The reason why I don’t remove Ian Welsh and Co from my blogroll is that it is useful to have a measure of insanity at hand. I get many comments on this blog and it isn’t always obvious whether the authors are fit to participate in discussions. So I ask myself how similar the comment is to Walsh ‘ s writings and immediately know if I should let it appear on my blog.

According to this analysis, the most popular cuisine in my state is Pakistani. I wonder if people who create these maps ever visit the states they write about. In Chicago, one can find Pakistani food if one really tries but Illinois is enormous and there is a lot more than Chicago in it. I only wish we were sophisticated enough to have bunches of Pakistani restaurants everywhere. Gosh, I’d be happy with just one.

I watched a CNN debate last night between a rabbi and a Muslim college professor and I’ve got to say, the rabbi made some good points while the professor made a really bad impression.

The rabbi was saying that, given everything that’s been going on, one would expect a more active response to fundamentalists from moderate, non-fundamentalist Muslims. Everybody is waiting for an active and loud repudiation of the fanatics on the part of mainstream Muslims. But there hasn’t been one. Everything interesting and meaningful that I have read online, seen on TV and heard in person on the subject of Charlie Hebdo came from non-Muslims. The only interesting pieces on whether the attacks are related to Islam, honestly, came from me. All I’ve seen and heard from Muslims on the subject was the sulky, “The cartoonists were insulting my identity, so why should I be on their side?” (this was a tweet somebody linked to that made me cringe with disgust.) I’m not denying the possibility that moderate Muslims are saying more valuable and insightful things than this infantile bit of extreme idiocy but they are not getting the message out very well. And I was glad to hear the rabbi finally state the painfully obvious: we are all waiting. Give us something here.

The Muslim professor unfortunately chose to take the position of sulky infantilism, as well. His position was “But why do we have to give any explanations if we haven’t done anything?” As a professor, I’m sure he is well aware of how silly this approach is. The Pope apologized for the Inquisition he obviously didn’t contribute to. The King of Spain apologized for the expulsion of the Jews that wasn’t even perpetrated by his royal family. This had been done several royal families away and many centuries earlier, yet he still apologized. Germans are paying reparations to Jews and Ukrainians, even though neither Merkel nor today’s German taxpayers are guilty of the Holocaust.

I can’t imagine a situation where people would come to me asking me to explain what is going on in Ukraine and I’d adopt a pouty expression and respond, in a petulant voice, that I don’t see why I have to explain anything and that all Ukrainians are different. As a Russian-speaker, I’ve been doing nothing but repudiating Putinoids and distancing myself from the Russian neo-fascism. And I don’t think that it’s somehow beneath me to do that. And by the way, unlike a religious identity, the linguistic identity can’t be chosen, changed, or abandoned.

The rabbi obviously won the debate. Here is an excerpt from his article:

We rightly don’t wish to identify Islam as an inherently violent religion. I have repeatedly argued against this belief and brought proofs from history. We don’t want to tar regular, everyday G-d fearing Muslims who simply wish to observe their faith in peace with a violent brush. . .

What we have every right to expect is that Muslims of every stripe and denomination condemn violence in the name of Islam, dismiss Imams who promote violence, and cast out any and all Islamic voices who call for bloodletting in Islam’s name. The time has come for a coordinated world march—by Muslims—against Islamic violence. If 30,000 Muslims can march in the streets of Paris and London last summer to condemn Israel, then surely they can also march to condemn violence in Islam’s name. Imagine the impact of a million Muslims marching in New York, London, Paris, and Jerusalem to condemn all violence in the name of Islam. Imagine the statement it would make to whose who seek to hijack Islam and turn it violent.

I think Rabbi Shmuley is definitely on to something here. Islam used to be a great religion with an enormous civilizational potential that prevented Europe from sliding completely into barbarity. Muslims gave the Western civilization back to the West after it was almost entirely lost. And that is an enormous gift of historic significance. And now Islam is being hijacked by a small minority of vicious cannibals while nobody seems to do anything productive about it.

As you probably know, ISIS posted a video yesterday, showing a 10 – year-old boy executing two Russian men. The video identified the two men as FSB (former KGB) agents.

This is not getting any coverage in Russia because Russians have found themselves in a weird situation. One the one hand, Russia is fighting a war to repel the hated West with its “degenerate values.” On the other, Russia is still lumped with the West when it comes to killing Western hostages. So now Russians are left without a narrative where they could fit two Russian hostages slaughtered by ISIS.

It must also be embarrassing to lose two people to ISIS two seconds after engaging in a collective mocking of the victims of the terror attacks in France.

In the past 20 years, Russia sold petroleum in the amount of 3,5 trillion dollars US. This money is nowhere to be found. Nothing was built, no social programs were instituted. The existing social programs are being dismantled. Russia ‘ s banks owe $600 billion.

Where did the money go, you might ask? It went to pay for the ridiculously extravagant lifestyles of Putin ‘ s lapdog oligarchs.

All of the Western B-list starlets (Naomi Campbell, Enrique Iglesias, Mickey Rourke, Mila Jovovich, etc) were hanging out in Russia, peddling their aging bodies and past-sell-by date notoriety in Moscow because there was just so damn much money there. Moscow was drowning in petro-dollars siphoned away by Putin ‘ s pet oligarchs.

In the meantime, the rates of drug addiction (especially among the teenagers) are soaring. The HIV rates are exploding. Russia is the only country where HIV for the most part doesn’t spread sexually. The disease is reaching epidemic proportions because of the use of shared needles by addicts.

Economic inequality has reached epic proportions. Instead of pouring snot over a copy of Hunger Games, look at Russia where your idol Putin has created a glittering capital that is drowning in every conceivable luxury while the rest of the enormous country is boozing and drugging itself to death amidst utter hopelessness and horrible poverty.

I’m sick to death of writing these posts about Putin. But only today I got comments from 3 facile fools glorifying this vicious little animal. What else can I do but keep writing if you people are refusing to take your heads out of your asses? I haven’t been on Facebook for months because I’m tired of the deluge of Putiniana idiocy that I will encounter. Something is so wrong about all of you Putin-lickers and you are not even aware of it.

The proportion of small businesses owned by immigrants is growing. The percentage of businesses owned by immigrants is twice as large as the percentage of immigrants in the population:

Of course, this is caused, in part, by the reluctance to hire immigrants on the part of employers. But immigrants end up with greater independence as a result, which is good.

The semester has started, and everyone is running around like their tails are on fire.

I, in the meantime, am lying on the sofa in front of a fireplace, reading a book. And I’m planning to stay here until January of 2016. Please wake me up in a year.

It took some engineering, but I have managed to set things up so that I get a whole year to work on the book while massively strengthening my scholarly base. I have designed courses that I will teach to myself to fill in the lacunae in my knowledge.

This will be a research year and I know it will be fun.

Putin is worshiped both on the left and on the right of the political spectrum:

Germany’s leftist Die Linke and the far right Alternative für Deutschland both contain pro-Russian sympathizers that opposed German action in the Ukraine last year. These old-style isolationists have stopped short of Marine Le Pen’s open hand-holding with Russia—so far. But “peace” with Russia is one of Pegida’s goals in its grand strategy to reform the German State, and the group could be open to the same sort of manipulation that we’ve seen in France.

In the US, it’s mostly the Lefties who deify the vicious little troll. In Europe, it’s mostly the Righties. Their love for Putin is evidence of the extreme infantilization that has conquered our politics. Everybody is dreaming of a strong parental figure that will chase away the big bad wolf. 

For Pegida, the big bad wolf is an immigrant. For American pseudo-Liberal academics, it’s the CIA. It doesn’t really matter who is assigned magical powers in the childish fantasies of the contemporary whiner. The deified magician Putin is coming to save the good little Lefties and the nice little Righties from the big bad wolves spawned by their childish imaginations.

 

The last quote today, I promise. But it’s too good not to be shared:

No wonder Anglo Leftist academics feel such innate sympathy with Jihadists; they both enjoy whacking people with sacred texts which have no real relevance to the present moment.

The rest of the article is also brilliant.

Suppose the Republicans nominate Jeb Bush, as seems at least plausible. What’s the Clinton message in such a contest? “My husband had a better job creation record than your brother”? She won’t be able to portray him as a candidate who owes everything to his famous last name.

A very bizarre presidential campaign awaits us.

The Democrats need to stop presenting candidates who were never in charge of anything. Are there no Democratic former governors around? A president who used to be a governor makes more sense than a president who was a senator for two minutes.

Of course, we are facing a contest between two people who are only known to us because they once stood next to someone who actually achieved something. And that’s just boring.