41 Comments

Can’t thank you enough for this article. It covered a lot of ground and filled in the blanks beautifully. Big hug to you and Ichi.

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Great article - best one I've read in awhile - enjoyed the comparisons - and you look better than me at 73 ! Privat ot Крыме {Crimea} .

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"It has become a country of pensioners and old women" you should add "disabled" since the amount of [mostly] men without one or both feet due to mines and drones is staggering!

Ukrainistan is still a good success... https://postimg.cc/qNRJGw3s

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Once again your unique insights are revealing and invaluable.

I wanted to engage and inspire you regarding the disturbing origins and underpinnings of the Muslim Brotherhood, who are in essence as malign as the christian fundamentalist elements in their goals, aims and corrosive influence on world events and the seats of power.

Unfortunately illness has knocked me off my perch and cancer has returned with complications seriously blighting my ability to function/operate. The New Year will decide my fate.

Meanwhile may power, love, joy and happiness radiate in your life. (I will buy you some coffee's again).

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I hope you will feel better soon...

Maybe this can inspire you ?

Caspian-Report. 2013. Recommended:

European influences in the Middle East caused the rise of the Islamic Brotherhood.

https://youtu.be/0-94R2Ufj2w?si=QlMU4w6kbpgtuzIZ

Sander.

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Thank you for your kind concern. I will try and resurrect the info I have stashed somewhere.

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I'm sorry to hear about your illness. We need people in this world like you , so don't you DARE get sicker. I don't need much in the way of love, joy and happiness-- but I do need people around like you – people who care and share and try to make the world a better place.

Julian

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Nailed it....

What I have been thinking for some time now.

Cheers for articulating what I have been thinking.

Regards

Obz

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Nailed it? I've never been good with hammer and nails. Usually just hurt my fingers. To be honest, I wasn't sure where I was going when I started this piece. I just started to get it right around the fifth revision.

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Dec 30Edited

Yeah you did. After the 5th revision it seems like you hit the nail on the head....lol

I work with hammer and nails :)

Regards

Obz

edit: seemed like a good metaphor :)

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Ichi as in #1 or as homage to 'Ichi the Killer'?

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I was given three kittens about one week old. So with my usual creativity I name them,Ichi, Ni and San--1, 2, 3 and Japanese, Ni and San were girls. They played together and ignored Ichi. Two girls were spotted and had long tails and looked a bit like Egyptian Mau – so it is easy to find a nice home for them, both of them together. Ichi joined my Family at the time. Like all cats -- and me--he is autistic So we understand each other and communicate perfectly.

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Very cool.

It's a lesson in perception or marketing that you'd sound boring or weird in the West if your pets were named 1, 2 and 3, but, doing it in Japanese, they'd think you're interesting (before reading your substack).

Imagine if you'd gone with Georgian: 1 – ერთი (erti), 2 – ორი (ori)

3 – სამი (sami) :)

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A Master piece again....

I envy you... ;-)

I do collect facts and split them in false and true including all connections that can be made between them... So i have this magnificent "3D sensorimotor space plus feelings Gestalt"-Database, a "Wordless" model representing "Reality".

But i cannot make it into a nice, fascinating, compelling narrative, at least not in my lifetime...

I remember a Guru saying: "The Ultimate reality cannot be expressed in words."

I happen to have stumbled upon that Obstacle...

Sander

https://quotefancy.com/media/wallpaper/3840x2160/1349780-Anandamayi-Ma-Quote-Reality-is-beyond-speech-and-thought-Only-that.jpg

PS. In "The Matrix" Trilogy, one could enter the illusion from reality. But the illusion could not exist in the reality. So ultimately Reality crushed the Illusion...

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Your concept of the 3D sensorimotor space / feeling is pure genius. And of course difficult to express in words, since it is something you have to understand at least partially visually. I do not think the ultimate realities can be defined logically in words – rather, they have to be represented in some other way. That's what artists do.

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Thank you, very much appreciated.

What is needed to be said about the concept, however, is even that which the concept points at, and which cannot be expressed in words, is the only reality we can be aware of, but it is still a virtual reality.

As a scientist once called it: The desktop-reality that has given us the tools to survive and prosper, love and hate, build and destroy.

Reality is a User Interface.

Conscious creatures that experience reality as it is, lose evolution to creatures that experience the survival related facts and situations: Donald Hoffman.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSrzlkfA0jk

Sander.

In a picture:

The Desktop Reality:

https://www.occupyschagen.nl/Gifs/Prullenbak.gif

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"...the pressure of reality, a pressure great enough and prolonged enough to bring about the end of one era in the history of the imagination and, if so, then great enough to bring about the beginning of another." Wallace Stevens

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Neither do Canadians.

History is taught by the violent victors yet” the past is not dead. It is not even past” - William Faulkner.

The most don’t have the time to think more than what life is calling them for I’d say.

No fault of theirs .

Love history as the story improves as time goes on with Memory improving the perception of what happens contrary to common thinking unless your deluded.

Before the written word oral memory created the way our brain works along with art.

Like looking into the goldfish pond over it.

Terrific article Julian!

Closer than most to where the truth will be tomorrow.

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The clash of all clashes. Financiallly, economically, politically, religiously, militarilly, morallly, mentally. Seriously? It smell like...Armageddon?

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Julian, I really appreciate the background on Galacia and Ruthenians. Much as I've heard it referenced, I never quite put the pieces together.

We watch Mercurious daily. As I hear Alexander's read of Putin's presser, the anger is self-directed to his own naiveté. As far as dealing with the SMO and international relations he certainly maintains a cool head.

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A plague on both houses, as far as I'm concerned. Just because we in the West sin and sin again doesn't make putin the good guy - and sharing a Russia Today facebook poll doesn't really do much credit for creditability - facebook polls are notoriously easy to sway in whatever direction the poster desires. Plenty of neo-nazis in Russia too, especially on the football terraces, and a crony-capitalist who 'disappears' political opponents and critical journalists en-masse is never going to get my support, just because he opposes the us and uk (who I also do not support). Fact is, there are bad guys on both sides, but only one side is levelling the other side's cities.

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All sides are cruel, that is the nature of power, but in some instances, one is more so than the other. The more so being USA/NATO.

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Which one do you think is leveling the other's cities?

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"Obama boasted about it. “I’m really good at killing people. 85% of the people he killed were women and children. In Gaza, the percentage for the IDF is just 70%. Registered Democrats love Obama nonetheless."

I think you've explained exactly why the Dems love #GenocideJoeBiden so much. Vampires indeed.

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The American public are fascinated by zombies and vampires. Because most of us are our zombies. But those in power are vampires. Few of us are lucky enough to be werewolves. TV is a metaphor for reality.

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I know it's off topic but you look great for 77 man

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Not off-topic. The whole article was geared towards that moment.

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Secrets of longevity. A. Face friendly camera B. Good lighting. C: No wrinkly smiles.

I should mention caloric restriction too!

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rchhmnIlbTc

I was fascinated by this indie art thriller about the world receiving longevity doses, and how hedonism takes over.

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For every step forward the major U.S. press takes to acknowledge that Ukraine's forces are turning to dust, like the "Washington Post" taking down the 'Ukraine War' top level link, well, someone else takes two steps back. The "New York Times" is reporting that President Putin is desperately seeking a cease fire through back channels. And to put a cherry on the bs, the article is laden with the catastrophic losses Russian forces have suffered plus the Bucca massacre, that is given to justify Ukraine refusing to ratify the Istanbul draft treaty. No mention of BoJo's hectoring to trash that deal.

We, as Americans are going down with the ship. Too bad that the bridge will have fled long before.

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"Too bad that the bridge will have fled long before"

I console myself with the belief that there is no place left to flee.

Do they honestly think that when they emerge from their bunkers, a pristine, ordered world of peace & luxury will be awaiting them with open arms?

More likely, ragged, rugged & very angry survivors welcoming the opportunity to hack them to bite-sized pieces.

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It amazes me the respect given to rags like the Washington Post and the New York Times.

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The Vampire class -- what a great description!

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Insightful analysis and historical background. Thanks a lot for sharing this.

It's truly disappointing how much anti-Russian propaganda has worked toward the Ukrainian citizens, thus causing them to genuinely believe in and support their government's decisions and actions in these past couple of years against its own citizens of Russian ethnicity in Eastern Ukraine, as well as towards Russia itself in general.

In that sense, one important factor as to why propaganda is very effective is that it manipulates and plays on people's emotions. And as we know, people in general are, unfortunately, mostly driven by their emotions, rather than rational thinking and common sense.

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When we talk about rational thinking and common sense it is usually in the context of politics – with such things do not really exist.

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