Unlike Ritter and Sachs, Macgregor offers well constructed analysis. I will have to listen to those pieces as time allows.

In tribute to Not-The-President Biden’s 80th birthday and the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday. I offer this:

I suspect that bird regrets accepting the pardon at this point.

🦃 Happy Thanksgiving 🦃

Good timing, thanks!

https://zoom.earth/maps/temperature/

It’s balmy in Crimea and Donetsk, frozen solid in Kiev, Sumy and Cherniev.

Meteorological report.

It’s balmy in Crimea and Donetsk, frozen solid in Kiev, Sumy and Cherniev.

Did Western media accuse Putin of that already?

One of many Russian jokes (it rhymes in Russian, does not rhyme in English): “If the cat abandons kittens, Putin is to blame”.

Apparently they are accusing Russians of shelling their own nuclear power plant. (1)

Ukrainian troops subjected the Zaporozhye nuclear power plant (NPP) to massive artillery shelling, damaging strategic facilities, an adviser to the head of Rosenergoatom, a subsidiary of Russian state nuclear energy corporation Rosatom, told Sputnik on Sunday.

“The Ukrainian military launched a massive strike directly at the station. Twelve rockets were fired. It is known that six of them hit the cooling system of reactors, two — hit the dry cask storage [of radioactive waste]. The consequences of the shelling cannot be determined yet since the risk of repeated attacks remains,” Renat Karchaa said.

None of the Zaporozhye NPP personnel were injured, according to Karchaa.

Why would Russians shell their own infrastructure? It’s pretty daft accusation.

Only unhinged Ukie Maximalists could find sense in such madness.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://sputniknews.com/20221120/ukrainian-troops-shell-zaporizhzhia-npp-damaging-strategic-facilities-rosenergoatom-1104465715.html

Apparently they are accusing Russians of shelling their own nuclear power plant.

In Western lugenpresse it’s all par for the course. Western and Ukie media accused Russia of shelling Donetsk (it was never occupied by Ukies, and that makes them seethe), shelling civilians fleeing from Ukie-controlled areas to Russian-controlled ones in Eastern Ukraine, and of blowing up its own pipelines. IMO the highest achievement on these lines was BBC report from Crimea in 2015 headlined “celebration of the anniversary of Russian occupation”. IMO the funniest thing was that BBC actually showed genuine celebration, with numerous dressed-up Crimean families with children in the streets, yet libtard term “occupation” was in the headline.

Wish FIFA president Gianni Infantino would elaborate on his remarks that “Europeans must apologize for 3000 years.”

Am hoping he has found a Linear B tablet with an older, firsthand account of battle than Xenophon. Perhaps, a failed expedition to conquer the New World, or a kind of Bronze Age Stanley traveling into darkest Africa.

Don’t think he could have been speaking of Troy, at least in the mythic tradition, both because of Trojan provocations and because of Aeneas’ brutal subjugation of the innocent Latins and Etruscans.

There seems to be quite a lot of criticism from human rights types though, this weaponizing of white man’s guilt narratives in service of a rather reactionary (and homophobic!) regime is too blatantly cynical.
Of course still indicative of the direction things are going, and as Meloni’s remarks (even if they were not recent, but apparently from 2019) show even most right-wingers accept that framing or at least don’t manage to explicitly reject it.

No, this is the correct usage of white guilt – to limit liberalism.

It is kind of funny because Qatar is arguably a fake and gay state that would not exist except for the fact it is strategically advantageous for certain Western groups, if it is not amalgamated into some greater Arab state.

A certain well known election denier and #NeverTrump conspiracy theorist has been declaring that Trump endorsed Lauren Boebert was going to lose. Guess what: (1)

Democrat Adam Frisch concedes to Lauren Boebert in close Colorado House race

Donald Trump-backed Republican Lauren Boebert will likely serve a second term in the House after her Democratic challenger Adam Frisch conceded to the incumbent Friday despite the race triggering Colorado’s recount laws

Trump’s 90%+ endorsement success rate scores yet another win.

When will Leftoids end their “Bigly Lie”? His personal favorite for House rule, Nancy Pelosi, is done for.

The impending impeachment investigations into Not-The-President Biden’s corruption will be an expression of TRUTH & Justice in action: (2)

Rep. James Comer announces the Republican House Oversight Committee is launching an investigation into Joe Biden’s dealings with his son Hunter to determine whether the president “is compromised or swayed by foreign dollars.”

Video under [MORE]

if you are a Dem who doesn’t like that, perhaps you should tell your own team that they started this crazy train. The Republicans have every right to shout their own grievances from the rooftops and hold as many investigations as they’d like after the last 6 years of insanity from the Left.

…

Let’s not forget that Donald Trump was subjected to years of congressional investigation

If you supported those measures against Trump, you cannot complain about this without being a massive hypocrite.

• Joe Biden got the Ukrainian special prosecutor fired who was investigating his son’s involvement on the board of a corrupt Ukrainian energy firm.

• Hunter Biden’s laptop is a treasure trove that implicates the president (“The Big Guy”) in numerous financial transactions with shady foreign entities that have benefited the Biden family over decades.

• Whistleblower Tony Bobulinski, who helped set up the shell companies the Biden family used, has publicly detailed his conversations with Joe Biden and his brother Jim Biden, as well as Hunter Biden.

• Joe Biden claimed he had no involvement with any of these family dealings, but voicemails and messages counter that claim.

And that’s just the tip of the iceberg!

MAGA WINS! Delusional #NeverTrump extremism loses.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/democrat-adam-frisch-concedes-to-lauren-boebert-in-close-colorado-house-race/ar-AA14h3SP

(2) https://notthebee.com/article/house-gop-announces-investigation-of-the-president-this-committee-will-evaluate-whether-this-president-is-compromised-or-swayed-by-foreign-dollars-

Iraqi Information Minister reviews

Closer Encounters
Jason Reza Jorjani
Arktos 2021

454 pages on UFO’s and what this means for the future of earth humans.

To begin with, Jorjani is an extremely bright guy and this book was worth reading. For me anyway. He identifies correctly many of the important issues on this topic. Near to zero false negatives. But he has a bias towards accepting many hypothetical physics fantasies and Silicon Valley futurist glossy brochure claims with a minimum of critical thought. False positives way out the wazoo. This leads him into la la land but he only has one awful style point so I am not going to be too hard on him. It must be almost impossible to go as far down the road to Dogmatic Materialism as he has traveled and realize far too late that one has a whole lot of back tracking to do.

A partial list of his claims. Hopefully I have most of the biggies.

The technological singularity advertised by Kurzweil et al is inevitable and getting here and now very soon.

Profoundly significant alternative physics has been extant and concealed by rich powerful people since well before 1945.

Multiple alien races are active geopolitical players. The signature of this is obvious to anybody with a sufficiently high IQ since 1945.

(This is not a biggie but it is a small point which is at least worth mentioning. Psychometry tech guys seem to have never appreciated the fact, well known to many parents and most students, that a large fraction of the people who take tests are motivated only to get the odious chore over with and do not recognize much value in performing as well as you possibly can on the test. The usefulness of most tests is diminished by this basic fact. There are few practical applications to IQ test scores.)

He fancies the nordics and the grays as significant alien races. He doesn’t do much with the mantids which are my personal favorite. : (

His solar system contains alien spaceship bases on Mars, the Moon, and in the vast uncharted under waters of Earth.

They don’t just do interplanetary -> interstellar -> intergalactic transport. They go through wormholes and forwards/backwards through time.

The Akashic record is a thing. Quantum computers are a thing. The Breakaway Civilization is a thing. There are a lot of things going on in his presentation. I could go on and on about his casual treatment for what happens to be actual and factual, but I am going to stop here. I read the book two times and made 31 separate notations of stuff that is not going to hold together if somebody just takes a minute to stop reading and examine the logic of what the man has written here. I read it twice because there are a few bits worth pursuing and a few references that deserve more study. For an example of things that he does have correct, his claim that we are never going to get an honest disclosure regarding extant UFO data from the CIA is very very highly probably true. P ( that one ) > .999.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to get this.

He suffers from a flaw that you see in academic training with obsessive footnoting. When you have a source (this is only one example–John Brandenberg Death on Mars; he does this at least ten times) and you have 3 or 4 footnotes per page from the same source for eight pages running, you are being rude to the reader. None of your readers care that you are being so careful. Most of them think you are being an ass.

Enough. I kind of liked the book. I cannot recommend anybody else to read it.

Near to zero false negatives. But he has a bias towards accepting many hypothetical physics fantasies and Silicon Valley futurist glossy brochure claims with a minimum of critical thought. False positives way out the wazoo.

But at least that makes for an entertaining read. In the best case I suppose it reads as entertainingly as fiction while you also have the chance to stumble across something genuinely useful. Sometimes it’s handy to have guys thinking way out in left field even if the failure rate is high.

Enough. I kind of liked the book. I cannot recommend anybody else to read it.

LOL. I guarantee that I will not read the book, but your synopsis was quite worth the read. Thanks for taking the time.

What if we got ahead of Erdogan and changed the name of the bird to “Türkiye?”

https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/putins-winnin-weakness The Western Media use any excuse to portray Russia as weak and losing. Kherson was one. Then the S300 missile that landed in Poland. That story was as defective as the missile but spun as “Russia is responsible for EVERYTHING…” Oh, and it’s weak and losing.
Sadly, that’s not happening. And as MacGregor says, there will be a major offensive. First degrade Western Ukraine’s infrastructure. Galician/ Ruthenian nationalists will flee to Poland and Germany where they will not be welcome. Western Ukraine will be depopulated. Then cut off supply routes to Poland and by air. Then destroy the UAF giving special attention to mercenary forces. Think Japan: 1945. Which suddenly became pro-American. Ukraine will suddenly become pro-Russian

https://julianmacfarlane.substack.com/p/putins-winnin-weakness

Why would Russians shell their own infrastructure? It’s pretty daft accusation.

Why do you continue to make such stupid statements? Zaporizhya is a part of Ukraine. The famous Ukrainian Zaporizhian Hoste was located on the Khortytsia island in Zaporizhya: They’ve recreated the fort and have a Ukrainian museum there. I’ve been there, trust me it’s a Ukrainian area.

How dumb can you get kremlinstoogeA123?

His solar system contains alien spaceship bases on Mars, the Moon, and in the vast uncharted under waters of Earth.

The premise is remindful of the old Gerry Anderson UFO TV series circa 1970, a somewhat entertaining show. 🙂

Meloni “Round 2” versus Macron: (1)

VIDEO below [MORE]

Italy 2 – 0 France: Meloni Crushes Macron Amid Migrant Crisis

ITALY – Well their new PM Giorgia Meloni certainly doesn’t hold back does she?

Here’s her take on Macron, after he called the Italians disgusting.

She’s informed, she’s furious, and she’s laying it out to everyone, basically out-Martha Vineyard-ing even Ron DeSantis as she forced that ship to France.

For the smug Eurochickens out there, starting with Emmanuel Macron of France, she’s gotten word out now that Italy’s not one to mess with these days, they’ve had it with being Europe’s punching bag on migrants. Expect the Europeans to adjust their expectations accordingly.

As a major power in the EuroZone she has EPIC leverage. The EU can be deliver what was promised, A Union of Sovereign Equals. Or, the already fragile € common currency can be blown up by the Globalists as they flail against Christian Populism.

Make Italy Great Again [MIGA]

Trump’s style, punching back at the Open Borders Elites, works.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/italy-2-0-france-meloni-crushes-macron-amid-migrant-crisis

There seems to be quite a lot of criticism from human rights types though, this weaponizing of white man’s guilt narratives in service of a rather reactionary (and homophobic!) regime is too blatantly cynical.

I think these terms like white supremacy, white guilt, colonialism etc. for the most part come out of the post-modern, post-colonial far left, which is a mash up of ethnic particularism and liberationism from the European radical tradition, it means that mostly they can’t be used effectively against progressives.

It does sort of highlight how much this sort of thought is in appearance heavily indebted to white European males. One way I have seen blacks address this point is by claiming that due to their oppression blacks understood the relevant content of Marx, Hegel, Herder, Rousseau etc. before these authors wrote their works, or arrived at it independently of them.

Near perfect correlation between Whiteness and endorsing the glorification of Nazism, hehe.

AK seems to be back on Twitter. Wasn’t he advocating Russia national regeneration through armed struggle and authoritarian leadership a while back?

After all, the anniversary

He’s promoted that “Russians are poc and part of an anticolonial movement” stuff for a while. I don’t think one can expect any intellectual coherence, at its core it’s just resentment that Russia doesn’t get the respect it supposedly deserves and isn’t a superpower anymore.

…one can’t expect any intellectual coherence, at its core it’s just resentment that Russia doesn’t get the respect…

For Russia you can substitute Poland, France, UK, China, any Third World country, even US, definitely Canada, and make exactly the same claim…nations’ self perceptions are complicated and prickly. One’s respect has an ever expanding definition. Look inward about how you feel about Germany.

What matters more is the mistaken notion that Russia ‘is not a superpower‘. By any historical or strategic standard it is – that’s the fundamental problem for the aspiring global rulers in Washington-London. The West has tried to defeat Russia (many times), trick it, buy it, even simply declare ‘you are no superpower!’…none of it has worked.

The reality staring at us today is that Russia has invaded a foreign country – a major, strategic Western ally and asset, took territory, destroyed infrastructure – there has not been any serious thing the West has done. Only a superpower could do that, e.g. US has done it previously. The silly notion that Russia is ‘not a superpower’ doesn’t mesh with what has happened. If you raise the bar high enough and focus on minutia, losses, setbacks, you can deny the superpower status to any country: US failed in all its recent imperial ventures, UK and Spain also during their heydays, as did Rome in Germany, Persia. It is the fact that they can do it that makes them a superpower, not the details.

What matters more is the mistaken notion that Russia ‘is not a superpower‘.

It clearly isn’t and it will never be again. It could of course still be an important country with a lot of potential, no doubt about that. But it can’t be the sort of imperial hegemon dominating a large part of Eurasia that Karlin and his ilk fantasize about.

US failed in all its recent imperial ventures

And Americans have mostly already forgotten about them, because in the end they didn’t really matter to them, and the US is still the most powerful country in the world. Whereas Russia’s prestige, economic prospects and military power have been much reduced by the Ukraine war, and if it continues to go as badly as it has done so far, it might even become an existential threat at least for Putin’s regime.

the fundamental problem for the aspiring global rulers in Washington-London.

Not-The-President Biden? BoJo/Truss/Sunak/Who’s Next? Rulers? Surely you jest.

The aspiring global rulers seeking a European SJW Empire are Scholz and Macron (Paris-Berlin). However, their dominance over other European countries is slipping badly.

• Italy is openly defying French liberal authoritarianism. (1)
• Poland is also challenging the European SJW Empire. (2)

Meet Europe’s coming military superpower: Poland

Warsaw is turning to major arms deals with South Korea to establish supremacy in Continental Europe.

“The Polish army must be so powerful that it does not have to fight due to its strength alone,” Prime Minister Mateusz Morawiecki said on the eve of Poland’s independence day.

It’s a shift that has resonated with Poland’s indispensable ally.

“Poland has become our most important partner in continental Europe,” a senior U.S. Army official in Europe said, citing the crucial role Poland has played in supporting Ukraine and in shoring up NATO defenses in the Baltics.
…
Poland signed a 23 billion złoty (€4.9 billion) deal for 250 Abrams tanks from the U.S. this spring — a quick replacement for the 240 Soviet-era tanks sent to Ukraine. Its air force is equipped with U.S. F-16s and in 2020 Warsaw signed a $4.6 billion deal for 32 F-35 fighters. But the focus of its recent military spend has been Korea, where it has signed a flurry of deals to buy tanks, aircraft and other arms.

So far, Poland has ordered between $10 billion-$12 billion worth of weaponry from Korea, said Mariusz Cielma, editor and analyst at Nowa Technika Wojskowa, a military technology news and analysis website.

Scholz and Macron personally own the mess in Ukraine, as well as other EU fiascos. Does humiliating those two make Putin head of a “Super Power”? That seems like a bit of an overstatement.

Really though, the label does not matter much. What does are facts on the ground. Russia has gained vast swaths of territory. Kiev has no viable plan to assault Mariupol. Capturing Crimea is even more implausible.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-202/#comment-5669011

(2) https://www.politico.eu/article/europe-military-superpower-poland-army/

It is the fact that they can do it that makes them a superpower

The fear that Russia inspires in the elites of the empire and its sidekicks is a clear indication that they see Russia as a superpower. Raging inflation throughout the West and severe energy crisis in Europe, both produced by silly attempts to isolate Russia, suggest the same thing.

But there is a huge difference. Russia and China are different kind of superpowers. They do not do US-style “shock and awe” indiscriminately murdering countless civilians. This makes military gains slow. But this also makes them long lasting. The US failed to control Afghanistan and Iraq for the same reason that made its military victory fast: mass murder produced widespread hatred among the locals, so in the end occupiers had to withdraw. A wise superpower makes an effort to avoid near-universal hatred generated by mass murder of the locals.

It appears that the people are ingrates, and their good treatment does not pay. In the long run it’s a mistake. Russia is now capitalizing on positive perception the USSR gained in Africa. Only because of that it is successfully squeezing France out of Africa: Central African Republic, then Mali, now Burkina Faso. This is unlikely to be the end.

One of the things that causes the rage and fear of the elites in the US and among its puppets is that Russia and China are a new kind of superpowers. They are not murderous thugs, who only go for quick victory and loot. They build relationships that can last. The world is changing. Open banditry becomes less and less profitable. Naturally, the bandits resent that.

US failed in all its recent imperial ventures

And Americans have mostly already forgotten about them, because in the end they didn’t really matter to them

What recent misadventures were truly imperial?

• Afghanistan and Syria were police actions against specific threats, not an attempt to install imperial rule.

• Iraq would probably have been better off as an American colonial protectorate. The fact that it was not added to an empire resulted in defective governance. Disarray and factionalism is so built up at this point that a partition seems necessary.

The screwups have been epic in scope, scale, and other measures. However, they do not seem imperial.

PEACE 😇

Arguing by assertion – “It clearly isn’t and it will never be again” – has limits, and you kind of reached them. I outlined to you what is in general a superpower, how you can recognize one in its behavior and how others react to it – or not react because they can’t.

What Russia did to Ukraine is a prima facie superpower behavior, including the lame and slightly hysterical Western reaction. You focus too much on day-to-day minutia and miss the big strategic shift. I also think – others may disagree – that Russia is completely dominating both the battlefield and the coming escalations. It is their own region, they have the stuff to throw at it, unless they fail internally and choose to go for a compromise it is theirs to manage in almost any way they want.

By the way, the Western strategists (the smarter ones) know it – that’s why they are trying to go for a save-the-face quick ‘victory’ and a settlement that would give Russia almost all they said they actually want: no Nato in Ukraine and separation-autonomy for the Russians who live in Ukraine.

But let’s see how it evolves.

Russia is now capitalizing on positive perception the USSR gained in Africa. Only because of that it is successfully squeezing France out of Africa: Central African Republic, then Mali, now Burkina Faso.

Ok. Let’s hope Africans from those countries will immigrate to Russia then instead of France.

Let’s hope Africans from those countries will immigrate to Russia then instead of France.

Russia is protected from immigrants coming out of warm countries by climate: it gets very cold there. There are Russian jokes about everything, including the cold. Question: what do Russians do while waiting for a bus at -40oC. Answer: men drink beer, kids eat ice cream.

But take heart: as soon as Gulfstream stops, Europe will be protected by climate, as well. Not that the Europeans will be happy with the cold. But the Earth won’t ask them, like the empire doesn’t.

Russia is protected from immigrants coming out of warm countries by climate: it gets very cold there.

There are Somalis in Finland.
Russia has got lots of space, it needs to share it with its African brethren who are Russia’s friends in the struggle against Western imperialism. France is too racist, just think of the horrible things they did in Algeria. And Germany, well, only a question of time until it goes Nazi again. No, Russia needs to take in the migrants from Africa, in fact Russia should send ships to the Mediterranean and pick them up (and then maybe settle them in Crimea). It will be proof of Russia’s solidarity and magnaminity and win her many friends around the world, and with those assets the victory over the empire can’t be far off.

Sarcasm is a good sign, it requires a sense of humor. I hope Germans still have it when the Gulfstream stops.

There are Somalis in Finland.

FYI, the parts of Finland, Sweden, and Norway where the people (locals and Somalis) live are a lot warmer than North Russia, not to mention Siberia or the Far East. Cold is the main reason why Chinese don’t want Siberia: they prefer to avoid extreme cold and just buy stuff that the Russians and other locals mine and log there.

BTW, in the North of Russia grocery stores sell drinking-grade pure (96%) ethanol: when it’s -20 or -40oC outside, you don’t even get drunk, your body uses all ethanol to produce heat. When you come from the outside frozen to the bones, a glass (200 ml) of ethanol is the only thing that prevents catching cold.

I hope Germans still have it when the Gulfstream stops.

Why are you now going on about the Gulfstream? Even if it happens, it’s not like one could do much about it.

GR and TN,

Why not follow Meloni’s suggestion — Africans Staying In Africa!

What is wrong with that concept? It seems perfectly sound to me.

No migrants = No country accepting migrants.

   Workers win!
      Russian Christians win!
          European Christians win!
            Everybody wins!

Except for Elite Globalists and SJW Multicultists. SADZ for them. Boo hoo.

PEACE 😇

I don’t see a whole lot of difference between the analyses of Ritter and Macgregor.

It is an attempt by Ukraine to get a Western peacekeeping force sent to Zaporozhye. Kiev is scheming to bring America into conflict with Russia. It is a high risk strategy, but Ukraine thinks now the ground is frozen a Russian steamroller of bombardment allied to sufficient infantry will run over Ukrainian armies.

Don’t mean to be macabre, but is there really such a thing as a LGBT club? Since the place was called “Club Q” (whatever that means), I am going to suppose not.

What if we went back in time, and ran the decline of Western Civ experiment again? Changed nothing, except enforced Jucheism’s 15 approved haircuts for men, with an iron fist?

There are parts of Russia where Afros could survive and not just the south or Crimea. Big cities shield people from the cold and St. Petersburg is not that different from Helsinki. The migrant tsunami starts when the culture collapses and the idiot yearning of liberal-business-feminist crowd reaches certain size – it can happen in Russia too.

The German_reader is fooling himself, almost all Afros who make it to Russia-Ukraine would end up in Western Europe, just like the water flows downstream. They are lazy food-and-goodies craving young men, they will go where the society is the softest and handouts available.

The Gulfstream stop may happen too late, if ever. This is a culture meltdown, the way to fix it is by having one’s own culture and not be apologetic – Meloni is a good sign, but the collapse goes on. At not so distant future it will be too late. Simple numbers.

BTW, in the North of Russia grocery stores sell drinking-grade pure (96%) ethanol: when it’s -20 or -40oC outside, you don’t even get drunk, your body uses all ethanol to produce heat.

That’s funny. It’s believed that’s the very thing that saved the life of the Titanic’s chief baker, Charles Joughin.

Just prior to going into the water (which was -2C (28F)) when the Titanic sank, Joughin had drank half a glass of liqueur. He stayed afloat treading water in the frigid open ocean for two to three hours, by which time most others in the water had long since died, before finally being picked up by a life boat.

Joughin said he felt colder in the open boat than he had while almost entirely submerged in the water.

No frost bite, just some swollen feet afterwards.

The Incredible Story Of The Titanic’s Baker, Who Survived In The Frigid Water For Hours

Thanks to a strong constitution and some liquid courage, Charles Joughin survived nearly three hours in the frigid North Atlantic.

Although he [Joughin] was assigned as captain of Lifeboat 10, he did not board; it was already being crewed by two sailors and a steward. He went below after Lifeboat 10 had gone, and “had a drop of liqueur” (a tumbler half-full of liqueur, as he went on to specify) in his quarters.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/charles-joughin

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

The German_reader is fooling himself

It was meant as a joke, to mock AnonfromTN’s Soviet boomer-like belief that it’s somehow a big success for Russia if resentful Africans make pro-Russian noises. And while my immigration scenario may seem far-fetched now, I don’t think it’s completely impossible that Russia will feel herself forced to accept increasing numbers of African “students” and the like in an attempt to court influence with their countries (also send money down the African drain, like in the 1970s/1980s).
There’ll be two billion Africans in 30 years, more than enough to flood both Western Europe and Russia.

Why are you now going on about the Gulfstream?

Because the Europeans haven’t yet frozen without the Russian gas. Surely they will when this Gulfstream thing happens. It’s just like the Yellowstone earthquake. It’s coming.

There are certainly enough Africans for all of us :)…It is a half-joke – I take as such too most of the time – but it has a very serious side: the coming end of us.

One counter-force to the pro-Russian noises in the Third World is that the insane anti-Russian propaganda demonizing them as racists and haters may keep some from going there – the migrating demographic is heavily skewed toward the woke-rainbow-liberal types in the Third World (they have the minimal means).

They are coming anyway, hundreds of millions, next time there is a breach in the minimal border controls or any excuse. We will need to rebuild the castles :)…curry and rap, women yearning for alphas, wimpy game playing Euro guys, cheap business owners hating workers, self-doubt and greedy boomers: Europe has had a perfect storm.

You don’t actually freeze, everyone just gets colder. Some are sick, others just very uncomfortable. Businesses close, factories limit production…that’s the way it works, no apocalypse, only a slow end with a whimper…do you think that’s a good thing? a victory?

One counter-force to the pro-Russian noises in the Third World is that the insane anti-Russian propaganda demonizing them as racists and haters may keep some from going there

Germany is supposedly full of Nazis who are constantly brutalizing and murdering peaceful poc immigrants, and who have infiltrated the police (which is also shooting innocent immigrants just for fun, like in America) and the army where they’re creating death lists, and have their own Nazi party in parliament with AfD…and yet hundreds of thousands of immigrants from outside of Europe are still coming every year.

the coming end of us.

Yeah, for once I’m fully in agreement with you.

do you think that’s a good thing?

Of course, it is not a good thing at all! Yes, these are hardships that shouldn’t have been there (although you know very well that the inflation part is not as simple as it looks, it was long in the making, inflation would’ve risen even without the Russian invasion, that it’s been made worse is, of course, a huge negative). My point was that the Russian media thought that the Euros will literally freeze. Physically. And quickly. They even made fun of the Finns who were gathering logs, even though this is something that people have always done in this region.

It’s hilarious how they’re now invoking this Gulfstream meme. It reminded me of their constant talk about the plate tectonics in Yellowstone that will eventually destroy the US.

And, as to Russia and Africans, yes, they will absolutely go there, regardless of the cold weather (big parts of Russia are livable, especially the European parts), and regardless of their image as intolerant or whatever. They will appear once a certain level of GDP per capita is achieved and as soon as the legislation is adopted to facilitate this (allowing foreign students to work due to labor shortage, etc).

It is also possible that the Chinese who are renting plots in Siberia (40-50 year long leases) will import Asian labor.

Africans Staying In Africa!

That’s Russian strategy: make life acceptable where people live, and they won’t risk a journey elsewhere.

Besides, nobody in Russia gets freebies. If Europe did not give freebies to immigrants, nobody would go there. Europe is actively committing suicide in many ways. Current wave of “refugees” is the result of one of those ways. As one of Russian TV personalities said, “too bad for Europe, we’ll miss it”.

No frost bite, just some swollen feet afterwards.

Yep, it works. Thousands of people living in very cold areas can attest to it.

My point was that the Russian media thought that the Euros will literally freeze.

That’s certainly pretty dumb, and I think in the long run Russians won’t feel like laughing and gloating anymore, but the energy crisis is real enough. Got informed about price rises by my energy supplier a few days ago…will jump from 26 cent/kwh to 44 cent/kwh. And of course lots of reports already that companies are closing down or re-locating. This will also affect the “Marshall plan” for Ukraine btw you were writing about in the last thread (bad analogy anyway, Marshall plan wasn’t totally insignificant, but its importance can be exaggerated), when the EU core is in recession and subject to de-industrialization, good luck with that.

My point was that the Russian media thought that the Euros will literally freeze. Physically. And quickly.

To be fair to them, it’s not entirely irrational or stupid. Maybe they have memories about how Reagan crushed the USSR – it wasn’t done with armed forces, but by manipulating the oil price. The Russians might be trying to replicate that maneuver in their own way.

According to the literature there’s a million gay male sodomy clubs.

Every city has one posh and a small handful (<<10) of lesbian bars.

Lesbians and gays socialize if and only if they have butt loads of money strictly for networking purposes–lesbians do not like men, not even gay men. The only females who like gay men are spinsters and dowagers and spinsters-to-be.

I have never read about a QWERTY bar. Maybe that's why they are all so pissed off all the time.

Sure, but the Afros don’t believe it about Germany…it is easier to believe that stuff about a remote slightly obscure Russia. The preparation by movies with scary narratives has been ongoing for generations. It may actually stick with many of them.

That’s Russian strategy: make life acceptable where people live, and they won’t risk a journey elsewhere.

It doesn’t appear that this strategy worked for you. You traded it all in for science ($$) and a dull life somewhere in Tennessee. 🙂

It doesn’t appear that this strategy worked for you.

FYI, my requirements apply to maybe 0.1% of the population. Besides, I left dying USSR in 1991, the RF did not exist at the time. Although the science in my field in the RF is still not top-notch, the US science is going down, too. Unfortunately, at accelerating rate. If I had to make a choice today, I’d either stay put or move to Singapore.

That’s certainly pretty dumb, and I think in the long run Russians won’t feel like laughing and gloating anymore, but the energy crisis is real enough.

They are sometimes isolated from the European information space (many don’t read English or even French or German) and some of them travel very little, so they can have those kinds of assumptions. It is a bit similar to Americans who are similarly isolated and not that informed or indifferent about other societies (no judgement there for either of those nations, it’s just a fact that it determined by their vast geography, these nations could perfectly exist without anyone else, if they wanted to).

That’s Russian strategy: make life acceptable where people live, and they won’t risk a journey elsewhere.

That’s what Meloni was just arguing, although not fully sure about her motivation there. Africa is developing, there are some decent businesses there now. The issue is that there are so many of them and that the countries are so diverse, is that enough of them can make their way to Europe or Russia.

Besides, nobody in Russia gets freebies.

This will not save you. Yes, there are tons of freeloaders, but there are also those who do work. Or the father works and then has several more children. The Somalis, for instance, will favor their group and give each other jobs, in the West Somali men work as cab drivers (and some of their younger women are hookers). They can live off of a cash economy. Granted, Russia will probably receive more migrants from Asia and they are very different than the low level Africans that the Euros keep getting. But not all Russians like that either.

Has anyone been to one of these dual language tube stations in London?

Whitechapel has Bengali. Southall has Punjabi.

Btw, in the above video, this McGregor guy is saying that Germany will de-industrialize by 20-30%.

I don’t watch or read anything by McGregor, he doesn’t seem to be a credible source. Very strange, I wonder what’s his motivation.

Americans who are similarly isolated and not that informed or indifferent about other societies (no judgement there for either of those nations, it’s just a fact that it determined by their vast geography

Historically, U.S. Passports have only been held by 25-30% of citizens. Recently, that surged to over 40% due to Canada and Mexico transit requiring the document. 30 years ago you could easily cross into Windsor with only a driver’s license.

Trump’s first act should be disbanding the entire Homeland Security fiasco…

PEACE 😇

The Balts are objectively pro-Mongol.

https://zoom.earth/maps/temperature/

Very Balmy Crimea, Rostov and Donetsk. Kiev, Sumy, Vinnitssia, Zhitomir and Cherniev frozen solid.

The sky is falling in Russia :)…

Media mostly writes nonsense, I would not take it too seriously. They all high-light improbable bad things about the enemy, Europeans do it, Finns do it, and Russians do it too. Russia will do fine, maybe that’s what really bothers you and some others here.

Schadenfreude is an ugly thing. But it is so tempting, isn’t it?

Btw, in the above video, this McGregor guy is saying that Germany will de-industrialize by 20-30%.

Does anyone have the specific time within which video where that came from?

It might make sense in context. As a one liner it is a bit eyebrow raising.

I don’t watch or read anything by McGregor, he doesn’t seem to be a credible source. Very strange, I wonder what’s his motivation.

When he talking within his expertise, military strategy and tactics, his analysis is sound. That does not mean it is 100% perfect future view. He does out perform others.

Industrial, country scale, economics is not Macgregor’s expertise. Germany is taking big shots with energy intensive industry shutting down. Heavy industry needed for military production is a limited slice of “industry” generally.

PEACE 😇

Does anyone have the specific time within which video where that came from?

In the first video, starting at 18:00, after he is asked about the European unity when it comes to supporting Ukraine, he starts talking about Germany, and says: “Germany’s economy is expected to contract 20-30% as a result of the sanctions that have been imposed and the lack of access to natural gas and oil from Russia.” (Actually, I misquoted him (apologies for that), it turns out he said something even crazier than what I misheard him say.)

Then there is more nonsense about how it might seem for other Europeans that the deindustrialization of Germany might be a “good thing, but it’s not”, which is not how most Europeans think. Which Europeans think this? Certainly not Northern Europeans and not Visegrad, who rely on trade with Germany.

When it comes to some of the Ukrainian casualty numbers he’s mentioning, first, the casualty numbers will not be given out right now, so I wonder about his sources. Second, his casualty ratios do not match what some of the men on the ground mention occasionally in their interviews on the Ukrainian TV as well as what is occasionally seen on social networks. There are no accurate numbers for this available so it’s puzzling how he can mention these with such confidence. So not sure I’d dedicate too much time listening to this guy.

I also would like to have things clarified about the HIMARS. Many of the Ukrainian troops are highly competent (they have a serious school of artillery) and it is offensive to hear that they are unable to operate the HIMARS.

when the Gulfstream stops
…
when it’s -20 or -40oC outside, you don’t even get drunk, your body uses all ethanol to produce heat

There you go again.

For a scientist, you’re very prone to making outlandish statements.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulf_Stream#Gulf_Stream_Collapse
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/497899/

I’m not a scientist but I’ve been a weather nut all my life and, as a mountaineer, I know quite a few things about combating extreme cold. Unfortunately, alcoholic beverages (let alone 96% ethanol) only make matters worse, regardless of the initial euphoria.

I also would like to have things clarified about the HIMARS. Many of the Ukrainian troops are highly competent (they have a serious school of artillery) and it is offensive to hear that they are unable to operate the HIMARS.

The issue is that HIMARS is badly mislabeled. Artillery = tubes & shells. Mortars are a very effective form of short range artillery.

HIMARS is (at best) “Tomahawk Lite”. It is a highly technical long range missile system. In terms of operator complexity, the Russian S400 would be a good parallel. Many months are required. It is doubtful that the Syrians can run their S300 half regiment after 9-12 months of training.

France’s contribution of Ceasar Self Propelled units is a handover over artillery. Fundamentally is is still tube & shell. That is a training cycle in weeks.

PEACE 😇

I don’t know about mountaineers, but I know people who live in the Far North, where winter temperatures plunge to -30oC to -40oC. They consider -20oC a warm weather. I’ve got already spoiled by the life in the US, consider anything below -10oC very cold.

People drink 96% ethanol AFTER being outdoors, when they feel freezing. This may or may not be important: they drink it after returning to the warmth of their home. In this case it does not cause any euphoria at all. They report no feeling of drunkenness, only the feeling of warmth spreading through the body. They do not catch cold, even though they often get chilled. Those who lived through that kind of winter say that they think they won’t survive w/o ethanol.

BTW, everything you find in wiki is suspect, could be a deliberate or inadvertent lie. The same goes for published papers you find in PubMed (I don’t admit that lightly, as my papers are also in PubMed). As I tell my students, not everything published is true and not everything true is published.

The only females who like gay men are spinsters and dowagers and spinsters-to-be.

Totally wrong in my experience. I’ve met lots of women in different parts of the world who liked gay men in their own way. As one of them once told me ‘they talk to you about clothes and kiss you in the lips, what’s not to like?’ My wife also finds effeminate gays funny and relatable, inoffensive men that behave like women and have female interests like her own.

In the first video, starting at 18:00, after he is asked about the European unity when it comes to supporting Ukraine, he starts talking about Germany, and says: “Germany’s economy is expected to contract 20-30% as a result of the sanctions that have been imposed and the lack of access to natural gas and oil from Russia.” (Actually, I misquoted him (apologies for that), it turns out he said something even crazier than what I misheard him say.)

Well, admittedly I didn’t bother watching the video, it just looks totally non-credible to me that an American general would be far more positive on Russia’s war performance than you know, actual Russians or Ukrainians on the side of the SMO like Podolyaka, Strelkov or even Karlin. Did this guy claim the Kiev offensive was a ‘feint’ as well? “Desert Storm 2.0!”

Considering the US either commited itself, or sanctioned a third party to blow up the Nordstream pipeline, I don’t see why the contraction of the German economy should be of any concern to either Ukrainians or the Americans. I’d consider anybody attempting to argue the Russians blew up their own pipelines in the same ballpark as those arguing Kiev was a feint, too hopelessly partisan in their biases to take seriously.
The vast majority of military aid to Ukraine has come from the United States at negligible cost to itself, whilst the Europeans get to pay the economic cost.

Then there is more nonsense about how it might seem for other Europeans that the deindustrialization of Germany might be a “good thing, but it’s not”, which is not how most Europeans think. Which Europeans think this? Certainly not Northern Europeans and not Visegrad, who rely on trade with Germany.

No, but there has already been talk of company or skilled labour relocation to the US.

As one of them once told me ‘they talk to you about clothes and kiss you in the lips, what’s not to like?’

I could make a very long list. But this would take time AND probably nobody would be interested in reading it. The closet is not going away any time soon. All sodomites in the NFL, NBA, and MLB are securely barricaded in there for the foreseeable future.

Are there any uncloseted male soccer pros? There are closeted figure skaters for crying out loud.

By the way there is a missing “working-class” in my first comment up there that I failed to proof read and find.

That’s not the main reason, vast swath of northern China is about the same climate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Köppen_climate_classification

The main reason is the three Manchurian provinces, Heilongjiang, Jilin, Liaoning are all relatively underdeveloped. They can’t really absorb further territory,
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Chinese_administrative_divisions_by_GDP_per_capita

Some PRC nationalists keep a long list of Qing territories annexed by Russia/Soviets, but that’s neither here nor there, those “Chinese” territory belonged to the Manchu-Mongol elites not Han,
https://zh.wikipedia.org/wiki/沙俄和苏联割占中国领土列表

Awesome travelogue by the way.

You may be right. In my experience (two faculty, four post-docs, two graduate students, and one undergrad; hardly a representative sample), the majority of Han Chinese lives in warmer climates. They consider Inner Mongolia and Manchuria very cold.

Did this guy claim the Kiev offensive was a ‘feint’ as well? “Desert Storm 2.0!”

I remember McGregor saying back around April that the Kiev operation was to tie down Ukrainian troops near the capital so they wouldn’t be available in the Donbass and that it may also have a reconnaissance mission to see how far they could get. Before then, maybe two or three weeks into the war, he said the war is all but over as the Ukrainian forces had been mostly obliterated, or words to that effect. Those who support the Russian narrative quote him as often as pro-Ukrainians quote Ben Hodges and Peter Zeihan, and like them he’s way too confident in his assertions and predictions.

It was meant as a joke, to mock AnonfromTN’s Soviet boomer-like belief that it’s somehow a big success for Russia if resentful Africans make pro-Russian noises

In the last two months I’ve noticed lots of young pro-Russians (mostly Russian, Serbian, and few outspoken Slovaks) engaging in all-out boomer-bashing of the kind we normally see in the Anglo Dissident Rightosphere. Unlike pro-Russia Anglos who think the war’s going great (!) these Slavs are frustrated and bitter towards Putin and the people around him not just for the way the war has gone but for the Kremlin’s PR which they think is stuck in Soviet times. We seem to have a worldwide boomer problem.

Last post. AK blackpilling.

Did the Taiwanese president really tweet to mourn Biden’s dog?

The thing is, all military operations do contain feints of one sort or another. There’s always some bluff.

The issue on Kiev was that there was an attempted Coup de Main on the Kiev Regime, which failed followed by that weird column of 40 miles with trucks that simply vanished. That was certainly some kind of distraction.

What does it matter now that Russia mobilized?

I know people who live in the Far North, where winter temperatures plunge to -30oC to -40oC

The temperature outside matters very little. What matters is your body temperature and fighting hypothermia is not exactly a secret science. Hospitals around the world (including Russia) have well established protocols and none of them include making patients ingest pure ethanol. Those people you talk about trying to poison themselves after being in the cold must obviously be conscious so they should rather try the old method of a good warm bath instead.

On the other hand, if you really need some sort of high after exposure to the elements what I would recommend is a CBD bath bomb, available on the internet. It’s becoming increasingly popular among outdoor sports people. Makes you sweat, relax and calm any pains.

HIMARS is (at best) “Tomahawk Lite”. It is a highly technical long range missile system. In terms of operator complexity, the Russian S400 would be a good parallel. Many months are required. It is doubtful that the Syrians can run their S300 half regiment after 9-12 months of training.

Ok, thanks for those details, but I’m pretty sure the Ukrainians are operating this system themselves. They had already been in training for a while in the summer. No offense to Syrians, but Ukrainians are more technically savvy than Syrians. This isn’t going to be advertised much (for obvious reasons), but I did find a couple of videos where one can see Ukrainians operating HIMARS. They are out there by themselves.

Dude, you must surely hold the record on this site for totally missing the point, the amount of bizarre non sequiturs you post.

Anyone who has been out and about at any point over the last, oh, fifty years knows it’s as obvious as the sun that plenty of women besides spinsters and “dowagers” enjoy the company of fags. I don’t know what in the world would possess someone to pretend otherwise.

By the way there is a missing “working-class” in my first comment up there that I failed to proof read and find.

So why not go ahead and insert it now? (I’m supremely doubtful it’ll save your “argument,” but let’s see.)

Where have you noticed this, on twitter?

As for AK, he’s not dooming that badly yet. He’s still assigning a greater than 50% subjective probability to a positive outcome.

Anyone watching the World Cup? Useless Argies, going down to a pack of sandnigs (Yahya beaming). Disgraceful. O tempora o mores.

Cecil Rhodes didn’t think all white men were created equal. Yeah the same guy Rhodesia and Rhodes scholarships were named after. He firmly stated and believed Anglo Saxons were above all other white men. Northern Europeans looked down on Southern. Western Europeans looked down on Eastern. So when did all this white solidarity happen???

Don’t worry too much about kremlintoogeA123’s most recent military information. He’s been unable to see the forest for the trees for a long time now. He’s too busy building bridges between the MAGA movement and the kremlin to see things straight anymore!

Even more ironic is the items Poland is buying from South Korea is because those systems are better and cheaper than the comparable US equipment. People don’t even see the reality of the global shift. Yes South Korea is a U.S. ally – but it’s not the US. 30 years ago Poland wouldn’t have been buying from South Korea. Meanwhile their brothers across the border – North Koreans – just openly displayed missiles that can now hit every part of the U.S. Only a handful of nations had such missiles of such range. Its a changed world.

Years of alcohol abuse seem to have critically damaged the good Professor’s ameliorative powers:

Effects of alcohol and ethanol on the brain. 🙂

Well here is the problem with your thinking. With Russia and China actually helping those countries to develop they have less need to migrate. The most African students in the world study in China – not the west. But the overwhelming majority go back to their home nations. Again like the previous writer noted “different types of superpowers”.

Useless Argies, going down to a pack of sandnigs (Yahya beaming).

Yahya is not beaming. He could care less about his people kicking a ball around better than some other people. That stopped at about the time he started reading books at age 17-18.

Yahya would prefer if Arabians spent more time on worthier cultural activities such as music, cinema, and literature; such that they produce their own version of Jorge Luis Borges or Astor Piazolla. As it stands Arabians have no significant cultural achievements of their own, outside Islam, if that even counts as an achievement. All this oil money gone to waste; Allah should have given it to Maghrebis, Egyptians or Levantines.

So when did all this white solidarity happen???

Afaik it comes from the US mainly where there was a legal category of ‘white’ which came to include all Europeans (and some latinos, people from the Middle East etc.)

Progressives have done a lot to propagate it and spread it outside the US. Speaking of Rhodes, there might have been something similar in South Africa.

There seems to be quite a lot of criticism from human rights types though, this weaponizing of white man’s guilt narratives in service of a rather reactionary (and homophobic!) regime is too blatantly cynical.

I don’t doubt that it’s cynical (I hope it’s merely cynical, at least). But too blatantly cynical for what exactly? Certainly it’s not too blatantly cynical to be called out. Who, apart from the “far right”, will call it out? Which mainstream figure would have the balls to even correct the ludicrous notion that the white man has been injuring the rest of the world for three freakin thousand years? Totally overlooking the fact that he only gained dominion over it in the last couple of hundred, only made it contact with it 500 years ago, and had spent the previous thousand more or less getting his butt kicked by it. Normiefags would rather lose an arm than point any of this out, even though not a single bit of it can be termed ‘racist’ – not even by absurdly biased contemporary definitions of that term. (Then again, I guess it spoils the fun to focus too intently on the letter of the law, totally neglecting its spirit.)

As for having to apologize for the next three thousand, there’s even less chance that would be challenged. If anything, people are more likely to claim that three thousand isn’t enough. Whites need to apologize for the next ten thousand, hundred thousand, or as long the sun continues to shine. (Shades of christcuck “reasoning” here, in which it’s considered perfectly possible to do something that is so horrific during your three score and ten that God is perfectly justified in torturing you for the rest of eternity for it. Eternity – 500 trillion years and you’re just getting warmed up. Perfectly just.)

On the other hand, if you really need some sort of high after exposure to the elements what I would recommend is a CBD bath bomb, available on the internet. It’s becoming increasingly popular among outdoor sports people. Makes you sweat, relax and calm any pains.

Now this is why the comments section is the best part of the internet.

I have a friend with 3 cats and 2 dogs and their hack for chills is sleeping with the animals on the bed. Yikes. Dogs are great but they eat shit.

That stopped at about the time he started reading books at age 17-18.

You really weren’t much of a reader before that?

I used to be a huge soccer fan, but I find it intolerably boring nowadays. I’ll probably watch a game or two, or maybe just the last 20 minutes of a couple. The results don’t really interest me either, but I would definitely consider it a massive disappointment if an African team won it (well, that’s already happened, in a sense, but I mean a 100% Afro team from an African country).

Sport is more than mere frivolity though. Sport is a mark of civilization – of the kind of civilization I prefer, anyway. It teaches participants the value of a long-term outlook and helps ingrain habits of preparation, training, coping with and overcoming adversity, self-improvement, ultimately enabling them to enjoy the fruits of their efforts. I would rather have youth devoting its time to mastering the art of “kicking a ball around” than loitering on street corners, harassing civilians, consuming drugs and porn, worshiping trashy celebrities and wasting their lives in a myriad other short-term pursuits. They can’t all be scholars and artists, after all.

Ok, thanks for those details, but I’m pretty sure the Ukrainians are operating this system themselves. They had already been in training for a while in the summer

No doubt that Ukrainians are maintaining the vehicle, loading missile boxes, etc. These are not trivial jobs. If the solid fuel starts and the missile does not depart the launcher… Very bad.

The question I was getting at is, “Who is setting up the actual missile flight/target plan?”

This does not even have to be done on site. The mission planning is likely created elsewhere and then sent electronically to the launcher.

PEACE 😇

Even more ironic is the items Poland is buying from South Korea is because those systems are better and cheaper than the comparable US equipment. People don’t even see the reality of the global shift

Certainly the U.S. MIC produces overpriced goods based on what they can extract from the Pentagon. Cheaper SK gear is certainly reasonable. That being said they are also buying systems from the U.S. in addition to SK.

The suppliers intentionally omitted are France and Germany. The Poles believe that supply lines via SJW European countries are a liability. While they have similar concerns about Not-The-President Biden, the Poles are hoping for more MAGA victories.

PEACE 😇

From everything I have read the South Korean tanks are more capable than US M1A1 Abrams

Those are fiction. Jorjani purports to be representing fact.

He is not alone. If you like video check out Frank Tipler, professor of mathematics at Tulane U. from 58:00 -> 59:30 in Age of Deceit 2.

When this came out in 2012 or whenever (I don’t remember what year I first saw it) I thought it was way overkill but I watched again a few weeks ago and it has held up OK. Three hours is far too long but it’s filled with more repetition than it it’s filled with stuffing.

You really weren’t much of a reader before that?

No. Hardly anyone, not least my family and friends, around me read any books growing up (this remains true today, sadly). My intellectual exertion at a young age was limited to figuring out how to master video games. Also, by some happenstance, I happened to fall in with the “cool” crowd from an early age (who are still my close friends; one of the positive aspects of Arab culture is that people move around rarely so friends stay for life) instead of the nerdy bookish types. In retrospect the latter probably would have been a better fit for my introverted personality, but i’m happy with the course I took. Sometimes the nerds can be too nerdy even for me (I had zero interest in comic books or the like). Also, some of the “cool” kids can be thoughtful interesting people, even if they don’t read much or engage in intellectual activities.

Totally overlooking the fact that he only gained dominion over it in the last couple of hundred, only made it contact with it 500 years ago, and had spent the previous thousand more or less getting his butt kicked by it.

I think the FIFA president had the Roman and Greek conquests of MENA in mind when he made that statement. To me it’s ridiculous to retrospectively attach the label “European” to Romans and Greeks, and pretend their conquests were of the same lineage as France’s or Great Britain’s. But there’s certainly plenty of modern Westerners on both the left and right (including the ahistorical moron who brought this topic up) who like to pretend as if Greeks and Romans belonged to the same group as present-day Celts or Anglo-Saxons.

such that they produce their own version of Jorge Luis Borges or Astor Piazolla.

Are you actually a tango fan? I got into it for a while. Of the ‘big names’, I think preferred that Carlos Gardel dude’s songs to Piazzolla’s. Much of a muchness though. Nowadays, it’s like Arab music to me: I think it’s good, but I can only take so much before it starts sounding samey and wears me out. (I can take tango for a lot longer than Arab music though.) The dance itself is sexy as hell. It’s hard to believe they generate those moves spontaneously, I’m half convinced the stuff I see in videos is all choreographed.

Have you seen the 1998 movie Tango by Carlos Saura? I would be interested to hear your thoughts, if you have. I greatly enjoyed it, even though I have a hard time saying why exactly. It could just be that Argentina has always been my favorite Latin American country. Not for reasons that you might think (“it’s so European”), but because that’s where most of my extended family lives. I have never met them or even seen photographs, but relying on my mother’s memory (and her sister’s, before she died), I have been able to construct something of a family tree. There are a lot of them there and I have thought about contacting some “immigrant heritage” organization in Argentina to see if I can’t establish contact.

One thing I always envied (to a degree, still do) about my Arab friends was the strength of their extended family ties. That is far from unknown among balkanoids, of course, but in my own family we have tended to be distant from each other. I have first cousins who grew up in Detroit while I was growing up in Australia, and we’d heard about each other and spoken on the phone, but when I arrived in America, we had one meeting (one!) and that was that. Partly my fault for never following up, but when a guest arrives from overseas, if the host shows lackluster enthusiasm (almost frosty, actually), I think they deserve the lion’s share of the blame. My cousins in Australia have mostly married into Anglo (or Irish, whatever) families, which I experienced as a massive loss and, frankly, viewed them as ‘traitors’, in the sense that it totally killed the vibe of family get-togethers I was used to as a kid, to the point that today we take no interest in each other’s lives at all, and years go by between seeing each other (the “weddings and funerals” pattern). I have no qualms at all saying I wish they had married Arabs instead. (So, yeah, I may be a ‘racist,’ but not the kind or to the degree you think.)

Actually you have to have fairly high intelligence to be good at football. In a fluid game with constant changes – it requires not just intelligence – but also patience and concentration. Our athleticism does not win a football match. Beating Argentina is actually a huge accomplishment

Yeah the joke indeed is that the French team who won is indeed and African team. Much to the chagrin of older French. But hey if they don’t like it they can always donate the trophy and prize money to their former French colonies

I described what people used since times immemorial, ages before Internet. They don’t look for highs, they only want to get warm and experience no adverse consequences of exposure to the cold. If you don’t believe it, talk to someone who lived in the Far North (as a resident, not as a tourist).

Mostly Twitter, but also a couple of forums. Not this one though as it has thinned out since AK left. Maybe if Russia were performing better the Russians and few Serbs who used to comment here would come back to brag.

The supposedly temporary Covid rule at last year’s European championships allowing more substitutes has been made permanent. Allowing five subs represents the kind of Americanisation that Steve Sailer has long advocated. How can it be a team effort if half the players that finish didn’t start the match? It also fundamentally changes the game. The England v Iran match yesterday had 14 minutes of time added at the end of the first half. There were 8 minutes added to the end of another match. Trying to get a more exact ‘time clock’ may also indicate creeping Americanisation. Maybe those drink breaks they had during hot days will turn into time-outs in the future.

Flopping with conviction requires major street smarts.

People totally misunderestimate Kobe Bryant and James Harden.

This is not a bad bit of trolling from the Russians.

Each instance of a super-power is different, but the migration urge is always the same. The Third Worlders migrating to Europe-US, or possibly Russia (I doubt it), are not settlers. They are seeking the easiest way to live better – an instinct based on self-interest, laziness and a calculation that moving to where the stuff is beats trying to create it at home.

No amount of development will stop it and more integration only speeds it up. It mainly affects young males and usually the ones with some resources – the pathetic equivalent of middle and lower middle classes in the Third World. The only way to stop it is to simply stop it – no rules, no excuses, no back doors, no discussion. Or it will overwhelm what is left of the West. A simple choice that the people are unwilling to make, or often even see. There is really nothing scarier for what’s left of our culture than the ‘African students‘, whatever that term encompasses.

That was not the first “request” from Ukraine to join NATO. Ukies downed Romanian fighter jet. The pilot was killed. Then they downed Romanian helicopter that searched for that missing jet. The crew was killed. Then Ukrainian drone (ancient, USSR-made) flew over several NATO countries and fell out of the sky in Zagreb, Croatia. So, hitting a tractor and killing two Poles is only the cherry on the cake.

To me it’s ridiculous to retrospectively attach the label “European” to Romans and Greeks, and pretend their conquests were of the same lineage as France’s or Great Britain’s.

Is that because the conquests of France and Britain mostly happened under liberalism? The lineage of the political ideas that underpinned the conquests by Spain and Portugal does appear to go back to the Roman Empire, even if it is the later Christian version.

The French speak a romance language and were heavily settled by Latin colonists (and Greek colonists in parts of the south) and some of them still learn Latin and Greek. I guess this is one reason some of them continue to identify with Greece and Rome.

Greeks and Romans belonged to the same group as present-day Celts

Iirc the Celtic groups and the Italic group the original Romans were part of were branches of the same Indo-European group. Bashibuzuk who used to post would probably know more about this.

From everything I have read the South Korean tanks are more capable than US M1A1 Abrams

A better comparison would be U.S. M1A2 SEPv3 ($6.5MM) versus SK K2 ($8.5MM). Poland is buying both. The K2 needs 3 crew rather than 4. And, the K2 main gun package is a full auto loader which is faster.

Is it $2MM/each better? Only time will tell.

PEACE 😇

Shades of christcuck “reasoning” here, in which it’s considered perfectly possible to do something that is so horrific during your three score and ten that God is perfectly justified in torturing you for the rest of eternity for it. Eternity – 500 trillion years and you’re just getting warmed up. Perfectly just.

The original Christian version had a tendency to see the gap between God and humans as so vast that justice could not govern the relations between God and man. Statements about God’s justice relate to God keeping his word and doing things he previously promised. From this perspective humans would have no right to demand that God allows them to enter heaven or fails to exile them away from his presence if he wants.

Later people started to think that giving God this level of unaccountable sovereignty and absolute power was harmful to human dignity, so God had to be seen more as a kind of auxiliary to human moral reasoning. Guys like Feuerbach and Fichte decided God was a sort of projection of human needs and desires that were destined to be satisfied by human society.

Imo it is the secularised humanist tradition the grievances against whites are part of, not the older God as transcendent absolute monarch one.

I think it’s possible these sensationalist grievances will just start to die out in a couple of decades, as whites are weakened and reduced in numbers enough for them to cease generating as much usable political capital.

I very much wish that I could find a map of the countries that add improbable sound effects to their comedies and those that don’t. (Such as to accompany people making different motions)

My conceptions of such areas are only the vaguest. But I get the idea that both China and SK add improbable sound effects, at least in certain cases, which I find surprising.

…hitting a tractor and killing two Poles…

When you hit a tractor you often kill some Poles, that’s the way it works in Eastern Europe, an anadiplosis. Another repeating pattern is the uncontrolled fury of resentful Galicians as they realize that the gig is up, that they lost again. That one is still coming.

…grievances will just start to die out in a couple of decades, as whites are weakened and reduced in numbers enough

It never works that way. It will more likely be to the last scrap of whiteness that can be located, it must be exterminated because it reminds the others how inadequate they are. And most of the really nasty stuff will be done by the whites to themselves – that one I can’t explain, and no God could explain it.

As you weaken the whites they will simply be more vulnerable. I watched Georgina scream against Macron, a beautiful performance. But it struck me that it was basically an extreme defensiveness with a hint of hysteria, you don’t win that way. Offering explanations, thinking that a better argument actually changes something, the pleading female voice – that is a road to nowhere.

There is no justice in the universe or nature, buying into the silly concept of who is more just, more deserving, means that you have already lost. More power to Georgina Meloni, but she could be a latter-day distraction. There is a pathological self-destructive gene that the whites seem to carry and it has exploded in numbers as they ceased to propagate.

The question I was getting at is, “Who is setting up the actual missile flight/target plan?”

What proof do you have that it is not the Ukrainians themselves? Where is this assumption coming from?

I know the routine, God’s love is not the same thing as man’s love, and God’s justice is not the same thing as man’s justice – so much so that it’s hard to see how they amount to ‘love’ or ‘justice’ at all. When you get past all the smoke and mirrors, some of version of this is what it always comes down to. (Of course, if that is true, it is true, and besides, what does a creator really owe his creation anyway? If it’s all true, I’m shit out of luck, plain and simple.)

But anyway, I’m really not here to dissuade anyone from being Christian. Hard it as it may be to believe, I would be thrilled if more people became Christian (especially more Europeans), even if I personally cannot take Christian theology seriously. My hard atheist days are far behind me, and Christianity is my spiritual ‘mother tongue,’ and I cannot depart too far from it for too long, so every now and then I am reminded of some aspect of Christianity that rubs me the wrong way and I blurt out something scornful.

It will more likely be to the last scrap of whiteness that can be located, it must be exterminated because it reminds the others how inadequate they are.

Call it “The End of History and the Last White Man” thesis.

uncontrolled fury of resentful Galicians as they realize that the gig is up, that they lost again.

The imperial puppets did not say anything explicitly, but they act according to the reality, not according to politically motivated BS. Poland is placing its anti-missile defenses at the Ukrainian border, while Lithuania decided against handing its anti-missile defense system to Ukies, but to strengthen its anti-missile defenses ASAP instead.

It’s like with MH17 in 2014: no airline said anything politically incorrect, but they all stopped flying over Ukraine and continued flying over Russia. Sapienty sat.

Are you actually a tango fan?

Not really tbh. I only mentioned Piazolla because he’s the first thing that came to mind. In Latin America I only listen to classical music, which is mostly produced by Brazil. Even then I much prefer European classical music, which is obviously deeper and more sophisticated. Still, this piece by an obscure mestiza Brazilian composer is sublime, I find myself listening to it often:

Have you seen the 1998 movie Tango by Carlos Saura?

No. I will watch it though and possibly write an opinion in my next round of film reviews if it is interesting.

Have you watched the 2001 Bosnian comedy No Man’s Land? I watched it twice; loved it the first time, but downgraded to an 8/10 the second time due to poor acting and some corny dialogue. But if you haven’t seen it yet I’d recommend it. It’s fairly even-handed so you need not worry about Serb-bashing or petty nationalism, movie seems to satirize all sides including the UN.

It could just be that Argentina has always been my favorite Latin American country

Brazil would be mine, I like how chaotic and crazy the country is. Also the relatively large number of Arabs is a plus too :). Though I will always respect Argentina for producing such an interesting writer as Borges (whose non-fiction I much prefer to his fiction; much like Orwell). Latin America in general is an interesting region, though tbh almost every major geographic sphere interests me, except perhaps sub-Saharan Africa due to a lack of high culture, and to a lesser extent Southeast Asia.

Interesting that you have family in Argentina. Wasn’t aware of Balkan migration to that country, or in Latin America more generally. I think only Ukrainians in Brazil are a prominent Slavic group.

Nowadays, it’s like Arab music to me: I think it’s good, but I can only take so much before it starts sounding samey and wears me out.

I can see where you’re coming from, I like and appreciate the artistic skill of some Japanese Koto or Indian Raja practitioners; but I can only listen to so much for a period of time. I’d say though my ability to listen to exotic music has improved considerably over time. Previously I couldn’t stand to venture out of my comfort zone; that is Arabic and Western music (the former I felt comfortable with because it’s my native tradition, the other because of its ubiquity and consequent familiarity). The key turning point was when I realized that skill in music is universal, and not every piece of music required a piano or violin to be sophisticated. Even if I still struggle to listen to certain musical categories, I appreciate the artistic value of any classical tradition, and rejoice in any composition that doesn’t fall under the mechanical, artificial, synthesizer-based “music” category which seems to have taken over every corner of the globe.

With regards to Arabic music, I bet you’ve only listened to mainstream Arabic singers and musicians, though i’m curios to know which artists you were referring to. There’s a whole world of obscure Arabic singers, orchestras, ensembles and composers who are ten times more skilled than known quantities like Abdel-Halim Hafez, Fairouz, and god forbid Nancy Ajram etc. but you have to search for them hard. One of the key strengths of the Western music ecosystem is that there’s a certain level of organization which allows classical composers to remain (semi)prominent long after they die. In the Arab world, no such system exists so talented composers get lost in a deep void, though some pieces in the repertoire do live on.

Anyway, recommending music is a fool’s errand since musical tastes differ so much. But I can’t help but make just a few (if you are interested in a more comprehensive list, see my reply to Dmitry here: https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-194/#comment-5497541)

It was Iran that caused Israel to talk about supplying weapons to Ukraine. In its article, Military Monitoring writes about a meeting held between the Israeli ambassador in Moscow – Mr. Alexander Ben Zvi, and the deputy head of the Russian diplomatic service, Mr. Mikhail Bogdanov.

Israel has issued an ultimatum to Russia: if Moscow does not stop buying Iranian weapons, be it drones or missiles, Jerusalem will seriously consider supplying Kyiv with high-precision ballistic missiles. The Israeli media also wrote about this ultimatum, and in an extended material, the topic was touched on by the Israeli TV channel Kan-11.

A source from the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs also spoke about the same. According to him, says Military Monitoring, the head of Israel’s Security Council, Mr. Eyal Hulata, issued the same warning to his Russian counterparts.

https://bulgarianmilitary.com/2022/11/22/israel-to-russia-well-supply-ballistic-missiles-to-ukraine-if/

Israel has issued an ultimatum to Russia: if Moscow does not stop buying Iranian weapons, be it drones or missiles, Jerusalem will seriously consider supplying Kyiv with high-precision ballistic missiles.

That would be useful for Russia and bad for Israel. So far, the RF studiously avoided hitting Israeli targets in Syrian war. This would mean the end of this inconvenient restraint. Emboldened Syria might even fulfill the UN resolution and take back the Golan Heights.

The thing about fighting Israel is those mother fu**ers will use their nukes with minimal provocation.

It would lead to combining of the different fronts and a more real world war. Countries are being pressured to choose sides. That will make a compromised half-way solution much harder.

If we end up with a war to the bloody end, Ukraine will simply be destroyed. It will loose too much of its population and could become uninhabitable. Eastern Europe will return to its historical place as a fought-over borderlands with wealth escaping and nobody investing. Western Europe will tremble in its boots, permanently scared of what can come from the east and of its across-the-Atlantic masters. Migrants will pour in because the southern regions will economically collapse.

There was a simple compromise: no Nato and normal rights for Russians in Ukraine. Can someone explain why was that such a hard thing to agree for Kiev-Washington? And they talk about Russia’s guilt, confusing causes and consequences, the simpletons here eat it up. Because “war” is such a strong, scary word.

The thing about fighting Israel is those mother fu**ers will use their nukes with minimal provocation.

You grossly underestimate their cowardice. They talk tough but run for cover with their tail between their legs even when no one attacks them. The times of Israeli military superiority are over, and deep down they know that.

There was a simple compromise: no Nato and normal rights for Russians in Ukraine.

That was possible early this year. This would have prevented the war. But once started, the war brings its own dynamic. I don’t think it can be ended now without kicking the puppets out of Kiev and kicking the empire and its sidekicks out of Ukraine (this is essentially the same thing). I strongly suspect that an attempt to end this war on conditions that were acceptable before it started would cost Putin and his coterie power. He is smart enough to understand that. Official statements by the Kremlin that the war is not about regime change are pure subterfuge: they are confident that as the empire does not give a hoot about how many Ukrainians die, it won’t allow its puppets seek compromise.

The question I was getting at is, “Who is setting up the actual missile flight/target plan?”

What proof do you have that it is not the Ukrainians themselves? Where is this assumption coming from?

It is quite believable that Ukraine is running 100% independent units with 6 pack MLRS (~35km range). That is not dissimilar to conventional artillery in plan and use.

The more exotic and expensive ammunition packages (ATACMS or PrSM) are much more complex. The longer range attacks seem to have very good intelligence on where things are, both targets and missile defense systems, well behind enemy limes.

• Do you have any proof that Ukraine has the ability to perform such reconnaissance?
• Can you think of several intelligence agency’s associated Europe that do?
• How about the European Empire’s coup regime across the Atlantic?

Chances of proving this either way are quite slim. The European Empire, for obvious reasons of deniability, is caught between maximum aggression and minimum disclosure. However, it would be unsurprising to learn that the Paris-Berlin axis is running a good portion of Zelensky’s long range strike packages.

Do you have any evidence that I am wrong?

PEACE 😇

Emboldened Syria might even fulfill the UN resolution and take back the Golan Heights.

Given your record in prophesying military outcomes, this comment has to be the kiss of death for Arab hopes in the region.

Given your record in prophesying military outcomes

Let me remind you that military outcomes are only clear after the wars stop. Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.

Israel shot down a Russian surveillance plane killing 15 servicemen over Syria whilst attacking Russia’s ally. Russia did nothing.

In that case, why not take your own advice?

the Israeli ambassador in Moscow – Mr. Alexander Ben Zvi

The ambassador is regurgitating last second, non-policy, pronunciations promulgated by lame duck Lapid. He may be a career type that has no choice but to do so.

head of Israel’s Security Council, Mr. Eyal Hulata

Do you mean FORMER head? He has already jumped ship: (1)

Israeli National Security Adviser Eyal Hulata has resigned from his post, according to a report Friday by Israel’s KAN 11 News public broadcaster.

Hulata informed caretaker Prime Minister Yair Lapid that his resignation will take effect upon the formation of the new government to be headed by Likud chair Benjamin Netanyahu.

There is no chance of any major change in Israel-Ukraine policy before Netanyahu’s administration gets fully up to speed.

Bottom line is that Netanyahu values good relations with Putin. The errors of the Bennett & Lapid past are going to be jettisoned. Hopefully within weeks, though Israel has its own deep state issues.

• Netanyahu’s defense against sociopath Khamenei’s aggression is greatly aided by keeping Russia neutral/friendly.
• Putin & Assad have a huge problem with Erdogan: (1)

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is again threatening to imminently launch a major ground operation in northern Syria to root out Kurdish “terrorist” groups, following the November 13 bombing in central Istanbul which killed six people. The Turkish government quickly blamed the outlawed PKK and affiliate groups operating across the border in Syria.

The weekend saw Turkish warplanes conduct dozens of ‘retaliatory’ strikes across Kurdish regions of northern Syria and Iraq. Ankara declared that 89 targets with alleged links to the PKK and Syrian YPG were destroyed.
…
Russia has meanwhile warned against a new Turkish incursion into Syria. “We understand and respect Turkey’s concerns about ensuring its own security. We believe this is Turkey’s legitimate right,” a fresh statement from Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said. “At the same time, we call on all parties to refrain from steps that could lead to the destabilization of the overall situation,” he added.

Both Putin and Netanyahu have realpolitik motivations to improve relations.

The idea that Netanyahu will betray Israel’s national interests to support the highly offensive Zelensky is ludicrous.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.jewishpress.com/news/israel/government-israel/eyal-hulata-resigns-as-national-security-council-adviser/2022/11/05/

(2) https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/erdogan-threatens-large-syria-ground-operation-soon-possible

with minimal provocation

If Russia helps Iran with their nuclear program, then Israel will consider this a major provocation.

Actually you have to have fairly high intelligence to be good at football.

If that were true, then East Asians would dominate the World Cup (which they don’t, quite the opposite), and blacks would not be over represented in European teams.

Football players don’t seem that bright to me. Being a manager seems to be g-loaded though.

Israel shot down a Russian surveillance plane killing 15 servicemen over Syria whilst attacking Russia’s ally. Russia did nothing.

Syria shot down a plane killing 15 Russians. The PR operation failed to reassign blame. Israel did nothing. Add it to the long list of things that have gone wrong with anti-air systems.

What goes up, must come down!

If you are within 200 air miles of an anti-air launcher there is an (admittedly small) chance your ticket could be punched on any day. Mistakes and bad luck are part of combat operations. Sometimes civilians pay the price with absolutely no warning.

PEACE 😇

It’s fairly even-handed so you need not worry about Serb-bashing or petty nationalism

I’ll reply to the rest of your post later, but just quickly on this, lol, I am the last person who’d ever get offended by that. In the war years, there was this Croatian song “Oj Srbine, jebem ti tri prsta”, best rendered in English as “Oi Serbo, fuck you and your three fingers” (3 fingers referring to the three fingers orthodox worshipers use to cross themselves, but also sometimes flashed as an orthodox “gang sign” lol, well, more like WWII’s “v for victory” salute, made famous by Churchill). The lyrics are intended to taunt and maximally insult, but I can listen to something like that and laugh no problem. (This song is far from the only one and far from the worst; I remember it because I thought it was actually quite well done, the way it mimics a Serbian peasant musical style from the region. War taunt music was something of an entire genre.) I am mentioning this so you better understand where I’m coming from when I loose insults – I forget that not everybody takes that sort of thing as lightly as I do.

If Russia helps Iran with their nuclear program, then Israel will consider this a major provocation.

In fact, Iran is unlikely to need any help with that. They are progressing despite numerous acts of sabotage by the usual suspects.

Now that only jungle rules remain in international relations Iran will likely heed the example of NK: having nukes is the only guarantee that some bandits do not attack you (to promote democracy, no doubt).

having nukes is the only guarantee that some bandits do not attack you

Ukraine wholeheartedly agrees with this take;)

Do you have any evidence that I am wrong?

I’m just trying to figure it out. This info will not be publicly available (in order to protect the troops). It is no secret that some reconnaissance assistance is provided. But the targeting is managed from the UA Headquarters with Ukrainians in charge.

sleeping with the animals on the bed

I have a decent number of animals around but my rule is no way in hell are dogs in my bedroom, especially not in my bed. Gross and it ruins the ambiance.
Cats are sometimes unavoidable on the bed it seems, as they creep in like a water leak, and as long as they stay by the foot of the bed we can keep a truce.
However, and this only generally happens once, a cat will think it’s a good idea to sleep near or on my head and purr at 1AM. I’m a heavy sleeper and I get pretty grumpy if I’m awakened, so the cat ends up taking an unceremonious flight across the room. Like I said, it’s generally not repeated, which is best for all parties involved.

Sport is more than mere frivolity though.

I’d say that there is a big difference between playing sports and watching sports. The latter has little redeeming value while the former has a number of good attributes.

I’d say that there is a big difference between playing sports and watching sports.

Pretty much the same difference as between having sex and watching porn.

no secret that some reconnaissance assistance is provided. But the targeting is managed from the UA Headquarters with Ukrainians in charge.

Is the Paris based organization providing “some reconnaissance assistance” giving over everything? Or, could they be selectively offering up details that lead to their desired outcome?

It is a life-or-death version of Magician’s Choice. The party that controls the information strongly influences the mission selection.

PEACE 😇

Look, they’re in their own country which they know the best. The targets that were hit made military sense.

The targets that were hit made military sense.

Do you mean such targets as Polish tractor, Romanian jet and helo, and some place in Zagreb?

Afaik it comes from the US mainly where there was a legal category of ‘white’ which came to include all Europeans (and some latinos, people from the Middle East etc.)

Don’t know if it is really correct, but I heard that the term “white” was basically a technology invented in order to organize and take on the Injun. If so, I think it could probably be considered to be dangerously obsolete.

Look, they’re in their own country which they know the best. The targets that were hit made military sense.

I kindly refer the gentleman to the explanation I provided some moments ago.

It is quite believable that Ukraine is running 100% independent units with 6 pack MLRS (~35km range). That is not dissimilar to conventional artillery in plan and use.

They probably are independently targeting strikes in “their own country which they know” at short range over their offensive lines. I have already made this point. Why do you need me to make it again?
___

Now that we have disposed of that once and for all, let us return to the actual issue at hand.

The more exotic and expensive ammunition packages (ATACMS or PrSM) are much more complex. The longer range attacks seem to have very good intelligence on where things are, both targets and missile defense systems, well behind enemy lines.

The European Empire is required as a participant in making long range strikes successful. For example, those into Russia itself. I am not sure why why you are dodging this relatively straight forward relationship between EU Intelligence Agencies and the Kiev regime.

Is it hard to believe that French intelligence is shaping Ukrainian strikes by selectively sharing details that support their desired outcome?

If you assert this relationship does not & cannot exist, the burden of proof is yours.

PEACE 😇

Football players don’t seem that bright to me.

I would even argue that a negative correlation exists between excellence at soccer and general IQ. But soccer does require good visual and spatial-temporal skills, which may explain showmethereal’s observation.

I’ve only watched the US match so far and they’re definitely getting better, btw, in spite of the disappointing score. With all the money and potential talent available, the US should eventually become one of the big teams.

The first major poll results since Trump announced his candidacy are in: (1)

Former President Donald J. Trump holds a towering 30-point lead over the rest of the potential 2024 Republican primary field, according to a poll.

In an Emerson College Polling survey released Tuesday, 55.1 percent of registered voters said they would vote for Trump in the 2024 GOP primary,

NATIONAL POLL [MORE]

2024 GOP Primary

@realDonaldTrump 55%
@RonDeSantisFL 25%
@Mike_Pence 8%
@Liz_Cheney 4%
@tedcruz 3%
@NikkiHaley 3%

There is also an age divide in the Republican primary: younger voters under 50 break for Trump over DeSantis 67% to 14%, voters between 50 and 64 break for Trump 54% to 32%, while Republicans over 65 are more split: 39% support Trump and 32% DeSantis.

This is a devastating gut punch to the #NeverTrump establishment followers of Mitch McConnell. Their attempts to blow up the MAGA movement from within have just taken a catastrophic blow.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/11/22/poll-donald-trump-holds-30-point-lead-over-2024-gop-primary-field/

From this poll alone it seems there are at least 8% of Republicans (Cheney voters and at least half of Pence) who will not go to vote for Trump in 2024 or will vote for Biden, but ofc it will be easier to scream about election fraud when missing those votes while losing again, lol

You guys didn’t have any fun watching Conner McGregor’s leg go snap?

My favorite spectator sports moment of the last ten years I didn’t even see. It was at the very end of the Chiefs-49er’s Super Bowl and the 49er’s had the ball 1st and ten on their own 20, behind by 4, 2 minutes left.

I was listening on 49er’s radio and Grep Popa had the greatest jinx commentary ever.

“This is the exact situation Joe Montana was in the night he played himself into the Hall of Fame.”

By chain of accidents Garopalo is still the 49er’s quarterback and he is having a great season. I still wonder if he ever heard about the Popa commenary.

From the same poll:

When asked who they would vote for in a possible general election rematch between Trump and Biden, 40.9 percent said they would back Trump, while 45.1 percent said they would vote for the Democrat.

After 3 consecutive Republican election losses with Trump as a leader, there is little doubt he would lose even against Kamala. If these numbers hold, we are doomed. But fortunately the result of this small poll of only ~600 respondents contradicts the previous ones where DeSantis was well ahead of him among Republicans.

From the same poll:

Similarly, Biden led DeSantis by a margin of 42.5 percent to 38.8 percent, with 11.2 percent stating they would vote for someone else

Your attempt to undermine workers with a DeSantis “RINO” betrayal is also in OMGFAIL territory in terms of a establishment anti-MAGA win.

As you want Not-The-President Biden to have a second term, this must make you very happy.

PEACE 😇

Japan and SK are ok, about the same level as Middle Eastern teams. The fact that PRC is so bad points to a certain defect. Both the other two superpowers, US and Russia, don’t really care about soccer, but put together respectable teams. And unlike India, China produces world class weightlifters and sprinters.

Soccer requires creativity and flair which EAs lack. I think that’s the main reason.

Ever spend 10 minutes speaking to Bethlehem Christian over the abuses they suffer at Muslim hands? (1)

The Palestinian Authority has been forced to call off a press conference that was supposed to take place in Ramallah later this week regarding the upcoming Christmas festivities after protests by the Bethlehem Municipality and Christian leaders.

Several Christian residents of Bethlehem accused the PA of attempting to “hijack” their holidays and marginalize the city’s role in organizing and overseeing the celebrations. Announcements about Christmas festivities have always been made from Bethlehem, they said.

The dispute between Bethlehem and Ramallah over Christian holidays is unprecedented.
…
Several Christians took to social media to express outrage over the PA’s attempt to shift attention from Bethlehem to Ramallah ahead of Christmas.

The need to return Bethlehem to exclusive Christian control is self evidently necessary. End the Muslim occupation! Now!

🎄 MERRY CHRISTMAS 🎄
___________________________

(1) https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-723051

What do you mean Russians don’t care about football (soccer)???? Who told you that??? They love the sport. Did you not see the passion involved when Russia hosted the World Cup? It was not just a commercial endeavor like when the US hosted. Russians were really really passionate. And plenty of Russian players have played in European leagues.

Just quickly surveying, I noticed there’s a Basque football team that draws from both France and Spain, which could be considered quite provocative in itself, though of course I notice that isn’t in FIFA. Actually, aside from the UK, are there any other sub-national teams competing in the WC? It feels funny that Scotland gets it’s own representation, whilst enormous and far more distinct nations like Telugu or Tamils don’t get teams.. though I’d guess Indians are terrible at soccer anyway (rather play cricket too).
I see at the ‘club’ there’s ‘Bilboko Athletic Kluba’ as well, though I guess its nothing special as I’ve never heard of it compared to famous Madrid and Barcelona teams which even I’ve heard of before.

You might have seen this, I saw recently on El País that some curious historical fragment has recently been unearthed, now the earliest known written record of a Vasconic language.

https://elpais.com/cultura/2022-11-14/un-equipo-de-investigadores-afirma-haber-descubierto-en-navarra-la-primera-inscripcion-en-vasco-de-hace-2100-anos.html

So all the millions and millions and millions of Europeans that fled Europe for other continents – why did they stop? They stopped because the reasons they fled Europe for 3 centuries were remedied for the most part. It’s laughable people forget Europeans had a mass migration out for centuries.

In any event it is a fact across the board that the more a country prospers – migration rates slow.

East Asians lack the overall athleticism. So that’s not a good analysis. The best black players tend to be the smarter ones also. And teams require all sorts. You need a combination of things.

I remember going through a phase of listening to Serbian ‘turbofolk, some extremely ‘powerful’ lyrics and musicvideos, though my impression was that only Roki Vulavic had genuine talent as singer.
Probably you’ve heard of these already, but others might be interested in them as a curio.
I wonder what the Croatian side of that genre looks like.

East Asians lack the overall athleticism.

Speak for yourself, fucking loser.

Don’t drag down other East Asians with you, China hasn’t beaten Japan and SK in twenty years–

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China-Japan_football_rivalry
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/China-South_Korea_football_rivalry

Organic sports organisation is anathema to the CCP, that’s the reason why,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_football_league_system
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dai_Nippon_Butoku_Kai

Reminds me, I might post some Turkish music I like from the classic ‘Anatolian Rock’ era, mostly from the 70s-80s. Perhaps Yahya could comment if any of this stuff is popular in the Arab world, definitely Turkish music remains very popular in Iran and in the Caucasus. Though my impression is that it isn’t, I think something non-MENA people don’t appreciate is how deep the cultural divide is between the Semitic world and the Turko-Iranian one in the region, its at least on the level of that between Northern and Southern Europe. I say ‘Semitic’ because I think its quite underestimated how influenced Israeli popular culture is by the Arab world.. although Turkish and Iranian influence there is virtually nil.

Would we be better off if there was some sort of Logan’s Run for politicians, when they reached the age of 60?

You might have seen this, I saw recently on El País that some curious historical fragment has recently been unearthed, now the earliest known written record of a Vasconic language.

Thanks. I didn’t know about that finding. That should put to rest the theories about the Basque language coming from Aquitaine after the Roman conquest and replacing Celtic languages in the current Basque Country. That never made sense to me, although there do seem to be some Celtic toponyms interspersed here and there in a sea of Basque ancient toponyms. But considering that those theories are usually espoused by people with clear Spanish nationalist tendencies, they’ll more likely try to question this finding or its significance. If the transliteration I see in the article is correct those words certainly look Vasconic.

I’ll point out that Trump is the only person who has even declared in the race, so it’s hardly surprising that he has a commanding lead at this point. Polling like this is extremely meaningless at this point in the game. Once other candidates have declared and had a chance to get their message out in front of the electorate it will possible to draw some conclusions.

Yes, but I would be generous and raise the age to 70. While they are at it American political races should be settled via cage match. I feel it would improve the dignity of the political system over what we have today. Plus it would save a lot of time and provide greater entertainment value to boot!

I’ll answer the comments in the previous thread.

comment https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-201/#comment-5668686

Criterion Dmitry has not reacted mostly arthous

I became a movie fan after 2020, because of the coronavirus pandemic and lockdowns. Before 2020, I didn’t see so many classic movies.

Film is the main art of the 20th century. For 20th century film, is the equivalent of painting, music, opera and theater in the previous centuries. I don’t know why I was added in connection to Criterion films. But if you look at their films they sell in the USA, they are selling a lot of the best films of the 20th century.. They have a quite significant collection there.

https://www.criterion.com/shop/browse/list

It doesn’t imply they don’t also sell many bad films. But the pluses is they had a wide group of films. Another plus is they have contributed to some restoration of films projections. They also begin to release the native 4k discs this month.

In terms of the negatives, I know people complained about some of their encodings. Also some of their discs can be selling for $30.

$30 is enough for two people, to go to the cinema and also perhaps add a glass of wine. But then when you go to the cinema in a randomized weekend, what kind of films can you see.

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-201/#comment-5668533

One of the worst movies I ever saw, at least in part was Heathers.

I didn’t know this film, but it looks like the same epoch as the worst film I saw in 2020, was recommended by you to me (as well as IMDB). It was “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off”.

With the coronavirus lockdown in 2020, I was suddenly becoming a movie fan, seeing two films in the evening. A rule I remember from this experience of seeing a lot of films, in a short time, are that 1980s films are often not a good idea. You won’t necessarily have a good mood after.

Seeing a lot of films in a rapid way, I would say generally 1980s and 1990s films were less likely to be something with an interesting point of view or a humanist or moral teaching.

1980s films often become like superficial advertising, or kind of sudden music videos. You can enjoy a kind of injection of the optimism and euphoria of the 1980s culture from this. But surely “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off” could be a textbook of nihilist kitsch, even more than compared to Soviet equivalent.

https://www.unz.com/akarlin/open-thread-201/#comment-5668807

Letterbox feels like a site for the Tiktok generation

Letterboxd is perhaps not bad because of the quantity of people writing reviews is so high. There is some wisdom of crowds.

A problem is if many people are seeing the films on their phone or notebook, from streaming sites. But film is mostly visual (where narrative or “characterization” is often not so much more realistic than in your ordinary dream). So, if someone sees a film on their phone or notebook, it can be a much more narrow criteria for judging than in a cinema or OLED, where you are sometimes hypnotized by also visual things.