning thing was precisely about “character development” rather than learning facts & figures so in a way Huxley anticipated this.

Also could be that taxi drivers underestimate the usual risks of driving (sort of like Jared Diamond point on slipping from showers).

Black cab drivers in London do spend 3yrs or so learning the test but are of course undercut by immigrants (and maybe more importantly GPS).

It’s interesting to see how relentless ground down working and lower middle class wages suffer but then the Elites are always right (they do just enough to always stay in power, whichever way the vote is held).

Btw I’m ashamed to say that I didn’t know John Nash was still alive (I only saw parts of the film); I’m surprised by the trend to make biopics when people are still living since a good death is a fairly integral part to any life story (happy or sad)

Capitalism has morphed into Corporatism hopefully one day it becomes Communtarianism. The stress on economic growth at any cost is highly predicated on:

(a.) we don’t damage the environment
(b.) we’re able to leave the earth or have an alternative strategy
(c.) technology bails us out

It’s going to have to become sustainable sooner or later.

I remember reading Kurt Vonnegut’s collected essays and in one he mentions how grateful he is to be a Midwestern German American since his family could get prosperous without feeling guilt over owning slaves.

Other than that White America owes alot to Black America for the surprising cohesion that “White Identity” has in the US otherwise we could have seen a fair level of fragmentation among pale, stale males (who are now quickly getting their act together in the UK, Britain’s Obama Chuka just resigned from the Labour leadership contest).

White Liberals don’t actually *get* diversity and what it means when the demographics actually start tipping over.

Jewish money, black people and clueless white yuppies is the modern day Democratic party. Imagine if they didn’t have a common enemy to hate, you’d have mayhem or maybe Bed-stu where they’re all trying to screw one another.

It’s like Owen Jones (famous working class commentator in the UK, who went to Cambridge) putting out a video the day before election telling people to “remember their ancestors”, be angry and vote.

https://twitter.com/GdnPolitics/status/596262060117241856

I very much doubt it; Scotland will go the same way as (Northern) Ireland.

The political configuration will realign to Unionist vs. non-Unionist (Scottish Tory, Labour & Lib Dems will have to merge to match the SNP since no all politics in Scotland are local).

The Labour party is being attacked in the far north by the SNP and near north by UKIP .

Here is a nice map of Labour’s vote and former coalfields:

Labour’s strong gains in London (but still not strong enough to overpower the Tories) is no doubt due to the ethnic minority vote; Sadiq Khan wants to run as Mayor of London.

I think this election has proven what a vigorous and healthy democracy Britain actually is. A couple of more points:

(1.) Nigel in resigning said something that triggered a passing thought; he said “UKIP is now the party of working women.” This squares in line with my observation a lot of middle class and working class women are gravitating to UKIP because UKIP isn’t a right party but more like a “white party”. It’s policies are going to evolve from Tory Libertarian to basically something like the DUP; Unionist, collectivist and nationalist.

(2.) North of Hadrian’s Wall, politics in Scotland (and eventually Wales who knows maybe even Cornwall one day) is going to follow the Northern Irish model, the deadlock between Unionists and anti-Unionists. Remember Orkney and the Shetland Islands are strongly Unionist territories and the United Kingdom unravelling won’t be good for these islands.

(3.) Britain won’t leave the EU. I would like it to but come referendum time I know I’ll be voting to stay in. Cameron is going to press hard to negotiate a fairer deal in line with other sympathetic blocs in Europe.

(4.) Immigration and EU are hot button issues but pale in comparison to the economy. I do *feel* immigration has slowed down since New Labour but I seem to be wrong – http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article50256.html.

(5.) The Tory government needs to become “One Nation”, dismantling the welfare state is a big mistake. The idea of social-national compact is very important to contemporary British (and even English identity). The Tory government should effect boundary reform but keep FPTP; smaller parties need to find ways to survive and evolve (if the Greens & UKIP aren’t able to maintain national or regional infrastructures then why not merge into their larger groups).

Wonderful why shouldn’t the UK introspect a bit
More?

Agreed! I don’t think the Muslim or the ethnic vote had much to do with this election, Britain is so very white on election day.

My thoughts are:

(1.) UKIP has to stay on by winning the white working class voters away from New/Next Labour towards a sort of Tory-lite agenda (without the Thatcher tag).

(2.) It would be unforgivable for UKIP if they had cost or will cost a Tory government in the future.

(3.) Britain should stay in Europe but we should have a referendum on it as soon as possible.

(4.) Immigration and Europe take a backseat to the economy and NHS; it seems the West (ex USA where Hillary will blast the borders open) is beginning to switch on to handling immigration.

(5.) The SNP have clarified Scotland’s role in the Union; why split away like Ireland (and have a century of ill-will) when you can brow-beat the English as the conscience of the Union. The English have the conceit of Empire and won’t give up on the Union that easily whereas the Scots know that they are far too integrated to actually split away.

(6.) The Labour, LDs are in serious trouble because if the regions (Scotland & Wales) defect to their own lefty nationalisms well then Labour becomes the Party of the North. To be fair the South-West of England and the North of England are distinctive enough to deserve their own parties as they stand.

(7.) The Tories are back, this is as definitive as 1997. A result no one expected and has changed the English landscape; if the Scots are going to have their own party than the English deserve theirs. Also will Scotland’s party landscape reconfigure to Northern Ireland (Union vs. non-Union)

Great job

I don’t think it’s immigration necessarily but rather the flow and concentration of capital.

It is arguable to see London as a sink for oligarch wealth and higher house prices is in fact drawing in capital from around the world.

If anything it benefits the English because higher real estate prices means that they can sell their traditional properties and move further afield. Why not create a Northern superhighway connect Leeds, Bradford, Manchester & Liverpool (Leeds to Liverpool).

The upshot of the SNP & Plaid Cymru is that the national parties are reconsolidating and taking power away from Westminster. Ideally we should be devolving as much power down to the Shires to let local peoples take control of their destiny (Fox-hunting can be banned in Islington but continued in the countryside) and avoid these perplexing national questions that outrage every news cycle.

I have it on good authority that Space is in fact pitch black!

O/T: Instead of replaced Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill (this article actually featured on my Bloomberg screen) why not get Rosa Parks & Harriet Tubman on a new $200 bill (I’m sure inflation warrants the creation of a new bill)? http://www.unionleader.com/article/20150419/OPINION01/150419139/0/NEWS

It’s sort of this reductive thinking (kick off Andy Jackson to start a mini-culture war) where it’s about “defeating” the (remnants) of the WASP patriarchy rather than being constructive and working with it to create a better world for all. The politics of bitterness serves no-one..

Hello from London.

I voted an hour ago at my local polling station (which was a Dance Studio).

At first I saw these young and minority kids queuing and I was like wow this is democracy in action! Turns out they were waiting to audition and then I found the voting booth, which had an late middle aged blonde Tory lady taking down number.

My constituency (Westminster) is a super-safe Tory seat and it’s interesting to see who exactly were voting (elderly & young toffs).

I tried voting for UKIP as a protest vote but despite the fact that I was in one of the safest seats possible I did what I did 5yrs ago, instinctively X for the Tory party. Our Tory tribalism of course has much to do with my mother’s choice to subscribe to the Daily Telegraph when we settled in Britain (conservatives with a small c & all that).

Also liberal white people in London are all about diversity and multi-culturalism so long as gentrification handles all the inconvenient bits.

A broken immigration policy suits transnational elites in the same way Merchant minorities suited European Royalty.

Open the doors and they shall come; I do think that asylum in safe neighbouring & culturally compatible countries is a good idea.

Every country has to *pay* for its refugee intake and trust me 1kUSD a month goes a very very long way in Uganda as opposed to the U.S./UK. Furthermore it’s a good way to develop these poorer nations, where they would be tendering to take in refugees.

Strange I know enough Persian to get by but I’ve never heard of Zerangi as a concept (obviously Zerang means smart but more often than not I have heard it referred to book smarts rather than street smart). Instead what I’ve really absorbed from my maternal Persian culture is the concept of Taarof, which is essentially the elaborate version of “maintaining face.” It does mean I’m much more generous when it comes to the bill instead of going “Dutch.”

At any rate I’ve always thought of Persians as far more Westernised and straightforward in their dealings in comparison to Desis (South Asians). That’s a whole another can of worms lol.

I guess the Asiatic ethnicities, from Jews to Japanese, have a very different interpretation of getting ahead or “catching up.”

And oh yes despite more than 2 decades in the West I have great difficult in saying “no” directly. But then again I always remember that great expression, “when a diplomat mean yes he means maybe, when he says maybe he means no and a good diplomat will never say no!”

“The Dutch are too honest to be polite and the New Zealanders are too polite to be honest.” http://www.globalmarketinginsight.com/yes-no-or-maybe-or-the-diplomatic-and-the-lady/

In Asia this used to be so common (psyllium seed husks) and we used to call it Isapgol (Horse flower).

It’s interesting to see how much of India folklore can have a such a positive effect on health; a nice vindication.

I’m going to try that since I always worry that I don’t get enough fibre. I generally tend to avoid gluten and milk (almond milk but I’ll take other forms of dairy, butter, cheese & yogurt) while trying to avoid other “high gi” foods (substitute rice and potato for sweet potato etc).

Main Topic: When I used to measure my body fat, the lowest I got to was 15% but it was one of those wonky electronic machines at Boots. I now do rock climbing 2-3times a week and I’m not too fussed if I gain weight anymore, since I have to “pay for it” when climbing.

I have also noticed the V4-5 climbers just start converged to a very lean V body type. Apparently squash and climbing are the two most “efficient” sports out there though I also want to start swimming to get a good body stretch.

Interesting I’ll suggest this book on to our Fantasy Book club reading list and then I guess then we’ll have to find a restaurant with a Romano-Celtic theme to host it lol.

Book of the New Sun was our 2014 reading list and I think sets the benchmark for the “Science Fantasy” genre. Also for Arthurian-era pieces I really liked “Mists of Avalon” read just before it was removed from our reading lists because of the controversy over the authoress.

It’s interesting I just don’t do nearly enough non-fiction in comparison (I guess I get it from the web instead); the last one I rifled through was Noam Chomskys collected writings given to me for Norouz

I don’t know if mentioned but what about “hegemonic” premium; maybe being the sole hyper power has an effect on national wealth? Also re Israel the aid donations capital transfers from the U.S., as Noam Chomsky states, are not insubstantial.

I can’t remember the last time I heard about a friend being involved in a car crash in the UK.

However I remember as a child hearing about a very large one happening in Kuwait, which devastated our community there. I can’t remember much about Pakistan even though the local youth used to love to drag race in the sleepy streets of Islamabad when I was a kid.

BUT when I lived for a year & a half in Uganda, Jesus Christ. The amount of people that I knew or heard of who were hit or injured by accidents were insane. I have actually seen a dead body (twice) in a street because boda bodas (they call cheap taxi motorbikes that because they used to go through the “borders” hence boda boda) accidents were just so common place. The University of Minnesota banned their students volunteering in Uganda from ever taking those motorbikes because 7or8yrs ago a girl had died on one of those. Made getting around very difficult for the UoM students..

As my good Jewish American Canadian intellectual friend based in Kampalav(led the anti-Apartheid movement in Stanford, double graduate from both Stanford & Harvard, a multi-millionaire twice over before losing it each time) used to love to say that he wanted to invite his Randian Libertarian friends to Uganda to show them the ultimate free-market libertarian society.

I’m 1984 born too and I would never associate Eddie Murphy with Nutty Professors.

Beverly Hills Cop, Coming to America & Trading Places are my immediate association with this once legendary comic.

Now I understand why there were so many awesome German climbers. I had been thinking it had something to do with the Alps.

As an aside I can certainly see the veneration of all things Green being an inheritance from the Nazi era.

I remember a friend of mine explaining to me why many white men supported immigration into the UK. It’s because they wanted to find more exotic (and easier) partners to sleep with. Maybe the big issue with Muslim women (like black women in the US) is that they just don’t put out as much to the Man.

The same friend of mine told me another funny story about her altercation with her Jewish friend. He was going on about how he wanted young boys (or children) from Lahore to be able to have the freedom to settle in London. Her only reply was (she is after all a strong UKIP member) she would support that right for Lahoris to come to London as soon Tel Aviv extended the same hospitality to such migrants. Apparently his only response was a grumpy silence lol 🙂

I actually told my cousin, who’s off to MIT, that she should stop wasting her time chasing guys from our cultural background but instead find herself a Wasp. My Mexican friend (who lives a couple of streets away from Mr. Slim) followed my advice and is now happily attached to a successful Ulster Prots consultant (even though the picture on her background is the Virgin of Guadalupe). They were just telling me that on her first trip to North Ireland she had heard a bang in the wee hours of the morning. When she asked her boyfriend what that sound was, he said it was the annual hunt a Catholic tradition in their parts. She jumped in the closet and hid there for the good part of a minute out of sheer fright.

I must say one of the better Guy Fawkes stories I’ve heard.

Of course I suspect in Ulster (though I’ve never been) I don’t think the issue is as much with Catholics as it is with Irish Catholics of the Republican persuasion just as in the same vein Indian Hindus don’t seem to have as much of a problem with say Persian or Arab Muslims as they do with South Asian Muslims.

I concur.

I feel a lot of my white male liberal friends seem to always assume they’ll remain always as privileged irrespective of demographic. I remember at a dinner once being told “as a white male I’m never in the minority.”

However interestingly enough I find Wasps and their fellow whites are taking up causes and hobbies with more elaborate barriers to entry, where the only way to actually be a paid-up member of the club is really to be fairly Waspified.

I can think of two immediate hobbies of mine that are super-white but hard left, rock-climbing and book clubs. Personally I don’t actually think that the these white liberals care all that much for diversity but as part of the Green-Labour axis they are very concerned about the environment and other traditional left causes. It’s only when diversity and multi-culti got tacked on to the left that they also subscribed, much in the way that Christianity and Capitalism attached themselves to the right.

Of course our left-right spectrum is technically jumbled up since the left values economic solidarity coupled with civil freedoms while the right is economic emancipation with civil control whereas the real left-right axis should be authoritarianism versus libertarianism.

Sci-fi going through it’s second golden age; really?

Furthermore I think the fact about low cultural achievements may also stem from that East Asia has possibly spent the last generation “catching up”, highly imitative culture (what do we know about K-Pop) and finally the unprecedented cultural hegemony of the West (and more specifically the English-speaking strain).

Finally I think Singapore does stand out in it’s more immediate vicinity, being an economically East Asian society even though it’s geographically a South East Asian one. So maybe more for a more valid assessment if Harry Lee’s legacy could also be taking into account Malaysia, Indonesia & Thailand as comparative benchmarks for Singapore as well.

It’s amazing to me how in the bastions of Republican (USA & France) dynastic politics are getting such a grip on the nation.

I have to see the Brits (am I allowed to say “us Brits” as a new BritPak and therefore now belonging to one of the 12-17 genetic streams of the UK lol really got it right with our constitutional monarchy, parliamentary system & also with the corporate nature of British identity.

However Britain’s probably also responsible for much of the contemporary “subtle” imperialism of the current Anglo-American global order, with its engrained Russophobia, marginalisation of Germany & extractive global elite with an “invade the world invite the world” mentality so guess it balances out.

An important piece; it’s quite simple. Ukraine & Belarus should have been EU candidates but never a part of NATO.

The demonisation of a strong Russia (while the lionisation of a defeated one) is a recurring Anglo-Saxon trope (I don’t call it Anglo-American simply because I see Imperial continuity from English hegemony through to DC’s current Yankee-tinted arrogance).

Finally I disagree with the journalist’s contention about the sovereign right to secede to any minority (otherwise we shall have global chaos – we need to find better ways to co-exist) but I was struck by his eloquent contrast between Russia’s multi-national (and ergo tolerant attitude) versus the extreme parochialism of the Western Ukranian leadership etc.

Piercingly brilliant – I agree with every word!

I think Samuel Huntington (and even Mahatir) articulated a key distinction between settlers and immigrants; it’s what distinguished the folks of Albion’s Seed from the later arrivals. Ironically in the West Bank they don’t use the term immigrants there for the Jewish settlers, would kind of defeat the purpose of the mission to reclaim Judea & Samaria.

I think the people of Ulster are ethnocentric enough as it is lol.

Does that mean that 1/3 of the average British ancestry is Huguenot (northern France)? That’s rather extraordinarily high if I’m reading that correct and does suggest immigration in the last few centuries. Ironically I heard Catalonians also have a very high degree of Southern French ancestry (Langue D’Oc) from immigrants dating to the Reconquista.

Of course the current levels of immigration to Europe (which for the past 500yrs has been a source of emigration) are unprecedented and most likely unsustainable. As the PC culture begins to die, we are probably going to see a rightward shift (a la Israel) where there’ll be an emphasis on nativity, unless of course by then we hit the singularity and become collectively immortal as a species lol (according to this article I’m reading but for some reason can’t paste the link onto here).

I think the Israeli relationship with America is extraordinarily reciprocal; the former really does server US interests in the region to a very high degree.

The U.S. had no reason to support Israel (or Pakistan) for that matter since national inception (I think AIPAC was created in the ’60s) but Anglo-Saxon Imperial policy has always been to keep a region divided (the Brits made sure that no hegemonic power would emerge in Europe even though a century & two world wars later the Germans are anyway on top).

Israel and Pakistan are extraordinarily useful national agents in keeping Greater Arabia & India divided. I also find the use of the term of “Anglo-Saxon” Imperium (in lieu of Anglo-Norman or Anglo-American) because I think the English-speaking peoples have been on top since at least the Napoleonic wars (?). The only real additions to the global elite have been Jews in the last half-century but at their rate of intermarriage, the Anglo-Saxon elite will probably be lightly Semitised but nothing more than that.

The real question is to what extent has Israel & Zionism been “good for the Jews?” Instead of some barren difficult land on the Med they could have been substantially stronger as a transnational global elite (I mean would Muslims & Jews have had real beef in lieu of Israel?). However because of Zionism they are extraordinarily concentrated in Christendom + Israel.

An incredible vindication of a very vigorous Israeli democracy.

I think the difference between Israel and the rest of the West; is that the Right is allowed to be the Right so Nethanyahu can make his (legitimate?) concerns about Arab voters.

If a Western politician made similar remarks, he’d be hounded out of office. Personally I like a society where our basic rights do not extend to the “right not to be offended.”

If Mesopotamia will be the graveyard of this Empire, I wonder who will be the next Valerian?

Apparently Patricia Arquette was paid less for Boyhood than she paid her cleaner?

Brilliant article – much enjoyed this analysis of the popularity of zombies in our culture (they took over from vampires).

The World Wars have had a profound impact on the European peoples. The first demolished their Empires and the second basically made them multi-continental hubs (the male cohort of the population was depleted so immigrants had to be brought in from the old colonies).

White guilt is such a joke and downright patronising.

I do agree there’s a level of institutional racism, I’ve suffered it myself as a person who at the best of times looks Muslim.

But it’s the type of person that you are, do you see challenges or do you see opportunity? Whenever I’ve encountered a hindrance I always try and find a solution. So the answer if say police or security are picking at you is not to wear baggy jeans but a spiffy suit. Confirm to the highest values of our shared culture instead of its degenerate base.

Because of course racism is the most important problem of our time and probably will be. Of course the most practical application of body swapping is going to be the bajillions of Afrasians who are going to body-swaps in lighter shades and younger women giving themselve those illusory impossible body types that only photo-shop could provide before.