I’m not religious, but I just said a prayer in hope the killing will stop.

Meanwhile, there’s still a near-total MSM blackout of Seymour Hersh’s remarkable Nord Stream pipeline attacks

Even more MSM deceptive silencing. There is a total blackout of the MOST plausible scenario… An industrial accident.

There are three critical, objective facts that must be explained in any credible offering:

    -1- Why were only 3 of 4 pipes hit?
    -2- Why did the events extend over 17 hours?
    -3- Why were the ruptures 50 miles apart?

Impossible maintenance plus operator error remains the overwhelmingly obvious explanation. This is well explained here: (1) (2). Read the full articles.

The idea of an attack on the NS pipes is lobotomite level stupidity. Can anyone show objective, physical evidence recovered from the sea floor. Nope. Case Closed.

• Do violent NeoConDemocrat Warmongers, like Mr. Unz (?), want war? Therefore, they ruthlessly promote war scenarios, while suppressing accurate coverage of plausible accidents.

• Those of us who support the MAGA peace party refuse to be seduced by Mr. Unz calls to conflict.

Peace or Unz? I choose Peace!

If you choose Unz war. That is about you.

PEACE 😇
___________

(1) https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/09/nordstream.html

(2) https://thelawdogfiles.com/2022/10/nordstream-ii-electric-instapundit.html

Can you list modern pipelines where similar accidents have occurred?

Pipelines are highly vulnerable to sabotage. They are part of the “high trust” world.

…part of the “high trust” world

The high trust world seems to be gone. It will be very volatile with the current technology and geographic reach once that reality sinks in…

The crazy thing is that it was the ones who are most benefitting from the high-trust world who decided to destroy it…very churlish and infantile, a kid breaking toys so the others can’t play with them, or a pure schadenfreude – a resentment of others, the fear that they are catching up…they just couldn’t allow it even if it also destroys them.

Progress on natural gas pipelines between Russia and China. https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/russia-to-invest-almost-100bn-in-gas-pipelines-to-china/

Power of Siberia 2 will be built through Mongolia.

He added that Russian supplies to China through the 3,968km Power of Siberia 1 had increased 48% in 2022, reaching a record of 15.4 billion cubic metres (bcm) over the year.

Russian state energy company Gazprom hopes to start delivering up to 50 bcm of gas using the 2,600km Siberia 2 line by 2030.

A Far Eastern extension of Power of Siberia 1 will also be constructed to the Sakhalin islands. Sometimes referred to as Power of Siberia 3.

Meanwhile China is signing 30 years duration giant LNG contracts with Qatar, while RF is not getting any commitments of such type in advance.

IIRC, Gazprom pipeline exports into Europe were nearly 170 bcm before Covid, so “record” of 15 bcm and plans of 50 bcm in 2030 into China are truly breathtakingly impressive in comparison;)

However, thanx to china-russia-all-the-way for the link, lots of interesting info there, e.g. it looks like mass house 3D printing is becoming practical reality atm, masonry and masons might become endangered species in the future:

A joint venture of cement giant Holcim and British International Investment, called 14Trees, has printed 10 houses for sale in Kenya.

It’s the biggest complete printed development in the world, said Denmark-headquartered printer maker Cobod, which made the printer used by 14Trees.

14Trees printed the houses at an average rate of one a week in 10 weeks between October 2022 and January 2023. In the fastest instance, it printed a house in 18 hours.

Six of the houses are 76 sq m in area, with three bedrooms. Four have two bedrooms and 56 sq m of space.

Prices for the smaller homes start at $28,680. The bigger ones start at just over $39,000, according to the 14Trees website.

https://www.globalconstructionreview.com/developer-sets-record-with-10-houses-printed-in-kenya/

Can you list modern pipelines where similar accidents have occurred?

I will look around for a list, but I am not sure anyone has gone to the effort to compile one in that exact format. However, 30 seconds with a search engine found this article. Sorry, it is a Guardian piece: (1)

Survivors of the BP rig explosion told interviewers that right before the April 20 blast, workers had decreased the pressure in the drill column and applied heat to set the cement seal around the wellhead. Then a quickly expanding bubble of methane gas shot up the drill column before exploding on the platform on the ocean’s surface.

Even a solid steel pipe has little chance against a 164-fold expansion of volume — something that would render a man six feet six inches tall suddenly the height of the Eiffel Tower.

Number One Deepwater Drilling Issue

SolveClimate contacted scientists at the Colorado School of Mines, Center for Hydrate Research, who focus on the fundamental science and engineering of methane hydrates to gain further insight. They did not want to speculate on the role that methane hydrates could have played in the BP disaster, but they were willing to provide a basic understanding of the nature and behavior of these familiar but little understood substances.

“Gas hydrates are the number one flow assurance issue in deepwater drilling,” Carolyn Koh, an associate professor and co-director of the Hydrate Center, told us in an exclusive interview.

Did Deepwater methane hydrates cause the BP Gulf explosion?
Strange and dangerous hydrocarbon offers no room for human error

The fact that hydrates are a specific area of study at one of the best engineering schools in the country is a strong indicator that this is a serious issue. Hydrate plug mistakes are at best costly and at worst lethal.

Pipelines are highly vulnerable to sabotage. They are part of the “high trust” world.

Can you list modern pipelines where similar sabotage/attacks have occurred?

Which, in your estimation, causes more hydrocarbon industry incidents — Sabotage? Industrial accidents?

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2010/may/20/deepwater-methane-hydrates-bp-gulf

The crazy thing is that it was the ones who are most benefitting from the high-trust world who decided to destroy it…

I concur.

European Elites, such as the German Green Party, both benefit from technology and simultaneously try to destroy it.

The largest problems in Europe, including energy & migration, are 100% caused by European leadership.

PEACE 😇

I recently discovered the wonderful literary critic Ed Simon through DBHs blog, and was reading through some of his works.

He’s developed this wonderful concept that writing is a kind of literally magic, literally a spell and incantation 🙂

My first axiom is that all poetry is incantation; my second axiom is that all prose is conjuration….the purpose of verse…..is to affect some sort of alteration in our reality, even if only in the mind of the reader, in a manner that’s equivalent to how a magical spell is intended to have a spiritual consequence….

I like it much! 🙂

It’s funny, over on Sailers blog, it’s a badge of honor to declare, following Sailer himself, that one no longer reads fiction but only books with some sort of “utility”, thus cementing ones reputation as a properly robotic modern concerned only with efficiency and power. This is, in that world, “masculine”, tough, adult. Fiction is for women and the follies of youth, over there.

And yet all this indicates, is that their minds have become so entirely captive to a particular magic spell, the magic incantation cast by the written works that developed the modern world view, that they can no longer even contemplate breaking it’s hold 🙂

I do feel, strangely, when I speak to a committed modernist, that they are ensorcelled – they are under some magic spell. Logic doesn’t work, rationality doesn’t work, in breaking it’s hold – perhaps only a stronger incantation, a stronger white magic, would work – if it could break through that hardened defensive ring that is part of the original spell.

And yet that strong white magic is already there – in all the great works literature of the world that constitutes the counter-narrative, which is practically the great literary tradition of every country.

He has a chapter “Prayer is Poetry” that sounds fascinating and want to read – I never thought of it that way before, but it’s obvious. And a monk is lived poetry.

Here is the delightful Ed Simon again –

Literature—it must be affirmed, admitted, understood, experienced—is fundamentally spooky….. But literature is spooky, for the mere uttering of words affects the world. And not just that, but literature with all of its mimesis and exposition is able to create entirely new worlds. Literature preserves characters and voices that seem as real to us as our own families, there are histories and narratives that seem as tangible as our own lives, there are lines of poetry that read as if they were spells. Undeniably, uncannily, unnervingly, deeply, wierd.

Beckow’s leader?

It’s funny, over on Sailers blog, it’s a badge of honor to declare, following Sailer himself, that one no longer reads fiction but only books with some sort of “utility”, thus cementing ones reputation as a properly robotic modern concerned only with efficiency and power.

Wow, interesting insight. Except baseless and pointless and dumb. But other than that….

Neverending ruthless assaults continued in the course of war on christianity:

Iraqi Information Minister reviews
A New Science of Heaven
Robert Temple
Hodder & Stoughton 2021
400 pages

A remarkable work by a remarkable man and I encourage all to read it. If you are a physicist or an astrophysicist or an astronomer who has a paid gig doing plasmas the probability that you will hate this book is .99 unless you control yourself and read no more than 8 or 9 pages at a time.

Temple is a shameless name dropper. Paul Dirac, David Bohm, Rupert Sheldrake are the shiniest celebrity intellectuals he claims as friends. I lost count of the number of top tier people he hangs with.

The book is a mix of hard science facts which are important and not well known, sound theorizing and speculation around these facts, and then subsequent skating out onto thin ice further to no ice and drug addled nonsense. It would have been a much better book (not that it is a bad book) if he had taken pains to distinguish which was which, but alas he does not do this enough. I am suspicious that he didn’t really see these differences himself.

Let’s start with the important facts.

Recently discovered Kordylewski clouds cosmic dust sitting at the L4 and L4 Lagrange points in the earth moon system. Claimed to exist by Polish astronomer Kordylewski 50 years ago but observed and accepted only in 2018. Temple also starts with this as it is Chapter one.

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

The cosmology that is taught and accepted at Harvard and similar places is a theory or a working hypothesis. Big Bang &c. There are alternative unaccepted ridiculed theories which are consistent with all extant data. If you want to see how far these go the best place to begin is Anthony Peratt Physics of the Plasma Universe.

https://ia800702.us.archive.org/29/items/AnthonyPerattPhysicsOfThePlasmaUniverse_201901/Anthony-Peratt--Physics-of-the-Plasma-Universe.pdf

You are very likely to give up before getting too far because it is challenging to the poor brain cells exciting to this energy level. Robert Temple claims that he has gotten very far. This is dishonest, as a trained astrophysicist with man years of free time would be stressed to read all the books that Temple cites. There is NO WAY that he has read them. There is NO WAY that he understands one thousandth of what he claims to understand.

Nevertheless he tells an interesting story.

He says the Kordylwesky clouds are alive. His definition of life (on page 164) is as good as any. He explicitly acknowledges nobody knows what life is. He continues to go right on stacking cards upon the upper stories of this house logic chain with nothing like the qualifications and disclaimers that I would prefer to see.

He says the clouds are vastly superior to humans in intelligence by multiple orders of magnitude. The clouds contain a complete and intermittently accessible (to rare humans) Akashic record. The clouds have reliable models of what the earthlings are going to do next and for many years decades centuries to come. The clouds are in contact with similar intelligent living clouds elsewhere in the solar system and in the galaxy and on the other side of the universe.

Also he says there are current peer reviewed publications and professional scientists who totally agree with him although their published claims are far more modest.

Thank god for that last part anyway.

Example:

From plasma crystals and helical structures towards inorganic living matter

https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1367-2630/9/8/263/pdf

There’s more. Much more.

The sun is not a nuclear fireball. It is more like a light bulb illuminated by interstellar electric plasma currents.

We have plasma currents inside our bodies and extending outwards in a sizable elliptical shell. Auras.

David Bohm’s hidden-variable quantum potential = Rupert Sheldrake’s morphogentic field. You might think I am making this part up and I wish I was because this book is mostly very fun to read and Robert Temple is mostly a very likable man but he says (on p. 298) there is “no doubt in my mind” regarding this point.

Wilhelm Reich’s orgone energy = Reichenbach’s odic field = Lytton’s [fictional] vril.

And there is much more but I hope most can get the gist here. This is one of those rare books that when I reached the end of the text on page 319 (there are 81 pp endnotes, appendices, index) the first thing I did was go to page 1 and start re-reading. The re-reading was about 200 pages every word the material is that dense. The cited references are exhaustive and almost all are legitimate.

One wishes to emphasize here, specifically language.

We live in an age in which great imaginative works of literature are devalued in favor of other mediums, like television, film, and even worse things like Twitter.

And while television and cinema have value, certainly, it’s worth emphasizing the particular magic of words.

In the Bible, God literally spoke the world into being (and I believe other cultures have similar traditions) – and in later additions to that book, it’s said the Word became flesh. The Australian aborigines, I believe, sing their landscape into existence.

While I have never ceased loving reading, especially fiction, I am influenced enough by the ill winds of modernity to have somewhat lost – although never entirely – the special pleasure of sinking into a great work of imaginative literature and fall under it’s spell – as spell.The modern part of me came to somewhat doubt that it is a spell – why am I wasting my time on mere words, when the world is out there?

So it is bracing to be reminded of a truth known to every intelligent and imaginative child, and that I knew so well in my own childhood – a book is a world, is reality – perhaps even more real than mundane, quotidian reality.

So for all those sad and dejected moderns who love to read but as they develop into dismal modern adults begin to feel faintly guilty at doing anything so terribly impractical and inefficient, and feel faintly immoral for “escaping” the “real” world – it is a useful reminder that through great literary works of imagination you may actually be connecting more deeply to the real world than ever before 🙂

And so we overcome modernity – step by step, inch by inch.

Power of Siberia 1 – 38 BCM
Far Eastern extension – 10 BCM
Power of Siberia 2 – 50 BCM

Imports from Russia by LNG ships are also on the rise. “China Boosts LNG Imports From Russia to Highest Since 2020.”

By 2030 or sooner, it’s possible to see the Chinese market equal the volume of Russian exports to Europe in 2019. China might be able to get 90% of natural gas from domestic production, pipelines, and Russian LNG.

You can’t claim it’s totally made up:
https://www.ncronline.org/news/ukrainian-catholic-leader-warns-against-russian-orthodox-ban
An influential segment at least of Ukrainian nationalism (or patriotism or whatever you want to call it, not going to debate the terms) really is highly authoritarian, and also quite unhinged in its wish for some final reckoning with Russia that will supposedly usher in their utopia. Of course Russian criticism of this is quite hypocritical given what’s going on in Russia, with all the chauvinism and increasing repression of dissent. But the crucial question indeed is why exactly Ukraine should be given the unconditional support it demands from Western countries, as if the interests of hardline Ukrainian nationalists and most Westerners were identical.
I recently saw someone on Twitter compare Ukraine to Serbia before 1914/during WW1 in some ways (most notably of course in their transparent desire to drag in their great power sponsors into a war, to achieve irredentist goals they won’t be able to achieve on their own). Not a flattering comparison of course, but with more than a little truth to it.

Intense combat footage from the point-of-view of a Ukrainian soldier with the callsign “Predator” (à la the Schwarzenegger film).

One of his comrades is very scared and cannot bring himself to engage the enemy but still proves useful in the situation by passing ammunition to Predator.

Meanwhile, there’s still a near-total MSM blackout of Seymour Hersh’s remarkable Nord Stream pipeline attacks story, with some plausible speculation that if the story gets sufficient traction in Europe, the result might be the collapse of NATO.

Wasn’t the Russian invasion of Ukraine meant to usher in the collapse of NATO (and not…you know, increase its support after Russia launched the first large scale war in Europe since 1945) like the analysts over at The Saker and Moon of Alabama were saying around 1 year ago?

Regarding Bakhmut. It seems the best parallel is the battles of the Rzhev salient, where the Soviets suffered much larger casualties than the Germans despite having superiority in both manpower, armor and artillery. A new development has been the sabotage of the Wagner Group by the Russian Ministry of Defence in the form of the creation of artificial shell hunger. Power games going on between Shoigu and Prigozhin it seems. In any case the defence of Bakhmut by the Ukrainians has proven to be commendable.

We went from “3 Days to Kiev” to “365 Days to Artyomovk”.

Trump wanted to improve relations with Russia. In part to head off a China/Russia team up. Tucker Carlson discusses this point, and others in this segment. This is even more important than the ones that Sundance calls out.(1)

In his opening monologue Monday night, Fox News host Tucker Carlson outlined the insufferable Ukraine narrative and the geopolitical consequences that will flow from the outcome of foreign policy.

Additionally, Carlson contrasts the difference in DC priority for financially assisting Ukraine while places like East Palestine, Ohio, suffer a catastrophic toxic chemical disaster.

1/3 of all cars sold in Russia come from China. Clearly, Trump will try to unwind this mess 2025-2028. However, Not-The-President Biden’s perfidy can never be wholly repaired. America and the world have been permanently damaged by the 2020 coup that placed an unelected puppet in the white House.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/02/21/tucker-carlson-outlines-ukraine-conflict-china-alignment-with-russia-and-contrast-of-ukraine-spending-against-crisis-in-ohio/

I recently discovered the wonderful literary critic Ed Simon through DBHs blog, and was reading through some of his works.

I’ve also recently discovered this fine high-brow culture blog: http://www.aplvblog.com/p/other-essays.html

A nice counter-balance to the political, historical and economic blogs I follow.

You’ll like this post: http://www.aplvblog.com/2012/02/calvin-coolidge-on-classics.html

Regarding Bakhmut. It seems the best parallel is the battles of the Rzhev salient, where the Soviets suffered much larger casualties than the Germans despite having superiority in both manpower, armor and artillery.

Where did you get this piece of info? Even Western pro-Ukrainian sources are appalled by staggering Ukrainian losses at Bakhmut and shocked by much smaller losses of the RF. Many Western observers advise Ukraine to abandon Bakhmut to preserve personnel. In contrast, the owner of “Wagner” outfit Prigozhin trolled Ukraine by advising it to defend Bakhmut at all costs.

We went from “3 Days to Kiev” to “365 Days to Artyomovk”.

There never was “3 Days to Kiev” except in manufactured lies of pro-Ukrainians. Sad (for NATO) truth is that despite all Western weapons and training Ukrainian army is losing ground on all fronts.

But take heart and keep posting. Here we have too few US/Ukie trolls peddling the official Western narrative. You’d be a third or a forth such creature. Pretty flattering place for a nonentity.

idk if that contemplated ban became existing law atm, but Moscow branch of orthodoxy is not even whole or single existing orthodoxy branch in Ukraine, where native ukrainian Orthodox church is operating too, to say nothing of all christianity.

Using the same tuckerian propjunk logic it also could be always said that king in England declared a total war on christianity in 16th century and won it;)

Slovak Foreign Minister on Facebook:

For Putin’s collaborators and especially for ours in the Carpathian Basin and Felvidék, for all those who want peace at the cost of the destruction of Ukraine, I have only one message: Иди нахуй!

I will leave it to the reader to translate that statement in Cyrlic at the very end.

it also could be always said that king in England declared a total war on christianity in 16th century and won it;)

Might not even be that incorrect a statement tbh, it’s not like Henry VIII was a pleasant character.
Anyway, of course Tucker Carlson is saying lots of daft things. But is he wrong on the core issues? Ukraine’s officially stated goals are pretty crazy, either unachievable without direct Western intervention, or leading to incalculable risks, if by some miracle Ukraine does manage to achieve them. But open debate about war aims, the conditions and limits of support is heavily discouraged in Western countries, shouldn’t be surprising this is causing growing resentment.

Incorrect. The Russian losses at Bakhmut have been eye-watering. There are pictures of fields filled with dead Wagner soldiers who have been told to assault Ukrainian positions head on over and over again.

There never was “3 Days to Kiev” except in manufactured lies of pro-Ukrainians. Sad (for NATO) truth is that despite all Western weapons and training Ukrainian army is losing ground on all fronts.

Please do not lie, there are compilation of clips from Russian state media showing the likes of Solovyov, Simonyan and Kadyrov boasting about how they will next “deNazify” Poland and victory is but a matter of 2 weeks. Not to mention the various pro-Russians who had gotten too high on their own copium supplies over the years.

There was a lot of talk at one time about a plan to build a pipeline through Afghanistan. Supposedly one of the reasons for western invasion. I always assumed this was nonsense because securing a pipeline there was obviously doomed to failure.

As far as I can tell no attempt to build said pipeline was ever started.

Spot on:

Anyone following this Portuguese story?

According to reasonably reliable sources (there is no such thing as 100% reliable sources of info in a war), Ukrainians are losing ~10 military personnel for each Russian lost. Advice to abandon Bakhmut (Artemovsk) was given Ukraine by many Western analysts. Ukrainian clown-in-chief cited Ukrainian losses as a reason to give him more weapons ASAP.

As to sources, whatever someone says or said in his/her TG or other media is about as reliable source of info as Nostradamus. E.g., many websites claim that the Earth is flat, so what?

By 2030 or sooner, it’s possible to see the Chinese market equal the volume of Russian exports to Europe in 2019. China might be able to get 90% of natural gas from domestic production, pipelines, and Russian LNG.

Wish all the best sincerely for RF to achieve that goal as relative shortage of gas in Asia was/is keeping prices there quite high most of the time, so additional supply will drive Asian spot prices&LNG demand down too, which is also good for European spot buyers. Besides RF cannot really dictate/influence/buy politicians regarding China, like they were used to do in fragmented Europe over gas dependency.

Also it means way easier possibility for Australian natgas redirection to Japan or Turkmenistan natgas to Turkey, then to EU as Erdogan is planning.

as Erdogan is planning

Nobody in his/her right mind would claim that wonnabe sultan is particularly smart. Yet his moves are so much smarter than the actions of European politicians. It’s a new low for Europe. Pretty sad considering that modern civilization emerged there.

New Boudica just dropped:

biden’s having a blast in poland pic.twitter.com/BbGsk0cHlQ

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) February 21, 2023

Poland can replace its Dead Souls in Donbass with American sponsored souless niggers though.

biden’s having a blast in poland pic.twitter.com/BbGsk0cHlQ

— War Monitor (@WarMonitors) February 21, 2023

New Poles Previewed by Biden in Brave Polish Visit.

Punishment Battalions though. Not regular recruits. Good way to empty jails and prisons.

And yet that strong white magic is already there – in all the great works literature of the world that constitutes the counter-narrative

Light isn’t counter to anything. If you perceive it as that, your sight is still partial.

Thanks for demonstrating your gullibility yet again.

Back in July last year, you were predicting that if the Europeans continued to supply Ukraine with arms to defend itself, probably Berlin and Paris would be conquered by Russia. Instead Russia is still stuck outside Bakhmut. Were your great sources what informed you previously?

Now we are in the middle of the third time. European countries are supplying weapons and ammo to the Kiev regime, and training Ukie soldiers. I am sure they hope for something very different than the inevitable end, which would likely be the third repeat of the results of the first two attempts. They would be lucky if Berlin and Paris are spared this time. Or they might not get lucky. That’s anybody’s guess.

I didn’t know about it so I read a few stories, it seems to be part of the current Portuguese government’s growth strategy. One of the articles said that the number of foreign workers in the country has already increased from 100,000 to 650,000+ since 2015.

There are also a lot of illegal immigrants already and this new law will give them official status.

It looks like some kind of trend, given what is going on in Ireland and the UK immigration numbers reaching record levels. I was reading a couple of Portuguese opinion articles promoting increases in immigration, arguing it was needed to sustain the pensions and social security system.

Invert,

most media and politicos were saying that Russia would reach the Atlantic if westerers were not sending the Ukies these weapons. Which was absurd. The Ukies themselves were saying they were protecting Berlin and Paris.

Ron,

Do an analysis of the concrete poured by Ukraine in the run up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The construction $ amounts are truly astounding.

Much of German rearmament in the 1930s was building up the Westwall after remilitarizing the Rhine 1936. Very little was really spent on tanks and planes. The bulk of the expenses were bunkers, traps and mine belts. Their very own version of the infamous but misunderstood Maginot line in fact.

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

Ukraine was a massive concrete pour by NATO.

https://www.crisisgroup.org/europe-central-asia/eastern-europe/ukraine/ukraine-line

@Ivashka

the ancestors of the Eastern Slav fought with the Hun

Who did they fight against, was it the Avars?

Han Chinese fought with the Xianbei in the Northern Wei (386–535) to expelled the Rouran, who may have became the Avars after migrating west.

A weird thing about the ethnogenesis of steppe empires is that they often begin with defeat at the hands of a more powerful rival back home. The losers flee across the vast Eurasian steppe and wind up with a mighty empire far away.

https://www.unz.com/isteve/the-avars-of-dark-age-hungary-were-mongolians/

Later on, Han Chinese fought with Manchus and Khalkha Mongols in the Qing to expel the Dzungar Mongols. The Dzungars who migrated west became the Kalmyks, one of their descendants was Lenin.

Mulan portrayed a Han Chinese fighting against Turco-Mongol barbarians, but she was already a sort of a barbarian, fighting against other barbarians.

East Slavic nationalism, at least for a lot of Ukrainian bros, is suppose to be about European Slavs liberating themselves from “Asiatic” Turco-Mongols.

Someone from the Rus’ Khaganate, which is already sort of a Turco-Mongol dynasty, fighting against other Turco-Mongols, would probably not be an appropriate hero for that brand of nationalism.

You should be able to trust your ally, but if he stabs you in the back he’s not your ally. It’s not normal what the US did to it’s German ally and Germany’s reaction (saying nothing) is completely abnormal. It is also abnormal to have the American Navy in the Baltic Sea, especially after blowing up a Russian -German pipeline. US behavior has made China and Russia unite against them. There are people in the German Bundestag (parliament) that want good relations with Russia and now they may want to leave NATO and become allies of Russia too, or at least have friendly relations. If that happened, I don’t think the US Navy would remain in the Baltic Sea.

Were all the balloons shot down with sidewinders?

Maybe, shows that earth-based laser weapons are just not practical, that they didn’t iron out the flaws by now.

I didn’t know about it so I read a few stories, it seems to be part of the current Portuguese government’s growth strategy.

The question is – are they trying to fill the hard to fill jobs, or is this for anyone who speaks Portuguese (is from former colonies).

It looks like some kind of trend, given what is going on in Ireland and the UK immigration numbers reaching record levels.

If this is what they’re planning to do now, then some of the EU freedom of movement treaties need to be re-opened and re-negotiated. The very basic EU principles were put in place for Europeans and weren’t designed to be messed with like this.

most media and politicos were saying that Russia would reach the Atlantic if westerers were not sending the Ukies these weapons

Nope. They were saying the Russians would overrun the Ukrainians. Which turned out to drastically overestimate the Russians.

Russia’s GDP is roughly equal to Italy’s. No one with a room temperature IQ thinks Russia is any threat to Western Europe. A lot of these threads consist of Russophiles telling themselves that Western Europeans are afraid of them.

Even Western pro-Ukrainian sources are appalled by staggering Ukrainian losses at Bakhmut and shocked by much smaller losses of the RF.

??…

Care to back this one up Profesor? Sounds kind of sovoky (again). 🙁

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-02-27/germany-post-world-war-ii-ukraine-russia

https://www.latimes.com/world-nation/story/2022-09-08/russia-invasion-of-ukraine-jolting-germany-into-rebuilding-military

There was panic for some time at the start.

“A possible Russian invasion of Europe is “more than ever” and Germany could be wiped off the map at any moment, according to a leaked report in Germany. Top military officials in Germany have urged the country to prepare for an impending war with Russia, fearing that the war in Ukraine will escalate into a global conflict with NATO.”

https://expatguideturkey.com/germany-speaks-of-leaked-documents-russians-can-invade-at-any-moment/

“In the 68-page report, Zorn argues that although the modern German army has conducted operations in areas such as Afghanistan, these experiences are not sufficient for a future war, and that the Bundeswehr should prepare for a “forced war” on its territory. Warning that the possibility of war in a NATO member country in Eastern Europe “is increasing again”, Zorn urged Germany to play a leading role in the continent’s defense and to build a “stronger” armed forces.”

…EU principles were put in place for Europeans

Who would that be? Are the Angolans with Portugal residency European? Bolivian mestizos in Spain? Turks with relatives in Germany? Indians with EU work/student visas? Their relatives?

It is not simple, there are 100’s of millions Third Worlders who could be European, maybe 1-2 billion if they apply themselves. Restricting it would remove the one positive that keeps EU going: free movement. Imagine Latvia or Slovakia with no ability to easily leave? The reality of what we have – or don’t have – would hit hard.

EU won’t restrict freedom of movement and it can’t control its borders. They decided to manage it, pushing the inevitable consequences into future. But the ruling liberals celebrate it, embrace it and declare it that it is the ‘new shiny world‘.

EU was a great idea with a built-in self-destructive policies. A Faustian bargain par excellence: live well now at the expense of your society-nation’s future. We are close to the time when Mephisto wants his pay. Maybe that’s why we are having a war…

“I’m not religious, but I just said a prayer in hope the killing will stop.”

Excepting of Vladimir Putin.

Russia continues to sink into the cesspool of its own making.
———
Demographic Challenges Weigh On Russia’s Military Ambitions
By The Jamestown Foundation – Feb 18, 2023, 2:00 PM CST

– Russia is looking to grow the size of its armed forces to 1.5 million by the end of 2026.
– According to the Russian population census of 2020–2021, the number of men 18–26 years old in Russia was around 7.21 million in 2021.
– The number of young men in Russia is inevitably decreasing, presenting a challenge that make realizing its military ambitions impossible.
…
https://oilprice.com/Geopolitics/International/Demographic-Challenges-Weigh-On-Russias-Military-Ambitions.html

“Meanwhile, there’s still a near-total MSM blackout of Seymour Hersh’s remarkable Nord Stream pipeline attacks story, with some plausible speculation that if the story gets sufficient traction in Europe, the result might be the collapse of NATO. I’ve published a couple of columns and a few of Hersh’s interviews are starting to get some attention”

What more denial do you need? Straight from the highest USA government authorities – WE DIDN’T DO IT!
——-
John Kirby denies U.S. sabotaged Nord Stream pipelines
“It’s a completely false story. There is no truth it,” Kirby said when asked about reporting by journalist Seymour Hersh alleging U.S. involvement.
02/19/2023 02:47 PM EST

National Security Council spokesperson John Kirby repeatedly denied the United States was involved in explosions that damaged the Nord Stream pipelines, speaking Sunday on “Fox News Sunday.”

“It’s a completely false story. There is no truth to it, Shannon,” Kirby told host Shannon Bream, when asked about an article by journalist Seymour Hersh alleging U.S. involvement. “Not a shred of it. It is not true. The United States, and no proxies of the United States had anything to do with that, nothing.”
…
https://www.politico.com/news/2023/02/19/john-kirby-nord-stream-seymour-hersh-00083589

Who would that be?

Those who signed the original treaty – you think those nations don’t deserve to be respected? This is against the spirit of the original document.

Although in the case of the Portuguese, it might be that they are trying to consolidate their nation in these chaotic times, maybe that’s what it’s about.

Restricting it would remove the one positive that keeps EU going: free movement. Imagine Latvia or Slovakia with no ability to easily leave?

It would actually be fantastic. The elites would finally have to take care of their people not partially, but fully.

EU won’t restrict freedom of movement and it can’t control its borders.

It would be possible to find the legal language to stop this, the problem is the lack of political will. As usual.

EU was a great idea with a built-in self-destructive policies. A Faustian bargain par excellence: live well now at the expense of your society-nation’s future. We are close to the time when Mephisto wants his pay. Maybe that’s why we are having a war…

I don’t disagree with you. It’s late, but it might be not too late.

Russia is very lucky that she only has physical challenges on the Western flank. Imagine if Russia had active enemies in the East and in the South? Currently 90% or even more, 95-97% of the Russian military is active on the Ukrainian front. Russia is completely exposed, except for Rosgvardia at home and the nuclear triad.

According to the Russian population census of 2020–2021, the number of men 18–26 years old in Russia was around 7.21 million in 2021.

I hope those cubs are salvaged and don’t have to go into combat. Not now, not in the next 100 years.

I think it is indeed for anyone in the Portuguese speaking world, citizens of Brazil, Anglo, Mocambique etc.

It’s not totally surprising Portugal would do something like this given their past policies. Under the Salazar regime, after WW2 the colonies were officially absorbed into Portugal itself and the people were all made full Portuguese citizens. This was far-right Portuguese nationalism.

According to reasonably reliable sources

Such as? Konashenkov and his 44 destroyed HIMARS systems? Or the desrtruction of 4 Bradley IFVs before they had even arrived in the European continent never mind Ukraine? [See tweets after the MORE tag].

By the way, what are your thoughts on Putin’s drab speech yesterday? My personal highlight was when he talked of the gender-neutral Anglican God

US believes Russia had failed intercontinental ballistic missile test around when Biden was in Ukraine

This would actually explain a lot about how milquetoast Putin’s much-hyped address was yesterday, the original plan was to give a rousing performance about how “Russia’s borders end nowhere” (in reference to the almost global range of the Sarmat missile) and how everyone must “listen carefully”, but after Putin got word of the test’s failures he had to re-use his speech from September 30, 2022.

The EU stands for antiracism first and foremost. Estonians are expected to learn and apply EU values. Estonia is too white according to antiracist values. As the most prosperous former Soviet country in the EU, Estonia will be expected to take in non-white asylum seekers. The smart ones from the younger generation in Estonia have learned these high status values and will push for them backed by the full institutional and media power of the EU.

It seems that Wagner PMC was not the superlative fighting machine many pro-Russians said it was. According to Aleksandr Khodakovsky, it is not being deprived of ammunition out of spite, but simply getting it’s fair share like all the other units. Prigozhin posts a picture of one day’s worth of dead Wagnerites, seemingly to put pressure on the Russian MoD to give it back its privileged position on the resupply pecking order.

Someone from the Rus’ Khaganate, which is already sort of a Turco-Mongol dynasty

Ashkenazi Jews (such as Zelensky) are not related to the Turkic Khazars but are a mix of roughly 45% Italians, 45% Semites, and 10% Northern Euros (including Slavs). They came to Ukraine from the West.

The Turkic Jewish Karaites of Crimea, whom the Nazis spared because they weren’t Semitic Jews, may have been related to the Khazars.

The smart ones from the younger generation in Estonia have learned these high status values

Actually, Estonia is not a good example to make your point, because Estonian nationalists are rather high IQ.

It appears that Portugal is willing to give one year residence permits to people from all those countries, it is not clear whether this is a permanent residence which would allow them to reside anywhere in the EU. It looks like an internal Portuguese affair (it’s for Brazilians).

Estonia will be expected to take in non-white asylum seekers.

And who may I ask, is the hidden hand forcing Russia to naturalize almost 200,000 Tajiks every year? Aided of course by the Russian-language schools established by Putin (again some hidden hand must be forcing him correct?)

Russian schools open in Tajikistan

Naturalization of Tajiks by the Russian Federation

2011 – 6,152
2012 – 9,773
2013 – 12,476
2014 – 14,638
2015 – 16,758
2016 – 23,012
2017 – 29,039
2018 – 35,732
2019 – 44,707
2020 – 63,389
2021 – 103,681
2022 – 173,634

High trust environment was completely destroyed even before the war by RF in 2021 when they decided to leave empty all Gazprom operated natgas storage facilities in EU before the winter, which was the main cause of natgas price spike.

Situation could have been even worse because of this, but God was not happy with it and decided to make two very warm european winters in a row;)

He said the journalist told him “of course” everyone knows that America destroyed the Nord Stream pipelines, but no one is allowed to say that.

Hmmmm…. an establishment, elite university economist received an anonymous leak from a left-wing reporter? Add that to Sachs track record. Everyone smart & honest realizes he was 100% wrong about the WUHAN-19 virus.

You are using a debunked conspiracy theorist as a source for another conspiracy theory. Based on that information lineage — You make an excellent case that “everyone should know that America is *not* involved”

The journalist told him that the newspaper he’d once read “was dead.”

Establishment journalists (and establishment academia) have been quite panicky since Musk bought Twitter. Being a shill for the Globalist Lügenpresse is not the sinecure that it once was.

PEACE 😇

You should be able to trust your ally, but if he stabs you in the back he’s not your ally. It’s not normal what the US did to it’s German ally

Germany stabbed Greece, Italy, Hungary, and Poland in the back at various times over the years. These were also abnormal events benefiting German banks over individual workers.

German Bundestag (parliament) that want good relations with Russia and now they may want to leave NATO

Many have said that NATO and EU are linked. Thus, you suggest that Germany intends departure from the EU.

This is excellent news. It will be delightful to watch DEXIT (Deutsche Exit) struggle the way that Brexit did. Christian European nations should be able to keep Islamophile, open borders, Germany tied up in knots for a decade or more.

PEACE 😇

…This is against the spirit of the original document.

Sure, but spirit changes over time. For example the spirit in the early 90’s was ‘no Nato expansion’, then the West decided to change it.

Spirit is not legally enforceable and the laws against migration are notoriously hard to enforce…if Bulgaria decides that they will sell residency – via some subterfuge like student visas – what can EU do about it?

The elites would finally have to take care of their people not partially, but fully.

Right. But it will not happen – the elites have skillfully designed a system of no accountability and minimum control (that’s what ‘globalism’ means to them), they are not giving it up. Even if borders would close for regular people, the elites would remain free and above national sovereignty…But in their defense, that’s what people wanted – they screamed bloody murder for no borders and no restrictions on wealth, they were giddy with excitement when it happened. We are just living with the consequences.

It would be possible to find the legal language to stop this, the problem is the lack of political will.

I doubt anything would pass the endless legal challenges against discrimination, EU Charter, etc…There is no definition of who is a “European” in any Euro document, so there is no way to base laws on that. There is also the question of enforcement…if a Portuguese speaking Angolan gets Portuguese citizenship and decides to move to Riga and pimp the local women, there is not much (other than the crime itself) Latvia can do. We bought it, the good, the bad, the swarthy…

EU was a great idea with a built-in self-destructive policies. A Faustian bargain par excellence: live well now at the expense of your society-nation’s future. We are close to the time when Mephisto wants his pay. Maybe that’s why we are having a war…

A collection of sovereign countries makes sense. However, was the EU design ever a great idea? A European ‘Super State’ that threatens national sovereignty was a terrible idea.

Intra-EU flow of goods, manufactured to common standards is a reasonable goal. Allowing individuals easy short-term transit (e.g. tourists, businessmen) could also have made sense. Permanent relocation of workers:

    • Drains source countries, interfering with family formation
    • Undercuts labour markets in recipient countries.

Schengen, as currently administered, is a built-in self-destructive policy. If the only way to get rid of it is ending the EU, so be it.

PEACE 😇

Chinese FM allegedly requiring for unilateral RF ceasefire as a condition for Xi spring visit in Moscow, Zoperating fan is fuming because of this. If this is truthful leak from RF, means US found some counterarguments for now regarding CCP’ied China musings about potential military supply against UA.

https://t.me/skurlatovlive/9487

I doubt anything would pass the endless legal challenges against discrimination, EU Charter, etc…There is no definition of who is a “European” in any Euro document, so there is no way to base laws on that. There is also the question of enforcement…

The way to fix the EU from the inside is what I dub — ‘The Spirit of Sovereignty’

if a Portuguese speaking Angolan gets Portuguese citizenship and decides to move to Riga and pimp the local women, there is not much (other than the crime itself) Latvia can do. We bought it, the good, the bad, the swarthy…

In this example, what can Sovereign Spirit do about it?

The Latvian government arrests the Angolan for improper documentation and places him in detention. There is much legal byplay before the final move. The sovereign Latvian Supreme Court overrules the ECHR/ECJ as exceeding EU authority and violating the Latvian constitution.

Multiple other countries do this on migration cases. Thus, firmly establishing that the EU/ECHR/ECJ are junior entities. European institutions are inherently subordinate under the doctine, ‘Spirit of Sovereignty’.

The EU functions like a bully. It makes threats and others submit. When push comes-to-shove what are actual EU (not sovereign member state) capabilities?

    • EU Air Force — Bombers = none. Air superiority fighters = none.
    • EU Navy — Surface combatants = none.
    • EU Army — Mechanized infantry = none. Armor/tanks = none.

The EU only exists as it does because nations willingly sacrifice their sovereignty. If a small group of countries stand up and shout, “NO MORE!” the EU will reform or disintegrate.

PEACE 😇

I don’t know the Russian language, so my understanding of Putin is limited.

My impression is that he was dealt a tough hand when he became President, rose to the challenge and did a good job for his country.

His extemporaneous speaking skill is second to none. He gives real answers to tough questions.

Ha, ha.

You and Rula are discounting the possibility the USA has supplied more weapons than what we have been told publicly. I assume that is the message of Igor’s numbers.

The Z-posters will be mightily dissapointed when they realise China is not going to prop them up in the same way NATO is helping Ukraine.

Funny thread made by a Chinese Communist True Believer. Of course the leadership of the PRC are far more rational and want Russia to continue increasing its dependence on China so they can extract cheap natural resources to fuel their economic growth.

But here in the “greatest” and “richest” nation on earth, our rulers claim they can’t figure out how to house homeless people at a reasonable price and pace. I’m sure this will happen here in California aaaaaaaany day now. Just one more sales tax increase and they’ll have enough to get it done then. Or maybe two. Three, tops.

I am starting now to read Alfred de Custin’s “Letters From Russia”, perhaps only to feel somewhat topical 🙂 After all, I do live in these times.

It’s a bit of an infamous book, banned in Russia until 1996, apparently, and originally published in 1843 in France.

Custine was a French reactionary, who hated and feared democracy, and traveled to Russia to find arguments against democracy then developing in France. What he found in Russia horrified him. He was horrified by the autocracy, oppression, and cruelty of the upper classes, but also by the cringing subservience and servility of the population and their own willing participation in their oppression.

It is an interesting case of “getting what you wished for” curing your illusions about the thing you desired – I’d wager nine tenths of our internet reactionaries, if they found themselves in the sort of society they claim to want, would quickly flee back to the awful liberal countries they left.

Which isn’t to defend modern liberalism (Woke, etc) – it is indeed awful. I often say to my friends that the Right is often correct in it’s criticism, or at least it’s sense that something is terribly wrong, but right-wing “solutions” would be horrific.

For myself, I have always liked Russians whenever I met them, and obviously Russia will always occupy a glorious place in world literature and music. I’ve never been there, and I’m sure there are fascinating aspects to the culture and lifestyle that I’d love to see in happier times (at the moment, I imagine Russia is boringly autocratic, as autocratic tendencies make everything boring).

I also find there is often a “paradox” with human societies, where formally very bad structures and behaviors somehow produce on another level very interesting, appealing, and valuable people and institutions – Russia, for instance, used to have a very appealing spiritual life on one level and produced many interesting and valuable spiritual types, despite on another level being spiritually horrific.

But there is obviously a dark side to that country that – perhaps too banal an observation to need making – that keeps on cropping up, and should be something we all know more about.

So to that end, I read!

Well, there was enough good in the EU idea – when it was high-level. But it has changed. There has been a full takeover of EU by the uber-liberal globalist elites, so today it is questionable.

One can have a successful ‘imperium’ – a combination of sizeable disparate countries-regions – only as long as the elites let go off ideology. An imperium that pushes ideology is a fatal combination, it eventually always collapses.

So I agree, EU has become a pretty horrible idea. The people who think that it can be reformed and changed are in my view naive – the stranglehold the assorted liberal and global business groups have on EU is unshakeable. The real problem is that there is no way back and the benefits of EU (there are still many) are hard to let go.

Given that, another inane march on the east (always Russia!) seems like the least painful among bad choices. But I am giving them too much credit, they actually don’t choose it – the hatred of “Russia!” is for many of them inbred…that’s what they do.

So now you celebrate the ‘global warming’? You guys are weird, at the bottom of it is not much more but hatred for anything ‘Russian’, it trumps everything…

Your attempt to compare blowing up a pipeline in international waters to the level of storage supplies in some gas tanks is very pathetic – not at all on the same level. If you don’t get that, read something about criminal law.

Who sells what to whom and at what price has nothing to do with ‘high trust’. But you know that, you are just trying to distract the few fools around here (Mr. Hacks?)…crime is a crime, prices are simply trade. I would like a new i-Phone 14 for $200, why can’t I have one? Why didn’t US ship a million of them to my local mall so they would have to sell them at a deep discount?

One can have a successful ‘imperium’ – a combination of sizeable disparate countries-regions – only as long as the elites let go off ideology. An imperium that pushes ideology is a fatal combination, it eventually always collapses.

They always have the exact same ideology: do not mess with my stuff. Anything else is busy work for the rabble.

The EU was spec’d out in the late 1930’s early 1940’s by German bankers. We all are fascists now.

That’s really bad for Russia. Thanks for pointing it out. The same forces are not at work in Russia as the EU and America.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: There are powerful forces at work in the US and Europe successfully bringing about rapid change in racial demographics.

Zeihan was still beating the Russia-may-invade-Poland drum fairly recently, due to the call-up. He has also come out saying that he thinks Xi is about to commit to supplying arms.

Since he is obviously a tool, I think that proves that point.

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement: There are powerful forces at work in the US and Europe successfully bringing about rapid change in racial demographics.

Yes, the forces of the Religion of GDP Growth, which are evidently also active in Russia. Poland is also taking in large numbers of Uzbeks.

China has way too many people to need to do this, plus Russia is about as de-industialized if not more so than the EU, so they will need it also.

Beckow and his buddy waiting for a $200 I-phone 14*. Clearly, he’s living in a fool’s paradise. 🙂

*over 6″ long…like carrying around a subway sandwich in your pocket, and at $800 before a trade in, why not consider an Android flip for $600 after a trade-in? Fits in any pocket easily, expands to over 6 inches when you’re using it – much smarter!

[MORE]

Actually, Estonia is not a good example to make your point, because Estonian nationalists are rather high IQ.

In all established white Western countries, most of the high IQ population actively supports or passively follows antiracism and feminism because it is regarded as the high status ideology necessary for upward mobility or even just avoiding non-personing for any low six figure job. In emerging white Western countries, the smart kids are herding and adopting these beliefs. However, if the youth in Estonia are a rare exception then congrats. Your nation has a fighting chance of staying homogenous and true to roots despite choosing the EU/NATO path. However, if you are being intellectually dishonest and Estonia is not actually a rare exception then too bad for not facing up to it. It would mean you are taking the package deal but unwilling to acknowledge the trade off. You get the joy now of inflicting fatalities against the Russian military but will have to deal with being an old man walking through city streets that don’t speak to you anymore.

You know very well me not being the proponent of “blowup of NS by US” theory, so all your fuss about equalizing is misplaced, as is laughable the whining about trust breach from the fan of the side, which is abusing that trust.

However, deliberate market manipulation and abuse of a dominant player is an offense in criminal codes too, so should read about it indeed;)

The alt-right or whatever you want to call it seems these days to be limited to two tendencies; retreat to fantasy, or despairing gloom and defeatism.

The retreat to fantasy is a striking feature of the rights mentality that really came to the fore in the last year or so. I find it absolutely fascinating and am somewhat perplexed by it. It’s very prominent on this site, especially it’s owners comments, but to really get a good taste of it go to Vox Days blog. I enjoy going there once a week or so to discover a completely alternative reality that I did not know I lived in 🙂

But this retreat to fantasy is very interesting. It used to be a notable feature of the Arab mentality, especially in it’s wars with Israel, but I think to some extent it’s a regular feature of undeveloped societies in general.

As far as I can understand it, the retreat to fantasy is the gesture of someone who isn’t serious about acquiring power – people with a weak will to power who prefer comfort.

People who are serious about acquiring power are the harshest, most unsparing realists – they are really tough on themselves. They choose pain over comfort, they know how to inflict pain on themselves. (I don’t mean “realism” in the sense that they are materialists who discount the so called “supernatural”. Rather the opposite).

The retreat to fantasy on the right simply means it is a movement not really interested, for the moment, in acquiring genuine power, and would rather relax in a nice soothing bed with goose feather pillows and plush quilts – which is a tendency that all men and women of good will should rather encourage, so it’s fine by me 🙂

But still, interesting from a sociological perspective.

But it’s the second tendency of the Right that really annoys me – the complete defeatism and gloom. You see this very prominently in some of the commenters on this forum, but you’ll see it in Rod Drehers blog, Paul Kingsnorths blog, and countless others.

One of the attitudes that I think every worthwhile human being must have, is be high spirited in the face of overwhelming odds, to sort of laugh at fate and grim necessity, and to remain cheerful, and with high morale, in the face of the terribleness of everything.

I am not of the Right – in fact I despise much of what they stand for. Yet in terms of my values and what I desire the world if anything is even more grim and terrible – yet I don’t succumb to despair and remain cheerful and high spirited.

In the end, what these two tendencies reveal is that the right is essentially part of nihilistic modernity no less than any other faction.

I am reminded of French anthropologist Levi-Strauus theory of structuralism – if two social institutions seem opposed but share the same underlying structure, they are the same thing really.

We all are fascists now.

Reminds me of what Jimmy Dore said: “Why do we fund Nazis in Kiev? Why can’t we fund our own? We have them”.

You know very well me not being the proponent of “blowup of NS by US” theory

It’s like contract killing. Anyone with IQ greater than shoe size knows who ordered it. However, which particular killer was hired to pull the trigger is rarely established.

Jimmy Dore is a comedian.

I would like you to know I am a serious thinker. I didn’t listen to Tulsi Gabbard’s Sunday speech but I did read the transcript. When you were at the rally did you happen to notice if she had four guys who look like Brad Pitt Tyler Durden working her security?

I presume not just anybody could get close enough to smell her Aloha brand perfume.

I was reading a bit in Richard Burtons interesting little tract The Jew, the Gypsy, and El Islam, and I came upon this amusing description of the sort of Ashkenazi Jews who had immigrated to Palestine in the 19th century –

The Ashkenazím, who are wrongly represented to be considered pariahs by the Sephardím, have brought from Northern climates a manliness of bearing, a stoutness of spirit, and a physical hardness strongly contrasting with the cowardly and effeminate, the despised and despicable Sephardím “Jew of Israel’s land.” If spoken to fiercely, they will reply in kind; if struck, they will return the blow; and they do not fear to mount a horse, unlike their Southern brethren, who prefer an ass, or at most an ambling pony, to the best of Arab blood. They will travel by night over difficult and dangerous paths, whereas their congeners tremble to quit the city walls; and they can endure extremes of heat and cold, of hunger and thirst, which might be fatal to any soft Syrian who would imitate them. The Ashkenazím of the Holy Land are in a word “men”; the Sephardím are not. “The Spanish and Portuguese Jews are of far higher and more intellectual type than the English and German,” says Dr. Linsdale. Possibly; but in the matter of manliness there is no comparison. And, as has been remarked,[Pg 56] the Ashkenazi is “eating up” the Sephardi wherever they meet.

Now, his description of the Sephardim certainly no longer applies today in Israel. The Sephardim are physically very robust and generally good looking and athletic today, in Israel, and have a reputation for being tough, and certainly not for cowardice or effeminacy – although no more so than the Ashkenazim.

But I have always thought that Ashkenazim in Israel – the early ones at least – were a self-selected bunch and were selected for qualities that would be required in a primitive pioneering society. Arthur Koestler, in his book on Israel, noted also that the men looked basically like robust northern Europeans and not like the urban Jews he was used to (successive waves of Ashkenazim probably complicated the picture with less self selected bunch)

And certainly, the above description cannot be applied with the same force to the majority of diaspora Jews, in America and Europe.

What I loved and enjoyed about living in Israel as a child in the 80s was the Wild West atmosphere of the place, the vast open spaces, and the pioneering spirit – I haven’t been there in a while, but like all things no doubt those times are gone and Israel has, no doubt, “grown up” and become boring. Is it still empty and wild? Doubtful. My friends return with reports of a stifling bureaucracy and heavy handed state.

I should probably visit soon to satisfy my curiosity.

At this point in my life, I am not attached to the Jewish character of Israel, and my own vision for it’s future is of a Jewish-Arab fusion that will produce something novel and interesting – a new cultural entity, neither Jewish, nor Arab, but that thing that in the seeming old age of the world we have perhaps forgotten can exist, a novel people and culture? European, Arab, Levantine, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, elements will go into it – but it will be unlike any of these and transcend them all.

It’s like the world is old, and we can only imagine the old ethnic and racial categories. But why? The Romans were an interesting and worthwhile people, with interesting characteristics. But they gave way to and became a part of the Italians, who were a novel people, capable of doing entirely new things, and equally worthwhile and interesting.

Of course, I’m not proposing Globalism – the forced and unnatural combinations of humans to smooth out differences and create a boring uniform type. Rather the opposite! A rich “particularity” of culture and people that nevertheless is an example of universal spiritual themes.

Tulsi Gabbard is a very interesting and perhaps quite promising politician. And that on top of being an esthetically pleasing lady (unlike the Victoria Nuland’s types).

Tulsi as the first female POTUS ? Would be surprising given her stance seems running against the MIC and the Deep State.

…They always have the exact same ideology: do not mess with my stuff. Anything else is busy work for the rabble.

That’s true, but when anything else is elevated to absurd levels – the one-world, worship-Floyds-LGwhatever-hate whitey, etc… – it is ideological. Whether the people pushing it believe it or only use it to control the rabble really doesn’t make that much difference. It is everywhere, it is what they have become…

EU was spec’d out in the late 1930’s early 1940’s by German bankers. We all are fascists now.

Among others…to be fair the one-Europe idea has been pushed by multiple groups – Napoleon was also into it, and before him assorted Catholic dynasties. The basic plan always runs into an issue with enough material resources and land. That triggers an attack on the east where there are plenty of resources…we have ended up there again.

It is very unlikely it will work this time – actually this one is comparatively among the weakest attacks. The only thing the West has going for it this time are the endless Ukie human sacrifices…and social media (!) It won’t be pretty to look back at the carnage and stupidity, it never is, the Westerners always for a time apologize profusely – and then they start hating and plotting again. They will never forgive.

However, if the youth in Estonia are a rare exception then congrats. Your nation has a fighting chance of staying homogenous and true to roots despite choosing the EU/NATO path.

Most Western youngsters identify more with their Discord channel and their MPOG team than with an ethnic group, let alone a nation. The kids are netizens before they are citizens. Global networks are coming to replace everything else.

The period of classical Empires is gone, the nations are also heading towards the exit. So do the traditional religious affiliations too. The conflicts in MENA and Eastern Europea are archaic. They only exist because people are vindictive and actually rather dumb. Intelligent people would have never brought such a calamity upon themselves or would have fixed it ASAP if handled by their ancestors.

Sorry for being somewhat vulgar, but in these conflicts, as the Russian saying goes: “борьба была равна, боролись два го☆на.” People who have started this are only worthy of disdain, those who perpetuate it and derive pride from it are pitiful…

Do you sell mobile phones, Mr. Hacks? Sorry to hear it, no wonder you like fat chicas and 110 degree weather…

By the way, I never wear head coverings of any kind…try again…

What does it mean that you are not a ‘proponent‘ of something that unquestionably happened? It is kind of like saying that you are not a proponent of the sun rising tomorrow…good luck with that. Once you depart reality it is a lonely place – only you, Mr. Hacks, and of course Biden&Co….

deliberate market manipulation and abuse of a dominant player is an offense

Riiiight….and in international trade no less…where the hell do you live? There is so much ‘deliberate market manipulation by dominant players‘ that your head would spin. But not for you, since you really, really, like those particular dominant players, it is ok. You are reaching new levels of pathological hypocrisy…or is it narcissism in your case?

Tulsi as the first female POTUS ? Would be surprising given her stance seems running against the MIC and the Deep State.

Tulsi has no chance as long as the American political system remains corrupt to the core. On the other hand, in a democracy with her record, message, and looks she’d have a shot at it.

I’d wager nine tenths of our internet reactionaries, if they found themselves in the sort of society they claim to want, would quickly flee back to the awful liberal countries they left.

Yeah. The countries that oppose the West are all shitty places to live. But that’s only really an issue if you think that those countries are good or that you would rather live there.

I have never expressed any admiration for Russia and China and I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a place like either of them. But they are enemies of the regime ruling the United States and I support them on that narrow front. No hypocrisy there.

When you were at the rally did you happen to notice if she had four guys who look like Brad Pitt Tyler Durden working her security?

Can’t say, did not stay long enough: I got bored and left at 4:15 (that’s 3 h 45 min after the start, something like 2 h after boring repetitions started).

According to the Center for Analytical and Practical Research of Migration Processes, Russia’s invasion of Ukraine led to an increase in the influx of migrants to the Russian Federation, replacing local residents (dead, wounded, disabled and those who left)[1]. According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in January-September 2022, 12.78 million migrants arrived in the Russian Federation, which is 3.5 million more than in the same period in 2021[2].

According to official data for 2014, Russia ranks first in Europe and second in the world after the United States in terms of the number of labor migrants[3]. According to the data of the Federal State Statistics Service, the bulk of migrants are from the CIS countries[4]. Up to 2 million foreign citizens annually arrive in Moscow for the purpose of employment, of which 300-400 thousand are officially employed[5][6]. According to the National Research University Higher School of Economics, in 2013 the number of legal and illegal labor migrants in Russia was about 7,000,000 people[7], according to the Russian Federal Migration Service – 4.5 million[8], over 83% of which are citizens from the CIS countries with visa-free entry to Russia

https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A2%D1%80%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%BE%D0%B2%D1%8B%D0%B5_%D0%BC%D0%B8%D0%B3%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD%D1%82%D1%8B_%D0%B2_%D0%A0%D0%BE%D1%81%D1%81%D0%B8%D0%B8

I have never expressed any admiration for Russia and China and I certainly wouldn’t want to live in a place like either of them.

Can’t say anything about PRC, I was in big China only briefly (once at a scientific meeting, once as a tourist). Today’s RF is perfectly livable (you need to speak the language, though), whereas the US is developing the worst features of the late unlamented Soviet Union at an alarming pace.

Oh, I get that, but I think you’re making an extremely serious mistake.

A victory for China and Russia would massively increase the likelihood that Western society becomes like them. That’s how these things work.

I think the much more intelligent course is to work for reform within the West – I too despise the current regime, the culture of Woke, etc. In fact, my spiritual beliefs cause me to despise far, far more aspects of the current system than you or any alt-righter!

A person like Vox Day, actually admires Russia and China – he admires cruelty, oppression, authoritarianism, etc. So it makes total sense for him to support a victory for those countries, as he’d like to see that reproduced in the West.

He imagines he would be a member of the elite, and have the opportunity to oppress others, and he lives vicariously through those countries now as best he can.

But if this isn’t your attitude, and you recognize that those countries are currently worse than the West – even though the West is terrible! – then you’re making a possibly fatal mistake. This “us/them” thinking is far too simplistic.

We must work for reform within the West whole simultaneously resisting even worse alternatives.

Edward N Luttwak makes it clear, the implosion and destruction of RusFed should be avoided.

The reason he gives is that it might advantage China too much.

Given that China too doesn’t want to see RusFed terminally weakened, it means that RusFed would be kept around as a pariah state that the West might use as a scarecrow and a whipping boy, while China siphones its natural ressources for a cheap price and the Central Asian/ Turkic folks overtake its lebensraum through rampant colonization.

(Спасибо Путину за это…)

At this point in my life, I am not attached to the Jewish character of Israel, and my own vision for it’s future is of a Jewish-Arab fusion that will produce something novel and interesting – a new cultural entity, neither Jewish, nor Arab, but that thing that in the seeming old age of the world we have perhaps forgotten can exist, a novel people and culture? European, Arab, Levantine, Jewish, Muslim, Christian, elements will go into it – but it will be unlike any of these and transcend them all.

You are turning here a (proposed) ethnogenesis process into metaphysics, your main tendency, and deviation. Metaphysics make you claim some new people.

But in these words, you are also extremely extremely modern – they could very well stand on the opinion page of “The Guardian” or “New York Times”, or even “Haaretz”, I suppose. Obviously the new is good, obviously the new transcends the old, obviously the new is unlike anything ever was (The Book of Hiob notwithstanding).
Wishful metaphyscis, I say.

There are not so few people for whom alien abductions at night for the sake of anal probing are happening unquestionably, so such belief in a single blog post with plenty of holes might be similar;)

A country, which is capable to contaminate its own international pipelines flowing the main source of income like oil, also is more than capable to blow underwater ones due to incompetence too, the malice of any side is not only one explanation left atm.

I am reminded of French anthropologist Levi-Strauus theory of structuralism – if two social institutions seem opposed but share the same underlying structure, they are the same thing really.

This why the carefully woven patterns of cousin marriages are so important – they are structural relics of a family of civilizations of the past, and its [matrilineal] system of values.

“One of the attitudes that I think every worthwhile human being must have, is be high spirited in the face of overwhelming odds, to sort of laugh at fate and grim necessity, and to remain cheerful, and with high morale, in the face of the terribleness of everything.”

God would call that arrogance. Plus, no punishment by God would be possible, as consequences of act [punishment] would be divorced from the act itself. Imagine the world where God constantly punishes trespassers but they never realize it is a punishment. This is what you are effectively proposing.

Is that true, though? The modern vision is one of an engineered uniformity that specifically avoids the rich particularity of things produced through natural processes. A new culture, a new people, individual, particular, with traits, attributes, qualities, a way of life, a cuisine, habits, customs – in short, not just a stripped down, abstract, consumer or user of technology, a number, a unit – isn’t this rather against the vision of modernity?

Think of it this way – I want to build a baroque medieval Cathedral, modernity wants to build a steel and glass box 🙂

That being said, I admitted I am not simply a traditionalist and do believe that as much as we must be inspired by the past, and even resurrect parts of it, we must reach out to the new – only, not the new as conceived by technological modernity, but the new as increasing realization of divine Good.

And I have also made clear that I believe ethnogenesis to be primarily a spiritual and metaphysical process, not a physical one. In fact, the new people I’m envisioning can even retain it’s exact current ethnic composition and successfully mutate into an entirely novel culture and people.

The factors that make a people – that bind them- are metaphysical not genetic. People of the same genetic stock often divide into different peoples.

But perhaps in my zeal I’m overstating the case. Why not let the physical also make a contribution, provided one understands the metaphysical binding agents are primary?

No doubt, physical mixing will contribute to this novel prompt, or happen inevitably anyways. It’s already happening in Israel.

You’re the one who first bro9u9ght up cellphones and their costs, remember?…

I do like Mexican ladies, they usually have very pleasant personalities, and a lot of them are quite attractive too. As for weather, we’ve been experiencing mid 60’s for several weeks now, poised to experience 70’s soon enough. How about you? Next time you visit Phoenix do so from October – March – nobody visits during the summer months except those that don’t know any better. Don’t expect to hook up with me during the summer, I hope to be gone to the cooler lake country up north….

To be fair, the opposite perspective – a wholesome recognition of every happenstance as the act of God, the attitude the Arabs call “maktub” (in philosophical terms, a kind of extreme occasionalism aka the doctrine that God is the only true cause ) – also leads to divorce between a deed and its consequences, since everything can be potentially connected to anything.

The truth is the exact opposite of what you say.

I’m not proposing that you don’t acknowledge that you suffer or don’t recognize bad situations – you just don’t collapse in despair, and remain high hearted. Even if that means recognizing you have to radically change your behavior and yourself.

Thing is, in a world created by a Good God, ones fundamental attitude, despite everything, must be optimism. Weren’t the Gospels the good news? Read the early Christians – they were full of good cheer and optimism while quite clearly acknowledging the awfulness of the world situation on the proximate level.

A Good God, who will not abandon his creation but lovingly lead everyone to the Way, and who has already defeated the dark powers on high and rescued mankind from bondage to them, wants his creatures to be optimistic and of good cheer.

Far from arrogance, it can only be such a God’s desire.

Your view is the dark pagan view, of a God who punishes, and is jealous of human happiness 🙂

Quite aside from God, though, one should be of enough of a philosophical temper, and have enough of a breadth of view, to develop a certain sophisticated detachment from this silly world of ours 🙂

Montaigne said that philosophically, despair and sadness are stupid, and the philosopher is cheerful 🙂

So cheer up, you despairing Pole 🙂

Vivek might be the prototype for yet unseen Indians in the West seeking national leadership, to try to walk back the woke. Overall, by comparison to other conservatives, his message is not really bad, but I find his official spot to be atrocious. Lots of backs of people, and dark silhouettes of cowboys, and people with welding-masks on. Way too many blacks – first face is of a black girl. His tone seems too weak and unsure. And I don’t think trying to re-appropriate foundational myths and spin them as diversity that worked (E. pluribus unum, LOL), seems like it could possibly gain traction. Who are they going to drudge up, Crispus Attucks?

You’re Israeli, right? I remember well how Israel’s defeat in the 2006 Lebanon War ended Israel’s plan to make Judea and Samaria judenfrei. The Israeli far rightist who were rooting for Hezbollah in that war didn’t want to be ruled by Nasrallah but they wanted to see the Israeli regime weakened so it would have less power to persecute them.

That’s where I am, the weaker the US regime is, the less damage it can do here at home. Right now, China/Russia pose no threat to me, the US regime does. If the situation changes, my opinion will change with it.

Also: fuck white liberals

We must work for reform within the West whole simultaneously resisting even worse alternatives.

But my (brilliant, imo) thesis is that the West’s problems are the result of a fraudulent monetary policy that is inherently unreformable. I’m all for building something better, but the current system cannot be reformed, it can only collapse. Accelerationism is the only way out.

A victory for China and Russia would massively increase…

Too many people from all sides talk about what they would want, or not want, and speculate how it would change the world. None of that is very relevant – what happens is not based on our wants. The war is driven by a simple correlation of forces and willpower. The victory – if we ever agree on it, and it is not at all certain that we will in this ‘media’ war – will determine the rest.

Let’s see: X decided some time ago that Y is weak and that by using a smaller Z, neighbor of Y, major benefits can be obtained. X went for it, pushed and got ready, Z also got ready `and then – unsurprisngly – Y attacked.

Y is much stronger than Z (even with X) in that region. X also has a major problem: it can’t actually fight a real war because it cannot take casualties – in other words, X knows how to kill, but not how to die…that means it can kick-ass of any third rate country, but it has to stay away from countries like Y that can cause major casualties. So instead Z stepped in as the designated casualty-provider, X has been cheering them on from a safe distance…

How is this likely to end? It is really not that complicated…

Jimmy Dore is a comedian.

And he honestly says that. Whereas libtards are a comedy (or a freak show, if you are a pessimist) but they would never acknowledge that. E.g., you cannot parody Alzheimer-in-chief, he is a perfect self-parody.

Your view is the dark pagan view, of a God who punishes, and is jealous of human happiness

Experience as well as the Bible provide more support to the idea that this is true, than to the idea that this is untrue. However, God punishes but is not jealous of human happiness (unless you are a freemason which you very well might be).

Negating the Evil does not cancel it – you are a bit like a self-blinded man talking about the greatness of darkness.

So cheer up, you despairing Pole

I think I am rather detached – neither despairing nor singing hymns like you. Detachment is a natural consequence of being able of perceiving the great stupidity and the great blindness of the majority of humanity: indeed, it is such a great tragedy that it can be only contemplated in silent awe. Remember, only cosmic perspective, a perspective above the stars so to say, allows you to see the truth, among else that man has never been the crown of natural creation – in other words, the “religion” of survival is untrue. But, anyway, why we would need such a religion if that was true…?

Ability to self-deceive in a limited sense may be useful for survival, but at the greater scale, it is detrimental (Example: belief in Co2 as the leading cause of weather instability). Maybe human being exists in order to prove this concept. We cheat, because we want to survive, but because we cheat, we can’t survive: Der Teufelskreis aka vicious circle.

Yeah, I remember, during summers you go to visit the mosquito country…

And the Mex-chicas, they are indeed pleasant, eating all those carbohydrates help. They also tend to have a 2-3 years attractive window when they are of certain age….after that, well, when it is hot like in Phoenix maybe it doesn’t make that much difference…

For your enjoyment I am reposting something from another (maybe better?) culture:

Yeah, Ukrainian girls are always hot. Slovak girls are nice too…

Aliens? where did you go my friend…you are really getting lost in your attempts to evade the obvious…

But ok, the perpetrator is a mystery…Of course, they won’t confess but will boast about it – a weird combination that requires simultaneously lack of honor and self-discipline, like small children hiding candy behind their back…

Cui bono? For a milli-second try to reverse the players and imagine how credible it would if the pipeline was American and Russia had shown – repeatedly and in writing – an absolute hostility to the pipeline…can you try? or is your mind so hardwired that ‘enemy’ is an ‘enemy’, and your side can do no wrong….that’s how civilizations perish.

New Troubles seem inbound:

I am starting now to read Alfred de Custin’s “Letters From Russia”, perhaps only to feel somewhat topical 🙂 After all, I do live in these times.

Don’t know if you’ve watched Sokurov’s Russian Ark; but it’s readily available on Youtube with English subtitles for free:

The Marquis de Custin features as the central character. As the narrator walks through the Hermitage; he encounters the haughty French aristocrat; who proceeds to condescendingly opine on Russian history and society. The commentary is quite banal and mediocre; for example when the Marquis opines that Russians admire their dictators because they are an Asiatic people; or that the orchestra they pass by couldn’t possibly be Russian; since the music they played was original, and Russian are only good for copying Europeans. From brief summaries of Custin’s book; this seems to be the thoughts he expressed in his book; but I must say that film is a very limited medium to muse philosophically on history or culture. The bite-sized thoughts are inevitably superficial; they are too constrained by the limited space for dialogue. But i’d recommend watching the movie just for the ride throughout the Hermitage; and the unique cinematography.

I watched another of Sokurov’s films; a recent one set in the Louvre; and i’d strongly discourage against watching it. It’s an uninspired copy of Russian Ark.

Balzac was another French reactionary who hated democracy; wrote positively of Russia’s “despotism”; and even contemplated relocating to Russia, but was discouraged by the stringent citizenship requirements of the time. He wrote to Lady Hanska that he thought Custin’s book was “horrible”; and contrasted the “blind obedience” of the Russians to the “deep lack of discipline” of the French. Balzac’s admiration for obedience is a fairly peculiar notion by today’s standards; but perhaps this was a reflection of French instability at the time. As JS Mill wrote: “the first lesson of civilization [is] that of obedience”; for civilization to function properly, the powers of authority must be vested in a particular institution, whether democratic or autocratic. The latter is easier to establish; the former more durable.

I agree that generally it’s better to live in a democracy than an autocracy. But that doesn’t necessarily mean democracy is the best possible option for every state/society in every time period. Democracy requires several preconditions to establish itself and function properly. Chief among them is education of the masses and the formation of civil society. These conditions were not present in 19th century Russia. The autocratic system was deeply-rooted; the nascent Russian state having been influenced by Byzantine political thought, and to lesser extent Mongol and Ottoman administrative practices. The Russian system was even more centralized than the Ottoman state. It would’ve required a prolonged organic process to move away from that system. The other alternative is dramatic upheaval; which could and eventually did result in disaster and instability, as the experiences of 1917 and 1991 demonstrate.

Autocracy doesn’t necessarily need to be despotic and oppressive. There are several variations of each particular form of government. In the autocratic form it ranges from Lee Kuan Yew-style benevolence and competence to Ivan The Terrible-style despotism and incompetence. In my opinion, the best course of action for Russia in the 19th century was a gradual moderation by the formation of civil society which could accompany the autocratic system. The would serve as a counterbalance to the despotic tendency of the Russian autocracy; while retaining the efficacy and long-term orientation of a centralized government without the need to appeal to short-sighted voters.

If Russia had adopted democracy during the 1800s; likely the result would’ve been demagoguery and despotism of the majority. The Russian peasantry were insufficiently educated or inculcated with a democratic value system. Konstantin Pobedonostsev wrote the most convincing defense of Russian autocracy in Reflections Of A Russian Statesman: https://academic.shu.edu/russianhistory/index.php/Konstantin_Pobedonostsev,_Reflections_of_a_Russian_Statesman. It’s a one-sided polemic but he makes a few timeless points on the downsides of the democratic system; how it discourages intelligent and honorable people from participating in government; and the illusory nature of majority rule. On the other hand; I think George Cornewall Lewis authored the most balanced treatment of different governmental systems in A Dialogue On The Best Form Of Government. Lewis employed the Socratic technique to outline the positives and negatives of each system; and even took biological, cultural and societal differences into account; which is quite rare for an academic. His conclusion is one I agree with substantially; both are important; but the quality of the populace matters more than the form of government.

Spirit is not legally enforceable and the laws against migration are notoriously hard to enforce…

That’s true and I wasn’t arguing that this wouldn’t be a problem. My point was a bit different: this is kind of changing the rules in the middle of the game type of thing (I know you don’t agree, because you see this is all as consistent, everybody agreed to everything, can’t have your cake and eat it too, etc). But I believe that when you make such drastic changes, it merits at least a conversation.

Imagine, if the EU is one big country (I know it isn’t but just for the sake of illustrating my point), the population has been roughly static for hundreds of years and then somebody decided to change the composition of citizens in a drastic, irreversible way. This would call for a conversation or discussion at least, imo. The East doesn’t want this and there is nothing wrong with a conversation.

In normal law, this would be called “substantial changes of circumstances” with a petition for “modification”. I understand that this may not fly with the way the situation is in the EU right now, but I am talking about the PRINCIPLE.

Do we know a 100% what the European majorities, both in the East and the West really think about this issue?

I do agree with you that the seeds were put in a long time ago and not much was done to oppose a long time ago.

if a Portuguese speaking Angolan gets Portuguese citizenship and decides to move to Riga and pimp the local women, there is not much (other than the crime itself) Latvia can do

The laws against that are very strict in Latvia now (even for Russian women and their Russian pimps). So that wouldn’t be allowed to fester. There are mostly two categories of migrants – tech migrants (or other skilled workers) or service workers (delivery, nurses, etc). People would happily come for these opportunities (the rules now allow only a limited number to come), but they would have to work their *ss off and, even if they had a higher or same level salary as in Portugal, they wouldn’t have all those other benefits of Portugal – warmer weather, more relaxed population, cultural ties, language.

I was born in America and lived most of my life here, although I did spend a significant chunk of my childhood in Israel when it was a rather fun country to be in.

I have no problem with weakening the American system or rooting for the collapse of the global system – I myself have similar attitudes.

But rooting for China and Russia and against America won’t lead to the current system being replaced by something better – it will lead to a worse version of the current global system taking over everywhere. If America collapses but China and Russia stay strong, America would just be reorganized along Chinese or Russian lines – which would be a significantly worse tyranny than we have now.

Cognitively, it shouldn’t be difficult to both despise America, and China and Russia, to root for none of them, and to want the whole system to end. For my part, I root for the lesser of two evils now, which is obviously the West, while at the same time rooting for it to collapse.

It’s very common for tough guy tyrant type countries to think democracies are soft and weak and won’t die for their cause. This mistake happens so often – and always blows up in the face of those who make it – that it should really have its own name and be studied as a special psychological phenomena. Quite literally every single tough guy tyrant, everywhere, for the past several hundred years, has made some version of the “they’re paper tigers” mistake, only to suffer for it.

Just as I mentioned earlier that large civilizations suffer from a kind of “autism”, I think there is something about the tough guy mentality that similarly creates a kind of autism when it comes to their “weak” adversaries.

Certain mindsets appear prone to certain blind spots, and it’s actually quite interesting to study. Democracies are similarly autistic when they think everyone will become just like them when a tyrant is overthrown.

If America collapses but China and Russia stay strong, America would just be reorganized along Chinese or Russian lines

You imply that Pax Americana will be replaced by Pax Sinica. That would hardly be an improvement. I advise you to consider the possibility that the US will transform from a bloated overreaching empire to a normal country. With the US aggression and terrorism sponsored or directly perpetrated by the US ending the whole world would become a much better place. Multi-polar world is preferable to any unipolar world (the latter basically means one bully terrorizing everybody else with impunity).

The Germans won’t even say boo to their occupiers when their main energy pipeline is blown up. For all practical purposes they now are a conquered nation. The generals in Lagos Nigeria have more backbone. It is against the law to display a swastika. The college fraternities probably don’t even have duels any more.

Maybe they have them with rubber swords.

Given that China too doesn’t want to see RusFed terminally weakened, it means that RusFed would be kept around as a pariah state that the West might use as a scarecrow and a whipping boy, while China siphones its natural ressources for a cheap price and the Central Asian/ Turkic folks overtake its lebensraum through rampant colonization.

It’s correct that China may not want the RusFed “terminally weakened”, but China still wants a weak RusFed that they can exploit. Also, if the craziest scenario comes to pass (RusFed loses spectacularly and chaos ensues at home, not a given, but an “if”), who in the world will be able to control this smuta? It will be so fragmented, that it will take some uber strict local leader to control, it is certainly not going to be outsiders from the West – they may try to influence the situation, but they will definitely not hold the reins on it.

Xi will present his peace plan soon and most likely he will defend things such as “territorial integrity”. He will not fully side with Russia.

Btw, you know who didn’t do well at the Munich Conference? The one Khodorkovsky. He was beset by Ukrainian journalists who questioned and almost shamed him about why he has not provided more help for the Ukrainians (out of his pocket, as many others did).

Then when speaking to Dozhd, he admitted to be somewhat startled by how mainstream the talk about “disintegration of Russia” has become. Or maybe not “mainstream”, but less marginal than before. These overseas Russian liberals are just sitting there, biding their time, hoping that the Ukrainian military and the Russian freedom fighters will topple Putin for them (paying with blood and sweat in the process) and then they can just cruise back in, and take all the warm seats in Russia like what they used to have back in the early 90s (just with higher commodity prices). I don’t want to trash them, they have a right to their vision. It’s just that things have changed, the attitude towards Russia has changed.

I think what you have is “resignation”. True detachment leads to exhilaration and joy 🙂

Similarly, I think you haven’t achieved the full cosmic perspective, which liberates. You still have some lingering resentment that humans aren’t so important, some lingering despondency at dashed expectations. That’s merely the first stage of “seeing through” the world, and you’re still clinging to the residues of a human-centric vision, not a cosmic, all embracing one.

The full cosmic perspective shows that there was never any need for humans to be so important, as seperate from the cosmos – because from the perspective of the cosmos, these separations are artificial. There is only the All. Humans are unimportant as humans, but of infinite worth as the All of the cosmos, just like everything else 🙂

This banishes all despondency and replaces resignation with exhilaration.

Thanks, I have not seen Sukorov’s film – it looks interesting I will check it out!

As for Custin’s book, it’s been highly praised by very intelligent people so I’m sure it isn’t just composed of the sorts of banal platitudes you mentioned, which are not only trite but racist and illiberal – if it does contain things like that, I suspect those are distortions, and it’s treated in a much sophisticated and nuanced manner.

But I shall see when I read the book – if it’s largely simplistic, dumb things like Asiatics like autocracies and aren’t creative, I’ll be the first to admit it’s worthless trash!

As for civilization requiring obedience, I am not a fan of that kind of civilization, even if JS Mill said that 🙂 I believe in my discussion with AP something of my opposition to this kind of hierarchical, overly complex civilization came out.

I am something of an anarchist and a socialist, and am convinced that humans can organize with a minimum of hierarchy and coercion, and can cooperate on a voluntary basis to secure life’s necessities and satisfy all worthwhile human desires. Anything more authoritarian can only have nefarious purposes in view, like the enriching of an elite class at the expense of everyone else, or projects of conquest and subjugation which are inherently wrong.

I’m inspired in this party by my reading of both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament, which strike me both as anarchist and socialist in spirit, and in the latter case, unambiguously and explicitly so.

Hunter-gatherer tribes often have a loose political structure with no clear central authority, and the chief is merely “primus inter pares” and is followed willingly in limited ways, and has no ability to exact strict obedience. When Europeans first began dealing with American Indians, they were frustrated by the inability of the Indian chiefs to exact strict obedience from his people of the kind needed to enforce treaties.

Noted anthropologist David Graeber recently wrote a book called the Dawn of Everything, that explores early human societies and that was precisely meant to combat these restrictive notions of what is politically possible for humans – this sense that only obedience and hierarchy makes possible coexistence, he shows has taken shape in historic times only, and previously, humans had much more expanded political imaginations that permitted all sorts of shifting, flexible arrangements, including hierarchy and obedience parts of the year, anarchism the rest, etc.

His book questions why the human political imagination lost it’s flexibility and contracted into a narrow orthodoxy that doesn’t come close to representing the range of the possible.

I’m prepared to accept that a given moment in time, a particular society may be unprepared for democracy – but I think it’s plainly an urgent moral and spiritual imperative that such a society be put on the path towards freedom and democracy, and as soon as possible, trained and educated for freedom.

Nor do I think democracy is the ideal – a far less hierarchical and more anarchist society is my ideal 🙂

But I cannot accept, from a moral and spiritual perspective, that any human society is incapable of or unworthy of freedom, and is so vicious as to need to be permanently ruled by coercion.

And while I admit there of course can be benevolent autocrats, it’s plainly a great evil and a great injustice to keep any people in a state of coercion indefinitely.

However, if the youth in Estonia are a rare exception then congrats. Your nation has a fighting chance of staying homogenous and true to roots despite choosing the EU/NATO path.

I was talking about the elites, not the “youth” – I thought you were talking about the elites in your original post? And, btw, some of the elites are quite young. My point was that your example is not a good one because the Baltic States are a bit different than the rest of the EU in this regard in that a sizable portion of the elites (not all, but a sizable portion) are not connected to what you call the “high status ideology”. Yes, there is such a type who are trying to do that (similar to how back in the day, some tried to larp as “Germans”, we called them “willow Germans” – willow being a light flexible tree that bends easily or sways easily, they are looked down on, similarly, we now have “willow Anglos” or “willow Euros” – people who kiss up to the leading ideology but they are not the majority). One can be respectable and successful without adhering to this ideology.

I’m not saying this won’t change at some point. But it is not the case now. It is different from the West that way. Again, for now.

Also, looking further into the future, we do not know what will be the status of this ideology. What will be the status of the West. It doesn’t mean that other ideologies (those in the East) will become more appealing, everyone sees the duplicity of them (authoritarian at home but parking your money in the West or other safe places), besides the essence of those ideologies is not that appealing to begin with.

It would mean you are taking the package deal but unwilling to acknowledge the trade off.

The package deal is not “black and white”. The package deal is a parliamentary set up with everyone represented at the Euro Parliament and a pluralistic system. The package deal also respects local culture – this is emphasized in how languages are respected in the EU. You have a very one sided view of the EU. Remember also, if things get really bad – too compromising – there is a way out, it is not like the Soviet Union that way.

You get the joy now of inflicting fatalities against the Russian military

There is no “joy” in what is happening. This is a humanitarian catastrophe and a deep wound on the body of everyone who is post-USSR, that will not heal (or will take forever to heal). The scale of this was not expected. There is no “joy”, just dislike, worry and some minor fear.

But, yes, that they moved the troops from Pskov to Ukraine might be a bit of a relief.

Everyone is thinking, comprehensively, what can be done to make the future safer. There is no joy, the price for the Ukrainians is excruciatingly high. And it’s not even over.

but will have to deal with being an old man walking through city streets that don’t speak to you anymore

This will be neither the fault of Russia nor the West. This will be our own fault.

Once again, thank you for your “kind hearted” concern, it is noted. Not that you guys don’t have similar problems and not that you have some “magical pill” to solve these problems.

Such as? Konashenkov and his 44 destroyed HIMARS systems? Or the desrtruction of 4 Bradley IFVs before they had even arrived in the European continent never mind Ukraine? [See tweets after the MORE tag].

LMAO – Konashenkov would have said that Russian air-defence intercepted 44 missiles fired from HIMARS you idiot, not that they destroyed 44 launch systems ( although several HIMARS on the battlefield and rockets/missiles for it in storage have been destroyed already).

If you are going to propogate this mindless BS, surely you should at least check what he said – and what is entirely plausible/probable ( that they have intercepted 44 missiles from HIMARS, plus many more since then)

Anyway, HIMARS has been near-useless since winter – lack of camouflage and covering its tracks , plus our military adapting to spot, track, destroy and not get deceived/overwhelmed in AD, from the latest (NATO conducted)Ukronazi trick.

As for the Bradley IFV’s – I’m sure they were even displayed at the military EXPO in Moscow region.

By the way, what are your thoughts on Putin’s drab speech yesterday?

His “drab” speech was mainly about social payments and new tax initiatives (as is usual for the address) – of course it should be “drab” to westerners watching you ridiculous cretin. He can’t exactly discuss SMO strategy and tactics in public
As for the “failed Sarmat test” – only plankton like you could swallow typical American BS like that.

Accept facts – Konashenkov NEVER lies . Ukronazi freaks can’t do anything but lie, and lie big you retard.

My “favourite”, without being disrespectful to all the other extreme BS, is ukronazi freaks giving awards posthumously to Border Guard and Navy at Snake Island …..for one of them “heroically” saying in comms to Moskva to go f**k itself………even though he didn’t say it, even though NONE of them were killed or even injured or showed any resistance……..even though they surrendered immediately!!!! As in typical ukronazi loser idiocy…..once it was established that all 80 of them were alive and surrendered immediately but were then released early in a prisoner swap…….they gave them the Hero of Ukraine medals anyway!!!!!!!!

this sense that only obedience and hierarchy makes possible coexistence, he shows has taken shape in historic times only, and previously, humans had much more expanded political imaginations that permitted all sorts of shifting, flexible arrangements, including hierarchy and obedience parts of the year, anarchism the rest, etc.

Walter Bagehot in Physics & Politics states that hierarchy and obedience were necessary to scale from tribal structures into nascent forms of civilizational structures like city-states. Anarchism may be feasible for a small tribe of Indians; but what will it look like for a nation of 100 million people? I don’t think full-scale anarchism has been attempted by any modern nation; and it’s not because of a lack of imagination. We saw in the 20th century how almost half the world took up the radically experimental communist system; people are open to new ideas. But anarchism seems to be discouraged because of how unrealistic it is. The only instances of anarchism I can think of are inadvertent; viz. following state collapse; and the result is almost always negative. Consider the example of ISIS in Iraq and Syria; or the chaos of the post-Soviet collapse. I think they can legitimately be categorized as periods of anarchy; even if not in the form that anarchist tend to imagine or advocate.

I’m open to the idea that anarchism could work better than present systems of political organization. But my conservative instincts tell me it won’t end well; may even be worse than communism. I’d have to see some strong empirical evidence to suggest the contrary.

I’m prepared to accept that a given moment in time, a particular society may be unprepared for democracy – but I think it’s plainly an urgent moral and spiritual imperative that such a society be put on the path towards freedom and democracy, and as soon as possible, trained and educated for freedom.

And while I admit there of course can be benevolent autocrats, it’s plainly a great evil and a great injustice to keep any people in a state of coercion indefinitely.

I think the idea of democracy and freedom as moral imperative is a dangerous one. It gets you stuff like Iraq and Afghanistan. The emphasis should be on realism; and recognizing that different systems are appropriate for different circumstances. There is no one-size fits all; and the so-called march towards the end of history is an illusion.

Democracy advocates tend to overdo their criticism of authoritarian systems. The image is always one of severe repression and suffocation of all forms of liberty. But having lived under both a democratic and authoritarian system; I can’t say my liberties were significantly different under the latter. I can still read books; move around as I like; go to the cinema; listen to music on my way to work etc. Most of the activities I cherish I am capable of doing under both systems. The only difference is that I don’t get to express my opinion in a newspaper; but since I’m not a journalist; that’s not much of a curtailment. I can vote in both systems, but my vote wouldn’t matter either way.

I’d much rather be living in an authoritarian system with a GDP per capita of $50,000 than a democratic system with $10,000 of per capita income. The key factor is economic development, not form of government.

If smuta just limited to RusFed that would be half of problem, thing is that we have major smuta brewing quietly almost everywhere.

Things fall apart, center cannot hold, and all that. Entropy is taking over.

Who’s gonna keep paying for pension plans for our retirement LatW ?

Who’s gonna help finance public debt ?

The Algerian harraga racailles, Romani maques and the Nigerian scammers ?

They’re not idiots…

Third turning’s nearly done. We’re getting overdue for the fourth one.

Major crisis is coming our way whenever we are.

The people who think that it can be reformed and changed are in my view naive – the stranglehold the assorted liberal and global business groups have on EU is unshakeable. The real problem is that there is no way back and the benefits of EU (there are still many) are hard to let go.

Certainly gradual reform is not available. Working through EU institutions will be strangled by the elites, as you suggest.

The potential save is a sudden, dramatic transformation. Multiple EU countries simply repudiate EU actions that conflict with national sovereignty. Imagine an collection of sovereign equals — Controversial ECJ/ECHR junior court rulings are treated with derision and then vetoed under the principle of national sovereignty.

Brexit proved that a small country cannot leave the EU. They would be savaged. However, a group of countries within the EU can dramatically change the structure by defying the authoritarian liberals in Brussels.

PEACE 😇

The point I’m making is that an American defeat and humiliation at the hands of a stronger Russia or China would not lead to improved political outcomes in America, as Greasy seems in my opinion quite foolishly to expect – but rather significantly worse internal politics as the Chinese and Russian systems – exploitative and oppressive and coercive – gain credibility and influence.

Ultimately, of course I’d rather America shrink to just being an ordinary country – I’d like the whole stinking global system of capitalism to collapse lol 🙂

In the meantime, one must choose the lesser of two evils.

But really, one can simultaneously pray for the current American system to collapse as well as that of China and Russia – the whole world deserves to be free and happy.

Multi-faith dialogue doesn’t seem to help architecture any:

You know very well me not being the proponent of “blowup of NS by US” theory

It’s like contract killing. Anyone with IQ greater than shoe size knows who ordered it.

You are misunderstanding the application of IQ in this context.

Everyone with a modicum of common sense realizes that the most likely scenario is that the NS events are accidents. Mistakes do last 17+ hours.

There is a very special form of stupidity that plagues high-IQ individuals who have no relevant knowledge and then over reach. Jeffery Sachs is a perfect example of this. He is a competent economist who got virology 100% wrong.

PEACE 😇

It is an interesting case of “getting what you wished for” curing your illusions about the thing you desired – I’d wager nine tenths of our internet reactionaries, if they found themselves in the sort of society they claim to want, would quickly flee back to the awful liberal countries they left.

We don’t want Russia, the Russians are not doing it right (and, yes, they have a different mentality). We want the benign 1930s autocracies of Central Europe (not Nazi Germany either, that’s another exaggeration). You grabbed the worst example and extrapolated on all of the right wingers. That’s not what we want. We would even be ok with a managed democracy, with elements of nationalism. It doesn’t have to be anything crazy. Nobody in today’s world is going to accept living under a “Leader”, but they will accept certain enforcements such as immigration control (and possibly a few other protectionist measures).

And, btw, I have been the champion of what you posted above since day one. Let all those who admire Russia from a distance, actually go there, instead of trying to push Ukrainians and others into Russia’s arms. I think this should satisfy them.

Don’t know if you’ve watched Sokurov’s Russian Ark; but it’s readily available on Youtube with English subtitles for free:

The Marquis de Custin features as the central character. As the narrator walks through the Hermitage; he encounters the haughty French aristocrat; who proceeds to condescendingly opine on Russian history and society. The commentary is quite banal and mediocre; for example when the Marquis opines that Russians admire their dictators because they are an Asiatic people; or that the orchestra they pass by couldn’t possibly be Russian; since the music they played was original, and Russian are only good for copying Europeans. From brief summaries of Custin’s book; this seems to be the thoughts he expressed in his book; but I must say that film is a very limited medium to muse philosophically on history or culture. The bite-sized thoughts are inevitably superficial; they are too constrained by the limited space for dialogue. But i’d recommend watching the movie just for the ride throughout the Hermitage; and the unique cinematography.

It’s a brilliant movie but it’s brilliance can’t be really appreciated on a small screen. On a large screen it really has a hypnotic effect, transporting the viewer in time and place. I was fortunate to see it when it was released in theaters and afterwards for a few minutes I was in nearly a trance. As you correctly wrote, the dialogue was kind of irrelevant.

Nowadays of course many people have home theaters so one needn’t wait for a film festival or something to see it.

I watched another of Sokurov’s films; a recent one set in the Louvre; and i’d strongly discourage against watching it. It’s an uninspired copy of Russian Ark.

His Moloch wasn’t bad.

I agree with the rest of your comments.

You’ll get niggers and like it.

Dammit, left you a long reply but my phone shut down 🙂 Too tired to retype, but basically –

1) Based on recent discoveries that radically revise our understanding, pre-historic people’s actually did create seasonal cities as large and complex as anything in historic times yet without coercive political structures.

So the scaling issue may not be determinative 🙂

2) Imposing freedom suddenly on an unprepared population is self indulgent ideological extremism that prefers to gaze adoringly at its own exalted vision rather than make any concessions to a messy reality that requires gradual, sensitive, and nuanced measures.

One must be morally educated.

3) Agree that formal political structures like democracy may not always be the best indication of freedom. Hierarchy and inequality of wealth and power are the salient factors, as well as exploitation and oppression.

There is some correlation between formal political structures and these conditions, but it is imperfect.

Your experience is not necessarily representative as you are wealthy in your country. When I travel to poor countries my comparative wealth creates an experience of privilege that I am under no illusions is denied the average person there.

4) I cannot agree that economic development is as important as you think. Wealthy countries often exhibit dissatisfaction and malaise, and strained social relations, despite economic development.

Clearly, the spiritual environment has an enormous influence on people’s life satisfaction and the possibility of harmonious social interaction – and things like inequality, injustice, oppressive hierarchies, contribute to shaping the spiritual environment.

That being said, I am sure there are countries that are freer than the West in significant ways without really being democratic – much of South East Asia strikes me as this way – but specifically, Russia and China are significantly more oppressive and exploitative than the West..

Those political systems are not ones that one should desire to gain credibility at the expense of the West.

That being said, one should pray for the whole rotten glass bal capitalist system to collapse 🙂

According to the Ministry of Internal Affairs, in January-September 2022, 12.78 million migrants arrived in the Russian Federation, which is 3.5 million more than in the same period in 2021[2].

Wait a minute. Are those numbers real or is there a typo? Those are insanely high numbers even for Russia! Almost 13M new arrivals?? That’s a lot.

Assuming something like one million young Russian men left to avoid being himars’ed (ok, this number is debatable, but it is at least hundreds of thousands apparently). Then the recent casualties of the war (possibly a 100K both killed and wounded, maybe more, as not all will be counted). Possibly others who left as early as January 2022.

On the plus side (for Russia, I guess) – a large number of Ukrainians who fled to Russia or children who were trafficked into Russia (they say it is at least tens of thousands of children), overall refugees could be a large number.

However, this is not 12 or almost 13M. That means the vast bulk of them are young Central Asians. Possibly others like Vietnamese, etc.

Up to 2 million foreign citizens annually arrive in Moscow for the purpose of employment, of which 300-400 thousand are officially employed

Do these 2M rotate back home after they are done with their contracts and receive the salaries that they bring back home, or are there new 2M arriving in Moscow each year? (!!!) There is probably a lot of back and forth movement, but it looks like more and more are accumulating in Moscow. It’s a huge Eurasian megacity now. All this activity will most likely attract even more foreigners. It will thrive but it won’t be truly Russian. Then again if the non-Slavs do not exceed 10%, it might be ok.

Русский мир

Русский, indeed. My deepest condolences.

although several HIMARS on the battlefield and rockets/missiles for it in storage have been destroyed already

It does not appear that any have been destroyed on the battlefield. We certainly don’t have any photographic documentation of such

I don’t believe it is possible for the Chinese or Russian systems to take hold in the United States. What would be much more likely is to see the US fracture into multiple separate nations. That would be ideal.

I don’t regard immigration controls as necessarily an autocratic measure, although honestly, in my ideal world, people would be allowed to go anywhere.

There were no passports or border control before the First World war, you know. It was a freer world.

But in today’s world, mass immigration is often a capitalist measure to keep wages down in some countries, to avoid developing and distributing wealth fairly in other countries, and in the current climate of deliberate stoking of racial tensions it’s incendiary.

Still, though, my ideal society is heavily multi-cultural and multi-ethnic and multi-religious – kind of like those fascinating imperial cities in the dungeons and dragons books I used to read as a kid 🙂 I love variety and color and feel my world is expanded by the “other”, not threatened by it – but of course, it would have to be done with the encouragement of inter-group harmony and respect, the opposite of now.

But I get that you’re an ethnic nationalist who disagrees with me. That’s fine.

Fair enough, there are different types of right wingers. I had in mind specifically the alt-right that cheer on China and Russia, and generally seem like really odious people, and not just traditional conservative types. Traditional conservative types are far more sympathetic, even though I don’t count myself among their ranks.

As for your vision, you want to sort of fine tune the precise level of autocracy, and that’s not terrible, but I wonder if that’s really possible as anything more than a temporary measure – in reality, nothing stays “static” for long, and the world is movement (one of the weaknesses of the fascist vision is it’s static nature. Not because this is undesirable, but because this is impossible). Spiritually and morally, I think there is an imperative to move towards ever greater equality and justice and non-coercion and freedom, but of course judiciously and with wisdom.

But I understand that you have a different perspective on this.

A rally in Saratov to support the war in Ukraine on Defenders of the Fatherland day.

Clearly far fewer than the 10,000 claimed (in a conurbation of 1.3m) but people who don’t assess the picture or just see it on tv will remember the 10,000. I’ve seen more for a market. The flag holders were clearly organized beforehand and with hangers on are a significant fraction of the crowd.

https://www.vzsar.ru/news/2023/02/22/saratovskiy-miting-v-podderjky-prezidenta-i-svo-sobral-10-tysyach-chelovek.html

Most modern pipelines would be better designed. These had no valves to shut off flow and no one tried to place emergency valves (surely standing by somewhere) after the accident.

For my money Gazprom/Russia did it. Putin had been trying to push Germany to use NS2 not NS1. Gazprom went so far as to fake technical difficulties to NS1, stopping the gas flow to force Germany onto NS2. The Germans didn’t take the bait.

Why? Using NS2 would have changed the terms and conditions of the contracts. Putin was still so sheltered from the reality of Russia’s war losses and sanctions environment that he was prioritizing NS2 as an issue. Blowing up the alternatives would have saved Gazprom from contractual liabilities. Using NS2 would have locked Germany in.

There is some good news. America sees the problem: (1)

President Trump Warns America That Joe Biden, The State Dept and NATO are Putting us on The Brink of World War III

President Donald Trump sends a warning to America that Joe Biden, his administration, and the foreign policy establishment in Washington DC, has positioned us on the brink of World War III. He’s right, and CTH will outline the data soon.

…”a lot of people don’t see it, but I see it, and I’ve been right about a lot of things.”

President Trump says in this video message that he see’s Joe Biden putting us into direct military conflict with Russia and it is likely to happen very quickly if someone does not intercede soon.

Video and transcript in the article.

Ultimately the U.S. House will lead the intervention. Not-The-President Biden lacks the authority to start a war. The funding is also unavailable.

His own cabinet would suspend him as unfit for duty if the lobotomite tried to announce WW III.

PEACE 😇
__________

(1) https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2023/02/21/president-trump-warns-america-that-joe-biden-the-state-dept-and-nato-are-putting-us-on-the-brink-of-world-war-iii/

That’s fine, but that happening in a world where China and Russia remain strong would leave the American statelets prey to very negative political and economic forces.

The problem is you’re failing to see that America does not live in a vacuum, and others have aggressive and imperialistic tendencies. It’s wonderful to be “left alone”, but others may not let you. Moreover, people within these newly minted American states will naturally look to the successful large powers for political and economic inspiration, as humans do, and there are no shortage of people in America more than willing to recreate here structures of oppression and exploitation for their own benefit. No doubt, the large successful powers will be flattered at the imitation and gratified to assist them, and acting out of mere political prudence in helping multiply copies of their political structures around the globe.

I suggest you haven’t really thought this through.

The whole global system has to be reformed and experience a collapse, not one part of it, if there is going to be any genuine change. In the meantime, one has no choice but to choose the lesser of two evils – while never forgetting it is an evil, and that it too should collapse as part of the disappearance of the larger system of evil.

Prigozyn is being groomed by western coverage as a future warlord in the former RussianFederation.

Most modern pipelines would be better designed. These had no valves to shut off flow and no one tried to place emergency valves (surely standing by somewhere) after the accident.

These were property designed pipelines with the required valves.

Suddenly changing valve positions during an incident can easily make things worse. I would be unsurprised to learn that emergency operator action caused the NS2 event 17 hours after the first blowouts.

Alas, we will never have a proper After Action Review because of the politics. There is likely much the industry could learn from understanding this complex accident.

PEACE 😇

Patently absurd. The verified equipment loss ratios published by Oryx may capture more Russian losses than Ukrainian but the difference will not be huge. They suggest something over 3 Russian losses to one Ukrainian at teh quipment level. It’s unlikely infantry will be very different.

This is graphical using Oryx numbers as well as many other sources. To some extent, Russia lost more because they had more to start with.

https://github.com/leedrake5/Russia-Ukraine

“The point I’m making is that an American defeat and humiliation at the hands of a stronger Russia or China would not lead to improved political outcomes in America, as Greasy seems in my opinion quite foolishly to expect – but rather significantly worse internal politics as the Chinese and Russian systems – exploitative and oppressive and coercive – gain credibility and influence.“

While I disagree that the Russian and/or Chinese systems would take root in America, I do agree that the political outcome of a defeat at their hands would not necessarily be for the better. North Korea getting bombed to rubble in the 1950’s resulted in their country becoming more autocratic, not less. Likewise, a military defeat might merely encourage the U.S. to turn their security infrastructure inwards instead of outwards.

The Rus have tried it all.

Every fad.

Time to strike hard and fast.

And what /who is Oryx owned by? He, who pays the musicians, calls the tune.

If what you (or your Oryx) say were even remotely true, the war would not still be going on the territory Ukraine claims as its own, with Ukrainian troops losing position after position.

Likewise, a military defeat might merely encourage the U.S. to turn their security infrastructure inwards instead of outwards.

It’s already turned inwards. Remember hundreds of political prisoners held on the pretext of Jan 6? Even though the only violent act on that day on Capitol Hill was a government thug murdering an unarmed woman.

Wait a minute. Are those numbers real or is there a typo? Those are insanely high numbers even for Russia! Almost 13M new arrivals?? That’s a lot.

No it’s not a typo. Yes it’s very high.

According to the quantitative characteristics of the incoming migration flow to Russia, the official data of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the Russian Federation for 2016–20176 indicate an average value of 15 million people per year. And this is only in terms of the number of registrations with the migration service. Not all of them stay in the country year-round, but the total share of migrants from abroad, annually present in the country at any given time, is at least 8%[7] of the population of Russia. The overwhelming majority of such migrants are labor migrants who make out their stay in the Russian Federation for short periods, often continuously over and over again. Taking into account the volume of illegal migrants, whose number even officials estimate with a surprising range of 2.6 to 8–10 million people [8], it is impossible to determine the actual number of migrants.

Yes we tried it all, and we’re tired. Can we have some peace for once ? For a change ? I truly wish we could…

In Wales the sheep outnumber the humans 3 to 1.