*** AFGHANISTAN The terrorist attacks today. The Taliban did free all those Islamist militants, not all of them would have been strictly suborned to the Taliban themselves. What’s so surprising? Notable foreign relations developments. Tajikistan has adopted a cold tone to the Taliban, accusing them of gong and has reportedly supplied the NRF holed up
MUSTREAD. @pseudoerasmus thread on the history of the Taliban. Steve Sailer on Pashtun proverbs. * Erik D’Amato: 20 Hungarian Lessons the West Is Still Missing Noah Carl: Observations on Afghanistan Lyman Key thread on Chinese TFR. We still don’t really know what’s going on there. MUSTREAD. Philip Lemoine: Why COVID-19 Is Here to Stay, and Why You Shouldn’t Worry
The past is the best guide to the future, so there’s no surprise that there is already a rebellion breaking out against the Taliban. Finding its core in the natural fastness of the Panjshir Valley, which foiled repeated Soviet attacks during the 1980s, the Northern Alliance is reconstituting itself under Ahmad Massoud (the son of
It is true that Afghans probably have the highest “Islamism Quotient” in the world. Support for sharia, as Steve Sailer reminds us, is basically universal. He refers to a 2013 PEW poll, which Razib Khan and I had covered a few years back. Furthermore, 79% of Afghans who support sharia also support the death penalty
First thought is that the US spent 20 years and $2 trillion trying to build a democracy in a half-literate country of goatherders that disintegrated within 20 days. Think what you could have done with that (dependent on your preferences). “Green New Deal”. Free college. 335 ship Navy. Mars base. This adventure must have set
Like them, hate them, or consider them genderfluid TikToking herbivores, but one thing the zoomers undoubtedly get right is that they know the value of their labor and aren’t afraid to spell out their conditions to seething boomers. Behold…the entitled generation: pic.twitter.com/Rjl0gN8TqZ — Natalie F Danelishen (@Chesschick01) August 11, 2021 Isn’t this, like, the free
I mentioned this Ipsos poll on global attitudes to LGBT in a previous Open Thread, but it really deserves a separate post on account of its significance. I think it demonstrates three things: LGBT rights (as in marriage and adoption) have become universalized beyond their Western core, with the Rest sliding into line soon after
Emil Kirkegaard: The ‘Hereditarians bad people’ objection. On the recent spat between Cathy Young vs. Charles Murray, Steve Sailer, and other hereditarians. Ended with Steve being blocked by Cathy. Hungary has become an object in the culture war. Their demographic problems long predate Orban, who was actually more successful on the economy than on the former (at
It’s fascinating to think that what is now a solidly lower-middle income country with a population that is on the cusp of overtaking’s China’s has just two medals in the Olympics so far. It’s a bit less surprising when one considers that the average Indian man might only be about as strong as the average
Rosatom HQ. RIP. Sam Dickson: William H. Regnery II: A Hero’s Life. A Hero’s Death. I intersected with him in Moscow in 2018 at the end of a transit of the Trans-Siberian with a friend. Too little to get a know a person, but my impressions were positive, FWIW. On a non-political tone, He remarked that he
These are the results of a recent poll from Rating Group. 41% agree with Putin’s position, 55% disagree. Not bad, considering there’s now been a generation’s worth of state svidomy narratives. But possibly the most startling result (and certainly one that I didn’t expect is there there’s essentially zero difference across age groups. 44% of 18-29
Chinese protectionism/censorship (they only allow 34 Hollywood movies a year) has helped incubate a domestic film industry. As Richard Hanania points out, citing a study by James McMahon, that as of now, 9 out of 10 of the highest grossing films in Chinese history are domestic, all released in the last few years. State censors require
Time for something more stereotypical. The AK. About a couple of months ago the National Bolsheviks (“Other Russia”) had me round to their “bunker” for a podcast. It’s now been released, you can listen to it here. (Obviously only in Russian). Alt Right columnist Tobias Langdon “featured me” as a Jew besmirching the noble Anglo
America’s ability to draw high quality human capital from abroad is one of the lynchpins of its economic strengths and probably goes some ways to explaining why it’s GDP per capita is significantly higher than would might be predicted from its national IQ. Alexander Kruel recently had a Twitter thread about precisely which groups of immigrants
That’s what I counselled people hoping for (or fearing) that a color revolution was imminent a few months ago: Look at the numbers. Well, since then, they have if anything plummeted further. 14% approval vs. 62% disapproval. Down from half a year ago. Furthermore, while young people are relatively more pro-Navalny (this is not surprising: to