Posts
"Other people's lives may easily be human documents. But a man's own life is always a melodrama.”
G.K. Chesterton
"I do not know what the heart of a rascal may be, but I know what is in the heart of an honest man; it is horrible."
Joseph de Maistre
"Brexit was a declaration of war on the global establishment, and as a result Britain is being held to a higher standard than other, more compliant countries. After years of bad publicity from an international media that was almost entirely anti-Brexit, such an attitude is no surprise, even if it is galling. Every problem in the UK is magnified, and immediately (and wrongly) blamed on our idiosyncratic decision to govern ourselves and reject the strictures of global bureaucrats."
Allister Heath today in the Daily Telegraph
"I should mention in passing the Leftist/progressivist/humanist opinion: we are not dealing with a suicide but with a regeneration. Ethnic composition is, admittedly, being modified, but in the essentials everything else remains unchanged: our republic (or rather in Europe, mostly our monarchy) our culture, our values, our “Rule of Law,” all that stuff. I sometimes hear this opinion being defended (though more and more rarely).
"The 45% of French people who believe, on the other hand, in impending civil war help to show (and it is almost sweet) that France remains a nation of braggarts.
"It takes two to wage war. Are the French going to take up arms to defend their religion? They haven’t had any religion for quite some time; and in any case, their former religion is the sort where you offer your throat to the butcher’s blade.
"Would it then be a war to defend their culture, their way of life, their system of values? What exactly are we talking about? And supposing it does exist, is it worth fighting for? Does our “civilisation” really still have something to be proud of?"
"The 45% of French people who believe, on the other hand, in impending civil war help to show (and it is almost sweet) that France remains a nation of braggarts.
"It takes two to wage war. Are the French going to take up arms to defend their religion? They haven’t had any religion for quite some time; and in any case, their former religion is the sort where you offer your throat to the butcher’s blade.
"Would it then be a war to defend their culture, their way of life, their system of values? What exactly are we talking about? And supposing it does exist, is it worth fighting for? Does our “civilisation” really still have something to be proud of?"
Michel Houellebecq
“If we were to endeavour…. to ascertain which European nation has contributed the most to the progress of European civilization, we should find Italy, Germany, England, and Spain, each claiming the first degree, but each also naming France as clearly next in merit. It is impossible to deny her paramount importance in history.”
Sir Edward Creasy in his Decisive Battles of the World, quoted recently by Ed West
Sept 2021
ReplyDeleteIran gets full Shanghai Cooperation Organization membership with Russia's help.
https://www.yenisafak.com/en/world/iran-gets-full-shanghai-cooperation-organization-membership-with-russias-help-3580463
25-year China-Iran strategic partnership
ReplyDeleteChina will invest US$280 billion in developing Iran’s oil, gas, and petrochemicals sectors. This amount will be front-loaded into the first five-year period of the new 25-year deal, and the understanding is that further amounts will be available in each subsequent five year period, provided that both parties agree. There will be another US$120 billion of investment, which again can be front-loaded into the first five-year period, for upgrading Iran’s transport and manufacturing infrastructure, and again subject to increase in each subsequent period should both parties agree.
To begin with, China intends to utilise the currently cheap labour available in Iran to build factories that will be financed, designed, and overseen by big Chinese manufacturing companies with identical specifications and operations to those in China. The final manufactured products will then be able to access Western markets through new transport links, also planned, financed, and managed by China.
Iran had signed a contract with China to implement a project to electrify the main 900 kilometre railway connecting Tehran to the north-eastern city of Mashhad. Jahangiri added that there are also plans to establish a Tehran-Qom-Isfahan high-speed train line and to extend this upgraded network up to the north-west through Tabriz. Tabriz, home to a number of key sites relating to oil, gas, and petrochemicals, and the starting point for the Tabriz-Ankara gas pipeline, will be a pivot point of the 2,300 kilometre New Silk Road that links Urumqi (the capital of China’s western Xinjiang Province) to Tehran.
Sino-Russian bombers, fighters, and transport planes will have unrestricted access to Iranian air bases.
This process will begin with purpose-built dual-use facilities next to the existing airports at Hamedan, Bandar Abbas, Chabhar, and Abadan.
The bombers to be deployed will be China-modified versions of the long-range Russian Tupolev Tu-22M3s, with a manufacturing specification range of 6,800 kilometres (2,410 km with a typical weapons load), and the fighters will be the all-weather supersonic medium-range fighter bomber/strike Sukhoi Su-34, plus the newer single-seat stealth attack Sukhoi-57. At the same time, Chinese and Russian military vessels will be able to use newly-created dual-use facilities at Iran’s key ports at Chabahar, Bandar-e-Bushehr, and Bandar Abbas, constructed by Chinese companies.
These deployments will be accompanied by the roll-out of Chinese and Russian electronic warfare (EW) capabilities, according to the Iran sources. This would encompass each of the three key EW areas - electronic support (including early warning of enemy weapons use) plus electronic attack (including jamming systems) plus electronic protection. Based originally around neutralising NATO’s C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance, and Reconnaissance) systems, part of the new roll-out of software and hardware from China and Russia in Iran, according to the Iran sources, would be the Russian S-400 anti-missile air defence system: “To counter U.S. and/or Israeli attacks.”
Simon Watkins for Oilprice.com
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/China-Inks-Military-Deal-With-Iran-Under-Secretive-25-Year-Plan.html
“Who can compete with the government?”
ReplyDeleteJohn Gotti, Jr., in response to allegations that the Gotti crime family was dealing drugs
“In a digital age, data about money is worth more than money.”
ReplyDeleteNicholas Negroponte, founding Chairman of the MIT Media Lab
https://dillonreadandco.com/a-note-on-protecting-the-brand-with-dirty-tricks/
That quote from Houellebecq is absolutely devastating. Thanks for sharing.
ReplyDeleteYes. The whole article is here. http://3.249.69.63/viewtopic.php?f=38&t=659
DeleteThis article from 2017 is astonishing. https://www.takimag.com/article/le_grand_remplacement_steve_sailer/
In France newborn babies are screened for risk of developing sickle-cell anemia, but babies are only at risk if both parents are of African, Arab or Caribbean origin or in some cases are from Corsica or Sicily. The number of babies tested rose from 25% in 2005 to 39% in 2015. In the Greater Paris region in 2015 it was 73%.
“There is no such thing as French culture” said Emmanuel Macron campaigning in Lyons in February 2017 and he seemed happy about that.
Well, sweeping second place got Themistocles the prize for arete among all the Greek admirals.
ReplyDeleteHarboring such heavy distrust must be a dark, lonely way to live.
ReplyDeleteDo you mean me? I am much too trusting.
DeleteFor one example of many I could adduce I didn't think the Wuhan virus and the Wuhan laboratory of Virology were likely to be linked. I originally hoped the euro would work and be the equivalent of the gold standard before the Great War.
DeleteTruth is so obscure in these times, and falsehood so established, that, unless we love the truth, we cannot know it.
ReplyDeleteBlaise Pascal
Pascal is so good.
DeleteDon't try to add more years to your life. Better add more life to your years.
ReplyDeleteBlaise Pascal
Did he say that? It sounds like a Christmas cracker motto. But it's very wise and true.
Delete'Did he say that?'
DeleteProbably not. Can't find the original.
Definitely not him.
DeleteThere are only three types of people; those who have found God and serve him; those who have not found God and seek him, and those who live not seeking, or finding him. The first are rational and happy; the second unhappy and rational, and the third foolish and unhappy.
ReplyDeleteBlaise Pascal
Very good and very interesting. The people in the second and third categories often seem happy enough, though the second category are restless. People in the first category can be at ease in Zion and give God little thought. What about Muslim zealots, fighters and Islamists? They are happy perhaps
DeleteNot sure how rational. It depends what you mean by God and by rational.
The last proceeding of reason is to recognize that there is an infinity of things which are beyond it. There is nothing so conformable to reason as this disavowal of reason.
DeleteBlaise Pascal
The last one, I swear:
ReplyDeleteEven those who write against fame wish for the fame of having written well, and those who read their works desire the fame of having read them.
Blaise Pascal
Keep them coming, Toma. Can't have too many quotations from Pascal.
ReplyDeletePaul Marks: Independence "works" if there is a government that respects private property rights and traditional liberties. Tragically we do not have such a government. But then - neither does the European Union.
ReplyDelete