From the Political Front

 Anti-Semitism has been mainstreamed by nefarious actors, bot farms  and a growing movement of voices eager to find a scapegoat for their respective problems and shortfalls. A large degree of anti-Semitic rhetoric online comes from the Middle East, China and other parts of Asia.

Most reported news today is narrative driven. Much of it is downright lies and if it does carry elements of truth one has to be cognizant to employ the necessary thinking skills to navigate the bias. There are however islands of sanity still surviving in the deluge of dross.

It is rather hilarious to see countries that refuse to recognize Israel’s existence showing tantrums over the country’s recognition of Somaliland. The lack of awareness of irony is indicative of the mess that is modern global politics.

The reality of post-colonialism is the establishment of a multitude of failed states.

The Iranian Revolution of 2026 is a litmus test for morality which is why it has been so loathed by many on the political extremes.

Reflections XXXIX - More Pulsations of the Mind

I fail to see how the existence of a transcendent entity as the cause of the original singularity is any less plausible then the origin of a primordial quantum foam operating with the constraints of physics bubbling a universe into existence.

Civilizations collapse when its leaders lose the ability to distinguish between good and bad ideas.

The purpose of life is to render meaning to what on the surface appears to be meaningless.

No amount of constructive building can rescue a political system that is built on flawed assumptions. This is the common tragedy of Marxism, Fascism and Islam.

The market can be a cruel and uncaring reality but it is never wrong economically.

You can lie to the world without paying a price but you cannot lie to your finances. It will coming collecting at some points.

Ultimately any scam will collapse in the long run as those instigating it have to rely on the integrity of people who are most flawed in such an attribute.

Beware of derived vocabulary overload, it is the surest way to tell that an intellectual model lacks empirical and practical foundation.

Judaism unlike Christianity does not damn unbelievers to an afterlife of no salvation.

Much of the turbulence of history has been driven by those chasing false assumptions and making gods of bad ideas.

Reflections XXXVIII - January Looking Glass

Nothing has more inertia than time. It is impossible to stop, slow down or speed up. Its motion is consistent.

What the ancient Greeks lacked in unity they made up for in innovation. However like all who had conquered so much they were destined to fall to more disciplined version of themselves, which explains their fall to the emerging Roman goliath.

The Persians had a great Empire but ultimately their forces were disadvantaged when fighting the Greeks. Lacking the centralize bureaucracy of their Eastern opponents the Greeks empowered  their smaller fighting force to act with a greater independence in battle thus maximizing the outcome of the rank and file.

Without a corporate capitalism the Scandinavians would simply not have the wealth that the socialists wish to distribute. The greatest success of these countries is that there has been enough cooler heads to prevent this wealth from being destroyed by the inevitable collectivist overreach.

One of the key functions of the Qatari money machine is to wage war against the Jews worldwide. This has the form of a multi prong attack which involves nurturing anti-Semitism on campus, the media and the corporate world disguised as the seemingly less innocuous label of anti-Zionism.

On Pundits, podcasters and youtubers

These are some pundits/podcasters that I find to be very reliable: 

Victor Davis Hanson (Geopolitics), Daniel Greenfield (All forms of Radicalism), Andy Ngo (writes well on ANTIFA), Raymond Ibrahim/David Wood/Apostate Prophet (All are great on Islam), Alan Dershowitz (Legal Issues), Andrew Klavan (Culture Wars), Ryan Macbeth (military technology and the cyber wars), Simcha Jacobovici (Simchas's Session - Biblical Archaeology + the Middle East), Warren Smith (Critical Thinking), Gad Saad (Mind viruses and radicalisms), Jonathan Turley (Law), Ben Shapiro (Conservatism in general), Dennis Prager (Culture Wars), Sabine Hossenfelder (Science), Bari Weiss (US politics), Veritasium (Science), Jordan Peterson (Psychology,,unfortunately his health like Prager's is a problem lately), Indy Neidell (20th century history), Andrew Gold (Heretics...good interviewer), Preston Stewart (military), Serpentza (China) and  Chris Wyatt (South Africa).

I also like the vlogging work of Charlie Veitch, Tousi TV, Nick Shirley. A young up and coming pundit who has great potential for the future is Moderate Case... bigger on Instagram.

The following pundits/sites are absolutely terrible: Cenk Uygur/Ana Kasperian (Young Turks), Jimmy Dore, Scott Ritter, Dave Smith George Galloway, Owen Jones, Max Blumenthal/Grayzone, Sam Seder, Secular Talk, Breaking Point,  The Intercept, Jen Perelman, Kim Iverson, Tucker Carlson, Candace Owens, Mark Dice, Nick Fuentes, Valhalla, Marc Lamont Hill and Peter Beinart.

These individuals are hit and miss...too many misses for my liking but not as bad as the previous list....Piers Morgan, Benny Johnson, Jake Tapper, Anderson Cooper,  Theo Von, Megyn Kelly, Joe Rogan, Glenn Greenwald (terrible on Israel..great on free speech), Richard Dawkins (Great on science not so good on politics), Peter Hitchens (largely gets the issues but is way too pessimistic), Firstpost/ WION (Indian media).

43 Signs of Western Decline (not in any order)

1.       Population growth rate numbers below 2.1 in almost every OECD country. 

2.       Somali Fraud scandal in Minnesota estimated in the billions of dollars.

3.       No Go zones  in various European cities with large muslim populations.

4.       Increase in mass stabbing kills and rapes in European cities.

5.       Illegal immigrant influx into sanctuary cities in the US.

6.       Human trafficking epidemic.

7.       Grooming gang scandals in the UK.

8.       Substantial decrease in University undergraduate average IQ.

9.       Dangerously high inflation levels in many Western European countries.

10.      Increase in Random subway attacks in American cities.

11.   Growth of Democratic Socialist politics in the United States.

12.   Post-Truth narratives being pushed by both sides of the political agenda. Disdain for historical truth.

13.   Rise of Identitarian politics in many Western countries.

14.   Multiple gender movement insanity.

15.   DEI policies triumphing over common sense meritocracy.

16.   Falling academic standards in the West and the subsequent increase in grade inflation.

17.   The cancerous spread of Islamism in the West.

18.   The empowerment of a political elite that seems indifferent to the needs of the population and has pushed through a radical agenda of increased immigration.

19.   Increase in overt anti-Semitism in the West.

20.   Decrease in the quality of art and music.

21.   Growing rise of AI as a dominant force in the creativity industry.

22.   External Bot farms corrupting political narratives.

23.   Growing corruption of government institutions by ideological actors.

24.   Failed green policies handicapping nations. Looking at you Germany.2

26.   Growth of crypto currency scamming initiatives

27.   Cultures of entitlement permeating western society.

28.   State restrictions on freedom of speech in the UK and other European countries

29.   The fall and breakdown of the family unit.

30.   The prevalence of deleterious crony capitalism.

31.   Criminal use of legal loopholes in various Western countries.

32.   Weak and indecisive leadership.

33.   Cultural Relativism winning over shared standards.

34.   Poor city management in almost every large American urban area.

35.   Chinese economic and intellectual penetration of American industry and the subsequent theft of technology

36.   Two tiered policing and multiple standards based on ethnicity.

37.   White guilt and self loathing epidemics.

38.   Corruption of the churches by external agents

39.   The ideological corruption of international law

40.   Clash of cultures as a result of obvious population replacement

41.   Fall of local manufacturing as a function of global initiatives.

42.   Low levels of wage increase and the affordability crisis.

43.   The Fentanyl crisis

Reflections - XXXVII - Necessary Distractions

There was no single type of feudalism that served as the model for European society but almost all systems gave the lord tremendous power with respect to sentencing for criminal offences, the initiation of capital punishment and rigid control of agricultural policy.

 It seems as though humanity has an innate desire to create art and that is certainly a wonderful characteristic of our species. While the judgement of art is no doubt subjective the compulsion is universal and in the long run western civilization has been the better for it.

Every football (soccer) fan, regardless of the quality of the team, always seem to hover just one defeat away from an apocalyptic catastrophe.

Add genocide to a list of descriptors that include racist, diversity and discrimination that have been so overly used by hyperbole that they have lost all meaning.

The modus operandi for all grafters is when in doubt virtue signal.

What is true of Edward Snowdon is that he was a necessary whistleblower who in fleeing to Russia ultimately betrayed his country. Two apparently oppositional points can exist concurrently.

Thoughts on History

While the Persian made many contributions to Western Civilization their greatest legacy arguably lies with the religion of Zoroastrianism – one of the earliest attempts at monotheism and the dualism of good and evil as forces in nature. The Abrahamic religions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam – have all placed considerable emphasis on these notions within their respective theological philosophies

The Milesian thinker and mathematician Thales is considered to be one of the fathers of the Western Philosophical tradition. Why is that? While many of his contemporaries were running around blaming natural events on the ongoing strife of the gods Thales believed that such phenomena could be BEST understood by rationally unravelling the structure of matter that he believed was centred around water as the originating principle. In doing so Thales helped take explanation beyond the scope of the supernatural and so galvanized the earliest school of philosophy named after the Ionian City in which he resided (Miletus).

If ever you wish to reflect on the Brilliance of Western Civilization look no further than the great cathedrals that define Gothic Architecture. Majestic, tall and inspiring these incredible buildings revolutionized our collective heritage with a unique fusion of science, design, artistic flair and constructive brilliance. Gothic Architecture continued the tradition of representing a celestial paradise on Earth.