The Fairer Sex, too logical.
Why are women driven by logic and reason, and men driven by emotion and feeling?
Just came back from the supermarket with the gf. We did the shopping but forgot something, so she sent me on ahead to queue at the checkout while she went back and got it.
A few minutes later I’m in line and she arrives and complains, why did you join this queue, it’s the slowest.
Surely enough as all other lines sped by we moved at snails pace.
She then gave me a lecture on how she chooses a queue. She looks for a person on checkout she knows to be fast or has been at the store a long time. No slow newbees. She checks the trollies of the people queueing, few large items can look more but be quicker than lots of small items. Produce has to be weighed and is slow, clothes are the slowest needing bagging and tags removed. Lots of the same item can all be checked just once. When all these calculations have been done, she can then weigh up the sum of all trollies in each line in her mind and calculate the fastest queue.
She then turned to me and asked why on earth I picked this queue?
It had the prettiest checkout girl, I replied.
The Rise of Euro Fascism
History isn’t always in the past. It’s in the making now and perhaps the next chapter in European history has just started.
Italy became the first country in Europe to prosecute a woman for wearing a Burka in this great victory for freedom and feminism.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1271848/Woman-Italy-fined-430-wearing-burqa.html
The woman is now a prisoner in her own home.
“A husband has vowed to keep his wife indoors after she became the first woman in Italy to be fined for wearing a burka in public.
Amel Marmouri, 26, was handed the 500 euro (£430) penalty after she was spotted queuing inside a post office by police with her body and face fully covered by the garment.
She was warned she would receive another fine if she were spotted again in her burka.
Yesterday her husband said as a result he had no option but to stop her from going out. “
With laws in France, Turkey and maybe Belgium soon, perhaps this is the moment it all began again, Napoleon, Hitler, Stalin.
I can’t help wondering is it some kind on mental disease, or do continentals just have some sort of SM perv and just enjoy living under this kind of despotism?
History’s 3 Great Revolutions
History repeating itself, the Eternal Recurrance, providence or synchronicity?
The English Revolution.
Corrupt autocratic king is overthrown and executed, there’s a civil war. Democratic(ish) parliament is created, bickers in factions, dissolves into a farce. A military dictator seizes power and creates totalitarian(esque) state.
French Revolution.
A corrupt autocratic king is overthrown and executed. There’s a civil war. A democratic(ish) council is created, splits into murderous factions and ends in anarchy. A military dictator seizes power and creates totalitarian(esque) state.
The Russian Revolution.
An autocratic Tsar is overthrown and executed. There’s a civil war, an democratic(ish) regime is created, which is impotent and counter coup occurs. A dictator backed by his own paramilitary seizes power and creates totalitarian(esque) state.
It’s always fascinated me the similar paths of these three events. Is it more than than just coincidence. Is an archetype involved?
London Olympics 2012
Let mediocrity have its day…. (just somewhere else)
First I’d like to make clear I’m not against the Olympic Games per say. Every dog has its day, so why shouldn’t every irrelevant sport?
I’m not un-appreciative of the cleverness of the idea of gathering up every pointless, inane, boring, banal, mundane and trivial sport on the planet that alone could not attract a crowd let alone command an entrance fee or god forbid a television audience then lumping them together into a single stadium, a kind of temple to human folly, for a few weeks of forgettable voyeurism.
The problem is where do you hold this event? It’s like a prison halfway house or care in the community home for the mentally handicapped. Every intelligent liberal minded person agrees they are necessary and great benefit to the less fortunate, just not next door to me. And unfortunately in 2012 we Londoners have been charged with the job of giving charity to the world’s less able sports by hosting the games.
That we Londoners are less than enthusiastic about the games is no secret, the International Olympic Committee recently showed concern that the UK Government hadn’t been entirely forthcoming in telling them about just how strong the initial opposition was to the games when the bid was announced and continuing ill will as the games draw closer. 2012 could possibly be the most unpopular Olympics ever in the city they are held.
We Londoners are of course famously cynical and unlike many other cites did not succumb to a wave of nationalistic pride sweeping the country when the bid was announced but more pragmatically asked who will be paying for this? When it became clear it was not the rest of the country who were embracing the Olympic spirit so readily we were far from happy little bunnies. Quickly the government issued figures showing how little it would cost us, which once again the hard headed London irreverence didn’t believe, correctly, as the figure gradually went up and today stands at double the government’s initial pledge.
Then there’s the small matter of the economic crash which has hastily ended a lot of investment in the games causing the woefully insufficient Olympic fund to dry up, so the games is already cost cutting. This ironically has warmed much of the country to the idea the games could be really paltry affair, a typical British farce of organisation, especially in comparison to the well funded flagship China version. How bad the London Olympics will be in comparison to China has become somewhat of a national joke and source of quite sardonic material for comedians. It has many people hoping it will fail out of a sense of national pride in how disorganised we really are as a people. We even did our little bit in London by voting a clown as mayor to lead the games.
It is unfortunately too late to do a Mexico and plead poverty and have the games transferred to another city, instead perhaps we have to apply self healing therapy and constantly comfort ourselves with the thought, we were lumbered with the games by a government that wanted to bask in their success but instead will be in opposition in their failure.
The History of Global Warming
Imagine it’s the 1970’s,
All the world’s leading climatologists believe an ice age is coming. All the geologists are saying we are living in an interglacial period which is due to end, ice ages are the earth’s natural state and interglacial periods in earth’s history tend to last 10,000 years so ours is reaching its natural conclusion. The US National Academy of Science has just produced a major investigation proving global cooling. Since the 1940’s the global temperature has been dropping. Climatologists wonder could all the pollution we are producing going into the atmosphere be blotting out the sun and accelerating the coming ice age.
History teaches me I’d better get my winter clothes and to be ready for 2010.
Terrorism, lessons from history
At the turn of the century terrorists such as Nihilists fought a campaign largely based on attacking the people in power. Catechism of a Revolutionary by Nechayev for example explains how a series of assassinations of leading figures in the police, government, army, royalty ect will bring down the government.
The most famous instance of this strategy started World War One, so arguably did bring down the Austro-Hungarian Empire, however largely the method was ineffective, people at the top being both difficult to get to and easy to replace.
A new theory of terrorism was invented by SA leader Ernst Röhm. After studying the limitaions of the above method he concluded terrorism should be directed at the bottom of society not the top. The idea was if the populace were living in terror of attack and being killed they would demand their government act immediately and effectively. This would be in way of draconian measures, new laws placing limit on freedom, more police and army power, judicial measures. But in a democracy it would mean one more thing, victory in the election to whichever party was promising the strongest measures, eg: the Nazis.
The strategy was never tried out in Germany because the Nazis came to power by other means.
After the war left wing groups started to look at the Ernst Röhm strategy and strangely enough agreed with it. However when seiving it through Marxist doctrine it came out slightly different. The problem with the world Marxists had was the prolitariat had grown decadent and not only had no inclination to start a revolution, but quite liked the world the way it was. What they needed was radicalising. So just as Ernst Röhm a terrorist campaign needed to be directed against them, to terrorise them into demanding of their politicians draconian measures be passed. This would lead to a fascist government. However it wouldn’t stop there. Under an oppressive regime the masses would finally realise their oppression and rise up against the government in a revolution.
Many groups appeared around the world; The Red Brigade, Red Army Faction, Action Direct, IRA, Simbionese Liberation Army, but in Peru, one group was actually successful, The Shining Path, bringing about the desired clampdown. Unfortuanately the masses didn’t rise up, but suffered two decades of oppressed misery instead.
It seems Ernst Rohn was correct.
The responce to the terrorist threats from Islamic Fundementalists has elicited a series of draconian laws from the government; more famously being complicit in the opening of Gulags and torture being made legal, but at a lower level people being arrested for carrying hair driers, taking photgraphs in public, being denied access to lawyers and searched without due cause. Now it seems everyone will have to go through a 35 second voyeristic scan just to get on a plane.
The politicians keep declaring “Terrorism mustn’t win” What history and Ernst Rohn teaches us is they have already won. We’re living in their victory at this very moment. How you feel now is what it feels like when terrorist have won.
The History of Stupid
The History of Stupid is the new eco-warrior movie soon to be released. It has a great history of the world in just over a minute animation. Check it out.
Thanks to Idleworm for this one.
