Open Thread 51

moscow-park

Today is the centenary of the crushing of the Yaroslavl Rebellion against Bolshevik tyranny. I will have a post on that imminently.

Romania travel post is still in the works. Given previous prediction failures that I would publish it “within a week,” I will just settle on saying that it will likely be “sometime soon.”

Some of my colleagues are thinking of how to promote #FreeMariaButina. I wonder if a picket at the US Embassy would be productive (assuming permission from the Mayoralty).


Featured News

Margarita Simonyan, chief editor of RT, says the same thing.

Pretty depressing, if probably inevitable, in the long-term. But there’s one detail that makes it even sadder. I’ll post about it if/when this happens.

It’s likely that the US will want to extradite him. This will result in lengthy legal proceedings, based on the applicability of US laws outside its borders, and his prospects of getting a fair trial in the US. Assange will certainly not be granted bail a second time, so most likely he will spend the next 1-3 years in jail at a minimum.

I suppose the final outcome will depend on the extent to which British courts are still independent. With the Brexit trainwreck, UK politicians could certainly do with polishing their relations with the US.


Russia

* RAND: Assessing the Imbalance of Military Power in Europe (2018 update)

Given NATO’s current posture and capability, including European battalions and a rotational U.S. armored brigade combat team, Russia can still achieve a rapid fait accompli in the Baltic states followed by brinksmanship to attempt to freeze the conflict. Nothing about this analysis should suggest that Russian conventional aggression against NATO is likely to take place…

Let’s face it, unless the Washington establishment makes a very unlikely about-turn, the Russia-US confrontation will last for decades and outlive both the Trump and Putin presidencies because it has a simple root.

In 1991, Russians believed they were joining the US-led international order as equal partners and the Americans considered Moscow to be a defeated empire. Meaning, much like Germany in 1945, they expected Russia to fall into line and suck it up, albeit without a Marshall Plan. Washington’s strategy failed because the economy collapsed, Russians lost their thirst for liberalism, and by a stroke of luck, a competent government, blessed with high oil prices, managed to perform an economic resurrection before it was too late.

By 2007, Putin had drawn red lines about NATO expansion in Munich, but the US didn’t listen and now we are where we are. That’s it, in simplistic terms, because unlike the rest of Europe, Russia defines its own national interests, rather than taking instruction from Washington. And that’s just how it is, and it’s unlikely to change, barring some sort of catastrophic fiscal or state collapse.

  • Russia’s holdings of US Treasury Securities falls from $100 billion to just $15 billion within the past three months, which is just enough to guarantee USD-denominated trade.

russia-us-treasury-securities

  • Heat wave over Finland during Helsinki summit. Tropical Hyperborea immanentizing?

World

* Alex Tabarrok: The Misallocation of International Math Talent. (Global-level) argument for open borders?

He handed me a copy of the book he had written about our grandfather called “Generolas Vėtra” (General Storm), the cover of which bore a photo of my grandmother pulling my grandfather closer to her by his neck-tie. It had been published by the Lithuanian Genocide Museum, dedicated to Lithuanians who suffered during World War II, many whom died in Siberia. The museum was created in 1992, shortly after Lithuania’s independence, in response to the Holocaust, to show the world that Lithuanian nationalists had suffered under Communism just as much as Jews had under Nazism. The museum was criticized for appropriating the word genocide wrongly, and earlier this year it changed its name to the Museum of Occupations and Freedom Fights. Formerly, the museum was the KGB prison where our grandfather died in 1947, and it bears his name, along with many others’, on its gray marble walls.

Mainly posting this insofar as this relates to our debate over whether Museums to X Genocide are useful or not. They seem to have worked very well for the Balts. This Silvia Foti person will receive 1,000x less attention than the Museum itself. Indeed, based on the experience of other Baltic “truth-diggers” like her, it is likely that she will be ostracized in Lithuania, perhaps smeared as a Russian agent of some sort.

  • Comment: Dmitry points out Trump has been financing Israeli settlements since the end of the 1970s (Ivanka was born in 1981).

Science & Culture

[Swedish] women do not respect chastity; they reveal their breasts and lewdly tie their skirts over their clothing.


Powerful Takes

  • Comment: Thorfinnson suggests a Hack’s Law: “As a comment thread grows longer, the probability of a discussion about The Ukraine breaking out approaches 1.

  • FIFA World Cup 2018 endnote: I was 75% accurate in my football predictions. So I don’t know where or how I got my lousy reputation.

fifa-world-cup-2018-predictions

  • Handshakeworthy. BTW, as an Echo of Moscow journalist, Karina Orlova’s salary is paid by Gazprom:

orlova-russophobe

 

  • In which Navalny, who otherwise advocates an economic neoliberalism program (not that there’s anything wrong with that), predictably becomes an anti-Putinist populist on the pensions issue.


Anatoly Karlin is a transhumanist interested in psychometrics, life extension, UBI, crypto/network states, X risks, and ushering in the Biosingularity.

 

Inventor of Idiot’s Limbo, the Katechon Hypothesis, and Elite Human Capital.

 

Apart from writing booksreviewstravel writing, and sundry blogging, I Tweet at @powerfultakes and run a Substack newsletter.

Comments

  1. Spisarevski says

    What do you think of the hypersonic weapon files leak and why it doesn’t seem to get the media attention one would assume it deserves?

    https://www.rt.com/news/433803-russia-hypersonic-missiles-leak/

  2. Mitleser says

    Maria Butina (The National Interest): The Bear and the Elephant. Written in 2016.

    Published in 2015.

  3. Rattus Norwegius says

    Is there any source for the demographics of religions and denominations in Russia? What is the fertility rate, life expectancy, retention rates, conversion rates, convert rate compared to “native rate” as proportion of population, gender distribution, age distribution, etc.

  4. German_reader says

    They seem to have worked very well for the Balts.

    There’s a strong perception in Western media of Balts as Holocaust co-perpetrators who haven’t faced up to their past, so that seems very doubtful to me.

    According to Wikipedia Assange acquired Ecuadorian citizenship last year, shouldn’t that at least somewhat complicate his extradition?

  5. ussr andy says

    OT

    G’d bless Middle, “one-storey” America 3>

  6. For some of her background story.

    Had an accident in GUM in 2011, drinking caustic alkali from a bottle of water, and has to be hospitalized for her injuries.
    https://www.msk.kp.ru/daily/25628/795006/

    In response, she sued Coca Cola, Illy and GUM for a million rubles.

    Blaming the failure of her cases on corruption in the courts.
    https://www.retail.ru/news/61936/

    A couple years ago Varlamov wrote in the typical style an article “good things about America” and “bad things about America”.

    Because he wrote this latter article which was criticizing America even a little, she goes crazy at him:

    https://www.facebook.com/karina.orlova.3348/posts/1139604442718625

    Irony is, she is the complete opposite of anglosaxon (which respects balance and objectivity).

  7. I just finished and uploaded a book which I’ve been working on for about a year, describing a “posthuman” future, the trigger for which is genetic engineering of humans for very high IQs. It’s heavily inspired by Robin Hanson’s The Age of Em, attempting to do for the genetic engineering scenario what Hanson did for his em scenario. Feedback and crowd-sourced editing would be appreciated:

    https://alexanderturok.wordpress.com/2018/07/21/my-book-posthumanity-anticipations-of-the-next-historical-era/

  8. That’s a horrific thing to happen to sometime, but it’s surprisingly common everywhere.

    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/12088327/Bar-owner-fined-20000-after-beer-mix-up-leaves-man-fighting-for-life.html

  9. Unlike him, courts shut down her case (probably because these were such important companies involved – Coca Cola, Illy, etc).

    It would make even normal people a bit angry at authorities (as most contacts with legal system or government, does for everyone).

    But radical, unbalanced love of America of such liberals – the irony that Americans themselves think this is weird and Russian (and indigenous liberals of America think this is uncool).

    For anglosaxons (who worship moderation and balance), people with her attitudes are a weird foreigner, and I think everyone here knows this (we all probably know more than people like her do about America).

    You can never escape your own country. Even when you go abroad and shit on it, you’ll always be judged with it.

    It’s not only tragedy of these liberals.

    Even if there is an American person who hates America, and brainwash themselves that (for example) Japan is a paradise never to criticize. Once they are leaving America to live in Japan, they soon will realize that they every day are just seen as American and judged by the general image of America.

    Hating your country – it’s a kind of game you never can win, especially when you go abroad.

  10. Latest post: https://www.facebook.com/karina.orlova.3348/posts/2018466408165753

    What a nice detail. It turns out that Maria Butina led the political promotion of Russian arms laws in the Crimea, immediately after the annexation. She was physically there, held meetings with the people.
    Then she spoke at several rallies in support of the Russian war in the Donbass (the project they called Novorossia).

    At least for this, this fucking cunt should be hidden in prison as a sponsor of terrorism.

    It’s a pity that prisons in the US are more comfortable, because Maria Butina deserves a real Russian patriotic colony.

    Какая милая деталь. Оказывается, Мария Бутина вела политический промоушн российских законов об оружии в Крыму, сразу после аннексии. Физически там была, проводила встречи с народом.
    Потом выступала на нескольких митингах в поддержку российской войны на Донбассе (проект Новороссия оно у них называлось).

    Вот хотя бы за это эту ебаную пизду надо упрятать в тюрьму как спонсора терроризма.

    Жаль только, что тюрьмы в США более комфортабельные, потому что Мария Бутина заслуживает настоящую русскую патриотическую колонию.

  11. Powerful Takes
    * Comment: Thorfinnson suggests a Hack’s Law: “As a comment thread grows longer, the probability of a discussion about The Ukraine breaking out approaches 1.”

    I’m honored to be singled out for my Ukrainophile leanings, it seems twice now in one of your threads, Anatoly. I’ve also recently commented about a fabulous Russian art museum in Minneapolis, the limitations of Darwinian theory, and the viability of jazz improvization on Classical music themes over at Kees Van Dir Pijl’s thread recently. Why don’t you give me a kudos for bringing up the Russian art museum – The Big Red Scary seemed pleased?…

    BTW, couldn’t something very similar be said about you too, Anatoly?

    As a comment thread grows longer, the probability of a discussion about Russia breaking out approaches 1.”

    🙂

  12. I hope she emigrates to America. She will lose the pink glasses, when she understands Americans have an anglosaxon culture, and – unlike at home – she will lose her job for this attitude.

    Maybe other people know better? Only exception I know, is with externally assimilated people “vital” to US deep state propaganda like Julia Ioffe.

    Ioffe has lost her job for vulgarity in 2016 (but was rehired by another publication, as obviously she is vital for her propaganda skills and there is probably nobody in all America to replace her).

    http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/julia-ioffe-finished-at-politico-over-obscene-trump-tweet.html

  13. Daniel Chieh says

    This degree of extreme self-hate is really saddening.

  14. I’m sure after enough time in America, most of these liberals would at least become balanced (hating America and Russia equally).

    Pussy Riot seems already ahead in this.

    Pussy Riot video on America is not distinguishable from something that would be funded by Russia Today.

    I find it difficult to believe Pussy Riot video about America, was not produced by Margarita Simonyan

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s-bKFo30o2o

  15. Jaakko Raipala says

    “Speaking the language of human rights” sounds like naïveté of Russians who don’t really understand the media-NGO complex that operates in the West. I actually have a really good example of this. Look at the demonstration from the rt.com article, the “Helsinki Calling” demonstration:

    https://cdni.rt.com/files/2018.07/article/5b4dd989fc7e9340528b4591.jpg

    Say hi to me, I’m in this picture! This was their grand photo op moment when the speaker told everyone to raise their placards, spread the people around on the church steps and so on for the media. Here’s my photo of what it looked like once the photo op moment was over:

    https://imgur.com/a/4hOjF6e

    The corner of the white placard that shows up in my photo is the same one in the rt.com photo on the far right which says “TRUMP & PUTIN NOT WELCOME IN HELSINKI, FASCISTS GO HOME!”

    The location is ideal: the Senate Square is on a slight slope so that the church looks bigger than it is from downhill so it’s already designed for perspective manipulation. All they needed was a bit of a crowd near the statue of Alexander II, some people on the church steps and a collaborating photographer to take a photo from the crowd. People who just look at the press release photos will imagine that there was a huge crowd between the photographer and the people in the distance when it was just empty space all day long.

    Nearly all reporters are Reds/Greens so they will collaborate with the human rights organizations to run a positive story. If even one non-sympathizing media outlet had shown up to this demonstration the game would have been ruined – but apparently even Russian media just copied the press releases and photos.

    The exact same people have been doing this for as long as I remember. Their main speaker was Green MEP Heidi Hautala who is the main speaker of several “Russia needs human rights and liberal democracy” events each year. The first time I remember going to one of those was when Anna Politkovskaya got shot and it was the exact same story – the “spontaneous” demonstration turned out to be not so spontaneous with Hautala speaking, Amnesty organizers telling people where to stand for photos to look good, media collaborating to make a couple of hundred people look like a huge crowd.

    This is why it simply doesn’t work when nationalists try to “speak the language of human rights” or hold demonstrations or whatever. Western “human rights” NGOs and the media are the same people. The leftist activists who show up for these demonstrations mostly already know the game and they expect to be crowd actors for manipulative photos.

  16. Demonstrators are often professional NGO workers. Often the demonstration events even occur on week days (when everyone else has to be in an office).

  17. Who are these people? Are they Finns?

  18. Jaakko Raipala says

    Mostly Finns in that photo. The “slava Ukraine” guy with Cyrillic in his placard is probably Ukrainian and there are a couple of people that are too dark to be Finns so they’re probably Muslim immigrants. “Helsinki Calling” was the Sunday demonstration by the leftist NGO + media collaboration for photo ops since it was held the day before either Trump or Putin even arrived so people who were actually hoping to get their placards seen by the Presidents weren’t there.

    There are a lot of Russians in Helsinki but I didn’t see any organized Russian protest, just a lot of individual messages.

    There was one Finnish pro-Putin demonstration which is definitely a first time I ever see that, people in MAGA hats waving the Confederate flag from the Amereican Civil War and listening to speakers talking about Putin’s defiance of the globalist Zionist NWO. Obviously the media ignored it, further proof that the media is controlled by the globalist Zionist NWO.

    I’ll add a bunch of pics on that imgur post, never used it before so I’m a bit confused on how that site works. Nothing I took is very interesting, though, the demonstrations on Monday were even more anemic. People were either at work or if they had vacation they were at their summer cabins.

  19. Jaakko Raipala says

    Yes. Here’s another example from another day, on Monday these pro-abortion protesters were the only ones that I saw to cross the barricades and enter the closed section of the city:

    https://img.zeit.de/politik/ausland/2018-07/proteste-helsinki-donald-trump-wladimir-putin-gipfel-treffen-fs-bilder/08-proteste-helsinki-donald-trump-wladimir-putin-gipfel-treffen-fs.jpg/imagegroup/original

    They didn’t walk more than a few meters, the police confronted them immediately and they stepped back in a few minutes. (I took an image of this situation from the other side of the barricades.) The curious thing is several press outlets were already there waiting, with tripods in place for cameras and so on, before the demonstrators even arrived.

    It’s blatantly obvious when you see it happen. The demonstrators and the press were collaborating. Photographers had been told to wait at the barricade in that specific alleyway. The demonstrators would show up, skip over the barricade and get confronted by the police so that the media gets an opportunity to take some photos of the police ordering around an anti-abortion protest. With the police in the photo it’s a lot more dramatic than just showing these (very few) people standing in some corner shouting their slogans.

  20. Felix Keverich says

    God, I wish trading Snowden for Julian Assange was an option. Assange is a much more interesting individual and worthy of our protection.

    * Maria Butina (The National Interest): The Bear and the Elephant. Written in 2015. Don’t see absolutely anything wrong in that article. (See my article on her).

    Even more releveant, than the article itself (which is pretty lame) is the question of how she got it published. Did she fuck anyone from The National Interest to get it published? Did Torshin arrange it for her? Did Russian intelligence?

    Can any Russian get published in The National Interest? If so, Karlin may be missing an opportunity here.

  21. The Big Red Scary says

    Alex Tabarrok: The Misallocation of International Math Talent. (Global-level) argument for open borders?

    I read that, and on the contrary, I think it is an argument for funding research institutes in poorer countries, where for the price of sending a few hot shots abroad, you could fund a hundred very good scientists. (Effective altruism for scientific talent, if you will.)

    Countries which are misallocating scientific talent include, I think, India, Eastern Europe, Iran, Lebanon, Syria, and the Muslim countries of the Mediterranean (in decreasing order of gains that could be had). I would guess South East Asia as well, but from the other countries, I personally know examples of successful scientists.

  22. That comment about Alexander II’s mistakes is terrible. To begin at the beginning, if Napoleon II had cooperated with Russia against Austria, he would have immediately lost British support for his Italian policy and even toleration of himself.

  23. The Big Red Scary says

    Choice quotes from the link to Tyler Bugman Cowen:

    “I also start to worry if many women in a restaurant are beautiful in a trendy or stylish way.”

    “But one obvious place to find cheap labor is in family-owned, family-run Asian restaurants. ”

    “One problem is that many Thai people have such a wonderful service ethic.”

    “When Americans hear Pakistan, many of them think of bin Laden, drone attacks, terrorism, Daniel Pearl, and the sale of nuclear secrets. When Americans hear India, they likely think of Gandhi, or brightly colored Bollywood movies with lots of happy dancing… So you should go more to Pakistani restaurants than to Indian restaurants.”

  24. Nothing about Our Guy Salvini’s interview in the WaPo?

    Q. Why do you want to lift the sanctions on Russia?
    A. Because they didn’t prove to be useful, and according to the data, they hurt Italian exports.
    Q. You said that Russia had a right to annex Crimea?
    A. There was a referendum.
    Q. It was a fake referendum.
    A. [That is your] point of view. . . . There was a referendum, and 90 percent of the people voted for the return of Crimea to the Russian Federation.
    Q. What kind of referendum was it with Russian soldiers there?
    A. Compare it to the fake revolution in Ukraine, which was a pseudo-revolution funded by foreign powers — similar to the Arab Spring revolutions. [Editor’s note: Independent fact-checkers have not found evidence for this claim, though it did spread widely after Russian news sources published it.] There are some historically Russian zones with Russian culture and traditions which legitimately belong to the Russian Federation.

  25. for-the-record says

    According to Wikipedia Assange acquired Ecuadorian citizenship last year, shouldn’t that at least somewhat complicate his extradition?

    From “FAQs on the US-UK Extradition Relationship – US Embassy London”:

    The treaty does not only apply to citizens of the U.S. or the UK; it applies to anyone accused of a crime in one country that may be located in another country when the warrant for their arrest is issued. Many extraditions between the U.S. and the UK involve third-country nationals.

  26. Julian Assange is fake fake fake, a CIA asset, there is nothing real about him, this is proven beyond doubt, and all major countries know this

    Even the story about him ‘living in the Ecuador embassy for many years’ is fake, with UK intel agencies moving him and out of there for his dates to meet with Israel Shamir etc, UK police watching for when the coast is clear, police gagged under GCHQ national security orders

    Both Benjamin Netanyahu and Zbigniew Brzezinski blurted out loud pro-Israel Julian Assange is a fraud run by Western intel agencies, Netanyahu boasting Assange will always protect Israel from any serious ‘leaks’ coming to him

    Glenn Greenwald, gay ex-pornographer and employee of 3 billionaires in turn, now working for Pierre Omidyar – CIA war criminal of Ukraine – is also fake as well, with his pumping of the known fraud Edward Snowden, who first allegedly ‘leaked’ to war criminal Dick Cheney’s friend & biographer, ha!

    Amongst the many proofs Assange is fake, is Julian’s refusal to use the legal files he has on US federal judge bribery corruption, the same data in UK court filings that helped block the extradition of UK hacker Lauri Love … Because Julian is CIA, he accepts CIA orders to keep quiet about USA federal judge bribery … Neither Assange nor Snowden utter a peep about proven bribery corruption of the same US judges who would put them ‘on trial’, even tho those files can block any extradition

    It seems Assange is shuttled in & out from his ‘Embassy closet’ to the big country house of a Rothschild friend where he seems to actually live, where Julian has all those nice changes of clothing & grooming aids for his Ecuador embassy balcony ‘appearances’, Ecuador getting dosh to play along

    Anti-9-11-truth, Israel-loving, non-Israel-leaking Assange, has had lawyers also serving the Rothschild family, and is also lawyered by ultra-Zionist Alan Dershowitz

    This game here now, is just a winding down of the Assange fraud – Assange a ‘rat trap’ for honest whistleblowers. At least two leakers were quickly dead after trusting Julian Assange & contacting him – Seth Rich & Peter W Smith – and maybe many others we will never hear about … in Smith’s case, the liar Assange says he never received Smith’s files, yeah, right

    Strangely the authorities are ultra-slow to cut off Assange’s fund-raising schemes despite all his allegedly ‘illegal’ activity

    Edward Snowden & Julian Assange promote the Tor browser, developed by CIA-tied spooks (US Naval Research & DARPA Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency) … apparently created for elite paedophiles, who can use Tor to access paedophilia & trafficked children without local police agencies / internet providers observing … tho the NSA and CIA apparently can track through TOR … Wikileaks compels you to use Tor to contact them, giving the CIA a heads up about all the duped whistle-blowers who contact faker Julian

    Assange had ‘leaked’ against Hillary so the US Deep State could hold blackmail over her – not forgetting they had to run a fake ‘impeachment’ against her husband Bill Clinton in the 1990s, using Jewish agent Monica Lewinsky, in order to force Bill to bomb Serbia and kill thousands of civilians, which he did shortly after ‘acquittal’

    Assange had also set up the US President’s son, Donald Trump Jr, to be criminally prosecuted .. Assange & Wikileaks recommended that young Trump violate the US federal CFAA law, the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act, which makes it a crime to attempt to log-in to a website using a stolen or guessed password

    Julian Assange’s childhood seems to be involved with a CIA-tied mind-control children’s home in Australia, ‘The Family’, where they dyed the colour of the kids’ hair blonde to make them look … a lot like Julian looks
    http://aanirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/assange-family-mind-control.html

  27. Rattus Norwegius says

    What languages will the book be written in? Only English or more languages?

  28. Russia:

    In his meeting with Trump, Putin suggested holding a referendum in Donbas. Probably Putin knew this idea would be rejected out of hand, but am I alone in thinking this seems like a significant departure for him? Previously he has never deviated from the line that the DLNR must be stuffed back into Ukraine via Minsk.

    World:

    In his 2/12/18 post “The Partition of Syria”, AK wrote:

    So, no, Assad/Russia/Iran are NOT moving towards any sort of “victory” in Syria.

    Islamic State might have been beaten, but there is a difference between Toyota-riding bearded yahoos and serious military Powers like the US, Turkey, and Israel. The latter cannot be dislodged, and they have now effectively partitioned Syria.

    http://www.unz.com/akarlin/the-partition-of-syria/

    Well, the SAA is now mopping up the last of the “Israeli Zone” in the south, so that’s one serious military power that has been dislodged, two to go.

    Interestingly, in the weeks prior, the US State Dept had issued multiple statements warning that the US would take “firm and appropriate measures” if the SAA attempted to advance in the south. But ultimately the US backed down and did nothing.

  29. Ali Choudhury says

    In regards to Indian restaurants in Europe, the best ones such as Gymkhana, Trishna and Jamavar in London are usually run by Indians, “Indian” restaurants in cheaper areas and cities without a large Indian population such as Stockholm are often run by Bangladeshis who try their best but turn north Indian classics into glop. Pakistani restaurants are a better bet if you want decent food though Afghan and Iranian cuisine is better suited to Western palates being milder and making more use of fruit in cooking.

  30. Not everything revolves around sex for access. National Interest is a relatively Russophile outlet (see here, here, here). Lots of Russia friendly academics have access to it, and it even had an ethnic Russian senior editor at the time. Any one of them could have put in a good word for her.

    I might have gotten published there a few years ago, but almost certainly not today. If you haven’t noticed, the SPLC and RationalWiki have sort of excommunicated me from mainstream journalism in the West (I have been told that this extends even to certain prominent Russian state-owned English language media outlets). This leaves only Alt Media sites, or Russian publications.

  31. Caustic soda is used to clean beer lines, there was a small chance it was contaminated at the bottling plant, but it was most likely due to some employee at the Cafe using an empty bottle to mix up the solution and then leaving it lying around. Ily are coffee roasters and wouldn’t have had anything to do with this. She’s just lucky she still has a digestive system.

    On the other topic: you are aware of how shrill the press coverage of Russia has been in the Anglo media right. Also, imagine her Anglo equivalent; female, millennial educated, living in DC. What do you suppose her opinions on Russia are?

    I do agree with you about these types of people mellowing out as they assimilate. I’ve spent a decent amount of time in stem departments, with quite a few Russians working there. I became quite good at predicting their politics (pro or anti) before they said a word. Certainly one tell tale sign that they were virrulently anti-russian would be that they essentially commuted (this is just about possible in the UK) to work and had no interaction with locals. Those who’d settled more and built a life here were more balanced.

  32. Dan Hayes says

    Anatoly,

    Too bad. You coulda been a contender!

  33. Felix Keverich says

    Not everything revolves around sex for access. National Interest is a relatively Russophile outlet (see here, here, here). Lots of Russia friendly academics have access to it, and it even had an ethnic Russian senior editor at the time. Any one of them could have put in a good word for her.

    How would Russia friendly academics get to know her in the first place, unless… 🙂
    it is easy to see, why she attracted suspicion.

  34. There was one Finnish pro-Putin demonstration which is definitely a first time I ever see that, people in MAGA hats waving the Confederate flag from the Amereican Civil War and listening to speakers talking about Putin’s defiance of the globalist Zionist NWO.

    If that happened here I’d assume it was the special branch trying to be clever. Who would these characters be?

  35. Felix Keverich says

    How about that?

    Israel evacuates 800 stranded White Helmets to Jordan for resettlement in UK, Canada and Germany
    https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/22/israel-evacuates-800-stranded-white-helmets-jordan-resettlement/

    Israel has evacuated 800 White Helmets rescuers and their family members threatened by advancing Syrian regime forces to Jordan for resettlement in Britain, Canada and Germany, Amman said Sunday.

    “The government gave the permission after Britain, Germany and Canada made a legally binding undertaking to resettle them within a specified period of time due to ‘a risk to their lives’.”

    Neither Jordan, nor Israel want this filth in their countries, BUT lack of immigrants causes inbreeding according to German finance minister. I suppose “White Helmets” are going to help. 🙂

    https://i0.wp.com/www.thelastamericanvagabond.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/C5pCJ7sVMAA8P8D_0-1-e1525464646543.jpg?fit=600%2C342&resize=350%2C200

  36. Mitleser says

    Neither Jordan, nor Israel want this filth in their countries, BUT lack of immigrants causes inbreeding according to German finance minister.

    White Helmets are tools of the Western regime changers, not Israel’s and Jordan’s.

    Syrians who worked for Jordan and Israel will settle there.

    https://twitter.com/QalaatAlMudiq/status/1015965513506320384

    https://twitter.com/maytham956/status/1020987284991168514

  37. Felix Keverich says

    Looks like we found an explanation:
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-butina-exclusive/exclusive-accused-russian-agent-butina-met-with-us-treasury-fed-officials-idUSKBN1KC0DC

    It seems that Torshin has ties to Center for the National Interest, which publishes National Interest

    Paul Saunders, the think tank’s executive director, said Torshin spoke at an April 2015 event about the Russian banking system and Butina attended. Saunders said people at the organization cannot recall details of Torshin’s presentation.

    “We were unaware of any charges or suspicions of illegal or inappropriate conduct or of any connections to Russian intelligence services,” Saunders said in an email.

    Prosecutors said the think tank’s magazine published an article by Butina in June 2015 in which she said “certain U.S. politicians and Russians share many common interests.”

  38. Anybody out there know much about the Russian rail system?. According to this piece, China already controls the largest rail system in Australia, and is trying to take over the rail system in the US too. How about China’s large next door neighbor, is this possible in Russia too?

    https://www.theepochtimes.com/china-pushing-to-control-us-rail-industry_2558241.html

  39. Felix Keverich says

    It’s a state-owned monopoly in Russia, so no. Naturally, the West wants Russia to “reduce the role of government in the economy”, so that Chinese would buy everything, but Russians are smarter than that.

  40. Great picture, at the top – and I was just there! Right across the street from the VDNKh stop on Metro 6.

  41. Daniel Chieh says
  42. Six Rules for Dining Out by TYLER COWEN – Interesting though not sure that he actually knows and can appreciate food. He is an economist who applied simple supply-demand rules to various scenarios. He could write an identical article about hair salons and how they differ in strip mall and super malls. And I think I caught him on one lie or confabulation about him driving randomly to find new restaurants. Possibly it happened few times but this is an unworkable method in long run and he as economic should have known it will not look believable.

  43. Pericles says

    Sweden Democrats now largest political party at 28%, according to YouGov. Social Democrats (Centre-Left) at 23%, Moderates (Centre-Right) at 17%. Then follows a flock of smaller parties at 10% or less. Mostly because the Social Democrats keep losing working class voters to SD.

    https://yougov.se/news/2018/06/25/sd-storst/

    Political alliance discussions still mostly exclude SD from governing. We shall see. Election in September.

    I have for the first time seen an islamist party mentioned too, “Jasin”. Apparently contesting regional elections in Malmö and perhaps national elections too. (Wait what? They were supposed to vote Social Democrat! That’s why we brought them in!)

    In an interview with the Swedish news outlet Samhällsnytt, Jasin secretary Mehdi Hosseini revealed that the party is led by Iranian imam Sheikh Zoheir-Eslami Gheraati currently residing Tehran.

    https://sputniknews.com/europe/201709141057387197-sweden-muslim-party-jasin/

    https://samnytt.se/extra-partiledaren-for-jasin-ar-en-shejk-bosatt-i-iran-exklusiv-intervju-med-grundaren-av-partiet/

    https://www.nyatider.nu/jasin-sveriges-forsta-islamiska-parti-vill-gora-sverige-muslimskt/

  44. Mitleser says

    Political alliance discussions still mostly exclude SD from governing. We shall see. Election in September.

    I have for the first time seen an islamist party mentioned too, “Jasin”. Apparently contesting regional elections in Malmö and perhaps national elections too. (Wait what? They were supposed to vote Social Democrat! That’s why we brought them in!)

    Reminds me of the last Dutch election when Muslim voters ditched Social Democrats for the new Migrant party DENK.

  45. Anonymous says

    You know, Brabantian, you really ought to write up a proper article defending your Assange-is-a-fake thesis with links, citations and all, then submit it to Ron Unz. I’m sure he would be willing to publish it, if you could at least substantiate your case somewhat. It’d be a controversial thesis, to be sure; but Unz.com readers generally have open minds, and I bet most of them would at least be willing to give your article a look.

  46. Anonymous says

    But you should hurry. Ecuador is now getting ready to hand over Assange:

    https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/be-prepared-to-shake-the-earth-if-julian-assange-is-arrested-e5a3c2560263

  47. songbird says

    There were recently three Democrats in Congress who put forth a plan to abolish ICE. Just hearing the vague number three at the time, I assumed they were all members of the Hispanic Caucus, but actually they are an interesting bunch.

    One is homosexual. One is an Indian woman born in India (Indians are obnoxious.) One is an illegal (WTF?) Dominican (mulatto Spanish speaker) and a member of the Hispanic Caucus.

    What is funny but simultaneously worrisome about the last, besides the fact that he is illegal, is that he is the great-grandson of one of the Dominican dictators – that is where the US is headed. Dominicans are a funny bunch. Nearly all are mulattoes, but are still considered Hispanic due to language. Though considerably lighter, they behave a lot like American blacks do, rioting when cops shoot Dominican criminals in NYC.

    Though they share the island of Hispaniola with Haitians they are, in general, arch enemies both there and here. Dominicans celebrate their independence not from a European power, but from Haiti. One of the number one regular political issues in the Dominican Republic is the illegal immigration of Haitians.

    Blacks will always move to anyplace less black, even if it is filled with mulattoes. Meanwhile, mulattoes will simultaneously move to any place more white.

    In 1937, the DR dictator Trujillo had the army massacre at least 17,000 Haitians in the DR, maybe even 30,000. The obliquely stated concern was that DR would turn fully dark black in three generations. But the American plantations were protected. It is amazing to think so but still they come, and are imported for cheap labor. I don’t think they are big on the Enlightenment in DR (and so I denigrate that theory for Europe.)

    Trujillo offered 100,000 visas to Jews with the hope of them interbreeding with the locals. Not that many came. Those who did left, for Jews though they complain about whites to no end, hate living in non-white countries and do not prosper in them.

    BTW, Bartholomew de las Casas, who came up for debate here once, advocated that Hispaniola be settled with black slaves, so he is perhaps to blame for at least a million Haitians (they gave this number nearly 20 years ago, so probably fake) and nearly two million Dominicans in the US.

    I’ve said it before: I think the US is fucked. I mean, what sort of total civilizational immorality and corruption does it take to import like a million Haitians? To go back to Trump’s alleged comment of Haiti being a shithole – Haitians are drawn to the DR. Jews who were courted during the rise of Hitler were not even drawn to the DR. If Haiti is not a shithole, it is because that is too nice a word.

  48. Thorfinnsson says

    This article is pretty light on details, but the gist of it is that Chinese companies appear to be competing for municipal commuter rail projects. Given that American companies exited this business decades ago, it’s not even a commercial problem. And certainly it isn’t a strategic problem.

    Freight rail in the USA is overwhelmingly operated by Union Pacific, BNSF (Berkshire Hathaway), and CSX. All American companies.

    And the locomotives are mainly supplied by General Electric and Caterpillar.

    Unsure about who supplies the rails, ties, signaling equipment, train cars, etc. these days.

    Incidentally if you own Union Pacific stock they send you a nice calendar every year with gorgeous photos of Union Pacific trains traversing beautiful landscapes. 🙂

  49. Thorfinnsson says

    You can reduce the role of government without selling out everything to foreigners (unless you reduce it to zero). Even the USA has a government body which reviews foreign investments and rejects them on occasion.

    Until 1998 South Korea limited foreign equity ownership of listed companies to 10% of the stock.

    I can’t remember the year, but before around 25 years ago most major Swedish companies had dual-class share structures and the voting stock could not be sold to foreigners.

  50. Thorfinnsson says

    Japan, inc. falling behind Germany, inc. in emergent automotive technology: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2018/07/20/commentary/japan-commentary/japan-automakers-dominance-fading/

    Surge in alcohol-related deaths among the young in America: https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2018/07/18/630275042/a-spike-in-liver-disease-deaths-among-young-adults-fueled-by-alcohol

    As a recovering alcoholic myself this is…sobering. That said the spike in deaths suggests something more than alcohol as at work. Fructose?

    Previous peak in American alcohol consumption was in 1982 (following a long and more or less continuous increase since the end of Prohibition), after which it declined until 1999.

  51. Dominican Republic is still 2-3 times as economically developed as Ukraine, in terms of GDP per capita.

    I guess they receive a lot of tourism.

  52. Thorfinnsson says

    More consumption:

    I ordered some Michelin Pilot Sport 4S tires to replace the OE Bridgestones on my sports sedan.

    They arrive tomorrow.

    Here’s a review: https://www.roadandtrack.com/new-cars/news/a32878/michelin-pilot-sport-4s-test/

    France being the world technological leader in tires is somewhat unexpected. Generally most French technological successes in recent times (TGV, Areva, Airbus, Minitel) involve state-supported industries.

    Some other tire companies (Pirelli, Goodyear, Continental, Bridgestone, Yokohama) have many good tires, but none are as consistently excellent as Michelin (outside of snow tires, where the Bridgestone Blizzak is the gold standard).

  53. songbird says

    It’d be interesting to compare expat percentages and remittances. DR’s is very high, but I suppose so too would be Ukraine’s. Hard to find any up to date numbers, (which would be very important re: Ukraine) though DR likely had a head start.

    DR has at least double the pop in America though.

    I have found this on wiki, regarding tourism and was somewhat surprised:

    Tourism in the Dominican Republic is an industry that generates over 6 million arrivals each year. It is an important source of revenue in the country, particularly in coastal areas. The Dominican Republic is the most popular tourist destination in the Caribbean region

  54. I typed about Dominican women into YouTube, from curiosity to see the people you were talking about. (I thought Dominicans were Spanish descendants).

    It seems all are just videos of black American men obsessed about why Dominican women (which are also black) don’t like them.

    I have to feel sorry for blacks in America for what to their national confidence (they are even perceiving black foreigners as better than them).

    If you see the top rated comment, it is someone saying about Dominicans don’t like Haitans either (lol).

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFNjIA3zMZw

  55. I thought Dominicans were Spanish descendants. But now find they are majority black Africans (although their political elite are Spanish descendants).

    It might actually be the first example of majority black country which is quite economically successful, not from natural resources.

    There are also very rich majority black places like Bermuda (but these are just tax havens). And there is Barbados and Jamaica, which are quite rich – but these still partly ruled by the British Empire (through the Commonwealth realm).

    So Dominican Republic is maybe a first positive example of economic development not from natural resources in a politically independent, majority black country.

  56. . And there is Barbados and Jamaica,

    Actually I wrote a mistake here, Jamaica is still relatively poor despite being in the British Commonwealth realm.

    GDP (PPP) 2017 estimate
    • Total
    $26.446 billion[5] (2017)
    • Per capita
    $9,297[5]
    GDP (nominal) 2017 estimate
    • Total
    $14.556 billion[5]
    • Per capita
    $5,117[5]

    While places like Saint Kitts and Nevis and Trinidad and Tobago are much more wealthy – but with tiny populations.

  57. Dominican women tend to corpulence, even more so than Latinas. Also true of the men.

    My brother once told me an amusing story about some college class he had, where there were group presentations and the Dominican and the Haitian seemed ready to leap on each other, despite the formality of the occasion and the many eyes that were on them.

    I’ve heard of other ethnic groups who originally lived near each other fighting in America or Europe, but I think there might be something unique between Dominicans and Haitians, partly because they mostly look pretty different.

    It is pretty startling to think of it, but close to all of the native inhabitants of Hispaniola were either killed or died, though they were being genocided by the very fierce Carib, when Columbus showed up. The Spanish actually took censuses which show their decline into nothingness.

  58. Greasy William says

    great daytime “pull” by PUA: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yul6NJa9_mg&t=5s

    Very impressive and this guy obviously knows what he’s doing. Thoughts:

    1. He may not be very good looking or even in good shape, but he is still 6’4. A tall guy being good at pickup is not nearly the same thing as an average height or short guy being good at it.
    2. Related to the first point, why are women so obsessed with height? Or, conversely, why don’t men care about height in women? From a biological standpoint, height is a signifier of good health so shouldn’t men and women both place a premium on height? But women are obsessed with it and men don’t care about it at all. And you will never hear a girl say that a guy is too tall but probably most men think that a woman 6′ or above is too tall. That’s why I had to turn down Maria Sharapova.

    I wonder if gay guys care about height. Saker, if you are reading this could you let us know?

    1. One thing I like about this video is how the guy gets straight to the point. If you watch other PUA “infield” videos they basically keep just talking and talking to the girls. The moral of this vid is to just escalate quickly because you need to strike while the iron is hot. This also fits with the success I had back when I was in college, I either “closed” immediately or it didn’t happen. You need to bang the girl before she realizes how much of a loser you are.

    2. Okay, let’s just say for the sake of argument that this stuff really works AND guys who aren’t 6’4 can successfully copy it. Is it worth it? I mean, the guy in the vid is saying some seriously corny shit. There is no way I could force myself to make such lame jokes and cringy dirty talk. It’s like, “gross”. No piece of ass, no matter how hot, is worth the price of your dignity.

    3. Girl in the vid reveals that she is the daughter of 2 Russian immigrants. Her brother is a drug dealer. Before the video she had just come from a date with some old guy from one of those sugar daddy sites. The video ends with her going home with a guy who just randomly chatted her up on the street less than an hour earlier. Stereotypes don’t come from nowhere.

  59. Regarding Barbados, Bermuda, etc: small islands have a big theoretical advantage when it comes to keeping order. There is not much of an interior to hide in, which is quite the opposite situation for Haiti. Easy to track down and execute murderers and that affects the gene pool.

    Jamaica, though certainly better than Haiti, is not a great place to live, IMO. The DR has and has long had rolling blackouts (outside of tourist areas). That does not make me a DR bull, but Puerto Rico is pretty messed up too.

  60. Anonymous says
  61. Anonymous says

    Height has to do with social dominance. Taller height is associated with social and physical dominance. It’s probably tied to very basic and old heuristics in the brain’s processing that associates looking up and larger things with dominance. Infants and small children associate looking up and taller people with parents and authority figures.

  62. Mitleser says

    I have to feel sorry for blacks in America for what to their national confidence (they are even perceiving black foreigners as better than them).

    Probably because they are better than them.
    American blacks should move to Anglophone Africa.

  63. Mitleser says

    Sino-Triumphalism: Rise of the Petro-Yuan

    https://twitter.com/Ole_S_Hansen/status/1021363386817433600

  64. songbird says

    American blacks should move to Anglophone Africa.

    Maybe, the BBC could redeem itself, after all.

  65. for-the-record says

    It might actually be the first example of majority black country which is quite economically successful, not from natural resources.

    Dominican Republic: 73% mulatto/mestizo, 17% white, 10% black

    Haiti: 95% black, 5% white + mixed race

  66. Mitleser says

    Germans question need for American “protection”

    https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1021386954707939328

  67. for-the-record says

    Very interesting article in Zero Hedge about the “disturbing number of Russian nationals living in Britain [who] have met untimely deaths”, notably the discussion of Berezovsky’s death and its possinble link with that of Litvinenko, featuring an interview with Berezovsky’s daughter.

    Some highlights:

    Again, who stands to gain most from these provocative events? Russia or Britain?

    Another revealing twist in the presumed narrative of “Kremlin criminality” came from a recent interview given to Russian news media by the daughter of the deceased oligarch Boris Berezovsky. Of course, her side of the story received no coverage in the British media.

    Liza Berezovsky believes that her father’s death in 2013, while living in exile in Britain, was the dirty work of British state assassins. The case has added importance because it links directly to the previous death of Alexander Litvinenko, who was also living as an exile in Britain.

    Berezovsky’s daughter believes that her father wanted to return from Britain to Russia so that he could live out his old age in his native country. She claims that the oligarch had vital information on how the death of Litvinenko in 2006, reportedly from radioactive polonium poisoning, had actually been staged as a smear against Putin and the Kremlin.

    Boris Berezovsky, his daughter claims, played a key role along with the British state in orchestrating the demise of Litvinenko to look like an assassination plot carried out by the Kremlin. It was Berezovsky who apparently suggested that Litvinenko, with whom he was an associate, shave off his hair in order to drum up the suspicion of Kremlin poisoning.

    Liza Berezovsky contends that, seven years after Litvinenko died, her father was preparing to divulge the dirty tricks involving the British state and their anti-Russian campaign. She said the oligarch wanted to atone for his past misdeeds and to make his peace with Mother Russia. She believes that British state agents got wind of his plans to come clean, which would have caused them an acute international scandal.

    In March 2013, just days before he was due to depart from Britain, the oligarch was found dead in his mansion near Ascot, in the English countryside, apparently from suicide caused by a ligature around his neck.

    In the end, however, a British civil coroner did not conclude suicide, and left an “open verdict” on the death. An eminent German pathologist hired by Liza Berezovsky provided post-mortem evidence that her father’s body showed signs of his death having not been self-inflicted. He was, in their view, murdered.

    It is not beyond the realms of possibility that British secret services are running an assassination program on Russian exiles. These exiles are often used for a time by the British state as media assets, presented as high-profile critics of the Kremlin and lending testimonies to much-publicized allegations of “authoritarianism” and “human rights abuses” under Putin.

    https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-22/british-assassination-campaign-targeting-russian-exiles

    Here is the video referred to containing the interview with Berezovsky’s daughter:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98w-ztPKknE&feature=youtu.be

  68. Berezovsky is just a suicide.

    He had lost all his money and lost his legal cases in the British courts, just before.

    In other cases in the UK, obviously some are being killed as a result of oligarchs fighting between each other and some are killed by national intelligence agencies.

  69. The nationality which produced people like Thelonious Monk. In some dimensions, it was a very creative nationality only a few decades ago, certainly a lot more than Dominicans (people which I have never heard of before).

  70. It looks like mainly black people in the streets. Maybe categorized Mulatto? (They look quite dark).

    In the elite areas, more Spanish descendants.

    Economic development level is surprisingly not so terrible (2-3 times Ukraine in GDP per capita – in nominal terms 3 times)?

    Even if it’s poor enough to get a lot of sex tourism from America, by world standards it is somewhere in the middle.

    Surely definitely not a rolemodel though, when most stories about there are about sex tourism.

  71. Whiteness is, of course, self identified in the DR, where it is still seen as a virtue. I assume it is somewhat fungible, though I do imagine there are some who would be more or less truly white. Mixing was originally encouraged because there were not a lot of Spanish women there (might speak partly to disease), and they needed to grow their population to defend the territory from other powers. They probably would have been better off sending female criminals and women of low repute from Spain and other parts of Europe.

    In Haiti, the mulattoes are mostly blacker, and though they have a lot of names for different shades. Anyone would have to be batshit insane to identify as white, in a place where they ripped the white stripe from the French Flag and sewed the other two colors back together to get theirs.

  72. anonymous coward says

    Height is a secondary sex characteristic. It’s the male version of big boobs.

  73. Greasy William says

    women care waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more about height than men care about boobs

  74. Height is a proxy for physical power, IMO. That is why little girls before they reach the point where they will say that they would like a tall Prince Charming, will often have platonic crushes on horses – they are large, powerful animals.

    It’s all about sex-based evolutionary strategy. Sperm being a low investment compared to carrying the egg, women are looking for a good provider.

    I once heard a tall acquaintance make a very crass sexual comment behind closed doors about a very short woman, which directly involved what she could do standing up. I doubt that the opposite happens although I have heard some woman fall for short guys based on their childlike appearance.

    I wonder if there is some sort of North-South cline in women desiring tall males.

  75. ussr andy says

    OT
    https://youtu.be/kRh1zXFKC_o

    Spoiler: No, they can’t.

    This looks funny but is, I think, subliminal open-borders agitprop (and that Kimmel guy is a seller of POZ, like all late-night “comedians”.) The message is you can get by without geography. Countries are quaint things of the past, like the terms of venery (murder of crows etc.)

    only the nerdy, very white-looking kid could name some countries.

  76. Thulean Friend says

    What matters most is ‘social proof’. Basically social status. That is sometimes conflated with money and while wealth gives social status, rockstars, filmstars etc are able to get the most sought-after girls easier than just very rich people. A famous musician can provide not just a comfortable lifestyle in terms of material wealth, more importantly, he can also provide a very desirable lifestyle because he is famous. The girl in question is more interested in celebreties than she is in the world of wealthy scions or rich nerds. She also knows her social circle is, too, so she also gets higher status by hanging out with reasonably wealthy celebs. Of course, being rich is not going to harm you, but a lot of PUAs have spoken about their observations in LA and similar places that money doesn’t do much after a cut-off point except for pure golddiggers and that they have seen wealthy scions being consistently outcompeted by much poorer filmstars and musicians.

    I actually don’t think height matters that much in the grand scheme of things. Obviously within reason. If you’re a dwarf or freakishly tall, that would change things. Maybe height could be a ‘tipping scale factor’ between two similar matches. OTOH, I do remember reading that height is somewhat correlated with intelligence, but I do not know much of that is true. I also remember reading that taller men are likely to be promoted to become bosses, as they are seen as authorative, not only by women but also by other men. However this could just be due to higher intelligence, if indeed the height/tallness correlation has a grain of truth in it. Regardless, I think men overthink physical factors for women. Men are obsessed with looks in women in general, women tend to have a more balanced view in my opinion. For instance, a lot of guys would date an unemployed and unambitious woman who has a slim and sexy physique. By contrast, a lot of women would pass an attractive man if they found out he is unemployed, poor and has no real ambitions to change that. It is very common for powerful men to have subservient and ‘weak’ women, who happen to be very pretty. High-powered women often want an equal match. Even poorer women often want to ‘marry up’. Much rarer among men, though it happens. We tend to be much more obsessed with looks than women are.

  77. songbird says

    Chile has recently imported over 100,000 Haitians to pick fruit. There is some sort of loophole that the Leftist government is using to import them.

  78. Greasy William says

    Height is a proxy for physical power, IMO.

    So are big muscles, but women don’t care about muscles

  79. Greasy William says

    I actually don’t think height matters that much in the grand scheme of things.

    In the grand scheme of things, no. But if you are trying to pick up a girl on the street I would say it is extremely important and if you are trying to pick up a girl in a night club, height is practically a necessity.

    Take a quick look at the video I posted. Do you really think that guy would have had any chance of pulling that hot Russian girl if he wasn’t 6’4? Hell no. He’s creepy, his jokes are lame, he’s a skeeze and he is visibly out of shape.

    I think most guys, if women weren’t an issue, would prefer to be built like a prime Mike Tyson (5’10.5, 220lbs) then like lanky basketball star Kevin Durant. But women would go gaga over any guy Durant’s height and not even give a guy built like Tyson a 2nd look.

    Not saying you have to be tall to get women, obviously you don’t. I’m just saying it’s extremely important. Things like muscles and facial aesthetics just don’t matter to women. Except I guess on Tinder looks are probably really important but I’ve never used it.

  80. Thorfinnsson says

    Talk about Fake News.

    Women care very much about muscles, though they’re not into the bodybuilder physique per se (that’s more of a gay thing).

    Women love broad shoulders and big arms on a man.

    I agree that height is more important to women however.

  81. A famous musician can provide not just a comfortable lifestyle in terms of material wealth

    The main attraction in a musician is not necessarily fame, but creativity. There can be musicians that are not famous, but only well known within a smaller group, or that have a very artistic, original approach, and, especially if they on top of that happen to have some attractive physical qualities, can be quite irresistible.

    Height is important, of course, but a shorter guy with a good build can be attractive, too.

  82. songbird says

    I actually don’t think height matters that much in the grand scheme of things.

    I think most women idealize height, but are satisfied by men who are at least the same height as them, but have other good qualities.

    What is interesting is that height seems to have definitely been under selection in some areas, but not others. For instance, there’s a clear genetic signal that height has been under selection in Northern Europe vs. Southern.

    In Africa, Nilotics seem to be quite tall but tend to be skinny. I am not sure how well it would correspond to strength there, but perhaps it is more about reach or the ability to thrust. Or maybe, it has some sort of resource dependence, and only comes under selection if one can drink milk.

  83. Thorfinnsson says

    https://twitter.com/QTRResearch/status/1021481848403382272

    It’s always a very bad sign when CEOs are obsessed with short sellers.

    And Musk’s alleged conduct here is absolutely contemptible.

  84. Speaking of “gay thing”…

    https://twitter.com/ArminNavabi/status/1021491499844988929

    Ah those lovable Muslim apostates – what’ll they think of next??!!

    Peace.

  85. Greasy William says

    Muslims who rebel against Islam generally do so for the same reasons that some Christians abandon Christianity: they want licence to be as debased as possible. They would have regarded Sodom as an ideal society.

    Notice you never see a Muslim abandon Islam in favor of an anti-gay, misogynist version of Christianity? They always convert to full blown pozz’dness.

  86. Greasy William says

    Women care very much about muscles

    No they do not

    Women love broad shoulders and big arms on a man.

    Only if it is a man that they are already attracted to.

  87. Not always, but yeah it’s like 85-90% for full throttle poz!!!

    Sodom as an ideal society

    We wuz Sodomightz!!!

    Peace.

  88. anonymous coward says

    women care waaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more about height than men care about boobs

    That’s cultural, not biological. Russian women aren’t as obsessed with height as American ones. (Same with boobs, not all cultures care about boobs to the same degree.)

    The mechanism is the same, though. Height is what boys get from testosterone once they reach puberty.

  89. anonymous coward says

    Notice you never see a Muslim abandon Islam in favor of an anti-gay, misogynist version of Christianity?

    ‘Never’? It happens all the time in places where Christianity still exists. (I.e., not USA or Western Europe.) Probably more common than the reverse. (Converts to Islam are almost all women marrying Turks or Arabs.)

  90. Thorfinnsson says

    Probably picked it up from “liberals”.

    The Enemy has cleverly been trying to poz various non-white groups, while retaining anti-white ideology since it’s useful to them. Some recent examples beyond that:

    -Nike introduced a performance hijab
    -NYT ran an essay about “hoejabis”
    -Vegan Mexican “food” is being promoted
    -“Black Lives Matter” is run by fags

  91. Thorfinnsson says

    Rubbish. What do you suppose women are looking for when they talk about wanting to feel “safe”?

    Ever try to pickup girls on the beach?

  92. @ AP,

    Another Ukrotriumph: Murder rates now substantially lower than in 2013.

    https://i.imgur.com/mVATLrg.png

    https://pollotenchegg.livejournal.com/259267.html

  93. Let’s face it, unless the Washington establishment makes a very unlikely about-turn, the Russia-US confrontation will last for decades and outlive both the Trump and Putin presidencies

    Putin would have to trust his successor totally to want to leave office with Russia and American on amicable terms. Remember the heir to supreme power in north Korea who just wanted to visit Disneyland and got exiled and assassinated with nerve gas (no offence). Putin is quite happy to keep the West at a distance with biological warfare (his large black dog deployed to terrify Merkel).

    I showed her my dog because I thought she would like it.

    Put it away.

  94. Of course if you are tall , well built and handsome you have a better chance. But to get a woman to want you, against the odds, the best hack of her mental search image is to let her see you are attractive to other women (or give her good reason to think so). When a woman sees that high quality women are around a man, that makes her want him too. Hence male celebrities are often a disappointment in the flesh, but it does not matter.

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

  95. Thorfinnsson says

    Preselection

  96. Giacomo Casanova was not tall, handsome or wealthy. Early on when he used false names he did prove to have seduction skills, but as he became famous the increasingly widespread perception of him as a man who got the women did more and more of the heavy lifting.

  97. Toronto Russian says

    Here’s an example – Charles Aznavour, then a dirt poor restaurant singer, 5’3″ ugly Armenian guy (right).
    https://static.s-sfr.fr/media/000_arp4233830.jpg
    He had a lot of success with women from the start. Met his future wife, a pretty French girl, at 21, she waited for 2 years before he could marry her, and then they divorced because of his cheating (that he admits in his autobiography). After that there were countless women until he settled down at 42 with a beautiful Swede.

    To be noted, Aznavour was not only good at music but worked hard at his attractiveness and presentation. As his career progressed, he kept in great shape, wore fitted suits and meticulously rehearsed his motions on the scene. Even his face became rather attractive because he was so thin he had visible cheekbones and jawline (nothing ruins a man’s looks like a fat face). This is a song from the famous Olympia concert when he was at his peak.
    https://youtu.be/_JXF8HMS-jk
    I was at his concert when he was 87 – aged but all the energy and mastery were still there, the audience fell in love and it was a very happy experience.

  98. Greasy William says

    Israel just shot down a Syrian jet. Thankfully the pilot was not able to eject and he died a firey death. Hopefully there will be many more such incidents.

    In any case, one less Syrian polluting this earth.

  99. Toronto Russian says

    His womanizer reputation was such that he once wrote a song where the narrator was a gay man, and no one suspected him of anything:)
    ‘Je suis un homo comme ils disent’
    https://youtu.be/iKFA4gaBL2I

  100. Daniel Chieh says

    IMO music bypasses a lot of things, speaking directly to emotion as it does.

  101. Well, that’s interesting, but, yea, Caucasians… 🙂 I never went there, but I think I know what you mean (there’s a certain warmth emanating from some of them — a little much sometimes, lol).

    Qualities such as creativity, spontaneous humor, intellect, talent, are all not just signs of fitness (that the ancient hunters must have used a lot), but are also incredibly entertaining. Life will certainly not be boring. LOL And as you know – love is evil (lyubov zla – polyubish i kozla!).

    Then again, it is so delusional to assume that women don’t care about looks — women love broad shoulders, facial symmetry, a nice, chiseled jaw, strength (especially young women). Those who deny that remind me a little bit of overweight chicks who believe they should be loved for their “curves”.

    If you have a moment, check out Fedor Fedorov (Sergei Fyodorov’s younger brother, from SKA). Visually, he comes very close to an ideal man (even perfect human being possibly), tall, very proportionate, very northern Russian looking. Women like him, ofc, but some women would consider him a bit “boring” – too much of a guy next door type. I think he has a decent, if not very colorful, personality, too. Horosh’ (in both meanings of the word).

    https://www.last.fm/music/Fedor+Fedorov/+images/c7a07019a1134dc5ab588ee7fc6b457b

  102. Greasy William says

    Then again, it is so delusional to assume that women don’t care about looks — women love broad shoulders, facial symmetry, a nice, chiseled jaw, strength (especially young women)

    Yes women care about looks, that is, facial aesthetics and height. No women absolutely do not care about shoulder breadth and strength. Especially young women.

  103. Yea, except young women often tend to take things for granted. For instance, young women expect that a man can pick them up and carry them around like it’s nothing. (You know that folks in EE still do that (during weddings, wife carrying competitions, etc). Granted a normal guy will have that strength just based on his mass).

    It’s not upper body strength, no, no – it’s just how things are and how they should be. It doesn’t mean they occasionally will not go for a guy who doesn’t have broad shoulders but who’s otherwise attractive (see above), often attraction stems from a combination of qualities, but really, no need to lie away from basic reality. Nothing feels better than to lean on a strong man’s shoulder.

  104. Notice you never see a Muslim abandon Islam in favor of an anti-gay, misogynist version of Christianity?

    In Abkhazia over the past 30 years there has been a fairly massive (for this Republic) transition from Islam to Orthodoxy

  105. Greasy William says

    why?

  106. Greasy William says

    Yea, except young women often tend to take things for granted. For instance, young women expect that a man can pick them up and carry them around like it’s nothing.

    And what percentage of high school aged men couldn’t easily pick a up and carry around a woman even the size of Lindsey Vonn (5’10, 165lbs)? Like 1%? I don’t know if it would even be that high. By women’s standards, pretty much every healthy adult male is “strong”.

    There is a minimum level of strength and girth (get your head out of the gutter, you know what I meant) that women expect but anything above that isn’t gonna give you bonus points.

    Would women even look twice at a guy like a young John Grimek, who could literally bend railroad spikes with his bare hands? Of course not. But they’d all go gaga over a guy with the height and build of Kevin Love.

  107. Mr. Hack says

    You see, the less interference in Ukrainian affairs by Russia, the better more civilized things become! 🙂

  108. Mr. Hack says

    Chinese Scientology is still Scientology.

    So what’s your take on Transhumanism? Isn’t it just a more scientific form of Scientology, with more of an emphasis on ice cubes and enzyme formulas? My sister is having great results from PEMFT therapy, as have others that I know…

  109. But they’d all go gaga over a guy with the height and build of Kevin Love.

    I just took a look at him and he proves my point nicely – he is more muscular than your typical lanky looking basketball player, plus he’s got a cute face. He weighs 250 pounds and has a V shaped figure. And at 2m he is already almost too tall (198cms is already almost too tall for a woman of let’s say 168cms, 5’7″, although it’s not a deal breaker).

    Btw, even basketball players are very muscular – if you walk up closer to them, the difference between them and regular people in terms of muscle mass and composition is very noticeable.

  110. Daniel Chieh says

    enzyme formulas?

  111. In Abkhazia over the past 30 years there has been a fairly massive (for this Republic) transition from Islam to Orthodoxy

    why?

    As far as I know this is due to the fact that the national identity in Abkhazia was associated with the early medieval Abkhazian Kingdom (Orthodox). As a result, a return to the “religion of ancestors”began. In any case, Abkhazian Muslims (unlike other Circassian tribes) were purely formal Muslims.

  112. Greasy William says

    Yeah I agree that women aren’t going to be going for somebody with Reggie Miller’s physique, but I’m saying that a young Grimek could have broken pretty boy Love in half, possibly literally, but women wouldn’t care about Grimek’s enormous strength and muscles because he was only 5’9. Women would even take this guy over Grimek: https://bonytobeastly.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/famous-ectomorph-transformation-shane-duquette-bony-to-beastly.jpg

    He’s skinny but not scrawny and he’s 6’3. Women are obsessed with height. If you are 6’2 or above, all you have to do is not be scrawny and women will flock to you.

    But most guys of course would rather look like Grimek than skinny, long haired, 6’3 man. Grimek vs Love, I think most guys would probably rather look like Love although I personally would rather look like Grimek. Guys can also be kinda obsessed with height, but not nearly as much as women are.

  113. Doesn’t have anything to do with that – it was falling before the Maidan, when it briefly spiked, and it is falling now, just as it is falling in Russia, in Belorussia, and as it was falling in other East-Central European countries before this (most of them have now converged to West European levels).

    So it is more of a criticism of the sovok fable that things in Ukraine are getting ever worse and worse – which is itself a mirror image of the svidomist fable that this has anything to do with associations with Russia or the lack thereof.

    PS. I recall you once saying that you wanted to make contact with AP. If AP agrees, I can put you in touch with him. You can email me (https://akarlin.com/, ctrl-f “You can contact me at”) from your genuine email.

  114. I see consensus in the comment section.

    Religious based cannibalism is a bad thing.

    God, Allah, Yahweh was on target with the fire and brimstone for Sodom & Gomorrah.

  115. @Thor

    He’s not a troll. He means it.

    BTW, GW, is M. Butina bangworthy?

  116. Daniel Chieh says

    Yes, I think he rated her only 6/10, but he would do her the favor.

  117. German_reader says

    Religious based cannibalism is a bad thing

    I thought the people of Sodom were destroyed either for being violent homos who wanted to rape angels or for being xenophobes…what’s that got to do with cannibalism?

  118. Greasy William says

    BTW, GW, is M. Butina bangworthy?

    Yeah I said that in another thread.

    She’s got that slutty Russian look that I like, even though she is really only a 6 and at 29 is well past her sell by date. You can tell that she is probably the biggest freak.

    He’s not a troll. He means it.

    You can mean what you say and still be trolling. Although that particular comment was more of a spontaneous expression of joy than an attempt to be inflammatory. Haven’t had any dead Syrians in a while so I was feeling some major withdrawal.

    There is nobody to troll here anymore anyway. We’ve lost our pro Syrian contingent and this place is worse for it. I wish that Randal, that stupid Bulgarian and The Kulak were still here. Impossible to get full enjoyment of dead Syrians without getting to witness the suffering it causes to those three.

  119. God, Allah, Yahweh was on target

    He’s always on target – He never misses. That’s why it’s best to steer clear of the line of fire.

    fire and brimstone

    “… So their Lord brought down upon them destruction for their sin and leveled them. And He fears not its consequence.” (91:15)

    Peace.

  120. I thought the people of Sodom were destroyed either for being violent homos who wanted to rape angels or for being xenophobes…what’s that got to do with cannibal

    The consensus is the point.

    As far as I was able to pay attention, everyone agreed that religious cannibalism was a bad thing. Everyone seems to agree that the Sodomites and Gomorrahites had it coming.

    I can’t think of any other consensuses.

    Why are you trying to impute xenophobia back into a Biblical story? That’s something that the SJW loons do. Not like anything I would expect from you..

  121. You can tell that she is probably the biggest freak.

    The greatest cocksman that I ever knew told me that crazy women have the best pussy, no contest.

  122. German_reader says

    everyone agreed that religious cannibalism

    The Aztecs didn’t.

    Why are you trying to impute xenophobia back into a Biblical story?

    iirc it was a common interpretation that the sin of the Sodomites was in breaking the laws of hospitality, at least in Jewish tradition (maybe GW can comment).
    The “antiracist” interpretation is of course the spin put on that by progressive Christians today.

  123. I wish that Randal

    I miss Randal. He didn’t think much of my comments, but I though some of his were pretty good.

  124. German_reader says

    I miss him too, but he seems to be completely gone (googled his Disqus account, no comments there too for the last two months).
    I hope nothing happened to him, but it’s not like one could ever know.

  125. The Aztecs didn’t.

    The commenters here, just these commenters.

    Not a single commenter argued in favor of religious cannabilism.

  126. Mr. Hack says

    I never actually stated that I wanted to make contact with AP via e-mail. What I said was that if he were ever in Arizona that he should look me up. He never replied back so I left things status quo. He knows enough about me that he’d be able to locate me, I’m sure, quite quickly. Also, he has expressed on several occasions here that he does not wish to have his identity revealed (no ‘doxing’), and actually neither do I, so I guess we’ll leave things as they are for now. Where is he lately, taking a well deserved vacation?…

  127. Mr. Hack says

    ice cubes?

    I’m relatively certain that diet and the use of supplements (lotions and potions) play heavily into the transhumanist lifestyle.

  128. iirc it was a common interpretation that the sin of the Sodomites

    3 And he pressed upon them greatly; and they turned in unto him, and entered into his house; and he made them a feast, and did bake unleavened bread, and they did eat.

    I am a lapsed believer and I think that you were never one so I don’t think that we should be interpreting scripture for the believers.

    That put aside, as the verse states, Lot displayed hopitality. The Sodomites interpreted hospitality to mean that they had the right to fuck everybody in every available orifice, and that is why The Almighty rained fire and brimstone down upon their asses, and rightly so.

  129. Greasy William says

    He didn’t think much of my comments

    And I didn’t think much of his.

    Randal was okay. He was like the world’s biggest grouch.

    Like most Euros he hated America and Americans, though.

    The Kulak and Bulgarian Dumbass are otherwise not missed beyond the Syria stuff.

    German_reader: Saying that the Sodomites sin was lack of hospitality does sound like something shitlibs would say, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually heard them say it.

    But on a related note you asked once why I thought that Jesus would have been against immigrants. I don’t have the energy to do a long analysis like I had wanted to, so I’ll make it simple: Jesus was an observant, 1st century, Palestinian Jew. Jesus always stressed that it was important to follow the Law of Moses. Judaism clearly teaches that immigrants are subhuman scum so of course Jesus would have told the Mexican filth to stay the hell out of America.

    Now according to Christian theology, the Law of Moses became defunct upon Jesus’s resurrection. However, none of Jesus’s disciples ever said anything about becoming pro immigrant. While Paul did say that Christians had to support other Christians, that was in the context of the 1st century and even then he still didn’t say anything about Christian immigrants.

    So at most, Christianity would have required the US to take in Latrinos who are at least nominally Christian, but Christianity certainly doesn’t require the west to accept every piece of trash in the third world.

    One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Jesus would have hated the liberals who quote the gospel to show that Jesus was pro immigrant.

  130. Greasy William says

    that’s one of the problems with the internet. If you stop posting everybody will think that you are dead.

    I didn’t like Randal. At all. He was a dick. But even so I hope he’s okay.

  131. German_reader says

    Lot displayed hopitality

    But Lot was the only just man in the town (that’s why he was spared), the others wanted to assault the angels.
    The strangest part of the story imo is when Lot offers his daughters to the mob surrounding his house (presumably to be raped?)…pretty extreme display of patriarchy.

  132. I didn’t like Randal. At all. He was a dick. But even so I hope he’s okay.

    He wasn’t a dick. He was pompous, but that doesn’t qualify as being a dick.

  133. pretty extreme display of patriarchy.

    I agree. But if women should be property as Thor suggests what would it matter?

  134. Like most Euros he hated America and Americans, though.

    True. I always ragged him as being a leader in the blame America first brigade.

  135. German_reader says

    Saying that the Sodomites sin was lack of hospitality does sound like something shitlibs would say, but I’m not sure I’ve ever actually heard them say it.

    It’s supposedly an interpretation found in the Talmud:
    https://www.chabad.org/library/article_cdo/aid/2017931/jewish/Sodom-and-Gomorrah-Cities-Destroyed-by-G-d.htm

    I especially like this part:

    However, we hope that he left posthaste, because an even worse fate awaited those who chose to remain.
    The thoughtful Sodomites provided guest houses in their city, each with beds of a single standard size. When a guest came looking for lodgings, they would make sure that the bed fit perfectly. If he was shorter than the bed, his hosts would stretch him out until he fit. Should he be too tall for the bed, they would hack off his feet.

    which sounds a lot like the Greek myth of Procrustes.

  136. of course Jesus would have told the Mexican filth to stay the hell out of America.

    Not so. Jesus was an universalist, at least according to St. Paul. That’s why your peeps crucified him.

  137. German_reader says

    but Christianity certainly doesn’t require the west to accept every piece of trash in the third world

    But maybe it’s God’s will that all those Muslim refugees are coming to Western countries, and maybe they’ll miraculously all be converted to Christianity, rejuvenating the faith in Europe?
    I’ve actually read Christians who really believe such nonsense.

    One thing I can say with absolute certainty is that Jesus

    I doubt that one can say much about Jesus with any certainty at all, given the nature of the sources.

  138. Thorfinnsson says

    Not quite.

    We’re commanded to go out and make disciples of all nations.

    Not to abolish all nations, which is a Churchian heresy.

    http://faithandheritage.com/2011/01/a-biblical-defense-of-ethno-nationalism/

  139. Thorfinnsson says

    Former Japanese prime minister Junichiro Koizumi, aka Richard Gere, has DISGRACED himself by publicly embracing ATOMOPHOBIA in betrayal of his own party: http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ201807240057.html

    Disgusting.

  140. It is interesting, but the story is in the Qur’an, but does not mention details into the story like it does in the Bible.

    The exegetes of the Qur’an interpreted the statement “Here are my daughters, they are purer for you.” it as a metaphorical statement based on the context:
    This was his attempt to direct them to their women, for verily the Prophet is like a father for his nation. Therefore, he tries to guide them to that which is better for them in this life and the Hereafter. This is similar to his statement to them in another verse…
    (Here are my daughters, they are purer for you.) Mujahid said, “Actually, they were not his daughters, but they were from among his nation. Every Prophet is like a father to his nation.” A similar statement has been reported from Qatadah and others. Concerning the statement,
    (So have Taqwa [fear] of Allah and disgrace me not with regard to my guests!) This means, “Accept what I command you by limiting the fulfillment of your desires to your women.”

    http://www.qtafsir.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=2889

    That is basically backed up by every major exegete (Tabari [ra], Suyuti [ra], Qurtubi [ra]); the general take away being that he was telling people to marry the available women of his tribe (as well as offering his daughters in marriage).

    I knew an atheist in a previous place I worked in that brought this specific story up as one that caused him to lose his faith (originally a Catholic).

    Peace.

  141. songbird says

    I thought the Japs were working on small, cheap, self-contained reactors that could be buried in the ground, for 20 years without maintenance or safety concerns.

    That was like 20 years ago.

  142. We’re commanded to go out and make disciples of all nations.
    Not to abolish all nations, which is a Churchian heresy.</i

    We? So you are a Christian now?

    Jesus taught that Jew, Roman or Greek could be Christian.

  143. Interesting, Talha, and I can think of no other example that explains why I am no longer a believer.

  144. Thorfinnsson says

    SMEs are a beta response to atomophobia. They could have their uses for remote settlements, but economics have always favored the largest possible reactors and generating stations (with multiple reactors per site). No different than thermal fossil fuel generation and for the same reasons.

    It’s time to stop responding to the “concerns” of atomophobes and simply place them in concentration camps (with nuclear heating).

    Wrongism and cowardice are unacceptable and should be punished by the full might of the state.

  145. Gerard1234 says

    tut tut tut [[[Anatoly]]] you Nazi-UPA America stooge

    Not only are those numbers fake and bullshit, involving flat out lies from the Ukrainian officials, misrepresentations and misrecordings of crimes….. and don’t take into account the massively ballooning violent crime rates in all the western Ukrainian cities and elsewhere (Lutsenko published a report last year, bemoaning this precise fact)….they even prove the exact opposite of the gibberish you are trying to state.

    2 million from Crimea, 4 million from DNR/LNR part of Donbass, another 2.5 million ( at least), who have gone or work in Russia, Poland or elsewhere

    Even if we take the dubious and above all, stupid, assertion that Ukraine’s population is in the region of 44 million, we are still looking at a large increase in murder rates you dimwit [[[Anatoly]]] ,because from 2014-now the measurable population for the Ukrop authorities has obviously decreased by at least 8 million

    Its the same thing for deaths on roads…..another thing showing catastrophic results for Ukropia, post-Maidan

  146. For real, or is that hyperbole?

    Peace.

  147. songbird says

    Distributed power has a certain appeal. Don’t know the potential price comparison, but I had some long blackouts this year. Guess it could be solved by burying the wires.

    If nothing else though, dropping one into every block would make it harder for the atomophobes to gather together to protest effectively, which considerably changes the cost equation for big reactors.

    Biggest one near Boston is in Seabrook, NH. Only one reactor. They built two containment domes but eventually tore one down because of cost overruns, obviously partly due to protests and other delaying actions. For many years the 2nd reactor dome sat rusting – you could see it miles away, a reminder of the political and therefore financial costs of building a big plant.

    Plymouth Pilgrim (I love this name – all nuke power plants should be given names that drive SJWs crazy), the other one somewhat close to Boston is closing in 2019. Too costly to refurbish. Politics, again.

  148. Thorfinnsson says

    The gathering of atomophobes in a single location to protest is an opportunity, not a problem. It’s a simple matter then to bombard them with artillery.

    And yes, burying power lines would solve most power outage issues. This is routinely done in Europe and Asia.

    Most of the cost overruns are in fact caused by atomophobes, who endlessly prolong construction with meetings, lawsuits, injunctions, regulatory ratchet, etc. South Korea and Japan successfully reduced the cost of reactor construction. It now costs ten times less to build a new nuclear power station in South Korea than in a Western country.

    Disgraceful. The atomophobes have blood on their hands, and they must be DESTROYED.

  149. songbird says

    Crowd control probably wouldn’t be too hard – with modern technology, like pain-inducing microwaves. But just as a psychological experiment, wouldn’t be bad to plant some rumors about terrorists plotting against the protesters. Hire a few actors to speak Arabic and film the crowd, or something. They couldn’t do that in the ’70s, but it is worth a try now.

    BTW, I just remembered that they shot some of the underwater scenes in the Cameron movie The Abyss in another abandoned (due to costs) containment dome.

  150. songbird says

    Another good experiment: maybe, you could truck in one of the small ones first and then say it is leaking. Then use it to help power the construction of a big one.

  151. Greasy William says

    I doubt that one can say much about Jesus with any certainty at all, given the nature of the sources.

    I’m glad you said that because this is a topic that I am extremely interested in.

    Can we be as sure about anything about Jesus as we can about better documented ancient figures like Julius Caesar or Alexander the Great? No. But we can be reasonably certain about a few things, regardless of what we believe about the man.

    Certainties (and probably’s) about Jesus:

    1. He existed
    2. He was from Nazareth
    3. His mother’s name was Mary
    4. He was a construction worker by trade
    5. He had a group of (probably 12) extremely devoted disciples
    6. He preached a message that was both religious and social: he was against the way that the Pharisees and Sadducees would claim devotion to the letter of the law while (as he saw it) flagrantly violating the spirit of the law
    7. He preached that the Redemption would come from love as opposed to violent insurrection/war
    8. Upon visiting Jerusalem, he “chimped out”, in modern internet parlance, in the Temple over seeing the priests use the Temple as a way to make a profit via money changing
    9. This event convinced the Jewish leadership that he was too dangerous to allow to live, and they handed him over to Pontius Pilate with the accusation that he was calling himself the “King of the Jews” (would have been an automatic death sentence in 1st century Palestine)
    10. There was some type of betrayal with one of Jesus’s disciples. The betrayer was probably named Judas. NT scholar Bart Ehrman thinks that Judas’s betrayal was confirming before Pilate or the Jewish leadership that Jesus had privately been calling himself the King of the Jews and I am inclined to agree
    11. Pilate ordered Jesus crucified for the crime of calling himself the King of the Jews. It is possible that he did so under pressure from the Palestinian Jewish leadership.
    12. Jesus died a ghastly death on the cross.

    Now everything else is something that people need to figure out for themselves, but the above 12 are reasonably certain except for exactly what Judas’s betrayal was

    The NT also seems to indicate that Peter felt horribly guilty about Jesus’s death (why I don’t know) and that Paul, who otherwise had an extremely high opinion of himself, felt extremely ashamed of his work persecuting the early church.

    I also got the feeling from the NT epistles that Paul and Jesus’s 11 original disciples didn’t like each other very much.

  152. Greasy William says

    i’m sitting next to this couple who are on a tinder date or something. It’s really awkward.

    Don’t try to meet girls online. It results in really awkward coffee shop dates.

  153. Would Greasy swipe right?

    Peace.

  154. Thorfinnsson says

    Meeting girls online is fine, especially if you have handsome profile pictures. Not like bad dates are a novelty.

    It’s especially useful when traveling. With geospoofing you can pipeline girls in advance.

  155. Thorfinnsson says
  156. German_reader says

    He preached that the Redemption would come from love as opposed to violent insurrection/war

    It’s interesting though that his disciples owned weapons, and that Peter chopped off someone’s ear when Jesus was apprehended (though Jesus stopped his disciples from defending him with arms).
    Anyway, something I’ve wondered about is Luke 22:38, where the disciples show Jesus two swords and he says “That’s enough”…what’s that supposed to mean??? This was a hugely important verse in the middle ages, when an entire edifice of political theology was based on it, with the two swords supposedly representing the spiritual and the temporal power (papacy and empire)…but what was the original sense? Pretty obscure.
    I agree with you that Jesus existed and that at least the outline of his life story is probably mostly correct.

  157. songbird says

    I think that is the one redeeming feature of schools: getting the sexes together in a place where you can have a good distribution of personality types and make some initial observations.

  158. A question for the karlintariat: When Bannon was fired, there was some speculation that Trump actually just sent him to do something else. Might this shed some light on that theory?

    I don’t suppose it matters, but I am curious.

    https://www.rt.com/news/434169-bannon-right-wing-soros/amp/?__twitter_impression=true

  159. Daniel Chieh says

    I don’t think so? Off the top of my head, I’ll argue that transhumanists are very much into Singularity-level AI, cryogenic resurrection, life extension and genetic alteration. That’s going to be mingled with fondness of cybernetics, mind-machine interface, brain uploading and other means of going well “beyond human.”

    I personally have a lot of doubts about the practicality of much of it. Advanced General Intelligence doesn’t seem to be forthcoming, I’m dubious that cryogenic resurrection will ever work, and my research in the brain has made me increasingly doubtful that mechanical analogues will function in a similar manner(although I think ‘mechanical telepathy’ may be possible). I don’t see a way to achieve unlimited life extension due to eventual transcription errors/cancer/mutation.

    I do have some faith in genetic alteration for biosingularity scenarios. I’m relatively fond of the idea of nootropics and conduct some Gwern-type experiments on reaction speed, stroop tests and verbal fluidity; I have some interest in how to maximize performance of the body and brain. I’m interested in the ability to become the best we can be, and ultimately believe that mechanical enhancement, where it is possible and realistic, is no different from any other tool use.

    I suppose that encapsulates my beliefs in transhumanism?

  160. Greasy William says

    Would Greasy swipe right?

    No. Too old.

    They both kept giving me dirty looks cause I was drinking whip cream straight out of the can. When I type it out like that I’ll admit that it is kinda an inconsiderate thing to do in public, but whatever. My body, my choice.

    Meeting girls online is fine, especially if you have handsome profile pictures.

    Problem is that I’m ugly. I need my in person charm or I have no chance.

  161. Greasy William says

    wtf

  162. Daniel Chieh says

    Problem is that I’m ugly. I need my in person charm or I have no chance.

    I don’t think that I’m particularly attractive and I’ve managed to, um, get to know a few rather attractive girls on a personal level from online; there’s a way to exert some degree of charm there too. That said, I never would touch something as tacky as Tindr; my habit was to find a female-dominated hobby online(those existed, even then) and sort through people.

    No idea how I would do what I used to do these days, #metoo is annoying as hell and women seem to have gotten genuinely more unpleasant. Meh.

  163. I share in your open reception towards becoming the best that we can be. Beyond this, it all seems to me that we’ve all been there and seen it in old sci-fi films. The endings are always a disaster:

    https://youtu.be/3Wx3Ryjcmtk

  164. An example of an anonymous troll, whose opinion of himself is much higher from reality:

    https://nobsrussia.com/2018/07/20/trump-as-allegory/

    Excerpt –

    From an almost flat-out refusal to acknowledge interference in the 2016 election to a pathetically weak response to Putin’s suggestion of turning over officials such as former US Ambassador to Russia Michael McFaul, Trump has pretty much convinced every rational-minded person in America that he is, at best, subservient to or afraid of Vladimir Putin.

    The Russian government hasn’t indicted McFaul. The indications are that they’d be willing to question him in the US. Does he have something to hide? If not, why should he be so reluctant? The Russian government has shown a willingness to have John Mueller’s investigation interview the indicted 12 Russians in Russia. Russian law prohibits these Russians from being turned over to the US.

    A reference concerning some of McFaul’s faulty Russia related commentary:

    https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2018/07/12/more-mumbo-jumbo-on-russia.html

    As for Trump being afraid of Putin, note the people still in his administration like Haley, Coates and Pompeo, along with the US government continued arming of the Kiev regime, ongoing sanctions on Russia and non-recognition of Crimea’s reunification with Russia.

    So much for the JRL promoted anonymous troll.

  165. cause I was drinking whip cream straight out of the can

    You missed a perfect opportunity. You should have smiled back sheepishly at them and then surreptitiously ordered a whip cream can to be sent their way. When they then looked over at you, you raise your can and give them a nod with the same grin.

    I’m ugly.

    It’s a good thing to be modest and definitely not be deluded into thinking something one is not (thinking one looks like Jim Garoppolo when one looks closer to Jim Belushi), but my teachers have mentioned that one should not say something that is considered “kufraani ni’mati” (ingratitude of one’s blessings) since that is an affront to how God decided to make you – just some sincere advice.

    But I thought you Orthodox guys took care of your own and made sure you got hooked up, no? What are you doing out in the dating market anyway?

    Peace.

  166. Assange ran out of people to let down, he should have given himself up when Chelsea Manning was pardoned, as he promised he would. Everyone would have respected that. They should send him to Pakistan where Jemima’s ex is about to become PM. If he does not leave, the vitamin D tablets he is taking will shorten his telomeres and seal his fate.

  167. the vitamin D tablets he is taking will shorten his telomeres and seal his fate.

    Something we all need to know about? I hear that Karlin is intent on living past 120? 🙂

  168. Daniel Chieh says

    Well, old movies don’t have the best replicability into reality but more importantly, society is pretty heavily wrecked by technological progress these days and it doesn’t seem like it’ll have any sign of stopping anyway.

  169. reality?

    Do you want to explain that one to me? Old sci-fi movies often portrayed space travel. Well, with a few bumps in the road this is becoming ‘replicable’. The film that I cited shows how it might be possible to fuse somebody’s brain (or consciousness) to another body. Is this so much different than what you bring up as:

    my research in the brain has made me increasingly doubtful that mechanical analogues will function in a similar manner(although I think ‘mechanical telepathy’ may be possible).

    In the film it’ clear that the vehicle to transport the brain is not a mechanical analogue, but a human body. My cautionary note is to be careful for what you wish. The endings are often laced with unforeseen tragedy.

  170. Daniel Chieh says

    Well, its not like warp travel is happening. Even the relatively tame expectations of space development hasn’t happened, I’d say. IIRC sleeper ships have already been launched by this time in Star Trek, but you wouldn’t see anything even close to that level of construction in real life. A lot of things which are possible, such as spacecraft with nuclear engines have been mostly suspended as well due to atomophobia.

    Anyway, though, there were a lot of predictions that increasing technology would increase crime – not terribly illogical by the notion tha it’ll increase individual power, but in practice the opposite has happened if anything: humanity has become “tamed” and while each and everyone of us could be a hacker, the “knowledge barrier” is such that basically the ever-expanding chorus of surveilance actually reduces us to complete control. Facebook even records the keypresses you delete, and through analysis of our keypresses speeds, can ascertain our identity. So much for the richly individualistic cyberpunk worlds; no Gibsonite visions of women selling “doll” time and Riviera’s horrific yet brilliant sadism, Deus Ex conspiracies of powerful rival entities, or even Jetson-like freedom with a variation of flying car or another. We get MeToo, an increasingly monolithic state of bloodless oppression and driverless cars under state monitoring instead.

    I can’t view videos here but yes, that’s probably impossible. Mechanical telepathy is interesting and possible, though – it seems possible to noninvasively scan the brain for certain signals, so you can “train” your machine to read you. So if you train it to “activate” when you think of say, “elephants eating apples with peanut butter”(or some other uncommon thought), and link the machine to a smartglass, you could think the command and trigger your smartglass to take a photo. Effectively utilized, it could externalize a “memory store” into a hard drive which you can then just replay to your smartglass.

  171. Both oral D and the reneging on his promise are incidences of the counter productive harm avoidance mindset of Assange. Instead of taking it like a man and being seen as honourable, he is like a rat up a drainpipe (as those Swedish women found out).

  172. Gerard1234 says

    So it is more of a criticism of the sovok fable that things in Ukraine are getting ever worse and worse – which is itself a mirror image of the svidomist fable that this has anything to do with associations with Russia or the lack thereof.

    Inept comment for an adult. Among other things, thanks two it’s terrible economic problems and yet another p;oligarchic dispute, Ukropia’s top Chlorone producer has ceased production for the moment…….about 15 days left of clean drinking water for large parts of Ukraine

  173. reiner Tor says

    about 15 days left of clean drinking water for large parts of Ukraine

    And if on August 10 Ukrainians will still have clean tap water you will just repeat the prediction with another date. Ukraine will collapse real soon.

  174. Gerard1234 says

    WTF? The Americans arrange something at the last minute for this parasite state, enabling Chlorine production or supply ( at a massive cost increase to the Ukrainian state)…..or Kolomoisky ( yes, naturally, he the owner of this company Dniproazot ,and holding it to ransom…”revolution of dignity” LOL) gets to blackmail the state and receive a huge payoff……IF this happens it’s nothing to celebrate you fool.

    As it is ,there is a more than likely chance that events as described by myself before will happen

  175. Mitleser says

    Netanyahu is the most powerful man of the world.

    https://twitter.com/LudWitt/status/1022527487631417345

  176. Guillaume Tell says

    Napoleon II

    You’re off by one, either way — can be 1 or 3, but not 2 🙂

  177. Guillaume Tell says

    Our guy, really.