larvatus prodeo
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Below are the 30 most recent journal entries recorded in the "Michael Zeleny" journal:[<< Previous 30 entries]
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10:00 am
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for the anonymous troll
Over sixteen years online, I have received a broad spectrum of threats and pitches, and entertained a commensurate range of slurs and plaudits. This experience has crystallized two iron laws of online communications.
The first law is a corollary of Occam’s razor. No matter what you are promised or threatened on the Internet, the most you will get out of it is oral ministrations. In other words, there is no downside in moving virtual bluster to realspace. Yonder puffed-out sock puppet is as unlikely to escalate its verbiage to physical damage, as the heiress of an African potentate, to bestow her commission upon Americans paying their facilitation fees. By contrast, that virtual fellatrix yearning to reward your eloquence with expert suction may well come through as promised, especially if you overlook minor discrepancies ranging from mien to gender.
The second law of Internet intercourse is a corollary of the first. Only a clueless newbie responds personally to an anonymous troll. To illustrate its application, whenever one of the latter kind feels the urge to share its thoughts about anything but one of the former, it should take them instead to someone who can relate to its bogus persona. It makes no difference whether a figment of this sort touts itself as a public intellectual in mufti, or poses as a skank that services barnyard livestock for spare change. In the immortal words of Jack Nicholson, sell crazy someplace else, we’re all stocked up here.
A final notice to the insistent incognito. When you surpass words in punishing my excesses, make sure that your hostile deeds leave me unfit to retaliate. My reckoning will define the remainder of your life. It’s happened to your betters before. Don’t let it happen to you.
Tags: bullshit, stupidity, violence
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05:50 pm
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strange sex some may have known
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“There are many occasions when the muscles that form the lips of the mouth move the lateral muscles that are joined to them, and there are an equal number of occasions when these lateral muscles move the lips of this mouth, replacing it where it cannot return of itself, because the function of muscle is to pull and not to push except in the case of the genitals and the tongue.”
—The Notebooks of Leonardo da Vinci, translated by Edward MacCurdy, 1938 |
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“I tell you that one?…I tell you about the Polack who thinks Peter Pan’s a wash basin in a cathouse?…The difference between erotic and kinky? Erotic you use a feather, kinky you use the whole chicken?”
—Elmore Leonard, Stick, 1983 |
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I write about what people do to each other. It isn’t pretty.
—Derek Raymond, The Hidden Files, 1992 |
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HANNAH: Sex and literature. Literature and sex. Your conversation, left to itself, doesn’t have many places to go. Like two marbles rolling around a pudding basin. One of them is always sex.
BERNARD: Ah well, yes. Men all over.
HANNAH: No doubt. Einstein—relativity and sex. Chippendale—sex and furniture. Galileo—‘Did the earth move?’ What the hell is it with you people?—Tom Stoppard, Arcadia, 1993 |
At the outset of an eponymous 1832 novel, Honoré de Balzac caused Louis Lambert, his precocious Swedenborgian hero, to air out his doctrines of meaning:
| —Souvent, me dit-il, en parlant de ses lectures, j’ai accompli de délicieux voyages, embarqué sur un mot dans les abîmes du passé, comme l’insecte qui flotte au gré d’un fleuve sur quelque brin d’herbe. Parti de la Grèce, j’arrivais à Rome et traversais l’étendue des âges modernes. Quel beau livre ne composerait-on pas en racontant la vie et les aventures d’un mot ? sans doute il a reçu diverses impressions des événements auxquels il a servi ; selon les lieux il a réveillé des idées différentes ; mais n’est-il pas plus grand encore à considérer sous le triple aspect de l’âme, du corps et du mouvement ? À le regarder, abstraction faite de ses fonctions, de ses effets et de ses actes, n’y a-t-il pas de quoi tomber dans un océan de réflexions ? La plupart des mots ne sont-ils pas teints de l’idée qu’ils représentent extérieurement ? à quel génie sont-ils dus ! S’il faut une grande intelligence pour créer un mot, quel âge a donc la parole humaine ? L’assemblage des lettres, leurs formes, la figure qu’elles donnent à un mot, dessinent exactement, suivant le caractère de chaque peuple, des êtres inconnus dont le souvenir est en nous. Qui nous expliquera philosophiquement la transition de la sensation à la pensée, de la pensée au verbe, du verbe à son expression hiéroglyphique, des hiéroglyphes à l’alphabet, de l’alphabet à l’éloquence écrite, dont la beauté réside dans une suite d’images classées par les rhéteurs, et qui sont comme les hiéroglyphes de la pensée ? L’antique peinture des idées humaines configurées par les formes zoologiques n’aurait-elle pas déterminé les premiers signes dont s’est servi l’Orient pour écrire ses langages ? Puis n’aurait-elle pas traditionnellement laissé quelques vestiges dans nos langues modernes, qui toutes se sont partagé les débris du verbe primitif des nations, verbe majestueux et solennel, dont la majesté, dont la solennité décroissent à mesure que vieillissent les sociétés ; dont les retentissements si sonores dans la Bible hébraïque, si beaux encore dans la Grèce, s’affaiblissent à travers les progrès de nos civilisations successives ? Est-ce à cet ancien Esprit que nous devons les mystères enfouis dans toute parole humaine ? N’existe-t-il pas dans le mot VRAI une sorte de rectitude fantastique ? ne se trouve-t-il pas dans le son bref qu’il exige une vague image de la chaste nudité, de la simplicité du vrai en toute chose ? Cette syllabe respire je ne sais quelle fraîcheur. J’ai pris pour exemple la formule d’une idée abstraite, ne voulant pas expliquer le problème par un mot qui le rendît trop facile à comprendre, comme celui de VOL, où tout parle aux sens. N’en est-il pas ainsi de chaque verbe ? tous sont empreints d’un vivant pouvoir qu’ils tiennent de l’âme, et qu’ils lui restituent par les mystères d’une action et d’une réaction merveilleuse entre la parole et la pensée. Ne dirait-on pas d’un amant qui puise sur les lèvres de sa maîtresse autant d’amour qu’il en communique ? Par leur seule physionomie, les mots raniment dans notre cerveau les créatures auxquelles ils servent de vêtement. Semblables à tous les êtres, ils n’ont qu’une place où leurs propriétés puissent pleinement agir et se développer. Mais ce sujet comporte peut-être une science tout entière ! Et il haussait les épaules comme pour me dire : Nous sommes et trop grands et trop petits ! |
“Often,” he has said to me when speaking of his readings, “often have I made the most delightful voyages, carried along by a word down the abysses of the past, like an insect floating on a blade of grass consigned to the flow of a river. Starting from Greece, I would get to Rome, and traverse the extent of modern ages. What a fine book might be written of the life and adventures of a word! Doubtless it has received various stamps from the events that it has served; it has revealed different ideas in different places; but is it not still grander to consider it under the triple aspects of soul, body, and motion? To regard it in the abstract, apart from its functions, its effects, and its actions, is it not a matter of falling into an ocean of reflections? Are not most words colored by the idea they represent externally? To whose genius are they due? If it takes great intelligence to create a word, how old does it make human speech? The combination of letters, their shapes, and the look they give to the word, are the exact reflection, in accordance with the character of each nation, of the unknown beings whose memory survives in us. Who would philosophically explain to us the transition from the sensation to a thought, from the thought to a word, from the word to its hieroglyphic expression, from the hieroglyphics to an alphabet, from the alphabet to written eloquence, whose beauty resides in a series of images classified by rhetoricians, and forming, as it were, the hieroglyphics of thought? Was it not the ancient mode of representing human ideas as embodied in the forms of animals that determined the shapes of the first signs that the Orient used for writing down its language? Then has it not left its traditional traces within our modern languages, which have all inherited some remnant of the primitive speech of nations, a majestic and solemn tongue whose majesty and solemnity decrease as communities grow old; whose sonorous tones ring in the Hebrew Bible, and still are noble in Greece, but grow weaker under the progress of our successive civilizations? Is it to this time-honored spirit that we owe the mysteries lying buried in every human word? Is there not a certain fantastic rectitude in the word TRUE? Does not the compact brevity of its sound contain a vague image of chaste nudity, of the simplicity of truth in all things? The syllable exudes an ineffable freshness. I chose the formula of an abstract idea on purpose, not wishing to pose the problem with a word that should make it too easy to the apprehension, as the word FLIGHT for instance, which is a direct appeal to the senses. But is it not so with every word? They are all stamped with a living power that comes from the soul, and which they restore thereto through the mysterious and wonderful action and reaction between thought and speech. Might we not speak of it as a lover who draws from the lips of his mistress as much love as he gives? Thus, by their mere physiognomy, words call to life in our brain the beings whom they serve to clothe. In the way of all beings, they have but one place where their properties can fully act and develop. But perhaps the subject comprises a science to itself!” And he would shrug his shoulders, as if to say, “But we are too high and too low!” |
 Thus Balzac extends etymological naturalism of Cratylus into the realm of Romantic aesthetics. In keeping with his observations, etymological creation continues in our days. Accordingly, in a muchly discussed article published by The New York Times on 5 November 2006, James Gleick testified:Much of the new vocabulary appears online long before it will make it into books. Take geek. It was not till 2003 that O.E.D.3 caught up with the main modern sense: “a person who is extremely devoted to and knowledgeable about computers or related technology.” Internet chitchat provides the earliest known reference, a posting to a Usenet newsgroup, net.jokes, on Feb. 20, 1984. In a Usenet message dated 10 January 2004, OED lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower confirmed the policy of “accep[ting] Usenet quotes as archived on (formerly) DejaNews or (now) Google Groups, in certain circumstances.” Hence a specimen of OED draft entry dated March 2003, which reflects such acceptance in language unfit to print in our newspaper of record: ( Beware of Rodents! )
Tags: animals, bullshit, gerbil-clap, language, phenomenom, sex, sodomy, tasteless
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09:43 pm
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comment on paie ses dettes quand on a du génie
Les feuilles mortes
paroles : Jacques Prévert ; musique : Joseph Kosma
Oh! je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
des jours heureux où nous étions amis
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle
et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle…
Tu vois je n’ai pas oublié
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
et le vent du nord les emporte
dans la nuit froide de l’oubli
Tu vois je n’ai pas oublié
la chanson que tu me chantais
C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais
et je t’aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
toi qui m’aimais
et que j’aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
tout doucement
sans faire de bruit
et la mer efface sur le sable
les pas des amants désunis
Les feuilles mortes se ramassent à la pelle
les souvenirs et les regrets aussi
Mais mon amour silencieux et fidèle
sourit toujours et remercie la vie
Je t’aimais tant tu étais si jolie
Comment veux-tu que je t’oublie
En ce temps-là la vie était plus belle
et le soleil plus brûlant qu’aujourd’hui
Tu étais ma plus douce amie…
Mais je n’ai que faire des regrets
Et la chanson que tu chantais
toujours toujours je l’entendrai
C’est une chanson qui nous ressemble
Toi tu m’aimais
et je t’aimais
Et nous vivions tous deux ensemble
toi qui m’aimais
et que j’aimais
Mais la vie sépare ceux qui s’aiment
tout doucement
sans faire de bruit
et la mer efface sur le sable
les pas des amants désunis.
1950
—Jacques Prévert, Œuvres complètes, tome II, Gallimard, 1996, pp. 785-786 |
La chanson de Prévert
paroles et musique : Serge Gainsbourg
Oh je voudrais tant que tu te souviennes
Cette chanson était la tienne
C’était ta préférée
Je crois
Qu’elle est de Prévert et
Kosma
Avec d’autres bien sûr je m’abandonne
Mais leur chanson est monotone
Et peu à peu je m’in-
Diffère
À cela il n’est rien
À faire
Peut on jamais savoir par où commence
Et quand finit l’indifférence
Passe l’automne vienne
L’hiver
Et que la chanson de
Prévert
Cette chanson LES FEUILLES MORTES
S’efface de mon souvenir
Et ce jour-là
Mes amours mortes
En auront fini de mourir
1958
—Serge Gainsbourg, Mon propre rôle I, Denoël, 1987, 1991, pp. 56-57
Gréco avait chanté « Les feuilles mortes » ; Gainsbourg compose « La chanson de Prévert ». Il a l’intention de frapper un grand coup, mais se fait tout petit quand il s’agit d’aller demander à Jacques Prévert l’autorisation d’utiliser son nom.
GAINSBOURG : « Il m’avait reçu chez lui. À dix heures du matin, il attaquait au champagne. Il m’a dit : “Mais c’est très bien mon p’tit gars !” et timidement je lui ai tendu un papier qu’il m’a signé. »
—Gilles Verlant, Gainsbourg, Editions Albin Michel, 1992, p. 55 |
Jacques Prévert est un conJacques Prévert est quelqu’un dont on apprend des poèmes à l’ecole. Il en ressort qu’il aimait les fleurs, les oiseaux, les quartiers du vieux Paris, etc. L’amour lui paraissait s’épanouir dans une ambiance de liberté ; plus généralement, il était plutôt pour la liberté. Il portait une casquette et fumait des Gauloises ; on le confond parfois avec Jean Gabin ; d’ailleurs c’est lui qui a écrit le scénario de Quai des brumes, des Portes de la nuit, etc. Il a aussi écrit le scénario des Enfants du paradis, considéré comme son chef d’œuvre. Tout cela fait beaucoup de bonnes raisons pour détester Jacques Prévert ; surtout si on lit les scénarios jamais tournes qu’Antonin Artaud écrivait à la même époque. Il est affligeant de constater que ce répugnant réalisme poétique, dont Prévert fut l’artisan principal, continue à faire des ravages, et qu’on pense faire un compliment à Leos Carax en l’y rattachant (de la même manière Rohmer serait sans doute un nouveau Guitry, etc.) Le cinéma français ne s’est en fait jamais relève de l’avènement du parlant ; il finira par en crever, et ce n’est pas plus mal.
Après-guerre, à peu près à la même époque que Jean-Paul Sartre, Jacques Prévert a eu un succès énorme ; on est malgré soi frappé par l’optimisme de cette génération. Aujourd’hui, le penseur le plus influent, ce serait plutôt Cioran. À l’époque on écoutait Vian, Brassens… Amoureux qui se bécotent sur les bancs publics, baby-boom, construction massive de HLM pour loger tout ce monde-là. Beaucoup d’optimisme, de foi en l’avenir, et un peu de connerie. À l’évidence, nous sommes devenus beaucoup plus intelligents.
Avec les intellectuels, Prévert a eu moins de chance. Ses poèmes regorgent pourtant de ces jeux de mots stupides qui plaisent tellement chez Bobby Lapointe ; mais il est vrai que la chanson est comme on dit un genre mineur, et que l’intellectuel, lui aussi, doit se détendre. Quand on aborde le texte écrit, son vrai gagne-pain, il devient impitoyable. Et le « travail du texte », chez Prévert, reste embryonnaire : il écrit avec limpidité et un vrai naturel, parfois même avec émotion ; il ne s’intéresse ni à l’écriture, ni à l’impossibilité d’écrire ; sa grande source d’inspiration, ce serait plutôt la vie. Il a donc, pour l’essentiel, échappe aux thèses de troisième cycle. Aujourd’hui cependant il rentre à la Pléiade, ce qui constitue une seconde mort. Son œuvre est la, complète et figée. C’est une excellente occasion de s’interroger: pourquoi la poésie de Jacques Prévert est-elle si médiocre, à tel point qu’on éprouve parfois une sorte de honte à la lire? L’explication classique (parce que son écriture « manque de rigueur ») est tout à fait fausse ; à travers ses jeux de mots, son rythme léger et limpide, Prévert exprime en réalité parfaitement sa conception du monde. La forme est cohérente avec le fond, ce qui est bien le maximum qu’on puisse exiger d’une forme. D’ailleurs quand un poète s’immerge à ce point dans la vie, dans la vie réelle de son époque, ce serait lui faire injure que de le juger suivant des critères purement stylistiques. Si Prévert écrit, c’est qu’il a quelque chose à dire ; c’est tout à son honneur. Malheureusement, ce qu’il a à dire est d’une stupidité sans bornes ; on en a parfois la nausée. Il y a de jolies filles nues, des bourgeois qui saignent comme des cochons quand on les égorge. Les enfants sont d’une immoralité sympathique, les voyous sont séduisants et virils, les jolies filles nues donnent leur corps aux voyous ; les bourgeois sont vieux, obèses, impuissants, décores de légion d’honneur et leurs femmes sont frigides ; les curés sont de répugnantes vieilles chenilles qui ont inventé le péché pour nous empêcher de vivre. On connaît tout cela ; on peut préférer Baudelaire. Ou même Karl Marx, qui, au moins, ne se trompe pas de cible lorsqu’il écrit que « le triomphe de la bourgeoisie a noyé les frissons sacrés de l’extase religieuse, d l’enthousiasme chevaleresque et de la sentimentalité quatre sous dans les eaux glacées du calcul égoïste ». (La lutte des classes en France. [Mais non, il s’agit plutôt du Manifeste du parti communiste. —MZ]) L’intelligence n’aide en rien à écrire de bons poèmes ; elle peut cependant éviter d’en écrire de mauvais. Si Jacques Prévert est un mauvais poète c’est avant tout parce que sa vision du monde est plate, superficielle et fausse. Elle était déjà fausse de son temps ; aujourd’hui sa nullité apparaît avec éclat, à tel point que l’œuvre entière semble le développement d’un gigantesque cliché. Sur le plan philosophique et politique, Jacques Prévert est avant tout un libertaire ; c’est-à-dire, fondamentalement, un imbécile.
Les « eaux glacées du calcul égoïste », nous y barbotons maintenant depuis notre plus tendre enfance. Or peut s’en accommoder, essayer d’y survivre ; on peut aussi se laisser couler. Mais ce qu’il est impossible d’imaginer, c’est que la libération des puissances du désir soit à elle seule susceptible d’amener un réchauffement. L’anecdote veut que ce soit Robespierre qui ait insisté pour ajouter le mot « fraternité » à la devise de la République ; nous sommes aujourd’hui en mesure d’apprécier pleinement cette anecdote. Prévert se voyait certainement comme un partisan de la fraternité ; mais Robespierre n’était pas, loin de là, un adversaire de la vertu.
— Michel Houellebecq, “Jacques Prévert est un con” in Interventions, Flammarion, 1998, pp. 9-14 Cet article est paru dans le numéro 22 (juillet 1992) des Lettres françaises. Tags: bullshit, french, gainsbourg, houellebecq, jews, love, music
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11:04 am
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nobel laureates, 1953 / 2009
“You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory there is no survival.”
“This isn’t a football game, so I’m not interested in victory; I’m interested in resolving the problem.”
Tags: bullshit, politics
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07:50 pm
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the publican’s credo
1. No one should die for want of a kidney transplant.
2. No one needs two kidneys.
3. We must tax the surplus to redress the want.
Tags: bullshit, politics
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11:23 pm
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baffling a wise latina
SENATOR TOM COBURN: Thank you. Let me follow up with one other question. As a citizen of this country, do you believe innately in my ability to have self-defense of myself—personal self-defense? Do I have a right to personal self- defense?
JUDGE SONIA SOTOMAYOR: I’m trying to think if I remember a case where the Supreme Court has addressed that particular question. Is there a constitutional right to self-defense? And I can’t think of one. I could be wrong, but I can’t think of one. ( Read more... )
For all her waffling about eminence, Judge Sotomayor was ill advised to withhold her concession of a constitutional right to self-defense. If the doctrine of substantive due process, as used by the Supreme Court to protect a wide range of unenumerated rights over a long period of time, supports the right to abortion and the right to privacy doctrines, it must with far greater reason support a right to self defense. The Supreme Court that protects “the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life” in Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pa. v. Casey, 505 U.S. 833, 851 (1992), cannot shie away from protecting the far more basic right to preserve one’s existence from wrongful physical threats. ( Read more... ) In the light of reason, Judge Sotomayor’s recognition of abortion rights as settled precedent and endorsement of a constitutional right to privacy should cause and compel her to recognize and endorse a constitutional right to self-defense. As a practical matter, her shoo-in as a Supreme Court Justice will vouchsafe a permanent preemption of impartial reason by the richness of her experiences.
Tags: bullshit, lawyers, politics
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08:40 am
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virgin asswipes
“I really do think it is overwhelmingly an American phenomenom,” said Hershkowitz. “People just don’t understand that softness equals ecological destruction.”
Tags: america, bullshit, exceptionalism, phenomenom, politics
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06:48 pm
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politically correct
After eight years of his third marriage, Muzzammil Hassan beheaded his latest wife Aasiya Hassan. His abridgment followed her filing for divorce that cited previous incidents of domestic violence. Both of Ms Hassan’s predecessors in Mr Hassan’s uxorial affections are on record with similar complaints. Coincidentally, Mr Hassan is the founder of Bridges TV, an award-winning television station chartered to counteract negative stereotypes of Muslims in America.
Liberal Western responses account for this act as “an anomaly, not in any way reflective of a rich, beautiful culture and a religion whose majority seek peace”. A Muslim community leader disclaims the act: “This is not an honor killing, no way.” He adds: “It has nothing to do with his faith.” After denouncing “that most basic foundation of prejudice: The insistence that one member of a group represent the entire group”, an active feminist and LGBTQI advocate blames “undeserved male privilege and the resulting second-class personhood of women”.
Indeed, the road to conclusions contradicting the title of Islam as “the religion of peace” is paved with unwarranted generalizations. On the politically correct and empirically witnessed view, the appeal of Islamic submission extends primarily to men, tribes, and nations in dire need of forcible pacification. Their violent outbreaks attest to this need without impugning their gender or confession.
Tags: bullshit, islam, politics, religion
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04:59 pm
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пятая колонна гнилой цивилизации / the fifth column of a rotten culture
![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) letopisetz:
Собственно, сторонников Израиля в России можно разделить на несколько категорий:
1. Евреи
2. Нееврейские родственники и друзья евреев, сочувствующие им
3. Юдофилы
4. Исламофобы
5. Националисты-антисемиты (те из них, которые желают запереть евреев в своеобразном израильском гетто, выдавив их из Европы)
У остальных россиян сочувствовать Израилю или поддерживать действия АОИ нет никаких причин. Даже наоборот, есть причины поддержать арабских противников Израиля. Ведь “враг моего врага— мой друг”. |
In fact, the supporters of Israel in Russia can be divided into several categories:
1. Jews
2. Jewish relatives and friends of Jews, sympathetic to them
3. Judaeophiles
4. Islamophobes
5. Nationalist anti-Semites (those who want to lock up the Jews in the sui generis Israeli ghetto, having expelled them from Europe)
The remainder of Russians have no reason for sympathizing with Israel or supporting the IDF actions. On the contrary, they have good reasons for supporting the Arab enemies of Israel. After all, “the enemy of my enemy is my friend.” |
larvatus:
| Не раскрыта тема номер 6, россиян-любителей вашингтонского обкома. |
You have failed to account for category Number 6, the Russian caucus of Washington’s party line supporters. |
letopisetz:
Совершенно верно.
Есть еще одна категория—российские западники, воспринимающие Израиль просто как форпост Запада на Ближнем Востоке. |
Precisely.
There is another category— Russian Westernizers who perceive Israel as a western outpost in the Middle East |
larvatus:
«Всё действительное разумно, всё разумное действительно.» Раз они нам внедряют своих продажных совков осколков империи, мы им должны внедрять наших шпионов и лазутчиков российских западников. |
“The real is rational and the rational real.” If they are infiltrating us with sell-out Homo Sovieticus specimens imperial rudiments, we must infiltrate them with our spies and operatives Russian Westernizers. |
letopisetz:
| “Мы” и “они”— это в Вашей системе координат кто? |
Who are “us” and “them” in your coordinate system? |
larvatus:
| У меня синий паспорт. А у Вас? |
I have a blue passport. What about you? |
letopisetz:
| Для меня паспорт—средство передвижения. |
For me, a passport is a means of transportation. |
larvatus:
| Вы не ответили на мой вопрос. |
You have not answered my question. |
letopisetz:larvatus:
Здесь полагаются памятка и анекдот. Вот Вам памятка:I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
—U.S. Naturalization Oath Так что насчёт “нас” и “их”, у меня с Вами общая система координат. А вот и анекдот: Для разрядки, так сказать, напряга, пожалуйста, анекдотик. Вернее, не анекдотик, а быль. Но быль до того невероятную, что она, паскудина, сама себя осознает вдруг легендарной и берет кликуху Анекдот, чтобы таким хитромудрым способом продлить на какое-то время свою жизнь. Да и само время, гражданин Гуров, само наше анекдотическое времечко недаром окрестили не столько вожди, сколько их плюгавые шестерки из поэтов и композиторов, временем легендарным.
Короче говоря, приводят к Будённому перебежчика. Белого. Так, мол, и так, Семён Михайлович, постиг я в мгновение ока происходящее, дошла до меня безысходность белого движения. Чуять начинаю за три версты красоту ваших кавалерийских идей, возьмите к себе воевать. Хорошо. Переодели, переобули, дали красавца-гнедого. Повоевал немного белый, но вдруг показалось ему, что снова постиг он в мгновенье ока происходящее и слинял к Деникину. Мужественно явился и говорит Самому: так, мол, и так, ошибся я. Будённый — полное говно, вокруг него мерзкий плебс, большей вони и совершенней лжи, чем советская власть, вообразить себе невозможно, и лучше уж, ваше превосходительство, смерть в наших безысходных рядах, чем торжество в смрадном каре обманутых маньяками плебеев. Простите великодушно. Время у нас смутное, возможен, согласитесь, поиск душой верного пути. Деникин не стал дискутировать на эту тему. Он отдал дважды перебежчика обратно Будённому. Белый стал втолковывать этой тупой усатой мандавше, что он не подлец, а человек ищущий, и наконец, в последней попытке спасти шкуру, брякнул что-то насчет раздвоения личности. Будённый вынимает саблю, пробует отточку клинка на коготище и врезает красно-белому по темечку. До самой жопы его расколол, а дальше тот сам рассыпался. “Мы—большевики,—говорит Будённый,—проблему раздвоения личности решаем по-своему: сабелькой!”
—Юз Алешковский, «Рука (Повествование палача)» Это к вопросу о паспорте, как о “средстве передвижения”. |
Here we can use a reminder and an anecdote. Herewith your reminder:I hereby declare, on oath, that I absolutely and entirely renounce and abjure all allegiance and fidelity to any foreign prince, potentate, state or sovereignty, of whom or which I have heretofore been a subject or citizen; that I will support and defend the Constitution and laws of the United States of America against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; that I will bear arms on behalf of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform noncombatant service in the armed forces of the United States when required by the law; that I will perform work of national importance under civilian direction when required by the law; and that I take this obligation freely without any mental reservation or purpose of evasion; so help me God.
—U.S. Naturalization Oath So in regard to “us” and “them”, you and I share the same coordinate system. And now, the anecdote:To begin our détente, so to speak, here is an anecdote. Or rather, not an anecdote, but a true story. But a true story so incredible that its lousy self suddenly becomes aware of its mythical nature and assumes the moniker of an Anecdote so as to prolong its life for a while by such mystical means. And our present itself, citizen Gurov, our pathetic times are not for nothing dubbed legendary, not so much by our leaders, but by their slavish rhymsters and tunesmiths.
Anyway, a turncoat is brought to Budyonny. A White. Blah blah blah, Semyon Mikhailovich, the hopelessness of the White movement, it all came to me in the blink of an eye. I can smell from three miles away the beauty of your cavalry ideals, so let me fight on your side. Very well. They give him a new uniform, new boots, a beautiful bay stallion. So the White fights for a little white, but suddenly the meaning of it all seems once again to come to him in the blink of an eye, and he bolts back to Denikin. He bravely presents himself to the Man himsef: Blah blah blah, my bad. I was mistaken. Budyonny is a lousy shit, surrounded by vile plebs, there is no fouler stench and uglier lie imaginable than the Soviet regime, and Sir, I would much rather perish in our doomed formations than triumph among the rancid ranks of plebeians swindled by maniacs. I beg your magnanimous forgiveness. Our times are troubled, you can understand a soul searching for the right path. Denikin did not debate this matter. He handed over the serial turncoat back to Budyonny. The White tried to explain to this moronic mustachioed louse that he was no villain, but a soul on a quest, and finally, in a desperate attempt to save his hide, blurted out something about a split personality. Budyonny draws his sabre, tests its edge against his claw, and cracks the Red-and-White right on top of his skull, splitting him all the way down to his ass, from whence he scatters on his own. “We, the Bolsheviks,” says Budyonny, “solve the problem of a split personality in our own way—with a sabre!”
—Yuz Aleshkovsky, The Hand or, the Confession of an Executioner This is in regard to taking your passport as “a means of transportation.” |
 letopisetz:
| Только дегенерат может всерьез воспринимать подобные клятвы. |
Only a degenerate can take such an oath seriously. |
larvatus:
| Вам с этим заявлением—к Будённому. Я здесь ни при чём. |
Please take your pleading to Budyonny. I have nothing to do with it. |
letopisetz:
furia_krucha:
| Как так? Ведь до синего у вас верно был красный? |
How so? Didn’t you have a red passport before a blue one? |
larvatus:
| Сначала у меня был красный паспорт. Потом я продал свою библиотеку, чтоб от него откупиться. Заодно и побывал в тюрьме, чтобы не жалеть о сделке. Наконец я дал клятву, чтобы был синий паспорт. Вот и вся история. |
First I had a red passport. Then I sold my library to pay for ridding myself of it. For good measure I went to jail to forestall any regrets regarding this deal. Finally, I swore an oath to get a blue passport. That’s the end of the story. |
Tags: bullshit, jews, persiflage, phenomenom, politics, russian, russians, translation
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12:03 pm
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words to live by
Michael Lewis dishes out definitive business advice:Danny Moses, who became [Steve] Eisman’s head trader [at FrontPoint Partners], was another who shared his perspective. Raised in Georgia, Moses, the son of a finance professor, was a bit less fatalistic than [Vincent] Daniel or Eisman, but he nevertheless shared a general sense that bad things can and do happen. When a Wall Street firm helped him get into a trade that seemed perfect in every way, he said to the salesman, “I appreciate this, but I just want to know one thing: How are you going to screw me?”
Heh heh heh, c’mon. We’d never do that, the trader started to say, but Moses was politely insistent: We both know that unadulterated good things like this trade don’t just happen between little hedge funds and big Wall Street firms. I’ll do it, but only after you explain to me how you are going to screw me. And the salesman explained how he was going to screw him. And Moses did the trade. Hence the difference between business and pleasure. Thus spake Rod Stewart, thrice married, twice divorced, sire to seven children from five different women: “Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like and just give her a house.” No cause for inquiry there.
Tags: bullshit, business, divorce, love, marriage
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09:21 pm
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standpoint on u.s. racial politics and the end of chimerica
Mark Falcoff anticipates U.S. blacks repudiating the validity of elections in the event of Obama’s defeat and questioning the motives of any opposition to any of his programs in the event of his victory, even as the whites vote for him in order to prove that they are not “rednecks” or “low class”, but enlightened and progressive snobs. Meanwhile, Niall Ferguson speculates about the relationship between China and America deteriorating as a result of the 10-fold contraction in U.S. bank balance sheets due to be precipitated by their highly leveraged nature responding to the credit crunch. Two thought-provoking articles from a spunky British orphan vying for adoption by the civil union of The New Republic with The Weekly Standard.
Tags: america, black enough, bullshit, exceptionalism, politics
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01:08 pm
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nobels in waiting
«Между жизнью и колбасой мы выбираем жизнь.» —Владимир Путин, 29.08.2008, 22:34
“But after all the Politburo could speak through the high-strung entrails: and now it did stand to his hand, incontrovertible and plain, inspired, the birches clashing and murmuring, lissome and lugubrious and patriotic and all in favor, and he could face them, thinking, Not could. Will. I want to. So it is the red meat after all, no matter how tough. Because if memory exists outside of the flesh it won’t be memory because it won’t know what it remembers so when she became not then half of memory became not and if I become not then all of remembering will cease to be.—Yes, he thought, between grief and nothing I will take grief. And bracing himself against the podium, he announced, between life and sausage, we will take life.”
Tags: bullshit, russia, russian
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05:38 pm
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saddam redux
“We had a choice here,” Saakashvili said. “We could turn this country into Chechnya — we had enough people and equipment to do that — or we had to do nothing and stay a modern European country.”
He added: “Eventually we would have chased them away, but we would have had to go to the mountains and grow beards. That would have been a tremendous national philosophical and emotional burden.”
Tags: bullshit, phenomenom, politics, russia
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11:07 pm
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thorstein veblen on the propaganda of the faith
Official Seal of the Congregation for the Evangelization of PeoplesWriters who discuss these matters have not directed attention to the Propaganda of the Faith as an object-lesson in sales-publicity, its theory and practice, its ways and means, its benefits and its possibilities of gain. Yet it is altogether the most notable enterprise of the kind. The Propaganda of the Faith is quite the largest, oldest, most magnificent, most unabashed, and most lucrative enterprise in sales-publicity in all Christendom. Much is to be learned from it as regards media and suitable methods of approach, as well as due perseverance, tact, and effrontery. ( Read more... )—Thorstein Veblen, Note to Chapter XI, Manufactures and Salesmanship, in Absentee Ownership—Business Enterprise in Recent Times: The Case of America (B.W. Heubsch, 1923)
Tags: bullshit, economics, politics, religion, veblen
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07:05 pm
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constructive ambiguity
Please add to and correct this Wikipedia page to the extent of your ability.
Tags: bullshit, jews, lawyers, politics, wiki
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01:37 am
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Academic Expulsion Rules and Practices Query
On 29 February of this year, two days before the election of pint-sized Dmitry Medvedev to the post of the President of Russian Federation, performance art group Vojna (War), formerly best known for its eccentric commemoration of conceptual poet Dmitry Prigov in a moving train of the Moscow Metro, mounted another exhibition in the Biological Museum. This time, they performed in support of the survival of the bear as the totem animal of ancient Slavs. Notably, the run-up to the election prominently featured a spontaneous youth movement of “bear cubs” rallying in support of Vladimir Putin and his designated successor, whose last name fortuitously echoes notional kinship with Ursus arctos. Thus the most recent Vojna performance featured allegedly authentic sexual intercourse under the banner captioned FUCK FOR BEAR CUB’S HEIR.
In the wake of this affair, some of its participants were identified as students of the Philosophy Department of the Moscow State University, from which they were expelled after the mandatory hand-wringing faculty sessions. Their expulsion was allegedly motivated by considerations of philosophical decorum. Coincidentally, political technology is the most lucrative specialty taught by the MSU Philosophy Department at present.
In the ensuing discussion, several parties have posed the question of whether or not students engaging in similar behavior would have been expelled from Oxford or Harvard. I therefore ask all interested and informed parties to weigh in on this issue with considerations of rules and precedents.
Crossposted to larvatus and ![[info]](http://stat.livejournal.com/img/community.gif) elitistasshat; banned from philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, philosophy, sex
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05:38 am
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der dolchstoß
A hidebound wag glibly demonstrates that lobotomy is a prerequisite for voting Democrat, just as colostomy, for voting Republican:As they took control of Congress at the start of 2007, the Democrats vowed this would be a year of historic importance, and it seems they were prescient: Seldom before in the annals of governance have so many politicians fought so long and so hard to completely screw up a winning strategy being waged on their country’s behalf. Some cruelly define this as treacherous conduct, but this is imprecise and unkind. They tried, it is true, to do serious damage, but were compromised in the event by their chronic incompetence, as well as by being too above-board and open to try to do things on the sly. A stab in the back as a concept was wholly beyond their capacities. This was not a stab in the back that works via guile and subterfuge. It was 41 different stabs in the front, that always fell far short of serious damage, unless you count the damage they did to their own reputations (the approval ratings for Congress are now in the twenties). It was the Stab in the Front, the Surge-against-the-Surge, the Pickett’s Charge of the Great War on Terror. It was a year to remember, that will live in the annals of fecklessness. It was historical. It was hysterical. It was the Stab that Failed.
— Noemie Emery, The Stab That Failed, The Weekly Standard, Volume 013, Issue 12, dated 3 December 2007 One of the greatest boons of American citizenship for this thankful Soviet expatriate is his ensuing opportunity to stay out of politics in good conscience.
Tags: bullshit, politics
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06:59 pm
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a little healthy resistance to the american philo-semitic juggernaut
A few words on Jewish symbiosis in the Anglosphere.
Tags: america, anglosphere, bullshit, jews, politics
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03:41 pm
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чудовищно избыточный текст
Итак, прирождённый онанист Одиноков додрочился до шантажа.
Tags: bullshit, russian, stupidity
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10:50 pm
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как аукнется, так и откликнется
Давайте примем во внимание то, что человек говорит о других людях, равно как те данные, на основании которых он это говорит. ( Read more... ) Почему же в соответствии с литературно-толковательными принципами Дмитрия Евгеньевича Галковского не описать его просто и красиво на основании бесспорных фактов его биографии? Тут даже выходит нечто вроде хайку:СДЕЛАЛ ТРУСИШКА
КАНАТЧИКОВОДАЧНЫЙ
ОТКОС ОТ СЛУЖБЫ Проще говоря, можно присоединиться к предыдущему оратору: Галковский никакой не интеллигент, а просто интеллектуальное быдло и склочный совок, такое же как и я.
Tags: bullshit, russian, stupidity
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08:57 am
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la barbichette
Je te tiens, tu me tiens, par la barbichette;
Le premier qui rira, aura une tapette!
Et puis, et puis encore ?
Tags: bullshit, french, movies, stupidity, video, violence
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10:20 am
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the face of russian philosophy
Apart from scattered critical plaudits and academic credits as an author of an obscure masterpiece of originality far more profound than that found in popular literature of his homeland, Russian philosopher Dmitry Galkovsky is practically unknown in the English-speaking world. His finest moment took place a decade ago, in a 1997 award of a literary prize sponsored by Boris Berezovsky. Its report by The Voice of Russia deserves to be savored in its entirety: ( Read more... ) Galkovsky declined to accept the monetary award that accompanied his prize. Over the past decade, he emerged as one of pioneers of Russian literary Internet, reproducing his writings as an online hypertext, boasting a popular LiveJournal blog complemented by an online coven of acolytes dedicated to systematic study of their master’s aporematic opera omnia, and creating a community of bloggers periodically reconvening in “Real Life”.
Herewith the closing section of his programmatic 1994 survey of Russian politics and philosophy. It represents the first English rendering of his writings, to be followed by the first extended commentary on its content. ( Read more... ) Crossposted to larvatus, history, and philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, history, philosophy, russian, translation
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01:18 am
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ой мама роди меня обратно
Вставьте мне в сердечко звёздочку, звёздочку,
Вместо ушек вставьте ракушки, ракушки,
А заместо глазок — шарики, шарики,
Вместо брючек дайте штаники, штаники,
Положите меня в ясельки, в ясельки,
Чтобы я лежал бы в люлечке, в люлечке
И пускал из носа сопельки, сопельки,
Издая при этом вопельки, вопельки.
А потом постройте радугу, радугу,
Чтоб по ней бежали гномики, гномики
Чтобы в ней бы жили кошечки, кошечки,
И кормите меня с ложечки, с ложечки.
Но вы этого не можете, не можете.
Ну так что ж вы блядь меня не уничтожите?
—Шиш Брянский
Current Location: в пизде
Current Mood:  nostalgic
Current Music: Django Reinhardt et le Quintette du Hot Club de France, J’Attendrai
Tags: bullshit, django, doggerel, poetry, russian
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04:38 pm
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etymology rulez
This week’s cover tributary of The Times Literary Supplement is etymologist extraordinary and the patron saint of lonesome computers and far-flung Internet, savvy computer technicians and bungling computer users, innocent schoolchildren and dissipated students, Isidore of Seville: ( Read more... ) Characteristically, pedantic humor of this transplanted British egghead has been anticipated by a plebeian colonial contributor to Urban Dictionary nearly two years ago.
Crossposted to larvatus and linguaphiles.
Tags: bullshit, language, sex
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06:12 pm
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pictures from an exhibition
ПЕРЕХОД БЫКОВ
Current Music: мусоргский
Tags: bullshit, phenomenom, russian, stupidity
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05:43 pm
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your ladyship’s pussy’s inside
Herewith a convincing candidate for the most nauseating screed in the history of mankind: ( Read more... ) Snatching lace from top-booted pussy’s vomit takes some kind of Victorian chutzpah. Thanks to Jack Campin for this inspirational tale.
Tags: animals, bullshit, comedy, sex, tasteless, usenet
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11:44 pm
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the basic laws of human stupidity
THE BASIC LAWS OF HUMAN STUPIDITY
by Carlo M. Cipolla
illustrations by James Donnelly
THE FIRST BASIC LAW of human stupidity asserts without ambiguity that:
Always and inevitably everyone underestimates the number of stupid individuals in circulation.
At first, the statement sounds trivial, vague and horribly ungenerous. Closer scrutiny will however reveal its realistic veracity. No matter how high are one’s estimates of human stupidity, one is repeatedly and recurrently startled by the fact that:
a) people whom one had once judged rational and intelligent turn out to be unashamedly stupid.
b) day after day, with unceasing monotony, one is harassed in one’s activities by stupid individuals who appear suddenly and unexpectedly in the most inconvenient places and at the most improbable moments.
The First Basic Law prevents me from attributing a specific numerical value to the fraction of stupid people within the total population: any numerical estimate would turn out to be an underestimate. Thus in the following pages I will denote the fraction of stupid people within a population by the symbol å. ( Read more... )
Tags: bullshit, comedy, economics, game theory, philosophy, stupidity
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12:10 am
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lo zio indegno
Your family has assembled around a festive table. All are in full feather. Most are slightly ruffled. One geezer stands out. They say he is somebody’s uncle. He came alone. No one knows his name. The tablecloth is bouncing above his lap. The putative uncle is jerking off. More like, just jerking.
The adults are averting their eyes. They are chatting about current events. Their voices are strained. No one wants to be caught staring. Only a little child breaks rank, transfixed by this public display of affection. When the child grows up, he is going to be somebody’s sleazy uncle.
Note for our visitors: The uncle is Los Angeles. The child is you.
Current Music: you can leave your hat on
Tags: bullshit, jews, los angeles, russian, sex, tasteless
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10:42 am
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vere tu es deus absconditus deus sui salvator
As is well-known, God helps those who help themselves, which renders God’s help rather superfluous. Now, let us consider an apposite God, one who is committed to helping exactly those who do not help themselves. We bear in mind that, unlike Russell’s barber, who is free to shrug off as impossible his duty to shave those, and only those, who do not shave themselves, the perfection of God requires that he actually do everything he is committed to do. Then is our God under obligation to help Himself?
(Originally published on 20 January 1993.)
Crossposted to larvatus and philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, god, jews, logic, philosophy
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07:57 am
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latest advances in russian spirituality
Во всех мировых религиях Бог создавал мир из какой-то первоматерии, “гиле”. И только в иудаизме Бог создал мир из ничего.
Отсюда и еврейское отношение к производительному труду. Отсюда и еврейская страсть к спекуляции, финансовым операциям и гуманитарным дисциплинам.
Еврей подобен своему Богу: он делает деньги из ничего, в отличие от остальных народов, которые «в поте лица своего» делают деньги из чего-то. “Золото за медь”, “золото за пшеницу”.
Доблесть же еврея — наебать, надуть, продать и перепродать полную хуйню — за полновесное золото.
― Константин Крылов (krylov), Zoroastrian philosopher of Russian descent and convictions @ 2007-06-24 19:10:00 |
In all world religions, God created the world out of a primal matter, “hyle”. And only in Judaism God created the world out of nothing.
Hence the Jewish attitude towards productive work. Hence the Jewish passion for profit, financial transactions and the humanities.
Each Jew is like his God: he makes money out of nothing, as opposed to other people who “by the sweat of their brow” make money out of something. “Gold for copper”, “gold for wheat”.
And the valor of the Jew is to fuck over, to swindle, to sell and resell pure bullshit — for pure gold.
― translated by MZ |
Crossposted to larvatus and philosophy.
Tags: bullshit, god, jews, multiculturalism, russian
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