Here is another cheerful story. Any time now the protests will begin.

The allure of off the grid in the forest i don’t know or need to stay apprised as a better way to see saw.

https://www.jpost.com/international/internationalrussia-ukraine-war/article-860415

Jared Bernstein, former chair of Biden’s Council of Economic Advisers, explains why he and other long-time “budget doves” now believe America’s debt has become dangerously unsustainable. He now considers himself a Hawk because America’s budget math just got a lot more dangerous.

For decades, low interest rates relative to economic growth ma…[Read more]

I read a book about the development of Christian sexual morality recently.  (“From sin to shame” by Kyle Harper.)

The Romans had very patriarchal attitudes towards women, and they said it was OK for a man to sleep with whoever as long as they were “smooth” (a boy or a woman) and didn’t take the passive part.

The new Christians were at odds with…[Read more]

Out of curiosity i asked an LLM the least homophobic nations in Africa. And guess what? Those nations all have low percentage of Muslims. Not that Christianity is any font of tolerance but it has progressed somewhat.

jakelafort wrote:
In Jamaica i think gay men are known as battie boys. Not sure of spelling.

Because they do it in the bottom or battie.  Men of Jamaican or African descent are usually pretty homophobic in the UK, but they keep it to themselves out of politeness towards the prevailing norm of tolerance.

Rivalry or healthy competition can be…[Read more]

Nailed shit out of that Reg.

Wagwan Jake 🙂

Enco,

I have nothing against competition. It is human nature. It is fun if directed or chanelled into something constructive like play or sports. And its application to capitalism is apt. Humans have competed to see which nation can explore such and such a hostile environment first, get to the moon first, climb a forbidding mountain first. Dumb…[Read more]

Jake,

I had a Jamaican gf and have spoken to other women in Jamaica and they confirm the homophobic men in Jamiaica and also quite sexist. Generalization i know. Interestingly Jamaica which was a stopping off point in the Atlantic slave trade had Brown people who made slaves of Black people. Jamaica is very diverse in terms of ethnicities that…

[Read more]

Simon and Jake,

A note about competition: You say this like it’s a universally bad thing.

Competition in the provision of goods and services in a marketplace makes for better quality of goods and services and it impels the competitors to better practices to produce these goods and services.

Also, Wafa Sultan noted that true civilizations do…[Read more]