I don't really do the whole 'issues' or 'views' smorgasbord. I suppose I have this affective attachment to social-democracy, which isn't really the product of long reflection but more of a purely moral impulse. The desire not to be a 'salaud', whatever else I might be.

 Yeah, that seems a pretty accurate description. 'Affective Socialist', I could live with that.

I assume I can. Sadly, the Establishment seems to be opposed to beards. Gonna be working hard this summer, but I'm gonna have to start after graduation.

This is my work last summer before I was coerced into shaving.

Show a bit of spine, keep it.

Serious question: is it also 'doctor' Mengele to you?

Is UKIP the party of true Tatcherism today?

I call it GSM. Though 'smartphone' is on the march round here, too.

I think we can all agree it's probably for the best that Kosovo no longer is governed from Belgograd.

[a political comedy based on real news is ripening."]

"There was much speculation in Russia as to what Surkov might do next. Speaking to the magazine Russian Pioneer, in which he sometimes wrote a column, Surkov said on Wednesday: "There are some plans – a political comedy based on real news is ripening."

Thats going to be interesting.

In Post-Modern Russia, politics mocks you.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/may/08/vladimir-putin-cardinal-forced-government

End of an era?

Di Rupo is a real hero. I'm definitely going to vote sp.a federally in 2014.

Something is not a sin, even if it is intrinsically evil, unless it has been consented to. A person with severe brain damage may be unable to consent to their actions. In addition, the sin is less serious than it would otherwise be if only partially consented to, which is a somewhat likely in such a scenario.

Did the men who crucified Christ sin, even if they were not party to God's revelation and as such unaware of the evil of their act?

The problem of Invincible Ignorance is a golden oldie.

Nostalgic memories of the Ayaan Hirsi Ali-Rita Verdonk saga over here.

CARL's diplomatic skills were the null set. Even when on occasion something he said might have some substantive merit (and often it didn't), he phrased things in the most provocative manner possible to try pick a fight. I don't miss him.

I did get a chuckle that he kept calling me a "liberal" however. If I am a "liberal," just what does that make a majority of the forum, or at least a substantial plurality of it?

I too received the "liberal" label from him which was funny in its own way considering how some archprogressives here think I'm a conservative tool.  He definitely was an example of those who define politics and politicians only with regard to their own narrow bête noire.

Not a conservative tool, only stuck in the 18th century.

SN Brussels Airlines? Nice.

Never change, BRTD, never ever change.


As for Rilke: sometimes a bit heavy, sometimes actually funny (which is always positive in a poet). Very Great, of course.

O und die Nacht, die Nacht, wenn der Wind Voller Weltraum
uns am Angesicht zehrt.

Aubry certainly was the best of the bunch. I don't think that's really disputable.

Somewhat approve, I suppose.

Nobody wants a 'United States of Europe', actually.

A far further integrated European Union, on the other hand, hardly seems such a nonsensically romantic dream as our dear friends, the 'euroskeptics', tend to make it out to be.

But aren't you nice to bad people in real life on a daily basis?

And he only shows the respect for religion and conservatives that they usually deserve, of course.

The fact that you think that is hugely troubling for somebody who, like it or not, is living in a society with people who are otherwise than himself. Read some Levinas or Buber. Do your heart good.

Actually, don't bother with the Buber. But do read the Levinas. Very important thinker, and not just in some sort of empty, pious way. I think Levinas is the author who has meant the most towards shaping my own little vision of life. The irreducibility of alterity is really something people should try to grasp. And the absoluteness of the moral appeal, of course.

(though Levinas' main weakness is the way he always manages to reduce his most subversive ideas to banality. So the appeal of the face-à-face is infinite, but we shouldn't forget about the claim 'le tiers' (the absent other) has on me!!! So, in reality the appeal of the immediate presence of the other is pretty limited.)

Isn't this supposed to be some sort of cesspit? Either all you people are really nice, really neat people or there's no real introspection going on round here.

Has anyone else ever had the experience where someone who's really quite close to you suffers some sort of major medical mishap and you just fail to react emotionally in any way, outside perhaps some (very) mildly pleasurable sense of stimulation at the anecdotical value of the event?

(trying to keep the description as vague as possible because it's not exactly a 'nice' sentiment, is it?)

I am a very introspective person, btw, so I expect some good self-analysis from the lot of you.

When exactly did 'enemy combatants' cease to be entitled to special protections from criminal persecution and inhumane treatment? Surely, declaring Tsarnaev an 'enemy combatant' means he now is a PoW, and as such shall only be detained untill the end of hostilities, at which point he shall be returned to freedom?

What's 'collapse' supposed to mean?

A party can do horrible in election after election without its infrastructure and function in the political landscape neccessarily disappearing. I think social-democratic parties pretty much everywhere in Western Europe are only at a real risk of disapppearing if their position in the existing political system is usurped by another party (which is unlikely in most cases), or if the system collapses (Greece).

Are you even aware of what that kind of language is actually code for?

Lisping marxist millionaires hold a lot of important positions in society. It's important we stay aware of this.

If they're Chechen, yeah, they're muslims. Though, of course, that doesn't mean they're not something else as well.

This is allegedly his social media profile:

http://vk.com/id160300242

So he wrote this 1 year ago...

В школе задают загадку..Едет
автомобиль. В нем сидят – дагестанец,
чеченец и ингуш.
Вопрос – кто ведет машину ?
Мага отвечает: - Полиция.

Which Google translates as...

The school asked the riddle .. Goes
car. In it sit - Dagestani,
Chechen and Ingush.
Question - Who is driving?
Magus says: - The police.

Looks like a Chechen lunatic, indeed.

Might be a decent piece of slightly nationalist poetry in the original.

Yeah, the weather is pretty pleasant, the food is nice, and the people by and large are quite pleasant. Greece comes pretty close to an ideal place to live if you've got some money.

Arizona on the other hand might conceivably have served the Tsars as a good substitute for Siberia should their imperial ventures not have stalled on the Wester shorelines of the American mainland.