Open Thread

Anybody know what happened to Turcopolier.com?

Haven’t been able to get there for weeks now. This has happened a couple times before, and they turned out to be technical glitches (TTG didn’t pay the bill, or mixed up some code, or something). In those cases, the blog reappeared in a week or two.

My paranoid fantasy is that the timing – days before Israel attacked Iran – was not coincidental…

I hope I have shared the website RationaWiki with the IWN community in the past, if not I will take this opportunity to do so. I am inspired by a recent post, but this is not a comment on Feminism, the subject of that post, so hopefully it passes muster. RationalWiki is a great resource whenever you are puzzled by a new online Svengali.

I’m not even sure where or how I came across RW. I know when I did though, it was evidently less than a decade ago, Chapo Trap House devoted an episode to Peterson’s “Lobster” thesis. Perhaps it was more recent, 2018, when his first book came out and he became the Therapist to the Incels. And birthed the toxic-masculine pimp and sex-trafficker Andrew Tate, who speaks exactly in the cadence and tone of the Canadian stick-up-his-ass oddball, now-failed Academic JP, despite being a black man who grew up in Chicago. Odd, eh? Peterson baffled me, someone who claimed to be inspired by 2 figures I admire, Nietzsche and Jung, yet spewed right-wing bilge and claptrap like a broken-down Chevy spews smoke.

The piece on JP called him an Ultracrepidarian, a word I’d never heard but fits him to a T. Other examples would be Rand Paul’s expertise in why abortion must be banned, he’s not a gynecologist but being an ophthalmologist is of course 100% credentialed to speak on women’s bodies and health. Just like JP explains marriage to the marks, without being a marriage counselor.

Here’s a link to the JP take-down, for those interested: https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Jordan_Peterson

I have to say the RW take on Camille Paglia is incredibly fair for the most part, and they do not disgrace her/him as they do some easier targets (recall, CP claims to be transgender, but no hormones or surgery required), the likes of Tim Poole, etc.

https://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Camille_Paglia

Everything is well-sourced and well-researched. This is valuable skepticism. As to CP, I will note 2 things that reinforce my smell-test:

Paglia vs Jews
In her article about the art show “Sensation” at the Brooklyn Museum of Art, Nation columnist Katha Pollitt wrote about Paglia’s insinuation about Jews and Catholic-bashing:
“Why are a Jewish collector and a Jewish museum director promoting anti-Catholic art?” asked Camille Paglia in a subhead since deleted from her Salon column, adding a Nixonian touch to her usual insinuating boorishness. Um, I don’t know, Camille. Because they killed Christ? Because they think they’re so smart? Because they want to make a fast buck? Like most pundits who’ve inveighed against “Catholic-bashing” art in the show–Peggy Steinfels on the New York Times Op-Ed page, Terry Golway in the New York Observer, Cokie Roberts (“it’s yucky”), George Will, not to mention John Cardinal O’Connor, William Donohue of the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights and the Mayor himself–Paglia hasn’t bothered to make the trip to Brooklyn, but she knows “Catholic bashing” when she reads a one-sentence description of a painting in a newspaper. Besides, she saw Lehman on TV and found him to be a “whiny slug.”[27]

No wonder she deleted this unhinged, actual anti-Semitism. And she defends “Western Civilization” and presumably Western Culture by siding with the Opus Dei crew. Some Guardian of free thought and speech, eh?

I’d reread Nietzsche on Apollonian vs. Dionysian currents, can’t be bothered with Paglia’s dumbed-down Cliff Notes take. Oh, and what a surprise, unlike so many other Philosophers she can’t deal with being challenged: “She also has a history of storming out of interviews and appearances.”

If only Socrates had been more of a diva perhaps he would’ve had dozens more works and avoided the hemlock? What a shame for philosophy.

It’s a whole new world filled with unfilled holes wholly and totally unholy
Holy Ghost Batman
Drop it in the hole
And let the whole thing explode
Bore a hole dig a hole
And let the whole thing go to hell
Well you might think you’re holy solely based on your delusions
I used to cook a fish called sole, a bottom feeder beloved by the franks or frogs or whatever be their name, got that buerre blanc with capers going on
Holy shit it’s all burned butter Batman
There’s a word for everything and anything and it’s all totally and wholly an illusion
Enjoy your summer weekend if it’s yours to enjoy. Wholly embrace everything that’s holy.
A hole in one, I’m just dicking around playing around wholly gone now.
Be good and treat everyone like your mother, assuming that you love her.

The insight that “war is a continuation of policy by other means” certainly applies to the tactic of blowing up centrifuges. But, whether that particular tactic is materially effective with regard to the reproduction of engineered hardware is subordinate to the question of whether violent domination is likely to prove to be persuasive in governing the bilateral relation between states, which in turn ought to be subordinate to the question of what norms and expectations are being set for the community of nation-states.

On the most simplistic level, how long it takes to replace centrifuges is secondary to whether Iran is motivated to replace the centrifuges.

Domination can be effective as an approach to persuading others to cooperate. I couldn’t deny it, but I question whether the resentments it nurtures are worth it or lead to stable results. It may be distasteful on aesthetic grounds alone in the context of interpersonal relations, but some people approve of slavery (for others, not themselves), so there you go.

I do not think the original argument for the Non-proliferation Treaty was framed as Trumpian (Netayahoon) Domination: “Iran must not be allowed to get The Bomb” I imagine more of an enlightened self interest argument for a mutual interest among all nations in non-proliferation, tied of course to access to the peaceful uses of nuclear technology. A much “nicer” view of the Hobbesian hellhole of international relations.

I suppose the thing to notice is that “the Game” and the stories told in the course of playing evolve (devolve?). The ideals of the Atlantic Charter and the UN charter were subverted before the ink was dry. So it goes.

We really do not pay enough attention to the consequences of the “social psychology” embedded in the unquestioned assumptions behind the slogans that pass for international relations / foreign policy.

https://www.racket.news/p/america-this-week-june-27-2025-zohran

latest podcast from Taibbi’s substack

To shaggz: I will accept your first point, to a point. I’ll just use this AP report, which I think is fair: https://apnews.com/article/andrew-tate-romania-court-human-trafficking-8a967f6f8aa4615d16cea3a5546e715d

So the prosecutors abused their authority and thus he got off without a trial. Rather similar (in a thru-the-mirror way) to Daniel Ellsberg not being prosecuted for leaking Pentagon studies because the Nixon admin stole his psychiatric records, had plans to dose him with LSD or (what G. Gordon Liddy wanted) shoot him on the street. Fair enough. Ellsberg certainly could’ve been convicted and sent away for life, luckily wasn’t. Tate likely could’ve been convicted, his own method of committing multiple crimes, which are too much work to prosecute, paid off once again this time.

But Andrew has snitched on himself, especially on the “Girl” Web-Cam videos (which is what I referenced) he bragged on camera about stealing the money, he’d said he’d paid them 75% less than offered ‘coz “Girls are stupid about money.” I may have to search more to find that video, but I’ve seen it and it’s out there. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Czyi0eLDAqg

I have mainly used rational wiki to read about crazy people on the Right worldwide. I have never looked into Zionism or the current genocide on that website, but I will now do some research. I know all about Wikipedia’s insane, overt censorship and bias, e.g., you can not favorably reference Max Blumenthal or the Grayzone on Wikipedia, you can only slag them off.

I will investigate your point. It doesn’t mean they’re totally captured, it may mean that they are scared of being taken down and won’t touch that. To me it’s reprehensible not to cover the biggest story in the world right now, so I will look into it, thanks for the heads up on something I’d never looked at on that site.

Truly in the spirit of an “Open Thread”, I bring you The Mortician.

https://www.hbo.com/the-mortician

I know, I know, some of you are just too busy reading commentary at your favorite blogs that daily validate your biases and prejudices, but for those of you who are mentally inquisitive and adventurous, who can get outside of their box, it’s an intriguing documentary. It could have been titled “Silence of the Lambs”, and since it’s a documentary and not a movie there would be no copyright issues associated with that title.

Some things that come to mind when watching it and after watching it. Never Again. Never say never. Ashes to ashes, dust to dust, we are all equal, nay commingled, in the end.

It will make you think twice about cremation, that’s for sure. The burial business and death and burial rituals are BIG BUSINESS, make no mistake about it. The perpetual holocaust. Picking corpses over. Nothing left to waste. The uber, ultra, ultimate vultures. Just like the Nazis.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzIaCNc8HBA

Link is to Napolitano. Includes best map I’ve seen so far of targets that were hit in Israel.

https://rachelblevins.substack.com/

This link is to Rachel Blevins speaking with Laith Marouf.

A further clarification to shaggz’s incoherence, since I read his post before coffee and took his shock (!!) that the RationalWiki page on Tate says nothing about his stance on Israel-Palestine!! Just absurd. Who cares about Tate’s take on the Middle East? I had heard that detail from other sources, it made me think Andrew might only be 99% utter scumbag, but hey, 1% sane is not a recommendation.

I thought he claimed that rationalwiki steered away from Israel/Palestine in the way that Wikipedia refuses to admit Max Blumenthal is a journalist and calls him a “conspiracy theorist”, “Tankie” etc. No such case. Beyond Shapiro they have pp. on Zionism, Netanyahu, Netanyahu’s father, Norman Finkelstein (almost entirely favorable), etc. So no, they don’t shy away from it. Andrew Tate’s take on Palestine-Israel is no more interesting or relevant than Bibi’s favorite color, what an absurd attempt to distract.

In closing, found the link of a criminal lawyer who breaks down just the criminal acts against women (also against his funders) that Tate brags about on camera endlessly. Here’s the one I remembered from about 2 years ago: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs5b04hnfMQ&t=4s

As to Tate being “cleared” of crimes, he admits on camera in the gym, shirtless, that he “carried a pile of cash” at least 8 inches thick into prison (probably a distraction,I expect the bribe wasn’t so public), he at least understood Romania and simply bribed his way out of charges. About 18 minutes in, Rivers notes what Tate just said, he has a “buttom bitch” (Peterson accent on the first word) who recruits other “girls” to travel with him. He can then “keep” her (he bragged at 8 minutes in his content was “street pimping” techniques) as when they are traveling she has no means to get away. Once the ho’s are in your retinue you don’t let them go, you lose cash that way. He claims he hacked and controlled all their Social Media/ Phone apps to rip off more money from the customers, etc.
He agrees to give them “half” of revenue eventually, but instead they end up getting 10% if that, since their hacked items mean his deputies have them “working with” and cajoling men 24/7.

He is psychologically interesting to me because I’m not even sure that technically he “hates” women, he simply and purely sees them as objects who exist only to service him. Now, it’s hard for me to imagine the self-esteem of any woman who would get within 25 feet of that scumbag, despite his money, cars, braggadocio, he’s clearly human garbage without an ounce of actual humanity or self-awareness. His fans deserve him. I don’t think the women in his retinue deserve him, but if they’re there, perhaps they do.

I think he will end his life lonely and shunned, even in the best case. Being an utter scumbag doesn’t end well in the majority of cases.