To any Trans people who may be reading this, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say; I have no idea why “Trans” is now one of the dominant subjects in the culture, politics and sport.
I don’t pretend to understand the nature and/or cause of gender dysphoria and it has never bothered me that some people “identify” as Trans or “are” Trans. Like most Americans, mine is a live and let live approach to co-existing on a planet with billions of people.
Where I am confused, is why there is any notion that culture, politics and sport should be transmogrified to adjust to difficult demands by a very small percentage of people. As pointed out by others on this thread; not even all Trans people are in lockstep about culture, politics and sport. Why do my speaking, writing and reading have to be altered to match the demands of a subset of a group that is a small subset of humanity? Why do my government forms have to be changed to bend to the demands of this subset? Why do my schools, teams, public institutions, doctor’s conversations… all have to be altered?
I have idiosyncratic traits that differ from the majority and I’m convinced my traits are the “correct” traits. But I also understand I live among people who do not agree with those traits. Everyday that I am out and about among people, or navigating the roads and businesses and public institutions in my community there are dozens if not hundreds of things I find annoying, sometimes insulting, about the way systems are configured; people act; people dress; people drive; people work, people talk…
When confronted with people and systems designed differently than I prefer, I bite my tongue and get on with my day. I don’t make demands of others or insist businesses and public institutions bend to my will. Although I typically think the others are incorrect, I understand there are more of them than me, many more, and I understand it is inconsiderate to insist others change their behavior to accommodate my views, and I go about my day.
If I’m ever elected dictator of the world you’ll see some changes! ? But until that time I understand I’m interacting with a large number of people who may have different opinions, desires, dreams and goals than I do, and I go along to get along.
it isn’t about the concerns of a micro fraction of malajusted people, that’s just the lever for the goal of demolishing society’s middle class and familiar base, as with everything else,
stan,
Agree, and you forgot George Will.
now it’s striking that greece did not have this feature, well it’s oligarchic formations in the midst of the pelopennessian war didn’t allow for these distractions,
Regarding reparations;
The Republicans need to see this for what it is; this cycle’s “Student Loan Debt Forgiveness.” The Democrats carve out groups of voters and pump topics that favor those groups in the media. This has a double benefit; the voting groups think the Democrats may give them some cash (or another benefit) and it turns the voting group against the Republican candidates who always, always fall for the trap of debating against the topic.
Anyone paying attention know the Democrats do not intend to hand out reparations, or forgive student loan debt, or cure cancer, for that matter. But they deploy this same trick over, and over, and over again and the Republicans fall for it over, and over, and over again.
The best defense is a good offense. The Republicans need to point out what the Democrats are doing and show the public that the Democrats believe they (the public) are fools. Quit getting bogged down in absurd, purely political policy debates.
Regarding gender dysmorphia, Andrew Klavan has a great way of summing it up:
Humans are a bi-pedal species.
Some humans lose one or both legs do to accident or injury.
Some humans are born with deformities, rendering one or both of their legs unusable.
Those two facts do not change the fact that humans are a bi-pedal species.
On another thread we were talking about Japan, and about how it is in a demographic death spiral.
Here’s a very recent article talking about declining birth rates in Asia, and the very expensive but apparently failed government efforts to get birth rates up.*
Rather than various cash, tax, more early childhood education, and other such concrete incentives, it seems to me that what is really needed is some sort of very widespread and effective propaganda campaign highly valorizing having and raising children, because–when you get right down to it–it is people’s mind-sets that have to be changed.
the death spiral, probably happened after the property bubble collapsed around 1990 (that the likes of james fallows failed to see coming)
RTF–
Regarding your question as to why a small fraction of the population feels the need to bully the majority into accepting their bad behavior– FWIW, my take on it is that most trans activists have a very fragile sense of self, and need to shore it up by forcing others to “affirm” or “celebrate” them rather than simply adopting a live-and-let-live attitude. It’s a form of narcissism: if they can’t turn others into adoring mirrors, they feel their very existence is in question. Whence the endless stream of accusations that normies want to commit trans genocide, and the equally endless demands that everything from school curricula and sporting events to Target’s stock of kids’ clothing be trans-mogrified.
Two Europeans, from new-Europe and old-Europe.
Orban has been dragging his heels on arming Ukraine for pragmatic reasons– Ukraine can’t win (if winning is defined as driving Russia from the Donbas and Crimea. The result will be a smaller, war-ravaged Ukraine.
Ukraine Can’t Win War Against Russia: Hungary’s Orban
Gérard Araud, French ambassador to the US during the Obama and Trump administrations talks about a variety of issues, proving once again, that diplomats can never be trusted with important things, like the future of the world. Araud hates Trump, thinks he is a menace to the world– but does agree, when prodded, that his policies were good.
More important though, is the acknowledgement that Europe sees their existential threats differently than we see them. And for better or probably worse, Europe should be left to its own devices. Former French Ambassador: Ukraine has revealed a new world order
00:00 – 01:31 – Introduction
01:31 – 06:20 – What does Gérard Araud mean by “the Western moment is coming to an end”?
06:20 – 09:59 – Is facing reality the safer option?
09:59 – 20:05 – Would America defend Taiwan military?
20:05 – 28:10 – Why making a peace deal with Ukraine would never work
28:10 – 38:02 – Do we need to change the way we do diplomacy?
38:20 – 40:27 – How likely is it that Russia will go nuclear?
40:27 – 47:16 – Does Europe need to be able to defend itself, and how likely is this?
47:16 – 48:27 – Concluding thoughts
I am as puzzled as anyone by the rise of the quasi-human trans species, and equally off-put by their tendency to violence inspired by imaginary persecution. Imagined offense is a common theme on the left, with transphobia taking its place next to white supremacy. Safe to say white supremacists are also transphobic. To avoid giving offense, combine the terms as “transphobic white supremacists”.
That’s great! I have had many, similarly embarrassing faux pas (Fehler) when reading German. I think I relayed my quill story before. It seems languages have an inexhaustible supply of idioms, but learning the most popular ones can help avoid embarrassment.
Regarding your question as to why a small fraction of the population feels the need to bully the majority into accepting their bad behavior– FWIW, my take on it is that most trans activists have a very fragile sense of self, and need to shore it up by forcing others to “affirm” or “celebrate” them rather than simply adopting a live-and-let-live attitude.
I think they share this with “gay activists” and almost any other group of “activists.”
Mead is an Obama-voting, friend of Soros (or was when I talked with him a few years ago). He gets props for accurately identifying a lot of the reasons the Democrats have wrecked California.
But there is something about the tone and the reflexive negativity toward Republicans (“embittered culture warriors”) that just screams that he is a lefty trying to scold Republicans into fixing all the damage that resulted from the policies that he and his friends supported and voted for.
Snow on Pine,
I tend to think it’s more innate. It seems all species have approaches to increasing and decreasing population size coded into their genes. Why would humans be different? There are undoubtedly a great many environmental stimuli going on, but it’s probably very difficult to control externally.
I believe pregnancies increased quite a bit after 9/11, especially in New York. Famine, war, prosperity, an abundance of food, availability of open space (a population of people in high-rise apartments in a crowded city vs. a rural setting), a feeling of safety… All those things probably factor into couples’ desires to breed and women’s abilities to carry babies and have successful births.
Israel has a high birth rate. A lot of danger and stress there. Maybe there’s an innate trigger to keep breeding in case a calamity impacts the existing population? It does seem like birth rates decrease as people’s needs become readily met and they are not under duress; especially when birth control is readily available.
Education of women is a factor. There’s a strong correlation with that and reduced births.
Rather than trying to re-engineer the human psyche I think countries ought to adapt to the facts on the ground. That is tricky work also. In the ’60s Germany decided to import large numbers of immigrants, many of them from Turkey. Muslims are now about 10% of the German population and the majority of German Protestants and Catholics are only nominally so. And the Muslim birth rates are the highest of any group in Germany. Japan is still about 97% native Japanese. Japan could open up immigration to The Philippines, Viet Nam, Thailand, Laos… They’d have no problem finding young workers to keep their economy and the social systems it funds humming. But would it still be Japan? Is a Muslim Germany still Germany?
Social engineering is tricky stuff.
Snow on Pine,
I should clarify; on several occasions I’ve stated the issue of worldwide declining births is the most important, current issue regarding humanity’s future.
This does not mean I have some pre-conceived notion of what birth rates should be, or what world population should be. Only that birth rates seem to decrease as societies advance economically and the immense economic success of the past 100 years (yeah, Capitalism!) has gotten us over the tipping point where enough humans are living in non-3rd world circumstances and this seems to mean fewer humans going forward.
So, plan based on that. Build your society for your children, and grandchildren.
If the depopulation trend continues we have plenty of land and resources to meet future needs. How do we help the rest of the world get out of the 3rd world and how do we adapt to a life of smaller families, fewer children, more free time?
Also, deficit spending is a HUGE mistake in the scenario of increasing life expectancies and fewer births. Adapt to that.
We are seeing that increased leisure seems harmful to human development; adapt to that. More camp options for kids? Inculcate unplugged forays into nature as part of elementary and high school curricula?
Instead of government task forces designing policies for a nation of world of increasing population and pollution, how about accepting the reality that the opposite is happening?
Ukraine can’t win (i.e. must forever be a vasal to Mother Russia). The Soviet Union is forever. The Arc of History …..
Or knowing the time allowed you to know where you are.
@Brian E
Thanks for the links. It is surprising to see someone other than om doing it, but a welcome one. I will need to digest them.
Two Europeans, from new-Europe and old-Europe.
Orban has been dragging his heels on arming Ukraine for pragmatic reasons– Ukraine can’t win (if winning is defined as driving Russia from the Donbas and Crimea.
I’ve heard this a lot, and it is at best dubious. The same people who have said this continuously ignore how the Bolsheviks were driven out of Poland and the Baltics on a rail in 1919-1920 and the Bosnians and Croatians stopped killing each other for just long enough to repulse the Pan-Serbian military from Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia in spite of how the latter in many cases had a much more robust paramilitary and communal support network than we’ve seen for the Kremlin in most of the Donbas, even after years of occupation in some areas. To say nothing of our mutual issues in Afghanistan (where I confess the Soviets fought less successfully than we did but left on more dignified terms).
Of course there would be the consistent refrain of “but Russia has nukes”! Which is a fair observation, but the question is how effective that would be on the actual battlefield. Is there any question that the likes of India or Brazil which Russia relies upon would balk at an actual nuclear weapon being used in Ukraine? Even the CCP and Pakistan have indicated hesitancy there.
One of the Kremlin’s most potent weapons has been its ability to project the image of power, the national myth is that hits on many of the familiar and triumphal beats of history while glossing over others (when was the last time you heard someone talk about the Livonian War or even the 1919-1920 campaign in Poland?) in order to create the perception of not just strength but inevitability. In spite of how it just does not hold up as well as they want it to.on close examination.
I have always been open that Ukraine could lose the war, but I have also rejected the idea that it would be destined to. And indeed in most of the past hundred years the Kremlin has a lukewarm at best track record of winning these kinds of conflicts.
The result will be a smaller, war-ravaged Ukraine.
The problem I see with that is that Georgia indicates that failing to fight would be a smaller, war-ravaged Ukraine that is prone to border conflicts and at risk of yet another major conflict erupting at any time. So even if hypothetically Ukraine could not win (which again I do not think is true but for the sake of the argument), it would have to fight.
Gérard Araud, French ambassador to the US during the Obama and Trump administrations talks about a variety of issues, proving once again, that diplomats can never be trusted with important things, like the future of the world. Araud hates Trump, thinks he is a menace to the world– but does agree, when prodded, that his policies were good.
More important though, is the acknowledgement that Europe sees their existential threats differently than we see them. And for better or probably worse, Europe should be left to its own devices.
I wish I were surprised. The Quay d’Orsay has been a hallmark for terrible policies and immoral nonsense for a long time, and while I am actually somewhat sympathetic to France’s desire for strategic autonomy within the Atlantic Alliance in light of what happened in WWII and the early Cold War the sheer pettiness and anti-American sentiment is destructive in a way even the Hindenburg Programme wasn’t.
Did anyone else hear about the plan to replace Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman with Matthew Broderick?
The trick was producing a mechanism for telling time that did not depend on a physically swinging pendulum, whose constancy was the basis for most clocks for a couple centuries. Needless to say, such mechanisms weren’t really practical on a ship that swayed in three directions at once depending on weather and ocean. The spring-driven Verge and Foliot was the solution.
It seems languages have an inexhaustible supply of idioms…
Rufust T. Firefly.
Indeed. Learning French, I feel like I’m getting to know a vast living, changing entity. It’s a bit spooky when I think about it.
As to toujours sur les manchots — always on the go, my guess is that’s an idiom which developed from that French documentary “March of the Penguins” (2005).
The film made a splash in the US and won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary.” I assume it was even bigger in France.
It’s amusing to imagine the French consumed with visions of penguins bustling about, then someone using that image for a person “always on the go,” then the phrase catching on as an idiom.
Henceforth, I intend to say “always on the penguins” when referring to go-getters.
om at 3:22 pm
“Or knowing the time allowed you to know where you are.”
Knowing the time is not just for navigation any more. At least on the water.
David Raeboi: Do you know what time it is?! https://substack.com/@davereaboi
Huxley, an image of penguins “bustling” about, or perhaps more waddling about, brings to mind the hands behind his back, mincing walk of the “French” speaker
Hercule Poirot [at least as portrayed by David Suchet.]
How much animosity is there between the French and the Belgians?
om @ 3:22pm,
Daniel Boorstin’s, The Discoverers” has a great account of the longitude problem and humankind’s efforts to conquer it (as well as a lot of other outstanding history). I highly recommend the book.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ve about had it with Richard Overly’s Blood and Ruins after 600+ pages (2/3) I can’t take the wokeness.
Peggy Noonan has been a fool for a long time. Anyone who had doubts has no more reason to question. She’s done. https://thefederalist.com/2023/05/24/its-time-for-peggy-noonan-to-retire-along-with-the-entire-elite-media-establishment/
Jonah and David French, too.
To any Trans people who may be reading this, I think I speak for a lot of people when I say; I have no idea why “Trans” is now one of the dominant subjects in the culture, politics and sport.
I don’t pretend to understand the nature and/or cause of gender dysphoria and it has never bothered me that some people “identify” as Trans or “are” Trans. Like most Americans, mine is a live and let live approach to co-existing on a planet with billions of people.
Where I am confused, is why there is any notion that culture, politics and sport should be transmogrified to adjust to difficult demands by a very small percentage of people. As pointed out by others on this thread; not even all Trans people are in lockstep about culture, politics and sport. Why do my speaking, writing and reading have to be altered to match the demands of a subset of a group that is a small subset of humanity? Why do my government forms have to be changed to bend to the demands of this subset? Why do my schools, teams, public institutions, doctor’s conversations… all have to be altered?
I have idiosyncratic traits that differ from the majority and I’m convinced my traits are the “correct” traits. But I also understand I live among people who do not agree with those traits. Everyday that I am out and about among people, or navigating the roads and businesses and public institutions in my community there are dozens if not hundreds of things I find annoying, sometimes insulting, about the way systems are configured; people act; people dress; people drive; people work, people talk…
When confronted with people and systems designed differently than I prefer, I bite my tongue and get on with my day. I don’t make demands of others or insist businesses and public institutions bend to my will. Although I typically think the others are incorrect, I understand there are more of them than me, many more, and I understand it is inconsiderate to insist others change their behavior to accommodate my views, and I go about my day.
If I’m ever elected dictator of the world you’ll see some changes! ? But until that time I understand I’m interacting with a large number of people who may have different opinions, desires, dreams and goals than I do, and I go along to get along.
it isn’t about the concerns of a micro fraction of malajusted people, that’s just the lever for the goal of demolishing society’s middle class and familiar base, as with everything else,
stan,
Agree, and you forgot George Will.
now it’s striking that greece did not have this feature, well it’s oligarchic formations in the midst of the pelopennessian war didn’t allow for these distractions,
Regarding reparations;
The Republicans need to see this for what it is; this cycle’s “Student Loan Debt Forgiveness.” The Democrats carve out groups of voters and pump topics that favor those groups in the media. This has a double benefit; the voting groups think the Democrats may give them some cash (or another benefit) and it turns the voting group against the Republican candidates who always, always fall for the trap of debating against the topic.
Anyone paying attention know the Democrats do not intend to hand out reparations, or forgive student loan debt, or cure cancer, for that matter. But they deploy this same trick over, and over, and over again and the Republicans fall for it over, and over, and over again.
The best defense is a good offense. The Republicans need to point out what the Democrats are doing and show the public that the Democrats believe they (the public) are fools. Quit getting bogged down in absurd, purely political policy debates.
Regarding gender dysmorphia, Andrew Klavan has a great way of summing it up:
Humans are a bi-pedal species.
Some humans lose one or both legs do to accident or injury.
Some humans are born with deformities, rendering one or both of their legs unusable.
Those two facts do not change the fact that humans are a bi-pedal species.
On another thread we were talking about Japan, and about how it is in a demographic death spiral.
Here’s a very recent article talking about declining birth rates in Asia, and the very expensive but apparently failed government efforts to get birth rates up.*
Rather than various cash, tax, more early childhood education, and other such concrete incentives, it seems to me that what is really needed is some sort of very widespread and effective propaganda campaign highly valorizing having and raising children, because–when you get right down to it–it is people’s mind-sets that have to be changed.
See https://www.bbc.com/news/business-65478376
the death spiral, probably happened after the property bubble collapsed around 1990 (that the likes of james fallows failed to see coming)
RTF–
Regarding your question as to why a small fraction of the population feels the need to bully the majority into accepting their bad behavior– FWIW, my take on it is that most trans activists have a very fragile sense of self, and need to shore it up by forcing others to “affirm” or “celebrate” them rather than simply adopting a live-and-let-live attitude. It’s a form of narcissism: if they can’t turn others into adoring mirrors, they feel their very existence is in question. Whence the endless stream of accusations that normies want to commit trans genocide, and the equally endless demands that everything from school curricula and sporting events to Target’s stock of kids’ clothing be trans-mogrified.
Two Europeans, from new-Europe and old-Europe.
Orban has been dragging his heels on arming Ukraine for pragmatic reasons– Ukraine can’t win (if winning is defined as driving Russia from the Donbas and Crimea. The result will be a smaller, war-ravaged Ukraine.
Ukraine Can’t Win War Against Russia: Hungary’s Orban
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8JI-eYQylg
Gérard Araud, French ambassador to the US during the Obama and Trump administrations talks about a variety of issues, proving once again, that diplomats can never be trusted with important things, like the future of the world. Araud hates Trump, thinks he is a menace to the world– but does agree, when prodded, that his policies were good.
More important though, is the acknowledgement that Europe sees their existential threats differently than we see them. And for better or probably worse, Europe should be left to its own devices.
Former French Ambassador: Ukraine has revealed a new world order
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wpiaURRWOTY
00:00 – 01:31 – Introduction
01:31 – 06:20 – What does Gérard Araud mean by “the Western moment is coming to an end”?
06:20 – 09:59 – Is facing reality the safer option?
09:59 – 20:05 – Would America defend Taiwan military?
20:05 – 28:10 – Why making a peace deal with Ukraine would never work
28:10 – 38:02 – Do we need to change the way we do diplomacy?
38:20 – 40:27 – How likely is it that Russia will go nuclear?
40:27 – 47:16 – Does Europe need to be able to defend itself, and how likely is this?
47:16 – 48:27 – Concluding thoughts
I am as puzzled as anyone by the rise of the quasi-human trans species, and equally off-put by their tendency to violence inspired by imaginary persecution. Imagined offense is a common theme on the left, with transphobia taking its place next to white supremacy. Safe to say white supremacists are also transphobic. To avoid giving offense, combine the terms as “transphobic white supremacists”.
Meanwhile, “Durham Report? What’s that?”
FBI Official Admits She Hasn’t Read Durham Report, Leaves GOP Lawmakers ‘Speechless’
More adventures in French:
pare-balles can mean bulletproof and, more recently, white privilege. Groan!
Yesterday I made a special effort to learn manchot as penguin. So this morning I was quite confident when I ran into toujours sur les manchots.
Except always on the penguins doesn’t make sense.
The correct answer is always on the go.
Hmm…it does seem those penguins are always waddling quickly about, to avoid freezing I suppose.
Check this list … specifically relevant at this time, #25 on. The rest are equally relevant – just more specifically at different times.
https://www.beliefnet.com/columnists/watchwomanonthewall/2011/04/the-45-communist-goals-as-read-into-the-congressional-record-1963.html
huxley,
That’s great! I have had many, similarly embarrassing faux pas (Fehler) when reading German. I think I relayed my quill story before. It seems languages have an inexhaustible supply of idioms, but learning the most popular ones can help avoid embarrassment.
Regarding your question as to why a small fraction of the population feels the need to bully the majority into accepting their bad behavior– FWIW, my take on it is that most trans activists have a very fragile sense of self, and need to shore it up by forcing others to “affirm” or “celebrate” them rather than simply adopting a live-and-let-live attitude.
I think they share this with “gay activists” and almost any other group of “activists.”
This is just a weird column. https://www.tabletmag.com/sections/news/articles/build-back-red-california-via-meadia-walter-russell-mead
Mead is an Obama-voting, friend of Soros (or was when I talked with him a few years ago). He gets props for accurately identifying a lot of the reasons the Democrats have wrecked California.
But there is something about the tone and the reflexive negativity toward Republicans (“embittered culture warriors”) that just screams that he is a lefty trying to scold Republicans into fixing all the damage that resulted from the policies that he and his friends supported and voted for.
Snow on Pine,
I tend to think it’s more innate. It seems all species have approaches to increasing and decreasing population size coded into their genes. Why would humans be different? There are undoubtedly a great many environmental stimuli going on, but it’s probably very difficult to control externally.
I believe pregnancies increased quite a bit after 9/11, especially in New York. Famine, war, prosperity, an abundance of food, availability of open space (a population of people in high-rise apartments in a crowded city vs. a rural setting), a feeling of safety… All those things probably factor into couples’ desires to breed and women’s abilities to carry babies and have successful births.
Israel has a high birth rate. A lot of danger and stress there. Maybe there’s an innate trigger to keep breeding in case a calamity impacts the existing population? It does seem like birth rates decrease as people’s needs become readily met and they are not under duress; especially when birth control is readily available.
Education of women is a factor. There’s a strong correlation with that and reduced births.
Rather than trying to re-engineer the human psyche I think countries ought to adapt to the facts on the ground. That is tricky work also. In the ’60s Germany decided to import large numbers of immigrants, many of them from Turkey. Muslims are now about 10% of the German population and the majority of German Protestants and Catholics are only nominally so. And the Muslim birth rates are the highest of any group in Germany. Japan is still about 97% native Japanese. Japan could open up immigration to The Philippines, Viet Nam, Thailand, Laos… They’d have no problem finding young workers to keep their economy and the social systems it funds humming. But would it still be Japan? Is a Muslim Germany still Germany?
Social engineering is tricky stuff.
Snow on Pine,
I should clarify; on several occasions I’ve stated the issue of worldwide declining births is the most important, current issue regarding humanity’s future.
This does not mean I have some pre-conceived notion of what birth rates should be, or what world population should be. Only that birth rates seem to decrease as societies advance economically and the immense economic success of the past 100 years (yeah, Capitalism!) has gotten us over the tipping point where enough humans are living in non-3rd world circumstances and this seems to mean fewer humans going forward.
So, plan based on that. Build your society for your children, and grandchildren.
If the depopulation trend continues we have plenty of land and resources to meet future needs. How do we help the rest of the world get out of the 3rd world and how do we adapt to a life of smaller families, fewer children, more free time?
Also, deficit spending is a HUGE mistake in the scenario of increasing life expectancies and fewer births. Adapt to that.
We are seeing that increased leisure seems harmful to human development; adapt to that. More camp options for kids? Inculcate unplugged forays into nature as part of elementary and high school curricula?
Instead of government task forces designing policies for a nation of world of increasing population and pollution, how about accepting the reality that the opposite is happening?
Ukraine can’t win (i.e. must forever be a vasal to Mother Russia). The Soviet Union is forever. The Arc of History …..
Time will tell Brain e.
Open Thread:
The Longitude Problem – Drachinifel
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zlRxWJ_kGEA
Or knowing the time allowed you to know where you are.
@Brian E
Thanks for the links. It is surprising to see someone other than om doing it, but a welcome one. I will need to digest them.
I’ve heard this a lot, and it is at best dubious. The same people who have said this continuously ignore how the Bolsheviks were driven out of Poland and the Baltics on a rail in 1919-1920 and the Bosnians and Croatians stopped killing each other for just long enough to repulse the Pan-Serbian military from Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Dalmatia in spite of how the latter in many cases had a much more robust paramilitary and communal support network than we’ve seen for the Kremlin in most of the Donbas, even after years of occupation in some areas. To say nothing of our mutual issues in Afghanistan (where I confess the Soviets fought less successfully than we did but left on more dignified terms).
Of course there would be the consistent refrain of “but Russia has nukes”! Which is a fair observation, but the question is how effective that would be on the actual battlefield. Is there any question that the likes of India or Brazil which Russia relies upon would balk at an actual nuclear weapon being used in Ukraine? Even the CCP and Pakistan have indicated hesitancy there.
One of the Kremlin’s most potent weapons has been its ability to project the image of power, the national myth is that hits on many of the familiar and triumphal beats of history while glossing over others (when was the last time you heard someone talk about the Livonian War or even the 1919-1920 campaign in Poland?) in order to create the perception of not just strength but inevitability. In spite of how it just does not hold up as well as they want it to.on close examination.
I have always been open that Ukraine could lose the war, but I have also rejected the idea that it would be destined to. And indeed in most of the past hundred years the Kremlin has a lukewarm at best track record of winning these kinds of conflicts.
The problem I see with that is that Georgia indicates that failing to fight would be a smaller, war-ravaged Ukraine that is prone to border conflicts and at risk of yet another major conflict erupting at any time. So even if hypothetically Ukraine could not win (which again I do not think is true but for the sake of the argument), it would have to fight.
I wish I were surprised. The Quay d’Orsay has been a hallmark for terrible policies and immoral nonsense for a long time, and while I am actually somewhat sympathetic to France’s desire for strategic autonomy within the Atlantic Alliance in light of what happened in WWII and the early Cold War the sheer pettiness and anti-American sentiment is destructive in a way even the Hindenburg Programme wasn’t.
Did anyone else hear about the plan to replace Robert Downey Jr. as Ironman with Matthew Broderick?
Yup. He’s going to play Ferrous Bueller.
(ducking)
}}} Open Thread:
The Longitude Problem – Drachinifel
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zlRxWJ_kGEA
Or knowing the time allowed you to know where you are.
Yeah, That was one of the “stopping points” in James Burke’s classic Science-History series, “Connections”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connections_(British_TV_series)
The trick was producing a mechanism for telling time that did not depend on a physically swinging pendulum, whose constancy was the basis for most clocks for a couple centuries. Needless to say, such mechanisms weren’t really practical on a ship that swayed in three directions at once depending on weather and ocean. The spring-driven Verge and Foliot was the solution.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Verge_escapement
Obloodyhell:
Drachinifel didn’t mention those specific escarpment mechanisms. There are other Wickedmedia articles about naval chronometers and specifically about Harrison’s naval chronometers. There is a book about Harrison and his clocks and chronometers titled Longitude by Dava Sobel ©1995.
It is a good read.
It seems languages have an inexhaustible supply of idioms…
Rufust T. Firefly.
Indeed. Learning French, I feel like I’m getting to know a vast living, changing entity. It’s a bit spooky when I think about it.
As to toujours sur les manchots — always on the go, my guess is that’s an idiom which developed from that French documentary “March of the Penguins” (2005).
The film made a splash in the US and won the Academy Award for “Best Documentary.” I assume it was even bigger in France.
It’s amusing to imagine the French consumed with visions of penguins bustling about, then someone using that image for a person “always on the go,” then the phrase catching on as an idiom.
Henceforth, I intend to say “always on the penguins” when referring to go-getters.
om at 3:22 pm
“Or knowing the time allowed you to know where you are.”
Knowing the time is not just for navigation any more. At least on the water.
David Raeboi: Do you know what time it is?!
https://substack.com/@davereaboi
Huxley, an image of penguins “bustling” about, or perhaps more waddling about, brings to mind the hands behind his back, mincing walk of the “French” speaker
Hercule Poirot [at least as portrayed by David Suchet.]
How much animosity is there between the French and the Belgians?
om @ 3:22pm,
Daniel Boorstin’s, The Discoverers” has a great account of the longitude problem and humankind’s efforts to conquer it (as well as a lot of other outstanding history). I highly recommend the book.
Rufus T. Firefly:
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ve about had it with Richard Overly’s Blood and Ruins after 600+ pages (2/3) I can’t take the wokeness.
https://chroniclesmagazine.org/recent-features/world-war-ii-served-slightly-woke/
In this case the praise for USSR and disparagement of the USA for weapons design and production. Just lazy sloppy wokeness.
The narrator about the Coliseum slipped up in putting the plebians in togas. Uh, no.