Världsrekord i valfusk?

Vägrar samarbeta med Annie Lööf, anklagad för valfusk?

Valresultatet i Kongo-Kinshasa är ”ifrågasatt”, har vi fått veta. Vinnaren, Felix Tshisekedi, anklagas för valfusk. Det verkar ju lite märkligt. Tshisekedi är nämligen *oppositionens* kandidat (eller snarare en av dem). Hur kan oppositionen rigga ett val? Det måste vara något slags världsrekord i oegentligheter!

Eller kanske inte. Här är en annan teori: Tshisekedi är faktiskt den populäraste kandidaten. Regimen är så svag att den inte längre kan fuska sig till en seger (eller skjuta upp valet i all oändlighet). Så varför anklagas Tshisekedi nu för fusk? Jag vet inte, men ”koppar” och ”Katanga” kan ju vara relevanta sökord för den som vill reflektera över det kongolesiska tillståndet...

Liberalismens politiska impotens

En intressant artikel om varför liberalismen misslyckats med att konfrontera högerpopulism, rasism och fascism. 

Därför misslyckades den liberala idealdebatten

Visst, den ”liberala idealdebatten” är impotent inför det bruna hotet. Men vad har artikelförfattaren (en norrman som under en period själv flirtade med högerpopulism) för alternativ? Jo, han vill ha...mer censur! Anledningen? Högerpopulism handlar enbart om ”känslor”, och tydligen kan den känslosamme fan alltså motas i grind med mindre yttrandefrihet.

Den strategin har redan misslyckats...

Under valkampanjen i USA 2015-2016 stödde nästan alla medier Hillary Clinton. Vad blev resultat av denna censurkampanj? Just det. Donald Trump vann presidentvalen. Och vad skall liberalerna göra då? Införa *verklig* censur? Militärkupp, eller vad?

Tänk om folkets revolt mot eliterna inte enbart handlar om känslor, inte ens när revolten tar sig högerpopulistiska former. Tänk om nästa revolt blir betydligt mer rationell. Vänsterpopulistisk, låt säga. Ungefär som Gula Västarna i Frankrike. 

När har liberal dumcensur lyckats stoppa en revolution? Aldrig, naturligtvis. Och det gick visst inte så bra i Sovjetunionen, Tsar-Ryssland, Ancien Regime eller Nordamerika heller. Och åtminstone i några av de staterna hade eliterna *lite* mer resurser än vad Telefonplans-Pravda (a.k.a. DN) kan uppvisa...

Tänk om man faktiskt måste, hemska tanke, ändra politik för att få bukt med alla dessa irriterande populistiska protester...?

Vita metrosexuella män

Visste ni att homofiler, förlåt, homosexuella män är privilegierad övre medelklass, är ytterst promiskuösa och dessutom sprider sjukdomar? Och det värsta av allt: staten låter dem hållas!

Ovanstående stod faktiskt att läsa i Metro i onsdags. Det var visserligen en debattartikel, men ändå. Varför Sveriges mest politiskt korrekta tidning väljer att publicera en artikel av en konservativ debattör (gaykonservativ, förvisso) är ju en intressant fråga. Ännu intressantare att varför de låter honom föra fram åsikter som känns väldigt mycket 1980-tal...

Jag är förvisso ingen varm anhängare av Metro, och man bör nog inte förbjuda gaykonservativa eller MED (som jag antar att debattören tillhör), men här måste man väl ändå undra om inte redaktionen misslyckats lite i sin vakna kaderskolning. Eller har de rest bort till något sexturistmål i Thailand, och låtit en ovettad semestervikarie ta över? Skämt åsido, det hela känns...märkligt.

För ett ögonblick trodde jag att den vakna vänstern upptäckt en ny grupp att attackera (läs: vita homosexuella män) men nej, artikelförfattaren är alltså en puritansk gaykonservativ och verkar dessutom ha ett s.k. ariskt utseende. RFSL har faktiskt svarat på artikeln, och deras svar låter som något en byråkrat låter en sekreterare tota ihop på fredag eftermiddag. Fast det kanske betyder att de metrosexuella männen trots allt inte är rädda för den baserade debattören...

I suppose you could call this progress.

Metros debattartikel

Ancient aliens debunked, Atlantis vindicated

This is an over three hour long debunking of "Ancient Aliens", a never-ending TV show on some American trash channel peddling the equally never-ending Ancient Astronaut Theory of Erich von Däniken et. al. 

I haven´t watched the entire documentary (yet), but what I have seen so far seems pretty solid. More specifically, the sections on "UFOs" in medieval art, the Crystal Skulls, the Mahabharata, the Annunaki and the visions of Ezekiel. The two latter sections features my favorite Bible scholar Michael Heiser. I must say that the amount of sheer and brazen lying from the Dänikenites surprised even me. Wow! We´re talking about scam artists here. 

The documentary has been uploaded by a Christian, but I´m not sure if it´s the actual narrator or somebody else. It does contain crypto-Biblical apologetics in the Annunaki section. 

I might return to this in the future, but for the time being, you are free to explore this smorgasbord for yourselves. An ironic fact which struck me when watching it, is that Ancient Astronaut theorists have to assume that pre-modern man (or is it pre-modern colored man?) was mighty stupid, since they constantly mistook space age technology for "gods" and in general couldn´t do anything without the aid of smart aliens from Wherever. 

Here´s another "alternative" proposition: no, you jerks, it was Atlantis the Lost Civilization all along... and Atlantis was *human*! 

Och vi fortsätter att inte bry oss...

Den där dvärgen som är "Frankrikes president" (eller nåt) tar till brösttoner. Eller nåt. Och vi fortsätter att inte lyssna...

Macron fördömer attacken på franska inrikesdepartementet

The perfect code

“The Voynich Code: The World´s Most Mysterious Manuscript” is an interesting documentary about a peculiar old book discovered in 1912 by rare books dealer Wilfrid Voynich, a Polish national living in Britain.

The book, originally believed to be from the 16^th or early 17^th century, is written in an unknown language. Many researchers assume that it´s a code of some sort, but so far nobody has been able to crack it, not even expert cryptographers active during the world wars. This has led some to suggest that the manuscript is a hoax. One prime suspect would be Voynich himself, since the volume contains a letter claiming that the famous 13^th century British polymath Roger Bacon is the author – obviously, a previously unknown work by Bacon would be worth a fortune.

A more charitable view is that the Voynich Manuscript was forged during the late 16^th or early 17^th centuries. There *is* a prime suspect: none other than Edward Kelley, the fake medium (or perhaps on-off fake medium) who worked with magus extraordinaire John Dee. Both Dee and Kelley were connected to the occult milieu around Habsburg emperor Rudolf II´s court in Prague, and evidence points to the Voynich Manuscript being in the emperor´s possession. Did Kelley write it in order to get ready cash from the gullible Rudolf? If so, the “code” is really gibberish.

The documentary ends with a surprise: carbon testing of the manuscript shows it to be from the early 15^th century, much too early for Kelley to have produced it. On internal evidence, the manuscript is from Northern Italy. The researchers interviewed feel that the pictures look more “medieval” than early modern, which also points to the time-period mentioned. Unless it´s a hoax, it could be a work of herb lore and natural magic, encrypted to avoid the prying eyes of the Inquisition or competing scientists/magicians.

Personally, I find it fascinating that still today, in the internet age, nobody has been able to read this particular material. A good reminder that we don´t know everything, and probably never will…

Det här var ju lite...oväntat

En profil inom alt-media (eller alt-höger-media) avslöjar sin etniska bakgrund. Wow!

Redaktör för Nyheter Idag kommer ut

Fight Club, 15th century style

“Medieval Fight Book” is an absolutely fascinating, but also slightly bizarre, documentary about Hans Talhoffer, a 15^th century German fencing master. Or rather about his famous “fight book” and how well it reflected its time, the Late Middle Ages. The documentary features a crew of martial arts experts who try to reenact Talhoffer´s descriptions of medieval fighting.

I was surprised to learn that trial by combat still existed during the 15^th century – I assumed the Christian Church had suppressed this barbaric custom centuries earlier! Talhoffer trained people who were supposed to engage in these duels, many of which were fought with shields and other unexpected types of weapons. (Yes, the shields were used for attack.) Some duels were between a man and a woman, with the man being forced to stand in a small pit in order not to give him too much of a fighting advantage!

Another surprise was the agility of medieval knights. Their strong armor was virtually impossible to penetrate (except at certain select points), while also being light enough for the knight to be able to run fast on the battlefield. The re-enactment guy in this documentary looks like the futuristic robot in “Terminator”. In his book, Talhoffer describes a duel between a knight and person without armor. It *was* possible for a normally clad fighter to defeat a knight, using a technique known as half-sword. One form of this is to use the sword “upside down” and attack the opponent with the pommel at the hilt. The demonstration of this in the documentary is wild!

The Fight Book also discusses armored vehicles, siege engines and techniques to storm a castle. The most advanced piece of technology in Talhoffer´s book is a peculiar diving suit unlike no other invented during this period. Nobody knows whether it was really used, or where the oxygen came from. Overall, Talhoffer´s book is a book of secrets only half revealed. Those willing to pay could make the fencing master reveal more in private consultation. This was a time when science and technological know-how were “esoteric”. The first rule of Fight Club...

Funny detail: “Medieval Fight Book” features Terry Jones, who apart from being a comic actor (Monty Python) also writes book on medieval history. 

Neither Stuckist nor YBA

Real art. When I become People´s Front Commissar of Kulturkampf Issues in the Great Left Populist Coalition of the very near future, I shall let a dreadnought named "Engelbrekt" fire at the Modern Museum in Stockholm, turning it into rubble in just under ten minutes. Only "Monogram" shall be saved and prominently be exhibited at the Hökarängen metro station. Then, a new museum with real art (and huge portraits of Zhdanov) will be opened by the Lord Protector. Make it so! 

New Atheism redux

OK, let´s see if I get this straight.

The basic building blocks of life are created inside stellar clouds. When supernovas explode, the entire galaxy is basking in cosmic radiation. These cosmic rays trigger mutations among living organisms on Earth, and hence are necessary for evolution. Evolution leads to the emergence of a creature with creative intelligence that can experience Meaning, Love and Morality. It can also experience Spirit.

But God doesn´t exist, right?