False sense of safety

*

The worst invention in the Western Civilization's recent history was a result of Americans' attempt to reduce fatalities from road accidents. They introduced the inflatable airbag into the cars. Now the passengers drive, having a sense of safety.

If I were trying to reduce the accidents, I would put a sharp knife in the middle of the steering wheel. And that would reduce the accidents, because, by G-d, people would be driving carefully now.

-- Hugh Hendry, British hedge funds manager (and a famous critic of the government's attempts to manage the economy)

The point of the above quote is that by creating agencies that manage our safety for us, without our choice, the government makes us less safe. First, the agencies like FDA are extremely inefficient and in general bad at what they're trying to do, as a result of being monopolies. But more severely, they prevent us from caring for our own lives and safety.

As a result, you have attempts at logical arguments that state that without FDA, unsafe drugs and food would fill the markets, because the people wouldn't have anyone watching out for them (while the businesses would of course care more about selling the drugs and not about the safety of their customers). The people who make them cannot imagine that someone might want to care for his own safety, relying (if necessary) on private inspection agencies whose reputation he would keep an eye on.


And I think, in the end, that is the worst result of socialism: it changes the culture. It creates a nation of slaves, of people who are similar to a 30-year-old who lives with his parents and is unable to make a decision himself about his life. (As I have written before, studies show that children who were given some small allowances and allowed to manage their purchases themselves grew up to be more responsible adults.)

This is the worst result of American and European governments' policies. We see this culture of dependent junkies in Greece today. When their government attempts to cut down on spending, they come out to streets and protest, since they are not getting the free pie.

The same thing happened in the Roman Empire: in an attempt to please the public and win popularity, the government created welfare programs, feeding and entertaining the masses for free (the source of the 'bread and circuses' expression). Unfortunately, this could not be sustained forever. In an attempt to pay for the ever-increasing demands of the public, Roman government debased the currency, creating massive economic crisis that spanned the centuries and was one of the reasons for the downfall of the Empire.

In my opinion, unless drastic change of course is undertaken (by the people themselves -- for the government will never change itself for the better), both American and European societies are headed the same way. They will destroy themselves from the inside, degenerating socially, economically, and culturally.

___________________________
* source of image

Medieval Iceland as an example of private law creation and enforcement

Fascinating article on private law in Iceland: Private Creation and Enforcement of Law: A Historical Case.

Legal conflicts were of great interest to the medieval Icelanders: Njal, the eponymous hero of the most famous of the sagas, is not a warrior but a lawyer: "so skilled in law that no one was considered his equal." In the action of the sagas, law cases play as central a role as battles. 

Second, medieval Icelandic institutions have several peculiar and interesting characteristics; they might almost have been invented by a mad economist to test the lengths to which market systems could supplant government in its most fundamental functions. Killing was a civil offense resulting in a fine paid to the survivors of the victim. Laws were made by a "parliament," seats in which were a marketable commodity. Enforcement of law was entirely a private affair. 

And yet these extraordinary institutions survived for over three hundred years, and the society in which they survived appears to have been in many ways an attractive one. Its citizens were, by medieval standards, free; differences in status based on rank or sex were relatively small; and its literary, output in relation to its size has been compared, with some justice, to that of Athens. 

While the characteristics of the Icelandic legal system may seem peculiar, they are not unique to medieval Iceland. The wergeld -- the fine for killing a man -- was an essential part of the legal system of Anglo-Saxon England, and still exists in New Guinea. The sale of legislative seats has been alleged in many societies and existed openly in some. Private enforcement existed both in the American West and in pre-nineteenth-century Britain: a famous character of eighteenth-century fiction, Mr. Peachum in Gay's "Beggar's Opera," was based on Jonathan Wild, self-titled 'Thief-Taker General," who profitably combined the professions of thief-taker, recoverer of stolen property, and large-scale employer of thieves for eleven years, until he was finally hanged in l725. The idea that law is primarily private, that most offenses are offenses against specific individuals or families, and that punishment of the crime is primarily the business of the injured party seems to be common to many early systems of law and has been discussed at some length by Maine with special reference to the early history of Roman law. 

Medieval Iceland, however, presents institutions of private enforcement of law in a purer form than any other well-recorded society of which I am aware. Even early Roman law recognized the existence of crimes, offenses against society rather than against any individual, and dealt with them, in effect, by using the legislature as a special court. Under Anglo-Saxon law killing was an offense against the victim's family, his lord, and the lord of the place whose peace had been broken; wergeld was paid to the family, manbote to the crown, and fightwite to the respective lords. British thief-takers in the eighteenth century were motivated by a public reward of 40 [pounds sterling] per thief. 

All of these systems involved some combination of private and public enforcement. The Icelandic system developed without any central authority comparable to the Anglo-Saxon king; as a result, even where the Icelandic legal system recognized an essentially "public" offense, it dealt with it by giving some individual (in some cases chosen by lot from those affected) the right to pursue the case and collect the resulting fine, thus fitting it into an essentially private system.

Read on in the article.

Next time somebody asks you for a success story of anarchy, point him to this article. Iceland successfully existed in this state for 300 years and fared better (in societal sense) than many other countries. Life in Iceland may have been harder than in France, but let's not forget that it was basically a settlement on top of an icy rock.

(Yes, it's true that eventually the state of anarchy ended, and Iceland became subjugated to another king. But please point me to its statist contemporary that did not suffer the same fate.)

By the way, another example is medieval Ireland.

The point is not that Icelandic or Irish societies were Heaven on Earth. The point is that private law creation and enforcement are clearly feasible within the framework of human society. Ancient wheels were also not as good as modern wheels. And anyone who has read Shulchan Aruch HaRav knows what use Russian peasants had for rocks as late as the 18th century.

So, with modern technology, modern development of natural and social sciences, with modern levels of population, capital accumulation, experience, and private initiative, surely we can much better than the medieval Irish and Icelanders. There is no reason to believe that if they were able to accomplish something in the "simpler times" we can't do the same in the modern times.

Just like there was a short period of considerable cooling down of climate in the last few centuries, known as the Little Ice Age, I think that the 20th century will be known in the future as "The Little Dark Age". All the crying out for liberty that we hear nowadays is by no means a new phenomenon. If you read the writings of the Founding Fathers (and philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Locke or Adam Smith), you will see a very clear and sharp understanding of the evils of the government and the necessity for private initiative in all areas.

Heresy

In Middle Ages, Christian theologians postulated that heresy is even worse than heathenism. Because when someone is a heathen, he is openly a non-Christian, and thus no Christian can be confused and ensnared by him. A heretic, however, while being the enemy of the Church and its little god, pretends to be a Christian and espouses some of the doctrines of Christianity — thus, he is dangerous to an average Christian who may not be able to tell a difference between a heretic and a true believer. (And that is why the Church oppressed Jews and, lehavdil, Muslim, but burned the Christian heretics.)

Following this logic of thinking, this is the most dangerous political philosophy:

Napoleon gained support by appealing to some common concerns of French people. These included dislike of the emigrant nobility who had escaped persecution, fear by some of a restoration of the ancien régime, a dislike and suspicion of foreign countries had tried to reverse the Revolution — and a wish by Jacobins to extend France's revolutionary ideals.

Bonaparte attracted power and imperial status and gathered support for his changes of French institutions, such as the Concordat of 1801 which confirmed the Catholic Church as the majority church of France and restored some of its civil status. Napoleon by this time, however, was not a democrat, nor a republican. He was, he liked to think, an enlightened despot, the sort of man Voltaire might have found appealing. He preserved numerous social gains of the Revolution while suppressing political liberty. He admired efficiency and strength and hated feudalism, religious intolerance, and civil inequality. Enlightened despotism meant political stability. He knew his Roman history well: after 500 years of republicanism, Rome became an empire under Augustus Caesar.

Although a supporter of the radical Jacobins during the early days of the Revolution (more out of pragmatism than any real ideology), Napoleon moved to tyranny as his political career progressed and once in power embraced certain aspects of both liberalism and authoritarianism — for example, public education, a generally liberal restructuring of the French legal system, and the emancipation of the Jews — while rejecting electoral democracy and freedom of the press.

Because open and complete tyranny is obviously evil. And inefficient government is obviously disastrous. But Napoleon’s model — a strong government that provides for most civil liberties, a government that is oppressive but only for the purpose of being “efficient” and resolute — may sound attractive to some. It takes greater intelligence and more time to recognize the problem with this system.

Just like I was an atheist before I became a frum Jew, I was a supporter of a strong centralized government that provided for civil freedoms — a “Conservative” in American terms — before I became a libertarian.

(Alter Rebbe, by the way, also recognized the danger of the attractive lure of Napoleon’s promises of emancipation of the Jews. Better to be confronted by a clear enemy such as the oppresive Russian Tzar who sponsored pogroms than by a hidden one like Napoleon who would give civil freedom with his right hand and assimilation with his left one. Thus, during the Napoleonic invasion of Russia, Alter Rebbe opposed Napoleon.)

It’s a man’s world

As everyone knows, until feminism came about, there were no strong women.

A little history...

I think Italian history is fun...





Ah, Catholics. Fun people. (The bit about the Templars is false in the second clip, but besides that...)

Sisu

“Have you heard of Finnish sisu?” asks a character in “Mortlake” — and it turns out that sisu is a sort of stamina or staying-power which the Finns have had to develop as a result of living next door to the Russians.
— Nigel Dennis, New York Times Book Review

When my car’s engine was threatening to stop as I was driving in the darkness to NYC, I was thinking of this clip. Not because of all the driving prowess, but because of what they said about sisu — a Finish version of guts, spine and other organs symbolizing courage and determination.

Lesson over, we stopped for a cup of hot raindeer blood [not really] and talked about why the Fins are so suited for motorsports.
— Tell me a bit about sisu. What’s sisu?
— Sisu in English means “courage”. What to a Fin is courage. Let me give you an example. Climbing up this tree. And then jumping down from there. Now that doesn’t mean sisu. It’s not courage.
— That’s stupidity.
— Exactly. Now, sisu we can relate very much to in motorracing. For example, you are driving a rally car in a forest extremely very fast. And you need courage to break light, to go throttle very early or go very close to the apex of the corners...

Now, I didn’t need to do any of that. I just needed to keep driving. In a way, it took more sisu (if I have any — I was born just across the border from Finland) than driving through ice on I-84E that I did last winter.

A little more sisu:

Medieval Ireland: an example of a libertarian legal system

If you’re lucky to be Irish, you’re lucky enough.

— An Irish proverb

A question is often asked: in an anarcho-libertarian society, how would the courts and legislation function? Murray Rothbard addresses this and many other questions in his book, For a New Liberty. But here I will only quote an example of the libertarianism in Irish society that he provides. It is very interesting to me from both political and historical point of view, as well as because I like Irish culture, music, language (I was a member of Gaelic club in college) and history.

* * *

The most remarkable historical example of a society of libertarian law and courts, however, has been neglected by historians until very recently. And this was also a society where not only the courts and the law were largely libertarian, but where they operated within a purely state-less and libertarian society. This was ancient Ireland — an Ireland which persisted in this libertarian path for roughly a thousand years until its brutal conquest by England in the seventeenth century. And, in contrast to many similarly functioning primitive tribes (such as the Ibos in West Africa, and many European tribes), preconquest Ireland was not in any sense a "primitive" society: it was a highly complex society that was, for centuries, the most advanced, most scholarly, and most civilized in all of Western Europe.
        For a thousand years, then, ancient Celtic Ireland had no State or anything like it. As the leading authority on ancient Irish law has written: "There was no legislature, no bailiffs, no police, no public enforcement of justice . . . . There was no trace of State-administered justice."⁹
        How then was justice secured? The basic political unit of ancient Ireland was the tuath. All "freemen" who owned land, all professionals, and all craftsmen, were entitled to become members of a tuath. Each tuath's members formed an annual assembly which decided all common policies, declared war or peace on other tuatha, and elected or deposed their "kings." An important point is that, in contrast to primitive tribes, no one was stuck or bound to a given tuath, either because of kinship or of geographical location. Individual members were free to, and often did, secede from a tuath and join a competing tuath. Often, two or more tuatha decided to merge into a single, more efficient unit. As Professor Peden states, "the tuath is thus a body of persons voluntarily united for socially beneficial purposes and the sum total of the landed properties of its members constituted its territorial dimension."¹⁰ In short, they did not have the modern State with its claim to sovereignty over a given (usually expanding) territorial area, divorced from the landed property rights of its subjects; on the contrary, tuatha were voluntary associations [p. 232] which only comprised the landed properties of its voluntary members. Historically, about 80 to 100 tuatha coexisted at any time throughout Ireland.
        But what of the elected "king"? Did he constitute a form of State ruler? Chiefly, the king functioned as a religions high priest, presiding over the worship rites of the tuath, which functioned as a voluntary religious, as well as a social and political, organization. As in pagan, pre-Christian, priesthoods, the kingly function was hereditary, this practice carrying over to Christian times. The king was elected by the tuath from within a royal kin-group (the derbfine), which carried the hereditary priestly function. Politically, however, the king had strictly limited functions: he was the military leader of the tuath, and he presided over the tuath assemblies. But he could only conduct war or peace negotiations as agent of the assemblies; and he was in no sense sovereign and had no rights of administering justice over tuath members. He could not legislate, and when he himself was party to a lawsuit, he had to submit his case to an independent judicial arbiter.
        Again, how, then, was law developed and justice maintained? In the first place, the law itself was based on a body of ancient and immemorial custom, passed down as oral and then written tradition through a class of professional jurists called the brehons. The brehons were in no sense public, or governmental, officials; they were simply selected by parties to disputes on the basis of their reputations for wisdom, knowledge of the customary law, and the integrity of their decisions. As Professor Peden states:

. . . the professional jurists were consulted by parties to disputes for advice as to what the law was in particular cases, and these same men often acted as arbitrators between suitors. They remained at all times private persons, not public officials; their functioning depended upon their knowledge of the law and the integrity of their judicial reputations.¹¹

Furthermore, the brehons had no connection whatsoever with the individual tuatha or with their kings. They were completely private, national in scope, and were used by disputants throughout Ireland. Moreover, and this is a vital point, in contrast to the system of private Roman lawyers, the brehon was all there was; there were no other judges, no "public" judges of any kind, in ancient Ireland.
         It was the brehons who were schooled in the law, and who added glosses and applications to the law to fit changing conditions. Furthermore, [p. 233] there was no monopoly, in any sense, of the brehon jurists; instead, several competing schools of jurisprudence existed and competed for the custom of the Irish people.
How were the decisions of the brehons enforced? Through an elaborate, voluntarily developed system of "insurance," or sureties. Men were linked together by a variety of surety relationships by which they guaranteed one another for the righting of wrongs, and for the enforcement of justice and the decisions of the brehons. In short, the brehons themselves were not involved in the enforcement of decisions, which rested again with private individuals linked through sureties. There were various types of surety. For example, the surety would guarantee with his own property the payment of a debt, and then join the plaintiff in enforcing a debt judgment if the debtor refused to pay. In that case, the debtor would have to pay double damages: one to the original creditor, and another as compensation to his surety.
        And this system applied to all offences, aggressions and assaults as well as commercial contracts; in short, it applied to all cases of what we would call "civil" and "criminal" law. All criminals were considered to be "debtors" who owed restitution and compensation to their victims, who thus became their "creditors." The victim would gather his sureties around him and proceed to apprehend the criminal or to proclaim his suit publicly and demand that the defendant submit to adjudication of their dispute with the brehons. The criminal might then send his own sureties to negotiate a settlement or agree to submit the dispute to the brehons. If he did not do so, he was considered an "outlaw" by the entire community; he could no longer enforce any claim of his own in the courts, and he was treated to the opprobrium of the entire community.¹²
        There were occasional "wars," to be sure, in the thousand years of Celtic Ireland, but they were minor brawls, negligible compared to the devastating wars that racked the rest of Europe. As Professor Peden points out, "without the coercive apparatus of the State which can through taxation and conscription mobilize large amounts of arms and manpower, the Irish were unable to sustain any large scale military force in the field for any length of time. Irish wars . . . were pitiful brawls and cattle raids by European standards."¹³ [p. 234]

        Thus, we have indicated that it is perfectly possible, in theory and historically, to have efficient and courteous police, competent and learned judges, and a body of systematic and socially accepted law — and none of these things being furnished by a coercive government. Government — claiming a compulsory monopoly of protection over a geographical area, and extracting its revenues by force — can be separated from the entire field of protection. Government is no more necessary for providing vital protection service than it is necessary for providing anything else. And we have not stressed a crucial fact about government: that its compulsory monopoly over the weapons of coercion has led it, over the centuries, to infinitely more butcheries and infinitely greater tyranny and oppression than any decentralized, private agencies could possibly have done. If we look at the black record of mass murder, exploitation, and tyranny levied on society by governments over the ages, we need not be loath to abandon the Leviathan State and . . . try freedom.

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Laws of falling bodies

[Re-posting this.]



One my favorite pieces of literature. Not for those afflicted with ADD.

From: Die Geschichte von Herrn Sommer (The Story of Mr Sommer) by Patrick Süskind, translated to English by yours truly (I preserved the grammar, punctuation, style and the sentence structure — or what passes for it in this piece).

* * *

In the times when I still climbed trees — it was a long time ago, years and decades back, and I was barely above one meter tall, wore shoes of the twenty eighth size¹ and was so light that I could fly — no, I am not lying, I really could fly — or, at least, almost could fly, or let’s say it better: at that time it was certainly within my power to do so, if I were to very firmly desire it and try to do it, because... because I remember vividly how one day I almost flew, how it was in autumn, the same very year I started school and was returning on that day home, and the wind was so strong that I, without spreading my arms, could lean against it at the same angle as a skier, or even a larger angle, without fear of falling... and when I then ran against the wind, down the hill from the school mountain — for the school was on a small hill by the village — and slightly pushed away from the ground and spread my arms, the wind immediately caught me, and I could make without slightest effort jumps two-to-three meters high and ten-to-twenty meters long — or, perhaps, not quite so long and not quite so high, but what difference does it really make? — in any event, I was almost flying, and if only I unbuttoned my overcoat and took its tails in my hands and spread them out as wings, the wind would fully pick me up in the air, and I would with absolute ease glide down from the school mountain over the valley towards the forest, and then over the forest down to the lake, near which our house was standing, to the utter amazement of my father, my mother, my sister and my brother, who were already too old and too heavy to fly, then make an elegant turn over the garden only to glide back over the lake, almost reaching the opposite shore, and, finally, calmly coast back over the air and still be home in time for dinner.

But, I did not unbutton my overcoat and did not fly up in reality. Not because I was afraid to fly, but because I did not know how and where I would be able to land, and whether I really could land. The lawn in front of our house was too hard for landing, the garden was too small, the water in the lake was too cold. To lift off — that was no problem. But what about coming back down?

With climbing trees I had the same situation: climbing up was not problematic in the least way. I saw the branches in front of myself, I felt them in my hands and could test their hardness even before I lifted myself and then put my foot on them. But when I was climbing down, I did not see everything and was forced to find, more or less blindly, the branches below me, until I found a proper support — except, oftentimes, the support was not so firm, but rotten and slippery, and then I would slip or fall through, and if I did not have a chance to catch some branch with both hands, I would fall down as a stone does, according to the so-called laws of falling bodies, discovered already almost four hundred years ago by an Italian scientist Galileo but still acting even today. [...]

____________
¹ [My shoes are of 40th–41st size — APC.]

Their hollow inheritance

Nolo putes pravos hominess peccata lucrari;
Temporibus peccata latent, sed tempore parent.

— Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis

I am translating from a Russian translation of a Polish text. Therefore, it will most likely not do any kind of justice to the original. Plus, I am not sure I will translate the names of the locales correctly. If you have suggestions, please comment. An excerpt from Andrzej Sapkowski’s Lux Perpetua:

— My people, — she suddenly said after long silence, — come from Nadrein, under Ksanten. Almost everyone in the family was murdered in 1106. A crusade! Deus lo volt! The knights Emich and Gottshalk heard Pope Urban II’s call, and with enthusiasm turned it into life. They began the fight for Christ’s Coffin from butchering Nadrein Jews. In Ksanten, only one boy survived, Yehuda, probably because he converted.

Under the name of Guido Fonseca he settled in Italy, where he returned to the faith of the ancestors; in other words, as you people say it, he returned to judaica perfidia. His descendants, Jews again, were expelled from Naples in 1288. They spread throughout the world. Some of the family settled in Bern. In 1294, a child disappeared there. Without a trace, under unknown circumstances. A clear case: a ritual murder; the Jews must have kidnapped the kid and made a matza out of him. For this all Jews were expelled from Bern. My ancestor, a rabbi, carrying then the name of Mevorach ben Kalonimos, settled in Franconia, in Weinheim.

In 1298, in Franconian settlement of Rottingen someone apparently desecrated something. Poor knight Rindfleisch saw this as a sign of G-d. “The blasphemy was done by Jews” said the sign. Kill the Jews, you who has faith in the Lord. The faithful ones turned out en masse; Rindfleisch became the head of the murderers, with whom he started working on the Divine Plan. After the communities in Rottenburg, Vuzeburg and Bamberg were exterminated to the last person, came the turn of Weinheim. On September 20th, Rindflesch and his friends entered the ghetto. Rabbi Mevorach and his family, all Jews, women and children, were pushed into the synagogue and burned alive together with it. Only seventy five people. Not so many, considering that in Franconia and Schwabbia alone, Rindfleisch killed five thousand.

Some of them, using more creative methods than burning.

With the rest of relatives in the diaspora — same classical cases. Converted great-grandfather, Paolo Fonseca, was killed in 1319 in France, during the rebellion of Pastoureaux, the little shepherds. Pastoureaux killed, as a rule, the nobility, monks and priests, but the Jews and converts were taken care of with especial passion, oftentimes with the help of local population. Knowing what Pastoureaux did with women and children locked in the cellar of Verden-on-Haronne, great-grandfather Paolo with his hands smothered the great-grandmother and two children.

Grandfather Yitzchak Iohanon, who settled in Elzas, lost almost all of his family in 1338, during some of the famous massacres done by the peasant bands who called themselves as Judenschledger. One of my great-grandmothers, whom nobody was merciful enough to kill, was gang-raped many times. So, perhaps since those times I have some mix of Christian blood. You are not happy about it? I, imagine, am not either.

Riksa grew silent. Reinevan coughed.

— What was... next?

— 1349.

— The Black Death.

— Of course. The ones whose fault was in the starting and spreading of the disease were naturally Jews. It was a Jewish plan to kill all Christians. The rabbi of Toledo, Peirat, about whom you must have heard, sent emissaries throughout Europe to poison wells, springs and fountains. Then the good Christians began to punish the poisoners. On a large scale.

Many of my relatives were amongst the six thousand burnt alive in Meintz, two thousand in Strasburg, among the victims of massacres in Berne, Basel, Freiburg, Spire, Fulde, Rehensburg, Pfortzheim, Erfulte, Mahdenburg, and Leiptzig, and among some others, some three hundred destroyed communities of those times. My family was among those killed in Basel and in Prague, as well as in Niece, Bjegu, Gura, Olesnitsa, and Wrotzelav. I forgot to tell you that most of my family lived at that time in Silesia and Poland. It was supposed to be better there. Safer.

— Was it?

— In general, yes. But later, when the epidemic started receding. One pogrom in Wrotzelav in 1360. There was a fire, the Jews were blamed, killed and drowned. Thirty or fourty people. From my family — only two. More serious case was in Krakow, in 1407, the Tuesday after Passover. A killed Christian baby was found. He was killed of course for the blood for matza. Those at fault are, of course, Jews, were preaching the priests. Masses, moved by the speeches, ran for vengeance. Several hundred were murdered; several hundred were converted. In two years I was born a Christian, a daughter of converts.

I was washed over by the waters of baptism and named Anna, after a saint, whose church was in 1407 burnt by inertia by the enraged peasants of Krakow. Fortunately, I was Anna not for long, because in 1410, my family fled Poland to Silesia, to Stshegom, returning to judaica perfidia, to the faith of Moses. In Stshegom some of our relatives resided, and overall, one hundred forty people of our faith. Seventy three of them, including my father Samuel ben Gershom, lost their lives during the pogrom of 1410. The reason? The sounds of shofar on Rosh-ha-Shana were interpreted as a call for attack on Christians. My mother with the father’s sisters and me, one-year-old baby, fled to Javor. There, at the age of eleven, I saw the second pogrom with my own eyes. Trust me, it is an unforgettable sight.

— I believe you.

— I do not complain, — she raised her head sharply. — Take it into account. I don’t cry over myself, over those of my tribe. Over Jerusalem, over the Temple. Uwene Jeruszalaim ir hakodesz bimhera wejameinu! I know the words, but their meaning is lost on me. I am not going to sit and weep in front of Babylon’s rivers. I am not looking for sympathy of others, not even mentioning tolerance. But, you asked me whether it had an effect. Of course it did. Some things are better not to handle if you are paralyzed by fear of consequences, of what can happen. I am not afraid. I accumulated bravery for generations... No, not bravery. Immunity to fear. No, not immunity. Insensitivity.

— I understand.

— I doubt it. Better go to sleep. If your concoction works, we shall leave at dawn. If not, we shall leave at dawn anyway.

Do you enjoy speaking like immigrants?

This was one of the funniest comments to this post:

Please speak English and use the verb “let” with an object, i.e. “My husband doesn’t let ME.” Do you enjoy speaking like immigrants??? Well, yes, I guess you do. But is doesn’t say much for your education or your job prospects.

I must say, I have always enjoyed speaking like an immigrant. I also enjoy walking, eating and drinking like an immigrant.

And now on the topic:

“I know nothing.”



“I learn it from a book.”



“Uno, dos, tres”.



“Si.”



“Fuego!”



“Typical of this place...”



“Don’t panic!”
“What else is there to do?”

Roinnt ceoil, le do thoil

For my rabbi who likes Celtic music. In this particular sequence, I like the first reel more than the others.



I apologize to le7 for this one:



 There is a Jew attending a local school who, like me, likes Martin Hayes. And just like me dislikes assholes.

For a long time my roommate thought the following song was about McDonalds. This is one of the songs I use to illustrate to English speakers how American songs sound to me (not in quality, in which they are greatly inferior, but in the percentage of words I understand).



After years of listening to this song in my car, I understand almost all the words:

A musical pause

Something Classical (I assume everyone knows Chopin):



Something classy (I assume everyone knows the tale of Bremen Musicians):



Something Russian (I assume most Americans don’t know Garik Sukachev):

Political joke of the day

For those who don’t get the joke, on the right is the former Russian President (current Primer Minister) Vladimir Putin. On the left is current Russian President, Mikhail Medvedev. And in the movie Avatar, the guy on the right is supposed to take over the blue body on the left through mind control (hence the name of the movie).

[source]

Some music for weary feet

Thanks to the Real Pianist for sharing. “A waltz.”



As one of the comments said, “Απλά υπέροχος”.

Sergei Prokofiev. Piano Concerto №3. First movement: Andante-Allegro. Director: Vladimir Spivakov. Pianist: Samwise Gamgee. Prokofiev is da bomb.



Garik Sukachev, “Your whisper and laugh”.

Jewish life in Poland

(am I the only one to whom this Galicianer Yid looks like a Jewish version of, lehavdil, Viggo Montersen?)

To see many beautiful photographs of Polish Jews, visit a photo collage by Bahaltener Pinkos.

By the way, although the official version is that my family came to Ukraine from Poland (settling in Shpola), my grandmother and her sisters speak in Galicianer accent of Yiddish (and so did my great-grandmother). My grandmother is very annoyed at my Lithuanian Yiddish, which I picked up from Lubavitchers (mixed with the influence of German I took in college).


(click on the images to enlarge)

How Christianity was born

… literally. (Warning: somewhat R-rated.)

“Teen [alegedly] pregnant after swimming in a pool.”

I guess the whole “Holy Spirit did it” excuse has been so overused nobody would believe it anymore.

Obama’s plan is working!

It is, it is, it is! Haven’t you heard: “The economy is gaining momentum and the Democrat-passed stimulus package is only just beginning to pay dividends to the American workforce, President Obama's advisers said Sunday, defending the administration against GOP accusations that the stimulus is falling flat. […] White House economic adviser Austan Goolsbee […] says the economy is showing encouraging signs.”

Nu, nu. And the fact that unemployment is way worse than predicted and expected had the stimulus not been implemented is no big deal. Part of the game. Keep looking at this figure — all the evidence of Obama’s wisdom is staring at you:


(Blue and light-blue are models. Maroon is what actually happened. Oopsus… Click on the figure to see a larger version.)

At the same time, stupid-stupid Europeans refuse to see the light and (fed up with socialism) told liberals to go take a hike.

When socialism was implemented in Russia and Eastern Europe, the power was placed in the hands of low-lifes and bastards. When socialism was implemented in Western Europe, the power was placed in the hands of people who thought that just because a rose smells better than a cabbage, it will taste better in a soup¹. As socialism is being implemented in the US, the power is placed in the hands of overgrown children and clowns whom the children like for the bright-red noses.

__________________________
¹ The simile is borrowed from a quote by H.L. Mencken.

The difference between the US and Europe

Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
— Albert Einstein

When writing “Europe”, I mean Russia first of all. But it applies equally well at one point or another to any other European country — with the possible exception of Britain.

(Speaking of Britain, yesterday I may have found a possible burial place of one of my previous gilgulim. The one after Rambam.)

And finally, let me leave you with a question of the week: is it really a good idea to start a war with CIA? I don’t mean if you’re KGB or FSB or Chinese government. I mean if you’re a not overly bright or overly honest politician, who (being a member of a certain party) possibly may have a lot to hide about yourself.

Some fun reading for the seekers of truth out there.

World War II in half an hour

(the somewhat failed counter-offensive of the 1941–1942 winter)

Very-very awesome. Even if you don’t know Russian. Even if you haven’t lost most of your family. Still very awesome. Just wait for stuff to load, and when the “interlude” screen appears, just press the rectangular green button. Don’t press green or red arrows unless you want to see details (some nice pictures, videos, additional maps, etc.). Things will move themselves between the interlude screens.

“Победители” (Victors).

I have to say: after watching this, the opening of the “second front” by Americans and British in France looks very comic. Very-very-very pathetic and comic. Obviously, every soldier who fought anywhere deserves our gratitude, but there is a reason why Americans “don’t get it” regarding World War II. Even fighting in the Pacific was a joke comparing to what was happening in Eastern Europe. To see what I mean, watch the above link.


(“Yay, we took the beaches of France!.. Five years too late... While the Russians have killed about 10 million Germans and fought over the territory several times the size of Western Europe.”)

Liberalism with initiative

Recently I wrote a post, in which I said:

There is a Russian saying: “A fool without initiative is better than a fool with initiative.” At least the first fool doesn’t do anything — he is just being an idiot quietly. The second one wracks havoc with his well-intentioned idiocy.

So, after that, I was washing hands in our new building’s bathroom and noticed that the water becomes progressively hotter as you have it on (the water turns on itself when your hands approach the faucet; if you want to wash your hands with cold water only, it’s not an option). To the point that if you wash the hands for too long, it becomes intolerably hot. And, of course, if you just washed hands quite thoroughly, and someone walks to the same faucet right after you, he is greeted with a flow of scalding liquid.

I wandered at that point what every programmer has wondered numerous times while working with Windows OS: is this a bug or a feature? (Somehow this statement always sounds better in Russian — perhaps because “bug” and “feature” are pronounced in English, with heavy Russian accent.) Is this someone making a mistake in plumbing, or is this purposefully designed so that people don’t wash their hands for too long, wasting too much water? In other words, is this a work of a fool without initiative or a fool with initiative?

At the time, I dismissed the second alternative as unlikely. It turns out, I could be right on target with it. Gizmodo reports in “Inflatable Shower Curtain: Be Green or Be Suffocated” —

Sure, there are other methods of conserving water in the shower, but none of them put your life on the line like the inflatable shower curtain from designer Elisabeth Buecher.

My approach to design can sometimes appear shockingly radical but I have got different reasons to legitimize that. An alarm clock is not what we can call a pleasurable object. It is often even painful to be awoken by it. However it is a necessary object, which regulates our lives and the society. That's what I call the "design for pain and for our own good".

Some of my designs seem to constrain people, acting like an alarm clock, awaking people to the consciousness of their behavior and giving them limits. People often need an external signal to behave more. In France the government added thousands of new radars on the roads to fight excessive speed. And it worked: there are far less people killed on the roads of France today. I call it "design of threat and punishment" and I use it as an educational tool.

Yeah, she’s not fooling around here. If you don't wrap things up in a timely fashion the curtain will inflate until you are a naked, shivering prisoner in your own shower. By the looks of things, if you aren't careful the damn thing could completely cut off your air supply. Personally, I would rather go with the Eco-Drop Shower — the philosophy is the same but it's far less deadly.

All I can say is that I am glad I don’t live in France. No, it has nothing to do with the fascist approach to drivers. I am just happy I don’t live in France. Well, yet. If the current government (and the particular group of overgrown children that supports it) has its way, this country will be turned into one giant iPhone. I.e., France.

* * *

In other news: “The Pirate Google Bay Gives the Finger to Record Companies, Studios”. Warms your heart, doesn’t it? Well, it warms mine. Every single victory over copyright fascism does.

Subjects to the Government

(Lithuania in 13th–15th centuries)

As everyone knows, everything that the nations can do, Jews can do better. (Except basketball.)

In the same way, everything that the Europeans can do, Americans can do better. (Except culture. And cooking.)

This includes negative things. Like slavery.

By Philip Chaston, from London:

Once I was born a British citizen, and enjoyed the suzerainty of a long-standing liberal democracy. I knew my liberties as they were embedded in common law and understood the rights and privileges which were my birthright. This was a common culture that was shared in many forms by my fellow pupils at school, by my family and by those who desired to make this country their home.

In 1997 I was still a citizen. Now I am a subject: not a subject of the Crown but the subject of a new beast, one that stretches from Whitehall to Brussels. Roger Scruton has defined a subject as follows:

Subjection is the relation between the state and the individual that arises when the state need not account to the individual, when the rights and duties of the individual are undefined or defined only partially and defeasibly, and where there is no rule of law that stands higher than the state that enforces it.

This is a contentious argument, but our rights are overdetermined and overdefined on paper, arbitrary in exertion, incompetent in execution. Moreover, the European Union under the Treaty of Lisbon confers the authority of a bureaucratic state based upon a law no higher than itself, which can annul and strike out all rights, as power overrides law.

In practice, bureaucratic accretions, quangos and the vomit of regulation have encouraged a culture of subjection. This may have roots prior to New Labour but it acquired its final flowering under this pestilent regime, and discarded the final brakes upon its power: demanding that we are subject to them, civil servants in name, masters in form. ID cards, databases, surveillance and dependency.

The final transition can never be dated. It is not in the interests of the Tories to row back on such change, as they will lose the power that they have looked upon so enviously for a decade. So, when I vote in 2010, I will know that we are each capable of acting responsibly as a citizen, but we are now viewed as subjects, to be feared and controlled.

Sounds familiar? Especially the part in bold.

By the way, I do hope you enjoy paying your new tax when buying things online.