@Posted by: scorpion | May 16 2024 13:42 utc | 86
This is old news. NCRI also claimed Middle Eastern money was behind the wave of anti-Semitism on U.S. campuses. When you read the actual report, it is short on facts and long on innuendoes. Surprise, surprise, turns out NCRI is closely tied to AIPAC, CIA and the MIC.
You are a repeat offender, posting links and giving legitimacy to disinformation from dubious sites like Unz, Epoch Times and NCRI, while trying to maintain plausible deniability is despicable.
https://williambowles.info/2024/02/23/network-contagion-research-institute-exposed/

Posted by: Jun | May 16 2024 18:51 utc | 103

You are a repeat offender, posting links and giving legitimacy to disinformation from dubious sites like Unz, Epoch Times and NCRI, while trying to maintain plausible deniability is despicable.
Posted by: Jun | May 16 2024 18:51 utc | 104
Somebody’s paying attention.
Thanks Jun.

Posted by: waynorinorway | May 16 2024 19:40 utc | 105

oh BOO waynoinorway, that is the very essence of prejudice.

Posted by: Featherless | May 16 2024 19:57 utc | 107

waynorinorway | May 16 2024 19:40 utc | 106
Well said. As thde late Brian Mulroney once remarked:
“There is no troll like an old troll.”

Posted by: bevin | May 16 2024 20:16 utc | 109

https://www.rt.com/russia/597346-massive-transformation-is-taking-place-in-russia/
Good article about major shifts underway in Russia.

Posted by: scorpion | May 16 2024 20:52 utc | 111

At Martyanov’s on the “Can NATO Admit Defeat” thread is an excellent video capture of Nima talking with Ritter then Johnson about what’s happening in Georgia that’s just under 20-minutes.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 16 2024 21:14 utc | 113

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 16 2024 21:00 utc | 113
Yes, modern mathematics appears to me to be the study of axiomatics, what sort of assumptions (axioms, postulates, etc.) do you need to obtain what sort of theorems, results, etc. For example what can you do without the continuum hypothesis, without the law of the excluded middle, without use of argument by contradiction, without induction; and what do you need to assume to obtain any of the menagerie of algebraic structures, and of course elaboration in detail of the anatomy of those structures.
This has the refreshing property of leaving the question of when any of those axioms might apply in real life to observation, experiment and experience; not to deduction, which is not up to doing that job.
And that seems to me to be where Wittgenstein wound up, with the idea that philosophy cannot cannot answer the questions it asks by argument, but only by observation and introspection, which is what the phenomenologists are talking about.
Goedel showed that any logical system complicated enough to be interesting (arithmetic) cannot be “complete”, i.e. encompass all that is true within it, without also being meaningless, i.e. able to prove anything at all.
And Turing comparably showed that there are things you just cannot do with computers.
And one of the clearest results of all that is that universals and infinities must be handled in the most gingerly fashion, or better not handled at all, lest you start talking babble.
“Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent”.
In more modern form: “Silence is better than bullshit.”

Posted by: Bemildred | May 16 2024 22:04 utc | 115

https://www.rt.com/russia/597346-massive-transformation-is-taking-place-in-russia/
Good article about major shifts underway in Russia.
Posted by: scorpion | May 16 2024 20:52 utc | 112
In another post I mentioned that one of the young chosen by Putin is from a rich family, that the new defense minister’s brother has a big company… yet these (as probably many others) understand that money is a fiction and the res publica is where you can make a difference.
or as in your article
“This would be a wrong conclusion. Even the part of the country that ostensibly lives ‘in peace’ is markedly different from what it was before the Ukraine conflict began. The central focus of post-Soviet Russia – money – has not been eliminated, of course, but has certainly lost its unquestionable dominance. When many people – not only soldiers but civilians, too – are getting killed, other, non-material values are coming back. Patriotism, reviled and derided in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse, is re-emerging in force. In the absence of fresh mobilization, hundreds of thousands of those who sign contracts with the military are motivated by a desire to help the country. Not just by what they can get from it.”

Posted by: Newbie | May 16 2024 22:13 utc | 117

Posted by: Bemildred | May 16 2024 22:04 utc | 116
Harpocrates
Posted by: Newbie | May 16 2024 22:16 utc | 119
Actually, I borrowed that from a wall poster maybe ten years ago.

Posted by: Bemildred | May 16 2024 22:19 utc | 119

Getting lazy? Perhaps. Here’s “Ria Novosti’s China Summit Day One Report”, which is a fine recap. I’ll still be providing the details made known in the primary documents.

Posted by: karlof1 | May 16 2024 22:42 utc | 121

Amazing testimony before a very receptive U.S. Senate “Intelligence” Committee. This year’s U.S. election is going to be one to remember, or else one we wish we all could forget. That is if we make it that far.
All that is being requested is more authority to snoop and prosecute in order to protect. It’s being setup as a perfect cover, in advance. They are making the bed we all are going to have to lay on.
Pathetic in so many ways.
Foreign Threats to 2024 U.S. Election

Posted by: thecelticwithinme | May 16 2024 22:58 utc | 123

Lavrov’s Dog | May 16 2024 15:31 utc | 89
What is or isn’t ‘realistic’ is very relative, and prone to abrupt, Minsky-type changes.
But I guess we won’t agree on this. I take solace in knowing that the Chinese leadership (among many others) shares my views.

Posted by: smuks | May 16 2024 23:46 utc | 125

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
The Lord of Cleaving Dawn
https://www.al-islam.org/quran/surah/113/al-falaq
With Name of Allah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim
The importance of the illuminating light of the reading and our orientation to the author and the text was discussed earlier when discussing the model & mechanics of reading. The model itself is easy to grasp but what of the so called mechanics? The ‘how’ of the matter.
When the Archangel Gabriel (Salaam be upon Him) first spoke to the prophet Muhammad (Mercy of Allah (Sal’allah) be upon Him and His progeny & Salaam – [s.a.w.s.]) He instructed/said to the prophet (saws):
اقْرَأْ بِاسْمِ رَبِّكَ الَّذِي خَلَقَ
Read With Name of your Lord who Created! | [Al-Alaq 96:1]
So the very first utterance of revealed divine guidance to the gentile prophet (saws) was to read and how to read.
عَلَّمَ الْإِنْسَانَ مَا لَمْ يَعْلَمْ
Taught Humankind that which He knew not | [Al-Alaq 96:5]
The next few signs of this Sura then direct us to Sura Ar-Rahman (55) (from the connective of “taught Humankind what he knew not”)
https://www.al-islam.org/quran/surah/55/ar-rahmaan
and there we read:
الرَّحْمَٰن
عَلَّمَ الْقُرْآنَ
خَلَقَ الْإِنْسَانَ
عَلَّمَهُ الْبَيَانَ
The mercifully gracious (Ar-Rahman)
IT taught the recitation
IT created humankind
Taught it lucid expression
| [Ar-Rahman 55:1-4]
The name Ar-Rahman (Mercifully Gracious) is the name that denotes a universal grace and benevolence for ALL per HIS Self-imposition of “MY mercy overtakes my wrath”. (This name was revealed for the first time with Al-Qur’an and was the occasion of questions by those who heard it as to ‘who is Ar-Rahman’?)
There is an interesting and noteworthy sequence here. The science of ‘reading the word of God’ (Al-Qur’an) was taught first. Then humankind was created, and then that creature, the human being, was taught the science of lucid expression. It would be an error to consider ‘reading’ and ‘expressing’ in the mundane sense here. The Word of God is understood to be the means of the creation of the entire worlds, so what was ‘taught’ is how to ‘recite the word of God’ (that is comprehend it) via the name of mercifully gracious. As with ITs mercy, this gift of ‘how to read’ is universal, for any sentient being in creation. This universality is denoted here by its being placed before the statement regarding creation of mankind. Man then was (uniquely perhaps) given the teaching of clear creative expression. We know the act of expression of intentional thought is creative and side-effects the world since we are “created in HIS image” and that is how it is with God:
مَا كَانَ لِلَّهِ أَنْ يَتَّخِذَ مِنْ وَلَدٍ ۖ سُبْحَانَهُ ۚ إِذَا قَضَىٰ أَمْرًا فَإِنَّمَا يَقُولُ لَهُ كُنْ فَيَكُونُ
It is not for Allah to take a son. Glory Be to HIM!
When He Decides on a decree/order, HE just -Says- to ‘it’, “Be!” and it is!
[Sura Maryam 19:35]
Sura Ar-Rahman (55) is a very important Sura for understanding the reality of our being and certain demands its own careful reading. It addresses the order governing the realms (TAO or ‘The Balance’), the ‘computed’ macro-scale hinting at a simulation, the existence of the creature that is given the power of choice & expression (Human), and the intriguing fact that the same self ‘reality’ is either a heavenly garden or a fiery hell to the sentient creatures (“you twain”). Eastern schools — that porition of humanity that was given “the Balance” in contrast to the Western given “the Book” are highly informative in a reading of this Sura. For me personally, a reading of Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma illuminated this blessed Sura. An understanding of the essence of TAOism for penetrating the meaning of “the Balance” (al-Mizaan) is also of utility.
Now, reading the first sign of Sura Al-Falaq, there is one of the unique characteristic features of Qur’an (as scripture) – where in places it directs the reader to express by speech by the formulation of “say …”:
Say …
That is ‘form the mental intent (‘it’) and express it with faith in power of the Creative Intellect’.
Say I seek refuge with the Lord of the Cleaving
The Arabic word translated as ‘cleaving’ or ‘dawn’ is al-Falaq. It is necessary when reading this Sura to ask ourselves as to why is this seeking of refuge not directed to Names such as Allah, or the-Creator (Al-Khaliq) or the-Protector (Al-Muhaymin), since (as we read later on) we are seeking refuge from “that which HE Created”.
The Lord of the Cleaving, Rab Al-Falaq, is that which by ITs ‘cleaving’ or ‘splitting’ brings forth multiplicity from unity. The attribute is ‘creative power’. The action is ‘splitting’. Dawn is used since that is the ‘moment of distinction’ between night and day, the ‘cleaving’ of the recurring cycle. As we read in Al-Qur’an, ALLAH also gave “a book that makes Clear” to Moses (as) and Aaron (as) and there, in the Torah, right in “the Beginning” as in Genesis, we read:
https://mechon-mamre.org/p/pt/pt0101.htm
In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth [Genesis 1:1]
This God is of course Allah, for “All praise belongs to Allah who created the heavens and the earth and brought into being darkness and light” [Sura Al-An’aam 6:1]
الْحَمْدُ لِلَّهِ الَّذِي خَلَقَ السَّمَاوَاتِ وَالْأَرْضَ وَجَعَلَ الظُّلُمَاتِ وَالنُّورَ ۖ ثُمَّ الَّذِينَ كَفَرُوا بِرَبِّهِمْ يَعْدِلُونَ
“Now the earth was unformed and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.” [Genesis 1:2]
The entirety of creation was created in potential yet form and light had not yet emerged. Water, a liquid, is an interesting phase of matter in the apparent externality that we see, neither chaotic like gas nor rigidly ordered like solids. There is a ‘fluid order’.
“And God Said: ‘Let there be light’ and there was light” [Genesis 1:3]
This is the first Light, the Spiritual Light, for “earth” is still “unformed and void”.
“And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from darkness”[Genesis 1:4]
Recall what ‘Ali (as) the commander of the faithful & Wali’Allah said:
The heart records what the eye sees
We read here that God first sees the light, and then evaluates it as good, and then the act of partitioning gives rise to ‘phenomenological duality’. The unity, the unformed and void continuum, has been partitioned in an act motivated by and imbued with valuation. This is the creative process of the Creative Intelligence that partitions unity in complementary dualities. The actual reality remain and is unity. As a Muslim Saint said “Hell is the heaven of disbelievers”. How to read the Word …
“And God called the light Day and the darkness He called Night. And there was evening and there was morning, one Day” [Genesis 1:5]
So now ‘naming’ of things happens. And it is a cycle that repeats, and progressively gives rise to the emergence of the multiplicity of forms and creatures. Abstractly, we can see how the creative act of cleaving gives rise to duality, binary logic, semantic complements, and harmonic number systems (aka modular mathematics), and from there group theory.
From the evil of ITs Creation
So now we have a clear idea of just who is the Lord of Cleaving. It is the creative mind that gives rise to ‘light and darkness’ and all that follows in further partitioning and differentiation, some ‘good’ and some ‘not good’. We also now understand why Allah directed us to seek refuge with that specific aspect of HIS attributes and actions. This is to help us understand how our human minds work.
We asked “our Father” in the Lord’s Prayer to not “lead us into trials”. These trials, we now understand, are of our own making and due to our thought processes, with thought giving rise to thought in a generative process. This Sura also points us to Eastern schools of spirituality that developed the sciences of ‘stilling the mind’ and ‘transcending duality’, and associated practices, such as meditation and practicing ‘silence’.
The Arabic word, falaq, also provides further guidance, as another meaning of ‘splitting’ here is the splitting of the germ-seed that splits and gives rise to a vegetation. So, further guidance provided to us by the Gracious and Merciful God is that thought forms arise from a ‘germ-seed’ that we permit to split and grow. Some seeds are ‘not good’ and we must learn the mental and spiritual discipline to control the onset of ‘evil’ thoughts.
and from the evil of the darkness that overspreads
Once the seed germ of evil thought form has been set into generative motion, it can expand into a darkness that overspreads the clear mirror of the tranquil mind. “Fear of God” was mentioned before and how it is “the beginning of wisdom”. We are repeatedly guided to ‘read’ in the Name of Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim, and the prophet (saws) told us to “have the best opinion of Allah”, so naturally this is not fear in the common sense but rather ‘diligent and mindful and God aware’. So, we are to maintain a positive mindset and mentality reflecting our inclination to Gracious and Merciful God. But as we all know, it is not easy, it is a difficult business.
Regarding this ‘darkness that overspreads, in the blessed Gita we read:

The Blessed Lord said:
It is desire, it is anger born of the ‘active’, all-devouring, all-sinful; know this as the enemy here.
As fire is enveloped by smoke, as a mirror by dust, as an embryo by the womb, so this (wisdom) is enveloped by that (desire & anger)
Enveloped, O Son of Kunti, is ‘wisdom’ by this constant enemy of the wise in the form of desire, which is difficult to be appeased, like fire.
The senses, the sensing-mind, and the intellect are said to be its seat; through these, it deludes the embodied by veiling his wisdom.
[The Song of the Lord, III:37-40]
(I specially recommend the English translation & commentary by Swami Chinmayananda, an excellent and delightful Teacher.)
So this is the root cause of the ‘evil’ that as an overspreading darkness darkens our clear and lucid mirror of God-centered intellect. Fear of God is the shield that protects wisdom. Fear that keeps us vigilant when facing the ‘fire’ of desire and anger that spews the smoke that darkens and overspreads.
and from the evil of blowers on knots
Traditionally, due to what occasioned these two suras we are reading to be revealed by Gabriel (as) to Muhammad (saws) in context of an act of sorcery against the Prophet (saws), this Sura has been understood as asking for protection from sorcery, magic, spells, and evil eye. However we now know that there are as many readings of the Al-Quran as there are readers. We’re focusing on a reading to guide and help us in our quest for higher God-consciousness and thus we look within.
Components of our own ‘fragmented creative mind’ are the ‘blowers’ on ‘knots’. It seems a reasonable assertion that all humans experience contradictory mental impulses and we have the cliche of ‘good angel and bad angel’ sitting on our shoulders. The knots are ideation of fixations, obsessions, thoughts of omens, past trauma, and various grievances (debts!) that we “nurse” in our mind. This is ‘blowing on knots’ in context of our creative intellect. The act of blowing is ‘breathing life into’ mental husks that should be untied and done away with. So dark mental brooding becomes habitual and we put a spell on our self. The evil magician we are seeking refuge from is none other than our own fragmented mind that instead of Unity sees duality. And this gives rise to evil both for ourselves and others, as our mindset affects our behavior in ‘speech’ and ‘action’.
and from the evil of the envier when it envies
We recall that when God, Holy and Exalted, first created the heavens and earth, earth was unformed and void, so it existed yet it was indistinct from heaven. Spiritual heaven and earth, the first Light, this all came into being before any valuation, partitioning, distinguishing, or even naming (identity ..) had come into being.
So who is this envier? What is envy? Envy requires an other to envy, so it can only exists in a mindset that makes a distinction between itself and an other. How can there be envy in unity? It is impossible. However the Cleaving Lord creates, evaluates and makes preferences, distinguishes, and then names. As we are aware by our mundane awareness mired in the maya of apparent externality (zahir), things are not evenly distributed at all. There are the rich and there are the destitute; the beautiful and the not so, the healthy and the sick. There are happy people and then there are the miserable. It is a breeding ground for envy. Is there any hope?
Love.
Love is the Divine Directive that unites. It brings together, harmonizes, mutually entwines, and Unifies. What is not said in the Torah’s account of ‘the beginning’ (that is Genesis of Creation), is spelled out in the Glorious Al-Qur’an, “the Book that makes things Clear”:
ثُمَّ اسْتَوَىٰ إِلَى السَّمَاءِ وَهِيَ دُخَانٌ فَقَالَ لَهَا وَلِلْأَرْضِ ائْتِيَا طَوْعًا أَوْ كَرْهًا قَالَتَا أَتَيْنَا طَائِعِينَ
Then He Assertively Directed to the heaven
and it was smoke
and He said to it and to the earth:
‘Come, willingly or unwillingly!’
They said, ‘We come obediently.’ | [Fussilat 41:11]
So, in that stage of as-of-yet unformed creation, Allah the True King, the Domineering One, directed ITs creation to ‘come’ towards it. This is Love, as any who has been in actual love knows, it is not something one can resist. That divine directive is the meaning of Love shorn of sentimental notions. ‘Come’ that is “Love ME”.
https://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Matthew-22-37/

Jesus said unto him,
Thou shalt Love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
This is the first and great Commandment. [Q 41.11 – note it]
And the second like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.
[Matthew 22:37-40]
Now when it comes to love you could say, wait, what about love triangles? Aren’t they awful and painful? Per one reading of the cosmic opera that is the coming into being of Adam (as) and satan’s disobedience when Allah Holy and Exalted commanded the angels to “submit to Adam”, the entire matter was because of a love triangle. There it was, satan before its fall, resplendent in beauty and foremost in declaring love for Allah, before that other love interest of Allah showed up. In the Illuminating Al-Qur’an we are told that it expressed the cause of its disobedience due to the contempt that it felt for Adam (as) “made of clay!” but the root of the matter was and remains envy. That is because the enemy did not truly understand the nature and meaning of Love and Allah’s True Love.
So here is our clue about what is the nature of True Love and true lovers of God. True lovers of God form a circle, a perfect arc around the object of the Lovers’ adoration, like a ‘half-circle drawn by a compass around a point reflecting in the mirror of true reality’. This love must reign in our hearts and inform our mentality and our thoughts. This is the meaning seeking refuge “from the envier when it envies”.
~!~
InshAllah, we will continue our reading with the final prayer to the Lord, a reading of the Sura The Humankind
& Salaam!

Posted by: sunof27 | May 17 2024 0:00 utc | 127

@ Laura Roslin | May 17 2024 0:25 utc | 129
The [F-35] program is trying to quash bugs that force pilots to reboot in midair, GAO says.
It’s not so bad. Many mistake-jets can’t even get off the ground. The portion of the F-35 fleet that is supposed to be ready to fight at a moment’s notice has a full mission capable rate of only 48%. So the US Army is going to drones

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 17 2024 0:43 utc | 129

Posted by: sunof27 | May 17 2024 0:00 utc | 128
As we’re in OT thread, Sunni or Sufi ?
Either way it is strange to see someone supposedly from the faith that replaces and ends all others take a walk down memory lane from the Tao onwards.
Exoterics have faith. Esoterica know.
But it cannot be transmitted without the personal experience.
Either way, the questions remain endless, as the answers.

Posted by: Newbie | May 17 2024 1:16 utc | 131

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 16 2024 6:41 utc | 69
Seems like today is a day for apologies from me — I am truly sorry in my exhuberance last open forum as I replied to the posted link to Pepe’s seafaring article on ‘spirit’ (which I loved.)
However, I won’t apologize too much as I did try to keep my comments short. A short comment is easily responded to. A lengthy one, not so much. This is not a critique of your eloquent tale, Aleph – rather it would be a good example of the maximum we ought to be able to post. b hasn’t been well, and we ought not overtax his generosity.
Short is sweet! Otherwise, I am afraid, we simply sail over and on…

Posted by: juliania | May 17 2024 1:57 utc | 133

@karlof1, #131:
Ooops! My bad. I was reading on Guancha the Chinese version of Joint Statement, then read psycho’s lament of not getting to read Reuter’s, so I started searching on Chinese wifi sites for an English version and came across the one I posted. I was wondering how come the English version I came across wasn’t quite identical to the Chinese version, though there are quite some similar items covered, but didn’t suspect that it was totally a different Joint Statement. Thanks for the correction you made.
On the other hand, comparing the two the central themes of these two Joint Statements weren’t different by much although the wordings and ordering of the points made were quite differently. Looks like two years ago, the present stands the two nations are taking were already fore-declared. Good for them! They are marching steadily towards de-throning of the ugly beast. Slowly, steadily, and persistently.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | May 17 2024 2:16 utc | 135

Addition to my #136, the Chinese version posted by Guancha specifically pointed to the recent mass murder terror in Moskow and implied the culprits behind.

Posted by: Oriental Voice | May 17 2024 2:20 utc | 137

He focuses too much on political personalities, rather than on the economic/financial system of exploitation (resources, labor, environment, etc) that rules us all in the Western world/USA-centralized Empire.
it’s a Plutocracy, not an Idiocracy.
But I still see his point….up to a point
https://twitter.com/Kanthan2030/status/1791161020079276235
Why does the USA have so many fukkking idiots as politicians?
These people are straight out of the dysfunctional Jerry Springer show or the movie Idiocracy.
But they keep getting elected. And the mainstream media never calls them out either.
Marco Rubio, Nikki Haley, Tom Cotton, Marsha Blackburn, AOC, Nancy Pelosi… the bipartisan list goes on.
I cannot think of ONE truly intellectual US politician these days.
Maybe RFK Jr. comes close, but his fanatical views on Israel puts everything in doubt.

Posted by: michaelj72 | May 17 2024 2:57 utc | 139

Prominent Israeli academic Ilan Pappe said he was interrogated by the Department of Homeland Security after arriving in the US on Monday.
Arriving at Detroit airport, the academic – known for his stridently anti-Zionist views and research – said he was subjected to two hours of questioning.
Amongst the questions, he was asked whether he was a Hamas supporter and whether he regarded the Israeli assault on Gaza as a “genocide”.
“The two man team were not abusive or rude, I should say, but their questions were really out of the world!” Pappe wrote on Facebook.
“They had long phone conversation with someone, (the Israelis?) and after copying everything on my phone allowed me to enter.”
“Actions like this by the USA or European countries taken under pressure from the pro-Israeli lobby or Israel itself smell of sheer panic and desperation in reaction to Israel’s becoming very soon a pariah state with all the implications of such a status.”
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israeli-academic-illan-pappe-interrogated-us-intelligence

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 17 2024 3:33 utc | 141

@Bemildred | Thu, 16 May 2024 22:04:00 GMT | 116

“Silence is better than bullshit.”

Raising my glas to Don F, I shall quote Ludwig, who has it a bit differently: Wovon man nicht reden kann …
The axioms of Logic are axioms of choice; they gain their appropriation against a [noetic] backdrop that’s sometimes called meta-logic (as it can’t be expressed in the same terms), though the logical properties we choose to imply are still universal.
This is a profound question.
Incidentally, the formal-logical answer to it is given by Gödel’s theorem: all sufficiently rich (eg algebra) formal systems are incomplete.
The more readily experienced answer to that is the very nature of the mystic – the unexpected, as witnessed in humour, or music, and creativity in general. There provides for the new, the not-yet-verstanden.
Do you prepare all of your jokes? I hope not. Still, you may be able to explain them.

Posted by: persiflo | May 17 2024 4:00 utc | 143

@ michaelj72 140
Why does the USA have so many fukkking idiots as politicians?
Politicians are elected by the people on promises, and then they do the bidding of their financial backers. Meanwhile the military is busy destroying other nations, killing and displacing millions, while the US people are urged to thank the military for their service maintaining freedom. Hah. It’s all built on the major lies that the Defense Department is defending the country, and that presidential elections constitute democracy, government by the people.

Posted by: Don Bacon | May 17 2024 4:12 utc | 145

Posted by: Don Firineach | May 17 2024 3:16 utc | 141
Posted by: persiflo | May 17 2024 4:00 utc | 144
Well, yes to both of you. I have become fond of the word “irreducible”, as in reality is not “reducible” to our theories about it, there is always more, it has no simpler representation that itself. Various people have been poking around at that idea for a little over a hundred years now. It’s really not such a bad thing to realize that.
As in the butterfly effect, if you think about it, it means that in the long run, everything is critically important, sooner or later, to something.
I never prepare jokes, and never explain, the fun is in the discovery.
I am not a mathematician, but I did work seriously at it at one time. I still like to work a few problems now and then.
I don’t like to talk about myself much. It’s much too complicated.
I think I’ll have a drink and go to bed now. Best regards.

Posted by: Bemildred | May 17 2024 4:34 utc | 147

The Georgian president is a she, Salome Zourabichvili, who was born to Georgian emigres in France who had close ties to the “government in exile” ……… french ambassador, US educated, shill, etc
Posted by: Roger | May 16 2024 18:20 utc | 101
Was that a movie script? This western world truly is insane.
What is wrong with people that they can accept that kind of thing in their own country? These eastern bloc countries still complain about what the USSR used to do in the cold war …. WTF?

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 17 2024 5:00 utc | 149

@ Don Firineach | May 17 2024 1:31 utc | 133
@ Lavrov’s Dog | May 17 2024 5:09 utc | 151
Now the parallel subject of Sophistry arises, a school of philosophy which made no sense to Plato. Protagoras, the very protagonist of Sophistry, summed it up with the ultimate example of species solipsism: “Man is the measure of all things.” We somehow wound up back in the same old cognitive cul-de-sac, where nothing persists beyond human cognition. It’s a tragically sterile, lonely, even loveless place to live. (Love is one of those metaphysical properties, after all!) It’s navel-worship with Wittgenstein.
Species solipsism — such an intense, incessant barrage of it — inevitably results in truncated, solipsistic individual lives. Bubble people who act as though their own personal movie is the only thing that really matters.
“Postmodern” theorists have no particular reason to care about anything. (Nobody can ever figure out what to call LW’s progeny, as they spend all their time arguing over what to call themselves.) Noam Chomsky, like me, really doesn’t care what it’s called — he’s obviously referring to French intellectuals like Foucault, whom Chomsky has occasionally confronted.
With the search terms “chomsky postmodern” you can find his quite relevant critique of modern academic philosophers: You never see such characters showing up at the barricades, like folks who stand for something.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 17 2024 6:27 utc | 151

Incidentally, the formal-logical answer to it is given by Gödel’s theorem: all sufficiently rich (eg algebra) formal systems are incomplete.
@ persiflo | May 17 2024 4:00 utc | 144
“Incompleteness” conventionally refers to two theorems. The first (the incredibly long one) proves that algebraic systems must contain statements which can neither be proven nor disproven. The second theorem takes this undecidability to statements establishing consistency of a formal system: such statements are not decidable within the system.
Your conclusion that such formal systems are necessarily incomplete is wrong. In later work, Godel established the consistency (i.e. sufficient completeness) of finite systems via transfinite systems (something Hilbert wouldn’t have liked much).

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 17 2024 7:16 utc | 153

Posted by: Phil R | May 16 2024 11:28 utc | 76
What I’m calling for is actually no different than what Russia is doing Ukraine and what the majority of MoA readers totally support.
That’s like like a million causalities +/- and I don’t see people complaining about that because TINA – there is no alternative. The same imho applies in the USA – there is no alternative to bring that nation and it’s people to heel. Nice negotiation sis not an option when confronting Psychopaths like that and 300 million brainwashed delusional fools who essentially don’t know shit from bread. 🙂
Your average American does not read MoA nor Joint statements by Xi and Putin.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 17 2024 7:53 utc | 155

https://t.me/beboandfriends/253254
That moment you realise you were banned off Facebook by a guy that needs a booster seat

Posted by: Hankster | May 17 2024 9:43 utc | 157

Optimism bias is not going to help fix the harm caused to the world by the USA and its own citizens.
Anymore than Hopium can stop the tyranny in Occupied Palestine.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 17 2024 12:27 utc | 159

https://t.me/rybar/60136

🇱🇹 About threats from “errand boys”
The day before yesterday, during a visit to Tbilisi, representatives of the authorities of the Baltic countries and Iceland acted as the vanguard of Western support for President Salome Zurabishvili. In particular, the general position was expressed by Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis – he said that the adoption of the law on foreign agents would close Georgia’s path to the EU and NATO. However, the opportunity to withdraw the bill “still exists.”
Landsbergis also went to a meeting with Georgian protesters, expressed solidarity with them and called on them to speak openly about what “the current policy means for the Georgian future.” There was also mention of Moscow, which “is not interested in the happy outcome of this story.”
Well, yesterday, the speaker of the Georgian parliament, Shalva Papuashvili, actually called the actions of the authorities of Iceland, Lithuania and Estonia, who took part in the rally against the law on foreign agents, an attempt at a coup. Moreover, Papuashvili said that some in the governments of the Baltic partner countries have gone too far in their own rhetoric and the participation of foreign politicians in such a protest is a symptom of the fact that the Russian government has transferred part of its worldview to its most fierce opponents.
It is worth noting here that the visit of the Baltic and Icelandic representatives (the latter have formally legalized one or another step of the authorities of each of the three countries for more than a hundred years) had a very specific goal, which no one hid: to convey a certain signal to the Georgian government. In addition, they must confirm Zurabishvili’s status as a “central figure” who explains to the West what is happening and mobilizes people for active action.
In this case, we have before us a walking illustration of the thesis – what kind of figure, what kind of support. “Avant-garde” from the Baltics is often thrown into the political spotlight as a demonstration of Western benevolence – but this extremely rarely promises significant support and real prospects.
In addition, both Georgian and Baltic politicians are still behaving relatively restrained – some in order not to greatly harm Lithuanian logistics companies in the Caucasus and Central Asia, and others – so as not to complicate interaction with states where dirty money of politicians is most often laundered post-Soviet space. By the way, representatives of the Latvian Foreign Ministry, who are more involved in these matters than their neighbors, chose not to appear at the Georgian opposition rally at all.
#Georgia #Baltics
@rybar together with @estlatlitv

Posted by: anon2020 | May 17 2024 12:55 utc | 161

Posted by: Jun | May 17 2024 3:39 utc | 143
@Posted by: scorpion | May 16 2024 20:47 utc | 111
I really have no words for people like you. Your plausible deniability is pure sophistry. Talk about dancing on a pin of poop as (Denk calls it).

Say something meaningful. Plausible deniability OF WHAT? You hurl insult without content. Stop masturbating in your own little mind-bubble and say what you mean. Out with it!!! Because up to now, I honestly have NO IDEA what your objection is based on. It’s all code language. Or maybe you are just nuts. I cannot tell because, again, there is no content. Read your comment above again: NO CONTENT!!

Posted by: scorpion | May 17 2024 13:00 utc | 163

@Aleph_Null | Fri, 17 May 2024 06:27:00 GMT | 152

“Man is the measure of all things.”
/
I also know that Gödel’s theorem comes in two parts. But here’s a story:
We have a nice guy logician at the Hamburg U, who specializes in this very theorem. He has a half-time, half-pay assistant job where he advises students of philosophy on all things life and U. One day, the Deutsches Elekronen-Synchrotron celebrated Kurt Gödel’s 100th birthday, and he got to hold a talk about the famous theorem there in the big hall. He decided to demonstrate the prove, talked for almost 90mins with elan and vigour, yet didn’t make it through. Everyone was wondering whether they should be bored or amazed when the overdue question time came. Someone asked a question. He shone up, and proceeded with his demonstration for another twenty minutes, still not finishing it.

Posted by: persiflo | May 17 2024 13:57 utc | 165

@Aleph_Null | Fri, 17 May 2024 14:28:00 GMT | 167
That’s ‘Goedel’ for you, Aleph.
And many thanks for Anselm’s proof, I love it. Though his ergo isn’t strictly true, I think. He only can’t rule him out; like Pascal, whose proof I love, too. God as a meaningful assumption is, I guess, the next best thing to meeting Him somehow in person.
/
Look, squirrels!

Posted by: persiflo | May 17 2024 15:26 utc | 167

fyi Gödel fans
The spy who flunked it: Kurt Gödel’s forgotten part in the atom-bomb story
Robert Oppenheimer’s isn’t the only film-worthy story from the nuclear age. Kurt Gödel’s cameo as a secret agent was surprising — and itself a bomb.
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-00644-1
h/t nakedcapitalism

Posted by: Don Firineach | May 17 2024 18:14 utc | 169

Defense Minister Robert Kaliniak is expected to become Slovakia’s interim prime minister.
He is known for even more pro-Russian views than Fico!
He will most likely become the official prime minister in the next elections.
“>https://t.me/WarRealTime/34123

Posted by: LightYearsFromHome | May 17 2024 19:55 utc | 171

I was lucky to get my hands on a copy of Hans-Ulrich Rudel’s War Diary from the fifties, signed by himself. Rudel was a Nazi pilot who shot 500+ Soviet tanks with a modified Ju-87G Stuka [footage] and met Adolf regularly to receive the latest commendation medals for his actions – Hitler ended up having to invent a new one solely for him. During this meetings, interesting things were spoken according to the book. Briefly:
– In 1941, endless Red Army columns were lined up and ready to Go West. Sorry, no link, but try reading NVA Generalmajor Bernd Schwipper on the topic when you’re done with Suvorov.
– Perfidious Albion didn’t want peace. Saving Europe from the Bolsheviks, as Rudel suggested, didn’t impress.
– Shortly before the Untergang, Rudel offered to land in the burning city of Berlin to evacuate the Führung; Adolf declined. – Why hold out for so long? Rudel asked him, and his report is that Adolf said, ‘Wait a bit more, we’ll have some real big bombs that are going to save us!’

Posted by: persiflo | May 17 2024 22:00 utc | 173

attn: B
EU bans four more major Russian language media outlets
Prior to Friday’s announcement, Brussels had already barred several Russia-associated media from engaging with audiences in member states since the Ukraine conflict escalated into open hostilities in February 2022. Even platforming content from the targeted organizations is illegal in the bloc.
The new additions to the blacklist announced on Friday include the relatively small Czech-based portal Voice of Europe, RIA Novosti, a leading Russian news agency, and the veteran newspapers Izvestia and Rossiyskaya Gazeta.
via RT alt url https://www.swentr.site/news/597794-eu-bans-russian-news/
What does “platforming mean”?
Hosting quotes of content from banned Russian media? and the Kremlin ?

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 18 2024 4:37 utc | 175

In this year of elections, remember, it is the criminals you now elect, who will come into power to rule over you and destroy your lives, they will also destroy all your rights, your freedoms and your countries too.
It is guaranteed that once in power they will use violence against their own people and in fact against anyone or any nation who disagrees with them.
This is your so-called Democratic representation in action.
Biden, Trump, Macron, Trudeau, Schultz, Sunak, Johnson, Stoltenberg, Van Der Ley, Cameron.
Did you think they would suddenly become nonviolent, benign caring leaders?
Your jailers will change, but the jail remains the same.
What difference does it make to the prisoner who the jailer is?
Their whole mind is full of violence, and that violence, cunning, lies and cruelty has been their success.
Also, the people who have come into power through violence are bound to be violent against each other, because there will always be, within their party, the struggle for power.
Violence has been the way of life for millennia.
Directly or indirectly we have lived under violence.
Our armies, our police, our jails, our judges, our wars, our so-called great religions, all have lived in violence.
And violence, reduced to its essentials, is irreverent towards life.
Violence is not only killing people.
Violence is an attitude, an approach.
Violence leads to more violence, there is no end to it, just as one lie leads to another lie and there is no end to it.
This is one of the indications of evil.
One evil always leads to another evil, then another evil, and you are caught in a vicious circle.
If you don’t create another evil your first evil will be exposed.
Just to keep it hidden you have to go on continually creating more clouds of evil around it.
Violence is man’s inheritance of millions of years, it needs tremendous work to change it.
People are political animals.
Violence is also within you.
Everybody is carrying an unconscious inferiority complex in themselves.
And that is the most dangerous thing to carry within you.
It hurts, and one wants to get rid of it.
The only way to get rid of it is to prove to the whole world that you are not inferior.
The inferiority complex leads people into politics, makes people presidents, tyrants, prime ministers.
The inferiority complex leads people into all kinds of ambitions and crimes.
Unless humanity is completely freed from this complex, we cannot have a peaceful world.
Break the cycle!
Ultimately in yourself..
Never elect unconscious criminals into positions of power.
Power brings out the worst that is in people.
Don’t be in the service of death.
Everybody carries that power to do evil, the will, the seed, but the opportunity is not there, it is only a potential.
Becoming political is when power really comes into your hands, then all of your hidden devils start raising their heads and asking you, “Now is the time, do it, otherwise who knows whether next time you will get the power or not.”
Power has its own ways to destroy you.
Remember, revolution is an organized effort to change the society forcibly, violently.
But the trouble is, you cannot change the society through violence, because it is violence that is the very life current of the society.
That’s why all the revolutions have failed.
And there is no possibility of any revolution succeeding ever.
Revolution is a collective effort to overthrow the government.
Revolution is fighting with the past.
The old society depends on violence, the revolutionaries depend on violence.
The old society depends on enslaving people, the revolutionaries depend on the same.
The old society depends on beliefs, revolutionaries also depend on belief.
It makes no difference whether your belief is in The Bible or in Das Kapital.
If the revolutionaries are going to win they have to be more violent than the old society, more cunning, more clever, more political, more cruel, otherwise they cannot win..
Rebellion has never been tried.
Rebellion is individual.
Rebellion is meditating for the future.
It overthrows nobody, it simply dissolves the individual’s hypocrisy.
The rebel drops their facade.
They are not against any regime, against any society.
They are not bothered by all that nonsense.
Those who are interested in that, let them do their work.
The rebel is simply very self-oriented.
Drop all the rubbish that is in you.
Clean yourself and start living.
Be yourself and live intensely at the innermost core of your being.
That’s what rebellion is.
Let things be as they are.
You are a being.
Know yourself.
Transform yourself.
Be: No Mind.
And we need it very urgently, because if we cannot manage to have people who are contented with themselves, happy with themselves, relaxed with themselves, with no grudge, no complaint against the world, then the third world war is just on the horizon.
Any stupid politician, to prove themselves can start the third world war, trigger nuclear annihilation and soon they are going to do it.
It is becoming more and more urgent that we create people who have no inferiority complex, people who have a certain serenity, silence; people who have a deep contentment within themselves, people who are no longer political, ambitious and violent.
We need a non-ambitious humanity; only then can the clouds of death that are looming on the horizon be avoided.

Posted by: I Clawedius | May 18 2024 7:43 utc | 177

Never elect unconscious criminals into positions of power.
Posted by: I Clawedius | May 18 2024 7:43 utc | 178
I’d say it like this – Never consciously Vote for any unconscious criminals into positions of power. It’s better for your peace of mind into the future to Vote for people who cannot win but who you know are good people – no matter their Policy platform.
If in Doubt – Vote for no one. If compulsory Voing, spoil the ballot, pencil in Mini Mouse.
Lastly in the theme of the post, you don’t have a soul, you are Soul. :-O

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 18 2024 7:57 utc | 179

Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) is, by definition, that than which nothing is stupider. FSM, therefore, cannot be conceived of as not existing, for otherwise we can conceive of Him as being even stupider, viz. by existing. It is therefore inconceivable that FSM not exist; ergo He exists.
Thank you. Thank you very much.

Posted by: Aleph_Null | May 18 2024 8:08 utc | 181

Quick link on the ‘floatel’ I posted about a number of days ago. A look inside! A little PR! The floatel in BC’s Howe Sound (Biosphere Region). That was hosting Ukrainian refugees in Eastern Europe. That *now* hosts construction workers for an LNG project.
https://globalnews.ca/news/10485638/squamish-floatel-tour/
Rap duo, Snotty Nose Rez Kids latest. Just because. They’re outta Kitamaat Village, all West Coast and all.
https://youtu.be/G3x1ktKmkeI
CBC’s The National’s The Moment is about a snow leopard that gave birth to twin cubs in the Toronto Zoo.
https://youtu.be/g569XsbNtoE
What. Could that. Possibly be referring to. Maybe I should post it in the other thread, b’s latest (synchronicity)

Posted by: Bruised Northerner | May 18 2024 10:17 utc | 183

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQQgpp69Aj4
25 minute piece by Jimmy Dore; first ten minutes feature Doctor who worked in Soviet Union and helped rescue 70,000 women and children trafficked for sex and organs into Europe and the US. She says she was trafficked as a minor but does not have clear memory of that time.
This is a hidden hand layer ongoing that we rarely catch a glimpse of. And even when we do, we cannot tell if it is true or not. But if true, there were no barriers between Soviet Union and the West when it came to this product. (Doubtless the Russian, aka Jewish, Mafia.)

Posted by: scorpion | May 18 2024 17:31 utc | 185

Posted by: NemesisCalling | May 18 2024 17:56 utc | 187
I was just looking up the term used for young goats, because I wanted to make sure it was “kid”.
Yes, an inquiry that simple turned out to be a hassle. So the degradation of search engines (which i also discovered is a trending topic in IT type magazines and websites), is more than just political bias, it is unintended consequences of a reward system based on clicks, run by an AI.

Posted by: UWDude | May 18 2024 18:25 utc | 187

Georgian President Salome Zourabichvili said on Saturday that she vetoed the controversial foreign agents bill passed by the country’s parliament earlier in May

of course she did.

“I have vetoed the ‘Russian’ law. This law … represents an obstacle on the European path. The veto is legally enforceable and will be passed to the parliament today. The law cannot be amended or improved in any way. This law must be repealed,” Zourabichvili said during a briefing.

amazing. so the us and the eu have a russian law. so why did she veto it if her “partners” also have it?

Posted by: Justpassinby | May 18 2024 20:14 utc | 189

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
Now the reading of the Sura 114, ‘the Humankind’.
https://www.al-islam.org/quran/surah/114/an-naas
It has occurred during my reading(s) of this amazing Sura that my personal reading is inappropriate for a general readership. This Sura is rather ‘hot’ and besides that it presents further difficulties: how to modulate the degree of disclosure in a recitation for a mixed company of listeners? where to draw the line between transfer of knowledge and spoiling the experience of reading for those who seek God? That last point has been a key concern in my own journey to God. I always made sure to skip a (teaching) text when sensing that the author was about to spill some beans. Spoilers. You know, it is one thing to learn by transfer of information and entirely different matter to learn by experience.
Is not the experienced truth more worthy of trust than that which has been conveyed?
It is also good for the seeker to get confirmation after the fact of experience. Someone somewhere in the distant past and possibly semantically embedded in an entirely different cultural-matrix has had the same experience. You read their words and understand it. That is precious and why would I want to spoil that for you, dear ~!*readers*!~, my winged friends?
So, quite a lot is passed over here, with indications for deeper personal readings.
~!~
The Humankind
With Name of ALLAH the Mercifully Gracious the Graciously Merciful! (*)
Say
I seek refuge in
the Lord of Humankind (1)
the King of Humankind (2)
the God of Humankind (3)
from evil of
the whisperer that withdraws (4)
the one who whispers in the inner sanctum of Humankind (5)
from among
Jinn and Humankind (6)
~!~
It seems more appropriate in our reading of this Sura to take in the 7 signs (including the unNumbered first sign that opens the reading ..) at once, and work our way up!
As we do we note that the Humankind is mentioned 5 times and omitted in only one place where the working process of the agency of evil is described. A whispering that affects the Humankind yet ‘withdraws’ (or slinks away) leaving no trace of the whisperer, only the side effects of its whispering. We know there is a detrimental side effect since we are seeking refuge in God from it.
The who’s who of this Sura is rather ‘Key’ to deep (and contended) matters. I recommend mediating on it.
First off, only 2 beings are directly identified by name here: Humankind and the Jinn. Jinn are beings like Humankind, afforded choice (which is why they can end up in hell along with humans), created before Mankind, with a distinct ‘substantial’ composition from Adam (as). The spirit of enmity (aka satan) first reared its head from among one of this kind, a Jinn named Iblis in the Al-Qur’an.
وَإِذْ قُلْنَا لِلْمَلَائِكَةِ اسْجُدُوا لِآدَمَ فَسَجَدُوا إِلَّا إِبْلِيسَ أَبَىٰ وَاسْتَكْبَرَ وَكَانَ مِنَ الْكَافِرِينَ
وَقُلْنَا يَا آدَمُ اسْكُنْ أَنْتَ وَزَوْجُكَ الْجَنَّةَ وَكُلَا مِنْهَا رَغَدًا حَيْثُ شِئْتُمَا وَلَا تَقْرَبَا هَٰذِهِ الشَّجَرَةَ فَتَكُونَا مِنَ الظَّالِمِينَ
فَأَزَلَّهُمَا الشَّيْطَانُ عَنْهَا فَأَخْرَجَهُمَا مِمَّا كَانَا فِيهِ ۖ وَقُلْنَا اهْبِطُوا بَعْضُكُمْ لِبَعْضٍ عَدُوٌّ ۖ وَلَكُمْ فِي الْأَرْضِ مُسْتَقَرٌّ وَمَتَاعٌ إِلَىٰ حِينٍ
فَتَلَقَّىٰ آدَمُ مِنْ رَبِّهِ كَلِمَاتٍ فَتَابَ عَلَيْهِ ۚ إِنَّهُ هُوَ التَّوَّابُ الرَّحِيمُ

And when We said to the angels: ‘Prostrate before Adam’ they prostrated, but not Iblis. he refused and acted arrogantly, and he was one of the rejecters|kaafereen.
We said, ‘O Adam, dwell with your paired-mate in paradise and eat thereof freely where-ever you wish, but do not approach this tree, lest you should be among the wrongdoers|zaalemeen.’
Then satan caused them to stumble from it, and he dislodged them from what [state] they were in.
And We said, ‘Get down altogther, some of you enemies to some others! On the earth shall be your abode and ‘sustenance’ for a time.’ [<< give us bread ..] Then Adam received certain Words from his Lord, and HE Turned to him. Indeed HE Is the Oft-Returning, the Graciously-Merciful! [Al-Baqara 2:34-37]
So that was the first whispering moment, its effects, and Words conveyed to Adam as an act of Gracious Mercy. Note this is Ar-Raheem that is Turning to Adam and not Ar-Rahman, so this indicates the importance of the personal reading of the Word of God since Ar-Raheem dispenses individual Mercy. This prayer, in fact, is one of those Words, as it is for protection from evil whispering that ‘bring Adam and Eve down from the Heights down to earth’. We also know the name of the agency of whispering. Here (per Torah) it was Eve who was whispered into, and then she whispered to Adam.
Enmity ensues in the course of this fall from Grace. Adam and Eve, the ‘happy pair’ in the ‘garden’, are now stuck ‘down here’ in ‘the Earth’ (al-Arz) for “a period”.
This was a ‘learning experience’ for Adam and Eve. They had sat on God’s little lecture before regarding where to eat (as we read) but as mentioned, we only truly learn by experience.
~!~
As noted, Humankind is stressed in this Sura. This is a Word from God to Adam and His children, with specific information for us. Adam ‘receives’ the Word (that is He effectively ‘reads’ it) and then “HE Turned to him”.
Like the Lord’s Prayer, God is identified here by a relational formulation (role, domain). The domain is Humankind. The roles are {Lord, King, God}.
Before we get into why this is the case in this Sura, working back up, we note that the evil whisperer seems to ‘come from’ Jinn and Humankind. This reminds of how Iblis (a Jinn) was possessed of the satanic spirit and acted as it did. In the garden, per the Hebrew Bible, it was a snake that whispered in the ear of Eve and then she in turn whispered in the ear of Adam, her ‘spouse’. Now down here on Earth snakes no longer whisper to us but fellow humans and Jinn will. Since the latter are beings that do not have embodiment in the course material realm (“mud”, “clay”) their whispering is different than whispering “from among … humankind”. The whispering of fellow man are, like Eve’s, ‘suggestions’. The nature of suggestions, as we read in the Sura, are as if made by an agency that slinks/withdraws. This strongly suggests subliminal suggestions. And this process of ‘infecting’ with whispers can chain, just like snake -> Eve -> Adam.
“The inner sanctum”. I chose this rendering for literal “chest”, since “[Only] ALLAH Knows the secrets of chests”. So it’s a place where Humankind keeps its ‘secret’. The ‘heart’ is in this ‘chest’ but apparently there is room for whispers and words too. It’s a stronghold but it can be breached. By subliminal, telepathic, or hypnotic suggestions.
In the Lord’s Prayer we asked God ‘the Father’ to lead us not into trials and temptations. Temptations are addressed here. These, unlike the ‘creative mind’ matter, leave ‘residue’ in the ‘inner parts’ of Man. Once in, they must be ‘removed’. Some cases of these intrusions into the inner sanctum of human, as Messiah (as) told his personally chosen disciples (ra), can only be ejected by “prayer and fasting”.
Now in Al-Falaq, we sought refuge with the Lord of Generative Dualistic Creativity from our creative mind running amok because of inner or outer acts of ‘mental degradation (“darkness”) spells (“knots”) and ignorance [of Love] (“envy”).
Here we are asking God in the roles of Lord, King, and God of mankind. Now these roles have an absolute sense and they are the Names of God Rab’Al-Aalemeen, Al-Maalik, and ALLAH (Lord of the Knowing Realms, the King, and ALLAH – The-God). But we are directed to the relational forms here. Why?
Again, we recall from our reading of the Lord’s Prayer and discussion of ‘Names’ as a pairing of set of attributes with a set of actions, formally ({A}, {->}). These ‘names’ allow for ‘imagination’ for ‘adoration and veneration and supplication’, etc. by permitting ‘orientation’ (“turning”) and ‘inclination’. For example, ({Loving-Creator}, {Grace, Benevolence, Mercy, …}) for Ar-Rahman, who decreed for ITSelf “My Mercy overtakes my Wrath”. And we also learned how the “first Great Commandment” was “Come to ME” that is ‘Love ME’. So this Beautiful Name reminds us that the entire matter is about learning to Love.
In this Sura, we are not given names. We are given relative relational identifiers and given the repeated stress on “humankind” we know where look for ‘means of access’ to Lord, King, and God of mankind. Other human beings. We find refuge from ‘temptations’, spiritual, psychological, and intellectual ‘suggestions’ from these sources:
The ‘Lord of Humankind’ guides by prophets (Salaam be upon them all). The prophets lay down the Law (of the age) and some are given “Books”.
The ‘King of Humankind’ sends envoys that is Messengers (Salaam be upon them all), since that is what kings do: they send emissaries. (Example of this is King Solomon sending HodHod with a message “In Name of ALLAH Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem” to queen of Saba in Sura Al-Naml). They convey messages from God.
إِنَّهُ مِنْ سُلَيْمَانَ وَإِنَّهُ بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
<>[The queen said:] It is from Solomon, and it begins ‘In name of Allah Ar-Rahman Ar-Raheem'”. [An-Naml 27:30]
And then finally
إِلَٰهِ النَّاسِ
God of humans
قُلْ إِنَّمَا أَنَا مُنْذِرٌ ۖ وَمَا مِنْ إِلَٰهٍ إِلَّا اللَّهُ الْوَاحِدُ الْقَهَّارُ
Say
I am just a warner and there is no god (إِلَٰهِ) except Allah (اللَّهُ)
The One
The Irresistably-Dominant
[Saad 38:65]
So there is “no ‘god’ but ALLAH” and ALLAH Is One.
It is with these 3 categories that we find “refuge” from “the evil of the whisperer that withdraws”.
& Salaam.

Posted by: sunof27 | May 18 2024 21:43 utc | 191

Arnaud Bertrand
@RnaudBertrand
4h
This is absolutely huge: the UN Special Rapporteur on the matter calls to lift Western sanctions against China because they dangerously undermine basic norms of law (like the presumption of innocence) and violate human rights, particularly in Xinjiang.
The UN Special Rapporteur on unilateral coercive measures and human rights, Prof. Dr. Alena Douhan @AlenaDouhan, has just spent 12 days in China, most of it in Xinjiang, to study “the impact of unilateral coercive measures on the enjoyment of human rights”. She confirms that the sanctions put on China – mostly by the US, but also other Western states – under the guise of protecting “human rights” are actually very harmful to the very people these sanctions cynically claim to “protect” because they impoverish them, and that they are illegal unilateral coercive measures.
You can read her full 14-page statement here:
https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/issues/ucm/statements/20240517-eom-statement-sr-ucm-china.pdf

Here’s a small summary of her report:
She says that the sanctions have a big economic impact on the livelihood of people, particularly in Xinjiang because “due to the risk of sanctions and seizures for any nexus with Xinjiang and consequent reputational damage not only foreign but also Chinese businesses from other regions may hesitate to participate in supply chains that involve entities in Xinjiang, and this out of fear of sanctions.”
She says there is little to no due process the companies or people affected can follow to appeal the sanctions, no matter how unfair they are: she gives the example of one company “submitting more than 10,000 pages of documents with data concerning its personnel to challenge the allegations of forced labour” but even that “was deemed insufficient”.
On legality, she writes that “unilateral targeted sanctions as a punitive action violate, at the very least, obligations arising from universal and regional human rights instruments, many of which have a peremptory character, including procedural guarantees, the presumption of innocence, due process, access to justice and right to remedy.”
Specifically when it comes to the sanctions related to Xinjiang, she writes that they are based on the principle of “presumption of guilt” (i.e. assuming that a person is guilty of a crime until proven innocent) which “violate fundamental principles of international law, provisions of the UN General Assembly and UN Human Rights Council resolutions, and constitute an attempt to supplement the legal standards with a so-called ‘rule-based order'”.
She is “seriously concerned” about the “presumption of guilt of entities and individuals under sanctions” because it “shifts burden of proof of legality of their activity to the individuals/entities under sanctions”. She says this violates “the presumption of innocence being a peremptory norm of international law”.
Her final recommendation is to “call on sanctioning parties to lift and suspend all unilateral sanctions applied to China, Chinese nationals and companies without authorization of the UN Security Council, and the use of which cannot be justified as normal business activity in the form of retortions or countermeasures in accordance with international law. No good intentions, or references to the need to protect national foreign, economic or technology interests can be used as grounds for or justification of unilateral sanctions, as contrary to international law and ultimately resulting in human rights violations.”

Nothing will be done until the US empire of lies is finally brought to it’s knees by overwhelming military force imho.

Posted by: Lavrov’s Dog | May 19 2024 10:05 utc | 193

بِسْمِ اللَّهِ الرَّحْمَٰنِ الرَّحِيمِ
~!!!~
The reader is a construct. A spiritual construct of divine creation (Al-Khaaliq) design (Al-Mus’saw’wir), and production (Al-Baari).
These are but a few of the Beautiful Names of God.
The ~Beauty~ is an !attractor! for the *I/Eye*. As is ~Majesty~.
It says “Come to Me, willingly or unwillingly!”. It says this assertively in command.
The beholder as if in a trace says “You Irresistable! You! Obediently! I come obediently!”
!!!God!!! says “come to me” and the ~!*devotee*!~, the *I/Eye* now ~winged~ with !light!, takes wing and flies in obedience. Some do this for love, others are overwhelmed.
It matters not to ALLAH, for HE Is free of All Needs, Worthy of All Praise. Majestic in ITs Eternal Solitude, before the before and after the after. Self sustaining self subsisting. The one and only. SobhanAllah, the eternally living.
Beauty or Majesty. Willingly or unwillingly. Do the cross product and obey the command of the majestic beauty and the beautiful majesty.
The One unlike any.
Beloved says ‘come’ and you ‘come forward’. The Beloved says ‘go’ and you ‘go back’!
Come willingly.
Go obediently.
That is the straight path.
One of the Imams(ra) of the household of the Prophet(saws) said: “The difference between the intelligent and unintelligent is that when God says to an intelligent man ‘go back’ he goes back and when He Says ‘come forward’ he comes forward. But the un-intelligent will go back and when He Says ‘come’, the unintelligent stays back.”
So, for the “intelligent” that should be sufficient information.
& Salaam

Posted by: sunof27 | May 20 2024 3:23 utc | 195