Already commented on it in the previous thread, Visegrad 24 now celebrating Polish “volunteers” taking part in the raid on Belgorod:
https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-219/#comment-5993717

What’s their excuse exactly? Neither from a country that has been attacked by Russia nor Russian “dissidents”.

Sorry. The prior thread became unstable. One partial post occurred and I could not delete it.

The new thread is appreciated.

Polling — Part I — National Election

================
Figures don’t lie,
but liars do figure.
1884, Anonymous
================

Some highly emotional #NeverTrump extremists used flawed science in the prior thread. Polling can fail in a number of ways. (1)

“Polling” can be a loaded term. Since the early days of polling, the field has had to defend its reputation against the damage done by individuals and organizations who manipulate or even fabricate poll findings to bring the force of public opinion to their agenda. Some polling organizations release partial results, or only release numbers favorable to their client. Some conduct polls with biased question wordings.

Let us break out three key factors:
    -1- Funding/Sponsor
    -2- Fabrication/Method
    -3- Question Selection
___

-1- Funding/Sponsor

National Public Radio [NPR] is both government funded and highly Globalist in its programming. Anything with NPR in its title is highly suspect. They spend money to push their Leftoid agenda. Accuracy is not well regarded.

In fact, all major U.S. networks (including post-Carlson Fox) — what I describe as the “Fake Stream Media” [FSM] — share this Globalist bias. Therefore, a #NeverTrump agenda is almost always present from those who are paying the bills.

There are a few smaller independent firms and true academic sponsors. However, they do not have the resources to produce results on a frequent basis.
___

-2- Fabrication/Method

Are there ways to fabricate a more #NeverTrump outcome? Yes. Methods that align to this goal are easily available. The most common is sample selection. Three marks commonly seen are:
    [A] Adults
    [RV] Registered Voter
    [LV] Likely Voter

LV is the most accurate method. RV is proven to be “Left” biased by 5-10%. The last method, A is prone to wild swings and thus less frequently seen outside of ultra quick turnaround, snap polls.

Polling firms claim that cost drives them to use less reliable RV rather than the better LV. And, this surface explanation has initial plausibility. However, if the intent of the funder and polling firm is to be accurate:

Why not adjust the RV results for known bias RV/LV?

The answer is intuitively clear. Those paying for the poll want numbers to promote their agenda. The known inaccuracy is thus left in as an element of deception.
___

-3- Question Selection

The event that actually impacts peoples lives is, “Who will win in November 2024?” Unless the No Label crowd manages to generate a credible third party (highly unlikely) the U.S. 2024 race will be in the two party system paradigm.

Therefore, the best way to structure questions is, “Which will you vote for — A or B?” Volunteered answers like ‘write in’ or ‘will not vote’ are valid responses, but this question reflects the duality of the actual impending choice.

There are built in problems with question selection where there is — “Do you approve of A?” And then a separate, “Do you approve of B?”

-A- Voting action is determinative, not the emotional state of approval. People will vote against their feeling if there is sufficient perceived need.

-B- Polling for one-sided emotional state misses the inherent two-sided choice.

-C- One sided emotional questions can be displayed without the other half, thus intentionally creating an deceptive presentation. This is a very NPR technique.
___

Highly emotional #NeverTrump hatred was seen on display in the prior thread. The poster claimed to be “data driven” but was actually 180° the opposite. The distraught reality denier sought out badly worded questions, flawed methodology, and corrupt sources. Then displayed this obvious intellectual failure to rage against America’s past & future President.

Will Independents follow their wallets?

History shows this is likely. Many independents will vote against Not-The-President Biden for his wrecking of the American economy. By process of elimination, this creates votes for Trump, despite any less than positive emotional approval state of him as a person.

PEACE 😇
_________

(1) https://www.healthpolldatabase.org/understanding-health-polling/what-is-a-push-poll/
___

Correction — I misused the term “push polling” in the prior thread. While the cited NPR poll was misleading, it did not meet the technical criteria to be a push poll. I should have stuck with my first instinctive label, propaganda.

Age related solidarity – one senior somewhat sympathizing with other senior experiencing senior type of accident;)

Last night, 3 June was a full moon. A full moon will negate the Ukrainians advantage in night vision (main subject of British training). In two weeks there will be no moon. That’s when the big attack should come, plus or minus a few days. Also there will be longer hours of daylight to operate logistics.

In the next two weeks, expect some feints by Ukraine to churn up the Russian reserves and perhaps even a couple of feints from Russia.

The Ukrainian offensive appears to be starting. Or maybe it’s just one of the feints that Phillip mentioned above.

75-25 nothing happens.

Battle of the Nations
Ukraine Russia

The Ukraine player apparently does not speak Ukrainian. She is from Odessa and lives in London. Gross grunts.

The crowd went W I L D.

That whole region is a part of Poland’s historic sphere of influence due to the PLC lol.

BTW, off-topic, but here is a question for you: Had Russia remained in WWI up to the very end and avoided the Bolshevik coup, and also gotten Constantinople and the Straits after the end of WWI, is there any chance that it could have used them as a bargaining chip in order to get Turkey to join a reformed Greater Russian Federation as its own separate federal unit? As in, give Turkey Constantinople and the Straits back, but only contingent on Turkey actually agreeing to join a reformed Greater Russian Federation as its own separate federal unit.

Turkey has impressive human capital by Middle Eastern standards and thus it would be a shame for a Russia who wins WWI not to try attempting something like this, especially if done on a voluntary basis:

https://emilkirkegaard.dk/en/2022/10/national-intelli-basic-skills/

And the unification agreement can have a clause that Constantinople and the Straits will return to Russia if Turkey will ever subsequently withdraw from this Greater Russian Federation.

Ukraine is biding its time. Just like the Anglo-French tried to do during the Phoney War over 80 years ago.

…like the Anglo-French tried to do during the Phoney War over 80 years ago.

That ended quite badly a few months later for the French.

The Ukies will be ordered to attack and be bloodied. The neo-cons have been buying time by using Ukie lives because they can’t face the reality of losing. Once that option is gone, the real hysteria will begin…

What was the first movie where humans teamed up with aliens to kill humans? Enemy Mine?

Roman phenotypes:

I don’t think there is going to be an offensive. It sounds like the probing attacks today failed catastrophically. This conflict has been WWI’ified where the only way to take territory is to use “bite and chew” tactics; which appear to be all either army is capable of carrying out anyway.

the statue on the bottom right looks like Ron DeSantis

Anatoly Karlin ostensibly advocates in favor of open borders but doesn’t believe that Kyrgyz and Tajiks (people who have lived in the same country as Russians for 100+ years) are capable of successfully integrating into Russian society:

https://www.sotwe.com/powerfultakes?lang=en

Younger Tajiks and Kyrgyz more enthusiastic about wife beating than the middle aged; in many cases, deSovietization was also a decivilizing process. Also probably not a good sign for near-term prospects of Tajik integration within Russia (many new citizens in recent years).

How exactly the open borders experiment is supposed to work with such logic is a total mystery to me.

Also, just because some or even many intellectuals support something does not mean that this thing is inevitable. Some or even many Western intellectuals supported Communism during the 20th century, no? And yet by and large (East Germany is an exception to the general trend/rule here, and was itself only the result of Soviet troops staying there for almost half a century) Communists never actually came to power in the West. So, if Communism in the West was not inevitable, why exactly should we assume that open borders is inevitable? Especially in light of the obvious problems that it poses, such as higher crime rates and people getting murdered for Islamophobic speech?

Any future statue of Ron Desantis will be in Israel, he will be kneeling before a Rabbi while felating him.

Judaism doesn’t allow homosexual acts.

Meatball Ron’s future is in some think tank making an obscene amount of money for the way he took one for the team by launching this suicide run for the Presidency

Meatball Ron’s future is in some think tank making an obscene amount of money for the way he took one for the team by launching this suicide run for the Presidency

I keep hoping it is all a trick and he is going to endorse Trump after draining establishment coffers.

Alas, you are probably correct. DeSantis looks more like a Ukie Maximalist tool every day.

Polling — Part II — Florida Primary

Are all polls bad? No.

For example, the Sunshine State Battleground poll (Rich Baris/Big Data Polling) is:
    — An independent source
    — Asking better questions

It shares the RV/LV limitation. However, that distinction is less relevant to primaries. The underlying data is available here.(1)

The result is grim for anti-MAGA candidate DeSantis. (2)

Now you know exactly why Florida Governor Ron DeSantis had to launch without any public appearances in his home state, and run away from the state of Florida immediately thereafter. This doesn’t take any commentary to understand.

President Trump is beating Ron DeSantis in the state that knows the Florida Governor best.

       Trump 52.5%, DeSantis 32.6%.

This should be embarrassing for Ron and Jill ‘Casey’ DeSantis, but their hubris will just ignore it.

DeRINO is the establishment’s #1 shot to defeat MAGA. And, they know it is not working. One can be sure that the emotionally distraught #NeverTrump cultists will come up with outbursts and intentionally flawed statistics in an desperate attempt to refute reality.

The bottom line is that Republican voters want MAGA, not establishment friendly DeSantis.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1)
https://application.marketsight.com/app/ItemView.aspx?SharedFor=public%40bigdatapoll.com&SharedBy=34090&id=80b29036-177d-4c5e-ac48-b016001eb1e9

(2) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/06/03/big-data-poll-president-trump-crushing-governor-desantis-by-20-points-in-florida-after-home-state-campaign-launch/

What’s interesting is just how much Ukrainian attitudes on NATO have shifted since 2008-2009, which was just 14-15 years ago:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/127094/ukrainians-likely-support-move-away-nato.aspx

Even by ex-USSR standards, Ukrainians back then were extraordinarily hostile towards NATO:

This slightly changed by 2013 but not by too much:

https://news.gallup.com/poll/167927/crisis-ukrainians-likely-nato-threat.aspx

This is why Ukrainian NATO membership back in 2008 was unrealistic.

FWIW, in 2013, the EU was more popular than NATO in central Ukraine:

So the debt ceiling has not only been raised but its now the “sky is the limit!”

This movement by the corporate congress bodes of dark times ahead in the world, why do you need limitless cash? I can only think of two, you either want to collapse the system or you are going to war.

Both situations only mean a lot of us are going to die for the one percentage point.

You don’t fight you lose!

From Anatoly Karlin:

Morality is defined by wherever elite human capital is trending, and the sooner you make your peace with that, the happier you will be. 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️🥦🏴🌐

Indeed, unless one makes a grift of resisting or lampooning it (that’s fine), it’s otherwise profitable to actively front-run it. 💯

So, Communism was moral back when elite human capital supported it?

Elite human capital opposes r*ghtoids of all flavors, that includes American/Western Supremacism.

Plenty of Leftists are also Western Supremacists, at least insofar as Western Supremacism means supporting Ukraine against Russia and also EU and possibly NATO expansion into Ukraine. Supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia means supporting a larger, more powerful, and more influential West, after all.

Davos, Switzerland, 23 May 2022—A new report from the Deloitte Center for Sustainable Progress (DCSP) released today during the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting indicates that—if left unchecked—climate change could cost the global economy US$178 trillion over the next 50 years, or a 7.6% cut to global gross domestic product (GDP) in the year 2070 alone. If global warming reaches around 3°C toward the century’s end, the toll on human lives could be significant—disproportionately impacting the most vulnerable and leading to loss of productivity and employment, food and water scarcity, worsening health and well-being, and ushering in an overall lower standard of living globally.

Deloitte’s Global Turning Point Report is based on research conducted by the Deloitte Economics Institute. The report analyzed 15 geographies in Asia Pacific, Europe, and the Americas, and found that if global leaders unite in a systemic net-zero transition, the global economy could see new five-decade gains of US$43 trillion—a boost to global GDP of 3.8% in 2070.

https://www.deloitte.com/an/en/about/press-room/deloitte-research-reveals-inaction-on-climate-change-could-cost-the-world-economy-us-dollar-178-trillion-by-2070.html

$125 trillion of climate investment is needed by 2050 to meet net zero, with investment from now until 2025 needing to triple compared to the last five years to put the world on track.

By 2030, however, up to four-fifths of decarbonization technology investments could be better value than conventional, emissions-intensive alternatives.

Delivering investment on this scale is possible but will require increased action across private investors, as well as commensurate public ambition to enable and support them through policy and public investment.

https://climatechampions.unfccc.int/whats-the-cost-of-net-zero-2/

In economic terms, spending on physical assets on the course to net-zero would reach about US$275 trillion by 2050, or US$9.2 trillion per year on average, an annual increase of US$3.5 trillion. To put it in comparable terms, the US$3.5 trillion increase is equivalent to about half of global corporate profits, one-quarter of total tax revenue, and 7 percent of household spending.

https://www.mckinsey.com/mgi/overview/in-the-news/what-it-will-cost-to-get-to-net-zero

Plenty of Leftists are also Western Supremacists, at least insofar as Western Supremacism means supporting Ukraine against Russia and also EU and possibly NATO expansion into Ukraine. Supporting Ukraine in its war against Russia means supporting a larger, more powerful, and more influential West, after all.

Though maybe one can argue that wanting a larger West is not Western Supremacism per se if one opposes Western imperialism (in addition to opposing Russian, Chinese, et cetera imperialism as well).

I found some interesting information about the total fertility rate in Israel which is falling.

Total fertility rate is a very primitive and inaccurate model of fertility rate,* but it is popular as a primitive kind of early prediction of fertility rate.

The most recent data is for 2020, but it is released only in 2022. Total fertility rate falls to 2,9 children per women.

The highest fertility rates are Bedouin Arab women and Haredi women.

Total Jewish women – 3,01
Total Arab women (including Arab Christians) – 2,82

Unclassified women – 1,35 (mostly Russian-speakers i.e. postsoviet Jews)
Muslim Arab women – 2,99

Average age of first birth for Muslim women – 24,5 years old
Average age of first birth for Jewish women – 30,5 years old

Women in the highest rating socio-economicaly – 1,95 (high proportion would be wealthy American immigrants)
Women in the lowest rating socio-economicaly – 5,36 (high proportion will be Bedouin)

–
Interpretation?

The demographics in Israel could be more Bedouin and Haredi in the future. But the overall balance between Jews and Muslims might not be changing so much.

Arab Christians and Russian-speakers have the highest school results in Israel and lowest fertility rates, so there is some Rorschach test for journalists’ interpretations. E.g. maybe Arab Christians have the highest academic results in Israel partly, because they have smaller families.

Postsoviet Jews or Jewish roots peoples’ low fertility rates probably doesn’t need much explanation, it is the same as national level the origin countries.

–

*It tries to predict the fertility rate will be if the risk of having a children for the women according to the age-specific fertility rates would be constant across time, measured at rates of the specific year.

It doesn’t reflect what would be the fertility rate of any real women, as the real woman is not moving through the age-specific fertility rates of one particular year (unless she would be a type of time-traveler).

To be honest, I don’t think postsoviet border conflict between Russia and Ukraine is so important globally.

There is historical legacy of the Cold War which is influencing the media and geopolitical hype of the war. This is a lot of marketing hype though. Especially, Putin invested a lot of money to marketing and media trolling.

But we shouldn’t confuse marketing hype with the real history. Globally, in the balance of power, possibly it could be more like a category of Iran-Iraq war in 1980s history.

–

Ukraine going into EU will possibly weaken and downgrade the EU’s average level of development, but it’s a good opportunity for Ukraine to develop, so the net balance for the EU’s power might be similar after than before.

However, even Ukraine as quite large country developing, is probably not significant in the global view. It would just be like 2 times version of Romania, in the best opportunity of following Romania which has the most rapid development in the EU.

Russia is only slightly larger than Spain economically, but shared with three times more population, so the influence of isolation will not be so negative for the world’s economy.

The questions for the future of the century, seem more questions like how countries like China and India will develop. Do you think China could have a cultural renaissance in the 2050s? Will India industrialize?

There are two countries today that have historically made monumental and unique contributions to world culture, Iran and China, but under their current configurations and under their current regimes are obviously incapable of producing anything of cultural significance.

By 2050 it’s entirely possible that the current Chinese regime, which is Legalist, will be replaced by a regime more inspired by the philosophy traditionally associated with cultural efflorescence in China, as in the Tang period – I mean, of course, Taoism.

Nothing good ever comes from China unless China is under significant Taoist influence, and traditionally Legalist regimes are the shortest lasting and the most culturally sterile, for obvious reasons, and China’s current Legalist regime shows signs of serious strain, as is inevitable when you try and suppress the human spirit.

It will be fascinating to see how the Chinese develop in new directions the most fruitful aspects of their traditional culture, when finally given the chance to resume their old ways again, and it will be a great benefit to the entire world.

As for Iran, here is a passage from one of my favorite travel writer’s recent book, the wonderful Pico Iyer –

Yet many of Iran’s citizens were still known for the remarkably refined and sensuous versions of an earthly paradise they fashioned behind closed doors.

The turbaned clerics, as they saw it, were ruthless politicians pursuing worldly ends under the guise of religion; the only pleasures that could be enjoyed in such a system lay in romance and intoxicants, the latest luxuries from abroad.

And both secular and religious souls, confoundingly, continued to turn for support to the Sufi poems that Iranian schoolchildren, to this day, learn by heart.

Those mystical verses traffic in the language of the everyday—roses and nightingales and wine—if only to evoke a far deeper romance with the divine. Turning wordlessly in circles, Islamic dervishes incarnate a truth beyond doctrine and analysis.

We forget how many of Islam’s greatest poets and Sufis were Persian, Rumi, Hafiz, etc.

A country with such people still has an interesting cultural future ahead of it, even if it currently languishes under a sterile tyranny.

The Israeli left spergs non stop about the haredi birthrate and yet never says anything about the Arab Islamic birthrate. The latter group is bigger and more hostile to the state than the haredi are. If the Haredim are a demographic threat to the state, then so are the Arab Muslims. Yet the Israel left never says a word about them.

The Israeli left may be even more odious than the Western left. At least the Western left owns that they are a bunch of worthless cosmopolitans, the Israeli left actually attempts to use Judaism itself to attack the haredim. And they had no problem allying with the haredim for decades to wage their war on the settlers. Awful people.

The problem with Iran is in their DNA, not their system of government. Junk people produce junk societies.

There are volunteers from at least 20 White nations defending Free Christian Europe against Putin’s Islamo-Oriental hordes and prison-recruited rapist-mercenaries.

Good for them!

I am seriously confused by these EE right wingers who are backing Ukraine. I can understand why right wing Ukrainians back their government (even though I personally would enthusiastically collaborate with a Russian invasion of the USA) but why are right wing Poles and Balts supporting Ukraine? Don’t they see that the West is only funding and supplying this war to spread LGBT?

I don’t think the problem with Iran is just the government, I’m not an Enlightenment institutional determinist like our good Dmitry, but I’m even less a genetic determinist – I’m not really any kind of determinist, I believe in personal agency and spiritual freedom, having overcome modernity in myself.

The problem with China and Iran is the same problem with everywhere in the world these days, the wrong priorities and values – the problem is spiritual and one of personal agency.

A place does not become like China or Iran unless it is deeply spiritually corrupt, and has willingly adopted the wrong priorities. But then the same can be said of America and Europe.

So who will change first? My guess is America, one of the epicenters of the disease.

Iranians are Amalek. That nation is eternally accursed. That’s why it’s losing all of its water and why Iranians have stopped reproducing. All those hung at Nuremberg were reincarnated Iranians.

Of course, it’s better not to hate them and we shouldn’t seek war with them (even though it’s inevitable), but there is no point in us denying what they fundamentally are.

Interest rates in the West are heading north, Germany is in recession, last time there was a collapse into recession then depression we had world war.

This is no accident, the scamdemic was no accident, the pathway is clear we are heading for war for the one percentage point.

Nafo cretins should be put down like the rabid little dogs they pose as.

Haredis come across as quite parasitical (dodging military service, devoting themselves to useless, obscurantist studies). Maybe it would be a solution, if the state confiscated their every 2nd child and educated them as productive citizens.

Could the old Russian empire have held such a thing as the old Turkish empire as its constituent unit? Turkey then was not a compact nation-state, but an empire in its own right, even if Europeans have started gnawing many parts. It was probably more populous than the core Russian areas.

In general, how successful Russia would be in taking a non- Caucasian, non- Mongol, dark people, probably 25% of its population, as its constituent?

If it comes back, it will be a plc.

Iranians are also Aryans. Just reminding.

Please keep in mind that this is in the context of an Entente WWI victory, so the Ottomans are still getting dismembered. The Ottomans’ Arab provinces still become Western mandates (protectorates or colonies, really). It’s only their Turkish and maybe some of their Kurdish territories that would become a constituent unit of Russia proper. Even with their Kurdish territories, an independent, pro-Russian Kurdistan could be more profitable for Russia, so that might leave only the Ottomans’ Turkish territories. And of course eastern Anatolia would become a part of an Armenian federal unit within a reformed, ideally democratic Greater Russia, but that part should be obvious, I hope.

Turkey’s population in 1920 was around 13 million:

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

Greater Russia’s population back then, even excluding Poland, was likely 10+ times larger than that. So, back then, Turkey could have likely been absorbed by a Greater Russia relatively easily in demographic terms. Turkey’s population would have subsequently exploded, of course, but so would Greater Russia’s without both Communism and Nazism, so the effect would not be as severe as it would be with Greater Russia’s real life 20th century extreme demographic devastation.

In 2021, Israeli Jews actually had a *higher* TFR than Israeli Muslims had:

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

Israeli Muslims aren’t a demographic threat any longer. The Haredim, though, very much are, specifically due to their lack of economic and military usefulness combined with their bigotry.

Incorporating Ukraine into the EU will weaken the EU in the short-run but probably strengthen the EU in the long-run due to greater economies of scale. And of course the EU would become a bit more nationalistic with Ukraine included in it.

Russia’s economy is Germany’s size in PPP terms. And I hope that a reformed post-Putin Russia would eventually itself seek to join the EU. Though it would have to come to terms with its guilt for the Ukraine War and pay reparations to Ukraine beforehand, along with likely reducing its level of corruption down to Polish levels.

China already exports some of its culture. Netflix has some Chinese animated and 3D shows even right now, for instance. And Yes, I don’t see why exactly India wouldn’t continue to industrialize. I expect India to ultimately converge to Bulgaria’s or Romania’s level of development. But this would likely be by the end of the 21st century, unless of course AI will massively speed up the process for India.

Israeli peoples’ fear of Haredim (people with big hats) and National Religious (people with small hats), is not exactly completely illogical or unjustified.

Haredi men and Muslim women have the lowest employment rate in Israel. Haredim and Muslims have similar dysfunctional policies like high inbreeding rates.

In proportional representation government, Haredi politicians extract a lot of things which damage the population, like closing of the public transport for Friday, which has negative effects for everyone.

They also damage the country’s budget, with funding for incorrect religious studies and mythologies. A lot of the Haredim hate Israel and some groups burn the flag.

–

When the political extracting fails, the population can be often disobedient and cause a problem for local authorities.

On the other hand, Haredim are real pacifists (except to their own community), which have low crime. They create very safe areas, with a nice atmosphere. So, in small numbers, they are good neighbors.

You can’t say they are completely negative community. But the effect, of large numbers, is untested.

Many Arab areas in Israel have high crime, dysfunction and sometimes contribution to the jihadist terrorism. But the higher crime in the Arab areas is also because the underinvestment in the Arab community, by Israel. So, there is not a simple history, with only one side responsible.

Bedouin areas of Israel with the fertility rates of 8 children per women, are also rapidly destroying their own ecology and not sustainable. The Bedouin would need to choose between the ecology which depends for traditional life, or the 8 children per women.

Israeli left spergs non stop about the haredi birthrate

Which “Israeli left”? Secular people who pay the taxes, are joining the army for combat units, who pay tuition fee for university, who sometimes logically say they are carrying the country?

Immigrants in Israel receive free university, after avoiding the army. Arabs receive a lot of affirmative action scholarships after avoiding the army. Haredim have free money from the government for their own incorrect studies. But the local Israelis have to pay the complete cost for university, even after they were working in the army for free.

haredim for decades to wage their war on the settlers

Who “wage their war on the settlers”? Some of the settlements extract disproportionately large part of the budget, while some of the small hats are operating Messianic cults which is remind of Mormons.

A lot of Israel (not just Arab areas) is very underinvested in terms of the infrastructure and housing. But then there are some of the small hats’ settlements with American style of infrastructure, swimming pools etc.

It’s partly indication of state capture by messianic cults, which can be more organized than the normal citizens.

These are not internationally recognized land of Israel. So in the long term part of this will be lost investment, as even after land swaps the parts of the settlements would need to be evacuated, like in 1982 and 2005.

This is part of the problem of the proportional representation democracy. If there are highly motivated cult groups, they use coalition government to hijack for their lifestyle which has superficial rational appearance, but a disguise for messianic cults.

So, they are friendly middle class communities, with “good people” “patriotic values”. They don’t have dysfunctional lifestyle and seem healthy in many ways. They have positive values, like the community strength, care for the disabled people etc.

But the location of their lifestyle can be selfish, irresponsible. In the long term, it can be political disaster for the country.

–

Settlements in Israel often like the Moscow of infrastructure. You know there is something strange, when they have clean streets, large villages, swimming pools. And by comparison, hard working area of Israel is decaying with underinvestment and small apartments.

Then even secular institutions in the West Bank, can be like crazy multi-billion dollar investments. They then use billion dollars West Bank universities to educate the Palestinians in the internationally non-recognized territory.

While the same country with these multi-billion dollar investments in legally not accepted land, cannot pay for the earthquake retrofitting of the core population in land they own.

Very grounded interview by Razib Khan with Samo Burja on the respective futures of Europe and Russia.
Samo echoing Dmitry’s “trash can of history” comments in his pessimistic opinion that, whatever the outcome, in the near future the Russia-Ukraine conflict won’t be seen as much more consequential the world’s powers than the Yugoslav Wars (his example).
And equally downcast predictions of the Ukraine-Russia devolving into the 21st Century’s own tedious and never-progressing version of the Israel-Palestine Conflict, with the rest of Europe dragging itself down with it, a continent of crabs and buckets.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qiNfior6DPc&t=3651s&pp=ygUQc2FtbyBidXJqYSByYXppYg%3D%3D

Haredis come across as quite parasitical (dodging military service, devoting themselves to useless, obscurantist studies)

Pretty much all haredi women work, as do 40% of the men. The number of men in the workforce would be much higher had secular Israel not started bribing them to join their coalitions in the 1980’s. Before then, 80% of haredi men worked.

I agree haredi men should work but serving in the IDF is out of the question. The haredim never asked for the state to be created in the first place and they don’t care if it continues to exist or not. They have no obligation to fight to protect such a state. The IDF has no manpower problems and literally the only reason anyone wants a haredi draft is to turn haredi boys into secular Zionists and thereby destroy haredi society.

Also, while it is true that military service is mandatory for all Israeli Jews, combat service is not. You can easily serve your entire term as a mechanic, cook, writer or whatever. So even if the haredim were drafted (which will never happen, it would cause a civil war) the haredim still wouldn’t be helping defend Israel. All that would happen is they would get some free job training because no haredi would ever volunteer to join a combat unit.

long-run due to greater economies of scale.

Where is the evidence of the “greater economies of scale”?

If “greater economies of scale” is important, then logical implication the EU should also add Africa, China and India to the EU. It will strengthen the EU in the long-run by “greater economies of scale”. German Reader will become even more wealthy with these “greater economies of scale”.

Switzerland should just combine with Moldova, as Switzerland-Moldova will have “greater economies of scale” than failed country of Switzerland. Therefore, Switzerland’s economy might be successful.

Israel will become stronger by merging to Egypt and Jordan.

Singapore should merge with Philippines, so Singapore will not be an economic failure anymore.

guilt for the Ukraine War and pay reparations to Ukraine beforehand, along with likely reducing its level of corruption down to Polish levels.

Which is an imaginary fantasy.

economy is Germany’s size in PPP

As Guriev says, PPP is completely irrelevant for international comparison of economic size. It’s only designed to explain standard of living of individuals. The international comparison, is the nominal data.

And they had no problem allying with the haredim for decades to wage their war on the settlers. Awful people.

Congratulations, you have reached A123 levels of retarded, uncritical Israel-worship.

“War on the settlers” ….LOL, those poor innocent settlers squatting on the outskirts of decrepit old Arab villages, burning olive groves and engaging in price-tag attacks, showing nothing but contempt for the elected Israeli government and then calling in the IDF to (mostly unwillingly) to tear-gas and strip-search their neighbors when a few children start throwing rocks.

Although, if you had ever bothered to try understanding Israeli society, you’d quickly understand why the settlers are a huge problem and total cancer on their body-politic, even from the perspective of thinking Israeli nationalists. Or at least it was, Avigdor Lieberman (for his many flaws and subsequent downfall) was an example of this hardnosed-but-commonsense attitude.
Since true scum of the earth Naftali Bennet got elected to state leadership a few years ago it was just too much and I gave up on Israeli society generally, I couldn’t even read about it anymore. Settlers are the future there.

Under ordinary circumstances, regular Israelis would rather have nothing to do with the occupied territories, stay behind their ‘Security Wall’ and leave it at that, its the settlers and their incessant chimpouts and provocations that make it an unending domestic and international headache.

But I will leave this topic to Dmitry, I’m uncertain you’re worth arguing with on this.

Judaism doesn’t allow homosexual acts.

Depends which Judaism lol:

https://forward.com/news/371280/how-rabbis-are-trying-to-make-the-conservative-movement-more-gay-friendly/

“Your relationships and marriages are all cool, but please don’t poke each other in the butt lol! Even though we allow opposite-sex couples and lesbians (strap-ons) to poke each other in the butts lol!”

From Anatoly Crimeus* Karlin (Anatoly Krym* Karlin):

Translated from trollspeak, the basic point is that the opinions of smart people are almost always correct, and even when they are wrong on the details (e.g. the more lurid prewar Western media tropes on Russia; race differences in IQ), they are correct on the generalities (e.g.…

I guess that this means that Russia should not have tried to reintegrate Ukraine because both Russia’s and Ukraine’s cognitive elites were more hostile towards this idea than Russian and Ukrainian proles were, right?

*Technically Krym translates to Crimea, but Krym is masculine while Crimea is feminine, hence Crimeus instead. I will begin referring to him as such due to his past Russian nationalism lol.

If “greater economies of scale” is important, then logical implication the EU should also add Africa, China and India to the EU. It will strengthen the EU in the long-run by “greater economies of scale”. German Reader will become even more wealthy with these “greater economies of scale”.

Those regions are too dull and/or authoritarian. Though if Russia joins the EU, then theoretically Japan and South Korea could as well were they actually European.

Since true scum of the earth Naftali Bennet got elected to state leadership a few years ago it was just too much and I gave up on Israeli society generally, I couldn’t even read about it anymore.

Bennett came to power with the help of the left wing parties with a coalition whose only purpose was to destroy the haredim. It failed completely and ended Bennett’s career. You don’t have to worry about ever seeing someone like Bennett in charge ever again.

Under ordinary circumstances, regular Israelis would rather have nothing to do with the occupied territories, stay behind their ‘Security Wall’ and leave it at that

There are no “regular Israelis”. There is the secular middle class, who clearly think of themselves as “regular Israelis” but they are vastly outnumbered by haredim, national religious, working class Mizrahim and Arabs. It is, AFAIK, the only case in history where a group that is about 35% of the population regards itself as the majority. Or maybe they just do math differently over there.

A lot of the Haredim hate Israel and some groups burn the flag.

But what percentage of all Haredis are they?

And do they intend to turn political control over to the Arabs? If not, their opposition to the state of Israel is probably some technical religious detail with little real world significance.

Why are your comments about Israel, always writing many facts backwards? At least this time, you seemed to write some of the sentences which are not backwards, like the employment rate of Haredi women is higher than Haredi men, although it is 70-80%.

military service is mandatory for all Israeli Jews,

It’s not mandatory for religious Jews. Religious national men have less exemption and the women also have the famous national service program for the datit women instead of the army. The religious women often working voluntary jobs, often with Arab populations etc.

only reason anyone wants a haredi draft is to turn haredi boys into secular Zionists and thereby destroy haredi

This is obviously not true, as they try to follow all the crazy religious requirements of the Haredi soldiers, even preventing interaction of Haredi soldiers with women while they are in the army. They had to build special institutional basis for the Haredi soldiers.

no haredi would ever volunteer to join a combat unit.

Lol how can avoid knowing the famous story of Haredi combat units, it’s one of the most famous and regular journalists’ stories about Israel.

They are usually the academic or social rejects of the Haredi society.

Often they are rejected by their family, beaten when they visit their own community, have difficulty to be married etc. It’s more from the Middle Eastern Haredim.

The numbers could be lower than the Bedouin soldiers, but Haredim combat soldiers need separate institutions from the normal soldiers because they have so many religious rules.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O8BRyNyY0A0.

They don’t want to serve in the army, not even as medics or ambulance drivers, but would start a civil war if their privileges were questioned? That’s some fucked-up level of entitlement and selfishness.

And do they intend to turn political control over to the Arabs?

It depends which group. Most haredim are non Zionist, not anti Zionist. The anti Zionist groups like Satmar and Neturi Karta would absolutely turn control of the state over the Arabs. Their theology holds that Mosiach cannot come until they do so.

The other haredim, err…. I doubt it. I suspect their view towards the state of Israel would become much more positive once they were the ones actually running the place and when the only alternative was being slaughtered or expelled by the revenge minded Palestinians.

Can’t watch the interview right now, but the comparison with the Yugoslav wars is absurd. Russia’s turn away from Europe and alignment with China plus the total subjection of the EU under American hegemony are a pretty big deal, even if this doesn’t go nuclear (far from certain).
Razib’s an arrogant asshole btw with an absurdly overblown opinion of his own brilliance. Probably worth reading for the genetics, but not much else.

Should be Crimeum, AK is an object after all.

The haredim have repeatedly said that they are fine with the Israeli gov cutting off all their funds, but that they will not serve in such a government. Seems a pretty reasonable position. And for the record, about half of the votes for the haredi parties come from “secular” (not really; it’s actually either working class Mizrachi or Arab(long story)) Israelis.

As for serving in the army, if the state attempts to put tens or even hundreds of thousands of haredim in prison, along with all of the communities spiritual leaders, yes that would cause a civil war. I suspect the same could be said for any other community anywhere else in the world.

Most of the Haredim would be technically opposed to Israel, maybe all of the non-Hasidic groups. Some of the Hassidic groups like Chabad are pro-Israel.

Some of the Haredim really hate Israel and the ghettos like Mea Shearim traditionally have Palestinian flags on their streets. Israeli police often climb into the ghetto to remove the flags.

But I think your comment is accurate, we couldn’t predict what is the real significance for such opaque cults.

They are self-focused cults, without priorities outside their community. They are not Islamists, with interest about controlling the world outside their cults.

Also unlike Muslims, the Haredim are pacifists.

But what happens with large numbers of anti-modern inbreeding cults for a country? It’s an “interesting” experiment, historically untested if you can create a civilized country with these cults.

Amish are 0,01% of the population of the USA. Haredim are already 130 times higher proportion of Israel’s population, than Amish of USA’s population. In a generation, they could be 300 times more.

These are also opaque and mysterious group. One of their cult leaders is unhappy, and then thousands of their children sit in the road to close the country’s traffic.

It’s not sure they will destroy Israel, but it’s understandable some Israelis are feeling of a zombie apocalypse. I guess there is also problem of police brutality against their protests.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEFUWwzIdco

I like Crimeus better since objects can’t care about porcine suffering like AK does.

Switzerland should just combine with Moldova, as Switzerland-Moldova will have “greater economies of scale” than failed country of Switzerland. Therefore, Switzerland’s economy might be successful.

No common border.

Israel will become stronger by merging to Egypt and Jordan.

Too dull and too culturally incompatible.

Singapore should merge with Philippines, so Singapore will not be an economic failure anymore.

Too dull.

Which is an imaginary fantasy.

If a more liberal and more conciliatory regime will come to power in Russia post-Putin (either immediately or eventually), then it’s not impossible.

Russia’s turn away from Europe and alignment with China

Do you think that there was ever any scenario where, in response to the West being friendlier towards Russia, Russia would have agreed to pursue a trade embargo against China in response to any Chinese aggression against China’s neighbors, such as a Chinese attack against Taiwan? Or would that have been asking for too much from even a friendlier Russia?

This is ultimately what I want to know: Whether AP is right that the time to separate Russia and China was back in the 1990s and that later it was already too late for this.

Perhaps AK is still an adherent of ‘Italian Elite Theory’. It has been trending in a modest way among NRx dissident rightoids for some time. History is the history of the circulation of elites; the masses are disorganised and passive, acting on purely emotive impulses until they are organised and formed by some elite.

Italian elite theory has some amoral and Nietzschean (Machiavellian?) flavour but was produced by more systematic thinkers.

In some way evoking it against rightoids is like criticising them for not being sophisticated enough and being limited in their reading or podcast playlists?

There are no “regular Israelis”. There is the secular middle class, who clearly think of themselves as “regular Israelis” but they are vastly outnumbered by haredim, national religious, working class Mizrahim and Arabs. It is, AFAIK, the only case in history where a group that is about 35% of the population regards itself as the majority. Or maybe they just do math differently over there.

Well, maybe. But Secular Ashkenazim are the reason why Israel exists, the people who built the country, revived the Hebrew language, have run all its governments, and are still the only really productive demographic in the entire country.

Its worth reading Jewish internal dialogue on Israel during the late 80s and early 90s, before the mass migration from the USSR restored Ashkenazi cultural predominance from the verge of becoming eclipsed (and even then it the assimilation process was extremely botched, with such gross incompetence many even moved back to the ex-USSR), there was real panic in Israeli society about the state of the country, not even connected to by-then largely imaginary Arab threat (the intifada had not yet started).

He’s just articulating the nihilistic logic of secularism and atheism. He should be applauded for being honest about it. Dmitry would say the exact same thing if he had more honesty and courage – it’s the implicit background of everything he writes.

Karlin is playing a Nietzsche-like role, in that he’s “lifting the lid” so to speak on modern middle class culture and peering inside, saying aloud what is supposed to be hush hush.

This kind of thinking stretches back to the Middle Ages and ushered in the modern period, the idea that the good isn’t intrinsic but just whatever God happens to wants – the elites playing the role of God for Karlin, of course. It’s basically the worship of Power.

Even though it seems like Karlin has changed, he’s never claimed to have any principle other than Power. Many immature people make the mistake of thinking hyper-macho posturing is power, when it is a sign of decadence, so his initial support for Russia was unsurprising. But Karlin was honest enough to learn that macho posturing indicates weakness and change course. Many people still think Macho Islam or someone like Sher Singh represent power rather than decadence, and never advance beyond that.

But Karlin has remained consistent throughout his morphology and has always worshipped the same principle wherever he felt it was best expressed.

I’m actually super impressed with how honest and consistent Karlin is willing to be, without any of the hypocrisies or compromises or incoherencies and r halfway-houses of most secular atheists, and I’m curious where his journey will take him personally. He’s willing to follow the logic of modernity to the end.

As a society, I think the nihilistic worship of Power is leading to self-destruction, and I wonder if Karlin will save himself from the shipwreck or go down with the boat.

A curious case, Karlin, and I’ll continue watching.

Iran and China, but under their current configurations and under their current regimes are obviously incapable of producing anything of cultural significance.

Exaggerate much?

I think this statement is a mere reflection of your political bias.

Iran has produced some worthy cultural goods over the previous half-century.

——

——

It could’ve been higher under a monarchic or democratic counterfactual, but that’s not to say nothing was produced.

The best way to look at the Haredim is as a medieval order of monks, who serve society in other ways – through unceasing prayer and study of scripture. In their view, this is more important than actual military service and sustains the existence of Jewish society.

I’m not actually against this idea, but they have no right to “demand” subsidies that are not willingly given by secular Jews who see no value in their activities, and they differ from monks by not being composed of volunteers, but of people born into the order, who have not been given a choice (anyone can leave, theoretically, but it’s tough making such a drastic change for most of).

On second thought, it brings up the general problem of whether it is fair and just for a state to monopolize access to all land and resources and then narrowly restrict access based on its own priorities. In other words the state monopolizes all productive land and then offers people a highly restricted set of activities in exchange for access, that may not reflect the individuals priorities or values (don’t want to be a computer programmer? Starve).

I was very briefly touching on this in my discussion with Silvio, but seem in the broader context of economics the Haredis may not be so wrong after all, now that I think about it. Of course, if Haredim refuse to do military service than they ought to accept the consequences of that, which is conquest by Arabs.

Sure, I just meant nothing like the contribution they could be making, and perhaps will again. China also has some excellent cultural output, but it’s quite low based on its history and what it can, and hopefully will, make once again.

The Blind Owl comes highly recommend by David Bentley Hart, and is on my reading list.

Check out this guy, one Amir Hetsroni. He is very worked up about Israel’s transformation.

youtube 4iqzCnm-gCM

Some choice comments beginning at 31 minutes.

tl;dr

– wishes “Palestine” had become part of the UK rather than seeking Israeli independence
– hates Mizrahi culture and wishes they had never arrived (elsewhere I’ve heard him say “this country wasn’t made for you”)
– says it would have been better if, “like in Herzl’s Europe,” everybody [in Israel] were white, everybody speaking German
– the interviewer tells him his wife is Yemeni Jew; Hetsroni: “How low can you go?!?”

Unfortunately, in a thousand other ways he is a standard leftist degenerate idiot, and mostly gives evasive answers.

– says it would have been better if, “like in Herzl’s Europe,” everybody [in Israel] were white, everybody speaking German

Based. An exclusivist Ashkenazi Israel would’ve been a Middle Eastern outpost of Mitteleuropa, with a more functional governance and intellectual culture. Mizrahi redneck culture has depressed Israel’s cultural productivity way below their intellectual capacity.

OTOH, Mizrahim keep Israel grounded. A substantial portion of the Ashkenazim have already cucked.

A Faustian bargain.

It is also the commonly held opinion in the Galkovsky’s circles. It would be funny if AK agreed with such a pov, given his views on Galkovsky being an imbecile.

The best way to get forever rid of the Jewish Question, would be to isolate the Goyim from the Chosen People and let the Chosen People sort it out among themselves. Ideally in Madagascar. The results would be interesting to watch from afar. Unfortunately, most Jews would prefer not being part of the experiment.

The best way to get forever rid of the Jewish Question, would be to isolate the Goyim from the Chosen People and let the Chosen People sort it out among themselves. Ideally in Madagascar.

Papuas blet.

Cyrus the Great was the founder of the Achaemenid Empire and king of Persia from 559 to 530 BC. He is venerated in the Hebrew Bible as Cyrus the Messiah for conquering Babylon and liberating the Jews from captivity.

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

A number of the Aramaic papyri document the Jewish community among soldiers stationed at Elephantine under Achaemenid rule, 495–399 BCE. The so-called “Passover Letter” of 419 BCE (discovered in 1907), which appears to give instructions for the observance of the Festival of Unleavened Bread (though Passover itself is not mentioned in the extant text), is in the Egyptian Museum of Berlin.

The standard reference collection of the Aramaic documents from Elephantine is the Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt.[1]

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

Translation- Because the papyrus is so fragmentary, the reconstructions offered here should be considered conjectural, especially the italicized portions of text-

[To my brothers, Ye]daniah and his colleagues the Jewish ga[rrison,] your brother Hanan[i]ah. May God/the gods [seek after] the welfare of my brothers [at all times.] And now, this year, year 5 of King Darius, it has been sent from the king to Arsa[mes ……… …]

Now, you thus count four[teen days in Nisan and on the 14th at twilight ob]serve [the Passover] and from the 15th day until the 21st day of [Nisan observe the Festival of Unleavened Bread. Seven days eat unleavened bread. Now,] be pure and take heed. [Do] n[ot do] work [on the 15th day and on the 21st day of Nisan.] Do not drink [any fermented drink. And do] not [eat] anything of leaven [nor let it be seen in your houses from the 14th day of Nisan at] sunset until the 21st day of Nisa[n at sunset. And b]ring into your chambers [any leaven which you have in your houses] and seal (them) up during [these] days. …

[To] my brothers, Yedaniah and his colleagues the Jewish garrison, your brother Hananiah s[on of ??].

https://cojs.org/the_passover_papyrus_from_elephantine-_419_bce/

There would probably be no Jews left today without the Persian friendly and loving help. Of course nobody expects some gratitude from the Jewish people. When the time is right they always switch sides and do some backstabbing against those who helped and protected them. This is a recurring historical pattern.

Also, for an anti-American Jew, you are still typically ignorant of the historical context as most Americans are. That makes me think you are just a disgruntled American. Perhaps you should come to terms with your American personality, fuse it harmoniously with your Jewishness, embrace some funny Haredi cult (the Na-nach would do), get married and live a happy life fathering a dozen children and dying a respected patriarch?

Short modern brilliance, Jonathan Swift would be jealous;)

A lot of the Haredim hate Israel and some groups burn the flag.

But what percentage of all Haredis are they?

And do they intend to turn political control over to the Arabs? If not, their opposition to the state of Israel is probably some technical religious detail with little real world significance

I concur. It is a really fringe, technical concept with little significance.

If they were actually against the nation of Israel, why would they voluntarily migrate there? Why do they stay? Even if they do not personally want to be government officials they clearly respect the system.

Look at the huge pro government assemblies supporting necessary judicial reforms. Big hats and Israeli flags are both visible.
____

I find use of the term pacifist to be odd. Staying out of the IDF does not equal pacifism. While there may be some true “Amish style” pacifists, these must be the exception.

The indigenous Jews of Judea are in long term conflict with the Muslim occupiers. Trying to undo 1,400 years of land theft requires assertiveness.

PEACE 😇

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

Greasy is an American Jew. He dislikes Iran because they are threatening Israel and because Persians are not easily dismissed as Arabs are. Modern day Iranian people are a mix of different populations, the Aryan component is rather limited. Turkic, Semitic and Elamite components are probably dominant compared to the Aryan. Aryianem Vaejah is somewhere else entirely, where exactly is hard to tell but most probably somewhere in the former USSR.

The Slavs are getting upset that we are not discussing their conflict 🙂

Calm down Slavs, we will return to regular scheduled programming shortly.

Dmitry, you should not have prefaced your introduction of topics relating to other cultures and the wider world by saying the Slav world is unimportant to humanity and Russia no more than a slightly larger Spain That was unkind and unworthy of you The Slavs are an integral part of humanity and we should cherish them and love them. All of humanity matters and has a unique contributions to make – and who knows what the Slav world might become once they overcome their current troubles and sub-optimal attitudes?

Humor:

I know you are joking in your usual outre way, Greasy, but Amalek doesn’t actually exist, it’s just a spiritual allegory, and has traditionally been read that way.

Don’t be a fundamentalist literalist Jew, like some Jewish Protestant 🙂 That’s a modern perversion.

As for Iran, look, I get it, the place is a very dark place right now. Pico Iyer goes on to detail the corrosive paranoia and stifling oppression of modern Iran. All the most rotten people today admire Iran – look at the rest of this website.

But it’s always important to distinguish between the people and their rulers, at least to some extent. And it’s always important to take the widest possible historical view and humanistic view.

Ancient Persia made one of the most crucial contributions to world religion – Zoroastrianism had a huge influence on the Jews, and through them the Christians and Muslims. Persian dualism needed to be qualified and put into a larger context of unity, but it was an important deepening of monotheism.

And according to Pico Iyer, paradise is a Persian invention. Perhaps, but they certainly made contributions to the development of that seminal concept.

This one tweet debunks all anti-caste rhetoric.

Goyim awake ! This forum is being overtaken by the Jews ! Three Jews are discussing their Jewish/Isreali internal affairs on a Holocaust-deniers friendly website.

Oy vey ! Oy gevalt !

Ukrainians, please do something!

Whignats, this is a call to arms!

🙂

I think you’re wrong about this.

The Ashkenazi who went to Israel were hard, stern, Spartan, men, who carried with them a vision of Zionism that was militaristic and agricultural and was an explicit attempt to depart from the intellectual culture of diaspora Jewry and develop a more “physical” Jew. They succeeded quite well, and have significantly lower IQs than diaspora Jewry, although high by world standards.

Such men would not have created a high artistic culture. The recent cultural “softening” of Israel, the explosion in excellent cuisine and general softening of its Spartan contours and increase in quality of life, is the result of the recent greater prominence of the Sephardic community, affecting also the Ashkenazim.

In the future, some new cultural fusion is arising based on disparate elements, which is always the precondition – although not the sufficient condition – for a new and interesting cultural efflorescence.

That is, if the recent religious and right wing turn doesn’t nip things in the bud and make Israel a boring appenage of conservative Arab countries. (Well, the whole region needs a revitalization).

There are two countries today that have historically made monumental and unique contributions to world culture, Iran and China, but under their current configurations and under their current regimes are obviously incapable of producing anything of cultural significance

.
Have you sampled much Iranian culture?

Except for the fact that it was very schmaltzy, I though “Children of Heaven” (1997) had an interesting anti-materialist message. Still the only Iranian movie I’ve seen.

Yes. But Elamites have migrated out to India, and then to South India, IIRC.

Emil should review that Lex podcast about the “N-word.” I want the highlights.

There would probably be no Jews left today without the Persian friendly and loving help. Of course nobody expects some gratitude from the Jewish people. When the time is right they always switch sides and do some backstabbing against those who helped and protected them. This is a recurring historical pattern.

I remember some comment on this site that said in five hundred years, they’ll be saying they were captives in New York. I can’t say I agree, but it does have the air of believability to it.

embrace some funny Haredi cult (the Na-nach would do)

Lol. There was a Jewish apostate to Christianity who used to post at Unz, a real weirdo going by the name “Mevashir,” who was a follower of Rabbi Nachman. Maybe the Nachman cult attracts a lot of weirdos.

Sadly, no.

The Blind Owl recently came to my attention and it sounds excellent, and I will watch The Seperation too, as Yahya recommends.

I was entranced by Pico Iyers recent discussion of his visit to Iran in his new book, although he does mention a dark side also. And of course the great Sufi poets and Rumi and Hafiz etc.

I will look into Children of Heaven, thanks. Always interested in anti-materialistic art.

I’m not surprised even the fanatical Mullahs cannot entirely suppress the Iranian spirit.

Ideally in Madagascar

The problem with Madagascar (or Birobidzhan) is it lacks a natural pull factor. At least with Israel, even if they don’t want to go, the historical association makes it a live option for them.

I certainly feel like I’m a captive in New York, and cannot wait till I find a Moses who will part the Red Sea for me to get out of here 🙂

Ashkenazi Jews, or anyone else, will obviously produce more culture in a society where they are members of a small class apart. As Chesterton said in the 1920s, the success of the Zionist project depended (among other things) on whether the Jews could be content with being “failures”:

It is said again that the ancient Jews turned their enemies into hewers of wood and drawers of water. The modern Jews have to turn themselves into hewers of wood and drawers of water. If they cannot do that, they cannot turn themselves into citizens, but only into a kind of alien bureaucrats, of all kinds the most perilous and the most imperilled.

See, it’s already starting.

When your Moses comes along, you can be his Aaron (your mother was prescient). You’ve certainly got the gab for it.

One of the funniest parts of My Dinner with Andre is him saying everybody claims they need to get out of New York.

Do you have a black lives matter poster?

…Haredim is as a medieval order of monks

There were always different kind of monks, but Haredim combine a few peculiar characteristics with being born into it, non-militant, willfully living of the surrounding society, etc…In a wealthy society there is no harm in it, but it looks parasitical.

The constant mantra “you must work!” makes little sense in the modern economy where most work has no productive value – or even minus value. Does anyone need more salesmen of sh..t or more chair warmers to circulate ‘messages’ and stare at slides for the next ‘project’? Of course not, it is a game, an elaborate work dance we have invented not to collapse into sloth and idleness. But the actual economy doesn’t need at least half of the so called ‘workers’…they are there to have a structure in their lives and to consume.

If Israel would turn the Haredis’ head-bobbing ‘study of texts‘ into an economic good they could reward it as just another economic activity – how would that be any different from people living off attending ‘diversity seminars‘, selling sh.t online, cold-calling customers who don’t care to be customers, or even tracking ‘security risks’ online? We live in a post-work world and the Haredis are simply more open about it…:).

There would probably be no Jews left today without the Persian [Cyrus] friendly and loving help.

There’s a lot of symbolism on the Israeli minted coin below celebrating Cyrus and Trump standing side by side.

The image of the Temple Menorah, the official state emblem of a modern restored Israel, is taken straight from the Arch of Titus where it was depicted as a trophy held aloft by Roman legionnaires.

Some have compared Trump to a modern day Cyrus, though I find the more interesting comparison of Trump is with ‘Rome’s richest man’, the Roman billionaire and real estate speculator, Marcus Crassus.

Crassus was a member of Rome’s First Triumvirate, the informal political alliance which had once ruled Rome and which, after Crassus’ untimely death, ultimately devolved into a civil war between it’s surviving members, ie the Roman general Pompey and Crassus’s political protege, the up and coming Julius Caesar.

Rome’s First Triumvirate in turn has it’s uncanny close parallels with the present day New Rome’s (US) Donald Trump, Mike Pompeo, and Trump’s political protege, Jared Kushner.

https://www.israel365news.com/321845/sanhedrin-temple-movement-issue-silver-half-shekel-images-trump-cyrus/

This ties into what Dmitry said about Arab Christians being the best academic performers in Israel and the question of the relationship of motivation to performance and IQ.

Arab Christians are the Jews of Israel, surrounded by two larger and more aggressive groups, Jews and Muslims – and so are motivated to perform and prove themselves.

The Druze, another minority, I think also surpass Israeli Jews in academic performance iirc. So there you go – minority status is a huge factor in motivation to perform.

You feel the difference in Israeli and diaspora Jewish culture – Israeli Jews are much more relaxed, although they have their own intensity with the military situation, but it’s different.

Great comment, I strongly agree. I’ve made similar arguments here before.

Haredim are just pioneering Universal Basic Income (UBI) 🙂 (Which Karlin approves of, btw, also)

The problem with the Haredim is that they are arrogant and entitled, and quite large as a community – but I wonder if they framed their demands not as a unique dispensation to their special community but as part of a larger struggle for universal basic income for everyone as part of a general social justice movement, I wonder if they wouldn’t enlist the sympathies of many secular left wing Israelis!

In fact I think it’d be a genius marketing move, and the morally right thing also – them Israeli society can celebrate it’s Haredim and not hate them.

Do you have a black lives matter poster?

I’m thinking of draping one over my car as I drive out West with my NY plates by the end of the week 🙂

It seems the Ukrainian oligarchs and government had destroyed any hope of Ukrainian “economies of scale” even before the SMO started. That left farming, mining and a few other low-tech industries. I think most of the smart fraction of people had been driven out, so there was not enough mental horsepower to keep big organizations such as Antonov, Ivchenko or Yuhzmash going for much longer. In addition to profitable but low-tech industries they had the organized crime economy, including prostitution and whatever else.

After the SMO, I think Russia will very gradually work to selectively revive some of the high tech industries. They need Ukraine to be self-supporting, but don’t want to foster an anti-Russia fifth column.

The very strong Soviet-created scientific industrial sector in Ukraine was candle in the wind 1950-2000 A.D., R.I.P.

You’ll need to find a new an improved version though. The Atlantic Ocean is quite a bit wider than the Red Sea. 🙂

Glad to see that you’re back. Put to rest your wandering shoes for a while, and have bid a farewell to the West (at least for now)?

Arab Christians are the Jews of Israel, surrounded by two larger and more aggressive groups, Jews and Muslims – and so are motivated to perform and prove themselves.

Sigh, another “just-so” explanation.

If being a “surrounded minority” motivates one to perform well academically, then why do Mizrahi Jews not attain results anywhere near Ashkenazi Jews in Israel. Are they not as surrounded by hostile Muslims?

How about African-Americans during Jim Crow? Why didn’t redneck hostility manifest into superior academic performance among blacks in America? Or in South Africa?

There are some non-genetic factors that can explain AC and AJ academic excellence, but as usual, hereditary factors exert the greatest force.

I wrote on Arab Christians here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-169/#comment-5019452

Charles Murray on Ashkenazi Jewish Genius: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-169/#comment-5019452

LOL – what about the false dilemma for some non-event of a country ( Litva) of “either we elect a KGB butch lesbian/ some American geriatric 1940’s Nazi diaspora scumbag as our President………..or we continue with 250 more years of being (easily) dominated by Russians”?

How is that for a similar false dichotomy you ridiculous scumbag?

I am not sure it’s “right wing” though – high inflation like with the lowlife Baltic states, and the unprecedented state dictatorship of all 3 of the Baltic government shitholes into their economies since the SMO – completely anti-freemarket principles……normally are associated with left-wing politics.

Also associated as right-wing ( fairly or not) is direct military intervention…….of course limp-wristed Lithuanian mercenaries have been near non-existant in 404, just as non-existent as their resistance to the Russian enlightenment from the late 1700s to 1991 – even white-red-white Belarus freaks have been far more involved in SMO! You could also call this “left-wing”.

Very Niggur (powerful) Club

Singh told me how Niggur it was at least 5x

https://www.manglacharan.com/post/salotar-mehima-in-praise-of-the-club

ਅਕਾਲ

It’s not 100%, just a significant contributing factor. But the Israeli Arab Christians are just getting started – let’s see what they develop into in the next decades, Israel is still s very young state. Druze used to never get into the fighter pilots course or the top commando units, but are now entering both. There are now Druze in the same army unit that Netanyahu and Barak served in. And it wasn’t discrimination keeping them out. They’re developing.

As for Mizrahi Jews, I think the motivation happens when you are a minority within a state, although to some degree it’s also intra-state – I don’t think Israelis are genetically better fighters than Arabs, just much, much more motivated, for instance, and that motivation has systemic effects throughout the military system, including several unique design features and practices.

That being said, Mizrahi Jews have significantly upped their performance as a result of motivation – for instance, the Ashkenazim used to be the much better soldiers, but today the Mizrahi units are considered easily as good as the Ashkenazi.

Motivation is s highly “plastic” trait that works together with our complex brains to process data from the environment and develop the best strategy for concentrating performance. It does not make sense for every community to concentrate academically.

For instance, Jews were not notably smart in the ancient world – but the Christians forbade them from using weapons or working the land, so they had no choice but to concentrate in intellectual endeavors. The Mizrahim did not face anything close to the restrictions on economic activity and lifestyle that the Ashkenazi did, and so were not under anything close to the same pressure – never the less, the Mizrahim often achieved higher position as a community than the native, as in Spain, Cairo, and elsewhere. The Syrian Jewish community is fabulously wealthy, btw.

The Africans were the majority in South Africa it’s the Whites who were the majority, and Blacks in America faced unique hurdles that Jews didn’t that maybe made more sense for them to develop their athletic and cultural abilities. Relative to Africans, Blacks are a significantly overperforming minority culturally in America – in fact, relative to Whites, too, which is remarkable considering their status despised as ex slaves.

The Japanese went from being a feudal warrior society to great industrialists and merchants in a generation.

Perhaps one may think of people as possessing a certain “quantum” of energy and force that they can “project” in a particular direction as the situation dictates.

Of course, I accepted that innate ability plays a significant role too, just not as significant as you think.

Russians are still fighting Russians in Belgograd:

The Putin bootlickin’ bloggers aren’t talking about it. They *want to believe* Russia is united behind the homicidal dwarf and all dissenters must be Jews. Scott Ritter referred to the anti-Putin Russian fighters as Ukrainian just like Russian State TV. What a jack off.

MacGregor is looking stressed in his latest video. Maybe he should ask Prigozhin for a job? Probably more likely to pay than Putin.

Actually, Mr Hack, I’m leaving Thursday out West 🙂 And very much looking forward to it, too!

Yes, my Moses will have quite a bit of a harder task if he attempts to do his tricks on the Atlantic, but I only ask he lead me out of bondage and into the West 🙂

I thought the Crimeans were with the Russians?

for instance, the Ashkenazim used to be the much better soldiers, but today the Mizrahi units are considered easily as good as the Ashkenazi.

There is no such thing as Mizrahi units in the IDF. Such a thing didn’t even exist in the 1950’s. What are you talking about?

I thought the Crimeans were with the Russians?

Just as American society is split politically, I’d imagine the same applies to Chechnya and Crimea.

https://www.dw.com/en/chechen-and-tatar-muslims-take-up-arms-to-fight-for-ukraine/a-61174375

I mean units that attract a disproportionate share of Mizrahim, like Golani Infantry Brigade, and whose culture is famously Mizrahi.

Used to be a looked down on brigade but is now very highly respected.

Those could be the reasons why there is UA hesitancy to start very large scale offensives or offensives not achieving the desired goals, but only time will tell if this is correct overall impression:

Based on our nine months of training with all services of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, to include the Ground Forces (Army), Border Guard Service, National Guard, Naval Infantry (Marines), Special Operations Forces, and Territorial Defense Forces, we have observed a series of common trends: lack of mission command, effective training, and combined arms operations; ad hoc logistics and maintenance; and improper use of special operations forces. These trends have undermined Ukraine’s resistance and could hinder the success of the ongoing offensive.

https://warontherocks.com/2023/06/what-the-ukrainian-armed-forces-need-to-do-to-win/

Monks have neither sex (apart maybe from illicit homo sex) nor children (unless they already had a family before taking vows), so this is a very imperfect analogy.

Aaron isn’t much concerned with facts or evidence, that is getting pretty obvious at this point. His primary concern seems to be feeding himself feelgood stories. I’m not sure what exactly is so feelgood about likening haredis to monks, but if that is the (fact-free, as you point out) story that Aaron is going with, it’s fairly safe to assume he sees a feelgood angle in it.

Yes, it’s a highly imperfect analogy, but its the closest thing Judaism has to an order of monkhood – and I believe their rationales are the same, that a lifetimes devotion to constant prayer and religious practices and study are perhaps the most important contribution to society and play a huge role in the survival and success of that community. For the sake of a few righteous men….

One can disagree with this of course, but one ought to see it in context and as it relates to similar, even if not identical, phenomena in other societies.

Still, I prefer Beckows understanding of them as pioneering UB and economic justice 🙂

Monks have neither sex (apart maybe from illicit homo sex) nor children (unless they already had a family before taking vows), so this is a very imperfect analogy.

I used to assume there were a lot of gays among monks and nuns until I met some of them.

It attracts more of an asexual personality type.

I actually knew a guy that went off to a Monastery. He really didn’t fit in with society and didn’t identify with men of any type. He tried working a couple types of jobs and it was a disaster. I assumed all 22 year olds wanted to chase women until I met this guy. He was happiest when reading or discussing the bible. I don’t think he had sexual drive of any type. I met some nuns and got the same vibe. They don’t want to be in society. People project a sexual drive onto them that doesn’t exist in most cases. I don’t doubt there are gays that use it as cover but they aren’t the norm. Probably less of that now that homosexuality is celebrated.

It’s not ubi either, since it’s not universal.

Homos in the clergy and in monasteries were a problem already in the 11th century. Petrus Damiani wrote a book about it (liber Gomorrhanus). iirc he recommended infibulation as treatment.

For instance, Jews were not notably smart in the ancient world – but the Christians forbade them from using weapons or working the land, so they had no choice but to concentrate in intellectual endeavors.

That’s a bit of an oversimplification that conveniently blames Christians.

Jewish urbanization existed before those laws were created.

Jewish urban merchants in Europe pre-date Christianity. There are even recordings of Jewish merchants by the Greeks. Jews were also in Egypt and Turkey a few thousand years ago.

Laws in European countries that restricted Jews were much later.

The Africans were the majority in South Africa it’s the Whites who were the majority, and Blacks in America faced unique hurdles that Jews didn’t that maybe made more sense for them to develop their athletic and cultural abilities.

Develop their athletic abilities? You think there would be more Jewish linebackers if they only focused more on that area? Me thinks you have some gene denial.

African-Americans are actually much larger than their Bantu relatives in Africa. This is because they were cross-bred with large Whites and Hispanics during slavery. If you sent every Xhosa to football training camps you still wouldn’t have as many potential NFL players.

Ukrainian “counter-offensive” started yesterday (although officially Ukie puppets say that it did not start, apparently will announce when and if they achieve anything with PR value). So far mostly failures, with bad PR for Western weapons (including particularly devastating PR for French tanks AMX-10R).

As empty hot air here affects exactly nothing, I discontinue my participation in worthless discussions. Bye-bye.

Disagree with you about a lot, but I will miss your comments.
Take care of yourself, all the best.

I was in Monastery of Christ in the Desert in New Mexico last summer, it’s very beautifully situated in a red rock canyon down a ten mile dirt road, which is a fun drive.

It has a room devoted to local writers on the wilderness with books and displays, and what I call spiritual music playing. It’s very cool that they emphasize the connection between spirituality and the wilderness like that.

Anyways, I interacted with an extremely tall Black monk, bought the letters of Thomas Merton from the bookstore. He was wearing long black robes and he just seemed like a wizard, it gave me a strange supernatural thrill.

He was a sweet man and had such an impractical and otherworldly air to him that I immediately thought it would be impossible for him to function in regular society, and I wondered if that’s why he entered the monastery or if living the spiritual life made him useless in ordinary competitive society.

I have a lot of the monk in my nature and long to retreat to my wilderness hermitage, and find I can just barely function in normal society – just barely, and I’m becoming more useless by the day I think. I suspect I will return from my trip out West several degrees more useless to society than now! Each trip I grow more and more useless and distant from normal society.

But I can’t fit into any conventional religion nor abide by restrictive social structures, so I think the Taoist model of the Old Man Laughing in the Mountains will be more my lot as I age, wandering the high peaks im bliss and freedom until the vultures pick my bones clean.

Homos in the clergy and in monasteries were a problem already in the 11th century. Petrus Damiani wrote a book about it (liber Gomorrhanus). iirc he recommended infibulation as treatment.

Was definitely a problem in the 1970s and 80s.

Seems like for a long period it was the Catholic way to let gays quietly serve as priests and nuns.

Have 5 kids and if one comes out gay then send him to the priesthood.

Last night, Russians hit the operational airfield of Kirovograd.
Two missiles bypassed Ukrainian air defense and reached the target.

Kropivnitsky according to NATO classification.

According to available information, two Su-24 bombers, which were used to launch British Storm… pic.twitter.com/l68HUYvty8

— Mats Nilsson (@mazzenilsson) June 4, 2023

Dissapointed this failure was not started on June 22nd………..

The Ukroreikh is all about pitiful PR stunts combined with schizophrenic stupidity – June 22nd would have been a “perfection” of this.

That’s definitely true as regards Jewish urbanization, that it was a feature of the ancient world and predated Christianity, but Jews did not stand out for being intellectual in the ancient world despite being urbanized, so its likely they did not yet feel compelled to concentrate in intellectual activities as a national strategy – although Jews had already at that point a significant scholarly culture it was the Greeks who were outstanding intellectually.

And I’m not blaming Christianity at all – racism and religious discrimination is a perversion of Christianity, and not at all it’s true spirit.

But Christian societies in Europe did at some point turn to very severe restrictions on Jews, which led to a shift in Jewish strategy.

I don’t deny genes – I’m quite prepared to admit that American Blacks had physiques that made the decision to focus on athleticism instead of intellectualism easier and more natural – and that is perhaps unfortunate, if totally understandable.

I admit a generic – or an innate heritable, let us say – component, but it is far trickier to pin down and far less determinative than people here would wish it to be.

Russians are still fighting Russians in Belgorod

I’ve noticed this ambiguous terminology elsewhere. These guys have only been operating on the border, just inside the Belgorod oblast. They have never made it anywhere near Belgorod – the more significant town miles from the border.

Disagree with you about a lot, but I will miss your comments.
Take care of yourself, all the best.

Thanks! I just have a lot of things to write that can actually make a difference, at least for the scientific field I am in.

Commenting here is worthless and non-adaptive, like displacement behavior in animals when they are hopelessly confused and/or frightened out of their wits.

If I manage to transfer some money to Russia despite current roadblocks, I would be able to do something real, like helping civilian victims of Ukie aggression.

All the best to you!

I should like Mr. Hack to watch some of those Nork comedy films that I heard were on YouTube a few years ago, and to recommend the best one here.
___
Have heard that native Irish sources don’t say anything about putative pirate queen Grace O’Malley because she was a woman.

The Iranian people never helped out the Jews, Cyrus did. That’s one guy, not an entire nation. On the contrary, the Iranian people wanted to kill the Jews but Cyrus stopped them. That’s the whole point of the Purim story. Jews and Iranians have always been enemies and this has always been acknowledged until Israel was created and people suddenly decided that actually they really were always BFF’s.

For my own sake, I try not to hate anyone (except for white liberals, but that doesn’t count as white liberals are subhumans who should all be dead), however, I really dislike Iranians and Lebanese. And in both cases it isn’t just the antisemitism. Antisemitism by itself usually doesn’t bother me. What bothers me about Iranians and Lebanese is the combination of antisemitism with unreal levels of arrogance and a totally unjustified sense of superiority.

The Iranians and Lebanese are both extremely primitive and stupid peoples. Their countries are absolute garbage and always have been. When Solemaini was assassinated, the Iranian response was to shoot down one of their own airliners, killing 300 of their own people. Then they trampled 80 people to death at Solemaini’s funeral. This is primitive behavior that you only see in third world countries and you saw it because the Iranians are a third world people.

We know form Nazi communications that the Iranians were the non German nation that was most sympathetic to Nazism. The Iranians responded far more favorably to Nazism than even the Arabs did, which is saying a lot because the Arabs themselves were huge fans of Nazism.

You can tell a lot about a people by who hates them and who admires them. I have never seen an antisemite who didn’t absolutely love Iranians, to the point of regarding them as some sort of master race. And it’s simply not true. Iranians are morons and just because they have managed to make better drones than Turkey and keep their fleet of F-17s flying through a mixture of cannibalization of existing stocks, smuggling and knock off parts from Russia and China (as Iranians themselves are too stupid to make replacement parts for a 1960s aircraft) doesn’t change that. Also, they got absolutely waxed by Saddam in their war and the cowardly Iranians were expecting the international community to bail them out. Once they saw that wouldn’t happen they folded like the impotent cowards they always have been.

I don’t even like Iranian Jews, if I’m being honest. They have debased Iranian blood.

Despite all this, I still support Iran against the United States. I simply cannot make myself support the US. Death to America.

…

Re MarbledSteaks comment about Amalek: Amalek is a spiritual lineage, not a physical one. Hasidic tradition held long before Hitler was even in politics that an Amalekite would eventually rule Germany. Any Kabbalist will tell you that those hung at Nuremberg were Haman’s reincarnated sons (Goering was the reincarnation of Haman’s daughter). This is hardly new stuff.

No, all Muslims in a given country agree on all issues

out this guy,

That’s a kind of troll or comedian.

He says anti-Moroccan racists views and he jokes about himself.

Then Moroccans hits him with a chair and he cries and is more racist.

Then the media in Israel laughs about it.

–

If you ignore all the Israel-Palestinian violence, the country feels like quite organized, liberal place. Maybe not so different than New Zealand or Canada etc.

But unlike New Zealand or Canada, the population in Israel are not sophisticated anglosaxons, but simple rednecks. Beating the nerds is kind of national hobby.

I guess Hetsroni is an example of someone who is choosing to be a kind of role, because it gives him attention.

It looks like an intelligent provocation by the Ukrainians. If constant raids and shelling of mainland Russia doesn’t force them to divert enough forces from the fronts, let’s try invading Russian sovereign territory with Polish soldiers.

But of course they’re playing with fire, as they’ve done from the beginning. I don’t see too much outrage in Russian TG channels though. Perhaps the idea that Russia if effectively fighting NATO sank in a long time ago and everybody’s now concentrated on the actual Ukrainian counteroffensive in the Southeast, which could well be as successful as the one last year.

Only one thing is for certain: if some Russian politician utters some threat against Poland for this provocation many people in Eastern Europe will interpret it as further proof of Russia’s imperialist threat and Western MSM will also report it as such, not having informed of the earlier Polish militants’ incursion.

I’d read a lot more history, if more of it survived, and if there was more of a prospect of connecting to it genealogically, however difficult the process might be.

I wonder if attacks within Russia change the legal definition of the conflict? The SMO was “special” and may have been legally restricted.

Do these attacks automatically invoke some level of martial law? Was martial law already in place as part of the SMO and if so, how do these attacks change matters?

Assuming the attackers are actually Russian citizens, does this leave dealing with them under the legal purview of domestic terrorist laws as opposed to rules which apply to foreign combatants or foreign terrorists?

69% of Finns trust most of the news most of the time.

(Don’t know who made up these numbers.)

Ukrainian “counter-offensive” started yesterday

Strelkov’s opinion for comparison:

Having analyzed the various incoming messages from the battle sites in the Volnovakh direction – it is permissible to conclude that (based on the number of forces engaged by the enemy) – if these attacks are part of a planned offensive, then it is either a relatively large-scale reconnaissance battle, or an auxiliary or diversionary strike.

No more than one motorized infantry battalion was introduced into the battle in any of the areas where the enemy is attacking. On some sections – 1-2 companies reinforced by tanks or even less.
If the enemy is trying to attack precisely here and now, then his attacks are of an exclusively tactical nature.

https://t.me/strelkovii/5273

@HeavilyMarbledSteak

A word of caution before you leave for the West. Red Rock country canyons have been quite dangerous this spring. There have already been some fatalities. We’ve had a combination of risk factors since early May. On the one hand, we’ve had the snowiest winter in Utah since records began. This means unprecedented amounts of melt water flowing through the river beds. Apparently, most of the melt is occurring during the sunshine hours in the high terrain and some hours later it shows up in the canyons downstream as a sudden wall of water. On the other hand, we’ve been stuck in a monsoon kind of pattern for a month now. Again, sporadic heavy rainfall is falling at high elevations and creating the typical summer flash flood conditions later on in the canyons. No park is closed but there’s been lots of warnings to stay out of the slot canyons.

I’ve been reading on the Sierra High Route and this guy has an excellent report of his trip in 2017 with gorgeous pictures: https://www.trailnamebackstroke.com/sierra-high-route-2017 but I’ve actually cooled down on the idea of doing this route after reading about those swarms of mosquitos in some parts of the hike. Apparently, the benign California climate creates Arctic-like conditions in the swampy areas of the High Sierras and in summer you have to face the same conditions as in Northern Canada or Siberia. That’s a much bigger concern for me than bears. I know for a fact that as soon as news of my presence spread, half the mosquitoes in California will abandon their prey and come for me instead. Perhaps I should try it outside of the summer months or somehow skip those swampy areas. Or perhaps it’s just a sporadic problem. I’ve camped in the high Yosemite terrain in summer and didn’t have any issues.

He was a sweet man and had such an impractical and otherworldly air to him that I immediately thought it would be impossible for him to function in regular society

According to Carl Schmitt, he real world is for those who identify the enemy, who one might have to kill, which is politics. Not doing this is religion. At some moments in history where the authority of the Church has suddenly declined, priests and nuns have left their holy orders and got married. Not just back in the Reformation, the collapse of Catholicism in Quebec saw this happening. So you cannot say those who are asexual with an ethereal presence are the essence of religion whether organised or otherwise.

This can’t be a surprise for Russia. What is the Ukrainian goal for these attacks, if any?

Here are a few possibilities:

-Prompt Russia to act precipitously in a way that would draw NATO into the fighting more visibly? I don’t know what this action would be, perhaps major airstrikes on Kiev? I don’t know what NATO could do about that.

-Distract Russia from the fighting in Ukraine? How?

-Promote regime change in Russia? How?

-Cause Russia to expand call ups and mobilization? How does this benefit Ukraine?

-Cause Russia to clamp down on internal dissent?

From Anatoly Crimeus Karlin:

@XiXiDu @Roko__eth A sovereign Russia with economies of scale was the right’s one main hope for a non-GAE/CPC global alternative. I for one will enjoy seeing Western rightoids who were too dumb to realize that and supported Ukraine getting crushed under Woke boots when they get too uppity. Perhaps…

By that logic, should Western rightoids have supported the Nazis, Italian Fascists, and Imperial Japanese during WWII? After all, had these countries won WWII, it’s entirely possible that they would have been more attractive right-wing models (minus the genocide/ethnic cleansing) relative to the West (which in real life succumbed to liberalism, multiculturalism, political correctness, and eventually Wokeness) in the post-WWII decades.

xxxhttps://www.reddit.com/r/MapPorn/comments/4ewqsn/war_sentiment_by_states_from_a_gallup_poll_in/

Apparently Southerners (the most based and rightoid part of the US) were the part of the US who were most eager for the US to enter WWII before Pearl Harbor.

Anyway, back to my main point:

A victorious Russia in Ukraine would not have prevented Western rightoids from being oppressed back in their home countries and it would not have been a very impressive civilizational model either due to the fact that it doesn’t spend that much on R & D relative to the EU and doesn’t have that much elite science production relative to the EU either. There’s also the little problem that smart Russians are less favorably inclined towards Russian nationalism than smart Ukrainians are towards (moderate) Ukrainian nationalism. Ukraine is more ideal for right-wingers since nationalism there appeals even more to elites than it does to ordinary people, the inverse of the human capital problem that rightoids experience in most other countries worldwide.

Good luck unlocking Nature’s secrets!

It is from a Reuters study. (1)

The U.S. groups well with the most cynical Europeans.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/where-trust-news-highest-lowest

The Ukrainian military spokesman said only the other day the counterattack will be disguised by diversionary pseudo offensives. So that is what Kiev wants the Kremlin to think, because it will not be happening, This initial push is along the main axis of attack. Low quality equipped mainly ethnic Russian Ukrainian units will be used first to soak up Russian firepower and the main weight of the Ukrainian force equipped to Nato standards will be thrown in subsequently but only if there seems to be a chance of making headway. Which there probably won’t be. Zelensky is intending to do just enough to keep Western support at the current level and no more than will enable the offensive core of his army to remain intact, unless it is opportune to go all out.

Mr. Consistent Senior strikes again;)

Former President Donald Trump said Thursday he doesn’t like the term “woke,” …
……………….
Speaking at a campaign event outside Des Moines, Trump said he doesn’t like the term because “half the people can’t even define it” and “don’t know what it is.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianbushard/2023/06/01/trump-says-he-doesnt-like-the-term-woke-the-republican-buzzword-hes-repeatedly-used/?sh=288cc8011953

To elaborate on this: Russia should not have placed Western rightoids in a position where they “needed” to choose between supporting Ukrainian independence and supporting greater economies of scale for Russia. Had Russians actually been willing to breed much more, similar to Israeli Jews, then Western rightoids could have had both of these things without any problem or conflicts. But No, Russians don’t care about achieving greater economies of scale the ethical way. It’s either through conquest or not at all! 🙁

By Anatoly Crimeus Karlin’s logic, should Western rightoids have supported Japan’s conquest of Manchuria in 1931 (likely against the will of the Manchurian people), Japan’s attempted conquest of the rest of China in 1937 and beyond (against the will of the Chinese people), and Nazi Germany’s conquest of Czechia in early 1939 (against the will of the Czech people; this was before Nazi Germany began engaging in mass murder) because this would make Japan and Nazi Germany more attractive alternative right-wing models relative to the West?

I do not like using spectrum “Left/Right”. Trump is pro-worker Populists. Is that Left! Or, Right? That being stated, one has to use words that the target audience will understand. I thus use those terms even though I do not particularly like them.

So, yet another swing and an miss by the highly emotional & increasingly desperate #NeverTrump cultists.

Why do you support Not-The-President Biden?

PEACE 😇

“Nork Comedy” films? Is that some sort of dark Norwegian faire? Why waste your time and not go straight to the Finnish school of realism?

The Iranians and Lebanese are both extremely primitive and stupid peoples.

Actually, Persians and Lebanese are the two most cultured and intelligent people in the Middle East.

Just admit it, you don’t like them because Hezbollah bitch-slapped the IDF back to Tel Aviv.

Thanks for all that info Mikel – that’s definitely helpful, and I might end up going to Montana this early in the summer, where I’ve never explored extensively. I won’t really be able to access the high country but maybe there are lower elevation hikes worth doing and just generally basking in the scenery.

I’m still very undecided. But I’m not too worried because my work pattern for the next few months will be one month away, and a few weeks back, repeat – so lots of trips this summer and fall and I won’t miss out!

Last September I actually ran into a flash flood hiking the Canyonlands Syncline Loop – I was the only idiot on the trail for hours, until I noticed that the sky was ominously black, and suddenly remembered the danger of flash floods in canyon country lol.

I reached the climb up out of the canyon section by the skin of my teeth, when just then the heavens opened and it poured. Moments later a deep rumbling sound and water and debris gushing through where I had been standing a short while before.

It was only 2-3 feet high so I don’t think it wouldn’t have swept me away or killed me, but it would have made my day much more difficult, and was a sobering reminder of the power of nature.

It was beautiful though – sudden waterfalls came crashing off the high cliffs in four different areas, it was incredible.

I have heard this winter was unusually wet out West.

Thanks for they website on the high route – I’ll definitely look into that!

My understanding is that the mosquitos are mostly gone by September, which is when I plan on going, but I’m not sure. Its an issue not to be taken lightly though, I agree.

But with permethtin on clothes and deer, and maybe a head net, it might be ok.

In the Wind River Range the muzzies are largely gone by August. My first August there there were none, last summer there was very light muzzie pressure but no big deal. So there is variance.

This year the black flies have been killing me in upstate NY for some reason – truly a scourge!

But I suppose this is what we must out up with for beauty.

…Distract Russia from the fighting in Ukraine? How?

That seems to be the main reason, and the media-morale benefits in Ukraine and the West.

Ukraine needs to stretch the Russian forces along the very long potential front. Russia has underpowered its war effort so far and they are thinly stretched. It makes any local Ukie offensive more likely to succeed.

It is strategically self-defeating and accelerates Russia’s gathering of its strength. It would only work if Russia would decide to pack up and agree to a compromise – the best outcome that Kiev can hope for. But the constant escalations and provocations are making it less likely. All it does is the increased cost in human lives, Western treasure, prolongs the war and makes any deal impossible.

But it is useful for Zelko and his sponsors, so the escalations will continue. These guys are so short-sided they couldn’t fight their way out of a potato sack…

Nork=North Korean

Some years ago, I heard some guy mention that you can find a lot of subtitled old North Korean comedy films on YouTube. He contended that many of them were quite funny, but that they studiously avoided anything the regime might consider political.

I thought of you mainly because I believe you are the biggest enthusiast of black and white films here.

The big question for me is if these people are really just “volunteers” (presumably fringe right-wingers) or if there’s support for them from the Polish military, intelligence services etc.
If it’s the former, it may not matter that much. If it’s the latter, well, that should change a lot of things (but of course it wouldn’t).
Anyway, I probably should stop commenting on this war. Read a prediction in a piece by Samuel Charap (in Foreign affairs, in case anyone is interested) that the war might last a decade, unless there’s a determined effort for bringing about a ceasefire (which seems pretty unlikely). Haha, just great. Though I’m beginning to no longer care. Given the trajectory of Western societies, it might just as well end in nuclear annihilation from my pov.

Typically the clergy was filled with Aristocrat’s third child. One son gets the estate, the next has to go and fight abroad. The third one joins the church.

There is a difference between the people and the leadership.

Persians, as a people, deserve better leadership. The religious zealots destroying Iran are abysmally stupid. The Iranian detonation of the Port of Beirut (through moronic negligence) has put Lebanon on a trajectory towards a failed state.

Maronite Christians would prosper if a partition gave them their own nation. Alas, they are held back by lesser groups.

PEACE 😇

Dude, that was back when I was super far right. Me and my internet Israeli friends at the time were cheering Hezbollah on for putting the “Yishmael Defense Forces” back in its place. We were saying, “Nasrallah avenges Gush Katif” and we really loved seeing Haifa get blasted.

Of course, now I am more measured in my view of things.

I don’t like Lebanese because they are dirty and stupid but I will admit that the way they saved the settlements in Judea and Samaria in 2006 was praiseworthy.

Actually, Persians and Lebanese are the two most cultured and intelligent people in the Middle East

1. Sure they are: just ask them.
2. Iranians. There is no such thing as Persians.

Just admit it, you don’t like them because Hezbollah bitch-slapped the IDF back to Tel Aviv.

That’s not the issue. The issue is that they acted like it was some great achievement to defeat an army that hadn’t won a war in nearly 40 years and had already been thoroughly defeated by rock armed Palestinian teenagers. It would be like me bragging about winning a street fight against a wheelchair bound midget.

Greasy, you’re out of your mind. You’re being as much an Ugly Jew as Ivashka is being an Ugly Russian.

Yahya is right that the Persians and Lebanese are some of the most cultured and refined people in the Middle East and their cultures are some of the most interesting. They have shitty rulers, although they cannot be absolved of all blame – none of us can for the shitty state of our society.

That megadam in Ethiopia is supposed to generate 5,000MW.

Japan’s biggest nuclear power plant generates 7,965MW.

Well you know me, I have this crazy idea that Jesus actually meant what he said, and that religion really does mean to live lives that go against the ways of this world, but that’s just me and my crazy ways.

The more I read about Carl Schmitt the more he seems like an awful person.

1. You are stanning for literal Nazis
2. How is Ivashka an “Ugly Russian”? He has shown some sympathy with Ukrainians
3. Lebanese are descended from the Canaanites. Hell, they are even proud of it
4. Iranians essentially invented antisemitism
5. Iranians. There is no such thing as Persians
6. As I’m sure you well know, our prophets tell us that the coalition that will attack us in our final war will include Iran

stop simping for Nazis

scum of the earth Naftali Bennet

Greasy comments about Israel are generally everything incorrect. I guess he knows more about Russia and Prigozhin than Israel, which is to say a person who enjoys writing opposites of the available information.

He probably combines his imagination, with people he talks with in the YouTube comments. So, if I said something about Russia, he will be writing “Russians are anti-racist anti-war liberals because my Russian friend in the YouTube comments section is writing like that” etc.

But there is something about Bennett, who was a liberal at least in terms of the social policies.

Bennett was maybe the similar political views as Joe Biden. He marketed for many years as religious rightwing, probably because he was working inside the religious nationalist party, as part of the tribal politics.

He was supposed to be first religious Prime Minister in Israel, breaking the glass ceiling, while all the previous Prime Minister were secular Ashkenazim.

Then he created coalition with the Islamic party, prioritized the progressive agenda of LGBT, disabled peoples’ rights, secular marriage, minorities, environmentalism. He cancelled the oil pipeline to UAE for environmental reasons. He increases funding for LGBT organizations, increases funding for Arab students etc.

I.e. he followed a liberal policy.

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By the way, he always wears the small hat and promotes as a religious nationalist, but his family shows different reality.

Religious national Jews are supposed to marry virgin women from their own community, who wear head covers and, especially the women in their community are not allowed to wear trousers.

But Bennett’s wife is doesn’t cover hair and Bennett doesn’t stop her wearing trousers for interviews, where she is saying she is not secular, just “ex-secular”.

I watched an interview of her, with aggressive interviewer saying about stories she is a really secular liar, and she is saying “I’m not secular”.

In 3:01 in the video , the interviewer says she was the chef for a pork and shrimp restaurant in New York. She is not disageeing, just saying she made desserts and was going home on Friday. The interviewer is really not believing her.

For “right-wing religious politician” Naftali Bennett, who has a wife with trousers, who was chef in a pork and shrimp restaurant.

It’s like if Bill and Hillary Clinton were electing from a religious rightwing part of the Republican Party. Then after winning election, they go to the liberal policies they really like.

Russians are still fighting Russians in Belgorod

I’ve noticed this ambiguous terminology elsewhere. These guys have only been operating on the border, just inside the Belgorod oblast. They have never made it anywhere near Belgorod – the more significant town miles from the border.

What difference does it make? They’re doing small scale raids. They don’t need to be in downtown Belgorod.

Greasy comments about Israel are generally everything incorrect. I guess he knows more about Russia and Prigozhin than Israel, which is to say a person who enjoys writing opposites of the available information.

He probably combines his imagination, with people he talks with in the YouTube comments. So, if I said something about Russia, he will be writing “Russians are anti-racist anti-war liberals because my Russian friend in the YouTube comments section is writing like that” etc.

It’s not like that at all. Israel is a complex society that is made up of Arabs, working class Mizrahim, a secular middle/upper class, National Religious Jews and haredim. And I know a hell of a lot more about the haredim than you do. And no, the haredi do not serve in combat units and you citing Nahal Haredi is total ignorance. The unit is notorious for being made up overwhelmingly of Hardalim and OTD haredim who already have one foot out of the community. The idea that any real haredim are ever going to serve in IDF combat units is so absurd that I can’t believe you’d even suggest it.

I admit you know a lot more about the rootless, secular Israeli middle class than I do. You know lot’s of people who vote for Lapid. I don’t know any such people, nor do I want to. However, if you really knew as much about Israeli society as you like to say, you would know that Israeli society is extremely sectoral and the different sectors really don’t interact that much. Your typical National Religious person lives in a National Religious neighborhood and overwhelmingly only has National Religious friends. The Arabs and the haredim are nearly 100% insular. You know one sector of Israel very well and you think it makes you an expert on every other demographic in the country.

With the Russian kill ratio of > 5:1 and material exchange ratios probably worse, Ukraine has no sensible war objective. Any fighting they do costs more than it gains. The aim of the West seems to be to use up Ukraine and hopefully make Russia vulnerable in the process. The rabid NeoNazi thugs kill any Ukrainians with the common sense and balls to point this out.

+++

I think some of these recent attacks look like Russian false flags. The goal may be to create popular support and justification for moving on Kharkov.

My wild speculation:

The Russians will beef up border security from Belarus to Luhansk over the next several weeks. They will put out warnings that Kharkiv is at risk, so any helpless or retarded civilians still there will leave as best they can. Russia might open some sort of additional corridors for civilian refugees from the city to pass into Russia. While this is occurring the Russian missile attacks across the rest of the country will continue, possibly with more emphasis on rail infrastructure to the West.

Next they will destroy any serious air defense capabilities remaining within 50 miles of the city, even out to Poltava. This will be completed using coordinated attacks with missiles and aircraft. Once the main SAMS are destroyed they will bomb all militarily relevant targets in and around the city. I think this campaign will use Su-34 and Tu-22M aircraft. Fuel bunkers, ammo dumps, airport runways and rail yards will be destroyed first. Next will be substations and communications infrastructure. This stage may proceed gradually as they monitor what the Ukrainians are doing in other areas of the conflict.

The actual capture of the city of Kharkov is difficult for me to visualize. Wiki lists the metro population as ~ 1.7 million. Does anyone know how many people are still there? Whatever the number, the Ukrainian forces will use their own civilians as human shields making things as difficult as possible for the Russian troops. The way it plays out may depend on the number of AFU troops+NeoNazis+Ukr partisans versus the number of helpless civilians+non-combatants actually in the Kharkov metropolitan area. If the percentage of active fighters is high they may just lay siege. If there is a high proportion of civilians they may go in house to house. This depends on the the numbers on both sides including how many troops is Russia willing to commit to capture the city outright.

+++

If the Ukrainian leadership were smart they would surrender tomorrow. All of the surviving troops could potentially be organized into a fifth column and become a pain for Russia after the SMO ends. Eventually they will figure this out, but the cocky Ukrainians will demand unacceptable preconditions and concessions which will give Russia time to keep hammering away.

Culturally you are not so far from Ivaskha. You are representative of a late 20th century capitalist bohemian culture of New York. Bashibuzuk is representative of late Soviet bohemian culture of Moscow.

I would agree Bashibuzuk has more snobby ego boosting against provincial people and “racially impure”, you don’t have so much snobby views to them. Maybe individual differences, because I’m not sure Brooklyn Jewish culture are more inclusive than late Soviet Moscow slavophiles. But bohemians of late Cold War New York and Moscow, are both in the Rousseau cult. https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-219/#comment-5992399

You like trail running in the forest? What kind of nikes do you use?

I get called a Jew here all the time for supporting Ukraine and the vaccines. Those are normal positions outside of Unz. But the Jew haters view themselves as part of one giant battle against a Jewish conspiracy and Ukraine along with the vaccines are placed in the the other side.

The amusing thing is that the Jew haters at Unz are lousy at identifying Jews. I could talk about cooking pulled pork or being raised in the church and the Jew haters will tell themselves that it’s all some elaborate ruse. He must have read about youth group on the internet!!! Anecdotes from a Lutheran church must be part of his ploy!! Nice try Jew!!!

To bring out actual Jews all you have to do is discuss the internal politics of Israel.

It seems to be the issue they can never agree on.

The more I read about Carl Schmitt the more he seems like an awful person.

The book where Schmitt sets out the friend/enemy distinction is the ‘Concept of the Political’, he is trying to define the political and what sets it apart from other spheres of activity, theology, academia, economics etc. This was originally in the context of legal philosophy.

He says in that text that it is possible that liberals may one day succeed in eliminating the political from social life as they aim to, but it is uncertain.

‘The Concept of the Political’ is imo a subversive book, memorably it identifies the ways in which liberal humanitarianism can translate into the application of an extreme version of the friend/enemy distinction, where the humanitarian side ends up seeking to completely crush and dehumanise those they identify as opponents. The attempt to eliminate the friend/enemy distinction ultimately making it more salient.

He was also a dark character, links to the Nazi leadership make him controversial.

Dmitry isn’t a Jew, he just has a bizarre love affair with secular Israelis. And, I’m not gonna lie, I kinda have suspicions myself that you may be Jewish. Because for an anti liberal American to be so hostile to Russia/Putin is strange.

I don’t see what the vaccines have to do with Jews one way or the other.

Off-topic, but what do you think about this Twitter quote by Anatoly Crimeus Karlin?

@XiXiDu @Roko__eth A sovereign Russia with economies of scale was the right’s one main hope for a non-GAE/CPC global alternative. I for one will enjoy seeing Western rightoids who were too dumb to realize that and supported Ukraine getting crushed under Woke boots when they get too uppity. Perhaps…

I think that he’s underestimating the scale of the problem here (though many Western rightists are, regretfully, nevertheless pro-Russian). To elaborate on this, I don’t think that Western rightists can, with a straight face, say that Woke statue demolitions (Woke cultural destruction) is unacceptable while at the same time saying that Russian cultural genocide against Ukrainians is acceptable. That would just make them blatant hypocrites.

To elaborate on what I am talking about here, please see these two article, for instance:

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/29/951206414/statue-of-lincoln-with-freed-slave-at-his-feet-is-removed-in-boston

https://www.opb.org/article/2020/10/12/portland-protesters-tear-down-roosevelt-lincoln-statues-during-day-of-rage/

And frankly, I think that trying to erase Ukrainians’ national identity and turn them into Russians is more destructive than tearing down some statues, however historically important they are.

By the way, how do you explain with the hypothesis “Egypt needs genetic engineering”, “Bedouins are stupid” etc. Arab Israelis have higher or lower test scores than Israeli Jews, depending on religion.

In spite of the fact that in a population of 8-million Christian Arabs have been a small minority, they have had a substantial impact on Israeli life, especially in participation in high level education and subsequently – in the professions.

For many years Christian Arabs in Israel have enjoyed the highest levels of matriculation and educational achievement. They have ranked highest by all criteria including the best quality of the matriculation certificate, especially with respect to the number of units studied in high school and the number of scientific areas taken during high school at the highest possible level.

As good quality of high school education is a main requirement for upper education, the result has been that the rate of high school graduates who have earned university degrees has also been very high (Ratner, 2005; Talal, & Ben Rabi, 2001; Weingard, 2001).

When the Muslim girls, go to the Christian schools.

The two Nazareth Nuns’ Schools have a long tradition of academic excellence. They are both co educational: in 2006 girls comprised 52% of the graduating class. The school’s achievements have been impressive by all criteria. In 2002, the general eligibility for the matriculation certificate for Israelis and Arabs in Israel was just 55.5% and 51.5% respectively (Statistics, Israel, 2004, table 8.21). In that year over 95% of The Nazareth Nuns’ School graduates were entitled to the matriculation certificate, scoring second highest among all Israeli schools (Ilan, 2002).

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These institutions are examples of those that have always been run by a Christian organization. They have served all the Arab population, enabling many youngsters, especially young women who have not been able to leave their homes, to get high quality education. Take, for example, the Orthodox School in Haifa: Over 50% of its students at have been Muslim. The remaining 50% are Christians, Druze and Bedouin from all over Israel (Ratner, 2005). The school has a dormitory for male students, but for its female students it arranges reliable transportation allowing many of them come to Haifa from a variety of northern Arab cities and villages.

We can thus conclude that those most likely to have benefitted from the openness of these high quality Christian schools have been Muslim Arab girls. While in the 19th century only upper middle- and high class Muslims would have considered sending their daughters to these schools, nowadays a unique cooperation between the Christian educational institutions and the parents of young Muslim girls allows for almost all talented girls living in the northern part of Israel to acquire excellent education. Many of the Christian schools offer grants to students from a low socio-economic background. In addition, transportation to school makes it possible for many girls, who cannot use public transportation because of traditional reasons, to arrive safely at school and benefit from the opportunity to concentrate on developing their intellectual abilities.

https://www.scipress.com/ILSHS.32.175.pdf

If from the Northern area of Israel, where the Bedouin lose the romantic traditional life, there are women with Phds. https://twitter.com/haneenshib

Am I the only one who sees that this new incarnation of Ivashka is basically a hardcore anti-Semite, racialist, and proto-fascist? Very sinister stuff coming from him the past few months, even though he tries to mix it with nice fake Buddhist stuff and pretend he’s really a down to earth nice guy. Lately his comments read like they can come from any other part of the Unz review, which this part of the website always avoided for so long. He’d probably feel right at home on a Freud-Jung thread.

I’m too much of a cultural mongrel, crossed too many cultural borders, to represent anything, really – I spent too many decades travelling all over Asia, too many years living in different countries, too much time alone out in nature, and read too many books from different cultures, and have had too many friends from different countries. I am a rootless cosmopolitan in the best sense and proud of it 🙂 A citizen of the world who can say after the Roman playwright Terence – “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto”. This is the diametric opposite of what Bashi aspires to be with his national archetypes and what not.

And I am nowhere near ambitious enough or obsessed with money and success enough to represent the capitalist Brooklyn Jewish culture 🙂 That culture is also highly narcissistic, toxic, and dysfunctional for me to want to be any part of.

We are not just deterministic products of the institutions that we grow up around, and do have personal agency, Dmitry, you incorrigible determinist 🙂 Especially in this globalized age where we really can select from a wide range of cultural influences and expose ourselves to be shaped by really global influences.

What Nikes indeed – very funny, very funny, Dmitry. You are behind the times – the new hot thing in bourgeois consumption is minimalist barefoot shoes for trail running, like Xeros 🙂

Although I’ve been thinking of making my own Japanese straw sandals….

Bennett was maybe the similar political views as Joe Biden.
…
He was supposed to be first religious Prime Minister in Israel, breaking the glass ceiling, while all the previous Prime Minister were secular Ashkenazim. Then he created coalition with the Islamic party, prioritized the progressive agenda of LGBT, disabled peoples’ rights, secular marriage, minorities, environmentalism.

The coalition never made sense. It was every MK that opposed Netanyahu crammed together. There never was a coherent ‘policy’ concept. It only existed to string things along until a sham guilty verdict snared Bibi. However, the case is so riddled with flaws that even the corrupt judiciary could not find a conviction.

I am not sure how much responsibility Bennett should personally bear. Anyone taking the top job with that coalition would be compromised and undermined before Day 1.
____

Hopefully Netanyahu will push through the minimum necessary judicial reforms and begin whittling away at the imperial judiciary. Right now, the demonstrations are based in fear. Once in place and functioning, many will realize the panic is over hyped. The proposal is actually quite reasonable given how badly out of whack the temporary high court has become.

Israel should finish their Constitution, but that is just too much to ask.

PEACE 😇

The amusing thing is that the Jew haters at Unz are lousy at identifying Jews. I could talk about cooking pulled pork or being raised in the church and the Jew haters will tell themselves that it’s all some elaborate ruse

I commiserate. Despite my obvious Christianity I am frequently called Jewish.

PEACE 😇

My own views probably overlap more with liberalism than the right, but I’m opposed to the liberal attempt to force their views down others throats and punish dissenters, up to a point.

I think moral education and spiritual evolution is the correct approach. Jesus warned long ago not to fight evil – because you become evil. Schmitt is identifying a danger of moralism that spiritual writers have been writing about for a long time.