Trump deals with the devil?

Trump is getting cranky with South Korea and demanding joint exercises aimed at the North be scaled back.

I’m going to put that very firmly in my bucket of “I don’t know”. In my trusty “I-don’t-like-it-but-will-wait-and-see” bucket.

It would be foolish to trust anything the North says. Especially anything Kim Jing-un says. Duplicity is their super power. 

Is the armistice really “unstable” as the South’s president Lee Jae Myung says? Gee it’s worked pretty well for over three-quarters of a century. Look at night-time satellite photos of the Korean Peninsula to see who’s done best from it. The price? A super-fortified border and large armed forces kept at the ready. Is that so bad? Would a “peace deal” do anything other than strengthen the North?

An Armistice is what’s discussed as a possible outcome of the Russia-Ukraine war. Where neither side has to admit defeat. It’s a kind of “let’s agree to disagree” pact. And in the meantime let’s stop killing each other. 

Trump threatening a strong and stable ally like South Korea because he’s pissed off they didn’t support him enough in the Iran war?? Cutting off one’s nose, Donald! 

Gabriela Bernal thinks rather more positively, in today’s “Donald Trump’s blunt remarks offer South Korea an opportunity”. 

But we have to remember, there’s pressures to shift South Korea to be closer to China. Trump may be more played than player…

/Snip:

Scaling back the drills should, therefore, not be seen as a blow to South Korea’s security posture but as a potential opportunity to create an opening in a relationship plagued by deep hostility. Reducing the scope of the exercises, along with Trump’s strong rhetoric about the “hostile” message the drills seem to send Pyongyang, is a relatively low-cost goodwill signal that could result in progress towards resuming dialogue. 

 

South Korea’s government has been asking for exactly this kind of opening. On August 15, President Lee Jae Myung used his Liberation Day address to propose talks to formally end the Korean war and to replace what he called the “unstable armistice” system with a durable “peace regime”. He also invited the directly involved parties to set aside mutual threats and discuss practical steps to halt the advance of the North’s nuclear programme.

Why are we interested? Well, this is our backyard. Our typhoons are their typhoons. We’re in the same weather system, for goodness sake! Of course we’re interested. The Korean Peninsula is one of the major global flashpoints.Not just North v South. Also China v America. It’s in the category of existential for us here in Hong Kong. 

Elephants fighting, not good news for mice. 

**********

For Yuks: The Bee has a go at The Donald: “Trump Admits Both Koreas Look The Same To Him”. 

Relax. It’s a joooouke!

“"Diogenes Laertius has preserved for us a greeting that Aristotle…”

Diogenes Laertius has preserved for us a greeting that Aristotle used to give when meeting someone or his students. 

He would say: 'Ὦ φίλοι μου· οὐδεὶς φίλος!'

‘Greetings, my friends, though none of you is truly my friend.'" 

@HomerPavlo

“Death knell? Hong Kong’s five-year plan is a starting gun” | David Dodwell

I’ve never been much of a one for Five Year Plans. Delusions in the putrid minds of early Soviet bolsheviks. Who thought they could control everything. And became queer quinquennial quirks.

I recall the “Parable of the Nail”. Soviet industry needed a certain millions of nails. So decreed these New Soviet Planners.

So delivered were the certain millions of nails. Only problem: they were all tiny tacks. The smallest size a nail could be while still being a nail and not a pin. 

The clever apparatchiks now decreed the Nail-makers had to produce a certain minimum tonnage. Result: a “NAIL”. The size of a a ballistic misslile on the back of a flat bed. Command obeyed, Comrade.

You get the picture. Planning can never do the job as well as market prices. At allocating scarce resources in the way people want, at the time they want and at a price they’re happy to pay. 

But, I’ll go along with David Dodwell for now. In the hope that he’s right. That this Five-Year Plan for Hong Kong, the first such for “The World’s Freest Economy” will be no more than a broad strategy. 

And if it doesn’t work, let’s remain the pragmatic economy and society we are, and abolish it.

Meanwhile…

Death knell? Hong Kong’s five-year plan is a starting gun

Don Lemon confronts non-racism in the South. Doesn’t go well

People in the episode: Don Lemon, his guest Emmanuel, a local barber, attorney Ben Crump, the reverend Al Sharpton. 

Greg Foreman hosts. Discussing the death of Black teen Nolan Wells. Who, Don invites us to believe, was lynched by his white friends. Except: no evidence. As Emmanuel says. To Don’s consternation. 

Shorter Don Lemon: 

• If there’s racism somewhere then it’s racism. 
• If there’s no racism somewhere then there’s still racism. Just that you can’t see it. It may even be worse, because it hides in plain sight. It’s more Pernicious. Even Blacks living in Mississippi, like his guest, are fooled by it….

Don Lemon once said, while still anchoring on CNN: “the greatest threat to America is white men.”  Lemon is, by the way, married to a white man. I struggle to find evidence of his claim on the alleged greatest threat by white men. Other than some lunatic neo-Nazi, white suprematist biker gangs. Whose main threat is to themselves. 

But don’t white men run politics?  Well: 27% of U.S. Congress are POC. More than their percentage of the population. A Black man has been president of the Republic. A Black woman lost her bid for presidency for her incompetence and mediocrity, not her colour or gender. 

As Greg says: the race grift is profitable for Don. Profitable for Crump. Profitable for the good reverend. Even, sadly but egregiously, for the family of Nolan Wells. 

Watch Lemon’s gyrations and contortions at the end, to smear Emmanuel, his own guest, while claiming not to. Commenters saying “Emmanuel should have been vetted better” as in, he didn’t follow The Narrative. How very dare he?

This episode of Don Lemon’s is a Case Study in the manufacture of a Fake News Narrative: The lynching of a young Black Man in America’s South.

Xena, in Subic Bay, Philippines, end of China Sea Race

The AI problem no one wants to talk about | Sabine Hossenfelder

Sabine Hossenfelder is a German nuclear physicist. Been following her for years.

Like her, I’ve been wondering. How long can the AI assistants we have available right now go on being free? Advertising is not going to cut it. 

Be careful what you wish for. Or what you worry about, like paying Money for access to some functions of AI Chatbots, may be the least of it…. There may be more pernicious demands, some you may not be aware of. Sabine can explain. 

Yes, Muhammad did ascend to heaven on a winged horse | Mehdi Hasan

I’m not a big fan of Mehdi Hasan. But I think he acquitted himself pretty well here. At least he seems to have done the research. 

Richard Dawkins I am a big fan of, and have been for decades. He’s famous for his books on evolutionary biology. But most famous for his books on atheism, especially “The God Delusion”. 

I’m a long-time atheist myself. Since at least 1958. So of course I agree rather more with Richard than with Mehdi.

This debate took place at the Oxford Union in November 2012. I saw it long ago. I’m posting again because it just appeared in the algo, and it’s fun. And evergreen important. Faith vs Science? What’s not to like? 

I think that today, 14 years later, the audience would be more unruly. More openly hostile, likely more hostile to Richard than Mehdi. Just a guess. Based on recent Oxford union debates I’ve seen. Things have just gotten sharper, more polarised, more verbally and physically violent. Sad. 

On the issue of the Winged Horse, Richard missed a trick here. He could’ve said it’s aerodynamically impossible for avian wings to lift the mighty mass of a horse. If Mehdi counters with “Oh well, you’ve got to remember it was a miracle!”, the counter-counter is “Then why bother with any wings at all?”.  

And, if feeling cruel or mischievous towards a pious Muslim, you could add: “Kind of like putting lipstick on a pig. Isn’t it?”

By the way, the Kenyan guy posting this says Richard is “wrong about biological sex”. No, he’s not. I have no idea what makes this random dude an expert. Sheesh. The science is as clear about this as it is about anything. Mammals are Class with two biological sexes. They have been for at least 210 million years. 

“Smiling for no reason is the sign of a fool” | Russian saying

Rob. Smiling very much “for a reason”!

Is Rob a fool for smiling, above? Am I a fool for smiling too? Or for smiling at the Russian saying?

Or maybe were smiling, we four men in a Voxy, because we’re in Perm, Russia, and travelling west from Vladivostok where we’d started, Perm is the first city in Europe. The first city west of the Ural Mountains, the dividing line between Russia and Europe. So we had a reason to smile. Making us Not Fools. I guess. 

We’d found the Russians we’d met along the way to be pretty rude. Though in a less Cranky Old Men mode we might allow that they were “no nonsense”, or simply “unsmiling”. 

The “unsmiling” bit led our trusty digital research assistant to scold us gently:

For Russians, a smile is not a polite tool for customer service or a casual greeting to a stranger on the street—it is a deeply personal expression of genuine joy, amusement, or affection. If you smile at someone you don't know, a traditional Russian won't think you are being friendly; they will assume you are mocking them, hiding something, or, as the proverb says, simply not all there in the head.

Once you know that cultural rule, the "brusque" and serious faces you encountered at those highway кафеmake perfect sense. They weren't angry with you; they were just treating you with their standard, no-nonsense sincerity!

Still, the hotel behind Rob, the Permasian, was a classic of the rude Russian mode. When we were there in 2013, Perm had only recently opened to foreign tourists. We would have been four of the very few. We go into the Lobby, to the Reception, sign that we’d like four rooms. The lady here acts like “huh?”, what do you guys want?”

Four sweaty, dusty dudes with bags, In a hotel lobby. In the early evening. Pointing with our fingers, like.. four of us… cue sleeping hand signals. What do you think we want, lady? It’s not like we’re in a Home Depot and the guy’s “what would you like sir, a leaf blower or the electric Sawz-all?”. We’re in a Hotel, ffs!

She’s not smiling. Doesn’t that make her smart? Or at least not stupid? But she’s sure putting on a pretty good simulacrum of stupid.

I forgot about the bronze ears that Rob above is smiling through. They’re called the “Perm Big Ears”. Because this place used to be one of the infamous Salt Mines. A gulag, that thinkers of Bad Thoughts would be sent to. The poor souls sent here would carry sacks of crude salt on the shoulders. The salt gave them red ears.. Misshapen, Big Red Ears. 

Here they are now as a tourist attraction. Heaven forfend we should ever learn anything from the experience. The experience, to be clear, of the purest, most severe, form of socialism ever tried on this earth. Mao’s China too, was pretty pure socialism. And failed, too, just as badly.

Drone Octopus over Disney Hong Kong

Last night, from our club pool. By our backyard. As every night. Used to be actual live bursting fireworks. Drones is better, don’t you think? 

There were plenty more animals and cutesy drone-thingies in the sky. But I’ll leave it at that one octopus. As with actual fireworks, “enough” is pretty quickly enough! Don’t you think?

Alas, poor Zhu, I knew him well

I took this photo in October 2013. From the very spot I’d stood 
with then Mayor Zhu Rongji, in 1988. Peace Hotel, 8th floor.

Zhu Rongji, chief architect of the economic transition of China, ex Mayor of Shanghai and ex Premier of the People’s Republic of China, has died, aged 97.

I knew him well. Well… as well as I knew any senior leader of China. Apart perhaps, from another Mayor, the once Mayor of Dalian, member of the Politburo and near ascendant to the very top post in China, the now jailed Bo Xilai. 

I recall standing with Zhu, when he was Mayor of Shanghai, in 1988, in the 8th Floor Chinese dining room of the Peace Hotel on the Bund, overlooking the opposite bank of the Yangtze, then a swampy, dilapidated mess known as Pudong. 

“Pu” (浦 ) as in bank of a river and “Dong” ( 东 ) as in the east side. At the time, in 1988, still an abandoned and forgotten East Bank.

“We’re going to develop that into an international financial centre” he told me. 

“Sure”, I thought. Dream on, buddy.

But, to be fair to my own judgement, I should also say that by this time, I’d seen what changes had been wrought in the previous abandoned rice paddies of Shenzhen. Now a major business and trade hub of the world, with nearly 20 million people, right next to us here in Hong Kong. 

I knew not to underestimate what China can do when it sets its mind to it. And look at Pudong now. That’s it above. Zhu did that. For better or worse, one might say. I’d say better on balance, than the previous swamp. At the very least, startling. 

I was there in Shanghai on behalf of Sir Peter Abeles and his Ansett Worldwide Aviation Services Company. We wanted to do a deal with Shanghai to lease some of Ansett’s planes to Shanghai Airlines. 

Which we eventually did, with the help of Zhu.

The South China Morning Post’s article shows what a consequential figure he was. 

Zhu Rongji was a very decent man. A good leader in tough times in the torrid politics of a secretive society.

=============

ADDED: Pedants will note, as do I, that the quote from Hamlet — “Alas, poor Yorik, I knew him well —  is one of the most famous misquotes in literature. It’s I knew him. Not knew him well. Just that the misquote works better. (IMO).

This is Hamlet’s actual line:

Alas, poor Yorik! I knew him, Horatio: a fellow of infinite jest, of most excellent fancy: he hath borne me on his back a thousand times; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! my gorge rises at it.

“It” being Yorik’s skull. The line is a memento mori. We all must die. A reminder we are all mortal. We humans beings the only animals, the only living things on this earth who know this. Yorik, once vital and strong, once bearing Hamlet on his back, now a skull. 

Zhu Rongji, once Major Changer of China, now “the late”.

Intimations of mortality. 

True Socialism has never been tried!

Classic in the genre of “No True Scotsman”. A fallacy. 

The Right: “Socialism never works”.

The Left: “TRUE Socialism has never been tried”. 

This is unfalsifiable. No matter which of the many countries have tried some version of communism or socialism, the answer will always be “it wasn’t the true version”.

Marxism claims to be scientific. But science requires that a hypothesis be falsifiable. 

IMO, the best evidence against socialism are the two split states: East and West Germany until 1989. North and South Korea up until today. In both cases, one people. Divided into a capitalist side and a Socialist side. We know what happened. 

One can easily find a satellite image of the Korean Peninsula taken at night. It’s pretty revealing. 

Inside the Democratic Machine | Evan Barker

Former Democratic Party insider, Evan Barker, left the Party, posted a Tik Tok resignation which went millions viral. She talks, with The Free Press, of her experiences as a fundraiser, in the heart of the Democratic Party.

“Personally I like ageing. With age comes…WISDOM” | Brad Pitt

Quote of the Day by Brad Pitt: “Personally I like ageing. With age comes…wisdom. Give me wisdom over youth any day.”

If it is true that with age comes wisdom — and who better to affirm that, than Brad Pitt? — then there’s an obverse. When you’re younger you’re less wise. You have less wisdom. Why give the vote to 16 year olds? Their brains are still developing, let alone wise. They don’t know nuffink!

On the cusp of my ninth decade, I’m inclined to agree with Brad. But “give me wisdom over youth”…. “any day”? Hmmm…. I don’t know, Brad.

There’s heaps of things about youth that are terrific. Devil-may-care, fearlessness, and lack of wisdom….

Brad’s quote reminds me of Confucius. My favourite lines, from the Confucian Analects:

三十而立

四十而不惑

五十而知天命

六十而耳顺

七十而从心所欲，不逾矩

Sānshí érlì

sìshí ér bùhuò

wǔshí ér zhī tiānmìng

liùshí ér ěrshùn

qīshí ér cóngxīnsuǒyù, bù yú jǔ

At thirty, you can stand firm; 

at forty, you’re free from doubt; 

at fifty, you know the mandate of Heaven; 

at sixty, your ear is attuned to the truth; 

at seventy, you can follow your heart's desire, without transgressing the rules.

Tally-ho! Hello Ireland!

Tally-ho, arrives at Fastnet Rock, Ireland, 99 years after she won her maiden Fasrnet Race in 1927. She’s due to enter next year’s edition of the super famous race. Which my sailing mate, and cross Africa mate, Gordie did in his TP-52 Zen, this year.

I have great admiration of young Leo Sampson Goolden. Signature intro: “Hi, I’m Leo. I’m a boatbuilder and a sailor”. True words. He’s so capable, so high end at both.

Well done Leo and crew! This is a huge accomplishment. Historic. Inspiring.

Tally-ho arrives at the land of my forebears. Who came from Northern Ireland. Which they were driven to, from their native Scotland by the forebears of my mother. We Scottish Forsyth’s became Irish Forsythes by adding the “e”. 

My father’s father, Andrew, was born to farmers in rural Ballymena, County Antrim, in 1877. He left for Australia in 1900. As soon as he could, iow. A young man in the Leo mould, my granddad Andrew created things: a transport service company, a retail company, a store named "Forsythes", on the corner of Pitt & Goulburn, central Sydney. Like Leo, Andrew was clearly a self-starter. 

Better get back to Leo, or I’ll sound like Alec Baldwin: in his infamous eulogy to Sam Neill, Baldwin mentioned Sam once at the beginning, then spent the rest of the time talking about himself….

I have huge admiration for any folks like Leo. Like his crew. Practical people. Down to earth. Common sensical. 

Tally-ho passes Fastnet Rock, 99 years after her 1927 win

Tally-ho welcomed by Irish wooden-boat enthusiasts, 
Baltimore Harbour, Ireland

I was proud of my lone effort at wooden boat building. But it pales compared to what Leo and his legion of helpers did over the seven years of total restoration. 

There is no nuclear waste problem

Dr Tim Gregory sure is nerdy-looking. The OG nerd. Which obviously makes him an expert in nuclear energy. But what’s with the hair, dude? The Beatles called in from the sixties and demanded their hair-style back!

Well, he really is nerd. And knows his shit. Simple, clear explanation of what Finland has done with deep geological repositories. Fascinating.

I’m guessing, from experience talking to them, that Greens will studiously avoid confronting a vid like this. Aka, “The Science”. At our current best level. 

Or if they do watch it, they’ll ask: “Yeah, but what if…”. Followed by some imagined outlandish peril. A non-refutable question. What if an asteroid the size of manhattan hits us? Yeah. What if? 

"But... what if the asteroid hit that exact spot in Finland where they've buried the waste? And what if it goes down, this asteroid, 500m, straight into the storage? I mean, what if??"

Well, you get the picture. For Greens there's simply nothing, no science, no evidence from actual experience, that will convince them that Nuclear isn't horrid, isn't dangerous. I wish they'd just own up and say, "I'm against it. It's my faith. It's my religion. Nothing you say or do will change my mind." Fine.. then I leave you alone. 

But they do keep saying "show me the evidence" that it's safe. And when you do, they ignore. That's it. That's my experience. 

Still, Tim be da man. The OG nerd on nuclear waste.

Elon Musk is literally carrying America on his back | X- Freeze

Elon Musk is literally carrying America on his back

At this point, the whole America vs China industrial race is actually

Elon Musk vs China

China is an entire industrial superpower

Thousands of companies, massive supply chains. Enormous manufacturing capacity, state-backed infrastructure....

And yet across many of the technologies defining the future, America’s strongest counterweight keeps coming back to one man: Elon Musk

EVs + autonomy: Tesla vs China

Humanoid robots: Optimus vs China

AI + massive data centers: SpaceXAI / Colossus vs China

Batteries + grid storage: Tesla Energy vs China

Lithium refining + battery materials: Tesla vs China

Advanced manufacturing: Tesla + SpaceX vs China

Space launch + reusable rockets: SpaceX vs China

Satellite internet: Starlink vs China

Logic + memory + advanced chip packaging: TerraFab vs China

Energy infrastructure: Tesla solar + storage vs China

Orbital AI compute: SpaceX vs China

Now zoom out and look at the stack:

EVs → batteries → energy → AI → robots → chips → manufacturing → rockets → satellites → orbital compute

These are not isolated businesses. Each layer increasingly feeds the next

Elon is literally building an American industrial stack capable of going head-to-head with the industrial power of China itself

One ecosystem vs an industrial superpower

Absolutely insane when you zoom out

H/t: X Freeze. 

Normies: You GOTTA vote in the midterms

Bridget Phetasy in her inimitable, exuberant, irrepressible style. With a serious message.

The Communists — aka the Democratic Socialists of America — are funded, locked and loaded, ready to go. Don’t lose focus, normies. “Right wingers”. Or they’ll be tossing the eggs from the nest, like the cuckoo. Yes, even mid-term Primaries count. You bet!

In passing, she glazes us Boomers. And serves it out to the Zoomers.

My 2018 warning about the DSA: Democratic People’s Republic of America 

Frangipani Skyline

Last night from our swimming pool. The tallest tower, mid-photo, is the 108-storey International Commerce Centre.

Fauci lies. He CREATED the pandemic

Above: main critic of Fauci, Senator Dr Rand Paul, talks to Stephen A. Smith

When I look back at my coverage of the Covid Pandemic, I'm pretty happy with what I wrote. It stands up well. 

On Anthony Fauci, for example, I see that I was early in seeing through the man. Who appeared this week at a Senate Committee to be grilled by Rand Paul, only to "Plead the Fifth" (aka, not answer), 111 times. 

I was early in coming to the judgement that Fauci was (and remains) complicit in creating the Covid pandemic, via the gain-of-function research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. Which all credible observers and analysts are now pretty much unanimous was the source of the virus via the escape of an experimental virus. Which we might concede was an "accident" ... if we're being charitable.

And of course the reason Fauci denied the Lab-leak theory is that he was the main man responsible for it! It's just as much "the Fauci virus" as it was, per Trump, "the China virus". 

Fauci was at the very, very long-time head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Who, absolutely coincidentally I'm sure, had billions to give away to epidemiologists who supported his deceptions. His murderous duplicity.... 

Those were judgements I came to based on studies of what Fauci said and did during Covid, and the mountain of evidence, circumstantial as it was, for the Lab-leak vs Zoonotic origins.

There was a better way to deal with the pandemic than the Fauci way. What's more we knew it at the time. Even though Fauci crushed dissent and discussion of it. Shameful. (We know why, Tony. We know).

That alternative was published at the time as the Great Barrington Declaration. 

My first post of it was on 15 October, 2020 as "The Great Barrington Declaration". 

A principle architect of it, one of the three co-signatories, was then professor Jay Bhattacharya. He is now the Head of the National Institutes of Health, with oversight of the the very Institute that Dr Anthony Fauci headed for 38 years. 

I signed the Barrington Declaration in 2020. As did thousands of others, laypeople and professionals. We were all smeared as purveyors of "Disinformation", by Fauci and his acolytes. The media. But it's we that have turned out correct. Though we will hear nothing of that from the MSM, let alone an apology. Because the drill is: if the Left gets something wrong, it's "let's move on". Let's "not re-litigate what happened years ago".... But it remains important. The source of any major virus is always important to know. 

Fauci labelled professor Bhattacharya a "fringe epidemiologist" for having the temerity to suggest an alternative to the policies of lockdows, school closures, forced vaccinations, mandated masking and all the rest of it. 

Now that same "fringe epidemiologist" is the boss of the organisation that Fauci once headed. 

Oh the sublime Schadenfreude!

Dr Vinay Prasad gives more detail on the whole "Fauci thing". Prasad doesn't charm everyone, but he's knowledgeable and spot on: "Biden Covid Czar says it was Lab Leak". 

If you're interested in ancient history as it pertains to the pandemic, you can click on the Labels on the right: "Barrington Declaration", or "Coronavirus", or "Zero Covid Policy". 

Or in the Search Box on the right "Fauci". 

The Barrington Declaration is still relevant because if/when there is another pandemic, it's the road map of what we should do. For heaven's sake, NOT the Fauci roadmap. 

As Jay says: "there is nothing novel in the Declaration. It's what we've done with every pandemic in the past. It's the way we actually went about trying to prevent the spread of Covid that's the novel path." Talking here to The Goodfellows. 

I seem to be running a few laps glazing myself here. But, oh well, I'm nearly 80 and if I wanna I gonna. 

Xiamen 2014.

Mazu (妈祖), goddess of the sea

Xiamen. One of China’s lovelier coastal towns. From my 2014 visit. 

I first visited Xiamen in the 1970s. We were looking at sailing a boat out of a boatyard there, for delivery down to Hong Kong. The folks involved decided not to go ahead. Oh well.... Would've been a fun trip. 

I always liked Xiamen. Charming. 

By the way, it was one of Deng Xiaoping's first Special Economic Zones. His experiment with "Socialism with Chinese characteristics". Aka, capitalism. Well, sort of. In any case, not socialism. 

Zoomers flipping Republican

Many of them say they find the their new conservative friends, tolerant. Willing to listen to counter arguments.

One possible reason? Universities lean massively Left. In some faculties close to 100%. Any conservative student has to learn to get along. 

Many of these ex-liberal women say they now realise they were lied to.

It’s a fun watch. Maybe even for you, Miss (still) Lefty…

On the Certainty Principle | Dilbert

Certainty Brings Insanity

“What happened to the Democrats?” | Stephen Daisley

I love the writing of Stephen Daisley. The image of these Communist loonies, these “Hideous creatures”, as “Keffiyeh-clad Buffalo Bills”. Love it. 

The rest of his article is here. 

I’ll say it again: I warned you. I did warn you! About the “Democratic” Socialists of America. I warned you in 2018. 

No qualifiers in front of “Socialism”can  change the fact that it’s Socialism. Not “warm and cuddly”, not “unthreatening-and-not-at-all-dangerous”; and no, not even “Democratic”. It’s always Socialism. And, in my experience, Socialism = communism. There’s no practical difference. The DSA is consuming and reshaping, socialist-ising the Democratic Party. 

Result? The Democrats’ constituents today:

 

Today’s Democrats wouldn't tarnish their karma by attempting to win the votes of white men. They are strictly the party of unmarried women, status-conscious graduates, identity- and victimhood-based groups, and the unfathomably aggrieved offspring of assimilated immigrants. 

And their policies?

It used to be said that Democrats were for acid, amnesty and abortion. Today, they are the party of Palestine, pronouns and police abolition.

Bay to Peak

 

Looking East. From Discovery Bay to The Peak, Hong Kong. 

"Certainty brings Insanity"

An Occasional Reader accused me recently of being one of the 100% certain people.  I am one of "the stupid" according to a Bertrand Russell meme this Reader helpfully included. Or I'm "the worst" according to Yeats, below.

Of all the things that I'm roooly, roooly sensitive about being accused, perhaps being a "Certaint-ist" is one of the very worst. Right up there with being accused, by AI algos of being a "Luddite". 

Yet I often quote the W.B.Yeats line from "The Second Coming", one of the few I've committed to memory: 

"The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

Are full of passionate intensity."

Clearly quote this because I see myself as "lacking conviction", even if not all. I mean, lacking conviction, as in "not certain", absolutely not 100% convinced of a thing. 

Though of course having "passionate intensity" may not be a bad thing at all. One might not be all all "the worst" for having it, so it's a nuanced thing. But that's another issue. 

I repost my post from 22nd July, 2022, "Certainty brings insanity". And republish below:

==============

From Ann Althouse [*], I learn about the three Delphic Maxims. Shouldn’t I have known about these before? 

Does not knowing the Delphic Maxims make me an ignorant 72-year old? Or does is just mean I’m following Mao Tse-Tung, who said: “Live to old age; study to old age” (活到老学到老 Huo dao lao, Xue dao lao)?

Anyway, I do like them. All three, which are:

• “Know thyself”
• “Nothing in excess”
• “Certainty brings insanity”

I like that last one, which would be my answer to one of those quizzes “what’s your favourite hate?”. 

Which I’ve always thought my “favourite hate” is: “Blind Faith”. As in W. B. Yeats from “The Second Coming”:

“The best lack all conviction, 

the worst are full of passionate intensity”. 

Like religious nutters. Who will kill themselves while murdering innocents. How can we deal with those blinded by faith? Who have no time for other ideas, who are made crazy by absolute certainty?

As we see on the far Left and the far Right.

=====================

[*] Ann Althouse, 22nd July, 2022:

That's a cute little BBC animation that I found after that Bret Stephens column — blogged here — made me think about the old aphorism "Know thyself." Stephens was talking about the "self-satisfied elite" who didn't understand the point of view of the non-elite. It made me think: How dare these people regard themselves as elite if they are self-satisfied? They are not educated if they haven't looked into the functioning of their own mind, especially if they satisfy themselves with contempt for others.

Here's Wikipedia on "Know thyself":

The Ancient Greek aphorism "know thyself" (Greek: γνῶθι σεαυτόν, transliterated: gnōthi seauton...) is the first of three Delphic maxims inscribed in the forecourt of the Temple of Apollo at Delphi.... The two maxims that follow "know thyself" were "nothing to excess" and "certainty brings insanity." In Latin the phrase, "know thyself", is given as nosce te ipsum or temet nosce.

"Certainty brings insanity" is the least well-known of those aphorisms. It explains a lot!

Much more at that Wikipedia link, but — here — I'll just show  you this cool painting from the 1600s, inscribed with the Latin phrase [Nosce te Ipsum. Know thyself]:

“Commie by Your Name” | Bill Maher

Van Jones. James Carville. And now Bill Maher. Famous lefties. Famous influencers. Famous deserters.

Deserting the radicalised DSA-riddled Democratic Party. DSA, the parasitic Cuckoo dethrones the Wood Warbler Democrats. 

"The Second Coming" | William Butler Yeats

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

******

Surely some revelation is at hand;

Surely the Second Coming is at hand.

The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out

When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi

Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert

A shape with lion body and the head of a man,

A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,

Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it

Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.

The darkness drops again; but now I know

That twenty centuries of stony sleep

Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,

And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,

Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?

I'm predicting a total collapse of society

 

"AI Simply Explained In 12 Minutes" | Fawzi Ammache.

Somewhere, somehow, my devices must have decided that I’m a Luddite. That I need a lesson in AI. Because I expressed some worry over Artificial Super Intelligence. Hence the above in my algo.

Calma, calma, Forse. We’re not here to take over the human race. Watch the video. Relax, you wet-work human. 

My devices obviously don’t know about my “early adopter” history.

I bought an Atari desktop top personal computer in 1987. According to my Research Assistant, that was early days for Australia. We loaded up a game: Kings Quest IV, The Perils of Rosella. Fifteen 5.25” floppy disks. Fifteen! “Floppy disks?” say Gen Z, “wassat?”. It’s floppy, dude. Clue in the name.

We used to have things called Telex machines. Run by punched paper tape. Crikey! We moved to a hew gen telex machine with a little green screen. Wow! Then came fax. Remember them? Recent history. 

I supported, promoted, all these. I bought the first iPhone in Hong Kong in 2007. People thought I was silly. "What's with no keypad?" said our Xena crew when I showed them. 

I’m long Tesla and SpaceX. Pure, large, technical and AI plays.

Same with AI. I told our son, years ago, to get into it. User or loser. 

So… AI algorithm, no, I’m not a Luddite. Fie on thee!

But Artificial Super Intelligence? That bears scrutiny. As say some of today’s super intelligent organic beings. The likelihood of catastrophe is “”non zero”. According to them. 

So… maybe a New-Luddite?

A Door in the Wall | Russia 2013

I took this photo in Russia: an abandoned factory, in an abandoned town, in an abandoned countryside, of an abandoned ideology. Where lives were lived in quiet desperation. 

It was on our cross Russia trip, four men in a Voxy, from Vladivostok to Moscow in the Spring of 2013.

Last night I listened to a radio play on YouTube. H.G. Wells’ “The Door in the Wall”. Wells's door is “the” Door; it is his missed opportunities. This one above is just “a” door. One of many. Of many missed opportunities. In Soviet Russia and in today’s Russkyie Putiniskyie.

There are abandoned villages and towns all across the vast plains of Siberia. We drove through them.

This photo was served up to me in my daily feed. Just after I’d listened to the Wells story. But, no, I’m sure AI had nothing to do with it….