what?

it's historical.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varangian_Guard

turkey is dying, and screaming out in pain.

i think this is a lot of talk. i've stated that before. the turks are not so stupid, not now, not today.

but, even if they do succeed in slaughtering the kurds, and are not wrecked by a consequent embargo, it will only be putting off the inevitable. a hundred years ago, it was the armenians, in more or less the same geographic space. a hundred years from now, it will be some other group that will expand into the vacuum. assyrians, perhaps. or, maybe the armenians even come back; they are the region's historical problem demographic, after all, going back to fucking darius.

turkey simply isn't a real country. it never was. and, it can't be - it just doesn't have the demographics to exist.

but, how do you get an army this big to stand down?

erdogan simply cannot be talking like this. so, he now has to make a hard choice: accept a russian entrance into constantinople, or await the inevitable coup.

listen: i think we should abolish marriage altogether, so enforcing the laws strikes me as completely backwards.

what's important is not upholding the sanctity of marriage, but upholding the right to escape it.

so, you don't have the right to dictate to people what they should or should not do.

but, you do have the right to disassociate with somebody if you don't like what they're doing.

and, it's very important that this specification - while obvious to most westerners - is maintained as a constant throughout the law.

in a secular society, we don't generally write laws regulating who is allowed to have sex with who - we leave that to the discretion of the people having sex, whether they're married or not, and of whatever gender combination - so long as the consent is legitimate, and possible to provide for.

so, you can only marry one person at a time, which is a kind of a legal formality, but that doesn't mean you can't have relationships with multiple people if you want. that is a freedom we have in this society, so long as we're willing to accept the legal consequences of cheating on our spouses regarding questions of alimony and child support.

i'm just pushing back against the idea that reversing the sexual revolution is some kind of feminism, because the situation of course works the other way as well - women should not be legally punished for cheating on their husband, which is probably the more pressing issue to concern ourselves with in terms of consequences. that's a freedom we have in this society, so long as you're willing to accept the legal consequences of the subsequent divorce.

what we do, instead, is provide people with the freedom to dissolve the contract - to walk away if they don't like what their partner is doing.

well, ok, but we can't be outlawing infidelity, either - that's a step backwards for everybody.

rather, muslim women need to begin to accept the idea of divorce.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/polygamy-canadian-muslim-community-1.4971971

so, the email is stored in 6 sprawling, overlapping documents full of duplicate entries - it is a huge mess.

i have sorted through the first two and set the third one up, but i'm putting it down for a few hours, at least, and planning on making some calls today.