"As Honest as a Turk"
RSS
Search Text Case Sensitive Exact Words Include Comments
List of Bookmarks
That’s not a common saying, but maybe it should be:
The Turkish Statistical Institute reported in 2015 that 94.6 percent of Turks say watching television is their favorite activity.
Perhaps in Turkey, disgraced executives and politicians announce, “I’m resigning to spend more time with my TV” …
Follow @steve_sailer
English
Arabic
Chinese (Simplified)
Dutch
French
German
Hebrew
Hindi
Italian
Japanese
Korean
Persian
Polish
Portuguese
Russian
Spanish
Swedish
Turkish
Vietnamese
I would say, with no statistical evidence, that 94.6 percent of millennials would say that Facebook, Snapchat and Twitter are their favorite activity.
I wonder if marriage between Armenians and Turks is as taboo as marriage between Jews and Palestinians?
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn’t be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.
And the other 5.4 percent are liars.
Istanbul was Constantinople
Now it’s Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That’s nobody’s business but the Turks
****sorry I cannot resist posting. So kindly buzz off you transphobic, transAtlantic, Islamophobes.
I did wonder if I should write to They Might be Giants and point this out.Replies: @Clyde
Eminem famously rhymes "oranges" with an ellided pronunciation of "or hinges" in "Let's Get Down to Business," but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
Writing a song (that scans decently) all about both Istanbul and and Constantinople is no mean feat. Had they worked in as well the other name, Byzantium, it'd have been the ultimate hat trick (they are Canadian after all, I think, or is that only the Barenaked Ladies?; I always get these two bands confused because of their similarly whimsical material...).
Honorable mention must also be made of the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts."Replies: @jamie b., @Clyde, @Matra, @anonymous
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn't be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @AnotherGuessModel, @Dieter Kief, @John Derbyshire, @AP, @Anatoly Karlin
I’m not Armenian, yet I wouldn’t be pleased if one of our girls brought home a Turk either.
Related topic: Ingraham and Coulter continue to righteously bash Trump & family for the dishonest campaign. These two ladies cannot be bought off.
Ingraham has major contacts on white house staff and she reamed Kushner today and accused him of being a big leaker maybe the big leaker.
Dr Udge left the Coulter interview at the top of the page all day to send another frigging message to bubble boy Trump.
But the core problem remains: Trump did this all to himself by filling his govt with neocons and lib dems.
Apparently Trump is not getting the message as Roger Stone said today that every name on the real Comey replacement list is some version of nevertrumper… WTF.
Could this be a result of TV being a safe option rather than the correct answer? Would you tell a Turkish survey-solicitor thst you liked activities associated with apostasy, Kurdish nationalism, or criticizing Ankara? One of Jakob Marian’s maps has Turkey far higher than any Europeans for washing their hands every time they use the bathroom. I am tempted to call that either lying or over-crediting wudu (Muslim ritual cleaning).
Fethullah Gulen has written a piece in the Washington Post op-ed section today.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/global-opinions/the-turkey-i-no-longer-know/2017/05/15/bda71c62-397c-11e7-8854-21f359183e8c_story.html?utm_term=.9cb75417a78e
low info voter update?
From
Visits to Monasteries in the Levant
By Robert Curzon.
It takes,
4 Turks to cheat one Frank
2 Franks to cheat one Greek
2 Greeks to cheat one Jew
And 6 Jews to cheat an Armenian.
Doesn’t strike me as honest at all. Most people’s favorite activities have to do with their naughty bits. Some are more into drugs.
Erdogan knows which way the winds are blowing: The West is dying intellectually and spiritually. He has grasped this fully due to the shocking reign of Obama/Hillary/Kerry flanked by the craven EU.
(Many other world leaders came to same conclusion.)
So it is what is. And Erdogan knows we are mentally ill at the top levels of government, so why should he respect us? His recent comments regarding “flooding Jerusalem” are a turning point…
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn't be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @AnotherGuessModel, @Dieter Kief, @John Derbyshire, @AP, @Anatoly Karlin
Don’t know what the case is in the diaspora of the two ethnicities, but today, it’s not too big a deal among secular, urban Turks and what few Armenian-Turks and other minorities are left in the country. But Turkey is regressing, so I imagine old hostilities could easily be reignited.
OT
[Taylor Swift Okay .gif]
Maybe Turkish TV is just really good?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4mZYmlS95A
I was very impressed with the commercials on Turkish TV when I was there in 2009. They looked 98% as flashy as American commercials.
Mexico has great TV commercial directors too.
It will probably/hopefully level off as prosperity comes about; the only exception for TV I make is for Pakistani dramas (which are astonishingly good and I say this as someone who partook very heavily in the London theatre until I moved to Cambridge). Also Pakistani dramas safe renowned for the lyricism of their language, melancholy and hyper-realism tradition (very similar to Iranian films). Indian serials are far more outlandish and saccharine even though Bollywood is in a class of its own (there are some spectacular movies out there like Dangal released last year starring Amir Khan).
Turkish serials are renowned for their high quality, my in-laws were watching Hindi-dubbed "Feriha", which was set in istanbul. Usually Pakistani drama serials (especially since the PAK cultural Renaissance in 2010) are very popular in India but since Indo-Pak are so high Turkish serials have filled the gap (I've heard that three famous soap opera producing countries in the third world are Brazil, Turkey & the Philipines; in Uganda English dubbed Brazilian & Filipino shows were on all the time). I don't know about Mexico but it is certainly possible after all Mexico is always (unfairly) compared to its Northern neighbour but compared to the Rest of the Third & emerging world it's almost a first world nation!
I spent a lot of time in Istanbul & Turkey in 2015/16 and Turkish TV is very exciting and glamorous. I remember sitting with my friend in a cafe and being mesmerised by their version of the "Voice" (a show I never bother to watch in the UK", even though I couldn't understand the language, the energy and electricity of the participants was simply magnetic!Replies: @Laugh Track
Wanna watch" Tijuana Desperate Drug Lord's Machadoss" in your native language?
It's gonna be $ 299 per month.
1. Build a Guberment Pay Wall arond all foreign language blubbering, Turkomexican or other TV cable/satelite outlets, and let the Cricket Test Failing domestic audience to pay the price of non-assimilation.
2. Tell to Nice White TV Audience that all proceeds are going to be used to cover for the cost of English Speaking Big Bird's life support.
Probably not surprising…they seem to have some very entertaining shows on Turkish television after all:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valley_of_the_Wolves
…that 94.6 percent of Turks say watching television is their favorite activity.
An entire nation of Donald Trumps.
Now add eating and playing golf and all they need would be orange wigs.
Excessive TV watching is an epidemic in the third world. I guess as they are stuck between the classic “low public space” environment that characterises much of the East and the dissolving joint family structures (the size of the home is reducing).
It will probably/hopefully level off as prosperity comes about; the only exception for TV I make is for Pakistani dramas (which are astonishingly good and I say this as someone who partook very heavily in the London theatre until I moved to Cambridge). Also Pakistani dramas safe renowned for the lyricism of their language, melancholy and hyper-realism tradition (very similar to Iranian films). Indian serials are far more outlandish and saccharine even though Bollywood is in a class of its own (there are some spectacular movies out there like Dangal released last year starring Amir Khan).
Turkish serials are renowned for their high quality, my in-laws were watching Hindi-dubbed “Feriha”, which was set in istanbul. Usually Pakistani drama serials (especially since the PAK cultural Renaissance in 2010) are very popular in India but since Indo-Pak are so high Turkish serials have filled the gap (I’ve heard that three famous soap opera producing countries in the third world are Brazil, Turkey & the Philipines; in Uganda English dubbed Brazilian & Filipino shows were on all the time). I don’t know about Mexico but it is certainly possible after all Mexico is always (unfairly) compared to its Northern neighbour but compared to the Rest of the Third & emerging world it’s almost a first world nation!
I spent a lot of time in Istanbul & Turkey in 2015/16 and Turkish TV is very exciting and glamorous. I remember sitting with my friend in a cafe and being mesmerised by their version of the “Voice” (a show I never bother to watch in the UK”, even though I couldn’t understand the language, the energy and electricity of the participants was simply magnetic!
But I do agree Turkish TV has slick glamour down solid.
From Derbyshire’s current article:
Mr. Macron, for example, is childless. So is German leader Angela Merkel. So is British Prime Minister Theresa May. The President of Italy has three kids, but Italy’s Prime Minister is childless. So is Mark Rutte, Prime Minister of Holland. Mark has some fun with Belgium: the current Prime Minister has two kids, but the previous one was a childless homosexual.
So Erdogan sees this and he knows what to do.
This week Erdogan visits the Great Satan. At least Trump has a brood! Erdogan can respect that. But Trump was in a wapo oval office pic with his Jewish advisors huddled in the background last week…so it’s a wash.
In much of Europe Turkish soap operas are now the most popular, having taken over from Mexican soap operas which ruled the airwaves for over two decades.
A deliberate policy concocted by the Turks in the pursuit of soft power.
I think it's not so much soft power (how much soft power does Nollywood give Nigeria?), but making TV shows is just one of those things that are relatively easy to get off the ground (unlike a chip foundry or an auto factory) yet still relatively high in added-value, esp. if you can sell them abroad.
I also think there's a natural ceiling as to how much soft power Russia and Turkey can acquire among Westerners simply due to them being Russia and Turkey.
Europeans watch American shows for giggles but they don't really "get" them like an American does. We don't really have people like Ned Flanders etc.
Actually, Americans themselves don't "get" their shows, for example someone's observation that L&O SVU is basically women's r** porn, but try telling it someone.
I’m guessing that Romanians would have answered the same way in the 1980s. I foresee a Ceaușescu-like end for Erdogan.
This is not to say that this could not change (for both Putin and Erdogan) - see Maduro in Venezuela. But first the economic situation would have to get a lot worse.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev, @inertial, @Uebersetzer
Male feminist kills female.
He might win some sympathy points by calling himself ‘we’. ‘They’ is taken.
Mental Illness as Ideology.
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/friendlyatheist/2017/05/15/atheist-activist-from-colorado-arrested-on-suspicion-of-second-degree-murder/
Re Gulen: Trump gonna do some ArtoftheDeal with Erdo this week, right?
MIC/CIA wacked Qaddafi. Meanwhile they have Gulen just sitting up there in the woods (and occasionally writing op-eds). What’s a Turk to do? Besides calling for Jerusalem to be flooded and arresting half his country?
Media coverage will be interesting. Some of Trump’s foreign state guests get zero coverage.
Erdogan is playing a very risky game. He ran afoul of the allies of convenience, the Persians and Russians who historically have teamed up to reduce Turkish power but have their own issues, and China which is busy making inroads in Central Asia to rival both Russia and Turkey (not to mention Iran).
Like Putin’s main nemesis being Navalny who to the horror of Europeans, is even more a nationalist than Putin (you can tell by the amount of energy Russian media expends on demonizing Navalny and labeling him a Nazi); Erdogan’s main rivals are young and hungry Islamists who can always promise MOAR ISLAM as the solution and point to tired, sick, old Erdogan as the problem. Why, a Holy War with traditional enemies Greece (easy prey) and Russia (not so much) is just the solution to the problem of not enough Jihad and Ottoman Empire!
Turkey lives in a bad neighborhood.
Turkey IS
lives ina bad neighborhoodnSeth Rich coming back from the dead at the top of Drudge tonight…
Maybe this festering wound will turn the tide against the donks big time.
Apparently, that late, great ‘lewd’ English comedian, Benny Hill, was one of the biggest stars ever on Turkish television.
It’s a good answer to a loaded question..
You really don’t want to say you read a lot of books or something like it that as it invites a knock on the door at some ungodly hour with hard men intent on asking hard questions.
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn't be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @AnotherGuessModel, @Dieter Kief, @John Derbyshire, @AP, @Anatoly Karlin
Turkish society does not work linear. That’s not only bad.
For deep insights, I recommend the novel “Snow” by Orhan Pamuk and – for the retired who are not on facebook and don’t like TV: Pamuk’s “Museum of Innocence”.
It will probably/hopefully level off as prosperity comes about; the only exception for TV I make is for Pakistani dramas (which are astonishingly good and I say this as someone who partook very heavily in the London theatre until I moved to Cambridge). Also Pakistani dramas safe renowned for the lyricism of their language, melancholy and hyper-realism tradition (very similar to Iranian films). Indian serials are far more outlandish and saccharine even though Bollywood is in a class of its own (there are some spectacular movies out there like Dangal released last year starring Amir Khan).
Turkish serials are renowned for their high quality, my in-laws were watching Hindi-dubbed "Feriha", which was set in istanbul. Usually Pakistani drama serials (especially since the PAK cultural Renaissance in 2010) are very popular in India but since Indo-Pak are so high Turkish serials have filled the gap (I've heard that three famous soap opera producing countries in the third world are Brazil, Turkey & the Philipines; in Uganda English dubbed Brazilian & Filipino shows were on all the time). I don't know about Mexico but it is certainly possible after all Mexico is always (unfairly) compared to its Northern neighbour but compared to the Rest of the Third & emerging world it's almost a first world nation!
I spent a lot of time in Istanbul & Turkey in 2015/16 and Turkish TV is very exciting and glamorous. I remember sitting with my friend in a cafe and being mesmerised by their version of the "Voice" (a show I never bother to watch in the UK", even though I couldn't understand the language, the energy and electricity of the participants was simply magnetic!Replies: @Laugh Track
A lot of things are simply magnetic after 10 glasses of strong tea with 3 sugar cubes in each.
But I do agree Turkish TV has slick glamour down solid.
The television set imposes the elite’s disinformation into the publics’ generational mind, consciously and unsconciously. Its their superweapon. The ‘abomination that causes desolation’, each racial and age demographic at-a-time.
For some reason a few comments here reminded me of the funniest thing I remember from I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (yes, i spent a whole hour of my life reading it on a buddy’s couch).
Author is hanging out with some good old boys somewhere. They are sitting around getting drunk and doing nothings like laugh at the three legged dog. Said dog starts licking its balls, and the author says “Man, I wish i could do that”. One good old boy says “well, I’m not sure he’d let you.”
Steve are you going to make a blog about Trayvon Martin receiving an honorary aeronautical science degree from Florida Memorial University? By the way it is a Historically Black College University. So that explains why they set the academic bar extremely low, because it’s not run by Jews or WASPs. It’s run by Blacks. Their academic bar is so low you don’t even need a working pulse to get a bachelor’s degree from a HBCU, since Trayvon’s pulse obviously does not work anymore.
I’ve heard that hand rubbing comes very naturally to those in the Middle East.
I suppose they are burning Kuwaiti babies killed by Saddam?
Also, Memri TV still beats C-SPAN.
Like Putin's main nemesis being Navalny who to the horror of Europeans, is even more a nationalist than Putin (you can tell by the amount of energy Russian media expends on demonizing Navalny and labeling him a Nazi); Erdogan's main rivals are young and hungry Islamists who can always promise MOAR ISLAM as the solution and point to tired, sick, old Erdogan as the problem. Why, a Holy War with traditional enemies Greece (easy prey) and Russia (not so much) is just the solution to the problem of not enough Jihad and Ottoman Empire!
Turkey lives in a bad neighborhood.Replies: @Pericles, @Lurker, @bored identity
Like all those poor inner city blacks, I guess.
Islam, not even once.
Since when is watching TV an “activity”? (!)
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks
****sorry I cannot resist posting. So kindly buzz off you transphobic, transAtlantic, Islamophobes.Replies: @Lurker, @Autochthon
One could argue it was very much the business of the Byzantine Empire.
I did wonder if I should write to They Might be Giants and point this out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcze7EGorOkReplies: @Lurker
Like Putin's main nemesis being Navalny who to the horror of Europeans, is even more a nationalist than Putin (you can tell by the amount of energy Russian media expends on demonizing Navalny and labeling him a Nazi); Erdogan's main rivals are young and hungry Islamists who can always promise MOAR ISLAM as the solution and point to tired, sick, old Erdogan as the problem. Why, a Holy War with traditional enemies Greece (easy prey) and Russia (not so much) is just the solution to the problem of not enough Jihad and Ottoman Empire!
Turkey lives in a bad neighborhood.Replies: @Pericles, @Lurker, @bored identity
Poor old Turkey and it’s tragic dirt.
Based on an annual OECD communications survey,Turkey ranks #4 in the number of hours of TV watched per day per household, a little over 4 hours a day.
The United States is #1 with households watching over 8 hours of TV a day, on average.
The data is a little old, from 2011, but it is similar to data from an Economist magazine report from 2005, so I would expect that the viewing hours and rankins are relatively stable over a decade or two, leaving aside technological disruption.
http://www.keepeek.com/Digital-Asset-Management/oecd/science-and-technology/oecd-communications-outlook-2013/broadcasting-and-audiovisual-content_comms_outlook-2013-8-en#.WRrCqrjSldI#page10
dx.doi.org/10.1787/888932799418
Ingraham has major contacts on white house staff and she reamed Kushner today and accused him of being a big leaker maybe the big leaker.
Dr Udge left the Coulter interview at the top of the page all day to send another frigging message to bubble boy Trump.
But the core problem remains: Trump did this all to himself by filling his govt with neocons and lib dems.
Apparently Trump is not getting the message as Roger Stone said today that every name on the real Comey replacement list is some version of nevertrumper... WTF.Replies: @fitzGetty
… and Beta people …
A deliberate policy concocted by the Turks in the pursuit of soft power.Replies: @ussr andy
Russia has a burgeoning TV drama industry. The shows are getting more sophisticated year by year.
I think it’s not so much soft power (how much soft power does Nollywood give Nigeria?), but making TV shows is just one of those things that are relatively easy to get off the ground (unlike a chip foundry or an auto factory) yet still relatively high in added-value, esp. if you can sell them abroad.
I also think there’s a natural ceiling as to how much soft power Russia and Turkey can acquire among Westerners simply due to them being Russia and Turkey.
Europeans watch American shows for giggles but they don’t really “get” them like an American does. We don’t really have people like Ned Flanders etc.
Actually, Americans themselves don’t “get” their shows, for example someone’s observation that L&O SVU is basically women’s r** porn, but try telling it someone.
Actually, eating nuts and seeds is their favorite activity. That would sound silly in a survey, though, and they eat nuts whilst watching TV, so they replied “watching TV” instead…
In Turkey, a lot of people keep the TV on even when they aren’t really paying attention. It’s just a sort of background noise, or they might look up if something “exciting” happens.
For that matter, a lot of Americans do the same. My mom always had the TV on when she was puttering around in the kitchen. I suspect that most of the time she wasn’t following it, but she might’ve paid attention if a news story caught her interest.
Does that count as “watching?”
I'd bet she was counted as "watching". There is NFW that the average American watches TV 8 hours a day every day.
Visits to Monasteries in the Levant
By Robert Curzon.
It takes,
4 Turks to cheat one Frank
2 Franks to cheat one Greek
2 Greeks to cheat one Jew
And 6 Jews to cheat an Armenian.Replies: @slumber_j, @BenKenobi, @bored identity
I’ve always wondered why there’s an Armenian Quarter in Jerusalem. It’s the sort of thing I periodically look up and then forget.
I was listening to a podcast with Scott Adams as a guest. The host asked Adams what’s the best book he’s read in the past year. Adams said he hadn’t read a book in the past year and while he reads voraciously he doesn’t read books. Books, he said, are one chapter of content and eleven chapters of filler.
I would advise everybody to click on the link in Steve’s note to get some real beef about current Turkish TV and the not-so-subtle messages it is conveying.
Further anecdotal material about Turkish TV exports: A friend of mine living in Ethiopia (which, believe it or not, often is a most charming place) tells me that Turkish soap operas, broadcast over satellite to East Africa, recently have been making great inroads with the female Ethiopian audience.
Finally, Turkey is playing games and flexing its muscle again vis-a-vis Germany: About 220 German soldiers are currently being stationed, in a NATO context, at the notorious Incirlik airbase in southeast Turkey. From there, they participate in NATO’s anti-IS operations, mostly only, alas, through reconnaissance and refueling missions.
Anyhow, some little thingy in German politics has now displeased Sultan Recep Tayyip, so his government currently refuses to let German parliamentarians visit their soldiers in Incirlik. Same thing happened once before in 2016. A formidable Muslim NATO member they are, those Turks.
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn't be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @AnotherGuessModel, @Dieter Kief, @John Derbyshire, @AP, @Anatoly Karlin
“It is a common saying, and likely has some basis in fact: that it takes the wit of four Turks to overreach one Frank; two Franks to cheat one Greek; two Greeks to cheat one Jew; and six Jews to cheat one Armenian.” — Samuel Cox (19C British diplomat).
Thank you for the link!
Well, those are the conclusions you’ll reach if you use Facebook to observe what millennials are doing.
For 95%+ of healthy young men in all times and places, and a very high percentage of young women, sex is their favorite activity, or it would be if they could have sex the way they want with who they want.
I notice that about 95% of the activity on my Facebook is generated by 5% of the people. For that 5%, Facebook may be their favorite activity. Women certainly seem to enjoy it more than men, or at least they do it compulsively, whether they enjoy it or not. It’s more important to them to check on what other people are doing, even if it’s to despair over how their lives come up short relative to the friends of theirs who are having the most fun at any given point in time.
I’d guess that millennial men enjoy video games more than social media on average.
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Been a long time gone, Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks
****sorry I cannot resist posting. So kindly buzz off you transphobic, transAtlantic, Islamophobes.Replies: @Lurker, @Autochthon
Some words are incredibly difficult to incorporate into song.
Eminem famously rhymes “oranges” with an ellided pronunciation of “or hinges” in “Let’s Get Down to Business,” but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
Writing a song (that scans decently) all about both Istanbul and and Constantinople is no mean feat. Had they worked in as well the other name, Byzantium, it’d have been the ultimate hat trick (they are Canadian after all, I think, or is that only the Barenaked Ladies?; I always get these two bands confused because of their similarly whimsical material…).
Honorable mention must also be made of the Bee Gees’ “Massachusetts.”
Due to an absence of any esthetic standards whatsoever: "She got a big booty so I call her big booty" (actual rap lyric).Replies: @Autochthon
https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22To+Love+Somebody%22+as+done+by+Graham+Parsons&pc=MOZI&form=MOZCON
OT: The New York Times cheerleading for Puerto Rican statehood.
I wonder if the rest of the Presidential statues look as bad as the ones of Obama and Gerald Ford.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/puerto-rico-statehood.html?_r=0
Armenia was long one of those nations that neither Rome nor Persia conquered, but instead traded back and forth as a vassal. At one point, the two agreed that Persia could choose the King of Armenia but Rome would have the right to crown him (and thus, implicitly, the right to veto a bad choice), or some kind of similar compromise. The nation was difficult to subdue and keep subdued due to it’s geography, much like Afghanistan, and so it’s had a lot more independence than a lot of nations around it. That’s why it’s church was so independent and the nation set up it’s own quarter in Jerusalem different from regular Christian quarter.
OT: Trump’s luck again. Although non-Fox MSM so far refusing to report on. http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/05/16/slain-dnc-staffer-had-contact-with-wikileaks-investigator-says.html
I don’t know that they consider any of these things as an activity per se so much as the frame through which they interact with the world and one another now. It would probably fall upon their ears like “my favorite activity is blue” would to you.
Steve, OT:
A green shoot:
http://jmrphy.net/blog/2017/05/15/psychology-of-prohibiting-outside-thinkers/
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn't be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @AnotherGuessModel, @Dieter Kief, @John Derbyshire, @AP, @Anatoly Karlin
I knew of an Armenian-American girl who studied at college on the other coast, fell in love with a Turkish guy, married him and had kids while keeping all of this a secret from her parents. This was in the early 90s, before facebook.
OT, meanwhile in old Saxony:
Is Libya sending its best?
The handsy perverts should be given a choice, if they think the brief incarceration so cruel: they can instead opt to have their noses broken or, better still, spend a week being used for practice in courses teaching women's defense tactics: hours and hours on the receiving end of the very effective "grab, twist, and pull" technique will set them to rights straightaway, and if it causes any permanent damage affecting their libidos, all the better for society.
I did wonder if I should write to They Might be Giants and point this out.Replies: @Clyde
That is way too Byzantine for They Might be Giants. Check out the original from the early 1950s by The Four Lads. Clean and high spirited with zero ennui. It swings baby! As Frank Sinatra would say.
OT, dateline 16 May 2017 16:38 CEST+02:00, in now vibrant Westphalia:
Heckuva job Merkie!
Visits to Monasteries in the Levant
By Robert Curzon.
It takes,
4 Turks to cheat one Frank
2 Franks to cheat one Greek
2 Greeks to cheat one Jew
And 6 Jews to cheat an Armenian.Replies: @slumber_j, @BenKenobi, @bored identity
Interesting. I’ve seen the line “trust snake before a Jew, and Jew before a Turk, but never trust an Armenian.”
OT
Sorry to share this week-old article with you, but this is a gem. It’s impossible to distinguish reality from The Onion.
Re Seth Rich murdered by DNC mafia:
Wikileaks was a winning issue for Trump until he reversed himself. Idiot.
Judging from CIA director Pompeo’s comments on Assange we can assume Pompeo strongly approves of Seth Rich getting snuffed out. Asshole.
“Sad!”
OT, but looks like there’s fire there:
http://voxday.blogspot.com/2017/05/a-troublesome-staffer.html
If you are going to hire someone to kill a troublesome staffer, make sure they know to wipe his computer clean with more than a cloth!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wcze7EGorOkReplies: @Lurker
Thanks! I had no idea the song didn’t originate with TMBG.
Erdogan is more like Putin than Ceausescu. He has genuine public popularity with a large segment of the popularity (might or might not be >50% in a free and fair election with a free press but still a significant %). Communist rule in Romania existed for as long as the Soviets were able to impose it and not one minute longer. Ceausescu was particularly detestable and lacking in genuine popular support (people bused into rallies by their workplace don’t count) but no Communist could have lasted in any of the satellites.
This is not to say that this could not change (for both Putin and Erdogan) – see Maduro in Venezuela. But first the economic situation would have to get a lot worse.
Moreover both Putin and Erdogan are trying to revive dead-end pre-industrial ideologies - Orthodox Slavophilia and Islam. Both the Russian and Ottoman Empires collapsed because those ideologies have been hollow for a long time.
Probably the only sustainable way forward for civilization is the East Asian model - a combination of racial homogeneity and technophilia. Unfortunately for the West (or Russia or Turkey) our societies are far too heterodox, even the white populations, to adopt to East Asian style conformity and unity of purpose.
As for Ceausescu, he remains popular in Romania even today: Survey: 66% of the Romanians would vote for Ceausescu.Replies: @Romanian
Benny Hill was a star, seriously, around the world – Caribbean, Africa, Middle East, Australia, Philippines. At one time versions of his shows were running on television in 96 countries. His cancellation by the politically-correct BBC was one of the stupidest own goals ever scored.
Actual, genuine quote from Keith Richards: “An album is a hit single and ten tracks of sh**.”
OT: Crickets here on the Great Trump Security Leak. Who is the “Middle Eastern Ally”? If the “crime” was causing the ally to lose faith in trusting us with future secrets, aren’t the real guilty parties the WashPo and the leakers inside the White House who spread this story. Who are the leakers? Why is OK for leakers to leak stories which damage national security to the press, so long as the damaged party is a Republican President, but the President isn’t allowed to do any “leaking” of his own?
It’s nice work if you can rig the rules of the game (which you yourself make up) so that you are allowed to wield a weapon but the other side has to fight you bare handed. This is why Twitter drives the press nuts – Trump is not supposed to be able to speak directly to the American people without being appropriately “filtered” by the press. Likewise, one of the complaints of the bureaucracy is that the President, when meeting with foreign leaders, is supposed to stick to “talking points” given to him by the REAL government as if he is the Queen of England reading the speeches given to her by the ruling party. Sorry guys, the President is the Commander in Chief and he tells YOU what to say, not vice versa.
It is really good.
Eminem famously rhymes "oranges" with an ellided pronunciation of "or hinges" in "Let's Get Down to Business," but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
Writing a song (that scans decently) all about both Istanbul and and Constantinople is no mean feat. Had they worked in as well the other name, Byzantium, it'd have been the ultimate hat trick (they are Canadian after all, I think, or is that only the Barenaked Ladies?; I always get these two bands confused because of their similarly whimsical material...).
Honorable mention must also be made of the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts."Replies: @jamie b., @Clyde, @Matra, @anonymous
“…easier to pull of with rap…”
Due to an absence of any esthetic standards whatsoever: “She got a big booty so I call her big booty” (actual rap lyric).
This is not to say that this could not change (for both Putin and Erdogan) - see Maduro in Venezuela. But first the economic situation would have to get a lot worse.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev, @inertial, @Uebersetzer
The problem with both Putin and Erdogan is that they have no long term fixes. Both of them are stealing and borrowing to create the illusion of prosperity. Putin by selling off Russia’s natural resources at fire sale prices, and Erdogan by literally running up debts and taking businesses from his political enemies. Those strategies aren’t sustainable forever, and Russia has already been badly damaged by cheap oil. The sanctions have done Putin a huge favor, in fact, by protecting local industry. The Turks are better businessmen than the Russians, and have built a few impressive companies, but Erdogan’s greed seems to getting the better of him.
Moreover both Putin and Erdogan are trying to revive dead-end pre-industrial ideologies – Orthodox Slavophilia and Islam. Both the Russian and Ottoman Empires collapsed because those ideologies have been hollow for a long time.
Probably the only sustainable way forward for civilization is the East Asian model – a combination of racial homogeneity and technophilia. Unfortunately for the West (or Russia or Turkey) our societies are far too heterodox, even the white populations, to adopt to East Asian style conformity and unity of purpose.
It's nice work if you can rig the rules of the game (which you yourself make up) so that you are allowed to wield a weapon but the other side has to fight you bare handed. This is why Twitter drives the press nuts - Trump is not supposed to be able to speak directly to the American people without being appropriately "filtered" by the press. Likewise, one of the complaints of the bureaucracy is that the President, when meeting with foreign leaders, is supposed to stick to "talking points" given to him by the REAL government as if he is the Queen of England reading the speeches given to her by the ruling party. Sorry guys, the President is the Commander in Chief and he tells YOU what to say, not vice versa.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev
If the “crime” was causing the ally to lose faith in trusting us with future secrets, aren’t the real guilty parties the WashPo and the leakers inside the White House who spread this story
Not if the ally is already well aware of the leak because our military had to notify that ally that a source was compromised. That would seem like Trump’s crime. If our allies have lost faith in the President, that would normally be considered newsworthy.
It is hard to believe that American conservatives are willing to follow an elderly blowhard/reality TV star off the edge off the cliff just because some annoying liberals don’t like the guy, but that is where we seem to be. Only Ann Coulter has any sense left.
This is not to say that this could not change (for both Putin and Erdogan) - see Maduro in Venezuela. But first the economic situation would have to get a lot worse.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev, @inertial, @Uebersetzer
This is propaganda nonsense. There had been plenty of genuine popular support for Communism in the Eastern block countries. It has been memory-holed but it existed.
As for Ceausescu, he remains popular in Romania even today: Survey: 66% of the Romanians would vote for Ceausescu.
Eminem famously rhymes "oranges" with an ellided pronunciation of "or hinges" in "Let's Get Down to Business," but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
Writing a song (that scans decently) all about both Istanbul and and Constantinople is no mean feat. Had they worked in as well the other name, Byzantium, it'd have been the ultimate hat trick (they are Canadian after all, I think, or is that only the Barenaked Ladies?; I always get these two bands confused because of their similarly whimsical material...).
Honorable mention must also be made of the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts."Replies: @jamie b., @Clyde, @Matra, @anonymous
Very nice tune plus the way they sing in a bit of trembling voice adds to it. You might like the Bee Gees tune “To Love Somebody” as done by Graham Parsons and The Flying Burrito Brothers. Easily found on youtube.
https://www.bing.com/search?q=%22To+Love+Somebody%22+as+done+by+Graham+Parsons&pc=MOZI&form=MOZCON
The series on Sultan Suleiman on Netflix was mesmerizing. Can’t wait for season 2
I knew a guy five years ago whose wife was addicted to Facebook. While out driving she (passenger) would be madly flipping through Facebook on her iPhone.
Eminem famously rhymes "oranges" with an ellided pronunciation of "or hinges" in "Let's Get Down to Business," but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
Writing a song (that scans decently) all about both Istanbul and and Constantinople is no mean feat. Had they worked in as well the other name, Byzantium, it'd have been the ultimate hat trick (they are Canadian after all, I think, or is that only the Barenaked Ladies?; I always get these two bands confused because of their similarly whimsical material...).
Honorable mention must also be made of the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts."Replies: @jamie b., @Clyde, @Matra, @anonymous
Eminem famously rhymes “oranges” with an ellided pronunciation of “or hinges” in “Let’s Get Down to Business,” but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
I just listened to the song. Eminem pronounces “oranges” like “or-in-gis”, the way non-Americans do, rather than the more typical American ways so it does kind of rhyme, though it’s still a bit awkward.
Mark Steyn just had Istanbul (Not Constantinople) as his song o’ the week.
Eminem famously rhymes "oranges" with an ellided pronunciation of "or hinges" in "Let's Get Down to Business," but that kind of stuff can be a bit easier to pull of with rap than with conventional song.
Writing a song (that scans decently) all about both Istanbul and and Constantinople is no mean feat. Had they worked in as well the other name, Byzantium, it'd have been the ultimate hat trick (they are Canadian after all, I think, or is that only the Barenaked Ladies?; I always get these two bands confused because of their similarly whimsical material...).
Honorable mention must also be made of the Bee Gees' "Massachusetts."Replies: @jamie b., @Clyde, @Matra, @anonymous
Meh! Oranges … shmoranges!
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/puerto-rico-statehood.html?_r=0Replies: @Romanian
And it says nothing about Puerto Rican terrorism in the US perpetrated by groups who wanted independence and are still lionized today.
I watched him all the time as a kid.
As for Ceausescu, he remains popular in Romania even today: Survey: 66% of the Romanians would vote for Ceausescu.Replies: @Romanian
Nostalgia goggles, plus they blame his wife for the crummy turn the country took in the 1980s.
Author is hanging out with some good old boys somewhere. They are sitting around getting drunk and doing nothings like laugh at the three legged dog. Said dog starts licking its balls, and the author says "Man, I wish i could do that". One good old boy says "well, I'm not sure he'd let you."Replies: @donut, @Jim Don Bob
The punch line I remember was : “don’t you think you should introduce yourself first” .
Author is hanging out with some good old boys somewhere. They are sitting around getting drunk and doing nothings like laugh at the three legged dog. Said dog starts licking its balls, and the author says "Man, I wish i could do that". One good old boy says "well, I'm not sure he'd let you."Replies: @donut, @Jim Don Bob
No, the punch line is, “I dunno, he looks kinda mean”.
My MIL was that way; CNN was on 24/7.
I’d bet she was counted as “watching”. There is NFW that the average American watches TV 8 hours a day every day.
I was waiting to get off a plane recently and the woman behind me got on Facebook as soon as cell phones were allowed. “OMG, I just landed in Denver!”
Due to an absence of any esthetic standards whatsoever: "She got a big booty so I call her big booty" (actual rap lyric).Replies: @Autochthon
C’mon; your example is like one saying all country music is horrible by citing a song from Shania Twain or all ballads are insufferable by citing Color Me Badd’s “I Wanna Sex You Up.” (Or is it “…U Up?”)
My example was fairly representative. “Rhyming” a word with itself is completely normal in rap, and so are classy topics like “big booty.”
N.B. that four months in prison for sexual assault is now deemed “exhorbitant” even by the very judges meting it out, as though eager to place the blame for such crazed ideas as the punishment of crimes at the feet of those mean, old legislators.
The handsy perverts should be given a choice, if they think the brief incarceration so cruel: they can instead opt to have their noses broken or, better still, spend a week being used for practice in courses teaching women’s defense tactics: hours and hours on the receiving end of the very effective “grab, twist, and pull” technique will set them to rights straightaway, and if it causes any permanent damage affecting their libidos, all the better for society.
So is that why the Kardashians are so ornery?
Eleven years for raping 2 girls is a hefty sentence? There is truly no hope for Germany.
It was Britain’s commercial TV network, ITV, which hosted – and then sadly ‘terminated’ – poor old Benny.
If I was an Armenian father I wouldn't be pleased if my daughter brought home a Turk boyfriend.Replies: @RadicalCenter, @AnotherGuessModel, @Dieter Kief, @John Derbyshire, @AP, @Anatoly Karlin
Armenians are some of the most ethnonationalistic people in the world, so yes, absolutely.
{Armenians are some of the most ethnonationalistic people in the world}
If your ethnos came so very close to being completely exterminated from the face of the earth, you would be most ethnonationistic too.
Would a Russian father in say 1943 in an occupied Russian village be pleased if his daughter brought home a Nazi SS German boyfriend?
And the invadonomad Turks have not given up their goal of wiping out Armenians from their ancestral lands. I am sure you have heard of Nagorno-Karabagh, where Caspian Turks of Turkbaijan attempted in 1988-1994 to wipe out indigenous Armenians of Artsakh aka NKR. Thankfully they failed that time, but they will keep trying.
Just a reminder that the Armenian Genocide was actually carried out by the Kurds, America's present day ally in democracy. Of course the Ottoman Turks gave the Kurds the go ahead for carrying out the actual dirty work.
This is not to say that this could not change (for both Putin and Erdogan) - see Maduro in Venezuela. But first the economic situation would have to get a lot worse.Replies: @Peter Akuleyev, @inertial, @Uebersetzer
In Turkey, measures have been taken to boost attendance at Erdogan rallies, like public transport being temporarily free, workplaces get transportation laid on and the day off to go to AKP rallies and Turkish students abroad were “encouraged” to gather outside the White House when Erdogan met Trump (with just a hint that it can be bad for your prospects if you do not avail yourself of the opportunity).
Visits to Monasteries in the Levant
By Robert Curzon.
It takes,
4 Turks to cheat one Frank
2 Franks to cheat one Greek
2 Greeks to cheat one Jew
And 6 Jews to cheat an Armenian.Replies: @slumber_j, @BenKenobi, @bored identity
And a half dozen of Kardashians to cheat on bunch of men or women of various ethnic, racial, or even gendeneric origin.
Modest bored proposal:
Wanna watch” Tijuana Desperate Drug Lord’s Machadoss” in your native language?
It’s gonna be $ 299 per month.
1. Build a Guberment Pay Wall arond all foreign language blubbering, Turkomexican or other TV cable/satelite outlets, and let the Cricket Test Failing domestic audience to pay the price of non-assimilation.
2. Tell to Nice White TV Audience that all proceeds are going to be used to cover for the cost of English Speaking Big Bird’s life support.
Avery:
Just a reminder that the Armenian Genocide was actually carried out by the Kurds, America’s present day ally in democracy. Of course the Ottoman Turks gave the Kurds the go ahead for carrying out the actual dirty work.
The 94.6% figure is pretty astounding, but I’m also fascinated by the description of TV-watching as an activity.
The video shows guys in black suits walloping Kurdish anti-Erdoğan protestors in Washington, DC.
The New York Times reports that they are from Erdoğan’s security detail, but given the nature of Turkish politics, perhaps these were Gulenists in a false-flag operation designed to embarrass Erdoğan during his state visit to the US.
I’m just trying to view Turkish politics with the appropriate conspiracist/Byzantine mindset.
Like Putin's main nemesis being Navalny who to the horror of Europeans, is even more a nationalist than Putin (you can tell by the amount of energy Russian media expends on demonizing Navalny and labeling him a Nazi); Erdogan's main rivals are young and hungry Islamists who can always promise MOAR ISLAM as the solution and point to tired, sick, old Erdogan as the problem. Why, a Holy War with traditional enemies Greece (easy prey) and Russia (not so much) is just the solution to the problem of not enough Jihad and Ottoman Empire!
Turkey lives in a bad neighborhood.Replies: @Pericles, @Lurker, @bored identity
Why bored identity always has to fix things around here?
Turkey IS
lives ina bad neighborhoodn