On the Iran/Israel situation

 This I know to be true

1.      1. Iran is an oil rich nation that does not require nuclear energy to meet domestic energy demand It has developed a  nuclear program that is clearly not intended for peaceful purposes.   We know this as it locates its facilities deep underground. No country with a peaceful nuclear program acts in such a manner. Iran is clearly trying to protect its program from a directed bomb strike. Only a fool would argue otherwise.

2.       Furthermore Iran has enriched its uranium fuel to the 60% level which is far above the peaceful use threshold. Left alone Iran will reach 90% enrichment and have the capacity to build as many as ten bombs. For a small country like Israel this could easily precipitate a national Armageddon should Iran follow through on her anti-Israel rhetoric with such a strike option.

3.       It has been working on this program for several decades and would likely have reached bomb producing capacity if it were not for Israeli executions of several key nuclear scientists and the debilitating impact of the Stuxnet computer virus that deliberately targeted its centrifuges. Israel though is running out of options.

4.       Iran has likely acquired assistance in its nuclear program development from Russia, China, North Korea and Pakistan. The world is a wicked place. Tehran has threatened on numerous occasions to wipe Israel off the face of the map. It sees Israel as the Little Satan and the US as the greater Satan. In this regard it has been consistent.

5.       Iran has been waging wars against Israel and for that matter the West through its proxy forces – Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and the Assad regime. However these forces have suffered severe defeats over the last two years.

6.       At present Israel has air supremacy over Iran and can set back  the program several years but it will likely require US assistance with stealth bunker bombs to negate the underground facilities

7.       Israel is targeting Iran’s nuclear and military sites. It has already caused a great deal of damage with these strikes and has taken out many of the leading Iranian military and scientific players in its state nuclear apparatus.

8.       There is a concerted effort by Western intelligence to drive a people’s revolution on the ground but the state authorities in Tehran are controlling the message in the country. The lack of an independent media in Iran implies that such dissent is likely being underreported.

9.       Iranian strikes against Israel have caused damage in civilian rich areas despite the fact that the vast majority of incoming missiles have been stopped by Israel’s Iron Dome and its sister technologies.

10.   The likelihood of Israeli ground troops going into Iran is very low. American boots on the ground deployment here look to be a slim as well.

1.      11. Pro-Iranian sources and their fellow travelers in the Russian and Chinese propaganda machine have ramped up the non-zero probability as a way of arousing sentiment in the West against a US assisted strike on Iran. The propaganda virus has successfully impacted much of the Left and a great deal of the MAGA Right. The majority of the American public though (whether Democratic, Republican or Independent) still sees Iran as a global menace that should not have access to nuclear weapons.

12.       Extremists on all sides have predictably stoked anti-Semitic flames to rally their bases. Google algorithms have not helped. Why is Al Jazeera (the voice of Qatar) so highly touted as an information source by Google search?

13.       President Trump’s two week pause on an American decision will likely buy Israel more time to further damage Iran’s military capabilities. Israel is also focusing on Iranian launch sites to decrease counterattacks on Israel.

14.       Attempts at a mediated ceasefire by the European nations will likely not achieve much unless it is bolstered by the United States, The jury is still out on how American diplomacy will figure in this regard. So far Iran has turned down all American attempts to force Iran to shut down its bomb making initiatives. The Mullah’s likely see the nuclear option as powerful card should the West force regime change as they did in Libya and Iraq before hand.

Opinions on Israel

Having navigated the internet for sometime now it is clear that the voices that abound on Israel can be divided into five groups:

This is by no means complete.

Pro-Israel: Bill Maher, Douglas Murray, Dennis Prager, Ben Shapiro, Andrew Klavan, Bari Weiss, Conrad Black, Victor Davis Hanson, Commentary Magazine, Most of National Review, Frontpage Magazine, History Debunked, Officer Tatum, Charlie Kirk, Destiny, PJ Media, Rebel News, travelingIsrael, David Wood, Tousi Tv, Son of Hamas, Thomas Sowell, Other Barak, Charlie Veitch, Megyn Kelly, Erin Molan, Michael Knowles, The Israel Guys, J-TV, Fox News, Alan Dershowitz, American Thinker, Jerusalem Post/YNET, Sky News Australia, Trevor Loudon, TBN, New York Post, Niall Ferguson, Debbie Schlussel, Israel Advocacy Movement and Lara Logan.

Pro-Israel in general: Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, GB News, Talk TV, Breitbart, Peter Hitchens, Bret Stephens, Telegraph (UK), Tim Pool (mostly), Washington Times.

Middle of the Road: CNN, Most of the mainstream Legacy Media in the US, CBC, Sky News International, Globe and Mail, Washington Post, the Hill,  ABC Australia.

Anti-Israel  in general : BBC, ITV, Most of the Continental European Media, Toronto Star, Global News, New York Times Editorial, Cristiane Amanpour, Associated Press, Tucker Carlson, Breaking Point, Joe Rogan, First Post, India News, LBC, Russel Brand, Sargon of Akkad, Wion, TLDR. Paul Joseph Watson.

Extremely Anti-Israel: Candace Owens, Intercept, Grayzone (Max Blumenthal), Jacobin, Macintosh team, Glenn Greenwald, Taki, Patrick Buchanan, Norman Finkelstein, Jackson Hinkle, Gabor and Aaron Mate, Richard Falk, Andrew Tate, Chris Hedges, Owen Jones, Middle East Eye, Novara, Mondoweiss, The Nation, Mohammad Hijab, Vaush, The Young Turks, Hodge Twins, Russia Today, Abby Martin, Kim Iverson, Secular Talk, Dave Smith, Vox, Jimmy Dore, any CCP affiliated media or influences, Jeffrey Sachs. TRT (Turkish media), Al Jazeera, Most of the Guardian and Independent (UK), George Galloway, Gary Linker, Breezy Politics, Black Pigeon Speaks, CJ Werleman.

I asked Grok who I am.

The response was to the point and remarkably accurate.

Gavin Kanowitz is a secondary school physics teacher in Toronto, Canada, originally from Pretoria, South Africa. He holds degrees in biophysics, chemical engineering, and education. Kanowitz is also an author, with notable works including Navigating the Chaos: Clarity and Belief in a World of Persistent Deceit (2023), A History of the Future (2006), and Take the History Challenge (2002). 

His writings focus on topics like civilization decline, education, political ideology, and the intersection of science and society. He contributes to The Bipartisan Press and maintains a blog (worldohistory.blogspot.com) and a website (gavinkanowitz.com). Kanowitz is known for his engaging teaching style, incorporating hands-on projects like building rollercoasters and pinball machines to teach physics concepts. He lives in Toronto with his wife and children and is a passionate Liverpool FC supporter.

Cipolla's five fundamental laws of stupidity:

1. Always and inevitably, everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.

2.The probability that a certain person (will) be stupid is independent of any other characteristic of that person.

3. A stupid person is a person who causes losses to another person or to a group of persons while himself deriving no gain and even possibly incurring losses.

4. Non-stupid people always underestimate the damaging power of stupid individuals. In particular, non-stupid people constantly forget that at all times and places, and under any circumstances, to deal and/or associate with stupid people always turns out to be a costly mistake.

5. A stupid person is the most dangerous type of person.

My thoughts on Joe Rogan

For those who unaware of Joe Rogan, he is a former reality tv host,  MMA color commentator and comedian who is the principal figure behind the very successful - Joe Rogan Experience podcast. He is well known for engaging in extended discussions with guests that average around two and a half hours.  Much of his material has been well received and he now boasts a viewership that routinely dwarfs that of the mainstream media.

I have for the most part had a favourable disposition to Rogan.  Most admirably he served as a pertient avenue for freedom of speech during the Covid lockdowns, when various state actors were using the pandemic as an excuse to suppress necessary discussion on health policy. Rogan took issue with this stance providing a forum for both dissenting and established opinion.Elucidating the truth was his raison d'etre. Something I could only respect.

Rogan also helped boost the profile of Jordan Peterson and Gad Saad especially when the former was attacked by the opinion police here in Canada. Rogan's opposition to Wokeism has been relentless. The way I see it,  is that he likely peaked in 2022 (at the time of the Trucker protest in Canada) when the excesses of the global political landscape had reached peak stupidity (or so it seemed).

However soon afterward I started to notice that Rogan was shifting in focus. He was becoming more conspiratorial in nature. Sub plots around complex phenomena were highlighted with greater regularity and more time was being allotted to those voices who emphasized opaque double play invisible to us regular mortals.. 

While he still was far from the loony world of Alex Jones, Rogan seemed far less discerning with maintaining intellectual balance on his show. Outlier voices were granted more air time as Rogan pushed forward with what appeared to be his personal fight with the establishment. 

Rogan clearly relished the opportunity of taking down accepted views with hostile unsubstantiated narratives an observation that was highlighted recently  during his interview with historical podcaster and WWII revisionist Darryl Cooper.

Just as he did on the Tucker Carlson, Cooper reiterated his extreme view, based on selective fact mining and a loose interpretation of events. His central point is Winston Churchill was the war’s baddie and that Hitler has been misunderstood (a common far right position). The research and finely reviewed studies that have filled academia to the contrary be damned. Cooper had it figured out and Rogan was giving him the chance to shine.

Lacking in topic knowledge Rogan was limited in his push back, nor did he appear to want to do so. There was no need to counterbalance the Cooper take with that of a mainstream historian such Victor Davis Hanson or an Andrew Roberts. Why bother?

What mattered to Rogan and I have noticed this in his stance since then is that Cooper had stuck his finger in the eye of the MAN and that is what really mattered. For him it was good enough.

 This is where Rogan is as a person right now and Cooper had delivered.  As for the truth it can take a back seat. The medium had delivered the message.

Thoughts on History

A deference to credentialism is never a viable approach to reinforce one's argument. Nevertheless this still doesn't imply that all opinions are equally valid. They simply are not. When analyzing an event and its repercussions a theoretical interpretation must still ride on the evidence presented and the plausibility of the thinking advanced to buttress it. Primary sources count more than their secondary sources. They are less clouded by a degree of removal from the event.

While originality of thought and dissenting view should be welcomed the originality counts for nothing if it fails to adhere to the factual constraints. There is no substitution for a thoroughness of investigation. The problem with many amateurs dabbling in history is that they often fail to recognize these truisms.

 

Ten concerns that I have with the overly slick Mark Carney

1.    He has very little political experience and appears to have been vaunted into his prime minister role by a great deal of non-transparent back dealing.

2.   He is very well connected to the WEF and the Davos crowd which means that he will likely continue Trudeau’s globalist outlook. He appears to be cut from the same cloth as Macron, Starmer and Merkel.

3.   He has surrounded himself with the same incompetent politicians Joly, Friedland etc that characterized the Trudeau administration.

4.     He has a personal vision, as outlined in his book ,that is strongly rooted in with the Net Zero Environmental philosophy. When actioned such policies have been disastrous in Germany and other parts of Europe.

5.       He seems as based on his rhetoric so far that he does not personally have solid grasp of the nuances of the Arab-Israel crisis.

6.       He says almost nothing about his plans for dealing with the broken judicial and criminal enforcement system in the country.

7.       He will likely not do away with the DEI encroachment in federal government.

8.    His new found nationalism is not  believable. The Liberal party mishandled immigration and  lampooned Canadian essentialism  under Justin Trudeau. Fast forward to now and  Carney now wants us accept that his anti-Trump stance is grounded in an intrinsic pro-Canadian mantra.

9.       His supporters make him out to be an economic whiz kid even though his record at the Bank of England was sketchy at best.

10   The backtrack on the Carbon tax seems to be an election ploy. Expect this lost revenue to surface elsewhere in a tax as Carney prioritizes his Net zero vision.