i had a few set backs, but the laptop is back up.

i initially reinstalled to get the bootmgr back up, but aborted it, thinking i wouldn't need to finish it. then, i formatted the partition and copied the data over, only to get a bootmgr error. so, i did a full reinstall, reformat and copy back and it's up and running, now.

i'm now copying data off of the pc and into the filing i was doing for the alter-reality, which was the next step, anyways.

i don't know the details of this case.

but, mccallum is just about the smartest person the liberals have available to them, and what he was no doubt trying to get across was that canada has a responsibility to help her fight the extradition request, which he is at least right about. you could say he got fired, but it sounds to me like he was aiming for it.

i've been clear that i like the old liberals better, and there's a little bit of it hidden in here.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/mccallum-out-ambassador-1.4994492

i mean, it's one thing to point out that trump is a racist. sure.

it's another to act like there was some other option.

there were good reasons to vote for clinton over trump, but racism wasn't one of them.

i've actually never challenged the claim that trump is a racist, except the claim that he's an anti-semite, which i've found absurd all around. what i did point out is that clinton is equally racist, and that there is perhaps a better record in the public domain to demonstrate it.

i consequently don't react much to people yelling and screaming about trump being a racist, as though this is some kind of aberration or anomaly. with the exception of sanders, all of the major candidates in 2016 were clearly racists. any of the republicans were, would have been and still are racists. both of the clintons are brutal racists. the bushes are all racists. reagan was a racist. nixon was a terrible racist. even lbj was a known racist - as were the kennedy brothers, and fdr, too.

it's a racist society. what do you expect?

there's this kind of idea - and it's probably accurate - that you can't really end the war, you can just convert it into different forms. so, you can move the war around from place to place - from afghanistan to iraq to serbia and back to iraq again - but you can't extinguish it entirely. and, if you hold to this, you want to take a kind of harm reduction approach, in keeping the war as far away as possible.

this goes back to roman imperial strategy, and a recognition that the barbarians cannot be gotten rid of, but only controlled, distracted, redirected, confused. i've seen the argument made more than once that the fighting in syria and iraq was just necessary as a distraction for these jihadists; if the jihadists want to fight, and we can't convince them otherwise, let's have them fight in iraq, instead.

i've argued in this space that the russian strategy in syria follows from this, and in fact suggested or predicted it. there is essentially no way that fighting in ukraine can end well for the russians, so what they wanted to do was shift the conflict somewhere else, like syria. i argued that a successful russian counterattack in syria would force the americans out of ukraine - and it worked as i claimed it would. but, syria is still in russia's backyard.

for the americans to withdraw would be useful, if the goal is to focus on recreating a peaceful world order. but, for the americans to redeploy in another theatre with russian defenses would simply be to shift the war to a location more favourable to russian interests.

shifting the fighting in ukraine to syria was heraclean in scope, as it was - you almost expected putin to march the true cross back through moscow, or something. you'll note that the empire did not survive heracleus very long, but the turnaround was remarkable - that was a major russian victory, due to clearly superior tactical strategy.

but, for the russians to ultimately shift the fighting in ukraine to far-off venezuela would be a victory of unthought of proportions.

you should consequently expect the russians to staunchly double down in venezuela, as the more that it can distract america in it's own hemisphere, the more it's own security is assured. if the americans think they can just overthrow maduro, they have another thing coming - and any attempt is just an excuse for further russian deployment.

putin really made obama look like an idiot, over and over again, out thinking him in theatre after theatre. it's starting to look like he's doing the same thing to trump.

let's get the troops home and keep them here, and then focus on social planning as a means to improve the economy in the southern part of the hemisphere.

fwiw, i'm sure the russians will be more than willing to shift the war from syria to venezuela, thereby exchanging an existential threat for an overseas adventure.

empires generally want the instability to exist in distant theatres, not in their own backyards.

i've been vocal about supporting the withdrawal from syria. but, if the idea is to withdraw from syria in order to deploy to latin america, this is madness on every level; if the choice is between syria and south america, they should send the troops back to syria.

but, regarding tulsi gabbard being a hindu.

i don't know what that means, exactly. if you're from india, you generally define yourself regionally - you're a worshipper of a certain god or group of gods, because that's what the traditions in the area are. westerners can coherently call themselves buddhists, but in a sense that's exactly the point; buddhism is a kind of subset of hinduism that focuses on a specific thing, so we know what that means. without being able to reference a geographic area in india, gabbard's claim to being a hindu are hard to understand. does she worship any specific gods? actively?

does it mean she leaves milk and cookies for shiva on christmas eve?

does it mean she's an atheist and doesn't want to admit it?

does it mean she digs gandhi?

does it just mean she's a vegan, because she believes in reincarnation?

some of this is trivial, some of it is more important. and, i think she owes the public somewhat of a clarification on what it means when she calls herself a hindu if she's going to run for commander in chief, then let people figure out whether they're ok with it or not.

i would expect, however, that she's going to run into the usual accusations of appropriation, and she should push back on that point. i've made references to this repeatedly on this blog: white people have lost their indigenous beliefs almost totally to the influence of semitic religion, but if we were to reconstruct an indigenous european form of belief, it would actually be most similar to hinduism, which is also a syncretism of indo-european religion and indigenous dravidian religion, the difference being that, in india, the european religion took the dominant role. hinduism certainly has a powerful indigenous substrate, yes. but, it is the only active religion that maintains the superstrate of the indigenous european religions, and thus the religion that cultural conservatives ought to be urging white people to flock to.

our ancestors all spoke sanskrit - or something close to it.

so, there's no justification to attack her for appropriation or anything.

but, i'd still like her to clarify the point. if she carries on for a while, i'm sure she will.