American Friends and Allies

[Alan Klein]

Shame on you. He is the guy who said he will pass what he saves on ties to the American people: $1000 per month to each soul.

I think my grandfather was in the schmatta business back 100 years ago.  Either ties or pocketbooks.  At least women still use pocketbooks. 

[Rob C]

I think my grandfather was in the schmatta business back 100 years ago.  Either ties or pocketbooks.  At least women still use pocketbooks.

It feels to me that the entire rag trade was a hundred years ago. Philip Green did well out of it.

Now, it's an Amazonian box business.

[faberryman]

Since your age is N/A, Fab, you're obviously too young to realize Eisenhower was elected in 1952 and started his term in January, 1953.

I am flattered you think I am so young. I admit I am not yet of the socks and sandals set.

[Ivo_B]

But showing up in a t-shirt is not going to make you a Steve Jobs.

Agreed. Carrying a MacBook doesn’t help neither. Same as photographing in B&W and chasing strange maniérisme doesn’t make you HCB.

I admit, I start to have a strange love affair with this website.

 

[Ivo_B]

Since the thread is about Americans and allies, until Ivo t-boned it, and now we are discussing ties and pajamas, there was a cartoon some years ago, depicting what “casual” means to various nations. I wish I could find it. From memory, casual for the Brits means going from a tuxedo and bow tie to a regular suit and tie. The scale ends with Americans, where casual means ragged jeans and crumpled t-shirts.

I tried to find some explanation on this expression.

Urbandictionary.com is not very helpfully.

 

[faberryman]

What peoplw wear in private is their business; what they wear in an official capacity is an entirely different matter and they bear not only themselves but the dignity of office on their shoulders.

Does this apply to wearing comically long ties?

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

I tried to find some explanation on this expression...

[Ivo_B]

Thanks, I found less decent explanations.

[Rob C]

Does this apply to wearing comically long ties?

You mean privately or publicly?

When I was a teen I bought one of those long and skinny, parallel-sided ties all the Teds wore; you tied it in a Windsor knot and then let it hang quite low down your neck so's to be ready for action. Mine was black and dark blue. I don't know where it went. Perhaps my mother threw it away in disgust. I think of it now and again, and would even go as far as to don a shirt sometimes just to flaunt it. Much like my hassy pair, you might say: gone forever.

Didn't stamper post a shot of a Glasgow geezer wearing that gear not too long ago?

Rob

[Jeremy Roussak]

As far as I know, every protagonist in court wear a dedicated dress to prevent biased judgement based on the looks. Highest court judges even wear a wig for same reason.

There can only be one protagonist; check your Greek drama.

The only judges in England who wear wigs are those sitting on criminal matters at first instance.

Lawyers with sleek appearance, silk suits and light brown monks are very good in determining the dizzying height of their hourly rates. Especially the ones specialized in tax affairs. 

I'm not sure what "light brown monks" might be, but experience demonstrates that absence of sleek appearance, and certainly absence of a silk suit (does anyone wear a silk suit?) does not prevent someone determining his (or indeed her) own charges.

Jeremy

[Alan Goldhammer]

Nuke them all, g*ddamnit!   
I hope we will get out under the US suppression and we soon can vote Poetin as president.

If not, Europe will be fully Islamized in a few generations time, thanks to the, by US supported, Saudis.

 That’s a demographic fact.

😳😳🤫

I listened to a very good podcast last week on this exact topic.  Tyler Cowen, an econ professor at George Mason, had a conversation with Eric Kaufmann on immigration and demography.  The podcast and transcript if you don't want to read it is here:  https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-eric-kaufmann-population-religion-culture-6e85bf9c8c07   A number of Islamic states including Iran now have birthrates lower than the replacement number.  This is conterintuitive to what you might think.  Kaufmann notes that the first real example of a minority swamping a majority because of high birthrate will be Israel.  Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have a birthrate four times that of the secular Jews.  If you believe in demographic trends, the US will ultimately become a Mormon country because of their high birthrate.  Kaufmann believes Europe will never exceed 25% Muslim by population.  You have to account for assimilation and intermarriage.

Lots of good stuff in this conversation.

[Ivo_B]

There can only be one protagonist; check your Greek drama.

The only judges in England who wear wigs are those sitting on criminal matters at first instance.

I'm not sure what "light brown monks" might be, but experience demonstrates that absence of sleek appearance, and certainly absence of a silk suit (does anyone wear a silk suit?) does not prevent someone determining his (or indeed her) own charges.

Jeremy

Thanks to remind me the Greek drama principals.

For the rest, you are not really counter speaking my point?

Light brown monks:


Do you wear light brown monks, Jeremy? 

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Europe will never exceed 25% Muslim by population...

As if that is not frightening enough.

As for Iran's low birth rate. Here is a parallel with Kosovo. Albania proper, being the poor Stalinist/Maoist country at the time, simply could not sustain a high birth rate. The same ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, part of Yugoslavia and a much different socialism, pouring $1 million a day into the region, and providing all sorts of social benefits, including child care, saw their families having a dozen children. Oh, not to mention our humane treatment of Albanian refugees, offering them land and houses of Serbs driven out by terror. So, in a short span of hundred years, Albanian population in Kosovo grows from a 10% minority to 90% majority.

Today, the most common name given to male babies in Norway is... Mohammed. Germany, after years of having declining natality, is growing again. Guess who accounts for most of the births? Oh, not to forget the "no-go" zones in Germany.

[Ivo_B]

I listened to a very good podcast last week on this exact topic.  Tyler Cowen, an econ professor at George Mason, had a conversation with Eric Kaufmann on immigration and demography.  The podcast and transcript if you don't want to read it is here:  https://medium.com/conversations-with-tyler/tyler-cowen-eric-kaufmann-population-religion-culture-6e85bf9c8c07   A number of Islamic states including Iran now have birthrates lower than the replacement number.  This is conterintuitive to what you might think.  Kaufmann notes that the first real example of a minority swamping a majority because of high birthrate will be Israel.  Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel have a birthrate four times that of the secular Jews.  If you believe in demographic trends, the US will ultimately become a Mormon country because of their high birthrate.  Kaufmann believes Europe will never exceed 25% Muslim by population.  You have to account for assimilation and intermarriage.

Lots of good stuff in this conversation.

Thanks for the good reading, Alan.

About the assimilation and intermarriage: It’s not (yet) happening in the sense it will change the religious preferences. And to be honest, why should it happen.
Western Christianity is perhaps the most hated religion in the world, and maybe we can not blame them.
Our colonial mentality is not one easy to digest.

....

 

[Alan Goldhammer]

Thanks for the good reading, Alan.

About the assimilation and intermarriage: It’s not (yet) happening in the sense it will change the religious preferences. And to be honest, why should it happen.
Western Christianity is perhaps the most hated religion in the world, and maybe we can not blame them.
Our colonial mentality is not one easy to digest.

....

 

The rate of intermarriage among Reform Jews in the US is about 40%.  At our synagogue in Washington DC, almost 50% of the members are of mixed marriage.

[Slobodan Blagojevic]

... Light brown monks...

And now something completely different: guess what just popped up in my Facebook stream, just minutes after viewing Ivo's favorite shoes? Creepy as hell.

[Ivo_B]

As if that is not frightening enough.

As for Iran's low birth rate. Here is a parallel with Kosovo. Albania proper, being the poor Stalinist/Maoist country at the time, simply could not sustain a high birth rate. The same ethnic Albanians in Kosovo, part of Yugoslavia and a much different socialism, pouring $1 million a day into the region, and providing all sorts of social benefits, including child care, saw their families having a dozen children. Oh, not to mention our humane treatment of Albanian refugees, offering them land and houses of Serbs driven out by terror. So, in a short span of hundred years, Albanian population in Kosovo grows from a 10% minority to 90% majority.

Today, the most common name given to male babies in Norway is... Mohammed. Germany, after years of having declining natality, is growing again. Guess who accounts for most of the births? Oh, not to forget the "no-go" zones in Germany.

I think this is spot on. Savile Town in Yorkshire, Molenbeek and Borgerhout in Belgium are good examples of how that assimilation (not) works.
There are more established communities but they don’t convert religion.

Assimilation is not a unilateral movement. Western pluralism and loss of spiritual meaning will not be a valuable replacement for Islam.

Hopefully a liberal form of Islam will be the result of the assimilation.

[Ivo_B]

And now something completely different: guess what just popped up in my Facebook stream, just minutes after viewing Ivo's favorite shoes? Creepy as hell.

Facebooks logarithm determines you are the ideal profile to wear light brown Monk shoes. Whahaha.

[Ivo_B]

The rate of intermarriage among Reform Jews in the US is about 40%.  At our synagogue in Washington DC, almost 50% of the members are of mixed marriage.

Hm,

There is a serious difference in Jew culture and Islam Culture and their proliferation in Western world.

[Rob C]

Thanks for the good reading, Alan.

About the assimilation and intermarriage: It’s not (yet) happening in the sense it will change the religious preferences. And to be honest, why should it happen.
Western Christianity is perhaps the most hated religion in the world, and maybe we can not blame them.
Our colonial mentality is not one easy to digest.

....

 

I might easily be mistaken, but I imagine that colonialism is way back on the very backmost of burners.

I think the truth has to be almost the opposite: those guys are here, not outside. It's first economics, then anger that they had to leave home to get into civilization again, having once had a leading one that brought us the benefits of many different sciences; that's a tough one to swallow, especially when you come to realise you brought most of its disappearance upon yourselves. The early Moors in Spain were perfectly willing and able to live alongside Jews and Christians, but a later wave of different colour of Islam put a stop to all of that and brought in intolerance; ain't all a one-way street, that.

Of course, our various crusades have been enshrined as works of the devil. When a church and various kings tell you you can pillage, plunder and rape, keep all you collect and still be forgiven your sins and reserve your apartment in heaven (exactly the same gambit that was used to wipe out the Cathars in southern France), love and respect are difficult to sustain, and some opposing forces do manage the respect part of that equation, but not then and in those circumstances. So yeah, whilst I never heard Rome offering any number of virgins after the event, the rest of the deal today, as seen from the Moslem perspective, ain't a hundred miles from that of those pesky men in armour. Goose, gander?