Der Spiegel: During your career, you have kept your distance from Western style democracy. Are you still convinced that an authoritarian system is the future for Asia?

Lee Kuan Yew: Why should I be against democracy? The British came here, never gave me democracy, except when they were about to leave. But I cannot run my system based on their rules. I have to amend it to fit my people's position. In multiracial societies, you don't vote in accordance with your economic interests and social interests, you vote in accordance with race and religion. Supposing I'd run their system here, Malays would vote for Muslims, Indians would vote for Indians, Chinese would vote for Chinese. I would have a constant clash in my Parliament which cannot be resolved because the Chinese majority would always overrule them. So I found a formula that changes that."

www.spiegel.de (2005). Der Spiegel International - Interview with Singapore’s founder Lee Kuan Yew: ‘It’s Stupid to be Afraid’. Available at: https://www.spiegel.de/international/spiegel/spiegel-interview-with-singapore-s-lee-kuan-yew-it-s-stupid-to-be-afraid-a-369128.html.

Video in English

🇺🇸🏴‍☠️ Interesting revelations by Wesley Clark from 2007.

Probably just correlates with the intelligence to use something other than the default choices...

TIL: Economist Michael Housman used to data from 30,000 employees to find correlations between their preferred browser and job performance. Employees who used Firefox/Chrome stay 15% longer and were 19% less likely to miss work and had happier customers than employees who used IE or Safari.
https://ift.tt/VFTPKc5

Here’s Why Democrats Want To Censor Grok's AI Images

https://modernity.news/2024/08/30/heres-why-democrats-want-to-censor-groks-ai-images/

Book Discussion: The Last Closet by Moira Greyland

Carnage  Again I sing my cheerful song What can I control today I’ll sort the books, I’ll file the files Pretend that nothing’s wrong But then my bubble bursts My illusion of contented control disappears And I dissolve in tears Confusion and helpless rage But still I sort, still I file Cheeks wet and makeup […]

https://arkhavencomics.com/2024/06/15/book-discussion-the-last-closet-by-moira-greyland/

“Fantasy is escapist, and that is its glory. If a soldier is imprisoned by the enemy, don't we consider it his duty to escape?” - The Lord of the Rings

NEW - United States to resume mandatory reporting of "COVID hospitalizations" from November 1st.

https://www.disclose.tv/id/t3ly5g05vy/

@disclosetv

In 1975 the New Zealand National party hired the animation company Hanna-Barbera to produce an anti immigration election advert. They would go on to win the election

https://redd.it/1bx6kzo
@r_propagandaposters

Chicago skyline visible from nearly 50 miles away in Indiana Dunes sunset.

"But what about the West? The reason they so adamantly objected to any trial or investigation of the Soviet system became obvious to me when I accessed the archives of the Central Committee. The degree of secret cooperation between the left in the West and Moscow was incredible. We always suspected it, but what we discovered was much bigger.

Above all, I found very interesting documents indicating that, at the end of the Soviet era, Western leaders—particularly left-wing leaders—who visited Moscow sought all kinds of assistance, money, and support. They quite clearly and openly explained that they were not interested in the collapse of the Soviet Union; they wanted a strong Soviet Union. As I quote, 'A collapse of socialism in the East will bring a crisis of this idea in the West.' They were concerned about their own ideology and position in the West, not about us.

Indeed, as we could all see, without studying how and why the socialist system collapsed in the East, they proceeded to do the same in the West, with results that are quite predictable. Look at the European Union today, which, in my view, is just a pale copy of the Soviet Union. It was created with the aim of uniting East and West. There was a concept that one day the Soviet system would become milder and the West would become Social Democratic, leading to convergence—the theory of convergence.

That's why the structures of the European Union were built so similarly to Soviet structures: to ensure they would fit together very well when the time came. By adopting the same model and supporting the same ideology, they were merely biding their time before the crisis would come."

Ilia State University (2012). Speech by Vladimir Bukovsky at the International Conference "Twenty Years after the Fall of the Soviet Union. Historical Context and Strategic Perspective" Tbilisi, Georgia, 10-11 December 2011.

LucasFilm Comes For Nerdrotic and Company

The Acolyte has turned out to have had a far greater impact in death than it ever had in life. There really wasn’t much going on out of the ordinary while the Acolyte was streaming new episodes. New episodes are streamed on Disney+ once a week. The Fandom Menace (myself included would shell it), repeat […]

https://arkhavencomics.com/2024/09/05/lucasfilm-comes-for-nerdrotic-and-company/

"Highly advanced technological and asymmetrical warfare is already being waged against you, from the lowest local level to the highest civilizational level. In the present, and especially in the future, there will be no such thing as non-combatants. This is the same thing on different scales. Enemies, foreign or domestic, Chinese and manageoisie, are capitalizing on new methods methods to destroy what's left of the good people of the Western world. It's not a matter of when or if. The precedent was set a long time ago—but as we enter the mid-2020s, they are going to increase on levels we've never seen before."
https://fortissax.substack.com/p/open-source-psyops-and-future-war#:~:text=Highly%20advanced%20technological,never%20seen%20before.

On August 21st, the Moon passed in front of Saturn in a rare event known as occultation. This stunning composite image, created from multiple shots by Josh Dury, captures the momentous event as the Moon gradually covered and then revealed the ringed planet. The alignment offered a spectacular view for observers, showcasing the dynamic interactions between celestial bodies.

#Astronomy #Saturn #Moon #Occultation #science

"The experience as an OED lexicographer prepared Tolkien for his lifelong career as a philologist. It also informed his literary technique, argue Peter Gilliver, Jeremy Marshall, and Edmund Weiner, the authors of Ring of Words: Tolkien and the Oxford English Dictionary and former OED editors, all. The authors show how Tolkien drew the language of his books directly from his etymological research. For example, “for decades it was assumed that he was being characteristically modest” when he declined to claim credit for the invention of the word “hobbit.” As it turned out, “an obscure list of mythical beings, published in 1895” came to light in 1977, including the word “ ‘hobbits’, along with such other irresistible creatures as ‘boggleboes’ and gallytrots,” writes Kelly Grovier at The Guardian."

https://www.openculture.com/2021/10/when-j-r-r-tolkien-worked-for-the-oxford-english-dictionary.html