Dåliga nyheter. Coronaskiten kommer tydligen att fortsätta HELA NÄSTA ÅR???!!!
Okej, då har jag några motförslag. Kraftigt höjd A-kassa. Ingen jävla aktivitetsrapportering. Stängda gränser. Avskaffa TV-avgiften. Höjd skatt på Amazon som gör vinst på krisen, att betalas av Bezos personligen. Annars släpper vi nakenbilderna på honom! Och ingen moms på hämtmat.
Annars svarar vi med kravaller...
Any relation to 'Oumuamua? Will our old Irish friend Thomas Sheridan comment on this...?
The election results were highly anomalous and all anomalies point in the same direction. Biden Didn't Win. From The Spectator.
Imagine if *exactly the same thing* had happened in Russia, Belarus or some banana republic currently not on the "good people" (TM) list. Nobody would deny that the results would be highly suspicious...
But somehow, we are supposed to believe that the super-corrupted Dems and Never Trump RINOs, who take money even from Russians as if nothing, are above such things on Amerikan election day!
LOL.
Reasons why the 2020 presidential election is deeply puzzling
Some random conspiracy theories about the elections from the QAnon milieu. Obviously, I *completely* disavow these and others just like 'em.
Remember: the Russians hacked the 2016 elections. Somehow. Don't ask me how, but somehow those damn Commie Christians did it. The Democrats, on the other hand, *who actually control the election machines* would never ever do such a thing. Even apart from the fact that Venezuelan software is impossible to penetrate anyway.
Unless you're Russian, that is.
Russia wanted Biden to win...no,wait...that can't be right...doesn't compute, doesn't compute...
Sidney Powell confirms: Mass arrests, executions, of Democrats imminent
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Visste ni att ett kuppförsök inträffade i USA för fyra år sedan?
Ja, faktiskt. Efter valet 2016 försökte *demokraterna* de facto ogiltigförklara valet genom att uppmana elektorerna att rösta på Hillary Clinton även i delstater där Trump vunnit. Orsaken? Något med att Ryssland hackat valet. Clintons kampanjchef John Podesta ville att alla elektorer skulle få en "security briefing" om Trumps påstådda Ryssland-kontakter. Och sedan kom fyra långa år av ständiga försök från demokraternas sida att delegitimisera valet och avlägsna Trump genom riksrättsförfarande.
Om ni mot förmodan inte minns detta (ni kanske får er världsbild från DN och Aftonbladet) så kommer här en liten påminnelse (på engelska). Det rör sig om två artiklar av Michael Tracey från 2016.
Tracey har även en nyskriven artikel i ämnet från 2020.
Observera att Trumps "kuppförsök", som i hysteriska ordalag fördöms av DN och andra, nästan till punkt och pricka liknar demokraternas agerande för fyra år sedan. Valet måste underkännas p g a valfusk. Nya republikanska elektorer måste tillsättas istället för demokraternas. Och datorerna var hackade av främmande makt (Venezuela). Om detta är en fascistisk eller bonapartistisk kupp, varför var inte demokraternas försök att stjäla valet 2016 också en kupp?
Och nej, ni kan inte svara "för att Clinton fick fler röster totalt sett". *Det är inte så USA väljer president*. Dessutom hade demokraterna agerat på exakt samma sätt även om Trump vunnit "the popular vote". Då hade *det* blivit "beviset" för att ryssarna hackat valmaskinerna...
"Norms" and the Electoral College coup
The most predictable election fraud backlash ever
Jag har ju länge haft ett slags hatkärlek till en viss Greta Thunberg. Eller Gretish, som vi familjärt brukar kalla henne här på bloggen.
Däremot gillar jag inte Amazon. Ja, det är personligt. Jag är sedan två år tillbaka bannad från att skriva recensioner på deras därtill avsedda anglo-saxiska sajter. Det, och något med union-busting.
Så jag blev givetvis glad när jag läste nedanstående avslöjande i Aftonbladet. Go, Greta, go!
PS. Donald Trump borde absolut släppa de där nakenbilderna på Bezos som han påstår sig ha tillgång till. Eller något. Jag minns inte riktigt den skandalen...
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| Loch Lomond, Angus? Nej, Moskva ska vi till, säger jag! |
Vad synd.
"Restoring the Temple of Vision: Cabalistic Freemasonry and Stuart Culture" is a peculiar book by American scholar Marsha Keith Schuchard. So far, I only read 284 pages of this 800-page "door stopper", but I decided to make some preliminary comments anyway!
Schuchard's main thesis is that "Scottish" Rite Freemasonry really did come from Scotland and that the notorious Schwärmer Chevalier Ramsay (who claimed that the Rite had an ancient and illustrious pedigree) may not have been entirely wrong. A startling claim, on the face of it! What *is* clear is that the kind of esotericism which attracted many people during the 18th century, had earlier roots in the Renaissance. The 17th century Rosicrucians (studied by Frances Yates) could perhaps be seen as a kind of proto-Masons.
Schuchard believes that the rabbit hole goes deeper. She attempts to trace the Masonic tradition to the Knights Templar, Jewish trade-guilds and Kabbalistic mystics all the way back to the First Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. In this scenario, the Templars really were "heretics" or heterodox. Even more controversially, the author believes that the mystical secrets are sexual or erotic in nature. I suppose the word "Tantric" could usefully be inserted here.
Today, many believe that original Israelite religion was polytheist. Referencing "The Hebrew Goddess" by Jewish historian Raphael Patai, Schuchard claims that it was also an orgiastic fertility cult. The two cherubs in the Holy of Holies were intertwined in sexual embrace. After the final destruction of the Second Temple, a kind of Temple cult survived among the mystics, who "interiorized" it. The Jewish mystics could "see" the Temple and meet God in anthropomorphic form during their ecstatic visionary experiences. The mysticism was often erotic in nature. This later became the Kabbala, which also included manipulations of Hebrew letters, speculations about cosmic geometry, and the like. Some Christian mystics were influenced by this kind of Jewish mysticism including Erigena and Raymond Lull. The latter had also studied Sufism.
At first glance, the connection between this and actual stone masons seem pretty remote. Schuchard believes otherwise. The builders of temples, synagogues, and cathedrals were skilled artisans and architects with closed guild organizations. The knowledge of how to build large structures was almost "esoteric". Sometimes it was literally esoteric, since religious buildings often had an intricate symbolism, known only to the priesthood and the builders. Jewish master builders probably knew about Temple lore and mysticism, since synagogues and other Jewish buildings attempted to mimic certain traits (or supposed traits) of Solomon's Temple. The Temple was a representation of the cosmos and God's presence in it. Hence the connection between geometry and mysticism, so baffling at first sight. Just as God had used sacred geometry to create the world, the builders used it to erect a building symbolizing God's creation. Schuchard believes that the so-called Art of Memory, a mnemonic technique popularized by Giordano Bruno during the Renaissance, comes from the Jewish builders. It also influenced Raymond Lull. Above all, the splendid Gothic architecture of the High Middle Ages is a Jewish influence on the Christians, mediated through Muslim Spain. This points to a connection between Christian and Jewish masons (or at least their lore).
The traditional Christian take on the Jewish Temple is that its destruction by the Romans in AD 70 was a good thing, a fitting divine punishment for the Jewish rejection of Jesus. Schuchard doesn't explain why Christians eventually began to revere the old Temple instead, but the change was obvious in the case of the Knight Templar, whose very name indicate the reversal. During the crusade, the Templars guarded Temple Mount in Jerusalem, where the Muslim Dome on the Rock had been converted to a Christian church. Many Templar churches in Europe were circular, apparently in the belief that the original Temple of Solomon had looked this way (perhaps the Muslims believed the same thing - the Dome is circular). Schuchard's theory is that this peculiar Christian cult of the Temple must have been the result of Jewish influence on the crusading knights!
Everyone familiar with "Ivanhoe" of course "knows" that Templars were proto-Nazis with a penchant for anti-Semitic witch-burning, but reality turns out to have been more complex. As I pointed out in another blog post, Jews were usually not persecuted in Christian Spain before the 14th century. Schuchard points out that there was a prominent Jewish family in Aragon called "the Men of the Temple". One of their members was known as Judah de la Cavalleria (Judah the Knight)! He closely worked with both the king and the Knights Templar. In crusader-controlled Acre, there was almost 1,000 Jews, many of them rabbis. They supported the crusaders against the Muslim Mamluks. Apparently, Jews were also involved in the trade and banking operations of the Templars. While this doesn't prove much in and of itself, it at least shows that the Templars weren't hermetically sealed off from the rest of medieval society (which included many Jews).
The next landfall is in Scotland, where Scottish Freemasons would emerge centuries later during the Early Modern Period. During the Middle Ages, the Scots developed some pretty peculiar legends. They were supposed to be descended from a Greek mercenary in ancient Egypt who married a daughter of the Pharaoh. There were also "Jewish" connections. The Scottish royal coronation stone, the Stone of Scone, supposedly belonged to the Biblical patriarch Jacob. The Scots identified themselves with the Maccabees, who had cleansed and rededicated the Temple. One Scottish king, actually called David I, was associated with the Knights Templar. A guild of builders based in Scotland had an extremely complex founding myth involving Hermes and Pythagoras alongside Biblical characters, suggestive of the previously mentioned connection between operative masonry and speculative esotericism. It's not entirely clear whether Schuchard believes in the popular story that some French Templars managed to escape persecution by absconding to Scotland, where they aided Robert the Bruce at the battle of Bannockburn in 1314. The Templars already existed in Scotland and may simply have switched their allegiance.
I admit that I found "Restoring the Temple of Vision" interesting. A quick search on the web confirms many of the references. Still, I have two problems with the book so far. First, I find it difficult to believe in a single "tradition" going back 2,500 years. Constantly evolving traditions interacting with each other in a slightly chaotic fashion seems more likely. Another problem is that no direct evidence for Templar heterodoxy seem to exist.
Yet, something nevertheless struck me when reading Schuchard. The Bible actually contains an erotic poem attributed to Solomon. Yes, that would be the Song of Songs. One of the greatest mystics during the Middle Ages based his "bride-chamber mysticism" on it. His name was Bernhard of Clairvaux. And Bernhard was the foremost inspiration behind...the Knights Templar.
Hiding in plain sight?
"Catastrophe" is a two-part BBC documentary about how the volcanic eruption of Krakatoa in the East Indies in 535 AD impacted the climate all over the world. This is the second part, titled "How the World Changed". It´s perhaps a bit more speculative than part one. Or perhaps not. After all, it´s difficult to believe that a 18 month darkening of the sun wouldn´t have some kind of adverse consequences. At the very least, there would have been wide-spread famines.
Archeologist David Keys, who is prominently featured in "Catastrophe", believe that the consequences were more long term. The eruption caused a 30-year draught in Mexico, which destroyed the powerful city of Teotihuacan. After decades of famine, malnutrition and general decline, the population of the city-state rebelled against the upper class, destroying the palaces and temples. Meanwhile in Arabia, the high culture of Yemen falls and tens of thousand of people are forced to migrate as the Marib Dam is broken apart and abandoned. In Central Asia, the Turks defeated the Avar horselords as the new climate killed many of their horses. The Avars migrate to Europe, where they create a new empire, while the Turks become the dominant people in Central Asia.
Keys believes that the Justinianic Plague was indirectly caused by the Krakatoa eruption. The cooler climate supposedly triggered the plague bacteria. The documentary suggests that the plague came from Africa. As far I know, Asia is the standard theory. The Justinianic Plague also hit the Celts in Britain, depopulating large areas. This made it easier for the Anglo-Saxons to invade England and settle there. Was the birth of England the result of a dumb volcano in Indonesia?
Like many other documentaries of this kind, "Catastrophe" just has to end with some bizarre speculations about current volcanic threats, which supposedly includes the Yellowstone super volcano (it doesn´t).
While "Catastrophe" is boring at times, it´s nevertheless a good reminder that human history isn´t just about "social forces" or "ideas", both of which share the fact that they are human. Our history is also shaped by forces beyond our control. Universe wasn´t made for man. Maybe some of us need to be reminded from time to time...
"Catastrophe" is a two-part BBC documentary about a possible climate disaster during the 6th century AD. This is the first part, titled "The Day the Sun Went Out". The TV crew has followed British archeologist David Keys as he tries to unlock the mystery.
Year zero of the cataclysm seems to be AD 535 (when Justinian was ruler of the East Roman Empire). Treerings from around that time went haywire all over the world: Ireland, Chile, Siberia, California. On Ireland, the "bad" trees were from forts built as protection in times of war. Written sources also suggest that something dramatic must have happened around this time. John of Ephesus and Cassiodorus reported that the sun went dark. Japanese chronicles suggest the same thing, leading to famine, while yellow dust and a loud bang were recorded in China. The documentary takes the Arthurian legends seriously, and believe that Arthur´s kingdom became a wasteland in the mid 6th century.
Keys investigates whether a comet or asteroid could have impacted Earth at this time, but reaches the conclusion that there is no evidence for it. However, ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica show high amounts of sulphuric acid from the time in question. This points to a volcanic eruption. And yes, the main suspect is Krakatoa in Indonesia (it´s *always* Krakatoa).
The research team track down a copy of the ancient Javanese "Book of Kings", which strongly suggests a volcanic eruption in 535 AD. A geological survey of Krakatoa (yes, they do visit the cursed place - and are almost hit by falling rocks during a "small" eruption) also strongly suggest that a major eruption happened during the relevant time frame.
So what could possibly go wrong if a major volcano explodes and its dust darkens the sun all over the world for 18 months?
That´s the topic of the next episode...
To be blunt, "Catastrophe" is extremely slow paced and boring - except for the Krakatoa expedition - and some of it is ridiculous. Why does John of Ephesus speak with a weird foreign accent, which is difficult to make out? Also, the narrator mispronounces "Tunguska".
That being said, this production does have a certain intrinsic interest. Clue: the world was not made for man. It seems it may have been made for...Krakatoa.
Jag förnekar allt samröre med den här mannen!!! Det är lögn, lögn säger jag!!! Fake news!!!
"Internationalen" behövs för att hindra gamla kämpar från att spåra ur totalt
Ex-union official in Britain about the current crisis in the Labour Party.
Labour will never win power unless it stops hating the working class
Daniel Suhonen kräver att Peter Wolodarski ska be om ursäkt. Från Aftonbladet.
For obvious reasons, I don't know if Venezuela rigged the US elections in Biden's favor, although I suppose that *would* be rather impressive if true!
So I offer this little link just for the hell of it. Discuss amongst yourselves...
The link is to Wikileaks. The document is from 2006 and deals with the same Venezuelan company now accused by Giuliani of rigging the US elections. At the very least it shows that the "national security" of the US is a big joke.
Which may or may not be a good thing, depending on what geopolitical alliances you prefer this week (insert ominous laughter here).
Oh no, Lovecraft was right THE WYRMS ARE REAL, THE UNIVERSE IS ALIVE!!!!
No one can convince me this isn't the work of Fohat-Shakti!!!!
Is this even true?! This seems to prove Fohat, the Electric Universe or something...
Hade jag varit kristen fundamentalist hade jag nog sagt något om Vilddjurets märke i Uppenbarelseboken, utan vilket man inte får köpa och sälja...
WHO:s ordförande har tydligen lackat ur på färgrevolutioner. Och på en viss fredspristagare.
Vad bra! Vi får hoppas att han även tröttnar på att hålla oss instängda medan världsekonomin kollapsar...
Och ja, TPLF är det där ex-kommunistiska partiet jag har nämnt tidigare.
"Blavatsky and The Secret Doctrine" by Max Heindel was something of a disappointment.
I expected this little book to be a critical analysis (or ditto appraisal) of Blavatsky's magnum opus from the "Rosicrucian" perspective developed by Heindel after his meeting with Rudolf Steiner. (Heindel's system is similar to Steiner's Anthroposophy on a number of points, suggesting a direct influence.)
Instead, the booklet contains a speech on "The Secret Doctrine" given by Heindel when he was still a Theosophist (of the Adyar branch) . It's essentially a brief overview of the work, emphasizing Blavatsky's view of God as an impersonal principle, the need for the monads to pass through eons of evolution, and the peculiar speculations about Atlantis and other vanished continents. Heindel, who was based in the United States, also mentions that the next "root-race" will arise in North America...
The speech was originally published in 1933, perhaps by Manly P Hall, who wrote the preface. Hall was apparently a student of Heindel's "Rosicrucian" system before he formed his own group. No date for the speech is given, but judging by other information in the booklet, perhaps it was given in Los Angeles in 1905.
My copy was published by Murine Press in 2008. Somebody named Andras Nagy has contributed an afterword.
Not the most interesting piece around, but it's still intriguing that Max Heindel managed to summarize Blavatsky in a short lecture!
"Emanuel Swedenborg, Secret Agent on Earth and in Heaven. Jacobites, Jews, and Freemasons in Early Modern Sweden" is a 800-page scholarly work by Marsha Keith Schuchard, an American historian specializing in William Blake and his sources. I suppose this is about those sources!
The book is extremely detailed and deals more with political and Masonic intrigue than with esotericism, although that subject is also touched upon. Indeed, one of the author's points is that the distinction between "real" espionage and esoteric activities aren't that obvious, anyway.
The center of attention is Swedish esotericist Emanuel Swedenborg (1688-1772), the so-called Seer of the North. Schuchard argues that the real life Swedenborg was very different from the picture painted by his later followers in the Swedenborgian "New Church". Swedenborg was deeply immersed in esotericism and the paranormal since his childhood. He had contacts with a wide array of antinomians, ecstatics and mystics before he began to have revelatory visions himself. Swedenborg probably practiced yoga and various erotic-spiritual techniques akin to Tantrism. With such a background, it would have been strange *not* to experience visions from the spirit-world!
But Swedenborg was more than just an apolitical scientist turned prophet in old age (or religious nutjob, if you're more skeptical). Most of his life, Swedenborg was a secret agent of the French. He was part of a shadowy "underworld" of scheming and plotting spies, double agents, turncoats, adventurers and Freemasons. In other words, 18th century European politics as usual...
After the death of Swedish warrior-king Charles XII (Karl XII) in 1718 and the defeat of Sweden in the Great Northern War, the former regional great power fell on hard times. The so-called Age of Freedom following the king's death saw a succession of weak, "parliamentary" governments. Factional bickering was rife. The two main factions in the Swedish Diet, the Hats and the Caps, were both on foreign payroll. The Hats took subsidies from France, while the Caps were underwritten by Russia and Britain. The Hats were the slightly reckless "war party", dreaming of a restoration of the Swedish great power, something Russia and Britain wanted to stop at all costs. This explains why France - Britain's perennial adversary - backed the Hats. The British and the Russians, just as inevitably, backed the Cap "peace party". While both factions were dominated by nobles, the Caps had a more "democratic" image than the obviously aristocratic Hats.
Swedenborg had began his political career working for Charles XII, whom he greatly admired. He also supported the king's controversial minister of finances, Görtz (who was disgraced and executed after Charles XII's death). During the Age of Freedom, Swedenborg was a Hat (albeit a fairly moderate one). He was a member of the House of Nobles in the Diet, and sometimes attended meetings of the Secret Committee, where Swedish foreign policy was decided upon. Above all, Swedenborg was a Hat-French intelligencer.
The French king Louis XV was running a vast intelligence network all over Europe, known as Secret du Roi. Or rather *not* known, not even to the king's own ministers. The French court was split into several factions (including a pro-British "peace party"), and Louis clearly didn't want to risk sensitive information getting into the wrong hands. Schuchard considers it more or less proven that Swedenborg was on Louis XV's payroll. Despite a frugal life style, the future Seer of the North always had mysteriously large sums at his disposal. When the Hats joined forces with the so-called Court Party (which called for more royal power), the Age of Freedom was drawing to its close. Swedenborg supported king Gustav III, seeing him as the savior of Sweden and as a new Charles XII. In 1772, after Swedenborg's death, Gustav III did carry out an "auto-golpe" with Hat support. Perhaps it saved Sweden from being dismembered by Russia.
Due to their secrecy, Masonic lodges were excellent vehicles for espionage and intrigue. France operated a network of pro-French Masonic orders. The Hanoverian regime in Britain created their own international Masonic network in turn. Later, Gustav III would set up a pro-Swedish Masonic network, with himself as Grand Master of the Swedish Order. The most important component of the Francophile lodges were the Jacobites, Catholic supporters of the House of Stuart, who had fled Britain after the 1688 Glorious Revolution and the subsequent defeat of James II at the Battle of the Boyne. The Jacobites (many of whom were Scottish) became French "assets". A whole series of attempted invasions of Britain and other plots against the British government involved the Jacobites. Their de facto leader Bonnie Prince Charlie (The Young Pretender) became a romantic figure, moving around Europe in heavy disguise, secretely visiting various Masonic lodges, and eventually elevating himself to the Grand Master of the Temple during the 1745 Jacobite invasion of Scotland. Apparently, Gustav III later took over the title, despite being a Protestant! Sweden often aided Jacobite attacks on the British. Schuchard believes that Charles XII's attack on Norway (during which he was killed) was part of a wider plan to invade Britain. The mysterious "Madagascar pirates" were also Jacobites...
I always assumed that the Jacobites were ultramontane Catholic fanatics, but if Schuchard is right, the picture is cobsiderably more complex. The loyal followers of the House of Stuart did believe in the divine right of kings (royal autocracy), but on other issues, they were surprisingly "enlightened". The Jacobites called for religious tolerance for all Christian groups, but also for Jews and Muslims. Jewish immigration to Europe should be encouraged. Alliances with the Muslim Ottoman Empire were seen as non-problematic. The tolerance towards other faiths weren't simply driven by economic (Jews) and political (Muslims) factors. The esoteric aspects of Jacobite "Scottish" Freemasonry also played a part. There was a strong interest in both the Jewish and the Hermetic Kabbala, in Jewish-Christian syncretism, Hebrew studies, and even Quranic studies. Swedenborg was (of course) part of this milieu, a kind of occult-Jacobite underground. This might explain why a Masonic body claiming descent from the Catholic Knights Templar could nevertheless have a Lutheran Grand Master.
Going back to Swedenborg, Schuchard believes that many of his "paranormal powers" have more earthly explanations. How did Swedenborg know about the great fire of Stockholm in 1759 while he was in Gothenburg? Perhaps he had access to secret British intelligence?The fire may have been the work of British agents. Some of his visions were wrong! The author speculates that Swedenborg may have suffered from temporal lobe epilepsy.
Schuchard has written a (perhaps) more accesible work on this murky topic, "Why Mrs Blake Cried". The work under review is for specialized research libraries only. Still, a compelling and fascinating book!
Since I recently dissed "Jacobin" magazine, it's time to give my executioners their due (and a shout out). Yes, it's the grossly misnamed Lincoln Project again...
How the Lincoln Project grifted off pro-Biden liberals
Druid Revivalist John Michael Greer (who de facto supported Trump in the recent elections) un-ironically calls on The Donald to quit before it's too late.
The reason is an astrological forecast (made by Greer himself) which shows *major* troubles ahead! The forecast is based on the inauguration, but apparently the day when the Electoral College is supposed to meet and appoint the president is just as "malefic", since a solar eclipse takes place on that very day.
Obviously, I take no overt responsibility for the contents of this horoscope... 🐸
Vad är det som händer med Boris Johnson, undrar globo-liberala Dagens Nyheter. Översättning: de hoppas att BoJo skall stoppa Brexit.
It's seems the left aren't getting those thirty pieces of silver they were promised.
Tired of loosing, yet? Come and join the dark side...
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"Trump is more like Berlusconi than Mussolini".
Well, thanks for noticing. To a European versed in history and politics, this article is simply laughable. Some morose American leftist tries to explain (to himself?) why The Donald isn't a "fascist". Maybe next week, I will explain why left Democrats aren't Jacobins...
While many of the arguments are true, as far as they go, others are crazy, for instance the idea that colored people voted for a "White nationalist". Actually, Trump's messaging this year was more mainline GOP-ish than in 2016, suggesting that such politics are *more* popular than heterodox populism, let alone fascism. Despite all the hysteria, most Americans in 2020 voted for what they saw as the *moderate* alternative. That's true of Trump voters as well as Biden voters.
Occasionally, the indulgent Jacobin says something interesting. Can fascism in America be colorblind? My answer: Possibly, but unlikely.
Over all, this sounds like a belated realization that all the histrionics about "fascism" and a "coup" were just a Dem psy-op. And the left fell for it!
That being said, something worse than Berlusconi might indeed hit America in the not-too-distant future. I'm not a glib optimist. But when that day comes, something tells me people who fronted for senile globo-liberals in 2020 won't be able to stop it...
Joe Biden (or one of his handlers) recently tweeted this: "When I'm speaking to foreign leaders, I'm telling them: America is going to be back. We're going to be back in the game".
Ooops.
Independent roving reporter and liberal gadfly extraordinaire Michael Tracey has published a preliminary analysis of the 2020 POTUS elections.
Tracey (who de facto predicted a Biden win) doesn't believe in widespread election fraud in Biden's favor. On the other hand, he is sharply critical of many other Dem narratives. On Twitter, MT is therefore constantly attacked by his fellow (?) liberals for being a "fascist", a "Trump voter", and what not.
In the article linked below, MT points out that Trump got more votes in Black districts than any other GOP candidate within living memory. This is true even in Georgia! Yet, Trump was supposedly running as a White supremacist...
Meanwhile, the main Democrat strongholds are the mostly White affluent suburbs. The politics of the Biden administration will therefore increasingly reflect the material interests of this stratum.
Tracey doesn't believe there will be a "coup" or a "civil war", and frequently mocks such notions on Twitter. In this scenario, Trump will hand over power peacefully to Biden and Harris.
What happens next, our roving reporter and friend of all dogs doesn't say. But I suppose we are all going to find out, aren't we?
I'm old enough to remember when Marco Rubio was a main line Republican. It seems Rubio has rebranded himself!
"GOP must rebrand as party of multiethnic, multiracial working class voters"
Being a Russian conscript soldier can't be easy. But then, being a Russian bear can't be easy either...
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Not sure what "official" science says about this new theory, but I tend to believe everything which suggests that complexity has always existed.
Cuz reasons or something.
The naked mole-rat is literally the most bizarre mammal in the world. Imagine a rodent living in ant-like colonies! Wtf?!
But then, I suppose commuters in New York City often get the same feeling...
Naked mole-rats kidnap each other's babies, and turn them into slaves
Since I just bashed creationism, it might be a bit awkward to promote a vampire-slaying kit. After all, vampires are more into *de*volution than evolution...
On the other hand, they seem perfectly adapted being creatures of the night. Note that the kit includes a Bible! With or without the Apocrypha is unclear at this point...
Antique vampire-slaying kit up for auction. Bible, crucifix and pistol included
Aren't we all sick and tired of Murican politics by now? LOL.
So I decided to link to some crazy science news instead. First out is the "rafting hadrosaurian" which managed to reach Africa from the ancient super-continent of Laurasia.
The fossil of a duckbill dinosaur has been found on the "wrong" continent
A group of creationists are already unhappy with this new scientific discovery.
Dinos on a raft? Naah, God did it
Presumably, the author believes that the sons of Ham took a baby dinosaur on a raft during their exploration of Africa Proconsularis. Unless God simply created an African hadrosaurian in situ, which (admittedly) would be exactly the kind of weird shit you expect from that guy...
Seriously though, I'm not a materialist, but yes, I do think we all evolved from cosmic slime. I mean, isn't that obvious?
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In case you assumed ISIS (alias ISIL, IS, Islamic State and Daesh) had disappeared...better think again.
It turns out that the killer cult is alive and kicking in Mozambique, of all places. Unsurprisingly, they have formed an alliance with local ruby smugglers, proving (again) that ISIS is at bottom a criminal operation pure and simple, although organized as a fanatical religious group.
The appearence of ISIS in Mozambique isn't so strange as it may seem. The Middle East and East Africa had connections long before Islam even existed. The northern region of Mozambique where the cult operates is traditionally Muslim. And they have rubies...
From BBC World News.
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| It was just a dream... |
"Neo-reactionary" gadfly Mencius Moldbug on the recent election.
Translation from Moldbug speak: "I'm a lone, worthless intellectual sitting on the sidelines, nagging everyone who doesn't with my oh-so-erudite pseudo-European rhetoric". And just got pwned?
After the Machtübernahme, we have to send this guy in exile. Maybe Liechtenstein can take him?
This must be Donald Trump's most evil deed so far.
From People's World, magazine of the...wait for it...Communist Party USA.
Trump removes endangered species protections for gray wolves
De kanske borde ha gett fredspriset till Greta Thunberg, trots allt? Det här är alltså killen som fick Nobels fredspris förra året...
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Ponera att följande skulle inträffa i Ryssland.
Kommunisterna förlorar presidentvalet, men vägrar acceptera valresultatet. Nästa gång det är valår kraschar de landets ekonomi, startar kravaller i 15 storstäder (ofta med stöd av kommunistiska borgmästare) och försöker ställa den folkvalde presidenten inför riksrätt. Under tiden bedriver kommunistiska medier en systematisk förtalskampanj mot presidenten, som framställs som en agent för USA.
På valnatten avbryts plötsligt rösträkningen i flera ryska delrepubliker, där valmaskineriet kontrolleras av kommunister. De vill nämligen "vänta in" valresultaten från resten av Ryssland. Så fort dessa blivit kända, återupptas rösträkningen, varvid de kommunistiska funktionärerna triumferande "hittar" precis så många poströster som behövs för att den kommunistiske kandidaten ska segra (en trött och väldigt gammal byråkrat som inledde sin karriär i Högsta Sovjet under Bresjnev).
Några dagar efter valet utropas den kommunistiske kandidaten till segrare av kommunistiskt kontrollerade massmedier, varvid nyheten kablas ut över världen. Samtidigt börjar en särskilt radikal kommunist (en kubansk invandrare) i duman att upprätta listor över vilka medlemmar från den demokratiska administrationen som ska beläggas med Berufsverbot...
Jag är ganska övertygad om att både DN och Aftonbladet totalt skitit ner sig om detta inträffat. De hade aldrig slutat hetsa mot Ryssland och kommunismen. Man hade krävt FN-ingripande, sanktioner, observatörer. En gravallvarlig Carl Bildt hade synts på TV-rutorna varje kväll. Göran Skytte hade dammats av och dragit paralleller till Lenins upplösande av den konstituerande församlingen 1918. Vänsterpartiet hade avkrävts "svar" i riksdagsdebatter. Och så vidare.
Men är det inte *exakt detta* som just nu håller på att hända i USA? Fast mot Donald Trump är tydligen alla medel tillåtna. Inklusive metoder vem som helst insett är valfusk om de använts av diktaturkramare i Ryssland, Belarus eller Venezuela...
Det var...klargörande.
"It's OK when we do it" (TM)
I'm currently reading the ninth volume of Frederick Copleston's "A History of Philosophy", subtitled "19th and 20th century French philosophy". Why, you wonder? And I reply: Why the heck not, really? Here are some preliminary remarks...
Copleston's multi-volume work feels very uneven. Some thinkers are mentioned mostly in passing (Ficino and Pico gets this treatment in the third volume), while other chapters are simply brilliant (Hegel in the seventh volume). Since Copleston was a Jesuit, he often spends considerable time discussing explicitly Christian thinkers.
The volume on French philosophy was published in 1975 and therefore doesn't discuss Foucault, Derrida, Deleuze and the other postmodernists. Thank god! Sartre is included, however. Copleston doesn't limit his overview to "philosophers" sensu stricto. There are sections on De Maistre, Saint-Simon, Proudhon, Fourier, Durkheim and Levi-Strauss. And yes, Teilhard de Chardin! One thinker missing is Georges Sorel.
The most fascinating chapters deal with Henri Bergson. I never really understood why mystics (such as Evelyn Underhill) found Bergson's "creative evolution" metaphysically congenial. Maybe they don't. However, Bergson's ideas are strikingly similar to certain spiritual or mystical notions on other points. Even the creative evolution might have a religious equivalent, if we interpret the elan vital as Shakti, the dynamic force of creation in Hinduism. The notion that Reality is "duration" outside space and time, and that "duration" is intuited through introspection sounds like the Hindu notion of Atman being Brahman. And while Bergson didn't regard the "normal" world as pure Maya or illusion, it does seem to be a kind of secondary creation, a static residue, of the foreward-moving thrust of the elan vital.
A problem with Bergson from a mystical viewpoint could be that he was a dualist rather than a monist. The world seems to be bifurcated between "duration" and "extension", or between Spirit and the everyday world of ordinary experience. Ironically, this is similar to some *scientific* interpretations, in which the connection between the little world of subatomic particles and "our" (very different) world is something of a mystery. Copleston never says whether Bergson ever commented on quantum physics!
Later in life, Bergson's thinking took an explicitly pro-religious turn with the publication of "The two sources of morality and religion", reviewed by me elsewhere. Suffice to say, Bergson still had mystical leanings, viewing the development of universal ethics as caused by a kind of mystical inspiration mediated by saints and prophets. Shortly before his death, Bergson wanted to convert to Catholicism, but decided against it for political reasons.
Two other thinkers who fascinated me when reading this tome are Saint-Simon and August Comte. Both represent an early (19th century) form of the Western Idea of Progress in an almost pure, pristine and honest-to-god form. Society must be ruled by the "producers" or the "scientific elite", everything should be strictly "rational" and since that's the case, industrial society will be peaceful and harmonious. QED. Just as nature is controlled by science, there is also a science of society (later known as sociology). To control people, perhaps? Most intriguing is the explicit connection to religion found in both thinkers. While Saint-Simon was a pantheist, Comte seems to have been an atheist who wanted to harness the religious impulse into an organized worship of Humanity through a Positivist Church. I get the impression from Copleston than while Saint-Simon idealized capitalism and the rule of the bourgeoisie, Comte placed scientists (and by implication social engineers) above everyone else. Did he discover "the managerial class" 100 years before it emerged with a vengeance?
Modern industrial society, especially in its properly managed version, does have its upsides, but of course perfect harmony is not one of them, and the idea of actually worshipping it sounds crazy today (although arguably people almost did once). Reading about what illusions some intelligent people harbored about it when it was new, should give us pause. Marx regarded Saint-Simon, Proudhon and Fourier (but not Comte) as utopian socialists, since they didn't see the conflicts inherent in class society or believed it could be abolished by pure rational thinking. Today we know that socialism wasn't free from contradictions either...
And no, I didn't bother reading about Sartre.
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"Första världskriget" is a recently published book by Dick Harrison, Swedish popularizer of world history extraordinaire. This time, Harrison takes on World War I.
"The war to end all wars" is (or should be) part of everyone's common knowledge. Who hasn't heard of the trenches on the Western front, the poison gas, the first tanks or the US entry into the war? And of course the assasination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, which supposedly triggered the whole thing! Harrison's book does contain the usual (and frankly disturbing) information on these things, but he also takes us to other theatres. The war on the Eastern front is extensively covered, as is the Alpine confrontations between Italy and Austria-Hungary, and the complex war in the Balkans. The Armenian Genocide gets a full chapter. The author also exposits on events in the colonial empires, including some I never heard about before. I had no idea that a naval battle between the Germans and the British was fought off the Falkland Islands, or that Brazil was a target of German U-boats! I had heard about the undefeated German colonial troops in East Africa (perhaps in another book by the same author).
World War I has often been depicted as a righteous attempt to stop Germany from making a bid for world domination. Harrison doesn't share such a perspective. He sees little difference between the Entente and the Central Powers. All great powers had colonial empires, or were empires in their own right. All treated their soldiers like cannon fodder. World War I was an unmitigated disaster, and both the war and the absurd peace treaties (such as the Versailles treaty) triggered a whole new series of calamities: Communism, Nazism, the Middle East conflict, and (most notably) World War II. The First World War ended an extended period of peace, progress and prosperity in Europe. It also destroyed the strong belief in progress prevalent at the time - at least, progress through gradual evolution of the existing societies and institutions. In hindsight, World War I shouldn't have been allowed to happen. That being said, the war and its aftershocks were probably inevitable.
The altogether happier end of World War II and, some would argue, the Cold War gave belief in progress a new boost (despite Mutually Assured Destruction, silent springs and population bombs). And now, a century after the Great War, it feels like we're back to square one. Makes me wonder where we could have been had the war never taken place...
Den här analysen känns väldigt preliminär, men den är likväl intressant. Det ska bli intressant att se hur populismen utvecklas i framtiden...
Ibland är det faktiskt bra att vi bor i landet Lagom och har tråkiga tjänstemän (och dito kvinnor) på våra byråkratiska institutioner. Jag är inte ironisk...
Sedan undrar man ju hur djurrättsaktivisterna kommer att reagera på detta?
Professorns dramatiska uppmaning till Sverige: DÖDA ALLA MINKAR
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The Atlantic magazine fears that even if Biden becomes POTUS, "Trumpism" is far from over. They are right, of course. Be 'fraid, globo-liberal, be very' fraid!
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Dick Harrison is a Swedish history professor who has written a long series of popularized books about "the dramatic history" of both Sweden and the world, unfortunately only available in Swedish. "Visby Brandskattning", published this year, tells the story of the infamous Sack of Visby in 1361, when evil Danish king Valdemar Atterdag plundered the good townspeople of Visby at the Swedish island of Gotland, an event immortalized by a painting from 1882 by Carl Gustaf Hellqvist.
The painting is real. I've seen it with my own eyes. There's just one problem, and it's not a small one either. The Sack of Visby...never happened. It's a propaganda lie concocted generations after the supposed event to gloss over the uncomfortable fact that the burghers of Visby surrendered to Valdemar without a fight, after first betraying the people who *did* resist him!
Dick Harrison has managed to write a 164-page book about this non-event. Perhaps inevitably, its filled with digressions: William of Occam, the Black Death, 19th century art, and medievalist LARP-ing are some of the topics covered. No hard feelings! At the center of attention stands Gotland, an island in the Baltic Sea, which at some unknown date during the Middle Ages became a nominal Swedish dominion.
Medieval Gotland must have been a peculiar society. The town of Visby was de facto an independent territory, surrounded by defensive walls to protect it against angry peasants in the hinterland. Visby was controlled by Gute and German merchants. The town was officially affiliated with the Hanseatic League, a North German merchant federation dominating Baltic trade. The rest of Gotland was inhabited by peasants, of which the "trade-peasants" (farbönder) were the most prominent. Really a local upper class, they combined agriculture, raising of livestock and long-distance trade. Gute traders were well known, and even criticized by the papacy for selling arms, horses, ships and food to the pagans and Orthodox Christians in the Eastern Baltic region. (As good Catholics, the Gutes were not supposed to sell such items to people potentially at the recieving end of Catholic crusades!)
While Gotland was thus formally under Swedish suzerainty, the island really functioned as two independent entities, which didn't always see eye to eye: Visby and the rest of Gotland.
The other center of Harrison's narrative is Valdemar Atterdag, Danish ruler and often seen as the savior or restorer of that nation after a prolonged period when something truly was rotten in the kingdom of Denmark. To make a long story short, Denmark had been effectively divided between Sweden and Holstein in the early 14th century. Valdemar, a former protege of German emperor Ludwig of Bavaria, gradually restored it by equal amounts of force and cunning. Harrison reveals that historians are baffled by Valdemar's sudden attack on Gotland, since the island wasn't considered strategically important at the time. Since the Danish king felt threatened by Sweden, he should logically have prioritized an occupation of Öland (an island much closer to the Swedish coast) and prepare to attack Kalmar. For whatever reason, Valdemar chose to make an opportunistic raid on Gotland instead.
The peasants mobilized massively and tried to stop Valdemar's army at several points on the road to Visby. Each time, the peasant levy was routed by Valdemar's well trained German mercenaries. The main battle was fought just outside Visby's city gates. The peasants had expected the burghers to come to their aid and fight along them. Instead, the gates remained shut, while the Danish army massacred the peasant detachments. When the gruesome battle was over, the Visby merchants surrendered without struggle and let the Danish king and his troops enter the city.
While Visby had to pay a large tribute to Valdemar and recognize Danish suzerainty over Gotland, there was never an actual sack. Nor did the king threaten to burn down the entire town, unless his demands were met. Instead, it was the defeated peasant population who was systematically plundered by Valdemar's warriors, many civilians killed in the process. After these atrocities, the Danes simply left Gotland, mission accomplished...
As already mentioned, the story of the Sack of Visby was invented later to cover up the inconvenient fact that the Visby townspeople had betrayed the Gute peasants during the attack on the island. The legend was firmly established during the 17th century (it's actually treated as real history by the poor nerd who wrote English Wikipedia's entry on Valdemar Atterdag). Harrison has great fun pointing out all the errors and anachronisms in Hellqvist's famous painting. The houses look continental German rather than Gotlandian, the mayor's wife has long flowing hair (something only prostitutes had during the Middle Ages) and a Jew suspiciously similar to Isaac of York from "Ivanhoe" can be seen carrying money to the Danish soldiers - actually, no Jews lived in Scandinavia during the 14th century!
On a more somber note, Harrison ends the book by bemoaning the fact that much of what we think we know about "history" isn't really so, indeed, it might even be the result of conscious falsification. Shortly after "Visby Brandskattning", Harrison became involved in a controversy around a recent historical docu-drama produced by a Swedish TV network, "Drottningarna", along precisely these lines...
Dick Harrison till attack. Jag har förresten aldrig sett den aktuella TV-serien.
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Bråket mellan DN:s chefredaktör Peter Wolodarski och den gammelmoderata pressen fortsätter. Jag tror som bekant att konflikten har många bottnar, och att klimatfrågan bara är en av dem. Det handlar ytterst om massmedias trovärdighet, där DN verkar vilja följa den "amerikanska" linjen där tidningarna blir rena propagandaorgan för en viss politisk fraktion även på nyhetsplats, medan kritikerna vill slå vakt om pressens *förmenta* objektivitet. När det gäller klimatfrågan så är Wolodarski såklart en hycklare om man läser det finstilta. "Vetenskapen" har minsann bevisat klimatkrisen, men konstigt nog säger den ingenting om eventuella lösningar. Där får man fortfarande ha åsikter! Det är kvalificerat skitprat. Vetenskapen är glasklar: vi måste sluta använda fossila bränslen och lägga om hela jordbruket. Det är också glasklart att grön energi inte kan ersätta fossila bränslen... Och vad säger den heliga Vetenskapen om utsläpp i samband med att man kraftigt ökar kopparproduktionen för att klara av "elektrifiering"? Wolodarski har helt enkelt inte lyxen att ha några "åsikter" här heller, men något säger mig att han är ovillig att vrida klockan tillbaka till stenåldern!
Peter Wolodarski om klimatkrisen
De som sätter tvångströja på debatten
Wolodarski låter som en partisekreterare
