Colonialism Sucks

Book Cover

It is a truism that the context in which a particular historical period is viewed affect how a particular historical epoch is viewed by then contemporary scholarship. 

The End and the Maya

Mayan Glyphs

   

Well midnight on December 20th happened, it is now December 21st, and the world has not ended.

 

For the last generation or so people have been aware the Mayans supposedly predicted that the world would come to an end  on midnight December 20th 2012. This myth as indicated elsewhere in  book after book in is fact completely bogus1. The Maya did not in fact expect the world to end in 2012 and in fact expected it to continue to exist well into the far, far far future.2

Moral Cretinism Part IX

The ban passages, Genocide and Himmler.



William Lane Craig



The following is, in full, a blog posting by the so-called Theologian William Lane Craig in response to two questions concerning the infamous ban passages from the Old-Testament. The terrible passages that talk about how God ordered the Israelites to kill everyone and in some cases “all that breathed” in the towns they took and that they exterminated the Canaanites from the land with fire and sword.

The Nile and Diogenes

Lake Victoria, Lake Albert and the
Head Waters of the Nile



It is extremely unlikely that the overwhelming majority of people have heard about the explorer Diogenes who sometime in the first century C.E. was blown off course in the Indian ocean and ended up in the port of Rhapta on the African coast near, or at modernday Dars es-Salaam in modernday Tanzania. 

Remembering the Nightmare

Honouring the Sacrifice

 

Poppies

 

Today is November 11 which in Canada is Remembrance Day. Today and the week before lots of us Canadians go around wearing red poppies with black centres.

What If?

A comment on a What If? Nazis winning Scenario

German Tiger Tank in the Snow



The game of what if? is a popular one. In a forum at Randi.org I read a possible scenario about Hitler winning World War I. Here is that post and my comments on this idea.1 The post I am replying to is indented. My remarks are un-indented. The comments are has I wrote them aside from a conclusion and added references.

Finding Odin



The God Odin



In several postings I have reffered to the works of Thor Heyerdahl and in particular I mentioned that he shortly before he died (2002) he published two books about his hunt for the “real” Odin.1 I also mentioned a devastating review that was published in 2002 shortly after his death, concerning Thor Heyerdahl’s efforts in this area. The review was originally published in Norwegian, but a English translation of the piece was put on the web. Sadly it appears that it is no longer obtainable on the web. I have therefore decided to post the piece in its entirety.

In a previous posting I quoted an author who said concerning Thor Heyerdahl:

Rather than classifying him [Thor Heyerdahl] as a pseudo historian it would be more fair and accurate to call him a careful scholar who sincerely holds some highly speculative hypotheses that are widely viewed as wrong.2

The idea that Thor Heyerdahl can be described as a "careful scholar" is actually quite risible as the following will show in abundance.

 

(In this piece my stuff is in italics, the rest in regular script)

Battle of The Little Big Horn

Indian + Army Casualties

Custer's Last Command - Painting

Perhaps one of the most interesting questions regarding the battle is the question of casualties. Now in a previous posting I discussed various aspects of the battle of The Little Big Horn.1 Here I will discuss casualties.

Diffusionistic Fantasies

Part VII

Sauna Diffusion

Or Steamed Off

Exterior of Finnish Sauna

Sometimes respected Anthropologists etc., go off the deep end. The following is a slightly expanded version of a posting I did c. 7 years ago in response to an article written by an Anthropologist who seemed to want to shock people with her daring and boldness.1

Plato’s “Empathy”

Bust of Plato

In Plato’s dialogues there is sometimes the fact that the context, or set up, to his dialogue’s issues tells us more about Plato’s social attitudes than the overt statements of what the dialogue is about.

Ordinary Guys



Movie Poster



Massive Spoilers

AHEAD!!

In February I saw the movie Chronicle and frankly I was blown away. It takes a very simple idea and works it on a whole different level.

Homer Tilted into Absurdity

Ancient bust of Homer

The following is a slightly reworked version of a few postings1 I did a few years ago on the book Where Troy Once Stood2 Having read it I was amused but not convinced at all.

A Note on Child Sexual Abuse

“Dude. You have sex with children!”1

South Park Episode - Cartman joins NAMBLA

Here in Canada we had a major dust up more than 30 years ago in an article published in a Gay magazine, (The Body Politic), Called Men loving boys, loving men,1 at the time it stirred up a lot of controversy to say the least. A contingent of the Gay Liberation movement bought the argument that pedophiles were being stigmatized and oppressed for their feelings by a sexually repressive society. Thus some bought the idea that pedophiles were a repressed minority. Further they bought the idea that children were sexual beings who were prevented by a sex-phobic society from using their sexuality which included if they so desired sex with adults.

Herge’s Baby

A Note



Henri Remi "Herge"



The Adventures of Tintin which opened just before Christmas 2011 was one of the few movies of 2011 that I had much desire to see.

Like hundreds of millions of people the world over I grew up on Tintin has a child enjoying the adventures and misadventures of the boy Reporter.

June Garden

Just some pics of the Garden taken in June of this year.

Cruel Hindsight

Map of Afghanistan

In a previous posting I briefly reviewed a book published in the Marxist Regimes series that gave an overview of then Marxist governed Ethiopia.1 In that review I mentioned that The Marxist Regimes series was stunningly oblivious to the signs of the imminent implosion of Marxist regimes worldwide. That the alleged value neutral approach basically led to obliviousness to the serious structural, institutional and economic problems of those regimes and tended towards moral capitulation in the face of evil and atrocity is also clear. The book about Ethiopia by Peter Schwab was an outstanding example of moral obscenity given its celebration of a vicious regime and its fawning over Dictator Mengistu.

Waterloo

A Note on Napoleon’s bad choices for subordinates.

Scene from Battle of Waterloo

The battle of Waterloo is one of the most analyzed, or more accurately over analyzed campaigns and battles of all time. In fact we have an incontestable surfeit of accounts of the campaign and battle.

Pure Idiocy

Moral Cretinism Part VIII

Ethiopian Famine Victims 1985

In the 1980's there was published books in a series called the Marxist Regime Series. The books in the series were under the overall editorship of Prof. Bogan Szajowski of University College Cardiff Wales.

Libertarian Shit

Famine India, 1901

A While ago I had a series of exchanges with some Libertarians.1 Here are some of my replies to their nonsense; slightly reworked.

Italy’s Fiasco

The Ethiopian war as a Tar baby

Part I

Why Mussolini drew closer to Hitler and the Ethiopian Crisis

Ethiopia

In 1935 Mussolini, the biggest disaster to hit Italy in the Twentieth century invaded Ethiopia. By May of 1936 his armies had conquered the country and entered the capital Addis Ababa. Mussolini had successfully flouted the League of Nations and its sanctions and had emerged successful from his war.

Nomenklatura

Some Notes on the Soviet elite

Part I

Soviet Politburo

In 1917 when the Bolsheviks seized power practically nobody expected the emergence of a new type of society with a new type of class structure. Well that is what emerged. The few who saw in the Marxist-Leninist theory the emerging of a new elite and its ideological justification were a small minority.1

Patriotically Correct

Book Cover

Although there are a vast number of books written about the Hundred Years War there is a distinct skew in terms of what is written about concerning the Hundred Years War. For example English historians tend to concentrate on the victories of Edward III, the Black Prince and Henry V. English historians tend to ignore periods like the DuGuesclin period (1365-1380 C.E.) and the period from 1430-1453 C.E.1

Silence is Golden



Movie Poster



Spoilers!!

You have been warned!!!

The Artist, (2011), a French film directed by Michel Hazanavicius is a truly remarkable film in many ways.

Why?

Blank

There is an old joke / urban legend that circulates among students and faculty in North American Universities and it goes as follows.

Intervention

Napoleon III

A question that a friend of mine once recently asked was “Why did the USA not intervene during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-1871, even though France intervened on the American side during the Revolutionary war of 1775-1783?”