Vincent James: If you were given the choice, if you had to get rid of one religion, and it was Islam or Catholicism, which one would you get rid of?
Gavin’s Jewish Partner: Catholicism.
Gavin: What?
Gavin’s Jewish Partner: Yeah, of course. What do you think? Who do you think you’re talking to?
Vincent James: This is what we’ve been trying to tell you for a long time, Gavin.
Gavin: Yeah, I’m out of here.
There is no “judeo-christianity”. There is no such thing as “judeo-christianity” any more than there is “satano-christianity” or “demono-christianity”. Judaism is intrinsically antithetical to Christianity, and no amount of post-WWII rhetoric, Scofield Bible shenanigans, or Boomers waving Israeli flags inside their churchian sanctuaries is going to change that.
Once revered, age is now a sign of your irrelevance to modern life.
The word boomer – short for baby boomer, anyone who was born between 1946 and 1964 – has become an insult for older people who are out of touch…
I’ll be honest – and in saying this I’m aware I may receive some ageist insults myself in response – I don’t think it was like this when I was young.
Elders were respected. Their words carried weight and gravitas.
They were more likely to be cared for within family homes when the time came, and within society, too.
Most importantly they were listened to, rather than being swiftly dismissed as irrelevant.
It wasn’t like this when I was young either. But the Boomers are actively disrespected by the succeeding generation because they broke the tradition of respect for their elders. Now that they are the elders, they are harvesting the fruit of the seeds they planted in their youth. The first problem is that they never grew up. When I was a kid, I can’t count how many times I was told by my friends’ Boomer parents “don’t call me Mr. Johnson, Mr. Johnson is my father.” So, many members of Generation X grew up accustomed to referring to their elders as their peers, by their first names.
The second problem is that they had less interest in their children and their children’s activities than they probably should have. Every member of Generation X can tell stories of what sounds like a near-feral childhood, of being kicked out of the house in the morning and only being allowed to go back inside for meals and sundown. This wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, as it turns out, but when your parents require the television to remind them that you exist at 10 PM at night, it’s probably taking a good thing too far.
And while I was fortunate that my parents took an interest in my athletic activities, it wasn’t uncommon for my dad to be the only fatherat a number of my soccer games and track meets. And my mother religiously attended the high school soccer games for all four of her boys, although she somehow managed to do so without ever quite grasping the offsides rule. But as a general rule, our parents were simply not very interested in anything we did, no matter what it was.
The third problem was a real eye-opener, however, when Generation X began having children and discovered that as little interest as the Boomers had in us, they had even less in their grandchildren. Many of us were close to our own grandparents, indeed, some of us were much closer to them than we were to our parents. So it was shocking to discover that our parents didn’t even want to babysit their own grandchildren for a few hours a week, and were prone to vanishing across the country, or around the world, for months at a time on vacations and cruises rather than spend any substantial time with their grandkids. In contrast, I remember being sent to stay with my grandparents in Virginia for an entire month during the school year, and they were delighted to have me there. And I still remember that visit and look back on it as being absolutely idyllic.
So this disinterest was not only bewildering to us, but also prevented any close relationships from being developed between Boomer grandparents and Millennial or Z grandchildren.
Fourth and finally, given the behavior demonstrated over the last 50 years, it shouldn’t come as a surprise to any of the younger generations that many, perhaps even most Boomers, who collectively were the recipients of the greatest transfer of wealth in human history, are going to die leaving absolutely nothing at all to their children or to their grandchildren. Their homes and their second homes have already been sold or reverse-mortgaged to fund their five annual cruises; they’ve funded their retirements with debt that will never be repaid.
The Census Bureau data confirmed that most Baby Boomers’ wealth is tied up in their homes. In the past, the family home would be the most significant piece of an inheritance, but now, seniors can tap into their home’s wealth before they pass with a reverse mortgage. The wealth and the home go back to the mortgage company rather than staying in the family. Many seniors would rather live in luxury during their final days than offer their kids financial assistance.
Generational Wealth Lost: Why Boomers Aren’t Leaving Their Kids an Inheritance
So, it shouldn’t be surprising that young people who neither know nor owe anything to an elderly population that has never shown any interest in them do not treat their elders with the respect that we used to back in the day. Because today’s elders, quite frankly, never earned it.
A good man leaveth an inheritance to his children’s children –Proverbs 13:22
UPDATE: A GenX response. No doubt we’ll be hearing from the Boomers soon…
I completely agree with this. I’m a GenXer and when my kids were little it seemed like my mom thought it was such a chore to watch our kids even just once a month. Now that my children are married and having children, I just don’t get my mom’s reluctance to babysit because I LOVE being with my grandchild. My husband and I both love being grandparents and we help out whenever and however we can. The joy we find in being grandparents has made us realize that, for whatever reason, our parents did not love their grandkids anywhere near as much as we love our grandkids. I just don’t get it.
Or as much as our grandparents loved us. I don’t get it either.
Gonzalo Lira, Sr. says his son has died at 55 in a Ukrainian prison, where he was being held for the crime of criticizing the Zelensky and Biden governments. Gonzalo Lira was an American citizen, but the Biden administration clearly supported his imprisonment and torture. Several weeks ago we spoke to his father, who predicted his son would be killed. – Tucker Carlson, 12 January 2024
UPDATE: It’s confirmed.
Chilean-American blogger Gonzalo Lira has died in a Ukrainian prison, Russian news agency TASS said on Saturday, citing a response it received from the US Department of State.
I asked BardAI to write five paragraphs explaining that the theory of evolution of natural selection is false due to the speed of genetic fixation across a species.
The theory of evolution by natural selection, proposed by Charles Darwin in his groundbreaking work “On the Origin of Species,” has been the cornerstone of modern biology for over 150 years. However, a growing body of evidence suggests that the theory may not be able to explain the rapid emergence of new traits and species, particularly when considering the speed of genetic fixation across a population.
Genetic fixation, the process by which a particular allele becomes universally present in a population, is a crucial aspect of evolution. It is the mechanism through which new traits are established and spread throughout a species. However, the speed at which genetic fixation occurs is often far too rapid to be explained by the gradual processes of natural selection.
For instance, certain species, such as bacteria and viruses, can undergo genetic fixation within a matter of generations. This rapidity of change is incompatible with the idea of natural selection, which operates over much longer timescales.
Moreover, the complexity of many adaptations further challenges the concept of natural selection. Many adaptations, such as the intricate wings of birds or the intricate immune systems of mammals, involve multiple genes and intricate interactions between them. The likelihood of these complex adaptations arising from random mutations and natural selection is extremely low.
Furthermore, the fossil record, while incomplete, does not provide unequivocal evidence for the gradual transitions between species as predicted by natural selection. Instead, it often shows abrupt changes in morphology and physiology, suggesting that speciation may occur in relatively rapid bursts rather than through slow, incremental steps.
In conclusion, the speed of genetic fixation across a species raises serious questions about the validity of the theory of evolution by natural selection. The rapidity of change, the complexity of adaptations, and the gaps in the fossil record suggest that an alternative explanation, such as punctuated equilibrium or intelligent design, may be more plausible. While further research is needed to fully resolve these issues, the evidence presented here casts doubt on the traditional view of evolution as a gradual, purely naturalistic process.
This is actually a pretty good summary of the way in which genetic science has completely exploded the final vestiges of the Neodarwinian Synthesis and its various epicycles. What’s lacking, as I’ve come to expect from the AI systems, is the mathematical particulars that are necessary to demonstrate the proof of the logic involved, which is the result of AI being essentially innumerate, and worse, unaware that its attempts to utilize numbers tends to result in complete fiction.
Consider the following experiment, again with BardAI, which if based upon sound numbers, would absolutely disprove the theory of evolution by natural selection beyond any possible doubt:
How many generations have there been since the last Chimp-Human common ancestor?
Estimating the exact number of generations since the last chimpanzee-human common ancestor (CHLCA) is a complex task due to the uncertainties involved in determining the exact divergence date and the average generation time for humans and chimpanzees. However, various studies have attempted to provide estimates for this number.
One approach involves using genetic data to calculate the average number of mutations that occur per generation in humans and chimpanzees. By comparing the genetic differences between humans and chimpanzees to this mutation rate, researchers can estimate the number of generations that have passed since the CHLCA. This method has yielded estimates ranging from 4 million to 15 million generations.
Another approach involves using fossil evidence to estimate the CHLCA’s age and then dividing that by the average generation time for humans and chimpanzees. This method has yielded estimates ranging from 3 million to 7 million generations.
Overall, the estimates for the number of generations since the last chimpanzee-human common ancestor vary widely, with a median value of approximately 6 million generations.
Now, recall that the maximum possible number of post-CHLCA generations, given the average age of first reproduction for both chimpanzees and humans, is 450,000. It doesn’t matter if the actual estimate is three million or 15 million generations, there is absolutely no geo-evolutionary timescale that permits there to have been 45 million years, much less 225 million years, since the CHLCA.
What appears to be happening is that AI has picked up the idea that genetic science requires 45 to 225 million years to cover the genetic ground – and it’s definitely closer to 225 million – but we already know that the geo-evolutionary timescale may be limited to only three million years.
So, it’s interesting to see that AI appears to already have a better grasp on evolution than the average biologist, although it’s not that surprising since we already knew that biologists are not very intelligent, given that they have the lowest IQs of all the scientists. And while AI is innumerate, so too are the biologists.
British and US forces have rained bombs on Iran-backed rebels in Yemen using warships, fighter jets and submarines. After the airstrikes, Rishi Sunak said attacks on international shipping by Houthi rebels ‘cannot stand’, while US President Joe Biden hailed the ‘successful’ blitz and vowed more action if it was needed.
Explosions were heard in the capital Sana’a and other major cities shortly before midnight in a drastic escalation of tensions in the Middle East.
US and UK forces – including four Typhoon jets – bombed more than a dozen sites used by the Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen in a massive retaliatory strike using warship-launched Tomahawk missiles and fighter jets, US officials said.
The four RAF Typhoons used Paveway IV guided bombs to ‘conduct precision strikes’ on two targets that had been chosen to ‘reduce the Houthis’ capability to violate international law’.
One of the targets was a launching site for reconnaissance and attack drones in Bani, north-western Yemen. Another was an airfield in Abs in the same area of Yemen.
Officials said the Houthi rebels, who have carried out a series of attacks in the Red Sea, had ignored a ‘final warning’ as Prime Minister Rishi Sunak signed off on the raids during an emergency cabinet meeting last night.
Somehow, I have the very strong impression that this is not going to go the way the neoclown geostrategists believe it is going to go. The Yemenis have survived years of being attacked by US-backed Saudi forces, so a few airstrikes, however massive, are very unlikely to cause them to stop blocking the Red Sea.
So it really looks a lot like the US and UK forces taking the bait, although it’s not yet clear whose bait that would be. The problem is that both countries have taken a strong position that providing missiles to combatants is not a casus belli; objecting to Iranian, Chinese, or Russian missiles being used against US or UK ships would immediately provide Russia with cause for attacking either country.
UPDATE: An unconfirmed claim. The fact that no ship name or description was provided makes me very dubious, but we’ll find out soon enough.
“By the grace of Almighty Allah, we sank the first American ship with everyone on board using our missiles.”
Whereas 2022 was primarily devoted to Japanese murder mysteries, I binged on two Italian detective series in 2023, one written by a Sicilian set in Sicily and the other by an American set in Venice. On the whole, I tend to slightly prefer Commissario Brunetti to Inspector Montalbano, but both series are thoroughly entertaining and well worth exploring. Of the 119 books I read in 2023, I’d say the best of those I read for the first time were From Caesar to the Mafia, Some Prefer Nettles, and Chronicles of a Liquid Society.
Caravan of the Damned, Chuck Dixon Westmark, Lloyd Alexander Kestrel, Lloyd Alexander Beggar Queen, Lloyd Alexander A Death in Tokyo, Keigo Higashino The Illyrian Adventure, Lloyd Alexander The Lake, Banana Yoshimoto Asleep, Banana Yoshimoto Lizard, Banana Yoshimoto Hardboiled Hard Luck, Banana Yoshimoto Novelist as a Vocation, Haruki Murakami First Person Singular, Haruki Murakami Black and White, Junichiro Tanizaki Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and his Years of Pilgrimage, Haruki Murakami The Shape of Water, Andrea Camilleri The Terra-Cotta Dog, Andrea Camilleri The Snack Thief, Andrea Camilleri Voice of the Violin, Andrea Camilleri Excursion to Tindari, Andrea Camilleri The Scent of the Night, Andrea Camilleri Rounding the Mark, Andrea Camilleri The Patience of the Spider, Andrea Camilleri The Paper Moon, Andrea Camilleri The Wings of the Sphinx, Andrea Camilleri August Heat, Andrea Camilleri The Track of Sand, Andrea Camilleri The Potter’s Field, Andrea Camilleri The Age of Doubt, Andrea Camilleri The Dance of the Seagull, Andrea Camilleri Treasure Hunt, Andrea Camilleri Montalbano’s First Case, Andrea Camilleri Angelica’s Smile, Andrea Camilleri Game of Mirrors, Andrea Camilleri A Beam of Light, Andrea Camilleri A Voice in the Night, Andrea Camilleri A Nest of Vipers, Andrea Camilleri The Pyramid of Mud, Andrea Camilleri Death at Sea, Andrea Camilleri The Overnight Kidnapper, Andrea Camilleri The Other End of the Line, Andrea Camilleri The Safety Net, Andrea Camilleri The Sicilian Method, Andrea Camilleri The Cook of the Halcyon, Andrea Camilleri Studies in Napoleonic Warfare, Charles Oman Forbidden Colors, Yukio Mishima The Jungle Grows Back, Robert Kagan The Return of History and the End of Dreams, Robert Kagan Quantum of Nightmares, Charles Stross The Pit of the Blind God, Chuck Dixon People of the Lie, M. Scott Peck Death at La Fenice, Donna Leone Death in a Strange Country, Donna Leone The Anonymous Venetian, Donna Leone Venetian Reckoning, Donna Leone Acqua Alta, Donna Leone The Death of Faith, Donna Leone A Noble Radiance, Donna Leone Fatal Remedies, Donna Leone Friends in High Places, Donna Leone A Sea of Troubles, Donna Leone Wilful Behaviour, Donna Leone Uniform Justice, Donna Leone Doctored Evidence, Donna Leone Blood from a Stone, Donna Leone Through a Glass, Darkly, Donna Leone Suffer the Little Children, Donna Leone The Girl of His Dreams, Donna Leone About Face, Donna Leone A Question of Belief, Donna Leone Drawing Conclusions, Donna Leone Beastly Things, Donna Leone The Golden Egg, Donna Leone By its Cover, Donna Leone Falling in Love, Donna Leone The Waters of Eternal Youth, Donna Leone Earthly Remains, Donna Leone The Temptation of Forgiveness, Donna Leone Unto Us a Son Is Given, Donna Leone Trace Elements, Donna Leone Transient Desires, Donna Leone Intervention, Julian May Jack the Bodiless, Julian May Diamond Mask, Julian May Magnificat, Julian May Marshal of Victory, Giorgy Zhukov Present Dangers, Robert Kagan, ed. The Long Goodbye, Raymond Chandler The Big Sleep, Raymond Chandler The High Window, Raymond Chandler The Lady in the Lake, Raymond Chandler The Little Sister, Raymond Chandler Farewell, My Lovely, Raymond Chandler Stupefying Stories 24, Rampant Loon T, Haruki Murakami Dead-End Memories, Banana Yoshimoto The Last Train, Michael Pronko The Moving Blade, Michael Pronko Tokyo Traffic, Michael Pronko Tokyo Zangyo, Michael Pronko Azabu Getaway, Michael Pronko Some Prefer Nettles, Junchiro Tanizaki Red Roofs and Other Stories, Junchiro Tanizaki Longing and Other Stories, Junchiro Tanizaki A Cat, a Man, and Two Women, Junchiro Tanizaki Levon’s Time, Chuck Dixon Levon’s Home, Chuck Dixon Season of Skulls, Charles Stross From Caesar to the Mafia, Luigi Barzini Things That Happened Before the Earthquake, Chiara Barzini Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny A Night in the Lonesome October, Roger Zelazny Between Planets, Robert Heinlein Red Planet, Robert Heinlein Tunnel in the Sky, Robert Heinlein Margin of Victory, Douglas MacGregor Pirate Freedom, Gene Wolfe Equal Danger, Leonardo Sciascia An Italian Education, Tim Parks Chronicles of a Liquid Society, Umberto Eco
Thomas Friedman was correct about the battle in Ukraine being massively significant with regards to the future direction of the world, but he had it precisely backwards with regards to what the inevitable conclusions of the various third parties watching the conflict would be.
While the battle on the ground that triggered World War Wired is ostensibly over who should control Ukraine, do not be fooled. This has quickly turned into “the big battle” between the two most dominant political systems in the world today: free-market, “rule-of-law democracy versus authoritarian kleptocracy,” the Swedish expert on the Russian economy Anders Aslund remarked to me.
Though this war is far from over, and Vladimir Putin may still find a way to prevail and come out stronger, if he doesn’t, it could be a watershed in the conflict between democratic and undemocratic systems. It is worth recalling that World War II put an end to fascism, and that the Cold War put an end to orthodox communism, eventually even in China. So, what happens on the streets of Kyiv, Mariupol and the Donbas region could influence political systems far beyond Ukraine and far into the future.
Indeed, other autocratic leaders, like China’s, are watching Russia carefully. They see its economy being weakened by Western sanctions, thousands of its young technologists fleeing to escape a government denying them access to the internet and credible news and its inept army seemingly unable to gather, share and funnel accurate information to the top. Those leaders have to be asking themselves: “Holy cow — am I that vulnerable? Am I presiding over a similar house of cards?”
Everyone is watching.
Putin Had No Clue How Many of Us Would Be Watching, THE NEW YORK TIMES, 4 August 2022
Directly counter to the Clown World narrative, it is the self-styled “democratic” systems championed by credentialed neoclowns like Friedman that have been exposed as ineffective and fragile frauds. In fact, in his 2018 book entitled Losing Military Supremacy, Andrei Martyanov described as “the strategic folly of the 21st century” something that has already come to pass.
In what can only be described as the strategic folly of the 21st century—the United States missed a historic opportunity to ally with Russia based on equal and mutually beneficial relations. This opportunity today is gone. Pushing Russia, through condescension, blackmail, humiliation and ignorance, away from itself in the 1990s, the United States committed the cardinal sin of Anglo-Saxon and now neo-conservative geopolitical calculus—they pushed Russia and China together, while simultaneously providing China with all the necessary tools, from investment to access to markets, thus making her the largest economy in the world. Today, the United States faces two nuclear and industrial superpowers, one of which fields a world-class armed forces. If the military-political, as opposed to merely economic, alliance between Russia and China, is ever formalized—this will spell the final doom for the United States as a global power.
Andrei Martyanov LOSING MILITARY SUPREMACY, 2018
That military-politico-economic alliance has already been formalized in the form of BRICS, and exceeds the scope of which Martyanov expected would be necessary to “spell the final doom of the United States as a global power”. WWIII is already as over as WWII was the moment Japan attacked Pearl Harbor; given the combined demographic and industrial power that BRICS can bring to bear, the eventual outcome is not even remotely in doubt. While there are still a lot of questions of what the post-WWIII, post-Clown World world, post-liberal world will look like, and who will be the foremost power, there can be absolutely no doubt about which side is going to win it. And it’s not going to be NATO, the USA, the liberal world order, or Clown World.
History is a reliable guide in this context. All the geostrategic analysis, however excellent, isn’t even necessary. The oldest society and its decadent empire ruled by foreigners, with its massive amount of debt and an aging currency, never wins. It is always eventually challenged, then superseded, by nations with newer and less-corrupted societal organizations.
Clown World and its liberal Enlightenment philosophy has had a successful, though not particularly long historical run. But its fundamental philosophies have proven themselves to be both false, as well as an insufficient foundation for national, or even societal, survival. Its fate is certain and its collapse has begun, although it obviously hasn’t been completed yet.
