The Brits Are Our Friends

 

I am a subscriber to The Economist since 1960 when I started to earn money. I interrupted my subscription when I felt they were focusing too much on the Jews and Israel, always negatively. Renewed tentatively my subscription around 2005 and since then I feel it is fair to us. The picture from its latest edition shows a Jewish boy landing from Ukraine in Israel. I had never seen such a nice, positive representation of a Jew in The Economist or any international media. Good!   

The Chinese Invasion of the Jewish Autonomous Oblast has been postponed

 
The much-predicted Chinese invasion of Siberia to alleviate its unmanageable population pressure is not taking place. Russia’s bordering ‘Jewish Autonomous Oblast’ at TFR 1.71 (2020) is a solid 2.7x Heilongjiang’s 0.63! The ‘inevitable’ Chinese demographic takeover of the Russian Far East due to “overpopulation” is another racial myth. BTW, Birobidzhan's Jews moved to Israel as soon as it became possible.

On the same line of thought, Speaker Pelosi's visit to Taiwan failed to provoke the much-announced military reprisals and world war III. Well, who would attack her when she arrived with a giant Afro-American bodyguard, her Secretary of Defense?

Sparta's Desperate Population Policy

 

Sparta, like all Greek states, had rigid racial laws of citizenship against half-bred and foreigners, and for many generations, it saw its citizenry (that is its army) decline. Sparta adopted customs of publicly humiliating unmarried and childless male citizens, in the theater, they had to give up their sites to youngsters, and in some festivities, they were forced to dance naked in a circle singing self-debasing songs. They celebrated annual ceremonies where marriageable girls were paraded naked, trying to inflame desire and attract suitors. Boys, from age 7,  were educated in the army, where homosexuality was de rigeur, so they were inexperienced and terrified of women. To help them actually to be able to consummate the union, it took place in private in obscurity, and the bride - with a shaved head - was dressed up in men's clothes. Childless married women were legally impregnated by an army comrade or a friend, free of the stigma of bastardy.

Nothing helped, Sparta's citizen body steadily declined to the point that there were not enough able Spartiates to govern its foreign possessions. To refill the infantry, Sparta called for Helot (slave) recruits, and thousands volunteered. When formed into battalions, the Spartans were frightened by the high military quality of the new corps, and secretly killed them all. In the end, the Spartan army numbered less than a thousand and there was no one to oppose the Boeotian invasion. 

Later, in Roman times, Sparta became a tourist attraction, with actors replaying Spartan religious rituals and war dances.  Athens left a large literary and political legacy, Sparta left nothing. 

Tension in East China Sea

 

Nancy promised to visit Taiwan and the mainland regime is furious. After Taiwan, there are those Japanese islands. 

Saw a twit in Chinese commenting about the regime's sudden turn from a very harsh antinatalist policy (one child) to a pro-natalist incentive policy. And the Chinese people take it all without protest. Leszek Kolakowski would say that both policies are correct, i.e. true Marxism is what the Party says at any given moment. 

P.S.: Nancy has erased Taiwan from her itinerary. China did frighten off America, which means that the conflict over Eastern Pacific is real. America is fighting for its lost hegemony. 

Contentment

 

Arthur Koestler writes in his autobiography that he experienced only one or two instances of happiness in his whole life, and he considers that fair in our times of sorrow. I too have had my portion of contentment, celebrating a granddaughter's birthday. Pic.: Yesterday.

Credit Suisse frittered away Bidzina's 800 million dollars

 

Bidzina Ivanishvili from Georgia is fighting Credit Suisse in Singapore. He claims  $800 million was frittered away by convicted fraudster Patrice Lescaudron, of CS. Why I am not surprised? 

The Crowe Memorandum Predicts WWIII

 

Crowe, a German-born British diplomat, wrote a memorandum of German-French-British relations seven years before WWI. He described the existing alliance system that unavoidably would lead to war. Kissinger uses this "realistic"  school of thought to call attention that the China-USA binary could operate - mechanically - to produce the same results. China would try to dominate its region and expel the Americans, while the Americans would restrict the transference of technology that one day may be used against them. Kissinger very nicely explains that it is all symbolic, there is no need that one of the parties actually does something, the mere fact that IT COULD is the same as IT DID. No one can wait for some actual move to take place, they must plan and act as if already did happen. Henry analyses the insignificant "bellicose" actions that developed into German/British hostility, and the worst seems to have been Germany's verbal support of the Boers during the South African war. Nothing at all. Today America is organizing a chain of allies in Asia, signing mutual defense treaties, and negating technology to Chinese companies, preventing future, POTENTIAL,  hostility. Bottom line: WWIII seems to be approaching.

I'll not be here nor there, not my problem.