I am more of a Schopenhaurian than a Nietzscheian, and more of a Darwinian than a Schopenhaurian.  But the following two-part, 24-minute video by Alain de Botton is a populist introduction to the ideas of Friedrich Nietzsche.  It comes with Norman Lowell’s approval, so it has to be worth a post here.

Part One

Part Two

and, with thanks to skeptical ...

Paert Three

Thanks for keeping us company these past 12 months.  It’s been, I think, a pretty static year, as these things go.  Certainly no 2005.  But in my patch, at least, there has been an outbreak of honest talk in the press.  The genie is out of the bottle, and it won’t be put back.  The consequences of that will become clear in the year ahead.

Read about it here.

Good luck to you all.

There has been a lot of noise in the Old Media lately about a post to VNN by one “Bill White”—self-proclaimed leader of some obscure “white nationalist” organization(s)—supposedly “outing” Ron Paul as a white nationalist.

I’ve run across many white nationalists who think Bill White is, at best, a lone wolf with severe psychological problems and, at worst, an agent provocateur for the Mossad.  I’ve never run across a white nationalist with a verifiable identity that takes Bill White seriously.

If you have knowledge of the real situation regarding Bill White and/or his claims that Ron Paul is a white nationalist, please post them in a comment to this blog post and provide also some pointers to the “real world”—for verification so we can authenticate your claim.  The “real world” pointer could be as simple as your real identity so we can investigate whether you are yet another plant.

Musings from December 25, 2001…

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by David Hamilton

Conservatism was an attempt to preserve traditional ways and differed from Liberalism but became Liberal, Classical then Social Democratic - abstract rights, capitalism, economics, laissez faire and self interest- now Cultural Marxism.

Like the other parties they offer the electorate incentives to get into power and at election time pretend they will introduce popular policies like controlling immigration but once in office pursue their own agenda. This should be a criminal offence and the Party name subject to trading standards law.

Academic Conservatives have tried to revive Conservatism by turning it into a competing ideology but it has no goal only living life by belonging to a historical community and culture and passing it on to one’s children. It is not a different opinion in a rational debate but an attitude and temperament in life. Rational plans and formulae are for the rationalist-ideologues: which is why these are “intimations” not a blueprint and cannot be stated a priori like utopian ideologies. There is more to human nature than reason.

It is not just reaction to current dominant doctrines nor a rejection of future utopias as fantasy in order to re-live a past utopia, not an attempt to turn back the clock to a bygone time but is a traditional way of thinking and feeling for one’s own ethnic community. The turning point is now as we who feel alienated and dispossessed begin re-developing a tradition for our common good and to revive our collapsing civilisation. We value wisdom over rationalist ideologies.

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The papers have done their share of economic forecasting today.  In particular, The Telegraph ran a bloodcurdling take on the liquidity crisis, filled with lurid fears of downward spirals, super-depressions and the financial system tipping into the abyss.  The sub-prime loans crisis - pretty much a black and Hispanic thing - has “hit a vital nerve of the international financial system”, according to one Swiss central banker.  The article, however, plainly says, “severed a major artery.”

Meanwhile, Martin Hutchinson at Prudent Bear has produced a less hysterical and more technical forecast for 2008.

Observers of the credit crunch that has been bedeviling financial markets since August were mostly highly relieved this week when the European Central Bank injected some $500 billion into the world’s banking system via low cost funding and the Fed followed up with $40 billion of its own. This sharply lowered the premium that interbank deposit rates have commanded for the last four months over Treasury bill rates. However in the general rejoicing that the international financial markets were not about to ruin everybody’s Christmas, one question has so far been ignored: How in hell are the ECB and the Fed ever going to get their money back? The financial fate of the world’s taxpayers, as well as the future of the markets themselves, rests on the answer to this question.

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As previously suggested here by GT:

Someone’s already going into business manufacturing them.

I thought this was a joke at first, but apparently a German man really has attacked an American tourist after shouting ‘Heil Hitler’ and giving the Nazi salute.

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